iStock/Thinkstock(LOS ANGELES) -- California has passed a law that will ban restaurants from automatically giving out plastic straws in an effort to help protect the environment, particularly the ocean and marine life. Plastic has helped advance innovation in our society, but our infatuation with single-use convenience has led to disastrous consequences, Gov. Jerry Brown of California said in a statement upon signing the bill Thursday. Ocean plastic is estimated to kill millions of marine animals every year." The law, which will go into effect Jan. 1, applies only to full-service, dine-in restaurants, not fast-food establishments or other businesses. It sets a fine of $25 per day for restaurants that violate the rule, with the total not to exceed $300 annually. The initiative is the first of its kind, officials said. "California is the only state in the nation that has this type of law," Lerna Kayserian Shirinian, communications director for State Assembly Majority Leader Ian Calderon, told ABC News. Roughly 835,425 straws were picked up from the state's shoreline between 1988 and 2014, according to a statement from Calderon's office. Many additional straws have been picked up inland or around Californias lakes and waterways, the statement said. By removing the default behavior of providing straws with every drink, consumers have an opportunity to make a deliberate, small change that will minimize the harmful impacts of single use plastic straws in the environment, Calderon, who introduced the legislation, said in the statement. Its a small but significant step forward and will hopefully set the precedent for the rest of the nation to adopt similar policies that will ensure less plastic ends up harming the environment." By removing the default behavior of providing straws with every drink, consumers have an opportunity to make a deliberate, small change that will minimize the harmful impacts of single use plastic straws in the environment, Calderon said in the statement. Its a small but significant step forward and will hopefully set the precedent for the rest of the nation to adopt similar policies that will ensure less plastic ends up harming the environment." By 2022, the U.S. is projected to consume $600 million worth of single-use straws annually, according to market research Freedonia Group. Copyright 2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. It is common for companies to organize various informal events where workers can come with their partners. One of those... On Tuesday, September 18, during the Kalispell Chamber of Commerces monthly Board of Directors meeting, the organizations leadership voted to support of I-185, oppose I-186, and review support for the 6-Mill Levy, which they voted to support in March of this year. The 6-Mill Levy has been in effect in Montana since 1948 and is a funding source that continues to directly benefit Montana universities and colleges. The Kalispell Chamber Board of Directors believes the levy is good for the welfare of all Montana communities as it keeps education affordable, which helps establish a skilled workforce for the state. The 6-Mill Levy comes up for renewal every ten years, and the Kalispell Chamber advocated in support of the levy in both 2008 and 1998. The Kalispell Chamber Board of Directors also voted to support I-185. If passed by voters, I-185 would increase the tax on cigarettes by $2.00 per pack, from $1.70 to $3.70, and provide a parallel increase on taxes applied to all other tobacco products, which would also increase e-cigarettes, vaping products, and other electronic smoking items not currently taxed. The funds from the tax increase would help fund Montanas Medicaid expansion, and also support programs such as smoking cessation and prevention, long-term care for seniors and individuals with disabilities, suicide prevention counseling for Montana veterans, and the Montana Veterans Home. After a lengthy discussion following over an hour of presentations from individuals representing both sides of the initiative, the Kalispell Chamber Board of Directors felt that supporting I-185 would continue to positively influence the livelihood of over 100,000 Montanans, approximately 18 percent of which are located in Northwest Montana. Additionally, the Board felt that by supporting I-185, the Chamber would be taking a step forward in helping create a healthier Montana, which in turn, helps foster a healthy, more productive workforce, and efficient economy. Finally, the Kalispell Chambers Board of Directors voted in opposition of I-186, which would require the Department of Environmental Quality to deny any new permit for any new hardrock mines in Montana unless the reclamation plan provides clear and convincing evidence that the mine will not require perpetual treatment of water polluted by acid mine drainage or other contaminants. The Board felt I-186 is duplicative and unnecessary and will hurt Montana taxpayers and our economy. ### ABOUT THE KALISPELL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE Since 1904, the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce has been a leading voice in strengthening the community and the business climate, with the goal of making Kalispell and the Flathead Valley an ideal location to live and work. The Chamber consists of 720 businesses and organizations, which employ over half of the workforce in Flathead County, Montana. The Indian Ocean country of Mauritius continues with its proactive and transparent response to the global COVID crisis, as it prepares to complete the reopening of its borders to fully vaccinated visitors, but in a safe and secure manner, on the 1st of October 2021. The nation has one of the highest fully vaccinated rates in Africa, currently standing at over 60 percent of the overall population (82 percent of the local adult population). The vaccination campaign is ongoing, and the rollout will also include those below 18 years old as from the end of September 2021. The nations modern health service has coped well throughout the pandemic, implementing strong protocols. The countrys successful vaccination programme and overall health management resulted in very low hospitalisation numbers an average of just over 3% hospitalized patients over the last 28 days, most of whom being in health facilities because of associated comorbidities rather than COVID-19 suggestive symptoms. It is to be noted that the infection rate is being closely managed and that the recent spike has been decreasing steadily over the last 2 weeks. We adopted a health-first approach with strict protocols to protect the population, from the beginning of the pandemic. Our public health services continue to operate to their normal capacity, with protocols being updated when relevant. Dedicated ICU facilities for COVID-19 patients have been set-up at the onset of the pandemic, and have been strengthened according to the Ministrys preparedness plan worked out in collaboration with the World Health Organisation, explained Dr K. Jagutpal, Minister of Health and Wellness. We instituted airport screening and the quarantining of travelers since 2020. Our vaccination rollout has been systematic, and we have already exceeded our target of fully vaccinated adults well ahead of the complete reopening of our borders to vaccinated travelers on the 1st of October, added Minister Jagutpal. Since the onset of the pandemic in Mauritius in March 2020, the country sadly recorded 45 fatalities directly inputted to COVID-19, out of a population of about 1.3 million. We now all have to learn to live with COVID-19. The vaccination rollout in Mauritius was good and the vaccination rate high enough to make it safe to now ask the population to resume their normal lives, while respecting barrier measures, said Dr Laurent Musango, the local representative of the World Health Organisation. Of course, in the context of a pandemic, there are always more avenues to be considered to optimize safety, but Mauritius is doing well, adds Dr Musango. Unvaccinated travelers can also travel to Mauritius, subject to a 14 days in-room quarantine in a state designated hotel/facility. In line with its health-first approach, this same protocol for unvaccinated travelers will remain when the country reopens on the 1st of October. Partager et informez vous aussi...... 0 shares Share Tweet LinkedIn 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. 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. September 22, 2018 The NYT's Rosenstein Story Is An Attempt To Bring Trump Down The U.S. midterm election on November 6 will decide if the House and/or Senate will change from the current Republican majority to a Democratic majority. While the parties are do not differ much from each other, a few high political issues (and financial consequences) are at stake. The currently most important one is the Senate confirmation of the arch-conservative Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court. The Democrats are trying all they can to delay the confirmation process with the hope to move it towards a post election session in which they may have a majority. A majority might even give the Democrats a chance to impeach Trump. Except Kavanaugh, who will by then likely have passed the confirmation, the Democrats have nothing big to run on. The Mueller investigation had no serious results so far. The economy is still running reasonably well except for the poor. A spike in oil prices because of Trump's sanctions against Iran will only come after the election. Trump ratings are negative but not so much that it will have a serious impact on the election. The Democrats need something big. This is the context of a sensational New York Times story - Rod Rosenstein Suggested Secretly Recording Trump and Discussed 25th Amendment - which seems to be designed to give Trump a reason to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Andrew Prokop at Vox summarizes its current state: Did Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein seriously suggest to top Justice Department officials last year that someone should secretly tape President Donald Trump? Or did he make an obviously sarcastic comment that he never intended anyone take seriously? A new report from the New York Timess Adam Goldman and Michael Schmidt says it was the former and adds that Rosenstein also talked about invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office. (Neither ended up happening.) The reporters sources are anonymous people briefed either on the events themselves or on memos written by former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe and others. But a separate report from the Washington Posts Devlin Barrett and Matt Zapotosky quotes an anonymous source who was in the room and disputes the account given to the Times. Per this source, Rosenstein was rebutting a suggestion by McCabe that the Justice Department open an investigation into Trump, and said something along the lines of, What do you want to do, Andy, wire the president? Whos right? The consequences could be enormous. It was Rosenstein who appointed Mueller as special counsel back in May 2017, and its Rosenstein who continues to oversee Muellers Russia investigation. Well before these new stories President Trump has privately mused about firing Rosenstein (or Sessions, or Mueller), so he could put someone he views as more loyal in charge of the Russia probe. Marcy Wheeler at Emptywheel berates the NYT for publishing the piece: NYT Gives Trump His Excuse to Fire Rod Rosenstein The NYT has an inflammatory article claiming that Rod Rosenstein floated recording the President and/or invoking the 25th Amendment in the days after Trump fired Jim Comey. ... The insinuation is clear: in an attempt to accuse Rosenstein of things known to set off the President (notably, being recorded), someone took memos McCabe wrote and read them to people who would then leak them to the NYT. If the NYT version of the incident is true, it indeed would give Trump plenty of reasons to fire Rosenstein (and Mueller and Session.) Several prominent Trump supporters urge him to do such: Fox News host Laura Ingraham tweeted that Rosenstein needs to go. Today. The presidents son Donald Trump Jr. tweeted: No one is shocked that these guys would do anything in their power to undermine the president. Eric Bolling, a former Fox News host who is in contact with the president, said that if the allegation is true, absolutely fire Rosenstein. No one could find fault in that decision now. But firing Rosenstein now would be a huge mistake. It would be perceived as a Saturday Night Massacre: The Saturday Night Massacre was a series of events which took place in the United States on the evening of Saturday, October 20, 1973, during the Watergate scandal. U.S. President Richard Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire independent special prosecutor Archibald Cox; Richardson refused and resigned effective immediately. Nixon then ordered Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire Cox; Ruckelshaus refused, and also resigned. Nixon then ordered the third-most-senior official at the Justice Department, Solicitor General Robert Bork, to fire Cox. Bork considered resigning, but did as Nixon asked. It is obvious who would be served by such a 'slaughter'. It would not help Trump or the Republicans at all. It would be huge gift to the Democrats who have long prepared for such an eventuality. Dozens of groups aligned with the Democrats have prepared a campaign to be launched the very moment Trump announces the firing of Mueller, Session or Rosenstein: [W]e're preparing to hold emergency "Nobody Is Above the Law" rallies around the country in the event they are needed900+ of them and counting, in every state, with 400,000 RSVPs to date! Join us. bigger Such a campaign now could be used to get-out-the-votes on November 6. It would be immensely helpful for the Democrats and increase their chance to capture the House and/or Senate. In defense of publishing the piece the NYT's deputy managing editor Matt Purdy says: ... this story is based on months of reporting. So why is it coming out now? The answer seems obvious. The NYT report is a trap, timed for the upcoming election. It is not an attack on Rod Rosenstein, but on Trump. It is supposed to goad him into an impulsive reaction and to commit a Saturday night massacre of his own. Nixon's 'massacre' was highly negative for him and helped to bring him down. Trump did not became president by being stupid. I don't think he will fall for this. Posted by b on September 22, 2018 at 18:12 UTC | Permalink Comments Social Media Analytics Firm Nuvi Acquired Brickfish, a social media management specialist headquartered in Chicago, has acquired the 'listening' platform Nuvi, which provides real-time social media research, monitoring and analytics. Nuvi is based in Lehi, Utah, is strongly focused on data visualization and visual intelligence, and is an exclusive partner of Berkshire Hathaway PR service Business Wire. Brickfish, which bills itself as 'the first company to predict the need to measure the return on investment (ROI) of social media' and created the Cost Per Engagement metric (CPE) to help measure it, says the buy extends its reach into real-time social media analytics and advances its social engagement platform to better serve clients at a global scale. CEO Michael Mullarkey comments: 'The addition of Nuvi's groundbreaking platform as part of our offering will result in brands having greater business insights while increasing their understanding of consumer behavior like never before'. Nuvi CEO Keith Nellesen says the new combination will give enterprise-level brands an unprecedented ability to reach the right audiences, at the right time. Web site: www.brickfish.com . International 29 killed at Iran military parade; IS claims responsibility Wounded soldiers receive treatment on the ground after gunmen attacked a military parade in the southwestern city of Ahvaz, Iran Saturday. TEHRAN, SEP 22 (AFP) | Publish Date: 9/22/2018 1:17:03 PM IST Militants shot dead at least 29 people including women and children in an attack on Saturday on an Iranian military parade claimed by the Islamic State group, as Tehran accused a US ally in the region of the assault. The attack in the southwestern city of Ahvaz came as the country marked the anniversary of the start of its 1980-1988 war with Saddam Husseins Iraq and prompted President Hassan Rouhani to warn of a crushing response. The response of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the smallest threat will be crushing, Rouhani said on his official website. Those who give intelligence and propaganda support to these terrorists must answer for it. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in a tweet that the attack near the Iraqi border was carried out by terrorists recruited, trained, armed & paid by a foreign regime. Iran holds regional terror sponsors and their US masters accountable for such attacks, he wrote. IS jihadists said via their propaganda mouthpiece Amaq that Islamic State fighters attacked a gathering of Iranian forces in Ahvaz. The city lies in Khuzestan, a province bordering Iraq that has a large ethnic Arab community and has seen separatist violence in the past that Iran has blamed on its regional rivals. State television gave a casualty toll of 29 dead and 57 wounded, while official news agency IRNA said those killed included women and children among spectators at the rally. Many of the wounded were in critical condition. Armed forces spokesman Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi said the dead included a young girl and a former serviceman in a wheelchair. Of the four terrorists, three were sent to hell at the scene, while the fourth who had been wounded and arrested went to hell moments ago due to his severe wounds, Shekarchi told state television. Khuzestan deputy governor Ali-Hossein Hosseinzadeh told the semi-official ISNA news agency that eight to nine troops were among those killed, as well as a journalist. Zarif did not specify which regional government he held responsible for the shooting, but Irans elite Revolutionary Guards said the attackers were funded by Sunni arch-rival Saudi Arabia. Those who opened fire on civilians and the armed forces have links to the Ahvazi movement, Guards spokesman Ramezan Sharif told ISNA. They are funded by Saudi Arabia and attempted to cast a shadow over the Iranian armed forces. Zarif vowed Iran would respond swiftly and decisively in defence of Iranian lives. In a message of condolence to Russias close regional ally, President Vladimir Putin said he was appalled by this bloody crime. This event once again reminds us about the necessity of an uncompromising battle against terrorism in all of its manifestations. Khuzestan was a major battleground of the 1980s war with Iraq and the attack on the anniversary parade in Ahvaz had significant symbolic value. The province saw unrest in 2005 and 2011 but has since seen been largely quiet. Attacks by Kurdish rebels on military patrols along the border further north are relatively common. But attacks on regime targets inside major cities are far rarer. On June 7, 2017, 17 people were killed and dozens wounded in simultaneous attacks in Tehran on the parliament building and on the tomb of revolutionary leader Ruhollah Khomeini -- the first inside Iran claimed by the Sunni Muslim extremists of the Islamic State group. In April, 26 alleged IS jihadists went on trial on charges connected with that twin attack. The attack in Ahvaz came as President Rouhani was among dignitaries at the main anniversary parade in Tehran. In a keynote speech, Rouhani vowed to boost Irans ballistic missile capabilities despite Western concerns that were cited by his US counterpart Donald Trump in May when he abandoned a landmark nuclear deal with Tehran. We will never decrease our defensive capabilities... we will increase them day by day, Rouhani said at a military parade. The fact that the missiles anger you shows they are our most effective weapons, he said, referring to the West. Iran has ballistic missiles with a range of up to 3,500 kilometres, enough to reach both Israel and US bases in the Middle East. The United States reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran last month, and a new round of even harsher sanctions targeting Irans vital oil sector is set to go back into effect on November 5. Washington has said it is ready to open talks on a new agreement to replace the July 2015 accord, but Tehran has said repeatedly it cannot negotiate under the pressure of the sanctions. Trump and Rouhani will both be in New York next week for the United Nations General Assembly. But Iran has repeatedly ruled out any meeting. State Advisor Imtikumzuk Longkumer passes away Late Imtikumzuk Longkumer DIMAPUR, SEP 22 (NPN) | Publish Date: 9/22/2018 1:23:08 PM IST Advisor Sericulture and Excise, Imtikumzuk Longkumer passed away Saturday evening at Apollo hospital New Delhi after a brief illness. He was undergoing treatment for renal disease and suffered a sudden cardiac arrest on Saturday evening. He is survived by his wife Imkongzenla, four daughters and one son. According to family sources, the dead body of late Imtikumzuk Longkumer will arrive at Dimapur airport on Sunday and will proceed to Kohima where a brief funeral service will be held. On Monday, the body will reach his native village, Ungma under Mokokchung district. Imtikumzuk will be accorded a state funeral at Ungma village, scheduled to be held on September 25, 2018. Born on January 21, 1967, late Imtikumzuk, son of Onentiba Longkumer from Ungma village, first contested in 2008 as an Independent candidate and lost to Nungshizenba Longkumer of the Congress from 26-Aonglenden A/C. However, in 2013, he got elected from the Aonglenden A/C as Congress candidate defeating Toshipokba Longkumer. In 2015, he was elected unopposed as the deputy speaker of the Nagaland Legislative Assembly. Late Imtikumzuk later joined the NPF along with other Congress members to form an opposition-less government and was appointed as the parliamentary secretary for I&PR department in 2017. In 2018, Imtikumzuk joined the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party and got re-elected from the party ticket. He was then appointed as advisor Sericulture and Excise. He started his political career as an active Congress member and served as ACYC president (1993-2008). Imtikumzuk was also the personal assistant to former chief minister, Dr. S.C. Jamir (1998-2003). After joining the NPF, he was made the vice president of NPF Aonglenden A/C (2009-13). He was also the president of Ungma Senson Telongjem, Kohima (2006-08). Gov, CM, others condole Nagaland Governor, P.B. Acharya has extended sadness at the untimely demise of Imtikumzuk Longkumer, advisor Sericulture & Excise and former deputy speaker who passed away on September 22, in New Delhi. In a condolence message, Governor Acharya said that the contributions made by late Imtikumzuk for the welfare of the people of Nagaland as a member of the Nagaland Legislative Assembly will be remembered forever. In his demise, Acharya said the people of Nagaland have lost a tall and prominent leader. Acharya also conveyed his heartfelt condolence to the members of the bereaved family and prayed to Almighty God to grant strength and solace to bear the irreparable loss. CM: State chief minister, Neiphiu Rio, has expressed deep shock and pain over the death of Imtikumzuk, Advisor for Sericulture and Excise, saying his early demise has left a deep void in the state and was a big loss to the family, village and the party. In his condolence message to Mrs. Imkongzenla and children, the chief minister said late Imtikumzuk was an upcoming statesman who was making his mark in the political history of the State. The chief minister recalled his long association and closeness with Ungma village of which Imtikumzuk will always remain an intrinsic part of those cherished memories. We mourn the loss of a young, upcoming leader who was not only diligent in his duties and responsibilities, but also a fine gentleman who went out his way to help the people, Rio said, adding that Imtikumzuk was a great asset to the government as well as the NDPP and his absence would be felt tremendously. The chief minister expressed deepest condolences to the bereaved family members and all their near and dear ones in this hour of grief and prayed that Almighty God be with them. He also prayed that the departed soul rest in eternal peace. DY CM: Dy. chief minister and BLP leader, Y. Patton, and on behalf of the entire BJP legislators, expressed deep pained and sorrow about the untimely demise of former dy. speaker and present advisor for Sericulture and Excise, Imtikumzuk on September 22 at Apollo Hospital, Delhi. Patton said late Imtikumzuk was an abled statesman and a refined legislator who led a humble life respecting all other legislators. His demise has created a huge vacuum, he added. Further, BJPs legislature party conveyed heartfelt condolences to the bereaved family and prayed for the departed soul to rest in peace. LoO: Leader of Opposition (LoO), TR Zeliang, expressed sadness at the death of Imtikumzuk, MLA from Aonglenden constituency and said the state has lost a good soul in his untimely demise. In a condolence message, Zeliang described late Imtikumzuk as a very simple man who had a very positive outlook towards life. Zeliang said he had the pleasure to work with him. I relish the memory of Imtikumzuk who launched my social media pages that I have today. Grateful for all that he had done and may his memory continue to live in us, Zeliang said. Leader of opposition and former chief minister also extended his deepest condolences to Mrs. Imkongzenla and children and all bereaved family members. CM Chang: Minister for Environment, Forest & Climate Change, Parliamentary Affairs, CM Chnag, has expressed sadness at the demise of Imtikumzuk and extended deepest condolences to the bereaved family. In a condolence message, Chang said Imtikumzuk was a dedicated and sincere elected member with admirable charisma who served the state as the deputy speaker in the last 12th NLA. Minister said death of Imtikumzuk was a great loss to the people of Nagaland particularly to the Ao community. Chang prayed that the departed soul rest in eternal peace. MP Rajya Sabha: Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) KG Kenye has expressed shock at the sudden demise of Imtikumzuk, saying in his death the Aonglenden A/C in particular and the Nagas in general have lost a fine leader. In a condolence message, Kenye said during their association in NPF party, he found Imtikumzuk to be upright and promising leader but regret for his life which came to an abrupt end in a very young age. MP prayed to all Almighty God to compensate his near and dear ones and conveyed his deepest condolence to the bereaved family members. He also prayed that Almighty God grant them timely solace and comfort at this moment of grief and sorrow. NDPP: Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) has expressed grief over the demise of Imtikumzuk and said in his passing the people of Nagaland in general and the constituents of 26 Aonglenden have lost a dedicated and loyal leader. In a condolence message, NDPP president, Chingwang Konyak, said late Imtikumzuk was a peoples leader who rose from the grassroots and dedicated his life in the service of the people. Despite having attained high offices, NDPP president said late Imtikumzuk never forgot those he sought to serve and lived his life amongst the people he loved. Konyak said in all the responsibilities entrusted to him, late Imtikumzuk served with dedication and honesty and functioned with utmost vibrancy and energy despite his failing health. NDPP in particular have not only lost a promising leader, but a comrade who had shown his enthusiasm and courage to build the party with utmost loyalty and dedication, Konyak said. NDPP president said party rank and file convey heartfelt condolences to Mrs. Imkongla and the children at this hour of sorrow. BJP state unit: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Nagaland state unit has expressed deep grief over the untimely demise of advisor sericulture & excise Imtikumzuk and said his death has created a vacuum in the Naga political history. In a condolence message, BJP state unit president, Temjen Imna Along, described late Imtikumzuk as a God-fearing leader and an ardent supporter in all aspects of social endeavour. We have lost a great soul whose untiring, selfless services rendered to the people of Nagaland shall be cherished forever, said BJP state unit. Extending heartfelt condolences to the bereaved family, the BJP Nagaland prayed that the Almighty grant them solace in this hour of grief. The party also prayed that God grant eternal peace and rest to the departed soul. MLA Thongwang: MLA from 46 Mon Town Assembly Constituency, Thongwang Konyak, has deeply mourning the demise of Imtikumzuk, who passed away in Delhi on Saturday. Describing late leader as a young and dynamic, Konyak said Imtikumzuk was a person with a high calibre who worked for the uplift and betterment of the Naga society. Konyak said passing away of Imtikumzuk was not only a loss for Ao community, but for the Nagas as whole. NPP state unit: National Peoples Party (NPP) Nagaland state unit has mourned the demise of Imtikumzuk, legislature from Aonglenden constituency, saying his untimely death would be a great loss for the state. In a condolence message, NPP state unit described late leader as a valuable and a highly respected person of a great character and extended heartfelt condolences to the bereaved family. The party prayed that the Almighty give comfort and solace as the departed soul makes his restful journey. UST Mokokchung: Ungma Senso Telongjem (UST) Mokokchung has expressed shock and sorrow at hear the sudden demise of Imtikumzuk Longkumer. In a condolence message on behalf of Ungma Senso Telongjem Mokokchung, UST vice president Sangkong Jamir and general secretary Chubanungsang Imsong said late Imtikumzuk was a very dynamic leader though very young at age. Stating that its members were with the bereaved family at this time of sadness, UST prayed that God Almighty give solace and strength to dear ones he had left behind. Ex-MP: Former Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha), W Wangyuh Konyak, has also expressed shock over the death of Imtikumzuk, MLA. In his condolence message, Wangyuh said he personally saw Imtikumzuk as an active and energetic in his duties while assigned as PS to Dr. S.C. Jamir. He was as dynamic even before joining active politics and one capable young and upcoming politician, Wangyuh said, adding that his death was a great loss to the Naga people in general and particularly his constituents. Ex-MP conveyed deepest condolences to the bereaved family and prayed that departed soul rest in peace. By Reuters BERLIN: Chancellor Angela Merkel's government expects the impact of a no-deal Brexit on the labour market in Europe's biggest economy would be "relatively small", the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel said on Saturday. Around 41,000 British people were employed in Germany in December 2017 and that number is insignificant for the labour market overall, the magazine cited a government response to a request for information from the far-left Linke party as saying. ALSO READ | Jaguar says 'bad Brexit' would mean it could not stay in UK There were around 44.8 million people employed in Germany in total in the second quarter of 2018, according to data from the Federal Statistics Office. The German government has repeatedly stressed that Britain cannot cherrypick the elements of the European Union that it wants while rejecting principles like free movement during negotiations on its looming departure from the bloc. Der Spiegel cited a government response to the opposition Greens as reaffirming that Berlin rejects British Prime Minister Theresa May's idea of maintaining free movement of goods between the EU and Britain after Brexit while ending the free movement of people. At a summit in Austria on Thursday, EU leaders rejected May's "Chequers" plan, saying she needed to give ground on trade and customs arrangements for the UK border with Ireland. On Friday May said that Brexit talks with the European Union were deadlocked, challenging the bloc to come up with its own plans. "Throughout this process, I have treated the EU with nothing but respect," May said in a televised address. "The UK expects the same. A good relationship at the end of this process depends on it." On Saturday, German Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Roth said on Twitter that the 27 countries to remain in the European Union countries after Brexit met often and were striving to achieve "reasonable solutions", as all negotiations had shown. "The blame game against the EU is therefore more than unfair. We can't solve the problems that are arising on the island due to Brexit," he said, referring to Britain. Germany's BDI industry association is convinced Brexit will hurt both the EU and Britain, its president said in an interview with public broadcaster SWR. ALSO READ | UK watchdog tells banks to prepare for hard Brexit Regarding negotiations between Britain and the EU, Dieter Kempf said: "We still hope that things work out well but we are advising our companies to prepare for a no-deal, i.e. a hard Brexit." If there is a hard Brexit, there should be a trade and investment protection agreement that is as comprehensive as possible, he added. By Express News Service MUMBAI: Shares of YES Bank took a marked turn for the worse on Thursday, plunging to a historic low of 29 per cent. Reason: the banking regulator slipped some unwelcome changes, short-circuiting the banks CEO & MD Rana Kapoors tenure to just four months as against three years. This was reason enough for brokerages to go on a rampage and revise ratings, though few held onto the belief that life at the private lender will go on, after all. In intraday trade, shares fell as much as 34 per cent, the steepest fall since the banks listing, to Rs 210.10 a level last seen on June 24, 2016. Shares closed at Rs 227.05, down 28.71 per cent from its previous close, wiping off nearly Rs 21,000 crore in market capitalisation. Kapoors leadership came under RBI scanner following underreporting of bad loans worth Rs 10,000 crore. The banks board will meet next Tuesday to decide on the banks future course. By Express News Service BENGALURU: An argument over curry led to the death of a 41-year-old homemaker who allegedly set herself on fire on Thursday evening. According to police, the incident occurred at DJ Halli, east Bengaluru. The husband, Nagraj reportedly yelled at the victim Jayalakshmi for not making a tasty curry. Dejected, Jayalakshmi waited for her husband to step out of the house and allegedly set herself ablaze by pouring kerosene, police said. Nagaraj has been arrested. Jayalakshmi and Nagaraj hail from Raichur. The couple came to Bengaluru in 2008 and Nagaraj owns a saloon in Shampura, DJ Halli. The couple has two children. According to police, Jayalakshmis parents accused Nagaraj of torturing her over petty issues. He would scream and argue with our daughter over petty issues. Everyday he would find a reason to throw a tantrum. He would start off a fight saying she doesnt know how to cook, how to look after children or him. This often caused argument between the two, the parents reportedly told police. Helpline If you are having thoughts of suicide or are in emotional distress. Help is available. You can get in touch with the SAHAI helpline at 080-25497777, open from Monday to Saturday from 10 am to 10 pm and 104 Arogya Sahayavani which is available 24/7. By Express News Service HYDERABAD: Days after the Golconda police registered cases and arrested a 29-year-old supervisor of Azaan International School, ToliChowki for allegedly assaulting a girl student sexually, the Golconda police on Friday registered another rape case on unknown person working in same school for allegedly harassing a girl student. Inspector Mohammed Munawar said that they received a fresh complaint from a parent of a Class I student of the school on Friday and registered cases of rape and POCSO Act. The parent alleged in his complaint that his daughter has been sexually assaulted few days ago but he did not approach the police to lodge a complaint due to apprehensions. We will investigate the issue and take necessary action to identify the offenders. We will question the school staff and students in connection with the cases, said the inspector. This case comes within days of the Golconda police arresting Mohammed Jeelani for raping a minor girl student in the first floor washroom of the international school after luring her with chocolates. There could be more cases In the wake of the new case, the Education Department which is already mulling shutting down Azaan school told Express that it will get in touch with all parents to find if there are any more such cases. Meanwhile, the district education officer (DEO) has issued a second notice to the school management on Friday, two days after it received the initial largely unsatisfactory response from the school. The school has been given seven days to respond to the second notice. During this time I will also do my enquiry. As a first step, we will reach out to all parents whose wards are studying in this school and ask them to talk to their children and inform us if they have faced any such situation in school, said Venkata Narsamma, DEO, Hyderabad. The officer added that, simultaneously the department is also looking at all the possibilities of shifting all students to nearby private schools. However, the large volume of students in the school is proving to be a major hurdles in this regard. A lot of parents have already paid fee for the entire academic year. We are also ensuring that the school management refunds the amount. Further, there are two schools running from the same premises, one of them CSBE, over which we have no jurisdiction. But the Board has been intimated about this. she said. Child rights activist Achyuta Rao has demanded that all property of Anwar Charitable Trust, that runs the school, should be seized. By Online Desk Brie Larson who dons the role of the much awaited Captain Marvel was recently told on social media to 'smile more'. The trailer of the movie was released on 19 September following which some media users commented on the expressions of the actor saying "she needs to smile more". The sexist comment soon went viral and various comments started to pour in. One Twitter user @TFMonkeyYouTube morphed the pictures from the trailer and put a smile on Brie Larson's face saying, "fixed" Captain Marvel. But, Brie Larson aka Captain Marvel proved why she is the perfect choice to play the first-ever female-led Marvel film by shutting down the troll like a badass boss. WATCH: Official trailer 'Captain Marvel' Larson posted on her Instagram account some edited images of superheroes with 'smile'. She also wrote Breaking news: You can be you. That means you can smile or not, You can be strong in the ways you want to be. You can own who you are. If anyone tells you different dont trust them. Image posted by Brie Larson on her Instagram account story. (Photo: Twitter) Directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, "Captain Marvel" will release in India in March next year. By ANI NEW DELHI: Many celebs on Friday attended Reliance Industries Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani's daughter Isha Ambani's engagement bash in Italy. The Ambani family is hosting a three-day extravaganza to celebrate the engagement of Isha with Anand Piramal in picturesque Lake Como, in northern Italy on the lap of Alps. Priyanka in Italy (Photo | Twitter) The list of guests included Priyanka Chopra and fiance Nick Jonas, along with Anil Kapoor, Manish Malhotra, among others. Social media is abuzz with the pictures of the newly engaged couple, Priyanka and Nick. The two looked stunning in traditional Manish Malhotra attire. Bollywood's Mr. India, Anil Kapoor also looked dapper as he attended the Ambani bash. He took to social media to share a picture from the event. Anil Kapoo in Italy (Photo | Twitter) Isha and Anand are reportedly set to tie the knot in December this year. Anand, son of Swati and Ajay Piramal, is the founder of Piramal Realty, one of India's most admired real estate companies. Earlier this year, he proposed to his long-time friend Isha at a temple in Mahabaleshwar. Isha and Anand have been long-time friends and the families have known each other for over four decades. Anand holds a Masters in Business Administration degree from Harvard Business School. Sonam and Anand Ahuja in Italy (Photo | Twitter) The 25-year-old is currently executive director at Piramal Group. He is also the founder of Piramal Realty, a real estate company, and Piramal Swasthya, a rural healthcare initiative which he founded with a vision to facilitate access to affordable healthcare for the common man. Janhvi Kapoor in Italy (Photo | Twitter) He also has the distinction of serving as the youngest president of the Indian Merchant Chamber Youth Wing. Anand holds a bachelors degree in economics from the University of Pennsylvania. Piramal Realty was Anands second start-up, though both the firms he founded are now part of the $4 billion family-run Piramal Group. Isha Ambani is on the board of Reliance Jio and Reliance Retail, and holds a bachelors degree in psychology and South Asian studies from Yale University and will be completing her Masters in Business Administration programme from the Graduate School of Business, Stanford. Earlier in June, Isha's twin brother Akash got engaged to Shloka Mehta in a star-studded bash in Mumbai. (With input from agencies) A Sharadhaa By Express News Service Film: Iruvudellava Bittu Director: Kantharaj Kannalli Cast: Meghana Raj, Shri Mahadev, Tilak, Achyuth Kumar, Aruna Balraj and Abhishek Rating: 3/5 Work, home, work. High-stress jobs leaving one with little time to work on personal relationships often result in a sour personal life. Thats the highlight of Iruvudellava Bittu which mirrors todays life and living. In the romantic family drama, Purvi (Meghana Raj), a career-oriented woman keeps scaling professional heights. However, her personal life is in a mess, so much so, she considers killing herself. Thats when Akash (Shri Mahadev) comes into the picture. A self-made woman, Purvi works hard to prove herself at the workplace. Akash is in love with her, but hesitates to express his feelings. Just when he musters courage, he gets to know that Purvi, who was in a live-in relationship with Dev (Tilak) has a child with him. The two parted ways just ahead of their childs birth. Having being disowned by her parents, Purvi takes Akashs help to get back on track. Then, when Purvi has to bring home her young son Bhuvan (Abhishek) from boarding school for the summer holidays, she suddenly finds that she has to travel to the UK on work. With no option left, she leaves her child with Aakash. The latter uses this opportunity to build a rapport of trust with the child, as well as acquaint him with his grandparents. Will help makes his way to Purvis heart through his actions? Director Kantharaj Kannallis offering is a film for everyone trying to maintain the perfect work-life balance. It also looks at women who are torn between wanting to excel at work and have a blissful family life. While some episodes are eye-openers, the movie tends to be melodramatic and is slightly stretched. Sridhar V Sambhrams music goes with the theme and Willaim Davids cinematography gives some push to the movie. Each character is given importance and adequate screen time. This is one of Meghana Rajs best picks, which gives her room to perform. While Tilak justifies his presence in the modern tale, new talent Shri Mahadev steals the show. He not only is comfortable aside established actors, his performance is also commendable. Extra points for his dance number. Hes talent to watch out for, wed say. An entertainer, Iruvudellava Bittu is a film that puts relationships to test. Sumi Sukanya dutta By Express News Service New Delhi: After doors of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library in the capital were decided to be opened for all former Prime Ministers, a lecture in the memory of the first Prime Minister of India in a Central University named after him will be delivered on the birth anniversary of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya. Jawaharlal Nehru University administration is organising the Nehru Memorial lecture, traditionally held around or on November 14-the birth anniversary of the first PM-almost two months in advance in a complete departure from tradition. Also, as the lecture titled "Youth & Truth" will be delivered by Jaggi Vasudev, commonly known as Sadhguru, a Bengaluru based spiritual guru on a day which marks the birth anniversary of the RSS thinker and BJP ideologue, the development has already led to voices of protest from among majority of students and faculty. "Even though I am yet to get an official confirmation from the Vice-Chancellor's office on this, I am stunned at this development and both the day and the guest chosen for the lecture are unexpected," said Sonajharia Minz, president of the JNU Teachers' Association. "For this prestigious lecture, people with outstanding academic credentials have been invited over the years so a religious or spiritual guru being invited now is shocking," she said. Another senior professor, who did not wish to be named, pointed out that last year too it was a religious guru- Sri Sri Ravi Shankar who had been called for the lecture. "But in 2017 at least the lecture was held on November 13; this year even that pretence has gone. Seeing the obvious intention, I am expecting the name "Nehru" Memorial lecture too would be sacrificed next time," he said. Subhanshu Singh, a senior member of the JNU Students' Union said that by calling a mystic-yogi in an academic space, the University administration is trying to "encourage religious-spiritual sentiment" in the campus. Outgoing JNUSU president Geeta Kumari said, "Nehru died again: last time it was Sri Sri and this time it's Sadhguru." JNU V-C Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar was not available for comments despite attempts to reach him. Anuradha Shukla By Express News Service NEW DELHI: The Central governments ambitious bullet train project is now saddled with a fund crunch, after funding agency Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has refused to release further funds for it. The Japanese agency has demanded that the government first settles the farmers protest against the project, forcing the Centre to form a special committee to look into fund hurdles. JICA had agreed to provide nearly Rs 80,000 crore for the High-Speed Rail Project (HSRP), the cost of which was estimated at Rs 1 lakh crore, but so far, only Rs 125 crore has been released. The project has already been delayed over various issues and its deadline extended by over two years. The Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project hit a fresh roadblock recently after a group of farmers approached the Gujarat High Court challenging the land acquisition for it. The farmers group had also shot a letter to JICA, citing that the government has overlooked social and environmental concerns while acquiring land for the project. In their letter, the farmers had requested the agency to withhold any instalment to be given to the Government of India till the guidelines are complied with and had invited the Japanese ambassador to Gujarat to understand their plight. According to official sources, JICA has subsequently stalled the payment. The recent developments have miffed the Japanese agency. JICA, which is funding the project, has refused to release further instalments. The PMO has taken note of it and has ordered to form a special committee to look into it, a senior Finance Ministry official told TNIE. According to the official, the committee will have members from NITI Aayog and Finance Ministry and senior officials from both the Gujarat and Maharashtra governments. The fund issue is a big problem now. JICA has not released the scheduled funds. They have asked to settle the farmers protest first. This will pose a problem and will delay the project further. Even the state governments are facing a problem with funding. The Finance Ministry has already hinted that there is no room to increase the compensation to farmers, another Finance Ministry official added. By UNI KOLHAPUR: In a shocking incident, Ajara police today arrested two people for disgracing a 13-year-old school boy for offering a chocolate to a 10-year-old girl. Police said, "Dasharath Sambhaji Kamble had offered a chocolate to a girl from his school. His mere act caused a havoc when the girl's family came to know about the incident. "The girl's father Ravindra and his friend beat the boy and his parents and later made him walk naked from Dalit Vasti to Gram Panchayat Office. Police has booked both the accused under Scheduled Cast Oppress Preventive Act,1989 and revised act 2015 section 3 (1), (D), (R), (S), 3 (2), (CA), and 6 of IPC section 452, 323, 504, 506 and 34. "We are further investigating the case," Police added. Namita Bajpai By Express News Service LUCKNOW: Reopening the case of mysterious death of BJP ideologue Deen Dayal Upadhyaya who was found dead on the railway track near Mughalsarai railway station on February 11, 1968, the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh is likely to order a CBI inquiry into the incident to bring out the truth after 50 years of the incident. While his body was found lying on the rail track near Mughalsarai junction which was recently renamed after Upadhyaya, the truth behind his death is still a mystery as to no one knows if he was murdered or it was an accident which claimed his life. The issue was reignited by Rakesh Gupta, a BJP worker from Ambedkar Nagar, who wrote a letter Union Home ministry in 2017 seeking a fresh probe into the death of Upadhyaya. He claimed in his letter that he apprehended a larger conspiracy behind the death. Taking the cognizance of Gupta's letter, the home ministry has now sought a detailed report on the incident from the Yogi government. The state government urged the railway ministry to provide inputs. Subsequently, the SP Railways, Allahabad, was asked to look into the matter and he submitted his report to the IG railways to be forwarded to the state government. According to sources, the inquiry officer in his report mentioned that the documents, including the FIR and the case diary related to the incident, were found to be missing but the police station register reflected that three persons were held in the case and even one of them was convicted also. As per report submitted by the SP railway, the incident took place on February 11, 1968 and case no 67/1968 was registered against unknown persons. Later, three persons - Ram Avadh, Lalta and Bharat Ram -- were arrested. In 1969, Bharat Ram was convicted under IPC sections 379/411 pertaining to charges of theft and retaining stolen property, while the other two named in the FIR were acquitted, the report claimed. As the law enforcement agencies are trying to piece the information available about the case together, the Allahabad police have been asked to trace if any of those three accused was alive, the railway's officials were contemplating to summon complainant Rakesh Gupta and ask him if he had any evidence in the case. Deen Dayal Upadhyay was an RSS thinker and co-founder of the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, the forerunner of ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. He became Jana Sangh chief in December 1967, contested the Lok Sabha election but lost. In 1968 he died a mysterious death. Those who are probing into the issue are also looking for police personnel and witnesses who were present at the time of the incident. A senior police official in Allahabad said, "It is near impossible to find someone who was there when the incident took place. It is exactly 50 years and most of the police personnel and either retired or not alive. The same is the case with the witnesses." By PTI MUMBAI: The National Aviator's Guild (NAG) Friday said it is "open" to discuss the incident of cabin pressure loss on Jet Airways' Mumbai-Jaipur flight Thursday, but any premature conclusion blaming the crew should not be reached before the probe is completed. In a mid-air scare, a Jaipur-bound Jet Airways flight had lost cabin pressure after the crew "forgot" to turn on a control switch leaving 30 passengers bleeding from ears and nose and forcing the aircraft to return to Mumbai. The aircraft was carrying 171 people. "We have had a preliminary look into the incident involving two of our members with regard to the improper handling of pressurisation on the Mumbai-Jaipur flight. The matter is under investigation by DGCA and hence it would prudent to await the results of the probe," a NAG spokesperson said in a statement. The NAG is the domestic pilots' body of Jet Airways, claim to represent over 1,000 pilots at the Naresh Goyal-controlled airline. "Without having access to the FDR (flight data recorder), CVR (cockpit voice recorder) and other relevant flight documents, it would be well-nigh impossible to arrive at an accurate assessment about the causes of the incident", the statement added. At the same time, it was quick to add that they are open to discussing the matter at length under the guidelines of the DGCA's safety management system manual for airlines. The cockpit crew of the Boeing 737, which had 171 people on-board including five crew members, was derostered and the government asked the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) to probe the incident. An AAIB official had said the incident could be a case of negligence on the part of the pilots since controlling cabin pressure is part of mandatory checks before operating a flight. By PTI SRINAGAR: Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti Friday said calling off the meeting between the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan was bad news as both the countries owed it to the people of the state to carry on the dialogue. "Calling off meeting between India & Pak's FMs is bad news for J&K. Both countries owe it to people of state & country to carry on dialogue rather than talking through media. Inspite of a historic mandate, it is media & not NDA leadership that is setting the agenda," Mehbooba wrote on Twitter. Barely 24 hours after agreeing to the engagement, the government Friday called off a meeting between the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan in New York, citing the brutal killings of three policemen in Jammu and Kashmir and Islamabad releasing postage stamps "glorifying" Kashmiri militant Burhan Wani. Announcing the cancellation of the meeting, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said the incidents "exposed" the "true face" of Pakistan's new Prime Minister Imran Khan to the world as well as Islamabad's evil agenda behind the proposal for talks. He added that talks with Pakistan in such an environment would be "meaningless". Mehbooba had earlier welcomed the proposed meeting between the two foreign ministers. "Accepting peace overtures of Pakistan's PM Imran Khan by agreeing to a meeting between India & Pakistan's Foreign Ministers is a welcome step. Even though it has come towards the fag end of NDA's tenure, better late than never," she had earlier said on Twitter. By Express News Service NEW DELHI: The Congress has demanded a probe into the Centres Skill India programme, saying that it had turned into a big scam. We want a comprehensive and impartial investigation into the Skill India scam. Who is responsible for it? We also want recovery of crores of rupees of public money lost due to the irregularities, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said. The Skill India programme was announced by Prime M Modi on July 15, 2015 with a promise to train 40 crore people by 2022. Citing reports, he said there were several ghost beneficiaries in the plan being operated under the textile ministrys ISDS scheme. Most partner agencies that are an active part of the BJPs ecosystem are entitled to 75 per cent government subsidy on the sanctioned cost of Rs 10,000 per candidate. These middlemen and touts use details like Aadhaar numbers of unsuspecting people to project them as beneficiaries of Skill India. Smriti Irani is the textile minister and this specific scheme comes under her portfolio, said Singhvi. Citing the report of the government-appointed Sharda Prasad committee, which criticised the government last year for setting an unachievable target of skilling 40 crore youth, the Congress leader said the committee had further found that the Centre had been missing its targets over the previous two years as far as skilling the workforce was concerned. Analysing the governments performance on skilling the countrys youth over a five-year period beginning 2011, the committee found that the only time the targets had been achieved was in 2013-14, during the tenure of the Congress-led UPA government, he said. Hubs of profiteering The Congress said the idea behind creating the ministry of Skill Development was to divert funds from skilling of youth to create hubs of profiteering by agents of BJP ministers and MPs. By Online Desk Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Saturday continued his attack on the Modi government over the controversial Rafale fighter jet deal saying that Manohar Parrikar, the former Defence Minister, wasn't even aware of the contract being changed from Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) to Reliance Defence's hands. Gandhi said, "He didn't know about it. He was buying fish in the markets of Goa when the deal was taking place." Gandhi said, "I have a statement from France's ex-president which says "we did not have a say in this matter, it is Indian government that decided to give the contract to Anil Ambani, we did not have a choice." Calling for a clarification from Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Hollande's statement, Rahul Gandhi said, "For the first time, an ex-French President is calling our PM a thief." #WATCH: Congress President Rahul Gandhi says on #RafaleDeal, "the former Defence Minister (Manohar Parrikar) said that when the contract was changed, he didn't know about it. He was buying fish in the markets of Goa" pic.twitter.com/1y3t3Dx7jX ANI (@ANI) September 22, 2018 Continuing his tirade against the Prime Minister, Gandhi said, "It's the question of Prime Minister's dignity, it's the question of future of jawans, army and soldiers, it's a question of defence. There was a one-on-one meeting between French president and Prime Minister Modi and in the meeting, the French president was told that the contract will go to Anil Ambani. Now, people know that Desh Ka Chowkidar Chor Hai (Country's watchman is the thief)." Launching a blistering attack on Prime Minister Modi, the Congress president said, "France had said in the meeting that price is not a secret and Indian government can tell the price to anybody it wants to and yet the defence minister did not say anything. Anil Ambani created a company 12 days before the deal. They snatched the contract from HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Limited). Why are these people lying? Who are they protecting? Nirmala Sitharaman, Manohar Parrikar and Arun Jaitley did not sign the contract. Narendra Modi signed it, and they are all lying to protect Prime Minister Modi." Gandhi further said, "You (Youth) trusted Narendra Modi and he gave the contract to Anil Ambani. Prime Minister Modi has taken money from your pockets, from the pockets our jawans and their families' pockets and put it in Ambani's pocket. People believed Narendra Modi who gave Rs 30,000 crore contract to Anil Ambani who has never flown an aircraft. Modi has broken your trust." Earlier, in a tweet, he said Modi had betrayed Indias soul with clear-cut corruption in the contract. The PM and Anil Ambani jointly carried out ...SURGICAL STRIKE on the Indian Defence forces. Modi Ji you dishonoured the blood of our martyred soldiers. Shame on you. You betrayed India's soul (sic)," Gandhi tweeted. Rahul's renewed attack on Modi came a day after a French media report quoted former French president Francois Hollande as purportedly saying that the Indian government proposed Ambani's Reliance Defence as the partner for Dassault Aviation in the Rs 58,000 crore Rafale jet fighter deal and France did not have a choice. But contradicting Hollande's statement, the French government later said it was in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners for the Rafale deal, asserting that French companies have the full freedom to select Indian firms for the contract. PM Modi had announced the procurement of a batch of 36 Rafale jets for Rs 58,000 crore after holding talks with then French President Hollande on April 10, 2015, in Paris. The opposition party has been accusing the government of choosing Reliance Defence over state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd to benefit the private firm though it did not have any experience in the aerospace sector. (With agency inputs) By PTI WASHINGTON: India is among the only 14 countries to have made significant advancement in efforts to eliminate child labour in 2017, an official US report said Saturday. "In 2017, India made a significant advancement in efforts to eliminate the worst forms of child labour," the US Department of Labor said in its annual 'Child Labour and Forced Labour' report. It said the findings on the 'Worst Forms of Child Labour', mandated by the Trade and Development Act of 2000, is the most comprehensive research product on the state of child labour worldwide. This year, the report uses more stringent criteria to assess the efforts of 132 countries and territories to address child labour, the report added. "Only 14 countries including Colombia, Paraguay, and India met the new criteria for "Significant Advancement", which this year requires specific legal and policy labour standards to be met," it said. The Department of Labor said the Indian government ratified both ILO Convention 182 and Convention 138 and amended the Child Labor Act to prohibit children under the age of 18 years from working in hazardous occupations and processes. The government also launched the 'Platform for Effective Enforcement for No Child Labour' to more effectively enforce child labour laws and implement the 'National Child Labour Programme'. In addition, the government released a new 'National Plan of Action for Children' that implements the 'National Policy for Children', which includes a focus on child labourers, trafficked children, and other vulnerable children, the report said. "However, children in India engage in the worst forms of child labour, including in forced labour producing garments and quarrying stones," the report rued, adding that children also perform dangerous tasks of producing bricks. The Child Labour Act's hazardous work prohibitions do not include all occupations in which children work in unsafe and unhealthy environments for long periods of time. Penalties for employing children are insufficient to deter violations, and the recruitment of children by non-state armed groups is not criminally prohibited, it said. The report urges the Indian government to collect and publish national-level data on labour law enforcement, including funding, number of labour inspectors, number of violations found and the penalties imposed and collected for child labour law violations. "Ensure that the types of hazardous work prohibited for children under age 18 are comprehensive, especially in the sectors in which children work in unsafe and unhealthy conditions for long periods of time such as in spinning mills, garment production, carpet making and domestic work," it said. "These reports represent one of the Department of Labor's key contributions to the global effort to protect workers in the United States and around the world by defending the rights of all people to live free of child labour, forced labour, human trafficking, and modern slavery," said US Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta. Recent International Labor Organization estimates show there are still over 152 million child labourers, one in every ten children and 25 million forced labourers worldwide, he said. By ANI NEW DELHI: All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president Asaduddin Owaisi on Saturday asked Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to come up with a proper clarification over Rafale fighter jets controversy. Owaisi's demand came after former French president Francois Hollande said that it was the Indian government who proposed Reliance Defence as the partner for Dassault Aviation for the deal and that he had nothing to do with it. Speaking to ANI, Owaisi asked, "The people of India want to know who is lying. Is the French ex-President lying or our Prime Minister Modi is not saying the truth?" "We want the Defence Minister to throw light on this," he added. The Rafale controversy, on Friday, took a new turn when Hollande, who was the president of France from 2012 to 2017, reportedly said the Narendra Modi-led government proposed Anil Ambani's name for the deal. "We did not have a say in that. The Indian government proposed this service group, and Dassault negotiated with Ambani. We did not have a choice, we took the interlocutor we were given," Hollande was quoted by a French Journal, Mediapart. Taking a dig at Anil Ambani, Owaisi said, "The ex-president of France says that the absurd contract was given on the condition of the Prime Minister of India that they will finalise this deal only if you give this absurd contract to 'X' person. The whole world knows who the X person is who has never manufactured even a single tyre leave aside aircraft or a motorcycle." Hollande had said that Dassault Aviation was given no choice but to partner with Anil Ambani-led Reliance Defence for the offset clause in the Rafale fighter jet deal. The Rafale jets were chosen during the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) tenure in 2012. Initially, India had planned to buy 18 off-the-shelf jets from France, with 108 others to be assembled in the country by the state-run aerospace and Defence company HAL. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government scrapped the UPA's plan in 2015 and announced that it would buy 36 "ready-to-fly" Rafale jets instead of seeking a technology transfer from France's Dassault Aviation and making the aircraft in India. Fayaz Wani By Express News Service SRINAGAR: A day after abduction and killing of three policemen, militants have upped their psychological war against security forces by purportedly releasing pictures of over a dozen policemen and their officers on social media, asking them to quit their jobs or face "severe consequences." The militant group Hizbul Mujahideen today released pictures of 13 policemen including two officers and an army man on social media and asked them to quit. All of them hail from volatile south Kashmir comprising four districts of Anantnag, Kupwara, Kulgam and Shopian or are posted there. South Kashmir has emerged as stronghold of militants and militants of Hizb, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Ghazwat-ul-Hind, an Al-Qaeda offshoot led by Zakir Moosa are active in the region. The photos contain name, designation and address of the policemen. The policemen were asked to quit and upload their videos on social media. They were warned that in case they don't do so, they should be ready for "head shot". The Hizb militants also released pictures of two policewomen as well. An army man, who is working with counter-insurgency force Rashtria Rifles, was also asked to quit army job and release video about his quitting the force or be ready for "head shot". While releasing picture of a police officer, who is posted in Tral area, the militants asked the official to quit within two days and release the video on social media or be ready for "head shot".The militants also warned the police official that they know where his family was. "We are giving you two days time to quit or else we will target you and your family".Another police official was given three days to quit or he and his family would be targeted. It is for the first time in about three decades of militancy in Kashmir that militants have released pictures of policemen and officials and warned them to leave their jobs or face "death". A senior police official downplayed the release of pictures, saying this is all "propaganda material".He said they are all Pakistan-sponsored militants, who are trying to create disturbances in the Valley. The official said police is taking measures to ensure safety and security of its men hailing from vulnerable and sensitive areas of south Kashmir. By UNI CHENNAI: DMK Rajya Sabha member Kanimozhi on Saturday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to set up ISRO's third launch pad at Kulasekarapattinam in Tuticorin district of Tamil Nadu. In a letter to Mr Modi, Kanimozhi said setting up of the launch pad at Kulasekarapattinam, near the equator, would be useful in GSLV missions. A resolution was recently passed in the village asking to set up the launch pad there. Kanimozhi recalled late chief minister M Karunanidhi's support for setting up the third launch pad at Kulasekarapattinam and the letter written by him to the then Prime Minister. "If the launch pad was establied in Kulasekarapattinam it will provide job opportunities for over 10,000 people and investments of over Rs three lakh crore would be made," he had said in 2013. Kanimozhi said she had also raised the issue in Parliament then. After French Guyana, Kulasekarapattinam was the ideal site for GSLV launches owing to its proximity to the equator. Kulasekarapattinam's proximity to the equator would be vital in GSLV launches, as they could carry an additional 350 kg, she said. By PTI JHARSUDUDA: Prime Minister Narendra Modi Saturday inaugurated a new airport at Jharsuguda, which he said will attract investors to the mineral-rich area and would act as a lifeline in the western region of the state. The prime minister said the airport would go a long way in transforming the state into a modern and developed one. Noting that only one major airport existed in Odisha for so many years, Modi said Kutch district in Gujarat alone has five airports. "Now, the second airport of the state would act as a lifeline in western region of Odisha and attract investors to the mineral-rich region," he said. Asserting that the BJP-led government has been taking concrete steps for strengthening the aviation sector, he said only 450 aircraft operated in the country since Independence, while steps have been taken for 950 new aircraft during the last one year. Highlighting the importance of Jharsuguda Airport, Modi said it would act as a junction for neighbouring Raipur and Ranchi and strengthen connectivity. Development of eastern Indian states, including Odisha, West Bengal and Assam, is essential for achieving balanced development of the country, the PM said. Modi said the new airport is named after freedom fighter Veer Surendra Sai, as demanded by the Odisha government. Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, while addressing the ceremony, thanked the prime minister for naming the new airport after Sai, and said steps should be taken for quick introduction of regular commercial flights from Jharsuguda. He said the state government has provided land and free power for setting up the airport. Modi also inaugurated the Garjanbahal open cast mine of Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL), which has coal block reserves of 230 million tonne with an annual production capacity of 13 million tonne. It will generate direct employment opportunity for 894 people and indirect job opportunities for 5,000. The prime minister also launched the 53.1-km long Jharsuguda-Serdega railway line constructed by the MCL, and said it would strengthen connectivity in the tribal-dominated region. Modi also dedicated to the nation Dulanga Coal Mining Project of NTPC in Sundargarh district. This is the second mine of the state-run company to be operational and its first in Odisha. Coal produced from this mine shall be used in the under-construction 1600-MW Darlipali Super Thermal Power Plant of NTPC in Sundargarh district, officials said. The Jharsuguda Airport has been developed by the Airports Authority of India in collaboration with Odisha government at an estimated cost of Rs 210 crore, with Rs 75 crore contribution from the state. The airport has been developed under the Centre's UDAN scheme. Spread across over 1,027. 5 acres of land with a 2,390-metre long runway, the area of terminal building of the airport is 4,000 sqm. The airport has been developed for all-weather operations, including night operations for A-320 type of aircraft. Harpreeet Bajwa By Express News Service CHANDIGARH: It had been more than thirty three days that the Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh announced that he along his cabinet ministers, Members of Parliament and MLAs of the ruling Congress party will donate one month's salary each to help the flood-hit people of Kerala but it seems that the state government has forgotten to send the same. Sources pointed that the announcement made by Amarinder to donate the month's salary the Kerala government is still waiting for that money to reach them. While a few legislators of the Congress have sent their one month's salary cheques to the party office in the state assembly but they are lying in cupboard in the office only. It is learnt that the one month's salary of the Punjab CM, cabinet ministers and the rest more than 50 ruling party MLAs approximately comes to Rs 70 lakh which was to be sent to Kerala CM's relief fund but till date this money has not been sent. A cabinet minister on condition of anonymity said that a form was sent to him which he filled and sent it back but he was not asked to fill any cheque of one month's salary and sent to the concerned person. He said that he has got his salary but to date has not sent any cheque as no one demanded the same from him and admitted that he knows that the announcement was made by the CM in this regard. On August 19 it was announced that all MPs and MLAs of the Punjab Congress, led by Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh, will donate their one-month salary to support the Kerala flood relief measures. The decision followed a directive from AICC president Rahul Gandhi to all Congress members of Parliament and members of Legislative Assemblies across the country to give a month's salary each to help the flood-hit people of Kerala. Amarinder had then announced his decision to immediately donate his one-month salary to ensure speedy relief for the flood-ravaged south Indian state. Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) president Sunil Jakhar had then said party workers had been asked to ensure the money reached the Kerala authorities over the next two-three days. The decision to donate a month's salary came a day after Amarinder announced Rs 10 crore in aid for the flood-ravaged state. While Rs 5 crore was transferred to the Kerala CM's Relief Fund, the remaining was sent in the form of ready-to-eat food and other essential supplies. The State Government has already dispatched four plane loads of 150 MTs of relief material for the relief and rehabilitation of the flood affected people of Kerala. While yesterday the officials of Punjab Vigilance Bureau contributed a day's salary to help the people of the flood ravaged state. ADGP-cum-Chief Director Vigilance Bureau B K Uppal handed over a cheque of Rs 5 lakh to CM Amarinder. By PTI PUNE: Pune police Saturday said it would strictly implement a Maharashtra government ban on the use of hi-tech sound-amplifying systems during Ganpati immersions Sunday. A division bench of the Bombay High Court of Justices Shantanu Kemkar and Sarang Kotwal had Friday rejected a plea for interim relief by the Professional Audio and Lighting Association (PALA) which has challenged the ban on sound-amplifying systems. Joint Commissioner of Police Shivaji Bodkhe Saturday said that police personnel had been deployed to coordinate with Ganpati mandals to ensure compliance of the ban. "Contractors who provide such sound systems have been given identity cards and action will be taken against them if sound levels of these systems go above stipulated norms," Bodkhe said. He said that police personnel armed with 300 decibel meters would be moving about in the city and action would be taken against mandals violating noise pollution norms. Bodkhe said that over 11,000 policemen and personnel from specialised units like BDDS, Fire Brigade, SRPF and Riot Control Squads have been deployed to ensure the immersion of Ganesh idols on Anant Chaturdashi Sunday passes off peacefully. By IANS TALCHER: Making a veiled attack on the Congress and other parties accusing them of stalling the triple talaq bill, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said that his government dared to take decisions that others were afraid of taking. "Three days ago, the Centre took a decision that was needed since decades. When the intentions are clear, then one needs to take decisions that no other can dare to take. One of these decisions was on triple talaq. "When our government made the decision on triple talaq, there was an effort to stall it in the Rajya Sabha. Now, it has been declared illegal," he said in an apparent reference to the promulgation of an ordinance making triple talaq a criminal offence. Addressing a public meeting in Talcher, Odisha, after laying the foundation stone for the country's first coal gasification-based fertiliser plant, he said the union government was committed to taking the nation forward to newer heights of development with renewed energy and greater momentum. "Talcher fertiliser plant is a proof of failure of the previous government but it will be a testament to our achievement," said the Prime Minister in Angul district. READ HERE: PM Narendra Modi inaugurates new airport in Odisha's Jharsuguda He said the coal gasification-based fertiliser plant at Talcher will script a new chapter of new Odisha and new India and it will be one of most successful ventures of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government. "When the Bharatiya Janata Party government came to power in the Centre, the work on fertiliser plants picked up speed. "I assure you that the construction of Talcher fertiliser plant will be completed in 36 months and I will again come here to inaugurate it," he said. The Prime Minister said that he was left stunned when such fertiliser plants have been promised for years, but no actual work has taken place. "I had asked the workers by when can they finish the pending work here and they have promised me that it will be done within 36 months. I will come back to you after 36 months," he said. The Prime Minister also used the opportunity to take on Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik for opting out of the Centre's Ayushman Bharat scheme and failing to keep the cleanliness drive momentum. "About 10 crore families, which is about 50 crore people, will benefit from the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana under Ayushman Bharat scheme which will be launched tomorrow (September 23) from Jharkhand. "If Odisha government does not cooperate, I will not be able to serve you," Modi said. He said Odisha needs to work towards sanitation and come at par with other states on the issue of cleanliness. "I had urged Chief Minister Naveen Babu that Odisha will be left behind in cleanliness. But today, when I have come here, I again urge Naveen Babu to give priority to cleanliness in Odisha for the health of the people here," he added. He also said Odisha will get five new medical colleges and the union government is giving Rs 570 crore for the colleges. Mentioning former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's famous assertion that only 15 paise out of one rupee sanctioned by the Centre reaches the beneficiaries, he said, "They knew about the 'bimari' but had no vision to solve it." "You might remember, we had a Prime Minister in the country who had said that if Re 1 is sent from Delhi, then just 15 paise reaches the states. Such corruption continued for years. However, our government is making sure that whatever money is allotted, all of it reaches the people," Modi said. "One crore thirty lakh poor people have bank accounts in Odisha due to the Jan Dhan Yojana and the government benefits are being transferred directly to the accounts," said the Prime Minister. On the Naveen Patnaik government claiming to provide Re 1/kg rice to the poor, Modi said it is only possible as the Centre gives subsidies for this rice. "We give Rs 450 crore to the Naveen Patnaik government for these subsidies," he informed. Sanjib Kumar Roy By Express News Service PORT BLAIR: The historic Viper Island in Andaman and Nicobar Islands has been approved for inclusion in the list of islands open for day visits by foreign tourists. The Restricted Area Permit (RAP) regime, under which foreign tourists had to obtain a permit from the competent authority, has been relaxed in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands from June 29, 2018. Foreign tourists now do not require a RAP to visit 29 islands in the Union Territory. Inclusion of Viper Island in the list of Islands to be opened for tourists was a long-pending demand. Viper Island houses the infamous gallows built by the British, in which many freedom fighters were hanged to death. It also had the first jail in Andaman Penal Settlement, which was abandoned when the Cellular Jail was constructed in 1906. By PTI BHOPAL: A local court Saturday recorded the statement of Congress leader Digvijay Singh in connection with his private complaint against Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Union minister Uma Bharti and five others in the Vyapam scam. The Vyapam scam refers to irregularities in exams held by the Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board, also called Vyavasayik Pareeksha Mandal or Vyapam, for admission in professional courses and state services. Singh deposed for over two hours before Judge Suresh Singh of the Special Court dealing with the cases related to MLAs and MPs. READ| Not a candidate for Chief Minister's post in Madhya Pradesh: Congress leader Digvijay Singh The former MP chief minister was assisted by senior lawyer and former Union minister Kapil Sibal, senior counsel and Congress leader Vivek Tankha, among other advocates. In his plea, Singh has sought criminal prosecution of Chouhan, Bharti and five others in the Vyapam scam. "Digvijay Singh has submitted the copy of a document connected with the Vyapam scam in which Chouhan's name figures 48 times," Sibal told reporters after the court appearance. He claimed that earlier the state Special Task Force (STF), and now the the CBI, are saving those involved in the scam, especially Chouhan. Tankha said that Singh submitted documents running into 27,000 pages to accompany his charges. Earlier, the STF had investigated the scam. In 2016, the Supreme Court had directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to investigate the Vyapam scam. The central agency had given Chouhan a clean chit in the case. Sibal Saturday alleged that Chouhan was the root of the scam. "With Digvijay Singh's private complaint, we are going to prove Chouhan's involvement in the scam," he said. By Express News Service ANANTAPUR: Following a sharp retort from the District Police Officers Association on Thursday to his adverse comments against them the other day during violence in Chinnapolamada, Anantapur MP JC Diwakar Reddy once again lashed out at the police. The MP lodged a complaint against District Police Officers Association general secretary and Kadiri CI Gorantla Madhav in Tadipatri police station on Friday night for his adverse comments against him. Diwakar Reddy handed over his complaint to Tadipatri Circle Inspector Surendranath Reddy, in the presence of DSP K Vijaya Kumar. Earlier, addressing a press conference in Anantapur, the MP hit out at Kadiri CI Madhav, who warned that they would not keep quiet any longer if anyone, be it an MP or an MLA of either ruling party or the opposition, makes adverse comments hurting the morale of the police. He even threatened to cut the tongues of those who disrespect and disparage the police force. Madhav, I dare you to come without your police uniform, I too will come after removing my Khadi shirt (dress of politicians). Be it your house in Kadiri or at the Clock Tower in Anantapur. Would you come or should I come? I am ready for whatever, Diwakar Reddy thundered in a manner, which reminded one of a scene and dialogues in a blockbuster Telugu movie. The MP, who looked emotional throughout the press conference, which lasted for nearly 40 minutes, minced no words in flaying the police officer for his comments against him and other politicians. Stating that he was ready for a showdown with the CI anywhere and at anytime, the TDP senior leader said he would be in Anantapur till September 25 and asked the police officer to decide the place for the confrontation. He reiterated that the police personnel had behaved in an irresponsible manner during violence in Chinnapolamada. When 100 to 150 people went on a rampage in the village, the police instead of preventing them, had fled the scene. I too fled. What should be such people, who ran away, called if not hijras? As I also ran away, I am also a hijra, he said and sought to know what was wrong in using the word, which is in vogue all across the State. The MP said if his word hurt the sentiments of anyone, he was ready to apologise. My intention in using the word was not to hurt anyone, but only to highlight the cowardice of police personnel, who fled the scene. If anyone proved that I was wrong, I would publicly prostrate before him, the MP said. Expressing his ire and dissatisfaction over the recent developments, the MP said he lived like a lion in his 45 years of political life and in another six months he would retire from active politics. At such a time, I was made to look like a hijra by the police officials, he said. Finding fault with the arrogant behaviour of CI Madhav, who twirled his moustache like Sai Kumar in Telugu movie Police Story during the press conference, Diwakar Reddy reminded him that it was real life and not a movie to spew such dialogues. He claimed that the very CI previously had made rounds of him. I would complain against him to the higher officials, he said, and dismissed the Police Officers Association as an illegal organisation. Diwakar Reddy reiterated his demand for removal of Prabodhananda Swamy ashram from the village. In the past, I too visited the ashram, but was shocked to find Prabodhananda describing himself as demon king Ravana and insulting other religious texts. The recent violence in Chinnapolamada, had proved his criminal background, the MP said and likened him to Dera Baba. The police would have to face peoples ire if no action was taken against Prabodhananda ashram, he said. By Express News Service BENGALURU: A day after Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy went ballistic at the BJP, accusing its leadership of trying to poach Congress and JD(S) MLAs by even using military force, the coalition partners held a brainstorming session to discuss strategies to save the government. Apprehending renewed efforts by the BJP to destabilise the government, with the Raj Bhavan playing a role, coordination committee chief Siddaramaiah and Kumaraswamy have decided to checkmate the BJP by employing all means that could now include a role for even the Assembly Speaker. Also Read | Ahead of Karnataka cabinet expansion, Congress assesses threats At an impromtu meeting with the CM at his residence here, Siddaramaiah conveyed that the coalition partners should be ready to give BJP a taste of its own medicine and simultaneously win the confidence of the legislators of the ruling combine instead of attempting to police them. Former CM Siddaramaiah seeing off Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy after a meeting at the formers residence in Bengaluru on Friday | EXPRESS The meeting was convened after state Congress leaders met AICC chief Rahul Gandhi earlier this week. With clear directions that their flock should be together, Fridays meeting was the first step towards setting the house in order, this time with more emphasis on JD(S) putting in more effort. KPCC chief Dinesh Gundu Rao, working president Eshwar Khandre, DyCM G Parameshwara and D K Shivakumar were also part of the meeting. Read | BJP knocks on Governor Vajubhai Valas door for action against Karnataka CM HD Kumaraswamy While the agenda of the meeting was to mark the beginning of better coordination between the two parties, sources suggested Siddaramaiah was straightforward in asking Kumaraswamy to put in more effort and work with Congress if he wants his government to run smoothly. Confident no MLA will leave Congress: Khandre Taking note of BJPs moves to hit the road to build public opinion against Kumaraswamys call for public rebellion against Yeddyurappa and threats to dig deep into the alleged corruption cases against Kumaraswamy, the coalition leaders reportedly deliberated on ways to expose the past shady deeds of BJP leaders.The need to take the attack against BJP to the masses was also stressed. BJPs move to seek Governor Vajubhai Valas intervention to prosecute Kumaraswamy over his call for rebellion, which BJP sees as an act of sedition, has been viewed seriously by the coalition partners and the response was swift. Losing no time, in a counter move, JD(S) approached Speaker Ramesh Kumar with a letter seeking immediate action to foil BJPs alleged moves to lure Congress and JD(S) MLAs with inducements and coercion. Read | JD(S) banks on Speaker Ramesh Kumar to foil BJP's alleged poaching attempts Siddaramaiah, during his interaction with Kumaraswamy, pointed out to lack of communication as the key issue bothering legislators. He has asked the CM to direct JD(S) ministers to be more accommodative of Congress MLAs and has assured the same from his partymen too. Discussions were held on how to thwart the BJPs attempts to destabilise the government. Development works in districts were also discussed. We are confident that not a single legislator will leave the party, no matter what he is being lured with, said Eshwar Khandre. There is no denying that issues with regard to works in districts are bothering legislators and it was taken up at the meeting. It was conveyed that the opinion of the MLAs concerned should be given priority. The CM has agreed that some district in-charge ministers who are not taking MLAs into confidence should be advised to take them along, said a source privy to the closed-door discussions. Read | No threat to governement, CM HD Kumaraswamy will inaugurate Dasara: Karnataka Minister GT Deve Gowda Kumaraswamy has been apprised that despite not having the numbers, BJP has been successful in creating an atmosphere of threat to the coalition government.Such an atmosphere is also affecting the bureaucracy and morale of ministers, said a Congress leader. By Express News Service THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Service organisations are an anxious lot as the last date for submitting the dissent note against the salary challenge launched by the government ends on Saturday. The UDF-affiliated NGO Association estimates at least 40 per cent will abstain from the forced collection by the government. Bency, office-bearer of the Secretariat Employees Association, said more than 1,000 members of their association have already submitted the dissent note. The Chief Ministers Office said it was yet to receive information on the number of dissent notes received. A final tally will be made by the Finance Department on Saturday evening, said M V Jayarajan, Chief Ministers private secretary. He said the last date will not be extended as the Finance Department needs sufficient time ahead of the salary bill preparation. The government had asked employees to contribute a months gross salary in full or instalments as part of mobilising funds for flood relief activities. The order stated a months salary should be calculated based on the gross salary of September and should be given in instalments of a maximum of 10 months. Meanwhile, Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala has again asked the government to withdraw from the forced and undemocratic collection. He alleged the government had not even spared government employees who were victims of the disaster. Though the government claims there is no forced collection, it is not true. Employees were even manhandled for saying no to the collection, he said.Chennithala alleged workers of LDF-affiliated organisations were coercing those who gave dissent notes to withdraw them. Dhinesh Kallungal By Express News Service THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Gods Own Country has regained its lost lustre after the August deluge. The readiness survey conducted by the Tourism Department found that 90 per cent of the tourist destinations in the state are fit to receive tourists. This has come as a ray of hope for hoteliers and tour operators, who were severely affected by the deluge. Tourism secretary Rani George told Express that the department has carried out readiness survey in 70 popular destinations in the state in the aftermath of the flood. The survey found that out of the 70 destinations, as many as 60 spots are fit to receive tourists. Nelliampathy, Parambikulam, Silent Valley National Park, and Vazhachal are the popular destinations which are yet to be opened. Connectivity to Gavi from Vandiperiyar is yet to be restored while the tourists can access the spot from Pathanamthitta. Aranmula in Pathnamthitta, where the famed Aranmula Kannadi (metal mirror) is manufactured, is also yet to ready itself for receiving the tourists, she said. Similarly, there are some connectivity issues to Meenmutty and Kanthanpara waterfalls in Wayanad. But these destinations are not popular with the foreign and north Indian tourists. The visitors will not be allowed to enter Kuruva Islands on the Kabani River in Wayanad. But this has nothing to do with the flood. The entry to the islands will usually be banned in every monsoon season and will be opened for tourists by October. It will take around one month to open the Paliam palace, designated as a museum under the Muziris Heritage project, in Ernakulam, for the tourists. Though the tourist entry to Vazhachal is banned, Athirappilly waterfalls is open to tourist in Thrissur. However, the tourists will not be allowed to go under the overhanging rocks where the waterfalls cascades down in all its majesty. Rest of the 60 popular destination in the state are ready to receive the tourists, added Rani George. Around 1,000 hotels, restaurants, and home-stays in the flood-affected areas were subjected to the survey and only 10 of them require any major renovation. The department is expecting to restore the affected destinations and commercial buildings in a month or two. Further, the department is gearing up to conduct major social media and online campaigns to spread the message that the tourism sector has regained its composure in record time, she said. By Express News Service THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Unesco will start an assessment of the damage caused by floods at educational institutions from Sunday, said Unesco New Delhi programme officer Huma Masood. Speaking to Express, Huma said she will meet the secretaries of various government departments as part of gathering information about the post-flood situation. We are now at the planning phase. Discussions are on with various people. We are taking feedback from key people. We will visit various institutions in Alappuzha, Ernakulam, Wayanad, Pathanamthitta and other affected places from Sunday. After the visit, we will recommend to the government on what needs to be done. A report will be submitted at the end of this month, said Huma. On Friday, Huma and Raghat, a delegate from Unesco Institute for Lifelong Learning, Germany, called on Kerala State Literacy Mission director P S Sreekala as part of assessing the situation. We need to build a better state. So, it is our responsibility to understand the situation. We will primarily assess the damage of social elements integrated with the education system. We need to bridge the gap between the older and newer generations so as to get tips from the older ones. This will help to recover from the disaster, added Huma. In the meeting with Sreekala, the Unesco team praised the functioning of the literacy mission. However, they were concerned about the widespread damage in the state. In Wayanad, 13 tribal hamlets where literacy classes were being held have been damaged severely. Hence, the team will mobilise funds to compensate for the losses. By PTI KOTTAYAM: Bishop Franco Mulakkal, arrested by the police over allegations of repeatedly raping and sexually assaulting a nun, has been admitted to a government hospital here after he complained of chest pain, official sources said Friday night. He complained of chest pain when he was being taken to Kottayam Police club from the Crime Branch office in Thrippunithura in Ernakulam district Friday night, they said. The vehicle carrying the Bishop was directed to the Medical College Hospital when it reached Ettumanoor at around 11 pm after the Bishop complained of chest pain, sources said. He is under the observation in the cardiology section of the college after his blood pressure shot up, they said. Sources said his ECG and other cardiac-related tests are being performed at the hospital. Earlier, Mulakkal's medical check up was done at the Government Taluk Hospital in Thrippunithura Friday night, immediately after his arrest. In her complaint to the Kottayam police in June, the nun had alleged that Bishop Mulakkal raped her at a guest house in Kuravilangad in May 2014 and later sexually exploited her on several occasions. She said she had to approach the police as the church authorities did not act on her repeated complaints against the clergyman. Anuja Susan Varghese By Express News Service KOCHI: A combination of dogged determination and indomitable will encapsulates the fortnight-long protest launched by five nuns here which successfully culminated in the arrest of Bishop Franco Mulakkal. Since no political party was willing to back them, the protesting nuns had to rely solely on the civil societys support to expose the injustice meted out to them. Besides braving the mind game, they had to travel a gruelling 100 km every day in bumper-to-bumper traffic - from their abode at St Francis Mission Home, Kuravilangad to the protest venue at the High Court Junction here. This was easier said than done- the nuns had to get ready at the crack of dawn and embark on the return journey at dusk. The daily grind drained them physically. Compounding their woes, they had to endure open hostility from fellow inmates of the convent. Further, they were accused of denigrating the Church. It was the unstinted support extended by the civil society which resulted in the truth prevailing ultimately. Also Read: Protest to continue until justice is served Police taking Bishop Franco Mulakkal to the hospital for medical examination after recording his arrest on Friday night. A police team led by Kottayam SP Hari Sankar has been questioning the bishop for the past three days at the Crime Branch SP Office in Tripunithura. (Photo | A Sanesh/ EPS) The Famous Five Sr Anupama, 30, was serving at St Vianna Convent, Gurudaspur from where she was shifted to St Francis Mission Home, Kuravilangad on April 1, 2018. On her return to Kerala, she was given the charge of the hostel and was working at an old age home run by the Convent at Kuravilangad.Sr Alfi, 36, was working as a teacher at St Joseph Convent School, Bihar before arriving at the convent in Kuravilangad on April 6. She worked at St Josephs Convent, Bihar and before that, worked for four years as a librarian at St Assisi Convent, Jalandhar. Sr Josephine, 42, had been working at St Thomas School, Bihar as a teacher for four years. On April 6 she arrived at the convent in Kuravilangad. Earlier she worked as a teacher at Assisi Bhavan Trinity College, Punjab for eight years. Sr Ancita, 35, was attached to the St Francis Mission Home at Kuravilangad for the past three years. Earlier she worked as a teacher at St Thomas Convent School in Bihar for a year.Sr Neena Rose, 30, was staying the convent in Kuravilangad for three years. She was working at the old age home run by the convent and where Sr Anupama joined recently. They were the first to stage a protest against Franco, which later attracted many people to join them. Sitting here and watching people from different parts of the state coming and offering support gave us hope and confidence. We returned to our convent every evening with this confidence. With the confirmation of the arrest, we will be ending our protest at the venue but we still have a long way to go, said Sr Anupama. It has been draining physically, mentally and emotionally. We had two options - to ignore the victims trauma and bear the pain or to stand shoulder to shoulder with her and fight for justice. We felt it was our duty to fight for the rights of nuns who have been restrained in the name of the vow of obedience. The support of the civil society has given us the much-needed willpower. We are no longer afraid of the consequences of the protest. The future may be bleak, but our struggle for justice will indeed pay off, said Sr Alfi. Also Read: Kerala nun rape case: Investigation teams next move is to establish crime By Express News Service KOCHI: After 14 days of endurance and anxiety, an air of triumph and elation prevailed as the five nuns arrived at Vanchi Square, the protest venue near High Court Junction in Kochi on Saturday morning, to thank the civil society for its support. Activists and leaders of NGOs greeted the nuns with slogans as they climbed on to the stage where they spent 14 days demanding the arrest of Bishop Franco. The nuns could not hold back their tears as they recounted their stress and agony while deciding to take to the streets demanding justice. There was much pressure on us and we didnt know what will be the outcome. But people across the state came to our support. Even the investigating officers were under tremendous pressure. People came forward to observe hunger protest on behalf of us ignoring their health, said Sr Anupama. She also offered thanks to the civil society on behalf of the victim. Our sister (the victim) had submitted herself at the feet of the Holy Father. She spent her days praying to the God. She has conveyed the message that it was Gods grace and your support that delivered justice to her. Our agitation was for the hundreds of nuns who silently bear their sufferings. It was painful to hear the members of some congregations declare that they will go to the prison with the bishop. Our prayers are with them. No nun or woman should be forced to stage a protest like this for justice, she said. The sister of the victim, who is also a nun, broke into tears as she thanked the civil society for support. It is the prayer of my parents, who are there in the heaven, and your support that delivered justice to my sister, she said. Sr Josephine said people from all walks of life, rose above caste, creed, colour and religion in support of the nuns. Our victory has proved that virtue, righteousness and social awareness thrive in our society despite odds. Our sister has been suffering, unable to share her ordeal with anyone for the past four years. Her tears have paid off. At times we feared the agitation will fail and contemplated suicide. But the invisible hands of the God supported us, she said. Arrest shows bold policy of LDF The arrest of Franco Mulakkal was the result of the independent and bold police policy adopted by the LDF government in the state, said CPM state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan. The police action has once again underscored the point that natural justice of women and children in sexual assault will not be denied at any circumstances during the LDF regime, he said in a statement here on Saturday. Since the case dated back to four years ago, the police had to execute its responsibility after taking all legal precautions. The LDF government has given full freedom to the police and the arrest of bishop was the result of the free and fair probe conducted by the police, he said. Government stance correct in bishop arrest The governments stance is correct with regard to the arrest of Bishop Franco, said Industries Minister E P Jayarajan. Jayarajan told reporters on Saturday that the government is with the agitating nuns. It has made it clear that it stands with the victim, he said. The government will not take a stance to let anyone who is guilty escape from the hands of law. The arrest was made only after ensuring all the evidences are collected. Kodiyeri was trying to say that all situations should be taken into consideration while arresting a person as there is a possibility of misuse. He is not a person who speaks nonsense, he said. By Associated Press BERLIN: An arrowhead firmly lodged in the skull of an ancient fallen warrior, a voluptuous woman's form carved from ivory and the mask of a Roman river god are among more than 1,000 major archaeological discoveries being brought together for the first time. The exhibition opening Friday at Berlin's Gropius Bau museum reveals how war, art and migration have left their mark in Germany since the Stone Age. The show spans more than 300,000 years, starting with a sleek wooden spear used by one of the pre-human species that once roamed the continent long before homo sapiens arrived. Neanderthal hand axes show how our ancient cousins fled the approaching ice age southward the first tangible evidence of climate refugees while the ivory "Venus of Hohle Fels" and similar etchings on slate dated to between 40,000 and 35,000 B.C. attest to early Europeans' fascination with the female form, pursued by artists ever since. "The basis of Europe's common cultural heritage can be found going back thousands of years," said Christina Haak, deputy head of the Berlin State Museums that helped bring the objects together from museums across Germany. Venus von Hohle Fels, an ivory figurine dating back to between 40,000 and 35,000 BC, displayed at the Martin-Gropius-Bau museum in Berlin, Thursday, Sept. 20, 2018. | AP Often, the exact nature of the objects is unclear: The Nebra sky disk, a plate-size object of gold and bronze, depicting the sun, moon phases and the Pleiades star cluster, is considered one of the first astronomical depictions in history but may also have had religious significance. Dated to around 1600 B.C., the disk is only a few hundred years older than three spectacular hats made from sheet gold first believed to have been worn by early Celtic priests, but which may also have served as primitive calendars. Many of the artifacts in the exhibition, which runs until Jan. 6, show how strongly progress was linked to the movement of people, goods and ideas into and across Europe. "Migration is not the mother of all problems. It is the beginning of all innovation," said Matthias Wemhoff, director of Berlin's Museum of Prehistory and Early History. Wemhoff cited the wealth of objects found during the recent construction of a new subway line in Cologne, where artifacts from all over the Roman Empire prove the city was an early melting pot of cultures. Alongside the river god's stony face was the perfectly preserved gravestone of a trader by the name of Sextus Haparonius Iustinus, who sold cosmetics and perfumes long before the city became known for its Eau de Cologne. In this Sept. 20, 2018 photo the so-called Sky Disc of Nebra, made of bronze and gold, from 1,600 BC. is displayed at an archeological exhibition at the Martin-Gropius-Bau museum in Berlin. | AP Germanic smiths copied Roman helmets and later designed their own weaponry, including the Ulfberht swords that became prized by warriors throughout Europe in the Middle Ages. Fashions came and went, including the habit of binding babies' skulls so they grew conical heads a practice documented in what is now Bavaria and the Crimean Peninsula around A.D. 500. Likewise, the search for elusive formulas for turning mundane materials into gold, represented by the remains of an alchemist's workshop from the 16th century, hasn't survived, though the thirst for knowledge and profit lives on in Germany's high-tech industries. Some of the objects on display, all of which were found in the past two decades in what is now Germany, are still shrouded in mystery. The skull with the arrowhead is part of a massive trove of bones and weapons that archaeologists believe could be the earliest known remains from a large-scale battle in human history. While another ancient military confrontation the Battle of Kadesh in 1274 B.C. that pitted the Egyptian and Hittite armies against each other in what is now Syria has been well documented, no physical evidence of it has yet been found. About 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers) away in the Tollense valley on the frigid plains of northern Germany, thousands of Bronze Age warriors were also going to battle at almost the same time. So far, nobody knows why, or who they were. By AFP PHNOM PENH: An Australian filmmaker who received a royal pardon from Cambodia will be deported Saturday, immigration officials said, a day after he was released from a six-year sentence in a case Human Rights Watch has called "a ludicrous charade". James Ricketson, 69, was given jail time three weeks ago for "espionage and collecting harmful information that could affect national defence" by a Phnom Penh court. He was then issued a royal pardon on Friday, after strongman premier Hun Sen requested it from the Cambodian king. "We will deport him today," Keo Vanthan, spokesman for the immigration department, told AFP. "We are looking for a flight for him." Ricketson's lawyer Kong Sam Onn confirmed this, adding that the Australian's visa to stay in Cambodia had expired. James Ricketson. (Photo | AFP) The embattled filmmaker had been in prison since last June, after footage emerged of him using a drone to film a rally of the now-defunct opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP). His six-day trial -- which rights groups have slammed as a farce -- showed him to be defiant and combative, and featured a surprise appearance by Hollywood director Peter Weir who served as a character witness for his friend. The prosecution accused Ricketson of working as a filmmaker in Cambodia as a front for spying activities, but the verdict failed to name which country he was allegedly spying for. His truncated prison term came after a series of activists and opposition lawmakers were freed in the weeks following July's national election, which critics have said was neither free nor fair. The CNRP, which had served as the sole legitimate opposition force to Hun Sen's ruling Cambodian People's Party, was dissolved in the lead-up to the controversial poll, clearing the path for the CPP to take all 125 parliament seats. Australian filmmaker James Ricketson, right, is helped off a prisoner truck upon his arrival at Phnom Penh Municipal Court in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Cambodia has pardoned Ricketson Friday, Sept. 21, 2018, after being sentenced last month to six years in jail on an espionage charge in a trial that was widely criticized as unfair. (Photo | AP) This effectively rendered Cambodia a one-party state, which the international community has decried as a death knell to democracy. After the poll Hun Sen -- who has been in power for more than three decades -- returned to a pattern of easing up on dissent. Ricketson's pardon comes just days before Hun Sen is scheduled to travel to New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly. By IANS BEIJING: China has scrapped the trade talks with the US due next week by deciding not to send its Vice Premier Liu He for the negotiations, the Wall Street Journal reported. The newspaper cited sources saying China was also not sending a mid-level delegation to the US ahead of Liu's planned visit. The Chinese government has not made any announcement yet. China's move is bound to ratchet up its tensions with the US. Beijing and Washington are locked in a festering trade war with both sides hitting each other's goods with tariffs worth billions. Earlier this week, the US slapped an additional 10 per cent import duties on $200 billion worth of Chinese products, warning Beijing of fresh taxes on another $267 billion in Chinese imports. The latest tariffs and the threat didn't deter Beijing from launching retaliatory tariffs on American goods worth $60 billion. Earlier, both sides had slapped additional tariffs of worth $50 billion on each other's products. By IANS SAN FRANSISCO: In its bid to suppress a memo revealing information about a plan to launch a censored search engine in China, Google has sent an email to employees asking them to delete the sensitive document, The Intercept reported. Authored by a Google engineer familiar with the project, the memo disclosed that the search system would require users in China to log in to perform searches. Codenamed Dragonfly, the search engine would track the location of users and share the data with a Chinese partner who would have "unilateral access" to the data, said the report on Friday, citing the memo. The news about Google's plan to build a censored search engine in China broke in August when The Intercept reported that the search platform would blacklist "sensitive queries" about topics including politics, free speech, democracy, human rights and peaceful protest, triggering internal protests among some Google employees. ALSO READ | Google still allowing third-party apps to read your Gmail: Report Two weeks after that report, Google CEO Sundar Pichai told the company's employees that the China plan was in its "early stages" and "exploratory". A group of Google employees who were organising internal protests over the censored search system got access to the memo detailing information about the project. The Google leadership, according to the The Intercept report, were furious when they discovered that the memo was being passed among employees who were not supposed to know about about the Dragonfly project. The China search engine would link users' search history to their personal phone numbers, according to the memo. This means if security agencies were to obtain the search records from Google, individual people could easily be tracked and users seeking out information banned by the government could potentially be at risk of interrogation or detention. By PTI ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi Friday expressed disappointment at India calling off a meeting between him and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in New York and alleged that "internal pressure" forced New Delhi to make the "unfortunate" move. ALSO READ: J-K cops' murder fallout: India calls off meeting with Pakistan India cited the "brutal" killing of three policemen in Jammu and Kashmir as well as the release of postal stamps "glorifying" Kashmiri militant Burhan Wani for cancelling the meeting between Swaraj and Qureshi on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York this month. Qureshi expressed disappointment at the cancellation of the foreign minister-level talks, saying it was "unfortunate." "It is unfortunate that India has not given a positive response. Indian has once again wasted an opportunity for peace," Qureshi told the media here. He said that it was important to sit and talk for the sake of peace and stability in the region. "The refusal of India shows that Indian government is facing internal pressure," he said. ALSO READ: Militants kill three abducted policemen in Jammu & Kashmir "It seems that India is already preparing for its elections due in the country next year," Qureshi was quoted as saying by the Express Tribune. He said Pakistan sincerely wants a resolution of all outstanding issues, including Kashmir, with India through negotiations. Pakistan has always extended an olive branch to India for the resolution of problems and enhancing bilateral ties in an amicable manner, but New Delhi does not come out of its "internal politics", state-run Radio Pakistan quoted him as saying. The minister said Pakistan can only wish India to come to the negotiating table, but "we can neither pressurise anybody nor will accept the same for this purpose." Qureshi said the world wants connectivity and promote regional trade, but India is creating problems. ALSO READ: Will take up 'barbaric' the killing of BSF jawan with Pakistan in 'appropriate manner': India He said India's "stubbornness" is also adversely affecting future of the SAARC countries, the Radio Pakistan report said. But, Qureshi reiterated that dialogue is the only way to come to the resolution of any issue. "We said that we want dialogue - but in a dignified manner," he added. Meanwhile, the Foreign Office (FO) in a statement remarked that the reasons cited by India for calling off the talks "within 24 hours of its public confirmation are entirely unconvincing". "The so-called 'disturbing developments' alluded to in the Indian statement predated the Indian agreement to hold the bilateral meeting in New York," FO spokesman Dr Mohammad Faisal said in the statement. He said the alleged killing of a BSF soldier took place two days prior to the Indian announcement of its agreement to hold the bilateral meeting. And when the allegations of Pakistan's involvement first appeared, Pakistani rangers clearly conveyed to BSF through official channels that the country had nothing to do with it. He said Pakistani Rangers also extended help in efforts to locate the soldier's body. These facts were known to the Indian authorities and yet "this motivated and malicious propaganda continued". "Pakistan categorically reject these allegations. Our authorities would be prepared to conduct a joint investigation to establish the truth," Faisal said. On the issue of the postage stamps, he said they were issued before the July 25 elections and before Prime Minister Imran Khan assumed office. Faisal said that most unfortunate part of Indian statement is the reference to the person of the Prime Minister of Pakistan. "We choose not to further comment beyond saying that these comments are against all norms of civilised discourse and diplomatic communication," he said. "We believe by its ill-considered cancellation of the meeting, India has once again wasted a serious opportunity to change the dynamics of the bilateral relationship and put the region on the path of peace and development," he added. Announcing the cancellation of the New York meeting, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said in New Delhi that the incidents "exposed" the "true face" of Pakistan's new Prime Minister Imran Khan to the world as well as Islamabad's evil agenda behind the proposal for talks. "The latest brutal killings of our security personnel by Pakistan-based entities and the recent release of a series of 20 postage stamps by Pakistan glorifying a terrorist and terrorism confirm that Pakistan will not mend its ways," Kumar said. He noted that "two deeply disturbing developments have taken place" since yesterday's announcement of a meeting between the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan in New York later this month. "In view of the changed situation, there will be no meeting between the Foreign Ministers of India and Pakistan in New York," he said. Kumar said talks with Pakistan in such an environment would be "meaningless". Former High Commissioner to India, Abdul Basit said he was surprised by India's move as New Delhi should not have agreed for it in the first place due to forthcoming elections but after agreeing for a meeting it was more surprising that it backed out. The former advisor on foreign affairs Sartaj Aziz said that it was "unfortunate" that India cancelled the meeting as it would have created an environment for peace. Former foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri said the cancellation reminded him of the Agra summit when everything was ready for a joint statement but India backed out at the last minute. By AFP BEIRUT: The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a deadly shooting at a military parade in southwestern Iran on Saturday, its propaganda agency Amaq said. Citing a security source, Amaq said: "Islamic State fighters attacked a gathering of Iranian forces in the city of Ahvaz in southern Iran". The statement was posted on Amaq accounts on messaging application Telegram. At least 24 people were killed in the attack, including a young girl as well as troops, Iran's state media reported. Three of the attackers died at the scene while a fourth was arrested and later succumbed to his wounds, armed forces spokesman Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi said. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said earlier he held a US ally in the region responsible. "Terrorists recruited, trained, armed & paid by a foreign regime have attacked Ahvaz," Zarif said in a tweet, adding: "Iran holds regional terror sponsors and their US masters accountable for such attacks". Ahvaz lies in Khuzestan, a province bordering Iraq that has a large ethnic Arab community and has seen separatist violence in the past, which Iran has blamed on its regional rivals. By AFP ISLAMABAD: India's decision to cancel rare talks with Islamabad was disappointing and "arrogant", Imran Khan said Saturday, one day after New Delhi accused Pakistan's prime minister of harbouring an "evil agenda". India pulled the plug on a meeting between its foreign minister and her Pakistani counterpart set for next week on the sidelines of a major UN conference, just one day after saying it would go ahead. The foreign ministry in New Delhi blamed the about-face on recent actions that had revealed Pakistan's "evil agenda" and the "true face" of Khan, who hit back on Twitter Saturday. ALSO READ: Cancellation of India-Pak talks bad news for Jammu and Kashmir: Mehbooba Mufti "Disappointed at the arrogant & negative response by India to my call for resumption of the peace dialogue," he wrote. Disappointed at the arrogant & negative response by India to my call for resumption of the peace dialogue. However, all my life I have come across small men occupying big offices who do not have the vision to see the larger picture. Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) September 22, 2018 "However, all my life I have come across small men occupying big offices who do not have the vision to see the larger picture." New Delhi said it cancelled the talks after the "latest brutal killings of our security personnel by Pakistan-based entities" and the recent release of a series of Pakistani postage stamps "glorifying a terrorist (Burhan Wani) and terrorism". India did not specify which killings it was referring to in its statement, but earlier this week, an Indian border guard in the disputed territory of Kashmir was killed and his body mutilated. Three policemen were then found dead on Friday after being abducted in Indian-administered Kashmir. ALSO READ: India calling off foreign minister-level meeting in New York unfortunate: Pakistan Foreign Minister Qureshi Pakistan also recently issued postage stamps of Burhan Wani, a charismatic Kashmiri militant commander killed by Indian troops in July 2016, whose death sparked a wave of violent protests in the territory. India has long accused Pakistan of arming rebel groups in Kashmir, a Himalayan territory divided between the two countries but claimed in full by both. In a statement from its foreign office, Pakistan said Friday it had "nothing to do with" the deaths, accusing India of spreading "motivated and malicious propaganda". The meeting in New York between Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj and Pakistan's Shah Mehmood Qureshi -- on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly debate -- was only confirmed on Thursday. It came after Khan wrote to his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi calling for a resumption of talks between the nuclear-armed foes. High-level talks between India and Pakistan are rare. Indian media described the meeting would have been the first in nearly three years. By AFP VILNIUS: Pope Francis kicks off a Baltic tour in Catholic Lithuania on Saturday where he will honour victims of the region's Nazi and Soviet occupations as the Church reels from fresh clerical abuse scandals. The four-day trip to the northeastern edge of the European Union and NATO alliance brings him geographically close to Russia, where Vatican diplomats have been trying for years to arrange a papal visit. The pontiff will also visit mainly Protestant Latvia on Monday and secular Estonia on Tuesday as all three Baltic states mark 100 years of independence this year. ALSO READ | Pope Francis calls senior bishops for 'child protection' meeting in February But the celebrations risk being overshadowed by a fresh wave of devastating claims of sexual abuse by clergy across the globe. Allegations of abuse Scandals in Australia, Europe, and North and South America have involved widespread claims of abuse -- and cover-ups -- by clergymen and lay members with one archbishop describing it as the church's "own 9/11". Pope Francis has called for a meeting of the heads of Catholic bishops' conferences at the Vatican next February to discuss the issue of the "protection of minors". However, the pontiff has kept a stony silence regarding claims he had ignored allegations of abuse that were reported to him. Pope Francis kisses a baby as he arrives for his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2018. (Photo | AP) U2 frontman Bono said he could see the pain on Francis's face after a Wednesday meeting when he told the pope that "it looks to some people that the abusers are being more protected than the victims". Church authorities in Germany are expected to officially publish a study detailing decades of child sex abuse by priests as Francis winds down his trip on Tuesday. According to the study, 1,670 clergymen in Germany committed some form of sexual attack against 3,677 minors between 1946 and 2014, Spiegel Online reported earlier this month quoting leaked data. Sacrifices, freedom Francis will meet President Dalia Grybauskaite in Vilnius on Saturday before addressing youth and visiting a revered icon. His trip will follow in the footsteps of late Polish-born pontiff Saint John Paul II, who travelled to all three Baltic states in 1993, just two years after they broke free from the crumbling Soviet Union. The trio have since firmly anchored their sovereignty in alliances with the West by joining both NATO and the EU in 2004. ALSO READ | McCarrick sexual abuse case: Pope Francis laments abuse in Vatican appearance While that led to solid economic growth, it also brought social inequality that triggered mass emigration to western Europe -- a troubling trend for states with populations ranging from 1.3 to 2.9 million. The last century of Baltic state history was marked by the Nazi invasion -- which wiped out almost all of the region's Jews -- and then decades of Soviet occupation during the Cold War. Behind the Iron Curtain, the Catholic Church played a key role in the non-violent anti-Soviet resistance, especially in Lithuania, the only Catholic-majority country of the three. "The Church was a fortress for all dissidents, not only Catholics. It strongly resisted Sovietisation and defended the rights of believers," historian Terese Birute Burauskaite told AFP. As a result, it was persecuted with both priests and bishops killed by the authorities. Vilnius estimates that more than 50,000 Lithuanians died in camps, prisons, and during deportations between 1944 and 1953. Another 20,000 partisans and supporters were killed in anti-Soviet guerilla warfare. ALSO READ | Pope Francis refuses to comment on claim he personally ignored archbishop sexual abuse "I will honour all those whose past sacrifices have made freedom possible in the present," the pontiff said in a Thursday video message addressed to the people of the Baltic states. Francis will visit a museum in the former KGB building in Vilnius where regime opponents were tortured and killed. He will also honour Holocaust victims at the ghetto memorial in Vilnius, known as the "Jerusalem of the North" for its vibrant Jewish community prior to WWII. Around 200,000 Lithuanian Jews died at the hands of the Nazis and local collaborators under the 1941-44 German occupation. Today there are only around 3,000 Jews left in the country of 2.9 million people. By AFP NAIROBI: The death toll after a ferry capsized in Lake Victoria has risen to 151, state-run TV station TBC said Saturday as rescue workers pressed on with the search to find scores more people feared drowned. "Operations resumed early this morning," TBC said. Late Friday, the toll had stood at 131, with 40 people known to have survived after the MV Nyerere capsized close to the pier on Ukara Island on Thursday. The vessel may have been carrying as many as 200 passengers -- double the ferry's capacity -- according to reports on state media. Tanzanian President John Magufuli on Friday ordered the arrest of the management of the ferry. Witnesses reached by AFP said the ferry sank when passengers rushed to one side to disembark as it approached the dock. Rescuers retrieve a body from the water near Ukara Island in Lake Victoria, Tanzania Friday, Sept. 21, 2018. The death toll rose above 100 after the passenger ferry MV Nyerere capsized on Lake Victoria, Tanzania state radio reported Friday, while a second day of rescue efforts raced the setting sun. (Photo | AP) In a speech broadcast on TBC 1 public television, Magufuli said "it appears clear that the ferry was overloaded", adding that "negligence has cost us so many lives... children, mothers, students, old people". "I ordered the arrest of all those involved in the management of the ferry. The arrests have already begun," he added. The president declared four days of national mourning and said the government would cover the funeral expenses of the victims. Hopes are fading that more survivors might still be found. State television cited witnesses reporting that more than 200 people had boarded the ferry at Bugolora, a town on the larger Ukerewe Island, where it was market day when locals said the vessel was usually packed with people and goods. "I have not heard from either my father or my younger brother who were on the ferry. They had gone to the market in Bugolora to buy a school uniform and other supplies for the new school term," said Domina Maua, who was among those seeking information about loved ones. Davita Ngenda, an elderly woman in Ukara, had already received bad news. Rescuers retrieve a body from the water near Ukara Island in Lake Victoria, Tanzania Friday, Sept. 21, 2018. The death toll rose above 100 after the passenger ferry MV Nyerere capsized on Lake Victoria, Tanzania state radio reported Friday, while a second day of rescue efforts raced the setting sun. (Photo | AP) "My son is among the bodies recovered," she said, weeping. "He had gone with his wife but she has not been found yet. My God, what did I do to deserve this?" Sebastian John, a teacher, said such tragedies had become part of life for those living on the lake. "Since my birth, people have gone to their deaths on this lake, but what are we to do? We did not choose to be born here, we have nowhere to go," he said. Overloading and negligence Tanzania's Electrical, Mechanical and Services Agency, which is responsible for ferry services, said it was unknown how many passengers were aboard the MV Nyerere. The ageing ferry, whose hull and propellers were all that remained visible after it overturned, was also carrying cargo, including sacks of maize, bananas and cement, when it capsized around 50 metres (55 yards) from Ukara dock. The cause of the accident was not immediately clear, but overloading is frequently to blame for such incidents. This photo released by the Tanzania Red Cross shows Red Cross volunteers engaged in rescue efforts on and around Ukara Island in Lake Victoria, Tanzania Friday, Sept. 21, 2018. The death toll rose above 100 on Friday after the passenger ferry MV Nyerere capsized and sank on Thursday in Lake Victoria, Tanzania state radio reported. (Photo | AP) The country's opposition has accused the government of "negligence". "We have often raised concerns about the poor condition of this ferry, but the government turned a deaf ear. We have repeatedly denounced this negligence," said John Mnyika, deputy secretary general of Chadema, the main opposition party. Mnyika said overloading was "another failure of the authorities" and criticised "inadequate relief efforts as well as delays" in the rescue operation. Russian President Vladimir Putin and the leaders of Uganda and Kenya offered their condolences, while Pope Francis in a statement expressed "the greatest solidarity with those who have been bereaved" by the disaster. With a surface area of 70,000 square kilometres (27,000 square miles), oval-shaped Lake Victoria is roughly the size of Ireland and is shared by Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya. Capsizes are not uncommon in the massive lake, and the number of fatalities is often high due to a shortage of life jackets and the fact that many people in the region cannot swim. The deadliest such accident in recent decades was in May 1996, when around 800 people died after their ferry sank on the way to Mwanza in Tanzania. The judgment of British newspapers was brutal. The broadly pro-EU Guardian said May had been "humiliated." The conservative Times of London said: "Humiliation for May as EU rejects Brexit plan." The Brexit-supporting tabloid Sun branded bloc leaders "EU dirty rats," accusing "Euro mobsters" Tusk and Macron of "ambushing" May. May's Downing St. office said the prime minister would make a televised statement on the Brexit talks on Friday afternoon. There was no indication of what she planned to say. The rocky summit dashed British hopes of a breakthrough in stalled divorce talks, with just six months to go until Britain leaves the bloc on March 29. Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab accused the EU of rejecting Britain's proposals without offering "credible alternatives" and said the bloc had "yanked up the handbrake" on negotiations. "For the negotiations to go forward they're going to have to take their hand off the handbrake," he said. A rattled May insisted her plan was the only one on the table -- and that Britain was prepared to walk away from the EU without a deal if it was rejected. The rebuff sparked British headlines saying May had been "humiliated," and a strong response from the U.K. government. European Council President Donald Tusk said bluntly at a meeting in Salzburg, Austria on Thursday that parts of May's plan simply "will not work," while French President Emmanuel Macron called pro-Brexit U.K. politicians "liars" who had misled the country about the costs of leaving the 28-nation bloc. The British government on Friday accused the European Union of slamming the handbrake on Brexit negotiations, after the bloc said Prime Minister Theresa May's blueprint was unworkable. Despite all the heated British rhetoric, the EU's position is not new. May's "Chequers plan" -- named for the prime minister's country retreat where it was hammered out in July -- aims to keep the U.K. in the EU single market for goods, but not services, in order to ensure free trade with the bloc and an open border between the U.K.'s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland. EU officials have been cool on the plan from the start, saying Britain can't "cherry-pick" elements of membership in the bloc without accepting all the costs and responsibilities. Yet British politicians and diplomats were taken aback by Tusk's blunt dismissal of the Chequers plan on Thursday -- and by his light-hearted Instagram post showing Tusk and May looking at a dessert tray and the words: "A piece of cake, perhaps? Sorry, no cherries." Anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller said British officials shouldn't have been surprised. Miller said the EU had "made it very clear where they stand and the U.K. has been so focused on its own infighting that they actually have not been listening." "How can [May] have been so badly advised? It stinks of incompetence, the whole thing, when the moment of reality is only four weeks away," Miller told the BBC. Tusk said Thursday that an EU summit on Oct. 18 and 19 would be the moment of truth, when an agreement on divorce terms and the outlines of future trade would be sealed, or would fail. The biggest single obstacle to a deal is the need to maintain an open Irish border. Failing to do so could disrupt the lives of people and business on both sides, and undermine Northern Ireland's hard-won peace. Britain and the EU have agreed on the need for a legally binding backstop to guarantee there is no return to customs posts and other border checks. But Britain rejects the EU's proposed solution, which would keep Northern Ireland inside the bloc's customs union while the rest of the U.K. leaves. May said that would "divide the United Kingdom into two customs territories." She said Britain "will be bringing forward our own proposals shortly" about how to break the impasse. Dealing with the EU is only part of May's problem. Her Chequers plan also faces opposition from pro-Brexit members of her own Conservative Party, including former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who say it would keep Britain tethered to the bloc, unable to strike new trade deals around the world. The Salzburg summit has given them new energy. When the Conservatives meet for their annual conference on Sept. 30, they plan to push for May to ditch the Chequers plan, or face a challenge to her leadership. Pro-EU politicians don't like the Chequers plan either, saying it will cut the U.K.'s vast services sector out of the single market. Conservative lawmaker Stephen Crabb said May -- assailed from all sides -- should keep her nerve. "The first rule is, don't panic," he told the BBC. "One of the outcomes the EU leaders wanted from yesterday was for Britain to go away, push the panic button and re-think, but the prime minister needs to stick to her guns." By AFP NAIROBI: Tanzanian President John Magufuli on Friday ordered the arrest of the management of a ferry that capsized in Lake Victoria, as the death toll climbed to 131 and rescue workers pressed on with the search to find scores more people feared drowned. The MV Nyerere may have been carrying as many as 200 passengers -- double the ferry's capacity -- when it capsized close to the pier on Ukara Island on Thursday, according to reports on state media. Witnesses reached by AFP said the ferry sank when passengers rushed to one side to disembark as it approached the dock. In a speech broadcast on TBC 1 public television, Magufuli said "it appears clear that the ferry was overloaded", adding that "negligence has cost us so many lives... children, mothers, students, old people". Rescuers retrieve a body from the water near Ukara Island in Lake Victoria, Tanzania Friday, Sept. 21, 2018. The death toll rose above 100 after the passenger ferry MV Nyerere capsized on Lake Victoria, Tanzania state radio reported Friday, while a second day of rescue efforts raced the setting sun. (Photo | AP) "I ordered the arrest of all those involved in the management of the ferry. The arrests have already begun," he added. The president declared four days of national mourning while saying at least 131 people had died, updating an earlier death toll of 126. Magufuli also announced the government would cover the funeral expenses of the victims. Mwanza governor John Mongella had earlier said the number of survivors was 40, but it was unclear whether any new survivors had been found since rescue operations resumed with police and army divers on Friday morning. The upturned passenger ferry MV Nyerere floats in the water near Ukara Island in Lake Victoria, Tanzania Friday, Sept. 21, 2018. The death toll rose above 100 after the passenger ferry MV Nyerere capsized on Lake Victoria, Tanzania state radio reported Friday, while a second day of rescue efforts raced the setting sun. (Photo | AP) "Operations are continuing," he said, but hopes are fading that more survivors might still be found. State television cited witnesses reporting that more than 200 people had boarded the ferry at Bugolora, a town on the larger Ukerewe Island, where it was market day when locals said the vessel was usually packed with people and goods. "I have not heard from either my father or my younger brother who were on the ferry. They had gone to the market in Bugolora to buy a school uniform and other supplies for the new school term," said Domina Maua, who was among those seeking information about loved ones. Davita Ngenda, an elderly woman in Ukara, had already received bad news. "My son is among the bodies recovered," she said, weeping. "He had gone with his wife but she has not been found yet. My God, what did I do to deserve this?" Sebastian John, a teacher, said such tragedies had become part of life for those living on the lake. "Since my birth, people have gone to their deaths on this lake, but what are we to do? We did not choose to be born here, we have nowhere to go," he said. Overloading and negligence It remains unclear how many people are still missing. Tanzania's Electrical, Mechanical and Services Agency, which is responsible for ferry services, said it was unknown how many passengers were aboard the MV Nyerere. The ageing ferry, whose hull and propellers were all that remained visible after it overturned, was also carrying cargo, including sacks of maize, bananas and cement, when it capsized around 50 metres (55 yards) from Ukara dock. The cause of the accident was not immediately clear, but overloading is frequently to blame for such incidents. This photo released by the Tanzania Red Cross shows ongoing rescue efforts on and around Ukara Island in Lake Victoria, Tanzania Friday, Sept. 21, 2018. (Photo | AP) The country's opposition has accused the government of "negligence". "We have often raised concerns about the poor condition of this ferry, but the government turned a deaf ear. We have repeatedly denounced this negligence," said John Mnyika, deputy secretary general of Chadema, the main opposition party. Mnyika said overloading was "another failure of the authorities" and criticised "inadequate relief efforts as well as delays" in the rescue operation. Russian President Vladimir Putin and the leaders of Uganda and Kenya offered their condolences, while Pope Francis in a statement expressed "the greatest solidarity with those who have been bereaved" by the disaster. An aerial image shows the capsized ferry MV Nyerere which killed 131 people in Lake Victoria, Tanzania, on September 21, 2018. Tanzanian President John Magufuli on September 21 ordered the arrest of the management of a ferry that capsized in Lake Victoria, as the death toll climbed to 131 and rescue workers pressed on with the search to find scores more people feared drowned. (Photo | AFP) With a surface area of 70,000 square kilometres (27,000 square miles), oval-shaped Lake Victoria is roughly the size of Ireland and is shared by Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya. Capsizes are not uncommon in the massive lake, and the number of fatalities is often high due to a shortage of life jackets and the fact that many people in the region cannot swim. The deadliest such accident in recent decades was in May 1996, when around 800 people died after their ferry sank on the way to Mwanza in Tanzania. By AFP OTTAWA: A tornado sparked chaos near the Canadian capital Ottawa on Friday, injuring dozens as homes were damaged, cars flipped over, and over 130,000 people left without power, local media said. Meteorologists reported gusts whipped up to around 120 miles per hour (190 kilometers per hour), with the city of Gatineau, about five miles north of the capital, taking the brunt. Images on social media showed homes with damaged rooftops and trees torn apart, as debris was seen swirling through the air in dramatic video footage. "There was a power cut and less than a minute later, the wind began to hit the windows," Vincent-Carl Leriche, who filmed the video, told AFP. Damage from a tornado is seen in Dunrobin, Ontario west of Ottawa on Friday, Sept. 21, 2018. A tornado damaged cars in Gatineau, Que., and houses in a community west of Ottawa on Friday afternoon as much of southern Ontario saw severe thunderstorms and high wind gusts, Environment Canada said. (Photo | AP) "The debris was flying everywhere, I had never see anything like it except in Hollywood," the 30-year-old, from Gatineau's Mont-Bleu neighborhood said, adding he saw sofas and freezers that had been blown into the street. Ottawa emergency services official Anthony Di Monte told local media around 30 people were injured, five seriously. Meanwhile, electricity company HydroQuebec reported over 130,000 customers were without power in the Ottawa area Friday evening. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged residents to check on neighbors who might need help. "We're monitoring the situation and thinking of everyone affected," he said on Twitter. To everyone dealing with the aftermath of the tornado in Dunrobin, ON & the Ottawa-Gatineau area stay safe, follow the instructions of first responders and check in with people who might need extra help. Were monitoring the situation and thinking of everyone affected. #onstorm Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) September 21, 2018 A weather alert was put in place Friday afternoon for all of southern Ontario and Quebec. Winds eased by the time they reached greater Montreal, which was hit by heavy rains but escaped major damage. By PTI WASHINGTON: A US district court has sentenced a Pakistani-origin businessman to three years of probation for procuring and unlawfully exporting material and equipment to Pakistan for its military. Imran Khan of North Haven in Connecticut was sentenced in Bridgeport to three years of probation, the first six months of which the 44-year-old Khan must serve in home confinement for violating US export law. Khan has also been ordered to perform 100 hours of community service and pay a USD 3,000 fine. First six months of the three-year probation is in home confinement, John Durham, US Attorney for the District of Connecticut, said Friday. According to court documents and statements made in court, from at least 2012 to December 2016, Khan and two of his family members engaged in a scheme to purchase goods that were controlled under the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) and to export those goods without a license to Pakistan, in violation of the EAR. Khan had pleaded guilty to one count of violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. In his guilty plea in June 2017, Khan specifically admitted that, between August 2012 and January 2013, he procured, received and exported to Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), the Pakistan Space & Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO), or the National Institute of Lasers & Optronics NILOP). All of these companies are listed in the US Department of Commerce Entity List. Through companies conducting business as Brush Locker Tools, Kauser Enterprises-USA and Kauser Enterprises-Pakistan, Khan, his father and brother received orders from a Pakistani company that procured materials and equipment for the Pakistani military, requesting them to procure specific products that were subject to the export regulations. When US manufacturers asked about the end-user for a product, the defendants either informed the manufacturer that the product would remain in the US or completed an end-user certification indicating that the product would not be exported, Durham said. After the products were purchased, they were shipped by the manufacturer to the defendants in Connecticut. The products were then shipped to Pakistan on behalf of either the PAEC, SUPARCO or NILOP, all of which were listed on the US Department of Commerce Entity List. The defendants received the proceeds for the sale of export-controlled items through wire transactions to a US bank account that the defendants controlled. Earlier this year, Khan's father, Muhammad Ismail, and his brother, Kamran Khan, each pleaded guilty to one count of international money laundering, for causing funds to be transferred from Pakistan to the US in connection with the export control violations. Both have been sentenced to 18 months of imprisonment. Ismail and Kamran Khan are both citizens of Pakistan and lawful permanent residents of the US. The festival's organizers announced the lists of films to be screened, programs to be presented and guests to attend on Sept. 4. Directed by Yun Je-ro, "Beautiful Days" is widely anticipated, as Lee chose it for her big-screen comeback after an absence of six years. It is about the reunion of a North Korean woman who abandoned her family to defect to South Korea, and her son, who resents her for doing so. BIFF executive director Jeon Yang-jun said, "Yun is an exceptionally skilled director from Busan. We've chosen the film as the opening film because of its intriguing storyline, which looks at the restoration of a family. The timing is also right to touch on the issue of North Korean defectors." Explaining her decision to accept the role, Lee said, "I was so surprised when I first read the script because it was a story I'd wished to see, with an appealing character. The character plows on and refuses to surrender to the challenges of life and personal tragedy. I just found it so intriguing and fascinating, so I didn't hesitate to accept." This year's BIFF runs from Oct. 4 through 13, featuring 323 films from 79 countries. #KBO Bears knock off Lions to reach 7th consecutive Korean Series With a relentless offense and a tireless bullpen, the Doosan Bears have made history in the South Korean baseball postseason. The Bears will play for the South Korean baseball c... YouTube content of 'Squid Game' outnumbers 'Game of Thrones' The South Korean phenomenon "Squid Game" has outnumbered the longtime TV powerhouse "Game of Thrones" in terms of combined YouTube views of its derivative video content, a U.S. med... Mr Kwenda told The Manica Post that it was a double tragedy for him. His son died the same day with his mother and when the news about the death of his son came, he was in Domboshawa where he had goneto see his sick mother days before she died. His mother died in the morning, while Kudakwashe died around 5pm. Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Open to Public for First Time in 96 Years (Newser) Tourists. They don't make them like they used to. At least that's what officials in Bali think. "The quality of tourists is now different from before," Bali's deputy governor, Cok Ace, said this week during a regional council meeting, per the Guardian. And by different, he means worse. "It is because we are too open with tourists, so too many come." The main issue is visitors to the island (there were more than 5 million in 2017) disrespecting Hindu shrines and temples there. Now, the government is planning to restrict tourist's access to temples and shrines, per Coconuts, which notes that Bali is known as the "island of 1,000 temples." story continues below There are many examples of tourists behaving badly in Bali, which has strict anti-blasphemy laws. Recent instances include, according to the Huffington Post, a Danish tourist squatting atop the Pura Luhur Batukaru temple; a Spanish vlogger climbing on a temple; a woman in a bikini posing in front of a temple while doing the downward dog yoga pose. "The temples need to be preserved since they are the spirits of Bali's cultures and customs," Cok Ace reportedly said. (Read more Bali stories.) (Newser) For the first time since 2005, the US Army missed its recruiting goal this year, falling short by about 6,500 soldiers, despite pouring an extra $200 million into bonuses and approving some additional waivers for bad conduct or health issues, the AP reports. Army leaders said they signed up about 70,000 new active-duty recruits in the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30well short of the 76,500 they needed. The Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps all met their recruiting goals for 2018. The Army's shortfall, says Maj. Gen. Joe Calloway, was fueled by the strong American economy and increased competition from private sector employers who can pay more. But the failure has triggered an overhaul in Army recruiting, including an increase in recruiters, expanded marketing, and a new effort to reach out to young, potential recruits through popular online gaming. story continues below Calloway says there were several thousand permanent legal residents seeking to enlist, but they did not get through the screening process in time. The recruiting struggles come at the end of a tumultuous year for the Army, which faced questions from Congress over its expanded use of waivers for recruits with previous marijuana use, bad conduct, and some health problems. In addition to the Army competing with the private sector, there just aren't that many potential recruits: Only about 30 percent of 17- to 24-year-olds meet the physical, mental and moral requirements for the military, and only one in eight are interested in serving. (Read more US Army stories.) (Newser) It's taken nearly three decades, but California authorities think they've finally nabbed the "NorCal Rapist." At a Friday presser, Sacramento Police Chief Daniel Hahn and Sacramento County DA Anne Marie Schubert said Roy Charles Waller, 58, was arrested Thursday as he showed up to work at UC Berkeley, per the Sacramento Bee. Waller is suspected of committing at least 10 rapes across six different counties between 1991 and 2006. Detective Avis Beery, who's been working the case for more than a decade, tells the Washington Post that the rapist's typical M.O. was to sneak into women's houses (said to usually be Asian women) while they were sleeping, overpower them, and bind them before assaulting them. Sometimes the women would be forced to withdraw money at an ATM, while other times the suspect would simply take things from their homes before he fled. story continues below What finally broke the case open: a genealogy website. Investigators pieced together Waller's ID in "record-setting" time by plugging in DNA from the rapist's crime scenes into GEDmatchthe same site used to find "Golden State Killer" suspect Joseph James DeAngelo. A fairly close match popped up, and from there the sleuths built a family tree that led them to Waller, who matched up with the rapist's age and weight descriptions. Public records also showed Waller had lived in or near the locations where the rapes occurred. After acquiring Waller's DNA via at least one discarded sample, investigators were able to make a match with the crime scene DNA. "I have often said in my career that DNA is the silent witness to the truth," Schubert said at the presser. Waller, who's being held without bail, was charged with 12 counts of forcible sexual assault and is set to be arraigned Monday in Sacramento Superior Court. If convicted, he faces life in prison. (Read more serial rapists stories.) (Newser) What should have been a day of hiking with awe-inspiring views turned tragic in Michigan Wednesday when a woman fell to her death into Lake Superior. WLUC reports 32-year-old Tu Thanh Nguyen, from Sunnyvale, Calif., was traversing the trails along the cliffs of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore by herself when she decided to stop to snap a few selfies. She apparently got too close to the edge of the 200-foot-high cliff she was perched on and plummeted over the side, into the water below. story continues below Two kayakers saw Nguyen fall and rushed to retrieve her, and once back on shore, a kayak company called for help. The Detroit Free Press cites Michigan State University data that shows the lake would've been a chilly 45 degrees when Nguyen fell in. A park ranger tells the Marquette Mining Journal she was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics. The National Park Service has deemed her death an accident. (An Israeli teen recently fell to his death taking a selfie in Yosemite.) (Newser) An Alaska man ducked prison time Wednesday in a deal the presiding judge called "breathtaking." Justin Schneider, 34, pleaded guilty to assaulting a woman who says he strangled her unconscious and masturbated on her prone body, CNN reports. Charged with four felonies including assault and kidnapping, Schneider cut a plea deal for single felony assault. "But I would like the gentleman to be on notice that this is his one pass," prosecutor Andrew Grannik said in court, per KTVA. "It's not really a pass, but given the conduct, one might consider that it is." Schneider was accused of assaulting the woman in Anchorage in August 2017 after offering her a ride. "She said she could not fight him off, he was too heavy and had her down being choked to death," the complaint reads. story continues below "[The victim] said she lost consciousness, thinking she was going to die," per the complaint. When she awoke, he was zipping up and "told her that he wasn't really going to kill her, that he needed her to believe she was going to die so that he could be sexually fulfilled." So why the plea deal? Schneider lost his job as an air traffic controller, which Grannik called a "life sentence." And Judge Michael Cory, who called the deal "breathtaking," said he hoped Schneider could be rehabilitated. As for Schneider, he offered no apology and said he "would just like to emphasize how grateful I am for this process." He was sentenced to two years, one suspended, and received credit for time spent at home with his family. The assault survivor did not show up for trial. (Read more sexual assault stories.) (Newser) A small hole in Arkansas shot flames eight to nine feet high earlier this week and no one seems to know why, THV11 reports. Firefighters responded Monday to reports of the hole and found flames shooting for up for 30 to 45 minutes before the whole thing died down. "I took a temperature reading of it and it showed 780 degrees inside the hole," says fire chief Donald Tucker. "But what caused it? I have no idea. There's no gas lines nearby and there was no smell of natural gas." Officials also dismissed theories that fossil fuels, a lightning strike, or meteor strike ignited the 3.5-foot deep hole in Midway, a town of about 1,000 in northern Arkansas, per the Wichita Eagle. story continues below (Newser) The former editor-in-chief of the New York Review of Bookswho abruptly left his post after running an essay by #MeToo villain Jian Ghomeshihas given an interview with a Dutch publication blaming his downfall on Twitter and university publishers, the Guardian reports. "As editor of the New York Review of Books I published a theme issue about #MeToo offenders who had not been convicted in a court of law but by social media," says Ian Burama of the Oct. 11 issue, which actually focuses on modern male struggles and female empowerment. "And now I myself am publicly pilloried." He also blames academic advertisers who were unhappy about the Ghomeshi piece. story continues below "University publishers, whose advertisements make publication of the New York Review of Books partly possible, were threatening a boycott," says Burama. "They are afraid of the reactions on the campuses, where this is an inflammatory topic. Because of this, I feel forced to resign..." But the head of the Association of University Presses says he's unaware of any such boycott threat, the Washington Post reports. And with the Review keeping mum, most commentators and critics are slamming Burama for giving an alleged serial assaulter such a highly regarded platform. "One of the biggest and most valuable pieces of currency journalism has is credibility," an associate professor in Canada tells CTV . "If you're going to throw it under the bus, don't be sad when you don't have an audience." (Read more Jian Ghomeshi stories.) (Newser) The woman accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of a decades-old sexual assault has accepted a Senate committee's request to tell her side next week but Christine Blasey Ford wants to resume negotiations over the exact terms of her appearance, her lawyers said Saturday, the AP reports. It was not immediately clear whether the Republican-run Senate Judiciary Committee would agree to more talks with Ford's team. Also unclear was when she might come to Capitol Hill and whether she was offering to speak in a public session or a private one. The committee wanted her to appear Wednesday, but she prefers her earlier request for Thursday, according to a person familiar with the negotiations who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. story continues below Her lawyers' letter to the committee's GOP majority was released just at the 2:30pm deadline set by the chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley, to respond to the panel's latest offer. Grassley, R-Iowa, had set a possible Monday vote to decide whether to recommend Kavanaugh's nomination to the full Senate. A senior official at the White House said the letter amounted to "an ask to continue 'negotiations' without committing to anything. It's a clever way to push off the vote Monday without committing to appear Wednesday." The lawyers wrote that many aspects of Grassley's latest offer were "fundamentally inconsistent" with the committee's promise of a "fair, impartial investigation." They said they remained disappointed by the "bullying" that "tainted the process." Yet they remained "hopeful that we can reach agreement on details." (Read more Brett Kavanaugh stories.) Fatima Khan, who was in a relationship with Mr Safi for two years before his death, has been jailed for 14 years for his manslaughter. A self-styled 'Snapchat Queen' who had her boyfriend killed then posted a video of him bleeding to death was jailed for 14 years today. Fatima Khan, 21, captioned the clip of 18-year-old Khalid Safi as he lay dying with the warning: 'That's what happens when you f*** with me.' Khan was obsessed with showing off to her online friends. In the days leading up to Mr Safi's death she posted stories bragging about her luxury holiday in Qatar for her pals while humiliating Mr Safi by ignoring his messages and branding him a 'lowlife'. The office worker recruited 19-year-old Raza Khan, a rival for her affections, to attack Mr Safi outside a Costa coffee shop in North Acton, West London. She stalled for time by locking herself in the cafe toilet to ensure the victim remained at the scene until the killer arrived. Fatima Khan sat puffing on a cigarette as Raza Khan arrived and scurried off as feathers from Mr Safi's shredded puffa jacket billowed through the air. The office worker recruited 19-year-old Raza Khan (left), a rival for her affections, to attack Khalid Safi (right) outside a Costa coffee shop in North Acton, West London She returned to the scene armed with her phone to film the besotted teenager bleeding to death from a knife wound to the heart. Mr Safi was a refugee from Afghanistan who spent time in the Calais 'Jungle' before settling in the UK five years ago. Khan denied planning the attack and claimed that she made the 'disgusting' decision to film Mr Safi dying because he had previously beaten her up. She was cleared of murder but convicted of manslaughter at the Old Bailey after a trial in July and today jailed for 14 years. Judge Michael Topolski QC told her: 'After the attack your disrespect of Khalid reached new and inhuman depths when in an act of grotesque contempt you calmly walked towards him as he lay dying. 'You filmed him in the process of dying and then took a still picture of him, all of which you sent with that chilling message to all of your Snapchat friends. 'It is hard to imagine how anyone could think in such a cold, callous and despicable way. I am saddened to say that I find you someone who is capable of being thoroughly dishonest and highly manipulative.' Raza Khan is still wanted by police. A 5,000 reward for information on his whereabouts is being offered by the independent charity Crimestoppers. +7 Fatima Khan is pictured on Snapchat before inciting the confrontation (left), and this (right) is an image of the victim at the scene loaded onto Snapchat by Fatima Khan before the attack The court heard Fatima Khan had been in a relationship with Mr Safi for around two years before his death. She had also gone out with the killer in around 2013 and a fight between the two men ended with Raza Khan stabbing Mr Safi in the shoulder. Prosecutor Kate Bex QC said the relationship between Fatima Khan and Mr Safi was 'clearly coming to a head' in the week before murder. Mr Safi bought her a watch as a present but when he turned up at her home, she threw the gift at him out of the window. 'She was very angry he had turned up at her house, her family home, because her family did not know she was seeing him and she did not want them to see him outside,' said Ms Bex. Fatima Khan, 20, posted a video of her boyfriend dying in a pool of blood On December 1, last year Fatima Khan met up with Mr Safi after finishing work at Vigilant Security at around 5pm. The pair were captured on CCTV walking around the North Acton area, at one point entering a gym before heading to a pedestrian area outside a Costa Coffee. A video recorded on her phone during their journey showed Fatima Khan calling Mr Safi a lowlife and telling him to stop crying. While some onlookers described Mr Safi as seeming 'happy and smiley' outside the coffee shop, others said there was a 'weird' atmosphere. She spent seven minutes on the phone to a friend while locked in the coffee shop toilet as Mr Safi waited outside. Detectives believe she was giving Raza Khan enough time to get to the scene. When Raza Khan arrived at around 6.30pm, he seemed to 'know exactly where he was going' and confronted Mr Safi, who was armed with a screwdriver. CCTV cameras captured the pair fighting for around 15 seconds before Mr Safi collapsed with a fatal stab wound to the heart. Fatima Khan made no efforts to help her partner either during or after the attack. 'Instead, she returned to the scene after Raza Khan had inflicted the fatal wound and videoed Khalid Safi as he lay dying in a pool of his blood on the pavement,' said Ms Bex. 'She then posted it on Snapchat with a caption 'That's what happens when you f*** with me'.' A mobile phone grab of the victim, laying on the ground. Khan later posted this on Snapchat Phone records showed she was on the phone to Raza Khan as he fled the scene. Fatima Khan was also heard calling a friend to pick her up, saying: 'Where the f**k are you? You need to hurry the f**k up. Everything's got f**ked.' Fatima Khan told jurors that she had asked Raza Khan for a loan of a few hundred pounds because she was overdrawn at the bank. She said she panicked when Raza Khan arrived and the fight started and walked off. Asked why she filmed Mr Safi bleeding on the ground, she said: 'It is so shameful. It's disgusting. It wasn't even directed at Khalid the message wasn't for him. 'I was just tired of it, getting assaulted before and him punching me again. I just wrote that so that people didn't try to assault me or harass me.' Her barrister Kerim Fuad, QC, told the court: 'She may be Ilford's Snapchat Queen. I do not say that to make light of it, but she is another example of a youngster who seems to live her life through the prism of Snapchat. 'You may think she sees more of life through her phone than with her eyes.' The QC said: 'Her pathological obsession, her deeply unhealthy, all consuming relationship with her mobile phone and the Snapchat app has been in many ways the author of her plight. 'It has become an increasingly worrying in today's society that these devices are taking such a disproportionately prominent role in the lives of today's young people.' Khan, of Ilford, was convicted of manslaughter and jailed for 14 years. 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Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe Several ideas as to how flood-hit Kerala can be rebuilt, which were brainstormed yesterday during a meeting held by concerned Bahrain residents, will soon be presented to the Kerala Chief Minister and to an Indian Ministerial committee. The meeting was called by Dr Ravi Pillai, who is the Director of Norka Roots and Chairman of Standing Committee 1 - Loka Kerala Sabha Administration and Kerala Development Fund Creation. Several key members of the Indian community were present during the meeting which was held at Park Rejis Hotel yesterday. Organisers said that around 100 people attended. The ideas from the brainstorming session, which a number of experts, technocrats, engineers, businessmen and social activists attended, will be presented to the Kerala Chief Minister as well as to an Indian Ministerial committee that is visiting the GCC next month, Bahrain Keraleeya Samajam president P V Radhakrishna Pillai told Tribune. Kerala faced a devastating flood last month, something we have not seen in the last century. Indians across the globe are trying to help to rebuild Kerala. This meeting is primarily to discuss how to rebuild Kerala and so experts, technocrats, engineers, businessmen and social activists were invited to this session to discuss how we can rebuild Kerala, how we can mobilize resources for rebuilding Kerala, he said. Kerala has lost a lot, many of the bridges, infrastructure etc. This is a coming together to discuss how technology and resources can be mobilized to rebuild Kerala. There is an open appeal from the Chief Minister of Kerala to donate funds, so anyone can send money to the chief ministers fund in their own capacity. We have very good examples here such as with Dr Ravi Pillai donating five crore rupees, many other as well has donated large amounts which is encouraging to see, he added. The presence of four Bahraini women in this years Forbes Middle Easts Most Influential Women list reflects the high levels achieved by the Kingdom in empowering women, a leading businesswoman observed. Bahrain Businesswomen Society President Ahlam Janahi told Tribune that Bahraini women continue to improve and excel in all fields, underlining the key role played by the Supreme Council for Women (SCW) to empower Bahraini women. She thanked the Kingdoms leadership for the endless support offered towards empowering Bahraini women. The list features 100 female executives, businesswomen as well as top government officials. For the very first time, the annual list included successful expat female leaders who have scaled heights in their careers. Y K Almoayyed and Sons Managing Director and Bahrain Business Women Society former president Mona Almoayyed came in the eighth place while Batelcos Deputy CEO Muna Al Hashemi, Bahrain Mumtalakat Holding Company CFO Suha Karzoon and Securities and Investment Company CEO Najla Al Shirawi came in 15th, 41st, and 87th positions, respectively. The list included women leaders from different fields, such as culture, education, transportation, and economic development. It was also noticed that 29 women in the list hold leading positions in the banking sector, proving that women are leading this key sector in the region. The list also included 50 female ministers from Middle Eastern countries. Amongst them is Noura bint Mohammed Al Kaabi, UAE Minister for Culture and Knowledge Development. Senior government officials on the list include Sarah Al Suhaimi, CEO of Tadawul and Lobna Helal, Deputy Governor, Central Bank of Egypt. Two brothers who smuggled drugs into prison will learn the fate of their appeals on October 28, 2018. The duo was earlier sentenced to five years behind prison each for their crime. One of them, aged 34, was already in prison serving a 10-year sentence for drug peddling and is also standing trial for allegedly smuggling a kilo of hashish into Bahrain via the King Fahd Causeway. His 23-year-old brother was caught on camera trying to pass him methadone and amphetamine pills during a visit at Jau Prison. He had smuggled drugs into prison by keeping it in his mouth. Bahrain-based businessman Dr. Varghese Kurian has said that Al Namal-VKL Group will contribute eight crore rupees (nearly BD417,380) towards the relief works in the flood-hit Kerala. The company has contributed two crore rupees to the Kerala Chief Ministers Distress Relief Fund (CMDRF) and another six crore rupees will be earmarked for relief efforts spearheaded by the company. The company will contribute to the rebuilding of the houses in the villages of Chittar, Seethathodu in Pathanamthitta district. The company will also provide household equipment to 6,000 families hit by the floods in Ranni area in Kerala. Khost : The mother was admitted at 9:30 am, the birth recorded at 9:35. Women often arrive in extremis at the Doctors Without Borders maternity hospital in southeastern Afghanistan, one of the most active in the world, with more than 60 babies born daily. The early hours of the morning are the most feverish for the hospital -- affectionately known by the NGO as the baby factory -- just a stones throw from Pakistans tribal areas, in Khost province. The Taliban are active in the region and roads are often dangerous after dark, so when 25-year-old Asmad Fahri felt her contractions begin at night she knew she would have to wait until daybreak to begin the three-hour journey to the hospital. Finally she is resting, her infant tightly swaddled and asleep between her knees. On average new mothers are kept in the ward for six hours, but she has asked to leave after just three, to ensure she reaches home before darkness falls again. Sometimes the mothers have to travel for days, in pain and bleeding, over unpaved, insecure roads in carts or by whatever mode of transportation they can find. In an opposite wing, the delivery tables continuously welcome newcomers. Most only have time to lift the long layers of clothing hiding their bodies and wedge their coloured veils between their teeth, too rushed even to change into MSFs standard red pyjamas. The Khost Maternity Hospital (KMH) opened at the end of 2012 in a medical desert in the conflict-riven country with one of the highest infant and maternal mortality rates in the world. It was an overnight success, with nearly 12,000 deliveries in its first full year in 2013. By 2017 that figure had nearly doubled, to 23,000. This year the hospital is on track to deliver 24,000 babies, says Dr Rasha Khoury, a Palestinian gynecologist who is medical officer at the site. If so that puts it within crying distance of the busiest maternity wards in the United States, where the Northside Hospital in Atlanta delivered 27,000 babies in 2016, the highest number in the country that year. Here we are saving lives for free, smiles Safia Khan, 24, the assistant manager of the midwifery team. Behind her, a young mother of twins searches her skirts and hands her a folded banknote. It is a traditional gesture of gratitude after delivery, at times required in some hospitals but politely declined here. Its forbidden, insists Khan. Singapore : Singapore Airlines said yesterday it has stopped accepting lion bones for cargo after the carrier was singled out in a report for transporting the animal parts from South Africa. Campaigners have long called for a ban on the controversial trade in big cat bones, which are sought after for medicine and jewellery in Southeast Asia. Singapore Airlines was the sole carrier importing lion bones from South Africa to Southeast Asia last year, according to a report released in July by the non-profit EMS Foundation and animal rights group Ban Animal Trading. At least 800 lion skeletons had been exported with the blessing of the South African government in 2017, the report said, making it the worlds largest exporter of lion bones. The airline said it had stopped accepting lion bones as cargo, but did not say when the policy had come into effect. Singapore Airlines does not accept the carriage of lion bones as cargo following a review which took into account increasing concerns around the world, the company said in an email. EMS Foundation director Michele Pickover said her organisation had sent the report to the airline and appealed to them to immediately stop its involvement in this terrible trade. I believe that once they were informed about what this trade entails they took the correct and logical decision not to support it, she said. South Africa has been sending lion bones to Southeast Asia since at least 2008 and it was likely that Singapore Airlines had been transporting them since that year, Pickover added. Lion bones and other body parts are highly sought after in parts of Southeast Asia -- particularly Laos, Thailand and Vietnam -- for use in jewellery and for their supposed medicinal properties. In Vietnam, lion bone is cooked and turned into balm while claws and teeth were used as body ornaments, the report said. It appears that hopes of a Danish Grand Prix being staged on the streets of Copenhagen have been terminally dashed by a row over funding. The proposal has been around for over a year as a way of capitalising on the success and popularity of Haas driver Kevin Magnussen, and had been led by Danish businessman Lars Seier Christensen. The consortium has devised a 2.79 mile circuit that had received the approval of Formula 1's leading track designer Hermann Tilke. It would have included an iconic corner in front of the Christiansborg parliament, and a 190mph straight over the Knippelsbro bridge. "The track could be the basis for a fantastic race," Magnussen had previously commented, comparing it to the well-received street circuit in Baku. The idea of a Danish Grand Prix had been enthusiastically supported by F1 boss Chase Carey. FIA race director Charlie Whiting said it might be possible to introduce the race on the F1 calendar within the next two years "From our point of view it is entirely possible that we'll be there," he said earlier this month. "It can easily be done by 2020." But this week it seems that the plans have come off the rails. According to Pitpass.com, Denmark's Finance Minister Kristian Jensen has now stated that the plans for a race have been scrapped. He said the decision was due to the lack of support from municipal authorities. Jensen had previously indicated that the national government could help fund the running of a race in Copenhagen, providing the city also contributed to the costs. "The government is prepared to put some money into the hosting of Formula 1 in Denmark," Jensen told Politiken in June. "But we don't think it's reasonable that the city where such a large event is to take place does not also contribute economically. "We ask all cities to be a part of funding when a major sporting event is in town. So it is also fair for Copenhagen Municipality to do this." Formula 1 is is continuing to press ahead with plans to hold a street race in Miami, despite opposition from local residents and businesses. Other venues that are currently developing plans to host Grand Prix races in the future include Argentina, the Netherlands and Vietnam. Gallery: The beautiful wives and girlfriends of F1 drivers Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter Japan's Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko have visited 2 prefectures in western Japan that were hit hard by record rainfall in July. The couple flew into Matsuyama Airport in Ehime Prefecture shortly before noon on Friday and changed to a Self-Defense Forces helicopter to visit Seiyo City, where 5 people died in the disaster. After a briefing by the mayor, the couple met evacuees at temporary housing. The emperor asked them whether their families are safe. The empress said she hopes they're feeling better. The couple also greeted and thanked high school students who served as volunteers after the disaster. They went to Kure City, Hiroshima Prefecture, in the afternoon and visited the Tenno district, which had the most deaths in the city. 12 people died there in landslides and floods. The couple listened to a survivor who described how floodwater engulfed the community, and expressed sympathy. They also met police and Self- Japan's government has approved an application for a clinical test of treatment for an intractable blood disease using iPS cells, which can grow into any type of body tissue. A health ministry panel on Friday gave the go-ahead to the application by a team at Kyoto University for the test for aplastic anemia. People with the disease have blood platelet deficiency and are prone to internal bleeding. Conventional treatment includes blood transfusions, but some patients cannot receive them due to severe rejection. The team has chosen a patient for the test. Members plan to create iPS cells from the patient's cells, grow them into blood platelets and transfuse them. With administrative procedures completed, the team says it wants to start the test once preparations are ready. Governor Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State, on Friday in Ibadan, the state capital announced his intention to contest the Oyo South Senatorial s... Governor Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State, on Friday in Ibadan, the state capital announced his intention to contest the Oyo South Senatorial seat on the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). Ajimobi made the announcement at the maiden General Abdulsalami Abubakar Foundation Peace Lecture held at the Trenchard Hall of the University of Ibadan. The governor while speaking said he had gone to Abuja, the Nations capital for the screening exercise as parts of the conditions for the contestants under the platform of the party. It was gathered that Ajimobi once represented the district between 2003 and 2007 under the platform of the Alliance for Democracy (AD). He said, You know, I am running for the Senate. So, I went to Abuja for the screening exercise of our party and just returned yesterday. Oyo South consists nine local governments of Ibadan and Ibarapa geo-political zones of the state. The local governments under the district include; Ibadan South-West, Ibadan North, Ibadan North-West, Ibadan South-East, Ibadan North-East, Ido, Ibarapa Central, Ibarapa East and Ibarapa North. The governor while speaking further described Abubakar, as a man of peace, integrity and honour who handed over power to the civilian government in 1999 peacefully. He described Oyo State as one of the most peaceful states in Nigeria, adding that the foundation of his administration was based on peace and security. He said, Unarguably, University of Ibadan remains the best in Africa. It is a world class training institute for postgraduate studies. It has graduated reputable and renowned Africans. President Muhammadu Buhari will today (Sunday) depart for New York to participate in the 73rd Session of United Nations General Assembly (UNGA73) which officially opened September 18, 2018.The theme for this years Session is: Making the United Nations relevant to all People: Global Leadership and Shared Responsibilities for Peaceful, Equitable and Sustainable Societies.The highpoint of President Buharis participation will be his address on Tuesday to the General Assembly on the opening day of the General Debate. The Presidents presentation of Nigerias National Statement is expected to reaffirm the nations commitment to international peace and security; sustainable socio-economic development; disarmament and denuclearisation; youth and women empowerment; climate change; rule of law and human rights; among others.He is also expected to particularly canvass international support for the fight against corruption; the return of illicit assets; counter-terrorism and insurgency; curbing irregular migration; re-settling Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs); recharging the receding Lake Chad; and calls for the reform of the United Nations, especially the expansion of the permanent membership of the Security Council to make that vital principal organ of the global organisation reflect regional and equitable geographical representation.A statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Chief Femi Adesina stated that the President and his wife, Aisha, will also attend a welcome reception hosted by the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres and his spouse for Heads of State and Government and their spouses.The Nigerian leader and his delegation will participate in a High-Level meeting on the Fight against Tuberculosis organised by the World Health Organisation as Nigeria currently ranks seventh amongst the high TB-burden countries globally, and second in Africa.The Nigerian delegation is expected to attend the Mandela Peace Summit, which is a High-Level Meeting on Global Peace in honour of the centenary birth of the late South African President and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Nelson Mandela.Other side-events lined up for the Nigerian delegation include: High-Level Meeting on Financing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development; World Economic Forums Sustainable Development Impact Summit; the Second Annual Bloomberg Global Business Forum; High-Level Meeting on Action for Peace-Keeping; Commemoration and Promotion of the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons; High-Level Meeting on the Third Industrial Development Decade for Africa; and Pathway to Localising a Global Agenda.During the course of his stay in New York, in addition to the audience with the UN Secretary-General, the Nigerian President is also expected to have bilateral meetings with African and world leaders including Bill Gates with a view to promoting national and African interests.He will also grant audience to a select group of Nigerian professionals based in the United States.Apart from his wife, President Buhari will be accompanied by Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State; Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama; Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami; Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole; Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Okechukwu Enelamah; Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udo Udoma; and the Minister of State for Environment, Ibrahim Jibrin.Others on the presidential entourage include: the National Security Adviser, Maj. Gen. Babagana Monguno (rtd); Director-General, National Intelligence Agency, Ahmed Abubakar; Comptroller-General, Nigeria Immigration Service, Mohammad Babandede; and the Acting Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ibrahim Magu. Reno Omokri, ex-aide to former President Goodluck Jonathan, says even Aisha, wife of President Muhammadu Buhari, knows her husband is vis... Reno Omokri, ex-aide to former President Goodluck Jonathan, says even Aisha, wife of President Muhammadu Buhari, knows her husband is visionless. Omokri said this while reacting to the attack on Senate President Bukola Saraki by Garba Shehu, spokesman of the president. Reacting to Sarakis critical comment, Shehu described Saraki as a very dangerous person who can go any length to promote his personal interests. But in a statement on Friday, Omokri said Shehus attack on Saraki is a case of the pot calling kettle black. I have just read a statement by the presidency accusing the senate president, Senator Bukola Saraki, of hypocrisy for disparaging President Muhammadu Buhari, who Mr Saraki called visionless, the statement read. President Buharis visionlessness is evident in the fact that even one of the worlds richest men, Bill Gates, looked President Buhari in the eye and told him right there at the Presidential Villa that your economic blueprint does not address Nigerians needs. Even the presidents wife, Aisha Buhari, has borne witness of the Presidents visionlessness when she said he is yet to tell me if hell seek re-election, but I have decided as his wife, that if things continue like this up to 2019, I will not go out and campaign again and ask any woman to vote like I did before. Evidence of President Buharis visionless-abounds. Under him, Nigeria became the worlds headquarters for extreme poverty as published by the World Poverty Clock, the World Economic Forum and British Prime Minister Theresa May. Moreover, just three days ago, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation published that young by the current trajectory, if nothing changes, 30 percent of the worlds extremely poor people will be in Nigeria by the year 2050. Ironically, the statement lambasting Senate President Bukola Saraki was signed by Garba Shehu, President Buharis spokesman. Denys Gauer, outgoing French ambassador to Nigeria, says he does not believe that foreigners are involved in the killings across the count... Denys Gauer, outgoing French ambassador to Nigeria, says he does not believe that foreigners are involved in the killings across the country. The Frenchs envoy position contradicts that of President Muhammadu Buhari. Buhari had said that the killings are as a result of the influx of mercenaries from the Sahel region. It has always been there, but now made worse by the influx of armed gunmen from the Sahel region into different parts of the West African sub-region, the president had said when Justin Welby, archbishop of Canterbury, visited him in London back in April. But speaking with journalists on Friday in Abuja, Gauer said impunity is encouraging the killings in the country and those responsible must be punished. The envoy spoke to journalists in commemoration of the 2018 French National Day. The reason for the killings is demography; some people are fighting for land, so there must be direct policy to develop agriculture and animal husbandry, he said. I think impunity is encouraging the killings and those responsible must be punished. I dont believe foreigners are involved in the killings. The Senate President, Bukola Saraki, has said he was moved to join the presidential race following President Muhammadu Buharis failure to... The Senate President, Bukola Saraki, has said he was moved to join the presidential race following President Muhammadu Buharis failure to perform. Saraki made the declaration in Bauchi on Friday while addressing the Peoples Democratic Partys supporters in the state. The lawmaker said he was contesting to rescue Nigerians from the current insecurity, economic and unemployment. I would have not contested but because of the well inform idea to salvage the country from the APC brouhaha, I have today declare for presidential seat and I am here in Bauchi to seek your support during the forthcoming presidential primary, Saraki said He lamented that the APC under Buhari has failed to fulfil its campaign promises, assuring of speedy development if elected as President of Nigeria in 2019. Saraki said he will dedicate his success at the primary election to Bauchi State PDP delegates if voted The presidential hopeful declared that youths, women empowerment and economy rejuvenation will top federal government priority if elected to replace Buhari in 2019 election Mohamed Salah broke a three-game goalless run for Liverpool as they brushed Southampton aside 3-0 at Anfield to win their opening six games for the first time in a Premier League season.After Roberto Firmino's last-gasp strike against Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League, Liverpool have won all seven matches in a flying start to 2018-19 that leaves them two points clear of champions Manchester City.Xherdan Shaqiri's shot deflected in off Wesley Hoedt for an early opener, with Joel Matip then heading in his first Anfield goal for Liverpool in a comfortable first half for Jurgen Klopp's side.And the points were sealed shortly before the break when Salah tapped in after Shaqiri's free-kick hit the woodwork, although Virgil van Dijk's injury after the break marred the win for Klopp.Shaqiri was making his first Liverpool start and the Switzerland star was involved in the opening goal in the 10th minute.After a corner was cleared, Sadio Mane threaded a pass through to Shaqiri on the left wing and after he cut inside to shoot, his effort deflected in off first Shane Long and then Hoedt.The lead was soon doubled, Matip rising at the back post to head home a right-wing Trent Alexander-Arnold corner won when Cedric Soares made a brilliant challenge to deny Salah.Salah's form had been questioned in a rare dry spell but he poked in the third from point-blank range after Shaqiri's free-kick crashed against the underside of the crossbar.Van Dijk was substituted shortly after the break, the world's most expensive defender holding his ribs, with Liverpool seemingly settling for three goals in a low-tempo second period, although Salah was denied a late second by the offside flag.Credit: Goal Security operatives have arrested a fake official of the Independent National Electoral Commission in Ile-Ife.This was revealed by the president of the rights groups, Women Arise for Change Initiative and the Campaign for Democracy, Dr Joe Okei-Odumakin.Odumakin, who is in Ile -Ife as an election observer, said her team witnessed the arrest of fake INEC official in Otan Ayegbaju by security men. Welcome to NigerianEye.com's live coverage of the 2018 Governorship elections in Osun state. The collation of results at the Indep... Welcome to NigerianEye.com's live coverage of the 2018 Governorship elections in Osun state. The collation of results at the Independent National Electoral Commission Secretariat in Osogbo, the Osun State capital. BREAKING: Osun state election declared inconclusive, rerun election is slated for Thursday, September 17 (Please refresh page for new updates) 2:33 PM - The rerun election is slated for Thursday, September 17, at the affected seven polling units were elections were cancelled. We say a big thank you to all our readers, again we continue on Thursday. Goodbye. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2:25 PM - PDP supporters, in the rain, protesting the inconclusive poll. 1:51 PM - BREAKING: Osun state election declared inconclusive ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1:45 PM - Finally, The collation of result has continued after a break of over two hours ( VIDEO) TAP ON THE PLAY BUTTON BELOW - From the summation of the results, PDP has 254,698 votes while APC has 254, 345. The difference between both parties is 353 votes. (Winner) (Winner) (Winner) This is how the two front runners stand with 4 LGs to go (Winner) (Winner) (Winner) (Winner) (Winner) We were cheated by 1000 votes in Ayedaade Local Govt - PDP We reject in totally the reduction of @OfficialPDPNig votes by 1,000 in Aiyeaadade LGA.We believe @inecnigeria is under tremendous pressure by the defeated @OfficialAPCNg to further jeopardize our electoral process. We will not accept any results except those from polling units September 23, 2018 #Osundecides2018 The polling units collated results from Osogbo is with us. The @OfficialPDPNig will not accept any manipulated result except the ones collated at PU. We call on @inecnigeria to tread carefully. Nigerians are watching. Osogbo result must not be manipulated September 23, 2018 (Winner) (Winner) (Winner) (Winner) (Winner) (Winner) (Winner) (Winner) (Winner) (Winner) (Winner) (Winner) PDP in clear lead after 10 local governments (Winner) (Winner) (Winner) (Winner) (Winner) Results for Ifedayo, Atakumosa and Boluwaduro Ifedayo West Local Government Area (Winner) Atakumosa West Local Government Area (Winner) Boluwaduro Local Government Area (Winner) (Winner) (Winner) Adeleke accuses APC, Aregbesola of attempting to manipulate Osun gov election Electoral officials have started announcing results in some polling units but the final result will be announced at INEC head office in the state Meanwhile, Governor Aregbesola voted in Ilesa around 11.45 am Ive laboured so hard, Im going to win, says Oyetola Omisore arrives at PU 3, Ward 1, Ife East LGA to cast his vote. The governorship candidate of the Providence People's Congress, Prof Ife Adewumi, has said he has no complaint about the election yet. He said although it was too early to conclude that the election was satisfactory, he has no reason to complain yet. APC's Gboyega Oyetola and wife have just voted PDP's Ademola Adeleke addressing journalists after casting his vote What are your thoughts? Kindly share with us below...-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Video Credits - Naij-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Keep your tabs on, and keep refreshing this page for fresh updates as we awaitAfolabi Atanda, the returning officer, who will make the final announcement anytime from now.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Iyiola Omisore's SDP polled 128,049 votes and will surely finish in 3rd position----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Salawu Kolawole, a state electoral officer, was allegedly caught destroying result sheets in Osogbo.And according to PDP...-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------All the returning officers from the local government areas have presented their results and final collation is ongoing-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------According to the returning officer, votes from Ward 5, Unit 17 in Osogbo was cancelled because the presiding officers absconded with ballot boxes.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ADC- 413ADP- 2478PDP- 14499SDP- 10188Number of registered voters: 129853Accredited voters: 56019TOTAL VALID VOTES: 52499REJECTED VOTE: 2901VOTE CAST: 55400-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ADC- 1164APC- 7644PDP- 6122SDP- 4153Number of registered voters: 78120Accredited voters: 39790TOTAL VALID VOTES: 37319REJECTED VOTE: 2290VOTE CAST: 39609-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ADC- 237ADP- 509APC- 8925PDP- 6608TOTAL VALID VOTES: 35656REJECTED VOTE: 1893VOTE CAST: 37549----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ADP:561ADC:136PDP: 4872SDP: 6151Total valid votes = 19,998Rejected votes=1,399Total votes cast = 21,397-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ADC- 1408ADP- 2194PDP- 4026SDP- 2104Number of registered voters: 30786Accredited voters: 16300TOTAL VALID VOTES: 15360REJECTED VOTE: 920VOTE CAST: 16280-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ADC 335ADP 1409PDP 9850SDP 7061Number of registered voters: 90110Accredited voters: 40524TOTAL VALID VOTES: 35990REJECTED VOTE: 2309VOTE CAST: 38299-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ADC: 249ADP: 1915APC: 10049SDP: 1142TOTAL VALID VOTES : 28267REJECTED VOTES: 2502TOTAL VOTES CAST: 30769No of registered voters : 61977No of accredited voters: 30898-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ADC 194ADP -1,053APC 6,957PDP 3,200* Registered Voters 106,309* Accredited Voters 35,588* Total valid votes 33,304* Rejected votes 2,144* Total votes cast 35,448----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ADC:119ADP:636PDP: 7231SDP: 3367Number of Registered Voters: 42145Number of Accredited Voters: 20464Total Valid Votes: 19193Rejected Votes: 1144Total Votes Cast: 20337-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ADC 258ADP 592PDP 11,116SDP 4803Total Valid Votes: 32,787Rejected Votes: 2,109Total Votes Cast: 34,896Registered Voters: 63,652Accredited Voters: 35,061-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ADC: 94ADP: 745PDP: 5486SDP: 5158Total Registered Voters: 52684Total Accredited Voters; 20549TOTAL VALID VOTES- 18846TOTAL REJECTED VOTES 1674TOTAL VOTES CAST- 20520-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ADC: 144ADP: 1642PDP: 5133SDP: 2396Total Registered Voters: 32242Total Accredited Voters; 16307TOTAL VALID VOTES- 15240TOTAL REJECTED VOTES 1024TOTAL VOTES CAST- 16264-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ADC 236ADP 2834APC: 9882SDP: 1970Total Registered Voters: 68872Total Accredited Voters; 30894TOTAL VALID VOTES- 28157TOTAL REJECTED VOTES 2474TOTAL VOTES CAST- 30631-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ADC : 89ADP :758APC: 7025SDP: 1380Total Registered Voters: 59676Total Accredited Voters; 30395TOTAL VALID VOTES- 28672TOTAL REJECTED VOTES 1631TOTAL VOTES CAST- 30303-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ADC: 60ADP : 629PDP : 5218SDP: 2140Total Registered Voters: 35627Total Accredited Voters; 17086-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ADC :145ADP : 1645PDP : 10,836SDP: 2967Total Registered Voters: 60177Total Accredited Voters; 29267TOTAL VALID VOTES- 26571TOTAL REJECTED VOTES 2492TOTAL VOTES CAST- 29063-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ADC: 1034ADP: 1112PDP: 9879SDP: 2941Total Registered Voters: 57663Total Accredited Voters; 27051TOTAL VALID VOTES- 25654TOTAL REJECTED VOTES 1369TOTAL VOTES CAST- 27023-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ADP: 682APC: 7297SDP: 3460Total Registered Voters: 45903Total Accredited Voters; 23314TOTAL VALID VOTES- 21723TOTAL REJECTED VOTES 1519TOTAL VOTES CAST- 23242-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ADC : 96ADP: 183PDP: 8241SDP: 3134Total Registered Voters: 39,188Total Accredited Voters; 21,124TOTAL VALID VOTES- 20,531TOTAL REJECTED VOTES 847TOTAL VOTES CAST- 21,378-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ADC: 158ADP: 2,564APC: 6,517SDP: 4856TOTAL VALID VOTES 22,859TOTAL REJECTED VOTES: 1,410TOTAL VOTES CAST: 24,269TOTAL NUMBER OF REGISTERED VOTERS: 46,558TOTAL NUMBER OF ACCREDITED VOTERS: 24,307-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------With the results announced in 10 LGAs, PDP's Adeleke is leading with a margin of. While he secured, Oyetola, his APC rival, trailed with-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ADC: 109ADP: 1224APC: 9778SDP: 2265TOTAL VALID VOTES: 24380TOTAL REJECTED VOTES: 1186TOTAL VOTES CAST: 25566TOTAL REGISTERED VOTERS: 54921TOTAL ACCREDITED VOTERS: 25697-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------APC: 7251SDP: 2408ADP: 2363ADC: 127TOTAL VALID VOTES : 21,220TOTAL REJECTED VOTES: 1,861TOTAL VOTES CAST . 23,081TOTAL REGISTERED VOTERS: 60,600TOTAL ACCREDITED VOTERS :32,569-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ADC 188ADP 1275PDP 8244SDP 3720Total Number of Registered Voters: 65745Total Number of of Accredited Voters: 26194TOTAL VALID VOTES: 23990TOTAL REJECTED VOTES: 2081TOTAL VOTES CAST: 26071-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ADC: 106ADP: 663APC: 7229SDP: 1907Total Number of Registered Voters: 45959Total Number of of Accredited Voters: 22617TOTAL VALID VOTES: 21453TOTAL REJECTED VOTES: 1164TOTAL VOTES CAST: 22617-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ADC 137ADP 1137PDP 6, 892SDP 2730Total Registered Voters 57, 397Accredited: 25, 045Parties Total Votes:-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------APC 3182SDP 1377APC 5019SDP 1570ADP 718PDP 3779SDP 1776-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ADC: 79ADP: 388APC: 5442SDP: 2043Total Number of Registered Voters: 31,904Total Number of of Accredited Voters: 17,485TOTAL VALID VOTES:16,157TOTAL REJECTED VOTES :1,260TOTAL VOTES CAST: 17,417-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ADC: 83ADP: 357APC: 4512SDP: 855Total Valid Votes: 23,136Total Rejected Votes: 1,605Total Votes Cast: 24,741Number Of Registered Voters: 46,887Number of Accredited Voters: 24,888----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The Osun State Governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Senator Ademola Adeleke has accused the All Progressive Congress and the Osun State Governor, Rauf Aregbesola of activating mechanism to manipulate the governorship election result.The Director of Media and Publicity, Adeleke Campaign Organisation, Mr. Olawale Rasheed in a statement on Saturday particularly accused the governor and APC of trying to tamper with the result of Osogbo.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------PDP = 554APC = 79SDP = 34APC= 68,PDP = 62,ADP = 12,SDP= 64,APC = 54PDP = 56ADP = 8SDP = 45-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------PDP 48,APC 29SDP 27ADP 7-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------APC: 184PDP: 331SDP: 266APC: 235PDP: 239SDP: 121APC 176PDP 214SDP 140APC: 155PDP: 88SDP: 24-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Ademola Adeleke Campaign Organisation has warned against the manipulation of the results of the governorship polls,affirming that the will of the people must be respected.As results are being collated across the state, we demand utmost fair play and transparency from the electoral body.We are watching and monitoring closely. Under no circumstance should the collation process be manipulated.Our agents and leaders are on their toes armed with relevant results and forms.The will of the people must be respected.We task INEC and security agencies to obey the directive of President Muhammad Buhari who had ordered that the Osun electoral process should never be manipulated by federal or any related agencies.We call on local and international observers to take note of the ongoing process and assist the people of Osun state to realise the supremacy of their electoral will.Our people should also be ever vigilant to protect their votes and their aspirations for better life.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Some APC and PDP party agents refused to pay voters who had voted for their candidates during the Osun governorship election.The voters lamented that the agents ran away after discovering that their parties had lost the elections after votes were counted.They said the agents promised to withdraw money at the ATM cash points but did not return to pay them.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------APC 68SDP 62PDP 43ADP 2PDP: 91APC: 76SDP: 38ADP: 42ADC: 42SDP 26PDP 45ADC 137APC 101ADP 5ADC 79APC 47PDP 72SDP 28ADP 7 The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has expressed optimism of winning the governorship election in Osun State despite the attempt by the All Progressives Congress, APC, to undermine its governorship candidate, Senator Ademola Adeleke.The Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the Prince Diran Odeyemi spoke with newsmen while casting his vote at Polling Unit 002, NUD primary school in Ibokun local government area of the state.Odeyemi, however, commended the conduct of the exercise saying the election has been peaceful, there is crisis anyway as far as we are concerned in Obokun and Osun State. As one of the principal leader of the PDP, there has been no reported case of violence anyway. In fact, we had the inkling that it was going to be peaceful because the policemen sent around were not harassing anyone, they were peaceful and gentle. So, far everything has been going well.On the allegation that parties have been engaged in vote buying, he said: there is no evidence of vote buying as far as I can see, people already who they want to vote for and I am sure they must have made up their mind who they want to vote for before coming. So, if there was any vote buying, it would have happened before the election day and not during the election.In addition, he said: the card reader has been functional to some extent, we had problem with one in the morning but under 30 minutes, it was repaired and people have been voting.We are optimistic that our party will win because people are tired of the present government with series of allegation against them like half salaries here and there, unemployment and other issues on ground. So, people are ready to change the APC not minding all the controversies around our candidate and the attempt by the APC to undermine our candidate, we are sure of victory. A former governor of Osun State, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola failed to deliver his polling unit as the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, won the polling unit.Oyinlola, who defected from the All Progressives Congress, APC, to the African Democratic Party, ADC, was defeated at his Court Hall 1, PU 001 at Oba Ojomu in Odo-Otin local government area of Osun State.The PDPs governorship candidate, Senator Ademola Adeleke won with 107 votes as the APCs governorship candidate, Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola came second by scoring 69 votes while the ADCs governorship candidate, Alhaji Fatai Akingbade scored 20 votes.The Social Democratic Party, SDP, scored 13. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) says it did not hide funds meant for the treasury single account (TSA) in any commercia... The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) says it did not hide funds meant for the treasury single account (TSA) in any commercial bank. In a statement on Friday, the corporation described as misplaced and misleading, reports that it did not remit N8 billion and $470.5 million to the TSA. The Nigeria Police Force had on Thursday said it recovered N8 billion and $470.5 million belonging to the NNPCs Brass Liquefied Natural Gas hidden in some banks. The names of the banks were not mentioned. But in its reaction, the state oil firm said though a few commercial banks are yet to complete remittance of US dollar deposits to the TSA, the federal government knew of and received periodic status reports on balances yet to be remitted by the same banks. The NNPC said a presidential directive was issued for the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to ensure that the funds were completely transferred to its TSA in US dollars. Most of the commercial banks have since complied with the Presidential directive and completed transfer to the Corporations Treasury Single Account in US dollars, including the reported $470.5 million, read the statement signed by Ndu Ughamadu, its spokesman. On the purported recovery of N8 billion by the Nigeria Police Force, the Corporation is not aware of any change in the subsisting Presidential directive to the effect that all of the US dollar balances must be transferred to NNPCs CBN Treasury Single Account in US dollars. In addition, no such funds have been deposited into the Corporations CBN Treasury Single Account. The state oil firm said subject the funds to five percent whistle blowing fees would be unreasonable and a sheer waste of public funds. A Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) Presidential aspirant and Governor of Sokoto State, Hon. Aminu Tambuwal, has assured that he would support... A Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) Presidential aspirant and Governor of Sokoto State, Hon. Aminu Tambuwal, has assured that he would support restructuring if elected the President of the country in 2019. Tambuwal added that the presidency remains the symbol of the country, assuring that he wont fan the ember of ethnicity or exhibit those tendencies that would make Nigerians perceive him as a sectional leader, as being allegedly experienced under President Muhammadu Buharis government. Tambuwal, who spoke in Ado Ekiti on Friday while meeting with PDP delegates in advancement of his aspiration, said he decided to contest the 2019 presidency, having realised the lopsidedness in President Buharis government in terms of poor performance and failure of governance. He said he had ruminated on the cost of being a President of a complex nation like Nigeria and was determined to offer dynamic leadership that would unify Nigeria and make it a potent force that would be recognized globally. The Sokoto State Governor urged the PDP members not to waver in spite of alleged oppression and humiliation being meted on some of their leaders by the APC-led federal government. The PDP presidential aspirant said: The focus of every Nigerian in 2019 is to vote for a President that is Pan-Nigerian. A man who is not an ethnic jingoist or a religious bigot, We are all aware that the present government is desperate to perpetuate itself in power. They are ready to do those things outside the laws of the land to remain in power. That was why they have been harassing leaders like Governor Ayodele Fayose. You must try and give the PDP flag to someone who believes in the unification of this country, Someone who has traversed the length and breadth of this nation. Someone who has moved from Maiduguri to Lagos, from Portharcourt to Sokoto and from the East to the extreme North as a private person. As the former Deputy Minority Whip, Minority Leader and Speaker in the House of Representatives, I have an idea about the geographical configuration of this nation, so I am in good position to respect individual rights. I will not be that President that will shut the doors against restructuring, I will even facilitate debate that will quickly enhance true and proper fiscal federalism. As a leader, it is not good for you to impose your will on the people, you must allow diverse opinions based on our religious and ethnic diversity. As a President, I will respect the Rule of Law. I wont be a President that would say National security is higher than the rights of individuals. I will ensure we have peace across the nation through enhanced technology to build security architecture that will protect Nigerians, Tambuwal said. He urged members of the party to be resolute in spite of the alleged intimidation of members using the state apparatuses, saying : We need a courageous PDP to take over power in 2019. I thank Governor Fayose for his resilience and leadership, because if not for people like him, the PDP would not have been where it is today. Governor Fayose has fought hard to reposition the party in Ekiti and at national levels, he noted. Governor Fayose, while speaking described the APC-led federal government as a monster that was only allegedly interested in oppressing people with power, rather than transforming their lives. The Governor lambasted the federal government for allegedly excluding Ekiti from benefiting from N2.5 billion Budget support and N11 billion Paris Club funds released to some states recently, saying such was anti-democratic and against the principles of federation. He urged the Sokoto State Governor and presidential aspirant to campaign for the PDP the way he did in 2015 for President Buhari. The Governor said: You(Tambuwal) were one of those who repackaged President Buhari in 2015 and ensured he won the presidential election. You must make sure you do same in the 2019 election. Everyone knows that we need a youthful President with energy. Someone who can see Nigeria as one indivisible entity, not a tribalist and religious bigot. The treasure of any man is his vitality, which would make him work harder to deliver his people from poverty. Look at what they did now, they excluded Ekiti from N11.6b Paris Club and N2.5b budget support fund I would have used to pay the backlog of salaries. I want to appeal to all workers to ensure that the money is not diverted. They should ensure that it was used to pay their salaries the way I would have loved to do. The Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, has told Senate President Bukola Saraki, that Nigerians now know why President Muhammadu Buhari wa... The Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, has told Senate President Bukola Saraki, that Nigerians now know why President Muhammadu Buhari wanted to be President in 2015. Wike said this while vowing that no desperate person will fly the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, flag in the presidential election. The Governor said this when the campaign organization of the Senate President paid him a visit at the Government House in Port Harcourt on Friday. Senate President and his entourage were in Port Harcourt to seek support of the PDP delegates from Rivers State ahead of the partys primaries in October. Wike said, No desperate person, by the Grace of God, will fly the flag of the party. Anybody, who believes that they must be president, you must be afraid of him. You dont know what they want the presidency for. All of us know that Buhari had wanted to be president. Today, we have seen why he wanted to be president, Wike said. Earlier, Saraki had stated that he had the capacity to set the country on the path of growth, unity and reconciliation. The country is in dire need of a leader that will provide unity. A leader that will represent everybody from whatever part of the country that you come from. I think I am suited to provide that leadership, Saraki stated. This is a job that requires all of us to be united and focused. Yes, we have individual ambitions, but at any given time, I am ready to sacrifice that ambition for the party. I will continue to appeal to the governors that, during this critical time, we must stay united. We must stay strong for the masses who depend on us to rescue this country, Saraki said, who is touring the country as part of his campaign to secure delegates to win the PDP presidential nomination ahead of next years general election. Meanwhile, State PDP Chairman, Felix Obuah commended the Senate President for his bold moves towards his aspiration. Obuah, receiving the Senate President and his entourage at the partys secretariat in Port Harcourt, assured Saraki that no one could stop his presidential aspiration if God wills it to happen. Rihanna Appointed Role as Barbados Ambassador zo Zo is a staff writer at Okayplayer where he covers Ambassador Fenty Following years of advocacy and economic stimulation on behalf of her native Barbados, Rihanna is officially an ambassador for the Eastern Caribean island. READ: Rihanna Confirms New Music Is Actually On The Way According to a report from the BBC earlier this week, the pop and fashion icon/magnate couldnt be more proud to take on such a prestigious title in her home country. Appointed by Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley, Rihannas official title reads Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, as to engage and empower her to play a more definitive role as we work to transform Barbados. She is tasked with the promotion of education, tourism, and investment, based on a tried and true record of independent business acumen, accruing an estimated net worth of $210 million since 2008, anchored by dominant beauty and fashion ventures (and, of course, over 200 million in global record sales.) In her own statement, Rihanna addressed her fellow Barbadians and insists theyll have to do their part: Every Barbadian is going to have to play their role in this current effort, and Im ready and excited to take on the responsibility. Recently, she threw a fourth annual installment of her Diamond Ball charity gala, where Issa Rae hosted and Childish Gambino performed. Theres still no word on when well get that ANTI follow-up, though she has confirmed on multiple occasions that a new project is in the works. This Toronto Company Will Pay You $50 Per Hour to Smoke Canadas Best Weed zo Zo is a staff writer at Okayplayer where he covers https://www.instagram.com/p/Bn1Yo9QjVIw/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link Offering cash and a stash to five lucky god-level smokers On October 17th, Canada will become the first North American country to fully legalize the sale and recreational use of cannabis. READ: Raised By Wu-Tang: Sophia Changs Journey Through the Weed Industry as a Non-Smoker In preparation for the imminent legislative shift and economic boom, Toronto-based company, AHLOT (A Higher Level of Thinking,) is promising to breakout out of modular stash-box manufacturing with what appears to be curated mail-in cannabis collections, featuring a gram of five different strains from regional growers. To test and report on the broad catalog of products they intend to distribute, the company is hiring five proficient and defiantly productive all-star air-blessers to be part of a curation committee that will pay $50 per hour (16 hours max) and up to $200 in expenses to evaluate the best that Canadas growers have to offer. You can apply for the position on their site today. READ: If Weed Is Legal In California, Why Wont Coachella Allow It? Obviously, this only extends to current Canadian residents. But if youre red-eyeing our northern neighbor for temporary (or permanent) refuge in the Trump Era, need to secure a chunk of supplementary income, and an unending supply of top-shelf smoke, it may be time to consider dual citizenship. Thats still legal, right? . , . - , - ; ... Hotel Business News and Analytics Important! This article is written by orangesmile.com editors and is protected by copyright law. The article can only be re-used with a direct link to www.orangesmile.com NEWS BLOCKS: Centara Adds 3 Hotels in Laos Centara, the leading hospitality company in Thailand, has decided to expand its business to Laos. Together with MOU and Asia Investment, Development and Construction, the Thai hotelier will run three new hotels in the country. These are going to be three hotels in Vientiane, the capital city of the country. Together, the hotels will have 214 guest rooms. They will enjoy a prime location in Luang Prabang, a historic part of the city. Centara will operate these new hotels under different brands that fit the location and target of each of the hotels. For example, Centara Grand will be the brand for the hotel located close to Luang Prabang airport and many popular tourist landmarks. This is an upscale brand that offers premium rooms, awesome leisure facilities, and some meeting options for business guests. The second hotel in Vientiane, Centra by Centara hotel, will be the best choice for price-conscious guests who visit Luang Prabang. It is a quality hotel in a convenient district that offers value for the money. Finally, COSI hotel will offer affordable rooms and services. It is a great choice for all travelers who seek authentic and localized experiences in Vientiane. Just like the two hotels mentioned above, the third one also has a convenient location that is great for everyone who wants to explore the capital city. In their statement, the hotelier has expressed delight with the new deal. Vientiane in general and Luang Prabang in particular have gained a significant attention lately. These destinations become increasingly popular with both Thai and international guests. Numerous visitors come to the city to enjoy its breathtaking sceneries, modern infrastructure, and a perfect combination of old and new. As a partner, Centara will bring its best brands to Laos and will promote this destination among its clients. The Thai hotelier has been very active in expanding its portfolio recently. The company seeks new markets and gains presence in new cities in line with its aggressive expansion strategy. When these three hotels are open, the portfolio of Centara in Laos will reach four hotels. Earlier, the hotelier announced the Centara Plumeria Resort hotel in Pakse. This hotels is already under development and is scheduled to open in 2020. 22.09.2018Stay in touch with the latest news of a worldwide hotel industry. All up-to-date analytics, reports , and news about hotel business trends on OrangeSmile.com. We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription. Yesterday, September 20th, a coalition of politicians, activists, and artists from across the Puerto Rican diaspora came together in New York City's Union Square to commemorate the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Maria. The hurricane devastated the island; a recent study determined that at least 2,975 Puerto Ricans lost their lives to the storm and its aftereffects, a number 46 times higher than the government's previous estimate (a Harvard study from May put the number at nearly 6,000). President Trump recently disputed the death toll, blaming Democrats for the figure. Despite our President's outrageous mishandling of the disaster, the people of Puerto Rican are fighting for a recovery. Grassroots initiative #OurPowerPRNYC hosted the commemorative rally yesterday, hoping to, according to a press release, "reflect on the devastating events of the past year, and uplift the many acts of resistance and resilience carried out on the island." The organization has a concrete platform: to address the U.S. government's negligence in its response to the crisis, to demand self-determination and sovereignty for the island (Puerto Rico currently operates as something of a colony to the United States its residents are U.S. citizens, yet they do not have electoral representation in Congress and cannot vote for president), and to ensure a "just recovery." Last night's speakers and attendees included the likes of New York's progressive firebrand Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York State Senator Gustavo Rivera, New York City Council Member Carlina Rivera, and writer and climate change activist Naomi Klein. There were performances from BombaYo, poet and musician Caridad de la Luz ("La Bruja"), and more. Check out photos by from the event, below. Caridad de la Luz, aka "La Bruja" Photography: Christopher Garcia Valle Last year Apple acquired Beddit, the developer behind a sleep tracking app and heart strip accessory that lays across a bed. The user simply positions the sleep monitor strip across their bed in a position where the user's heart would be closest. While the Sleep Tracker is still available at both the Apple and Google app stores, their cloud service is being shut down in November as their announcement below confirms. On November 15 the sleep tracking data stored on your Apple Watch and/or iPhone will likely be made available in your iCloud account for safe keeping should you have such an account. More importantly, this announcement could be an indicator that Apple may have a new plan for the Sleep Tracker system in the future under the Apple brand. Like so many products that Apple is working on, Samsung begins to mirror them and/or expand on them and a sleeping tracking system is no different. A month ago a Samsung patent application was published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Samsung envisions various sleep tracking device models that will do the same things that Apple's Sleep Tracker does but will deliver advanced supporting devices that are wireless. In one mode, Samsung may provide a future smart speaker variant that could integrate a sleep monitoring app and unique hardware that is noted in the patent figures below. Samsung's patent FIG. 1 below is a diagram illustrating a use environment of an electronic device; FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a mounting structure of an RF sensor of an electronic device; FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of an electronic device. Samsung's patent FIG. 13A, FIG. 13B and FIG. 13C presented below are diagrams illustrating a use process of an electronic device that monitors a user sleep state; FIG. 14A and FIG. 14B are diagrams illustrating sleep information and sleep environment information displayed on a Galaxy smartphone screen; and FIG. 20B is a diagram illustrating an electronic device including a sleep enhancement function. Who knew that Apple and Samsung would be preparing to battle it out for sleep monitoring apps and accessories in the future? It now appears to be on both of their respective product roadmaps. With Apple's new Apple Watch Series 4 winning FCC approval to integrate an ECG, it appears that Apple has the lead in research and development in developing advanced health applications for consumers. They work with leading health organizations, universities and hospitals Samsung on the other hand delivers some amazing body scanners in hospitals around the world, so while reaching into the consumer space may be new for them, they've been a major player in medical devices for years. So the race is on between Apple and Samsung to be sure in the sleep tracking system space. Another recent Samsung patent supports their pro medical field participation here. Samsung's patent FIG. 1 below schematically illustrates a computed tomography (CT) system. At the end of the day, while sleeping tracking apps will likely never be an exciting mainstream app, Apple, if any company, may be able to bring new dimensions to the consumer space in general with wearable device advancements. In the big picture, who knew back in 2007 that the iPhone would lead the charge in destroying the camera industry a decade later? I'm sure no one. So while the medical device industry is dismissing Apple today as a potential player in the medical wearables market by excluding them in a recent forecast to 2027, something tells me that if Apple continues their race to deliver more medical devices that address diabetes, a mobile blood pressure monitor and more, they may end up turning that industry on its head as well. Stay tuned. About Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments. Those using abusive language or negative behavior will result in being blacklisted on Disqus. Terror Attack On Military Parade In Iran Leaves 25 Dead, 60 Wounded 09/22/18 Report by RFE/RL; photos by Islamic Republic News Agency & Mehr News Agency At least 24 four people have been killed and 53 wounded in an attack on a military parade in southwestern Iran, the country's official IRNA news agency reported, prompting President Hassan Rohani to pledge a "crushing" response to threats against the country. Watch Related Video by ISNA_UR Citing "knowledgeable sources," IRNA said gunmen dressed in military uniforms opened fire at the event in the southwestern city of Ahvaz on September 22, targeting a stand where Iranian officials were gathered to watch an annual event marking the start of the country's 1980-88 war with Iraq. "There are a number of nonmilitary victims, including women and children who had come to watch the parade," IRNA quoted an unnamed official source as saying. Iran's foreign minister blamed "terrorists paid by a foreign regime" for the attack. The Islamic State extremist group and an anti-government umbrella group, Ahvaz National Resistance, both claimed responsibility for the attack. Rohani said in a statement that "the response of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the smallest threat will be crushing." "Those who give intelligence and propaganda support to these terrorists must answer for it," he said. The IRNA report, which said the death toll was expected to rise, did not say whether members of Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) were among the fatalities. But the semiofficial Tasnim news agency said at least eight IRGC members had been killed. "Three of the terrorists were killed on the spot and a fourth one who was injured died in hospital," Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi, a senior spokesman for Iran's armed forces, told state television. IRNA earlier reported that two alleged attackers had been detained. A video distributed to Iranian media showed soldiers crawling on the ground as gunfire rang out. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Twitter that the attackers were "terrorists recruited, trained, armed, and paid by a foreign regime," but did not elaborate. He blamed regional countries and their "U.S. masters" for the attack, adding that Iran would respond "swiftly and decisively." Terrorists recruited, trained, armed & paid by a foreign regime have attacked Ahvaz. Children and journos among casualties. Iran holds regional terror sponsors and their US masters accountable for such attacks. Iran will respond swiftly and decisively in defense of Iranian lives. pic.twitter.com/WG1J1wgVD9 Javad Zarif (@JZarif) September 22, 2018 Yaghub Hur Totsari, spokesman for Ahvaz National Resistance, an umbrella group that claims to defend the rights of the Arab minority in Khuzestan Province, told RFE/RL's Radio Farda that the group was responsible for the attack. Islamic State's Amaq agency also said it carried out the attack, but provided no evidence to back the claim. The semiofficial ISNA news agency said an unnamed spokesman for the IRGC had blamed Arab nationalists backed by Saudi Arabia for the attack. Tensions between traditional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia have increased in recent years, with the two countries supporting opposite sides in wars in Syria and Yemen and rival political parties in Iraq and Lebanon. Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed condolences to Iran after the attack, saying Moscow was ready to boost joint efforts in the fight against terrorism, RIA Novosti quoted the Kremlin as saying. SENSITIVE | Moment of armed attack on military parade in Ahvaz, #Iran. Attack lasts for 10 mins where many killed and injured. pic.twitter.com/aucgSScasi Vocal Europe (@thevocaleurope) September 22, 2018 Ahvaz is the capital of Iran's oil-rich Khuzestan Province. The province in the past has seen Arab separatists attack oil pipelines. Earlier reports described the attackers as "Takfiri gunmen," a term used in the past to describe Sunni Muslim militants. The semiofficial Fars news agency said two gunmen on a motorcycle wearing khaki uniforms carried out the attack. Attacks on the military are rare in Iran. Last year, in the first deadly attack claimed by Islamic State in Tehran, 18 people were killed at the parliament and at the mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder and first leader of the Islamic Republic. With reporting by AP, AFP, Reuters, and dpa The Auditor-General, Mr Daniel Yao Domelevo, has taken aim at the appointment of boards for sensitive state institutions such as the Audit Service. He advocated the abolition of such boards since they were a recipe for tension and institutional drawback. He said even countries with better corporate governance reputations had no boards for offices such as the Auditor-General, and in the case of others they only operated advisory boards. Sierra Leone, they borrowed our law and when they sent it to Sierra Leone, they made the board advisory. If you go to Kenya, it is an advisory board. If you go to many countries, they don't have it. Go to the US, Britain and find out," he said. In a no-holds-barred speech at the 3rd Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu?Memorial Lectures at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre in Accra last Thursday, Mr Domelevo also spoke against the appointment of heads of former public institutions as board chairmen of such establishments. He explained that the board chairmen tended to undermine incumbent leadership, which could stifle institutional and national progress. The lectures, instituted in memory of the late former Finance Minister in the Kufuor adminstration, was on the theme: Protecting the public purse - Keeping the gate shut before the horse bolts. Mr Domelevo said some of the board chairmen saw their appointments as an opportunity to impose themselves on management. The practice of bringing back former public servants to their old positions or bringing former chief executives as board members leave much to be desired because clearly there will be conflict. If they bring you back years later as a board member or board chairman, you can easily undermine who is there and so we have to take a second look at this. And some of the board members, even if they are appointed, they think its their second coming of Christ; they will not be leaving, the Auditor-General said. Mr Domelevo is currently embroiled in disagreement with a former Auditor-General and current board chairman of the Audit Service, Prof. Edward Dua Agyeman. He has gone ahead to petition President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo over allegations of interference by the board chairman. people in public service Mr Domelevo criticised the continuous engagement of old people in the public sector. He said it was counterproductive for old people, some of them over 70 years of age, to be occupying positions in the public service when they were supposed to be on retirement. He rejected suggestions that the retirement age should be increased, explaining that it would compound the unemployment situation in the country. Our Constitution said when you are 60 years go home so others can also come and work. People are over 70 and are still around. When I ask them to go home they are fighting me. Change the law if you think the retiring age should be 80. The disturbing part is that our graduates are on the streets and we think we must remain in office, he said. He was equally concerned about how some workers who were due for retirement sometimes forged their birth certificates to make them remain young and relevant on the job market. At times you would see some public servants and you wonder how many times they would be 60 years. They falsify birth certificates so as to remain young. It is only when they die that you know their true age. The man retires at 60, he dies next year and he is 82. That is what is happening in our country. Until we have changed the law, I will continue disturbing them. We are doing a payroll audit and at the end of it you will see my report on over-aged people. I promise that I will activate Article 187 Clause 7(a) on them and disallow their existence on the payroll, he said to loud applause from the gathering. Corruption The oft-spoken canker of corruption would not escape the radar of the Auditor-General who argued that although corruption could be found in developed countries; they made sure that offenders were prosecuted, unlike in developing countries such as Ghana. In the developed countries when youre caught youre finished; there are consequences. In Ghana or Africa when youre caught you can even bluff them; they say and so what because he knows nothing will happen, he said. Insisting that he would never shut his mouth on corruption because he was not a coward, the Auditor-General said he was ready to lose his job by standing up for the truth. As for me I will say it; if that means to go home, Im ready to go home this evening, he said. Source: Graphic.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. The Ashanti Regional chairman of the New Patriotic Party, Mr. Bernard Antwi-Boasiako, has responded angrily to claims by the minority in Parliament that it is needless for ex-president John Dramani Mahama to be probed over his involvemnt in the transfer of some GH40 million from the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation (BOST), to the presidency, through an account allegedly run by his former Chief of Staff, Julius Debrah. Former Chief Executive of BOST, Kwame Awuah-Darko, is alleged to have transferred the money into to the Chief of Staffs account at the Bank of Ghana between August 2015 and January 2017. The minority have put in a defense that the payment were monies accrued from the security fees taken from BDCs to make payments on the cost of petroleum products supplied by Goil but Mr. Bernard Antwi-Boasiako insists there is still a need for forensic audit. Spokesperson for the minority on Energy, Adam Mutawakilu, says a probe will not be necessary because the Economic and Organised Crimes Office (EOCO) was already looking into the issue. The best authority has been given the mandate to investigate and therefore we should allow them to do their jobif they [EOCO] feels that there is a need for a forensic audit, they will engage those people [involved in the transfer]... We feel that at the end of the day, we will be vindicated, he said. However, Mr. Bernard Antwi-Boasiako popularly known as Chairman Wontumi believes it is highly likely that former president Mahama and his appointees would be found guilty after proper investigations have been conducted. He pointed out that if a mere gift like a Ford car could move the former president to award road contracts, then it was unwise to believe GH40.5m can't corrupt him. In his view, absolutely nothing could wean Mahama off corruption. Corruption is part of his make up, it is in his gene. If you have a former president who would with open arms accept a ford car to award a road contract, then you can rightly tell GH40 million would sweep him off his feet. Under his presidency, it was visible to see corruption hovering around like a human being. His administration enjoyed this absurd practice. He is corrupt and has always been. Chairman Wontumi continued that under this same John Mahama, he allowed Smarttys, a company contracted to brand 116 Metro Mass Transit Buses over-bill Ghanaians to the tune of about GH1.9million. In 2014, officials of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) uncovered a GH7.9 million deep-rooted rot at the National Service Secretariat (NSS), and Chairman Wontumi added that such history should inform Ghanaians that former president Mahama wanted to use the account set-up by Mr. Debrah to rip-off the nation. Source: Peacefmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Founder of Fountain Gate Church, Rev. Eastwood Anaba has hailed Reggae/Dancehall artiste, Stonebwoy for his intelligence. I want to tell Stonebwoy he is a very intelligent boy because I listened to the boy and it was almost like listening to a professor from the university, at that lower age, The Man of God said when preaching to his congregation. To him, there are intelligent and blessed people in this country called Ghana. Stonebwoy replies: Good Morning World This touched my spirit. I cant explain how!. To be named amongst the intelligent by Rev. Eastwood Anaba Of @eastwoodanabaministries It's actually a responsibility, an obligation to achieve.. A task to stay Put. #beyondreligions #impacttheworld #BlessHisImperialMajesty #BHIMnation VIDEO- Source: peacefmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video FILE - This undated file photo provided by Scotty Barr shows Ashley Johnson-Barr. A federal grand jury has indicted on Thursday, Sept. 20, 2018, an Alaska man linked to the missing 10-year-old girl's death, alleging he lied, among other things, that he found the missing girl's cellphone when in fact he took it from her. Johnson-Barr went missing Sept. 6, 2018, in Kotzebue, 26 miles (42 kilometers) north of the Arctic Circle, and she was found dead Sept. 14. (Scotty Barr via AP, File) Bill Cosby arrives for sentencing in his sexual assault trial at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown on Monday. Read more Update: Bill Cosby has arrived at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown for the start of his sentencing hearing for his conviction of sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in his Cheltenham Township home. Two of the women who testified at the trial Lise Lotte Lublin and Janice Dickinson were escorted into the courtroom by detectives. At least two jurors also showed up. Constand is expected to attend but has not yet appeared. Earlier Story Bill Cosby has been accused of sexual misconduct by more than 60 women. He's endured two criminal trials in the nearly three years since he was charged with drugging and assaulting Andrea Constand. And he's been found guilty by a jury from Montgomery County. Now, his fate lies in the hands of one man. In days, Judge Steven T. O'Neill could order the 81-year-old entertainer once known as "America's Dad" to be led away in handcuffs to a prison cell possibly for the rest of his life. O'Neill's decision, expected to unfold before a crowd of observers and media in a Norristown courtroom Monday or Tuesday, represents the first time in the #MeToo era that a celebrity faces prison in a sex-assault case. The hearing is scheduled to begin Monday and last two days. Neither prosecutors nor defense lawyers have publicly filed their sentencing recommendations. But if the proceeding follows routine, it will include arguments from the lawyers, a victim impact statement from Constand, and statements of support from Cosby's family members or friends if they choose to attend. And perhaps remarks from the entertainer himself if he exercises his right to address the judge. O'Neill may also hold a separate hearing to determine whether Cosby should register as a sex offender for the rest of his life and undergo treatment. Cosby's lawyers are almost certain to raise issues his defense has brought up repeatedly since his 2015 arrest and believe should shape how he is punished: his compliance with bail conditions, his age, and failing health. They say he is legally blind. Swaying O'Neill may be a tall order. Data suggest that nearly 80 percent of defendants convicted of the same crime aggravated indecent assault who like Cosby had no prior record were sent to prison. There are also dozens of older inmates in Pennsylvania prisons, some with similar health problems. Given the international spotlight on sexual assault, O'Neill may also feel pressure. "Most judges in an individual case will be eager to assert that they want to treat every defendant equally and that a defendant's notoriety neither affects nor influences what they do at sentencing," said Douglas A. Berman, a professor at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law who studies sentencing issues. "But I think practically speaking, we see in a lot of high-profile cases judges acting differently." A prison term for Cosby would be the final, devastating blow in a slow but dramatic and perhaps unmatched downfall. Once among the nation's most beloved celebrities, his career at its end became mired in dozens of accusations of past sexual misconduct even as he eluded prosecution in all but one case, drew a hung jury in his first trial, and continued to maintain his innocence. The judges decision Pennsylvania law gives judges loose guidelines and the latitude to impose a sentence of their choice. Although Cosby faces a maximum of 10 years in state prison for each of the three counts against him, Pennsylvania's sentencing guidelines call for from 22 months to three years for aggravated indecent assault. But O'Neill has discretion; he could impose a much longer or shorter prison term than the guideline recommendation. Each count represents a different crime penetrating Constand without her consent, drugging her, and assaulting her while she was drugged but the judge could roll the sentences into one. Berman noted a case with as much publicity and as many variables as Cosby's makes a decision difficult. "My sympathies to the sentencing judge," he said. Of the nearly 120 defendants sentenced in 2016 for aggravated indecent assault in Pennsylvania in which the defendant had no prior record, 79 percent went to state prison, according to data from the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing. In those cases, the average minimum sentence was 2 years and the average maximum more than six years. About 10 percent of defendants received a term short enough to serve in county jails under two years while 5 percent received probation. Six percent of defendants got a non-confinement sentence, meaning they may have paid fines or restitution but were spared from a cell or house arrest. Besides seeking a lengthy state prison sentence, prosecutors are expected to argue Cosby should be ordered to cover the cost of his trials. His lawyers are likely to contend that he should remain free on bail while he appeals the conviction, or that he should serve his sentence under house arrest because of his age and failing health. David Heckler, a former Bucks County judge and district attorney, said seeing the international celebrity marched out of court in handcuffs could send an important message. "There comes a judgment day," Heckler said. "And it comes for all of us rich, poor, famous or not famous if we betray a trust we have." What would a prison term mean for Cosby? Steven L. Chanenson, a professor of law at Villanova University and a former chair of the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing, said it is unlikely O'Neill would approve probation for Cosby, or even let him be released on bail while he appeals. "When it comes to sentencing, judges are engaged in both an art and a science," Chanenson said. "They have to look at the law, they have to look at the facts, and they truly are engaged in a form of judgment." If Cosby is sentenced to state prison, he would be transported to the Montgomery County jail in Lower Providence Township to await transport to the State Correctional Institution Phoenix, the new prison on the SCI Graterford campus. At SCI Phoenix, Cosby would be evaluated for placement within the state prison system. There are about a dozen state prison inmates with visual impairments, said Sue McNaughton, a spokesperson for the Department of Corrections, and they live in the general prison population. Some have "inmate guides," fellow inmates who can lead them around, she said. His age also shouldn't be an issue. McNaughton said there are 86 inmates who are 80 or older the oldest is 91 and facilities with infirmaries for inmates of any age. The unknowns Cosby, on house arrest at his home in Cheltenham since he was convicted in April, has said through his lawyers that he will appeal his conviction. His wife and publicists have compared him to civil rights icons Nelson Mandela and Emmett Till, insisting that he, too, is the victim of a corrupt and racist justice system. Appeals can take years to work their way through the court system. Cosby and his lawyers have also questioned the judge's fairness. On Monday, Camille Cosby submitted a complaint to the state judicial conduct board, claiming O'Neill had a personal grudge against former District Attorney Bruce L. Castor who testified at a pretrial hearing that Cosby should not have been prosecuted that should have prevented O'Neill from taking the case. On Friday, Cosby's wife announced that she had hired a Harrisburg-based lawyer to investigate the judge. Cosby's latest lawyers Joseph Green Jr. and Peter Goldberger, who joined the case after Cosby parted ways with his trial attorneys can present evidence and witnesses to demonstrate Cosby's character and good works throughout his life. And, if he agrees, let their client speak. Constand, who first accused Cosby in 2005 of assaulting her while she worked for Temple University in 2004, will attend the sentencing hearing and testify about the impact of the crime. "She is confident that there will be justice performed," said her lawyer, Dolores Troiani. District Attorney Kevin Steele, who called five other Cosby accusers to testify at the trial, had sought to have even more accusers speak at the sentencing hearing. O'Neill denied that motion, but prosecutors can still ask him to consider the accounts of the women who told jurors that Cosby had drugged and sexually assaulted them. In the end, it will all fall to O'Neill. "It's really difficult to understand and appreciate the complexity of that sentencing decision and unless you're there and unless you have access to all of the information that he will have access to," said Lawrence F. Stengel, who recently retired from his role as chief U.S. district judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. "Sentencing is the hardest thing a judge does." If you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this Got news tips, gossip, suggestions, complaints?E-mail us: progressivecharlestown@gmail.com We strive to avoid errors in our articles. Our correction policy can be found here This article originally appeared in RECOIL ISSUE 37 Size Matters Just Not the Way You Think Back in the dark ages of the 1990s, when Will Smith was still a young comedic actor, Gemtech began working on a special-purpose suppressor. It had to be as small as possible, lightweight, and quiet. A lot of special and one-off items have been made for downed pilot survival kits the Aurora would become one of them. Getting your grubbies on one of the originals was hard, but now theres a newer and better one out there: The Gemtech Aurora II. The first suppressor to be made in-house by new Gemtech parent company Smith & Wesson, these Auroras will actually hit the larger open market. Better, Faster, Stronger Several changes and improvements went into the Aurora II. First and most obvious is the exterior sleeve. Its slotted and then slightly bent in at the middle. This makes gripping the silencer to take it on or off exceedingly easy. Secondly, its tandem threaded and bidirectional. Have a 9mm pistol threaded M13.5x1LH? Theres an end for that. Have a 9mm pistol in the preferred thread pattern of the only nation to put a man on the moon, x28? Theres an end for that too. Each end comes complete with internal thread protectors and wrench flats that conveniently fit into an AR armorers tool. The internals are a palindrome of wipes and spacers, so it makes zero difference which end of the Aurora II you use. Less obvious are some of the internal changes of the Aurora II versus the original. Firstly, it uses wipe material that is 85A durometer polyurethane, much tougher than the original 65A material. Secondly, the spacers are now bidirectional. While there were several different versions of the original Aurora, depending on what year it was produced, many had spacers with different openings on either end. The idea was that having the muzzle-end hole slightly larger gave more space for a wipe to cave into as it wore. After a lot of testing and trial and error, engineers at Gemtech determined that simply having the larger hole on either side actually increased wipe longevity. The change in material and spacer design made for a tougher suppressor. How much? The original Aurora had an anticipated wipe life of 10 rounds when mounted on a service weapon and the Aurora II: 40. Did we mention that the Aurora II is small and light? At just 3.3 inches long and a scant over 3 ounces, this can wont crack any scales. Because its so small and light, no booster or Nielsen device is needed even when used with a Browning tilt-action barrel. Old Technology for Novel Uses Normally when we think of silencers that use wipes, old Mitch Werbell designs come to mind. Wipes can be made from all manner of materials, so long as its pliable enough to allow a projectile to pass through but seals up fast enough to trap the explosive gases behind. Those self-healing targets you throw downrange work much in the same manner. There are definitely downsides to wipes; they cant be used very much before replacement, accuracy can get thrown off considerably because the bullet passes through the material, and generally they arent as well suited for modern weapons when compared to present-day options. But of course theres a but. You can make a silencer exceptionally small with wipes and grease. As mentioned wipes help keep the gas sealed in, and the grease is an ablative media in other words, a temporary performance enhancer. If youve ever heard about a suppressor being run wet, thats in reference to an ablative media being used. After the Aurora II is packed with grease and fresh wipes, it can be tucked away for years without any worries of leakage or evaporation. The Projectile Predicament While you may think that the Aurora II might make for a nice little nightstand or carry can, youll have to pump the brakes here. Because the projectile passes through several wipes and some grease along the way, even with the X-aperture in the wipes themselves, the bullet strikes material on its way down range. This means hollow points or any other expanding ammunition are a no-go. To quote Gemtech, guaranteed endcap strike. Slightly further complicating matters is that only one side of the silencer threads off if both sides came off, an endcap strike could be a quick fix. While our service men and women the world over largely carry ball ammunition in their pistols, we wont pretend this is the best possible choice for defensive application. At the Range Exactly how long the wipes will last in the Aurora II goes far beyond the user manual. Supersonic rounds through a short pistol will wear out wipes faster than subsonic through a duty-sized gun. The more powder you have burning and blasting from the muzzle, the shorter the life span. The original Gemtech Aurora was designed around subsonic Israeli 158-grain ball ammunition. We can confirm this load works very well, as does Freedom Munition 165-grain HUSH. Ammunition with truncated cone projectiles, like a lot of 147-grain on the market, will reduce the life span of the wipes. Because we wanted to play with extremes, we used supersonic 124-grain NATO ammunition in a tricked out micro-murder Glock 43, and 165-grain HUSH ammunition out of a Glock 17. Differences were night and day. With a 165-grain from a full-size pistol, we were able to unload a full box of 50 before the wipes gave way from the G43, about 17 rounds. Even when the centers of the wipes were blown out, there was still some (albeit small) suppressive effect. While subsonic ammunition can make any silencer sound pretty good, what surprised us about the Aurora II is that it worked exceptionally well with supersonic ammunition too. Once the silencer gets heated up and the grease starts burning off, it can get quite smoky at the range so definitely ensure you have good ventilation if youre partaking indoors. Accuracy was very dependent on the pistol and load as well; remember were talking about blowing though a total of an inch of polyurethane after exiting the muzzle. Supersonic ammunition tended to deflect less, but inconsistent wear of the wipes may also have some effect. Loose Rounds The original Aurora may have been developed for pilot escape and evasion kits, but it soon found roles with other parts of the defense apparatus. It isnt terribly hard to imagine one of these being employed against a sentrys skull, making their brain the final baffle. Enough of these went to specific SOCOM units that Gemtech was tasked with providing training on field-expedient improvised insides. They tried everything from cut up Glock-branded stress balls to sheepskin to sleeping pads. Ultimately the original polyurethane was the best, but leather ended up being something of a viable alternative no huge surprise as many early silencers sported leather wipes. Compared to full-size pistol suppressors, the Aurora II is maintenance heavy and has a whole lot of ammunition restrictions. But for the original intended role and other government special uses that came later down the line? Unparalleled. The very best part of the Aurora II isnt simply the size or how quiet it is, but the fact that you can actually own and use one yourself without crashing an F/A-18. Gemtech Aurora II Caliber: 9mm Material: Aluminum and stainless steel Length: 3.3 inches Diameter: 1.125 inches Weight: 3.2 ounces MSRP: $399 URL: gemtech.com Making Replacement Wipes Warning! The BATFE has notified manufacturers that suppressors and suppressor parts, including suppressor wipes, are federally regulated devices and can only be manufactured by specially licensed firearms manufacturers. The best suggested practice for replacing the wipes in your Aurora II is to send it in to Gemtech. For $30, theyll put in brand-new factory wipes, grease it up properly, and send it on back. However, if youre a type 02/07 Special Occupational Taxpayer (SOT) FFL, you can legally make new wipes without any questions or hassle. Legal stuff aside and without further ado: Tools & Materials > 1516-inch hammer driven arch punch (McMaster-Carr #3427A23) > Craft knife > Petroleum jelly (premium synthetic grease is a viable, yet unpreferred, alternative) > BFH > Gloves > 1212-inch sheet of 18-inch-thick polyurethane (PU) rubber, 80A hardness (McMaster Carr #8789K21); enough for well over 100 wipes, but you can buy in any quantity Notes: OEM Gemtech wipes are water-jet cut. However, these instructions closely follow Gemtech-founder Dr. Phil Daters instructions for original Aurora wipes. You also have some options regarding tools and materials. For example, the PU hardness for OEM wipes is 85A, which we found more difficult to source. The 80A is an easy alternative with only slightly reduced longevity. Additionally, if you already have a 1-inch arch punch (McMaster-Carr # 3427A24) thatll also work but youll need to use a dowel to press fit. Both sizes are equally as effective. Another optional tool is a sharp -inch cold chisel (McMaster-Carr #3575A22) in lieu of a craft knife; while it isnt more effective, it does look nicer. Neatness doesnt count terribly much here in regards to performance though. 1. Disassemble the Aurora II. Destroy and dispose of spent wipes. Clean spacers if needed (being a little dirty is no problem). 2. Using your BFH and arch punch, cut eight wipes from your PU. A cutting board makes this job easier and will also keep your punch sharp for a longer period of time. 3. Use your craft knife (or -inch cold chisel) to cut an X through the center of the wipes. Pair each wipe with another, using a dab of petroleum jelly to stick them together. Each cut X should be offset 45 degrees from one another. 4. Pack the outside and inside channels of your spacers with the petroleum jelly. Also apply jelly to the top and bottom of each spacer for the best seal with the wipes. 5. Assemble the silencer. The guts consist of eight wipes stacked together in four pairs, with three spacers. The order of assembly is wipes-spacer-wipes-spacer-wipes-spacer-wipes. 6. If youve used a 1-inch arch punch rather than a 15/16th, use a dowel to press fit. Replace the front cap and enjoy! So far, the current year has not been great for the leading car exporters from India. In the top five list of exporters -- Hyundai, Ford, Maruti Suzuki, General Motors and Volkswagen -- it is only Hyundai which is clocking a growth. Photograph: Dimitrisvetsikas/Pixabay.com Hyundai, which exports vehicles to more than 80 destinations from India, managed to clock a 23 per cent growth in shipments during the April-August period of the financial year 2018-19. The company's growth comes even as the total passenger vehicle (cars, utility vehicles and vans) export from the country declined more than three per cent to 291,896 units in the first five months, according to Siam data. American carmaker Ford, which emerged as the biggest exporter from India -- for the first time -- last year, is now second again after its export volume declined by 12.52 per cent to 65,176 units during the April-August period. In entire FY18, the company had achieved a record export of 181,148 units, ahead of Hyundai's 153,942 units. So far, the current year has not been great for the leading car exporters from India. In the top five list of exporters -- Hyundai, Ford, Maruti Suzuki, General Motors and Volkswagen -- it is only Hyundai which is clocking a growth. Maruti Suzuki has seen a decline of five per cent while General Motors and Volkswagen have slipped by five and 26 per cent, respectively. Except for Maruti and Hyundai, the other top exporters sell more units in exports than in the domestic market. Photograph: Tortugadatacorp/Pixabay.com In FY18, Hyundai's exports had declined by eight per cent. But the surge in this financial year is coming on account of a sharp growth in the export volume of its hatchback Grandi10 and Verna. A total of 20,749 units of Grandi10 were exported between April and July this year (latest available model-wise export data shows), up 59 per cent YoY. A total of 7,118 Verna sedans were exported by the Korean auto major against none in the same period last year. Besides these two models, the company also exported over 6,600 units of Xcent and over 7,200 Elitei20 cars. Y K Koo, managing director and CEO, Hyundai Motor India, recently said that after Vietnam and Philippines, a few more countries, including some in Asia and South America, are planning to increase tax rates for car exported as completely built units (CBUs). "Therefore, the company has started exporting cars in a completely knocked-down form that ensures additional volumes. This is a change of strategy in the company's export division," Koo said. Ford did not comment on the queries on the decline in export volumes. Exports of all models -- Figo, Figo Aspire and EcoSport -- have reported a decline. Export is highly critical for Ford's India operations since as much as 60 per cent of the sales contribution come from exports. A company official, however, did say that the numbers will pick up in the coming months with the introduction of new models. Caste assertions, including from the upper castes, could have the Sangh Parivar stumble yet again in its efforts to construct a Hindu rashtra, reports Archis Mohan. IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi pays tribute to Dr B R Ambedkar before the Bharatiya Janata Party national executive meeting at the Ambedkar International Centre in New Delhi. Photograph: Kind courtesy @narendramodi/Twitter Politics in north India is in ferment like it has seldom been since the monsoon of 1990. That year had marked the beginning of a caste assertion which halted the Sangh Parivar juggernaut of the early 1990s. The V P Singh government had virtually resurrected B R Ambedkar by conferring upon him the Bharat Ratna, announced that it would implement the Mandal Commission recommendations and also brought a stringent law to prevent atrocities on the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. In its aftermath, the Dalit and OBC (Other Backward Classes) leaderships frustrated the Sangh Parivar project of harnessing a consolidated Hindu vote for its political arm, the Bharatiya Janata Party. Twenty-eight monsoons later, and just when it looked that the BJP is on the cusp of harnessing a consolidated Hindu vote for a second Lok Sabha election in succession because of its outreach to the Dalits and the OBCs, caste assertions, including from the upper castes, could have the Sangh Parivar stumble yet again in its efforts to construct a Hindu rashtra. On September 6, upper caste outfits across northern Indian states gave a call for a strike -- a Bharat Bandh. Incidents of violence were reported from some areas and BJP leaders heckled in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh. But for the outfits leading the protest -- the likes of the Brahma Samaj, the Parashuram Sena, the Savarna Jana Kalyan Sangathan, the Kshatriya Sena -- the response to their Bharat Bandh call was largely ambivalent. Its severest impact was witnessed in some districts of Madhya Pradesh, particularly in Gwalior and in Bihar's Muzaffarpur where some activists beat up Lok Sabha member Pappu Yadav. These outfits were protesting the Narendra Modi government ensuring the passage of a bill in the monsoon session of Parliament that restored the more stringent penal provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. The amendments overturned the Supreme Court order of March 20 that had diluted these provisions. Under pressure after a massive Dalit protest on April 2, and from the Opposition as well as its allies, the Modi government had brought in the amendments, upsetting members of the upper castes in much of northern India. Belying the expectations of the upper caste outfits, the OBCs didn't come out in large numbers to support the strike call. Within the Sangh Parivar, as well as the BJP, this state of play with barely nine months to go for the Lok Sabha election has alarm bells ringing. There are fears of a repeat of 1993, when the OBCs, led by Mulayam Singh Yadav, and the Dalits, led by Kanshi Ram, had come together for the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls to stop the BJP's electoral rath in the wake of the demolition of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya. That alliance had proved to be short-lived, but accomplished its purpose of preventing the BJP from forming a government in the state. A putative Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party and Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party alliance for the Lok Sabha in Uttar Pradesh could prove to be equally disastrous for the BJP. However, the Sangh Parivar is also worried that its Dalit outreach has upset the upper castes enough to not turn up for voting, or press 'NOTA' as a mark of protest. The Sangh Parivar assessment is that the BJP lost the Phulpur and Gorakhpur Lok Sabha by-polls primarily because its upper caste voters didn't turn up. Since the last few days, several BJP leaders have tried to reach out to the upper castes, as also the Dalits. If Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan advised the upper castes to be patient, the BJP in a symbolic gesture to mollify the Dalits decided upon the Ambedkar International Centre as the venue for its national executive meeting. In their speeches, Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi and BJP President Amit Anilchandra Shah stressed on the work the BJP government at the Centre has done in the last four years to accord respect to Ambedkar. In the meantime, the Congress has tried to reclaim its Brahmin support base of the 1980s, with Haryana leader Randeep Singh Surjewala holding a Brahmin conference in his state, while senior Madhya Pradesh leader Kamal Nath raising issues that are close to the hearts of Brahmins, including cow protection. Political observers in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and within mainstream political parties believe the Congress would find little success in its efforts, but the BJP has definitely fallen in a political trap laid out for it by the Congress and would need a Houdini's act to escape unscathed in the 2019 polls. "It is clearly less about Dalit rights and more a political fight in the run-up to the assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, and the subsequent Lok Sabha elections," says Anand Vardhan Singh, a Lucknow based political analyst. "The scheduled castes form a sizeable vote bank in north India. It could hurt the BJP if it is perceived as primarily an upper caste party. On the other hand, the party is facing the risk of upsetting the upper castes," Singh says. An ace up the BJP's sleeve is implementing what is called the Karpoori Thakur formula of providing for quota for the extremely backward castes within the 27 per cent reservation for the OBCs. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had implemented it in Bihar to counter Lalu Prasad-led Rashtriya Janata Dal's sway over the OBCs. "It is a bit too late for such strategies. The BJP has exposed itself to be an upper caste party among not just the Dalits, but also OBCs. Why else do you think that large sections of the OBCs didn't participate?" asks All India Ambedkar Mahasabha chief Ashok Bharti, a key leader of the April 2 strike. At present, these caste contradictions in north India, as also Maharashtra, have become an additional headache for the BJP along with increasing anger over increasing petrol and diesel prices, the impact of demonetisation and goods and services tax on small businesses, and the agrarian distress. It will be interesting to watch whether the BJP, under Modi and Shah, can convince the Dalits and the OBCs to unite with the upper castes against the 'common enemy' of 'breaking India brigade', as the party puts it, of the so-called 'urban Naxals'. A Kerala court on Saturday rejected the bail application of Bishop Franco Mulakkal, arrested on charges of repeatedly raping and sexually assaulting a nun, and sent him to a two-day police custody. The Bishop was brought to the Pala magistrate court around 1.15 pm amid tight security. His lawyers moved the application seeking relief, submitting that the clergyman was arrested after a three-day long interrogation by the probe team. Opposing the plea, police said his three-day custody was required to conduct his potency test and to recover the laptop, mobile phone and the dress used by the accused. In its remand report submitted in the court, police said the nun was subjected to rape and unnatural sex by the accused at the Guest House of St Francis Mission Home 13 times between 2014 and 2016. They said his body fluid and DNA samples were required to be collected as part of the probe Recording the submissions, the magistrate granted two-day custody of the bishop to police till 2.30 pm on Monday. The Bishop, who was arrested Friday night, was later taken to the Government Medical College Hospital, Kottayam and from there to the Police Club in the town for custodial interrogation. Earlier, the bishop was discharged from the Government Medical College Hospital here, where he was admitted on Friday night following complaints of chest pain. The 54-year-old clergyman had complained of pain in his chest while being taken to Kottayam Police club from the Crime Branch office at Thrippunithura in Ernakulam district Friday night. He was under observation in the cardiology section of the hospital for over six hours after his blood pressure shot up, official sources said. Police took him to the court in Pala from the police club here. In her complaint to Kottayam Police in June, the nun had alleged that Bishop Mulakkal raped her at a guest house in Kuravilangad in May 2014 and later sexually exploited her on several occasions. The nun said she had to approach the police as the church authorities did not act on her repeated complaints against the clergyman. However, the bishop has denied the charges. The French government has said it was in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners for the multi-billion dollar Rafale fighter jet deal as former French president Francois Hollande's reported comments that New Delhi proposed Reliance Defence as the Indian partner for the contract escalated the political row over it. While the French government said French companies have the full freedom to select Indian firms for the deal, Dassault Aviation, the makers of Rafale, said it had made the decision to partner with Reliance Defence Ltd. Both the French government and French aerospace company Dassault issued separate statements following a French media report which quoted Hollande as saying that the Indian government proposed Reliance Defence as the partner for French aerospace giant in the Rs 58,000 crore Rafale deal and France did not have a choice. The sensational comments quoted to Hollande by French publication Mediapart gave a new twist to the controversy as the Indian government has been maintaining it was not officially aware of whom the Dassault Aviation has selected as its Indian partner to fulfil offset obligations of the deal. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the procurement of a batch of 36 Rafale jets after holding talks with then French President Hollande on April 10, 2015 in Paris. 'The French government is in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners who have been, are being, or will be selected by French companies,' the French government said in its statement. The report in Mediapart quoted Hollande as saying, 'It was the Indian government that proposed this service group, and Dassault which negotiated with Ambani. We had no choice, we took the interlocutor who was given to us.' Reacting to Hollande's remarks, a defence ministry spokesman said, "It is reiterated that neither the government nor the French government had any say in the commercial decision." NDTV reported that Hollande's office said he stood by his remarks made to Mediapart. Hollande's comments drew sharp reactions from the opposition parties which have been accusing the government of massive irregularities in the deal and benefiting Reliance Defence Ltd (RDL) despite not having any experience in the aerospace sector. "It is very important for the prime minister now to either accept Mr. Hollande's statement or state that Mr. Hollande is lying and tell what the truth is," Congress president Rahul Gandhi said. He also claimed that various defence ministers of the National Democratic Alliance government have been lying to protect Modi. In its statement, Dassault Aviation said it has decided to make a partnership with the Reliance Defence in accordance with the policy of 'Make in India'. 'This offsets contract is delivered in compliance with the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) 2016 regulations. In this framework, and in accordance with the policy of Make in India, Dassault Aviation has decided to make a partnership with India's Reliance Group. This is Dassault Aviation's choice,' the French company said. The French government said, 'In accordance with India's acquisition procedure, French companies have the full freedom to choose the Indian partner companies that they consider to be the most relevant, then present for the Indian government's approval the offsets projects that they wish to execute in India with these local partners so as to fulfil their obligations in this regard.' The Congress has been accusing massive irregularities in the deal, alleging that the government was procuring each aircraft at a cost of over Rs 1,670 crore as against Rs 526 crore finalised by the United Progressive Alliance government when it was negotiating procurement of 126 Rafale jets. The Congress has also alleged that the government was benefitting Reliance Defence through the deal as the company has set up a joint venture with Dassault Aviation to execute the offset obligation for the deal. Opposition parties have also alleged that Reliance Defence was formed only 12 days before the announcement of the Rafale deal by the prime minister on April 10, 2015. The Reliance group has rejected the charges. The French government said the inter-governmental agreement it signed with India for supplying 36 Rafale aircraft concerns its obligations solely with regard to ensuring the delivery and quality of the aircraft. 'As it happens, agreements have already been signed by French companies with many Indian firms, both public and private, under the framework of Indian laws,' the statement said. The Congress has also been demanding answers from the government on why state-run aerospace major HAL was not involved in the deal as finalised during the UPA. Under India's offset policy, foreign defence entities are mandated to spend at least 30 per cent of the total contract value in India through procurement of components or setting up of research and development facilities. IMAGE: A view after the attack during a military parade in Ahvaz, Iran, on Saturday. Photograph: Tasnim News Agency/via Reuters At least 29 people, including women, children and Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) personnel, were killed and 57 injured after gunmen targeted a military parade in southwestern Iran's Ahvaz city on Saturday, state media said. The attack is claimed by the Islamic State group. The semi-official Fars news agency said that four gunmen on a motorcycle, who were disguised as military personnel, carried out the attack. Deputy governor in Khuzestan province, Ali Hosein Hoseinzadeh, said that two gunmen were killed by security forces and two others were injured, reported Al Jazeera. The attack prompted President Hassan Rouhani to warn of a 'crushing response'. IMAGE: Iranian media said said 4 gunmen on a motorcycle, who were disguised as military personnel, carried out the attack. Photograph: Tasnim News Agency/via Reuters 'The response of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the smallest threat will be crushing,' Rouhani said on his official website. 'Those who give intelligence and propaganda support to these terrorists must answer for it,' he said. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted that the attack near the Iraqi border was carried out by 'terrorists recruited, trained, armed & paid by a foreign regime'. Several parades are being conducted across Iran to mark the anniversary of the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war, that began from 1980 to 1988. Ahvaz, the capital of Khuzestan province, is rich in oil reserves and has seen a number of attacks by the Arab separatists in the past. The city was also one of the few venues of anti-government protests late last year. With agency inputs. 'Passengers of the Jet Airways flight will be entitled for compensation for discomfort and trauma, but it may not be Rs 2 million in this incident.' Aneesh Phadnis reports. IMAGE: The scene on the Mumbai-Jaipur flight after the crew forgot to select the bleed switch due to which cabin pressurisation could not be maintained and oxygen masks were deployed, September 20, 2018. Photograph: Kind courtesy @DarshakHathi/Twitter Passengers of Jet Airways' Mumbai-Jaipur flight who suffered injuries on Thursday, September 20, might receive a lower payout as the Centre is yet to revise compensation norms. In May, the civil aviation ministry released the draft passenger rights charter, proposing higher compensation for deaths and injuries in domestic air travel. The compensation for deaths and injuries because of accidents in international flights is in accordance with The Carriage by Air Act. These provide for two-tier carrier liabilities. An airline is liable to pay an amount equivalent to Rs 11 million to affected passengers or their kin. Passengers do not have to prove negligence on part of the carrier for this payout. However, this does not mean all passengers are entitled to receive the amount. The payout depends on age, income, and occupation of the passenger. The compensation in the case of domestic flights, however, has been capped at Rs 2 million. As part of its passenger rights charter, the government proposed to bring parity to compensation for domestic and international flights. Airlines have resisted the move and have asked the government to retain existing regulations. They said the proposed change would increase their costs. An official said the ministry was in the process of finalising the charter. Over 30 passengers of a Jet Airways Mumbai-Jaipur flight on Thursday complained of nose and ear bleeding after the crew failed to turn on the switch that maintains air pressure inside the aircraft. In a statement, the airline said: 'Jet Airways, being mindful of the safety and comfort of its guests, always ensures these aspects are never compromised. We are concentrating on extending assistance to the guests so that they receive requisite medical care. We are extending cooperation to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation in their investigation.We will be guided by the applicable Act and regulations regarding the compensation.' "Passengers of the Jet Airways flight will be entitled for compensation for discomfort and trauma, but it may not be Rs 2 million in this incident," said Lalit Bhasin, managing partner at Bhasin and Co. Passengers can claim damages under The Carriage by Air Act on grounds of negligence. In the case of such a claim, there is no cap on carrier liabilities, but a payout can happen only if it is proved that there was negligence on part of the carrier. Passengers can file cases under the Consumer Protection Act, claiming deficiency in service. IMAGE: Congress president Rahul Gandhi addresses a press conference in New Delhi on Saturday. Photograph: Courtesy @INCIndia/Twitter In a stinging attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said former French president Francois Hollande's remarks on Reliance Defence showed 'clear cut' corruption in the Rafale deal and questioned the prime minister's 'silence' on the issue Asking the prime minister to come clean on the allegations of favouring Reliance Defence as 'it is the question of dignity of his office', Gandhi demanded that there be a probe by a joint parliamentary committee, in which Hollande can be called so that the truth comes out. "Now, what the ex-President of France is saying is that the Prime Minister of India is a 'thief'. That is what this (Hollande's) statement is saying. "And it is very important for the Prime Minister of India now to either accept Mr Hollande's statement and say 'Yes, it is the truth -- Mr Narendra Modi gave the Rafale contract in Rs.30,000 crore to Mr Anil Ambani', or 'Mr Hollande is not telling the truth and here is the truth'," Gandhi said at a press conference. The Congress chief's blistering attack on Modi came a day after Hollande was quoted as saying by French media that the Indian government proposed Anil Ambani's Reliance Defence as the partner for Dassault Aviation in the Rs 58,000 crore Rafale jet fighter deal. "It is the question of dignity of the office of the PMO, it is a defence related question, it is a question of future of our jawans, the future of our soldiers, the future of our Air Force. And what I am surprised by is that the prime minister is completely silent - not one word has come out of PM's mouth about this comment," Gandhi said. To a question, Gandhi alleged that it 'is very clear -- there is clear cut corruption in the Rafale deal'. "It is now up to the Prime Minister of India to clear his name. We are absolutely convinced that the prime minister of India is corrupt. This question is now clearly settled into the minds of the Indian people that the country's watchman is a thief," Gandhi alleged. Demanding a joint parliamentary committee probe into the Rafale deal, he said, "(Finance Minister) Arun Jaitley has written a very good blog, but when it came to the JPC demand, he went silent. Let there be a JPC, we can call Hollande also in it and everything will be known." The report in Mediapart, a French language publication, quoted Hollande as saying, "It was the Indian government that proposed this service group, and Dassault which negotiated with Ambani. We had no choice, we took the interlocutor who was given to us." The French government Friday said it was in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners for the Rafale fighter jet deal, asserting that French companies have the full freedom to select Indian firms for the contract. On the France government's stand, Gandhi said it was very clear the it has given a statement which is stating what the procedure is. "Here, there was a one-on-one meeting between the Prime Minister of India and the then President of France. In that meeting, the contract was signed and the ex-President of France has now said that in that meeting, I was clearly told that the contract had to go to Mr Anil Ambani," Gandhi alleged. Under attack over the allegations, the government on Saturday said it had 'no role' in the selection of Reliance Defence as an offset partner of Dassault Aviation. Dassault Aviation, the makers of Rafale, had chosen Reliance Defence as its partner to fulfil offset obligations of the deal. The government has been maintaining it did not have any role in selection of the offset partner by Dassault. In a statement, Dassault Aviation said it decided to partner with Reliance Defence in accordance with the policy of 'Make in India'. Earlier, Gandhi alleged that Prime Minister Modi and Anil Ambani jointly carried out a Rs 130,000 crore 'surgical strike' on the defence forces. 'The PM and Anil Ambani jointly carried out a One Hundred & Thirty Thousand Crore, SURGICAL STRIKE on the Indian Defence forces. Modi Ji you dishonoured the blood of our martyred soldiers. Shame on you. You betrayed India's soul,' he tweeted. Modi had announced the procurement of a batch of 36 Rafale jets after holding talks with then French president Hollande on April 10, 2015 in Paris. The opposition party has been accusing the government of choosing Reliance Defence over state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd to benefit the private firm though it did not have any experience in the aerospace sector. IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses a public meeting after the foundation stone laying ceremony of the Talcher Ferlitiliser Plant, Angul in Odisha on Saturday. Photograph: PTI Photo Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday slammed Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik for rejecting the Centre's flagship Ayushman Bharat health insurance scheme for the poor and alleged that a 'PC' (percentage commission) culture has become the state government's identity. Addressing two public meetings in Talcher and Jharsuguda, Modi said Odisha lagged on Swachh Bharat campaign parameters and Patnaik should improve the level of cleanliness in the coastal state. "Everyone is aware of the importance of Ayushman Bharat scheme, but Naveen Babu does not understand. Odisha government should come forward and join the programme," Modi said. The prime minister is set to launch the programme countrywide from Jharkhand on Sunday. The scheme aims to provide Rs 5 lakh health insurance coverage per family annually to more than 10 crore poor households. The Odisha government has not joined the central scheme, saying it has introduced a better programme, Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana, in the state. Modi said because of the state government's decision, a large number of poor people in Odisha would be deprived of the benefits of Ayushman Bharat scheme, which, he added, aims to create a healthy, capable and content new India. "Once again, I publicly urge Naveen Babu to link people of the state with Ayushman Bharat health insurance scheme which seeks to cover 10 crore poor families and effectively 50 crore people in the country," he said. At the public meeting in Talcher after commencing work for the Rs 13,000-crore coal gasification based fertiliser plant, the prime minister said the Odisha government lagged on Swachh Bharat campaign parameters. Noting that rural cleanliness in Odisha was only 10 per cent in 2014, Modi said it has increased to 55 per cent but a lot more was needed to be done. "I had told Naveen ji about the importance of Swachhata and I once again request him to give cleanliness due importance," Modi said, adding, cleanliness is essential for good health. Stepping up his criticism of the BJD government ahead of assembly polls and parliamentary elections next year, Modi alleged that a 'PC' (percentage commission) culture and delaying decisions have become the identity of the Odisha government resulting in the state's tardy development. At the second public meeting in Jharsuguda after inaugurating a new airport named after freedom fighter Veer Surendra Sai, Modi claimed people were denied benefits of the central government's welfare programmes -- such as construction of toilets and in irrigation sector -- if they don't pay bribe under the BJD rule in the state. Modi said there was a need for "bade parivartan" (big change) to give pace to Odisha's development. Targeting the Congress party, Modi referred to former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi's famous remark that only 15 paisa out of a rupee sanctioned by the Centre for welfare of people reaches the intended beneficiaries. "They knew about the 'bimari' but had no vision to solve it," he said. He said the BJP government's decision to directly transfer money to the bank accounts of beneficiaries has curbed the practice of middlemen in implementation of welfare schemes. "If our government releases Re 1, entire 100 paise reaches the poor," he said. Modi targeted the Opposition also for stalling the triple talaq bill in Rajya Sabha. He said justice will be done to Muslim mothers and sisters. Stating that three days ago the central government took a decision that was required for decades, he said the ordinance on triple talaq has made it illegal. Accusing the previous United Progressive Alliance government of being responsible for closure of several industrial units, Modi said the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government is taking concrete steps to revive closed plants. He claimed that the UPA government lacked a clear vision and a clean intention and said all attempts by them to revive closed industries were limited to papers, files and public announcements. However, now Talcher Fertilise Plant is being revived with an investment of Rs 13,000 crore, he said, adding that other fertiliser plants in Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Telangana and Bihar were also being restarted, he said. Asserting that the Centre is committed to provide not only economic justice but also social justice to people, Modi said the Centre would ensure housing for all by 2022. Pointing towards the large gathering of people at Talcher rally, Modi said it "clearly showed" what the people of Odisha have in mind. Earlier, Modi inaugurated a new airport at Jharsuguda, which he said will attract investors to the mineral-rich area and would act as a lifeline in the western region of the state. The prime minister said the airport would go a long way in transforming the state into a modern and developed one. Noting that only one major airport existed in Odisha for so many years, Modi said Kutch district in Gujarat alone has five airports. "Now, the second airport of the state would act as a lifeline in western region of Odisha and attract investors to the mineral-rich region," he said. Asserting that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government has been taking concrete steps for strengthening the aviation sector, he said only 450 aircraft operated in the country since Independence, while steps have been taken for 950 new aircraft during the last one year. Highlighting the importance of Jharsuguda Airport, Modi said it would act as a junction for neighbouring Raipur and Ranchi and strengthen connectivity. Development of eastern Indian states, including Odisha, West Bengal and Assam, is essential for achieving balanced development of the country, the PM said. Modi said the new airport is named after freedom fighter Veer Surendra Sai, as demanded by the Odisha government. Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, while addressing the ceremony, thanked the prime minister for naming the new airport after Sai, and said steps should be taken for quick introduction of regular commercial flights from Jharsuguda. He said the state government has provided land and free power for setting up the airport. Modi also inaugurated the Garjanbahal open cast mine of Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL), which has coal block reserves of 230 million tonne with an annual production capacity of 13 million tonne. It will generate direct employment opportunity for 894 people and indirect job opportunities for 5,000. The prime minister also launched the 53.1-km long Jharsuguda-Serdega railway line constructed by the MCL, and said it would strengthen connectivity in the tribal-dominated region. Modi also dedicated to the nation Dulanga Coal Mining Project of NTPC in Sundargarh district. This is the second mine of the state-run company to be operational and its first in Odisha. Coal produced from this mine shall be used in the under-construction 1600-MW Darlipali Super Thermal Power Plant of NTPC in Sundargarh district, officials said. The Jharsuguda Airport has been developed by the Airports Authority of India in collaboration with Odisha government at an estimated cost of Rs 210 crore, with Rs 75 crore contribution from the state. The airport has been developed under the Centre's UDAN scheme. Spread across over 1,027.5 acres of land with a 2,390-metre long runway, the area of terminal building of the airport is 4,000 sqm. The airport has been developed for all-weather operations, including night operations for A-320 type of aircraft. The Rashtriya Lok Samata Party, a constituent of the National Democratic Alliance, on Saturday blamed Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United for creating a 'confusion' over seat-sharing within the ruling coalition. The RLSP's attack on the JD-U came in the backdrop of media reports after a recent meeting of Kumar with Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah in Delhi. Quoting JD-U sources, they said seat sharing talks were 'in final stages' and as per the tentative formula Union minister Upendra Kushwaha's party is likely to get not more than 2 out of a total of 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar. NDA in Bihar constitutes the JD-U, the BJP, the RLSP and Union minister Ramvilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party. JD-U leaders such as Kumar's confidant and national general secretary R C P Singh have claimed that talks on seat-sharing were in final stages. "The confusion arose ever since Kumar returned to the BJP-led coalition last year. It is his party which keeps coming up with claims of being a big brother in the alliance and the chief minister being the face of the coalition in the Lok Sabha polls," RLSP national general secretary and spokesman Madhaw Anand told PTI over phone from Delhi. "Soon after meeting Shah in July in Patna, Kumar had publicly stated that seat-sharing arrangement would be finalized within four to five weeks. He should tell us what happened to his claim, now that more than two months have passed," Anand said. The RLSP general secretary was responding to queries about a statement by Nagmani, one of the founding leaders of the party. "It is unfortunate that the BJP is pampering the JD-U which is left with no public support, while we are being belittled. We wonder if we are being indirectly told to quit the NDA and rush into the arms of the opposition Mahagathbandhan," Nagmani had told a news channel in Patna. Nagmani, who has been pitching for declaration of Kushwaha as the face of the NDA in the Lok Sabha polls next year and the assembly elections in 2020, also said Kumar has the votes of only Kurmis while Kushwaha is the leader of Koeris, a much more populous social group. In response to Nagmani's remarks, BJP state vice-president Devesh Kumar said, "In politics statements are issued but political strategies are not made on the basis of these. Let the time come. All issues will be amicably settled." Anand said, "Nagmani ji is our respected leader. The party has, however, no problem with the BJP. It is the party with which RLSP and LJP had formed an alliance. It is the BJP which will have to, in due course, bring all allies together and take the lead in coming up with a seat-sharing formula that is acceptable to all." He said the JD-U had fought separately in 2014 and despite being the chief minister's party, it won only two seats with small margins and forfeited deposits in most constituencies. "On the other hand, we made our debut with a cent percent strike rate as we won all the three seats we had contested," he said. Anand said they were sure that the BJP would take these things in account and not blindly accept the JD-U's demand for being given a lion's share. "The BJP leadership is well aware that Kumar is fighting for his survival. He is faced with a humiliating situation wherein RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav who is out of power openly proclaims that doors are closed for the chief minister's entry into the Mahagathbandhan. It is not difficult to see the writing on the wall," he said. Meanwhile, JD-U leader and state minister Jai Kumar Singh said the RLSP would do well not to belittle Nitish Kumar whose popularity is acknowledged even outside Bihar and it might not be good for the RLSP's own political future. A former close aide of Kumar, Kushwaha had floated the RLSP after quitting the JD(U) in 2013, comprising mostly disgruntled party leaders. Despite its fine performance in 2014, the RLSP fared dismally in the assembly polls a year later as it returned with a tally of two in a 243-strong Vidhan Sabha. Although uncomfortable with Kumar's return to the NDA, the RLSP has so far been maintaining that it was firmly with the BJP-led coalition notwithstanding feelers being sent by the RJD that it was welcome into the Mahagathbandhan. French sources say Hollande was motivated to speak out after an Indian media report revealed that the Reliance Group had part-funded a film venture by his domestic partner, French actress Julie Gayet. Ajai Shukla reports. IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi and then French president Francois Hollande raise a toast at the state banquet in the Elysee Palace after signing the Rafale deal. Photograph: Reuters The government's repeated denials that Anil Ambani's Reliance Group got special favours in the purchase of 36 Rafale fighters were on Friday challenged, with former French president Francois Hollande revealing that New Delhi nominated Ambani as the Indian offset partner. Hollande was the French president in April 2015 who hosted Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi in Paris when the latter publicly announced his decision to buy 36 Rafales from Dassault in 'flyaway' condition. The Rafale deal has come under concerted attack from the Opposition, which has charged the government with paying an inflated price, with endangering national security by cancelling an on-going tender for 126 Rafales, and with facilitating the selection of The Reliance Group as a partner for Dassault. Asked by the French news Web site Mediapart, 'Who selected Reliance as a partner and why?' Hollande responded: 'We did not have a say on this subject.' 'It was the Indian government who proposed this service group (The Reliance Group), and Dassault who negotiated with Ambani. We did not have a choice, we took the interlocutor who was given to us,' Hollande said. The Bharatiya Janata Party's defenders of the Rafale deal, notably Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, have repeatedly rejected Opposition charges of 'crony capitalism' to favour Ambani. They have claimed that in accordance with the Defence Procurement Procedure Dassault chose the Indian offset partner of its own choice. On Friday, with Sitharaman unavailable to comment, her spokesperson tweeted: 'The report referring to (former) French president Mr Hollande's statement that GoI (Government of India) insisted upon a particular firm as an offset partner for the Dassault Aviation in Rafale is being verified. It is reiterated that neither GoI nor the French government had any say in the commercial decision.' While all 36 Rafale fighters are being manufactured in France, an offset requirement, which is a part of an all-Indian defence procurement worth more than Rs 2 trillion, requires French companies that build the Rafale -- Dassault, Thales and Safran -- to plough back 50 per cent of the contract value into Indian defence production. That means offsets arising from the 7.8 billion contract for 36 Rafale fighters require the French vendors to plough back 3.9 billion worth of business into the Indian defence industry. To benefit from offsets business, The Reliance Group formed a joint venture with Dassault, called Dassault Reliance Aerospace Ltd, DRAL. While the Congress has charged DRAL with cornering the bulk of the Rafale-linked offsets, The Reliance Group has said it benefited only from 778 million worth of business. So far the French government, which has enormous economic and strategic stakes in letting the Rafale purchase go through smoothly, has remained silent on the Indian government's 'nomination' of DRAL as a key offset partner. However, French sources say Hollande, who Emmanuel Macron succeeded as president in May 2017, was motivated to speak out after an Indian media report revealed that the Reliance Group had part-funded a film venture by his domestic partner, French actress Julie Gayet. Hollande wanted to make clear there was no quid pro quo with Ambani. 'This group (The Reliance Group) did not have to give me any thanks for anything, I could not even imagine that there was any connection to a film by Julie Gayet,' Hollande said in the interview. The Reliance Group has declined comment. Rahul Gandhi (file photo) Even as the French government and Dassault Aviation contradicted former President Francois Hollande's claim on choosing of Indian industrial partners in the multi-million dollar Rafale jet deal, the Congress party on Saturday said the French government "conceals more than it reveals". Congress President Rahul Gandhi called it a "surgical strike" on Indian defence forces. The statement by the French government issued here by the embassy late on Friday came after Hollande claimed in a media report that the Indian government had suggested a particular private firm for the Rafale offset contract. Hollande was quoted in an article by a French website Mediapart as saying that the Indian government had asked the French government to nominate Reliance Defence as its India partner in the deal. "We didn't have any say in this matter," Hollande was quoted by the website as saying. "It is the Indian government which had proposed this service group and Dassault who negotiated with (Anil) Ambani. We didn't have the choice, we took the interlocutor who was given to us." In response to the claim, the Friday night statement said: "The French government is in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners who have been, are being or will be selected by French companies. Dassault Aviation, the makers of the Rafale jets, in a statement, also on Friday night, said: "This offsets contract is delivered in compliance with the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) 2016 regulations. In this framework, and in accordance with the policy of 'Make in India', Dassault Aviation has decided to make a partnership with India's Reliance Group. This is Dassault Aviation's choice." On Saturday, Rahul Gandhi said in a tweet that the "PM and Anil Ambani jointly carried out a One Hundred & Thirty Thousand Crore SURGICAL STRIKE on the Indian Defence forces. Modiji you dishonoured the blood of our martyred soldiers. Shame on you. You betrayed India's soul." The Congress party said that the the French government knows that verbal interactions between former President Hollande and Indian interlocutors were minuted and would emerge. "Speculation of French Parliamentary hearing into Rafale and access to administration documents under France's Freedom of Information Law 1978 rife," Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari tweeted. "What French government/corporate entity has just ended up doing is making Rafale procurement a veritable domestic issue in French politics also". Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in a tweet in Hindi sought to know from the Indian Prime Minister who "pocketed the money from the Rafale scam, you the BJP or someone else." Countering the attack, Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Union Minister Ananth Kumar tweeted: "Nailing the lie on its head -- misinformation about Rafale deal, Dassault being called out by the French government." The Modi government has repeatedly said it was Dassault that chose its India partner for offsets and that the government had no say in the deal. The Paris-based Dassault Aviation further said in its statement that "in accordance with India's acquisition procedure, French companies have the full freedom to choose their Indian partner companies that they consider to be the most relevant, then present for the Indian government's approval the offset projects that they wish to execute in India with these local partners so as to fulfil their obligations in this regard." "Dassault Aviation is very proud that the Indian authorities have selected the Rafale fighter," it added stating that the partnership "between the two giants" led to the creation of the Dassault Reliance Aerospace Ltd (DRAL) joint venture in February 2017. The deal to purchase 36 Rafale fighter jets from France was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015 and signed in 2016. The UPA government was earlier negotiating a deal to procure 126 Rafale jets, with 18 to come in flyaway condition and 108 to be manufactured by HAL under licence. Mediapart, whose focus of the story was about financing of a film being co-produced by actress Julie Gayet, who is said to be a "personal partner" of Hollande, for which the Ambani group had provided funds of up to $1.6 million. It interviewed Hollande on phone in which he further said: "I intervened in this affair (Rafale) with the two prime ministers, to say that I was keen for this negotiation. Initially, the deal was supposed to be for 126 planes, then when the government changed the Indians reformulated their proposition, less attractive for us because it was for 36 aircraft only. But the manufacturing was planned to be in France, contrary to the preceding proposition, we lost on the one hand and gained on the other." Army chief Gen Bipin Rawat on Saturday called for avenging Pakistan Army and terrorists' brutalities on Indian soldiers, saying it is time to give it back to them in the same coin, "not by resorting to similar kind of barbarism, but in a manner that the other side must also feel the same pain." His remarks came a day after India called off the proposed Foreign Minister-level talks with Pakistan following the kidnapping and killing of three J&K policemen, and also a few days after a BSF soldier's mutilated body was recovered in the Jammu sector. Addressing a press conference on the centenary celebrations of the Battle of Haifa, which Indian soldiers in World War-I won against then Ottoman Empire forces on September 23, 1918, Gen Bipin Rawat said there was a need to change strategy against Pakistan. "It's time to give it back to them in the same coin but not by resorting to similar kind of barbarism. But I think the other side must also feel the same pain. And that is something we certainly will contemplate on," said the Army chief. On New Delhi calling off talks with Pakistan, the Army chief said: "Our government's policy is quite clear. We strongly believe that talks and terror cannot go hand-in-hand. Pakistan needs to curb this menace of terrorism and should not allow its soil to be used by terrorists against our people." The Army chief said the government has been successful in getting Pakistan isolated on the international level. "Now, Pakistan has been internationally isolated; once America was like a close relative of Pakistan, but now America has sidelined the country. Certain actions must have been taken by our government which brought this result," he added. Gen Rawat said Indian forces in the last one year have given befitting reply to Pakistani firing and shelling across the border. "Casualties and damage is much higher on their side," he said. "However we have done it in a very professional and military-like manner as we don't believe in barbaric acts. We have been successful in destroying their defences. That is why this year in May, they asked for a ceasefire," he said. "If they continue such barbaric acts, we will need to think on taking other suitable actions against them," he warned. On celebrating 'Surgical Strike Day', the Army chief said: "This surgical strike was special and had never happened. It was a very special surgical strike," he said. Sharing details on Combined Commanders Conference due in Jodhpur on September 28 which Prime Minister Narendra Modi will also be attending, he said such conferences are a routine where forces and political leadership discuss various issues and developments. Gen Rawat said the Army is receiving full support from the government. "We are given full liberty to take action. One can see results in Kashmir and other areas. However, we need to do much more to ensure that radicalisation and social media campaigns being run from outside are tackled," he added. Technology, policy and business models are not enough to get Samoa to its goal of being 100 percent renewable by 2025. Dr. Adam Warren, a director at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (N.R.E.L) in the United States, is in the country to hold discussions with stakeholders in the energy sector when he made this statement. Dr. Warren said the energy sector needs to get everyone on board in order to make the change. In his line of work, Dr. Warren focuses not only on the technology behind renewable energy, but the policies and cultural attitudes necessary to make renewable changes stick. The policy, technology, business models, those are necessary but they are not sufficient to make a change, he said. To make a change it needs to be a broad spectrum of society that says we want to make this change and its worth our time and effort and funding to do it. In the different island nations Dr. Warren has worked in, N.R.E.L. works behind the scenes to provide data to, and support local organisations develop their energy sectors alongside the community. An in-depth understanding of policies which have succeeded or failed across the Pacific is a core skillset he brings to his meetings in Samoa. Policy is critical. The power system is defined by the rules. We define who can put electricity on the grid, who can take it off the grid that is all policy. We define what we value in the creation of electricity, do we value renewable, efficiency; that is all policy. Policy is a way for society to say this is what we value and here is what we do. Dr. Warren said the size and capacity of island nations makes them the perfect leaders for the rest of the world in becoming 100 percent dependant on renewable sources of energy. The island of Tau in American Samoa recently completed its seven-acre solar power plant, which now provides 100 percent renewable energy to its population of between 200-600 people Today, instead of relying on an unreliable source of more than 400,000 litres of diesel, Tau runs entirely on their solar plant, which was installed by Tesla (then SolarCity), and funded by the U.S. Department of Interior and the American Samoa Power Authority (A.S.P.A.) to the tune of USD$8 million (T$3.03m). That too can happen here, said Dr. Warren. What Samoa needs is flexibility. Renewable energy fluctuates according to the elements. A strong windy afternoon or a morning under the beating sun can pack the power plants full of energy that doesnt necessarily need to be used all at once, while a still or cloudy day changes the supply of power. Thats where storage comes in, to enable power utilities like Samoas Electric Power Corporation (E.P.C) to use the power when they need it, not just when it is there. Diesel generators are often used in the interim, and Samoa is looking at replacing that with biomass, or burning green waste, but batteries or hydro pumps can also be used. In his visits with relevant ministries and the National Energy Coordination Council, Dr. Warren said he has been impressed with the seriousness in the sector to move to having entirely renewable energy. They have a very detailed understanding of the challenges of meeting that 100 percent goal and have several active routes, Dr. Warren said. I know they are actively pursuing wind, pumped hydro, developing additional hydro resources and of course solar and those are going to be the mixes required to achieve this goal. There is not one renewable energy solution to ensuring Samoa can leave diesel behind, but rather a combination of wind, solar and water power are needed. The Confucius Institute has officially opened its doors at the main campus of the National University of Samoa. The institute was established in a collaboration between the National University of Samoa, Confucius Institute Headquarters in Hanban, China and Liaocheng University. The institute is a not-for-profit organisation, which was created in 2004 to promote Chinese language and culture in foreign countries. They have become a platform for cultural exchanges between China and the world, as well as a bridge to reinforce friendship and cooperation between China and the rest of the world. The opening ceremony was attended by the Chinese Ambassador to Samoa Wang Xuefeng, Minister for Public Enterprises Lautafi Fio Selafi Purcell, Minister of Justice and Courts Administration Faaolesa Katopau Ainuu, Minister of Works, Transport and Infrastructure Papaliitele Niko Lee Hang, N.U.S. Vice Chancellor and the chair of CI-N.U.S. Board Professor Fui Asofou Soo amongst other dignitaries and invited guests numbering close to 100. The guests included students and principals from Vaivase Primary, Robert Louis Stevenson Primary School, Maagiagi Primary School, Leififi College and Vaimauga College. The ceremony was hosted by Professor Fui Asofou Soo, N.U.S. Vice Chancellor & Chair of CI-N.U.S. Board. In the keynote speech at the occasion, Lautafi Fio Selafi Purcell reiterated the Government of Samoas gratitude to the Government of the Peoples Republic of China for its support of Samoas National Development initiatives. He acknowledged the joint efforts made by N.U.S. and Liaocheng University in the setting up of the Confucius Institute, and pointed out that its opening symbolized the close and strong Sino-Samoan relationship. He emphasized the shared history between Chinese and Samoan people, and encouraged young people to learn Chinese and study the Chinese culture, in order to promote cultural understandings, enhance diplomacy and facilitate trade and commerce in the future. The significance of the occasion was not lost on Mr Xuefeng, who said the institutes opening coincided with the marking of the Teachers Day in China. He said China-Samoa ties have always been strong and solid since the two countries established diplomatic relations 43 years ago in 1975 and the opening of the Confucius Institute at the N.U.S. is a testimony to that relationship. Due to the rapid economic and social development of China, the interest and demand to study Chinese language have been soaring up quickly in the past decades. Confucius Institutes have acted as a bridge for communicating different languages and civilization, facilitating understanding and friendship between the people of China and other countries. For Samoa, the Confucius Institute headquarters started sending Chinese teachers to Samoan schools since 2013, and thousands of Samoan students have benefited from attending Chinese classes, he added. Mr Xuefeng acknowledged the efforts and hard work of the Liaocheng University and the N.U.S. to set up the Confucius Institute, and said he looked forward to the Institute becoming a symbol of China-Samoa friendship and cooperation. During the ceremony, Yanting Song, the director of international programs office at Liaocheng University, read out the letter of congratulations from Ma Jianfei, deputy chief executive of Confucius Institute headquarters and executive deputy director-general of Hanban, China. There were also letters of congratulations from Cai Xianjin, the president of Liaocheng University. In his congratulatory message, Ma Jianfei conveyed his congratulations on behalf of Confucius Institute Headquarters and expressed gratitude to all those who have made contributions to the establishment of the Confucius Institute at N.U.S. He emphasized the strategic partnership and practical cooperation between China and Samoa, acknowledged the position and work of National University of Samoa and Liaocheng University, and hoped that the two universities would work together to lay a solid foundation for Chinese language learning and carry out a rich mixture of cultural activities. The cultural activities will build a bridge between the Confucius Institute and Samoa in educational and cultural exchanges and cooperation, and contribute to the enhancement of mutual understanding and friendship between the people of China and Samoa. The Confucius Institute at the N.U.S. will commit itself to: offering Chinese language programs to university students and community residents, host a variety of Chinese cultural activities, offer opportunities for Samoan students to go to China for academic or cultural purposes, organise Chinese proficiency tests and Chinese teachers qualification authentication, offer local Chinese teachers training programs, develop study programs about modern China, and provide information and consultation services on Chinese education, culture and economy. WASHINGTON (AP) North Korea's Kim Jong Un is "little rocket man" no more. President Donald Trump isn't a "mentally deranged U.S. dotard." In the year since Trump's searing, debut U.N. speech fueled fears of nuclear conflict with North Korea, the two leaders have turned from threats to flattery. And there's fresh hope that the U.S. president's abrupt shift from coercion to negotiation can yield results in getting Kim to halt, if not abandon, his nuclear weapons program. Trump will address world leaders at the United Nations on Tuesday on the back of an upbeat summit between South and North Korea, where Kim promised to dismantle a major rocket launch site and the North's main nuclear complex at Nyongbyon if it gets some incentive from Washington. North Korea remains a long, long way from relinquishing its nuclear arsenal, and the U.S. has been adding to, not easing, sanctions. Yet the past 12 months have seen a remarkable change in atmosphere between the adversaries that has surprised even the former U.S. envoy on North Korea. "If someone had told me last year that North Korea will stop nuclear tests, will stop missile tests and that they will release the remaining American prisoners and that they would be even considering dismantling Nyongbyon, I would have taken that in a heartbeat," said Joseph Yun, who resigned in March and has since left the U.S. foreign service. Since Trump and Kim held the first summit between U.S. and North Korean leaders in Singapore in June, Trump has missed no chance to praise "Chairman Kim," and Kim has expressed "trust and confidence" in the American president he once branded "senile." But progress has been slow toward the vague goal they agreed upon denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, which has eluded U.S. presidents for the past quarter-century. The U.S. wants to achieve that by January 2021, when Trump completes his first term in office. Although Kim won't be going to New York next week, meetings there could prove critical in deciding whether a second Trump-Kim summit will take place any time soon. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has invited his North Korean counterpart Ri Yong Ho for a meeting in New York, and Trump will be consulting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, fresh from his third summit with Kim this year. It was at that meeting in Pyongyang that the North Korean leader made his tantalizing offers to close key facilities of his weapons programs that have revived prospects for U.S.-North Korea talks. Yun, who spoke to reporters Friday at the United States Institute for Peace in Washington, said the U.S. goal of achieving denuclearization in just two years is unrealistic, but the offer to close Nyongbyon, where the North has plutonium, uranium and nuclear reprocessing facilities, is significant and offers a way forward. That's a far cry from last September. After Trump's thunderous speech, Yun's first thought was on the need to avoid a war. The president vowed to "totally destroy North Korea" if the U.S. was forced to defend itself or its allies against the North's nukes. "Rocket man is on a suicide mission for himself and his regime," the president said. His blunt talk triggered an extraordinary, almost surreal, exchange of insults. Kim issued a harshly worded statement from Pyongyang, dubbing the thin-skinned Trump a "mentally deranged U.S. dotard." A day later, the North's top diplomat warned it could test explode a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean. Tensions have eased hugely since then, and cracks have emerged in the international consensus on pressuring North Korea economically to get it to disarm. The U.S. accuses Russia of allowing illicit oil sales to North Korea. Trump has also criticized China, which has fraternal ties with the North and is embroiled in a trade war with the U.S., for conducting more trade with its old ally. Sanctions could even become a sore point with South Korea. Moon is eager to restart economic cooperation with North Korea to cement improved relations on the divided peninsula. All that will increase pressure on Washington to compromise with Pyongyang providing the incentives Kim seeks, even if the weapons capabilities he's amassed violate international law. He's likely eying a declaration on formally ending the Korean War as a marker of reduced U.S. "hostility" and sanctions relief. That could prove politically unpalatable in Washington just as it looks for Kim to follow through on the denuclearization pledge he made in Singapore. Frank Aum, a former senior Pentagon adviser on North Korea, warned tensions could spike again if the U.S. does not see progress by year's end, when the U.S. would typically need to start planning large-scale military drills with South Korea that North Korea views as war preparations. Trump decided to cancel drills this summer as a concession to Kim. "Things can flip pretty quickly," Aum said. "We've seen it going from bad to good and it could fairly quickly go back to the bad again." TEHRAN, Iran (AP) Militants disguised as soldiers opened fire Saturday on an annual Iranian military parade in the country's oil-rich southwest, killing at least 25 people and wounding over 60 in the deadliest terror attack to strike the country in nearly a decade. Women and children scattered along with once-marching Revolutionary Guard soldiers as heavy gunfire rang out at the parade in Ahvaz, the chaos captured live on state television. The region's Arab separatists, once only known for nighttime attacks on unguarded oil pipelines, claimed responsibility for the brazen assault. Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif blamed regional countries and their "U.S. masters" for funding and arming the separatists, issuing a stark warning as regional tensions remain high in the wake of the U.S. withdraw from the Iranian nuclear deal. "Iran will respond swiftly and decisively in defense of Iranian lives," Zarif wrote on Twitter. The attack came as rows of Revolutionary Guardsmen marched down Ahvaz's Quds, or Jerusalem, Boulevard. It was one of many around the country marking the start of Iran's long 1980s war with Iraq, commemorations known as the "Sacred Defense Week." Journalists and onlookers turned to look toward the first shots, then the rows of marchers broke as soldiers and civilians sought cover under sustained gunfire. Iranian soldiers used their bodies at time to shield civilians in the melee, with one Guardsman in full dress uniform and sash carrying away a bloodied boy. "Oh God! Go go go! Lie down! Lie down!" one man screamed as a woman fled with her baby. In the aftermath, paramedics tended to the wounded as soldiers, some bloodied, helped their comrades to ambulances. Video obtained by The Associated Press of the aftermath showed bodies of soldiers, some appearing lifeless, laying on the ground in pools of blood. One had a blanket covering him. A man screamed in grief. The attack killed at least 25 people and wounded over 60, according to the state-run IRNA news agency. It said gunmen wore military uniforms and targeted a riser where military and police commanders were sitting. At least eight of the dead served in the Revolutionary Guard, an elite paramilitary unit that answers only to Iran's supreme leader, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency. "We suddenly realized that some armed people wearing fake military outfits started attacking the comrades from behind (the stage) and then opened fire on women and children," an unnamed wounded soldier told state TV. "They were just aimlessly shooting around and did not have a specific target." State TV hours later reported that all four gunmen had been killed, with three dying during the attack and one later succumbing to his wounds at a hospital. President Hassan Rouhani ordered Iran's Intelligence Ministry to immediately investigate the attack. "The president stressed that the response of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the slightest threat would be harsh, but those who support the terrorists should be accountable," IRNA reported. Meanwhile, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei described the attack as exposing "the atrocity and viciousness of the enemies of the Iranian nation." "Their crime is a continuation of the conspiracies by the U.S.-backed regimes in the region which have aimed at creating insecurity in our dear country," Khamenei said in a statement. "However, to their dismay, the Iranian nation will persist on the noble and prideful path they have taken and will like before overcome all animosities." Initially, authorities described the assailants as "takfiri gunmen," a term previously used to describe the Islamic State group. Iran has been deeply involved in the fight against IS in Iraq and has aided embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad in his country's long war. But later, state media and government officials seemed to come to the consensus that Arab separatists in the region were responsible. The separatists accuse Iran's Persian-dominated government of discriminating against its ethnic Arab minority, though an Ahvazi Arab, Gen. Ali Shamkhani, serves as the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council. Khuzestan province also has seen recent protests over Iran's nationwide drought, as well as economic protests. Iran has blamed its Mideast archrival, the Sunni kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for funding Arab separatists' activity. State media in Saudi Arabia did not immediately acknowledge the attack, though a Saudi-linked, Farsi-language satellite channel based in the United Kingdom immediately carried an interview with an Ahvazi activist claiming Saturday's attack. Hamid Baeidinejad, Iran's ambassador to the U.K., called the channel's decision a "heinous act" in a post on Twitter and said his country would file a complaint with British authorities over the broadcast. Yacoub Hor al-Tostari, a spokesman for the Arab Struggle Movement to Liberate Ahvaz, later told the AP that members of an umbrella group of Ahvazi activists his organization leads carried out the attack. The attack undermined the Iranian government "on the day it wants to give a message to the world that it is powerful and in control," al-Tostari said. To bolster his claim, he gave details about one of the attackers that the AP could not immediately verify. The Islamic State group also claimed responsibility for the attack in a message on its Amaaq news agency, but provided no evidence it carried out the assault. They also initially wrongly said the Ahvaz attack targeted Rouhani, who was in Tehran. The militants have made a string of false claims in the wake of major defeats in Iraq and Syria. In Tehran, Rouhani watched a military parade that included ballistic missiles capable of reaching Israel and U.S. military bases in the Mideast. Rouhani said the U.S. withdraw from the nuclear deal was an attempt to get Iran to give up its military arsenal. United Nations inspectors say Iran is still complying with the deal, which saw it limit its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. "Iran neither put its defensive arms aside nor lessens its defensive capabilities," Rouhani said. "Iran will add to its defensive power day by day." Meanwhile, Iranian Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi, a spokesman for the armed forces, alleged without evidence that the four militants involved in Saturday's attack "were dependent to the intelligence services of the U.S. and the Mossad" of Israel. "They have been trained and organized in two Persian Gulf countries," he said, without elaborating. Saturday's attack comes after a coordinated June 7, 2017 Islamic State group assault on parliament and the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution. At least 18 people were killed and more than 50 wounded. That assault shocked Tehran, which largely has avoided militant attacks in the decades after the tumult surrounding the revolution. In the last decade, mass-casualty militant attacks have been incredibly rare. In 2009, more than 40 people, including six Guard commanders, were killed in a suicide attack by Sunni extremists in Iran's Sistan and Baluchistan province. Q:Our board announced that audio recordings of meetings would no longer be allowed. What are your thoughts on this? Does this action by the board violate the Brown Act, the Davis-Stirling or some other statute? N.D., Rancho Santa Fe A:As private organizations, common interest development associations (aka HOAs) are not controlled by the Brown Act (which applies to public bodies). The Davis-Stirling Act contains the Open Meeting Act, found at Civil Code 4900-4955. The Open Meeting Act does not require that HOA meetings be recorded electronically, but only that draft minutes of meetings be available no later than 30 days after the meeting. I generally recommend against audio or video recording of board proceedings, except in the rare occasion the association has the proper facilities to record and broadcast meetings (typically only in very large homeowners associations). Recording meetings often creates two negative problems - it intimidates some, and invites others to grandstand. So long as the policy is clearly stated, association boards can take either policy direction. Advertisement Q:We have a question concerning our HOA president. The president is running a construction company that controls all maintenance and repairs throughout the community. She runs the community as a dictatorship and no one on the board is allowed to even speak. We have requested financial records - it wont work. She told us this could no longer be discussed. M.L., Lake Forest A:Some HOA presidents simply let the position get to their head. HOA presidents have very little power in most HOAs, aside from calling and chairing meetings. They have one vote, the same as each other director. If the rest of the board allows the president to disrespect them and ignore their input (and her conflict of interest), the board is to blame for the situation, since presidents serve at the boards pleasure, and, like any officer, can be replaced in any open board meeting (after posting the agenda item). Q:Our board members conduct most of business, including budgets, in executive session, stating they do not want to discuss everything in open session because it makes the meetings too long and dull. The board also claims the HOA legal counsel said it was OK to discuss these items in executive session. It appears that the board does not want to be open and transparent in their dealings with the associations budget. They move money around without allowing the membership to know or see/hear the reasons for the movements. H.W., Murrieta. A:Financial discussions are for open session (except for discussions about a delinquent owners proposed payment plan). Boards come up with all kinds of excuses for secret meetings, but your boards excuse (saving you from boredom) is a new one. I cannot imagine that a competent HOA attorney would advise in favor of secret budget discussions by a quorum of the board, so I wonder what the attorney really said. If the board does budgets in closed meetings, what else do they do in secret? Get the board straightened out, or get a new board elected. Transparency builds trust, and secrecy destroys it. Kelly G. Richardson, Esq. is a Fellow of the College of Community Association Lawyers and Senior Partner of Richardson Ober PC, a California law firm known for community association advice. Submit potential column questions to Kelly@Richardsonober.com. Past columns at www.HOAHomefront.com. Shortly after Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, announced he would not seek re-election earlier this year, President Donald Trump suggested drastically cutting funding for the United States Trade and Development Agency in an upcoming budget proposal. A lot has changed in seven months. Trump has since backed off on targeting the agency, and earlier this week he nominated Issa an ardent supporter of the president to become director of the United States Trade and Development Agency. The nomination, if approved by the Senate, finally fills an executive position that has sat vacant since Trumps inauguration, and positions the 49th Districts longstanding congressman to play a key role in advancing the presidents trade policies and ongoing fight with China. Advertisement The United States Trade and Development Agency, or USTDA, is a small independent federal agency with a $79.5 million budget whose primary goal is to increase U.S. exports in emerging economies. It attempts to do this in a variety of ways, including conducting reverse trade missions, hosting training conferences and workshops, and supporting American-led infrastructure projects in several sectors such as transportation, energy and telecommunications. And for a relatively small agency, the USTDA seems to pay a dividend. According to the agencys website, for every dollar spent by the agency $95 were generated in American exports, and it has generated over $61 billion in exports since its creation in 1992. This return on investment demonstrates the agencys ability to meet the needs of the American business community, wrote Daniel F. Runde and his colleagues in a report from the Center for Strategic International Studies in Washington, D.C. Nevertheless, and despite the agency seemingly aligning with the presidents goal of increasing American exports, Trump has not only attempted to reduce the agencys budget, but also advocated along with several conservative groups - for eliminating the agency outright. So why the tectonic shift in the presidents approach to the agency? Lynn Reaser, chief economist at the Fermanian Business & Economic Institute at Point Loma Nazarene University, said its because there are now likely two functions the presidents administration sees USTDA fulfilling. First, it will be used as a channel to increase exports, a primary goal of the White House, Reaser said in an email. Second, it will be tapped as a way to counter Chinas growing reach into various emerging market economies in Africa and Asia. The report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies also suggested a similar point, essentially saying that USTDAs intervention is a way to directly help U.S. companies working abroad as they compete against government-backed Chinese firms. But even if the agency is becoming increasingly relevant to the presidents approach to trade, Issa, 64, remains an interesting choice to head the agency because of his business background and views on trade. Issa, one of Congress wealthiest members, amassed most of his fortune in the 1990s while leading Directed Electronics Inc., a Vista-based manufacturer of vehicle antitheft devices that he created. (His is the voice of the Viper car alarm system, which warns, Please step away from the car.) As a congressman, Issa has voted in favor of several foreign trade agreements and has continued to support the North American Fair Trade Agreement, a favorite target of Trumps disdain. Issa, however, has said NAFTA needs some changes. Reaser said that Issa probably appeals to Trump because despite a few differences, ideologically they still are fairly in line. On the critical issue of China, he has strongly endorsed the presidents view that China must change its trade practices and that tariffs are justified to achieve that goal, Reaser said. The president has clearly selected Rep. Issa with the confidence that he will carry out the administrations trade agenda in boosting U.S. exports and jobs while helping to change or counter Chinas trade and investment policies. If Issa wins confirmation, he would join former San Diego politician Peter Navarro, one of Trumps top trade advisers and a longtime China critic, in helping shape U.S. trade policy. Aside from similarities in trade ideology, there are other clear political motivations for the appointment as well. Issa, who rose to national prominence when he was the chairman of the Oversight Committee, a leadership position he used to investigate the Obama administrations handling of a bank relief program, the Fast and Furious gun scandal, and the attack on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, has been a strong supporter of Trump. He has praised the presidents position on many issues and repeatedly criticized the independent counsels investigation into the president and his campaign, going so far as to call for an end to the investigation as recently as August. I have a problem with Robert Mueller ignoring the Steele Dossier, yet still investigating @realDonaldTrump. We have seen no evidence of collusion between the President and the Russians. Its time for this investigation to end. pic.twitter.com/PaHe8MBBue Darrell Issa (@DarrellIssa) August 17, 2018 Donald Trump has clearly prized loyalty above all else in his administration, so the chance to reward someone who has been steadfastly on his side this is how this president operates, said Thad Kousser, professor of political science at the University of California San Diego. Kousser added that while trade was not a signature issue of Issas in Congress, the appointment is still very appealing because it allows him to stay in the political game in a position of power connected to the president, and it also helps elevate his profile if he hopes to run for another political office in California someday. Issa originally entered California politics in 1998 when he made a failed bid for the U.S. Senate, before running in 2000 for his current house seat. His district encompasses northern San Diego County and southern Orange County. Even after announcing he would not seek re-election in his district, where a re-election bid was looking increasingly difficult, there was some discussion that Issa may run for a seat in the neighboring district where Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Alpine) is embroiled in legal trouble. Without this position, hes a carpetbagger if he tried to make that move, said Kousser. With this position, he is a member of the presidents team coming back home. RELATED Issa wont seek re-election for congressional seat Report: Darrell Issa mulling a run for Duncan Hunters seat Trump wants to eliminate an agency that is accomplishing one of his biggest goals Business charles.clark@sduniontribune.com Twitter @bycharlesclark At his surgery center near San Diego, Rodney Davis wore scrubs, was referred to as Dr. Rod and carried the title of director of surgery. But he was a physician assistant, not a doctor, who anesthetized patients and performed liposuction with little input from his supervising doctor, court records show. His surgical work ended, though, in 2016 when an administrative judge stripped Davis of his license, concluding it was the only way to protect the public. State officials also accused two former medical directors of Pacific Liposculpture of enabling Davis to act as a doctor. One powerful authority in California took a different view. The state-approved private accreditation agency that oversees the center left its approval in place. So the center is still operating and Davis remains an owner and administrator, state records show. Davis declined to comment for this story and denied wrongdoing in administrative and civil court proceedings. Advertisement California is the only state with more than 1,000 surgery centers that has given private accreditors a lead role in oversight. That approach to oversight has created a troubling legacy of laxity, an investigation by Kaiser Health News shows. In case after case, as federal or state authorities waved red flags, state-approved accreditation agencies affixed gold seals of approval, according to a KHN review of hundreds of pages of doctors disciplinary records, court files and accreditor reports which are public only for California surgery centers. One accreditation inspector called a doctors anesthesia technique impressive just months before the state medical board accused her of gross negligence for putting patients in deep sedation without the training to save them if they stopped breathing. In another case, Medicare officials declared a state of immediate jeopardy at a center that put an untrained receptionist in charge of disinfecting surgical scopes, a Medicare inspection report says. Its accreditor renewed its approval within a week. Since 2010, at least 102 patients have died after care in Californias surgery centers, state records show. Such facilities perform a variety of outpatient surgeries and now outnumber hospitals nationally. State Sen. Jerry Hill, a San Francisco Bay Area Democrat, chairs the committee that oversees the state Medical Board, which reviews and approves the states surgery center accreditation agencies every three years. Briefed on the investigations findings, Hill said this definitely warrants a deeper examination into whats going on at the surgery centers and how the accreditation process is working today and [whether its] providing the patient protection I was hoping for when we established it. Surgery centers safely perform millions of procedures ranging from sinus surgery to knee replacements. Many patients go to a center if a doctor refers them or an insurer advises them of potential cost savings. Californias oversight of surgery centers was upended about a decade ago when a physicians legal victory led the Department of Public Health to conclude it could no longer license doctor-owned surgery centers. In 2011, state lawmakers came up with a new oversight scheme, mandating that the state medical board approve the private accreditors that would be on the front lines of oversight. Today, five accreditors are allowed to both inspect surgery centers and to grant or deny surgery centers approval to operate. (Centers can also operate with just Medicare approval.) The new rules meant the state health department which oversees hospitals would no longer license surgery centers, aside from about 40 that are not doctor-owned. Medicare still certifies hundreds of centers that treat seniors, and officials from the state medical board still probe complaints about physicians. With the change in California, the state-approved accreditation agencies got a guaranteed source of income, since the centers each pay their accrediting agency about $15,000 every three years for their oversight role. Large accreditors get most of their funding from those payments. In turn, the accreditors made their inspection reports open to the public on a state website. Those reports show that accreditors, at times, were at odds with other officials. On May 1, 2012, the Institute for Medical Quality, or IMQ, a San Francisco-based accreditor, inspected Advanced Medical Spa in Rocklin, Calif. The inspectors were required to check whether the person administering anesthesia was qualified and working within their scope of practice. The inspectors note says the surgeons wife, a pediatrician, was performing conscious sedation anesthesia and said her technique with the drug propofol was impressive. The standard was marked as met and accreditation was awarded through 2015. A month later, the state medical board launched an investigation of the pediatrician, Dr. Yessennia Candelaria, over complaints that she was handling anesthesia for plastic surgery procedures without requisite training in anesthesia, including propofol, the boards records show. Investigators for the Medical Board of California found that before and after the accreditors review, Candelaria was using propofol to put patients in a state of deep sedation even though she didnt have the advanced airway training to rescue them if their breathing shut down. Medical board authorities deemed the lapse gross negligence in an accusation filed in 2014. Candelarias medical license was put on probation for seven years. Medical board authorities recently moved to revoke her license over unauthorized prescribing, and she has not yet filed a written response. An attorney for Candelaria declined to comment and Candelaria did not respond to a request for comment. In February 2013, IMQ revoked its approval of Advanced Medical Spa. The following month, Candelaria and her husband, Dr. Efrain Gonzalez, were arrested in a separate criminal case. Gonzalez was charged with 37 felony counts that included mayhem and conspiracy. Candelaria was charged with 24 felony counts, including mayhem and grand theft by false pretense. Gonzalez pleaded guilty to three felonies and was sentenced to three months of house arrest in the criminal case and surrendered his medical license. Charges were ultimately dismissed against Candelaria, who pleaded not guilty. Victoria Samper, vice president of ambulatory programs with IMQ, said she could not comment on specific facilities. But she did note that California law allows doctors to practice outside of the field they initially train in. The medical board said in a statement that the private accreditor who dubbed Candelarias technique impressive reviewed her work with a different patient than those cited in the boards accusation. Accreditation agencies have stood by eight California surgery centers facing the federal Medicare programs harshest consequence involuntary decertification. Its a rare sanction that amounts to being deemed unfit to care for seniors. On March 22, 2016, California Department of Public of Health inspectors notified federal authorities about a state of immediate jeopardy at Digestive Diagnostic Center, a small endoscopy center south of San Francisco. A state inspection report said the center had pressed its new receptionist into duty to disinfect medical devices that probe patients colons with no formal training. Something else happened that day as well. The Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care, or AAAHC, renewed its approval of the center, which the agency describes as a widely recognized symbol of quality to patients and health insurers. Medicare involuntarily decertified the facility a month later, which meant the federal agency would no longer pay for seniors care at the center. But with private accreditation still in place, private insurers would be likely to continue funding care there. Dr. Michael Bishop, a former California medical board member, said the case exposes a gap in state oversight if a center falls below one overseers standard but meets anothers. You want no one to have easier [approval] process than any other one, he said. Thats quite egregious. Kevin Calisher, president of the surgery center management firm Calisher & Associates, said his company took over management of the center in 2017, and that he could not comment on Medicares findings. AAAHC said in a statement that it could not discuss individual facilities. The medical boards statement said it will be looking into the matter. On April 9, 2015, an inspector from AAAHC arrived to perform an initial inspection of Pacific Liposculpture, which had been operating since 2011. The inspectors checklist included a review of complaints filed against the center by a state licensure board. Davis had already been publicly accused by the state physician assistant board of engaging in the unlawful practice of medicine. The inspector checked the box for substantial compliance and awarded the center approval through April 2018. That decision was enraging actually, outrageous, said Todd Glanz, a San Diego-area attorney. He represents a patient, Cecilia ONeill, who went to the center for liposuction a few weeks after it was accredited. ONeill returned a few days after her May 28, 2015, procedure, complaining of pain, dizziness and signs of infection, her lawsuit alleges. But she claims her condition got worse. On June 9, 2015, she went to an emergency room, where she was told she had sepsis and needed emergency surgery followed by a stay in the ICU, according to her lawsuit. Davis and Dr. Harrison Robbins, the facilitys former medical director and other owner, have denied wrongdoing and are fighting the ongoing lawsuit. The following year, Davis faced an administrative hearing over whether he should keep his license as a physician assistant. A central issue was whether he truly worked under a doctors supervision, as the law requires, or hired a figurehead who would exert little control. One 2010 email discussed in court was by Davis, saying he hoped his new supervising physician, Dr. Jerrell Borup, would not be another clumsy physician getting in the way. His attorney presented experts and argued that he did not mislead anyone about his credentials, he had the appropriate legal agreement with his supervising doctor and should keep his license. At its conclusion, the administrative judge revoked his license and reached a searing conclusion. Davis purposefully and intentionally set out to create a business arrangement that looked legitimate on paper, Judge Susan Boyle wrote, but allowed him to manipulate the system and run a liposuction business without the interference of a physician. The two former medical directors of the center were accused by the Medical Board of California of aiding and abetting Davis unlicensed practice of medicine. Neither doctor actively supervised Davis, who performed all the procedures, the accusations say. One of the former medical directors, Borup, surrendered his license in 2016. The other, Dr. Harrison Robbins, is fighting the medical boards similar case against him. The controversy did not deter AAAHC, which earlier this year approved the center through April 2021. Robert Frank, a San Diego attorney who represented Davis and Robbins, said Robbins has retired and the public should have no concerns about Davis ongoing administrative role at Pacific Liposculpture. [Davis] knows the business, he knows the procedure and he knows hes being watched and scrutinized during the ongoing legal case, Frank said. Davis contested his license revocation, saying the administrative judges findings werent supported by the evidence at his hearing. He lost that case in Sacramento Superior Court. Hes now challenging that decision in appeals court. Jewett is a senior correspondent for Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent publication of the Kaiser Family Foundation. People living in La Mesas Serramar community overlooking Lemon Grove have a new neighbor. Earlier this week, a large Tyrannosaurus Rex sculpture standing in a concrete block mysteriously appeared on an empty plot on Monte Drive, a cul-de-sac off Eastridge Drive. The 10-acre parcel is slated for about 40 homes in a development called La Mesa Summit Estates. A resident of the area, Alice Hobson, who said shes lived in La Mesa for 80 years, sent a photocopy of a photograph of the fenced-in dinosaur to The San Diego Union-Tribune and asked for an investigation. She said she doesnt know how it got there. Advertisement The dinosaur looks to be between 8 and 10 feet tall and is a rust color. It resembles some of the work by Borrego Springs artist Ricardo Breceda, famous for his large metal sculptures of animals in the desert. A sign on a wooden box that the dinosaur is standing on reads, Please do not climb on me. Hobson didnt leave any contact information, but at the site on Friday, several lookie-loos, including Stephen Bridge and his 14-year-old son, Aiden, were checking out the T-Rex. Aiden Bridge (left) and his father, Stephen, check out the T-Rex in their La Mesa neighborhood. (Karen Pearlman/San Diego Union-Tribune) Were trying to figure out if its a publicity thing from the builders, said Stephen Bridge. Im wondering what its made of and how it got there, Aiden said. Stephen Bridge and his wife bought a home in the same area in 2005. They live down the street and are on the mailing list for the coming homes. Bridge said they just received an email from Jeff Phair of the developers, The Phair Company, that informed prospective buyers that both the La Mesa Planning Commission and City Council unanimously approved the project. The letter said that the city received 76 letters of support from La Mesa residents, most of whom live in the Serramar area. I think its fun, said Jeanette Erickson who lives nearby and drove to the site with her daughter, Daphne. I like random things like this. It reminds me of the mermaid (at Sunset Cliffs) and the (Cardiff Kook) in Cardiff, she said. Id like to think that somebody had this in their home and they were looking to randomly place it somewhere, and they picked this place. karen.pearlman@sduniontribune.com A letter threatening to sue Imperial Beach unless it switches to district elections mentions several Latino candidates who lost election as an example of how the citys current election system dilutes the ability of Latinos to elect candidates of their choice. But theres a problem. One of the candidates referenced in the letter isnt a Latina. Im so white that its ridiculous, said Valerie Acevez, who ran unsuccessfully for City Council in 2012 and 2014 and is currently running for mayor. My last name is Acevez because my husband is Hispanic. Advertisement Acevez opposes district elections because Imperial Beach, with a population of 26,000, is too small. She laughed when a reporter informed her that her name is on a letter promoting the opposite and thought the episode both funny and sad. The lawsuit threat came from Kevin Shenkman, a Malibu-based lawyer who sent similar letters to Carlsbad, Encinitas, Poway, Oceanside, and Vista last year. Shenkmans letters demand cities switch from an at-large election system to a district-based election unless they want to be sued under the California Voting Rights Act, which prohibits at-large election methods if they impair the ability of a protected class to elect candidates of their choice or influence the outcome of an election. In Imperial Beach, Latino residents make up 48 percent of the population, but the city has never elected a Latino candidate to the City Council. Its such a striking case, Shenkman said of Imperial Beach. Both in terms of the significance of the Latino population and the lack of Latino representation historically. When asked about Acevezs ethnicity, Shankman acknowledged the mistake but said that misidentifying her as Latina did not change Imperial Beachs history of polarized elections. Shenkman said the real issue isnt her ethnic background as much as it is other peoples perception of it. I think the relevant consideration is how the electorate perceives candidates not so much the absolute ethnicity, he said. Acevezs ethnicity doesnt change Imperial Beachs history of ethnically polarized election results, he added. No public agency has successfully defended a California Voting Rights Act challenge in the 15 years the law has existed. Palmdale spent more than $4 million fighting Shenkmans legal challenge. The city lost the suit and had to switch to district elections. Carlsbad, Encinitas, Poway, Oceanside, and Vista switched voluntarily. Collectively, those North County cities have spent more than $1 million to make the switch. Imperial Beach is not interested in a lawsuit. On Wednesday, the City Council voted unanimously to switch to district elections and set aside $150,000 to pay for the process. Considering the fact that the other option will likely cost millions and result in a loss, they didnt have much of a choice. From what our city attorney has said, it doesnt look like we have much of a chance of winning this one, said Councilman Ed Spriggs. Like Acevez, Spriggs does not think district elections are a good fit for Imperial Beach. Hed rather spend the money on other efforts to help Latino voters and candidates, such as voter registration efforts or driving voters to the polls on election days. State law requires cities who voluntarily switch to district elections to do so within 90 days in order to be protected from a lawsuit. The city scheduled the first two of five public meetings for next week. One will be Sept. 25 at 6 p.m. in the South Bay Union School Districts Burress Auditorium. The second is scheduled for Sept. 26 at 3 p.m. in the public library. Those public meetings will help the city come up with district maps, which the council expects to review in October. The whole process should be finalized by the end of the year. It will have no impact on Novembers elections for mayor and city council. Shenkman applauded Imperial Beach for its quick response. Im pleased to hear that, he said. It sounds like they are doing the right thing. Contact Gustavo Solis via Email or Twitter September 22, 1969 The San Diego Union The San Diego Union-Tribune will mark its 150th anniversary in 2018 by presenting a significant front page from the archives each day throughout the year. Monday, September 22, 1969 In 1969 border inspectors began to stop and search all pedestrians and vehicles coming north across the U.S.-Mexican border. Operation Intercept was the Nixon administration's effort to stop the flow of marijuana from Mexico into the U.S. The effort caused gridlock along the border and ended on October 11. Here are the first few paragraphs of the story: U.S. Opens Full-Scale Border War On Dope Cars Lined For 6 Miles In Tijuana By Homer Clance The United States dramatic, all-out attack against drug smuggling into this nation from Mexico began yesterday. The massive land, sea and air surveillance highlighted by intensified inspection at 31 land points and 27 international airports started at 2:30 p.m. San Diego time along the 2,500-mile border. All 16 lanes at the San Ysidro border entry from Tijuana the busiest in the nation were opened as Operation Intercept got under way. Traffic began backing up within half an hour, however, and horns began blaring as motorists had to wait longer and longer to cross into the United States. TRAFFIC JAM By 4 p.m., traffic was backed up at least a mile and a half south of the border. And shortly after 5 p.m., when the Caliente Race Tracks last race was run, the cars were jammed up from the border to the track six miles away. At 8 oclock last night, Tecate, the picturesque border crossing near Campo, had traffic backed up for a mile. The customs office there said it was the worst backup in memory. Motorists reported the new search methods caused waits of as much as two hours. On normal weekends, there is no block at the small border station. Traffic was heavier as motorists diverted to the port of entry to avoid crowds at Tijuana. Similar traffic tieups were reported at other entry points in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. AWFUL JAM Its an awful traffic jam, isnt it? remarked U.S. Commissioner of Customs Myles J. Ambrose, who personally surveyed the situation at San Ysidro. Officials earlier had predicted that a wait of six to eight hours, or possibly longer, was facing motorists returning from Mexico at peak hours. An hour and a half before Operation Intercept got under way, a young man abandoned his car and fled on foot from U.S. Customs agents. They reported they found drugs in his car, and the unlucky driver was run to earth by six pursuers who turned him over to San Diego police. Vernon Hann, district customs director, said he saw a number of cars, spotting the intensifies search at the border, turn around and head back into Tijuana. View anniversary front pages online at sandiegouniontribune.com/150-years. For more from the Union-Tribune digital archives, go to newslibrary.com/sites/sdub. Searching is free, with registration. A fee is required to view full stories. A judge in Riverside County is proposing to bar youth in juvenile delinquency proceedings from meeting face-to-face with their attorneys at courthouses, raising objections from attorneys who represent those youth. A draft blanket order by Judith Clark, presiding judge of Riversides Juvenile Court, would not allow so-called contact visits between attorneys and their young clients at two Riverside courts that hear juvenile cases. Only in exceptional circumstances could a judge, at his or her discretion, permit such a visit. The purpose of this order is to ensure that juvenile detainees have meaningful access to the courts while the court maintains the security and safety of all court users, the draft order says. Juvenile defense organizations and civil liberties advocates say the order would violate the juveniles constitutional right to due process. Advertisement For now over 50 years the courts have recognized that kids in delinquency proceedings have a right to counsel and to effective assistance of counsel, said Ian Kysel, staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. The ACLU is one of several organizations that submitted letters to the court opposing the proposal. Under the order, Kysel said, youngsters would not be allowed face-to-face visits at crucial moments, such as deciding whether to accept a plea offer or telling their attorneys about an important detail relevant to their case. Instead, they would have to talk to their lawyers in open court or try to persuade a judge to allow a private meeting, which could mean having to disclose sensitive information, he said. The blanket order would prevent kids from meeting with their attorneys in the very context where they need the guidance of counsel the most, Kysel said. The order says the Riverside County Probation Department provides ample opportunity for contact visits at the countys Juvenile Hall. It notes that preliminary determinations over where a minor charged with a serious felony should be prosecuted are now heard in juvenile court. And, it adds, the department has insufficient resources to provide personnel to supervise contact visits at the courthouse. The order gives attorneys the option to meet with clients in a courthouse interview room, where they would be separated by a partition and talk to each other using a phone. Defense attorneys say thats not good enough, particularly when representing youth, who often face language barriers, disabilities and mental health disorders. Effective communication requires contact visitation, said Mary Ann Scali, executive director of the National Juvenile Defender Center, which also submitted a letter opposing the proposal. We know that when we are talking with young people its important that we have eye contact, that being in their physical presence and space is important in terms of trust. Its also critically important in terms of confidentiality. Scali, whose group has studied minors access to counsel in 24 states, said courthouses in only a few states put up physical barriers between attorneys and their clients. I cannot think of a place where the attorney has to ask a judge for permission to have a contact visit, she said. It would really make Riverside an outlier. Clark is expected to finalize the order within the next week, a court spokeswoman said. nina.agrawal@latimes.com Twitter: @AgrawalNina Thursday night, in the courtyard of a La Jolla Farms home high above Blacks Beach, four Parkland kids, survivors of their schools Valentines Day massacre, symbolized the change thats got to be coming to a country in love with guns like no other but at the same time sick of gun violence like no other. Parkland survivors Kai Koerber and Dylan Kraemer. (Courtesy Jeff Vespa/@portraits) Headlining the local Brady Campaign fundraiser, the media-road-tested Florida students were remarkable in their normality. Before the program began, Congressman Scott Peters remarked to a small group that he was amazed at how these singled-out students, whom hed thought might be maudlin or geeky, were just regular teenagers who, out of self-defense, embarked on a school project to honor their fallen classmates but to also hang with their friends during a historic undertaking. Advertisement In their grief, theyve formed a team that transcends anything ever seen on prep gridirons, hardcourts or diamonds. Its totally changed everything, Peters said, recalling past years when his student town halls were pretty low-energy affairs. Recently, however, he met with eighth-graders in Point Loma and he was astonished by how fired up they were over voter registration, of all things. Its all from this, he said, waving to the Parkland rock stars. Later, at the mic, shined the carefully groomed class president, Julia Cordover, reading an earnest essay on gun violence and the need for common-sense gun laws. A born politician. She was followed by Dylan Kraemer who took less than a minute to urge the crowd to vote. His disarmingly brief sincerity drew applause. Then Kai Koerber, a confident young man who pitched his own corporate venture to bring mental health classes to schools. A born entrepreneur. And finally, Sam Zeif simply remembered that day, a born reporter recalling looking for his 14-year-old brother who said, My teacher is shot dead. Later, Sam found out that his best friend had died. I didnt know what to do, he said, letting the grief speak for itself in silence. Sam ended his talk with the plea to stop supporting politicians whod rather take money than save lives. Those were tough acts for grown-ups to follow, but Avery Gardiner, co-president of the Washington-based Brady Campaign & Center to Prevent Gun Violence, started with a bang, triggering audible gasps with the revelation that she is teaching her 8-year-old daughter to shoot. (The little girl prefers her .22 over a .410 shotgun, she laughed.) The 21st century article of faith in Brady 2.0, it seems, is that traditional firearms are not inherently evil. They cannot and should not be prohibited. Nor should it be as difficult as it is in, say Japan, to own them. However, in a nation with 300 million guns sloshing around, where the carnage is breathtaking, many people, and we should know who they are, should not possess loaded guns. Gardiner, who earned an undergraduate and a law degree at Harvard, laid out the three updated missions of the Brady Campaign. First, the 25-year-old law requiring licensed sellers to perform background checks on customers should be strengthened to include private sales, a transaction that in many states is not regulated. A related ambition, called Stop Bad Apple Gun Dealers, targets the 5 percent of dealers who supply 90 percent of the guns used to commit crimes. Either through legislation, public pressure or lawsuits on behalf of victims, these serial offenders need to be pushed out of business, Gardiner said. Finally, Gardiner called for a cultural evolution of values. More than 60 percent of gun buyers are motivated by love for their families and fear for their safety, she said. You cannot fight these powerful emotions with statistics, she said. Youve got to give a problem a name. She cited the profound effect of the phrase drunk driving that made America MADD enough to stop ordering drinks for the road. Or second-hand smoke, the slogan that eventually stubbed out cigarettes in public places. The Brady Campaign recently went to an advertising firm that came up with a new phrase family fire to convey the tragic consequences of guns improperly stored in households. More than 4 million children live in homes where loaded guns are not locked away, she said, up from 1.7 million 10 years ago. Three-quarters of school shootings involve guns taken from the home. Expect to see family fire in future public messages. In anticipation of San Diego City Attorney Mara Elliotts talk, Gardiner lauded California for recently approving gun-violence restraining orders, a carefully administered means of removing firearms from individuals who pose a danger to others or themselves. (Remember, more than 60 percent of gun deaths are suicides.) In the last nine months, Elliott went on to say, 56 gun confiscation orders have been granted in the city of San Diego. The program has involved a lot of training, she said, but shes determined to secure the funding to help other jurisdictions keep guns out of the hands of the patently dangerous. Notably, the Brady gathering on Thursday was billed as bipartisan. Well, I saw friends of Republican heritage among the organizers and in the audience, which shouldnt have surprised me but still did. While Id wager my house that more viewers of MSNBC than Fox made up the crowd, President Trumps name never came up. The NRA was not vilified. Gun Control 2.0 should be, and apparently is, too smart for partisan baiting. Thanks in large part to the Parkland project, a wounded childrens crusade, more eyes than ever before are on the prize: A national gun culture thats physically safer and morally sounder. Logan Jenkins is a freelance columnist. He can be reached at lbjenkins5437@gmail.com A Florida inventor who made a fortune developing protective eyewear is giving UC San Diego $25 million to battle public health problems ranging from substance abuse to the sort of deadly hepatitis A outbreak that hit the county last year. The gift from Herbert Wertheim of Miami represents seed money to create a school of public health, which is considered to be a missing piece at a campus that operates two major hospitals and separate schools of medicine and pharmaceutical science. UC San Diego is also committing $25 million to the project and hopes to raise an additional $50 million toward the construction of a building. Wertheim has donated more than $100 million over the years, mostly to promote health, medicine, engineering and the arts at universities in Florida. But he was moved by UC San Diegos efforts in health, which include getting nutritious foods to people in low-income neighborhoods. Advertisement The most important thing we can achieve is making our communities healthier across the lifespan, and thus more productive, the 79-year-old Wertheim said in a statement. Prevention is, and always will be, the best medicine. Some of the $25 million will support UC San Diegos research programs, in areas like communicable diseases. Part of the gift also will support education, like the work being done to promote vaccinations and healthy eating. But the main goal is to create a school of public health, which would require the approval of the University of California system. The campus wants to emulate Harvard and UCLA, whose public health schools are famous for identifying threats and broadly helping people. Schools of medicine train physicians how to care for individual patients, said David Brenner, vice chancellor of health sciences at UC San Diego. Public health is about taking care of large populations, including those who are under-served, those who have incredibly high health care needs, and those who arent as sophisticated when it comes to using the medical system. Thats where we can provide more help. The proposed school of public health would help us determine what it means to have a healthy society, said Chancellor Pradeep Khosla, who teamed with Brenner to negotiate the Wertheim gift. You connect that understanding with the cost of delivering health care to improve public health, and the longevity of people. The school of public health would draw from the entire campus, particularly engineering, where researchers are developing wearable health devices, and computer science, where scientists are developing software that can spot health threats. The university also has just opened a data science institute thats heavily involved in analyzing health and medical issues. The new $25 million donation represents a bit of serendipity. Brenner didnt become acquainted with Wertheim until a few years ago, when Wertheim arrived in San Diego aboard The World, a 644-foot private residential ship. The two men were introduced at a social event, became friends and spent some of their time talking about Wertheims unexpected rise in business and science. During childhood, Wertheim struggled in school because hes dyslexic. He spent less and less time on education and more on kicking around Florida, doing odd jobs, such as picking oranges with migrant workers. He later joined the Navy and went through boot camp in San Diego. Wertheim received a good grounding in subjects like chemistry, physics and electronics. After leaving the service, he earned a degree in optometry and began a clinical practice. He also founded Brain Power Incorporated, a leading manufacturer of ophthalmic instruments. Wertheim is best known for using special dyes to coat eyeglass lenses, cutting down on ultraviolet light, which reduced the chance that a person would develop cataracts. The invention helped Wertheim earn great wealth money that he is now giving away. Like Bill Gates and Denny Sanford, he signed The Giving Pledge, an agreement in which a person pledges to give away the majority of his or her wealth. I never set out to be wealthy, Wertheim told a magazine writer in 2014. The monetary rewards have always been secondary to doing my part to make the world a better place. Some residents of Sherman Heights and Logan Heights have said theyve seen an increase in trash and bad behavior from homeless people since the city opened a storage center a few blocks away from their homes. The day it opened was the day we noticed there was an increase, said Brenda Ridder, who lives near L and 21st streets about two blocks away from the citys Transitional Storage Center at 116 S. 20th St. Ridder was one of about 25 area residents who attended a Wednesday night meeting of the Homeless Storage Neighborhood Advisory Committee, which also was attended by San Diego police officers and city officials. Theres always been homeless people, theres always been gangs, but it hasnt been as bad as it is now that this facility is open, Ridder said, describing feces on sidewalks, trash thrown out of cans and people having sex outside her home. Advertisement San Diego police Capt. Scott Wahl, who heads a division that enforces quality of life laws like ones often associated with homelessness, told residents at the meeting that officers would keep an eye on the areas Ridder and other residents mentioned. The storage center provides up to 500 homeless people a free place to keep their possessions. Besides helping keep sidewalks clear, the center frees homeless people from constantly watching their possessions, allowing them to do more productive things such as looking for work or going to school. Residents near the center had expressed concerns about how it would impact their neighborhood, and the city responded with security patrols in a one-block area around the building. Police also often patrol the area. Several residents from outside of the one-block area said the enforcement just moved problems to their neighborhoods. I appreciate that theyre enforcing on the main street, said Janmari Hueso, who lives near Logan Avenue and 17th Street. Can you guys patrol the alleys more? Theyre moving from the main streets and hiding more in my alleys, in bushes. Hueso said she began attending the monthly community meetings before the center opened. I keep complaining, she said. Its like a full-time job. There are certain issues where I feel like we are being listened to, and I can see some specific changes. But theres a lot of other times when theres finger-pointing. For instance, Hueso said shes sometimes been told that an issue shes raised has to be handled by the citys sanitation department, while other times shes been told its a police issue. Keely Halsey, chief of homelessness strategies and housing liaison in the mayors office, told residents at the meeting to not be shy about calling 911 for emergencies, but also reminded them to use the citys Get It Done app to report ongoing issues. Some residents at the meeting acknowledged that, overall, downtown streets have been cleaner over the past few months, especially on 17th Street and neighboring areas where tents once lined sidewalks. You have to admit it is cleaner around here, said Lannon Turowskil. If its the storage facility that got it that way, I dont want to see this kind of police activity go away. Hueso also said things do look better in the daytime, but that changes around 5:30 p.m. Everyone is out on the streets again, just laying like sardines, she said. Theyre going to the bathroom, sleeping, sitting, doing drugs and a lot of activity you dont want to see. Keith Foster said he lives very close to the center, but has only lived there since October so it was hard to judge whether the area has improved or gotten better. Hes used the Get It Done app to report ongoing sanitation issues in front of his home. I cant say its been worse, but I can tell you it hasnt be great, he said. Lisa Jones, vice president for homeless housing innovations with the San Diego Housing Commission, gave residents an update on the centers use. As of this week, 325 people have stored their possessions in bins at the center. Of those, 11 people have left, with nine checking out because they found housing and two leaving because they got jobs. Use of the center had been reserved for people who were on the waiting list to use the citys other storage center on 16th Street near K Street, operated by Think Dignity. As of Sept. 13, the bins have been available to all homeless people. Homeless Playlist On Now San Diego hepatitis outbreak continues to grow: 481 cases On Now Homeless entrenched in booming tent city along Santa Ana River On Now San Diego mayor agreed to homeless hub, then delayed, advocates say On Now Homeless outreach in San Diego On Now Video: Street Art: Portraits of San Diego's Homeless #8 On Now In poverty himself, 'Water Man Dave,' is the fearless saint of San Diego's homeless 5:41 On Now Video: Homeless living in cars find safe havens 2:21 On Now Street Art: Portraits of San Diego's Homeless #7 On Now Pitching a tent plan for San Diego's homeless On Now Homeless efforts get $80M boost for various services gary.warth@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @GaryWarthUT 760-529-4939 Christine Blasey Ford, the Palo Alto University professor accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of attempted rape when they were high schoolers, says she never called police and did not speak about the incident to anyone for decades after the alleged attack in the early 1980s. Trying to discredit her story, President Trump tweeted Friday that he had no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. But according to decades of social science, surveys of sexual assault victims and crime reporting data from federal government agencies, there is a lot of room for doubt. I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 21, 2018 Advertisement People are expecting this woman to have realized she was a crime victim and that she should have gone to the police, said Mary Koss, a professor at the University of Arizona who coined the term date rape in the 1980s and has studied how assault victims respond to trauma. These ideas are all completely inconsistent with actual facts. They are myths. Studies show that many sexual assault survivors do not report to police now and have been less likely to do so in the past when laws defining sex abuse were more vague and resources for victims were less available. According to the U.S. Department of Justices National Crime Victimization Survey, 310 out of 1,000 sexual assaults are reported to authorities; 2 out of 3 go unreported. The numbers were compiled from data collected from 2010 to 2014 and include assaults against men. Justice Department data also show that 20% of survivors do not report their assaults out of fear of retaliation, while 13% do not report because they think police will not be helpful, 13% believe their experiences are personal matters, and 7% do not want to get perpetrators in trouble. Those numbers were collected from 2005 to 2010. After Trump tweeted about Ford, who had requested the FBI look into her allegation and on Saturday agreed to testify this week in front of senators, thousands of men and women wrote on Twitter about their assaults with the hashtag #WhyIDidnt-Report. They included politicians, celebrities and journalists. I did report, but it was dismissed by the police, tweeted Janet Garrett, a Democrat who is running to represent Ohio in the 4th Congressional District. I know what it is like. I understand the shame and humiliation and why people dont report. I did report, but it was dismissed by the police. I know what it is like. I understand the shame and humiliation and why people dont report. Women deserve to be treated with the dignity that is due to every human being. #WhyIDidntReport Janet Garrett (@Janet4OH) September 21, 2018 Because I had never seen a survivor come forward and be treated with dignity, so why would I believe my case would be different? tweeted Emily Sioma, who represented Michigan in this years Miss America pageant. The responses are similar to the account from Ford, who first spoke to the Washington Post recently about the incident in which she said Kavanaugh pinned her down on a bed, groped her, rubbed his body against hers and attempted to remove her bathing suit while holding his hand over her mouth. She said it happened during a house party when she was 15 and he was 17, and that Kavanaugh and a friend of his who was there were drunk. Ford said she escaped, locked herself in a bathroom and then left the building with no memory of how she got home. Kavanaugh denied the allegations. Mark Judge, Kavanaughs friend who Ford said was present, said that the interaction didnt happen and that he would not testify before senators. According to the Post, Ford did not tell her parents in part because she was worried of their response to her being at a party with underage drinking. She added, my biggest fear was, do I look like someone just attacked me? Im not ever telling anyone this, she told the newspaper, recalling her thought process. This is nothing, it didnt happen, and he didnt rape me. The description matches responses many teens and college-age women had after assaults in the 1980s, Koss said. While at Kent State University in 1987, Koss and her colleagues conducted a national survey of 3,187 female students from 32 universities that asked about their experiences with rape since age 14. In results that scholars and activists still cite today, 1 in 4 women said they had been raped or experienced attempted rape. Almost half the incidents happened while the women were high schoolers. Only 3% of attempted-rape victims and 8% of rape victims called police. The survey also found that 42% of women had told no one about what happened. Women would say, I didnt realize it was rape or I didnt realize attempted rape counts, Koss said. Many men and women give similar accounts in recent studies about rape. In surveys, sexual assault victims then and now have also complained about perpetrators walking free as a reason for not reporting rape. According to analysis of federal surveys and data from the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, only 6 out of 1,000 rapists go to prison. Just 57 out of 1,000 rape cases lead to arrests, while 11 of those on average will be referred to prosecutors. FBI crime data show that 95,730 rapes were reported in 2016, which the government says represent a fraction of those attacks. Experts say part of the problem is the perception that police and prosecutors are unwilling to fairly investigate sexual assault. Sexual assault victims who summon the courage to report the crime to the police are often subjected to a criminal justice system that seems insensitive, uncaring, or even hostile to victims, says a guide released in May by the Police Executive Research Forum. Over time, police have learned how they interact with victims plays a huge role in their willingness to come forward, said Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the forum, which he said has undertaken efforts to improve police response to assault reports. There was a time when police unwittingly might ask questions that further victimized women coming in. The sensitivity of the issue was not as apparent as it is today. jaweed.kaleem@latimes.com More national headlines UPDATES: 12:20 p.m.: This article was updated to include news that Christine Blasey Ford has agreed to testify in front of senators next week. This article was originally published at 10:20 a.m. President Trump had a stormy debut at the annual United Nations gathering of world leaders last September. From the podium of the packed U.N. General Assembly, he blasted North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un as Rocket Man, threatened to totally destroy North Korea and warned of global peril from loser terrorists and the wicked few. When Trump returns to the U.N. this week, he will claim that his brash diplomacy has led to a series of foreign policy successes, aides say, including an emerging detente with North Korea, expanding protection for U.S. trade and other interests, and putting Islamic State on the run. During his four-day visit to New York, the president will address the General Assembly, chair the Security Council for the first time and speak at a conference on narcotics. Amid a flurry of diplomatic receptions, he also will hold private meetings with the leaders of seven countries, including Japan, France and Britain. Advertisement Trumps disruptive approach to foreign policy includes a disdain for international institutions, including the U.N. He repeated his doubts before his arrival Sunday night by saying the world body had not lived up to its potential. Its always been surprising to me that more things arent resolved, Trump said in a weekend video message, because you have all of these countries getting together in one location but it doesnt seem to get there. I think it will. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo signaled Sunday that Trump would claim credit for lowering the nuclear threat from North Korea even though Pyongyang has yet to make any substantive moves toward eliminating its nuclear arsenal or ballistic missiles, or even providing an inventory of them. Were continuing to make progress, Pompeo said on Fox News Sunday, citing North Koreas suspension of nuclear or missile tests since last year and what he called deep discussions about denuclearization. These are all the right steps forward. Its the right path. Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, was more circumspect, noting, We are far from reaching the end of this. We have got to make sure we enforce sanctions, because thats what brought them to the table in the first place, she said on CNNs State of the Union. And I think thats what were going to continue to do. Haley also indicated that Trump, who blasted Iran in his speech last year to the world body, would again take a tough line, but she backed away from weekend comments by Trumps lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani suggesting that Washington was sympathetic to those who want to see Irans leadership toppled. Look, the United States is not looking to do a regime change in Iran. Were not looking to do regime change anywhere, she said. What we are looking to do is protect Americans, protect our allies and make sure that we do everything we can to stop it. Some analysts expect Trump to deliver a less fiery speech this year, if only because his top target has changed. He now boasts of his warm feelings for Kim, whom he met in June during a summit in Singapore, and still hopes to revive the stalled denuclearization talks. South Koreas president, Moon Jae-in, met with Kim last week in Pyongyang and is expected to give Trump a private message from the North Korean ruler. Both Kim and Trump have said they hope to meet again this year, and the White House has said it is working to arrange another summit. I think the presidents speeches will have much less bomb throwing than last year, said Jon Alterman, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonpartisan Washington think tank. Most importantly, President Trump isnt new for the world. Iran may bear the brunt of Trumps harshest rhetoric this year for what the administration considers its malign behavior, including support for militants in Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq and elsewhere. According to a senior administration official, Trump plans to repeat his claim that the Iran nuclear deal failed despite continued reports from the U.N. nuclear watchdog that Iran is complying with it and is likely to scold Europeans for continuing to try to salvage the international agreement that Trump withdrew from in May. He will face a more jaded audience than last year, however. Many leaders have sized up Trumps blustery rhetoric, are wary of the policy havoc he can wreak and are finding ways to navigate with or around him, diplomats say. Over the last year, Trump has disrupted the world order by starting trade conflicts with China and the European Union, and by offering lavish praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin who will not be at the U.N. this week even as the special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 campaign continues to cloud the White House. Trump has criticized the U.N. as bloated and ineffective, and cut U.S. funding and participation from several agencies and pacts, including the U.N. Human Rights Council, the International Criminal Court and mechanisms for peacekeeping and aiding refugees. Trump roiled the Group of 7 summit in Quebec in June, scolding his allies and suggesting Russia be allowed to rejoin the group, which kicked Moscow out in 2014 for its illegal annexation of Crimea. At a North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in July, his demands triggered an emergency session when he suggested the U.S. might withdraw from the trans-Atlantic military alliance, the bedrock of post-World War II peace in Europe. Trump declared victory at every turn and glowed in the limelight, a performance that played far better with his supporters back home than with traditional U.S. allies overseas. He just uses these things to show his base that hes onto these foolish multilateral structures, that hes proud to go in there and give them the lecture theyve never had, said Christopher R. Hill, a former U.S. ambassador to four countries who served Republican and Democratic presidents. U.S. allies have come to an understanding that Trump is what he is. Theyre just trying to get through the next two years and hoping hes not reelected, Hill said. A former White House aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss his former boss, said Trump doesnt dislike the organizations as much as he claims. He may not believe wholeheartedly in the mission of the U.N. or NATO or any multilateral body, said the former aide. But he doesnt hate going to these things as much as people think. As much as he may grumble and complain, he relishes the world stage. Most European allies, still smarting from Trumps withdrawal from the Paris climate accord and the Iran nuclear deal, are resigned to playing defense, hoping to preserve existing agreements rather than formulating new ones. U.S. allies who first thought they could work with Trump are getting upset and sick of it, said Rachel Rizzo, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a bipartisan Washington think tank. Instead of kowtowing to Trump, foreign leaders are pushing back more against his foreign policies and trying to see if these structures can be maintained even without a strong U.S. presence. Some experts see the decline of U.S. political influence around the globe in the Trump era. Many countries are looking elsewhere, said Stewart M. Patrick, senior fellow for global governance at the nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations. If the United States draws back, its not as if the vacuum isnt filled. Increasingly it is being filled by China. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who will meet privately with Trump on Tuesday, recently reflected publicly on the United States shrinking ability to influence world events. Last year, Guterres welcomed Trump to the U.N. with a public expression of gratitude for Trumps insistence that other countries contribute more to its coffers. This month Guterres lamented that Trump has pushed the United States into a number of conflicts of different natures in relation to trade, in relation to other situations, while disengaging from important global agreements. The U.S. role that was a dominant factor in international relations just a few decades ago is today less clear, he told the Atlantic magazine. tracy.wilkinson@latimes.com Twitter: @TracyKWilkinson eli.stokols@latimes.com Twitter: @EliStokols Laura.King@latimes.com UPDATES: 1:20 p.m., Sept. 23 This story was updated with details of Trumps schedule and comments from the Sunday talk shows. This story was originally posted at 2:35 p.m. on Sept. 22 More than 12 women and 1 man have alleged they were sexually assaulted by a California surgeon and his girlfriend since they were arrested earlier this month for allegedly drugging and raping two women. Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas told reporters Friday that officials are widening their investigation into 38-year-old Grant Robicheaux and 31-year-old Cerissa Riley and are looking into alleged assaults that date back decades. Investigators are expanding inquiries to several states as well as other parts of California, he said. Prosecutors have received more than 50 calls about the case since charges against the pair were announced Wednesday one of them from an alleged victim in Louisiana, who alerted authorities to a possible incident that occurred 20 years ago, an official at the district attorneys office told the the Los Angeles Times. Robicheaux, a one-time subject of the Bravo reality show Online Dating Rituals of the American Male, and Riley were arrested on Sept. 12 and released on $100,000 bond each. Rackauckas said there is a possibility more charges could be filed, but could not predict whether or not the pair would be re-arrested. Advertisement Theyre currently facing charges of rape by use of drugs, oral copulation by anesthesia or controlled substance and sexual assault in connection two alleged incidents in 2016.Two women told authorities they were drugged and then sexually assaulted by the couple at Robicheauxs apartment on separate occasions. One of the accusers described the pair as a Bonnie and Clyde team who drugged her and forced her to engage in sex acts, according to court documents obtained by the Times. She went to police the following day and a toxicology report revealed she had cocaine, ecstasy and MDA a stimulant called the love drug in her system. No arrests were immediately made, but the allegations sparked a two-year long probe into Robicheaux and Riley. In January, investigators uncovered video of a least one of the accusers being sexually assaulted at the Orthopedic surgeons home. They also found scores of images and video they believe to feature additional victims. Rackauckas said Fridays its possible Robicheaux also targeted women through dating apps like Tinder and Bumble, according to CNN. Ladies please be careful when you meet people on these apps, he said. You dont know what is behind what appears to be a perfect smile. The district attorney also encouraged anyone who believes they are victim to come forward and share information with his office. No one gets a pass to have their way with you once you are unconscious or past the point of consent, Rackauckas said. Robicheauxs attorney, Philip Cohen, said he and his team have reviewed the video footage and are prepared to defend the pair in court, according to KTLA. He pointed out Robicheaux and Riley had both been aware of the allegations and did not attempt to flee. The doctor has twice left the country amid the investigation and has returned both times, he noted. Earlier this week, attorneys issued a statement that unequivocally denied any allegations of non-consensual sex raised against the couple. With News Wire Services PHILADELPHIA - Bill Cosby could be sent to prison next week for drugging and molesting a woman at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004 in what became the first celebrity trial of the #MeToo era. Cosby is due in court Monday for a two-day sentencing hearing that follows his conviction in the spring on three felony counts of aggravated indecent assault. The judges options are broad, because the state guideline range of about one to four years spans the gamut from a prison term to a jail stint to house arrest or probation. The maximum term is 10 years per count. Lawyers for the 81-year-old, legally blind Cosby will no doubt stress his age, health problems, legacy and philanthropy as they plead to keep him at home, while prosecutors hope to call other accusers to paint Cosby as a sexual predator deserving of prison. Advertisement Montgomery County Judge Steven T. ONeill may aim straight for the heart of the guidelines to blunt public criticism from both sides and avoid being overturned on appeal, legal experts said. If you give a sentence in the middle, almost no one can complain, said Daniel Filler, dean of Drexel Universitys Kline School of Law, who studies sex assault issues. And because the case has mitigating factors and aggravating factors, thats the most likely outcome. Cosby should learn his fate by Tuesday. THE SENTENCE Jurors convicted Cosby of sexually assaulting Andrea Constand without consent, while she was impaired and after incapacitating her. Though each count carries a 10-year maximum sentence, ONeill will likely merge them since all three stem from the same encounter, in effect weighing only one charge, legal experts say. State guidelines call for a base 22-to-36-month sentence. The judge can add up to a year for aggravating factors - such as the 60-some other accusers, Cosbys denials and lack of remorse, and even his defense teams repeated attacks on the judge and prosecutor. Then ONeill could deduct up to a year for mitigating factors - Cosbys age, health and perhaps even the $3.4 million he paid to settle Constands related lawsuit. The Associated Press does not typically identify sexual assault victims without their permission, which Constand has granted. PRISON, JAIL OR HOUSE ARREST? If Cosby gets even a day more than two years, hell enter the state prison system, with a first stop at SCI Phoenix, a new $400 million, 3,830-bed prison in suburban Philadelphia where staff would assess his physical, medical and security needs. Cosby could end up in a long-term medical care unit there or elsewhere. If hes deemed at risk because of his celebrity or as a risk to others, hed be held in solitary confinement, spending most of the day alone in his cell. Otherwise, hed likely share a two-person cell, leaving for meals, exercise, counseling and other activities. Hed be free to bring a personal tablet for music or games but wouldnt have internet access, corrections spokeswoman Amy Worden said. If Cosby gets two years or less, hed likely go to the Montgomery County Correctional Facility in nearby Eagleville, a 2,080-bed site that also has a medical unit. Or ONeill could give him less than a year and let him serve some or all of the time on home confinement, typically with an ankle monitor or probation. The key question, if Cosby gets time, is whether ONeill lets him stay home while he appeals his conviction. The violent nature of the crime works against him, but Cosbys age might work in his favor. You dont want your client to go to prison and find out that (in) those twilight years of their life they shouldnt have had to spend there in the first place, said Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson. THE ACCUSERS More than 60 other women accuse Cosby of sexual misconduct during his 50-year show business career. ONeill allowed five of them to testify at trial, while others came to watch the court proceedings. District Attorney Kevin Steele wants some of them to speak at the sentencing. ONeill on Wednesday ruled out the testimony of most of the other accusers, other than the five trial witnesses. But whether any of them testify, he already knows their stories well after presiding at both trials and several intense pretrial hearings over their prior bad act testimony. The judge knows a ton about Mr. Cosby whether or not the D.A. puts on a single witness, Filler said. THE JUDGE ONeill, who is married and has three adult sons, took the bench in 2002. He has watched the Cosby teams attacks on the court system intensify, and grow more personal, as the stakes grew. When the first trial ended in a deadlock in June 2017, the defense attacked the judge and prosecutor from the courthouse steps. In court in April, moments after his conviction, Cosby called Steele an expletive and said he was sick of him. Then, just this week, Camille Cosby filed a state ethics complaint against ONeill, invoking a long-ago romance to allege he had a bias in the case. She has called him arrogant, 'unethical and corrupt. Lawyer Samuel Stretton, who often represents Pennsylvania judges in disciplinary hearings, called ONeill an even-keeled professional who understands human nature. He doesnt think the attacks will influence the sentence - but said Cosbys lack of remorse might. Obviously, if no one is repenting, thats a factor to consider. And if theyre so unrepentant theyre name calling, blaming anyone but themselves, thats a problem, Stretton said. In a horrific accident, more than 130 ferry passengers are dead after their ferry capsized in Lake Victoria on Thursday, reported ABC News. While the exact number of people on board the MV Nyerere is unclear, hundreds are missing and more than 200 people are feared dead, Tanzania Red Cross spokeswoman Godfrida Jola told The Associated Press. At least 40 riders have been rescued from the water, said John Kijazi. Simon Sirro, a top Tanzania police official, claimed 136 corpses had been recovered as search parties scoured the area for more survivors the next day. Advertisement Passengers, most of them returning from market with sacks of bananas and corn, were sailing from the islands of Ukara and Bugolora when the ship sank, reported The AP. John Magufuli, the president of Tanzania, said he was deeply saddened by the tragedy and called on residents to stay calm during these difficult times. Lake Victoria, the largest lake on the continent, shares borders with Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya. The ferrys maximum capacity was 100 people but officials stated the passenger total could range as high as 300. The ships rusting hull and propellers were the only parts visible as the search continued Friday. The high death toll could be attributed to the shortage of life jackets on board and that many of the passengers could not swim. More than 500 passengers perished during a previous Lake Victoria ferry capsizing in 1996. A woman was killed when she stepped out of her boyfriends car onto a Chula Vista street and was struck by a passing vehicle, authorities said today. Police were called about 7:45 p.m. Friday to the scene on H Street near the Jacob Dekama (805) Freeway, according to the Chula Vista Police Department. Police told Fox5 the woman had been in the car, when for an unknown reason, she got out the vehicle and stepped into the roadway and was hit by the passing car. A man who lives in the neighborhood told Fox5 he often hears speeding cars on that stretch of H Street. Advertisement Usually I hear the screeching of tires and boom,' the unnamed neighbor said. But that wasnt like that. It was just something smashing into, you know, hollowed doors of a car.' The driver of the vehicle that struck the woman stayed at the scene and he was later taken to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries, police said. Alcohol or drugs were not a factor in the crash, police said. A gang-related shooting at an Escondido bar early Saturday left one man dead, a second victim wounded and another man under arrest, police said. According to a report from the Escondido Police Department, officers responded to multiple calls of a shooting at Pounders on West Grand Avenue near South Broadway at about 1 a.m. Several people at the scene identified the suspect, who took off running, police said. Officers chased Manuel Eliseo Martinez, 32, of Escondido, for several blocks and got into a brief struggle before arresting him. Advertisement Two gunshot victims were taken by medics to a trauma center. One died from his wounds, and his identity is being withheld pending family notification. The second victim had non-life threatening injuries and is expected to survive, according to the report. Police said the shooting appears to have been gang-related. Martinez was booked into Vista Jail on charges including murder, attempted murder, possession of drugs for sale, resisting arrest and several weapons charges including being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition. gary.warth@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @GaryWarthUT 760-529-4939 A Navy SEAL is being detained at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in connection with the 2017 execution of a detainee in Iraq, according to a Navy Times article. SEAL officials told the Navy Times that the chief special warfare operator has not been charged with a crime, but Naval Criminal Investigative Service are investigating. The Navy Times did not identify the SEAL. A service member currently assigned to a Naval Special Warfare unit is under investigation by NCIS for professional misconduct while deployed to Iraq in 2017, Naval Special Warfare spokeswoman Cmdr. Tamara Lawrence told the Navy Times. We take all allegations of misconduct seriously and willcooperate fully with investigative authorities.' According to the publication, the alleged execution of the detainee involved a blade. The SEAL is detained at the Naval Consolidated Brig Miramar, under Rules for Court-Martial 305, the Navy Times reported. Advertisement The next step could be a hearing in San Diego to decide whethe rcriminal charges should be filed and a general court-martial convened by an admiral. An MCAS Miramar spokesman could not be reached for comment. Oceanside police are looking a man suspected of shooting another man in the leg Friday afternoon. Police Lt. Kedrick Sadler said the victim and shooter appeared to know each other and were fighting in a home on Roselle Avenue near College Boulevard at about 5:25 p.m. when the shooting occurred. Sadler said a suspect has been identified but has not been arrested. The wounded man, 33, was taken to a hospital for treatment of injuries that were not life-threatening, Sadler said. Advertisement Homeless Playlist On Now San Diego hepatitis outbreak continues to grow: 481 cases On Now Homeless entrenched in booming tent city along Santa Ana River On Now San Diego mayor agreed to homeless hub, then delayed, advocates say On Now Homeless outreach in San Diego On Now Video: Street Art: Portraits of San Diego's Homeless #8 On Now In poverty himself, 'Water Man Dave,' is the fearless saint of San Diego's homeless 5:41 On Now Video: Homeless living in cars find safe havens 2:21 On Now Street Art: Portraits of San Diego's Homeless #7 On Now Pitching a tent plan for San Diego's homeless On Now Homeless efforts get $80M boost for various services gary.warth@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @GaryWarthUT 760-529-4939 Providing resources for our poorest citizens Re Proposition 1: Vote no on housing measure, which costs too much, does too little (Sept. 17): Housing affordability is a crisis that requires immediate attention and we strongly believe in an all of the above strategy that includes reducing barriers to housing production. But the market alone will never be able to house the working families, seniors, veterans and people living with disabilities who are most vulnerable. We need resources to build homes they can afford. The hepatitis A crisis demonstrates the heartbreaking cost of doing nothing. If the Union-Tribune opposes the funding of homes for our poorest citizens, it should offer constructive solutions for how to house them. Proposition 1 provides resources to programs with a proven record of success without raising taxes, one of many reasons the measure is backed by a broad coalition of supporters. Advertisement Doing nothing isnt an option and, with no local measures on the ballot to address this issue, we urge voters to say yes to Proposition 1 this November. Stephen Russell is executive director of the San Diego Housing Federation. Measure would help on affordable housing Re State, local leaders show support for affordable housing bond (Sept. 18): Id like to thank Gary Warth for his article on the community event in support of Proposition 1. Californias housing crisis is hitting families and seniors in our community and pushing many to have to choose between food or rent, or make long commutes because they cant afford to live where they work. This is no way to live. Undoubtedly, we all know someone who cant find an affordable place to live and one of the solutions must be building more homes across California. Proposition 1 will build homes for veterans, working families, people with disabilities and Californians experiencing homelessness. I ask for the communitys help to make affordable housing a reality for more Californians. Please join me and help pass the $4 billion Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act this November. Rudolph A. Johnson III is a board member for Eden Housing Letters and commentary policy The U-T welcomes and encourages community dialogue on important public matters. Please visit this page for more details on our letters and commentaries policy. You can email letters@sduniontribune.com or leave a comment below. Follow @UTLetters on Twitter and UTOpinion on Facebook. Jacob Nix has two starts and a decision about his health left to make. The rookie right-hander, who has a 5.75 ERA in seven starts since making his major league debut Aug. 10, will pitch Saturday against the Dodgers and next weekend against the Diamondbacks. Then he plans to see two specialists about a bothersome hip adductor that has delayed the start of his past two seasons. Im just gathering as much information as possible, he said. I dont want to have surgery. Advertisement To that end, he has consulted with EVO UltraFit, the company that designs the program used to great success by reliever Robert Stock, which involves use of a machine that provides electrical stimulus to certain areas of the body an effort to hasten recovery and communication between the neurological system and muscles. The area near Nixs groin requires extra maintenance and is extremely sore after he pitches. He wants to move past that discomfort and concern and also said, I dont want to be compensating for something down the chain. Nix has hit 94 and 95 mph with his fastball this season but has averaged 93 mph, almost 2 mph slower than 2017. He also has talked of battling his mechanics much of this season, which involved him being sidelined virtually all of spring training and then getting ready for the minor league season in a span of a little more than a week in May. I dont know if thats because of building up quick or the groin or what, Nix said. With the added knowledge gained in his first big-league stint, he anticipates taking a big step next season and wants the injury issue behind him. I think coming into next year healthy, getting a real spring, will help, he said. Our plan is by Nov. 1 I will decide to have a procedure or, if the EVO is working, Ill probably stick to that. Safe at home Travis Jankowski was sleeping Wednesday when Clayton Richard came into his room, woke him and said, You have to get going. Jankowski had slept through several calls from his wife, who eventually contacted Ashley Richard to ask that the Richards house guest be alerted he needed to get home to Pennsylvania because he was about to become a father. Clayton Richard rushed Jankowski to the airport, and Jankowski arrived at the hospital about an hour before Lindsey delivered their first child, a son named Bentley, three weeks before the due date. He wanted to be fast like his dad, said Jankowski, who met the team in Los Angeles. Galvis remembers Welke In his one season with the Philadelphia Phillies, in 2006, Don Welke signed a 16-year-old shortstop from Venezuela. I remember his talking to my dad all the time, Padres shortstop Freddy Galvis recalled Friday. A good man, a happy man. Welke, who died Wednesday at the age of 75, was the second person to call Galvis after the Padres acquired him in a trade in December. He said, Finally I got you on my team, Galvis said. When I saw him in spring training, we talked for like one hour. He was really happy to see me. I was happy to see him too, because the way he is with people is amazing. He was a nice person, an honest person. Thats how I will remember him a nice person, a happy person who was good to be around. kevin.acee@sduniontribune.com 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. New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 09/20/2018 -- A greater number of refinery projects across the world should create an immense opportunity for sulphur recovery technology manufacturers to install their units in the plants. Upcoming refineries in the APEJ and MEA region are anticipated to be major contributors to the global sulphur recovery technology market. Future Market Insights has comprehensively assessed the sulphur recovery technology market in its report titled 'Sulphur Recovery Technology Market: Global Industry Analysis 2012 - 2016 and Opportunity Assessment 2017 - 2027'. The sulphur recovery technology market is expected to have a value of over US$ 2.7 billion by end 2027. A sample of this report is available upon request @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-1431 Technology Claus Process Slightly Ahead of Tail Gas Treatment Technology There is a close battle between the claus process and tail gas treatment technology in the sulphur recovery technology market with the former edging ahead. The claus process is predicted to record a CAGR of 12.8% for the decade. However, it would be unwise to ignore the tail gas treatment technology segment entirely in the sulphur recovery technology market as companies are focusing on it as well. For e.g. BASF has introduced tail gas treatment technology to increase plant efficiency and reduce sulphur technology. This helps decrease sulphur emissions and lowers operational expenditure because of lesser amine circulation rates and reboiler duties. Source of Recovery Gas Recovery has Significant Traction in Sulphur Recovery Technology Market The gas type segment has a market share of approx. two thirds of the global sulphur recovery technology market by source of recovery and is poised to lose 210 BPS going forward. However, gas recovery is unlikely to cede its pole position in the sulphur recovery technology market. An incremental dollar opportunity of US$ 1.1 billion can be tapped in the gas recovery segment of the sulphur recovery technology market. Increasing production and exploration activity, particularly in respect of shale gas, is fuelling demand for sulphur recovery units in refineries. Gas refining has great potential in the Middle East, Central Asia, and East Asia. Capacity < 100 t/D Dominates the Sulphur Recovery Technology Market The < 100 t/D capacity segment has a share of more than half the global sulphur recovery technology market by capacity at the end of 2017. The < 100 t/D segment is popular on account of having a lower emission footprint, being easy to upgrade, and relatively cost-effective as compared to other units. Several companies have invested in < 100 t/ D units such as Siirtec Nigi that has agreed to supply two Claus sulphur recovery units in Kuwait with a capacity of < 100 t/D each. Region Europe and MEA Key in Sulphur Recovery Technology Market Europe and MEA are the regions to look out for in the sulphur recovery technology market. Refinery projects in diverse nations such as Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, and Russia should boost the demand for sulphur recovery technology. These countries have ample oil reserves and are major global suppliers, making them lucrative for sulphur recovery technology unit manufacturers. The Europe sulphur recovery technology market is projected to push past US$ 720 million by end 2027. To view TOC of this report is available upon request @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/askus/rep-gb-1431 Competition Dashboard in Sulphur Recovery Technology Market The companies profiled in the sulphur recovery technology market report are Jacobs Engineering Group, John Wood Group, TechnipFMC, WorleyParsons, Prosernat, Black and Veath Holding Company, Bechtel Corporation, KNM Group Berhad, CB&I, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil Corporation, KT Kinetics Technology SPA, Fluor Corporation, Linde AG, Chiyoda Corporation, and GTC Technology. Takeaways Sulphur recovery technology unit manufacturers must take advantage of the refineries being set up across the globe. APEJ, MEA, and Europe could contribute a sizeable chunk of revenue in the sales of sulphur recovery technology units and companies are advised to target these regions with all guns blazing. Sen. Bam to SUC students: You have the right to free tuition and miscellaneous fees Sen. Bam Aquino reminded students from state universities and colleges (SUCs) that the collection of tuition and miscellaneous fees is illegal. "Isang taon na mula nang maisabatas ang Free College Law. Sa ilalim nito, karapatan niyong hindi magbayad ng tuition at miscellaneous fees sa SUCs," said Sen. Bam, principal sponsor of Republic Act 10931 or the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act. During dialogue with different sectors, Sen. Bam has received reports that some SUCs are still collecting miscellaneous and other mandatory fees from students. "Kahit mayroon nang batas, may naririnig pa rin tayong ilang SUCs na hindi sumusunod dito at patuloy ang paniningil ng mga bayarin na hindi na dapat pang kinokolekta mula sa mga estudyante," Sen. Bam insisted. During the Commission on Higher Education's budget hearing, Sen. Bam warned SUCs against collecting fees from students. "If there are mandatory fees still being collected by the schools, that is illegal now," said Sen. Bam. In addition, Sen. Bam called on the government to fully implement the Free College Law, saying it should not deprive poor students a chance at a better life through education. "Prayoridad dapat ang edukasyon. Ito ang susi sa kaunlaran ng pamilyang Pilipino," said Sen. Bam, adding that the Free College Law will provide poor families respite from the high prices of goods and services. "Lalo na ngayong matindi and pagtaas ng presyo, bigyan ng ginhawa ang mga Pilipino," added Sen. Bam, who worked for the measure's passage during his time as chairman of Committee on Education in the 17th Congress. Republic Act 10931 provides free tuition and miscellaneous fees to students in state universities and colleges (SUCs), local universities and colleges (LUCs) and TESDA-run vocational schools. Also, the law allows students of both public and private college and universities can also apply for scholarship grants and student loans. Press Release September 22, 2018 Hibla ng Lahing Filipino Traveling Exhibition Opens in Hawai'i The Hibla ng Lahing Filipino Traveling Exhibition featuring Pina-Seda: Pineapple and Silk Cloths from the Tropics is now open at the Bridge Gallery of the Hamilton Library, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, Senator Loren Legarda announced. The Hibla Traveling Exhibition in Hawai'i, organized by the National Museum of the Philippines, the Office of Senator Loren Legarda, Philippine Consulate General in Honolulu and the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, will run from September 17 to November 17, 2018. Legarda said that the traveling exhibition is an offshoot of the Hibla ng Lahing Filipino: The Artistry of Philippine Textiles permanent gallery at the National Museum of Anthropology, which is her brainchild. The first Hibla ng Lahing Filipino Traveling Exhibition was held in London in October 2017, and was incorporated in the Cultural Diplomacy Program of the different Philippine Service Posts in Europe and United States of America, namely: Lisbon, Portugal; Madrid, Spain; Washington, D.C.; and New York City. "We have a very rich weaving heritage which we are able to show through the Hibla gallery and the weaving lectures and demonstrations at the National Museum, but we also want to bring it to a wider audience and to Filipinos living abroad," she said. Part of the exhibition are lectures, weaving and embroidery demonstrations and workshops by Ursulita Dela Cruz and Libradita Domondon, pina- seda weavers from Kalibo, Aklan; and Lilian Teresita del Valle and Joan Monedo, pina-seda embroiderers from Lumban, Laguna. "The Hibla gallery at the National Museum, the weaving lectures and demonstrations, and this Hibla travelling exhibit are efforts to celebrate indigenous artistry through textiles, provide more Filipinos the opportunity to discover priceless information about our heritage, and bring the challenge of nurturing our weaving traditions into the national stage, to a wider audience," said Legarda. About Hibla Textile Gallery The Hibla ng Lahing Filipino: The Artistry of Philippine Textiles at the National Museum of Anthropology in Manila is the country's first permanent textile gallery. It is a project spearheaded by Senator Loren Legarda. During the soft opening of the gallery in March 2012, the National Museum also launched the Senator Loren Legarda Lecture Series on Philippine Traditional Textiles and Indigenous Knowledge, which explores the aesthetics, material culture and processes of ethnic identity along with skills and information-generation through fabric. It later evolved into interactive lectures and demonstrations featuring weavers and embroiderers from different parts of the country. In July 2017, the National Museum launched the first Hibla regional gallery, the Abel Iloko at the Ilocos Regional Museum and Satellite Office in Vigan City, Ilocos Sur, which was also supported by Legarda. In October 2017, the first Hibla ng Lahing Filipino Traveling Exhibition was held at the Philippine Embassy in London and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. "We will have more Hibla traveling exhibitions and many more Hibla regional galleries will soon rise in our country, and we hope that someday we will have not only galleries, but one whole Hibla Museum. Through these we hope to promote greater support for cultural enterprises and creative industries of our indigenous peoples and deeper appreciation of our heritage," said Legarda. BELLEVUE, Wash., Sept. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- 5G Americas, the industry trade association and voice of 5G and LTE for the Americas, today announced that global LTE connections grew by more than one billion connections from June 2017 to June 2018 with a growth rate of 43 percent. With all subscription data provided by Ovum, the LTE market share compared to all other mobile wireless technologies achieved 42.3 percent at the end of the second quarter of 2018 with a global total of 3.6 billion LTE connections. Latin America and the Caribbean added 82 million new LTE subscriptions with 52 percent growth year over year from June 2017. At the end of the second quarter, there were nearly 241 million LTE connections in the Latin America region on commercial LTE networks across all countries. North America remains the world region with the largest market share for LTE at 77 percent and 376 million LTE connections. New LTE deployments continue and as of mid-September, TeleGeography (GlobalComm) reported 609 LTE commercial networks worldwide, while 267 of those operators have already evolved to LTE-Advanced. Worldwide, LTE is forecast to continue its momentum, reaching over 5.6 billion connections in 2022 at which time LTE market share will stand at 60 percent. 5G is expected to accumulate connections starting in late 2018 and by 2022, it is forecast to have almost 400 million connections worldwide. 2Q 2018 - North America These are exciting days for North America as the early commercial realization of 5G technology is just around the corner, remarked Chris Pearson, President of 5G Americas. At the same time, the U.S. and Canadian service providers are heavily invested in the innovation roadmap of LTE to deliver tremendous throughput speeds and coverage as the foundation for future 5G networks. LTE achieved a penetration rate over 103 percent with 376 million connections compared to the population of 365 million in North America. This penetration rate compares to the next two highest regions, Oceania, Eastern and Southeastern Asia at 88 percent and Western Europe at 66 percent. In addition to having a significantly higher penetration rate, the U.S. and Canada also have the highest market share for LTE in comparison to all mobile wireless technologies with 77 percent versus Oceania, Eastern and Southeastern Asia at 64 percent and 48 percent in Western Europe. Market share represents the percentage of mobile wireless connections that are LTE technology versus all other mobile technologies. 376 million LTE connections for net gain of 52 million new LTE customers from 2Q 2017 to 2Q 2018 LTE is forecast to peak at about 491 million connections at the end of 2021 (including M2M) 31.2 million 5G connections forecast in 2021 5 percent of all North America 5G connections -- growing to 113.9 million 5G connections in 2022 2Q 2018 - Latin America and the Caribbean LTE continues to make significant progress in the Latin American region adding millions of subscribers each quarter by providing excellent coverage and capacity. Even as the benefits of 5G are studied, operators in the region will continue to progress their networks to LTE Advanced and LTE Advanced Pro, noted Jose Otero, Director of Latin America and the Caribbean for 5G Americas. LTEs market share increased from 23 percent to nearly 34.6 percent year-over-year at the end of June 2018. 697 million total mobile wireless subscriptions 241 million LTE connections ; 82 million new LTE connections added year-over-year from 2Q 2017 ; 82 million new LTE connections added year-over-year from 2Q 2017 LTE is forecast to reach 257.9 million connections the end of 2018 (forecast includes M2M) and a 36 percent share of market By the end of 2022, LTE is forecast to reach 504 million connections (forecast includes M2M) and a 64 percent share of market with total number of connections reaching 786 million 2Q 2018 - Global Globally, total mobile connections grew by 6 percent in the year to second quarter of 2018, while LTE connections grew a stronger 43 percent during this time, stated Kristin Paulin, Senior Analyst, Ovum. This substantial LTE foundation leads to the anticipation that soon we will start to see 5G make inroads. 3.6 billion LTE connections out of a total of 8.5 billion total cellular connections worldwide out of a total of 8.5 billion total cellular connections worldwide 1.1 billion new LTE subscriptions year-over-year from 2Q 2017; 42.3 percent growth year-over-year from 2Q 2017; 42.3 percent growth LTE connections forecast to reach 5.6 billion by year-end 2022 (forecast includes M2M) LTE global market share forecast to reach 60.3 percent by year end 2022 5G is forecast to reach 400 million connections by the end of 2022 For more information and to view a variety of statistical charts on the 3GPP family of technologies, visit www.5gamericas.org . Subscriber and forecast data is provided by Ovum , Global LTE and LTE-Advanced deployments data is provided by TeleGeography (GlobalComm) and is also available at 5gamericas.org. About 5G Americas: The Voice of 5G and LTE for the Americas 5G Americas is an industry trade organization composed of leading telecommunications service providers and manufacturers. The organization's mission is to advocate for and foster the advancement and full capabilities of LTE wireless technologies and their evolution to 5G, throughout the ecosystem's networks, services, applications and wirelessly connected devices in the Americas. 5G Americas is invested in developing a connected wireless community while leading 5G development for all the Americas. 5G Americas is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. More information is available at www.5gamericas.org or Twitter @5GAmericas. 5G Americas' Board of Governors members include: AT&T, Cable & Wireless, Cisco, CommScope, Ericsson, Intel, Kathrein, Mavenir, Nokia, Qualcomm Incorporated, Samsung, Shaw Communications Inc., Sprint, T-Mobile US, Inc., Telefonica and WOM. NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ClaimsFiler, a FREE shareholder information service, reminds investors that they have until November 5, 2018 to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against Philip Morris International Inc. (NYSE: PM), if they purchased the Companys shares between February 8, 2018 and April 18, 2018, inclusive (the Class Period). This action is pending in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Get Help Philip Morris investors should visit us at https://www.claimsfiler.com/cases/view-philip-morris-international-inc-securities-litigation-1 or call toll-free (844) 367-9658. Lawyers at Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC are available to discuss your legal options. About the Lawsuit Philip Morris and certain of its executives are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws. On April 19, 2018, Philip Morris disclosed poor financial results for the Companys first quarter of 2018, including a 2.3% decline in combined cigarette and heated tobacco unit shipment volume, key sales initiatives that had stalled, plateau in growth due to market demographics and ineffective consumer conversion strategies, and that cigarette shipments had fallen by 5.3%. On this news, the price of Philip Morris shares plummeted $15.80/share, more than 15%, to close at $85.64/share on April 19, 2018. About ClaimsFiler ClaimsFiler has a single mission: to serve as the information source to help retail investors recover their share of billions of dollars from securities class action settlements. At ClaimsFiler.com, investors can: (1) register for free to gain access to information and settlement websites for various securities class action cases so they can timely submit their own claims; (2) upload their portfolio transactional data to be notified about relevant securities cases in which they may have a financial interest; and (3) submit inquiries to the Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC law firm for free case evaluations. NEW ORLEANS, La., Sept. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC (KSF) and KSF partner, former Attorney General of Louisiana, Charles C. Foti, Jr., remind investors that they have until October 9, 2018 to file lead plaintiff applications in securities class action lawsuits against Nielsen Holdings plc (NYSE: NLSN), if they purchased the Companys shares between February 11, 2016 and July 25, 2018, inclusive (the Class Period). These actions are pending in the United States District Courts for the Southern District of New York and Northern District of Illinois. What You May Do If you purchased shares of Nielsen and would like to discuss your legal rights and how these cases might affect you and your right to recover for your economic loss, you may, without obligation or cost to you, contact KSF Managing Partner Lewis Kahn toll-free at 1-877-515-1850 or via email (lewis.kahn@ksfcounsel.com), or visit https://www.ksfcounsel.com/cases/nyse-nlsn/ to learn more. If you wish to serve as a lead plaintiff in this class action, you must petition the Court by October 9, 2018. About the Lawsuits Nielsen and certain of its executives are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws. On July 26, 2018, Nielsen disclosed poor 2Q2018 financial results consisting of missed revenue and earnings targets and significant guidance reductions including EBITDA margin growth, a $0.56 reduction of net income and a $250 million reduction of free cash flow, which the Company blamed on GDPR [General Data Protection Regulation] and changes in the consumer data privacy landscape. On this news, the price of Nielsens shares plummeted more than 25%, from $29.57 on July 25, 2018 to $22.11 on July 26, 2018. About Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC KSF, whose partners include former Louisiana Attorney General Charles C. Foti, Jr., is a law firm focused on securities, antitrust and consumer class actions, along with merger & acquisition and breach of fiduciary litigation against publicly traded companies on behalf of shareholders. The firm has offices in New York, California and Louisiana. To learn more about KSF, you may visit www.ksfcounsel.com . Contact: Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC China says to push to improve Vatican ties after bishop deal Beijing, Sept 22 (AFP) Sep 22, 2018 China and the Vatican will push to improve bilateral ties after the two sides signed a "provisional" agreement on the appointment of bishops on Saturday, the Chinese foreign ministry said. The ministry said in a brief statement that the deal was signed in Beijing by vice foreign minister Wang Chao and a Vatican delegation headed by the under secretary for relations with state, Antoine Camilleri. The statement did not give details about the "provisional agreement". "The two sides will continue to maintain communication and push forward the improvement of bilateral relations," the ministry said. The Vatican and China broke relations in 1951 and have been at loggerheads for decades over who gets to appoint bishops. The Communist government created the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association to administer the church in the world's most populous country in 1957. This led to the splitting of the country's Catholic flock between worshippers who follow government-appointed bishops and those who attend "underground" unofficial churches loyal to the Vatican. Beijing insisted that it had the right to ordain its own bishops, defying the Holy See, which says ordinations can only go ahead with the pope's blessing. Earlier this year, a source close to the matter told AFP that the agreement would include the Vatican recognising seven bishops who were chosen by the Chinese government but had never been accepted by the Holy See. Three of those bishops had reportedly been excommunicated. In return, Beijing would recognise the pope's authority as head of Catholics in China, according to the Wall Street Journal. Two underground Chinese bishops, recognised by the pope, have been asked by a top Vatican diplomat to resign in favour of state-sanctioned prelates, including one who was excommunicated by the Vatican in 2011. Taiwan says ties with Vatican safe despite China deal Taipei, Sept 22 (AFP) Sep 22, 2018 Taiwan said Saturday that a historic agreement between China and the Vatican would not result in Taipei losing its only diplomatic ally in Europe. The new provisional agreement on the appointment of bishops, long a stumbling block, comes as ties between Taiwan and China deteriorate and Beijing makes a concerted effort to poach the island's dwindling number of official allies, which include the Vatican. Taiwan's foreign ministry said it hoped the new deal would pave the way for religious freedoms in China, and that it trusted the Holy See would protect the rights of Catholics on the mainland. But the ministry insisted the Vatican had assured Taipei that the agreement "is not of a political or diplomatic nature, and will not affect the diplomatic relationship that has been in place for 76 years between Taiwan and the Holy See". "As the world watches China increasingly tightening control over religious practices, Taiwan trusts that the Holy See has made appropriate arrangements to ensure that Catholic adherents in China will receive due protection and not be subject to repression," the statement said. China still sees self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory and demands that allies of Beijing must give up any official ties with the island. The Vatican has not had diplomatic relations with Beijing since 1951, two years after the founding of the communist People's Republic, and instead maintains ties with rival Taipei. Previous attempts to restore relations have floundered over Beijing's demand that the Vatican give up recognition of Taiwan and promise not to interfere in religious issues in China. The Vatican is one of only 17 countries around the world that recognises Taipei instead of Beijing, but Pope Francis has sought to improve ties with China since he took office in 2013. Father Otfried Chan, secretary general of the Bishops' Conference in Taiwan, told AFP the agreement was a "religious matter" not related to diplomacy. "The pope has assured that the Holy See will not abandon Taiwan," he said. Taiwan, which has around 300,000 Catholics, has lost five allies to Beijing in the past two years. Relations between Taiwan and China have deteriorated since President Tsai Ing-wen came to power in 2016, as she does not recognise the island is part of "one China." There are an estimated 12 million Catholics in China, divided between a government-run association whose clergy are chosen by the Communist Party, and an unofficial church which swears allegiance to the Vatican. Beijing has insisted that it had the right to ordain its own bishops, defying the Holy See, which says ordinations can only go ahead with the pope's blessing. China-Vatican ties: From broken churches to deal on bishops Beijing, Sept 22 (AFP) Sep 22, 2018 The Vatican and China announced Saturday a deal to resolve the thorny issue of who gets to appoint bishops, a dispute that bedevilled their relations for decades. AFP takes a look at four key points in the complex, centuries-old relationship between Beijing and the Holy See: - Italian Jesuit - In the west of Beijing lies the tomb of Matteo Ricci, an Italian Jesuit missionary famous for having found a way to gain the trust of Chinese authorities centuries ago. Ricci, who lived from 1552 to 1610, has been held up several times by Pope Francis, also a Jesuit, as an exemplary evangelist. Ricci's work in China is considered pioneering because he carried it out by adapting Christian traditions to the Chinese way of life. He first came to Macau in 1582 and was finally allowed to enter Beijing in 1601. He studied the language and culture and gained a widespread reputation as a learned scholar -- even receiving an invitation to Emperor Wanli's imperial court. Ricci adopted a Chinese name, Li Madou, and dressed in the style of a Chinese scholar. At the time of his death, foreigners who died in China were supposed to be buried in Macau, but the emperor agreed to make an exception for him and he was buried in Beijing. - Broken ties - Centuries after Ricci's death, relations between the Vatican and China deteriorated with the arrival of the Communist regime in 1949. China and the Vatican severed diplomatic ties in 1951 after Rome recognised the nationalist government in Taiwan. The atmosphere worsened when in 1957 China set up its own Catholic Church, administered by the atheist Communist government. Catholics and other religious groups were persecuted during the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution, but they rebounded in the 1980s with the launch of economic reforms and policies aimed at "opening up" the country. - Naming bishops - The Communist government created the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association to administer the church in the world's most populous country in July 1957. This led to the splitting of the country's Catholic flock between worshippers who follow government-appointed bishops and those who attend "underground" unofficial churches loyal to the Vatican. Beijing insisted that it had the right to ordain its own bishops, defying the Holy See, which says ordinations can only go ahead with the pope's blessing. Despite the divisions, the Vatican had recognised many government-appointed prelates in the recent past. But China's appointment of three bishops who were not approved by the pope soured relations in 2006. The deal between the Vatican and Beijing aims to bring the country's roughly 12 million Catholics under one roof again in China by ending the dispute over who gets to name the bishops. After the provisional agreement was signed in Beijing on Saturday, the Vatican said Pope Francis recognised seven bishops who had been ordained in China without the Holy See's approval. "Pope Francis hopes that, with these decisions, a new process may begin that will allow the wounds of the past to be overcome, leading to the full communion of all Chinese Catholics," the Vatican said in a statement. In return, Beijing is reportedly expected to recognise the pope as the head of the Catholic church. - Religious crackdown - The rapprochement has been criticised by some Catholics and rights activists who point out that it comes at a time when the government is tightening its grip on all religious groups. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday that the Chinese government has been "closing churches, burning Bibles and ordering followers to sign papers renouncing their faith." In central Henan province, AFP reporters saw signs outside churches saying children were not allowed to attend mass. A document showed that priests have been told to hand over detailed information about their flocks. And churches there have been demolished because they were considered "illegal" constructions. Crosses have been removed from churches, printed religious materials and holy items confiscated, and church-run kindergartens closed. System error error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. context: ... 21: 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: 28: 29: ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25 /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:951 /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17 /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149 Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 129 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 160 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fda408430)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fda43ccc8)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fda408430)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1305 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 958 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fda43ccc8)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fda3d95c0)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1303 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 436 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fda43ccc8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fda43ccc8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd9af06e0)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fda43d6e8)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fda43d6e8)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0 System error error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. context: ... 21: 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: 28:
29: ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25 /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:951 /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17 /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149 Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 129 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 160 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fda3d8238)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fda4e38c8)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fda3d8238)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1305 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 958 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fda4e38c8)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fda3d77b8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1303 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 436 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fda4e38c8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fda4e38c8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd9af1148)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fda4e6de8)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fda4e6de8)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0 System error error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. context: ... 21: 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: 28:
29: ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25 /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:951 /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17 /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149 Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 129 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 160 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fd9fc7550)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fda456c78)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fd9fc7550)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1305 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 958 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fda456c78)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fda017250)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1303 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 436 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fda456c78)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fda456c78)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd9af03e0)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fda402878)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fda402878)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0 NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES TORONTO, Sept. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lithium Energi Exploration Inc. (TSXV:LEXI) (LEXI or the Company) announced today that it has filed a preliminary short form prospectus (the Prospectus) with securities regulatory authorities in the provinces of Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario in connection with a proposed marketed offering of units of the Company (Units, or each a Unit) at a price of $0.26 per Unit, for an aggregate offering of $1,000,000 in the minimum and $6,500,000 in the maximum (the Offering). Gravitas Securities Inc. (the Agent) will conduct the Offering on a best efforts agency basis in Canada. The Units may also be offered for sale in the United States on a private placement basis pursuant to an exemption from the registration requirements of the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the US Securities Act) and applicable state laws. Each Unit will consist of one common share (each, a Share) of the Company and one-half of a transferable common share purchase warrant (a Warrant). Each whole Warrant shall be exercisable into one Share (each a Warrant Share) for a period of 24 months from closing of the Offering (the Closing) at an exercise price of $0.40. The Offering may be completed in one or more tranches after the minimum Offering is completed. The Company has agreed to grant the Agent an overallotment option (the OverAllotment Option), exercisable in whole or in part, for a period of 30 days from the final tranche of the Closing, to offer up to an additional 15% of the number of Units (the Additional Units) at the Offering Price, solely to cover overallotments, if any, and for market stabilization purposes. The initial tranche of the Offering is expected to close and is subject to the Company receiving the minimum Offering amount and certain customary closing conditions including, but not limited to, the entering into of a definitive agency agreement and the receipt of all necessary regulatory and stock exchange approvals, including the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange. Subsequent to the initial closing, for a period of 60 days from the date of the issuance of a final receipt (unless extended for up to an additional 60 days by the Company in its sole discretion and subject to applicable securities laws) the Company and the Agent may complete additional tranches of the Offering up to the Maximum Offering amount. The Agent shall be entitled to (i) a work fee of $30,000 (plus HST), (ii) upon issuance of a final receipt in respect of the prospectus, non-transferable share purchase warrants (each, a Work Fee Warrant), with the number of Work Fee Warrants calculated by dividing $80,000 by the closing price of the common shares in the capital of the Company (the Common Shares) on the day prior to filing the final prospectus, with each Work Fee Warrant entitling the holder to acquire one Common Share at an exercise price equal to the Offering Price for a period of 36 months from the date of issuance (the Work Fee Warrant Shares); (iii) at closing of the Offering, a cash commission (the Agents Fee) equal to 7.0% of the gross proceeds of the Offering other than purchasers on the Presidents List (as defined in the Prospectus) and an advisory fee equal to 3.0% (plus applicable taxes) of gross proceeds of the Offering in respect of subscribers on the Presidents List; and (iv) at closing of the Offering, issue to the Agent non-transferable share purchase warrants (each, an Agents Warrant) equal to 7.0% of the number of Units sold under the Offering (3.0% in respect of advisory services provided with respect to the Presidents List), with each Agents Warrant exercisable into one Common Share at an exercise price equal to the Offering Price for a period of 36 months from the date of issuance. The net proceeds of the Offering are intended to be used to fund exploration activities of the Company relative to its prospective lithium holdings in Catamarca Province, Argentina and for general corporate purposes. About Lithium Energi Exploration Inc. Lithium Energi Exploration Inc. is an exploration company focused on the strategic acquisition, exploration and development of lithium brine assets in Argentina. The Company is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario and has offices in Dallas, Texas and Catamarca, Argentina. The common shares of the Company are listed on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSXV:LEXI) and the Frankfurt Exchange (FR:LO9). The Companys portfolio of prospective lithium brine concessions in the Argentina Province of Catamarca (heart of the lithium triangle) includes 90,241 hectares in and around the Antofalla Salar and a right of first refusal to acquire up to approximately 145,000 hectares, the majority of which is located in the Antofalla Salar complex. The Antofalla Salar complex hosts one of the largest basins in the region, extending 100 - 140 km in length with a surface area of well over 706 km2 (source: Roskill Information Services). On September 12, 2016, Albemarle Corporation, the worlds largest lithium producer, announced its acquisition of exclusive exploration and acquisition rights to a claim block located in the central section of this salar. In March 2017, Albemarle published its belief that the Antofalla Salar is the third largest lithium deposit in the world. With rights to over 200,000 hectares of prospective lithium properties located just west of FMCs producing properties and offset north and south of Albemarles properties, the Company believes that its claims could potentially host meaningful lithium values. Although there can be no assurance that any of its claims are economically viable or that it can successfully achieve production, the Company believes that its properties could yield great value to its shareholders if developed. Readers are cautioned that (i) mineralization in the subsurface brines contained within the Antofalla Salar basin complex may not necessarily be consistent, (ii) analysis of prospective, lithium-bearing brines underlying the Companys properties may differ substantially from one claim to another and from claims held by other companies or individuals, whose claims are also located in or near the Antofalla Salar basin complex; and (iii) no Qualified Person (as defined in National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects) engaged by the Company has verified any information announced by Albemarle Corporation and readers should not imply that the Company will obtain similar results in respect of its properties. For more information about Lithium Energi Exploration Inc., please visit www.lithiumenergi.com or view the Companys filings at www.SEDAR.com. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: Lithium Energi Exploration Inc. Tel: 416 276-6689 Fax: 888 909-1033 Email: chris.hobbs@lithiumenergi.com www.lithiumenergi.com Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. 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. 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: receipt of all necessary stock exchange and regulatory approvals or consents in respect of any offering; the anticipated pricing of any offering; the absence of material changes with respect to the Company and its businesses; possible variations in mineralization, grade or recovery rates; actual results of exploration activities; conclusions of future economic evaluations; fluctuations in general macroeconomic conditions; fluctuations in securities markets; fluctuations in spot and forward prices of 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); the speculative nature of mineral exploration and development (including the risks of obtaining necessary licenses, permits and approvals from government authorities); and title to properties. 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 its 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. The securities being offered have not been, nor will they be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold in the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of, U.S. persons absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements. This news release will not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor will there be any sale of the securities in any State in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. Readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release. Except as required by law, the Company assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements of beliefs, opinions, projections, or other factors, should they change, except as required by law. System error error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. context: ... 21: 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: 28:
29: ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25 /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:951 /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17 /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149 Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 129 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 160 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fd9fc7278)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fda1b7f08)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fd9fc7278)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1305 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 958 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fda1b7f08)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fda017248)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1303 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 436 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fda1b7f08)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fda1b7f08)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd9af09c8)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fda477f90)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fda477f90)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0 System error error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. context: ... 21: 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: 28:
29: ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25 /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:951 /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17 /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149 Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 129 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 160 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fda3c1c08)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fda43fc98)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fda3c1c08)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1305 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 958 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fda43fc98)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fda4352c0)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1303 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 436 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fda43fc98)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fda43fc98)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd9af0650)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fda4a89b8)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fda4a89b8)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0 Hollande fuels Rafale fighter jet controversy in India New Delhi, Sept 22 (AFP) Sep 22, 2018 Former French president Francois Hollande has fuelled controversy over India's multi-billion-dollar 2016 purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets, saying that France was given no choice on the Indian partner for manufacturer Dassault. His comments on Friday stoked debate over a subject which has gained significant traction in India in recent weeks, since the opposition Congress party accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of favouring a private conglomerate over a public company in the aircraft deal. The party alleges Modi gave preferential treatment to industrialist Anil Ambani, the billionaire chairman of Reliance Group, to the detriment of state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). Officials in India and France say Dassault had freely chosen to partner with Reliance, despite Ambani having no previous experience in the aeronautics sector. "We did not have a say in that," Hollande told investigative website Mediapart. "It was the Indian government that proposed this service group (Reliance), and Dassault who negotiated with Ambani. "We did not have a choice, we took the interlocutor who was given to us," added Hollande, who was president of France from 2012-2017. French firm Dassault had spent years negotiating a deal for 126 fighter jets to be manufactured in India with HAL, but talks had stalled. On taking office, the Modi government cancelled the negotiations and decided to directly purchase 36 jets made in France. Hollande denied any conflict of interest with Reliance, which partially financed a film produced by his girlfriend Julie Gayet in 2016. "That is why, moreover, this group (Reliance) did not have to give me any thanks for anything. I could not even imagine that there was any connection to a film by Julie Gayet." Speaking to AFP on the sidelines of a meeting in Canada on Friday, the former French leader insisted that France "did not choose Reliance in any way". When asked whether India had put pressure on Reliance and Dassault to work together, Hollande said he was unaware and "only Dassault can comment on this". - 'The PM has betrayed India' - Contacted by AFP, France's embassy in New Delhi did not comment. India's defence ministry wrote on Twitter that neither the Indian nor French government "had any say in the commercial decision". The French foreign ministry later issued a statement saying that "the sole obligations of the French government were to assure delivery and the quality of the equipment". Paris was "in no way involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners," it added. For its part, Dassault Aviation said in a statement Friday that the contract was "a government-to-government agreement". Congress President Rahul Gandhi, who has led the opposition's focus on the deal, wrote: "Thanks to Francois Hollande, we now know he (Modi) personally delivered a deal worth billions of dollars to a bankrupt Anil Ambani." "The PM has betrayed India. He has dishonoured the blood of our soldiers," Gandhi added. Foreign manufacturers obtaining arms contracts in India are obliged to reinvest a portion of the sums collected in India. Under the Rafale deal, France must spend amounts totalling around half the eight billion euros ($9.4 bn) paid by the Indian government. Dassault has invested more than 100 million euros in its joint venture with Reliance. India -- the world's largest defence importer -- has been investing tens of billions in updating its Soviet-era military hardware to counter long-standing territorial disputes with its nuclear-armed neighbours, including a strengthening China. It intends to use compensations payments such as in the Rafale deal to create a local defence industry. amd/amz/pvh/dcr/kaf/qan Timeline of recent attacks in Iran by militant groups Tehran, Sept 22 (AFP) Sep 22, 2018 The Islamic State group claimed a deadly gun assault against a military parade in the city of Ahvaz in southwestern Iran on Saturday, its second major attack in the Islamic Republic in 15 months. Compared to regional peers, Iran has suffered only sporadic attacks in recent years. But a number of groups represent a threat to the Shiite powerhouse, including Kurdish separatists and Sunni extremists. Tehran regularly accuses Saudi Arabia and the US of supporting anti-Iranian "terrorists". - The Islamic State group - An attack early on September 22 in Ahvaz kills at least 29 and wounds scores of people, according to Arabic language state TV al-Alam. Women and children are among the dead, as people gathered to mark the anniversary of the start of the 1980-1988 war with Iraq. The deadly gun assault is claimed by IS on its propaganda agency Amaq, but Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif blames "terrorists recruited, trained, armed & paid by a foreign regime". He holds the US accountable. Ahvaz lies in Khuzestan, a province bordering Iraq that has a large ethnic Arab community and has seen separatist violence in the past. IS claimed its first attack in Iran on June 7, 2017, when gunmen and suicide bombers hit the parliament in Tehran and the shrine of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, killing 17 people and injuring dozens. In a video released in March 2017, the jihadists threatened to retaliate against Iran for its military and logistical support to the Syrian and Iraqi governments, as Damascus and Baghdad battled IS insurgencies. The jihadists said they wanted to conquer Iran to "return it to the Sunni Muslim nation" and to provoke a Shiite bloodbath. - Jundallah (Soldiers of God) - This extremist Sunni group began a bloody rebellion against the Islamic republic in 2000. It draws on support from the Baluch ethnic group, which has a major presence in Sistan-Baluchistan province, bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan. The group has rear bases in both countries. Tehran has long alleged Jundallah received training from the American, British and Israeli intelligence services. It also accuses Pakistan of supporting the group. - December 15, 2010: Jundallah claims a suicide attack against Shiites celebrating Ashura in Chabahar in southeastern Iran. 34 are killed and more than 80 wounded. - July 15, 2010: Twin suicide bombings in a crowded Shiite mosque in Zahedan, capital of Sistan-Baluchistan, kill at least 28 people and wound more than 250. The attacks, targeting members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, are claimed by Jundallah. - October 18, 2009: Jundallah kill 42 people including several Revolutionary Guard officers in Pishin, a city close to the Pakistan border. The suicide attack targets a meeting between commanders and tribal leaders called to enhance co-operation between Sunnis and Shiites. - May 28, 2009: 25 people are killed and 125 wounded in a suicide bombing at the Amir al-Momenin Shiite mosque in Zahedan. The attack is blamed on Jundallah. - February 14, 2007: A car bomb attack against a bus in Sistan-Baluchistan kills 13 and wounds 29. - Kurdish rebels - Iranian authorities have blamed "counter-revolutionary" groups based in northeastern Iraq for several attacks, particularly the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran and the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan. - July 20, 2018: at least 10 Revolutionary Guards are killed in an attack led by insurgents against a base in the village of Dari, in the Marivan district of Iran's northwestern Kurdistan region. The attack is not claimed. - September 22, 2010: 12 people are killed and 81 wounded by a bomb explosion during a military parade in Mahabad, a city with a large Kurdish population in Western Azerbaijan province, bordering Iraq and Turkey. Most of the victims are women and children watching a parade commemorating the 30th anniversary of the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war. Iran blames "counter-revolutionary elements". After the attacks in Tehran on June 7, 2017, Iran ramped up anti-militant operations across the country, targeting northwestern regions, the Iraqi borderlands and the Kurdish minority. China summons US ambassador over military sanctions: state media Beijing, Sept 22 (AFP) Sep 22, 2018 China summoned the US ambassador on Saturday to lodge an official protest over sanctions imposed by the United States against a Chinese military organisation for buying Russian fighter jets and missiles, state media said. Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang summoned Ambassador Terry Branstad and "lodged solemn representations over US sanctions against (the) Chinese military," the People's Daily said online. US, allied forces attacked in Somalia: Pentagon Washington, Sept 22 (AFP) Sep 22, 2018 United States and allied forces came under attack in Somalia, triggering an air strike which killed 18 Al-Shabaab militants, the US military said on Saturday. The incident occurred on Friday 50 kilometers (30 miles) northwest of Kismayo in the south of the Horn of Africa country where Somali commandos work side-by-side with the American forces that train them. Air assaults and missile strikes have increased in recent months. "The US airstrike was conducted against militants after US and partner forces came under attack," US Africa Command said in a statement. US forces also partner with the United Nations-backed African Union Mission in Somalia, which aims to counter the threat from Al-Shabaab jihadists. The air strike was conducted "in self-defense," killing 18 militants, Africa Command said. Two other militants "were killed by Somali forces with small arms fire during the engagement," it added. In June an American commando was killed during an attack in southern Somalia that also wounded four US military members and a Somali soldier, officials said at the time. More than 500 American personnel are partnered with African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and Somali national security forces. Al-Shabaab, an Al-Qaeda affiliate, is fighting to overthrow the internationally-backed Somali government in Mogadishu. Sport Mitchells magic powers New Zealand into maiden T20 World Cup final Chasing 166 for victory, New Zealand were in trouble at 13-2 and 107-4 when Jimmy Neesham turned the semi-final on its head with an 11-ball 27 to help achieve the target with one over to spare in Abu Dhabi. Washington, September 22, 2018 (SPS) - Morocco "plays the card of Iran" to obtain the support of the United States on Western Sahara question, said the American site al-Monitor, highlighting the political opportunism of Rabat which tries to weaken the position of the United States on this issue via its Israeli lobby in Washington. "Morocco is taking advantage of the Donald Trump administration's hawkish stance on Iran to press its claims on the disputed Western Sahara, wrote al Monitor in an article published on Tuesday following Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bouritas visit to Washington. By accusing Iran of providing weapons to Polisario Front, "Rabat is hoping to solidify US support for its position on the resource-rich Moroccan-occupied territory," wrote Bryant Harris, the author of the article. To illustrate the political opportunism of Rabat, al-Monitor quoted the remarks made by the Moroccan FM to the far right website, Breitbart News in which he does not hide the willingness of Morocco to take advantage of the crisis between Tehran and Washington. We have an opportunity with this administration, Bourita told the far-right outlet last week. We need to make things happen. We have an opportunity also because they are clear in their position about Iran. In reaction to those accusations, Mouloud Said, the Polisario Fronts envoy to Washington, told al-Monitor that Rabat came up with this fabrication to benefit from the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and please its Sunni Gulf allies. Theyve tried it before, Said told Al-Monitor. They tried to say that we were communists. It didnt work. Then they said we are part of al-Qaeda. It didnt work. Bourita also accuses the Lebanese paramilitary group of setting up a solidarity committee with the Polisario in 2016. Neither the State Departments counterterrorism report for that year, nor a July report on Western Sahara from the UN Secretary-General mention any ties between the two groups. (SPS) 062/SPS/APS Bir-Lehlou, September 22, 2018 (SPS) - President of the Republic, Secretary General of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali, has sent a congratulatory message to Malian President , H.E. Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, on the occasion of the 58th anniversary of the independence of the Republic of Mali. The President of the Republic expressed, on behalf of the Sahrawi people and his Government, his warmest congratulations to the people of Mali and wished them further progress and prosperity. He stressed the readiness of the Polisario front and the Sahrawi Republic to work with the sisterly Republic of Mali, in order to strengthen and develop the diplomatic work between the two countries to reach the requirements of the desired relations, and develop the future of the African Union to play its role at the international level. He expressed his satisfaction at the solidarity and firm stance of the Republic of Mali in supporting and defending the Saharawi people's right to self-determination and independence. (SPS) 062/SPS/TRA English21/09/2018 IVANIC: LAVROV AGAINST DEMONISATION OF SRPSKA SARAJEVO, September 21 /SRNA/ - During todays meeting in Sarajevo with BiH Presidency members, Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, has pledged for the consistent implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement and the integrity of BiH, but opposed the demonisation of Republika Srpska, Serb BiH Presidency member, Mladen Ivanic, has stated. "Russia's key message is that Russia is very interested in helping BiH, wherever we think they can help," Ivanic stated at a press conference in Sarajevo. He says that the Russians do not intend to impose, but they have very clearly shown their desire to help, thus they offered multilateral and bilateral meetings and are very open to economic cooperation. "They have said that if BiH has any interest, it should enter into potential cooperation regarding the "Turkish Stream" gas pipeline. They offered this, but also the help whenever BiH entrepreneurs want to enter the Russian market, which offers great opportunities, given that EU - Russian sanctions are still underway, Ivanic has said. He has stressed that there is a room for BiHs engagement as the Russian market is huge one. Ivanic has added that great interest in developing good relations has been expressed in the meeting. He has said that banning Russian writer Zakhar Prilepin from entering BiH was also discussed in the meeting, but it was emphasized that these issues would be addressed within the security organisations, as they have very good cooperation. /end/vos Michael Francis Moore is a documentary filmmaker and activist, best known for his work on globalization and capitalism.He also is known as a satirist, comedian and television personality. A former print journalist, he came to national acclaim with his debut film, Roger & Me (1989), and won an Academy Award for his film, Bowling for Columbine (2002). Fahrenheit 11/9 is his latest, and it opens with a thought-provoking accusation which is sure to grab your attention: Gwen Stefani is responsible for the outcome of the 2016 election. There is a backstory to this, but I will let the reader enjoy getting that perspective from the documentary itself. After highlighting the end of both campaigns in 2016 with droll wit, as in what the - happened, Moore goes on to give us the details. Neither candidates nor political operatives come out of that historical moment unscathed, but the film is fascinating, with an irresistible mix of reporting, humor, satire, indignation and poignancy. We are reminded that the male-dominated national media was addicted to the GOP candidates unorthodox behavior, giving him millions of dollars of free publicity, and Trump learned early how to exploit the attention. We see the hostility directed toward Clinton when she is questioned by major media commentators. Then Moore stuns us by pointing out how many of those pundits now are off the air due to multiple accusations of sexual assault and/or harassment, from PBS to Fox to CBS. And lets not forget the electoral college provision in the U.S. Constitution, said to be a sop to slaveholding states back in the day; a few brickbats are hurled in that direction as well. We also see Moore as a rising television personality, kibitzing with a younger Donald Trump on a show hosted by Rosanne Barr. Her people plead with Moore to go easy on Trump so he wont walk off Rosannes show before it starts, and Moore goes along. He tells this story on himself. Moore was born in Flint, Michigan, so the water crisis facing Flint residents since 2014 hits home for him. He visits the city and talks with stonewalling officials, with medical personnel who blew the whistle, and with ordinary working-class citizens. The parallels he builds between the 45th president of the U.S. and governor Rick Snyder have chilling implications for the concept of participatory democracy. And it is the danger to participatory democracy which weighs on the filmmaker as he explores 21st century America in this important documentary. He goes to Trump Towers with handcuffs and says he is there to make a citizens arrest of the President. Who is the real America? Where is the real America? And is that real America in danger? Two profiles stand out both are military veterans from our recent wars in the Middle East. One is a woman of color who resides in Flint and fights for the right to clean water. The other is a majority male from West Virginia who is furious about the poverty in his state and is running for office. Moore does what he can as an indignant American, right? He goes to Trump Towers with handcuffs and says he is there to make a citizens arrest of the President. And in Michigan he takes a truck full of water from the filthy Flint River and sprays it on the governors mansion. On some level this does bring comfort. A quote from Moore: No terrorist organization has figured out how to poison an entire city. But Michigan governor Rick Snyder did that, to Moores home town. As examples of participatory democracy and democratic socialism, Moore includes powerful footage of strikes by underpaid public school teachers across the nation, and the touching courage of activist teens whose high school campuses were shot up by men with assault rifles. Michael Moore fears the consequences of a loss of faith in our country, and says it could be the death knell of democracy. Democracy in America is an aspiration at the moment. Evil is a slow-moving mechanism, he says. And he quotes Susan Sontag: We are one 9-11 away from losing our democracy. We are one 9-11 away from losing our democracy. It is the children who will save us, he implies. And we are touched beyond words as the teens recount their losses from gun violence and demand answers from the politicians in their state capitals and in Washington D.C. As the credits roll at the end of this riveting documentary, we hear the lyrics of Bob Dylan: Oh my name it is nothin My age it means less The country I come from Is called the Midwest Is taught and brought up there The laws to abide And that the land that I live in Has God on its side. Do see this documentary with family, friends, colleagues and students. The director hopes you will be reminded that democracy takes work, so much more work that watching a partisan pundit preach intolerance or waving a flag in someones face. Find out what we all have in common and work to protect those irreplaceable values, regardless of political affiliation. Lives may depend on it. Fahrenheit 11/9 4 out of 5 stars Written and directed by Michael Moore 2h 8min | Documentary | 2018 (USA) Chinese arms manufacturer Norinco has been seeking export orders for another clone of a successful Western (actually South African) weapon (the MGL-130). The Chinese version is the LG6 40mm revolver grenade launcher that Chinese troops began receiving in 2011. LG6 is 103cm (40.5 inches) long and weighs 4.8 kg (10.6 pounds) empty. The LG6 can use a six round drum magazine or be belt fed. It can fire up to five rounds a second. The LG6 is actually the latest version of lightweight magazine fed grenade launchers that have been around for decades. In the 1990s Norinco developed such weapons using 30mm grenades (long popular with the Russians) and, when it was apparent that the export market favored 40mm, developed the LG4 (a lighter LG6 that could only fire from a six round drum magazine) and, in 2014, the LG5 (a longer barrel version of the LG4 for longer range precision shooting). The LG4 and LG5 were mainly marketed to police and paramilitary organizations for firing non-lethal (tear gas and the like) rounds. But both of these, and the LG6 can fire the lethal military rounds. One attraction of the 40mm grenade is that there are dozens of different types of grenades available, both lethal and non-lethal. Six shot, "revolver" type 40mm grenade launchers have been around since the 1980s. But the U.S. military never adopted them until 2006 when Marines in Iraq got some. This was the original, the MGL-140 and had been used by police and military organizations since the early 1980s. This 40mm, six shot grenade launcher was renamed the Mk14 by SOCOM in 2011 and the M32 by the U.S. Marine Corps in 2006. The marine adopted the SOCOM version of their M32 as the M32a1 in 2015. The MGL-130 is, literally, a shotgun size revolver that fires standard American 40mm grenades. Thus it has a minimum range of 30 meters and a maximum range of 400 meters. The weapon is 81.3cm (32 inches) long, and weighs six kg (13.2 pounds) empty, and 9.2 kg (20.3 pounds) loaded. The 40mm rounds weigh about .54 kg (19 ounces) each. Like any 40mm grenade launcher, it can fire lethal and non-lethal (tear gas, Etc.) rounds, and fire all six of them in a few seconds. The M32 also has a rail for mounting various types of aiming devices (day and night scopes). The M32s cost about $6,000 and both the marines and SOCOM distribute them as needed to units, depending on what kind of operations the unit was involved in. Marines and soldiers have used their single shot, 40mm grenade launchers, a lot since 2001, and with much success. The single shot 40mm launchers have been around since the 1960s, and the Marines wanted to try something new. The U.S. Navy SEAL commandos (which are part of SOCOM) noted the M32 and by 2011 had in service a customized version called the Mk14. This was the same weight as the M32 but with a shorter (by 10cm to 20cm) barrel. The barrel was stronger, to handle high-powered (and faster) 40mm grenades used in automatic grenade launchers. The Mk14 was more compact (61.3cm/28 inches) long and that made it easier to handle in combat. In 2015 the Marines adopted this version as the M32a1. The Mk14 is made by the same firm that developed the MGL-140. Before the MGL-130 there were other multi-shot 40mm grenade launchers. In 1967 the U.S. Navy developed a magazine equipped 40mm grenade launcher called the China Lake for the SEALs. This weapon looked like a pump shotgun and that is what it was based on. The tube magazine carried three round, plus one in the chamber. While successful it never went into production and only 22 were produced. Although the China Lake was never officially adopted it was used by SEALs, Army Special Forces and Marine Force Recon troops in Vietnam. In the 1990s work was revived on the China Lake and in 2004 it competed with the MGL-140 to become the M32. The MGL-140 won out. China Lake was lighter, weighing 3.7 kg (8.2 pounds) empty and 4.6 kg (10.2 pounds) loaded. It was 875mm (34.4 inches) long and used pump action to reload. Norinco has a long record of copying successful Russian and Western weapons and then sometimes developing variants based on user feedback. The Norinco models are often superior to the Russian originals and in the case of Western designs, the quality is often lower but high enough to attract buyers because of the lower price and capabilities that make up for the lower quality. Moreover, the Chinese weapons are gradually closing the quality gap and creating some serious competition for some Western manufacturers. The U.S. will no longer release data on the number of enemy fighters killed in Afghanistan. The reason is that this body count data tends to be used as a measure of success or failure. American military leaders point out that this is not the case and that there are numerous factors that go into calculating who is winning or thinks they are in Afghanistan. The U.S. also wants to avoid repeating the problems with "body count" during Vietnam (especially pressure on commanders to increase it for the enemy). Actually, the Department of Defense has downplayed body count data in Afghanistan since 2004 but that effort never got much attention in the media. It still wont because there are plenty of other sources for casualties. These vary greatly in terms of accuracy, as does the reporting on what goes on in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the Department of Defense does have methods for measuring progress, or lack of it, in Afghanistan. These calculations contain a lot of classified information (especially the stuff obtained from sources inside the Taliban or Pakistani military). So these internal measures of progress are kept secret until long after the events they cover were current events. Talk To Us The Americans are trying to use their decades of experience with Afghanistan (a very complex place as these veterans put it) to reduce the chaos and prevent the place from becoming a safe haven for drug gangs. If Afghanistan becomes a narco-state that means Islamic terror groups that seek to conquer (or at least terrorize) the world will find sanctuary there. The Afghan Taliban is divided especially over the issue of being controlled by Pakistan and responsible for the growing number of Afghan drug addicts. Then there is also the fact that Afghanistan has been in chaos since the late 1970s (when Russian backed Afghan communists tried to start a revolution). The communists were followed by a Russian invasion, drug gangs, an Islamic revolution, civil war and Pakistan seeking to take control in the 1990s with their Taliban. That led to the American invasion and Pakistan continuing to support the drug gangs and Taliban while assisting the U.S. in its war on terror. Many Americans want to just leave. The problem is that leaving just leaves Afghanistan at the mercy of Pakistan, Iran and Russia, as well as all the drug gangs, Islamic terror groups and numerous Afghans who oppose the drugs and all the outside interference. The drugs and Islamic terrorism will still be major exports. The West can leave Afghanistan but the ills of Afghanistan wont leave the West. A growing number of Afghan Taliban leaders want peace and an end to being manipulated by the Pakistanis. Despite that, the senior Afghan Taliban leader and the Pakistani generals are not inclined to consider peace talks because of all that money from the drug gangs as well as the ability to control (or at least disrupt) Afghanistan. This week the U.S. repeated its accusation that Pakistan had done nothing about the Pakistan sanctuary for the Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani Network and several other Islamic terror groups that do the bidding of the Pakistani military. Direct peace talks between Afghan Taliban leaders and the United States, which is now a possibility, are very risky for the Taliban and their Pakistani patrons because the existence of their sanctuaries in Pakistan, while denied by the Pakistani military, are an open secret in Pakistan where it is also obvious that the Pakistan military and its intelligence agency (the ISI) handles these sanctuaries. Those sanctuaries make it possible for the Afghan Taliban to plan and organize attacks on internal enemies (factions that oppose Pakistani control). Peace talks between the Americans and factions of the Afghan Taliban are just one of the problems the Afghan Taliban faces. There has been growing internal unrest, mainly between factions that believe they are serving Pakistan at the expense of Afghans. On an individual basis, more Afghan Taliban veterans are quitting to join ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) because they see the Afghan Taliban becoming more of a drug gang security force than anything else. Other Taliban veterans just quit. The Afghan Taliban is gradually losing its true believers (in the original goal of establishing a religious dictatorship in Afghanistan) and turning into mercenaries. Whatever the Afghan Taliban evolves into the Pakistani military will have a major role to play. The Pakistani military does what it wants in Afghanistan, just like it does in Pakistan, where the military is very much above the law and can usually act like it. That is not a secret because about half the time since Pakistan was created in 1947 the military has openly run the government (after a coup) until popular opposition (and frustration at the task of governing) forced the generals to allow elections again. The Afghan Taliban insist their main goal is to get foreign troops out of Afghanistan but say nothing about suppressing the widely unpopular drug trade. Moreover, terrorism related deaths are overwhelmingly caused by the Islamic terrorists, mainly Taliban and Haqqani Network attacks. These men die protecting the drug production that has turned millions of Afghans into addicts and crippled efforts to build the economy and educate the children. Few Taliban really believe they are doing anything good for Afghanistan or the average Afghan. To maintain control of the Afghan Taliban the ISI calls on another of their protected Islamic terror groups; the Haqqani Network. This group was once a faction in the 1990s Afghan civil war but always had a good relationship with the ISI. Over the last two decades, Haqqani have turned into a criminal gang that also manages terror operations in Afghanistan for ISI. Because of that Haqqani, at the behest of ISI, also became part of the current Afghan Taliban senior leadership. Most Afghans know all about this and are not happy with how the Pakistani military gets away with it. This has caused a split in the Afghan Taliban with several factions still working for drug gangs but refusing to take orders from the ISI controlled Afghan Taliban leadership. Since 2015 there has been a lot more violence and most of it has involved fighting between Islamic terror groups as well as with local tribal militias and Afghan security forces. What drives this extraordinary degree of violence is the drug trade, which is seen as a quick path to wealth by many uneducated and unemployed Afghans. While Taliban attacks on urban areas is always big news outside of Afghanistan what is important to the Taliban is control of key rural areas where opium and heroin are produced as well as the routes to external markets (usually via Pakistan, as well as Iran and Central Asia). The routes to Pakistan are also important for importing chemicals (to turn opium into heroin), weapons and other illegal suppliers. The Americans are apparently revising their strategy in Afghanistan to recognize the key importance of Pakistan. This is where most of the heroin moves from Afghanistan to world markets (via the Port of Karachi) and where the Pakistan military makes sure whatever the Taliban in Afghanistan needs gets safely to the Afghan border. Since 2oo2 the U.S. has respected Pakistani demands that the Taliban leadership sanctuary in Quetta (the capital of Baluchistan Province and near the Afghan border and Kandahar province, where most of the worlds heroin comes from) not be attacked by American UAVs Apparently those conventions are being reviewed while all military aid to Pakistan has been halted. Pakistan received over $33 billion in aid since 2001. This has caused the Taliban and Pakistan to reconsider their strategy towards the drug trade and efforts to maintain influence over Afghanistan by sponsoring lots of violence inside Afghanistan. By continuing to refrain from hitting Afghan Taliban sanctuaries Pakistan has an incentive to continue allowing NATO to move supplies from the port of Karachi, by road, into Afghanistan. The Taliban peace talks are with the Pakistan controlled Afghan Taliban and their main demands are an exchange of prisoners, the departure of all foreign troops (except Pakistanis) and enforcement of strict lifestyle laws (especially no education for girls beyond age 12 and women unable to leave the home without a male chaperone). The majority of Afghans oppose this but the Taliban have an army funded by the drug trade and Pakistan (which also provided sanctuaries). The Taliban act like local warlords (a staple of local history for thousands of years) who pledge allegiance to the supreme Taliban leadership that resides in Pakistan and is controlled by Pakistan. Afghans are much more aware and angry about this than foreigners (especially those in the West). Afghans are also aware of how violent their culture even when there is not a major conflict (more the drug gang/Pakistan war than the Taliban war). American Special Forces medical specialists noted this when they arrived in force after 2001 and got to know tribes in many parts of the country. Each Special Forces team has two medical specialists who can act as primary care doctors for rural Afghans who have had little contact with modern medicine. The Special Forces medics noted that the norm in many of these tribes was lots of domestic violence and judging from the scars seen on adult males, lots of violence between the men even when there was no war going on. Meanwhile, the remnants of the Pakistani Taliban hide out in eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistani border. A favorite hideout for all sorts of Islamic terrorists, smugglers and outlaws is Nangarhar province where the Afghan military and American forces are constantly seeking out all manner of Islamic terrorists (Haqqani Network, al Qaeda, ISIL and both flavors of Taliban). For example, on August 25th an American airstrike killed the head of the Afghan branch of ISIL. This sort of thing is one reason ISIL has not been able to spread into Pakistan. This is something the Pakistani military would rather not dwell on because Pakistan prefers to insist that Afghanistan and the Americans are not doing enough to suppress Islamic terrorists who are hostile to Pakistan (especially the Pakistani Taliban). The Iranian Immunity Due to the worsening economy in Iran (made worse by the American revival of sanctions in March) over 15 percent of the three million Afghan refugees still in eastern Iran have returned to Afghanistan so far this year. Nearly all of these Afghans are Shia who feared to return as long as the Afghan Taliban (and ISIL) were active in Afghanistan. These two groups, and Sunni Islamic terror groups in general, consider Shia heretics and targets them for death on a regular basis. But Iran has made returning to Afghanistan easier by increasing its support for the Afghan Taliban. This gesture is also a favor to Pakistan, which Iran is trying to maintain good relations with (as Pakistan is also an ally of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan is the only Moslem nation with nukes). September 20, 2018: Today is the Shia Ashura, commemorating of the key Shia saints. The government has armed and paid Shia to provide additional security for the annual Ashura events. Because Ashura is the major annual Shia religious event it is always a prime target for any anti-Shia groups, mainly ISIL. In the last few days, police arrested 26 suspected ISIL members in Kabul, where ISIL likes to carry out its attacks. While 15 percent of Afghans are Shia most live in central Afghanistan. But they dominate several neighborhoods in Kabul and these are where most of the IISL attacks occur. The Taliban denounce attacks like this and anti-Shia violence has been monopolized by ISIL of late. But in the past, the Taliban killed a lot of Shia. Now, however, the Afghan Taliban is receiving support from Iran, a Shia majority nation that is hostile to groups that kill Shia. September 17, 2018: In the west (Badghis province) police suffered ten dead in several Taliban attacks. The Taliban lost even more dead and wounded in what was another round of violence to gain control of roads needed to smuggle heroin and opium. These attacks were linked with similar violence in nearby Farah province. September 16, 2018: In the west (Farah province) the Taliban attacked several checkpoints leaving 27 policemen dead. These attacks are meant to intimidate and eliminate police security on roads the Taliban want to use freely. September 12, 2018: In the east (Paktika province) police seized a truck from Pakistan carrying over half a ton of ammonium nitrate (used for explosives). Two Haqqani Network members were arrested and it was discovered that the ammonium nitrate came from a Haqqani base across the border in Pakistan (South Waziristan). This shipment of ammonium nitrate was headed for Ghazni province where Islamic terrorists were planning another series of attacks. September 11, 2018: In the east (Nangarhar Province) over 60 demonstrators were killed (and more than a hundred wounded) in several bombings, included one protesting the appointment of a corrupt police commander as police chief and two more bombs in Jalalabad, the provincial capital, which went off in front of a girls high school. The Taliban denied responsibility for the demonstration bombing and ISIL did not take credit. September 10, 2018: In the east (Kunar province) there were battles between ISIL and Taliban groups over the last several days. There were several dozen casualties including at least ten dead. The operation also involved American and Afghan special operations forces who checked out the site of the remote ISIL camp after the airstrike. September 9, 2018: In Kabul, a suicide bomber on a motorcycle exploded (killing seven and wounding 20) near a procession honoring the memory of Ahmad Shah Masud. He was a Tadjik leader assassinated by al Qaeda on September 11, 2001. This killing was done for the Taliban, which had been unable to conquer all of Afghanistan (especially the north) because of the military and political leadership of Mesud. The organization Medud led, the Northern Alliance, still exists and represents the interests of the non-Pushtun majority in Afghanistan. The Northern Alliance is no longer a military coalition or even much of a political one. It is more the continued potential for the Northern Alliance to once again become an armed force opposing Pushtun tyranny (especially Pakistan supported Pushtuns). September 5, 2018: There were several bombings in Kabul, one at a wrestling competition (which Islamic terror groups forbid). All these attacks left 26 dead, most of them Shia Moslems. ISIL took credit. September 4, 2018: The recent death of Jalaluddin Haqqani, 79 year old founder of the Haqqani Network, was revealed by the Afghan Taliban. Jalaluddin Haqqani was thought to have died in 2014 but that was actually when he became so disabled that he had turn over control of the network to his successor (Siraj Haqqani). This transition was smooth and Siraj Haqqani continued to cooperate with the Taliban and maintain subservience to ISI (Pakistani military intelligence). Because Jalaluddin Haqqani helped Mullah Omar and other Taliban leaders escape Afghanistan in 2001 there has always been a sense of mutual dependence. For that reason, Haqqani leaders were able to help deal with the mid-2015 power struggle within the Taliban and thwart the recruiting efforts of ISIL. Given that Haqqani works for ISI (the Pakistani CIA), Pakistan had to approve, if not help bring about this new arrangement. August 28, 2018: The U.S. reported that their warplanes in Afghanistan had used more smart bombs and missiles 746) there during July than any month since 2010. That was also 30 percent more than the 572 in June and 113 percent more than the 350 in May. August 27, 2018: In the north (Takhar province) a group of Taliban and drug smugglers got into a gun battle at the Tajikistan border with Tajik border guards that left two Tajiks dead. Then there was an airstrike on the Taliban led force that left six Taliban dead and six wounded. The Taliban force retreated. No one could identify the nationality of the attacking aircraft and the Tajiks and Russians (who have troops and warplanes in Tajikistan) denied the aircraft was theirs. Same with the U.S. and Afghanistan. The most likely culprit was Russia, trying to help an ally out while maintaining a low profile. August 25, 2018: In the east (Nangarhar Province) airstrikes by American and Afghan aircraft killed the ISIL leader for Afghanistan and ten of his followers. August 24, 2018: In Pakistan, the newly elected prime minister Imran Khan stated his goals; reduce corruption, reduce debt (and constant borrowing to cover budget deficits) and make peace with India by negotiating a deal on Kashmir. What was most telling was what was not mentioned; the dominant political power of the Pakistani military, the militarys use of Islamic terrorists to get Kashmir from India by force and to keep Afghanistan in a constant state of disorder because the Pakistani military prefers it that way. All these unmentioned issues have a lot to do with the high levels of corruption and Indian determination to hang onto Kashmir and deal with the Pakistani use of Islamic terrorists. That has caused Pakistan to become more isolated as more nations agree that for decades the Pakistani military has been supporting and using Islamic terror groups to attack its neighbors. Imran Khan may try to ignore this issue but the rest of the world will not. Imran Khan is believed to be prime minister because the Pakistani generals allowed it to happen and will remove him if the prime minister threatens military wealth, immunity and power. Imran Khan won the elections but did not, as the Pakistani constitution mandates, become the head of a government that actually rules Pakistan. August 23, 2018: In the east ( Ghazni province) the Afghan Taliban have been waging a major campaign over the last two weeks to gain control of the province. This effort has failed and the Taliban have suffered about a thousand casualties. This is exceptionally high for the Taliban and led to some embarrassing consequences for Pakistan. Among the more than 300 Taliban dead Afghan security forces were able to examine many foreigners (Pakistani, Central Asian and Chechen) were identified. Since the 1990s the Pakistani ISI has sent reinforcements recruited in Pakistan to the Afghan Taliban. Officially the Pakistani denies this happens but occasionally evidence becomes so visible that it is difficult to ignore or deny with any assurance of being believed. In addition to the foreign dead left behind the Afghan Taliban took some of their dead with them (as they always try to do to prevent identification) and those from Pakistan were smuggled across the border so their families in Pakistan could bury them. This practice is essential if the Afghan Taliban want to continue recruiting from Pushtun tribes across the border in Pakistan and maintain good relations with those tribes. A growing number of people in those tribes now have smartphones and access to social media sites where they post family news, like recent funerals and who the deceased was. A lot of deaths recently were young men who, gossip indicated, were working in Afghanistan. The pay was good but it was dangerous. But at least the family got the body back and a substantial cash payment. In addition, a lot of the Taliban casualties showed up in Pakistani hospitals and received treatment. That became news because it was rare for there to be so many casualties like this at once when, officially, there was nothing going on in Pakistan. Those casualties were the result of unexpectedly prompt and effective resistance by Afghan security forces, armed locals and American air support in Ghazni province. This disrupted and defeated the large-scale effort against the city and several rural areas nearby. Ghazni is near the Pakistani border and contains some major heroin smuggling routes into Pakistan. These routes are kept open by the Taliban. Ghazni has long been fought over, because of the heroin smuggling routes. Normally the drug gangs find it cheaper and more reliable to use bribes but because of the growing number of addicts inside Afghanistan the bribes sometimes dont work and the national government often sends down commandos and NDS (Afghan intel) agents to carry out specific tasks which tend to be bribe-proof. Massive intimidation attacks like this often fail, mainly because of the popular anger towards the drug gangs that keep supplying the local addicts. The fact that the Afghan Taliban has always been supported by Pakistan is another incentive to fight back. Opposing Pakistani meddling in Afghan affairs is a popular issue among most Afghans. One reason Western troops are tolerated in Afghanistan, which has, for thousands of years been hostile to foreigners, is because the Westerners and Afghans are both eager to shut down the drug trade and keep the Pakistanis out. Pakistan sees battles like Ghazni as a success because over 400 Afghans (including security personnel and civilians) were killed and there was a degree of intimidation achieved. Operations like this cost Pakistan little as the Afghan drug gangs supply the cash required. They have no choice because the ISI can deny easy access to Pakistan for needed supplies (chemicals for converting opium into heroin) and secure smuggling routes through Pakistan to the port city of Karachi. It was later discovered that most of the 500 (or more) foreign fighters ISI supplied for the Ghazni battle cane from three known Pakistan based Islamic terror groups known to work for ISI. The most prominent of those with a contingent in Ghazni was the Haqqani Network, whose leader currently runs the Afghan Taliban. The Afghan prime minister is demanding that his newly elected Pakistani counterpart do something about what happened in Ghazni province. So the official Pakistani response is; it wasnt us. Pakistani prime minister Imran Kahn will eventually meet with his Afghan counterpart but first he has to meet with leaders of nations that are more important to Pakistan, like Saudi Arabia and China. To Pakistanis, Afghanistan is more than of a potential problem than anything else. But to Afghanistan, and most of the world community, the biggest problem in Afghanistan is not the Taliban or the drug gangs, but Pakistan. August 17, 2018: The Afghan air force received the first five of 30 MD-530F armed helicopters that were ordered in 2017. All 30 of these armed helicopters will be delivered by 2019. Over the last decade the increasing costs of the new American F-35 fighter, and delays in delivering it have been scaring off foreign buyers and causing the largest customer, the U.S. Department of Defense to examine more carefully how much it really costs to operate current warplanes. Many foreign buyers developed doubts about the cost and effectiveness of the F-35 versus their current jet fighters (often F-16s). The F-35A costs more (than the F-16, per flight hour) to operate. In 2013 it was 60 percent more, now that is down to 40 percent but it is still a bad sign. For European nations, with static or shrinking defense budgets and growing demands to help with peacekeeping operations, more expensive (to buy and operate) jet fighters just dont fit in. Initially, the F-35 operating costs were supposed to be the same or lower than other fighters (like the F-16, F-15 or F-18). But then it was noted that F-35 operating costs were creeping upwards. In 2011, after months of contentious disagreement, the U.S. Air Force came around to agreeing with U.S. Navy claims that the F-35 will cost much more to maintain, rather than (as the F-35 promoters assert) less. In 2010 the U.S. Navy, after nervously watching the manufacturing costs of the new F-35C and F-35B (for carrier use) increase, concluded that these aircraft would also be a lot more expensive to maintain. It comes down to this. In 2013, it cost the navy, on average, $19,000 an hour to operate its AV-8 vertical takeoff or F-18C fighter aircraft. The navy calculated that it would cost 63 percent more to operate the F-35C (which will replace the F-18C) and the F-35B (which will replace the AV-8). These costs include buying the aircraft, training and maintaining the pilots, the aircraft, and purchasing expendable items (fuel, spare parts, munitions). The Navy concluded that maintenance alone would be about a third more. The differences between Air Force and Navy cost estimates came down to different methods of doing maintenance and calculating costs. The two services have, over the decades, developed different ways to use civilian maintenance services and stockpiling spare parts. Most navy warplanes operate from carriers, which is more difficult and expensive than from a land base. In effect, the Navy was forced to become more efficient in order to afford operating expensive warplanes at all. But now the Air Force and Navy have resolved a lot of these differences and agreed that the costs of the "cheaper" F-35 are actually higher. The U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Air Force have also had disputes over how much each new F-35 fighter will cost. The air force insisted that per aircraft costs would be lower than they actually turned out to be. For example, the current production order (Lot 11) shows each F-35A (the air force version) costing $89 million each. Currently, about 2,400 F-35s are expected to be sold, most of them the 1,700 F-35As for the U.S. Air Force and 500 to foreign customers. Most of the 540 vertical takeoff F-35Bs on order are for the U.S. Marine Corps and all of the 340 F-35Cs (aircraft carrier version) are for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. The F-35B costs about $135 million each and the F-35C about $120 million. This is more than the F-35A partly because many more F-35As are being built and the carrier versions have to be ruggedized to handle the harsh treatment received when it makes a carrier landing. The air force would call such an event a hard landing and pull the aircraft out of service for a thorough checkup for damage. The F-35C is built to regularly survive those hard landings, as well as constant exposure to corrosive salt water. The F-35B makes gentler landings and can take off like a helicopter thanks to the special engine exhaust system that puts the propulsive jet exhaust under the aircraft. In 2001 the U.S. believed 5,100 F-35s would be sold but the rising costs and increasing delays drove that down to 3,100 by 2013 and 2,500 by 2018. Now that some F-35s are actually in service (F-35As and 35Bs) and getting good reviews from users it is hoped sales will increase. Maybe not, because there is a lot still to be discovered about how well the F-35 will do in comparison to the many F-16s, F-15s, F-18s and AV-8s it will replace. The F-35C was supposed to enter service in 2018 but now it looks like 2019 is more likely and that will not have an impact on foreign sales because few, if any, were ever expected. Currently, the F-35 is, at $382 billion, one of the most expensive defense procurement projects ever. Total development cost is now put at $70 billion, which comes to nearly $30 million per aircraft if only 2,500 are built. Development costs for the new U.S. F-35 fighter-bomber have grown more than a third over the last few years as the aircraft finally entered service. The additional development costs were accompanied by additional delays. The 31 ton F-35 is mainly defined by the F-35A which is armed with an internal 25mm cannon and four internal air-to-air missiles (or two missiles and two smart bombs) plus four external smart bombs and two missiles. All sensors are carried internally and max weapon load is 6.8 tons. The aircraft is very stealthy when just carrying internal weapons. The F-35B and C do not have the internal cannon and the B model has less internal space for weapons. Like the F-22, which had production capped at less than 200 aircraft, the capabilities, as superior as they are, may not justify the much higher costs. The F-22 fighter is stealthier than the F-35, especially from the side and rear. The F-22 is more maneuverable and has two engines instead of one in the F-35. Both are stuffed with a lot of new technology. Obviously, the F-35 tech is more recent and more powerful. For example, the stealth coatings in the F-35 are far easier (and cheaper) to maintain than those in the F-22. But time will tell (and soon) just how much cheaper the F-35 is to maintain as an operational aircraft. Initially, it was believed that most (about 60 percent) of the F-35s built would be used by foreign nations. The rising cost of the F-35 brought with it reluctance to buy as many aircraft as currently planned. The success of smart bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan has also made it clear that fewer aircraft will be needed in the future. In any event, it's likely that F-35s will end up costing more than $100 million each and many current and potential customers realized they could upgrade some of their F-16s and get along just fine until it was clear that the F-35 was effective and affordable. That means the F-35 has to prove it is affordable to maintain. For most modern fighters operations and maintenance are 65 percent of the lifetime cost of the aircraft. Currently, the F-35A is 40 percent more expensive to maintain per flight hour than the F-16s most will replace. The F-35 manufacturer says they can reduce that gap but potential buyers will want to see that in action first. Another deal breaker is the long time it takes to modify the F-35 software and certify non-U.S. weapons for use. This is proving to be another obstacle to foreign sales. So is the U.S. policy of allowing little foreign user access to the source code of the software. Thats a security measure and the only way around it (to help sales) is to make software changes requested by foreign users in a timely and affordable fashion. Same with construction costs, which are said to be falling to under $100 million per F-35A over the next few years but that goal seems out of reach and $110 million is more likely. The F-35 was designed to have affordable stealth and much more effective sensors and electronics. The F-35 stealth is much less expensive than that in the F-22 and initial combat experience over Lebanon and Syria indicates that the stealth and internal electronic countermeasures are effective. The passive sensors and sensor fusion software of the F-35 also appear to be working as advertised. In the cockpit, the pilot has one large (20 inch diagonal) LCD showing all needed aircraft data with more showing on the pilots JHMDS helmet visor. That is all very well, but as with the very capable F-22 it wasnt performance that limited procurement but excessive cost. Mayor of Alcester Andrew Foster, left, launched the community allotment scheme in Bleachfield Street with Wendy Sherwood, health and wellbeing coordinator for Alcester Town Council. They were pictured along with scheme members and volunteers including Steve Keeling, convener of Alcester Allotment Association. Mark Williamson A43/9/18/6957 GROWING their own is bringing people together and tackling loneliness, thanks to a new allotment project in Alcester. The town council is encouraging people of all ages to grow their own fruit and veg and make friends, with raised beds and a community area available for nurturing. Three of the six raised beds have been snapped up, leaving three more for individuals to take on. The community area is for joint or group projects and is available on various days for people to get together and work on their own ideas, like growing soft fruit, building a pond or any other way theyd like to get involved. The councils Health and Wellbeing Coordinator Wendy Sherwood said the council wanted to get people of any age involved in growing their own healthy fruit and veg, as well as meeting people, having a cup of tea and enjoying the social side of an allotment, particularly for those who would find a whole plot too difficult to manage. She added: The town council hopes to attract people who may be vulnerable members of our community, such as the elderly, people with dementia and those suffering with mental health issues. We wish to encourage all members of the community and encourage people to grow in an organic and sustainable way to try and create and protect wildlife, avoiding waste of natural resources and the use of pesticides, look after the soil and maintain diversity. The project is free to participate in and has been funded partly by town charity Church Street Property, which gave 1,000 and the town council, which put 380 into the pot initially and more could be in the pipeline. 2019 budget to entice rural masses, middle class By Bandula Sirimanna View(s): View(s): As Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera gets ready to deliver the governments 2019 budget in Parliament on November 5, ahead of provincial council and Presidential elections, speculation is rife that the budget may be more rural and middle class-centric focusing on giveaways to the middle class, farmers and the poor. Amendments to the Finance Act have already been gazetted paving the way to implement populist budget proposals with effect from January 1 2019, a senior Treasury official told the Business Times. The middle class is likely to get some relief in the budget which is expected to reflect a please-all strategy. Treasury officials are working on various combinations to determine the proper mix ensuring that the tax burden is eased for the benefit of the middle class; a senior official said adding that the new taxes will not be unreasonable for them. Sri Lankas low and middle income earners will have to pay less income tax with wider tax exemption limit and lower rates, but higher income earners will be directed to pay more with the maximum rate moving up under the 2019 budget proposals. A new 7 per cent Debt Repayment Levy on financial institutions will be charged every month, on the value addition attributable to the supply of financial services by these institutions. Another tax will be imposed on every bank transactions at a minimum of Rs. 10,000 while the Annual Company Registration Levy will be charged on companies registered under the Companies Act No. 7 of 2007. Finance Ministry is also considering a proposal made by Sri Lanka Gems and Jewellery Association to reduce import duty to 5 per cent from 15 per cent, he disclosed. Cess will be removed from 253 items under specified harmonized system (HS) codes facilitating the emerging sectors namely, tourism, pharmaceuticals, value adding industries (such as cement, aluminum, etc.) and other industries (such as specialiszed food items). According to the Appropriation Bill estimates, the total expenditure for 2019 without budget proposals is Rs. 4.37 trillion. A further Rs. 2,088 billion has allocated for public expenditure, to cover expenses authorised by special laws, to be charged on the Consolidated Fund such as Public Debt servicing. MCC officials visit Sri Lanka, looks at progress View(s): A delegation from the US Governments Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), led by Chief Operating Officer Jonathan Nash, visited Sri Lanka this week to continue progress on the proposed MCC compact a large-scale five-year grant programme. MCC is developing the compact in partnership with the Government of Sri Lanka to promote inclusive economic growth that will benefit Sri Lankans. During the visit, COO Nash met with senior government officials, including Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, Minister of Finance Mangala Samaraweera, State Minister of Finance Eran Wickramaratne, and Foreign Secretary Prasad Kariyawasam, a media release from the US Embassy said. The proposed MCC Sri Lanka Compact is in the final stage of development. The compact is expected to be negotiated with the Government of Sri Lanka in the coming weeks. MCC will fund the compact entirely through grants which do not need to be repaid rather than loans. The proposed MCC compact reflects our commitment to development projects that make economic sense and drive growth in a way that increases local jobs, said Charge daffaires Robert Hilton. With this compact, we have an opportunity to promote transparent decisions about Sri Lankas long-term interests in terms of costs, benefits, and sustainable development. We are pleased that progress continues on the proposed MCC compact, said MCC COO Nash. Developed in partnership with the Government of Sri Lanka, the proposed MCC Sri Lanka Compact is designed to spur economic growth and investment by the private sector to reduce poverty and increase economic opportunities for the people of Sri Lanka. Based on an analysis of Sri Lankas economy and the constraints that are holding back private investment and growth, MCC expects to invest in projects proposed by the Government of Sri Lanka in the transport and land sectors. The proposed compact would improve road networks and the bus system in the Colombo Metropolitan Region, and improve road connectivity between the central region and ports and markets in the Western Province. The compact would upgrade more than 300 kilometers of urban and interprovincial roads. In addition, the compact would improve land administration, and strengthen land rights and tenure security, the release added. National policies and trivia View(s): An intriguing email/note was doing the rounds on whatsapp this week criticising the President, the Prime Minister and the immediate former President for dealing with trivial matters in the public domain when there are larger issues at stake. This nation loves to talk but is slow to deliver. Our President talks all about trivial matters whilst the Prime Minister travels from city to city and country to country talking about his ever-expanding vision for the country. The ex-President is in a league of his own and is testing new waters with the same old talk, it said. Titled The Talking Nation, the missile urges that instead of nonsense, how about debating topics like: How to improve public transport? How to fix the rising cost of living? Fixing loopholes in the judicial system? Providing clean water for all citizens? Strengthening our irrigation system? Freeing this country from the clutches of corruption? Ending nepotism? Pulling poor people from poverty? This note by an unnamed author (but discussing a lot of sense) and also doing the rounds on Facebook drew my attention after seeing a recent newspaper advertisement by a group styling itself Intellectuals Movement for Peoples Governance, seeking public contributions towards compiling a National Health Policy. At first glance, I was close to dismissing it as a vain attempt by a group of people trying to foist a national policy with a political agenda. But on closer examination, the group of 20 (which was also referred to as the National Intellectuals Organisation) consisted of at least 11 specialist doctors (some well-known names) while there were also former medical administrators (some doctors and others laymen). For the purpose of full disclosure, the name of JVP Parliamentarian Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa is also listed in the group and could give the impression that there is some JVP political agenda lurking behind. Or maybe not. However, the purpose of connecting the whatsapp note and the call for a National Health Policy was to show that there is a large group of intellectuals who are, on one hand, fed up with the politics of a nation and their overfed politicians, while on the other, keen to engage in serious debate and discussion on non-political national issues. As I put down my notes to start writing, the phone rings on this Thursday morning. Its Kalabala Silva, the often agitated academic-friend, on the line for another (I presume) discussion on national issues. I say, my friend. How are you today? he asks. Fine, fine, wonderful, I reply, similar to the regular, positive response from a businessman-friend who, whether it shines or rains or the country is going down the drain, responds positively when answering any call. I was reading the other day about how speaker after speaker at the recent Chamber of Commerce Economic Summit referred to the lack of a proper policy framework. They were concerned that policies keep changing and there is no consistency in policy, one of the reasons why foreign investment is slow, he said. They are absolutely right, and we in the media have also consistently flagged this issue of inconsistent policies. The problem is that national policies have become so politicised that they change when the political winds change. A country will never progress to the next level at this rate, I said. We then talk on other issues confronting the nation before ending the call, as his thoughts triggered more ideas for this weeks column. In the meantime, the group seeking a dialogue on a National Health Policy has listed public meetings it plans to hold in Colombo, Matale, Galle, Kurunegala, Kegalle, Kandy, Matara, Moneragala, Badulla, Hambantota, Ratnapura, Ampara, Gampaha and Kalutara over the period September 19 to November 10 to seek views on the proposed policy. Whether this would see the light of day is anybodys guess but I was intrigued by the initiative since health policy would be the least tampered with, one may assume, by politicians compared to other policy formulations. For example, some months back there was a dialogue for a national policy on trade agreements a bone of contention amongst intellectuals with particular reference to the Sri Lanka-Singapore FTA by some groups, among other issues. The opposition also joined in the protests against trade agreements. What this country lacks is national policies on education, health and social welfare that would stand the test of time across any political changes in the country, to ensure a sustainable path of development. Politicians, when in power, change the policies pertaining to these three key areas and when out of power complain when changes are made by the new political masters. In most of the developed west, national policies on key areas are virtually cemented in stone and remain unchanged apart from cosmetic changes to bring it in line with modern trends. Education and health see many changes taking place particularly in the context of advances in technology. So changes are inevitable but within a proper framework which remains the bedrock of a national policy. Any group willing to engage in public consultations on an education policy (without any political bias) should be welcome indeed. Back to trivial talk and the whatsapp missile, two other developments reported this week make it imperative for the government and the public to engage in a discussion and formulate a national policy. This is about climate change and erratic weather patterns that are ruining crops and cause other destruction. Barring a few in the country, climate change is not a politically-favoured topic, so there is very little discussion in Parliament and outside. It also doesnt bring votes. At a biodiversity forum this week, a top Sri Lankan professional working at an international organisation dealing with the green economy and business said Sri Lanka was losing billions of rupees due to the impact of climate change and urged the public to be prepared. Dr. Lalanath de Silva, Head, Independent Business Mechanism at the Green Climate Fund (making comments which were independent views) was quoted as saying that without extra adaptation measures, losses from the impact of climate change is estimated at Rs. 4,795 million annually by 2020. Climate change causes record droughts or high intensity rain in short spells, health issues, coastal erosion (from sea level rise), tropical storms, lightning, crop failures, landslides, etc. Quoting figures from an international report, he said rice yields will fall by as much as 23 per cent many years later in Sri Lanka. A 2017 World Bank report estimated annual losses and money for relief work at Rs. 50 billion as a result of erratic weather patterns in the country. That is also showing sharply in tea production, which has other complications via lack of fertilizer use and a ban on glyphosate. In August, tea production fell to a 16-year low due to the absence of rain, dry weather patterns and strong winds. Do we need new tea clones that can withstand any weather changes? Another more amusing development is that politicians who are neither economists nor academics (one such person was handling the subject of home affairs!) defending the fall of the rupee, a complex subject that needs to be dealt with by seasoned professionals. On the flipside, opposition politicians behave the same (barring a few) giving their two-cents worth on the rupee and its rapid fall. Rather than trivia talk by politicians, actually on all sides of the fence, there are more productive issues to discuss like health, education, social infrastructure, etc. The attempt by the public to discuss, debate and formulate national policies is a welcome development in a sea of unrest and uncertainty in Sri Lanka and should be supported. All this while there was silence in the kitchen. How come? Kussi Amma Sera has gone to the village and possibly bothering her relatives and friends about her theories garnered from Colombo, where the discussion is all politics and nothing constructive. Enjoy the week ahead! Public anger mounts over strikes, protests View(s): In one of the most challenging polls in recent times, both the Business Times and its polling partner, Second Curve have found that strikes and street protests inconvenience the public, tremendously and the government needs to deal firmly with the situation. These protests and strikes are destroying the country and we dont know where it will end, one worried respondent said. Whether these protests and strikes were deliberately meant to inconvenience the public to put pressure on legislators and the Government and thus seek solutions was however unclear in an analysis of the two surveys conducted on the streets of Colombo and on email. Results of the street poll will be published next week. But some street respondents also defended the protestors saying in general that such actions were carried out since the Government has failed in its many obligations to the people, particularly in adhering to the promise of good governance. While the Second Curve poll was comprehensive and scientifically structured, the Business Times raised three simple questions seeking Yes, No and U (unsure) responses. To the question that the Government must deal firmly with strikes, 93 per cent of the respondents said Yes. Asked whether key services like bus and rail transport, health services and petroleum services should be declared as essential services and police and armed forces mobilised if necessary to continue these services if workers go on strike, 94 per cent said Yes. However asked whether striking unions in these services have reasonable demands and grounds to strike, 51 per cent said No while a sizable component (35 per cent) responded with Unsure. The rest said No. Among the comments received in the street poll were that protests were happening because the Government has forgotten its good governance mandate; the University Students Front is always creating problems. They are very indisciplined; doctors make money and in turn, deceive us; there needs to be discipline in the country, if not we should try Army rule. This cant go on. It was also stated that protestors are not developing the country but in contrast, destroying it and that no one knows where this will end. While one respondent said taking to the street was a practical way of protest to win rights, others said that teachers wages should not be increased since they earn a lot on tuition and inculcate indiscipline in schools. Respondents in the email poll responded by urging a ban on street protests or designate public space for this without blocking traffic. They also said the government should declare services as essential, barring the right to strike or use the armed forces to run this in a crisis. RDB merges with LDB amidst protest by employees By Bandula Sirimanna View(s): View(s): Sri Lanka will soon establish a much stronger and larger state bank to cater to the needs of small and medium scale enterprises by merging the Regional Development Bank (RDB) with Lankaputhra Development Bank (LDB). The Cabinet of Ministers has given approval to establish the Lanka Enterprise Development Bank by merging the two banks soon on a budget proposal made in 2016, a senior official of the Ministry of Public Enterprise and Kandy City Development confirmed. In order to strengthen the capital base to meet the Basel III provisions, capital of Rs. 2.5 billion has been infused to RDB by the Treasury, he added. RDB is the only development bank functioning in the island, he said adding that its merger with LDB will pave the way towards achieving rapid inclusive and sustainable growth in the country, he revealed. The countrys six regional development banks were merged into a single RDB in 2010, as a measure to empower and uplift the lives of all Sri Lankans with a special focus on the SME sector. The six regional banks, which were amalgamated were, Rajarata, Ruhuna, Wayamba, Uva, Kandurata and Sabaragamuwa Development Banks. The new entity has an island-wide network of 268 branches, he said, adding that the RDB maintains 2 to 3 per cent growth at present. However the management and staff of the RDB have protested against the merger with LDB as the authorities want to maintain the merged entity as Lanka Development Bank, a trade union leader at RDB said. The Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) has found several malpractices being allegedly carried out by the top management of Lankaputhra Bank and it has written off millions of rupees in bad loans. Around Rs.1.6 billion is to be collected which were given under the instructions of the previous government the report revealed. Under this set up, the RDB will face severe financial crisis if the merger with LDB materialises, the employees warned adding that they will resort to work to rule campaign to prevent the LDB from taking over the management of the RDB. However at the recent RDB board meeting, it has been agreed to maintain the merged entity as RDB and to appoint LDB Chairman Sujith Kariyawasam as its new chairman. Measures will be taken to increase the critical mass (capital and asset bases) to strengthen the viability and resilience as well as capabilities, including capacity to innovate the new entity. Operational effectiveness will also be enhanced by reducing overheads, particularly through branch rationalisation which served to reduce spreads. In the rationalisation process, there wont be forcible retrenchment of any staff member while a Voluntary Redundancy Schemes (VRS) will be offered, the official said. Sri Lanka Retail Forum 2018: Towards a dynamic and evolving retail sector View(s): The Sri Lanka Retail Forum now the nations leading retail sector forum has returned for a second consecutive year, and registration for the forum is open, the organisers said in a media release. Owing to the overwhelming success seen at the forum held last year, with 450 participants, the Sri Lanka Retailers Association (Guarantee) Ltd (SLRA) is organizing the forum once again. This years theme is Towards a Dynamic and Evolving Retail Sector and is scheduled to be held on October 17-18 at Cinnamon Grand Colombo. The Retail Forum has 18 resource persons lined up, nine of whom are foreign experts who are presently in the regional retail conference circuit and seasoned in the global retail ecosystem. This provides the forum a balanced perspective, with insights on international retail trends to Sri Lankan retailers. They will share their insights and leading deep-dive discussion on strategies that Sri Lankan retail companies can adopt and further build on. The Forum will focus on four thematic sessions: reshaping customer engagement, driving tomorrows retail today, new models challenging the status-quo brands-culture-sustainability, and where retail in the region is heading. These sessions will explore tools such as data analytics, sustainable practice, a tourism retail nexus, and digitization strategies. E-platforms for retail, customization and curation to customers, and how the industry can evolve into the digital ecosystem will also be a key discussion at the forum, the release said. A dynamic and evolving retail sector should be a device that Sri Lanka can boast of as contribution to its economic growth, and this will establish the goods and services of local companies as superior products in the global market. The goal in which the forum is held is that Sri Lankan Retailers will learn strategies that will boost their performance, the performance of the industry, and ultimately the performance of the whole nation, said Charitha Subasinghe, Chairman of the Organizing Committee of Sri Lanka Retail Forum 2018. The Forum provides the best opportunity for networking and collaboration in the retail industry. Registrations are open until October 15. If you wish to take part in this event, call 115588852 or email niroshini@chamber.lk. Top Professor passes away View(s): Prof. T. Jogaratnam, Emeritus Professor of Agricultural Economics at the University of Peradeniya passed away at the age of 88 on Tuesday. Prof. Jogaratnam was a pioneer in the field of Agricultural Economics and is considered the Father of Agricultural Economics in Sri Lanka. He graduated with honours in Economics from the University of Ceylon. He joined the academic staff of the then University of Ceylon in 1953 to teach courses in the economics of agriculture. He obtained his M.Sc. degree from the University of Toronto and earned his PhD in Agricultural Economics from Cornell University in 1968. Prof. Jogaratnam was appointed founder professor of the newly created Department of Agricultural Economics and Farm Management of the University of Peradeniya in 1972. He later became the Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture. He was the second Director of the Postgraduate Institute of Agriculture (PGIA). He was the founder President of the Ceylon Agricultural Economics Society in 1968. He was the Patron of the Sri Lanka Agricultural Economics Association (SAEA). During his career, he taught and mentored many generations of students and was much loved and respected by all. A nonchalant IGP at the heart of the storm View(s): The unseemly tug-of-war between the Inspector General of Police (IGP) and the National Police Commission, with the IGP openly balking to carry out directions of the NPC, must be deplored quite categorically. Putting the credibility of independent commissions at risk Indeed, the manner of both parties being summoned by the Speaker to resolve these issues unfortunately reminds one of two erring schoolchildren being summoned to the Principals office. The fracas plays itself out in the open, diminishing the credibility of the much vaunted concept of independent commissions that the Government speaks of with pride as having restored through the 19th Amendment. Aberrant tendencies of the incumbent in the office of IGP has attracted much scorn and ridicule in the media. Those eccentricities are quite evident and present a whole set of different problems including questions raised about the appointments process in the first instance and as to whether the criteria adopted by the Constitutional Council was sufficiently rigorous when recommending the appointment. We have the undoubtedly bizarre spectacle of even Ministers in the Government calling for action to be taken against the incumbent IGP. Certainly there is little point in boasting about the 19th Amendment on the one hand and then skillfully devising a process whereby useful people are situated in high positions such as the IGP or the Attorney General or justices of the superior courts. If that is the case, then it is far better to have the open and ugly reality of a blatantly politicized process (as was the case under the Rajapaksa Presidency) rather than to have a silly charade that mocks our collective intelligence. Systemic problems in question As has been previously commented on in these column spaces, the Removal of Officers (Procedure) Act No 5 of 2002 at the time, enacted as a supplementary law to the 17th Amendment, prescribes a separate safeguard for the removal of the IGP, placing this on par with appellate court judges. The reason for this legislation at the time was to place the office of the IGP above political pressure and to afford its office bearers security of tenure. But what worth are such commendable protections when an incumbent in office behaves in a manner that brings that office into disrepute? Indeed this same logic goes for other such appointees as well, including judges. But in a larger sense, this fracas speaks to more than personality clashes or for that matter, the heedless persona of the incumbent. The vexed pulling at different sides of the rope by the IGP and the NPC is due to systemic contradictions rather than merely personality driven. It is reflective of the fundamental problem in having an independent supervisory body that is tasked to put matters right in the police force but yet has no control over its head. There is an obvious tension in the reconciling of these roles that must be recognized and addressed if these issues are not to surface again and again. The NPC itself must be structurally strengthened. Importantly, it must be enabled to overcome resistance from the institutional hierarchy of the police through built in controls in its mandate. Granted, grasping this crown of very prickly thorns is not an easy task by any means. In fact as we may well remember, when the first NPC was established under the 17th Amendment, its exercise of disciplinary control over the police resulted in clear hostility on the part of the then IGP as he considered that the creation of the NPC had imposed an unwarranted fetter on his powers. Ministers of the day said that the independence of the NPC was not needed and some went so far as to claim that the IGP should be involved in the decision-making processes of the NPC. Usefulness of comparative processes Clearly there is a problem here that must be addressed. Perhaps it would be instructive to go back to the drawing board as it were and look at the reports of several highly skilled committees and commissions that examined some of these issues in meticulous detail. These include the Soertsz Commission of 1946, the Basnayake Commission of 1970 and the Jayalath Committee of 1995. The recommendations in these reports are particularly helpful as the members of these bodies considered relevant questions of power and accountability with clarity, persuasively arguing the case as to why independently enforceable control of the police is needed, not mere cosmetic ally weak supervision as such Moreover, the NPCs public complaints procedure is a vital part of its mandate but remains largely underutilized. Similar procedures in other countries require that quick responses need to be manifested in terms of not only documentation but also the ensuring of medical attention and victim protection. It also calls for strict monitoring of indictments filed or action otherwise taken in law against police officers who commit offences. Meanwhile, looking at developments in other countries may be useful, if only to reassure ourselves that these problems are not unique to this land. For example, earlier this year, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) replaced the United Kingdoms Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) amid rising public fury over botched investigations into police misconduct. In particular, the inability to hold proper inquiries into the deaths of several men in custody provoked calls to reform the IPCC. It had also been said that the IPCC had lost the confidence of many within the police itself who had been calling for stronger accountability as well as speedy resolving of complaints against individual police officers. The new office has been empowered to launch its own independent investigations into cases of police misconduct though some critics have questioned this as a superficial branding exercise without actual substantive changes in the accountability body. Breaking a vicious cycle Where Sri Lanka is concerned, the NPC must no longer be cribbed, cabined and confined in fulfilling its constitutional duty. A deliberate and considered exercise of reform must be embarked on and this should be thrown open to the public for constructive suggestions and recommendations if the objective and end result is to break this vicious cycle that we find ourselves trapped in. As for the IGP, the incumbent must be reined in through appropriate statutory measures if needs be. But from a wider perspective, there must be lessons learnt for the future in regard to appointment processes to these high public offices, if the 19th Amendment is to retain a modicum of public credibility. Public quarreling over matters of such high gravity must cease forthwith. Karu J. laments lawmakers poor attendance, unruly conduct for the millions spent, daily By Chandani Kirinde - Lobby Correspondent View(s): View(s): Speaker Karu Jayasuriya this week urged MPs to attend sittings regularly, after the House had to be adjourned on several days in its previous sitting week, due to poor attendance. He said it is a matter of regret that sittings have to close abruptly due to a lack of quorum, adding it was the responsibility of both Government and Opposition members to maintain a quorum in the House. He was not alone in raising such concerns. President Maithripala Sirisena too brought up the issue this week, saying MPs must make an active contribution to Parliamentary business, to enhance the efficiency of the Legislature. Parliament sits for only 8 days a month. There are 225 MPs in our Parliament, but often, we struggle to maintain the quorum of 20 MPs during sittings, the President said, while speaking at an event in Colombo. The views expressed by both the President and the Speaker are a poor reflection on Lawmakers who, despite increased perks given to them, seem to have no interest in attending Parliament sessions. The fact that millions in tax rupees is spent every sitting day, has been voiced openly by the Speaker several times in the past, but has done little to improve either attendance or participation by Lawmakers. Added to poor attendance, Parliamentary behaviour of MPs too has been a cause for concern, with the Speaker often warning that unruly behaviour by some Lawmakers was bringing the entire Parliament into disrepute. To underscore the point that the House is serious about acting against errant MPs, 2 UPFA MPs, namely Wimal Weerawansa and Prasanna Ranaweera were suspended from Parliament for two weeks and four weeks respectively, on Friday, for their bad conduct in the House. The 2 were accused of acting in an unparliamentary manner and breaching Standing Orders of Parliament. The motions against the 2 MPs were in connection to their conduct on July 3, when there was a discussion on the controversial statement made by UNP Jaffna District MP Vijayakala Maheswaran. The 2 MPs were asked to appear before the Parliamentary Committee on Ethics & Privileges, set up to examine questions of Privilege and matters relating to the breach of rules of conduct and etiquette that are referred to it, by way of a motion moved and approved by Parliament. It has the power to make recommendations after examining the extent of the breach. The Committee is headed by Foreign Minister Tilak Marapana and comprises 10 members drawn from all parties. MP Ranaweera was accused of grabbing the Mace during the melee on the floor of the House on July 3rd, while MP Weerawansa was accused of using obscene language. They were asked to appear before the Committee, but had failed to present themselves and hence, 2 separate motions were moved in the House by the Government side and passed by a majority vote, thus suspending them. The suspension became effective on Friday. Meanwhile, the Government announced this week it will be presenting its 2019 Budget to Parliament on November 5. The Budget debate is scheduled to be held for 26 days, with its 2nd Reading debate to be held from November 7-14, and its vote on November 14. The final vote for Budget 2019 will be December 8. More on our wretched diplomessy View(s): As though the unending teledramas played on our small-screens fail to provide enough tragic-comedies to titillate a jaded public, our Foreign Ministry has been quietly but surely making its own farcical contribution to Sri Lankas theatrical tradition. It is not often that a ministry which once enjoyed a healthy reputation at home and abroad for its intellectual input to international affairs, the capabilities and professional competence of its diplomats is reduced to what Maxim Gorky called the lowest depths. For an institution that has over the years tried to establish a hierarchical superiority over its less fortunate ministerial cousins, the Foreign Ministry has in recent times been plunging from minor disaster to disaster. For over 50 years I have had occasion to associate with and make friends with our diplomats beginning with the first intake of Foreign Service officers and so have watched their professional performance both at the ministry and their foreign postings. If I look today at the comedy that goes on in the name of diplomacy I am reminded of the origins of Sinhala cinema and one of the first Sinhala films called Broken Promise portraying the comic characters called Manappuwa and Josie Baba. Sad to say modern day Manappuwas and Josie babas now seem to run the ministry to the detriment of the high-calibre professionalism that once characterised the affairs of the ministry. What an experience and learning curve it was for me to spend two weeks with Ambassador Shirley Amerasinghe covering a UN mission in the Middle East in 1970 and a few days the next year with Ambassador Neville Kanakaratne (to mention just two) in Washington when I was on a media fellowship at the University of Hawaii. Not only is todays ministry run like a Wellawatte banana boutique as one former diplomat described it, but also the attempts made at cover-ups or to deny even the most innocuous information sought is surely embarrassing. Here is one recent example. When a journalist from this newspaper asked the Foreign Ministry for the names and designations of the officials of our Vienna embassy who President Sirisena ordered to be recalled, the ministry refused to divulge the information. One could understand if the ministry was asked where we were hiding our nuclear arsenal. But to play coy over the names of recalled diplomats or whoever seems as though the journalist had sought the keys to the safe with all our deepest and darkest secrets. This surely must be the first time that mission officials were ordered to be recalled en mass-or almost. Therefore it makes news; people would like to know the whos, the whys and the wherefores. But no, the ministry wants to play it so close to its chest that it could cause atrial fibrillation. So let me help out and let the ministry correct me if I am wrong. Besides Ambassador Priyani Wijesekera, there is Dayani Mendis a career officer as No 2; Namal Vijithamuni Soysa (Second Secretary); Gehan Dissanayake (attache), Shalini Edirisuriya (PA to ambassador) and embassy caretaker G.M Gamini. One person who escaped the axe was Iresha Cooray who, according to my information, had eventually answered the phone from Sirisenas office. I also understand a stenographer from our embassy in Poland and an Attache from our consulate-general in Toronto had also been asked to return apparently for indiscriminatingly using Facebook or other social media to post articles critical of the president/government which they had picked up from other media. This is probably why a circular letter went out from the Foreign Ministry about a month ago to all our missions warning officers to be careful of what they posted in social media. These actions were probably prompted by officials of the presidential secretariat- except the refusal to disclose the names. But there have been other occasions on which the ministry tried to cover up embarrassing developments with obfuscations and circumlocutions in the name of official responses hoping, I suppose, that those who read them will be confused by the phraseology to abandon further inquiry. Not all, I am afraid, are fooled by such pretentions intended to gloss over the diplomatic frailties or ignorance of over ambitious officers be they career diplomats or political appointees with political connections or relatives of the influential or powerful. Faithfully succumbing to even outrageous demands by relatives posted abroad is now described as Sri Lankas theory of relativity. To return for a moment to the Vienna embassy fiasco there are several unanswered questions. Foreign Secretary Prasad Kariyawasam was quoted in a state-run Sunday newspaper as saying, The Ambassador and several other staff members who were on extended terms have been asked to conclude their tour of duty and return thats all. Thats all is it Mr Foreign Secretary? Not quite I am afraid. When he says that those who are on extensions have been asked to conclude their tour of duty and return does it mean that an officer with say 4 or 5 months of the extension left could stay on until he/she completes the term? What does conclude mean? Conclude ones stay and return immediately or stay on until the term is over? For instance Dayani Mendiss three-year term would only end mid-February 2019. So if she has been recalled it gives the lie to Kariyawasams statement that only those on extensions have been asked to return. But at what point of time is the vital question that remains vague- deliberately so some might say. A similar resort to obfuscation related to the recall earlier this year the High Commissioner to the UK Amari Wijewardene where the Foreign Ministry tried to hide the truth from the public which pays the salaries of these highfalutin officers. Here is what the ministry said about reports of Wijewardenes intended departure from London. The reports being circulated in the media attributed to the Secretary to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stating that Sri Lankas High Commissioner to the UK, Mrs. Amari Wijewardene, has resigned, are incorrect. High Commissioner Wijewardene will conclude her contract on her own volition by 31 March 2018, the Foreign Ministry said in a brief statement. When the ministry says will conclude her contract on her own volition by 31st March 2018, it surely must mean that the decision when to conclude (heres that word again!) rests entirely with her, that she makes the decision. This is total rubbish. Wijewardene as a political appointee should be on a two-year contract. She assumed duties at the High Commission on 10th August 2016 and so her contract would have ended on 9th August 2018. She had 4 months or so left of her contract. The ministry tries to make out that it was her decision to end her contract prematurely whereas the talk in Sri Lankan circles here is that she hoped for an extension which usually means one year to begin with. What the ministry utters is a falsehood. Even in the dying stages it was trying to hide the fact that she was recalled by the government, especially by President Sirisena. Let the ministry deny that if it can. The truth is she was called back long before her term was concluded..on her own volition, partly because of her attempt to clear herself of the Sri Lanka Independence Day affair that resulted in the immediate recall of Defence Advisor Brigadier Fernando. Plea for general pardon: President having second thoughts Speculation rife as Sirisena goes to UN for much-awaited talk View(s): View(s): President Maithripala Sirisenas left yesterday for New York to address the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), a move which has become the focal point of attention for Colombo-based diplomats, Tamil diaspora and even larger sections of the Government. Unlike his previous visits every year, it comes in the backdrop of moves by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to arrest Admiral Ravindra Wijegunaratne, the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS). The President, who thwarted the arrest on the grounds that senior military officers were being held for long periods in remand prisons without charges, declared he would make proposals in this regard to the UN. He, however, did not elaborate. Now, Admiral Wijegunaratne who returned to Sri Lanka from Mexico on Wednesday will only make a statement to the CID, which will, however, not arrest him. According to well-informed government sources, Mr Sirisenas proposals are likely to centre on a form of reprieve for officers or men accused of alleged war crimes. It was to come in the form of a general pardon but it was not clear whether it would apply to Tiger guerrillas who await such charges. However, other sources close to the Presidency say Mr Sirisena has now had second thoughts on the matter and may not make any reference to the issue now. This is much the same as softening his stance on implementing the death penalty on drug lords running business operations from their prison cells. Instead, these sources say he will stress on the need to have reconciliation both in the south and the north of Sri Lanka, a position which the Government has consistently taken. President Sirisenas proposed move before the UN has already brought forth condemnation from the London-based Global Tamil Forum (GTF). Its spokesperson Suren Surendiran said the GTF had lost confidence in Mr. Sirisena for reneging on the assurances he had given it. Such assurance had come when Mr. Sirisena visited London where a GTF delegation met him at his suite in the Park Lane Hilton. The move has also angered the Tamil National Alliance (TNA). Any form of reprieve, as is clear, would run counter to the resolution the United States moved in 2014 to probe, among others, alleged violations of international humanitarian law and war crimes. Sri Lanka co-sponsored the resolution, thus affirming that such matters required a probe. The same sources said that besides incorporating his proposals in his UNGA address due during the high level segment on Tuesday (September 25), the President was earlier expected to submit a document to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on the same matter. Yet, the question remained whether the UNHRC is bound to accept that document for discussion. For all purposes, it was to come from a country which is named in the US resolution i.e. Sri Lanka. Hence, it is up to Sri Lankas representative, if indeed there were any proposals, to present the governments position for discussion at UNHRC session, said a Colombo-based diplomat who did not wish to be identified. There are no precedents in the Council for a head of state or government to present an overriding position before the Council on a resolution that has been adopted (unanimously) by member nations, the diplomat said. The theme of this years UNGA is making the United Nations Relevant to All People: Global Leadership and Shared Responsibilities for Peaceful, Equitable and Sustainable Societies. Among those who accompanied President Sirisena were Ministers Patali Champika Ranawaka, Mano Ganesan, Rajitha Senaratne, Central Province Chief Minister Sarath Ekanayake, State Minister Palitha Range Bandara and UNP parliamentarian S.M. Marikkar. President Sirisena who perused the list of media personnel accompanying him, an official source said, sought the removal of two members. They were dropped though the duo had obtained their US visas. Rajitha drops building of bricks When someone commits a gaffe, they say it is dropping bricks. In this instance, it is not just bricks that were dropped but high rise buildings. Health Minister and official government spokesperson Rajitha Senaratne was waxing eloquent at his weekly news briefing that follows Tuesdays cabinet meeting. There was a volley of questions over the planned arrest of Admiral Ravindra Wijegunaratne, the Chief of Defence Staff, by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID). In the course of it, here is what he said according to a transcript from a tape recorded account: The Prime Minister has stated not to allow the accused (now before courts) to come out during the middle of the case due to political reasons. Then their claim will go against us. We have to do this but we have to do this within the demarcations of the law whilst taking precautions. The question is whether Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, a lawyer himself, would ever tell courts not to release accused and whether any demarcation of the law permits it. For Minister Senaratne, anything goes. Case against Ravi: Top UNPers say they have no role The filing of charges against former Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake has ruffled feathers among his onetime ministerial colleagues in what seems the resurgence of in-fighting in the United National Party (UNP). Amidst speculation that some of them were responsible for him having to face charges, a UNP source said, International Trade and Development Strategies Minister Malik Samarawickrema telephoned Mr Karunanayake. He assured him that he had no role in the filing of charges. Both Mr. Karunanayake and Mr. Samarawickrema are known for their heated exchange of words on many occasions. Another minister who telephoned Mr Karunanayake was Highways Minister Kabir Hashim. He too was to assure the former Foreign Minister (who was later Finance Minister) that he was in no way associated with the filing of charges. In a separate development, Mr. Karunanayake said in Parliament that some economic stalwarts who steered the country towards a negative economy in 2000 during former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratungas regime are running the country today. He charged that they have been allowed to easily ruin the economy which the present government hardly developed. The fact that the remarks were veiled references to his successor Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera was obvious though he did not name him. Here, too, Mr Karunanayake has been critical of the Finance Ministry over the management of the economy. The former minister is charged with intentionally giving false evidence committing perjury before the Commission of Inquiry that probed the Central Bank bond scam. However, on Friday the Colombo Magistrate suspended the Court order to probe Mr Karunanayake for providing false information to the Commission of Inquiry that probed the Central Bank bond issue. War-time bills still not settled Sri Lankan troops militarily defeated Tiger guerrillas nine years ago but the taxpayer is still meeting the costs incurred. Among such instances are long outstanding dues from the Sri Lanka Ports Authority and the Ceylon Shipping Corporation for ships chartered to ferry food and other items to the then guerrilla-held north. Such vessels were chartered by the then Commissioner General of Essential Services (CGES). Now, Ports and Shipping Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe has submitted a cabinet memorandum to settle the dues incurred from 2006 to 2009. Nov 1 deadline for Priyani and staff in Austria The Foreign Affairs Ministry has placed a deadline of November 1 before which Sri Lankas Ambassador Priyani Wijesekera and all her country staff should return from Austria to Colombo. The move follows a directive from President Maithripala Sirisena. The President, his official say, tried to reach Ms Wijesekera or a member of her staff for well over four hours but they had not been available. Later, President Sirisena told a meeting of heads of media institutions that he took that course of action to deliver a strong message to all Sri Lanka diplomatic missions overseas. Industrial zone at KKS cement factory premises Once it was Sri Lankas premier cement factory that adjoined the port of Kankesanthurai in Jaffna. Thereafter it became a security forces camp during the separatist war. The equipment in the factory was either removed or destroyed as jungle grew around the area. On one occasion, a wild boar which intruded into a chalet was shot dead. It was mistaken for a Tiger guerrilla infiltrator. And that incident paved the way for a feast of wild boar flesh, popular among some soldiers. Now, Trade and Commerce Minister, Rishad Bathiuddin, has proposed to the Cabinet that the onetime cement factory complex be converted into an Industrial Zone for small entrepreneurs. Big businessman banned from CSE A controversial businessman, the close associate of a UNP Minister, is in trouble again. This time he has been banned from trading at the Colombo Stock Exchange. Officials there declined comment. However, other insiders said there were questions about the accounts of his company. It was only recently that the company won a massive hand out from a state owned bank a subject which has now come under scrutiny. Getting their act together to be a part of Freddy By Purnima Pilapitiya New faces in the upcoming Freddy 3- A New Hope! Nisal Katipearachchi and Yasas Ratnayake share their excitement at being part of one of Sri Lankas most popular comedy series View(s): View(s): When Colombos favourite new comedy platform Freddy opened its doors to fresh talent, the morning of the audition found more than 25 nervous performers hoping for a chance to score the much coveted laughs. The first to make his way to the Lionel Wendt with his audition monologue was an ever-punctual Nisal Katipearachchi. In his slightly (he admits) nervous hand, was the first -time performers story about growing up as the secondary Katte, next to his more theatrical older brother a.k.a. Loku Katte. Joining him in the pool of anxious wannabe comedians was Yasas Ratnayake armed with the days most explicit monologue which discussed the bedroom politics ofpoliticians. Catching the eye and the attention of the auditorium, Nisal and Yasas are now getting ready to take the stage as two of Freddys newest perfomers in the latest Stage Light & Magic show to hit the boards next month: Freddy 3- A New Hope! The two, who are friends and part of the drama scene, hope to bring their own individual flavour to the stage. For Nisal, this will also mark his first appearance on stage after being a familiar figure in the shadows, backstage, scuttling around, pushing props and doing the other underplayed, hard work of the crew. In contrast, Yasas is a familiar face to audiences having recently ended a successful production with StageLight&Magic in The Pillowman. Yasas has been making ripples in the drama scene since his acting days at his alma mater Royal College. His credits include Reality Show, Hamlet at Elsies Bar in addition to his last production The Pillowman. Despite his experience, comedy is one genre that Yasas has never been able to fully immerse himself in, always finding himself in darker, serious roles and also because of the lack of a platform. When he walked out of the Lionel Wendt after watching Freddy Strikes Back last year, I knew I wanted to try something like this, he says. If stepping out of his comfort zone wasnt enough, Yasas went in for his audition with the days most explicit monologue. Combining his interest in politics, wit and satire, Yasas stood out as a prospect for Freddy. I wanted to be a part of it because it is a good platform for comedy in Sri Lanka, he says, seeing it as an enterprise that will mould Engish comedy in Sri Lanka. Though he is still finding his feet, Yasas hopes to bring his own style to the routine, taking inspiration from thinkers and artists like George Carlin who used humour to communicate the harsher philosophies of life. But for Yasas, making people happy is the penultimate goal, and maybe to give them something to talk about over dinner. People said I looked confident, says Nisal with a playful seriousness that only adds to his ironic sense of humour. Backed by an easygoing demeanour, its hard to believe that Freddys new addition has never acted onstage. But stage fright was real for Nisal who followed his thespian brother into the drama scene while he was studying at D.S. Senanayake College. The sportier of the Katipearachchi brothers, Nisal never saw himself taking up his brothers artistic mantle and preferred working behind the scenes of productions instead. When StageLight&Magic produced R&J- the tale of Romeo and Juliet in 2004, a post O/L Nisal was also part of the crew. I always thought I would embarrass myself, he says, as the reason why he never took the stage before. But the undeniably funny guy could always be found cracking a joke and doing impressions and impersonations from classroom to workplace. I knew I had that, he admits, but never took it too seriously. A marine engineer by profession, Nisal literally stayed away from theatre for about five years before coming aboard the Freddy crew. With shows like Pusswedilla, Nisals interest in theatre was sparked. It was something normal that dealt with the everyday unlike the more serious theatre he was exposed to while in school. When auditions for Freddy rolled out, the thought of trying out never even crossed his mind, until a friend commented about it on a Whatsapp group. A risk taker with a go with the flow attitude, Nisal was scribbling down a script before thinking through the audition. A month and a few rehearsals in, Nisal still doesnt take comedy as seriously as he should, but maybe thats why it worked for him. I just want it to be me, he explains simply. Not one to watch comedy shows or stand up on Youtube, he walked into the audition unrehearsed and ready to talk about growing up Katte. His unstrategic strategy paid off, and had the audience laughing, especially those who knew him and his brother. These days, hes concentrating on pace, grammar and holding the mic, he laughs. As to getting into character, no one has yet to direct him on how to play the part. Just be the jolly, good fellow that you are is the only direction hes been given so far. As an outsider coming into the comedy scene with a backstage view of Freddys rise, Nisal compares Freddy to a baila session at a fancy wedding. At the end of the day we are all Sri Lankan, he adds. StageLight&Magic.Inc present Freddy 3- A New Hope! directed by Feroze Kamardeen from October 18-23.Box plan and tickets will be available at the Lionel Wendt from October 1. StageLight&Magic is also running a special promotion involving newspapers, jigsaws, tickets and t-shirts. Check out the Sunday Times for the promotion and get free Freddy T-Shirts and a chance to with 20 free tickets for the show. For more details see their Facebook page StageLight&Magic. Take a foodie stroll along Green Path By Ruqyyaha Deane View(s): View(s): Strolling down Ananda Coomaraswamy Mawatha ( Green Path), Colombo 3, your eyes are bound to be drawn to the interesting new restaurants that have popped up down the road. If your eyes dont latch on, theres a high chance your nose will. Cafe Nuga which opened in March, is the new face on the healthy eating game and we got to try out a variety of dishes from their menu that caters to diverse tastes with their options of hoppers, smoothie bowls, salads and much more. Cafe Nuga offers you food that is healthy but with a touch of home. We want affordable, healthy homemade food that we can provide to our customers, co-owners Sashika Gunatilleke and Dushan Vas tell us. Their menu reflects their thinking. The sesame seed-crusted salmon panini (Rs. 980) is a generous portion of salmon fillet on a whole-wheat hamburger panini dressed with baby spinach, yoghurt and accompanied with sweet potato chips. The salmon melted in the mouth and the yoghurt gave a nice tangy contrast to the fillet. The mixed grill platter (Rs. 1580) with its mutton meatballs, chicken thigh, seer slice, prawns, calamari definitely is the dish for meat-lowvers. All the proteins were grilled just right to be succulently juicy and the sauce brought to the table added a lot of flavour to the dish. For the more Lankan food lovers, the spicy chicken hopper dish which includes two plain hoppers, Pol sambol or lunu miris with dhal curry and the spicy mutton with roast paan from Cafe Nugas breakfast menu is a definite must have. A personal favourite the melt in the mouth mutton curry served with fresh, homemade roast paan with garlic parsley butter was something that we found difficult to stop eating. We tried out the Nuga Siyambala (Rs. 450) juice which is a mix of tamarind and raw honey as well as the chocolate smoothie (Rs. 530) that is made with chocolate powder, peanut butter, banana and milk. The Nuga Siyambala is something different, a welcome experience to us and the chocolate smoothie had a more wholesome flavour compared to the usual chocolate ice-cream smoothies that one usually encounters. Cafe Nuga also offers their famous smoothie bowls that can be adapted to be made with either cows milk, almond milk or soy milk (prices vary), open sandwiches , salads,pasta dishes as well as wraps. Another restaurant on the block is fast becoming a household name around Colombo and that is the franchise ISSO. Opening their flagship outlet at Kollupitiya on September 7, ISSO has become well-known for their gourmet seafood that is affordable. With their second branch, co-founder Apinash Sivagumaaran says, What we have additionally compared to the Sulaiman Terrace outlet are the specials and the kids meals which we never had over there. Strongly believing in providing the best value for money the menu has expanded to offer dishes such as lobster macaroni, Catalan shrimp stew and more interesting new dishes. The first step to ordering your dish is to choose your base and then how you like it cooked and finally choose the carb you want to eat it with. Thus we ordered the lobster tail with egg fried rice cooked in the style of the local favourite (Rs. 2990) and you couldnt help but savour the feeling of lobster on your tongue. The jumbo prawns with roast garlic paan cooked with a northern twist (Rs. 1890) was quite spicy and not for the faint-hearted, but we thoroughly enjoyed the burning aftertaste of the Jaffna curry. The fish and chips (Rs.1490) that was accompanied with tartar sauce and the renowned sweet potato fries is also a good choice. ISSO also offers vegetarian options such as the mushroom trio that has shitake,abalone and button mushrooms. Interesting specials also allow everyone the option to have something different for themselves. We also tried their isso vade with coconut chutney (Rs.290) and the batter fried isso (Rs. 290) for starters but their spring rolls will always remain as our go-to starter at ISSO. Cafe Nuga and ISSO are must-try options for anyone finding themselves in the area. The ambience and atmosphere at the restaurants are comfortable and welcoming, perfect for either a quick lunch or a casual meeting with friends. YWPA Awards: Creating a platform to strengthen youth leadership By Oshani Alwis View(s): View(s): For Dasuni Dinithika Jayawickrama, little did she know when singing, dancing, compeering and acting on stage at the schools talent show as head prefect, that it would be a catalyst for her succeeding as an international winner in the Young Women in Public Affairs (YWPA) Awards 2018. YWPA Awards is one of the service programmes of the Zonta International Foundation, dedicated to empower women while working towards gender equality by building a just world for women and girls. Each year, the award recognizes young girls from all around the world, between the age of 16-19 who demonstrate superior leadership skills, commitment to public services and civil causes to create a difference in their communities through voluntary services. This year, Zonta Clubs I-IV of Colombo joined hands and called up applications in January for YWPA Awards 2018. A special committee of judges reviewed the applications received from the contestants of Musaeus College, Sujatha Vidyalaya, Bishops College, Gateway College, Colombo International School and Asian International School. The four applications were submitted to the Zonta International district evaluation committee. District 25 comprises of Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh and Nepal, where each country submitted their applicants. Dasuni was the winner of District 25 and given the opportunity to be selected to the Zonta Internationals YWPA committee, as the committee reviewed the 32 awardees from the 32 districts worldwide and selected the ten most outstanding applicants as the international awardees for 2018. Dasuni, the school captain for 2016/17 of Museaus College, Colombo, became the district and one of the YWPA international winners. Dasuni had 55 senior and 36 junior prefects under her wing. As a part of the annual community service project anchored by the prefects guild, in Dasunis year, she organized a prefects talent show, identifying the unique talents of her team. The concert ended up raising a total fund above Rs.300,000 in aid of Apeksha Hospital, Maharagama. Then, she reached out to the schools Board of Trustees and other companies for financial support, hence increasing the sum to Rs.1.2 million to purchase three infusion pumps, four syringe pumps, an emergency trolley, cardiac monitors and a sucker machine to improve the patient care facilities of Apeksha Hospital. At the YWPA Award ceremony held recently at the Excel World, Colombo, Dasuni spoke about her inspirational journey as a student leader and what the award truly meant to her. The YWPA award represents recognition for young girls like myself and for society it is a reminder of a need to change perceptions about girls. There are many girls in Sri Lanka with alot of potential, yet zero opportunities and recognition to come out and pursue their dreams. Social perceptions attached with women deeming them less capable, less intelligent, need to change, Dasuni noted. Learning important lessons of being an approachable leader, respected, yet not feared, qualities of punctuality, perfection, discipline are some of the take-aways from Dasunis journeyas a young leader. Shahnaz Nathani, Governor of District 25, addressed the audience saying Zonta International Foundation celebrates its 100th anniversary next year. With over a 25,000 membership in 63 countries, she said adding that the organisation works towards to improve the lives of women and girls through service and advocacy programmes. The YWPA Awards provide a platform for young teenagers to evaluate their own leadership strengths. The selection process of the winners is through a simple set of questions which touch on activities and leadership skills related to school, voluntary and community service projects outside school, participation in international programmes and ample awareness of the status of women in the country. The panel of judges included Jerome Rajendram, former district chairman of Rotary Club, Prof. Sharaine Fernando, University of Sri Jayewardenepura and Indrani Sugathadasa, former chairperson of Insurance Commission of Sri Lanka. When reviewing the applications we mostly evaluated how each candidate responded to the questions and how well they presented the answers, Indrani Sugathadasa said. Winners from Zonta Clubs I,II and III of Colombo Nethmi Oshadi Gunasekara - a grade 12 student of Asian International School, Nethmi is a creative soul dreaming to persue a higher education in designing and performing arts. She is an active member of the schools community service club and part of a start up creation company set to empower women by teaching craft skills and marketing their products. Danya Eshana Amarasinghe - a Grade 11 student of Colombo International School, Danya wishes to pursue further studies in Economics and International Relations becoming an advocate for the empowerment of women and equal rights for all. Kavindi Chamathka Jayasekara - a head prefect of Musaeus College for 2017/18 she has led many community development projects as a visionary leader. Cormorant Strike 2018 stages Hostage Rescue Operation at Nelum Pokuna Theatre By Asiri Fernando View(s): View(s): A Hostage Rescue Operation (HRO) was conducted on Thursday (20) at Nelum Pokuna Theatre, as a part of the ongoing Cormorant Strike 2018 Military exercise. The mock HRO saw more than 150 Army Commandos from the 4th Commando Regiment and 4 Nepali soldiers work together to rescue 30 hostages held by a group of terrorists. Cormorant Strike is an annual Military exercise that started on September 6 and ends next week. Thursdays exercise was witnessed by State Minister for Defence Ruwan Wijewardene, Chief of Defence Staff Rear Admiral Ravindra Wijegunaratne and Army Commander Lt.Gen. Mahesh Senanayake, senior Military officers, foreign military observers and Ministry officials. The HRO had Commandos deploy to the site in specialized armoured vehicles and rappel down to the roof of the theatre from an Air Force Bell 412 helicopter. A mobile Command & Control Center and prior deployment of snipers and surveillance cameras aided the rescue teams to increase their situational awareness as the operation unfolded. Explosives, sniffer dogs and attack dogs were also in the rescue party. With Cormorant Strike 2018, Sri Lanka has done a good job bringing various Special Operational Forces (SOF) onto one platform, where they could share skills, tactics and experience, said Col. Amir Islam of the Pakistani Army Special Forces. He was part of a 9-man contingent from that country, some of whom were players in an Amphibious Insertion Operation among other missions. While HROs have been conducted at other venues such as the Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport (MRIA), in the past, Nelum Pokuna was selected to reflect the current and future security threat environment, said the Army Chief. Previously, Commandos focused on anti-hijacking scenarios during the exercise, which took place at MRIA. The Commandos are specialists in HROs, and this exercise was designed to test their skills. The Sri Lanka Army is enhancing its capabilities in this area, said Lt.Gen. Senanayake. Pointing to the participation of foreign military personnel, the Commander noted that no country today had a single solution to terrorist and subversive threats. They must cooperate and learn from each others experience in countering such threats. The HRO enabled the Armed Forces and police to test the interoperability and response capacity under stressful conditions, said Exercise Director Maj.Gen. Niyshshanka Ranawana. It contributed towards testing and evaluating tactics and equipment, thereby enabling the military to identify critical technologies, equipment and weapons systems for future development and acquisition. The Army was moving toward a Joint Special Operations Capability in line with future threat assessments and are actively seeking to advance interoperability within Sri Lanka, Regional and International Armed Forces, he explained. The Army is also looking at strengthening its Junior Non-Commissioned Officer cadre. The final mission of Cormorant Strike 2018 will be held on Wednesday at Kuchchaveli. LNG power projects delayed as CEB engineers intensify battle with PUCSL View(s): At least three government-to-government Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) power generation projects are likely to be delayed, with the Ceylon Electricity Board Engineers Union (CEBEU) instructing its members to boycott negotiations. The move comes after the CEBEU decided to intensify its trade union action demanding the removal of the Director General of the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL), the power sector regulator. Accordingly, talks on the construction of three LNG power plants involving Japan, China and India will be affected, the union states in a letter sent to Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. The plants are to be built in Hambantota and Kerawalapitiya. The CEBEU insists on the removal of PUCSL Director General Damitha Kumarasinghe and blames him for rejecting the CEBs Least Cost Long Term Power Generation Expansion Plan 2018-2037 (LCLTGEP). The union says the regulator, has instead, approved its own version of the plan in violation of the Sri Lanka Electricity Act. The PUCSL, however, rejects the charge. In its letter to the Prime Minister, the union states that Mr Kumarasinghe continues to function in his post despite clear assurances given by the highest ranking authorities of the government that a new person will be appointed to the post of DG of PUCSL. As such, union members will refrain from participating in all government-to-government negotiations and other related activities until a conducive environment is established in the PUCSL by the Government by appointing suitable personnel with professional integrity to the key positions of PUCSL. The letter insists that the replacement of the PUCSLs DG without any further delay is a must. Meanwhile, the union has also written to the PUCSL Chairman informing him that it will launch a non-cooperation campaign with the entire PUCSL with immediate effect until a new DG is appointed to the regulator. During this period, our members will not have any forms of communication with the PUCSL, either written or otherwise, will not attend any meetings, including any outside meetings too if anyone from PUCSL is present, the letter says. Maldives polls today, but Nasheed cries foul from Colombo View(s): The Maldives goes to the polls today (Sunday) amidst claims and counterclaims that rival parties have rigged the elections. President Abdulla Yameens Progressive Party has accused the Opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) of bribing voters with funds infused from Western countries while the MDP says voter lists may have been manipulated and the counting process compromised by the incumbent in office. The MDPs candidate is Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, but the partys de facto leader is the ousted President Mohamed Nasheed who insists the party will win. Speaking at a news conference in Colombo he said President Yameen who was seeking reelection would ensure that the MDP candidate was not allowed to assume power. Mr. Nasheed who was President of the Maldives from 2008 to 2012 outlined several scenarios whereby the incumbent President would rob his party of victory. Some 263,000 people are eligible to vote, the Maldives Elections Commission (MEC) has said. The President is elected using the two-round system. If no candidate receives a majority of the vote in the first round, a second round will be held within 21 days. Some fear that if the Opposition wins, it will hold all the projects and that the rapid development process may be jeopardised by regime change, said a political analyst based in the Maldivian capital, Male. She spoke on condition of anonymity. On the other hand, if the Opposition wins, those leaders in jail will be released and that is a positive thing for most. Among the many political detainees is former President, Mohamed Abdul Gayoom, who is half-brother to President Yameen, and the Chief Justice. In October 2016, the Maldivesunder heavy criticism over attacks on democracypulled out of the Commonwealth. As a result, the Commonwealth has not sent election observers while the European Union and the United Nations have also declined. Instead, the MEC has invited representatives of the Thai, Philippines, Palestine and Romanian Elections Commissions, Mr Nasheed said. Also observing the polls are officials from the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Mr Nasheed is confident that the majority backs the MDPs candidate. He also said he had been in conversation with military and police leaders. In the event Mr Yameen does not concede defeat, I would like to see the military back the will of the people and the constitution, he said. And the constitution is clear on what we have to doback the will of the people. Yet, the Opposition also faces some criticism. Honestly, I dont like Yameen, said the analyst in Male. But the leaders competing with him are weak. So I cannot vote for them. In general, many believe there is no good candidate from either side. Mr Nasheed called upon the international community to cut diplomatic relations with President Yameens administration if he did not accept defeat. He also invoked the possibility of sanctions. We are very hopeful that, when the elections are rigged, the international community would come to understand the facts, he said. The European Union has a framework for sanctions adopted last July. The sanctions framework, we understand, would kick in when the situation deteriorates, which could be fixing an election. Again, I have to emphasise that the election is already rigged. Military seeks Jaffna Fort, offers to release more land to the people View(s): The Army has requested the Government to release the Jaffna Fort to the military and in turn has agreed to release the lands occupied by three of the main camps within the city limits. The letters requesting for the Jaffna Fort have been sent by Jaffna Security Forces Commander Dharshana Hettiarachchi to President Maithripala Sirisena, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and the Department of Archaeology. If the request is granted we can close down the camps at Pannai, Gurunagar and at the Sinhala Maha Vidyalaya premises, Major General Hettiarachchi told the Sunday Times. He said the request was under consideration and if the matter was expedited, the Army could release the lands to the people. At present, the Jaffna Fort is under renovation by the Archaeology Department with the assistance of the Netherlands. However, the move has been opposed by the Jaffna Municipal Council which has passed a resolution on the grounds that the Fort could be developed as a tourist attraction and as a source of revenue for the council. Jaffna Mayor Emmanuel Arnold said that during the Prime Ministers recent visit to Jaffna, a request was made to hand over the Fort to the military, but the mayor had explained how the site could be developed to generate income and create more job opportunities for the youth. He said that instead of the 34-acre Jaffna Fort, the military could use a 70-acre state land in Kopay if it wished to relocate the troops. The Jaffna Fort was originally constructed by the Portuguese in 1618 and a few years later it was captured by the Dutch who rebuilt and expanded it. More than 12,000 foreign and local tourists visit the Jaffna Fort monthly. Ministers, MPs barred from travel abroad during parliament sessions View(s): Government ministers and parliamentarians will be banned from travelling overseas when Parliament sessions are underway, the Cabinet decided on Tuesday. The only exception will be for urgent medical reasons or for a family emergency. The move came on a recommendation by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. He has been concerned about the mounting number of occasions when Parliament had to be adjourned due to the lack of a quorum. He has expressed particular concern in view of the 2019 budget debate. The absence of a quorum may force postponement of sittings for the next day and delay monetary allocations for ministries. Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera is due to present his second budget on November 5. The budget debate will end on December 8. The absence of government MPs has become a focal point of public attention in the light of mounting prices of consumer goods. Questions are being raised in government circles as to how much relief measures he could offer in view of this. President Maithripala Sirisena has also raised issue over mass absenteeism by MPs. He told ministers recently that Parliament met only for eight days in a month four days in the first week and four in the third week. Thus this regular absenteeism, he noted, had become a bad example. Earlier, Speaker Karu Jayasuriya expressed concern to government leaders on his having to adjourn sittings periodically due to the lack of a quorum. President quashes bid to release contaminated canned fish stocks, orders reshipment By Damith Wickremasekara View(s): View(s): President Maithripala Sirisena has ordered that a large stock of contaminated canned-fish be reshipped to the country of origin after he rejected a request by a Cabinet sub committee to release the five-months-old stocks to the markets. The Presidential directive came at Tuesdays Cabinet meeting after the Cabinet Sub Committee on Cost of Living submitted a proposal seeking the release of 31 canned-fish containers held back following detection of worms in some cans. The Cabinet Sub Committee had noted that at a meeting attended by officials of the Customs, the Sri Lanka Standards Institution, the Health Ministry, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and the Department of Commerce and Investment, it had been decided that the stocks were suitable for consumption and could be released to the markets. However, when the proposal was taken up for discussion at the Cabinet meeting, Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne said he was not aware of the ministry approval. Inquiries revealed that the two Health Ministry officials involved in granting approval were overseas. The stocks of canned-fish were imported from China and were held back after checks on some of the samples revealed that they were contaminated with dead worms. The Sri Lanka Standards Institution said it had given approval for the release of the containers after it sought the Attorney Generals advice. SLSI Director General Dr Siddika G. Senaratne said the SLSI approval was based on the Food Act, according to which, if a can had not more than two worms, it could be released to the market. The Health Ministry will now gazette fresh regulations to enable the Customs to reject the stocks even if one worm was detected in a sample. Meanwhile, Health Minister Senaratne has directed Health Services Director General Dr Anil Jasinghe to carry out an inquiry against the two officials attached to the Environmental Health Unit for granting approval for the release of the stocks and thereafter travelling overseas. Railway project with US$ 1b loan from China Awaken Polonnaruwa programme: View(s): View(s): The Government will seek a loan of one billion US dollars from the Exim Bank of China for what could easily be the costliest project in Sri Lanka the building of an 88 kilometre rail track from Kurunegala to Habarana. The construction work is to be awarded to the China State Construction Engineering Corporation Limited (CSEC) and will be part of President Maithripala Sirisenas Lets Awaken Polonnaruwa programme. Ministers were to discuss a memorandum by Transport and Civil Aviation Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva at their meeting last Tuesday. However, it has been delayed until the observations of the Finance Ministry are received. In an earlier Cabinet memorandum recommending the project, President Sirisena noted that the construction of railways linking the principal commercial towns was being recommended as major and priority requirements. However, experts in the transport sector hold a different view. One of them pointed out that a railway line from Kurunegala to Maho junction now exists. The distance from this junction to Palugaswewa just near Habarana is only is ten kilometres. The track is designed to pass through jungle. Moreover, they point out that according to Sri Lanka Railways, the routes from Maho Junction to Trincomalee and Batticaloa have the least passenger revenue and freight income. The Central Environmental Authority has already given approval for the project. Transport Minister de Silva has said: According to the design, the total length of the track from Kurunegala to Habarana via Dambulla is 88 kilometres with an additional four kilometres double track to the Dambulla Economic Centre. There are six main stations located at Ibbagamuwa, Melsiripura, Galewala, Dambulla, Sigiriya (Inamaluwa) and Habarana with sub-stations to be constructed at Thorayaya, Gokarella. halkiriyagma and Digampathana. The Transport Minister added: Three tunnels are to be constructed at Ibbagamuwa, Polgolla and Omaragolla and several bridges, viaducts, overpasses and underpasses are also designed to be constructed at several locations, one underpass for providing an elephant crossing... Minister de Silva has called upon the Cabinet to declare this as a special project and allow exemption from payment of VAT, NBT, Customs duties and other taxes SriLankan to serve local cashew nuts, but industry is limping By Abdullah Shahnawaz View(s): View(s): SriLankan Airlines has been instructed to obtain their cashew nuts from the Sri Lanka Cashew Corporation in the future by the Public Enterprises Development Ministry, a senior official at the ministry informed. Ravindra Hewavitharana, the ministry secretary told the Sunday Times that Minister Lakshman Kiriella made this decision following President Maithripala Sirisenas recent public outrage over substandard cashews served by the carrier, which were sourced from a Dubai-based importer. The Minister had invited the Chairman of the Sri Lanka Cashew Corporation, Damsiri Bandara Karunaratne to meet with the SriLankan Airlines board of directors, and come to an agreement. Mr. Karunaratne said that the minister emphasised the need for SriLankan to consider the quality of the cashews over the price, during the meeting. We supplied cashew nuts to Sri Lankan until 2016, and then they switched suppliers, citing the domestic cashew price to be too costly, Mr. Karunaratne said. SriLankan Airlines media spokesperson Deepal Perera said the airline had chosen the Dubai-based supplier last December, with the first shipment arriving in stores this February. He said the carrier decided to switch suppliers and go for a foreign-based importer because the local suppliers were not able to source the quantities required by SriLankan. We made the selection in an open bid, and the decision was based on the procurement policy applicable for State Own Enterprises (SOE), he said. He said that the Cashew Corporation lost 35% of its daily public sales for two days after President Maithripala Sirisenas public criticism of the quality of cashew served on the national airline. We usually earn a revenue of Rs. 100,000 daily from our retail outlets, but this fell to around 65,000, as people thought there was a serious issue with the domestic cashew product. It was only after a couple of days that the people realised the supplier was in Dubai and obtained his product from abroad, Mr. Karunaratne said. Meanwhile, the domestic cashew industry is beset with a series of problems which choke growth. He said that during the war, much of the land in the north and east with Cashew Corporation owned plantations were neglected. Its been almost a decade since the end of the war, but the majority of these lands are still occupied by the military, he said. The Government has to do more and give these lands back to the corporation. We had 30,000 acres in the north and 70,000 acres in the east. Large parts of these were first occupied by the LTTE and now by the Sri Lankan military. We are not asking for the entire land area back. The military can have their camps, but they dont need thousands of acres for this. Wild plants have grown in most of the lands making them forests. This harms cashew growth as the plant dies after contamination. He said there was great potential in the industry. Sri Lankan cashew is the preferred variety in Europe. We are called the Queen of Nuts. Sadly, we lack the required support to expand. The Cashew Corporation currently produces ten to twelve metric tonnes annually. The chairman said that this wasnt sufficient for domestic consumption let alone to export. The Corporation imports cashew for the sole-purpose of re-exporting, after value additions. We do this to create jobs and bring in revenue to the country. We dont import for domestic use, Mr. Karunaratne said. He said that 30,000 families were employed in the trade. But the problem is that cashew production ends by November every year, and until the next season begins in April, the families are left without work. To cope with this we allow those who process cashew to import 6,000 metric tonnes raw, from November to the end of March. These then suffice till the following season begins, he said. Twenty-Five cashew-processing firms have submitted applications for import so far. The corporation will be requesting land in the Mullaitivu district that is presently used for tobacco cultivation. This follows on from a Government decision to reduce the amount of land allocated for tobacco growing. The conditions in the Mullaitivu district are ideal for cashew plantations. The corporation expects a budget increase from the government and a faster approval process to attract investors. There was an investment proposal which was approved by cabinet promptly, but was held up over some environment issues by the Central Environment Authority without a decision either way. This made the investors fed up, and they left, the chairman said. The Government does offer support, he declared. Recently the Prime Minister and the Ministry of National Integration and Reconciliation started a project with the corporation where families in the north would be allocated land for cashew cultivation. Presently requirements have been met for the growth of 46,756 seedling and budded plants in the five districts. However, if support is increased to enable us to operate at full potential, we can make this a thriving industry. Top appointments after President returns View(s): President Maithripala Sirisena, who left for New York yesterday to attend the United Nations General Assembly session, is to make some top level appointments upon his return to Colombo. He is to name Ravinatha Ariyasinha, a career diplomat, to be the new Secretary to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His last posting was as Sri Lankas ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva. Mr Ariyasinha will succeed Prasad Kariyawasam who was Sri Lankas Ambassador in Washington DC before moving over to Colombo as Foreign Secretary. Attorney General Jayantha Jayasuriya has already been recommended by President Sirisena to be the next Chief Justice. He will take over when the current incumbent Priyasath Dep retires next month. To be appointed as Attorney General is Dappula de Livera. At present, he is the Additional Solicitor General and he assisted the Commission of Inquiry that probed the Central Bank bond scandal. Its such an honour, Im just a choral music person Recipient of one of Australias most prestigious awards for community service, David Sansoni talks to Sashini Rodrigo View(s): View(s): Sri Lankan born Australian citizen David Sansoni was recently honoured with the Order of Australia for his service to the community of Baulkham Hills in Sydney as conductor and co-director of the church choir since 2007. A lifetime of theatre, arts and music provides a solid springboard, but it is the vital element of spirituality that gave David Sansoni the passion to take his church choir to new heights both in performance and its humanitarian efforts. The Order of Australia, established in 1975, is the principal and most prestigious means of recognising outstanding members of the community at a national level. Speaking to the Sunday Times on his visit to Sri Lanka earlier this month, he acknowledges that being awarded the OAM is an honour that means more because it comes from the people. Im ever grateful that people invested time and skills in that process (of nominating him), its quite humbling. One feels so unworthy, Im just a choral music person! St. Pauls Anglican Church of Castle Hill does so much more than an average church choir, however. For 15 years the churchs pastoral team have become strong sponsors of organisations like Compassion Australia, an American priests mission to help children orphaned in the Korean War. Through St. Pauls sponsorship programme over 1,000 children have been sponsored across Africa, with plans to partner with the Philippines where a dire need has been identified as well. Over 50,000 AUD has been raised through a donation box at the choirs many events, leading to important humanitarian projects such as the contribution of a clean water system to a village in Africa in 2010. Mr. Sansoni notes that that kind of service outreach is huge, as its not just one child and one family, but a whole community. After migrating to Sydney with his family in 1987, he eventually moved to the Hills District and joined the parish in 2000, taking over the mantle of training the choir in 2007. Under his direction, St. Pauls choir provide a valuable service to the community through their church events, such as seasonal musicals, Christmas, Easter, and a midyear fundraising event. Although their basic ministry is to provide the musical upliftment on Sundays by leading congregational singing, it is always an interesting and fulfilling process, he says, particularly as they perform contemporary yet sophisticated music, rather than just old favourites. It takes a lot of work, its a lot of fun and something for the older folks to come and aim for. And theyve all bought in, he says fondly. The choir is made up solely of volunteers, ranging from retirees and grandparents such as Mr. Sansoni himself, to various musical professionals, working folks and even a few young people. Some able to read music, some requiring a little extra help and patience, but all of them ready to pitch in the time, effort and their own money to put on each performance. However concerned we may be on the journey, God always blesses the moment. Its incredible, he adds. Mr. Sansoni recently retired after an impressive 45 years in the shipping industry, 15 of them in Sri Lanka at Aitken Spence Shipping. His involvement in the arts has been lifelong, starting very young in the choirs of his alma mater S. Thomas College and his home church of St. Francis of Assisi in Mount Lavinia. He recalls the good times doing radio jingles for advertising companies, amateur drama with schoolmates Rohan Ponniah and Steve de la Zilwa, and a particularly memorable turn at age 13 as Prince Chulalongkorn in a production of The King and I. The arts took a backseat after the move to Australia, as Mr. Sansoni, his wife Karima and daughter Natasha had to establish themselves in a totally new situation. There was a conscious abandonment of distractions, he explains. Our focus was on what we had gone there for, which was to make a new life and to make the best of it and, praise God, we have. Even so the music never really left as Mr. Sansoni focused on his daughters musical education, and then circumstances led to him being asked to lead the choir. The enthusiasm, care for the community and genuine love for what he does is unmistakable in every word. New English edition of Eugene Burnoufs memoir Ancient Geography of Ceylon View(s): Former Bonsoir host Yasmin Rajapakse is bringing out a new English edition of Eugene Burnoufs memoir Ancient Geography of Ceylon. Burnouf was one of the most eminent French scholars and orientalists of the first half of the 19th century and this is one of his few works translated into English. The original French work was translated into English by Donald Ferguson, and appeared in several numbers of The Ceylon Literary Registers of 1931, 1932, 1933, and 1934. This is the first time the academic work appears in book form in English, giving the larger public access to a little-known geographical and historical reference to Sri Lanka from a formidable scholar. A foreword is provided to this edition by Prof. K. D. Paranavitana, who points out that, though Burnouf never visited Sri Lanka, he remains an important figure in Sri Lankan historical studies as he was a pioneer in giving wider attention to the island chronicle, the Mahavamsa. He was the first to translate the Mahavamsa into two European languages- French and Latin- in 1926, preceding the English translation, which appeared in 1933, by 7 years. In his introduction to Ancient Geography, Burnouf mentions that, dealing with toponymy, he discovered that many names of historical interest had disappeared from the modern Ceylon map, or had become so altered as to be scarcely recognizable, and that Sanskrit words especially had been replaced by Sinhala words so as to be no longer identifiable. It was his intention to restore the ancient names and correct the corrupted orthography where it had not been obliterated altogether- in other words, restore the ancient geography of Ceylon with the help of historical facts, using comparisons of the original names with modern ones. The book also provides one of the first scientific inquiries on whether the Lanka of the Ramayana actually refers to Sri Lanka. He then goes on to analyse other intriguing names given to the country through the ages: Thamraparna, Taprobane, Simhala, Simoundu, Salike and Palissimundou. The memoir could not be completed as Burnoufs untimely death intervened, yet it remains an intriguing and valuable work. Yasmin Rajapakse, was made a Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture, and, due to her intense commitment and passion for the French language and culture, continues her research to unearth more French-Sri Lankan cultural ties. The book is published by FAST Publishing (Pvt) Ltd, with the collaboration of the Cultural section of the Embassy of France in Sri Lanka and the Alliance Francaise de Kotte in Colombo. It will be out at the FAST stall at the Colombo Book Fair now on at the BMICH. Taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha Peter Harvey, retired Professor of Buddhist Studies, and meditation teacher at the Samatha Trust Tradition, UK, delivered the Anagarika Dharmapala memorial lecture at a ceremony held at the London Buddhist Vihara, on Sept 15, 2018 to mark the Founders Day. Here are excerpts of his speech on Reflections on the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha: View(s): View(s): The London Buddhist Vihara goes back to 1955, and before that to the period 1926 to 1939, having been founded by Don David Hewavitarne (18641933), who took the title Anagarika Dharmapala. He was a Sinhalese man who took up the new role of the Anagarika that is half way between that of a layperson and a monk, entailing permanent adherence to the eight precepts, and he is seen by many as having been a bodhisatta. He helped revive Buddhism in Ceylon, founded the Mah Bodhi Society in India, worked for the return of Bodh-Gaya to Buddhist hands, and spoke inspiringly at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893. He later visited the US and the UK several times. He can be seen as a key force for revivifying the Sasana and hence strengthening and spreading respect for the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha in Sri Lanka, India and the West, being a key figure for Buddhism in Sri Lanka and the wider world. Like all things, knowledge and practice of the Dhamma is subject to decay, so we should all do our bit to live by it and deepen our understanding of it, while guarding against distorting it by misinterpretations, one-sidedness or clinging attachment to it and Buddhism or Buddhists as alone right. Taking the three refuges Chanting the three refuges is a way of expressing gratitude, appreciation and commitment to the Buddha, his teachings, and those who live in accord with them. Taking refuge looks to three sources of guidance, inspiration, and aids to developing inner strength. It is an expression of trust; not a blind trust but a discerning and exploratory trust. The notion of a refuge is not that of a place to hide, but of something the thought of which calms, purifies, uplifts and strengthens the heart. Taking refuge in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha, as guides to a better way of living, can be experienced as a joyful haven of calm, a firm island amidst a flood, in contrast to the troubles of life. The refuges remind one of calm, wise, spiritual people and states of mind, and so help engender these states. The Buddha is the rediscoverer and exemplifier of Dhamma, who also showed others how to live by and experience it. As benefits of living by Dhamma teachings are experienced, a reverence and gratitude to the Buddha naturally tends to arise and deepen. The Buddha refuge does not only refer to Gotama Buddha, the historical Buddha, but also to past Buddhas and the principle of awakening/enlightenment as supremely worthy of attainment. In this respect, the first refuge can also be taken as a pointer to the faculties of wisdom, mindfulness, etc. developing within oneself. Devotion to the three refuges can be expressed in various ways, such as chanting, bowing before a Buddha image, stupa or monk, and mindfully listening to a Dhamma talk. When bowing, a possible reflection that one might use is: To the great Lord of Calm and Insight, who breathed in Dhamma, became Dhamma, and radiated Dhamma, I humbly bow. To the profound Dhamma, that is lovely in the beginning, lovely in the middle, lovely in its culmination, I humbly bow. To the Noble Sangha that has breathed in Dhamma, plunged into Dhamma and become Dhamma, I humbly bow. What is the classical description of the qualities of the Buddha? The following is a translation of a very well-known chant, which expresses how a stream-enterer with unwavering confidence in the Buddha sees him: Thus he is the Blessed One, because he is (iti pi so bhagava) thus: an Arahat, perfectly and completely Awakened, endowed with knowledge and good conduct, Well-gone, knower of worlds, an incomparable charioteer for the training of persons, teacher of gods and humans, Awakened One, Blessed One. That is: - an Arahat a worthy or accomplished one who is completely free of greed/attachment, hatred and delusion; samma-sambuddho: perfectly and completely Awakened to the nature of reality, as discovered by himself; vijja-carana-sampanno: endowed with (liberating) knowledge and (good) conduct; sugato: well-gone, practising well, rightly, so as to have gone to/experienced that which is excellent. This echoes the term Tathagata, literally Thus-gone/Thus-come, i.e. One Who Moves in Reality. loka-vidu: knower of worlds of the various kinds of rebirths and parallel mind-states, and of the many physical worlds spread through the universe, and knower of the impermanent and conditioned nature of all worlds. anuttaro purisa-damma-saratthi: an incomparable charioteer for the training of persons: a great guide for others. sattha deva-manussanam: teacher of humans and gods (devas): based on his understanding of the worlds of all beings, and what lies beyond these. buddho: Awakened One awakened to or enlightened to the true nature of reality. bhagavati: Blessed One/Exalted One/Fortunate One/Lord: full of good qualities. On the Dhamma Well explained (svakkhato) by the Blessed One is Dhamma: it is directly visible, not delayed (in its results), inviting one to come and see, applicable and onward leading, to be experienced personally by the wise/discerning. This emphasises Dhamma as ever available, open to experiential investigation, practical and transformatory. As refuge, Dhamma is explained as the Noble Eight-factored Path: the path of practice, particularly in its noble (ariya) or world-transcending (lokuttara) form, as that which immediately leads to an experience of Nibbana: the complete end of attachment, hatred and delusion, and the dukkha they cause. Dhamma also includes the Buddhas teachings, and the deep experiences that come from practising the path, right up to Nibbana itself. Dhamma, then, is to be heard/read and understood, practised, and realised. It is also the law-orderliness inherent in nature, the Basic Pattern in which phenomena occur according to the Conditioned Arising principle, from appropriate conditions. On the Sangha The Community of the Blessed Ones disciples is practising the good way (su-patipanno Bhagavato savaka-sangho), the Community of the Blessed Ones disciples is practising the straight way, the Community of the Blessed Ones disciples is practising the way of the true method, the Community of the Blessed Ones disciples is practising the proper way; that is, the four pairs of persons, the eight types of individuals; this Community of the Blessed Ones disciples is worthy of gifts, hospitality, offerings, and reverential salutation, the unsurpassed field of karmic fruitfulness for the world: Sangha: the noble religious Community of people who have been spiritually ennobled by partial or full experience of Nibbana, which the monastic Sangha is particularly designed to produce. The four pairs of persons, the eight kinds of individuals Stream-enterers, Once-returners, Non-returners and Arahats, and those intently practising the Noble Path to realise any of these states. The first three glimpse Nibbana and have some spiritual fetters destroyed; the Arahat fully experiences Nibbana, and is free of all spiritual fetters. These make up the Ariya, or Noble, Sangha. Its members may be monks or nuns, but also include some lay people and even some devas. An incomparable field of karmic fruitfulness (punna, merit) for the world gifts and service planted in this field will produce, for the giver, abundant fruit in the form of happiness and uplifting spiritual qualities. On the four assemblies that make up the noble Sangha, the Buddha said, not long before his death: I will not attain final Nibbana (at death) till I have monk disciples nun disciples laymen disciples and laywomen disciples who are accomplished, trained, skilled, learned, versed in Dhamma, practising Dhamma in accordance with Dhamma, practising the proper way, conducting themselves according to Dhamma, who will pass on what they have gained from their own teacher, teach it, declare it, establish it, expound it, analyse it, make it clear, till they shall be able by means of Dhamma to refute false teachings that have arisen, and teach the Dhamma of wondrous effect. (DN.II.104105). On the relationship of monastics and lay-Buddhists, he said they mutually support each other, with lay people providing material support for those in the monastic Sangha, and receiving Dhamma teachings from them, so that, Householders and the homeless (renunciants) in mutual dependence, both reach the true Dhamma: the unsurpassed safety from bondage (It.111). Recollecting the qualities of the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha A kind of practice which draws on both chanting and formal meditation consists of recollections (anussati) which mindfully contemplate and savour the qualities listed in the Iti pi so Svakhato and Supatipanno chants. Such recollections are seen to help suspend the five hindrances to meditative calm and wisdom (desire for sense-pleasures; ill-will; dullness and lethargy; restlessness and worry; and vacillation). The Suttas say of the recollections When a noble disciple recollects thus, on that occasion his mind is not obsessed by attachment, hatred or delusion; his mind is straight, with the Tathagata (Thus-gone = Buddha), or Dhamma or Sangha as object. A noble disciple whose mind is straight gains inspiration of the meaning, the inspiration of the Dhamma, gains gladness connected with the Dhamma. When he is gladdened, joy arises; for one uplifted by joy, the body becomes tranquil; one tranquil of body feels happy; for one who is happy, the mind becomes concentrated. This is called a noble disciple who dwells evenly amidst an uneven generation, who dwells unafflicted amidst an afflicted generation, who has entered the stream of the Dhamma and cultivates recollection of the Buddha of the Dhamma of the Sangha (AN.III.285). In the Path of Purification, Buddhaghosa says of recollection of the Buddha When a monk is devoted to recollection of the Buddha, he is respectful and deferential towards the teacher/master (satth). He attains fullness of trustful confidence, mindfulness, understanding and karmic fruitfulness (punna). He has much joy and gladness. He conquers fear and dread. He is able to endure pain. He comes to feel as if he were living in the masters presence. And his body, when the recollection of the Buddhas special qualities dwells in it, becomes as worthy of veneration as a shrine room. His mind tends to the plane of the Buddhas. When he encounters an opportunity for transgression, he has a sense of moral integrity and concern for consequences as vivid as though he were face to face with the master. And if he penetrates no higher, he is at least heading for a happy destiny. (Visuddhimagga VII.67) The same is said of recollection of the Dhamma, except that this leads to great reverence for the Dhamma, and He comes to feel as if he were living in the Dhammas presence. And his body, when the recollection of the Dhammas special qualities dwells in it, becomes as worthy of veneration as a shrine room. The same with recollection of the Sangha, except that this leads to being respectful and deferential towards the Sangha, and He comes to feel as if he were living in the Sanghas presence. And his body, when the recollection of the Sanghas special qualities dwells in it, becomes as worthy of veneration as an Uposatha house where the Sangha has met (to recite their precepts). Chanting People may see chanting as simply ritual or devotion, but it can also have a meditative quality as it contributes to the systematic nurturing and growing of good qualities, undermining negative traits which hinder this process, and enabling the arising of insight. Chanting can express skilful states of mind through calm vocalisation that vibrates through the body. It helps tune up the mind and body, as preparation for formal practice it helps prepare a good psychological space in which to sit for meditation. It arouses energy and sometimes joy, but also calms and helps the mind become more mindful and focused. Good chanting involves the whole of a person, body, speech and mind. It builds up a sound body whose quality of vibration and tone corresponds to and enhances the emotional centre, which is felt in the middle of the chest. It sets up harmonious vibrations in the chest and even stomach regions, from where they permeate the rest of the body, helping to clear out inner tensions and associated negative emotions. To attain this effect, the sound must resonate not just in the vocal cords and top of the chest. One needs to apply mindfulness to the sound one is producing, to check on its correctness as regards pronunciation and sound quality. Mindfulness is also needed in remembering the up-coming part of the chant in practice, this means not letting the mind wander onto something else, but leaving a clear mental space into which the words of a learnt chant can emerge without obstruction. The emotions well, wholesome ones are certainly engaged in chanting. In normal life, emotions are often expressed in ones tone of voice, not just in the content of speech. While chanting usually has cognitive content, it also very much works though the kind of tones which it uses, e.g. soothing and harmonious, yet with energy and discipline. The tone quality helps tune the mind of chanters and listeners to mind states normally associated with such tones. One can see chanting as helping to build up, for example, the five faculties, of trustful confidence, vigour, mindfulness, concentration, and even wisdom: from mindfulness of the fluid nature of mind in the process of chanting, as in all else, and in times when the chanting is observed to lift to a level where there is chanting but the sense of there being a chanter drops away. Paritta (pirit) chanting Paritta chanting is of great value in offering protection to those who chant and listen to it, to the extent that they have confidence in the three refuges and live by the precepts. It develops health-giving calm, kind-heartedness that disarms hostility from other beings, makes good karma and brings to fruition past good karma, draws protection from devas who are devotees of the Buddha, and draws on the spiritual power of the Buddha through devoutly chanting his Dhamma-teachings and opening the heart to them. Time to get hooked on books once again By Oshani Alwis The Colombo International Book Fair is on until Sept. 30 View(s): View(s): It is that time of the year when book lovers head to the BMICH to indulge in new books as the Colombo International Book Fair, celebrating its 20th consecutive year, returns with a range of fiction, academic texts, childrens books, stationary and much more. Organized by the Sri Lanka Book Publishers Association, this years exhibition features over 400 book stalls which include 50 foreign publishing houses with a 20% discount on books being offered. Popular bookstores Sarasavi Bookshop, Vijitha Yapa Bookshop, M.D. Gunasena, Makeen Bookshop, Expographic (Pvt) Ltd and Jeya Book Centre including the secondhand book stalls will be favourite destinations of the English readership. Sadeepa, Sathara, Malpiyali, Wasana, Akura, Promate, Richard and Weerodara are expected to be the most visited book and stationery stalls among children and students. Kadol Aththu Major General Kamal Gunaratnes recently launched book based on the experiences of war veterans and disabled soldiers is anticipated to be a fast seller this year. The authors previous book, Road to Nandikadal had been a bestseller at the Book Fair. The 10 day book festival also gives the opportunity to meet and listen to Sri Lankas best authors and attend book launches. Entrance tickets are priced at Rs.20 and the proceeds will be used to fund scholarships to deserving students with financial difficulties to help with their expenses in university education. The theme of this years Book Fair is Readers Make Leaders and Leaders Make Readers. President, Sri Lanka Book Publishers Association Vijitha Yapa, spoke to the Sunday Times about the national programme Kalana Mithuru Poth Sumithuri initiated in this month of reading by the Ministry of Education to encourage students to read. Students are asked to submit lists of books they read to the Education Department who will choose the winners from those who have read the largest number of books. The sight of children coming with their tills and breaking them open at the Book Fair to buy books is a moving sight. What better way is there to use the savings than to invest in their future education and deepen their knowledge, noted Mr. Yapa. The Governments decision to remove taxes on imported books will also contribute to larger sales this year, he added. The Colombo International Book Fair 2018 that began on Friday will be on until September 30 from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. at the BMICH. Now in its second year, Televisual is delighted to be working with the Procam Group to stage this years Media Technology Day on the 1st November at the Ham Yard Hotel. A showcase of the latest camera and lens technology coupled with seminars, panel discussions, and networking, the Media Technology Day is a focused all-day, free to attend industry event for heads of production, producers, directors, production managers, directors of photography and senior production operators. The Media Technology Day includes a compelling line-up of seminars including: A panel discussion with UK broadcast commissioners from C4, UKTV, Channel 5 and the BBC, curated by Televisual The technology and innovation behind the BBCs award-winning Blue Planet II High profile cinematography case studies presented by leading DoPs Best practice production technology presentations And how to plan for and achieve a greener production, from production through post, with Splice and Procam You can see the full seminar session timetable and whos presenting at www.procam.tv/mediatechday You can also catch up with the UKs leading camera and lens vendors all exhibiting in one place with technical experts on hand to answer all of your production questions. Exhibitors include: Cameras: ARRI, Canon, Panasonic, RED and Sony Lenses: Cooke, Fujinon, Sigma, TLS and Zeiss Production Services: Take 2 Film Services, Timecode Systems, Procam Projects and Procam The Media Technology day is the place to find out whats changing in your world, see the latest production technology and catch up with your peers with a drink in the sumptuous Ham Yard Hotel bar. Go to procam.tv/mediatechday for the latest updates and to be notified when registration opens. The Media Technology Day is brought to you by the Procam Group Procam, Take2, Procam Projects and TLS and supported by Televisual. Share this story Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Suadi Saad (The Jakarta Post) Serang Sat, September 22, 2018 11:10 1145 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b3087740777b 3 Opinion Islam,tolerance,religious-harmony,intolerance,haj,hajj-pilgrimage,pilgrimage,umrah,minor-pilgrimage Free Last month Indonesias 221,000 pilgrims performed a major form of worship in Islam, the haj (pilgrimage) which is mandatory for all able Muslims. They have returned to their respective regions throughout Indonesia bringing their own memories. They had left their families and friends for about 40 days and are reunited with a new soul and spirit. We hope that they can return by bringing goodness to society. If not, then they destroy what they built during the haj. As God said in the Surah An Nahl (The Honey Bees) And be not like a woman who breaks into untwisted strands the yarn which she has spun, after it has become strong. We are told that some markers of pilgrimage which is accepted by God (Indonesianized from the Arabic, haji mabrur) include joy of the heart and of the face. But the most important thing is that they return home with goodness. A great Muslim ascetic Hasan al-Basri was once asked, What is meant by al-hajj al-mabrur? and he answered, "You return [from the pilgrimage] in a state of zuhd (ascetic) from life of the world and are happy with [knowledge of] the afterlife". How wonderful it would be if pilgrims return to their families, communities, and regions with a better moral appearance, a more solid mind and various behaviors that invite Gods favor. How wonderful if, after returning, the pilgrims behave well in daily relationships with colleagues, in association with their children and have a good heart. Hopefully the haj have those good behaviors consistently and continuously. As stated in a hadith or Prophets saying, Verily, the most beloved charity by God is the most continued one, even a little. One value that must be implemented continuously by someone who has performed the haj is tolerance. During the haj Muslims from various groups, professions, characteristics and different races interact with humans from various countries, languages and habits. It is a great momentum to internalize love, knowing each other, brotherhood, and tolerance. In the haj, there is no significant differentiation based on sects, gender or color . Haj is a declaration of the principles of tolerance, equality and justice among Muslims. There is no difference between Arabs and non-Arabs except in terms of piety. If an individual errs unintentionally, he will not be responded in a way that suits the mistake, but rather with absolute pardon. There is no difference between the Sunni, the Shiites and other sects. There is a unity of the Islamic ummah. All are seeking the forgiveness of the Oft-Forgiving and the Most Merciful Lord. All are hoping to return from the Holy Places as pure as the day they were born. When returning to his or her country, a pilgrim should have become accustomed to tolerance. Pride in being Muslim means doing good (ihsan) to humanity as a whole, even to non-Muslims. Cant this spirit continue, even if only for a while, after the return of pilgrims from their blessed pilgrimage? We live in a highly diverse country. To achieve Indonesias goals as a prosperous, intelligent, and orderly nation as mandated in the 1945 Constitution, Muslims participation are vital in spreading the seeds of tolerance amid society. Every year at least one of every 1,000 Indonesian Muslims gets the chance to perform the haj. In additions, tens of thousands of others have the opportunity to carry out umrah, the minor pilgrimage. If only five to ten people out of the above 1,000 can spread tolerance, God willing, intolerance will be significantly reduced in our nation. *** The writer is Dean, Faculty of Dawah at the Sultan Maulana Hasanuddin State Islamic University (UIN) in Serang, Banten. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Reuters) Paris Sat, September 22, 2018 07:09 1146 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877400d63 2 Food restaurant,insect,bugs,food,#food,France Free From insect residues in fizzy drinks to beef gelatin in yoghurt, consumer group Foodwatch said it had found undisclosed animal-based ingredients in a dozen food and drink products sold in France. The watchdogs findings come as consumers call for more transparency on the ingredients in their food, and as the number of vegans and vegetarians rises in France.All kinds of critters are hiding in our food and drink without us knowing it, Foodwatch said in a statement published on Thursday denouncing scams on the label. Agri-food manufacturers know very well when they use ingredients, additives or processing aid derived from animals. We also have the right to know in order to choose freely what we want to consume or not, it added. The study found coloring made from cochineal insects in orange fizzy drinks, Asian cochineal secretion in a strawberry ice cream and shiny red apples coated with insect resin. Other products found to contain animal-derived substances included sweets, cheese, chocolate-based desserts and the Italian dessert tiramisu, Foodwatch said. Read also: Gourmet grub: Thai fine-diners explore insect cuisine Foodwatch also launched a separate online petition targeting French yoghurt maker Yoplait in particular, asking the company to make it clear when the gelatin used in its yoghurt comes from animals. A Yoplait spokesman told Reuters that all the companys products complied with the necessary regulations. He said that the gelatin used in the production of the 0 percent fat Panier de Yoplait was of bovine origin, and used only in very small amounts. It will be permanently removed from the recipe in 2019, he added. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Arya Dipa (The Jakarta Post) Bandung, West Java Sat, September 22, 2018 21:06 1145 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877413169 1 Art & Culture Bandung-Philharmonic,music,concert,classical-concert Free Bandung Philharmonic is set to start its fourth season with a concert titled Legenda (legend) at the Hilton Hotel in Bandung on Sunday, September 23. The conductor, Robert Nordling, told The Jakarta Post that the theme of legend was chosen as it was considered to represent the four programs to be played. The four programs comprise Overtur Tragis, Op.81 by Johannes Brahms, Totentanz by Franz Liszt on solo piano played by Aryo Wicaksono, Ngasirah by Marisa Sharon Hartanto and Symphony No.5 in C Minor by Ludwig van Beethoven. Everybody knows Beethovens Symphony No.5 but we are also here to celebrate living people, Marisa and Aryo Wicaksono, major, and living successfully in America, living in New York, one of the hardest city to live for musicians. [The concert combines] legend from the past and living people, said Nordling at a press conference on Thursday. Aryo with his piano would be interpreting Totentanz, Franz Liszts repertoire with the theme dance of death. An orchestra led by Nordling will accompany Aryo. The repertoire makes a brilliant sound with the piano, not showing off technical finesse but it has interesting characters [of sound], synchronized with the orchestra, Aryo says depicting what he is about to play. Nordling also appreciates Marisa who composed a number of repertoires including Ngasirah, the piece that would premiere in Indonesia for the first time. Initially I was going to write about Kartini, but she has already been widely acknowledged. In the process of my composition I became interested in her mother, Ngasirah, who is almost unheard of, said Marisa. Artistic director of Bandung Philharmonic Michael Hall (from left), composer Marisa Sharon Hartanto, conductor Robert Nordling and pianist Aryo Wicaksono pose for a photo at the press conference of 'Legenda' at the Hilton Hotel Bandung on Thursday (JP/Arya Dipa) Read also: Enigma concert premieres Gerbang Nias The diversity of stories in the music compositions will be staged in a 60-minute performance. Nordling said he doesnt promise to present something that is different from Beethovens Symphony No.5 in C Minor. Classical music [is a] little bit different, as a conductor, when you leave the concert I do not want [you] to remember me. I want you to know about Beethoven, said Nordling. (mut) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Iain Rogers (Bloomberg) Sat, September 22, 2018 23:02 1145 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877413b4f 2 Food winemaker,German-winemaker,climate-change Free The Braunewell family has been practicing the ancient art of viticulture in the picturesque hills above the Rhine River since the middle of the 17th century. This years grape harvest, at the end of Germanys second-warmest summer on record, is their earliest ever. Across Germany, the Weinlese is in full swing, and vintners are delighted with what promises to be an excellent year in one of the unique upsides to global warming. For Stefan Braunewell who runs his familys vineyard in Essenheim near Mainz with his grandfather, parents and brother that means gathering the regions famous Riesling crop four weeks earlier than usual. Of course, climate change brings challenges, but these challenges are manageable, Braunewell said in an interview. We can't stick our heads in the sand. It's nature, and you have to deal with it. Changes in weather patterns have been a prominent theme in Germany this year as the country sweltered through the summer months. A sustained drought affected crops so badly that Europes second-biggest grains grower is poised to become a net importer for the first time in more than three decades, and the government has promised farmers as much as 340 million euros ($398 million) in aid. Diminishing river levels have hampered barge traffic and threatened to disrupt power generation. As Braunewell and his peers can attest, however, a long, hot summer has upsides for winemakers above and beyond the early harvest. Ample sunlight increases sugar content, while dry weather keeps fungi from attacking the crop. I don't think we have ever seen such healthy grapes, Braunewell said. It's a bit of a crazy year for us, but the quality is good. The sugar content is excellent, the ripeness is very high and the aroma is great. The favorable weather conditions also boost quantity, with Germanys Federal Statistics Office predicting a 30 percent jump in volume this year. The expected wine harvest of 9.75 million hectoliters is set to be the biggest in a decade. Germanys three biggest wine-growing regions Rheinhessen, Pfalz and Baden produce two-thirds of the nations grapes and had their second-hottest summer on record while not suffering to the same extent as the rest of Germany from drought. So far, the producers are extremely pleased with the quality of the wines, said Monika Reule, managing director of the German Wine Institute. Expectations for crop yield have frequently been surpassed despite the unusually dry conditions. The impact of global warming on German winemaking does carry some downsides, with the characters of traditional wines evolving in a way that doesnt necessarily chime with consumer tastes. Higher sugar concentration means the alcohol content in this years riesling will be around 13 percent, compared with the preferred level of 11 percent or less. It goes against the trend as everyone is struggling these days with stress and sensitive stomachs, Theo Gehring said in an interview at the vineyard he runs with his wife outside the town of Nierstein in the Rheinhessen region. Were getting white wines this year more like ones from the Mediterranean. Read also: French winemakers cheer vintage year Climate changes mean that the entire wine map is shifting. Gehring says he would have to relocate 300 kilometers (190 miles) to the north to produce the same kind of wines as 40 or 50 years ago. Were getting white wines like ones from the Mediterranean. Theo Gehring But in general, most of the effects of climate change have been positive for the countrys vintners, according to Stuart Pigott, a British wine expert based in Eppstein near Frankfurt who has been writing about the industry in Germany for 35 years. Reds is the field where the leap forward, thanks to climate change, has been the most dramatic, Pigott said. Two decades ago, a high-end Pinot Noir selling for at least 100 euros a bottle could be made three or four times a decade, whereas now they can be produced every year, he said. Still, German winemakers are well aware of the risks posed by global warming. Extreme weather events have become more common, and less predictable forecasting is prompting vintners to hedge their bets by planting different grapes in various parts of their vineyards, complicating the production process. Were experiencing climate change in a very extreme way, said Gehring. You can see how nature is being influenced by industrialization and the depletion of the rain forests, how the climate is changing. In the end, wine is a product of nature. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Jessicha Valentina (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sun, September 23, 2018 06:01 1145 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877415b4d 1 Science & Tech data,#DataAnalytics,technology,#technology,industry,Industry-4-0 Free The fourth industrial revolution, popularly known as Industry 4.0, is unstoppable. Soon, many occupations will be replaced with machines, limiting job opportunities. With that in mind, Budiman Sudjatmiko, a House of Representatives member from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), founded Inovator 4.0, gathering individuals from different backgrounds to build the country based on data. Inovator 4.0 [Indonesia] is a group of [people] that realize that the development of tools can be faster than that of ideas, said Budiman during the declaration of Inovator 4.0 Indonesia on Thursday. LIVE via Youtube Dekalarasi Inovator 4.0 Indonesia: Kerja & Membangun Indonesia dengan Data Klik link berikut:https://t.co/CLLbqt3WmB pic.twitter.com/Ch4sPcH87L Inovator 4.0 Indonesia (@inovator4id) September 20, 2018 Budiman explained that the group was currently comprised of 200 individuals of different occupations, such as progressive politicians, data scientists, neuroscientists, educators and more. We dont want ideas to be left behind, said Budiman, adding that technological development actually was also a reflection of a nations ideology. He cited liberalism in the United States generating Silicon Valley as an example. Inovator 4.0 Indonesia aimed to discover the ideology of Pancasila in the countrys technological development. Read also: Industry 4.0 career guide: How to avoid being replaced by robots In the [fourth] industrial revolution, does Indonesia want to be a passenger or a leader? he asked. In this 21st century, we need to [work] based on data, not based on a myth, he said. During the event, Inovator 4.0 also invited several speakers to highlight the importance of data in several fields. Zenius education founder Sabda PS said the current educational program was designed for the second industrial revolution and as such was no longer suitable for modern industry. Sabda explained that, using technology, we actually could create a program that produces quality teaching and educational equality. In what he called Education 4.0, data collected from the program could be used to revolutionize the curriculum. (kes) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, September 22, 2018 09:07 1145 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b308774048ab 1 Lifestyle modest-fashion,designer,fashion,#fashion,Paris-Fashion-Week,Paris Free Six Indonesian fashion designers specializing in modest wear are set to showcase their works at Paris Fashion Week 2018 set to be held at d'Evreux Hotel, Place Vendome, Paris, on Sept. 25. Part of Indonesia Modest Fashion Designer (IMFD), the six designers who will be presenting the coastal culture theme are Si.Se.Sa, Jeny Tjahyawati, Lia Afifi, Ratu Anita Soviah, Nila Baharuddin and Melia Wijaya. "There will be five designers and one couture who will participate in Paris Fashion Week. We depart [for Paris] starting today and tomorrow, highlighting coastal culture heritage as the theme," said Jeny Tjahyawati, who also serves as the head of IMFD, during a press conference in Jakarta on Friday as quoted by Antara. Jeny has prepared 15 collections and will collaborate with tenun (woven fabric) artisans of Ende, Bali. The colors presented in the collections will also be a signature of Ende. Read also: Indonesia takes part in Contemporary Muslim Fashions exhibition "I'm also using a pleating technique in this collection; the colors will follow the color of tenun. The preparation was less than a month since I'm also a coordinator for Paris Fashion Week," said Jeny. Meanwhile, siblings Siriz, Senaz and Sansa, who gathered in Si.Se.Sa, will present the "Fascinating Java" theme inspired by Javanese culture, especially from Kudus in Central Java. "Batik Kudus is famous for its isen-isen [intricate patterns]; but we will create a more modern version of it. We will also highlight Tasik embroidery, which is famous for its cute flowers. We want to showcase to the world that syar'i [Muslim] fashion can also be exclusive with the addition of Swarovski," said Senaz. (kes) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, September 22, 2018 08:08 1146 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b3087740253b 1 Lifestyle Zalora,Make-Up-For-Ever,online-shopping,e-commerce,beauty Free Online fashion platform Zalora has officially launched a makeup and beauty section. This newest addition includes renowned beauty brand Make Up For Ever, among others. Marking its debut with Zalora, Make Up For Ever -- together with other e-commerce entities -- is introducing special offers that include exclusive deals and makeup sets. Lia Kurtz, Make Up For Evers general manager, said in a statement released by Zalora that the makeup brand was satisfied with its collaborative online launch. The makeup brand revealed that best-selling items like Matte Velvet Skin Compact Foundation, which was launched in August, would be available online. The foundation comes in many shades, and it is said to have been well-received by makeup artists and beauty junkies alike. Also available is Aqua Seal, a liquid converter designed to turn all types of eye shadow (powder and pencil) into smudge-proof, waterproof, long lasting formulas. Zalora is aiming to fulfill its customers needs by stocking top beauty products from local and international brands because it is aware that Indonesias makeup and beauty sector has shown lucrative growth and potential. Read also: This season's makeup trends according to Archangela Chelsea Seeing the rapid growth in Indonesias makeup and beauty industry, we [at Zalora] came to the understanding that this is what the Indonesian consumer wants. We therefore launched a beauty category, hoping to meet the demand to satisfy our customers. We directly collaborated with the big brands so that the originality of the products is guaranteed, said Anthony Fung, the CEO of Zalora Indonesia. Make Up For Ever products, a French cosmetics brand owned by LVMH, are now available online from Zalora Indonesia, along with other cosmetic brands such as Babyliss Pro, Sigma, Rollover Reaction, L.A. Girl, Cathy Doll, and many more. (mut) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, September 22, 2018 09:26 1145 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b3087740527d 4 Politics PKB,preachers,hate-speech,sermon Free National Awakening Party (PKB) secretary-general Abdul Kadir Karding has reported Muslim preacher Yahya Waloni to the police for alleged hate speech. On Friday, Karding came to the Criminal Investigation Department (Bareskrim) in Jakarta to report the Muslim preacher over statements he made during his sermons on Youtube. Those statements, he said, allegedly violated the 2016 law on electronic information and transactions. He said Yahyas sermons were provocative and insulting to vice presidential candidate Maruf Amin, former West Nusa Tenggara governor TGH Zainul Majdi, also known as Tuan Guru Bajang (TGB), and Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) chairwoman Megawati Soekarno Putri. It is inappropriate for figures like Maruf Amin, Pak TGB and our former president Ibu Megawati to be attacked with such derogatory and insulting statements, he said as quoted by kompas.com. Karding submitted the video of the said sermon as evidence. He said he hoped that the police could follow up on his report as soon as possible. (ris) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, September 22, 2018 09:01 1145 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b3087740425e 1 City MRT,South-Tangerang,extension,plan Free With the large number of daily commuters from South Tangerang to Jakarta, MRT Jakarta is reported to be considering extending the route to the region. South Tangerang Mayor Airin Rachmi Diany claimed she had discussed the MRT extension plan with MRT Jakarta president director William Sabandar and Greater Jakarta Transportation Agency (BPTJ) head Bambang Prihartono earlier this year. Airin cited Statistics Indonesia (BPS) data that showed almost half of South Tangerangs 1.5 million population worked in Jakarta. That means no less than 750,000 people commute to Jakarta every day, she said on Tuesday as quoted by kompas.com. According to Airin, MRT Jakarta was conducting the extensions feasibility study, which would become the basis to determine the extension route as well as the budget needed. She added that she even proposed that the extension reach as far as Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang. The route under study was from Lebak Bulus to Ciputat, Pamulang, Rawa Buntu, Serpong, and Soekarno-Hatta International Airport. Airin hoped that the feasibility study could finish soon. I hope that it can be finished before my term ends, she said. Before 2021 [I hope] there will be [an MRT in South Tangerang]. (stu) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, September 22, 2018 08:02 1146 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b3087740116c 1 City South-Tangerang,administration,town-square,development Free The South Tangerang administration has allocated Rp 49 billion (US$3.3 million) to build a 20-hectare alun-alun (town square) located in front of the administration office in Ciputat. "The square is planned to occupy a 20 ha plot of land. In the first stage, [well develop] 4 ha, South Tangerang Housing and Land Agency land use division head Rizkyah said on Friday. Rizkyah acknowledged that the wide size of the square made land acquisition more challenging. Weve allocated Rp 49 billion, and Rp 40 billion has been used. So this year, weve still got Rp 9 billion left. Its most likely that well continue the project next year, he said. "In the master plan, it is not only an office, as there will also be an alun-alun for ceremonies and other governmental events, South Tangerang deputy mayor Benyamin Davnie said, as quoted by wartakota.tribunnews.com. (stu) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Montreal, Canada Sat, September 22, 2018 09:39 1145 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877405c39 2 World #gender,#Canada,Canada,host,Women,foreign-minister Free Women foreign ministers from around the world kicked off a first-of-its-kind meeting on Friday, bringing together more than half of the world's top women diplomats in Montreal. Women are "key to finding solutions to the political, economic and social challenges facing our societies," Canada's top diplomat Chrystia Freeland said Friday at the opening of the two-day summit. The meeting will center on four topics: women in politics and positions of leadership; strengthening democracy; promoting peace and security and eliminating gender-based violence. "I will always promote equal representation and respect for the rights of women and girls" Freeland said, because "when we are all involved in the decision-making process, our societies become stronger, our economies and our middle class become more prosperous and our countries safer." Freeland is co-chairing the meeting with EU foreign affairs representative Federica Mogherini. At the opening session, both expressed hope that this meeting will mark the beginning of a tradition of cooperation between women ministers. In addition to Freeland and Mogherini, the conference brings together ministers from 18 other countries: Andorra, Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Croatia, Dominican Republic, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Kenya, Namibia, Norway, Panama, South Africa, Rwanda, South Africa, Saint Lucia and Sweden. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, September 22 2018 State energy holding company Pertamina complained on Friday about a lack of fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) supplied to 43 of its fuel terminals, where the firm refines it into 20 percent blended biodiesel ( B20 ), from the total 112 terminals available. FAME, the raw material of which is crude palm oil, has yet to be supplied to Pertamina in the eastern part of Indonesia, such as in East Nusa Tenggara, Maluku, Papua and Sulawesi. All of our terminals are ready to produce B20. However, the production of biodiesel depends on FAME, and we havent receive our full supply, Pertamina president director Nicke Widyawati said on Friday in a press statement. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Los Angeles, United States Sat, September 22, 2018 08:08 1146 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b308774030d4 2 World #Crime,#CatholicChurch,Catholic,Priest,arrest,sex-abuse Free A Catholic priest on the run for more than 25 years has been arrested in Morocco and extradited to the United States to face charges that he sexually assaulted a young boy in the 1990s, federal prosecutors in New Mexico said Friday. Arthur Perrault, now 80 years old, stands accused of aggravated sexual abuse of a minor under the age of 12 on several occasions in 1991 and 1992, while he served as a military chaplain at Kirtland Air Force base outside Albuquerque. The boy was assaulted both at the base and at Santa Fe National Cemetery, US prosecutor John Anderson told reporters. "The indictment alleges a profound breach of trust by an individual who was widely perceived as a mentor to young people and a respected figure in the community," Anderson said in a statement handed out by the Justice Department. The priest vanished in 1992, shortly before lawsuits were filed against the Archdiocese of Santa Fe over Perrault's alleged abuse of seven children in his parish, Anderson said. According to investigators, Perrault first fled to Canada and then Morocco, where the Federal Bureau of Investigation agents eventually tracked him down last year. He was arrested in October 2017. If convicted of the charges covered in the indictment, unsealed on Friday, Perrault could face up to life in prison. Local media reported that Perrault had worked as an English teacher in Morocco, notably at the American Language Center in Tangier. Anderson said he was extradited to the United States on Thursday. "Perrault will finally appear in an American courtroom to answer for the charges against him," said FBI special agent James Langenberg, who is in charge of the investigation. He thanked Morocco for its cooperation. "But this case is not over. The FBI is seeking information from individuals who may have additional information about Perrault's contacts with minors over the years," Langenberg added. Authorities are concerned that the priest, who worked in New Mexico from 1973 to 1992, may have abused many others. The indictment is the latest development in the roiling abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church, with shocking revelations of endemic abuse in Australia, Chile and the United States. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, September 22, 2018 14:15 1145 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b3087740b968 1 National waste,pollution,river,garut Free Residents of Sumbersari village in Garut, West Java, held a rally to protest against leather-tanning factories that dumped untreated wastewater into the Ciwalen River in Sukaregang, a leather-crafting hub, on Friday. During the rally, the protesters dumped a container of solid waste onto a street and poured water from the Ciwalen River onto it, which emitted unpleasant odors. The protesters also blocked the factories' wastewater sewer with sacks so that the factories could no longer dump wastewater into the river. Bengbeng, who organized the protest, said residents living in the vicinity of the Ciwalen River had long complained about unpleasant odors coming from the river. He demanded that the local government close factories that polluted the river. Garut Kota district head Bambang Hafid said his side would hold a mediation meeting between the protesters and leather-tanning businesspeople. Garut Environment, Hygiene and Park Agency secretary Guriansyah said only one out of 54 leather-tanning factories, which have large tanning machines, had its own wastewater treatment plant. The number of houses that run home-scale leather tanning [operations], meanwhile, is more than 300, he said as quoted by kompas.com. (swd) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, September 22, 2018 13:51 1145 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b308774094f8 1 World Vietnamese-citizens,Vietnam,Jokowi,president,TranDaiQuang Free President Joko Jokowi Widodo has expressed condolences to the Vietnamese people over the passing of their eighth president, Tran Dai Quang, who died Friday. I am saddened by this sad news because I just met him on Sept. 11, 2018. I was impressed by his dedication to his country and the people of Vietnam, Jokowi wrote in the caption of a post on his official Instagram account @jokowi on Saturday. Jokowi visited Vietnam last week and was welcomed by his Vietnamese counterpart Quang, who was a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of Vietnam. The two presidents discussed economic cooperation and bilateral relationships. My prayers go out to [his] family, colleagues and the Vietnamese people. May he rest in peace, Jokowi said. Quang passed away on Friday at 10:05 a.m. local time at the age of 61. According to the Board of Healthcare Services for Senior Officials, Quang died at Military Central Hospital 108 in Hanoi, Vietnam, due to serious illness, the state media said without elaborating. Agence France-Presse reported that Quangs last public appearance was on Wednesday in a meeting with visiting Chinese politicians and foreign dignitaries in Hanoi. Quang had served as president since April 2016, after having previously served as minister of public security. (sau) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Tehran Sat, September 22, 2018 14:14 1145 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b3087740aa7a 2 World Iran,terror-attack,Middle-East Free Militants attacked a military parade in southwestern Iran on Saturday, killing several civilians, state media reported. A woman and a child were among at least 20 people wounded in the attack by a "group of assailants" on the parade in the city of Ahvaz, the official IRNA news agency reported. The semi-official Fars news agency said two gunmen opened fire on the large crowd of spectators and then attempted to attack the viewing stand for official dignitaries before being shot and wounded by security forces. The rare attack targeted Khuzestan, a province bordering Iraq that has a large ethnic Arab community, many of them Sunni, and was a major battleground of the devastating 1980-88 conflict between Iran and Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Saturday's rally was one of many in cities across Iran held to mark the anniversary of the launch of the war with massive Iraqi air strikes. Attacks by Kurish rebels on military patrols along the border in mainly ethnic Kurdish areas further north are relatively common. But attacks on regime targets inside major cities are far rarer. On June 7, 2017, 17 people were killed and dozens wounded in simultaneous attacks in Tehran on parliament and on the tomb of revolutionary leader Ruhollah Khomeini, building -- the first inside Iran claimed by the Sunni Muslim extremists of the Islamic Strate group. Iran's President Hassan Rouhani vowed earlier Saturday to boost his country's ballistic missile capabilities despite Western concerns that were cited by his US counterpart Donald Trump in May when he abandoned a landmark nuclear deal with Tehran. "We will never decrease our defensive capabilities... we will increase them day by day," Rouhani said at a separate military parade in the capital. "The fact that the missiles anger you shows they are our most effective weapons," he said, referring to the West. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, September 22, 2018 16:41 1145 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b3087740e6c1 1 City mob-violence,Bekasi,murder Free A 15-year-old boy was killed in a case of deadly mob violence in West Cikarang, Bekasi, West Java, on Thursday. The victim, identified as Ricky, and his partner allegedly mugged a man identified only as EW, 24, taking his motorcycle and mobile phone, West Cikarang Police criminal investigation unit chief First Insp. Elman said. "The slain suspect was Ricky from Cikarang," Elman said on Friday, as quoted by kompas.com. EW and others were hanging out in a coffee shop when the two suspects approached him on a motorcycle. One of the suspects got off the motorcycle and threatened EW with a machete. "At that time the mobile phone and the motorcycle key were on the table, and the suspect grabbed the phone and key and took the motorcycle," Elman said. When the suspects were about to flee, EW and others shouted for help and locals chased the suspects. The suspects hit the wall of a local's house and fell. Ricky was reportedly beaten to death while the other suspect fled the scene and has yet to be apprehended by the police. The motorcycle that Ricky had taken has been returned to EW, Bekasi Police criminal investigation unit chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Rizal Marito said. But EW's mobile phone was taken by the other suspect. "We're still hunting for the other suspect, our personnel have been deployed in different places," Rizal said. The police said they would investigate the case of mob violence as well. (stu) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Paul Handley (Agence France-Presse) Washington, United States Sat, September 22, 2018 10:47 1145 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b308774068b0 2 World DonaldTrump,UnitedStates,presidency Free Donald Trump faced a new challenge to his authority Friday after US media reported that his deputy attorney general had discussed ways to force him from office on grounds of incompetence, just months into his presidency. In the latest bombshell to rock the troubled administration, The New York Times and The Washington Post reported that Rod Rosenstein in May 2017 had suggested secretly recording Trump for evidence of White House dysfunction -- and using that to formally remove him from power. Coming on the heels of an explosive book by respected White House chronicler Bob Woodward, the reports added to mounting evidence indicating that numerous people in Trump's own government have serious doubts about his fitness for office -- and have actively worked to undermine him. As the number two Justice Department official, Rosenstein oversees the probe into whether Trump's 2016 election campaign colluded with Russians in defeating Democrat Hillary Clinton. The Time and Post reports were both based on secret memos by a former FBI director -- which some speculated may have been leaked in order to undermine Rosenstein, and in turn the Russia special prosecutor Robert Mueller. Rosenstein branded the reports "inaccurate and factually incorrect." "I never pursued or authorized recording the president and any suggestion that I have ever advocated for the removal of the president is absolutely false," he added. And the Justice Department released a statement by a former senior official -- who would not be identified -- saying that he was "in the room" at the time and that Rosenstein was only joking. "The statement was sarcastic and was never discussed with any intention of recording a conversation with the president," said the former official. Trump's son Donald Trump Jr held up the reports as evidence of disloyalty among the president's entourage. "Who are we kidding at this point?" he tweeted, above a link to the Times article. "No one is shocked that these guys would do anything in their power to undermine @realdonaldtrump." Trump's Republican ally Mike Huckabee meanwhile urged Attorney General Jeff Sessions to fire Rosenstein -- or for Trump to fire them both if he refuses. Washington was convulsed this month by the release of Woodward's book on the inner workings of the White House -- which he described as mired in a perpetual "nervous breakdown" with staff battling to control an unstable president. Compounding Woodward's account, The New York Times went on to publish an op-ed by an anonymous senior official -- whose identity remains a mystery -- claiming that select administration staff members are so alarmed by the president's "erratic" and "amoral" behavior that they actively sabotage his most extreme policy efforts. "We believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic," the writer said. The latest reports were based on private memos written by then-interim FBI director Andrew McCabe, summarizing discussions with Rosenstein. Because Rosenstein oversees the Russia probe, there was immediate speculation that the memos may have been leaked in order to damage Rosenstein, and by extension Mueller -- more than to hurt Trump. Rosenstein appointed Mueller in May 2017 as the special counsel for the Russia investigation. After securing convictions of seven people associated with Trump, Mueller's probe increasingly threatens the White House and the president himself. Trump has repeatedly pressured Rosenstein and Sessions to shut down what he calls an illegal "witch hunt." The president did not respond specifically to the shock news reports, but at a political rally in Missouri late Friday he referred to "what's being exposed at the Department of Justice and the FBI." "You have some real bad ones. You see what's happening at the FBI they're all gone, they're all gone," he said. "There's a lingering stench and we're going to get rid of that too," Trump finished. Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the Senate, immediately sought to pre-empt any attempt to fire Rosenstein. "This story must not be used as a pretext for the corrupt purpose of firing Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein in order (to) install an official who will allow the president to interfere with the Special Counsel's investigation," Schumer said. The Times said Rosenstein made the comments in a particularly chaotic period, in the weeks right after he was appointed deputy attorney general. Rosenstein's alleged allusion to the 25th amendment of the US Constitution, which provides for removing a president if they are judged unfit for office, came just after Trump fired FBI director James Comey -- invoking a memo written by Rosenstein. According to the Times, Rosenstein was unhappy about being "used" by Trump in the firing of Comey, as well as concerned about other turmoil in the White House under the new president. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Sat, September 22 2018 Many South Koreans have criticized President Moon Jae-ins tireless approach to North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-un, including his three-day visit to Pyongyang last week. Moon has met with Kim twice earlier this year, but with his predecessors failing to reach any peace progress with the North, the South Koreans may be asking why their president is wasting time trying to make peace with a regime that has continued to haunt them with nuclear threats. Their frustration and resentment have deepened as they realize denuclearization of the North is impossible without the full support of United States President Donald Trump. Not only has the US leader lost interest in following up his Singapore summit with Kim, he also wants to punish South Korea with trade restriction for dealing with the North. Trump has threatened to withdraw US troops from South Korea once significant progress is made in the reunification process of the peninsula. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Los Angeles, United States Sat, September 22, 2018 08:28 1145 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b3087740340f 2 World #USA,#SexualViolence,police,investigate,doctor,Sexual-assault Free Authorities in California said Friday they have received dozens of new leads from possible new victims of a US surgeon and his girlfriend who have been charged with drugging and sexually assaulting two women. Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said more than 12 of those leads were credible -- and that investigators are looking at crimes that may have occurred years ago. The surgeon, 38-year-old Grant Robicheaux, and his 31-year-old girlfriend, Cerissa Riley, allegedly targeted their victims at bars and restaurants -- but may also have used dating apps such as Tinder and Bumble. "We're expanding our inquiries to several states and as well as other parts of California," Rackauckas said. "Ladies, please be careful when you meet people on these kinds of apps. You don't know what's behind... what appears to be a perfect smile." In the two cases that have already led to criminal charges, the pair are accused of using ecstasy, date rape drugs and cocaine to incapacitate their victims before assaulting them at Robicheaux's home in Newport Beach. The prosecutor said that one man had come forward with allegations against the couple. Robicheaux -- who once appeared on the Bravo television show "Online Dating Rituals of the American Male" -- and Riley are due to be arraigned on October 25. If convicted, Robicheaux faces up to 40 years in prison. Riley could face 30 years behind bars. Investigators are examining hundreds of videos of alleged assaults found on Robicheaux's phone after he was arrested. Attorneys for Robicheaux and Riley have denied the allegations. Both Robicheaux and Riley are free on $100,000 bonds. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Apriadi Gunawan (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, September 22, 2018 20:04 1145 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877411e08 1 National drug-abuse,drug-trafficking,prison,Medan Free The National Narcotics Agency (BNN) arrested a prison officer and a prisoner for allegedly trafficking methamphetamine and ecstasy in Lubuk Pakam Penitentiary in Deli Serdang, North Sumatra. BNN deputy for drug eradication Insp. Gen. Arman Depari said the agency got a tip-off that drugs from Malaysia were about to be delivered to Indonesia and be circulated inside the penitentiary. The agency raided the penitentiary and caught a drug courier named Bayu when he was delivering a package of 50 grams of meth. The meth carried by the courier was collected by a prison officer named Maredi, who was ordered to do so by a prisoner named Dekyan. Both were arrested when they were handing over the meth inside the penitentiary, Amran said in Medan on Saturday. Following the arrest in Lubuk Pakam Penitentiary, Amran said the agency had arrested another five suspects who were also involved in the drug dealing syndicate at different locations. The agency confiscated 36 kilograms of meth and 3,000 ecstasy pills from five suspects. Cash amounting to Rp 681.6 million (US$46,213), a debit card, bankbook, digital scale, passport, motorcycle and car belonging to the suspects was also seized. All the haram drugs were smuggled from Malaysia, Amran said. (sau) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, September 22 2018 Students and young adults gathered at the Jakarta International Expo in Central Jakarta for an educational creative technology event, the popularity of which highlighted increased public interest in the creative economy. This years Bekraf Habibie Festival, a technological festival held by the Creative Economy Agency, will run until Sunday, showcasing hundreds of communities, universities, hobbyists, projects and programs, ranging from famous self-sustaining hobbyists and prize-winning technologists to fashion designers and experienced curriculum trainers. Central Jakarta resident Linda Sjukri brought her 9-year-old son to the event after he enjoyed last years festival. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Winny Tang (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, September 22 2018 Toll road operator PT Jakarta Lingkar Baratsatu (JLB) has issued bonds worth Rp 1.3 trillion (US$87.84 million), mainly for the purpose of debt refinancing amid rising cost of funds due to the increasing Bank Indonesia (BI) benchmark rate. The bonds issued are divided into two tenures: series A worth Rp 875 billion with a three-year tenure and series B worth Rp 425 billion with a five-year tenure. They are offered with annual coupon rates of 9.75 percent and 10.65 percent, respectively. The company appointed securities firms Mandiri Sekuritas and Bank Central Asia (BCA) Sekuritas as underwriters for the bonds issuance, while state-owned lender Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI) will act as a trustee. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, September 22, 2018 18:18 1145 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877410ce0 1 Politics Din-Syamsuddin,Muhammadiyah,politics,presidential-election Free Former Muhammadiyah chairman Muhammad Sirajuddin "Din" Syamsuddin has resigned from his post as a presidential envoy for religious harmony, saying he wants to stay neutral in the 2019 presidential election. Din said he delivered his resignation letter on Friday, shortly after the ballot number draw at the General Elections Commission (KPU). Muhammadiyah, the organization that I led, is committed to not getting involved in politics, he said in Jakarta, as quoted by tempo.co. So I must be [politically] neutral. Din, who is also a former Indonesian Ulema Council chairman, said the title "presidential special envoy" could be easily construed as an indication that he was rooting for the incumbent candidate, President Joko Jokowi Widodo. Jokowi said he had yet to receive Dins resignation letter, adding that he would meet with the Muslim figure soon. Muhammadiyah is the second largest Islamic organization in the country. Along with Nahdlatul Ulama, the group has been politically influential despite its formal policy banning its leaders from engaging in practical politics. (sau) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) New York, United States Sat, September 22, 2018 07:07 1146 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877400577 2 World #DonaldTrump,#SupremeCourt,DonaldTrump,SupremeCourt,Sexual-assault Free President Donald Trump's outburst demanding to know why a university academic accusing his Supreme Court nominee of sexual assault in the 1980s failed to come forward sooner, saw a new #MeToo era hashtag storm the internet Friday. #WhyIDidntReport was the top trending conversation starter on Twitter in the United States, as people, mostly women, vented outrage over past sexual transgressions and to stand in solidarity with Christine Blasey Ford, the Californian professor who took decades to accuse Brett Kavanaugh of groping her when they were teens. By mid-afternoon East Coast time, tens of thousands of tweets had been posted to the microblogging platform as users explained why they had not reported occasions on which they too had been sexually assaulted in the past. "I was sexually assaulted twice. Once when I was a teenager. I never filed a police report and it took me 30 years to tell me parents," tweeted actress Alyssa Milano. "The first time it happened, I was 7. I told the first adults I came upon. They said 'Oh, he's a nice old man, that's not what he meant,'" tweeted activist Ashley Judd, one of dozens of women who accused Harvey Weinstein of harassment. "So when I was raped at 15, I only told my diary. When an adult read it, she accused me of having sex with an adult man," she added. Friday's hashtag is the latest echo of the #MeToo movement, which was itself started by a hashtag, encouraging victims of sexual misconduct to speak out following the allegations that have toppled Weinstein and other powerful men. On Friday Trump abandoned any restraint over Blasey Ford as he demanded that the Republican-controlled Senate get on with confirming Kavanaugh -- and so tilt the highest US judicial body further to the right before November's crucial mid-term elections. "Why didn't someone call the FBI 36 years ago?" the president tweeted. "I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents," he added. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Sao Paulo, Brazil Sat, September 22, 2018 09:09 1145 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877404aae 2 SE Asia #USA,#MiddleEastConflict,hezbollah,leader,arrest,Brazil Free Brazilian police on Friday arrested a Lebanese citizen on suspicions of raising funds for Lebanon-based Shiite military group Hezbollah, which the United States considers a terrorist group. Assad Ahmad Barakat, 51, was arrested on Brazil's three-way border with Argentina and Paraguay close to the world-renown Iguazu Falls, accused of carrying fake identity documents, federal police said. "Members of the Barakat Clan made purchases worth $10 million, without declaring their value, at a casino in the Argentine city of Iguazu," Brazilian police said, "with the view to laundering the organization's money." The money was allegedly destined for Hezbollah's coffers, but the funds and other assets were frozen by Argentine authorities, Brazilian police said. Barakat spent six years in a Paraguayan prison for tax evasion but was released in 2008, after which he moved to Brazil. In 1989 he had obtained Paraguayan nationality but was stripped of it in 2003 following his conviction. Yet in April he was issued a Paraguayan passport, according to Asuncion, which says it is investigating that case. In 2006 Barakat was added to a US list of individuals and groups operating in the triple border area and financing Hezbollah, which has close links to Iran's regime. The US Treasury Department described Barakat as a "global terrorist," and said his network was a "major financial artery to Hezbollah." Around one million people live in three cities that converge on the triple border, an area US officials suspect of harboring dormant Islamic terror cells. As well as a military group, Hezbollah also has a political wing that features prominently in Lebanon's governing coalition. While Washington considers the whole group a terrorist organization, the European Union only designates its military wing as such. As a prospective or current English student in higher education, it is difficult to ignore the Eurocentricity of the university curriculum.British universities English courses are overwhelmingly white, almost entirely structured around the literature of white authors and European thinkers. Indeed white male authors such as Homer, Eliot, and Shakespeare feature majorly on the compulsory components of the curriculum and, at best, there are opportunities to study outside this sphere in limited optional modules such as African literature, colonialism, and gender and sexuality. The issue is deep-rooted and can be traced back to the structure of primary and secondary education where global history, and not just the history of literature, is taught from an exclusively British perspective. This colonial lens is carried through into higher education, realised in the curriculums narrow focus upon the British canon, which is notoriously historically problematic in writing out the works of BME writers and female authors. By exclusively focusing on literature, art, and film created by white European authors, universities' syllabuses reinforce a single colonial perspective of literary and global history, contradicting the basic premise of higher education. How can students, as per the aims of their course, think critically and interrogate assumptions, meanings, and perspectives when their curriculum does not include the long history of English literature composed by black and minority authors? Decolonising the curriculum does not mean that foundational authors such as Shakespeare should be excluded from university syllabus, but it instead demands more serious attention and weight should be afforded to the literature of BME authors and thinkers of the global south, in order to enhance students perspectives and intellectual thoughts. Tellingly, university students have called for the diversification of English courses at British universities on more than one occasion.In 2004, students at University College of London (UCL) initiated a campaign named 'Why is my curriculum white?' attracting national attention to the lack of representation afforded to BME authors in the curriculum. More than a decade later, in 2017, 150 students at Cambridge University followed suit by signing an open letter titled Decolonising the English Faculty. The letter, written by Lola Olufemi, the Student Union womens officer at the time, calls for a change in the elevation of white male authors on the syllabus of one of Britains most prestigious universities. In the letter, Olufemi states: As a whole, [the curriculum] risks perpetuating institutional racism. Their concerns echo that of the first black woman to be president of the National Union of Students, Malia Bouatia, who stated in an interview with the Guardian in September 2016 that BME students are being forced to engage with content that doesnt relate to them, and perhaps is psychologically destructive. Their comments prove that furthering the representation of BME authors on the curriculum is not just about widening perspectives but also crucial to challenging structural inequalities in the higher education system and questioning the colonial ideologies behind our reluctance to stray from the traditional British canon of literature. English courses could also benefit from the inclusion of non-European literature and literary traditions, for instance, the long and rich history of oral tradition and community-based story-telling in West African countries such as Somalia. By broadening the curriculum to include the artistry and traditions of different communities around the world, students learning could be enhanced by analysing how other cultures literary traditions are related or opposed to more exclusively canonical literature. The diversification or decolonisation of the curriculum will not happen overnight, but, nevertheless, practical change can be put into place by introducing lectures which invite intellectual discussion of colonialism in the history of English literature or encourage students to employ different perspectives and by increasing the representation of BME authors and non-European literary traditions in compulsory modules. In doing so, universities can create significant dialogue about race, class, and gender, and encourage students to challenge the colonial ideologies which continue to permeate the curriculum. Earlier this month, PhD student Nurjahan Saleque arrived in Hamburg to complete a six-month placement at a biotechnology company. She was renting an apartment in Bonningstedt when she started looking for listings in areas with better transport access to her workplace. Speaking exclusively to TNS, Nurjahan said that it takes her, on average, 40 minutes to commute to work by bus. Her apartment, which is located in a suburban area, is out of reach from other - more convenient - transport links. Initially, she chose not to live in the city centre because of the distance. 'The reason why I didn't live in the centre of Hamburg was because it's far from work, the journey would take me about 45 minutes to an hour. But now it is taking me 40 minutes from where I'm living to the neighbouring town where I'm working.' When she started looking for an alternative location, Nurjahan came across an entire studio apartment in the district of Langenhorn- complete with its own kitchen area, washing machine and bathroom - listed at 626 per month. More importantly, buses and trains were within walking distance.The apartment was also conveniently located 10 minutes from Hamburg Airport. She sent a message to Claudia, whose profile showed five-stars for that particular property. In the home highlights, Claudia is listed as a 'Superhost' - a title awarded to 'experienced, highly rated hosts.' Her bio states that she speaks six languages, completed a doctorate and is an author by profession. Overall, she is an accomplished woman. In her message, Nurjahan explained her situation. 'I was hoping to see whether I could book your apartment for 3 months from December,' she wrote. Her request was almost immediately declined. When asked for clarification, Claudia explained that her apartment was free but she didn't think Nurjahan would 'fit into our neighbourhood' because of her headscarf.The Superhost further remarked that the decision to decline the request 'has nothing to do with your personal preferences.' However, in her earlier message, Claudia clearly states that she rejected the request AFTER viewing Nurjahan's profile picture. She explicitly refers to the 'veil' as her reason for the rejection.She further cites her neighbours' preferences as a contributing factor to her decision. 'It's just that my neighbors have asked me to respect their preferences and I have also agreed to do so. We all have to give in to our surroundings in some way or other and I would like to remain on good terms with my neighbors.' In shock, Nurjahan asked her friends for their advice and later contacted Airbnb. She highlighted that Claudia had clearly breached their compliance policies which state that an Airbnb hostdecline a guest based on religion. Following the complaint, Airbnb offered an apology and travel credit. They have also permanently removed Claudia's listings and have reassured Nurjahan that she will not be able to make duplicate accounts as every hosting application requires vetting and ID. In 2017, an Airbnb host was made to pay $5,000 in damages after cancelling a reservation because the guests were Asian. Further research reveals that a refugee shelter in Langenhorn was subject to a police search after the Hamburg knife attack in 2017. The attacker described as a 'and 'Islamist' was allegedly living in the shelter. Speaking about her experiences, Nurjahan explained that she has never been a victim of Islamophobia - at least not as an adult. She arrived in Hamburg with an open mind and the reception has been welcoming. A couple living on her road invited her out to dinner during her first few nights in the city. Ultimately, she is happy that Airbnb has taken action especially since other Muslims have approached her with similar stories. So, will this always be the case, wherein we will celebrate thieves, corrupt, and morally bankrupt elements and agents of darkness and vilify patriots and elements of change? I think it is high time that we change the narrative, we cannot continue in this act of sheer backwardness and primitivity. A few days ago, some people were seen celebrating an unscrupulous and loudmouth public official who lacks ethic and has a very shallow understanding of his role as a deputy minister of the Ministry of Information, while today the Liberian media is going unnoticed. However, I'm not surprised why Mr. Rodney Sieh is not being hailed today by the Liberian people for informing them about the devilish and criminal acts that are being meted out against them by people whom they consider to be their heroes and leadersit is not fond of us to do such things. A couple of years ago, Mr. Sieh was arrested and jailed on grounds that he published falsehood or unverifiable story. He was lambasted and heavily condemned by the Liberian people. Today, I believe in my mind that he should be celebrated, as well as the entire Liberian media for informing the Liberian people about the 40foot container with an estimated amount of 16billion Liberia dollars that disappeared from the free port of Monrovia. The Liberian media needs to be commended for her diligence and commitment to serving the Liberian people through her accurate reportage. It is without controversy that the Liberian media is totally in control and on top of her game. Haven said all of the above; I want to conclude by congratulating Mr. Rodney Sieh and the Front Page Africa family, as well as the entire Liberian media for keeping the Liberian people informed by providing credible and factual news and information. Meanwhile, it is also important that the Liberian people understand that the day they take off their coats of hypocrisy and sycophancy and stop being mealy-mouthed, is the day that Liberia will begin to move forward. About Author: Kwein W. Kwein II. is a student at the University of Liberia studying Mining Engineering. He can be reached at kweinw@gmail.com, or (+231)776235821 Would you support the provision of English government services and documents in the in the Montreal metropolis? Why or why not? As featured on Alice Abou-Khalil-Chomedey-CAQ Since this is the first election in decades where sovereignty is not a main issue, what do y 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. 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. Abu Dhabi Health Services Company (Seha) has appointed Dr Gareth Goodier as the new Group Chief Executive Officer. With a distinguished career spanning three decades, Dr Goodier has worked in senior management positions in Europe and Australia. His international leadership in healthcare systems and delivery has also included major projects for the World Bank in Kuwait and Lebanon as well as advising several governments on systems management and innovation. Most recently, he served as the inaugural executive chair at Melbourne Biomedical Precinct. Announcing the appointment, Chairman Salem Rashed Al Nuaimi said: "At Seha we have a vision to elevate the quality of healthcare through innovation and skills, and we are confident that we have the right leaders to realise our ambitious goals." "Dr Goodier brings a wealth of international experience from the most advanced health systems in the world and has a track record of developing talent and staying ahead of the healthcare innovation curve," he noted. "Healthcare is one of the top priorities for the UAE Government and the countrys leadership has demonstrated a relentless focus on delivering the best possible healthcare system for its people," added Al Nuaimi. In previous roles, Dr Goodier also held leadership positions at academic hospitals including Cambridge University Hospitals, Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospitals, in the UK, and Royal Melbourne Hospital, Royal Perth Hospital, Women's and Children's in Perth, in Australia. In all roles he has consistently elevated quality of healthcare, upskilled talent, and driven the adoption of modern, innovative methods. On his new role, Dr Goodier said: "I am humbled and honoured to play a role in driving this mandate forward. Together we will create a healthier UAE." "We must remain committed to delivering high-quality services to every patient who walks through our doors whether they live in our cities or the most remote regions of the emirate" he added.-TradeArabia News Service Two new books by President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov were presented in Ashgabat. The presentation of the second volume of the book Turkmenistan is the Heart of the Great Silk Road took place at the Palace of Mukams and the Public Organizations Center, while the presentation of the book Towards the Achievement of Sustainable Development Goals in Turkmenistan was held at the Turkmen State Institute of Economics and Management. The presentations were attended by government officials, representatives of the scientific community, political parties, public associations, the mass media, cultural figures and student youth. The second volume of the book Turkmenistan is the Heart of the Great Silk Road consists of two parts From Jeyhun to Khazar and Routes from South to North. Each of these parts includes three chapters describing the specific sections of the Great Silk Road in the territory of Turkmenistan. In fact, they offer a review of cities-fortresses and monuments in the Turkmen land, presenting the geography of medieval caravan routes that for thousands of years connected large and small towns and villages. A special part of the new work by the head of state reflects on the Turkmen peoples contribution to the development of world culture. The second book by President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov "Towards the Achievement of Sustainable Development Goals in Turkmenistan is an analytical review of the country's development in the light of the process of achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These goals were adopted by all UN member states in September 2015 as the main component of the Agenda for Sustainable Development until 2030. The new book outlines the strategic tasks and priorities of the domestic and foreign policies of Turkmenistan, as well as the successes achieved following the implementation of Turkmenistan's international initiatives. The new book is another evidence of the great importance attached by Turkmenistan to cooperation with the UN, as an active participant in the process of consolidation of efforts for development of the coordinated approach to address pressing issues such as strengthening of peace and security and achievement of SDGs at the regional and global level. TURKMENISTAN.RU, 2021 Smiling shyly into a television camera before taking to the stage in front of a packed Cannes Film Festival audience, 13-year-old Syrian refugee Zain Al Rafeaa soaked up the applause of the assembled movie stars, directors and other film industry luminaries. I felt paralyzed, totally paralyzed, Zain said, recalling that surreal night in May when the movie Capharnaum, in which he plays the lead role, claimed the prestigious Cannes Jury Prize. I had never witnessed a standing ovation. That was the best part. It was all a far cry from the struggles of his normal life as a Syrian refugee living in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, where the charismatic and witty teenager was spotted in the streets before being cast in the starring role by Lebanese film director Nadine Labaki. Zain was only seven years old when he fled Daraa in southern Syria with his family in 2012, seeking a safe haven in Lebanon. He had just completed first grade when the security situation worsened in his hometown. Our lives were in danger. His mother and I had to sacrifice what we thought would only be one year of schooling for the sake of his safety, said his father, Ali Mohammed Al Rafeaa. When I saw Zain, it was very obvious to me that he was going to be our hero. The films main character, who shares his name, is an undocumented boy living in one of Beiruts poorest neighbourhoods who has to work to support his family instead of going to school. With no formal training, Zain drew on his own experience as an out-of-school refugee living in tough conditions to play the role. Its been hard, the youngster said of his childhood in exile, where for the past six years he has slept on threadbare mattresses with his parents and three siblings on the floor of their cramped and draughty apartment. I would have loved to go to school. I remember the first day we came here, and I went down to play. I got into a fight with a kid. When I saw Zain, it was very obvious to me that he was going to be our hero, said Labaki. There is something in his eyes that is very sad. He also knows what we are talking about [in the film], and it shows in his eyes. Zain Al Raffeaa relaxes at his family's home in Beirut, Lebanon. UNHCR/Sam Tarling Zain, right, sits by his mother Nour as his family pack for their move to Norway. UNHCR/Sam Tarling Zain's father Ali and sister Riman smile as they talk to a cousin already living in the Norwegian town of Hammerfest. UNHCR/Sam Tarling Zain (second from right) plays with his brother Hussein and sisters, Iman (left) and Riman (right), on the rooftop of their Beirut apartment. UNHCR/Sam Tarling Zain plays pool in Beirut, Lebanon. UNHCR/Sam Tarling The Lebanese filmmaker knew she was taking a risk by casting only non-actors, but says that was what ultimately gave the movie its power. There are no actors in my film. All of them are playing their own role, their own lives. They all depict their lives in a way or another, their struggles, their plight. See also: Syrian refugees face harsh winter as funding falls short According to Labaki, Zain improvised and added his own words to the script on several occasions during filming. Zain can barely write his own name, yet he was able to carry the heavy burden of a six-month long shoot on his small shoulders. He even added his own expressions, words and acts all of which came so naturally to him, making the scenes even stronger, she said. Capharnaum, which received its public premiere in Beirut on Thursday night, tackles many social issues affecting Lebanese and refugees alike: child labor, early marriage, statelessness and poverty. Lebanon is currently home to around 976,000 registered Syrian refugees more than half of whom are children making the country the worlds biggest refugee host by share of population. "I will miss my cousins here, but there, I will be able to go to school and learn how to read and write. For Zain, with Capharnaum having been selected as Lebanons entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2019 Academy Awards, and the prospect of a world press tour later this year, the impact of his stellar performance is still being felt. His whole family also received a welcome boost when with the help of UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency they were approved for resettlement to Norway. Despite the hardship they faced there, leaving Lebanon was not easy. On the eve of their departure on a recent hot summer night in Beirut, the small apartment in a poor neighborhood that the Rafeaas had called home for over six years was crowded with family, friends and neighbors saying their goodbyes. Zains younger sister Iman was reciting some of the Norwegian words she learned at the cultural orientation sessions she attended in Beirut along with her siblings and parents before their departure. But Zain had mixed feelings. I am both happy and sad. I will miss my cousins here, but there, I will be able to go to school and learn how to read and write. Zain and his family are now settling into their new life in Norway. Zain has a bed to sleep on, and he started going to school like other children his age. We can see the sea from our window. I enjoy sitting by the sea, but I cant swim in it, the water is freezing! he said. They are among the less than one per cent of refugee families worldwide who get the chance to start a new life in a third country. One day, Zain said he may decide to pursue a full-time career in acting. But for now, he is happy just to be finally fulfilling his dream of going to school. British Prime Minister Theresa May insisted her plan for a UK-EU free trade area just for goods was "the only proposal on the table". AFP/Christof STACHE In a defiant statement from Downing Street, May blamed Brussels for the "impasse" just weeks ahead of a deadline to seal a deal - and six months before Britain leaves the EU in March. "Throughout this process, I have treated the EU with nothing but respect. The UK expects the same," the prime minister said. May was speaking after returning from an EU summit in Salzburg Thursday, where her fellow leaders lined up to condemn her proposals for post-Brexit trading ties and the Irish border. It was a setback characterised by the British media as a "humiliation", just days before a meeting of May's Conservative party, where eurosceptics are ramping up the pressure on their leader to be tough. Standing at a podium with two British flags behind her, May said: "At this late stage in the negotiations, it is not acceptable to simply reject the other side's proposals without a detailed explanation and counter proposals. "So we now need to hear from the EU what the real issues are and what their alternative is so that we can discuss them. Until we do, we cannot make progress." She said she wanted an agreement, but "I have always said no deal is better than a bad deal." The pound slipped against the euro after she spoke, reflecting fears of a growing possibility that Britain will crash out of the EU with no agreement. MAKING A MISTAKE EU leaders had previously criticised May's proposal for a free trade area in goods after Brexit, but the tough tone at Salzburg surprised many commentators, with some describing it as an "ambush". EU Council President Donald Tusk and French President Emmanuel Macron said it would fragment the bloc's single market and "not work", and demanded she come back with an alternative by an EU summit in mid-October. The bloc also raised the stakes by putting on ice a special summit planned for November to seal a deal, saying it would only happen if there is progress next month. Before leaving Austria, May gave a feisty press conference, insisting her plan was "the only proposal on the table". On Friday, she said the EU's plan for Britain to stay in the European Economic Area, effectively the single market without any say in the rules, would "make a mockery" of the 2016 vote for Brexit. Meanwhile the alternative offer of a free trade agreement was contingent on a "backstop" keeping British-ruled Northern Ireland aligned with EU rules, which she warned risked the integrity of the UK. This was "something no British prime minister would ever agree to" she said, adding: "If the EU believe I will, they are making a fundamental mistake." She repeated that she would bring forward alternative proposals to the backstop, which would come into effect until a new trade deal is struck. CONSTRAINED BY HER PARTY Reports suggested a tetchy meeting between May and Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar on the sidelines of the summit in Salzburg had helped harden views. Varadkar said Friday the two sides were "entering into a rocky patch" but said he was determined to secure a deal. EU Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said the two sides were "moving closer" but were like "hedgehogs who love each other". "When two hedgehogs embrace, they have to watch out that they don't get scratched," he told the Austrian daily Die Presse. Simon Usherwood, politics professor at the University of Surrey, said the EU's previous strategy of giving May some breathing room at summits had "collapsed". Salzburg was "about irritation and bad tempers that the UK really hasn't got the measure of this properly", Usherwood added. But he noted that May was "super-constrained by the party. She can't really be seen to be making concessions". The House of Commons must approve any Brexit deal, and May's small majority would be undermined if her hardline Brexiteer lawmakers go through with a threat to oppose it. Eurosceptic Tories welcomed May's tough tone on Friday but reiterated their own opposition to her trade plan, which they think will undermine Britain's independence. Opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the prime minister's negotiating strategy had been a "disaster". "The political games from both the EU and our government need to end because no deal is not an option," he said. Chelsea forward Alvaro Morata is struggling for goals AFP/Oli SCARFF Morata, 25, scored freely in the first few weeks after joining Chelsea last year but has appeared short of confidence recently. He has scored once this season, in August's win over Arsenal. "Alvaro has to gain confidence with one, two, three goals," Sarri said following the 1-0 win on Thursday, during which the Spain striker and Chelsea missed a number of chances. "I am not able to give him confidence," he said in comments carried by the British press on Friday. "In this match he has had three, four opportunities. He was unlucky. "I hope for him that in the future I can try to help him, but the confidence can become only with goals. "I have to say also, for maybe the first time in this season Alvaro was ready in the box. He was on the ball and was active." Chelsea have won all five of their Premier League games so far under Sarri ahead of Sunday's trip to West Ham, and Willian's seventh-minute strike was the difference in Greece. But the 59-year-old Italian bemoaned his side's inability to finish off their opponents. "When it is time to kill the match we have to kill the match," he said. The one major blot was a stoppage-time shoulder injury for Pedro, which could rule him out of Sunday's trip to West Ham. "I don't know exactly the situation," said Sarri. "I have spoken with the doctor but only for a few seconds. The doctor told me that probably it's not a very serious injury." Sheep are bred at a farm in Ninh Thuan Provinces Thuan Nam District. VNA/VNS Photo Cong Thu The province has more than 160,000 sheep and 137,900 goats, ranking first in the country as a sheep producer and eighth in goat production, according to the provinces Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. The province has more than 112,000 oxen and cows, 3,800 buffalos and 92,000 pigs. In Ninh Thuan, which has the least rainfall in the country, farmers mostly breed animals outdoors and on a small scale. Development projects have taken up land that was once used for outdoor rearing areas for sheep and goats. Climate change has also caused a decline in quality of natural grass fields and water resources for animals, affecting their yield and quality. To expand the local breeding industry, Ninh Thuan has provided soft loans for farmers to plant grass fields and invest in clean water provision for animals. Local authorities have helped rice farmers switch to growing grasses for animals in areas that often lack irrigation water and plant only one rice crop a year. In the first five months of the year, farmers have so far planted more than 1,200ha of grasses with a total output of 163,000 tonnes, meeting 31 per cent of food for the provinces animals, according to the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. The provinces Agriculture Extension Centre has provided advanced rearing techniques for animal farmers, including sterilising barns monthly and providing periodic baths for animals. Phan Quang Thuu, deputy director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said the province was enhancing co-operation among farmers, scientists, local authorities and companies to create value chains for breeding animals. The province had developed co-operatives to create stronger links between farmers and companies, Thuu said. According to Pham Minh Quang, director of the Tan Ha Co-operative in Thuan Nam Districts Nhi Ha Commune, his co-operative has applied advanced techniques in building animal barns, choosing animal strains and breeding techniques, and treating animal diseases. With the decline of natural grass fields, the co-operative has switched from feeding sheep on grass fields to indoor rearing, which has helped to reduce risks and disease, making the sheep grow faster. The co-operative has invested in planting more than 1 ha of grass which has an output of 700 kilos a day that feeds the co-operatives sheep. The co-operative sells about 100 male sheep every three months, while each sheep weighs about 30 kilos. The co-operative earns revenue of VND1 billion (US$43,000) a year. Under a provincial Peoples Committee plan, Ninh Thuan targets having a total of 190,000 sheep, including 45,000 females, by 2020. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been criticised for the crackdown that followed the failed July 2016 coup against him AFP/ADEM ALTAN Max Zirngast, who writes for the far-left German-language magazine Re:volt, was detained in Ankara on Sep 11 and formally arrested by the Ankara court late Thursday, his lawyer Tamer Dogan told AFP. Zirngast, 29, was charged with being a member of an extreme leftist terror organisation, Dogan added. He had previously published articles on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged an insurgency inside Turkey since 1984. The PKK is blacklisted as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies. The Austrian has been in Turkey for three years and was a masters student at Middle East Technical University (ODTU) in the political sciences department. He is accused of being a member of the Turkish Communist Party (TKP)/Kivilcim group, which is banned by Turkey as a terror organisation. Two other suspects, Hatice Goz and Mithatcan Turetken, were also kept in jail by the court in the capital on the same charge. But the lawyer and student claimed such an organisation "doesn't exist". "Max has no links with any illegal organisation," Dogan said, adding that the student rejected the allegations against him. "He is a journalist working in the scope of the law," the lawyer insisted, saying Zirngast had also written for jacobinmag.com and leftist German daily junge Welt. Zirngast defended himself in Turkish, refusing a translator. Police asked Zirngast about books he had by leftwing intellectuals but he insisted he also had books of different political stances and literature texts, according to court testimony obtained by AFP. Lawyer Dogan said the student had researched Hikmet Kivilcimli, a Turkish communist leader and Marxist intellectual, and was asked by authorities why he conducted such research. He said it was for a university presentation. Since the July 2016 attempted coup and subsequent arrest and conviction of journalists for alleged terror links, rights activists have condemned Ankara's violations of freedom of expression. The arrest of Zirngast further risks increasing tensions between Ankara and Vienna, which has angered Turkey by calling for a freeze in its EU membership talks. Vietnamese shares were mixed on Friday with the benchmark VN-Index falling as exchange-traded funds (ETFs) completed their quarterly portfolio reviews.-VNA/VNS Photo The VN-Index on the HCM Stock Exchange edged down 0.18 per cent to finish this week at 1,002.97 points, marking weekly growth of 1.17 per cent. The HNX Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange gained 0.64 per cent to end at 115.80 points, rallying total 2.7 per cent after four straight days. The northern market index increased by total 2.14 per cent from the previous weeks end of 113.37 points. Foreign investors net-sold VND756.7 billion worth of local stocks, compared to their net-buy value of VND6.3 billion made on Thursday. Market trading liquidity shot up with nearly 373.8 million shares traded on the two exchanges, worth VND10.15 trillion (US$451.3 million). Friday also recorded the highest daily trading value since May 18, when trading value on the two exchanges reached the record high of VND35.83 trillion. The significant increase of market trading liquidity on Friday was attributed to the quarterly portfolio reviews of ETFs that targeted to buy in shares of Vinhomes and the Vietnam Electrical Equipment JSC (Gelex). Despite the ETF purchasing, Vinhomes and Gelex shares, listed as VHM and GEX on the HCM Stock Exchange, fell 3.3 per cent and 2.5 per cent, respectively. The decline of the benchmark VN-Index was attributed to the downtrend of petroleum stocks, led by PetroVietnam Drilling and Well Services (PVD). The energy sector index lost 1.6 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed. PVD lost 2.2 per cent after having gained 23.6 per cent since September 5. Other industries that also saw share prices drop included rubber, transportation and logistics. On the positive side, banks and securities firms were the major driving factors for the stock markets short-term outlook. The two sector indices gained 0.7 per cent and 0.6 per cent, respectively, according to vietstock.vn. Among gainers of the two industries were Vietinbank (CTG), Sai Gon-Ha Noi Bank (SHB), VPBank (VPB), Asia Commercial Bank (ACB), BIDV Securities (BSI) and Vietinbank Securities (CTS). According to Bao Viet Securities JSC (BVSC), the market may go back to its balance following the two ETF portfolio shake-ups and more positive moves are predicted for the coming sessions. Good market outlook was provided on the increase of liquidity, which indicated investors confidence about the markets uptrend in the short term, BVSC said in its report. Silk Road 2018 A new approach to trading. International Conference in Nuremberg on 25 July 2018, by Nils Opel / Intra-American power struggle world peace in danger. Germany is still following in the wake of the US war alliance, by Willy Wimmer / Is there still a solution for the Syrian Idlib without too many victims? / Joint Statement by the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the President of the Russian Federation and the President of the Republic of Turkey / How to deal with Chemnitz and Germany?, by Karl Muller / The global market must not destroy our food security and our rural agriculture. Initiative for Food Sovereignty: substantive arguments, by Marianne Wuthrich / No new state control instruments, but implementation of the existing regulations!, Interview with Rudi Berli / European Union and Europe are two different things, EFTA is forward-looking, by Winfried Pogorzelski / Jean Ziegler: Paths of hope, by Dr Peter Kupfer / Political ideas come and go, the children stay. Visit to a Russian special school, by Maria Koch. The Russian Authorities continue to challenge the version that Flight MH-17 was brought to the ground by an air-ground missile. They declassified information contradicting the conclusions of the Dutch Commission of Inquiry Into the Crash. Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, connecting Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was destroyed on 17 July 2014 as it was flying over the region of Donetsk (Ukraine). This was at the time of fighting between the coup-making government of Kiev and those seeking the independence of Donbass. The fatalities totalled 298. From that time, each side is trying to pin the blame on the other. On the one hand, Ukraine is accusing the insurgents of firing a ground-air missile (Bouk) and on the other hand, Russia is accusing the Ukrainian Air Force of bringing down a Boeing civil plane. Then Moscow raised a dozen questions that Kiev preferred to ignore [1]. The UN Security Council then adopted Resolution 2166 which mandated an exhaustive, impeccable and independent international investigation [2]. The international commission established under the resolution consisted (in addition to Ukraine) of Germany, Australia, the United States, France, Malaysia, the United Kingdom and Russia. It is coordinated by Holland. However, Russia has been excluded because it is suspected of being the aggressor. The search for the truth is eclipsed by the East-West Conflict. Thus the United States is thinking of bringing President Putin before the International Criminal Court for this crime, and the US internet site Bellingcat (linked to the Atlantic Council) is providing leads for the Dutch Commission. On 7 October 2014, Frans Timmermans, Dutch Minister of Foreign Trade at the time, and today the first Vice-President of the European Commission, revealed that one of the passengers had the time to snatch an oxygen mask. This contradicts the thesis of an anti-air missile [3]. On 8 October 2014, the German Secret Services testified, in secret, before the German Parliaments Intelligence Committee. According to The Spiegel, they made the following allegations on flight MH17. (1) the photographs that the Ukrainian government provided are false; and (2) the declarations from Russia, that the plane would have been brought down by the Ukrainian army and that the Ukrainian war planes would have drawn close to the passenger plane are also false [4]. According to a detailed study of the debris, that was carried out by Professor Ivan A. Andrievskii, the first Vice-President of the Russian Union of Engineers, the Malaysian Airlines plane would have been gunned down in flight [5]. Later on, the Russian daily, Komsomolskaya Pravda, reports the testimonial of an official, which revealed that the plane would have been brought down by a Ukrainian fighter plane [6]. On 24 May 2018, the International Investigating Commission, chaired by Holland and with Russia playing no part, presents its work during a press conference in Amsterdam. It declares that the Malaysian flight was destroyed by Buk, an air-ground missile, belonging to the Russian Brigade of Air Defense 53, based in Kursk. Holland and Australia communicate these conclusions to Russia [7], conclusions that Russia rejects but not before presenting a series of anomalies in the work of the Commission [8]. On 17 September 2018, Russia, relying on the photographs presented by the Commission, which permitted it to find out the identification number of the missile from the buzzard and the engine of the plane, concluded that at the time, this missile, manufactured by the Soviets, had never been in Russias hands. Furthermore, at the time of the events, it was in the hands of a Ukrainian military unit in Lvov. Russia has sent to Holland all the evidence it has, to prove its argument. The Russian and Turkish Presidents met at Sochi, on 17 September 2018. After their previous meeting on 7 September in Teheran, Russia has hardened its tone. For the first time, it recalled the illegal nature of the Turkish military presence in Idleb, emphasizing that this would have to stop. The first thing that Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan have done is to sign international cooperation agreements on the construction of the Turkish Stream pipe line and the civil nuclear central at Akkuyu; agreements particularly attractive to Ankara, whose economy has been totally totalled. In relation to the area currently occupied by the jihadists and by the Turkish Army in Syria an area that roughly matches the province of Idleb the two states have decided to give themselves another opportunity to separate the Syrian armed opposition from the jihadists. In the past, identical agreements of de-escalation were established for this region and for others, either with the United States or with Turkey. They have all failed and they have become obsolete after six months. In practice, it was discovered that the jihadists and the Syrian armed opposition are composed of the same men, whose first calling is to make money, and their second, the sweetness of fighting and dying for their country. Often times, they have belonged to different groups for during the six-year duration of the conflict, hopping from one to another whenever it makes better financial sense to do so. The Syrian Arab Republic has already announced that it considered it prudent to postpone the liberation of Idleb to after the US legislative elections on 6 November. In fact, if they attacked before then, that would provide sufficient grounds for the United Kingdom to lead a chemical operation under a false flag to corner President Trump to attack Syria during his electoral campaign. President Erdogan presents to his people the agreement that he has just concluded, as a double victory. He has safeguarded the civil population of Idleb from war and obtained lucrative contracts from Russia. However the reality is quite different: Turkey was in a very weak position to negotiate with its historical enemy and friend of a day, Russia. The Turkish economy only survives thanks to the presence of Russian tourists and Moscow has already demonstrated that it can make them come and go as it pleases. The economic agreements pulls Ankara to the fringes of Nato. On 5 October a line of demarcation will be established between the jihadist zone and the rest of Syria. This demilitarized zone will be under the joint responsibility of Russia and Turkey. The Turkish troops should withdraw some kilometres within the current zone, in order to let the Syrians liberate the motorway that links Damascus to Aleppo. Thus, Russia separates Turkey from the Westerners, avoids placing its Syrian ally in danger and continues the liberation of Syrian territory without having to get involved in battles itself. On 17 September 2018, at around 22 hrs (local time) a Russian military plane, Il-20, disappeared from the radar screens in the Mediterranean, approximately 35 km from the coasts of Syria. It returned to the air base of Hmeymim, with 14 people on board. The incident occurred when a battle was to be waged in the area. From the international waters four Israeli F-16 planes, attacked the International Institute of Technical Industries in Latakia. The anti- air Syrian defense responded by destroying various enemy missiles in flight. Israel is now attacking every Syrian centre of military-related scientific research. It is trying to follow through with its programme of assassinating non-Israeli military scientists in the Middle East, replicating its fait accompli in Iraq and Iran. The United States has immediately accused Syria of inadvertently destroying the Russian military plane in response to the Israeli attack. In the meantime, Syria is accusing the French Frigate Auvergne, deployed in the Mediterranean, of participating in the battle. This is something which Paris denies, just as it always does. A number of satellites were able to record Israeli air attack of 17 September and the response of the Syrian anti-air defense. The Ilyushin Il-20 was a plane with four propelling motors. It was to carry out a mission of observing Western forces in the area as well as drones, at the time the battle begun. The study of the recordings shows that: (1) The French frigate, Auvergne, fired missiles against Syria (2) One of the Israeli planes took cover behind the Russian plane. As a result the Syrian firing targetted at the Israeli plane, missed its target and hit the II-20. Using a plane from a third country to protect yourself from anti-air defense constitutes an act of war against the county whose plane you are using as a shield. This is exactly how Israel used the Russian (third country) plane. Yesterday, I was in Salzburg for talks with European leaders. I have always said that these negotiations would be tough - and they were always bound to be toughest in the final straight. While both sides want a deal, we have to face up to the fact that - despite the progress we have made - there are two big issues where we remain a long way apart. The first is our economic relationship after we have left. Here, the EU is still only offering us two options. The first option would involve the UK staying in the European Economic Area and a customs union with the EU. In plain English, this would mean wed still have to abide by all the EU rules, uncontrolled immigration from the EU would continue and we couldnt do the trade deals we want with other countries. That would make a mockery of the referendum we had two years ago. The second option would be a basic free trade agreement for Great Britain that would introduce checks at the Great Britain/EU border. But even worse, Northern Ireland would effectively remain in the Customs Union and parts of the Single Market, permanently separated economically from the rest of the UK by a border down the Irish Sea. Parliament has already - unanimously - rejected this idea. Creating any form of customs border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK would not respect that Northern Ireland is an integral part of the United Kingdom, in line with the principle of consent, as set out clearly in the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. It is something I will never agree to - indeed, in my judgement it is something no British Prime Minister would ever agree to. If the EU believe I will, they are making a fundamental mistake. Anything which fails to respect the referendum or which effectively divides our country in two would be a bad deal and I have always said no deal is better than a bad deal. But I have also been clear that the best outcome is for the UK to leave with a deal. That is why, following months of intensive work and detailed discussions, we proposed a third option for our future economic relationship, based on the frictionless trade in goods. That is the best way to protect jobs here and in the EU and to avoid a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, while respecting the referendum result and the integrity of the United Kingdom. Yesterday Donald Tusk said our proposals would undermine the single market. He didnt explain how in any detail or make any counter-proposal. So we are at an impasse. The second issue is connected to the first. We both agree that the Withdrawal Agreement needs to include a backstop to ensure that if theres a delay in implementing our new relationship, there still wont be a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. But the EU is proposing to achieve this by effectively keeping Northern Ireland in the Customs Union. As I have already said, that is unacceptable. We will never agree to it. It would mean breaking up our country. We will set out our alternative that preserves the integrity of the UK. And it will be in line with the commitments we made back in December - including the commitment that no new regulatory barriers should be created between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK unless the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly agree. As I told EU leaders, neither side should demand the unacceptable of the other. We cannot accept anything that threatens the integrity of our union, just as they cannot accept anything that threatens the integrity of theirs. We cannot accept anything that does not respect the result of the referendum, just as they cannot accept anything that is not in the interest of their citizens. Throughout this process, I have treated the EU with nothing but respect. The UK expects the same. A good relationship at the end of this process depends on it. At this late stage in the negotiations, it is not acceptable to simply reject the other sides proposals without a detailed explanation and counter proposals. So we now need to hear from the EU what the real issues are and what their alternative is so that we can discuss them. Until we do, we cannot make progress. In the meantime, we must and will continue the work of preparing ourselves for no deal. In particular, I want to clarify our approach to two issues. First, there are over 3 million EU citizens living in the UK who will be understandably worried about what the outcome of yesterdays summit means for their future. I want to be clear with you that even in the event of no deal your rights will be protected. You are our friends, our neighbours, our colleagues. We want you to stay. Second, I want to reassure the people of Northern Ireland that in the event of no deal we will do everything in our power to prevent a return to a hard border. Let me also say this. The referendum was the largest democratic exercise this country has ever undergone. To deny its legitimacy or frustrate its result threatens public trust in our democracy. That is why for over two years I have worked day and night to deliver a deal that sees the UK leave the EU. I have worked to bring people with me even when that has not always seemed possible. No one wants a good deal more than me. But the EU should be clear: I will not overturn the result of the referendum. Nor will I break up my country. We need serious engagement on resolving the two big problems in the negotiations. We stand ready. The first trees have already been cut, the others marked with paint: 937 trees are now being cut down in the "protected" natural area of the San Rossore Regional Park between Pisa and Livorno. The slaughtered trees are the first "collateral damage" of the massive reorganization, begun these days, of the infrastructure of Camp Darby, which contains the largest U.S. arsenal in the world outside the United States [1]. Even if the U.S. command promises to replant more trees than those cut, the construction of a railway and other infrastructure, fragmenting the natural habitats, will upset a vast ecosystem. The project involves the construction of a new railway section that will connect the station of Tombolo (on the Pisa-Livorno line) to a new loading and unloading terminal. The trains will cross the Canale dei Navicelli on a new rotating metal bridge. The loading and unloading terminal, almost 65 feet high, will consist of four 575-feet-long tracks capable of accommodating nine wagons each, for a total of 36 wagons. The terminal will be joined to the ammunition storage area by large trucks. By means of trolleys handling containers, incoming weapons will be transferred from railway wagons to trucks and those departing from trucks to railway wagons. The terminal will allow the transit of two trains per day, which will connect the base to the port through the normal lines of the Italian state railways. The reorganization of the infrastructure, which has just begun, is based on the plan to carry out the increased transit of weapons from Camp Darby. The current connection via canal and the base road with the port of Livorno and Pisa airport is no longer sufficient. The United States continuously supplies the 125 bunkers of Camp Darby. over a million artillery bullets, bombs for aircraft and missiles, plus thousands of tanks, vehicles and other military equipment in these bunkers (according to approximate estimates). Since March 2017, enormous ships have been calling at Livorno on a monthly basis. The ships unload and load weapons that are continuously transported to the ports of Aqaba in Jordan, Jeddah in Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern ports. U.S. forces and allies use these weapons in the wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. You do not need to be a skilled technician to understand what the dangers are for the population of the Tuscany region. Moving thousands of high-powered explosive warheads continuously in a densely populated area involves obvious risks. Even though the project managers describe their strategy as taking into account "human health and public safety," an accident with catastrophic consequences cannot be excluded. Neither can anyone rule out the possibility of sabotage or a terrorist attack that could cause the explosion of an entire train loaded with bombs. This is confirmed by the fact that the plan provides for the construction of a second terminal which will be used for the operations of verification and inspection of the "suspect wagons." Those are wagons on which a bomb could have been installed (for example, inside a container). Such a bomb, exploding on command, would cause a catastrophic chain reaction. What have the authorities done about this danger? Instead of carrying out their duties to protect the citizens and the territory, the Region of Tuscany, the municipalities of Pisa and Livorno and the Park Authority have not only approved the strengthening of Camp Darby, but have contributed to carrying it out. The civil works carried out in recent years for real or alleged economic development projects (such as luxury shipbuilding) in particular the works to improve the navigability of the Navicelli Canal and the rail links to the port of Livorno are exactly those demanded for years by the command of Camp Darby. Its most prominent representative, Colonel Berdy [U.S. Army Garrison Italy Commander Col. Erik M. Berdy], has been received in recent months with all the honours by the President of the Tuscan Regional Council, Eugenio Giani (Democratic Party), who has committed to promoting "integration between the U.S. military base of Camp Darby and the surrounding community," by the mayor of Livorno, Filippo Nogarin (Five Star Movement) and that of Pisa, Michele Conti (League) who have expressed substantially the same position. The trees of the Park can be cut down and the bombs of Camp Darby can circulate on Italian territory, thanks to the mutual consent of the politicians of these three major parties. Melissa Joan Hart. Photo: Getty Images America is having a romance with scammers in 2018 (well, when were not having our identities and finances hijacked by them), so it only makes sense Netflix would follow suit by picking up Melissa Joan Hart and Sean Astins sitcom No Good Nick. While most of us inadvertently invite scammers into our lives by, say, shopping or owning a credit card, Astin and Harts married parents-of-two, Liz and Ed, will be happily welcoming a grifter in the form of a teen con artist who has a secret agenda. Star Falls actress Siena Agudong will co-star as the titular scammer, Nick. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the series will also have elements of serialized drama as it reveals whether there is more to Nick than meets the eye. We can probably go ahead and assume there is. These scammers, always working every angle, god love em. Dear Editor, I read with astonishment the list of those persons comprising the Prime Ministers delegation attending the UN meetings in New York. Excluding the Prime Minister and his wife, no less than fifteen other individuals required to make up the Royal entourage, Fred Mitchell must be experiencing heart palpitations. So much for fiscal responsibility, it is clearly the Peoples Time, at least for some people. Ian Mabon September 21, 2018 Pfizer asks FDA to OK COVID-19 booster shots for all adults Advertisement By West Kentucky Star Staff Sep. 20, 2018 | PADUCAH By West Kentucky Star Staff Sep. 20, 2018 | 09:22 PM | PADUCAH The public's assistance is being requested by Kentucky State Police in finding a man suspected of stealing a truck. In early September, 45-year-old George West of Paducah borrowed a friend's truck and failed to return it. When Kentucky State Police were notified, they spoke to West by telephone, and he agreed to return the truck. However, he has failed to do so. Troopers obtained an arrest warrant for West for auto theft. Police located the truck on Friday afternoon but West has not been found. While police are asking for the public's help, they have also learned that West has made what they call suicidal statements on his Facebook page. Troopers say he has used the term, "suicide by cop," online. Anyone knowing of the whereabouts of West, should not approach him, but contact the Kentucky State Police at 270-856-3721. Callers may remain anonymous. Advertisement By West Kentucky Star Staff Sep. 22, 2018 | WESTERN KENTUCKY By West Kentucky Star Staff Sep. 22, 2018 | 12:17 PM | WESTERN KENTUCKY Crews are out across the area mowing along Kentucky interstates, parkways, and state highways. The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet says mowing zones will be marked by appropriate signage and should be treated with the same respect and caution as any other work zone. Drivers are urged to slow down and watch for slow-moving tractors and support vehicles that may be required to travel into and across travel lanes from time to time as they go about their work. The Cabinet issued a reminder that political signs and other advertising placed along state right-of-way should be removed. Yard signs and other signs create both an obstacle and a safety hazard for mowing crews and will be removed by state personnel when required. The following areas will see mowing crews in the coming weeks: Interstate 24 working from the Paducah area heading eastbound to the Kentucky-Tennessee State Line Crittenden County heading into Livingston County Calloway County working into Marshall County, then on into Trigg County McCracken County starting in the Reidland area, then working on into Ballard County and Carlisle County Mowing and litter crews will continue to have active work zones across the region anytime weather conditions allow for about the next month. 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. MOHAWK- Investigators with the Mohawk Police Department said a man crashed into a pole in the area of Main Street and Catherine Street in Mohawk around 11:45 a.m. on Saturday. Police said the 54-year-old man is from Mohawk. They said a helicopter was called to the scene but they couldn't confirm whether he was transported by helicopter or not. Police said he died at the hospital. They are waiting to release his identity. The investigation is ongoing. President Trump has lowered the number of refugees allowed into the United States to 30,000 a year. Thats a pretty low number compared to the roughly 30 million seeking refuge. Some of those refugees became American citizens today. Oneida County Clerk Sandy Deperno talked about what some had to go through to get here. "Some of you have come to this country to escape war torn countries, for your personal safety, and the safety of your family." You might have even caught a political stance in a carefully thought out statement from our own Supreme Court Judge Bernadette T. Clark. "Im so proud to be a part of a community that builds bridges and not obstacles in welcoming our new citizens." Lenny Guner is a Siberian Native whos been in the Utica for years, and cant understand why the US isnt accepting more refugees. "Ive seen more immigrants here than down in the city, and Im originally from Brookland, but over here they just accept everybody and everybody accepts everybody else so. Its a good community and its a good place to live." While others like Thailand Native Hla Thei are just grateful theyre not stuck in refugee camps. "I guess I am the luckiest one. Im glad that Im in here and becoming a U.S. citizen." While the number of refugees coming into our area will surly have an effect at the Refugee Center, the bigger impact is likely going to be felt in the business community. Shelly Callahan is the Executive Director Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees. "Obviously its going to have an economic impact locally. You know theres landlords that rent to us, you know a lot of the shops and markets, you know theres just not as many people coming. Right now theres an enormous workforce shortage across upstate. We have an employment department that puts between 300-400 refugees and immigrants into jobs every year." Aside from the economic impact, Sandy Deperno believes it hurts the American image. "I dont agree with his policy. This country was made on refugees, and Utica is one of the refugee hubs, and theyve helped revitalize this city. I think its a disservice." For now only time will tell how much the cut in refugees will affect the local area. RANDOLPH, N.Y. (AP) - State police say they've charged a 73-year-old woman in connection with the hit-and-run death of a man whose body was found along a rural road in western New York last spring. Troopers say they arrested Marylou Johnson Friday, five months to the day that a passing all-terrain vehicle rider spotted a man's body on a road in the Cattaraugus County town of Randolph, near the Pennsylvania border. Police later identified the man as 48-year-old Wilfredo Rodriguez-Colon, of Busti (BUHS'-ty) in neighboring Chautauqua County. An investigation revealed he had been hit by a vehicle. Police say more interviews led to the arrest of Johnson, also of Busti. The charges against her include manslaughter, driving while intoxicated and leaving the scene of an incident without reporting it. Johnson's public defender wasn't available to comment on the charges. (Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.) WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) - A federal lawsuit has been filed against Purdue accusing the university of not properly responding to an extensive sexual assault case between a former English professor and one of his female students. The former professor's name is Lance Duerfahrd. He was an English professor who became the Director of Film and Video Studies program. He received tenure in 2012. That's the same year the lawsuit claims the university first discovered he was sexually assaulting students. It also claimed he had other inappropriate relationships with subordinates in the English Department and the College of Liberal Arts. Something that is in direct violation of Purdues policy on amorous relationships. It claimed a student brought her experience to her academic advisor during the spring semester of 2012. The advisor then brought the information to the English Department head at the time. Duerfahrd received tenure that fall semester. Another incident dated back to October of 2011 claimed Duerfahrd took a group of students out to a bar for drinks. It reported he then pushed a female graduate student up against a wall and sexually assaulted her. It's kind of scary, said Kat Kirby, a junior at Purdue. I honestly never would have thought that it would happen here. I've heard it happen everywhere else but I can't fathom that. But the Plaintiff dated all of her personal encounters with Duerfahrd to the fall semester of 2016, when she enrolled in one of his film classes. It started with demanding she attend office hours where reports say he talked little of academics and much of personal matters. The lawsuit said he began to question her commitment to her classes as he began to pressure her to meet outside of the classroom. The Plaintiff said Duerfahrd began picking her up from her personal residence to take her to isolated places. She said she was worried that her failure to submit to her professors demands would cause her grades to suffer. Something students said is a clear abuse of power. "They had a man in authority over them trying to take advantage of them because he had power of them, which is really disconcerting," said Purdue junior Neely Plaspohl. The lawsuit said their interactions came to an end after he convinced her to come to his house where he sexually assaulted her multiple times. The report said the Plaintiff entered the fall semester of 2016 with a 3.78 grade point average. An average the lawsuit said went down during this semester, and that the Plaintiff's mental and physical health deteriorated. "I would have been so scared I would have been terrified, said Kirby. I would have not known what to do and I would have been so scared to tell anybody." However the school had a different account of what happened. The school said it had no knowledge of the claim until 2017. Tim Doty, Director of Public Information and Issues Management for Purdue, sent the following statement: Upon receiving notice of the allegations, the university acted swiftly and decisively. In fact, it would be difficult to find a more clear example of Purdues intolerance of this type of misconduct. Immediately upon learning of the complaint against Mr. Duerfahrd, Purdue placed him on leave, ordered him to have no contact with students, and launched an investigation. Upon conclusion of the investigation, which substantiated the claim, Mr. Duerfahrd resigned under threat of termination. The entire matter was resolved in a matter of months. Purdue takes very seriously its responsibility to provide a safe education environment for it students. The university does not and will not tolerate such misconduct by any member of its community, including faculty, regardless of their rank or tenure. This case proves it. Doty confirmed that Duerfahrd resigned in August of 2017. Students think something should have been done sooner. "I know things like that take a long time to process but it doesnt change the fact that it should have been acted upon earlier," said Plaspohl. The lawsuit is accusing the university for violation of Title IX and negligent retention and supervision. It is accusing Duerfahrd of sexual assault, sexual battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Students now just want to know that they are protected by their institution. "We're here to learn, said Plasphol. We're not here to date our professors, we're not here to be sexually harassed by our professors. The lawsuit said the Plaintiff transferred from Purdue during the summer of 2017 and is still trying to complete her undergraduate degree. 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 In Chicago, thousands of hotel workers have been on strike for two weeks, struggling against poverty wages, temporary employment and inadequate health care. Seeking to put the brakes on a growing movement of hotel workers across the country and prevent workers from coming into direct conflict with the citys Democratic Party establishment, the UNITE HERE Local 1 union announced Thursday afternoon that an agreement had been reached with seven hotels in Chicago, stating that a contract had already been ratified. The World Socialist Web Site spoke with picketing workers at the Hyatt Regency in the Loop Thursday evening about their struggle and distributed copies of the statement Chicago hotel strike pits workers against Democrats billionaire candidate for governor. Ozier (left) and Darren (right) Ozier works in convention services and has been at the hotel for 10 years. He said starting pay for his position was between $12 to $13 an hour, far too little to be able to afford to live in Chicago. When he first began, he would be laid off during the slow season for five or six months at a time. He described the exhausting and labor-intensive character of his work. Its real hard because we have to move a lot of equipment, push and pick up heavy chairs, roll tables, things like that, he said. Sometimes we do 10, 12, 16 hours a day. Ozier said he was striking for improvements in wages, benefits, sick days, and working conditions. Asked about the constant refrain by the corporations and politicians that there is no money to meet workers needs, he responded, Theres plenty of money. While countless millions have been poured into the development of high-rises and luxury hotels and condominiums by Emanuel and earlier Democratic Party mayors, Ozier noted that life in working class neighborhoods was radically different. Its pretty rough here, growing up and trying to get a good job, and trying to move on with your life. Darren is a young 26-year-old houseman that works on events, parties and banquets. He had worked at the Hyatt previously and was let go. He was rehired recently, but in total has been working at the Hyatt for five years. The biggest issue we face is year-round health care and low pay, he said. When its snowing in the wintertime, they basically lay off half of the staff. And then they lose all their benefits. If we have year-round health care, we can at least still have health care in the winter months. During the winter when they lay you off, you have to fight to get unemployment. And sometimes you cant even get unemployment. You can go three months with no work. When I first started working here, I was going to school. But I wasnt able to pay for school and go to work. The rich are getting richer and we are just staying where we are. We are making them richer. I think health care and education should be affordable. It should be a right. Without the health care benefits, you can end up paying $500 or more for doctor visits. Vincent Vincent, an overnight steward at the nearby Wyndham, spoke about the high cost of health care and its impact on hotel workers in the months when they are laid off. If you dont have insurance, you have to pay out of pocket, he said. If you get a hospital bill, it could be in the thousands and the bills can pile up. And they will take it out of your state taxes. A lot of people here have to do it all the time. None of us can afford that. Only the rich can afford it. Pointing to an older worker, he noted, Theres an 87-year-old here who has a disabled son and who is still working here at Hyatt. He should be home! Our society is terrible. They dont care about young or old people in corporate America. Vincent spoke about the hard work he and other workers do in grueling shifts. Im an overnight steward. I clean the kitchen. They serve the food. I come to clean the kitchen. I clean the flattops, the floors, anything they cook, banquets, I clean it. I have an eight-hour shift and at least seven hours of non-stop work overnight. Sometimes they will schedule us the next afternoon. They will schedule me from 2 p.m. to 11 p.m. the very next day. I get two hours of sleep if that happens. I get home at 8:30 a.m., go to sleep at 9 a.m. Im back up at 11:30 a.m., eat something and get back out the door with only an hour or two of sleep. This happens sometimes twice a week, on Saturday and Sundays, and Thursdays and Fridays. When I walk out of the hotel in the morning I look like a zombie. I dont have a life. I have kids and a wife. I have a grandson in college and I have to pay $350 a month for his room and board. When I pay my bills, I may get a call from my daughter, my lenders, or my family asking for help. We need education and knowledge to fight back. We need our own movement of the working class. I look at my own neighborhood and they have locked up aldermen for corruption. The economy did not recover for me under Obama. Vincent is a military veteran, enlisting when he was younger in the hopes of funding a college education. He spoke out against the money spent on wars. I left the military in 94 and still havent gotten my benefits. I did eight years in the military and I joined because of the GI bill for college. I didnt join to go fight in Afghanistan. Those people are struggling over there too just like us. When we cut, we bleed the same. We are all human beings. [Nationalism] is a smokescreen to keep everybody divided. Last Sundays rally in Manchester, supposedly a Jewish community protest against anti-Semitism, was a gathering of the usual suspects leading the campaign to remove Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party. It was noteworthy in that Blairite MPs shared a platform with Conservative MPs and openly discussed how best to split the Labour Party. Speaking on a stage with a huge British flag as a backdrop was Labour MP Dame Margaret Hodge, who described herself as an accepted figure of the British establishment, and other Labourites Dame Louise Ellman, Lucy Powell, James Frith and Kate Green. They spoke alongside Ivan Lewis MP, who recently resigned from the Labour Party, and Tory MPs Chris Green and Mary Robinson, with the Conservative government sending a message of support from Home Secretary Sajid Javid. The demonstration was dutifully portrayed by the media as representing the views of the majority of Jews in the UK and described by the Jerusalem Post as having a huge turnout. In reality attendance at a national demo backed by 32 Jewish organisations did not exceed a thousand, despite the Greater Manchester area being home to the largest Jewish population outside of London. No slander against Corbyn, his supporters and ordinary Labour members was too vile. Marie van der Zyl, the president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, accused Corbyn of picking a fight with the Jews. People used to criticise Jeremy Corbyn for his apathy. But now who can deny his own complicity. Hodge, who helped initiate the failed 2016 coup against Corbyn and who screamed in his face in Parliament that he was a f---ing anti-Semite and a racist, claimed that the anti-Semitic abuse she had suffered as a result was greater in number and more horrid in content, than what I was subjected to by Nick Griffin and the [fascist] BNP [British National Party] some 10 years ago. Hodge said she would never accept anti-Semitism that is dressed up as something else, the defence of Palestinian rights, when it is the plain, simple hatred of Jews. Feeling himself among friends, the Tory Chris Green not only called for Corbyns removal, but suggested how the Blairites could defy the democratic will of their own partys members and strike an independent path in Parliament. Referring to Corbyns supporters as anti-Semites, he said, We have to ask the question, if [Blairite] Liz Kendall was elected leader of the Labour Party would we be here right now? If [Blairites] Andy Burnham or Yvette Copper became leader of the Labour Party would we be here right now? We are here right now because the Labour membership, not once, but twice overwhelmingly elected Jeremy Corbyn to be the leader of the Labour party. If the Labour members of parliament cannot eject him because he was put in his place by the membership, then Labour MPs and councillors must challenge Jeremy Corbyn and eject him. With Theresa Mays government tottering on the brink of collapse as tensions deepen over Brexit, with a scheduled exit from the EU less than 200 days away, the ruling elite fear the social and political implications of a Corbyn government coming to power with the support of millions opposed to austerity, militarism and war. Green gave voice to these fears, warning his audience that at last years general election, Labour came within 20,000 votes around the country of being able to form a coalition government and Jeremy Corbyn becoming prime minister. I know how fragile our politics are at the moment. We could have a general election this year. We could have a general election next year and with the Conservatives mired in our difficulties, it is entirely believable that the leader of the Labour Party could become prime minister. That means if the Labour Party do not deal with Jeremy Corbyn they have to take action now. If Corbyn could not be removed, due to the widespread hatred of the Blairite coup plotters, then, we need to have a new party, Green declared. He said of the Co-Operative Party, which is affiliated to the Labour Party and has 38 overwhelmingly Blairite MPs in Parliament, They could take the front bench of the SNP [Scottish National Party as the second main party in opposition to the Tories]. They could sit challenging the Labour leadership. The time to act is now. Green was lending public support to a plan initiated by the Blairites and revealed that same day in an article in the pro-Tory Mail on Sunday. The prospect of an anti-Corbyn split in the Labour Party mounted last night after moderate MPs admitted plotting to form a breakaway faction at Westminster, the Mail reported. The Mail reported the Co-Operative Party drew up plans to win the right to sponsor their own Commons debates separately from Labour One senior Labour MP said the new party wanted to hit the ground running by immediately replacing the 35-strong Scottish Nationalists [Scottish National Party-SNP] as the second Opposition party behind Labour in the Commonsgiving it a leading role in Prime Ministers Questions each week. He said: There are various crucial hurdles the rebels have to meet but the first is making sure they launch with more than 35 MPs signed up. That would automatically put them ahead of the SNP and require the Speaker to recognise them as second Opposition party with the right to put two questions to the PM each week. The Mail on Sunday added: The move was quietly shelved after the groupwhich includes arch-Corbyn critics such as Chris Leslie as well as Jewish MP Luciana Berger, who has slammed Mr. Corbyn for inaction over anti-Semitismwere told they would have to form a whole new party to qualify for the new position. Green was repeatedly cheered and applauded for his commentsa measure of the right-wing character of the protest itself in a metropolitan area that is a Labour stronghold, with only four Tory MPs. The Co-Operative Party manoeuvre he cited may have stalled, but the same forces will continue to plot against their own partys membership in alliance with the Tories and various Zionist groups so long as Corbyn and his leadership clique oppose demands that they are driven out of the Labour Party. Manchester Central MP Lucy Powell supported the 2016 coup against Corbyn. She was among the Labourites who resigned from Corbyns shadow cabinet en masse in 2016, one of the 172 MPs who passed a motion of no confidence in him and then backed the failed leadership challenge by Owen Smith. As Powell was speaking a section of the crowd started chanting, Corbyn out! She responded to applause, You dont need to heckle me because I am on your side 100 percent Your views will send an incredibly strong message a message I will take back to Parliament, to the Labour Party and I take everywhere I go. On Thursday afternoon, hotel and hospitality union UNITE HERE Local 1 abruptly announced that an agreement had been reached with seven hotels in Chicago, including six owned by Marriott. Thousands of workers at 26 hotels have been on strike for two weeks, fighting back against poverty wages, abysmal working conditions, and the regular loss of employment and health insurance during the slower tourist season. The hastily announced dealcoming in the midst of a series of massive strike votes by Marriott workers around the country, unanimous strike votes by steelworkers at US Steel and ArcelorMittal, and struggles by teachers, UPS, Amazon and autoworkersis an attempt by the union to sabotage a growing rebellion of hotel workers and prevent it from coalescing into a broader movement of the working class. More than 9,000 Marriott hotel workers, many of them immigrants and highly exploited by hotel management, are pressing for strike action in major US cities. Strike authorization votes have passed overwhelmingly at hotels in Detroit, Oakland and San Diego in recent days, following earlier votes in San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Boston, Waikiki and Maui. UNITE HERE bargains on behalf of approximately 20,000 workers at Marriott properties around the country, with some 12,000 currently working without contracts. Jairo Nunez, a UNITE HERE Local 1 union organizer, claimed on the picket line in Chicago Thursday, Marriott signing just puts a lot of pressure on the other companies. On the contrary, the agreement between UNITE HERE and Marriott severely weakens the position of workers, isolating those remaining on strike. As of this writing, no details of the agreement have been released by either the union or Marriott. Sarah Lyons, spokesperson for UNITE HERE Local 1, did not respond to a request for a copy of the contract. On Thursday afternoon, pickets were already taken down at a number of hotels, both Marriott and non-Marriott, around Chicagos Magnificent Mile retail corridor. Marriott workers contacted by the World Socialist Web Site said that the union announced Wednesday night that ratification votes would take place Thursday morning. They told them that the agreement, a five-year contract, included a provision for year-round health insurance, workers main demand, along with pay increases. However, any deal reached behind closed doors with Marriott, the worlds largest hotel chain, will inevitably fail to meet workers needs, and will maintain the hated status quo of poverty wages and inadequate job security and health care. If it is in fact the case that Marriott has agreed to year-round insurance, it would only be in order to reduce turnover and maintain an exploitable workforce. Moreover, paltry raises will be more than offset through other concessions; workers on the picket lines previously reported that the companies were demanding significant increases to health insurance costs for family members. If the agreement were as great a victory as the union is claiming, there is no reason why workers should not have had at least two weeks to study and discuss it, particularly since it will dictate their working conditions for the next five years. Instead, every indication is that UNITE HERE is rushing through the vote in order to conceal the full details. One thing is certain, under terms of the deal workers will continue to work for inadequate pay in the city with the highest cost of living in the central United States. Like many, Vincent, a kitchen steward on the picket lines Thursday night, works two jobs just to make ends meet. People think $20 is a lot of money. Thats no moneyits nothing, Vincent told the WSWS. Minimum wage should have been $20 an hour a long time ago. Thats chump change. A job like this, we should get paid $40 an hour. You look at the rent we have to pay and the cost of living. We easily deserve more. They pay $500 or more for a night at the Hyatt on Wacker Drive in Chicago on a Monday night. In contrast with UNITE HEREs attempts to limit the spread of the strike, Vincent pointed to the necessity for broadening the struggle, saying, Ive been wondering why we arent all on strike. The way I see it is all the cities should be on strike together. In an indication of the pro-corporate character of the deal, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel immediately praised it Thursday, writing in a statement, This agreement is a significant step forward for the union, the hotels and the city and I am confident it can light a path forward to ending the labor action at other hotels in the city. Emanuel lauded the union and Marriott for staying at the table, working in good faith and reaching an agreement that reflects their shared interests. UNITE HERE has close ties to Emanuel, who is despised by workers in Chicago for his closure of 50 public schools in 2013 and his administrations cover-up of the police murder of teenager Laquan McDonald. The union prominently supported his re-election campaign in 2015, paying for a series of commercials with the tagline Rahm Love. While most videos have since been taken down from the unions web site, in one that remains, UNITE HERE Local 1 President Karen Kent exclaims, We have the best city in the world, the best hospitality, and the best mayor! Through Emanuels pro-business policies and promotion of tourism, channeling tax money to the central business district (the Loop) and various city boondoggles, the union has benefited from the expansion of low-wage jobs. The average UNITE HERE member in Chicago pays nearly $686 in dues. The pseudo-left Democratic Socialists of America, which functions as a faction of the Democratic Party and has promoted illusions in UNITE HERE throughout the strike, followed Emanuels lead Thursday, writing on Facebook, Workers at the Hotel Blake have won a contract!, apparently indifferent to its actual terms. The strike pitted workers in a struggle not just with the giant hotel companies, but against the Democratic Party, which represents the interests of the corporations and their billionaire owners no less than the Republicans. The Hyatt hotel chain, notorious for its ruthless tactics, including turning heat lamps on workers during a strike in the summer of 2011, is owned by the vastly wealthy and politically connected Pritzker family. Billionaire venture capitalist J.B. Pritzker is currently running for governor of Illinois and has obtained the support of over a dozen trade unions. While UNITE HERE previously made a show of opposition to the appointment of J.B. Pritzkers sister, Penny Pritzker, as commerce secretary in the Obama administration in 2013, the union has since made its peace with the Pritzkers, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, and has made no comment on J.B.s candidacy. Workers have not struck for two weeks in order to return to another half decade of poverty wages, 12- or 16-hour days, dangerous working conditions and yearly layoffs. They should reject the unions attempts to shut down the strike and ram through an agreement without adequate time to review and discuss it. Workers must elect their own organizations, rank-and-file strike committees independent of the union, and formulate demands which correspond to their interests, such as a 40 percent wage increase; fully funded, year-round health care for themselves and their families; an end to layoffs and part-time employment; and more. An immediate appeal should be made to the millions of hotel, steel, UPS, Amazon and autoworkers and others around the country and the world to expand the strike and mobilize the full force of the working class in a political struggle against capitalism, and for workers power and the socialist reorganization of economic life. Asia India: Rajasthan bus drivers walk out demanding salary regulations Around 4,500 Rajasthan state buses ground to a halt at midnight September 16 after transport corporation employees began a 24-hour strike for higher pay and other demands. The Rajasthan Roadways Workers Union called the walkout following fruitless negotiations with the state transport minister. An estimated one million commuters were impacted by the strike, which also saw drivers protest at various bus stations across the state. One striker told the media that drivers had not received salaries for the past three months and were demanding the government immediately implement the seventh pay panels pay rise recommendations. The union has threatened future action if the government does not grant workers demands. Haryana Roadways unions oppose privatisation Members of Haryana Roadways employees unions were due to hold a 24-hour hunger strike and protests on September 20 and 21 in protest against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led state governments decision to allow 700 private buses to operate in the state. The Haryana Transport Department admitted that the strike would impact on 1.25 million workers. Late last month the state government imposed the draconian Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) to stop a planned one-day strike on September 5. Police arrested union officials in pre-dawn raids at several bus depots. Transport workers have denounced the police attacks, demanded the government lift the ESMA, lift the suspensions of targeted workers and withdraw police charges. Delhi sanitation workers strike Hundreds of sanitation workers employed by Delhi citys municipal corporations struck work on September 12 in protest over delayed wages and other outstanding payments, and for job permanency and cashless medical cards. Workers rallied outside the chief ministers residence. One union official told the media: Every time we raise our demands, they pacify us and hand us a lollipop. This time we are not going to budge. The unions have threatened to intensify protests and demonstrations. Pakistan coal workers continue fight for unpaid wages and permanent jobs Sindh Energy Department employees at its underground coal gasification project in Mithi are continuing their struggle for unpaid wages and permanent jobs, rejecting excuses of the local government minister for the issues. Despite continued services for last eight years, 450 workers have not been paid for past three months while they have been kept on a contract basis. Workers rejected a provincial government cabinet ministers attempts to blame the federal government for the non-payment of wages. Punjab brick-kiln workers end protests in Pakistan Brick-kiln workers in Toba Tek Singh district, Punjab province, ended an 11-day sit-down demonstration on September 18 to demand payment of the legally mandated minimum wage. The decision to call off the protest was made by the Bhatta Mazdoor Union after negotiations with the Pakistans Labour Welfare Department. Owners of about 130 kilns in the district have flatly refused to pay the mandated minimum of 1,100 rupees for 1,000 bricks ($8.91) in the face of ongoing protests and demonstrations by kiln workers. Despite repeated promises to act against the kiln bosses, department and other government institutions have done nothing to stop the super-exploitation of workers and child labourers in particular by Toba Tek Singh owners and their counterparts across Punjab. The department had agreed to assist kiln workers families to send their children to school but protesting workers said that an agreed 4,000-rupee education allowance has not been paid. The government is currently considering closing kilns for a two-month period in order to reduce dangerous smog caused by the burning of coal in kilns. The government, however, has made no proposal for compensating the laid off kiln workers or miners, who are equally exploited, during the shutdown. Bangladesh jute mill workers demand outstanding wages Hundreds of jute mill workers from nine state-owned jute mills in Khulna and Jessore held a protest march and rally on September 13 to call for the establishment of a wage commission, payment of outstanding wages and six other demands. A worker employed at the Crescent Jute Mills over the last 30 years told the media that he could not remember the last time he received regular payment of his wages. Last weeks protest followed a meeting on August 8 between workers representativesthe Bangladesh Jute Mill CBA and non-CBA coordination council leadershipand the state jute minister and the mill owners. Sri Lankan development officers strike for higher pay More than 100,000 development officers in government institutions held a one-day strike on September 12 to call for higher wages and other demands. Around 3,000 workers staged a protest rally in Colombo. The industrial action was called by the Development Officers Service Association and the Graduate Employees Association. The unions main demand was for monthly salaries to be increased from 31,490 rupees to 34,605 rupees ($US208). The development officers also called for permanent recruitment and employment of qualified workers, increased travel payments for the field workers and other demands. Taiwan drivers protest air pollution amendment Scores of drivers protested in Taipei on Friday against an amendment to the Air Pollution Control Act that gives the Taiwan Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) the right to tighten emission standards for large goods vehicles aged 10 years or more. The amendment places the onus for improving older vehicles on the workers themselves. Protesters parked about 100 vehicles on the corner of Ketagalan Boulevard and Zhongshan S Road, where they held signs saying that the government was destroying their livelihoods and forcibly scrapping vehicles. Australia and the Pacific Australian train manufacturing workers walk out over pay Around 250 manufacturing workers at Downer EDIs train manufacturing facility in Maryborough, Queensland went on strike last Monday for three days in a dispute over a new enterprise agreement. The action follows a stop work meeting at the plant last month. The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, which covers the workers, wants a marginal pay rise and has called on the company to abandon plans to cut workers personal leave entitlements. Downer EDI builds trains in partnership with Canadian transportation manufacturing giant Bombardier. In 2016, the joint venture was awarded $511 million by the Western Australian government to build and maintain 10 three-car commuter trains. New Zealand justice workers strike Courts throughout the country closed for two hours on Wednesday after nearly 2,000 Ministry of Justice workers went on strike. The ministry had offered a 5 percent pay rise over two years but the Public Services Association (PSA) says workers want at least 13 percent. The strikers included court registry officers, court reporters, victim advisors and family court coordinators. The PSA has focused the campaign on closing the gender gap, declaring that the strike was to primarily increase the wages for female staff who earn on average 15 percent less than male staff. Pay negotiations have been dragged out for months. The union limited this weeks strike to just two hours, like the industrial action taken by workers at the Inland Revenue Department and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. While the Inland Revenue workers pay dispute was settled recently, the PSA has not released full details but admitted that it did not raise wages across the board. New Zealand gold miners hold second strike Ninety miners at OceanaGold in Waihi unanimously endorsed a second 48-hour walkout and struck from Saturday morning through to Monday morning last weekend. The workers have rejected the companys 2.2 percent pay rise offer and demanded at least 4 percent. The E tu union will resume negotiations with the mine on September 27. A September 14 press release by organiser Myles Leeson said that the union was hoping to negotiate a realistic pay rise. The company made a record $172 million profit last year. Almost 900 New Zealand steel workers strike Around 750 workers at BlueScopes NZ Steel mill at Glenbrook struck for 12 hours on Wednesday. They were joined by 120 workers from Pacific Steels rolling and wire mills, also owned by BlueScope, who walked out for 24 hours. It was the second 24-hour strike this year by workers at Pacific Steel. BlueScope workers in Australia also began rolling strikes earlier in the month. The global corporation reported profits of over $1.7 billion this year, an 80 percent increase. This was achieved partially by freezing wages, which workers accepted after the company threatened to close its Port Kembla plant in Australia in 2015. In the past two years, the steel workers have only had a one percent increase and have given up bonuses. Tahitian unions strike over government attacks on pensions Five unions in the French-Polynesian island of Tahiti called a general strike on Wednesday to protest planned pension reforms, including lifting the retirement age from 60 to 62 by 2023. Workers from both private and public sectors participated in the walkout. The government amended its planned reforms after a general strike in March which coincided with a rally of around 4,000 on the third day of the strike. Thousands forced their way into the government assembly which quickly decided to delay a vote on the reforms for a month. The unions limited the latest strike, foregoing marches or demonstrations after President Edouard Fritch said the reforms had to be pushed through in order to avoid a financial collapse. Public sector workers strike in Wallis and Futuna A strike began early last week involving top administrators on the French territory islands of Wallis and Futuna. The walkout was joined by firefighters on Tuesday. The small Pacific islands are an extremely remote with a population of less than 12,000. The workers walked out over working conditions and concerns over budget cuts. Reports this week that international media magnate Rupert Murdoch demanded last months ouster of Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, and the vehement denials of those allegations, shed further light on Turnbulls removal and the entire character of capitalist politics. On August 24, amid intense factional warfare wracking the ruling Liberal Party, Turnbull resigned and was replaced by Scott Morrison following a parliamentary party room ballot. Morrison is the increasingly politically unstable countrys seventh prime minister since 2007. Citing sources close to Turnbull, multiple media outlets, including the government-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Fairfax Medias Australian Financial Review and the Guardian, reported that in the days before Turnbulls defeat, another media mogul, Seven West Media proprietor Kerry Stokes, warned the then prime minister that Murdoch and his media company News Corp were intent on removing him from power. According to the various accounts, Turnbull was informed that Murdoch had told Stokes: Malcolm has got to go. Stokes reportedly objected, telling Murdoch that the likely result of such a leadership switch would be to deliver government to the Labor Party under its leader Bill Shorten. Murdoch was apparently unswayed, replying along the following lines: Theyll only be in for three yearsit wont be so bad I can make money under Shorten and the CFMEU [Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union]. Turnbull was said to be so concerned by Stokess information, and the clear signs of a campaign against him, spearheaded by Murdochs Daily Telegraph and other tabloids, and commentators on Murdochs Sky News, that the prime minister contacted Murdoch to plead his case. Reportedly, Turnbull pointed out that he had abandoned the national energy policy so opposed by many Murdoch commentators and had delivered, in part, on sweeping corporate tax cuts. This evidently did no good. Murdoch is reported to have fobbed Turnbull off, promising to speak to his son Lachlan about it. Stokes has flatly denied the allegations. In a statement to the ABC, also provided to the Guardian, he said: I have never been involved in leadership events nor autopsies of them like the one you have published. An editorial in Murdochs national flagship, the Australian, went further yesterday, accusing the ABC of pursuing an amateur-hour media conspiracy theory. It also denied that the newspaper had campaigned for Turnbulls removal. If the reports are indeed true, however, they are revealing. They point to the survival of prime ministers, and the fate of governments, being determined by intrigues between billionaires. Behind the facade of elections, in which the population is meant to decide who holds office, the reality is that powerful figures in the corporate ruling class make or break prime ministers. If true, the reports are doubly significant because of the individuals involved, and the material and geo-strategic interests they represent. US-based Murdoch, who first rose to power in Australia, is a pivotal figure in the American and global financial and political elite. He has a documented record of using his media clout to destabilise and urge the removal of governments, such as that of Gough Whitlam in 1975 and Kevin Rudd in 2010 in Australia, or vocally back governments, such as that of Tony Blair from 1997 to 2007 in Britain. Today, Murdochs media empire, featuring outlets such as Fox News, prominently backs President Donald Trumps America First drive to restore the post-World War II hegemony of US capitalism and to cultivate an extreme right-wing movement to divert the mounting discontent of the working class in nationalist and xenophobic directions. Fox News and other Murdoch platforms have been in the forefront of asserting the interests of US imperialism against its identified enemies, particularly Russia and China. This has been accompanied by escalating pressure exerted by the US intelligence, military and political establishment on the Australian government to line up unequivocally behind Washingtons intensifying trade war and wider economic and military confrontation with China. Western Australian (WA)-based Stokes controls a corporate conglomerate that incorporates the national Seven television network, the Yahoo!7 internet portal and the West Australian, the states only major daily newspaper, as well as property, mining, petroleum exploration, construction equipment and pastoral companies. Stokes is part of a wing of the Australian ruling class that depends heavily on mining exports to China and other Asian markets linked to China, and therefore holds grave concerns about the potentially devastating consequences of Australia being on the front line of a trade and military battle against China. During his three years in office, Turnbull bent over backwards to convince, first Barack Obama, and then Trump of his governments commitment to the US strategic alliance, on which Australian imperialism has relied for its own predatory activities across the Asia-Pacific region since World War II. However, Turnbull was regarded as unreliable in Washington because his reluctance to join provocative US military operations in the South China Sea and his attempts to protect the profit interests of those sections of Australian capitalism most reliant on China. Just two weeks before he was ousted, Turnbull gave a speech calling for a reset of what he described as a very deep relationship with China. If the reports of the Murdoch-Stokes conversation are true, they also point to the willingness of Murdoch to support a Labor government, backed by the trade unions, even if only for three years. Labor is fully committed to the US alliance and has been brought to office in previous periods of crisis, including World Wars I and II, to impose the burden on the working class. Regardless of the denials, there is no doubt that the media outlets controlled by Murdoch and Stokes were actively involved in Turnbulls replacement by Morrison. Murdoch had arrived in Australia 10 days before Turnbulls ouster and News Corp platforms took an aggressive turn. The Daily Telegraph warned of a toxic brawl over energy policy, and was the first to report of a likely challenge to Turnbulls leadership by Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, a figurehead of the Liberal Partys most right-wing faction. On Sky News, the night-time commentators Peta Credlin and Andrew Bolt ramped up their negative assessments of Turnbull and his energy policy, which retained a pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Despite the denial in yesterdays editorial, the Australian also moved against Turnbull. This culminated on August 24 when its editorial described his behaviour the preceding day in trying to stave off a leadership vote, as sinking to a new low. The newspaper said it had warned repeatedly about dangers facing Turnbull but he had failed to heed the message. Meanwhile, the previous day, Stokess West Australian conducted a rear-guard operation. It appeared with a front-page banner headline insisting that the prime minister had to stand aside for Morrison, as a better choice than Dutton. The next day, as uncertainty swirled around the government, the West Australian made another front-page intervention, this time touting Foreign Minister Julie Bishop for PM. The newspapers editorial accused Murdochs News Corp of manipulating the wreckers inside the party to move against Turnbull. Both Bishop and Morrison, who had been the Turnbull governments treasurer, were promoted as compromise candidates who could hold the Liberal-National Coalition together. Bishop, also based in WA, was aligned with Turnbulls efforts to balance somewhat between Washington and Beijing. In the party room ballot on August 24, however, she received little support. A small majority of Liberal Party parliamentarians opted to install Morrison to block Dutton, while still making a sharp shift to a more right-wing and pro-US alignment. More may yet surface about the events surrounding the latest leadership coup in Australia. But it is already clear that media magnates and other major corporate interests are engaged, behind the backs of the working class, in refashioning the official political framework to prepare for a devastating conflict between the US and China and the eruption of immense social and class tensions. In the coming week, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold hearings on whether Trumps Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford when the two were in high school in the early 1980s. At the conclusion of the theatrics, nobody will be any more informed as to the truth than they were when Fords allegation became public over a week ago. Ford claims Kavanaugh groped her and attempted to force himself on her at a party in Maryland 36 years ago, while Kavanaugh denies the allegation. Whatever happened or did not happen at the high school party, Fords allegation has become the central issue upon which the entire political establishment is almost exclusively fixated in the lead-up to the midterm election. It is necessary to understand the political interests elevating Fords claim to the national stage. There are any number of issues that the Democratic Party could have focused on in opposing the nomination of Kavanaughhis participation in drafting the torture policies of the Bush administration, his role in the Clinton impeachment campaign, his extreme right-wing positions on abortion rights and business regulations. There was a conscious and deliberate decision to instead focus entirely on charges related to what Kavanaugh may have done when he was still a juvenile. It is a practiced act of political manipulation. Over the past 25 years, sex scandals have become central mechanisms for working out political conflicts in a system dominated by oligarchs incapable of making any direct appeal to the social or economic interests of the broad masses of working people. In the mid-1990s, when the Republican Party used allegations of sexual impropriety to maneuver against then-President Bill Clinton, the Democratic Party responded with hostility, with Hillary Clinton correctly calling the accusations part of a vast right-wing conspiracy. Twenty years later, it is the Democrats who chiefly rely on allegations of sexual misconduct. The 2018 elections are a major factor in the Democrats calculations. In the elections and more generally in its entire opposition to Trump, the Democrats have worked to smother and suppress the fundamental class questions that are of concern to the vast majority of the populationsocial inequality, attacks on immigrant workers, the destruction of democratic rights, etc. The main focus has been on allegations of Russian meddling, a political narrative that corresponds to the foreign policy strategy of dominant sections of the ruling class. The politics of sex scandals is the main additional political foundation of Democratic Party politics. The release of Fords accusation was clearly timed to coincide with the final stage of the midterm election campaign and generate maximum media attention. Once the allegation was leaked to the public, Fords attorney, Debra Katz, a long-time Democratic donor who gave thousands of dollars to Hillary Clintons campaigns and referred to Trump supporters as miscreants, called for an FBI investigation that could extend the nomination processand dominate the airwavesuntil Election Day. Then, Democratic Party-aligned groups like Demand Justice began running election ads that frame Republicans as defenders of rape and sexual assault. The ads recall George H. W. Bushs tough-on-crime campaign ad from 1988, in which Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis was depicted as a defender of a felon convicted of rape, Willie Horton. In one of Demand Justices ads, the narrator reads, When 15 year-old Christine tried to scream, her attacker covered her mouth so no one could hear her Will [Republican Nevada Senator] Dean Heller listen? The ad failed to mention that Fords claims are only allegations. The aim of the Democratic Party in making Fords allegations a center point of its election campaign is two-fold. First, it is connected to the Democrats promotion of identity politics, aimed at appealing to more affluent sections of the upper-middle class that are one of the partys main constituencies. The allegations of Ford can be incorporated into the false claim that the basic division in society is between men and women. According to an NBC article reviewing 2018 election polling data, the strategy is paying off. Republicans are already facing big problems this year with college educated white women in affluent suburban districts, the article reads, quoting Democratic pollster Cornell Belcher, who said, Almost every week, Donald Trump does something that makes these suburban women clutch their pearls. Second, the Democrats are highly practiced in utilizing issues of sexual violence and harassment to obscure and suppress class issues (including the class issues involved in sexual harassment) and pollute and manipulate public consciousness to promote policies that are highly undemocratic and ultimately reactionary. The 2016 election marked a turning point in this strategy, when the Hillary Clinton campaign disparaged working class voters as deplorables, avoided criticizing Trumps right-wing program and instead focused on allegations of sexual harassment centered on the publication of the Access Hollywood tape in the weeks before the election. Earlier that year, during the Democratic primaries, the Clinton campaign turned the allegedly lenient sentencing of Stanford student Brock Turner into a national political issue in order to present her campaign as the vehicle for womens empowerment. The aim was to change the narrative from the issues of social inequality that had motivated widespread support, including from young and working class women, for the campaign of Bernie Sanders. The central demand that resulted from this campaign was for harsher sentencing laws, a traditional plank of the far-right. Rather than pulling back after Clintons defeat, the Democratic Party intensified the gender and identity appeal during the 2017 Alabama Senate election, campaigning primarily on the question of allegations that Roy Moore was a rapist and pedophile. Similar allegations were later used to force the resignation of Democratic Minnesota Senator Al Franken and Democratic New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. The launching of the #MeToo campaign laid the foundation for the escalation of this Democratic Party initiative. In October 2017, the New York Times and former Democratic State Department aide Ronan Farrow inaugurated the #MeToo campaign with the ouster of Harvey Weinstein. The campaign has been used to severely undermine due process and promote outright censorship, as in the recent forced resignation of New York Review of Books editor Ian Buruma for publishing an article by Jian Ghomeshi, who had been accused and acquitted of sexual misconduct. The response to the Ford allegations is the latest step in this operation. Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster and political consultant, was quoted in a CNBC article titled Kavanaugh accusation reignites #MeToo ahead of midterm electionsand a new Year of the Woman could be really bad news for Republicans. Lake said, It is the Year of the Woman, and [Republicans] nominated none. The single biggest mistake that the Republican Party made was not nominating more women. This is a revealing remark. According to the Democratic Party, what matters is not the fact that Trump and the Republicans have drastically slashed taxes for the wealthy, separated thousands of immigrant children from their parents, eviscerated workplace safety and environmental regulations, and drastically increased military spending at the expense of the social needs of the population. Groups like the International Socialist Organization have supported this right-wing campaign. In an article titled #MeToo versus the Senate, Socialistworker.org writes: the victim-blaming and the shaming of Blasey has already shaped public opinion, and it needs to be mobilized in whatever way possible to oppose the drive to put another sexual assaulter on the Supreme Court. (Emphasis added.) This is an open call to support the Democratic Party. In the end, if the Democrats do win control of Congress, they will either help confirm Kavanaugh or ensure the nomination of an equally reactionary justice. The Democrats are in fundamental agreement with Trump and Kavanaughs right-wing program. The ruling class is taking note of indications of a coming social explosion, manifest in the highest level of strike activity in decades. Polls show massive opposition to Trump, growing anger over both parties pro-corporate economic program and rising interest among workers and youth in socialism. Under these conditions, the ruling class seeks to poison the atmosphere, pit workers against each other, and weaken the international working class in anticipation of great class battles ahead. The task of socialists is to unmask the right-wing agenda the Democrats are attempting to advance behind the smokescreen of sex scandals and to fight to unify the working class worldwide in the struggle for socialism. In the early summer, the Clinton Foundation released hundreds of pages of newly declassified documents about conversations between US president Bill Clinton and Russian president Boris Yeltsin between 1996 and 1999. The documents show the extent of US meddling in Russian domestic politics in the 1990s, and are a stark testimony to the groveling of the Russian oligarchy, personified by Boris Yeltsin, before US imperialism. Under conditions of a thoroughly hypocritical and right-wing media hysteria about alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US elections, and a massive NATO military build-up against Russia, these documents acquire special significance. It is telling that hardly any US newspaper reported on the newly declassified records which contradict almost every element of their anti-Russian propaganda. The earliest documents date from 1996, the year of the presidential elections in Russia. Boris Yeltsin, who had presided over the shock therapy with which capitalism was fully restored in Russia, was by now widely hated and stood almost no chance of winning the election. The most likely winner was Gennady Zyuganov, the leader of the ultra-nationalist Stalinist Communist Party (KPRF). That the US heavily intervened in these elections to bolster Yeltsin, with whom Clinton had developed a close political relationship, has long been known. As a matter of fact, the US media, including Time magazine, bragged about this operation, which involved sending several highly paid former US officials to Russia to help Yeltsin with his campaign. The newly released minutes provide more detailed insight into this thoroughly anti-democratic operation. In a telephone conversation between Yeltsin and Clinton on 21 April 1996, Yeltsin urged Clinton to not embrace Zyuganov. Clinton responded: You dont have to worry about that. We spent fifty years working for the other result. Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin About two weeks later, on 7 May 1996, they spoke again. This time, Yeltsin begged Clinton for a massive IMF loan to be used for his presidential campaign. The conversation is worth quoting at some length: Yeltsin: . Please understand me correctly. Bill, for my election campaign, I urgently need for Russia a loan of $2.5 billion. Clinton: Let me ask this: didnt it help you a lot when the Paris Club rescheduled Russias debt? I thought that would have caused several billions of dollars to flow into your country. Yeltsin: No. It will be coming in the second half of the year. And in the first half of the year, we will only have $300 million due to conditions set by the IMF. ... But the problem is I need money to pay pensions and wages. Without resolving this matter of pensions and wages, it will be very difficult to go into the election campaign. You know, if we could resolve this subject in a way with him providing the $2.5 billion in the first half, we could perhaps manage. Or if you could do it under your banks with Russian government guarantees. Clinton: Ill check on this with the IMF and with some of our friends and see what can be done. I think this is the only way it can be done, but let me clarify this. I had understood that you would get about $1 billion from the IMF before the election. Yeltsin: No, no, only $300 million. Clinton: Ill check. Yeltsin: Okay. Later on in the conversation, Clinton said: I was very pleased to see that you quickly dismissed the suggestion that the elections be postponed. This election will be the milestone for Russian democracy. I believe you are right to trust in the wisdom of the Russian voters. Your statement is receiving enormous favorable publicity in the United States and around the world. The 1996 election in Russia was about as democratic as the entire process of capitalist restoration: funded and supported by US imperialism, it was a blatant assault on the democratic rights and social interests of the working class. Clinton, as other US presidents before and after him, used the term democratic only to designate developments that corresponded to the political and foreign policy interests of US imperialism. The pathetic begging of Yeltsin for US support in an election he knew he would otherwise lose was symptomatic of the Russian oligarchys relationship toward what it considered its big brother. The oligarchy as a whole emerged as the product of the Stalinist bureaucracys total capitulation to imperialism, the destruction of the Soviet Union, and has been, from the very beginning, deeply dependent on international finance capital, centered in the US. Throughout the 1990s, the oligarchy relied on the active help of US imperialism in implementing the shock therapy. Countless advisors, previous government and active CIA personnel, flocked to Russia to help the oligarchs plunder the country and establish control over as many resources as possible. This close relationship was reflected in the friendship between Yeltsin, a notorious drunkard, and Clinton. In 1996-1997, hardly a conversation passed between the two presidents without Yeltsin telling Clinton that he had missed him or offering him a bear hug. Clinton, who made no secret of his personal affection for Yeltsin countered by assuring Yeltsin in his turn that he too had missed him and repeatedly praised him as the father of Russian democracy. Whatever the personal affinities between Clinton and Yeltsin, and the almost boundless readiness of the oligarchy to capitulate to demands from Washington, US imperialism showed no sign of easing the pressure on Russia: quite the contrary. As the World Socialist Web Site analyzed at the time, US imperialism was determined to bring all the resources that had been opened up through the destruction of the Soviet Union in 1991 by the Stalinist bureaucracy under its direct control. (See also: Why is NATO at war with Yugoslavia? World power, oil and gold) Even as the US and NATO recklessly pushed toward the borders of Russia, the Yeltsin administration was scrambling to maintain as high a level of political cooperation as possible. Yet the framework which US imperialism granted to the Russian oligarchys maneuvers was shrinking continuously. The increasingly tense conversations between Clinton and Yeltsin from 1998 and 1999 about the US bombing of Iraq in 1998 and of Serbia in 1999 reflect this dynamic. The first fall-out between Yeltsin and Clinton occurred over the bombing of Iraq, which Yeltsins administration, acting above all through the foreign minister who was working closely with US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, had tried to prevent by helping to pressure Saddam Hussein for years. (It is worth recalling that the Stalinist bureaucracy gave the green light to the first bombing of Iraq in 1990 under President George Bush.) In a telephone conversation on 22 November 1997, in which Clinton indicated that he was considering military options, Yeltsin tried to insist on diplomatic pressure, saying: You know that we will be ready to apply pressure on him every day and to keep our representative, Viktor Posuvalyuk, there on a daily basis. We want to pressure him into accepting our conditions. We are going to act until his mind is set correctly. Yet despite the attempts by the Russian oligarch to help further a deal, in late 1998, the US bombed Iraq, once again, without warning and without a declaration of war. Tensions further escalated over the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia a few months later. Throughout the first months of 1999, Yeltsin was arguing, or, rather, begging, the US president to continue to pursue a diplomatic solution to the conflict with Serbian leader Milosevic, with whom sections of the Russian ruling elite maintained close ties. On 24 March, 1999, NATO started to bomb Serbia. The strikes would last until 10 June 1999, killing up to 538 civilians, and destroying numerous public buildings and critical infrastructure in the impoverished country. In Russia, some 96 percent of the population denounced the strikes as a crime against humanity. Meanwhile, Yeltsin was coming under massive pressure from within the oligarchy and sections of the military, who felt that Russias betting on an alliance with the US had ended in a disaster. In a phone call with Clinton on 25 April 1999, which lasted over one and a half hours, an exasperated and visibly desperate Yeltsin urged Clinton to immediately end the bombing. He assured Clinton that he was resisting calls from within his army command for military intervention. Yeltsin: You know that I am hearing concerns by our military who are talking about getting military servicemen to go and help Milosevic. You know I have condemned this in the strictest terms and convened my Security Council and said there should be no talk about that. Any General that speaks of sending troops to help Milosevic will be summarily dismissed from the military. Clinton: Thank you. Then, Yeltsin indicated that it was impossible for him to defend his position for long, urging Clinton to end the war as soon as possible. Visibly exasperated, Yeltsin shouted: do not push Russia into this war. You know what Russia is. You know how it is equipped, but dont push Russia into this. Fearing an escalation of the conflict, Yeltsin set into motion a major diplomatic mission with Chernomyrdin, then the head of Gazprom which at the time was the worlds largest gas monopoly, to persuade Milosevic to enter negotiations with the US and NATO. Soon after the ending of the NATO bombardment, Yeltsin told Clinton in a 13 June 1999 telephone conversation that he had designated Vladimir Putin as his successor. (Putin was a high-ranking member of the presidential administration in Moscow since the rigged elections of 1996.) Yeltsin: Shortly, in the next few days, you will have a meeting with Mr. Putin. Briefly at this time, I would like to tell you about him so you will know what kind of man he is. It took me a lot of time to think who might be the next Russian president in the year 2000. Unfortunately, at that time, I could not find any sitting candidate. Finally, I came across him, that is, Putin, and I explored his bio, his interests, his acquaintances, and so on and so forth. I found out he is a solid man who is kept well abreast of various subjects under his purview. At the same time, he is thorough and strong, very sociable. And he can easily have good relations and contact with people who are his partners. I am sure you will find him to be a highly qualified partner. I am very much convinced that he will be supported as a candidate in the year 2000. We are working on it accordingly. Clinton said: ...we have had good contacts with Mr. Putin so far, and I look forward to meeting with him in Auckland. It is fair to say that Clinton knew more about what kind of man Putin was than over 90 percent of Russian voters at the time. Putin, the ex-KGB man behind the rise of Anatoly Sobchak, the mayor of St. Petersburg, had been a murky figure for most of the 1990s. His main preoccupation, apart from dealings with the local mafia, were backdoor conversations with representatives of foreign banks and imperialist governments whom he visited as the right hand of Sobchak. According to the British journalist Ben Judah, Putin enjoyed the sympathy of roughly 1 percent of the population when he was designated by Yeltsin as his successor. At a meeting in Istanbul on 19 November 1999, Yeltsin and Clinton had the following exchange about Putin: Clinton: Who will win the election? Yeltsin: Putin, of course. He will be the successor to Boris Yeltsin. Hes a democrat, and he knows the West. Clinton: Hes very smart. Yeltsin: Hes tough. He has an internal ramrod. Hes tough internally, and I will do everything possible for him to winlegally, of course. And he will win. Youll do business together. He will continue the Yeltsin line on democracy and economics and widen Russias contacts. He has the energy and the brains to succeed. With all the anti-Putin propaganda in the US and Western media, it is worth recalling that Putin was considered a formidable choice by Yeltsin. Putins toughness was endorsed by business circles internationally who felt that Russia needed its own Pinochet to put the country in order, and establish a firm framework for the reckless and unhampered exploitation of the working class and Russias resources through major banks and corporations. The fact that Putins nomination was at least in part a result of the growing sentiments within the Russian oligarchy that it could only defend its interests by pushing back, at least to some extent, against the United States, was lost upon most US observers until Putins moves against the pro-US oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 2003. The push-back from the Russian oligarchyhowever limitedhas since established limitations upon the exploitation of Russias raw material resources for foreign companies. The Russian oligarchy has also maintained its own foreign policy alliances and economic ties, including with other major imperialist powers like Germany, that are at odds with the economic and foreign policy interests of US imperialism. All of this has been an ever-growing thorn in the side of US imperialism in its drive to global hegemony. This is the fundamental motivation for the hysterical anti-Russia and anti-Putin campaign of recent years. In shedding light on both the crimes of US imperialism in the 1990s, and Washingtons relations with the Russian oligarchy under Yeltsin, the newly declassified documents are yet another testimony to the fundamentally deceitful and right-wing character of this campaign. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a stark warning to Iran Friday, telling CNN that Washington will take direct action against Tehran for any attacks, even those using proxy forces, against US interests. "We have told the Islamic Republic of Iran that using a proxy force to attack an American interest will not prevent us from responding against the prime actor," Pompeo told CNN in an interview with Elise Labott. "We will not let Iran get away with using a proxy force to attack an American interest; Iran will be held accountable for those incidents." Continents and regions Government and public administration Government bodies and offices Government departments and authorities International relations International relations and national security Iran Iran nuclear development Iraq Middle East Middle East and North Africa Mike Pompeo North America Political Figures - US State departments and diplomatic services The Americas United States US federal government White House Donald Trump Kim Jong Un Political Figures - Intl Asia East Asia North Korea Asked if that meant militarily, Pompeo said, "they're going to be held accountable." The top US diplomat was speaking in the wake of early September rocket attacks, allegedly by Iran-backed militias, that appeared to target US missions in Iraq, including in an area that houses the US Embassy in Baghdad, the capital of Iraq. The White House blamed Shia militia groups, saying in a Sept. 11 statement that "Iran did not act to stop these attacks by its proxies in Iraq, which it has supported with funding, training and weapons." Iran's Foreign Ministry responded on September 12 with a statement that called the US claims "astonishing, provocative, and irresponsible." Pompeo noted Friday that Iran has been "confronting the world as the world's largest state sponsor of terror for quite some time. They have armed militias, the Lebanese Hezbollah, Makateeb Hezbollah, militias in Iraq; they're arming the Houthis in Yemen, launching missiles in the Gulf states." He added that if Iran is "responsible for the arming and training of these militias, we're gonna go to the source." Tensions between Iran and the US have increased over the last year after President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the international nuclear pact that gave Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program. In the months since, the administration has rolled out a pressure campaign focused on "neutralizing" Iran's influence in the region and its support for terrorism and militants. Pompeo delivered a speech in May that laid out 12 US demands for Iran to change that many saw as a strategy of regime change in all but name. Next week, during an annual meeting of world leaders at the United Nations, Pompeo will be delivering a major speech on Iran as part of an administration wide effort to raise support for US efforts to counter Iran. Trump is also scheduled to host a Security Council meeting on non-proliferation. On Friday, he tweeted that the gathering would be about Iran. Pompeo also went after his predecessor, former Secretary of State John Kerry, an architect of the Iran nuclear deal who has met with Iranian officials since leaving office. Kerry's "problem," Pompeo said, is that "he always refused to treat our enemies like enemies." "No American, and in particular no former Secretary of State should be actively speaking to undermine the foreign policy of the United States of America," Pompeo charged, saying that Kerry had told Iranian officials to "just wait out this administration." "Every American, especially former secretary of state should be advocating for America's foreign policy. It's that straightforward," Pompeo said. Defends admin's handling of North Korea Pompeo also addressed North Korea, and stressed the importance of the relationship between Trump and leader Kim Jong Un to US efforts to have Pyongyang dismantle its nuclear program. The leaders' ties are "certainly very important, as is the relationship between Chairman Kim and President Moon," Pompeo said, referring to South Korea's leader who met with Kim for their third summit this year. Pompeo said, "the two leaders will ultimately have to finish this thing, close this deal, is certainly the case." Asked if he felt that North Korea was dictating the terms and pace of negotiations, the top US diplomat said the Trump administration knew the "pace would be uneven" as they pushed Kim to denuclearize in a verifiable and irreversible way. "But the progress each and every day was important," Pompeo said. "I think we're getting that." Pompeo insisted that Trump's style on the world stage was leading to heightened respect, despite deepening strains with Europe, where officials have publicly said they can't rely on the US the way they used to, and some have proposed reducing their use of the US dollar. Partners around the world "understand that America is back, we are engaged, we are leading from a core set of principles that they all can rally around and begin to help us build coalitions to solve some of the most difficult problems facing the world," Pompeo said. Pompeo also responded to claims in the recent book by Bob Woodward that Trump doesn't understand the nuances of national security issues and that his team has sometimes worked behind the scenes to prevent the President from seeing certain papers or from acting on issues. "I find that absolutely ludicrous," Pompeo said. "There aren't many members of the President's Cabinet who would spend as much time with him as I have," Pompeo said. "I've briefed him almost every day as CIA director. I see him and talk to him every day now. This is a President who is fully informed, well-briefed, listens, asks hard questions and is leading his foreign policy team towards solving so many of the problems that plague this world." "I wish the previous administration had acted with such diligence and power," Pompeo said, "but it was left to us. We'll get it right." Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a stark warning to Iran Friday, telling CNN that Washington will take direct action against Tehran for any attacks, even those using proxy forces, against US interests. "We have told the Islamic Republic of Iran that using a proxy force to attack an American interest will not prevent us from responding against the prime actor," Pompeo told CNN in an interview with Elise Labott. "We will not let Iran get away with using a proxy force to attack an American interest; Iran will be held accountable for those incidents." Asked if that meant militarily, Pompeo said, "they're going to be held accountable." The top US diplomat was speaking in the wake of early September rocket attacks, allegedly by Iran-backed militias, that appeared to target US missions in Iraq, including in an area that houses the US Embassy in Baghdad, the capital of Iraq. The White House blamed Shia militia groups, saying in a Sept. 11 statement that "Iran did not act to stop these attacks by its proxies in Iraq, which it has supported with funding, training and weapons." Iran's Foreign Ministry responded on September 12 with a statement that called the US claims "astonishing, provocative, and irresponsible." Pompeo noted Friday that Iran has been "confronting the world as the world's largest state sponsor of terror for quite some time. They have armed militias, the Lebanese Hezbollah, Makateeb Hezbollah, militias in Iraq; they're arming the Houthis in Yemen, launching missiles in the Gulf states." He added that if Iran is "responsible for the arming and training of these militias, we're gonna go to the source." Tensions between Iran and the US have increased over the last year after President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the international nuclear pact that gave Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program. In the months since, the administration has rolled out a pressure campaign focused on "neutralizing" Iran's influence in the region and its support for terrorism and militants. Pompeo delivered a speech in May that laid out 12 US demands for Iran to change that many saw as a strategy of regime change in all but name. Next week, during an annual meeting of world leaders at the United Nations, Pompeo will be delivering a major speech on Iran as part of an administration wide effort to raise support for US efforts to counter Iran. Trump is also scheduled to host a Security Council meeting on non-proliferation. On Friday, he tweeted that the gathering would be about Iran. Pompeo also went after his predecessor, former Secretary of State John Kerry, an architect of the Iran nuclear deal who has met with Iranian officials since leaving office. Kerry's "problem," Pompeo said, is that "he always refused to treat our enemies like enemies." "No American, and in particular no former Secretary of State should be actively speaking to undermine the foreign policy of the United States of America," Pompeo charged, saying that Kerry had told Iranian officials to "just wait out this administration." "Every American, especially former secretary of state should be advocating for America's foreign policy. It's that straightforward," Pompeo said. Defends admin's handling of North Korea Pompeo also addressed North Korea, and stressed the importance of the relationship between Trump and leader Kim Jong Un to US efforts to have Pyongyang dismantle its nuclear program. The leaders' ties are "certainly very important, as is the relationship between Chairman Kim and President Moon," Pompeo said, referring to South Korea's leader who met with Kim for their third summit this year. Pompeo said, "the two leaders will ultimately have to finish this thing, close this deal, is certainly the case." Asked if he felt that North Korea was dictating the terms and pace of negotiations, the top US diplomat said the Trump administration knew the "pace would be uneven" as they pushed Kim to denuclearize in a verifiable and irreversible way. "But the progress each and every day was important," Pompeo said. "I think we're getting that." Pompeo insisted that Trump's style on the world stage was leading to heightened respect, despite deepening strains with Europe, where officials have publicly said they can't rely on the US the way they used to, and some have proposed reducing their use of the US dollar. Partners around the world "understand that America is back, we are engaged, we are leading from a core set of principles that they all can rally around and begin to help us build coalitions to solve some of the most difficult problems facing the world," Pompeo said. Pompeo also responded to claims in the recent book by Bob Woodward that Trump doesn't understand the nuances of national security issues and that his team has sometimes worked behind the scenes to prevent the President from seeing certain papers or from acting on issues. "I find that absolutely ludicrous," Pompeo said. "There aren't many members of the President's Cabinet who would spend as much time with him as I have," Pompeo said. "I've briefed him almost every day as CIA director. I see him and talk to him every day now. This is a President who is fully informed, well-briefed, listens, asks hard questions and is leading his foreign policy team towards solving so many of the problems that plague this world." "I wish the previous administration had acted with such diligence and power," Pompeo said, "but it was left to us. We'll get it right." TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - Police are searching for a 41-year-old woman who went missing near Lake Ella two weeks ago. The Tallahassee Police Departments Special Victims Unit is seeking information on the location of Rashida Jones. Rashida Jones, 41, was last seen approximately Sept. 7, in the area of Lake Ella. Jones is 5-foot-7 and weighs approximately 140 pounds. Anyone with information is asked to call the Tallahassee Police Department at (850) 891-4200. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 00:14:11|Editor: zh Video Player Close United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (Front) addresses the peace bell ceremony on the occasion of the 37th anniversary of the International Day of Peace at the UN headquarters in New York, on Sept. 21, 2018. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday that "peace is the unifying concept that brings us together at the United Nations." (Xinhua/Li Muzi) UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday that "peace is the unifying concept that brings us together at the United Nations." Addressing the peace bell ceremony held at the UN headquarters in New York on the occasion of the 37th anniversary of the International Day of Peace, the UN chief said that "we see conflicts multiplying everywhere in the world. We see links between conflicts and terrorism. We see insecurity prevailing. We see people suffering. But we don't give up." Noting that the 2030 Agenda, which is the "struggle for a fair globalization," the secretary-general said that "there is no development without peace but there is also no peace without development." "When we are celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we know that human rights are violated in so many parts of the world, we even know that the human rights agenda is losing ground. But we don't give up because respect for human rights and human dignity is a basic condition for peace," he said. "It is true that extreme poverty is being reduced but we see inequality growing. But again we don't give up because we believe inequality is one of the most important factors of instability and conflict," the secretary-general noted. Noting that "peace is violated in so many places," the UN chief pledged that the United Nations "will not give up" in pursuing sustainable peace. The International Day of Peace ("Peace Day") is observed around the world each year on Sept. 21. Established in 1981 by unanimous UN resolution, Peace Day provides a globally shared date for all humanity to commit to peace above all differences and to contribute to building a culture of peace. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 01:09:25|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close Chinese employees work at the shipyard of Piraeus Port Authority (PPA) in Perama, Greece, on Sept. 21, 2018. China COSCO Shipping took over in 2016 the management of Greece's largest port after winning an international tender. Chinese and Greeks work nonstop at this shipyard of Piraeus Port Authority (PPA) as part of a major plan to upgrade Piraeus port and support the economic revival of the wider region. Work will not cease even during holidays, such as the Mid-Autumn festival which falls on Sept. 24 this year. (Xinhua/Marios Lolos) By Maria Spiliopoulou PERAMA, Greece, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- For several decades the heart of Greece's ship repair industry was beating at Perama, a western suburb of Piraeus port, until the Greek debt crisis broke out in 2009. Thousands of workers lost their jobs and machines became rusty. The image of the zone is changing dramatically since China COSCO Shipping took over in 2016 the management of Greece's largest port after winning an international tender. Chinese and Greeks work nonstop at this shipyard of Piraeus Port Authority (PPA) as part of a major plan to upgrade Piraeus port and support the economic revival of the wider region. Work will not cease even during holidays, such as the Mid-Autumn festival which falls on Sept. 24 this year, Chinese expiates working here told Xinhua on Friday. "You know ship repairing is a very special industry. The time is money. Every ship has its schedule. If the cargo delays or the schedule delays, it is a big loss to the clients... It is normal in China and I think here is the same. If the client needs it... we must hurry up here," said Ma Liang, commercial manager at Perama shipyard. Ma, 32, is a member of a team which arrived to Perama a few months ago, to help breathe new life into the zone. He has been working for a decade in COSCO. Back home he would spend the Mid-Autumn Festival, one of the most important festivals for Chinese people, with his one-year-old son, his wife and his parents. The festival, falling on the 15th day of the eighth month on Chinese lunar calendar, is a major occasion for family reunions, with the tradition of enjoying the full moon and eating moon cakes. In Greece, Ma will be at his post, proud for holding a small part in a major project. "We have the confidence to rebuild the ship repairing industry in the future and have very good cooperation with our Greek colleagues," he told Xinhua. Currently about 40 Chinese and Greeks are working at the zone. The goal is to upgrade infrastructure and be able to supply the one-stop service to all clients. Significant first steps have already been made. In March this year, a new floating dock of 22,000 tons lifting capacity, which can serve ships up to 240 meters in length and 35 meters in width, with transport capacity of 80,000 tons (PANAMAX) arrived on the site. "The new floating dock expanded the existing infrastructure, aiming to attract more ships to the Ship Repair Zone of Perama from the wider region of Mediterranean and contribute to the boosting of Ship Repair industry by creating new working positions," according to a Piraeus Port Authority statement. "The total investments provided by the concession agreement already in progress at the Ship Repair Zone of Perama will exceed 55 million euros (64.6 million U.S. dollars) and will emerge the port of Piraeus into a ship repair hub in the Eastern Mediterranean, aiming to attract more ships per year as a result of increased reliability and efficient services," PPA said in the statement. The Greek government and local administration officials have welcomed the development and praised many times Sino-Greek cooperation at Piraeus port as an example of win-win collaboration. Although far away from his family for the first time, Hu Miao, 28, who joined the team as project supervisor last October, told Xinhua he feels like home at Perama, as Greeks are warm and friendly. "It is my first time to be away from my family without my wife and parents... I think it is luck for me to be here, because this is a Chinese very important project with Greece," he said. Zhang Baohua, 27, also a project supervisor at Perama shipyard, has been working for COSCO since 2014. "I arrived here in March this year, actually together with the new floating dock," he told Xinhua. The "Piraeus III" floating dock arrived with a COSCO Shipping cargo ship, and Zhang by plane. "This is the first time I celebrate the Mid-Autumn festival in a foreign country. Of course I miss my family, I miss my mother, I miss my father... I will have a video call with them and tell them what we are doing in Greece," he explained, pointing to the updating of cranes and docks to attract clients. On Monday he will be at Perama with his colleagues at work. "We will celebrate with my brothers... The company will supply us the moon cakes," he told Xinhua. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 01:24:28|Editor: zh Video Player Close Palestinian protesters run to take cover from tear gas fired by Israeli troops during clashes near the Gaza-Israel border, east of Gaza City, on Sept. 21, 2018. At least one Palestinian was killed and 312 were injured on Friday in clashes in eastern Gaza Strip bordering Israel, the health ministry said. (Xinhua/Wissam Nassar) GAZA, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- At least one Palestinian was killed and 312 were injured on Friday in clashes in eastern Gaza Strip bordering Israel, the health ministry said. Gaza Health Ministry Spokesman Ashraf al-Qedra said that the clashes between hundreds of Palestinian protesters and Israeli soldiers have killed a Palestinian young man in his 20s and injured 159, among which 33 were hit by gunshots. On Friday, thousands of Palestinian protesters joined the 26th Friday of the marches of return to break the Israeli siege, which started on March 30 in eastern Gaza Strip that borders Israel. The protesters burned tires, waved Palestinian flags, chanted slogans against Israel and threw stones at Israeli soldiers stationed on the border. The soldiers fired back with tear gas and gunshots. The protesters also managed to cut the barbed wire of the border fence, get into Israel and burn tires in front of the Israeli army lookout posts at the border. According to Israeli media, they also released dozens of arson balloons from eastern Gaza Strip into Israel causing large fires in various agricultural fields in the area. The Israeli media also said that Palestinian activists threw homemade hand grenades at the soldiers on the border, lightly injuring an Israeli soldier. Palestinian security officials in Gaza said that the Israeli army targeted three separate Islamic Hamas movement military posts close to the border with Israeli drones missiles and artillery bombs, no injuries reported. Yehya Sinwar, top Gaza leader of Islamic Hamas movement, said Friday that the marches of return to defy the Israeli blockade will continue until it succeeds. "We will carry on with the marches of return until we achieve the goals of lifting the siege," Sinwar told Palestinian protesters in eastern Gaza city as he joined the weekly march. He slammed the Palestinian Authority for its security coordination and cooperation with Israel, saying "we are backing our people until they achieve their goals, and those who bit on security coordination with Israel are the losers." The Gaza-based Highest Commission of the "Great March of Return" warned in a press statement that "the Israeli enemy has to know that we won't accept the continuation of the siege because our people are suffering from woes." The commission called on the international community to listen to "the voices of the patients and the wounded" while also referring to the hard life of around two million Palestinians. According to the health ministry in Gaza, Israeli forces have killed at least 178 Palestinians, and injured 19,000 others since the beginning of the rally against Israel's 12-year crippling blockade and the U.S. embassy move to the disputed holy city of Jerusalem. Efforts by Egypt and UN Special Coordinator Nickolay Mladenov have so far failed to broker a cease-fire agreement between Israel and the Hamas-led militant groups in the Gaza Strip. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 01:24:29|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close Zhou Xiaochuan (C), former governor of China's central bank and current president of the China Society for Finance and Banking, speaks during a seminar on the Sino-German economic relations in Berlin, Germany, on Sept. 21, 2018. Chinese and German experts on Friday attended the seminar co-sponsored by Germany's Koerber Foundation and the China Center for International Economic Exchanges. (Xinhua/Wang Qing) BERLIN, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- Experts from China and Germany on Friday vowed to strengthen dialogues to dispel misunderstanding and strengthen multilateralism amid uncertainties arising from the trade disputes. "The two sides have some misunderstandings in their cooperation and both sides have critics to each other, but I believe it is conducive to the mutual understanding," said Zhou Xiaochuan, former governor of China's central bank and currently president of the China Society for Finance and Banking. Zhou made the remarks at the opening speech of a seminar themed Sino-German economic relation co-sponsored by Germany's Koerber Foundation and the China Center for International Economic Exchanges (CCIEE) in Berlin. Attended by leading experts in finance, economics, trade and international relations from China and Germany, the seminar focused on the risks and also problems between the two countries, as well as between China and the European Union, in an open and candid way. According to Zhou, experts discussed the issue of the alleged subsidies of China's State-owned enterprises (SOEs), the intellectual property protection issues, as well as the reform of the WTO system. "We hope that through the discussion can we promote the China-EU and China-Germany strategic cooperation," added Zhou. "We have talked a lot about the differences of economic systems. There are concerns in Germany about China, such as market rules, the access to market, (and) the role of the state in economy," said Thorsten Benner, director of the Berlin-based think-tank Global Public Policy Institute. Benner believed that dialogues helped to build a positive contact between China and Germany as well as Europe. The seminar took place amid the trade war waged by the United States, which was a major topic of many experts, who called for joining hands to safeguard a rule-based multilateral economic and trade system. Bernt Berger, head of the Asia Research Program and senior fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations, told Xinhua after the seminar that the multilateral policies of the Trump Administration have brought many challenges to both Europe and China. "In the future Europe and China can strengthen multilateralism through development cooperation, the Belt and Road Initiative, climate change initiative," said Berger, who believed that it would be China-Europe partnership strengthening international order, rather than strategic alliance. "The discussion was candid beyond my expectation," Nora Mueller, executive Director International Affairs of Koerber Foundation, told Xinhua. "We all talked about problems. It is good for strengthening mutual understanding." "It was a high-quality dialogue, every candid, practical and result-oriented," said Zhu Guangyao, former Chinese vice finance minister. "China and Germany are both defenders of the economic globalization and multilateralism, and in this respect the two sides have common interests." Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 02:34:41|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close JERUSALEM, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- An Israeli aircraft on Friday carried out several strikes in the northern Gaza Strip, said the Israeli army. Over 10,000 Palestinians demonstrated Friday afternoon and evening in several locations along the Gaza Strip border security fence, according to the statement issued by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The demonstrators hurled grenades and explosive devices, burned tires and threw rocks at Israeli troops and at the security fence, said the Israeli army, adding that Israeli forces spotted several infiltration attempts. According to the statement, Israeli troops responded with riot dispersal means and fired in accordance with standard operating procedures. According to a Palestinian report, one demonstrator was killed during the clashes. Earlier on Friday, a piece of shrapnel hit an Israeli combat soldier, lightly injuring him, said the IDF. The soldier was taken to a hospital for further treatment. At the same time, fires broke in six Israeli fields close to the border because of burning kites and balloons launches from the Gaza Strip. In response to the events, the Israeli aircraft carried out strikes in the northern Gaza Strip. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 03:19:48|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close GENEVA, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- The World Health Organization (WHO) said Friday that the latest Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) remains active, with the cities of Beni and Butembo becoming the new hotspot. Substantial progress has been made to limit the spread of the disease to new areas and the situation at Mabalako Health Zone in Mangina, North Kivu province, is stabilizing, WHO said in a statement. In the meantime, response teams continue to enhance activities to mitigate potential clusters in Beni and Butembo -- two large, populous cities in the province -- and prevent spread to other areas. Significant risks for further spread of the disease still remain, the WHO warned. Continued challenges include contacts lost to follow-up, delayed recognition of Ebola in health centers, poor infection prevention and control in health centers, and reluctance among some cases to be treatment in Ebola treatment centers. The priority thus remains strengthening all components of the public health response in all affected areas, as well as continuing to enhance operational readiness and preparedness in the non-affected provinces and neighboring countries. The WHO said as of Tuesday, it had deployed 209 experts in the DRC to support response activities. Among them are emergency coordinators, epidemiologists, laboratory experts, logisticians, clinical care specialists, communicators, and community engagement specialists. Over 5,000 Ebola contacts had been registered, of which 1,983 remain under surveillance. Meanwhile, 10,701 people have so far consented and been vaccinated, including 4,008 health care or frontline workers, and 2,362 children. The ring vaccination teams are currently active in three health areas in North Kivu and one in neighboring Ituri province. As the latest Ebola outbreak is affecting north-eastern provinces of the DRC which borders Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan, the WHO remains that national and regional spread remains high, and that it's important for neighboring provinces and countries to enhance surveillance and preparedness activities. As of Tuesday, a total of 143 Ebola cases, including 112 confirmed and 31 probable cases, had be reported, which include 97 deaths. Though an overall decreasing trend in weekly case incidence continues, it has to be interpreted with caution given the expected delays in case reporting and the ongoing detection of sporadic cases. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 03:19:48|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close RIYADH, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- Saudi Arabia announced on Friday that a house was damaged in a projectile attack shot towards border city Jazan, Saudi Press Agency reported. The Civil Defence Spokesperson of Jazan Lt-Col. Yahya Al Qahtani said in a statement that the civil defence teams dealt with the attack on Friday evening, in which the house sustained various damages. This case was the third projectile attack that targeted Saudi border cities this month by Houthi militias, in which on Sept. 18, a mosque, house and an agricultural well were damaged. Meanwhile, a woman sustained injuries on Sept. 13 in a projectile attack. The Houthi militias target Saudi Arabia with missiles and projectiles in response to the airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition against the lands under their control. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 03:39:52|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close KIGALI, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- Rwandan President Paul Kagame on Friday sent a message of condolence to families of victims of a ferry accident on Lake Victoria in Tanzania. "Our deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of the victims of the Lake Victoria ferry accident. Our thoughts are with you. We cannot thank the rescuers enough," Kagame said in a tweet. A passenger ferry capsized on Lake Victoria, in Ukurewe district, in Mwanza of Tanzania, on Thursday. A government spokesperson was quoted by Tanzanian national media as saying the death toll has reached 131. Tanzanian President John Magufuli has announced a four-day mourning for the victims. Enditem Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 07:10:32|Editor: Liu Video Player Close SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- Attorney General (AG) Bob Ferguson of the U.S. state of Washington said on Friday he felt "disturbed" at a continued legal battle by the federal government that allows online publishing of technology for 3D printable weapons. "It is disturbing that the Department of Justice continues to fight my office in court to allow Cody Wilson, a self-described crypto-anarchist who is now charged with sexual assault of a child to distribute untraceable, undetectable 3D-printed guns over the internet," Ferguson's office said in a Twitter post Friday. Wilson is a controversial maker of the first 3D-printed plastic gun and owner of Defense Distributed, an Austin, Texas state-based firm that sells software and hardware to help print and make untraceable weapons at home. Ferguson said on July 30 that he had filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington against the Trump administration over a settlement agreement between the U.S. State Department and Defense Distributed to share online information on 3D-printable guns. Washington state was supported and joined by 18 other U.S. states in the legal action against the federal government that permits the online spreading of the know-how of 3D printable guns. In the Twitter post on Friday, Ferguson urged the federal government to give top priority to the safety of the American public. "It is time for them to come to their senses and put the safety of the American people first," tweeted Ferguson's office. The Washington AG Office's statement coincided with news reports that Wilson has been arrested overseas on underage sex charge. Earlier this week, Texas police issued an arrest warrant for Wilson for his paid sex with a 16-year-old girl, which constitutes a sexual assault in the United States. Media reports said his passport has been revoked by the U.S. government. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 07:20:33|Editor: Liu Video Player Close WASHINGTON, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday warned that the Trump administration will take "a serious of actions" against the Venezuelan government in the coming days. Speaking in an interview with Fox News, Pompeo said that "I think you'll see in the coming days a series of actions that continue to increase the pressure level against the Venezuelan leadership folks." Claiming that "we're determined to ensure that the Venezuelan people get their say," Pompeo declined to detail whether Washington will impose more sanctions on Caracas. The remarks came ahead of the annual UN General Assembly slated in New York next week. Several U.S. media outlets reported earlier this month that the Trump administration has talked secretly with rebellious Venezuelan military officers several times to discuss their plans to stage a coup in the South American country. For his part, U.S. President Donald Trump said in August of last year that he would not rule out a "military option" in Venezuela "if necessary," despite his aides' opposition. The U.S. side has also announced several rounds of sanctions against Venezuelan government officials ever since. In response, Venezuela has slammed the "warmongering" declarations of Trump as "threats to peace" and a "violation" of UN and international laws. The Maduro government has also instructed the military to prepare to "shoulder arms" in case of a U.S. invasion. A nurse tends to a Yemeni child suffering from malnutrition lying on a bed at a hospital in the northern district of Abs in the northwestern Hajjah province on Sept. 19, 2018. (AFP Photo) UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock on Friday warned of the danger of widespread famine in Yemen amid an economic meltdown and fighting that threaten the lifeline of supplies for civilians. "The Security Council has asked for an update today on the humanitarian situation in Yemen. In a word, it is bleak," said Lowcock. "We are losing the fight against famine." The situation has deteriorated in an alarming way in recent weeks, he told the Security Council. "We may now be approaching a tipping point, beyond which it will be impossible to prevent massive loss of life as a result of widespread famine across the country." Some 18 million of the 29 million Yemenis, including a high proportion of children, are food insecure, and more than 8 million of them severely food insecure, meaning they do not know where their next meal will come from and they need emergency food assistance to survive, said Lowcock. The already dire humanitarian situation was battered by a marked economic deterioration, symptomized by the depreciation of the Yemeni rial by some 30 percent in the past month or so, said Lowcock. Because almost all the food consumed in Yemen is imported, that depreciation translates directly into a sharp increase in the price of food for some 10 million Yemenis who are food insecure but who are not reached by international aid. "We are already seeing pockets of famine-like conditions, including cases where people are eating leaves because they have no other form of sustenance," he said. "We estimate that an additional 3.5 million people may soon be added to the 8 million already severely food insecure." Compounding that, the depreciation of the rial and access problems are producing unprecedented increases in the price of fuel. As petrol prices have doubled just this week, transportation costs have gone up, and reaching a health facility or fleeing fighting is becoming unaffordable for many families without outside help, said Lowcock. Commercial imports of food and fuel have yet to recover from last November's blockade of seaports by the Saudi-led coalition, he said. With the confidence of shipping companies already very battered, as reflected in a 35 percent drop in clearance requests since the blockade, any further shocks could add to the core humanitarian caseload in a way which would simply overwhelm the capacity of humanitarian organizations, he warned. The intensification of fighting in recent weeks around the Red Sea port of Hudaydah is choking the lifeline which the aid operation -- and the commercial markets -- rely on, he said. The main Hudaydah-Sanaa road -- the principal artery used by commercial importers and humanitarian organizations to move commodities to people across the country -- has been cut off by fighting. Other routes are heavily damaged and increase transport times and therefore the cost for humanitarian organizations and private companies, he said. The Red Sea mills in Hudaydah, containing 45,000 tons of grain imported by the World Food Programme, which is enough to feed 3.5 million people for a month, has recently been inaccessible because of fighting in the area, he said. Armed groups have occupied humanitarian facilities. Attacks against civilians and humanitarian sites have resulted in dozens of deaths and serious damage to public health and water facilities and other humanitarian assets, said Lowcock. Aid agencies, including the United Nations, still have over 600 staff in Hudaydah. But aid activities, including life-saving immunization campaigns, have been delayed or prevented, he said. Lowcock asked the Security Council to take immediate measures to stabilize the economy and support the exchange rate. That includes useable liquidity for Yemen's central bank, and the implementation of long-standing commitments to pay key public-sector salaries across the country, so that more people have the wherewithal to buy food and keep the commercial markets alive. It is, at the same time, essential to avoid any policy measures that would damage "the already paper-thin confidence" of commercial importers any further, said Lowcock. International aid cannot replace the commercial markets, he noted. Meanwhile, all stakeholders must uphold their obligations to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure and facilitate access to vulnerable people, he said. "We have to keep all ports open; we have to keep main roads open; we have to keep them functional; we have to keep them safe. No humanitarian site should be used for military purposes. The lifeline through which the aid operation runs now hangs by a thread." He asked all parties to the conflict to find practical solutions to key issues, including the opening of an air bridge for civilians to seek medical treatment outside Yemen for diseases no longer treatable inside the country. And of course, the parties need to get around the negotiating table and engage seriously with the UN mediator on a positive path toward peace, he said. "While we will continue to push to scale up the humanitarian response, humanitarian organizations simply cannot look after the needs of all 29 million Yemenis. That is untenable." Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 07:25:34|Editor: Liu Video Player Close CARACAS, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Minister Jorge Arreaza met on Friday with European Union (EU) diplomats in a bid to improve strained ties with the bloc. "To strengthen the good ties of friendship, cooperation and plurality with the people and governments, Minister Arreaza is holding a cordial meeting with the ambassadors of European Union countries in our country," the Foreign Affairs Ministry said via Twitter. Later, the ministry released a statement saying the envoys and Arreaza discussed issues of general interest and ratified their governments' willingness to continue to strengthen cooperation. In late November, the EU approved sanctions against Venezuela, banning military sales to the country on the grounds that weapons could be used for "internal repression." In January, the EU approved a new series of sanctions against seven top officials, including National Constituent Assembly President Diosdado Cabello, Prosecutor General Tarek William Saab and Interior Minister Nestor Reverol. After a failed assassination attempt against Maduro in early August, an EU representative issued statements that Caracas denounced as interventionist. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 07:30:34|Editor: Liu Video Player Close HAVANA, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel on Friday called on citizens to "champion" local production to cut Cuba's dependence on costly imports. During a cabinet meeting on economic matters, the president and his top aides urged Cubans strive to increase output, especially of agricultural products, state daily Granma said. Cuba currently imports more than three million tons of food a year at a cost of some two billion U.S. dollars, roughly what the island's tourism industry generates in revenue, say authorities. "Hence the importance of working towards development that contributes to reducing the number of imported items, as well as increasing and diversifying exports," Vice President Ricardo Cabrisas said. Island conditions combined with a decades-long U.S. trade embargo limit Cuba's agricultural yields, which were worsened by recent natural disasters, including a prolonged drought and the effects of Hurricane Irma in 2017. Diaz-Canel also stressed the importance of fighting corruption and bureaucracy to attract foreign investment. "We must be more proactive in pursuing foreign investment," said the president, noting such investment can increase access to export markets and bring new technology to enhance agricultural methods. "Modernizing the country's export map is vital," Diaz-Canel said. According to official figures, Cuba needs to attract at least 2.5 billion U.S. dollars in foreign investment each year to maintain economic growth. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 07:30:34|Editor: Liu Video Player Close SANTIAGO, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- Chilean police detained 14 members of a drug trafficking and money laundering gang on Friday, said the country's Investigative Police Department (PDI). The PDI said via Twitter that they had confiscated 113.4 kilos of a cocaine base, marijuana and a salt form of cocaine, cocaine hydrochloride. Some 3 million U.S. dollars worth of property was also seized. The PDI also reported the confiscation of "10 vehicles, shotguns, ammunition, jewellery and chemicals." The operation began with the arrest of four individuals in the northern Antofagasta region, said the authorities. The 10 other gang members were arrested during raids on properties around Santiago, added the PDI. According to Jorge Guin, commissioner of the PDI's Anti-drugs Brigade, Friday's money laundering case was the largest the force has been involved in this year. The police reported that they had been tracking the gang for eight months after noticing money being laundered through several businesses. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 08:50:42|Editor: zh Video Player Close by Naim-Ul-Karim DHAKA, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- The Institute of Modern Languages (IML) at Bangladesh's top Dhaka University is now at the beginning of admissions season. It is a hectic time for the institute's Chinese language department where a heavy rush of admission seekers was witnessed this week. Students have been thronging the department for admission tests or information they need for future courses. Mujibur Rahman, a student of Jagannath University in Dhaka, came to the IML to know when the Chinese Language Department will release forms for its one-year junior course that ultimately leads students to a diploma degree. "I am currently an undergraduate student. I think if I know Chinese language it will be quite helpful for me to have a job in a big Chinese company," said Rahman. Many of other students seen at the IML, however, came to sit for admission tests because they were busy giving last-minute tips to each other on China-related general knowledge that may be possible questions. "I'm keenly interested in learning Chinese language. I've just given my admission test. Hope I will get a chance to study here Chinese language," said a first year student of the Dhaka University's Economics Department. "I must know Chinese language to understand more about China or its economic systems," said the student who declined to be named as he awaited results. Another admission-seeking student of Dhaka University's Physics Department said he also wanted to learn Chinese language. "So far I understand going through newspapers that more future research opportunities lie in China," he said. "I have a plan to study at a top Chinese university in future." The IML's Chinese department is seemingly more abuzz with students as more and more Dhaka University students have been showing keenness to learn Chinese language mainly due to the rise of China on the world stage propelled by the Belt and Road Initiative, a massive infrastructure and investment project along the ancient Silk Road trade routes. Senior IML teacher Afzal Hossain said like previous years they have already started the admission procedures for many courses specially those for the Dhaka University's students. "First of all we will conduct admission tests for students who come from different units of the Dhaka University," he said. "Now admission tests for Dhaka University students who applied to learn Chinese language are now going on." "Two years ago they launched this new system and this will be third batch," Hossain said. "We will complete all formalities (by December) to start classes from January." "After that we will go for admission processes for a one-year junior course that is open for all students (from all educational institutions)." According to the Dhaka University associate professor, the system is that every year they release admission forms in March-April and the admission test is conducted in May. "We have to start this process early because thousands of students from across Bangladesh apply for this one-year junior Chinese language course," said Hossain. "We have a limited number of seats. We cannot take more than 250 students in a batch." After finishing the one-year junior course, he said the students get opportunity for direct admission at a senior level course. On completion of the senior course "they are eligible for getting admission at the diploma course." "In this way, they obtain (Dhaka University) diploma (in Chinese language). These are our regular courses," said Hossain. Apart from these, he said they offer short courses for businessmen or those who are interested in doing business with China or working in a Chinese company. There is a good opportunity for jobs for those who know Chinese language, said the associate professor. The 60-hour course in three month lays emphasis on speaking and practical uses of Chinese language. "Many think China language is difficult. But modern teaching methods made things quite easy and our students can learn easily," said Hossain. "With little more practices after completing a three-month course, he said their students get jobs with handsome salary." Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 11:25:58|Editor: zh Video Player Close CANBERRA, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- More than 150,000 Australians who owe the government money will be banned from leaving the country under a plan announced on Saturday. Under the hardline policy, Australians who refuse to pay debts owed to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) or the nation's welfare agency, Centrelink, will not be allowed to take overseas holidays unless they agree to a payment plan. Prime Minister Scott Morrison is hopeful that the policy will recoup at least some of the 800 million Australian dollars (582 million U.S. dollars) owed to the government by its citizens. "If you've got longstanding tax debts and you've been warned and warned and warned and warned and warned, and you're thumbing your nose at everyone else paying tax and you're saying, 'Tough for you. I'm going to get on a plane'," Morrison told News Corp Australia. "You're actually insulting your fellow Australians who pay for the welfare system." The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has already issued orders to stay in the country to 20 culprits with efforts to be ramped-up in the coming months. "If you received a payment you were not entitled to, you have an obligation to repay the money you owe and we will use every tool at our disposal to ensure it is recovered," Michael Keenan, the Minister for Human Services, said in a statement. "The money that funds the welfare system has been earned by hardworking Australians and they expect us to make sure that system operates with integrity, that people get the support that they need and that they're not getting more out of the system than they're entitled to." The policy will only apply to those who no longer receive welfare. Payment plans will be calculated based on an individual's circumstances. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 11:41:00|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close SUVA, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- Vanuatu Prime Minister Charlot Salwai has hailed the island nation's good relationship with China, saying that China-Vanuatu relations will continue to grow from strength to strength. Speaking at a reception held on Friday night in the Vanuatu capital city of Port Vila by the Chinese embassy on the occasion of the 69th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Salwai said Vanuatu-China relationship is built on the principle of mutual respect and common understanding, strong people-to-people links and steadfast commitment to the betterment of the livelihoods of the two peoples. He also promised that Vanuatu will continue to value its relations with China and look forward to continue learning from China's experience, placing equal emphasis on being able to proactively respond to the challenges that continue to plague its development path. Salwai said that his country is happy to join China in celebrating the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening up, a process which not only transformed China into what it is today, but also profoundly impacted the global economy and commerce patterns. Vanuatu also looks forward to continued collaboration with China, and in benefitting from spillovers, through common priorities such as in education, skills and technology transfer, tourism, trade and investment and in agriculture, he said. Salwai reiterated that Vanuatu firmly upholds the One China Policy. For his part, Chinese Ambassador to Vanuatu Zhou Haicheng said that China and Vanuatu share a common future and see each other as true friends and cooperative partners. China attaches great importance to its relationship with Vanuatu and stands ready to work with Vanuatu to raise the bilateral relations to a new height. "We will continue our efforts to strengthen high-level exchanges and mutual political trust, keep providing each other with mutual understanding and support on issues bearing on our respective core interests and major concerns, and consistently create new drivers of our relationship under the new circumstance," he said. "We are fully confident that with the joint efforts, Sino-Vanuatu cooperation in tourism, agriculture, connectivity and other fields will certainly grow in depth and substance and add new chapter to the development of our relations." Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 12:51:09|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close Mayor of Laredo Pete Saenz receives an interview with Xinhua, in Laredo, Texas, the United States, Sept. 19, 2018. The mayor of Laredo, Texas, a major inland port on the U.S. border with Mexico, has said that his city is open for business and that Chinese business people and investors are welcome. by John S. Marshall LAREDO, the United States, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- The mayor of Laredo, Texas, a major inland port on the U.S. order with Mexico, has said that his city is open for business and that Chinese business people and investors are welcome. "There's plenty of opportunity for everyone," Pete Saenz, mayor of Laredo, said in an interview with Xinhua on the sidelines of this year's North American Logistic and Manufacturing Symposium in Laredo, a two-day symposium that concluded on Thursday. The bustling border city with a population of only about 250,000 is one of the busiest ports in the United States. Thousands of trucks pass through the city to and from the World Trade International Bridge, a 14-lane span over the Rio Grande, a narrow, long river on the border between the United States and Mexico. More than 2.5 million trucks crossed over the bridge in 2017, with the imports and exports going through Laredo worth 557 billion U.S. dollars, according to the Laredo Economic Development Corporation. Saenz said that Laredo has had some visitors from China, and Laredo has the infrastructure in place, including an expansive road and rail system, and land available for development. "We have the necessary ingredients to provide anyone willing to do light manufacturing, or even heavy manufacturing," he said. The annual North American Logistic and Manufacturing Symposium takes on the theme of "Supply Chains in the New Global Reality" this year, with the impact of the rapidly changing political climate in focus. Around 200 politicians, businesspeople and scholars from the United States, Mexico and Canada attended the symposium and discussed international trade and its future direction amid growing trade tensions. But Laredo downplays the significance of the trade frictions, though they could dampen prospects of international companies doing business with Laredo. "Come see the border and see if it suits your needs," said the mayor, who has worked hard to pitch his city for business and trade. "And if it doesn't we'll talk, and we'll make it suit your needs." Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 12:56:11|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close PHNOM PENH, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia will deport Australian filmmaker James Ricketson after he received a royal pardon following his conviction on espionage charges, an immigration police spokesman said on Saturday. "He will be deported this (Saturday) afternoon," General Department of Immigration's deputy chief and spokesman Keo Vanthan told Xinhua. James Ricketson, 69, was released from a Cambodian prison on Friday after receiving a royal pardon at the request of the country's Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen. The Australian filmmaker was convicted last month of spying and collecting information that could jeopardize national security and was sentenced to six years in prison. He was arrested on June 3, 2017 in Phnom Penh while flying a drone illegally to capture images of a rally by the court-dissolved opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 13:21:14|Editor: zh Video Player Close MANILA, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- The Philippines warned on Saturday about the threat posed by sex traffickers preying on Filipino women by offering jobs via the social media. The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) is warning Filipinos seeking jobs abroad against sex trafficking syndicates using social media to offer work in Malaysia, Singapore and other countries. The DFA issued the warning after the Philippine embassy in Kuala Lumpur repatriated on Wednesday 27 Filipino women who were earlier rescued from a sex trafficking syndicate operating in Johor Bahru, the capital of the state of Johor in Malaysia. "We urge our coountrymen to think twice before applying for the various job opportunities abroad that are being offered online," Philippines Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano said. Cayetano said there are numerous cases of Filipino jobseekers who apply for these online job offers but end up in virtual bondage in a number of countries abroad. Cayetano said Filipinos who want to work abroad should first check job offers with the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency (POEA) or the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) before applying for them. Philippine Ambassador to Malaysia Charles Jose said he directed Police Attache Senior Supt. Dario Gunabe to request the assistance of the Royal Malaysian Police as soon as the embassy learned of the situation of the 27 women. Jose said Malaysian police immediately responded and raided the apartment where the women were staying in Johor Baru on Aug. 15 and arrested the Filipino caretaker who was later released. In interviews conducted by the embassy representatives and the Philippine National Police Women and Children Protection Center (PNP-WCPC), the victims said they were trafficked to Malaysia and Singapore in four batches between June and July. According to the women, they were recruited in the Philippines, selling liquor to customers in four establishments in Singapore. They said they did this on a commission basis but were made to do sexual services as well. "The women were mostly recruited through social media for work in Singapore, but were told that they will enter and exit the country from Malaysia but were there only on tourist visas," Jose added. Jose reminded Filipinos wishing to work in Malaysia to be wary of job offers from recruiters who will have them enter the country as tourists but with the promise of securing work visas for them upon arrival. Due to lack of employment in the Philippines, up to 12 million Filipinos work aboard to seek for greener pastures. The Philippines is one of the world's largest labor exporters. The economy is heavily reliant on the remittances the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) send home. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 13:31:15|Editor: Lu Hui Video Player Close Traders talk at the medical equipment section of the Italian booth during the 17th Western China International Fair (WCIF) in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province, Sept. 20, 2018. (Xinhua/Jiang Hongjing) by Xinhua writers Zhang Chaoqun, Fang Ning, Yang Di CHENGDU, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- Over 60,000 enterprises from 90 countries and regions are participating in the 17th Western China International Fair (WCIF) in west China's metropolis of Chengdu, vying for opportunities brought by China's bullish development of western China and the Belt and Road that runs through it. Luigi Di Maio, Deputy Prime Minister of Italy and Minister of Economic Development, Labor and Social Policies, led an entourage consisting of representatives from 55 Italian enterprises to the fair. He said the Italian government regards the country as an important European destination of China's Belt and Road Initiative, which opens a broader space for cooperation. Italy, as the Guest Country of Honor at the fair, has a 1,200-square meter exhibition area with exhibitors from a wide range of fields including health, technology and innovation, clean energy, tourism, agriculture and food. First launched in 2000 by China's National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Commerce, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the WCIF has become an important platform for western China to promote investment, carry out cooperation and conduct diplomacy. BELT AND ROAD FRONTIERS Witold Stepien, Marshal of the Lodz Region of Poland, formed ties with Chengdu after the first freight train named China Railway Express (CRE) from Chengdu arrived in Lodz in 2013, linking the two destinations with a distance of 9,826 km. Since then, there have been more than 2,300 CRE train trips made between Chengdu and European cities, of which nearly half were between Chengdu and Lodz. Stepien has visited Chengdu many times. At this year's fair, he came to find further cooperation opportunities, hoping to enhance the function of Lodz as a railway hub in Europe. "With CRE operation between Chengdu and Lodz, people started to notice the importance of Lodz, which has become a major transport and logistics hub in Europe," said Stepien. Since Chengdu and Lodz formed an official sister-city relationship in 2015, they have expanded their business cooperation to multiple sectors including trade, education and culture, said Stepien. Chengdu-based Xilife, a less than 3-year-old local interior decoration company, has also attributed the company's growth to the CRE trains. Wang Ying, CEO of Xilife, said 90 percent of the company's house decoration materials are brought directly from Italy via the train service, as Chinese consumers welcome the European materials. "CRE train delivery shortens the time from two to three months by maritime transport to less than one month. It helps small firms like Xilife lower storage pressure and timely adjust products according to customers' preferences," said Wang. Wang remembered how astonished their Italian suppliers were when she told them Xilife is able to transport thousands of tonnes of finishing materials such as ceramic tiles, rock boards and hardware by train. Three months after its establishment in February 2016, Xilife began to transport goods via CRE, from 22 railway wagons in 2016, to 48 wagons in 2017, and 52 wagons in the first eight months this year. In addition to Chengdu, two other cities in western China - Chongqing, the country's fourth municipality directly under the central government, and Xi'an, home of the Terra-Cotta Warriors - have also launched CRE train services. Chengdu is building its second airport to cope with the growing demand for international travel. The airport is expected to officially open in 2020. At that time, Chengdu would be the biggest air gateway in the middle and western area of China. "At the early stage of China's reform and opening-up, the vast inland regions were regarded as the 'tail' of the country's opening-up. But the 'tail' has been turned into the locomotive of China's new development drive, bringing its geological advantage to countries along the Belt and Road," said Bai Ming, deputy director of the international market research institute of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation. Chinese Vice Premier Hu Chunhua delivered a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of WCIF on Thursday, saying China's western region will "exert a great vitality by participating in the Belt and Road Initiative." Hu said the Chinese government will further create conditions to support the western region in speeding up its development and deepening international cooperation to achieve greater and higher mutual benefits and win-win results with other countries. GREAT POTENTIAL Bonfiglioli Drives, an Italian machinery manufacturing and design company with 62 years of experience, has shared in the vigorous economic growth of western China. "The focus of our business in China has transferred from eastern coastal areas to western provinces, such as Sichuan, Yunnan, and Guizhou," said Duan Tingbo, senior sales engineer of Bonfiglioli Drives Shanghai branch. "Our sales in western China grew by 21 percent in 2017, compared with the previous year, and grew another 17 percent in the first half of 2018," said Duan. Back in 2000, the eastern and western parts of China had a stark development gap - 12 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipality in western China with about one-third of the country's population and 71 percent of the territory only contributed 17 percent of the national GDP. Since China put forward the West Development strategy in 1999, western China regions have maintained steady and rapid economic development. Data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed that the GDP of China's western region increased from 1.73 trillion yuan (248 billion U.S. dollars) in 2000 to 17.1 trillion yuan in 2017, representing an average annual growth rate of 11.6 percent. Since 2012, the western region has sustained an average annual GDP growth rate of 8.9 percent, which is 1.8 percent higher than the national growth rate, suggesting an ever-shrinking development gap between the country's east and west. In the first seven months of this year, the foreign trade volume of the western region increased by 25.7 percent year on year, and the utilization of foreign capital increased by 18.8 percent, both numbers surpassing the national average rate. With improvements in infrastructure, the western China region is becoming even more attractive to foreign investors. INNOVATION MOTIVATES VITALITY In the prelude to the fair, the 13th EU-China Business & Technology Cooperation Fair opened on Wednesday. Enterprises from China and Europe engaged in talks concerning environmental protection, energy conservation, green economy, intelligent water systems, new energy and new materials, information and communication technology, and intelligent manufacturing, etc. These are sectors that are booming in western China, as new technology and business models have become the engine of the growing economic development. Huangfu Zhengsheng, 40, vice president of Chongqing Shangyu Net Company, said he hoped to find partners to develop his invention of a free WIFI technology for subways with a mobile app named "Hey Fast." It has been used on Chongqing's Metro Line 1 since 2016. "Companies from Germany, the Republic of Korea and Malaysia approached me at the fair, showing interest in the technology," he said. "The digital economy is developing faster than we can imagine in China, and it has been integrated into peoples' daily lives. The EU also has advanced technologies in this field," said Elzbieta Bienkowska, European Commissioner for the internal market, industry and entrepreneurship. She believes that China and EU have great potential for cooperation in smart technology and the digital economy. Clavs Mortenson, project manager of Denmark Agro Business Park, attended the WCIF for the first time in 2017, when he introduced a Danish enterprise engaged in microbial remediation of soil pollution to China. This time, he came with six new technology projects on environmental protection, including air purification tech for waste gas of the breeding industry, also hoping to find business partners. Vice Premier Hu told participants at the fair that China encourages the western region to develop advanced manufacturing and modern service industries to accelerate the development of cutting-edge industries such as big data, artificial intelligence and new energy, and build a new engine for mutual development. (Xinhua reporters Li Qianwei, Xu Ru contributed to this story.) (Video editor: Zhao Xiaoqing) Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 13:46:18|Editor: zh Video Player Close SYDNEY, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- Authorities in Australia's Queensland state on Saturday caught and killed two tiger sharks in Whitsunday Islands area, just days after a 46-year-old woman and a 12-year-old girl were separately attacked by sharks there within 24 hours, local media reported. Fisheries department officers shot the two tiger sharks, including one estimated to be more than four meters long, after the marine predators were netted in Cid Harbour, the Whitsunday Times newspaper reported. On Wednesday evening, a shark mauled the Australian woman swimming in the area. On Thursday, the girl from New Zealand suffered serious leg injuries from a similar attack. Both victims were hospitalized and had multiple blood transfusions and emergency surgery to stabilize them. The attacks prompted Australian authorities to advise tourists against swimming in the area. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 13:56:20|Editor: zh Video Player Close RIO DE JANEIRO, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Brazilian government on Friday sent condolences to the Tanzanian government over a boat accident on Thursday, which killed at least 131 people. "The Brazilian government took note with regret of the boat accident," the Brazilian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The government "expresses its condolences to the families of the victims, best wishes for the recovery of those injured, as well as their solidarity with the people and the government of Tanzania, " it said. The accident occurred when a ferry boat capsized in Lake Victoria, northern Tanzania. According to media reports, the boat was overcrowded, with several times more passengers than its maximum capacity. All aboard Our greatest Prime Monster Oli Dai is off to New York to waste our taxpayers money like every other Prime Monster preceding him. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 14:06:22|Editor: zh Video Player Close ULAN BATOR, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- The Mongolian capital Ulan Bator closed its roads off to motors, and open them up to pedestrians and bikers Saturday to mark the World Car-Free Day. "Motor vehicles is one of the main causes of the world's carbon dioxide emissions. Ulan Bator is joining the World Car-Free Day in a bid to promote low carbon lifestyle, physical activity and public health," the mayor's press office said in a statement. Various events were held during the day to encourage family reunions and raise environmental awareness of the Mongolian people. The first national car-free campaign was inaugurated in Britain by the Environmental Transport Association in 1997. After years of development, it has become an international day to encourage motorists to give up their cars to return to the nature and protect environment. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 15:06:35|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close BEIJING, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- German auto maker BMW will recall more than 7,800 cars in China over defects with the exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) systems or the fuel pump systems, according to the country's market regulator. BMW China Automotive Trading Ltd. will recall 939 imported diesel-powered X5 vehicles manufactured between July 19, 2013 and June 5, 2015, starting from Oct. 29, according to a statement from the State Administration for Market Regulation. Defective coolers on these cars' EGR systems may cause ablation or fire, the statement said. The company will also recall 6,912 imported MINI Cooper vehicles produced between Jan. 6, 2017 and June 21, 2018, starting from Oct. 15. These vehicles are missing protection plates for their high-pressure fuel pumps, which increased the risk of fire at crash, according to the statement. The company will replace the defective coolers or install the protection plates for the recalled cars free of charge. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 15:16:40|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close SANTO DOMINGO, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- Visiting Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks with Dominican President Danilo Medina here Friday and agreed to promote bilateral exchanges and deepen cooperation in various fields. At the Presidential Palace, Medina told Wang that the Dominican Republic should have established diplomatic relations with China long ago, since it keeps up with the trend of the times, stands on the right side of history, and fully accords with the interests of the Dominican nation and people. The establishment of diplomatic relations with China is a historic decision made by the Dominican Republic and is also the broad consensus of the Dominican community, which should not be subject to external interference or influence its relations with other countries, he said. The Dominican Republic respects and upholds the one-China principle, Medina said, based on which developing relations with China is an important part of Dominican foreign policy. Medina expressed that the Dominican Republic admires the great development China has achieved and believes that the establishment of diplomatic relations will open up broad prospects for the two sides to expand mutually beneficial and win-win cooperation. The Dominican Republic looks forward to promoting high-level exchanges, deepening trade and investment cooperation and expanding cultural exchanges with China, he said, and his country welcomes more Chinese companies to invest and more Chinese tourists to travel. For his part, Wang said that although China and the Dominican Republic are far apart, it does not prevent the two sides from developing friendly ties. In fact, since the 1950s and 1960s, the two sides have always understood and supported each other, he added. Wang said the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries accords with the trend of the times and the will of the people. That the Dominican Republic cut off so-called "diplomatic relations" with Taiwan is in line with the principles set by the international community and the UN resolution, and is completely correct, he said. Wang expressed that China appreciates the Dominican government led by President Medina has opened the door to the establishment of diplomatic relations with China with firm political will, adding that China is also pleased that the decision has been widely supported by various levels of the Dominican society. The Dominican Republic is an independent sovereign country and has full authority to determine its own foreign policy, which is also the basic norm of international relations established by the UN Charter, Wang said. We appreciate the Dominican government's reaffirmation that it will firmly adhere to the one-China policy and this is the political basis for the development of bilateral relations, Wang said. As long as this foundation is laid, the two sides can build a large building of mutual-beneficial cooperation on this basis, he added. China is willing to work with the Dominican side to take this opportunity to promote high-level exchanges and ones in other levels and expand pragmatic cooperation in all fields, Wang said. China is full of confidence in the development of bilateral relations and the prospects for cooperation between the two countries, he added. At the invitation of Dominican Foreign Minister Miguel Vargas, Wang paid an official visit to the Dominican Republic on Thursday and Friday. During his visit, Wang also attended the inauguration ceremony of the Chinese Embassy in the Dominican Republic, held talks with Vargas and jointly met the press. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 15:26:44|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close LIMA, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra said Friday that his country will not give in to terrorism after one column of the Shining Path guerrilla group was dismantled. "Firm and clear political decisions produced this blow against terrorism," said Vizcarra during an event for Armed Forces Day. "This government will not cede a millimeter in the fight against terrorism." The remark came two days after Interior Minister Mauro Medina announced one column of the Shining Path group that was active in the Valley of the Apurimac, Ene and Mantaro Rivers (VRAEM) in southern Peru had been dismantled. During operations against the guerrilla group, forces engaged in a shootout with Shining Path members in the village of Virgen Casa, Haunta province. One alleged leader of the armed group, known as "Basilio," was killed. "We will intensify our actions until we have pacified the entire VRAEM," said Vizcarra. The president thanked the Armed Forces who "have always been at our side during difficult times." According to the authorities, the remnants of Shining Path, a once-powerful rebel movement in Peru, still operate in the mountain wilderness of VRAEM. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 15:31:44|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close BERLIN, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- A former Chinese commerce official said Friday that the economic and trade relations between China and the European Union (EU) is at a crucial moment amid global uncertainties. Wei Jianguo, former Chinese vice commerce minister and now vice chairman of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges (CCIEE), told Xinhua that the two sides should not view each other as competitors, but partners. The CCIEE organized a group of leading scholars from China to take a tour in Europe, visiting Brussels, Geneva and Berlin, where they discussed with their European counterparts about the economic and trade relations among China, EU and the United States. "The EU is the biggest single market and China is the biggest trader. The cooperation between the two sides can address a lot of issues, including making rules for international economy and trade system," said Wei. Wei said he believes that China and the EU could do more in safeguarding a rule-based multilateral trade system, including WTO and UN reforms, within the Belt and Road Initiative, through the cooperation in the third-party market, and also in the fields of new industries. "Amid global uncertainties, it is much more important to make a trustful friend and trading partner than to develop a big market," said Wei. Wei said he found that European experts have many misunderstandings of China, including China's industry strategy, state-owned enterprises, the government's role in the economy, among others. During the tour, CCIEE held various seminars with European experts, explaining China's policies on those issues, with which the Europeans are concerned. Wei said European think-tanks are eager to communicate with Chinese think-tanks, and they expect to hold regular and in-depth discussions with Chinese experts. "Maybe we exchanged ideas too little in the past. We should do more, in a bid to dispel Europeans' misunderstanding, especially at the time when globalization is in trouble so as to benefit both China and the world multilateral system," said Wei. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 15:36:46|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close by Jamal Hashim BAGHDAD, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- Weeks of angry and violent protests in Iraq's southern province of Basra pushed the political blocs to agree on a political deal that could likely bring little changes to the country's political map. The Iraqi political blocs have been in deep differences and tough negotiations for months over forming a new government, which so far, resulted in electing Parliament Speaker Mohammed al-Halbousi and two deputies in the past few days. There is still long way ahead of electing a president of the country and finding a solution to the biggest challenge of the largest alliance that would form a new government for the next four years. The political scene has been confused since a group of parliamentary blocs headed by Sairoon Coalition, backed by Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, and Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's al-Nasr bloc, announced the largest alliance named Reform and Construction. Other blocs led by Iranian-backed al-Fatih Coalition, paramilitary Hashd Shaabi leader Hadi al-Ameri, and former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, also claimed the largest alliance named Building. The political row over largest alliance is widely believed to be the reason that would delay the formation of a new government. On the other hand, the Shiite religious authority headed by the spiritual Shiite cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called for formation of a new government that would be different from previous ones. Najib al-Jubouri, a political analyst, told Xinhua that Basra protests and Sistani's comment forced Sadr to withdraw his support for Abadi, whose political al-Nasr Coalition came in third in May 12 vote. "The motivation of Basra protests are strongly believed due to poor performance of previous governments, including Abadi's one," Jubouri said. "Now the formation of largest alliance could change, as Sadr's Sairoon coalition is negotiating with Ameri's al-Fatih to discuss a consensus candidate for next prime minister post," Jubouri added. "There is an initial agreement between al-Fatih and Sairoon that there have to be a consensus on the next prime minister in accordance with the conditions set by Marjiyah (or religious authority)," Ahmed al-Kinani, a lawmaker from al-Fatih political bloc, told to reporters Wednesday. Such change in the course of the negotiations "explains why Abadi on Sept. 13 said that he would not hold onto the post of prime minister for a second term," Jubouri said. "We do not cling to power, but we abide by the constitutional procedures," Abadi said at a press conference after a cabinet meeting, adding that the decision was made after what he has seen "from the political conflict over this post." Abadi expressed his respect for "the directives of the Supreme Religious Marjiyah," the Shiite religious authority headed by the spiritual Shiite cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. "Abadi's departure would be a victory for the Iranian influence in Iraq because he had vowed to abide by the U.S. sanctions against Iran," Jubouri said. "However, as Iran does not have the ability to go into open conflict on power in Iraq with the Americans, it apparently made a concession in return by pushing its ally Ameri to withdraw candidacy for the premiership to avoid angering the Americans," Jubouri concluded. "I announce to the Iraqi people that I withdraw my nomination for the Presidency of the Council of Ministers (Prime Minister) to opened the way for electing another prime minister of Iraq, according to conditions set by the Marjiyah (or religious authority)," said Ameri on Sept. 18, whose Fatih Coalition came in second with 48 seats in May 12 national elections. Iraqi media circulated that Sadr and Ameri have suggested possible candidates for premiership, including Shiite politician Adel Abdul-Mahdi, who previously served as oil, finance minister and vice president. However, Jubouri believes that Mahdi's political background and his performance in all of his previous posts were not convincing. "He lacks outstanding record in his previous posts, and he had background of being a leading figure in the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, before splitting from the Iranian-backed Shiite party. Therefore, Mahdi hardly fits for being independent technocrat," Jubouri said. Sadr repeatedly announced that he wants "independent and technocrats" government members, but his demand is facing objections by some politicians and leading political parties. Sadr said that his rivals "want to take Iraq back to square one and bring back corrupt politicians in new garments." He warned that "if they continue then I will announce joining the opposition." Sabah al-Sheikh, a political analyst, told Xinhua that a technocratic government may not be ready to implement essential changes to situations in Iraq without the presence of a real political will by leading political parties. "A technocratic government would be insufficient and ineffective because any of its ministers may not have enough power to tackle corruption inside his ministry as he is nominated by the same parties and political blocs who are accused of graft," Sheikh said. Many of the country's political parties have built their own militias and gained influence and power throughout years of spat across the country after 2003. None of them is willing to lose their gains. "Under such fact, the state ministers became part of the parties' property and were working for their parties' interests instead of nationwide interests," Sheikh added. "The only way to agree on a strategic plan to rebuild the country is to convince the leading political parties to agree on new approaches for the political process that would yield a government more powerful than the parties themselves," Sheikh concluded. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 15:36:48|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close BEIRUT, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- A group of the maritime Lebanese army rescued Saturday 30 Syrian refugees trying to escape Lebanon illegally off Akkar shore, local media reported. After being rescued, the escaping refugees were transferred to one of the army centers in El Abde, according to Elnashra, an independent online newspaper. Meanwhile, Al Mustaqbal local TV Channel reported that a baby has died while two others were suffocated while trying to escape. Over 1 million Syrian refugees are registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Lebanon, while Lebanon's government estimated the actual number is 1.5 million. Normally, Syrian refugees willing to return to their homeland must register in centers created by Lebanese General Security. The General Security outlined earlier punishments for returnees who violated residency requirements, including lifetime bans on many refugees of returning to Lebanon. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 15:51:50|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close BEIJING, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- The Mid-Autumn Festival falls on the 15th day of the eighth month on the Chinese lunar calendar, which is next Monday this year. Celebratory scenes can already be seen and festive atmosphere felt across China. For Chinese people, the festival is of special ethical significance, and family reunion on this occasion lying deep in their consciousness has been a sentiment and mindset for hundreds of years. The festival dates back over 1,000 years, when ancient Chinese people counted the days by the phases of the moon. They found out that the moon would be at its fullest in the middle of every lunar month and at its brightest in the middle of autumn. The date of the festival was thus decided. "Chinese culture values ethics, and every festival that stemmed from the rhythms of nature would be integrated with the essence of social ethics," said Li Hanqiu, a researcher on traditional Chinese customs. In this case, for Chinese, the round shape of the moon around the festival embodies family reunion and harmony, which, according to The Book of Rites, lays the ground for social harmony within a country. Therefore, for those Chinese away from home or even on foreign grounds, looking at the same full moon on the day remotely with their loved ones usually strikes a chord deep inside them and generates a psychological coherence between them, which is a crucial part of their cultural identity. "The vision of the reunion of families and country is the deep-lying psychological structure of Chinese people's family-based patriotism, as well as one of our spiritual resources nowadays to realize the 'Chinese Dream,'" said Li. One of the best-preserved customs of the Mid-Autumn Festival is eating mooncakes, which are always made in a round shape and are mostly stuffed with sweetened bean paste or lotus seed paste. "The role of mooncakes in the festive customs is not only to cater to people's appetite but also to serve as the carrier of our spirits for us to share our love with families and friends," said Xiao Fang, a sociology professor at Beijing Normal University. Another well-preserved traditional custom is enjoying the sight of the full moon with loved ones, which makes seeing Chinese families go to parks or outdoor places a common scene during this occasion. It is regarded by many as an opportunity for people to communicate with the nature and harmonize personal relations. According to Xiao, the old custom is particularly meaningful in modern society. "Looking at the full and bright moon with a simple mind, sharing affection with loved ones and cherishing the connection with the nature is like a spiritual refreshment for us, especially those who live in the raucous urban areas." The diversified ethnic customs of the festival also symbolize and help unite the Chinese nation as a gigantic community, as the various ethnic groups in China share the joy of the festival with their own unique traditions. For instance, young ladies of the Dong ethnicity have a tradition of "stealing" fruits and vegetables from the yards of their beloved young men; unmarried ethnic Miao people would dance together under the full moon; while the Dai people would worship the moon on the night, which is considered the incarnation of a mythical hero. "A system of cultural symbols with the Mid-Autumn Festival at its core has been formed by the various customs of the Chinese ethnic groups," said Lin Jifu, a professor at Minzu University of China. "The festival also helps set up a cultural pedigree of the Chinese nation based on daily lives." Zhao Leji (L), a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the CPC, meets with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in Minsk, Belarus, Sept. 20, 2018. (Xinhua/Yao Dawei) MINSK, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- Zhao Leji, a senior official of the Communist Party of China (CPC) on Saturday concluded his official good-will visit to Belarus, where he and Belarusian officials agreed to step up cooperation between the two countries. During the meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Zhao, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, conveyed the greetings of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Lukashenko. Zhao, also secretary of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, praised Lukashenko's contribution to the development of China-Belarus relations. He recalled that Xi and Lukashenko charted course for the future development of bilateral ties at their meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization's summit in China's Qingdao City in June. Zhao said his visit was aimed at implementing the important consensus reached by the two presidents, improving strategic communication, promoting mutually beneficial cooperation and enhancing friendship between the two peoples. China and Belarus has, as always, firmly supported each other in following their respective development paths in line with national conditions, he said, expecting new efforts from both sides to create a new type of international relations and a community with shared future for mankind. China and Belarus are of the same mind that the core of the leadership of the ruling party and the country should be safeguarded, said Zhao, who also briefed Lukashenko on the situation about CPC's tight governance over the party. Lukashenko asked Zhao to convey his greetings to Xi, saying Belarus and China are good partners and friends as solid as iron. Belarus is grateful for China's support and ready to strengthen cooperation with China in economy and trade, finance, agriculture and people-to-people exchanges, he said. Lukashenko spoke highly of China's development and the achievements in CPC's party building and said his country is willing to draw on China's experience. In talks with Prime Minister Sergei Rumas, Zhao said China is ready to align the Belt and Road Initiative with Belarus' national development strategy and enhance cooperation in economy and trade, finance and people-to-people exchanges. Rumas said Belarus is committed to mutually beneficial cooperation with China under the Belt and Road Initiative, including the China-Belarus industrial park Great Stone. When meeting Mikhail Myasnikovich, Chairman of the Council of the Republic of the Belarusian National Assembly, Zhao said China attaches great significance to exchanges between the two legislatures and he expected the cooperation to continue. Myasnikovich agreed to increase exchanges between the two legislatures so that Belarus-China relations would develop on a solid legal basis. During talks with head of the presidential administration Natalia Kochanova, Zhao said he hopes the Belarusian presidential administration and the organs of the CPC Central Committee will work closely together to implement the consensus reached by Xi and Lukashenko in Qingdao. Kochanova vowed to further exchanges and cooperation with the organs of the CPC Central Committee. She and Zhao also witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding on supervisory bodies cooperation. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 17:17:07|Editor: Yamei Video Player Close SANTO DOMINGO, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Friday that energy of China-Dominican Republic cooperation has been rapidly released after years of accumulation. Wang made the remarks at a joint press conference with Dominican Foreign Minister Miguel Vargas, saying that the establishment of China-Dominican Republic diplomatic ties has opened a new chapter in the history of relations between the two countries. The establishment of bilateral diplomatic ties is in line with the international law and guidelines of international relations as well as principles established by UN General Assembly resolutions, said Wang. It is also in line with the fundamental and long-term interests of the Dominican people, he added. Noting that China and the Dominican Republic share a long history of friendly exchanges, Wang said after decades of accumulation, the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries has become a reality when conditions are ripe. In the past four months, the two countries have achieved initial results in various fields with cooperation energy being released continuously, said Wang. As two fastest-growing countries in East Asia and Latin America, China and the Dominican Republic are believed to work together to benefit their people, facilitate development of the Dominican Republic and inject new impetus into the cooperation between China and the Latin America, he added. Wang said he discussed with Minister Vargas about next steps in the development of bilateral relations and reached broad consensus. The two sides agreed on the consistent adherence to the one-China policy, which is a fundamental precondition of establishing ties and a political base for developing bilateral relations. The two sides agreed that no vacillation is allowed when it comes to the one-China policy and no one or no force is allowed to destroy it. The two countries also agreed to enhance exchanges at all levels, especially giving a full play to the leading role of head-of-state diplomacy. The Chinese side welcomes the visit of Dominican President Danilo Medina to China scheduled within this year for jointly planning the blueprint of development of bilateral relations. The two sides vowed to take the opportunity of jointly building the Belt and Road to continuously promote practical cooperation in all fields so as to benefit both peoples. The two sides agreed to strengthen cooperation at multilateral platforms such as the UN Security Council, the Forum of China and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States and the Forum of East Asia-Latin America Cooperation to jointly safeguard international peace and security as well as legitimate interests of developing countries. Decision to impose quotas on sugar imports slammed Economists and consumer rights activists have criticised the governments recent decision to impose quantitative restrictions on sugar imports. Quotas could lead to a shortage besides promoting a black market in sugar on the eve of the festival season when demand for the sweetener soars, they said. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 17:27:08|Editor: Yamei Video Player Close Photo taken on Sept. 21 shows the scene of rescue. According to sources, Tanzania's Lake Victoria passenger ferry, with a capacity of 101 passengers and 25 tonnes of cargo, capsized at around 1:00 p.m. local time Thursday. (Xinhua) DAR ES SALAAM, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- The death toll in a ferry accident on Thursday in northern Tanzania rose to 156, a senior government official said Saturday. "We have recovered 25 more bodies this morning (Saturday morning)," Isack Kamwelwe, Tanzania's Minister for Works, Transport and Communications, told Xinhua by telephone. "Rescuers are continuing to search for more bodies." The national broadcaster Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation, however, said on its morning news bulletin that the total number of recovered bodies in Lake Victoria had reached 161. On Friday, Tanzanian President John Magufuli announced a four-day mourning period for the victims of the accident. The ferry with a capacity for 101 passengers and 25 tonnes of cargo capsized at around 1 p.m. local time Thursday, according to sources. Magufuli has ordered the arrest of safety inspectors from the Surface and Marine Transport Regulatory Authority, the country's multi-sector transport regulatory agency. Preliminary investigations showed that the state-owned ferry was overloaded and was being manned by someone who was not the authorized captain of the vessel. Magufuli directed Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa and Minister Kamwelwe to launch a full investigation into the accident. There has been public outrage over the decision made by regional authorities of Mwanza Region, whose north borders Lake Victoria, to call off the search and rescue operation after darkness on Thursday night. Some opposition leaders have called for the resignation of top transport officials over the tragedy. The last major ferry accident on Lake Victoria occurred in 1996 in the same region, killing at least 500 people. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 17:42:10|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) and Dominican Foreign Minister Miguel Vargas (L) unveil the plate during the opening ceremony of the Chinese Embassy in Dominican Republic's capital Santo Domingo Sept. 21, 2018. (Xinhua/Xin Yuewei)by Luis Brito and Wu Hao SANTO DOMINGO, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- China's national anthem was heard in the Dominican Republic on Friday, as China opened its embassy in the country's capital Santo Domingo. The foreign ministers of both countries presided over the early-morning opening ceremony, which drew Dominican cabinet members and legislators, ambassadors from other Latin American countries, and representatives of private sectors. "It is a historic moment. The relationship between China and the Dominican Republic has opened a new page," Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said. The inauguration comes a little more than four months after the two countries established diplomatic ties on May 1, following several years of trade exchanges. For the roughly ten million Dominicans, stronger ties with China mean more opportunities for economic growth and development. "I am very happy ... to have contributed to achieving this historic goal for our countries," Rosa Ng Baez, the former Dominican trade representative in Beijing, said. Ng Baez spent seven years in China working to bring the two countries closer together through trade. "The only thing I can say is long live China and long live the Dominican Republic," said Ng Baez. The decision to establish ties with China brings Dominican foreign policy up to date, Dominican Foreign Minister Miguel Vargas told Xinhua, adding that the Caribbean nation could not ignore a country that represents 20 percent of the global population and the world's second-biggest economy. "It is a firm and giant leap forward in the Dominican Republic's international diplomatic relations," said Vargas. China's ability to lift millions out of poverty in recent years makes it a model for the world's developing and emerging economies, while its global development initiatives make it a coveted partner, Vargas indicated. As part of the inauguration ceremony, the foreign ministers unveiled a plaque and gave a toast to the new bilateral relations. The two countries are currently in the process of exploring ways to boost bilateral trade and cooperation. In October, a Chinese shoe manufacturer is set to open a plant at one of the Dominican Republic's many special economic zones, creating 4,000 jobs for the region, according to the executive director of the National Free Zones Council Luisa Fernandez. "I think this relationship is going to be win-win. We already export a lot of raw materials to China ... and I think now we can increase our exports of manufactured goods," said Fernandez. This picture taken on September 22, 2018 in the southwestern Iranian city of Ahvaz shows injured soldiers lying on the ground at the scene of an attack on a military parade. (AFP photo) TEHRAN, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that the United States and its regional allies are responsible for a terrorist attack in Iran on Saturday. "Iran holds regional terror sponsors and their U.S. masters accountable for such attacks," Zarif tweeted referring to the terror attack on a military parade in the southern Iranian Ahvaz city on Saturday. In the attack, at least 11 Iranian military forces were killed and over 30 were injured. "Iran will respond swiftly and decisively in defense of Iranian lives," he added. On Saturday morning, four armed men attacked the military parade in Ahvaz city which marked the anniversary of Iran-Iraq war in 1980-1988. Two of the militants were killed and two others were arrested. Photo taken on Sept. 21 shows the scene of rescue. According to sources, Tanzania's Lake Victoria passenger ferry, with a capacity of 101 passengers and 25 tonnes of cargo, capsized at around 1:00 p.m. local time Thursday. (Xinhua) DAR ES SALAAM, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- One person was rescued on Saturday from a ferry that capsized in Lake Victoria in Tanzania on Thursday afternoon killing more than 150 people, said a senior government official. Isack Kamwelwe, the east African nation's Minister for Works, Transport and Communications, identified the rescued person as Alphonce Charahani, a ferry engineer who was among the passengers. "The person is in critical condition and doctors are fighting to save his life," Kamwelwe told Xinhua on phone. Earlier, Kamwelwe said the death toll of people killed after the ferry sank rose from 131 to 156 on Saturday morning. Photo taken on Sept. 21 shows the scene of rescue. According to sources, Tanzania's Lake Victoria passenger ferry, with a capacity of 101 passengers and 25 tonnes of cargo, capsized at around 1:00 p.m. local time Thursday. (Xinhua) "We have recovered 25 more bodies this morning (Saturday morning) bringing to 156 the total number of recovered bodies until now," Kamwelwe told Xinhua on telephone. "Rescuers are continuing to search for more bodies," added the minister promising to give more updates. On Friday, Tanzanian President Magufuli announced a four-day mourning period for the victims of the ferry accident. According to sources, the ferry, with a capacity of 101 passengers and 25 tonnes of cargo, capsized at around 1 p.m. local time Thursday. Magufuli also ordered the arrest of safety inspectors from the country's transport regulator, the Surface and Marine Transport Regulatory Authority. Preliminary investigations showed that the state-owned ferry was overloaded and was being manned by someone who was not the authorized captain of the vessel. Magufuli directed Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa and Minister for Works, Transport and Communications Kamwelwe to launch full investigations into the sinking of the ferry. Meanwhile, President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya and the country's opposition leader Raila Odinga sent condolence messages to the bereaved families of the ill-fated ferry. Photo taken on Sept. 21 shows the scene of rescue. According to sources, Tanzania's Lake Victoria passenger ferry, with a capacity of 101 passengers and 25 tonnes of cargo, capsized at around 1:00 p.m. local time Thursday. (Xinhua) In a statement posted on his twitter page, President Kenyatta sent an emotional condolence message to Tanzanian President Magufuli and his fellow citizens. "No words can adequately express our grief following this tragic accident. My heart goes out to those who have lost their lives and their families. We, as your neighbor, are deeply heartbroken by what happened," said President Kenyatta. Rwandan President Paul Kagame also sent a message of condolence to families of victims of the ferry accident. "Our deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of the victims of the Lake Victoria ferry accident. Our thoughts are with you. We cannot thank the rescuers enough," Kagame said in a tweet. The last major ferry accident on Lake Victoria occurred in 1996 in the same region, killingat least 500 people. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 18:52:22|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close TEHRAN, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- At least 24 people were killed in a terror attack in a military parade in the southern Iranian Ahvaz city on Saturday, official IRNA news agency reported. Among the killed, there were military forces and citizens who had gathered to watch the military parade, the report said. Also, over 50 people were injured in the attack, IRNA said. On Saturday morning, four armed men clad in the uniform of Iranian Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) attacked the military parade in Ahvaz city which marked the anniversary of Iran-Iraq war in 1980-1988. Two of the militants were killed and two others were arrested. Al-Ahvazieh, an Iranian Arab-affiliated group, has accepted the terror attack on Saturday, claiming that it is fighting for the rights of the Iranian Arabs in the southern Khuzestan province. Iran considers the Al-Ahvazieh as the separatist and terrorist group supported by Saudi Arabia. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 18:57:24|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close BEIJING, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- China's military has voiced its "strong indignation and resolute opposition" against recent "sanctions" by the U.S. on Chinese military authority and personnel, according to China's Ministry of National Defense. Wu Qian, a spokesperson for the ministry, said Saturday that Chinese military has made solemn representations and protests to the U.S. side. The U.S. State Department announced Thursday that it would impose sanctions on the Equipment Development Department of the Central Military Commission of China and the department's director, alleging that China had violated the "Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act." Noting that the military cooperation between China and Russia is normal cooperation between sovereign states that goes in line with international law, Wu said the U.S. side has no right to interfere in such practices. The spokesperson also accused the U.S. move as "a flagrant breach of basic rules of international relations" and "a stark show of hegemonism" that severely harmed relations between China and the U.S. as well as the two countries' militaries. "We demand the U.S. side to immediately correct its wrongdoing and withdraw the so-called sanctions. Otherwise, the U.S. side must bear the consequences caused by this act," Wu said. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 18:57:24|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close Chen Yixin (C), secretary-general of the Commission for Political and Legal Affairs of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, Johannes Geismann (2nd R), State Secretary and Federal Commissioner for Intelligence in German Federal Chancellery, and other representatives pose for a group photo before the dialogue in Berlin, Germany, on Sept. 21, 2018. China and Germany held a second round of a bilateral high-level security dialogue in Berlin on Friday. (Xinhua/Shan Yuqi) BERLIN, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- China and Germany held a second round of a bilateral high-level security dialogue in Berlin on Friday. Chen Yixin, secretary-general of the Commission for Political and Legal Affairs of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, and Johannes Geismann, State Secretary and Federal Commissioner for Intelligence in German Federal Chancellery, jointly presided over the dialogue. Both sides agreed that the high-level security dialogue is an important measure toward implementing the joint statement issued by Chinese President Xi Jinping and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on building a comprehensive strategic partnership between their two countries. It showed that China and Germany attach importance to each other in security issues and are cooperating with each other in a trustful way. The two sides stressed the importance of international cooperation and dialogue on security issues, and agreed to uphold the principle of equality, mutual trust, sincerity and being practical in further deepening their security cooperation. The two sides exchanged views on efforts to fight terrorism, extremism and cross border crime, as well as on other regional and international security issues. Consensus was reached on issues of common concern and regional and international security issues. They agreed the next security talks would be held in Beijing in 2019. Chen also held talks with German Chancellery Minister and Federal Minister for Special Tasks Helge Braun, and Parliamentary State Secretary of the German Interior Ministry Guenter Krings. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 19:27:28|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close BEIJING, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping has congratulated Chinese farmers for their first harvest festival. Xi, also general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and chairman of the Central Military Commission, sent greetings and good wishes to the country's farmers on behalf of the CPC Central Committee ahead of the festival, which falls on Sept. 23, the Autumnal Equinox of this year. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 21:02:46|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close DAR ES SALAAM, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- Tanzania's state-owned national broadcaster said on Saturday the death toll of the ferry accident in Lake Victoria has reached 196 as rescue and recovery operations continued. The Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation said in its updates that 60 bodies were recovered on Saturday, adding that the count was 136 by Friday evening. Isack Kamwelwe, the Minister for Works, Transport and Communications, said one person was rescued on Saturday from the ferry that capsized in Lake Victoria on Thursday afternoon. He identified the rescued person as Alphonce Charahani, a ferry engineer who was among the passengers. "The person is in critical condition and doctors are fighting to save his life," Kamwelwe told Xinhua on phone. On Friday, Tanzanian President Magufuli announced a four-day mourning period for the victims of the ferry accident. According to sources, the ferry MV Nyerere, with a capacity of 101 passengers and 25 tonnes of cargo, capsized at around 1 p.m. local time Thursday. Magufuli also ordered the arrest of safety inspectors from the country's transport regulator, the Surface and Marine Transport Regulatory Authority. Preliminary investigations showed that the state-owned ferry was overloaded and was being manned by someone who was not the authorized captain of the vessel. Magufuli directed Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa and Minister for Works, Transport and Communications Kamwelwe to launch full investigations into the sinking of the ferry. Meanwhile, President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya and the country's opposition leader Raila Odinga sent condolence messages to the bereaved families of the ill-fated ferry. In a statement posted on his twitter page, President Kenyatta sent an emotional condolence message to Tanzanian President Magufuli and his fellow citizens. "No words can adequately express our grief following this tragic accident. My heart goes out to those who have lost their lives and their families. We, as your neighbor, are deeply heartbroken by what happened," said President Kenyatta. Rwandan President Paul Kagame also sent a message of condolence to families of victims of the ferry accident. "Our deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of the victims of the Lake Victoria ferry accident. Our thoughts are with you. We cannot thank the rescuers enough," Kagame said in a tweet. The last major ferry accident on Lake Victoria occurred in 1996 in the same region, killing at least 500 people. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 21:07:48|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close NEW DELHI, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- India's defence ministry on Saturday said that the Modi government had no role in selecting India's offset partner for manufacturing Rafale fighter jets, and that unnecessary controversies were being created around the Rafale deal. Earlier in the day, the Indian National Congress (INC) president Rahul Gandhi had alleged that the Modi government had ensured that the Rafale deal was signed with private firm "Reliance Defence" owned by Anil Ambani. Gandhi went on to say that Modi was "corrupted", as he ensured the deal was done with "Reliance Defence" at an inflated price. He also quoted former French president Francois Holland as saying that the Modi government had only suggested "Reliance Defence" as India's offset partner to manufacture the jets in the country. "Unnecessary controversies are being sought to be created following media reports regarding a statement purportedly made by former French president Francois Hollande concerning the selection of Reliance Defence as the offset partner by Dassault, the manufacturers of Rafale aircraft," said an official statement issued by the defence ministry. It added that the government has stated earlier and again reiterated that it had "no role" in the selection of "Reliance Defence" as the offset partner. As per the Indian government's "offset policy", the manufacturer is required to make a certain investment in India to ensure that the Indian defence production industry gets a boost which also results in employment generation. According to the statement, "Dassault Aviation" has issued a press release stating that it has signed a partnership agreement with several companies and is negotiating with hundred-odd other companies. As per the guidelines, the vendor is to provide the details of the offset partners either at the time of seeking offset credit or one year prior to discharge of offset obligation, which in this case will be due from 2020. In view of above, the defence ministry reiterated that the Indian government has no role in the selection of Indian offset partner which is a commercial decision of the OEM (original equipment manufacturer). The defence ministry's statement also stated that a joint venture between Reliance Defence and Dassault Aviation that came into being in February 2017, is a purely commercial arrangement between two private companies. Drivers end strike after deal The nationwide strike of drivers, against provisions of the recently introduced Civil Code, was called off on Friday after an eight-point agreement with the government. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 21:17:52|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close TRIPOLI, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed concern over the continued violation of the UN-brokered cease-fire agreement in the Libyan capital Tripoli. "The secretary-general is alarmed by the increasing number of violations of the cease-fire agreement signed by armed groups in Tripoli ... under the auspices of his Special Representative Ghassan Salame," said a statement by the Secretary-General's spokesman Stephane Dujarric. Guterres called on the warring parties to "respect the cease-fire and refrain from any actions that would increase the suffering of the civilian population," the statement added. He also warned that violators of international humanitarian law and international human rights law "must be held responsible." Earlier in the day, the Libyan Ministry of Health announced that fierce fighting in southern Tripoli on Friday killed 10 people and injured 59 others, including civilians. The death toll of the violence has increased to 106 since the beginning of the fighting on Aug. 26. Violent clashes continued in southern Tripoli between forces allied with the UN-backed government and the "7th Brigade" militia from the city of Tarhuna, some 80 km southeast of Tripoli. The Libyan government later on Friday called on the international community and the UN to "take more firm and effective practical actions to stop the war and protect civilians." Earlier in September, the UN Support Mission in Libya brokered a cease-fire agreement between the warring parties. However, the agreement was violated and the violence has continued since then. The UN Mission on Thursday warned against attacks on residential areas. The mission also reminded the warring parties of the binding cease-fire agreement, stressing that exposing civilians to harm is prohibited by International Humanitarian Law. Libya has been suffering insecurity and escalating violence since the fall of former leader Muammar Gaddafi's regime in 2011. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 22:18:04|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close ISTANBUL, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday that Turkey has become a country capable of producing 65 percent of the products needed in its defense industry. "By cancelling the procurement projects of many products such as tanks, helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles, we have initiated genuine and national works on model development," the Turkish president spoke at the aerospace and technology festival in Istanbul, the first of its kind in Turkey. "Turkey would have faced enormous challenges during its terror operations in the country and abroad if we had not reached this level in the defense industry," he said in his televised speech. "Those who look friendly to us didn't give us the technology and armed unmanned aerial vehicles. But they have sent weaponry and ammunition to terror organizations in 19,000 trucks and 3,000 cargo planes," the Turkish leader said, referring to the U.S. support for Kurdish militia in Syria, an irritant in Ankara-Washington ties. Erdogan called on Turkish scientists who have been living abroad to return home, saying Turkey is preparing to launch an international program involving leading researchers. "I invite our scientists from all over the world to participate in our science and technology breakthrough," he said. The four-day aerospace and technology festival kicked off on Thursday at the construction zone of Istanbul's new airport, featuring air shows, aviation demonstrations, technology competitions and seminars on cutting-edge technologies. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 22:38:08|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close CAIRO, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- An Egyptian court declined on Saturday an appeal for reconciliation in a corruption case submitted by ousted former President Hosni Mubarak and his two sons, official MENA news agency reported. Mubarak and his two sons, Gamal and Alaa, were sentenced in May 2015 to three years in prison for embezzling funds meant for maintaining presidential palaces. They were also sentenced to collectively pay a fine of about 126 million Egyptian pounds (7 million U.S. dollars) and return about 21.2 million pounds. Gamal and Alaa were released in October 2015 since their jail term was covered by the years they had already served in provisional detention. Mubarak has been receiving treatment in a military hospital in Cairo, where he spent most of his provisional detention years until he was discharged in March 2017. In March 2017, Mubarak was acquitted of the charges of killing protesters during the 2011 uprising that led to his ouster. Mubarak's two sons, along with other defendants, are also accused of making illegal financial gains of over 493 million Egyptian pounds by allowing a Cyprus company to acquire a national bank's shares through hidden deals. On Thursday, Cairo Criminal Court decided to release Gamal and Alaa on bail of 100,000 Egyptian pounds each and set Nov. 20 for the resumption of their trial. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 22:48:10|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close MOSCOW, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed condolences to his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, over a deadly terrorist attack and reaffirmed readiness to intensify counterterror cooperation, the Kremlin said Saturday. "We are outraged by this bloody crime. Hopefully, everyone involved will be held liable," Putin said in his telegram to Rouhani, which was published by the Kremlin. At least 24 people were killed in a terror attack in a military parade in the southern Iranian Ahvaz city on Saturday, official IRNA news agency reported. This incident is another proof of the need for "uncompromising war on any manifestations of terrorism," Putin said. "I would like to confirm our readiness to further enhance cooperation with our Iranian partners in the fight against this evil," he said. The president offered condolences to the relatives and friends of those killed in the attack and wished a speedy recovery to those injured, according to the Kremlin. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 22:58:12|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close Photo taken on Sept. 22 shows the scene of rescue. Tanzanian authorities said on Saturday the death toll in the ferry that capsized in Lake Victoria on Thursday rose to 209 as more bodies were expected to be pulled off one of Africa's great lakes. (Xinhua) DAR ES SALAAM, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- Tanzanian authorities said on Saturday the death toll in the ferry that capsized in Lake Victoria on Thursday rose to 209 as more bodies were expected to be pulled off one of Africa's great lakes. Isack Kamwelwe, the Minister for Works, Transport and Communications, said more bodies could be recovered as rescue and recovery operations continued. "Relatives have started identifying bodies of their loved ones," Kamwelwe told a news conference at Ukara Islet, the scene of the grisly marine accident. He said a ship carrying equipment to be used in pulling the ferry out of the lake was on its way from Mwanza. "We are expecting the vessel anytime and work to pull out the ferry will start right away," said the minister. Earlier in the day, Kamwelwe, said one survivor was rescued on Saturday from the ferry that capsized in Lake Victoria on Thursday afternoon. He identified the survivor as Alphonce Charahani, a ferry engineer who was among the passengers. "The survivor is in critical condition and doctors are fighting to save his life," Kamwelwe told Xinhua on phone. On Friday, Tanzanian President Magufuli announced a four-day mourning period for the victims of the ferry accident. According to sources, the ferry, with a capacity of 101 passengers and 25 tonnes of cargo, capsized at around 1 pm local time Thursday. Tanzanian President Magufuli also ordered the arrest of safety inspectors from the country's transport regulator, the Surface and Marine Transport Regulatory Authority. Preliminary investigations showed that the state-owned ferry was overloaded and was being manned by someone who was not the authorized captain of the vessel. The last major ferry accident on Lake Victoria occurred in 1996 in the same region, killing at least 500 people. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 22:58:12|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close LONDON, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- Chinese opera fans in Britain gathered on Saturday to celebrate the upcoming Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival while enjoying traditional moon cakes and opera performances. Qiu Zenghui, a veteran Jinghu player and director of the UK Chinese Opera Association, said it was a precious moment for Chinese opera fans across Britain to gather as the Mid-Autumn Festival falls on Monday. "Chinese opera always remind me of who I am and where I came from. Mid-Autumn Festival is just a perfect time to miss home," she said. Shan Sheng, a 90-year-old British Chinese who is the honorary director of the association, donated his Peking opera costumes which he has carefully kept for over 60 years, to the association. "The value of the old costumes may be limited, but the Chinese traditional culture, which should be carried forward by younger generations, is priceless," he said. Fans across Britain came to London to attend the event, taking turns to perform famous Peking opera episodes including The Red Maid. The youngest fan was only aged 6. "It is our responsibility to carry forward the Chinese traditional culture even when we are far away from home," Qiu said. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 23:03:12|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close LISBON, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- Portuguese taxi drivers continued their protest for the fourth consecutive day on Saturday against a new law regulating app-based car hire platforms. The protest by taxi drivers in capital Lisbon, Porto in the north and Faro in the south of the country started at 5 a.m. local time on Wednesday. The taxi drivers vow to remain where they are parked as long as it is necessary despite a hot weekend with temperatures reaching over 30 degrees Celsius in most of the country. Around 1,500 taxis parked along bus lanes of both sides of Avenida da Liberdade in downtown Lisbon, one of the city's main arteries. The taxi drivers said they were tired but pledged that the protest will continue indefinitely. In Faro some 270 taxis stopped at the access to the Faro airport under scorching sun with temperatures reaching 35 degrees Celsius. The taxi drivers tried to find shelters to protect themselves from the heat. All the taxi drivers participating in the protest in Porto said they were willing to remain on Avenida dos Aliados, where more than 400 taxis were parked, for as long as it is considered necessary. Taxi drivers are angry at a new law drafted to regulate taxi app firms. Popularly known as the 'Uber Law', the new legislation applies to the Taxify, Cabify and Chauffeur Prive platforms, as well as Uber. Taxi drivers have repeatedly protested that taxi app drivers do not have to comply with industry regulations and licensing standards. One bone of contention with the new law is the absence of quotas limiting the number of unmarked taxis in a town or region, which marked taxis are subjected to. After several years of discussion and revisions, the new law passed through parliament on July 12, was ratified by Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa on July 31 and is due to come into effect Nov. 1. The protesters want to prevent its roll-out and force revisions. On Friday the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) called for repeal of the law, a decision that taxi drivers consider to be on the right track while President Rebelo de Sousa is due to meet representatives from taxi sector on Monday in an effort to solve the problem. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-22 23:28:17|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BAGHDAD, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi new parliament speaker Mohammed al-Halbousi met with Kurdish top officials on Saturday to discuss formation of Iraqi government. The meeting was held during Halbousi's visit to Iraq's semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan on Saturday. According to a statement from the media office of the ruling Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), the meeting between Halbousi and KDP's Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani reiterated principles of consensus among political blocs, partnership and respect to the constitution. "The two sides agreed that all parties should abide by the constitutional dates in the political process," the KDP statement said. Kurdish media net Rudaw quoted the Kurdish deputy speaker Bashir al-Haddad as saying Halbousi, with his two deputies of the parliament, "intends to visit political parties (across Iraq)." They want to "bring together different parties and commit to the constitutional deadlines for election of the President and Prime Minister of the republic," Haddad noted. Halbousi also separately met with Nechirvan Barzani, prime minister of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), and the KRG's Security Chancellor Masrour Barzani, the report said. According to the Iraqi power-sharing system, the president should be from the Kurds, the speaker from the Sunnis and the prime minister from the Shiites. According to the Iraqi constitution, the parliament will elect the president from among the candidates by a two-third majority of its members, before the elected president will ask the largest parliament alliance to form a government within 30 days. However, the political blocs in parliament have yet to end their tough negotiations over forming the largest alliance to establish the government for the next four years. Both the Alliance Toward Reforms, backed by Sadr and outgoing Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, and the Conquest Alliance, headed by paramilitary Hashd Shaabi leader Hadi al-Ameri and Nuri al-Maliki, claim to be the largest alliance in parliament. An Iranian soldier runs past injured comrades lying on the ground at the scene of an attack on a military parade in the southwestern Iranian city of Ahvaz on Sept. 22, 2018. (AFP photo) TEHRAN, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- Top Iranian officials said on Saturday that the United States and its regional allies are responsible for an earlier terrorist attack in Iran. At least 25 people were killed and 60 others injured in a terror attack on a military parade in Iran's southwestern city of Ahvaz on Saturday, official IRNA news agency quoted Ali Hossein Hossein Zadeh, political deputy of the Khuzestan governor, as saying. Military forces and citizens who had gathered to watch the parade were among the killed, the report said. "This crime is the extension of the plots by the U.S. allies in the region, seeking to create insecurity in Iran," Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a statement. However, the Iranians "will continue their path of honor and overcome all the hostilities," Khamenei added. Meanwhile, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said those who have provided "propaganda and intelligence support" for the terrorists are accountable for the attack. Rouhani ordered Iranian intelligence agencies to arrest the perpetrators behind the attack. "The Islamic republic will give a crushing response to the slightest threat against the country," he vowed. Iranian women and soldiers take cover next to bushes at the scene of an attack on a military parade in the southwestern Iranian city of Ahvaz on Sept. 22, 2018. (AFP photo) Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif also tweeted that "Iran will respond swiftly and decisively in defense of Iranian lives." On Saturday morning, four armed men clad in the uniform of Iranian Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) attacked the military parade in Ahvaz, capital of Khuzestan Province, which was marking the anniversary of Iran-Iraq war in 1980-1988. Two of the militants were killed and two others arrested. Al-Ahvazieh, an Iranian Arab-affiliated group, has claimed responsibility for the terror attack, saying it is fighting for the rights of the Iranian Arabs in Khuzestan. Shiite-dominated Iran considers the Al-Ahvazieh a separatist and terrorist group supported by Saudi Arabia, its Sunni-majority arch rival in the Gulf. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-23 04:39:00|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close DAMASCUS, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Saturday slammed the attack that targeted an Iranian military parade in southern Iran as "a criminal and cowered act," local news reported. Assad's condemnation appeared in a letter of condolence sent to his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, in which Assad said that Syria stands by Iran in terms of terrorist acts, according to the state news agency SANA. He said that Iran, which is the Syrian government main regional ally, has stood against terrorism in Syria, calling on the countries that support terrorist groups to review their stances and stop supporting and financing terrorist acts across the world. Earlier in the day, four armed men attacked a military parade in Ahvaz city in southern Iran which marked the anniversary of Iran-Iraq war in 1980-1988. Two were killed and the other two were arrested. The attack also killed 11 soldiers who attended the parade. Reports said that 31 others were injured, among whom most were from the Iranian Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC). The IRGC Spokesman Sardar Sharif said that the attack was carried out by Al-Ahvazieh group, a group supported by Saudi Arabia which claims to fight for the rights of the Iranian Arabs in the southern Khuzestan province. Iran denounces the Al-Ahvazieh as "a separatist and terrorist group." Indian cine artist Jaya appointed Nepal's tourism goodwill ambassador Former Member of Parliament of India and cine artist Jaya Prada has been appointed the goodwill ambassador for the promotion of Nepal's tourism. Toamna aceasta decoreaza-ti caminul pentru o atmosfera mai calduroasa si mai confortabila! Impatimitii decoratiunilor stiu foarte bine faptul ca fiecare sezon vine cu un iz propriu si personal pe care trebuie sa il exploatezi la maximum pentru un plus de confort in propriul camin.... Acesta este [citeste mai departe] First-time buyers trying to get into the market might want to consider older homes in established neighborhoods. Read more First-time homebuyers might well wonder: Where are all the starter houses? They're right to ask because starter homes are becoming increasingly scarce in many housing markets, including in and around Philadelphia. Housing inventory is low and home prices are soaring. What's a first-time buyer to do? Here are five tips for finding a starter home: 1. Be realistic about todays market Sellers clearly have an advantage in the current market. Inventory is low, which keeps pushing home prices to record levels, according to the National Association of Realtors. Buyer competition is fierce as homes in the lower-end price ranges fly off the market. Unfortunately, that leaves many first-time buyers especially those with tight budgets on the sidelines. If you're searching for your first home, be realistic about what you can afford and what amenities come with that budget. (Hint: You may have to forgo top-of-the-line appliances and shiny quartz countertops.) A starter home isn't necessarily your forever home. Be prepared to make some compromises to get your foot in the homeownership door. 2. Adjust your wish list Buyers shopping for their first home need to be open-minded about the location, size, and condition of the home they want to buy, says Tim Deihl, associate broker with Gibson Sotheby's International Realty in Boston. For many buyers, a classic starter home, which traditionally doesn't have many amenities, is more achievable. "If your first home is the place you're going to have your family, maybe build an addition and stay there forever; that's one set of criteria. If your starter home will be a financial launchpad into a larger, better home, that's a different approach," Deihl says. Another strategy: Look for an older home in a well-established neighborhood. Resales typically cost less than brand-new homes, says Bradley Hunter, chief economist for HomeAdvisor.com, a home-improvement matching service based in Golden, Colo. Older homes typically need more maintenance and repairs, which offsets some of the cost savings. However, Hunter says, buyers who opt for a used home might be able to do repairs and renovations over time, pacing themselves to make the cost manageable. 3. Hire the right real estate agent When you're up against stiff competition, working with an experienced real estate agent who knows the local market is key. Look for an agent who specializes in the neighborhoods you're interested in. Savvy agents should be able to answer your questions about neighborhood amenities, local schools, crime, and nearby home values. A good buyer's agent shines when it comes to negotiating the deal and writing a strong offer letter backed with solid data. Your agent can suggest certain strategies to win in a competitive market, such as limiting contingencies or writing a personal letter. Ask friends and relatives to recommend agents they have personally used and were happy with. Also, interview two or three different agents. Find out how they prefer to communicate with clients and how often you'll get updates. Finally, research the agents you're considering online to see what past clients have said about their work. 4. Rethink location If you're thinking about starting a family in the future, don't focus too much on your home's location, size and school district just yet, Deihl says. Resetting those parameters can make it easier to buy a first home. "Buyers may be in a position where schools won't impact them for six or seven years," Deihl says. "That's a good opportunity to buy in the city, make some money, and roll that into a community where they want to be longer term with the kids." Buyers who sacrifice location for affordability can find themselves in a neighborhood far from major job centers with a long daily commute and expensive transportation costs. Sometimes that trade-off makes sense, but not always, says Cathy Coneway, a broker for Stanberry & Associates Realtors in Austin, Texas. "You have to look at how much you make and how much you can afford to spend for gas," Coneway says. "You might actually be better off buying a house that's closer to town so you have more cash flow for property taxes, insurance and living expenses." 5. Make a strong offer When a well-priced starter house comes on the market, the quest to buy it can be "super competitive," Deihl says. One way to strengthen an offer is to present a loan preapproval that includes everything but a title search, appraisal and hazard insurance, says Jay Dacey, a mortgage broker at Metropolitan Financial Mortgage Co. in Minneapolis. A strategic phone call might help, too. "We call the listing agent and say, 'Mr. and Mrs. Jones submitted an offer on your property. Not only are they preapproved, but they've gone through the underwriting approval process with our bank,'" Dacey says. "That makes the offer stronger." Other ways to entice sellers: Offer above asking price (if you can afford to), keep repair requests to a minimum, make a larger down payment, or give them more time to move after closing. I've been giving a robot belly rubs. I've scolded it for being a bad, bad boy. I've grinned when it greets me at the door. What's this feeling? Oh, yes, puppy love. And I felt it for Aibo, a new "autonomous companion" dog made by Sony. Does that make me a sad sack? A dystopian character from Black Mirror? It's open to debate. But this much is clear: The era of the affectionate robots is dawning, and Aibo offers early evidence we're going to love them. Aibo (pronounced "eye-bo") is a reboot of the robot dog Sony first introduced in 1999 and laid to rest in 2006 in a tragic round of corporate cost-cutting. This new litter is available for preorder in the United States with much more lifelike movement, artificial intelligence, and a cellular connection for a gobsmacking $2,900 each. If you're looking for justification to spend that much on a toy, the American Kennel Club says the average lifetime cost of a dog is $23,410. Also: Robot dogs don't poop. Not that Aibo, about the size of a Yorkshire terrier, can replace an actual dog. I let mine play with a real 7-week-old pup and was reminded of all the ways Aibo is just a fraction of the real thing. Aibo can't go for a walk, jump into your lap, teach responsibility, or give you real-deal love licks. Aside from walking around the house, barking, and performing a few tricks, Aibo doesn't do a whole lot. It can't play music or answer trivia like a smart speaker, though those would be welcome additions. Yet despite all those limitations, I fell for it. Over two weeks of robot foster parenting, almost every person I introduced to Aibo went a little gaga. The Amazon Echo and Google Home speakers got us to open our homes to new ways to interact with computers. Aibo offers a glimpse of how tech companies will get us to treat them more like members of the family. Affectionate robots have the potential to comfort, teach, and connect us to new experiences as well as manipulate us in ways we've not quite encountered before. Aibo works in part because real robots are catching up with what we've been trained by Pixar movies to find adorable. Aibo's 22 joints including one bouncy tail and two perky ears and OLED-screen eyes communicate joy, sorrow, boredom, or the need for a nap. Tell Aibo "bang bang," and it lies down and flips over to play dead. Say "bring me the bone," and the robot will find its special pink toy and pick it up with its mouth. It'll even lift its back leg and take a simulated tinkle. Thanks to touch sensors on its plastic back, head, and chin, Aibo responds when you pet or scold it. The only thing that ruins the effect is that Aibo's mechanical muscles are noisy, making it sound like a baby Terminator on the march. I call Aibo an affectionate robot because it's more than an animatronic puppet. Cameras built into its nose and lower back help it wander around your house like a Roomba, avoiding obstacles and attempting to find its way back to its charger. (Aibo's battery can go for two hours at a time.) Four microphones let Aibo hear commands and figure out who's issuing them. Like a real puppy, it has an inconvenient habit of getting underfoot while you're cooking dinner. The idea, say Sony execs, is that Aibo is constantly growing. Aibo learns the faces of people who interact with it to develop personal relationships. It's a claim that's hard to verify, but Sony says no two Aibos have the same "personality," because AI is shaped by experiences. If you give belly rubs and "good boy"s to your robot, you'll get a more loving machine. Aibo's autonomy is a work in progress. To put it another way: Aibo is kind of stupid. Aibo isn't smart enough to avoid steps or chase after a ball with any consistency. Sometimes I found it staring at a wall for hours. But it works just often enough that it's cute, and you get the feeling your robo-pup might actually be growing up. What's remarkable is none of this requires an interface, such as an app. You interact with Aibo through touch and voice command, just like a dog minus the treats. (A companion app, which wasn't ready for me to test, lets you see photos Aibo takes through its nose and operate some other secondary functions.) Aibo is always online via its own cellular connection to download new capabilities and new tricks, and upload what it takes in on the ground. Which might make you wonder: Is Aibo a spy robot? Sony didn't have thorough answers to my questions about what happens to all that data. Aibo's privacy policy says it isn't intended for use in Illinois, which has laws restricting facial-recognition tech. A spokeswoman told me Aibo isn't recording 24/7 but rather listens and looks out for commands. Aibo stores experiential data that allows it to build "memories" and "create an ever-growing bond with the owner," she said. "This data is not shared." How does Aibo inspire affection when other robots create revulsion or fear? Its face and eyes draw on anime to convey harmlessness. Choosing the form of a dog also keeps Aibo firmly out of the creepy "uncanny valley" that sinks so many humanoid robots and stokes fears on shows such as Westworld. (Fake fur might have sent Aibo over the edge.) We're more forgiving of dogs than of people, which it turns out also applies to AI pretending to be dogs and people. Other robots such as Jibo, which I reviewed last year, are also trying to break into homes with personalities rather than just skills. Social robots are an evolution of Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri, and have the potential to someday comfort the lonely, care for the elderly, or help children learn. But there are important questions to ask about a future where we imbue robots with emotion. Is it twisted to offer the illusion of affection without the requirement of a real relationship? Will children learn to look in the wrong place for love and wisdom? Earlier this year, researchers published a study that showed people struggle to power down a pleading (humanoid) robot refusing to shut it off or taking more than twice the amount of time to pull the plug. The lesson: We're inclined to treat electronic media as living beings. When it came time to switch off my test robo-pup and send it back to Sony, Aibo didn't plead or howl. But I felt sad nonetheless. The dance troupe Circa will perform "Humans" at the Annenberg. Read more SUNDAY Hasan Minhaj Minhaj was the last correspondent Jon Stewart hired at The Daily Show before he left the program in 2015. Minhaj took his own leave last month, ending an era. Catch him in Philly ahead of the premiere next month of his Netflix comedy series Patriot Act. 7 p.m. (sold out) and 10 p.m. Merriam Theater, 250 S. Broad St., $29.50 to $75, 215-893-1999, kimmelcenter.org MONDAY Laurel Hill Cemetery: A Neighborhood History The Preservation Alliance and Laurel Hill Cemetery, the area's first "rural" cemetery, are teaming up to offer a lecture by Aaron Wunsch, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's historic preservation program, about how the cemetery has changed since 1836 in tandem with its adjoining neighborhoods. 6 to 8 p.m. Laurel Hill Cemetery, 3822 Ridge Ave., $10 to $15, 215-546-1146 x 3, laurelhillcemetery.org TUESDAY A speakeasy at the Franklin Institute This month's Science After Hours event has a 1920s theme, which means you can dress up in your finest flapper outfit to celebrate bootlegging, betting, booze, and other shenanigans. 7 to 10 p.m. Franklin Institute, 222 N. 20th St. $15 for members, $20 for nonmembers, 215-448-1200, fi.edu WEDNESDAY Joan Baez Along with Elton John and Paul Simon, Joan Baez made headlines this year as one of a trio of baby-boomer acts announcing their retirement from touring. Baez is going out on a strong note: Her Joe Henry-produced album Whistle Down the Wind benefits from the added gravitas in her septuagenarian voice, which has lost its former excessive prettiness. 8 p.m. (sold out), Kimmel Center, 300 S. Broad St., 215-731-3333, kimmelcenter.org THURSDAY International Ocean Film Tour The tour consists of six short films about water, highlighting its beauty, conservation efforts, and extreme water sports. The screening, at the Academy of Natural Sciences, presents two hours of footage over the course of three hours. 7 to 10 p.m. Academy of Natural Sciences, 1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, $15 admission, 215-299-1000, ansp.org FRIDAY AND SATURDAY Circa This Australian contemporary circus dance troupe returns to Philadelphia with the U.S. premiere of Humans, exploring the human body at its extremes. 8 p.m. Friday and 2 p.m. Saturday, Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, 3680 Walnut St., $29 to $49, 215-898-3900, annenbergcenter.org Lynne Olsen at the Museum of the American Revolution The Philadelphia Chapter of the Kosciuszko Foundation has invited historian Olsen to speak about her latest book, Last Hope Island. Poland figures significantly in her analysis of the Allied victory in World War II. 5:30 p.m. Saturday, Museum of the American Revolution, 101 S. Third St., free but registration required beforehand at eventbrite.com, option for paid dinner, 215-253-6731, amrevmuseum.org Philly Music Festival The core of this year's all-local, nonprofit Philly Music Fest happens Friday and Saturday night at World Cafe Live, featuring Low Cut Connie, Waxahatchee, the Districts, Palm, Orion Sun, and more. Book-ending the weekend are a Thursday hard-rock showcase with Pissed Jeans and Soul Glo at Johnny Brenda's and a Sunday jazz closing party with bassist Derrick Hodge, pianist Eric Wortham, and many others at MilkBoy, at 11th and Chestnut. Various times and locations, $15 to $50, phillymusicfest.com The Real Lolita The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel that Scandalized the World By Sarah Weinman HarperCollins. 306 pp. $27.99 Reviewed by Chris Patsilelis March 1948. Cute, bright Florence Sally Horner, 11, walked into a Woolworth's in Camden and, on a dare, filched a five-cent notebook. Before she could exit the store, however, a hawk-faced man grabbed her arm and said, "I am an FBI agent. And you are under arrest." He then let her go. In June, the same man abducted Sally and forced her to endure a 21-month odyssey from New Jersey to Texas to California with repeated sexual abuse. In the gripping and heartrending The Real Lolita, Sarah Weinman, author of Troubled Daughters, Twisted Sisters (2013) and Women Crime Writers: Eight Suspense Novels of the 1940s & 50s (2015), paints a vivid picture of the notorious Sally Horner case and a wholly empathetic portrait of young Sally Horner. Weinman also connects the Horner case to Vladimir Nabokov's provocative 1955 modernist novel, Lolita. It's not just that Nabokov knew about the Horner case as he was struggling with the novel: He followed the case closely as it unfolded. Sally Horner of Camden may have been the "real" Lolita, or at least an important shaping influence. That phony FBI agent, in reality one Frank La Salle, garage mechanic and convicted rapist, told Sally that, unless she went away with him to Atlantic City, she would be sent to a horror-filled reformatory because of her notebook theft. She was to tell her mother she was going to the Jersey Shore with friends. He would call Sally's mom, identify himself as the father of one of Sally's friends, and verify the story. Incredibly, Ella, Sally's mother, bought it. She did not discover the true situation for weeks. And Sally, Weinman tells us, continued to believe the threat of reform school if she tried to escape. On Aug. 5, 1948, an eight-state police search began. The book switches between the story of Sally and that of Nabokov, who in 1948 was teaching literature at Wellesley College in Cambridge, Mass., when not traveling across America indulging in his passion of collecting butterflies. He was also having great difficulty with a novel he had been working on for at least five years. At first titled The Kingdom by the Sea, it later was renamed Lolita. Nabokov's novel, Weinman reminds us, explores the mad sexual obsession of middle-aged professor Humbert Humbert for the teenage nymphet Dolores Haze, or "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul," as Nabokov's hyperventilating professor describes her. Using overt Horner references from Lolita and Nabokov's own index cards on Horner, Weinman shows that the novelist "seeded" the Horner kidnapping story throughout Lolita. But don't fiction writers frequently use real-life incidents in their stories? Yes, but Weinman points to what she calls "willful obfuscation": the apparent reluctance of Nabokov and his wife, Vera, ever to acknowledge Sally Horner's story as an underpinning of one of the world's most controversial classics. Weinman contends that Nabokov did this because he didn't want the real Horner story somehow to take precedence in readers' minds over his self-vaunted creative genius. Back to the real Sally's predicament: Still in the clutches of sexually abusive Frank La Salle, Sally traveled all across America, much as do Humbert Humbert and Lolita in Nabokov's novel. Using prudent speculation to fill in blank spots in the story, Weinman shows us how they lived as father and daughter in New Jersey, Maryland, Texas, and California. Eventually, an adult neighbor at a Dallas trailer park, Ruth Janisch, discovered the secret and called Sally's mother. Sally was soon rescued and reconciled with her family in March 1950. La Salle went to prison and died there in 1966. He appears to have been a man driven throughout his life by obsession and delusion: Even in his later appeals, he insisted he was somehow Sally's father. Sally did not long survive her liberation. She died in a car crash in Cape May County on Aug. 18, 1952, during something like a first date. On the last page of this book is a photograph of a vibrant, attractive Sally Horner, age 15, summer of 1952. Much more than a true-crime story, Sarah Weinman's The Real Lolita beautifully restores a real human being to the real world. Chris Patsilelis lives and writes in Meriden, Conn. Two mosquito species are known to carry chikungunya, dengue and Zika viruses. Read more So far this year, there have been 11 confirmed cases of West Nile virus in Philadelphia, prompting officials to ask residents to help stop the spread of mosquitoes on their properties. West Nile is a virus most commonly spread by mosquito bites from summer through fall, and there are no vaccines or medications to treat it in humans. Most people with the virus do not have symptoms which include unexplained headaches, weakness, and fatigue and only about one in five people develops a fever, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But about one out of 150 people infected with the virus get seriously ill with inflammation of the brain or spine. In some cases, the virus is fatal. People 50 years and older are at highest risk for serious illness. None of this year's cases in Philadelphia have been fatal. The number of West Nile cases tend to wax and wane from year to year. The peak seasons in Philly were 2003, 2010, and 2012. The last five years have been mild. This year marks a sharp increase from the three cases diagnosed in 2017. The health department is cautioning residents that mosquito season is not over. And the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has said this year marks the highest level statewide for West Nile virus activity in the mosquito population since 2000. As a result, the city's health department is taking steps to control mosquitoes but is asking for the public's help too. "We all have a role in preventing the spread of West Nile virus," said Health Commissioner Thomas Farley. "And it's easy to do: Wear mosquito repellent and dump out standing water." So far this year, the health department has treated 57,000 storm drains with larvicide to stop mosquito breeding and has sprayed to kill adult mosquitoes in some areas of the city. The most effective way to control mosquitoes is to keep them from breeding. According to the health department: Anything that can hold water can breed mosquitoes, from soda bottle caps to discarded tires. Check your property for sources of standing water including flower pots, pet food, water dishes, birdbaths, and swimming pool covers and dump them out. Empty and store wading pools on their side. Keep rain gutters clean. Aerate ornamental ponds or stock them with fish. In addition, wear wear long-sleeved shirts and long pants and insect repellent with DEET, picardin, eucalyptus oil, or PMD if you go outdoors. Or, consider staying inside at dawn, dusk, and early evening when mosquitoes are most active. To report problem areas, call the health department's mosquito complaint hotline at 215-685-9000. IOM medical and dental entrance exams begin today The Institute of Medicine (IoM) will conduct entrance examinations for various undergraduate courses from Saturday in the Valley. Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro gestures with his outstretched arms that the victims seated on the stage with him were the real heros of the Grand Jury Report on Child Sexual Abuse in six Catholic Dioceses in Pennsylvania at the State Capital on August 14, 2018. MICHAEL BRYANT / Staff Photographer Read more HARRISBURG Pennsylvania's eight Roman Catholic bishops on Friday collectively said they would back the creation of a fund to compensate victims of clergy sexual abuse whose claims were too old to qualify under the civil statute of limitations, but provided scant detail on how such a fund would work or how much money they would commit to it. In a late-afternoon statement, the bishops said that they believe it is imperative that a panel of "qualified experts" review individual claims by victims to determine financial assistance. The victims compensation fund, they said, would allow sexual abuse survivors to avoid "difficult and prolonged litigation" but also spare the church the harmful financial repercussions namely bankruptcy of other measures being considered by the legislature to help victims of decades-old abuse. "We understand that this compensation program will require substantial fiscal commitment and all dioceses will be seriously impacted," they said. "We stress that it is most important for all experts serving on this panel to be independent of the influence of the church or of any institution in which children may have been abused." The statement was posted to the website of the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, the lobbying arm of the Catholic Church. Amy Hill, spokesperson for the Catholic Conference, said in an email that she could not provide any further detail. The announcement comes days before the state legislature is scheduled to return to the Capitol to vote on a measure that the church has been fighting for years, a bill to allow older victims to sue for decades-old abuse. It also follows a scathing grand jury report on clergy sexual abuse released last month by state Attorney General Josh Shapiro that detailed seven decades of clergy abuse in nearly every Roman Catholic diocese in the state. The church has launched similar funds in at least one other state. In New York, at least five dioceses have each announced their own victims compensation funds. The Archdiocese of New York alone has paid out nearly $60 million over the last two years to 278 victims through its compensation fund, a spokesperson for the archdiocese said last month. In Pennsylvania, two people familiar with the church's discussions about the funds said they are considering a similar model to that being used in New York, with each diocese having its own fund. The Republican-controlled legislature is scheduled to return Monday for a frenzied few weeks of votes before it wraps up its two-year session. Topping the agenda is a push by the House to approve legislation to create a two-year window to allow some child sexual abuse victims who have aged out of the statute of limitations to file civil suits. Its fate is less certain in the Senate, where Republicans who control the chamber have in the past opposed retroactively allowing victims to sue, calling it unconstitutional. The Catholic Church and its lobbyists have fiercely opposed creating a window and similar measures over the years, saying they could lead to bankruptcies and unfairly punish today's parishioners. But it was only in the last few weeks, following a barrage of international headlines about the grand jury's report, that the dioceses began seriously discussing the idea of a victims compensation fund. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter Peter Smith contributed to this article. Carmela Hernandez, right, tears up during an interview, sitting beside her son Edwin inside the basement of the Church of the Advocate. Read more Since December, when the weather turned and temperatures fell to freezing, through the emerging warmth of spring and summer and now fall, Carmela Apolonio Hernandez and her four children have stalled their deportation to Mexico by living in the basement of a North Philadelphia church. Sanctuary, though, is at once solution and problem, offering protection from immigration authorities while alerting those same enforcement agencies to their exact location. It comes without time limit a man in Arizona has spent two years and four months inside a Phoenix church. Walking through the welcoming doors of a house of worship is one thing, as done by 51 people in sanctuary across the country. Finding a safe way out is another. But for Hernandez, an earlier, hard experience in the United States could offer the family a legal route out of the Church of the Advocate if the government approves. Hernandez, 37, has applied for what is called a U visa, which can be granted to people who have been the victims of certain types of crimes in America, and who help police investigate and prosecute the criminal activity, her lawyer confirmed. It's the same type of visa application that last year enabled an undocumented Mexican immigrant who had been stabbed in an assault years earlier to end 11 months of sanctuary inside the Arch Street Methodist Church in Center City. "I tell all my clients, 'If we don't fight, we can't win,' " said David Bennion, who represents the Hernandez family. Bennion said Hernandez was a victim of attempted extortion, which occurred last year when she was living in New Jersey. The list of qualifying offenses is broad, ranging from murder to perjury to stalking. The visa is valid for four years, and after three, the holder can apply for lawful permanent residence in the U.S. A spokesperson for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said the agency does not confirm or deny whether someone has applied. Congress created the U visa in 2000 with the goal of strengthening the ability of police agencies to investigate and prosecute cases of domestic violence, sexual assault, and trafficking while protecting victims who suffered substantial mental or physical abuse. A 2014 study in Arts and Social Sciences Journal found the issuance of the visas had done that, enhancing the justice system's ability to detect, investigate, and prosecute crimes, and making communities safer overall. The government issues a maximum of 10,000 U visas a year, with additional applicants being placed on a waiting list. The timing for the Hernandez family is far from clear, given the backlog. Last October, Javier Flores Garcia left Arch Street Methodist after being granted deferred action, which allowed him to live and work in the U.S. while awaiting approval of a U visa. Today 14 men, women, and children are in sanctuary in Philadelphia, more than in any other city in the country. Hernandez and her children Edwin, 9; Yoselin, 12; Keyri, 13; and Fidel, 16 have been there the longest. They fled to the United States in August 2015, after being threatened by the same drug criminals who had killed her brother and two nephews. The family was denied asylum, and took sanctuary only days before their Dec. 15 deportation date. The children have been able to attend public school, left alone by agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE. Carmela has not been off the church grounds, and lately has been sick, she thinks from the dampness of the weather or the stress. "Not knowing when we're going to be able to get out has been the hardest part," she said in an interview. Still, she swears she'll never give up, never put her children in danger by returning to Mexico. Bennion said law enforcement officials in New Jersey certified that Hernandez was in fact a crime victim, and he filed her visa application in March. He's now submitting additional information to USCIS to support approval of the visa. "We're doing everything we can on our end, and we're seeing a great deal of resistance on ICE's part," Bennion said. "It's a single-minded focus on deporting everyone they can, without regard for mitigating factors." An ICE spokesperson declined to comment, citing privacy restrictions. Only the truly desperate take sanctuary, trying to forestall deportations that they say would split them from their children or put them in danger in their homelands, supporters say. It's a last-chance gamble, a means to buy time and avoid arrest by ICE agents who are officially dissuaded from making arrests at churches, schools, and hospitals. It's not always successful. Some people end up leaving sanctuary when the isolation becomes unbearable, or when they exhaust their appeals. "Where do you go when sanctuary fails? I think it is a place called 'Off the map,' " said Hilary Cunningham, an immigration scholar at the University of Toronto. Some try to live so quietly as to go unnoticed by police and government agencies, Cunningham said. Others embrace "protective undergrounds," conducting their lives strictly within a network of trusted friends. Some, fearing they could be killed in their homelands, move to a third country. "The end of sanctuary doesn't always mean you are never going to get picked up by ICE again," said the Rev. Shawna Foster, a movement leader at Two Rivers Unitarian Universalist in Carbondale, Colo. "It doesn't mean you're in the clear." For instance, a Mexican immigrant left sanctuary in Denver in 2015 after being assured by ICE that he was no longer an enforcement priority only to be detained, scheduled for deportation more than a year later, and finally saved by a judge who ordered a two-year stay of removal. Hernandez's relatives, she said, were taxi drivers, killed when they were unable to pay an extortion fee. After she and her elder daughter were threatened and assaulted by the same gangsters, the family fled north, approaching U.S. authorities near San Diego and asking for asylum. After three days in detention they were released to the care of a relative, an American citizen in Pennsylvania. The family later settled in Vineland. Hernandez is appealing the denial of asylum in federal court. And she's seeking relief before the Board of Immigration Appeals, based on a recent Supreme Court ruling on the handling of key deportation documents. "She's been very courageous," Bennion said. "She understands, in some ways more clearly than I can, how she's not been treated right, how her rights have been violated. She basically said: 'No, I'm not going to accept this. I'm not going to be pressured or shamed.' " Supreme Court Associate Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2018. Read more The night after Anita Hill testified during a 1991 nationally televised hearing that then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas "did not respect my having said 'no,'" Sue sat down at the dinner table and told her husband about how her ex-supervisor sexually assaulted her 12 years earlier. She was 27 when the attacks began the man would call her into his office, ask her to close the door, and repeat his unwanted advances. Sue, who asked that the Inquirer and Daily News withhold her last name because she still works in the same field, left that job after another higher-up told her that her abuser was "just a really friendly guy." And she kept the story close for years, until she watched Hill testify, and finally felt the guilt and shame start to fall away. "I made a great leap in 1991," said Sue, 66, of Cherry Hill. "But it's all back." The allegations of sexual assault leveled against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh have thrown his confirmation into unexpected doubt while dividing the nation over how to handle accusations over decades-old behavior. On Friday morning, President Trump reiterated his support for the nominee, tweeting: "I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents." The tweet led to thousands of survivors of sexual violence using the hashtag #WhyIDidntReport and sharing their stories of sexual violence. Among them was Amy Feld of Conshohocken, who on social media shared several messages about why she didn't report sexual abuse she experienced when she was younger, including that "he was a doctor, and I thought it was an examination." Feld said that in a separate incident that took place when she was 15, an older male coworker pinned her on a desk she said no repeatedly, fought him off, and got out of the situation. At the time, she thought he was just "making a pass" and didn't report the incident. Today, she's 54, and feels differently. "There's so many reasons why I didn't tell," she said. "I didn't realize what was going on. I didn't think it counted. There's just so many reasons that women of my generation didn't tell." But she said she feels optimistic that moments like #WhyIDidntReport will help future generations of victims of sexual violence understand that they're not alone. "Abuse and rape victims, we have nothing to be sorry about," she said. "What happened to us is the entire fault of the abuser. Any shame that we feel is their shame." Kavanaugh, 53, has strenuously denied allegations by Christine Blasey Ford, a 51-year-old California psychology professor who told the Washington Post that he attacked her in the early 1980s when they were teenagers attending prep schools in Maryland. Ford told the Post that while he was "stumbling drunk" at a house party, Kavanaugh forced her onto a bed, groped her, tried to remove her clothes, and covered her mouth when she tried to scream, leading her to worry that "he might inadvertently kill" her. The conversations taking place online and on the airwaves Why did she wait so long to report this? Are we sure she wasn't confused? Why does she feel traumatized by something that happened so long ago? have reopened old, deep wounds for some victims of sexual violence while underscoring the notion that while survivors often find ways to cope, the trauma, in one way or another, can last a lifetime. One in six American women and one in 33 American men have been the victim of an attempted or completed rape, according to the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network. Only about 30 percent of rapes are reported to police, experts say, and about one in six of those reports leads to an arrest. Kristen Houser, a Pennsylvania-based spokesperson for the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, said there are a variety of reasons why victims of sexual violence don't report what happened or wait years to do so, including fear, shame, and concern that the person they tell may not understand or may blame them. More than 90 percent of women who are raped experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in the two weeks following the incident, while a third of women report symptoms of PTSD nine months later, according to RAINN. While reading about the allegations against Kavanaugh can trigger long-buried feelings of fear, it can also give victims a sense that they're not alone, Houser said. Some survivors of sexual violence experienced a similar feeling when the #MeToo movement began nearly a year ago. While many felt satisfied that bad behavior was being called out publicly, the never-ending drumbeat of news about sexual assault was a painful reminder for some who had attempted to forget their attacks or had developed strategies to think about them less frequently. "Social media is largely responsible for the breakdown of the shame and stigma that has been around for centuries," Houser said. "When you hear the same stories and see other people are reacting with compassion, and you realize you're not alone, it feels suddenly like such a relief to be able to speak the truth." Mylisa Kesselman, a Center City-based therapist who specializes in counseling victims of sexual violence, said sexual violence is an "isolating crime" that often happens in secrecy and causes women to feel a sense of guilt, but added that she's had an influx of clients since the #MeToo movement began, many of whom say they finally feel like they can talk about a traumatic experience that may have happened years ago. She said every victim experiences the aftermath of an attack differently, and many didn't realize that something that had happened to them was an assault until many years later after they heard someone else describe something similar. "We live in a culture that covers things up, puts things under the rug, and shrouds sexual abuse in secrecy," she said. "And it happens a lot more often than people think." Bergen County Sheriff Michael Saudino with Attorney General Gurbir Grewal in a photo posted in May, 2018 to the Bergen County Sheriff's Facebook page. Read more The sheriff of Bergen County, N.J., and four of his senior officers resigned Friday, one day after a recording surfaced of the sheriff making virulently racist comments to his staff. Sheriff Michael Saudino could be heard bad-mouthing African Americans, the state's Sikh attorney general, and Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver in comments recorded in January. The recording, which documented Saudino grousing about Gov. Murphy's inauguration speech, was released Thursday by WNYC. "[Murphy] talked about the whole thing, the marijuana, sanctuary state, better criminal-justice reform," Saudino said to his staff. "Christ almighty, in other words, let the blacks come in, do whatever they want, smoke their marijuana, do this, do that, and don't worry about it. You know, we'll tie the hands of cops." Murphy and state Attorney General Gurbir Grewal had demanded Saudino's resignation after the recording went public. The Bergen County Sheriff's Office made the announcement on Facebook. Late Friday, Murphy and Grewal issued statements. Said Murphy: "[W]e can now begin the process of restoring faith in the Bergen County Sheriff's Office after so much of it was so quickly eroded. And, we can begin the process of ensuring that the bigoted beliefs displayed by the former sheriff are not given shelter in any corner of the Bergen County Sheriff's Office now or in the future." Said Grewal: "The fact that a top official could make racist comments about the African American community and that no one in the room would challenge or correct him raises serious concerns." Grewal said that the new Office of Public Integrity and Accountability would examine the matter to see "whether there are deeper issues that warrant a wider investigation." Executive Undersheriff George Buono and three undersheriffs also resigned. A statement released by the office did not give a reason for their decisions. Murphy has the power to appoint an interim sheriff. Until he does, the sheriff's office chief will be in charge of the office. Shawn Christy, a self-described survivalist, has been arrested for allegedly threatening Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli and President Trump. Read more COLUMBUS, Ohio The U.S. Marshals Service says a Pennsylvania man accused of threatening President Donald Trump and law enforcement officials was arrested Friday in Ohio. Shawn Richard Christy, 27, of McAdoo, Schuylkill County, the subject of a massive manhunt, was picked up at 4:45 p.m. in Mifflin Township, near Columbus by marshals and task force members from Ohio and Pennsylvania, officials said. A federal warrant was issued June 19 for McAdoo man in connection with Facebook posts threatening to shoot Trump and Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli. Officials say he also threatened a police chief. Pennsylvania warrants issued for Christy allege burglary, probation violation and failure to appear for an aggravated assault case. The Marshals on Saturday announced a $20,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest of Christy, who allegedly stole three handguns from an uncle in Luzerne County earlier this summer. In a June 12 Facebook post Christy wrote: "Keep it up Morganelli, I promise I'll put a bullet in your head as soon as I put one in the head of Donald J. Trump. Remember where you came from punk." Federal marshals, the FBI, and the secret service had followed his trail from Canada to Pennsylvania to Kentucky. Inquirer staff writer David Gambacorta contributed to this article. President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, a federal appeals court judge, arrives before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2018, for the second day of his confirmation to replace retired Justice Anthony Kennedy. Read more Pennsylvania's Democratic and Republican senators illustrated the split over Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on Friday, with Bob Casey calling for an FBI investigation into accusations of sexual assault and Pat Toomey urging a public Senate hearing followed by a prompt vote. Neither signaled that either step would change his views on the nominee, who could cement a conservative majority of the court if he is confirmed by the Senate. Casey, a Democrat who announced his opposition to any of President Trump's potential Supreme Court picks even before Kavanaugh was nominated, said the FBI should look into a claim that the judge groped a fellow high school student, pinned her down, and covered her mouth when she tried to scream at a party decades ago. Kavanaugh has firmly denied the accusation. Casey characterized an FBI investigation of the accusation by Christine Blasey Ford as an update of the agency's traditional background checks. But he also made clear he would oppose Kavanaugh regardless, citing conservative think tanks' prominent role in his selection and a fear that he would side with corporations. "Judge Kavanaugh became objectionable even before his record the full record was on the table," Casey told the Inquirer Editorial Board. Toomey, in a later interview, said that unless there is a "stunning new revelation," the chamber should vote on Kavanaugh after the Judiciary Committee hears from the nominee and his accuser. "This is the responsibility of the Senate now, and this is where this is going to be conducted," Toomey said. "I will look and listen very closely to whatever happens at a hearing, should it happen next week, but then, probably we should go ahead and vote." Toomey has previously said he expects to support Kavanaugh. Asked if there is a high bar for changing his mind, Toomey said: "That's probably a fair characterization." GOP leaders are determined to seat Kavanaugh. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell assured people at a conference for social conservatives Friday: "We're gonna plow right through it and do our job." Ford and Senate Republicans were locked in negotiations Friday over when and how she might testify. Concerned that Republicans won't take her accusations seriously, she has called for the FBI to investigate. HERSHEY, Pa. Republicans in Pennsylvania need to vote for their party's candidates because though not officially "Donald Trump is on the ticket this November," his eldest son said Friday night at a state GOP gathering. In a 20-minute speech that was part a love letter to the state's Republicans who helped hand President Trump his unexpected 2016 victory, part an attack on Democrats, and occasionally an attempt at comedy, Donald Trump Jr. encouraged the party stalwarts to support the GOP candidates for governor, for Congress, and in state races. "Each one of you, call your friends, get them out, talk to them about it. The only weakness that I see we could possibly have is that our side we're fat and happy," Trump Jr. said at the state Republican Party's fall dinner. "You've got to recognize it: It can go away tomorrow." His biggest concern, he said, was "to get the nonvoter out." Several independent polls have given Democrats comfortable leads in some key Pennsylvania races, including those for governor and Senate. But one of those polls, released late last month by Franklin and Marshall College, also found that a significant portion of voters, particularly Republicans and independents, remained undecided. Republicans are hoping they can sway those voters as they attempt to maintain their grip on Congress and both chambers in the state legislature. Democrats are hoping they can increase their numbers to take control or poise themselves for doing so in 2020. Trump Jr., who attended the Hill School in Pottstown, credited the state with teaching him what "Rust Belt America was like." He spoke of hunting and fly fishing, and briefly pointed out a gunsmith, calling him "the most important man in this room." He inserted jokes here and there. He said he didn't get a lot of sleep, and not because of his girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle. The crowd laughed. "Get your mind out of the gutter," he said. He spoke of the economy, North Korea, and Democrats' discussions about impeaching his father. "I don't know what their platform is: I say it's hate and B.S., but that's not really a platform," Trump Jr. said. He received a standing ovation in the ballroom of the Hershey Lodge. Democrats took note of his appearance. Before Trump Jr. took the stage, Nancy Patton Mills, chairwoman of the state Democratic Party, sent a fundraising email encouraging members of her party to make contributions or pledge to vote. Hattie Morin, 3, (left) and her sister Ruby Morin, 5, sit on the new Billy in Rittenhouse Square. Read more Saturday in the park was supposed to belong to Billy the goat, but competition from Maddie the lamb, Elsa the black sheep, and Strawberry the pony was fierce. As goats go, Billy won't bite and can't clear a field, but will happily bear the weight of children all day long. He's a statue, after all. What he can't do is bleat like little Stewie the lamb, one of the many petting-zoo animals brought to Philadelphia's tony Rittenhouse Square to celebrate a new Billy, the much-beloved 99-year-old statue. Benjamin Lindo, 7, of West Philadelphia, associates Rittenhouse Square so much with Billy that he calls it the "goat park." But seeing live goats in the square was special. "I know a lot about them," Benjamin said. "A goat defends itself by head-butting." The original bronze 2-foot-tall statue of Billy by sculptor Albert Laessle had worn smooth, making parts of him appear golden, from a near century's worth of tiny hands lovingly petting him and clutching his curved horns while climbing him. >> READ MORE: Rittenhouse Square goat to be replaced So how did sitting on the new Billy, sans patina and wear and tear, feel? "This one's a little better," Benjamin said. "I wouldn't climb on a real one. It might head-butt me off or kick me." Posed upright with spiked fur and a collar, Billy had endured the elements since 1919 as the Rittenhouse neighborhood around him grew. He wasn't enthusiastically welcomed at first by adults. When proposed, they found Billy absurd. Too small, they said. But children befriended the statue right away. Today, it's a favorite photo stop. Passersby stop and touch his horns, or spend a few minutes admiring him from surrounding benches. The new bronze goat is an exact replica with legs astride and chin tucked. Billy is poised for the next 100 years, and most days he won't have to fight for attention with live and balloon animals. Even so, his edges could use a few decades of kid polishing. "It kinda hurts," said Parker Caldwell, 5, sitting on Billy's spiny back Saturday. For one day the statue's typically serene southwest corner of the square had so much to offer toddlers and young children that, at times, Billy was standing all alone. "Don't get them wrong, they love the statues," said Nina Breslin, as her children hovered over Al the alpaca. "I have many pictures on the goat over the years. It's almost like milestones." Her son Alexei, 10, was relieved that Billy was back in action. "For a second I thought they were taking it away," he said. But after quickly checking out the new Billy, Alexei was ready to move on. "Mom, can we get face painting done?" he asked. U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams is advocating needle exchanges rather than safe injection sites to address the opioid epidemic. Read more U.S. Surgeon General Jerome M. Adams, in Philadelphia on Saturday to participate in a march to combat stigma against drug addiction, said the Trump administration has made its position on safe injection sites clear: Despite the city's efforts to sanction a site where people can use drugs under medical supervision in order to prevent overdoses, federal officials believe the measure is a violation of federal law. Instead, Adams said, the federal government should spend its energy working to expand other harm-reduction measures that have been endorsed by the feds, like needle exchanges, which have been shown to reduce the spread of blood-borne infections like HIV and hepatitis C. "I was reading in the newspaper that Philly has only one syringe service program," Adams said. "I think there's a lot we can do to optimize evidence-based solutions that are already out there and available." >> READ MORE: Safe injection sites get green light from Philadelphia officials (Needle exchanges themselves are still controversial in some circles: They remain illegal in Pennsylvania, and only a handful of cities around the state have established needle exchanges, usually with the permission of a local district attorney or mayor. When Mayor Ed Rendell signed an executive order to open Philadelphia's only needle exchange, Prevention Point, in the early 1990s, state officials threatened staffers with arrest.) Safe injection sites have been in place in countries like Canada and Germany for decades. A study commissioned by city officials earlier this year estimated a single site in Philadelphia would save 25 to 75 lives a year and millions of dollars in hospital costs and public funds, while reducing public injection of drugs and other neighborhood problems in a city where 1,217 people died of an overdose last year. It's the highest death rate in any major city in the country. Still, in an interview last month with WHYY, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said the city should expect legal action if it tries to open a site. (It's unclear whether that would mean civil or criminal action, and local legal experts have said the city can argue that safe injection sites are a lifesaving measure amid an opioid crisis that has resisted traditional attempts to curb overdose deaths.) Adams, whose brother suffers from opioid addiction, said he chose to march in Philadelphia on Saturday alongside thousands of others because of the unique toll the opioid crisis has taken on the city. The PRO-ACT Philadelphia Recovery Walk, held annually since 2001 and supported through the city's Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services, is believed to be the largest addiction recovery walk in the country, drawing 27,000 participants last year. "There's nowhere where things are as bad or where there's as much hope as in Philadelphia," Adams said. He said he wanted to show that recovery from addiction is possible and that the federal government needs to work to increase access to treatment and dispel stigma. And he praised housing-first programs in Philadelphia that offer people with addiction homes with no requirement for sobriety. "Housing is health," he said. "The opioid epidemic is a tragedy, but it's also an opportunity for us to help folks understand that health is about housing, it's about jobs, it's about everything that's going on in your community and your environment. If we don't create healthy and well communities, we're just going to play whack-a-mole." Nepal-India boundary meeting concludes The fifth meeting of Nepal-India boundary working group (BWG) concluded in Kathmandu on Friday. FILE This June 1, 2018, file photo, shows a housing unit in the west section of the State Correctional Institution at Phoenix in Collegeville, Pa. Entertainer Bill Cosby is due in court Monday, Sept. 24, for a two-day sentencing hearing that follows his conviction on three counts of aggravated indecent assault. If Cosby gets even a day more than two years, he'll enter the state prison system, with a first stop at SCI Phoenix, a new $400 million, 3,830-bed prison in suburban Philadelphia where staff would assess his physical, medical and security needs. Cosby could end up in a long-term medical care unit there or elsewhere. (AP Photo/Jacqueline Larma, File) Read more Our prison system does not provide a snapshot of crime in this country. It's a snapshot of policies and practices that are a combination of politically expedient, profit-driven, racist, and absent of larger strategy or meaning to say nothing of being divorced from actual crime rates. Take a recent announcement by the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections of a new policy that will ban book donations to prisons and stop delivering letters to prisoners. Letters will be sent to a company that will scan them and return them, where prisoners will get them in digital form. Donated books will no longer be allowed. These moves are an attempt to stop the flow of contraband, but illustrate a system with narrow, even inhumane solutions to complex problems. >> READ MORE: People in Pa. prisons are smuggling medicine to treat their addictions because the state won't provide it | Opinion It's well-reported that the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Pennsylvania has its own sorry track record; in fact, it exceeds national averages in the number of people imprisoned, according to the Prison Policy Institute about 100,000 people are locked up, including in local jails. The majority are black and Hispanic. Pennsylvania is also a leader in those serving life without parole: 5,346 people are serving that sentence, half of which are from Philadelphia. Of those serving life-without-parole terms, 65 percent are black a rate 118 times higher than whites. More than half of lifers were 25 years old or younger when jailed. Life without parole is a sentence that leaves no room for hope or for rehabilitation. The Abolitionist Law Project, in a recently released report, calls it "Death by Incarceration." While most are convicted of first-degree murder, many are sentenced for felony murder, which is a felony resulting in someone's death but didn't necessarily include intent to take a life. The minimum sentence for either crime is life without the possibility of parole. Others serving life terms include repeat drug offenders and battered women who killed their partners. Many serving the sentence are elderly, decades older than the crimes they committed, and sick. >> READ MORE: 'Paper soaked in loved ones' tears': How mail helps Pa. prisoners stay grounded | Perspective State Sen. Sharif Street has been pushing a bill, SB942, that would introduce the possibility of parole for life sentences. The bill could be voted out of committee next month. District Attorney Larry Krasner supports the bill. But life without parole is just one area that requires reform. What's needed is an honest and comprehensive look, not at prisons per se, but at our values: What do we expect from prisons ? Are we locking people up with the hope of rehabilitating them? Or are we warehousing the people who don't fit into a whitewashed society blacks, Hispanics, immigrants, the mental ill, the addicted, and the poor? The answers are critical not just because of their impact on criminal justice and on human lives, but the impact on budgets. The cost of locking up so many people is staggering: over $40,000 per prisoner per year in this state alone. There are no easy fixes; change will involve local, state, and federal jurisdictions working together. The hardest challenge, though, will be to get out of the habit of using prisons as the place to shut our problems away and throw away the key. Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-14 23:33:53|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close by Xinhua writers Zhong Ya, Qu Junya, Zhu Shaobin NAIROBI, Sept. 14 (Xinhua) -- China's silk reached Africa through Central and West Asia and Europe along the route of the ancient Silk Road. Chinese ships arrived at the east coast of Africa through the maritime Silk Road as early as the Tang Dynasty. In the early 1400s, Zheng He led the largest ships in then world to reach as far as East Africa, marking a landmark chapter for China-Africa exchange. Today, the China-Africa comprehensive cooperation and common development have been lifted to a higher level thanks to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) China proposed in 2013. This also offers Africa the opportunity to promote innovation and make their dreams a reality. ROADS LEADING TO PROSPERITY China has been supporting Senegal in building transport infrastructure and has provided loans to build a key highway linking two major cities of Thies and Touba, a project being carried out by the China Road and Bridge Corp. (CRBC). The highway, which is located east of the capital Kigali and is about 113 km long, is the largest cooperation project between China and Senegal and will strongly boost Senegal's infrastructure connectivity and economic growth. The project brings many tangible benefits to the local economy, for example, all the building materials used were bought from locals, Zhang Jianguo, manager of the Senegalese branch of the CRBC, said, adding that "After completion, the highway will facilitate the transportation of peanuts and fruits from the places nearby." The project also provides massive job opportunities for local residents. After starting construction in 2016, the CRBC organized technical training and Chinese-language classes for local workers. They also selected qualified local workers and financed their annual sightseeing tour to the headquarters in China. Laba Thiam is one of their top workers. After joining the CRBC, she started to live on her own instead of relying on her parents, Thiam said. The CRBC welcomes women staff, and "I hope more Senegalese women to join the CRBC, and to strive for the same position in society as men under their own power," she added. During the past five years, the BRI has vigorously helped Africa with its integration process by building roads and other infrastructure. "Once you step on the land of Africa, you will see plenty of Chinese company investment projects. They help African nation construct highways, railways, airports and ports," Namibian President Hage Geingob said. As of last year, China has invested and built highways and railways in Africa exceeding 5,000 km. In addition, China has also trained 160,000 African talents. In recent years, a series of giant projects in Africa undertaken by Chinese corporations have been completed. These include the Mombasa-Nairobi railway in Kenya, the Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway which connects landlocked Ethiopia to Djibouti and the Benguela railway. These mega projects have been making significant contributions to the connectivity and economic growth in African nations. PREPARING THE LABOR FORCE FOR NATION-BUILDING Agriculture and food processing, civil engineering, electrical and electronic engineering, hospitality management, irrigation and water conservation are the five degree courses in the biggest vocational education center in Rwanda's Northern Province. The center, or a polytechnic college based in Musanze, which stands at the foot of the Virunga Volcanoes, also offers short-term training for woodwork, cooking, household-electrical installation and welding, among others. The vocational education center launched in 2015 under the BRI framework now has some 1,200 students, compared to some 170 when it opened. According to a bilateral agreement signed in June this year on its expansion, the Chinese government will continue to fund the construction of its administration, teaching and dormitory buildings and affiliated facilities, while providing the needed equipment and supplies. The latest move is expected to remarkably enhance the college's capacity. "We are helping fill the technical personnel deficit in the country," said Emile Abayisenga, head of the college and Musanze's city council. Rwanda suffers a skilled-labor shortage, while vocational courses are badly needed, he noted. The college's 26-year-old student, Marcel Nyirimihigo, designed a concrete gravity dam for the Eastern Province for his graduation project. "Agriculture is fundamental. For Rwanda, irrigation is a key factor in agricultural modernization," he said. "This is why we designed a dam." HAVING ENOUGH CLEAN WATER TO DRINK EVERYDAY "Now everybody can take good showers in summers," Mauritius pediatrician Marie-Noelle Moutou said. "At last, the reservoir dam is completed, and we can live a better life." The Bagatelle dam, some 22 km southeast off the Mauritius capital Port Louis, stands near the home of the five-member Moutou family. The dam construction was contracted to the China International Water & Electric Corporation. Before the dam was completed on June 30 this year, the Moutous had to wake up very early everyday to get tap water. Tap water was only available for several hours in the morning, and their water-buckets were never filled due to low water pressures. Located in the Indian Ocean, Mauritius lacks fresh water as is the case for many island countries. Official data shows the Bagatelle dam benefits an area some 20 percent of Mauritius, home to over 30 percent of the population. Currently, residents in Port Louis and its neighborhood can enjoy a round-the-clock water supply. Ex-President of Mauritius Ameenah Gurib-Fakim has said, "Thanks to Chinese friends for building this great dam for us. It will make thousands of our citizens no longer worry about where to obtain clean drinking water." In the Coromandel industrial park, 5 km away from where the Moutous live, Jean Ah-Lim too feels gratitude towards the dam-builders. Today, the owner of a factory making the Chinese dumpling jiao-zi no longer has to buy fresh water from privately-run enterprises in order to maintain their daily output of 10,000 dumplings. This dramatically reduces the cost. "The dam helps the local households and enterprises, and will pull (up) the country's economy," he said. Mauritius welcomes the Belt and Road and is willing to deepen this win-win friendly cooperation with China, Mauritian Prime Minister Anerood Jugnauth has said. In his opinion, the BRI integrates the visions of many countries. (Xinhua reporters Xing Jianqiao, Lv Tianran and Wen Hao also contributed to the story.) Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy has said that the claims made by former French president Francois Hollande over Rafale fighter jets deal between India and France are serious. The Rajya Sabha MP, however, added a rider saying, if accurately reported. Taking to microblogging site Twitter, Swamy responded to a tweet mentioning about the claims made by the former French president. Retweeting the same, the BJP leader wrote, This is serious if accurately reported. This is serious if accurately reported Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) September 21, 2018 Former French president Francois Hollande has triggered a row by saying that Dassault Aviation was given no choice but to partner with Anil Ambani-led Reliance Defence for the offset clause in the Rafale fighter jet deal. In an interview to a media organisation, the former president said that the name of Reliance was proposed by the Indian government. "We did not have a say in that. The Indian government proposed this service group, and Dassault negotiated with Ambani. We did not have a choice, we took the interlocutor we were given," news agency ANI quoted Hollande as saying in the interview. However, Dassault Aviation later issued a statement saying Reliance Group was chosen in compliance with the Defence Procurement Procedure (2016) regulations. According to the company, though the Rafale deal was a contract between the Indian and the French governments, it provided for a separate contract in which Dassault Aviation committed to making compensation investments (offsets) in India equivalent to 50 per cent of the value of the purchase. "This contract is a government-to-government agreement. It provides for a separate contract in which Dassault Aviation commits to make compensation investments (offsets) in India worth 50% of the value of the purchase," the statement read. It added, "This offsets contract is delivered in compliance with the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) 2016 regulations. In this framework, and in accordance with the policy of Make in India, Dassault Aviation has decided to make a partnership with India's Reliance Group. This is Dassault Aviation's choice, as CEO Eric Trappier had explained in an interview published in MINT newspaper on April 17, 2018. This partnership has led to the creation of the Dassault Reliance Aerospace Ltd (DRAL) joint-venture in February 2017." New Delhi: BJP president Amit Shah on Saturday slammed Congress president Rahul Gandhi, questioning if he has formed an international "mahagathbandhan" (grand alliance) with Pakistan as both have been raising the same slogan, "Modi hatao" (remove Modi). Taking to Twitter, Amit Shah posted the screenshot of a tweet of Pakistan Minister Fawad Hussain to throw barbs at Gandhi. Hussain had tagged Gandhi's tweets attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the Rafale deal to say that they explain the "BJP-led tirade against Pakistan". Shah tweeted, "Rahul Gandhi says 'Modi Hatao'. Pakistan says 'Modi Hatao'. Now Pakistan also supports Rahul Gandhi's baseless allegations against PM Modi. Is Congress forming an International Mahagathbandhan against PM Modi?" The Bharatiya Janata Party president used the hashtag #NaPakNaCongress (Neither Pakistan not Congress) to make his point. The BJP and the Congress are involved in a bitter war of words over the alleged corruption in the Rafale fighter aircraft deal. Earlier on Friday, Hollande had said that Dassault Aviation was given no choice but to partner with Anil Ambani-led Reliance Defence for the offset clause in the Rafale fighter jet deal. In an interview to a French media house, Hollande on a question about who selected Reliance as a partner and why said it was the Indian government that proposed Reliance's name and Dassault had no choice but to take the company given to it. On Friday, quoting an article, published by French journal Mediapart, ANI reported, "We did not have a say in that. The Indian government proposed this service group, and Dassault negotiated with Ambani. We did not have a choice, we took the interlocutor we were given," said Hollande. The interview was published in French and excerpts of Hollande's interview were tweeted by French Newspaper LeMonde journalist Julien Boissou. The Defence Ministry on Saturday argued that "unnecessary controversies are being sought to be created" over he issue and the deal was a "purely commercial arrangement between two private companies". In a statement, the Defence Ministry added the reported statement "perhaps needs to be seen in its full context" reiterating that the government had no role in the selection of the partners in the Rafale deal. A day after former Hollande's remark, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi reiterating that the 'chowkidaar' of the country is a thief and asked why the PM is silent on Hollande's remark. He further pressed that PM Modi must clear his stand on the Rafale deal as the matter pertains to corruption and is related to the defence forces of the country. JAIPUR: BJP President Amit Shah on Saturday termed Bangladeshi migrants as 'termites' and said that he will remove them from voters' list. Lauding BJP's work of identifying illegal immigrants, Shah said that each one of them will be identified and struck off from the electoral roll. Shah said that the National Register of Citizens (NRC) recently published in Assam had BJP's contribution in identifying nearly 40 lakh illegal immigrants. "The BJP government will pick out each and every infiltrator," he said. Speaking at a public meeting in Sawai Madhopur district's Gangapur, Shah said, "BJP sarkaar ek-ek ghuspaithiye ko chun-chun kar matdata suchi se hatane ka kaam karegi." The Bharatiya Janata Party chief was in Rajasthan earlier this month as well as his party and the Congress gear up for the Assembly elections by the year-end. The BJP government in Rajasthan is like the unshakeable 'Angad ka Paon', he said referring to a character in Ramayana whose foot even Ravana could not move. The Congress cannot do any good for the country as that party has neither a leader nor a policy, he said. Calling Rahul Gandhi 'Rahul Baba', Shah said while he is demanding an account of the work done by the BJP, the people want him to tell them what the four generations of his own family have done. He said Rajasthan was a`Bimaru' state during the Congress rule but Chief Minister Vasundhra Raje had worked to bring in progress. He said both the central and the state governments had initiated development projects. (With PTI inputs) New Delhi: The Congress on Saturday refuted the claims of Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad that French firm Dassault Aviation, the manufacturer of Rafale jets, had signed a contract with Mukesh Ambani`s Reliance Industries Limited in 2012 to execute the offset contract and described it as "totally false". "This is totally false and utter rubbish being dished out, unfortunately by Defence Ministry and the Law Minister," Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala said at a press conference here. He said that "no such Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was ever signed between Dassault Aviation and Mukesh Ambani`s company". "They have the records. We challenge the Law Minister and Defence Minister (Nirmala Sitharaman) to make any such record public. As there is no record, the lies would be exposed," Surjewala said. Surjewala`s remarks came soon after Prasad recounted the history of the deal from 2006 and said there was contemporaneous evidence to show that the choice of offset partner, a Reliance company, was made in 2012 itself during the UPA rule, much before Modi became Prime Minister. "There is evidence available that a proper MoU existed between Dassault and Reliance industry as early as on February 13, 2013, that means one year, four months before we came to power," he said. Prasad said the offset clause was finalised by the UPA in 2012 and the choice of the private firm in place of HAL was entirely that of Dassault. "In fact, the UPA had ditched the HAL," he said. Prasad was reacting to the raging controversy over the 36 fighter deal with France. His remarks came amid media reports of former French President Francois Hollande claiming that the Indian government suggested the private firm for the Rafale offset contract. The Congress leader attacking the Narendra Modi-led government said, "Truth is that, Dassault Aviation had entered into a work-share arrangement with public sector undertaking Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). And it is proved in annual report 2013-14, in which Eric Trappier, CEO of Dassault, states that `our main partner is HAL`." He claimed that on March 25, 2015 (just 17 days before Modi`s announced the purchase of 36 Rafale on April 10, 2015), Dassualt CEO in the presence of Chief of Indian Air Force and HAL Chairman stated that negotiations with HAL were at final stage and contract finalisation and signature would come very soon. "On March 13, 2014, a work-share agreement was signed between HAL and Dassault Aviation," Surjewala claimed. The deal to purchase 36 Rafale fighter jets from France was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015 and signed in 2016. The UPA government was earlier negotiating a deal to procure 126 Rafale jets, with 18 to come in flyaway condition and 108 to be manufactured by HAL under licence. The Modi government has repeatedly said it was Dassault that chose its India partner for offsets and that the government had no say in the deal. New Delhi: Amid controversy over the Rafale deal, Dassault Aviation issued a statement providing clarifications regarding the contract signed in 2016 for 36 aircraft. Confirming India's stand on the offsets agreement between the aviation and Reliance Group, Dassault reiterated that Reliance Group was chosen in compliance with the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) 2016 regulations. It further clarified that although the Rafale deal was a contract between the Indian and the French governments, it provided for a separate contract in which Dassault Aviation committed to making compensation investments (offsets) in India equivalent to 50 per cent of the value of the purchase. "This contract is a government-to-government agreement. It provides for a separate contract in which Dassault Aviation commits to make compensation investments (offsets) in India worth 50% of the value of the purchase," the statement read. It added, "This offsets contract is delivered in compliance with the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) 2016 regulations. In this framework, and in accordance with the policy of Make in India, Dassault Aviation has decided to make a partnership with India's Reliance Group. This is Dassault Aviation's choice, as CEO Eric Trappier had explained in an interview published in MINT newspaper on April 17, 2018. This partnership has led to the creation of the Dassault Reliance Aerospace Ltd (DRAL) joint-venture in February 2017." The compamy further stated, "Dassault Aviation and Reliance have built a plant in Nagpur for manufacturing parts for Falcon and Rafale aircraft. The Nagpur site was chosen because of the availability of land with direct access to an airport runway, an essential condition of aeronautic activities." The French aviation company also said that contracts were signed with companies other than Reliance as well, as part of the offsets contract under the Rafale deal. "Other partnerships have been signed with other companies such as BTSL, DEFSYS, Kinetic, Mahindra, Maini, SAMTEL,. Other negotiations are ongoing with hundred-odd other potential partners," the firm divulged. The statement by Dassault Aviation comes shortly after former French president, Francois Hollande, claimed that Dassault Aviation was given no choice but to partner with Anil Ambani-led Reliance Defence for the offset clause in the Rafale fighter jet deal. The Centre, led by Prime Minister Modi, scrapped the UPA's plan in 2015 and announced that it would buy 36 "ready-to-fly" Rafale jets instead of seeking a technology transfer from France's Dassault Aviation and making the aircraft in India. (With inputs from ANI) Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan on Saturday called India 'arrogant' on in its decision of cancelling the peace dialogue between the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan. In a strong jibe at the Centre, the PM said that he has always seen small men occupying big offices who do not have the vision to see the larger picture. Khan expressed his disappointment over India's arrogant decision and negative response to call off the peace dialogue. Khan took to Twitter and said, "Disappointed at the arrogant & negative response by India to my call for resumption of the peace dialogue. However, all my life I have come across small men occupying big offices who do not have the vision to see the larger picture." Disappointed at the arrogant & negative response by India to my call for resumption of the peace dialogue. However, all my life I have come across small men occupying big offices who do not have the vision to see the larger picture. Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) September 22, 2018 Khan in his tweet was referring to the upcoming meet scheduled in New York between the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan on the sidelines of the upcoming United Nations General Assembly. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) cancelled the meet after killing of a BSF soldier along the border and the release of series of 20 postal stamps by Pakistan glorifying terrorists. MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar on Friday said, "Since yesterday's announcement of the meeting of foreign ministers of India and Pakistan, deeply disturbing developments took place. Latest brutal killings of our security personnel by Pakistan entities and the recent release of series of 20 postal stamps by Pakistan glorifying terrorists." The MEA said in a statement, "The decision to agree to Pakistans proposal for a meeting between the Foreign Ministers of the two countries was in response to the spirit reflected in the letters from Prime Minister Imran Khan and Foreign Minister of Pakistan. The letter from the Prime Minister of Pakistan had spoken of, inter alia bringing a positive change and mutual desire for peace as also readiness to discuss terrorism." "Now, it is obvious that behind Pakistans proposal for talks to make a fresh beginning, the evil agenda of Pakistan stands exposed and the true face of the new Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan has been revealed to the world in his first few months in office. Any conversation with Pakistan in such an environment would be meaningless. In view of the changed situation, there will be no meeting between the Foreign Ministers of India and Pakistan in New York," added Kumar. Earlier on Thursday, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Raveesh Kumar had confirmed that External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will be meeting her Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi in New York. Raveesh Kumar said: "I can confirm that on the request of the Pakistani side, a meeting between EAM and Pakistani foreign minister will take place on the sidelines of the UNGA at a mutually convenient date and time." "This is just a meeting, not talks or resumption of dialogue," the MEA spokesperson added. The announcement of a meeting came hours after a letter by Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan for Prime Minister Narendra Modi was reported. The Pakistani leader has called for a meeting between Sushma Swaraj and Shah Mehmood Qureshi the Foreign Ministers of the two countries - on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York scheduled later this month. An undertrial rape accused fled from the high-security Bhondsi jail in Gurugram, officials said on Saturday. The accused, Amit, on Friday afternoon, managed to escape from the district jail by discreetly boarding a garbage collection vehicle, police said. Amit was arrested on the charge of rape and sent to judicial custody on September 15. The accused was lodged in jail's barrack number 3, they said. On September 22, the undertrial was found missing during the counting of inmates around 5 pm. The jail superintendent was immediately informed who initiated a thorough inquiry into the matter. "During scrutiny of CCTV footage, it appeared that Amit managed to board a garbage collection vehicle around 1.15 pm. "The vehicle came inside the jail to collect garbage and he managed to board it without being noticed by jail warden or security personnel. The undertrial hid under the garbage," Assistant Commissioner of Police (Crime) Shamsher Singh said. Amit alighted the vehicle at a garbage dump yard and fled from there. A case has been registered against Amit in the matter, the police said. During the internal inquiry, the jail superintendent found serious security lapses. The officer held in-charge warden of barrack number 3, Kuldeep Singh, Head warden Azad Singh, wardens Rohtash Singh and Nadaan, and garbage collection unit employees Ved Pal and Om Prakash for the incident. "The said jail officials have been booked under relevant IPC sections," the ACP said. A manhunt was launched to nab Amit, the police officer added. Pakistan has said that it is deeply disappointed with Indias decision to cancel Foreign Minister talks. Releasing a statement in this regard, Islamabad has said that the reasons cited by New Delhi are entirely unconvincing, adding that the Pakistan military had no role in recent killing of Border Security Force (BSF) jawan. The reasons cited by the Indian side for the decision to cancel the Foreign Ministers' meeting, within 24 hours of its public confirmation, are entirely unconvincing. The so-called "disturbing developments" alluded to in the Indian statement predated the Indian agreement to hold the bilateral meeting in New York, read the statement released by the Pakistan government. Pointing that the BSF soldier was killed two days before India announced that the talks would be held on the sidelines of UNGA in New York, Pakistan claimed that its rangers had conveyed it to the BSF formally that the country's military "had nothing to do with it". The statement further read, Pakistan Rangers also extended help in efforts to locate the soldier's body. These facts were known to the Indian authorities and a part of the Indian media also reported that Pakistan had refuted its involvement. Yet, this motivated and malicious propaganda continued. Pakistan takes this opportunity to categorically reject these allegations once again. Our authorities would be prepared to conduct a joint investigation to establish the truth. Pakistan also accused India of Falsely raising the canard of terrorism. India can neither hide its unspeakable crimes against the Kashmiri people nor can it delegitimise their indigenous struggle for their inalienable right to self-determination, said the statement. According to Pakistan, India has once again wasted a serious opportunity to change the dynamics of the bilateral relationship and put the region on the path of peace and development. The statement also points that Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, speaking for the first time after assuming office, had said that the country would take two steps if India took one. It further reads, Prime Minister Imran Khan in his reply letter endorsed Prime Minister Modis call for "constructive engagement" and proposed the meeting of the two Foreign Ministers in New York to discuss a way forward on bilateral and SAARC-related matters. Nepali man among 2 honoured for honesty after turning in wallet with $30,000 Two train employees including a Nepali national have been awarded for returning a wallet containing around Aus $ 30,000 in cash to its rightful owner in Australia. Thiruvananthapuram: Former Bishop of Jalandhar, Franco Mulakkal, accused of raping a nun in Kerala, has on Saturday been sent to police custody till 24 September. His bail application has been dismissed by the court. The state police, in its remand report, said that Mulakkal came to the convent with the intention of sexually assaulting the victim. On 5 May 2014, he illegally confined her in room no. 20 of the guest house at around 10:48 pm and subjected her to unnatural sexual assault. They added that he threatened the victim of dire consequences if she ever revealed the incident. He raped her on the next day (6 May, 2014) as well. Between 2014 to 2016, the victim was subjected to rape and unnatural sex for 13 times in the same room, said the report. Mulakkal has, however, refuted the allegations, terming them 'baseless and concocted'. On Thursday, Bishop Mulakkal, who was in charge of the Jalandhar diocese, was relieved of his pastoral duties by Pope Francis after he wrote to the Pope, expressing his desire to 'temporarily step aside' from the responsibilities of the diocese to fight his case. Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday continued attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Anil Ambani of Reliance Defence over Rafale fighter jets deal. Hitting out at Modi and Ambani, the Gandhi scion said that they had carried out a surgical strike on the Indian defence forces. In a scathing attack on the Prime Minister, the Congress president said that Modi had dishonoured the blood of our martyred soldiers. Taking to microblogging site Twitter, Rahul Gandhi further said, Shame on you. You betrayed Indias soul. The PM and Anil Ambani jointly carried out a One Hundred & Thirty Thousand Crore, SURGICAL STRIKE on the Indian Defence forces. Modi Ji you dishonoured the blood of our martyred soldiers. Shame on you. You betrayed India's soul, tweeted the Congress president. The PM and Anil Ambani jointly carried out a One Hundred & Thirty Thousand Crore, SURGICAL STRIKE on the Indian Defence forces. Modi Ji you dishonoured the blood of our martyred soldiers. Shame on you. You betrayed India's soul. #Rafale Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) September 22, 2018 In another tweet on Friday, the Gandhi scion had reiterated that Prime Minister Modi had personally negotiated and changed the Rafale deal behind closed doors. Referring to the revelations made by former French president Francois Hollande, the Congress chief said, We now know he (Prime Minister Modi) personally delivered a deal worth billions of dollars to a bankrupt Anil Ambani. The PM personally negotiated & changed the #Rafale deal behind closed doors. Thanks to Francois Hollande, we now know he personally delivered a deal worth billions of dollars to a bankrupt Anil Ambani. The PM has betrayed India. He has dishonoured the blood of our soldiers. Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) September 21, 2018 This came after former French president Hollande said that the name of Reliance was proposed by the Indian government, adding that the French government had no say on the same. "We did not have a say in that. The Indian government proposed this service group, and Dassault negotiated with Ambani. We did not have a choice, we took the interlocutor we were given," news agency ANI quoted Hollande as telling a news organisation. However, Dassault Aviation later issued a statement saying Reliance Group was chosen in compliance with the Defence Procurement Procedure (2016) regulations. According to the company, though the Rafale deal was a contract between the Indian and the French governments, it provided for a separate contract in which Dassault Aviation committed to making compensation investments (offsets) in India equivalent to 50 per cent of the value of the purchase. After Pakistan foreign office released a statement saying Indias grounds for cancelling talks were not convincing, countrys External Affairs Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said that New Delhi cancelled the talks because of Indias internal issues. Pakistan-based Geo News quoted Qureshi as saying that India cited an issue that took place in July to cancel talks that would have taken place now. The Pakistan foreign minister said that what New Delhi did was not appropriate. Qureshi further accused India of crushing diplomatic protocol by cancelling the talks scheduled to be held on the sidelines of United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session in New York. This came hours after Pakistan foreign office released a statement saying reasons cited by India for cancellation of talks were entirely unconvincing. The statement further claimed that Pakistan military had no role in the killing of Border Security Force (BSF) jawan recently. The reasons cited by the Indian side for the decision to cancel the Foreign Ministers' meeting, within 24 hours of its public confirmation, are entirely unconvincing. The so-called "disturbing developments" alluded to in the Indian statement predated the Indian agreement to hold the bilateral meeting in New York, read the statement released by the Pakistan government. Pointing that the BSF soldier was killed two days before India announced that the talks would be held on the sidelines of UNGA in New York, Pakistan claimed that its rangers had conveyed it to the BSF formally that the country's military "had nothing to do with it". Pakistan also accused India of Falsely raising the canard of terrorism. India can neither hide its unspeakable crimes against the Kashmiri people nor can it delegitimise their indigenous struggle for their inalienable right to self-determination, said the statement. As per the statement released by Pakistan, India has once again wasted a serious opportunity to change the dynamics of the bilateral relationship and put the region on the path of peace and development. New Delhi: The French government on Friday said it was in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners for the Rafale fighter jet deal, asserting that French companies have the full freedom to select Indian firms for the contract. The statement by the French government came following a French media report which quoted former French President Francois Hollande as saying that the Indian government proposed Reliance Defence as the partner for Dassault Aviation in the Rs 58,000 crore Rafale deal and France did not have a choice. "The French government is in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners who have been, are being, or will be selected by French companies," it said. The report in 'Mediapart', a French language publication, quoted Hollande as saying, "It was the Indian government that proposed this service group, and Dassault which negotiated with Ambani. We had no choice, we took the interlocutor who was given to us." Asked who selected Reliance as a partner and why, Hollande replied, "We had no say in this regard." Dassault Aviation, the makers of Rafale, had chosen Reliance Defence as its partner to fulfill offset obligations of the deal. The government has been maintaining it did not have any role in selection of the offset partner by Dassault. In a statement, Dassault Aviation said it has decided to make a partnership with the Reliance Defence in accordance with the policy of 'Make in India'. "This partnership has led to the creation of the Dassault Reliance Aerospace Ltd (DRAL) joint-venture in February 2017. Dassault Aviation and Reliance have built a plant in Nagpur for manufacturing parts for Falcon and Rafale aircraft," the company said. The French government said, "In accordance with India's acquisition procedure, French companies have the full freedom to choose the Indian partner companies that they consider to be the most relevant, then present for the Indian government's approval the offsets projects that they wish to execute in India with these local partners so as to fulfil their obligations in this regard." The Congress has been accusing massive irregularities in the deal, alleging that the government was procuring each aircraft at a cost of over Rs 1,670 crore as against Rs 526 crore finalised by the UPA government when it was negotiating procurement of 126 Rafale jets. The Congress has also alleged that the government was benefitting Reliance Defence through the deal as the company has set up a joint venture with Dassault Aviation to execute the offset obligation for the deal. The opposition parties have also alleged that the Reliance Defence was formed just 12 days before the announcement of the Rafale deal by the prime minister on 10 April 2015. The Reliance group has rejected the charges. The French government said the inter-governmental agreement it signed with India for supplying 36 Rafale aircraft concerns its obligations solely with regard to ensuring the delivery and quality of the aircraft. "As it happens, agreements have already been signed by French companies with many Indian firms, both public and private, under the framework of Indian laws," the statement said. The Congress has also been demanding answers from the government on why state-run aerospace major HAL was not involved in the deal as finalised during the UPA. Under India's offset policy, foreign defence entities are mandated to spend at least 30 per cent of the total contract value in India through procurement of components or setting up of research and development facilities. Ten days after India sealed the government-to-government agreement on the Rafale deal, Reliance Defence and Dassault had announced a joint venture (JV) in the aerospace sector and a year later, the foundation stone of a manufacturing facility was laid in Mihan, Nagpur. Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Saturday attacked Congress President Rahul Gandhi acccusing him of helping Pakistan by asking about the price of Rafale jets. Prasad in his scathing attack further added that Rahul Gandhi wants to alert the enemies by disclosing information about all weapon system. According to news agency ANI, Prasad said, "It's my charge with full sense of responsibility, Rahul Gandhi is playing in hands of enemies of India by insisting upon disclosure of all weapon system." Defending Prime Minster Narendra Modi, Prasad mentioned that it is first time in the history of India that a party president has used such language for a prime minister. Rahul Gandhi had had accused PM modi of being a theif. Accusing Rahul Gandhi of using his family name, Prasad said that the former has no quality or ability and nothing can be expected from him. Prasad's comments came after Rahul Gandhi earlier on Saturday accused PM Modi of being a theif. Gandhi had said, "desh ka chowkidaar chor hai" Rahul had launched a scathing attack on the prime minister after former French president Francois Hollande commented on the Rafale deal. Hollande had said that Dassault Aviation was given no choice but to partner with Anil Ambani-led Reliance Defence for the offset clause in the Rafale fighter jet deal. In an interview to a French media house, Hollande on a question about who selected Reliance as a partner and why, said it was the Indian government that proposed Reliance's name and Dassault had no choice but to take the company given to it. On Friday, quoting an article, published by French journal Mediapart, ANI reported, "We did not have a say in that. The Indian government proposed this service group, and Dassault negotiated with Ambani. We did not have a choice, we took the interlocutor we were given," said Hollande. The interview was published in French and excerpts of Hollande's interview were tweeted by French Newspaper LeMonde journalist Julien Boissou. (With Agency Inputs) A day after former French president Francois Hollande's remark on the Rafale deal, the Defence Ministry on Saturday argued that "unnecessary controversies are being sought to be created" over he issue and the deal was a "purely commercial arrangement between two private companies". In a statement, the Defence Ministry added the reported statement "perhaps needs to be seen in its full context" reiterating that the government had no role in the selection of the partners in the Rafale deal. Earlier on Friday, Hollande had said that Dassault Aviation was given no choice but to partner with Anil Ambani-led Reliance Defence for the offset clause in the Rafale fighter jet deal. In an interview to a French media house, Hollande on a question about who selected Reliance as a partner and why, said it was the Indian government that proposed Reliance's name and Dassault had no choice but to take the company given to it. The Defence Ministry in its statement said, "Unnecessary controversies are being sought to be created following media reports regarding a statement purportedly made by the former French President, Francois Hollande, concerning the selection of Reliance Defence as the Offset partner by Dassault, the manufacturers of Rafale aircraft. The reported statement perhaps needs to be seen in its full context where the French media has raised issues of conflict of interest involving persons close to the former President. His subsequent statements are also relevant in this regard." "The Government has stated earlier and again reiterates that it had no role in the selection of Reliance Defence as the Offset partner," it added. The statement also said, "For a rounded appreciation of this matter, it may be worthwhile to briefly dwell upon why and how Offset Policy came into play. The Offset Policy was formally announced for the first time in 2005 and has been revised several times. To leverage its huge arm-imports in order to develop a strong indigenous industry, a flow-back arrangement is made in the defence contracts, which is widely known as offsets, and constitutes a certain percentage of the contract value." "The key objectives of the Defence Offset Policy is to leverage the capital acquisitions to develop Indian defence industry by fostering development of internationally competitive enterprises; augmenting capacity for research and development in defence sector and to encourage development of synergistic sector like civil aerospace and internal security. The offset can be discharged by many means such as direct purchase of eligible products/services, FDI in joint ventures and investment towards equipment and transfer of technology. As per Defence Offset Guidelines, the foreign Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) is free to select any Indian company as its offset partner," it added. "It has been reported that a JV between Reliance Defence and Dassault Aviation came into being in February, 2017. This is a purely commercial arrangement between two private companies. Incidentally, media reports of February, 2012 suggest that Dassault Aviation, within two weeks of being declared the lowest bidder for procurement of 126 aircraft by the previous Government, had entered into a pact for partnership with Reliance Industries in Defence sector," according to the statement. "Dassault Aviation has issued a Press Release stating that it has signed partnership agreement with several companies and is negotiating with hundred odd other companies. As per the guidelines, the vendor is to provide the details of the offset partners either at the time of seeking offset credit or one year prior to discharge of offset obligation, which in this case will be due from 2020," it said. "In view of above, it is once again reiterated that the Government of India has no role in the selection of Indian Offset partner which is a commercial decision of the OEM," it concluded. In a bid to protest against the death of two students in North Dinajpurs Islampur amidst clashes, the West Bengal unit of BJP has called a 12-hour bandh on September 26. Minutes after the BJP announced the bandh, the West Bengal Chief Minister who is in Milan, Italy, said that under no circumstances the bandh will be observed. Now, Im hearing that some people have called a bandh. We will not allow anyone to observe bandh. Anyone who tries to impose the bandh forcibly, will have action taken against them, said Banerjee. Reacting to the Chief Ministers comment, senior BJP leader Mukul Roy said, The bandh will be observed for sure. At one point, Mamata Banerjee had observed a bandh for 36 hours straight. The chief minister is saying we are playing with fire. She is wrong, its not us but its her who is playing with fire. The BJP state leadership had earlier announced a march to the West Bengal secretariat -- Nabanna on the same day. However, on Saturday they called it off and announced the state-wide 12-hour strike to protest against the death of two ex-students. Senior leaders of BJP like Mukul Roy and Locket Chatterjee are scheduled to visit the family of both the deceased on Sunday in Islampur. On the other hand, RSS has demanded the resignation of the education minister Partha Chatterjee within 24 hours after Chatterjee claimed that it was a conspiracy of the RSS and BJP. The education minister must apologise within 24 hours else we will take legal action. He mentioned our organisations name. Two innocent children have died but they are politicising the issue and maligning our organisation by saying such things. Mere allegations will not suffice, they have to prove the allegations, else they will be liable for legal action. We also demand CBI investigation into the incident as to who opened fire at the students resulting in their death, said Jishnu Bose, Bengal RSS leader. KOLKATA: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday blamed the RSS and the BJP for the death of two students during a protest against appointment of Urdu teachers in a school and accused them of trying to cause communal disturbance. Banerjee, who is in Milan, Italy, on an official tour, also came out in support of providing Urdu teachers to Daribhita School in Islampur in North Dinajpur where a clash between protesters and police claimed the lives of the two students. The BJP has called a 12-hour shutdown in the state on September 26 to protest against the death of the two students. Warning the saffron organisations "not to play with fire by doing politics on the issue", she appealed to the people of the state not to pay heed to the politics of the BJP and the RSS and foil the shutdown. "The BJP and the RSS should say why the two students were killed," she said while interacting with journalists from the city who were accompanying her. "They (BJP, RSS) are like vultures waiting for a death and then start doing politics over it. They do politics even with death of students. First they commit a murder and then play holi with the (dead person's) blood. "The BJP and the RSS have to answer why the two students were killed. And until they give their answer I ask my party activists to conduct peaceful meetings and rallies in their respective areas without fighting over the issue," the Trinamool Congress supremo, who is currently on an official tour of Europe to invite investors, said. Banerjee said that the state government had provided Daribhita school with the Urdu teacher because there was a requisition from the school authority. "We had provided a Urdu teacher because the school had made a requisition. It's not the decision of the government but the decision of the school committee or the school governing body. Questioning the rationale behind the protest against appointment of Urdu teachers , Banerjee alleged that BJP was trying to create a communal disturbance in the state during Muharram. "The entire matter is a planned one by the BJP because they had plans to fuel riots during Muharram yesterday. The BJP has been trying to create this problem since September 18. If there is no problem when a Sanskrit teacher is appointed, then what is the problem over a Urdu teacher? I condemn those who have labelled this issue as communal," she said. Trouble had brewed in the school over the recruitment of Urdu teachers as the protesting students said they needed science and English teachers. The students and area residents stopped three newly-recruited Urdu teachers from entering the school Thursday, demanding that all vacant teaching posts be filled which led to the clash. The chief minister said students should concentrate on their studies and not on who are appointed teachers. "It is the job of the governing body or the school committee to look into such matters. Even we (the state government) do not interfere in it. You (students) are opposing when a Urdu teacher is appointed but not when teachers of other subjects are appointed. "I think, I do not have the right to take away the job of a Urdu teacher. All teachers are equal to me. In districts where there are 10 per cent Urdu medium schools, they can have Urdu teachers ... To me, Hindus and Muslims are all equal," she added. Referring to the police report on the clash, Banerjee said that the bullets which caused the students' death were not fired by the force. "If the bullets were not of guns used by the police then whose guns were they? From where were the bombs brought in. Who all had brought in people with faces covered. This is lynching politics (of the BJP)," she said during the interaction in Milan aired by local television channels. The police had denied its involvement in the clash though the district superintendent of police had conceded that the two had died of bullet injury. The SP, Sumit Kumar, had said people in the mob were carrying illegal bombs and arms and 14 policemen were injured in the clash. Alleging that the BJP had "brought in goons from outside the state" and attacked the police, Banerjee said not only students but the police were also injured in the attack. On the call for a state-wide shutdown by the BJP, Banerjee said "I am taking full responsibility and saying that there will be no bandh on Wednesday. There is no question of any bandh. If anyone tries to put up blockades, I am asking the administration to take strict action against the person. I will ask people to counter the bandh in a peaceful manner." Meanwhile, West Bengal Education Minister Partha Chatterjee at Krishnagar said the death of two persons during a protest in an Islampur school was a "pre-planned" act of RSS and BJP The minister said the activities of the District Inspector of schools of North Dinajpur also under doubt. He alleged that the Islampur incident was a pre-planned one and done by the RSS and BJP and not by the students. New Delhi: Mukesh Ambani and Nita Ambani's daughter, Isha Ambani is all set to get engaged to her beau Anand Piramal at the dreamy Lake Como in Italy. The celebrations kickstarted yesterday and the engagement is expected to be a grand 3-day affair. Isha's brother, Akash also got engaged earlier this year to Shloka Mehta and several Bollywood celebs were seen in attendance. Likewise, various B Towners will be flying to Lake Como to attend Isha Ambani- Anand Piramal's engagement. Among the early arrivers are Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas. The couple wore Manish Malhotra ensemble for the occasion and their pictures are going viral on the internet. Check out the pics here, as shared by fan clubs: Anand is said to have proposed to Isha at a temple in Mahabaleshwar earlier this year. They reportedly celebrated the occasion with their parents and siblings. Coming to 'Nickyanka', the two made their relationship as well as engagement official by sharing pictures from their roka ceremony. Things have escalated quickly for the couple as it was just a year ago that they were rumoured to be dating each other. There is no information as to when Priyanka and Nick will exchange wedding vows but we are sure it will be a dreamy affair! DUBAI: Gunmen fired on a military parade in southwestern Iran on Saturday, killing 24 people, half of them members of the Revolutionary Guards, state news agencies reported, in one of the worst attacks ever on the elite force. State television said the assault, which wounded more than 60 people, targeted a stand where Iranian officials had gathered to watch an annual event marking the start of the Islamic Republic`s 1980-88 war with Iraq. "There are a number of non-military victims, including women and children who had come to watch the parade," state news IRNA agency quoted an unnamed official source as saying. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) have been the sword and shield of Shi`ite clerical rule since Iran`s 1979 Islamic Revolution. The Guards also play a major role in Iran`s regional interests in countries such as Iraq, Syria and Yemen. "Three of the terrorists were killed on the spot and a fourth one who was injured died in hospital," Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi, a senior spokesman for Iran`s armed forces, told state television. A video distributed to Iranian media showed soldiers crawling on the ground as gunfire blazed in their direction. One soldier picked up a gun and got to his feet as women and children fled for their lives. Ali Hosein Hoseinzadeh, deputy governor in Khuzestan province, was quoted as saying the death toll was expected to rise. One of those killed was a journalist. The bloodshed struck a blow to security in OPEC oil producer Iran, which has been relatively stable compared with neighbouring Arab countries that have grappled with upheaval since the 2011 uprisings across the Middle East. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack in the city of Ahvaz. State television blamed "takfiri elements", a reference to Sunni Muslim militants, for the attack. Ahvaz is in the centre of Khuzestan province, where there have been sporadic protests by the Arab minority in predominantly Shi`ite Iran. Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif said the assault was the handiwork of "regional terror sponsors", language that usually refers to Iran`s enemies Saudi Arabia and Israel, and "their U.S. masters". He vowed Tehran would respond decisively. The semi-official news agency ISNA said an unnamed spokesman for the Revolutionary Guards blamed Arab nationalists backed by Saudi Arabia for the attack. DOMINANT MILITARY FORCE The Revolutionary Guards are the most powerful and heavily armed military force in the Islamic Republic and also have a vast stake worth billions of dollars in the economy. Kurdish militants killed 10 Revolutionary Guards in an attack on an IRGC post on the Iraqi border in July, Iran`s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported, the latest bloodshed in an area where armed Kurdish opposition groups are active. Iran will be scrambling to determine the motives for the Saturday`s high-profile attack as it faces growing U.S. pressure. President Donald Trump decided in May to pull the United States out of the 2015 international nuclear deal with Tehran and reimpose sanctions in a bid to isolate the Islamic Republic. "WHERE DID THEY COME FROM?" Trump will fail in his confrontation with Iran, just like Iraqs Saddam Hussein, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said, referring to the war in the 1980s between the two Middle Eastern powers and vowing that Tehran will not abandon its missiles. As Rouhani spoke, Iran began displaying its naval power in the Gulf during annual parades in the capital Tehran and the port of Bandar Abbas on the Gulf. Iran has suggested in recent weeks that it could take military action in the Gulf to block other countries oil exports in retaliation for U.S. sanctions intended to halt its sales of crude. A video on state television`s website showed confused soldiers at the scene of the attack. Standing in front of the stand, one asked: "Where did they come from?" Another responded: "From behind us." Four militants carried out the attack and two of them were killed, according to ISNA. There has been no claim of responsibility for the attack in the city of Ahvaz. Iran was holding similar parades in several cities including the capital Tehran and the port of Bandar Abbas on the Gulf. "Shooting began by several gunmen from behind the stand during the parade. There are several killed and injured," a correspondent told state television. Tensions between mainly Shi`ite Iran and mostly Sunni Saudi Arabia have surged in recent years, with the two countries supporting opposite sides in wars in Syria and Yemen and rival political parties in Iraq and Lebanon. Attacks on the military are rare in Iran. Last year, in the first deadly assault claimed by Islamic State in Tehran, 18 people were killed at the parliament and mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder and first supreme leader of the Islamic Republic. Nepali woman among 4 fatally shot in US A woman armed with a handgun opened fire at the Rite Aid Company in Maryland, United States on Thursday, killing four persons including a Nepali woman. DUBAI: Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused U.S.-backed Gulf Arab states of carrying out a shooting attack on a military parade that killed 25 people, almost half of them members of the country`s elite Revolutionary Guards. Khamenei ordered security forces to bring to justice those responsible for one of the worst assaults ever against the Revolutionary Guards, the most powerful military force in the country, which answers to him. The allegation will likely ratchet up tensions with Iran`s rival Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies, who along with the United States have been working to isolate the Islamic Republic. "This crime is a continuation of the plots of the regional states that are puppets of the United States, and their goal is to create insecurity in our dear country," Khamenei said in a statement published on his website. He did not name the regional states he believed were to blame. Israel is also a key U.S. ally opposed to Tehran. An Iranian ethnic Arab opposition movement called the Ahvaz National Resistance, which seeks a separate state in oil-rich Khuzestan province, claimed responsibility for the attack. Islamic State militants also claimed responsibility. Neither claim provided evidence. All four attackers were killed. The assault, which wounded more than 60 people, targeted a viewing stand where Iranian officials had gathered in the city of Ahvaz to watch an annual event marking the start of the Islamic Republic`s 1980-88 war with Iraq, state television said. The bloodshed struck a significant blow to the oil producer, which has been relatively stable compared with neighbouring Arab countries that have grappled with upheaval since the 2011 uprisings across the Middle East. Women and children died in the assault, state news IRNA agency reported. The assailants had hidden weapons in an area near the parade route several days in advance, said Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi, a senior spokesman for Iran`s armed forces. "All four terrorists were quickly neutralised by security forces," Shekarchi told state television. "A four-year-old girl and a wheelchair-bound war veteran were among the dead." Attacks on the military are rare in Iran. POWERFUL FORCE The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) has been the sword and shield of Shi`ite clerical rule in Iran since its 1979 Islamic Revolution. The Guards have a big say in Iran`s regional interests and a vast stake worth billions of dollars in Iran`s economy. A video distributed to Iranian media showed soldiers crawling to escape gunfire. One picked up a gun and scrambled to his feet as women and children fled for their lives. State television`s website featured a video showing confused soldiers. Standing in front of the stand, one asked: "Where did they come from?" Another responded: "From behind us." Ahvaz is in the centre of Khuzestan province, where there have been sporadic protests by minority Arabs. The gunmen were trained by two Gulf Arab states and had ties to the United States and Israel, according to Shekarchi. There was no immediate Gulf Arab comment on his remarks. REGIONAL TENSIONS Iran and Saudi Arabia support opposite sides in wars in Syria and Yemen and rival political parties in Iraq and Lebanon, fuelling instability in the Middle East. The attack occurred a day before Iranian President Hassan Rouhani heads to New York to address the annual U.N. General Assembly next week. On his Instagram account, Rouhani said "those who are supporting these terrorists will be held responsible." Iranian analysts said the attack may benefit the Guards. "Rouhani will use the terrorist attack to justify Irans presence in the Middle East...The attack will strengthen the IRGCs position inside Iran and in the region, Tehran-based political analyst Hamid Farahvashian said. Iran faces pressure to swiftly respond to the high-profile attack, which has hurt the security establishment`s prestige. "The attacks are doubtlessly meant to tarnish the prestige of the IRGC, but I believe the terrorist incidents will strengthen the IRGC`s standing and even mobilise some public support," said Ali Alfoneh, senior fellow at the Gulf Arab States Institute in Washington. Hardliners like the IRGC have gained standing at the expense of pragmatists in Iran`s multi-tiered leadership since President Donald Trump decided in May to pull the United States out of the 2015 international nuclear deal with Tehran and reimpose sanctions on the Islamic Republic. The United States stands with the Iranian people and encourages the regime in Tehran to focus on keeping them safe at home, said National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis. Kurdish militants killed 10 Revolutionary Guards in an attack on an IRGC post on the Iraqi border in July. Last year, in the first deadly assault claimed by Islamic State in Tehran, 18 people were killed at the parliament and mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic. Militants violated ceasefire regime four times from the beginning of the day Open source From the beginning of the day, the militants violated ceasefire four times in the area of hostilities in Donbas, two Ukrainian militaries injured. The press office of the Joint Forces Operation reported this on Facebook. 'The Russian occupants shelled the positions of the Joint Forces near Krymske settlement from mounted grenade launchers. Apart from the grenade launchers, the enemy used heavy machine guns and small arms against our defenders in the area of Hruntove,' reads the message. As a result of the hostilities, two servicemen of the Joint Forces were injured. Reportedly, during the previous day on September 20, the militants violated ceasefire regime 22 times, no casualties among the personnel of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were observed. As it was reported earlier, an indefinite ceasefire regime was announced in the JFO zone from the midnight on August 29. It was noted that the militants violated the silence regime on the first day of its announcement. From the beginning of the day, the militants have violated the ceasefire in the Donbas conflict zone seven times. This was reported in the press center of the Joint Forces Operation. "During the day, the enemy opened fire from grenade launchers of various systems, heavy machine guns and small arms at positions of the Joint forces in the vicinity of the settlements Krymske, Zolotoe, Novoselivka, Pavlopil, Hnutove and Lebedynske," the report said. It is noted that as a result of military actions no losses reported among the Ukrainian military. The defense of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko asks the court to oblige BBC to refute and delete the article about payment for the meeting of Poroshenko with American President Donald Trump and to compensate for his losses. Graham Atkins, head of law company Atkins Thomson who represents the Presidents case in court claimed this to Ukrainian News. The President pursuits unfounded accusations, the removal of the article and compensation for damages to his reputation. In addition, ensuring non-reprinting of made defamatory statements, Atkins claimed. Related: Trump congratulates Ukrainians on Independence Day He noted that the court hearing for the consideration of the case hasnt been scheduled yet but the issue between the sides can be resolved as the case progresses. Earlier, BBC reported with a reference to its own sources that personal lawyer of Donald Trump Michael Cohen received a secret payment of $400 or $600 thousand for the organization of the first meeting of Petro Poroshenko with Donald Trump in June 2017. Yet BBC claimed that they reached to Michael Cohen, and also two Ukrainian officials who have allegedly organized the payment. The three rejected the information. The Administration of the Ukrainian President demanded BBC to refute the published information. Related: Kurt Volker meets Ukraine's President Poroshenko Poroshenko and Trump met in the White House, Washington on June 20, 2017. After the meeting, Petro Poroshenko claimed that the USA supports the territorial integrity of Ukraine and advocate for the continuation of reforms in the country. Poroshenko noted that the sides achieved agreement in the area of military-technical and economic cooperation. According to Trump, it was a really good discussion and significant progress has been made. The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation claimed that S-400 Triumf designed for elimination of strategic bombers, ballistic and cruise missiles, and can be used against ground objects Russia deployed S-400 air defense systems in the occupied Crimea on the territory of Yevpatoria, designed for the elimination of the aircraft of strategic aviation, RIA News reported. The third division of S-400 Triumf anti-aircraft guided missile system from the compound of the anti-aircraft defense of the Southern Military District of the Russian Federation came on duty. It is noted that combat crews deployed launching installation at positions, held the orientation of the complex on the ground and began to track the targets. According to the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation claimed that S-400 Triumf designed for elimination of strategic bombers, ballistic and cruise missiles, and can be used against ground objects. It should be noted that Russia holds regular military exercises on the peninsula after the annexation of Crimea. Ukrainian HQ consider the actions of the Russian military in Crimea illegal. As of now, the building of the Nord Stream-2 is implemented by an international consortium, 50 percent of which is owned by the Russian Gazprom Open source Russian President Vladimir Putin during his visit to Meseberg on August 18, where he met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, informed that Russia is ready to fully finance the Nord Stream-2, if the US introduces sanctions against the participants of consortium realize this project. Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reports this with a reference to informed sources, according to Deutsche Welle. Related: U.S. not impose sanctions on Nord Stream 2, - Trump Currently, the building of the Nord Stream-2 is implemented by an international consortium, 50 percent of which is owned by the Russian Gazprom. BASF Wintershall, Uniper, and Shell are among the participants of the consortium. The US in their turn has repeatedly threatened to introduce sanctions against the energy sector of Russia as punishment for the alleged interference of Moscow in the US Presidential campaign in 2016. Western partners of Russia may also suffer from these sanctions. Related: Ukraine to lose $ 3 billion a year because of Nord Stream 2 Earlier, American President Donald Trump claimed that he wasnt going to impose sanctions against the western countries for the participation in the construction of the Nord Stream-2. The construction of the Nord Stream-2 became a topic, which recently was discussed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin. In a joint press statement before the talks, Merkel claimed that Ukraine should remain the participant in the gas transit process to Europe after the launch of the Nord Stream-2. EPA The situation in Yemen is close to a humanitarian catastrophe. This was stated on Friday, September 21, at the meeting of the UN Security Council, by the UN Deputy Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock, Xinhua news agency reported. According to him, in Yemen, the number of residents who do not have a regular opportunity to eat, in the near future may increase by almost half. Currently, about 8 million people experience difficulties in obtaining food in the country, but they can soon be supplemented by another 3.5 million people. The severe economic situation in the country is caused by the depreciation of the Yemeni rial. Its cost for the last month has decreased by 30%. And since the practical whole of food consumed in Yemen is imported, the decline in the value of the currency directly affects the rise in food prices. This trend affects about 10 million inhabitants of the country. Lowcock also said that in Yemen already there are hungry people who are forced to eat leaves, without any more food. Earlier in the UN, it was stated that the number of hungry people in the world in 2017 returned to the indicators of a decade ago - 821 million people are starving in the world, or every ninth. Related: Terrorist attack at military parade in Iran Russian human rights activist Zoya Svetova held a single picket under the administration of the Russian president demanding the release of Ukrainian political prisoner Oleg Sentsov. She wrote about this in Facebook. "It's generally a very strange feeling. You stand in front of everyone as if you're naked, but you feel fine. I think everyone who wants to feel the sense of "no shame" should take part in this picket , "she wrote. The human rights activist noted that this was her first picket under the presidential administration. "For the first time in my life I was in the picket at the presidential administration, and I can tell you it's a lot of impressions," Svetova noted. She also called on famous people to support her and join a picket in support of the Ukrainian political prisoner. "And it would be great if, in addition to such simple people as we, the famous would come," said the human rights activist. Recall, the Verkhovna Rada adopted the draft resolution No. 9040, with which it appealed to the Norwegian Nobel Committee to nominate Oleg Sentsov for the Nobel Peace Prize. The Ministry of Infrastructure also plans to open official bus station with a terminal station at the border crossing point Ukrainian Ministries plan to build new crossing points Kalanchak and Chonhar at the administrative boundary line with Crimea by the end of this year. Yurii Lavreniuk, Deputy Minister of Infrastructure claimed this at the Kherson economic forum, Krym.Realii reports. It was decided to allocate funds from the reserve fund of the State budget. In particular, the Ministry of Infrastructure allocated $3.7m from the reserve fund for the building of two entry-exit checkpoints, and $70 thousand for project documentation, Lavreniuk claimed. Related: Border Guard Service comments on detention of Ukrainians in annexed Crimea According to him, the Ministry of Infrastructure yet paid the services of the National Academy of Security Service of Ukraine, which developed the projects for entry-exit checkpoints. Lavreniuk stressed that the checkpoints would be built by the end of November beginning of December 2018. Related: Chemical emission in Crimea: 61 Ukrainian border guards need medical help We build from scratch. The entry-exit checkpoints we have today do not correspond to the conditions and realities needed during the crossing of people the temporary administrative boundary line, during the line of duty of border police officers and intelligence. There are no basic human conditions, sanitary zones etc. We are planning to build temporary works, high-quality zones, and services for people, the Deputy Minister told. The Ministry of Infrastructure also plans to open official bus station with a terminal station at the border crossing point. As it is known, Russia annexed Crimea in March 2014 after the illegal referendum. On March 17, 2014, Putin signed an order which recognizes Crimeas independence. On the next day, he signed an agreement which joins Crimea and Sevastopol to Russia. According to the warriors, earlier the terrorists entered Vilny farmstead to shell JFO positions Ukrainian servicemen take Vilny farmstead under control, which is situated in Luhansk region. As the press office of the Joint Forces reported on Facebook, the Ukrainian militaries reinforced safety zones around Zolote settlement. Related: 24 hours in Donbas: Militants use grenade launchers and machine guns, two Ukrainian servicemen injured The Joint Forces military units are taking measures to create and reinforce safety zones around the settlements located on the controlled by Ukraine territories to protect civilians from the insidious shelling from the Russian-occupation forces site... The other day, the enemy was deprived of the ability to unlawfully shell our positions in the area of the settlement Zolote, reads the message. As Channel 5 reports, Ukrainian militaries ran the State flag over Vilny farmstead, which is a part Zolote, and had been in the gray zone for four years. According to the warriors, earlier the terrorists entered Vilny farmstead to shell JFO positions. Related: Militants perform 24 attacks in Donbas conflict zone We couldnt fire back because there are a lot of residents, the terrorists opened fire from empty houses abandoned by owners. This is why it was decided to take the north-east region under control. As it was reported earlier, the militants opened fire 18 times at the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as a result, three Ukrainian servicemen received injuries. 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!) Officials: Feasibility study to be over in two months The feasibility study for developing inland waterways from Indian sea ports to the Nepal border via Koshi and Narayani rivers will be completed within two months, officials have said. Online shopping sites to launch festive offers E-commerce platforms are reshaping shopping trends in Nepal, with most platforms offering brands at competitive prices. And with the festive season round the corner, online shopping platforms like Daraz.com, Sastodeal.com and Urban Girl are planning to introduce offers and schemes to boost sales. Parched City Bhawana Dhital, a resident of Nayathimi, Bhaktapur, had yet another difficult summer this year. With the water supply from public pipelines inconsistent and limited, Dhital had to rely on commercial water tankers to meet her eight-member familys daily needs. Police arrest man with gun Police arrested a man for illegally possessing a firearm in Ghorahi. Acting on a tip-off, police arrested 21-year-old Jun Kumar Budha of Ghorahi sub-metropolis-12, according to Superintendent of Police Krishna Hari Sharma. #FOTOS: La primera dama, Maribel Diaz, participo esta manana en la ceremonia de entrega de donacion de instrumentos musicales a Sinfonia por el Peru, por parte de la Embajada de China https://t.co/XalZr7RnZ6 pic.twitter.com/6TVj7SjYV6 YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 22, ARMENPRESS. The USA is one of Armenias partners with home we have developed quite a rich agenda during the 27 years of independence, Foreign Minister of Armenia Zohrab Mnatsakanyan said in an interview with Public TV of Armenia. The USA saluted the developments that took place in Armenia aimed at the strengthening of democracy and rule of law. All that was for reaffirming and strengthening the values. The USA, being our partner in that sense, saluted us and congratulated. Of course, that warmth is very inspiring, ARMENPRESS reports the Minister as saying. To the question if we can record that a new, more dynamic stage of relations starts, Zohrab Mnatsakanyan answered that the relations of the two countries are continuous. We have an expanding agenda. The USA has worked with us for quite a long period on this agenda and we will definitely continue to do that. We only salute and say that we will manage to further deepen and strengthen our cooperation, Zohrab Mnatsakanyan said. Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 22, ARMENPRESS. The format of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairs was and remains the most practical and effective format in the sidelines of which the negotiations on Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement take place, Foreign Minister of Armenia Zohrab Mnatsakanyan said in an interview with Public TV of Armenia, answering the question if he sees any necessity for changing the present format of negotiations. Any change of the format will lead to no results. Naturally, we will be against that, ARMENPRESS reports the Minister as saying. Zohrab Mnatsakanyan also referred to the issue of expanding the office of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, noting that unfortunately Azerbaijan continues to block it. But I would like to generalize this issue, since it refers not only to the expansion of the office, but the establishment of peace atmosphere in general, strengthening the ceasefire regime and elimination of any threat that can lead to escalation. This is s very comprehensive question containing numerous sub-questions where the issue of expanding the office of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office is only one of them, Mnatsakanyan said. The minister emphasized that Armenia and Artsakh have chosen a path development based on democracy and rule of law. Referring to Artsakhs participation in the negotiations, FM Mnatsakanyan said, Its clear that without decisions of Artsakh one cannot expect any lasting settlement, he said. Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 22, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian sent a condolence letter to the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Hassan Rouhani on the occasion of the terror act in Ahvaz city, which claimed numerous lives, ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of the Presidents Office. Condemning terrorism and extremism, I extent my condolences to you and the friendly people of Iran, wishing the injured speedy recovery and steadfastness and spiritual strength to the relatives of the victims, reads President Sarkissians condolence letter. Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 22, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan sent a condolence letter to the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Hassan Rouhani on the occasion of the human losses as a result of the terror act in Ahvaz city. As ARMENPRESS was informed from the official website of the Prime Minister of Armenia, the letter runs as follows, It was with deep grief that I learned about the terror attack in Ahvaz city of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which claimed numerous lives and left many injured. Such inhuman acts once again reaffirm our conviction that its necessary to join all the efforts in fight against that evil. Strictly condemning what happened, I wish steadfastness and spiritual strength to the relatives of the victims and speedy recovery to the injured. Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan Iran put on a show of force to threaten the US but it was unconvincing at best Iran on Friday carried out a military drill aimed at showing the US how it could shut down oil shipping in the Persian Gulf after fresh US sanctions it in November, but the display was underwhelming at best. The US will slap Iran with sanctions on its oil exports on November 4, a date that marks six months since the US's withdrawal from the Iran deal. Iran has threatened to block other country's oil shipments if its own shipments get blocked, and to use its military to do so. Iran doesn't really stand a chance of achieving that and has already been hurt by sanctions. Iran carried out a military drill Friday aimed at showing the US how it could shut down oil shipping in the Persian Gulf as more US sanctions loom in November, but the display was underwhelming at best. The US will slap Iran with sanctions on its oil exports on November 4, a date that marks six months since the US's withdrawal from the Iran deal. Iran essentially responded by saying that if its oil exports are blocked, it will take military measures to block oil exports from other countries, including US allies. "If the enemies and arrogant powers have an eye on the borders and land of Islamic Iran they will receive a pounding reply in the fraction of a second," Iranian media quoted Colonel Yousef Safipour as saying of the drills. But while Iran has some credible naval capabilities that could shut down the waterway for a time, the assets it displayed don't really seem up to the task. Iran flew Mirage fighter jets, F-4s and Sukhoi-22s as part of the display. The F-4 and Sukhoi both first flew in the 1960s, and the Mirage first took flight in the 1970s. Iran, under heavy sanction, hasn't bought new fighter jets or components in a long time, but has shown considerable skill in keeping its stock flying for decades. But the US maintains a presence in the Persian Gulf, most recently with an aircraft carrier full of F-35 stealth fighters. Story continues The US has considerable air power in the Middle East and closely monitors the Persian Gulf. Additionally, US allies like Saudi Arabia don't exactly sail rubber duckies through the gulf either. On Saturday, Iran will stage a large military drill with up to 600 navy vessels, its state media said. This number likely includes Iran's fast attack craft, or military speedboats that have harassed US ships in the past. Already Iran has found itself abandoned by its former oil clients in anticipation of US sanctions. Iran frequently threatens military force against the US or its neighbours, but rarely follows through. Reuters contributed to this report. President Donald Trump's allies in conservative media asked him to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein "immediately" on Friday after a New York Times bombshell. The Times reported that Rosenstein had discussed the 25th Amendment in the days after the president fired FBI Director James Comey. "He needs to go. Today," tweeted Fox News host Laura Ingraham. President Donald Trump's allies in conservative media were quick to suggest that he fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein "immediately" after The New York Times reported Friday that he discussed the 25th Amendment in the days after the president fired FBI Director James Comey. Fox News hosts Laura Ingraham and Jeanine Pirro, in addition to legal analyst Gregg Jarrett, pushed the president to fire Rosenstein soon after The Times published its story. "He needs to go. Today," tweeted Ingraham, who added in another tweet that the deputy attorney general "must be fired today," tagging Trump's Twitter account. The Times reported that Rosenstein commented on invoking the 25th Amendment and about secretly recording Trump in meetings and conversations with Justice Department and FBI officials, according to several people who described the comments to the publication. Those sources were either briefed on the comments or on memos FBI officials such as then-FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe authored. In a statement to The Times, Rosenstein disputed the story, calling it "inaccurate and factually incorrect." He added that the information was planted by "anonymous sources who are obviously biased against the department and are advancing their own personal agenda." "But let me be clear about this: Based on my personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment," Rosenstein said. An anonymous Justice Department spokeswoman told The Times that a person who was present when Rosenstein proposed secretly recording Trump by wearing a wire during a meeting with the president said the comment was made sarcastically. Other publications subsequently reported that the comment was sarcastic in nature. Story continues A section of the 25th Amendment allows for the vice president plus a majority of the Cabinet members to declare that the president is unfit for office. But there is no mechanism for dealing with a president who simply decides to fire Cabinet members who choose to join with a majority declaring the president unfit once a president were to catch wind of the effort. Rosenstein's proposals did not ultimately come to fruition, The Times wrote. "Driven by vengeance, Rosenstein sought to secretly record the President," Jarrett tweeted. "He must be fired immediately! Since a clearly biased Rosenstein has been in charge of the Mueller investigation, it must be terminated. This illegitimate probe has been tainted by corruption from the start." Donald Trump Multiple judges have upheld the special counselRobert Mueller's probe, which Rosenstein oversees, as legitimate. "Rod rosenstein shld have been fired long ago for being part of the 'resistance' and not providing documents to congress in order to save his corrupt pals," Pirro tweeted, mentioning the document requests made by conservative House members of Rosenstein. "NOW HE MUST BE FIRED." Interestingly, Trump's allies seemed to be OK with using an anonymously sourced story from The Times as the basis of its calls to fire Rosenstein as soon as today. "When you see 'anonymous source,' stop reading the story, it is fiction!" Trump himself tweeted last month, the same day he suggested that such sources "don't even exist." As for The Times, Trump has repeatedly referred to the publication as "The Failing New York Times" when the outlet publishes a story he is not fond of. Some conservatives expressed caution in their response to The Times story, however. "When it comes to President @realDonaldTrump..... BEWARE of anything coming out of the @nytimes," tweeted Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who has become more of a Trump ally in recent months. Former Republican Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a fellow Trump ally, tweeted that he was not sure if the story was true because it was published by the "NY Slimes." But, he said if it were true, Attorney General Jeff Sessions "needs to fire Rosenstein and if he won't @realDonaldTrump needs to fire both of them since Rosenstein doesn't seem to have the integrity to resign." An Australian filmmaker who received a royal pardon from Cambodia will be deported Saturday, immigration officials said, a day after he was released from a six-year sentence in a case Human Rights Watch has called "a ludicrous charade". James Ricketson, 69, was given jail time three weeks ago for "espionage and collecting harmful information that could affect national defence" by a Phnom Penh court. He was then issued a royal pardon on Friday, after strongman premier Hun Sen requested it from the Cambodian king. "We will deport him today," Keo Vanthan, spokesman for the immigration department, told AFP. "We are looking for a flight for him." Ricketson's lawyer Kong Sam Onn confirmed this, adding that the Australian's visa to stay in Cambodia had expired. The embattled filmmaker had been in prison since last June, after footage emerged of him using a drone to film a rally of the now-defunct opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP). His six-day trial -- which rights groups have slammed as a farce -- showed him to be defiant and combative, and featured a surprise appearance by Hollywood director Peter Weir who served as a character witness for his friend. The prosecution accused Ricketson of working as a filmmaker in Cambodia as a front for spying activities, but the verdict failed to name which country he was allegedly spying for. His truncated prison term came after a series of activists and opposition lawmakers were freed in the weeks following July's national election, which critics have said was neither free nor fair. The CNRP, which had served as the sole legitimate opposition force to Hun Sen's ruling Cambodian People's Party, was dissolved in the lead-up to the controversial poll, clearing the path for the CPP to take all 125 parliament seats. This effectively rendered Cambodia a one-party state, which the international community has decried as a death knell to democracy. After the poll Hun Sen -- who has been in power for more than three decades -- returned to a pattern of easing up on dissent. Ricketson's pardon comes just days before Hun Sen is scheduled to travel to New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly. Australian filmmaker James Ricketson, 69, had been sentenced to jail in Cambodia for 'espionage and collecting harmful information' China summoned the US ambassador on Saturday to lodge an official protest over sanctions imposed by the United States against a Chinese military organisation for buying Russian fighter jets and missiles, state media said. The announcement came a day after China called on the United States to withdraw the sanctions or "bear the consequences". The spat adds to tensions between the two global powers over trade, China's treatment of religious groups and the Asian country's claims to disputed islands in the South China Sea. Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang summoned Ambassador Terry Branstad and "lodged solemn representations over US sanctions against (the) Chinese military," the People's Daily said in a brief report online. On Thursday, Washington placed financial sanctions on the Equipment Development Department of the Chinese Defence Ministry, and its top administrator, for its recent purchase of Russian Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets and S-400 surface-to-air missile systems. Officials said it was the first time a third country has been punished under the CAATSA sanctions legislation for dealing with Russia, and signalled the Trump administration's willingness to risk relations with other countries in its campaign against Moscow. Russia also lashed out at the US sanctions, accusing Washington of playing unfairly and using new measures to squeeze Moscow out of the global arms market. Russian Sukhoi Su-34 fighter-bombers fly over Red Square during the Victory Day military parade in Moscow on May 9, 2018 Tiger, tiger, burning bright in December 2015, researchers at the Center for Molecular Dynamics-Nepal (CMDN) received an urgent call from the Nepal Polices Central Investigation Bureau (CIB). Tiger specimens confiscated from poachers needed urgent forensic examination, they said. China summoned the US ambassador on Saturday to lodge an official protest over sanctions imposed by the United States against a Chinese military organisation for buying Russian fighter jets and missiles, state media said. The announcement came a day after China called on the United States to withdraw the sanctions or "bear the consequences". The spat adds to tensions between the two global powers over trade, China's treatment of religious groups and the Asian country's claims to disputed islands in the South China Sea. Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang summoned Ambassador Terry Branstad and "lodged solemn representations over US sanctions against (the) Chinese military," the People's Daily said in a brief report online. On Thursday, Washington placed financial sanctions on the Equipment Development Department of the Chinese Defence Ministry, and its top administrator, for its recent purchase of Russian Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets and S-400 surface-to-air missile systems. Officials said it was the first time a third country has been punished under the CAATSA sanctions legislation for dealing with Russia, and signalled the Trump administration's willingness to risk relations with other countries in its campaign against Moscow. Russia also lashed out at the US sanctions, accusing Washington of playing unfairly and using new measures to squeeze Moscow out of the global arms market. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday that "Washington's continued sanctions hysterics" dealt a new blow to US-Russia ties but could not immediately say if Moscow would retaliate, or how. The Chinese military expressed "strong indignation and resolute opposition" to the sanctions, the defence ministry said Saturday, echoing a foreign ministry statement the previous day. Ministry spokesman Wu Qian said the US move was a "a flagrant breach of basic rules of international relations" and "a stark show of hegemonism" that severely damages relations between the two countries and their militaries, according to the official Xinhua news agency. United in their resentment of America's global influence, China and Russia have sought in recent years to tighten up their ties and this month conducted week-long joint military drills in Moscow's largest ever war games. US officials said that the US could consider similar action against other countries taking delivery of Russian fighter jets and missiles. The State Department also placed 33 Russian intelligence and military-linked actors on its sanctions blacklist. All of them -- defence related firms, officers of the GRU military intelligence agency, and people associated with the Saint Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency disinformation group -- have been on previous US sanctions lists. A senior US administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, insisted the ultimate target was Russia and not "the defence capabilities" of third countries. CAATSA, or the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, was passed in 2017 as a tool that gives Washington more ways to target Russia, Iran and North Korea with economic and political sanctions. Beijing summoned US Ambassador Terry Branstad and "lodged solemn representations over US sanctions", according to Chinese state media Gunmen shot and killed a Mexican journalist as he left his home in the southern state of Chiapas, his newspaper said Friday, at least the ninth reporter murdered in the country this year. Mario Gomez, a reporter with El Heraldo de Chiapas, is the latest victim in a wave of violence against the press in Mexico, the second-deadliest country in the world for journalists after war-torn Syria, according to the watchdog group Reporters Without Borders. "He had recently filed a complaint because he was receiving threats," a colleague at the paper told AFP on condition of anonymity. The newspaper said Gomez, a general news correspondent in the town of Yajalon, was leaving for work when two unidentified men arrived and "murdered him in cold blood" with a series of shots to the abdomen. Gomez, 35, was taken to the hospital but died of his wounds, it said. "We call for an exhaustive investigation to find those responsible for this crime," his colleagues wrote in an editorial published on the newspaper's website. The state prosecutor's office said in a statement it would "follow all lines of investigation to shed light on this reprehensible crime and bring those responsible to justice." Mexico is the second-deadliest country in the world for journalists after war-torn Syria, according to the watchdog group Reporters Without Borders An ethnic Maya woman who advocated for the rights of indigenous people was gunned down by unknown assailants in western Guatemala, her support network and local media said Saturday. Juana Ramirez Santiago was murdered late Friday in a village near the town of Nebaj, 105 kilometers (65 miles) northeast of Guatemala City, the Unit for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders in Guatemala said in a statement. Ramirez had received death threats for her work supporting female victims of violence in western Guatemala, the statement read. The region is one of areas hardest hit during the 1960-1996 civil war, which included instances of ethnic cleansing against Maya natives. Ramirez was a local leader with the Network of Ixil Women in the area, the statement said. The office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Guatemala condemned the murder, expressing "solidarity" with her friends and relatives and "trust in the investigations" by local prosecutors. At least eight farm worker and indigenous rights activists have been murdered in Guatemala since May. Most of those slain were leaders of a peasant association opposed to the policies of President Jimmy Morales, accused of corruption surrounding his 2015 election campaign. Indigenous women burn incense over urns with the remains of victims from Guatemala's 1960-1996 civil war after they arrived in San Juan Comalapa, Chimaltenango department, west of Guatemala City Iranian President Hassan Rouhani vowed a "crushing" response after assailants sprayed a crowd with gunfire, shooting dead at least 29 people including women and children Saturday at a military parade near the Iraqi border. The Islamic State (IS) group claimed responsibility for the rare assault in the southwestern city of Ahvaz, while Iranian officials blamed "a foreign regime" backed by the United States. A local journalist who witnessed the attack said shots rang out for 10 to 15 minutes and that at least one of the assailants, armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, wore the uniform of Iran's Revolutionary Guards. "We realised it was a terrorist attack as bodyguards (of officials) started shooting," Behrad Ghasemi told AFP. "Everything went haywire and soldiers started running." "The terrorists had no particular target and didn't really seem to care as they shot anyone they could with rapid gunfire." Ahvaz lies in Khuzestan, a province bordering Iraq that has a large ethnic Arab community and has seen separatist violence in the past that Iran has blamed on its regional rivals. Iran summoned diplomats from Denmark, the Netherlands and Britain over their "hosting of some members of the terrorist group" which carried out the attack, state media said Sunday. "It is not acceptable that the European Union does not blacklist members of these terrorist groups as long as they do not perpetrate a crime on... European soil," official news agency IRNA quoted foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi as saying. After addressing a similar parade in Tehran to commemorate the start of the 1980-1988 war with Iraq, Rouhani warned that "the response of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the smallest threat will be crushing". Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the attack was carried out by "terrorists recruited, trained, armed & paid by a foreign regime". "Iran holds regional terror sponsors and their US masters accountable for such attacks," he wrote on Twitter. - 'Bloody crime' - IS claimed the attack via its propaganda mouthpiece Amaq and, according to intelligence monitor SITE, said the attack was in response to Iranian involvement in conflicts across the region. State television gave a toll of 29 dead and 57 wounded, while IRNA said those killed included women and children who were spectators at the parade. Three attackers were killed at the scene and the fourth died later of his injuries, said armed forces spokesman Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi. The Revolutionary Guards accused Shiite-dominated Iran's Sunni arch-rival Saudi Arabia of funding the attackers, while Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also blamed Iran's pro-US rivals. Tehran-backed Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah condemned the "terrorist" attack, saying that "repulsive Satanic hands" were behind it. "This operation was a continuation of the other forms of war the United States and its allies are waging, directly or indirectly," it said. In a message to Russia's close regional ally, President Vladimir Putin said he was "appalled by this bloody crime", while Syria, another ally, neighbouring Turkey and France also expressed condolences. Khuzestan was a major battleground of the 1980s war with Iraq and the province saw unrest in 2005 and 2011, but has since been largely quiet. Kurdish rebels frequently attack military patrols on the border further north, but attacks on regime targets in major cities are rare. On June 7, 2017 in Tehran, 17 people were killed and dozens wounded in simultaneous attacks on the parliament and on the tomb of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini -- the first inside Iran claimed by IS. In April, 26 alleged members of the Sunni extremist group went on trial in connection with the attacks. - Rouhani defiant - The attack in Ahvaz came as Rouhani and other dignitaries attended the main anniversary parade in Tehran. In a keynote speech, he vowed to boost Iran's ballistic missile capabilities, despite Western concerns that were cited by his US counterpart Donald Trump in May when he abandoned a landmark nuclear deal with Tehran. "We will never decrease our defensive capabilities... we will increase them day by day," Rouhani said. "The fact that the missiles anger (the West) shows they are our most effective weapons." The United States reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran last month, and another round of even harsher sanctions targeting Iran's vital oil sector is set to go back into effect on November 5. Washington has said it is ready to open talks on a new agreement to replace the July 2015 accord, but Tehran has repeatedly said it cannot negotiate under pressure from sanctions. Rouhani leaves Sunday for New York to attend next week's United Nations General Assembly along with Trump, but Iran has repeatedly ruled out any meeting. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the parade attack in southwestern Iran Map of Iran locating Ahvaz A local journalist at the scene in the city of Ahvaz said shots rang out for 10 to 15 minutes Iranian officials have blamed the parade attack on a 'foreign regime' backed by the United States Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has vowed a 'crushing response' to the Ahvaz attack A Gold Coast fitness studio has sparked outrage after posting a suggestive dance video taken at a sacred Australian site. The video, posted by Werkit Twerk Dance Fitness, shows a woman twerk dancing while visiting the culturally significant Indigenous site, Uluru. Repping #WERKIT on top of one of Australias most iconic landmarks, the fitness studio wrote next to the video. Werkit Twerk Dance Fitness sparked outrage with a video of a member twerking. Source: Instagram Twerking is a suggestive dance which involves moving ones buttocks up and down in a rhythmic manner. The video shows the woman bouncing her behind, while standing on top of Uluru. She is wearing a singlet that says twerking is my cardio. The fitness studio was slammed for video of woman twerking on top of Uluru. Source: Getty/file The studio has deleted the controversial post after it sparked outrage on social media. Utterly disgraceful. Not only is Uluru a sacred site but not every person wants to see you people shaking your a****, one Instagram user posted. A Werkit twerk troupe in formation. Source: Instagram/Werkit twerk fitness Uluru is an incredibly sacred and culturally significant site for the Indigenous community and is something that should be respected. You have disrespected the traditional owners of the land, another wrote. Other social media users called for the studio to apologise. How dare you be so disrespectful? And never even issue an apology? an Instagram user wrote. Another said: I think you owe the Indigenous people and tourists an apology. The company has since removed the video from social media. Yahoo7 has reached out to Werkit Twerk Dance Fitness for comment. Panama announced on Saturday it will revoke its flag from the migrant rescue ship Aquarius due to "non-respect" of "international legal procedures" relating to the rescue of migrants in the Mediterranean. Aquarius spent 19 days docked in the French port of Marseille after Gibraltar revoked its flag last month, and the ship only set sail again days ago once the process to acquire Panamanian recognition was completed. But Panamanian authorities issued a statement on Saturday saying "an official revocation procedure" had been launched following a complaint by Italian authorities that Aquarius's captain had "refused to return migrants and refugees back to their point of origin." Aquarius picked up 11 migrants off the coast of Libya on Thursday but refused to take them back to the North African country and instead went in search of an alternative port. The vessel, which has been operated by charities SOS Mediterranee and Doctors Without Borders since 2016, had asked Italy, Malta and Tunisia if they could help. Italian authorities said on Friday it was "floating in the Mediterranean" but that it wasn't welcome to dock in Italy. The Aquarius has been banned from Italian ports since June, when Prime Minister Matteo Salvini decided the country would take in no more migrants. The search for safe havens has taken the ship to Spain and Malta in order to offload migrants rescued at sea, often in a precarious situation aboard vessels ill-equipped for an ocean journey. Aquarius spent 19 days docked in the French port of Marseille after Gibraltar revoked its flag Pope Francis kicks off a Baltic tour in Catholic Lithuania on Saturday where he will honour victims of the region's Nazi and Soviet occupations as the Church reels from fresh clerical abuse scandals. The four-day trip to the northeastern edge of the European Union and NATO alliance brings him geographically close to Russia, where Vatican diplomats have been trying for years to arrange a papal visit. The pontiff will also visit mainly Protestant Latvia on Monday and secular Estonia on Tuesday as all three Baltic states mark 100 years of independence this year. But the celebrations risk being overshadowed by a fresh wave of devastating claims of sexual abuse by clergy across the globe. - Allegations of abuse - Scandals in Australia, Europe, and North and South America have involved widespread claims of abuse -- and cover-ups -- by clergymen and lay members with one archbishop describing it as the church's "own 9/11". Pope Francis has called for a meeting of the heads of Catholic bishops' conferences at the Vatican next February to discuss the issue of the "protection of minors". However, the pontiff has kept a stony silence regarding claims he had ignored allegations of abuse that were reported to him. U2 frontman Bono said he could see the pain on Francis's face after a Wednesday meeting when he told the pope that "it looks to some people that the abusers are being more protected than the victims". Church authorities in Germany are expected to officially publish a study detailing decades of child sex abuse by priests as Francis winds down his trip on Tuesday. According to the study, 1,670 clergymen in Germany committed some form of sexual attack against 3,677 minors between 1946 and 2014, Spiegel Online reported earlier this month quoting leaked data. - 'Sacrifices, freedom' - Francis will meet President Dalia Grybauskaite in Vilnius on Saturday before addressing youth and visiting a revered icon. His trip will follow in the footsteps of late Polish-born pontiff Saint John Paul II, who travelled to all three Baltic states in 1993, just two years after they broke free from the crumbling Soviet Union. The trio have since firmly anchored their sovereignty in alliances with the West by joining both NATO and the EU in 2004. While that led to solid economic growth, it also brought social inequality that triggered mass emigration to western Europe -- a troubling trend for states with populations ranging from 1.3 to 2.9 million. The last century of Baltic state history was marked by the Nazi invasion -- which wiped out almost all of the region's Jews -- and then decades of Soviet occupation during the Cold War. Behind the Iron Curtain, the Catholic Church played a key role in the non-violent anti-Soviet resistance, especially in Lithuania, the only Catholic-majority country of the three. "The Church was a fortress for all dissidents, not only Catholics. It strongly resisted Sovietisation and defended the rights of believers," historian Terese Birute Burauskaite told AFP. As a result, it was persecuted with both priests and bishops killed by the authorities. Vilnius estimates that more than 50,000 Lithuanians died in camps, prisons, and during deportations between 1944 and 1953. Another 20,000 partisans and supporters were killed in anti-Soviet guerilla warfare. "I will honour all those whose past sacrifices have made freedom possible in the present," the pontiff said in a Thursday video message addressed to the people of the Baltic states. Francis will visit a museum in the former KGB building in Vilnius where regime opponents were tortured and killed. He will also honour Holocaust victims at the ghetto memorial in Vilnius, known as the "Jerusalem of the North" for its vibrant Jewish community prior to WWII. Around 200,000 Lithuanian Jews died at the hands of the Nazis and local collaborators under the 1941-44 German occupation. Today there are only around 3,000 Jews left in the country of 2.9 million people. The four-day Baltic tour by Pope Francis brings him geographically close to Russia, where Vatican diplomats have been trying for years to arrange a papal visit Pope Francis begins his tour in Catholic Lithuania followed by mainly Protestant Latvia and secular Estonia as all three Baltic states mark 100 years of independence this year The Islamic State group claimed a deadly gun assault against a military parade in the city of Ahvaz in southwestern Iran on Saturday, its second major attack in the Islamic Republic in 15 months. Compared to regional peers, Iran has suffered only sporadic attacks in recent years. But a number of groups represent a threat to the Shiite powerhouse, including Kurdish separatists and Sunni extremists. Tehran regularly accuses Saudi Arabia and the US of supporting anti-Iranian "terrorists". - The Islamic State group - An attack early on September 22 in Ahvaz kills at least 29 and wounds scores of people, according to Arabic language state TV al-Alam. Women and children are among the dead, as people gathered to mark the anniversary of the start of the 1980-1988 war with Iraq. The deadly gun assault is claimed by IS on its propaganda agency Amaq, but Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif blames "terrorists recruited, trained, armed & paid by a foreign regime". He holds the US accountable. Ahvaz lies in Khuzestan, a province bordering Iraq that has a large ethnic Arab community and has seen separatist violence in the past. IS claimed its first attack in Iran on June 7, 2017, when gunmen and suicide bombers hit the parliament in Tehran and the shrine of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, killing 17 people and injuring dozens. In a video released in March 2017, the jihadists threatened to retaliate against Iran for its military and logistical support to the Syrian and Iraqi governments, as Damascus and Baghdad battled IS insurgencies. The jihadists said they wanted to conquer Iran to "return it to the Sunni Muslim nation" and to provoke a Shiite bloodbath. - Jundallah (Soldiers of God) - This extremist Sunni group began a bloody rebellion against the Islamic republic in 2000. It draws on support from the Baluch ethnic group, which has a major presence in Sistan-Baluchistan province, bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan. The group has rear bases in both countries. Tehran has long alleged Jundallah received training from the American, British and Israeli intelligence services. It also accuses Pakistan of supporting the group. - December 15, 2010: Jundallah claims a suicide attack against Shiites celebrating Ashura in Chabahar in southeastern Iran. 34 are killed and more than 80 wounded. - July 15, 2010: Twin suicide bombings in a crowded Shiite mosque in Zahedan, capital of Sistan-Baluchistan, kill at least 28 people and wound more than 250. The attacks, targeting members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, are claimed by Jundallah. - October 18, 2009: Jundallah kill 42 people including several Revolutionary Guard officers in Pishin, a city close to the Pakistan border. The suicide attack targets a meeting between commanders and tribal leaders called to enhance co-operation between Sunnis and Shiites. - May 28, 2009: 25 people are killed and 125 wounded in a suicide bombing at the Amir al-Momenin Shiite mosque in Zahedan. The attack is blamed on Jundallah. - February 14, 2007: A car bomb attack against a bus in Sistan-Baluchistan kills 13 and wounds 29. - Kurdish rebels - Iranian authorities have blamed "counter-revolutionary" groups based in northeastern Iraq for several attacks, particularly the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran and the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan. - July 20, 2018: at least 10 Revolutionary Guards are killed in an attack led by insurgents against a base in the village of Dari, in the Marivan district of Iran's northwestern Kurdistan region. The attack is not claimed. - September 22, 2010: 12 people are killed and 81 wounded by a bomb explosion during a military parade in Mahabad, a city with a large Kurdish population in Western Azerbaijan province, bordering Iraq and Turkey. Most of the victims are women and children watching a parade commemorating the 30th anniversary of the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war. Iran blames "counter-revolutionary elements". After the attacks in Tehran on June 7, 2017, Iran ramped up anti-militant operations across the country, targeting northwestern regions, the Iraqi borderlands and the Kurdish minority. An attack early on September 22, 2018, killed at least 29 and wounded scores of people An image grab taken from footage broadcast by Iran's state-run Arabic-language Al-Alam TV on December 15, 2010, shows damage at the site where a suicide bomber blew himself up during a Shiite celebration of Ashura in Chabahar, southeastern Iran Iranian Kurds (pictured October 2010) carry the flag-drapped bodies of victims of a bomb atttack that tore through an Iranian military parade on September 22, 2010, killing 12 people in the ethnically Kurdish northwestern town of Mahabad Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko is suing British broadcaster BBC for libel over an article that said Kiev paid $400,000 to secure a meeting with US leader Donald Trump last year. Poroshenko issued the libel claim, seen by AFP, over an article published in May this year that said Kiev paid Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen a "secret payment of at least $400,000" to "fix talks" between Poroshenko and Trump in the White House in June 2017. The claim, filed through a British law firm, says the news story damaged Poroshenko's "political and business" reputation and caused him "substantial distress and embarrassment". It added that the allegation of "serious corruption" was especially damaging because of Poroshenko's "promotion of a number of anti-corruption measures in Ukraine". A spokesman for the BBC told AFP that it "cannot comment on this ongoing case". The article, which was also used in a televised report, was based on "sources in Kiev close to those involved". It said a "high ranking Ukrainian intelligence officer" told the BBC the payment was made as Kiev's embassy in Washington "could get Poroshenko little more than a brief photo-op with Trump". Poroshenko met with Trump in the White House in June 2017. There was speculation ahead of the meeting that Trump would refuse to meet the Ukrainian leader. Washington did not announce the sit-down in advance -- as is customary -- and when it was described, the White House called it a "drop-in" with the US president. For three years, ties between Washington and Kiev have been dominated by efforts to contain a destabilising Russia-backed rebellion in eastern Ukraine. The crisis has left 10,000 dead and heightened tensions between the West and the Kremlin. Kiev has been concerned by Trump often appearing reluctant to put pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to solve the crisis. Ukrainians are scheduled to go to polls to elect a president next March. Poroshenko, who took office in 2014, is widely expected to run but has not yet made an official announcement. Corruption was among the top reasons that prompted Ukrainians to take to the streets and oust a Kremlin-backed regime in early 2014. But Ukrainian and Western observers have repeatedly questioned pro-Western Poroshenko's resolve to reform the country's kleptocratic system. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is suing British broadcaster BBC for libel To the rescue It was July of 1993 and the rains would not stop. Torrential rain for several days led to a flood the kinds Kathmandu had never seen before, or since. The raging waters washed away the roads and bridges connecting the Kathmandu Valley to the rest of Nepal, virtually isolating the Capital. The only possible connection was through the air, not just for immediate rescue and relief operations, but also the supply of essential goods. A car crash victim spent the whole night trapped in a mangled wreck next to the body of her dead husband before dying the following day in hospital. A passer-by who had been gathering mushrooms in a heavily wooded area near the village of Bytnica, in the Lubusz region of western Poland, came across the wreckage of a dark blue Ford Mondeo the morning after the crash. He immediately spotted the mans body, but was only alerted to the womans presence in the shattered vehicle when he heard moans coming from the wreckage. A car crash victim spent the whole night trapped in a mangled wreck next to the body of her dead husband before dying the following day in hospital. Source: CEN/ Australscope A number of people reported hearing the couple arguing before driving off down a dense forest track. Their vehicle is said to have spun out of control on the gravel surface before hitting a birch tree. The car hit the tree with such force that the man, named only as 27-year-old Wojtek, was killed instantly. His wife, identified as 26-year-old Beata, sustained terrible injuries and remained trapped in the wreckage, where she spent the night in agony crying for help. The local fire brigade had to use heavy cutting equipment to free the woman and her husbands body from the mangled vehicle. She was airlifted to the hospital in nearby Zielona Gora where she later died from her injuries. Shocked neighbours said they seemed to be the perfect fairy-tale handsome couple with a good relationship. However, things are said to have turned sour when Beata moved to Germany to work leaving Wojtek and their son behind in Bytnica. with Australscope Roger Federer and Alexander Zverev powered Europe into a commanding 7-1 lead over the World team at the Laver Cup here Saturday, winning their respective singles matches in contrasting fashion. World number two Federer was barely ruffled as he cruised to a 6-3, 6-2 win over Nick Kyrgios at Chicago's United Center. Earlier, Zverev saved a match point to defeat John Isner in day two's opening singles rubber. Zverev, 21, dug deep to hold off the big-serving Isner to win 3-6, 7-6 (8/6), 10-7. Under the format being used for the tournament, a 10-point tiebreak is used instead of a decisive third set. After dominating Friday's opening day, winning three out of the four matches, Europe's progress looked to be checked after Isner grabbed the first set against Zverev. But rising German star Zverev showed great determination in saving a match point at 6-5 down in the second-set tie-break to level the contest. Zverev then raced into the lead in the 10-point match tie-break before closing out for the win. Under the scoring system for the Laver Cup, victories on day two are worth two points each, with victories on day three rising to three points. Europe needs only 13 points to take the title, which is being held for the second time. In later matches on Saturday, Novak Djokovic faces Kevin Anderson, while Europe doubles pairing Grigor Dimitrov and David Goffin complete the schedule against the World team's Jack Sock and Kyrgios. Roger Federer cantered to victory over Nick Kyrgios OSWEGO U.S. Rep. John Katko was a candidate for Congress when he toured Fort Ontario for the first time. As he was walking through the historic site, he paused and wondered why it wasn't a national park. Four years later, the Oswego landmark is one step closer to national park status. Katko, R-Camillus, Oswego Mayor Billy Barlow and other local officials gathered Friday at the Safe Haven Holocaust Refugee Shelter Museum to celebrate the passage of the Fort Ontario Study Act. The legislation sponsored by Katko and U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat, would require the Department of the Interior to commission a special resource study of the historic fort. A special resource study determines the feasibility of adding a site to the national park system. Katko said he was informed in the process by what occurred during the early stages of the years-long Harriet Tubman National Historical Park effort. A special resource study for the Tubman sites in Auburn was released in 2008, six years before the legislation passed to allow for the establishment of Tubman park. "We really set out on a path to try to make this happen," he said. Gillibrand and Katko first introduced the Fort Ontario Study Act in the 114th Congress. The House of Representatives passed the measure, but it didn't receive a vote in the Senate. In January 2017, Katko quickly reintroduced the bill and it was approved by the House. This week, the Senate passed the bill by unanimous consent. It will now go to President Donald Trump for his signature. Kevin Hill, an Oswego city councilman and president of the Safe Haven museum's board of directors, lauded Katko for his continued push to pass the Fort Ontario legislation. "The congressman never wavered in his support of Safe Haven and Fort Ontario," he said. Fort Ontario's history dates back to the French and Indian War. It was a military installation during the Revolutionary War and War of 1812. In 1944, the fort was used as a shelter for nearly 1,000 refugees who escaped the Holocaust. Hill noted that next year is the 75th anniversary of the refugees' arrival. "I can't think of any better way to commemorate their legacy," he said. It's unclear when the special resource study will commence. Trump must sign the bill first, and Katko said he will push the Department of the Interior to begin its work. A reconnaissance study, which doesn't require congressional authorization, has been conducted. With that initial study, Katko believes it should help give Fort Ontario a head start with the much more extensive special resource study. Paul Foster of Friends of Fort Ontario praised Katko, Gillibrand and others who supported the study legislation. But he also has his sights on a larger goal. "We all seek to raise the level of the fort's history to the highest level possible: A national park," he said. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The latest television commercial released by U.S. Rep. John Katko's campaign seeks to emphasize his work on water quality issues affecting central New York. The 30-second ad released Saturday is airing on Syracuse-area broadcast and cable TV stations. The commercial, titled "What I'm Focused On," is narrated by Katko, R-Camillus, and he makes multiple on-camera appearances. "Dangerous toxins have threatened our freshwater lakes," he says in the ad. "Our lakes aren't just treasures because of their beauty. They provide our drinking water. We bathe in it, and make baby formula with it. Our children and families rely on it." Katko continues, "Working as a moderate in a hyperpartisan Congress can be frustrating. But finding solutions to local challenges like water quality is why I continue this fight." The ad highlights an issue that Katko has worked on since entering Congress in 2015. Two years ago, the presence of harmful algal blooms in Owasco Lake led to concerns about the quality of drinking water for the city of Auburn and town of Owasco. It also became a campaign issue in the 24th Congressional District race, with Katko and then-Democratic challenger Colleen Deacon exchanging criticisms of how the problems were being addressed. In his current term, Katko sought to play a larger role in improving water quality and pushed for greater federal investments in water infrastructure. In April 2017, he held a press conference in Owasco outlining his ideas for bolstering central New York's water infrastructure. Earlier this year, he proposed legislation that would leverage $1 billion to fund water infrastructure projects across the country. His bill was included in a larger water infrastructure measure passed by the House earlier this month. Water quality issues have been a focus for both candidates in the 24th district race. Democratic challenger Dana Balter has her own ideas for how to address the problem. With harmful algal blooms present in Skaneateles Lake, she called it a "wake-up call for the scientific community." She supports sustainable farming practices to protect the water bodies. She also supports efforts to combat climate change, such as the Paris climate accord. Katko is seeking a third term representing the 24th district. Balter is a first-time candidate. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 6. Love 5 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 JESUSLANDIt's time once again for Banned Books Week, the one week in the year when literate America takes a closer look at what various religious and political interest groups are trying to keep the kids from readingand surprise, surprise, most of what's setting off the fireworks are books and graphic novels with sexual themes. The theme of this year's Banned Books Week is "Banning Books Silences StoriesSpeak Out!" and according to Patricia Mastricolo of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, one of the best ways to speak out against censorship is to make sure people know about the attempts to ban books. Its important to know that book challenges happen everywhere, not just in politically conservative or liberal areas of the countryeverywhere!" wrote Mastricolo. "And if we dont speak out, keep people informed, and protect these storieseven those we dont particularly care forthen all books are more likely to be challenged and ultimately banned. Top of this year's list of the most censored volumes is I Am Jazz, Jazz Jennings autobiographical picture book in which she shares her experiences as a transgender child, including her familys confusion over and acceptance of her gender identity. That concept was so frightening that when a kindergarten student at Rocklin Academy Gateway in Rocklin, California who's undergoing gender transition brought in a copy of I Am Jazz, which was read aloud to the class, several parents removed their children from the school and called for a policy that would allow them to choose to keep their children from sharing a classroom with a transgender student. Also high on the hit list is And Tango Makes Three, a cute book about a family of penguinsa same-sex family, that is, and no penguin is cute enough to survive the wrath of The Saved when it comes to homosexuality. Also targeted: George, a novel about a transgender child; Drama, a novel with LGBTQ characters; The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which contains both profanity and sexual situations; Sex Is A Funny Word, a book that promotes comprehensive sex education; and the perennial favorite, To Kill A Mockingbird, which deals with racial violence and slurs in the Old South. That short list barely scratches the surface of the dozens of volumes that have felt the wrath of censors over the years, including such innocent stories as Winnie-the-Pooh (banned because talking animals are supposed to be an "insult to God"); Harold and the Purple Crayon (banned for its encouraging themes of vandalism and destruction of public property); and Judy Blume's Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, because it's supposedly "offensive, disrespectful and corrupt," plus it was claimed that its only themes are "sex and anti-Christian conduct." And it's not just the books themselves that are under attack; it's also some of the people who read them to kids: Transvestites! (The horror!) The whole controversy began earlier this year when San Francisco-based Michele Tea and RADAR Productions created Drag Queen Story Hour, where a number of drag queens volunteered to go to elementary schools around the country and read child-approved books to kindergarteners and other youngsters, all while dressed in their finest dresses and makeup. According to its website, "Drag Queen Story Hour events are happening all over the world at libraries, schools, bookstores, museums, summer camps, afterschool programs, and other community spaces," most of which readings are happening along the coasts, but there are also chapters in such diverse places as Austin, TX; Milwaukee, WI; Tulsa, OK; and Denver, CO. As might be expected, certain factions aren't too happy about that. "The very purpose of this incredibly inappropriate event should be questioned, said Lafayette, Louisiana Rep. Clay Higgins. The inclusion of the LGBQT [sic] Drag Queen realm into the Lafayette community, targeting our youngest children within a publicly funded venue, can only reflect the leftist agenda to deconstruct gender across America." (As of this writing, Lafayette's going ahead with the event anyway.) Even more upset was the religio-conservative Family Policy Alliance's Eric Teetsel, who reported on his members' visit to one event in Colorado: "This event was at a library, though the libraryin response to heavy public criticism and media coveragetook great pains to say that it was not sponsoring the event," Family Policy Alliance wrote in an email to supporters. "So who was the sponsor? A local gay nightclub that also includes a gay bathhousea business where men have sex with other men. Not exactly the kind of folks that one would expect a library to facilitate interaction with children, especially in the #MeToo age. "Notably, the library also allowed the eventtitled Drag Queen Story Time in this locationto be scheduled shortly after the librarys 'Story Time', presumably to attract more kids. "What the kids got was in large part political parody, followed by recruitment to kids drag queen competitions and an opportunity for all of the kids to get personal photos with the drag queens. "The story was A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo, a parody of a book about a rabbit by Mike Pences daughter. In this version, two male bunnies want to get married, and Vice President Mike Pence is the villaina stink bug who tries to stop them. "After introducing various drag queens who hold various 'titles' from drag queen competitions, the lead drag queen invited kids ages 10 or older to compete for drag queen titles of their own. 'So,' he said, 'if you have kids who think this is great, or if they want to explore into other things, there are outlets for that.' The drag queen then detailed the titles and opportunities... "Despite what organizers say, there is nothing innocent or 'family-friendly' about these events. The story-times have a very specific agenda. According to event organizers, the mission of the program is to: 'capture the imagination and play of the gender fluidity of childhood and gives kids glamorous, positive and unabashedly queer role models. In spaces like this, kids are able to see people who defy rigid gender restrictions and imagine a world where people can present as they wish, where dress up is real.'" But perhaps the height of vitriol on this topic came from the religious LifeSite News' Laurie Higgins, who is apparently under the impression that Drag Queen Story Hour was created by the American Library Association, and wrote, "The ALA fancies itself a bastion of liberty and arch-defender of the free exchange of ideas. In reality, the ALA is most notable for being a censorious, partisan purveyor of perverse leftist ideas about sexuality. The ALA can't seem to find an idea too perverse for children and can't discern an age too young to be exposed to perversion. "The ALA pursues its hysteria-fomenting goal chiefly by ridiculing parents who, for example, don't want their five-year-olds seeing books about children or anthropomorphized animals being raised by parents in homoerotic relationships. Scorn will be heaped on parents who hold the unpopular belief that homoeroticism and cross-dressingeven when presented in whitewashed, water-colored imagesdon't belong in the picture books section of public libraries ... "The ALA is plunging deep into the "drag" cesspool, pulling children down with them." As usual, those who believe in the freedom to read have their work cut out for them, and the problem is only getting worse in the current conservative climateso anyone who'd like to bring Drag Queen Story Hour to their town can start the process by clicking here. Trader held with 244.94 gram illegal gold Police have arrested a jewelry trader with 244.94 gram illegal gold from Nepalgunj. Union Point Park in New Bern was mostly underwater, barely recognizable. An extension of the Neuse and Trent rivers.But, watching on TV, we could tell it was - will again be - a park. Some benches were only half submerged, a few wooden slats visible among the floodwaters. Facing what once was a shoreline.In Fayetteville, we followed the ominous rise of the Cape Fear River. We used a railroad trestle to mark the water's progress. We watched as Hurricane Florence lifted that water toward that bridge. Then to it. We could only hope they would recede. Only pray that this storm would show some mercy.Just two cities in a state of 100 counties, all affected, in one way or another, by this historic storm. A state that took on more than 8 trillion gallons of water, flooding roads, homes, farms. Taking 27 lives. More will be lost. That's what a hurricane, especially one such as this, does.We will recover and rebuild. We always have. We will again. And again.The federal and state government have and will play large, crucial roles in the recovery, as will the military, first responders, and other law enforcement entities.But the core of the recovery will be found in homes and neighborhoods. In churches and businesses. It's where the heart will beat the loudest under the strains and burdens of the coming months.In places such as Morehead City and Lumberton. In Wilmington and Pollocksville.In Fayetteville and New Bern.Those latter two places, very different yet very much alike, are special to me. They always will be.I spent about eight years in those cities. In New Bern I truly began my career in newspapers. It's a place where I learned from a remarkable editor and made lifetime friendships. The Fayetteville Observer , where I worked as an editor, continues to be, in my mind, one of the country's finest newspapers. There are now fewer editors and reporters, but they are no less diligent, professional, committed, and caring. Their coverage of Florence is evidence of that.My children were born in Fayetteville, and I'm proud that they'll always be from there.It's great for politicians to thank "officials" and people in uniform, and they have our sincere appreciation, as well.But remember the heartbeat. The media who warned us of this storm's realized potential. The people who stayed behind to rescue families and pets. Those still collecting and delivering donations. The linemen. The people and businesses who will recover, rebuild, and - someday - go on with their lives. In their communities.Gov. Roy Cooper says in a news release.That spirit will continue, as people - still dealing with Hurricane Matthew, which struck the state two years ago - cry, sweat, and bleed to help themselves and one another. Next week, next month, next year. When politicians are no longer smiling for cameras as they pass out cases of water and neatly packed boxes of hot dogs and chips. "In today's climate for freedom of expression ... institutional adoption of a principled free speech statement will go a long way toward educating campus community members and affirming the values of the First Amendment." North Carolina universities have drastically improved First Amendment protections since 2010, a new report says.Public and private institutions across the state were graded poorly on free speech rights less than a decade ago, show data collected by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal - both higher education nonprofits. The report, to be officially released Sept. 24, studied 37 North Carolina universities and found 11 improved free speech protections, 23 remained the same, and three were hit with lower ratings than those awarded in 2010.Each year, FIRE ranks more than 400 universities on free speech. Some pass with flying colors. Others fail the test.Red-light universities have at least one policy that clearly restricts speech. Yellow-light institutions limit expression through vague wording that could be used to infringe on rights. Green-light universities hold no policies that threaten the speech rights of students.In 2010, all 17 schools in the University of North Carolina system were ranked yellow or red. To date, seven have earned green lights. The remaining nine are ranked yellow.Only one private institution, Duke University, has earned a green light since 2010.With eight green-light schools to its credit, North Carolina leads the nation in protecting campus free speech, the report says.The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill - which most recently has attracted national headlines from protests surrounding Silent Sam, a Confederate statue formerly housed on its campus - was the original trendsetter for North Carolina colleges, earning its green light in 2010.Appalachian State University, UNC Charlotte, East Carolina University, UNC Greensboro, N.C. Central University, and UNC Wilmington earned green-light ratings as of 2017.Those campuses revised speech policies just as the General Assembly passed House Bill 527, a law to preserve free speech at public universities. Some said the measure was unnecessary, since UNC schools already were overhauling speech rules. Others lauded it as a way to formally reinforce First Amendment rights.The law mandates UNC campuses consistently enforce the First Amendment and requires universities be open to any invited speaker. It also assigns the UNC Board of Governors - the system's policymaking body - to trackThough universities are making progress, many trouble spots remain, the report says. Seventeen colleges in North Carolina hold red-light ratings, and 11 remain in the yellow category.Institutions can improve by overhauling regulations and adopting free speech policy statements - similar to the "Report of the Committee on Freedom of Expression" instated at the University of Chicago in 2015.Winston-Salem State University, a UNC school with a yellow light rating, in 2015 enacted such a policy with the guidance of its faculty.Other schools should do the same, the report says. Two doctors accused of protecting child rapist Two doctors at Janakpur Zonal Hospital have been accused of taking bribe to prepare a medical report to protect a child rapist. Uniglobe College upgrades facilities for students Uniglobe College has launched an incubation centre, a communication lab and a financial lab in order to provide multi-faceted education to its students. - Ace Magashule remains adamant that he's not plotting against President Ramaphosa - Magashule said he will face the state capture inquiry commission if he is implicated of wrongdoing - The ANC secretary-general added that it would give him a chance to tell the commission some other 'stories' PAY ATTENTION: Click "See First" under the "Following" tab to see Briefly news on your News Feed! Secretary-general of the African National Congress, Ace Magashule, doesn't shy back from testifying at the state capture inquiry. In fact, he said on Friday that he would be willing to testify - if he is ever implicated of wrongdoing. Magashule was addressing the members of Sasco (the South African Students' Congress) in Free State when he said this. This comes after President Ramaphosa addressed those who meet in dark corners and plot to divide the ruling party. Magashule was linked to an alleged plot to dethrone President Ramaphosa but denied that his meeting in Durban with Jacob Zuma involved making any plans to oust Ramaphosa. Briefly.co.za reported that Magashule, ANC's Meokgo Matuba, Supra Mahumapelo and KZN's ANCYL secretary Thanduxolo Sabelo all met with Zuma. The secretary-general said to the cheering students that nobody could stop him from meeting with Zuma. He added he would even invite "president Jacob Zuma" to come and talk to the students, according to a report by News24. Magashule said that no ANC leadership could stop him - and many others - from meeting with the former president - whom he still calls president. PAY ATTENTION: Save mobile data with FreeBasics: Briefly is now available on the app Magashule then threw shade at President Ramaphosa, saying he is not a product of white people or capital, referring to the president's fortune he gained through business over the years. There are people who are products of the white man in the ANC. The ANC secretary-general then said he will testify at the state capture inquiry and added it would give him a chance to tell other stories to the community. What stories he was referring to, only Magashule will know. Unless he does get called to testify at the commission and shares his stories with the rest of South Africa. READ ALSO: Juju says there's no plot to oust Ramaphosa but he won't last anyway Do you have news that might interest us? Message us on our Facebook page and we could feature your story. To stay up to date with the latest news, download our news app on Google Play or iTunes today. Watch the silly video: artoon omedy: What Will Duck Do in a Circus? and head over to Briefly South Africa's YouTube channel for more awesome videos. Source: Briefly.co.za Actor Christian Bennett puts a lot of importance on family and family traditions. Christian, who is well-known for his role as Gif (Poison) in Noem My Skollie (Call Me Thief), visits his parents and siblings as often as he can, when he's not spending time with his own family. PAY ATTENTION: Click "See First" under the "Following" tab to see Briefly news on your News Feed! Christian (35) grew up in Extension 13 in Belhar, the youngest of 5 siblings, all boys. His mom, Auntie Rose says despite him being a busy actor, Christian always makes time to visit his family. To Christian, his parents' home is the definition of his heritage, according to a report by the Daily Voice. The house has many little things that make it a home loaded with memories. From the framed family pictures, laminated funeral pamphlets to the glass cabinet filled with items of nostalgic value - it all adds that something that makes the family feel like they're at home. Of the laminated funeral pamphlets, Christian said it reminds them of their roots and culture. PAY ATTENTION: Save mobile data with FreeBasics: Briefly is now available on the app Christian is also happily engaged and has an adorable little girl called Phoenix. She's only one-year-old but is already following in her daddy's shoes. She plays the role of baby Stella in the soap Suidooster. Another important thing for Christian is the role of food in heritage. For his family, Sunday lunch is very important. Sunday lunch is big in our home, there must always be chicken, rice, potatoes and a blikkie sweet corn or beans. The actor will be spending his Heritage Day with family and close friends in front of a braai. I love traditional foods, but on Heritage day, we braai. Christian feels passing a family's culture on to the children is very important. READ ALSO: South Africas first lady Dr Tshepo Motsepe embarks on state visit to America Christian enjoys sharing pictures of his family on social media. Do you have news that might interest us? Message us on our Facebook page and we could feature your story. To stay up to date with the latest news, download our news app on Google Play or iTunes today. Watch what happens to Two lovebirds in a car in the middle of the night...and check out what else is going on at Briefly South Africa's YouTube channel. Source: Briefly.co.za News / National by Staff reporter President Emmerson Mnangagwa's ruling Zanu-PF is looking to revive its fallen business empire, crippled by gross mismanagement and corruption.In an exclusive interview with the Daily News, which will be published in full in our sister Sunday paper, the ruling party's administration secretary Obert Mpofu, expressed confidence that the business empire could be restructured successfully and emerge from bankruptcy.He said there was a very sound, fundamental base to restructure around.Analysts, however, said chances are slim the empire can earn enough in this harsh economic environment to dig out from its massive debts.Thousands of workers have lost their jobs and those forced into retirement have seen their pension become virtually worthless.Previous attempts to revive the empire have collapsed after cash advanced to the companies by Manharlal Chiunilal and Jayant Chiunilal Joshi to shore up the stuttering behemoth was allegedly abused.M&S Syndicate (Pvt) Ltd was the holding company for Zanu-PF's public and private companies including Treger Holdings, Mike Appel, Catercraft, Fibrolite, which closed in December 2004 as well as Zidlee, which failed to take over Delta in 1989.Zanu-PF also ran Southern African Re-Insurance Company (Sare), Zidco Holdings and First Bank, whose Democratic Republic of Congo investment also collapsed. It also had interests in National Blankets, Woolworths and Ottawa Building, which were disposed of under unclear circumstances, as well as its printing arm Jongwe Printing & Publishing Company, as well as Jongwe and Nyadzonya farms.A Zanu-PF report of the Committee on Party Investments has revealed the empire is in a mess, with most of the companies severely mismanaged and on the brink of bankruptcy."We have in our team as full-time executives, people who are responsible for economic affairs of the party and the country," Mpofu said referring to Zanu-PF bigwigs who failed to make it in Mnangagwa's Cabinet who have been redeployed to work for the ruling party on a full-time basis."We will be addressing issues affecting the operation of our companies. They are not dead, they are there but you know they were also affected by the economic environment that was prevailing before."It is our intention that we fully resuscitate the companies to make sure that they meet the current trends. We have functional companies albeit with low operational capacity. Comrade (Christopher) Mushowe will be looking into that."Mushowe is one of the ex-ministers reassigned to work full time at the party headquarters to ensure that the party continues to function smoothly as others concentrate on government business.This comes amid reports that the Zanu-PF politburo merely rubber-stamped a proposal by Mnangagwa to allow some senior officials such as former Information minister Mushowe, Mpofu and others who include Simon Khaya Moyo, Zanu-PF legal secretary Paul Mangwana, former Foreign Affairs minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi, Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association spokesperson Douglas Mahiya, and youth league deputy secretary Lewis Mathuthu to work full-time at the party, joining national commissar Engelbert Rugeje with full ministerial benefits.Mpofu said: "I had a meeting this morning addressing all those issues and coming up with a work plan to that effect."I am also setting up a vibrant research and development organ that will act as a think tank to assess the situation on the ground, the economy, the people's livelihoods in the country with a view to submitting to the president for his guidance."Mpofu vehemently rejected accusations that Zanu-PF would milk dry Zimbabwe's parastatals to fund the revival of its business empire.Parastatals are grappling with high overheads, inter-parastatal debts, maladministration, under-capitalisation, corruption and lack of good corporate governance which have negatively impacted on their operations.Mpofu said Zanu-PF has never taken a cent from government coffers to fund its operations."My brother, we have been accused of all sorts things. I have been in the party for more than 50 years. I have been treasurer general of the party and there is no single day I saw money coming from the fiscus to support the operations of the party," Mpofu said matter-of-factly."I have not seen that unless if they are talking about donations because when we do fundraising, people donate and we don't ask them to stop donating because they are associated with certain institutions. The only funding that we get from government is the political parties funding which is accessed by the opposition as well. If you have got an example of the party using public funds for its operations, please let me have that."Told that former Higher Education minister Jonathan Moyo has admitted he took money from Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund (Zimdef) to bankroll party activities, Mpofu suggested that the ex-minister- who is now in self-imposed exile was not telling the truth. Moyo allegedly diverted $430 000 from the fund."No. That was during my time as treasurer general and I don't remember getting money from Zimdef for the party," Mpofu said. "I am very clear about that. These are individuals who will be doing that in the name of the party but it was never a directive of the party."While the Zimbabwe's Anti-Corruption Commission (Zaac) has alleged Moyo and officials in his erstwhile ministry used money meant for the manpower development to fund personal interests and have to face corruption charges, Moyo has said he used the cash to bankroll the "Million Man March", a massive parade of thousands of party youths in support of former president Robert Mugabe and festivities to celebrate the ousted despot's birthday bash.In an interview with South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC)'s Foreign Editor Sophie Mokoena in April, Moyo denied having engaged in graft as minister."What is our own corruption? In my case they say for example that I took $430 000 from Zimdef when they know very well that of all the money in question, which does not even amount to that, about $200 000 went to the ministry's participation in Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZTIF) in 2016 and we won," Moyo said."We became the first ministry to win the top prize since its establishment during the Rhodesia era."The remainder of that money supported approved Zanu-PF programmes, the other $100 000 went to support a programme designed to bring together government departments, schools and traditional leaders to support Science education in Tsholotsho, one of the most marginalised districts in the country and victim of Gukurahundi atrocities committed by the same cabal. Not a single cent came to me."Asked if he used the money to dispense patronage, Moyo retorted: "When does it become patronage? The fact of the matter is that I was a minister with discretion to decide how to use the funds and there were procedures for using the funds."Mpofu said: "I was minister for 23 years and I have never directed any parastatals under my purview to do that. It will be irregular for a minister to do that because ministers don't control public funds they rely on the accounting officer who is the permanent secretary. I don't remember signing any cheque or getting any money through whatever means, it's about ethics but when people talk about it loosely it is like government is a treasure trove where people just take without conditions." News / National by Stephen Jakes Apostle Talent Chiwenga is reported to have been abducted by unidentified men in Harare.Chiwenga has emerged as a serious critic of President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his military government since November last year. He recently prophesied that he saw two leaders from the Mnangagwa administration dying one after the other very soon.A tweeter user Freeman @freemanchari tweeted that Chiwenga has been abducted."I just confirmed that this preacher T,F Chiwenga was abducted a few hours ago by four men. I fear that if we do not raise the noise levels he will be killed the same way @edmnangagwa and friends killed Itai Dzamara," Freeman said. News / National by Staff reporter President Emmerson Mnangagwa says Zimbabwe stands ready to enter a new era of relations with the United States of America and pursue economic cooperation and further re-ignite mutually beneficial trade and economic cooperation between the two countries and their people.Addressing a Zimbabwe Investment Forum in New York yesterday afternoon, President Mnangagwa said the onus is on the private sectors of the two countries to complement government efforts following the invitation and various efforts that are being made to create an environment that is attractive to business.The Zimbabwe Business Investment Forum is a follow-up to an earlier one held this year by Reserve Bank governor Dr John Mangudya the then finance minister Patrick Chinamasa and Foreign Affairs and International Trade Minister Dr Sibusiso Moyo to give business in the United States to familiarise with what Zimbabwe can offer to the investor."The new administration in Zimbabwe is determined to build a new open and prosperous Zimbabwe by pursuing a robust engagement and re-engagement policy with all members of the international community for mutually beneficial outcomes," President Mnangagwa said.He said Zimbabwe stands ready to enhance and improve economic relations as well as welcome investments from the United States and the attendance of the president of the forum is timely as Zimbabwe seeks to rebuild its economy.He explained that Zimbabwe is in a bold course to modernise and industrialise every sphere of the country through a vibrant private sector led economic recovery with the key tenets of its recovery agenda being to include sweeping and comprehensive reforms which foster an investment friendly environment that promotes and protects private enterprise and improves ease and cost of doing business and reduces the country's risk perception and creates employment and enhance accountability.President Mnangagwa also explained to the American business people his vision to become a middle income economy with a per capita income of about $3 500 saying foreign direct investment will play a major role in the attainment of this vision hence Cde Mnangagwa's invitation for investors."The growth of trade and investment is expected to drive Zimbabwe's development agenda," he said.The President said as part of Zimbabwe's ongoing economic reform measure the country will continue to guarantee the protection of private property rights and will equally observe bilateral investment promotion and protection agreements Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements (Bippas). Opinion / Columnist THE LIFE CYCLE OF THE POLITICAL DICTATORSHIP - BILHARZIA PARASITE Zimbabwe is in this political and economic mess because the country has been stuck with a this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu-PF dictatorship for 38 years. The party rigs elections to stay in power and it then takes full advantage of being the government of the day to rig the next elections and thus perpetuating its stay in power! Zanu-PF has corrupted the whole electoral system so much so that the party is guaranteed a landslide victory and the presidency in each election.The only hope for a free, fair and credible elections is by making sure Zanu-PF is not in power, implement the democratic reforms and then hold the elections.The Zanu-PF dictatorship has a three-stage life cycle;(Zimbabwe was infected by the Zanu-PF (schistosomes) in 1980 and after 38 years and counting of corrupt and tyrannical rule the nation is now pissing blood!)- Rig elections, hide the evidence and claim legitimacy- Consolidate power through patronage (ignore consequence of economic ruin)- Use incumbency to Corrupt democratic institutions and gain electoral advantage (ignore political consequences of tyrannical oppression)The Zanu-PF dictatorship life cycle is as distinct life cycle as distinct as that of a bilharzia or malaria parasites. One sure way to stop the spread of bilharzia is to disrupt one or more of its life cycles; the same is true if we want to end the Zanu-PF dictatorship.Zanu-PF blatantly rigged the recent elections. AU and SADC election observer teams gave the elections a qualified "substantial free and fair" as contrast to the 30 or so teams from the democratic nations who condemned the elections or else said nothing! So having rigged the election this Zanu-PF regime is, per se, illegitimate and therefore must be denied all the recognition and support.The greatest mistake people have made the last 38 years was to ignore Zanu-PF had just rigged the elections and give it the recognition and support accorded to any other legitimate regime. This has allowed the regime the time, space and resources to complete each stage of it deadly dictatorial cycle confident it will get a slap on the wrist at worst! This must now stop.The junta must be pressured to step down before it has completed its five years electoral cycle, the sooner the better. We must allow time for the appointment of an interim administration that will be tasked to implement the democratic reforms designed to restore the independence the corrupted democratic institutions. The nation at large will need time to readjust to the democratic changes after decades of oppressive autocratic rule.The junta must not be allowed to serve the full five years because it will never implement any meaningful reforms. And to allow the junta to organise the next elections will be sheer folly because it will rig those elections just as readily as it has rigged past elections.As anyone who have suffered from bilharzia will testify, it is a deadly disease and, if left untreated, is fatal. Zanu-PF has already murdered over 30 000 innocent Zimbabweans to stablish and retain the de facto one-party dictatorship we have lived under these last 38 years. Last month the regime shot dead seven people as a timely reminder of its willingness to shed more blood to secure its iron grip on absolute power.Nearly four decades of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption have left the national economy in ruins and basic services such as health care have all but collapsed. Millions of people are suffering from poverty related want and diseases and hundreds are dying unnecessarily every month!The Zanu-PF dictatorship is like the bilharzia disease that has infected the nation for 38 years now causing heart-breaking human suffering and deaths. We know the nation can be cured of this disease, we know the cure; it is inhuman not to step up and demand an end to this madness! 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. You've probably got the call: An automated message threatens you with arrest over unpaid taxes. Call back and you'll be further threatened by someone claiming to be an agent of Canada Revenue Agency. They may demand as little as $700 though some have handed over more than $100,000. At least 60,000 Canadians have complained about being targeted by the phone scam over the past five years. More than $10 million dollars has been stolen in that same time period, making it one of the largest cyberscams in Canadian history. After weeks of investigating and cultivating sources inside the scam centres, CBC's Marketplace tracked some of the calls to a nondescript, low-rise apartment building in one of Mumbai's seedier neighbourhoods. When our team went to confront the scammers, a group of men believed to be armed gave chase through the crowded, sometimes dangerous alleyways of India's largest city. "They're nothing but financial terrorists," said Ritesh Bhatia, a top cybersecurity investigator in India. "It's a huge operation, a big industry." Who falls for the scam? Gehangir Rashidi, 63, funnelled an astounding $110,000 his entire life savings, and then some into bitcoin machines around Toronto after getting one of these threatening calls at home, saying he owed back taxes. "I said 'I don't have it,'" Rashidi recalls telling the scammers. "They said, 'Go and borrow it from the bank. Go to a friend. Go to your employer. Go wherever you can to make money, but you have to pay." Dave MacIntosh/CBC Rashidi is deeply embarrassed he fell for the scam now. But at the time, the immigrant believed a government would call and threaten a citizen; it happens in his native Iran. Most potential victims simply hang up, or never return the call. But the scammers are also employing new tactics in an attempt to convince people to hand over their cash, from posing as a victim's accountant, to using technology which prevents a victim from hanging up the phone. Story continues The most sought-after prey are often the most vulnerable in Canada: the elderly and new immigrants. How the scammers do it? Robo-dialers call Canadian cellphones and landlines en masse, leaving a message that tells the recipient to call back. Those who do begin with a "call opener" who typically outlines a series of threats, including arrest, loss of employment, seizure of assets, and even the removal of their children. But just as quickly, they offer to help the caller clear his or her name through a quick payment and a reduced fine, often in the thousands of dollars. If a caller agrees, they are transferred to a "call closer," much like in a sales operation, who continues listing off threats and outlines where the money should come from and how it should be transferred. These details are often described in such a way as to avoid raising the suspicions of a bank. Dave MacIntosh/CBC After digging up information about a caller online, such as where they live and work, the scammers rely on mapping tools to identify the nearby banks, directing the victim to these locations. In some cases, if you try to hang up to call your accountant, bank or a family member the scammers may use something known as call-trapping software, says Bhatia, which prevents your line from hanging up. The technology is more often used in espionage, but less reliable versions of the software can be purchased online, and may only trap a phone line for a couple of minutes. That's what happened to a Toronto-area man we're calling Joe. Marketplace is protecting his identity, as he worries his employer will judge him for a mistake that cost him $36,600. "Since I come in this country, I start to save money it's about 28 years," he said. The scammers were firm with Joe, but told him they were there to help. He was facing a tax problem, they said, but they could get him out of it if he acted fast. 'Joe' describes the impact of losing more than $36,000 to the CRA tax scam: Joe was told to withdraw the cash and deposit it into a bitcoin machine. He went from branch to branch, drawing down his savings; he was instructed by the scammers to tell any suspicious bank employees he was buying furniture. When Joe questioned them, they asked for his accountant's name, before seemingly dialing the phone. Another voice, pretending to be the accountant's office, confirmed the amount owing. Other scammers in the operation were likely using this time to research details about Joe online, using the information to bolster their claims of legitimacy. At the end of the call, when the money was sent, Joe said they laughed and hung up. The scammers Those carrying out the scam are young, usually in their 20s, and veterans of Mumbai's legitimate call centres, where English-language skills and an understanding of Western countries are a must. The earning potential is huge: a typical month's salary can be earned in just one night. The more you steal from an unsuspecting Canadian, the more you take home. Jayesh Dubey, a former call centre employee turned whistleblower, once profited from the scheme. "It was big money," he said. "I cannot make it anywhere [else]." Dave MacIntosh/CBC The scam is especially lucrative for those at the top. One of the few kingpins to be arrested, Sagar (Shaggy) Thakkar, was in the process of buying a private plane when the Indian police swooped in. Thakkar was swept up after a major raid that led to hundreds of arrests and prosecutions, after U.S. authorities got a tip and asked India to intervene in a similar IRS scam targeting Americans. Since the high-profile arrests, criminal gangs have made their operations smaller and more agile, operating out of apartments or small commercial spaces that are easier to pack up and move. Fearful of being exposed, the masterminds often only hire those they know or those known to their existing staff. Sudhir Kotian got the invite and went inside one of the scam centres with a hidden camera. Kotian was discovered and attacked, though he eventually managed to escape. "I was screaming as they hit me they hit me, hit me, hit me. They slapped me, hit me a lot. I was screaming, 'Save me, save me,' and walking backward, screaming loudly." Kotian's hair was pulled and his clothing ripped; his phone, wallet and camera were all taken. Canada isn't asking India for help Indian police say they are ready to crack down on these operations, but need Canadian police to tell them about victims and share details about the scammers. That discussion isn't happening, according to Indian Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh. "Nobody contacted us from Canada. It doesn't seem right," he told Marketplace in an interview. Singh said he only became aware that the scammers were also targeting Canadians after he visited the RCMP website himself and saw a posting about it. This man infiltrated one of the illegal call centres behind those fake CRA calls: The RCMP declined repeated requests for an on-camera interview on the CRA phone scam, and didn't answer questions about what specific actions they've taken to investigate the illegal overseas call centres. "Fraud is a global problem without borders," the RCMP said in a statement. "By working with various municipal, provincial and national law enforcement and government partners, the RCMP is committed to preventing, detecting and deterring crimes that affect the economic integrity of Canada." The federal policing agency added that "the best way" to combat these types of crime is through prevention. "Public awareness is an important tool in preventing the victimization of Canadians." The Mounties also produce a regular report on cybercrime in Canada. In 2014, the report noted phone-based scams are notable for their frequency part of a trend suggesting that cybercrime is on the rise. The CRA has a warning on its website that it won't leave personal information on voicemail, and that its agents do not use "aggressive language" or threaten taxpayers with arrest. When in doubt, the CRA suggests you hang up and either check your account online or call the agency back at 1-800-959-8281. Ariane Ntagemgwa's hands shook so violently she could barely scratch the back of the iTunes card she had just bought. The woman on the other end of the phone waited for her to read out the number, then instructed Ntagemgwa to buy more cards. When the Rwandan refugee pleaded she had nearly no money left, the woman on the phone threatened her with arrest. "I was so afraid. I just wanted to pay," Ntagemgwa recalled, patting away the tears that rolled down her cheeks. "It was my loan from school. I paid them all the money I had." She now knows the woman on the phone wasn't really a federal tax agent, and had no power to arrest her. At the time, however, the threat seemed real, so Ntagemgwa handed over $2,700 of her student loan money, none of which she'll ever get back. Ntagemgwa is one of hundreds of refugees who have fallen prey to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) scam, an insidious form of extortion that authorities say is now targeting some of Canada's most vulnerable people. Miriam Katawazi/CBC 'I must have done something' Immigration settlement workers, lawyers and police in Ottawa say refugees and other newcomers are at a higher risk of falling for scams because they struggle with precarious immigration status, language barriers and a lack of experience with Canadian law and government agencies. The CRA scam typically begins with a recorded message claiming the target is facing a lawsuit, and demanding they call back immediately or face arrest. For many newcomers, such a phone call can be paralyzing. "Someone who ... maybe has some fear that if they do something wrong they might get thrown out of the country, these I think are the people that we're finding are often susceptible to falling victim to this scam," said Sgt. James Ritchie of the Ottawa Police Service's organized fraud unit Scammers tend to isolate their victims by ordering them to stay on the phone, preventing them from calling someone for help, Ritchie said. Story continues Miriam Katawazi/CBC Ntagemgwa said she stayed on the phone with her scammer for up to three hours as she ran from one store to another to buy the gift cards she demanded. It wasn't until she had no money left that she finally called Louise Ebeltoft, the manager at Carty House, a residence for refugee women in Ottawa. Ebeltoft said a handful of women at the home, including Ntagemgwa, were severely shaken after receiving the calls. "When you come to a new country and you get a phone call like that, your immediate reaction is... 'I must have done something I didn't realize,'" she said. "[The scammers] prey on people like that because they don't have the information." 'There is very little we can do' Over the past eight months, scammers claiming to represent the CRA have made off with a total of $88,330 from 25 Ottawa residents, according to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. But the numbers only represent reported cases. The fraudsters typically start by taking between $1,000 to $2,000 from a victim. But the extortion often doesn't end there. "Once they get the person to pay the money ... then they will come back with a different story," Ritchie said. "We have seen people lose up to $40,000 just through different schemes." Police say they're powerless to stop a fraud where the perpetrators are almost always based in another country. "In the cases that we have investigated, we find that the money leaves Canada so quickly that there is very little we can do at our end," Ritchie said. "We really are at the mercy of law enforcement agencies in [other] countries to investigate." Miriam Katawazi/CBC 'Extremely devastating' The number of newcomers affected by the scam remains unknown because many never report falling victim. 'It adds stress to an already precarious situation where people are not certain about their future in Canada.' - Jamie Liew, immigration lawyer "It can be extremely devastating," immigration lawyer Jamie Liew said. "It adds stress to an already precarious situation where people are not certain about their future in Canada." Many of the refugees who have been scammed were already struggling financially and barely have enough money to meet their basic needs, she said. Some never realize they've been scammed. Ntagemgwa said since she was scammed, she decided to put off nursing school until she can work to pay off her tuition. "It's a huge amount of money for me," she said. "I can't focus on my studies, I can't focus on my job." She wants the word to get out so other newcomers don't find themselves in the same situation. "I just want to share my story just so others can learn." By Melanie Burton MELBOURNE (Reuters) - When the song "Eagle Rock" played at a bar in an outback Australian mining town of Kalgoorlie late one night, a dozen young men scattered around a pool table dropped their trousers and heartily sang along in their underwear. Later that night, they piled behind the counter of the bar attached to the Western Australian School of Mines (WASM), singing an anthem that began, "We are engineers," and finished with an obscene description of how they treat women. The scenes, in the background of an industry conference, cut against a hard reality the sector faces: a dearth of skilled applicants, and a workforce hurting for diversity and struggling to hire women. "If we could attract more women, it could go a long way to helping any future skills shortage," said Paul Cooper, regional chief executive of mining for recruiting company Sodexo, which is a key supplier to the industry and whose workforce is almost half women. Without change, the outlook is grim. Enrolments in mining engineering courses across Australia have fallen to roughly 30 this year from more than 250 during the last boom a half decade ago. (For a graphic on 'Australian mining engineering enrollments slump' click https://reut.rs/2OVInz6) "We've solved crazier problems than this. This is seriously not hard if people have the will," said Sam Retallack, head of hiring at miner Independence Group. It will require a "big philosophical shift," but miners must offer more flexible working conditions to attract the next generation of workers, she said. The conversation is echoing around the industry. A WASM director, just hours before the carousing in Kalgoorlie, had delivered a pointed address about how the industry must change its testosterone-charged reputation. "Mining has a dirty image," mining engineer Sabina Shugg of the Kalgoorlie-Boulder Mining Innovation Hub told a packed hall. "You can have a lot of talk about intent, but really it's all about outcomes." Curtin University, of which WASM is a part, said it promotes equality and diversity, and actively works to enhance opportunities for women, particularly in mining. Curtin said that it did not organize the event, did not receive any complaints and could not verify the reported behavior. "Curtin is very disappointed to receive this report of disrespectful behavior," it said in a statement. (For a graphic on 'Women in Mining' click https://tmsnrt.rs/2ps0S3K) HIRING DIFFICULTIES Even top global miner BHP Billiton, which has set an "ambitious, aspirational goal" of achieving gender balance globally by 2025, fell short of its yearly target, raising the proportion of female employees by 1.9 percent to 22.4 percent. In senior management positions, however, the proportion of women slipped by 1 percentage point. "These results show we are making progress, although we did not achieve the 3 percent annual growth to which we aspire," BHP said in its annual report on Tuesday. Large-scale layoffs after commodity busts in recent years and an environmentally challenged image have also harmed mining's reputation among potential hires, industry sources said. Yet miners are hiring, with a big uptick in exploration investment. The industry spent A$547 million ($391.76 million) in the three months ending in June, an increase of 6.8 percent over the previous quarter and a jump of 28.9 percent for the year, according to Australia's Bureau of Statistics. MARKETING IMAGERY Part of the issue is the industry's marketing, which appeals to masculine stereotypes, said Gabriela Love, a mining engineer at ASX-listed Newcrest and chairwoman of Women in Mining and Resources Victoria. "Mining is marketed as dirty and dull. You think of BHP and its ads are all trucks and high-vis gear; that's painting the industry in a certain way," she said. "But now we're in a digital age, with robotics, big data, high tech. Mining is all of that." BHP declined to comment about its marketing. Mining is the most male dominated-industry in Australia, with women making up 16 percent of the sector's national workforce for the past decade, according to government data on Friday. "The sector faces an ongoing challenge to attract and retain the substantial number of additional women required to boost diversity and take advantage of a significant untapped workforce," the Department of Industry said in a report. Women can feel isolated in the industry and less inclined to speak up, which undermines the benefits of diversity, Love said. "When you're walking round the mess hall, it's a sea of men," she said. Highly specialized positions that require workers to travel to a remote location for "fly in, fly out" work can be more difficult for parents in particular. One geotechnical engineer, among the most sought-after specializations, was laid off from a mining major last year as she prepared to return from maternity leave. During her pregnancy, her manager had told her that if he gave her flexible working conditions, he'd have to give them to everyone. "I was a senior engineer wanting to stay involved in the industry. When I needed the support, I found myself out of a job. I felt disillusioned with the industry and the company." Offering the option to work remotely or on secondment in consulting from a big city would benefit workers and the company, she said. To be sure, incremental changes at majors Rio Tinto and BHP are rippling through the industry, particularly after the companies set up remote work centers in Perth so fewer employees needed to be at mine sites. Among other measures, Rio has also introduced a global paid parental leave standard, while BHP is moving to replace heavy physical labor with robots, and is working with suppliers to redesign equipment so it is more ergonomic for women. "I think that the industry has a reputation that may not be well deserved in today's world," BHP's chief technology officer, Diane Jurgens, told Reuters. "I think it's a lot to do with the perceptions of the industry. We need to change that," she said. (Reporting by Melanie Burton; Editing by Gerry Doyle) By Philip Pullella VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of two more Chilean bishops, the Vatican said on Friday, in his latest move to confront a widening worldwide sexual abuse scandal. They brought to seven the number of bishops who have stepped down since all of the country's 34 bishops offered their resignations en masse during an emergency meeting with the pope in May over allegations of a cover-up. That meeting was held after Vatican investigators produced a 2,300-page report alleging that senior Church officials in Chile had failed to act on abuse claims and in some cases hid them. With the latest resignations, the pope has removed the leadership of about 20 percent of the Latin American country's dioceses. The Vatican said the two latest resignations were those of Bishop Carlos Eduardo Pellegrin Barrera of the diocese of San Bartolome de Chillan, and Bishop Cristian Enrique Contreras Molina of the diocese of San Felipe. The bishops could not be immediately contacted for comment. In both cases, Francis appointed other bishops as commissioners, known as Apostolic Administrators, to run the dioceses until further notice. In the past few months, Chilean prosecutors and police have launched raids on the offices of several dioceses as part of investigations looking for new cases of sexual abuse or evidence that Church officials concealed abuse from authorities. Chile's bishops conference has said it was committed to collaborating with civil authorities on accusations of abuse. The latest resignations also come as the Catholic Church is facing sexual abuse scandals in other countries including the United States, Australia and Germany. Francis has summoned the heads of national Catholic bishops from around the world to the Vatican to discuss the protection of minors at an extraordinary meeting from Feb. 21-24. Der Spiegel magazine reported earlier this month that a study commissioned by the German Bishops' Conference had revealed that 1,670 clerics and priests had sexually abused 3,677 minors, mostly males, in Germany over a 70-year period. In the United States, a Grand Jury has found that 301 priests in the state of Pennsylvania sexually abused minors over a similar period. Francis has also been hit by demands from an Italian archbishop, Carlo Maria Vigano, that he step down over the case of former U.S. cardinal Theodore McCarrick. In a bombshell document released in August, Vigano, the Vatican's former ambassador to the United States, said the pope knew for years about sexual misconduct by McCarrick with adult male seminarians but did nothing about it.. The pope has not responded to Vigano's accusations, saying that the archbishop's document "speaks for itself". The Vatican is expected to produce a rebuttal. McCarrick resigned in July over separate allegations - which U.S. Church officials said were "credible and substantiated" - that he had abused a 16-year-old boy almost 50 years ago. McCarrick, whom the pope ordered to live a life of seclusion and penitence, has said he has "absolutely no recollection" of such an incident. He has not commented on the allegations of misconduct with the adult seminarians. (Reporting By Philip Pullella; editing by Crispian Balmer and Toby Chopra) By Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi ZURICH (Reuters) - In an effort to maintain its status as a cryptocurrency hub, Switzerland has taken steps to help blockchain companies access the traditional financial system by making it easier for them to open corporate bank accounts. Faced with an exodus of cryptocurrency projects from the country due to falling access to the banking sector, the Swiss Bankers Association (SBA) on Friday issued guidelines to banks who may want to do business with the start ups. Around 530 blockchain startups have settled in Switzerland's Crypto Valley hub around Zurich and Zug, Oliver Bussmann, head of the Crypto Valley Association said. The companies need access to traditional banking services to deposit cash, pay salaries and carry out other day-to-day financing activities, but Swiss banks fear falling foul of anti-money laundering (AML) rules and other regulations. "We believe that with these guidelines, we'll be able to establish a basis for discussion between banks and innovative startups, making the dialogue simpler and facilitating the opening of accounts," SBA strategic adviser Adrian Schatzmann told a news conference. Only a handful of Switzerland's 250 banks ever allowed companies to deposit the cash equivalent of cryptocurrencies raised in digital fundraisers known as initial coin offerings (ICOs). Two of those withdrew their services in the last year, with Zuercher Kantonalbank (ZKB), the fourth largest Swiss bank, closing the accounts of more than 20 companies, industry sources told Reuters in July. The banks are worried because some of the companies that carried out ICOs did not do AML checks on their contributors, meaning the banks themselves could fall foul of AML rules, the sources said. The new guidelines spell out separate checks that the association recommends when opening accounts for blockchain firms that carry out ICOs and those that do not. They outline recommended know-your-customer and AML checks for ICOs that raise funds in fiat currencies such as Swiss francs, euros and dollars, and those that raise funds through other cryptocurrencies. The rules should help banks understand what assessments they should carry out, but will also help blockchain and cryptocurrency firms know what information they must provide, and what measures they must take, to qualify for an account. "This provides more clarity not only to banks, but also to startups," Bussmann said. While initial discussions with the banks have been positive, according to SBA Deputy Chief Executive August Benz, it remains to be seen how they will respond to the new guidelines. (Reporting by Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi; Editing by Kirsten Donovan) Photo credit: MANDEL NGAN - Getty Images From Esquire I know how dangerous it is to try and read the vibes coming out of Camp Runamuck, but I'm willing to entertain the notion that the president* may have taken a look at all those documents he declassified earlier in the week and gotten a serious case of happy feet in the pocket. From the The Washington Post: The retreat from his declassification decree issued just four days ago underscores the ongoing tensions between the White House and the Justice Department over the probe by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who is examining whether any Trump associates may have conspired with the Kremlin to interfere in the election. In a pair of Friday morning tweets, Trump said: I met with the DOJ concerning the declassification of various UNREDACTED documents. They agreed to release them but stated that so doing may have a perceived negative impact on the Russia probe. Also, key Allies called to ask not to release. Therefore, the Inspector General has been asked to review these documents on an expedited basis. I believe he will move quickly on this (and hopefully other things which he is looking at). In the end I can always declassify if it proves necessary. Speed is very important to me - and everyone! If it's a bluff, it's a pretty pathetic one. If it's not, then it's hard to see this as anything other than a panic move. The decision comes after the news broke that Michael Cohen is talking with the Mueller people about more than just Stormy Daniels. It may be that the president* finally looked at these documents instead of taking Jeannine Pirro's and Sean Hannity's word for what's in them. It may be that somebody on his staff tied him to a chair and shot him full of fentanyl. For whatever reason, his base-inflaming lifeboat has sunk underneath him, at least for the moment. Trump was also swayed by foreign allies, including Britain, in deciding to reverse course, these people said. It wasnt immediately clear what other governments may have raised concerns to the White House. Story continues Ooh, that had to sting. Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook page here. ('You Might Also Like',) FRIDAY, Sept. 21, 2018 (HealthDay News) -- The nightly dinner battles many parents have with picky toddlers can be exhausting. Now, research suggests that either pressuring or rewarding kids to eat healthier may backfire. "These practices can reinforce fussy eating, increase preferences for unhealthy foods, and lead to excessive weight gain," study author Holly Harris, from the Centre for Children's Health Research at Queensland University of Technology in Australia, said in a statement. One U.S. pediatrician agreed. "Parents who address picky eating either with coercion or bribes may be setting the child up for problems down the road," said Dr. Michael Grosso. He's chair of pediatrics at Northwell Health Huntington Hospital in New York. In the study, the Australian scientists followed more than 200 mothers and fathers. Their kids were between the ages of 2 and 5, and the families came from a poor area of Queensland. Parents answered questions about themselves, their children, their children's eating habits, how they responded to their child's eating patterns, and whether or not they were worried about how their child ate. Mothers and fathers seemed to agree on whether or not a child was a fussy eater. But mothers worried more about their child's eating behavior, and they were more distressed by crying, tantrums and gagging. The researchers suspect the mother's extra concern may be why mothers were more likely to try to bribe or pressure a child into eating. Dads also tried to pressure their kids into eating. But the researchers said it wasn't due to concern about the child's fussy eating. Instead, the researchers believe fathers may be simply trying to shorten eating struggles. So what can parents do to ease those mealtime showdowns? Grosso and psychologist Judy Malinowski weighed in, and both agreed it's very important for parents to understand what's normal for their child's development. "Children go through numerous stages of development, and part of that involves a changing sense of taste. What they liked last week, they might not like this week, and it can be because of the texture, color or smell of a food," Malinowski explained. She's from Ascension Eastwood Behavioral Health in Novi, Mich. Grosso said the biggest problem he sees with eating is that parents think children are eating too little food. But young children don't need a lot of food. "Most children will self-regulate their food intake appropriately," he said, adding that he often reassures parents by showing them their child is right where he or she should be on growth charts. The next big issue, Grosso said, is power struggles. "Toddlers are all about establishing their own sphere of autonomy, and of the few things toddlers can control is what they eat. If parents try to be too restrictive, kids will react," he said. Both experts said the key is to offer choices. Grosso suggested only offering healthy choices, because "given the choice between healthy and unhealthy, kids will eat candy bars before carrots." He also recommended that children get age-appropriate servings of milk. "Kids do need calcium and vitamin D, but they shouldn't get most of their calories from one source," Grosso said. Malinowski advised involving kids in cooking meals when possible. She also suggested giving choices, such as, "Do you want this food or that one?" or "Do you want a little or a lot?" Praise kids for trying new foods and for eating what was on their plate, Malinowski said. "But don't punish or bribe for anything around food. This sets up the idea that one food is better than the other," she said. And the good news is that most kids outgrow the fussy-about-food stage, or at least their pickiness tends to lessen as they get older, Grosso said. The findings were published recently in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior. More information Read more about helping a picky eater from the Child Mind Institute. Bengaluru Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) is in advanced talks with Bengaluru-based realty developer Prestige Estates Projects to set up a $250-million commercial assets rental portfolio platform, said two persons familiar with the development. "While CPPIB will infuse capital in this platform, Prestige will bring in some of its already stabilised income-producing properties as its contribution, in addition to some capital," said one of the persons cited earlier. In 2016, Prestige had concluded restructuring its business into commercial, retail, hospitality and residential verticals. The exercise was seen as a precursor to its fund-raising efforts and inducting a strategic partner. The developer, which has drawn investor interest in its office and retail assets, is planning to bring in long-term investors in the rental-generating assets or tap the Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) market. Prestige has over 24 million sqft of leased, under-construction and upcoming office and retail properties, of which 4.36 million sqft of office and retail properties are currently under construction. Canadian pension fund manager CPPIB declined to comment on the matter. An email query to Prestige remained unanswered till the time of going to press. Prestige is planning to use the proceeds from a proposed stake sale to support its future projects, expand the rent-yielding business and reduce debt, according to people familiar with the company's plans. CPPIB has been one of the most aggressive global institutional investors in India and has already pumped in more than $5 billion in the country since 2012. Global investors, including CPPIB, Blackstone Group, Singapore's sovereign fund GIC, Goldman Sachs and Qatar Investment Authority, have been investing in Indian realty assets for a few years now. In addition to this, more funds are eyeing investment and alliance opportunities. Funds are also eyeing investment and alliance opportunities after the recent policy reforms. While these entities had earlier shown interest in commercial real estate, they are now increasing their investment portfolios in the backdrop of the opening up of an avenue for monetisation through REITs. Sobia Khan & Kailash Babar, Economic Times, Bengaluru Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is setting up third launch pad at Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh to undertake Gaganyaan manned space flight programme. ISRO currently has two launch pads which are already full. Third launch pad is being set up for the human space flight. It will be ready in time for the mission. In addition, ISRO is scouting for location on western sea coast near Gujarat to set up another launch pad for Small Satellite Launch Vehicles (SSLV). Small Satellite Launch Vehicles (SSLV) ISRO is developing SSLV to offer affordable launch options for smaller satellites through ANTRIX, the space agencys commercial arm. The SSLV is expected to reduce launch time as well as cost less to launch small satellites, which are much in demand. ISRO currently piggybacks smaller satellites on Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle abbreviated (GSLV) along with bigger satellites. Gaganyaan Mission It will be Indias first manned space mission. Under it, India is planning to send three humans (Gaganyatris) into space i.e. in low earth orbit (LEO) by 2022 i.e. by 75th Independence Day for period of five to seven days. The mission was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his 72nd Independence Day speech. Under this mission, crew of three astronauts will conduct experiments on microgravity in space. The crew will be selected jointly by Indian Air Force (IAF) and ISRO after which they will undergo training for two-three years. India will be fourth nation in the world after USA, Russia and China to launch human spaceflight mission. Objectives of Gaganyaan Mission: Enhance of science and technology levels in the country, serve as national project involving several institutes, academia and industry, improve of industrial growth, inspire youth, develop technology for social benefits and improve international collaboration. ISROs preparation ISRO already has begun work on manned mission in 2004. It already has validated many of the critical technologies required for human spaceflight through various tests such as Space Capsule Recovery Experiment, Crew Module Atmospheric Re-Entry Experiment and Pad Abort Test. ISRO will use its GSLV Mk-III launch vehicle which can carry heavier payload of Gaganyaan. This launch vehicle will take off from new launch pad of ISRO. Chennai: Customs officials at the Chennai international airport here, on Thursday, detected four cases of gold smuggling worth Rs 30.5 lakh. According to airport sources, officials detained Karthick (45) of Ariyalur, who arrived at the Chennai airport from Bahrain in Gulf airlines, on Thursday morning. On suspicion, they searched his baggage but found nothing. On closer scrutiny, they found gold weighing 350 grams stitched to his suit. Officials seized the gold worth Rs 10.5 lakh and detained him. Likewise, officials searched a passenger named Arokyiam (51), who had arrived at the Chennai Airport from Kuala Lumpur in an Air Asia flight. He had concealed the gold pieces in key chains which he brought from Malaysia. The gold was seized and he was taken into custody, officials said. In the third case, officials searched a passenger named Praveen (46) of Sivagangai, who arrived at the Chennai international airport on a flight from Dubai on the wee hours of Friday, and found a gold chain weighing 300 grams kept in a sweet box. In another incident, customs officials stopped Mohammed Hussain (32) and Ashraf (26) of Chennai who arrived at the Chennai international airport to board an Indigo airlines jet, to Colombo. On searching their baggage, officials found Rs 5 lakh worth Saudi currency Riyal, in a hidden column in their baggage. All the five were detained and a total of Rs 30.5 lakh smuggled gold was seized from them. The move came days after the party staked claim to form an alternate government in the coastal state. (Photo: File) Panaji: The Opposition Congress in Goa on Friday gave a notice for removal of Assembly Speaker Pramod Sawant. The party, which has 16 members in the 40-member Assembly, also gave a 14-day notice for convening of a session of the House for undertaking the process of removing Sawant from the post. The move came days after the party staked claim to form an alternate government, contending that the BJP-led ruling alliance had lost majority in the Assembly. The government is headed by Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar who is hospitalised in Delhi for a pancreatic ailment. The notice for removal of Sawant was given under "Rule 243 of Rules and Procedure and Conduct of Business of the Legislative Assembly of Goa, read with Article 179C of the Constitution of India," Leader of Opposition Chandrakant Kavlekar said. Rule 243 states provision for moving a resolution to ask for permission of the House to discuss about impeachment of the Speaker. Kavlekar, however, refused to specify on what grounds it wants Sawant to be removed as the Speaker, saying the reasons will be spelt out on the floor of the House. The legislators said they propose to move the motion to remove Sawant from the office of Speaker of Legislative Assembly at the end of 14 days' notice period. "We cannot discuss the grounds for giving notice right now. When it comes up for discussion on the floor before voting, we will disclose our grounds," Kavlekar said. When contacted, Sawant said, "prima facie, I dont find any merit in such a resolution but for the sake of reasonability, I will check the legality of such a resolution when it is brought to my notice." Earlier this week, the Congress party had met Govenor Mridula Sinha and urged her to direct the BJP-led government to carry out a trust vote in the Assembly. The party wanted a special one-day session of the Assembly to be convened for it at the earliest. The BJP has 14 seats in the Assembly, its allies Goa Forward Party and MGP have three each. Three Independents and an MLA from Nationalist Congress Party also support the BJP. Police said Mr Venkateswarlu had two letters with him, one to the agriculture minister and another to caretaker Chief Minister K. Chandrasekar Rao. (Representional Image) Hyderabad: A tenant farmer attempted to commit suicide by consuming pesticide at Gandhi Bhavan, the state Congress headquarters, here on Friday over the government refusing to provide assistance. Police said the farmer, identified as D. Venkateswarlu of Kusumanchi mandal of Khammam district, reached Gandhi Bhavan even as party leaders were discussing political issues, and began consuming pesticide that he had brought with him. Bystanders and Congress activists who noticed him rushed to him and grabbed the pesticide container. However, Mr Venkateswarlu had consumed some pesticide and fell to the floor. He was shifted to Osmania Hospital in an ambulance. Police said Mr Venkateswarlu had two letters with him, one to the agriculture minister and another to caretaker Chief Minister K. Chandrasekar Rao. In the letter to the minister, he wrote: Is this the interest that you are paying to tenant farmers? About 50 per cent of the farmers are tenants. You are paying Rs 4,000 and giving them insurance too, but it seems that you dont have any benefits. We are shown less respect than dogs. Many of the tenant farmers are committing suicide just like me as most of us are in debt. During Kiran Kumar Reddys tenure they said they would give something to the tenant farmers, but the government was replaced after Telangana state was formed. You are organising many meetings by investing crores of rupees but you dont have money for the poor like me. In the letter addressed to the Chief Minister, he wrote, Im leading my life as a tenant farmer. As there was no proper yield due to water scarcity, I had borrowed some amount. Now I have to pay back Rs 9 lakh. So I decided to commit suicide as I cant bear the pressure. Kindly help my family. The police has not registered any case as the victim was not in a condition to talk. Osmania Hospital officials confirmed that the patient had been admitted and was in a slightly serious condition. Mr Venkateshwarlu is currently undergoing treatment. The government had stoutly refused to give tenant farmers the Rythu Bandhu assistance of Rs 4,000 per acre per season, arguing that the measure would be tantamount to providing them legal rights on the land. Hyderabad: Five youngsters from the city who were sent to Malaysia by two manpower consultancy agencies were left stranded there, following which their parents appealed to the ministry of external affairs for help on Friday. MBT Leader Amjedullah Khan said that the job aspirants were lured with a good offer and made to pay Rs 1 lakh each for going to Malaysia. Parents of the youngsters have appealed to external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj to help them return. The youngsters identified as Mohammed Hayath of Bahadurpura, Mohammed Nayeemuddin of Yakutpura, Mohammed Azhar Mohiuddin of Bahadurpura, Mohammed Taher of Purana pul and Mohammed Nadeem were reportedly lured by Yousuf Habeeb consultants at Yakutpura and Ramana consultants of Secunderabad, sources said. All of them were asked to work at Avani Sepang Goldcoast and Sara Bombay Tailoring Centre in Malaysia. The food and accommodation provided was very unhygienic and they were paid lower than what was promised to them. They want to return to India but are not being allowed to do so by their employers, said Mr Khan while addressing the media. This coming Sunday, the tiny Indian Ocean archipelago that has repeatedly thumbed its nose at India, like few others in the South Asian theatre barring Nepal and Bhutan goes to the polls. Incumbent President Abdulla Yameen is seeking a second five-year term in a Maldives that is roiled by uncertainty, with election monitoring watchdogs such as Transparency Maldives openly expressing concern that the presidential polls could be called off at the last minute, as the ruling party is expected to resurrect farcical plots as a ploy to impose an emergency. If he does, it will be the third time that the canny President Yameen would have played the coup card. Both his police chief and defence minister have parroted the same line, saying that they have information about plots to destabilise the country and create unrest and warned of dangerous acts on polling day, that they say seeks to reinforce the operation narrative to the international community that polls would be neither free nor fair. President Yameen, in fact, has everything riding on this re-election. If the joint Opposition candidate, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, wins given that the election is free and fair retribution will be swift. The President could face impeachment and jail. In 2013, Mr Yameens margin of victory against the popular Mohammed Nasheed was a wafer-thin 6,300 votes out of a voter base of 260,000 voters. This time, the incumbent must ensure that Ibu Solih, a candidate backed not just by former President Nasheeds Maldivian Democratic Party but also Gasim Ibrahims Jamhoory Party and the Islamist Adalath Party, as well as former President Abdul Gayooms faction of Mr Yameens own Progressive Party of the Maldives, does not close the gap. The nomination of Ibu as the joint Opposition candidate after his quiet meeting with mentor Mohammed Nasheed in Colombo, when the latter agreed to step out of the presidential race as did Gasim Ibrahim, was seen as something of a coup. But enough to deliver the coup de grace on Sunday? Clearly, Mr Yameen has not been complacent. The run-up to the presidential polls has been marked by an unprecedented crushing of dissent, the jailing of anyone who has stood in his way, including his half-brother and father of the nation, the pro-India leaning Mr Gayoom whom he has accused of colluding with the Chief Justice to unseat him from office. The ailing Mr Gayooms health is fading, but Mr Yameen has so far refused to allow him to be moved permanently to a hospital or place him under house arrest to facilitate treatment at home amid reports that the familys plea to allow the 80-year-old to travel abroad was given a thumbs down. Mr Gayooms son and son-in-law are also in jail, as is the Chief Justice and two senior Supreme Court judges openly pro-India who ordered the release of Opposition leaders who had been detained by Mr Yameen; all 15, uniformly charged with terrorism and attempting to overthrow the government. Opposition leaders ranging from those in Mr Gayooms camp to members of the Mohammed Nasheed-led MDP have consistently been raising their concerns over voter fraud and intimidation, and threats faced by their elected representatives. Eva Abdulla, a serving member of Parliament for the MDP, recounts how she and other members of her party and the Opposition are routinely followed and have their phones tapped. Mr Yameens masterstroke was to place Ahmed Shareef, an activist of his PPM, as head of the Elections Commission, the body that will oversee the polls. Criticism over moves to disenfranchise voters by reducing the number of ballot boxes per island were reversed after popular anger. But two moves, the first, where all information on registered voters was shared by the Maldives EC with the ruling party, and second, the appointment of ruling party members to administer and count the vote on Sunday at two pre-determined sites, has set off alarm bells that plans are being set in motion to intimidate voters and manipulate results, with some of that unease manifesting itself on the streets of the capital Male where PPM election rallies by Mr Yameens feared partymen have not been exactly celebratory. Ms Abdulla says the Opposition is banking on the overwhelming numbers they expect to mobilise against the President to offset the PPMs tactics, pointing to the results of the local council elections held last year that the ruling party was unable to subvert. Days before the polls, the Opposition has simultaneously stepped up moves to prove that the President and his circle of advisers, including the former vice-president, had allegedly indulged in money-laundering, bribery and corruption to the tune of millions of dollars under the cover of getting a Singapore-based businessman to invest in the Maldives. The Opposition released mobile phone records on Wednesday that showed transcripts of a conversation between the Singapore-based businessman and the Maldivian middleman on the day that the Maldivian President was visiting Singapore. Phone recordings of a conversation between the President and his wife Fahimath, discussing how to manage the poll, have similarly gone viral. For New Delhi, which has the borne the ignominy of being reduced to a bit player in its own backyard under Abdulla Yameen his open embrace of China while cutting India out, no doubt, a spillover from governments past this may be time for a reset. While the Narendra Modi government has refrained from an open avowal of the united Opposition, its concerns over whether Mr Nasheed is a front for the UK has to be weighed against the growing footprint of the Chinese, with the China-Maldives Friendship Bridge that connected two main islands winning the President major brownie points domestically. Will an undivided Opposition be able to counter a street-smart President who has everything to lose? Either way, be it a Yameen or a Nasheed proxy calling the shots in Male, its time for India to dust off a fresh Maldives initiative. Benign neglect cannot be the way forward. 1. Yes. Losing daily service to Houston could be just the first in a series of service cutbacks. 2. Yes. Being less competitive with Austin and D-FW will hurt the airport in the long run. 3. No. The airport has seen strong passenger numbers. Good marketing can keep it going. 4. No. The airport is still pursuing other service, including a Denver route. Its still a solid asset. 5. Unsure. Its hard to say without knowing future airline and travel industry trends. Vote View Results The CEO of Trung Nguyen has dismissed his estranged wife as the group's deputy general director yet again. The dismissal came just a day after a HCMC court reinstated her. In a statement issued Friday evening, Trung Nguyen Group said CEO Dang Le Nguyen Vu's decision to dismiss his wife Le Hoang Diep Thao was in keeping with the groups philosophy, but did not elaborate. The statement accused Thao of disrupting its management activities in an attempt to corner the group and Vu, forcing the dismissal. "Mrs. Thao's goal is to take complete control over Trung Nguyen so she wants to have Mr. Dang Le Nguyen Vu declared insane and legally incapacitated. There has always been a methodical plan and roadmap to implement Mrs. Thao's ambition," the statement said. It accused Thao of threatening Vu's partners during the couple's struggles over property and rights to manage and run the company. Le Hoang Diep Thao and Coffee King Dang Le Nguyen Vu are still involved in lengthy divorce proceedings. Photo acquired by VnExpress Following the latest dismissal, Thao has accused Vu and Trung Nguyen of violating the law and not complying with ruling of a HCMC court on Thursday, which reinstated her and ruled that she must not be obstructed from participating in running and managing the company. "After my reinstatement, if any individual or group of people obstructs my legal rights at Trung Nguyen then they do not accept the verdict and do not comply with the court's ruling. Therefore I will have the right to request criminal prosecution against such subjects in accordance with current regulations," she said. Thao also added that she would immediately return to Trung Nguyen to continue running and managing the company as its deputy general director, co-owner and co-founder. She also claimed to have prepared correct development strategies for Trung Nguyen after a long period of the company being manipulated and gutted by a group of manipulators. In her lawsuit against her first dismissal, Thao had said that as Vu's wife and co-founder of Trung Nguyen, she was a member of the group's board of directors and owned 10 percent of its charter capital, as well as 50 percent of her and Vu's common assets. In May 2006, Thao was appointed Trung Nguyen's deputy general director, allowing her to manage the company under Vu's authorization. She claimed that under her management, Trung Nguyen's charter capital increased from VND150 billion ($6.5 million) to VND2.5 trillion ($108.7 million) and both the company's annual revenue and profit grew significantly. However, in July 2014, Vu signed a decision to dismiss Thao as deputy general director without the board of directors' approval. He also instructed his employees to demolish her office and block her from entering the company's headquarters, Thao alleged. Furthermore, he prevented Thao from performing her rights and responsibilities as Trung Nguyen's shareholder and a board member, prompting her to file the lawsuit. Dang Le Nguyen Vu, founder of Trung Nguyen Coffee, at a court on August 14. Photo by Lan Ngoc In addition to the lawsuit on deputy general directorship, Thao and Vu are also involved in several other legal disputes including their divorce, management rights over Trung Nguyen Instant Coffee Company and a case filed against the head of the Business Registration Office under Binh Duong Province's Department of Planning and Investment. Rich tributes have poured in from all over the world for late President Tran Dai Quang. President Quang passed away on Friday morning. He was 62. Close comrade In a message of condolence to Nguyen Phu Trong, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Chinese President Xi Jinping extended "the deepest condolences" to the Party, Government and people of Vietnam as well as Quang's family. "Comrade Tran Dai Quang was an outstanding Party and state leader of Vietnam, and made great contributions to the development, renovation and opening-up of Vietnam," Xinhua quoted Xi as saying. "As a close comrade and friend of the Chinese people, Quang committed himself to inheriting and carrying forward the China-Vietnam traditional friendship and actively promoted the comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation between the two countries." The Chinese president also expressed belief that under the strong leadership of the General Secretary, the Party, government and people of Vietnam will transform their grief into strength and constantly record new achievements in the cause of socialist construction. Gracious host U.S. President Donald Trump expressed sadness learning the news of Quang's passing. "On behalf of the American people, I express my condolences to his family and the people of Vietnam," Trump said in a statement released by the White House. "President Quang was a great friend of the United States. He graciously hosted me during my historic state visit to Hanoi in November 2017, and I am grateful for his personal commitment to deepening the United States-Vietnam Comprehensive Partnership," he said. Trump praised his Vietnamese counterpart's contribution to peace, security, and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region, and his voice for Vietnam as a proud and independent nation on the world stage. Well deserved respect Russian President Vladimir Putin noted that as head of state and while holding other high-ranking positions, Tran Dai Quang had won the well-deserved respect of his compatriots and gained high international prestige. He accomplished a great deal in strengthening the countrys security and defending its interests of Vietnam on the global state, Putin said. The Russian president praised Quang's personal contribution to expanding the Russia-Vietnam Comprehensive Partnership, as well as promoting mutually beneficial bilateral cooperation in various areas. He said that Quang's political wisdom, far-sightedness and the ability to delve into the essence of the most complicated issues evoked most sincere respect. Putin also conveyed his sympathies to the late president's family and friends, as well as the government and the people of Vietnam. Friendly relations In a message to his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Xuan Phuc, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe extended "deepest condolences" to the Vietnamese government, people and Quang's family on behalf of the government and people of Japan. He recounted that the late president represented Vietnam in extending a warm welcome to the Emperor and Empress of Japan during their state visit to Vietnam last year's spring, and he paid a state visit to Japan earlier this summer on the occasion of the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Japan and Vietnam this year. "His Excellency devoted himself to the friendly relations between the two countries," Abe said. The Japanese prime minister also expressed his respect for Quang's successful hosting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit last November in Da Nang and his significant contribution to the signing of the TPP11 agreement at the summit. Fond memories Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among world leaders who extended condolences to the Party, nation and people of Vietnam, and to Quang's family. "We have fond memories of his great friendship for India and his successful state visit in March this year," Modi wrote on Twitter. President Quang passed away at 10:05 a.m on Friday at the 108 Military Hospital in the capital city. He had been suffering from a serious illness that doctors could not cure. During his political career, he held several high-ranking positions, and was the Minister of Public Security before being selected to the country's highest office in April 2016. Quang was also a member the Politburo, the top decision-making body of the Communist Party of Vietnam. A woman marrying a much younger man is a nonstarter, but he wouldnt accept a no; she finally said yes. September 20 this year was a red letter day for 62-year-old Le Thi Thu Sao. Almost eight years after she became a widow, she was ready to tie the knot again. The native of Cao Bang City wore the traditional attire of the Red Dao ethnic minority that her groom belongs to. Trieu Hoa Cuong, 26, of Thach An Ward in Cao Bang Province gave his bride a gown that has been passed through three generations in his family. Sao, who lives with two daughters and owns a spa and small cafe, saw her life spin into turmoil once it became widely known that her lover was much younger than her, and there was a huge gap in their socio-economic statuses as well. While some people admired her gumption, most were disparaging. The person who leaked her personal information was fined. Sao filed a lawsuit, but decided to drop it to avoid the situation snowballing into a huge scandal. So it was a not an easy decision. The community had very harsh words for me, and there were times I thought I could never overcome this. But my husband convinced me that the more the society brings us down, the harder we have to stand up and live for ourselves. If you have love, you have everything. When we thoroughly understand each other, we can get married, he told me, said the bride. Sao, wearing a traditional Red Dao dress, waits for her husband-to-be. Photo by Trong Nghia Sao said she has the support of her husbands family who treats her like a member of their own, and this strengthened her willingness to have the wedding. Cuong was a construction worker who became a regular customer of Saos coffee shop. A bond of affection developed. Sao would visit Cuongs house, 30 kilometers from where she was, frequently, sometimes two to three times a week. She would cook for him. However, it never occurred to Sao that this man would become her life partner. She thought of him as a brother. One day, in the middle of a field of flowers, Cuong popped the question. Astonished, she dismissed the proposal, thinking he was probably fooling around with her. Cuong was disheartened, but he did not give up. Gradually, Sao realized that his intentions were genuine. In June this year, Cuong prevailed as the woman he loved agreed to marry him. Life is short, and we cant really predict the future. We have to live in joy and happiness. Thats how we make the world a better place where people understand and sympathize with one another, Sao said. The couple get ready to cut their wedding cake on September 20. Photo by Trong Nghia The walls in her house still carry pictures of Sao and her late husband, and Cuong is fine with it. He respects her past, he said. The majority of the neighborhood has ridiculed the wedding. It is common enough in Vietnamese culture that an older man marries a much younger woman, but cases like Cuong and Sao are exceptions to the rule. Amidst the ridicule, the couple have their supporters and admirers. I sympathize with her. Many people here have protested the wedding, saying it is completely ridiculous. But anyone who bothers to stand in her shoes would understand it. Her husband died a long time ago, said Nguyen My An. Sao said she was very grateful to her husbands parents, although Cuongs mother is younger than her, at 56. Saos parents passed away a long time ago, she has yearned for parental affection. I am just like any other woman; a normal human getting married, Sao said. Age is no barrier to enjoying a normal marriage life, she added. Tourists take a boat tour of Tra Su Cajuput Forest in Tinh Bien District, the Mekong Delta province of An Giang. Photo by VnExpress/Phan Loc Many of Vietnams popular destinations become more alluring in the month of October, the Conde Nast Traveler says. Vietnam is the only country in Southeast Asia to make it to the U.K.-based travel magazines list of 20 best destinations in the world to visit in October. It notes that October is peak rice harvesting season in the northern highlands, and the golden glow of terraced fields in Sa Pa and other places, making them even more attractive than usual. In Hanoi, it advises readers to enjoy condensed-milk coffees on low plastic stools and some of the best food youll ever taste. The flooding season peaks in the Mekong Delta in October, making it a good time to take boat rides through mangroves, cajuput forests, floating markets and orchards. Other destinations selected by the U.K. magazine for October also include Rome, Seville, Hawaii, Taipei and Bhutan. A global report published last month by the United Nations World Tourism Organization ranked Vietnams tourism growth as fourth in the world, with the country's visitor numbers growing at one of the fastest rates in the world. Vietnam was also chosen Asias Leading Destination at the 2018 World Travel Awards in Hong Kong. Guadalajara's morgues are so full, authorities decided to rent a refrigerated trailer to hold the bodies of hundreds of murder victims. Photo by AFP Dozens of Mexicans searching for missing relatives journeyed to Guadalaraja this week, where a scandal has erupted over a truck full of unidentified bodies. A wave of violence linked to powerful drug cartels has sent the number of missing persons in the country soaring to more than 36,000, and families of the "disappeared" often search fruitlessly for them for months or years. Guadalajara, the country's second-largest city, has been hit particularly hard by the violence as home base to the brutal Jalisco New Generation Cartel. It emerged over the weekend that the city's morgues are so full, authorities decided to rent a refrigerated trailer to hold the bodies of 278 murder victims. The truck caused outrage when the authorities parked it in a series of impoverished neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city. Residents protested over the smell, flies and risk to public health. Officials then moved it to a prosecution storage facility in the city center. The governor has fired the state prosecutor and coroner over the debacle. The gruesome affair drew some 100 people from across the country to the western city, where they demanded to know if their loved ones were among the bodies. "When I heard this awful news, I said, we have to go," said Yadira Gonzalez, 36, who has been searching for her missing brother Juan for 12 years, and belongs to a group for people with missing relatives in the central city of Queretaro. They drove some five hours to picket outside the Institute of Forensic Sciences for Jalisco state, of which Guadalajara is the capital, demanding to know whether their loved ones were in the truck. "Our family members disappeared in Queretaro, but they could be anywhere in the country, really," said Gonzalez. 'We've lost all trust' News media have broadcast footage of the open trailer of the truck, with piles of bodies in black bags and a man in white boots stepping on the bags. "Society has lost all trust in government institutions and their leaders," said another woman seeking a missing family member, Guadalupe Aguilar. "That's why we're here picketing. We won't leave until we get answers." The number of murder victims in Mexico has exploded in recent years. Since the government deployed the army to fight the country's powerful drug cartels in 2006, Mexico has been hit by a wave of violence that has resulted in more than 200,000 murders. Last year, the country registered a record 28,702 homicides. Mass graves are regularly discovered containing dozens or even hundreds of unidentified bodies. Nearly 4,000 such corpses have been found since 2007, according to the National Human Rights Commission. Authorities in Guadalajara also began a three-day DNA testing clinic on Monday, where relatives of the missing can complete a genetic profile in hopes that coroners or investigators will one day find a match. Juan Francisco Flores, who is searching for his missing son, had already been through the process several times. Juan Jr. disappeared in March 2016, aged just 16. "Unfortunately I've done all this before, to no avail. I've given DNA samples here, at the federal prosecutor's, in a lot of places, and nothing has come of it," Flores told AFP, his voice breaking. The programme operates in several stages. The EBRD-managed programme supporting energy efficiency in Ukrainian homes has reached a milestone of investing over UAH 1 billion (equivalent of over EUR 30 million). More than 30,000 Ukrainian households took out loans from local commercial banks which participate in the programme to invest in green technologies for their homes; of those, over 20,000 projects have already been verified as eligible for investment grants. The loans have been made as part of Ukraine Residential Energy Efficiency Financing Facility (UREEFF), otherwise known as IQ energy, designed to promote energy efficiency investments. The facility is run by the EBRD and supported by EUR 15 million in grant funding from the Eastern Europe Energy Efficiency and Environment Partnership, to which the European Union is the largest contributor, and where Ukraine is also one of the donors. Additional technical assistance funding is provided by Sweden, the EBRD said. Read alsoEBRD approves allocation of EUR 250 mln for renewable energy projects in Ukraine UREEFF targets Ukraine's residential sector, which is responsible for over a third of the country's energy consumption. With over 10 million buildings, many of which were built in the Soviet era with poor energy performance, there is enormous potential to not only cut energy bills but make Ukrainian homes more comfortable at the same time. The programme operates in several stages. First, the programme's partner banks, Credit Agricole Bank, Raiffeisen Bank Aval, OTP Bank and UkrSibbank, provide loans to Ukrainian residents specifically for green technology solutions for their homes such as new double-glazed windows, high-efficiency boilers, heat meters or solar collectors. Following that, borrowers' investments are verified by IQ Energy's experts, and they receive an investment grant of up to 35 per cent of the cost of improvements. To help select eligible technologies, the EBRD operates an online shopping-style Technology Catalogue where homeowners can choose from over 7,000 items and over 1,000 suppliers. Over 70 per cent of completed and verified home improvement projects have used products made in Ukraine, such as double-glazed windows or boilers. IQ energy follows the model of the EBRD's Green Economy Financing Facility (GEFF) that operates through a network of more than 130 local financial institutions across 24 countries supported by almost EUR 4 billion of EBRD finance for 120,000 clients. These projects have led to annual CO2 emission reductions of over almost 7 million tonnes. The EBRD is the largest international financial investor in Ukraine. To date, the Bank has made a cumulative commitment of almost EUR 12.1 billion across some 400 projects since the start of its operations in the country in 1993. President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has announced the inclusion of an item on the situation in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine on the agenda of the United Nations General Assembly, the Ukrainian president has said. "In pursuance of my instruction, work on inclusion a new item "Situation in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine" in the agenda of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly has been successfully carried out," Poroshenko said on Facebook on Friday evening. "This will allow, through a barrage of misinformation, to reveal the truth to the world community about the tragic consequences of the occupation of Crimea by the Russian Federation and the ongoing aggression in Donbas," the president said. This decision was adopted by the majority: 68 affirmative votes and 13 dissenting votes. At the same time, Armenia, Belarus, Burundi, Cuba, Iran, Kazakhstan, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Philippines, Russia, Sudan, Syria and Venezuela opposed the inclusion of the item "Situation in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine" in the agenda," the Permanent Ukrainian Mission to the United Nations said on Facebook. Ukraine's permanent representative to the UN, Volodymyr Yelchenko, noted that there is "a clear signal from the UN member states to support Ukraine's position on the peaceful settlement of the conflict with Russia." "Continuation of Russia's disregard for the UN Charter will inevitably lead to complete isolation," he said. According to Yelchenko, the inclusion of this item will make it possible to use more effectively the UN instruments in the context of efforts to counter the Russian armed aggression and accelerate the de-occupation of Crimea and Sevastopol, as well as certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. "We plan to initiate consideration of the situation in the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories in all its dimensions, in particular in the political, security, humanitarian, economic, social, human rights, gender, etc. The decision of the General Assembly lays the foundation for an effective visit of the delegation headed by the president of Ukraine to the UN headquarters next week," Ukraine's permanent representative to the United Nations said. Russia's hybrid military forces have mounted 18 attacks on Ukrainian army positions in Donbas in the past 24 hours, with three Ukrainian soldiers reported as wounded in action, the press center of the headquarters of the Joint Forces Operation (JFO) has reported. "The invaders opened fire 18 times on the positions of our troops. Weapons, prohibited by the Minsk Agreements, were used in four shooting incidents. Three Ukrainians soldiers were wounded during hostilities in the past day," the press center of the JFO said in its update on Facebook on Saturday morning. Ukrainian positions came under attack in the vicinity of Krymske, Troyitske, Luhanske, Avdiyivka, Maryinka, Chermalyk, Pavlopil, Hnutove, Vodiane, and Shyrokyne, it said. "The enemy has launched four attacks since midnight on the Joint Forces' positions near Krymske, Novotoshkivske, Pavlopil, and Vodiane using heavy machineguns and small arms," the press center said. According to Ukrainian intelligence, one solider of the enemy was killed, and five more suffered injuries during the day. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine declares that the latest report by Director-General of UNESCO Audrey Azoulay notes the deterioration of the situation in the temporarily occupied Crimea in the sphere of education, the use of the Ukrainian language and the preservation of cultural heritage. "The published document provides facts of gross violations of the rights of Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars by the occupation authorities in the sphere of education, the use of their native language and ensuring freedom of the media," the press service of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said. The report notes that, despite the order of the International Court of Justice dated April 19, 2017, which obliged the Russian Federation to ensure the accessibility of education in the Ukrainian language, the occupation authorities continue destroying the education system for the Ukrainian-speaking population of Crimea. Thus, the number of pupils studying in the Ukrainian language in general educational establishments of Crimea has also decreased by over 98% in comparison with 2014. "The report states that there is no possibility for Ukraine to access its cultural heritage sites, historical and architectural monuments, museums, biosphere reserves, scientific centers, etc. The facts of illegal archaeological excavations and export of cultural property from the territory of Crimea are being recorded," it says. It is noted that the state of conservation of the Khan Palace in Bakhchisaray, which was included in the preliminary list of UNESCO's cultural heritage, is of particular concern. "These works are aimed at the complete destruction of the monument through the loss of its authenticity," the Foreign Ministry said. In addition, the document notes the need to establish an effective monitoring mechanism for the situation in the occupied Crimea and reports on consultations between Ukraine and the UNESCO Secretariat on the format for introducing direct monitoring in the sphere of the organization's competence. Ukrainian border guards have detained a citizen of the Russian Federation in Sumy region who tried to illegally enter Ukraine and motivated his intentions by the fact that he is being persecuted by the Russian special services for political and religious convictions. Last night the border guards of the Krasnopillia department of the Sumy detachment with the help of a night vision device detained a Russian citizen, a 25-year-old resident of Moscow, who tried to illegally enter Ukraine crossing the border outside the checkpoint, the press service of the State Border Service of Ukraine reported on Saturday. During the proper measure, he applied for refugee status, explaining that he was persecuted at home by representatives of Russian special services for his political and religious views. In addition, the other day he was charged for committing an offense under the article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation for inciting hatred and enmity. "Since he was put on the federal wanted list and because of the risk of being detained by Russian border guards at the checkpoint, the man decided to enter Ukraine illegally by crossing the state border on its "green" section," the frontier department said. In the near future the man will be handed over in the established order to the competent authorities. Iranian Parliament Speakers special aide for foreign policy has claimed that there is a document indicating Saudi Arabia knew about the January 2016 attack on its embassy in Tehran a week ahead of the actual assault. A week before being attacked, Riyadhs embassy had informed other diplomatic missions in Tehran that it was selling all of its vehicles, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, who previously served as deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs, claimed. Speaking to Tasnim, a news agency affiliated with the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), Amir-Abdollahian said that a copy of the document is currently kept at the Islamic Republics Foreign Ministry. It is also noteworthy that in that specific time, neither the Saudi embassy had been set on fire, nor anything had happened, nor had [Saudi Shiite fiery cleric] Ayatollah Nimr been executed, Amir-Abdollahian reiterated. Nimr Baqir al-Nimr, commonly referred to as Sheik Namr, was a prominent Shia cleric in Saudi Arabia who was among 47 people executed on 2 January 2016 for terrorism offences, despite the Islamic Republics protests. A copy of Saudi Arabias embassy offering to sell all its diplomats vehicles was only sent to the diplomatic missions that have close ties with Riyadh, while the embassies friendly toward Tehran were kept in the dark, Amir-Abdollahian said. Furthermore, the former deputy Foreign Minister disclosed that a copy of the Saudi document was handed over to Iran by one of the embassies that received the offer. A day after Shiek Namrs execution in Saudi Arabia, a crowd of angry protesters stormed into the Saudi embassy in Tehran and its consulate in city of Mashhad, ransacking offices and throwing Molotov cocktails at the building. The incident forced Saudis to sever their diplomatic relation with Tehran. If Saudis did send a letter to friendly embassies, it could have been sent because they knew the execution would take place and anticipated an angry reaction from Iran and prepared for a possible closure of their diplomatic mission. During Last years presidential election in Iran, one of the candidates, current Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri, implicitly accused one of President Hassan Rouhanis main challengers, IRGC commander Mohammad Baqir Qalibaf of being indirectly involved in the attack. Who was responsible for attacking the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Tehran and its consulate in Mashhad; the attack that consequently stopped the annual lucrative flow of 700,000 Saudi Shiite pilgrims to Iran? Iranian VP raised the question during a fiery presidential debate in May 2017. Jahangiri was referring to a mid-ranking cleric, Hassan Kord-Meehan, who led the attacks and at the time was a prominent figure in Qalibafs campaign headquarters. Nevertheless, Amir-Abdollahian has insisted that Those who threw Molotov cocktails at the Saudi Arabias Embassy in Tehran and set it on fire were not individuals affiliated with hardliners or IRGCs Baseej militia. They were, indeed, foreign agents infiltrated into Iran who carried out their mission as they were directed. At the time, local news outlets reported that the security forces and police present at the scene did not step in to control the enraged attackers. However, days after the attack, it was announced that forty suspects were detained during the assault. Relations between Tehran and Riyadh have become strained in recent years after their conflicting views on regional developments, particularly on Yemen and Syria became more noticeable. Relations further deteriorated after a deadly stampede in Mina, near Islams holy city of Mecca, on September 24, 2015, which killed well over 2,000 Hajj pilgrims, including 465 Iranians. Tehran has blamed the deaths on the Al Sauds mismanagement of the Hajj pilgrimage and criticized Riyadh for lack of cooperation on restoring the rights of families of the victims. (AFP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday denounced the attack on an army parade in Iran, offering condolences to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and calling for deeper anti-terror cooperation. "Please accept the deepest condolences regarding the tragic consequences of the raid by terrorists in Ahvaz. We are appalled by this bloody crime," Putin wrote to Rouhani, according to the text of the telegram posted on the Kremlin website. "We expect that everyone involved will face a deserved punishment," Putin said. "This event once again reminds us about the necessity of an uncompromising battle against terrorism in all of its manifestations. I would like to confirm our readiness to continue building cooperation with Iranian partners in resisting this evil." The attack by militants in Ahvaz in southwestern Iran Saturday resulted in 24 killed, including women and children, according to Iran's official news agency. Tehran has blamed the attack on "regional terror sponsors and their US masters."Moscow and Tehran are allies, including over the Syrian conflict, with both buttressing the government of Bashar al-Assad Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 22 Trend: Over the past 24 hours, Armenian armed forces have 112 times violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said Sept. 22. Armenian armed forces were using heavy machine guns. 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, Sept. 22 By Elchin Mehdiyev - Trend: The exclusion of Armenia because of its aggressive policy from participating in all projects implemented by Azerbaijan is the reality of the region, member of the Azerbaijani Parliament Hikmet Babaoglu told Trend. He noted that the holding of a solemn event dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Parliament of Azerbaijan, and the participation of numerous representatives of friendly and fraternal countries, delegations of international organizations are already regarded as a historic event. This event once again brought to the attention of the world community the proud and glorious history, the history of the statehood of Azerbaijan, its present and future, said the MP. "The whole world has once again seen that the people of Azerbaijan has a high culture of statehood, a rich history of parliamentarianism and has once again proved this by creating the first democratic republic 100 years ago, ensuring human rights and freedoms, recognizing the electoral right of women," Babaoglu said. The Azerbaijani MP also noted that President Ilham Aliyev, who spoke at this anniversary event, described the creation of the first democratic republic as an important historical event, stressed that he highly appreciates the activities of the ADR (Azerbaijani Democratic Republic) and its founders, and noted that a number of events were held this year at the state level within the "Year of the ADR". The MP said that President Ilham Aliyev, who touched upon the importance of the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem, stressed that the entire infrastructure had been destroyed in the occupied lands, national heritage had been plundered, and a war crime - the Khojaly genocide had been committed against the Azerbaijani people. "Nagorno-Karabakh is historical land of Azerbaijan, and it will not receive any status outside the sovereignty of Azerbaijan," Babaoglu added. "The guests were informed about the commitment of our country to democratic values, the presence of a highly tolerant environment, the existence and development of traditions of multiculturalism, the achievements in the construction of the rule of law and it was stated that our country will continue this policy. The successes achieved by Azerbaijan in a short period of history, the determination to defend its national interests are a clear example of commitment to the traditions of the ADR," Babaoglu said. Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 22 Trend: Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has sent a congratulatory letter to his Malian counterpart Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. "On behalf of the people of Azerbaijan and on my own behalf, I extend my congratulations to you and the people of your country on the occasion of the Independence Day of the Republic of Mali. I hope that bilateral relations between Azerbaijan and Mali will continue constantly developing and expanding," Ilham Aliyev said in his message. "On this remarkable day, I extend my best wishes to you, and wish the friendly people of Mali peace and progress." Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 22 Trend: The inter-parliamentary relations have played a special role in the development of French-Azerbaijani relations, the President of the Association of Friends of Azerbaijan in France Jean-Francois Mansell said, speaking at a solemn meeting dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Azerbaijani Parliament. He noted that the establishment of the Parliament 100 years ago in the times of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was an important step. "By creating the first democratic state in the Muslim East, Azerbaijan has demonstrated how important it is for representatives of different religions and peoples to coexist together," said Mansell. He stressed that during the times of the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan, the Parliament had ratified more than 300 documents, including the decision to grant women the right to vote. It became an example for the whole world. Touching upon the history of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, Jean-Francois Mansell spoke about the exceptional merits of the first Chairman of the Azerbaijani Parliament Alimardan Bey Topchubashov. He stressed that inter-parliamentary relations have played a special role in the development of French-Azerbaijani relations. Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 22 Trend: When listing foreign states, we do not include Azerbaijan into this category, the Chairman of the Great National Assembly (Parliament) of Turkey Binali Yildirim said, speaking at a solemn meeting dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Azerbaijani Parliament. "We belong to the same nation. Our freedom and prosperity are linked to each other. We share joy and sorrow. We have common hopes, dreams and ideals. We speak the same language, think alike," Binali Yildirim said. Yildirim noted that 100 years ago Azerbaijan and Turkey waged a fierce struggle not to be erased from the historical scene. "The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was established a hundred years ago. Some 100 years ago, the Azerbaijani Parliament fulfilled an important task. Even today, the Parliament plays a big role in the achievements of Azerbaijan. After the restoration of independence, Azerbaijan has passed a long way of development and achieved economic success. This development can be seen when passing through the streets of Baku. Thanks to the path outlined by the great leader Heydar Aliyev, and under the leadership of President Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijan has achieved great success and made an important contribution to peace and stability in the region. Turkey has always been close to Azerbaijan and supported its independence," he said. He stressed that Azerbaijan and Turkey have jointly implemented important projects to strengthen cooperation in the region. "The construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway line and other similar initiatives serve to deepen cooperation," the chairman added. Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 22 Trend: It is gratifying that after 100 years, the independent Azerbaijan is developing as a modern state, the President of the National Assembly of Bulgaria Tsveta Karayancheva said, speaking at the ceremonial meeting dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Azerbaijani Parliament. Karayancheva noted that the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic functioned for a short time, but despite this played a crucial role in the subsequent history of Azerbaijan. "For the first time in the Muslim East, the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan has granted equal electoral rights to men and women and has taken a number of similar important progressive steps. It is encouraging that 100 years later, Azerbaijan continues its path of democratic development and develops as a modern state," said Karayancheva. She stressed that Bulgaria attaches special importance to relations with Azerbaijan. "The cooperation relations in various fields have been established between our countries. There are relations between the parliaments of Azerbaijan and Bulgaria based on mutual respect," she said. Karayancheva noted that Azerbaijan and Bulgaria also fruitfully cooperate in the framework of international organizations. Bulgaria is making a positive contribution to the negotiations between Azerbaijan and the European Union. "Azerbaijan plays an important role in the energy security of Europe, including Bulgaria. I should also note that there is enough potential for even greater cooperation between the two countries. I believe that the signing of the Joint Declaration on strategic partnership between our countries creates favorable conditions for expanding our cooperation. We can expand our cooperation in the field of energy, agriculture, trade, etc.", Karayancheva said. Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 22 Trend: The Parliament contributed to the transformation of Azerbaijan into an important state in the region, the President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly George Tsereteli said, speaking at a solemn meeting dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Azerbaijani Parliament. He noted that the first Parliament in Azerbaijan was established 100 years ago. "This date is an indication of how the people of Azerbaijan are committed to development and prosperity. Considering this, we see that it is of great importance not only from a historical point of view, but also for the future," he said. Tsereteli added that the foundation of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic contributed to the creation of modern Azerbaijan, the increase of its power, development of various industries in the country, the strengthening of economic and material sovereignty of the country. "Being in the shadow of the "Flame Towers", we can feel the heritage of Azerbaijan, see the success achieved in the history of its independence. The Parliament of modern Azerbaijan, following in the footsteps of its predecessor, has contributed to the economic development of the country and its transformation into an important state in the region," he said. Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 22 Trend: The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict should be resolved shortly, the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan should be restored, the Chairman of the Great Britain-Azerbaijan Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Group Bob Blackman said, speaking at a solemn meeting dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Azerbaijani Parliament. He said that the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Azerbaijani Parliament is an event of great importance. "100 years ago women were granted the right to vote in Azerbaijan. Unfortunately, the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic existed for a short time, but the Azerbaijani people restored their independence in 70 years," Blackman said. Expressing satisfaction with the level of cooperation between the UK and Azerbaijan, Bob Blackman said that Great Britain is directly involved in the economy of Azerbaijan. "Today, Azerbaijani-British relations are expanding in various spheres. High-level meetings also play an important role in strengthening our ties," the parliamentarian said. He noted that today, as a result of democratic development, Azerbaijan has become a country opening up to the world. "The country successfully holds important international events, including Eurovision song contest, European Games, Formula 1 competitions. Over the past eight years, I have visited Azerbaijan six times and I am an eyewitness of the country's development," he said. The member of the British Parliament noted the importance of implementing the UN Security Council resolutions related to the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. "This conflict, which has been lasting for a long time, should be resolved as soon as possible, the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan should be restored," he said. Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 22 Trend: Sudan intends to develop cooperation with Azerbaijan, the Chairman of the Parliament of Sudan Ibrahim Ahmed Omer said, speaking at a solemn meeting dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Azerbaijani Parliament. He noted that the solemn celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Parliament of Azerbaijan is of great importance. "The Parliament has a great role in strengthening the principles of freedom, democracy, justice and equality between people. The Parliament is one of the basic foundations of democratic state building. The legislative body is at the same time a structure that establishes links between the state and society. The fact that Azerbaijan celebrates this date so solemnly should be considered a high assessment of the legislative body," he said. The chairman stressed that Sudan maintains high-level relations with Azerbaijan. "Our country was one of the first states to recognize the independent Republic of Azerbaijan and to open an embassy in the capital city Baku in 1993. Sudan intends to develop cooperation with Azerbaijan. The high-level political dialogue formed between the leaders of our countries has a positive impact on bringing inter-parliamentary cooperation to a decent level. Our participation in this event is a good example of the interest in the development of inter-parliamentary ties and the importance of the role of parliaments in strengthening ties between our countries. The parliamentary diplomacy, being one of the most important areas of foreign policy, greatly contributes to official diplomacy," Ibrahim Ahmed Omer said. The chairman of the Parliament of Sudan noted that the relations between the countries have been developing in recent years. "Some 16 agreements have been signed in various fields. There are good opportunities for expanding regional and international cooperation," the chairman said. Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 22 Trend: Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has sent a letter of condolence to his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani. We were deeply saddened by the news of a terrorist attack that caused casualties and injuries in your country. We feel deeply outraged over this horrible incident, condemn terrorism and deem it necessary to resolutely fight against it in all its forms and manifestations, Ilham Aliyev said in his letter. On my own behalf and on behalf of the people of Azerbaijan, I extend my deepest condolences to you, families and loved ones of those who were killed and the whole people of Iran, and wish those injured the soonest possible recovery. May Allah rest the souls of the dead in peace! Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 22 Trend: The rector of the Baku State University (BSU), academician Abel Maharramov met with the rector of the Indonesian University of Darussalam Gontor (UNIDA Gontor), Professor Amal Fethullah and prorector Hamid Fahmi Zarkasi, BSU said in a message on Sept. 22. After welcoming the guests, the rector mentioned the development of the friendly and cooperative relations between Azerbaijan and Indonesia. Academician Abel Maharramov, who gave detailed information about BSU, pointed to the expansion of the university's international cooperation, including with the Indonesian universities. Professor Amal Fethullah, in turn, having told about UNIDA Gontor's history and directions of education, spoke in favor of integration with BSU. Teaching the Malay language at BSU was discussed during the meeting. Malay, along with Indonesia, is the official state language in Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore (though there are different varieties, such as Bahasa Indonesia in Indonesia and Bahasa Melayu/Malaysia in Malaysia). Several hundred million people speak the language as a mother tongue, second or a foreign language. At the end of the meeting a memorandum of understanding was signed between BSU and UNIDA Gontor, which included issues such as the exchange of teachers and students, organizing joint conferences, seminars and summer schools. The guests got acquainted with the scientific-research centers, laboratories and museums of BSU. Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 22 By Ilkin Shafiyev - Trend: The Baku shipbuilding factory Baku Shipyard is negotiating with "Azerbaijan Caspian Shipping Company" (AZCO) CJSC for the construction of new vessels, Baku Shipyard LLC told Trend. "The long-term work on the renewal of vessels for various purposes has been jointly implemented by the Baku Shipyard and AZCO. At the moment, the negotiations are underway on the construction of new crane vessels, harbor tugs and additional oil tankers," the Baku Shipyard company noted. Baku Shipyard also stated that in parallel with the construction of vessels of Ro-Pax type, the factory is building two RST12C tankers of a new generation. AZCO is the customer of all vessels. "The construction of the hull of the first tanker has been completed by almost 90 percent, and it is planned to launch it in October of this year for relevant test work. The construction of the hull of the second tanker is also conducted in accordance with the schedule and has been completed by 50 percent. It is planned to complete all work on the construction of these vessels by the end of 2019," the Baku Shipyard stated. The tankers have been designed for transportation of both crude oil and petroleum products with density up to 1.015 tons per cubic meter, including gasoline, as well as chemical cargoes. The "Baku Shipyard" LLC is a joint venture of SOCAR, Azerbaijan Investment Company (AIC) and Keppel Offshore & Marine Limited company, and it was opened by President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev in September 2013. Keppel company owns 10 percent of the factory's shares and is fully responsible for its management and operation. SOCAR is the largest shareholder of the enterprise with a share of 65 percent, and it is followed by the AIC, which owns a quarter of the shipyard's shares. The factory has been designed for the construction of a wide range of specialized and commercial vessels, including multi-purpose naval vessels such as platform supply vessels, as well as tankers and cargo vessels. The conditions for ship repair have also been created at the enterprise. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @IlkinShafiyev Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 22 By Fikret Dolukhanov Trend: President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev approved the Innovative Development Strategy for 2019-2021, Uzbek media reported. The main goal of the Strategy is development of human capital as the main factor determining the level of the country's competitiveness in the world arena and its innovative progress. The document said that one of the main goals is making Uzbekistan enter by 2030 into the list of 50 leading countries of the world according to the Global Innovation Index rating. Uzbekistan also plans to improve the quality and coverage of education at all levels, as well as to develop a system of continuing education. In addition, measures will be taken to strengthen the scientific capacity and effectiveness of research and development. Effective mechanisms will be created to integrate education, science and entrepreneurship to widely implement the results of research, development and technological work. It is planned to increase the investment of public and private funds in innovation, research, development and technological work. Modern and effective forms of financing activities in these areas will be introduced. Uzbekistan intends to ensure the protection of property rights, create competitive markets and equal business conditions, and develop public-private partnerships. Creation of a sustainable, functioning socio-economic infrastructure is one of the main objectives of the strategy. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @FDolukhanov Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 22 Leman Zeynalova - Trend: The next round of negotiations on a new partnership agreement between the European Union (EU) and Azerbaijan will be held on October 2-3 in Brussels, the Head of the Delegation of the European Union (EU) to Azerbaijan Kestutis Jankauskas told journalists on Sept. 22. According to him, the political component of the agreement will be discussed during the negotiations. Azerbaijan will be represented at the talks by the Deputy Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan Mahmud Mammadguliyev. The European Council adopted a mandate for the European Commission and the high representative for foreign affairs and security policy to negotiate, on behalf of the EU and its member states, a comprehensive agreement with Azerbaijan in November 2016. The new agreement should replace the 1996 partnership and cooperation agreement and should better take account of the shared objectives and challenges the EU and Azerbaijan face today. The agreement will follow the principles endorsed in the 2015 review of the European Neighborhood Policy and offer a renewed basis for political dialogue and mutually beneficial cooperation between the EU and Azerbaijan. Currently, bilateral relations between the EU and Azerbaijan are regulated on the basis of an agreement on partnership and cooperation that was signed in 1996 and entered into force in 1999. The new agreement envisages the compliance of Azerbaijans legislation and procedures with the EUs most important international trade norms and standards, which should lead to the improvement of Azerbaijani goods access to the EU markets. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn Russian banks have enough resources to meet all their commitments before the citizens in any currency, Russian Central Banks chief Elvira Nabiullina vowed on Saturday, TASS reports. "We have enough resources and tools to ensure that banks meet their commitments before the citizens in any currency," Nabiullina said on Rossiya1TV channel during the Vesti on Saturday with Sergei Brilev news program. Last week, Nabiullina said that the Central Bank saw no threats for foreign currency deposits in case of tougher sanctions against Russia and was not going to force banks to convert these deposits into rubles. Earlier in an interview with Bloomberg TV head of VTB Bank Andrei Kostin said that the clients of Russian banks would be able to return their deposits in dollars in case the US imposed sanctions against Russias banking system. But he did not specify how it would be done and in what currency. Head of Russias top lender Sberbank German Gref told reporters that the bank was not considering plans of converting dollar deposits into rubles and did not see an increased demand for converting the deposits. Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan, Sept. 22 By Leman Zeynalova - Trend: The implementation of the Southern Gas Corridor project will be an important contribution of Azerbaijan to ensuring energy security in Europe, the Head of the Delegation of the European Union (EU) to Azerbaijan Kestutis Jankauskas said at a press conference dedicated to the EU Days in the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic of Azerbaijan (NAR). "Azerbaijan and the EU have a long history of energy cooperation. The implementation of the Southern Gas Corridor project will be an important contribution of Azerbaijan to the diversification of energy sources and ensuring the energy security of Europe," the head of the delegation said. Jankauskas also mentioned that Azerbaijan has great potential to develop such areas as solar energy generation, hydropower and wind energy. Then he added that the NAR has achieved great success in the field of renewable energy sources. The Southern Gas Corridor, which costs more than $40 billion, is one of the priority projects for the EU and provides for the transportation of 10 billion cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas from the Caspian region through Georgia and Turkey to Europe. The launching ceremony of the first stage of the Southern Gas Corridor project was held in Baku on May 29. Presidents of Azerbaijan - Ilham Aliyev, Turkey - Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Ukraine - Petro Poroshenko and Serbia - Alexander Vucic participated in the ceremony. The gas from the Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field has already gone through the first segment of the Southern Gas Corridor - from the Sangachal terminal to the expanded South Caucasus Pipeline. The gas from the Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field has already gone through the first segment of the Southern Gas Corridor - from the Sangachal terminal to the expanded South Caucasus Pipeline. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 22 By Huseyn Veliyev Trend: Major suppliers of mobile phones in Azerbaijan have appealed to the Ministry of Taxes regarding the organization of raids on the mobile phones retail sales market, a source in the market of official sales of mobile devices told Trend September 21. The source said the ministry replied that this issue was put on the agenda. "These measures can not be called radical, as the raids can be announced in advance. On the other hand, these measures are quite legal, since the devices exhibited in retail outlets must be official. In turn, this will have a positive impact on economic growth," the source said. In the second half of August, the state duty for registration of IMEI codes of mobile devices came into force. This refers to the application of a differentiated method of registration, which involves the classification of duties on mobile phones of high, medium and low price segment. This allows to determine a fixed fee for mobile phones depending on their cost and model. For example, the duty on expensive iPhone models differs from the duty on phones of cheaper price segment. For example, the registration of mobile devices with a market value of up to $ 100, which do not have access to the Internet, photo and video functions, costs 20 manats. For other mobile devices, the cost of registration will be 30 manats (for mobile devices with the market price of up to $ 100), 50 manats (for mobile devices with the market price from $ 101 to $ 200), 60 manats (for mobile devices with the market price from $ 201 to $ 400), 70 manats (for mobile devices with the market price from $ 401 to $ 700), 100 manats (for mobile devices with the market price from $ 701 to $ 1000), 150 manats (for mobile devices with the market price from $ 1001 and above). "Clearly, the increase in the cost of registration of devices contributes to the increase in revenues to the state budget, as the turnover of companies operating officially will increase, and the turnover that evaded the treasury will decrease. Therefore, we appreciate this step and even hope that the price of registration of high-end devices will increase even more," the source said. In general, thanks to the measures taken, the share of the "gray" market fell by half from about 80 percent, the source said. "This has had a positive impact on the growth of official supply of devices within the price segment up to $400. The growth was about 20 percent, the source said. However, this almost did not affect the "gray" supply in the high price segment. The fact is that the duty in the amount of 150 manats for mobile devices, the cost of which exceeds $1,000, does not make much difference for the market, as the amount of 150 manats is not so significant as compared to its US dollar equivalent, the source added. Officially, the customs clearance of the high-price segment, plus VAT costs the official import channels about 30 percent of the cost of the smart-phone, that is about $ 150, which costs more in mantas, the source noted. That is, a big difference is obtained. Therefore, mobile devices of the high price segment are less protected from "gray" supplies than the devices of the middle and low price segments, the source continued. In general, the increase in the cost of registration of devices did not contribute to the increase in their cost in retail market, even despite the fact that in addition to VAT, the official suppliers have to pay twice the cost of registration and IMEI-codes for phones with dual SIM card slots (1.6 manats for each IMEI-code of the device)," the source concluded. The official exchange rate on September 22 is 1.7 AZN/USD --- Follow the author on Twitter: @h_veliyev Saturday, September 22, 2018 Brooke Staggs of the Orange County Register reports (and here is a Los Angeles Times report) on U.S. Army veteran Fabian Rebolledo inside his family home in Azusa on Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2018. Rebolledo, who served in Kosovo, was deported to Mexico in 2012. After a three-year legal battle, he returned home to Azusa with help from the UC Irvine Immigrant Rights Clinic. The Trump administration reportedly has been increasingly rejecting please of veteran immigrants for relief from removal. Hat tip to Dan Kowalski! KJ https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2018/09/veteran-who-was-deported-to-mexico-returns-home-to-the-us.html Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 22 Trend: The Ministry of Defense and Aerospace Industry of Kazakhstan talked about its activity plans for the future. Among them is creation of a satellite together with Uzbekistan, Podrobno.uz reported referring to the Kazakh media. Director of the Department of International Military and Technical Cooperation Aslanbek Syrlanov said there are specific proposals on creation of joint Kazakhstan-Uzbekistan satellite. This device will be able to provide services not only to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, but also to other countries in the region. "Currently, our Uzbek colleagues use foreign satellites. Therefore, it was proposed to jointly build one satellite," said Syrlanov at a press conference dedicated to the Kazakh-Uzbek cooperation. In addition, within the framework of cooperation of Central Asian countries, it is proposed to build five satellites for remote sensing of the earth. Those devices will be able to photograph objects up to five meters in size. "In such case each Central Asian state will operate one satellite. But, at the same time, it will be possible to use data from all five devices. Thus, it will be possible to receive new pictures every day. All these proposals are put forward by Kazakhstan", Syrlanov said. Today, an international conference on development of cooperation between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in the new geopolitical conditions has been started in Astana. The conference is organized by the Kazakhstan Institute of Strategic Research under the president of Kazakhstan. The event is attended by the leadership of the Institute of Strategic and Regional Studies under the president of Uzbekistan. In addition, the conference is attended by leading experts of the two countries. Within the framework of the event, a Memorandum of cooperation between the two institutes was signed. Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 22 Trend: Kazakh specialists, who previously prepared "Proton" space rockets for launch at Baikonur cosmodrome, have been transferred to and are passing the re-training course at the facilities, which Russia hands over to Kazakhstan in the framework of the "Baiterek" project, a source at the cosmodrome told RIA Novosti. "Most of the Kazakh specialists who worked over the calculations for the preparation and launch of the Proton space rockets have been transferred to the accepted facilities, where they are engaged in the study of equipment and operational documentation and are already involved in the maintenance of equipment and devices," the source said. At the same time, the source said that Kazakhstan has already received the assembly and test building at the site of the 42nd cosmodrome, the launch complex at the site of the 45th cosmodrome and the auxiliary infrastructure. These facilities will be operated by Kazakh specialists. "The process of documenting the transfer continues, which will be completed by signing the relevant documents at the government level," the source added. The source said the agreement on the "Baiterek" program was concluded between Russia and Kazakhstan in 2004, and at the end of 2017, the changes were made to it, according to which the Soyuz-5 launch vehicle became the base missile for the project implementation, which will be re-named as "Sunkar" during launches from Baikonur. Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Sept. 22 By Huseyn Hasanov Trend: The meeting of the People's Council, which is the supreme legislative body of Turkmenistan, will be held on September 24-25, 2018, the Turkmen government said in a statement. The event will be held on the eve of Independence Day (September 27). In early October of 2017, a decision was made on the transformation and renaming of the Council of Elders into the People's Council. Prior to that, the Council of Elders played the role of a purely advisory body. At the same time, in the period from 1992 to 2008, the People's Council was the highest representative body of Turkmenistan. Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 22 Trend: The Chairman of the Great National Assembly (Parliament) of the Republic of Turkey Binali Yildirim will arrive in Uzbekistan on September 23 with an official visit, the Uzbek news agency Podrobno.uz" reported. "It is expected that the Chairman of the Turkish Parliament will be received by the President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev," the press service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan said in a statement. The program of the visit of the Turkish delegation includes meetings and negotiations with the heads of the chambers of the Parliament of Uzbekistan, representatives of the Cabinet of Ministers, a visit to Samarkand and Bukhara cities. Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 22 Trend: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the Islamic Republic would never cut back on its missile program. Addressing a military parade in Tehran on Saturday, Rouhani said, (US President Donald) Trump is doomed to fail against Iran just like Iraqs Saddam Hussein did. Stressing that Tehran will never replete under US pressure, he said that Iran would not give up its defense capabilities and missile program. Should the worst-case scenario occur and Washington attacks Iran, the US would face the same fate as Iraqs Saddam Hussein, Rouhani warned, referring to the eight-year Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s. The same will happen to Trump. America will suffer the same fate as Saddam Hussein, Rouhani said. Irans Army and the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) are holding a joint military exercise in the Persian Gulf. The war game involves various units of the Iranian Army and IRGC including the Rapid Reaction Unit, the Artillery Unit, and the Drone Unit. More than 600 military vessels are involved in the drill, showing strengthen in waters of the Persian Gulf near the Strait of Hormuz. Before the beginning of two major parades in the cities of Tehran and Bandar Abbas, Rouhani and Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani made speeches in the capital and the southern city, respectively. The drill involves the military and IRGCs fighter jets, including F-4, Mirage and Sukhoi-22. Five logistics and combat helicopters are also taking part in the exercise over the Persian Gulf waters and the Sea of Oman. Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 22 Trend: Irans Army and the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) are holding a joint military exercise in the Persian Gulf. The war game involves various units of the Iranian Army and IRGC including the Rapid Reaction Unit, the Artillery Unit, and the Drone Unit, Tasnim news agency reported on September 22. More than 600 military vessels are involved in the drill, showing strengthen in waters of the Persian Gulf near the Strait of Hormuz. Before the beginning of two major parades in the cities of Tehran and Bandar Abbas, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani made speeches in the capital and the southern city, respectively. The drill involves the military and IRGCs fighter jets, including F-4, Mirage and Sukhoi-22. Five logistics and combat helicopters are also taking part in the exercise over the Persian Gulf waters and the Sea of Oman. In addition to a show of strength, this ceremony is a message of peace and friendship for friendly and neighboring countries, Colonel Yousef Safipour, the deputy commander of the army for public relations said earlier. And if the enemies and arrogant powers have an eye on the borders and land of Islamic Iran they will receive a stern response in the fraction of a second. Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 22 Trend: Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif condemned a recent attack by extremists against a military parade in Irans southwestern city of Ahvaz, stressing that Iran will respond swiftly and decisively. Terrorists recruited, trained, armed & paid by a foreign regime have attacked Ahvaz. Children and journalists are among casualties. Iran holds regional terror sponsors and their US masters accountable for such attacks. Iran will respond swiftly and decisively in defense of Iranian lives, Zarif said in a message posted on his Twitter account on September 22. Several people have been killed after unknown gunmen opened fire during a military parade in the city of Ahvaz on Saturday morning. Saturday's attack killed at least ten members of the IRGC and wounded 20 people, including a woman and child, according to the Iranian state-run IRNA news agency. Ali Hossein Hosseinzadeh, deputy governor in Khuzestan province, said that two attackers had also been killed and another two were arrested. Irans Armed Forces staged the countrywide military parades to mark the Sacred Defense Week on the 38th anniversary of the onset of the Iraqi imposed war on the Islamic Republic back in 1980. 16:39 (GMT+4) Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has urged to probe into the deadly attack in Ahvaz. He stressed that Iran's response to the attack will be "crushing". 16:29 (GMT+4) The Iranian parliament will hold an extraordinary session to probe into the attack in Ahvaz, the spokesman of the Parliaments National Security and Foreign Policy Commission said. 13:58 (GMT+4) The number of people dead in the "extremist" attack in Iran's Ahvaz has risen to at least 12. Unconfirmed reports, however, suggest that the real number stands at 24. 12:46 (GMT+4) All "terrorists", involved in the gun attack in Ahvaz, have been eliminated, a spokesman of the Iranian Armed Forces said. 12:38 (GMT+4) The Al-Ahvaziyeh group, a separatist group in Ahvaz, has claimed responsibility for the deadly gun attack in the southwestern city of Iran. 12:05 (GMT+4) Ten people, including a journalist, have been confirmed dead in Ahvaz, the deputy governor of Khuzestan province told Tasnim. 11:43 (GMT+4) According to Iranian media, the number of injured reached 21 people. 11:07 (GMT+4) At least eight IRGC soldiers are reported to have been killed in Irans Ahvaz when unknown gunmen, wearing military uniforms, opened fire at a military parade in the southwestern city of Iran. Seven people, including a woman and a child, were wounded during the attack, Tasnim news agency reported. Initial reports suggest that two out of four assailants have been so far killed. The gunmen had opened fire from a park behind the stands during the parade. State media has described them as 'Takfiri terrorists" - a term used in Iran to refer to extremist groups. Irans Armed Forces staged the countrywide military parades to mark the Sacred Defense Week on the 38th anniversary of the onset of the Iraqi imposed war on the Islamic Republic back in 1980. 10:16 (GMT+4) According to media reports, the assailants are at large and the wounded have been taken to the hospital. One the attackers, however, has been reportedly killed following the attack. Irans Armed Forces staged the countrywide military parades to mark the Sacred Defense Week on the 38th anniversary of the onset of the Iraqi imposed war on the Islamic Republic back in 1980. 10:00 (GMT+4) Unknown armed militants opened fire on a military convoy during a military parade in Iran's southwestern city of Ahvaz, Fars news agency reported. The gunmen opened fire from a park behind the stands during the parade. As a result, a number of Iranian soldiers and civilians were killed and also injured. 11:06 (GMT+4) At least eight IRGC soldiers are reported to have been killed in Irans Ahvaz when unknown gunmen, wearing military uniforms, opened fire at a military parade in the southwestern city of Iran. Seven people, including a woman and a child, were wounded during the attack, Tasnim news agency reported. Initial reports suggest that two out of four assailants have been so far killed. The gunmen had opened fire from a park behind the stands during the parade. State media has described them as 'Takfiri terrorists - a term used in Iran to refer to extremist groups. Irans Armed Forces staged the countrywide military parades to mark the Sacred Defense Week on the 38th anniversary of the onset of the Iraqi imposed war on the Islamic Republic back in 1980. 10:16 (GMT+4) According to media reports, the assailants are at large and the wounded have been taken to the hospital. One the attackers, however, has been reportedly killed following the attack. Irans Armed Forces staged the countrywide military parades to mark the Sacred Defense Week on the 38th anniversary of the onset of the Iraqi imposed war on the Islamic Republic back in 1980. 10:00 (GMT+4) Unknown armed militants opened fire on a military convoy during a military parade in Iran's southwestern city of Ahvaz, Fars news agency reported. The gunmen opened fire from a park behind the stands during the parade. As a result, a number of Iranian soldiers and civilians were killed and also injured. 11:42 (GMT+4) According to Iranian media, the number of injured reached 21 people. 11:07 (GMT+4) At least eight IRGC soldiers are reported to have been killed in Irans Ahvaz when unknown gunmen, wearing military uniforms, opened fire at a military parade in the southwestern city of Iran. Seven people, including a woman and a child, were wounded during the attack, Tasnim news agency reported. Initial reports suggest that two out of four assailants have been so far killed. The gunmen had opened fire from a park behind the stands during the parade. State media has described them as 'Takfiri terrorists" - a term used in Iran to refer to extremist groups. Irans Armed Forces staged the countrywide military parades to mark the Sacred Defense Week on the 38th anniversary of the onset of the Iraqi imposed war on the Islamic Republic back in 1980. 10:16 (GMT+4) According to media reports, the assailants are at large and the wounded have been taken to the hospital. One the attackers, however, has been reportedly killed following the attack. Irans Armed Forces staged the countrywide military parades to mark the Sacred Defense Week on the 38th anniversary of the onset of the Iraqi imposed war on the Islamic Republic back in 1980. 10:00 (GMT+4) Unknown armed militants opened fire on a military convoy during a military parade in Iran's southwestern city of Ahvaz, Fars news agency reported. The gunmen opened fire from a park behind the stands during the parade. As a result, a number of Iranian soldiers and civilians were killed and also injured. 12:37 (GMT+4) The Al-Ahwaziyeh group, a separatist group in Ahwaz, has claimed responsibility for the deadly gun attack in the southwestern city of Iran. 12:05 (GMT+4) Ten people, including a journalist, have been confirmed dead in Ahwaz, the deputy governor of Khuzestan province told Tasnim. 11:43 (GMT+4) According to Iranian media, the number of injured reached 21 people. 11:07 (GMT+4) At least eight IRGC soldiers are reported to have been killed in Irans Ahwaz when unknown gunmen, wearing military uniforms, opened fire at a military parade in the southwestern city of Iran. Seven people, including a woman and a child, were wounded during the attack, Tasnim news agency reported. Initial reports suggest that two out of four assailants have been so far killed. The gunmen had opened fire from a park behind the stands during the parade. State media has described them as 'Takfiri terrorists" - a term used in Iran to refer to extremist groups. Irans Armed Forces staged the countrywide military parades to mark the Sacred Defense Week on the 38th anniversary of the onset of the Iraqi imposed war on the Islamic Republic back in 1980. 10:16 (GMT+4) According to media reports, the assailants are at large and the wounded have been taken to the hospital. One the attackers, however, has been reportedly killed following the attack. Irans Armed Forces staged the countrywide military parades to mark the Sacred Defense Week on the 38th anniversary of the onset of the Iraqi imposed war on the Islamic Republic back in 1980. 10:00 (GMT+4) Unknown armed militants opened fire on a military convoy during a military parade in Iran's southwestern city of Ahwaz, Fars news agency reported. The gunmen opened fire from a park behind the stands during the parade. As a result, a number of Iranian soldiers and civilians were killed and also injured. The political deputy governor of Khuzestan Province, Ali Hossein Hosseinzadeh, said the latest death toll from the Saturday terrorist attack on a military parade in Irans southwestern city of Ahvaz has risen to 25, while 60 others have been injured. Speaking to the Tasnim News Agency, Hosseinzadeh said the number of martyrs has, unfortunately, increased. He added that according to the latest reports, 25 people have been killed while 60 others have been wounded. The official also said all of the four terrorists that carried out the attack on the military ceremony have been shot to death by the security forces. During the military parade in Ahvaz, which was staged concurrently with nationwide military parades on Saturday to mark the Sacred Defense Week, Takfiri militants wearing disguise opened fire at the people participating in the ceremony. Earlier, Hosseinzadeh had told Tasnim that the number of martyrs was likely to increase because some of the wounded were in critical condition. Irans Armed Forces staged the countrywide military parades to mark the Sacred Defense Week on the 38th anniversary of the onset of the Iraqi imposed war on the Islamic Republic back in 1980. The Chinese Foreign Ministry summoned US Ambassador Terry Branstad over the sanctions imposed on the Chinese Defense Ministry staff by Washington over cooperation with Russia, Sputnik reported. The ministry expressed its protest to the ambassador over the placing of the defense ministry's officials on the US sanctions lists, China Central Television (CCTV) broadcaster reported on Saturday. No further details have been provided. Earlier in the day, The Chinese Defense Ministry expressed its protest in a statement and made strong representation to the United States over the US sanctions for arms purchases from Russia. On Thursday, the United States sanctioned the personnel of the Chinese Defense Ministry along with Russian state arms exporter Rosoboronexport in connection to the deals on the purchase of the Russian aircraft and S-400 missile systems. The restrictions were imposed under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) passed by Washington last August in response to Russia's alleged attempts to influence the 2016 US presidential election. Following the announcement of restrictions against the Chinese nationals, Beijing called on Washington to lift sanctions threatening to hold the United States accountable for its actions. The Chinese Defense Minister announced Saturday that it had decided to cancel a planned visit of the country's Navy commander Vice Adm. Shen Jinlong to the US following sanctions imposed by Washington against Beijing for cooperating with Russia, Sputnik reported. "The Chinese side decided to immediately withdraw from the United States PLA Navy Commander Shen Jinlong, who is participating in the 23rd International Seapower Symposium and was planning a visit to the United States," the statement said. Earlier in the day, the Chinese Foreign Ministry summoned US Ambassador Terry Branstad to express its protest over placing the defense ministry's officials on the US sanctions lists. The restrictions were imposed under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) passed by Washington last August in response to Russia's alleged attempts to influence the 2016 US presidential election. Following the announcement of restrictions against the Chinese nationals, Beijing called on Washington to lift sanctions threatening to hold the United States accountable for its actions. France still believes that a good deal on Brexit is possible but the country must prepare for the possibility of Britain and the European Union failing to reach an agreement on its divorce from the bloc, a minister said on Saturday, Reuters reports. Lets imagine we dont reach an agreement. What we say is we must prepare for that, Nathalie Loiseau, minister for European affairs, told France Info radio. Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 22 Trend: Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed condolences to the Iranian government and nation over a deadly attack in the city of Ahvaz in the southwestern Iran, RT Arabic, formerly known as Rusiya Al-Yaum, reported. In a telephone conversation with his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani on Sept. 22, Putin further said that Moscow is ready to boost its anti-terror cooperation with Tehran, media reports said. During the military parade in Ahvaz, which was staged concurrently with nationwide military parades on Saturday to mark the Sacred Defense Week, militants opened fire at the people participating in the ceremony. Deputy Governor of Khuzestan Province Ali Hossein Hosseinzadeh told Tasnim that the number of martyrs is likely to increase because some of the wounded were in critical condition. He also said that the security forces managed to kill two of the terrorists in the clash and arrest the other two. Irans Armed Forces staged the countrywide military parades to mark the Sacred Defense Week on the 38th anniversary of the onset of the Iraqi imposed war on the Islamic Republic back in 1980. Turkish Foreign Ministry strongly condemned the terrorist attack in the parade of the armed forces in Ahvaz on Saturday morning, IRNA reported. Turkish Foreign Ministry in a statement condemned the terrorist attack in Ahvaz, and expressed condolences on the martyrdom of a number of compatriots to the nation and the Iranian government. The statement issued by the Turkish Foreign Ministry stated, 'We strongly condemn this treacherous attack. May God have mercy upon those who are dead, and have Recovery upon the wounded. We convey the condolences of the loss of citizens to the people and the Iranian government.' An Amtrak train collided with a tractor-trailer Friday afternoon in Missouri City, officials said, Click2Houston reported. The crash was reported around 1:35 p.m. at the intersection of Cravens Road and U.S. 90. Officials said the big rig was on the tracks when it was struck by the train. Officials said there were 71 passengers on the Amtrak train but no injuries were reported. Highway 90 was shut down for 2 hours. Officials ask drivers to avoid the area until the scene is cleared. The train was headed to New Orleans and will continue its route after inspection. Investigators are at the scene. To share with friends and brethren The Gospel of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (the Everlasting Gospel), and to prepare a people to stand when He returns to redeem His remnant. Also, to share relevant information of current events, and to show how they relate to prophecy; By means of articles, editorials, opinions, scripture readings, and poetry. Disclaimer Endrtimes does not necessarily endorse or agree with every opinion expressed in every article/video posted on this site. The information provided here is done so for personal edification; It's up to the reader to separate truth from error, and to examine everything (like the Bereans) from a Biblical perspective. Let the Holy Scriptures be you guide! - - - FAIR USE NOTICE: These pages/videos may contain copyrighted () material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available to advance understanding of ecological, POLITICAL, HUMAN RIGHTS, economic, DEMOCRACY, scientific, MORAL, ETHICAL, and SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUES, etc. It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior general interest in receiving similar information for research and educational purposes. Marriage and family are ordered for the good of humanity". Singaporeans are discussing whether to abolish the section in the Penal Code that criminalises same-sex relations. Laws must be rooted in truth and the common good. Singapore (AsiaNews) Mgr William Goh Seng Chye, archbishop of Singapore (pictured), reiterated the condemnation by the Catholic Church of any kind of discrimination against homosexuals but warns society against the normalisation of same-sex unions. In his latest pastoral letter, the prelate emphasises "the dreadful consequences" of such normalisation in countries that have taken this direction. Thus, he hopes that Singapore will not repeat the mistake that others have made! I pray that we will not walk the slippery path of no return. Released three days ago, the letter is meant "To help us form our judgement prudently on Section 377A of the city-states Penal Code, presently at the centre of a heated debate. Introduced in 1938, the section on "outrages to decency" criminalises homosexual relations between men. Following a ruling by the Supreme Court of India decriminalising homosexual sex, many in Singapore question the law and are demanding its repeal in the name of human rights. They are opposed by those who fear that a repeal would threaten Singaporean families and society. The issue is also playing out among Singapores 383,000 Catholics (9 per cent of the population) Mgr Goh notes that the "Church regards everyone, regardless of sexual orientation, with equal respect." However, although the Church does not discriminate against the homosexual person. This does not mean however that the Church condones homosexual acts. Noting that "Sexuality is ordered to the conjugal love of man and woman" and that the union between them is part of God's plan", the prelate stresses that marriage and family are "ordered for the greater good of humanity". He notes that the Church is ready to engage in dialogue and work with parliament for the good of the country but warns that "Laws should not be enacted simply on the basis of current or popular opinion but must be rooted in truth and the common good". In the final part of the letter, Mgr Goh expresses compassion for gay people "when they are ostracised or marginalised by society. At the same time, he shares "the anxieties and fears of those who subscribe to the traditional and scriptural views of marriage and family. In his view, "repealing the law will not be the end of the saga. Rather, it would only embolden the push to legalise same-sex unions, adoption of babies by same-sex couples, surrogacy, and even the criminalisation of those who hold contrary views of marriage and who oppose same-sex unions". For the prelate, "the spirit of both the moral and civil laws is to emphasise that same-sex unions are not a social norm as they do not help to foster fruitful and life-giving marriages or cohesive families which are the bedrock of a strong and stable society. This is also intended as a safeguard to prevent champions of gay rights from taking their cause beyond the mere repeal of S377A. While expressing support for removing penal sanctions against homosexuals, the archbishop ends his message with an appeal to the faithful to make a conscientious decision to reject the repeal for the future of our families, humanity and society. Lunaticoutpost.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program , anaffiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.Amazon, the Amazon logo, MYHABIT, and the MYHABIT logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.Don't be a pest to the forum.No profanity in thread-titles or usernamesNo excessive profanity in postsNo Racism, Antisemitism + HateNo calls for violence against anyone..This website exists for fun and discussion only. The reader is responsible for discerning the validity, factuality or implications of information posted here, be it fictional or based on real events. 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The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.In accordance with industry accepted best practices we ask that users limit their copy / paste of copyrighted material to the relevant portions of the article you wish to discuss (no more than 50% of the source material) provide a link back to the original articleIf you are a legal copyright holder or a designated agent for such and you believe a post on this website falls outside the boundaries of "Fair Use" and legitimately infringes on yours or your clients copyright please contact [email protected] This website is owned by :Marco ZwaneveldDrijfriemstraat 522516 XR The HagueNetherlands.I will not rent, sell, share or otherwise disclose your personal information to any third party.We might contact you from time to time regarding your purchases or the services (like forums and announcement lists) you have subscribed to.Some of the 3rd party advertisers on lunaticoutpost.com may use cookiesto track peformance and/or to serve relevant ads.If you wish to read more and/or opt out of such cookies, please visit: http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/ KYODO NEWS - Sep 22, 2018 - 23:22 | World, All, Urgent Gunmen opened fire on a military parade held in the southwestern Iranian city of Ahvaz on Saturday, killing 25 people and injuring 60 others, state media reported. The state-run Islamic Republic News Agency said that civilians including women and children were among the dead. The semi-official Tasnim News Agency reported that eight members of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, a branch of Iran's armed forces, were killed in the morning attack. (People run from the scene of shooting) [Getty/Kyodo] One man who was marching in the parade told IRNA that his 4-year-old son who came to watch him was killed and that his wife was wounded in the attack. "The terrorists disguised as Islamic Revolution Guards Corps and Basiji (volunteer) forces opened fire at government officials and people from behind the stand during the parade," Gholam-Reza Shariati, the governor of Khuzestan Province, of which Ahvaz is the capital, was quoted by IRNA as saying. Brig. Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi, senior spokesman of Iran's armed forces, told IRNA that all four gunmen were killed. He also alleged that the attackers received financial and weapons support from two countries around Persian Gulf, without naming the countries. IRNA said that the situation has been brought under control. The Al-Ahwaz group, a Saudi-affiliated terrorist group, claimed responsibility for the attack on the parade, according to IRNA. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif posted on Twitter that the gunmen were armed and recruited by "a foreign regime," blaming regional countries and their "U.S. masters." "Terrorists recruited, trained, armed & paid by a foreign regime have attacked Ahvaz. Children and journos among casualties. Iran holds regional terror sponsors and their U.S. masters accountable for such attacks," he wrote. "Iran will respond swiftly and decisively in defense of Iranian lives," he added. Military parades were being held around the country Saturday to mark the anniversary of Iran's eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s. KYODO NEWS - Sep 22, 2018 - 22:14 | World, All The Vatican said Saturday it has reached an agreement with the Chinese government on the appointment of bishops in the country, making a historic deal with Beijing that critics say violates church doctrine. At a meeting held in Beijing, Monsignor Antoine Camilleri, undersecretary for the Holy See's relations with states, and Chinese Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs Wang Chao signed a provisional agreement on the appointment of bishops in mainland China "following a long process of careful negotiation," according to a communique published in the Holy See's news outlet, Vatican News. "It concerns the nomination of bishops, a question of great importance for the life of the Church, and creates the conditions for greater collaboration at the bilateral level," the report said. "The shared hope is that this agreement may favor a fruitful and forward-looking process of institutional dialogue and may contribute positively to the life of the Catholic Church in China, to the common good of the Chinese people and to peace in the world," it added. No details of the agreement were released, but recent news reports have revealed that under the deal China will be able to nominate bishops, with the nominations being approved or rejected by the Pope. In addition, the Holy See will pardon a handful of bishops the Chinese authorities have ordained without papal approval, while two underground bishops loyal to the Pope will step down to make way for Beijing-appointed bishops. In return, Beijing has agreed to recognize the pope as the head of China's Catholics. China's Foreign Ministry on Saturday confirmed in a brief statement the signing of the provisional agreement, saying that Beijing will "continue to maintain communications with the Vatican and facilitate the continuing improvement of bilateral relations." China severed ties with the Vatican two years after the atheist Communist Party took power in 1949. The Holy See currently maintains formal diplomatic ties with self-ruled Taiwan, which China claims as a wayward province with no right to state-to-state relations. The Catholic Patriotic Association was established in 1957 as a state-sanctioned church and it has since been ordaining local bishops with or without the Pope's prior consent. The some 12 million Catholics in China are divided into two groups, with one worshipping in government-managed churches and the other joining underground congregations. The Vatican agreement did not mention resuming ties with China or severing its relations with self-ruled Taiwan. The deal has sparked criticism the Vatican is selling out followers who have faced persecution for their loyalty to the Pope, for the sake of cozying up to China. Cardinal Joseph Zen, a former bishop of Hong Kong, earlier this year called the deal "evil" and warned it may breach the Church's doctrine. The state cabinet decided on Wednesday to set up the committee to deal with inter-state (river) water disputes. The B-towns one of the most favorite couples, Sonam Kapoor and Anand Ahuja spreading love in the air of Torno, Italy . Several times they share charmingly sweet pictures to social media PDA which depict their rapport in an exceptional way and This time also their latest picture on photo sharing website Instagram is steal hearts of million fans. Fans love everything about their phenomenal love story. Currently, Sonam Kapoor and hubby Anand Ahuja are in Italy to be present at the Isha Ambani engagement bash. These New pics of power couple Sonam Kapoor and Anand Ahuja is very special treat for fans as they are posing against the scenic backdrop of Torno, Italy. 'Khoobsurat Sonam adorns herself in a head-to-toe traditional look while her love interest Anand Ahuja looks dapper in the extremely formal look. Sharing the photos Sonam captioned her post, wearing my birthday present by @priya.ahuja27 thanks so much mom! I felt like a princess! by @kapoor.sunita (love you). As this caption describes Sonam is clearly pampered daughter in law as the attractive attire has been presented to her by mother-in-law, Priya Ahuja. Talking about her jewellery, Sonam is seen wearing her mother, Sunita Kapoors ethnic jewelry and as always, she looks too stunning to handle. On the Professional front, Sonam Kapoor is currentaly engaged in shooting Abhishek Sharmas The Zoya Factor. Dulquer Salmaan also stars in the movie. The film is inspired from the book of the same name written by Anuja Chauhan. In the film, Dulquer Salmaan will be seen playing the role of an Indian captain while Sonam will have an role of executive who works in advertising agency. Algorithmic bias or personal bias: take your pick. Google employees sent each other emails discussing ways to counter islamaphobic and prejudiced, algorithmically biased search results for terms such as Islam and Hispanic after the the Trump administration announced a travel ban in 2017, the Wall Street Journal reports. The travel ban in its original form placed severe restrictions on visitors from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen to the United States. While promoted as a security measure, it contained religious overtones. The emails noted the sensitivity of dealing with a political topic, but went on to explore ideas for directing people who searched for those terms to pages for contributing to pro-immigration causes. A marketing employee wrote: Overall idea: Leverage search to highlight important organizations to donate to, current news, etc. to keep people abreast of how they can help as well as the resources available for immigrations [sic] or people traveling, Another employee suggested using an experimental feature called Highlights that would allow celebrities to insert text into search results. These emails were just a brainstorm of ideas, none of which were ever implemented, a Google spokesperson said in a statement to the WSJ. Our processes and policies would not have allowed for any manipulation of search results to promote political ideologies. Google has, however, been investigated by the Federal Trade Commission and been fined in the EU for manipulating search results of its own products. It also attracts accusations of bias on a regular basis. A leaked video of Google executive Sergey Brin appeared revealed him lamenting to other Google employees the results of the last U.S. presidential election. In August, President Trump took to Twitter to suggest that Google search results for his name only showed the viewing/reporting of Fake New[s] Media. In other words, they have it RIGGED, for me & others, so that almost all stories & news is BAD, he added. Next week Attorney General Jeff Sessions is meeting with state attorneys general to discuss what they call anticonservative bias in the tech world. At Yahoo Finances All Markets Summit on Thursday, Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, discussed the income gap and uneven U.S. economic recovery for African Americans. Johnson spoke about the need for both corporations and government to invest in underserved communities. Were seeing a huge gap in rural America, particularly rural black America. They oftentimes are left out. And then when you look at rural black America in the South, you see a much more uneven recovery, he said. The Great Recession erased much of the small gains many African Americans had made over the last thirty years. According to the ACLU, black families will continue to suffer the effects disproportionately for years to come: By 2031, white household wealth will be 31% below what it wouldve been had the recession never happened. For black households, wealth will be 40% lower, which will leave black families about $98,000 poorer than if the recession hadnt taken place. Johnson says closing this gap requires corporations and governments to invest in quality jobs and education in neglected rural areas that have traditionally been underserved. Johnson asserts that rural black America has people willing to do good work if the opportunity is there. You know, when I look at, say, the state of Alabama or the state of Mississippi, where I currently live, we dont have a single Fortune 500 company There is very little governmental investment in the state. And the corporate interests have flown over the state, he said. Story continues Since taking office, President Donald Trump has not met with the NAACP. If Johnson were to receive an invitation, he says that he would ask the president about how tax dollars from African Americans are being spent in an effort to get fair tax representation for African Americans. We believe that African Americans and other communities of color, we pay beyond our fair share in taxes, cause many African Americans and Latinos dont have the tax council to get the tax breaks. But not always do those communities benefit from the opportunities of their hard labor and paying into the tax coffers, he said. Sibile Marcellus is an on-air reporter covering the days top stories in business for Yahoo Finances three daily live shows. Follow her on Twitter @chasingsibile More from Sibile: TIAA CEO: Retirement may well become a crisis if we dont act Soledad OBrien on #metoo: Every single industry has a big freaking problem Why keeping the business in the family pays off How Pepsi-Co, Tesla and Michael Jordan are helping the Carolinas Attention dividend hunters! Singapore Exchange Limited (SGX:S68) will be distributing its dividend of S$0.15 per share on the 05 October 2018, and will start trading ex-dividend in 4 days time on the 26 September 2018. What does this mean for current shareholders and potential investors? Below, I will explain how holding Singapore Exchange can impact your portfolio income stream, by analysing the stocks most recent financial data and dividend attributes. Check out our latest analysis for Singapore Exchange How I analyze a dividend stock If you are a dividend investor, you should always assess these five key metrics: Is it paying an annual yield above 75% of dividend payers? Does it consistently pay out dividends without missing a payment of significantly cutting payout? Has dividend per share risen in the past couple of years? Is its earnings sufficient to payout dividend at the current rate? Based on future earnings growth, will it be able to continue to payout dividend at the current rate? SGX:S68 Historical Dividend Yield September 21st 18 How well does Singapore Exchange fit our criteria? The company currently pays out 88.4% of its earnings as a dividend, according to its trailing twelve-month data, which means that the dividend is covered by earnings. In the near future, analysts are predicting a payout ratio of 85.7%, leading to a dividend yield of 4.5%. Furthermore, EPS should increase to SGD0.35. If you want to dive deeper into the sustainability of a certain payout ratio, you may wish to consider the cash flow of the business. A business with strong cash flow can sustain a higher divided payout ratio than a company with weak cash flow. If dividend is a key criteria in your investment consideration, then you need to make sure the dividend stock youre eyeing out is reliable in its payments. Dividend payments from Singapore Exchange have been volatile in the past 10 years, with some years experiencing significant drops of over 25%. These characteristics do not bode well for income investors seeking reliable stream of dividends. Story continues Relative to peers, Singapore Exchange generates a yield of 4.1%, which is on the low-side for Capital Markets stocks. Next Steps: If Singapore Exchange is in your portfolio for cash-generating reasons, there may be better alternatives out there. However, if you are not strictly just a dividend investor, the stock could still offer some interesting investment opportunities. Given that this is purely a dividend analysis, I urge potential investors to try and get a good understanding of the underlying business and its fundamentals before deciding on an investment. There are three pertinent factors you should further research: Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for S68s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for S68s outlook. Valuation: What is S68 worth today? Even if the stock is a cash cow, its not worth an infinite price. The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether S68 is currently mispriced by the market. Dividend Rockstars: Are there better dividend payers with stronger fundamentals out there? Check out our free list of these great stocks here. To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements. The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. BLADENBORO, N.C. (AP) Travel remained dangerous Saturday in southeastern North Carolina, where the governor warned of "treacherous" floodwaters more than a week after Hurricane Florence made landfall, and urged residents to stay alert for flood warnings and evacuation orders. Gov. Roy Cooper said nine of the state's river gauges are at major flood stage and four others are at moderate stage, while parts of Interstates 95 and 40 will remain underwater for another week or more. Emergency management officials said residents whose homes were damaged or destroyed will begin moving into hotel rooms next week. "Hurricane Florence has deeply wounded our state, wounds that will not fade soon as the flood waters finally recede," Cooper said. South Carolina also has ordered more evacuations as rivers continue to rise in the aftermath of a storm that has claimed at least 43 lives since slamming into the coast more than a week ago. The small farming community of Nichols, South Carolina, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) from the coast, was completely inundated by water, Mayor Lawson Batter said Saturday. He called the situation "worse than Matthew," the 2016 hurricane that destroyed almost 90 percent of the town's 261 homes. Battle said flooding from Florence has wiped out the 150 or so homes rebuilt afterward. "It's just a mess," said Battle, who was awaiting a visit from Gov. Henry McMaster. "We will try everything we can to come back ... but we need to have federal and state help." Story continues Benetta White and David Lloyd were among 100 people rescued with helicopters, boats and high-wheeled military vehicles during a six-hour operation in southeastern North Carolina's Bladen County that lasted into Friday morning their second evacuation in a week. White and Lloyd, who live in the North Carolina town of Kelly, were given little time Thursday night to evacuate when the Cape Fear River came rushing onto their property. By the time they loaded their van, they had to slog through waist-high, foul-smelling water to get to a neighbor's pickup. From there, they went to the town's fire department and were taken by an Army truck to a shelter at a Bladen County high school. "We had to evacuate again, all over again, and got trapped in a bunch of water and almost lost our lives," said White. In Wilmington, where Hurricane Florence made landfall and which had been cut off by floodwaters, officials said they'd identified three safe routes into town. They encouraged people to avoid travel in areas where the risk of flooding remains. North Carolina Emergency Management Director Michael Sprayberry said Saturday that eastern counties continue to see major flooding, including areas along the Black, Lumber, Neuse and Cape Fear rivers. The Cape Fear river is expected to crest Sunday and remain at flood stage through early next week. He said residents who register with the Federal Emergency Management Agency can begin moving into hotels Monday. The program initially will be open to residents in nine counties, then will be expanded. A FEMA coordinator said about 69,000 people from North Carolina already have registered for assistance. North Carolina environmental officials said they're closely monitoring two sites where Florence's floodwaters have inundated coal ash sites . The state is using drones to get photos and video of a dam breach at the L.V. Sutton Power Station in Wilmington, where gray muck has been seen flowing into the Cape Fear River, and at the H.F. Lee Power Plant near Goldsboro, said Michael Regan, secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality. He said Saturday that the video and photos show sand and "potential coal ash" leaving the Sutton site, and the DEQ will put people on the ground when it is safe. He said that DEQ staff has seen that coal ash left the basin and entered flood waters at the H.F. Lee plant, and is trying to determine "how much of that, if any" has entered into the Neuse River. In Conway, South Carolina, water from the Waccamaw river began flowing into a Santee Cooper ash pond. The company said in a statement that the overtopping occurred Saturday morning, but no significant environmental impact was expected because nearly all of the ash had been excavated from the pond. The National Weather Service confirmed Saturday that 10 tornadoes spawned by Hurricane Florence touched down Monday in Virginia, the strongest of which leveled a flooring company in Chesterfied and killed one worker. An economic research firm estimated that Hurricane Florence has caused around $44 billion in damage and lost output, which would make it one of the top 10 costliest U.S. hurricanes. The top disaster, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, cost $192.2 billion in today's dollars, while last year's Hurricane Harvey cost $133.5 billion Moody's Analytics estimates Florence has caused $40 billion in damage and $4 billion in lost economic output, though the company stressed that the estimate is preliminary and could go higher or lower. South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster has estimated damage from the flood in his state at $1.2 billion. He asked congressional leaders to hurry federal aid. ___ Waggoner and Robertson reported from Raleigh, North Carolina. Also contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina; Dee-Ann Durbin in Detroit; Chevel Johnson in New Orleans; Meg Kinnard in Galivants Ferry, South Carolina; Denise Lavoie in Richmond, Virginia; Jay Reeves in Birmingham, Alabama; Michael Biesecker in Washington and Tammy Webber in Chicago. ___ For the latest on Hurricane Florence, visit https://www.apnews.com/tag/Hurricanes If honey catches more flies than vinegar, just how many voters will ice cream net? Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, the co-founders of Ben & Jerrys Ice Cream, aim to find out. The pair recently teamed up with MoveOn.Org, a national political nonprofit, to offer their support to seven Democratic congressional candidates. Among them is Stephany Spaulding, who is challenging incumbent U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn in Colorados conservative 5th District. We need a Democratic majority to check President Trumps unrestrained power, the business partners said on MoveOns website. Also, we need to send progressive champions to Congress who will fix our health care system with Medicare for all, protect clean air and water, and get big money out of politics. To that end, the delectable duo is soliciting ice cream flavors and corresponding names that not only taste great, but also capture the essence of what each candidate stands for. Once winning flavors and names have been settled on, theyll make batches of each and raffle them off to support the candidates. The six candidates listed alongside Spaulding for the contest are: Jess King, who is running for Pennsylvanias 11th District. Lauren Underwood, who is running for Illinois 14th District. Aftab Pureval, who is running for Ohios 1st District. J.D. Scholten, who is running for Iowas 4th District. Ammar Campa Najjar, who is running for Californias 50th District. James Thompson, who is running for Kansas 4th District. Spaulding faces a significant challenge in her quest to unseat Lamborn, who has held the seat in the Republican stronghold for more than a decade. Although many experts predict a blue wave of voters in the November elections, the last such wave did little for the 5th District. In 2006, Democratic voters unseated a great many Republican incumbents across the country, but Lamborns Democratic opponent, Jay Fawcett, only received 40.4 percent of the vote. Lamborn has outraised Spaulding three times over. Spaulding has raised $188,007, and Lamborn has raised $568,526, according to campaign finance data filed with the Federal Election Commission. Lamborn has outspent Spaulding as well. He has now spent $686,615 to Spauldings $108,942, FEC data shows. Regardless, Spaulding is pressing on. We are completely surprised and humbled by these iconic figures taking note of our race, Spaulding said in a statement. Its a sign of the growing momentum and a desire for a different flavor in Congress! This isnt the first time ice cream has been used to support a political candidate. Before the primaries in the 2016 presidential election, Cohen created Bernies Yearning in support of then-Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders. Spaulding has also received out-of-state help before. Last month, a group of all-female filmmakers from Los Angeles volunteered for her campaign by filming a campaign ad she could share online and through social media. Colorados 5th Congressional District includes El Paso, Teller, Chaffee and Fremont counties, as well as portions of Park County. Flavor suggestions can be submitted online at front.moveon.org/ben-and-jerrys-flavor-picks. conrad.swanson@gazette.com @conrad_swanson Colorado Springs developer Chuck Murphy stood humbled Friday afternoon in the hotel where he once worked as a busboy and caddie and joked that he wasnt emotional. My bladder is attached to my eyes, Murphy said after Mayor John Suthers presented him with the Spirit of the Springs Lifetime Achievement Award in The Broadmoors dinner hall. Murphy, 83, is a native of the city, and Suthers noted that the two sat next to each other in church for decades. They even graduated from the same school. Its my pleasure to recognize Chuck Murphy for his decades of outstanding service to our community, Suthers said. His passion for our past is matched only by his contributions that are shaping our citys promising future. Murphy is the man behind the renovation of many of the areas historic buildings, including the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum and the Cliff House in Manitou Springs. In a video shown during Suthers presentation, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper said he worked with Murphy to open the Phantom Canyon Brewing Company downtown. The two argued for a while about $40,000 in work that still remained before Murphy suggested they split the difference and go have a beer, Hickenlooper recalled. The two have been fast friends ever since, Hickenlooper said. Alongside his work as a developer, Murphy has served on The Historic Preservation Alliance, The Downtown Partnership, city spokeswoman Jennifer Schreuder said in a release. He has also worked on boards for the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center and Pikes Peak Hospice. Im just honored, Murphy said. Were in for a great, great run in Colorado Springs, and I couldnt be prouder. Murphy thanked his wife, Mary Lou, with whom he will celebrate their 62nd anniversary this year. He also mentioned the five children they had within seven years. They call that Vatican Roulette, he laughed. The city has come along way in his lifetime, Murphy said. When he was little people lived off the tourists in the summer and each other in the winter. Although Colorado Springs is now much more substantial in size and stature, the community within remains the most important piece, he said. Im so fortunate to live here, he said. conrad.swanson@gazette.com @conrad_swanson The family of homicide victim Brandon Watkins is preparing to fight the 4th Judicial District Attorneys Offices apparent decision not to file charges against Watkins fiancee, who allegedly stabbed him in the heart with a steak knife over his request to invite a former love interest to their wedding. Watkins sister, Erika Watkins, said in an emailed statement that Deputy District Attorney Andy Vaughan told her family he is planning to drop charges. But Erika Watkins said her family will not allow the senseless murder of Brandon to be whitewashed under ... (the) guise of prosecutorial discretion. The DAs Office has not confirmed whether it will pursue charges against Jacqueline Souza, 33, who was arrested in July on suspicion of second-degree murder in Watkins death. Spokeswoman Lee Richards told The Gazette on Friday that her office will make our statement to the judge in open court at the next court date. Gazette news partner KKTV was at the Sept. 12 hearing where charges were initially expected to be filed against Souza. The station reported that the prosecutor told the judge the DAs office may not file charges or proceed with the case. The prosecutor did not explain why at that time, but said the office would make a final decision on charges at the next court hearing, where Watkins family could be present to weigh in, KKTV reported. A hearing is scheduled for Oct. 19. Since then, Erika Watkins said, the familys many questions about why charges would not be filed have gone unanswered, but said Vaughan previously told the family if (Souza) claimed self-defense it would be difficult to prove otherwise beyond a reasonable doubt a legal standard meaning the facts do not support any other logical explanation. Per the American Bar Associations website, A prosecutor should seek or file criminal charges only if the prosecutor reasonably believes that the charges are supported by probable cause, that admissible evidence will be sufficient to support conviction beyond a reasonable doubt, and that the decision to charge is in the interests of justice. Erika Watkins said it should be up to a jury to decide Souzas innocence based on the evidence in the case, but that process isnt possible without a charge. Charges can be dropped or changed, she said, but to not file them at all sends a message that violent criminals will not be charged due to a scintilla of possibility of a self-defense instruction at trial. Its the most devastating news weve heard since being told Brandon died, she later told The Gazette by phone. (Vaughan) just didnt do his job. I cant have my brother murdered and not even fight to get justice for it. Hed do it for any of us. The county Coroners Office has ruled Watkins death a homicide the act of one human killing another adding that the Investigation and autopsy findings are consistent with this occurring during a physical altercation with another individual. Police indicated in court records that they were skeptical of Souza after her account of the stabbing changed with each telling. Souza admitted theyd been arguing on the way home from a bar about a wedding guest Watkins wanted to invite. She suspected he was having an affair. But first, Souza said the fight had nothing to do with it, telling police she walked into the kitchen to find Watkins with a knife sticking out of his chest and the sliding glass door open. Then, she said he might have stabbed himself in the chest. The third time, she said she accused him of cheating with multiple women, prompting him to grab her by the throat and push her up against the wall of the garage. Later, she said they were in the kitchen when he held a knife up to her face to scare her but did not threaten her or touch her with it. To get away, Souza said she pushed Watkins in the chest and he fell down on top of the knife. Police said Souzas account was not consistent with evidence; an affidavit also said they were suspicious about a dark bruise roughly the size of the butt end or finger grip portion of a steak knife on her right, dominant hand. The affidavit also noted Souza told police several times she had enough of Brandon Watkins and his behavior towards her, and wanted to confront him and call off the wedding but knew it would cause him to become angrier. Police declined to comment Friday on whether they agree with the DAs expected decision not to pursue the recommended charge of second-degree murder, defined in Colorado law as when a person knowingly causes the death of another, but not with deliberation. Spokesman Lt. Howard Black said detectives have completed an exhaustive and complete investigation. This case is now in the jurisdiction of the District Attorneys Office. Contact the writer at 719-636-0362 or find her on Twitter: @njKaitlinDurbin. Teleperformance opens its new site at Vertis North in Quezon City. Shown during the ribbon-cutting ceremony are (from left) Teleperformance Philippines senior vice president Jeffrey Johnson, IT and Business Process Association of the Philippines president Rey Untal, Department of Information and Communication Technology Undersecretary Monchito Ibrahim, French Embassy economic counselor Estrade Laurent, Teleperformance Philippines managing director Travis Coates, site director Rina Villarba and vice president for operations Bryan Ashby. Teleperformance, one of the largest private sector employers in the Philippines, opened a new site in Quezon City and expects to hire thousands of new BPO employees, on top of the 40,000 people already in its roster in the country. The French BPO giant opened its 19th site in the Philippines at Vertis North in Quezon City on Sept. 13. It announced job openings in the new site which can accommodate up to 3,000 professionals.Travis Coates, managing director of Teleperformance Philippines, said the company aimed to increase its already 40,000 employees in the country through further expansion. Coates said the company was expecting to hire around 4,000 to 5,000 more people in the next few months to cater to online retail clients as well as healthcare services in the US. The new site at Vertis Tower 1 spans nine floors which, at full capacity, will be able to accommodate 3,000 employees. The site is strategically located within the mixed-use Ayala commercial complex at Edsa corner Minadanao Ave.Teleperformance now counts 19 sites in the country, making it the largest in Asia. Coates said the company was still looking to expand and sustain its growth in the Philippines. Were constantly looking at where is the next location for us. As we continue to grow and get more clients, well continue to open as many sites as we need, said Coates. Teleperformance is celebrating its 22nd year in the Philippines. It is the first in the country to receive a certification from the Great Place to Work Institute. LONDON, Sept. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ethiopia was the worlds fastest-growing economy in 2017, but over recent years, historic issues in sub-Saharan Africa have too often obscured the story of the countrys remarkable economic progress. While Ethiopia faces systemic problems around its infrastructure and energy, its charismatic leader, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, is expected to propel the country to new heights. Elizabeth Matsangou explains why Ethiopia is poised to become a regional hub in terms of manufacturing, transportation, energy and economic leadership in the latest edition of World Finance magazine. Elsewhere in the magazine, Barclay Ballard examines Germanys reluctance to increase military spending. Although the country possess the European Unions largest economy, biggest population and most substantial trade surplus, the shadow of Germanys history looms over its military. However, facing hostility from Russia and an isolationist agenda from the US, Europe may well need a strong German military to help maintain stability. Meanwhile, Courtney Goldsmith weighs the benefits of nuclear power against the rising costs of the complex technology. With the price of wind and solar power plummeting, can the worlds decarbonisation goals be achieved without taking on the huge cost of new nuclear projects? Topics covered elsewhere in the autumn issue of World Finance include whether impact bonds can be a sustainable way to finance international development programmes, what the post-Castro era has in store for Cubas economy and how one Russian bank has prospered in an industry full of enormous challenges. To read about all of this and more, pick up the latest issue of World Finance magazine, available in print, on tablet and online now. www.worldfinance.com World News Media is a leading publisher of quality financial and business magazines, which enjoys a global distribution network that includes subscriber lists of prominent decision-makers around the world. Jollibee opened its first store in Europe in Milan, Italysignaling the start of further expansion in the continent. Jollibee Vietnam opened its 100th store in the city of Can Tho to long lines of Vietnamese locals excited to try their Jollibee favorites. Red Ribbon opened its 400th Branch in Manaoag, Pangasinan. Acquired in 2005, the brand has since then risen to be one of the countrys top bakeshop chains. Jollibee Foods Corp., the largest Asian restaurant company in the world, aims to continue expanding locally and globally even as it celebrated a vibrant first semester with more stores. Through the expansion of our brands, we get to share great tasting food and service to our customers. We are excited to further spread the joy of eating not only in the Philippines, but also to the world, JFC chief executive Ernesto Tanmantiong said in a statement. Following the success of Jollibees rapid expansion to eight stores in Hong Kong, Jollibee opened its first store in Macau, serving a taste of home for the nearly 40,000 OFWs residing in Macau.Jollibee also opened its first store in Europe in March 2018 at the historic Piazza Diaz in Milan, Italy. The brand also plans to further expand in the continent, with the first store in the United Kingdom opening within a year. It also celebrated its 100th store in Vietnam, opening in the city of Can Tho. The store opened to hundreds of Vietnamese locals lining up to get a taste of their Jollibee favorites. Jollibee is now the third largest quick service restaurant brand in Vietnam, and it plans to open 20 more stores in the country this year. This year also marked Jollibees 200th store in the Middle East and Asia combined region, with the Jalan Muara store opening in Brunei.Jollibee further plans to enter new markets particularly Indonesia and Malaysia in the near future.In the North America region, Jollibee also opened its first store in Toronto, Canada, and targets to reach 100 stores in the country within the next five years. In the Philippines, Mang Inasal, which was fully acquired by JFC in 2016, opened its 500th store in Mandurriao, Iloilo. Red Ribbon another prominent JFC brand acquired in 2005 and one of the countrys top bakeshop chains also opened its 400th store in the vicinity of Manaoag, Pangasinan.These milestones show the capability of the Filipino to compete in the global stage. This is made all the more special as we celebrate our 40th anniversary this year - proving that we are indeed spreading the joy of eating across the globe, said Tanmantiong. Moreover, other brands under the companys expansion agenda include Chowking, Greenwich Pizza, Burger King Philippines, Chinese chains Yonghe King and Hong Zhuang Yuan, Dunkin Donuts China, Vietnamese brands PHO24 and Highlands Coffee, and recently consolidated US-based chain Smashburger. JFC operates a total of over 4,200 stores in 21 countries across the globe. A militant lawmaker has denounced the budget cut in the Commission on Elections, saying it is untimely because of the midterm elections next year. ACT Teachers Party-list Rep. France Castro voiced her concern during the plenary debates on the 2019 budget of the poll body, saying election workers and Comelec employees will be the ones to suffer. Under the proposed P3.757 trillion national budget for 2019, the Comelec is allotted P10.27 billion, down from this years budget of P16.15 billion. While the poll bodys proposed budget for next year is P15.88 billion or 36.73 percent lower than its 2018 outlay, Comelec incurred the biggest cut in terms of percentage among all other government agencies, said Castro. Comelec does not deserve a budget this shockingly low especially in light of the upcoming 2019 elections, Castro, a member of the Makabayan Bloc in the House of Representatives, said.We urge Congress to reject the proposed 2019 budget of Comelec because it will not be enough for it to facilitate a successful national elections that is also in compliant with existing laws. We worry that this kind of budget cut might cripple the body tasked by our Constitution to protect our right to vote and ensure clean and honest elections, she added. She added that the proposed 2019 Comelec budget does not comply with the Election Service Reform Act, or ESRA law. Republic Act No. 10756 or ERDA provides for increased honoraria and compensation package for the Boards of Election Inspectors and other election workers. These BEIs are mostly public school teachers who are already overworked with their tasks in school. With the current proposed budget of the Comelec, BEIs will not be properly compensated. We, therefore, demand an increase in the budget for the Comelec to enable it to comply with existing laws, Castro said. 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 President Rodrigo Duterte has once more criticized the Netherlands-based International Criminal Court and the European Union, showing his impiety against these two organizations and imposing what they said were Western values on the Philippines. In his speech Friday at the Asia Pacific Association of Gastroenterology forum in Lapu-Lapu City in Cebu, the President, addressing the ICC, said:. Youre all bulls*****. They want to send me to prison and try me for genocide... Theyre a bunch of criminals. Show me how they died, when they died, where? Nothing. They [the ICC] would just say, Duterte time, 4,000 killed. Me killing 4,000? I wont even have time to sit for a sh*t. It would keep me busy for 24 hours, he said. Duterte issued the statement following White House National Security Advisor John Boltons attack on the Hague-based rights body. Directing his ire against the European Union, Duterte said: Whats your problem? Who are you to run my country? Thats the problem with the European Union. They are into international governing. They create an ICC, European community, and they try to impose their values and the way they think how criminal is categorized. Its neocolonialism, he said, in reference to an expansionist doctrine.Duterte is facing complaints before the ICC over his war on drugs and his reported role in the alleged death squad killings in Davao City, where he ruled as mayor for over two decades. The President has withdrawn the Philippines ratification of the United Nations treaty that created the ICC, but it is being questioned before the Supreme Court. Duterte, an alumnus of the Catholic school San Beda University, also criticized Catholic Church leaders for purportedly turning a blind eye to cases of abuse by its priests. They all keep on making this facade of righteousness when they know that after all they are also bunch of sh*t, he said. Continuing his rant, Duterte said Asking [for] cars from the government, getting [them] free, when they know very well that there is a separation of Church and State, that no money of the government should be spent for benefit of religion. Coming up on Indiana Newsdesk: INDOT wants to close state road 37 in Martinsville for much of 2021. Whether thats good or bad well, it depends on who you ask. Ahead well look at what it could mean for Martinsville. Plus, nothing says fall like persimmons in Indiana. Folks from all over the state are heading to Mitchell to celebrate the local fruit. And proposed wind farm projects in central Indiana are facing opposition because of health worries. But researchers say there isnt enough evidence to say wind turbines make most of us sick. Those stories plus the latest news headlines from across the state Friday at 6 p.m. on Indiana Newsdesk! WTIU-TV | Friday 6 p.m. and Saturday 4 p.m. WFYI-TV 3 | Friday 10:30 p.m. WFYI-TV | Sunday 1 p.m. The Leagues general secretary made the announcement yesterday. The organisation, which promotes "pan-Islamism", wants the meeting open to all Islamic and Christian confessions. The dark page in Sunni-Shia relations must be turned. Irans extremist confessional policies are criticised. What is needed is a return to an Islam that is open to the world and other religions. Beirut (AsiaNews/Agencies) The Muslim World League (MWL) has decided to organise a world Islamic-Christian conference next year in Beirut, the organisations secretary general, Mohammad al-Issa, announced yesterday. The MWL, the religious arm of Saudi Wahhabism, promotes pan-Islamism, the political unification of all Muslim peoples, and has as its mission the spread of Islamic teachings through Islamic schools and institutes. Al-Issa, a former Saudi Justice minister, has led the organisation since 2016. Yesterday, he met with Lebanese President Michel Aoun, National Assembly Speaker Nabih Berry, Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Elias Audeh, and Shia (Jafari) Mufti Ahmad Kabalan. Afterwards, al-Issa gave a press conference at the Phoenicia Hotel. For al-Issa, Lebanon is the "natural" location for the MWL initiative of reconciliation between Muslims and Christians and between Muslims. Addressing the mufti, he said that it was time to "turn the dark page of the past and start a new relationship based on tolerance, equality and cooperation ... and achieve brotherly Muslim reconciliation, developing in depth all that can lead to the purification of hearts and the dissipation of conflicts and differences, particularly between the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran, to block those who use the Ummah to pursue personal interests and act according to the principle of divide and rule. However, al-Issa put a side for a moment such a conciliatory tone when he criticised the "extremist confessional politics of Iran in the region", albeit noting that this does not apply to Shias. Responding to criticism that his country promotes the most rigid Islam in the world, he said that "Saudi Arabia was not like that before 1979. Saudi Arabia and the whole region were touched by the Sahwa movement (close to the Muslim brotherhood), which has tried to propagate extremist ideas. We want to go back to what we were: a moderate Islam open to the world, open to all religions." "What we do and what we want to do is to purify Islam, he insisted, in order to free ourselves from extremism, false interpretations, and pass on the correct readings of Islam". With only more than a month until Boracay Island reopens to the public, President Rodrigo Duterte emphasized the importance of limiting the tourist destinations carrying capacity. Not all Filipinos and all tourists can go to Boracay. It cannot accommodate everyone, Duterte said in Cebuano during his visit to landslide victims in Naga City, Cebu province. If its a house, it would be similar to having just one comfort room for a thousand people, he added. The President, however, assured the public that the inter-agency task force assigned to oversee the rehabilitation of Boracay was continuously studying the best way to manage the island. Meanwhile, he also complimented the rehabilitation efforts in the island, noting that Boracay now looks better than before. Now it looks good, Duterte said. He earlier said he intended to visit Boracay one of these days. The task force is composed of the departments of Environment, Interior, and Tourism.They are still trying to see, still studying how to best manage it, Duterte said. Earlier, Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu said Boracays carrying capacity for tourists would be limited to 19,215 a day. This figure includes 6,405 tourist arrivals a day. Malacanang has urged the task force to maintain the islands carrying capacity to assure that its rehabilitation efforts would be sustained. The task force also recommended evaluating the feasibility of using the extra available rooms, promoting the use of wetlands for filtering out waste from both soil and water, maximizing open spaces for vegetation, minimizing point source pollution, minimizing coastal erosion, and establishing permanent monitoring facilities in designated areas, among others. Last April 26, Duterte ordered the closure of Boracay for six months after lamenting since February that the top tourist destination has turned into a cesspool for its poor sewerage system. Boracay Island is expected to reopen as scheduled on Oct. 26. Diwata-2, the Philippines second micro-satellite, is scheduled to be launched into space some time this year. Like its predecessor Diwata-1, Diwata-2 was designed and developed by Filipino scientists and engineers to help in assessing the extent of damages after a disaster as well as to monitor the countrys natural resources. But like a true successor, Diwata-2 is a next step forward rather than a retreading. Diwata-2 is an improvement on its predecessor, and there are reasons to be excited about its launching into space. When Diwata-2 begins orbiting the Earth, it will be capable of performing the following functions. One, it will take photographs of disaster-stricken areas to help authorities assess the extent of the damages. Two, it will monitor the state of the countrys natural and cultural heritage site. Three, it will monitor changes in vegetation. Four, it will help in observing cloud patterns and weather disturbances, including ones that might affect Filipinos. Diwata-1 has been doing these things since it was deployed into orbit on April 27, 2016. The first images it beamed down to the ground receiving station in Quezon City were hailed by experts as world-best. Diwata-1 even helped in the imaging of the recent Typhoon Ompong (international name Mangkhut), showing the promise of space technology in making Filipinos safer. Over the last couple of years, Diwata-1, the Philippines first micro-satellite, has taken thousands of images with many different uses. These images have now been made public on the programs website so that the general public can see some of the benefits of a homegrown space program. Diwata-2 will do many of the things it predecessor did, but it will also do more. Like its predecessor, Diwata-2 is a micro-satellite. Unlike some satellites which can be as heavy as grand piano or even a car, micro-satellites are smaller machines, with masses somewhere between 10 and 100 kg. Diwata-2, for example, has a size and mass similar to a luggage (it is a cube 50 centimeters on each side and has a mass of 50 kilos). Diwata-2 will have many of the same instruments as its predecessor: powerful cameras that can help in monitoring the ground and observing the weather. However, Diwata-2 will be orbiting the Earth 213 kilometers higher than its sibling satellite. Diwata-1 orbits the Earth about 400-km above the ground. This is similar to the altitude of the International Space Station (ISS), and that is no accident. The Philippines first microsatellite was carried by a rocket to the ISS, from which it was deployed. Diwata-2, on the other hand, will be carried by a rocket directly into its orbit more than 600-km above sea level. The orbit of the newer satellite was specially chosen sun-synchronous orbit. This special orbit will allow the satellite to pass above a given spot on the ground at similar times.With Diwata-2 being sun-synchronous, we get passes in a more periodic way, Dr. Gay Jane Perez, who is part of the program, told Rappler. So, if we have an area, for example, experiencing drought, we can monitor the development on this specific area. In other words, the orbit of Diwata-2 improves its ability to monitor events as they develop. Diwata-2 is also equipped with solar panels that will generate energy to power its instruments. With the newer satellite orbiting higher up, it will be experiencing less drag from the upper portion of the Earths exosphere. This will give it a longer usable life compared to its predecessor. Diwata-2 satellite also has an instrument on board that is capable of communicating with amateur radio operators on the ground. This will allow licensed amateur radio operators to communicate with other parts of the country when all other channels are knocked down in case of a disaster. This might be crucial during disaster relief operations. The Diwata satellites are part of the PHL-Microsat program. PHL-Microsat stands for Philippine Scientific Earth Observation Microsatellite. The program is a collaboration between the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and two universities in Japan, Hokkaido University and Tohoku University. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) also helps in this program. The goal of the PHL-Microsat program is to help the country build the capacity to make use of outer space to help address issues that matter to the everyday lives of Filipinos. In addition to Diwata-1 and 2, the program also produced Maya-1, the Philippines first nano-satellite. Nano-satellites are even smaller, with masses between 1 and 10 kg. Maya-1 is about the size of a handbag (10 cm on two sides and 11.35 cm on the third) and masses only 1.11 kilograms. Although small, the products of the countrys initial attempts to go to space are already having positive impacts on the ground. Just imagine what more bigger homegrown satellites can do? Pecier Decierdo is the resident physicist and astronomer of The Mind Museum. China Is Building the Worlds Largest Innovation Economy China is on its way to becoming the largest economy in the world. In just one generation, something like 300 million+ people went from rural subsistence farming to urban industrial and technology jobs. This transition from rural poverty to export powerhouse to consumer goliath may be the most consequential economic event in centuries. Yet this story is largely ignored in the US and in much of Europe. We hear about a few projects here and there, but we dont understand the extent. John Mauldin Archive On an export dollar per population, China out-exports the US at $2,263 billion dollars. Still, the US is second, Germany comes in third at $1,448 billion, and the Netherlands with a population of only 17 million people exports at $652 billion.Beijing sees this same data and realizes its leadership is not guaranteed. China needs to develop its own technology and through a combination of government edicts and profit-seeking, it is right now in a major effort to build its own innovation economy Beijing is forcing money into venture capital at an astonishing pace.My friend Peter Diamandis toted up the numbers last month.By end of 2017, 3,418 Chinese VC funds were launched within the year, raising a combined $243 billion USD or 1.61 trillion RMB.Of the $154 billion worth of VC invested in 2017, 40 percent came from Asian (primarily Chinese) VCs. Americas share? Only 4 percentage points higher at 44 percent.In the first three quarters of 2017, 493 state-backed funds were founded with a capital size of 114 billion USD (756.8 billion RMB).And as of two years earlier, Chinese VC coffers had surpassed a remarkable $336.4 billion USD.In a great push to scoop up intellectual property and drive growth in key tech sectors, Chinas VC scene is booming.As of 2016, Chinas Venture Capital investment had roughly caught up to US levels. Now, it is probably ahead.Source: VentureBeatPeter Diamandis says Chinese VC firms are targeting three segments: robotics, driverless vehicles, and biotechnology.Theres yet one more profound development in China underway.Financial Times recently reported Beijing plans to integrate former Western colonies Hong Kong and Macau with other nearby urban areas including Shenzhen and Guangzhou into this Greater Bay Area.Already, it accounts for 12% of Chinese GDP and 37% of the countrys exports. Beijing wants the GBA to lead the nations innovation and economic growth.To that end, the government is pouring infrastructure investment into the region, including a 22-mile bridge connecting Hong Kong and Macau (not cheap!) with the mainland and a new $11 billion rail link for Hong Kong. It also plans to eliminate some of the bureaucratic barriers that presently slow down commerce.The size of this region is hard to comprehend. With nearly 70 million people and $1.5 trillion GDP, it is economically bigger than Australia or Mexico. Guangdong (the mainland China part) alone exported $670 billion in goods last year. Three of the worlds ten busiest container ports are in the region. It will be Silicon Valley on steroids.For that matter, it could be the US on steroids, at least geographically.China has produced more scientists and engineers for decades than the West has combined. As a graphic illustration, here are the countries with the most STEM graduates:Source: ForbesHowever, many of us had suspicions about the quality of the universities and their degrees. They couldnt be as good as ours, could they? It turns out they are comparable and possibly even better in some areas.A recent study found that in 2016, roughly 24% of scientific papers had an author with a Chinese name or address. If you include Chinese-language papers, it jumps to 37%.Looking at it another way, China has 15% of global GDP but produces more than a third of the scientific papers. It seems those university degrees are beginning to pay off in actual research.My friend and New York Times best-seller Matt Ridley says human progress and prosperity make the greatest leaps when ideas have sex with each other. This creative process happens faster and more easily when the idea-holders share proximity.In the US, Silicon Valley often serves this purpose. Along with Austin, Dallas, Boston, New York, and others.China has abundant venture capital to fund research and large numbers of researchers cranking out ideas. It needs a central place for those ideas to have frequent sex with each other.The Chinese government is aware of this. And with massive infrastructure projects like the Greater Bay Area, China is gradually building its own innovation cluster.Economic growth is largely a numbers game: workers times productivity. China already has both ingredients and is working assiduously to enhance them further For now, the US is still ahead, but we shouldnt be complacent. Nothing requires the global economy to keep us in the lead, and we are not doing what we should to keep it.Sharp macroeconomic analysis, big market calls, and shrewd predictions are all in a weeks work for visionary thinker and acclaimed financial expert John Mauldin. Since 2001, investors have turned to histo be informed about whats really going on in the economy. Join hundreds of thousands of readers, and get it free in your inbox every week. 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication. Leftists are scum. Here's Rod on Marine Le Pen: Absolutely: Solidarity with Marine Le Pen! You do not have to agree with her politics to be revolted by what the French state is trying to do to her, and why. Even Jean-Luc Melenchon, the far-left French politician, is defending her here. Le Pen posted documentary evidence of actual ISIS atrocities, in an attempt to demonstrate that there is no comparison between ISIS and her political party. So now, in France, simply posting images of actual, real-life events may be evidence of criminal insanity. (emphasis added) Do you not see where this is going? Do you not see why it must be stopped cold? The Soviet Union used to declare dissidents criminally insane and imprison them in psychiatric units. And now the same sort of thing is manifesting in the West, by those who want to preserve liberalism at all costs. Those who challenge the regime, even with facts and images, will be taken to court and forced to submit to tests to prove that they are not criminally insane. A breathtaking irony: the French state is doing this to silence those who criticize barbarians who would destroy liberalism. Man Sentenced for Killing UCLA Student A Fresno man was sentenced today to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 2015 murder of a 21-year-old UCLA student whose body was found after a fire at her Westwood apartment, the Los Angeles County District Attorneys Office announced. In May, Alberto Hinojosa Medina (dob 9/15/93) was found guilty of one count of first-degree murder and the special circumstance allegation of murder during a burglary was found to be true. Medina also was convicted of one count of arson of an inhabited structure, two counts of first-degree burglary and one count of animal cruelty. ADVERTISEMENT Deputy District Attorney Victor Avila of the Major Crimes Division prosecuted the case. Medina burglarized an apartment in the 10900 block of Roebling Street on Sept. 21, 2015, and then entered a second apartment where he fatally stabbed Andrea DelVesco and set her apartment on fire before fleeing. DelVescos body was found by firefighters inside her apartment. She was a fourth-year UCLA student from Austin, Texas, and a member of the Pi Beta Phi sorority. In December 2017, Eric Marquez (dob 5/12/93) pleaded guilty to one count each of first-degree burglary and accessory after the fact. He was sentenced in June to two years and eight months in prison. Case SA091348 was investigated by the Los Angeles Police Departments Robbery-Homicide Division. Higher education can test a persons academic abilities in many ways. Most study programs require research, class discussions, presentations and group projects, to name a few. Yet if you asked almost any professor or student, they would likely tell you that writing is one of the skills most often examined at colleges and universities. In the United States, writing long essays about complex subjects has been, in many cases, a major part of higher education for years. However, a new study suggests that many current college students have never experienced the challenge of writing very long papers. And some experts argue this may not be as necessary a requirement for their success overall. The higher education research company Primary Research Group published the findings of its study in late July. It includes data gathered from 1,140 students at four-year colleges and universities in the U.S. The students were asked about the kinds of long-form writing they had done and the amount of writing training they had received. Nearly one third of them had never been required to write an essay of ten pages or more in length. James Moses is the president of Primary Research Group. He says, ten pages might seem like an unnecessarily large amount of writing, especially for students in fields like math or science. In fact, he argues, many students avoid longer papers by choosing subjects in which they are less likely to be required. Moses says students are likely attracted to those fields because they see many of todays highest paying jobs are at big technology companies. But he says that many young people fail to understand that there is still great demand for skilled writers in the job market. And long form writing assignments do more than measure how much or for how long a person can write about any given thing. More than anything else, a long paper teaches you planning and organization, to a much greater extent than most other exercises that I can think of in higher education, he told VOA. University of California, Davis writing teacher Dan Melzer agrees. He says long form writing assignments can teach skills that are useful even in fields that may not seem to be related to writing. For example, engineers often have to write long, detailed proposals for building projects. Businesses require well-written business plans to get bank loans or money from private investors. Both Melzer and Moses agree that there is a deep lack of writing instruction, at all levels of education. The Primary Research Group study found that about 40 percent of college students were not receiving any writing training. This is not surprising to Melzer, He says it is common for colleges and universities facing financial difficulties to make cuts in such programs. And he says professors often expect students to be well trained in long form writing, from their high school studies or earlier. But Melzer says that is not fair to students, especially those whose educational experiences were centered on skills other than writing. So, he says, professors of subjects that are not heavy in writing should find ways to include the skill in instruction. If your teachers are only giving you exams and youre cramming for the exam and kind of spitting out real short answersyoure not really doing in-depth thinking or critical thinking, he said. Youre not really using your mind to the fullest. Elaine Maimon is the president of Governors State University in University Park, Illinois. She also helped establish the Writing Across the Curriculum movement in the 1970s. This was an effort to get professors in fields like science, technology, engineering and mathematics to make greater use of writing in their classes. Supporters of the movement seek to train such professors in writing instruction. They also help professors share successful writing assignments with each other and show them how best to criticize students written work. Maimon shares the opinions of Melzer and Moses that writing instruction is highly important. Still, she is not as concerned about the lack of longer assignments. She agrees that in some cases, these long assignments can challenge students in a helpful way. But length is not the only quality that is important, she says. Counting pages,thats not the way to assess whether students are learning to be writers, said Maimon. If you say, We have a great program and the students have to write five ten-page papers, what youre going to get is a lot of filler. So students arent going to be learning how to write, rewrite, rethink. And when should something be brief instead of long? We want to make sure students understand that, too. Im Pete Musto. And Im Dorothy Gundy. Pete Musto reported this story for VOA Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor. We want to hear from you. How important is it for college and university students to write essays that are ten pages or longer? Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page. ______________________________________________________________ Quiz Quiz - Long Writing Assignments Not So Common at US Colleges, Study Finds Start the Quiz to find out Start Quiz ______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story academic adj. of or relating to schools and education essay(s) n. a piece of writing that tells a person's thoughts or opinions about a subject challenge n. a difficult task or problem page(s) n. one side of a sheet of paper especially in a book, magazine or essay attract(ed) v. to cause someone to like or be interested in something assignment(s) n. a job or duty that is given to someone extent n. used to indicate the degree to which something exists, happens, or is true cram(ming) v. to prepare for a test by learning a lot of information quickly spit(ting) out p.v. to say or write something without thinking about what is being said or written assess v. to make a judgment about something The government of U.S. President Donald Trump announced this week that it plans to limit the number of refugee arrivals in the U.S. to a record low number. But refugee activists and lawmakers say Congress still has time to change the presidents mind. On Monday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke to reporters about the plan. He claimed that refugees can be a security threat to the United States. In answer, he said, the executive branch is proposing a limit of up to 30,000 refugees in the fiscal year that begins October 1. If approved, the number would be the lowest since the early 1980s. Before the president makes the final decision, however, lawmakers in Congress must be able to give their advice. Jen Smyers is with the Church World Service, one of the leading refugee resettlement groups in the United States. She says government officials often suggest a number before the final decision is made. And, she says, Congress has succeeded before in increasing the planned number of refugee arrivals. But, she added on a telephone call with reporters, the timeline is tight. The final decision will be made by the end of this month. Trump has already cut refugee numbers During Trump's first year in office, his government set the limit at 45,000 refugees. However, with less than two weeks remaining in the fiscal year, less than half of that amount has been reached. Philemon Dushimire is a refugee from Burundi who now lives in Maine. There, he is a community organizer among the Burundi immigrant and refugee community. He told VOA that the decrease in the refugee limit may affect how the United States is viewed abroad. "The risk now [is that] America will be seen as a country which doesnt care about human rights violations in some places of the world. Which doesnt care about the safety of people in danger, he said. Some lawmakers from both major parties have criticized the proposed refugee limit. Democratic Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts accused the Trump government of trying to isolate America and not caring about people suffering around the world. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican from the Miami area, also answered on social media. She is a political refugee herself. With crises in every region of the world, U.S. should be doing more, not less, to be a global leader in refugee protection, she tweeted shortly after Pompeos announcement on Monday. Im Phil Dierking. This story was originally reported by Victoria Macchi and Patrick Nduwimana for VOANews.com. Phil Dierking adapted this story for VOA Learning English. Kelly Jean Kelly was the editor. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page. _____________________________________________________________ Words in This Story appalled - adj. to feel fear, shock, or disgust circumstance - n. a condition or fact that affects a situation fiscal - adj. of or relating to money and especially to the money a government, business, or organization earns, spends, and owes isolate - v. to put or keep (someone or something) in a place or situation that is separate from others resettle - v. to begin to live in a new area after leaving an old one slash - v. to make a long cut in (something) with a knife or other sharp weapon stakeholder - n. a person or business that has invested money in something (such as a company) In the United States, the number of people who were born overseas rose last year to its highest share in over a century. The increase raised the number of foreign-born residents to 44.5 million in 2017, up 1.8 percent from a year earlier. Those numbers come from the U.S. Census Bureau. The administration of President Donald Trump has said it wants to restrict legal immigration. It has increased efforts to detain and expel immigrants who entered the country without the governments permission. In fact, notes Randy Capps, the government has done little to restrict legal immigration. Capps studies changes in population at the Migration Policy Institute. He told the Reuters news agency that Americas strong job market likely caused part of the increase in the foreign-born population. The economys definitely a factor in this, not just in more people coming but in more people staying, Capps said. Foreign-born residents made up 13.7 percent of the U.S. population in 2017, up from 13.5 percent in 2016. Those numbers come from the Census Bureau. That made the percentage of immigrants in the United States last year the highest since 1910, when they made up 14.7 percent of the population. Stephen Bannon once worked as an adviser to President Trump. Bannon had claimed that 20 percent of the population had immigrated to the United States. He called it the biggest problem for Americans who could not find a job. The Census Bureau information showed that an increasing number of immigrants were from Asia or had completed higher education. This continues a trend over the past few years during which immigration from Mexico slowed. The information comes from the U.S. governments American Community Survey. Experts believe this survey is the best way to estimate the immigrant population. The study is also used to measure population changes in cities and counties around the country. It counts all people born outside the U.S. and does not identify whether they are in the country legally or illegally. Experts say the survey likely undercounts those living in the country illegally. Illegal immigrants can be more difficult to identify in population counts because of informal housing. Also, some illegal immigrants do not take part in the survey for fear of being reported to the government, experts say. Jeffrey Passel is a population researcher at Pew Research Center. He estimates that the true immigrant population is likely three percent to five percent higher than the number in the American Community Survey. I'm Susan Shand Reuters reported this story. Susan Shand adapted this story for VOA Learning English. George Grow was the editor. _____________________________________________________________ Words in This Story census n. counting of people living in an area to trend n. a general direction of change : survey n. an activity in which many people are asked a question or a series of questions in order to gather information about what most people do or think about something informal adj. not requiring serious or official behavior factor n. something that helps to produce a result bureau n. a specialized office or agency resident n. someone who liv This is What's Trending Today... American President Donald Trump has questioned the honesty of the woman who accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault. The woman, Christine Blasey Ford, says Kavanaugh attacked her at a house party in 1982. Both were in high school at the time. Kavanaugh has denied the accusations, saying he never attacked Ford or any other woman. Fords accusation -- and how it may affect Kavanaughs nomination -- has been a leading news story this week in the United States. On Friday morning, Trump praised his Supreme Court nominee on Twitter. He also wrote, If the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with police. Trump continued, I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place! By Friday afternoon, people had posted more than 50,000 messages in answer to Trumps tweet. Many noted some of their own reasons for not reporting attacks to police. The hashtag #WhyIDidntReport exploded on social media. It soon became the top trending topic on Twitter. Some described why they feared coming forward. Others said they knew they would not be believed -- by the police, their community, or their family. Some described being abused by members of their own family. And some said they were too young at the time to know what to do. RAINN is the largest American organization against sexual violence. Its website says 310 out of every 1,000 sexual attacks are reported to police. The Senate Judiciary Committee had completed its confirmation hearings for nominee Brett Kavanaugh on September 7. Then, on September 12, the Intercept online news site reported about a letter that described how Kavanaugh had assaulted a woman in 1982. Ford came forward as the writer of the letter on Monday. Ford is a university professor in California. Her lawyers say she has received death threats since her name and story became public. She and her family have fled their California home. Her lawyers say Ford is willing to answer questions in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, if her safety can be promised. Committee chairman Chuck Grassley, a Republican, has announced a public hearing for Monday where both Ford and Kavanaugh can appear to tell their stories. However, Fords lawyer, Debra Katz, answered that "Monday's date is not possible. She added that the committee's request that it happen on that date is without reason. Katz said Ford's "strong preference" is that "a full investigation" be completed before she testifies. On Thursday night, the White House released a letter from Kavanaugh to Grassley in which he said he wants to tell his side in a Monday hearing. "I will be there. I continue to want a hearing as soon as possible so that I can clear my name," he wrote. Republican lawmakers are trying to win Senate confirmation for Kavanaugh ahead of the court's start of a new term on October 1. And that's What's Trending Today. Im Caty Weaver. Ashley Thompson wrote this report with materials from the Associated Press and social media. Caty Weaver was the editor. _____________________________________________________________ Words in This Story assault - n. a violent attack file - v. to give (something, such as an official form or a legal document) to someone in authority so that it can be considered, dealt with, approved, etc. willing - adj. not refusing to do something afternoon - n. the middle part of the day preference - n. a feeling of liking or wanting one person or thing more than another person or thing In a rural area in northern Yemen, many families with starving children have nothing to eat but the leaves of a local plant. They cook the leaves in water, creating a bitter, sharp-tasting green substance. International aid agencies have been surprised by the level of starvation in northern Yemen, as parents and children die. Many thin children stopped by the main health center in Aslam during a recent visit by the Associated Press. Babies with all the signs of malnutrition were each weighed. Their papery skin was stretched tight over arms and legs. At least 20 children are known to have died of starvation in the province this year, more than three years into Yemens civil war. The real number is likely higher, since few families report it when their children die at home, officials say. In a nearby village, a seven-month-old girl, Zahra, cries for her mother to feed her. Her mother is starving herself and is often unable to breastfeed the child. Since the day she was born, I have not had the money to buy her milk or buy her medicine, the mother said. Zahra was recently treated at the heath clinic. At home, she is losing weight again. Her parents do not have the money to pay for transportation back to the doctors. If they dont, Zahra will die, said Mekkiya Mahdi, the head of the clinic. We are in the 21st century, but this is what the war did to us, she said. Mahdi added that after she visits nearby villages and sees people eating the green, leafy paste, I go home and I cant put food in my mouth. The hunger in Aslam is a sign of problems in an international aid system that is already low on supplies and under pressure from local officials. Yet foreign aid is the only thing stopping widespread death from starvation in Yemen. The conditions in Aslam may also show that the aid agencies warnings are coming true: In an unending war, the spread of starvation is greater than the efforts to keep people alive. When the Associated Press (AP) asked United Nations agencies about the situation in Aslam, they expressed surprise. To find out the reason why food was not getting to the needy families, aid groups launched an investigation, a top aid official told the AP. In order to help immediately, the official said, aid agencies are sending over 10,000 food containers to the area. The official did not give his name because of the danger of working in the middle of a war. UNICEF Resident Representative Meritxell Relano said the organization is increasing its mobile teams from three to four and transporting people to the health clinics. In the first six months of 2018, Hajjah province, including Aslam village, had 17,000 cases of extreme malnutrition. That number is higher than any other year, said Walid al-Shamshan, head of nutrition at the provinces Health Ministry. Malnourished children who are treated often go back to villages with no food and bad water. Then they return to clinics in worse condition or they die. Deaths happens in these villages, where people cant reach healthcare teams, al-Shamshan said. The civil war in Yemen has wrecked the countrys ability to feed its people. The war is between Shiite Muslim rebels known as Houthis, who hold the north, and a Saudi-led coalition, armed and helped by the United States. The coalition has tried to bomb the rebels into submission with an air campaign in support of Yemeni government forces. Around 2.9 million women and children are acutely malnourished. Another 400,000 children with extreme malnourishment are fighting for their lives. Nearly 8.4 million of Yemens 29 million people would starve without food aid, one-fourth more than last year, the U.N. estimates. That number is likely to rise by another 3.5 million because of the falling value of Yemens money, which leaves people unable to buy food, the U.N. warned. To date, the U.N. and its partners have only received about 65 percent of the $3 billion they requested for a humanitarian campaign in 2018. Aid workers are also worried about an attack by Saudi-led forces on the Houthi-held Red Sea port of Hodeida. Most of the food aid comes through that city. If the port is closed, the number of extremely malnourished children could increase a lot, said Tamer Kirolos, Yemen country director for the aid group Save the Children. Aslam is one of Yemens poorest areas, with many people living cut off from the rest of the population in the high mountains. It is home to between 75,000 and 106,000 people. Aslam is just another picture of Somalia, said Saleh al Faqih, a worker in a mobile Healthy Ministry center. Aslams main health center has no child care specialists and no electricity. There is no fuel to power generating equipment. Fathers appeal to strangers in the nearby market for 300 riyals around 50 U.S. cents to buy a diaper for their child going into the center. There appeared to be many reasons why aid was not reaching some of the starving. Most aid goes to displaced persons and not to those still living in their home village, said Azma Ali, a worker with the World Food Program. Houthi rebel officials force international agencies and their Yemeni partners to use aid lists provided by local officials. Critics accuse those officials of favoritism. They say the people of Aslam suffer from discrimination because they have a darker skin than other Yemenis and usually work in simple jobs. Some people said officials demand money to get on food lists. U.N. agencies do not have enough workers to watch how the food is given out. Im Susan Shand. And I'm Dorothy Gundy. The Associated Press reported this story. Susan Shand adapted it for VOA Learning English. The editor was George Grow. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page. _______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story leaves n. the flat and typically green parts of a plant submission n. the act of accepting the authority or control of someone else acute adj. very dangerous diaper n. a cloth worn by a baby generating adj. of or relating to the production or manufacture of something favoritism n. the custom of treating some people better than others mobile adj. able to move from one place to another Presidential Candidate Zurabishvili VS Orthodox Church By Levan Khutsishvili On September 18, 2018, presidential candidate Salome Zurabishvili, during the interview with Imedi TV journalist accused clergymen of Georgian Orthodox church in breaking the conditions of the concordat between the state and church.As she said, clergy should not interfere in the presidential election campaign. The candidate supported by the ruling party evaluated the comments made by some clergymen regarding Salome Zurabishvili."How can the church take part in this election campaign? By the way, as the president, as the chairperson responsible for fulfilling the concordat between church and the government, I will have a strong protest because it is a violation of all the agreements between the Orthodox Church and the state. Church figures having such a high hierarchy are interfering in cases that are not their business. They should not express their position of supporting any candidate," said Salome Zurabishvili.Zurabishvilis comment came after she was criticized by the representatives of Georgian Orthodox Church because of her position regarding the initiative of the government to produce and export marijuana. As the presidential candidate said public discussions should be held on the topic and the position of Georgian Church should also be voiced during the discussions, though the legislative regulations on this purpose are needed and she supports the new law.Orthodox Church has its negative position about the initiative and they are not planning to participate in discussions, as they believe that initiative of Government contains serious threats for young generations, adding the Parliament should reject the draft law.As it seems the idea of exporting marijuana can become a reason for a confrontation between the state and church, and Salome Zurabishvili (if she becomes the president) can play an important role in this conflict; however, on the other hand, her statements regarding the Orthodox Church can have a negative influence on her election campaign. Patriarchs bishop Jakob has already named Salome Zurabishvili as the Queen of Cannabis.I dont know if she becomes a president or not, but she will be the Queen of Cannabis for sure, said Bishop Jakob.Bishop Jakob said that church has more supporters than does the government and if they don't reevaluate their decisions on the marijuana business, the government will get demonstrations organized by the church.Deacon Shalva Kekelia believes that legalizing marijuana cultivation for export will promote drug-addiction in the country."How can we agree with Salome Zurabishvili? What does it mean? - We intervene in the future of our country, talking about the fate of our children. First was decriminalization, then legalization and the unconstitutional decision of the Constitutional Court. The Constitutional Court passed the decision without any regulations and then the government started talks about the cultivation, he stressed.The cleric says the Church thinks about the future of the country.We have the right to make our decisions and to warn the population what is right and what is not. They make a decision that will ruin the country tomorrow and we should not talk about it? We cannot keep silent when it comes to the laws that will destroy our country, said Deacon Kekelia.And here is a dilemma for Salome Zurabishvili, on the one hand, the government thinks that exporting marijuana will bring huge income for the country, on the other hand, the church is against it. To win the elections she will need to take a side or balance, in order to gain enough support.On September 16, during the Sunday service, Patriarch Ilia II, disapproved the initiative of the government and in addition, some clergymen organized the demonstration in front of the Tbilisi City Assembly, protesting government's position on the marijuana cultivation and export. Newsletter Subscribe now to get updates from armenian media & videos... Lelectricite est devenue, de nos jours, un besoin dune importance majeure, et cela, dans tous les domaines dactivite. Que ce soit dans les maisons ou [] NOTICE: TO BE CLEAR: WE HAVE OUTLINED UNDER OUR RECORD MAINTENANCE POLICY WHAT WE BELIEVE TO BE A FAIR PROCESS FOR ALL. SIMPLY PUT: IF THE COURT SAW FIT TO EXPUNGE YOUR RECORD,SO WILL WE, FREE OF CHARGE. ARRESTS DO NOT IMPLY GUILT AND CRIMINAL CHARGES ARE MERELY ACCUSATIONS,EVERYONE IS PRESUMED INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY IN A COURT OF LAW AND CONVICTED. 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Great tech invented in South Africa is detailed below, along with their achievements. Pineapple Insurance Pineapple Insurance is South Africas first peer-to-peer insurance company, and the first insurance start-up ever accepted into Googles Launchpad accelerator. Pineapple Insurance offers a decentralised insurance service, which allows for the quick insurance of goods. If insurance and a traditional African stokvel had a tech-enhanced baby, it would look a lot like Pineapple, said the company. When it fully launched in 2018, its founders called the service the worlds first decentralised insurer. Wind-up Doppler Ultrasound Fetal Heart Rate Monitor The Wind-up Doppler Monitor is a device that allows a medical practitioner to get a babys heart rate reading while it is in the womb while not requiring a power source. In 2014, Philips announced it was developing and testing the product with PowerFree Education Technology (PET). The device was invented by PET in Cape Town. Thawte Mark Shuttleworth founded Thawte Consulting in 1995, a company which specialised in digital certificates and Internet security. Thawte was acquired by VeriSign in 1999, making Shuttleworth R3.5 billion. Before the purchase, both Verisign and Thawte had certificates in the first Netscape browsers and had significant market share. The company now focuses on public key certificates, and is owned by Symantec. Computicket While booking a ticket online is nothing special today, in 1971 when Computicket was founded, things were a bit different. Long queues and physically going to buy a ticket for an event was common, but this changed when South African businessman Percy Tucker launched the company. It was the first computerised company of its kind in the world, and featured the worlds first complex computerised reservation system. Quiet cellular antenna technology Two Vodacom employees, Gordon Mayhew-Ridgers and Paul van Jaarsveld, invented cellular antenna technology which reduces noisy emissions from cellular base stations. The invention was needed to offer mobile services in the Karoo without compromising the Square Kilometre Array research taking place in the area. The technology was first publicized in 2001. Now read: Fastest ISPs for Netflix in South Africa The eminent artist Ira Yeager has been famously painting a series of American Indian portraits since the late 1960s, but until now, they have not had a designated home of their own. The Yager Galerie opened in June on Lincoln Avenue, in downtown Calistoga, and held its grand opening celebration Sept. 16 with Indian Summer: Portraits of Nobility. Previously occupied for decades by Lee Youngman Galleries, which has moved just a few doors down, the space has been transformed. Its a candy shop for me here. This is the mothership of everything. To be able to curate, deal and now have a space to create. Were taking on the excitement of the town and zest for the next 10 years, said Brian Fuller, Yeagers longtime studio director. Ira Yeager has had a home in Calistoga since the early 1980s. He also has homes in San Francisco and Sea Ranch. His work can be found all across the United States and at places in Europe. The new, contemporary gallery is a white canvas accented with donated 100-year-old local redwood beams, and other reclaimed items. It embodies the culmination of Yeagers regional work in other locations, Fuller said. Yeagers father was a well-known fishing and hunting guide to Eddie Bauer in the 1920s, and he has been acquiring and has been gifted Native American artifacts his entire life. The gallery is accented with such artifacts as beaded footwear, and a stuffed chicken, preserved many years ago. Visitors to the gallery are also greeted by a portrait framed by antlers from an elk his father once killed. Yeagers father also traded duck decoys with the Lummi Indians many of which are on display in the gallery in exchange for their baskets, beaded jackets or bone dance artifacts like decorated bows and drums, Fuller said. One of his treasures is a leather and beaded jacket which belonged to the granddaughter of Sitting Bull, a famous Lakota leader. Fuller also created a family crest for the new gallery, with the traditional spelling of the artists last name. Yager in German means hunter, so our logo has a fish, deer antlers, a vine and an apple with paintbrushes in homage to Iras history. The valley usually celebrates Italian and French heritage, so were enhancing the German, Fuller said. Yeager was born and raised in Bellingham, Wa., spent time in Greece, among other places, and is well-known in San Francisco. In the late 1960s, influenced by life in Santa Fe, New Mexico, he started painting portraits of Indian chiefs and Native American traders from his youth. The larger-than life, semi-abstract visages are boldly colored with quietly proud expressions. Yeager said he considers them almost like abstract paintings. Yeager paints in oils and acrylics on canvas, and has also begun experimenting in other mediums like old truck doors, also on display at the gallery. You can reach Cynthia Sweeney at csweeney@weeklycalistogan.com or 942-4035. The business news you need Get the latest local business news delivered FREE to your inbox weekly. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Napa Countys big planning effort turned Friday to the problem of how people can get from Point A to Point B without waiting in lines of rush-hour traffic. A possible answer the county could make trains, more bike trails and other non-automobile travel options available. Napa County is holding 38 community meetings on various topics as it works on a three-year strategic plan. The transportation session took place in the morning at Napa Valley Transportation Authority headquarters and attracted eight participants. What does a vibrant transportation sector look like in 2022? county Public Works Director Steven Lederer asked, summarizing the task at hand. American Canyon City Manager Jason Holley gave his answer. His south county city has congested Highway 29 running down the middle. Transportation isnt a barrier, Holley said of that hoped-for day. Some American Canyon residents at times drive to Trader Joes in Contra Costa County rather than to the one in the city of Napa, Holley said. They endure added mileage and a bridge toll to avoid Napa traffic. What that translates into is frustration, Holley said. While there is talk of widening Highway 29 to six lanes in American Canyon and improving south county intersections, the Napa Valley stretch poses a challenge. The county in the 1960s scotched the state idea of building a valley freeway. The existing road system will have to make do. You cant make the roads magically carry all the traffic, said Chuck McMinn of the Napa Valley Vine Trail Coalition. McMinn envisions light rail on the local railroad tracks running Upvalley frequently. The challenge is the $200 million price tag, he said. He also wants to see the Napa Valley Vine Trail bike-and-walking path completed from Vallejo to Calistoga. Most of the Vine Trail to date is in the Napa-Yountville areas. Madeline Oliver wants to see bike lanes and paths along major corridors and routes to school. The member of the Napa County Bicycle Coalition said having a bike lane on Jefferson Street in Napa would help students cycle to Napa High School. Nicole Cummings, who is on the NVTA Citizen Advisory Committee, said local modes of transportation should connect with those in other counties to serve employees and visitors. The group didnt forget about the car. McMinn suggested synchronizing traffic signals and fixing traffic choke points at such places as Silverado Trail and Skellenger Lane. He also suggested the county start planning for autonomous vehicles. We actually have a coherent vision here, Lederer told his group. Another suggestion to emerge during the session is putting solar arrays on all county buildings to help charge electric cars. Participants also looked at possible unintended consequences if the various transportation ideas became reality. Cummings and Holley said some people might think Napa County feels less rural. What ideas end up in the strategic plan to be adopted by the county Board of Supervisors on Dec. 18 remain to be seen. We will not have every single answer on the 18th, but well know what direction were going, said Marissa Murphy-Becerra of the county. Go to https://bit.ly/2NijotM to learn more about upcoming Napa County strategic plan events. Upcoming topics include environmental sustainability, social services, the Spanish-speaking community, public safety, children and veterans. Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. One group hoping to launch Napas market for medical cannabis hopes to open its doors by years end. Meanwhile, another would-be seller is seeing more than three years of effort put on hold. In the 10 months since Napa opened a path for merchants to open medicinal marijuana dispensaries, planners have received seven applications to open storefronts within city limits. Three applicants have been granted certificates to sell smokable and edible cannabis products to customers with a doctors recommendation, according to records from the city Planning Division. But the path to over-the-counter sales has not been as kind to other would-be sellers. Records indicate the city has turned away three proposed marijuana outlets at least partly due to parking and other issues and even some sellers already established in the North Bay argue that Napas ordinance is at best a half-step that will set up its local market for failure unless the city also allows the sale of recreational cannabis, which California voters legalized by passing Proposition 64 in 2016. Even within those limits, a handful of candidates have stepped up to try to establish the citys first legal retail weed economy. Among those in the running is The Higher Path, which intends to operate from a 650-square-foot space at 1963 Iroquois St. Pending a use permit and a city business license, the dispensary should welcome its first visitors by November, according to Jerred Kiloh, a partner in the dispensary, which is an outgrowth of The Higher Path in Sherman Oaks outside Los Angeles. Napas Higher Path outlet likely will open with 17 to 20 employees and a target of reaching 200 to 300 customers per day, Kiloh said Tuesday, adding that the dispensary is expected to operate every hour Napa allows us to 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily, according to the citys cannabis retailing ordinance. When we look at Napa its one of the highest-revenue areas for tourism, and we feel its in our best interest to capitalize on that, whether (for) medical or recreational cannabis, he said. Napas trying to bring younger demo into wine industry so its imperative Napa bring younger generation to table. I see it as complement to bringing more of the younger wine and cannabis users into Napa, and I think its great for both industries. While conceding that a city framework to legalize the sale of adult-use products would make life easier on dispensary owners, Kiloh described The Higher Path as well-positioned to work under Napas rules in part because of its roots as a medically oriented outlet in Southern California. Despite voters 2016 approval of recreational marijuana sales, Kilohs dispensary like others in Los Angeles was not cleared to sell to those without doctor recommendations until Jan. 19. While Kilohs Higher Path was building an audience in greater Los Angeles, Alicia Kelley was founding HerbaBuena in 2015 to market organically grown cannabis products. As Napa slowly progressed toward an ordinance to legalize medical marijuana sales replacing an earlier ordinance it repealed in 2013 amid fears of clashing with the federal marijuana ban the entrepreneur, who is also known as Alicia Rose, became a frequent advocate at city meetings for widening the therapeutic use of marijuana. Despite her presence in Napa circles, however, Kelley has yet to gain the citys clearance to do business. Planning officials sent back HerbaBuenas application citing inadequate parking at her proposed retail site, a commercial condominium at 20 Enterprise Court in south Napa. According to Kelley, her business was close to satisfying the citys request by adding two more parking spaces at the site until neighboring businesses intervened. There are three owners in the condo that also own units there, who needed to approve the two extra slots, and they voted it down, she said Wednesday. While Kelley conceded that Napa council members are unlikely to overhaul their cannabis ordinance less than a year after passing it, she pointed to the lack of legal recreational sales as a major roadblock to establishing a local market as well as zoning rules that largely keep cannabis retailers to industrial and office-park areas and out of mainstream commercial areas. The two major issues with the way this ordinance as written is, one, they dont allow adult-use licensing, which limits our ability to scale up, and two, theyve relegated us to light industrial zoning which, by definition, will not have enough parking for a retail space, she said. Kelleys concerns have been echoed by some sellers of marijuana products in Vallejo, the nearest legal market to the city of Napa. They are settling themselves up for failure; theres not going to be a market for anyone to make any money selling only to doctor-approved clients, Morgan Hannigan, owner of the Better Health Group dispensary in Vallejo, told the Napa Valley Register earlier this month. Californias legalization of adult-use or non-medical marijuana products has apparently led to a strong focus on that section of the market, according to figures from the state Bureau of Cannabis Control. While 417 dispensaries have active state licenses, only 49 sell exclusively medicinal cannabis products. Joining The Higher Path in gaining city dispensary certificates are Harvest of Napa, which plans to do business at 2441 Second St., and Korova Cannabis, which has filed to operate at 954 Kaiser Rd. Joe Gerlach, listed as a consultant to Korova, declined comment in an email to the Register. Attempts to contact Harvest of Napa representatives were unsuccessful. As to whether the advantage may go to the first mover into local marijuana sales, Kiloh expressed little concern about the timing of The Higher Paths opening. I think the cream will rise to the top, he said, no matter whos first to market. As of Friday, The Higher Path had received a notice of intent to grant a cannabis-selling clearance but had not yet been granted the clearance itself, according to city assistant planner Jose Cortez. This story has been modified since the original posting to correct the proposed retail address of Korova Cannabis, a medical marijuana dispensary that received a clearance to operate in the city of Napa. Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. The first time, Gov. Jerry Brown wanted a satellite that would link government agencies around the state and allow rural doctors to consult with city health experts and even monitor the environment. In retrospect, it seemed a pragmatic idea, one that might have even saved money in the long run. But in the late 1970s the idea of a state launching a satellite was far from the norm. It was so ... out there. The proposal eventually was overshadowed by one of the most enduring nicknames in politics, one that it helped generate: Governor Moonbeam. The moniker made the rounds again last week when Brown, in defiance of the Trump administrations cuts to NASAs Carbon Monitoring System, declared California will launch our own damn satellite. Browns vow, which he first used nearly two years, was a rallying cry at the close of Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco. A co-host of the conference, Brown was perhaps the most in-demand person there, cementing his position as an international leader on combating climate change. That was a far cry from his first suggestion to launch a satellite, which often was met with skepticism and derision. The launching of a satellite these days is no big deal; governments and private companies do it all the time. Not so back then. Initially, Brown talked about the state having its own satellite. Then his administration proposed the state buy into one with other agencies. In addition to providing fast and broad communication, especially during emergencies, the governor wanted to explore whether such an investment would save millions the state was spending on travel costs. The proposal didnt become reality at the time. Brown already had displayed great interest in the possibilities of space, and the satellite gambit crystallized an image of a brash, somewhat eccentric young governor in the mind of legendary newspaper columnist Mike Royko of the Chicago Sun-Times. He coined the term Governor Moonbeam. Royko came to regret what he later called a throwaway line and publicly disavowed it. He did so because Brown had earned his admiration. During the 1980 Democratic convention, Brown made a speech that was far more sensible than any of the other babblings at that grim gathering, the late Royko recalled in a 1991 column. So I wrote a column renouncing the Moonbeam label. I not only renounced it, I denounced it, rejected and declared it unfair, inappropriate and outdated. He expressed his disappointment that despite his efforts, the name stuck. It was probably a pretty damn good idea back then, David Doak, a retired political consultant who worked with Brown in his latter campaigns, recently said about the satellite proposal. And he got a bad rap for it. Royko wasnt the only skeptic Brown eventually won over during his first stretch as governor from 1975 to 1983. A former Jesuit seminarian, Brown was frugal in his own life and with the states purse. He eschewed many of the trappings of office. Instead of a limousine, he walked to work or drove around in, yes, a pale blue 1974 Plymouth Satellite. The American Conservative said the young governor was more of a fiscal conservative than his predecessor, Ronald Reagan. Brown favored a balanced budget amendment. He opposed the property tax-cutting Proposition 13, but how he responded to its passage earned him praise from Howard Jarvis, the crusty author of the landmark initiative. Jarvis even appeared in a television ad for Browns re-election in 1978. I wrote Proposition 13, Jarvis said, but it takes a dedicated governor to make it work. (Browns fiscal moves havent always gained such accolades. The wisdom and financing behind the more recent high-speed rail and twin-tunnel water projects have been widely questioned. His gas-tax increase is the target of a November referendum.) In his first two terms, Brown was known for a lot more than his fiscal dexterity. He worked to advance the rights of minorities, women and gays along with pushing environmental protection policies, including the creation of one of the first-ever tax incentives for rooftop solar panels. Those once-cutting-edge concepts, like launching satellites, are now commonplace. Brown was a three-time presidential candidate who also ran for U.S. Senate, losing to then-San Diego Mayor Pete Wilson in 1982. He dropped out of politics for a while and went to Japan to study Zen Buddhism and to Calcutta to volunteer at Mother Teresas mission. He returned to politics and became the head of the California Democratic Party, then mayor of Oakland, state attorney general and governor. Now finishing out the last of his four terms as governor at age 80, Brown has taken on the image of elder statesman since he was elected Californias chief executive again in 2010. He may be the best thing the so-out-of-power Republicans have in Sacramento, as he keeps a check on some spending proposals by fellow Democrats. He continues to mix politics and philosophy, but he comes off as more of a pragmatic crusader than an eccentric one. After hundreds marched in San Francisco Thursday protesting the governors oversight of the states oil industry, Brown chided them for having their heads in the clouds. Without a doubt, California has the most aggressive green energy plans in the Western Hemisphere, he said, according to the Los Angeles Times. In the world of dreams, you can do a lot of things. In the world of practicality, theres a way it works. After bristling at the Mooonbeam label over the decades, he has come to embrace it. Moonbeam also stands for not being the insider. But standing apart and marching to my own drummer, he told The New York Times when he ran for governor in 2010. And Ive done that. Hes become one of the leading critics of President Donald Trump and his policies, particularly the efforts to roll back environmental regulations. In December 2016, he honed his message at a gathering of the American Geophysical Union. Some people say theyre going to turn off the satellites that are monitoring the climate, he noted. Remember back in 1978, I proposed a Landsat satellite for California. They called me Gov. Moonbeam because of that. I didnt get that moniker for nothing. And if Trump turns off the satellites, California will launch its own damn satellite! Were going to collect that data. Brown didnt deliver the line quite so cleanly in San Francisco on Friday. He later took to Twitter to drive home his mantra that is at once pro-science, pro-environment and anti-Trump: Were launching our own damn satellite! Have they printed up the T-shirts yet? Michael Smolens is a columnist for The San Diego Union-Tribune. Michael Smolens is a columnist for The San Diego Union-Tribune. In another incident of illegal timber smuggling in Assam, a team of forest officials with the help of wildlife activists on Saturday morning seized illegal timbers and sawmill at Bihiyagaon village near Tezpur in Sonitpur district. Despite efforts of a section of forest officials and wildlife activists against smugglers and by the personnel of Central Armed Police Forces deployed in border areas including Indo-Bhutan border, smuggling of timbers continues in different parts of Assam. According to reports, the illegal timbers were recovered in a forest area, which is an encroached forest land. Around 23,000 huts have allegedly been built on the encroached forest land near Tezpur. Locals of Lakhoujan tea estate in Bokakhat sub-division of Golaghat district of eastern Assam on Saturday night seized a Tata Magic vehicle laden with smuggled timber. In may be mentioned that in July this year, an illegal timber-laden vehicle was intercepted in a tea estate area when it was travelling from Lakhoujan quarry to Laxmijuri village in Bokakhat sub-division of Golaghat district by activists of Tea Labourers Sangh, Village Defence Party and Tea Tribe Studentss Union. However, the driver and the handyman managed to flee from the spot taking advantage of darkness. Later, the villagers handed over the seized timbers and the vehicle to the Forest Department office at Bokakhat. Notably, a section of unscrupulous timber smugglers are transporting illegal timber from the forest region of Karbi Anglong adjacent to Lakhoujan tea estate. Though the illegal timber dealers were warned on several occasions earlier, but the smuggling of illegal timber continued unabated through the tea estate area. The locals also demanded the Forest Department to check such illegal smuggling of timber in the region. Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu is happy with the newly-built Kongmu Kham (GoldenTemple) located in Namsai district of the State. The temple has been constructed with excellent architectural design from Tai culture. Expressing his feelings on his Twitter handle while uploading a picture of the golden temple at Namsai, the Arunachal CM stated: This is Kongmu Kham (GoldenTemple) located in Namsai district with excellent architectural design from Tai culture. He also stated, Do not mistake this photo to be from Thailand/Burma. We have our own Land of Pagodas in Arunachal. It may be mentioned that Arunachal, known for its bewildering scenic beauty and blessed with a favourable climate makes it an inseparable part of the entire region and attracts tourists from all across the world. In the same way among the attractive destinations in Arunachal is the Golden Pagoda, or Khongmu-Kham in the local Tai Khamti language, stands besides the Patkai resort in Namsai. Thousands of devotees, monks and followers of the Buddha throng every year to the temple as it is considered sacred and very significant. It is to be noted that a pagoda is a tiered tower with multiple eaves, constructed in traditions originating as stupa in historic South Asia and further developed in East Asia or with respect to those traditions, common to Nepal, China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Myanmar, India, Sri Lanka and other parts of Asia. It also does not reflect the views of the Firm of which the Author is working for. Since the inception of this blog, the Author has avoided writing views and opinions of his clients or views and opinions which third parties has paid him to write. The Author has maintained editorial independence since Day One. Any individual or group affected by the opinions and views of the Author can write the author thru mangubat.patricio@gmail.com. Opinions and views expressed in this blog are personal views of the Author and does not involve organisations and companies being serviced by the Author as part of his profession as a Strategic Communications professional. Opposition 'Armenia' faction's Gegham Manukyan: Come to Republic Square tomorrow at 11 a.m. Karabakh President expresses gratitude to Russia's Putin again Luxembourg legislature calls on govt to not endorse Azerbaijan-European Union relations until Armenian POWs' return Armenia Security Council Secretary; All to-be-unblocked infrastructures will be under sovereign control of given state Armenia MOD: Azerbaijani Defense Ministry's statement on 60 Armenian soldiers encircled in Sev Lake is disinformation Armenia Security Council Secretary: Azerbaijan to set up customs points on Goris-Kapan motorway starting today Sweden PM resigns Chelsea, Manchester City to compete for Arsen Zakharyan's transfer Turkey Parliament approves extension of mandate for Turkish soldiers to be in Azerbaijan TIME magazine names first Armenian Robin the robot one of the best innovations of the year Armenia FM meets with French counterpart, issues related to Nagorno-Karabakh conflict discussed Armenia parliament majority leader meets with US Ambassador Karabakh President convenes consultation over security issues Karabakh's parliamentary speaker receives Armenia Parliament Deputy Speaker Ishkhan Saghatelyan Armenia PM chairs consultation over economic priorities Armenia Judicial Department chief sues Public Council ex-chairman Styopa Safaryan Armenia President meets with outgoing UN Resident Coordinator Armenia defense minister attends session of Council of Ministers of Defense of the CIS in Moscow Armenia minister states periods for construction of new energy bloc of nuclear power plant before 2036 Zakharova: It is time to implement the programs for launching '3+3' regional mechanism Russian MFA Spokesperson on work of OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs and their visits to region NEWS.am daily digest: 10.11.21 Armenia Deputy PM's assistant sacked Statue of Peacekeeper unveiled in Nagorno-Karabakh First Orthodox church opened in Nagorno-Karabakh Armenia police identify man who beat woman on the street Erdogan: Turkey is engaged in ongoing process in Caucasus Armenia FM meets with France Senate speaker (PHOTOS) Dollar goes down in Armenia Armenia PM appoints deputy provincial governor to Armavir Artsakh ombudsman: 2 civilians, 9 soldiers killed as result of Azerbaijan criminal actions after war Azerbaijan plans to spend over $2.5B on defense in 2022 Xi Jinping: China is ready to work with US under condition of mutual respect Russia hopes old Europe won't allow entanglement in confrontation with Moscow and Minsk CIS countries' defense ministers discuss improvement of unified air defense system Azerbaijan trying to include Artsakhs occupied Armenian Shushi in UNESCO Creative Cities Network Armenia to tax electronic services provided by foreign companies Possibility of 44-day war inquiry committee work boycotting being discussed, says Armenia opposition MP Artsakh FM: Azerbaijan, Turkey are taking action to provoke Russia military Armenia premier receives outgoing UN Resident Coordinator Russia, France to discuss joint efforts as Co-Chairs of Minsk Group PACE rapporteurs: Armenia has emerged successfully from serious political crisis Karen Khachanov at Republic Square in Yerevan (PHOTOS) How many Karabakh residents are in Azerbaijan captivity? Mkhitaryan ready to leave Roma in January January 2 to also be non-working day during Armenia New Year holidays 8 kids hospitalized in Yerevan on suspicion of food poisoning in satisfactory condition Expert: More than 120 pregnant women in Armenia have contracted Covid Gyumri man, 32, dies in hospital without regaining consciousness after falling from 4th floor 1 more person dies of coronavirus in Artsakh Karabakh village man, 72, commits suicide by hanging himself Parliament factions: Artsakh Armenians living safely in homeland is possible only in case of Artsakh recognition Natural gas fees to not increase in Armenia on January 1 Water tariff to increase for most Armenia consumers? 9 kids from Yerevan child development center hospitalized on suspicion of food poisoning Los Angeles City Hall is illuminated in Armenia flag colors 1,675 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia Artsakh state minister delivers lectures at Fletcher School, Harvard University Squid Games director confirms season 2 Mayor of Armenias Kasakh village to be arrested Biden-Xi virtual meeting could take place next week Jeff Bezos threatens Leonardo DiCaprio (VIDEOS) US concerned about meeting between UAE FM and Syria President Newspaper: Criminal cases against Armenian ex-military officials making no headway Newspaper: Armenia parliament opposition calls PM Pashinyan to legislature Japan ex-nurse who killed 3 patients gets life sentence Xavi forbids Pique to give interviews Steven Gerrard to take helm at Aston Villa Armenia national football team's fans greet Lucas Zelarayan Azerbaijanis open fire at tractor in Khachik village of Armenia's Vayots Dzor Province while it was moving US Department of State condemns violence that caused death of Armenian civilian near Shushi Polish authorities believe situation on Poland-Belarus border will escalate UN says it is ready to help solve issues of migrants on Poland-Belarus border ARF-D representative: If House of Lords adopts Armenian Genocide bill, it will become a law for the government Armenia national football team's second training, Mkhitaryan joins (PHOTOS) EU Special Representative: We remember all who were killed and suffered during more than 30 years of conflict Lavrov discusses Nagorno-Karabakh issue with Paul Gallagher UK House of Commons adopts Armenian Genocide bill in first reading Juventus to extend contracts with Paulo Dybala and Juan Cuadrado Paul Pogba to miss 2 months OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Personal Representative: Certain changes made in actions after hostilities in 2020 Israeli Members of Knesset submit bill to recognize Armenian Genocide Russia Ambassador: There won't be deals behind Armenian people's back when communications with Azerbaijan are unblocked NEWS.am daily digest: 09.11.21 Baku not refuting attack on peaceful civilians in Artsakh, but putting blame on Yerevan Gor Abrahamyan: Armenia Prosecutor General hasn't applied to Russia's competent authorities for citizenship Armenia legislature committee approves draft state budget for 2022 Azerbaijani soldier dies after falling down from multi-story parking lot in Turkey Persons suspected of murder of businessman Hayk Harutyunyan arrested in Moscow Armenia Deputy PM receives newly appointed UNDP Resident Representative Armenia is elected UNESCO General Conference 41st session vice-chair (PHOTOS) Armenia MOD ex-press secretary is appointed expert to parliament committee Armenia MOD leaves for Moscow Russian MFA on anniversary of agreements of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia leaders on ceasefire in Karabakh Armenia FM to head for Paris Dollar loses value in Armenia Turkey attempting to drive wedge between Armenia and Armenian diaspora Online intimidation of Artsakh people by Azerbaijan special services gains new momentum 9-year-old Armenian boy dies after being run over by car Kremlin comments on prospect of Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan leaders meeting over Karabakh YEREVAN. The Syrian crisis has both direct and indirect impact on Armenia, Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan said in an interview with public television. We have serious concerns over the safety of our compatriots in Syria. We have provided assistance and continue doing so. We cannot stay indifferent, the minister said, when asked about speculations that Russia wants to drag Armenia into the Syrian crisis. Mnatsakanyan argues that it will be exclusively humanitarian mission and will involve doctors, engineers and de-miners. That is specialists directly linked to security issues. It is our sovereign right. The crisis has an impact on our foreign policy as well, and we take this into account, he added. Armenia has previously sent humanitarian cargo to Syria with the help of Russia on several occasions. YEREVAN. Armenia has a quite broad agenda of cooperation with the U.S. which is one of our key partners, Armenian Foreign Minister Zorhab Mnatsakanyan said in an interview with the public television. The minister recalled that the U.S. welcomed the events in Armenia aimed at the development of democracy and human rights. This is confirmation of values, Mnatsakanyan said commenting on the warm messages of the U.S. leadership to the Armenian partners on Independence Day. Asked whether the message should be regarded as a beginning of a new and more dynamic stage inr elations, the minister emphasized that the relations are developing gradually. He stressed U.S. role in the Karabakh peace process, and reiterated Armenias position: we are committed to the exclusively peaceful settlement. The efforts of U.S., along with those of Russia and France, are essential. We are ready to work in the constructive manner, he added. As to the possible Pashinyan-Trump meeting on the margins of the UN General Assembly, the minister said that the grounds for such a meeting are being prepared so that it could be effective and meaningful. PHIL FITZPATRICK TUMBY BAY - Those readers who followed the Crocodile Prize for Literature in its first five years will remember the eye-catching covers of the annual anthologies. They were all designed by Joe Bilbu, a Papuan designer based in Fiji. Joe won a competition to design the 2012 cover and we were so impressed that we got him to design the subsequent covers. Like most things related to the Crocodile Prize the covers were produced on a shoestring budget. Joe was happy to go along with that because he believed that Papua New Guinea literature was important. As a self-employed graphic artist and designer he is now thinking about branching out and producing his own designs on tee-shirts, mugs and other paraphernalia. To this end he has been saving his pennies to buy a heat transfer machine. The machine isnt particularly expensive (about AU$350) but the freight to Fiji is a problem, not so much because of cost but because the companies that sell the machines wont ship them to Fiji. Opposition 'Armenia' faction's Gegham Manukyan: Come to Republic Square tomorrow at 11 a.m. Karabakh President expresses gratitude to Russia's Putin again Luxembourg legislature calls on govt to not endorse Azerbaijan-European Union relations until Armenian POWs' return Armenia Security Council Secretary; All to-be-unblocked infrastructures will be under sovereign control of given state Armenia MOD: Azerbaijani Defense Ministry's statement on 60 Armenian soldiers encircled in Sev Lake is disinformation Armenia Security Council Secretary: Azerbaijan to set up customs points on Goris-Kapan motorway starting today Sweden PM resigns Turkey Parliament approves extension of mandate for Turkish soldiers to be in Azerbaijan TIME magazine names first Armenian Robin the robot one of the best innovations of the year Armenia FM meets with French counterpart, issues related to Nagorno-Karabakh conflict discussed Armenia parliament majority leader meets with US Ambassador Karabakh President convenes consultation over security issues Karabakh's parliamentary speaker receives Armenia Parliament Deputy Speaker Ishkhan Saghatelyan Armenia PM chairs consultation over economic priorities Armenia Judicial Department chief sues Public Council ex-chairman Styopa Safaryan Armenia President meets with outgoing UN Resident Coordinator Armenia defense minister attends session of Council of Ministers of Defense of the CIS in Moscow Armenia minister states periods for construction of new energy bloc of nuclear power plant before 2036 Zakharova: It is time to implement the programs for launching '3+3' regional mechanism Russian MFA Spokesperson on work of OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs and their visits to region NEWS.am daily digest: 10.11.21 Armenia Deputy PM's assistant sacked Statue of Peacekeeper unveiled in Nagorno-Karabakh First Orthodox church opened in Nagorno-Karabakh Armenia police identify man who beat woman on the street Erdogan: Turkey is engaged in ongoing process in Caucasus Armenia FM meets with France Senate speaker (PHOTOS) Dollar goes down in Armenia Armenia PM appoints deputy provincial governor to Armavir Artsakh ombudsman: 2 civilians, 9 soldiers killed as result of Azerbaijan criminal actions after war Azerbaijan plans to spend over $2.5B on defense in 2022 Xi Jinping: China is ready to work with US under condition of mutual respect Russia hopes old Europe won't allow entanglement in confrontation with Moscow and Minsk CIS countries' defense ministers discuss improvement of unified air defense system Azerbaijan trying to include Artsakhs occupied Armenian Shushi in UNESCO Creative Cities Network Armenia to tax electronic services provided by foreign companies Possibility of 44-day war inquiry committee work boycotting being discussed, says Armenia opposition MP Artsakh FM: Azerbaijan, Turkey are taking action to provoke Russia military Armenia premier receives outgoing UN Resident Coordinator Russia, France to discuss joint efforts as Co-Chairs of Minsk Group PACE rapporteurs: Armenia has emerged successfully from serious political crisis How many Karabakh residents are in Azerbaijan captivity? January 2 to also be non-working day during Armenia New Year holidays 8 kids hospitalized in Yerevan on suspicion of food poisoning in satisfactory condition Gyumri man, 32, dies in hospital without regaining consciousness after falling from 4th floor 1 more person dies of coronavirus in Artsakh Karabakh village man, 72, commits suicide by hanging himself Parliament factions: Artsakh Armenians living safely in homeland is possible only in case of Artsakh recognition Natural gas fees to not increase in Armenia on January 1 Water tariff to increase for most Armenia consumers? 9 kids from Yerevan child development center hospitalized on suspicion of food poisoning Los Angeles City Hall is illuminated in Armenia flag colors 1,675 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia Artsakh state minister delivers lectures at Fletcher School, Harvard University Mayor of Armenias Kasakh village to be arrested Biden-Xi virtual meeting could take place next week US concerned about meeting between UAE FM and Syria President Newspaper: Criminal cases against Armenian ex-military officials making no headway Newspaper: Armenia parliament opposition calls PM Pashinyan to legislature Japan ex-nurse who killed 3 patients gets life sentence Azerbaijanis open fire at tractor in Khachik village of Armenia's Vayots Dzor Province while it was moving US Department of State condemns violence that caused death of Armenian civilian near Shushi Polish authorities believe situation on Poland-Belarus border will escalate UN says it is ready to help solve issues of migrants on Poland-Belarus border ARF-D representative: If House of Lords adopts Armenian Genocide bill, it will become a law for the government EU Special Representative: We remember all who were killed and suffered during more than 30 years of conflict Lavrov discusses Nagorno-Karabakh issue with Paul Gallagher UK House of Commons adopts Armenian Genocide bill in first reading OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Personal Representative: Certain changes made in actions after hostilities in 2020 Israeli Members of Knesset submit bill to recognize Armenian Genocide Russia Ambassador: There won't be deals behind Armenian people's back when communications with Azerbaijan are unblocked NEWS.am daily digest: 09.11.21 Baku not refuting attack on peaceful civilians in Artsakh, but putting blame on Yerevan Gor Abrahamyan: Armenia Prosecutor General hasn't applied to Russia's competent authorities for citizenship Armenia legislature committee approves draft state budget for 2022 Azerbaijani soldier dies after falling down from multi-story parking lot in Turkey Persons suspected of murder of businessman Hayk Harutyunyan arrested in Moscow Armenia Deputy PM receives newly appointed UNDP Resident Representative Armenia is elected UNESCO General Conference 41st session vice-chair (PHOTOS) Armenia MOD ex-press secretary is appointed expert to parliament committee Armenia MOD leaves for Moscow Russian MFA on anniversary of agreements of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia leaders on ceasefire in Karabakh Armenia FM to head for Paris Dollar loses value in Armenia Turkey attempting to drive wedge between Armenia and Armenian diaspora Online intimidation of Artsakh people by Azerbaijan special services gains new momentum 9-year-old Armenian boy dies after being run over by car Kremlin comments on prospect of Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan leaders meeting over Karabakh Armenia 2nd President and Karabakh ex-President also bid farewell to Serzh Sargsyan's mother Armenia former President Kocharyan, ex-deputy PM and now lawmaker Gevorgyan court session pushed back 1 week Peskov: Karabakh conflict statement signed last year by Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan is extremely important Turkey defense minister: Opening of Zangezur corridor does not pose threat to any side Azerbaijan threatens Armenia defense minister President pays tribute to martyrs of recent Artsakh war Saakashvili's supporters holding protest near Justice Ministry building in Tbilisi Turkey defense minister stubbornly does not see Azerbaijan provocations Armenian historian: Armenia needs to establish refugee settlement in Yerevan for those displaced from Artsakh Armenia opposition MP not elected legislature defense committee deputy chair for 11th time Armenia PM spokesperson resigns Armenia parliament speaker: We have paid very high price for our mistakes IS-linked Group Raises Specter of Threat to Australia in Posters The requested page is currently unavailable on this server. Back to [RTHK News Homepage] Japan bitcoin cryptocurrency Barely before the ink had dried on the news that Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Zaif had been hacked and slightly less than US$60 million stolen, the National Police Agency (NPA) of Japan has released a report highlighting the vulnerability of Japans crypto space. According to the NPA, the number of incidents involving the theft of funds from cryptocurrency exchanges and individual accounts tripled in the first half of this year compared to a similar period last year. Initially reported by The Asahi Shimbun, the amounts stolen so far this year are far in excess of what was looted last year. During the entire 2017, a total of 149 cases were reported and more than 660 million yen was stolen but so far this year more than 60 billion yen has been stolen with the reported incidents in the years first half reaching 158. Most of the cryptocurrency holdings stolen this year were seized in the hacking of the cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck which lost about 58 billion yen to hackers in January this year. Poor Security Safeguards In the cryptocurrency thefts targeting individual accounts, over 60% of the incidents involved the use of similar login details across online accounts and platforms, according to the National Police Agency. With regards to the cryptocurrencies stolen, XRP was among the most targeted digital asset with 1.52 billion yen worth of the digital stolen seized in 42 cases. Bitcoin was also highly targeted as 94 incidents were reported where 860 million yen worth of the flagship cryptocurrency was stolen. In the Coincheck hacking, the NEM cryptocurrency was the main target as CCN reported earlier in the year. After the Coincheck incident in January the industry regulator Financial Services Agency (FSA) intensified efforts aimed at disciplining cryptocurrency exchanges. Though it remains to be seen, the hacking of Zaif is likely to have an impact on the ongoing regulatory review of the sector by the FSA. This is especially so in light of the fact that earlier this year regulators had slapped Tech Bureau Corp, Zaifs parent company, with two business improvement orders. Story continues Hot Wallet Vulnerability And just like in the case of the Coincheck theft, Zaif is also understood to have kept the affected cryptocurrency holdings in a hot wallet. Most of the digital assets that were stolen belonged to clients worth around 4.5 billion yen while less than half of that (worth about 2.2 billion yen) belonged to the cryptocurrency exchange. After the hacking Tech Bureau Corp revealed that Fisco Ltd, a company listed on the JASDAQ, would be acquiring a majority stake in the firm for approximately 5 billion yen. We will prepare measures so that customers assets will not be affected, said Tech Bureau Corp in a statement. Featured image from Shutterstock. The post Japan Cryptocurrency Theft Cases Tripled in H1 2018, $530 Million Stolen: Police appeared first on CCN. As Im sure you are aware, oil, both WTI as seen above and Brent, has been climbing steadily for over a year and is now nudging multi-year highs. That has at least in part been OPECs doing. The agreement to cut output signed by members and several other major producing countries, most notably Russia, has had the desired effect. In fact, it could be said that it has been effective beyond the wildest dreams of There are some special circumstances surrounding this meeting that make the decision, and even the ability of the countries concerned to execute that decision, hard to predict. The first of those is where oil prices currently sit. OPEC meetings, or more recently the meetings of OPEC and friends, are always big news in the energy sector. The price of oil is the most important factor in the profitability of energy companies, even those not in the oil business directly. It sets the standard for energy pricing generally, so cannot be ignored, and as OPECs express purpose is to influence price we all have to pay attention when they meet and speak. This weekends gathering in Algeria may be even more important than usual though, and traders will be watching closely. Traders are risk takers, of course, so the temptation for many will be to go into the weekend with a position in an attempt to profit from the announcement that will follow the meeting. In this case though, that would be a mistake. OPEC meetings, or more recently the meetings of OPEC and friends, are always big news in the energy sector. The price of oil is the most important factor in the profitability of energy companies, even those not in the oil business directly. It sets the standard for energy pricing generally, so cannot be ignored, and as OPECs express purpose is to influence price we all have to pay attention when they meet and speak. This weekends gathering in Algeria may be even more important than usual though, and traders will be watching closely. Traders are risk takers, of course, so the temptation for many will be to go into the weekend with a position in an attempt to profit from the announcement that will follow the meeting. In this case though, that would be a mistake. There are some special circumstances surrounding this meeting that make the decision, and even the ability of the countries concerned to execute that decision, hard to predict. The first of those is where oil prices currently sit. (Click to enlarge) As Im sure you are aware, oil, both WTI as seen above and Brent, has been climbing steadily for over a year and is now nudging multi-year highs. That has at least in part been OPECs doing. The agreement to cut output signed by members and several other major producing countries, most notably Russia, has had the desired effect. In fact, it could be said that it has been effective beyond the wildest dreams of even its instigators. WTI has been in a roughly 65-75 range for nearly six months now and there is every indication that that is a sweet spot. It offers substantial profit to producers, but so far doesnt seem to be affecting demand, which continues to grow. Maintaining that relative stability, however, is not going to be easy. Production is being lost from a couple of countries. Venezuela is a mess, and the looming U.S. sanctions on Iran are estimated to have already caused a big drop in exports from that country, with a lot more to come. Meanwhile, President Trump, along with several other world leaders, are pressuring OPEC, and the Saudis in particular, to ease up a little and allow oil to fall in price. That, however, may be easier said than done. Saudi Arabia claims to have the capacity to immediately produce more oil, but most independent analysts doubt that is true. Nor do most believe that Russia can increase output quickly, so even if this weekends meeting does resolve to increase crude output it is not at all sure that they actually will. In some ways that is an ideal scenario for the Saudis. They are keen to show support for Trump to maintain the recent alliance against the common enemy of Iran, and a promise to offset losses of Iranian oil, or even do more than that, would help in that regard. If that is just an empty promise though, they can continue to enjoy the fruits of high prices while they pump at full tilt. In the light of all this it is little surprise that my research and conversations this week aimed at getting a feel for market sentiment in front of the weekend have been more confusing than enlightening. There seems to be no real sense of how the attendees will handle the issues, nor what the real effects on the oil market will be. That indecision has been reflected in the market over the last few days, with no real direction evident. Normally, going into events like this, I tend to look for the dominant sentiment and oppose it. The logic is that when expectations are priced in there is not a big reaction when they are met which limits potential losses. If reality falls short of expectations however, substantial profits can accrue as those wrongly positioned scramble to get out. With no clearly defined sentiment this week though, and not even a clear feeling of how an announcement will be received, we could see a significant move in either direction next week regardless of what is actually said. That makes a wait and see approach advisable. Once a direction is established it will likely be a sustained move so there will still be plenty of opportunity to make money, without risking a lot on what is essentially a coin flip. Sometimes discretion really is the better part of valor, and that is true in the runup to this weekend. A mere two years ago Russia had just one LNG project and one could rarely read about it in media outlets. With Yamal LNG, however, that has now changed completely, with a whole plethora of energy analysts in awe as NOVATEKs project defies expectations. The project has achieved something that is entirely at odds with the current business climate in Russia it delivered results ahead of schedule. With the 2nd train of Yamal LNG commissioned 6 months ahead of schedule this August and production coming along nicely, NOVATEK has tackled all logistics-related issues that have come up. As a result, Russia will have two LNG transshipment terminals at the eastern and western gate of the Arctic Ocean and a new Russo-Norwegian transshipment agreement to catalyze deliveries until the latter two are commissioned. The first transshipment terminal to be discussed by NOVATEK and its partners was the 20 mtpa Kamchatka LNG, located at the Bechevinskaya harbor approximately 100 kilometers from the regions main city, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy. Ice-breaking LNG carriers would take the Yamal LNG and (from 2022 onwards) Arctic LNG-2 volumes from the port of Sabetta along the Northern Sea Route to Kamchatka, from where LNG would be shipped further on using regular carriers. The primary aim is to save on transportation costs by doing so, NOVATEK would save roughly 10% of its 2-2.5 USD/MMBtu transportation expense. The second, more subtle, underlying reason is that NOVATEK sees both Yamal LNG and Arctic LNG-2 as a year-round export outlet, nullifying the effects of the frozen Arctic seas during the icy season (November-April). As with Yamal LNG itself, the government will provide financial support for the endeavor of the $1.6 billion (108 billion RUB) total costs, Kremlin would provide $0.6 billion. The reason for this is Kamchatkas remote location with no significant hydrocarbon production of its own, the transshipment terminal would also be used to supply Kamchatka with natural gas. The terminal would use two floating storage units, both with a nominal capacity of 400,000 m3. It should come as no surprise that the Kamchatka LNG has generated substantial interest in Japan both the shipping company Mitsui and trading firm Marubeni expressed their interest in joining the project. With the Asian part of its transshipment drive more or less solved, NOVATEK then took on the Europe-headed deliveries. Related: European Nations Backing Hydrogen As Viable Alternative The result that came out of it was by no means original NOVATEK decided to build a similar transshipment terminal with the same nominal capacity of 20 mtpa in the Ura bay, some 50km from Murmansk. Located in an ice-free bay, the Murmansk LNG transshipment terminal is fully suitable for NOVATEKs year-round shipping plans. Its commissioning is most likely to take place in 2022-2023, by that time all four trains of the 17.5 mtpa Yamal LNG project will be already in full swing, it is rather additional LNG cargoes from the 19.8 mtpa Arctic LNG-2 that would stretch the current system in the extreme. In a departure from the Kamchatka LNG, there is one additional complication to it since the Murmansk area is home to Russias Northern Fleet and many other military objects, NOVATEK needs the militarys approval to base its terminal at the proposed location. Until the Murmansk LNG comes into operation in 2022-2023, NOVATEK will rely for the next years on Norwegian transshipment capacities. The company has already inked a 3-year deal with Norway, which would shorten the usual return trip by 5-6 days heretofore the Belgian transshipment terminal in Zeebrugge was the primary one if transshipment was deemed necessary. It took 20 days approximately for Russian Arc7 class tankers to reach Zeebrugge from Sabetta and sail back, with the Norwegian option the trip length would be reduced to a mere 5 days. At the same time perhaps boosted by the 61% y-o-y profit increase in Q2 2018 NOVATEK also took measures to create an ice-breaking fleet of its own, in addition to the 15 the company will use for Yamal LNG supplies (currently it uses 7, the Korean-built fleet should be complete by 2019). Related: Is 2018 A Banner Year For Gazprom? To deal with LNG output staying above Yamal LNGs nameplate capacity and the reshaping of production schedules due to earlier-than-expected commissioning dates, as well as to satisfy increased shipping needs, the fleet of LNG carriers sweeping the Arctic Seas should be extended. The Russian Prime Minister D. Medvedev stated at a government meeting that 10 more ice-breaking LNG carriers would be needed to accommodate increased shipping rates. Here, too, NOVATEK has come up with a novelty idea, forming a joint venture with nuclear powerhouse Rosatom to develop an LNG-fuelled icebreaker fleet. It remains to be seen whether the new LNG-fuelled tankers would be built abroad or in Russia (the latter is more likely now that Rosneft and Gazprombank have edged ever-closer to the commissioning of the Zvezda shipyard in Russias Far East). In a twist of events that is rather uncharacteristic of Russia, NOVATEK has found itself in the forefront of Russias LNG ambitions. More than that it continues to initiate new projects, be it Arctic LNG-2 or transshipment terminals in Murmansk and Kamchatka, that attract foreign investment under circumstances when foreign investment into Russias energy sector is very limited. If it manages to bring the fourth train of Yamal LNG (nameplate capacity of 0.9 mtpa) online without delays and using the companys proprietary liquefaction technology called Arctic Cascade, it would amount to a small earthquake within Russias quite risk-averse energy sector. By Viktor Katona for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Mining grew by 6.3 percent year-on-year (y-o-y) in the first quarter of 2018, according to data issued by the General Authority for Statistics on July 2. Coupled with expansion in non-oil manufacturing (4.6 percent) and government services (3.4 percent), the strong performance of the mining sector helped drive overall GDP growth to 1.2 percent over the period, breaking a run of four consecutive quarters of negative growth. The industry also helped offset slower growth in the oil industry (0.6 percent), along with contractions in retail and hospitality (-0.5 percent) and construction (-2.4 percent). Private investment to boost mining contribution The expansion in mining activity comes amid a push to attract private investment into the sector to further develop it as one of the main contributors to the economy. On July 9 Khalid Al Falih, the minister of energy, industry and mineral resources, announced the completion of an adjusted mining investment system designed to incentivize investment in projects. Under the revised mechanism, the Kingdom aims to build a comprehensive database of its mineral resources, intensify exploration and develop new funding methods for projects. The development aligns with the Kingdoms Vision 2030 economic strategy, which looks towards greater private sector involvement to diversify the economy away from its dependence on hydrocarbons. As for the extent of minings contribution, Al Falih said the government plans to make the sector the third pillar of the economy, alongside oil and downstream petrochemical production. The Ministry of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources (MEIMR) seeks to increase minings contribution to GDP from $17bn currently to $64bn by 2030, as well as generate more than 25,000 new jobs in the industry. Strong mineral reserves strengthen prospects The pursuit of these goals is likely to be supported by high levels of mineral deposits: the MEIMR estimates the Kingdoms mineral wealth at around $1.3trn, with gold reserves put at $240bn and significant deposits of bauxite, copper and phosphates. Related: Is Oil On Its Way To $80? This figure could rise further as more survey work is undertaken. In February officials said the Saudi Geological Survey had at least five more years of testing to undertake to identify and quantify new deposits. Rising demand and commodity prices could make the countrys mining sector an attractive buy, with leading local extractor the Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Maaden) experiencing higher returns this year. Half-yearly results showed an 82.9 percent y-o-y rise in net profits to SR1.2bn ($320m), and the company cited an increase in sales volume and mineral prices as factors underpinning growth. One commodity that Maaden is looking to develop is copper, according to Darren Davis, the companys acting CEO. We would like to be a lot bigger in copper, he told international media on August 6. We think it is a great metal for the future. Related: Will Canadas $30 Billion Megaproject Be Approved? While looking at buying into assets overseas, Davis said Maaden wanted to build on its existing domestic copper operation, which currently consists of a single mine located 350 km south-east of Jeddah that began production in 2016. Mining growth to spur development in related industries Continued expansion in the mining industry is expected to present growth opportunities to firms operating in related sectors, with the expected quadrupling of minings economic output to require significant investment in dedicated infrastructure, equipment and technology. While Saudi Arabia is investing extensively in its rail network, providing heavy-moving capacity and linking its mineral reserves with ports and logistics hubs, demand for earth moving and loading equipment, engines and rail rolling stock for moving the take from the new mines is set to rise sharply in the coming years. In mid-May Saudi-U.S. rail services joint venture Savage Saudi Arabia delivered five new locomotives and two locomotive booster units to Maadens Waad Al Shamal Phosphate Company, to be used to move mining offtake to the industrial towns of Waad Al Shamal and Ras Al Khair. By Oxford Business Group More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Canadas federal government instructed on Friday the National Energy Board (NEB) to review the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion project again, this time also taking into account the impact of the expected higher oil tanker traffic off the coast of British Columbia. Last month, a Federal Court of Appeal quashed the federal governments approval of the Trans Mountain expansion project, saying that the NEBs review of the project was fraught with flaws that made it unsuitable as a basis for the governments approval. The court ruled that the NEB failed to adequately consider how increased tanker traffic off British Columbias coasts would affect the environment and First Nations people in the region. Today, we have instructed the National Energy Board (NEB) to reconsider its recommendations, taking into account the effects of project-related marine shipping. The NEB will be required to complete a thorough and prompt review and deliver its report within 22 weeks, Canadas Minister of Natural Resources, Amarjeet Sohi, said in a statement on Friday. The government will present to the NEB recent government actions to protect the southern resident killer whale and to implement the Oceans Protection Plan, Sohi said. The Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion project (TMX) is an investment in Canadas future. The Government remains committed to a clear and reliable path forward for the project, the minister noted. The Trans Mountain expansion has become one of the most controversial pipeline projects in North America as it pitted two provincesAlberta and British Columbiaagainst each other. Albertas heavy oil producers need more pipeline capacity as their production grows, but pipeline capacity has stayed the same. British Columbias NDP government, which came into office last year, however, is against any new oil pipelines, although it doesnt mind all the crude it currently gets from the existing pipeline. The fierce opposition in British Columbia has forced Kinder Morgan to reconsider its commitment to expand the Trans Mountain pipeline, and to sell the project to the Canadian government. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Next Match: Yale 9/28/2018 | 7:00 PM ESPN+ #FightOnPenn The University of Pennsylvania women's volleyball team put up a valiant third-set effort in an attempt to get back into its match with two-time defending Ivy champion Princeton, but after winning the first two sets 25-18 and 25-19 the Tigers pulled out a 28-26 win in the third set to gain the sweep at the Palestra.andtied for team-high honors with 12 kills, and Jones also had 11 digs for a double-double.led the Quakers with 19 digs, whilehad 33 assists to lead the club.Princeton scored the first two points of the first set and expanded the lead to 7-3 early. Penn got back within two points, at 9-7, but the Tigers scored five of the next seven points to make it 14-9. Unfortunately, the Quakers could not get any closer than four points after that as the set ended in Princeton's favor, 25-18.Penn had a 3-0 lead that stretched to 5-2 early in the second set, but Princeton roared back with a strong attack game to score six of the next seven points and take an 8-6 lead. The Tigers then doubled the Quakers up over a few points, moving their lead to 14-9, and extended it to 18-11. The Red and Blue responded with seven of the next nine points, getting within 21-18 whenrocked a pair of kills. Princeton's Maggie O'Connell andtraded kills to 22-19, but another Tigers kill and a pair of Penn attack errors gave Princeton the set, 25-19.The third set brought out the best in both teams, as they battled over several lengthy points and needed extra points to decide matters. Overall, the Quakers and Tigers were tied a staggering 16 times in the set.Princeton was up 3-0, but Penn got back to 4-4 and then the teams were tied at 5-5, 6-6, 7-7 and 8-8. The Tigers reeled off five of the next six points, but once again the Quakers came back with a four-point run to knot things up at 13-13. The back-and-forth action continued as the teams traded points to be tied at 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20 before a pair of Goldstein kills gave Penn a 22-20 advantage. Princeton used a kill and a Penn attack error to draw level at 22-22, but akill made it 23-22.Princeton got a pair of kills by Clare Lenihan to go up 24-23 and set up match point, but Jones had another kill to extend the match and then a Princeton ball-handling error gave the Quakers set point. However, two-straight attack errors again tilted the score in Princeton's favor at 26-25, before a Tigers service error tied the score at 26-26. At that point, Princeton's Devon Peterkin recorded a kill and Lenihan served up an ace to put the match away. Harriet Prince (R), 76, of the Anishinaabe tribe marches with Coast Salish Water Protectors and others against the expansion of Texas-based Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline project in Burnaby, British Columbia The Canadian government on Friday ordered a new review of the Trans Mountain pipeline to the Pacific taking into account the impact of increased tanker traffic on endangered killer whales along the coast. Natural Resources Minister Amarjeet Sohi said the National Energy Board (NEB) will have 22 weeks to reassess the project, after the Federal Court of Appeal last month blocked it over concerns for the marine mammals. He said new consultations with indigenous tribes along the pipeline routeanother condition set by the court to get the project back on trackwould come later. "We are focused on getting this project right. We want to make sure that everything we do enables us to move forward on this project, which is very important project for Canada's economy," Sohi said. Ottawa, he added, will ask the NEB to consider the government's new Can$1.5 billion oceans protections plan as part of its assessment. The 1,150-kilometre (715-mile) pipeline was to move 890,000 barrels of oil a day from landlocked Alberta province to the Pacific coast for export overseas, replacing a smaller crumbling conduit built in 1953. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government approved the project in 2016 after an environmental review, saying it was in the "national interest" as it would help ease Canada's reliance on the US market, and get a better price for its crude oil. But it has continued to face stiff opposition from environmentalist activists and indigenous tribes concerned that increased shipping from a marine terminal at the end of the route in Vancouver would impede the recovery of killer whale populations in the area. Ottawa stepped in to buy the project for Can$4.5 billion (US$3.5 billion) last month, effectively nationalising it in a bid to bring a swift end to legal challenges and illegal protests at construction sites. Explore further Alberta pulls out of carbon tax initiative after pipeline ruling 2018 AFP Polymer pellets with metal-organic frameworks inside them, which Melissa Reynolds' lab at Colorado State University uses to make biomedical devices. Credit: John Eisele/Colorado State University Smoke inhalation, pneumonia, and combat-related trauma are just a few causes of acute respiratory distress syndromea condition where the lungs fill with fluid, and is too often fatal. To help these critically ill patients, doctors use extracorporeal life supporta cardiopulmonary bypass system that artificially re-oxygenates blood when the lungs are too damaged to breathe normally. This critical care technology has saved many lives, but it needs improvement. Together with trauma care doctors, Colorado State University chemists may soon play a key role in making next-generation extracorporeal life support devices more effective and less invasive. CSU Monfort Professor and Associate Professor of Chemistry Melissa Reynolds is sharing in a $3.4 million grant from the Department of Defense for developing better treatments for acute lung injuries, particularly in the context of military combat and medical emergencies. She has teamed with Dr. Andriy Batchinsky, a trauma surgeon who oversees research laboratories at the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research and the Geneva Foundation. The problem Reynolds and her team will address involves a common, life-threatening complication for patients on life support: the body's tendency to form blood clots around the inserted machinery. The standard of care for reversing the blood clotting problem is administration of systemic blood thinners such as heparin, but these medicines come with major side effects for already extremely sick patients. In many cases, the immune system attacks the non-clotting cells as non-functional cells, leading to further infections and complications. Reynolds' goal for this project is to help Batchinsky's team create life-support systems that eliminate the need to administer blood thinners at all. Reynolds' lab makes advanced biocompatible materials for clinical applications, with the goal of making minimally invasive, implantable devices that the body does not reject. A chance meeting with Batchinsky at a conference several years ago seeded a partnership between two scientists working on essentially the same problempatient mortality and critical care treatmentsfrom different angles. "We are interested in the blood or tissue response in medical devices," said Reynolds, who also serves as associate dean for research in the College of Natural Sciences. "We are happy and very excited to work with any group with a challenge of mitigating those blood-device interactions." For the life-support project, Reynolds will lead the development of biologically friendly coatings that will be chemically incorporated into the polymers that the system components are made ofthe catheters, circuits and other devices that must come in contact with a patient's blood. The coatings are made of metal-organic frameworks, designed to resist blood coagulation by replicating the natural function of endothelial cells through the release of nitric oxide. The Reynolds lab will oversee this important advance, which should solve the blood compatibility problems so pervasive in extracorporeal life support systems and eliminate the need for blood thinners. Reynolds and her students will work on the chemistry and engineering side of the framework additives, while Batchinsky's team will lead in-vivo experiments to test the new systems. "I am particularly enthusiastic about this collaboration because Dr. Reynolds brings a much-needed potential solution for the problem of thrombogenicity of blood-polymer interactions during extracorporeal life support," Batchinsky said. "As a leader of a premier Department of Defense-affiliated research laboratory and program, I am focused on solving this problem with Dr. Reynolds' help, and we will test the new devices coated by our partners at Colorado State, in a clinically relevant setting." 10 hours ago With high-profile backers, EV startup Rivian goes public SILVER SPRING, Md. (AP) Shares in Rivian Automotive are set to trade publicly Wednesday, and the world should get a better idea of just how excited investors are about the electric vehicle market. Rivian, the EV startup backed by Amazon and Ford, hopes to raise about $12 billion with the sale of 153 million shares, which would top the $8 billion Uber raised in its IPO in 2019. Read Article Steve Alexander covers technology for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Readers may write to him at Tech Q&A, 425 Portland Ave. S., Minneapolis, MN 55488-0002; email: steve.j.alexander@gmail.com. Please include a full name, city and phone number. Thank you for reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading. The Latvian expert Ruslans Bondars (37), who developed and run the counter antivirus service Scan4You has been sentenced to 14 years in prison. Bondars was convicted of conspiracy to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and computer intrusion with intent to cause damage. A Latvian non-citizen, meaning a citizen of the former USSR who resided in Riga, Latvia, was sentenced to 168 months in prison today for offenses related to his operation of Scan4you, an online counter antivirus service that helped computer hackers determine whether the computer viruses and other malicious software they created would be detected by antivirus software, announced Assistant Attorney General Brian A. reads the press release published by DoJ. Scan4you is a VirusTotal like online multi-engine antivirus scanning service that could be used by vxers to test evasion abilities of their malware against the major antiviruses. Unlike VirusTotal, Scan4you offered a totally anonymous service to its users, this means that data related to the scans of uploaded files were not shared with the antivirus firms. Bondars is one of the two hackers found to have been running Scan4you from 2009 to 2016, its service was very popular in the cybercrime community and was used by malware developers to test their malicious codes. Ruslans Bondars pleaded guilty on May 16 in federal court in Alexandria, according to a co-conspirator the man had helped Russian law enforcement. The other hacker who operated the Scan4you service, Jurijs Martisevs, was arrested while on a trip to Latvia and extradited to the United States. The man pleaded guilty to the same Bondarss charges in March 2018. Scan4you service allows its customers to develop malicious codes that were used to steal millions of payment cards from retail stores across the world, it has been estimated that overall losses account for $20.5 billion. In issuing the sentence, the court found a loss amount of $20.5 billion. In addition to the term of imprisonment, U.S. District Judge Liam OGrady ordered Bondars to serve three years of supervised release. A decision regarding forfeiture and payment of restitution to victims of the offenses is forthcoming. continues the press release. A Scan4you customer, for example, used the service to test malware that was subsequently used to steal approximately 40 million credit and debit card numbers, as well as approximately 70 million addresses, phone numbers and other pieces of personal identifying information, from retail store locations throughout the United States, causing one retailer approximately $292 million in expenses resulting from the intrusion. The DoJ cited the case of Scan4you customer that used the service to test malware that was used to steal approximately 40 million credit and debit card numbers, and other personal information from a US retail store, causing $292 million in losses. A second customer used Scan4you to contribute to the development of infamous Citadel malware that caused over $500 million in fraud-related losses. Ruslans Bondars helped malware developers attack American businesses, explained Assistant Attorney General Benczkowski. The Department of Justice and its law enforcement partners make no distinction between service providers like Scan4You and the hackers they assist: we will hold them accountable for all of the significant harm they cause and work tirelessly to bring them to justice, wherever they may be located. Pierluigi Paganini ( Security Affairs Scan4You, malware) Share this... Linkedin Share this: Twitter Print LinkedIn Facebook More Tumblr Pocket Share On AFPTV From Bangladesh to Britain to Nigeria, many young campaigners on the front lines of the global fight against climate change face a new problem: the impact the crisis is having on their mental health. As thousands of delegates converge at the COP26 summit in Glasgow to discuss ways to tackle the environmental emergency, AFP spoke with three youth activists around the world who spoke candidly of their experience of climate anxiety and how they are turning these fears for the future into action. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seen on the balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seen on the balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, Britain, May 19, 2017. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls/Files By Alexandra Valencia QUITO (Reuters) - Ecuador in 2017 gave Wikileaks founder Julian Assange a diplomatic post in Russia but rescinded it after Britain refused to give him diplomatic immunity, according to an Ecuadorean government document seen by Reuters. The aborted effort suggests Ecuadorean President Lenin Moreno had engaged Moscow to resolve the situation of Assange, who has been holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy for six years to avoid arrest by British authorities on charges of skipping bail. The incident was revealed in a letter by Ecuador's foreign ministry to a legislator who had asked for information about Ecuador's decision last year to grant Assange citizenship. Ecuador last Dec. 19 approved a "special designation in favor of Mr. Julian Assange so that he can carry out functions at the Ecuadorean Embassy in Russia," according to the letter written to opposition legislator Paola Vintimilla. "Special designation" refers to the Ecuadorean president's right to name political allies to a fixed number of diplomatic posts even if they are not career diplomats. But Britain's Foreign Office in a Dec. 21 note said it did not accept Assange as a diplomat and that it did not "consider that Mr. Assange enjoys any type of privileges and immunities under the Vienna Convention," reads the letter, citing a British diplomatic note. Ecuador abandoned its decision shortly after, according to the letter. British authorities have said they will arrest Assange if he leaves the embassy, meaning he would have needed to be recognized as a diplomat in order to travel to Moscow. Lawyers for Assange in the United States and Britain did not respond to requests for comment. WikiLeaks website did not respond to an email seeking comment. The Ecuadorean foreign ministry could not be reached for comment. The plan to make Assange an Ecuadorean diplomat was made public last year, but the effort to send him to Moscow has not been previously reported. Story continues U.S. intelligence agencies in 2017 said they believed WikiLeaks was an intermediary used by Russia to publish emails hacked from top Democrats to embarrass 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. U.S. President Donald Trump faces an investigation into whether his campaign colluded with Russia to win that election. Assange denies receiving the emails from Russia, but has not ruled out having obtained them from a third party. Trump and Russia deny collusion. The Guardian newspaper on Friday reported that Russian diplomats held secret talks in London to help Assange flee Britain through an operation tentatively scheduled for Christmas Eve, 2017. The story, which cited unidentified sources, said "details of the plan were sketchy" and that it was aborted because it was deemed too risky. "The Embassy has never engaged either with Ecuadorian colleagues, or with anyone else, in discussions on any kind of Russia's participation in ending Mr Assange's stay within the diplomatic mission of Ecuador," Russia's embassy in London wrote on its web site in a response to The Guardian story. It was not immediately evident if Ecuadorean officials had any contact with Russia as part of the Assange appointment. Reuters was unable to obtain comment from Russia's foreign ministry on Ecuador's plan to make him a diplomat there. The letter from Ecuador's foreign ministry was a summary of 28 documents that were sent to Vintimilla in response to her request. Among those documents is a Dec. 4 letter from Assange in which he renounced his request for political asylum from Ecuador in preparation to become an Ecuadorean diplomat. The letter, which was seen by Reuters, said he ultimately planned to travel to Ecuador. Vintimilla, who discussed some of the documents during a Thursday press conference, said Assange should lose his citizenship as a result of that letter. Assange sought asylum in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden to face questions about allegations of sex crimes, accusations that were later dropped. Ecuador's president Moreno has said Assange's asylum cannot be eternal, but has also been reluctant to abruptly halt it on concerns that Assange's human rights could be at risk. (Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball in London, Writing by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Alistair Bell) Gabon on Saturday hailed as "brave" a decision by the International Criminal Court not to open a formal probe into claims of violence after a disputed presidential poll in a country ruled by the same family for nearly 50 years. The re-election of President Ali Bongo in August 2016 by just a few thousand votes led opposition leader Jean Ping to accuse the administration of electoral fraud. Ali Bongo took power in 2009 after the death of his father Omar who took the helm of the oil-rich West African nation in 1967. Violence broke out after the 2016 vote and opposition figures say that dozens were killed. The official toll was only four dead. "The Gabonese government is happy with this fair and brave decision of the ICC which conforms to the version of events it gave to the court," government spokesman Guy-Bertrand Mapangou told AFP on Saturday. He said Gabon "reiterates its faith" in The Hague-based institution which is facing a US threat of prosecution if its judges charge Americans with war crimes in Afghanistan. The ICC announced its decision late Friday. It had sent a fact finding mission to Gabon last year following a suit filed by the opposition and 15 non-governmental organisations to investigate alleged crimes against humanity. The government also filed a counter-suit alleging "incitement to hatred and violence" by the opposition. Ping's headquarters were bombed after the vote and the opposition also claimed that widespread rights abuses were committed by armed militias who took to the streets. The ICC however said that Friday's decision "by no means diminishes the seriousness of the violent acts and human rights violations that appear to have occurred in Gabon in the course of the post-election crisis". DUBAI (Reuters) - All those killed when gunmen opened fire during a military parade in Iran belonged to the country's elite Revolutionary Guards, the semi-official Tasnim news agency said. Up to ten people died in the attack in the southwestern city of Ahvaz, it said. (Reporting By Dubai Newsroom; Writing By Maha El Dahan; editing by John Stonestreet) If youre expecting An American in Paris: The Musical to be a copycat of the movie that inspired it, you can kiss those expectations goodbye as swiftly as the enormous swastika banners come tumbling down onstage. From the very beginning, its clear that the city we see in the production is no idealized Paris where a cuddly Gene Kelly tap-dances in the streets for the amusement of little children. This is a gloomier, postwar Paris that has survived a Nazi occupation, one whose residents are still dealing with the lingering effects. Advertisement The stage musical, which made its way from Paris to Broadway and the West End and is now screening in select theaters, is inspired by the lush MGM musical An American in Paris, which starred Gene Kelly as Jerry Mulligan, an ex-GI who stays behind in France as a painter after World War II. There, he falls for French shopgirl and aspiring ballerina Lise, who is already all but engaged to Jerrys new friend Henriin the new stage version, the son of wealthy industrialists, who dreams instead of a career as a song-and-dance man. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its details like those that set this An American in Paris apart from its cinematic inspiration. As joyful as Kellys movie is to watch, it doesnt have much in the way of plotand it doesnt really need it, since what little there is does a perfectly fine job of stringing together the movies Gershwin songs and dreamy Technicolor sequences, including the famous 17-minute ballet that the movie concludes with. Advertisement The musical isnt an escape the way the movie that inspired it is. On stage, the extended ballet sequences are still there, choreographed this time by Christopher Wheeldon, and they are just as exquisite, especially as performed by stars Leanne Cope and Robert Fairchild, who were both nominated for Tony Awards during the shows Broadway run.* (The version playing in theaters reunites both performers in the West End production instead.) The same can be said for Bob Crowleys costumes and set design, which often echo the bold primary colors of the moviealthough they sometimes slip into moodier palettes, as when he re-creates a blackout at a French cafe that causes the rattled patrons to panic. Thats appropriate, because the musicals book writer, Craig Lucas, was not content with the original movies escapism, giving the characters more substantial backstories and shifting the setting to immediately after the end of the war, with all the consequences that entails. Lise, for instance, is made explicitly Jewish, and her loyalty to Henri stems as much from dutiful gratitude toward his family for hiding her from the Germans during the occupation as it does from love. She gains an additional romantic interest, too, in Jerrys friend Adam, a composer played in the original movie by Oscar Levant and in the stage musical by David Seadon-Young, whose accent is impossible to place to the point of distraction. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Adam, Jerry, and Henri, the movies three musketeers, are all blissfully unaware, for a time, that theyre in love with the same woman. As in the movie, Jerry is also entertaining a flirtation with Milo, an American patroness who is interested in him for more than his art. (A scene in which she tricks Jerry into coming alone to her apartment with the pretense of a party is right out of the Weinstein playbook.) Henri, meanwhile, is not just in show business but very likely in show business too, his closeted interest in showmanship a metaphor for his own sexualityand a bit of a running joke among the other characters. His mother, in particular, is afraid of what people will say if they find out, still in the mindset of the occupation even after the Nazis have left. Advertisement Artists have a responsibility to show the dark underbelly to life, insists Adam, also Jewish and staying in the city rent-free, thanks to the guilt of the residents. Dont listen to him, replies Henri. Paint what you love. Make them pretty. The musical eventually settles for a kind of in-between, retaining a few essential songs from the movie, including I Got Rhythm and S Wonderful, while padding the rest of it by borrowing other Gershwin songs, like Who Cares? from Of Thee I Sing and Liza (All the Cloudsll Roll Away) from Show Girl. That last one requires some contortions to make it fit; Jerry straight-up renames Lise, a woman hes just met, insisting that Liza is happier. Advertisement Advertisement Lise is not quite as fleshed-out in the script as some of the other characters, but Cope does a lot with what shes given, and her dancing often says what the dialogue doesnt. She does have one memorable line, shouting at Jerry that life isnt like your American movies. Its certainly true of the musical, which isnt an escape the way the movie that inspired it is; the angst of a city recovering from fascist occupation is probably not the distraction youre looking for from the news. But if its sheer optimism you want, well, theres always Gene Kelly for that. Gunmen who were disguised as soldiers opened fire at a military parade in southwest Iran, killing at least 25 people and wounding around 60 others. Almost half of those who were killed were members of the Revolutionary Guard, turning the attack into one of the deadliest ever on the elite force. Civilians, including children, were also among the victims. Four attackers dressed up as soldiers opened fire from behind a viewing platform during the parade in the city of Ahvaz that was being carried out to mark the anniversary of the end of the war with Iraq. Although some reports claim all the attackers were killed, others state that three were killed after they opened fire while another was arrested. An anti-government group, known as the Ahvaz National Resistance, and Islamic State (IS) both claimed responsibility for the attack but neither of them provided any evidence to back up their allegations. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Irans Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif blamed other countries in the region and their U.S. masters for the attack. Iran will respond swiftly and decisively in defense of Iranian lives, Zarif wrote on Twitter. A spokesman for the Revolutionary Guard specifically pinned the blame on Saudi Arabia. The individuals who fired at the people and the armed forces during the parade are connected to the al-Ahvaziya group which is fed by Saudi Arabia, he said. Terrorists recruited, trained, armed & paid by a foreign regime have attacked Ahvaz. Children and journos among casualties. Iran holds regional terror sponsors and their US masters accountable for such attacks. Iran will respond swiftly and decisively in defense of Iranian lives. pic.twitter.com/WG1J1wgVD9 Javad Zarif (@JZarif) September 22, 2018 Advertisement If the Arab separatist group is responsible it would suggest a resurgence of separatist militancy after a seven-year lull. If it was IS, it would represent a failure by Irans intelligence community to prevent a second major IS attack in its soil, notes the BBCs Siavash Mehdi-Ardalan. Iran has not provided any evidence of foreign collusion but has vowed revenge. The Saudi reaction and more importantly the wording of the US administrations response may prove important as leaders of all three countries are set for a possible diplomatic clash at the UN General Assembly next week. On this weeks Political Gabfest, David Plotz and Emily Bazelon are joined by David French, senior fellow at the National Review Institute, to discuss the sexual assault allegations made by Christine Blasey Ford against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. A transcript of this conversation, which has been edited and condensed for clarity, is below. David Plotz: Should Christine Blasey Ford testify on Monday? Emily Bazelon: I think the request for an investigation is a completely reasonable one and makes sense if youre trying to ascertain the truth of these accusations. Thats what investigators do: They look into surrounding circumstances and look for corroborating evidence. This accusation is about something that took place 36 years ago, and its possible that people arent going to remember whether this party happened, when it was, etc. But at least one would want to allow investigators a chance to try to sort that out, especially because Kavanaugh has said that he wasnt at this party. And that seems like something that its possible to at least find out more about. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement So I understand why Blaseys asking for the investigation. I think Republicans are going to refuse to do it, which seems to clearly be their positionnone of the Republican senators who asked for the hearing, meaning Flake and Corker and Collins and Murkowski, are demanding an investigation. I think the Republicans have decided that the politics dont force them to do one. And in that case, I think that if Blasey wants to try to have an effect on this confirmation, then she has to testify on Monday. Whether she decides to do that or not, thats her personal decision. Im not going to tell her to do, but I think thats sort of how the politics have landed at the moment. Advertisement Plotz: Do you think this merits an FBI investigation before any Senate Judiciary Committee testimony? Or do you think that the testimony should go ahead with the two of them? David French: No, I dont think it merits an FBI investigation. Lets be clear about what were talking about here. Were talking about investigating what would have been a violation of state criminal law more than 30 years ago, something that the FBI doesnt investigate. Advertisement Now, when were talking about investigation, people keep acting as if the FBI is the only entity that can investigate. No, the Senate committee itself can investigate. The Senate committee staff, both majority staff and minority staff, can investigate. A plaintiff can investigate. A plaintiffs attorney can investigate. There are many different avenues of investigation here. Advertisement One thing I think is pretty clear, and from what Im hearing, is I do not believe that Republicans senators are sitting there going, I cant wait for her testify in front of us so that we can destroy her on national television. Many of them view her testifying on national television as an extremely high-risk endeavor for the nominee and for the GOP. There is a view that if she comes, and she testifies in public, and shes very compelling, that this could absolutely sink the nomination. Advertisement But at the same time, they also know you cannot possibly vote on this nominee without offering this testimony. So I think they are going to continue to offer up right up until the deadline, and at the same time, you would hope that these committee staffs are busy doing their jobs investigating this all the while. Advertisement Advertisement Listen to Slates Political Gabfest via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play. Bazelon: Maybe Im a little confused about your position. Because a couple weeks ago, you were saying, If there were only four boys there, where are the other two? Lets hear from them. In fact, investigators should interview everyone else at the party. So are you saying that the FBI should not investigate, but somebody should? Or that the hearing should just go ahead on Monday without an investigation? French: No, Im saying an investigation should be conducted by the relevant committee. If youre going to say, There should be an investigation, and only the FBI should investigate, when this is not in the FBIs standard operating procedure, I think thats a problem. But it is absolutely within the purview of these committees to do these kinds of investigations, and from what I understand, at least the majority staff has been doing these investigations, has talked to Kavanaugh under penalty of felony, has received correspondence from at least two of the other people who were allegedly at the party who say they dont remember a party like this. So there is something going on behind the scenes that is not highly visible to us, and the FBI, typically, doesnt investigate alleged violations of state laws. Advertisement Advertisement Bazelon: But in this context, the FBI does background checks of every Supreme Court nominee and did investigate Anita Hills allegations about Clarence Thomas. In fact, according to the White House at the time, they were unfounded. Advertisement Im a little confused. If Kavanaugh is innocent, I would think he would welcome an investigation to clear his name. So that part of it puzzles me, but I also think from Blasey Fords point of view, the Republican majority on the Senate Judiciary Committee is not a neutral source of investigation. Some of the senators have already said that they believe Kavanaugh. I think what she is asking for here is to have some neutral fact-finders. There is a view that if Blasey Ford testifies in public, and shes very compelling, that this could absolutely sink the nomination. David French French: But you also have the minority staff empowered to investigate as well. Advertisement Bazelon: But those are both of the entity, the majority and minority parts of the committee. And what Blasey Ford is asking for is a neutral investigator, and that seems to me to be different from just saying, Oh, a particular entity, the FBI. Plotz: The Senate is holding a hearing to decide whether they want to confirm him for the Supreme Court. This isnt a criminal investigation. This is not an attempt to open a criminal investigation against him. Its a process designed to decide on confirmation. And I feel like if the Senate rules as set by the majority of senators are, Heres how were going to do it, even if theyre tinged with partisan bias, why not just go ahead with this? She can make her point as she testifies: Heres why this is an inadequate investigation. And heres what should be looked into. But I dont know that shes necessarily entitled to this kind of investigation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bazelon: I dont know what the word entitled in that sentences means. And I also feel like Im repeating myself. But if you really want to try find out the facts here, as David French wrote a week or two ago, you would investigate. And the idea of having a neutral investigative body that more people might trust their findings seems totally sensible to me. Advertisement We already have a situation in which people are lining up on one side of believe him or believe her with a lot of partisan bias informing their choices about that matter. So if there is some hope here of finding out other facts that could help people see this in a more neutral way, that would seem important to me. Advertisement One other related question I have about this is the decision to only call two witnesses when theres a third person, Mark Judge, who according to Blasey Ford was in the room, and who is someone who supports Kavanaughs version of events. It just seems to me the decision not to call Judge has everything to do with Judges character and the fact that he wrote two memoirs about his alcoholism and blackout drinking. And if they call Judge, theyre going to say to him, Hey, there was a character in your book who you called Bart OKavanaugh, who you talked about puking and passing out from alcohol. Is that Brett Kavanaugh? Advertisement The Republicans dont want that guy testifying in front of the American people. But again, if you were really trying to ascertain the truth here and figure out whos credible and whose stories hold up, of course you would call that third person. And anyone else you could find who was supposed to be at that party. Advertisement Plotz: Why do you think Judge, in particular, shouldnt be called on Monday, if you do think that? French: I dont think that. I think that if you can identify people who were allegedly at that party they should be called, and they should testify. I look at this in a way that is very similar to the process of civil litigation because theres no prospect of prosecuting a crime here. That ship sailed a long time ago. And in the process of civil litigation, a person comes forward with an accusation and then bears a burden of proof. And the burden of proof I articulated in an article when all this just first broke on Sunday was the lowest burden of proof possible in court. And that is preponderance of the evidence or more likely than not. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Because I dont want to have a Supreme Court justice sitting on the Supreme Court if it is more likely than not that they committed this heinous of a sexual assault even when they were a teenager. If its more likely than not that they did this, I dont want them on the Supreme Court. In the same way with Roy Moore, I was utterly opposed to his election in Alabama because I thought it was more likely than not that he had abused underage young teenagers when he was a prosecutor in Alabama. The same reason I did not want Trump inwell, for many reasons I did not want Trump in the White House. One is I thought its more likely than not he was a sexual abuser, the same for Bill Clinton. Thats the standard, which I think is a fair standard, is that we dont want someone in that office when its more likely than not that they did this. Advertisement Well, then how do you go about establishing that? I tend to believe that the accuser, the person who comes forward with the accusation, bears the burden of proving at least that its more likely than not that it occurred. And one thing that troubles me that as of right now: The only people who have said anything under penalty of felony so far about this are Kavanaugh and two of the other people who were allegedly at the party. And the accuser, to this moment, has still not said anything under oath or under any penalty of felony. In a court of law that accusation would be tossed out unless the person was willing to state their case under penalty of perjury. Advertisement Advertisement So the staff should investigate the heck out of this thing between now and a hearing, and then they should call relevant witnesses. And if the majority doesnt want to call relevant witnesses, then Id say shame on them. But that is what we require of people all over this country in very, very difficult circumstances when a claim is made is to come in, put their hand in the air, swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but truth, and then make their case subject to cross-examination. Thats the way this works. Advertisement Plotz: Emily, do you think if we end up with simply the two of them testifying on Mondayand maybe, as David French says, there will be a background investigation so that at least the senators will come armed with material to ask questions aboutand we have one person who makes a claim, and she is credible, and we have another person who denies that claim, and he is credible, what are we left with at that point? Advertisement Bazelon: Im not sure because we havent heard the testimony. And I agree with David French that its entirely possibleand in my view, likelythat Blasey Ford is going to be a compelling and sympathetic teller of her story, and that could have a real impact, but we have to wait and see how it plays out. Advertisement Advertisement For me, some of the arguments people have made about why Blasey Ford doesnt seem credible to them are not arguments that hold up to me. One of the argumentsI think, David French, youve made this argumentthat because she waited so long to come forward, it makes it harder to prove. But to me, it doesnt at all make it clear that shes not telling the truth. Advertisement Caitlin Flanagan did an amazing job on The Daily this week for the New York Times and in the Atlantic talking about a sexual assault she experienced that she didnt tell anyone about. I had an experience of sexual assault in high school in the 80s. I didnt tell anyone. For a long time, we just didnt do that. I felt way too much shame and responsibility to talk about it. It just seems like something that was my fault. But I know it happened to me. Advertisement And I have the same response hearing President Trump and others suggest that maybe she mixed up Kavanaughs identity, because I would never be mixed up about the person who did that to me. So I find those efforts to undermine her story really hard to listen to. Advertisement Advertisement Plotz: Do you guys think that the peripheral evidence about Kavanaughs teenage years, his own joking about what happens at Georgetown Prep stays at Georgetown Prep, the hints, and the Mark Judge memoir about Kavanaugh, do you think thats going to come up? Is it relevant? Do senators need to consider that? French: I think whether or not he drank to excess on occasion in high school islet me put it this way: If he said, Look, theres no way I could have done this because I was stone-cold sober all of the time, and remember with clarity where I was and what I did, and then there was evidence, No, in fact, you drank too much on occasion, at some point, it gets very, very difficult to say evidence that he drank too much on occasion equals evidence that he committed a serious act of sexual assault. Advertisement I find those efforts to undermine her story really hard to listen to. Emily Bazelon One of the problems that we have here, I think, is when you lack a lot of evidence, one way or the other, we begin to fill in the void with our own experience. And I think thats one of the reasons why some of the articlesfor example, Caitlins article that you referenced earlierhave been so, so powerful for so many people because it resonates so much with their own experiences. Advertisement Advertisement In the absence of a whole lot of evidence to really sit there and weigh and carefully consider, you begin to import your experience in these things. And I think thats just a very human thing that we all do, but its a thing that we do in the absence of evidence. And when that occurs, it ramps up whats already an intense, emotional, high-stakes confirmation battle, political battle, and it becomes something else entirely. It becomes a big cultural moment. And weve seen this many, many times. Advertisement Advertisement And so, no, I dont say that theres a lack of contemporary corroborating evidence means that shes lying. Im saying, more from a legal standpoint, that it is a lack of additional evidence that is of consequence if you were going to be making this case in court, and thats where Im going with that. Bazelon: Making this into a cultural moment sounds like its very mushy and being propelled by a few individual anecdotal narratives, so I want to bring in this smart article by Sandra Newman in Quartz about the relative rarity of false rape accusations, which is something that Ive also written about. Its a really low rate of womenor anyone, men too, whoeverwho come into police stations and report a rape falsely, and weve known that for a while. But added to this picture, which I thought was really valuable, is that when people do make false accusations, they usually have a history of fraud or mental illness, or sometimes theres a clear motivation of revenge, something that allows the facts to unravel pretty quickly and shows that there is some external motivation behind the false claim. And also usually the false claims are really florid. Theyre highly dramatic accounts of rape, like the claim that the UVA student made in the Rolling Stone piece that fell apart, which weve talked a lot about on this show. Advertisement Advertisement People rarely makes claims of things that could be mistaken for consent, and thats the kind of claim Blasey Ford is making here. So I think thats an important set of not just a few anecdotal narratives, but some data to add to this picture that to me balance against this notion that Blasey Ford isnt telling the truth. Advertisement French: Theres one problem with those studies: Our legal system does not adjudicate for falsity. If a jury acquits, for example, a rape defendant, they adjudicate the claim to be false. They say that the burden of proof wasnt met. If a prosecutor declines to proceed with a case, or if a judge grants a summary judgment motion in a sexual harassment case, a civil sexual assaulttype case, theres not an adjudication of falseness. Theres a failure to meetor a believed failure to meeta burden of proof. Advertisement So all of these studies that say, X percent are false, theres a methodological problem there because thats not what our system adjudicates for. You can have a situation, and this happens all the time, where a person isnt a false accuser, in other words, theyre not deliberately making a false claim, but theyre making a claim that is insufficient to meet the burden of proof sometimes for reasons due to their own memory, sometimes for reasons due to conflicting evidence, sometimes for many reasons. Advertisement Advertisement I dont think outside of the fever swamps on the right, I havent seen too many people sitting here saying that Ford is maliciously sitting back there and making all this up. What I am seeing is more people saying that based on the totality of the evidence, it appears that she might be mistaken about one or more elements. Advertisement Bazelon: You were talking before about a situation of proving rape beyond a reasonable doubt. And it is absolutely true that rape is a famously hard charge to prove. But the notion that then one moved there to the idea that there is some large number of false rape accusations out there, we just dont have any evidence for that. Its just like canard. Advertisement When you say that you think that Blasey Ford could be mistakenthats a very delicate way of putting itwhat do you think shes mistaken about? French: She could be mistaken about identity of the attacker. She could be mistaken about the exact circumstances of the things that happened in the room. She could be mistaken about the amount of alcohol that various people, including herself, consumed. Advertisement One of the things thats really interesting about memory is thatand this is a hard truth for people to understand because nobody doubts their own memoryif you say to somebody, The thing that you remember is one of the most important things in your life, you could be remembering that incorrectly, people get really upset about that. And they say, Thats just not possible. But everything that we know about memory says not only is that possible, but that is frequently the case. Frequently. Now, it doesnt mean that this 30-year-old memory that I have seared in my mind is false. Its just that I cant be sure that this 30-year-old memory that is seared in my mind is true. Advertisement Advertisement When I was a young lawyer, I used to have this view of the law, so naive, that was heres one side thats telling the truth, and heres one side thats telling a lie. And I always want to be on the side thats telling the truth. What I began to see is on these really, really important things in peoples lives, I would see people believing with their whole heart that their story was right. And then sometimes reacting with extreme shock when confronted with contrary evidence. And so theres actually a really interesting Malcolm Gladwell podcast recently, Revisionist History, that used the Brian Williams controversy to tee off on some of these aspects of our memories. And so thats why when people say we need corroboration, we need corroboration, youre not saying, You liar. Youre saying these things get hazy and our minds play tricks on us, and the more that we can have that can give us assurance that this 30-year-old memory is accurate, the better off well be. Bazelon: Before we close, theres an article in the New York Times by Richard Friedman, who is a psychiatrist, and he is pointing out in a way that I think has a very different emphasis than your rendition, David French: that when people experience intense emotion, that that can actually make memories more powerful and lasting. And one of the really important distinctions that Friedman is making here is between recovered memory, where a memory completely goes away and then supposedly returnstheres a lot of reason to doubt situations like thatand a memory thats there all along, that someone has tried to repress but cant get rid of, which is very much what happened to Blasey Ford. Its what happened to me. Its what happened to Caitlin Flanagan. You can dismiss that as a few anecdotes if you want, but I think there are a lot of other people out there who have experienced sexual assault, a lot of women, who are in that category. And to me all of those things, not to mention the sort of culture of silence of the 80s, weighs much more heavily than the kind of doubt that you are trying to sow here. Though I realize that for Republicans, its really useful to try to sow that kind of doubt right now. On Thursday, conservative legal analyst Ed Whelan unleashed a disastrous Twitter thread seemingly designed to exonerate Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of charges that he committed sexual assault as a teenager. Whelan, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, laid out a theory of mistaken identity using Google Maps and Zillow floor plans. The linchpin of Whelans thread: a notion that Christine Blasey Ford, Kavanaughs accuser, confused the nominee with a classmate who looked somewhat similar. It was this man, Whelan asserted, not Kavanaugh, who may have attempted to rape Ford about 35 years ago. Ford responded with a statement saying that she knew both men in high school, socialized with the man whom Whelan named, and had not mistaken the two. Even before that point, Whelans conspiracy theory had unraveled, unleashing a torrent of Twitter mockery and exposing a longtime GOP operative for what he is: a bad-faith character assassin with no moral compass. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But whats most shocking about this thread, which Whelan has since deleted, is that Kavanaughs defenders appear to have genuinely believed that it would exculpate the nominee. Whelan is no random crank: He is a Federalist Society power broker who has played a major role in the selection of Donald Trumps judicial nomineesincluding his good friend Kavanaugh. He and his allies teased out the mistaken-identity theory for days, hyping it on Twitter and apparently in a weirdly credulous Politico article. It appears, at the moment, to be the best defense the White House has. And that reveals that Kavanaughs nomination is in extremely serious trouble. Kavanaughs defenders appear to have genuinely believed that this would exculpate the nominee. Whelan launched his career by clerking for the late Justice Antonin Scalia from 1991 through 1992. During that term, Justice Anthony Kennedy famously flipped on two blockbuster cases involving abortion and school prayer, preserving progressive jurisprudence to Scalias fierce ire. Whelan found his clerkship demoralizing because of Kennedys swing to the left; he once told me of the devastation he felt over that disaster for the Constitution. Following a stint on the GOP-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee and a detour into the lucrative world of corporate law, Whelan joined George W. Bushs Office of Legal Counsel. There, he became friends with Kavanaugh, who worked in the White House Counsels Office and after that as staff secretary. Whelan personally emailed Kavanaugh in 2004 to tell him that hed accepted a job as president of EPPC, a lavishly funded conservative evangelical think tank. (Excellent, Kavanaugh responded.) He also asked Kavanaugh to help him arrange a lunch with Karl Rove after he started his new gig. Advertisement Advertisement From his perch at EPPC, Whelan began writing influential posts for National Review, which he has continued to do. He has also reportedly coordinated with the White Houseas well as Federalist Society chief Leonard Leoover the selection and confirmation of judges. When Barack Obama took office, Whelan switched gears, ruthlessly attacking his nominees from all angles. He spearheaded the successful campaign against Goodwin Liu, whom Obama nominated to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, smearing him as an anti-white racist. (Liu is now a respected justice on the California Supreme Court.) He also helped to tank the nomination of Dawn Johnsen to the Office of Legal Counsel on account of Johnsens criticism of what she saw as the offices enabling of the Bush administrations excesses. Advertisement Advertisement During the Obama years, Whelan failed more often than he succeeded. He couldnt keep Sonia Sotomayor or Elena Kagan off of the Supreme Court, though he did leak a mean letter that Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe wrote to Obama critiquing Sotomayor. Oddly, he also disparaged Kagan for not learning to drive until her late 20s. He also attempted (and failed) to force Judge Vaughn Walker to recuse himself from the litigation over Proposition 8 because he is gay and went on to claim that Walker used the case to feather his nest with prospective San Francisco employers. These examples neatly illustrate the Whelan style: petty, bad-faith, ad hominem attacks to serve all-out ideological warfare. Advertisement And yet Whelan has long had a direct line to the Senate Judiciary Committees Republicans, according to sources familiar with the arrangement. He provides senators with questions and tactics to sink Democratic nominees and bolster Republican ones. Since Trump took office, per these sources, Whelan has worked closely with Leonard Leo and White House counsel Don McGahn to pick and push through judicial nominees. The Kavanaugh nomination was set to be the culmination of his career: Whelan himself was in a position to help select the justice who would undo Kennedys liberal legacy, vindicating Scalia at long last and reversing the catastrophe of that pivotal 199192 term. And the man he pushed for the job was none other than his own close friend, and former colleague, Brett Kavanaugh. Advertisement That nomination, though, has sputtered in the wake of Fords credible allegations. Whelan has at least been smart enough to recognize that his usual tactic of character assassination would not work on this particular victim of attempted rape. So instead, at some point over the past week, Whelan appears to have devised a bizarre theory of mistaken identity. On Monday, he vaguely floated the theory on Twitter. Then, on Tuesday morning, he tweeted a clip of GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch raising the prospect of mistaken identity. That evening, he was tweeting that he would soon put forth compelling evidence that would show [Kavanaughs] categorical denial to be truthful. There will be no cloud over him. Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, he added, will soon be apologizing to Judge Kavanaugh. Conservative commentators, particularly Erick Erickson, signal-boosted this buildup. On Wednesday, Whelan tweeted about a horrific incident similar to the one the accuser alleges may well have occurred. But if so, shes got the wrong guy. Kavanaugh wasnt present, as this and much more will confirm. Shortly thereafter, Hatchs deputy chief of staff, Matt Whitlock, retweeted this tweet, adding, Keep an eye on Eds tweets the next few days. (Whitlock has since deleted his tweet.) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Then, on Thursday, Whelan finally unspooled his thread. The backlash was swift and severe. CNNs Jake Tapper described the tweets as stunningly irresponsible. Politicos Ben White and the New York Times Maggie Haberman also gawked at the unforced error. The Washington Posts Seung Min Kim, with Josh Dawey and Emma Brown, reported on Thursday night that Republicans on Capitol Hill and White House officials immediately sought to distance themselves from Whelans claims and said they were not aware of his plans to identify the former classmate. Garrett Ventry, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassleys communications adviser, tweeted that the committee had no knowledge or involvement in the tweetstorm. On Friday morning, Whelan told the Post that I have not communicated at all with Donald McGahn or anyone at the White House, or Judge Kavanaugh, about the topic of the Twitter thread. (He did not deny communicating with Judiciary Committee staff.) He also apologized on Twitter for naming the classmatethough notably not for claiming on spurious grounds that Ford had confused Kavanaugh with someone else. Advertisement These claims are difficult to believe. As recently as Thursday morning, Politicos Eliana Johnson reported that three people who have spoke[n] to Whelan and Federalist Societys Leonard Leo in recent days say they are 100 percent confident theyve obtained information that will exonerate Kavanaugh. It seems obvious that Leo and Whelan, at the very least, were working off the same playbook. Advertisement Advertisement Moreover, the claim that no other major players were involved runs counter to Kims reporting that Kavanaugh and his allies have been privately discussing a defense that would not question whether an incident happened to Ford, but instead would raise doubts that the attacker was Kavanaugh. They are difficult to square with Hatchs introduction of the mistaken-identity theory earlier in the week. And, at bottom, they just dont make sense. Whitlock, the Hatch aide who previously said we should keep an eye on Eds tweets the next few days with regard to the mistaken-identity claim, now insists that he was totally unaware of Whelans plans. Really? The Senate Judiciary Committees Republicans want us to believe that they were hyping a theory of which they had no prior knowledge. Thats quite a coincidence. Advertisement Advertisement It seems much more likely that Whelan had help in this apparent opposition research from those deeply involved in the confirmation fightincluding those working closely with Kavanaugh and Hatchand truly thought it would introduce sufficient doubt to secure the nominees confirmation. It is implausible that such a detailed conspiracy threadwith so many specific facts, so much purported evidence, and such advanced hypewas cooked up by Whelan alone. Advertisement If the people who helped construct and hype this notion really thought it would work, then this nomination is in on the verge of collapse. Whelans theory is astonishingly desperate, an outlandish and potentially defamatory Hail Mary that no rational person would find persuasive. His willingness to humiliate himself and destroy his reputation in a calamitously misguided effort to push Kavanaugh over the finish line speaks volumes. Hard as it may be to believe, this is apparently the best theyve got. Their last, best hope to contradict Christine Blasey Ford rests on cobbled-together Zillow pages, Google Maps, yearbook photos, and a Facebook comment. It is no surprise that Republican operatives whove conducted trench warfare against progressives for years would be willing to sink this low. But it is shocking to realize that the GOP has nothing else up its sleeve to save this nomination. There will be no miraculous exoneration of Brett Kavanaughjust the frenzied tweets of panicked men who see their careful plans collapsing before their eyes. Update, 12:30 a.m., Sept. 22: Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley sent a series of late night tweets extending the negotiations for Christine Blasey Fords potential testimony, ending on a familiarly rueful-sounding note: With all the extensions we give Dr Ford to decide if she still wants to testify to the Senate I feel like Im playing 2nd trombone in the judiciary orchestra and Schumer is the conductor ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) September 22, 2018 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Original Post: The Senate Judiciary Committee tried to initiate a Friday night game of chicken with attorneys for Christine Blasey Ford, the woman accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault. The committee had issued a 10 p.m. ultimatum for Ford to agree to testify by Wednesday, stating that the vote to confirm Kavanaugh would proceed on Monday without her agreement. Fords lawyers did not bite. Fords attorney Debra S. Katz responded to the ultimatum with a strongly-worded letter decrying the aggressive and artificial deadlines as an attempt to bully Dr. Ford. Katz explains that Ford had traveled to meet with the FBI for several hours about the death threats she had been receiving, and that her legal team requested time to be able to provide you with a well-considered response. Advertisement Your cavalier treatment of a sexual assault survivor, Katz writes, is completely inappropriate. Fords attorney responds to Senate GOP, arguing theyve given her no time to respond by giving them with their counteroffer late in day. They say Ford was dealing with FBI today on death threats. Our modest request is that she be given an additional day to make her decision. pic.twitter.com/qsCNCHnZoN Manu Raju (@mkraju) September 22, 2018 Advertisement Advertisement Committee Chairman Chuck Grassleys office had sent a letter to Fords lawyers earlier on Friday providing a notice of a vote to occur Monday in the event that Dr. Fords attorneys dont respond (by 10 p.m. tonight) or Dr. Ford decides not to testify. That deadline was not the first of the day set by the committee; earlier Friday afternoon it had demanded a response from Ford by the more business-friendly 5 p.m. Advertisement Fords attorneys have been negotiating with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee over the past week regarding the conditions under which Ford would testify. Yesterday, Ford agreed to testify no earlier than next Thursday if the conditions were safe and fair. Members of the Republican-led committee and their staffers have been explicit in their desire to expedite Kavanaughs confirmation to the Supreme Court, and earlier this week the committee had rejected Fords requests for an FBI investigation into the alleged assault. Advertisement According to the Washington Posts Seung Min Kim, the Friday letter from Grassleys office also elaborated on specific requests from Fords lawyers and whether or not the Senate Judiciary Committee would honor them. Advertisement Ford requests accepted by GOP: -No Kavanaugh during her testimony -One camera, limit press access -Equal ?s time for all senators -Adequate breaks during testimony -Adequate security ... Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) September 21, 2018 Advertisement Ford requests denied by GOP: -Kavanaugh testify first -Hearing be Thursday (offering Wed) -Only senators do Qs (Rs want option of female staff lawyers for questioners) -Subpoena Mark Judge -Call more witnesses requested by Ford Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) September 21, 2018 As of 11 p.m., the Senate Judiciary Committee had not issued a statement regarding its 10 p.m. deadline. In a blockbuster story in Fridays New York Times, Adam Goldman and Michael S. Schmidt reported that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein suggested covertly recording President Donald Trumps conversations in 2017. According to the story, Rosenstein also suggested that people at the FBI interviewing with Trump to be the bureaus director could also record him. Of course, Trump needed a new FBI director after firing James Comey on May 9. Rosenstein reportedly made his suggestions in two meetings while behaving erratically in the following days, which the story calls disorienting. The story also reports that Rosenstein discussed invoking the 25th Amendment, which would have the Cabinet remove Trump from office. Advertisement The piece has drawn widespread attention, in part due to Rosensteins vehement denial to the paper and to broad fears that Trump would fire Rosenstein over the story, ultimately impairing special counsel Robert Muellers Russia probe, which Rosenstein oversees. The Times story does not quote directly from anyone who attended either meeting, but it does note that the reporters spoke with people who were briefed on the conversations or on memos that arose out of them, including ones written by Andrew McCabe, the thenacting FBI director who was later fired. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Washington Post and others have followed up on the Times reporting, with the Post quoting one person who suggested that a Rosenstein comment on recordings was meant sarcastically. In the Times piece, the reporters write that a person present at one of the meetingsvia a statement provided by the Justice Departmentacknowledged Rosensteins remark about wearing a wire but said Mr. Rosenstein made it sarcastically. (The Times spoke to others who confirmed that he was serious about the idea.) Advertisement On Saturday, the papers deputy managing editor, Matt Purdy, defended the story on Twitter. The DOJ claim that Rosenstein was sarcastic when he suggested he wear a wire on Trump is not supported by our reporting or others. If you actually read them, the follow stories by the Wapo, ABCNews and CNN support our story, not debunk it, he wrote. I recently spoke by phone with Schmidt, a Washington correspondent for the Times. During our conversation, which has been edited and condensed for clarity, we discussed how the Times treats sourcing, the state of Trump and Rosensteins relationship, and the differing accounts of some potentially very important meetings. Isaac Chotiner: You guys are talking about two separate meetings. Is that fair to say? Advertisement Advertisement Michael S. Schmidt: Yeah, the separate conversations, or yeah, separate meetings that occurred between Rosenstein, that McCabe was involved in. And these were around May 15, 2017? Yeah, so this is an incredibly important period of time that has not received a lot of attention. Its the eight days between the Comey firing and the appointment of Mueller, and where Rosenstein is sort of thrust to the front of the national stage and has to figure out what to do. OK. You and Goldman write, Several people described the episodes in interviews over the past several months, insisting on anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The people were briefed either on the events themselves or on memos written by F.B.I. officials. So does this mean you didnt get anything from anyone in the room? That this is all based on either secondhand accountspeople who were in the room told these people you spoke toor in a way, thirdhand, which is from the memos? Advertisement Advertisement I wouldnt assume that. I would say that we took the sourcing as far as we could take it, and sometimes if youre more specific in sourcing incidents, you get concerned that you could jeopardize a source. So its a balancing act between how much you can show the reader and how much you need to protect someone, and just in general, thats the decision we have to make all the time. So I would just say that we took the sourcing as far as we could. Advertisement If this was a joke, we dont think it would have been so difficult for us. If this was a joke, this would not have been memorialized, documented, and discussed in the FBI , in the way that it was. Michael Schmidt And actually, I would point out that there is at least one person in the story who was in the room, and that was the handout from the Justice Department that was given to us. An anonymous personnot anonymous to us, but a person on backgroundwho described the events of the story. Our reporting did not showdid not give a lot of credibility to the Justice Department pushback. Advertisement Why were you so doubtful about that person, and was it a hard decision to run with the story given that the only person whom you can identify even on background, who was actually in the room, offered a contradictory account? Well, the interactions in the room are documented in ways that go further beyond peoples memories: memos and notes that were taken at the FBI after those interactions. And you are in the balancing act of looking at OK, are we going to take someones recollection? Are we going to lean into that, or are we going to lean into what a memo may say, or what notes may say, or the recollections of others who have more detail and offer more specifics than what the person in the room is giving to us? Advertisement Advertisement Just because youre in the room, and you offer one detail, does not necessarily mean that youre telling the truth or its accurate. A memo, or notes, or a much more detailed memory of someone who may not have been in the room, may be much better. Advertisement Were you doubtful of the Justice Department giving you this person to offer a differing account because the memos and other things disputed that account? Or was it because you guys felt like the credibility of the Justice Departmentwhich obviously had a vested interest in thismeant that you trusted it less? Or is it both? No, its much more the former. The depth and breadth of our reporting led us to a different conclusion than what the Justice Department had given us. Advertisement Some people have criticized the story by saying things like, If youre relying on something like a memo, it may not pick up something like sarcasm. And there is one quote in the Washington Post story that has Rosenstein saying to McCabe, What do you want to do, Andy, wire the president? Was that something that you wrestled with when you were working on the story, and how did you deal with that possibility? Advertisement Advertisement This story has taken us months, if not a year, to get to the bottom of, and thats because the people who had access to this information knew what had gone on and knew it wasnt a joke, and wouldnt talk to us about it. If this was a joke, we dont think it would have been so difficult for us to have worked to get to this information. If this was a joke, this would not have been memorialized, documented, and discussed in the FBI in the way that it was. If this was a joke, Rod Rosenstein probably wouldnt have made it more than once. Also, if this was a joke, the other thing is, this 25th Amendment stuff is in a memo as well. So this is likeis this a broader conspiracy of jokes that was going on? Advertisement Advertisement The Post story states, People familiar with the 2017 discussionsand the memos written about the discussionsoffered wildly divergent accounts of what was said and what was meant. Was this something that you guys also noticed in your reporting, separately from the person whom the Justice Department put out? Since the day Donald Trump took office, folks ranging from law enforcement to political appointees to career officials have been unnerved by the president and are more willing to talk. Michael Schmidt I would say that the reporting on these interactions fell into two buckets. There was one background source from the Justice Department who said one thing in one bucket, and then there was a much larger breadth of reporting in another bucket that included many more folks and many more details, and when we looked at these buckets, we said, Hmm, well heres one bucket that has one person in it, that was given to us by the Justice Department after we approached them on this, and heres another bucket with a lot of folks whom weve talked to, folks who have been reliable, folks who we believe are telling the truth, folks who were very difficult to get to tell us about this, and theres many more of them, so OK. So what are you going to choose? Advertisement Advertisement When youre writing a story like this, how concerned are you that your sources have axes to grind, and how conscious or concerned about this were your editors? Obviously, everyone has their own perspective, their own gripes, their own biases when they talk to us. We consider that every day, on a daily basis, in looking at how we assess all of this information, and its baked into every decision that we make. And in this era, were forced to make dozens of [those decisions] a day, if not hundreds a week, and thats just part of the calculation that we look at. Advertisement What I will say does bother me in this era is an idea thats pushed by both the left and the rightboth cable-news left folks and cable-news right folksthat the media is, or reporters are just sort of these lemmings that sit at their desk and get quote-unquote leaks, where folks call us up and leak us information, and one side is covertly, surreptitiously trying to use us to undermine the other. This is something that is constantly pushed and has been constantly described, including about this storythat these are leaks of folks using us. Advertisement Advertisement And I understand why this takes hold, because people cant see the names of the sources that we use, and when they see that, they have doubts, but an enormous percentage80 to 90 percent of the stuff that we end up writing aboutis because we have gone out and sought out folks to find out whats going on. You know, it doesnt come the other way. Theres been a lot going on in the Mueller investigation in the past month or so, involving Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, declassifications, and nondeclassifications. Do you think your breakthrough may have had something to do with the fact that, for whatever reason, people were more willing to talk based on various things going on in the news, based on the political calendar, or based on other considerations like that? Advertisement I think that, since the day Donald Trump took office, folks ranging from law enforcement to political appointees to career officials have been unnerved by the president and are more willing to talk. And we have seen that throughout the entire presidency. I have not seen that go up or down. Ive seen that be pretty steady. Advertisement To circle back to the thing you said after I asked about your sources being several people who were familiar with the conversations: I think the average reader will think, about your story, OK, well if he says several people familiar with the memos, that is a guarantee that he didnt talk to anyone in the room. It seems like youre saying that thats not the case, and thats one of the ways you have to protect sourcing. But is that something that journalists should be thinking or worried about? Advertisement I think Rosensteins done a very good job of trying to balance running an investigation into the president and not being fired by him. Michael Schmidt Anonymity is really, really difficult for us, because, as I was saying, people get immediately skeptical of it, and its very hard for us to show all of our homework, and show all of the work, and who the folks were, and how they knew everything. Its a really, really tough balancing act, and I get why readers dont love it. The problem is that its our best, and maybe its our greatest, tool to do what we do. And in this era, we have to be heavily reliant on it. And readers hate it when they see anonymous sources, but they almost always end up really wanting to know what they have to say, because they know that that information is a more unvarnished view of whats going on, and in any time, or especially this time, people really want that, and you need that tool to get at the facts. Advertisement Explaining how that works is difficult, but if were out there in settings like this, talking about it and trying to explain the process, as Woodward did when his book came out, and such, and I think the more that we do that, the better. Advertisement Advertisement The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump and Rosenstein had had a bad relationship for a while, but it had actually gotten better in the past several months. Do you have any sense of what their relationship is like now? Advertisement I think Rosensteins done a very good job of trying to balance running an investigation into the president and not being fired by him. And that is something that, my guess [is], hes focused on every day, trying to strike that balance, and thats pretty hard. And so far, hes survived. I think a lot of people are really anxious right now, and I think that colored some of the response to the story. I also think some people are angry with the Times for various things, going back to the Hillary Clinton email coverage, going back to the Oct. 31, 2016, story Investigating Donald Trump, F.B.I. Sees No Clear Link to Russia. Well, if were out there following the story, without fear of favor, and making our best judgments on a daily basiswere a daily newspaperwere not going to have a lot of friends, and we didnt get into this to have friends or allies. Were just out there, just trying to cover things. And thats a hard concept for folks to understand and wrap their minds around in such a politically charged environment, but we believe that our independence, and our unbiased approach to rooting out the facts, is an incredible contribution to whats going on, and we just try to do that on a daily basis. Update, Sept. 24, 1:39 p.m.: Despite earlier media reports that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was willing to resign or was expecting to be fired, he appears to be staying in the job for the time being, and will meet with President Trump on Thursday. On Friday, the New York Times reported that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the man who oversees Robert Muellers special counsel investigation, brought up the idea of secretly recording President Donald Trump last year and discussed invoking the 25th Amendment process for removing the president from office. Advertisement Rosenstein denied the Times story, calling it inaccurate and factually incorrect. Another source or sources have been telling reporters that Rosenstein was joking when he talked about wearing a wire. (The Times has stood by its reporting.) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump supporters and right-wing media personalities reacted quickly to the report by calling for Rosensteins firing. As with James Comeys firing last year, the aftermath of Trump removing Rosenstein would be chaotic. The reports Friday raised questions about what would happen at the Department of Justice and with the Mueller investigation if Trump were to make the move. Who would replace Rosenstein overseeing the Mueller investigation? Normally, the associate attorney general would step in. But Rachel Brand stepped down from the role in February, leaving the office with a temporary replacement. The most likely answer is that the chain of command would leap over her vacant position and Solicitor General Noel Francisco would take Rosensteins place. Advertisement What do we know about Francisco? Like many prominent members of the Trump administration, he has had his share of controversy. Most notably, Francisco has been accused of making misleading arguments before the Supreme Court about Trumps travel ban. But before joining the administration, he was more controversial for his legal work on behalf of conservative causes. He often represented corporations in their fights against regulations, including a coal company involved in a deadly mining disaster. And he argued two prominent cases before the Supreme Court, including a defense of religious organizations right to deny employees access to birth control. Advertisement He also had worked on George W. Bushs 2000 Florida recount, and then for Bushs administration as associate counsel to the president and deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel. Advertisement As Jed Shugerman wrote for Slate, Franciscos background is more political than other career DOJ officials. Mark Joseph Stern called Francisco competent and qualified in his assessment in Slate but warned that Francisco displayed some worrying beliefs, including a strong stance on the scope of executive privilege. Theres good reason to believe that if Francisco were to take over Rosensteins position, he would be less kind to the Mueller investigation. Advertisement Are there any other possible replacements? Yes. While Francisco would be the natural person to step in per the chain of command, its possible Trump could choose instead to replace him with an administration official already confirmed by the Senate under the Vacancies Reform Act of 1998. Louis Seidman, a constitutional law professor at Georgetown University, told the Washington Post that hypothetically Trump could choose someone like Energy Secretary Rick Perry to fill the role. But, Seidman cautioned, its not clear whether the act applies to people who have been fired, rather than someone who resigns or dies in office. Advertisement Advertisement The danger for Trump in choosing this route, Shugerman wrote, is that it would be such a transparent effort to subvert the rule of law as to be a political liability even within the Republican Party. How do we then get a new, permanent deputy attorney general? Trump will eventually nominate a replacement, and that nominee will have to go through the normal Senate confirmation process. What exactly is Rosensteins role with the Russia investigation anyway? Rosenstein is, effectively, Robert Muellers boss. The task of overseeing the investigation would normally have gone to Jeff Sessions, but in March 2017, after it was revealed the attorney general had failed to disclose conversations with the Russian ambassador, Sessions chose to recuse himself from the investigation, infuriating Trump, who saw the decision as a betrayal. Advertisement While Mueller does not have to report to Rosenstein for all regular decisions, he does on occasion have to check in with Rosenstein on the status of the investigation. Rosenstein, then, can make Mueller provide explanations for any of his actions and prevent any steps he considers inappropriate or unwarranted, as Yale lecturer and former FBI agent Asha Rangappa wrote in Slate last year. Advertisement Rosenstein is also responsible for representing the investigation before Congress. Rosenstein has largely acted as a champion of the investigation and has not challenged Muellers approach or tactics in any significant ways. Advertisement What would his firing mean for the investigation? Theres room for debate as to how much damage this could actually do. If the person who steps into Rosensteins position feels less charitable toward the investigation, that person can throw up significant roadblocks and even, possibly, shut it down. Advertisement As Rangappa noted, the investigation by this point is broad, complex, and to a certain degree decentralized. It will almost certainly carry on regardless of who oversees it, as the FBI is compelled to pursue the leads it has and would have to defend any decision to drop specific lines of investigation. The Russia investigation, therefore, could not simply be killed. So the investigation is safe? Mostly, but a particularly hostile overseer of the investigation could hobble it by forcing Mueller to justify every step. Rosensteins replacement could override one of Muellers decisionsbut then the replacement, in turn, would have to justify the override to Congress, with reports for both the Senate and House Judiciary Committees. An unethical acting attorney general working against the investigation could also potentially leak Muellers plans to the White House in advance. Possibly the worst threat to the investigation could come from the acting attorney generals role speaking for the investigation. An acting attorney general keen on discrediting the investigation could, in testifying before Congress, convey a lack of faith in Mueller. That could turn Muellers remaining Republican allies in Congress. Everyones out to get the president. Thats the outcry from Donald Trumps supporters after the New York Times reported Friday that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein once talked about wearing a wire and/or invoking the 25th Amendment to stop Trump. In a tweet about the Times story, Donald Trump Jr. scoffed: No one is shocked that these guys would do anything in their power to undermine @realdonaldtrump. The Times story has provoked follow-ups from other publications suggesting that Rosenstein was joking about the wire. But Trumps loyalists are right about one thing: The people around Trump are trying to thwart him. Thats why weve seen so many leaks about senior officials calling Trump a moron, an idiot, and a child. Its why nobody can pin down which senior official wrote the anonymous Times op-ed about a resistance inside the administration: There are too many suspects to eliminate. The Rosenstein story adds to the pattern. But the pattern isnt that all these people are disloyal. The pattern is that theyve all come to recognize how awful Trump is. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bob Woodwards new book, Fear, details the extent of the contempt for Trump among his aides. Chief of staff John Kelly, Defense Secretary James Mattis, economic adviser Gary Cohn, and lawyer John Dowd are quoted calling Trump unhinged, a sixth-grader, and an idiot. (Dowd and Cohn left Trump world in March and April, respectively.) The book describes maneuvers by numerous officials to evade or thwart Trumps orders. Woodward calls it an administrative coup detat. The Times story, which relies heavily on memos written by former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, paints a similar picture of Rosenstein. When Trump fired then-FBI Director James Comey in 2017, he portrayed Rosenstein as a seasoned ally with sound arguments for the dismissal. But the Times story says Rosenstein wasnt on board. He was caught off guard when Mr. Trump cited the memo in the firing, and he began telling people that he feared he had been used, says the Times. Advertisement Trump portrayed Comey as a loner, liar, and traitor. But the Times story presents evidence that Rosenstein trusted Comey, not Trump. In one meeting, Rosenstein said that he wished Mr. Comey were still at the FBI, according to the article. Rosenstein also wanted to ask Comey for advice on appointing a special counsel to take up the Russia investigation. Meanwhile, Rosenstein wondered whether Mr. Trump had motives beyond Mr. Comeys treatment of [Hillary] Clinton for ousting him. Advertisement Rosenstein didnt keep these thoughts to himself. He shared them in meetings and conversations with other Justice Department and FBI officials, says the Times. In a meeting with at least five other officials, he groused about Trumps unseriousness and the administrations disarray. The article also says Rosenstein talked with other officials about invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office, apparently based on mental unfitness. Theres dispute about whether Rosenstein was serious or joking when he talked about wearing a wire to record the president. But the Times says he talked about it in at least two meetings. Advertisement Advertisement In the Times story, some officials who spoke to the paperits not clear whether these officials were present or merely saw McCabes memosreportedly describe Rosensteins musings as erratic. But if the colleagues with whom Rosenstein spoke about these things at the time had shared that view, they would have leaked his comments. They didnt. And that, in turn, suggests that Rosenstein may have felt free to talk this way because the officials around him largely agreed. Nor was this distrust of the president confined to the Justice Department. According to the Times, while Rosenstein was writing his memo about Comey, White House aides were trying to stop Trump from firing the FBI director. The article also reports that Rosenstein told colleagues he might be able to persuade Attorney General Jeff Sessions and [Kelly] to mount an effort to invoke the 25th Amendment. That effort never materialized, says the Times. But what could have given Rosenstein the idea that Kelly and Sessions might go along? Recall the words of the anonymous op-ed: early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment. Rosenstein wasnt in the Cabinet. Somebody else was doing the whispering. Advertisement Advertisement Parts of the Times story remain to be adjudicated. Theres a pitched battle, in particular, over the context and seriousness of the comment about wearing a wire. But other anecdotes in the story havent been disputed, and together, they point to the same bottom line: Rosenstein didnt trust Trump. Nor do other people in the administration. It isnt because these people dont appreciate who Trump really is. Its because they do. So if you want to restore loyalty to the president, you wont achieve that by getting rid of Rosenstein. Youll have to get rid of Trump. The consensus in the British media is that Thursdays informal Brexit summit in Salzburg, Austria, was a humiliation for Theresa May, with several papers running a photo of the red-jacketed prime minister standing in a crowd of black-suited male EU leaders to emphasize her isolation. May was getting it from both sides of the channel. European Commission President Donald Tusk posted a snarky Instagram caption implying that she was trying to cherry-pick only the parts of EU membership the British like: Advertisement May had gone to Salzburg to present the so-called Chequers plan for Brexit, first unveiled at the prime ministers country estate in July. The plan, which called for Britain to continue to operate as if it were part of the EU customs union, with all the attendant regulations, was seen as too much of a soft Brexit for hard-liners in Mays Cabinet and prompted several of them, including Foreign Minister Boris Johnson, to resign. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But the response to Chequers from EU leaders at Salzburg wasnt much better. Tusk declared that the deal, which would end the free movement of people between the EU and Britain and exempt the country from contributions to the EU budget, will not work. French President Emmanuel Macron called the proposal unacceptable and gave a speech calling on fellow European leaders to stay united in the face of Mays demands. Advertisement The timing couldnt be worse for May, coming just a week before a Conservative Party conference at which she had hoped to sell skeptical party members on Chequers as the only plausible path forward. But with Chequers declared unacceptable by both sides and the alarming prospect of a no deal Brexit looming, pressure will grow on May to pursue either a Norway-style arrangement under which Britain would continue to abide by many EU rules, including free movement of people, and make (smaller) contributions to the EU budget, or a Canada-style free trade deal under which Britain would gain full control of immigration and not make contributions but would have more limited trading access to the European market. There also appears to be little progress on resolving the thorny question of Northern Ireland: The Republic of Ireland wont accept any Brexit arrangement that creates a hard border with the North, but its not clear how goods can continue to move freely over the border if the U.K. pulls out of the EU customs union. May has rejected the idea of creating a customs border between mainland Britain and Northern Irelandsome Brexiteers have referred to it as annexation. May is holding firm, insisting that hers is the only proposal on the table, and Tusk maintains that compromise is still possible. But May continues to be in the position of trying to find a middle ground between one side that has no interest in compromise and another with completely unrealistic expectations. Its increasingly looking like both sides are merely going through the motions of negotiating and trying to avoid a no-deal Brexit and that Mays humiliations will continue. President Donald Trump came out swinging at a familiar target Friday night, when he expressed optimism that he would be able to soon discard a lingering stench in the Justice Department and FBI. Although most of the people who opposed his administration in the department have left, there are still a few bad apples left, Trump said at a rally in Springfield, Missouri. Just look at what is now being exposed at the Department of Justice and the FBI I want to tell you, we have great people in the Department of Justice, we have great people. These are people, I really believe, you take a poll, I got to be at 95 percent, Trump said. But you had some real bad ones. Youve see whats happened at the FBItheyre all gone, theyre all gone, theyre all gone. But theres a lingering stench and were going to get rid of that too. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement President Trump takes aim at the DOJ & FBI: Theres a lingering stench and were going to get rid of that pic.twitter.com/K4NfxQTDLG FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) September 22, 2018 Trumps comments came mere hours after the New York Times reported and other outlets later confirmed that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had suggested the idea of secretly recording conversations with President Donald Trump. Rosenstein also reportedly discussed the possibility of invoking the 25th amendment to remove Trump from office. Rosenstein has issued two statements denying the allegations. I never pursued or authorized recording the President and any suggestion that I have ever advocated for the removal of the President is absolutely false, Rosenstein said. Advertisement Trump was in Missouri Friday night to campaign for Josh Hawley, the states attorney general who is challenging Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill. As has now become standard, Trump took the opportunity to praise himself rather than the candidate he was there to boost and he told supporters that the midterm elecitons were nothing but a referendum on his administration. Get out in 2018, because youre voting for me in 2018, Trump said. He also characterized Democrats as extremists. They arent just extreme, he said of Democrats. They are frankly dangerous, and they are crazy. Trump won the state by 19 points in the 2016 presidential election. The $320,000 New York Sire Stakes consolation races were contested in eight divisions at Batavia Downs on Friday night with Jason Bartlett and Marcus Miller getting the lions share of the eight contests. Bartlett won three and finished third two more times while Miller won two and finished second four times. Despite a heavy downpour early in the card, the track set up quickly and two lifetime and two seasonal marks were set during the evening in the NYSS races. Here is a race by race recap of the consolation events. 2-year-old filly pace Winner-Topville Angelina (American Ideal-A Fiesty Affair) 1:57.2 Owners-Erv Miller Stable, Michael Anderson and George Golemes Trainer-Erv Miller Breeder-Robert Hamather (non-betting) Topville Angelina (Marcus Miller) travelled second the entire mile behind Sun Viser (Billy Davis, Jr.) through even fractions until the top of the stretch when Miller tipped her and she quickly paced by the leader down the lane to win by three lengths in 1:57.2. 2-year-old filly trot Winner-Sweet Chapter (Chapter Seven-Moms A Sweetie Pie) 2:01.2 Owners-Hutt Racing Stable, Blake MacIntosh, Glenn Bechtel and the Mortgage Boys Stable Trainer-Blake MacIntosh Breeder-Winbak Farm Mutuel-$3.20 Sweet Chapter (Jim Morrill, Jr.) went right to the front and dictated the entire race. Contending with a heavy downpour during the mile, Sweet Chapter trotted to the three-quarters in 1:30.1 without a challenge before Hot Chapter (Marcus Miller) started an attack on the outside. Hot Chapter trotted hard down the lane in the middle of the track but Sweet Chapter had enough left to hang on and win in 2:01.2. 2-year-old colt and gelding pace Winner-KJ Leo (Art Major-Winsmith Jess) 1:54.4 Owners-Brenda Messenger, Philip Shapiro and Scott Woogen Trainer-Gary Messenger Breeders-Brenda Messenger, Philip Shapiro and Scott Woogen Mutuel-$24.40 Cub Fan (Marcus Miller) was a strong leaver and set the pace once he settled ahead of KJ Leo (Billy Davis, Jr.) who would get the perfect trip. After getting to the half in :57.1, Jet Rock (Kevin Cummings) pulled first up and pushed the issue with Cub Fan all the way to the top of the stretch. At that point he faded and KJ Leo popped the pocket and paced down the lane stride for stride with Cub Fan. When they hit the wire they were a neck apart with KJ Leo getting the better of the photo in 1:54.4, which was a new lifetime mark. 2-year-old colt and gelding trot Winner-JNR Express (Conway Hall-Yankee T L C) 1:59.3 Owners-James De Armond and Russell Young Trainer-Jessica Okusko Breeder-Donald La Page Mutuel-$9.00 JNR Express (Kevin Cummings) took no prisoners as he left and led at every station. After trotting well in hand through a 1:29.2 three quarters, JNR Express took a two-length lead into a stretch and held off a late surge by Brady Bunch (Marcus Miller) and Whimzical Chapter (Dan Daley) to win in 1:59.3, which was a new lifetime mark. 3-year-old filly pace Winner-Solitary (American Ideal-Lonesome Day) 1:54.4 Owners-William Daggett, Jr., Lawrence Vukovic and the J L Benson Stable Trainer-Nick Surick Breeder-Docs Farm Mutuel-$3.30 Pelican Blue Chip (Jim Morrill, Jr.) grabbed the lead by the quarter and took the race to the half in :57. An outer flow began to advance and by the three quarters horses were three deep heading into the turn with Solitary (Jason Bartlett) locked in fifth with no racing room. Believe In Me (Drew Monti) who was second on the outside bore out and gave Solitary and opening to get out and get out she did. Bartlett gave the filly her head and she shifted gears and paced away from the field to win by three lengths in 1:54.4, which was a new seasonal mark. The race didnt unfold as I expected and I had to make my way out of traffic in the last turn. But When I got her free it was over, said Bartlett after the race. 3-year-old colt and gelding trot Winner-Im The Muscle (Muscle Mass-Lady Bling) 1:57.4 Owner-Rheau Viau Trainer-Rene Allard Breeder-Blair and Erna Corbeil Mutuel-$2.30 In a race shortened by two scratches, Im The Muscle (Jason Bartlett) wanted nothing but the front and didnt waste any time getting there. He trotted unchallenged on top by two open lengths in :29.3, :59.3 and 1:29.1 before rounding the last turn and flying home in a quick :28.3 to win in 1:57.4. He has been getting better and better each week and last week he was closing on Six Pack Late. Hes a real nice horse, said Bartlett in the winners circle. 3-year-old filly trot Winner-Supergirl Riley (Muscle Mass-Crown Laurel) 1:57 Owners-Paymaq Racing, George Golemes and Harvey Eisman Trainer-Erv Miller Breeder-Brittany Farms Mutuel-$2.10 Marcus Miller took advantage of the continuing front end bias and put the 1-9 favourite Supergirl Riley right on the point as the field followed in single file. With the rest of the group gapping behind, the pocket-sitting Golden Muscle (Drew Monti) pulled at three-quarters to take her shot. But halfway through the turn, Golden Muscle broke and Supergirl Riley found herself all alone trotting down the stretch a wrapped-up winner by three in 1:57. Shes just an unbelievable horse. She does everything right and she won easy tonight, said driver Marcus Miller after the race. 3-year-old colt and gelding pace Winner-Ideal Feeling (American Ideal-Feelinglikeastar) 1:52.4 Owner-Rick Berks Trainer-Mike Deters Breeder-Winbak Farm Mutuel-$3.10 Ideal Feeling (Jason Bartlett) seated third off the gate but then came quick past the eighth pole to grab the lead. Rolling handily past the half and to three-quarters in 1:24.1 without any opposition, Ideal Feeling watched as Lyons Steel (Kevin Cummings) left his cover and made his bid for the win. As the race moved down the lane, Lyons Steel continued to gain ground but Bartlett kept Ideal Feeling to task and he won by a half length in 1:52.4 to take his third consecutive win. Before the races began, Batavia Downs held a press conference with regional media outlets to formally announce the track being awarded the 2019 NYSS Night of Champions. The Agriculture and New York State Horse Breeding and Development Fund awarded the $1.8 million finals to Batavia Downs because of its excellent facilities and their ability to promote the race and offer an exciting fan experience. Henry Wojtaszek, President and CEO of Batavia Downs Gaming and Hotel expressed his excitement looking forward to next year. We are very excited for Batavia Downs Gaming to host the $1.8 million finals if the New York Sires Stakes with the long history this facility has with harness racing. We have made so many improvements to the track and cant wait to host everyone that weekend and showcase our new hotel and beautiful clubhouse. Kelly Young, Executive Director of the Agriculture and New York State Horse Breeding and Development Fund said 2019 will be the 30th edition of the Night of Champions and we look forward to bringing it to western New York and Batavia Downs. Were really excited to watch this race track do what it does best; that is promoting harness racing and bringing fans in to watch the best horses the state has to offer. The date of the finals will be announced once the actual racing schedule is finalized. (Batavia Downs) The London Yearling Sale videos for Winbak Farms lineup are now posted. Please visit the London Sale yearling page at winbakfarm.com and click on an individual yearlings hip number to watch the video. Winbaks lineup includes: Pacing Sires: Badlands Hanover (5) Betterthancheddar (3) Classic Card Shark (6) Royal Mattjesty (6) Shadow Play (4) Sportswriter (1) Vintage Master (7) Trotting Sires: Angus Hall (6) Archangel (4) Glidemaster (1) For more information on Winbak Farm yearlings, please call James Ladwig, Winbak Farms Yearling Manager, at 410.885.3059 or email him at [email protected]. To visit yearlings at Winbak Farm of Ontario, please call Pat Woods, Ontarios Farm Manager, at 905.838.2145 or email him at [email protected]. (Winbak) From our previous post about the Samsung Galaxy Note9's camera capabilities, I guess everyone is not really surprised by the photo quality taken by the phablet. We are back again this time with another photo showcase in night photography. Our new boy, Joseph has taken the liberty of exploring the streets of Kuala Lumpur and if you like street photography, here are some of our tips on how to use the Galaxy Note 9 for night photography on the streets! Use Manual Mode! To start off, a good photo is always subjective to everyone but the fact remains that factors such as composition, framing, angle or depth of field and others play an important role in creating an amazing photo. But thanks to smartphone camera functions nowadays, it's not difficult to take a good-looking photo, but then again, it's also difficult to take a photo that expresses your feelings. Car light trails So if you're a photographer wanting to get serious, perhaps it's time to move on to Pro Mode (or Manual Mode, Master Mode) that's on nearly every single smartphone right now. In Pro Mode, the camera user interface offers you ISO, aperture and shutter speed options. Adjusting these camera settings to your own preference can definitely cater to your feelings and get as close as to your imagination as your skills can allow. Also, Auto Mode isn't going to cut it for night photography because it will usually turn out grainy. So if you want to shoot that star track or light trails shot, use Manual Mode! BRING YOUR TRIPOD Speaking of taking star track photos, this applies to light trailing photo shots too and will definitely require a long shutter speed setting for it to take effect. The first and foremost basic thing to do this is to have a tripod with you so that your image won't go haywire (you know what I'm talking about lah). However, sometimes the effect may be too bright but here's a #lifehack tip for you, you can actually use a sunglasses to "cheat" the camera sensor thinking it's night time! However, try to stay away from using polarized or gradient lenses. Some other tips that we have is to hold your breath when taking your shot as this reduces the vibration somewhat while those with a big belly should learn to use it as a stomach ledge (it really works, seriously!) to help stabilize your shots. In case you didn't know, the Galaxy Note 9 already has an Optical Image Stabilizer on board but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't bring a tripod along, it will definitely help a lot in reducing the chance of blurriness so don't be lazy! Understand the aperture Can your phone do this? Ah, yes. The aperture. For basics - the smaller the number is (like f/1.5) means the bigger the aperture is, which means it can take in more light than say f/2.4. The amount of light can influence how your final image turns out and it plays a critical role here, often going hand-in-hand with the shutter speed setting. So when shooting night scenery, you might want to use a bigger aperture and a faster (not longer) shutter speed to prevent motion blur. ISO can also play a part and to catch those light trail shots, you need to set it as low as you can because the higher it goes, the more grainy it gets. The Dual Aperture on the Galaxy Note 9 will also help a lot since it can be switched manually from f/1.5 to f/2.4. In Joseph's case, f/2.4 is the way to go because there are plenty of artificial lights around the heart of KL, also thanks to the Bluetooth S Pen, taking photos has never become this easy with a smartphone. Colours are everything Once you understand the nature of the camera settings, the next thing is refining the colours. What? You thought it's all over after snapping a photo? We aren't just talking about filtering but it's more than that (like photoshopping). In comparison, it's like putting on some seasoning on a dish for that extra flavour. This is usually why professional photographers always save their image files in RAW format (thankfully, some phones like the Galaxy Note 9 allow that too), then they adjust the colour tone according to their imagination. There is no right or wrong in choosing colours as long as it represents what you want to express, so bring out your artistic side! Before adjusting the colours After adjusting the colours Keep practising We have actually reached the end of the lesson (lol) but as a photographer, you really need to have a lot of practice and plenty of trial and error. As the saying goes, Rome wasn't built in a day so you gotta keep practising until you find your own style, whether if it's black and white photography, conceptual ones, portrait shots and many more. With the technologies that are so accessible these days, such as the Galaxy Note 9, it's definitely a stepping stone for everyone to become a professional photographer one day. Criticism is inevitable as well, but no one becomes successful from not failing. Anyway, I think I've said enough. Below are some of the night photo samples taken from Joseph! Enjoy! 10 seconds shutter, F/2.4 aperture, ISO 50, with tripod Same setting, but with different colour flavour Different colour experiment, doesn't this have a Blade Runner feel? With photoshopping in your hands, the possibilities are endless Here's another one with a more warmer feel Moving to a different location, but with the same setting Again, experimenting with the colours 1/4 seconds shutter, F/2.4 aperture, ISO 50, handheld This one is in Auto Mode haha Auto Mode, taking advantage of the light Stay tuned for more tech articles at TechNave.com and #TGIF! A drag act called Gingzilla took his act to The X Factor 2018 tonight. The X Factor continued on ITV tonight with penultimate round of auditions. Advertisements Behind the judges desk were Simon Cowell, Ayda Williams, Robbie Williams and Louis Tomlinson, with acts needing at least three yeses to get through.. And as well as facing the judges, the hopefuls this year are singing for the 4,000 strong audience at The SSE Arena, Wembley. One of the contestants we met in Saturday's show was Gingzilla, a 32 year old drag queen from Sydney, Australia. He gave the panel quite a shock, declaring: "I'm going to be so different you won't even know what's hit you." "I'm deliciously confused," laughed Robbie, "Let's see what happened when you sing." Advertisements Gingzilla sings The White Stripes' Seven Nation Army and had all the judges won over. "That was incredible and the next time I do a swing album, will you duet with me doing that version?" says Robbie. Ayda adds: "I loved every single mad moment of that." "That was a brilliant audition," said Louis. And Simon concluded: "Your voice is better than even you know." With four yeses, Gingzilla sailed through to the next round. You can watch their audition in the video above. Other acts we saw auditioning on The X Factor tonight were Louise Setara, a 30 year old cleaner who sings an original song, Cezar Ouatu, a 38 year old singing teacher who surprises the judges, and Panda Ross, who previously appeared on The X Factor in the USA. Advertisements There was also Malta's Gaia Cauchi who previously represented Malta at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2013 and won with her song The Start. The X Factor airs Saturday and Sunday night on ITV. "Ruslans Bondars helped malware developers attack American businesses," said Assistant Attorney General Benczkowski. "The Department of Justice and its law enforcement partners make no distinction between service providers like Scan4You and the hackers they assist: we will hold them accountable for all of the significant harm they cause and work tirelessly to bring them to justice, wherever they may be located." Found this article interesting? Follow THN on Facebook Twitter and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post. A Latvian hacker behind the development and operation of counter antivirus service "Scan4You" has finally been sentenced to 14 years in prison.37-year-old Ruslans Bondars, described as a Latvian "non-citizen" or "citizen of the former USSR who had been residing in Riga, Latvia," was found guilty on May 16 in federal court in Alexandria, during which a co-conspirator revealed he had worked with Russian law enforcement.Bondars created and ran Scan4youa VirusTotal like online multi-engine antivirus scanning service that allowed hackers to run their code by several popular antiviruses to determine if their computer virus or malware would be flagged during routine security scans before launching them into a real-world malware campaign.While legal scanning services share data about uploaded files with the antivirus firms, Scan4you instead informed its users that they could "upload files anonymously and promised not to share information about the uploaded files with the antivirus community."Bondars was one of the two hackers found to have been running Scan4you from 2009 to 2016 and helping other malware authors test and improve the malware they then "used to inflict hundreds of millions of dollars in losses on American companies and consumers."Bondars' partner Jurijs Martisevs, who was also arrested while on a trip to Latvia and extradited to the United States, pleaded guilty to similar charges back in March this year.According to the Justice Department press release , Scan4you customers used the service to steal millions of payment cards from retail stores across the world, including the United States, which led to some $20.5 billion in losses.For instance, one Scan4you customer used the service to test malware that was subsequently used to steal approximately 40 million credit and debit card numbers, and other personal information from a US retail store, causing $292 million in losses.Another customer used Scan4you to assist the development of "Citadel"a widely used malware strain that infected over 11 million computers worldwide, including in the United States and resulted in over $500 million in fraud-related losses.Bondars was convicted of three counts, including conspiracy to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and computer intrusion with intent to cause damage and was sentenced to 168 months in prison on Friday.Although US court never charged Bondars with direct involvement in any hacking, court documents show he used malware to rob online users and trick them into buying antivirus services they did not need.Moreover, prosecutors also say Scan4You was an "innovation" in malware that has inspired many copycats, which resulted in such services being readily available on the Internet. The TransGriot is available for speaking engagements, college lectures, panel discussions, media interviews, conferences or Trans 101 education efforts for your school, business or professional organizations. For local Houston area, Texas or national events, you can e-mail me at transgriot@yahoo.com For events outside the Houston metro area, I ask that my travel and lodging expenses be covered. This is separate from my speaking fee. If you are interested in having me appear as a speaker or panelist, you can e-mail me with the date and details of your proposed event. Please book as early as possible because my speaking and event calendar slots during the year rapidly fill up. When, the first-full-length film from Mexican writer-directorreached U.S. theaters back in 2014, it looked as if a stunning new talent was upon us via this tale of disaffected Mexican youth told in a fresh and exemplary manner.Ruiz Palacios (shown below) is back in 2018, with a new movie entitled, which is again about disaffected youth. But here, that youth is lingering well into middle age.Our "hero," Juan (also known derisively as "Shorty"), is a spoiled, entitled product of the Mexican bourgeoisie circa the mid 1980s.As played with his usual sexy charm, coupled this time to more negative aspects of his character, by(below), Juan is quite the little asshole, as he and his partner-in-crime, Benjamin (, two photos below) plan and then execute a whopping burglary (based on a real incident) involving a number of priceless artifacts located in a Mexican museum.Folk who saw the recent hybrid documentary/narrative film,, should immediately note the similarities between the two. in which a heist of museum artifacts is attempted by some hugely unprofessional thieves.was pretty amazing: smart, beautifully acted, directed and written, with a wonderful combination of narrative characters and their actual counterparts in reality. It was thrilling, funny and bizarre, with a style that turned it into an art film without its even trying., however, clearlyto be an "art film," and so announces its intentions, as well as its themes and concerns, with a little too heavy a hand. It is certainly an interesting exploration of the Mexican culture of its time, along with the everlasting Hispanic ability to spoil its male children rotten, even as its makes clear (a littleclear) that we can rarely be sure of a person's true motives, including those we think we know best.Ruizpalacios gives us a combo of history, philosophy, psychology, and a kind of heist thriller that would be much more thrilling had it been shortened by 20-to-30 minutes. Instead the movie just goes on and one and on, giving us an entire section devoted to a supposed "contact," a night club, and an over-the-hill performer (nicely played by) -- clearly someone on whom Juan has had a major crush -- that may be interesting but drains the suspense and pace rather crushingly.Better is the scene with(above, left) playing an international "fence" who must apprise our boys of the stupidity of their actions and expectations.Clearly, Ruizpalacios had a much larger budget this time around (the credit sequence alone looks quite ravishing), but the spirit, freshness and life -- not to mention the ability to offer up so many ideas and themes so offhandedly yet strongly -- that inhabitedhas mostly gone missing. Well... next time!Fromand running two hours and eight minutes,opened today, Friday, September 21, here in South Florida -- in Miami at theand the, in Fort Lauderdale at the, and in West Palm Beach at the. Clickand scroll down to find all the currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters. 38 Degrees are a group of Board Members, Staff and Volunteers who all have the goal to make positive social changes. At the top of their 'About us' page is written: "38 Degrees is the angle at which snowflakes come together to form an avalanche together we're unstoppable." One of their current campaigns was started by Geraint Ashcroft whose campaign called for Walkers Crips to ditch their plastic packaging. In support of his campaign Ashcroft wrote "Crisp packets have been found intact after 33 years." and went on to write "Many will be ingested by animals, fish or birds leading to a slow lingering death." The campaign seeks to have companies use materials in their packaging that can be easily recycled and is better for the environment, unlike the current materials being used. Walkers are responsible for many crisps packets such as; Wotsits, Quavers, and Walkers Crisps themselves. Crisp campaign On the campaign page, Ashcroft wrote "We call upon Walkers and other manufacturers to change the materials for their packets to one which is recyclable or even more preferably a non-plastic environmentally friendly material" The campaign has since had 310,482 with an aim to reach 400,000 signatures. The campaign has even received a response from Walkers parent company Pepsico. In their statement, Pepsico wrote, "Please know that we hear you on the issue of plastics and packaging and are taking it very seriously." Pepsico went on to write "To help us beat our target of 2025, were collaborating with a number of experts and partners across the UK and internationally to speed things up. Unfortunately, there isnt currently an alternative packaging solution available for us to use now." However, one campaigner Robin Priestley, who posted the statement to the 38 Degrees website was disappointed with the lack of commitment to make changes from the company. He listed the issues that he felt still needed to be addressed for the success of this campaign. His list included three main points; no commitment to bring forward the deadline to phase out plastic in the next seven years, no commitment to trialling anything new in the UK and no commitment to launch a scheme to deal with the billions of packets that currently end up littering our streets, filling up landfill, or floating in our oceans. Post your packet If you want to get involved and join the campaign you can go to the 38 Degrees website and sign the petition. You can also find the address to post your Walkers packet to and how to do it via their website. You can also find out more information on this campaign or any of their other current campaigns. 38 Degrees also allows its volunteers to start their own campaigns on Social Issues they may be passionate about or wish to change. There is already a list of things that visitors to the lovely city of Venice, Italy can no longer do. The latest ban will be on lying or sitting on the ground in undesignated spots throughout the city. Mayor Luigi Brugnaro recently proposed the ban to curb what he termed the boorish behaviour of visitors to Venice. A fine of up to 500 euros (450) is set to be levied on those caught breaking the rules. There is reportedly already a ban in place to stop people sitting in the most popular spots, like the Rialto Bridge and on the steps of the cities churches. However, Brugnaro wishes to take this even further and the city council will be voting on his proposal in October. Dos and Donts in Venice According to the Guardian, the mayors latest proposal is part of an already lengthy list of rules he hopes will curb the over-tourism in the beautiful city. In May this year, Brugnaro passed a law preventing any more takeout outlets opening in Venice over the coming three years. This was to limit the number of people eating in the streets. July saw the use of recreational boats in several of the major waterways in Venice also made illegal. The ban on recreational boats hit residents who use them as their main mode of transport. A step too far? Venice is considering a sitting ban in public spaces The mayor of Venice has suggested banning people from sitting down in undesignated parts of the city as part of an ongoing campaign to control tourist behaviour.https://t.co/UKBoQ2hH7a pic.twitter.com/qVYJpX7nbt Discover Italy (@365italy) September 21, 2018 The Independent reports that the population of Venice is around 54,000 people, while the average number of tourists in the city centre each day is around 60,000. That makes more than double the number of people each day in the city. The Guardian notes that municipal employees, dubbed the angels of decorum, already police the major tourist spots to make sure visitors respect the rules. As to the problem of visitors eating in the streets, Venice has already provided special picnic spots in the city, but few visitors know about them. People against the bans in Venice While some believe the new curbs on tourists are necessary, some residents dont agree. The Venice residents group, known as Gruppo Aprile 25 is publically against the bans being launched in the city. The groups leader, Marco Gasparinetti, said 5,000 more people who need to be hired to enforce the new bans. However, as noted by Conde Naste Traveller, with all those hefty fines coming into play, the city of Venice would have no problems paying the extra salaries involved. Venice may ban sitting in public places https://t.co/nc6AU9f8iq pic.twitter.com/NeJifw8x0H Conde Nast Traveler (@CNTraveler) September 21, 2018 Tommaso Cacciari said the problem isnt people eating on the steps of the city. He said to respect Venice, there should rather be a limit on the number of apartments made available to tourists visiting the city. Cacciari noted that turnstiles had also been erected to limit the number of people accessing major tourist attractions. At that time, local protesters removed the turnstiles out of sheer frustration. One protester, Marco Baravalle said at the time, that Venice as they knew it was dying. He said the fact that the mayor was placing turnstiles in the city demonstrated that he was giving up and that Brugnaro wants the city to end up with no inhabitants. FILE PHOTO: A demonstration of the newly released Apple products is seen following the product launch event in Cupertino FILE PHOTO: A demonstration of the newly released Apple iPhone XR is seen following the product launch event at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino, California, U.S. September 12, 2018. REUTERS/Stephen Lam/File Photo By Stephen Nellis SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc's latest iPhones hit stores around the world on Friday, featuring components made by Intel Corp and Toshiba <6502.T> among others, according to two firms that cracked open the iPhone Xs and Xs Max models. The studies by repair firm iFixit https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+XS++and+XS+Max+Teardown/113021 and chip analysis firm TechInsights https://w2.techinsights.com/l/4202/2018-09-21/276cjx, published this week, are among the first detailed teardowns of the phones, which reviews suggested were a subtle upgrade from the tenth anniversary iPhone X. Supplying parts for Apple's iPhones is considered a coup for chipmakers and other manufacturers. While Apple publishes a broad list of suppliers each year, it does not disclose which companies make which components and insists its suppliers keep quiet. That makes teardowns the only way of establishing the breakdown of parts in the phones, although analysts also recommend caution in drawing conclusions because Apple sometimes uses more than one supplier for a part. What is found in one iPhone may not be found in others. Apple could not immediately be reached for comment. The breakdowns listed no parts from Samsung <005930.KS> and no chips from Qualcomm Inc . Samsung in the past has supplied memory chips for Apple's iPhones and was believed by analysts to be the sole supplier of the costly displays for last year's iPhone X. Qualcomm has been a supplier of components to Apple for years, but the two have been locked in a wide-ranging legal dispute in which Apple has accused Qualcomm of unfair patent licensing practices. U.S.-based Qualcomm, the world's largest mobile phone chipmaker, has in turn accused Apple of patent infringement. Qualcomm said in July that Apple intended to solely use "competitor's modems" in its next iPhone release. Story continues The iFixit teardown showed iPhone Xs and Xs Max used Intel's modem and communication chips instead of Qualcomm's hardware. The latest iPhones also had DRAM and NAND memory chips from Micron Technology and Toshiba, according to iFixit's study. Previous teardowns of the iPhone 7 had shown DRAM chips made by Samsung in some models. TechInsights' dissection of a 256-gigabyte storage capacity iPhone Xs Max, on the other hand, revealed DRAM from Micron but NAND memory from SanDisk, which is owned by Western Digital Corp and works with Toshiba for its supply of NAND chips. Toshiba's chip unit Toshiba Memory was purchased by a private equity-led consortium earlier this year that Apple joined. In the past, TechInsights found Apple used different DRAM and NAND suppliers in the same generation of phones. "For memory Apple obviously competes with Samsung and wants to reduce their reliance as much as possible so totally consistent that we'd see Toshiba for NAND flash storage and Micron for DRAM," Morningstar analyst Abhinav Davuluri said. Jim Morrison, vice president of TechInsights, said in an interview that it appeared that one of Dialog Semiconductor's chips had been replaced in the iPhone Xs Max by one of Apple's own chips, but it was not yet known whether that also applied to the iPhone Xs. Dialog declined to comment. In May, the company said Apple had cut orders for its chips. IFixit and TechInsights technicians also found components from companies including Skyworks Solutions , Broadcom , Murata <6981.T>, NXP Semiconductors , Cypress Semiconductor , Texas Instruments and STMicroelectronics . (Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco, additional reporting by Arjun Panchadar, Sonam Rai and Munsif Vengattil in Bengaluru; editing by Rosalba O'Brien and Phil Berlowitz) AFP/Getty Images A boy has drowned after a boat carrying Syrian refugees sank off the coast of Lebanon today. Some 39 Syrian refugees attempting to make an illegal crossing to Cyprus had to rescued by the Lebanese military - and there are reports one young boy drowned in the waters. Security sources said it appeared to be the first time in almost a year that a group of refugees had tried to get to Europe by boat from Lebanon, where Syrian refugees account for roughly a quarter of the population. Cyprus is around 180 km (110 miles) from the coast of northern Lebanon. Three more of the people on the boat were in a serious condition in hospital, the sources said. Syrians chant slogans and wave flags of the opposition and of Turkey during demonstration against the Assad regime yesterday, in the rebel-held town of Hazzanu, northwest of Idlib. (AFP/Getty/Aeref Watad) The UN refugee agency UNHCR says there are close to 1 million registered Syrian refugees in Lebanon. The Lebanese government puts the number at 1.5 million. As Syrian forces and their allies have retaken more territory in Syria, Lebanonas president and other politicians have called for refugees to go back to areas where fighting is over before a deal is reached to end the civil war. A man carries a wounded child after a car bombing in Idlib in May. The city has been devastated by siege, leading to international calls for a ceasefire to prevent a humanitarian crisis. Russia has granted rebels an ultimatum to leave the city or face further conflict. (AFP/Getty/Omar Haj Kadour) Some refugees have trickled back to Syria in recent months in what the Lebanese authorities have described as voluntary returns coordinated with the Syrian government. Russia's foreign ministry called for a repatriation of Syrian civilians from Lebanon in July, even as civil war rages on. The calls were made two days after a spate of ISIS suicide bomb attacks around Sweida in southern Syria, killing a total of 246 people according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan met earlier this month to arrange a ceasefire between their warring allies on either side of the conflict in a hope of preventing further devastation in the city of Idlib. (AFP/Getty/Alexander Zemlianichenko) The bombings followed reports that Assad's regime had cleared most of the south of the country- and Syria is in a state of relative piece for the time being after Russia and Turkey agreed on a ceasefire to stifle an emerging humanitarian crisis in the city of Idlib. Putin and Erdogan offered an escape corridor for "rebels" who want to put down their arms, but the Wahhabi militia in control of the city have said they will kill anyone trying to leave. Story continues #Zakharova: We see a positive development in the repatriation of Syrian refugees and internally displaced persons to the areas of their permanent residence in Syria. A relevant international forum would give an additional impetus to this process MFA Russia (@mfa_russia) September 20, 2018 The UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said during a visit to Beirut last month that refugees were concerned about issues including the lack of infrastructure and fear of retribution and military conscription if there were to return to their homes. For larger numbers to decide to go back, he said, more confidence must be created by addressing these issues and UNHCR should have a presence in areas of return, according to a statement on UNHCR's website. Reporting by Reuters. Sky News Netflix has said Carole Baskin has "no claim at all" in a lawsuit over the use of footage of her in Tiger King 2 which streams next week. Baskin and her husband Howard launched legal action against the streaming giant and production company Royal Goode Productions alleging breach of contract. Baskin, 60, filed a lawsuit in Florida saying she only signed appearance release forms for the original episodes of Tiger King, which prominently explored the mysterious disappearance of her previous husband. VILNIUS (Reuters) - Pope Francis arrived in Lithuania on Saturday to begin a four-day visit to the Baltic states, carrying a message of solidarity as they look warily towards a newly aggressive Russia nearly 30 years after they broke away from the then-Soviet Union. The pontiff will spend two days in predominantly Catholic Lithuania before moving on to Latvia and then Estonia. He was greeted at Vilnius airport by Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite, a military brass band and a group of children waving Vatican flags and singing songs. He then left for the presidential palace in central Vilnius to make his first address. The trip is the first by a pope to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia since 1993. A quarter of a century later, the countries are members of NATO and the euro zone but the past still looms large in a region subject in turn to Soviet and Nazi oppression and where religious persecution left a traumatic legacy. In Lithuania, Francis will visit the Vilnius Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights, a former Soviet KGB prison where hundreds were murdered and thousands shipped off to Siberia, including many priests. He will also pray at a monument to the victims of the Vilnius ghetto, in a country where only several hundred of over 200,000 Jews survived the Holocaust. (Reporting by Andrius Sytas; Editing by Mark Heinrich) Russian officials reportedly held talks with associates of Julian Assange about helping him escape from the Ecuadorian embassy in London. The secret breakout plan involved smuggling the WikiLeaks founder out of the embassy using a diplomatic vehicle and moving him to another country, according to The Guardian. Sources said Russia was one of the possible havens discussed for Mr Assange. The smuggling operation was provisionally set to take place on Christmas Eve in 2017, but was thought too risky and scrapped. Russias embassy in London has denied diplomats had been involved in any such scheme. The embassy has never engaged either with Ecuadorian colleagues, or with anyone else, in discussions on any kind of Russias participation in ending Mr Assanges stay within the diplomatic mission of Ecuador, it stated on its website. It has also emerged that Ecuador had tried to arrange a formal diplomatic post for Mr Assange in Russia, but efforts were abandoned after Britain refused to give him diplomatic immunity. A letter by Ecuadors foreign ministry to one of the countrys lawmakers revealed the plan for a special designation for Mr Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy in Russia, according to Reuters. The UK Foreign Office told the Ecuadorian authorities in December it did not accept Mr Assange as a diplomat. He could not, therefore, enjoy the privileges and immunities under the Vienna Convention that would allow him to leave the country. The WikiLeaks founder has been in self-imposed confinement inside the Ecuadorean embassy in London for the past six years to avoid arrest by British authorities on charges of skipping bail. Ecuador granted him citizenship last year. Earlier this week, the Associated Press obtained a 2010 letter it claimed was written by Mr Assange to the Russian embassy in London asking for a Russian visa. WikiLeaks denied on Twitter that Mr Assange had ever applied for the visa. In 2017, US intelligence agencies revealed they believed WikiLeaks was used as an intermediary by Russia to publish hacked emails from leading figures in the Democratic Party. Story continues And in July this year, Special Counsel Robert Mueller said Russian hackers had sent Democratic Party emails to WikiLeaks. The accusation was made as part of an indictment of a dozen Russian GRU military intelligence officers who allegedly hacked party servers. VATICAN CITY (AP) Pope Francis is heading to the Baltic countries this weekend amid renewed alarm about Russia's intentions in the region it twice occupied for decades. Francis' 25th foreign visit comes a quarter of a century after St. John Paul II made the first papal visit to the former Soviet Union and cheered as Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia emerged from five decades of Soviet-imposed religious repression and state-sponsored atheism. Hopes were high back in 1993 the last Russian troops had withdrawn from Lithuania just days before John Paul arrived. There is no such optimism for Francis' Sept. 22-25 visit. The three countries, which each have ethnic Russian minorities, are sounding alarms about Moscow's military maneuvers in the Baltic Sea area following Russia's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and its support of separatists fighting the Ukrainian government in eastern Ukraine. Russia will be something of the elephant in the sacristy, however, given how the Vatican has been loath to openly criticize Moscow or its powerful Orthodox Church. While seeking to avoid offense, Francis will likely praise the sacrifices of those who fought for independence a century ago during Russia's revolution, and suffered again during Soviet rule. "The pope will send a message to the world that the difficult history has not been forgotten and that it cannot repeat itself," Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite told the Baltic News Service. The Baltic countries declared their independence in 1918 but were incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940 and remained part of it until the early 1990s, except for the 1941-1944 Nazi occupation during World War II. All three joined the European Union and NATO in 2004 and are strong backers of the military alliance, which sees them as a bulwark against Russian incursions in Eastern Europe. Evelyn Kaldoja, head of the foreign desk at Estonia's largest newspaper Postimees, said history will clearly be front and center during Francis' visit, his first to the region. Story continues "He really comes to congratulate our countries on the 100th anniversaries of our independence," Kaldoja said. "And he is expected to show profound respect for the struggle we've had to restore our freedom." The trip, featuring Francis' fondness for countries on the periphery, and ecumenical events with Lutheran and Russian Orthodox faithful will be a welcome break for the Argentine pope. His credibility has taken a blow recently following missteps on the church's priestly sex abuse scandal and recent allegations that he covered up for an American cardinal. Of the three countries Francis will visit, only Lithuania is majority Catholic, with about 80 percent of its population practicing the faith. Latvia's population of some 2 million is 25 percent Lutheran, 19 percent Russian Orthodox and only about 16 percent Catholic. Estonia, meanwhile, is often considered one of the world's most non-religious countries. A whopping 76 percent of Estonians profess no religious beliefs whatsoever and Catholics number only 6,000. The trip has already sparked controversy with Lithuania's tiny Jewish community, which was nearly wiped out during the Holocaust. Francis will be visiting the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius on the 75th anniversary of the final destruction of the Vilnius Ghetto, on Sept. 23, 1943, when its remaining residents were executed or sent off to concentration camps by the Nazis. But until Francis' schedule was changed three weeks ago, there were no specific events for him to acknowledge the slaughter of some 90 percent of Lithuania's 250,000 Jews at the hands of Nazi occupiers and complicit Lithuanian partisans a significant oversight for the leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics. At the last minute, the Vatican added in a visit to the Ghetto, where Francis will pray quietly on the day when the names of Holocaust victims are read out at commemorations across the country. Lithuanian and Italian Jewish communities had asked Francis to also visit the official Paneriai Holocaust Memorial, in the forests 18 kilometers (11 miles) outside Vilnius, where many of the capital's Jews were executed. "We wrote many letters and tried many ways, but seems that this is not possible," Lithuania's Jewish community leader, Faina Kukliansky, told The Associated Press. The Vatican spokesman, Greg Burke, acknowledged the lapse. "We realized it would have been a gap not to do it, especially on this day," he told reporters. But he said the prayer in the Ghetto would be a "significant" and "important" part of the pope's Baltic visit. Francis will also visit the Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights, located in a former gymnasium that served as both the headquarters of the Gestapo during the 1941-1944 Nazi occupation and later as the headquarters of the feared KGB spy agency when the Soviets recaptured the country. Monika Garbaciauskaite Budriene, the director of Lithuania's National TV, said the visit to the museum will send a message to Moscow. "This will be a tribute to the victims of the KGB, to our painful history and also a signal to Russia and the world that Soviet crimes can not be forgotten or washed away," she wrote on Facebook. ___ Dapkus reported from Vilnius, Lithuania. Jari Tanner in Tallinn, Estonia contributed. BEIJING (AP) China summoned the American ambassador and the defense attache and recalled its navy commander from a U.S. trip to deliver a strong protest against economic sanctions Washington lodged over the purchase of Russian fighter jets and surface-to-air missile equipment. The Defense Ministry said the U.S. had no right to interfere in Chinese military cooperation with Russia. "We demand that the U.S. immediately correct the mistake and revoke the so-called sanctions, otherwise the U.S. must bear the consequences," the Defense Ministry said in a statement. The Foreign Ministry said that it had summoned Ambassador Terry Branstad. The Central Military Commission, which commands the People's Liberation Army, the world's largest standing military, said that Huang Xueping, the commission's deputy head for international military cooperation, had also summoned the acting U.S. NEW DELHI (AP) The Maldives is holding its third multiparty presidential elections on Sunday. The Indian Ocean nation of 400,000 has been rife with political turmoil since democracy was introduced just a decade ago. Famed for its white sand beaches and luxury resorts, the Maldives under President Yameen Abdul Gayoom, who is seeking re-election, has seen economic growth and longer life expectancy, according to the World Bank. But Yameen's critics say he has systematically rolled back democratic freedoms, jailing rivals and controlling courts. Like elsewhere in South Asia, China has made fast inroads into the Maldives with aid and investment, challenging India's long-held position as the dominant regional power. MALE, Maldives (AP) Police in the Maldives raided the main campaign office of the opposition presidential candidate on Saturday, the eve of an election viewed as a referendum on whether democracy will survive in the country. Police said they had obtained a warrant to search the office based on police intelligence that it may have been used to coordinate vote-buying, opposition spokesman Shauna Aminath told The Associated Press, adding that a senior campaign official had been named as a suspect. The opposition's presidential candidate, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, was not in the office at the time of the raid, Aminath said. Story continues An opposition party spokesman in the Maldives says police obtained a warrant to search the main campaign office of the party's presidential candidate based on police intelligence that the office was being used to coordinate vote-buying. Spokesman Shauna Aminath says police obtained the 14-hour warrant Saturday to search the office for documents or other evidence of bribery ahead of Sunday's Maldives election, which is widely seen as a referendum on the country's democracy. Aminath says the warrant also names senior opposition campaign team member Ahmed Shahid as a suspect. Several calls to Shahid went unanswered. A spokesman for former president Mohamed Nasheed said from Colombo, the capital of neighboring Sri Lanka, that the raid showed that the election would be unfair. VATICAN CITY (AP) The Vatican and China said Saturday they had signed a "provisional agreement" over the appointment of bishops, a breakthrough on an issue that stymied diplomatic relations for decades and aggravated a split among Chinese Catholics. The deal resolved one of the major sticking points in recent years, with the Vatican agreeing to accept seven bishops who were previously named by Beijing without the pope's consent. The development comes nearly seven decades after the Holy See and Beijing severed official relations. Beijing's long-held insistence that it must approve bishop appointments in China had clashed with absolute papal authority to pick bishops. WASHINGTON (AP) North Korea's Kim Jong Un is "little rocket man" no more. President Donald Trump isn't a "mentally deranged U.S. dotard." In the year since Trump's searing, debut U.N. speech fueled fears of nuclear conflict with North Korea, the two leaders have turned from threats to flattery. And there's fresh hope that the U.S. president's abrupt shift from coercion to negotiation can yield results in getting Kim to halt, if not abandon, his nuclear weapons program. Trump will address world leaders at the United Nations on Tuesday on the back of an upbeat summit between South and North Korea, where Kim promised to dismantle a major rocket launch site and the North's main nuclear complex at Nyongbyon if it gets some incentive from Washington. TOKYO (AP) An unmanned Japanese space capsule is headed to the International Space Station filled with cargo including food, experiments and new batteries. The craft was launched Sunday at 2:52 a.m. from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan. It will take 4 days to reach the space station. The launch was delayed for about two weeks because of bad weather and a mechanical problem. The delay has led NASA to postpone two space walks to install the six lithium-ion batteries until new crew members arrive next month. They will replace aging nickel-hydrogen batteries for the station's electric power, enabling an extension of its operations. UNITED NATIONS (AP) With rising unilateralism challenging its very existence, the United Nations convenes its annual meeting of world leaders Monday and will try once more to tackle problems together as a community of nations, addressing threats ranging from Mideast conflicts to the effects of global warming and also encouraging the glimmer of hope over the nuclear standoff in North Korea. This year, 133 world leaders have signed up to attend the General Assembly session, a significant increase from last year's 114. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the expected large turnout "eloquent proof of the confidence of the international community in the United Nations," though other U.N. HONG KONG (AP) Hong Kong on Saturday opened a new high-speed rail link to inland China that will vastly decrease travel times but also raises concerns about Beijing's creeping influence over the semi-autonomous Chinese region. Costing upward of $10 billion and taking more than eight years to build, the system aims to transport more than 80,000 passengers daily between the Asian financial center of 7 million people and the neighboring manufacturing hub of Guangdong province. The train travels the 26 kilometers (16 miles) through Hong Kong to Shenzhen across the border in China in just 14 minutes, down from about 1 hour currently. PHNOM PEHN, Cambodia (AP) An Australian filmmaker was awaiting deportation from Cambodia on Saturday after receiving a royal pardon for his conviction on spying charges for flying a drone over a political rally. A spokesman for immigration police said that James Ricketson will be deported on Saturday morning, a day after being released from prison. "We are now checking a flight for him," Gen. Keo Vanthan told The Associated Press. Ricketson, 69, was sentenced to six years in a trial his sympathizers described as farcical because prosecutors never specified whom he was spying for and failed to present evidence that he possessed or transmitted any secrets. He and his wife have seen floodwater rush in and damage his home for 22 years - but this time feels different. They've been moving many of their belongings to the attic, hoping the water won't rise higher than their house in Horry County, South Carolina. "These millions of deaths were preventable, but as long as a market exists for animal flesh, some people will turn a profit at the expense of animals", a spokesperson told EcoWatch in an email. North Carolina is the top producing state of the tubers, and Smith grows 150 acres of them, only three of which he's been able to harvest so far. Residential streets have turned into rivers and freeways have morphed into waterways. Imagery from NASA's LandSat 8 satellite (about 438 miles above the Earth's surface) shows how radically the storm transformed the land adjacent to the Trent River, which meanders through southeast North Carolina before emptying into the Neuse River, which then spills into the Atlantic Ocean. Lumberton homeowner Kenneth Campbell said he found at least 30 centimetres of water in his one-storey home when a friend took him into his flooded neighbourhood on a boat Tuesday. "Because again, although the winds are gone and the rain's not falling, the water's still there and the worst is yet to come in the Pee Dee", he said. And plenty of roads are still closed in the storm's wake. USA 17, near Georgetown, also was in imminent danger of flooding, the Transportation Department said. For many residents in those areas it's not the first time they have been hit by a disaster. "This is ridiculous. This is the worst I've ever seen, and that includes hurricane evacuations", Tovornik said. The Cape Fear River was expected to crest at 61.5 feet (19 meters), quadrupling its normal height, on Wednesday in Fayetteville, a city of 200,000 in the southern part of the state near the Fort Bragg army base, according to the National Weather Service. Raised in barns, they can become trapped and drown in floods. "We can attribute that additional rainfall to human-induced climate change", said Kevin Reed, a professor at Stony Brook University's School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, who contributed to the study. The death toll in the aftermath of Florence reached 37 as of Wednesday, according to the Associated Press. "We continue to feel the effects of this massive storm", North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper said on Tuesday. The coastal city of Wilmington, North Carolina, remained cut off by floodwaters on Thursday. "PLEASE DO NOT RETURN", the county said in a tweet. McMaster said Friday he had "contacted or attempted to speak personally with the families of everyone who we lost during this crisis, this tragedy", including the families of Newton and Green. "You can never tell what lies under that water", he said. "Don't drive across it and if there is a barricade up, do not go around that barricade". At least 36 other similar lagoons are likely to also overflow - and five are structurally damaged, according to the department. Levels along the Cape Fear River at Wilmington may approach record levels. More than a thousand other roads from major highways to neighbourhood lanes are closed in the Carolinas, officials said. Some of the rivers near the coast may remain out of their banks until early October, which means that some farmland and small communities may be inundated for two weeks or more after the initial flood. As restaurant servers and bartenders across America fight for a full minimum wage during Food Safety Month (September), many people may be wondering if such a position deserves what they are fighting for. Quality service is traditionally exchanged for a monetary tip (though compliments are lovely, they dont pay the bills), and while there are no legal obligations to tip, with the exception of event contracts, it is customary to do so to a server/bartender for the service you received from them. A typical tip ranges from 15-25%, though there are always exceptions on both ends of that spectrum. And yes, it may not be rocket science to serve tables, but safety is a key component most customers don't think about. And it just so happens restaurant servers know a few survival skills picked up on the job that are not only important to know when touching something another will consume but can help keep others safe. Here are four survival skills learned from serving tables. 1. A knee-jerk alert system is developed There is a term the majority of, if not all, restaurant staff use - whether youre in FOH (front of the house) or BOH (back of the house) - and that term is: Behind You! Its used to keep spills and trips and all other kinds of bumping situations from happening in a restaurant where an abundance of people are all moving around a small space, with hot plates and breakable dinnerware everywhere. The simple phrase above lets someone know a person is right behind him or her and based on the situation, allows them to act accordingly. 2. Knowledge of food safety In most states, its called a Food Handlers card and its something servers are generally asked to get by their employers before being allowed to handle food. After training and testing on state-issued guidelines for food safety, the restaurant employee is then issued a card armed with knowledge on the proper way to act around food for public consumption. Discuss this news on Eunomia And though it may sound silly, it's definitely not, as anyone whos had food-poisoning will attest too. Things like cross-contamination, food temperatures, and hand washing are essential to keeping people safe and servers have more knowledge in this area than most, out of sheer necessity for what they do. 3. Knife holder expert Pretty much every server has, at one time or another, cut him/herself with a knife, whether from slicing fruit to simply picking up a dirty blade the wrong way and that will likely make a person learn quickly that knives are no joke and need to be treated as such. Keeping a knife blade down when walking is imperative at all times and can be considered rule number one in a restaurant, immediately followed by rule number two place knives handle-up in all dish racks (clean or dirty.) 4. Allergy virtuoso Grown out of customer demand, servers have, by default, become incredibly knowledgeable on allergies, from gluten to peanuts, soy to legumes. For some customers, its a food preference or sensitivity and not actually an allergy, while to others, it's a life-threatening ailment of high importance, News Press Now notes. Servers worth their salt deal with both, all-the-while making sure customers dont consume anything they don't want to or shouldnt, and yes, sometimes it is in fact, a life or death situation. Anyone whos seen someone need an Epi-pen in the middle of the meal will forever know the importance of accurate ingredient information. Alcohol legalities for servers Working at restaurants in which you serve alcohol bring along certain restrictions and obligations servers have to heed and pay attention to, as well. This is especially important as one can be held accountable for a guest's actions outside of the restaurant, which bring along very real consequences to all involved. Cutting someone off is not only a legal obligation for a server but also a safeguard to help stop the endangerment of others. Presumption of innocence, the burden of proof, right to face ones accuser, the statute of limitations are being tossed out the door in the face of ever-increasing politicization of the institutions that are supposed to be non-partisan, unbiased, and independent. The American dream is liberty, and its most cherished value is freedom. Protecting these most cherished rights has been the guiding foundation of our legal system for our entire history. When a citizen, any citizen, is accused of a crime, however heinous, the accuser has a right to be heard, but they do not have an automatic right to be believed. Instead, they have something called a burden of proof based on a presumption of innocence of the accused. Common sense, if not hundreds of years of legal principle, would undergird the rationale for why this is the case. If one person can make an accusation against anyone, and automatically be believed, the liberty of every individual would be held hostage by any accuser regardless of truth or justice. A contentious political climate In the present climate under which Christine Blasey Ford has brought an allegation of sexual assault against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, guilt has been instantly proclaimed based on political party affiliation rather than any examination of evidence or due process. Several politicians have vowed from the beginning of the nomination process to do everything possible to stop Kavanaughs confirmation. Perhaps no nomination in history has undergone the questioning, distraction, and disruption leveled at Judge Kavanaugh. Independent of veracity, there is no doubt about the timing of this accusation and the goal of its promoters--stop Kavanaughs appointment to the Supreme Court. Discuss this news on Eunomia Therefore, it is no surprise that some politicians have immediately declared that this accusation is truth personified. One Democratic Senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, suspended all logic by arguing that she believes Fords claim is true because Ford is telling the truth. Someone, please ask Ms. Ford to declare that our nations multi-trillion dollar national deficit is actually a credit while this magic lasts. Of course, it doesnt take a legal or common sense scholar to recognize that making a statement and proving a statement are actually two distinct and separate concepts. Protecting all of our rights Unfortunately, for those that would rush to judgment making self-evident truth claims, they forget that the actual self-evident truths set forth in our Declaration of Independence assure us all the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If someone would deny any citizen these self-evident God-given truths, then they have the burden of proving the truth of their claim, and in criminal matters, that burden is extremely high as a reflection of the value that America places on freedom. To waive aside this burden and to shift the rights of the accused to the accuser, creating a new right that says all accusers should automatically be believed would be a terrifying new non-reality if it is permitted to continue. In the case of Fords claim against Kavanaugh, however, there is a further legal consideration, and that is the statute of limitations. Statutes of limitations were created for a very specific reason, also with the protection of liberty in view. Memory is imperfect, particularly over time. The rationale for a statute of limitations on crimes is to make sure convictions only occur upon evidence that hasnt deteriorated over time. This includes eyewitness testimony or physical evidence. A background check is not an investigation Christine Fords accusation is of an event that happened when both she and Brett Kavanaugh were juveniles, 36 years ago to the best of Ms. Fords recollection. She does not remember the location or even the year that it occurred. She is reported to have confided it in 2012 to a therapist. The timing comes after all else has failed to stop or further delay the nomination process of a candidate that many have made a top priority to defeat. The FBI has conducted six background checks on Kavanaugh. Adding Ms. Fords interview into consideration, it is difficult to understand how a 37-year-old claim of juvenile crime weighs against three decades of what is admittedly exceptional public service and judgeship by Kavanaugh according to a multitude of non-partisan sources, or the hundred women that have worked with Kavanaugh for decades and vouched in signed sworn statements as to his high character. Also, here is a "White Boy Rick" review. As to the guilt or innocence of Brett Kavanaugh, that is a simple legal question, and the answer is equally as simple. He is innocent in the eyes of the law. There is no evidence that can be presented to overcome any burden of proof. The statute of limitations has run its course. The critics of President Donald Trump, and by proxy, any conservative judicial nomination he chooses, are going to have to decide if sacrificing principles of liberty and justice are worth winning partisan issues that are supposed to be non-partisan. The very foundation of liberty is at stake. Additionally, Jon Kyl will replace John McCain. Disney has announced that they are launching several standalone shows featuring Loki and the Scarlet Witch. Disney has been assembling content for its streaming platform, which is scheduled to be released in 2019. Variety has reported that Disney already confirmed that there will be a live-action Star Wars series, as well as a TV series adaptation of "Monsters Inc." However, they were originally quiet about any Marvel plans. These stand-alone shows will feature Tom Hiddleston and Elizabeth Olsen, both who have portrayed Loki and the Scarlet Witch in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Other shows will feature superheroes who have yet to be given their own standalone movies. These shows will differ from the current line of Marvel TV series such as "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." which is gearing up for its sixth season and "Iron Fist" in many ways, including that Marvel Studios is producing the new series, not Marvel TV. Disney planned series will rival film productions The new shows on Disney's new streaming platform will only have six to eight episodes per season. However, Collider says that both Marvel and Disney are planning to invest major amounts of money to rival those of major studio productions. These string of Marvel shows are being launched to give characters who have not received their own standalone movies, the opportunity to shine. Some of those characters could include Falcon, Hawkeye, Mantis, and others. If Marvel can deliver, this could give Marvel fans the opportunity to see some unique, ambitious and creative standalone series. Disney setting their sights on Netflix as they roll-out their service These new stand-alone series are an attempt to rival the streaming giant Netflix, which will no longer be streaming Disney films and shows. Disney has announced that their service will be cheaper than Netflix. Discuss this news on Eunomia Disney's service will include original Disney films right from the get-go, such as "Lady and the Tramp" remake and a new Christmas comedy starring Bill Hader and Anna Kendrick. Marvel's contribution to this new streaming service is their limited series stand-alone series for many MCU characters. Now that Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige is in charge, the quality will be up to the level of the MCU movies. Disney's announcement comes as Marvel TV's Netflix shows have received less and less fanfare over the past few seasons. "The Defenders" season 2 is not happening and new seasons for "Iron Fist," "Luke Cage," and "Jessica Jones," have not done much to draw in viewers. Highlighted by Ashley Cain and Timothy LeDuc's second-straight gold medal in Slovakia and Bradie Tennell's come-from-behind victory in Canada, the United States contingent captured five medals (two golds, two silvers and one bronze) at the Ondrej Nepela Trophy and Autumn Classic International this week. American skaters have now collected 12 medals on the Challenger Series circuit.At the Ondrej Nepela Trophy, Cain and LeDuc were in the lead after the short program, scoring 65.68 points with three Level 4 elements including a Group 4 lift. The Four Continents silver medalists went on to win the free skate with 115.88 points. Their program included a Level 3 Group 5 Axel lift and a side-by-side triple Salchow-double toe loop-double loop combination. With a total score of 181.56, the pair topped the field by almost seven points.Their victory in Bratislava, Slovakia, marks their second consecutive gold medal after winning the U.S. International Classic in Salt Lake City. They will kick off their Grand Prix season at Skate America in Everett, Washington.Just behind Cain and LeDuc, Deanna Stellato and Nathan Batholomay collected their first international medal with silver in their season debut, scoring 174.78 total points. The couple was ranked third after the short program and rallied back with a 115.18-point free skate to move into second place. Their free skate included four Level 4 elements, featuring a Group 3 lift and Group 5 reverse lasso lift. The U.S. bronze medalists will compete at Nebelhorn Trophy next week.Lorraine McNamara and Quinn Carpenter claimed the silver medal in the ice dance competition. The duo finished with a total score of 178.64. Their rhythm dance, which earned 70.37 points, opened with Level 4 synchronized twizzles and closed with a Level 4 rotational lift. In their free dance, the couple received all positive Grades of Execution and completed six Level 4 elements. McNamara and Carpenter's silver is their second on the Challenger Series circuit after winning silver at the Warsaw Cup last season. They will also open their Grand Prix season at Skate America.In the ladies competition, Katie McBeath rallied from her seventh-place short program to finish fifth overall with 154.56 points. Her 101.71-point free skate opened with a triple Lutz-double toe loop and she went on to complete two Level 4 spins. Megan Wessenberg finished seventh in the competition with 143.47 overall points. Her free skate featured a Level 4 flying camel combination spin and a Level 4 step sequence, scoring 91.46 points. Wessenberg will be making her Grand Prix Series debut at Skate America in October.Sean Rabbitt finished seventh in the men's competition with a total score of 195.83. Scoring 124.85 in his free skate, Rabbitt landed six triple jumps and was awarded a Level 4 change foot combination spin to close his program.In Canada at the 2018 Autumn Classic International, Bradie Tennell was in a close second place after the free skate, trailing two-time World champion Evgenia Medvedeva by just over a point. The reigning U.S. champion opened her short program with a difficult triple Lutz-triple loop combination and executed two Level 4 elements for a score of 69.26. Tennell came up big to win the free skate, landing 11 jumps with six of them in the back half of her program. In her 137.15-point program, she received a Level 4 on four spins that all received positive Grades of Execution. Her final score of 206.41 was enough to best Medvedeva by almost two points.Her gold medal in Oakville, Ontario, marks her second career medal on the Challenger Series circuit and first victory. Tennell will compete at Skate America to open her Grand Prix campaign, where she won the bronze medal last season.Starr Andrews also competed in the ladies competition, finishing seventh overall with 159.63 points. In her fifth-place short program, Andrews landed a triple flip and a triple loop-double toe combination and performed three Level 4 spins. Andrews will make her Grand Prix Series debut at Skate America in October.Haven Denney and Brandon Frazier opened their season with a bronze medal in Canada with 164.43 total points. The duo was in third place after the short program and maintained their position in the free skate, scoring 102.52 points. Their free skate featured three Level 3 lifts with positive Grades of Execution, including a Group 5 reverse lasso lift to close their program. Jessica Calalang and Brian Johnson finished fourth with a total score of 150.63 in their first international competition as a team. In their free skate, the team closed their program with two Level 4 lifts and a Level 4 death spiral. They also landed a throw triple Lutz and throw triple Salchow in their performance, scoring 100.38.In the men's competition, Jason Brown placed fourth with 233.23 points overall, less than a point off the podium. Brown had the third-best short program with three Level 4 spins for 88.90 points. After doubling his opening Salchow in his free skate, the 2015 U.S. champion earned 144.33 points for his free skate. The Toronto-based skater will compete at Skate Canada International to kick off his Grand Prix Series.Competition information and live results can be found on Competition Central for Ondrej Nepela Trophy and Autumn Classic International The trade war between the USA and China could go on for 20 more years, outlasting Donald Trump's presidency, e-commerce giant Alibaba's founder and billionaire Jack Ma warned Tuesday. Ma had offered the company's e-commerce platform to help US businesses sell products to Asia, with the potential of creating up to 1 million American jobs, during a meeting with US President Donald Trump in New York City in January a year ago. In a Xinhua News Agency interview published Tuesday, the billionaire business magnate said the jobs promise - originally floated early past year - had been predicated on a "friendly U.S". Given China's counter-tariffs and the push for Chinese firms to find alternative, non-US sources for goods, the already optimistic pledge would be even more unlikely in the current environment. Jack Ma has reneged on a promise to create one million American jobs, citing a breakdown in US-China relations. "There is no way to deliver the promise". Alibaba said access to Chinese customers through its online marketplace would help U.S. businesses grow and hire workers - as many as one million people over five years. But the dispute between the world's top two economies has swiftly escalated since Trump took office, with a series of tit-for-tat tariffs imposed on billions of dollars' worth of goods by both countries. Ma announced in an open letter on September 10 that he would retire as the chairman of the board on September 10, 2019, Alibaba's 20th anniversary, adding that the company CEO Daniel Zhang will take over as the chairman of the board. The billionaire owner of Chinas largest online shopping portal made the headline-grabbing promise to Donald Trump a year ago, as Beijing courted the then-newly elected president. China has retaliated by raising its own tariffs on US-made products. "The more frequently I visit places in Europe, South America and Africa, the more confidence I have for these markets". When commenting about his coming retirement, Ma says he has been prepared for it for over 10 years. Sudip Bose at The American Scholar: The origins of this masterpiece can arguably be traced to 1948, the year Stravinsky met Robert Craft, who was then a 25-year-old musician schooled in the works of the Second Viennese School. Stravinsky employed the young man as his secretary, but over time, the two artists became colleagues as well as friends, with Stravinsky assuming the role of father figure and Craft taking up residence in the composers household. For Craft, the 12-tone music of Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern was gospel, and he was eager to nudge Stravinsky toward serial techniques. I say in all candor, Craft would later write, not without a touch of hubris, that I provided the path and that I do not believe Stravinsky would ever have taken the direction that he did without me. Stravinsky may have initially found 12-tone music cold, clinical, and abstract, but he also feared being judged an anachronism were he not to, at the very least, explore this terrain. Craft was no doubt a guiding light, and Stravinskys 1952 Cantata incorporated several serial elements. Subsequent pieces, such as the Canticum sacrum (1955) and Movements for Piano and Orchestra(1959), are full-blooded serial works, though Stravinsky was never one to adhere dogmatically to any method, and he adapted 12-tone techniques into his own distinctive idioms. more here. Helen Macdonald in The Atlantic: I can make a passable imitation of a ravens low, guttural croak, and whenever I see a wild one flying overhead I have an irresistible urge to call up to it in the hope that it will answer back. Sometimes I do, and sometimes it does; its a moment of cross-species communication that never fails to thrill. Ravens are strangely magical birds. Partly that magic is made by us. They have been seen variously as gods, tricksters, protectors, messengers, and harbingers of death for thousands of years. But much of that magic emanates from the living birds themselves. Massive black corvids with ice-pick beaks, dark eyes, and shaggy-feathered necks, they have a distinctive presence and possess a fierce intelligence. Watching them for any length of time has the same effect as watching great apes: Its hard not to start thinking of them as people. Nonhuman people, but people all the same. The most celebrated ravens in the world live at the Tower of London, on the River Thames, an 11th-century walled enclosure of towers and buildings that houses the Crown Jewels and that over the ages has functioned as a royal palace, a zoo, a prison, and a place of execution. Today it is one of Britains most visited tourist attractions, and its ravens amble across its greens entirely unbothered by the crowds, walking with a gait that Charles Dickenswho kept ravensdescribed as resembling a very particular gentleman with exceedingly tight boots on, trying to walk fast over loose pebbles. I met Christopher Skaife a few years ago while recording a radio program about Edgar Allan Poes The Raven. A jovial, bearded man, hes one of the yeoman warders at the Tower of London. As such he is a member of an ancient and soldierly profession. For the past 13 years he has also been the sites ravenmaster, which easily tops my list of favorite job titles (unicefs head of knowledge comes in second). On Twitter, as @Ravenmaster1, he curates a much-loved feed packed with images of the birds in his care: raven beaks holding information leaflets, photos of the feathers on their broad backs, close-ups of their varied expressions, videos of their gentle interactions with him. A born storyteller with a gift for banter honed by years in the British army, Skaife has written a book that is far from a dry monograph about the species or a sentimental love letter to his birds. More here. At least 10 were killed when gunmen opened fire on people from behind a viewing stand at Qods Boulevard of Ahvaz during the morning parade held to mark the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's invasion of Iran in the 1980s. Iran was holding similar parades in several cities including the capital Tehran and the port of Bandar Abbas on the Gulf. This is a developing story and will be updated accordingly. The IRNA report said those wounded in the attack Saturday included a woman and a child. Paramedics could be seen helping someone in military fatigues lying on the ground. There has been no claim of responsibility for the attack in the city of Ahvaz. Tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia have surged in recent years, with the two countries supporting opposite sides in wars in Syria and Yemen and rival political parties in Iraq and Lebanon. Videos of the attack published online and by local media outlets show scenes of chaos as soldiers and civilians flee gunfire and attempt to treat the wounded. The semi-official Tasnim news agency said at least eight member of the Guard had been killed. Who carried out the assault also remained in question. Among those involved are members of the Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary force answerable only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The province in the past has seen Arab separatists attack oil pipelines. Iran is also now facing intensified attacks in its Kurdish-majority provinces (Rojhilat) and along its Western border with the Kurdistan Region, where Kurdish opposition groups operate. The assault shocked Tehran, which largely has avoided militant attacks in the decades after the tumult surrounding the Islamic Revolution. Third person dies after shooting in Scotland, South Dakota The Division of Criminal Investigation said the shooting was the result of a "domestic-related altercation." DENVER A Denmark native will stand trial for 141 counts of arson for the homes and buildings destroyed in the third-largest wildfire recorded in Colorado, a judge ruled Friday. Senior Judge Gregory Lymans decision follows a Wednesday hearing to determine whether the evidence supported charging Jesper Joergensen with first-degree arson. The fire destroyed more than 156 square miles (404 square kilometers) after starting in late June east of Fort Garland, about 205 miles (330 kilometers) south of Denver. Joergensen, 52, has denied intentionally starting the fire. His attorney, James Waldo, argued during Wednesdays hearing that Joergensen should not face felony arson charges because he did not mean to cause the damage from the wildfire, the Alamaso Valley Courier reported . Waldo, did not immediately return a phone message Friday seeking comment on the decision. Joergensen initially told police that he started a fire to burn trash, according to court records. He then said he was grilling food in a permanent fire pit the day before the wildfire started but believed it was out. Prosecutors said Joergensen knowingly set a fire when there was a ban on all open flames. Joergensens decision to start a fire for any reason amounted to having an open fire in a tinderbox, Assistant 12th Judicial District Attorney Ashley McCuaig said during Wednesdays hearing. Officials announced in early September that the fire had been fully contained. Joergensen was charged with 141 counts of arson because that was the number of homes and other structures officials knew had been burned at the time, though the final tally was unclear on Friday. Lyman is retired from the Sixth Judicial District in southwestern Colorado but is overseeing Joergensens case because all local judges were disqualified from hearing it. The judges faced a potential conflict of interest because an employee of the judicial district is one of the potential victims of the crime, according to court records. Joergensen is due back in court on Oct. 4. He remains in jail, and federal immigration authorities also have placed a hold on him. U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents have said Joergensens visa expired and he is in the country illegally. Police said Friday theyve arrested a teenage girl who they say set up a robbery that ended with a man fatally shot in the head in front of his teenage son outside an Albuquerque fast-food restaurant a few weeks ago. Rebecah Banuelos, 17, is charged with an open count of murder and robbery in the shooting of 39-year-old Christopher Salazar, who died at the hospital several days later. Police say Banuelos, along with two men, tried to rob Salazars son, with one of the men shooting Salazar in the head, over $50 worth of marijuana at the McDonalds at 12th and Indian School NW on Aug. 30. Officers responded to the shooting in the parking lot around 9 p.m. and found Salazar inside a Chevy Tahoe, according to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court. Salazar was taken to the hospital where he later died. He never regained consciousness and eventually succumbed to his injuries, dying at UNMH, a detective wrote. Police say Salazars son and his friend were also in the Tahoe and witnessed the shooting. Salazars son told police Banuelos, an old classmate, had sent him a message over SnapChat earlier that day asking for $50 worth of marijuana. Police say the son asked his father for a ride to meet Banuelos, who was waiting in a white car with two men outside the McDonalds. The son told police Banuelos walked up to the window and the driver of the white car pulled behind the SUV, blocking them in. Police say thats when the driver, who is not identified in the complaint, got out of the car and ordered Salazar out of the SUV at gunpoint. Salazars son told police his father grabbed his own gun and pointed it at the driver. Police say the driver fired several shots at Salazar, hitting him in the head, and into the SUV before he and Banuelos fled in the white car. Speaking alongside Erdogan, Putin said the 15-20km-wide zone would be established by October 15. On his Twitter account, Zarif wrote: "Intensive responsible diplomacy over the last few weeks-pursued in my visits to Ankara & Damascus, followed by the Iran-Russia-Turkey Summit in Tehran and the meeting (in) Sochi-is succeeding to avert war in #Idlib with a firm commitment to fight extremist terror". The Israeli leader was referring to the events that led to the 2006 Second Lebanon War between Israel and Hezbollah. "I think it will impose very serious restriction on Israel's freedom of activity", she said. Russian Federation is right to put an airstrike on military targets in Israel. Tel Aviv claimed that its strike was motivated by intelligence that weapons located there were being transferred from Iran to the Lebanese Shia movement Hezbollah. Sima Shine, a former senior Mossad official and ex-deputy director-general at Israel's Strategic Affairs Ministry, told Israel Army Radio that the incident could have "strategic implications" for Israel's freedom of action in Syria. Russia's Defense Ministry initially blamed the plane's loss on Israel, but Putin sought to defuse tensions, pointing at "a chain of tragic accidental circumstances". Hezbollah fighters will continue to be deployed in Syria and will not leave until Syrian President Bashar al-Assad asks them to, Nasrallah said. But Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah indicated the number of fighters of the powerful Shi'ite group would be reduced as fronts across Syria become quieter. In recent months, Israel has acknowledged carrying out scores of strikes in Syria, majority believed aimed at halting suspected arms shipments for Hezbollah from Iran, its main backer and Israel's archenemy. Syria accidentally shot down a Russian military aircraft, on Monday killing all 15 crew members, when its air defences swung into action against an Israeli missile strike, Russian and Israeli forces said on Tuesday. Nasrallah says Israel knows the regional balance of power has changed, and that recent Israeli strikes in Syria to prevent Hezbollah from acquiring those weapons failed because this "has already been achieved". "This is a lie". Therefore, in Moscow, they found out nearly immediately that the IL-20 was shot down by the "friendly fire" of the Syrian allies, and not by the Americans, the French, the IDF, or somebody else. General Gadi Eisenkot, said the airstrikes in Syria were part of an effort to "prevent our enemies from advancing capabilities that threaten the State of Israel". On Monday, around 19:00 GMT, four Israeli Air Force F-16 fighter jets had carried a guided aerial bomb attack on Syrian targets near the city of Latakia. "Our presence there is linked to the need and the consent of the Syrian leadership", he said in a televised address to hundreds of cheering followers in southern Beirut on the eve of the annual Ashura religious rally. Copyright 2018 Albuquerque Journal One third of Albuquerques Police Oversight Board is vacant and the contract for the executive director of the Civilian Police Oversight Agency comes to an end in the middle of next month. Several city councilors said they plan to take up those issues after an upcoming study session about civilian oversight, which could lead to changes. Last month, city councilors in a committee delayed a vote to reappoint Ed Harness, the executive director of the Civilian Police Oversight Agency, to another three-year term. The POB, to which the CPOA reports, sent a letter to councilors in May that said they are pleased with Harness performance and asked councilors to extend his contract for three more years. Were kind of upset about that. Ed had done tremendous work, Leonard Waites, the chairman of the POB, said about councilors not voting on the contract. We kind of have him in limbo. Councilor Brad Winter said the City Council plans to have a study session and get feedback on how the system is working from various stakeholders, including the American Civil Liberties Union, police union, POB and community policing councils, which could lead to changes. He said it will reconsider Harness contract and other appointments after the session, which is scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 27, at noon. I think its absolutely a lot better than it was, Winter said of civilian oversight in Albuquerque. I think its the most important board in the city. Its a necessity that it works. Harness said hes currently under contract to hold his position until mid-October. Im not sure why the City Council is thinking of changing civilian oversight right now, he said. Currently, six of the nine POB seats positions are filled. Waites said that has forced the board members to serve on multiple subcommittees, which is taking its toll on the volunteer board. Harness has led the CPOA since Albuquerques civilian oversight system was revamped following a U.S. Department of Justice investigation that found Albuquerque police had a pattern of excessive force. The city and DOJ later reached a settlement agreement as a result of those findings, which outlines a series of reforms police have to make. One of those reforms included having a powerful civilian oversight system. Councilor Pat Davis said while he thinks Harness has done a good job as the head of the CPOA, there are some concerns about the civilian oversight in Albuquerque. Specifically, he said the City Council would like to see more reports from the CPOA about how it handles investigations and there are concerns about a high rate of turnover on the POB. Copyright 2018 Albuquerque Journal With less than a month to go before Fabian Gonzales is set to go to trial on charges related to the brutal murder of 10-year-old Victoria Martens, prosecutors and his defense attorney were still ironing out the charges against him. Friday afternoon, Judge Charles Brown determined Gonzales should still face the charge of child abuse recklessly caused resulting in death, denying the defense attorneys motion to dismiss the most serious charge against him. Gonzales is also charged with eight counts of tampering with evidence and one count of conspiracy to tamper with evidence because prosecutors say he helped dismember the girls body and clean up and hide the tools that were used. Initially, after Victorias death in August 2016, her mother, Michelle Martens, her mothers boyfriend Gonzales and his cousin Jessica Kelley were charged with the rape and murder of the little girl. But the District Attorneys Office now says Victoria was killed because Gonzales had gotten into a fight with a pregnant woman at the prison homecoming barbecue for Kelley. According to the DAs Offices statement of facts filed last week, Gonzales who was given a black eye in the fight texted threats referencing his ties to the Thugs Causing Kaos gang and in retaliation someone went to Martens home while the couple was out and Kelley was babysitting. That unidentified man, the state says, strangled Victoria to death in her bed. In late June, Martens pleaded guilty to child abuse resulting in her daughters death. Last week, Kelley attempted to plead guilty to reckless child abuse resulting in death but Brown rejected the deal. The DAs Office has asked the judge to reconsider that decision. Gonzales attorney Stephen Aarons has argued that the child abuse charge against his client should be dismissed because there was no way Gonzales could have known that threats he texted to gang members would result in the strangling death of the daughter of his girlfriend. Thats simply not enough to endanger the child, Aarons said. It was not a foreseeable event that a well-dressed man would come to the door, ask who was there, walk to the childs bedroom and murder the child. This isnt gang behavior. He said he believes Kelley killed Victoria. However, Greer Rose, the states lead prosecutor, argued that Victorias death was direct retaliation for the threats Gonzales had made. He put Victoria in harms way, thats all we have to show. Its recklessly caused, Rose said. He created a harm, he knew of the harm, he could foresee the harm, he put Victoria in harms way, the harm happened. He is then guilty of child abuse recklessly caused. Although Brown expressed skepticism of the states narrative questioning why there was no evidence presented of threats against Gonzales he determined the child abuse charge should be heard at trial. Its clear in this case that there are a number of disputed facts so we will allow count one as amended to go forward, Brown said. If its a jury question, well let the jury hear everything. Michael Patrick, a DAs Office spokesman, said prosecutors are encouraged today by the judges decision that there is enough of a factual basis on the charge of child abuse to go to a jury. Aarons said he was also hopeful following the hearing. Were moving forward and maybe well get some closure in the next month or so, which is a good thing, he said. In addition to asking for the child abuse charge to be dropped, Aarons had also asked Judge Brown to bar testimony regarding Gonzales gang affiliations and gang behavior in general which the state has claimed is central to the motive of the case. Prosecutors plan to call two expert witnesses about gangs, culture and retaliation who they say can also establish Gonzales gang affiliation and the affiliation of the people at the party. Aarons, however, argued that this testimony is prejudicial against Gonzales and will not help the jury determine why the crime occurred. The jury is certainly going to hear whatever the people in the barbecue are going to say, Aarons said. Bringing in the gang experts will just compound the prejudice against the defendant without assisting the jury. Brown deferred the decision until after they can hold another hearing on the matter next week. As a kid, I was nothing short of obsessed. I collected stacks of UFO books both fictitious and, allegedly, true knew all about Barney and Betty Hill, watched Fire in The Sky and the The X-Files religiously. Im now 30 years old. A crime reporter, I depend on certainties motives, evidence and background. So when my editor plopped a story on my desk about the mysterious evacuation of an observatory at Sunspot, in southern New Mexico, I treated it like any other. In a nutshell: Someone showed up two weeks ago at the National Solar Observatory at Sacramento Peak, near Cloudcroft, and told employees to pack up. They were being evacuated, along with residents who live nearby and a clerk at a post office on the site. Nobody was told why this was happening, outside of the vagueness of security concern, or when they could return. By the time I started working on the story, it had been out there a week. There were still no answers as the story or lack thereof crept across the pages of small papers and murmurs of a conspiracy dotted internet message boards. But like a weed, the murmurs grew into something bigger, wilder, as esteemed national newspapers including The Washington Post wrote grounded pieces on the closure and tabloids tickled the whimsy of fanatics with phrases like geomagnetic storms, Chinese hacking and alien saucers. The Sunspot observatory website said the facility, whose motto is Staring at the Sun Since 1947, was closed due to unforeseen circumstances. I called the FBI, which referred me to the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, or AURA, an agency that oversees the observatory. In a prepared statement, AURA said it decided to temporarily vacate due to a security issue and was working with proper authorities, whom it declined to name. From there it got a little weird. A spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service told me he was waiting for a call from whom he didnt know to tell him when the post office could reopen. Otero County Sheriff Benny House told me the FBI was involved before his phone cut out. I tried to reach him 10 more times. An employee at the nearby Apache Point Observatory, who would speak only anonymously, said Black Hawk helicopters had been hovering in the area, along with nameless authorities reluctant to talk to anyone. So I wrote the story best I could and filed it for a Page One spot in the paper. I thought it was over, but the next day my story was picked up by DrudgeReport.com, online views rose to over 40,000 and the emails began pouring in. Some were simple and supportive, thanking me for grasping at the straws of truth. Others asked, What did I really believe? and said that if I knew anything I didnt report they could keep the secret. I was sent pictures of a saucer-looking object seen during a recent eclipse by a woman in California. I received links to hourlong discussions on conspiracies and eerie YouTube videos of drones flying over and people strolling into the abandoned observatory. A radio station in Canada wanted to interview me on air about the mystery in Sunspot. In an effort to quiet the masses, I pressed the FBI spokesman to confirm that UFOs and/or aliens did not prompt the closure. I got an email back that said, simply, no extraterrestrials. Then the observatory announced it was reopening. And, at the insistence of my editor, I was preparing to travel the four hours to Sunspot when I got a news alert from KRQE-TV: Sunspot observatory closure linked to a child porn investigation. In disbelief, I found the 30-page FBI search warrant, and sure enough, it says the whole ordeal started with a janitor downloading child porn on the observatorys Wi-Fi. The FBI had traced the signal to a janitors laptop and seized it from the observatory without notice. When the janitor returned to find his laptop missing, his behavior escalated from whining about lax security at the site to spreading the word that a serial killer was loose in the area and would one day execute an employee, according to the warrant. It wasnt the child porn, but these subsequent threats, that made AURA decide to evacuate and shutter the observatory and nearby post office. Ironically, the story turned out to be on my crime beat after all. Did the revelations stop the theories floating across the internet or put an end to the emails filling my inbox? No. According to some of our readers, my article backed by a federal search warrant was B.S., a cover-up and a case of the media spinning its wheels. I partly blame this resistance to the facts presented by authorities on the silence of those same authorities that followed, and continues to follow, the closure. By saying nothing, they left the public to fill in the blanks with any amount of nonsense and speculation they saw fit. With no proof, who is to say anyones guess is wrong? Often the truth is disappointing. From the bottom of my heart, I want to apologize to my newfound fans and my younger self, with his hopeful eyes peering into the vastness of space. I let you down with just another story thats all too familiar of people being rotten. It wasnt aliens, but I sure wish it had been. UpFront is a front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Matt Reisen at 823-3563, mreisen@abqjournal.com or follow him on Twitter @MReisen88. Go to www.abqjournal.com/letters/new to submit a letter to the editor. Copyright 2018 Albuquerque Journal SANTA FE Just 2 percentage points separate Democrat Stephanie Garcia Richard and Republican Pat Lyons in a tight race to serve as New Mexicos next state land commissioner, according to a Journal Poll. Garcia Richard, who represents the Los Alamos area in the state House, had support from 39 percent of proven, likely voters in the three-way race, according to the survey, conducted last week by Research & Polling Inc. Lyons, a former land commissioner and now a member of the Public Regulation Commission, was favored by 37 percent. Libertarian Michael Lucero, a rancher, was third at 9 percent. Brian Sanderoff, president of Research & Polling Inc., said he expects oil and gas interests and environmental groups to weigh in heavily with independent spending ahead of the Nov. 6 general election, as they have in past campaigns for land commissioner. This will probably become a nasty race, Sanderoff said in an interview. Its close. The Journal Poll also showed Democrats leading the campaigns for state auditor, attorney general, secretary of state and state treasurer. The closest margin was in the auditors race where former state Democratic Party Chairman Brian Colon had support from 45 percent of voters and Republican Wayne Johnson had 39 percent. Johnson has held the office for 10 months. A former Bernalillo County commissioner, he was appointed in December to fill the unexpired term of Democrat Tim Keller, who stepped down after winning election as Albuquerque mayor. Sanderoff said it isnt surprising that Democrats would lead so many down-ballot races this year. The campaigns for constitutionally established executive offices besides governor tend to attract less attention and campaign spending, he said, so voters have less information. And Democrats hold a voter registration advantage over Republicans and Libertarians. In these low-profile races, voters oftentimes rely on their party affiliation, because they have little else to go by other than perhaps the name recognition of the respective candidates, Sanderoff said. The political mood also appears to favor Democrats this cycle, he said, as the party in control of the White House tends to lose ground at midterm elections. But strong Republican candidates who run effective campaigns have shown an ability to win in the past, Sanderoff said. Republicans have won three of the last four elections for land commissioner, for example, and had some success earlier this decade in the Secretary of States Office. Nonetheless, Democrats have generally dominated the races for attorney general and treasurer. The races Heres a look at how this years campaigns are shaping up: Incumbent Attorney General Hector Balderas, a Democrat, had support from 53 percent of voters, far outdistancing his competitors. Republican Michael Hendricks was favored by 32 percent, and Libertarian Blair Dunn was at 7 percent. Attorneys general are often seen in the public eye as crime fighters, Sanderoff said, and Balderas is coming off the successful prosecution of former state Sen. Phil Griego, a fellow Democrat, on corruption charges. Attorney general has often been a great steppingstone in New Mexico politics, Sanderoff said, noting that past officeholders have gone on to win races for the U.S. Senate or governor. Balderas was particularly strong among Hispanic voters with support at 69 percent but he was also ahead among Anglos. The sample sizes for other racial groups were too small to report their results with accuracy. Incumbent Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, a Democrat, led her race for re-election, with support from 46 percent of those surveyed, compared with 32 percent for Republican Gavin Clarkson and 6 percent for Libertarian Ginger Grider. Incumbent State Treasurer Tim Eichenberg had support from 44 percent of voters. Republican Arthur Castillo had 34 percent. Colon, a lawyer, had a lead of 6 percentage points over Johnson, a business owner. Both are familiar to voters, at least in part, because they ran for Albuquerque mayor last year and have plenty of political experience, either in office or as a party leader. Garcia Richard, a teacher from White Rock, and Lyons, a rancher from the states eastside, are competing in a tight race for land commissioner, with the Libertarian trailing far behind. Garcia Richard is coming off a similarly close race in the Democratic primary, in which she won a three-way race, even as she was outspent by her rivals. Lyons has a financial advantage so far, though the race is expected to attract plenty of outside spending by super PACS, or political committees that are not required to abide by the states campaign contribution limits. Lyons had about $188,000 in cash on hand, according to campaign finance reports filed earlier this month. Garcia Richard had $33,000 in her account, and Lucero, the Libertarian, didnt report any activity. Incumbent Aubrey Dunn, who won as a Republican but later registered as a Libertarian, isnt seeking re-election. The land commissioner oversees 14,000 square miles of state trust land. Poll methods The Journal Poll is based on a scientific sample of registered voters who cast ballots in the 2014 and 2016 general elections and said they were very likely to vote in this years election. The poll for the land commissioner, attorney general and state auditor races was conducted Sept. 7-13. The voter sample included 423 people, and the poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.8 percentage points. The poll for secretary of state and state treasurer was conducted Sept. 14-19. The voter sample included 408 people, and the margin of error is plus or minus 4.9 percentage points. The margin of error grows for subsamples. All interviews were conducted by live, professional interviewers, with multiple callbacks to households that did not initially answer the phone. Both cellphone numbers and landlines of proven general election voters were used. BEAUMONT, Texas Police say a Georgia woman and her three children have been killed in a fiery eight-vehicle accident on westbound Interstate 10 in Southeast Texas. A Beaumont police spokeswoman say traffic had slowed around dawn Thursday due to an unrelated accident ahead when an 18-wheeler at the rear plowed into the other vehicles. Officer Haley Morrow on Friday identified the victims as 36-year-old Chelsea Stanbury, 10-year-old Anthony Stanbury Jr., 8-year-old Anaiyah Stanbury and 6-year-old Chase Stanbury, all from Marietta, Georgia. Three other people in the familys SUV survived. Morrow says several people in other vehicles suffered minor injuries. She says I-10 was dry during the multivehicle accident and weather was not a factor. Beaumont is 80 miles (128.74 kilometers) northeast of Houston. WASHINGTON For those insisting that Republican senators take Christine Blasey Fords allegations against Judge Brett Kavanaugh seriously, one aspect of the conversation is particularly infuriating: the notion the timeline established by the GOP for completing this process is quasi-sacred. Virtually everyone commenting on Kavanaughs nomination comes to it with a point of view; I should acknowledge Im no exception. I oppose his confirmation because he would push the Supreme Court far to the right of where it is now. I also worry that his expansive view of presidential prerogatives could undermine a legitimate investigation of President Trump. Because I feel so strongly, I have tried hard to understand the reaction of Kavanaughs supporters to the emergence of Fords accusations just days before a planned vote on the Judiciary Committee. Although my reaction was not the same, I could see why they might bridle over the anonymous nature of the accusation and suspect a Democratic effort to throw sand into the gears of the confirmation process. But everything changed when Ford came forward, publicly and bravely, with her charge that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her in high school thus opening herself to the inevitable, scurrilous attacks on her truthfulness and character. She also made it difficult for those trying to undermine her credibility because of the steps she had taken before going public, including her past statements to others about the incident and her willingness to take a lie detector test. And we learned why her information emerged only late in the process: Ford had understandable doubts about whether making her private pain public was worth the distress she would face and the attacks she would endure. She feared she might suffer a great deal without altering the course of events, given how determined most Republicans are to install Kavanaugh on the court. Her worries may be justified. Enough GOP senators sensed their party would pay a high political cost for ignoring her, that the majority on the Judiciary Committee scheduled a hearing for Monday where she and Kavanaugh would offer their versions of events. (Its now up in the air.) (A hearing with Ford is) only a partial victory. In light of the experience of Anita Hill in the 1991 hearings over Justice Clarence Thomas nomination, Ford and her lawyers realized the encounter could become a show trial of her. They pointed out some GOP senators had already written her off as mistaken and mixed up. So her lawyers told the committee that she wanted an FBI investigation before she testified, which would allow potential witnesses to be interviewed including an alleged witness who notified the committee that he does not want to testify. And it is at this point where the suspicion that Republican senators are acting in bad faith cannot simply be dismissed as partisan bias against Kavanaugh. They argued the FBI does not undertake such investigations patently untrue since the FBI went back and investigated Hills allegations. The Trump administration could ask for such an inquiry, just as George H.W. Bushs administration did in the Thomas case 27 years ago. They expressed outrage that a vote might be postponed by, say, a week or two. This came with little grace from Republican senators who left Justice Antonin Scalias seat on the court open for one year and 53 days because they would not even hold a hearing on President Obamas last nominee, Judge Merrick Garland. Republicans hate it when anyone brings up Garland because the episode is a clear demonstration of their determination to muscle their way to an ideological majority on the Supreme Court. Their effort to rush a vote on Kavanaugh before Novembers elections is part of the same effort. Conservatives who have worked with Kavanaugh have a deep respect for him and cannot believe these charges are true. In light of their confidence, is there any reason they should fear a short delay to allow for a more thorough inquiry? Yes, many come to this fight with political and ideological agendas. And, yes, revisiting behavior from more than three decades ago creates a lot of discomfort and uncertainty. But a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court is at stake, and so is our willingness to respect the courage of a woman who anticipated the price she could pay for coming forward. Whose interests are served by haste? Americans keep dividing into two hostile camps. It seems the country is back to 1860 on the eve of the Civil War, rather than in 2018, during the greatest age of affluence, leisure and freedom in the history of civilization. The ancient historian Thucydides called the civil discord that tore apart the fifth-century B.C. Greek city-states stasis. He saw stasis as a bitter civil war between the revolutionary masses and the traditionalist middle and upper classes. Something like that ancient divide is now infecting every aspect of American life. Americans increasingly are either proud of past U.S. traditions, ongoing reform and current American exceptionalism, or they insist that the country was hopelessly flawed at its birth and must be radically reinvented to rectify its original sins. No sphere of life is immune from the subsequent politicization: not movies, television, professional sports, late-night comedy or colleges. Even hurricanes are leveraged to advance political agendas. What is causing America to turn differences into these bitter hatreds, and why now? The internet and social media often descend into an electronic lynch mob. In a nanosecond an insignificant news story goes viral. Immediately hundreds of millions of people use it to drum up evils or virtues of progressivism or conservatism. Anonymity is a force multiplier of tensions; fake online identities provide cover for ever-greater extremism. Speed is also the enemy of common sense and restraint. Millions of bloggers rush to be the first to post their take on a news event, without much worry about whether it soon becomes a fake news moment of unsubstantiated gossip and fiction. Globalization has enriched and impoverished and further divided America. Those whose muscular labor could be outsourced abroad to less-expensive, less-regulated countries were liable to lose their jobs or find their wages slashed. They were written off as losers. Americans whose professional expertise profited from vast new world markets became richer and preened as winners. Geography, historys intensifier of civil strife, further fueled the growing economic and cultural divide. Americans are increasingly self-selecting as red and blue states. Liberals gravitate to urban coastal-corridor communities of hip culture, progressive lifestyles and lots of government services; conservatives increasingly to the lower-tax, smaller-government and more traditional heartland. Lifestyles in San Francisco and Toledo are so different its almost as if theyre two different planets. Legal, diverse, meritocratic and measured immigration has always been Americas great strength. Assimilation, integration and intermarriage within the melting pot used to turn new arrivals into grateful Americans in a generation or two. But when immigration is often illegal, not diverse and massive, then balkanization follows. Currently, the country hosts 60 million non-natives the largest number of immigrants in Americas history. Yet unlike the past, America often does not ask new immigrants to learn English and assimilate as quickly as possible. Immigration is instead politicized; newcomers seen as useful voting blocs. Tribalism is the new American norm. Gender, sexual orientation, religion, race and ethnicity are now essential, not incidental, to who we are. Americans scramble to divide into victimized blocs. Hyphenated and newly accented names serve as advertisements that particular groups have unique affiliations beyond their shared Americanism. America is often the target of unrealistic criticism, as if it is suddenly toxic because it is not perfect. Few appreciate that the far worse alternatives abroad are rife with racism, sexism, civil strife, corruption and poverty unimaginable in the U.S. The last few elections added to the growing abyss. The old Democratic Party of John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton is now trending into a radical democratic socialist party. Meanwhile, the old Republican Party is mostly gone, replaced by tea party movements and the new Donald Trump base. Former President Barack Obama came into office from Congress with the most left-wing voting record in the Senate. Trump was elected as the first president without military or political experience. Obama issued dozens of controversial pen and phone executive orders, bypassing Congress. And Trump is systematically overturning them, doing so with similar executive orders. Will America keep dividing and soon resort to open violence, as happened in 1861? Or will Americans reunite and bind up our wounds, as we did following the upheavals of the 1930s Great Depression or after the protests of the 1960s? The answer lies within each of us. New Mexico boasts 9 million acres of national forest land and roughly 13 million acres of land managed by the federal Bureau of Land Management. And our state has multiple ski areas, bike races and hiking trails. Two southern New Mexico lawmakers and several others want to create a state office of outdoor recreation to help New Mexico capitalize on those amazing resources and tap into a lucrative industry. Sen. Jeff Steinborn and Rep. Nathan Small, both Las Cruces Democrats, are joined by Farmington Mayor Nate Duckett, Red River Mayor Linda Calhoun and Mesilla Mayor Nora Barraza in pushing for the new office. They argued in an op-ed in the Journal earlier this year that in these challenging economic times, New Mexico must do all we can to diversify and strengthen our economy. Our beautiful landscapes across the state provide a wonderful opportunity to create jobs and build upon brands like New Mexico True and the Land of Enchantment. Theyre right; the real challenge is doing it in the most efficient and effective manner. At first the new office sounds like a no-brainer then you remember we already have state agencies for Tourism; Cultural Affairs (historic sites and monuments); Economic Development; Environment; Game and Fish; Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources (parks, forestry); as well as the federal Forest Service operating across the state. On second look, the office of outdoor recreation proposal raises the questions of what one more state office can do that isnt already being done; why it takes a new government entity rather than, say, a new deputy secretary focused on outdoor recreation; and whether ensuring our existing agencies are working in tandem rather than in silos wouldnt be a better use of time and money? Proponents of a state office of outdoor recreation point out most other Western states already have one, including Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and Montana. Steinborn says such an office in our state with four to six employees housed within a-yet-to-be-determined existing agency at a yet-to-be-determined cost could further bolster an economic sector that already generates $9.9 billion in consumer spending annually and supports 99,000 jobs, according to the Outdoor Industry Association. Its an intriguing idea and one that should be fully explored. But before lawmakers or the next governor commit to moving forward with this idea, they owe it to us, the taxpayers, to do their due diligence and figure out exactly what these offices have brought to states that have created them. And they need to be dealing with hard facts, statistics and bottom lines, not anecdotal evidence. Even then, theres no guarantee that what works in Colorado, Utah or Wyoming will work here. Consider Territorial Gov. Lew Wallaces infamous quote about New Mexicos uniqueness: All calculations based on experience elsewhere, fail in New Mexico. Outgoing Gov. Susana Martinez says the office would be redundant because the state Tourism and Economic Development departments already promote New Mexicos outdoor recreation industry. Tourism spokeswoman Mary Elizabeth Robertson says, theres no need to create more government jobs to perform work thats already being done and notes the state leisure and hospitality job numbers have increased steadily since 2011. But the promise of increasing those numbers even more is intriguing, to say the least. Democratic gubernatorial nominee and U.S. Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham has indicated she supports the idea of an office of outdoor recreation. U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, the Republican gubernatorial candidate, is skeptical, although he hasnt ruled it out. Heres hoping the candidate who prevails Nov. 6 is willing to do the homework necessary to ensure the work done inside state government makes the most of the outdoor opportunities in New Mexico. This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers. WASHINGTON The congressional showdown taking shape between Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and the woman who has accused him of sexual assault is a battle of optics as much as truth, and it comes at the height of campaign season. At issue are logistics Christine Blasey Fords security, her questioners, the placement of reporters and who is allowed in the hearing room. The back-and-forth also is about how majority Republicans and Democrats answer women who allege assault and the men who deny the accusations in the #MeToo era. Leading the way for the GOP is President Donald Trump, the former reality show star who on Friday attacked Fords credibility and zeroes in on people who make me look as bad as possible. Snapshots of the Washington drama as early voting begins in some states ahead of the Nov. 6 elections: ___ ACCUSATION AND DENIAL Kavanaugh was headed toward confirmation to the Supreme Court until Ford identified herself to The Washington Post, alleging that he steered her into a bedroom and tried to undress her when both were teenagers in suburban Maryland in the 1980s. He has staunchly denied her account. Most everyone in Congress agreed at first that both should have a chance to tell their stories under oath to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Republican-controlled panel set a hearing for Monday. Kavanaugh accepted, and has spent most of the week at the White House preparing. But Ford said Monday is impossible for her, offering instead to testify later in the week under certain conditions. Their allies and opponents are issuing ferocious statements, further electrifying the election season atmosphere. Both families Kavanaughs and Fords have said theyre getting death threats. ___ THE LEADER Trump spent most of the week unusually restrained and heeding the tone set publicly by counselor Kellyanne Conway. Ford, Conway said, should not be ignored or insulted and should be heard. Trump likewise avoided casting doubt on her account, at one point even acknowledging the possibility that Ford could make a credible case if she testifies. Then early Friday, Trump questioned Fords credibility and challenged her to provide more evidence than the notes from a therapist reviewed by The Post. He tweeted, I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place! He also repeated a question he asked on Fox News Thursday night in Las Vegas: The radical left lawyers want the FBI to get involved NOW. Why didnt someone call the FBI 36 years ago? There could be many reasons for that, starting with the fact that its not clear Fords alleged account would have been a federal crime. Even now, no one is really asking for a criminal investigation. Ford and Democrats want the FBI to add to Kavanaughs background check with more interviews about her allegation. Trump has refused to ask for that. Also, the governments Bureau of Justice Statistics says a majority of rapes and sexual assaults are not reported to police. The percentage reporting in 2016 for rape or sexual assault was just 22.9 percent. ___ THE FALLOUT Trumps abrupt change of course put off at least one person he may need to confirm Kavanaugh in the Senate Republicans narrowly control, 51-49. I was appalled by the presidents tweet, said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. Im not saying thats what happened in this case but we know allegations of sexual assault are one of the most unreported crimes that exist. So I thought that the presidents tweet was completely inappropriate and wrong. ___ THE TERMS Kavanaugh has said he wants to deny Fords accusation in sworn testimony, and as soon as possible. As of Friday, he was scheduled to do so on Monday. Ford says she wants to appear, but has issued a series of conditions that Conway said Friday sound more like demands. The committee is considering Fords terms: Security, including by U.S. Capitol Police that could mirror Kavanaughs. Reporters kept at a distance, as they are for Kavanaugh and most other high-profile hearings. Monday is too soon. She says she needs time to secure her home and family. She does not want Kavanaugh in the room when she testifies. She wants to the panel to subpoena Mark Judge, the other person Ford says was in the room when Kavanaugh allegedly attacked her. Judge has said he never saw Kavanaugh behave as Ford has described. Ford would prefer that senators, and not an outside counsel hired by Republicans, question her. Having an outside counsel would seem too much like a trial, her attorney told the committee. ___ THE TOUGHEST OPTICS The hearing or hearings, if any, would have enormous stakes for Kavanaugh, Ford and their families. But Republicans have the toughest challenge in the Department of How It Looks. The GOP is defending House and Senate majorities in the election, and though Trump is not on the ballot Nov. 6, the contest is widely considered a referendum on his stewardship. The president has been accused of sexual misconduct by more than a dozen women all liars, he has said. Inside the Senate, split 51-49, only six Republicans are women. On the Senate Judiciary Committee zero Republicans are women. In contrast, four Democrats are women some with ambitions to challenge Trump in 2020. Haunting every politician is the memory of the 1991 confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas, in which an all-male Senate panel hammered Anita Hill on her allegations of sexual harassment. Thomas heatedly denied the charge and was confirmed. Democrats were in charge, and the spectacle is widely regarded as a Senate embarrassment. Democrats suggest now that tough treatment of Ford at the hands of Republicans would victimize her. The woman should be given the benefit of the doubt and not be, you know, abused again by the system, former Vice President Joe Biden told NBCs Today show in comments broadcast Friday. Biden, who chaired the Thomas hearing and is considering running for president, said he regrets the way Hill was treated. ___ THE GOP APPROACH Senate Republicans agreed almost immediately after Fords name became public that her story should be heard. Theyve offered to hear her in public or private. The Judiciary Committee offered to send its investigators out to talk privately with Ford at a place where shes comfortable. But theyre eager to avoid the spectacle of 11 Republican men cross-examining a woman who says shes been victimized by a man. Doing so would almost certainly evoke the panels handing of Hill and potentially alienate suburban women voters who could decide the elections and control of the House and Senate. Republicans are considering bringing in an outside counsel, possibly a woman, to question Ford. ___ Associated Press Writer Patrick Whittle in Portland, Maine, contributed to this report. Follow Kellman on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/APLaurieKellman DALLAS A storm system dumped record amounts of rain in parts of Oklahoma and caused flooding in Texas, including in the Dallas area, where floodwaters swept a man from a bridge to his death near the University of Texas campus in nearby Arlington. (A) witness stated that the victim was swept under a bridge by rushing waters, shortly before midnight Friday, according to Arlington Fire Department Lt. Mike Joiner. The mans body was found a few hours later. His name hasnt been released. The Dallas Fire Department said at least 15 people were rescued from the rising waters at about 7 a.m. Saturday, including five Dallas police officers and a motorist. The officers became trapped while trying to rescue the motorist. Up to 45 homes in Everman, south of Fort Worth, were damaged by floodwaters as some residents were forced to scramble onto roofs to escape rising water. We had residents stranded up on top of their homes. People begging for help, screaming for help, Everman police Chief Craig Spencer told KXAS-TV. Austin fire officials said some 60 people attending a wedding reception were rescued from rising waters that surrounded the venue early Saturday. Some at the reception were forced to climb trees to avoid the water, officials said. In the Central Texas city of Killeen, patients were evacuated to other medical care facilities when a lightning strike knocked out power to Metroplex Hospital. Thirty-four patients were transported and there were no reports of injuries, according to a hospital statement. A record 14 inches (35.56 centimeters) of rain fell Friday at the Oklahoma Climatological Surveys site in Fittstown, about 75 miles (120 kilometers) southeast of Oklahoma City, and more than 2 additional inches fell before noon Saturday, said National Weather Service meteorologist Forrest Mitchell in Norman. The previous record of just less than 7 inches was set in July 1997, according to Mesonet records. The downpours and threat of more rain has also forced cancellation of events from the Dallas area to northeastern Arkansas, including balloon festival in Plano to the Northeast Arkansas District Fair in Jonesboro, 390 miles (628 kilometers) away, where the already wet grounds were expected to be inundated by additional rain. The weather service has said a zone of low-pressure over West Texas, tropical moisture off the Gulf of Mexico and an approaching cold front combined to produce the heavy rain that was moving into Arkansas, prompting flash flood watches until Sunday morning. Light rain continued Saturday in southeastern Oklahoma and northeastern Texas while the leading edge of the storm moved into southwestern Arkansas, according to the weather service. In southwest Arkansas, another 3-4 inches was expected as the slow moving storm tracked northeastward, according to meteorologist Tabitha Clarke with the weather service in Little Rock. Already in southwest Arkansas, 3-5 inches had accumulated. ___ AP reporter David Warren reported from Dallas. The paper, claimed that Ecuador's former London consul, Fidel Narvaez, was in talks with Russian diplomats and in constant contact with a "Russian businessman" who coordinated the proposed operation with the Kremlin. That could of very well been the case in 2017 - when Ecuador attempted to give the Wikileaks founder a diplomatic post in Moscow, but were forced to rescind the offer after the British refused to play ball, a report says. "Special designation" refers to the ability of the Ecuadorian President to appoint individuals to diplomatic posts even if they are not career diplomats. Mr. Assange, 47, was granted asylum by Ecuador within weeks of seeking refuge in its London embassy more than six years ago, though an outstanding arrest warrant issued by United Kingdom authorities and the related risk of being extradited overseas have kept him from exiting ever since. "The Embassy has never engaged either with Ecuadorian colleagues, or with anyone else, in discussions on any kind of Russia's participation in ending Mr Assange's stay within the diplomatic mission of Ecuador", it wrote. Ecuador could have given Mr. Assange diplomatic documents, and he could have then been picked up from the embassy by Russians and taken away in diplomatic vehicle, the report said. The Russian embassy in London called the article a clear example of "disinformation and fake news by British media", while the Foreign Ministry also rejected the report. The Russian Embassy did not immediately respond to Ars' request for comment late Friday evening. Ecuador abandoned its decision shortly after, according to the letter. He originally sought asylum in 2012 to avoid being extradited to Sweden after being accused of sexual assault, but the charges were later dropped. The plan to make Assange an Ecuadorean diplomat was made public previous year, but the effort to send him to Moscow has not been previously reported. The newspaper said that details of the Assange escape plan are "sketchy". Assange is a key figure in the ongoing USA criminal investigation into Russia's attempts to sway the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. However, Assange has denied receiving the stolen emails from Russian Federation. Despite widespread speculation over the summer that he may soon be kicked out of the Ecuadorian embassy by Moreno as part of an effort to establish closer ties with the US, Assange's asylum status seems to be safe for now, his lawyer told RT on Thursday. A brother and sister are behind bars after police say they stalked and harassed the mans estranged wife and her female friend moments before they were shot at outside a Nob Hill club Friday night. Anthony L. Aragon, 36, and Andrea M. Aragon, 40, are charged with aggravated assault, shooting at or from a motor vehicle and criminal damage to property. According to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court, officers responded to reports of gunfire around 11:30 p.m. outside Imbibe Night Club at Richmond and Central NE and found bullet casings, a car shot up near the club and two shook up women a few blocks away. One of the women, Anthony Aragons wife, told officers the two are in the midst of a divorce. The wife and a friend were out in Nob Hill when they saw Aragon and his sister following them. The two told police they got nervous and went inside Imbibe, where they watched as Aragons truck drove by the club several more times. Police say when the women went back to their car, Aragons truck was in the alley and was driven toward them as Andrea yelled, Im going to get you (expletive) out the window. The women told police they got into the wifes car when Aragon parked behind them, blocking them in, so they called 911. As they waited, Aragon dropped his sister off nearby and drove away. The women told police three young men walked up to the car and began beating on the windows, with one them firing a pistol into the car before the women were able to drive away. The young men are not identified in the complaint. Its unclear if they are charged, arrested or involved with the harassment. Aragon and his sister were found at his home and both told police they had blocked in the womens car but did not know anything about the shooting. Anthony Aragon told police he was angry with his wife because he believed she had stolen a package he had delivered to her house. Indias leading menswear brand Blackberrys became the official style partner of the worlds largest motorcycle charity event, The Distinguished Gentlemans Ride. Offering its finest craftsmanship, Blackberrys supports this worldwide campaign where tens of thousands of men dressed in their finest attire ride astride in their classicmotorcycles to raise funds and awareness for prostate cancer and menswell-being in India.Apart from offering its support in raising awareness, the brand is also urging people through extensive digital campaign to join the cause and help raise the funds. Blackberrys association with The Distinguished Gentlemans Ride has carried forward its long-standing commitment to impeccable style, with the Keep Rising philosophy. 2018 edition of Distinguished GentlemansRide, an iconic ride founded by Mark Hawwa in Sydney in 2012, will take place on 30th September, targeting thousands of passionate riders across the country. An annual affair, it was started with a themed ride to combat the often-negative stereotype of men on motorcycles, whilst connecting niche motorcycle communities together. The funds raised are utilized for research into prostate cancer, mental health and suicide prevention programs. As part of the association, Blackberrys will style the riders with their stylish suits and accessories. The partnership will also bring forth to Blackberrys stores, across six major cities including Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad, the limited edition merchandise like Helmets, Badges, Stickers, and more exciting accessories. Speaking about this association, Mr. Ramesh Kaushik, Vice President- Brand Experience at Blackberrys said, We have been styling the progressive men of the country for over 25 years. We are really humbled to be associated with such a noble cause that raises funds for mens health. The Distinguished Gentlemans Ride is about bringing together the motorcycle community to ride in style and voice issues related to mental health and prostate cancer in men. These serious issues need ample attention and we are happy to lend our support in encouraging awareness across the country. This association further strengthens our commitment and philosophy of Keep Rising. Dressing up for the event is an integral part of The Distinguished Gentleman's Ride and we are happy to cater our wardrobe solutions to help raise a voice." He further added. To strengthen the association, the brand will introduce extensive digital and BTL campaigns across select cities along with a co-branded video. The video will voice the cause and bring alive the exquisite style of men, whilst celebrating the campaign. The digital campaign will run across all social media platforms bringing forth innovative content and contest pertaining to the campaign. The Distinguished Gentlemans Ride is held in 600+ cities across 95 countries with dapperly-dressed folk riding classic and vintage styled bikes to raise awareness and funds for prostate cancer research and male suicide prevention on behalf of The Movember Foundation. You swore by their love, vouched for their union, wept on their separation and celebrated their unification. Its time to fall head-over-heels in love, all over again, as televisions iconic couple Anurag and Prerna make a comeback with the cult show of Indian television that created history over a decade ago. Stepping into the shoes of the effervescent Prerna is the dashing diva Erica Fernandes who essays the role of an interior designer with televisions hottest hunk Parth Samthaan roped in to play the businessman and eligible bachelor Anurag. While the sensitive and emotional Prerna believes in love, Anurag who worships time considers love a waste of time. Two extremely contrasting personalities, who share a passionate bond, but separated by fate. Will the duo ever unite? Ace producer Ekta Kapoor returns with this soul-stirring story of love, betrayal, revenge and vengeance as she attempts to breathe a new life into the epochal show of Star Plus. Ekta Kapoor says, In 2001 when Balaji Telefilms conceptualized Kasautii Zindagii Kay in collaboration with Star Plus we werent aware that the association would end up creating history. Its a series which is extremely close to my heart. Its a story about two people who are bonded by love yet separated by destiny. They are like two railway lines which are always running parallel to each other but never meet. Speaking about his character, Parth Samthaan who plays the role of Anurag Basu, says, I have grown up watching Kasautii Zindagii Kay. Getting to essay the iconic character of Anurag enticed me to be a part of this love saga. It feels amazing to be a part of the show's reboot. Erica Fernandes who steps into the shoes of Prerna, says, I used to follow Kasautii Zindagii Kay as a fan. Not in my wildest dream did I ever think of being a part of a cult show like this. I am enjoying every bit of playing Prerna as I see myself in this character. This September get ready for Anurag and Prernas heart-wrenching tale of romance. As the two set sail on their romantic journey watch how clash of cultures, family conflicts and televisions most hated vamp Komolika drifts this pair apart. Aakhir chahat ke safar mein kitni kasautiyon se guzrega Anurag Aur Prerna ka pyar? Tune-in to watch the epic love saga Kasautii Zindagii Kay starting from September 25th 2018, every Monday to Friday at 8 PM only on StarPlus. Police have identified and charged the man they say shot at officers and held a woman hostage along Jehossee Drive in Aiken. Demetrius Andrades, 41, is charged with three counts of attempted murder. The Aiken Department of Public Safety is the prosecuting agency, a spokesperson said. Andrades, an Aiken man, was arrested late Friday night after allegedly walking down and firing a gun along Jehossee Drive, shooting at police who responded, barricading himself inside a house and holding his grandmother against her will. Andrades surrendered to police who surrounded the house he was in around 8:30 p.m. Andrades was later taken to the Aiken County detention center, where he remains as of Saturday afternoon, according to jail records. Public Safety, the Aiken County Sheriff's Office, SLED, the ATF and specialty response teams were all on the scene Friday night. Armored vehicles the Sheriff's Office MRAP and an upgraded humvee, for example were deployed, as was a SLED communications robot. SLED is continuing to investigate the Friday night events. Public Safety Lt. Jake Mahoney on Friday described the ordeal as an officer-involved shooting, which means the state agency gets involved. The exchange of fire between Andrades and police Friday night marked the 28th officer-involved shooting in South Carolina this year, according to SLED. It's the first involving Aiken. In 2017, there were 49 officer-involved shootings in the state. None involved Aiken. Andrades has been arrested a handful of times before: once in 1990, once in 2016, once in 2017 and once in February of this year, according to jail records. Ted Cruz and Rep. Beto O'Rourke meet in the first debate of a contentious and surprisingly competitive Texas campaign. "But pretty much all of them show Ted Cruz still leading", he said, adding that Latino voters, who tend not to show up in big numbers in midterm elections, are crucial for O'Rourke to have a chance. Recent polls show that the race between Cruz and O'Rourke is relatively close for Texas, which has not sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1992. The Reuters/Ipsos/UVA Center for Politics Poll released on Wednesday revealed that 47 percent of voters said they were in support of O'Rourke, while 45 percent said they favored Cruz. However national Republicans have become increasingly skittish about the race. The debate, the first of three scheduled between the two candidates, will be held Friday evening at Southern Methodist University in Dallas and will focus on domestic policy. The candidates will also debate on September 30 at the University of Houston and on October 16 in San Antonio. Cruz used PETA's demonstration as an opportunity to smear Democratic opponent Beto O'Rourke. "You see a lot more O'Rourke signs in affluent Republican-leaning areas than you might typically see for a Democratic candidate". A truck sporting a billboard plastered with a negative tweet from Trump about Cruz during the presidential campaign was parked outside the debate hall hours before the two men were set to face off. When a picture of two Iranian lawyers handcuffed, shackled and wearing prison uniforms recently ran on dozens of Persian-language media outlets and platforms, it caused a storm of criticism of the Iranian authorities on social media. The two human rights lawyers, Qassem Sholeh Sadi and Arash Kaykhosravi, had been outside the parliament on Aug. 18, protesting the vetting process for electoral candidates, when they were arrested. The security forces have arrested three more lawyers since, two of whom have been released on bail. The wave of arrests of human rights lawyers has provoked some Iranian politicians to join the chorus of people demanding fairness and justice for them. Because the lawyers are experts in law, and the assumption is that they wont breach the law, then they should be treated in a way that seems just to the public, said parliament member Mohammad Reza Tabesh of the Reformist Hope faction. Outspoken lawmaker Ali Motahari, who serves as deputy speaker, said that he would "follow up on the issue and consult with other parliamentarians to intervene if need be. While President Hassan Rouhani is a lawyer himself, he has so far refrained from stepping into the debate. Today, Iran's lawyers face countless restrictions and obstacles in performing their work, though the Iranian constitution is clear on citizens' rights to a fair trial, which naturally requires that lawyers be independent and unafraid to provide their clients with strong legal representation. The Iranian authorities have increasingly used policies and laws that run contrary to international norms and standards to undermine the independence of lawyers including even preventing them from attending court hearings. Iranian lawyer Hossein Ahmadi Niyaz, who has represented many political and security prisoners over the years, believes that representation by a competent and independent lawyer has become a serious challenge in the Iranian system. He told Al-Monitor, On the one hand, Article 48 of the Criminal Procedural Code restricts the choice of lawyers in political and security cases, which is in breach of free access to legal representations. On the other hand, the intimidation and threats against lawyers not to defend those accused of political and security offenses fairly in the courts and the media is in breach of the principle of independence of lawyers. According to the article, defendants in cases of security and political offenses may use only lawyers who have been pre-selected and thus preferred by the judiciary. Legal experts widely agree that this a flagrant violation of the right to freely choose ones own attorney. Students' rights activists and those active in the womens movement are prosecuted for any alleged infractions as security offenses, with many women and student activists tried and convicted of serious crimes. Lawyers who have defended human rights activists have repeatedly found themselves on the receiving end, being tried for security offenses and allegations that they plotted against national security. Many have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms, barred from leaving Iran or fled their country. Some have given up the profession and retired to private life due to threats and intimidation by the security services, though teaching is not always an option, as many lawyers have been barred from teaching at universities. The families of these lawyers have also been threatened and in some cases beaten and barred from leaving the country. The result of this situation is that lawyers are not able to defend political prisoners fully, as an axe hangs over their heads at all times. The impact of these violations is felt not merely by defendants, lawyers and their families. Osman Mozayan, a lawyer who has defended many clients accused of political and security crimes, told Al-Monitor, Placing restrictions on lawyers will lead to the inhibition of freedom of speech [for all Iranians] and the general public will suffer as a result. The Iranian Bar Association has not been able to adequately shield lawyers from pressure as a result of their work, let alone guarantee their security. The bar association acted more or less independently prior to the 1979 Islamic revolution. Under the Islamic Republic, the authorities have taken measures to undermine the bar association and bring the legal profession under control. A law passed in 1997 gave the Disciplinary Court for Judges the task of approving or rejecting candidates for the bar. And even now, a bill proposed in Parliament would in effect dismantle the bar association and give all licensing powers to the judiciary. Over the years, restrictions and threats against lawyers in Iran have caused many in the profession to avoid defending the people that need it most. But in the end, the outcome has not been a halt to dissent. Rather, the result has been the spread of a culture of lawlessness and disregard for the rule of law, inviting further tension and confrontation between the state and society. To counter this trend, it is high time for the Rouhani administration to work with pro-reform parliamentarians to reinvigorate the bar association and decisively act to protect and empower attorneys by giving them the legal protections they deserve. While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indeed released a video endorsing the candidacy of Minister Ze'ev Elkin in the election for mayor of Jerusalem, its doubtful that aside from this obligatory endorsement he would go out of his way to support him. Its not that the impassioned Oct. 30 election doesn't interest the prime minister quite the opposite. But its not at all clear that his interests and those of Elkin match up. Alongside Elkin, who is considered a strong candidate, stands Moshe Leon, a close associate of chairman of Yisrael Beitenu party Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman and chairman of Shas Party Interior Minister Aryeh Deri. It seems that the two of them joined forces to get Leon elected and managed to garner him the support, more precious than gold, of the two large groups of ultra-Orthodox: Shas and Degel HaTorah. The Sept. 20 report of this deal hit Elkin with surprise and reshuffled the cards. Afterward, a small skirmish between Elkin and Liberman broke out in the media: The former accused the defense minister of deal-making and ignoring the interests of city residents, and the latter didnt hold back and told Elkin to stop whining. The question is now, would Netanyahu throw all his weight and prestige in for Elkin, since the once-warm ties between them have cooled in the past year? Its not certain. What is certain is that the political arena in Jerusalem is boiling hot and it has ramifications for national politics, even for power relations between the ultra-Orthodox factions in the governing coalition regarding the ultra-Orthodox Enlistment Law crisis. So far, the ultra-Orthodox and Liberman have confronted each other on the law, but joining forces to promote Leons candidacy could signal that the relationship is changing. In any case, Netanyahu would certainly first consider his own interests with the ultra-Orthodox, especially since he himself faces an election year even if Elkin pays the price. While Leon, a well-known businessman close to right-wing parties, is supported by Liberman and Deri two experienced political foxes Elkin has Netanyahu, publicly at least, and Chairman of HaBayit HaYehudi Education Minister Naftali Bennett. The significance of this support is mainly declarative a show of force Elkin can present (hes also supported by many Likud ministers). In actuality, he knows that the sector to decide the election is the ultra-Orthodox. Here he is at a huge disadvantage compared to Leon. The hit Elkin suffered this week was rough. Without the ultra-Orthodox voice, you cant win an election in Jerusalem. Former Prime Minister and Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert won the mayoral race with the ultra-Orthodox in 2003; after him was an ultra-Orthodox mayor, the first and only until now, Uri Lupolianski; and last, still in office, is Nir Barkat, a secular local high-tech tycoon who won in 2008 and 2013 with the help of a deal with the ultra-Orthodox. Although there are another six weeks until the election for mayor of Jerusalem, the picture of this political battle is clear as to the profile of the person who would lead this complicated city for the next five years. Mayor Barkat intends to run for Knesset with the Likud in the next elections. And so, after 10 years led by a secular mayor, his replacement will most likely be a religious right-winger. Elkin, 47 a religious man who previously lived in a settlement aligns with the Likud hard-right faction. Leon, 56 currently serving on the Jerusalem city council is a religious right-winger and more moderate than Elkin (Leon is identified with the national-religious stream). Two additional candidates are the deputy mayor of Jerusalem, ultra-Orthodox Yossi Deitch, 50, who thought erroneously that all the ultra-Orthodox would back him (but continues to run); and Ofer Berkovich, 35, a secular candidate and member of the city council who hopes to benefit should the ultra-Orthodox vote split, though he knows that without the ultra-Orthodox his chances of winning are slim. On the eve of the Jewish New Year Sept. 9, the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research published a demographic profile of the city. There were no surprises there. Since the 1990s, the city has become more ultra-Orthodox; still, the numbers are interesting especially the latent power of Jerusalem Arabs. According to the statistics, Jerusalem is the largest city in Israel by population and has 882,700 residents. Of that number, 62% are Jewish (536,600), about 36% are Muslims (322,600) and about 2% are Christian. The ultra-Orthodox population is about 34% of the Jewish population at around 182,000 residents. While the ultra-Orthodox know to use their power to act as central players in local politics in Jerusalem, which as mentioned above also impacts national politics, the Arabs of East Jerusalem purposely sit out of this arena. Since the 1967 Six-Day War and the unification of the city, East Jerusalem Arabs have boycotted the municipal election, arguing that if they participate in the election they would de facto be accepting the occupation. In the 2013 election, less than 2% participated in the election. By law, residents of East Jerusalem (most of them not Israeli citizens) have the right to vote in municipal elections but not in elections to the Knesset. While an East Jerusalem resident cannot be elected mayor, one can be elected to the city council. Whats new in this election cycle is that there are two lists of Arabs running for city council. The first is Al-Quds Lana (Jerusalem is ours), headed by Aziz Abu Sarah, 37, a resident of East Jerusalem who declared that he would petition the High Court to change the law to enable him to run for mayor. Abu Sarah proclaims his support for the Palestinians, but his reception has been met by violence. At the press conference where he announced his candidacy on Sept. 6, eggs were thrown at him from the audience. This was to be expected. In the past, candidates from Arab East Jerusalem have been threatened and gave up on participating in the election. Heading the second list, called Jerusalem for Jerusalemites, is Ramadan Dabash, 51, a resident of Tzur Bahar. This list focuses only on providing services for residents of East Jerusalem. Despite a seeming awakening among East Jerusalem Arabs, in the upcoming election, the decisive majority of the 182,000 residents with the right to vote will stay home. Considering that Barkat was elected mayor in 2013 with 110,000 votes, if the Arabs of East Jerusalem would vote, they could determine who would be the next mayor. The face of Publix is changing literally. The Florida-based grocery chain announced Friday it was changing its policy to allow workers to grow beards and other facial hair. The company has been testing the policy change in select markets and will roll it out chain-wide on Sept. 29. Spokesman Dwayne Stevens told the Orlando Sentinel the policy will allow male associates to grow facial hair as long as they keep a "neat, clean and professional appearance." Publix had previously only allowed mustaches. In March, a group of employees launched a petition on coworker.org calling on the company to change its no-beard policy. The petition garnered more than 20,000 signatures. The chain operates almost 1,200 stores in seven states, including Alabama. Candidates for Jefferson County sheriff and district attorney are set to participate in a debate at 5 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 23 at the University of Alabama at Birmingham's Hill Student Center. The debate is hosted by Birmingham Association of Black Journalists and the Phi Iota Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. The Hill Student Center is at 1400 University Blvd. The general election is Nov. 6. Republican incumbent Sheriff Mike Hale will debate against his Democratic challenger Mark Pettway. In the race for district attorney, Democrat Danny Carr will debate against Republican Mike Anderton. Anderton was appointed district attorney by Gov. Kay Ivey in November after the elected D.A., Charles Todd Henderson, was found guilty of perjury and removed from the position. Carr, a deputy district attorney, served as interim district attorney - his official title was pro-tempore -- while Henderson was suspended from office pending trial. Each candidate will present his platform and respond to questions from a panel of journalists, students and AKA members during the debate. The event will also include a voter education session, focusing on key issues on the ballot, absentee voting and navigating the Alabama Voter website from the Secretary of State's Office. After almost two days of closure because of bridge repairs required following a tractor trailer crash, I-65 in Morgan County is open again. The Alabama Department of Transportation announced about 3 p.m. Friday that the road and all exits are open. A tractor trailer crashed Wednesday evening on a bridge near Lacon Road. The southbound lanes had to be closed while ALDOT made repairs. ALDOT said adjustments will be made to timing mechanisms at traffic lights on U.S. Highway 31 and Alabama Highway 67 that were altered to deal with the heavy flow of traffic detoured off the interstate. Those adjustments are scheduled for Friday night after rush hour. ALDOT crews will be working this afternoon to remove traffic control devices, message boards, temporary signals, temporary stop lines and any other striping that was placed, and to replace any signs that were removed or covered. Huntsville police today charged a 19-year-old man with murdering an Oakwood University student after a social media-fueled fight drew a crowd to a local grocery store. Murder suspect Jaylun White (HPD) Jaylun White is charged with shooting and killing 20-year-old student Carvell Goodlow near the Westlake Apartments at 1901 Sparkman Drive Sunday night. Goodlow was in the area because of the fight, but police say the fight and shooting weren't directly related. White is not a student at the university. "It started out over social media back and forth and two groups ended up meeting at the service station there at Sparkman and Jordan (Lane), where a fight started there," investigator Sgt. Jack Pugh said. "As they scattered, it went across the road to Westlake, and that's where the shooting happened." Pugh would not go into detail about the social media exchanges that led to the fight beyond saying "girls were involved, guys were involved." Somewhere between 15 and 20 people were at the fight. Oakwood University President Dr. Leslie Pollard called Goodlow a "bright young man ... who was greatly loved" on the campus. A first-generation college student, Pollard said, "He was trying to set a new direction for his seven younger siblings." The National African American Autism Community Network will hold a town hall meeting Sept. 29 at Woodlawn High School in Birmingham, state Rep. Mary Moore, D-Birmingham announced. Moore said the main purpose of the event is to help people find resources to support and assist family members with autism spectrum disorders. "We need to raise public awareness about autism as well as help families find the support they need," Moore said in the press release. "This will also provide a forum for families to tell us what services are needed that aren't being provided now." Last year, the Alabama Legislature passed a bill requiring some insurance plans to cover autism therapy for children up to age 18. The requirement applies to insurance programs for companies with at least 51 employees. A second phase of the law requires some government insurance plans, including the Alabama Medicaid Agency and the Children's Health Insurance Plan (ALL Kids), to provide the same coverage. That phase takes effect Dec. 31, 2018. Woodlawn High School is at 5620 1st Avenue North in Birmingham. The town hall meeting will be held from noon to 3 p.m. After more positive test results, a dozen people have been diagnosed with the West Nile Virus in Mobile. The Mobile County Health Department announced in a press release that the number of cases has increased to 12. The first case was reported in August. Dr. Bernard H. Eichold II, Health Officer for Mobile County, said, "The public should assume that there are mosquitoes carrying the disease throughout Mobile County... Don't let your guard down." The health department said anyone participating in outside activities should always keep mosquito repellant on hand, and that mosquito activity peaks at dusk and dawn. Officials said the best ways to prevent bites are to wear long pants and shirts, use repellent, and avoid standing water. Humans with the virus or other mosquito-borne diseases often have symptoms of high fever, severe headache, nausea, stiff neck, confusion, muscle weakness, paralysis, disorientation, and seizures, Dr. Eichold said. In rare cases, West Nile Virus can cause coma or death. The risk of encephalitis spread by mosquitoes is highest from August through the first freeze in the fall. Jerry Folse of the county's health department said his office will increase spraying and conduct door-to-door surveys in the immediate areas, and inspectors will also try to trap adult mosquitoes and test them for the presence of West Nile. West Nile Virus is transmitted from a bird to a mosquito, and back to a bird. Mosquitoes can spread the virus by feeding on infected birds, and then biting another host such as a human or a horse. Horses can be administered West Nile Virus and Eastern Equine Encephalitis, but there are no virus vaccines for humans. To report a mosquito issue in Mobile County, call 251-690-8124 or email VectorServices@mchd.org. A federal judge in Alabama sentenced a man, who is also wanted on manslaughter charges, to prison after he admitted to illegally entering the United States several times. Jose Luis Alonso DeLeon was sentenced Friday by United States District Judge William Steele. DeLeon pleaded guilty to being an illegal alien possessing a firearm and illegal reentry of a removed alien. He was sentenced to a total of five years in prison, and the judge ordered that DeLeon be sent to immigration authorities for deportation after his release, U.S. Attorney of the Southern District of Alabama Richard W. Moore announced. Prosectors argued for the five-year sentence, saying the sentencing guidelines did not account for significant facts in DeLeon's case. In addition to his criminal history, prosecutors said the judge should also consider that DeLeon, of Mexico, was discovered in the U.S. on March 25, 2014 and was deported days later. He had also been found in the U.S. by border patrol agents before in 1999, twice in 2000, and three times in 2014 including the March incident. DeLeon pleaded guilty in April 2014 for entring without inspection and served 30 days in jail. "Despite these continued contacts, DeLeon kept returning to Baldwin County in flagrant disregard of the laws of the United States," a press release from Moore stated. According to the press release, DeLeon said in his plea agreement that on March 25, Fairhope police found him at a laundromat sitting in a truck, while they were looking for a truck that had just struck and killed a bicyclist moments before. Fairhope police also saw a pistol in the truck, which had been reported stolen. DeLeon was charged with causing the death of Amy Hawkins, who was riding her bike on County Road 13 in Fairhope on March 25, the press release stated. Moore said in the release, "As our prosecutor Assistant U.S. Attorney Maria Murphy argued to Judge Steele, the federal sentencing guidelines do not adequately capture the totality of the defendant's criminal activity while he was in the United States illegally... No one, however, can believe that even this enhanced sentence can begin to assuage the grief of losing a wife and mother under these tragic circumstances. I am under no such illusion." He continued, "This case dramatically demonstrates the folly of having an open border with Mexico. There are real consequences to not enforcing border security. Amy Hawkins and her family paid the price of our failed immigration policies of the past. We have to do better for the American people." The case was investigated by the Department of Homeland Security, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives, Fairhope police, and ALEA. More officers killed this year than in all of 2017, as experts warn local forces are more at risk than Indian troops. Shopian, Indian-administered Kashmir The killing of three more local policemen in Indian-administered Kashmir has underlined growing tensions between rebels and police. At least 37 policemen have been killed by rebels so far this year, according to official figures, compared with 32 in all of 2017. Relatives of 38-year-old Nisar Ahmad Dhobi, 28-year-old Firdous Ahmad Kuchay, and Kulwant Singh, 35, said they were taken from their homes and shot dead in the early hours of Friday by suspected members of two armed groups, in the villages of Kapran and Batgund in southern Kashmirs Shopian region. A police statement promised a further investigation into Fridays killings but blamed the complicity of Hizbul Mujahideen, the largest rebel group, and Lashkar-e-Taiba, often said to be responsible for attacking Indian security forces in the disputed Kashmir region. The bodies of the policemen, who had worked in various districts of Kashmir but were visiting family in Shopian, were found in an orchard. The brother of a police constable, who was also abducted, was released, Kapran villagers told Al Jazeera. Dhobis wife Ruksana Akhtar said: I resisted and told the gunmen to spare my husband, but they did not listen. They told me he will be back in 10 minutes. In 10 minutes, I heard gunfire from a short distance and he was killed. Singhs mother, 70-year-old Pushpa Devi, said her son should have been given the chance to resign, referring to a resign or die ultimatum by Hizbul Mujahideen, which had days earlier warned Kashmiri police officers to stay away from operations. Jammu and Kashmir state police chief SP Pani described the killings as barbaric, adding that they show desperation on the part of the militants, not a chink in our system. As Kashmir witnesses one of its most violent phases, rebels have increasingly targeted police officers, who they accuse of collaborating with Indias occupying forces. Recently, policemen were advised to take extra security when visiting their homes, where they were told to spend no more than two hours each time. The focus on policemen comes as police detain relatives of prominent rebels. The role of police is to primarily deal with law and order. Unfortunately, they are being pushed to fight militancy. The government is making a Kashmiri fight another Kashmir. Shiekh Abdul Rasheed, independent legislator in Jammu and Kashmir assembly On Wednesday, an audio statement surfaced on social media in which Hizbul Mujahideen commander Riyaz Naikoo, whose 70-year-old father has been picked up by police, demanded local officers quit. You forced us to kidnap your kin to make you feel what we feel when police harass our families, Naikoo said. Shortly after Fridays events, reports said several policemen announced their resignations in video messages posted on social media, but the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs in a statement denied they had quit, describing the news as propaganda by mischievous elements. In August, Kashmiri rebels abducted 11 relatives of policemen, after police detained family members of prominent fighters and allegedly set ablaze two rebel leaders homes. The policemens relatives were released after one day unharmed, but Hizbul Mujahideen warned of an eye for an eye if government forces did not stop harassing rebels families. The families of militants should not be touched, whether it is by the army or local police officers. It puts our families at risk too, a senior police officer told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity. How has policing changed? Policing in Jammu and Kashmir has transformed over the last 30 years. In the 1990s, when the rebellion against Indian rule was at its peak, local police did not participate in anti-rebel operations, which were handled by a separate force the Special Operations Group (SOG). That outfit included policemen who volunteered to fight rebels, as well as former fighters turned counter-rebels. In the early 2000s, the SOG was disbanded and its personnel restructured in the police to give the occupation a more local face. The role of police is to primarily deal with law and order. Unfortunately, they are being pushed to fight militancy which has brought them in confrontation with the militants. The government is making a Kashmiri fight another Kashmiri, Shiekh Abdul Rasheed, an independent legislator in Jammu and Kashmir assembly, told Al Jazeera. Records say more than 1,500 policemen have been killed in Kashmir since the armed rebellion began in 1989. My son worked with the police, because we are a poor family of 12 members. Only, he had a permanent job. Had he been warned, we would have begged him to resign, said 70-year-old Malla Begum, whose son police constable Muhammad Yaqoob Shah was killed outside his home on August 22. On the same day, Fayaz Ahmad, a trainee constable in Kulgam, and Ashraf Dar, a police officer in Pulwama, were also killed. For police, the situation is different. They are from the same society. I feel this is going to be terrible in the next few months. I don't see any solution until a political resolution is made. Rahul Bedi, defence and security expert in New Delhi Ajai Sahni, executive director at the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi, says local policemen are vulnerable. It has happened in Assam, Punjab and other states. A counterinsurgency operation is successful because of its police, which become the face of it, he told Al Jazeera. The senior police officer who spoke to Al Jazeera anonymously said while his colleagues in Kashmir were terrified to visit their villages, the Indian army had no such fear and were much less at stake. An army officer comes from outside Kashmir. We live in constant fear, worried about our families and ourselves. Most police officers dont even visit [their] homes, the officer said. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) provides immunity to the Indian army in Kashmir, and other conflict zones in India, against prosecution over allegations of torture, rape or extrajudicial killings. An Indian army soldier stands guard during a gun battle in Khudwani village, south of Srinagar, in April [Mukhtar Khan/The Associated Press] Both India and Pakistan, who administer separate parts of Kashmir, have fought three wars over the region. India has stationed nearly 700,000 troops in the areas it administers, making it the worlds most militarised conflict zone. Kashmiri rebels demand freedom from Indian control or a merger with Pakistan. From 2017 until today, in the largest ever initiatives against the rebellion in Kashmir, a record 350 rebels have been killed. According to official figures, the number of armed rebels active in Kashmir crossed 300 this year, the highest in a decade. Young men are being forced to take up guns because of the injustice and oppression that continues, said Nazir Ahmad, a Shopian resident. Shortly after the three policemen were killed on Friday, Mehbooba Mufti, former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, wrote on Twitter: Clearly, with the rise in kidnapping of police personnel and their families, Centres muscular policy is not working at all. Dialogue, the only way forward seems to be a distant dream for now. Experts warn the situation in Kashmir will only worsen in the absence of political outreach, which Indias ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has replaced with a muscular approach to the uprising. Rahul Bedi, a defence and security expert in New Delhi, told Al Jazeera the tit for tat between armed fighters and police will continue. The army in the region is insulated. They have AFSPA and equipment, but for police, the situation is different. They are from the same society. I feel this is going to be terrible in the next few months. I dont see any solution until a political resolution is made, he said. Beyond its shoddy schools and stale bread, we, Palestinians see UNRWA as a symbol of our inalienable right to return. Maintaining ones dignity while living a dismal existence in a refugee camp is not an easy feat. My parents fought hard to spare us the daily humiliations that come with living in Nuseirat Gazas largest refugee camp. But when I turned six, and joined the UNRWA-run Nuseirat Elementary School for Boys, there was no escape. Not only was I a refugee on official United Nations papers, but in practice as well, just like all my peers. To be a Palestinian refugee means living perpetually in limbo unable to reclaim what has been lost, the beloved homeland, and unable to fashion an alternative future and a life of freedom, justice and dignity. How are we to reconstruct our identity that has been shattered by decades of exile when our powerful tormentors have linked our own existence and repatriation to their very demise? Per Israels logic, our mere demand for the implementation of the internationally sanctioned right of return is equivalent to a call for genocide. According to that same faulty logic, the fact that my people live and multiply is a demographic threat to Israel. When Israel and its friends around the world, argue that my people are invented, not only are they aiming to annihilate our collective identity, but they are also justifying in their own minds the continued killing and maiming of Palestinians, unhindered by any moral or ethical consideration. I grew up in Gaza resisting this Israeli effort to erase us, Palestinians. Ramzy Mohammed Baroud: A Palestinian Refugee, was stamped on every piece of paper that I acquired since the day I opened my eyes. With an ever-increasing number of refugees in an ever-shrinking space in Gaza, our communal language was dominated by a vocabulary that four generations of refugees are painfully familiar with: murderous soldiers, fences, warplanes, a constant feeling of hovering death, hunger, military curfews, resistance, martyrs and, UNRWA. Always UNRWA. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees had accompanied our journey of exile from the very start. Only months following the Nakba the catastrophic destruction of the Palestinian homeland and the exile of an estimated 750,000 Palestinians in 1948 UNRWA became synonymous with our exodus and our ongoing odyssey. Much can be said about the circumstances behind the creation of UNRWA by the United Nations General Assembly in December 1949; about its operations, efficiency and the effectiveness of its work, which attempts to cover the needs of five million refugees. But for me, my family and most Palestinians, UNRWA was not a relief or charity organisation per se. Being registered as a refugee with UNRWA provided us with a temporary identity that allowed us to navigate 70 years of exile, roaming without a home or even a roadmap for our return to what was, for a thousand years and more, our historical Palestinian homeland. It was as if the stamp of refugee on every certificate we possessed birth, death and everything else in between was a compass, pointing back to the places we came from; to my destroyed village of Beit Daras and not to the Nuseirat refugee camp; not to Jabaliya, Shati, Yarmouk or Ein El-Hilweh, but to the 600 towns and villages that were destroyed during the Zionist assault on Palestine. The existence of these villages may have been erased, as a whole new country was established upon their ruins, but the Palestinian refugees remained subsisted, resisted and plotted their return home. The UNRWA refugee status was the international recognition of our rights. Frankly, none of this mattered to me at the age of six. I stood in line like all the other kids at school; chanted whatever morning routine slogans we were told to chant; took my place behind the worn-out desk that bore the marks of generations of refugee children scratching their names and references to past wars and tragedies; and did everything that I needed to do to be a good UNRWA kid. The author with his classmates and Arabic teacher, the late Abu Majed Abu Sharar, in Nuseirat refugee camp, Gaza in 1981. This is his UNRWA fifth grade photo made for each student in that grade by UNRWA staff [Courtesy of Ramzy Baroud] And in first grade, when the first winter rainstorm came, I also learned how to reposition my desk to dodge the water dripping from the ceiling. Every roof of every UNRWA classroom I have ever been in was dripping when it rained. In fact, one of my fondest memories from school was, when in third grade, our classroom flooded and our history, Arabic and math teacher, Mohamed Diab, asked us to sit on top of our desks as he continued the lesson. We shivered in our shabby UNRWA-supplied jackets, worn by many others before us. We huddled together with excitement as the water covered the floor of the classroom and as Mr Diab went on with his stories of past Arab grandeur from Palestine to al-Andalus. It was at that UNRWA school that I painted my first Palestinian flag and experienced my very first Israeli army raid. As students, blinded by tear gas and smoke, ran in different directions, not knowing how to reach the main gate to escape, I remember the sixth graders going back in to rescue younger children. It was there and then that I saw what Palestinian courage means. Mass flag drawing was a ritual that happened in the first week of each year. It was not a practice officially sanctioned by UNRWA, as the Israeli military administration of Gaza detained children, heavily fined parents and shut down schools for what they deemed to be an illicit act. Waving or even possessing a Palestinian flag was a criminal offence in Gaza. We did it anyway. Sometimes, in the first few days of school, a massive blue truck would pull into our school welcomed by the shrill excitement of hundreds of children. Within hours each pupil would be handed several used books, two new notebooks, a set of pencils, an empty art book and four crayons. Those fortunate enough to possess the green, red and black crayons would share them with the rest as we all rushed to draw as many Palestinian flags as possible. Israeli soldiers always anticipated our collective rebellious act and waited for us like vultures in the streets. Many UNRWA kids were handcuffed and hauled to the army tents a massive Israeli army encampment separating Nuseirat from the Buraij refugee camp many crying for their parents and beseeching God for mercy. I once threw my bag in a thorny bush to escape the wrath of the Israeli soldiers. Retrieving it felt like being poked by a hundred needles all at once. The Israelis also terrorised us with their constant raids on UNRWA schools. Thousands of children and youth were killed and wounded that way, most notably during the First Palestinian Intifada of 1987. Our protests often started at UNRWA schools and it was in these same schools we also met to console one another over the wounding and martyrdom of fellow classmates. No, the Israeli war didnt target UNRWA as a UN body, but as an organisation that allowed us to maintain our identity as refugees with inalienable rights, demanding justice and repatriation to our homes. UNRWA fed in us the hope that one day we will shed what was meant to be a temporary identity in favour of our true identity, going back to being us again, a Palestinian people, an ancient nation that predates Israel by centuries. It is largely because of these experiences that UNRWA is an essential part of my identity as a Palestinian refugee. This intrinsic relationship is not predicated on the services that UNRWA provides or fails to provide, but rather on the political and legal principles its existence is based on. The author with his father at the Cairo Zoo in 1979 [Courtesy of Ramzy Baroud] When I entered the UNRWA school, I also got my first food card. I rarely used it at the tumeh (literary meaning feeding) UNRWAs feeding centre in our refugee camp. Even at a very young age, I loathed that experience. I hardly cared for that single slice of dried bread, half an egg and half an apple. Standing in that long line of impoverished children at the tumeh a place that reeked with the stench of a thousand boiled eggs was hardly ever a pleasant experience. A few weeks later, I secretly gave my UNRWA food card to another poor classmate, a Bedouin boy by the name of Hamdan, whose family didnt qualify for refugee status. That was not a virtuous act on my part; UNRWAs food was simply awful. Yet, despite its leaky school roofs and stale bread, UNRWA was and remains essential and irreplaceable. As far as Israel is concerned, the refugees were meant to be undefined in fact, that was exact term written in my Israel-issued laissez-passer in the space for nationality. The founders of Israel envisioned a future where Palestinian refugees would eventually fade away, disappearing into the larger population of the Middle East. Seventy years on, the Israelis are still entertaining that same illusion. Now, with the help of the anti-Palestinian US administration of Donald Trump, they are orchestrating even more sinister campaigns to make Palestinian refugees vanish through the destruction of UNRWA and the redefining of the refugee status of millions of Palestinians. By denying UNRWA urgently needed funds, Washington wants to enforce a new reality, one in which neither human rights, nor international law or morality are of any consequence. What would become of Palestinian refugees seems to be of no importance to Trump, his son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner and other US officials. The Americans are now insolently watching, hoping that their callous strategy will finally bring Palestinians to their knees so that they will ultimately submit to the Israeli governments dictates. The Israelis want the Palestinians to give up their right of return in order to get peace. The joint Israeli-American vision for the Palestinians basically means the imposition of apartheid. My people will never accept this. The latest US-Israeli folly will prove futile. In the past, successive US administrations have done everything in their power to support Israel and to punish the supposedly intransigent Palestinians. The right of return, however, remained the driving force behind Palestinian resistance, as the Great March of Return demonstrated in Gaza earlier this year. All the money in Washingtons coffers will not reverse what is now a deeply embedded belief in the hearts and minds of millions of refugees throughout Palestine, the Middle East and the world. Many years after joining the UNRWA education system, I still identify with that UNRWA kid that I was. Sometimes, I wonder what has befallen my old desk in my first UNRWA classroom. Has it collapsed under the weight of the years of use and successive wars? If it is still standing, I truly hope that my doodles are still there. I carved a map of historical Palestine, encircled it with a ring of flowers and wrote under it: Ramzy Baroud. Palestine. Freedom. Justice. Resistance. Raed Muanis. Raed was a friend of mine, a neighbour and another UNRWA kid, who was shot dead by Israeli soldiers who spotted him running with a small Palestinian flag. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance. More than 3,000 children were killed or wounded in 2017, accounting for one-third of total civilian casualties. Eight children, including four siblings, were killed in Afghanistan when a mortar round they were playing with exploded, adding to the ever-growing civilian death toll in the 17-year war. Another six children were wounded in the blast on Friday, including two who lost limbs and were in critical condition in a hospital in the northwestern province of Faryab. All the children were aged between five and 12, relatives said on Saturday. They found an unexploded mortar shell and brought it near our house, Shukrullah, an uncle of four of the children killed, told AFP news agency. They didnt know what it was and were trying to open it when it suddenly exploded. Mohammad Alam, a cousin of four of the children, said he heard a big explosion. I rushed to the site and saw the kids covered in blood, Alam said from the hospital. They had found an unexploded shell and were playing with it when it went off. Officials were quick to blame the explosion on the Taliban, which last week captured Koh-e-Sayad, the village where the children lived. Thousands of killed kids Children are often killed or maimed by explosive devices left over from decades of conflict, carelessly discarded, or deliberately planted. Civilians, including children, have borne the brunt of the conflict that began with the US-led invasion in 2001 that toppled the Taliban regime. UN figures show that 3,179 children were killed or wounded in 2017, accounting for almost one-third of the total civilian casualties for the year. Improvised explosive devices, such as remotely detonated or pressure-plate bombs, killed or wounded 545 children. Unexploded ordnance claimed the lives of 142 children and wounded 376 in the same period. Deadly drone attack carried out after US and local forces on the ground came under attack. A US military drone attack in southern Somalia killed 18 al-Shabab fighters after American and local forces on the ground came under attack, the US Africa Command said. The air strike was carried out Friday in self-defence after fighters were observed manoeuvring on a combined patrol, while the US also responded with indirect fire, a military spokesman said on Saturday. No US or Somali forces were killed or wounded in the attack, AFRICOM spokesman Nate Herring told The Associated Press. The confrontation occurred about 50km northwest of the port city of Kismayo, the US Africa Command statement added. Two other al-Shabab fighters were killed by Somali forces with small arms fire during the engagement, it said. The US has carried out more than 20 air raids this year against al-Shabab. Al-Shabab is fighting to overthrow the United Nations-backed government in Mogadishu [File: AP] Hunt for fighters US military involvement in Somalia has grown since President Donald Trump early in his term approved expanded operations against al-Shabab. Dozens of drone attacks followed. Late last year, the military also carried out its first air raid against a small presence of fighters linked to Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in northern Somalia. Since the expanded operations, two US military personnel have been killed in Somalia. A soldier was killed in May 2017 during an operation about 64km west of Mogadishu. And in June, one American commando was killed and four US troops wounded in an enemy attack as Somali and Kenyan forces came under mortar and small-arms fire in Jubaland. The US currently has about 500 military personnel in the Horn of Africa nation. Al-Shabab was pushed out of the Somali capital, Mogadishu, in recent years but continues to control rural areas in the south and central regions. The al-Qaeda-linked group is fighting to overthrow the UN-backed government and has been carrying our bomb and gun attacks for more than a decade. Its fighters continue to attack the bases of a multinational African Union force that remains largely responsible for security, as Somalias fragile central government tries to recover from decades of chaos. In the next few years, Somali forces are expected to take over responsibility for the countrys security as the AU force withdraws. Concerns about their readiness remain high, and the UN Security Council recently voted to delay the handovers target date to December 2021. The Lebanese military says 38 refugees were rescued while attempting to reach Cyprus. A child has drowned after a boat carrying 39 refugees capsized off the northern Lebanese coast while attempting to reach Cyprus. The countrys military said 38 people were rescued from the sinking boat on Saturday and that the childs body had been retrieved. {articleGUID} A navy patrol unit immediately headed there, retrieved the body of a five-year-old child and rescued the rest of the passengers, a statement said. Four of those rescued were taken to nearby hospitals with the help of the Lebanese Red Cross, the statement added. Lebanons Al-Jadeed TV reported that the child who died was a five-year-old from Palestine. One million registered refugees Lebanon hosts the highest number of Syrian refugees in the world per capita, with at least one million registered in the country. {articleGUID} Humanitarian representatives and government officials say the number is likely much higher, since many refugees who have fled Syrias civil war to Lebanon are not officially registered with the United Nations. Lebanese authorities have begun organising return trips to refugees willing to go back. But UN officials say with no peace deal in Syria, it is too early for the mass return of refugees. Syrian refugees in Turkey and Lebanon have been using small boats to take them to Greece or Cyprus in the hope of claiming asylum in the EU. Beijing protests US sanctions imposed on Chinas military over the purchase of Russian fighter jets and missiles. China summoned the United States ambassador on Saturday after the US imposed sanctions on a branch of its military, according to Chinese state media. The announcement came a day after China strongly urged the US to cancel the sanctions or bear the consequences. The dispute has increased tensions between Washington and Beijing, amid a brewing trade war between the two world powers. {articleGUID} Chinas Deputy Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang summoned Ambassador Terry Branstad and lodged solemn representations in relation to the sanctions, state media reported. On Thursday, Washington imposed sanctions on the Equipment Development Department (EED) of the Chinese defence ministry, and its director Li Shangfu, over the purchase of missiles and fighter jets from Russia. The sanctions triggered a visa ban and prohibited the EED and its director from conducting transactions with the US financial system. The US state department said the Chinese procurement of S-400 surface-to-air missiles and Sukhoi SU-35 jets from Russia breached a US sanctions law targeting Russia for its alleged meddling in the 2016 US election and its activities in Ukraine. US officials said the imposition of penalties against China was the first time a third-party country was punished under the Countering Americas Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, the sanctions law passed in 2017. The Chinese military denounced the sanctions on Saturday, expressing strong indignation and resolute opposition, a defence ministry spokesperson told state-run news agency Xinhua. The US move was a flagrant breach of basic rules of international relations and a stark show of hegemonism. Russia also protested the sanctions, warning that Washington was playing with fire and accusing the United States of trying to squeeze Russia out of the global arms market. The Trump administration also added 33 people and entities associated with the Russian military and intelligence services to a blacklist. Twenty-eight of the new names have been indicted by US Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Kavanaugh accuser agrees to give evidence next week Christine Blasey Ford has agreed to testify before a US Senate panel next week over allegations of sexual assault Fighting between rival groups since August 26 has killed almost 100 people with families reportedly trapped in houses. Fighting between rival groups in Libyas capital has killed at least 96 people since August 26, with civilians among the casualties, authorities have said. Libyas Tripoli-based Ministry of Health, in a statement on Friday, said 11 people, including five civilians, were killed on Thursday night as battles raged between militias aligned to the UN-backed government and from two nearby towns. A resident told the DPA news agency that some families were trapped in their homes due to the heavy exchange of fire while some refused to leave due to fears of looting. Al Jazeeras Mahmoud Abdelwahed, reporting from Tripoli, said the sound of gunfire echoed across many parts of the capital on Friday with aid agencies fearing for the civilians stranded by the violence. {articleGUID} Aid agencies have been trying to reach out to families stuck in areas in or near the fighting, he said, adding that the clashes caused lasting damage to a power plant with several areas in the capital suffering from power cuts. Fighting has mainly taken place in the southern Salah al-Din district and along the road leading to Tripoli airport, which has been closed for years. The fighting violated a September 4 UN-brokered ceasefire deal and underscores Libyas lingering lawlessness since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that toppled longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi. The is the third time the UN-brokered ceasefire agreement has been breached with each side accusing the other of violating the terms of the agreement, said Abdelwahed. Expelling criminals and outsiders Tripoli-based militias loyal to the internationally recognised government say the fighting is aimed at expelling criminals and outsiders from the cities of Tarhouna and Misrata, Abdelwahed said. {articleGUID} Meanwhile, the Seventh Infantry Brigade from the town of Tarhouna and its allies from Misrata say they are trying to rid the capital of militias that are blackmailing state institutions and imposing royalty fees on banks, he added. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has described the situation in the north African country as desperate, with the fighting, collapsed economy and destruction of infrastructure leaving hundreds of thousands of people increasingly vulnerable. Seven years of war in Libya has driven over 500,000 people to flee their homes, the ICRC said in a tweet. For Libyans trying to return home, theres not always much to return to. Houses, schools are often destroyed completely. The group also cited the sabotaging of health facilities, water and electricity supplies, as well as the dangers of unexploded remnants. Donald Trump questions Brett Kavanaugh accuser on Twitter After days of unexpected restraint, the US president has lashed out at Christine Blasey Ford, the women who accused Trumps Supreme Court nominee of sexually assaulting her. The highest appeals court in Egypt rejected a motion by former president Hosni Mubarak and his two sons to overturn their corruption convictions related to his nearly 30-year rule. Egypts Court of Cessation denied the Mubaraks appeals on Saturday. Mubarak, 90, Gamal, and his third son Alaa were sentenced in 2014 to three years imprisonment each for using funds originally intended for the maintenance of presidential palaces to build and upgrade private residences. The sons were released in 2015 and Mubarak was freed last year. Alaa and Gamal are currently on trial for insider trading. The courts rejection of their appeal and Gamals subsequent ineligibility to run for office came after recent comments by the chief editor of state-run Al-Akhbar publications, Yasser Rizq, suggesting frequent public appearances by the younger Mubarak could signal a future presidential run. His real crime is insulting the dignity of the Egyptian people, Rizq said, alluding to Gamals one-time intention to succeed his father. Gamal wielded vast influence in Egypt during the final years of Mubaraks rule. Rizq first warned Gamal Mubarak against harbouring presidential ambitions in an article published in May. He repeated the warning in a television interview earlier this week. Rizq said it was not improbable that Gamal would strike a political deal with the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood to secure the groups return to politics in exchange for its support in a presidential bid in 2022, when President Abdel Fattah el-Sisis second term ends. Real challenge to Sisi? Sisi led the militarys 2013 overthrow of Egypts first freely elected president, Mohammed Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Since then Sisis government has overseen a massive crackdown on Morsis supporters, jailing thousands along with secular activists behind the 2011 uprising that overthrew Mubarak. Egypts constitution prohibits Sisi from running for a third term in office, but his supporters have raised the spectre of amending the 2014 charter to allow him to do so, or extend the duration of his term. Sisi won a second, four-year term in office this year in an election in which his only opponent was a little-known politician viewed as among his staunchest supporters. Rizas attack on Gamal Mubarak mirrors past campaigns by the pro-government media against potential challengers to Sisi, which have included personal attacks and unsubstantiated accusations. The suggestion that Gamal might strike a deal with the Brotherhood to rise to power carries a thinly veiled threat given the countrys political climate, where suspicion of links to the group has provided authorities with grounds to imprison critics, including some with established secular credentials. Assad Ahmad Barakat was arrested in the lawless Triple Frontier area between Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. Brazilian police arrested a fugitive who the United States accuses of being the financier for the Lebanese group Hezbollah. Assad Ahmad Barakat was arrested in Foz de Iguazu, a city in the border region between Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, according to police. He has frequently faced accusations of illegal activity in the region known as the Triple Frontier which is also considered a haven for smuggling, trafficking and counterfeiting. In 2004, the US Department of the Treasury said Barakat was one of the most influential members of Hezbollah, which the US considers to be a terrorist organisation, and accused him of using his businesses in the tri-border area as fronts for raising funds for the group. Barakat, a Lebanese national, has been wanted by Paraguay since late August on charges of falsifying documents, Brazils police said. Earlier this month, Brazils supreme court authorised Barakats arrest, saying his case met the requirements for an arrest and possible extradition. {articleGUID} According to Brazilian police, Argentine authorities froze assets belonging to Barakat and his associates after they were suspected of laundering some $10m in a casino on the Argentine side of the border. Barakat was previously extradited from Brazil to Paraguay in 2002 and returned to Brazil upon his release in 2009. It was not clear whether Barakat will again be extradited to Paraguay following Fridays arrest. Terrorism in Triple Frontier US authorities and others alleged the lawless border region between the three countries is a hotspot for support and funding of armed groups. {articleGUID} The Treasury Department ordered a freeze on Barakats US assets, and in 2006 it branded him as a global terrorist, including his name on a list of people in the Triple Frontier it believed were financing Hezbollah. US companies and citizens are prohibited from financial dealings with Barakat. In 2001, he told The Associated Press news agency he was a Hezbollah sympathiser, but denied supporting terrorism. Hezbollah is a political party and armed group based in Lebanon and backed by Iran that operates across the Middle East. It was accused of maintaining an operational presence across Latin America and in the United States, said a US State Department report on terrorism published this week. According to the Counter Extremism Project, an NGO, Barakat arrived in Paraguay in the mid-1980s having fled Lebanon during the countrys bloody civil war, and was also involved in planning Hezbollahs military operations including the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires. Ahvaziya group and ISIL claim role in the attack, while Ayatollah Khamenei blames US-backed regimes in the region. Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei condemned the attack in the southwestern city of Ahvaz, blaming US-backed regimes in the region for the plot, which left at least 29 people dead and 70 others wounded. Khamenei urged authorities on Saturday to chase the trails of the criminals, as President Hassan Rouhani vowed a crushing response to the deadly attack. Following the bloodshed, questions have arisen as to who was responsible for carrying it out, and whether Iran would be drawn into a wider conflict with its response. Rouhanis Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif blamed terrorists recruited, trained, armed and paid by a foreign regime for the attack. Iran holds regional terror sponsors and their US masters accountable for such attacks. Iran will respond swiftly and decisively in defence of Iranian lives, Zarif wrote on social media. According to the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA), an armed group called al-Ahvaziya claimed responsibility for the attack, while the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group (ISIL, also known as ISIS) also said it was behind the assault. Little is known about the al-Ahvaziya group, but Revolutionary Guards spokesman Ramezan Sharif told ISNA it is funded by Saudi Arabia. In a statement to the Iran International news site, a spokesman was quoted as saying the attack on Saturday was in response to the repression of Ahvazi Arabs. We do not have a choice but to carry out a resistance. Other reports say youth members of the Ahvaz National Resistance Group (ANRG) were responsible. Dozens of people, including children, were killed in the attack on Saturday [Mehr News via AFP] In a separate statement to the Ahwazna website, Habib Jaber, head of the Arab Struggle Movement for Liberation of Ahvaz (ASLMA), said targeting the Revolutionary Guards in a military parade in Ahvaz by the national resistance comes within self-defence measures against a terror militia classified globally. Among the fatalities on Saturday were children and spectators at the parade, as well as soldiers and elderly war veterans. The parade was held to commemorate the beginning of the Iran-Iraq War. It was unclear whether ASLMA and ANRG are affiliated with the al-Ahvaziya group, or if they are part of an alliance. Brigadier-General Abolfazl Shekarchi, an Iranian military spokesman, told Fars news agency four armed men carried out the attack. Three were killed at the scene while a fourth died in custody from his wounds. Shekarchi said the gunmen were wearing military-style uniforms and had hidden their firearms in the area days before the attack. An injured survivor told reporters the gunmen fired aimlessly at the crowd. Ahvaz is the capital city of Khuzestan province, which has the countrys largest oil reserves. With its proximity to Iraq and the presence of a large Arab minority, the area has seen ethnic violence in the past. It was also a front line in the eight-year Iran-Iraq War. ISIL likewise claimed responsibility for Saturdays carnage, although some raised doubts about its involvement. ISIL has a history of attacks inside Iran. On June 2017, the group was blamed for a series of deadly raids on Irans parliament and the mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of the Islamic Republic. In July, several suspected ISIL members were executed in Iran for the attack. Authorities have also arrested several suspected fighters and thwarted plots by alleged ISIL members. Trapping Iran Regardless of who carried out the attack, Trita Parsi, founder of the National Iranian American Council, suggested on social media it was aimed at trapping Iran into starting a wider armed conflict that would eventually drag in the US military. An Iran analyst warned Saturdays attack does not bode well for diplomacy in the region [ISNA/AFP] But Mohammad Hashemi, a Tehran-based journalist, noted Iran has experience dealing with similar blind terrorism attacks in the 1980s and wouldnt rush into any response. Iran clearly understands the reasons behind such actions at this time, in view of growing pressure from the US and its allies against the Islamic Republic, Hashemi told Al Jazeera. However, Iran has never taken a hurried and hasty action in response to such terrorist attacks, he said adding Tehran will find a suitable time if it decides to give a response and retaliate. He also said the attack on Saturday would only strengthen the states legitimacy and rally support among ordinary Iranians amid the ongoing political and economic turmoil. Saeed Jalili, a journalist also based in Tehran, said the assault does not bode well for the future of diplomacy between Iran, its neighbours and the United States. They are basically moving away from diplomacy and getting involved in escalated tension, he told Al Jazeera. Recently, the Revolutionary Guards also targeted Iranian Kurdish fighters in Iraq. In 2017, following the ISIL attacks in Tehran, Iran also hit ISIL targets in Syria. Jalili said the attack on Saturday would only weaken peaceful ethnic communities, who have been pushing for their rights through legitimate social reforms. Radicalism will unwind all peaceful efforts and shut the way to constructive push for civil rights. US leader will fail in his confrontation with Tehran, says Irans president in speech marking the end of Iran-Iraq war. Donald Trump will fail in his confrontation with Iran just like Saddam Hussein, Irans President Hassan Rouhani said. The Iranian leader, referring to the 1980-88 war between the two Middle Eastern powers, also vowed that Tehran will not abandon its missiles despite US pressure. The same will happen to Trump. America will suffer the same fate as Saddam Hussein, Rouhani said on Saturday in a speech carried live by state television marking the start of the Iran-Iraq war. Iran will not abandon its defensive weapons including its missiles that make America so angry. Rouhanis comments come a day after Irans Foreign Minister Javad Zarif hit out at the Trump administration for being a real threat. It is true that there is a real threat to our region and to international peace and security. That threat is the Trump Administrations sense of entitlement to destabilise the world along with rogue accomplices in our region, Zarif wrote on Twitter. The US must start acting like a normal state. Iran and the US have been engaged in a diplomatic tug-of-war and harsh rhetoric since Trump came to office. During his campaign for the presidency, Trump repeatedly referred to the historic 2015 nuclear agreement as the worst deal ever and vowed to tear it apart. He then withdrew the US from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in May 2018, killing off US involvement from his predecessor Barack Obamas greatest diplomatic feat. The deal, which was signed between the US, other world powers, and Iran, saw Tehran reduce its nuclear enrichment capacity in exchange for limited sanctions relief. The Iran deal is defective at its core. If we do nothing, we will know what exactly will happen, said Trump at the time of US withdrawal from the deal which came with the reinstatement of US sanctions on Iran and threats of punitive measures against any state that continued to trade with it. Trump wants a more far-reaching deal with Iran, which includes its missile programme, its involvement in wars in Yemen and Syria, and stance on Israel. Earlier this month, Zarif accused Trump of planning to abuse the presidency of the UN Security Council to criticise Tehran. He said the US leader plans to abuse presidency of SC (Security Council) to divert a session item devoted to Palestine for 70 yrs to blame Iran for horrors US clients have unleashed across ME (Middle East). Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has lashed out at Indias decision to cancel talks between the two countries at next weeks United Nations General Assembly, calling the reversal arrogant and negative. Officials from the two countries were scheduled to meet in New York. However, India backed out of the talks on Friday, blaming latest brutal killings of our security personnel by Pakistan-based entities and the recent release of a series of 20 postage stamps by Pakistan glorifying a terrorist and terrorism. On Saturday, Khan took to Twitter to express his disappointment. Disappointed at the arrogant & negative response by India to my call for resumption of the peace dialogue, Khan said on Twitter. However, all my life I have come across small men occupying big offices who do not have the vision to see the larger picture. Disappointed at the arrogant & negative response by India to my call for resumption of the peace dialogue. However, all my life I have come across small men occupying big offices who do not have the vision to see the larger picture. Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) September 22, 2018 India has long accused Pakistan of arming rebel groups in Kashmir, a Himalayan territory divided between the two countries but claimed in full by both. Pakistan recently issued postage stamps of Burhan Wani, a young Kashmiri rebel commander killed by Indian troops in July 2016, whose death sparked a wave of violent protests in India-administered Kashmir. A statement issued by Indias foreign ministry on Friday said: It is obvious that behind Pakistans proposal for talks to make a fresh beginning, the evil agenda of Pakistan stands exposed and the true face of [the] new Prime Minister of Pakistan has been revealed to [the] world in his first few months in the office. Deeply disappointed Indias decision prompted sharp criticism from Islamabad. Pakistans Foreign Ministry, in a statement released on Friday, said the government was deeply disappointed at the decision and called the reasons cited by India entirely unconvincing. Rejecting allegations of killing and mutilating the Indian border guard, Pakistan called it a motivated and malicious propaganda. By falsely raising the canard of terrorism, India can neither hide its unspeakable crimes against the Kashmiri people nor can it delegitimise their indigenous struggle for their inalienable right to self-determination, the statement added. On Saturday, Pakistans Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said he was deeply saddened by Indias reversal. It was an opportunity [for progress in bilateral ties], which I think Indias domestic circumstances did not allow to materialise, said Qureshi. There is no precedent of how diplomatic norms were trampled. Soon after taking office last month, Imran Khan, 65, publicly advocated an easing of Pakistan-India relations. Passengers will clear Chinese immigration at the lines newly built terminal, where Chinese law will also be applied. A new high-speed rail link to inland China has opened in Hong Kong as protesters voice concerns about Beijings creeping influence over the semi-autonomous Chinese region. The link, which cost more than $10bn and took more than eight years to build, will vastly decrease travel times between the two sides. The system aims to transport more than 80,000 passengers daily between the Asian financial centre of seven million people and the neighbouring manufacturing hub of Guangdong province. Passengers will clear Chinese immigration at the lines newly built West Kowloon terminus, the source of major legal controversy when it was revealed that mainland Chinese law would apply within roughly one-quarter of the stations area. {articleGUID} Al Jazeeras Sarah Clarke, reporting from Hong Kong, said the project attracted criticism for being behind schedule and expensive. It has not been smooth sailing. A decision to put joint immigration checkpoints in Hong Kong, not at the border, angered pro-democracy groups, said Clarke. Au Hok-hin, a protest organiser, opposed China setting up police stations in the new terminal. There are ambiguities between the jurisdictions of Hong Kong police and mainland China police, said Au. Violation of basic law The opposition MPs argued the move to open joint checkpoints in Hong Kong would be a violation of the Basic Law, Hong Kongs mini-constitution under which it retained its own legal system and civil liberties after reverting from British to Chinese rule in 1997. That guarantees Hong Kong the right to maintain rights such as freedom of speech and assembly which are routinely violated on the mainland until 2047. Legal matters related to defence, foreign affairs and national security fall under Beijing purview. Pan democrats stage protest during opening ceremony for high speed rail linking #HongKong to #China saying colocation border controls undermines BasicLaw and pic.twitter.com/mWTLJB75C6 Tony Sabine (@chopkickpunch) September 22, 2018 However, Chinas tight control over the citys politics and a continuing crackdown on politicians calling for greater economy and democratic reforms have spurred worries about an erosion of Hong Kongs remaining autonomy. The Hong Kong legislatures passage in June of the plan to allow Chinese law to apply at the railway terminus was a significant moment for the opposition, coming four years after mass street protests demanding reforms fizzled out amid Beijings intransigence. Supporters of the provision, including the territorys Beijing-backed Chief Executive Carrie Lam, defended it as promoting speed and convenience. President Hassan Rouhani vows crushing response following gun attack that killed at least 29 and wounded 70. Four gunmen dressed in fatigues opened fire at a military parade in southwestern Iran, killing at least 29 people including women and children. The brazen attack on Saturday in the city of Ahvaz came as the country marked the anniversary of the start of its 1980-1988 war with Saddam Husseins Iraq, and prompted President Hassan Rouhani to warn of a crushing response. Those killed included members of the elite Revolutionary Guards and women and children who had come to watch the parade, the Iranian state-run IRNA news agency said. Another 70 people were wounded. Three of the attackers died at the scene while a fourth was arrested and later succumbed to his wounds, armed forces spokesman Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi said. Of the four terrorists, three were sent to hell at the scene, while the fourth who had been wounded and arrested went to hell moments ago due to his severe wounds, Shekarchi told state television. Khuzestan provinces deputy governor Ali-Hossein Hosseinzadeh told the semi-official ISNA news agency eight to nine troops were among those killed, as well as a journalist. Gunfire sprayed into a crowd of marching soldiers, bystanders, and government officials watching from a nearby riser. A video distributed to Iranian media showed soldiers crawling as gunfire blazed towards them. One picked up a gun and scrambled to his feet as women and children fled for their lives. We suddenly realised that some armed people wearing fake military outfits started attacking the comrades from behind [the stage] and then opened fire on women and children, an unidentified soldier said. They were just aimlessly shooting around and did not have a specific target. US puppets Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the attack was linked to the United States allies in the region. This crime is a continuation of the plots of the regional states that are puppets of the United States, and their goal is to create insecurity in our dear country, Khamenei said in a statement. He did not name the states, but US allies in the region include Irans regional rival Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. On Twitter, Irans Foreign Minister Javad Zarif also pointed a finger at a foreign regime without elaborating. Terrorists recruited, trained, armed & paid by a foreign regime have attacked Ahvaz. Children and journos among casualties. Iran holds regional terror sponsors and their US masters accountable for such attacks. Iran will respond swiftly and decisively in defense of Iranian lives. pic.twitter.com/WG1J1wgVD9 Javad Zarif (@JZarif) September 22, 2018 Mostafa Koshcheshm, a Tehran-based political commentator and journalist, told Al Jazeera that Revolutionary Guards officials were blaming the Ahwazi separatist movement, which has been nurtured, supported, and trained by Saudi Arabia. Its been operating for the past several years, they are looking to cut off and separate Irans energy-rich province of Khuzestan from Iran, which is exactly what Saddam Hussein wanted to do, said Koshcheshm. They call themselves Arab nationalists but we know they have very intimate ties to the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, he said referring to an Iranian exiled dissident group accused of killing thousands of Iranian civilians and officials. Irans English language news outlet, Press TV, published a video apparently showing the moment the attack started. State media described the assailants as takfiri gunmen a term previously used to describe the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group. It also showed images of the immediate aftermath where paramedics were seen helping someone in military fatigues laying on the ground. Other armed security personnel shouted at each other in front of what appeared to be a viewing stand for the parade. Ahvaz is the capital of Irans oil-rich Khuzestan province. The province in the past has seen Arab separatists attack oil pipelines. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp have been the sword and shield of Shia clerical rule in Iran since its 1979 Islamic Revolution. The Guards, the most powerful and heavily armed military force in the Islamic Republic, also play a big role in Irans regional interests in countries such as Iraq, Syria and Yemen. They answer to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and have a vast stake worth billions of dollars in the economy. Dr Marc Lamont Hill is an award-winning journalist and author and is the Steve Charles Professor of Media, Cities, and Solutions at Temple University. Hill is known for his work addressing the intersections of race, justice, politics and culture. His latest best-selling book is We Still Here: Pandemics, Policing, Protest and Possibility which follows on the success of Nobody: Casualties of Americas War on the Vulnerable from Flint to Ferguson. Hill has received numerous prestigious awards from the US National Association of Black Journalists, GLAAD, and the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. In recent years, the party, once on the ascendency, has declined in power, prestige, and popularity. Now, with the Ford-Kavanaugh accusations, it has lost all semblance of integrity. In recent days, the nation has witnessed an unseemly display of political gamesmanship, one that has served as a testimonial to just how low the Democrats have sunk. In a ploy to regain the power she believes to rightfully belong to the Democrats, Senator Dianne Feinstein trotted out a 36-year-old "he said, she said" story regarding drunken teenagers. Observers of Supreme Court hearings ranging from those of Robert Bork to Clarence Thomas were expecting something like this. What should be surprising is that the accusation against Brett Kavanaugh came from the longtime senator from California, Dianne Feinstein. Her career has endured based, to a large extent, on an undeserved reputation for integrity and principles. Her fabulously wealthy husband's millions have also helped. Her release of the Christine Ford allegations against Judge Kavanaugh should forever put to rest any idea that this woman has any level of ethics or respect for our constitutional system. The senator's actions are worthy of being censured for withholding information from the committee. Unfortunately, the Republicans lack the requisite spherical objects to do so. The incident was known to DiFi back in July, but she kept quiet, holding it like an ace up her sleeve. We can only guess her reasons for this. Two possibilities spring to mind. First, she was holding on to it for the purpose of throwing a monkey wrench into the system to either destroy Kavanaugh or delay the process. The former would be her ideal; the latter would serve a similar purpose, though not as direct. The second possibility, and the one that bears closer scrutiny, is that she did not believe the story, or felt it was a gambit that had no credibility, due to a lack of witnesses and the passage of time. Looking back at SCOTUS hearings, the Democrats have long played hardball, while the Republicans play slo pitch. Two presidential aspirants on the Democratic side garnered a great deal of attention. Senator Kamala Harris, the junior senator from California, cross-examined Kavanaugh like a prosecutor trying to break a defendant. Kavanaugh held strong, and when push came to shove, Harris showed she had nothing and gamely tried to save what dignity she had left. From New Jersey came the oft-angry Cory Booker. His feigned outrage was a performance worthy of Oscar consideration. Not a win, mind you, but the Oscars have a low threshold for quality acting when it comes to throwing out undeserved nominations. When Booker's "I am Spartacus" moment turned into an "I am Dukakis in a tank" moment, his time in the sun was over, and Kavanaugh looked like a shoe-in. Desperation causes people to act in ways counter to their original thinking. The greater the desperation, the lower the bar of integrity sinks. That brings us back to DiFi. Regarding conservatives on the bench, the only thing Democrats fear more than a strong, intellectually brilliant, and influential conservative (Bork, Gorsuch) would be if that conservative were a minority (Thomas). Better to destroy these people at any price than to have their ideology influence others. Kavanaugh is the intellectual they fear. For the Democrats, still smarting from the loss of Merrick Garland, the level of desperation was high, and integrity, never their strong suit to begin with, had sunk even lower. Since Kavanaugh's adult life was unblemished, the 36-year-old allegation against a 17-year-old boy suddenly became worthy of a second look. At some point in time, Feinstein came to the conclusion that putting a flimsy allegation forward was worth the risk. It would also play well to the folks back home who have abandoned her as not being liberal enough. We all have seen the results: her decision has taken political theater to new levels. The outcome regarding Kavanaugh is pending as this is written. But a conclusion that many have come to is that the action taken by Feinstein was both reprehensible and not worthy of a person of her position. This woman needs to fade into the sunset, to spend her remaining days living off her husband's wealth. But she has not taken the hint sent her way when the Democrats refused her an endorsement. Due to California's unusual primary system, the voters have two choices for the Senate seat currently occupied by octogenarian Feinstein. Both are Democrats. DiFi is one, while the other is Kevin de Leon, a man who is to the left of DiFi, dwelling in the Bernie Sanders and Occasional Cortex wing of the party. Feinstein, with a comfortable 20-point lead, is sailing toward an easy win. The Republican voters will reluctantly either cast their vote for her or sit that one out, letting the chips fall where they may. Doing so would not send any messages or accomplish any worthy goal. A proposal that does might be worth considering: vote for Kevin de Leon. I know there are a thousand reasons to not like his politics, but that is not what this is about. Let's not kid ourselves: the voting record of a Senator de Leon will match the votes cast by Feinstein. That being the case, they are in essence a distinction without a difference. De Leon will also have the benefit of demonstrating to the nation just how far left the Democrats have gone. Far-left extremists like Pelosi and Waters have been a recruiting gold mine for conservatives. De Leon has the potential to carry that red banner into the future, one that will soon be devoid of the current occupants of the rest-home wing of the party. How can one justify voting for a man whose politics are an anathema to all ideals of conservatism? Answer: Dianne Feinstein's recent actions have now made her the greater of the two evils. However, these are some of the ads we would really like to see (note that they are not candidate-specific): The midterm elections are imminent, and the usual mediocre ads are making their presence felt on TV. The ads for Republican candidates are being put out by the usual entrenched hacks. They commonly portray the candidate with his bimbo wife and drooling kids, telling us he runs a potato warehouse, so we should vote for him because that qualifies him to run the country. AD #1: ICE "Democrats have come out in favor of abolishing ICE. They have no regard for the safety of American citizens but would leave them vulnerable to criminal gangs. "In fact, Nancy Pelosi has referred to members of the MS-13 criminal gang as having 'a spark of divinity.' This spark was missing when some of them [detail their disembowelment of victims]. "ICE has captured more than 2,900 aliens who had a criminal past. And the Democrats want to abolish ICE? "By contrast, Republicans will ensure the continued operation of ICE and the safety of Americans. In November, vote for the lives of Americans. Vote Republican." AD #2: Economy "Before the 2016 election, the economy was stagnant. People were unemployed, on welfare. They felt hopeless. Businesses were gasping, while other businesses were jumping ship. Socialist-style regulations from past Democratic administrations had crippled the economy. We had trade treaties that damaged our country. "While America remains the world's leading manufacturer, thanks to Democrats and their socialist policies, many of our famous factories have become empty shells. "Since the 2016 election, the economy has made a complete turnaround, with the stock market reaching record highs and unemployment and food stamp applications at their lowest. Unequal trade agreements have been scrapped. GDP growth has hit a superb 4.1%. People are working, wages are climbing, and workers have received bonuses. For the first time in years, they can afford a vacation. Blacks in particular now have the lowest unemployment since 1972. And businesses owned by blacks have increased 400%. "According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median household income level rose to record heights in 2017, breaking the previous record. "But Democrats oppose this. They want to turn back the clock, go back to destroying the economy with their socialist policies, put people on welfare, make deals with countries where we'll come out the loser. And your financial gains? Well, Nancy Pelosi laughs at them. She calls them 'crumbs.' "If you want unemployment and food stamps, and a third-world country, then by all means vote for Democrats. If you want happiness and prosperity and a healthy country, vote Republican. It's that simple." AD #3: Terrorism "Have you noticed something interesting? The number of terrorist attacks in America by Muslim extremists has virtually disappeared since strict vetting of immigrants was instituted! "Attempts to better control who came into the country and exclude terrorists were hamstrung in 2017 by Democrats insisting that all so-called refugees were welcomed, without question. In the end, the Supreme Court gave the green light to careful vetting. "In 2015, 45 casualties. "In 2016, 148 casualties. "In 2017, 46 casualties. "And today? In 2018? "Only 5 casualties. "The choice is clear. Republicans have a realistic approach to jihadi terrorists: it's to not let them set foot in America in the first place. The Democrats' solution to terrorists coming into the country is to tell them they are welcome and loved. The choice is clear. Vote Republican. For safety's sake." These are just some of the ads that could play. They simply articulate what everyone knows, but airing them puts these facts in voters' consciousness and puts the Democrats on the defensive. Democrats are licking their chops in anticipation of a blue wave in November. The problem is that the Republican Party is also known as the Stupid Party, and with good reason. You would think they would take advantage of the embarrassment of riches that Trump has bestowed on them, but let's be honest: the Republican Party is populated by imbeciles. They will probably continue to run ads created by the usual hacks, showing off their families as if it were a contest as to which candidate has the best-looking family. Nevertheless, Republicans have the means of turning the big blue wave into a little trickle, or even a big red wave that is, if the Republican Establishment can stop being stupid long enough. But that's a big if. Some notable examples are two New York men released after 26 years in prison after the woman admitted she lied. If you do an internet search for "men released from prison for false convictions of rape," you will get many results. There are many duplicates, but there is no question that we have wrongful convictions of men for rape and other crimes. A Louisiana man was freed after 38 years for a false rape conviction. The Innocence Project's website has a list of cases where convictions have been overturned. Given this, one would think a man with a stellar record, such as Brett Kavanaugh, who gets accused in 2018 by Christine Blasey Ford, a partisan Democrat represented by a partisan Democrat attorney, of a never reported incident in 1982, would be treated fairly, with the accusation subject to close scrutiny. Democrats used to say they cared about due process and the presumption of innocence for those accused of a crime. But such legal niceties don't matter when the end justifies the means. The end is maintaining abortion and preventing Brett Kavanaugh from confirmation to the Supreme Court. Democrats did a character assassination of Judge Robert Bork, led by such moral lights as Teddy Chappaquiddick Kennedy and Joe Plagiarist Biden. They again, led by Kennedy and Biden attacked Justice Clarence Thomas, who fought back and was nominated. Now they are attempting to destroy Kavanaugh. They want Kavanaugh to testify before Ford testifies, if she ever testifies. Kennedy and Biden have been succeeded by Hirono, Blumenthal, Booker, Harris, and Whitehouse, all of whom may exceed Kennedy and Biden for viciousness, dishonesty, and hypocrisy. Hirono said men have to shut up. "Not only do women, like Dr. Ford, who bravely comes forward, need to be heard, but they need to be believed[.]" Why do we have to believe Ford? She is not credible. Would a D.A. tell a jury that men should shut up and that the "victim" who did not report the incident until 36 years later must be believed? Blumenthal, who lied about serving in Vietnam, is now trumpeting the charge that Kavanaugh lied and Ford is telling the truth. Cory Spartacus T-Bone Booker admits to groping teenage girls but explains it as part of coming-of-age psychobabble. Nobody asked the teenage gropees if they shared Booker's psychobabble as justification for the groping. Hirono and N.Y.'s Senator Gillibrand said that if Kavanaugh is innocent, he should ask the FBI to investigate himself. Gillibrand said, "Judge Kavanaugh has not asked to have the FBI to review these claims. Is that the reaction of an innocent person? It is not." We await Senator Hirono's announcement as to whether Booker and Blumenthal can sit in judgment of Ford's accusation, or whether they belong to the classification of men who need to shut up. The Democrats say Ford, who accused Kavanaugh in 2018 of attempted rape in 1982, where the incident was never reported to the police, her parents, or her school, and the motive to accuse in 2018 is to keep Kavanaugh off the Supreme Court, is telling the truth and must be believed. Ford sent her July 30, 2018 letter only to Democrat Dianne Feinstein, and not to Senator Grassley, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. The Democrats then did not share the letter with the Republicans, nor with the FBI or police. The Democrats believe that Ford is telling the truth, and Kavanaugh is lying. What is the point of having Kavanaugh and Ford testify or of having the FBI investigate? There is no point in having a hearing. The Dems have decided to "believe" Ford, without hearing her testimony and without any cross-examination of her testimony. I doubt they really believe or care about her, but Ford is useful as a means to defeat Kavanaugh. This is the mentality of leftist totalitarians. Every so often, the Deep State can't help resurfacing A defining characteristic of the Deep State is this: when its members need to attack someone or some organization, they must expose themselves. It has happened before, it is happening now, and it will happen again. James O'Keefe, through his Project Veritas, is compiling video evidence of government employees using government databases, government offices, government communications, and the associated taxpayer funds to push a socialist-communist agenda and to thwart the will of the people by opposing the directives of their boss, the elected president of the United States. These are people, government employees, who are literally taking your money and using it to defeat you. Recently, Mr. O'Keefe exposed a State Department employee bragging about working for democratic socialists and serving as an officer for a subversive organization while on duty at the State Department. Did I say this has happened before? In 1949, State Department employees asked Senator Joe McCarthy to obtain congressional oversight because there were, at the time, a shocking number of communist party members and activists on the payroll at the State Department. As it turns out, other Executive Branch agencies were not immune to communist infiltration. The Deep State went into overdrive. Both houses of congress belonged to the GOP, so in order to wield any government power, the left had only the Executive Branch agencies to use, and McCarthy became a serious threat to that plan. They went after Tail-Gunner Joe, hammer and tong, and they haven't stopped. In 1952, the White House went over to the GOP, but Eisenhower proved to be no help to Senator McCarthy. Ike sat back and allowed McCarthy's reputation to be destroyed, and communists continued to ride herd over his own federal agencies. The Deep State went back underground, but it would surface again, leaving destroyed reputations in its wake. Over the years, the names come and go, but the Deep State rolls on. Now it's Mueller, Comey, Strzok, Brennan. Doubt about the political sympathies of these reprobates is vanishing like a ghost at the top of the staircase. It remains to be seen if the members of this crew pay the price for their crimes. No one is more able to throw the switch on them than Donald J. Trump. So the issues and the players and even the rules may be slightly different, especially now in the internet age, but make no mistake about it: there are communists in the State Department, just as Joe McCarthy said there were. There are communists in every other government agency. When you think about it, where else would a subversive operate? Where else could he do the most damage? I call these people communists out of a concern for clarity, not for purposes of bombast or hyperbole. It is one thing for an American to employ legal methods of activism toward bending his government's policies toward his own sense of moral quality. Attempting to overturn the will of the people and abolish the republican form of government mandated by the Constitution is a different kettle of fish. These leftist criminals and their fellow travelers in the news media are a danger to Western civilization. They may lose this time, but unless they are torn out, root and branch, they will go back to working undercover, paid by you and me, beating us over the head with bags of our own money. And when they see an exigent circumstance, one that calls for the drastic measure of exposing themselves, they will be seen again. Like whales that occasionally surface to blow, they can't help themselves. Willie Shields is a radio host, a paralegal, and the author of Exit 13A A Control Tower Diary. A "once and always" U.S. Marine and a former air traffic controller, Mr. Shields resides in Wilmington, Delaware. He responds to email: WSHIELDS1775@VERIZON.NET , Twitter @WILLIEONRADIO. Roll out the guillotine To say Judge Brett Kavanaugh has been accused, judged, and convicted in the court of public opinion is an understatement. Rule of law be damned. In fact, Judge Kavanaugh's accuser and her enablers have obliterated any fairness or equity as these apply to the foundational legal belief mandating that everyone in society be considered innocent until proven guilty. Senate Judiciary Committee members Senators Kamala Harris and Amy Klobuchar, both former prosecutors, have decreed that reasonable doubt does not apply in the case of the accuser's claim of sexual assault. Incredible as it may sound, her accusation doesn't need to be proven, either. In summation, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford simply made the accusation, therefore it must be true. A Senate Judiciary Committee hearing is not a court of law; however, respect for the rule of law is crucial to democracy, as it mandates that everyone is entitled to due process. As tasked, the Judiciary Committee is convened to "advise and consent" regarding the president's nominees to the Supreme Court. Suffice it to say there are numerous steps in the committee's process, before the nominee ever appears before the entire body of the judicial committee for questioning. At the appointed hour, Judge Brett Kavanaugh dutifully appeared, answering numerous questions for several days. And that's when the pleasantries ended cut to the chase! Shortly after the close of testimony and several days prior to committee vote, Senator Dianne Feinstein entered into the record a letter she had received from California congresswoman Anna Eshoo, supposedly written by Dr. Ford, accusing nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault 36 years ago. To date, committee chair Chuck Grassley has yet to see the letter. As parsed by the media, the written accusation is vague and unsubstantiated (no police report was filed at the time of alleged assault), thus raising reasonable doubt as to the accuser's truthfulness. According to Senators Kamala Harris and Amy Klobuchar, there is no reason to doubt what Dr. Ford is claiming. In their collective opinion, Judge Kavanaugh is guilty, and it's now up to the Senate Judiciary Committee to determine if he is fit to serve on the Supreme Court, based on the accusation. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has also determined that it's a cut and dried case, also based solely on the fact that Dr. Ford made the accusation and therefore must be believed. Nothing is left to do other than to roll out the guillotine and execute the guilty party. Thankfully, Chairman Grassley hasn't lost his mind and will continue to oversee the next phase in this poorly scripted soap opera. In every U.S. court of law, the accused is granted the right to face his accuser. The accused is also presumed innocent until proven guilty which requires substantiated evidence and the testimony of eyewitnesses. The burden falls to the accuser to provide evidence in order to prove the accusations, not the other way around. It's called due process. It's critical to understand that the long respected rule of law is being rewritten in order to validate Dr. Ford's accusation, in addition to accommodating any future testimony on her part. In plain speak, she wants her own set of rules in trade for her testimony. Make no mistake: crafting this debacle began months ago and was set into motion just after Judge Kavanaugh's formal questioning ended. Senator Feinstein admitted publicly she's been aware of Dr. Ford's letter since July. Not surprisingly, and days after the accuser's revelation, Senator Feinstein also stated that she can't attest that the information contained within the letter is truthful. In other words; Senator Feinstein is attempting to establish plausible deniability. Sorry, Senator, but it's a little late for that it was you who unleashed the maelstrom. Unbelievably, the accusation itself has eclipsed any facts relevant to the alleged incident. Judge Kavanaugh has eagerly agreed to another round of questions before the judicial committee. Understandably, he wants to clear his name and salvage his reputation. Whether or not Dr. Ford shows up to offer testimony is yet to be determined. The overriding goal is to ensure that Judge Kavanaugh is not confirmed to the Supreme Court, and by whatever method it takes. Apparently, all it takes is an unproven accusation to undermine democracy. I consider forcible rape to be one of the most heinous crimes that can be committed against another human being. In my view, forcible rape deserves to be a capital offense. Any person proven guilty of forcibly raping another person should be executed. I suspect that many people would not agree with my view on this. But I state it for perspective. There are three crimes that I consider worthy of capital punishment: murder, rape, and treason. I consider sexual assault to be a very serious crime. Not deserving to be classified a capital offense in most cases, but, nevertheless, deserving of very harsh punishment. Having said that, the idea that any woman who alleges a sexual crime should be believed without regard to evidence is unreasonable and unjust. Every case ought to be judged individually on the specific evidence. But Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) says: "Not only do women like Dr. Ford, who bravely comes forward, need to be heard, but they need to be believed. We have to create an environment where women can come forward and be heard and be listened to I believe her." In the environment which Sen. Hirono would create, men should shut up. Guess who is perpetuating all of these kinds of actions? Its the men in this country. And I just want to say to the men in this country: just shut up and step up, do the right thing for a change. In an environment where women must be believed on a blanket basis, men are presumed guilty not for their own crimes necessarily, but for the crimes that other men have committed. Men, collectively, are guilty. The allegation of assault is all that is required to establish the guilt of a man. Unless the man is a prominent Democrat, like Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton, or Keith Ellison. Democrats forgave Ted Kennedy for leaving Mary Jo Kopechne to die in the back seat of his car and made him the Lion of the Senate. Democrats didnt believe Kathleen Willey, or Juanita Broadrick, or Paula Jones, each of whom accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault. In the case of Broadrick, it was rape. Even now, they dont believe Karen Monahan, former girlfriend of deputy Democrat National Chairman Keith Ellison, former congressman and current candidate for Minnesota attorney general. The evidence that Ellison abused Monahan is significant. Yet, Monahan says of the Democrats Ive been smeared, threatened, isolated from my own party. No support for Monahan from Sen. Hirono. No calls from Sen. Diane Feinstein for Keith Ellison to step down from his position with the DNC. No cabal of Hollywood actresses releasing a video with the message to Karen Monahan saying "Millions of us have your back. You and your testimony are credible. We believe you." Why? Because Kennedy, Clinton, and Ellison are Democrats. Kavanaugh is not. In her interview with Politico, Hirono made it clear that this is about politics: If Kavanaughs nomination fizzles and President Donald Trump has to name a replacement, Hirono says he better find someone whom she considers less of a conservative ideologue, or else prepare for Senate Democratsespecially if they win a majority in Novembers electionsto keep the court seat vacant until after the 2020 election. Politics. Thats what this is about. The Future of Gun Sanctuaries Last April, two Illinois counties, Iroquois and Effingham, kicked off the movement to create gun sanctuary counties to oppose what many residents feel are oppressive laws that curtail Second Amendment rights. Since then, more rural areas have caught onto the idea. The bold moves made national headlines and sparked a debate about the legality of these measures. As legislators continue to seek new restrictions on gun ownership, more counties are using this as measure as a symbolic check against the State. While some critics have pointed out that these ordinances lack real teeth, they may prove to be a rallying cry for gun rights advocates in traditionally liberal states. The resolutions are an attempt to oppose repression imposed by urban legislators, "flipping the script" by taking a stand in favor of gun rights. The resolutions were a clear response to large cities like Chicago that have declared themselves sanctuary cities that will disregard federal efforts to remove immigrants. Gun sanctuary counties are taking a similar approach, enacting resolutions that say law enforcement can disregard Illinois laws that the county deems are oppressive regarding firearm rights. Thus far, 30 of Illinois's 102 counties have passed resolutions creating gun sanctuaries. In addition to the two counties that initiated the movement, the other counties are: Henry, Mercer, Woodford, Tazewell, Ford, Iroquois, Brown, Douglas, Christian, Shelby, Cumberland, Clark, Bond, Fayette, Effingham, Jasper, Clay, Clinton, Washington, Monroe, Perry, Jefferson, Wayne, Perry, Franklin, Hamilton, White, Saline, Pope, and Hardin At least twelve other counties have resolutions pending, while two additional counties will put the measures to vote in November. Passing a gun sanctuary resolution is not without controversy, as officials in Clark County temporarily tabled the move for a month to allow the State's Attorney's office to review its legality. Clark County approved the resolution in June. The Legal and Constitutional Issues The passage of these resolutions supporting the Second Amendment raises the question of their constitutional legality. Playing off the idea of sanctuary cities, where law enforcement officials have been directed by local officials to not cooperate with immigration officers in order to protect immigrant rights, gun sanctuary resolutions take a similar approach. Gun advocates say that they also deserve protection from increasing restrictions on gun rights along with a disregard from legislators who disregard the rights and needs of those citizens outside city limits. Law enforcement officials in Illinois sanctuary counties aren't sure how they'll deal with issues that may arise if additional laws are passed in the state limiting gun owners rights. Some of the resolutions indicate that law enforcement will give gun owners who are violating the state's new laws a break in their counties. In this way, the gun sanctuaries set up conflicts between state and local laws. However, it remains to be seen how such resolutions will be enforced, as state laws typically take precedence over local or county laws. Could This Be a Trend in Other States? Gun rights advocates across the United States seem to be responding to Second Amendment rights restrictions passed by legislatures in the wake of the Parkland, Florida school massacre. In addition to the movement in Illinois, gun rights advocates in four Oregon counties have sanctuary resolutions on the books. Another ten are expected to have voters decide the issue in November. Andrew Nickel is the founder of The Law Offices of Andrew Nickel, and has spent his entire legal career dedicated to all areas of criminal and family law. Prior to his years in private practice, Mr. Nickel spent nearly five years as a prosecutor in both Kane and Kendall Counties in Illinois, where he handled a wide variety of cases including traffic, misdemeanors, felonies, and DUI cases. While you were distracted: Was Rahm Emanuel trying to sabotage a U.S. strike against Venezuela? The puzzle pieces are starting to fill in a bit after Chicago Mayor and former Obama administration White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel made the weird charge the other day that President Trump was cooking up an invasion against Venezuela. Emanuel claimed the whole thing was an October Surprise, something he might know about given that he served as a strategic advisor to President Bill Clinton in his first stint in the White House. You know, back in those 'wag the dog' days when Hillary Clinton dodged a lot of gunfire. Emanuel's out-of-the-blue warning was an obvious attempt to unite the rabid far left that still supports the socialist regime there with the run-of-the-mill Trump haters ahead of midterms. But now we have new information that suggests maybe it was something more. According to Reuters: WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is preparing a series of actions in the coming days to increase pressure on the Venezuelan government, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox News on Friday. Youll see in the coming days a series of actions that continue to increase the pressure level against the Venezuelan leadership folks, who are working directly against the best interest of the Venezuelan people, Pompeo said. Were determined to ensure that the Venezuelan people get their say. So right ahead of the news coming out that something unpleasant is underway for the Maduro regime, Rahm is out there warning about October surprises. It's probably just sanctions on the regime, although I think the new White House advisor for Latin American affairs, Mauricio Claver-Carone, is sharper than that. Presidents Bush and Obama did lots of sanctions on Venezuela's socialist officials and lotta good that did, because they're still just as entrenched in power as they always have been, having literally starved their own citizens into submission. Maybe it's more than sanctions. It could perhaps be an oil cutoff, something that would probably affect the U.S. very little, given that the U.S. has become a net exporter of energy and its purchase of Venezuelan crude has already declined sharply. Not a big sacrifice from us. The fact that the socialists are having a hard time even producing the oil anyway and have driven Venezuela's production down to 1948 levels at about 1.4 million barrels per day, according to Russ Dallen at Caracas Capital, pretty much serves as a self-cutoff. That said, the U.S. remains Venezuela's top oil customer, or at least, the top one that pays for it, so it could be a hard blow to them yet a nothingburger to us. In fact, I can see this happening. But there's also the military option, interesting, given that President Trump hasn't backed down from leaving it on the table. And there was that meeting with disgruntled military men, which although the Trump administration declined to support in their effort to throw out the Maduro regime, the New York Times dutifully let us and the Maduro regime know about, quite likely getting some Venezuelan tortured for it. In addition, there was that fracas with the Organization of American States. When I wrote about here, I hailed it as an unprecedented move forward from that otherwise namby-pamby United Nations-style multilateral organization. Well, not quite. The OAS chief backtracked on his comments a bit, saying intervention was not off the table but he really wants to look at other stuff. He did that after lots of OAS members suddenly got all huffy with him and said they were all in for non-intervention of other nations' internal affairs, as if millions of refugees pouring over their borders weren't interference of a kind in their own internal affairs. But despite the dust storm from that still-useless organization, there were two players whose silence was noticible: Colombia and Guyana, the two nations that have been repeatedly threatened by the Venezuelan socialist dictatorship. Funny how they didn't want to dish any criticism for talk of military intervention. Now we have Pompeo announcing some new squeezes for the Venezuelan regime, and who knows what the Department of Defense is doing. Maybe nothing, but there sure are a lot of reasons for doing something. And Rahm Emanuel, mayor of Chicago, out of the blue ... yelling October Surprise. Was Rahm trying to sabotage something? If anything dramatic comes in the next few weeks, while we all are sleeping, the feds ought to just start looking at who he's still in touch with in the Deep State (and we know he's got to know some of them), which would still do absolutely anything to Get Trump. Why's he trying to sabotage something like this? Samsung is currently offering a few pretty impressive offers on the Galaxy Note 9. If you purchase the 512GB model (which is $1249), you can get a Gear Fit 2 Pro for free, or a Gear S3 and a wireless charger for free. If you purchase a 128GB model, you can get the Gear Fit 2 Pro for free, or the Gear S3 and a wireless charger for $99. On top of that, just for buying a Galaxy Note 9, you will get 10,000 V-Bucks for Fortnite, and the exclusive Galaxy Skin for free. These are some pretty awesome offers for those looking to pick up a Galaxy Note 9, especially if you are a Fortnite fan. The Galaxy Note 9 is perhaps the best Android smartphone currently available. It does cost $999 for the 128GB model and $1249 for the 512GB model. So it is up there in price with the new iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max, but you do get more storage, more RAM, more battery and Android on the Galaxy Note 9 which makes it a better deal. Samsung has a 6.4-inch Quad HD+ Super AMOLED display (which is the best display ever on a smartphone), along with the Snapdragon 845 chipset, with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage or 8GB of RAM and 512GB of RAM. Lets not forget that there is also a 4000mAh capacity battery included in the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 which is going to allow the phone to last all-day and then some. Definitely worthwhile for the power users out there. You can purchase the Galaxy Note 9 from Samsungs website using the link down below. Once you chose the carrier (which Samsung has all the carriers: AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, US Cellular and Verizon) as well as the unlocked version. Youll then choose your storage capacity and color. After that you can choose which offer you want the Gear Fit 2 Pro for free, or the Gear S3 and wireless charger for $99. Afterwards, youll get to choose the size and color of that free gift. In short: The Google Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL leaked in their highest-resolution render to date, having been unveiled by known industry insider Evan Blass. The image seen above corroborates many previous sightings of the two devices, being yet another indication that the Pixel 3 will essentially be a more powerful Pixel 2 XL, whereas the Pixel 3 XL will be taking some new liberties in terms of design, most notably with the polarizing inclusion of a display notch. The leaked render also provides a clear look at the front-facing dual-camera setups of the two devices. Background: While the rear panels of the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL are still expected to feature a single camera, Google is understood to have opted for a two-lens solution on the front in order to improve the quality of selfies, primarily by making the bokeh effect more natural and closer to what dedicated imaging hardware such as DSLRs can accomplish. Dual stereo speakers will once again be part of the package, as evidenced by a number of recent sightings of the two devices, including the one seen here. The Pixel 3 lineup leaked all over the Internet earlier this summer after a pre-production batch of the larger model was stolen from Foxconn and ended up with a Ukrainian black market dealer who was selling the devices for $2,000 a piece. The Alphabet-owned company is scheduled to officially announce its new Android flagships on October 9. The handsets should be unveiled alongside the Pixelbook 2 range of Chromebooks, new Pixel Buds, and the Google Home Hub, a screen-equipped smart speaker looking to rival the likes of Amazons Echo Show and the Lenovo Smart Display. Impact: By most accounts, Googles Pixel 3 family will be following suit with many recent mobile industry conventions, for better or worse. Its still unclear how many units is the tech giant targeting for its initial production batch but whats certain is that the handsets will once again be available for purchase well in advance of the holiday season and debut in some new markets such as France and Japan. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images Christine Blasey Ford wanted to leave the U.S. once she realized that Brett Kavanaugh, who she says tried to rape her in high school, would likely become a Supreme Court justice. She was like, I cant deal with this. If he becomes the nominee, then Im moving to another country. I cannot live in this country if hes in the Supreme Court, her husband recalled in an interview with the Washington Post. She wanted out, he added, explaining that she even went so far as to look into what other countries the family might move to. Instead, Ford now faces the possibility of publicly testifying before Congress about the alleged attack amid intense scrutiny from the media and Kavanaughs allies, and she has already been the target of death threats, outlandish conspiracy theories, a smear campaign from people as powerful as the president, and the ongoing pressure of being perhaps the only person in the country who can prevent the confirmation of a sure-thing nominee who many believe would be instrumental in overturning Roe vs Wade. Russell Ford told the Post that his wife was filled with anxiety after each of the last two Supreme Court vacancies, worrying about not only the prospect of living in a country where her attacker was on the highest court in the land, but whether she should come forward with her story. Her mind-set was, Ive got this terrible secret. What am I going to do with this secret? Mr. Ford said. Her anxieties were warranted, considering the amount of attention and vitriol she and her family have already faced. Thanks to the death threats and media onslaught, the couple fled their home soon after Ms. Ford came forward last week. I said that Mommy had a story about a Supreme Court nominee, and now its broken into the news, and we cant stay in the house anymore, Mr. Ford told their two children, who the couple has looked into protecting with a private security service. The Post talked to Fords husband, friends, colleagues, and even her favorite high school teacher in order to piece together more information about her upbringing and how the alleged assault has had an impact on her life. One close high school friend explained that the Washington, D.C., prep-school culture she, Ford, and Kavanaugh were a part of in the early 1980s was often centered around alcohol, and that fending off the aggressive advances of drunk boys at parties was definitely a common problem. The boys were pretty brutal, the friend, Andrea Evers, said. They would do what they could to get you drunk, and do whatever they would try to do to you. Earlier in the week, the New York Times reported that another friend remembers that Ford fell off the face of the earth socially following the alleged assault, which she did not acknowledge to anyone. She fled for good after graduating high school, instead. Ford decided to leave town for a distant, big state university in North Carolina. She ended up avoiding the college party scene there, which according to the Post, reminded her too much of the prep school culture she had tried to get away from. Ford struggled in her classes as well, and said when she came forward that this was an effect of the assault having derailed her. After an intervention from a friend, however, she became more focused and successfully earned a psychology degree. After graduating, Ford got even further away, to California, where she earned two advanced degrees in psychology, and got into surfing. After marrying her husband in 2002, she then got another masters degree from Stanford, where she focused her thesis on the dynamic between trauma and depression. Afterwards, as a professor at two bay area universities, she continued to research the resilience and growth of trauma victims. You can always recover, she has told graduate students, but very few people knew she was also speaking from experience. Ford and her lawyer have pushed back on attempts by the GOP-led Senate Judiciary Committee to rush her testimony on the alleged attack, and they successfully challenged Senator Chuck Grassleys two separate Friday deadlines for coming to an agreement. Fords lawyer said on Friday that one reason they are looking to slow down the process was that Ford had to meet with the FBI on Friday to discuss the death threats she has received. Grassley and other Republican lawmakers who want to see Kavanaugh swiftly confirmed may want to avoid having her show up. Should she testify, they will undoubtedly question her motives and challenge account of the attack, but they wont just be questioning a survivor, theyll be dealing with a well-respected expert and educator on the psychological impact of that survival. Brett Kavanaughs confirmation hearings arent over. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Its official: Christine Blasey Ford will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday regarding her allegation that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh attempted to rape her when they were teenagers. Ford committed to testify after she and her lawyers reached a deal with Committee aides on Sunday. Some details still need to be resolved ahead of the hearing, Fords lawyers said, but nothing that would prevent her from testifying. Kavanaugh, who has repeatedly denied Fords accusation, will also testify this week. Fords public testimony will come just 11 days after she came forward with her allegation and upended what had seemed to be a sure-thing confirmation for the ultraconservative Kavanaugh. Since then, Kavanaughs allies have tried to discredit Ford, an effort which has included outlandish conspiracy theories, a right-wing smear campaign, a Twitter attack from President Trump, and more than one self-serving suggestion that men like Kavanaugh should not have to face any consequences for whatever they did as teenage boys. Ford received death threats after she came forward, forcing her and her husband and two children to move out of their home. Kavanaugh and his wife have received death threats as well, though he has already been living under the protection of U.S. marshalls since being nominated in July. The raging debate over Fords accusation and its implications has led to wall-to-wall news coverage, and polls have subsequently showed that the already unpopular Kavanaugh has become even less desirable in the eyes of voters as a result. As far as the remaining details both sides need to work out, the most notable one is who will question Ford during her testimony. Ford wants to be questioned by the senators on the Committee, while Republicans on the Committee, all men, reportedly want to assign outside counsel to take their place, like female staff attorneys, in order to avoid the optics of a sexual-assault survivor being publicly interrogated by an all-male group of Republican senators less than two months before the midterms. Fords lawyers have objected to that possibility, since outside counsel would be more likely to treat Ford as if she were being prosecuted. Democrats on the Committee, a group that includes two women, say they will take the opportunity to question Ford themselves. Fords lawyers have also continued to insist that Mark Judge, the prep school friend of Kavanaughs who Ford says was an accomplice in the alleged attack, be subpoenaed. Senate Republicans have reserved the right to call outside witnesses next week, but there is no indication that Judge will be among them, and he has said he has no desire to testify. Other details under negotiation include whether or not Ford testifies before or after Kavanaugh, with her lawyers insisting she go second, and how many media cameras will be allowed into the hearing. An earlier demand from Fords legal team and Senate Democrats that an FBI investigation be conducted on the matter before Ford testified seems to have been abandoned. The deal to ensure Fords testimony followed days of contentious back and forth between her lawyers and the Senate Judiciary Committees Republican chairman, Chuck Grassley. For his part, Grassley spent the last few days setting and re-setting deadlines for Ford and her legal team. He originally set a Friday morning deadline for them to accept the Committees offer to have her testify, then extended it to Friday night, adding that he was scheduling a Committee vote on Kavanaugh for Monday that would go forward if Ford didnt agree to his terms. That ultimatum didnt work, and Fords lawyers sent Grassley and the Committee a scathing letter rejecting his time frame late Friday. The senator then extended his deadline once again to 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, and fired off some Friday night tweets complaining about the process. Less than 15 minutes before the Saturday deadline, Fords lawyers sent a letter to the Committee informing them that she had accepted the offer to come testify, and would do so next week, but that they hoped to enter into further negotiations to work out the details. The White House, via unnamed senior official comments, rejected the letter as a stalling tactic, but negotiations between the Ford team and the Committee seem to have proceeded fruitfully anyway. NEW: Christine Blasey Fords lawyers say she accepts the Judiciary Committees invitation to testify next week, requests further negotiations over details of hearing: pic.twitter.com/FomW2BssGr Phil Mattingly (@Phil_Mattingly) September 22, 2018 The letter from Fords lawyers put Grassley in the difficult position of having to either delay the process even further, or reject the Ford teams overture as too little, too late, and plow ahead with the Committee vote on Monday. Not accommodating Ford, however, would lead to Grassley and many other GOP lawmakers spending the run-up to the midterms articulating a rationale for dismissing Fords willingness to testify without signaling that they didnt want to hear from her in the first place. In addition, there wasnt a guarantee the White House and Senate Republicans would have been able to obtain the votes they needed to confirm Kavanaugh without hearing from Ford first. They probably had them before Ford emerged with her allegations last Sunday, but not after. The allegation and high-profile aftermath also meant that Republicans could not depend on the support of any of the Senates more conservative Democrats. Fords attorneys, Debra S. Katz and Lisa Banks, reiterated their ongoing displeasure with the entire process in their letter on Saturday, noting that although many aspects of the proposal [Grassley] provided via email, on [Friday] are fundamentally inconsistent with the committees promise of a fair, impartial investigation into [Fords] allegations, and we are disappointed with the leaks and the bullying that have tainted the process, we are hopeful that we can reach agreement on details. Fords legal team also expanded on Saturday with the addition of former Justice Department inspector general Michael Bromwich (who currently represents former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe as well). Some senior White House officials made it anonymously clear on Saturday afternoon that they didnt accept Fords agreeing to testify as anything more than an attempt to further delay the process. And while President Trump was somehow convinced to keep his thoughts on the matter off Twitter on Saturday, the Trump team maintained its stance that Kavanaugh, not Ford, was the real victim in the ordeal: The view inside WH is that Senate Rs have been "rather accommodating" to Ford already. A senior aide says: "At a certain point you have to ask the question: when is this process going to be fair to Brett Kavanaugh? Sarah Westwood (@sarahcwestwood) September 22, 2018 Republican leaders and Trump administration officials had reportedly gotten frustrated with the failed attempts to accommodate Ford and her lawyers demands, as well as with the failed attempts to salvage Kavanaughs nomination. According to one official close to the discussions who spoke with the Times, however, there has been ongoing concern within the GOP about how Republican voters would respond to an attempt to push through Kavanaugh in spite of Fords allegation. On the other hand, there is also some anxiety over how voters and donors will respond if the GOP fails to confirm Kavanaugh and secure the ideological majority on the Supreme Court that the party has been chasing for decades. Kavanaugh, meanwhile, spent much of last week at the White House preparing for his own testimony before the committee. The Washington Post reported on Saturday that the 53-year-old judge has, according to White House sources, practiced condemning sexual assault and avoiding the questioning of Fords credibility, though he grew frustrated when it came to [mock] questions that dug into his private life, particularly his drinking habits and his sexual proclivities. This is a developing news story and this post has been updated throughout. Chuck Grassley is not a happy camper at the moment. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Garrett Ventry, a communications aide to Chuck Grassley on the Senate Judiciary Committee, resigned on Saturday morning after NBC News asked him about a sexual harassment allegation in his past. Ventry had been helping direct the strategy to steer Brett Kavanaughs Supreme Court nomination after Christine Ford came forward to accuse him of sexual assault. In addition, Ventry worked at a public-relations firm that was involved in crafting a widely publicized (and mocked) theory that Ford had identified the wrong man 36 years ago; Ventry also resigned from that company on Saturday. NBC reported that the 29-year-old Ventry had been fired in 2017 from the office of North Carolina House Majority Leader John Bell, where he served as social media adviser: Sources familiar with the situation said Ventry was let go from Bells office after parts of his resume were found to have been embellished, and because he faced an accusation of sexual harassment from a female employee of the North Carolina General Assemblys Republican staff. There was little further information about the specific allegations. Ventry told NBC, I deny allegations of misconduct. In a statement, Judiciary Committee Chairman spokesman Taylor Foy said, While (Ventry) strongly denies allegations of wrongdoing, he decided to resign to avoid causing any distraction from the work of the committee. The spectacle of a Republican staffer on the committee quitting over such allegations would be uncomfortable enough on any given day. But it looks particularly unseemly considering the drama playing out around Kavanaugh and Ford, and given Ventrys associations beyond the Judiciary Committee. Ventry who maintains an active social media presence and frequently speaks with reporters also worked at CRC Public Relations, a prominent GOP firm known for helping to swift boat John Kerry in 2004, in one of the more ignoble attack campaigns in recent decades. On Friday, Politico reported that the company had worked directly with Republican judicial activist Ed Whelan to concoct a bizarro theory that Ford had mistaken Kavanaugh with another classmate her high school, who bore a resemblance to the judge. That thesis, which had been hinted at as providing incontrovertible evidence of Kavanaughs innocence, backfired spectacularly. Gentry said that the Senate Judiciary Committee had no prior knowledge of Whelans strategy, but questions continue to swirl about who did. CRC said on Saturday that Ventry had been on hiatus from the firm, but that it had accepted his resignation. Ventrys downfall is just the latest setback for Kavanaughs nomination: Bad 48 hours for the Kavanaugh defense: Whelan theory flops hard, Trump attacks Dr. Ford and now this https://t.co/DU7bReVoUP Burgess Everett (@burgessev) September 22, 2018 But these hurdles are ultimately sideshows to the big question: whether Christine Ford agrees to testify. Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Toyoda reportedly showed up at the Japan Automotive Hall in Minato City 'quietly' in EV mode as the press was anticipating the discussions on JAMAs proposals to the Japanese governments tax reforms on automobiles. Akio Toyoda has made the rumored GRMN Toyota Century official at the recent JAMA (Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association), days after spy photos of a mysterious performance Toyota Century made its rounds on the internet. What was initially an 'unassuming' pearl white Toyota Century later produced a rumble which alerted keen observers that it was not an ordinary Century, but the GRMN Century spied days ago. In stock form, the Century is powered by a twin-motor hybrid 5.0-liter V8 engine with a combined output of 430 PS. The Western-educated Toyota chief executive is perhaps one of the most interesting heads of the Japanese auto industry, normally composed of conservative and old gentlemen. His recent stint to the Philippines to attend the 30th anniversary of Toyota Motor Philippines was capped off with a selfie with guests. In 2009, Toyoda apologized in behalf of the company for making "boring cars", among other things, and promised to do something about it. This sticker which we recently spotted pretty much sums up how we look at Akio Toyoda after his appearance with the GRMN Century. I was flying from Jacksonville, North Carolina, to College Park, Maryland, on an IFR flight plan to go to a Redskins game. It was a CAVU day. The following exchange took place somewhere southeast of Richmond: Washington Center: Skyhawk 68E, traffic two oclock, 10 miles, westbound, 500 feet above. Skyhawk 68E: Negative contact, but Im looking. Washington Center: Piper 123, traffic 10 oclock, 10 miles, northbound, 500 feet below. Piper 123: Negative contact, but were looking too. A few minutes pass. Washington Center: Skyhawk 68E previously called traffic is now one oclock, 3 miles, and my monitor has your course merging in two minutes. Just as the two of us are passing each other: Skyhawk 68E: Washington Center I have traffic on TCAS and in sight. Washington Center: Piper 123 also has you in sight and wants you to know theres some dirt on top of your right wing. Skyhawk 68E: Thank you Center, and please tell the Piper that his nose tire looks a bit low. We all had a good laugh about it. John Podraza Jacksonville, NC The advent of 5G has turned into a serious geopolitical fight actually, two. Why it matters: Being first brings the opportunity to take the lead with the kinds of never-before-possible apps that exploit a new generation of network capabilities. For example, in being first with 4G, the U.S. was able to lead the way with services like Uber and Snapchat. Fight #1: The race to get 5G networks up and running. It's a three-way game right now among the U.S., China, and South Korea. Different studies predict different winners depending on what they measure first to launch, first to achieve broad coverage, and so on. The U.S. is set to have initial 5G smartphone service next year with some very early commercial launches for mobile broadband this year. While the U.S. may be technically first with 5G in a few places, China is spending significantly more and will likely be first with 5G en masse. Some European carriers have been slower to move. Fight #2: The competition over whose technology will power the networks. U.S. security concerns about Chinese equipment have loomed large, and Huawei is one of the major suppliers. As it has in the past, the U.S. won't allow Huawei to supply gear to major U.S. telecom firms, favoring European players Ericsson and Nokia (as well as Korea's Samsung). These concerns that prompted some U.S. officials to ponder earlier this year whether the country needed to nationalize the 5G effort, though that idea was flawed and faded fast. Worries about Chinese influence over 5G is a big reason why the Trump administration blocked Broadcom's attempt to purchase Qualcomm. Be smart: The U.S. has no major cellular network equipment makers. Chipmaker Qualcomm is the biggest American player in the underlying 5G technology. What they're saying: "I don't want the United States to win just so we can wave the flag saying we're number one," FCC Chairman Ajit Pai told Axios. Past winners of network races have "reaped a disproportionate amount of the benefits for their citizens." A study commissioned by the cell phone trade group CTIA estimated that U.S. companies won $125 billion in revenue by leading in 4G. Go deeper: Why being first in 5g matters (WSJ) Floodwaters from Hurricane Florence have breached a 1,100-acre cooling lake dam at the L.V. Sutton Power Station in North Carolina, about 8 miles northwest of Wilmington, Duke Energy told Axios. The power plant, which now runs on natural gas, has shut down in response to the flooding. Why it matters: Coal ash contains hazardous heavy metals that are harmful to human health, such as arsenic and mercury. If these pollutants enter water supplies, they pose a serious hazard to public health. The details: Duke Energy also had an incident at this plant earlier this week, when the company reported that Sutton Lake had not been compromised despite an adjacent coal ash landfill losing enough waste to fill about 200 dump trucks. However, the ongoing spill is a new, more significant breach associated with the same facility, and coal ash may now be flowing into the Cape Fear River from two areas. A recent Duke statement indicates that floodwaters caused several breaches in a dam on the south end of Sutton Lake, which is flowing directly into the Cape Fear River. The lake is also being overtopped from the north, and waters are flowing into other parts of the plant. A Duke Energy photo showing the Sutton cooling lake waters exiting a breach at the south end back to the Cape Fear River on September 21, 2018. Photo: Duke Energy. The company said cenospheres, which are light, hollow beads that are byproducts of coal combustion, are moving into the river. However, the company believes that more hazardous coal ash in two basins at the site have not been compromised. "Site personnel are supplementing on-site supplies with large stone and other materials, engineering experts are moving to the site and personnel continue to develop and activate repair plans." Duke Energy statement But Pete Harrison, a staff attorney for Earthjustice, told Axios that coal ash was visible on the river as of Friday afternoon. "You mostly see these swirling plumes of white coal ash, and that extends for miles downstream," he said by phone from a boat on the Cape Fear River, just downstream from the plant. "Very clearly, coal ash is entering the Cape Fear River now and has been all afternoon." Pete Harrison, Earthjustice staff attorney The cenospheres that Duke Energy says are not hazardous can contain more dangerous coal ash materials attached to them, Harrison said, disputing Duke Energy's portrayal. "The most visible stuff is going to be the cenospheres," he said, "but it appears that there are suspended particles in the water that aren't afloat." The cause: The Cape Fear River is still rising and is expected to crest on Saturday after record rains inundated the state from the slow-moving hurricane. The state set a record for the most rain ever recorded during any tropical storm or hurricane, beating the previous record by nearly 1 foot. The river may not drop below levels that breached parts of the power station until Tuesday, Harrison said. Go deeper: Florence's floods claim more lives, as pollution concerns mount. Google's upper management is forcing employees to delete a confidential memo detailing a censored search engine the company is planning to launch in China, reports The Intercept. Why it matters: Google employees have had internal protests over the search engine, codenamed Dragonfly, given the engine would enable the company to censor and track Chinese citizens. The details: The search engine requires users to log in to use its search features and tracks user's locations. It shares user's history with a Chinese partner. All searches would be connected to a personal phone number and user movements, along with the IP address of the device they used, would be recorded. Driving the news: The memo was released earlier this month, but Google personnel is emailing employees who they believe have saved copies of the memo with an order to immediately delete it. Ireland revoked the ban on abortion this week, and under new law expected to reach legislature next month, women wont have to front the cost of services, NPR reports citing the country's Health Minister Simon Harris. Why it matters: When the ban on abortion was enforced in Ireland under the Eighth Amendment, thousands of women traveled to the United Kingdom to have the procedure done. By keeping the procedure free through the Irish healthcare system, Harris says he hopes to prevent the start of private clinics and deter women from traveling outside Ireland to seek abortions, per the Irish Examiner. 1 big thing: Trump says "It is time to take a stand on China" President Trump last night reiterated his stance on the trade war against China, telling Fox News host Sean Hannity: "Well, it is time to take a stand on China. We have no choice. You know it has been a long time. They have been hurting us." Background: The White House announcement Monday of the next round of tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports promised: If China takes retaliatory action against our farmers or other industries, we will immediately pursue phase three, which is tariffs on approximately $267 billion of additional imports. The other side: China immediately responded by saying there'd be a new round of tariffs from them as well, but so far there's been no announcement of the threatened retaliation details. That may change in the next few days. My thought bubble: The U.S. announcement of the new tariffs and threats of even more unless China surrenders unconditionally, was on the 87th anniversary of the September 18, 1931, Mukden Incident that was used as the pretext for Japan to invade Manchuria. This supports the point to just about everyone in China paying attention that Americas real goal is to keep China down, and that China has become too reliant on American markets, technology and imports. Even in the very unlikely event there's a short-term deal between the U.S. and China, the message seems crystal clear now to the PRC that America has a broad strategy to contain Chinas rise. It further bolsters Chinese President Xi Jinping's position, as described in an April piece I wrote about the U.S. smackdown on ZTE: While the company may end up crippled, the episode has strategic and propaganda value for Beijing. The timing of the announcement right before the 2nd anniversary of an important speech on cybersecurity and technology made by Chinese President Xi Jinping only serves to strengthen the point he's been making about the need to reduce reliance on foreign, and especially American, technologies. Why it matters: Some say the U.S. may be underestimating China's resolve to lessen its dependence on America. Reuters offers a good inside look at China's strategy in the soybean trade war: Many foreign business people and politicians have underestimated the determination of Chinese people to support the government in a trade war, said Mu [Yan Kui], vice chairman of Yihai Kerry, owned by Singapore-based Wilmar International Just one prong of the strategy Mu detailed to slash soymeal content in pig feed could obliterate Chinese demand for U.S. soybeans if broadly adopted, according to Reuters calculations. Cutting the soy ration for hogs from the typical 20 percent to 12 percent would equate to a demand reduction of up to 27 million tonnes of soybeans per year an amount equal to 82 percent of Chinese soy imports from the United States last year. Chinese farmers could cut soymeal rations by nearly half without harming hogs growth, experts and academics said. Quick take: Once they have cut their reliance on American soybeans, why would they ever go back? Go deeper: By Trend Over the past 24 hours, Armenian armed forces have 112 times violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said Sept. 22. Armenian armed forces were using heavy machine guns. 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 Trend The national seminar on "The role of sustainable agriculture and food industry in achieving Sustainable Development Goals in Azerbaijan" will be held in Baku on September 24 in order to improve the capabilities for the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals in the country. The aim of the seminar is to analyze multilateral and multi-purpose links between agriculture and Sustainable Development Goals in Azerbaijan. The seminar is aimed at state (ministries, state agencies and committees) and non-state (civil society, private sector) institutions engaged in the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals in Azerbaijan, especially in the fields of agriculture, food industry, forestry and fisheries. The three "acceleration platforms" have been defined for Azerbaijan in the MAPS (Merger, Acceleration and Policy Support) report: inclusive labor market, promotion of green growth, delivery of developed public and social services. The agriculture can play a significant role in at least two "acceleration platforms" related to labor markets and green growth. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations supports the government of Azerbaijan in the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals in the agricultural and food sector. The project entitled as "Enhancement of support for the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals in Azerbaijan", implemented with the technical and scientific support of the Vienna University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, is aimed at ending poverty, hunger, to ensure gender equality, clean water and sanitation, responsible consumption and production, combating climate change, protection of the marine ecosystem, protection of the Earth's ecosystem. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz Outmatched. Photo: Tom Fox/Pool/Getty Images Botham Shem Jean was murdered in his apartment by a police officer, and the most exculpatory account for her actions that she mistakenly believed she was in her own home is highly damning. Dallas police subsequently leaked the claim that Jean possessed a small amount of marijuana in his home in a blatant attempt to tarnish his image and retroactively justify the murder. Texas Senate candidate Beto ORourke has denounced this incident as an example of racial injustice in policing, of which there is overwhelming evidence exists on a wide scale. (Radley Balko recently compiled a vast store of rigorous evidence of the criminal justice system mistreating African-Americans.) ORourkes opponent, Ted Cruz, who is attempting to paint him as a left-wing radical, tweeted a short clip of ORourke denouncing Jeans murder during a town hall at the Good Street Baptist Church in Dallas: From Cruzs point of view, the clip is damning of his opponent. It is not clear precisely which part of ORourkes argument he disagrees with that its wrong for police to murder an innocent person in their home? That it was wrong for them to release the claim that the murder victim had some pot in his house? That ORourke opposes the killings of unarmed black men in general? Cruz has not taken issue with any of these specific points on the campaign trail. Instead he has tended to dissolve the issue into a broader question of respect for the police, which he displays with his characteristic smarm. Nowhere in this clip does ORourke attack the police in general, dispute the need for effective policing, or insist that all or most officers are racist. The element that Cruz considers damning is ORourke campaigning against police injustice (even a very clear one) before a heavily black audience. Cruz understands that his victory requires overwhelming support and turnout from whites, and he believes that if his opponent is seen as representing African-Americans and their dismay with the system, it will cause a white backlash from which he will benefit. This is not Trump-style overt racism. It is old-fashioned conservative wink-and-nod Willie Horton racism, leading the audience toward the desired conclusion without shouting it out for them like Trump does. There have been innumerable attempts to show how Trump managed to take over the GOP, and why figures like Cruz, an avatar for the intellectual vanguard of the conservative movements elite, adapted themselves to his takeover so easily. By Trend Azerbaijani Defense Minister, Colonel General Zakir Hasanov met with newly appointed Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Azerbaijan Mikhail Bocharnikov on September 21, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said in a message. Congratulating the ambassador on the beginning of diplomatic activity in Azerbaijan, Hasanov wished him success regarding the expanding cooperation between Azerbaijan and Russia. Hasanov stressed that bilateral relations between Azerbaijan and Russia, like in many areas, are successfully developing in the military, military-technical spheres and in the field of military education. Noting that the Azerbaijan-Russia relations have rich history, Hasanov expressed confidence that the relations will continue to develop successfully. Expressing satisfaction with the beginning of activity in Azerbaijan as ambassador, the diplomat assured that he would make every effort to develop the Azerbaijan-Russia relations, in particular, cooperation in the military sphere. During the meeting, the parties discussed the military-political situation in the region, the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and other issues of mutual interest. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Azerbaijan is a country that has reached important achievements in many spheres, Chairman of the Kuwaiti National Assembly Marzouq Al-Ghanim said. Al-Ghanim made the remarks in Baku on Sept. 21 at a ceremonial meeting dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Azerbaijani parliament. "On behalf of the Kuwaiti people, I cordially congratulate the Azerbaijani people on the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the parliament, he said. We will never forget that after the restoration of independence, Azerbaijan always supports the rights of Kuwait within international organizations. Azerbaijan always supports us, he added. Azerbaijans support for Kuwaits membership in the UN Security Council testifies to that. Therefore, we feel proud that we are among our brothers and friends." Speaking about the relations between the two countries, Al-Ghanim stressed that important achievements have been recently reached in the political, economic and cultural spheres between Azerbaijan and Kuwait. There are great opportunities for further expansion of these ties, he added. "We are interested in developing relations with such an important country as Azerbaijan playing the role of an economic and cultural bridge between East and West, Al-Ghanim said. The development of relations with such an important country as Azerbaijan is of exceptional importance. First of all, Azerbaijan is a country that has achieved important success in many spheres. In 2017, 20,000 Kuwaitis visited Azerbaijan, but we intend to double this figure, he said. This will positively affect the trade turnover and the process of making investments between the two countries. At the same time, we intend to intensify cooperation between the two countries in the cultural sphere. We are also interested in cooperation in the sphere of youth and sports." Al-Ghanim stressed that the Kuwaiti National Assembly is interested in strengthening cooperation with the Azerbaijani parliament. There are good opportunities for cooperation both within the parliamentary organizations and at the level of interparliamentary friendship groups, he said. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend The self-evaluation level 1 (SEL-1) of the Azerbaijani armys helicopters was held in Baku as part of NATO Operational Capabilities Concept Evaluation and Feedback Program (OCC E&F), Azerbaijans Defense Ministry said in a message Sept. 21. The conformity of the equipment, communication assets and other necessary operational capabilities of the helicopter pair with NATO standards, as well as the fulfillment of tactical tasks during various operations, were evaluated in the course of the exercise. The NATO Monitor Team and the Turkish Air Force specialists observed the evaluation of the helicopters. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend The inter-parliamentary relations have played a special role in the development of French-Azerbaijani relations, the President of the Association of Friends of Azerbaijan in France Jean-Francois Mansell said, speaking at a solemn meeting dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Azerbaijani Parliament. He noted that the establishment of the Parliament 100 years ago in the times of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was an important step. "By creating the first democratic state in the Muslim East, Azerbaijan has demonstrated how important it is for representatives of different religions and peoples to coexist together," said Mansell. He stressed that during the times of the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan, the Parliament had ratified more than 300 documents, including the decision to grant women the right to vote. It became an example for the whole world. Touching upon the history of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, Jean-Francois Mansell spoke about the exceptional merits of the first Chairman of the Azerbaijani Parliament Alimardan Bey Topchubashov. He stressed that inter-parliamentary relations have played a special role in the development of French-Azerbaijani relations. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend The Parliament contributed to the transformation of Azerbaijan into an important state in the region, the President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly George Tsereteli said, speaking at a solemn meeting dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Azerbaijani Parliament. He noted that the first Parliament in Azerbaijan was established 100 years ago. "This date is an indication of how the people of Azerbaijan are committed to development and prosperity. Considering this, we see that it is of great importance not only from a historical point of view, but also for the future," he said. Tsereteli added that the foundation of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic contributed to the creation of modern Azerbaijan, the increase of its power, development of various industries in the country, the strengthening of economic and material sovereignty of the country. "Being in the shadow of the "Flame Towers", we can feel the heritage of Azerbaijan, see the success achieved in the history of its independence. The Parliament of modern Azerbaijan, following in the footsteps of its predecessor, has contributed to the economic development of the country and its transformation into an important state in the region," he said. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend When listing foreign states, we do not include Azerbaijan into this category, the Chairman of the Great National Assembly (Parliament) of Turkey Binali Yildirim said, speaking at a solemn meeting dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Azerbaijani Parliament. "We belong to the same nation. Our freedom and prosperity are linked to each other. We share joy and sorrow. We have common hopes, dreams and ideals. We speak the same language, think alike," Binali Yildirim said. Yildirim noted that 100 years ago Azerbaijan and Turkey waged a fierce struggle not to be erased from the historical scene. "The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was established a hundred years ago. Some 100 years ago, the Azerbaijani Parliament fulfilled an important task. Even today, the Parliament plays a big role in the achievements of Azerbaijan. After the restoration of independence, Azerbaijan has passed a long way of development and achieved economic success. This development can be seen when passing through the streets of Baku. Thanks to the path outlined by the great leader Heydar Aliyev, and under the leadership of President Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijan has achieved great success and made an important contribution to peace and stability in the region. Turkey has always been close to Azerbaijan and supported its independence," he said. He stressed that Azerbaijan and Turkey have jointly implemented important projects to strengthen cooperation in the region. "The construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway line and other similar initiatives serve to deepen cooperation," the chairman added. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend The exclusion of Armenia because of its aggressive policy from participating in all projects implemented by Azerbaijan is the reality of the region, member of the Azerbaijani Parliament Hikmet Babaoglu told Trend. He noted that the holding of a solemn event dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Parliament of Azerbaijan, and the participation of numerous representatives of friendly and fraternal countries, delegations of international organizations are already regarded as a historic event. This event once again brought to the attention of the world community the proud and glorious history, the history of the statehood of Azerbaijan, its present and future, said the MP. "The whole world has once again seen that the people of Azerbaijan has a high culture of statehood, a rich history of parliamentarianism and has once again proved this by creating the first democratic republic 100 years ago, ensuring human rights and freedoms, recognizing the electoral right of women," Babaoglu said. The Azerbaijani MP also noted that President Ilham Aliyev, who spoke at this anniversary event, described the creation of the first democratic republic as an important historical event, stressed that he highly appreciates the activities of the ADR (Azerbaijani Democratic Republic) and its founders, and noted that a number of events were held this year at the state level within the "Year of the ADR". The MP said that President Ilham Aliyev, who touched upon the importance of the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem, stressed that the entire infrastructure had been destroyed in the occupied lands, national heritage had been plundered, and a war crime - the Khojaly genocide had been committed against the Azerbaijani people. "Nagorno-Karabakh is historical land of Azerbaijan, and it will not receive any status outside the sovereignty of Azerbaijan," Babaoglu added. "The guests were informed about the commitment of our country to democratic values, the presence of a highly tolerant environment, the existence and development of traditions of multiculturalism, the achievements in the construction of the rule of law and it was stated that our country will continue this policy. The successes achieved by Azerbaijan in a short period of history, the determination to defend its national interests are a clear example of commitment to the traditions of the ADR," Babaoglu said. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict should be resolved shortly, the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan should be restored, the Chairman of the Great Britain-Azerbaijan Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Group Bob Blackman said, speaking at a solemn meeting dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Azerbaijani Parliament. He said that the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Azerbaijani Parliament is an event of great importance. "100 years ago women were granted the right to vote in Azerbaijan. Unfortunately, the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic existed for a short time, but the Azerbaijani people restored their independence in 70 years," Blackman said. Expressing satisfaction with the level of cooperation between the UK and Azerbaijan, Bob Blackman said that Great Britain is directly involved in the economy of Azerbaijan. "Today, Azerbaijani-British relations are expanding in various spheres. High-level meetings also play an important role in strengthening our ties," the parliamentarian said. He noted that today, as a result of democratic development, Azerbaijan has become a country opening up to the world. "The country successfully holds important international events, including Eurovision song contest, European Games, Formula 1 competitions. Over the past eight years, I have visited Azerbaijan six times and I am an eyewitness of the country's development," he said. The member of the British Parliament noted the importance of implementing the UN Security Council resolutions related to the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. "This conflict, which has been lasting for a long time, should be resolved as soon as possible, the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan should be restored," he said. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend It is gratifying that after 100 years, the independent Azerbaijan is developing as a modern state, the President of the National Assembly of Bulgaria Tsveta Karayancheva said, speaking at the ceremonial meeting dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Azerbaijani Parliament. Karayancheva noted that the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic functioned for a short time, but despite this played a crucial role in the subsequent history of Azerbaijan. "For the first time in the Muslim East, the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan has granted equal electoral rights to men and women and has taken a number of similar important progressive steps. It is encouraging that 100 years later, Azerbaijan continues its path of democratic development and develops as a modern state," said Karayancheva. She stressed that Bulgaria attaches special importance to relations with Azerbaijan. "The cooperation relations in various fields have been established between our countries. There are relations between the parliaments of Azerbaijan and Bulgaria based on mutual respect," she said. Karayancheva noted that Azerbaijan and Bulgaria also fruitfully cooperate in the framework of international organizations. Bulgaria is making a positive contribution to the negotiations between Azerbaijan and the European Union. "Azerbaijan plays an important role in the energy security of Europe, including Bulgaria. I should also note that there is enough potential for even greater cooperation between the two countries. I believe that the signing of the Joint Declaration on strategic partnership between our countries creates favorable conditions for expanding our cooperation. We can expand our cooperation in the field of energy, agriculture, trade, etc.", Karayancheva said. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend The next round of negotiations on a new partnership agreement between the European Union (EU) and Azerbaijan will be held on October 2-3 in Brussels, the Head of the Delegation of the European Union (EU) to Azerbaijan Kestutis Jankauskas told journalists on Sept. 22. According to him, the political component of the agreement will be discussed during the negotiations. Azerbaijan will be represented at the talks by the Deputy Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan Mahmud Mammadguliyev. The European Council adopted a mandate for the European Commission and the high representative for foreign affairs and security policy to negotiate, on behalf of the EU and its member states, a comprehensive agreement with Azerbaijan in November 2016. The new agreement should replace the 1996 partnership and cooperation agreement and should better take account of the shared objectives and challenges the EU and Azerbaijan face today. The agreement will follow the principles endorsed in the 2015 review of the European Neighborhood Policy and offer a renewed basis for political dialogue and mutually beneficial cooperation between the EU and Azerbaijan. Currently, bilateral relations between the EU and Azerbaijan are regulated on the basis of an agreement on partnership and cooperation that was signed in 1996 and entered into force in 1999. The new agreement envisages the compliance of Azerbaijans legislation and procedures with the EUs most important international trade norms and standards, which should lead to the improvement of Azerbaijani goods access to the EU markets. -- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz "For the first time ever, we are bringing the campaign into high schools to the point of contact where they are doing the behavior", said Kathy Crosby, who directs the Office of Health Communication and Education at the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products. The "hard-hitting" advertising, which will detail the risky chemicals that e-cigarettes can contain, will also appear on social media and websites that are popular with teens, including YouTube, Pandora and Instagram. Meanwhile, the FDA is also ferreting out retailers who sell vaping products to minors, sending more than 1,100 warning letters to stores caught selling e-cigarettes to minors and levying fines on 131 repeat offenders. The FDA hopes that requiring tobacco companies to dramatically cut nicotine in traditional cigarettes will encourage people to, if not quit, at least transition onto e- cigarettes, nicotine gums or patches, lowering their risks of cancer and serious respiratory ailments. "No youth should ever use e-cigs", Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams said in a video during Tuesday's announcement. The FDA is giving the five largest e-cigarette makers - Juul, Vuse, Blu, MarkTen XL and Logic - 60 days to submit plans to curb sales of their products to underage consumers. Some fear that "vaping" might serve as a gateway to using other tobacco products. Of course, Altria and others risk having their own e-cigs banned too, but analysts say the big tobacco companies are in a much better position. In fact, more than 2 million middle and high school students used e-cigarettes in 2017, according to the FDA. Most e-cigarettes use replaceable, liquid-filled cartridges that come in a variety of flavors. A government-commissioned report in January found "substantial evidence" that young people who use e-cigarettes are more likely to try cigarettes. "E-cigs have become an nearly ubiquitous - and unsafe - trend among teens", Gottlieb said. Previously, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb had said e-cigarettes and vape pens could be a tool to help adult smokers to quit smoking cigarettes. Jordan Peele to narrate the new Twilight Zone, see first teaser Now we've learned, via Variety , that Peele will not only be producing The Twilight Zone , but hosting and narrating it as well. In the clip of the host announcement below, you'll hear a mix of Serling and Peele's voices doing the iconic opening intro. "We've had to start taking some actions before the final results of this data can be made public". But we have an obligation to act on what we know. The effort will include digital, social media and school ads. It's previously been shown that teens who smoke regular cigarettes are more likely to consume cannabis. If that's the case they want to market to that age group. "Today's teens were on the cusp of being the first generation to broadly reject cigarette smoking but instead have become hooked on nicotine due to a decade of lax oversight over e-cigarette products", she added. Thomas Eissenberg, Director of the Center, says E-cigarettes are one of their concerns. But fruit and other kid-friendly flavors and compact, stylish e-cigarette designs have drawn youth to vaping, and public health officials have noted big upticks over the last couple of years. "But we may have to narrow the off-ramp for adults to close the on-ramp for kids". The new ad campaign is funded by user fees collected from the tobacco industry - not taxpayers, FDA said. That's what the nation's top health officials at the Food and Drug Administration announced last week as it ordered e-cigarette manufacturers to stop advertising their products to teens. By Trend Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has sent a congratulatory letter to Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King of Saudi Arabia Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. "On my own behalf and on behalf of the people of Azerbaijan, I sincerely congratulate you and through you all the people of your country on the occasion of Saudi National Day. On this festive day, I wish you good health and happiness, and the brotherly people of Saudi Arabia lasting peace and prosperity", Ilham Aliyev said in his letter. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will visit the US on Sept. 23-27, where he will address the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly and take part in a high-level meeting on migration issues, the Turkish presidential press service said in a statement Sept. 21, RIA Novosti reported. As part of the session, on Sept. 24, Erdogan will attend a high-level meeting on migration issues, the statement said. He will deliver a speech at the UN General Assembly on Sept. 25. On the sidelines of the session, Erdogan will also hold bilateral meetings with the UN secretary general, heads of state and government of several countries, meet with representatives of business circles of the US, Muslim and Turkish communities. Erdogans Spokesperson Ibrahim Kalin said that the issue of the Turkish presidents meeting with US President Donald Trump hasnt been decided yet. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Issues of international security and bilateral relations were in focus of a telephone conversation between Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe Curtis Scaparrotti, the Russian defense ministry said on Friday, TASS reported. "On September 21, 2018, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces and First Deputy Defense Minister Army General Valery Gerasimov had a telephone conversation with NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe Curtis Scaparrotti," the ministry said. "The sides exchanged views on the pressing issues of international security and the current state of Russia-NATO relations," the ministry said. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed condolences to the Iranian government and nation over a deadly attack in the city of Ahvaz in the southwestern Iran, RT Arabic, formerly known as Rusiya Al-Yaum, reported. In a telephone conversation with his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani on Sept. 22, Putin further said that Moscow is ready to boost its anti-terror cooperation with Tehran, media reports said. During the military parade in Ahvaz, which was staged concurrently with nationwide military parades on Saturday to mark the Sacred Defense Week, militants opened fire at the people participating in the ceremony. Deputy Governor of Khuzestan Province Ali Hossein Hosseinzadeh told Tasnim that the number of martyrs is likely to increase because some of the wounded were in critical condition. He also said that the security forces managed to kill two of the terrorists in the clash and arrest the other two. Irans Armed Forces staged the countrywide military parades to mark the Sacred Defense Week on the 38th anniversary of the onset of the Iraqi imposed war on the Islamic Republic back in 1980. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz "I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place!" he added. Hirono and other Democrats have called for an FBI investigation into the matter, but Republicans have continued to deny the request. Articles appear on euronews.com for a limited time. 'I think at some point, the country is going to catch up - women are angry about what's been happening and not just to Dr. Ford, ' Podulka said. It is something, she said, that was not surprising to hear given the culture of drinking and partying, but she remembers being struck by the "gravity" of what was being talked about. Leading the way for the GOP is President Donald Trump, the former reality show star who on Friday attacked Ford's credibility and zeroes in on people who "make me look as bad as possible". The accusations from Christine Blasey Ford, denied vehemently by Kavanaugh, threaten to slow his Senate confirmation vote, with Democrats saying the FBI should investigate the charges, a demand that is not gaining traction among Republicans. Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, has indicated Monday (Tuesday NZT) would be Ford's only chance to make her case, but that was several days ago. They argue they've given every opportunity for Ford to get her story directly to the Judiciary Committee without the involvement of the Federal Bureau of Investigation - either to committee staffers or to members. A much larger number of female Democratic senators are serving to highlight the optics of elderly, white Republican men interrogating a woman in defense of a judicial nominee whose commitment to Roe v. Wade is suspect. "You're raising legitimate questions that are still on our mind", Grassley said, "and so these details are still being worked out". Donald Trump's SC pick, sexual abuse accuser to testify Judge and Kavanaugh both attended Georgetown Preparatory School, a private all-boys Catholic school in North Bethesda, Maryland. In "Wasted", Judge wrote about a character named "Bart O'Kavanaugh" who drank until he passed out, according to the Post. Professor Ford has asked the committee to subpoena Mark Judge, who she said was in the room at the time of the alleged incident. The committee is expected to announce next steps later Friday. The Republican-controlled panel set a hearing for Monday. That Ford revealed her story in couples therapy six years ago and that there apparently exists a psychologist's notes corroborating this makes it less likely she invented the charges to derail Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination, though the federal judge's ascent to the nation's highest court was reportedly something she was anxious about. He denies the allegations. Capitol Police arrested 56 protesters Thursday who flooded Senate office buildings to voice opposition to Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and express support for his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford. Kavanaugh appeared headed toward eventual confirmation by the Republican-controlled Senate, but after Ford made the public accusations against Kavanaugh in a Washington Post interview last weekend, Democrats opposed to Kavanaugh and some Republicans called for a new hearing to allow Ford to testify and Kavanaugh to respond. "Brett was the kind of guy you wanted to take home to your parents", said Maura Fitzgerald, a longtime friend since high school who once dated Kavanaugh. You've watched the tactics. Trump also lashed out at Sen. She said she is willing to testify at earliest on Thursday. Feinstein tweeted this week that Ford had sought confidentiality and "I honored that". By Wednesday night, she'd deleted her social media profiles. The Californian's Robert Price answers your questions and takes your complaints about our news coverage in this weekly feedback forum. Questions may be edited for space and clarity. To offer your input by phone, call 395-7649 and leave your comments in a voicemail message or email us at soundoff@bakersfield.com. Include your name and phone number; they wont be published. A day after the statement by former French President Francois Hollande on the Rafale deal raised a storm in New Delhi, Congress President Rahul Gandhi opened fire against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In a press conference on Saturday, Gandhi said that Hollande's statement clearly indicates that there was corruption in the Rafale deal and asked PM Modi to clear his stand on the comment Former French president Francois Hollande was quoted as saying that the Indian government proposed Anil Ambani's Reliance Defence as the partner for Dassault Aviation in the Rs 58,000 crore Rafale jet fighter deal, and the French government had no say in the matter. Hollande was in power when the Rafale deal was signed between India and France. "It is a question of the dignity of the office of the Prime Minister. It is a question of the future of our soldiers, the future of our Air Force. What I am surprised is that the Prime Minister is completely silent. Not one word has come out of the Prime Minister's mouth about this (Hollande's) comment," Gandhi said while addressing the press meet. Gandhi strongly suggested that PM Modi should clarify his stand as to whether there is any truth in Hollande's comment."It is very important for the prime minister now to either accept Mr. Hollande's statement or state that Mr. Hollande is lying and tell what the truth is," he said. We are absolutely convinced that the Prime Minister of India is corrupt, he added. He also claimed that various defence ministers of the NDA government have been lying to protect Modi. "Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that she will disclose the prices of Rafale jets. But then she reneged on grounds that the prices are secret. French President Macron has said that the Indian government can disclose the price to whoever it wants," Gandhi said. The opposition party has been accusing the government of choosing Reliance Defence over state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd to benefit the private firm though it did not have any experience in the aerospace sector. "Anil Ambani has never built an aircraft in his life. He floated his company few days before the deal, yet, the deal was taken away from HAL and given to Anil Ambani, who has a Rs 45,000 crore debt," Gandhi said. Gandhi reiterated his demand of forming a joint parliamentary committee to probe the Rafale deal, and went on to suggest that Hollande can also be called. "This matter should be examined by a Joint Parliamentary Commentary. The truth will come out," he said. In retaliation, the ruling BJP condemned as "shameful and irresponsible" remarks by Congress chief Rahul Gandhi against PM Modi over the Rafale deal, saying no president of any party has ever used such language against a prime minister. Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad hit back at Gandhi's allegations of corruption in the Rafale deal. He said Reliance and Dassault had entered into agreement as early as 2012 when UPA was in power. He also ruled out a joint parliamentary committee probe saying it cannot be done to satisfy the ego of an "ill-informed leader". Prasad accused Gandhi of "playing into the hands of Pakistan and China" by seeking the details of the Rafale fighter jets. He also alleged that there was pressure for extraneous considerations and "bribe" for not finalising the Rafale deal during the UPA rule despite holding negotiations for years. Modi had announced the procurement of a batch of 36 Rafale jets after holding talks with then French president Hollande on April 10, 2015 in Paris. Edited by Vivek Punj with PTI inputs Expecting a lot from India,bit hasty on Pakistans part: Khawaja Asif SIALKOT: Former minister of foreign affairs, Khawaja Asif, said on Friday night that expecting a lot from India was a bit hasty on Pakistans part. While speaking to a private channel, the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) leader remarked that Pakistani leaders should not compromise on the nations honour if this was how India had to behave. First, the incumbent Prime Minister and their minister issue a statement, and then, later, it turns out to be something else entirely different, he explained. They should learn some manners, Asif concluded. Earlier, the Indian government had called off the meeting of foreign ministers of Pakistan and India, which was scheduled in New York on the sidelines of United Nation General Assembly (UNGA) later this month. With less than 12 million health workers for a population of 1.4 billion, China is facing an unprecedented physician shortage, but it may have found a solution in technology, France 24 reports. Tech firms in China are turning to big data and artificial intelligence to develop new devices that can take some work off physicians' plates. One of these companies, Ping An Good Doctor, offers an automated pulse-taking machine that spits back results to a wearer's mobile phone. That device which acts as a digital "receptionist" that sends information to a real-life physician is part of Ping An's AI-assisted medical consultation system that patients use to conduct quick preliminary check-ups and get prescriptions without having to go to the hospital. Importantly, these new tools are helping Chinese patients in underserved communities connect with medical experts in big cities. "We are imitating and duplicating the skills of qualified doctors, the ones from tertiary-level [highest-level] hospitals, and spread it to smaller cities and local counties," Fang Qu, chief technology officer at Proxima, a healthcare technology company focusing on AI-assisted medical imaging diagnosis, told France 24. A former physician added, "It can definitely ease China's doctor shortage problem ... With the assistance of AI, it can relieve doctors from doing the mundane, simple and repetitive work." Nest, Google's home automation business, quietly acquired the Seattle-based health monitoring startup Senosis in summer 2017, CNBC reports. Here are five things to know about Nest, and why it is keeping it digital health ambitions under the radar: 1. In late August 2017, GeekWire reported that Google bought Senosis, which has several apps that use smartphones to collect users' health data. These apps are capable of diagnosing conditions like pulmonary function and hemoglobin counts. 2. Records reviewed by CNBC show it was actually Nest that acquired the startup, which spun out of the University of Washington in Seattle. However, Nest told its team and Senosis that they couldn't mention Nest or publicize the sale. 3."It turns out Nest is much more secretive than the rest of Google or Alphabet," Senosis co-founder Shwetak Patel wrote to the vice president of University of Washington's innovation hub in June 2017. "They seem to be particularly sensitive in this situation since they don't want people to know they are getting into a whole new line of business, digital health, until they are ready to publicly announce." 4. Google's corporate counsel also directed those involved with the sale to use "Google" instead of "Nest" on outside forms and in internal discussions to prevent speculation, emails reviewed by CNBC show. 5. CNBC previously reported Nest was exploring a product line for to help seniors live independently longer. Hanif Abbasi shifted to Attock jail PML-N leader Mohammad Hanif Abbasi was on Saturday morning shifted from Adiala prison in Rawalpindi to Attock jail. Abbasi, who is serving a life sentence after his conviction in the ephedrine quota case, was shifted to the prison in Attock in the early hours of Saturday on the recommendation of a two-member inquiry committee, a source in Adiala jail said. The committee was formed to investigate how photographs were taken of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, PML-N president Shahbaz Sharif and others in the office of the Central Jail Adiala superintendent prior to Sharifs release on Wednesday on orders of the Islamabad High Court. Abbasi was one of the leaders seen in the photo. ANF had registered a case against Abbasi and his accomplices in June 2012 under sections 9-C, 14 and 15 of the Control of Narcotics Substances (CNS) Act for misuse of 500kg of ephedrine. The CNS Court of Rawalpindi sentenced Hanif Abbasi to lifetime in prison in the case just before the July 25 general elections. Apple recently listed several job openings on its website related to its health business. Here are five job listings the company recently posted: 1. Health technologies team, engineering project manager: lead development efforts for projects related to health technology 2. User studies exercise physiologist: design and run user studies related to cardiovascular fitness, energy metabolism, biomechanics, and measurement and tracking 3. Health sensing, sensing hardware electrical engineer: design, develop and launch next-generation sensor technologies for Apple products 4. Health software team, quality engineering manager: lead a team that provides automated test coverage for client-based software and services 5. Legal group, health privacy counsel: provide legal support for Apple products and businesses worldwide Norfolk, Neb.-based Faith Regional Health Services has tapped interim CEO Kelly Driscoll to take on the role permanently, according to the Norfolk Daily News. Ms. Driscoll joined the hospital as vice president of patient care services in 2011 and was promoted to senior vice president and COO in 2013. She served as interim president and CEO of Faith Regional in 2014 before Mark Klosterman took over. When Mr. Klosterman resigned in August, she took on the responsibilities again. "Kelly has been a true asset to Faith Regional over the past seven years," said John Dinkel, board chairman of Faith Regional Health Services "Shes been instrumental to the organizations growth of services, recruitment and quality achievements. Her wealth of knowledge and experience will lead Faith Regional to continued success as a regional partner providing high quality health care close to home." Two clinic owner-operators and a physician in Texas were found guilty of participating in a $17 million Medicare fraud scheme, according to the Department of Justice. A federal jury convicted John P. Ramirez, MD, and clinic operators Ann Nwoko Shepherd and Yvette Nwoko of one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud, in addition to other charges. According to the allegations, Ms. Shepherd owned and operated a medical clinic in Houston doing business as Amex Medical Clinic. From December 2011 to August 2015, Ms. Shepherd sold medical orders and other documents signed by Dr. Ramirez to home health agencies in and near Houston, according to the Justice Department. Dr. Ramirez allegedly falsely certified medical orders with information about patients' conditions and medical needs. Ms. Nwoko joined the scheme later as manager of Amex Medical Clinic. The false and fraudulent paperwork was then used by co-conspirators at the home health agencies to bill Medicare. In total, the co-conspirators fraudulently billed Medicare about $17 million, according to the evidence. Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 12. More articles on legal & regulatory issues: UMass Memorial pays $230K to settle data breaches affecting 15K patients Illinois Supreme Court: Hospitals' property tax exemption is constitutional 3 Boston hospitals fined nearly $1M for letting 'Boston Trauma' film on-site, breaching HIPAA UMass Memorial Health Care in Worcester, Mass., agreed to pay a $230,000 settlement to resolve claims that two separate data breaches exposed the personal and health information of more than 15,000 patients. A complaint filed one week before the settlement was announced claimed that two former UMass Memorial employees improperly accessed patients' personal and protected health information for fraudulent purposes. Patients' names, addresses, Social Security numbers, clinical data and health insurance information had been exposed. The state Attorney General's Office claimed the hospital violated HIPAA, as well as the Consumer Protection Act and the Massachusetts Data Security Law, when it allegedly failed to adequately protect patient data. Specifically, the complaint alleges the hospital was aware of its employees' misconduct, but that it didn't investigate the incidents or take action against the employees involved. "Massachusetts residents rely on their healthcare providers to keep private health information safe and secure," Attorney General Maura Healey said in a news release. "This resolution ensures UMass Memorial implements important measures to prevent this type of breach from happening again." Antibiotic-resistant bacteria that infected over 100 people and were associated with pet store puppies spread in part because healthy dogs received antibiotics a decision contributing to antibiotic resistance, according to a study covered by STAT. Over half of the puppies in a sample of about 150 dogs studied in the outbreak investigation received antibiotics not to treat sickness, but to prevent illness, according to the study, published in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. This preventive measure, called prophylaxis, is used in food animal production and is blamed for fueling antibiotic resistance. The outbreak of the bacteria, Campylobacter jejuni, spanned from early 2016 to February 2018. The bacteria causes diarrheal disease. People fell ill in 18 states, 29 of whom were pet store employees. The investigation, which began in August of 2017, found puppies were the source of the issue. "Outbreak isolates were resistant by antibiotic susceptibility testing to all antibiotics commonly used to treat Campylobacter infections," the authors said. "This outbreak demonstrates that puppies can be a source of multidrug-resistant Campylobacter infections in humans, warranting a closer look at antimicrobial use in the commercial dog industry." The CDC is working with veterinarian associations and the commercial dog industry to make changes, said senior study author Mark Laughlin, a veterinarian with the CDC's division of foodborne, waterborne and environmental diseases. Iowa City-based University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics was redesignated as a Magnet hospital from the American Nurses Credentialing Center, the top honor in excellence in nursing practice. University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics was the first Iowa hospital to be named a Magnet hospital in 2004 and is the first hospital in the state to be redesignated twice (2008 and 2013). Fewer than 10 percent of U.S. hospitals have earned Magnet status. "The Magnet designation is the pinnacle of achievement in nursing," said Cindy Dawson, MSN, RN, chief nurse executive and associate director of UI Hospitals & Clinics. "To earn this recognition four times is a tremendous accomplishment and a testament to the high-quality care that our nurses provide to our patients." Any Presbyterian who thought the crisis over same-sex issues would fade away quietly during the summer has been given a sharp awakening by a letter with 602 signatures delivered to the Moderator, Dr Charles McMullen. It was organised by the Creative Conversation Group of Presbyterians, who are disturbed by the judgmentalism in the Church, as well as its lack of grace and inclusivity. The letter was sent to 80 members for signing, but the signatories grew by more then 700%, proving that very many more than 600 Presbyterians are severely critical of the Churchs leadership. The Right-wing drift has been taking place for years, with the dwindling band of liberals unwilling or unable to do anything about it. Matters came to a head at the General Assembly in June, when delegates re-affirmed the Churchs policy of not allowing same-sex couples to receive Communion and refusing to baptise their children. This led to a widespread public controversy, with Lord Alderdice, an elder for more than 30 years, resigning from the Church in protest. This is a leadership that is trying to close things down, he said. Tensions were raised further by a letter from the Church asserting the authority of the General Assembly and seeking to discourage any debate that might give rise to scandal injurious to the purity or unease of the Church. The original word used was contumacy, from the Latin contumacia, meaning a stubborn refusal to obey authority. That is very heavy-handed indeed. This then led to many more people accusing the Church of trying to curtail free speech, and there was and still is widespread dismay because the highly respected Union College Professor of Church History, the Rev Laurence Kirkpatrick, was suspended from his post without any reason given in public, then or now. The recent letter from the Creative Conversation Group to the Moderator underlined that Presbyterians have the God-given right to form their own views, according to their interpretation of Scripture, and that such respectful debate is healthy and should be encouraged. However, the letter was greeted tetchily in a Presbyterian Church reply expressing disappointment that its contents had been given to the media and not confined privately for the attention of the Moderator. It is absurd to think that a letter signed by 602 Presbyterians should not be made public, and the critical reaction of the Church to this step merely underlined the claim from Lord Alderdice and others that the leadership wants to curtail public debate on such important issues. The Church leadership claims that there are many opportunities for dialogue within Presbyterianism, including the General Assembly. However, the Creative Conversation Group letter notes that the Doctrine Report was presented to the Assembly without full and proper consideration for debate, or consideration for its public impact and pastoral considerations. The turgidly written report was not an easy read. However, the anger among Presbyterians lingers on because of the way in which the General Assembly snubbed their Scottish brethren by voting not to invite their Moderators to the Irish General Assembly and not sending Irish Moderators to Scotland because the Scots are more liberal on same-sex issues. One fears that the Right-wing takeover of the Irish Church is almost complete, and if liberals want to win back the centre ground, they will have be prepared to fight, fight and fight again strongly for what they believe in. Have they the courage and stamina to do so? I hope so. In the meantime the Moderator, whose motto is building relationships, could try to use any influence a Moderator now has left, by urging the Irish Church to rebuild the bridge to Scotland, to apologise and to invite back the Scottish Moderators to Ireland. The Irish Presbyterian leadership might also consider how the Church can prepare itself to elect its first female Moderator in this, the 21st century, when most other main churches and organisations have women in high office, and to show more of the grace and all-embracing love that outsiders expect from a Christian organisation. Will this happen? Dont hold your breath, but liberal Presbyterians should never give up their hard-won rights as dissenters. It came with a rap on my bedroom door in the summer of 1972. My mother looked in. She sounded in control, and then told me: "Ted has been shot." She had just returned from Derry, where her younger brother lay critically injured and on life-support in a private ward at Altnagelvin Hospital. It was the middle of the night, and the family quickly adjourned to sit in silence in the front living room of our home in Omagh. Ted Megahey had been in the front seat in the third of four Land Rovers heading in a convoy towards the Irish border to relieve regular soldiers on checkpoint duty on the Buncrana Road. He had been wearing a beret as part of his Ulster Defence Regiment uniform, holding a self-loading rifle with the barrel pointing upwards and, according to one of the men with him, he was remarking about the fading skyline of the distant hills of Donegal. "Isn't that lovely?" he asked. Suddenly, the window of the passenger door shattered, sending shards and splinters of glass on top of him, the driver and the two men in the rear. The driver managed to stop 50 yards further on. Ted was still upright, leaning slightly to his right, but unconscious when they reached inside to carry him out, and by the time he was rested by the roadside they could hear his laboured breathing, and see he had been shot in the back of the head. He was bleeding badly and somebody radioed for an ambulance. He died three days later on June 9, the 396th victim of the Troubles. Uncle Ted was aged 45 and lived with his parents on the family farm at Leganvey House outside the village of Drumquin, 10 miles from Omagh. His father, Edward, a Protestant from Crumlin, Co Antrim, was a retired RUC officer who began his policing career with the Royal Irish Constabulary in Carrick-on-Shannon, Co Leitrim, and who went on to marry a woman from Portglenone. They had four daughters and two sons. None of the grandchildren knew until that Sunday afternoon of the funeral that our grandmother, Mary Jane McCloskey, was once a Catholic. A group of strangers, her relatives, had arrived in the farmyard. Several hundred people walked the three miles behind undertaker Ian Duncan's hearse for the service at the local Church of Ireland on the far side of the village, where my grandmother had become a faithful, and very active, member of the parish. It was a desperately sad occasion. There were a lot of tears, handshakes and commiserations, and it must have taken the best part of two hours before the last of the mourners had departed to leave the family to stand by themselves, and read the cards attached to dozens of floral tributes. The message on the wreath left by his parents read, 'Resting where no shadows fall'. His plot, just yards from the church entrance, was the first to be dug at Lower Langfield. He was among a group of parishioners who had helped clear away trees and shrubbery to make way for the new graveyard. Uncle Ted worked as a panel beater for the bus company, the Ulster Transport Authority, in Omagh. He was balding and retained handsome features, and although a lady from Castlederg had serious designs on him, he never married. He kept himself in great shape. He was a useful boxer, by all accounts, but outside the ring he could be just as quick with his temper and his fists. He was never one for standing back. He was no saint, but he was very well-liked within a close circle of friends. He was a fast driver - especially at the wheel of an old black Austin A40, which once or twice ended up in ditches on the main Omagh-Drumquin road - and he later became the owner of a second-hand Jaguar with an English registration number, which attracted admiring glances. He was as proud as punch when he first pulled up outside our home in his gleaming new light-blue car. I remember him wearing the dark green blazer with the crest of Omagh Academicals, and sipping water at the rugby club's then unofficial HQ, the front bar of the town's Royal Arms Hotel, pretending he had never lost his taste for vodka and lemonade. He once had a drink problem, but by that stage he hadn't touched alcohol in years. That's the way he was. He was a man who had a lot of catching up to do, and in the years before he died he travelled far and wide, sometimes on bus excursions to various parts of continental Europe. My late mother loved him to bits. She used to make him sandwiches filled with Branston pickle, and apart from his brother, Deric, she probably found it more difficult than anyone else within the family to come to terms with the circumstances of his death. It was an awful time. And yet it might never have happened. The night he was shot, he was standing in for a friend. Somebody called the house to see if he was available, and within an hour or so he was linking up with other members of E Company, 6th Battalion UDR, based outside Newtownstewart, before being detailed to go to Derry. There was a briefing session at Fort George, a Ministry of Defence site close to the banks of the River Foyle, and then they headed off to take over from soldiers belonging to the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Green Jackets. The checkpoint was in open countryside with just one house about 50 yards away. The traffic had been fairly heavy, but nobody heard or saw anything suspicious to give rise to alarm. The regulars were waiting to be replaced, and the first of the Land Rovers was preparing to come to a halt when a single shot rang out. Just one. Somebody noticed a flash, and one of the soldiers believed it may have come from the area of the house. But he couldnt be sure. He later said: I then formed the opinion that what I heard was the echo bouncing off the walls of the house. The IRA claimed responsibility for the shooting the day after Uncle Ted was buried. Large parts of the city on the slopes on the western side of the Foyle were effectively no-go areas for police and troops, with many of the roads blocked by makeshift barricades. They could be viewed from the upper floors of the hospital, where we took turns to look out while maintaining a vigil of sorts, but in our heart of hearts we all knew it was only a matter of time. I dont remember who told me late that Friday afternoon that my uncle had died, but I do recall the distress and the heartache, and a grieving process that seemed to go on for ever. There was bitterness as well. My grandfather was a formidable man who would reminisce from time to time about his policing days in Cookstown, Plumbridge, Carrickmore and his final posting to Drumquin. But he had moved on, retired, and bought the farm from a brother of the man, Felix Kearney, who wrote a famous ballad with the lines: Drumquin, youre not a city, but all the world to me My grandfather got on well with his neighbours. He worked unbelievably hard, took great pride in his cattle and his land, and every one of us looked up to him. He always commanded our full attention. However, unlike his wife a great woman in the kitchen who collected antiques, especially clocks, and who was never happier than when playing cards with her local GP and helping out at the church he wasnt one for showing signs of emotion. But like us all back then, he was completely broken. Devastation doesnt even come close to describing how we all felt. It still reverberates to this day. There are a couple of memorial stones. One of them is on the church wall at Langfield, where the extended family gather every Remembrance Sunday for the annual service and the laying of poppies, and another at a local Orange Hall. Uncle Ted was a member of the Orange Order. The inscription on his headstone at Lower Langfield reads, Weep not for me, but courage take. Love one another for my sake. My parents and grandparents, as well as an aunt who returned from Canada, are now buried in that graveyard, but rarely does a week pass when I dont think of Uncle Ted, and what happened that night all those years ago. Deric Henderson is the former Ireland editor of the Press Association. After beginning his career with the Tyrone Constitution in his home town of Omagh, he went on to work for the Belfast Telegraph. He is also the author of the best-selling book Let This Be Our Secret, about how Colin Howell and his mistress, Hazel Stewart, murdered their spouses Mark Wahlberg remains at the peak of his powers thanks to his punishing fitness I've had a bit of a personality transplant this week. I like to think of myself as a fairly laid-back, chilled-out soul, but those traits have taken a tumble as I try to break an addiction I have to caffeine. Now, I know you're probably thinking that's hardly the worst thing in the world to be addicted to, and you'd be right. But as someone who has an average total of three or four hours sleep a night, a hyperactive toddler to contend with and two pre-teens to organise and chase after, caffeine has become less of a choice and more of a crutch in my daily life. I quaff down my first cuppa before waking the kids up in the morning and knock back my last mug of tea just as my eyes are closing over in the wee small hours. In between times, I'll have maybe 10 or more cups of tea, and I've even been known to pop one of those little energy boosting effervescent tablets into a glass of water in the afternoon, just to keep me going. They claim to be chock-a-block full of vitamins and minerals, but it's their heavy hit of caffeine I crave. Sounds bad, doesn't it? But it's actually a big improvement on a few years ago, when I'd have been squeezing several coffees and a litre of fizzy cola into the mix as well. It's good that I've cut back, but I know that I need to cut it out. My family has a history of heart problems and now, approaching my mid-40s, I've realised I have to live as heart healthy a lifestyle as I can. The problem is that I'm great on theory but, having been born with a serious lack of willpower, I'm not so great at putting it into action. What inspired me to finally act this week was reading about movie star Mark Wahlberg and his punishing fitness regime. He goes to bed in the evening before my two-year-old, tucked up by 7.30pm, is back up by 2.30am and spends the rest of the day working out, lifting weights and spending time in "cryo chamber recovery". Answers on a postcard as to what that is, because I haven't a clue! He pushes himself through this physically intense programme every day, which explains how he maintains those incredible muscles and his place on Hollywood's A-list at 47 years of age, long after most movie actors are left to shuffle off into early retirement. I have absolutely no desire to follow his regime and rediscover my long-lost muscles, and I've long since accepted that the closest I'll ever get to a six-pack is on a supermarket shelf in the crisp aisle. But just to have a sliver of the self-restraint he has shown, enough to help me kick my caffeine habit once and for all, would be amazing. Past experience hasn't left me too hopeful. Years ago, I shared a flat with my sister, who would buy a chocolate bar at the start of the week and treat herself to one little square each night before bed, putting the rest back into the fridge. After she'd go to sleep, I would feel myself drawn to the fridge and, before I really knew what was happening, nothing but a chocolate wrapper would be left in my hands. The next morning, I'd be up with the birds, dashing down to the corner shop to replace the missing chocolate bar, carefully removing the right number of squares so she'd be none the wiser. That went on for weeks until I finally had the sense to tell her to hide her chocolate bar. Not that I didn't have the odd game of late-night hide and seek looking for it, but at least I didn't always find it! It's been almost a week since I've cut out the caffeine, and I'll confess to being like a bear with a sore head and a thoroughly bad-tempered biddy. I'm getting better, but my advice would still be keep walking if you see me coming, and spare a thought for my poor husband. For him, there's no escaping this storm in a teacup. Cate in her latest movie The House With the Clock in its Walls with Jack Black and Owen Vaccaro The word from the interviewers who go before me is that Cate Blanchett and Jack Black are in great form. When I get to them, Cate is eating chocolate and needs to stand up for a while Jack wants to know how to spell my name, has Cate ever been to Ireland, and if she had Guinness there, because it tastes better. Cate has spent time filming in Dublin, when she played murdered Sunday Independent reporter Veronica Guerin in Joel Schumacher's moving film. "I had this very strange moment," she says, describing how research for a role as a psychic two years before she ever heard of Veronica, led her to visit a psychic to learn how to use the cards. "The psychic told me, 'You're going to play a writer, short hair, she dies before her time, she's got some foreign sounding name, Guavin, something like that and you're going to have two bodyguards'." She says she forgot about it until over two years later and the day they were filming Veronica's murder. "The Gilligan case had been reopened and they were worried about security on set and I turned around covered in blood, with my short hair and there were two bodyguards and I thought 'Oh my God, this feels really familiar. Oh my God, this is what the psychic said' it was really creepy." We all agree, and Cate continues, "Speaking of creepy." "Nice segue!" Jack nods in approval. "She's always getting us back on track, this one." The track we're back on is the film they're meeting me to talk about, The House with a Clock in its Walls. Set in the Fifties, it tells the story of 10-year-old Lewis who, upon the death of his parents, goes to live with his Uncle Jonathan (Black). Jonathan lives in an old house where pictures move and a clock can be heard ticking, and he and his neighbour Mrs Zimmermann (Blanchett) bicker amiably, initially hiding the darker secret behind the clock's meaning, namely that it is the result of an evil spell to turn back time. Jovial and bickering though they may be, Jonathan and Mrs Zimmermann are, in fact, trying to save humanity from extinction. The film's stars see their target audience being aged nine and above, "The same people who saw ET, Gremlins, The Goonies," says Cate, adding: "A lot of children's films are denuded of genuine danger and lean to the sentimental, rather than sentiment and I think that this film is kind of moving back in that direction." She says that her nine-year-old son was on set with her and loved it, "Then I saw it with my 14-year-old and my 16-year-old and they also really enjoyed it." She adds that the psychic in Savannah also predicted she would have four children, one of them adopted. After their sons Dashiell, Roman and Ignatius, she and her husband of 21 years, playwright Andrew Upton, adopted a baby daughter, Edith, in February 2015. Many of her films were not suitable for her children to see, but Jack's kids have been able to see lots of his films. "Except my kids don't want to see me. 'Oh Dad, you're so embarrassing'." Jack was in school with his wife, artist and musician Tanya Haden, but it wasn't until they met at a party 15 years later that romance happened. Their two sons, Samuel and Thomas, are 10 and 12 now. "They're gonna come around, eventually, some day they're gonna say, 'You're not so bad, you know, you can hang out with us'." The characters in the film bicker all the time, but it is clear there is a lot of love. And the actors who play them seem to get along well too - she slags his shoes, "Is that dog poop on the soles?" "No, it's camouflage!" and they are each full of praise for each other's work. Have they ever had to work with people they didn't like? "I don't think so," says Cate: "But I did a movie with someone who really hated me. She was horrible to me." She acts out a scenario where the person in question would organise nights out in front of her and entirely exclude her "right to my face!" It was early in her career is all that she will say. "I'm sure people hate me all the time, Jack is unhateable, I'm annoying." Has Jack ever had to work with someone he hated? "Not until now. And so far it's just been horrible," he deadpans. Cate asks if I have ever had to work with someone I didn't like. Journalism can be rather ego-based, I tell her, "Is that why journalists are often really mean?" she asks. And Black is back, "I just thought of one where I did an interview with someone that I really didn't like. But I can't talk about it," he says, "because it might reveal who I'm thinking of. Next question!" This is the way they are, back and forth, his every word jocular, she more, but not entirely, serious. They both come across as clever, informed, confident. They are both 49 and come from different, but similar, backgrounds. Jack is a native of California, and his parents were both space satellite engineers, His mother worked on the Hubble telescope. Jack went to a private school designed to help children who struggled in traditional educational backgrounds and overcame a teenage drug problem, learning to love drama in school, going on briefly to UCLA. He has worked almost exclusively in comedy roles but says it wasn't a conscious choice, "I don't have any real preference, it's just when you read the script, you respond to it or you don't, so I guess I respond to comedies more often." Cate was born in Melbourne to an Australian mother and American father. Her dad died when she was 10 and her mother changed career to put her three children through private schools. Not initially an actor, Cate studied economics and fine arts before dropping out to travel. In Egypt she got her first acting role, almost by accident, and the bug bit, although she never saw herself as a film actress. Her earlier roles were often very serious, the lighter stuff coming in as her career has progressed. She's perhaps 5ft 7in, slender but not skinny, elegant, and with virtually no makeup and big heavy blacked-rimmed glasses, her face is still strikingly beautiful. I wonder if you're very beautiful, do you feel you have to work harder to be taken seriously? She almost looks surprised, "I have no idea. It's not my problem." Jack? "If you're very beautiful, do you want to be taken seriously? I'm going to say yes," even deader pan. Cate comes back with an answer, "As an actress, I never even thought I'd make a movie, I was working in theatre and I was not that girl to be making movies. I was the weird thing in the corner of the room that no one knew what to do with." She says she was quite happy working in theatre, she still does, but when given the chance to make a film she took it. That led to a three-picture deal in Australia ("which basically means they get you cheap."). After one period drama she wondered, "I didn't necessarily want to do the same role wearing different corsets and so I chose to make a film that John Cusack was doing about air traffic controllers, Pushing Tin. I thought I'd get to do something different. "I wasn't trying to get anyone to take me seriously, I was just trying different things out. "And often when your name is up there in lights you don't get to experiment, I just like trying little things out." The House with the Clock in its Walls is one such thing. And it is based on one of 10 books. "I've signed up for the 10-ology," Jack jokes, "Are you on for all 10, Cate?" "They've not had that conversation with me," she responds, "I think I'm on trial. I would totally sign up for the 10-ology but you can't go in with a game plan that big, you just have to make the first one and see what happens." The House With a Clock in its Walls is in cinemas now. A psychic told Cate Blanchett she'd star as a writer who dies before her time - two years later it came true, she tells Aine O'Connor Pakistan expressed disappointment after New Delhi cancelled FM meeting The Pakistan government on Friday expressed disappointment after New Delhi announced to cancel the meeting of foreign ministers of India and Pakistan, to be held on the sidelines of UNGA in New York, and blamed India for "once again wasting an opportunity to change the dynamics of the bilateral relationship". A statement issued by the Foreign Office said that the reasons cited by the Indian side for the decision to cancel the foreign ministers' meeting, within 24 hours of its public confirmation, are entirely unconvincing. The so-called disturbing developments alluded to in the Indian statement predated the Indian agreement to hold the bilateral meeting in New York, Islamabad said. Clarifying its position on the matter, the Foreign Office said that the alleged killing of BSF soldier took place two days prior to the Indian announcement of its agreement to hold the bilateral meeting. When the allegations of Pakistan's involvement first appeared, the Pakistan Rangers clearly conveyed to BSF through official channels that Pakistan had nothing to do with it. Pakistan Rangers also extended help in efforts to locate the soldier's body. These facts were known to the Indian authorities and a part of the Indian media also reported that Pakistan had refuted its involvement. Yet, this motivated and malicious propaganda continued. Pakistan takes this opportunity to categorically reject these allegations once again. Our authorities would be prepared to conduct a joint investigation to establish the truth, read the Foreign Office statement. The other reason cited by the Indian ministry referred to the issuance of 20 special postage stamps by Pakistan Post on July 24, highlighting the gross violation of human rights by Indian forces in held Kashmir. Islamabad clarified that the postage stamps mentioned in the Indian statement were issued before the July 25 elections, following which Prime Minister Imran Khan assumed office. The stamps highlight the gross and systematic human rights violations in Indian Occupied Kashmir, which were extensively documented also in a comprehensive report issued by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights as late as June 2018. By falsely raising the canard of terrorism, India can neither hide its unspeakable crimes against the Kashmiri people nor can it delegitimise their indigenous struggle for their inalienable right to self-determination, the Foreign Office maintained. Most unfortunate is the reference in the Indian MEA statement to the person of the Prime Minister of Pakistan. The Foreign Office also expressed disappointment over the reference in the Indian MEA statement to the person of the Prime Minister of Pakistan, and termed it unfortunate. We choose not to further comment beyond saying that these comments are against all norms of civilised discourse and diplomatic communication, read the statement. Putting the record straight, the Foreign Office mentioned that PM Imran Khan had, in his first public comments after his electoral success, outlined a forward-looking vision of Pakistan-India relations. He had clearly stated that if India took one step forward, Pakistan would take two. In the same spirit, PM Khan in his reply letter endorsed PM Modis call for constructive engagement and proposed the meeting of the two foreign ministers in New York to discuss a way forward on bilateral and Saarc-related matters, it clarified. Terming it an ill-considered cancellation of the meeting, the Foreign Office accused India of once again wasting a serious opportunity to change the dynamics of the bilateral relationship and put the region on the path of peace and development. "For its part, Pakistan will persist with its quest for peace and development. But, as we have consistently emphasised, our approach will continue to be guided by the aforementioned principles and the dictates of national dignity," read the Foreign Office statement. "Pakistan has always desired peaceful and good-neighbourly relations with India, on the basis of sovereign equality, mutual respect and mutual benefit. Theresa May has warned she could walk away from the Brexit talks (Jack Taylor/PA) DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds has rejected claims that a row between the party and Prime Minister Theresa May is halting Brexit progress. The Sun has reported that the DUP has rejected a plan by Mrs May to allow different rules for goods in Northern Ireland than the rest of the United Kingdom following Brexit to allow the Irish border to remain open. Read More The paper claimed that DUP leaders had rejected the move as they felt it would split up the United Kingdom. I was born on the Irish border. I want to see a sensible exit from the EU. The referendum result must be implemented. The Conservative & Labour parties reject a border in the Irish Sea. Time for Brussels to respect the constitutional & economic integrity of UK. https://t.co/3mdsaetfY3 Arlene Foster #WeWillMeetAgain (@ArleneFosterUK) September 22, 2018 Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney also criticised the DUP saying that they should not be allowed to veto the proposed Brexit backstop deal. The backstop would allow Northern Ireland to remain in the EU customs union if a Brexit deal cannot be reached. The Tanaiste said that Brexit had become an "orange and green" issue in Northern Ireland. "Parties in Northern Ireland have been put under real pressure mainly driven by fear," Mr Coveney told RTE's Marian Finucane programme. "Unionists are fearful that a solution on this issue could result in barriers between Northern Ireland and the UK. "Nationalists are fearful that they could see border infrastructure between where they live and where they regard as their country." Mr Coveney said that there would be no agreement without a border solution. "There will be no withdrawal treaty between the UK and EU if there isn't a legally operable text on the Irish backstop guaranteeing no physical infrastructure," the Foreign Minister said. "We will never sign a treaty that doesn't ensure the commitments given to Ireland aren't followed through," Sinn Fein President Mary Lou McDonald echoed Mr Coveney's comments saying that "the DUP cannot veto the vote of the people of the north to remain as part of the EU". The Dublin Central TD said it was time for the DUP and the UK government to "get real". They do not represent the views of the majority of people nor the interests of the economy," she said. Expand Close DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds PA / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds The DUP cannot veto the vote of the people in the north to remain. There will be no withdrawal agreement without a backdrop that protects the interests of all Ireland. However Mr Dodds said that the claims the DUP were interfering in Brexit negotiations were not true. In a Tweet on Friday the North Belfast MP wrote "no rows with us". "As PM said NO British PM could agree to EU demands to break up the UK." In a speech on Friday Mrs May said the EU "did not respect" that Northern Ireland would remain part of the UK after Brexit after they rejected her Chequers plan. She reiterated there would never be a border in the Irish Sea. Mrs May demanded the EU come up with new proposals to break the current "impasse". "The EU should be clear: I will not overturn the result of the referendum. Nor will I break up my country," Mrs May said. "We need serious engagement on resolving the two big problems in the negotiations. We stand ready." European Council president Donald Tusk said he believed that a deal could still be reached. While understanding the logic of the negotiations, I remain convinced that a compromise, good for all, is still possible. I say these words as a close friend of the UK and a true admirer of PM May, he said. The threat of a chaotic no deal Brexit has been ramped up after Theresa May angrily accused the European Union of creating an "impasse" in negotiations. The Prime Minister said that EU proposals to keep Northern Ireland in the customs union after Brexit would destroy the integrity of the UK. Her tone barely concealed her anger as she insisted Brussels must respect the UK and respond to her Chequers plan. Yesterday's intervention drew praise from DUP leader Arlene Foster, who backed Mrs May for "standing firm" against the EU. But Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald dismissed it as "tired rhetoric". Mrs May was returning to the UK furious at her humiliating treatment by EU leaders at a summit in Salzburg. "The EU should be clear: I will not overturn the result of the referendum. Nor will I break up my country," she said in a live afternoon address from Downing Street. "We need serious engagement on resolving the two big problems in the negotiations and we stand ready. "In the meantime, we must and will continue the work of preparing ourselves for no deal." Her speech dramatically raised the likelihood of a no deal Brexit - sending the value of the pound falling - and European Council president Donald Tusk rapidly moved to offer an olive branch to the embattled Prime Minister. Mr Tusk conceded Mrs May's Brexit proposal was a "step in the right direction" as negotiations threatened to reach a frosty impasse. The former Polish Prime Minister, who was criticised for goading Mrs May with social media posts during the EU summit, said he was a "true admirer" of the Conservative Party leader. "After intensive consultations with member states, we decided that for the good of the negotiations, and out of respect for the efforts of PM May, we will treat the Chequers plan as a step in the right direction," Mr Tusk said. The UK stance presented just before and during the Salzburg meeting was surprisingly tough and in fact uncompromising. The response of the EU27 leaders was to reiterate our trust in chief negotiator Michel Barnier and to reiterate our position on the integrity of the single market and the Irish backstop. "While understanding the logic of the negotiations, I remain convinced that a compromise, good for all, is still possible," he added. However, it is unclear what form of compromise Mr Tusk was talking about. Sources in Dublin insisted nobody is contemplating changing the backstop, and that "the border issue is solid". Another source said that even amid the threat of a no deal scenario, Mrs May had herself acknowledged the need to avoid a hard border. The Conservative Party conference is looming, and Irish sources said they believe some of her rhetoric was designed to keep frustrated Brexiteers at bay. In Northern Ireland, Mrs Foster said Mrs May was right to "stand firm in the face of disrespectful, intransigent and disgraceful behaviour by the European Union". "The United Kingdom will not be treated in such a manner," she said. "I welcome today's clear statement by the Prime Minister and in particular that Her Majesty's Government will not countenance any new regulatory or customs barriers between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom." Mrs Foster also repeated her warning that the DUP will veto any "attempt to undermine the economic or constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom". "Our red line from day one of these negotiations has been that there can be no border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain," she said. Ulster Unionist leader Robin Swann also welcomed Mrs May's statement. "Brexit cannot and must not be used to establish an internal border within the United Kingdom of any form," he said. "The referendum was about whether or not the UK left the EU, it was not about whether or not Northern Ireland left the UK." But Ms McDonald gave a very different reaction, accusing Mrs May of "deflection". "Theresa May made a statement today which was billed as a major one in respect of Brexit negotiations. It was, regrettably, no more than an exercise in tired rhetoric," she said. "Rather than accepting that her so-called 'Chequers Plan' fails to resolve fundamental issues, Theresa May has engaged in deflection. "Her focus has unfortunately remained on infighting within her own party and her pact with the DUP, instead of coming to an acceptable negotiating position." SDLP leader Colum Eastwood accused Mrs May's Government of "belligerence". "The Prime Minister is doubling down on her already unworkable 'take it or leave it' belligerence as a tactic to deliver Brexit," he said. "Despite the EU attempting to give the UK encouragement to take steps that will be in the best interests of our citizens, the Prime Minister has chosen to continue with her failed strategy." A spokesman for Tanaiste Simon Coveney said the Irish Government "welcomed" the fact that Mrs May reiterated the UK's commitment on the need to avoid a hard border as well as the backstop. Earlier, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar admitted negotiations are entering a "rocky patch", but he believes a deal can be reached. Speaking in Co Offaly, Mr Varadkar said: "I think we can have a deal. "I think we're entering into a rocky patch over the next couple of weeks. "But I'm determined to keep working and to secure that deal that we need before the end of the year... ideally in October or November." Embattled Prime Minister Theresa May was said to have been humiliated by her EU counterparts. So she hit back hard in a televised address from her Downing Street office, challenging Brussels to make the next move in these deadlocked Brexit negotiations. The Prime Minister insisted she had always treated the European Union with respect in these talks and now expected the same from the EU. Its not acceptable to simply reject the other sides proposals without a detailed explanation and counter-proposals, Mrs May said. So we now need to hear from the EU what the real issues are, what their alternative is, so that we can discuss them. Until we do, we cannot make progress, she added. Now its all down to a battle of wills as we ask the question: Who will blink first, the EU or the UK? And then we add another important question: What are the implications for Ireland? We did not expect a result from this weeks informal summit of EU leaders in Salzburg. But we did expect a cordial conclusion for Mrs May, as many EU leaders were sympathetic to her trying to drag along a badly divided minority government as she tries to manage tough negotiations. At the end, the tone was poor. So, back home yesterday her fate was portrayed as a humiliation in most newspapers. Many reports highlighted a warning from French president Emmanuel Macron that, despite a fall-back extra summit fixed for November 17 and 18, there must be real progress at the next leaders gathering on October 18 and 19. Tempers frayed in Salzburg because there was no consensus around the other summit topic of migration. Then, most uncharacteristically for the usually efficient Austrian hosts, the summit logistics went wrong, further adding to a general air of ill will. Some Brussels diplomats said the leaders were irked by the strident tone Mrs May had taken in an article in the German newspaper Die Welt. Other diplomats said that British officials boasting that they could bypass EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier, and deal directly with the EU leaders, added fuel to the fire. It all made a pretty terrible week for Mrs May as her effort at compromise, the so-called Chequers plan, was roundly rejected by the EU 27. And there was a strong notion among the EU leaders that they were ready to cope with the fallout of a no-deal crash-out by Britain. That gives us a real clue to help in answering our first question. The leaders warned May that if she does not give ground on trade and arrangements for the Irish border by November, they are ready to cope with Britain crashing out and the economic carnage of a no-deal Brexit. Two comments, relating to the Irish border and the so-called backstop sum up this mood. There will be no withdrawal agreement without a solid, operational and legally binding backstop, said Donald Tusk, the permanent chairman of EU summits. We need a UK proposal precisely preserving the backstop in the framework of the withdrawal agreement, Mr Macron said. Such comments left Mrs May exposed at home as she heads into what is expected to be a tough annual Conservative Party conference on Monday week. So there was little surprise when she hit back yesterday. But we must discount at least some of this political Punch and Judy show. The EU must help defuse this confrontational tone. A no-deal Brexit would mean economic Armageddon in Ireland and very likely a return of the border. It would be the worst of all worlds for everyone. John Downing is a political correspondent for the Irish Independent Mandatory Credit - Picture by Freddie Parkinson/Press Eye M1 Motorway is closed westbound from Black's Road Dunmurry and east bound from Saintfield Road due to fallen cables. Motorists should seek alternative routes. Saintfield Road is also closed at the junction of the old Ballynahinch Road due to a fallen tree. Motorists are advised to exercise extreme caution in adverse weather conditions. Police are advising motorists to stay in their vehicles. Alan Lewis - PhotopressBelfast.co.uk 19/9/2018 Mandatory Credit - Picture by Graham Curry Strong winds on the Ards peninsula this morning as Storm Ali hits the Portaferry Road on the outskirts of Newtownards in Co. Down A tree down on the main A44 into Ballycastle. Pic Ben Tucker Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 19th September 2018 Belfast City council closes public parks across the city due to adverse weather conditions as Storm Ali hits Northern Ireland. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye PACEMAKER BELFAST 19/9/2018 The m1 near Lisburn is a standstill due to fallen cable which closed the motorway in both direction causing major delays to motorists. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 19th September 2018 Belfast City council closes public parks across the city due to adverse weather conditions as Storm Ali hits Northern Ireland. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye Belfast City council closes public parks across the city due to adverse weather conditions as Storm Ali hits Northern Ireland. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye Mandatory Credit - Picture by Freddie Parkinson/Press Eye Lorry hit by falling tree on Osbourne Park, Belfast. Driver was taken to hospital with minor injuries. Mandatory Credit - Picture by Freddie Parkinson/Press Eye Lorry hit by falling tree on Osbourne Park, Belfast. Driver was taken to hospital with minor injuries. Mandatory Credit - Picture by Freddie Parkinson/Press Eye Clear up begins in Bedford Street Belfast as storm Ali takes it's toll. Clear up begins in Bedford Street Belfast as storm Ali takes it's toll. Pic Freddie Parkinson Presseye Pacemaker Press 19/08/2018 A fallen tree hits a oil lorry on Osbourne Park near the Lisburn Road in Belfast during the heavy winds on Wednesday. Thirty-two thousand homes across Northern Ireland are without electricity as Storm Ali intensifies. An amber weather warning is in place and wind gusts of up to 65mph are expected inland. Higher gusts are likely in the north west and north coast. The storm is due to reach its peak before 12:00 BST. Pic Colm Lenaghan /Pacemaker 19th September 2018 General views of a tree that has fallen at the Albert Clock in Belfast as Storm Ali batters the province. Mandatory Credit Presseye/Stephen Hamilton 19th September 2018 General views of a tree that has fallen at the Albert Clock in Belfast as Storm Ali batters the province. Mandatory Credit Presseye/Stephen Hamilton Wednesday 19th September 2018 Mandatory Credit - Picture by Leah Matthews Press Eye General views of a tree that has fallen at the Robbs Road Dundonald, Belfast ,as Storm Ali batters the province. Wednesday 19th September 2018 Mandatory Credit - Picture by Leah Matthews Press Eye General views of a tree that has fallen at the Robbs Road Dundonald, Belfast ,as Storm Ali batters the province. Wednesday 19th September 2018 Mandatory Credit - Picture by Leah Matthews Press Eye General views of a tree that has fallen at the Robbs Road Dundonald, Belfast ,as Storm Ali batters the province. General views of a tree that has fallen at the Robbs Road Dundonald, Belfast ,as Storm Ali batters the province. Picture by Leah Matthews Press Eye Emergency Services attend the scene at the Entrance of Slieve Gullion Forest Park outside the village of Meigh in Co Armagh. An engineer died after a tree fall. Pic Newraypics.com A fallen tree hits a lorry on Osbourne Park near the Lisburn Road in Belfast during the heavy winds on Wednesday. Pic Colm Lenaghan /Pacemaker Power has been restored to all properties in Northern Ireland after Storm Ali caused chaos on Wednesday. Over 90,000 homes were without power during the storm. Throughout Friday and the early hours of Saturday morning teams and equipment were deployed by NIE Networks to restore power to the worst hit areas. NIE Networks Incident Centres have been open since early Wednesday morning and have fixed over a thousand faults throughout Northern Ireland. The last customer had power restored at 3:30am on Saturday morning. Two people were killed in the storm, NI Water worker Matt Campbell died when a tree fell on top of him at Slieve Guillion Forest Park, while Swiss holidaymaker Elvira Ferraii was in a caravan blown off a cliff in Co Galway. A spokesperson for NIE Networks, said, We would like to thank our customers for their patience over the last number of days. We understand that being without electricity for any period of time can be frustrating but wed like to reassure them that we have been working to restore faults as quickly and safely as possible. A small number of customers may experience interruption to electricity supplies over the coming days as NIE undertake permanent repair works. On Thursday a helicopter was deployed to help restore power by surveying harder to reach parts of the electricity network. Belfast City Council has pledged 1.25m for businesses hit by the Primark fire as it emerged the condition of the building has deteriorated in this week's storm. The devastating blaze tore through the Bank Buildings in the heart of the city on August 28. It forced 14 businesses within the safety exclusion zone to shut as work continues to determine what to do with the gutted shell. Yesterday members of Belfast City Council's Strategic Policy and Resources Committee agreed to inject more resources for the recovery of the city centre. It estimates its overall spend to support businesses to attract people into the city will be around 1.25m - on top of the 500,000 donated by Primark. In relation to this contribution, councillors also agreed that a cash-flow support package for the worst affected businesses would be developed over the next two weeks. Committee chair Jim Rodgers said: "The scale of this disaster has had an immediate and profound impact on Belfast city centre and has left us facing huge challenges in the weeks and months ahead. "We are determined as a council to lead this recovery operation and offer our business community all the support it needs to get back to business as usual, and to support those traders who, while outside the cordon, are also suffering a reduction in footfall and sales. "Each of the businesses has different needs and priorities. It is vital that we work together to deliver the best support programme possible, and ensure Belfast's economic resilience in the longer term. "This will not be a short-term fix but [will] support investment in regeneration of the city," Mr Rodgers said. The city recovery investment programme put in place by Belfast City Council is planned to run into 2019, focusing towards Christmas trading and beyond. The council has estimated the exclusion zone will be in place for at least four months. The Primark site remains in an "extremely dangerous state and is structurally unsound," it said. This week's Storm Ali led to further damage with a steel beam falling and loose debris blown off the building. The beam landed within the safety cordon. The debris also fell within the cordon which remains intact, with the council saying the greatest concerns are around the stability of the chimneys and clock tower and the upper floor. The council's position remains there is "no quick fix" as experts continue to examine the building which has proven difficult "given the precarious nature/level of instability of the building", it says. "This continues to be a complex engineering challenge no matter which solution is agreed. The focus remains on getting a final solution agreed and getting our city centre back to normal as soon as is physically possible," the council added. Meanwhile, the council is continuing to monitor the economic impact the continued closure of the area is having, and plans to appeal to central government for more support. The council is also monitoring and measuring the impact of the 'yellow dot trail' and wayfinding signage which was introduced in immediate response to the cordon. This work will inform improvements and help the council support businesses by driving footfall, with street animation, transport and retail offers, and city dressing all part of plans. The council is also developing ways to help people find their way around the city centre to the unique mix of shops available. Mr Rodgers added: "All parties have given a commitment today to move as quickly as possible in the decision-making process to ensure there is no delay which could jeopardise or hinder the city's economic recovery." The heartbroken fiancee of a man killed by a falling tree during Storm Ali said he "looked so peaceful" when she saw him at the funeral home. Robyn Newberry's partner of six years, electrician Robert Matthew Campbell (24), known as Matt, was killed at Slieve Gullion Forest Park in Co Armagh as strong winds lashed Northern Ireland on Wednesday. Read More Another man in his 40s was taken to hospital for treatment to his injuries. Lagan Construction Limited confirmed that two of its employees were involved in a serious incident while working on behalf of Northern Ireland Water. Last week Robyn and Matt had sent out 'save the date' cards in preparation for their dream wedding next August. On Thursday night Robyn (23), who had picked up the couple's wedding rings earlier that day, was able to see Matt's body at a funeral home in Ballyclare. She plans to place Matt's wedding ring in his coffin. She said last night: "I needed to see him. It had been too long since I saw him, and he just looked perfect. "He's just my man, he just looks so peaceful and relaxed, with his lovely long eyelashes. "It doesn't feel real, it shouldn't be real, I don't want it to be real. "We know that he is coming home today so his family and grandparents have time with him. "I have been staying at his parents' house during the day and going back to my mum and dad's house at night, then coming back in the morning. "I've also been trying to get home to see our pup Willow, who Matt doted on. I think she knows that he's not there, she always waited on him coming home. "Last night I went home and I was wearing one of his jumpers and she was sniffing it." Robyn revealed that Matt's van and his personal belongings had been returned to his loved ones yesterday. And she said that she and the family have received overwhelming support from the community in the wake of the tragedy. "The community has been amazing, people are reaching out to us," she added. "Matt was very popular, and I want to hear any stories people have to tell about him." In a statement, Newry, Mourne and Down District Council said it "continues to work with the relevant agencies and Slieve Gullion Forest Park will remain closed until further notice". NI Water has said it will continue to work with the statutory authorities and the contractor as they carry out their investigations. On Thursday the PSNI said that a post mortem examination was due to take place to determine the cause of death. The Health and Safety Executive is investigating. Lagan Construction Limited said that it was "offering support and counselling services to colleagues and we continue to work closely with the statutory authorities". Matt's funeral will take place at 10.30am on Monday in Fleming and Cuthbert Funeral Home in Ballyclare. It will be followed by interment at Ballyclare Cemetery. A senior Fleet Street figure has claimed that most people in Britain "don't give a monkey's" about Northern Ireland. Tim Shipman, political editor of the Sunday Times, added: "They think it's a strange sectarian place and feel more at home in Cork, Washington or Paris than Belfast. "Theresa May does not share this view but she might have to come around to it to get out of this mess." His tweet to his more than 93,000 followers on Thursday evening was retweeted around 300 times. It has annoyed unionists, with UUP MEP Jim Nicholson describing the remarks as a "wake-up call to those who value the Union". Mr Shipman posted his tweet in the context of the Brexit negotiations, where the border issue has proved a sticking point, with the EU accused by Brexiteers of using the issue to try to wrench Northern Ireland out of the UK. Mr Nicholson added: "Now is the time for cool heads and calm nerves. "This is a nation that has stood together through triumphs and disasters and that has endured. "It would be an absolute calamity beyond measure if the Brexit process was to result in the UK Government agreeing to Northern Ireland being treated differently to the rest of the UK, by being left inside the EU, or subject to EU rules and regulations whilst Great Britain was not. "In short, Brexit must not be allowed to deliver what 30 years of IRA terrorism failed to." Mr Shipman did not respond to attempts to contact him. A man who assumed the identities of two TV personalities to persuade young girls to strip naked during live webcam sessions will be sentenced next week A man who assumed the identities of two TV personalities to persuade young girls to strip naked during live webcam sessions will be sentenced next week. Austin Quigg coerced one of the girls to perform a sex act during one of the exchanges, Londonderry Crown Court heard. A barrister for the Public Prosecution Service said "girls as young as six were involved, ranging up to young girls in their early and mid-teens". Quigg (28), from Curragh Road in Dungiven, who has no previous convictions, pleaded guilty to 14 charges of making indecent images of female children, guilty to three charges of inciting female children to engage in sexual activity and guilty to three charges of attempting to incite female children to engage in sexual activity. He committed the 20 offences between October 2009 and March 2012. The barrister said the offences were detected after one of the girls contacted police in England in November 2011. In March 2012 Quigg's home was searched by the police. The officers seized his computer and his mother gave police another computer her son had access to. The computers contained 90 indecent videos of children and 609 indecent photographs of children. Almost all of the videos and photographs were categorised as being at the lower level in terms of seriousness. The prosecutor said: "He chatted online to a number of young girls while assuming the identities of two well known television personalities. He said he did this to appeal to the young girls." He added: "He then encouraged the girls to expose themselves and coerced them into sexualised behaviour and he recorded the incidents", the prosecutor added. Defence barrister Eoghan Devlin said the offending was reprehensible, inexcusable and appalling and he said Quigg would rightly suffer a degree of odium which society and the courts attached to such offending. Mr Devlin said Quigg had not reoffended since his crimes were uncovered and an experienced probation officer said that Quigg's regret and remorse were both genuine and sincere. Quigg has been assessed as presenting a low risk of reoffending, the court heard. Judge Philip Babington said he would sentence Quigg next Friday and released him on continuing bail until then. Shah Mehmood Qureshi to attend UNGA session ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister (FM) Shah Mehmood Qureshi departed on Friday night for the United States to attend the UN General Assemblys (UNGA) 73rd session. FM will head the Pakistani delegation at the General Assemblys current session which is scheduled to be commenced on September 18. The Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua is also a part of the Pakistani delegation who is on in a week-long visit to the United Nations headquarter in New York. Qureshi will also address the Pakistani community in Washington. FM Qureshi is expected to present Pakistans stance on the Kashmir issue at the UN General Assembly session. The minister will meet his counterparts at the session and hold talks with the US administration. A gang of masked men tied up the householder during an armed robbery in Co Fermanagh on Friday. Police are investigating the incident at a house in the Gardiners Cross Road area of Maguiresbridge. A report was received by police shortly after 9pm that four masked men, armed with knives, had entered a house in the area and threatened the male occupant, before tying him up and making off with a sum of money and two mobile phones. The occupant was not physically injured but was left badly shaken following the incident. Officers would ask anyone who noticed any suspicious activity in the area on Friday evening or who has any information which could assist them with their enquiries to contact detectives at Enniskillen on 101 quoting reference number 1345 21/09/18. Alternatively, information can also be provided to the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 which is 100% anonymous and gives people the power to speak up and stop crime. Sinn Fein's Northern Ireland leader has declined to state clearly whether she believes Mairia Cahill. Michelle O'Neill was asked twice in a BBC Inside Politics interview if she believed Ms Cahill's account of the abuse she said she suffered in the 1990s by an IRA member. Read More "I don't think that that's an issue for me," Mrs O'Neill said. "Mairia Cahill went to the courts, her and others. I commend Mairia for the fact that she waived her anonymity and she put herself out there in public, which isn't easy to do, particularly whenever you have been a victim and been through so much. "So I think, for me, all I can say is put on record that I am glad that today we have robust procedures in place and we will stand over those procedures." Asked again by interviewer Mark Devenport whether she believed Ms Cahill, Ms O'Neill added: "I think that's the wrong place for us to go, Mark. Mairia Cahill went through the courts, as did a number of other women. "It's not for me to say that I believe her. "I believe that she has been a victim, and I believe that she has been hurt. I believe that she has been traumatised. "I believe that she has been through an awful lot in recent years, or ever since the incident that she refers to, so I wish her the very, very best for the future." In the wake of last week's Police Ombudsman report into the PSNI's handling of Ms Cahill's rape allegations, Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald said she 'unreservedly apologised' for the fact that at the time of Ms Cahill's abuse, the party did not have robust procedures in place for mandatory reporting of abuse In 2010 Ms Cahill told officers she had been sexually abused by alleged IRA member Martin Morris - who was acquitted of rape and IRA membership and denies all wrongdoing - on a number of occasions from 1997 to 1998. Ombudsman Dr Michael Maguire found that the RUC had information about the alleged abuse 10 years before Ms Cahill's report - but did not act. Ms Cahill said she reported the sex abuse to senior Sinn Fein figures - and was then subjected to an IRA 'kangaroo court' in which she was forced to confront her attacker. Last night Ms Cahill described Mrs O'Neill as being "very uncomfortable" during the BBC interview. "Sinn Fein told everyone I was a liar. And they still can't admit that I told the truth," she told the Belfast Telegraph. A transatlantic battle is ongoing over the ownership of Titanic treasures worth more than 15m - with wealthy American bidders joining the race. British museums and US hedge funds are fighting over the 5,500-strong collection, which is being auctioned in Jacksonville, Florida, and includes 15 rings, necklaces and pins dredged from the ocean floor. It also comprises a golden nugget necklace gifted to 'the Unsinkable Molly Brown'. Titanic Belfast, the Titanic Foundation, National Museums Northern Ireland and the National Maritime Museum teamed up to launch a multi-million pound Titanic Artefacts Collection campaign in July. Together, they hope to repatriate the objects to Belfast, home of the Titanic, and are backed by James Cameron, who directed the most famous film about the disaster, which was released back in 1997. "One of the concerns is that the collection would be broken up, sold privately," Mr Cameron said. "The bankruptcy court might award the company the opportunity to break up the collection, to sell it piecemeal, and it would disappear from the public eye. "That's why people who feel some responsibility around Titanic have stepped up. "If it's sold privately, that would be wrong. It's part of the world heritage. It's an incredible piece of history." The rare collection has become available after a US company that currently owns the items, Premier Exhibitions, filed for bankruptcy in America in 2016. The haul, which a judge ruled must be sold whole, also comprises a blue sapphire surrounded by 14 diamonds, that bears a strong likeness to Princess Diana's wedding ring, which was later given to Kate Middleton by Prince William. Other items, recovered during seven excavations of the wreck between 1987 and 2004, offer a reminder of some of the 1,500 lives that were lost when Titanic sank in 1912, according to The Times. The artefacts were raised from the ocean by RMS Titanic Inc, a privately owned company that gained exclusive rights to salvage it. They include a pocket watch which was owned by South African hotel boss Thomas William Solomon Brown, who died after putting his wife and daughter on a lifeboat. Another surviving relic is a golden necklace owned by Margaret Brown, a socialite dubbed 'the Unsinkable Molly Brown'. It was a gift from her mine owner husband, JJ Brown. A group of Northern Ireland museums may be set to lose out in a transatlantic battle over the ownership of Titanic treasures worth more than 15m - with wealthy American bidders joining the race. British museums and US hedge funds are fighting over the 5,500-strong collection, which is being auctioned in Jacksonville, Florida, and includes 15 rings, necklaces and pins dredged from the ocean floor. It also comprises a golden nugget necklace gifted to 'the Unsinkable Molly Brown'. However it now looks like Belfast will miss out on the items as the rival American bidders have launched a rival bid of 15m, over 200k more than the Belfast-led consortium. Titanic Belfast, the Titanic Foundation, National Museums Northern Ireland (NMNI) and the National Maritime Museum teamed up to launch a multi-million pound Titanic Artefacts Collection campaign in July. Together, they hope to repatriate the objects to Belfast, home of the Titanic. Kathryn Thompson from NMNI told the BBC that the battle for the items was far from over. "When we first put in a bid for the artefacts, we were the highest bidder," she said. "One of the rival bids has now upped their value, which has topped where we're at, and we're going to consider our position over the next number of weeks along with our consortium partners." "We believe that in public ownership we can protect them in the long term." Mrs Thompson said that the group would look into increasing their bid for the artefacts. The Northern Irish group are backed by James Cameron, who directed the most famous film about the disaster, which was released back in 1997. The rare collection has become available after a US company that currently owns the items, Premier Exhibitions, filed for bankruptcy in America in 2016. The haul, which a judge ruled must be sold whole, also comprises a blue sapphire surrounded by 14 diamonds, that bears a strong likeness to Princess Diana's wedding ring, which was later given to Kate Middleton by Prince William. Other items, recovered during seven excavations of the wreck between 1987 and 2004, offer a reminder of some of the 1,500 lives that were lost when Titanic sank in 1912, according to The Times. The artefacts were raised from the ocean by RMS Titanic Inc, a privately owned company that gained exclusive rights to salvage it. They include a pocket watch which was owned by South African hotel boss Thomas William Solomon Brown, who died after putting his wife and daughter on a lifeboat. Another surviving relic is a golden necklace owned by Margaret Brown, a socialite dubbed 'the Unsinkable Molly Brown'. It was a gift from her mine owner husband, JJ Brown. The US government's new representative in Northern Ireland has praised the impact that Donald Trump has made on America. Elizabeth Kennedy Trudeau took up her post as US consul general earlier this month. From Boston, she has spent much of her career overseas and until recently had a posting in Pakistan. In her first mainstream media interview since she arrived in Northern Ireland to take up her role, Ms Trudeau talked about the continued importance of the region to the US and how much she's looking forward to working in Belfast for the next three years. The 48-year-old career diplomat has come from a posting in Lahore, Pakistan, but she's no stranger to these shores, having already been here in the 1990s and in 2015. "I've been to Belfast before, so coming back and seeing how different Northern Ireland is now has been really eye-opening and remarkable," she said. "I also think it is a perfect time to be here. "It's not only interesting politically, it's interesting economically, because of the US investment, because of how far Northern Ireland's economy has come. "I think we're really at the cusp of Northern Ireland making that next jump economically onto the world stage, so at the US Consulate General we can leverage our connections in the United States along with our partners here in Northern Ireland to help move that relationship forward." Although she hasn't met Mr Trump personally, she said the US president has been good for her native country. "You can see the results of his actions; the US economy is booming, consumer confidence is up, US businesses are investing," she said. "He has revolutionised the way that he speaks to the American people and he deserves a great deal of credit for that." Ms Trudeau said the role of the US consul general is to help and support American tourists and US residents living in Northern Ireland, as well as US businesses seeking to invest and partner local firms and vice versa. "We do programmes like the International Visitor Leadership Programme (IVLP) which helps identify people from here who are maybe doing specific projects, community work or business or entrepreneur work or the arts," she added. "And finally we help explain US foreign policy, our position internationally and help people get beyond the headlines and understand what the US stands for." Ms Trudeau said that she was impressed by Northern Ireland's dynamism. "I was at St George's Market and I wandered around the city centre and it's really booming," she said. "You have a lot going on that is accessible, not only to tourists, but also to the people of Northern Ireland." She said Northern Ireland remains a priority for the United States. "Northern Ireland and the US have deep historical ties and there's a natural affinity that we have with the people of Northern Ireland," she continued. "It's very important, not only because of the historical ties, but because of the opportunities that Northern Ireland represents for American visitors and business, as well as for American students who want to study at the excellent institutions here, so the relationship is very important. "Every day my American colleagues and I at the consulate laugh about how lucky were are to be in Northern Ireland at this time. This is a dream job and I'm so fortunate to be here." Ms Trudeau has spent a busy first week in Northern Ireland, meeting political leaders and officials. She has been impressed by Belfast, saying the city appears to be "really booming" despite the economic challenges that lie ahead in the wake of the fire which gutted the historic Bank Buildings last month. And she is convinced the city has "come up with a solid plan to drive foot traffic" during the forthcoming months in which the central section of Royal Avenue will remain cordoned off. She added: "This is a difficult thing but it shows the resiliency of Belfast in its political and business leadership in thinking how to ensure the city centre continues to thrive even in the face of that tragedy." The previous consul general in Northern Ireland, Dan Lawton, returned to the United States in July. He is taking up a new role as an office director at the US State Department dealing with the Balkans. One year after the Good Friday Agreement, Belfast's famous Paint Hall lay unused and empty. Few could have imagined at the time it would become the headquarters of Game Of Thrones, one of the most watched television shows in the world. It was the "staggeringly energetic" Leicester-born film producer Jo Gilbert who first saw the potential and helped open Northern Ireland's doors to the international film industry. Tragically, she passed away last Saturday in Newtownards aged 63, after battling a brain tumour. Her funeral was held yesterday at Roselawn Crematorium. Ms Gilbert's films included the Spike Milligan story of Puckoon (2002), which was the first ever movie to be made in the Paint Hall. Although the short-term lease on the budding film hub didn't last, she moved on to produce Closing The Ring (2006). Securing screen legend Richard Attenborough to direct, she also convinced Belfast City Council to let her use the empty Maysfield Leisure Centre as a studio. NI Screen credits this as the beginning of leading figures from the international screen industry coming to work here. Close friend Randall Shannon from Holywood worked with Ms Gilbert on a number of film projects. "I had a call from my accountant saying he had met 'this strange woman' with a dream of setting up a film studio in Northern Ireland," he said. "He had no idea how to translate her ideas into numbers and asked if I would help. "I worked in theatre production and opera, so I ended up writing the business plan." Ms Gilbert recommended the Paint Hall again to a colleague for his new project, City Of Ember (2008), starring Bill Murray and Saoirse Ronan. "They were looking all around the world to find a space big enough to literally build a city and produce this film in," said Mr Shannon. "Jo took her colleague round to see the Paint Hall and got in touch with NI Screen, so City Of Ember was made in Belfast." "That led on to Game Of Thrones, and in the last 10 years Northern Ireland has taken off as a film production centre. "The big point is that it was Jo's imagination and energy that actually got the idea to use the Paint Hall started. "When she first brought it up, people were sceptical about it to say the least, but you needed someone like Jo to come along and say: 'Yes, we can do it'." Regarding the massive success enjoyed by Game Of Thrones, Mr Shannon said: "I would be lying if I didn't say she didn't have a strong 'if only' feeling about it all. "She was trying to make it all happen, but there just wasn't the activity to support the idea at the time. Even when she became seriously ill her attitude was 'I'll get over this', that was her attitude to everything. She never gave up." Ms Gilbert is survived by her children Bridey and Hal. NI Screen said: "Jo flew a staggeringly energetic flag for the potential of the film industry for Northern Ireland long before anyone else would take it seriously." A custody sergeant based at Lisburn PSNI station failed in his duty of care to protect the health, safety and wellbeing of a man who died in a police cell, a jury has heard A custody sergeant based at Lisburn PSNI station failed in his duty of care to protect the health, safety and wellbeing of a man who died in a police cell, a jury has heard. Opening the prosecution case against Brian McKenna at Belfast Crown Court yesterday, a barrister said the accused "failed in his responsibilities and duties" towards a man brought into custody. David McGowan was arrested in Belfast on the evening of May 29, 2014 and taken to Lisburn. In the early hours of the following morning, and after both asking for a doctor and telling a member of staff he had consumed around 40 tablets, he was found dead in a cell. Sgt McKenna, whose address was given care of PSNI Lisburn station, has been charged with both causing Mr McGowan's manslaughter, and of misconduct in a public office. The officer denies both charges. The jury heard that at one point after being told Mr McGowan claimed to have taken the tablets, Sgt McKenna replied: "Well, he'll sleep well." The jury also heard that several tablets, including tramadol and diazepam, were found in the van used to transport him to custody, in the corridor of the custody suite, in his cell, and also in the pocket of his jeans. Mr McGowan was pronounced dead by a doctor at 1.47am on May 30. A post-mortem examination revealed he died of "upper airway obstruction due to inhalation of gastric contents, due to toxic effects of alcohol and drugs". A tramadol tablet was recovered from his trachea. Crown barrister Richard Weir QC told the jury that during the trial they will be shown CCTV footage and hear recordings from the custody suite. Outlining the circumstances leading to Mr McGowan's death, Mr Weir said that he and a female were arrested following an incident in east Belfast, and that prior to this the pair had been drinking and taking drugs. Following their arrest they were taken to Lisburn police station, where Sgt McKenna was custody officer. Mr Weir said part of Sgt McKenna's role was duty of care to everyone in the custody suite. The prosecutor said Mr McGowan arrived at the custody suite at 11.07pm. Mr Weir said: "The custody sergeant is required by law to find out what he has with him, to cause harm to him or others. Mr McGowan had handcuffs on when he arrived, and the handcuffs were removed. No search was conducted." The prosecutor said before he was led to a cell at 11.15pm Mr McGowan put his hand in the back pocket of his jeans and "appears to remove something". After Mr McGowan was taken to the cell, Sgt McKenna found a tablet in the corridor, and at around 11.30pm Alexander McAllister, who at the time was working as a civilian custody officer, told Sgt McKenna that Mr McGowan claimed he had taken 40 tablets. Mr Weir said despite being told of Mr McGowan's claim "no action was taken at this stage". Ten minutes later Sgt McKenna found a second tablet near Mr McGowan's cell. Mr Weir told the jury: "No action taken, no investigation, nothing." A doctor arrived at 11.47pm, and according to the Crown, Sgt McKenna asked him to check on another detainee first, and not Mr McGowan. He also showed the doctor the two tablets found - tramadol and diazepam. Mr Weir said at this stage Sgt McKenna didn't tell the doctor about Mr McGowan's claims of tablet consumption, or the presence of white stuff in his mouth. At 11.52pm Sgt McKenna was informed by Mr McAllister that Mr McGowan was asleep. Just after midnight the doctor and Sgt McKenna went to the cell and the doctor "put him on 30-minute observation with rousing". At 12.31am another tablet was found on the floor. The Crown says at this point there was "no action, no intervention". At 12.47am the doctor was informed Mr McGowan's breathing was strange. At 1.05am Mr McAllister went to the cell and told the doctor that Mr McGowan had vomited. When they entered his cell Mr McGowan was on his back with vomit around his mouth and on the bench. Mr Weir said: "There was no appearance of breathing and no palpable pulse." The doctor conducted mouth to mouth and CPR, and an ambulance was called at 1.07am by Sgt McKenna who said Mr McGowan had taken some form of illicit substance and appeared to be dying. Mr McGowan was pronounced dead at 1.47am. The court heard that in the aftermath of the death in custody an investigation was launched by the Police Ombudsman's office. Sgt McKenna was interviewed on three occasions, and said he didn't search Mr McGowan as he was being aggressive. The trial resumes next week. A tree resting dangerously on power lines in Lisburn has been cleared three days after it was first reported. Local resident Robert Wilkinson (75) first raised the alarm about the hazard on the Ballymacash Road on Wednesday - the same day Storm Ali battered the province. The strong winds caused the tragic death of 24-year-old electrician Robert Matthew Campbell, who was killed by a falling tree in Slieve Gullion Forest Park in Co Armagh. After Mr Wilkinson informed this newspaper yesterday that the situation had still not been addressed, Northern Ireland Electricity was contacted and attended the scene within hours. "I've spent over two days telling as many people about it as possible," said Mr Wilkinson. "I was literally getting nowhere. I told the police it was dangerous and they put up a closed road sign but - typical of Northern Ireland - most people were still driving around it anyway. "What was worse still, a learner driver with her instructor beside her still carried on. "I would laugh if it wasn't so dangerous. I reported it to NI Direct, and then when I tried to contact NIE I was put from pillar to post. "When I got to the right section I was told; 'we're busy you'll have to ring back later'. It's disastrous. "I know it's a very busy week with the storm, but I would expect within 48 hours they should have at least been looking at it. "Thankfully, it's taken care of now but it was an accident waiting to happen." Another resident said the danger meant he was unable to leave his daughter at her regular school bus stop. After being contacted by the Belfast Telegraph, NIE arranged for the area to be made safe yesterday afternoon. A spokesman thanked Mr Wilkinson for raising the matter and added: "The focus has been getting our customers back on their supply. We initially assessed the road wasn't blocked and there wasn't a disruption in the electric supply, but the area has now been made safe." Elsewhere, NIE Networks emergency crews were working hard yesterday to restore power to the remaining 600 customers left out of 90,000 homes and businesses affected by the storm. Customers are being asked to report damage by telephoning 03457 643 643. The non-jury trial of former leading loyalist Winston Rea has been postponed so he can undergo a series of medical tests. Rea may have to undergo MRI or CT scans for a "long-standing illness", Belfast Crown Court heard yesterday. Defence counsel Arthur Harvey QC said the 67-year-old, of Springwell Crescent in Groomsport, Co Down, has also been examined by a neurological psychiatrist. Rea was arraigned in October 2017 and pleaded not guilty to all 19 charges said to have been committed on dates between 1973 and 1996. Included in the charges faced by 'Winkie' Rea are conspiring to murder Catholic men John Devine in July 1989 and John O'Hara in April 1991. Mr Devine (37), was shot in front of his son in west Belfast while Mr O'Hara, a 41-year-old taxi driver, was lured to his murder in the south of the city. Rea has also been charged with conspiring with others to threaten to kill LVF leader Billy Wright in August, 1996. He also pleaded not guilty to firearms and other terror-related charges, including conspiring to possess firearms secured from the Ulster Resistance paramilitary group on dates between November, 1986 and October, 1994. He is further charged with encouraging the murder of "persons working in shops selling An Phoblacht in republican and nationalist areas" between November, 1977 and October, 1994. Rea, who was not in court for the proceedings, was due to stand trial on all charges early next month. At yesterday's review hearing, Mr Justice Colton heard that Rea had recently been examined by consultant psychiatrist Dr Helen Harbinson about his "cognitive ability" for the trial over a "long standing illness". Arthur Harvey QC said that three months ago Rea had a pacemaker device fitted to his heart which had "created a significant number of complications for the MRI and CT scans". He added that a medical practitioner had advised the defence that if the scans were to be carried out "eight doctors would have to be present for the removal of the heart pacemaker". The defence QC said Rea "will consent to any examination by experts appointed by the prosecution". Prosecution counsel Ciaran Murphy QC said he was mindful that "the families of multiple alleged victims will have been preparing themselves" ahead of next month's trial, adding the provision of expert reports could cause "further delays for a considerable period". He urged Mr Justice Colton to fix a new date for the trial in the current court term. Mr Justice Colton directed that a consultant neurological psychiatrist's report on Rea be served on the prosecution within three weeks. The judge said he was requesting the "full co-operation" of all defence medical experts in the case, urging them to comply with his directions which were "in the public interest of the trial process''. The judge listed the trial November 12 this year. One of Northern Ireland's leading lights of stage and screen has been laid to rest just four months after celebrating her 100th birthday. Mourners gathered yesterday at St Finlough's Church, on the outskirts of Ballykelly, in honour of veteran actress Margaret D'Arcy for Requiem Mass, celebrated by parish priest Monsignor Bryan McCanny. Born in Belfast during 1918, Ms D'Arcy, who passed away earlier during the week, was highly regarded by the local theatrical fraternity, having enjoyed a long stage career as a member of the Group Players, and in England where she made her screen debut playing a nurse in a movie about the Siege of Sydney Street. During yesterday's service Monsignor McCanny reflected on Ms D'Arcy's career. "God will have recognised and appreciated the wonderful gifts that he gave her, in particular as an actress and a dramatist," he said. "With these same gifts she inspired a new generation of actors and actresses." Ms D'Arcy was laid to rest in the adjoining cemetery. Shireen Mazari hit back at Donald Trump tweet Minister for Human Rights Dr Shireen Mazari on Friday hit back at United States (US) President Donald Trump's tweet in which he complained that despite the 'protection' afforded to Middle Eastern countries by the US, they continue to raise oil prices. President Trump in a tweet on Thursday said: "We protect the countries of the Middle East, they would not be safe for very long without us, and yet they continue to push for higher and higher oil prices!" he said. "We will remember." In 2016, major oil producers both within and outside OPEC agreed to slash production in an attempt to boost prices following the 2014 oil market crash. The US withdrew from a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran earlier this year, after which it reimposed sanctions on the Islamic republic that had been suspended in return for controls on Tehran's nuclear programme. India and China, Iran's top buyers, have also distanced themselves from Tehran after Trump warned importers to stop buying oil from Iran or face US sanctions leaving its crude output the lowest it's been since July 2016. A new set of US sanctions is due to hit Iran's oil industry on November 4, while Venezuela, another OPEC founding member is also under sanctions from Washington. Describing the oil cartel as a "monopoly", the US president in his tweet issued a fresh call on the OPEC members to lower their crude prices, reminding them that the US is providing certain Middle Eastern energy giants with security. "The OPEC monopoly must get prices down now!" Trump wrote. In a strongly worded response to the US president, Mazari wrote: "Surely there is someone in Washington DC who can teach him [President Donald Trump] history and how [the] US has historically destabilised the Middle East with its support for illegal Israeli expansionism and unbridled militarism!" She added: "Also oil comes primarily from west Asia and Gulf, not Middle East! He should also be told about OPEC member states!" Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Nigeria, Iraq, Algeria, Libya and Ecuador are other countries that are part of OPEC, in addition to Iran and Venezuela. Oil prices steadied on Thursday after Trump's call on OPEC to "get prices down now!", slowing after an upward surge that had pushed the market towards four-year highs. Staff at a Runwood Homes residential facility are not being given adequate resources to properly care for residents, it has been claimed. A whistleblower has come forward to say that requests for additional resources to help staff at Rose Court to provide safe care are falling on deaf ears. According to the whistleblower, a resident assaulted staff in an incident at the Ballymena care home in the early hours of September 6. Staff went to management and asked for the man to be given one-to-one care due to his challenging behaviour. But it has been alleged that this did not happen. However, Runwood Homes has said one-to-one care for the resident was provided as soon as appropriate. In June Runwood Homes came under fire from the Commissioner for Older People in Northern Ireland for failing to address staff concerns about Dunmurry Manor. Eddie Lynch said he is "extremely concerned" to hear about difficulties at Rose Court and the latest inspection of another Runwood home, Glenabbey Manor. "Some of the problems experienced within these homes mirror the issues that led to the serious failings of care within Dunmurry Manor," he said. "I will be seeking assurances from the Department of Health in relation to the issues within these Runwood Homes care homes. "While I expect the relevant authorities to implement all of my recommendations following my investigation into Dunmurry Manor, action must also be taken immediately to ensure that older people living within Rose Court and Glenabbey Manor are both safe and well cared for." Aidan Hannah from NI Patient Voice said the situation at Rose Court is the latest example of claims by Runwood Homes staff that their concerns are not being addressed. "This is a recurrent theme when it comes to Runwood Homes," he said. "The Commissioner for Older People raised it as an issue in his report looking at Dunmurry Manor and we see it time and time again in Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) inspection reports. "I appreciate there is a shortage of nursing staff in Northern Ireland, but I don't accept that is a factor here given the fact that well-run care homes are able to attract and retain staff. "There are systemic failures in Runwood Homes, the RQIA has had serious concerns about eight of the company's homes. "How many times do the RQIA have to highlight repeated failures by Runwood before the Department of Health does something to restore public confidence in our care homes?" Meanwhile, SDLP councillor Brian Heading, who has supported the families of former residents of Dunmurry Manor, said: "There's sufficient public interest in this matter for the permanent secretary to come out now and outline what he is going to do about Runwood Homes. "It's not enough to say they are reviewing the actions of the health service in relation to what happened at Dunmurry Manor or to say they're leaving it to the trusts and RQIA. "Of course it's important that lessons are learned from Dunmurry, but people are suffering now, people are at risk now and we need to know what he is going to do to ensure their safety.They were able to put a two-week deadline on an inquiry into potential leaks from the health service in August, so I don't understand why they don't have the same up-and-go when it comes to protecting some of the most vulnerable people in society. "I would ask whether the Department of Health can guarantee the safety of everyone living in Runwood Homes' facilities?" The claims about Rose Court come a week after a resident of the nursing unit at the facility was taken to hospital by ambulance after she was found lying on the floor at 1.30am. Margaret O'Neill (89) last night remained in hospital, where she is being treated for pneumonia. The Department of Health said: "Action continues to be taken by the department, the trusts and the RQIA, who are all committed to ensuring the highest standard of care for residents in all care homes. "A well-established open and transparent system of inspection and monitoring is in place. "The department is continuously monitoring the situation. "The department is content the appropriate inspection and monitoring processes are in place and that the trusts and the RQIA have a range of actions which can be taken to address homes failing to meet the required standards." Jeremy Hunt has refused to rule out a Canada-style agreement with the EU (Peter Byrne/PA) Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has urged EU leaders to step back from the abyss of a no-deal Brexit and engage with Theresa Mays Chequers plan. Following the angry clashes at the Salzburg summit, Mr Hunt said it was counterproductive to insult Britains referendum vote and to say the only way the UK could legally leave was by breaking up your country. What we need to be doing in a situation like this is bringing people together, he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. This is a time for people in the EU to step back from the abyss, to sit down and to talk to us about how we can make these sensible, concrete proposals actually work. Expand Close Theresa May has warned she could walk away from the Brexit talks (Jack Taylor/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Theresa May has warned she could walk away from the Brexit talks (Jack Taylor/PA) After EU leaders meeting in Austria on Thursday warned a key element of the Chequers plan would not work, Mr Hunt called them to engage with Britain in a spirit of politeness and decency to find an agreed solution. However, he did not rule out the prospect that the Government could now seek a simple, Canada-style free trade agreement favoured by many Tory MPs rather than continuing with the more ambitious Chequers proposals. I am not dismissing anything, he said, adding however that a Canada-style agreement would not address the issue of the Irish border. Mr Hunt made clear the Governments anger at the way Mrs May had been treated in Salzburg, with European Council President Donald Tusk posting a mocking tweet with a picture of him offering Mrs May a cake with the caption Sorry, no cherries a reference to EU accusations of British cherry picking while French President Emmanuel Macron called Brexit campaigners liars. What Theresa May is saying is 'Don't mistake British politeness for weakness. If you put us in a difficult corner we will stand our ground'Jeremy Hunt He underlined the Prime Ministers warning in a televised address on Friday that she was ready to walk away from the negotiations rather than accept a bad deal. What Theresa May is saying is Dont mistake British politeness for weakness. If you put us in a difficult corner we will stand our ground. That is the kind of country we are, Mr Hunt said. Insulting her on social media, getting to these stand-offs where you are calling people liars and so on is not the way we are going to get a solution to this difficult situation. If we are going to work seriously towards a solution then we need to avoid revving up the situation, making it worse by appealing to audiences on social media. In particular Mr Hunt made clear Britain could not accept the EUs backstop plan for the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic to avoid the return of a hard border in the event that there was no agreement on new customs arrangements. He said the proposal, which would effectively see Northern Ireland remain in the single market requiring customs checks on goods moving to and from the British mainland, would effectively mean the break-up of the UK. While a no-deal break would lead to disruption on both sides of the Channel with an estimated 1 million jobs lost across the EU Mr Hunt said he was confident Britain would flourish whatever the outcome of the negotiations. It would be bumpy, it would be difficult, but we would find a way to survive and prosper as a country. We have had far bigger challenges in our history but it is not our desired outcome, he said. Expand Close Donald Tusk has said a Brexit deal is still possible (Rick Findler/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Donald Tusk has said a Brexit deal is still possible (Rick Findler/PA) In her televised address, Mrs May demanded EU leaders show the same respect that she had always shown to them and warned them not to make demands they knew Britain could not accept. In a statement on Friday, Mr Tusk denied claims that the EU leaders in Salzburg had dismissed her Chequers plan out of hand, saying that the British side had known for many weeks about the EU concerns. While he suggested that the leaders had been taken aback by her surprisingly tough and in fact uncompromising stance at the meeting, he said he believed a deal was still possible. While understanding the logic of the negotiations, I remain convinced that a compromise, good for all, is still possible. I say these words as a close friend of the UK and a true admirer of PM May, he said. Simon Coveney questioned the Tory Government supply and confidence agreement with the DUP (PA) The Irish Foreign Affairs Minister has expressed concern about the implications of the UK Conservative Party supply and confidence deal with the DUP on Brexit. Simon Coveney said no party should have a veto over the future of the Irish border after the UK leaves the European Union. He was speaking after DUP leader Arlene Foster praised Prime Minister Theresa May on Friday for standing firm against the EU. Mrs May issued a tough statement following the summit in Salzburg where European leaders rejected her Chequers deal. The EU should be clear: I will not overturn the result of the referendum. Nor will I break up my country. pic.twitter.com/fYhIgGWV1Q Theresa May (@theresa_may) September 21, 2018 Speaking from Downing Street, Mrs May insisted the backstop proposal from Brussels to keep Northern Ireland in the EU customs area unless a better solution can be found is unacceptable to Britain because it would create a customs border down the Irish Sea. Her new alternative would preserve the integrity of the UK while delivering on a commitment not to establish fresh regulatory barriers with the rest of the UK without the agreement of the Executive and Assembly in Belfast, she said. Speaking on RTEs Marian Finucane show on Saturday, Mr Coveney questioned the UKs Conservative Government supply and confidence agreement with the DUP. The two parties entered into the parliamentary voting pact in 2017 following a Westminster election which left the Conservatives scrambling to secure a majority. Mr Coveney made a pointed comment about this, emphasising the Irish Government listens to all the political parties in Northern Ireland. We dont have a confidence and supply agreement with any one party in Northern Ireland we listen to all of them, including the DUP and the UUP and the Alliance, and the SDLP and Sinn Fein, he said. I think the DUP would accept that Northern Ireland is different. Mr Coveney also expressed concern the so-called backstop has turned into a green versus orange issue, adding it is important to de-dramatise the situation and turn attention to the practicalities of trade and movement of goods and people. He also emphasised that Ireland is not seeking to undermine the constitutional integrity of the UK, and accused Sinn Fein of spreading fear among the unionist community by previously calling for a border poll. Mr Coveney has called for an intensification of talks between the UK and EU Brexit teams. On Friday, Mrs Foster also repeated her warning that her party will veto any attempt to undermine the economic or constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom. She said: Our red line from day one of these negotiations has been that there can be no border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. We continue our intensive work with the Government to ensure that we leave the EU in a manner which protects the constitutional and economic integrity of the United Kingdom and enables us to take back control of our laws, borders and money. Sinn Fein president Mary-Lou McDonald also took issue with the DUP position and said they should respect that the majority of people in Northern Ireland voted to remain within the EU. The backstop, as agreed in December, was to secure the interests of our economy, our people and our agreements. It is a common-sense solution to the British Brexit. It would deliver for all our people north and south, she said. It is clear the DUP has a reckless disregard for the economy, agreements, livelihoods and jobs of the North. They do not represent the views of the majority of people nor the interests of the economy. Both the Tory Party and the DUP should respect the vote of the majority in the North to remain within the European Union with all that entails. The DUP cannot veto the vote of the people in the North to remain. It is time for the DUP and British Government to get real. There will be no withdrawal agreement without a backdrop that protects the interests of all Ireland. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 22nd September 2018 - The Royal Irish Regiment is presented with new Colours in Northern Ireland Today the 1st and 2nd Battalions of The Royal Irish Regiment were presented with new Colours by His Royal Highness The Duke of York, KG on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen, in front of a Regimental Family audience of over 6,500 guests in a ceremony reminiscent of Trooping the Colour, at the iconic Titanic Slipways, Belfast. This momentous event only happens once every 25 years and was a first in public for Northern Ireland. It was also particularly special for many of the personnel involved, as well as those watching from the stands, who attended from across the UK and Ireland. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 22nd September 2018 - The Royal Irish Regiment is presented with new Colours in Northern Ireland Today the 1st and 2nd Battalions of The Royal Irish Regiment were presented with new Colours by His Royal Highness The Duke of York, KG on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen, in front of a Regimental Family audience of over 6,500 guests in a ceremony reminiscent of Trooping the Colour, at the iconic Titanic Slipways, Belfast. This momentous event only happens once every 25 years and was a first in public for Northern Ireland. It was also particularly special for many of the personnel involved, as well as those watching from the stands, who attended from across the UK and Ireland. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 22nd September 2018 - The Royal Irish Regiment is presented with new Colours in Northern Ireland Today the 1st and 2nd BattalionsO of The Royal Irish Regiment were presented with new Colours by His Royal Highness The Duke of York, KG on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen, in front of a Regimental Family audience of over 6,500 guests in a ceremony reminiscent of Trooping the Colour, at the iconic Titanic Slipways, Belfast. This momentous event only happens once every 25 years and was a first in public for Northern Ireland. It was also particularly special for many of the personnel involved, as well as those watching from the stands, who attended from across the UK and Ireland. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 22nd September 2018 - The Royal Irish Regiment is presented with new Colours in Northern Ireland Today the 1st and 2nd Battalions of The Royal Irish Regiment were presented with new Colours by His Royal Highness The Duke of York, KG on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen, in front of a Regimental Family audience of over 6,500 guests in a ceremony reminiscent of Trooping the Colour, at the iconic Titanic Slipways, Belfast. This momentous event only happens once every 25 years and was a first in public for Northern Ireland. It was also particularly special for many of the personnel involved, as well as those watching from the stands, who attended from across the UK and Ireland. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 22nd September 2018 - The Royal Irish Regiment is presented with new Colours in Northern Ireland Today the 1st and 2nd BattalionsO of The Royal Irish Regiment were presented with new Colours by His Royal Highness The Duke of York, KG on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen, in front of a Regimental Family audience of over 6,500 guests in a ceremony reminiscent of Trooping the Colour, at the iconic Titanic Slipways, Belfast. This momentous event only happens once every 25 years and was a first in public for Northern Ireland. It was also particularly special for many of the personnel involved, as well as those watching from the stands, who attended from across the UK and Ireland. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 22nd September 2018 - The Royal Irish Regiment is presented with new Colours in Northern Ireland Today the 1st and 2nd BattalionsO of The Royal Irish Regiment were presented with new Colours by His Royal Highness The Duke of York, KG on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen, in front of a Regimental Family audience of over 6,500 guests in a ceremony reminiscent of Trooping the Colour, at the iconic Titanic Slipways, Belfast. This momentous event only happens once every 25 years and was a first in public for Northern Ireland. It was also particularly special for many of the personnel involved, as well as those watching from the stands, who attended from across the UK and Ireland. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 22nd September 2018 - The Royal Irish Regiment is presented with new Colours in Northern Ireland Today the 1st and 2nd BattalionsO of The Royal Irish Regiment were presented with new Colours by His Royal Highness The Duke of York, KG on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen, in front of a Regimental Family audience of over 6,500 guests in a ceremony reminiscent of Trooping the Colour, at the iconic Titanic Slipways, Belfast. This momentous event only happens once every 25 years and was a first in public for Northern Ireland. It was also particularly special for many of the personnel involved, as well as those watching from the stands, who attended from across the UK and Ireland. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 22nd September 2018 - The Royal Irish Regiment is presented with new Colours in Northern Ireland Today the 1st and 2nd BattalionsO of The Royal Irish Regiment were presented with new Colours by His Royal Highness The Duke of York, KG on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen, in front of a Regimental Family audience of over 6,500 guests in a ceremony reminiscent of Trooping the Colour, at the iconic Titanic Slipways, Belfast. This momentous event only happens once every 25 years and was a first in public for Northern Ireland. It was also particularly special for many of the personnel involved, as well as those watching from the stands, who attended from across the UK and Ireland. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 22nd September 2018 - The Royal Irish Regiment is presented with new Colours in Northern Ireland Today the 1st and 2nd BattalionsO of The Royal Irish Regiment were presented with new Colours by His Royal Highness The Duke of York, KG on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen, in front of a Regimental Family audience of over 6,500 guests in a ceremony reminiscent of Trooping the Colour, at the iconic Titanic Slipways, Belfast. This momentous event only happens once every 25 years and was a first in public for Northern Ireland. It was also particularly special for many of the personnel involved, as well as those watching from the stands, who attended from across the UK and Ireland. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 22nd September 2018 - The Royal Irish Regiment is presented with new Colours in Northern Ireland Today the 1st and 2nd BattalionsO of The Royal Irish Regiment were presented with new Colours by His Royal Highness The Duke of York, KG on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen, in front of a Regimental Family audience of over 6,500 guests in a ceremony reminiscent of Trooping the Colour, at the iconic Titanic Slipways, Belfast. This momentous event only happens once every 25 years and was a first in public for Northern Ireland. It was also particularly special for many of the personnel involved, as well as those watching from the stands, who attended from across the UK and Ireland. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 22nd September 2018 - The Royal Irish Regiment is presented with new Colours in Northern Ireland Today the 1st and 2nd BattalionsO of The Royal Irish Regiment were presented with new Colours by His Royal Highness The Duke of York, KG on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen, in front of a Regimental Family audience of over 6,500 guests in a ceremony reminiscent of Trooping the Colour, at the iconic Titanic Slipways, Belfast. This momentous event only happens once every 25 years and was a first in public for Northern Ireland. It was also particularly special for many of the personnel involved, as well as those watching from the stands, who attended from across the UK and Ireland. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 22nd September 2018 - The Royal Irish Regiment is presented with new Colours in Northern Ireland Today the 1st and 2nd BattalionsO of The Royal Irish Regiment were presented with new Colours by His Royal Highness The Duke of York, KG on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen, in front of a Regimental Family audience of over 6,500 guests in a ceremony reminiscent of Trooping the Colour, at the iconic Titanic Slipways, Belfast. This momentous event only happens once every 25 years and was a first in public for Northern Ireland. It was also particularly special for many of the personnel involved, as well as those watching from the stands, who attended from across the UK and Ireland. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 22nd September 2018 - The Royal Irish Regiment is presented with new Colours in Northern Ireland Today the 1st and 2nd Battalions of The Royal Irish Regiment were presented with new Colours by His Royal Highness The Duke of York, KG on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen, in front of a Regimental Family audience of over 6,500 guests in a ceremony reminiscent of Trooping the Colour, at the iconic Titanic Slipways, Belfast. This momentous event only happens once every 25 years and was a first in public for Northern Ireland. It was also particularly special for many of the personnel involved, as well as those watching from the stands, who attended from across the UK and Ireland. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 22nd September 2018 - The Royal Irish Regiment is presented with new Colours in Northern Ireland Today the 1st and 2nd BattalionsO of The Royal Irish Regiment were presented with new Colours by His Royal Highness The Duke of York, KG on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen, in front of a Regimental Family audience of over 6,500 guests in a ceremony reminiscent of Trooping the Colour, at the iconic Titanic Slipways, Belfast. This momentous event only happens once every 25 years and was a first in public for Northern Ireland. It was also particularly special for many of the personnel involved, as well as those watching from the stands, who attended from across the UK and Ireland. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 22nd September 2018 - The Royal Irish Regiment is presented with new Colours in Northern Ireland Today the 1st and 2nd BattalionsO of The Royal Irish Regiment were presented with new Colours by His Royal Highness The Duke of York, KG on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen, in front of a Regimental Family audience of over 6,500 guests in a ceremony reminiscent of Trooping the Colour, at the iconic Titanic Slipways, Belfast. This momentous event only happens once every 25 years and was a first in public for Northern Ireland. It was also particularly special for many of the personnel involved, as well as those watching from the stands, who attended from across the UK and Ireland. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 22nd September 2018 - The Royal Irish Regiment is presented with new Colours in Northern Ireland Today the 1st and 2nd BattalionsO of The Royal Irish Regiment were presented with new Colours by His Royal Highness The Duke of York, KG on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen, in front of a Regimental Family audience of over 6,500 guests in a ceremony reminiscent of Trooping the Colour, at the iconic Titanic Slipways, Belfast. This momentous event only happens once every 25 years and was a first in public for Northern Ireland. It was also particularly special for many of the personnel involved, as well as those watching from the stands, who attended from across the UK and Ireland. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 22nd September 2018 - The Royal Irish Regiment is presented with new Colours in Northern Ireland Today the 1st and 2nd BattalionsO of The Royal Irish Regiment were presented with new Colours by His Royal Highness The Duke of York, KG on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen, in front of a Regimental Family audience of over 6,500 guests in a ceremony reminiscent of Trooping the Colour, at the iconic Titanic Slipways, Belfast. This momentous event only happens once every 25 years and was a first in public for Northern Ireland. It was also particularly special for many of the personnel involved, as well as those watching from the stands, who attended from across the UK and Ireland. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 22nd September 2018 - The Royal Irish Regiment is presented with new Colours in Northern Ireland Today the 1st and 2nd Battalions of The Royal Irish Regiment were presented with new Colours by His Royal Highness The Duke of York, KG on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen, in front of a Regimental Family audience of over 6,500 guests in a ceremony reminiscent of Trooping the Colour, at the iconic Titanic Slipways, Belfast. This momentous event only happens once every 25 years and was a first in public for Northern Ireland. It was also particularly special for many of the personnel involved, as well as those watching from the stands, who attended from across the UK and Ireland. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 22nd September 2018 - The Royal Irish Regiment is presented with new Colours in Northern Ireland Today the 1st and 2nd BattalionsO of The Royal Irish Regiment were presented with new Colours by His Royal Highness The Duke of York, KG on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen, in front of a Regimental Family audience of over 6,500 guests in a ceremony reminiscent of Trooping the Colour, at the iconic Titanic Slipways, Belfast. This momentous event only happens once every 25 years and was a first in public for Northern Ireland. It was also particularly special for many of the personnel involved, as well as those watching from the stands, who attended from across the UK and Ireland. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 22nd September 2018 - The Royal Irish Regiment is presented with new Colours in Northern Ireland Today the 1st and 2nd BattalionsO of The Royal Irish Regiment were presented with new Colours by His Royal Highness The Duke of York, KG on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen, in front of a Regimental Family audience of over 6,500 guests in a ceremony reminiscent of Trooping the Colour, at the iconic Titanic Slipways, Belfast. This momentous event only happens once every 25 years and was a first in public for Northern Ireland. It was also particularly special for many of the personnel involved, as well as those watching from the stands, who attended from across the UK and Ireland. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 22nd September 2018 - The Royal Irish Regiment is presented with new Colours in Northern Ireland Today the 1st and 2nd BattalionsO of The Royal Irish Regiment were presented with new Colours by His Royal Highness The Duke of York, KG on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen, in front of a Regimental Family audience of over 6,500 guests in a ceremony reminiscent of Trooping the Colour, at the iconic Titanic Slipways, Belfast. This momentous event only happens once every 25 years and was a first in public for Northern Ireland. It was also particularly special for many of the personnel involved, as well as those watching from the stands, who attended from across the UK and Ireland. His Royal Highness The Duke of York is pictured with Retired Brigadier Joe OOSullivan, Colonel of The Royal Irish Regiment Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 22nd September 2018 - The Royal Irish Regiment is presented with new Colours in Northern Ireland Today the 1st and 2nd BattalionsO of The Royal Irish Regiment were presented with new Colours by His Royal Highness The Duke of York, KG on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen, in front of a Regimental Family audience of over 6,500 guests in a ceremony reminiscent of Trooping the Colour, at the iconic Titanic Slipways, Belfast. This momentous event only happens once every 25 years and was a first in public for Northern Ireland. It was also particularly special for many of the personnel involved, as well as those watching from the stands, who attended from across the UK and Ireland. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 22nd September 2018 - The Royal Irish Regiment is presented with new Colours in Northern Ireland Today the 1st and 2nd BattalionsO of The Royal Irish Regiment were presented with new Colours by His Royal Highness The Duke of York, KG on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen, in front of a Regimental Family audience of over 6,500 guests in a ceremony reminiscent of Trooping the Colour, at the iconic Titanic Slipways, Belfast. This momentous event only happens once every 25 years and was a first in public for Northern Ireland. It was also particularly special for many of the personnel involved, as well as those watching from the stands, who attended from across the UK and Ireland. His Royal Highness The Duke of York with Brigadier Joe OOSullivan, Colonel of The Royal Irish Regiment Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 22nd September 2018 - The Royal Irish Regiment is presented with new Colours in Northern Ireland Today the 1st and 2nd BattalionsO of The Royal Irish Regiment were presented with new Colours by His Royal Highness The Duke of York, KG on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen, in front of a Regimental Family audience of over 6,500 guests in a ceremony reminiscent of Trooping the Colour, at the iconic Titanic Slipways, Belfast. This momentous event only happens once every 25 years and was a first in public for Northern Ireland. It was also particularly special for many of the personnel involved, as well as those watching from the stands, who attended from across the UK and Ireland. His Royal Highness The Duke of York with Brigadier Joe OOSullivan, Colonel of The Royal Irish Regiment Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 22nd September 2018 - The Royal Irish Regiment is presented with new Colours in Northern Ireland Today the 1st and 2nd BattalionsO of The Royal Irish Regiment were presented with new Colours by His Royal Highness The Duke of York, KG on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen, in front of a Regimental Family audience of over 6,500 guests in a ceremony reminiscent of Trooping the Colour, at the iconic Titanic Slipways, Belfast. This momentous event only happens once every 25 years and was a first in public for Northern Ireland. It was also particularly special for many of the personnel involved, as well as those watching from the stands, who attended from across the UK and Ireland. His Royal Highness The Duke of York with Brigadier Joe OOSullivan, Colonel of The Royal Irish Regiment Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 22nd September 2018 - The Royal Irish Regiment is presented with new Colours in Northern Ireland Today the 1st and 2nd BattalionsO of The Royal Irish Regiment were presented with new Colours by His Royal Highness The Duke of York, KG on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen, in front of a Regimental Family audience of over 6,500 guests in a ceremony reminiscent of Trooping the Colour, at the iconic Titanic Slipways, Belfast. This momentous event only happens once every 25 years and was a first in public for Northern Ireland. It was also particularly special for many of the personnel involved, as well as those watching from the stands, who attended from across the UK and Ireland. His Royal Highness The Duke of York with Brigadier Joe OOSullivan, Colonel of The Royal Irish Regiment Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 22nd September 2018 - The Royal Irish Regiment is presented with new Colours in Northern Ireland Today the 1st and 2nd BattalionsO of The Royal Irish Regiment were presented with new Colours by His Royal Highness The Duke of York, KG on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen, in front of a Regimental Family audience of over 6,500 guests in a ceremony reminiscent of Trooping the Colour, at the iconic Titanic Slipways, Belfast. This momentous event only happens once every 25 years and was a first in public for Northern Ireland. It was also particularly special for many of the personnel involved, as well as those watching from the stands, who attended from across the UK and Ireland. His Royal Highness The Duke of York with Brigadier Joe OOSullivan, Colonel of The Royal Irish Regiment Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 22nd September 2018 - The Royal Irish Regiment is presented with new Colours in Northern Ireland Today the 1st and 2nd BattalionsO of The Royal Irish Regiment were presented with new Colours by His Royal Highness The Duke of York, KG on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen, in front of a Regimental Family audience of over 6,500 guests in a ceremony reminiscent of Trooping the Colour, at the iconic Titanic Slipways, Belfast. This momentous event only happens once every 25 years and was a first in public for Northern Ireland. It was also particularly special for many of the personnel involved, as well as those watching from the stands, who attended from across the UK and Ireland. His Royal Highness The Duke of York with Brigadier Joe OOSullivan, Colonel of The Royal Irish Regiment Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 22nd September 2018 - The Royal Irish Regiment is presented with new Colours in Northern Ireland Today the 1st and 2nd BattalionsO of The Royal Irish Regiment were presented with new Colours by His Royal Highness The Duke of York, KG on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen, in front of a Regimental Family audience of over 6,500 guests in a ceremony reminiscent of Trooping the Colour, at the iconic Titanic Slipways, Belfast. This momentous event only happens once every 25 years and was a first in public for Northern Ireland. It was also particularly special for many of the personnel involved, as well as those watching from the stands, who attended from across the UK and Ireland. His Royal Highness The Duke of York with Brigadier Joe OOSullivan, Colonel of The Royal Irish Regiment Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 22nd September 2018 - The Royal Irish Regiment is presented with new Colours in Northern Ireland Today the 1st and 2nd BattalionsO of The Royal Irish Regiment were presented with new Colours by His Royal Highness The Duke of York, KG on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen, in front of a Regimental Family audience of over 6,500 guests in a ceremony reminiscent of Trooping the Colour, at the iconic Titanic Slipways, Belfast. This momentous event only happens once every 25 years and was a first in public for Northern Ireland. It was also particularly special for many of the personnel involved, as well as those watching from the stands, who attended from across the UK and Ireland. His Royal Highness The Duke of York with Brigadier Joe OOSullivan, Colonel of The Royal Irish Regiment Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 22nd September 2018 - The Royal Irish Regiment is presented with new Colours in Northern Ireland Today the 1st and 2nd BattalionsO of The Royal Irish Regiment were presented with new Colours by His Royal Highness The Duke of York, KG on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen, in front of a Regimental Family audience of over 6,500 guests in a ceremony reminiscent of Trooping the Colour, at the iconic Titanic Slipways, Belfast. This momentous event only happens once every 25 years and was a first in public for Northern Ireland. It was also particularly special for many of the personnel involved, as well as those watching from the stands, who attended from across the UK and Ireland. His Royal Highness The Duke of York with Brigadier Joe OOSullivan, Colonel of The Royal Irish Regiment Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 22nd September 2018 - The Royal Irish Regiment is presented with new Colours in Northern Ireland Today the 1st and 2nd Battalions of The Royal Irish Regiment were presented with new Colours by His Royal Highness The Duke of York, KG on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen, in front of a Regimental Family audience of over 6,500 guests in a ceremony reminiscent of Trooping the Colour, at the iconic Titanic Slipways, Belfast. This momentous event only happens once every 25 years and was a first in public for Northern Ireland. It was also particularly special for many of the personnel involved, as well as those watching from the stands, who attended from across the UK and Ireland. His Royal Highness The Duke of York with Brigadier Joe OSullivan, Colonel of The Royal Irish Regiment Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. The Royal Irish Regiment is presented with new Colours in Northern Ireland His Royal Highness The Duke of York with Brigadier Joe O'Sullivan, Colonel of The Royal Irish Regiment. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Thousands have turned out at Titanic Slipways to watch the first public presentation of military colours in Northern Ireland to the Royal Irish Regiment. The Duke of York officially presented the 1st and 2nd battalions of the Royal Irish Regiment with their colours. Read More Colours are presented to regiments every 25 years, and represent both their history and their future. Expand Close Sergeant Brian Collins of the Royal Irish Regiment. Rebecca Black/PA / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Sergeant Brian Collins of the Royal Irish Regiment. Rebecca Black/PA This is the first time the event has taken place in public in Northern Ireland. The new colours were consecrated by the Chaplain General to Her Majestys Land Forces, the Reverend David Coulter, before being presented and paraded through the ranks in Belfast during the ceremony. Brigadier Mike Murdoch, Deputy Colonel of the Royal Irish Regiment, said the event was a tremendous honour. He was parade commander on Saturday. I think it is just fantastic that the home of the Titanic is where the home of this regiment come together, and today we are standing beside this slipway receiving our colours, in our home, the home of the Titanic, what a fantastic event, he said. For us to receive our new colours in Northern Ireland as an Irish infantry regiment is a tremendous honourBrigadier Mike Murdoch The colours represent the history of the regiment, the battles we have fought in and our predecessors fought in, but also they represent the future of the regiment and going forwards, he told the Press Association. For us to receive our new colours in Northern Ireland as an Irish infantry regiment is a tremendous honour. We have never been able to receive our colours before in Northern Ireland, and we recruit from the island of Ireland, so today we will have soldiers from Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and across the UK on parade, but we are at home in our regimental home, receiving our colours from the Duke of York today. Sergeant Brian Collins from Connaught said a lot of planning and preparation had gone into the event. There was a lot of planning involved in this, starting from picking the arena and now here we are with the final touches, down to having the threads in the uniforms all sorted, he said. This is something the guys have been looking forward to, particularly the guys from Northern Ireland, its the first time they get the opportunity to have a parade here in Northern Ireland. The former chief executive of Moy Park sent an email to company officials congratulating them on successfully lobbying to have the closure of a botched green energy scheme extended, the RHI Inquiry heard yesterday. Janet McCollum, who left her role with the poultry giant earlier this year, also accepted that Moy Park benefited financially from involvement in the controversial scheme. Read More RHI had been due to close on February 16, 2016, but the inquiry heard how there was a two-week delay and it eventually shut at the end of that month. Ms McCollum had emailed Moy Park executives at the time saying: "Thank you for all your encouragement and involvement in securing this extension - well done." Asked about what they had done to help extend the deadline, Ms McCollum confirmed Moy Park officials were lobbying with the Ulster Farmers' Union and the Confederation of British Industry on behalf of farmers who had invested in biomass boilers but had yet to get their RHI applications submitted. On January 15, 2016, then-Finance Minister Mervyn Storey and his DUP adviser Andrew Crawford, who has given evidence to the inquiry, met Moy Park executives including Ms McCollum. Ms McCollum said she "specifically" remembers Mr Crawford telling them that the scheme would soon be closing. Mr Crawford previously denied that he tipped off Moy Park about the scheme's end. The inquiry also heard how Moy Park had been kept well informed at various points in 2015 about the progress of the planned changes to RHI that would make it less lucrative. Department of Enterprise officials gave Moy Park "hot off the press information" about what was happening before it was signed off by the minister, inquiry barrister Donal Lunny said. It has already heard evidence that the poultry industry was the root cause of a spike in applications to the scheme in 2015, when plans were under way to bring it under control. Officials wanted to introduce tariffs that October to reduce the level of lucrative subsidies claimants could earn, but a further four-week delay allowed a massive spike in applications to the scheme, which had a huge impact on the public purse. Ms McCollum admitted Moy Park "definitely contributed", but did not drive the spike. She also told the panel she could now see how the company had benefited "indirectly" but argued any benefit would have been "a small one." Mr Lunny said: "If it's a benefit of a couple of million pounds a year that might be a small benefit to an organisation the size of Moy Park, but it's still a very significant amount of money." Moy Park was only paying about half the cost of farmers' biomass fuel bills. Producers were able to bear the cost because substantial RHI subsidies more than made up the income gap. Mr Lunny said Moy Park had a "sophisticated" organisation when it came to costs and pricing and suggested it would have been obvious to the company what was happening. But Ms McCollum said the firm had not identified the fuel cost differential as an indirect benefit to it at that point. Mr Lunny suggested it did not take a genius to work it out. EU Council president Donald Tusk said he remained convinced that a compromise was still possible (PA file) EU leaders have insisted a Brexit deal is still possible following the bitter fall-out from Theresa Mays appearance at the Salzburg summit. The Prime Minister warned she was prepared to walk away from the negotiations after her Chequers plan was brusquely rebuffed by leaders of the remaining 27 member states. The strength of the reaction to her treatment in the UK where it was widely seen as a humiliation appeared to catch Brussels by surprise. In a conciliatory statement on Friday, European Council president Donald Tusk said the leaders assembled in Austria had treated her proposals with all seriousness and regarded them as a step in the right direction. However he suggested they had been taken aback by the surprisingly tough and in fact uncompromising approach she had adopted when she addressed them over dinner on Wednesday. While understanding the logic of the negotiations, I remain convinced that a compromise, good for all, is still possible. I say these words as a close friend of the UK and a true admirer of PM May, he said. Earlier Irish premier Leo Varadkar, who reportedly clashed with Mrs May in Salzburg over the issue of the border with Northern Ireland, acknowledged negotiations had hit a rocky patch but said they would keep working for a deal. The Prime Minister won backing from many Tory MPs for her tough, televised statement on Friday in which she denounced her treatment by the other 27 leaders and demanded the UK was treated with respect. Expand Close (PA) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (PA) With barely controlled anger, she warned that she would never accept any agreement on the Irish border issue which led to the break up of my country and made clear she would walk away rather than accept a bad deal. Her intervention appeared to have won her some breathing space ahead of the Tory Party conference in Birmingham. But while Brexiteer MPs lauded her for standing up to the EU there were also fresh calls to abandon her Chequers plan which many Tories believe would keep Britain too close to the EU for a simple Canada-style free trade deal. However any respite may be short-lived as former Brexit secretary David Davis who quit over Chequers and is promising to publish his own plan for leaving is due to appear at a Leave Means Leave rally in Bolton on Saturday along with former Ukip leader Nigel Farage. Expand Close Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage and David Davis are expected to be at an event in Bolton on Saturday (PA file) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage and David Davis are expected to be at an event in Bolton on Saturday (PA file) Meanwhile The Daily Telegraph reported that senior ministers will use a Cabinet meeting on Monday to push Mrs May to drop Chequers and come up with a Plan B alternative. Home Secretary Sajid Javid, Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey and International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt were said to be among those pressing for a change of direction. Ms Mordaunt said on Friday she believed voters still want a deal but (were) content to go without one. For Labour, Jeremy Corbyn said Mrs May had shown herself incapable of delivering a good Brexit deal, and shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer accused her of being in denial. Liberal Democrat leader Sir Vince Cable said the Chequers plan was dead as a dodo, killed in London by Tory fundamentalists, while Green MP Caroline Lucas said Mrs Mays response pathetic, painful and petulant. Composer Paul Mealor said it was a great honour to have the Duchess of Cornwall attend the concert (Ian Rutherford/PA) Renowned composer Paul Mealor said it was a great honour to have the Duchess of Cornwall attend the world premiere of his latest work, a tribute to the fallen of the First World War. Professor Mealor composed Requiem: The Souls Of The Righteous to mark the centenary of the end of the war, and will conduct the piece at New Yorks Carnegie Hall on Remembrance Sunday. It was performed for the first time by the National Youth Choir of Scotland and Royal Scottish National Orchestra in Edinburgh on Saturday, where the duchess joined an audience at St Marys Cathedral. Camilla, known as the Duchess of Rothesay in Scotland, is chancellor of the University of Aberdeen, where Prof Mealor has taught since 2003. The composer, whose work Ubi Caritas was performed at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, said of the Requiem: Its a big piece and its a big subject. How do you tackle war now, in the 21st century, how do you mark the centenary in a way that is not offensive, that doesnt glorify war? The librettist and I, we decided to write a piece that is in essence about peace, for both sides of the conflict, and about reconciliation and the sacrifice that people made so that we can all live in peace. Its a great honour that the Duchess of Rothesay has joined us for the premiere. She is a huge supporter of music and of the university, and always adds a wonderful light to events like this because she is always so very easy to talk to and very interested in what people are doing. Of course, shes disturbing her holiday to come and see it, which is a great honour for all of us. Expand Close The duchess is chancellor of Aberdeen University, hosts of the concert (Ian Rutherford/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The duchess is chancellor of Aberdeen University, hosts of the concert (Ian Rutherford/PA) The 40-minute composition blends the traditional mass for the dead with new poems by Dr Grahame Davies, and features tolling bells and lilting strings throughout. Conducted on Saturday by Christopher Bell, artistic director of the National Youth Choir of Scotland, it was recorded by Classic FM and will be broadcast on Remembrance Sunday. Prof Mealor dedicated the new work to former Aberdeen vice-principal Professor Derek Ogston and Margaret Carlaw, who funded the composition and performance, and to all those who lost their lives in the Great War. Funds raised from the sell-out concert will be donated to osteoarthritis research at the University of Aberdeen. Professor Cosimo de Bari, professor of translational medicine and head of the Arthritis and Regenerative Medicine Laboratory, said: We are delighted the duchess could attend. She provides enormous support for initiatives in osteoarthritis. US deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein has denied reports that he floated the idea of using the 25th Amendment to remove President Donald Trump as unfit for office. The New York Times also claimed he suggested secretly recording the president to expose the chaos in the administration. The Times cited several unnamed people, who described the episodes that came in the spring of 2017 after FBI director James Comey was fired. Based on my personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment.Rod Rosenstein Mr Rosenstein is a frequent target of Mr Trumps attacks and the story could add to the uncertainty about his future at the Justice Department. The New York Timess story is inaccurate and factually incorrect, Mr Rosenstein said. I will not further comment on a story based on anonymous sources who are obviously biased against the department and are advancing their own personal agenda. But let me be clear about this: Based on my personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment. A person who was in the room when the comment was made, and provided a statement through the Justice Department, said Mr Rosensteins comment was sarcastic and that he never discussed any intention of recording a conversation with the president. The newspaper reported that Mr Rosenstein, frustrated with the hiring process for a new FBI director, offered to wear a wire and secretly record the president when he visited the White House. He also suggested that FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe and other officials who were interviewing to become the next FBI director could also perhaps record Mr Trump, the newspaper reported. Mr McCabes lawyer, Michael Bromwich, said that his client had drafted memos to memorialise significant discussions he had with high level officials and preserved them so he would have an accurate, contemporaneous record of those discussions. Mr Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller as a Justice Department special counsel to investigate potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election. He chose Mr Mueller for the job one week after he laid the groundwork for the firing of Mr Comey by writing a memo that criticised Mr Comeys handling of the FBIs investigation into Hillary Clintons email server. The White House initially held up that memo as justification for Mr Comeys firing, though Mr Trump has said he was thinking about this Russia thing when he made the move. As deputy attorney general, Mr Rosenstein oversees Mr Muellers work and has made two public announcements of indictments brought by the special counsel one against Russians accused of hacking into Democratic email accounts, the other against Russians accused of running a social media troll farm to sway public opinion. Shocked!!! Absolutely Shocked!!! Ohhh, who are we kidding at this point? No one is shocked that these guys would do anything in their power to undermine @realdonaldtrump. Rosenstein Suggested He Secretly Record Trump and Discussed 25th Amendment https://t.co/ZTEwS8E1iJ Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) September 21, 2018 On Friday, Mr Trumps eldest son, Donald Trump Jr tweeted the Timess story and said: Shocked!!! Absolutely Shocked!!! Ohhh, who are we kidding at this point? No one is shocked that these guys would do anything in their power to undermine @realdonaldtrump. The high-stakes brinkmanship over whether Brett Kavanaughs accuser would testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee has come to a momentary standstill as chairman Chuck Grassley gave Christine Blasey Ford more time to decide on the terms of her appearance. The Republican-led committee insisted that if Ms Ford missed a Friday night deadline to respond to the panels latest offer it would hold a vote on Monday on recommending Mr Kavanaughs Supreme Court nomination for the full Senate to consider. Nearly two hours after the deadline set by Mr Grassley expired on Friday night, the Iowa Republican tweeted that he had just granted another extension for Christine Blasey Ford to agree to terms for telling his panel about her allegation. He provided no details of the extension, and participants from both sides did not immediately return messages requesting clarification. She shld decide so we can move on I want to hear her. I hope u understand, he wrote just before midnight in a comment directed at Mr Kavanaugh. Judge Kavanaugh I just granted another extension to Dr Ford to decide if she wants to proceed w the statement she made last week to testify to the senate She shld decide so we can move on I want to hear her. I hope u understand. Its not my normal approach to b indecisive ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) September 22, 2018 Earlier, Mr Grassley had rejected proposals by Ms Fords lawyers that only senators interrogate Ms Ford and that she appear after Mr Kavanaugh should she appear. Ms Fords lawyer Debra Katz requested another day to decide and said Mr Grassleys deadlines sole purpose is to bully Dr Ford and deprive her of the ability to make a considered decision that has life-altering implications for her and her family. In backing away from his deadline, Mr Grassley underscored the sensitivity with which Senate Republicans have tried handling Ms Ford. The late-night brinkmanship between Mr Grassley and Ms Ford left in question whether she would appear before the Republican-run committee and describe her allegation to millions of voters. Now a 51-year-old California psychology professor, Ms Ford says an inebriated Mr Kavanaugh pinned her on a bed, muffled her cries and tried removing her clothes when both were teenagers in the 1980s. Mr Kavanaugh, a District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals judge, has repeatedly denied the accusation. Mr Grassleys move capped a tumultuous day President Donald Trump began with an incendiary tweet of his own, stating that if the long-ago incident was as bad as she says, she or her loving parents surely would have reported it to law enforcement. Republican Senator Susan Collins, who has not declared support for Mr Kavanaugh, called the remark appalling. The Judiciary committees 11 Republicans all men have been seeking an outside female lawyer to interrogate Ms Ford. Mr Grassley also rejected her proposal that she testify after Mr Kavanaugh. We are unwilling to accommodate your unreasonable demands, Mr Grassley said in a written statement. Mr Grassleys stance underscored a desire by Mr Trump and Republican leaders to usher Mr Kavanaugh, 51, on to the high court by the October 1 start of its new session and before the November elections. At a campaign rally in Missouri later on Friday, Mr Trump did not mention Ms Ford but said Mr Kavanaugh was born to be on the Supreme Court and its going to happen. The Judiciary panels top Democrat expressed fury at Mr Grassleys negotiating position with Ms Ford and maintained Democrats effort to build the battle into a larger election-year question about the treatment of women. Judiciary Committee Continues Effort to Accommodate Testimony from Dr. Ford Next Weekhttps://t.co/4lh70YHNoI Senate Judiciary Republicans (@SenJudiciaryGOP) September 21, 2018 Mr Grassley said he would schedule a hearing for Wednesday, not Thursday, as Ms Ford prefers. He also rebuffed other requests, including calling additional witnesses. Mr Grassley consented to other demands, including that Ms Ford be provided security and that Mr Kavanaugh not be in the hearing room when she testifies. Ms Fords request for security comes after her lawyers said she has relocated her family due to death threats. She planned to meet with FBI agents in the San Francisco area to discuss those threats, said a person close to her. The letter to Ms Fords lawyers said Mr Kavanaugh and his family have received death threats too, And theyre getting worse each day. The former UBS banker who served jail time for losing 2.3 billion dollars of his companys funds in unauthorized trades in 2011, Kweku Adoboli says he never described deportation to his home country, Ghana as being worse than jail in the UK. The 38-year-old Ghanaian who otherwise has enjoyed sympathy over his incarceration by the UK authorities, came in for quite some bashing after some media outlets reported he preferred being jailed in the UK to deportation to Ghana. Mr. Adoboli who is currently being detained at Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Center, near Heathrow where he is fighting a deportation order, says he was completely misquoted and that he never said those words attributed to him. He told JoyNews Editor, Israel Laryea, who paid him a visit at the detention centre, that the publication was culled from an interview he had granted the BBC in which he said banishment is a punishment much worse than being in prison. Indeed beyond the headline, Israel says, the article in which he is said to have made those remarks quotes him as saying, Ive served my time, but Im being given an extra punishment a banishment and just because I didnt get around to becoming a citizen. This punishment is so much worse than being in prison. Mr. Adoboli was due to have been deported to Ghana on Tuesday, but for a last-minute reprieve after a judge awarded an injunction against his removal pending a Judicial Review into his case. Israel Laryea describes seeing Kweku, crestfallen and dejected as he was allowed into the visitor area at the detention centre - more like a prison - nothing like the high-achiever who used to rake in billions of pounds sterling for his former employer, UBS. Israel also got to meet Kwekus girlfriend who had come to see him at the detention centre. Asked why he never applied for British citizenship for the over two decades that he schooled and eventually worked there, Kweku explained that UBS' immigration lawyers advised him to pursue the work permit route even though he was eligible for naturalization as long ago as 2002. In 2009, required to travel for his employer at short notice, he says he was unable to submit his Ghana passport for UK citizenship due to the usual delays at the UK passport office, sometimes for as long as nine months. The pressures of managing a $50bln book with just one other employee did not abate before the loss of 2011. Kweku also said he did not think that it would have made a difference, explaining that he took responsibility because of his Ghanaian upbringing, which taught him to accept responsibility for his actions and inactions, no matter the consequences. Under UK law, foreign nationals sentenced to more than four years in jail are to be deported to their home countries unless there are very compelling circumstances. Mr. Adoboli says though he loves being a Ghanaian, hes grown up to know many friends and associates in the UK and so cant just let go like that at the drop of a hat. He says it will be a violent act if one part of his identity is destroyed and he is made to choose between being a Ghanaian and being resident in Britain. Kweku, however, finds himself in quite a lurch, because, much as he would want to cling to his roots as Ghanaian, he is faced with a situation where the more he tries to show the strength of his ties to the UK, the more others believe he is trying to disown Ghana. This is not the case, he says. His fight has nothing to do with his feelings for Ghana and everything to do with protecting relationships built over 26 years since childhood in the UK. He, however, argues that it will be important to maintain his right to live in the UK, as once he is banished from the UK, he will lose virtually any chance of being admitted into another western country. This, he says, would destroy his value to both Ghana and the UK amidst efforts to use his rich banking experience to bear on the development of his native Ghana and the relationship between both countries. He is adamant his deportation is a disrespect of what should be a relationship of mutual respect between equal Commonwealth partners. Source: myjoyonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The woman accusing US Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault has said she might testify against him after all, breathing new life into the prospect of a dramatic Senate showdown next week The woman accusing US Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault has said she might testify against him after all, breathing new life into the prospect of a dramatic Senate showdown next week. Christine Blasey Ford, who claims Mr Kavanaugh assaulted her when they were in high school, wants to give evidence next Thursday but does not want her alleged attacker in the same room, her lawyer told Judiciary Committee staff. She is willing to tell her story to the committee, whose senators will vote on Mr Kavanaugh's confirmation, but only if agreement can be reached on "terms that are fair and which ensure her safety", the lawyer said. The discussion revived the possibility that the panel would hold an electrifying campaign-season hearing at which Ms Ford and President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee could give their versions of what happened at a party in the 1980s. Mr Kavanaugh, now a judge on the powerful US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, has repeatedly denied her allegation. The accusation has jarred the 53-year-old conservative jurist's prospects for winning confirmation, which until Ms Ford's emergence last week had seemed all but certain. The Judiciary Committee's Republican chairman, Chuck Grassley, has scheduled a hearing for Monday morning, and he and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell have indicated it would be Ms Ford's only chance to make her case. Republicans are anxious to move ahead to a vote by the committee, where they hold an 11-10 majority, and then by the full Senate, which they also control by a 51-49 majority. Taylor Foy, spokesman for Republicans on the panel, said after the call that Mr Grassley "will consult with his colleagues on the committee. He remains committed to providing a fair forum for both Dr Ford and Judge Kavanaugh". Lawyer Debra Katz said Ms Ford (51) has received death threats, and for safety reasons had relocated her family. Thousands rallied across Russia on Saturday to protest against the governments plan to raise the eligibility age for retirement pensions by five years. Several thousand people attended a Moscow rally organised by the Communist Party and other groups, which was authorised by city officials. Communist Party chief Gennady Zyuganov called for the proposed changes to be rolled back, arguing that the government should redistribute resources to avoid raising the pension age. They keep reaching into your pockets, he told the crowd, which had many waving red flags. Similar protests were also held in cities across Russias 11 time zones and most of them were also sanctioned by authorities. The demonstrations went on peacefully, unlike a wave of unauthorised pension protests earlier this month organised by opposition leader Alexei Navalny that led to the detention of more than 1,000 people across Russia. Expand Close Alexei Navalny is Russian President Vladimir Putins most visible foe(Anti-Corruption Foundation/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Alexei Navalny is Russian President Vladimir Putins most visible foe(Anti-Corruption Foundation/AP) Navalny, the anti-corruption activist who is Putins most visible foe, had called for protests against the pension age hike before he was sentenced to 30 days in jail for organising a January protest over a different issue. He is set to be released from custody on Monday. The governments plan to lift the retirement age to 65 for men and 60 for women has angered a wide range of Russians from all political factions. Older Russians fear they will not live long enough to collect significant benefits while younger generations are worried that keeping people in the workforce longer will limit their own employment opportunities. The proposal has dented President Vladimir Putins popularity. He responded by offering some concessions, but argued that the age hike is necessary because rising life expectancy in Russia could exhaust the nations pension resources if the eligibility age remains the same. There is little we can do about it right now, especially as we do not have a coherent strategy on Brexit, or a working Stormont As the tortuous and increasingly fractious negotiations continue over Brexit, it is impressive how the border question here is playing a crucial part, even if many of the opinion-makers and people in the rest of the United Kingdom know so little about Northern Ireland and its people. Mrs May's latest gritty retort to her humiliation in Salzburg by EU leaders has placed us firmly at the epicentre of events, and the outcome of the Irish border question could be a deal-maker. How ironic that this is so, given the Secretary of State's lack of knowledge about us prior to coming here, and the comments of leading commentator Tim Shipman, which underlines the closeted world of the Westminster politicians and the London-based media. Shipman, with typical outsider arrogance, dismisses this province as a "strange sectarian place", less worthy of note than even Cork, never mind Washington or Paris. Though Mrs May has underlined robustly her conviction that we are firmly part of the UK, it is hard to imagine that these views are mirrored by the majority of people on the larger island who know little about Northern Ireland. Put bluntly, they don't even show an inclination to find out more about us, and we in Northern Ireland have little interest in their internal affairs. For further proof of the general UK disinterest in Northern Ireland, as if any were needed, we only have to look at the scant coverage about our affairs. The huge scandal of the RHI and the controversy over the behaviour of Ian Paisley was given little attention, despite the fact that Mr Paisley was severely censured by Parliament. Currently we are making national headlines over Brexit, but in reality we are seen as a place apart. That is not good position for us at a time when so much is at stake. However there is little we can do about it right now, especially as we do not have a coherent strategy on Brexit, or a working Stormont. We can only hope for the best, which is the result of being at the centre of the storm with no visible means of rescue. There's a story sometimes told at gatherings of clergy about an earnest young priest taking up his first appointment. Fresh out of Maynooth, after seven years of study, the 24-year-old is appointed a curate alongside an elderly priest in a rural parish. The elderly priest mentors the young man, and they get on famously. One evening after supper, the bond is such that the younger priest asks his colleague: "And celibacy, Father, when does that stop being an issue?" The older priest smiles before responding: "Oh, I don't know. I imagine shortly after rigor mortis sets in." The story is most likely apocryphal, but its telling and re-telling illustrates a deeper truth. Many priests struggle with the Church's rule that they must remain unmarried and therefore refrain from expressing their sexuality physically. It's something that is often shied away from. Priests are often unwilling to discuss it, lest they become subject of pity. I spent a number of years in seminary in the late 1990s considering priesthood. Sure, there were lectures about celibacy from eminent experts, and we all assured ourselves that celibacy was necessary for the radical availability that is part and parcel of the life of a priest. There was even talk about how necessary celibacy was in imitation of Christ. Looking back, I'm not sure to what extent the seminary system helped people internalise the life-encompassing commitment that celibacy is. Truth be told, I think most people there felt a profound call to be a priest, and just accepted celibacy as a necessary burden in fulfilment of that ambition. "If you want to be a priest, you have to take on celibacy - that's the deal," I remember one long-serving priest telling me. But it doesn't have to be, and the Catholic Church needs a radical debate about allowing priests to get married. It would not change in any way the fundamental nature of the priesthood or the Church. The apostles of Christ - men considered to be the first Christian priests - were married and had children. For centuries, priests, bishops and even Popes were married. While it is true that there were always priests who freely chose a life of celibacy as a form of heroic self-sacrifice, the rule only became mandatory in the Middle Ages. Even then, it was only mandatory in the Catholic Church in the West. Today, in Eastern Rite Catholic Churches, priests are routinely married and have families of their own. In Britain and the United States, Anglican ministers who convert to Catholicism are often ordained as Catholic priests and serve in parishes with their wives and children. It all contributes to making the rigid insistence that other priests must remain celibate completely untenable. Following the reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, most people thought that the lifting of the ban on priests getting married was only a matter of time. After all, the Mass was now in English, nuns no longer wore their habits and priests took to wearing leather jackets. One priest who was trained in the late 1960s told me that when he was in seminary, all of his classmates just assumed they would soon be free to marry. It never happened and hundreds of men abandoned the priesthood in order to love and form a family. Pope Paul VI infamously described such men as "Judas", but there's hardly a parish in Ireland where there isn't a man living who left priestly ministry to get married. Many priests will tell you that they embrace celibacy joyfully and that, lived well, it is a beautiful thing. I can think of countless priests whose hearts are too overflowing with love for their parishioners to ever have a family. Sure, there are sacrifices, but they point to the fact that people who are married often have to make huge sacrifices too. And no married person would disagree with that. But celibacy is not easy to live well, and for those who struggle, it often makes their lives miserable. There is loneliness, isolation and oddness. Some priests turn to alcohol and other unhealthy habits in a bid to ease the solitude and heartache they feel. These men live what can only be described as lives of quiet desperation. Will Rome change the rules and allow priests to get married? Well, it just might see that mandatory celibacy has outlived its usefulness. After all, in Church law, it is simply a matter of discipline rather than something that would affect the doctrine of the Church. Pope Francis could end the rule tomorrow by the stroke of a pen. He would face resistance from some who would see it as giving in, or just a further weakening of the Church's stance on a contentious issue. That is reactionary. Celibacy is something that should serve a useful purpose in the Church, and could continue to do so for those who would freely embrace such a commitment. On the other hand, for those priests who find it tough, or men who would consider priesthood but for celibacy, it could be the beginning of a more fulfilled life. Married priests would also give the Church more credibility and moral authority when it makes pronouncements about family life. For me, it's simple - Catholics need priests more than they need unmarried priests. Michael Kelly is editor of The Irish Catholic newspaper About Me Scott Because prophetic scriptures are found throughout the bible, it is obvious that a comprehensive, systematic approach would be useful, if not necessary, for the understanding of prophecy. Past prophecies have been fulfilled in a literal manner, as confirmed by the dating of these writings and historical records of confirmation. These past prophecies also serve as a model of how to interpret future prophecies. A literal view of prophecy clearly indicates a certain sequence of events will occur within a single generation, concluding with the Tribulation and Second Advent and these events will be obvious. The prophetic signs appear to be present in this generation and we believe these signs are revealed in the news from around the world. View my complete profile For Immediate Release, September 21, 2018 Contact: Taylor McKinnon, Center for Biological Diversity, (801) 300-2414 tmckinnon@biologicaldiversity.org Erik Molvar, Western Watersheds Project, (307) 399-7910, emolvar@westernwatersheds.org Talasi Brooks, Advocates for the West, (202) 342-7024 x 208, tbrooks@advocateswest.org Judge Blocks Trump Policy Cutting Public Out of Oil and Gas Leasing Decisions on Public Lands BOISE, Idaho A federal judge today halted implementation of a Trump administration policy that would sharply curtail public participation in oil and gas leasing decisions on public lands. The ruling applies to future oil and gas lease sales in greater sage grouse habitat, which covers 67 million acres in 11 Western states. The preliminary injunction order, issued today by U.S. Chief Magistrate Judge Ronald E. Bush, prohibits the Bureau of Land Management from enforcing the policy changes pending a final ruling by the court. Lease sales scheduled for December in greater sage grouse habitat, spanning hundreds of thousands of acres across the interior West, must now include 30-day public comment and administrative protest periods. The BLM was cutting the public out of oil and gas decision making, and were grateful to Judge Bush for restoring the publics ability to have meaningful input, said Erik Molvar, executive director of Western Watersheds Project. In January the BLM issued an instruction memorandum directing field offices to accelerate oil and gas leasing on public lands, in part by curtailing environmental review and eliminating mandatory public comment periods. The motion for preliminary injunction, filed by Advocates for the West on behalf of Western Watersheds Project and the Center for Biological Diversity, challenged the policy as an unlawful attempt to eliminate public involvement in BLM leasing decisions. This ruling is good news for public lands and the millions of people who love them, said Taylor McKinnon with the Center for Biological Diversity. The Trump administration is trying every trick in the book to make it easier for the fossil fuel industry to plunder public lands for private profit. Thankfully we have a judicial system to uphold bedrock environmental laws and ensure the publics voice is heard. In his ruling, the judge said there was significant evidence that the BLM was intentionally shutting the public out. The record contains significant evidence indicating that BLM made an intentional decision to limit the opportunity for (and even in some circumstances to preclude entirely) any contemporaneous public involvement in decisions concerning whether to grant oil and gas leases on federal lands, Bush said. The courts order will affect public land lease sales currently scheduled for December in Colorado, Montana, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming. This decision sends a strong message to BLM that it cannot lawfully suppress public input to fast-track oil and gas development, said Sarah Stellberg, an attorney with Advocates for the West. Public participation and reasoned government decisionmaking are guaranteed by law, and the comment periods restored by this order will help ensure that non-industry stakeholders have a real voice in how our public lands are managed. The preliminary injunction request is part of a broader lawsuit challenging BLMs federal oil and gas leasing practices across five western states and covering almost 2 million acres of key greater sage grouse habitat. The iconic and imperiled western bird has lost almost half of its habitat since Euro-American settlement. The groups filed a motion for a preliminary injunction in July. Despite increasing concerns about wildlife habitat, climate change and water quality impacts, about 90 percent of federal public lands in the West are available for oil and gas leasing. For Immediate Release, September 21, 2018 Contacts: Tierra Curry, Center for Biological Diversity, (928) 522-3681, tcurry@biologicaldiversity.org George Sexton, Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center, (541) 778-8120, gs@kswild.org Susan Britting, Sierra Forest Legacy, (530) 295-8210, britting@earthlink.net Tom Wheeler, EPIC, 206 356 8689, tom@wildcalifornia.org Elizabeth Forsyth, Earthjustice, (415) 217-2000, eforsyth@earthjustice.org Judge Overturns Denial of Endangered Species Protection for Pacific Fishers Rare Carnivore Has Been Reduced to Two Populations in California, Oregon SAN FRANCISCO In a win for conservation groups, a judge ruled today in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service must reconsider the denial of Endangered Species Act protection for Pacific fishers. The Service proposed federal protection for the fisher in 2014, but then arbitrarily withdrew the proposal in 2016. Groups then filed suit alleging that the denial ignored the science in a politically motivated bow to the timber industry. As the result of todays ruling, the agency must issue a new decision on the animals protection by March 22, 2019. A relative of minks and otters, Pacific fishers once roamed from British Columbia to Southern California. But due to intense logging and historical trapping, only two naturally occurring populations remain today: a population of 100 to 500 fishers in the southern Sierra Nevada and a population of between 250 and a few thousand fishers in southern Oregon and Northern California. Now, these small populations of Pacific fishers are threatened by the use of toxic rodenticides by marijuana growers, and increasing fire severity exacerbated by climate change, along with loss of habitat due to logging. In todays decision the judge emphasized that the Service downplayed the threat to fishers from rodent poisons in determining that federal protection was not warranted. But in a 2015 study, scientists conducting necropsies on fishers found that 85 percent had been exposed to rodent poison. Efforts to gain federal protection for the fisher now span decades. The Center for Biological Diversity first petitioned to protect the fisher in 1994, and again in 2000, joined by the three other groups on the lawsuit, the Environmental Protection Information Center, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center and Sierra Forest Legacy. The groups were represented by Earthjustice. Weve been fighting for Endangered Species Act protection for fishers since Friends debuted on television and yet these awesome carnivores still arent protected, said Tierra Curry, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. Now the judge has given the agency another chance to do the right thing and grant these irreplaceable animals the protection they need to fight off extinction. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ignored the best interest of the fisher and bent over backwards to appease the timber industry, but todays ruling reinforces once more that science, not politics, should determine whether a species deserves protection, said Tom Wheeler, program director at the Environmental Protection Information Center. The Endangered Species Act is our nations bedrock environmental law, but sadly the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service routinely sacrifices our most imperiled wildlife to appease industry interests, said Elizabeth Forsyth, Earthjustice attorney. Fortunately the court balanced the scales to protect the fisher. This decision shows that politics has no place in listing decisions, said Susan Britting, executive director of Sierra Forest Legacy. This rare forest carnivore clearly needs protection. We expect the agency to now uphold their mission to protect wildlife and not buckle to pressure from industry. Protection cant come soon enough for the fisher because old-growth timber sales continue to whittle away habitat the species needs if it is to recover and thrive, said George Sexton, conservation director for the Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center (KS Wild). The Klamath Mountains should be a key refuge for the fisher, yet the BLM recently committed itself to logging plans that would remove fisher habitat while increasing fire hazard for decades. The establishment of Mercks biosafety testing lab will strengthen Singapores competitiveness as a leading global site for biologics manufacturing Merck has announced the opening of a new 3,800-square-meter laboratory in Singapore. The S$20 million (~US$15 million) lab is the first of its kind outside of the US and UK, and the first in Singapore. Biologics testing is a major step in the drug development process to ensure sterility, safety and overall quality of customers biological drug products. This investment underscores our commitment to Singapore as an important hub for Merck, said Dr. Udit Batra, member of the Merck executive board and CEO, Life Science. Our new BioReliance lab in Singapore is the first of its kind for biomanufacturing in this region. Singapore is at the heart of the Asia Pacific region and serves as the Asian headquarters to many multinational pharmaceutical organizations that have a significant manufacturing footprint on the island. Its vibrant ecosystem has also attracted local life science companies and start-ups to establish a presence here. The establishment of Mercks biosafety testing lab will strengthen Singapores competitiveness as a leading global site for biologics manufacturing, said Dr. Beh Swan Gin, chairman of Singapore Economic Development Board. The companys M LabTM Collaboration centre is also a welcome addition to Singapores life science innovation ecosystem. Both projects will provide Singaporeans with the opportunity to acquire highly-skilled and specialized capabilities. PR Newswire WASHINGTON, Sept. 22, 2018 WASHINGTON, Sept. 22, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest Muslim advocacy and civil rights organization, today called on the FBI to investigate an apparent plot to kill people at a recent Islamic convention in Houston, Texas. CAIR said the alleged plot was revealed in a leaked "Texas Patriot Network" audio chat by armed members of Islamophobic, white supremacist and racist militias rallying against the Islamic event and coordinating plans to physically attack counter-protesters. One person on the chat told another: "Those mother****ers are dead meat. . .I got a position on them now." SEE: Leaked Audio Reveals Militia's Plans to Attack Houston Protestershttps://itsgoingdown.org/leaked-audio-reveals-militias-plans-to-attack-houston-protesters/ The audio also references a CAIR staffer who approached the armed militia members to take video and photographs. Video: Armed Anti-Muslim Hate Groups Soldiers of Odin, Texas Patriot Network Outside ISNA Conventionhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msQyVmwF44c "These leaked conversations, if authenticated, clearly indicate a coordinated plot by armed members of white supremacist and Islamophobic groups to harm innocent civilians," said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad. "This potentially-deadly plot must be investigated by local, state and federal law enforcement agencies and the perpetrators brought to justice." Awad said CAIR has reported an unprecedented spike in bigotry targeting American Muslims, immigrants and members of other minority groups since the election of Donald Trump as president. Video: CAIR-CT Urges Stepped-up Security After White Substance, Hate Mail Sent to Mosquehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIwFYeVcRYEVideo: CAIR-Austin Co-Hosts Safety Workshop in Response to Vandalism Targeting Muslim Communityhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d0_u-Uy_10 Earlier this year, CAIR released its 2018 Civil Rights Report, "Targeted," which showed a 17 percent increase in bias-motivated incidents against American Muslims from 2016 to 2017, and a 15 percent increase in the number of anti-Muslim hate crimes in that same time period. SEE: 2018 Civil Rights Report: Targetedhttp://www.islamophobia.org/reports/224-2018-civil-rights-report-targeted.html Community members are being urged to report any bias incidents to police and to CAIR's Civil Rights Department at 202-742-6420 or by going to: https://www.cair.com/report CAIR is America's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance understanding of Islam, protect civil rights, promote justice, and empower American Muslims. La mision de CAIR es proteger las libertades civiles, mejorar la comprension del Islam, promover la justicia, y empoderar a los musulmanes en los Estados Unidos. CONTACT: CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, [email protected] View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cair-calls-on-fbi-to-probe-leaked-audio-indicating-white-supremacist-militia-plot-at-islamic-convention-in-houston-300717234.html SOURCE Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) A man who stole from his former employer after getting fired has been sentenced to two months of house arrest. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 22/9/2018 (1145 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Advertisement Advertise With Us A man who stole from his former employer after getting fired has been sentenced to two months of house arrest. Michael Deutscher, 50, pleaded guilty on Thursday to theft under $5,000, possessing property obtained by crime and failing to attend court. Police were contacted by Sussex Realty on Jan. 29, Crown attorney Yaso Mathu told the Brandon provincial court, reporting that an ex-employee who had been terminated approximately two weeks prior had stolen from them. Deutscher, who was a caretaker of a property on Willowdale Crescent, had been caught on surveillance video emptying an unknown amount of money from the coin-operated laundry machines after he had been fired, Mathu said, and a snowblower was also reported missing. Police visited the property and also found a large utility trailer at the side of the building which residents said was Deutschers, Mathu said. Further investigation revealed the trailer had been reported stolen. Deutscher was arrested and admitted taking money from the laundry machines, Mathu said, stating he needed money to get to Winnipeg and that he was angry after being fired. Deutscher said he took the snowblower and dropped it off at another Sussex Realty property, however the snowblower was never located, Mathu said. Deutscher also admitted the trailer was in his possession and that he had purchased it for $800 from an acquaintance, Mathu said, but was unable to provide any trace of the transaction, such as a bill of sale. "At best, there was willful blindness regarding the origins of this trailer," Mathu said. Mathu asked the court to consider sentencing Deutscher to four months of house arrest, calling the theft a "major breach of trust." "We cannot excuse that kind of behaviour, where retaliatory action is being taken against an employer," Mathu said. "This kind of behaviour needs a strong and deterrent message." Defence lawyer Ryan Fawcett told the court Deutscher was going through a rough patch in his life, spiralling into depression and some drug use after his father passed away in December, 2017. Deutscher took approximately $150 from the laundry machines because he needed money to get to Winnipeg, and he took the snowblower out of spite, Fawcett said. "Theres really not much of an explanation as to why Mr. Deutscher decided to involve himself in this other than that he was struggling and wasnt thinking clearly," Fawcett said. Since the incident, Deutscher has taken steps to clean up his act, including moving out of province to start fresh, Fawcett added. "I appreciate this may have been a stressful period in your life, but unfortunately you chose to make a number of poor decisions and youre suffering the consequences of that today," Judge John Combs said, sentencing Deutscher to two months house arrest followed by one year probation. Deutscher was also ordered to pay a little more than $1,000 in fines and restitution. edebooy@brandonsun.com Twitter: @erindebooy The Labour Leader Brendan Howlin says he is very worried over whether Britain and the European Union can reach an agreement on Brexit before next month's EU summit. The British Prime Minister Theresa May said yesterday negotiations over the Irish border and trade are "at an impasse", and they will continue preparations for a "no-deal" scenario. The Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney has said that Ireland will recognise the state of Palestine if the impasse in negotiations with Israel is not broken. Mr Coveney made the comments following a meeting with his Palestinian counterpart Dr Riad Malki this evening. Lucas Herbert carded an excellent round of 64 to open up a two-shot lead over England's Tom Lewis on day three of the Portugal Masters in Vilamoura. Oliver Fisher had made history in round two as he carded the first ever 59 on the European Tour and an unlikely eagle on the par four last would have handed Lewis the second on another low-scoring day. A closing par saw Lewis sign for a 61 and a 17 under par total behind Australian Herbert, who is playing off invites this season as he looks to earn his full playing privileges on tour. Lewis won this event in just his third start as a professional in 2011 and recorded a victory on the second-tier Challenge Tour just two weeks ago, although he looked unlikely to contend this week after an opening 72. The 27-year-old has birdied 18 of his 36 holes since, including 10 in round three, and he admitted the thought of another 59 had crept into his mind. "It's something that I noticed with three holes to go," he said. "I wasn't that bothered at the end of the day. I'm pleased that I shot 10 under par and put myself in there tomorrow. I can only continue to make birdies and see what happens tomorrow." Herbert made eight birdies and a single bogey to get to 19 under, with England's Eddie Pepperell and Swede Marcus Kinhult four shots off the lead. Fisher was then in the group at 14 under after taking 10 more shots than his historic effort on Friday. Shane Lowry finished seven shots off the lead after a three under 68 to finish 12 under. That leaves him in 10th place. Wicklow's Paul Dunne finished 6 under after an even par round of 71. PA More than three-quarters of Gungahlin businesses along the light rail route have reported a decrease in revenue and foot traffic due to construction of the transport project. A report tabled in the Legislative Assembly this week into the impact work on the light rail had on nearby businesses found 78 per cent reported a drop in footfall between January and July. Gungahlin businesses say they've been affected by the light rail construction. Credit:Karleen Minney In the same time period, 73 per cent reported a drop in revenue. The report found 69 per cent of businesses reported decreased foot traffic between April and December 2017. Viral footage of a man running down emus earlier this week was shocking and offensive and the leaders of this country can not turn a blind eye to such an attack. Arguably just as distressing is the image of a Canberra emu wandering around Tidbinbilla with an arrow sticking out of its back. Sadly, the emu that continues to wander around Canberras outskirts with a weapon protruding from its rump will not be having the arrow removed. Tranquilising the creature would, rangers say, kill it rather than save it. However, rangers are keeping an eye on the big bird said other than the protruding dart in its side, the emu is in perfect health. There has been an increase in sightings of the emu recently because it had started hanging around roads in the Cotter area. Social media lit up with responses to the photo showing the injured bird with many calling for greater penalties for those that commit such crimes. A female wombat was also stabbed 13 times in a brutal killing at Tharwa Sandwash earlier this year.But more needs to come from leaders who should strongly condemn such attacks. A man who posed as an Uber driver and allegedly sexually assaulted two women while driving them home from nights out in Brisbane has appeared in court. The 41-year-old was arrested during a raid on his Carindale home on Friday after a 25-year-old and a 23-year-old told police they'd been picked up from the Fortitude Valley nightclub precinct and assaulted on two separate nights in September. Police believe a black 2007 Land Rover Freelander may have been used in the sexual assaults of two Brisbane women earlier this month. Credit:Queensland Police Service The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, appeared in the Brisbane Magistrates Court on Saturday charged with one count of deprivation of liberty and three counts of sexual assault. Court documents allege he approached one of the women in an SUV on Wickham Street about 3.40am on September 8 and told her he was an Uber driver. A 22-year-old man will be summonsed for the offence of stealing and the 23-year-old woman for the offence of receiving. The meerkat enclosure at Perth Zoo was closed on Saturday as the young animal recuperated. Zoo staff said the animal was stressed but recovering well. Perth Zoo senior veterinarian Simone Vitali said: All the things are lining up that were going to have a good outcome. Sergeant Dean Kelland speaks to media at Perth Zoo on Saturday morning. Credit:Cameron Myles Kensington Police Sergeant Dean Kelland said on Saturday inquiries were ongoing but said there was no suggestion the Beverley property was connected to animal trafficking. Details on the heist were scant, but Sergeant Kelland said police and zoo staff would continue to pore over evidence in the coming weeks to figure out just how the baby meerkat was swiped from its enclosure. He said it was a relief to have a happy outcome to the case and always held faith the officers assigned to investigate would get to the bottom of it. I can tell you, at 8 oclock last night when I received a text message I was very relieved myself, he said. But it is surely one of the stranger cases to come across the desk at Kensington Police. I dont think theres anything normal about anything being stolen from a zoo, Sergeant Kelland said. You hear about it, you hear rumours about things like this, but being involved in its a completely different thing. Its definitely got us standing up like a meerkat. Not out of the woods yet Perth Zoo senior vet Simone Vitali. Credit:Cameron Myles Dr Vitali said while the baby was recovering well from its ordeal, there was still potential that it would not be taken back by the other meerkats at the zoo enclosure. Were all really relieved to have him back with us now, she said. Weve done a full examination on him now he was very stressed and tired and hungry just like any bub thats been away from mum. But after an evening of getting his favourite foods and getting a bit of warmth and a bit of quiet hes really bounced back quite well, so were really happy with his progress so far. Zookeepers will keep a watchful eye over the coming days to properly reunite the meerkat with his family. Weve got high hopes that the family will take him back again, Dr Vitali said. Were very lucky that he was almost weaned by the time he went, so he didnt miss out on a lot of mums milk and he was already eating the things that a mature meerkat should eat. All the things are lining up that were going to have a good outcome, and thats what were going to be pushing for. While referred to as a he by Dr Vitali, the senior vet said staff had still not confirmed the meerkats sex but signs pointed to it being a boy. I wish it was easier to determine whether these are boys or girls but theyre really tricky at this age, she said. The baby meerkat is back in safe hands after its ordeal. Credit:Perth Zoo We think its a boy so were going with a he until further notice but we should know more in a month or so. The meerkats mother, Bamba, initially had a litter of five. But first-time meerkat mothers often struggle and Dr Vitali said staff were ecstatic to have one surviving kit. And at just four weeks old the kitten has already proved itself to be hardy, bouncing back from its ordeal admirably. This kit is a real fighter, Dr Vitali said. It was obviously very stressed last night when we got it back. But it came back and it fed and it showed the resilience of youth and has really got itself back on track quite quickly, so were very, very relieved. More Queenslanders will be able to access prevention treatment for HIV with the state government increasing its funding of efforts to help people take the drug. The pills used for HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), a key medication in managing the disease's prevalence. Credit:Marc Bruxelle The Queensland AIDS Council will receive $870,000 over the next two-and-a-half years to spread the word the treatment is now subsidised and support individuals who are less likely to seek out the medication. Loading "Biomedical advances such as PrEP and treatment as prevention are truly wonderful developments for our community, as was demonstrated by the recent removal of AIDS as a notifiable condition earlier this month," the council's president Peter Black said on Saturday. 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 Rs 99-billion Britannia Industries, best known as a bakery and dairy major, is getting future-ready as the packaged food market in the country evolves. Rivals such as ITC and Parle Products have taken steps in this direction, committing investments and resources as well as coming up with new launches in the segment. Britannia, which is celebrating its centenary year in 2018, will first look at expanding its dairy and bakery businesses, before turning its attention towards new food categories. The attempt is to become a total foods company, as it eyes a well-rounded presence in ... A day after three policemen were abducted and killed by militants, security forces Saturday launched a massive cordon and search operation in Shopian and Pulwama districts of Jammu and Kashmir, police said. The cordon and search operation (CASO) was launched in at least eight villages in Pulwama and Shopian districts in south Kashmir early this morning, a police official said. He said a joint team of police, Army and paramilitary CRPF launched the CASO to flush out militants from the area.The official said the operation was going on when last reports came in. Three cops were Friday abducted and later killed by militants in Shopian district. Meanwhile, clashes broke out between groups of youth and security forces during the CASO at Shermal in Shopian, the official said. He said youth pelted stones on the security forces carrying out searches in the area. The forces fired tear gas shells to quell the protests, the official said, adding, clashes were going on. will travel to India early next month, his first trip to the country as head of the world body that coincides with the commencement of events marking the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. The Secretary-General will arrive in New Delhi on October 1. His visit coincides with the beginning of events to celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi on October 2 next year, Deputy Spokesman for the UN Secretary-General Farhan Haq told reporters here on Friday. On October 1, Guterres will formally open the new UN House in New Delhi and on October 2, the Secretary-General will participate in the closing session of the Mahatma Gandhi International Sanitation Convention. During the visit, he will meet President Ram Nath Kovind, and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on October 3. He will also meet with Speaker of the Lok Sabha Sumitra Mahajan before giving a lecture at the India Habitat Centre on Global Affairs on the theme 'Global challenges, global solutions'. The Secretary-General will also take part in the General Assembly of the International Solar Alliance. In the afternoon of October 3, he will visit the Golden Temple in Amritsar and will return to New York on October 4. Guterres had visited India in July 2016, just months ahead of the election for Secretary General. During his visit then, he had met Swaraj. Replying to a question on Guterres' trip to the Golden Temple, Haq said that the visit is essentially a personal one as the wanted to see the holy Sikh pilgrimage site. When asked if Guterres will be asked questions about the 1984 Sikh riots, Haq said it was a bit "premature" to mention the topics he will bring up. Haq also expressed the world body's gratitude to the Indian government for its contribution of $1 million to install solar panels and a green roof on the Conference Building of the Secretariat. The contribution was received by Under-Secretary-General for Management Jan Beagle, who said that "India's generous contribution sends a strong message promoting innovation for action on climate change, and to enable greater efficiencies". The initiative will help the Secretariat reduce its carbon footprint and promote sustainable energy, Haq added. Welcome Guest! You Are Here: Congress President Saturday said there was a feeling among people that one ideology was being imposed upon them and asserted that the country cannot be run on one single idea. The strength of the country, he said, is that people are allowed to discuss ideas. Attacking the government over its education policy, Gandhi said government institutions should be given precedence over private institutions and the government should put money to strengthen them. ALSO READ: Congress president Rahul Gandhi to address leading academicians on Saturday "Government institutions should be the guiding light and not private institutions. The government should put money in the system to strengthen government institutions," he said addressing eminent academicians at an event at Siri Fort auditorium in New Delhi. He said there is a feeling that ideology is being imposed. "You feel an ideology is being imposed upon you. This sense and this feeling is not only in your heart but it is in everybody's hearts, from farmers to labourers. The country cannot be run from one single idea," he said. "The fact that we allow people to talk, to discuss. This is the strength of our country, it is not the weakness of our country. If we see 3,000 years of India's history, we are going to win. We are not going to lose," he said. Describing Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a symbol of honesty after Congress president Rahul Gandhi threw the "thief" barb at him, the BJP Saturday rejected former French president Francois Hollande's sensational claim on the deal, saying it does not know under what compulsion he said so. Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad also said that Dassault Aviation, the manufacturer of the fighter aircraft, and Reliance had entered into an agreement as early as 2012 when the Congress-led UPA was in power as he refuted the allegation that the Modi government had favoured the Anil Ambani-led company. Ruling out Gandhi's demand for a joint parliamentary committee probe into the deal, he told a press conference that it cannot be done merely to satisfy the ego of "an arrogant and ill-informed leader repeating lies after lies". Prasad also cited statements of the French government and Dassault in which they said Indian and French dispensations had no role in picking the offset partner of the private company, to brush aside the charge of corruption. He sought to discredit the claim of Hollande, who had said that the Indian government has proposed Reliance as an offset partner, saying that French journalists have spoken about his "conflict of interests". It is none of our concern, he then added. The BJP leader raked up a number of cases of alleged corruption involving the Gandhi family to launch a stinging attack on the Congress president, saying his family is the "source of corruption" in the country. No prime minister of India has been spoken of in a manner Gandhi did about Modi, he said, terming his comments as "irresponsible and shameful" and that he had painted his face black with such remarks. "We cannot expect anything better from Gandhi. He has no quality, no capability and whatever he is he owes to his family... Modi is a symbol of honesty and a global leader," Prasad said, claiming that doors for middlemen and power brokers have been shut under his government. He said the UPA government terminated negotiations with Dassault after a contract negotiation committee had chosen it as the lowest bidder in 2012 following years of process because the company did not pay it "bribe". ALSO READ: Rahul playing into hands of Pak, China by seeking Rafale deal details: BJP There was pressure on the company for "extraneous considerations", he said, adding that Modi decided to go ahead with the deal after coming to power in May 2014 as Indian Air Force needed fighter aircraft urgently and the entire exercise had been dragging on for several years. He also alleged that Gandhi was "helping" Pakistan and had been playing into the hands of India's "enemies", by demanding that the government reveal full price details of the deal. He said Gandhi and his mother Sonia Gandhi are on bail in a case of corruption, a reference to the Herald matter, and alleged that his family had taken bribe in the Bofors case. ALSO READ: Opposition calls for PM Modi's resignation over Rafale deal controversy The country cannot expect any better from a leader who kept quiet while his brother-in-law looted land, Prasad said, in a reference to cases involving Robert Vadra. Prasad reiterated the government's claim the basic price of negotiated by it was nine per cent cheaper than what the UPA had agreed to while its fully weaponised version was 20 per cent cheaper. The Indian private company was then led by Mukesh Ambani. Anil Ambani is his younger brother. Whatever happened between the two brothers is their matter, he said. Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das on Saturday said that the scheme or the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojna (PMJAY) will benefit about 5.7 million families in the state. Talking to ANI, Das said, "It is our good fortune that is being launched from Jharkhand. I congratulate Prime Minister for this. In the state, 5.7 million families will be covered under this scheme. All arrangements have been made." He added that 106 private hospitals and 217 government-run clinics have been listed under the scheme, where people can avail medical facilities. Stressing more on the scheme, Das elucidated, "As per the scheme, there will be a medical coordinator in every hospital. As many as 246 medical coordinators have been trained to date. The scheme will be entirely cashless and digital, and there will be no chances of any malpractices and corruption. The scheme will cover 85 per cent of the population." On Sunday, Prime Minister Modi will be launching the Ayushman Bharat initiative, the world's largest digital and cashless healthcare scheme in Ranchi. The aspirational scheme of the Centre is aimed at providing health assurance worth Rs 500,000 per year to over 100 million families across the country. After the inauguration of the scheme, Prime Minister Modi will be visiting an exhibition on the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojna. He will also witness a demonstration of activities such as beneficiary identification and e-card creation. Beneficiaries of the Centre's insurance programme in Jharkhand, from where will roll out the flagship scheme on Sunday, have been sent a two-page customised letter from the prime minister outlining the importance and benefits of the project. The government will send similar letters to 107.4 million beneficiary families across the country gradually. The letters will have a photograph of Modi, a government official said. "Around 5.7 million families in are expected to receive letters by Sunday morning," the official said. The letter mentions that the beneficiary family can avail of the scheme in hospitals in their area and health facilities empanelled under the scheme across the country. "I hope you will receive complete treatment without the need to worry about the expense and without any hassles," the letter states. Through the Ayushman Bharat-National Health Protection Scheme, renamed Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Abhiyan, the government aims to provide a coverage of Rs 500,000 per family annually to more than 100 million poor households. ALSO READ: PM Modi asks Odisha CM Patnaik to link people with Ayushman Bharat scheme The scheme will target poor and deprived rural families and identified occupational category of urban workers' families, 80.3 million in rural and 23.3 million in urban areas, as per the latest Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) data, and will cover around 500 million people. The entitlement is being decided on the basis of deprivation criteria in the SECC database. The beneficiaries are identified based on the deprivation categories (D1, D2, D3, D4, D5, and D7) identified under the SECC database for rural areas. For urban areas, the 11 occupational criteria will determine entitlement. In addition, Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna beneficiaries in states where it is active are also included. There is no cap on family size and age in the scheme, ensuring that nobody is left out. As many as 31 states and Union territories have signed MoUs with the Centre and will implement the programme over the next two months, after its launch on Sunday. Remaining states and UTs - Telangana, Odisha, Delhi, Kerala and Punjab - have not signed, so the scheme will not be implemented in those states till they come on board. The French government and have contradicted former President Francois Hollande's claim in choosing Indian industrial partners in the multi-million dollar Rafale jet deal. The statement by the French government issued here late Friday comes after Hollande claimed that the Indian government suggested a particular private firm for Rafale offset contract. Hollande was quoted in an article by a French website as claiming that the Indian government had asked the French government to nominate as its India partner in the deal. "We did not have a say in this," Hollande was quoted by the website as saying. "The Indian government proposed this service group and Dassault negotiated with Ambani." In response to the claim, the Friday night statement said: "The French government is in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners who have been, are being or will be selected by French companies. "In accordance with India's acquisition procedure, French companies have the full freedom to choose their Indian partner companies that they consider to be the most relevant, then present for the Indian government's approval the offset projects that they wish to execute in India with these local partners so as to fulfil their obligations in this regard." Dassault Aviation, the makers of the Rafale jets, in a statement also on Friday night, said: "This offsets contract is delivered in compliance with the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) 2016 regulations. In this framework, and in accordance with the policy of 'Make in India', has decided to make a partnership with India's Reliance Group. This is Dassault Aviation's choice." The Paris-based company said that the partnership between the two giants led to the creation of the "Dassault Reliance Aerospace Ltd (DRAL) joint-venture in February 2017. " is very proud that the Indian authorities have selected the Rafale fighter," it added. The deal to purchase 36 Rafale fighter jets from France was announced by in 2015 and signed in 2016. The UPA government was earlier negotiating a deal to procure 126 Rafale jets, with 18 to come in flyaway condition and 108 to be manufactured by under licence. The Modi government has repeatedly said it was Dassault that chose its India partner for offsets and that the government had no say in the deal. on Saturday summoned the US ambassador to lodge an official protest over sanctions imposed by Washington on a Chinese military unit for purchasing advanced fighter jets and missile systems from Russia, according to a media report. Also, has cancelled a reported move to send Vice-Premier Liu He to Washington for talks to end the escalating trade war between the world's two largest economies, following the imposition of tariffs on Chinese goods by the The Chinese Foreign Ministry summoned the US ambassador to protest against US sanctions on the equipment development department of the Chinese military and its director, the official media reported on Saturday. The US State Department said on Thursday that it would immediately impose sanctions on the equipment development department of the Chinese military and its director, Li Shangfu, for engaging in "significant transactions" with Russia's main arms exporter. The US said the purchases of Russian Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets and S-400 surface-to-air missiles by China's Equipment Development Department (EDD) of Ministry of Defence has violated US sanctions on It was the first time the targeted a third country with its Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act of 2017 (CAATSA), designed to punish for its seizure of Crimea and other activities. While the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Geng Shuang on Friday expressed outrage and asked Washington to revoke the decision or face consequences, China's military today expressed indignation over the move. "The Chinese military expressed strong indignation and opposition to US sanctions on the equipment development department of the Chinese military and its director," the state-run Daily quoted a military spokesman as saying. Col Wu Qian, a spokesman for the Ministry of National Defence said that the military cooperation between China and is within the normal range of cooperation between sovereign states in accordance with laws, and the US has no right to interfere. The US move has trampled on the basic norms of relations in a full embodiment of hegemonism, seriously damaging relations between the two countries and their armies, he said. The Chinese military urged the US to correct its mistake and withdraw sanctions, or bear the consequences, Wu said. Meanwhile, an outraged China reportedly cancelled a planned visit by Chinese Vice-Premier Liu He to the US to discuss a way out to end the ongoing trade war between the two countries. Confirming the cancellation of the visit of He, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post quoted Chinese officials as saying that Washington needed to "correct its mistakes" regarding its handling of the ongoing tariff war. Quoting sources, the Post reported that a delegation led by Liu was set to hold talks in the US on Monday and Tuesday but that the trip had now been scrapped. The move followed Trump's decision to slap tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese exports to the US. The increase of tariffs by 10 per cent on almost half of all goods it imports from China comes to effect from Monday. For its part, China retaliated by slapping tariffs on $60 billion worth of US exports to China. Trump also warned China against any retaliation, saying if retaliated this time then the US would impose further tariffs on another $ 267 billion worth of products virtually covering almost all Chinese exports to the US totalling about $522.9 billion. Trump has been putting pressure on China to reduce the trade deficit totalling $335.4 billion in 2017. Shi Yinhong, a government adviser and professor of relations at Renmin University, said the current atmosphere was too heated for negotiations to be effective. "The announcement of new tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese products by indicated that both sides are not calm enough to resume their talks," he was quoted as saying in the report. "It would be self-deprecating if China sent someone to the US right now, because the situation has totally changed," Shi said, adding there is no indication that talks will resume as neither side is showing any sign of softening in their words or deeds. Guwahati, Sep 22 : Assam police yet to receive permission from the state government to conduct investigation against a judicial officer and some other high profile persons whose names have been appeared for their alleged involvement in connection with the cash-for-job scam of Assam Public Service Commission (APSC). A top official of the state police said that, during the investigation, several big names including a judicial officer, political leaders have been appeared for their alleged involvement in the scam and Assam police have sent a special letter to the state government for seeking probe against them. But, police yet to get any permission, the top police official said. The Dibrugarh police had recently submitted a report before the court and it revealed that, two accused persons named Surajit Choudhury and advocate Sailendra Kumar Sarma Baruah, who were arrested by police, were involved in a conspiracy to disrupt the investigation. They had revealed during police interrogation that, they had collected huge amount from the families of the arrested government officers and paid around Rs 1 crore to a judicial officer wife for favourable bail orders to some accused government officers. The investigation team had also collected evidence of telephonic conversation between Surajit Choudhury and Sailendra Kumar Sarma Baruah, the top police official said. The police official further said that, the brokers had also tried to manage some media houses and paid huge amount to some persons including political leaders. It is to be mentioned that, the Dibrugarh police have recently accessed some major reports from the forensic laboratory. On the other hand, Assam DGP Kuladhar Saikia on Saturday said that, police will take action as per law against all people, who involved in the scam. We will not spare anyone, if he or her guilty found and law will take action, the Assam DGP said. Assam police have so far arrested 56 government officers including Pallavi Sharma, daughter of BJP MP RP Sharma, Rajarshi Sen Deka, son of former Assam minister Nilamoni Sen Deka for their alleged involvement in the scam. Chinese police on Friday arrested 21 suspects in connection with the theft of customer information from Alibaba Group Holding's logistics affiliate Cainiao Network, state news agency Xinhua reported. More than 10 million pieces of client data - including usernames, phone numbers and parcel tracking numbers - were stolen from Cainiao, which provides logistics support to Alibaba's Taobao e-commerce platform, the report said. The agency said that police in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, had been told by the logistics company in June that barcode scanners used in its ... US President Donald Trump will fail in his confrontation with Iran, just like Iraq's Saddam Hussein, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Saturday, referring to the war between the two Middle Eastern powers and vowing that Tehran will not abandon its missiles. Tensions have ramped up between Iran and the United States after Trump withdrew from a landmark multilateral nuclear deal in May and reimposed sanctions on the Islamic Republic last month. As Rouhani spoke, Iran began displaying its naval power in the Gulf during annual parades in the capital Tehran and the port of ... Combat won out over caution. aides and congressional allies worked all week to keep from unloading on the woman who has accused nominee of sexual misconduct. But as Kavanaugh's nomination hung in the balance, Trump couldn't contain his frustration any longer and unleashed a direct attack on the credibility of Christine Blasey Ford, who says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her decades ago during a high school party. Friday's tweet landed with a splat in the noxious brew of gender and politics that has taken over a high-stakes confirmation battle playing out against the backdrop of the #MeToo movement. In keeping with Trump's natural instinct to fight back when under attack, as well as his long pattern of defending powerful men against the claims of women, the president's tweet reflected growing anger over all the focus on Ford's accusation. Trump initially believed he could support his nominee without wading into the specific allegations against Kavanaugh since they did not involve him. But that began to change as Trump watched ongoing coverage of the accusations, particularly on Air Force One TVs tuned into on his long flight Thursday from to Las Vegas, according to a official and a Republican close to the Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss private conversations. Trump began to view the allegations as a scheme to undermine his pick and told one confidant that he doubted Ford's credibility. The "fake" attack on Kavanaugh reminded him of the broadsides launched against him during his presidency and the claims of sexual misconduct that dogged him at the end of his campaign. Increasingly convinced the accusations were a Democratic plot being advanced by the media, Trump tweeted that if the attack was really so bad, "charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents." With that, he blew right past the advice of aides, who had counseled Trump to avoid attacking Ford directly, warning that it could backfire and damage Kavanaugh's chances and hurt vulnerable Republicans in the midterm elections. As is often the case with the president's tweets, this one seemed to catch many off guard. Shortly before Trump's tweet, White House counselor told reporters at the White House there was "no reason" to attack Ford. Asked if she had been advising Trump to avoid criticism, Conway said: "The doesn't need anybody to tell him. He does the right thing." Trump's refusal to hold back has a history. In 2015, he tweeted: "When somebody challenges you unfairly, fight back - be brutal, be tough - don't take it. It is always important to WIN!" Throughout his presidency, Trump has taken an aggressive posture, picking fights with his perceived enemies. He has complained loudly over the probe and special counsel He carps constantly about what he sees as unfair coverage by the news media. He has targeted a number of potential 2020 Democratic opponents and continues to lambast former He also has gone after congressional Republicans at times and lacerated his own attorney general, It was just that sort of Twitter-driven ire that congressional Republicans and White House aides guiding the Kavanaugh confirmation had hoped to avoid. Since the allegation first surfaced, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and White House Counsel Don McGahn have kept in constant contact with one another, people familiar with their conversations said. The lawmakers told the top White House lawyer early on that Trump's reaction was a wild card that could undermine their attempts to confirm Kavanaugh in such a highly charged political and cultural moment. Beyond those early conversations, congressional Republicans left it up to the White House to explain the stakes to the president. White House aides relayed the congressional concerns to Trump, as Conway and other officials walked a tight rope in defending Kavanaugh while also remaining sympathetic toward his accuser. When Trump first spoke out Monday, he largely stuck to the talking points that his aides had prepared. His fairly tame response allowing that there might be a need for a brief delay on the committee vote on Kavanaugh's nomination had some White House aides believing they had gotten through. But it didn't last. Trump traveled to Nevada on Thursday without McGahn or chief of staff for a rally and a bill signing, joined by press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and aides Dan Scavino, Stephen Miller and Johnny DeStefano. He launched his tweets just before sunrise Friday from his gold-hued high-rise hotel off the Vegas Strip in the hours before a political fundraiser. His combative tone sent White House and congressional aides rushing to try to contain the fallout with wavering GOP lawmakers whom they feared would bend over backward to distance themselves from Trump's barbs. And aides worried that the president could unleash further attacks in future appearances. Trump has long defended powerful men against claims from women and has faced numerous accusations himself. His campaign was nearly derailed in October 2016 when a video from TV's "Access Hollywood" emerged that captured him boasting about groping women. Opposition supporters in the Maldives are demanding that officials ensure a free and fair presidential election, as the country prepares to vote in an election seen as a referendum on whether democracy will stay. The archipelago nation's election chief, Ahmed Shareef, said Saturday that all measures have been taken to hold Sunday's election in a free and fair manner and without violence. Still, opposition activists voiced fears that the polls may be rigged to favour President Yameen Abdul Gayoom's party. Beyond the postcard image the Maldives has of luxury resorts and white sand beaches, the 400,000 citizens of the former British protectorate have struggled to maintain the democratic system established in 2008. PayPal is the latest tech giant to cut off Infowars, the conspiracy website run by right-wing provocateur Alex Jones. Infowars was informed by PayPal on Thursday night that it would have 10 business days to find a new payment processor. PayPal handles all transactions, including credit cards, for the Infowars online store. The store has been a significant source of revenue for the company, selling vitamins and nutritional supplements, as well as Infowars-branded apparel. PayPal has also handled donations that Infowars receives from its supporters. PayPal acted weeks after ... President Donald Trump Saturday delayed his own order to declassify and release documents from the FBI's Russia investigation, saying the Justice Department and US allies have raised security concerns about their disclosure. The announcement, in a pair of tweets, represented a highly unusual walk-back for a president who has pressed for the release of classified information that he believes will expose "really bad things" at the and discredit special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. The order threatened to fuel further tension between Trump and a law enforcement community he routinely maligns as biased against him and determined to undermine his presidency. The president on Monday had called for the declassification of highly sensitive records from the Russia probe, including a portion of a secret warrant application to monitor the communications of Carter Page, a Trump campaign adviser whom the suspected of being a Russian agent. The Justice Department said it had begun complying with the order, though officials had previously strenuously objected to the release of classified information they said could jeopardize the investigation and compromise secret sources. Trump said that instead of moving forward immediately, the department's inspector general had been asked to review these documents on an "expedited basis." He tweeted that he believes the office, which is already reviewing actions in the early stages of the Russia probe, will move quickly. The president also noted: "In the end I can always declassify if it proves necessary. Speed is very important to me - and everyone!" John Lavinsky, spokesman for the office of Inspector General Michael Horowitz, declined comment. Trump signaled a slowdown in an interview with Fox News on Thursday, when he said that several close allies had called to raise concerns about his decision to order the release of unredacted documents, which also include text messages of several FBI and Justice Department officials including former FBI Director and ex-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, both fired by the president whom the president has for months personally attacked. The US was to begin construction in Texas on Saturday of part of President Donald Trump's border wall designed to curb illegal immigration, which he calls a security threat. Running along four miles (six kilometres) of the 2,000-mile border with Mexico, the new section will replace existing fencing along the boundary between El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, US Customs and Border Protection said in a statement. "This new wall will be far more durable and far more effective in deterring would-be illegal entrants," Aaron Hull, Chief Patrol Agent in the El Paso sector, said in the statement. It said the existing fencing will be replaced by an 18-foot steel post barrier which allows Border Patrol agents to see through to the other side. The $22-million project is to be completed in about seven months. In April, the Border Patrol announced the start of construction of a 20-mile stretch of wall to replace an existing barrier in Santa Teresa, New Mexico. Much of the border already has fencing or other barriers, but Trump has ordered a "contiguous, and impassable physical barrier," which scientists say would threaten more than 1,000 species of animals. Congress has so far approved $1.6 billion of $25 billion Trump had sought for his wall. He initially demanded that Mexico pay for the barrier, which added to tensions between the two neighbours. Many of the migrants trying to reach the United States are fleeing gang violence and poverty in Central America. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday asserted that the state government has so far provided houses to 11 lakh poor families in rural areas under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY). Interacting with media, Adityanath said, "Uttar Pradesh has scored first place in the implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana and I am happy to inform that in rural areas, we have been successful in providing houses to 11 lakh poor families ." He further said that the scheme has benefited over four lakh families in urban areas in the state. Launched in 2015 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led central government, PMAY aims to provide affordable housing to the poor with a target of building 20 million affordable houses by March 31, 2022. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a veiled attack at the Prime Minister Narendra Modi government, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said that a country with over a billion population cannot possibly be run by a single idea. Addressing a gathering of academicians here, Gandhi said, "In India, the labourer, the farmer, the small and medium businesses, everybody is saying that a country of over a billion people cannot possibly be run on one single idea. To me, the fact that we allow our people to talk, to allow them to have a discussion is the biggest strength of our country." The Congress president further said, "I feel academicians are under attack, I understand that they feel being under pressure, you feel that an ideology is being imposed upon. You feel that one syllabus has now suddenly become acceptable to every single institution of India. You are not alone in this feeling." Gandhi also opined that the Indian teaching system must be allowed to have its own voice and express its own opinion. "We talk about the idea of a Guru. A Guru is someone who guides you, a Guru is someone who gives you direction and he is someone who has to have the ability to express himself. I believe that the future of our country is guided by our teachers and if we do not allow them to express themselves in the classroom, we cannot have an system," he added. Insisting on greater stability for a robust system, he said, "If we want an system that works, there needs to be a sense of harmony in that system. A teacher has to have a sense that he has a future, the sense that he sacrificing something for the nation and the nation is giving him something in return - stability." The Congress chief also remarked that the cost of our education system is spiraling and is reaching to a point where it is unacceptable. Pointing out measures for the betterment of education system, Gandhi said, "The foundation of our system was public education system. There has to be space for the private institution but the guiding light, the foundation, the superstructure has to be a public education system. The private institution must look up to a public institution for inspiration; it shouldn't be the other way around. For this, the government has to put money into the system. The government should see education as the central part of India's strategy for development. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Guwahati, Sep 22 : A woman was attacked, stripped by villagers and rubbed chilli powder in her private parts for allegedly selling illegal liquor in Assams Karimganj district. The incident was happened on September 10 and it has been noticed when the video went viral in social media. The incident took place at a remote tribal village under Nagra police station in the Barak Valley district along with Assam-Mizoram border. According to the reports, the villagers warned the woman for her alleged involvement with anti-social activities in many occasions. On September 10, some local people caught the woman and some local women attacked and stripped her in public place. The local women also rubbed chilli powder in her private parts. When the video went viral in social media, Karimganj district police had immediately registered a case and started investigation. Karimganj district Superintendent of Police (SP) Gaurav Upadhyay said that, police came to know about the incident after the video was circulated in social media. The incident took place at Nagra area and happened on September 10. The area, where the incident took place, is dominated by Mizo Riang tribal people. The villagers and also police warned the woman to avoid anti-social activities. The villagers assaulted the lady by taking law in their hand. All accused are ladies seen in the video. I asked police officers to arrest all people who involved in the incident. We have also issued show cause notice to the Officer-in-Charge of Nagra police station, the top police official said. On the other hand, the victim woman had also filed a case in the court of the Karimganj Chief Judicial Magistrate. A day after former French President Francois Hollande stated that it was the Indian government who proposed the name of Anil Ambani for the Rafale deal, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday launched a scathing attack on the central government saying that his party is "absolutely convinced" that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is "corrupt." While addressing the press conference here, the Gandhi scion said, "The French government has given a statement which is stating what the procedure is. There was a one-on-one meeting between the Prime Minister of India and the former president of France. In that meeting, the contract was signed and the former president of France has now revealed that in that meeting, I was clearly told that the contract had to go to Anil Ambani. It is now up to the Prime Minister of India to clear his name. We are absolutely convinced that the Prime Minister of India is corrupt." "This is now clearly settled into the mind of the Indian people that 'Desh ka Chowkidar chor hai'. Now I am trying to help the Prime Minister. I am saying to him to come up and clear his stand. I am trying to protect your office. Come out and say that this (former) President of France (Francois Hollande) is not speaking the truth. But you (Prime Minister Modi) are not speaking anything," he added. Rahul Gandhi further claimed that people in the central government are making false statements "one after the other" to save Prime Minister Modi as he was the one, who signed the contract. "Nirmala Sitharaman, Parrikar and Arun Jaitley didn't sign the Rafale contract. It was signed by Prime Minister Modi. So, the whole thing is to save the Prime Minister. These are not the decisions that we take the way Prime Minister takes them. There is clear-cut corruption in the Rafale deal. The decision was taken by the Prime Minister and the profit has gone to that person, who went to France with the Prime Minister as part of his delegation," he said. The Congress president concluded the conference by saying that his party is ready for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on the Rafale deal. "Arun Jaitley has written very nice blogs, but when the question regarding JPC was raised, he remained quiet. They should bring JPC, we will call Hollande also," Rahul said. Hollande, in an interview to a media house on Friday, said that Dassault Aviation was given no choice but to partner with Anil Ambani-led Reliance Defence for the offset clause in the Rafale fighter jet deal. In an article published by French journal Mediapart, Hollande, on a question about who selected Reliance as a partner and why, had said that it was the Indian government that proposed Reliance's name and that Dassault had no choice but to take the company given to it. "We did not have a say in that. The Indian government proposed this service group, and Dassault negotiated with Ambani. We did not have a choice, we took the interlocutor we were given," Hollande had said. The Rafale jets were chosen during the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) tenure in 2012. Initially, India had planned to buy 18 off-the-shelf jets from France, with 108 others to be assembled in the country by the state-run aerospace and Defence company HAL. The Centre led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi scrapped the UPA's plan in 2015 and announced that it would buy 36 "ready-to-fly" Rafale jets instead of seeking a technology transfer from France's Dassault Aviation and making the aircraft in India. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) American actor Alec Baldwin is all set to return as President Donald Trump in the 44th season of 'Saturday Night Live'. The actor recently revealed the news during the 'Origins' podcast with author James Andrew Miller, reported Variety. "Trump is insane. I think most people know, the guy - he is insane. We have a man who is president who is insane. You can't go far enough with this idiot. You can't go far enough. You can't go far enough," said Baldwin. Lorne Michaels, who is the executive producer of 'SNL', told Miller that he was glad to have Baldwin back. "I think there is probably no other actor who is looking to take that and follow Alec. And I think, for a new cast member to come in and try that would be a really tough thing to do," said Michaels. Baldwin's return has been in doubt due to the comments he made during SNL's Season 43. The actor, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in March, had said, "Every time I do it now, it's like agony. Agony. I can't," Trump replied back to his comments, tweeting, "Alec, it was agony for those who were forced to watch." To which Baldwin responded, tweeting, "Agony though it may be, I'd like to hang in there for the impeachment hearings, the resignation speech, the farewell helicopter ride." The premiere of the show will be hosted by Adam Driver and will also feature a performance by Kanye West, reported The Hollywood Reporter. The 44th season of 'Saturday Night Live' is slated to return on September 29 on NBC. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A day after a college student succumbed to his injuries after being injured in a clash between police and mob in West Bengal's North Dinajpur district, the state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has called for a 12-hour bandh in the state on September 26. Tapas Barman, a third-year student was severely injured when a mob clashed with the police forces during a students' protest. He later succumbed to his injuries in the North Bengal Medical College. The protest was against recruitment of Urdu teachers in Daribhit High School in Islampur area whereas the students' demand was for Science and English teachers. The BJP also observed a 12-hour bandh in the district on Friday after Rajesh Sarkar, a student of the ITI college, lost his life after being hit by a bullet on Thursday. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Bombay High Court on Friday permitted a 22-year old woman from Nashik to abort her pregnancy in the 30th week. The woman and her husband had approached the High Court saying the foetus had "Schizencephaly", a rare developmental birth defect, and therefore, sought medical termination. The couple also told the court about their five-year-old son, who is suffering from Down's Syndrome, and said that forcing them to continue with the present pregnancy would add to their trauma. On the High Court's order, the doctors of JJ hospital examined the woman and approved abortion at this stage due to a birth defect of the foetus. The division bench of the court, comprising Justice AS Gadkari and Justice AS Oka said, "As there is a substantial risk of physical abnormalities to the fetus, it is necessary to terminate the pregnancy of the petitioner." Advocate Kuldeep Nikam, the woman's lawyer, told the court that his client should be allowed to undergo the abortion in a private clinic in Nashik, as the doctors there are well aware of her case history. This, too, was approved by the court. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) NK Kalia, father of Captain Saurabh Kalia, who lost his life in Kargil war, on Saturday, lauded the Indian government's move to call off a meeting between External Affairs Minister and her Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi. Speaking to ANI, NK Kalia said, "India has taken the right step. No talks should be held with Pakistan till the time it proves that it has sincere intentions." He further stated that Pakistan has always posed a problem for India whenever an agreement aiming to strengthen the relationship was signed. "I am afraid that in the future too they (Pakistan) will not improve themselves. Had this meeting would have taken place, it would have been another futile exercise and sheer wastage of time and energy," he added. He also said that "this bold move by the will be welcomed by the all the patriotic people of the country". Captain Saurabh Kalia along with five other soldiers of his patrolling team were held as a prisoner of war by the Pakistan Army, kept in captivity where they were tortured, then killed. On Friday, New Delhi called off the meeting with Pakistan just a few hours after three Special Police Officers in Jammu and Kashmir were kidnapped and brutally killed by the terrorists. While announcing its decision, Ministry of External Affairs said that the true face of Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan had been revealed in the wake of the brutal killings. On September 18, mutilated body of (BSF) Head Constable Narender Singh was also found with multiple bullet injuries on his torso and neck. The foreign ministers of India and Pakistan were scheduled to meet on the sidelines of the United General Assembly in New York. The meeting was proposed by Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Chinese Defense Ministry on Saturday registered protest against the United States over the US sanctions for arms purchases from Russia. "The Chinese armed forces express their extreme indignation and strong disagreement. [The Chinese military leadership] has already made a representation and expressed protest to the US side," the ministry said in a statement. On Thursday, the United States announced that it sanctioned the Equipment Development Department (EDD) of China's Central Military Commission (CMC) and its Director Li Shangfu for buying Russia's S-400 air defense systems and aircraft in violation of the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) After making one of 2017's blockbusters, 'The Rider', Chinese film director Chloe Zhao is all set to helm Marvel Studios' next potential franchise, 'The Eternals.' The search for a director for the superhero team adventure narrowed in the last few weeks of summer, with a shortlist consisting of Nicole Kassell (Watchmen Pilot), Travis Knight (Bumblebee, Kubo and the Two Strings), Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra, confirmed The Hollywood Reporter. Penned by Matthew and Ryan Firpo, the project features super-powered and near-immortal beings known as Eternals and a monstrous off-shoot known as the Deviants that were created by cosmic beings known as Celestials. It was also revealed that one aspect of the story involves a love story between Ikaris, a man fueled by cosmic energy, and Sersi, who relishes moving amongst humans. American comic book artist Jack Kirby created the title in 1976 during his cosmic hero stage and was influenced by works such as the Chariots of the Gods, which explored ancient gods as aliens. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Dikko while addressing his troops on Friday also ordered them to mercilessly deal with Boko Haram whenever they attacked any military formation. Dikko described the success recorded against the terrorists by the troops of the sector at Damasak, the headquarters of 145 Battalion as great. The troops inflicted heavy casualties on the insurgents when the terrorists attacked their location in the town on September 11. He added that troops of the Rapid Development Force (RDF) will soon arrive Kinnasara Cantonment, Monguno for deployment to support the ongoing operations. Dikko said that the command would also organise an in-house training on counter terrorism campaign for new troops that would be deployed to the sector. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Delhi court on Saturday discharged Farhat Khan, personal assistant to Samajwadi Party Member of Parliament (MP) Munawwar Saleem. Khan was arrested by the Crime Branch in 2016 on charges of spying for Pakistan. The Patiala House Court released Khan as there was no sufficient evidence against him. He was arrested under Sections 3 (Penalties for spying) and 9 (Attempts, incitements, etc) of the Official Secret Act and Section 120 B (Punishment of criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The court, however, framed charges against three other accused namely Maulana Ramzan Khan, Subhash Jangir and Soheb Hussain in connection with the same case under the same sections. In 2016, the Delhi Police Crime Branch busted a spy ring which involved an official of the Pakistan High Commission. Even though the official was arrested by the police, the charge sheet did not mention his name, Mahmood Akhtar, due to the diplomatic immunity. Later, he was sent back to Pakistan through a diplomatic channel. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) from seven different parties have shown concern over the failure of President Abdulla Yameen's government in Maldives to engage with the Opposition leaders for credible, transparent and inclusive Presidential elections to be held on September 23. In an undersigned letter to Federica Mogherini, high representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Vice President of the European Commission, the MEPs said: "To date, just days away from elections, it is clear that such a dialogue and framework has not materialised". "The Election Commission remains deeply compromised, headed by a former senior official in President Yameen's political party, and staffed by many other PPM supporters. Furthermore, there have been a number of violent attacks on Opposition campaign offices, including an attempt to assault the MDP Presidential candidate, which the police have failed to investigate," they wrote in the letter. The Members of European Parliament who have signed the letter include Maria Grapini, Wajid Khan, Eduard Kukan, Cristian Dan Preda, Branislav Skripek, Charles Tannock and Claudia Papardel. On July 16, the European Council on Foreign Affairs adopted a framework for targeted restrictive measures against persons and entities responsible for undermining the rule of law or obstructing an inclusive political solution in Maldives as well as persons and entities responsible for serious human rights violations. As there are widespread allegations of the State using its administrative resources to actively campaign for the re-elections of President Yameen, the MEPs demand to impose sanctions. "It is reported too that foreign journalists have also been denied accreditation to cover Maldives during the election cycle whilst the state media is seemingly campaigning actively for President Yameen and restricting coverage of the MDP Opposition candidate. Giving this worrying set of circumstances, we call on you to consider recommending that the Council make use of the framework for targeted sanctions in respect of the Maldives, as adopted in July of this year," they said in the letter. It added: "Those found to be responsible for preventing a transparent and inclusive Presidential election should be added to the list, implementing the travel bans and asset freezes as provided for." Pier Antonio Panzeri, a member of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament, who recently met with leaders of the Maldives, also wrote to Federica and highlighted concerns regarding the Presidential elections. He wrote: "The decision of the Council is in line with the 15 March, 2018, urgency resolution of Parliament on the situation in Maldives, which calls on the government of Maldives to lift the state of emergency immediately, to respect the fundamental rights of all people including the right to freedom of expression and assembly, as well as the rule of law. Parliament also called for the safety of all civil society activists, human rights defenders and media workers in the country." "Lastly, Parliament called on the EU to make full use of all instructions at its disposal to promote respect for human rights and democratic principles in Maldives, including, the suspension of EU financial assistance to the country pending the resumption of rule of law and abidance by democratic principles", he wrote in the letter. Pier Antonio Panzeri, who is an Italian politician, said in his letter: "It is my hope that the upcoming Presidential elections are transparent and credible, voters are given a genuine choice, parties are able to campaign freely and that the government engages in a genuine dialogue with the leaders of the Opposition. Easing political tension will also work against radicalisation and in turn help to address the threat of terrorism, as relatively high numbers of foreign fighters for Daesh come from Maldives. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Nepali festival Tihar is also known by many names such as Dipawal in Nepal, or Bhai Tika or Laxmi Puja or as a festival of lights and Diwali in India. It is a five-days festival, which comes soon after the Dashain Festival, and Tihar is all France has officially selected 'Memoir of War' as its entry for the 'foreign language film' category at 91st Oscars. Directed by Emmanuel Finkiel, 'Memoir of War' is a World War II drama, which stars Melanie Thierry and Benjamin Biolay, reported The Hollywood Reporter. The flick is an adaptation of Marguerite Duras' semi-autobiographical novel titled 'The War: A Memoir'. The Music Box Films acquired U.S. rights of the movie in February, after it had opened in the theatres across France on January 24, reported Variety. The story is set in June 1944, when France was still under German occupation. It follows Marguerite, a young writer back then, who agrees to a series of secret meetings with Nazi collaborator Rabier. In exchange of which, she receives information about her husband's whereabouts, Robert Antelme, who was a writer and major figure of the Resistance who had been detained and sent to the Dachau concentration camp. Finkiel's other credits include 'A Decent Man', 'Voyages' and 'Madame Jacques on the Croisette'. The movie was chosen from a diverse shortlist of four other movies including Gaspar Noe's 'Climax', which premiered at Cannes, Xavier Legrand's 'Custody', Emmanuel Mouret's 'Mademoiselle de Joncquieres' and Claude Lanzmann's 'Les Quatre Soeurs'. Last year, France selected Robin Campillo's Cannes Grand Prix winner titled '120 BPM'. In 2016, France had selected 'Elle', which failed to make the foreign-language shortlist but it earned star Isabelle Huppert her first Oscar nomination. The last French film to have won the foreign-language Oscar was 'Indochine', in 1993. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The rescue efforts have been stepped up in the south Indian Ocean to locate Golden Globe Race (GGR) skipper and Indian Naval officer, Commander Abhilash Tomy KC, who got dismasted and suffered a back injury. According to Indian Navy, Commander Tomy is representing India in the GGR 2018 on an indigenously built sailing vessel 'Thuriya'. The yacht is in the south Indian Ocean. The GGR is a race to sail around the globe. He suffered a back injury on Friday after the yacht was dismasted due to extremely rough weather and sea condition in the Indian Ocean. "Commander Abhilash Tomy KC of the Indian Navy, representing India in the Golden Globe Race 2018 (GGR) on an indigenously built sailing vessel 'Thuriya' was dismasted and suffered a back injury yesterday. He is in the south Indian Ocean, approximately 1900 nautical miles from Perth, Australia and 2700 nm (approx 5020 km on the ground) from Cape Comorin (Kanyakumari)," Navy spokesperson Captain DK Sharma confirmed. Captain Sharma further informed that rescue efforts, led by Australian defence forces, are underway and the Indian Navy has also dispatched stealth frigate INS Satpura to find the officer. "The Australian Rescue Coordination Centre at Canberra is coordinating the rescue mission in conjunction with many agencies including the Australian Defence Department and the Indian Navy", the spokesperson said. "All out efforts are being made to rescue Commander Abhilash Tomy. Indian Naval stealth frigate, INS Satpura with a Chetak Helicopter and tanker INS Jyoti mission deployed/operating in the Indian Ocean have been dispatched for the rescue mission," he added. Commander Tomy, in his last message via satellite phone, had indicated that he was safe on the boat but was immobile due to a back injury. The naval officer is the only Indian to have circumnavigated the globe non-stop on the legendary sail Yacht INSV Mhadei. He was awarded Kirti Chakra in 2013 by the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee. He is also a recipient of the Tenzing Norgay Adventure Award. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Nepal Government spokesperson and Minister for Information and Communication Technology, Gokul Prasad Baskota, has said the government will be tougher against incidents of crime happening in name of freedom. Addressing the anniversary celebrations of the Sarbamangala Multiple Campus based in Panchakhal municipality-3 in Kavrepalanchwok on Saturday, he said, "We will come up with stringent measures against criminal activities expressing and promoting vulgarity taking place in the name of exercising freedom. Such practices will not be accepted under any circumstances." "The government has planned to close vulgar internet sites bearing in mind the situation when daughters are not safe even inside homes," he added. He went on to say that the government was committed to materialising the dream of happy Nepaliand, a prosperous Nepal. Some projects of government priority including the power production, airport construction, mono and metro rail and special economic zone have been started and it would take time to complete them. As shared by the government spokesperson, community schools will be switched to a computerized system as per the plan of a digital Nepal. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Saturday dubbed the cancellation of the proposed meeting between him and External Affair Minister Sushma Swaraj as "inappropriate". Qureshi said that New Delhi backed out of the planned meeting between the foreign ministers of the two countries owing to an issue which took place in July. "India in September presented an issue which took place in July as an excuse to back out of the meeting," the foreign minister said while speaking to the media in Doha en route to New York. "I think this is not appropriate," Geo News reported quoting Qureshi. He further said that the release of a series of 20 postage stamps by Pakistan glorifying a terrorist and terrorism was one of the reasons given by India for the suspension of the meeting. "Stamps were used as an excuse although the stamps in question were distributed before the PTI-led government took charge," Qureshi added. Qureshi asserted that the meeting was called off due to India's "internal issues" and expressed his disappointment over the decision taken by India. "There is no precedence of how diplomatic protocol was crushed by India," Qureshi said. India on Friday called off the planned meeting between Swaraj and Qureshi on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York after security personnel in Jammu and Kashmir were kidnapped and brutally killed over the past few months. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Pakistan Government on Friday said the reasons cited by India to call off the meeting scheduled between the foreign ministers of the two countries on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) were "unconvincing". "The reasons cited by the Indian side for the decision to cancel the Foreign Ministers' meeting, within 24 hours of its public confirmation, are entirely unconvincing," read an official statement. The meeting, which was scheduled to take place between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Pakistani counterpart, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, in New York, was called off by India hours after security personnel in Jammu and Kashmir were kidnapped and brutally killed. India, while announcing its decision to call off the meeting, had also said that the true face of Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan had been revealed in the wake of the brutal killings. However, Pakistan, in response, maintained that the "disturbing developments" referred to in the Indian statement predated the Indian agreement to hold the bilateral meeting in New York, and claimed that India's comments against Khan were "against all norms of civilised discourse and diplomatic communication." "Firstly, the alleged killing of BSF soldier took place two days prior to the Indian announcement of its agreement to hold the bilateral meeting," the statement read. Further denying their involvement in the acts of violence, Pakistan said that it would conduct a joint investigation to "establish the truth". "When the allegations of Pakistan's involvement first appeared, the Pakistan Rangers clearly conveyed to BSF through official channels that Pakistan had nothing to do with it. Pakistan Rangers also extended help in efforts to locate the soldier's body. These facts were known to the Indian authorities and a part of the Indian media also reported that Pakistan had refuted its involvement. Yet, this motivated and malicious propaganda continued. Pakistan takes this opportunity to categorically reject these allegations once again. Our authorities would be prepared to conduct a joint investigation to establish the truth," it said. Pakistan also opined that dialogue and diplomacy was the only constructive way forward to address matters of mutual concern. "Pakistan has always desired peaceful and good-neighbourly relations with India, on the basis of sovereign equality, mutual respect, and mutual benefit. In our view, dialogue and diplomacy are the only constructive way forward for the two countries to address mutual concerns, rebuild trust, resolve longstanding disputes, and establish durable peace in South Asia. For its part, Pakistan will persist with its quest for peace and development. But, as we have consistently emphasised, our approach will continue to be guided by the aforementioned principles and the dictates of national dignity." Even though India, on Thursday, had accepted Pakistan's proposal for a meeting, back to back incidents of increased violence in Jammu and Kashmir and killing of security personnel put off India from engaging with a Pakistan government, that continues to push terror and violence from its soil. Apart from Friday's incident, the mutilated body of Border Security Force (BSF) Head Constable Narender Singh was found with multiple bullet injuries on his torso and neck on September 18. Prior to that, a policeman was shot dead by terrorists outside an Eidgah in Kulgam's Zazripora in August, when he was leaving after offering prayers. On June 14, in another incident, the gravely injured body of Aurangzeb, an Army personnel of 44 Rashtriya Rifles, was found. He was abducted and killed by terrorists while he was returning home for the festival of Eid. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Principal of a private school in Nepal's Sunsari district, who was murdered on September 20, has been identified as the ringleader of terror outfit Indian Mujahideen, confirmed the sources in the Nepali Police. Khurshid Alam, who was working as the Principal of Raiyan School, was shot dead by unknown bike-borne assailants. Alam was shot in his head, abdomen and legs. The attackers fled the site, which is seven kilometre from the Indian territory. Alam died on the spot. "He is publicly identified as Khurshid Alam. He was on the radar of Indian Intelligence as he was suspected to be involved in the 1993 Mumbai attack. The Indian government, about two decades ago, requested the Nepal government to hand over him to them which could not happen as Nepal denied," a high-level police source confirmed to ANI. New Delhi urged Kathmandu to hand him over when Bamdev Gautam of the then Communist Party of Nepal- Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) was the Home Minister. "Bamdev Gautam also rejected the proposal of the Indian government to hand him over, and now he is killed," the source added. Alam had taken the membership of the CPN-UML during the political upheaval in Nepal. The Indian government, at that time, in co-operation with the Intelligence Bureau, also gave the location details and other relevant information to the Nepal government, informing that Alam was involved in terrorist activities. Alam, who was also a cleric, had also sheltered four other suspects of Mumbai terror attack and helped them to fly over to the Middle East countries by arranging passports for them. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president Asaduddin Owaisi on Saturday asked Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to come up with a proper clarification over Rafale fighter jets controversy. Owaisi's demand came after former French president Francois Hollande said that it was the Indian government who proposed Reliance Defence as the partner for Dassault Aviation for the deal and that he had nothing to do with it. Speaking to ANI, Owaisi asked, "The people of India want to know who is lying. Is the French ex-President lying or our Prime Minister Modi is not saying the truth?" "We want the Defence Minister to throw light on this," he added. The Rafale controversy, on Friday, took a new turn when Hollande, who was the president of France from 2012 to 2017, reportedly said the Narendra Modi-led government proposed Anil Ambani's name for the deal. "We did not have a say in that. The Indian government proposed this service group, and Dassault negotiated with Ambani. We did not have a choice, we took the interlocutor we were given," Hollande was quoted by a French Journal, Mediapart. Taking a dig at Anil Ambani, Owaisi said, "The ex-president of France says that the absurd contract was given on the condition of the Prime Minister of India that they will finalise this deal only if you give this absurd contract to 'X' person. The whole world knows who the X person is who has never manufactured even a single tyre leave aside aircraft or a motorcycle." Hollande had said that Dassault Aviation was given no choice but to partner with Anil Ambani-led Reliance Defence for the offset clause in the Rafale fighter jet deal. The Rafale jets were chosen during the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) tenure in 2012. Initially, India had planned to buy 18 off-the-shelf jets from France, with 108 others to be assembled in the country by the state-run aerospace and Defence company HAL. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government scrapped the UPA's plan in 2015 and announced that it would buy 36 "ready-to-fly" Rafale jets instead of seeking a technology transfer from France's Dassault Aviation and making the aircraft in India. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das on Saturday said that the Ayushman Bharat scheme or the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojna (PMJAY) will benefit about 57 lakh families in the state. Talking to ANI, Das said, "It is our good fortune that Ayushman Bharat is being launched from Jharkhand. I congratulate Prime Minister Narendra Modi for this. In the state, 57 lakh families will be covered under this scheme. All arrangements have been made." He added that 106 private hospitals and 217 government-run clinics have been listed under the scheme, where people can avail medical facilities. Stressing more on the scheme, Das elucidated, "As per the scheme, there will be a medical coordinator in every hospital. As many as 246 medical coordinators have been trained to date. The Ayushman Bharat scheme will be entirely cashless and digital, and there will be no chances of any malpractices and corruption. The scheme will cover 85 per cent of the population." On Sunday, Prime Minister Modi will be launching the Ayushman Bharat initiative, the world's largest digital and cashless healthcare scheme in Ranchi. The aspirational scheme of the Centre is aimed at providing health assurance worth Rs. 5 lakh per year to over 10 crore families across the country. After the inauguration of the scheme, Prime Minister Modi will be visiting an exhibition on the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojna. He will also witness a demonstration of activities such as beneficiary identification and e-card creation. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) After teasing the audience with his look, Bollywood star John Abraham on Saturday shared the first poster of his upcoming thriller drama 'Batla House'. The 45-year-old took to social media to unveil the poster, writing, "'95 mins that took 8yrs to be resolved and changed his life forever.' The story of India's most Decorated/Controversial Cop. #BatlaHouse" The flick is inspired by the real Batla House encounter that took place a decade ago on September 19. The 'Parmanu' star will portray the role inspired by Sanjeev Kumar Yadav, who spearheaded the encounter. As the tag line says 'The story of India's Most Decorated/Controversial Cop', the case was about this one man who has had 70 encounters, a record 22 convictions from 30 cases and nine Gallantry Awards. Talking about the film, John said, "Being recognised for films like 'Madras Cafe' and 'Parmanu', I automatically gravitate towards scripts like 'Batla House'. However, that also means that the script needs to live up to those standards. With 'Batla House', Ritesh Shah (writer) blew me over with his precision in the story telling as well as the emotional roller coaster of the characters. I am truly excited to bring this story alive to audiences." The film, which goes on floors by mid-October, will hit the big screens on August 15, next year. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Kenyan High Court has temporarily lifted the ban on a lesbian love story titled 'Rafiki', thus giving the movie a chance to qualify for the 'foreign language film' category at the 91st Oscars. Judge Wilfrida Okwany recently ruled that the film can be screened until September 30 to make it eligible for Oscars, reported The Hollywood Reporter. "I am not convinced that Kenya is such a weak society that it cannot handle a gay theme. There are Kenyans who paid the ultimate price for the freedoms we enjoy today," she said in her decision. It will be given an over-18 rating. The flick had premiered in the Cannes Film Festival this year and had been banned by the country's film classification board for promoting homosexuality, which is illegal in the country. After the ruling, the board still stood firmly in opposition to the film and released a statement, saying that the film is "an attempt to normalize homosexuality" and calling the decision as "air conditioning hell." "It is a sad moment and a great insult, not only to the film industry, but to all Kenyans who stand for morality, that a film that glories homosexuality is allowed to be the country's branding tool abroad. The board firmly believes that films should reflect the dominant values of the Kenyan people. Homosexuality does not qualify as such," it said. The board also added that it hasn't been formally notified of the ruling, but will abide by it once it is official. The director of the film had filed a suit against film board president Ezekiel Mutua and Kenyan attorney general Paul Kihara in order to give the film a chance to qualify at Oscar. Mutua stated that the film was different from the original script which was approved by the board, while Kahiu opposed that the script had not been altered. She claimed that Mutua had asked her to change the ending of the film to make it "less hopeful," and banned the film when she refused to meet the demands. 'Rafiki' follows the story of two girls who become friends and fall in love with each other, but faced disapproval and physical violence from their society. The film is directed by Wanuri Kahiu and stars Samantha Mugatsia and Sheila Munyiva. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Guwahati, Sep 22 : A 22-year-old girl hailing from Assams South Salmara police district has been rescued from a brothel in West Bengals Siliguri area. South Salmara district police on Friday had rescued the girl from the brothel and arrested two traffickers. Police said that, the traffickers had sold the girl at a brothel for Rs 28,000. According to the reports, the family members of the girl had lodged a missing complaint at Fakirganj police station in South Salmara police district on September 8 last and stated that, the girl was missing since August 24 this year. Following the complaint, police had registered a case (no 196/2018) under section 363, 365 and 34 of IPC at Fakirganj police station and started investigation. Acting on a tip-off, South Salmara police on Friday had rescued the girl from a brothel in Siliguri area. Police had also arrested two traffickers identified as Rafikul Islam and Chand Miya. South Salmara district Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Anita Hazarika said that, the girl was sold at the brothel for Rs 28,000. A case was registered at Fakirganj police station that, a girl was missing and we have started investigation. Based on our reliable sources input, we have launched operation and rescued the missing girl from a red light area in Siliguri. Following that, we had arrested two persons who sold the girl at the area for Rs 28,000, the police official said. It is to be mentioned that, over 12,300 women have been trafficked, kidnapped in Assam in past three years. Former Bishop of Jalandhar Diocese Franco Mulakkal on Saturday was sent to three-day police custody till September 24, after being produced before a magistrate court in Pala. Mulakkal's lawyer, however, also filed a bail application which was dismissed by the court. The Kerala Police demanded for the three-day custody of Bishop Mulakkal following his arrest last night in connection with alleged rape filed by a nun. The nun has accused Bishop Mulakkal of allegedly raping her repeatedly between 2014 and 2016. As per sources privy to the development, Mulakkal's lawyer had put forward a condition that Mulakkal's blood samples and saliva must not be taken without his permission citing that it can be misused. Police in its remand report has accused the Bishop of subjecting the nun to alleged unnatural sex and threatening the victim. As per the remand report, Mulakkal came to the convent with the alleged intention of sexually assaulting the victim. On 5 May 2014, he allegedly illegally confined her in room no. 20 of the guest house at around 10:48 pm and subjected her to unnatural sexual assault. Mulakkal alllegedly threatened the victim of dire consequences if she ever revealed the incident. Remand report further mentioned that he allegedly raped her on the next day (May 6, 2014) as well. Between 2014 to 2016, the victim was subjected to alleged rape and unnatural sex for 13 times in the same room. Yesterday, in the wake of Bishop Mulakkal's arrest, the Catholic Bishop's Conference of India (CBCI) on Friday expressed its confidence in the Indian judicial system. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) United Kingdom Prime Minister Theresa May said she has reached an impasse on negotiations with the European Union (EU) after a summit in which her Brexit plan was rejected. May asked the EU to show "respect" for Britain's choice and the outcome of the June 2016 referendum, reported CNN. A day after her return from the summit in Salzburg, Austria, May had called on the EU to put forward its objections to her plan or put forth an alternative. "Throughout this process, I have treated the EU with nothing but respect. The UK expects the same. A good relationship at the end of this process depends on it," CNN quoted May, as saying. May perceived that the informal meeting at Salzburg would open ways to resolve outstanding issues in Brexit talks before the formal meeting in October. However, leaders of the 27 remaining EU nations stayed firm in their opposition to May's plans. Earlier, the president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, had said that May's Brexit trade plan would not work. Holding a press conference after two days of intense talks with May, Tusk said that leaders of the EU had agreed that the Chequer's plan would undermine the bloc's single market. "Everybody shared the view that while there are positive elements in the Chequers proposal for economic cooperation, the suggested framework will not work -- not least because it risks undermining the single market," Tusk explained. After two days of an informal summit by EU leaders, they will meet once again at a formal summit next month, which the Polish politician called "the moment of truth" for smooth Brexit negotiations. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Government of Nepal on Friday said it would block the publication and dissemination of pornographic content in the nation, citing an increase in incidents of rape. The Ministry for Information and Communication issued a release citing pornographic content to be the reason for rape. "The Criminal Code 2071 article 121 and other prevalent laws prohibit the production and dissemination of sexually obscene contents. In order to prevent the access of such content through electronic media, the need of pulling down such websites inside Nepal has become necessary," the release from the ministry stated. Nepal has witnessed a sharp rise in the number of rape cases over the past weeks. The decision of the Nepal government to ban pornographic content comes amid the rising rage against the government's failure to identify the perpetrators who allegedly raped and murdered a schoolgirl in Southern Plain of Nepal recently. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) United States Secretary of State, Michael R. Pompeo has warned Iran of "direct action" for any attacks on Washington in Iraq, even those using proxy forces, against US interests. In an interview to CNN, Pompeo said, "We have told the Islamic Republic of Iran that using a proxy force to attack an American interest will not prevent us from responding against the prime actor." Pompeo further accused Iran of confronting the as the "world's largest state sponsor of terror." "We will not let Iran get away with using a proxy force to attack an American interest; Iran will be held accountable for those incidents," he added while speaking on the recent rocket attack that was allegedly carried out by Iran-backed militias this month. The attack was said to target the US missions in Iraq. The White House blamed Shia militia groups for it and stated, "Iran did not act to stop these attacks by its proxies in Iraq, which it has supported with funding, training and weapons." However, Iran's Foreign Ministry called the claims of the US as "astonishing, provocative, and irresponsible." The tension between the two counties has increased after US President Donald Trump withdrew Washington from the Iran nuclear pact. On May 8, Trump administration announced withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or the Iran nuclear deal that limited Tehran's uranium enrichment in exchange for relief from some sanctions. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union Petroleum Dharmendra Pradhan will be visiting Nepal in the last week of September, an official of the Indian Embassy informed ANI. "Indian Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan will be visiting Nepal in the last week of this month (September) to observe the progress made over the Raxaul-Amlekhganj petroleum pipeline," a high-level official inside from the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu said on the condition of anonymity. The Raxaul-Amlekhganj pipeline is currently under construction as a joint investment project between India and Nepal with an investment of Rs 3.2 billion by the Indian Government and Rs 1.2 billion by the Nepal Government. The Nepal and Indian governments had signed the agreement for the construction of the pipeline on August 24, 2015, in Kathmandu, during Pradhan's earlier visit. "As of now, he (Pradhan) is scheduled to come to Nepal on September 28 evening, after which he will be meeting Nepal Prime Minister KP Oli, cabinet ministers and other political figures in the capital. The following morning on September 29, he will be visiting the Amlekhganj as well as Janakpur and assess the progress being made over there," the source added. The pipeline spans across over 69 kilometres, covering 32.7 kilometres of the Indian territory and 36.2 kilometres of the Nepal territory. The pipe being laid has the capacity of supplying 200,000 litres of fuel on an hourly basis, with a fuel pumping facility in Motihari. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Qbera, India's leading digital lending platforms, has raised funds worth USD 3 million in a round led by E-City Ventures. Qbera aims to utilize the latest capital infusion towards ramping up its technology and analytics capabilities, along with expansion of its team across functions, scaling its and increasing its geographical presence to more parts of the country. "We are thankful to the entire team at E-City Ventures, whose faith in our vision will undoubtedly help us in collectively achieving our goals, especially as an integral part of the financial services ecosystem which they are building," said founder and CEO, Qbera, Aditya Kumar. "This will enable us to further accelerate our operations and set the stage for Qbera to establish itself as a leader in the digital lending sector for consumers in time to come," added Kumar. "We are very excited about our investment in Qbera and believe that it shall adequately serve customers, currently relying upon inefficient and expensive means of financing, through its lending partners. This investment shall be a stepping stone for the formation of E-City's financial services platform which it intends to build in the coming years," said MD E-City Ventures, Atul Goel. Qbera is a Bangalore-based digital lending platform offering quick, hassle-free personal loans to people through its platform. The company offers a variety of loan products targeted towards salaried individuals working for over 7,00,000 companies, such as personal loans, credit card refinancing loans, education loans, medical loans, and travel loans, among others. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Home Minister Rajnath Singh, on Saturday, tried to dispel the controversy surrounding the India-France Rafale jet deal. Former French president, Francois Hollande in an interview to a media house on Friday, contradicted Indian government's claim that the agreement between Dassault and Reliance was a commercial pact between two private parties and the government had nothing to do with it. Making his first comment on the issue since Hollande's claims, Home Minister Singh told ANI, "It makes no sense to create a controversy over the Rafale issue. On the said utterance of former President of France, the Defence Ministry has already issued a statement and has stated that they are verifying it. It is my understanding that all accusations are completely baseless, were always so and will remain baseless". On Friday, in an article published by French journal, Mediapart, Hollande, said that Dassault Aviation was given no choice but to partner with Anil Ambani-led Reliance Defence for the offset clause in the Rafale fighter jet deal. Responding to the interview, Defence Ministry spokesperson tweeted, "The report referring to former French President Mr Hollande's statement that GoI insisted upon a particular firm as offset partner for the Dassault Aviation in Rafale is being verified. It is reiterated that neither GoI nor French Govt had any say in the commercial decision." Later in the night, confirming India's stand on the offsets agreement between Dassault Aviation and Reliance Group, the former, in a statement, reiterated that Reliance Group was chosen in compliance with the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) 2016 regulations. It was after his talks with then-President Hollande on April 10, 2015, in Paris that Prime Minister Modi had announced the jet deal. The claim by the former French president has given fresh ammunition to the Congress party, which has been mounting an attack on the government, demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Modi. Launching a blistering attack on Modi, senior Congress leader, Mallikarjun Kharge, told ANI, "It's my personal demand that he (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) is not suitable for the post and therefore he should immediately resign & appoint any cabinet minister as Prime Minister. He is morally not suitable for the post now. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Congress chorus on the Rafale deal became louder on Saturday with senior leaders demanding resignations of Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with that of Finance and Defence ministers Arun Jaitley and Nirmala Sitharaman respectively. While senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge demanded Modi's resignation, another senior leader of the party Jaipal Reddy demanded resignations of Jaitley and Sitharaman. Speaking to ANI, Kharge said, "It is my personal demand that he (Prime Minister Modi) is not suitable for the post and therefore he should immediately resign and appoint any cabinet minister in his place. He is morally not suitable for the post now." His remark comes a day after former French president Francois Hollande claimed that Dassault Aviation was given no choice but to partner with Anil Ambani-led Reliance Defence for the Rafale fighter jet. Citing Hollande's claim, the Congress leader said that Hollande's remark clarify that Prime Minister Modi had a "hand in allotting contract to a private party." He said, "It establishes that our Prime Minister took his friend (Anil Ambani) to France to finalise this deal. We have been saying that there is a scam and the Prime Minister has helped him," he added. Another Congress leader Jaipal Reddy demanded the resignation of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for allegedly making a false statement after being pressurised by Prime Minister Modi. "It is clear that the hands of Prime Minister Modi are soiled. He made two ministers tell misleading things. Arun Jaitley and Nirmala Sitharaman made a false statement though on the pressure of the Prime Minister in regard to the role of the government in the choice of Anil Ambani's company. Both of them should resign immediately," Reddy said. However, Dassault Aviation, in a statement, said that Reliance Group was chosen by the company itself in compliance with the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) 2016 regulations and the Indian government's 'Make in India' policy. Later, the spokesperson of France's Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs said that the French Government had no role to play in choosing partner companies in India for the purpose of offsets contracts in the Rafale deal. The spokesperson further added that the companies chosen by Dassault Aviation for the offsets had to be approved by the Indian Government. In 2016, India under the Democratic Alliance (NDA) government signed the deal with France's Dassault Aviation to purchase 36 fighter jets at a cost of around Rs. 58,000 crore. The Congress has been alleging discrepancies in the deal saying the government was procuring each aircraft at a cost of over Rs 1,670 crore as against Rs 526 crore finalised by the UPA government for the procurement of 126 Rafale jets. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Malayalam superstar Mohanlal has opened up about his recent meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. After their September 3 meeting, speculations had started doing the rounds that the 58-year-old might join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Addressing those reports in his latest blog, the actor said, "There were speculative news reports about my meeting with the PM. Being an Indian citizen, if I have permission, I can always meet him. What is surprising is that the PM did not speak a word about politics." Mohanlal added that his meeting with the Prime Minister took place on the actor's request. "I got permission to meet him because I requested for a prior appointment. Surprisingly, he himself came to welcome me. He hugged me saying, 'Mohanlal ji.' He patted on my shoulders thrice. He knew me," wrote the Malayalam film actor. He added that the two talked about Kerala floods, his NGO ViswaSanthi Foundation, among other topics. The Prime Minsiter told Mohanlal that "he is always ready to provide all help for Kerala, irrespective of politics. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres will arrive in India on October 1 for a three-day official visit. The visit coincides with the beginning of events to celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of India's Father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi on October 2, 2019. In 2007, the General Assembly designated 2 October as the International Day of Non-Violence. During his visit, Guterres will formally open the new UN House in New Delhi on October 1. The following morning, the Secretary-General will participate in the closing session of the Mahatma Gandhi International Sanitation Convention. He is also scheduled to meet Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, before giving an address at the India Habitat Centre on Global Affairs on the theme "Global challenges, global solutions" on October 2. The same evening, Guterres will take part in the General Assembly of the International Solar Alliance. On October 3, the Secretary-General will meet with President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj. In the afternoon, he will visit the Golden Temple in Amritsar. Guterres will return to New York on October 4. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) TEHRAN, Iran -- Gunmen disguised as soldiers attacked an annual Iranian military parade Saturday in the country's oil-rich southwest, killing at least 25 people and wounding 53 in the bloodiest assault to strike the country in recent years. The attack in Ahvaz saw gunfire sprayed into a crowd of marching Revolutionary Guardsmen, bystanders and government officials watching from a nearby riser. Suspicion immediately fell on the region's Arab separatists, who previously only attacked unguarded oil pipelines under the cover of darkness. Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif immediately blamed the attack on regional countries and their "U.S. masters," calling the gunmen "terrorists recruited, trained armed and paid" by foreign powers. That further raises tensions in the Mideast as Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers is in jeopardy after President Donald Trump withdrew America from the accord. "Iran will respond swiftly and decisively in defense of Iranian lives," Zarif wrote on Twitter. The attack came as rows of Revolutionary Guardsmen marched down Ahvaz's Quds, or Jerusalem, Boulevard, which like many other places around the country saw an annual parade marking the start of Iran's long 1980s war with Iraq. Images captured by state television showed journalists and onlookers turn to look toward the first shots, then the rows of marchers broke as soldiers and civilians sought cover under sustained gunfire. "Oh God! Go go go! Lie down! Lie down!" one man screamed as a woman fled with her baby. In the aftermath, paramedics tended to the wounded as soldiers, some bloodied in their dress uniforms, helped their comrades to ambulances. The state-run IRNA news agency said the attack killed 25 people and wounded 53, citing "knowledgeable sources" without elaborating. It said gunmen wore Guard uniforms and targeted a riser where military and police commanders were sitting. "We suddenly realized that some armed people wearing fake military outfits started attacking the comrades from behind (the stage) and then opened fire on women and children," an unnamed wounded soldier told state TV. "They were just aimlessly shooting around and did not have a specific target." Details about the attack remained unclear immediately afterward. The semi-official Fars news agency, which is close to the Guard, meanwhile said two gunmen on a motorcycle wearing khaki uniforms carried out the attack. Khuzestan Gov. Gholamreza Shariati told IRNA that two gunmen were killed and two others were arrested. State TV hours later reported that all four gunmen had been killed, with three dying during the attack and one later succumbing to his wounds at a hospital. Who carried out the assault also remained in question. State television immediately described the assailants as "takfiri gunmen," a term previously used to describe the Islamic State group. Iran has been deeply involved in the fight against IS in Iraq and has aided embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad in his country's long war. But in the hours following the attack, state media and government officials seemed to come to the consensus that Arab separatists in the region were responsible. The separatists, however, previously only conducted pipeline bombings at night or hit-and-run attacks. The separatists accuse Iran's Shiite theocracy of discriminating against its Sunni Arab citizens. Iran has blamed its Mideast archrival, the Sunni kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for funding their activity. State media in Saudi Arabia did not immediately acknowledge the attack. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) later claimed responsibility in a message on its Amaaq news agency, but provided no evidence it carried out the assault. The militants have made a string of false claims in the wake of major defeats in Iraq and Syria. In Tehran, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani watched a military parade that included ballistic missiles capable of reaching Israel and U.S. military bases in the Mideast. Rouhani said the U.S. withdraw from the nuclear deal was an attempt to get Iran to give up its military arsenal. "Iran neither put its defensive arms aside nor lessens its defensive capabilities," Rouhani said. "Iran will add to its defensive power day by day." Saturday's attack comes after a coordinated June 7, 2017, ISIS assault on parliament and the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Tehran. At least 18 people were killed and more than 50 wounded. Khomeini led the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the Western-backed shah to become Iran's first supreme leader until his death in 1989. The assault shocked Tehran, which largely has avoided militant attacks in the decades after the tumult surrounding the Islamic Revolution. In the last decade, such attacks have been incredibly rare. In 2009 more than 40 people, including six Guard commanders, were killed in a suicide attack by Sunni extremists in Iran's Sistan and Baluchistan province. A day after New Delhi called-off the proposed India-Pakistan foreign minister-level talks, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan expressed discontent over the cancellation of the meeting. Khan, in his tweet, said, "Disappointed at the arrogant and negative response by India to my call for resumption of the peace dialogue. However, all my life I have come across small men occupying big offices who do not have the vision to see the larger picture." On Friday, India pulled out of the proposed meeting between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi, hours after two Special Police Officers and one policeman in Jammu and Kashmir were kidnapped and brutally killed by the terrorists. Earlier, on September 18, the bullet-ridden body of Border Security Force Head Constable Narender Singh was found in Jammu near India-Pakistan International Boundary. While announcing its decision, Ministry of External Affairs said that the true face of the Pakistan Prime Minister had been revealed in the wake of the brutal killings. The foreign ministers of India and Pakistan were scheduled to meet on the sidelines of the United National General Assembly in New York next week. The outreach was extended by Khan in response to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's letter, congratulating him on taking over as Pakistan's 22nd Prime Minister. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Nepal Prime Minister and Communist Party of Nepal (CPN) chairman KP Sharma Oli has said that the present government will not let the trust and confidence of the people towards it waver. Addressing a program organised at the party office in Dhumbarahi to commemorate the 'Fourth Memorial Day' of the leader of the communist and democratic movement, late Sahana Pradhan, here on Saturday, he said the government has a clear vision, policy and program for country's prosperity. He added that this vision, policy and, program is based on the people's trust and a strong organisation. "There are people who are whining to weaken this people's trust towards the government. Nothing will happen due to this. We would not let the people's trust waver through our work. We are committed to fulfilling the lofty objectives of our predecessor leaders," Oli said. Stating that nobody should panic when the communists unite, PM Oli said the government was ready to work together with the opposition party. He said the time has come for all citizens to fulfill the responsibility of prosperity working like the bees without getting entangled in minor issues since the phase of political change has been completed. CPN co-chairman and former Nepal Prime Minister, Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda' said it was a courageous act of the late leader Sahana Pradhan to remain steadfast in her commitment to socialism and prosperity even amidst political, social and family adversities. He opined that the unity of the communists has facilitated the journey to prosperity and socialism. CPN leader Jhalanath Khanal recalled that the late leader Sahana Pradhan had played an inspiring role in the Constituent Assembly election and drafting the democratic constitution, saying she occupied an important place in the movement against the Rana autocracy and the Panchayat rule. Another CPN leader Bamdev Gautam said the role of leaders from Pushpa Lal to Sahana have played an historic role to spreading the communist ideology in Nepal in an organised manner. The late leader Pradhan had worked as the Chair of the Left Front during the 1990 people's movement. The Sahana Pradhan Memorial Foundation has been formed under the leadership of youth leader Ram Kumari Jhankri. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) At least 10 people were killed and 21 ,including a child and a woman, were injured in an attack on a military parade in Iran's Khuzestan province on Saturday, the media reported. The parade was part of nationwide celebrations in Iran to mark the 30th anniversary since the end of the eight-year war with Iraq that started in September 1980 and ended in August 1988. "The terrorists disguised as Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) and Basiji (volunteer) forces opened fire during the parade," Governor of Khuzestan Gholam-Reza Shariati was quoted as saying by IRNA news agency. Fars news agency said the attack started at 9 a.m. and appeared to involve four gunmen. The attackers shot from a park near the parade and were wearing military uniforms. "The terrorist team was annihilated, two of them were killed and other two were arrested. One of the detained terrorists was injured," said Shariati. Military personnel and a journalist were among those killed. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif blamed "a foreign regime" backed by the US for the attack. "Terrorists recruited, trained, armed and paid by a foreign regime have attacked Ahvaz," he said in a tweet, adding: "Iran holds regional terror sponsors and their US masters accountable for such attacks." Earlier, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani used the occasion of the military parade to compare US President Donald Trump to the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, according to Press TV. Speaking at a military rally in Tehran, he said Trump will fail in the "economic and psychological war" he's launched against Iran, just as Hussein failed in his 8-year war against the Islamic Republic". "Iran will neither abandon its defensive weapons nor will reduce its defence capabilities," Rouhani said. "Rather it will increase its defence power day by day. The fact that they are angry at our missiles shows that these are the most influential weapons Iran has." --IANS soni/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The diamonds splendor has been appreciated for centuries. World-famous diamonds such as the Great Mughal, Kohinoor, Regent, Florentine, Darya-i-Noor, Pigott, Tavernier, and Nassak were produced in India. More than the aesthetic and appealing value, diamonds worn in ancient times were believed to promote strength, invincibility and courage. The earliest diamonds were found in India in the 4th century BC and were valued because of their strength and brilliance, and for their ability to refract light and engrave metal. They were worn as adornments, used as cutting tools, served as talismans to ward off evil and were believed to provide protection in battle. In the Dark Ages, diamonds were also used as a medical aid and were thought to cure illness and heal wounds when ingested. Diamond production in India reached its zenith in the 16th century with the maximum output of 1,500 to 100,000 carats. Until the 18th century, India was the only source of diamonds for the whole world. However, when the Indian diamond mines depleted, the quest for alternate sources began. Although a small deposit was found in Brazil in 1725, the supply was not enough to meet the world's demands. Today, the diamond may be the first choice to express love and commitment, there's still a lot to uncover about its the history. Here are some interesting facts about diamonds that you probable never knew: * Diamonds were brought to the surface of Earth through intense volcanic eruptions. The eruptions propelled the diamonds, at breakneck speed, hundreds of kilometers from the heart of the Earth to the surface. The molten magma cooled, and on a few very rare occasions, diamonds were born * Diamonds were formed long before dinosaurs walked our planet. The youngest diamond is 107 million years old, while the dinosaurs were extinct only 65 million years ago * The diamond is the hardest known substance in the world. Billions of years ago, in a deep layer of the earth, a unique combination of chemicals, pressure and changes in temperature, created diamonds out of pure carbon * More than half of the rough diamond disappears in the polishing process. It takes two years of apprenticeship to learn the simplest of diamond cuts. It also takes two years for an experienced craftsman to cut the largest and most valuable diamonds * Diamonds are rare and getting rarer. The last significant discovery was almost 20 years ago. Only around 50 locations around the world were found to contain diamonds viable for mining, with South Africa, Russia and Botswana being the most well-known * India was the world's original source of diamonds, beginning in the 1400s when Indian diamonds began to be sold in Venice and other European trade centers. The most famous of these is the Kohinoor, which is now part of the British Crown Jewels. These facts make diamonds more alluring and enticing than ever and we all can safely agree that diamonds have been and will truly be forever. (Richa Singh is Managing Director, Diamond Producers Association, India. The views expressed are personal) --IANS richa/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Afghanistan's government officials have expressed readiness to meet Taliban's representatives in a meeting hosted by Russia in its capital, the media reported. The meeting was earlier scheduled for September 4. However, Kabul refused to participate in it just days before, Afghanistan's TOLO News reported on Friday. According to TASS news agency, diplomats continued to hammer out all the details for the new meeting in Moscow on the Afghan settlement. "Kabul is upbeat on participating in the upcoming conference", Russia's Special Presidential Envoy for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov told Izvestia daily, following a discussion with Afghanistan's Deputy Foreign Minister Nasir Ahmad Andisha on Thursday. The Afghan minister said that details of the conference were being worked out. The exact date of the meeting is still unknown, but Afghan officials declared their readiness to meet with representatives of the Taliban movement, according to the Russian official. "Kabul is determined to participate in the Moscow-hosted meeting. Now we are in the process of developing modalities for this participation. Currently, the main thing is not the date, but the content, so this is the part that we are working on," he told Izvestia. In August, a delegation from the Afghan Taliban met Uzbekistan officials during a five-day trip to the country. Issues including transport, power lines and peace in Afghanistan were discussed, the movement's political office said. Muhammad Sohail Shaheen, spokesperson for the Taliban's political office, had said the group's representatives met Uzbek Foreign Minister Abdul Aziz Kamilov and Special Representative for Afghanistan Ismatulla Irgashev during the August 6-10 visit. He said they "discussed current and future national projects such as security for railroad and power lines. "Views were also exchanged with officials of Uzbekistan about the withdrawal of foreign forces and how to achieve peace in Afghanistan," Shaheen had said. --IANS soni/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Assam Director General of Police Kuladhar Saikia on Saturday said the state police is going to make a database of the youth who had been working outside to monitor their activities. Addressing a press conference, the DGP said on Saturday that the move was necessitated after arrest of Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Qamar uz Zaman from Kanpur. After his arrest, the Assam police have arrested seven linkmen of the Hizbul Mujahideen from Hojai and Nagaon districts of Assam. "We have asked the village headmen of the villages in Assam to collect the information about the youth of the village working outside. We are going to use the information to make a database and will monitor their activities through police and other agencies in different states," said Saikia. Speaking on the recent spread of the Hizbul network in Assam, Special DGP, Assam, Pallab Bhattacharyya said the Hizbul network spread very clandestinely in Assam. "In the past also terrorists organizations such as Jamat Ul Mujahideen, Bangladesh (JMB), Harkat-Ul Mujahideen and others have tried to spread their network in Assam. However, the Assamese society does not accept these organizations," said Bhattacharyya. He said the investigation on the recent arrest of Hizbul network in Assam is going on. He refused to divulge much as it might hamper the investigation. A National Investigation Agency (NIA) team was in Assam recently to interrogate the seven Hizbul linkmen, who had been arrested from parts of Hojai and Nagaon districts of Assam post Qamar uz Zaman's arrest. --IANS ah/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The BJP on Saturday called for a 12-hour shutdown in West Bengal on September 26 to protest against the alleged killing of two youths in a clash between the agitating students and police in West Bengal's North Dinajpur district. One of the youths, Rajesh Sarkar, was allegedly shot dead in a clash outside Daribhit High School premises in North Dinajpur district's Islampur on Thursday, centring the recruitment of three new teachers in the institution against the wish of the students. The other youth, Tapas Barman, who also sustained a bullet injury in the incident, died in the North Bengal Medical College and Hospital on Friday. Both the deceased were former students of the school where the clash took place. Accusing the state government and its police of showing "barbaric attitude towards students", the state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership called for a 12-hour shutdown across Bengal and also demanded a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the killings. "This government and its police force have created an unforeseen example of barbarism towards the student. We have decided to call a 12-hour shutdown in the state against the killing of two students in police firing in North Dinajpur's Islampur area," state BJP leader Pratap Banerjee told reporters here. "We had earlier announced a march to state secretariat Nabanna on September 26. But we have decided to cancel it and have called for a shutdown on that day to protest against the murder of students as well as the widespread attacks and police atrocities on the people of the state. We appeal everyone in Bengal to support the shutdown." The BJP leader further alleged that the Trinamool Congress, which had come to power with the promise of bringing peace, are now resorting to violence and unrest in the state. "We pledge to continue our movement until all the police officers involved in the incident are suspended and the offenders are punished for their action. We demand CBI probe into the case. The state administration should not try to protect the offenders," he said. According to the police and the local sources, the situation got heated up last Wednesday over the recruitment of three teachers of Urdu and Sanskrit languages in the school while the students had been demanding teachers in literature and science subjects. The new teachers were stopped from entering the school by the agitating students on Thursday afternoon, who later blocked the road and clashed with the police when they arrived on the spot. Villagers claimed that the two youths were killed in police firing, whereas the police maintained no bullets were fired by them and claimed that miscreants armed with guns, bombs and sticks attacked them outside the school. North Dinajpur SP Sumit Kumar had said members of the mob were carrying bombs and arms, and 14 policemen were injured in the clash. Seven people, including some BJP supporters, have been detained in connection with the incident so far. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who is on a 12-day tour to Europe to attract investment for the state, said the state government will not allow any shutdown to take place and accused the BJP and the Rashtriya Swyamsevak Sangh (RSS) of engineering unrest by murdering people. "There will be no shutdown. There is no question of it. It is BJP's ploy to divert people's attention from the failures of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party President Amit Shah. They are orchestrating the attacks and killings. They are doing the of murder. I warn them not to play with fire," she said in a video message from Milan. State Minister Partha Chatterjee had earlier accused the members of RSS of instigating the violence and said strong actions would be taken against those found guilty. "We are certain that RSS has played a significant role in the incident. They are bringing people from outside and trying to indulge in the of death. Whoever is found involved in violence, whether they are from BJP or RSS, will not be spared," Chatterjee had said. The BJP had observed a 12-hour shutdown in North Dinajpur district on Friday over the incident. --IANS mgr/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Congress on Saturday refuted the claims of Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad that French firm Dassault Aviation, the manufacturer of Rafale jets, had signed a contract with Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Limited in 2012 to execute the offset contract and described it as "totally false". "This is totally false and utter rubbish being dished out, unfortunately by Defence Ministry and the Law Minister," Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala said at a press conference here. He said that "no such Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was ever signed between Dassault Aviation and Mukesh Ambani's company". "They have the records. We challenge the Law Minister and Defence Minister (Nirmala Sitharaman) to make any such record public. As there is no record, the lies would be exposed," Surjewala said. Surjewala's remarks came soon after Prasad recounted the history of the deal from 2006 and said there was contemporaneous evidence to show that the choice of offset partner, a Reliance company, was made in 2012 itself during the UPA rule, much before Modi became Prime Minister. "There is evidence available that a proper MoU existed between Dassault and Reliance industry as early as on February 13, 2013, that means one year, four months before we came to power," he said. Prasad said the offset clause was finalised by the UPA in 2012 and the choice of the private firm in place of HAL was entirely that of Dassault. "In fact, the UPA had ditched the HAL," he said. Prasad was reacting to the raging controversy over the 36 fighter deal with France. His remarks came amid media reports of former French President Francois Hollande claiming that the Indian government suggested the private firm for the Rafale offset contract. The Congress leader attacking the Narendra Modi-led government said, "Truth is that, Dassault Aviation had entered into a work-share arrangement with public sector undertaking Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). And it is proved in annual report 2013-14, in which Eric Trappier, CEO of Dassault, states that 'our main partner is HAL'." He claimed that on March 25, 2015 (just 17 days before Modi's announced the purchase of 36 Rafale on April 10, 2015), Dassualt CEO in the presence of Chief of Indian Air Force and HAL Chairman stated that negotiations with HAL were at final stage and contract finalisation and signature would come very soon. "On March 13, 2014, a work-share agreement was signed between HAL and Dassault Aviation," Surjewala claimed. The deal to purchase 36 Rafale fighter jets from France was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015 and signed in 2016. The UPA government was earlier negotiating a deal to procure 126 Rafale jets, with 18 to come in flyaway condition and 108 to be manufactured by HAL under licence. The Modi government has repeatedly said it was Dassault that chose its India partner for offsets and that the government had no say in the deal. --IANS aks/vsc/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Deputy US Attorney General Rod Rosenstein suggested wearing a "wire" to record conversations with President Donald Trump and recruiting Cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office for being unfit, according to a media report. Rosenstein made these suggestions in 2017 when Trump's firing of former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) James Comey plunged the White House into turmoil, The New York Times report said on Friday. Over the ensuing days, the President divulged classified intelligence to Russians in the Oval Office, and revelations emerged that Trump had asked Comey to pledge loyalty and end an investigation into a senior aide. Rosenstein was just two weeks into his job. He had begun overseeing the Russia investigation and played a key role in the President's dismissal of Comey by writing a memo critical of his handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. But Rosenstein was caught off guard when Trump cited the memo in the firing, and he began telling people that he feared he had been used. The Deputy Attorney General made the remarks about secretly recording Trump and about the 25th Amendment in meetings and conversations with other Justice Department and FBI officials, informed sources told The New York Times. The people were briefed either on the events themselves or on memos written by FBI officials, including Andrew G. McCabe, then the acting bureau director, that documented Rosenstein's actions and comments. However, none of Rosenstein's proposals apparently came to fruition. Rosenstein on Friday disputed the claims. "The New York Times's story is inaccurate and factually incorrect," he said in a statement. "I will not further comment on a story based on anonymous sources who are obviously biased against the department and are advancing their own personal agenda. "But let me be clear about this: Based on my personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment." --IANS ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a boost to the port-led industrialization policy, the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust-Special Economic Zone (JNPT-SEZ) has leased a 44-acre plot to Hindustan Infralog Pvt. Ltd., the Indian arm of Dubai-based DP World, for Rs 566.3 crore, an official said here on Saturday. Besides, another 31 acres have been leased to 15 MSME investors on the JNPT-SEZ multi-product zone coming up on 684-acres of freehold land of the JNPT. With the prime objective of generating jobs, investments and captive cargo for the JNPT, so far the JNPT-SEZ has leased out 75 acres of land for 60 years at a total premium of Rs 630 crore, said JNPT Chairman Neeraj Bansal. He said the JNPT-SEZ has received extremely positive response from the investors who include manufacturers, industrial park developers, logistics companies and private equity players, for land in the SEZ. This is because of the geo-centric advantages and its connectivity to the domestic and international markets being close to Mumbai, its proximity to the upcoming Navi Mumbai International Airport and JNPT Port giving it direct access to global markets through the port's container terminals, said Bansal. "The JNPT is providing state-of-the-art plug and play facilities at the SEZ by investing Rs 500 crore and the key facilities include continuous water-power supply, telecom networks, a customs office, administration and training centre, parking, abundant green zones with a sewage treatment plant and solid waster management facility," Bansal added. The JNPT-SEZ enjoys a 'Special Planning Authority' status which enables investors to secure speedy approvals for building designs and expedite construction at the site. A dedicated team, comprising infrastructure experts and consultants, is deployed at the site where work is progressing at face pace with 35 per cent financial progress notched so far in the mega-project, due to be completed by July 2019. --IANS qn/mag/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Guwahati: Amidst fanfare and festive look ICFAI University, Mizoram has hosted "A Tri-National Conference of India, Bangladesh & Myanmar on Regional Cooperation through Mizoram" in collaboration with the Mizoram government on September 19. The inauguration ceremony was adorned by the presences of Mizoram Governor Kummanam Rajasekharan and the Finance, Development, Judial and Taxation Minister of Mizoram Pu Lalsawta. The concept note of the conference held two topics; one is Trade, Investment, Infrastructure, Connectivity among Bangladesh India and Myanmar and the other one is people to people connectivity: historical and cultural ties, diaspora, immigration, opportunities in higher education. Dr. Shah Mohammad Tanvir Monsur, the Assistant High Commission of Bangladesh represented Bangladesh at the occasion. Dr. Tanvir elaborated the ongoing projects on connectivity between Bangladesh and the North East Region and explained several economic strategies for nurturing cross border trades required for sustainable expansion of the connectivity. He particularly mentioned about the recently undertaken rail road project of Agartala-Akhaura and ongoing bus service from Dhaka to Shilong. He told that connectivity and trades are interdependent and because of vicious cycle of the financing gap between these two factors, both the Governments India and Bangladesh have come forward to establish connectivity in all the possible modes. In his address the Mizoram Governor mentioned the visionary role of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in prioritizing the neighborhood diplomacy. He also applauded the recently taken projects on connectivity between India, Bangladesh and Myanmar. In the vote of thanks, the Vice chancellor of ICFAI University Lt. Gen Dr. A. K Misra thanks the speakers for coming to Mizoram and underscored the presence of the dignitaries in the program will draw an attention of the concerned leadership across South Asian and South Asian countries about the importance of the State of Mizoram for connecting the North Eastern Region with other important cities of India and also connecting India with the South East Asian Region. Gunmen on Saturday opened fire on an Iranian military parade in Ahvaz city, killing several people, the media reported. The incident happened as Iran was marking the anniversary of the beginning of the 1980-88 war with Iraq with several parades across the nation, the BBC reported. Fars news agency said the attack started at 9 a.m. and appeared to involve four gunmen. The attackers shot from a park near the parade and were wearing military uniforms. The agency said that the attackers fired at civilians and attempted to attack military officials on the podium. Several reports said that up to nine members of the military were killed and a child was among those wounded. No group claimed responsibility for the attack, which lasted for about 10 minutes. --IANS soni/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Defence Ministry on Saturday said the Indian government had no role in the selection of an Indian private firm as the offset partner of the French firm Dassault Aviation as it was a commercial decision of the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) which was taken as early as 2012 when the UPA was in power. Reacting to the raging controversy over the deal, a Defence Ministry spokesperson said that unnecessary controversies were being sought to be created following media reports on a statement purportedly made by the former French President Francois Hollande, concerning the selection of Reliance Defence as the offset partner by Dassault. The statement by the Ministry of Defence comes amid media reports of the former French President claiming that the Indian government suggested the private firm for the Rafale offset contract. Hollande was quoted in an article by a French website as claiming that the Indian government had asked the French government to nominate Reliance Defence as its India partner in the deal. "We did not have a say in this. The Indian government proposed this service group and Dassault negotiated with Ambani." The Defence Ministry said that the reported statement by the former President perhaps needs to be seen in its "full context" - where the French media has raised "issues of conflict of interest involving persons close to the former President". "His subsequent statements are also relevant in this regard," it said. The defence ministry statement said "The government has stated earlier and again reiterates that it had no role in the selection of Reliance Defence as the Offset partner." It also said that it has been reported that a joint venture between Reliance Defence and Dassualt Aviation came into being in February, 2017. "This is a purely commercial arrangement between two private companies. Incidentally, media reports of February, 2012 suggest that Dassault Aviation, within two weeks of being declared the lowest bidder for procurement of 126 aircraft by the previous government, had entered into a pact for partnership with Reliance Industries in Defence sector," it said. The ministry said that Dassault Aviation has also issued a release stating that it has signed partnership agreements with several companies and is negotiating with a hundred odd other companies. "As per the guidelines, the vendor is to provide the details of the offset partners either at the time of seeking offset credit or one year prior to discharge of offset obligation, which in this case will be due from 2020," the ministry said. The deal to purchase 36 Rafale fighter jets from France was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015 and signed in 2016. The UPA government was earlier negotiating a deal to procure 126 Rafale jets, with 18 to come in flyaway condition and 108 to be manufactured by HAL under licence. The Modi government has repeatedly said it was Dassault that chose its India partner for offsets and that the government had no say in the deal. Explaining how the Offset Policy came into play, the ministry said "The Offset Policy was formally announced for the first time in 2005 and has been revised several times. To leverage its huge arm-imports in order to develop a strong indigenous industry, a flow-back arrangement is made in the defence contracts, which is widely known as offsets, and constitutes a certain percentage of the contract value. "The key objectives of the Defence Offset Policy is to leverage the capital acquisitions to develop Indian defence industry by fostering development of internationally competitive enterprises; augmenting capacity for research and development in defence sector and to encourage development of synergistic sector like civil aerospace and internal security." The offset can be discharged by many means such as direct purchase of eligible products/services, FDI in joint ventures and investment towards equipment and transfer of technology. As per Defence Offset Guidelines, the foreign OEM is free to select any Indian company as its offset partner. --IANS aks/vsc/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two intriguing exercises in U-turns are on at the moment. While Congress president Rahul Gandhi is trying to rid the Congress of its pro-Muslim image, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief, Mohan Bhagwat, is claiming that a Hindu "rashtra" (nation) will include Muslims as well. Although Bhagwat did not specifically say so, it was obvious that the Muslims would not be treated as second-class citizens in a nation of Hindus as was decreed by M.S. Golwalkar, the second sarsanghchalak (head) of the RSS. Are these changes for real or fake? If they are real, then both the Congress and the RSS can be said to be turning over a new leaf. The formidable impact of such changes, especially the one in the RSS, on the social and political scene is obvious. In a way, it will be on the scale of Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness) which brought the communist Soviet Union into the capitalist world. Will the RSS similarly break out of its earlier Hindu-centric mould for which it was accused by several judicial commissions of instigating communal riots and become secular? However, the problem in the case of the RSS is that it is not alone. It is a part of a large brotherhood which includes the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Bajrang Dal, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and others. Although the RSS is their mentor, it is not known whether it will be able to bring their thinking in line with its new, accommodative mode. The task is bound to be difficult considering that the saffron brotherhood has nurtured an anti-minority outlook for decades, regarding Muslims as "internal enemies No. 1" and Christians as "internal enemies No. 2", according to Golwalkar. Although the RSS and the BJP have now distanced themselves from this section of Golwalkar's catechism, the Ramjanmabhoom agitation of the 1990s showed how the Hindutva brigade continues to hold the two communities as responsible for all of India's woes, starting from the destruction of temples in medieval times to the country's partition in the modern period to the conversion of Hindus to "alien" religions. Another fear of the saffronities is that the Muslims would outnumber the Hindus by breeding exponentially with their four wives -- hum panch, hamare pachis, as Narendra Modi once said -- while the Christian missionaries will continue to "harvest" gullible Hindu souls. It is open to question, therefore, as to what extent Bhagwat's words of wisdom will lead to a dramatic rethinking in the Hindutva ranks. It is this scepticism which apparently made the opposition parties at the national level stay away from the three-day conclave which Bhagwat addressed at New Delhi's prestigious Vigyan Bhavan. However, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. If there are no more lynchings of suspected beef-eaters, no more campaigns in favour of "ghar wapsi" or the reconversion of Muslims, and no more instances of love jehad resulting in the harassment of inter-faith couples, then it will be presumed that the RSS chief's counsel of restraint is having a sobering effect on the saffron storm-troopers. As important as the stoppage of lynchings will be the end of the cold-blooded killings of rationalists or scientists or journalists, which have evidently been carried out by those indoctrinated by the philosophy of hate directed against Left-Liberal members of the intelligentsia. And, what about the venomous outpourings of the countless saffron trolls who let out whoops of joy over the killing of an intrepid scribe? Will they pipe down and become models of restrained behaviour? Cynics may wonder whether Bhagwat's latest nod to the "idea" of a multicultural India, which is normally derided by the Hindu Right, is an attempt to gain respectability for the Sangh Parivar by entering the gated enclaves of the Left-Liberals who regard themselves as the standard-bearers of a modern, cosmopolitan lifestyle while the Parivar with its fetish for Hindi, vegetarianism and cow's urine is seen as a bucolic outsider. It is possible that the RSS realised that notwithstanding the enormous material and political clout it has acquired because of the BJP's political success, its social standing hasn't improved. The anglicised, deracinated "urban Naxalites" in the cocktail circuits continue to regard the Hindu Right as usurpers in the corridors of power. But if the RSS dons the cloak of inclusiveness, where does that leave the BJP? Already, Bhagwat's praise of the Congress's role in the freedom struggle and his observation that he does not believe in the idea of the country being made "mukt" (free) of any party has poured cold water over the BJP's plan of ushering in a Congress-mukt Bharat. This is the first sign that the RSS and the BJP do not see eye to eye on at least one matter. The place of honour for Muslims in a Hindu rashtra will also focus attention on the BJP's reluctance to choose Muslims (and Christians) as the party's election candidates. The branding by some BJP leaders of their opponents as anti-nationals also goes against Bhagwat's moderate tone. If the RSS chief's discourse robs the BJP of its divisive plank, its election campaign is bound to lose its sting. The "chelas" (ideological followers), therefore, will have to harmonise their political line with the guru's latest views. (Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached at amulyaganguli@gmail.com) --IANS amulya/vm/tb (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The security forces started a massive search operation covering over a dozen villages in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama district on Saturday, police said. Troops of the counter-insurgency Rashtriya Rifles, para commandos of the Army, state police and the Central Reserve Police Force cordoned off Alaipura, Achan, Hajdarpora, Batnur, Lassipora and other villages and began a door-to-door combing exercise. This comes a day after a dramatic escalation in militancy, as terrorists kidnapped and shot dead three policemen in Shopian district on Friday, stunning the police force. --IANS sq/in (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said the revival of the Talcher fertiliser plant in Odisha will create huge job opportunities while making the country self-sufficient in fertiliser production. The Talcher plant will start production in 36 months with an investment of Rs 13,000 crore, said Modi. Launching the revival work for the country's first coal gasification-based fertiliser plant, Modi said: "Around 4,500 people will be employed in the region." It would also reduce India's dependency on importing gas and urea, he added. "Odisha had lost hope of the fertiliser plant but we did it despite several hurdles. We vowed that with new energy and new speed, we will take the country to a new height," Modi said in Talcher as he addressed the public. The plant is being developed by Talcher Fertilisers Limited (TFL), a joint venture of GAIL (India) Limited, Coal India Limited (CIL), Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers Limited (RCFL) and Fertilizer Corporation of India Limited (FCIL). The project would have an output of 1.27 Million Metric Tonnes Per Annum (MMTPA) of 'Neem' coated prilled urea using coal and petcoke as feedstock. The plant, targeted to be commissioned by 2022, will ensure easy availability of urea in Odisha as currently there is no urea plant in the state. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, also present on the occasion, thanked the Prime Minister and assured him of all support from the state government. --IANS cd/in/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A nine-member Myanmar delegation led by Vice Senior General Soe Win, Deputy Commander-in-Chief - Myanmar Defence Services and Commander-in-Chief (Army), visited Eastern Command headquarters on Thursday and discussed regional and security issues. The team had earlier visited Pune to attend MILEX-2018 (Joint exercise amongst BIMSTEC countries). A Defence Ministry spokesperson said the visit will strengthen "bilateral defence cooperation mechanism between the two friendly neighbouring countries" and help in ensuring better management of Indo-Myanmar Border. Vice Senior General Soe Win interacted with Lieutenant General Abhay Krishna, GOC-in-C, Eastern Command, in his office at Fort William here. "They discussed various regional and other security-related challenges concerning both the countries," the spokesperson said. --IANS ssp/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Ever since I turned 5 or maybe 6, I have believed God lives in THAT voice. Many, many years later, it hasn't changed. To hear Lata Mangeshkar sing is to have known God. To have known her personally is to have found moksha, far beyond what any acknowledged religion can teach you. I got to know her very late. For decades I hero-worshipped her from very far away, like one does the Gods. If asked why I didn't meet her personally, I'd reason ridiculously: "You worship God, you don't shake hands with Her." Or some such nonsense to explain my fear of meeting in person the God that I worshipped. Suppose she turns out to have feet of clay? But as luck would have it, Lata Didi turned out to be as beautiful in person as she was in voice... Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration. No personality can ever match that voice. Not even Lata Mangeshkar herself. (An aside: Which heroine is able to carry off Lata Mangeshkar's voice most adequately: Meena Kumari, Nutan, Waheeda Rehman, Madhubala, Vyjanthimala, Sadhana, Hema Malini or Sharmila Tagore? Answer: All, and none of the above). It was my friend Sanjeev Kohli, the son of the illustrious composer Madan Mohan, who arranged my first meeting with her, an encounter that turned into a kinship that has lasted for 28 years now. I vividly remember my first meeting with her at the Shiv Sena Bhavan in Mumbai. She was supposed to reach in the evening at an appointed hour to rehearse for a concert that was being hosted by Anupam Kher. I met Anupam. But I didn't meet her. She was unwell. She sent a message for me to meet her the next day at the same venue. The next day I trooped down to Shiv Sena Bhawan with a friend. How do I describe the moment when I first met her? I won't. Because there are no words to replicate the way my heart waltzed in my chest. The magic has remained for 28 years. I consider myself hugely privileged to have known her. I know of so many who just want a glimpse of her. Scores of people stand below her home, Prabhu Kunj on Peddar Road in South Mumbai, in the hope of catching a glimpse of her in the balcony. Lata Mangeshkar never comes out on that famous little balcony of her residence where she has lived for 40 years and where fans gaze in the hope of seeing her. But here is where I feel blessed. I've not only sat for hours with her in that cosy family home in Prabhu Kunj, I've also been privileged to see her room where no one is allowed to enter. Once during our lengthy telephonic conversations, I mentioned to her that I'd like to see the sanctum sanctorum. Many months later when we met at Prabhu Kunj she remembered my request, "You wanted to see my room?" And she took me to the sparkling, neat little room which I am sure none of her Bhakts have ever seen. Thank you, Didi, for taking me where very few have the honour of going. Thank you for those hundreds of songs which have lit up the darkest of my days -- and of innumerable others across the world. Thank you for the music. (Subhash K. Jha can be contacted at jhasubh@gmail.com) --IANS skj/hs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bishop Franco Mulakkal, who has been arrested in a nun rape case, will be produced in a Kerala court on Saturday, police said. Mulakkal, who headed the Roman Catholic Diocese in Jalandhar, Punjab, was arrested on Friday in Tripunithura after three days of questioning. He was to be produced in a Kottayam court the same day. However, on the way he developed chest pains and had to be admitted in a hospital barely 10 km away from Kottayam. After spending the night in the Cardiology Department of the state-run Kottayam Medical College hospital, the doctors decided to discharge him on Saturday. As he stepped out, the public jeered at him. Mulakkal would be kept at the Kottayam Police Club till the time he was produced, the police said. This is first time in the country that a bishop has been arrested for rape and the police have charged him for illegal confinement, rape, unnatural sex and criminal intimidation. The action came after a nun complained that she was raped several times between 2014-16. The crime had occurred at a convent in Kottayam district. The police probe team has till 8 p.m. to produce the bishop. Mulakkal's counsel would be moving a bail plea, while the police would seek his custody for three days. The five nuns who took to the streets in Kochi in an indefinite protest demanding the bishop's arrest, on Saturday told the media the protest would be called off. "This protest would not have taken place, had our church authorities taken our complaints seriously. "We never did this for our benefit, instead we wanted to ensure that there would never be another bishop like Mulakkal who would turn a tormentor," said a nun before leaving to the protest venue. --IANS sg/in (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bishop Franco Mulakkal, who has been arrested for raping a nun, was on Saturday refused bail by a Kerala court and sent to two-day's police custody. The bishop would be kept at the Kottayam Police Club till Monday, when he would be again produced at a court in Pala, near here, a police officer said. Mulakkal, who headed the Roman Catholic Diocese in Jalandhar, Punjab, was arrested on Friday in Tripunithura after three days of questioning in a sexual abuse case filed by a nun who accused him of repeatedly raping her between 2014 to 2016. The bishop's counsel told the court that his client's blood sample and saliva were forcefully taken. The police said that Mulakkal would be taken to the convent near here, where he is alleged to have raped the nun. He would also have to undergo a potency test. Police had a tough time on Saturday controlling the crowd as people jeered at Mulakkal, who became the first bishop in the country to be arrested for rape. Mulakkal was to be produced in court on Friday following his arrest. However, after he developed chest pains on the way to Kottayam from Tripunithura, he was admitted in the Kottayam Medical College hospital, where he stayed overnight. He was discharged early on Saturday and produced in the court in the afternoon. One of the five nuns who took to the streets in Kochi in an indefinite protest demanding the bishop's arrest, on Saturday told the media: "This protest would not have taken place, had our church authorities taken our complaints seriously." "We never did this for our benefit, instead we wanted to ensure that there would never be another bishop like Mulakkal who would turn a tormentor," the nun added. The protest were called off on Saturday. --IANS sg/in/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has warned that the Trump administration will take "a serious of actions" against the Venezuelan government in the coming days. Speaking at an interview on Friday with Fox News, Pompeo said that "I think you'll see in the coming days a series of actions that continue to increase the pressure level against the Venezuelan leadership folks", Xinhua reported. Claiming that "we're determined to ensure that the Venezuelan people get their say," Pompeo declined to detail whether Washington will impose more sanctions on Caracas. The remarks came ahead of the annual UN General Assembly slated in New York next week. Several US media outlets reported earlier this month that the Trump administration has talked secretly with rebellious Venezuelan military officers several times to discuss their plans to stage a coup in the South American country. For his part, US President Donald Trump said in August of last year that he would not rule out a "military option" in Venezuela "if necessary," despite his aides' opposition. The US has also announced several rounds of sanctions against Venezuelan government officials ever since. In response, Venezuela has slammed the "warmongering" declarations of Trump as "threats to peace" and a "violation" of UN and international laws. The Nicolas Maduro government has also instructed the military to prepare to "shoulder arms" in case of a US invasion. --IANS pgh/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Members and supporters of Russia's Communist Party took to the streets of the capital on Saturday to protest unpopular pension reforms planned by President Vladimir Putin. Putin took measures to soften his proposed hike in retirement age in August by limiting the increase for women to 60 -- up from 55 -- instead of the initial suggestion of 63, Efe news reported. But the change of plan has so far failed to quell protests against it. He stood by plans to raise men's retirement age from 60 to 65. Protesters held signs emblazoned with slogans such as "Putin Lies". Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov also spoke at the rally. The changes have been given a preliminary green-light by the State Duma, Russia's lower parliament, but have provoked widespread outrage. An opinion poll showed that about 90 per cent of Russians were against increasing the retirement age. --IANS soni/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The French government and Dassault Aviation have contradicted former President Francois Hollande's claim in choosing Indian industrial partners in the multi-million dollar Rafale jet deal. The statement by the French government issued here late Friday comes after Hollande claimed that the Indian government suggested a particular private firm for Rafale offset contract. Hollande was quoted in an article by a French website as claiming that the Indian government had asked the French government to nominate Reliance Defence as its India partner in the deal. "We did not have a say in this," Hollande was quoted by the website as saying. "The Indian government proposed this service group and Dassault negotiated with Ambani." In response to the claim, the Friday night statement said: "The French government is in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners who have been, are being or will be selected by French companies. "In accordance with India's acquisition procedure, French companies have the full freedom to choose their Indian partner companies that they consider to be the most relevant, then present for the Indian government's approval the offset projects that they wish to execute in India with these local partners so as to fulfil their obligations in this regard." Dassault Aviation, the makers of the Rafale jets, in a statement also on Friday night, said: "This offsets contract is delivered in compliance with the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) 2016 regulations. In this framework, and in accordance with the policy of 'Make in India', Dassault Aviation has decided to make a partnership with India's Reliance Group. This is Dassault Aviation's choice." The Paris-based company said that the partnership between the two giants led to the creation of the "Dassault Reliance Aerospace Ltd (DRAL) joint-venture in February 2017. "Dassault aviation is very proud that the Indian authorities have selected the Rafale fighter," it added. The deal to purchase 36 Rafale fighter jets from France was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015 and signed in 2016. The UPA government was earlier negotiating a deal to procure 126 Rafale jets, with 18 to come in flyaway condition and 108 to be manufactured by HAL under licence. The Modi government has repeatedly said it was Dassault that chose its India partner for offsets and that the government had no say in the deal. --IANS ksk/sac (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A political war broke out on Saturday with Congress President Rahul Gandhi terming Prime Minister Narendra Modi a "thief" and "corrupt" in the Rafale deal as the BJP hit back saying the Gandhi family is out on bail and is the "source of all corruption in the country". As the controversy over former French President Francois Hollande's remarks that the Modi government asked them to chose a private firm as offset partner in the Rafale deal snowballed, both the Defence Ministry and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad maintained that the Indian government had no role in the choice of the offset partner. Both suggested that Reliance was chosen by Dassault as early as 2012 much before Narendra Modi became Prime Minister. However, the Congress rejected their claim on Dassault-Reliance deal in 2012 and asked them to produce the relevant records. Earlier, both the French government and Dassault Aviation contradicted Hollande's claim on choosing of Indian industrial partners. Rahul Gandhi led the Congress charge on Saturday following Holland's remarks and said the former French President had called him a "thief" in the Rafale deal. He also sought a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into the agreement to purchase 36 fighter jets from France. "Now what the ex-President of France is saying is that the Prime Minister of India is a thief... that is what the statement is saying. It is very important for the PM now to either accept Hollande's statement and say that he is telling the truth or that Hollande is not telling the truth and here is the truth," Gandhi said. "It is the question of dignity of office of PM, it is a question related to defence, future of our jawans, Air Force. What I am surprised by is that the PM is completely silent," he said, adding that he had a one-on-one meeting with Hollande. Referring to Modi having earlier described himself as a "chowkidar (watchman)", Gandhi said he had given a "free gift" of Rs 30,000 crore to his industrialist friend. "We are absolutely convinced that PM of India is corrupt. The question is now clearly settled in the minds of the Indian people that the country's watchman is a thief. This has gone in the minds of the people." He said the Rafale aircraft was negotiated for Rs 526 crore by the UPA government but purchased for Rs 1,600 crore by the Modi government. Prasad attacked Gandhi and saying "irresponsible, shameless and baseless" remarks were being made against the Prime Minister by a family which is out on bail in the National Herald case and "is the source of all corruption in the country". "Rahul Gandhi's statement is utterly irresponsible. He is playing into the hands of Pakistan and China by insisting on the disclosure of the price and other details which will help our enemies. I charge Rahul Gandhi is trying to help Pakistan," he said. Prasad said there was evidence to show that the choice of offset partner, a Reliance company, was made in 2012 itself during the UPA rule and a proper MoU existed between Dassault and Reliance industry as early as on February 13, 2013. He said the choice of the private firm in place of HAL was entirely that of Dassault. "In fact the UPA had ditched the HAL," he said. "I don't know the reasons and compulsions of the former French President to say what he had said," Prasad said and made a reference to a question of conflict of interest being raised against the former French President whose partner's film was co-produced by the private firm. The Defence ministry also referred to the alleged conflict of interest and said the reported statement by the former President perhaps needs to be seen in its "full context" The Defence Ministry also said that the decision on offset partner was a commercial decision of the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM), which was taken as early as 2012 when the UPA was in power. Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala termed Prasad and Defence Ministry's remarks as "totally false and utter rubbish." "No such contract or MoU was ever signed between Dassault Aviation and Mukesh Ambani's company. We challenge the Law Minister and Defence Minister to make any such record public. As there is no record, the lies will be exposed," he said. A Friday night statement by the French government said it is in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners who have been, are being or will be selected by French companies. In its statement of Friday night, Dassault Aviation, manufacturer of Rafale jets, said the offsets contract is delivered in compliance with the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) 2016 regulations. "In this framework, and in accordance with the policy of 'Make in India', Dassault Aviation has decided to make a partnership with India's Reliance Group. This is Dassault Aviation's choice," it said. Hollande was quoted in an article by a French website as claiming that the Indian government had asked the French government to nominate Reliance Defence as its India partner in the deal. The deal to purchase 36 Rafale fighter jets from France was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015 and signed in 2016. The UPA government was earlier negotiating a deal to procure 126 Rafale jets, with 18 to come in flyaway condition and 108 to be manufactured by HAL under licence. --IANS ps/aks/vsc/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Russian diplomats held secret talks in London last year with people close to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to assess whether they could help him flee the UK, the Guardian has revealed. A tentative plan was devised that would have seen Assange smuggled out of Ecuador's London embassy in a diplomatic vehicle and transported to another country. One ultimate destination, multiple sources have said, was Russia, where Assange would not be at risk of extradition to the US. The plan was abandoned after it was deemed too risky. The operation to extract Assange was provisionally scheduled for Christmas Eve in 2017 and was linked to an unsuccessful attempt by Ecuador to give him formal diplomatic status, the Guardian said. The involvement of Russian officials in hatching what was described as a "basic" plan raises new questions about Assange's ties to the Kremlin. The WikiLeaks editor is a key figure in the ongoing US criminal investigation into Russia's attempts to sway the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. According to Robert Mueller, the special counsel conducting the investigation, WikiLeaks published "over 50,000 documents" stolen by Russian spies. The first tranche arrived on July 14, 2016, as an encrypted attachment. Assange has denied receiving the stolen emails from Russia. Ecuador's new president, Lenin Moreno, has said he wants Assange to quit the embassy. In March, the government in Quito cut off his internet access and restricted his visitors. --IANS ksk/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) To ensure smartphones remain a force for good, device makers need to spend some "real money" on media literacy in India so that people can take full advantage of the new technologies and learn to distinguish what messages to believe and what not, says the author of a new book on how the smartphone is changing the country. "Media literacy should ideally start from elementary level in schools," Ravi Agrawal, author of "India Connected: How the Smartphone Is Transforming the World's Largest Democracy" told a gathering at The American Center here on Friday. In the absence of such education, there could be misuse of technology, as evidenced by several cases of lynching incidents in India linked to rumours spread on WhatsApp, he said, while participating in a discussion on the impact of smartphones and the Internet on the Indian economy and society. "Smartphones are doing to India what the automobiles did to America about a century ago. In fact, the power of smartphonoes in changing the lives of Indians has been stronger than that of automobiles and electricity," said Agrawal, who is also the Managing Editor of Foreign Policy magazine. While smartphones have opened new doors of opportunities for millions of people in India, the transformative power of the device has not always been for good, he pointed out. "There have been intense discussions in the developed countries on how smartphones have driven screen addiction among teenagers which has been linked to depression and other mental health issues. But such discussions are missing in India," he said, highlighting how the country is ill-prepared to deal with the adverse effects of technology. Agrawal's book, published by the Oxford University Press, has three parts: Opportunity, Society and the State. "While the smartphone has unleashed many positive changes, it has not been so successful in breaking the barriers of class and caste in connecting Indians to their fellow countrymen," said Agrawal who worked as CNN's New Delhi Bureau Chief and Correspondent before joining Foreign Policy. With 481 million Internet users (as of December 2017), India has the second highest Internet user base in the world after China, according to a report by not-for-profit industry body Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI). Most of the people in India access the Internet through their smartphones. --IANS gb/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Australian authorities on Saturday caught and killed two tiger sharks, just days after a 46-year-old woman and a 12-year-old girl were attacked by sharks within 24 hours. Fisheries department officers shot the two tiger sharks, including one estimated to be more than four metres long, after the marine predators were netted in Whitsunday Islands, reports Xinhua news agency. On Wednesday evening, a shark mauled the woman swimming in the area. On Thursday, the girl from New Zealand suffered serious leg injuries from a similar attack. Both victims were hospitalized and had multiple blood transfusions and emergency surgery to stabilize them. The attacks prompted Australian authorities to advise tourists against swimming in the area. --IANS ksk/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Tata Steel Limited (TSL) on Saturday said it has executed definitive agreements for acquisition of the steel business of debt-ridden Usha Martin for a cash consideration between Rs 4,300-4,700 crore. "...it has executed definitive agreements for acquisition of the steel business of Usha Martin Limited (UML) through a slump sale on a going concern basis," the steel maker said in a regulatory filing. The filing further said: "It is proposed that the steel business of UML will be acquired subject to transaction closing, for a cash consideration of between Rs 4,300-4,700 crore (subject to various transaction adjustments)." The transaction comprises one mtpa specialised alloy-based manufacturing capacity of UML in long products segment based in Jamshedpur, a producing iron-ore mine, a coal mine under development and captive power plants. The acquisition is expected to be completed in the next 6-9 months. The steel producer said the closing of the acquisition is subject to fulfilment of various conditions under the agreements. All the employees pertaining to the steel business will transfer as part of the acquisition. According to the regulatory filing, Tata Steel or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates may carry out this acquisition. The Kolkata-based speciality steel maker UML makes alloy steel long products such as wire rods, bars, blooms and bright bars mostly for commercial vehicles and tractors. It had been looking for buyers of its steel business in order to achieve the "objective of deleveraging the company". The company on Saturday said its board approved the sale and transfer of the company's steel business and the sale would help it in significant reduction of its debt. UML's steel business clocked a revenue of Rs 3,441 crore on a standalone basis in the last fiscal, up from 3,055 crore in the previous fiscal. As on March 31, 2018, its total debt stood at Rs 4,600 crore. The company had repaid close to Rs 540 crore in the last financial year, and was looking to repay close to Rs 320 crore this fiscal, an UML official said. --IANS bdc/prs (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police (DGP) Brij Lal, who joined the BJP after his retirement, was appointed the State SC/ST Commission chief arbitrarily and without due procedure, an RTI response has revealed. The Right To Information (RTI) was filed by Lucknow-based activist Nutan Thakur. The Social Welfare Department responded to her query saying the 1977 batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, who retired in 2014, was appointed directly by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, after summoning his file from the department. As per the RTI information, Principal Secretary Social Welfare Department Manoj Singh was directed to present the position of appointments in the State Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Commission. Singh presented the file on April 17. In this file, the Chief Minister directly appointed Lal as the chairman on the same day, without any departmental recommendation or process adopted in this regard. The department was also "directed from the top" to provide "State Minister status" to Brij Lal, a proposal which was presented on April 20, without the recommendation of the departmental minister and Adityanath immediately approved it on the same day. Thakur, the RTI activist told IANS that the matter "sadly demonstrates how major administrative decisions are being made under political pressure from the top, circumventing procedures". --IANS md/in/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US Ambassador to India Kenneth I. Juster, along with US Consul-General in Mumbai Edgard D. Kagan and other officials visited the Western Naval Command Headquarters, here on Saturday, an official spokesperson said. They interacted with Vice-Admiral Girish Luthra, Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief, WNC, and visited a guided missile destroyer of the Western Fleet, INS Kochi. Indo-US naval cooperation has grown substantially over the past couple of decades and both countries are part of the maritime security dialogue conducted every year, said a defence spokesperson. Even as the relationship between the navies of the two countries has grown stronger, their cooperation is spread on a wide canvas including an annual bilateral naval exercise, Malabar, besides goodwill visits by ships and delegations from both sides. With both navies committed towards ensuring maritime security in the Indian Ocean Region, the US and India have come a long way in institutionalizing their defence relationship. The navies of the two countries share converging views on maritime areas of concern, anti-piracy, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. --IANS qn/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Committee Against Assault on Journalists (CAAJ) has compiled a book on various cases related to assault on journalists from primary and secondary sources. On the eve of National Convention Against Assault on Journalists to being held in the Constitution Club of India on September 22-23, CAAJ is released the PDF version of around 200 cases related to killings, threats and fabricated cases against journalists all over India from January 2010 to June 2018 Blind chess player Vaishali Narendra Salavkar will become the first Indian female to be part of the International Braille Chess Association (IBCA) team at the world chess Olympiad, starting September 23 at Batumi in Georgia, a top IBCA official said. The IBCA, affiliated to FIDE, sends its teams - open and women - to compete at the chess Olympiad. "Vaishali will be the first Indian blind chess player to participate in the World Chess Olympiad," IBCA President Jadhav Charudatta told IANS on phone from London on Saturday. Charudatta is also the President of All India Chess Federation for the Blind (AICFB). "Forty-five year old Vaishali from Maharashtra has been playing chess for the past 20-25 years. She is am eight-time national champion," AICFB Treasurer Swapnil Shah told IANS. Vaishali has an Elo rating of 1,357 points. Shah said two Spanish women chess players were not able to play in the Olympiad and hence the chance came to Vaishali. As per the Olympiad official website, the other Indian female chess player who will be playing in the Olympiad is Malika Handa (ELO rating 1,334) as part of the International Chess Committee of Deaf (ICCD) team. With these two players, the total number of Indian women chess players including the normal women's team at the Batumi Olympiad will be seven. The Indian women's chess Olympiad team consists of Koneru Humpy, Harika Dronavalli, Tania Sachdev, Karavade Esha and Padmini Rout. Meanwhile, Charudatta requested FIDE - the global chess body- to extend its cooperation in developing chess for the blind. "For instance, FIDE has specific programmes like chess in schools. It can be extended to blind school students. The blind school students could be allowed to attend the chess classes held in normal schools," Charudatta said. He said the three chess federations for differently abled - IBCA, ICCD and International Physically Disabled Chess Association (IPDCA) - could first look forming a common platform to address the problems faced by their players. --IANS vj/kk/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Actress Zoe Kazan and actor-filmmaker Paul Dano, who live in Brooklyn, reportedly became parents to a girl in August. According to sources, Kazan gave birth at the end of August to a baby girl named Alma Bay, reports pagesix.com. The two first worked together in 2007 on the play "Things We Want". Five years later, they teamed up again on the movie that Kazan wrote -- "Ruby Sparks". They even got together for this year's film "Wildlife" as co-writers. --IANS nn/sug/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi faced calls for his resignation over allegations of corruption in a military jet deal with France after former French president Francois Hollande was quoted as saying New Delhi had influenced the choice of a local partner. Indian political parties have been gunning for Modi over the 2016 purchase of 36 Rafale planes from Dassault Aviation estimated to be worth $8.7 billion, saying he had overpaid for the planes and had not been transparent. In recent months, the opposition has questioned the government on the choice of billionaire Indian ... Malayalam superstar Mohanlal has opened up about his recent meeting with Prime Minister After their September 3 meeting, speculations had started doing the rounds that the 58-year-old might join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead of the 2019 Addressing those reports in his latest blog, the actor said, "There were speculative news reports about my meeting with the PM. Being an Indian citizen, if I have permission, I can always meet him. What is surprising is that the PM did not speak a word about " Mohanlal added that his meeting with the Prime Minister took place on the actor's request. "I got permission to meet him because I requested for a prior appointment. Surprisingly, he himself came to welcome me. He hugged me saying, 'Mohanlal ji.' He patted on my shoulders thrice. He knew me," wrote the Malayalam film actor. He added that the two talked about Kerala floods, his NGO ViswaSanthi Foundation, among other topics. The Prime Minister told Mohanlal that "he is always ready to provide all help for Kerala, irrespective of " Two Afghan nationals and a Nigerian national have been arrested for allegedly smuggling heroin worth Rs 25 crore in south Delhi, police said on Saturday. Acting on a tip-off, a trap was laid at the exit gate of a hospital in Saket on Tuesday, where the two Afghan nationals -- Esmatullah (40) and Khalilullah (22) -- had come to deliver a consignment to a Nigerian national named Osondu at around 1 am, said PS Kushwah, deputy commissioner of police (special cell). Subsequently, the three accused were arrested while they were handing over the consignment, along with five-kg heroin and 4,200 US dollars from their possession, Kushwah said. During interrogation, the accused revealed that they had been smuggling heroin in Delhi and adjoining states for the last three years. Esmatullah and Khalilullah used to bring heroin from Afghanistan, and hand over the consignment to Nigerian nationals, one of them was Osondu, the DCP said. The two accused said they used to bring consignments in their stomach by swallowing heroin-filled capsules and sometimes carried them in secret cavities of their bags by air, the senior officer said. The two Afghan nationals have already supplied more than 100 kg of heroin in Delhi in the last two years and had brought in 15-kg heroin last time. They have been visiting India frequently on a medical visa, Kushwah said. Osondu told the police that he used to get consignments from the two Afghan nationals. He further supplied the drug to other countries, including Canada, England, France and South Africa through courier companies, the officer said. He arrived in India in 2014 on a business visa for a period of six months, but did not return to his country even after the stipulated time. Osondu was lured by another Nigerian national for smuggling and he acted as his drug carrier for six months. Eventually he developed his own network and started smuggling heroin independently, the officer added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Four people died and two others were seriously injured when a car collided with a stationary truck in Muzaffarnagar district of Uttar Pradesh, a police official said Saturday. The accident happened apparently due to low visibility near Vahelna village Friday night when the occupants of the car were on their way to Roorkee from Delhi, Civil Lines police station SHO DK Tyagi said. The injured have been admitted to a hospital, Tyagi said. He identified the deceased as Danish, his sister Rubi, truck driver Mohd. Waseem and helper Bhure. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Seven Pakistani troops, including an officer, and nine terrorists were killed Saturday in a fierce gun battle in the country's northwestern region along the Afghan border. The incident occurred at Gharlamai and Spera Kunar Algad areas of North Waziristan district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, the Pakistan Army said in a statement. The terrorists had crossed over from Afghanistan and were hiding in the area, it said During the anti-terror operation, nine terrorists and seven Pakistani died, it said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Anil Kumar Chaudhary Saturday took charge as chairman of state-owned Limited (SAIL), an official statement said. Prior to this, he was director (finance) of since 2011. is the largest steel-making company in India and one of the seven Maharatnas of the country's Central Public Sector Enterprises. "A graduate from the University of Delhi, Chaudhary joined in 1984 as junior manager (F&A). "Working his way, he rose to the rank of executive director (finance & accounts) at Bokaro Steel Plant in 2010. In 2011, he became the director (finance) of the company," said an official statement. An associate member of the Institute of Cost Accountants of India (ICAI) and the Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI), Chaudhary is an alumni of the Faculty of Law Studies (FLS), from where he completed his bachelor's degree in law. Assam Congress claimed on Saturday that it had traced to the BJP head office in Delhi the calls from a person, who posed as a TV channel journalist, to some of its leaders and alleged it was an attempt by the saffron party "to fabricate fake news" against it. The state BJP dismissed the allegations, saying reporters who come to BJP offices sometimes use the phones there and alleged that Congress is raising non-issues as it is losing ground. A press release by the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) claimed the person had called up Bobbeeta Sharma, the general secretary and senior spokesperson of Assam PCC, on September 21 and had introduced himself as a journalist of a popular English TV channel, He had sought information about East Guwahati constituency from where Sharma was a candidate in the 2016 state assembly election as well as the neighbouring seats of Dispur, West Guwahati, Jalukbari, Palasbari and Hajo, the release by Sharma said. "The Assam Congress party has taken strong exception to the impersonation incidents of the caller from the BJP party office from Delhi and will also lodge a complaint with the state police department," Sharma said. The Congress spokesperson also released the numbers from which she had allegedly got the call from Delhi on her mobile phone on the afternoon of September 21. The caller had introduced himself as Robin and a journalist of a popular English TV channel. The person had told Sharma that the information was sought in connection with an exit poll for the 2019 Lok Sabha election, she said. The numbers from which the calls were made were checked from the MTNL directory in the internet and were found to be those of the BJP office in 11 Ashoka Road Delhi, she claimed. Charging the BJP with making the alleged calls, Sharma said in the release, "The Assam Pradesh Congress Committee has condemned the alleged action of BJP for using callers in Delhi to impersonate as television journalists of national news TV channels and gather information from Congress leaders in Assam." She said, "The Assam Congress apprehends the purpose behind such calls could be to record voice samples of Congress leaders to manufacture and fabricate fake news and hate news which is the forte of the Bharatiya Janata Party to be used later during election time". The APCC spokesperson said the Congress condemns the use of "young boys as pawns to indulge in such unethical, nefarious and anti-national activities and ruining their future prospects". Similar calls were also made to Congress legislature party leader Debabrata Saikia, APCC Secretary Dulu Ahmed and Assam Pradesh Mahila Congress General Secretary Bismita Gogoi, she said. Asked about the allegations, Assam BJP spokesman Rupam Goswami told PTI that he was not aware of the incident. "Many reporters come to BJP offices across the country and use the phones in the party's offices for the purpose of news gathering. This may have been one such incident," he, however, said. Goswami also said that "as Congress is losing ground, it is raising such non-issues instead of concentrating on bigger challenges facing the country". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Observing the 'Year of Disabled Soldiers in Line of Duty', the Army on Saturday honoured several jawans crippled in the line of duty in Jammu and Kashmir, a defence spokesperson said. On the occasion, a tree plantation drive was conducted at Doda, he said. The event was attended by disabled soldier and veteran along with serving soldiers, students and the locals of the area, spokesperson said, adding the aim was to connect with injured Army soldiers and acknowledge their service to the nation. This tree plantation drive was led by an Army veteran who was disabled while serving at Siachen Glacier, he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Actor Ayushmann Khurrana's wife Tahira Kashyap has revealed that she was diagnosed with "stage 0" breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy procedure. In an optimistic Instagram post, Tahira said she was "detected with DCIS (ductal carcinoma in situ) in my right breast with high grade malignant cells". "Simply put stage 0 cancer/ pre-cancerous stage, with cancer cells multiplying in a contained area. The result I have become a half Indian version of Angelina Jolie (since only one breast was involved)! I told my doctor now is the time to give some competition to the Kardashians since Pamela is pass. But no one listened to me, so now I have a portion of my back tissue in my breast. Perhaps now I can do chin-ups with my breasts!" she wrote. Ayushmann said that Tahira is doing well and has been discharged after the surgery. "Today is the good day as she is discharged now. We got the shocker. I am glad the surgery happened and was successful. She is a fighter. The last four days I was in the hospital," the actor told PTI. In the post, Tahira said that the diagnosis has given her a "new definition of life". "Respect it's unpredictability and have the faith and courage to be the hero of your own drama of life. The invincible human spirit is God like, gives you the courage to endure and the will to revive. There is nothing that human spirit can't do," she said. She also urged women not to take any kind of symptoms lightly and should immediately consult a doctor if they feel something is wrong. "Also I want women of all ages to be aware. I am 35, and I was returned twice over from a mammogram. If any symptoms come up, think of it as a protective force and get yourselves examined. "This mastectomy has left me with even more self love! Big, small, left or right inclined , gravity pulling or defying, or even none, each breast the presence or lack of it has a story to tell. Mine has made me a 2.0 version of myself! This post is dedicated to awareness, self love and resilience of a warrior that I know each one of us possesses #breastcancerawareness #selflove #determination #faith #bodhisattva #bodhisattvaoftheearth" Tahira wrote. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) (BJP) President said Saturday Bangladeshi migrants are like termites and each one of them will be struck off the electoral roll. Referring to the draft Register of Citizens (NRC) recently published in Assam, he said, "The government brought NRC and prima facie identified nearly 40 lakh (four million) illegal immigrants." The government will pick out each and every infiltrator, he said. " sarkaarek-ekghuspaithiye ko chun-chunkarmatdatasuchisehatane ka kaamkaregi". Shah was speaking at a public meeting in Sawai Madhopur district's Gangapur before heading for another event in Kota. ALSO READ: Left out of Assam NRC? SC orders resumption of filing of claims, objections The BJP chief was in Rajasthan earlier this month as well as his party and the Congress gear up for the Assembly elections by the year-end. The BJP government in Rajasthan is like the unshakable 'Angad ka Paon', he said referring to a character in Ramayana whose foot even Ravana could not move. The Congress cannot do any good for the country as that party has neither a leader nor a policy, he said. ALSO READ: Assam NRC: A history of violence and persecution with absolute impunity Calling Rahul Gandhi "Rahul Baba", Shah said while he is demanding an account of the work done by the BJP, the people want him to tell them what the four generations of his own family have done. He said Rajasthan was a 'Bimaru' state during the Congress rule but Chief Minister Vasundhra Raje had worked to bring in progress. He said both the central and the state governments had initiated development projects. A court in Pala on Saturday rejected a bail application filed by Bishop Franco Mulakkal, arrested over allegations of repeatedly raping and sexually assaulting a nun, and sent him to two-day police custody. The Bishop was brought to the magistrate court around 1.15 pm amid tight security. His lawyers moved the application, submitting that the clergyman was arrested after a three-day-long interrogation by the probe team. Opposing the plea, the police said his three-day custody was required to complete the investigation in the case. Recording the submissions, the magistrate granted two-day custody of the bishop to police, till 2.30 pm on Monday. Earlier, the bishop was discharged from the Government Medical College Hospital here, where he was admitted on Friday night following complaints of chest pain. The 54-year-old clergyman had complained of pain in his chest while being taken to Kottayam Police club from the Crime Branch office at Thrippunithura in Ernakulam district Friday night. He was under observation in the cardiology section of the hospital for over six hours after his blood pressure shot up, official sources said. Police took him to the court in Pala from police club here. In her complaint to the Kottayam Police in June, the nun had alleged that Bishop Mulakkal raped her at a guest house in Kuravilangad in May 2014 and later sexually exploited her on several occasions. The nun said that she had to approach the police as the church authorities did not act on her repeated complaints against the clergyman. However, the bishop has denied the charges. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Uttar Pradesh BJP chief Mahendra Nath Pandey on Saturday said the party is making efforts to ensure that the Ram temple is constructed through consensus. He also said the 2019 Lok Sabha elections will be fought on development and governance. "Ram temple is the centre of faith and devotion for us. It should be constructed as per the law and we are committed to this...The BJP is making efforts so that the Ram temple is constructed through consensus," Pandey said in a statement. "The people of India know that Lord Ram was born in Ayodhya and they want that a Ram temple should be built there. The feeling of every Indian is the feeling of the BJP," he said. Speaking about the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, Pandey said misuse of the law will not be tolerated. He also hit out at the attempts by opposition parties to forge an anti-BJP alliance ahead of the elections next year. "Attempts are being made to forge an unnatural alliance by the rival political parties. The people have disowned them. The opposition has no issue except opposing Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Who will be their leader is not clear, what will be their agenda is not clear. The country's honour is safe in hands of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Border Security Force (BSF) detained five persons and seized gold biscuits worth Rs 22 lakh from them near the Indo-Bangladesh border in Meghalaya, officials said Saturday. Acting on intelligence inputs and observing suspicious movements the alert BSF troops intercepted a vehicle on Friday, a BSF spokesperson here said in a statement. The gold biscuits were recovered from the possession of the detained persons, it said, adding that they were estimated to be worth Rs 22 lakh. The BSF handed over the detained persons to the police who arrested them. Meanwhile, three persons were apprehended by BSF in South Garo Hills district for smuggling 190 kg of fresh fishes, the BSF official said. The BSF handed over the three apprehended persons to the police. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A non-lethal weapon, which was snatched away by smugglers from a jawan in Sipahijala district, was returned Saturday following a commander level flag meeting by BSF and its Bangladesh counterpart -- Border Guards Bangladesh. The BSF said that two of its jawans on duty challenged a group of smugglers when they were trying to cross the Indo-Bangla international border with cattle on Friday. Since the smugglers did not pay heed, one of the jawans fired a round from his Pump Action Gun (PAG) and simultaneously lobbed a stun grenade towards the miscreants to stop them, BSF DIG Mrityunjoy told PTI. "Meanwhile, BSF Constable Natwar was encircled by Indian and Bangladeshi groups of smugglers, who overpowered and injured him before snatching his loaded PAG and escaped towards Bangladesh," he added. BSF immediately approached the Border Guards Bangladesh authorities and Company and Battalion Commander level meetings were held on Saturday following which the snatched rifle was returned, he said. When contacted, Superintendent of Police, Sipahijala, Kulwant said the situation is normal in the area and police were keeping a close watch on the situation. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Launching an attack on Congress president Rahul Gandhi, Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya Saturday called the party "a gutter" of corruption. "The Congress party is a dirty nullah of corruption and scandals. On what basis is Congress president Rahul Gandhi raising questions on Prime Minister Narendra Modi?" Maurya told party workers at a meeting held at the Visvesvaraya auditorium here. "Congress and its partners SP and BSP should come to the people's court in 2019, and the people will give you answers to the questions being raised on Prime Minister Narendra Modi." The deputy chief minister alleged that under the previous governments, poor people got their rights only on the basis of caste and religion. "However, the BJP government believes in 'sabka saath, sabka vikas', and has implemented various welfare measures for different sections of the society." Maurya also urged the members of the backward community to vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2019 general election. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal Saturday claimed that the party's powerful political rallies in Punjab were scaring the Congress government. Talking to mediapersons here, he said Akali Dal's rallies were successful as anti-incumbency wave against the Congress has gained momentum in the state. "The Congress government is scared after SAD rallies at Abohar and Faridkot saw huge voter turnout," he said. Talking about the recently concluded zila parishad and panchayat samiti polls in the state, he said, "The height of atrocities by the Congress raised eyebrows as it crossed all the limits, since rules were thrown to wind and police machinery was hell-bent upon helping the ruling party candidates to win the polls by hook or by crook." Badal alleged that during the polls, hooliganism was rampant in which Congressmen were involved. On questions pointed towards minister Navjot Singh Sidhu, Badal declined to answer while describing him as "mentally unsound". Citing the recent killing of a BSF jawan in Jammu, Badal said Pakistan's willingness to start a dialogue on the proposed Kartarpur corridor was a mere drama. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Congolese woman who refused an Ebola vaccination and then disappeared has died of the virus near the heavily travelled border with Uganda, which is preparing to begin vaccinations as needed. The confirmed Ebola death highlights the challenges health workers are facing in a region of northeastern Congo that had never experienced an outbreak of the hemorrhagic fever before. Authorities have fought rumours and trained community members including traditional healers in efforts to calm and educate nervous residents. The 32-year-old woman had assisted in the burials of other Ebola victims and health workers had followed her as a possible case, but she refused a vaccination and disappeared from the city of Beni, said the vice governor of Ituri Province, Pacifique Keta. She died on Thursday at a hospital in Tshomia, on Lake Albert. It is the closest a confirmed Ebola death in the current outbreak has been to Uganda, which has said it was making arrangements with the World Health Organization to vaccinate health workers and other high-risk populations as needed. Three thousand vaccine doses will be imported. Congo's health ministry said that as of Friday there have been 116 confirmed cases, including 68 deaths, of Ebola in the outbreak that was declared on Aug. 1. More than 10,000 people have been vaccinated. Ebola monitoring has been taking place at the border and Uganda is considered what WHO calls "very high risk." "To date, health workers in Uganda have responded to over 100 Ebola alerts that have been found to be negative for the Ebola virus," WHO's country office there has said. The UN health agency has not recommended travel restrictions. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The ruling BJP in Madhya Pradesh Saturday accused the Congress of trying to mislead the people on the Vyapam issue. The saffron party alleged that the opposition was scared of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's "popularity" and hence moved the court ahead of the state assembly polls. The BJP's reaction came hours after a local court recorded the statement of Congress leader Digvijay Singh in connection with a private complaint filed against chief minister Chouhan, Union minister Uma Bharti and five others in the Vyapam scam. "Congress doesn't believe in any investigating agency. They questioned the police investigation into the Vyapam case. Hence, the probe was handed over to the STF (special task force). But since it was not satisfied, a high court-monitored SIT investigated the charges," MP's Public Relations minister Narottam Mishra told reporters here. "The investigation was later handed over to the CBI, but the Congress is still not satisified," he said. Mishra said although the CBI did not find any tampering with the electronic evidence in the Vyapam case, the Congress continued to mislead on the issue. Raising a question mark over the timing of Digvijay Singh's petition in the local court, Mishra said, "Instead of going to public, Congress moved the court ahead of the state assembly elections to mislead the people." "The case was discussed in the local court, the high court as well as the apex court, yet the Congress leaders did not produce the evidence. Now, they have moved the court ahead of the election," he said adding that the opposition is feared of Chief Minister's popularity. In his plea filed in the local court, Digvijay Singh has sought criminal prosecution of Chouhan, Bharti and 5 others in the Vyapam scam. "Digvijay Singh has submitted an electronic evidence copy that states name of Chouhan 48 times in a Vyapam scam investigation document," Congress leader Kapil Sibal, who appeared as Digvijay's lawyer, told reporters after appearing in the court in afternoon. He alleged that earlier the STF and now the CBI were trying to shield people, especially Chouhan, in Vyapam scam. Sibal alleged that Chouhan was the root of the scam. "With Digvijay Singh's private complaint, we are going to prove Chouhan's involvement in the scam," he said. The Vyapam scam refers to irregularities in exams held by the Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board, also called Vyavasayik Pareeksha Mandal or Vyapam, for admission in professional courses and state services. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The DMK Saturday demanded an inquiry into the Rafale deal to find out the "truth" following former French President Francois Hollande's reported comments. Hollande was quoted in a French media report as purportedly saying that the Indian government proposed Anil Ambani-led Reliance Defence as the partner for Dassault Aviation in the Rs 58,000 crore Rafale jet fighter deal and France did not have a choice. "PM (Narendra) Modi promised a transparent, corruption free government but former French President Hollande's interview shows that the Rafale deal is suspect," DMK president M K Stalin said in a tweet "The PM is accountable to the people of India. A full fledged enquiry should be ordered to find the truth. #ModiRafaleLiesExposed," he said on Twitter, on a day when Congress president Rahul Gandhi renewed his attack on the Centre over the Rafale deal. Gandhi had earlier said in the day that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Anil Ambani jointly carried out a Rs 130,000 crore "surgical strike" on the defence forces. The French government has said it was in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners for the Rafale fighter jet deal, asserting that French companies have the full freedom to select Indian firms for the contract. Reacting to Hollande's reported remark, which is at variance with the Indian government's position on the Rafale deal, a Defence Ministry spokesman had Friday said, "The report referring to former French President Hollande's statement that government of India insisted upon a particular firm as offset partner for Dassault Aviation in Rafale is being verified. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) National Conference (NC) chief Farooq Abdullah visited the police headquarters here Saturday to offer his condolences on the killing of three police personnel by terrorists in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir. Abdullah, a member of Parliament from Srinagar constituency, met senior officers, including Director General of Police (DGP) Dilbag Singh. "Abdullah today visited Police Headquarters (PHQ) here and met the DGP and senior police officers. He expressed his condolences to the bereaved families of three police personnel martyred in dastardly act of terror by some proscribed militant outfits yesterday," a police spokesman said. The three policemen were abducted from their homes in south Kashmir and shot dead in cold blood by the militants of Hizbul Mujahideen and Lashker-e-Taiba Friday. He said the NC president expressed anguish over the killings, saying the police force was performing its lawful duties for maintaining peace and tranquility in the state and such acts were not only aimed at disturbing peace but also causing discomfort and loss to the civil society. "He (Abdullah) appreciated the role of police force, particularly the lower ranks who are helpful to people on day to day basis throughout the state and perform their duties under different circumstances. He said we stand by the members of the force and their families in this hour of grief," the spokesman said. The DGP thanked Abdullah for his concern for the state police and told him that such a visit is a great morale booster for police personnel, the spokesman said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A final year student of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras allegedly committed suicide Saturday by hanging from the ceiling of his room, police said. Shahul Kornath (23), from Malappuram in Kerala, was pursuing his B Tech-M Tech (dual degree) Naval architecture programme, police and the institute administration said. No suicide note was found from his room, police added. However, they suspected that he could have been under "some kind of pressure due to low attendance", but added that a detailed probe was on. Meanwhile, the institute mourned the student's death as an "irreparable loss". "This is indeed an irreparable loss to not just the institute and the family, but society as a whole. May his soul rest in peace," it said in a statement, adding that it was cooperating with the authorities on the matter. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Three members of a family lost their lives when firecrackers, meant for sale during Diwali, exploded at a house in Andhra Pradesh's East Godavari district on Saturday, police said. The blast is believed to have been caused by a short-circuit that triggered a fire around 3 am. The crackers were hoarded in the residence of Muthuyala Reddy at Subbaraopeta area of Rajamahendravaram, a police officer said. Three persons of a family died on the spot and as many injured. They are undergoing treatment at a hospital and said to be critical, the officer said, adding that a case had been registered and investigation was on. Deputy Chief Minister N Chinarajappa expressed grief over the incident and ordered an inquiry into it. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Some excellent panel discussions on literature, art and history, a joyous spontaneity and democratic spirit were the highlights of the first edition of the Jaipur Literature Festival here, organisers said Saturday. "Shared Narratives", the first edition of ZEE JLF at Houston, took place at the Asia Society Center, Texas. It featured more than 15 fast-paced packed sessions over 25 authors, and was attended by hundreds of book lovers who met their favourite writers and conversed with them. JLF, a confluence of East and West, brought together enlightened voices from across the world, to highlight contrasts, recognize similarities, engender empathy, and acknowledge the right of every individual to have the freedom to dream, and to express, they said, adding that it also showed a joyous spontaneity and democratic spirit. "It is this dream that binds communities together and gives fruition to a creative force, celebrating and embodying every aspect of being human," Sanjoy Roy, festival producer told PTI. "Looking at the audience response and sponsors interest here, we are certain to make JLF an annual event in Houston," he added. Festival director Namita Gokhale said that in its first edition, the festival brought in the spirit of Jaipur and shared stories from around the world. "We celebrate the arts, listen in to writers and thinkers, and investigate and interrogate our ever-changing planet. "From the personal to the political, from myth and memory to the poetic imagination, from the fictional leap to dreams and dystopias, from the genetics of health to a conspiracy of bones, we welcome all to a weekend of journeys across time and place, language and culture, subjects and situations," Gokhale said. Among the authors who participated in the JLF Houston included acclaimed writer and politician Shashi Tharoor, classical dancer Sonal Mansingh and Shobha Rao, and Indian Ambassador to the US Navtej Sarna. Indo-American authors, including Chitra Divakaruni from the city, Milan Vaishnav, Rajesh Parameshwaran and Australian Sharad Paul also shared the stage with them. Apart from them, American authors Mimi Swartz, Roberto Tejada and Kathy Reichs, Nigerian author Novuyo Rosa Tshuma and Pakistani-origin Anis Shivani also featured in the interactive sessions, they said. Tharoor shared the stage with Gokhale and discussed topics related to his latest book: "Why I am a Hindu." In light of the Hindutva movement since the election of the Modi government, Tharoor said he wanted to highlight the tolerant aspects of Hinduism. Quoting Swami Vivekananda, he said Hinduism favours acceptance over tolerance. "Tolerance means you believe you practice a superior religion, but tolerate other religions. Acceptance means you accept others practising their religion as much as you accept your own," Tharoor explained. On the second day of the session, Tharoor and author Milan Vaishnav had a lively political interaction on the topic "The Dance of Democracy", moderated by Texas Southern University Professor and political commentator Jai Aiyer was a great hit. Tharoor said that India has forever embraced diversity. "The essence of the idea is having parties work together even if they do not agree in a lot of areas. India has had multiple political parties and need is to explore democracy and emphasise on issues where people will have a clear view of what is being talked about," he said. The Congress leader said that traditional liberal values and principles were under attack in India. "The rise of illiberal democracies and their success at sustaining support is causing more and more policy-makers and academics to question whether liberal democracy continues to be a sustainable model for nations seeking economic development. "Most of the highlighted problem is that it appears Modi's government is willing to allow the decline of some civil liberties like freedom of speech, media independence and protection, and religious freedom to occur without detracting from the economically-focused agenda," he said. The Indian judiciary and civil society are supposed to serve as watchdogs and balance out the government, protecting society's rights and freedoms. Economic growth at the cost of basic rights and freedoms does not seem to be an effective model of sustainable governance -- and most certainly is not the path to building a stable democracy, Tharoor added. "However, the electorate continues to appear supportive of the government's efforts and agenda. The results of the elections in 2019 may provide a clearer signal of India's future direction and whether liberal values are capable of returning to the political foray in the world's largest democracy," he said. Houston-based author Chitra Divakaruni explained her interpretation of India's epics from the viewpoint of its female characters. During the session "Second Thoughts: A Writer and Diplomat" -- Indian Ambassador to the US Sarna, in conversation with Roy, spoke about his life, travels, and writing. "I think all writers are romantics because you are wishing for a better world, having a nostalgia for a lost world. I think these are aspects of being a romantic," he said. Asked about the India and US relationship, Sarna said, "Relationship between India and USA has seen an upward graph for two decades or so. It is a strategic global partnership, the two are natural allies on several global issues". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The organisers of the round-the-world Golden Globe Race said on Saturday they were scrambling to rescue missing Indian sailor Abhilash Tomy, but admitted he was "as far from help as you can possibly be". Tomy's yacht Thuriya had its mast broken off when it was rolled in a storm on Friday and the yachtsman suffered what he called "a severe back injury". The organisers described him as "incapacitated on his bunk inside his boat" and his yacht is 3,704 kilometres off the coast of Perth, Western Australia. On Saturday, he managed to send a message saying: "Extremely difficult to walk, Might need stretcher, can't walk, thanks safe inside the boat... Sat phone down." The organisers said on the race website: "The Australian Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre is working hard to assess and coordinate all possible options to rescue Abhilash Tomy who is as far from help as you can possibly be." Tomy, a 39-year-old commander in the Indian Navy, is able to communicate using a YB3 texting unit but his primary satellite phone is damaged. He has a second satellite phone and a handheld VHF radio packed in an emergency bag, but organisers said he was unable to reach it for the moment. The organisers said they had urged him to try to get to the bag because it could be crucial in making contact with a plane from Australia and an Indian air force plane which might be able to fly over the area. Given the distance from land, the planes will not be able to spend long in the area, the organisers added. A French fishing boat was also heading to the scene "but may not arrive for a few days". The Golden Globe Race involves a gruelling 30,000-mile solo circumnavigation of the globe in yachts similar to those used in the first race 50 years ago, with no modern technology allowed except the communication equipment. Tomy's own yacht is a replica of Robin Knox-Johnston's Suhail, winner of the first Golden Globe Race. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has given no objection certificate (NOC) for construction of the Kishau dam on Tons river, a tributary of Yamuna along the border of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. With the construction of this dam, Haryana would get an additional 709 cusecs of water for drinking and irrigation purposes, an official spokesperson said Saturday As per a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between six states in 1994, Haryana's share in the Kishau dam is 709 cusec water out of the live storage capacity of 1,324 MCM. MCM is an abbreviation for thousands of circular mils, an old measurement of wire gauge. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi Saturday targeted the Congress over corruption and for ignoring farmers' interest, as he kicked off BJP's election campaign by asking people to elect a stable government in poll-bound Chhattisgarh. He stressed that the BJP-ruled state has shown that development is possible with a stable government. Addressing a farmers rally here, Modi said the only objective of the BJP-led governments at the Centre and in Chhattisgarh were the welfare of the poor and the common people. He said Chhattisgarh was earlier used to be identified with "jungles, tribals, terrorism and naxalism". "If used to come (from the state), they would be about abduction, bomb and pistols and those of bloodshed by misguided youth... But, the BJP-led Chhattisgarh government braved all these challenges with an aim to take the state on the rapid path of development," the prime minister said. Modi said "our policies are clean and intention is clear" and whether it is Delhi or Raipur, the aim is to ensure "sabka samagra vikas" (all round development of everyone). Referring to "lack of development" during the long Congress-rule in the country after Independence, he said in those times, Centre used to send money to the states, but it was not utilised for development works. Modi said a former prime minister from the Congress had once said that if a rupee is sent from Delhi, only 15 paise reach the intended beneficiary. "Whose Panja (palm) took away the (rest of the) money?" he said, in an apparent reference to the Congress' election symbol. "Now, all of 100 paise reach the beneficiary which is why development is seen every where. My Government frames programmes and policies for all," he said. Modi said whatever development is being seen in Chhattisgarh is under the BJP government and it is from that same rupee only. He said the former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's idea of creating smaller states of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand has resulted in development of hilly and backward areas in these regions. "Had Chhattisgarh remained part of Madhya Pradesh and the Congress continued to be in power at the Centre, there would have been no development in the state," he said. "Earlier, Chief Ministers would come here from Bhopal (when the state was part of Madhya Pradesh) if they got time. You know and I know why they came here. The less said the better (about it)," Modi said cryptically. He said Chhattisgarh has changed people's perception that smaller states suffer from political instability. The prime minister said the NDA government did not believe in making schemes for vote bank or to win elections. "Programmes and policies framed by my government are for benefit of all, not targeted at a particular vote bank," he said. Modi also thanked people of Chhattisgarh for electing a stable government in the state. Raman Singh is the longest serving BJP's chief minister of Chhattisgarh. He has been ruling the state since December 2003. "Despite allegations, rumours and misinformation, people of Chhattisgarh have been giving stable governments," Modi said, as he also asked them to elect a stable government in the upcoming Assembly polls due later this year. He said 'chawal wale baba' (man with a sack of rice) a term used to describe Raman Singh for distributing rice at a very low price to poor people will ensure development of all. Modi said the BJP wants to create a new, modern Chhattisgarh and it is moving ahead with the mission of "Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas". Citing various Centre-run schemes targeted at benefitting farmers, he said the government will ensure that farmers income is doubled by 2022. The prime minister said the central government will ensure that power connection is given to each home across the country under the Saubhgya Yojana. Modi also laid foundation stones of developmental projects worth over Rs 3,000 crore including Rs 1,607 crore Bilaspur-Pathrapali four-lane road and Rs 1,697 crore Bilaspur-Anuppur third railway line. The South-Eastern Central Railway's Bilaspur-Anuppur division's third line will link Bilaspur-Anuppur district headquarter town in Madhya Pradesh. The length of the track will be 152 km out of which 119.55 km falls under Chhattisgarh and around 32.45 km in Madhya Pradesh. The transportation of coal from South Eastern Coal Limited from Raigarh and Mand region will be easier after the implementation of the region. Chief Minister Raman Singh, Union Ministers Nitin Gadkari and Vishnu Dev Sai besides other state ministers and officials were present during the event at Janjgir, about 156 kms from state capital Raipur. Singh, in his address, thanked the prime minister for providing relief to people of the state through different Centre-run welfare schemes like Ujjwala and housing for all programme. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Indian naval officer Abhilash Tomy, badly injured after his yacht was hit by a vicious storm mid-way across the southern Indian Ocean while taking part in the Golden Globe Race, is in touch with race organisers in France through messages and has requested for a stretcher as he cannot move on his own, a defence spokesman said on Saturday. Commander Tomy, representing India in the Golden Globe Race 2018 (GGR) on an indigenously-built sailing vessel 'S V Thuraya', suffered a back injury on Friday after his yacht was dismasted in the severe storm with 14-metre-high waves. "Cdr Tomy is in communication with the Race Control at France through messages. Race control is relaying messages to JRCC Australia. He has requested for a stretcher as he is not able to move on his own," the defence spokesman quoted the Australian Joint Rescue Control Centre (JRCC) as saying in a release. Another contestant 'S V Hanley Energy Endurance' was also heading towards S V Thuraya though it had suffered damage of its own. An Australian fisheries vessel 'Osiris' is also heading towards location. Osiris has a medical officer and one bed infirmary on-board, it said. A Royal Australian Navy Ship is likely to depart for the stricken vessel's location and is estimated to arrive after four to five days. A P8I aircraft also will be available from tomorrow while a civil aircraft is also being sent to the area, the release said. The Indian Navy had earlier said all efforts were being made to rescue the officer. "All-out efforts are being made to rescue Abhilash Tomy. Indian Naval stealth Frigate, INS Satpura operating in the Indian Ocean has been dispatched for the rescue mission," a defence spokesman said in Kochi. Tomy's vessel is in the south Indian Ocean, approximately 1,900 nautical miles from Perth in Australia and the Australian Rescue Coordination centre at Canberra is coordinating the rescue mission in conjunction with many agencies, including the Australian defence department and the Indian Navy, he said, quoting information received from the organisers. Tomy's vessel was dismasted in extremely rough weather and sea conditions, with wind speeds of 130 kmh. He was in third position in the race and has sailed over 10,500 nautical miles in the last 84 days, since commencement of the race on July 1. A report issued from France on Friday night said 70 knot winds and 14-metre-high waves have left the yachts of Tomy and Ireland's Gregor McGuckin dismasted, and have twice knocked down the yacht of second-placed Dutchman Mark Slats. Both McGuckin and Slats have reported that they are okay, but 39-year-old Tomy, a commander in the Indian Navy, making his second solo circumnavigation, has been injured, it had said. It had also said other entrants were asked to make towards Tomy's position if possible, and added that the weather was extreme. The nearest yacht happens to be McGuckin's 'Biscay 36 Hanley Energy Endurance', some 90 miles to the southwest of Tomy's 'Thuriya', but she too was dismasted in the same storm. Tomy, who became the first Indian to have circumnavigated the globe in 2013, is the only Indian participating in the Golden Globe Race that involves a gruelling 30,000-mile solo circumnavigation of the globe. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Days after the arrest of a Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) operative from Kanpur and subsequent arrests of seven of his associates from the state, the Assam Police has intensified operations on terrorist activities here, Director General of Police Kuladhar Saikia said on Saturday. "The arrest of HM operative Kamar-uz-Zaman from Kanpur, who hails from Assam, was a combined effort of several agencies. We have made seven arrests here following Kamar's arrest," Saikia told reporters at a press conference here. Interrogation of the arrested so far in Assam for suspected HM links is going on and enquiry is progressing in the right direction, Saikia said. On Kamar being taken into custody, he said, "The team of Assam Police that had gone to Kanpur has returned. We will work on their feedback". Besides making arrests and bringing about improvement in its won technical capabilities, the police is working to fight and defeat terrorist activities in the state by engaging the social media to connect to the public, he said. The DGP further said the strong social fabric of the state did not allow fundamentalist elements to gain any foothold here. Additional DGP Pallab Bhattacharjya, who was also present in the press conference, said plans have been put in place to form special cells to combat the fundamentalist threat. "These (terrorist) organizations operate surreptitiously and in a clandestine manner. The police also has to act likewise to defeat them," Bhattacharjya said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Militants shot dead at least 29 people including women and children in an attack on Saturday on an Iranian military parade claimed by the Islamic State group, as Tehran accused a US ally in the region of the assault. The attack in the southwestern city of Ahvaz came as the country marked the anniversary of the start of its 1980-1988 war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq and prompted President Hassan Rouhani to warn of a "crushing response". "The response of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the smallest threat will be crushing", Rouhani said on his official website. "Those who give intelligence and propaganda support to these terrorists must answer for it." Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in a tweet that the attack near the Iraqi border was carried out by "terrorists recruited, trained, armed & paid by a foreign regime". "Iran holds regional terror sponsors and their US masters accountable for such attacks," he wrote. IS jihadists said via their propaganda mouthpiece Amaq that "Islamic State fighters attacked a gathering of Iranian forces" in Ahvaz. The city lies in Khuzestan, a province bordering Iraq that has a large ethnic Arab community and has seen separatist violence in the past that Iran has blamed on its regional rivals. State television gave a casualty toll of 29 dead and 57 wounded, while official agency IRNA said those killed included women and children among spectators at the rally. Many of the wounded were in critical condition. Armed forces spokesman Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi said the dead included a young girl and a former serviceman in a wheelchair. "Of the four terrorists, three were sent to hell at the scene, while the fourth who had been wounded and arrested went to hell moments ago due to his severe wounds," Shekarchi told state television. Khuzestan deputy governor Ali-Hossein Hosseinzadeh told the semi-official ISNA agency that "eight to nine" troops were among those killed, as well as a journalist. Zarif did not specify which regional government he held responsible for the shooting, but Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards said the attackers were funded by Sunni arch-rival Saudi Arabia. "Those who opened fire on civilians and the armed forces have links to the Ahvazi movement," Guards spokesman Ramezan Sharif told ISNA. "They are funded by Saudi Arabia and attempted to cast a shadow over the Iranian armed forces." Zarif vowed Iran would "respond swiftly and decisively in defence of Iranian lives". In a message of condolence to Russia's close regional ally, President Vladimir Putin said he was "appalled by this bloody crime". "This event once again reminds us about the necessity of an uncompromising battle against terrorism in all of its manifestations." Khuzestan was a major battleground of the 1980s war with Iraq and the attack on the anniversary parade in Ahvaz had significant symbolic value. The province saw unrest in 2005 and 2011 but has since seen been largely quiet. Attacks by Kurdish rebels on military patrols along the border further north are relatively common. But attacks on regime targets inside major cities are far rarer. On June 7, 2017, 17 people were killed and dozens wounded in simultaneous attacks in Tehran on the parliament building and on the tomb of revolutionary leader Ruhollah Khomeini -- the first inside Iran claimed by the Sunni Muslim extremists of the Islamic State group. In April, 26 alleged IS jihadists went on trial on charges connected with that twin attack. The attack in Ahvaz came as President Rouhani was among dignitaries at the main anniversary parade in Tehran. In a keynote speech, Rouhani vowed to boost Iran's ballistic missile capabilities despite Western concerns that were cited by his US counterpart Donald Trump in May when he abandoned a landmark nuclear deal with Tehran. "We will never decrease our defensive capabilities... we will increase them day by day," Rouhani said at a military parade. "The fact that the missiles anger you shows they are our most effective weapons," he said, referring to the West. Iran has ballistic missiles with a range of up to 3,500 kilometres, enough to reach both Israel and US bases in the Middle East. The United States reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran last month, and a new round of even harsher sanctions targeting Iran's vital oil sector is set to go back into effect on November 5. Washington has said it is ready to open talks on a new agreement to replace the July 2015 accord, but Tehran has said repeatedly it cannot negotiate under the pressure of the sanctions. Trump and Rouhani will both be in New York next week for the United Nations General Assembly. But Iran has repeatedly ruled out any meeting. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The BJP has called a 12-hour shutdown in West Bengal on September 26 to protest the killing of two students in a clash with police in North Dinajpur district in the state. Announcing the shutdown, senior BJP leaders Mukul Roy and Pratap Banerjee accused the state government of failing to control the situation in Islampur, where the clash occurred on Thursday at Daribhit High School. The villagers of Daribhit had claimed that the students were hit by bullets fired by police. However, the police had denied its involvement, even as the district superintendent of police had conceded that the two had died of bullet injuries. Pratap Banerjee said, "We have decided to call a 12-hour shutdown in the state against the killing two people in police firing in Islampur area." The people of Islampur and the entire state are "fed up with the misrule of TMC in Bengal" and the shutdown will be "an expression of people's anger against the anti-people government", he said here. SP Sumnit Kumar had said members of the mob were carrying bombs and arms, and 14 policemen were injured in the clash. Seven people, including some BJP supporters, were detained in connection with the incident which took place when the students and locals stopped three newly recruited Urdu teachers from entering the school with police help on Thursday. The students had said they needed science and english teachers and not Urdu teachers, and demanded that all vacant teaching posts in the school be filled. The BJP had observed a 12-hour shutdown in North Dinajpur district on Friday over the incident. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 19-year-old Jharkhand resident has been arrested for allegedly stealing mobile phones during the ongoing Ganesh festival and Mount Merry fair in the city, police said Saturday. As many as 51 stolen mobile phones worth Rs 10.44 lakh were seized from Vishalkumar Mahto who was held Friday, said an official of Kasturba Marg police station in suburban Borivali. Mahto, a resident of Jharkhand, had come to Mumbai only to steal mobile phones from crowded places during the festival season, the official said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal Saturday demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi call a special session of Parliament to discuss Rafale jet fighter deal. On Friday, the chief minister had asked the BJP-led central government to come clean on the Rafale deal in light of former French president Francois Hollande's purported statement "directly contradicting" its stand. "PM shud call a spl session of Parliament to discuss Rafael (sic)," Kejriwal tweeted. On Friday, a French media report quoted Hollande as purportedly saying that the Indian government proposed Reliance Defence as the partner for Dassault Aviation in the Rs 58,000 crore Rafale jet fighter deal and France did not have a choice. Earlier on Saturday, Congress president Rahul Gandhi, in a stinging attack on Modi, said Hollande's remarks on Reliance Defence showed "clear cut" corruption in the Rafale deal and questioned the prime minister's "silence" on the issue. Soon after, Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad condemned as "shameful and irresponsible" Gandhi's remarks against Modi over the Rafale deal, saying no president of any party has ever used such language against a prime minister. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council(KHADC), Saturday said it will file an appeal in the Supreme Court against the National Green Tribunal (NGT) order banning mining and transportation of coal in Meghalaya. The NGT while disposing off the case against coal mining in the state on August 31 last, said the ban on coal mining and transportation will continue in Meghalaya subject to further orders of the Supreme Court. The NGT had also constituted a committee, to be headed by a retired judge, to supervise and look into the issue of environmental restoration plan and other connected matters in the state. "The KHADC will challenge the order of the NGT by next week to restore the right of our people (to mine coal)," Council Executive Member in charge of Trade, Latiplang Kharkongor, said in a statement here. He also said that a separate special leave petition will be filed challenging the judgement and order passed by the NGT. "In the application, the part of the order which declared the state to be the custodian with right over the already extracted coal will also be challenged," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu Saturday exhorted the Aka-Miji community of the state to preserve culture and tradition, saying that tourists visit the state for its rich cultural heritage and natural beauty. Inaugurating the festival ground of the community here, Khandu said tourists look for authentic local lifestyles, customs and culture and not superficial lifestyle. He said that tourist inflow to the state has risen steadily from 3 lakh in 2012 to 9 lakh in 2018. Congratulating the community for receiving a festival ground in the state capital for celebrating Chindang, Nyethrii-Down and Sarok festivals, he also lauded the land donors of the festival ground and offered to extend all possible help for building infrastructure on it. Khandu expressed happiness that the festival ground will also be used by Sartang and Bugun community to celebrate their festivals and for other social activities. Khandu said the Arunachal government is taking measures to preserve the indigenous arts, craftsmanship, dialects, clothing through the newly created Department of Indigenous Affairs. "Arunachal is poised for astounding reforms in the coming years to bring equity, fairness and efficiency in the system with think-tanks working round-the-clock behind the curtains, the chief minister said. He said reforms so far such as administrative decentralization, creation of Staff Selection Board, recruitment of Group A/B government employees through independent commission, among others, is sure to bring good days ahead. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Experienced Shoaib Malik conjured up a crucial unbeaten 51 under pressure as Pakistan survived a scare from Afghanistan, winning their Super Four match of the Asia Cup by three wickets, here on Friday. Chasing a competitive 258 to win, Pakistan overhauled the target with just three balls to spare with former captain Malik playing the match-winning knock from 43 balls. Pakistan required 10 runs from the last over and Malik dispatched pacer Aftab Alam for a six and four after playing a dot ball. Wickets kept falling for Pakistan with star Afghan spinner Rashid Khan yet again proving his utility with a three-wicket haul but Malik held his nerves to keep one end tight. Before Malik, Imam-ul-Haq (80) and Babar Azam (60) hit patient half-centuries in a 154-run stand but the slow run rate made it difficult for Pakistan. Electing to bat, Hashmatullah Shahidi (97) missed out on his maiden ODI hundred by just three runs after skipper Asghar Afghan hit a combative 67 off 56 balls as Afghanistan scored a fighting 257 for six. Their 94-run partnership and some terrific batting towards the end by the Afghans made it an interesting contest as they scored 87 runs in the last 10 overs. Pakistan made a shaky start, losing opener Fakhar Zaman in the sixth ball of the innings, bowled by Mujeeb ur Rahman, but after that Azam and Imam taking control of the proceedings, though the run-rate was always shooting up. At the half-way mark, Pakistan had put on board just 103 for one with required touching going beyond six but they the cushion of nine wickets. The two batsmen out on 154 runs for the second wicket before the bespectacled Imam was run out in the 34th over. It was Najibullah Zadran's direct hit which found Imam short. His 80-run knock came off 104 balls with four shots to the fence and one over the ropes. Nine balls later, Rashid Khan had Azam stumped. It was when Pakistan needed exact 100 runs from 15 overs. Pakistan lost Haris Sohail (13), Sarfraz Ahmad (8), Asif Ali (7) and Mohammad Nawaz (10) with Afghan bowlers fighting hard. In the end, former captain Malik's experience saw them cross the finish the line. Earlier, Shahidi needed a boundary off the last ball to complete his century but Hasan Ali denied him the milestone with a incoming yorker which the left-hander could not put away. With his skipper Asghar, Shahidi shared a match-changing 94-run stand for the fourth wicket. Shahidi shifted gears with ease after largely remaining patient in his unbeaten and career-best knock which came off 118 balls. He was bowled off a no ball when he was on 76 in the penultimate over. Five of his seven boundaries came during the last 14 balls of the Afghan innings. Asghar had joined left-handed Shahidi at the crease after left-arm spinner Mohammad Nawaz (3/57) removed the top three Afghan batsmen -- Mohammad Shahzad (20), Ihsanullah (10) and Rahmat Shah (36). In his 67-run knock, Asghar showed both aggression and patience and Shahidi was determined, holding one end tight. Asghar chose right deliveries to go for big shots, hitting five sixes and two fours. Shahidi and Asghar were tested by the Pakistan pace duo of Hasan Ali and Usman Khan but they refused to be intimidated by the raw pace. They were sensible in defending and leaving the balls which moved after pitching outside off stump. They kept the scoreboard ticking with pushing and nudging the ball around. Breakthrough not coming, Pakistan captain Sarfraz handed the ball back to Nawaz but Asghar creamed off 11 runs from his over, hitting a four and six, to end the long boundary drought. Both the batsmen completed their half-centuries in the 40th over, bowled by young left-arm pacer Shaheen Afridi. With few overs left, Asghar started hitting each everything thrown at him and was bowled by Afridi after being dropped by Haris Sohail in the 42nd over. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday blamed the RSS and the BJP for the death of two students during a protest against appointment of Urdu teachers in a school and accused them of trying to create communal disturbance. Banerjee, who is in Milan, Italy, on an official tour, also came out in support of providing Urdu teachers to Daribhita School in Islampur in North Dinajpur where a clash between protesters and police claimed the lives of the two students. The BJP has called a 12-hour shutdown in the state on September 26 to protest against the death of the two students. Warning the saffron organisations "not to play with fire by doing politics on the issue", she appealed to the people of the state not to pay heed to the politics of the BJP and the RSS and foil the shutdown. "The BJP and the RSS should say why the two students were killed," she said while interacting with journalists from the city who were accompanying her. "They (BJP, RSS) are like vultures waiting for a death and then start doing politics over it. They do politics even with death of students. First they commit a murder and then play holi with the (dead person's) blood. "The BJP and the RSS have to answer why the two students were killed. And until they give their answer I ask my party activists to conduct peaceful meetings and rallies in their respective areas without fighting over the issue," the Trinamool Congress supremo, who is currently on an official tour of Europe to invite investors, said. Banerjee said that the state government had provided Daribhita school with the Urdu teacher because there was a requisition from the school authority. "We had provided a Urdu teacher because the school had made a requisition. It's not the decision of the government but the decision of the school committee or the school governing body. Questioning the rationale behind the protest against appointment of Urdu teachers , Banerjee alleged that BJP was trying to create a communal disturbance in the state during Muharram. "The entire matter is a planned one by BJP because they had plans to fuel riots during Muharram yesterday. the BJP has been trying to create this problem since September 18. If there is no problem when a Sanskrit teacher is appointed, then what is the problem over a Urdu teacher? I condemn those who have labelled this issue as communal," she said. Trouble had brewed in the school over the recruitment of Urdu teachers as the protesting students said they needed science and English teachers. The students and area residents stopped three newly-recruited Urdu teachers from entering the school Thursday, demanding that all vacant teaching posts be filled which led to the clash. The chief minister said students should concentrate on their studies and not on who are appointed teachers. "It is the job of the governing body or the school committee to look into such matters. Even we (the state government) do not interfere into it. You (students) are opposing when a Urdu teacher is appointed but not when teachers of other subjects are appointed. "I think, I do not have the right to take away the job of a Urdu teacher. All teachers are equal to me. In districts where there are 10 per cent Urdu medium schools, they can have Urdu teachers ... To me, Hindus and Muslims are all equal," she added. Referring to the police report on the clash, Banerjee said that the bullets which caused the students' death were not fired by the force. "If the bullets were not of guns used by the police then whose guns were they? From where were the bombs brought in. Who all had brought in people with faces covered. This is lynching politics (of the BJP)," she said during the interaction in Milan aired by local television channels. The police had denied its involvement in the clash though the district superintendent of police had conceded that the two had died of bullet injury. The SP, Sumit Kumar had said people in the mob were carrying illegal bombs and arms and 14 policemen were injured in the clash. Alleging that the BJP had "brought in goons from outside the state" and attacked the police, Banerjee said not only students but the police were also injured in the attack. On the call for a state-wide shutdown by the BJP, Banerjee said "I am taking full responsibility and saying that there will be no bandh on Wednesday. There is no question of any bandh. If anyone tries to put up blockades, I am asking the administration to take strict action against the person. I will ask people to counter the bandh in a peaceful manner. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Weeks ahead of the Assembly polls in Rajasthan, former Union minister Jaswant Singh's son and BJP MLA Manvendra Singh Saturday announced he has quit the party. I will contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections from home, he said, referring to the Barmer-Jaisalmer parliamentary constituency which in the past has been represented by his father. The MLA from Sheo said he has no plan to join the Congress as of now. I am not in touch with any Congress leader, he told reporters after addressing a public meeting at Pachpadra in Barmer, where some supporters raised pro-Congress slogans. He said he will meet his supporters and will take a decision based on what the people wanted. At the public meeting, dubbed 'swabhiman' (self-respect) rally, he had referred to the party's lotus symbol and said associating with it had been a big mistake. Kamal ka phool, badi bhool, he said. When contacted by PTI after the rally, the MLA said, I am no longer in BJP. Singh said the 'swabhiman' mision began in 2014 when his father Jaswant Singh was denied the party ticket in the Lok Sabha polls. He said Narendra Modi, now prime minister and the then Gujarat Chief Minister, had called him up saying he was not present at the meeting where that decision was taken. Manvendra Singh said Modi had then asked him to remain patient. But the limit of my patience is now over he said at the well-attended rally. He said those who had supported the family in 2014 had faced hardships, and this had now become an issue of self-respect. Singh said two people from Delhi and one from Jaipur were responsible for his father not getting the party's nomination in 2014. The MLA said he had told the prime minister and party chief Amit Shah about the situation in the state. He referred to the police encounters in which alleged criminals Anandpal and Chatur Singh were killed, leading to resentment in their Rajput community. Singh concluded his address by chanting, Kamal ka phool, badi bhool.' His supporters shouted Kamal ka phool, hamari bhool (Picking Lotus, our mistake). His wife Chitra Singh called upon the people to vote out the Vasundhara Raje government in Rajasthan the coming assembly elections. A large number of his supporters from Marwar region were present at the meeting. After denial of the party nomination in 2014, Jaswant Singh contested the elections as an independent candidate. But he lost the seat to BJP's Sonaram, who had switched over from Congress and was backed by Vasundhara Raje. The decision of not allowing Jaswant Singh to contest had antagonised people in the Rajput community who held Raje responsible. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Upping the ante over the Rafale issue, Congress president Rahul Gandhi Saturday alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Anil Ambani jointly carried out a Rs 130,000 crore "surgical strike" on the defence forces. His renewed attack on Modi came a day after a French media report quoted former French president Francois Hollande as purportedly saying that the Indian government proposed Ambani's Reliance Defence as the partner for Dassault Aviation in the Rs 58,000 crore Rafale jet fighter deal and France did not have a choice. "The PM and Anil Ambani jointly carried out a One Hundred & Thirty Thousand Crore, SURGICAL STRIKE on the Indian Defence forces. Modi Ji you dishonoured the blood of our martyred soldiers. Shame on you. You betrayed India's soul," Gandhi tweeted. The report in 'Mediapart', a French language publication, quoted Hollande as saying, "It was the Indian government that proposed this service group, and Dassault which negotiated with Ambani. We had no choice, we took the interlocutor who was given to us." Reacting to Hollande's reported remark that is at variance with the Indian government's position, a defence ministry spokesperson said Friday, "The report referring to former French president Hollande's statement that government of India insisted upon a particular firm as offset partner for the Dassault Aviation in Rafale is being verified." The spokesperson also said, "It is reiterated that neither the government nor the French government had any say in the commercial decision."The French government Friday said it was in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners for the Rafale fighter jet deal, asserting that French companies have the full freedom to select Indian firms for the contract. Dassault Aviation, the makers of Rafale, had chosen Reliance Defence as its partner to fulfil offset obligations of the deal. The government has been maintaining it did not have any role in selection of the offset partner by Dassault. In a statement, Dassault Aviation said it decided to partner with Reliance Defence in accordance with the policy of 'Make in India'. Modi had announced the procurement of a batch of 36 Rafale jets after holding talks with then French president Hollande on April 10, 2015 in Paris. The opposition party has been accusing the government of choosing Reliance Defence over state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd to benefit the private firm though it did not have any experience in the aerospace sector. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Upping the ante on the issue, Congress president Rahul Gandhi Saturday alleged Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Anil Ambani jointly carried out a "surgical strike" on the defence forces. His renewed attack on Modi came a day after a French media report quoted former French president Francois Hollande as purportedly saying that the Indian government proposed Ambani's Reliance Defence as the partner for Dassault Aviation in the Rs 580 million jet fighter deal and France did not have a choice. "The PM and Anil Ambani jointly carried out ... SURGICAL STRIKE on the Indian Defence forces. Modi Ji you dishonoured the blood of our martyred soldiers. Shame on you. You betrayed India's soul (sic)," Gandhi tweeted. Modi had announced the procurement of a batch of 36 jets after holding talks with then French President Hollande on April 10, 2015 in Paris. The opposition party has been accusing the government of choosing Reliance Defence over state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd to benefit the private firm though it did not have any experience in the aerospace sector. Prime Minister Narendra Modi Saturday slammed Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik for rejecting the Centre's flagship Ayushman Bharat health insurance scheme for the poor and alleged that a "PC" (percentage commission) culture has become the state government's identity. Addressing two public meetings in Talcher and Jharsuguda, Modi said Odisha lagged on Swachh Bharat campaign parameters and Patnaik should improve the level of cleanliness in the coastal state. "Everyone is aware of the importance of Ayushman Bharat scheme, but Naveen Babu does not understand. Odisha government should come forward and join the programme," Modi said. The prime minister is set to launch the programme countrywide from Jharkhand on Sunday. The scheme aims to provide Rs 5 lakh health insurance coverage per family annually to more than 10 crore poor households. The Odisha government has not joined the central scheme, saying it has introduced a better programme, Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana, in the state. Modi said because of the state government's decision, a large number of poor people in Odisha would be deprived of the benefits of Ayushman Bharat scheme, which, he added, aims to create a healthy, capable and content new India. "Once again, I publicly urge Naveen Babu to link people of the state with Ayushman Bharat health insurance scheme which seeks to cover 10 crore poor families and effectively 50 crore people in the country," he said. At the public meeting in Talcher after commencing work for the Rs 13,000-crore coal gasification based fertiliser plant, the prime minister said the Odisha government lagged on Swachh Bharat campaign parameters. Noting that rural cleanliness in Odisha was only 10 per cent in 2014, Modi said it has increased to 55 per cent but a lot more was needed to be done. "I had told Naveen ji about the importance of Swachhata and I once again request him to give cleanliness due importance," Modi said, adding, cleanliness is essential for good health. Stepping up his criticism of the BJD government ahead of assembly polls and parliamentary elections next year, Modi alleged that a "PC" (percentage commission) culture and delaying decisions have become the identity of the Odisha government resulting in the state's tardy development. At the second public meeting in Jharsuguda after inaugurating a new airport named after freedom fighter Veer Surendra Sai, Modi claimed people were denied benefits of the central government's welfare programmes - such as construction of toilets and in irrigation sector - if they don't pay bribe under the BJD rule in the state. Modi said there was a need for "bade parivartan" (big change) to give pace to Odisha's development. Targeting the Congress party, Modi referred to former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi's famous remark that only 15 paisa out of a rupee sanctioned by the Centre for welfare of people reaches the intended beneficiaries. "They knew about the 'bimari' but had no vision to solve it," he said. He said the BJP government's decision to directly transfer money to the bank accounts of beneficiaries has curbed the practice of middlemen in implementation of welfare schemes. "If our government releases Re 1, entire 100 paise reaches the poor," he said. Modi targeted the Opposition also for stalling the triple talaq bill in Rajya Sabha. He said justice will be done to Muslim mothers and sisters. Stating that three days ago the central government took a decision that was required for decades, he said the ordinance on triple talaq has made it illegal. Accusing the previous UPA government of being responsible for closure of several industrial units, Modi said the BJP-led NDA government is taking concrete steps to revive closed plants. He claimed that the UPA government lacked a clear vision and a clean intention and said all attempts by them to revive closed industries were limited to papers, files and public announcements. However, now Talcher Fertilise Plant is being revived with an investment of Rs 13,000 crore, he said, adding that other fertiliser plants in Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Telangana and Bihar were also being restarted, he said. Asserting that the Centre is committed to provide not only economic justice but also social justice to people, Modi said the Centre would ensure housing for all by 2022. Pointing towards the large gathering of people at Talcher rally, Modi said it "clearly showed" what the people of Odisha have in mind. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Madhya Pradesh Congress president Kamal Nath Saturday said MP Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan was not above the law after the latter recently claimed that the misuse of the amended SC/ST Act won't be allowed in the state. Chouhan Thursday had announced that a directive will be issued shortly to ensure that the amended SC/ST Act is not misused in the state. The MP CM was replying to a query on the protests in the state against Parliament clearing the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Bill, 2018 in August restoring some stringent provisions of the Act. "The misuse of the (amended) SC/ST Act will not be allowed in MP. Only after a thorough probe, a case will be registered under it. To this end, a directive will be issued shortly," Chouhan had told reporters in Balaghat. Speaking Saturday on Chouhan's comment, Nath said, " "The chief minister is not above the law. I am asking him (Chouhan) if he had taken advice and permission from Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji to issue such a statement." "The CM has taken an oath. He has pledged that he will follow the Constitution and law of the country. He should clarify from whom he had taken the advice (before making the announcement). What is the state of the (SC/ST) Act here?" Nath questioned. The state has seen protests over the past several days by organisations opposed to the amendments in the SC/ST Act. They have targeted senior leaders of the ruling BJP as well as the opposition Congress. A nationwide bandh on September 6 called by these organisations had evoked a good response in poll-bound MP. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Villagers in Morena district of Madhya Pradesh gunned down a man who was part of a gang that had allegedly come to extort money from them, police said Saturday. The gang had demanded Rs 50,000 from the residents of Barsa Manpur village, in Kelaras area here, about a week back and the gunfight took place when they arrived early Saturday morning to collect the money, Superintendent of Police Amit Sanghi said. The person who was killed in the gun battle is yet to be identified and efforts were on to uncover his as well as the gang's details, the SP added. Other members of the gang managed to flee following the incident but some of them may have been injured, he said. The official said that villagers had earlier informed Nirar police station about the gang's extortion demand. "Blank cartridges have been found at the spot. The villagers fired licensed guns. A case of attempt to murder has been registered against the unidentified gang members on the complaint of the villagers," he informed. Villagers have told police that they fired their guns in self defence, Sanghi informed. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Dressed in Gongchas -- a heavy coat-like traditional Ladakhi attire -- 299 women danced together making it to the Guinness World Records and marked the end of the Naropa Festival Thursday. The women, aged between 18 and 60 years, wore Peraks -- turquoise headgears -- and performed the Shondol to Ladakhi music at the Hemis Monastery in the Himalayas. Shondol is a traditional dance performed for the king on special occasions. Speaking after the world record attempt, Swapnil Dangarikar, official adjudicator, Guinness World Records, declared the dance performance as the "Largest Ladakhi Dance". "They (dancers) have made a record with 299 successful participants. This is a new Guinness World Record title... With this I declare that all of you are officially amazing," Dangarikar said. The last of the five-day festival also witnessed Tsering Ladol being honoured with the Himalayan Hero award. Ladol was the first Ladakhi girl to scale Mount Everest in 2005. The award was conferred to Master Sonam Lundup, for his dedication in the field of education and Olthang Nimoo, for his contribution in the field of art, and posthumously to Late Padma Shri Tsering Wangdus. The festival, which started on September 16, celebrated the life and teachings of Buddhist scholar-saint Naropa with traditional dance and musical performances. With visitors from the Himalayan region of Tibet and as far as Bhutan, the five-day festival also witnessed the unfurling of the 85-feet Thangka -- a Tibetan-Buddhist painting on a cloth depicting a deity or a mandala -- which the monastery touted as "the largest silk embroidered brocade of Buddha" in India. One of the members of the organising committee said at the closing ceremony that the festival is a platform "for all to come together and to encourage our people and artists". "It is a platform to showcase the rich and divine heritage of the Himalayan region. People here can meet and interact with the followers of the Drupka lineage from India, Tibet, and other parts of the world. "It is also a platform to exchange the teachings of the Buddha dharama and to learn the culture of Ladakh," he added. Celebrated every 12th year of the Tibetan calendar, the Naropa festival, also known as the 'Kumbh Mela of the Himalayas', was last organised in 2016 as a "special case". This year's edition of the festival also saw the formal inauguration of the Naropa Fellowship programme for post-graduate candidates to "encourage and shape the next generation of leaders in policy and entrepreneurship". The celebrations this year also included lessons of Naropa, prayers and religious performances by monks and nuns, traditional archery competition, performances by local artistes and a fashion show. Each evening, the festival witnessed performances by Bollywood artistes including Kailash Kher, Papon, Sonu Nigam and Aditi Singh Sharma. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The US is not interested in regime change in Tehran, but wants it to change its behaviour and stop continuing with their terror threats to the world, US Secretary of State said Friday as he described Iran as the world's "largest state sponsor of terror". Earlier this year, the Trump administration had withdrawn from the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal and reimposed a series of tough sanctions on Iran. While the first phase of sanctions is already in place, the sanctions would come into full force on November 4 and the US expects all countries, including India, to bring down their import of Iranian oil to zero by then. "We have made very clear that regime change is not President (Donald) Trump's policy. We've laid out what it is we want from the Islamic Republic of Iran," Pompeo told MSNBC in an interview. The demand from the US, he said, is pretty straightforward. "For starters, stop launching missiles into Riyadh, arming Hizbollah, and threatening How about ceasing to be the world's largest state sponsor of terror. These are simple demands that we make of every country in the world, and that's what we are looking for from Iran as well," Pompeo said. "When the Islamic regime makes that change, we'll be happy to have a conversation with them. President Trump's made that very clear. But there's no signs that they're backing off continuing their terror threats around the world," he said. In another interview with CNN, Pompeo alleged that Iran has been confronting the world as the world's largest state sponsor of terror for quite some time. "They have armed militias the Lebanese Hizbollah, Kata'ib Hizballah, and militias in Iraq. They are arming the Houthis in Yemen, launching missiles into the Gulf states. The US has begun to apply economic and diplomatic pressure on Iran to prevent them from doing this. That's our mission," he said. The Trump administration, he said, has told the Islamic Republic of Iran that using a proxy force to attack an American interest will not prevent US from responding against the prime actor. "That is, we will not let Iran get away with using a proxy force to attack an American interest. Iran will be held accountable for those incidents," he said. Pompeo said that Iran is going to be held accountable for those acts. "If they're responsible for the arming and training of these militias, we're going to go to the source," he said. "The Islamic Republic of Iran continues to be the world's largest state sponsor of terror," Pompeo told Fox News in another interview. "We are determined to stop that behaviour and to change the way the Iranian regime inflicts horrors all around the world," he said. A good piece of that was President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which to him made no sense whatsoever, to begin to reimpose costs on Iran so that they don't have the wealth, the contacts around the world, and the capacity to inflict harm on the American people and around the world. "We're looking for our European partners to join us, but we have a big coalition that understands that these sanctions make sense and will continue to assist us in enforcing them," Pompeo told Fox News. India's decision to cancel the foreign minister-level meeting in New York was "arrogant", Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said Saturday, asserting that he was "disappointed" by the New Delhi's "negative" response. India on Friday cited the "brutal" killing of three policemen in Jammu and Kashmir as well as the release of the postal stamps "glorifying" Kashmiri militant Burhan Wani for calling off the meeting between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York this month. Announcing the cancellation of the meeting, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said in New Delhi that the incidents "exposed" the "true face" of Pakistan's new Prime Minister Imran Khan to the world as well as Islamabad's evil agenda behind the proposal for talks. "The latest brutal killings of our security personnel by Pakistan-based entities and the recent release of a series of 20 postage stamps by Pakistan glorifying a terrorist and terrorism confirm that Pakistan will not mend its ways," Kumar said. "Disappointed at the arrogant and negative response by India to my call for resumption of the peace dialogue," Prime Minister Khan said in a tweet. "However, all my life I have come across small men occupying big offices who do not have the vision to see the larger picture," he said in a sharp reaction to India's cancellation of the meeting. Kumar said talks with Pakistan after the "two deeply disturbing" developments would be "meaningless". "In view of the changed situation, there will be no meeting between the Foreign Ministers of India and Pakistan in New York," he said. Reacting to india's remarks, Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Faisal said Friday that the "so-called 'disturbing developments'" alluded to in the Indian statement predated the Indian agreement to hold the bilateral meeting in New York. He said the alleged killing of a BSF soldier took place two days prior to the Indian announcement of its agreement to hold the bilateral meeting. When the allegations of Pakistan's involvement first appeared, Pakistani rangers clearly conveyed to BSF through official channels that the country had nothing to do with it, he said. "Pakistan...categorically reject these allegations...Our authorities would be prepared to conduct a joint investigation to establish the truth," Faisal said. On the issue of the postage stamps, he said they were issued before the July 25 elections and before Prime Minister Khan assumed office on August 18. "We choose not to further comment beyond saying that these comments are against all norms of civilised discourse and diplomatic communication," Faisal said. "We believe by its ill-considered cancellation of the meeting, India has once again wasted a serious opportunity to change the dynamics of the bilateral relationship and put the region on the path of peace and development," he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Delhi Court Saturday discharged the personal assistant of former Samajwadi Party MP Munawwar Saleem in a 2016 case related to espionage for Pakistan. The accused Farhat Akhtar was arrested by crime branch in 2016 for spying and other offences punishable under the sections Official Secret Act (OSA) and criminal conspiracy punishable under IPC. Additional Sessions Judge Sathish Kumar Arora accepted the submission made by advocate M S Khan, appearing for Akhtar, that there was lack of sufficient evidence to proceed against him. The court, however, framed charges against other three accused, Maulana Ramzan Khan, Subhash Jangir and Soheb Hussain, in the case for various offences punishable under sections of OSA and IPC. The Delhi Police's Crime Branch had allegedly busted a spy ring involving an official of Pakistan High Commission. Mahmood Akhtar, the official of Pakistan High Commission, was arrested by the police but later charge sheet did not carry his name due to diplomatic immunity. He was sent back to the Pakistan through diplomatic channel. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi will roll out the Centre's flagship Ayushman Bharat-National Health Protection Mission (AB-NHPM) from Jharkhand Sunday. The ambitious scheme, which was renamed the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Abhiyan (PMJAY), aims to provide a coverage of Rs five lakh per family annually, benefiting more than 10 crore poor families. Eligible people can avail the benefits in the government and listed private hospitals. The scheme will target poor, deprived rural families and identified occupational category of urban workers' families, 8.03 crore in rural and 2.33 crore in urban areas, as per the latest Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) data. It will cover around 50 crore people. The entitlement is being decided on the basis of deprivation criteria in the SECC database. The beneficiaries are identified based on the deprivation categories (D1, D2, D3, D4, D5, and D7) identified under the SECC database for rural areas. For the urban areas, the 11 occupational criteria will determine entitlement. Eleven occupational categories of workers include rag pickers, beggars, domestic workers, street vendors, cobblers/ hawkers/ other service providers working on streets, construction workers/ plumbers/ masons/ labours/ painters/ welders/ security guards/ coolies and other head-load workers and sanitation workers. In addition, the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna (RSBY) beneficiaries in states where it is active are also included. There is no cap on family size and age in the scheme, ensuring that nobody is left out. One would only need to establish one's identity to avail benefits under the scheme and it could be through Aadhaar card or election ID card or ration card. Having an Aadhaar card is not mandatory to avail the scheme's benefit. In case of hospitalisation, members of the beneficiary families do not need to pay anything under the scheme, provided one goes to a government or an empanelled private hospital. The National Health Agency (NHA), the apex body implementing the AB-NHPM has launched a website and a helpline number to help prospective beneficiaries check if their name is there in the final list. One can visit the website mera.pmjay.gov.in or call up the helpline (14555) to check their enrolment. A beneficiary needs to key in his or her mobile number, which is verified through an OTP and then complete the KYC (know your customer) online without any need for human interface with other documents. They can also call the helpline number to check their enrolment. Each empanelled hospital will have an 'Ayushman Mitra' to assist patients and will coordinate with beneficiaries and the hospital. They will run a help desk, check documents to verify the eligibility and enrolment to the scheme. Also, all the beneficiaries will be given letters having QR codes which will be scanned and a demographic authentication conducted for identification and to verify his or her eligibility to avail the benefits of the scheme. The Health Ministry has included 1,354 packages in the scheme under which treatment for coronary bypass, knee replacements and stenting, among others, would be provided at 15-20 per cent cheaper rates than the Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS). Modi had announced the launch of the scheme from ramparts of the Red Fort during his Independence day speech. As many as 31 states and Union Territories have signed MoUs with the Centre and will implement the programme over the next two to three months, after its launch on Sunday. Remaining states and UTs which include Telangana, Odisha, Delhi, Kerala and Punjab have not signed, so the scheme will not be implemented in those states till they come on board. Over 8,735 hospitals, both public and private, have been empanelled for the scheme. "The prime minister will launch the scheme on September 23 but effectively it will become operational from September 25 on the birth anniversary of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay," said Niti Aayog member V K Paul, who is the chief architect of the scheme. He said in the current fiscal, the burden on the Centre is likely to be around Rs 3,500 crore. Billed as the world's largest government healthcare programme, it will be funded with 60 per cent contribution coming from the central government and the remaining from the states. "We have received applications from 15,000 hospitals for being empanelled ... Out of this half, that means 7,500 applications for empanelment are private hospitals," Paul said, adding in some states the process for empanelment is yet to start. Asked about the cost to the exchequer in the current fiscal, he said, "Around Rs 3,500 crore has been budgeted by the central government for the scheme this year." He said Rs 2,000 crore had been provided in the budget for 2018-19 as token money for the scheme. "We are six months into this fiscal and we also know that only 27 states will go immediately into operations. Therefore full uptake is still be building up. Accordingly, Rs 1,500 crore more has been sought, so we now have Rs 3,500 crore as the central government budget," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The lawyer for a Russian millionaire who mysteriously died in England after helping expose an alleged Russian money laundering scheme urged an inquest Saturday not to dismiss the possibility his client was poisoned. Alexander Perepilichny, 44, collapsed in November 2012 while jogging near his mansion in the southeastern county of Surrey. An investigation by Surrey Police found he died of natural causes but there have also been suspicions he was murdered following orders from Russian President Vladimir Putin. Perepilichny moved to Britain in 2009 and helped arch-critic of the Kremlin, investor Bill Browder, document allegations that $230 million (195 million euros) was stolen from his Hermitage Capital hedge fund by Russian officials. Browder has said that Perepilichny provided "lock-tight documentary evidence" in the case. On the last day of the inquest, London's High Court heard how the businessman appeared on a "hit list" in Moscow and had applied for additional life insurance before his death. He had also just finished fighting off a legal challenge, allegedly spearheaded by one of the two Russians that Britain believes poisoned former spy Alexander Litvinenko with a radioactive substance in London in 2006. The coroner leading the inquest ruled on Tuesday that material that could reveal whether Perepilichny was also working with British spies could not be revealed for national security reasons. The secrecy application was lodged by British interior minister Sajid Javid. Extensive tests have failed to identity any poison in Perepilichny's body. Police believe he died from "sudden adult death syndrome" (SADs). But the lawyer representing Perepilichny urged the coroner not to "brush away" the possibility that he was poisoned with an agent used by Russia that could be hard to identify. "It is not a fanciful proposal that people might come from Russia with a view to harm someone they saw as the enemy," lawyer Bob Moxon said. A lawyer representing Hermitage Capital added that "at least 10 poisons" remain possible culprits. Media reports in 2017 said US intelligence also believed Perepilichny was likely "assassinated on direct orders from Putin or people close to him". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Maharashtra Congress will carry out a protest march on September 27 here to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the formation of a Joint Parliamentary Committee to probe the Rafale fighter jet deal. Addressing a press conference Saturday, Maharashtra Congress chief Ashok Chavan hit out at Modi claiming that for the latter, business interests of friends was greater than the interest of the nation. He further alleged that details pertaining to the Rafale deal, which he claimed was a scam, was being brushed under the carpet under the guise of national security. "Modi and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman are misleading the people and betraying their trust. Both should resign immediately. Due to the scam, Modi's corrupt face has been exposed," Chavan claimed. The Congress has been accusing massive irregularities in the deal, alleging that the government was procuring each aircraft at a cost of over Rs 1,670 crore as against Rs 526 crore finalised by the UPA government when it was negotiating procurement of 126 Rafale jets. Chavan also hit out at the Centre for not having a firm policy on restive Kashmir. "The government is preparing to celebrate surgical strikes (as Surgical Strike Day on September 29). But, terrorists severed the head of a soldier. Army personnel are getting martyred in Kashmir every day," he said. The University Grants Commission (UGC) had Thursday directed varsities and higher educational institutions across the country to observe September 29 as "Surgical strike day". In another development, Nationalist Congress Party's Maharashtra unit chief Jayant Patil Saturday claimed that the Modi government's clarification on the Rafale aircraft deal had no meaning after former French President Francois Hollande's comment on it. "The Modi government has been fully exposed," Patil claimed. Hollande was quoted in a French media report as purportedly saying that the Indian government proposed Anil Ambani-led Reliance Defence as the partner for Dassault Aviation in the Rs 58,000 crore Rafale jet fighter deal and France did not have a choice. The Defence Ministry, in a statement Saturday, said "unnecessary controversies" are being sought to be created following media reports regarding a statement purportedly made by Hollande concerning the selection of Reliance Defence as the offset partner by Dassault Aviation, the manufacturers of Rafale aircraft. "The government has stated earlier and again reiterates that it had no role in the selection of Reliance Defence as the Offset partner," the ministry said Saturday. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The French government has said it was in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners for the multi-billion dollar Rafale fighter jet deal as former French president Francois Hollande's reported comments that New Delhi proposed Reliance Defence as the Indian partner for the contract escalated the political row over it. While the French government said French companies have the full freedom to select Indian firms for the deal, Dassault Aviation, the makers of Rafale, said it had made the decision to partner with Reliance Defence Ltd. Both the French government and French aerospace company Dassault issued separate statements following a French media report which quoted Hollande as saying that the Indian government proposed Reliance Defence as the partner for French aerospace giant in the Rs 58,000 crore Rafale deal and France did not have a choice. The sensational comments quoted to Hollande by French publication 'Mediapart' gave a new twist to the controversy as the Indian government has been maintaining it was not officially aware of whom the Dassault Aviation has selected as its Indian partner to fulfil offset obligations of the deal. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the procurement of a batch of 36 Rafale jets after holding talks with then French President Hollande on April 10, 2015 in Paris. "The French government is in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners who have been, are being, or will be selected by French companies," the French government said in its statement. The report in 'Mediapart' quoted Hollande as saying, "It was the Indian government that proposed this service group, and Dassault which negotiated with Ambani. We had no choice, we took the interlocutor who was given to us." Reacting to Hollande's remarks, a defence ministry spokesman said, "It is reiterated that neither the government nor the French government had any say in the commercial decision." NDTV reported that Hollande's office said he stood by his remarks made to Mediapart. Hollande's comments drew sharp reactions from the opposition parties which have been accusing the government of massive irregularities in the deal and benefiting Reliance Defence Ltd (RDL) despite not having any experience in the aerospace sector. "It is very important for the prime minister now to either accept Mr. Hollande's statement or state that Mr. Hollande is lying and tell what the truth is," Congress president Rahul Gandhi said. He also claimed that various defence ministers of the NDA government have been lying to protect Modi. "Why is the prime minister silent? It is a matter related to defence forces, it is a matter related to corruption," he said. In its statement, Dassault Aviation said it has decided to make a partnership with the Reliance Defence in accordance with the policy of 'Make in India'. "This offsets contract is delivered in compliance with the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) 2016 regulations. In this framework, and in accordance with the policy of Make in India, Dassault Aviation has decided to make a partnership with India's Reliance Group. This is Dassault Aviation's choice," the French company said. The French government said, "In accordance with India's acquisition procedure, French companies have the full freedom to choose the Indian partner companies that they consider to be the most relevant, then present for the Indian government's approval the offsets projects that they wish to execute in India with these local partners so as to fulfil their obligations in this regard." The Congress has been accusing massive irregularities in the deal, alleging that the government was procuring each aircraft at a cost of over Rs 1,670 crore as against Rs 526 crore finalised by the UPA government when it was negotiating procurement of 126 Rafale jets. The Congress has also alleged that the government was benefitting Reliance Defence through the deal as the company has set up a joint venture with Dassault Aviation to execute the offset obligation for the deal. Opposition parties have also alleged that Reliance Defence was formed only 12 days before the announcement of the Rafale deal by the prime minister on April 10, 2015. The Reliance group has rejected the charges. The French government said the inter-governmental agreement it signed with India for supplying 36 Rafale aircraft concerns its obligations solely with regard to ensuring the delivery and quality of the aircraft. "As it happens, agreements have already been signed by French companies with many Indian firms, both public and private, under the framework of Indian laws," the statement said. The Congress has also been demanding answers from the government on why state-run aerospace major HAL was not involved in the deal as finalised during the UPA. Under India's offset policy, foreign defence entities are mandated to spend at least 30 per cent of the total contract value in India through procurement of components or setting up of research and development facilities. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress President Rahul Gandhi is likely to visit Sevagram Ashram in Wardha district of Maharashtra, where Mahatma Gandhi once lived, on October 2, party sources said Saturday. October 2 is the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. According to party sources, Rahul Gandhi's itinerary is being worked out and will be announced from Delhi. "A Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting is also likely to take place in Sevagram on that day," the sources said. Sevagram village is located about 8 kms from Wardha. There is a museum near the ashram, where artifacts of India's freedom struggle are preserved. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Thousands of people took to the streets here Saturday demanding the inclusion of the Khasi language in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution. The rally came a day after the Meghalaya cabinet approved a proposal to pass an official resolution in the on-going Assembly session to seek inclusion of the language in the Schedule of official languages and the same will be forwarded to the Home Ministry for consideration. Organised by the Khasi Authors Society (KAS) and backed by social organisations, the rally also saw participation of political leaders from the state and representatives of the local parties. KAS president DRL Nonglait informed the gathering that there are over 14 lakh people (1.4 million) speaking Khasi according to the Census 2011 while only 4 lakh is the criteria for a language to be spoken to be included in the schedule of official languages. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Rashtriya Lok Samata Party, a constituent of NDA, Saturday blamed Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JD(U) for creating a "confusion" over seat-sharing within the ruling coalition. The RLSP's attack on the JD(U) came in the backdrop of media reports after a recent meeting of Kumar with BJP president Amit Shah in Delhi. Quoting JD(U) sources, they said seat sharing talks were "in final stages" and as per the tentative formula Union minister Upendra Kushwaha's party is likely to get not more than 2 out of a total of 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar. NDA in Bihar constitutes the JD(U), BJP, RLSP and Union minister Ramvilas Paswan's LJP. JD(U) leaders such as Kumar's confidant and national general secretary RCP Singh have claimed that talks on seat-sharing were in final stages. "The confusion arose ever since Kumar returned to the BJP-led coalition last year. It is his party which keeps coming up with claims of being a big brother in the alliance and the chief minister being the face of the coalition in the Lok Sabha polls," RLSP national general secretary and spokesman Madhaw Anand told PTI over phone from Delhi. "Soon after meeting Shah in July in Patna, Kumar had publicly stated that seat-sharing arrangement would be finalized within four to five weeks. He should tell us what happened to his claim, now that more than two months have passed," Anand said. The RLSP general secretary was responding to queries about a statement by Nagmani, one of the founding leaders of the party. "It is unfortunate that the BJP is pampering the JD(U) which is left with no public support, while we are being belittled. We wonder if we are being indirectly told to quit the NDA and rush into the arms of the opposition Mahagathbandhan," Nagmani had told a channel here. Nagmani, who has been pitching for declaration of Kushwaha as the face of the NDA in the Lok Sabha polls next year and the assembly elections in 2020, also said Kumar has the votes of only Kurmis while Kushwaha is the leader of Koeris, a much more populous social group. In response to Nagmani's remarks, BJP state vice-president Devesh Kumar said, "In statements are issued but political strategies are not made on the basis of these. Let the time come. All issues will be amicably settled." Anand said, "Nagmani ji is our respected leader. The party has, however, no problem with the BJP. It is the party with which RLSP and LJP had formed an alliance. It is the BJP which will have to, in due course, bring all allies together and take the lead in coming up with a seat-sharing formula that is acceptable to all." He said the JD(U) had fought separately in 2014 and despite being the chief minister's party, it won only two seats with small margins and forfeited deposits in most constituencies. "On the other hand, we made our debut with a cent percent strike rate as we won all the three seats we had contested," he said. Anand said they were sure that the BJP would take these things in account and not blindly accept the JD(U)'s demand for being given a lion's share. "The BJP leadership is well aware that Kumar is fighting for his survival. He is faced with a humiliating situation wherein RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav who is out of power openly proclaims that doors are closed for the chief minister's entry into the Mahagathbandhan. It is not difficult to see the writing on the wall," he said. Meanwhile, JD(U) leader and state minister Jai Kumar Singh said the RLSP would do well not to belittle Nitish Kumar whose popularity is acknowledged even outside Bihar and it might not be good for the RLSP's own political future. A former close aide of Kumar, Kushwaha had floated the RLSP after quitting the JD(U) in 2013, comprising mostly disgruntled party leaders. Despite its fine performance in 2014, the RLSP fared dismally in the assembly polls a year later as it returned with a tally of two in a 243-strong Vidhan Sabha. Although uncomfortable with Kumar's return to the NDA, the RLSP has so far been maintaining that it was firmly with the BJP-led coalition notwithstanding feelers being sent by the RJD that it was welcome into the Mahagathbandhan. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Russian officials had devised a covert plan to help Wikileaks founder Julian Assange escape to Russia from his Ecuadorian embassy hideout in London, a UK media report claimed on Friday. The 47-year-old Assange remains in hiding in a back room of the central London building six years after losing a legal battle against extradition to Sweden for questioning on allegations of rape and sexual assault.The Australian national had sought asylum from Ecuador over fears of further extradition to the US for sedition and espionage for leaking secretive documents on Wikileaks. 'The Guardian' has now claimed that Russian officials were involved in a "basic" plan to extract the Wikileaks founder from the embassy on Christmas Eve last year and fly him to Russia. The plot, said to have been abandoned at the last moment, was thought to have involved a diplomatic vehicle. The newspaper said that details of the Assange escape plan are "sketchy". Two sources familiar with the inner workings of the Ecuadorian embassy said that Fidel Narvez, a close confidant of Assange who until recently served as Ecuador's London consul, had served as a point of contact with Moscow. Assange and the embassy have denied the report, which comes days after the Associated Press announced it had obtained documents showing that Assange had applied for a Russian visa in November 2010, just before he was arrested by Scotland Yard. Assange is a key figure in the ongoing US criminal investigation into Russia's attempts to sway the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. Robert Mueller, the special counsel conducting the investigation, filed criminal charges in July against a dozen Russian GRU military intelligence officers who allegedly hacked Democratic party servers during the presidential campaign.According to Mueller, WikiLeaks published "over 50,000 documents" stolen by Russian spies. However, Assange has denied receiving the stolen emails from Russia. The Russian embassy in London tweeted on Friday to say the 'Guardian' report was "another example of disinformation and fake from the British media". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A committee of Hindu seers will meet in New Delhi next month to discuss strategy for construction of a Ram temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya. Forty Hindu sadhus would take part in the October 5 meeting of Ram Janambhoomi Nirman Uch Adhikaar Samiti to be chaired by Mahant Nritya Gopal Das, the president of Ram Janambhoomi Nyas Trust. The meeting will be organised a fortnight before Pravin Togadia, former VHP leader, takes out a Lucknow-Ayodhya march for constructing a temple at the site. Sharad Sharma, a VHP spokesperson told PTI, "The construction of Ram temple is a matter of belief for crores of Hindus. So this meeting of 40 top Hindu seers has been called to remove the hurdles coming in the way of the construction Ram Mandir." At Aligarh, Mahant Das said, "All Hindu seers are expecting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to start the construction of Ram temple during his regime. Ram bhakts are disappointed and this disappointment can be removed only after the construction of Ram Mandir." "If the BJP does not come forward for the construction of Ram temple then it will be finished in next elections," Das said. "The union government is fooling the Hindus. If it can amend the Supreme Court order on the SC/ST Act by bringing a resolution in the parliament, why the Modi government is not making law in the parliament for Ram temple? All Sadhus and Hindu seers must oppose this 'anti-Rama' government unitedly and teach it a lesson in 2019 elections," said Acharya Satyendra Das, the chief priest of Ram Janambhoomi temple. When asked about the meeting, Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, who was in Faizabad, said, "Whatever the seers will decide, the government will think seriously on it. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Soaps, face packs, shampoos and medicinal products made from and dung may soon be just a click away as an RSS-backed centre says it is set to sell these on major Deen Dayal Dham, a centre run by the in Farah town of Mathura in Uttar Pradesh, will first put up a dozen products related to health, beauty and apparel on the website for sale, a manager at the centre said. "We had a discussion about this with Amazon a few days ago. After a week or so, advertisements of our products will reflect on Amazon's website and people will be able to order our products through it," said Ghanshyam Gupta. "As soon as an order is placed on Amazon, the website will inform us and accordingly, the goods will be dispatched from our centre here," he said. Gupta, who has been associated with Deen Dayal Dham for more than two decades, said women living in nearby villages are working with Deen Dayal Kamdhenu Gaushala pharmacy. The pharmacy makes products like Ghanvati, used for the treatment of general fever and building immunity, panchvagya churn and chyawanprash. The tailoring unit of the centre creates various styles of kurtas, some of them popularised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Gupta said. "Amazon's courier service is currently not available here. So we have signed an agreement with the Indian Postal Department and it has ensured that the products will be delivered within 10 days," he added. Tata Steel Saturday announced that it will acquire the steel business of Usha Martin Limited (UML) for Rs 4,300-4,700 crore. UML, in a stock exchange filing, said the sale of steel business to Tata Steel will help the company in "significant reduction" of its debt. The deal is expected to be completed in 6-9 months, it added. Tata Steel, in a release, said it has executed definitive agreements for acquisition of the steel business of UML through a slump sale on a going concern basis. "It is proposed that the steel business of UML will be acquired subject to transaction closing, for a cash consideration of between Rs 4,300-4,700 crore (subject to various transaction adjustments)," the release said. The closing of the acquisition is subject to fulfilment of various conditions under the agreements. At the closing, Tata Steel or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates may carry out this acquisition, it added. UML's steel business comprises the specialised 1 mtpa alloy based manufacturing capacity in long products segment based in Jamshedpur, a producing iron-ore mine, a coal mine under development and captive power plants, Tata Steel said. The transaction and acquisition structure would be determined shortly, it added. Tata Steel Group is among the top global steel companies with an annual crude steel capacity of 27.5 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) as on March 31, 2018. Usha Martin is amongst the largest wire rope manufacturers in the world and a leading speciality steel producer in India. In May, Bamnipal Steel Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tata Steel, completed the acquisition of controlling stake of 72.65 per cent in Bhushan Steel Ltd (BSL). Tata Steel had won the bid to acquire debt-laden BSL in an insolvency auction. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) United States President Donald Trump on Saturday condoled the demise of Vietnam President Tran Dai Quang and described him as a "great friend of America". Quang died Friday at the age of 61 after a serious illness. "It was with sadness that I learned of the passing of President Tran Dai Quang. On behalf of the American people, I express my condolences to his family and the people of Vietnam," Trump said. He said, "President Quang was a great friend of the United States. He graciously hosted me during my historic state visit to Hanoi in November 2017, and I am grateful for his personal commitment to deepening the United States-Vietnam Comprehensive Partnership. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US President Donald Trump has directed his administration to advance and defend religious freedom at home and abroad, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Saturday, ruing that majority of the countries in the world place significant limitations on religious freedom. "President Trump has directed all of us in his administration to advance and defend religious freedom at home and abroad, because religious freedom is a universal, a God-given right, to which all people all people are entitled," Pompeo said in his address to the 13th Annual Values Voter Summit. He said religious freedom was an essential building block for all free societies. "It's a freedom that I care personally about, and I know you do as well. It's the one that drew me to serve my country in the United States Armed Forces," he said. "But sadly, today more than 80 per cent of the global population live in countries that place significant limitations on religious freedom," Pompeo said. He said, "I know it brings many of us heavy hearts to watch the ongoing persecution of Christians and other minorities in countries like the Islamic Republic of Iran. We are fighting for human dignity of the Iranian people by speaking the truth about the oppressive and corrupt regime that controls those people." Pompeo alleged that religious minorities in Iran were routinely imprisoned, stripped of their rights, kicked out of their jobs, and subject to many other abuses. After President Trump withdrew from the flawed deal, he implemented a new strategy to force a change in the Iranian regime's behaviour, said the top American diplomat. And part of this strategy is to make sure that the voices inside Iran crying out for accountability, justice, and religious freedom know that the United States stands with them, he added. "We stand with the Christians, the Jews, the Sufis, the Muslims, the Zoroastrians, the Baha'i, and all other faith groups in Iran who have had their human dignity violated by this regime," Pompeo said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The woman whose sexual assault allegation threatens to bring down Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee rejected an ultimatum Friday for testifying in the Senate after the US president turned against her, claiming her accusation could not be true. The increasingly ugly fight over the fate of Trump's bid to put conservative judge Brett Kavanaugh into the lifetime position on the Supreme Court appeared to be nearing its end game, though still with no clarity on whether the woman at the center of the row will testify. Christine Blasey Ford, a California professor who says Kavanaugh carried out a violent sexual assault against her when he was 17 and she was 15, insists she is ready to testify under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee. However, she rejected a deadline of late Friday imposed by the committee's Republican leader to agree to his terms for the hearing, which he said should take place next Wednesday. If she didn't agree, committee chairman Charles Grassley said, he would go ahead and schedule a vote on confirming Kavanaugh on Monday, but without her testimony. A statement by Ford's lawyers carried by CNN asked for one more day to respond, calling the deadline "arbitrary." "Its sole purpose is to bully Dr Ford and deprive her of the ability to make a considered decision.... Our modest request is that she be given an additional day to make her decision." Ford has said she wants to testify Thursday at the earliest and to be able to call as a witness a man who she says was present during the assault, when they were all teenagers attending private schools near Washington, DC. The committee's Republican leadership has turned down those demands. But there was no immediate response from the Republicans to Ford's latest message asking for extra time. After several days of maintaining a relatively neutral posture, Trump took off the gloves Friday to declare that Ford could not be believed. The aggressive posture reflected Trump's fear that time is running out to get his hand-picked judge confirmed -- thereby tilting the Supreme Court firmly to the right for years to come -- before November elections when Republicans risk losing control of Congress. "TAKE THE VOTE!" Trump tweeted, blaming "radical left wing politicians" for the controversy. Trump rejected the credibility of Ford's claim that a drunken Kavanaugh tried to pin her down and remove her clothes, muffling her cries, in the early 1980s. According to Trump, the fact that Ford remained silent until now shows the incident probably never happened -- even if this runs counter to what experts say is the typical reaction of sexual assault victims afraid or embarrassed to report. "I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr Ford was as bad as she says," Trump wrote, "charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents." "Why didn't someone call the FBI 36 years ago?" The senior Democrat in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, called Trump's logic "a highly offensive misunderstanding of surviving trauma." More concerning for Trump might have been the angry reaction of one of his own Republican senators, Susan Collins, who sits on the Judiciary Committee. "I was appalled by the president's tweet," she told US media. "We know that allegations of sexual assault are some of the most under-reported crimes that exist. So I thought that the president's tweet was completely inappropriate and wrong." Trump's outburst saw a new #MeToo era hashtag storm the internet, with #WhyIDidntReport the top trending conversation starter on US Twitter, as people -- mostly women -- vented outrage over past transgressions and voiced solidarity with Ford. Republicans are frustrated over what they say was the deliberate timing of the last-minute revelation of Ford's allegation, accusing Democrats of seeking to prevent the process from finishing before the November midterm elections. Democrats hope to recapture at least one chamber of Congress in the vote. For their part, Democrats say Republicans are mounting an unseemly rush to get Kavanaugh into the nine-member Supreme Court while they still control the legislature. Kavanaugh has repeatedly agreed to testify before the Republican-led Senate Judiciary Committee, saying he wants to clear his name. A distinguished judge seen as favouring conservative interpretations of the constitution, he has not been accused in other sexual misconduct related cases and no further witness has come forward to corroborate Ford's claims. While Kavanaugh has seen his near coronation transformed into a fight for his basic reputation, Ford has found herself thrown into the harsh light of an all-out Washington political fight. Her lawyers say the professor's life has been turned upside down, having received death threats and been forced out of her home. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The United Democratic Party (UDP), coalition partner of the ruling Meghalaya Democratic Alliance, has suggested that an UDP leader be the common candidate of the alliance from Shillong Lok Sabha seat in the general election next year. UDP general secretary Jemino Mawthoh told reporters on Friday that the MDA should field common candidates from both Shillong and Tura parliamentary seats. The Shillong seat is being represented by the opposition Congress leader Vincent H Pala for the past 10 years. However, the UDP claimed that the MDA had a better chance from the constituency with the Congress already on "downhill slide" in the state. "We would also like to propose that the common candidate for the Shillong seat should be from the UDP, while Tura seat should go to the National Peoples Party (NPP) since we being the main parties in the coalition government," he said. Mawthoh, however, said that the UDP would further discuss the proposal with the other coalition partners to ensure win of the MDA candidates from both the seats in the upcoming LS polls. Meghalaya has two Lok Sabha seats. To a question, the UDP leader alleged that the Congress was on a downhill slide in Meghalaya and the recent resignation of its tallest leader D D Lapang would no doubt affect the party performance in the elections. "His (Lapang) resignation only indicated that the Congress is going downhill and is in a disarray and unorganised otherwise a leader of his stature would not have taken such a decision," he said. Whether the UDP will approach Lapang, a five-time chief minister, Mawthoh said that the party would definitely meet the veteran leader soon to discuss if he would join the MDA. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The economic sanctions on North Korea will remain in place until denuclearisation is achieved, US Secretary of State has said. "Those economic sanctions will remain in place until we get to the end, till we get to that final denuclearisation which (North Korean leader) Chairman Kim (Jong-un) promised to (US) President (Donald) Trump he would undertake," Pompeo told MSNBC in an interview on Friday. Pompeo, who has been leading the Trump administration's effort with North Korea, plans to travel to Pyongyang soon to work on another meeting between Trump and Kim. "We're working on it, but there's still a little bit of work to do left to make sure that the conditions are right and that the two leaders are put in a position where we can make substantial progress," he told Fox News in another interview. Acknowledging that North Korea has set a deadline of 2021 to denuclearise, Pompeo said in another interview that the US will set arbitrary deadlines in the interim. "We're hoping to see progress a little bit each day. We knew this would be a long process. It's a complicated endeavour. But we've made incremental steps along the way," he said. Describing the meeting between the two Korean leaders as historic, he said it is the first time that North and South Korea have spoken about denuclearisation in a material way. "They made a little bit of progress. I'm hoping I'll be back in Pyongyang before too long to make some more progress; and if that's the case, I'm very hopeful that Chairman Kim and President Trump will get a chance to meet in the near future as well," he said. Pompeo said that there are many conversations taking place across many different forums and venues, lots of discussions about how to move forward, and what are the right sets of next steps. "But the end that we can't lose focus on, there are two UN Security Council resolutions that the whole world voted on, and they require the North Koreans to fully denuclearise. That's the mission statement. That's the president's objective. And we believe that we can achieve that before too terribly long," he said. Separately, he told CNN that he knew that pace of progress with the North Koreans would be uneven, but that progress each and every day was important. "We think we're getting that," he said as he referred to the UN Security Council-mandated sanctions on North Korea. "The UN Security Council resolutions demand that Chairman Kim make this decision to denuclearise, and those sanctions and the enforcement of those sanctions will continue until such time as that occurs. That's the important element that is different from what previous negotiators have done," he said. "We've always, in America, handed him a pile of money, or his father a pile of money, and said, 'We hope you'll denuclearise'. Our approach is different. It is to continue to enforce the sanctions until such time as we get to the end of the process," Pompeo said. A US district court has sentenced a Pakistani-origin businessman to three years of probation on charges of procuring material and equipment for the Pakistani military unlawfully. First six months of the three-year probation is in home confinement, John Durham, US Attorney for the District of Connecticut, said Saturday. Imran Khan, 44, had pleaded guilty to one count of violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. In his guilty plea in June 2017, Khan specifically admitted that, between August 2012 and January 2013, he procured, received and exported to Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, the Pakistan Space & Upper Atmosphere Research Commission, or the National Institute of Lasers & Optronics. All of these companies are listed in the US Department of Commerce Entity List. According to court documents and statements made in court, from 2012 to 2016, Khan and two of his family members engaged in a scheme to purchase goods that were controlled under the Export Administration Regulations and to export those goods without a license to Pakistan. Through companies conducting business as Brush Locker Tools, Kauser Enterprises-USA and Kauser Enterprises-Pakistan, Khan, his father and brother received orders from a Pakistani company that procured materials and equipment for the Pakistani military, requesting them to procure specific products that were subject to the export regulations. When US manufacturers asked about the end-user for a product, the defendants either informed the manufacturer that the product would remain in the US or completed an end-user certification indicating that the product would not be exported, Durham said. Earlier this year, Khan's father, Muhammad Ismail, and his brother, Kamran Khan, each pleaded guilty to one count of international money laundering, for causing funds to be transferred from Pakistan to the US in connection with the export control violations. Both have been sentenced to 18 months of imprisonment. Ismail and Kamran Khan are both citizens of Pakistan and lawful permanent residents of the US. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) President Donald Trump's China tariff policy is having a devastating impact on the US polysilicon manufacturing industry, which could soon force the closure of REC Silicon in Washington State, a group of top American lawmakers said Saturday. In a letter to Trump, the group of five lawmakers from Washington State urged him to find an immediate resolution to the trade dispute over Chinese solar panels and American polysilicon, noting that hundreds more highly skilled workers could lose their jobs if a solution was not found. The issue of immediate concern is the possible closure of the REC Silicon manufacturing facility, they said. "The closure will result in the loss of 150-200 highly skilled manufacturers and will severely impact the of Eastern Washington," said the letter, signed by Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell and Congressmen Dan Newhouse, Dave Reichert and Denny Heck. ALSO READ: China plans tariff relief for allies as trade war with US deepens "We strongly encourage your trade negotiators to raise the issues facing the US polysilicon industry, and we request a progress report on these negotiations as soon as possible," the letter reads. "We believe a resolution over solar panels and polysilicon could serve as a symbol of good faith on both sides, protect intellectual property that provides domestic manufacturers a competitive edge, and spark meaningful progress in the larger trade negotiations between the US and China," the lawmakers said. Separately, Congressman Adam Smith said the tariffs on China are already having negative impacts. "I stand in firm opposition to these plans and believe that our focus must be instead an economic policy that benefits workers & ensures that all folks are paid at least $15/hr," he said. A key US Senate committee Saturday postponed its hearing on sexual assault allegations against Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who is the presidential nominee for the Supreme Court. Senator Chuck Grassley, who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Saturday that both Kavanaugh and accuser Christine Blasey Ford had been invited for the hearing, scheduled to take place on Monday. While Kavanaugh had agreed to testify, Ford declined, he said. Grassley asked Ford to respond to the request by 10 pm Saturday in the absence of which, he said, the Senate Judiciary Committee would vote on the nomination of Judge Kavanaugh. "I'm extending the deadline for response yet again to 10 o'clock this evening. I'm providing a notice of a vote to occur Monday in the event that Dr Ford's attorneys don't respond or Dr Ford decides not to testify," Grassley said. "In the event that we can come to a reasonable resolution as I've been seeking all week, then I will postpone the committee vote to accommodate her testimony. We cannot continue to delay," the top Republican Senator said in a statement. Soon, thereafter, he issued a notice of a committee executive business meeting, at which the committee can vote on the nomination of Judge Brett M Kavanaugh to be an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. Earlier, all 10 Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee urged Grassley to learn from mistakes made during the Anita Hill hearings and outlined steps the committee should take to ensure a thorough investigation of Ford's allegations and fair hearing. Meanwhile, the Senate Judiciary Committee, in a letter to lawyers of Ford, said it has been "extremely accommodating" to her. "We want to hear Dr Ford's testimony and are prepared to accommodate many of your demands, including further delaying a hearing that is currently scheduled for Monday. We are unwilling to accommodate your unreasonable demands. Outside counsel may not dictate the terms under which Committee business will be conducted," the letter said. The committee said it is not able to accommodate Ford's demand that Kavanaugh testify first. "You demanded that Judge Kavanaugh be the first person to testify. Accommodating this demand would be an affront to fundamental notions of due process. In the United States, an individual accused of a crime is entitled to a presumption of innocence," the committee said. "And, further, the accused has the right to respond to allegations that are made about him. Judge Kavanaugh cannot be expected to respond to allegations that have been made to the press. He is entitled to hear the full, detailed testimony of Dr Ford before he testifies," the letter said. President Donald Trump continues to support the nomination of Judge Kavanaugh. He has questioned the motives of the Democrats in raising this issue. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The bodies of a 60-year-old woman and her differently-abled daughter were found at their residence in outer Delhi's Mianwali Nagar area on Saturday morning, police said. The deceased were identified as Shashi Talwar and her daughter Nidhi (40). The incident came to light after their maid returned to work in the morning, the police said. She rang the doorbell several times, but when there was no response, she entered the house from the other door and found the duo lying in a pool of blood, they said. The maid informed the police at around 10 am, they added. Shashi's throat was slit while Nidhi was attacked with a blunt object, the police said. The police ruled out the robbery or theft angle in the case since the jewellery was found intact. Shashi's husband had died two years ago due to a heart attack. Her two sons, Abhay and Vishal, live in Canada and Mumbai respectively. Police is also scanning the footage of CCTV cameras installed in the nearby area to find clues. They said Nidhi suffered from cerebral palsy due to which she did not have a regular schooling and stayed at home with her parents. Police suspect that someone known to the family executed the killings since there were teacups lying in the drawing room. Further investigation is underway, they said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) ZURICH (Reuters) - The European Union heaped more pressure on Switzerland to clinch a new bilateral treaty cementing ties, threatening to cut off cross-border stock trading by year's end if no deal emerges.European Commissioner Johannes Hahn, who has been liaising with the Swiss foreign minister, told the Neue Zuercher Zeitung newspaper that time was running out to clinch an accord that Brussels has been seeking for a decade."In the interest of both sides we have to get results soon. Negotiations cannot become a never-ending story," Hahn said. "I expect that by the end of October at the ... MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's incoming government will pursue a bilateral deal with Canada if talks to overhaul the North American Free Trade Agreement falter, Mexican president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Friday.After more than a year of talks to modernize the NAFTA trade pact between the United States, Mexico and Canada, the United States and Mexico reached a side deal in late August.Days later, Canada began negotiating with the United States to close a deal on the 24-year-old trade pact. But the talks have hit an impasse over U.S. threats to impose tariffs to Canadian auto ... By Sanjeev Miglani and Ingrid MelanderNEW DELHI/PARIS (Reuters) - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi faced calls for his resignation over allegations of corruption in a military jet deal with France after former French president Francois Hollande was quoted as saying New Delhi had influenced the choice of a local partner.Indian political parties have been gunning for Modi over the 2016 purchase of 36 Rafale planes from Dassault Aviation estimated to be worth $8.7 billion, saying he had overpaid for the planes and had not been transparent. In recent months, the opposition has questioned the ... BERLIN (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel's government expects the impact of a no-deal Brexit on the labour market in Europe's biggest economy would be "relatively small", the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel said on Saturday.Around 41,000 British people were employed in Germany in December 2017 and that number is insignificant for the labour market overall, the magazine cited a government response to a request for information from the far-left Linke party as saying.There were around 44.8 million people employed in Germany in total in the second quarter of 2018, according to data from the ... By Jeff MasonWASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is optimistic about finding a way forward in its trade dispute with China, but it does not have a date scheduled for further talks as it assesses Beijing's response to the latest round of tariffs, a senior White House official said on Friday.The official said despite its protestations, China was well aware of U.S. demands it halt what Washington considers unfair trade practices. U.S. President Donald Trump has made clear his resolve on the issue, the official said, and the two sides remain in touch."We have been very clear in all of these ... Scientists have developed detector about half the size of a lunch box that can be used to quickly and accurately diagnose the disease in remote parts of the world. Kaposi sarcoma (KS) is a that develops in lymph or blood vessels, and usually appears as lesions on the skin, inside of the mouth or internally. There are four types of the disease; epidemic, or AIDS-associated, KS is the most common in sub-Saharan Africa and is AIDS-defining. That means when someone with the virus is diagnosed with KS, they officially have Early detection leads to better outcomes, but that's not always possible in the developing world, where pathological testing can take one to two weeks. TINY performs loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) for nucleic acid quantification. That requires heating the sample to 154 degrees, which necessitates a power source. One of the main benefits of TINY is that it can collect and store heat generated from electricity, the sun or even a Bunsen burner, and will function even during temporary power disruption, of which three occurred during testing in Uganda. TINY's power flexibility is important because in many sub-Saharan African countries healthcare facilities lack access to reliable electricity. For the study, researchers collected biopsy samples from 71 patients in Uganda suspected of having KS and tested the samples with TINY as well as via quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), the current standard for nucleic acid quantification. Agreement between TINY and qPCR was 94 per cent (67 of 71), and the team showed that all disagreement stemmed from assay limitations and not TINY capability. Not only can TINY be carried to remote locations for point-of-care use, it could also be valuable in clinics and hospitals where electric power can be unreliable. The week ended on a troubling note for the crisis-stricken Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services. Ramesh C Bawa, chief executive and managing director of IL&FS Financial Services', resigned with immediate effect on Friday. This happened on the same day that the company defaulted on payment obligations on IDBI Bank Letter of Credit due by Friday. Along with Bawa, five directors have also decided to jump ship. Four independent directors, namely Renu Challu, Shhubhalakshmi Panse, Uday Ved and SS Kohli, and non-executive director Vibhav Kapoor have stepped down from the board of IL&FS Financial Services (IFIN). Now only Hari Sankaran and Arun K Saha remain on a board that has eight seats. Now IFIN Executive Director Kaushik Modak is reportedly being considering for the position of CEO. He co-founded Swakarma Finance before starting his stint with IL&FS in June. Before that, he has worked as the CEO and country head of Rabobank India. Incidentally, IFIN was put up for sale three weeks ago, but no entity has stepped forth with an offer yet. After the consecutive defaults by IL&FS, IFIN has been locked out of the commercial paper market till March 18, 2019 in accordance with Reserve Bank Commercial Paper (CP) Directions. Notably, the company could not honour commercial papers which were due on September 14, and later defaulted on repayments due on September 18. This, along with the declining IFIN of the subsidiary company, seems to have put off prospective buyers for the financial services company. Along with the C-suite upheavals, financial troubles have also come for debt-laden IL&FS. The company has defaulted on payment obligations against a Letter of Credit by IDBI Bank which were supposed to be honoured by this Friday. The payment was originally supposed to made on September 20, but the deadline was shifted to September 21 since Thursday was a non-banking day. The company has defaulted on at least two payments to its bondholders since August. On September 4, it came to light that IL&FS defaulted on a short-term loan of Rs 1,000 crore from SIDBI, while a subsidiary has also defaulted Rs 500 crore dues to the development finance institution. Earlier this week, Delhi High Court passed interim orders barring the company's road construction arm, IL&FS Transportaion Networks, from selling its assets in light of an arbitration application filed by Aditya Birla Finance Limited. The company is seeking legal advice to defend the court order. "We hereby inform that the Aditya Birla Finance Limited, one of the creditors of the two project special purpose vehicles has filed an arbitration application under section 9 of the Indian Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 before the Hon'ble High Court of Delhi. Pending constitution of the arbitral tribunal, the Delhi High Court has passed interim orders dated 18.09.2018, a copy of which was received today, inter alia, injuncting the Company from transferring or creating third party interest in their unencumbered assets till the next date of hearing fixed on 07.12.2018," IL&FS Transportation Networks said in a regulatory filing. IL&FS has been sitting on a debt pile of around Rs 91,000 crore and had been downgraded to junk status by rating agencies following the default. Of this, Rs 57,000 crore are bank loans alone, most of which are from state-run lenders. While IL&FS has nearly Rs 35,000 crore consolidated debt, IL&FS Financial Services has Rs 17,000 crore of debt, which sits as standard asset for most of the lenders, according to a Nomura India report. The French government has said it was in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners for the multi-billion dollar Rafale fighter jet deal as former French president Francois Hollande's reported comments that New Delhi proposed Reliance Defence as the Indian partner for the contract escalated the political row over it. While the French government said French companies have the full freedom to select Indian firms for the deal, Dassault Aviation, the makers of Rafale, said it had made the decision to partner with Reliance Defence Ltd. Both the French government and French aerospace company Dassault issued separate statements following a French media report which quoted Hollande as saying that the Indian government proposed Reliance Defence as the partner for French aerospace giant in the Rs 58,000 crore Rafale deal and France did not have a choice. The sensational comments quoted to Hollande by French publication 'Mediapart' gave a new twist to the controversy as the Indian government has been maintaining it was not officially aware of whom the Dassault Aviation has selected as its Indian partner to fulfil offset obligations of the deal. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the procurement of a batch of 36 Rafale jets after holding talks with then French President Hollande on April 10, 2015 in Paris. "The French government is in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners who have been, are being, or will be selected by French companies," the French government said in its statement. The report in 'Mediapart' quoted Hollande as saying, "It was the Indian government that proposed this service group, and Dassault which negotiated with Ambani. We had no choice, we took the interlocutor who was given to us." Reacting to Hollande's remarks, a defence ministry spokesman said, "It is reiterated that neither the government nor the French government had any say in the commercial decision." NDTV reported that Hollande's office said he stood by his remarks made to Mediapart. Hollande's comments drew sharp reactions from the opposition parties which have been accusing the government of massive irregularities in the deal and benefiting Reliance Defence Ltd (RDL) despite not having any experience in the aerospace sector. "It is very important for the prime minister now to either accept Mr. Hollande's statement or state that Mr. Hollande is lying and tell what the truth is," Congress president Rahul Gandhi said. He also claimed that various defence ministers of the NDA government have been lying to protect Modi. "Why is the prime minister silent? It is a matter related to defence forces, it is a matter related to corruption," he said. In its statement, Dassault Aviation said it has decided to make a partnership with the Reliance Defence in accordance with the policy of 'Make in India'. "This offsets contract is delivered in compliance with the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) 2016 regulations. In this framework, and in accordance with the policy of Make in India, Dassault Aviation has decided to make a partnership with India's Reliance Group. This is Dassault Aviation's choice," the French company said. The French government said, "In accordance with India's acquisition procedure, French companies have the full freedom to choose the Indian partner companies that they consider to be the most relevant, then present for the Indian government's approval the offsets projects that they wish to execute in India with these local partners so as to fulfil their obligations in this regard." The Congress has been accusing massive irregularities in the deal, alleging that the government was procuring each aircraft at a cost of over Rs 1,670 crore as against Rs 526 crore finalised by the UPA government when it was negotiating procurement of 126 Rafale jets. The Congress has also alleged that the government was benefitting Reliance Defence through the deal as the company has set up a joint venture with Dassault Aviation to execute the offset obligation for the deal. Opposition parties have also alleged that Reliance Defence was formed only 12 days before the announcement of the Rafale deal by the prime minister on April 10, 2015. The Reliance group has rejected the charges. The French government said the inter-governmental agreement it signed with India for supplying 36 Rafale aircraft concerns its obligations solely with regard to ensuring the delivery and quality of the aircraft. "As it happens, agreements have already been signed by French companies with many Indian firms, both public and private, under the framework of Indian laws," the statement said. The Congress has also been demanding answers from the government on why state-run aerospace major HAL was not involved in the deal as finalised during the UPA. Under India's offset policy, foreign defence entities are mandated to spend at least 30 per cent of the total contract value in India through procurement of components or setting up of research and development facilities. Attending the signing ceremony were Japanese Ambassador to Vietnam Umeda Kunio, VJU Founding Rector Furuta Motoo, Director of the National University Hanoi Nguyen Kim Son, and ANA Holdings representatives. Under the agreement, VJU and ANA Holdings will share knowledge in areas related to aviation operation and corporate management. The two sides will cooperate in research and public relations activities to improve brand value via events hosted by them. In addition, ANA Holdings will collaborate with VJU in symposiums and seminars held by the university. As a public tertiary education establishment under the National University Hanoi, VJU is a symbol for the Vietnam-Japan strategic partnership. The university opened the first master training course on September 9, 2016. It is offering two-year master training under Japanese model in such majors as regional research, public policy, corporate management, environmental technology, nano technology, infrastructure technique, climate change and development. Vietnamnews CBIRC pledges a partly crackdown and partly support approach in the governance of off-balance sheet financing. Photo: Caixin While continuing tight controls on financial risks, Chinas banking regulator signaled that policymakers may loosen constraints on off-balance sheet financing in certain circumstances. In the face of slowing growth and an escalating trade war that have spurred a shift toward more pro-growth policies, regulators are paying close attention to changes in Chinas total outstanding social financing without loosening strict supervision, said Xiao Yuanqi, China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commissions (CBIRC) spokesperson, at a press conference Friday. We will not relax our efforts to ensure that financial risks are effectively controlled and maintain financial stability, while maintaining financial support for the real economy at the same time, Xiao said. In the governance of off-balance sheet financing, Xiao said the CBIRC has always taken a partly crackdown and partly support approach. For off-balance sheet financing that directly supports the real economy, regulators would encourage and regulate the development, Xiao said. Crackdowns would focus on off-balance sheet financing through the channeling business, he said. In channeling, banks, companies and high-net-worth individuals invest customer deposits or their own cash in high-yield products via channels which are usually nonbank vehicles such as trusts to achieve higher returns. Nearly 80% of the decline in trust loans so far this year has been in the channeling business, but non-channeling trust loans increased in line with regulators goal, Xiao said. Annual growth in Chinas outstanding total social financing, which includes off-balance sheet financing, slowed to 9.8% in June, the lowest on record, data from the central bank showed. The growth in total social financing rose slightly in July and August, but much of the credit growth came from a sharp rise in banks short-term bill financing, showing that banks are still reluctant to extend loans to businesses. Adding to signs of fading credit confidence, an increase in formal bank lending has barely compensated for shrinking off-balance sheet shadow loans, which have been an important source of funds for cash-starved private companies because they cannot obtain financing through regular bank loans or bonds. Combined trust loans, entrusted loans and undiscounted bankers' acceptances, which are common forms of shadow banking finance, fell by 267.4 billion yuan in August from a year earlier, following a slide of 1.75 trillion yuan in the first seven months, data from the central bank showed. In recent months, with U.S. tariffs threatening to add pressure on Chinas already slowing growth, the government has been ramping up infrastructure spending and loosening monetary policy. In July, Chinas central bank injected 502 billion yuan ($73.9 billion) of cash into the banking system through loans to commercial banks, a move to encourage banks to increase lending to small companies and invest in corporate bonds. The State Council, Chinas cabinet, also unveiled a pro-growth package in July, including a 1.35 trillion yuan spending plan for local government infrastructure projects. Two of the trains that will be used on the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link stand in Hong Kong on Aug. 2, 2017. Photo: VCG (Hong Kong) Hong Kong has officially opened its high-speed rail connection to the Chinese mainland, concluding a long planning and construction process filled with delays and controversy. The city is entering a new era with the completion of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link (XRL), Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said Saturday at the opening ceremony for the rail links final 26-kilometer (16.2-mile) Hong Kong section at the West Kowloon rail station. After the ceremony, Lam along with other guests boarded an XRL train to Guangzhou, the capital of neighboring Guangdong province. The first trains carrying paying passengers will begin running Sunday. The XRL cuts travel times between Hong Kong and Guangzhou down to 48 minutes from the previous two hours, according to Hong Kongs Transport and Housing Bureau. Rail journeys to Beijing will now take nine hours, compared to 24 hours by conventional train, now that Hong Kong is plugged into the Chinese mainlands extensive high-speed rail network. But the rail links journey to completion has been far from smooth. Planning began in 2008 on the XRL, whose setbacks over the years have included budget overruns and local residents protests. Opposition to the XRLs immigration and customs arrangement, which gives mainland immigration officers enforcement powers within a section of the city-center West Kowloon terminus, sparked demonstrations and a legal debate in which some argued the arrangement violated Hong Kongs Basic Law, the citys mini-constitution. The project also drew the ire of local villagers when it was revealed early on that Choi Yuen Tsuen (also known as Tsoi Yuen Tsuen), an agricultural community in Hong Kongs New Territories district, would be demolished and its residents relocated to make way for the rail link. Residents protested as government engineers and police officers arrived to reclaim village land in 2010, the South China Morning Post reported at the time. The XRLs completion date was pushed back several times because of unforeseen delays, including flooding in March 2014 that severely damaged tunneling equipment. Just a week before its opening date, the rail link survived Typhoon Mangkhut, which smashed windows and shook skyscrapers across Hong Kong. Costs have also ballooned beyond the original 2010 budget of HK$65 billion ($8.3 billion), reaching an estimated HK$84.4 billion as of June 2017, according to figures provided by the citys MTR Corp., which oversaw construction and operations. The Express Rail Link has also divided Hong Kongers over whether it will bring any benefit to the city. As many as 109,200 passengers are expected to use the XRL daily, with ticket prices ranging from HK$80 for a one-way trip from Hong Kong to Shenzhen Futian Railway Station to HK$260 for a trip to Guangzhou. Around 230,000 XRL tickets for trips on the Hong Kong section have already been sold, Frank Chan, the citys Secretary for Transport and Housing, told reporters Saturday. The Express Rail Link gives me a faster transport method, saving me a lot of time, said August Chen, a Hong Kong resident working in wealth management who travels to Guangzhou several times a month. I plan to try it this month. But Ivy Sun, an executive assistant at a Hong Kong-based company, said that the usefulness of the XRL really depends on where you live in Hong Kong, and that the high speed railway may be more beneficial for (travel to) cities that are not so close to Hong Kong, as multiple attractive options already exist for Hong Kong residents wanting to go to Shenzhen or other cities in Guangdong. The XRLs opening comes as China plans to integrate the neighboring special administrative regions of Macau and Hong Kong with Guangdongs cities into a Greater Bay Area. Another transport link, the 26.9-kilometer-long bridge linking Hong Kong, Macau and the mainland city of Zhuhai, is set to open later this year. The bridge will be the worlds longest over sea. Contact reporter Teng Jing Xuan (jingxuanteng@caixin.com) KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) Hundreds of solemn people watched Friday as body after body was pulled from a capsized ferry that Tanzanian authorities said was badly overcrowded and upended in the final stretch before reaching shore. The death toll was above 130 but horrified witnesses feared that would rise as a second day of searching neared an end. "This is a great disaster for our nation," President John Magufuli said. He announced four days of national mourning and urged calm in the East African country with a history of deadly maritime disasters. And he ordered arrests of all responsible as a criminal investigation began. In a televised address, the president said the ferry captain already had been detained after leaving the steering to someone who wasn't properly trained, The Citizen newspaper reported. The MV Nyerere's capacity was 101 people but the ferry had been overloaded when it capsized Thursday afternoon, the government's Chief Secretary John Kijazi told reporters. At least 40 people had been rescued, he said, but the number on Friday barely rose. Dozens of security forces and volunteers wearing gloves and face masks had resumed work at daybreak after suspending efforts overnight, hauling bodies into wooden boats. "More than 200 people are feared dead," based on accounts from fishermen and other witnesses, because passengers had been returning from a busy market day, Tanzania Red Cross spokeswoman Godfrida Jola told The Associated Press. "But no one knows" just how many people were on board. It was obvious that more bodies were trapped in the overturned ferry, the president said, according to The Citizen report. He said even the cargo far exceeded the 25 tons allowed. Tanzanian ferries often carry hundreds of passengers and are overcrowded, and shifts in weight as people move to disembark can become deadly. Images from the scene showed the ferry's exposed underside not far from shore. Bodies were lined up on plastic sheeting as hundreds of people pressed near the water's edge, watching the search efforts. Pope Francis, the United Nations secretary-general, Russian President Vladimir Putin and a number of African leaders expressed shock and sorrow. "His Holiness Pope Francis expresses his heartfelt solidarity with those who mourn the loss of their loved ones and who fear for the lives of those still missing," the condolence telegram said, according to the Vatican. The MV Nyerere, named for the former president who led the East African nation to independence, was traveling between the islands of Ukara and Ukerewe when it sank, according to the government agency in charge of servicing the vessels. Worried residents on Friday waited for any word of survivors. "We try to make calls to friends, relatives," a local guide, Paschal Phares, told the AP. He recalled how crowded his trip on the aging ferry had been last month: "Most of us were standing up. It was full." Accidents are often reported on the large freshwater lake surrounded by Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda. Some of the deadliest have occurred in Tanzania, where passenger boats are often said to be old and in poor condition. In 1996, more than 800 people died when passenger and cargo ferry MV Bukoba sank on Lake Victoria. Nearly 200 people died in 2011 when the MV Spice Islander I sank off Tanzania's Indian Ocean coast near Zanzibar. news, latest-news ACT Opposition leader Alistair Coe has been questioned about his bill for an anti-corruption commission and how it could effect witnesses' right to professional legal privilege protection with their lawyers. Mr Coe was the first witness before the Legislative Assembly's new inquiry into the anti-corruption commission proposal, which is examining both his bill and the government's exposure draft for the planned commission. The inquiry is expected to be a swift one, in order to finalise recommendations for a final bill expected to come back before the Assembly for debate before the end of the year, so the government can start setting up the commission next year. While both bills are largely similar, they differ in some key aspects, including measures surrounding the way the commission would handle witnesses' rights to legal professional privilege over information they gave to, and advice sought from, their lawyers. The issue has been highlighted in a raft of cases before interstate anti-corruption bodies, as various governments attempt to find a balance between ensuring a commission has powers to fully investigate corruption allegations, while trying to maintain the right to privilege. It also can further complicate matters for prosecutions that may stem from a corruption inquiry, as evidence gained by the commission under information-gathering powers, potentially including privileged documents, may not be able to be used in future prosecution proceedings. During Friday's hearing, Labor MLA Chris Steel raised concerns Mr Coe's bill may raise human rights implications given it would give the commission power to compel privileged documents from witnesses and their lawyers. The issue was canvassed in the initial committee inquiry, where the committee urged the government to ensure any enabling laws included mechanisms to guard against such powers being abused, "including safeguards toavoid any unwarranted violation of personal rights of a person under investigation". To that end, the government's draft included a section ensuring that witnesses before the proposed commission could essentially appeal any incursion on legal privilege, making it the purview of a Supreme Court Justice to hand down a final decision on whether the commission's application to access such information should be allowed. But Mr Coe's bill does not include such a safeguard, prompting Mr Steel to ask why, and whether the Opposition had considered potential human rights implications. Mr Coe told the committee he believed the commission should not be held to the same standard as courts, given it was essentially a body to establish facts, and while it could be abused, he believed the Assembly needed to have faith in any appointed commissioner, given they would need to be a lawyer of high standing. "I've got no problem in [witnesses] seeking legal advice, but there is a real risk that if somebody is seeking legal advice, it could be used as a get out for the commission doing its job," he said. "And all that would lead to is the very issues the commission investigating going straight into court, which is what we're trying to avoid." He was also asked why the bill did not seem to keep complainants as informed of investigations, to which he said he believed the commission would operate similar to the audit office, which engages in scant external communication about its investigations to complainants. Mr Coe was also asked about the bill's measures surrounding public hearings, which his bill would make a 'default position' for the commission, essentially the reverse onus compared to the government's exposure draft. The inquiry continues. /images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/335102ed-7fc7-40a8-b8af-aba5452f42f7/r0_303_5235_3261_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg 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. Our Promise: Welcome to Care2, the world's largest community for good. Here, you'll find over 45 million like-minded people working towards progress, kindness, and lasting impact. Care2 Stands Against: bigots, racists, bullies, science deniers, misogynists, gun lobbyists, xenophobes, the willfully ignorant, animal abusers, frackers, and other mean people. If you find yourself aligning with any of those folks, you can move along, nothing to see here. Care2 Stands With: humanitarians, animal lovers, feminists, rabble-rousers, nature-buffs, creatives, the naturally curious, and people who really love to do the right thing. You are our people. You Care. We Care2. Standardbred Canada is pleased to announce that the Ontario Sires Stakes will sponsor the 'Win A Share in A Racehorse' contest for the second consecutive year in conjunction with the London Selected Yearling Sale on October 13 and 14. The contest winner will receive a share in Landmark 12 Stable (Value: $2,000) which will include at least one Ontario-sired horse. Ballots will be available at the Welcome Centre to prospective owners at the London Selected Yearling Sale all day Saturday and Sunday. The draw will be made after the sale and the winner will be notified on Monday, October 15. Last year, Susan Johnson, of Waterdown, Ont., won the share in Landmark 11 after receiving a ballot at Mohawks New Owner Seminar which she attended with a friend, Dave Pawlik. Pawlik had taken part in the SBOAs Mentoring group but hadnt owned any horses since the time theyd met. He was thinking about getting involved again, decided to attend the seminar and Susan went along for the ride. I had never been to any horse racing event until September 2016. I found it to be very interesting. The horses are beautiful and of course because I did not know anything about racing I chose horses I thought would win by their names. That of course did not work out too well. I now know a bit more but have lots to learn, explained Johnson, who works in the health care sector for the provincial government. Landmark 11 Stables two-year-olds in 2018 included Parlay Seelster, Love For Life, Rap Royalty, In The Will and Dare To Share. LandMark is a fractional ownership group stable that provides an opportunity for people to own multiple Standardbred race horses for a very modest investment of $2,000 per share. LandMark 12 will purchase a percentage of several yearlings at this years sales which will be selected, trained and raced by Ontario-based trainer Mark Steacy. Shareholders receive no bills for the first 12 months. The LSYS takes place on October 13 and 14 at the Metroland Media Agriplex at the Western Fair District in London, Ontario. Click here to view the pedigrees and videos of the yearlings offered for auction over the two-day sale. *Entry is available to any resident of Ontario, 18 years of age and over, who has never owned a Standardbred, or resided in the same household as someone who owned a Standardbred.Contest is not open to employees or officials of Standardbred Canada, Ontario Racing, OLG, or any Ontario racetrack. (Video provided by OLG) With pregnancy rumors at an all-time high, many wonder what Prince Harry and Meghan Markles children will be like. It is likely they will follow in Prince Williams and Kate Middletons footsteps when it comes to their parenting style. But, one thing sets their children apart from their niece and nephews: They could have dual citizenship. Will Meghan Markle and Prince Harrys kids be American? Keep reading to find out. Is Meghan Markle a British citizen? Despite being members of the royal family, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry still have to play by some commoner rules. That includes citizenship. As an American citizen living in the United Kingdom, Meghan Markle had to obtain a visa for her to live in the country. And, according to a BBC interview with Prince Harrys communication secretary, she is treated like everyone else applying for citizenship. To receive a visa in the United Kingdom, Prince Harry had to prove he makes a minimum salary of $20,000 per year or have over $21,000 for his wife to be eligible for the visa. That said, as a member of royalty, that likely was not an issue. Also, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex probably had to prove their relationship was real. And while a state official likely didnt need much convincing, its not uncommon for couples applying for a visa to prove their relationship through photos, emails, text conversations, and other documents. There is no word on whether Harry and Meghan had to do this, but given they followed the same rules as commoners, its possible. Before the royal wedding, Meghan likely applied for a fiance visa, which allowed her to live in the country before their wedding. The catch? The royal couple had to get married within six months which they did. Following their wedding, the couple probably applied for a family visa, which allows Meghan to live and work in the United Kingdom before becoming a British citizen. And, according to BBC, it could be five years or longer before that happens. Will Meghan Markle renounce her American citizenship? To become a British citizen, Meghan Markle will have to complete a Life in the U.K. test. That includes 24 questions some of which are about the royal family and takes around 45 minutes. She must also have lived in the United Kingdom for at least three years, which shouldnt be an issue given that shes a member of the royal family. Meghan Markle could still keep her American citizenship. There arent any royal family rules that say otherwise. However, she could also renounce her American citizenship. And, while there is no word on whether or not she will, theres a good reason to. According to Investopedia, if Meghan keeps her United States citizenship, the IRS would require her to report her worldwide income. Not only does this mean she could still have to pay taxes in the United States, it means the IRS would learn valuable information about the royal familys finances. That alone is a reason to renounce her citizenship. Will Meghan Markle and Prince Harrys kids be American? There are no rules against Meghan Markle and Prince Harrys kids having dual citizenship. However, if they have dual citizenship as children, they could later renounce their citizenship. Similar to their mother, the IRS could require them to report their income. Royal expert Marlene Koenig told Town & Country, I would expect that when they reach adulthood, they could go through the process of renouncing. People do it all the time, many for tax purposes. The U.S. may be the only country that taxes the income of citizens who live outside the country. Because of that and the fact that the IRS would have information on the royal familys finances Meghan Markle and Prince Harrys children might not ever become dual citizens. Check out The Cheat Sheet on Facebook! Even when Friends first debuted in 1994, fans had a big question. How did the shows main characters end up with such an amazing apartment in a desirable neighborhood in Manhattan? Especially because they never seemed to have lucrative jobs? The story was that it was Monicas apartment, located in Manhattans West Village. Monica inherited a rent-controlled lease from her grandmother. And she supposedly paid just $200 a month for the expansive, two-bedroom apartment. Too good to be true? We think so. Heres what that iconic apartment would be worth today, whether you wanted to rent or buy it. The Friends apartment was in the West Village TripleMint reports that the iconic Friends apartment was located at 90 Bedford Street in Greenwich Village. The show was actually filmed on a Warner Brothers set in Burbank. But the exterior shots of the apartment featured a real building located at 90 Bedford St. The apartment measures an estimated 1,125 square feet. And it was probably located on the third floor in the pre-war walkup. The apartment had two bedrooms, one bathroom, and an expansive living area. CNBC notes that the apartment was quite spacious for a two-bedroom. Estimates put it somewhere between 1,125 and 1,500 square feet. That alone makes it a coveted find. The average two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan, where space is at a premium, is just 975 square feet, according to real estate research company Yardi Matrix, CNBC explains. It was supposedly a rent-controlled apartment The show explained that Monica paid just $200 a month for the apartment. Thats because it was her grandmothers apartment that had been rent-stabilized since the 1940s. CNBC notes that the Friends crew held onto the apartment for a decade despite various bouts of unemployment and low-paying jobs. Most of the important Friends characters lived in the apartment at one point or another. But Monica and Rachel famously split the apartment, even though Rachel worked as a waitress for the first two seasons of the show. Even though the apartment was located in a walkup meaning that theres no elevator, a common situation that opened the proverbial door to antics such as Ross cutting a couch in half to get it up to his apartment the generous size of the apartment still makes its a highly desirable piece of real estate. So, as you might expect, it would have the price tag to match. Monica and Rachel couldnt have afforded the apartment in real life TripleMint reported in 2014 that a comparable apartment in the neighborhood would cost somewhere between $4,200 and $5,500 per month. Bustle estimated in 2015 that were talking in the $5,000/month range, at least, and thats if you get lucky. (The publication even found one comparable apartment in Greenwich Village that cost an eye-popping $14,000 per month.) In 2016, The New York Post reported that the apartment would cost at least $4,500 per month. The estimates that CNBC got in 2018 pushed the figure even higher. The median rental price for a two-bedroom apartment in the West Village is $4,500 per month, the publication noted. And an apartment of the same size as the Friends apartment and in the same location could cost a more realistic sum between $7,000 and $8,000 per month. That doesnt sound like something that any of the Friends crew could afford. They definitely could never have bought the apartment Many renters fantasize, at least occasionally, about buying the apartment where they live. But that would definitely have been out of reach for the Friends characters. CNBC reports that if you wanted to buy that fictional apartment today, it could easily cost around $2 million. Plus, there are a few factors that could make the apartment worth even more than $2 million to potential buyers. CNBC reports that the apartment could fetch an even higher price tag if it were renovated. And all bets are off if it were a condominium (as opposed to a co-op, where youre buying a share of the building rather than the physical unit). A condo could fetch a price 15 to 20% higher than the initial $2 million estimate. Not exactly attainable for a chef and a waitress. Its not common to inherit a rent-controlled lease, either Monica and Rachel couldnt have lived in the iconic Friends apartment if they had to pay market rates for it. The excuse that the apartment was rent-controlled works to explain the apartment to fans. But the situation has become pretty rare in New York City. Curbed notes that Rent control happens when a tenant has been living continuously in their apartment since July 1, 1971 yes, 1971 in a building constructed before 1947. Curbed also notes that in the 1950s, 2 million of the citys apartments were rent-controlled. Now, the city only has about 27,000 rent-controlled apartments. For Monica to get the lease, she would have had to demonstrate that she was already living in the apartment to get the rights to take over the tenancy. TV aficionados say that Friends rent control has become a TV trope. It not only appeals to audience fantasy but also conveniently excuses large sets that are easier to film in. The producers needed the apartment to be unrealistically large That brings us to our final point. The producers behind Friends probably found it a lot easier to film the show on a set depicting an unrealistically large apartment than they would have if theyd been filming on a smaller set. Free Tours by Foot which tells Friends fans how to get to the building that was featured in the exterior shots of the apartment notes that the people behind the show knew that the apartment was unrealistic. The writers and producers said the apartment needed to be large so the audience could see what the actors were doing. The publication explains, Friends was filmed in front of a live studio audience. Action and conversations had to be visible to the audience, so the floor plan of the apartment was wide open and large it looked nothing like a typical New York City apartment. Read more: Why Matthew Perry Says He Isnt Interested in a Friends Reunion Check out The Cheat Sheet on Facebook! The eruption has affected nearly 1.7 million people. More than 3,200 people were evacuated from the villages that were affected the most and were settled in the nine temporary shelters that have been set up. Mt. Carmel Veterans Service Center expands to Pueblo Mt. Carmel Veterans Service Center provides employment services, behavioral health services and other resources. It recently expanded to Pueblo. The $890,000 Metro Pace for two-year-old pacers headlines a $1.9 million card this Saturday at Woodbine Mohawk Park. The $590,000 Shes A Great Lady for two-year-old pacing fillies and the $255,000 Milton Stakes for pacing mares will also take place on Saturdays stakes card. This years Metro Pace purse of $890,000 will be the third-highest purse for a horse race in Canada during 2018, trailing only the $1 million Pepsi North America Cup and $1 million Queens Plate. The undefeated Captain Ahab (PP4) will be looking to repeat history for his trainer Tony Alagna and sire Captaintreacherous. The $100,000 Lexington Selected Yearling Sale purchase is seven for seven and the looking to mimic his sire, who won the 2012 Metro Pace in a stakes record-equalling 1:49.2. Driver Andrew McCarthy will sit behind Captain Ahab, the 9-5 morning-line choice, searching for the biggest win of his career. The 32-year-old driver from Down Under has 2,092 wins and $35 million in career earnings. Captain Ahab captured his elimination last Saturday in 1:50.4 by rushing to the top in the second-quarter from fourth and pacing a :55.4 back-half (:28 final-quarter) to secure the victory. The Metro Pace has been the target for trainer Alagna with Captain Ahab, who arrived at Mohawk Park in late-July for the Dream Maker and will be making his sixth start at the Campbellville oval on Saturday. Trainer Casie Coleman will be searching for her second Metro title on Saturday with Bettors Delight colt Stag Party (PP3). A $125,000 Harrisburg yearling purchase, Stag Party came first-up in his elimination and powered to a career-best 1:51 victory. The Ontario sired standout has won five of seven starts heading into the Metro. Colemans first Metro victory came back in 2009 with Sportswriter, who established a new event record of 1:49.2. Driver David Miller, who earlier this week captured his fifth Little Brown Jug, will sit behind Stag Party and is seeking his first Metro title. Stag Party, a winner of $197,489, is owned by John Fielding, Mac Nichol, McKinlay & Fielding and West Wins Stable. The $890,000 Metro Pace has been carded as Race 9. Saturday night could be a big night for the duo of McCarthy and Alagna, who also team up with 3-1 morning-line choice Tall Drink Hanover (PP4) in the $590,000 Shes A Great Lady. A daughter of Captaintreacherous, Tall Drink Hanover paced home in :26.3 to win her elimination in a career-best 1:51.2. The $35,000 Harrisburg yearling buy has won four of seven starts, including a division of the Eternal Camnation and final of the Whenuwishuponastar Series. Alagna will send a power trio in the Shes A Great Lady, as Tall Drink Hanover joins Treacherous Reign (PP1, Yannick Gingras) and Odds On St Lucie (PP8, Brett Miller). Ideation Hanover is the other elimination winner in Saturdays final and will start from post-two for driver Jody Jamieson and trainer Dave Menary. A daughter of Bettors Delight, Ideation Hanover converted off a two-hole trip for a 10-1 upset in 1:51.2. The $50,000 Harrisburg yearling purchase has never missed the board in eight starts, reaching the winners circle three-times. The Shes A Great Lady, featuring a field of nine, is carded as Race 5. Rookie pacers wont be the only stars Saturday, as a deep field of 10 pacing mares will duel in the $255,000 Milton Stakes. Sticking with the trend from the rookie events, McCarthy will drive another morning-line favourite in the Milton, sitting behind dominating elimination winner Caviart Ally (PP5). Trained by Noel Daley, Caviart Ally went coast-to-coast in her elimination for a career-best 1:48.3 victory. The daughter of Bettors Delight is five for 13 this season and is inching towards $1 million in career earnings. The Milton final doesnt expect to be a walk in the park for Caviart Ally, as the field also includes stars Tequila Monday (PP2, B. Miller), Nike Franco N (PP3, Matt Kakaley), L A Delight (PP4, Randy Waples), Bettors Up (PP6, Doug McNair) and Pure Country (PP10, Gingras). The Milton Stakes has been carded as Race 7. Post time for the Metro Pace card is 7:10 p.m. (Woodbine Mohawk Park) 10 New Testament Evidences for the Divinity of Jesus Christ Christian Examiner Contributor | 22 September, 2018 by Dr. Christopher Cone There are many evidences for the divinity of Jesus, both in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and the Greek New Testament, but these are just a few examples that point us toward the understanding that Jesus is not simply a historical figure, a good teacher, or a prophet. He is much more than that! #1: The Word John 1:1 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Jesus was in the beginning (He had no beginning), He was with God, and He was God. The grammatical structure of the passage supports the idea that Jesus was the Word, and that He was God, but that He was not the Father or the Spirit, as both persons are distinguished clearly from Jesus (e.g., John 15:9, 26). While the concept of the triune God, or the trinity is prevalent in the New Testament, it is not simply a New Testament concept, as it is found in Old Testament as well (e.g., Isaiah 48:12, 16). #2: The Image of the Invisible God Colossians 1:15-17 "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authoritiesall things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together." That He is the firstborn of all creation means that He is sovereign over creation, not that He is the first created thing. Notice the parallel reference to Jesus as the firstborn from the dead in 1:18. Clearly this shows His sovereignty over death, as the one conquering death. The passage is not indicating that He was the first to die. #3: Our Great God and Savior Titus 2:13 "Looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus..." The genitives in this passage are all singular. The God and Savior are the same person, according to Paul. The reference to Jesus as God and Savior is repeated in Titus 3:4-6. Christ is called "our Savior." #4: My Lord and My God John 20:28 Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!" Thomas' great exclamation includes two nominative substantives joined by the conjunction and (kai). Jesus acknowledges that Thomas had "seen Me." Thomas worships Jesus as God, and Jesus accepts it (blasphemy if not true). #5 Before Abraham Was, I Am John 8:56, 58 "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad...Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am." Jesus claimed to interact personally with Abraham, then He claimed the name "I AM," (ego eimi), which was the title God used when speaking with Moses from the burning bush (Exodus 3:14). Those listening to Jesus understood that Jesus was claiming to be God, and they picked up stones to stone Him for blasphemy (John 8:59). #6 The Lord and Savior Jesus Christ 2 Peter 3:18 "...but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen." Genitives are singular, Lord and Savior are equated, and Jesus is identified as both. Peter repeats this formula several times, first referring to Jesus as God and Savior (2 Peter 1:1), and then four times identifying Jesus as Lord and Savior (1:11, 2:20, 3:2, 3:18). In this last reference, Peter worships Jesus as God, which is blasphemy against God if not true. #7 The First and the Last Revelation 22:13 "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end." Jesus claimed the title of God from Isaiah 48:12, a context in which "the first and the last" refers to only one person, the creator of all. #8 The Christ, The Son of God Matthew 16:16 "Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." While there are many references to sons (plural) of God, John tells us that God had one son who was unique (John 3:16). Peter calls Him the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matthew 16:16), and Jesus responds that what Peter said was true, and that it was from the Father. Even the high priest later acknowledged that the Christ would be the Son of God. This "only begotten Son" (John 3:16) was not a son by origin He wasn't born in the sense that He began to exist. He existed prior to His human birth, and was said to have existed even before all things were created (John 1:1, Colossians 1:16-17). #9 The Exact Representation of His Nature Hebrews 1:3a "And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power." Jesus is, literally, the character of the essence of God. This exact representation is called the Son of God (1:5), He is to be worshipped by angels (1:6), and He is called God (1:8). #10 Existed in the Form of God Philippians 2:6 "...who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped..." Jesus existed in the morphe of God, had equality with Him, but was willing to empty Himself (of His glory), humbling Himself to become a man, obedient, and to die on a cross (Philippians 2:7-8). As a result, every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord (2:11). Dr. Christopher Cone, Th.D, Ph.D, Ph.D, serves as President of Calvary University and as Research Professor of Bible and Theology. He has formerly served in executive and faculty roles at Southern California Seminary as Chief Academic Officer and Research Professor of Bible and Theology, and at Tyndale Theological Seminary as President and Professor of Bible and Theology. He has served in several pastoral roles and has also held teaching positions at the University of North Texas, North Central Texas College, and Southern Bible Institute. He is the author and general editor of more than a dozen books, and his articles are published at http://www.drcone.com. Christopher lives in the Kansas City area with his wife Cathy, and their two daughters, Christiana, and Cara Grace. Franklin Graham Blackpool 'Festival of Hope' Brings Gospel Message, LGBT Protests in UK 22 September, 2018 by Victor Wilson , | Franklin Graham praised God for his harvest of new believers after the first night of his three-day Blackpool, Lancashire "Festival of Hope" on Friday amidst LGBT protests. "We had a great first night at Lancashire #FestivalofHope!" shared Graham on social media Friday. "I shared with the people of Blackpool that God loves them so much that He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, from Heaven to this earth to die for their sins," he continued. "I'm thankful for all those who made the decision to put their faith and trust in Christ tonightthe best decision of their lives!" According to The Christian Post, LGBT demonstrators flew rainbow flags in the city in protest after failing to have Graham's visa revoked prior to the event, which continues through Sunday, September 23, due to his "inflammatory views" towards Muslims and LGBT people. On Thursday, ahead of the event, Graham compared his visit to Blackpool to his father's 1982 visit. He wrote on Facebook, "I'm glad to be in Blackpool, England, to preach the Gospel at the invitation of 200 area churches. This morning I went down to the historic Blackpool Tower where my father Billy Graham stood back in 1982 when he came here to preach." "Will you pray this weekend, that many will turn to Jesus Christ and find the hope and peace that only He can give?" he asked. Despite the protests, including reports that the Blackpool Tower will display rainbow-colored lights in opposition to Graham's visit, and prior hurdles such as Blackpool Transport's decision to pull "Festival of Hope" bus ads and subsequent apology to the LGBT community for running the ads in the first place, Graham hopes "God will move greatly during the evangelistic event." "My message will be the simple Gospel message: a timeless message of God's hope, love and redemption for all people," Graham said in a statement Friday. "Regardless of the hostility, I plan to preach the Word of God in Blackpool." In 2020, we were the church on our heels. A global pandemic shut down much of our world. But the church has been on the move since it was birthed; it will continue to be on the move until God makes all things new. Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Terry Gross, the host of NPR's Fresh Air, has been taking advantage of the good weather during the summer months to wage a war on Christianity. We will see whether the assault slows down for winter, but I am writing just days before the official start of autumn and there is no sign of any change of tactics yet. Today (18 September) it was an interview with Linda Kay Klein, the author of Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement that Shamed a Generation of Women and How I Broke Free. In truth, however, every time Gross addresses evangelicalism, the theme is: I once was a conservative Christian, realized the movement was sinister and oppressive, and now I'm an ex-evangelical who has broken free. I have a day job and do not listen to Fresh Air regularly, so I am not able to provide an exhaustive list. Highlights, however, include the episodes on The Miseducation of Cameron Post (18 and 25 July) which were about how evangelicalism is sinisterly wrong and oppressive. Michael Arceneaux's I Can't Date Jesus a few days earlier (23 July), on the other hand, was about how conservative Christianity is sinisterly wrong and oppressive. A week and a half before that it was another breaking free story: "An Evangelical Minister's Change of Heart on Abortion" (11 July). To come back closer to the present, 14 August was on Karen Piper's memoir, A Girl's Guide to Missiles. Gross found the escaping-evangelicalism part of her story particularly worth probing. Imagine if the only people who were ever allowed to discuss living in Iowa on NPR were people who grew up there, found the place stifling and toxic, and left angrily, determined never to return. That is what it is like to listen to Terry Gross on Christianity. Admittedly, the one that got away was an opening skirmish in this summer's campaign: her interview on the film First Reformed with its director, Paul Schrader (12 June). Gross was under the impression that Schrader was an ex-Christian and was excited to settle into a good, old-fashioned, breaking-free-from-religion narrative. Schrader dutifully explained that he had once been a member of a Christian Reformed Church but that he is now a Presbyterian. Let's just say that going from one Calvinist denomination to another was not exactly the tale of liberation the presenter was hoping for. Part of the compelling nature of Gross's work is her sympathetic style. She talks to people about the phase of their life when they were a drug dealer, or sex worker, or enforcer for the mob, or whatever without the least hint of judgment in her voice. She is just all curiosity and openness blended with a certain urbane knowingness regarding the many ways that people get through life. But Schrader and his co-guest, the star of First Reformed, Ethan Hawke, were just too much. Gross was noticeably uncomfortable with how comfortable they were with their Christianity. She even wondered aloud if asking people what church they go to is too personal a question. This is strange on more than one front. First, when does Terry Gross ever worry about a question being too personal? Second, how could someone not know that going to church is a public act not a secret fact? For all her visceral dislike of evangelicalism, it is not even clear that Gross knows what it is. Today she kept referring to leaving "the Evangelical Church" as if it were an organization rather than movement. Does Gross grasp that, for instance, a local Episcopal or United Methodist congregation might happen to be evangelical? Fresh Air, although it defaults to artists and entertainers, seems to cover all of human life leaders in politics, science, technology, business, activism, and so on. The one exception is faith leaders. When did Terry Gross ever interview a Christian leader who was there to represent rather than criticize their faith community? Indeed, Fresh Air somehow never manages to interview anyone who is a current, content member of any expression of historic or traditional Christianity. (Schrader was the exception that proved the rule.) Evangelical identity is only operationalized on NPR if it seems to be furthering some threatening political or social agenda. Waves upon waves of evangelicals often literally in church vans show up, for instance, after hurricanes to do disaster relief, but it would never occur to anyone at NPR to identify them as evangelicals or to make the connection between their activism and their faith. Gross was particularly baffled by Hawke's fond memories of going on mission trips with his church youth group. Gross knows that "missions" are a bad thing, but Hawke was not describing something that sounded sinisterly wrong and oppressive but rather kind, helpful, and benign. Evangelicals as evangelicals simply do not exist unless they are being caught in the act of doing something presumed to be harmful. The evangelical community in America is so large that NPR is confident that it can swing national elections. Yet, in all seriousness, I ask: does a single evangelical work for NPR? Does Terry Gross know well even one evangelical? Maybe it is time to let in some fresh air. Timothy Larsen teaches theology at Wheaton College, and is the author, most recently of John Stuart Mill: A Secular Life (Oxford University Press). The views expressed in this article are solely his own. A guide to suzani textiles Christies Islamic Art specialist Xavier Fournier explains all you need to know about these exquisite embroidered panels What is a suzani? A suzani is a large, hand-embroidered textile panel; the word comes from the Persian word suzan, which means needle. Originating from nomadic tribes in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries, suzanis have become highly collectable and valued for their beautiful decoration and fine craftsmanship. A suzani, Nurata district, Uzbekistan, early 19th century. Rectangular form, embroidered with central floral star motif, ewer flanked with birds, borders with floral blooms interspersed with floral quatrefoils within a diamond leaf lattice, modern-backed. 80 x 58 in (205.2 x 149.2 cm). Sold for 7,500 at Arts & Textiles of the Islamic & Indian Worlds, April 2017, London, South Kensington When do suzanis date from? The rigours of a nomadic lifestyle daily use in a yurt and exposure to the elements during migration were not conducive to the preservation of textiles. This means it is rather unusual to find old suzanis, and the oldest surviving examples are from the late 18th and early 19th centuries. However, its likely they were in use long before that. In the early 15th century, Ruy Gonzales de Clavijo, the Castilian ambassador to the court of Timur (Tamerlane), wrote detailed descriptions of embroidered textiles that were probably forerunners of the suzani. A suzani, Shakhrisabz area, Uzbekistan, mid-19th century. Rectangular form, central field with repeating garnet and blue floral sprays, border with dense floral frieze with flower, with original backing. 100 x 74 in (254 x 188 cm). Sold for 26,250 at Arts & Textiles of the Islamic & Indian Worlds, April 2017, London, South Kensington How was the suzani originally used? The primary use of a suzani was within the yurt (a Central Asian nomadic tent), as a protective wrapping panel for textiles and belongings. They were also used as prayer mats, as bed sheets and for seating pieces of furniture are seldom found in yurts, because they are cumbersome to move. Suzanis had a symbolic significance, too. They were traditionally made by brides and their mothers as part of a dowry, and presented to the groom on his wedding day. They represented the binding together of two families, and were adorned with symbols of luck, health, long life and fertility. A suzani, probably Bukhara, Uzbekistan, 19th Century. 93 3/4 x 75 1/4in (238.4 x 191.2cm). Estimate: 3,000-5,000. Offered in the Art of the Islamic and Indian Worlds Including Oriental Rugs and Carpets 25 October 2018 at Christies in London A suzani, Samarkand, Uzbekistan, 19th Century. 108 3/4 x 74 1/2in (276.4 x 189.2cm) Estimate: 3,000-5,000. Offered in the Art of the Islamic and Indian Worlds Including Oriental Rugs and Carpets 25 October 2018 at Christies in London How are suzanis made? Suzanis are made from cotton, sometimes silk. The pattern is first drawn onto the cotton, before being embroidered on narrow portable looms. They are usually produced in two or more pieces, meaning that they can be worked on by more than one person, before being stitched together. Just four stitches tambour, basma, chain and kanda-khayol are used to realise a large variety of patterns, which traditionally include the sun and moon, flowers and creepers of the Asian steppes, leaves and vines, fruits (especially pomegranates), and occasionally fish and birds. These motifs were believed to imbue the suzanis with spiritual powers, offering protection or strength to their owners. Which dyes are used? Suzanis are coloured with vegetal dyes, although some more recent pieces may use synthetic dyes, which are not considered to give the same intensity of hue. The natural dyes use imported indigo for blue, cochineal and imported madder for reds, saffron for yellow, a mix of indigo and a yellow tree fungus for green, and iron oxide and pistachio nuts for black. The dyeing process takes place in an outdoor vat, similar to those that can still be seen across the Maghreb. A suzani, Ura Tube region, Tajikistan, 1871. Near square form, embroidered decoration of foliate stems bearing floral buds radiating from central star motif framed with scrolling tendrils, borders with stylised foliate patterns, white embroidered Persian inscription in nasta'liq script. 109 x 89 in (277 x 227.5 cm). Sold for 5,250 at Arts & Textiles of the Islamic & Indian Worlds, April 2015, London, South Kensington Can design reveal the origins of a suzani? It is difficult to determine the geographical origins of particular suzanis, precisely because the cultures in which they were produced were nomadic. Uzbekistan, however, is considered a relatively certain centre of suzani production, and some motifs seem to be attached to certain regions in Central Asia. Suzanis feature a wide range of motifs. Bukhara textiles depict vines of serrated leaves and lattices of red-hued flowers. Fergana suzanis feature highly stylised floral patterns. Those from Pushkent are defined by crimson star medallions, while suzanis from Nurata feature naturalistic flowers. Ura-tepe textiles feature millefiori bound by serrated leaves and star-like medallions, while suzanis from Shakhrisabz are covered with flowers and vegetables in a broad range of colours. Finally there are suzanis from Tashkent, with large medallions arranged in rows with serrated borders. A suzani, Nurata region, Uzbekistan, early 19th Century. 88.3/4 in x 70 1/2 in (225.4 x 179cm). Estimate: 4,000-6,000. Offered in the Art of the Islamic and Indian Worlds Including Oriental Rugs and Carpets 25 October 2018 at Christies in London A suzani, Bukhara, Uzbekistan, 19th Century. 98 3/8 x 67in (250 x 170cm.). Estimate: 5,000-7,000. Offered in the Art of the Islamic and Indian Worlds Including Oriental Rugs and Carpets 25 October 2018 at Christies in London The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) have released their industry performance results for the first quarter of the 2018-2019 fiscal year. The executive summary is as follows: In the first three months of Fiscal Year 2018-19 (April 1-June 30, 2018), gross wagering on Ontario races decreased by 4.3% relative to the same period the prior year. This can be attributed to lower gross handle levels originating from outside of the Province of Ontario, largely tied to an appreciation of the Canadian dollar vis-a-vis the US dollar. The volume of betting tickets sold live, at racetracks across Ontario, saw a decline compared to the previous year (-7.9%), mostly driven by a notable reduction for Thoroughbreds (-15.8%). When normalizing for the number of races, the count of tickets sold live per race decreased by 6.3%. The Ontario horse racing industry experienced a minor horse supply setback compared to the first quarter of Fiscal Year 2017-18, driven by a lower number of unique starters supporting Standardbred racing. Conversely, Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse racing operations saw a higher supply of horses as demonstrated by an increasing number of unique starters and a lift in average field sizes in the first quarter of the year. The complete report can be found below, or via this link. More results will be made available by OLG officials as the fiscal year progresses. Seth Wenig, STF / Associated Press JPMorgan Chase & Co. is laying off 102 people in Houston as their tasks are reassigned to employees in another part of the country. The workers being let go have provided support to bank branches in the areas of workforce management as well as fraud and customer protection services, according to documents released Friday by the Texas Workforce Commission. In route news, a transpacific route from San Jose will end next week but a new one starts at Washington Dulles; KLM is coming to Las Vegas; Sun Country adds two San Francisco routes; Alaska Airlines plans extra capacity from the Bay Area for the Consumer Electronics Show; American will start to deploy reconfigured 787-8s; and Qantas hopes to claim the world's-longest-route crown. Just a reminder to San Jose travelers: Word came out last summer that Air China plans to discontinue its SJC-Shanghai Pudong non-stop service this fall, and that date is almost here. The carrier will stop flying the route on September 25, citing a reduction in aircraft due to maintenance of its Dreamliner fleet. Earlier this year, Air China had cut back frequencies on the route from three flights a week to two. Also on September 15, Cathay Pacific started flying to a new U.S. gateway, adding service from Hong Kong to Washington Dulles. Cathay uses a brand-new Airbus A350-1000 the newer, larger version of that widebody to operate four flights a week on the route. The aircraft has business class, premium economy and regular economy seating, and flights depart IAD on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays for the 17-hour, 8,153-statute mile journey. Delta joint venture partner KLM will add its 18th North American destination next summer when it starts flying from Amsterdam to Las Vegas. The new service will begin June 6 with two flights a week (Fridays and Sundays), increasing to three a week (adding a Tuesday flight) on July 2. The Dutch carrier will use a 294-passenger 787-9 Dreamliner with 30 seats in business class, 45 in Economy Comfort and 219 in regular economy. KLM Minneapolis/St. Paul-based Sun Country Airlines, a leisure-oriented airline that transformed itself into an ultra-low-cost operator last year, is adding a pair of seasonal routes from San Francisco International. On November 16, it will start flying twice a week (Mondays and Fridays) between SFO and Portland, Oregon; and on November 19, it will begin twice-weekly service (also Mondays and Fridays) between SFO and Palm Springs. Planning to attend the big Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January? Alaska Airlines tells us that in anticipation of a big bump in demand, it plans to operate a number of extra flights from San Francisco International and Mineta San Jose to Las Vegas between January 7-11 a total of 40 extra Bay Area flights with an additional 6,000 seats. The airline is also adding more frequencies to LAS from Los Angeles International and from Seattle during the week of the CES. As American Airlines continues to deploy new premium economy seating on its twin-aisle international fleet, it is moving beyond its 777s and starting on its 787-8s, which are tentatively scheduled to start operating with the new configuration next spring. The installation of 28 premium economy seats on the Dreamliners will mean the removal of eight business class seats, shrinking that cabin to 20 seats. Premium economy is now available on 87 of American's widebodies, and should be on 124 by mid-2019. According to Routesonline.com, the overhauled 787-8s will be deployed gradually starting on May 2 of next year. They'll initially be used on routes from Dallas/Ft. Worth to Beijing, Munich, Frankfurt and Santiago (Chile), and from Chicago O'Hare to Athens, Barcelona, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Dublin, London Heathrow, Paris CDG, Rome, Tokyo Narita and Venice. Although Singapore Airlines is due to claim the world's-longest-non-stop next month when it launches 19-hour Singapore-Newark flights with an extra-long-range Airbus A350-900, a new contender for the title may be in the wings. Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce told the BBC in a recent interview that his company is in advanced talks with Boeing and Airbus for the development of a new aircraft that could accommodate a 20-hour non-stop flight from Sydney to London Heathrow. (Earlier this year, Qantas started flying non-stop from Perth to London, a 17-hour trip.) Joyce said if he gets the right aircraft, Qantas could add Sydney-New York non-stops as well. 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. 1. Leverage in Death by J.D. Robb. Lt. Eve Dallas investigates a mysterious act of terror. 2. In His Fathers Footsteps by Danielle Steel. The son of two Holocaust survivors struggles to become his own person after his marriage falls apart. 3. The President Is Missing by Bill Clinton and James Patterson. President Jonathan Duncan takes on adversaries at home and abroad. 4. Texas Ranger by James Patterson and Andrew Bourelle. Rory Yates job and reputation are at risk when he is accused of killing his ex-wife. 5. Depth of Winter by Craig Johnson. Sheriff Walt Longmire takes on the head of a drug cartel in a remote area of the northern Mexican desert. 6. The Fall of Gondolin by J.R.R. Tolkien. Thousands of years before the events of The Lord of the Rings, a hero named Tuor visits a secret city. Edited by Christopher Tolkien. 7. The Outsider by Stephen King. A detective investigates a seemingly wholesome member of the community when an 11-year-old boys body is found. 8. Dark Sentinel by Christine Feehan. The 32nd book in the Carpathian series. Andor Katona tries to convince Lorraine Peters of their immortal bond. 9. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. In a quiet town on the North Carolina coast, a woman who survived alone in the marsh becomes a murder suspect. 10. Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate. A South Carolina lawyer learns about the questionable practices of a Tennessee orphanage. Nonfiction 1. 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari. Technological, political and social issues in the modern era, and the choices individuals might consider in facing them. 2. The Restless Wave by John McCain and Mark Salter. A memoir by the recently deceased Republican senator from Arizona. 3. The Russia Hoax by Gregg Jarrett. The Fox News analyst makes his case against the FBI investigation into collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. 4. Educated by Tara Westover. The daughter of survivalists leaves home for university. 5. Every Day Is Extra by John Kerry. A memoir by the former Massachusetts senator, secretary of state and 2004 Democratic presidential nominee. 6. Small Fry by Lisa Brennan-Jobs. A memoir about the authors difficult relationship with her father, Steve Jobs. 7. Unhinged by Omarosa Manigault Newman. The reality-TV star and former White House staffer describes her time and relationship with Donald Trump. 8. The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. An investigation of cultural trends that the authors argue are failing the next generation. 9. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson. A straightforward, easy-to-understand introduction to the universe. 10. Liars, Leakers and Liberals by Jeanine Pirro. The legal analyst and Fox News host argues in favor of President Donald Trump. New York Times Heavy rain could flood some Houston streets Saturday amid possible thunderstorms, according to the National Weather Service Houston/Galveston office. The rain is expected during the day and could carry into the evening. Areas receiving excessive rain in recent weeks are at risk of flooding. Houston interior designer Renea Abbott's signature style is black and white. It doesn't matter whether you like traditional, contemporary or modern design, her classic combination works any way. In her Shabby Slips store on Bissonet she specializes in chic, tailored slipcovers that make ordinary furniture look amazing, but she also sells new furniture, antiques, home accessories, art and lighting. This year for Texas Antiques Week she'll set up a temporary Shabby Slips shot at Market Hill on Texas 237 in Round Top, selling antique furniture, accessories, art and mirrors. Hoorn, the Netherlands This American traveling last week to the country that birthed the state of New York didn't find many reminders of the 1600s settlement it founded. But they were there, especially in this handsome port city in North Holland. That's where the replica of the vessel the Half Moon lies at anchor that same ship that not long ago sailed up and down the Hudson River, providing a stunning peek at our history and education for many students. The ship appears "happy," you might say, nestled in the harbor. (I did have to remind a harbor boat tour guide that the ship had in fact been built in the Capital Region. When financial efforts to keep it here fell short it was packed up on a larger vessel to its new home across the Atlantic.) It was also glimpsed by your correspondent heading blissfully into the Markermeer, one of two lakes created when massive dikes closed off the Zuider Zee in the 20th century. Ah, a missed opportunity I didn't take the chance to hop aboard for a three-hour tour with snacks, drinks and "many powerful stories" promised on the cruise. Hoorn's captains made many travels around the world, notably around South America's southern point where the Atlantic and Pacific meet, hence the landmark today called Cape Horn. The Westfries Museum in the city's center has many displays of their gallant sailing forays, including an especially intriguing room full of pickled or dried animal specimens like sea rays and crocodiles considered quite exotic 400 years ago. In the cosmopolitan city of Amsterdam one hears plenty of English, but little to remind visitors of the Dutch influence on early America. Its colony here stretched from Hartford, Conn., down to Delaware and of course into the wilds around Albany until snagged by the British. Amsterdam is in fact where the original Half Moon left with its English and Dutch crew to explore the river that bears Capt. Hudson's name. At least a small plaque, easily missed, on the 1482 "Tower of Tears" several yards from city's central train station does acknowledge "... that voyage of discovery destined to bring him to the harbor of New York and the Hudson River." It was erected in 1927 by the Greenwich Village Historical Society of the City of New York, just a little too high up and dark to stand out much. Flood mitigation projects in northwest Harris County are moving forward after voters approved a $2.5 billion bond to address drainage in August, county and federal officials say. At a forum hosted by the Houston Northwest Chamber of Commerce on Thursday, county officials said the first steps will be to purchase buildings and homes affected by Hurricane Harvey as well as conducting studies before starting on any construction projects. All these projects are designed to help people and so, we want to start first by helping the most people that we can, said Matt Zeve, director of operations for the Harris Flood Control District. According to the flood control district, the county currently expects to purchase 450 properties along Cypress Creek in precincts 3 and 4, which would cost more than $376 million. Along Little Cypress Creek, the county would seek to purchase 30 properties for $18.8 million while Willow Creek would have 10 properties purchased for $4.2 million and Spring Creek would invest $600,000 for an unspecified number of properties. We want to move on those home buyouts as quickly as we can because those people who have volunteered to be bought out have been waiting for over a year. We want to buy property so that people dont make the same mistake, Zeve said. One of the largest bond items is $100 million that is expected to be used to fund projects along Cypress Creek for dredging and channel conveyance. The funds will also be used to update a 2003 study focusing on major tributaries in the county. Precinct 4 Commissioner Jack Cagle, whose home flooded during Harvey, said flood mitigation projects are necessary as floods in recent years have worsened. We need to do it while the memory of Harvey is still with us, he said. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will be working on dredging the San Jacinto River to remove silt and debris as well as conduct a study of Buffalo Bayou and county tributaries, which may result in the construction of a third reservoir. (Congress) gives us the authority to go study and then the additional authority to construct risk management projects, said Andrew Weber, a geotechnical engineer with the corps. The flood bond is expected to fund drainage projects for a decade. While voters approved $2.5 billion in funds for flood mitigation, matching funds from federal agencies may fund additional projects. mayra.cruz@chron.com After months of workshop discussions and public hearings, Mayor Joe Zimmerman and the Sugar Land City Council recently approved the FY 2019 city budget and property tax rate by a vote of five-to-two. The $245.4 million budget includes funding for a new police and fire safety training facility, $5.2 million for street repairs and improvements, $2.2 million in drainage improvements and slightly more than $1 million for roadway improvements at the city airport, according to agenda documents. After much discussion, it was decided that funding for three parks improvement projects approved by voters five years ago would be delayed another year. According to city officials, the council would need to approve a half-a-cent to a full one-cent increase to the property tax rate to provide funding for the projects.. Mayor Joe Zimmerman voiced concerns increasing property taxes and said he thought it was best to delay the parks projects. As an alternate solution, Zimmerman vowed to seek outside funding for the parks projects. Its possible thru the Houston-Galveston Area Council that federal funds could be used to complete the trails, Zimmerman said. I happen to the on the HGAC board and sit on the transportation policy council where those items come through. Zimmerman said told the council he would work to advocate that the projects are completed through HGAC funding. In 2013, Sugar Land voters approved bonds totaling $31.46 million for parks improvements. Of the total, three parks improvement projects have so far remained sidelined including $10.16 million in bond funds approved to connect 10 miles of hike and bike trails and bridges. Council member Amy Mitchell applauded the mayors idea to seek alternative funding. I really hope we can figure out a way to build the trails without our tax payers having to pay for it, she said. However, two council members opposed the decision. I think its the height of arrogance to overturn a legitimate vote of the people, Council member Steve Porter said, and went on to challenge Mayor Zimmermans assertion that the parks projects could be funded through HGAC. HGAC allocates federal funding, Porter said. The kinds of things that come up are helping with Hurricane Harvey, job training, air quality, water quality. I dont think Sugar Lands (park) trails are going to rise to the level to overturn job training for our region, he said. Our residents voted for this and we should deliver. Council member Bridget Yeung also voiced opposition to delaying the bond projects. I believe the parks projects are still very important, Yeung said. In 2013, the trails project gained significant support because people felt safety was an important issue for residents who now have to ride their bikes or run in the street, Yeung said. Every week almost we hear about bicyclists being killed in Houston because theyre biking in the street and get hit. It would be very difficult to connect the trails in Houston but it wouldnt be difficult here and people have already approved this. The approved property tax rate was set at the same as last years rate of $.31762 per $100 or property tax valuation. Due to increased average property values, the rate is expected to generate a 2.63 percent increase in revenues. The FY 2019 budget and property tax rate was approved five-to-two. Council members Porter and Young voted in opposition. Police on Saturday arrested an 18-year-old man suspected of fatally shooting another man who was found in a car that had crashed in a ditch. Rigoberto Rauda was taken into custody around 6 a.m. in Terminal A of Bush Intercontinental Airport. The U.S. Marshal's Office received a tip placing Rauda near the airport and alerted Houston police, who arrested Rauda without incident. Thursday night, Twitter was aflame with the news that a prominent conservative legal strategist had gone public with the theory that another man may have been the perpetrator of the alleged sexual assault against Christine Blasey Ford. The strategist suggested that Ford had confused this man for Brett Kavanaugh - and worse, he named the other man, in effect publicly accusing him of committing attempted rape. Ford promptly denied that she had confused this man for Kavanaugh, whom she has accused of attacking her when both were teenagers in the 1980s. But as some commentators, including conservatives, were quick to point out, Kavanaugh needs to clarify whether he had any advance knowledge of this strategy of pinning the blame on someone else. Senior Senate Democratic aides tell me that in the upcoming Judiciary Committee hearing, Democrats are likely to pose questions along these lines directly to Kavanaugh, when he is under oath. The strategist who floated the alternate attempted rape theory, Ed Whelan, has been active in conservative judicial circles for a long time, and is close to Kavanaugh. He posted a long Twitter thread - which we will not link to here, and nor will we name the man he fingered - that rather creatively employed maps and floor plans of the house at which (he suggested) the attack took place. Whelan also posted the name and a photo of his alternate suspect. The Post reports these details on Whelan's relationship with Kavanaugh, and crucially, on private conversations Kavanaugh has been having with his strategists: "Whelan has been involved in helping to advise Kavanaugh's confirmation effort and is close friends with both Kavanaugh and Leonard Leo, the head of the Federalist Society who has been helping to spearhead the nomination. Kavanaugh and Whelan also worked together in the Bush administration. "Kavanaugh and his allies have been privately discussing a defense that would not question whether an incident involving Ford happened, but instead would raise doubts that the attacker was Kavanaugh, according to a person familiar with the discussions." What this says is that Whelan has helped advise Kavanaugh's strategy, and that Kavanaugh has been involved in developing a strategy of acknowledging that the attack did happen while saying it wasn't him, but it does not directly connect Kavanaugh to Whelan's particular strategy of publicly accusing someone else of the attack. Democratic aides tell me it's likely that questioning about these topics will come up at the hearing. "Staff on the Judiciary Committee were floored by Whelan's tweets last night," one senior Senate Democratic aide told me. "It's obviously important to know if Kavananaugh took part in the creation of the conspiracy theory." The senior aide also noted that this was particularly important to pursue given that a particular person was named, and because it constituted an open acknowledgment by a top Kavanaugh ally that "the party in question" - where the alleged attack took place - "actually happened." "Expect questions about this at the hearing next week, assuming it comes together," the aide said. Republicans have invited both Ford and Kavanaugh to testify, though the skirmishing is continuing between Ford and Republicans over timing and the question of whether others will be subpoenaed. If the hearing happens, Kavanaugh will be subjected to questioning from Democrats. Whelan apologized Friday morning for publicly naming naming someone else, and it is of course entirely possible that Kavanaugh had no knowledge whatsoever of Whelan's machinations. Indeed, it is worth noting that if Kavanaugh did know or had been involved in discussions about this, and either tacitly allowed Whelan to proceed or did not actively try to stop it, that would constitute an unthinkably boneheaded blunder on his part, which perhaps militates against him having knowledge of it. Still, there are plenty of unanswered questions about this episode hovering around. Yesterday, a top aide to Sen. Orrin Hatch, a member of the Judiciary Committee, mysteriously told everyone to keep an eye on Whelan's Twitter feed. Though he has since claimed no knowledge of Whelan's plan, this at least raises questions as to whether it had come up in internal discussions with the very Republicans who will vote to move Kavanaugh's nomination forward. Indeed, Steve Schmidt, who ran Supreme Court confirmation efforts for Republicans in the past but recently left the GOP, was quite forceful on this point. He noted on Twitter that "it is inconceivable to me," based on his own experience, "that Whelan published that email without discussions, debate and assistance" from the White House and "GOP Senators and staff." When it comes to Kavanaugh's role, we do know, per The Post's reporting above, that Kavanaugh was at least involved in discussions about a strategy that would acknowledge the attack but say it was someone else - which itself invites further questioning. And Schmidt raised the question on Twitter as to whether he might have known or been involved in Whelan's strategy in some way. Schmidt cautioned that "no one should presume" Kavanaugh had knowledge, but added pointedly: "if he did, it utterly and irrevocably disqualifies him as a Justice of the United States Supreme Court." Tom Nicols, a conservative commentator, agreed, tweeting: "Here's an idea. Kavanaugh can clear this part of the current crapstorm up by saying: 'I had no part in this thing Whelan did, I do not endorse it, and have never suggested anyone take such a story forward.' If he can't say that, he should be done." Well, Kavanaugh may indeed have his chance to "clear this part of the current crapstorm up" soon enough. Update: Democrat Beto O'Rourke accused Sen. Ted Cruz of "working for the clampdown and the corporations" as the two Senate candidates debated the merits of the 2017 Republican tax overhaul. "We're not giving away to corporations and special interests," O'Rourke said. "That's what Sen. Cruz would do, thanks to the contributions he's received from those political action committees." O'Rourke is not accepting contributions from PACs. Cruz was not given a chance to respond, but when asked to "say something nice" about O'Rourke, he tied him to Sen. Bernie Sanders, a socialist. Click here for the full story of Friday's debate "I think Congressman O'Rourke is passionate, he is energetic, he believes what he's fighting for," Cruz said, before mentioning Sanders and socialism. "I think you are absolutely sincere, like Bernie, that you believe in expanding government and higher taxes, and I commend you for fighting ... for the principles you believe in." "True to form," O'Rourke responded. Update: Sen. Ted Cruz on Friday criticized the Affordable Care Act for creating "skyrocketing premiums," while Democrat Beto O'Rourke advocated for Medicaid expansion in Texas and "universal guaranteed care." The candidates, debating for the first time in their race for U.S. Senate, disagreed on how to provide protections for people with pre-existing conditions. O'Rourke, an El Paso congressman, questioned how Cruz proposed to maintain protections while repealing Obamacare. He also said Texas left billions of dollars on the table by refusing to expand Medicaid. "We can protect pre-existing conditions," Cruz said. "But we also need more choices, more competition, more options, so that prices drop." Update: Sen. Ted Cruz and his Democratic challenger, Beto O'Rourke, revealed their differing opinions on how gun laws should be enforced in Texas during their first debate Friday. Cruz said survivors of the May Santa Fe high school shooting told him they believe "gun control is not the answer," instead advocating for more armed officers in schools. O'Rourke, who supports universal background checks and a ban on assault weapons, told Cruz that "weapons of war belong on the battlefield, not in our schools." "Thoughts and prayers, Sen. Cruz, are just not going to cut it anymore," he added. Cruz shot back: "More armed police officers in our schools is not just thoughts and prayers. And I'm sorry if you don't like thoughts and prayers." Update: Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Beto O'Rourke, D-El Paso, opened their first debate Friday by trading blows over perhaps the most divisive issue of their Senate race: immigration. Asked about their views on providing a path to citizenship for undocumented people living in the country, the candidates disagreed sharply. O'Rourke stated his support for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. "Sen. Cruz has promised to deport each and every single Dreamer," O'Rourke said. "That cannot be the way that Texas leads on this issue." Cruz responded by pointing to the "stark divide" between himself and O'Rourke on the issue. "My views on immigration are simple, and I've summed them up many times in just four words," Cruz. "Legal: Good. Illegal: Bad. I think the vast majority of Texans agree with that." He added a jab at O'Rourke, calling him "out of step with Texas." "There is a right way to come into this country. You wait in line, you follow the rules, like my father did in 1957." O'Rourke, given a chance for rebuttal, stood by his answer. "The alternative, as Sen. Cruz has proposed, is to deport 11 million people from this country," O'Rourke said. "Imagine the cost. Imagine the stain on our conscience going forward." ------ Sen. Ted Cruz and Democrat Beto O'Rourke are facing off Friday evening in Dallas for the first of three scheduled debates in a race that has drawn national attention. O'Rourke, a congressman from El Paso, has outraised Cruz for months, and the Cook Political Report rated the race a "Toss Up" Friday, a shift from its "Lean Republican" grade. Cruz, R-Texas, led O'Rourke by 9 percentage points in a recent poll, one day before a different poll showed O'Rourke with a two-point lead. The debate starts at 6 p.m. on the campus of Southern Methodist University, which is hosting the event with NBC 5/KXAS and the Dallas Morning News. It will stream at NBCDFW.com and Dallasnews.com. In Houston, News KUHF-88.7 FM and KUHT-Ch. 8 will broadcast the debate. The two candidates have found almost no common ground on the campaign trail, staking out opposing positions on topics such as immigration, gun laws, and the Republican tax cut plan. The debate will cover domestic policy. Friday's debate is the first of three between Cruz and O'Rourke. The last two will take place Sept. 30 at the University of Houston and Oct. 16 in San Antonio. The 35th anniversary of the National Night Out, an event focused on crime prevention by encouraging neighbors to know each other as well as the law enforcement agencies in their communities, is quickly approaching. Neighborhoods, which could be groups of 20 or 200 homes, can help build community-police partnerships by gathering with their neighbors outside for an official party. Crime Stoppers of Houston and the Harris County Sheriff's Office are seeking the public's help to find some of the area's most-wanted fugitives. Crime Stoppers will pay up to $5,000 for information leading to the charging and/or arrest of the suspect(s) in this case. Information can be reported by calling 713-222-TIPS (8477), submitted online at www.crime-stoppers.org or through the Crime Stoppers mobile app. All tipsters remain anonymous. Homeland Security officials have for the first time offered an explanation for a puzzling increase in the number of Guatemalan families showing up at the U.S. border this year seeking asylum. Rather than a spike in violence, the families appear to be fleeing a hunger crisis in Guatemala's western highlands, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, citing U.N. and USAID food insecurity data as well as the agency's own intelligence assessments. Years of meager harvests, drought and the devastating effects of "coffee rust" fungus on an industry that employs large numbers of rural Guatemalans is speeding up an exodus of families from villages bereft of food, CBP officials say. It also explains why large numbers of indigenous villagers who speak little or no Spanish have arrived with their children to turn themselves in to U.S. border agents, creating communication challenges for enforcement officials and immigration courts. The CBP assessment posits more traditional "push" factors - poverty and lack of opportunity - as a major driving force behind the latest migration trend, rather than an uptick in crime. Such an analysis challenges the claims of advocacy groups and lawmakers that Central American asylum seekers are primarily fleeing violence, but it also suggests the root causes of emigration could be alleviated by reducing hunger and creating jobs. "Food insecurity, not violence, seems to be a key push factor informing the decision to travel from Guatemala, where we have seen the largest growth in the migration flow this year," CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan, the top U.S. border security official, said in an interview. Per capital murder rates in Central America's Northern Triangle - Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador - remain among the world's highest, but they have trended downward in recent years. Guatemala's homicide rate fell to its lowest level last year since 2000, crime statistics show. Border arrests of family members from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador were at similar levels in 2017, but Guatemala's numbers have soared this year as El Salvador's have fallen. U.S. agents have apprehended more than 42,000 Guatemalan family members in the past 11 months who crossed the border illegally, nearly double last year's amount, in addition to 20,000 underage minors, according to the latest CBP data. The highest percentage of those migrants are from Guatemala's Huehuetenango department, whose isolated and traditional mountain villages have malnutrition rates near 70 percent. High levels of food insecurity and emigration also correspond in other subregions of Guatemala and Honduras, according to the unpublished CBP analysis. "While we work to increase our border security and ask Congress to strengthen our legal framework at home, it is equally important to support prosperity and economic development in Central America," he said, in a statement. "Current migration flows are a complex regional phenomenon and require multifaceted responses. Migrants are not leaving for one reason." Five years ago, single adults from Mexico traveling to the United States for seasonal work accounted for nearly 80 percent of border arrests, according to McAleenan. They are being rapidly replaced by families and children from Central America "migrating permanently," he said. McAleeen arrives in the region on Sunday for six days of meetings in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador with diplomats, immigration officials, business executives and indigenous leaders, a trip he said is meant to gather information and refocus attention on the factors fueling emigration. His trip comes at fraught moment for U.S. diplomacy in Central America. The United States recalled its ambassador from El Salvador earlier this month when the country severed relations with Taiwan in an overture to China. And many U.S. lawmakers were outraged when the Guatemalan government refused to allow the return of a U.N. anticorruption body whose inquiries began to threaten President Jimmy Morales. A major security conference in Washington with the Northern Triangle countries this month was abruptly postponed amid the tensions. McAleenan is proceeding with his trip anyway, calling the surging number of Central American families arriving at the border a "crisis" that needs immediate attention. From July to August, the number of family members apprehended by U.S. agents soared 38 percent, and border officials have been posting photos nearly every day depicting large groups of Central American families and teens in custody along the Rio Grande in South Texas. On several occasions in recent weeks, Mexican authorities have intercepted semi trucks packed with Central Americans in perilous conditions. On Thursday, police stopped a truck barreling down the highway with 146 migrants, including 55 children riding in a refrigerator car. Asked about the CBP assessment of food insecurity, several migration experts in Guatemala said they do not believe this year's surge is the result of an acute crisis. Rather, they say, it's the product of years of grinding poverty, crime and increasingly well-developed smuggling networks seeking out new customers. According to Julia Gonzales Deras, the executive director of the National Roundtable on Guatemalan Migration, the causes in the country's western highlands remain the same as they have for years: poverty, unemployment and insecurity tied to criminal groups. "We haven't observed any change in the trend of migrants going to the United States. People continue to leave because the conditions of their lives here are not improving," Deras said. The economy of the western highlands is heavily dependent on coffee farming, an industry that has suffered in recent years due to low global coffee prices and poor harvests linked to below-average rainfall. The industry is still recovering from a series of coffee rust outbreaks that began in 2013. A growing number of Guatemalans have lost hope that the industry might soon rebound, experts say, leaving them more inclined to look abroad. "Hunger, food insecurity, limited work opportunities and abandonment by the state are unfortunately the status quo in much of rural Guatemala, which has the highest rate of chronic malnutrition in Latin America and the Caribbean," said Richard Johnson, a PhD candidate at the University of Arizona who is studying migration in the western highlands. "This scale of food insecurity is certainly abhorrent, but we can't really call it a sudden crisis if it's already an entrenched condition." Johnson said that in his research he's found that for most Guatemalans in the region the decision to migrate is considered over several years, rather than a response to an acute problem. "Perhaps with the exception of immediate threats of violence, it's also pretty clear that most migrants don't make the decision to head north based on just one bad year. Given the tremendous risks and costs - ranging from $9,000 to $12,000 to hire a coyote, often marshaled through informal high-interest mortgages of homes and agricultural land - it's not a decision many make on the spot, or even a means to alleviate short-term crises," he said. The decline in illegal migration from El Salvador this year has also puzzled CBP analysts - and McAleenan said he wants a firsthand look. "Understanding why families and children are choosing to leave Guatemala and Honduras in increasing numbers, while migration from El Salvador is down significantly, is critical to developing effective responses," he said. "I want to understand from the experts on the ground why the decision to leave is being made, and what CBP and our government partners can do to help." The Japan-U.S. ministerial-level trade talks scheduled on Monday and the summit talks on Wednesday are expected to focus on how far Japan can compromise regarding opening its markets for specific sectors such as automobiles and agricultural products while avoiding new tariffs - currently mulled by Washington - on cars from Japan. Tokyo wants to discuss what Prime Minister Shinzo Abe describes as "a grand direction" to promote bilateral trade. He expressed Thursday his strong desire to deter any form of additional tariffs on cars from Japan under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, a U.S. law. "I want to reach an agreement [with Washington] so that [such tariffs] will not be imposed," Abe said during an NHK program shortly after winning the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's presidential election. U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the Commerce Department in May to consider measures to impose new tariffs on imported cars, reasoning that an increase in foreign car imports will weaken the domestic car industry and thereby threaten the national security of the United States. A probe by the department is under way to examine the necessity for such tariffs. Japan's automobile industry has a significant presence in bilateral trade. According to the U.S. Commerce Department, the U.S. trade deficit in goods with Japan in 2017 was $68.8 billion (about 7.7 trillion yen). Automobiles and automobile parts accounted for over 70 percent of the figure. Concerns persist that Washington will demand concessions from Tokyo in the auto sector by using tariffs on imported cars as a bargaining chip. On Sept. 7, Trump used unprecedentedly strong rhetoric to warn Tokyo over the bilateral trade talks. "If we don't make a deal with Japan, Japan knows it's a big problem," the president said. Tokyo sees the trade talks between the United States and the European Union as a model. In July, Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Junker agreed to commence new trade talks with a view to abolishing tariffs, nontariff barriers and subsidies for non-auto industrial products. They did not use the term "free trade agreement" (FTA), which would have given a strong impression that Washington was leading the discussion in its own favor. Both sides intend not to invoke new tariff measures while the talks continue. Japan and the United States could not close the distance between them during the first meeting in August of the trade talks; Washington persisted in seeking a bilateral FTA, while Tokyo stressed that the best option was for Washington to return to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) multilateral free trade pact. Tokyo is expected to keep this position during the coming meetings. However, there is a possibility that the two countries will agree to begin talks only on reducing barriers on a wide range of items regarding rules on trade and investment, without referring to the FTA or the TPP, in the manner of the U.S.-EU talks. Regarding agricultural products, Abe has said that Tokyo will not offer anything besides what it has presented in the TPP negotiations. A TPP agreement requires Japan to lower tariffs on imported beef from 38.5 percent to 27.5 percent, and eventually to 9 percent in the 16th year after the agreement enters into force. Meanwhile, the agreement reached by 12 countries including the United States - although Washington subsequently withdrew from it - required Tokyo to immediately set a tariff-free quota of 50,000 tons of rice produced in the United States. The withdrawal has made it impossible for the United States to receive such benefits. Eyeing the House of Councilors election next year, Tokyo stands ready to thoroughly resist Washington's pressure by setting its own market opening concessions in the TPP talks as a maximum limit. President Donald Trump moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in May, but other countries have not followed suit. Only two - Guatemala and Paraguay - have made the move themselves; the latter also moved its embassy back to Tel Aviv earlier this month. This week, another country signaled that it hoped to open an embassy in Jerusalem, and surprisingly, it's a Muslim-majority nation. But there's an unexpected catch: Israel doesn't recognize this nation. Kosovo's President Hashim Thaci said on Thursday that were his country to have an embassy in Israel, he'd put it in Jerusalem. "If Kosovo were recognized by Israel, I would open the Kosovo embassy in Jerusalem," Thaci explained during an interview with Vizion Plus in Albania. A former paramilitary leader, Thaci has been president of Kosovo since 2016. Before that, he had been prime minister, unilaterally declaring the country's independence from Serbia in 2008. The small Balkan country was at the center of tension between ethnic Albanians and Serbs in the 1990s after the collapse of Yugoslavia, culminating in the Kosovo War in 1998 and 1999, which saw Kosovo Albanians supported by NATO allies. The nation, which has a population of under 2 million, is recognized by a majority of U.N. member states. However, Serbia does not recognize it as an independent state, and many other nations, who have their own fears of separatist movements, have also refused to recognize it, including major powers like China, Russia and India. The Israeli decision to not recognize Kosovo was based in part upon its own fears that Palestinians would use Kosovo to justify their own independence, the Jerusalem Post reported at the time. However, politicians in both countries have spoken warmly of their ties and hopes for a new relationship in the future. Trump's decision to move the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem was controversial as the city is disputed and divided, with Palestinians hoping that East Jerusalem will be the capital city of a future state. However, the Palestine Liberation Organization does not support Kosovo's independence either, in part due to concerns over the pro-U. S. public sentiment in Kosovo that has dominated since the 1990s. Notably, the big countries that don't recognize Kosovo often recognize Palestinian territories as a state and vice versa. Though many in Kosovo supported Hillary Clinton in the 2016 U.S. election due to the role her husband, former president Bill Clinton, played in the Kosovo War, Thaci has sought to develop close ties to Trump. At the sidelines of last year's United Nations General Assembly in New York, Thaci met with the American leader and later told reporters that Trump "has a clear vision for Kosovo." In January, Thaci told reporters that if it could have, Kosovo would have supported the United States in a vote on a nonbinding resolution at the United Nations General Assembly that condemned Trump's decision to move the embassy. Kosovo is not a member of the United Nations, and in the end, 128 countries voted for the resolution. MEXICO CITY - Mexico's incoming president, a relentless critic of the ruling elite, has voiced no objection to the free-trade deal its current government brokered with the United States. On security matters, President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's team says it wants a productive relationship with the Trump administration and will continue partnering in the fight against drug cartels. But if there is a potential source of conflict in the U.S.-Mexico relationship after Dec. 1, when Lopez Obrador will take office, it is likely to be immigration enforcement. There, the left-wing Mexican populist and President Donald Trump appear to be on a collision course. The flow of Central American migrants through Mexico and into the United States - a matter of intense personal and political interest to the U.S. president - is on the rise again, defying Trump's attempts to crack down at the border. Stopping migrants and asylum seekers through tougher enforcement is a priority for the Trump administration. Lopez Obrador and his team have a different take. "We are not going to chase migrants. We are not going to criminalize them," said Alejandro Encinas, the incoming undersecretary in Mexico's ministry in charge of immigration. "We have to stop looking at immigration as an issue of public security or national security, or the national security of the United States." Those sentiments echoed statements made by Lopez Obrador during the presidential campaign, when he said Mexico had been doing Washington's "dirty work" by catching Central Americans "fleeing violence and misery." Last month, the Trump administration notified Congress that it planned to transfer $20 million from State Department economic support funds to a Department of Homeland Security program that would help Mexico detain and deport more migrants. Mexico hasn't taken the money. On Friday, a spokesman for Marcelo Ebrard, who was chosen as foreign minister in Mexico's new government, said the Trump administration's offer for funding was "not necessary." Mexico's current president, Enrique Pena Nieto, clamped down on Central American migration early in his term. Under Obama administration pressure, Pena Nieto introduced in 2014 the "Southern Border Plan," which intensified immigration patrols at Mexico's frontier with Guatemala, detaining many migrants before they could reach the United States. During Pena Nieto's first full year in office, 2013, Mexico detained and deported 78,733 Central Americans. That number shot up to 176,726 two years later, according to Mexican government statistics. Pena Nieto also cooperated with the United States by sharing biometric data collected on detained migrants and allowing Homeland Security advisers to work out of southern Mexico. Lopez Obrador's aides have described the Southern Border Plan as a failure. They argue that migrants continue to easily cross Mexico's porous border with Guatemala and that an intensified hunt for illegal immigrants led to human rights abuses and corruption. "The only thing it's accomplished is to increase the levels of corruption and violence in the south," Encinas told The Washington Post. "The problem of the southern border is not a problem of cops and robbers." Mexico's new government plans to shift roles within the Interior Ministry so that Encinas, as undersecretary, will oversee human rights and migration. Previously, those responsibilities were held by separate officials. Some migrant advocates are calling for deeper administrative change - such as moving Mexico's migration agency out of the Interior Ministry entirely. Lopez Obrador's advisers say their intention is to protect the human rights of migrants while also pushing economic development programs in southern Mexico and in Central America, to give people in the region more reason to stay at home. Some of the incoming administration's signature projects in southern Mexico - a "Mayan Train" that would traverse the Yucatan Peninsula; a reforestation project in the jungles of Chiapas - would likely rely on Central American migrant labor. "Instead of having only military and police measures to keep this exodus of Mexicans and Central Americans from going to the United States, we want to reach the same objective of reducing these numbers by promoting social development in our countries," said Hector Vasconcelos, a senator who served as a top foreign policy aide to Lopez Obrador during the campaign. It remains unclear whether the incoming administration's gentler rhetoric about migrants will translate into fewer deportations - and fewer Central Americans crossing into Texas. Some Trump administration officials worry that Lopez Obrador's team emphasizes migrant rights above law enforcement. At the same time, they're encouraged by how much interest Lopez Obrador's team has shown to find areas of cooperation. "I think, at a senior level, they acknowledge the need to have a border with Guatemala, and they want to partner with us to confront [criminal groups]," said one senior Trump administration official with knowledge of the Mexico talks. "This is where I believe we will have common ground." The official,who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer insight into a sensitive foreign policy matter, added that the United States intends to stress that fighting drug cartels requires cutting off the massive profits these groups derive from migrant smuggling. "The new government has a willingness to change the situation, and it seems less obsessed with national security and border control," said Salva Lacruz, a coordinator for the Fray Matias de Cordova Human Rights Center, which gives legal aid to immigrants near Mexico's southern border. But if the migration agency is not removed from the state security apparatus, she said, "there's not going to be profound change." Migrant advocates from across the country have attended public forums hosted by the transition team to discuss its plans. Berenice Valdez Rivera, a coordinator for public policy with the Institute of Women in Migration (IMUMI), said more than 100 organizations in the United States and Mexico plan to present a formal set of proposals to Lopez Obrador's team next month. Some ideas include making it easier for Central Americans to receive papers to work legally in Mexico; or to allow those fleeing gang violence to receive permits to cross Mexico. Immigration experts say that Lopez Obrador's policy proposals remain vague and that his team is more focused on Mexicans living in the United States than on Central Americans heading to the United States. "People believe that since there's a new president who says new things that, by magic, there's going to be change," said Javier Urbano, a professor of international studies at the Ibero-American University in Mexico City. "But that's not true." A Mexican official familiar with immigration policy said the incoming government might make progress reducing corruption. Broader change might be difficult, the official said, given agreements between the United States and Mexico to share intelligence on migrants as part of counterterrorism efforts. "There are international agreements that oblige not only Mexico but all the countries in the world to collaborate," said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly. However, "the new administration has a clear vision of the subject, it will attempt to do novel things, and perhaps we will no longer see migrant detention centers as they exist now." Much could change between the United States and Mexico, even before Lopez Obrador takes over. The two sides reached a tentative agreement last month on a new free-trade deal, but it does not include Canada and has yet to be finalized by the legislature in either country. Lopez Obrador's advisers say that working with the United States on immigration will also depend on the state of the broader bilateral relationship. The Trump administration has not engaged Lopez Obrador's team on the idea of a "safe third country agreement" that would make asylum seekers from Central America file their claims in Mexico, on the grounds they are no longer facing the immediate danger that drove them to flee, according to a senior U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss diplomatic affairs.Homeland Security officials have sought to convince Mexico that such an agreement would be in its best interest, saying it would reduce unauthorized migration and the revenue derived from it by smuggling groups. Such an agreement could include a provision allowing the United States to return to Mexico those who come over the border illegally. Mexico's outgoing government had warmed to such a proposal, and U.S. officials have indicated they would be willing to provide significant financial assistance to help Mexico absorb the migrants. Trump administration officials believe it would be premature to broach the idea with the incoming government, the senior U.S. official said, at least until Lopez Obrador's team has had more time to assess the scope of U.S.-Mexico cooperation. - - - The Washington Post's Maya Averbuch contributed to this report. The last 15 years has seen a strong partnership develop between Midland and Uganda. Thursday, at Memorial Presbyterian Church, that affiliation grew even stronger as Miss Uganda Quiin Abenakyo and Miss Uganda Foundation CEO Brenda Nanyonjo paid a visit. As Miss Uganda for 2018-2019, Abenakyo is expected to represent Uganda at the Miss World 2018 competition to be held in Sanya, China, in December. She was making a stop in Midland to visit her uncle, Vincent Oriedo, who is also a native of Uganda. The Miss Uganda Foundation (MUF) focuses on community services projects like Education for the Girl Child, Clean Water and the fight against teenage pregnancy. "Brenda is a trailblazer," Oriedo said. "In Uganda and developing cultures, opportunities for women are virtually nonexistent. When women like Brenda stand up for their causes, they face insurmountable barriers. Unlike other similar national pageants, Miss Uganda Foundation is unique that it seeks to empower what they call the girl child." Sharing along with Abenakyo and Nanyonjo was Sue Waechter, U.S. director of Agape Community Transformation (ACT Uganda & ACT U.S.A.), which "works shoulder-to-shoulder supporting self-development of villagers in Muko Sub-county, Uganda. Memorial Presbyterian is one of 15 ecumenical organizations in Michigan that partner with ACT. Those 15 include seven churches and three service organizations in Midland. Uganda Uganda is a small country of almost 43 million people, located in Eastern Africa. The former British colony earned its independence on Oct. 9, 1962. Called the Pearl of Africa for its natural wonders, beauty and people, Uganda is about the size of Oregon, making it one of the smaller countries in Africa. Although 85 percent of the population is under the age of 35, Uganda is a very diverse country. "The western, northern, eastern and southern parts of Uganda are very diverse. We all speak different languages, different food and music and other things," Nanyonjo said. Miss Uganda Foundation As an orphan, Nanyonjo had to fight through many barriers to establish MUF in 2013. She lost her father at age 5, her mother at 11 and went to live with her aunt until she was 13 when she had to leave home and fend for herself. "At 15, I was paying for my school and needs and everything. I was blessed with acting and musical talent. The wages I earned would go to pay for my needs," Nanyonjo said. Over time, she found herself mentoring a lot of women when a near death experience prompted her to make MUF a reality. "America has its 9/11, in Uganda we have July 11, 2010, a bomb attack which happened in the capital city of Kampala," Nanyonjo said. During the attack, she was hit in the head with shrapnel. "When I survived the trauma, I said, 'I want to do something bigger than myself.' The only thing I had was Miss Uganda. I heard as clear as day that God was telling me to begin MUF," she said. Two years later, in 2013, Nanyonjo obtained the license to hold pageants for Miss Uganda. "I began seeing that God had a purpose for me," she said. "I believe that some things happen for a reason and God is preparing us for somethings." So began the organization that helps to, "Ensure the personal development of the girl child so that she can realize her full potential for her personal growth, betterment and development of her community." "A lot of young women (I mentored), were having issues at home. People were not believing in them or giving them the opportunity to explore or to become better," Nanyonjo said. "We help girls to use their talents and passions to better themselves." To develop those talents, MUF encourages young girls to stay in school, "The Miss Ugandas visit schools. We give them scholastic materials, books, pens, toilet paper and of course sanitary pads because that is a big issue in my country," Nanyonjo said. "Some girls come from very poor families and they cannot provide something as simple as sanitary towels. If they soil their dresses in school, they will be mocked and may not return to school." MUF also serves to fight teenage pregnancy and early marriages and develop entrepreneurial skills. "We want to help women to be job creators instead of job seekers," Nanyonjo said. As she finished her talk, Nanyonjo mentioned the future possibilities of a partnership between MUF and ACT. "Sue, I heard a lot about you before I met you and the job you are doing in Muko," Nanyonjo said. "We would really love to see how we could collaborate and empower the women in Muko Village. Maybe the next Miss Uganda will come from Muko." Abenakyo As Miss Uganda, Abenakyo explained how one of the requirements for Miss Uganda is to champion clean water in Uganda. Clean water is a serious problem in Uganda as about 23,000 Ugandans die each year from diarrhea including 19,700 children under the age of 5. "Most of the water (in communities) comes from underground wells," Abenakyo said. "The MUF provides clean water to communities. First, we clean the wells, then (educate) the people in the community on how to use the well." Abenakyo has also taken up the fight to stem teenage pregnancies. She shared about a 10-year-old girl who was being sexually harassed by her father. "Her father passed away and she went to live with her grandfather and her grandfather did the same thing to her. She got pregnant and had to leave home. She was regarded as a curse by her own family," Abenakyo said. At the age of 13 the young teen had to take care of herself, but also another child when she lacked the resources to provide for herself. "As Miss Uganda, you can appreciate where you are, but also look at your sisters out there and see what they are going through," Abenakyo said. However, as Miss Uganda, she has the voice to make an impact in young girl's lives. "All the finalists from Miss Uganda have become a family. We have someone from the east, the west, from the north and central. The (finalists) are going back to their regions, identifying the problems that these girls are facing and reporting back. Then we find a way to help the girls in each region," Abenakyo said. ACT Uganda A letter to Waechter laid the seed for ACT Uganda in the spring of 2003. Out of 50 handwritten letters sent out by Generous and Richard Turinawe, Waechter was the only one to respond, thus forming a relationship that grows stronger each year. The partnership has helped empower the villagers in Muko by "seeking to enhance the spiritual, physical, economic and societal conditions in Uganda, as well as increase faith-in-action in our communities." Situated in Southwestern Uganda, Muko is a community of farmers that live at an elevation of 6,000 feet. "They are a very happy and grateful people," Waechter said. Over the last 15 years, ACT Uganda has developed six major initiatives to aid the villagers of Muko with programs emphasizing agriculture, health, orphan sponsorship (currently 141 orphans are sponsored), a stringed orchestra in the village, education and hand-crafters. "We are trying to create self-sufficiency," Waechter said. "Who would have thought there would be a string orchestra in the middle of Uganda where kids can learn discipline and practice. They play weddings on the weekend to earn money." Nearly eight months ago, ACT took over administration of the local high school, owned by the Church of Uganda. "The school was failing miserably," Waechter said. ACT Uganda just received a $25,000 donation from the noon Midland Rotary Club to build a whole new water system for the high school. "The next step for the high school, besides academics, is to get solar power because they essentially have no power there," Waechter added. From that lone, handwritten letter, ACT has grown to nine paid staff in Muko, along with more than 250 volunteers in Michigan. For more information on ACT Uganda visit: www.actuganda.org For information regarding MUF, visit its Facebook page: Miss Uganda Foundation Asian-American professionals discussed Saturday how the community is increasingly targeted in economic espionage investigations with attorneys, educators and the Houston branch of the FBI. The daylong forum, held at the Crowne Plaza near Sugar Land, addressed the communitys concerns of being disproportionately targeted for federal investigations of economic espionage, or when an individual steals trade secrets to make money. If you are an ethnic Chinese in the technology industry, there is more opportunity for you to be flagged, Nelson Dong, partner and head of Dorsey & Whitneys National Security Law Group, told the crowd of more than 100. You have to be thoughtful because in this environment, these are not normal times. There are 136 cases and 187 defendants of economic espionage, according to Andrew Kim, visiting scholar at South Texas College of Law. Up until 2008, 72 percent of defendants had Western-sounding names, and 17 percent had Chinese names. But since 2009, more than half of people accused of espionage had Chinese names. Thats not random. Theres something going on here, Kim said. Experts said Asian-Americans are disproportionately falsely accused of economic espionage; 22 percent were never proven guilty of the crime double the rate of those with Western names. Panelists brought up the story of Sherry Chen, a former hydrologist at the National Weather Service in Ohio who was falsely accused of spying and arrested in 2014, whose story was recently reported on CBS 60 Minutes. A few months after her arrest, the charges against her were dropped. But she was fired from her job for not being trustworthy, and three years and a judicial order later, she still has not been reinstated to her position. Despite the forums focus on racial profiling in these investigations, Special Agent Michael Morgan said otherwise. We conduct our investigations based on threat, which is defined by vulnerabilities it brings, he repeated. Its not based on ethnicity or the individual. Although the local impact of economic espionage of Asian communities is unclear, the concern among audience members was evident. Most of the questions posed were about steps they can take to avoid being scrutinized by the FBI, whether they can participate in talent programs, whether its dangerous to work or do research for companies in the U.S. and abroad, and even how to go about reporting other people. massarah.mikati@chron.com Fire, Grosse Drive: Police assisted firefighters as they extinguished a house fire at about 12:55 a.m. Sept. 11 on the 6400 block of Grosse. No one was home at the time of the fire and no one was hurt. The fire destroyed the rear section of the house. Garages on the two neighboring houses also caught fire and were damaged. Criminal mischief-disorderly conduct, Holland Road: An intoxicated Brook Park man, 29, was arrested at about 2:40 a.m. Sept. 13 after he defaced and damaged a memorial made of Styrofoam cups on Holland near Interstate 71. The memorial was for an 8-year-old girl who was hit and killed by a vehicle Sept. 8 in Brook Park. The man removed and damaged the cups. Police don't know if the man damaged the memorial intentionally or why he may have done so. A witness saw it happen and called police. When police arrived, they saw the man walking on the sidewalk. Earlier this week, he was sentenced to 550 days in jail for violating a protection order. Attempted burglary, West 130th Street: A burglar tried to break into a West 130th house but a neighbor chased him away. It happened at about 3:30 p.m. Sept. 7. The burglar opened the home's rear sliding-glass door by banging on the door with a pipe. Before he entered the house, the neighbor confronted him, and the burglar ran away. Police found a Newport cigarette butt on the scene. Suspicion, Paulding Boulevard: Someone called police at about 12:20 a.m. Sept. 8 and said two males were tampering with vehicles parked in driveways. The males were trying to open the vehicle doors. When police arrived, the males ran. They were last seen northbound near Paulding. Theft, Smith Road: A Parma man, 48, was arrested at about 12:10 p.m. Aug. 29 after he stole $260 from a woman's purse inside Shell, 5918 Smith. Security cameras showed the man reaching into the woman's purse. He then used the stolen money to buy lottery tickets in the store. The man later turned himself into police. It's not clear how police identified him. Operating a vehicle under the influence, Snow Road: A Cleveland man, 47, was arrested at about 4:20 a.m. Sept. 8 after police found him passed out behind the steering wheel of his vehicle, which was parked outside Rally's, 14911 Snow. He had been drinking. Neighbor dispute, North Gallatin Boulevard: A Gallatin resident called police at about 1:20 p.m. March 11 and said his neighbor was acting in a disorderly manner toward his home. The neighbor pulled down his pants, showed his rear end to the man's security camera and made an obscene gesture. Police said the man and his neighbor have a history of disputes. Police wrote a report but took no action. Theft, Snow Road: An unidentified female stole steak at about 9 p.m. Sept. 12 from Giant Eagle, 14650 Snow. A store worker saw it happen. The worker recognized the female from a previous shoplifting incident. The female drove away with the steak. Someone wrote down her license-plate number. Marijuana possession, Brookpark Road: A Garfield Heights man, 35, was arrested at about 5:10 a.m. Sept. 10 after finding him in possession of marijuana. Police had stopped the man for driving 54 mph in a 35-mph zone. His driver's license had been suspended and several warrants had been issued for his arrest. CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The East Cleveland City School District filed suit against the State Department of Education late Friday, seeking to block a takeover of the schools by an state-appointed "academic distress commission." The suit filed in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court asks for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against imposition of the commission, which the complaint says "would strip all local control from the district and hand it over to persons who answer only to the state superintendent, and not the citizens of the district." The state's intervention was the result of East Cleveland's overall F on new state report cards, under House Bill 70, a state law signed in 2015 that drastically changed how the state can step in to run "failing" school districts. Under the takeover, State Superintendent Paolo DeMaria would appoint the academic distress commission, which would name a new schools CEO charged with creating and carrying out a new school improvement plan. East Cleveland Superintendent Myrna Loy Corley, who was notified of the takeover Sept. 13, argues in the lawsuit that it comes as the district is making improvements, that the district has been hurt by changes to state tests and that the district does not meet requirements for a takeover because it has not received an overall F grade for three consecutive years. East Cleveland is the third district in Ohio to face such a takeover, following Youngstown and Lorain. The district's suit was assigned to Common Pleas Judge Steven Gall, and a hearing was set for Nov. 26. MANSFIELD, Ohio -- Shawn Christy, a Pennsylvania man who eluded federal agents for three months, was booked Friday into the Richland County Jail where he awaits a Monday hearing in federal court, officials said at a Friday evening press conference in Mansfield. A police dog picked up on Christy's scent Friday afternoon and led State Highway Patrol troopers to a ravine in a densely wooded area in Mifflin Township, near Mansfield, officials said. He was arrested shortly after 4 p.m. and had a gun and a large knife in his possession, according to the U.S. Marshals. Nearly 100 law enforcement officers from various state and local agencies had been searching the Mansfield area since Sunday, when authorities believe Christy stole a pickup truck in Pennsylvania and crashed it near the Interstate 71 and State Route 13 interchange near Mansfield and fled on foot, the U.S. Marshals said. "We are most pleased that this case is resolved with Christy safely in custody and headed back to Pennsylvania to face justice," said U.S. Marshal for the Northern District of Ohio Pete Elliott. "While he may have exhibited a strong determination to avoid capture, I hope he now understands that U.S. Marshals task forces are resolute and will not stop until they get their man." Christy, 27, has multiple arrest warrants in Pennsylvania for burglary, probation violations and failure to appear for an aggravated assault case, according to the U.S. Marshals. He also threatened to use "full lethal force on any law enforcement officer that tries to detain me." A federal warrant was issued June 19 for Christy in connection to Facebook threats to the Northamption County district attorney, stating, "Keep it up Morganelli, I promise I'll put a bullet in your head as soon as I put one in the head of President Donald J. Trump." "On behalf of the District of Eastern Pennsylvania, I want to thank our federal, state and local law enforcement partners who worked so diligently to bring this fugitive case to a successful close," said U.S. Marshal for the District of Eastern Pennsylvania David B. Webb. "This case represents the true definition of teamwork and dedication to the pursuit of justice. And we want to expressly thank those in the community who have shown tremendous support for our efforts to bring Christy in safely," Webb said. The Mansfield-area community was on high-alert this week with some schools closed as a precaution and police encouraging residents to lock their homes, cars and sheds. The U.S. Marshals thanked the following agencies for their assistance: Richland County Sheriff's Department, Mansfield Police Department, Ohio State Highway Patrol, FBI, Secret Service, Ontario Police Department, Shelby Police Department, Allegheny County (PA) Sheriff's Department's bloodhound dog handler, Clearfork Police Department, Mt. Vernon Police Department, Ashland County Sheriff's Department, Columbus Police Department Aviation Unit, U.S. Border Patrol and Allied Special Operations Response Team. To comment on this story, visit Friday's crime and courts comment section. Shawn Christy COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- The U.S. Marshals Service says a Pennsylvania man accused of threatening President Donald Trump and law enforcement officials has been arrested in Ohio. They say Shawn Richard Christy was arrested at 4:45 p.m. Friday in Mifflin Township, near Columbus, by marshals and task force members from Ohio and Pennsylvania. A federal warrant was issued June 19 for the 27-year-old McAdoo man in connection to Facebook posts threatening to shoot Trump and a district attorney in Pennsylvania. Officials say he also threatened a police chief. Pennsylvania warrants issued for Christy allege burglary, probation violation and failure to appear for an aggravated assault case. Authorities say Christy stole a truck Sunday from the area of McAdoo, Pennsylvania, and fled after abandoning it Sunday on Interstate 71 in the Mansfield area, about 65 miles (104 kilometers) north of Columbus. By Lucia Walinchus Ohio Center for Investigative Journalism, EyeOnOhio.com COLUMBUS, Ohio - The identities of many political donors can no longer be hidden behind a nonprofit shield, a D.C. Circuit judge recently ruled, in a case that started in Ohio. The Supreme Court's decision not to issue an emergency stay on that ruling sent election groups scrambling to comply with new disclosure rules just weeks before Nov. 6. Advocates of greater political transparency said the ruling would give voters a better view into who was trying to shape their thoughts through political ads. Advocates for donor confidentiality predicted the ruling could inhibit some people from speaking on their own behalf. The case began in 2012 after Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown faced a $6 million attack campaign funded by a conservative 501(c)4 called Crossroads GPS, which did not reveal the names of its donors. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) complained to the FEC, which deadlocked 3-3 along partisan lines. After the FEC declined to investigate, CREW sued in 2016. On Aug. 3, the D.C. Circuit Court agreed with CREW, and gave the agency 45 days to adopt a new rule. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court declined to grant an emergency stay in the case. Attorneys can still pursue a normal appeal. The DC court's ruling, by Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell, said that by failing to require disclosure of donors the FEC had blatantly undercut Congress' statutory goal of "fully disclosing the sources of money flowing into federal political campaigns, and thereby suppress[ing] the benefits intended to accrue from disclosure, including informing the electorate, deterring corruption, and enforcing bans on foreign contributions being used to buy access and influence to American political officials." [Read the full opinion.] Unlike tax-deductible organizations (i.e. charities), tax-exempt organizations (such as labor unions and chambers of commerce) can give to political causes, so long as that is not their "primary purpose." Super PACS can raise unlimited funds but under campaign finance laws they cannot hide their donors. "The thing is, the IRS has never defined what 'primarily' means," said Robert Maguire, Political Nonprofit Investigator at the Center for Responsive politics. He said that some tax-exempt organizations have "found it's very easy to spend 60, 70, 80, 90, even at times 100% of their money on election-related activity without any discipline or oversight from the IRS or FEC." Marc Owens, former head of the Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division at the IRS, said nonprofit regulation is difficult from a political and financial standpoint. "Resources have been cut dramatically though the work has increased," he said. As of Wednesday, nonprofits had reported spending about $62.5 million on the election according the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks election spending. The Ohio Center for Investigative Journalism contacted all 13 nonprofits who have so far contributed money to political ads in Ohio. according to the FEC. Twelve did not respond to repeated requests to comment. Scott Hogenson, a spokesman for the 60 Plus Association, said that they don't list donors, but that their decision to operate as a nonprofit had nothing to do with hiding donors' identities, as they have been registered as a nonprofit for over 25 years. "Our goals for the future are the same as our goals for the past. We want to do everything we can to preserve Social Security, Medicare, and to do what we can to educate people on issues of importance to America's senior citizens," he said. According to a report released this week on undisclosed money in politics, nationally, groups reported spending more than $800 million on campaign activities to the FEC between January 2010 and December 2016. That figure that doesn't include most internet and social media advertisements, which weren't part of the 2002 overhaul of campaign finance laws and therefore need not be publicly reported. The issue became especially pronounced after the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United ruling, said Michael Beckel, research manager at Issue One, a nonpartisan ethics think tank based in DC who released the report. "Citizens United led to an explosion in dark money spending. This ruling allowed certain corporations, and certain nonprofit corporations, which generally aren't required to disclose their donors, to spend unlimited money on advertisements that expressly call for the election or defeat of candidates. So we see brand-new vehicles popping up, like mushrooms after a rain," he said. In some case, donor secrecy may prevent voters from easily discerning the motives of the organizations that are sending them political messages. Take, for example, the Conservative Leadership Alliance. It has a "Super PAC" that has publicliy reported spending $93,000 in political ads. And it has a tax-exempt corporation, CLA Incorporated, that has reported spending $1.6 million in this election cycle, including $56,500 in Ohio, without reporting the names of its donors. Both organizations are registered to the same address and have the same treasurer on their filings -- Marc Himmelstein, a former FirstEnergy lobbyist. The Conservative Leadership Alliance Inc. says that it promotes conservative leadership. But its negative ads helped to sink the primary congressional candidacy of Christiana Hagan, a thoroughly conservative member of the Ohio House of Representatives. Hagan landed on CLA's bad side after she refused to support a measure to allow FirstEnergy to collect an additional $300 million annually from ratepayers. Hagan says she thinks voters deserve to know who is funding political ads. "I think it's important for voters to be able to discern the context of the information they're receiving," she said. "When this dark money PAC can come in at the 11th hour with zero to no identification of their sources, it's nearly impossible for the average person to discern the truth from lies." State-owned Emirates and Etihad, two of the Middle East's top airlines, denied a Bloomberg report on Thursday which quoted unnamed sources as saying Emirates was seeking to take over smaller Etihad to create the world's largest carrier. "There is no truth to this rumour," an Emirates spokeswoman told Reuters. Etihad made a similar statement. Emirates is owned by the government of Dubai, the region's tourism hub, while Etihad is controlled by the government of neighbouring Abu Dhabi, which thanks to oil exports is the wealthiest member of the United Arab Emirates. The ownership of the two airlines would make any merger politically sensitive. There have been few cross-border mergers within the UAE, a federation of seven semi-autonomous emirates; such tie-ups require the approval of the ruling families of the emirates involved. Both airlines, which grew rapidly earlier this decade, have faced financial pressures in the past two years because of tough competition in the industry and a regional economic slowdown due to low oil prices. Earlier this year, the two carriers signed agreements to cooperate in some areas, such as a deal under which Etihad pilots can join Emirates on a temporary basis for two years. However, Emirates chairman Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed al-Maktoum ruled out a merger in May this year. A source close to Etihad told Reuters on Thursday that while a merger could conceivably happen in the future, Abu Dhabi would not quickly give up control of its airline and brand, especially after it had invested billions of dollars in its international airport and other aviation infrastructure. A senior banker monitoring business in the Gulf said the idea of an Emirates-Etihad merger had been circulating "on and off for at least five years", but that he hadn't heard of any new development. No bank has been mandated to arrange a deal, which would be very difficult operationally, he added. Emirates mainly operates alone - an approach that gives it control over its network and has helped it deliver 30 consecutive years of profit. In contrast, loss-making Etihad built up a global network of partner airlines in which it invested; that strategy ran into trouble when two of the partners, Alitalia and Air Berlin, became insolvent. Now Etihad is shrinking operations in an effort to become a profitable mid-sized carrier. Emirates is far larger than Etihad. Its fleet of 268 Airbus A380 and Boeing 777 jets as of March 31 is roughly three times as big as Etihad's, measured by number of aeroplanes. Dubai and Abu Dhabi are both spending heavily on airport facilities. Dubai is developing a new airport that will one day be able to handle around 200 million passengers a year and replace Dubai International, currently the world's busiest airport for international passenger traffic, as Emirates' hub. Meanwhile, a new terminal is scheduled to open next year at Abu Dhabi International Airport, where Etihad is based. The 73rd United Nations General Assembly opens on Tuesday in New York with world leaders bracing for the next global crisis and the rest of us uncertain about what they would do if it comes. Don't be fooled by the fact that U.S. markets hit record highs this past week, that global growth remains steady, or that the Trump administration in its first two years has escaped any crisis of the sort that came with the 9-11 terrorist attacks of 2001, the 2003 Iraq War or the Lehman Brothers meltdown of 2008. In my many years of taking the global pulse around UN week, where more than 120 leaders will gather, I've seldom seen or sensed such uneasiness and uncertainty. I've never known a time when the potential sources of volatility have been so widespread geographically. The debate, hence, has become less about the likelihood of a crisis and more about what form it might take, with what severity it will strike, and whether world leaders will have the capacity to contain it. They worry above all that America looks unbalanced to them, and thus the default source of stability during such a crisis feels like more of a wild card. Reporters next week will focus their attention on what President Donald Trump says in his speech to the General Assembly at the opening and again a day later, when he personally chairs a special session of the UN Security Council on stopping nuclear proliferation. (Expect a mixture of vilifying Iran and praising North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, whom he branded as "rocket man" on the same stage last year.) However, excessive focus on Trump's words would miss the more consequential story. A crisis is brewing in the cauldron of excessive debt, growing trade tensions and mounting geopolitical risk. The stakes are historic in nature during our new era of global competition, characterized by Chinese efforts to displace U.S. leadership, Russia's actions to disrupt it, and American uncertainty over how and whether to preserve it. The list of potential sources of instability are many. It could come in the form of economic war or financial crisis. Those odds grew this week with Trump's new tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods, China's return volley on $60 billion of U.S. imports and Trump's threat to turn the screw yet another notch. It could come as a security crisis out of the Mideast, a prospect underscored by this week's Syrian shoot-down of a Russian military reconnaissance plane. Initially, Moscow blamed it on Israel, but the incident only underscores the perils of so many potent parties operating over contested territory. Mideast crises rarely remain within the region's borders, having expressed themselves as extremist ideology, terrorist strikes and refugee flows. It could grow out of the political populism and nationalism that is unsettling Europe through Brexit, Italy's disruptive government, the rise of the German right and the new sanctioning of Hungary. European Union institutions have seldom faced so many simultaneous, centrifugal challenges Historic shifts often come in clusters. Don't forget that the 2008-09 financial crisis, which weakened and distracted the United States, was accompanied by the Russian invasion of Georgian territory and Beijing's staging of the 2008 Summer Olympics, signaling the more assertive period ahead. Worth watching most closely is how relations unfold with China. A U.S.-Chinese crisis, if not contained, could poison the most significant bilateral relationship for the global future. Markets appear to be betting that Trump's new tariffs are merely another negotiating tactic, one that will ultimately result in a de-escalating deal. The real optimists even believe this trade conflict could create more value as China opens up markets and stands down from its unfair trade practices. Electric vehicles (EVs) are on the rise. Last year, global sales passed 1 million new cars sold, the first time ever, according to a report by McKinsey & Company, an automotive and assembly company. More car companies are designing electric vehicles, like Jaguar's first electric SUV debuted in March, and Mercedes launching an all-electric vehicle to challenge Tesla. But what if non-automotive major brands came out with their own cars? What would they look like? Auto Trader, a digital automotive platform based in the United Kingdom, imagined what electric cars of the future would look like if eight world renowned lifestyle and tech brands designed them. The site created sketches based on each company's brand identity for Amazon, Ikea, Spotify, Airbnb, Instagram, GoPro, Sony and Virgin. For example, Ikea's car is imagined in flat-pack format with the brand's commitment to sustainability expressed with solar rooftop panels, according to Auto Trader. Amazon's car plays on the tech and retail giant's emphasis on efficiency and speed, with a battery that charges in 10 minutes, as well as a detachable drone that will deliver parcels directly to the boot. Take a look at the designs for three top companies. Amid wild volatility in marijuana stocks this week, former Goldman Sachs macro trader Michael Novogratz shorted Tilray but says he still thinks the marijuana industry will make it. "Listen, the weed business has a great underlying story, a lot like cryptocurrency. In five or six years, we will have a monster weed business," Novogratz said on CNBC's "Fast Money." Shares of Canadian marijuana company Tilray fell sharply Friday, concluding a wild week that captivated investors. The stock closed 30.3 percent lower and has posted sharp moves all week. It was also the worst-performing stock in the ETFMG Alternative Harvest ETF (MJ), which fell 7 percent. Tilray shares posted a 10 percent gain on Monday, followed by surges of 29 percent and 38 percent on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively. The moves followed Tilray's announcement on Tuesday that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration approved its efforts to export a cannabinoid study drug into the United States from Canada for a clinical trial. Novogratz said he couldn't help but to jump into the mix and short Tilray a point he teased Thursday at the Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit. "The Tilray move, I don't think I've ever seen a short squeeze and a frenzy like that ... the amount of volume and turnover on a low-float. And so, I was able to get a borrow, short it for a day trade, make some money," Novogratz said. He said he's since covered his short and is out of the sector. Novogratz said the marijuana industry has a promising future, but short-term, he said, it's all about short-selling. "If that was my business, I would be short," he said. Novogratz emphasized the Tilray short was a personal trade, separate from Galaxy Digital, the crypto merchant bank he launched in November 2017, a month before bitcoin hit its all-time high near $20,000. The firm took a $134 million hit in the first quarter of this year, according to its first-ever financial disclosure released in Canada after the company went public. Novogratz is still bullish on bitcoin and cryptocurrency and predicts a rally by 2019. "I do think bitcoin is going to be significantly higher by the end of the year," Novogratz said, adding he'd be disappointed if it didn't hit $6,800 or $8,800 by the end of the year. Back in November 2017, the former Fortress hedge-fund manager told CNBC that bitcoin could "easily" hit $40,000 by the end of 2018. He also predicted ethereum, which was trading near $211 this week, could hit roughly $1,500. Those two cryptocurrencies have gone in the opposite direction. Bitcoin is down more than 50 percent this year after starting 2018 above $14,000. Ethereum has dropped 83 percent from its high in January, according to CoinDesk. CNBC's Fred Imbert and Kate Rooney contributed reporting. Judge Brett Kavanaugh pauses while delivering his opening statement during his Supreme Court confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill, September 4, 2018 in Washington, DC. Christine Blasey Ford, a California professor at the center of a sexual assault accusation against U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, has agreed to testify to representatives of the Senate Judiciary Committee sometime next week, her lawyers said on Saturday. NBC News confirmed reports that both sides tentatively agreed to testify Thursday , although several details remained unsettled and an agreement may yet fall apart. Just as news was breaking about the potential hearing date, the White House released a statement saying "today we appear no closer to a fair hearing" after the back-and-forth between Ford's lawyers and the Senate Judiciary Committee. "But one thing has remained consistent: Brett Kavanaugh remains ready, willing and eager to testify as soon as possible," White House spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said in the statement. Ford's appearance would put an end to a stalemate that's lasted for several days, and engulfed Kavanaugh's nomination in a firestorm of controversy. This week, the Senate Judiciary Committee's ranking lawmaker threatened to advance a vote as early as Monday, in an ultimatum meant to compel Ford to tell her side of the story. In a letter, Ford's lawyers suggested several sticking points remained before their client would appear. The letter blasted the committee's proposals for Ford's testimony as "fundamentally inconsistent with the committee's promise of a fair, impartial investigation into her allegations, and we are disappointed with the leaks and the bullying that have tainted the process," wrote Debra Katz and Lisa Banks. However, "we are hopeful that we can reach agreement on details," they added. The Senate's oversight body and Ford's representatives have been in a protracted negotiations for her to appear in person, but failed to agree to terms. Meanwhile, Democrats have made numerous attempts to stall Kavanaugh's selection, with the GOP still holding a slim majority in the Senate. Ford's accusation has ricocheted through Washington, costing Kavanaugh public support and stalling his march to confirmation ahead of the hotly contested midterm elections. Democrats are seen holding an advantage, with Ford's defenders and critics trading accusations of political motivations. Sen. Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican who chairs the Judiciary Committee, had been negotiating with Ford's legal team about whether she would appear, and under what conditions. The sparring between the two camps has been bitter, with Democrats accusing the GOP of rushing Kavanaugh's nomination, while Republicans have walked a delicate line between giving Ford a fair hearing, and trying to get the seat filled ahead of midterms. In a lengthy post on Twitter, Utah Republican Senator Orrin Hatch sought to rebut several claims raised by Ford's defenders who have argued committee members have not been sympathetic to her plight. In response to conditions set by Ford's legal team earlier this week, Hatch said that the Judiciary Committee staffers were willing to travel to California to hear her testimony, and have been willing to extend the deadline repeatedly. Hatch Thread "We are absolutely sympathetic to limitations with regard to travel, which is why Chairman Grassley has repeatedly offered to send staff directly to Dr. Ford in California, so that travel would not be necessary," Hatch tweeted. After the release of the latest letter from Ford's attorneys, Hatch pointed out that the Senate committee members "are no closer to hearing from Dr Ford then we were when her lawyers said Dr. Ford was willing to testify during their media tour six days ago." Meanwhile, actions by key political players on both sides of the aisle have upped the stakes, and curdled the debate. California Senator Dianne Feinstein, the Judiciary Committee's top Democrat, was the first to receive Ford's initial letter but withheld it for months. Feinstein has come under withering scrutiny for being secretive about disclosing the letter's contents, after she referred it to federal investigators in a dramatic 11th hour bid to stall the nomination process. Separately, President Donald Trump has gone on the offensive to defend Kavanaugh, and on Friday launched into a heated attack on Ford herself. Below is the full text of the letter Ford's legal team sent to Senate staffers: Britain's opposition Labour party would move to nationalize key industries as a priority if it took office, its finance spokesman said ahead of its annual conference. John McDonnell said Labour would set up Public Ownership Unit in the finance ministry "immediately" on entering government, and that in some cases investors might not be compensated. "We're going to bring back into public ownership rail, water, energy and mail. We will get this legislation through in the first (policy program) Queen's Speech - we want to hit the deck running," he told the Daily Mirror ahead of the conference taking place in Liverpool this weekend. Under socialist leader Jeremy Corbyn, a parliamentary veteran, and his would-be finance minister McDonnell, Labour has shifted from the centrist pro-business platform of former prime minister Tony Blair to a more interventionist left-wing pitch. Nationalisation has long been a central tenet of their plans, which have previously been criticised by business. McDonnell also told the BBC that while investors would usually be compensated, for some Private Finance Initiative (PFIs) deals that might not be the case. "There might be some factors in relation to some operations of PFIs in particular that could be brought forward that says actually there is no compensatory arrangements needed here," he said. The Conservative governments of the 1980s and 1990s privatised much of Britain's infrastructure, including the railway in 1997. The current Conservative government has launched a "root and branch" review of the railway network after months of disruption to passengers caused by strikes, timetable changes and problems with the franchising system that was introduced after privatisation. Finance minister Philip Hammond criticized McDonnell's plans. "Ideological renationalization would lead to less choice and poorer services," he said in a statement. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (R) and French President Emmanuel Macron (L) shake hands as they make a joint press statement in New Delhi on March 10, 2018. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi faced calls for his resignation over allegations of corruption in a military jet deal with France after former French president Francois Hollande was quoted as saying New Delhi had influenced the choice of a local partner. Indian political parties have been gunning for Modi over the 2016 purchase of 36 Rafale planes from Dassault Aviation estimated to be worth $8.7 billion, saying he had overpaid for the planes and had not been transparent. In recent months, the opposition has questioned the government on the choice of billionaire Indian businessman Anil Ambani's Reliance Defence as Dassault's local partner instead of a state-run manufacturer with decades of experience. On Friday, Hollande, who cleared the intergovernmental deal when he was in office, was quoted as saying New Delhi had put pressure on Dassault to choose Reliance. "We had no choice. We took the interlocutor that was given to us," he was reported as telling the French news service Mediapart, fueling a political storm in India. Under Indian defense procurement rules, a foreign firm must invest at least 30 percent of the contract in India to help it build up its manufacturing base and wean off imports. For that, the French firm picked Reliance and not Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, the state-run giant that has been producing planes for decades, most of them Russian under licence. "The PM personally negotiated and changed the Rafale deal behind closed doors. Thanks to Francois Hollande, we now know he personally delivered a deal worth billions of dollars to ...Anil Ambani," Rahul Gandhi, the president of the main opposition Congress party, said in a tweet. "The PM has betrayed India." Modi, who stormed to power in 2014 promising to rid India of deep-seated corruption, had no "moral right" to remain in power after the revelations from Hollande, senior Congress leader Anand Sharma said. Smaller parties also joined the attack on Modi who is already under pressure to shore up his political base ahead of a series of state elections this year followed by a national election in 2019. Comcast outflanked rival Twenty-First Century Fox in a $39 billion takeover of British broadcaster Sky on Saturday, submitting a much higher bid in a rare three-round auction that pitted two of America's largest media companies against one another. The U.S. cable giant outbid its rival by $3.6 billion, offering 17.28 (over $22 per share, according to current exchange rates). Rupert Murdoch's Fox offered 15.67 (over $20) per Sky share, according to an official statement from the Takeover Panel. This follows a protracted bidding battle between Comcast and Fox over the coveted overseas competitor. The blind auction format is a highly unusual one for a deal as closely watched as the Sky acquisition. Takeover auctions are normally reserved for commercial transactions. In such auctions, bidders submit sealed offers to a third-party arbiter. A person close to the process told CNBC Saturday that Comcast wanted to ensure the company had paid enough of a premium over Disney's bid to sway shareholders inclined to go with Fox/Disney, based on their existing 39 percent stake in Sky. Meanwhile, a separate source familiar with Comcast's thinking told CNBC they expect Comcast to begin talks regarding Disney potentially selling its Sky stake to Comcast. The latter could also sell its 30 percent stake in Hulu, an American online entertainment service, the source added. Comcast chairman and CEO Brian L. Roberts. Getty Images According to Reuters, Brian L. Roberts, chairman and chief executive officer of Comcast applauded the decision and said the acquisition will allow Comcast to "quickly, efficiently and meaningfully increase customer base and expand internationally." "We now encourage Sky shareholders to accept our offer, which we look forward to completing before the end of October 2018," Roberts said. According to Reuters, Comcast is seeking to make market purchases of Sky shares. A spokesman for Twenty-First Century Fox declined to comment on the outcome. Bidding process After months of back and forth, the deal entered a one-day bidding process that involved three rounds. According to sources, familiar with the matter, bids in round one and two were "significantly lower." Another source told CNBC that Comcast executives thought there was a decent chance Fox was simply bluffing and didn't actually want Sky at all. But bidding 15.67 per share suggested Disney did, in fact, want Sky. Otherwise it would have bid much lower in Round 3, the source said. Now that the bidding has closed, both Fox and Comcast will be required to make an announcement of their revised offer for Sky by Monday. The firms must then release a formal offer document on or before Thursday. It is then down to Sky's board and shareholders to accept either offer, the deadline for that being October 11. While Comcast has emerged as the winner with the highest final offer, the new owner won't be confirmed until the shareholders of Sky shareholders which offer to accept. British Sky Broadcasting Group Plc's (BSkyB) headquarters in London, U.K. Simon Dawson | Bloomberg | Getty Images "Attention now quickly turns to integration with minimal impact on the business. However, you have to expect some cost cutting measures," Paolo Pescatore, an independent tech, media and telecoms analyst told CNBC via email. "There are significant growth opportunities in Europe. The combined entity will be a considerable force," Pescatore said. "Sky and its customers will benefit from being part of the wider group, access to more services, products and features, financial security to some extent to bid for key costly premium content rights in particular sports which is arguably the company's prized asset with the Premier League." Back and forth Rupert Murdoch's Fox, which itself is set to be bought by Disney for $71.3 billion, has gone back and forth with Comcast, each time upping its bids for the U.K.'s Sky several times. Disney's acquisition of Fox would have given the entertainment titan all of Fox's entertainment assets which include a 39 percent stake in Sky. Comcast's Brian Roberts earlier said he views Sky as a "unique asset," while Disney's Bob Iger called the British broadcaster the "crown jewel" of Fox's television and movie assets. Sky is seen as an important asset by the American firms because it's a major European pay-television company, with almost 23 million subscribers across the continent. It has increased its presence in digital media and so-called over-the-top (OTT) entertainment, which means content streamed to users over the internet. With the rise of TV and video streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, U.S. media corporations see consolidation as a way to fend off digital competition. May could face resignations without a Plan B T Defiant Prime Minister raises stakes with no-deal threat The Times May to end pro-EU migrant policy at crunch Cabinet The Sun Sturgeon attacks dreadful statement The Scotsman heresa May is heading for a showdown with her Cabinet next week when ministers will call for a Plan B alternative to her Chequers Brexit deal. The Cabinet meeting on Monday, which was due to discuss migration policy, will now be dominated by Mrs Mays Salzburg humiliation. The Prime Minister will be urged to offer an alternative to the proposal, agreed at her country residence in July, to keep the UK tied to the EU after Brexit or face resignations. One source said: Monday is the crunch point. Thats when every Cabinet minister will have to look again and reassess like Boris [Johnson] and David Davis did. There was speculation in Westminster that Esther McVey, the Work and Pensions Secretary, might walk out of the meeting if no alternative to Chequers was presented. Daily Telegraph Conservatives: Mordaunt breaks ranks over no deal The Guardian Conservative MPs hit back at Macron Daily Mail Tough speech draws sting out of Brexiteer revolt The Times Editorial: No Deal cant be the Governments only contingency plan The Times Its time May looked for a Plan B Daily Telegraph Stunning speech hit back at EU bullies The Sun >Today: ToryDiary: Our special survey. Only one in ten party members says that May should stick with Chequers. >Yesterday: ToryDiary: Around the black cloud of Salzburg one can glimpse a silver lining Quis separabit? May insists she wont let Britain and Ulster be divided Theresa May went to war with the EU yesterday for making a mockery of the UK during Brexit negotiations after Brussels bosses rejected her Chequers plan and refused to budge on their demands for the Irish border. The Prime Minister said there had been some progress but warned there are two major issues the Irish border and the integrity of the EUs single market on which we remain a long way apart. In a furious speech just weeks before the deadline for a possible agreement, Mrs May told her EU counterparts they are making a fundamental mistake if they believe she will let the UK be broken up over the Northern Ireland border issue. She said she was committed to attempting to secure a withdrawal agreement but hit out at Brussels for its refusal to compromise. Daily Express Democratic Unionist leader heaps praise on Prime Ministers tough Brexit stance The Sun May defiant as she reassures unionists News Letter Weakened premier fights for Chequers option FT >Yesterday: Video: WATCH: The Prime Minister hits the ball back into the EUs court but she is pressing the DUP to approve concessions on regulatory checks Irish Government presses May for fresh proposals The Guardian A bitter row with the DUP left Theresa May unable to deliver any progress to EU leaders on Brexit talks prompting them to reject her Chequers plan. Ministers are in secret negotiations with the Ulster unionist party over a new bid by the PM to break the negotiations deadlock, The Sun has learned. Mrs May wants to establish a different system of rules for goods in Northern Ireland than Great Britain as the missing part of a backstop plan to ensure the Irish border remains open. But DUP leaders are refusing to agree the move, which they argue would split up the United Kingdom. And any extra regulatory barriers without the Northern Irish peoples express consent would be a serious breach of the Good Friday peace agreement, they insist. A senior DUP source told The Sun: We have told Theresa that we will never allow her to divide up the UKs single market, and we will never budge on that. The Sun >Yesterday: Iain Dales column: May talks tough, but climbs down. Chequers was a compromise. Now get ready for more. She miscalculated? The EU overreacted? How and why May was ambushed in Salzburg It was less than 20 minutes before facing the cameras in Salzburg that Theresa May discovered the scale of the EU ambush about to befall her. Huddled in front of an aides iPad propped up on a table in the British delegation room, she watched as Donald Tusk read from a prepared script pronouncing the death of her Chequers blueprint in nine words. The suggested framework for economic co-operation will not work, he said bluntly. No one in the room had any inkling it was coming, certainly not the prime minister who had talked with Mr Tusk 30 minutes before. Not Oliver Robbins, her chief Brexit negotiator, who was sitting next to her and who had had responsibility for masterminding the summit strategy. Nor Sir Tim Barrow, her EU ambassador, whose job it was to be her eyes and ears on the ground. As soon as the words were out of Mr Tusks mouth, no one was in any doubt what needed to happen. The Times EU tries to stake sting out of Salzburg fallout The Times Mays tactics left EU leaders shocked and unconvinced Daily Telegraph Tusk faces backlash over cake joke The Times Pound plunges as spectre of crashing out looms Daily Mail Comment: The problem isnt the EU or Brexit, its Mays terrible leadership Tim Stanley, Daily Telegraph Downing St is playing a dangerous game, burning the Brexit boats James Forsyth, The Spectator Will May get a better deal? Cameron couldnt Stephen Glover, Daily Mail The five options open to May after Salzburg Oliver Wright, The Times Speaking as a Remainer, Brussels conduct has been outrageous Juliet Samuel, Daily Telegraph >Today: Andrew Murrison MP in Comment: After Salzburg, the EU needs a reality check on its security plans. Urgently. Legal fight over Article 50 goes to Europe E Boulton tears into Starmer over the Oppositions Brexit position Daily Express Umunna thinks Labour will commit to a second referendum Interview, The Times but McDonnell insists they will push ahead with Brexit The Guardian uropes highest court is to rule whether MPs can unilaterally cancel Brexit after a group of Remain-supporting politicians won a bombshell legal battle. The Court of Session in Edinburgh announced it would refer to the European Court of Justice the question of whether UK can revoke its decision to trigger the Article 50 withdrawal process without the permission of the other 27 EU members. The panel of appeal judges said the urgency of the issue, with the UK due to leave the EU on March 29 next year, meant its request was being done under expedited procedure. If successful, the case would theoretically allow MPs to cancel Brexit and stay in the EU if there is no deal reached or they are dissatisfied with the terms. Parliament could vote to withdraw the triggering of Article 50 even if the Government wants to press ahead. The UK Government said it was disappointed by the decision and was giving it careful consideration. Daily Telegraph Comment: Shift towards Europe by Labour voters puts pressure on Corbyn Peter Oborne, Daily Mail We need a new referendum, but dont assume Remain would win Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian Labour cant risk a second vote if May rallies the country against Brussels Tom Harris, Daily Telegraph >Yesterday: Left Watch: Labours reaction to Salzburg: full statement Ministers 1) Atkins accuses companies of not doing enough to support women Companies are not supporting women when they want to return to work after having children or caring after relatives, the Government has said. Victoria Atkins, the minister for women, said taking time out of work cuts short careers and stops them from re-entering the workplaces. Her comments came as the Government announced 500,000 in grants to five organisations which have pledged to support parents and carers returning to work. Ms Atkins said: For too long, taking time out of work to care for others has cut short careers and brilliant, talented women are unable to re-enter industries which will not support them to return. This is a huge loss not only to those individuals, but to our economy and businesses all over the country. We are investing in returners to work giving them the opportunity to refresh and grow their skills and encouraging employers to change their outdated recruitment processes. Daily Telegraph UK to help mothers rejoin the workforce to tackle the pay gap FT Ministers 2) Javid confirms that Windrush taskforce will issue first citizenship rejections Ministers 3) Grayling mocked by spin doctors A specialist taskforce set up to help people who believe they are victims of the Windrush scandal is to start the process of refusing cases deemed to be ineligible for documentation or citizenship. The Windrush taskforce was created after it emerged that long-term residents of Britain had been wrongly targeted by Theresa Mays hostile environment policy to tackle illegal immigration and were being told to prove their right to be in the country or leave. People were invited to contact the taskforce for support in obtaining documentation and citizenship. The home secretary, Sajid Javid, confirmed late on Friday that the first refusals would be issued to people in the UK who, though they have the right to remain in the country, have been found not to qualify for citizenship because serious criminality has meant they failed to meet the necessary good character requirement. The Guardian Chris Grayling has been brutally mocked by Tory spin doctors who have branded his media coverage raily bad in a withering briefing circulated to the Cabinet. The under-fire Transport Secretary has presided over months of franchising scandals, timetabling chaos, and delays to projects like Crossrail earning him the nickname Failing Grayling. Ministers and MPs receive daily email memos from Tory HQ setting out government wins and government losses in the newspapers and on the airwaves. They are usually written in boring Whitehall jargon, like neutral coverage, balanced or negative. But Mr Graylings headlines have been so dire that one briefing seen by The Sun described it raily bad in a mocking slapdown. After a report about delays to Crossrail last month, the sassy memo read Verdict: Raily bad. The Sun He truly is the kiss of death to any departmental brief Juliet Samuel, Daily Telegraph Experts claim Hammond wont need new taxes to boost the NHS The new kinder, gentler, Daily Mail puffs Rudds Tory leadership credentials Philip Hammond doesnt need to introduce any NEW taxes this year to pay for the NHS bonanza City experts declared. In a huge boost for hard-up Brits, figures showed borrowing between April and August was 17.8billion 8billion lower than a year ago. And analysts said borrowing was on course to fall to as low as 28billion for 2018-2019 almost 10billion below forecasts earlier this Spring. It came despite a rise in borrowing for August as corporation tax receipts at the Treasury plunged by almost 6 per cent. Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon said even in the worse case borrowing will be 5billion better than expected for the year. He said: At the very least the Chancellor wont need to announce offsetting tax rises to fund the extra money that has been earmarked for the NHS. The Sun She was humiliated when her claim that there were no Home Office targets for deporting illegal immigrants proved untrue. Since her resignation, she has kept a low profile. But now, refreshed after the summer break, the former pupil of the blue-stocking private school Cheltenham Ladies College is keen to re-enter the political fray. And she warns she has not given up hope of being Tory leader. Her admission comes in the week a secret memo that discussed potential Downing Street successors to Mrs May in the event of her being forced to leave office was circulated among Tory MPs. Amber Rudd is mentioned in the memo as a credible contender notwithstanding Windrush. In response, she remarks: Ill settle for that. The memo adds the caveat: But she is a Remainer. It is a big but with Britains departure from the EU just six months away. Though, as we shall see, it is not a problem that deters her. Daily Mail Lord Ashcroft and Isabel Oakeshott: Cuts have put the British military on the brink Extra security required for pro-Israel group at Labour conference Earlier this year, Theresa May ordered airstrikes on Syria to punish the Assad regime for its use of chemical weapons. Reports quickly emerged that British submarines loaded with cruise missiles had been dispatched and were on their way to the Mediterranean. Cue images of sleek, silent vessels powering their way underwater at top speed, the Royal Navy responding with vigour as it has done since the days of Nelson and beyond. The reality, though, was sadly and disturbingly very different. Not one submarine was sent, partly because Downing Street dithered but mainly because none was available. We had no assets on location, a confidential source in the Ministry of Defence admitted to us. Bluntly, at a time of international crisis, when the prime minister wanted to take a stand against the illegal use of chemical weapons, our Armed Forces did not have what was needed for a full-throttle response. Daily Mail A pro-Israel group has been forced to take on extra security at this years Labour conference amid the partys anti-Semitism crisis. The conference, which starts tomorrow, will host an academic who has claimed Zionists stopped Jews escaping the Holocaust. Professor Jonathan Rosenhead who also suggested Israel could be orchestrating anti-Semitic posts left online by Jeremy Corbyns supporters will speak at a fringe event. Extra bodyguards will protect attendees at the Labour Friends of Israels annual reception, and the group has scrapped its usual stand in the conference exhibition due to fears of disruption Mr Corbyn will tonight address hundreds of his supporters as moderates in the party fear Momentums mandatory reselection proposals will lead to purges. Other delegates are hoping to bounce Mr Corbyn into supporting a second Brexit referendum. Daily Mail Corbynistas and Trump fanatics swallow the lie of the deep state David Aaronovitch, The Times The Cold War may be over, but Russia still has useful idiots Charles Moore, Daily Telegraph Polls reveal Corbyns support is fading away the average age of those who joined the Labour Party after 2015 to be 54, and the most common age of this cohort to be 66. A survey in 2017 of all members showed the average age to be 57 and the most common age to be 70. The Times Leaders journey from outsider to idol threatens to run out of momentum Daily Telegraph Three-quarters of Brits think Corbyn is a poor leader The Sun as his allies draw up contingency plans over suspension fears Jeremy Corbyns support among people who voted Labour in the 2017 general election has shrunk markedly, fuelling fears that peak Corbyn has passed, a YouGov poll forreveals. About 63 per cent of Labour voters in the 2017 general election now view Mr Corbyn as favourable, down from 86 per cent in June last year, while 26 per cent view him as unfavourable, up from 9 per cent at election time. This suggests that Mr Corbyns handling of Europe, Russia and antisemitism has eaten into the support he put together during the election campaign. The poll comes as research suggests that Labours new members are older than many presumed. Data from Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, shows Allies of Jeremy Corbyn have drawn up emergency leadership plans amid fears that the Labour leader could be suspended over a series of alleged undeclared trips he took overseas, The Telegraph understands. Senior party sources have claimed that the proposals have been devised in the event that Mr Corbyn is found to have breached Parliamentary rules following an investigation by the standards watchdog. The plans, which are due to be put before the partys governing body on Saturday, include a clause that would hand Labours national executive committee unprecedented powers to constrain the authority of Tom Watson, who would automatically become caretaker leader in Mr Corbyns absence. It follows reports that Mr Corbyn is being investigated by Parliaments Commissioner for Standards over a series of nine undeclared trips he made as a backbench MP, including his now notorious visit to Tunisia in October 2014. Daily Telegraph Party would reverse Camerons ban on on-shore wind turbines FT SNP are no allies against austerity, Labour to warn The Scotsman SNP accused of pulling veil of secrecy over Salmond claims N Farage warns that UKIP faces marginalisation icola Sturgeons government has been accused of pulling a veil of secrecy over the Alex Salmond sexual misconduct allegations after rejecting a litany of requests for even the most basic information. The Scottish Government has rejected nearly all of the 21 Freedom of Information (FoI) requests that were tabled regarding Mr Salmonds conduct and Ms Sturgeons dealings with her predecessor. Although Mr Salmond has publicly stated he held three meetings in person with his former deputy to discuss the two complaints, her government refused to disclose even their dates and locations. Neither would the SNP administration say whether Leslie Evans, Ms Sturgeons most senior mandarin, was aware of the talks. The Scottish Government also refused to confirm how many times Mr Salmond contacted Ms Sturgeon regarding the civil service investigation into the claims or whether a record was kept of their conversations. Daily Telegraph Nigel Farage last night warned that Ukip faces total and utter marginalisation if it lurches to the far-right and lets Tommy Robinson join. The Brexiteer says he is really upset over the propsects of the beleaguered party that he once led. His stark warning comes as Ukip party members are set to debate letting Robinson a former BNP member and founder of the far-right EDL group into their party at their conference in Birmingham. Ukip leader Gerard Batten has said he backs moves to let Robinson in effectively overturning the partys ban on far-right activists and fundamentally repivoting the party Mr Batten revealed to MailOnline that he is backing a hugely controversial motion to let Robinson, 35, into the party. He said the activist could help the party broaden its appeal particularly to voters in the north. The two men are both vocal critics of Islam, which Robinson has dubbed bigoted and Mr Batten has described as a death cult. Daily Mail Party hardens stance on Muslims but steps back from alt-right FT Peoples Army faces civil war Daily Telegraph News in Brief: Dr Andrew Murrison MP is a former Minister for International Security Strategy, and is MP for South West Wiltshire. Donald Trumps frustration with European allies who take the cover but dont pay the premium is one of his more rational preoccupations. The UK too is a big net contributor to European defence, intelligence and security. Its right that the Government is saying publicly that defence and security are non-negotiable in the Brexit merry-go-round. In camera, I hope we are playing to our strengths. Britains Armed Forces and its security agencies are world-class. In Europe, only France comes anywhere close. In private, Michel Barnier and his able German deputy, Sabine Weyand, should not be encouraged to take UK defence, security and intelligence assets, among our best cards, for granted. The talk in Salzburg was that some EU national leaders and hard-over Brussels zealots are cooking up an economic punishment beating for the UK pour encourager les autres. That presents people like me with a problem. Im wondering how to convince my hard-pressed taxpaying constituents on the edge of Salisbury Plain that the UK assets they pay for should continue to subsidise countries planning to put the dampers on their prosperity. Id be stretching my powers of persuasion to convince those I serve that they should go the extra mile for neighbours that are at best indifferent to them. Indifferent contrary to Article 8 of the Lisbon Treaty. Article 8 is really rather lovely. It solemnly commits the EU to develop a special relationship with neighbouring countries based on cooperation in the interests of prosperity and good neighbourliness. In Salzburg the hills werent exactly alive with the sound of that particular mood music. Lets be clear. A strong economy and credible defence and security are two sides of the same coin. You cannot have one without the other. Theres the paradox: an EU undermining the UKs economy would undermine our ability, and our political will, to be helpful. And I would not want to be the European politician who has to explain to his public following the next security incident why protecting the purity of the EUs institutions came before the seamless security cooperation with the UK that could have prevented it. If that wasnt enough, we now learn that the UK may be ejected from the EUs troubled Galileo satellite navigation programme. Galileo is meant to shake off the yoke of the US GPS satellite system. But Brussels paranoia doesnt stop with American satellites. Apparently, outside the EU the UK would become a security threat.No, really. Given Galileos reliance on the UK financially, technically and for sensor hosting the EUs position smacks of putting punishment politics before pragmatism and public protection. Perhaps the way forward is to cut our losses and build our own system with like-minded states starting with the tried and tested Five Eyes intelligence community. However, it is always right to cooperate with neighbours. Shortly, Article 8 wont bind the UK but only an idiot would not seek to foster its spirit. Any failure by the EU to do so will have consequences. If the Galileo threat is more than just another show of playground pique. If, in fact the EU is, really, sufficiently worried about the security implications of Britains continued subscription to throw us out of the project, it must then also be fretting over the involvement in Europe of other UK defence, intelligence and security assets. Perhaps then it might like to provide these things for itself. You cant expect the UK to be a net contributor in defence, security and intelligence whilst the EU is denying access to things like Galileo. That would be cherry-picking. And as Michel Barnier always points out, that will never do. We need someone who can get inside the continental mind, the editor said, doing his best imitation of M. I remarked that while James Bond might have found that sort of assignment a piece of cake, I was not the agent he required. He retorted that Theresa Mays staff had done a pretty poor job of working out how Salzburg would play, and he wanted to know why. Twenty years ago, when living in Berlin, I would spend hours each day reading the German press, talking to highly informed Germans and pleading with my newsagent, Frau Lorenz, a former East German rowing champion, to make sense of it all. Even then, I was uneasily aware that I had not got near the heart of the German puzzle, and that a little learning was a dangerous thing. For a long time, I supposed that because most of the ordinary Germans I met said it would be insane to give up the German Mark in order to share a currency with the Italians, this would not happen. Yet happen it did, because the political class was cut off from ordinary Germans. Members of the Bundestag were more anxious to boast of their European virtues than to worry what their voters thought, and Helmut Kohl, who had the mind of a clever but unscrupulous peasant, realised he could dominate German politics by posing as a good European. Many years after returning to this country, I tried to make amends by writing a piece for ConHome called Nine things the British dont understand about the Germans, in which I admitted my own ignorance, and pointed out that even the Germans dont understand Angela Merkel. But every diplomat or foreign correspondent who lives for a time in Berlin, Vienna, Paris, Rome, Brussels or some other European capital finds himself or herself under a professional obligation to pretend to know what is going on, and even, which is yet harder, to say what is going to happen in the coming months. You get a demand from your employers for an up-to-the-minute response to whatever seems important in London, and you know you will get no thanks, and be regarded as a complete waste of time, if you tell the truth: Im sorry, but theyve got other things to think about. Just now, however, the Germans have other things to think about. Last night, I rang a friend in Berlin who confirmed that authority is draining away from Merkel. A new poll by the ARD television station puts her Christian Democrats at a mere 28 per cent, the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany on 18 per cent, and her coalition partners, the Social Democrats, in third place on a pitiful 17 per cent, for the leaders of that party, obsessed by modish questions to do with sexual politics and the environment, have long since lost touch with the workers who used to vote for it. Three smaller parties, the Greens, the Left and the Free Democrats, got 15, ten and nine per cent respectively. German politics is splintering, with voters who have long been taken for granted by the main parties going in search of alternatives. The two main coalition parties are squabbling about Hans-Georg Maassen, whose position as head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, or domestic spy agency, became untenable after he cast doubt on the authenticity of a video which showed migrants being hunted in Chemnitz. Merkel, Andrea Nahles, the leader of the Social Democrats, and Horst Seehofer, the Interior Minister, persuaded themselves that the way to solve this problem was for Seehofer, a veteran leader of the Bavarian CSU, sister party to Merkels Christian Democrats, to give Maassen a better paid job in the Interior Ministry. That in turn led to a wave of protest from the Social Democrats, many of whom want to end the coalition. The CSU face elections in Bavaria next month in which they are expected to do very badly, and so do the Christian Democrats in Hesse. No wonder Merkel looked as shattered as May did in Salzburg, was quite unable to lead an orderly search for a sensible Brexit settlement, and instead watched as other leaders competed to provide the provocative quotes which the visiting London press required. Emmanuel Macron, who is himself much less popular than he used to be, was in his element. My own view is that the row in Salzburg has been somewhat overblown, and that agreement is still possible. But such a feeble analysis would have been of no value to May after everyone reported she had been humiliated. She needed to come out fighting, which back in Downing Street she did. I do not wish to suggest that if Merkel were in her prime, she would have come to the rescue of May. She would not: she would have driven a hard bargain. But the Chancellor might at least have come to the rescue of the European Union, which without German leadership is all over the shop. Our last monthly survey found about a quarter of respondents supporting Theresa Mays Chequers Plan. In the wake of her rebuff at Salzburg this week, backing for it has dropped to well under a tenth. Our panel has clearly given up almost altogether on the belief that it is practical or negotiable. Add it to the nine per cent who back an EEA option, plus the five per cent who want to postpone Brexit altogether, and one reaches 21 per cent. Its striking that our last pre-EU referendum survey found Remain support at 22 per cent. We suspect that much the same people backed that option then who now support either Chequers, joining the EEA or scrapping Brexit now. The Canadian option has the most support of any option at over two in five respondents. Over a third want the Prime Minister to walk out of the talks altogether. That proportion may be boosted by this weeks deadlock but backing for it is clearly substantial. Under one per cent express no view at all. Mays statement yesterday looked tactical rather than strategic a means of knocking the Chequers ball back into the EUs court. There is no sign that the EU wants to knock it back. Our panel may not like the way in which the Prime Minister has been treated, but that doesnt mean they back the plan to which she is sticking (at least publicly). Party conference and the run-up to it still look sticky for her today. The incidents the officers were involved in were tied to drugs or alcohol, the Hermosa police chief said. We are analyzing the site. Please wait a few seconds.. Connecticuts economy added 1,100 jobs in August and also benefited from a revision of previously announced employment figures for July, an official with the state Department of Labor said Thursday. The states unemployment rate fell by one-tenth of a percentage point to 4.3 percent, Andy Condon, director of the agencys Office of Research, said. That is still 0.4 percent higher than the national unemployment rate. The July unemployment data, which had shown a decline of 1,200 jobs when it originally was announced, was revised upward to a gain of 500 jobs, according to Condon. After dips in March and April, we have now seen four straight months of employment gains in Connecticut, he said in a statement. On an annual basis, the construction, manufacturing, education, health services and leisure and hospitality sectors are all showing good growth. The education and health services sector added 1,000 new jobs compared to August 2017, while the leisure and hospitality business added 700 jobs. The trade, transportation and utilities sector saw a decrease of 900 jobs last month while the manufacturing and information sectors saw declines of 100 each. The Hartford and lower Fairfield County labor market areas led the state in job growth during August. The Hartford labor market area added 1,000 jobs while the Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwlak area added 900. The New Haven labor market area lost 100 jobs last month compared to August 2017. Economists said while the latest employment data is encouraging, the states economy has been unable to show it can achieve a sustained recovery. We have not been able to sustain positive gains month-to-month for long periods, and we need to have that to really start to see long-term changes in our economy, Pete Gioia, an economic adviser to the Connecticut Business & Industry Association, said in statement. Gioia said the fact that the state financial services sector added just 200 jobs in August was especially troubling. We have negative year-over-year growth for the financial sector, which is very important for well-paying jobs and very important for Fairfield County, Gioia said. Donald Klepper-Smith, chief economist and director of research for New Haven-based DataCore Partners, said the states labor markets are treading water at this point with no discernible strength. This means were presently 13,700 jobs from attaining full job recovery, Klepper-Smith said, referring to the workers need to be hired for the state to return to the employment levels it was at prior to the 2008 recession. Extrapolating this growth out in time, we see that the states economy is not likely to see full job recovery until sometime in late 2019. luther.turmelle@hearstmediact.com A major new investment conference, featuring top hedge fund executives including Ray Dalio and Paul Tudor Jones II, is coming this fall to Greenwich. The Greenwich Economic Forum is set for Nov. 15-16 at the Delamar hotel, at 500 Steamboat Road, overlooking Greenwich Harbor. The Greenwich Economic Forum will bring together 300 leaders in finance and public policy to discuss the global risk environment, according to the hosts, which include the Connecticut Hedge Fund Association, the Greenwich town government and the state Department of Economic and Community Development. We want to leverage our position, here in Greenwich and Stamford, as a global center of the investment industry, said Bruce McGuire, president of the Connecticut Hedge Fund Association. We thought Greenwich would be a great backdrop for this annual gathering of senior-level people from the buy side and sell side from all over the world. Its like our answer to the World Economic Forum in Davos. Dalio and Jones, who respectively founded Westport-based Bridgewater Associates, the worlds largest hedge fund, and Stamford-based hedge fund Tudor Investment Corp., comprise two of the approximately 30 investment executives listed as program contributors on the conferences agenda. At 8:55 a.m., on Nov. 15, Dalio is set to participate in a panel discussion on global capital markets with Balyasny Asset Management CEO Dmitry Balyasny. Dalio is also scheduled to give a presentation at 10:40 a.m., on Nov. 16. Jones is set to be publicly interviewed at 9:30 a.m., on Nov. 15. Other events at the forum include panels on institutional investing, central banks, private-market investing, Chinas financial markets, venture-capital investing, lending, portfolio management, artificial intelligence and alternative investing. Public officials who plan to speak at the conference include Greenwich First Selectman Peter Tesei and Catherine Smith, the states economic development commissioner. Last month, about 127,000 people in Connecticut worked in financial activities, down 500 positions from a year ago, according to the state Department of Labor. The state is a major investor in Bridgewater and Greenwich-based AQR Capital Management. Through the First Five Plus program, Bridgewater and AQR are, respectively, eligible for up to $52 million in loans, grants and tax credits and up to $35 million in loans and grants, depending on the firms meeting certain job targets. As of May 31, Bridgewater employed about 1,625 in the state, while AQRs Connecticut contingent totaled 770, according to the DECD. Among major changes in the industry, Tudor Investment earlier this year signed a lease to take about 25,000 square feet in the office complex at 200 Elm St., in downtown Stamford. The firm had previously been based on King Street in Greenwich, on the towns line with Westchester County, N.Y. A few miles away, in Stamfords Waterside section, Point 72 Asset Management has moved this year from family-office operations into hedge fund management. For two years, until the end of last year, the firm had been barred by federal authorities from taking outside funds because of 2013 insider-trading violations at founder Steven Cohens previous firm, SAC Capital Advisors. More Information For more information on the Greenwich Economic Forum, visit www.greenwicheconomicforum.com See More Collapse Point72 has raised about $4 billion in outside capital this year, bringing its total assets under management to approximately $13 billion. The balance represents assets belonging to Cohen and his family and a select group of Point72 employees. About 500 Point72 employees are based at the firms headquarters at 72 Cummings Point Road. pschott@scni.com; 203-964-2236; twitter: @paulschott NORWALK Sister Hazels concert at the Wall Street Theater next week not only kicks off a series of national headlining acts coming to the Norwalk theater, it contributes to the country-rock bands own musical legacy. Sister Hazel formed in Gainesville, Florida, 25 years ago, and it will be the same five original musicians Jett Beres on bass and vocals, Mark Trojanowski on drums, Ryan Newell on lead guitar and vocals, Andrew Copeland on rhythm guitar and vocals, and Ken Block on lead vocals and guitar taking the stage of the Wall Street Theater on Thursday, Sept. 27. A sixth member, Dave LaGrande, who plays sax and keyboards, joined about six years ago. At this point our band is truly family, good times and bad. We all feel like we still have something to say, and people are still connecting with our music, said Andrew Copeland, in explaining the dynamics of Sister Hazels longevity. Getting to this point was about settling into our roles in this band, doing what each of us does best, picking our battles, and understanding the bigger picture has always been about the sum of the parts not just the parts. That bigger picture includes a musical resilience which earned the band critical acclaim and success in several musical genres, including indie-rock, and its 1997 hit All for You topped the adult alternative charts. The one constant throughout, however, has been superlative songwriting and musicianship. So its not surprising that Sister Hazel is currently experiencing success in the country music field, with its emphasis on strong songwriting, and they recently were invited to perform at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee. Ive always felt like our records were all over the place, said Copeland, who writes many of the songs. Weve never really fit into one mold. Im super thankful that the country music market recognizes us and welcomes us. We always have and continue to try and be true to the songs. We write from the heart and I think one of the things that draws people to our music is the honesty, he added. If the song calls for a little more rock, so be it. If it calls for a straight ballad feel, well do it. If it needs a little country brushed over it, we feel totally comfortable doing it. Sister Hazels albums have regularly rode best-selling music charts, with Lighter In The Dark climbing to No. 4 on Billboards Top Country Albums. Their recent effort, Water, released in February, hit No. 9 on that same Billboard chart and No. 2 on Billboards Independent Albums list. Water is the first in a series of four EPs that make up a compilation set called Elements. The bands second EP in the series, Wind, is a six-track follow-up released earlier this month. I love the way weve rolled this thing out, said Copeland, about the Elements project. Weve never put music out this fast, and its been awesome. I can tell you that the idea was really nurtured by our bassist, Jett Beres. Dude comes up with some creative ways for this band to continue to connect. Copeland shares many of the writing credits on the new disc, too, and he explained his process. Ive written songs from a ton of different angles. It can start with a lyric, a melody, an idea or even a feeling, he said. I actually love the writing process. Ive never really written a song thinking specifically about our band arrangement and how we would play it. I write the songs and then bring them in understanding that our band is going to Hazel-fy them. As soon as we get behind our instruments and play the song, it becomes a Hazel song. Everyone writes, and its made us such a better band. Copeland feels happy about where the band is with goals revolving around that next hit song. Weve been around for a quarter of a century, and people are still connecting with our music, old and new, he said. I think we would love to have a strong radio showing with a newer song, but honestly, were just super thankful for the careers that weve been blessed with. As far as his own goals, theyre a little more personal: Id like to write a hit, lose some weight, make my family proud, and please the Good Lord not necessarily in that order, of course, he said. Elizabeth and the Catapult opens the Thursday night show at 8 p.m. The Wall Street Theater is located at 71 Wall St., in Norwalk. Visit wallstreettheater.com. Mike Horyczuns Sound Surfing column appears every Saturday in The Norwalk Hour. Mike can be reached at: news2mh@gmail.com BRIDGEPORT A school district under constant scrutiny for its failure to comply with special education laws is facing a new concern over translation services it provides to students and parents during special education planning meetings. The Center for Childrens Advocacy, along with Disabilities Rights Advocates, a national organization working on behalf of Make the Road Connecticut maintains that the district routinely fails to provide qualified, impartial interpreters and translated documents to children with disabilities and their parents who are not English speakers. Under state and federal law, they must. The district has reportedly been working on the issue, but barriers remain, according a letter sent by the agencies to schools Superintendent Aresta Johnson in July. John Di Donato, chief of specialized instruction, told a school board committee this week the matter was serious and needs to be addressed. In their judgment, the district hasnt moved quickly enough or substantially enough, said Di Donato, who has been working with attorneys from the groups on a structured settlement agreement to head off litigation. Quite frankly it probably isnt an issue isolated to Bridgeport, Di Donato said, suggesting the national groups may be using Bridgeport as a test case. Language access is a problem throughout the state, particularly in some districts, said Sabrina Tavi, a staff attorney for the Center for Childrens Advocacy. She described Bridgeports issues as systemic, but refused to go into specifics, calling the ongoing discussions with the district confidential. Barbara Lopez, director of Make the Road Connecticut, said the organization has been working to improve language access for children and parents for some time and that understanding is critical for student achievement and parent engagement. It is an ongoing issue, Lopez said. At this time, we are actively engaged in negotiations with Bridgeport and are optimistic that these cooperative discussions will improve language access to the special education process in Bridgeport public schools. Twice in recent years, the Center for Childrens Advocacy has filed complaints with the state over the districts identification and handling of special education students. The last formal complaint was resolved last year. Di Donato, said he has been working to develop district capacity to deliver special education services to the point it can defend its position when complaints arise. As for the current complaint, he said the district has instituted translation services when Planning and Placement (PPT) meetings are held, but characterized them as uneven. PPT meetings are required to determine appropriate services for students with disabilities. It is unclear how many PPTs are conducted by the district or how many involve students and parents who do not speak English. In the last school year, the district had 3,782 students with disabilities. It also has more than 3,000 English Language Learners. Spanish and Portuguese are the top two non-English languages spoken in the district but they are among 73 languages represented in the district. One of the biggest issues, Di Donato suggested, is who is used as an interpreter. A social worker on the planning team who translates might self censor. A secretary called in to translate may not understand the academic language used. I have been at PPTs where that has occurred, Di Donato said. The district decided last spring to hire two interpretation firms. District officials would not say this week how much the services are being paid and did not respond to a request for their contracts. Long term, Di Donato said, he would prefer to train district staff to provide accurate and ethical interpretations rather than hire outside firms. Some training is already occurring. This is going to be a costly program, Di Donato said. Every time we spend our resources on mandated services, it means some non-mandated service is going to be reduced. Since March, the district says, it has developed district-wide interpretation and translation procedural guidelines. It has posters in all schools offering language help in 14 languages, added a translation service to its website and asks parents their language preference for communications. It also sends out phone messages for things like school closings in Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian-Creole and Vietnamese. We have taken affirmative leaps. That is my position, Ben Walker, a board member and chair of the Teaching and Learning Committee, said. While acknowledged some agreement should be worked out, Walker said he fears entering into a legally binding document dictated by a non-governmental agency. I dont want to do 150 PPTs with Linguista (one of the outside translation agencies) and miss one and find a suit in our lap, Walker said. It needs to be reasonable. The committee was promised a progress report on the talks when it meets in October. WASHINGTON Whichever way it goes, dueling testimony from Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, is likely to represent a sea change in the Supreme Court confirmation process as well as the overarching politics of it all. The epic confrontation begins Monday with Kavanaughs return engagement before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He will reiterate his denial of charges leveled by Ford that as teenagers, Kavanaugh assaulted her while drunk, pinned her down on a bed and put his hand over her to mouth to stifle screaming. After intense negotiations between her legal team and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, Ford agreed to speak to the committee, it was announced Saturday. Politico reported that a hearing has been tentatively set for Thursday. Her testimony is likely to be graphic and detailed undermining what had been relatively smooth sailing toward confirmation for the 53-year-old D.C. federal appeals court judge. Whether thats enough to derail Kavanaugh remains to be seen. But for Sen. Richard Blumenthal, of Connecticut, and fellow Judiciary Committee Democrats, the allegations represent a path to scuttling Kavanaugh that eluded them during two days of intense Q&A during confirmation hearings. The nation should rally around (Fords) decision to speak truth to power, Blumenthal said in a statement Saturday. Dr. Fords sharing her story despite death threats and vicious bullying speaks to the credibility of her allegations. No one should confuse support for that story with an endorsement or acceptance of this deeply broken process. Earlier in the week, Blumentahl said: What were seeking to uncover is the truth and the facts through testimony and an investigation, without any real delay at all, Blumenthal said. Republicans fear her testimony because they fear the truth, he said. For Republicans, the high-wire act they must perform to win Senate confirmation is full of peril. Already projected in most polls to lose control of the House, Republicans could lose the Senate as well if they appear to give Ford short shrift in order to ram Kavanaugh through. But failure to win confirmation would alienate the Republican base of Trump-supporting conservatives and evangelicals, the foot soldiers Republicans need at the polls this November. Its hard to see how Republicans end up winning either way, said Ronald Schurin, political scientist at the University of Connecticut. Out in the open Given the #metoo-inspired public awakening of women to long-unaddressed abuse by powerful men, the charges against Kavanaugh could hardly have come at a worse time. Her allegations cannot be dismissed, said Laura Cordes, executive director of the Connecticut Alliance to End Sexual Violence, which coordinates nine crisis centers with 24/7 hotlines and counseling. Sexual assault is a crime. It shouldnt be diminished or minimized as some (high school) antic. Among the nine centers are ones located in Stamford, Milford, Torrington, Danbury and Bridgeport. For those of a certain age and perhaps political conviction, the Kavanaugh vs. Ford confrontation evokes memories of Anita Hill in 1991 accusing then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of lewd sexually oriented statements while the two worked together. Though gripping and graphic, Hills testimony didnt sink Thomas who won confirmation on a Senate vote of 52-48. But Thomas joined the court as a third solid conservative vote, with the remaining six justices nominated by Republican and Democratic presidents representing sort of a mushy mainstream of legal thinking. The contrast to now may explain why the Kavanaugh battle is as intense as it is. With four solid conservatives and four solid liberals on the court, Kavanaughs confirmation likely would tip the court in a conservative direction. After his nomination, Blumenthal and other Senate liberals saw cherished precedents in jeopardy, including Roe v. Wade, which established abortion rights in 1973. The very thought of a fifth conservative on the court mobilized Blumenthal and Sen. Chris Murphy, both of whom are feeling pressure from the Democratic base in Connecticut to deliver the goods defeat of Kavanaugh. Trump weighs in On the Republican side, President Donald Trump has not been restrained in his finger-pointing. Kavanaugh is under assault by radical left-wing politicians who dont want to know the answers, they just want to destroy and delay, Trump tweeted Friday. Facts dont matter. I go through this with them every single day in D.C. In a separate tweet, Trump also suggested that if the assault was as bad as she says, she should bring forth copies of complaints filed with police so that we can learn date, time, and place! Anti-Kavanaugh advocates counter that Ford was understandably reticent about coming forward and ultimately did so on her own. Its a version of what we see every day, said Cordes. It is common for victims not to disclose, not to tell friends, not to report. Women are scrutinized, threatened and somehow blamed for acts of sexual violence perpetrated against them. Undergirding Democratic opposition is the bitter memory of Merrick Garland, nominated by then-President Barack Obama in March 2016 to fill the vacancy left by the abrupt death of the courts leading conservative, Justice Antonin Scalia. Had Merrick won confirmation, the courts balance would have tipped 5-4 in a liberal direction. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., halted the nomination on a gamble that Republican victory in the 2016 presidential election would tip the high courts balance back in a rightward direction. McConnells strategy paid unexpected dividends when Trump defeated Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, against all odds. In the 20 months since Trumps inauguration, the Senate confirmed one conservative, Neil Gorsuch, to the court and was on the verge of clinching a conservative majority until Ford stepped forward. Richard Kay, law professor emeritus at UConn and a veteran observer of confirmation battles, said he doubts Democratic resistance to Kavanaugh is direct payback for what happened to Garland. Nevertheless, it wouldnt be unnatural to seize on it, he said. Its a human reaction. When the dust from this weeks cross-fire testimony settles, the fate of Kavanaughs confirmation will be in the hands of a few Red-state Democratic and moderate Republican senators. The cloud surrounding Kavanaugh may give Democrats from states won in 2016 by Trump more of an out to oppose Kavanaugh than would otherwise have been the case, said Schurin. In addition, Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, both pro-choice and skittish about Kavanaugh on that issue, may turn against him. A combination of centrist Republicans and Democrats voting no likely would seal Kavanaughs confirmation tomb for good. dan@hearstdc.com China has scrapped trade talks with the United States days before President Donald Trump is set to escalate the commercial battle with a new round of tariffs, according to a person familiar with the discussion. Chinese officials canceled the planned negotiations after Trump announced he would impose new levies of up to 10 percent on another $200 billion in Chinese imports, effective Monday. Beijing vowed to strike back, slapping duties of up to 10 percent on an additional $60 billion in American products. China's Ministry of Commerce did not immediately respond Saturday. Beijing had prepared to send Vice Premier Liu He, the country's top-ranking economic official, to Washington next week, along with a mid-level delegation to prepare for his visit, the Wall Street Journal reported. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had been expected to oversee the talks, which were called in hopes of easing tensions between the world's two largest economies, U.S. officials have said. The effort crumbled a week after Trump tweeted the White House felt "no pressure" to resolve the dispute with China. He has accused the country of stealing intellectual property from American businesses, among other trade infractions. "We are under no pressure to make a deal with China, they are under pressure to make a deal with us," he wrote, adding: "If we meet, we meet?" Analysts said the news reflects the breakdown in the international relationship. "This is brinkmanship that benefits no one and a reflection that four decades of constructive U.S.-China relations are spiraling out of control," said James Zimmerman, partner in the Beijing office of the international firm Perkins Coie LLP and former chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China. U.S. industry groups in China urged Trump on Saturday to restart negotiations, asserting that fraying ties between the countries is bad for global business. "We encourage both sides to resume a results-oriented dialogue in earnest," said Jake Parker, vice president of China operations at the U.S.-China Business Council, which represents about 200 firms, including PepsiCo, Apple and General Motors. Chinese President Xi Jinping has refused to bend to the White House's demands amid escalating threats from Trump, who pledged to place tariffs on virtually everything the United States buys from China if Beijing responds with the new duties. Xi faces public pressure to stand undaunted by Trump's financial swings at his country, analysts say, as he seeks to prove that China, too, is a superpower on the international stage. Beijing's next round of tariffs, slated to take effect Monday at noon, target more than 5,200 kinds of American imports, including industrial parts, chemicals and medical instruments. "In order to safeguard our legitimate rights and interests and the global free trade order, China will have to take countermeasures," the country's Ministry of Commerce said in a statement Tuesday. "We deeply regret this." Trump's latest levies bring more uncertainty into the status of negotiations, Chinese officials said at the time, suggesting the economic conflict could drag on indefinitely. By next week, the United States and China could be poised to impose tariffs on their entire exchange of goods, which surpasses $635 billion annually. An all-out trade war would trigger job losses in both countries, economists say, as well as a spike in the cost of household goods, including bedding, furniture, toys, razors and toaster ovens. Trump's next opportunity to meet with Xi is in November at the Group of 20 summit in Argentina. Both leaders are expected to attend the multilateral conference. When Republican Larry Hogan was elected governor of deep-blue Maryland, he envisioned himself playing "goalie": pitching targeted populist initiatives but mostly trying to thwart a Democratic-majority legislature. He required school to start after Labor Day, cut some fees and lowered tolls by about $3, built roads in rural areas, and pushed targeted tax relief for some retirees. Now his bid for a second term - he would be the first Republican chief executive re-elected in Maryland since 1954 - is built on similarly incremental policy gains. Hogan's campaign website offers no new sweeping policy ideas, and he has pitched just one brand-new initiative: to seek broader tax cuts beyond the "nibbling around the edges" he already secured. "We don't want to change very many things or make any U-turns or go in a different direction," he said in an interview. The governor's pitch to largely keep the status quo stands in marked contrast to the campaign of Democratic challenger Ben Jealous, who among other things envisions a state that pioneers a new way to deliver health care, a 25 percent boost in annual education spending, a statewide $15 minimum wage, a new tax on the wealthy and a recreational marijuana industry - not to mention reducing the state's prison population by about a third. Jealous and Hogan have dramatically different views of Maryland, reflecting a divide that goes far beyond the traditional gulf between political parties. Their starkly different visions of the state - and its potential future - will be on display Monday during the gubernatorial contest's lone televised debate. Hogan, the popular incumbent, sees people happy with his tenure of pragmatic governance, though suffering from bad traffic, neighboring states that don't do enough to help restore the Chesapeake Bay and a high tax burden. "I want to go much further and provide much more tax relief for small businesses, for middle-class taxpayers and for retirees," he said, before adding a pragmatic caveat: "We've got to find a way to pay for it, and I've got to get the legislature on board." Jealous, the former NAACP president who is far behind in the polls, sees working families as left behind by what he calls the governor's "half-solutions" on criminal justice, the economy and education. He pitches a dramatic - and potentially pricey - overhaul of state government that he believes would create more equity and opportunity across the board. "My vision is rooted in my understanding that we don't have to crawl," Jealous said in an interview. "We have an opportunity to leap forward." Todd Eberly, a political scientist at St. Mary's College, said Hogan believes "that for the most part, Maryland doesn't need a revolution, just some reforms." "Ben Jealous says Maryland should be a trailblazer and really reach for the sky," Eberly continued. "It's a vision of the state that suggests there are a lot of things that need to be fixed. . . . I don't think you could argue that either one of them are right or wrong." Hogan and his allies bristle at the term "incremental." He points to the construction of the Purple Line (a project planned by his predecessor); record money for schools (largely dictated by spending formulas); several billion dollars in road and bridge improvements (paid for by a gas tax he unsuccessfully tried to roll back); and a just-signed reinsurance plan that reversed double-digit percentage increases in health-care insurance costs (he also insists that a new $380 million fund created by a tax on insurers is not a new tax). By his count, Hogan prevented more than a billion in spending proposed by Democrats and eliminated or reduced 250 fees, dropping, for example, the cost of an ID card for the homeless from $25 to $1 and making it free for veterans to visit state parks. He also had vetoed voting rights for felons and a paid sick leave law, only to see the state legislature override him. Part of his vision for the next four years is to help Republicans win five state Senate seats held by Democrats so that the General Assembly no longer holds a veto-proof majority. "The criticism of 'we just do small ball' is nonsense," Hogan said. "I mean, I did stop bad things and play goalie. I was playing defense. . . . [But] we had a much better offensive game than I even imagined." House Minority Leader Nicholaus Kipke, R-Anne Arundel, contrasted Hogan's record of tackling Maryland problems - trying to expand charter schools, negotiating a compromise on a manufacturing tax credit and seeking targeted tax relief for retirees - with the national headline-grabbing ideas of Hogan's Democratic predecessor, former governor Martin O'Malley, who successfully pushed for a tough gun-control law, repeal of the death penalty, legalizing same-sex marriage and granting in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants. "With many of his initiatives, we'd joke that this was a television commercial for his presidential run," Kipke said, referring to O'Malley's failed 2016 bid. "That's just not the way it is with Larry Hogan. Not any one issue is a superstar issue, but collectively it's a superstar record." Democratic critics contend Hogan has been at best a caretaker, willing to take credit for signing laws he did not help pass and offering few original ideas. "He ran against the transportation [gas] tax, and then as governor he's handing out dollars as though it were manna from heaven," said state Sen. Richard Madaleno Jr., D-Montgomery County, who is one of the five Democrats who lost to Jealous in the primary. Madaleno, who worked as a legislative policy analyst before being elected to the General Assembly 12 years ago, described Jealous's pitch to voters "big and bold." "Ben Jealous is certainly proposing very little you could describe as incremental," Madaleno said. "Once he gets into office, it might turn into being incremental. You might say that you believe in a single-payer health-care plan, but you might need five steps to get there." Jealous supporters acknowledge that he might not have all the details for all of his big ideas worked out yet, but they say that's besides the point. "When I think of a leader, I think of someone who is bold, who is creative, who is not afraid to get out there and explain your position," said Del. Joseline Pena-Melnyk (D-Prince George's County), a three-term lawmaker. "At least he has ideas." But more centrist lawmakers - including some Democrats - say Jealous's vision is unrealistic. "Simply just throwing out there that we're going to reduce the prison population by 30 percent without any type of detail is completely meaningless and somewhat irresponsible," said state Sen. Robert Zirkin, D-Baltimore County, who as chair of the Judicial Proceedings Committee helped shepherd broad criminal-justice reforms over the past two years. Largely as a result of those changes, Maryland's prison population is already declining at one of the fastest rates in the country, according to a May report from the Vera Institute of Justice. "Either he doesn't know what's going on in the state, or he's ignoring what's going on in the state," Zirkin said of Jealous. "Either way, it's not a good way to run for governor." Jealous dismissed those concerns, noting Zirkin has accepted campaign donations from the cash bail industry. "It's not surprising that I have different views on mass incarceration than politicians who take lots of money from the bail lobby," he said. "People get into power, and they develop relationships with rich special interests, and it clouds their view." On the campaign trail, Jealous offers those zingers in speeches, critiquing Maryland's current leaders for timidly pushing Democratic ideas. Hogan spends much of his time glad-handing and posing for photos, telling voters he's focused on "common-sense" ideas. Although voters have a distinct choice ahead of them, they may not have a clear sense of the alternative Jealous is offering, said Melissa Deckman, chair of the political science department at Washington College. That's because the Democrat has vastly fewer resources than the incumbent governor. While Hogan and his allies have put more than $2 million behind statewide television statewide advertising since the June 26 primary, Jealous and his supporters launched their modest first media buys in the Baltimore market earlier this month. Monday's debate, which will air at 7 p.m. on Maryland Public Television, offers Jealous his first general-election shot at a statewide audience to articulate his vision, and for Hogan to display his. "It's been hard to know what Jealous' message is because I haven't seen much from him on the airways," Deckman said. The Republic of Vanuatu is facing a diabetes epidemic. It is estimated that roughly 13 percent of the countrys population suffers from the disease. This compares to a global average of 8.5 percent. To counter this epidemic, Vanuatus national health care system is working on a series of clinical trials using a cannabis-based drug to treat diabetes. Why it matters These trials might provide us with an treatment for a condition that affects 422 million adults worldwide. As of 2012, 1.6 million deaths were directly attributed to diabetes each year. Here are some other important things you should know about diabetes before moving on: 1 in 3 adults aged over 18 years is overweight. 1 in 10 adults are obese. Type 2 diabetes in much more common than type 1 diabetes. A majority of diabetes deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries. Diabetes is an important cause of blindness, amputation and kidney failures. As of 2010, diabetes was the seventh leading cause of death in the U.S., taking over 17 million lives per year. Related: New Study Will Explore Medical Marijuana as a Treatment for Autism There's evidence marijuana works for diabetes. A few studies support the hypothesis of cannabis working to treat diabetes. One such study was published in The American Journal of Medicine in 2013. The scientists involved evaluated the impact of cannabis use on insulin, glucose and insulin resistance among adults, and concluded that marijuana use was associated with lower levels of fasting insulin and HOMA-IR, and smaller waist circumference. Another study found that Cannabidiol or CBD lowers incidence of diabetes in non-obese diabetic mice. A third study determined that Recently active cannabis smoking and diabetes mellitus are inversely associated. The Diabetes Council seems to agree with the notion of cannabis holding a promise to treat diabetes. Check out this article where they explain why. For a comprehensive list of studies suggesting cannabis could be used to treat diabetes or reduce its incidence, check out this link. Already in the works. Recently-public Phoenix Life Sciences International, a Colorado-based company with operations in Vanuatu, was awarded the contract to create this cannabis-based pharmaceutical drug targeted for diabetes. According to Vanuatu government sources and people in the company, the company is currently in the process of harvesting a 150-acre marijuana grow in the country to supply the trials. The trials have now been fast-tracked by the local government, after the wife of the Prime Minister of Vanuatu was diagnosed with diabetes as well. Moreover, the Republic of Vanuatu plans to approve Phoenixs diabetes drug to be offered through hospitals and pharmacies throughout the 83 islands that compose the country, government sources who requested to remain anonymous suggested. The logistics are in the works but the main island's hospital aims to work with the Minister of Health and Phoenix Life Sciences to conduct several clinical trials with the drug over the next six to 12 months. We started this journey because of the need to improve the quality of healthcare. Being able to create a scalable global production facility for international distribution of pharmaceuticals derived from medical cannabis is exciting. Being able to do it in a developing country like Vanuatu, whose largest causes of death and healthcare cost are diabetes and cancer, really makes it a rewarding experience, said Phoenix CEO Martin Tindall. Related: Oklahoma Legalizes Medical Marijuana From Vanuatu to the world. Tindall revealed Phoenix next plans to target other countries with single-payer health care systems that need a more affordable treatment for diabetes and cervical cancer. Completing our trials here in Vanuatu allows us to focus our efforts in the South Pacific, where the highest percentage concentration of diabetes exists worldwide. We intend to open up access to new countries to our diabetes products and programs before the end of the year, he said. Keep tuned in for updates on these trials and their results. Related: This South Pacific Country Is Sponsoring Research Seeking a Cannabis Treatment for Diabetes This Week in Weed: Coca Cola Considers Cannabis! Can a 'Heartstrings' Approach Help Make Marijuana More Acceptable to Voters? Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved What should have been an orderly process of senators interviewing the nominee for Supreme Court was turned into a mockery of our system by the Democrats attempting procedural stallings and pandering to cameras while their anarchist allies screamed and waved signs. Americans were able to see how frightening and unhinged these people become when they cant get their way. They were so terrifying the judge's children had to be removed from the room. This anger is really because they lost and lost control of Congress. They realize the federal judiciary is now slipping away from them as President Trump has now replaced one-eighth of the federal judges with constitutionalists not emotional activists bent on circumventing Congress and the law. That happens when you lose. When it looked like Kavanaugh was headed to confirmation someone from 36 years ago who cant remember where or when emerged to announce the judge had tried to force himself on her. Words like rape and death were used. And it was only a couple of days until a U.S. Senator, Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand in a TV rant, was convicting Judge Kavanaugh without ever hearing the accuser under oath. Like ants swarming to sugar the Democrats were scrambling for TV time to assure us the judge was guilty. A senator from Hawaii was gleefully telling men just to shut up. And another Democrat Senator Tammy Baldwin was advertising a fundraising event featuring the accusers attorneys as guest stars. How sleazy can you get? Now the Democrats are saying IF Kavanaugh gets confirmed and IF the Democrats get control of the senate they will impeach him. For what? Hes not been tried or convicted of anything and no accuser has testified to anything under oath. All trial lawyers should be cringing about this demand to have the accused testify first. No defense attorney would ever allow that to happen under any circumstances. But in the world of Alternate Reality these leftist live, it makes perfect sense. Ask yourselves would you want that or would you want that for your husband or your son? This alleged event happened 36 years ago. Memories fade and eye witnesses disagree on what they think they saw or heard. Thats why there are statutes of limitations and protections for citizens in America. For a party that fights for the defendant and enacts rigid laws to protect the innocent from a runaway prosecution, the Democrats seem to have lost all interest in innocent until proven guilty in this matter. This behavior should be disturbing to our nation. Is this to be standing operational procedure by Democrats when their candidate loses-they will try and convict them in the public forum and then oust them from office? Or is all of this posturing and threatening designed to intimidate future conservative candidates or appointments that dont tow their Far Left line? This is dangerous folks, dangerous for all of us in our pursuit of liberty and the rule of law. This is America not the Soviet Bloc. The Democrat Socialists are trying to move this nation to a place we dont want to go. Phil Bredesen wants to be your senator and is a member of and is financed by that same Democrat Party that says if Kavanaugh is approved they will impeach him. Do you think Phil will vote to impeach Judge Kavanaugh or vote aye for any of President Trumps nominees for the Supreme Court or federal judge? If you do I have a glass bridge proposal to sell you for downtown Chattanooga. Ralph Miller * * * Why is it all of a sudden that the accuser can specify to Congress the terms and conditions under which they will consider testifying? Have there been other similar situations that I am not aware of? It should be blatantly obvious that any person who makes those kind of demands is trying to prevent the truth from coming out. To demand that Judge Kavanaugh testify first before the accuser with no recourse to cross examine, no lawyers allowed to pose questions and set the date upon which the accuser will be available is an absolute mockery of the investigative and confirmation process. Does not the committee have the authority to subpoena this accuser and question them under standard proven practices? There are so many questions about the timing of the accuser coming forward, the delay tactics being used and accusation by a single individual (he said she said) with no substantive corroboration by witnesses that this in any other scenario would never have been considered worthy of consideration. It is unbelievable that congress has allowed actions of this type to tie their hands and stymie the formal established processes. There is no explanation except that certain people will only abide by the process if it serves their desire and guarantees their own objective is met. Tom Wheatley Soddy Daisy I faced two options on May 8, when President Donald Trump announced the United States' official withdrawal from the nuclear agreement with Iran, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). I could have reciprocated and announced Iran's withdrawal, which was certain to throw the region into further insecurity and instability. Or I could have considered a short grace period for the remaining parties to compensate for the adverse effects of the United States' decision on the valuable accord that had been achieved after 12 years of tough, intensive negotiations. In keeping with our tradition of respect for the rule of law and norms of international law, and to safeguard peace and security in the region, I opted for the latter. The United States expected a hasty Iranian withdrawal so that it could easily forge an international alliance against Iran and automatically revive previous sanctions. Our action, instead, thwarted such a move. The talks with the remaining JCPOA participants, and their reiteration of compliance with the accord, placed the United States in a lonely position. Such a serious chasm between the United States and its European partners on a critical foreign policy matter was unique and unprecedented - which, I can say, proved that we were right in our approach to the nuclear deal and our proactive diplomacy. Current U.S. foreign policy toward Iran is out of step with the realities on the ground - in Iran, in the region and around the world. I would argue that it is not even in line with U.S. national interests. Fed by disinformation and fake analysis from terrorist groups and Israel, the U.S. administration is under the illusion that resorting to sanctions will lead to concessions from Iran. Iranians, though, are known to close ranks and put up stiff resistance in the face of external pressure. The United States, through its pervasive sanctions regime, failed to force Iranians to yield during the pre-JCPOA period. It was the United States that changed tack and opted for negotiations. In our current talks with the remaining JCPOA participants, we have emphasized that safeguarding the long-term interests of the Iranian people is paramount to us. If these interests can still be secured despite the United States' exit from the accord, we will remain in the deal; otherwise, we will pursue a different course of action. Our logic is simple and straightforward: Either all parties to the deal will benefit, or none will. Silence in the face of open U.S. bullying of other countries to cut economic and trade relations with Iran, in blatant contravention of the established rules of international law, is simply not acceptable, and not an option for us. Trump's offer of direct talks with Iran is not honest or genuine. How can we be convinced of his sincerity while his secretary of state has gone so far as to set a long list of openly insulting pre-conditions for talks? Worse still, how can we trust the U.S. government now that it has officially reneged on its international commitments, most notably U.N. Security Council resolution 2231? How can Iran, and others, trust the United States while it is threatening to punish other countries for the implementation of the same U.N. resolution it sponsored and voted for? The United States' resorting to sanctions against Iran and the Iranian people - including, in particular, making it harder for ordinary people to have access to medicine, or denying them safe travel on new airplanes purchased by Iranian carriers - is totally unjustified and unacceptable. Bent on hatred and seeking revenge, the U.S. government's pretensions of support for the Iranian people are hollow, hypocritical and unconvincing. I am confident that the U.S. government will have to change course once again. Regardless, our talks with our trading partners are well under way, promising a bright future for our international interactions. It has now become crystal clear that most countries in the world oppose U.S. unilateralism and abhor being bullied. Even if in the short term we face difficulties in our economic relations, we, along with our partners, will try to resolve those problems, and these days will pass. We are committed to talks and dialogue - that's why we entered the negotiations on the nuclear issue in the first place, and ultimately arrived at a solid and mutually beneficial deal. The proof of good intentions on the part of all parties to the deal, particularly the United States, lies in the honest and full compliance with its provisions. It is on the record that during the negotiations on the nuclear dossier, our supreme leader said that the other side's honesty would pave the way for further talks on issues of mutual interest. Washington's insincere approach toward the implementation of the deal, from day one all the way through its ultimate illegal exit, is indicative of the lack of honesty in the implementation of its international obligations. Modern history attests to the fact that Iran has not engaged in any external aggression during the past 250 years. It has, however, fiercely resisted foreign aggression and intervention. Peace is our arsenal, and we are committed to reciprocate each and every genuine and honest peaceful gesture and measure. On this we are resolute and steadfast. - - - Rouhani is president of Iran. Members of the Board, I would like you to meet our new CFO, said the CEO of a large credit union as he introduced the newest executive. Pleasantries were exchanged, small talk occupied several minutes, and the CFO excused himself to tend to the afternoons matters. The CEO shared the background of the CFO and how happy he was to now have a complete team of managing executives. The scheduled meeting with the Board and CEO continued as prearranged. In contrast, another credit unions Board directed the CEO to not relieve an operations executive of her duties. Shes been with us for years, members love her, and it may send the wrong message to staff, pointed the Board. The CEO felt her hands were tied. The operations executive was not meeting new expectations, had not delivered on a performance improvement plan, and was actively working against necessary changes in the credit unions culture and strategic growth plans. A board of directors has one employee the CEO. Most breakout education sessions on governance remind us of that steering tenet. How is it practiced at your credit union? Obviously, boards develop working relationships with other executives; the executives are often involved in meetings that involve strategy and board affairs. And, boards often rely on the expertise of executives to share deeper insights into operational matters. As much as a board desires to ensure the credit union is led by the best, its role is limited to selecting and evaluating the CEO. For the CEO to be effective and fulfilled as the top executive, he or she anticipates having the authority to build and refine the kind of executive team that is suitable for the credit unions strategic future. While the CEO may choose to discuss issues and candidates with the board; that conversation should be for insights, clarity, and observation. Ultimately, the CEO is responsible for building the organization and accountable for the results that follow. As for the CEO with the excessively involved board; she ultimately made it clear: the credit union would continue to suffer financially under current operating leadership; and, was about to struggle even more as she considered resigning. Her board decided to commit to its one employee her. The results? Membership growth, record revenue, higher margins, increased efficiency, lower losses, and newfound profits. The most effective boards remain focused on governance and oversight; and, the most valuable CEOs remain occupied with strategy and execution. Boards can best help their CEOs succeed with clear support on strategy and the freedom to implement. In return, the CEO can deliver what the board needs most from its singular employee sound operations, strategic progress, and sustained relevance for members. Masks in Pa. schools: Court tosses Wolf mandate, but he vows appeal A state judge Wednesday sided with opponents of Pennsylvania's order to require masks in schools, saying it was not issued properly by the Gov. Tom Wolf's administration in September. Gun violence has again struck in Chester County. While many residents think Its not an issue here the facts tell us otherwise. Last week, a husband and father of two was shot and killed in West Fallowfield during a robbery. On Wednesday, a man brought his gun to Bellingham Retirement Community in East Goshen and shot and killed his parents. Chester County has had 27 gun suicides in 2018, already surpassing the 2017 total of 26 gun suicides. What can we do? 1. Get educated on candidate positions and vote on Tuesday, Nov. 6. Gun Sense Chester County has compiled voter education materials with candidate positions on this issue. These can be found at our website: www.gunsensecc.com/voting-info. 2. Contact your PA state elected officials to ask them to pass two common sense pieces of legislation. House Bill 2227/Senate Bill 1141 bills to enact a Extreme Risk Protective Order, a tool that helps families and law enforcement temporarily remove guns from those showing signs of potentially hurting themselves or others, and House Bill 2060 to remove firearms promptly from the hands of domestic abusers. Information on both bills can be found on our website. All residents are welcome to attend our Sept. 25 meeting on Gun Violence & Mental Illness at 7:15 pm at Birmingham Friends Meeting, 1245 Birmingham Rd. West Chester. We can reduce gun violence but it requires that we make it a priority and demand action. Ann Colby-Cummings Chairperson, Gun Sense Chester County Fetch that, Johnny Brussels! Downing Streets bloody difficult woman rediscovered her red corpuscles yesterday afternoon when, in a TV address of simmering fury, she told the Europeans to pull their act together or see us quit their petty club without a deal. This brief, skin-bubbler of a speech from inside No 10 delivered with a couple of Union Flags behind her was a reversion to the pre-election Mrs May. It was a return to the days when she cheerfully speared Centrist saboteurs of the British establishment who were trying to wreck Brexit. Theresa May makes a statement on the Brexit negotiations following a European Union summit in Salzburg, at 10 Downing Street, yesterday Now the target was the European Commission and European Union heads of government, a foreign target to unify the land. She set about them with an energy and self-belief not seen for more than a year. After a delay caused by electricity problems a lack of power, coughed the presenter on Sky News Mrs May came into the room through a partition, moving fast. She bore a glinting, narrowed cast of eye. A farmyard terrier that had espied a big, fat rat. A Tomahawk missile in pursuit of Osama bin Ladens outdoor khazi. Dress code: black jacket, white shirt, monochromes, no muckin about. She stood there a second or so before saying anything, weighing the moment, girding herself, quivering. Then a shake of the neck, a lift of chin, and the first word: Yesterday... Pah, yesterday! That was then. This was now. Their obstructionism had changed the mood. She was setting out the new attitude. Translation: if they didnt come up with some constructive thoughts, they could go whistle (as Boris once said). She allowed herself another tiny pause, so we could compute how fed up she sounded with that emphatic yesterday, before she continued I was in Salzburg. Theresa May and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker attend the European Union leaders informal summit on Thursday Theresa May arrives for a family photo with other EU leaders. She bore a glinting, narrowed cast of eye. A farmyard terrier that had espied a big, fat rat. A Tomahawk missile in pursuit of Osama bin Ladens outdoor khazi Now the target was the European Commission and European Union heads of government, a foreign target to unify the land. She set about them with an energy and self-belief not seen for more than a year For the shortest of nanoseconds my ear misheard this and I thought she had said: I was insulted. Which of course she had been. Those European men had fouled the air. They had treated her abysmally. The personal is political at this level and it is only politicians who have drunk so deeply of federalism who fail to see this. She extended a right hand briefly as she explained that she had always said negotiations would be tough, but for the remainder of her seven-minute performance she let her flashing eyes and vinegary smiles and her shaking head do the body communication. Everything about her delivery shouted an exasperated vexation. The only surprise is that it took her so long. The EU is STILL ON-ly OFF-ering us TWO options, she said, referring to Brussels' refusal to contemplate compromise. The way she hit those syllables accentuated how irked she was. Their intractable approach would make a mockery of the referendum we had two years ago, she said. And this was the strongest theme of her remarks: that we had held the biggest vote in our democracys history, and they the Continentals simply did not comprehend how seriously we Brits took such things. The very phrase our democracy seemed freighted by an unspoken contrast to the unelected nature of their European project. God knows how Ted Heath ever thought we would accept it. Equally, she continued, the Europeans were deluded in thinking any British PM would break up the United Kingdom by forcing Northern Ireland to accept different customs rules. I will not overturn the result of the referendum, she said darkly. Nor will I break up my country. When Mrs May is properly angry she angles her head so that she looks almost like a woman riding side-saddle. There was a lot of that yesterday Everything about Mrs May's delivery shouted an exasperated vexation. The only surprise is that it took her so long. The EU is STILL ON-ly OFF-ering us TWO options, she said, referring to Brussels' refusal to contemplate compromise She did not quite say no, no, no, as Mrs Thatcher once did, but it was the same stern tone of voice, the same logic, the same political pedigree. We. Are. Sovereign. I will not overturn the result of the referendum, she said darkly. Nor will I break up my country. When Mrs May is properly angry she angles her head so that she looks almost like a woman riding side-saddle. There was a lot of that yesterday. She laced it with the occasional ironic smile. She spoke some virtuous words of leniency to the EU citizens who live and work in Britain at present. She remained within the bounds of reason and Christian propriety. But there was no disguising the fact that Matron was in one Almighty Bate. Much more of this sort of thing, and the country might almost start cheering. Angry. Defiant. Yet rational. Speaking in front of two large Union flags in her Downing Street bunker yesterday, this was a Theresa May we've never seen before. Indeed, there were shades of Margaret Thatcher when, years ago, she defied her own Brussels nemesis Jacques Delors by telling him: 'No! No! No!' And what a contrast with the desperate and almost tearful Mrs May on public view in Salzburg less than 24 hours earlier. Mrs May is guaranteed a much easier reception from the Tory faithful at the party's conference in Birmingham in 11 days' time A performance of this power during last year's General Election campaign might have seen her win by a landslide. The Prime Minister is now rallying much of her mutinous Conservative Party behind her even some of the most die-hard Brexiteers. One thing is certain. Mrs May is guaranteed a much easier reception from the Tory faithful at the party's conference in Birmingham in 11 days' time. After yesterday's ultimatum to the other 27 EU leaders that they must treat the UK with 'respect' in Brexit negotiations, she can no longer be accused of being spineless. Jeremy Corbyn drives a new London Overground train - but if he doesn't change track he may hit the Brexit buffers I was reminded of King Lear when he said: 'I will do such things. What they are yet I know not, but they shall be the terrors of the earth. You think I'll weep? No, I'll not weep.' Yes, all alone in Salzburg, she must have seen France's Emmanuel Macron, EU chief Donald Tusk and Angela Merkel as her own 'terrors of the earth'. Whatever people say about our Prime Minister, she has nobly striven to obtain a meaningful settlement with Brussels ever since she took up her post more than 26 months ago. Now nearing the endgame, she has staked all her authority and every last ounce of her political credibility on her Chequers proposals. Her determination to press on has been driven by her insistence that British companies should not suffer any disturbance post-Brexit in their trade with Europe. For her, the alternative would risk constitutional, political and economic havoc. And personally, such a result would surely mean she would have to step down. Of course, this is the nightmare scenario. But I want to consider a more likely outcome that a compromise deal will be found. That deal would have to be approved by a vote by MPs. Crucially, the arithmetic of the House of Commons will dictate whether any Brexit deal is accepted. Currently, there are 315 Conservative MPs, 257 Labour, 35 Scottish Nationalists, 12 Lib Dems and ten Ulster Unionists. Even assuming that the vast majority of Tories back Mrs May and that is a big 'if' there is no guarantee that she would win a Commons Brexit vote. For the sake of argument, consider if Mrs May lost. Jeremy Corbyn would be asked to form a Labour government. But I am convinced that, even with Scottish Nationalist support, he would not be able to hold such a government together. That would plunge Britain into a third General Election in three years. Jeremy Corbyn speaking during Prime Minster's Questions in the House of Commons, London In view of what would be seen as an unwanted poll, caused by warring and incompetent Tories' inability to secure Brexit, Corbyn would be favourite to win. Hence next week's Labour conference in Liverpool could be a gathering of Britain's government-in-waiting. In that case, it would be one of the most important Labour conferences for years comparable with those dramatic events in the Eighties when Neil Kinnock took on and defeated the militant hard Left. Significantly, Corbyn is coming under huge pressure to commit Labour to join calls for a second referendum on Brexit. He's being told by advisers that this is the only way that he can bring together the disparate elements of his party, comprising Momentum (his hard-Left base of intensely loyal activists) on one side and Blairites on the other. However, backing a second referendum would mean going against his long-held principles. At heart, he is anti-EU having voted in the 1975 referendum for Britain to pull out of the Common Market, alongside his hero Tony Benn who saw it as an anti-democratic 'capitalist club'. Corbyn believes that he cannot achieve his dream of creating a socialist Britain while we belong to the EU. Sir Keir Starmer (pictured), had no comment to make on his normally busy Twitter account about Mrs May's Salzburg bruising Happily, therefore, he has consistently stated that it is Labour policy to respect the 2016 referendum result. This means a Labour government under him would honour the Brexit vote. That said, over the coming days, he will face a formidable coalition of forces which are determined to persuade him to make a U-turn and publicly entertain the idea of Britain remaining in the EU. Momentum, for example, says it won't stand in the way of a debate on a second Brexit referendum after local groups pushed for members to be given a say. The Labour Party as a whole is at sixes and sevens over Brexit. This was evident yesterday when the party's Brexit spokesman, Sir Keir Starmer, had no comment to make on his normally busy Twitter account about Mrs May's Salzburg bruising. Still, I can't see how Corbyn can avoid coming up with a clearer Brexit policy next week. His trade union paymasters are placing intense pressure on him to review his stance. In a fascinating development, delegates at the Trades Union Congress voted to keep open the possibility of a second referendum. This chimes with Sir Keir's own views having said he wants another referendum to be 'on the table' if Parliament votes down Mrs May's deal. And, of course, former party leader Tony Blair and his supporters last week launched a campaign for another vote on Europe. So here we have a powerful range of people across the spectrum of views in the Labour Party who disagree with their leader on Brexit. In addition, Corbyn is being told that a change of stance on Brexit could enable him to reunite a Labour Party damaged by toxic allegations of anti-Semitism. One final factor should not be underestimated. Pollsters report that Labour voters have become keener on Remain since the referendum. This is significant, because it allays Corbynista fears that by changing tack on Europe, hundreds of thousands of its supporters in Northern constituencies that voted Leave might be alienated. Until now, with a few twists and turns, Jeremy Corbyn has been a co-driver on the Brexit Express. Indeed, he's stood in the tradition of Hugh Gaitskell, the Labour leader who more than half a century ago said that joining the Common Market would mark the end of 1,000 years of English history. If he wants to have any chance of becoming prime minister, the perpetually anti-Brussels Jeremy Corbyn must urgently spell out with crystal clarity how he wants Britain to deal with those European 'terrors of the earth'. Hunt shames dismal Boris - but must go further Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt put his predecessor, Boris Johnson, to shame this week, when, on his visit to Myanmar (formerly Burma), he made it a priority to meet political prisoners who have suffered at the hands of the repressive government led by Nobel Peace Prize-winner Aung San Suu Kyi. Johnson had dismally failed to challenge her and raise the issue of the genocide of minority Rohingya Muslims. However, Hunt should have gone further and repeated the demand of a recent United Nations report that Myanmar's murderous generals should be sent for trial at the International Criminal Court. And it would have helped the cause of human rights worldwide if Hunt had used the word 'genocide'. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt (pictured) walks towards the Foreign Office in London With just 124,000 members, the Tories are now only Britain's third largest party behind Labour (540,000 members) and trailing the Scottish Nationalists (125,500). Embarrassingly, they have only 25,000 more members than the clueless Lib Dems. Peter Hitchens when he was a young radical How foolish we are about the deep penetration of Communism in our country. We believe thin, unproven stories about the KGB paying the Labour leader Michael Foot. Yet we do not notice the systematic infiltration of our upper echelons by wave after wave of anti-British Marxists. On a long-ago evening soon before the end of the Second World War, the leader of the Communist Party of Great Britain, Harry Pollitt, travelled to Cambridge to speak to Left-wing students. He had a brusque, unexpected message for them. He didnt want them wasting their time selling the Daily Worker on street corners and going on rallies and marches. He didnt want them to become open Communists. He wanted them to work their way into every corner of the British establishment and pursue the revolutionary cause. At that time, British Communism was astonishingly popular. In 1945 it had 60,000 members and won two seats in Parliament (and very nearly won a third). Thanks to public gratitude for the role of the Red Army in beating Hitler, the Soviet Union was actually popular, and so was its political front organisation in Britain. So Pollitt would have spoken to a large, keen audience. The astonishing Cambridge gathering is briefly recorded in Peter Hennessys fascinating book The Secret State. There is no doubt it took place, and the advice fits with a standard Communist technique, of urging key assets to keep their party membership secret. What we do not know is how many of Pollitts eager audience took his advice. Nor is there any record of a similar meeting at the other elite university, Oxford, though it seems very likely that one took place. We can only wonder what became of those who did what Pollitt urged them to do. I have often thought that many of the stupid actions taken by British governments over the past few decades, from joining the Common Market and abolishing police foot patrols to the destruction of the grammar schools, are so mad that they can only be rationally explained as deliberate sabotage. The same goes for the fervent dedication of the BBC and much of the press to any cause that would undermine tradition, morality, marriage and manners. Did such Communist infiltration happen? Could it have happened? Well, yes. It is no good dismissing suggestions that they work secretly to gain their ends as some sort of wild conspiracy theory. Several members of Blairs Cabinet were active Marxists Communists conspired. I have direct personal knowledge of secret Communist activity in this country. The first involved Evelyn Jones, wife of the Trade Union leader (and Communist sympathiser) Jack Jones. By the 1970s she had felt it safe to confide to her close friends (some of whom I came to know) that in the 1930s she had been a courier for Joseph Stalins Communist International (Comintern), taking secret dispatches to Moscow and bringing money out to help pay for their activities. The Comintern paid for her to have expensive clothes and luggage, and to travel first-class and stay in good hotels, because they rightly believed that rich travellers attracted less attention. Evelyn (who died, aged 85, in 1999) went on to become a much-respected activist in Dulwich Labour Party in South London, living quietly with her astonishing memories. But her life story casts an interesting light on the true sympathies of her husband, who has also been accused of taking money from the KGB as a Kremlin agent of influence. An International Marxist Group demonstration in 1974 In my opinion, Jack (whom I met several times) would have scorned payment for a cause he had been committed to since childhood. He was not interested in money, lived in a council flat and took his holidays in a caravan on the Devon coast. But he was committed, body and soul, to the Marxist cause for which he fought bravely in Spain in the 1930s, and never forgot it. The Trade Unionist Johnny Torode, father of the distinguished journalist John Torode, had a similar background. His old passports from 1933 to 1936 were crammed with stamps from Scandinavia and the Baltic region, the soft route to and from Moscow. Much later, Johnny explained to his son that he was travelling on Party business, once again involving money and messages. She took secret dispatches to Moscow and brought out money Sometimes he even went to Nazi-run Berlin where he would go through a complicated rigmarole to exchange messages, in the back of a tobacconists shop on the Alexanderplatz. This, I should stress, was not spying. We are obsessed with spies so much that we fail to notice that the real aim of the Communists was to extend their power and their cause. Spying was a side-issue. Later, Johnny Torode sickened, at least for a time, of the cause. His son has told me of the time when, disgusted by Stalinist show-trials in Prague in 1953, his father threatened to reveal what he knew to MI5. Harry Pollitt, still leader of Britains Communists at the time, jeered at him: Dont be silly, Johnny. You know we run British intelligence. This jibe, truer than anyone then knew, backfired. Johnny gathered together his files and gave them to the CIAs London station instead. These instances, known to me personally, are in my belief just a tiny part of a much bigger unknown story of Communist penetration into our society, including its military and intelligence services. The Second World War greatly extended it. Former Labour Health Secretary Alan Milburn in the early 1980s and Tony Blair at Oxford in 1972 Evelyn Waughs autobiographical trilogy Sword Of Honour makes several mentions of brother officers and influential high officials with Communist sympathies, flourishing in the atmosphere of Stalin-worship which became common in British official circles after Hitler invaded the USSR. Moscow Gold was never a myth. Well into modern times, Soviet Embassy officials would leave bags of used banknotes at Barons Court underground station in London, to be collected by the Communist official Reuben Falber, who stored them in the loft of his bungalow in Golders Green, North London. At times this rather shameful secret subsidy, direct from a police state, reached 100,000 a year in an era when that was a lot of money. Who knows what it was used for? But the Communist Party spent a great deal on its industrial organisation, which fomented trouble in British workplaces and strove to get Communists and their sympathisers installed in important positions in British trade unions. This enabled Moscow to wield huge, indirect influence over the Labour Party, especially on Foreign and Defence policies. Labours embrace of unilateral nuclear disarmament in the middle of the Cold War, for instance, was greatly helped by the covert Communist machine in the unions. That machine could be incredibly unscrupulous and hard to fight. Hardly anyone, alas, now remembers the way the tough ex-Communist Frank Chapple took on, exposed and defeated blatant Communist ballot-rigging in the crucial Electrical Trades Union (ETU) between 1959 and 1961. Much more was at stake than who ran the ETU. How deeply we were penetrated at that time we shall probably never know, and it is certain that many of those caught up in the pro-Stalin wave of the 1940s quietly peeled away after the Soviet invasions of Hungary in 1956 and of Czechoslovakia in 1968. But 1968 did not kill off Communism. It began a new movement Eurocommunism, which renounced Soviet methods but kept the key aims of transforming our society. Former Chancellor Alistair Darling at Aberdeen University in the early 1970s and Labours former spin doctor Peter Mandelson in 1989 And this is where the truth is so shocking that almost nobody in this country can cope with it. But because I was part of the great student revolutionary wave in the late 1960s and early 1970s, because I broke completely with that past and because I have always been open about it, I have a unique vantage point. I remember my own branch of the International Socialists at York, growing hugely in the early 1970s, during the first great combat between the Heath government and the miners. I remember also that we acquired some very enthusiastic new members, perhaps a little older than the rest of us, always willing to get up before dawn to leaflet the docks in Goole or the pithead at Grimethorpe. We assumed they were working for the Security Service, not that we could have proved it, or minded much. They were in general charming, hard-working and fun to be with. Frankly, given the way that IRA types (whom I hated then as much as I do now) and other worrying sorts hung around the edges of our movement, I wouldnt have blamed MI5 one bit for keeping an eye on us, even then. But as we shall see, all their hard work has now been conveniently chucked into the incinerator, an inexcusable destruction of a vital key to our history. In those days the tail end of the Vietnam disaster and the squalid Nixon years, with the Labour Party worn out and discredited after the Harold Wilson era, and Ted Heath at war with postmen, miners, dockers and anyone else he could find the far Left attained a popularity in the universities which was way beyond anything it had had since the 1940s. We were not Stalinists. We mostly despised the Soviet Union. The invasion of Prague in 1968 was fresh in our memories. What happened to us all? I know what happened to me, but I tend to think the others held on to a lot of the radical ideas they picked up, especially when it came to the sex, drugs and rock and roll issues such as marriage, divorce and homosexuality, and immigration, which we all favoured because we could see that it would change the country irreversibly into a much less conservative, much less British place. This was also the era when easy divorce was first legalised, so our parents were splitting up at an amazing rate, and adulthood was bestowed on us, with the right to vote, at 18. We were something quite new. Tens of thousands of us, from the newly-expanded universities, went off into teaching, journalism, the BBC, the big charities, the law and, of course, politics. And 25-odd years later we began to pop up in positions of importance. Crucially, my generation was deep inside what became New Labour not old-fashioned Stalinist Communists like Johnny Torode, Evelyn Jones and that lot. We were modern, post-1968 funky Marxists who believed in cultural and sexual revolution, in open borders and in the European Community (one of whose founders, Altiero Spinelli, was a veteran Italian Communist). Several members of Blairs Cabinet were active Marxists in the 1968-1990 period. I must stress, these are just the names we know. I am sure there are many, many more whose backgrounds will never be revealed. John (now Lord) Reid, among other things Defence Secretary, was beyond doubt a Communist Party member. Bob Ainsworth, another Defence Secretary, was a candidate member of the International Marxist Group (IMG) in the 1980s. The veteran Left-winger George Galloway remembers former Chancellor Alistair Darling as an active sympathiser of the IMG in Edinburgh in the 1970s. Alan Milburn, Health Secretary and later David Camerons fervent equalities tsar, more or less confirmed that he had been mixed up in the IMG in the 1980s, in an interview with The Independent in June 2000. Another fervent Blairite Cabinet Minister, Stephen Byers, was outed by the Guardian in January 1999 as a one-time supporter of the Trotskyist Militant tendency. Blair himself recently revealed in a BBC interview that he had been a Trotskyist at Oxford in the 1970s, an earth-shaking revelation that attracted almost no attention because it fits so badly with the (mistaken) public idea of what and who he is. He did not say which group he had belonged to, but one of his closest friends was in the IMG. The IMG at the time was notorious for shouting Victory to the IRA on demonstrations, and its members often went on to join the Labour Party as entryist infiltrators, aiming to take it over from the inside for the Left. And then, of course, there is Peter Mandelson, who beyond doubt joined the Young Communist League. The question of whether he belonged to the adult Communist Party is unanswered. Donald Macintyres biography of Mr Mandelson says that, in the early 1970s, the future Cabinet Minister asked his mother Mary to tear up a membership card, as she drove him to the airport to start a gap year in Africa, and then telephone him to confirm she had done this. But we are not told what exactly the card was. We believe thin, unproven stories about the KGB paying the Labour leader Michael Foot (pictured), yet we do not notice the systematic infiltration of our upper echelons by wave after wave of anti-British Marxists, writes Peter Hitchens Fascinatingly, the Guardian, of September 22, 1997, reports that Mandelson, by now a Minister, had called on MI5 to weed out and destroy all files held on Cold War-era subversives, which he said were now entirely redundant. His demand followed the leaking of alleged details from his own file by a renegade MI5 agent. A few months later, in January 1998, newspapers, obviously acting on official briefings, reported that MI5 was indeed destroying its files on political subversives. So the only comprehensive, reliable record of who all my revolutionary comrades were has been erased forever. I would guess that many very interesting names were there. There is much more. The theorists of New Labour actually gathered round a magazine called Marxism Today, officially published by the Communist Party, really the forum for Eurocommunists and cultural revolutionaries. Their ideas were incredibly ambitious. One of Blairs closest aides and best speechwriters, Peter Hyman, recently confessed that New Labour was devised to take and hold the levers of power... winning power and locking out the Tories to ensure that the 21st Century was a Labour century with Labour values. The scale of that ambition, he said, was breathtaking, and far more radical than Jeremy Corbyn. He explained: If Labour could be in power for a serious amount of time, then the country would, we believed, change for good; not a burst of socialism for one time (if that), but changed institutions and values that could shape the country for all time... This chimes with the equally fascinating revelation made by Steve Richards, a journalist who got very close to the inside of New Labour. He wrote of the 2002 Election, that the Blair entourage ...were often in an exasperated fury. You dont get it, they would occasionally scream. The Election is a historic referendum on a Right-wing Conservative Party. If we win a second landslide, we would kill off Right-wing Conservatism for good. It had been a Labour ambition since the 1930s, to find a way of preventing any future Tory government from reversing their most radical actions. In 2002, they discovered how to do it by seizing control of the political debate so as to make Toryism seem ridiculous and finished, and so to browbeat the Tories into becoming what they are now, a cheap copy of New Labour, completely signed up to political correctness, open borders, comprehensive schools and the rest. And that was done mainly by the revolutionary veterans of the 1960s, finally climbing into the seats of power in politics, culture, broadcasting, education and law. I am always told, when I point this out, that people change, as I have done. Well, yes and no. Of course the veterans of the 1960s no longer look the way they did then, and have learned subtlety. They might go to Rolling Stones concerts but they dont go on many demonstrations. Even so they retain their strong dislike for conservative morals, religion and ideas, often also despising the monarchy and patriotism. When they die, a surprising number of them have the Communist anthem The Internationale played at their funerals. They have revolutionised the country, especially in sexual and moral matters, and in education, as well as vastly increasing public spending, weakening the armed forces, abolishing our borders, and reducing the Tory party to a twittering egalitarian rump with no real ideas of its own. It is said the Devils cleverest achievement has been to persuade us that he does not exist. Nothing like as clever, in my view, as the Blairites success in persuading us that they are harmless moderates. While Jeremy Corbyn and his comrades appear honestly before us as what they are, Marxists and ultra-Leftists who sympathise with the IRA and the PLO, the Blairites falsely represented themselves as patriotic semi-Thatcherites, waving Union Jacks (instead of the red flags many of them would secretly have preferred) as they invaded Downing Street in 1997. In fact, Jeremy Corbyns obvious, clumsy, doomed steam-powered revolution is as nothing compared to the irreversible damage already done to this country by the 1968 generation of Blairites. Thought of the week How many slams in an old screen door? Depends how loud you shut it. How many slices in a bread? Depends how thin you cut it. How much good inside a day? Depends how good you live em. How much love inside a friend? Depends how much you give em. Shel Silverstein, U.S. writer (1930-99) Advertisement Dear Bel, Im 35, my boyfriend is 36 and we have an 18-month-old child. Our baby, whom we had after less than a year together, was admittedly unplanned but is very much loved. On the surface, we have a lovely life a happy relationship and good sex life, good careers that pay quite well, and help from both sets of besotted grandparents. The problem: after two-and-a-half years we dont agree on marriage. Id very much like for us to be married soon. I love and respect him although my feelings are changing, as I suspect Im being strung along. Hes a good father, but I think our life could be even better if we were married firstly because of the public declaration of commitment and love. Then there is the legal and financial situation. At present, we split all bills ad hoc. Given that our incomes are broadly similar it would be a great deal simpler to merge our assets. We need to update our wills to take account of our child. We live in the house I own and the one he owns is rented out. And so on. Lastly, I want the status of wife, rather than girlfriend, given the care and love I give him. Ive stated my position clearly when calm, but I get very upset when something sets me off like an insensitive person asking why we remain unmarried. Hes said hes scared of merging our finances and then having to live in a bedsit while I have the house due to being the mother, that he doesnt want a big wedding etc. But I want a marriage, not a wedding! Im wondering if a) it would be immoral to deprive my child of day-to-day contact with her father because he wont commit, or b) if it would be better to split before shes old enough to remember us being together and to model a healthier relationship style to her with other partners in future. Ive put it to him that he may be very fond of me, but doesnt love me enough to marry which he denies and said I would do everything required to ensure he continues to have a great relationship with our child should we split. This seems to upset him very much, but Im unsure whether thats the thought of losing me, our family unit or the good life he enjoys. I dont want to throw away a relationship that could be what I want it to be in time. Maybe its old fashioned to want marriage this fervently, but I want to be with someone who views marrying me as a privilege, not something to fear and avoid. I dont want to issue ultimatums, but Ive already broached him moving out. How should I proceed? JANIE This week Bel advises Janie whose partner of two-and-a-half years and father of her child still doesn't want to get married - despite the fact she does My answer to your final question is, in short: With great caution. It bothers me you are talking so readily of ending this relationship with the father of your beloved child, and depriving yourself of a future which contains every possibility for happiness, just because you cant get your way now. Isnt this throwing all your toys out of the pram? Thats certainly not moral when a childs future is at stake. Believe me, I think you are absolutely right to want to be married. The public commitment matters greatly even if it takes place with just two witnesses. The legal and financial situation is indeed important and needs to be sorted out. Finally, its normal for a woman to want the status of a wife. Why shouldnt you, since you reign over domesticity (as you explain in your longer letter)? But, honestly, slow down, stop being so negative and demanding, and think things through. Heres a true story to encourage you: A terrific young woman Im very fond of lived with her boyfriend for a number of years. They had an unplanned baby boy and when he was nine months old she told me with a little shrug that she would love to be married. But her boyfriend made no mention of it, and so neither did she. She kept house, loved both her men and created a good life for them all. Once in a while, thered be a joke about a wedding and her girlfriends might roll their eyes over that boyfriend who adored her. My friend just smiled and kept her counsel. Then, three years after she first confided in me, he proposed and they had a wonderful wedding at which I was a guest. Looking at your long email, I found myself wondering if that day would ever have come if she had created hell (which, reading between the lines, you do) and shown such terrible mistrust: I suspect Im being strung along. Do you really believe that threatening somebody is any way to achieve your hearts desire? This is nobodys business but yours, so it would be wise, next time a nosy friend makes a comment, to say: Were happy as we are. Even if you dont means it. Think strategy, my dear! I believe your partner is upset when you talk about splitting because he genuinely loves you and the baby and likes your life. Hes one of those to whom marriage doesnt appeal, but he may feel very different next year. If I were you, I would keep shtum about this vexed topic and live in the present. Focus on your child, your work, your good life. Tell him if he changes his mind youll be happy (hell keep his own property rented, of course). But, for now, Id change my tune, stop hectoring and threatening, be clever and say: Hey, lets have fun. My wife has lost all interest in sex Dear Bel, This is of a very personal nature, but I have no other place to turn for advice. I appreciate that what Im about to say could be construed as a typically male response to what others might feel is really nothing. The fact is, I am a man and this issue is important to me, so I hope you can help. About five years ago, my wife went through the menopause and lost all interest in sex. For me, sex is a big part of intimacy, so I feel very isolated as well as frustrated. I absolutely adore my wife and would never dream of asking her to do anything she feels uncomfortable with. Therefore I help myself (euphemism) to gain some release. But I feel I need more and have no idea what to do. We have discussed the issue and shes very understanding of my problem, but doesnt feel able to accommodate my needs. As a result, I am considering seeking some periodic physical companionship. Am I being unreasonable and selfish, or can you make any suggestions you feel might help us? TONY This subject crops up from time to time, both here and in the rest of the paper, but just lately theres been more about it than ever. Why? I worry its a bit like the whole trans situation, when people read much too much about a certain subject and possibly allow their feelings to be swayed. Imagine how much happier everybody would be if nobody mentioned gender or sex for a whole year. Oh, I wish Let me be clear. Im entirely sympathetic to your frustration, just as I am to your wifes lack of interest in an activity that probably once gave her great pleasure. Reading the advice of experts who say to take romantic baths together, Im afraid I shake my head with a wry smile. Do middle-aged (and older) people really light candles and frolic in the tub? Im thrilled for those who do, but the rest are more likely to make a gin and tonic and sit down companionably to plan the evenings TV. There are many sorts of intimacy you know, and its a pity sexual activity has come to own the word. That, my friend, is a delusion. Your letter would be like others (and bluntly my counsel would always be the autonomous release you mention why not?) were it not for this worrying statement: I am considering seeking some periodic physical companionship. There are only two interpretations of this. Either you are considering using a prostitute, or want to have sex with some woman you pick up or know. And as your email sounds measured and serious, I can only conclude that you have given proper thought to this. Therefore the question must be are you prepared to risk the whole edifice of a long marriage for the sake of an itch that needs scratching? (Im sorry, but its hard to talk about this in a newspaper, although frankness is important and Im tired of reading about fantasy romantic trysts.) Since youll have no affection for your hypothetical sexual partners, yet adore your wife, there will be none of the intimacy you say you value. So what then? Will you feel grubby? Will you tell your wife? Will she be upset? Might this result in huge unhappiness? You may imagine you have a solution to this problem youve allowed to loom so large, yet you may destroy a marriage. Is that a risk you can take? The great psychotherapist Viktor Frankl said that if the cause of a problem cannot be removed, what then matters is the stand a patient takes towards his predicament. To consider that point requires the triumph of reason and finer feelings (love, for example) over emotion and lust. Its up to you. And finally... Could Lucky the hen be any luckier? Here is the tale of a solitary chicken called Lucky alone in her spacious hen house since, one by one, her sisters fell foul of Mr Fox (memo to soppy urbanistas: foxes kill). One day my husband heard her squawking in terror, raced along and bold foxy dropped her, severely wounded. She looked near death, but rallied. Subsequently attacked by a strange dog, she recovered again. Hence her name. Lucky the hen (pictured) has been in a series of scrapes, including a fox attack, but has survived We will get more hens, but until then this chook badly wants friends. So shes decided to identify as a dog. She follows our three around (bigger than one, and matching the other two) and wanders indoors to drink from their bowls (see below). Theres often a nasty splat to clean up. And at night she doesnt want to return to her solitary perch not when the rest of the flock is cosy inside so my husband is forced out into the dusky dampness to coax her in with fine food. I know Lucks is annoying, he says. But I dont want her to get eaten. Bel answers readers questions on emotional and relationship problems each week. Write to Bel Mooney, Daily Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT, or email bel.mooney@dailymail.co.uk. A pseudonym will be used if you wish. Bel reads all letters but regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence. Advertisement The other morning he let her out before leaving early. I looked from the bedroom to see her gazing longingly at the kitchen window, where our dogs barked greetings from the window seat. I was feeling sorry for the lonely hen when I brought myself up sharpish. More sentimental anthropomorphism. I was assigning that feathery old biddy victim-status when theres far too much of it around nowadays. So flip the situation and shes a strutting moral. Useless because she doesnt lay eggs, shed have become tasty coq au vin months ago in rural France. Instead shes housed, protected, fed, free to wander and finds mates where she can. Every day this creature is a lesson in survival. Shes alive! And therefore Lucky. A 75-year-old man has captured the hearts of thousands after photos of him napping with the cats at his local shelter went viral. Terry Lauerman became an online sensation after Safe Haven Pet Sanctuary in Green Bay, Wisconsin, shared touching photos of the septuagenarian cat napping with the rescues. 'We are so lucky to have a human like Terry. Terry just came along one day and introduced himself. He said he'd like to brush cats. Eventually it became everyday,' the shelter's founder Elizabeth Feldhausen wrote on Facebook. Heartwarming: Terry Lauerman, 75, has become an online star after photos of him napping with the cats at Safe Haven Pet Sanctuary in Green Bay, Wisconsin, went viral Literally cat napping: Terry visits the shelter daily to brush the cats, but he often ends up falling asleep wit them Grateful: In the Facebook post, the sanctuary's founder Elizabeth Feldhausen explained that they are so lucky to have a volunteer like Terry She went on to say that Terry brushes all of the cats and knows all of their likes and dislikes. As for his tendency to nap on the job, they couldn't be happier about it. 'He also accidentally falls asleep most days,' she explained. 'We don't mind - Cats need this! Terry is a wonderful volunteer #nappingencouraged #grateful.' The heartwarming photos show Terry fast asleep on various couches inside the cage-free sanctuary. In one image he is lying across a couch with a cat nestled between his legs, and others show him sitting up with rescues resting under his arms. Couldn't be more relaxed" The photos show Terry fast asleep on various couches inside the cage-free sanctuary Fan club: Elizabeth continued to share updates about Terry in the comments section of the post, which has received more than 73,000 likes Social media ban: She explained that he doesn't even have Facebook because 'he can barely even keep up with his emails' Generosity: After the photo went viral, donations started pouring in. Elizabeth eventually set up a fundraiser for the Safe Haven Pet Sanctuary in Terry's name The post, which was shared on Tuesday, has received more than 73,000 likes and has been shared 20,000 times so far. Thousands of people have also taken to the comments section to praise Terry, with some saying they want to be just like him. 'Tell Terry he is my spirit animal and I want to be like him when I grow up,' Nicki Cottrell wrote, while Casey Nicole added: 'Terry is clearly living his best life! Those look like the best kind of naps. In the comments section, Elizabeth explained that Terry doesn't even have Facebook because 'he says he can barely even keep up with his emails.' Hero: People took to the comments section to praise Terry, while some were admittedly jealous of his daily cat naps The founder said Terry was shocked when she told him how many Facebook users viewed the post, but he wasn't interested in the fame - he wanted people to donate to the shelter. Terry's wish came true when donations started pouring in after the photos of him with the cats went viral. The non-profit cat sanctuary and adoption center specializes in rescuing felines with physical or psychological disabilities with the goal of helping them find new homes. 'Our donations have increased!' Elizabeth told Bored Panda. 'Normally, wed make between $3,000-$4,000 per month. This week, we have reached $30,000! This is amazing because we do rely solely on donation!' Good cause: The cage-free cat sanctuary and adoption center specializes in rescuing felines with physical or psychological disabilities with the goal of helping them find new homes Happy news: Elizabeth revealed that the sanctuary usually receives $3,000-$4,000 in donations per month, but they have reached more than $30,000 this week To keep up with the donations, Elizabeth set up a fundraiser for the Safe Haven Pet Sanctuary in Terry's name. At the time of publication, it has received more than $5,400 in donations for the rescue cats that Terry loves so much. 'The proceeds will likely go to adding additional quarantine rooms, so that we can save more cats more quickly, vet bills, and re-insulating the building so that we are more energy efficient this winter,' Elizabeth explained. 'Well have more than enough for all of those things, so some will go to savings and be our "rainy day fund."' As a stylist to some of the biggest celebrities in the world, Erin Walsh has access to the industry's most sought-after, and most expensive, fashion items. However, the 35-year-old New Yorker, who works with the likes of Sarah Jessica Parker, Lily Aldridge and Thandie Newton, insists that when it comes to creating the perfect wardrobe, all you need is five simple items - none of which need to be particularly pricey. Speaking to DailyMail.com about her new collaboration with Cole Haan, Erin - who is fresh from a busy Emmy Awards night that saw her styling Thandie and Alison Brie - revealed the handful of pieces she believes every woman should have in her wardrobe, as well as the one item that is actually worth splashing your cash on. Fashion favorite: Celebrity stylist Erin Walsh has revealed how to curate the perfect wardrobe using just five key staples Tips and tricks: The 35-year-old New Yorker, who recently collaborated with Cole Haan on a new capsule collection, says shoes are the main thing she would splash her cash one 'Great outfits don't have to cost a fortune - but they do take a little thought,' Erin explained, adding: 'Most importantly, you look best when you feel best. 'I would say the five essentials every woman should have in her wardrobe would be hoop earrings, blue jeans, a great crisp white button down, a striped long-sleeved T-shirt, and a blazer,' she went on. Erin Walsh's top five wardrobe staples Hoop earrings Blue jeans Crisp white button down Striped long-sleeved T-shirt Blazer Advertisement The fit and style, Erin added, are up to the person choosing them, although she noted that when it comes to the blazer, it is worth finding one that is a 'perfect fit in the shoulders' and has a 'long and lean' fit. 'Black is great, but I always love a white blazer too,' she added. And when it comes to her pick of blue jeans, she says that her style of choice is almost always going to be high-waisted. The talented stylist also warns against following every trend simply for the sake of being 'current', noting that being a slave to every latest, greatest thing in fashion doesn't always make for a well put-together wardrobe - nor will it leave you with pieces that you'll want to wear again and again. 'I think that for me, the thing to keep in mind is not the trend specific narrative but the more classic things that you can have forever,' she explained. Clients: Erin recently styled both Alison Brie (left) and Thandie Newton (right) for the Emmys Sharp! A long, lean blazer - as seen here on Erin's client Lily Aldridge - was one of the stylist's five must-have wardrobe staples Advice: Erin believes that, rather than following trends, you should focus on finding 'classic things that you can have forever' As far as investing in higher-end items, while Erin says it absolutely isn't necessary in order to curate the perfect closet, there is one element she doesn't believe in splashing out on: shoes. 'But hey, I came into this business as an actor (thank you NYU undergrad) - and in acting, one of the most important character tools is the shoes you wear!' she says of her passion for footwear. 'They literally define the walk you walk. I find on set and most days, if I want to feel most powerful, it helps to be in heels. 'Depending on our roles day to day, shoes empower us to be (and when we need to, pretend to be) the people we want to be. That is extraordinary.' The stylist-to-the-stars got the opportunity to share that love of shoes with her latest project - a collaboration with shoe label Cole Haan that saw Erin and two other A-list stylists, Karla Welch and Simone Harouche, teaming up with the brand in order to put their own spin on several of its signature silhouettes. Erin worked with the team at Cole Haan to redesign five of the brand's existing styles: two sneaker styles - the Zerogrand Ruched Flat and the Zerogrand Oxford - two heels - the Vesta Pump 45mm and the Vesta Pump 85mm - and a pair of chunky hiking boots - the Grandexplore All Terrain Waterproof Hiker. For Erin, she saw the variety of opposing styles as a chance to play around with 'juxtapositions'. Comfort: As part of her collaboration with Cole Haan, Erin put her own twist on five of the brand's signature silhouettes, including the Zerogrand Ruched Flat (pictured) Something special: 'These are pieces that you want to keep and wear forever,' Erin said of her collection, which features two different heels, the Vespa Pump 45mm (pictured) and 85mm Variety: When putting her collection together, Erin said she ''wanted to use the opportunity to define and create a balance of opposites' 'I wanted to use this opportunity to define and create a balance of opposites,' she said. 'Masculine and feminine. Elegant and whimsical. Streamlined and surprising. And most importantly, classic yet modern. 'I wanted to create a collection that was consistent but also relatable and elevated - it's the same process with a red carpet look or an editorial shoot - you want to inspire people to dream bigger, in a language they want to understand.' And staying true to her opinions on trends, Erin made sure that, while her collection would be fitting for fall, it would also serve as a staple for many seasons to come. 'Aestetically with this particular collection, I kept to a clean palette that would pop and feel very fresh, even in the fall,' she said. 'These are pieces that you want to keep and wear forever.' When it comes to her own personal style, Erin describes it as 'a mix of eclectic elegance', revealing that much of her favorite aspects of her own fashion sense came into play when she was designing her Cole Haan collection. '[It is] very 70s silhouettes usually, with hits of 60s housewife chic,' she went on. 'And I love an element of wit or surprise, always. In the most clean, minimal way possible of course. 'I think this definitely palpable in my collection with Cole Haan. Lots of crisp accents with little feminine surprises. Chic and fun.' Almost one in three knee replacements and one in five hip replacements on the NHS are now carried out in private hospitals, official figures reveal. Long waiting lists are forcing hospitals to outsource tens of thousands of the routine operations every year. The Royal College of Surgeons warned the growing number of operations being carried out outside of NHS hospitals means young surgeons are not getting the experience they need. Long waiting lists are forcing hospitals to outsource tens of thousands of the routine operations every year Figures show 28,700 NHS-funded knee replacements or 29.4 per cent were carried out by private hospitals in 2016/17, up from 20.1 per cent in 2012/13. Over the same period 22,872 hip replacements or 19.7 per cent were carried by the private sector in 2016/17, up from 13.7 per cent in 2012/13. Professor Derek Alderson, president of the RCS, said private hospitals provided 'much-needed extra capacity' but warned that the trend still risks drawing resources away from the NHS. He added: 'Ultimately, we would like to see the NHS grow to meet patient demand. 'The Government's long-term plan for the NHS must focus on creating the capacity that is needed, including beds, whether that be by building new wards, reopening wards that have been mothballed or ensuring there are enough staff to work on wards.' Jonathan Ashworth, shadow health and social care secretary, said: 'Yet again this is more evidence that years of cuts to bed numbers, whilst forcing on hospitals the tightest financial squeeze in history, has wider consequences that undermine the fabric of our NHS. 'Ballooning waiting lists mean patients left in agony longer, and hospitals bosses forced to use the private sector to cope with demands. 'This isn't sustainable and taxpayers shouldn't be paying for a private sector bonanza like this. Tory ministers can't keep burying their heads in the sand. They need to get a grip urgently of growing waiting lists.' The Royal College of Surgeons warned the growing number of operations being carried out outside of NHS hospitals means young surgeons are not getting the experience they need A spokeswoman for Health Education England (HEE) said: 'Health Education England is working with the Royal College of Surgeons to promote excellent training opportunities in order to provide high quality surgical care. 'HEE will facilitate training in non-NHS providers if the standards for training are met including the appropriate supervision from consultants is in place.' A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: 'Two million more operations were carried out last year compared to 2010 and for decades the NHS has used the independent sector to carry out some operations like knee and hip replacements where this is in the best interest of patients. 'As part of our long-term plan for the NHS, we will increase funding by an average 3.4% per year, meaning that by 2023/24 it will receive an extra 56 million every day than it currently does.' Toy and model maker Hornby will most likely be working on the Hogwarts Express soon, after it signed a deal to release products related to the Harry Potter franchise. The deal with Warner Bros not only includes the wizarding world but also the DC comic book universe, home of superheroes such as Batman and Superman. Shares were up 19 per cent to 36.6p in the week following the announcement. On track: Toy and model maker Hornby will most likely be working on the Hogwarts Express soon, after it signed a deal to release products related to the Harry Potter franchise Meanwhile, Anglo Asian Mining was one of the top five risers on AIM after its declaration of a maiden dividend sent shares rocketing 40 per cent to 54p. The Azerbaijan-focused firm joins a small club of junior miners operating in the former Soviet Union that pay dividends to shareholders. Another gold digger that saw a boost to its shares in the week was Caledonia Mining, with the stock jumping 13 per cent after a resource upgrade at its Blanket mine. Things were looking a tad gloomier among the oilers however, with Mongolia-focused explorer Petro Matad tumbling 27 per cent to 5.8p over the five days after failing to find oil at its Snow Leopard 1 well. The hole has since been 'plugged and abandoned' due to the disappointing results, three words that tend to send oil investors running. Further down the losers list, with a 35.9 per cent plunge to 3.7p was resort developer Minoan Group, which on Tuesday agreed to sell its travel & leisure unit, Stewart Travel, for 6.6million to pay down its debts. With the sale completed, Minoan said it was now looking for additional funding to continue to meet its costs while also trying to advance a project in Crete. While the AIM All-Share had a better week than Matad and Minoan, it was fairly docile, moving up only 0.02 per cent to 1,098.5 over the five days. The benchmark FTSE 100 was in better shape, rising 1.7 per cent over the week to 7,431. Rich pickings: Anglo Asian Mining was one of the top five risers on AIM after its declaration of a maiden dividend sent shares rocketing 40% to 54p It wasnt all bad news for the small cap oil and gas sector though, with Global Petroleum shares rocketing 56 per cent higher to 3.6p as it agreed to acquire 85 per cent of block 2011A offshore Namibia. Local prospect operators, Tullow Oil and Chariot Oil & Gas, have already discovered oil reservoirs in the eastern part of the block. Global Petroleum said it planned to carry out various studies and data reprocessing to map the reservoirs more accurately. Elsewhere, Rotherham-based cleaning technology firm Xeros saw its shares gush 45 per cent higher to 65p as it inked a ten-year contract to supply its water consumption tech to leading Mexican tannery LEFARC. The group has developed a technology that uses polymer beads in a specially-designed washing machine to rub gently against fabrics and absorb dirt and stains, in what the firm calls a 'superior cleaning process'. Energy boost: Global Petroleum shares rocketed 56% higher to 3.6p as it agreed to acquire 85% of block 2011A offshore Namibia The tannery trialled Xeros tech for a while and is expected to formally roll it out across its operations after March next year. Back in the fallers, industrial engineer Flowtech Fluidpower sank 25 per cent to 129.5p after a profit warning caused by delays to the Thames Tideway sewer project. The firms chief executive, Sean Fennon, also decided to step down on the same day, although there was no direct connection made. Meanwhile, restaurant group Tasty reported widened losses in its half year results as it fell victim to tough market conditions caused by the summer heatwave and cash-strapped consumers. Investors found the news hard to swallow, with Tasty shares dropping 14.7 per cent to 14p. The investment bank at HSBC is appalling and run by incompetent managers, its staff claim. A damning memo sent to the board claims it has the worst-performing investment unit in the industry and a toxic culture means attempts by staff to explain problems are ignored. Titled Global banking and markets: rewards for persistent failure, the memo says: We are entirely fed up and demoralised and have no confidence at all in the existing leadership. Unlike any other bank, there is no proper and effective route to provide upward feedback. Hence this memo, which is whistleblowing on incompetence. It adds: Performance really is appalling. 'Fed up': A memo claims HSBC has the worst-performing investment unit in the industry Senior executives described the memo as trash, according to the Financial Times. HSBC has tried to take on the likes of Goldman Sachs in investment banking. But it has always struggled to compete, despite a 2trillion balance sheet and dominance in the Hong Kong market. A spokesman said: We are proud of our global banking business. Sky could fetch almost 30billion as a bidding war between two of the worlds biggest media titans reaches a dramatic climax today. Shares could go for up to 17 each as Rupert Murdochs 21st Century Fox fights Comcast for control of the broadcasting giant, analysts speculated. That would value Sky whose hit shows include Game of Thrones and Succession at 29.2billion. Sky, whose hit shows include Game of Thrones and Succession (pictured), could fetch 29.2bn The battle, which has seen Skys shares more than double since Fox first made an approach two years ago, will be decided today in an auction. The Takeover Panel was forced to set it up after neither side would declare their offer final. It is the first time an auction has been used to decide a takeover struggle since Tata Steel and CSN fought it out for Corus in 2007. Comcast has offered the most at 14.75p a share, against Foxs 14. The offers value the company at 26billion and 24billion respectively. Analysts expect those sums to jump possibly by more than 2 per share in the sealed, cash-only bidding process. Fox and Comcast will have three opportunities each to make an offer in the auction, after which an announcement will take place. Shareholders will have to approve the winner. If Murdoch wins, Sky will eventually be owned by Disney, which has agreed to buy Fox for 54billion and is backing the bid. Fox is seeking to buy the 61 per cent of Sky it does not already own. Fox and Comcast will have three opportunities each to make an offer in the auction Steve Malcolm, analyst at Arete, said: It is very hard to predict financial logic went out the window a long time ago on this deal. My sense is that Comcast is more committed and it has the deeper pockets its balance sheet can absorb paying 16-17 more easily than Disney. Other observers speculated a highest price of 17. Analysts at UBS said: The Comcast offer is 1475p and we think investors see upside of 1600-1700p if an auction ensues. But Jefferies has a target price of 17.50 on the stock suggesting they think the winning bid will be higher still. British hedge fund manager Crispin Odey, whose firm is a shareholder in Sky, has said it should be valued at at least 18 a share. Both Comcast and Fox are desperate to get hold of Skys European base and 23million customers to fight threats from Netflix and other internet broadcasters. But they will pay a high price. However, some analysts suggested 16 was the ceiling for the bid. Guy Peddy, the head of European telecom research at Macquarie, said: We think that is probably the fullest price for someone to pay. Gervais Williams, UK fund manager at Miton Group, which owns Sky stock, agreed. And Roddy Davidson, who is a media analyst at Shore Capital, said: The process has dragged on. So my speculation is that Comcast will come back with a higher bid and there may be a bit of gamesmanship. Our view is that the offer price already bears very little relation to the fair value of Sky. So its very difficult on the basis of conventional valuation to work out how things might go. Private investors have the power to scupper Unilevers plan to ditch its London HQ. The consumer goods giant, whose brands include Marmite and PG Tips, wants to move its base to the Netherlands. The Anglo-Dutch company needs the backing of investors holding 75 per cent of Unilever shares voting for the change to pass. HQ move: Unilever also requires a majority of voting shareholders to approve, regardless of how much stock they own But it also requires a majority of voting shareholders to approve, regardless of how much stock they own. This means a single investor with a handful of shares has as much power as a large fund with billions of pounds in Unilever. If enough private shareholders oppose the proposals, cooked up by Unilevers Dutch chief Paul Polman, they will fail even if investors holding 75 per cent of the stock approve. Unilever has 35,000 private investors and 8,500 institutional. The rules, in the small print of the 120-page document sent to shareholders, set the scene for a knife-edge vote next month. Farewell to the FTSE Unilever will be forced out of the FTSE 100, the index of the UKs biggest companies, if it proceeds with its plan to unify its headquarters in the Netherlands. The conglomerate, which has operated through a British firm and a Dutch company, wants to combine the two in Rotterdam to simplify its structure. Its shares would be listed in the UK and the Netherlands. But FTSE Russell, which controls which companies qualify for inclusion in the index, is unlikely to let Unilever stay on the FTSE 100. This would be a blow for investors who hold tracker funds which copy the index as they would have to sell their Unilever shares. Cliff Weight, from shareholder group Sharesoc, said: There is hope. If all the individual shareholders can be got together and mobilised, then they could stop this. The proposals have sparked a fierce backlash as Unilever would leave the FTSE 100, meaning tracker funds would have to sell their holdings. It has already met with major opposition from institutional shareholders including David Cumming, chief investment officer for equities at Aviva. He said: I dont see logically why any UK shareholder would support their decision to go Dutch, because there is no upside, only downside. Unilever is listed on the London and Amsterdam stock exchanges and says a move would let it compete effectively, give greater flexibility for portfolio change and strengthen governance. Andrew Nicholson, 65, (pictured) worked on construction sites for Bovis Ltd and Wates Built Homes during the 1970s, and was exposed to asbestos that led to a diagnosis of malignant mesothelioma in September 2016 A builder who lost his two brothers to asbestos-linked cancer has won a 260,000 payout after he also fell ill with an incurable form of the disease. Andrew Nicholson, 65, from Swanley in Kent, worked on construction sites for Bovis Ltd and Wates Built Homes during the 1970s, and was exposed to asbestos that led to a diagnosis of malignant mesothelioma in September 2016. Neither company provided any respiratory protection or trained him about the threat of asbestos dust, which is the most common cause of this form of cancer. 'It's almost beyond belief that as recently as 30 to 40 years ago, large companies were knowingly exposing their employees to lethal chemicals,' Mr Nicholson told MailOnline. They placed ticking time bombs over our heads while burying theirs in the sand. Mr Nicholson began feeling short of breath early in 2016, and was forced to quit work as a contracts manager for a construction company. He soon suspected mesothelioma, having watched both his brothers die from the disease Chris in 2008 and Terry in 2004. Terry, a musician, came into contact with asbestos at a recording studio. Chris may have been exposed while a long-term resident at Cane Hill Hospital in Croydon following his diagnosis for Aspergers syndrome. After experiencing symptoms of breathlessness, Mr Nicholson soon suspected mesothelioma, having watched both his brothers die from the disease Terry (left) in 2004 and Chris in 2008 Mr Nicholson will have any future private medical expenses covered as part of the legal settlement, including expensive immunotherapy not available on the NHS. He is now responding well to an immunotherapy drug trial at Maidstone Hospital. He started in the construction in 1971 as a site clerk in Croydon, south London, for Wates Built Homes. While in the stores he handled sheets of Asbestolux, an asbestos insulating board, and swept up the dust which came off them. In 1974, he moved to the now defunct Bovis Ltd, progressing from a junior surveyor to project manager of their Special Works Division in Sidcup. Again, he was exposed to asbestos dust when visiting sites where Asbestolux and Artex were being used. 'From the outset, I knew what mesothelioma involved and what the prognosis would be,' Mr Nicholson said. What is malignant mesothelioma? It is an incurable form of cancer which stars in cells in the linings of certain organs, including the lungs, and is normally linked to asbestos exposure. In the UK more than 2,600 people are diagnosed with mesothelioma each year. More than 15% of men survive the cancer for more than a year, but only 1% for five years or more. It is estimated that in the UK more than 9 out of 10 men with mesothelioma and more than 8 out of 10 women have been in contact with asbestos. Source: Cancer Research UK Advertisement He approached the industrial disease team at London solicitors Hodge Jones & Allen to represent him in a claim against his former employers. He was seeking a compensation payout to immunotherapy which would improve his quality of life and prolong the time he had. His claim was initially contested by Wates and Bovis Ltd, now owned by Lendlease Construction Holdings, on the basis that there had been no breach of duty of care as any exposure to asbestos dust had not exceeded 'permitted safe limits'. However, at a pre-trial meeting between the two parties, Wates and Lendlease tacitly acknowledged their responsibility for causing Mr Nicholsons illness and agreed to pay him compensation for losses, past and future. The 260,000 lump sum payment was agreed by the insurers of both firms, as well as an indemnity agreement covering Andrew against any future medical and legal bills. 'I am relieved to finally have this legal battle behind me, and peace of mind that the treatment, which I so desperately need, is secured,' he said. Chris (pictured) may have been exposed while a long-term resident at Cane Hill Hospital in Croydon following his diagnosis for Aspergers syndrome His solicitor Isobel Lovett, partner and head of industrial disease at Hodge Jones & Allen, said: 'Mesothelioma is only caused by exposure to asbestos. 'Andrew contracted this disease as a result of his employers exposing him to asbestos at work and failing to protect him from this deadly substance. 'When held to account, many companies drag their heels through the process in the hope that the issue will just go away, as survival rates for mesothelioma don't involve long time frames. According to HSE figures, there were over 3,000 deaths from mesothelioma and asbestos-related diseases in 2015. These types of diseases typically take many years to develop. Widespread use of asbestos, particularly in the post-World War II building industry had led to a large increase in asbestos-related diseases. Annual deaths have increased steeply over the last 50 years, largely as a result of asbestos exposure prior to 1980, and are expected to continue to current levels for the rest of the decade before declining. MailOnline has contacted Wates Built Homes and Lendlease for comment. President Donald Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid an unannounced visit Friday to the federal courthouse in New York where he pleaded guilty a month ago. Cohen, 51, left the building about 1.30pm on Friday, declining to say why he was there. It wasn't known what time he arrived. He also shook his head in response to a request to comment on discussions he's had with special counsel Robert Mueller. Mueller is investigating alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Michael Cohen waits for his ride after making an unannounced visit to the federal courthouse in New York on Friday. Cohen left the building, declining to say why he was there On Thursday, Cohen and one of his lawyers confirmed in a tweet that he had met with Mueller and provided 'critical information.' Cohen is awaiting a December sentencing after pleading guilty to tax fraud, bank fraud and campaign finance violations. During his plea, Cohen said Trump directed him to arrange a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels and a $150,000 payment through a media company to Playboy playmate Karen McDougal to influence the 2016 election. As part of his plea, Cohen agreed not to challenge any sentence of less than five years and three months in prison. Even without a cooperation agreement, he might still be able to win a measure of leniency at sentencing by cooperating with authorities in New York and Washington. Cohen was not scheduled for any courtroom appearances Friday, but individuals awaiting sentencing sometimes meet with Probation Department officers who prepare a pre-sentence report that will include a recommendation on what his sentence should be. A person on the sidewalk shoots cellphone video of President Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, at the United States Courthouse in New York on Friday Cohen checks his cellphone while waiting for a ride outside the federal courthouse on Friday Cohen, wearing a suit and tie, was accompanied by one of his lawyers. He traded pleasantries with journalists and warned a photographer to be careful not to injure himself as he snapped pictures with moving traffic nearby. Cohen said he planned to spend the weekend with his family. Nicholas Biase, a spokesman for Manhattan prosecutors, said he could not confirm Cohen's purpose for a courthouse visit. He said it was possible Cohen was making a regularly scheduled visit with a representative from the probation office. For more than a decade, Cohen was Trump's personal lawyer and also worked for the Trump Organization. Officials at America's top retailers including Walmart, Target and Apple have warned prices may be hiked following the Trump administration's newest round of tariffs on products imported from China. China and the United States plunged deeper into a trade war this week after Beijing added $60billion of US products to its tariff list, retaliating to President Donald Trump's planned levies on $200billion worth of Chinese goods. As a result, dozens of major companies will likely be passing the cost of increased taxes along to millions of consumers. America's top retailers have warned of potential price hikes following the Trump administration's newest round of tariffs on goods imported from China, the latest move in the president's escalating trade war with Chinese President Xi Jinping (above with Trump in 2017) In a letter to the US Trade Representative, a spokesperson for Walmart - America's largest retailer - listed a wide range of goods that may soon receive price hikes. The following items were included in the list: fish, vegetables, nuts, grains, flours; personal care products from makeup to shampoo; luggage and handbags; bicycles and motorcycles; leather apparel hats, hand tools and some furniture; lighting and mirrors including Christmas lights; monitors; paper tablecloths, napkins, plates and cups, toilet and tissue paper; dog leashes, home air conditioners, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners and calculators. 'This round of tariffs could impact a significant number of common consumer items that are not easily replaceable,' Sarah F Thorn, Walmart's senior director for global government affairs, wrote in the September 6 letter. 'The immediate impact will be to raise prices on consumers and tax American business and manufacturers.' Despite the backlash surrounding the newest tariffs, Trump gave himself a pat on the back in a tweet Saturday morning that said: 'New Economic Records being set on a daily basis - and it is not by accident!' Trump has been loudly touting the economic successes under his presidency - including four percent growth and a record-low unemployment rate - as the November midterm elections approach. While an August Gallup poll indicated half of all Americans approve of the president's handling of the economy, that number could drop if these new tariffs result in increased prices of everyday goods. A spokesperson for Walmart - America's largest retailer - listed a wide range of goods that may soon receive price hikes in a September 6 letter to the US Trade Representative (stock image) Despite the backlash surrounding the newest tariffs, Trump gave himself a pat on the back in a tweet Saturday morning The Trump administration will begin to levy new tariffs of 10 percent on about $200billion of Chinese products on September 24, with the tariffs to go up to 25 percent by the end of 2018. The tit-for-tat measures are the latest escalation in an increasingly protracted trade dispute between the world's two largest economies. The following American companies have made statements condemning the new tariffs: Walmart Inc warned that it may raise prices of products if the Trump administration imposes a tariff on Chinese imports. The company said the tariff would impact prices of everything from food products to beverages and personal care items. Target Corp said it was 'deeply troubled' and strongly opposed any consideration to add tariffs on basic imported consumer goods. The company also said the administration's tariff policies are already forcing major vendors across product categories to raise prices. Chipmaker Micron Technology Inc said US tariffs on Chinese goods would weigh on its financial results for as much as a year. WALMART PRODUCTS SUBJECT TO PRICE HIKES In its September 6 letter to the US Trade Representative, Walmart outlined an extensive list of items that may see price increases: Toilet paper Refridgerators Vacuum cleaners Calculators Fish Vegetables Nuts Grains Flours Makeup Shampoo Luggage Handbags Bicycles Motorcycles Leather apparel Hand tools Furniture Lighting and mirrors Christmas lights Monitors Dog leashes Home air conditioners Advertisement Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co said it was disappointed with the latest outcome on the tariffs. The company said it relies on complex global supply chains and is bound to face various challenges arising from these tariffs. Fitness tracker maker Fitbit said it appreciated the administration's time and effort to listen to industry and consumer concerns, after the United States spared the company's fitness trackers from the latest round of tariffs on Chinese goods. Apple Inc , whose Watch and other consumer gadgets were left out of the latest tariff list, had previously expressed concerns over tariffs, saying the US will be hardest hit, and that will result in lower US growth and competitiveness and higher prices for American consumers. Home Depot Inc said it would continue working to offset impact on its customers. Dell Technologies said the proposed tariffs will increase costs of vital parts and components for its US services and manufacturing operations. Dell added that the tariffs on desktops/servers, computer parts, network switches could result in 'serious damage' to the company and its employees. Intel Corp said proposed tariffs would negatively affect US businesses and 'stifle advancements' in telecom infrastructure, including next generation technologies like 5G. The company said the tariffs will raise costs for US-based technology companies that manufacture ICT products such as desktop computers, laptops and servers. Agilent Technologies said the increased duties would financially impede its US operations and its end customers in the US and abroad. It added that substantial tariff increases will limit its ability to reinvest in U.S. operations, affecting employees engaged in R&D, design and other support operations. Agilent also said it does not believe the goods it imports are specifically covered by the 'Made in China 2025' industrial policy. Office Depot said the tariff proposal, which covers non-household seating and furniture it sells, would lead to immense supply chain disruptions and a likely loss of jobs. Office Depot also said the tariffs would impact small- and medium-sized US companies. Newell Brands ' units, including Goody Products and Rubbermaid Commercial Products, said tariffs on items ranging from elastic hair bands to art supplies would hurt American consumers since the tariff prices will be paid by the company and consumers. They also said consumer goods targeted under tariffs do not come under the scope of 'Made in China 2025' program. Mattel Inc said the proposed tariff on products such as high chairs and bath seats will result in higher prices as China supplies vast majority of these products with no alternative readily available. Mattel also said additional tariffs could lead to job losses as the toy-making industry is already suffering from Babies 'R' Us/Toys 'R' Us closures. Whirlpool Corp said proposed tariffs on components from China would increase costs and create supply chain problem for US manufacturers, putting them at a competitive disadvantage. The company said the administration should remove 'critical components' such as parts of refrigerators and mixers from the proposed list and add finished products such as dishwashers to mitigate negative impact on US manufacturing. A grandfather has mocked Salt Bae for preparing a lavish steak feast for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by sharing a video of himself chopping yucca in the style of the Turkish chef. The unidentified man, just like the celebrity chef, strikes down a couple of knife chops at large chunk of yucca placed over a kitchen table. He then caps off his satire by sprinkling salt on the small pieces of yucca and giving himself two thumbs up. A grandfather has mocked Salt Bae for preparing a lavish steak feast for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by sharing a video of himself chopping yucca in the style of the Turkish chef The popular cook, whose real name is Nusret Gokce, drew the ire of Venezuelans after he hosted Maduro and his wife, Cilia, last Friday at his Istanbul Nurs-Et steakhouse and posted video of the gathering on his Instagram page. Viral images of Salt Bae's flamboyant style of slicing pieces of steak to Maduro's delight instantly drew a backlash from Venezuelans. The video was then deleted. It created a wave of anger in Venezuela where millions struggle to get enough to eat and red meat the rarest of luxuries. The unidentified man, just like the celebrity chef, strikes down a couple of knife chops at large chunk of yucca placed over a kitchen table Maduro (right with the chef) was lavished with the gourmet lunch in Istanbul during a two-hour stop-off as he returned from a visit to China Salt Bae's Instagram feed has become a target of Venezuelans who've fled the struggling, impoverished country and political opponents and exiles of the leader's regime. Images also revealed Salt Bae presenting a box of cigars to Maduro during his brief stop in Turkey before the Venezuelan leader returned home. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro (right) has sparked fury in his impoverished homeland after dining on expensive steak at Salt Bae's (left) restaurant in Turkey President Maduro was also gifted a t-shirt featuring Salt Bae's likeness. Maduro said he visited the restaurant for lunch during a two-hour stop in Istanbul. 'Nusret attended to us personally. We were chatting, having a good time with him. ... He loves Venezuela, he told me several times,' Maduro said. Maduro had traveled to Beijing in hope of securing fresh funds for his cash-starved socialist government, though he returned only having signed several deals involving Venezuela's energy sector. The fugitive wife of a convicted conman has been arrested and charged with a string of offences after being on the run for more than 18 months. Simone Smith, AKA Simone Wright, was arrested in New South Wales on Tuesday by officers from the Australian Federal Police after being wanted for two years. The officers had received New Zealand-endorsed extradition warrants for Mrs Wright's arrest, TVNZ reported. Simone Smith, AKA Simone Wright,(pictured left) was arrested in NSW after being on the run for 18 months when her husband Paul James Bennett (pictured right) was arrested and deported in 2016 Mrs Wright has been charged with supplying a girl aged 15 with the ecstasy, the indecent assault of the same girl as well as multiple charges of fraud and theft of a yacht. Mrs Wright's husband, Paul James Bennett, was arrested and deported from Australia in 2016 after the pair arrived in Sydney on a stolen yacht before being charged with a string of crimes. He had been on the run from authorities when he was caught on the Hawkesbury River north of Sydney in February 2016. The charges he faced also included theft, fraud, and the same two charges Mrs Wright now faces, supplying a girl aged 15 with the class B drug ecstasy, and two of indecently assaulting the same girl. The yacht the pair were found on was stolen from the Bay of Islands the previous year. Mrs Wright has been remanded in custody and will face an Australian court on September 28. More than 12 people have come forward alleging a 'dreamboat' orthopedic surgeon and his girlfriend drugged and raped them, after two women successfully pressed criminal charges against the pair. Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said his office had received dozens of new leads, with claims from at least 12 women and one man currently being investigated, the LA Times reported. The surgeon, 38-year-old Grant Robicheaux, and his 32-year-old girlfriend, Cerissa Riley face multiple charges, including: rape by drugs, oral copulation by anesthesia and assault with intent to commit sexual offenses. Grant William Robicheaux, 38, and his girlfriend Cerissa Laura Riley, 32, face multiple charges including: rape by drugs, oral copulation by anesthesia and assault with intent to commit sexual offenses Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackaucka (pictured) said his office had been flooded with leads and other alleged victims coming forward The district attorney said the two victims in the current case both met the pair socially in Newport Beach and became intoxicated in 2016. Later on, they both said they had ended up at Robicheaux's apartment, where they were sexually assaulted. The couple allegedly targeted their victims at bars and restaurants - but may also have used dating apps such as Tinder and Bumble, Rackauckas said, leading investigators to stretch their inquiries across several states. One victim who stepped forward is from Louisiana, and claims they were assaulted about 20 years ago. 'Ladies, please be careful when you meet people on these kinds of apps,' Rackauckas said during a press conference on Friday. You don't know what's behind... what appears to be a perfect smile.' The case against the couple so far alleges they used ecstasy, date rape drugs and cocaine to drug their victims before assaulting them at Robicheaux's home in Newport Beach. One of the two women who have successfully pressed charges against the couple described them as a 'Bonnie and Clyde' duo, who worked together to incapacitate her before assaulting her, court documents say. The couple allegedly drugged women before assaulting them at Robicheaux's home in Newport Beach (pictured) One victim told police the couple (pictured) worked as a 'Bonnie and Clyde' team to assault her The documents also show one of the two women who went on a date with Robicheaux told police she had met he surgeon and his girlfriend on a boat docked in the harbour. When police searched their home, they uncovered a 'substantial number' of videos showing the couple allegedly assaulting their incapacitated victims She said afterwards, feeling fatigued and intoxicated, she was escorted back to Robicheaux's home by the couple, where she was given two more pills which left her feeling weak and exhausted. The woman claims Riley filmed on an iPhone as Robicheaux had unprotected sex with her, and Riley later performed oral sex on her. Feeling weak and afraid, the woman told police she was not able to physically or verbally stop the couple as she endured the ordeal. Police executed a search warrant on Robicheaux's house in January, where they uncovered videos and photographs of potential victims, illegal drugs and unregistered assault rifles. 'There are a substantial number of videos,' Rackauckas told reporters this week. I cannot tell you if it is tens or hundreds; it is certainly more than tens,' Rackauckas told reporters Tuesday. 'It appears [the victims] are highly intoxicated beyond the ability to consent or resist; they are barely responsive to the defendants' sexual advances.' A woman who met Robicheaux on Tinder recently told Inside Edition she had only narrowly escaped being one of his victims. Lauren Hayden, a woman who met Robicheaux on Tinder, said she narrowly escaped being one of his victims after describing him as aggressive The couple, who are both free on $100,000 bail, could face decades behind bars if found guilty Lauren Hayden said they spent time at his Newport Beach house during their date, but she left after he allegedly became too aggressive. 'He just kept trying to rip my clothes off and I kept saying I'm not ready for that,' she said. 'I just remember I kept trying to retie my top and trying to keep it on and him trying to grab it off.' Hayden recalls saying to him: 'What are you doing, what part of no do you not understand?' 'He's disgusting, he's deplorable, he's a monster.' Robicheaux - who once appeared on the Bravo television show 'Online Dating Rituals of the American Male' - and Riley are due to be arraigned on October 25. If convicted, Robicheaux faces up to 40 years in prison. Riley could face 30 years behind bars. Attorneys for Robicheaux and Riley have denied the allegation. Shawn Holley asked CBS on Friday why the couple were only arrested a few days ago when an investigation had been ongoing for years. '[Robicheaux and Riley] were just recently arrested at their home,' he said. 'So I think that also speaks to the seriousness of the allegations or lack thereof as far as the district attorney and law enforcement is concerned.' Both Robicheaux and Riley are free on $100,000 bonds. Erik Solheim reportedly ran up a huge travel bill The United Nations environment chief has been criticised by his own organisation for his globe-trotting lifestyle and heavy carbon footprint. Erik Solheim reportedly ran up a huge travel bill and showed scant regard for rules, according to a leaked draft internal audit report. The damning dossier said Mr Solheim was travelling for 529 out of the 668 days covered by the audit investigation. As executive director of the UN Environment Programme he also spent a total of 370,380 during the same period. The audit said he had 'no regard for abiding by the set regulations and rules' and had been guilty of claiming unjustified expenses. There have been concerns from some UN Environment officials that Mr Solheim has been guilty of employing a 'haphazard and dictatorial management style' and has made the body 'dysfunctional in many respects'. Mr Solheim said he had already paid back money where there had been 'oversights' and made changes where rules had been broken. The former Norwegian politician refused to comment in detail until the audit had been published in full, but he said that if there were other matters to address he would do so in the future. 'To secure unprecedented environmental action, we need to change, as individuals, as society, indeed as the UN,' he said. 'No one is immune to the difficulty that type of systematic change often brings.' The draft audit, which was given to The Guardian newspaper, was compiled by the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services and has still to be finalised. One of the major criticisms Mr Solheim faced was for a weekend trip he took from the US to France and back. According to the UN, his 'extensive travel patterns' did not set an example to the rest of the UN staff to follow. The report added that his 'extensive travel' was a reputational risk to the UN because the organisation was supposed to be 'the lead on sustainable environment matters'. It said the UN Environment Programme did not have policies and incentives for staff to reduce their carbon emissions. In August Mr Solheim told a Norwegian aviation magazine that people should not have a 'guilty conscience' about flying and even admitted to holding gold frequent flyer cards with three major airlines. Mr Solheim, 63, speaking during a press conference in North Korea last month Mr Solheim, 63, is a former diplomat and was leader of the Socialist Left Party in Norway between April 1987 and May 1997. The married father-of-four took up his current role with the UN in June 2016. The leaked document also criticises Mr Solheim's management style and said he showed 'willingness to circumvent regulations and rules which were termed as 'bureaucratic'. Even his expensive travel had been approved by a manager who reported directly to him and was not someone more senior. In future Mr Solheim's travel will be approved by the office of the secretary general. In one spat involving the number of days he had spent in Oslo and Paris on 'official travel' he replied in an email: 'We cannot accept this question on holiday vs job... we are not any longer living in the industrial age and they must stop treating me as if I am factory worker... the other side of this coin is that they must stop asking this stupid question.' Mr Solheim told The Guardian: 'It's true that I have vented frustration with what I perceive as excessive bureaucracy in the UN system. I believe in fully reforming the UN so we're better able to confront the urgent challenges facing our planet.' Truls Gulowsen, the head of campaign group Greenpeace in Norway, said: 'This report puts him in an extremely bad light and weakens the credibility of the UN's entire environmental organisation.' Robert 'RJ' Wagner broke his silence on Friday to blast claims he killed Natalie Wood Robert 'RJ' Wagner has broken his silence through a spokesperson to denounce claims that he killed his wife, actress Natalie Wood, even as new eyewitnesses offer cops incriminating statements in the cold case. A rep for the 88-year-old Wagner on Friday berated yacht captain Dennis Davern and Wood's sister Lana for implicating him in her death in the podcast Fatal Voyage: The Mysterious Death Of Natalie Wood. 'They are despicable human beings, capitalizing on the accidental death of a beloved member of the Wagner family,' the rep told Fox News. 'They should be ashamed of themselves.' It is the first time Wagner has spoken out about the allegations since February, when police named him a person of interest in the November 28, 1981 drowning death of Wood. Hollywood acting couple Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner are seen together in Beverly Hills in 1980, the year before Wood drowned on their yacht Wagner's rep called yacht captain Dennis Davern and Wood's sister, Bond girl Lana Wood, 'despicable human beings' for implicating Wagner in her death The Splendour is seen moored off of Catalina Island in 1981, on the morning after Wood drowned. New eyewitnesses tell cops Wood and Wagner were arguing by the swim step In Friday's new episode of Fatal Voyage, Los Angeles Sheriff's Department Homicide Detective Ralph Hernandez revealed that new eyewitnesses have come forward with startling information about the night that Wood drowned. On the night of her death on the yacht Splendour, only Wood, Wagner, captain Davern, and actor Christopher Walken were on board the boat, which was anchored off of Catalina Island. But there were other boats moored nearby. Now the new witnesses corroborate Davern's statement that Wagner was arguing with Wood near the swim step at the rear of the boat when Wood disappeared. 'Two witnesses came forward corroborate that story. They saw arguing, heard arguing. They saw them at the swim step, and then she was gone,' Hernandez said. Natalie Wood is seen circa 1978. New eyewitnesses say that she was arguing with Wagner near the swim step of their yacht moments before she disappeared 'We're not giving up their identity. What I can tell you about the new witnesses is, one, they're not looking for limelight,' the homicide detective said. 'They're not looking to have anyone pay them for interviews. In fact, two of them, we actually had to seek out and find,' added Hernandez. 'People have asked us why we believe that they're credible, and actually, their reasons for not coming forward is what lends to their credibility.' The detective also confirmed that, while Wagner did give police an interview an interview after Wood died in 1981, he has declined to participate in an interview since the case was reopened in 2011. Christopher Walken, however, has cooperated with police and given a new interview, Hernandez revealed. Hernandez said that Walken's interview was 'helpful' and that 'it did corroborate certain details of Dannis Davern's account, and that's about all I can get into.' Christopher Walken is seen filming Brainstorm with Wood shortly before her death. Police say he has cooperated with a 'helpful' interview about the night of her death Davern, who has offered bombshell revelations in the new podcast, said in the latest episode that he no longer had any doubt about what had happened on the boat that night in 1981. 'I really do think RJ killed Natalie,' Davern said. 'Over the years I put two and two together, and when I see a man standing on the back of his boat with the door open and him telling me that Natalie was missing, I realized that if she's missing and he's standing there where you would actually exit the boat, and she's missing to me it's obvious that he was the last one with her.' He said that it was clear that Wood had been beaten when he went to identify her body the next morning as she was covered in bruises. Wagner's original story was that Wood had gotten up to secure a dinghy that was banging against the yacht and keeping her awake, and must have slipped and fallen into the water. Davern claims that he was instructed to stick to that story, and did not initially reveal to police the explosive argument he'd witnessed earlier that evening. The captain said that Wagner had smashed a bottle of wine in a fit of jealous suspicion over Wood and Walken, then a hot young Oscar winner who had just finished filming Brainstorm with her. Davern says that he was whisked away by Wagner's entourage, and kept as a virtual prisoner in the actor's home for a year, until the investigation was closed, with Wood's death pronounced an accidental drowning. Wood's sister Lana also said in a recent episode: 'I think that things got out of hand. I know Natalie can verbally push, and Natalie was a very by-the-rule person She did not put up with a great deal that she felt was harmful to her. 'I think it escalated to a point where she was either struck or pushed. I don't believe that it was planned. After the investigation into the actress's death was reopened, the Los Angeles County Chief Medical Examiner amended her death certificate to 'drowning and other undetermined factors.' The final episode of Fatal Voyage will be released next Friday. Booming population and overcrowding will see old graves dug up to make room for new bodies. Laws quietly pushed through the New South Wales Parliament will allow plots to be dug up after 25 years, as new figures reveal a shortage in burial sites from 2036. Rookwood General Cemetery chief executive George Simpson said the lack of burial land in Sydney was 'beyond crisis point'. But Sydney isn't the only Australian city with an issue of overcrowding, as the Gold Coast earlier announced their own solution to a scarcity in cemetery sites. Sydney graves are set to be dug up and re-used after 25 years in new state legislation. Pictured: Waverley Cemetery in NSW The new laws place a 25-year lease on new burial cites, which can be renewed by next of kin (Rookwood Cemetery pictured) In July, Queensland's Gold Coast Council floated the idea of creating an underwater cemetery, mixing ashes with environmentally-friendly materials to create a dive precinct. Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate told Seven News the plan would ease overcrowding in graveyards, as well as create a new tourism venture. 'Major cities in Australia and the world are running out of spaces to bury people,' he said. 'In time to come, if people want to dive, say hello, they can do so and have a bit of fun with it.' The underwater burial concept is based off of the Neptune Memorial Reef in Florida, where ashes are scattered or secured at an artificial, underwater reef. The NSW State Government have made no indication of creating new burial sites, but plan to dig up and re-use existing ones by implementing a 25-year lease on new plots. An ever-expanding population means new graves in cemeteries like Rookwood (pictured) could be entirely unavailable within seven years An ever-expanding population means new graves could be entirely unavailable within seven years. However, the opposition says changes to the Cemeteries Act will divide people based on their wealth. Opposition lands spokesman Mick Veitch told the Daily Telegraph that permanent graves will be available for wealthy people, while poorer people will be 'forced to see their loved ones dug up'. A parliamentary inquest in now investigating the new law after Mr Veitch claimed cemetery operators will profit from them. The new legislation will not be backdated or affect purchased plots. It will also require cemetery operators keep records of next of kin, and after 25 years, give the option for them to 'renew' the burial site. A mysterious message in a bottle has been traced back to its sender after a 3,000km journey. The bottle and handwritten message thrown into the ocean two years ago in Tasmania was found by a man at Shoalwater Bay in Queensland. The letter was written in 2016 by high school student Ella Dignay, now in year eight, and was found by caretaker Joe Simpson. Scroll down for video A mysterious message in a bottle has been traced back to its sender after two years and a 3000km journey 'Dear Finder, My name is Ella and I go to Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School,' the letter said. '...I'd like to congratulate you for finding this bottle.' Mr Simpson, who found the washed up bottle on the shore, said he had to break the bottle to read the message. He was surprised to see the sender was from Tasmania, and realised the bottle had been on a two-year journey, through the Bass Strait past Sydney. Mr Simpson, who found the washed up bottle on the shore, said he had to break the bottle to read the message The letter was written for a school project, which was then thrown into the Bicheno waters in Tasmania's east 'It's just amazing, from the south end of Tasmania all the way up to the east coast of Australia,' said Mr Simpson. Ella was initially in disbelief when she realised her message had a receiver until her friend notified her saying her letter had been posted about on Facebook. The letter was written for a school project, which was then thrown into the water from a fishing boat in waters near Bicheno, in Tasmania's east. A 12-year-old Michigan was seen grasping her older sister's hand in the final photo taken just before she died from injuries she suffered in an ATV crash. Riley Robinson was taken off life support after the vehicle she was riding in lost control on rough terrain and slammed into a tree on her grandmother's property. The horrifying crash left her 14-year-old sister, Peyton, in critical condition. The heartbreaking image shows the siblings lying in their hospital beds, with neck braces on and casts all over their bodies. Scroll down for video Riley and Peyton Robinson fought for their lives together in hospital after an ATV crash Dad Larry Robinson describes signing donor papers as 'the hardest thing' but wanted to help other families spend more time with their loved ones Riley Robinson passed away as a result of the injuries sustained from an ATV accident on September 9 Riley's vehicle crashed into a tree and her brother Tyler called the emergency services after the discovering the accident that happened around 10am that morning Peyton's palm is seen resting on her sister's hand with her fingers intertwined. Riley can only loop her thumb around her sister's middle finger. Just a few hours later, Riley tragically passed away. Her family donated her organs and saved the lives of six other children. 'I think the hardest thing we did was signing the paper for organ donation,' he told Fox 2 Detroit. 'I don't get our daughter back but there are six families that get a little more time to spend with their loved ones.' Peyton's arms, elbow, shoulder were fractured in the accident. Her father was especially keen for her to be able to wear her favorite outfits without worry after reconstructive surgery. Riley (pictured with her father center) was riding with sister Peyton (right) at the time The sisters were riding around their grandmother's home in Missaukee County 'The doctor said that he was going to look at trying to fix her collarbone, make sure it heals right, because little girls like to wear dresses,' Robinson said about the procedures taking place, that will also address her eyes, jaw and nose on Friday. Children under the age of 16 can ride the recreational vehicles so long as they have had safety training and are supervised by an adult. Regardless of age, anyone riding an ATV must wear a helmet. Riley and Peyton's 16-year-old brother, Tyler, discovered them near their grandmother's home in Missaukee County and called the emergency services after the accident. Father Larry Robinson will donate Riley's organs in hope there's a chance her death can help save the lives of six other young people He described their brother Tyler, who pulled the ATV off his sister, as a 'hero' He pulled the recreational vehicle off his sister in what their father describes as an act of heroism. 'He's my hero. He called 911, and got the 4 wheeler off his sister. He did everything he could,' the distraught parent told Fox 2. Riley was later airlifted to Grand Rapids hospital but succumbed to her injuries. 'Life as you know it can be over in a blink of an eye,' Robinson continued. 'She was the life of the party. Trusting, very caring.' Raquel Rolnik, a Left-wing academic who sparked anger four years ago by attacking Britains welfare reforms in a supposedly impartial report John McDonnell is to share a stage with a controversial United Nations official who once offered an animal sacrifice to Karl Marx. The shadow chancellor will sit alongside Raquel Rolnik, a Left-wing academic who sparked anger four years ago by attacking Britains welfare reforms in a supposedly impartial report. She was accused of publishing a misleading Marxist diatribe after demanding that the Coalition governments spare room subsidy be scrapped, saying it left claimants feeling abused in their human rights. Miss Rolnik, a Brazilian architect and urban planner, visited Britain in 2013 as the UNs special rapporteur on housing while the Coalition was trying to bring down the spiralling housing benefit bill. She demanded the abolition of the spare room subsidy, which cuts payments to working-age claimants with more bedrooms than they need. Miss Rolnik, who was nicknamed the Brazil nut, also referred to it as the bedroom tax Labours preferred name for the levy. Her report was published in 2014. It also emerged that she had dabbled in Candomble, an African-Brazilian religion that originated during the slave trade. Miss Rolnik, who was brought up a Marxist, once offered an animal sacrifice to Marx when she was doing a masters degree in architecture so he would leave her alone to study in peace. Her elder sister Suely said Miss Rolnik had become contaminated by other philosophies and offered the sacrifice to appease Marx. Now Miss Rolnik seems to have nailed her political colours to the mast by appearing at a panel event run by Momentum, the Jeremy Corbyn-supporting grassroots movement, alongside the Labour conference. On Tuesday she and Mr McDonnell will discuss how a radical Labour government can lead the way in building a new international economic order that works for the many, not the few, a programme for the event says. A pro-Israel group has been forced to take on extra security at this year's Labour conference amid the party's anti-Semitism crisis. The conference, which starts tomorrow, will host an academic who has claimed Zionists stopped Jews escaping the Holocaust. Professor Jonathan Rosenhead who also suggested Israel could be orchestrating anti-Semitic posts left online by Jeremy Corbyn's supporters will speak at a fringe event. Taking a breather: Jeremy Corbyn and wife Laura Alvarez Extra bodyguards will protect attendees at the Labour Friends of Israel's annual reception, and the group has scrapped its usual stand in the conference exhibition due to fears of disruption. As the deeply divided party prepares for the conference in Liverpool: A string of hard-Left union leaders will launch a new body campaigning to 'stop the political silencing' over Palestine; The launch event will be addressed by an activist who last week described Israel as a 'racist state'; Mr Corbyn's supporters in Momentum have called for 'mandatory reselection', which would see all MPs have to resubmit to a vote by their local constituency party; A documentary lauding Jackie Walker, who was suspended from the party for criticising Holocaust Memorial Day, will be shown; Mr Corbyn is expected to attend the Labour Friends of Palestine event, while his deputy Tom Watson will be at the Labour Friends of Israel reception; Shadow chancellor John McDonnell will share a platform with a controversial United Nations official who once sacrificed an animal to Karl Marx. Mr Corbyn will tonight address hundreds of his supporters as moderates in the party fear Momentum's 'mandatory reselection' proposals will lead to purges. Other delegates are hoping to bounce Mr Corbyn into supporting a second Brexit referendum. Professor Rosenhead will speak at an event called by the hard-Left Jewish Voice for Labour group, which believes the international definition of anti-Semitism 'is used to silence Palestinian voices'. The group which was founded last year and opposes the official Jewish Labour Movement says it 'campaigns tirelessly to defend democracy and the socialist Corbyn Project'. Mr Corbyn has described Jewish Voice for Labour activists as 'good people', even after they organised a counter-demonstration against a rally against anti-Semitism in Westminster earlier this year. Labour Friends of Israel will host its annual reception on Tuesday night, attended by Mr Watson and the group's chairman, Labour MP Joan Ryan, who has been threatened with deselection. Even though the reception will take place within the conference secure zone, Labour Friends of Israel has accepted extra security assistance from the party. It is believed extra security has also been provided for the Jewish Labour Movement rally tomorrow. Professor Rosenhead's appearance on Monday will come a year after Mr Watson promised an investigation into anti-Semitic remarks at last year's conference fringe. He was forced to intervene after the Daily Mail revealed that at one event, a speaker had said people should be allowed to question whether the Holocaust happened. Professor Rosenhead was condemned earlier this year after he claimed 'the Zionists' prevented hundreds of thousands of Jews escaping Germany before the Second World War. The emeritus professor at the London School of Economics was speaking at an event at University College London entitled 'Jeremy Corbyn, anti-Semitism and justice for Palestine'. Professor Rosenhead said: 'Just before the outbreak of war, the United States had organised for hundreds of thousands of Jews to escape from Germany and go not to the United States, certainly, but to a number of Latin American countries that had agreed to have them. 'And in those last few weeks before the war, the Zionists stopped that from happening. And the result was, hundreds of thousands of Jews who would have escaped did not.' A string of academics criticised the claims as 'baseless'. The pro-Corbyn Jewish Voice for Labour will also host a screening of a documentary about Miss Walker, a hard-Left activist suspended by Labour after allegedly making anti-Semitic comments. A separate event will mark the launch of a new group, Labour & Palestine, which will campaign to 'stop the political silencing'. A retired Australian teacher has been arrested at gunpoint on suspicion of running a vile child porn ring. John Loffler, 69, from Melbourne, moved to the Philippines in 2015 where he is alleged to have procured kids as young as 12 with Filipino partner Gladys Degala, who is now 21. The couple allegedly forced teenagers to perform sex acts on live streams and in photos and videos for paying customers in the West. A retired Australian teacher was handcuffed and arrested at gun point on suspicion of running a vile child porn ring Ms Degala was arrested sitting on the sofa in front of a black laptop, which was allegedly used in the crime 21-year-old Gladys Degala was also arrested for her involvement in the child porn ring Mr Loffler, a retired teacher, and Ms Degala are also alleged to have sold the child porn 'for large amounts of money' to paedophiles around the world. Police officers in the Philippines said they were tipped off about the alleged porn ring and raided the couple's upmarket home in the Pavia district of Iloilo City on September 15 at 11am. Mr Loffler was photographed sitting on a chair in handcuffs while being held at gunpoint by a vice squad officer. His partner was arrested sitting on the sofa in front of a black laptop, which was allegedly used in the crime. Following an extensive investigation, the couple have now been detained in custody while officers piece together the business model and information they have obtained. In a Philippines government press release, Senior Superintendent Marlon Tayaba, director of the Iloilo Police Provincial Office (IPPO), said: 'John Loffler, 69, and Gladys Degala, 21, are now detained at Pavia Municipal Police Station. Ms Degala had almost 1,500 followers on Facebook, where she regularly posted travel snaps 'The two suspects were arrested after elements of IPPO, the Inter-agency Council Against Trafficking, the Women and Children Protection Center in Visayas and the Pavia Municipal Police Station served a search warrant against the suspects at their house in a subdivision in Ungka 2 village, Pavia, Iloilo.' 'No victim was found during the implementation of the search warrant. Police have recovered three laptops, four cellphones, an iPad, identification cards and other computer storage devices.' 'We will use these as evidence for the cases that will be filed against them.' Loffler retired to the Philippines in 2015 after working as an English teacher in China for more than five years, according to his profile on Quora. He spent time online running a travel blog and also charging customers US$27.50 per hour for jobs on freelance website Upwork. Mr Loffler was an English teacher before he retired in the Philippines in 2015 where he is alleged to have started the child porn ring While his partner, Gladys, had almost 1,500 followers on Facebook, where she regularly posted travel snaps. Despite their seemingly respectable appearance, the couple are alleged to have led a double-life that involved exploiting and abusing children. Superintendent Tayaba said officers used an undercover policeman posing as a customer to snare the couple. He added: 'Loffler came to Iloilo City sometime in 2015 and started his illegal business on cyber pornography with his partner.' 'The suspects are engaged in recruiting minors and encouraging them to have their naked photos taken. Then they will send it to their clients who are also foreigners.' Following an extensive investigation, the couple have now been detained in custody while officers piece together the business model and information they have obtained Tayaba said that in their initial interview, the suspects claimed that they have already victimized about 10 female minors, aged 13-16. One of the suspects' alleged victims, a 17-year-old boy, is now in the care of social workers from IJM and the Philippines Department of Social Welfare. The search for other alleged victims is ongoing. The operation to arrest the couple was supported by the International Justice Mission. John Tanagho, IJM's Field Office Director in Cebu, Philippines, praised the police. He said: 'The two suspects exchanged dozens of sexually explicit videos and images of children, receiving payments from online customers. Their victims are believed to be as young as 12 years old.' Mr Loffler (pictured) spent time online running a travel blog and also charging customers 27.5usd per hour for jobs on freelance website Upwork 'Some individuals think they can get away with exploiting Filipino children and selling sexually explicit materials of children online.' 'Maybe to them, the Filipino child is not worthy of respect and dignity, but simply a means to make easy money.' 'But law enforcement in the Philippines is relentlessly pursuing investigations against online traffickers and rescuing their victims as quickly as possible.' 'Thanks to the diligent coordinated efforts of six government agencies, led by the WCPC, both suspects arrested today are now behind bars while police ready serious criminal charges.' WCPC-Visayas Unit Chief Romeo Perigo also urged communities to support the government in fighting this crime. He said: 'Let us be vigilant. Stand up and fight with us against crimes victimizing women and children. Report cyber-crimes to the nearest police station. Our campaign against crime will only succeed with your help.' A parish chairman who led a revolt against police checks on councillors is facing jail for raping a 16-year-old girl. Mark McCormick, 49, also admitted inciting five schoolboys to engage in sexual activity dating from his time as a DJ at teenage discos. His secret perverted past only came to light after a series of victims came forward, and the Bursledon Parish Council office in the Hampshire village's community centre was raided, and computers seized. Mark McCormick (pictured), former parish councillor in Bursledon, Hampshire, has pleaded guilty to rape and multiple charges involving indecent assaults on children McCormick pleaded guilty at the last minute to 14 sexual abuse charges at Southampton Crown Court on Tuesday. He had forced his victims to go through the ordeal of preparing to give evidence, only to finally admit the truth as the trial was about to begin. McCormick faces a long prison term for one count of rape, three of indecent activity with a child, two counts of multiple incidents of indecent assault on a child, five of indecent assault on a male, one of sexual assault and one count of taking indecent photographs of a child. The charges relate to seven youngsters, five under 16, and took place between 1997 and 2011. McCormick was remanded in custody to be sentenced on October 12. It is understood that he has stepped down as parish council chairman the role he was re-elected to in May 2016. The drama began four years ago when Eastleigh Borough Council spent 4million on The Lowford Community Centre in Bursledon where 1980s boatyard soap opera Howards' Way was filmed. It included a GP surgery, a volunteer-run library and an office for the parish council and was run by the Bursledon and District Community Association, headed by chairman John Misselbrook. Early in 2016 he told the parish that its councillors and the library volunteers had to go through Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks for criminal and police records to satisfy the centre's insurer. When members failed to comply, he evicted them. Keith House, the Liberal Democrat leader of Eastleigh Borough Council, led opposition to police checks, arguing that Hampshire County Council does not 'subject library staff to DBS checks'. Only after the parish council, under McCormick, had spent 18,000 of public money on a legal battle over the eviction, did the local councillors agree in November 2016 'to carry out DBS checks against each member of staff and volunteer' at the community library. Appearing at Southampton Crown Court (pictured), McCormick admitted raping a 16-year-old girl along with multiple incidents of indecent assault on children But they did not offer to do the same for parish councillors. A compromise was eventually reached, with the parish council allowed to use the hall again. But McCormick had still not provided his criminal record, and has not done so to date. Earlier last year, officers from Hampshire Police told Mr Misselbrook about a risk to children posed by two 'potentially dangerous' men frequenting the community centre. Police then raided its parish council office and chairman McCormick, a Liberal Democrat who describes himself as a 'voiceover artiste, DJ and radio presenter', was arrested at home on suspicion of grooming a teenage boy. McCormick said in his annual report to his council last year: 'The Parish Council and the Library have had in place since its opening both a child protection and a safeguarding policy and the Library has an appointed safeguarding officer. 'However, to obtain DBS checks the Parish Council had to adopt certain policies to allow us to have these checks made. Contrary to certain speculation there are a number of hoops we must go through to have people DBS checked. 'However, as I said earlier we have complied with all the policies and we are now in the process of obtaining these checks for all the relevant people..' It was not clear even then if he considered parish councillors to be 'relevant people' and he did not comply. It is understood he had already attracted police attention so would have failed a police check. When approached by the Daily Mail before his guilty plea and asked about his refusal to provide checks, he slammed the door. Hundreds of Grenfell Tower survivors and firefighters could have asbestos poisoning after being exposed to toxic fumes, a coroner has warned. Dr Fiona Wilcox called on the NHS to set up a screening programme for those who were exposed to smoke and dust during and after the fire. In a letter to Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England, she said action must be taken to prevent future deaths. Hundreds of Grenfell Tower survivors and firefighters could have asbestos poisoning after being exposed to toxic fumes, in the disaster last year, pictured above Dr Wilcox said the impact of the disaster could be wide-rangingand called for asbestos screening for the victims Citing firefighters and others who suffered health problems years after 9/11 in the US, Dr Wilcox said the impact of the disaster could be wide-ranging. She added that real concern had been expressed for the survivors, especially children, exposed to smoke and dust. Dr Wilcox, a senior London coroner, wrote: Without an appropriate system of health screening, there is a risk illness may arise unnoticed or present later in survivors, first responders and site workers, and thus reduce life expectancy. Asbestos, now banned, was used in ceilings and cupboards when the tower was built in 1974. If inhaled it can cause mesothelioma, a fatal lung disease. Public Health England previously said tests had found levels of dust and asbestos at Grenfell Tower were not a concern. In a letter to Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England, pictured above, Dr Fiona Wilcox said action must be taken to prevent future deaths (File photo) Public Health England previously said tests had found levels of dust and asbestos at Grenfell Tower were not a concern An NHS England spokesman said it continued to provide extraordinary care to survivors. An illegal immigrant yesterday pleaded guilty to falsely claiming 60,000 in public aid meant for Grenfell survivors. Tunisian Abdelkarim Rekaya, 28, pretended to be a survivor to take advantage of the Governments amnesty for illegal immigrants in the block. He will be sentenced at Isleworth Crown Court on November 27. Bargain superstore B&M has been ordered to pay a record 480,000 fine after repeatedly selling knives to children as young as 14. The discount chain was caught in an undercover operation by police and trading standards officers in an area which is rife with knife crime. It is illegal to sell knives measuring more than three inches long to anyone under the age of 18. Yet a 15-year-old boy and a girl of 14 were able to buy a set of four 'very sharply pointed' knives at a B&M in Redbridge, north east London, in September last year, a court heard. Picture of knives children were able to buy in B&M stores in Barking, Dagenham and Chadwell Heath Two days later at another branch in nearby Barking, a 16-year-old boy bought a three-piece knife set. At the same store in January this year, a boy aged 14 successfully bought three knives. A judge at Barkingside Magistrates' Court criticised B&M for its 'deficient' systems which allowed youths to buy blades including a large carving knife unchallenged. District Judge Gary Lucie: 'The stark fact is knife crime is at record levels across the country, particularly in London. 'Clearly these offences were not deliberate. However, it appears that while systems were in place, they were deficient.' He said it was concerning that the stores had not put in place measures to prevent such instances from occurring in what it accepted were 'high-risk areas'. The store said it would now consider storing knives in cabinets away from youngsters. B&M Retail pleaded guilty in June this year to three counts of selling knives to under-18s. The company was fined for each separate incident. With costs and a statutory surcharge, it brought the total amount to just over 492,500. A notorious conman has been handed security keys to a prison after landing a highly-sensitive job after his release from jail. Michael Brown, who swindled investors out of tens of millions of pounds by falsely claiming to be the Gordonstoun-educated son of a lord, is working for G4S, the scandal-hit security firm which manages four jails. The 52-year-old provides advice on prisoner inductions and self-harm, and has been cleared to roam HMP Rye Hill in Warwickshire. A high-security category B jail, it is home to hundreds of convicted sex offenders serving long sentences. Scroll down for video Convicted con man Michael Brown (right) pictured in jail in the Dominican Republic Brown, who gave 2.4million of his stolen money to the Liberal Democrats, has also carried out work at a second G4S jail, HMP Oakwood, a category C jail near Wolverhampton. Since landing work at G4S, he has spent six days at another of its establishments, HMP Birmingham, which was taken over by the Ministry of Justice last month following grave concerns about how it was being run. Sources said G4S had hired Brown last September on the recommendation of Serco, another big security firm which runs private prisons. The Daily Mail has already revealed that he is facing jail again after being charged with money laundering offences in Spain. A prosecutor there has called for him to be locked up for five years and fined 5.3million for salting away 2.4million of his ill-gotten gains through property and other assets. The Scottish-born crook has already served a seven-and-a-half-year sentence for theft and fraud offences after going on the run for three years. Brown, who flew Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy and other party top brass around the country in his private jet during the 2005 general election, accrued his enormous wealth by conning huge sums out of trusting investors. The convicted fraudster Michael Brown (pictured), who donated 2.4 of tainted money to the Liberal Democrats and then tried to evade justice HMP Rye Hill, where convicted fraudster and Lib-Dem donor Michael Brown is believed to be working They included former Manchester United chairman Martin Edwards, who lost 5million. Yet Brown was deemed honest enough to work in prisons managed by G4S, which is the world's largest security company. The company has repeatedly been exposed over failures in prisons, tagging, security services and patient transport over the past decade. It also botched the security of the 2012 Olympics leaving the Government to summon the armed forces to fill the gaps. Sources revealed that the director of Rye Hill, Pete Small, approved the decision to grant Brown access to prison security keys. This followed a risk assessment. Bill Chua, one of Brown's victims, told the Mail last night: 'For a prison operator to hire him is really strange. 'It doesn't make sense given his record. I think he's got an ulterior motive and I think this is for his image. 'He probably thinks this is a way to get back to England otherwise the Serious Fraud Office will be checking him out the whole time. If he really has reformed himself it would be news to everyone.' Following his release from jail in January 2016 Brown reinvented himself as a campaigner for prison reform. He is said to still be on probation and uses the pseudonym 'The Tartan Con' to blog and tweet about prisoner rights. A shot of Michael Brown's Twitter account Styling himself Michael Campbell-Brown, a combination of his and his wife's surnames, he has even made a submission to a parliamentary committee. Yet there is little or no mention of the rights of victims in his numerous blogs or thousands of tweets. According to a Spanish prosecutor, 36million of his funds is still missing. A G4S spokesman said: 'Michael Brown has worked with us on specific projects as a consultant focusing on early days in custody, particularly around issues of self-harm and suicide, as well as staff training. A page from the blog of Michael Brown entitled 'The Rants of an Ex-Prisoner' 'We are reviewing all the facts in relation to these allegations and whether we continue to use Michael. Employing ex-offenders who have served their time gives us a further insight into the prisoners' experience of prison life.' Serco said Brown had security keys while working at its prisons as a part-time consultant. It said the experience of ex-offenders was invaluable in developing 'safe secure and decent environments'. Brown has been living in Majorca with his 59-year-old wife Sharon at their 750,000 'winter villa' in Esporles. The Queen was left shocked and worried after one of her closest confidantes tumbled down a flight of stairs at Balmoral and broke her ankle. The Honourable Mary Morrison, 81, a lady-in-waiting who goes by the quaint title of Woman of the Bedchamber, was accompanying Her Majesty to a cocktail party last week when she lost her footing and fell, missing the Queen by inches, according to a source. She nearly knocked Her Majesty flying, the source said. The Honourable Mary Morrison (right) was said to have 'nearly knocked Her Majesty flying' when she fell down the stairs and broke her ankle at Balmoral last week The two women were walking down a flight of stairs into the castle ballroom, where the party was being held for members of the military guarding the monarchs Highland residence. After the accident on Wednesday last week, the lady-in-waiting was rushed to hospital in nearby Aberdeen where she was X-rayed and diagnosed with a broken ankle. Miss Morrison, who is one of the Queens longest-serving ladies-in-waiting and has been her constant companion for almost 60 years, is said to be in a lot of pain. But she insisted on returning to the castle, where the Queen is enjoying the last few weeks of her extended summer break, and is said to be hobbling about on crutches, still at Her Majestys side. Palace staff are trying to arrange for one of the Queens other attendants to replace her. Miss Morrison was appointed to be one of the Queens right-hand women in 1960 following the birth of Prince Andrew, when the sovereigns domestic workload increased. She was made Dame Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order in 2013, the highest rank of the highest order of chivalry in the Queens personal gift, and has the letters GCVO after her name. As a lady-in-waiting, Miss Morrison does everything from accompanying the Queen on public engagements to answering her correspondence but, most importantly, she is one of Her Majestys closest companions and gate-keepers. Like the monarchs other long-standing ladies-in-waiting, Heathfield-educated Miss Morrison is a charming but formidable character and utterly discreet. Pictured: Balmoral Castle, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, viewed from the River Dee She also shares the Queens love of horse racing. Her father established the Fonthill Stud in Wiltshire, which has produced the winners of several classic races. She is also resolutely down to earth and refuses to use the title Dame. Instead she styles herself as The Honourable Mary Morrison, a title she inherited through her father, former Conservative politician Major John Morrison, 1st Baron Margadale. She isnt paid for her service to the Queen but does her job out of love and an unswerving devotion to the 92-year-old monarch. The Queen is said to be shocked and worried but relieved Miss Morrisons injury is not more serious. Many of her most loyal retainers have either retired or died in recent years, meaning she values those who remain by her side. It is not the first time that Miss Morrison has been injured in the line of duty. In 2010, she was driving through the security barriers at Windsor Castle when her car became impaled on the rising traffic bollards. The car was trapped on the metal bollards, which went through the floor of her car and up into the gearbox. A source said: The car was a complete write-off. She bruised her ribcage, but was otherwise unhurt. Buckingham Palace declined to comment on Miss Morrisons latest accident. Advertisement This is the brutal moment three lionesses launch themselves at a huge buffalo as they teach their cubs how to hunt. A sequence of mesmerising photographs show the buffalo scarpering as one of the lionesses flips through the air trying to sink its teeth into the beast. Another shows her clinging on to the buffalo's front legs with her claws digging in but the Cape Buffalo, which can weigh between 500 to 1,000kg, manages to flee unharmed. The images were taken at the Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania. Photographer Michael Mansell, 40, from Tucson, Arizona, said: 'This was a massive Cape buffalo and the mother lionesses were training their cubs showing them how to take down a buffalo. 'If they can successfully roll the buffalo then the rest of the lions can jump on it for a successful kill. They didn't manage to do this and it actually ended with the hyenas chasing it across the river. 'It was a tense moment lasting about five to 10 minutes and involving around 16 lions.' A lioness flips through the air as she tries to sink her teeth into the neck of a huge buffalo at the Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania The big cats were hunting the prey in front of their cubs to teach them how to hunt. The mesmerising images show the queens of the jungle leaping through the air One of the cats grazes the Cape Buffalo, which can weigh between 500 to 1,000kg, with her claws and teeth but the prey manages to flee unharmed Photographer Michael Mansell, 40, from Tucson, Arizona, said: 'This was a massive Cape buffalo and the mother lionesses were training their cubs showing them how to take down a buffalo' He continued: 'If they can successfully roll the buffalo then the rest of the lions can jump on it for a successful kill. They didn't manage to do this and it actually ended with the hyenas chasing it across the river' The photographer said the whole scene was 'tense' and last 10 minutes involving around 16 lions The homeless man charged with the first-degree murder of a Washington DC bride-to-be as she jogged two blocks from her home, may have been motivated to kill her because of her race. Anthony Crawford, 23, was arrested after the stabbing of Wendy Martinez, 35, on Wednesday and a report states the slaying may have happened because the attacker didn't like white people. 'Investigators looking into possibility murder of jogger Wendy Martinez might have been racially motivated. Suspect Anthony Crawford does not like white people. Also has history of mental illness and K2 addiction.' wusa9.com reporter Bruce Leshan tweeted Friday. Wendy Martinez, 35, was stabbed seven times on Tuesday, a week earlier after becoming engaged Reporter Bruce Leshan tweeted the attack may have been 'racially motivated' Friday Martinez was stabbed seven times by a local vagrant Tuesday night according to court papers. Police arrested Crawford, a black male, on Wednesday evening after speaking to multiple witnesses and acquaintances of the man. One individual who told officers that the suspect in the case was often high on K2, a synthetic marijuana that has been known to put people in a zombie-like state and is banned in the United States. These details are coming out as the family of Martinez prepares for her funeral. On Thursday a vigil was held for the victim and mother broke her silence about the tragedy while also revealing that her daughter would be buried in her wedding gown. She had been out for a run when the attack occurred, and was pronounced dead at 8.23pm just 27 minutes after being stabbed by the man. Altered reality: Suspect Anthony Crawford, 23, was 'probably' high on synthetic drug K2 when he allegedly murdered Martinez said a friend in a newly filed court document (suspect now believed to be Crawford seen in surveillance video above just before attack) Final rest: Martinez had just gotten engaged a week before the attack, and her mother (above on Thursday speaking for the first time) said that she would be buried in her wedding gown Details of the fatal attack are being revealed in a police report that was filed in the case by the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia and obtained by DailyMail.com, including the chief medical examiner's findings on the brief but fatal attack. An autopsy found that Martinez had been stabbed on the 'left side' and 'back' of her head, the 'right side of the face,' 'the lower right neck,' twice on the 'left side of the neck,' and once in the 'back.' It was the higher wound on the left side of her neck that resulted in the victim bleeding out so quickly due the fact that the knife struck her jugular vein. Individuals on the scene tried their best to stop the blood flow as the suspect fled the scene, dropping the murder weapon and stripping off her mustard yellow sweater and socks along the way. A vigil was held Thursday evening for the slayed bride-to-be as loved ones remembered her The 35-year-old was killed a couple of blocks away from her home Once police arrived they secured the area and tried to revive Martinez, while also talking to eyewitnesses about the man responsible for the murder. They learned that he was a heavyset man whose age could have been anywhere from a teen to in his 40s, an age range that was far too broad to help detectives. That is when it was decided that video from a nearby camera would be released a move which led to police being contacted by one of the victim's acquaintances. This decision paid off within hours, and on Wednesday morning a cop was approached by a man on the street who said he knew the suspect. After first giving the wrong first name he identified the person as 'Anthony,' but noted that he always referred to him as 'Fatz Gleezy.' That individual saw Crawford both before and after Martinez's death, and said that he had a bandage on his hand later in the night but not earlier that day. Officers were also told by this person that Crawford was an 'avid user of the synthetic K2,' and the location of the park where he spent most of his time. When the surveillance video of the suspect was played for the man he stated: 'Yea, that's him with the flip flops. Yes, that's him walking and he is probably high.' Bereaved: Martinez's fiancee spoke for the first time as well on Thursday about his bride-to-be They did: Cora Martinez, the victim's mother, said that her daughter's death came after the happiest days of her life (Martinez being proposed to a week prior to her death) Martinez lost so much blood that she was dead just 27 minutes after the fatal attack Shock: Martinez staggered into a Chinese takeout restaurant before collapsing to the floor (above) Homicide detectives then located a relative and went to question them, with that person confirming that Crawford was the person seen in the video just moments before Marinez was stabbed on the street. That evening, officers waited at the park where Crawford was often seen and took him to the station after he identified himself. Crawford 'was yelling and crying' as he was taken in according to the police report, and had severe lacerations on his right hand, which is the same hand that the suspect used when he stabbed Martinez. When brought in for questioning, Crawford had a heavily bandaged hand with fresh lacerations and told detectives that he was aware that they were accusing him of stabbing the 'little girl.' Martinez is 12 years older than Crawford but stood only 5ft 1in tall and weighed 106 lbs according to police. His identity was not released however until detectives had circles back to Crawford's acquaintance and shown him a photo of Crawford taken at the station the previous night. 'That's him, that's him,' said the man. Crawford appeared in court for the first time on Thursday, and is due back on October 11, with detectives still unable to come up with any motive for the random attack. Cora Martinez, the victim's mother, said that her daughter's death came after the happiest days of her life. Emmanuel Macron was called a complete prat and accused of behaving like Louis XIV yesterday as he was criticised by both sides of the Brexit divide for branding pro-Leavers liars. It came after the French president tore into leaders of the pro-Brexit campaign for telling voters it would be easy to leave the EU. Mr Macron made the gloating comments following a disastrous summit for Theresa May in Salzburg where she was ambushed by EU leaders over her Brexit plan. He crowed that it proved the decision to leave was not without costs and not without consequences at a summit in Salzburg, Austria on Thursday Others accused Mr Macron of having so much arrogance, he thinks he is Louis XIV the so-called Sun King who reigned for 72 years in France during the 17th century And yesterday Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar appeared to pour more fuel on the fire by claiming Britain was creating all the problems. He said: Ultimately the problems that are being created by Britain and the British Government are being created as a consequence of Brexit and nobody in Europe or Ireland is to blame for that. Mr Macron had struck the most explosive tone of all EU leaders after emerging from the stormy two-day summit on Thursday. He crowed that it proved the decision to leave was not without costs and not without consequences, adding that Brexit had demonstrated that those who said you can easily do without Europe, that it will all go very well, that it is easy and there will be lots of money, are liars. Before the EU referendum, both sides accused each other of dishonesty and continue to do so. Remain supporters point to debatable promises of extra cash pushed by the Leave campaign, including a pledge of an extra 350 million a week to spend on the NHS. Brexiteers point to Project Fear, the name for a collection of terrifying predictions issued by Remainers. In the event, many were shown to be false. Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab led the fightback against Mr Macron yesterday by insisting Mrs May was the wrong Prime Minister to mess with. Others accused Mr Macron of having so much arrogance, he thinks he is Louis XIV the so-called Sun King who reigned for 72 years in France during the 17th century. Yesterday Mr Raab told the BBC that Brussels was mistaken if it believed Mrs May could be bounced into giving concessions. He also hit out at what he described as dark mutterings in Brussels about Northern Ireland being the price Britain will have to pay for leaving. This was in reference to the EUs demands that Northern Ireland stay tied to the bloc rather than the UK on customs and the single market to avoid a hard border with Ireland after Britain leaves. Mr Raab said: That is not going to happen. Not with this PM, and not with this Parliament. Brexiteers said Mr Macrons comments would only serve to strengthen anti-EU feeling and likened it to Barack Obama telling Britain before the referendum it would be at the back of the queue on trade if it voted Leave. British Prime Minister Theresa May looks to passing by heads of government after a photo at the Austria summit on Thursday Yesterday Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar, pictured on Thursday at the EU summit, appeared to pour more fuel on the fire by claiming Britain was creating all the problems Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg said: It is the classic arrogance of a man who thinks he is Louis XIV. 'All he can do is make wild accusations because he does not like the fact that we voted to leave. Fellow Tory Nigel Evans said: If I was him Id stick to his domestic priorities and forget trying to belittle the leader of a country which heard the call and did their duty in 1939 to 1945 for France so that he has the freedom to make a complete prat of himself in 2018. Those on the other side of the Brexit divide were also outraged. Former minister Stephen Crabb said: The manner in which they sought to belittle and put down the Prime Minister yesterday pushes people like me... into a position where we say the quicker were out of this circus, the better. Mr Macron made the gloating comments following a disastrous summit for Theresa May in Salzburg, shown above, where she was ambushed by EU leaders over her Brexit plan Tory MEP Daniel Hannan added: If Macron thinks that we will respond to insults and bullying, he has badly misread our character and our history. Mrs May yesterday said the UK had treated the EU with nothing but respect, adding: The UK expects the same. A diplomatic source said: Nobody wants to punish Britain, its more that there are good cops and bad cops. France, you could call a bad cop. The Baltics, Netherlands, the ones that traditionally have a good relationship and a lot of trade with the UK they are the good cops. The backlash came as it emerged that Frances Europe minister, Nathalie Loiseau, had likened the divisions over Brexit to the infamous Dreyfus Affair the 19th-century spy scandal that dominated French politics for decades. The scandal led to novelist Emile Zola writing an open letter to the French president accusing the government of treason against humanity by playing to the publics anti-Semitism to divert attention away from domestic politics. Mr Rees-Mogg dismissed the comparison as senseless, while fellow Tory MP Peter Bone said: Is she trying to somehow say that Brexiteers are anti-foreign or anti-Semitic or something? Jeremy Bamber was convicted of five murders in August 1985 New evidence has emerged which could undermine the conviction of a notorious serial killer serving life behind bars. The report casts doubt over evidence in the case of Jeremy Bamber regarding a gun silencer that was pivotal to his conviction in 1986. Bamber was convicted of killing his adoptive parents, Nevill and June Bamber, his adoptive sister Sheila Cafell, and her six-year old twins, Daniel and Nicholas near their family home of Tolleshunt DArcy, Essex, in August 1985. All five victims were shot dead and police had received a call from Bamber saying Cafell had 'gone berserk' and had one of his guns. The rifle used was found next to her body did not have a silencer attached, but a silencer was found in the gun cupboard in the house which would form crucial evidence in the case against Bamber, who was charged with five murders. Police initially believed Cafell, who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, had shot and killed her family before she turned the weapon on herself. Yet Bamber was accused of setting up Cafell and staging the killings so he could inherit a 436,000 family fortune. The silencer was a key part in helping to sway the case against Bamber, as it was argued that the extra length attached onto the rifle meant Cafell would not have been able to turn the gun on herself and then place it in the cupboard. The jury was told there was blood on the silencer which came from Cafell and that there was red nail paint on a cupboard, indicating a struggle between herself and the attacker. However a letter, seen by The Guardian, was sent to Essex Police from a science lab involved in the case saying the blood 'could have come from either Sheila Caff ell or Robert Boutflour' - something which was not disclosed to the jury and could undermine the conviction. Boutflour was a relative of Nevill and June Bamber and had used guns for shooting. Bamber has claimed for many years that evidence was not disclosed to the defence by Essex police showing that two silencers had been examined by forensic scientists. Yet a new report concluded different silencers were being examined by police at the same time in difference departments. There was also 'serious discrepancies' in how the devices were described and no record of any silencers being transferred from one department to the other. The head of special crimes at the CPS said he had written to Bamber's lawyer and the prosecutions' office about the issue of two silencers, but that the jury was only told about one. The farmhouse home of mass murderer Bamber and his family in Tolleshunt D'Arcy, Essex Frank Ferguson said: 'There is no documentary evidence either provided or referred to which supports the existence of a second silencer.' But he added: 'Any evidence that suggests that there was or may have been another silencer for the rifle would raise the possibility that the other silencer was used during the shooting and not the one alleged by the prosecution. 'Such a possibility would significantly undermine the case against JB [Jeremy Bamber] and any material supporting such a possibility would plainly be material which casts doubt on the safety of the conviction.' Bamber, writing to the Guardian from Wakefield prison, said: 'The report in the hands of the CPS proves with absolute certainty that this case featured two silencers. And now the CPS must act.' Bamber, seen in a police van while on trial in 1986 (left), and in a photo released in 2013 (right) Newby, a solicitor advocate from QualitySolicitors Jordans, said: 'I hope this report will persuade the CPS to now authorise the handing over of all the undisclosed material still held by Essex police in this case.' The CPS said: 'We have received correspondence relating to this case and requested additional material in order to respond to the points raised.' Jeremy Bamber's conviction has been the subject of several appeals and reviews by the Criminal Cases Review Commission and there has never been anything to suggest that he was wrongly convicted.' Earlier this year, Theresa May ordered airstrikes on Syria to punish the Assad regime for its use of chemical weapons. Reports quickly emerged that British submarines loaded with cruise missiles had been dispatched and were on their way to the Mediterranean. Cue images of sleek, silent vessels powering their way underwater at top speed, the Royal Navy responding with vigour as it has done since the days of Nelson and beyond. A British army corporal lowers the Union Jack during a ceremony to mark transfer of control of a British military base in Basra The reality, though, was sadly and disturbingly very different. Not one submarine was sent, partly because Downing Street dithered but mainly because none was available. We had no assets on location, a confidential source in the Ministry of Defence admitted to us. Bluntly, at a time of international crisis, when the prime minister wanted to take a stand against the illegal use of chemical weapons, our Armed Forces did not have what was needed for a full-throttle response. Naturally, ministers preferred voters to imagine that submarines were on their way to the action. The truth about our limited capability might have fuelled creeping fears that the UK has run up the white flag. This was one of the many shocks we had during our wide-ranging investigation into the state of this countrys defence capabilities. Thanks to remorseless cuts imposed by successive governments, the Army, Navy and RAF all struggle to meet day-to-day commitments to protect this country and play their part in collective security through Nato and other defence alliances let alone prepare for serious potential new threats. The particular problem this time was probably down to maintenance issues. Hulls need cleaning to stop them rusting, engines need overhauling and nuclear reactors need to be flushed. When you dont have very many ships, taking one or two out of circulation leaves quite a gap in this case, one that could not be filled. And the fact is that we dont have enough ships any more. Or aircraft. Or tanks. Or military personnel. Not since Defence became a soft target for governments looking to cut spending. Our Armed Forces have been squeezed to the point where they find it difficult to function as efficiently as they would like to, putting the security of our nation at risk in an increasingly troubled world. This slimming down is happening across all the Services. The Army was 163,000 strong at the height of the Cold War. Now in the aftermath of the swingeing Defence Review of 2010 under David Camerons coalition government its official strength is around half that figure at 81,500 regulars but many posts are unfilled, leaving a full-time force of fewer than 78,500. And further decline is mooted. As recently as December last year, Chancellor Philip Hammond was privately arguing that it could be reduced to just 50,000 at which point the British Army, once feared and revered all over the world, would be half the size of the French army and smaller than armies in Italy, Spain and even Germany. Of course its not all about numbers. In recent years, politicians have come up with a brilliant catchword as a cover for diminishing strength. They insist that what matters is capability. Earlier this year, Theresa May (pictured) ordered airstrikes on Syria to punish the Assad regime for its use of chemical weapons On the face of it, this is a fantastic way to neutralise arguments about vanishing regiments and mothballed ships. But size matters militarily. However good your soldiers are and ours, we know, are very good sometimes quantity counts more than quality. As one senior army officer put it: If youre a small army and you go up against a big army, youre going to get a good kicking. What this means on the front line is illustrated by the small but fierce battalion of 800 UK troops stationed at a remote base in the Baltic state of Estonia as a crucial part of Natos defences against a Russian attack. They are on their guard at all times, scouring the bleak horizon for anything suspicious. Inside a vast metal hangar is a fleet of Challenger tanks. The Army wanted to send 18 but the MoD cut this back to ten, of which only eight can be operational because two will always be in for repairs. Asked if this would be enough if the Russians came over the border, the men we met there shrugged and laughed. They know full well that the Russians could throw as many as 22 tank battalions thats more than 650 tanks at them. Chanellor Philip Hammond (pictured) warned that the full-time force could be reduced A war-gaming exercise concluded that Nato forces would be woefully inadequate in the event of an invasion: the Russians would be in Tallinn, the Estonian capital, within 60 hours. No wonder the men themselves refer to their assignment as Operation Tethered Goat.Hopelessly outnumbered, they would be brushed aside, sacrificed to the predatory Putin, like the goat swallowed by the T. rex in Jurassic Park. In todays British Army, everything is pared to the bone. Live-firing training exercises are curtailed to save ammunition costs. There is an acute shortage of tank transporters, making it impossible to move more than a few dozen tanks over long distances at a time. Basic kit is unavailable. When, in the aftermath of the Manchester terror attack last year, 1,000 troops were drafted in to help the police, there was not enough new Virtus body armour to go around. They had to make do with kit that was rated obsolete a decade ago. The RAF is also stretched to breaking point. It is less than half the size it was 25 years ago, yet it is trying to wage war in the Middle East. Politicians prefer not to talk about it, but it is engaged in a long-running combat operation in Syria and Iraq, where it has been firing missiles at terror targets practically every day since the end of 2015. This is a contribution to a noble cause and we can be proud of it but it is a struggle. In the 2010 Defence Review, plans to expand the Typhoon force beyond five squadrons were put on hold. The Harrier jump-jet force was disbanded. The seven-squadron Tornado bomber force was scheduled to be cut to just two units. The result is that there are just not enough aircraft, given that a significant proportion of jets are out of circulation for servicing at any one time. In February 2017, 21 of the RAFs 67 Tornado GR4 bombers and 43 of its 135 Typhoon fighters were in bits. The impact on operations is severe. The RAF must keep a Quick Reaction Force of fuelled and fully armed Typhoons on continuous alert to respond to threats to the UK homeland, such as incursions into our airspace. It is a 24/7 must-do mission that gobbles resources. A pair of RAF fighters is poised for take-off at one base in Lincolnshire and another in the north of Scotland ready to be airborne in less than ten minutes. Approximately once every six weeks, they are called into action for a high-altitude face-off with encroaching Russian planes, at a cost of around 50,000 to British taxpayers each time. The Army was 163,000 strong at the height of the Cold War. Now in the aftermath of the swingeing Defence Review of 2010 under David Camerons coalition government its official strength is around half that figure at 81,500 regulars but many posts are unfilled, leaving a full-time force of fewer than 78,500 The Armed Forces could simply abandon this tiresome and costly routine, but if they did, Russian jets would probably come a little closer each time. Finally, they would enter UK sovereign airspace, at which point it would be clear that we had given up bothering to defend our skies. But the demand this puts on resources is immense. On both bases, a second pair of Typhoon pilots is ready to step in if the first pair is scrambled, so in effect, three of our five RAF Typhoon squadrons are locked into this Quick Reaction duty at any one time. If there was a sudden emergency overseas, the RAF Typhoon Force would struggle to come up with the aircraft and pilots to deploy. British soldiers, sailors and airmen have a can-do spirit by nature. Time after time they rise to the occasion whether running security during the 2012 Olympics, scrambling jets to stop the Islamic State advance in 2014 or rescuing migrants from the Mediterranean in 2015. They are admired and revered all over the world. But something has changed, and not for the better. The evidence stacks up that our Armed Forces are under-equipped, underfunded and under-trained. If peace can be relied on for the foreseeable future, fine. If not, it is a deeply worrying state of affairs. After years of pretending everything is OK, politicans are finally coming clean. Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson knows that cuts to our Armed Forces have gone too far and isnt afraid to say so. This is a refreshing change. The 2010 Defence Review that hammered the Armed Forces was predicated on the notion that there was conventional military threat to the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom. It seemed a reasonable assumption then, but is that still the case? Some see the poisoning of the Skripals in Salisbury as a dark warning of much worse to come if the UK assumes there will never be a serious clash with Russia and lowers its defences. As part of our investigation, we travelled to eastern Ukraine, where President Putin has created a series of Russian-controlled enclaves in sovereign territory over which he has no legitimate claim. What is happening there matters to everybody who would prefer to contain the Russian regime. It is a showcase for the fate that can befall places he considers weak. For the Armed Forces, the Russian threat, and changing character of war, present a huge challenge. For the past two decades, they have been immersed in combating international terrorism in Asia, the Middle East and Africa. The focus has been on extremists armed with Kalashnikovs and improvised explosive devices, not hostile states with professional armies and sophisticated air defences. Defence chiefs in Britain and America believe we have now entered a new era, in which hostile states are the gravest danger. According to U.S. Defence Secretary Jim Mattis, great power competition not terrorism is now the primary focus of U.S. national security, while General Sir Nick Carter, Chief of the Defence Staff, has singled out Russia as the most pressing state-based threat to the UK. Yet we are woefully unprepared for a conventional war with Russia if that were to arise. For years, the enemy we have fought has been peasants in remote villages and mountains. The next adversary could be very different. The British militarys vulnerability on this score was exposed in April last year when 160 British soldiers joined a massive war-game exercise at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. For ten days, they were required to fight an enemy that outmanoeuvred them, outgunned them and outmatched them. On more than one occasion, British troops were wiped out in one day. Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson knows that cuts to our Armed Forces have gone too far and isnt afraid to say so What hampered them were the meticulous, tick-box MoD rules of engagement governing the use of all weapons, from aerial strikes to rifles and artillery fire. These were designed for counter-insurgency operations in Afghanistan. They were not suited to armies in a head-to-head confrontation. If it came to a real-life battle, by the time wed ticked all the boxes, wed all be dead, according to an army source. Meanwhile robots, drones, cyber warfare and social media are dramatically changing the character of war. Our adversaries will not share our qualms about developing killer robots and other terrifying military technology. Just how far Putin is prepared to go in confronting the West is a matter for debate. He has openly admitted that he regrets the collapse of the Soviet Union, calling it the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century. Some believe he is locked into nothing less than a civilisational struggle with the West. Analysts generally agree that he wants to restore what he believes is Russias rightful position in the world, and ensure his country is not encircled (as he would see it) by Nato member states. Events in Georgia, Crimea and Ukraine show what this can mean in practice, and there is no evidence that he has finished. Many defence analysts believe Putin is eager to exploit what he sees as a window of opportunity because, in his view, the West is politically weak. He sees the lack of will the strategic failure after Iraq and Afghanistan; the battle with austerity at home; a divided Nato. Under Obama, a president determined to end wars, not start them, Moscow sensed a shift towards greater American isolationism. The suggestion that the Kremlin is determined to change the world order might seem melodramatic were it not for the fact that Putins posturing has been accompanied by sweeping rearmament. He has presided over the wholesale modernisation of his countrys ground, air and maritime forces, investing billions in state-of-the-art hardware and new electronic, cyber, satellite and nuclear capabilities all showcased to the world in the massive war-game he staged last week with 300,000 military personnel, more than 1,000 aircraft, 36,000 tanks and other vehicles and 80 warships. A similar exercise last year left MoD observers worried. One official noted: They are increasingly capable. I dont think theyre a paper tiger. Theyre a credible threat. Some well-placed observers disagree, dismissing the notion that Putin would risk a conventional match-off with Nato. Russia, they argue, is an economic basket case and its armed forces are stuffed with reluctant, under-equipped conscripts dogged by low morale. But others are not so confident, with politicians and defence chiefs ramping up the rhetoric about what Russias capabilities and intent might mean for the UK. Vladmir Putin has openly admitted that he regrets the collapse of the Soviet Union General Sir Nick Carter, Chief of the Defence Staff, likens the Russian threat to a chronic contagious disease which, if left untreated, could creep up on us, and our ability to act will be markedly constrained and well be the losers of this competition. Nor is Russia the only worrying cloud on the Defence horizon. A resurgent China is busy militarising the South China Seas, aggressively asserting its sovereignty over disputed territory and transforming rocks into military outposts that could be used to disrupt global free trade. And all this at a time when IS may be weakened but has not yet packed away the black flag, and any oddball or extremist with exceptional computer skills can hack into sensitive IT systems and disrupt or cut off vital services. There is no evidence that any of these dangers are receding. It is possible, of course, that threats from Russia and China are being exaggerated or will recede. Even so, defence analysts believe seismic global changes mean the Armed Forces should be ready for a major conflict soon. The MoD has a Futures Team tasked with looking at how the world is changing and assessing what it may mean for UK defence. It does not predict world peace. There is deepening disquiet at every level within the Armed Forces at what looks like a terrible mismatch between defence resourcing and a growing likelihood we may soon be at war again. General Carter warns: The threats we face are not thousands of miles away but on Britains doorstep. The time to address them is now. We cannot sit back. Military people are used to being given a mission. At lower levels, it might be to secure a bridge, at higher levels, to neutralise an international terror threat. Within any mission, all of those involved need to have a clear unifying purpose and understand how they are contributing to the overall objective. And the same should go for politicians. Except it doesnt. They dont seem to have a clear idea of the job they want the military to do. They dont give enough thought to the mission and that unifying purpose. When it comes to the defence budget, they concentrate on what they think we can afford rather than what needs to be done. The defence secretary is determined to change this but it wont be easy, especially as he has made enemies at Westminster. In the foreword to our book, General Sir Mike Jackson, former Chief of the General Staff, says recent governments approach to defence spending has been fundamentally wrong. He says: When governments alight on a relatively arbitrary figure (shaped by what is left in the public coffers after more popular causes like health and education have been given their lot) and ask defence chiefs to make the best of it, they are in danger of putting our security at risk. A proper defence budget should reflect the challenge to which we believe our military may have to respond. Only when we have identified what we expect of our services can we begin to assess what the necessary capabilities are going to cost. While analysts debate whether or not Russia is a real threat, the reality is that its military activities are already a significant drain on the UKs Armed Forces. There are those 800 British troops stationed in Estonia to show that Nato is ready if Putin crosses the line. Meanwhile, British Typhoon jets spent last summer in Romania defending Nato airspace over the Black Sea. This all costs money and resources that need to be found from somewhere. But, as well as these immediate needs, there is a wider, underlying issue that also needs addressing the position we wish the UK to hold in the world. At present, Britain considers itself a Tier 1 military power defined as possessing high-end globally deployable forces, trained and equipped to fight in the most intensive types of conflict. It means having credible air power, maritime power and land forces, and the expertise to bring them all together. Along with the U.S. and France, the UK can still just about claim this status. But for how much longer, given our diminishing Army, Navy and Air Force? As we prepare to leave the EU, this country is at a crossroads. We need to make a decision about what our role should be on the world stage in the 21st century. The easiest option would be to limit our ambitions, accept a declining international status and adopt a new UK first approach, in which we content ourselves with commenting from the sidelines in geopolitical crises. It is a choice that would certainly appeal to some voters. However, repositioning the UK in such a way would have profound political, economic and diplomatic implications. If we are going to head down this route, it does not seem right to do so by default, as is currently the case. If we decide we want to retain our status as a world power, a very substantial uplift in the defence budget will be required. In a recent paper, the Commons Defence Select Committee called for an increase in defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP in order to retain influence and credibility with our allies. Historically, this level of spending is the norm: the figure was 4 per cent at the end of the Cold War, and during the 2000s was consistently between 2.5 and 3 per cent. It seems the right level of investment for uncertain times. Whether extra money is made available is for others to decide. But our interviews with military people, academics, recently retired Ministry of Defence officials and defence industry figures leave no doubt that these matters are pressing. The stakes could not be higher. If we do not properly invest in defence, we will be vulnerable to adversaries who brazenly flout the accepted rules and values of the international order. And in situations where this can be remedied only by military response, we will lose the practical ability to do so. We will also lose global influence. This country has a reputation for stepping forward when other nations hesitate. If we appear to be in retreat, those who have traditionally looked to the UK for leadership in times of crisis may gravitate elsewhere. Yet, for all this doom and gloom, there is much cause for optimism. We still have the sixth largest military budget in the world and are still widely seen as among the top five most powerful countries in the world, after the U.S., China, Russia and Germany. Our Armed Forces are professional, disciplined, reliable, committed and brave. Our Special Forces, our anti-submarine warfare capabilities and our ability to fight on all terrains in extreme weather are the envy of armed forces across the globe. We have yet to run up the white flag. But the dangers are apparent. In recent decades, British governments have had the luxury of deciding how much defence they can afford, and how they wish to use that capability. Tomorrow, the initiative may not be in our hands. Then our Armed Forces will have to deal with problems in the way they are presented, not in the way that is convenient. It is time for political leaders to ensure they are ready to meet that grave challenge. Adapted from White Flag? An Examination Of The UKs Defence Capability, by Michael Ashcroft & Isabel Oakeshott, published by Biteback Publishing on October 2 at 20. MAA Publishing Ltd 2018. To order a copy for 16 (offer valid until October 9, 2018; P&P free), visit mailshop.co.uk/books or call 0844 571 0640. Ronald Regan's daughter, Patti Davis (pictured), has revealed her own experience of sexual assault as a means of explaining why Christine Blasey Ford could not be expected to remember every detail of her alleged assault by Brett Kavanaugh The daughter of former President Ronald Regan and First Lady Nancy Davis has come out swinging in defense of Christine Blasey Ford, the woman accusing Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault. In a bombshell op-ed for the Washington Post, Patti Davis detailed her own experience with sexual assault, claiming she had been raped by a music executive nearly 40 years ago. The piece was released as Donald Trump questioned why Ford had not reported her assault to police when it occurred, and chose this moment to come forward. Davis was joined with other high-profile figures, such as Alyssa Milano and Ashley Judd, and journalist Thomas Roberts, in sharing their stories of abuse using the #WhyIDidntReport, and explaining why they did not report them or come forward at the time. Many cited the poor treatment of other survivors who had come forward in the past, with Miss Michigan Emily Siome noting she had 'never seen a survivor come forward and be treated with dignity', and others claiming their young age at the time made them an unreliable witness to the adults they trusted to fight for them. When Davis was assaulted, she said she and the music executive had been in a 'suspiciously late' meeting to discuss her songwriting, when he offered her cocaine before launching himself on her. 'He crossed the room,' Davis wrote. 'There was a dark-green carpet, but his footsteps seemed loud, hard. He was against me, on top of me - so quickly - with his hands under my skirt and his mouth on mine, that I froze. 'I lay there as he pushed himself inside me. The leather couch stuck to my skin, made noises beneath me. His breath smelled like coffee and stale bread. He didn't use a condom.' Davis explained the way she remembered her own assault - with inconsequential details such as the date it took place and what happened directly after seeming blurry, while the attack itself remained crystal clear - was similar to the way Ford remembered her own. Ford, a renowned psychologist, has been slammed in recent days for being unable to recollect specific details about the address she was at or when exactly the assault took place. Christine Blasey Ford (pictured) has alleged Brett Kavanaugh, who has been nominated as a justice of the Supreme Court, sexually assaulted her while the pair were high school students Kavanaugh has denied he claims made against him, and President Donald Trump has defended his nominee, suggesting if Ford had been so traumatized she should have gone to the police after it happened. Supporters of Kavanaugh have also slammed the psychologist for her failure to remember every specific detail of the night she was assaulted 'It's important to understand how memory works in a traumatic event,' she wrote. Davis said despite Ford being unable to perfectly recall some details: 'Her memory of the attack itself is vivid and detailed'. 'His hand over her mouth, another young man piling on, her fear that maybe she'd die there, unable to breathe. 'That's what happens: Your memory snaps photos of the details that will haunt you forever, that will change your life and live under your skin. It blacks out other parts of the story that really don't matter much.' Davis was one of many high profile people who have come out this week, telling their own story in defense of Ford - who has copped criticism for the handling of her situation from people around the country, including the President. On Friday morning, Trump tried to discredit Ford by noting there were no charges filed by the psychologist or her parents when the incident happened. Trump broke his pattern of avoiding mentioning Christine Ford's name on Friday, saying that 'if the attack... was as bad as she says' there must be a law-enforcement report somewhere The president also needled Democrats who have demanded an FBI probe, saying that they should have called the agency 36 years ago Christine Blasey (now Ford) and Brett Kavanaugh are pictured in their high school yearbooks 'I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local law enforcement authorities by either her or her loving parents,' he wrote. 'I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place!' Ford has previously said she spoke to no one of her experience until 2012, when she and her husband discussed it in therapy. Your memory snaps photos of the details that will haunt you forever, that will change your life and live under your skin. It blacks out other parts of the story that really don't matter much. Patti Davis on remembering her sexual assault decades later Since Trump's tweet, the hashtag: 'Why I didn't report' has gone viral, with men and women both sharing why they did not go to the police after they were sexually assaulted. #MeToo leader Alyssa Milano led the charge, sharing her own reasons before asking fellow survivors to share their own stories. 'Hey, [Donald Trump], listen the f**k up,' she wrote. 'I was sexually assaulted twice. Once when I was a teenager. I never filed a police report and it took me 30 years to tell me parents.' Miss Michigan, Emily Sioma, told her followers she'd 'never seen a survivor come forward and be treated with dignity', stopping her from taking action against her attacker. Journalist Thomas Roberts said he has waited 20 years to take any legal action, and had contemplated suicide in place of coming forward as someone who had been abused by his priest, a man he described as his 'hero'. Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi told of her three experiences with sexual assault, explaining the different reasons she felt it was better to stay silent each time. Lakshmi says she was seven the first time she was assaulted. When she told her family, she said she was sent away. The second time, she said she felt 'horrified and ashamed' after she was drugged by her boyfriend, and noted there was no support or culture of coming forward in the 80s for women who had been abused in a relationship. The third time, Lakshmi says she struggled with the same issues Siome did - having seen the way other women were treated when they came forward with allegations of sexual assault, she did not feel safe. 'The first time it happened, I was 7. I told the first adults I came upon. They said "Oh, he's a nice old man, that's not what he meant",' tweeted activist Ashley Judd, one of dozens of women who accused Harvey Weinstein of harassment. 'So when I was raped at 15, I only told my diary. When an adult read it, she accused me of having sex with an adult man,' she added. A baby meerkat that disappeared from Perth Zoo has been found alive and well. The male meerkitten was being looked after by experts before being reunited with its family, a zoo spokesperson confirmed on Saturday. 'He was very stressed, tired and hungry just like any bub thats been away from mum,' she said. One of the zookeepers realised the helpless one-month-old animal was missing from its open-air enclosure during a routine inspection. Scroll down for video A baby meerkat (pictured) that disappeared from a Perth Zoo overnight has been found by Western Australia police The animal had only just started venturing out of its nest box at the exhibit, and keepers saw it about 30 minutes prior to its disappearance, ABC News reported. Western Australia Police conducted a three day search and made the announcement the meerkitten was found. No one has been arrested or charged over the incident. The missing meerkat was found after police raided a Beverley home on Friday night. WA Police underwent a three day search and made the announcement the meerkitten (pictured) was found Staff at Perth Zoo had fears the newborn had been stolen or taken by a predatory bird. The name of the meerkat has not yet been confirmed by Perth Zoo workers. The meerkat was due to have its first hand-held check at six weeks of age. A planned celebration to mark the birth of the baby meerkat, which was born on August 20 as part of a regional breeding program, was also postponed. The meerkitten's mother, Bamba, was brought to Perth from Werribee Open Range Zoo in Victoria and Perth Zoo-born male Runako was the suspected father. The final resting place of Captain Cook's HMS Endeavour has been narrowed down to a single location in Rhode Island. Marine archaeologists who have spent more than two decades painstakingly searching for the vessel say they have now identified the wreck's exact final resting spot. Bizarrely, the pinpointed location sits beneath the waves where Australia claimed a famous victory over the US in the 1983 America's Cup. Scroll down for video Marine archaeologists have spent more than two decades painstakingly searching for the vessel say they have now identified what could be the wreck's exact final resting spot Australian researchers and divers have worked with teams to verify the vessel through scientific analysis (pictured) Head on-site archaeologist Dr Kathy Abbass said her team relied on historical analysis to identify the ship. 'Where and when was she built, what was the kind of construction she was made of, what was the size and the form of the ship and what was the wood and the other materials that went in to making her,' Dr Abbass told reporters at Newport Harbor. 'We are down to just one site,' Dr Abbass said. Although archaeologists are convinced they have found the Endeavour it could take four months to test wood taken from the shipwreck to prove it. In 1983, Australia claimed victory in the America's Cup - the first time the US had lost the trophy in 132 years. The Australia II ended the longest winning streak in sporting history, as well as the US domination of the racing event. Marine archaeologists believe they have pinpointed the exact place where the scuttled remains of Captain James Cook's HMS Endeavour ship (a replica of the ship is pictured) are located The official announcement took place on Goat Island, a small island in Narragansett Bay, off Newport, Rhode Island, near the scuttled remains. The event involved archaeologists from RIMAP and the Australian National Maritime Museum (ANNM). 'There's still a lot of work ahead, but it is an exciting day,' Australian National Maritime Museum director Kevin Sumption told AAP. 'What will ultimately determine which of the ships is Endeavour is if we are lucky enough to do an excavation that finds evidence that it was used as a prison hulk,' Mr Sumption said. Friday's confirmation comes twenty years after archaeologists learned that the ship was scuttled in Newport Harbor. Researchers had to comb through 15 abandoned wrecks to identify the HMS Endeavour. The HMS Endeavour is one of the most famous ships in naval history and was used for Captain Cook's discovery of the East Coast of Australia in 1770 Captain James Cook (pictured) commanded the HMS Endeavour to Australia during his voyage of discovery in the late 1700s Pictured, a replica of the HMS Endeavour. The HMS Endeavour is one of the most famous ships in naval history and was used for Captain Cook's discovery of the East Coast of Australia in 1770 Australian naval archaeologist Dr James Hunter described the conditions as 'not easy' and 'Visibility is at about one metre' Dr Abbass said the discovery would be significant for a number of countries, including Australia, the US, Britain and New Zealand. Hopes have been raised the vessel will be excavated and returned to Australia for the 250th anniversary of Cook's arrival in Australia. But the Rhode Island state government claimed official ownership of the whole fleet of shipwrecks, which includes the Endeavour, in 1999. This suggests Australian officials would have to fight for any of the wreckage to be brought to back down under, The Age reported. Australian researchers and divers have worked in teams to verify the vessel, and naval archaeologist Dr James Hunter described the conditions as 'not easy'. 'Visibility is at about one metre,' he told Nine News. The recent developments follow the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project's discovery that the ship was scuttled in Newport Harbor in 1778 by British forces in the lead up to the Battle of Rhode Island. A cutaway painting of Captain Cook's HMS Endeavour ship during its famous voyage of discovery The HMS Endeavour was then discovered to be among 13 other ships in a massive archaeological investigation. The investigation combined high-tech mapping of the seabed with analysis of historical shipping documents found in London. Australia's Consul General in New York, Alistair Walton said on Friday, 'I think we can say with a great deal of confidence, based on everyone we've heard today that this is the resting place of the Endeavour here in Newport Harbor.' The HMS Endeavour is one of the most famous ships in naval history and was used for Captain Cook's discovery of the East Coast of Australia in 1770. The last sighting of the HMS Endeavour was around 1778 when it is believed the ship was sold, renamed the Lord Sandwich, and then used to transport British troops during the American Revolution. The HMS Endeavour was first launched in 1764 as the Earl of Pembroke, and then renamed His Majesty's Bark the Endeavour after it was purchased four years later by the British Royal Navy. The HMS Endeavour was first launched in 1764 as the Earl of Pembroke. Pictured, the Earl of Pembroke leaving Whitby Harbour in 1768 This chart from 1893 shows tracked the HMS Endeavour's journey The vessel was sent out to explore the Pacific Ocean in August 1768 both to observe the 1769 transit of Venus across the sun, and search for the continent which was then called Terra Australis Incognita, or unknown Southern land. The previous transit of Venus in 1639 had provided a vast amount of the information astronomers and scientists had about the size of the solar system and universe. The ship departed from Plymouth with 94 people on board, including Captain James Cook. After travelling down the coast of Africa before cutting across the Atlantic, it arrived in Rio de Janeiro in November of that year. The boat then set out to round Cape Horn, which it managed to do on its third attempt in January after wind, stormy weather and difficult conditions foiled Cook's first two attempts. In April the ship reached Tahiti, where it stayed for the next four months and where astronomer Charles Green was able to study the transit of Venus in June. Captain James Cook is pictured arriving at Queen Charlotte's Sound in New Zealand, in this A print from an oil painting attributed to J Clevely After months exploring the Pacific for islands, the Endeavour reached the coast of New Zealand in October, becoming the first European vessel to land on the island in over 100 years. Dutch explorer Abel Tasman had previously reached the islands of New Zealand and Tasmania during his 1642 journey while with the Dutch East India Company. Cook spent six months exploring and mapping the coast of New Zealand and claimed the land for Great Britain before sailing west. In April of 1770 individuals on the ship first spotted Australia, and on April 29 the HMS Endeavour became the first European vessel to make landfall on the east coast of the island. Captain Cook was killed in 1779 during a fight with Hawaiians on the island. The Endeavor soon become a naval transport ship Cook spent four months charting the coast and at one point ran into trouble when the ship struck part of the Great Barrier Reef. The ship was 24 miles off the coast at the time with not enough life boats, but managed to clear the water from the hull of the ship and make its way safely back to shore. HISTORY OF COOK'S ENDEAVOUR The HMS Endeavour was a British research vessel sailed by Captain James Cook. Captain Cook set off from England in the Endeavour in 1768 in search of Australia then known as the 'unknown Southern Land'. The Endeavour was a small ship - less than 100ft long - and housed a crew of around 100 sailors. Before coming to Australia, Captain Cook reached New Zealand in 1769. He circumnavigated New Zealand's North and South Islands and drew the first complete chart of the country's coast. The Endeavour was the first ship to reach the East Coast of Australia, landing in Botany Bay in 1770. The vessel returned to England in 1771 and was largely forgotten before it was sold in 1775 and renamed The Lord Sandwich. Source: Australian National Maritime Museum Advertisement The ship continued to explore the east cost of Australia, and in November was taken out of the water to have major repairs done before setting sail back to Great Britain. It set sail the day after Christmas, and in March rounded the Cape of Good Hope before docking in Cape Town. On July 12 it made its way into port in Dover, almost three years after it first left from Plymouth. Cook was later promoted to Commander and explored the Pacific twice more on the HMS Resolution. He was killed in 1779 during a fight with Hawaiians on the island. The Endeavor soon become a naval transport ship, and was sold to a shipping magnate just before the start of the Revolutionary War. That individual then tried to sell the ship back to the British when the demand for ships increased during the war but they would not accept the vessel given its age and what it had been through over the years. The seller then made the decision to rename the boat Lord Sandwich and try to sell it again, which worked after the boat underwent serious repairs. It was sent to Rhode Island as a prison ship when the British attempted to recapture the port city of Newport in 1778, and there it was blown up in hopes of creating a blockade in the harbor during the Battle of Rhode Island. A photo of three Idaho schoolboys going above and beyond to prevent the USA flag from touching the ground is going viral after one of the boys laid on the ground to protect it. A mother collecting her children from school captured the moment on camera after she spotted the fifth grade youngsters taking down the flag on a windy day and strictly adhering to etiquette. 'Hayden Meadows Elementary School!!! This needs to go viral!,' Amanda Reallan captioned her Facebook image. 'Wow! I just watched the most amazing act of Patriotism! Was waiting to pick up my children from school when three boys took down the flag. A photo of three Idaho fifth grade schoolboys going above and beyond to prevent the USA flag from touching the ground is going viral Amanda Reallan, a mother collecting her children from school captured the patriotic moment on camera 'They were having a hard time making sure it didn't touch the ground when the third boy laid under it to honor not letting it touch the ground!' The post has been shared more than 7,000 times with comments saying they are 'Future law men' and 'I'm so PROUD of these boys!!!'. As experienced Cub Scouts the trio of boys knew exactly how to handle the tricky weather conditions in order to adhere to flag rules. US Flag Code states that the stars and stripes 'should never touch anything beneath it, such as the ground, the floor, water, or merchandise'. The boys are seen recreating their act of patriotism for a local news station The USA flag should never be carried flat or horizontally, but always aloft and free Jack LeBreck had the bright idea to use his body to protect the flag from touching the ground LeBreck said they'd had a 'bunch of close calls' on the 'kind of a windy day' US Flag Code states that the stars and stripes 'should never touch anything beneath it, such as the ground, the floor, water, or merchandise'. Additionally, 'the flag should never be carried flat or horizontally, but always aloft and free'. Jack LeBreck had the bright idea but thanked Mac McCarty, a veteran who served for 20 years, for inspiring them to be good countrymen. 'It was all because of our custodian, Mr. Mac,' LeBreck told KSDK. 'We've had a bunch of close calls but I thought it would happen because it was kind of a windy day. So I just thought of laying down and seeing what would happen.' Casey Dolan (right) was just happy to be one of the boys selected to take down the flag that day Nalan Tuttle (center) whose father is in the military, joked he felt like he should be an actor after the brush with fame Mac McCarty, a veteran who served for 20 years, was praised by the children for teaching them well Casey Dolan was just happy to be one of the boys selected to take down the flag that day. 'It's really a great privilege. I feel really lucky I was chosen for it,' he added. Another helper was thrilled with the unexpected attention they're receiving and it's making him consider a full-time career in the spotlight. Nalan Tuttle, whose father is in the military, joked: 'It felt like I was gonna be like "hey mom, I should be an actor some day".' But their custodian is not accepting credit for the patriotic act and puts the viral image down to their own thinking. 'What they did yesterday was obviously all them laying on the ground and all that,' McCarty said. 'They did themselves proud, they did their families proud, they did their school proud, and I am very proud of them.' Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has deported 12 foreign criminals in just one week. The mass deportation was one of the largest of the year in Australia, with child sex offenders and drug trafficker among those expelled. Mr Dutton believes that if those criminals went unpunished and remained in-country, 'thousands' of Australians would have fallen victim to them. Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has enforced harsh penalties on non-Australians who break the law in the country, deporting 12 foreign criminals 'We are a welcoming country but non-citizens committing crimes against Australians is not on,' he told The Daily Telegraph. 'Labor was renewing visas and allowing these serious criminals to stay in our country. 'We have kicked them out and as a result our communities are safer.' Philip James Brough was deported after spending two years behind bars for smuggling $200,000 worth of pure liquid cocaine and MDMA into Darwin International Airport in maple syrup jars. Mr Dutton believes that if these criminals went unpunished and remained on Australian shores, 'thousands' of Australians would have fallen victim to their activities The 59-year-old father of three pleaded guilty to two charges of importing illicit substances, and was deported to New Zealand after becoming eligible for parole. A 33-year-old man was also sent back to New Zealand after spending five years in prison for assault. Child sex offender Donald Bruce Henderson was convicted of sexually assaulting two young boys at a public pool in 1983, and was also allegedly deported under Dutton's command. The ringleader of a cannabis cartel that imported $24 million worth of the substance into Queensland on a series of commercial flights was deported as well. In addition, a notorious paedophile, a United Kingdom national jailed for possession of child exploitation material and an Indian man were all removed from the country. Michael Hunn killed his two teenage children before turning the gun on himself, police say An Indiana father killed his two teenage children and himself between Thursday night and Friday morning, leaving his ex-wife to find out only when the school called to check on the kids. Shelby and Harrison Hunn, 13 and 15, were staying with their father Michael on Thursday, and stopped contact with their mother Stephanie Reece late that night, police said. Reece received a call from her children's school about 9.35am on Friday, alerting her they were not in class, and after multiple failed attempts to reach Hunn and their children, she drove to his home. When nobody answered the door, Reece called 911 to have police check in on her family. Officers responding to the call walked in to see Hunn, 50, dead from a self inflicted gunshot wound, and his two children dead in their respective beds, also from gunshot wounds. Police are yet to find a motive for the heartbreaking double-murder-suicide, and are continuing to investigate. Hunn murdered his son Harrison (left), 15, and daughter Shelby (right), 13. Their mother, Stephanie Reece (pictured) only discovered the tragedy when the teenagers didn't show up for school on Friday Video courtesy WXIN 'We all have faced yet another tragic event here in Boone County,' a statement from the Boone County Indiana Sheriff's Office read. 'Our hearts and prayers go out to all of the family, the community, Zionsville Schools, and the public safety personnel that responded.' Police say the Reece and Hunn divorced in 2017, and while officers were not aware of any previously violent behavior, Reece had expressed concern over her ex's drinking. Police say they do not know why Hunn killed his children, but an investigation into the double murder suicide is ongoing The mother-of-two petitioned the court to see Hunn's time with the children last December, as he had reportedly been drinking to excess. In court documents obtained by the Indy Star, Shelby and Harrison were removed from Hunn's home after telling their grandmother their father was too drunk to care for them or drive them anywhere. Reece had also requested Hunn be compelled to use a breathalyzer, which he agreed to. The pair also battled over child support, with Hunn due in court on September 28 for failure to pay. Harrison and Shelby's schools issued a statement offering their condolences to Reece and her family, and alerting parents counselors would be available at the school. 'Our entire school community grieves the loss of two students due to a tragedy at their home,' Zionsville Community Schools Superintendent Scott Robison said in an email to parents. 'Our thoughts and prayers are with the family of the children whose lives were lost, and we ask that you join us in respecting their family time to grieve.' Minnesota state representative Jim Knoblach canceled his re-election campaign on Friday after his daughter came forward with allegations that he sexually abused her throughout her childhood. Laura Knoblach, 23, claimed her 60-year-old father started abusing her when she was nine years old and carried on until she was 21. As a result, she claims it left her considering self-harming and being admitted into an in-patient psychiatric facility. The Republican, who is chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, denies the claims, calling them 'indescribably hurtful', but nonetheless feels he had no choice but to give up dreams of being reelected. Minnesota state representative Jim Knoblach, 60, canceled his re-election campaign Friday as allegations of inappropriate touching from his daughter emerged Laura Knoblach, 23, claimed her father abused her at least as far back as her being nine years old and right up until she was 21 Laura says her mother (center right) shrugged off her father's behavior, putting it down to not growing up with sisters (Laura's brother is pictured center left) Although he won't go for a ninth term, he plans on serving out his current one. 'I love my children more than anything, and would never do anything to hurt them. Her allegations are false,' Knoblach wrote in a statement. 'I and other family members have made repeated attempts to reconcile with her in recent years, but she has refused.' In an interview with Minnesota Public Radio Laura says her dad's actions over the estimated 12 years included kissing, licking and biting her ears. She said she had been telling close friends, family and authority figures at her school and church about what was going on for more than 10 years. Laura says her mother shrugged off her father's behavior, putting it down to not growing up with sisters. She says her maternal grandmother advised her against speaking out about him publicly as it would not only affect the community, which benefited from his financial contributions, but Laura would lose her family. In an interview with Minnesota Public Radio Laura says her dad's actions over the estimated 12 years included kissing, licking and biting her ears Laura's interview with MPR came after an investigation into the matter was launched by St. Cloud Police Department and Sherburne County sheriff's office in 2017 but they eventually did not file charges Laura told the station she got rid of an earlier Facebook post about her dad due to pressure from relatives and attention from the media. In it, she wrote: ,My heart has never felt this heavy. But my shoulders have never been so light' Laura details that her dad would pin her against the refrigerator or dishwasher and use his weight and strength to keep her from getting away The St. Cloud Republican's attorney, Susan Gaertner, denied the allegations in an interview with the station ahead of the story's publication and said the veteran lawmaker 'does not want to drag his family through six weeks of hell' by continuing to keep them in the spotlight with the campaign. Gaetner added that he feels he wouldn't get a fair airing with voters come the elections in November. 'These claims are being made in an environment, the #MeToo era, that makes it extremely difficult to defend yourself,' she told MPR. The Republican, who is chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, denies the claims, calling them 'indescribably hurtful' Laura's interview with MPR came after an investigation into the matter was launched by St. Cloud Police Department and Sherburne County sheriff's office in 2017 but they eventually did not file charges. Knoblach addressed this in his statement after the station says he declined an interview over a week ago. 'Our daughter has been estranged from our family for some time,' he said. 'In late 2016 she made some extremely hurtful and untrue accusations on a Facebook post, which was briefly put up and then taken down. These accusations were fully investigated by Sherburne County, dismissed, and the case closed in April 2017.' Addressing the removal of the social media post in December 2016, Laura told the station she got rid of it due to pressure from relatives and attention from the media. She provided documentation to MPR backing up her claims that she tried to seek help in alternative ways. This includes audio recordings and transcripts with law enforcement. MPR said the timeline matched up when verifying with her friends too. 'My entire family had been like, "You'll lose your family and you're doing this terrible thing, and if he loses the next election it is your fault,"' she said. 'And you know, even after I posted this on Facebook they're like, "Your dad's boss said this to him and that's your fault".' Laura says her maternal grandmother advised her against speaking out about him publicly as it would affect the community which benefited from his financial contributions A letter from the Sherburne County attorney's office said there was 'insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Jim Knoblach had committed a crime' The proof includes a letter from the Sherburne County attorney's office saying there was 'insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Jim Knoblach had committed a crime'. Laura told MPR of an early memory where she remembers her father coming into her bedroom after she'd gone to sleep. She claims he climbed in and laid down behind her. 'He would put his arm around me and not let me get up or get away and he would lick my neck or bite my ear,' she said. A youth pastor confirmed to MPR that he reported a similar story to Child Protective Services on behalf of Laura between 2011 and 2012 but they didn't find the claims serious enough to consider it sexual abuse. Other instances included kissing across her arms and neck and biting her ears while they watched films on the couch, and she says she can recall more than 30 instances where her father approached her from behind and pressed his body against hers in the kitchen. Laura details that he would pin her against the refrigerator or dishwasher and use his weight and strength to keep her from getting away. She told MPR the incidents plagued her teenage years and affected her relationship with boys. The station features a letter written by a teacher to the St. Cloud Christian School principal but the school - where Knoblach served on the board from 2007 to 2011 declined to comment. Laura is now trying to heal after the ordeal through tough triathlons and counseling She says after her family tried to persuade her to go through counseling with them but her father would only say he was sorry for her taking his actions the wrong way Local police officer Trent Fischer explained that although he thinks Knoblach knew what he was doing was inappropriate, his behavior laid just outside the lines of Minnesota law's five degrees of criminal sexual conduct. It can include anything from trying to remove someone's clothing or masturbating in front of a child under 16 to rape or other nonconsensual sexual contact. She says after her family tried to persuade her to go through counseling with them but her father would only say he was sorry for her taking his actions the wrong way, she fell into a spiral that affected her mental health. After being on short-term prescription medication and spending two nights in a psychiatric ward, she is now trying to heal through tough triathlons and counseling. With Knoblach's Republican seat becoming available, Democratic candidate Dan Wolgamott may benefit from the vacancy. House Speaker Kurt Daudt said in a statement that he supported Knoblach's decision. The 12-year-old girl mauled by a shark and showed incredible strength when she gave emergency workers a smile and thumbs up after the attack has been revealed as Hannah Papps (pictured) A 12-year-old girl who was mauled by a shark has shown incredible strength by giving emergency workers a smile and thumbs up after the attack. Melbourne schoolgirl Hannah Papps, 12, was savaged by a shark near Whitsunday Island in Queensland on Thursday and had to be airlifted to the Mackay Base Hospital. The attack came just 24 hours after Tasmanian tourist Justine Barwick was attacked by a shark nearby. The shark tore a large piece of flesh from Hannah's upper thigh, and she is still in a critical condition after being airlifted from the beach by CQ CareFlight paramedics. Her rescuers told the Herald Sun about the moment they loaded her into the air craft and she gave them a smile and a thumbs up. RACQ Central Queensland helicopter crewman Ben McCauley said it was always difficult for everyone when the victim of an incident was a child but she showed strength beyond her years. Baited drumlines are typically installed near popular beaches or in the area of a viscous shark attack Two Tiger sharks have already been caught and killed in Cid Bay both were caught on baited drumlines (pictured) The second attack came just 24 hours after a Tasmanian woman Justine Barwick (pictured) had been attacked by a shark nearby 'I'd describe them as strong willed, they wanted to survive. You could see that they wanted to live. They were doing everything they can to stay with us, to keep alert, answering our question,' he said. Hannah's family released a statement praising the efforts of everyone involved in the recuse mission, The Australian reported. 'We would like to thank everyone who has helped and cared for Hannah, including the police, emergency services and the hospital teams,' they said. 'We ask that everyone, including the media, please respect our family's privacy during this very difficult time so we can focus our energies on Hannah's recovery.' Two people were attacked in Cid Bay near Whitsunday Island within a 24 hour period (location pictured) The state government issued a catch and kill order in Cid Bay, the location of the attacks A baited drumline is a favoured technique for luring and killing sharks by using a large hook with bait They said Hannah was in a critical but stable condition in the Mackay Base hospital. Less than 24 hours before Hannah was attacked Justine Barwick was attacked near a yacht that was moored in the bay. The 46-year-old Tasmanian woman was swimming near her yacht near Sawmill Bay in Queensland when she was attacked by the shark. A group of passers-by found the woman with life-threatening bites to her upper right leg on Wednesday night. She was helped onto a rescue vessel before being airlifted by helicopter to Mackay Base Hospital. The moment before Justine Barwick, who is in the dinghy, is rescued and rushed to hospital She was later transported to the Royal Brisbane and Womens Hospital where she underwent extensive reconstructive surgery on her injured leg. The Courier Mail reported that she started opening her eyes on Saturday after coming out of surgery. Mrs Barwick was able to open her eyes and blink at her husband who was waiting by her side. The state government issued a catch and kill order in Cid Bay, the location of the attacks. Baited drum lines were also put in the water and a sea and water patrol was established. The shark had torn a large piece of flesh from Hannah's upper thigh which left her in a critical condition, she was airlifted from the beach by CQ CareFlight paramedics Since then two sharks have been caught and killed in Cid Bay. Both were caught on baited drum lines. Fisheries Queensland confirmed to Daily Mail Australia that they caught two large Tiger sharks on a single drumline in the Cid Harbour area on Saturday. However they remain unsure whether these are the sharks that committed the attacks. 'One measured 3.3 metres and the other was over 2 metres. 'While sharks of this size are potentially very dangerous to humans, it is unclear if they were responsible for injuries caused to two swimmers this week,' a spokesperon for Fisheries Queensland said. 'The shark carcasses will be towed well out to sea for disposal.' Despite the drumlines being put in place, Fisheries Queensland advises that people should still exercise caution. A number of people took to social media to give their views on the baiting and killing of sharks in the aftermath of the attack. 'Why? You possibly got the wrong sharks. Its their playground not ours,' one user wrote. 'And how did they know they were the 'guilty' ones,' another added. 'That'll send a clear message through the shark community,' another Facebook user wrote. A spokesman for the Humane Society International told The Australian they wanted to see new 'non-lethal measures to protect ocean users' introduced. A baited drum line is a favoured technique for luring and killing sharks by using a large hook with bait, they are typically installed near popular beaches or in the area of a viscous shark attack. Death toll in Iran military parade attack rises to 24: IRNA A general view of the attack during the military parade in Ahvaz, Iran Sept 22, 2018. Tasnim News Agency via Reuters Reuters : Gunmen fired on a military parade in southwestern Iran on Saturday, killing 24 people, half of them members of the Revolutionary Guards, state news agencies reported, in one of the worst attacks ever on the elite force. State television said the assault, which wounded more than 60 people, targeted a stand where Iranian officials had gathered to watch an annual event marking the start of the Islamic Republic's 1980-88 war with Iraq. "There are a number of non-military victims, including women and children who had come to watch the parade," state news IRNA agency quoted an unnamed official source as saying. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) have been the sword and shield of Shi'ite clerical rule since Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution. The Guards also play a major role in Iran's regional interests in countries such as Iraq, Syria and Yemen. "Three of the terrorists were killed on the spot and a fourth one who was injured died in hospital," Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi, a senior spokesman for Iran's armed forces, told state television. A video distributed to Iranian media showed soldiers crawling on the ground as gunfire blazed in their direction. One soldier picked up a gun and got to his feet as women and children fled for their lives. Ali Hosein Hoseinzadeh, deputy governor in Khuzestan province, was quoted as saying the death toll was expected to rise. One of those killed was a journalist. The bloodshed struck a blow to security in OPEC oil producer Iran, which has been relatively stable compared with neighbouring Arab countries that have grappled with upheaval since the 2011 uprisings across the Middle East. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack in the city of Ahvaz. State television blamed "takfiri elements", a reference to Sunni Muslim militants, for the attack. Ahvaz is in the centre of Khuzestan province, where there have been sporadic protests by the Arab minority in predominantly Shi'ite Iran. Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif said the assault was the handiwork of "regional terror sponsors", language that usually refers to Iran's enemies Saudi Arabia and Israel, and "their U.S. masters". He vowed Tehran would respond decisively. The semi-official news agency ISNA said an unnamed spokesman for the Revolutionary Guards blamed Arab nationalists backed by Saudi Arabia for the attack. DOMINANT MILITARY FORCE The Revolutionary Guards are the most powerful and heavily armed military force in the Islamic Republic and also have a vast stake worth billions of dollars in the economy. Kurdish militants killed 10 Revolutionary Guards in an attack on an IRGC post on the Iraqi border in July, Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency reported, the latest bloodshed in an area where armed Kurdish opposition groups are active. Iran will be scrambling to determine the motives for the Saturday's high-profile attack as it faces growing U.S. pressure. President Donald Trump decided in May to pull the United States out of the 2015 international nuclear deal with Tehran and reimpose sanctions in a bid to isolate the Islamic Republic. "WHERE DID THEY COME FROM?" Trump will fail in his confrontation with Iran, just like Iraqs Saddam Hussein, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said, referring to the war in the 1980s between the two Middle Eastern powers and vowing that Tehran will not abandon its missiles. As Rouhani spoke, Iran began displaying its naval power in the Gulf during annual parades in the capital Tehran and the port of Bandar Abbas on the Gulf. Iran has suggested in recent weeks that it could take military action in the Gulf to block other countries oil exports in retaliation for U.S. sanctions intended to halt its sales of crude. A video on state television's website showed confused soldiers at the scene of the attack. Standing in front of the stand, one asked: "Where did they come from?" Another responded: "From behind us." Four militants carried out the attack and two of them were killed, according to ISNA. There has been no claim of responsibility for the attack in the city of Ahvaz. Iran was holding similar parades in several cities including the capital Tehran and the port of Bandar Abbas on the Gulf. "Shooting began by several gunmen from behind the stand during the parade. There are several killed and injured," a correspondent told state television. Tensions between mainly Shi'ite Iran and mostly Sunni Saudi Arabia have surged in recent years, with the two countries supporting opposite sides in wars in Syria and Yemen and rival political parties in Iraq and Lebanon. Attacks on the military are rare in Iran. Last year, in the first deadly assault claimed by Islamic State in Tehran, 18 people were killed at the parliament and mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder and first supreme leader of the Islamic Republic. President Donald Trump has claimed that women support his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, hours after angering female lawmakers in his own party by questioning accuser Christine Blasey Ford's allegations. 'We have to fight for him. Not worried about the other side,' Trump told a roaring crowd at a Friday night rally in Springfield, Missouri. 'And by the way, women are for that more than anyone would understand.' Ford accuses Kavanaugh of attempting to rape her at a house part in the early 1980s, when they were both high school students in suburban Maryland. Her lawyers on Friday night defied a Judiciary Committee ultimatum on her decision on whether she will testify next week, so she was offered an extension of an extra day. A group of 75 women also gathered on Friday to throw their support behind Kavanaugh in the midst of the scandal. One of those in attendance at the meeting was Maura Fitzgerald, who dated him while he was in college. 'In both public and private Brett treated me and everyone I know with respect. He has always been kind and good natured,' she said, according to CBS News. Earlier on Friday, Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who is considered on the fence for Kavanaugh's confirmation vote, said she was 'appalled' by Trump's tweet calling Ford's story into question. 'We have to fight for him. Not worried about the other side,' Trump told a roaring crowd at a Friday night rally in Springfield, Missouri Brett Kavanaugh (left) has volunteered to testify in new hearings if Ford (right) is willing to appear. Her lawyers again delayed on scheduling testimony on Friday night 75 women gathered on Friday to show support for their embattled friend Kavanaugh. One of those in attendance was Maura Fitzgerald, who dated him in college Trump addressed Ford's allegation in a tweet on Friday that questioned why she didn't come forward about her assault claim for over three decades. 'I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents,' Trump wrote on Friday morning. 'I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place!' The remark drew fury online, including accusations that Trump was 'victim shaming' Ford. Senator Collins told reporters: 'I was appalled by the president's tweet.' 'We know that allegations of sexual assault are some of the most under-reported crimes that exist. So I thought that the president's tweet was completely inappropriate and wrong,' she said. At the rally in Missouri though, there were female Trump supporters who backed up his claim that they want to see Kavanaugh successfully confirmed. Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine (center), considered on the fence for Kavanaugh's confirmation vote, said she was 'appalled' by Trump's tweet calling Ford's story into question Marsha Poindexter, who has been a self-employed insurance agent for 20 years in Springfield, Missouri, said that Ford needs to appear before the committee if she wants to level accusations. 'Everyone needs to be accountable,' Poindexter told a pool reporter. Trisha Hope, of League City, Texas said of Kavanaugh: 'I think I've never seen such a spectacle in my life, to see Democrats act this way.' Hope said she is skeptical of Ford's story because she can't specify where and when the alleged assault took place. She said she doesn't think the FBI should investigate, pointing out that Kavanaugh has already undergone FBI background checks six times for successive appointments. Trump supporters cheer during a rally at JQH Arena in Springfield, Missouri on Friday. Women in the crowd said they backed up Trump's claim that they support Kavanaugh's confirmation Hope, who was in town to promote her book about Trump called Just The Tweets, said it's up to Ford to decide whether she should testify. But, she added, 'If you make an accusation, you have to be responsible. You owe it to the accused.' As of Friday night, the question of Ford's testimony remained up in the air, with Republicans increasingly accusing the 51-year-old psychology professor and her lawyers of stalling in a bid to delay Kavanaugh's confirmation vote until after the midterms. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley on Friday said that Ford's lengthy list of demands, including that Kavanaugh testify first and not be given a chance to respond to her testimony, were unreasonable. Grassley gave Ford a deadline of 10pm on Friday to schedule her testimony, but she rejected the deadline and asked for another day to respond. A statement by Ford's lawyers called the deadline 'arbitrary'. 'Its sole purpose is to bully Dr. Ford and deprive her of the ability to make a considered decision,' the statement said. 'Our modest request is that she be given an additional day to make her decision.' The embattled Kavanaugh is seen in his high school yearbook photo. Women have thrown their support behind him, despite the allegations Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley said he is giving Christine Blasey Ford's another extension to schedule testimony, sounding clearly exasperated on Twitter Late on Friday, an exasperated Grassley granted Ford's request for an extension to decide whether she will testify. 'I just granted another extension to Dr Ford to decide if she wants to proceed [with] the statement she made last week to testify to the senate,' Grassley wrote on Twitter, saying that he had already given five extensions. 'She [should] decide so we can move on,' Grassley wrote. 'I want to hear her.' The powerful Judiciary Committee chairman added the joking lament: 'With all the extensions we give Dr Ford to decide if she still wants to testify to the Senate I feel like I'm playing 2nd trombone in the judiciary orchestra and [minority leader Chuck] Schumer is the conductor.' Shawn Christy was apprehended in Mifflin Township, near Columbus, Ohio Friday The Pennsylvania man accused of threatening President Donald Trump and law enforcement officials has been arrested in Ohio. Shawn Richard Christy was taken into custody at 4.45pm Friday in Mifflin Township, near Columbus, by US Marshals Service and task force members from Ohio and Pennsylvania. A federal warrant was issued June 19 for the 27-year-old McAdoo man in connection to Facebook posts threatening to shoot Trump and a district attorney in Pennsylvania. Facebook threats against Northampton County's district attorney, allegedly said: 'I promise I'll put a bullet in your head as soon as I put one in the head of President Donald J Trump.' The US Marshals Service says Christy, a Pennsylvania man was accused of threatening President Donald Trump and law enforcement officials The man was wanted in connection to Facebook posts threatening to shoot Trump and a district attorney in Pennsylvania Several schools in southwest Ohio were closed Monday as federal authorities hunted for a wanted fugitive. School district superindendent Shelley Hilderbrand tweeted early Monday morning: 'SCHOOL CLOSED MONDAY SEPT 17 - due to manhunt. The District did not want students standing at bus stops for safety reasons.' The closures applied to three campuses in the Lucas Local School District and two in the Madison Local School District, as well as Madison Adult Education and St Mary's of the Snow Catholic School in Mansfield. Police had warned all residents in the Mansfield area to use caution and keep their homes and cars locked. Law enforcement offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to his detainment Christy was last seen at around 4.45pm on Sunday after the crash on I-71. Authorities say he stole the truck from a Pennsylvania business nearly 400 miles away over the weekend They offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to the detainment of the 'armed and dangerous' man. Authorities say Christy stole a truck Sunday from the area of McAdoo, Pennsylvania, and fled after abandoning it Sunday on Interstate 71 in the Mansfield area, about 65 miles (104 kilometers) north of Columbus. A US Marshals statement also said he had stolen, money and a shotgun the night before from the Skitco Iron Works in Hazle Township, Pennsylvania. The McAdoo man is believed to have burglarized the same business on September 5. Law enforcement had searched for him for more than two months, claiming he had threatened to use 'full lethal force on any law enforcement officer that tries to detain me'. Pennsylvania warrants issued for Christy alleged burglary, probation violation and failure to appear for an aggravated assault case. Christy's parents said Thursday that he had sent a Facebook message to them saying he 'was slowed down a bit' after he may have broken his knee during a Maryland 'getaway'. The message ended: 'Stay safe, I have a mission to complete.' Four people in Michigan have been arrested after allegedly plotting to abduct a young child from a public place, and rape them until they died. The group, whose ages range from 19-37, conspired to kidnap a young child from a public place, then torture and sexually assault the child until their death, then dispose of the body. Michigan AG Bill Schuette announced he had charged David Bailey, 37, of Coldwater, formerly of Kalamazoo, Matthew Toole, 32, of Battle Creek, Talia Furman, 32, of Springfield, and Jayme LaPointe, 19, of Athens, with three counts each of conspiracy to murder, kidnap and commit sexual conduct on Friday. Each charge is punishable by up to life in prison, and all four are being held in custody until their arraignment. Talia Furman (left), her boyfriend Matthew Toole (center) and Jayme LaPointe (right) were arrested, along with David Bailey (not pictured) over a plot to abduct a child, rape and torture them to death, and dispose of their body The group, who police say were close to acting on their plan when they were arrested, were considering targeting county fairs in Branch, Calhoun and Jackson (pictured), parking lots of Walmart and Meijer stores that did not have security cameras, and a few parades. Michigan State Police told WOOD TV three members of the group were being investigated for child pornography when they discovered conversations between all four about their horrific plan. They had considered targeting county fairs in Branch, Calhoun and Jackson, parking lots of Walmart and Meijer stores that did not have security cameras, and a few parades. State Police Computer Crimes Unit Detective Sargent Gerald Yott, who led the case, told The Battle Creek Enquirer each member of the group was abusing their own child as well as others. 'They committed acts on their own children and were making sexually abusive material,' Yott said Friday afternoon. 'They were all sharing and exploiting their own children and other children.' Toole, 32, and his girlfriend Furman, 32, were arraigned in mid-August after allegedly sexually assaulting a three-month-old girl and three-year-old boy on multiple occasions between October 2017 and February 2018,The Battle Creek Enquirer reported. Toole and Furman, who are dating, have also been charged over the repeated sexual assault of a three-month-old girl and a three-year-old boy Police alleged they seized videos and photographs of the assaults, and other child pornography. LaPointe, 19, was charged with criminal sexual conduct two weeks earlier after confessing to police she had made videos with her husband, 30, where they performed sexual acts with a girl under two, who the teenager babysat. In the videos, a woman was seen digitally penetrating the toddler, according to The Daily Reporter. The Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force said they believe the group of four were close to putting their plan into action when they were arrested. Detective Sargent Gerald Yott, who led the case, told WWMT the foursome was: 'One of the most heinous groups of monsters that we've dealt with'. 'These are the worst of the worst people,' he said. 'We like to think that this can't happen here, and it does. It happens here all the time.' US President Donald Trump says 'key allies' have asked him not to release classified FBI documents related to the probe into Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election, raising speculation the Australian government could be exposed. Former Australian high commissioner to the UK Alexander Downer has become a reluctant player in the controversy for his London drinks session with former Trump foreign relations aide George Papadopoulos. Mr Papadopoulos, sentenced to 14 days' jail for lying to the FBI, has repeatedly targeted Downer in Twitter tirades in recent days, claiming the former Australian foreign affairs minister recorded their meeting at the Kensington Wine Rooms in May, 2016, and was acting as a spy. George Papadopoulos (pictured) claimed the former Australian foreign affairs minister recorded their meeting at the Kensington Wine Rooms and was acting as a spy Former Australian high commissioner to the UK Alexander Downer (pictured) has become a reluctant player in the controversy for his London drinks session with former Trump foreign relations aide George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos has targeted Mr Downer and the Australian Government on social media Mr Downer has strongly rejected this. 'Alexander Downer will go down in history as a stooge for (Hillary) Clinton who single-handedly caused irreparable damage between the USA-Australia,' Papadopoulos wrote on Twitter on Friday. 'Congrats, buddy.' On Monday Mr Trump ordered documents related to the FBI's Russian investigation, including text messages from FBI figures Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, be declassified and released publicly. However, on Friday the president pulled back. 'I met with the DOJ (Department of Justice) concerning the declassification of various UNREDACTED documents,' Mr Trump announced on Twitter. 'They agreed to release them but stated that so doing may have a perceived negative impact on the Russia probe. Mr Trump (pictured) ordered documents related to the FBI's Russian investigation, including text messages from FBI figures Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, be declassified and released publicly Mr Papadopoulos, sentenced to 14 days' jail for lying to the FBI, has repeatedly targeted Downer in Twitter tirades (pictured, above) 'Also, key Allies' called to ask not to release.' The May, 2016, drinks between Mr Papadopoulos and Mr Downer in London has been credited as the spark that started the FBI probe into Russian influence into the November, 2016, presidential election. Mr Papadopoulos, according to the New York Times, told Mr Downer over gin and tonics at the Kensington Wine Rooms he was told Russia had political dirt on Mr Trump's presidential rival, Hillary Clinton. Mr Downer later told The Australian newspaper Mr Papadopoulos mentioned at the drinks 'the Russians might use material that they have on Hillary Clinton in the lead-up to the election, which may be damaging'. Mr Downer said he passed the highly-sensitive information back to Canberra 'the following day or a day or two'. Mr Downer later told The Australian newspaper Mr Papadopoulos mentioned at the drinks 'the Russians might use material that they have on Hillary Clinton (pictured) in the lead-up to the election, which may be damaging' How the information was then transferred to the FBI or US intelligence agencies is not clear. Mr Papadopoulos, however, says he has no memory of saying it to Mr Downer. He has called out Australia and Britain for setting him up. He repeated it after Trump's statement on Friday. 'After reports are finally out that the British and Australian governments were actively spying and trying to sabotage the Trump campaign, those two governments called the president to ask for him not to declassify any FISA documents,' Mr Papadopoulos wrote on Twitter. 'Strange.' NRL commentators have been quick to rip into Sam Newman's bizarre attire at Friday night's NRL final. Newman was seen celebrating Melbourne's Storm victory over Cronulla in the home side's change rooms, with the post-match commentary team taking aim at the media personality. His upper-body would have fit in with the crowd, sporting a Storm jersey and a black scarf to brave Melbourne's chilly weather. But below the waist Newman showed off his legs, wearing shorts and a pair of loafers, causing James Bracey, Paul Vautin, Andrew Johns and Johnathan Thurston to poke fun at the controversial AFL Footy Show host. Sam Newman has been filmed wearing shorts and loafers after Melbourne's NRL finals win at AAMI Park 'Mate, look at those legs,' Johns quipped during Channel Nine's post-match coverage. 'Look at the creepers on the shoes. Look at those things. Wouldn't want to pop out of them.' The team chose to ignore the black leather glove Newman was wearing. The footage cut to Newman at around 11pm, when the weather in Melbourne was only 8C. Ex-NRL player Andrew Johns (pictured) was quick to poke fun at Sam Newman for his attire The NRL commentary team poked fun at the controversial AFL Footy Show host for wearing shorts in Melbourne when it was only 8C Vautin chose to support his ex-coverage partner, telling the rest of the team that Newman would wear shorts in the middle of winter if he wanted to. 'He doesn't care because he's a shorts man. He's 72. He's in great shape. He's a lovely man.' Vautin supported his mate, saying it had been a pleasure to work with him when the two crossed paths during Channel Nine's Thursday night coverage of both the AFL and NRL Footy Shows. 'I love him. He's a champion. Seriously, he is one of the most watchable people on Australian television and has been for 25 years now.' Controversial Footy Show host Sam Newman (third from left), 72, has quit the television program after 25 years, making the shock announcement during Thursday evening's show But on Thursday night's AFL Footy Show, Newman revealed his 25th year could be his last on Australian television screens. 'It's opportune that I end my association with this show and the network on the off-chance that this is the final show that we do,' Newman said. The AFL Footy Show's ratings have plummeted in 2018, competing with Channel Seven's rival show The Front Bar. During a nearly ten-minute-long monologue, Newman signed off with: 'I want to thank you very much for putting up with me or enjoying me.' Some fans took to social media to thank Sam Newman for his 25 years on the Footy Show A fly-in fly-out Colombian burglary gang which targets luxury homes owned by people of an Asian background have stolen more than $10million in cash, jewellery and designer goods. Police say more than 100 burglaries have taken place in Melbourne suburbs including Hawthorn, Kew, Brighton and South Yarra in the span of one year. The ruthless burglars, who work in teams are able to break into luxury homes, normally owned by Asians, by strategically disabling security alarms and CCTV cameras, while one alerts others through a radio. Police say more than 100 burglaries have taken place in Melbourne suburbs including Hawthorn, Kew, Brighton and South Yarra in the span of one year The alleged mass raids were carried out through vehicles bought on the internet registered under the name of the previous owner. The crime gangs are alleged to have access to a database where they are able to track Asian names, which are linked to their home addresses. The Colombian gangs, which are rampant worldwide, usually target Asian homes for their reputation of wealth. 'They aim for high-end stuff, it's not your run-of-the-mill burglary,' Bayside Detective Sergeant Andrew Collison told the Herald Sun. Investigators are looking into whether the mass of stolen goods are being shipped back to Colombia (stock image) An exhaustive search have led police officers to arrest two alleged members of the burglary gang outside a Kew property on August 31. Two Colombian natives Angela Viviana Rojas Cubillos and Andrea Del Jimenez Rojas, both 33, have been charged and were bailed to appear at the Melbourne Magistrates' Court on October 22. The woman arrested is understood to only have had a visitor's visa. Investigators are looking into whether the mass of stolen goods are being shipped back to Colombia. Detectives are investigating whether the same Colombian burglary gang were responsible for the dozens of Melbourne break-ins of luxurious stolen goods in the past three years, including a $2million robbery at Brighton property in April this year. Detective Sergeant Andrew Collison said Colombian burglary gangs were a global phenomenon. The head of the federal disaster response agency used government vehicles without proper authorization, but will not lose his job over it, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said Friday. Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator William 'Brock' Long had been under investigation by the Homeland Security Department's watchdog over possibly misusing government vehicles to travel to his home in Hickory, North Carolina. Word leaked of the investigation just as Hurricane Florence was poised to make landfall earlier this month. FEMA Administrator William 'Brock' Long had been under investigation by the Homeland Security Department's watchdog over possibly misusing government vehicles The investigation was about Long using government cars for personal travel from Washington, DC, to his North Carolina home on weekends. (He's pictured here with Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen on September 19) Politico reported that the investigation had been launched into Long's routine use of government-issued Chevrolet Suburbans to travel from Washington, DC, to his home in North Carolina. Nielsen said in a statement Friday that there had been a longstanding practice to transport FEMA administrators in government vehicles to ensure they could remain connected during a crisis. But despite this practice, use of government vehicles for home-to-work travel was not officially authorized, and that practice was eliminated in April. Nielsen said the report by Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General also found Long used government vehicles for non-official reasons. Following the investigation, Long (center) has agreed to reimburse the government for the use of the cars, but a dollar amount has not been revealed yet Unlike others who've misused government property, Long will keep his job She said they spoke about the problems and Long agreed to reimburse the government, though it wasn't clear how much money that might be. She said she directed the department to review policy on home-to-work transportation problems, assess communication requirements at FEMA so officials can be best connected during disasters, and to review of and training regarding proper use of government vehicles. 'We had a productive conversation where we discussed my expectations regarding the agency's use of government vehicles going forward,' Nielsen said in a statement. 'The administrator acknowledged that mistakes were made, and he took personal responsibility.' 'I take seriously the unauthorized or inappropriate use of Government resources by any DHS employee and I appreciate the work of the OIG in thoroughly completing their investigation,' Nielsen also said in the statement, according to Politico. Former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, resigned in July after allegations of massive security spending, first-class flights and a sweetheart condo lease The inspector general's report has not been made public. The House Oversight Committee is also looking into the allegations and has asked Long to turn over to the committee all documents related to the trips by October 1, including whether his staff was put up in hotels paid for by taxpayer dollars. The inspector general's office has turned the review over to federal prosecutors to determine whether any criminal charges are warranted, according to a person familiar with the probe. It's not uncommon for an inspector general to refer cases so federal prosecutors can determine whether charges are warranted, and it doesn't mean he'll be charged with a crime. The person was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter and requested anonymity. In the days after Florence struck, Long said he was not focused on the investigation, and instead was working to help the region get back on its feet after the devastation. More than 40 have died and rising floodwaters cut off roads and drowned livestock. In a statement Friday, Long said he accepted full responsibility. 'The secretary and I are taking corrective action to prevent such mistakes from happening in the future,' he said. 'I remain committed to the critical mission of FEMA helping people before, during and after disasters.' Long has been head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency since June 2017, presiding over a particularly grueling hurricane season that included Irma, Harvey and Maria, plus wildfires in California. The response to Maria has been heavily criticized and Long has said FEMA learned lessons on how to better prepare for this year's storms. Other Trump administration officials have lost their jobs over ethics issues related to travel, but they involved more outsized allegations. The former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, resigned in July after allegations of massive security spending, first-class flights and a sweetheart condo lease. A transgender Loose Women star has lashed out at a male bank director who occasionally dresses as a woman for accepting a place on a list of the Top 100 Women in Business. India Willoughby, who was the first woman in the world to front an all-female talk show, has lashed out at Philip Bunce - who works at Credit Suisse. She said: As a transsexual woman with a recognised medical condition, who fights for credibility every day, who fights myths every day, whos undergone lengthy surgery, whose life was unbearable in the wrong body, I find this story an insult. 'Transgender has become totally meaningless. The bank director as Philip (right) and as Pippa (left). His appearance on the Financial Times & Her-oes Champions of Women list has been met with criticism with some labeling it a 'a mockery of women India Willoughby (pictured), 51, has hit out at Mr Bunce following his award. She became the first woman in the world to front and all-female talk show Pippa Bunce (middle) talking to Mastercard about the 'importance of authenticity'. The bank director claims to split his time 'fifty-fifty' between Pippa and Philip Mr Bunce claims to be gender fluid and non-binary and will split his time fifty-fifty between Pippa and Philip - occasionally dressing in a wig and dress. But his appearance on the Financial Times & Her-oes Champions of Women in Business list has been branded insulting by those who think occasionally dressing as a woman is not enough to qualify. Mr Bunce, who worked his way up through the company as a man a company which typically pays its male employees more only started cross dressing at work four years ago. Instead of appearing on the male equivalent list of top 100 people in business however, he has chosen to appear on the female. This has led Kiri Tunks, co-founder of Womans Place UK, to speak out. In an interview with The Times, she said: This makes a mockery of women and their achievements and begs the question does Bunce simultaneously feature in top 100 male executives and if not, what were his particular achievements as a woman to merit inclusion in the female list? While LGBT activist Kristina Harrison, who was born male but transitioned 20 years ago, labelled Mr Bunces appearance on the list as insulting. Pippa Bunce (pictured) receiving an award at the British LGBT awards. The most recent award Mr Bunce accepted has been met with widespread criticism however Mr Bunce spoke out at the time of winning the award, and wrote on LinkedIn that he was humbled to have received it. He said: It was a fantastic night with so many inspirational and aspirational people, groups and networks who are all making such an impressive difference, I was truly humbled to be with them all. Having so many sincere and genuine friends made it a very special night indeed and to receive an award amongst other amazing individuals such as Sir Richard Branson, Laverne Cox, Suzie Green, John Bishop and many others was incredible. Credit Suisse took to Twitter to praise Mr Bunce who has been affectionately referred to as Pips - for appearing on the list. It wrote: Congratulations to Pips Bunce on being listed on the Top 100 Female Executives list in the 2018. The post, however, has attracted a considerable number of replies many of which criticise the executive for accepting the position. Commenting on the post Gin wrote: Congratulations to the 99 women who made the top 100 and commiserations to the 101st whose place in the top 100 was stolen by a man who occasionally wears a dress. Pips Brice, who is also known as Philip Brice, is head of global markets technology core engineering integration components at Credit Suisse Mr Bunce has received criticism for his acceptance of the award, but not everyone has been quite so critical. Jason Shaw, writing on Twitter, said: This is an important distinction and a bold step in the direction of gender parity.' Pippa Bunce (pictured) said she was 'humbled' to receive the award and is 'proud of making progress towards all forms of gender diversity' The bank director as Philip (right) and as Pippa (left). Credit Suisse took to Twitter to praise their employee for the award and Mr Bunce said he was 'humbled' to receive it and that 'progress' is being made to all forms of gender diversity and equality Helen Barrett thought similarly, writing: That's not a woman, it's a man who stole an award from a woman. Not everyone was sceptical of the businessmans appearance on the list however. Jason Shaw, also writing on Twitter, said: This is an important distinction and a bold step in the direction of gender parity. More and more, we are starting to understand that gender lives on a spectrum. By recognizing this gender fluid individual, the list and Credit Suisse meaningfully challenge gender bias. Thanks. Mr Bunce appeared in 32nd place on the list while Brenda Trenowden - the head of financial institutions for AMZ in Europe appeared first. Jayne-Anne Gadhia, the chief executive of Virgin Money, appeared in second place while Melanie Richards, the deputy chair of KPMG, appeared in third. When approached for comment by The Times, Mr Bunce declined to comment but Credit Suisse said it was 'proud to be an inclusive employer'. Advertisement This is the heart-warming moment a protective mother panda takes her baby by the scuff of the neck as he made his debut to the world. Mother Long Long kept a watchful eye over the newest member to Chimelong Safari park in Guangzhou, China, as the bleary eyed two-month old, explored his new surroundings on Thursday. As the cautious mother made sure baby Long Zai didn't get into any trouble or go wandering too far she was filmed picking up her baby with her mouth and keeping him from harms way. Baby Long Zai (pictured above) made his first public appearance on September 20 to crowds of people at Chimelong Safari park in Guangzhou, China The little cub (above), who weighs just 6lbs, was born on July 12 to mother Long Long at the safari park in the Guangzhou province Footage captures the moment his mother carries him by the scruff of the neck with her mouth and ensures he doesn't get up to any mischief The mother panda was later seen holding her newborn to her chest and giving him a warm hug in front of an enthusiastic crowd at the safari park. The little cub, who weighs just 6lbs, was born in the capital of south China's Guangdong Province on July 12 and zookeepers say he is 'growing well'. The safari park is also home to the female panda Juxiao and her rare triplet panda cubs, who were born on July 29 2014 and were said to be the only panda triplets that have ever survived. During the video footage she is also seen cuddling her newborn and cleaning her two-month-old in front of crowds at the safari park The panda, native to central China, symbolise a vulnerable species in the country and according to the last census by wildlife charity WWF in 2014 there were only 1,864 giant pandas alive in the wild In July, captive bred giant panda Meng Meng gave birth to the first twin female cubs of the year in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province. Native to central China, Panda's typically live in temperate forest and have come to symbolise a vulnerable species in the country. Considered a national treasure in China, the last census by wildlife charity WWF in 2014 found there were 1,864 giant pandas alive in the wild. In the past decade, giant panda numbers have risen by 17 per cent Australian rescuers are attempting to save a solo yachtsman who is stranded 3000km out at sea. Indian naval officer Abhilash Tomy, 39, was competing in the 2018 Golden Globe Race. Competitors are required to complete a 30,000-mile solo circumnavigation of the world. Mr Tomy's rescue could take days and authorities are currently battling to reach the remote waters where tracking signals have located his yacht 3000km southwest of Perth. He last sent a text message of distress on Friday evening reading 'ROLLED. DISMASTED. SEVERE BACK INJURY. CANNOT GET UP.' The skipper has not been heard from since. Australian authorities are coordinating the rescue of solo yachtsman Abhilash Tomy (pictured) who has become stranded 3,000 km south-west from Perth Mr Tomy set sail from Les Sables-d'Olonne, France on July 1 in his yacht 'Thuriya' (pictured) Race organisers are working closely with the Australian Rescue Co-ordination Center in Canberra to reach the Indian naval officer. Australian authorities are also working with French Maritime Rescue Centre based on Reunion Island in the South Indian Ocean which is attempting to source a vessel that might assist. Other Golden Globe Race competitors have been alerted to the situation and may be able to check on Mr Tomy's yacht. In particular Estonian skipper Uku Randmaa is within range, some 450 miles to the west of Thuriya. He is now sailing towards Thuriya. The Indian Navy have tweeted saying that they have diverted stealth frigate INS Satpura in the Southern Indian Ocean to join the rescue mission. Race Chairman Dom McIntyre issued a statement this evening, saying that Mr Tomy was most likely 'incapacitated' considering that he has not made any further contact. 'The fact that Abhilash has been unable to make contact via text or sat phone, nor set off his emergency beacon is unusual and suggests that he remains incapacitated. Competitors set sail from Les Sables-d'Olonne, France. Mr Tomy has become stranded some 3,000 km southwest of Perth Mr Tomy last sent a text message of distress on Friday evening reading 'ROLLED. DISMASTED. SEVERE BACK INJURY. CANNOT GET UP.' 'The only link is the tracking signal we are receiving from the yacht, but the batteries have a limited life,' Mr McIntyre said. 'We are very grateful to all these international organisations for mobilising their resources so quickly and for the lead role taken by MRCC in Canberra.' A tracking signal shows that Tomy's yacht Thuriyais is positioned some 1,900 nautical miles south-west of Perth at the extreme limit of immediate rescue range. The race started on 1 July 2018 when competitors set sail from Les Sables-d'Olonne, France. Naval Officer Abhilash Tomy is the first Indian to complete the difficult challenge of a solo, unassisted, non-stop circumnavigation under sail. He has been known to endure extreme circumstances during prior voyages, including facing a shortage of drinking water a third of the way into a journey from the Indian Ocean to the Cape of Good Hope in Africa. A woman allegedly murdered at sea on her honeymoon was scared of her husband and 'afraid to get home', text messages have revealed. Isabella Hellman went missing in a catamaran off the coast of Cuba in May last year while her husband Lewis Bennett, of Poole, Dorset, was rescued in a life raft. Bennett, a British-Australian sailor, was charged with murder in the United States where the FBI accuses him of sinking the 37-foot vessel in a bid to inherit his wife's estate. In texts sent to her husband Ms Hellman said she 'found an angry person' when she came home and told Bennett he did not 'respect her any more', The Times reports. Isabella Hellman (right) went missing off the coast of Cuba in May last year while her husband Lewis Bennett (left), of Poole, Dorset, was rescued in a life raft One of the texts, included in court documents, said: 'Sometimes I can be a pain in the a** and more but you need to change your attitude... you make me crazy shouting, yelling, swearing... YOU ARE PUSHING ME AWAY.' 'This morning I was afraid to get home with the coffee but I walked in and I was right, I found an angry person, this is very sad.' Another, months before Ms Hellman's disappearance, said: 'If you dont like me or love me anymore let us fix this asap because is very pathetic the way you treated me all the time.' The messages reportedly reveal that Colombian-born Ms Hellman noticed a change in her husband's behaviour after the birth of their child, Emelia, in 2016. Bennett is said to have thought the baby had come at the 'wrong time' and was 'super angry' about the spelling of the child's name. Prosecutors claim the couple's 'marital strife' was a motive for the alleged murder. The messages reportedly reveal that Colombian-born Ms Hellman (pictured) noticed a change in her husband's behaviour after the birth of their child, Emelia, in 2016 'Hellmans murder would remove the marital strife from the defendants life, allow the defendant to live his life as he pleased, and would enable him to inherit money from Hellmans estate,' a prosecutor said. Bennett would allegedly vanish from the family hope in Delray Beach, Florida, without warning and is said to have had a 'controlling nature'. If Ms Hellman is presumed dead as her body has never been found he would inherit her condo and the contents of her bank account. Prosecutors also allege she may have discovered he was in possession of gold and silver coins stolen from his former employer in St Maarten, which could have made her an accomplice in the smuggling crime. Earlier video footage was released of Bennett having a heated row with his partner's family who were heard shouting: 'You killed my sister'. In texts sent to her husband Ms Hellman (pictured) said she 'found an angry person' when she came home and told Bennett he did not 'respect her any more' Bennett, a British-Australian sailor, was charged with murder in the United States where the FBI accuses him of sinking the 37-foot catamaran (pictured) in a bid to inherit his wife's estate In the video Bennett attempts to retrieve his laptop and other items from the family's house, with Emelia in the car, when he is confronted by Ms Hellman's relatives. Bennett was smuggling rare stolen coins worth $38,480 (29,450) when he was rescued off the coast of Cuba and is serving a seven-month jail term after he admitted transporting them. He made an SOS call in the early hours of May 15, 2017, saying the boat Surf Into Summer was sinking and his 41-year-old wife was missing. Bennett claimed the catamaran struck an unknown object and when he came up from the cabin he did not see Hellman and the vessel was taking on water, prosecutors said. He was airlifted alone from a life raft and said he had been awoken by a thud having left his wife in charge of the boat the night before. The search for Ms Hellman was called off three days later. Their daughter Emelia is believed to be living with his parents in England. Bennett is due to face trial for second-degree murder in December. A talented 20-year-old DJ who was stabbed to death at an 18th birthday party in Hackney last night has been named locally An 18th birthday party that ended in the murder of a DJ was gatecrashed after being posted on social media, a friend of the victim said. The talented 20-year-old man, named only by his stage name of 'Nana Banger', was stabbed outside the house in Stamford Hill, Hackney, east London, following a fight and then ran back inside. A friend of the dead man said more than 100 revellers turned up uninvited to the party after it was posted on social media. The party turned into a 'riot' with people 'running screaming down the street', the witness said. Police were called shortly after midnight and the man, who has not been officially named, was pronounced dead four hours later. Some revellers even recorded the last moments of the victims life before putting clips of the aftermath of the stabbing on Snapchat. One Twitter user who said they had seen the footage wrote: Man was dying and everyone backed there [sic] phones to record it ... I seen the snaps of everyone turning up then next mans just lying there dying. A young woman also tweeted: How are you posting a video of someone dying? Posting a video like that. 'Who actually raised you? Another appalled girl wrote: Tired of this generation that were living in... how the f*** do you back out your phone and record some dying? DJ Nana Banger is believed to have been performing when he was attacked. The man, who is being referred to by his stage name DJ Nana Banger, was rushed to hospital after police were called to a fight in Wilderton Road, Stamford Hill Nana Banger, who was believed to be friends with Fulham and Manchester United midfielder Timothy Fosu-Mensah, died from stab injuries at 4.30am this morning after being rushed to hospital, the Met Police say. A 17-year-old also suffered stab wounds at the party, but his condition was described as not life-threatening by police The third victim, a 24-year-old man, was found with a head injury and was taken to hospital with non life-threatening injuries. A neighbour earlier today said the birthday boy's mum told her it was the DJ who died. Jordan Henry, a friend of the victim said: 'It was an 18th birthday party of one of my friends and the invitation just went round to too many people and over 100 people showed up. 'It was posted on social media and everyone showed up. 'The neighbours said they saw two boys fighting outside and then one of them who was stabbed ran back inside. Nana Banger, who was believed to be friends with Fulham midfielder Timothy Fosu-mensah, died from stab injuries at 4.30am, police say 'Once everyone knew what it was they started running and screaming down the street, it was like a riot. It was crazy.' Police extended the cordon around the house in Wilderton Road this morning as they continued to search the area after removing a car. The DJ posted a video last year walking down London's Oxford Street with Mr Fosu-Mensah, who is currently on loan from Manchester United to the west London club. Today the Dutch footballer posted a still from the video on his Instagram page, writing: 'RIP to you my brother...love U may god bless U @nanabanger' with two crying emojis and a rose underneath. The victim appears to talk and joke with another young footballer, dressed in a Manchester United Soccer School shirt, in a previous posting. Young people on Twitter have been paying their respects to the DJ. One tweet read: 'Rest in peace to one of the humblest guy on road man we gonna miss you nana banger.' A vehicle marked as evidence being removed from outside a property on Wilderton Road, Stamford Hill, where a man in his 20s was found stabbed to death following a fight at a flat And some have claimed partygoers filmed the fatal stabbing and posted videos to Snapchat. A woman who tweeted 'RIP Nana' also said: 'Tired of this generation that we're living in.. how the f*** do you back out your phone and record some dying..' One Twitter user said: 'Man was dying and everyone backed there phones to record. 'Word I seen the snaps of everyone turning up then next mans just lying there dying.' Another posted: 'One of my boys was DJ'ing and snapped Nana before everything turned f*****d.' Several have described the 18th birthday party last night as a 'motive' - an event that people post publicly about on Snapchat by putting 'motive' as a caption on the video. A neighbour said earlier today the man murdered at the 18th birthday party next door was DJing at the event. Officers outside a property after a second victim, 17, was taken to hospital with a stab injury A total of 107 people from London have been murdered or killed since the start of 2018 The family of the birthday boy were said to be 'devastated' that the party ended in tragedy. A teenager, 17, was also found with stab injuries however he is not thought to be in a serious condition, the Met said. The attack came just hours after a boy, 17, who is reportedly in a critical condition, was rushed to hospital after a stabbing in Limehouse, east London. The road was cordoned off today with police officers stationed outside the red brick property in an upmarket area of Hackney. A car was pictured being towed away from the scene in Stamford Hill after being marked as evidence this morning. Forensic teams have been seen entering the property just before 11am. No arrests have been made and detectives from the Homicide and Major Crime Command are investigating Andrew Packer Detective Chief Inspector Andrew Packer from the Homicide and Major Crime Command said it was a 'senseless loss of a young life to knife crime' and that the three injured men were all at the 'large house party'. He added: 'Another family has been left devastated by the senseless loss of a young life to knife crime, and we're doing all we can to bring those responsible to justice. 'What we know so far is that all three of these victims appear to have been attending a large house party at the address on Wilderton Road. 'I want to hear from anyone who was at that party, even if they didn't witness the assaults, they may have some information that could help us piece together the course of events that led to this tragedy.' No arrest at this stage have been made, Scotland Yard said. A spokesperson for the Met Police said: 'Police were called at 12.50am on Saturday, 22 September, to a fight at a flat in Wilderton Road, Stamford Hill, N16. 'Officers attended and found two men suffering stab injuries. 'A 20-year-old man was taken to hospital, where he was pronounced dead at around 4.30am. 'His next of kin have been informed. Formal identification and a post-mortem examination will be arranged in due course. The victim's next of kin have been informed. Formal identification and a post-mortem examination will be arranged in due course 'The second victim a 17-year-old male was also taken to hospital suffering a stab injury. His condition is not believed to be serious. 'Detectives from the Homicide and Major Crime Command are investigating. 'There has been no arrests at this early stage.' His death comes just days after 25 year old Ali Al Har was stabbed to death in nearby Islington, north east London. Two men have now been arrested over his murder. Robbers have been kidnapping Freshers students in Manchester city centre in an Audi A6 before forcing them to withdraw cash and transfer thousands of pounds online. Police have received four reports of innocent members of the public, some of them students new to the city, being lured into a high-end motor this week. Some were forced to make online transfers of 3,000 from their bank accounts before being let out of the car, police said. Others were driven to petrol stations, forced to withdraw cash, fill the car up with petrol, then get more cash out after midnight. Thieves are targeting Freshers students who've just started uni (Freshers pictured last week) Officers stopped the car on Lloyd Street North near to Denmark Road Sanctuary Students halls On Friday, police foiled another robbery, discovering a 19-year-old kidnap victim inside a car matching the description of the dark Audi A6. Officers in GMP's Tactical Vehicle Intercept Unit spotted the car while on patrol in the city centre in the early hours of before giving chase. Officers stopped the car on Lloyd Street North near to Denmark Road Sanctuary Students halls of residence. Inside the car, they discovered the victim, who had been picked up and driven away from the city centre. Four men - aged, 25, 23, 18 and 19 - were arrested on suspicion of robbery. Police then carried out raids on four houses in south Manchester. Officers found 'large quantity of ammunition'. A fifth man, 29, was arrested on suspicion of possessing prohibited ammunition. All the men are in police custody for questioning. All four victims were kidnapped in the city centre between Wednesday, September 19 and Friday, September 21. People commenting on social media said the problem is nothing new and thugs often wait outside popular night time spots such as Factory and swoop on unsuspecting students. Mandy Egerton Dawson said on Facebook: 'Such a Disgrace, low life oxygen thieves who think they're entitled and can not get off there lazy backsides and do anything for themselves.' Officers discovered a victim, who was picked up and driven to Lloyd St from the city centre Manchester Police pictured outside popular night spot Revolution during Freshers last week Gaynor Marley said: 'Its been going on for weeks not just now, they are targeting people as they come out of Factory, they wait for them in the side streets stay together people safety in numbers don't leave on your own.' Detective Constable Natalie McDonald of GMP's City of Manchester team said: 'Innocent members of the public, some of them students new to Manchester, have been victims of tricksters who then kidnapped them and forced them to hand over their money. 'Last night, thanks to some excellent work by the TVIU, four people were arrested, during what we believe was another robbery. 'When a person is a victim of such robbery, they can be left feeling scared to go out and can lose trust in everyone. 'This week we have many new students coming to live in Manchester, and it is disappointing that some of their first memories of our city is that they were victims of crime. 'I would like to reassure everyone that we are doing all that we can to prevent criminals from taking advantage, we have strong links with the universities and the councils and we have officers on dedicated patrols as part of the Student Safe campaign.' Grim details are emerging of British tourists in medical centres and on drips after suffering from mystery illnesses while on a Thomas Cook holiday with some now set to sue. A number of disgruntled tourists have contacted the Mail Online following reports of people getting sick at Hotel Playa Pesquero in Cuba. Andrea Johnson, 43 and from Plymouth, is one such person and has described feeling utterly humiliated while at the resort as she suffered from severe vomiting and diarrhoea. Andrea Johnson, 43, and her partner Bevan both became ill while on holiday at Hotel Playa Pesquero in Cuba Caroline Kirton-Darling and her daughter were on their first holiday away together. But their experience at Hotel Playa Pesquero left little to be desired Recalling the speed with which the illness took hold, she said: For the final few days of the holiday we decided to upgrade to the luxury end of the resort and thats where it started. Wed been careful with food and drink choices following the typical advice of no ice, no rice and no raw fish. Id carried hand sanitiser everywhere with me and we used it. No sooner had we arrived in the luxury end of the resort, we had a swim, a sun bathe and then dinner in their classier' restaurant. At about 1am the next morning I started to suffer gripy tummy pains and was tossing and turning. My husband who is a seasoned traveller and works overseas, just told me I was imagining it. But within minutes I was violently sick and to quote the film bridesmaids, it was coming out the other end like lava. Tourists with Thomas Cook have reported falling ill at the Hotel Playa Pesquero in Cuba - while other tourists have also taken to TripAdvisor to complain Ms Johnson, who now hopes to make a claim against the hotel along with a number of others, had travelled to Cuba on June 18 for seven days with her husband Bevan, 45. It didnt take long for her husband to also come down with the illness. She said: Within twenty minutes my husbands vomiting began. And so began a night of vomit and diarrhoea and just one toilet between us. After what felt like an eternity and feeling very weak and shaky, we called the concierge to take us to the medical centre. Draped on a buggy in a hotel dressing gown I can honestly say I have never felt so ill in all my life. Ms Johnson and her husband were given saline, anti-biotics and other medications with her husband even needing to have an injection. After five hours at the centre they returned to their room, but the illness did not cease. She said: Staff came in at regular intervals to change our linens, clean the floors of vomit and diarrhoea and the bathroom, replace the water and check on us. We did not eat a meal again at the resort. Even when they returned home, the illness did not end. Ms Johnson said: We remained ill at home for the best part of four weeks. We continued with a course of antibiotics and were resigned to the fact that whatever we ate and drank we would be seeing it again within a few hours. She never found out what caused the illness, but asked what it might have been she suggested food poisoning of salmonella. Ms Johnson has now added herself to a long line of people threatening to sue the resort and has contacted lawyers Irwin Mitchell along with 37 others hoping to make a claim. One reviewer from Windsor (pictured) recalled having to stay close to his hotel room while at the resort - just in case he needed to go to the toilet again Another hoping to make a claim is Caroline Kirton-Darling. She had traveled with her daughter to the hotel. It was the first time the both of them had been away together as just a two. Recalling the trip, she said: 'Literally the first full day we were there we both became ill, my daughter in particular. 'We had eaten in the main buffet restaurant and the food hygiene left a lot to be desired.' The duo had traveled to the hotel on July 16 and were due to stay for two weeks. Ms Kirton-Darling, continued: 'Both my daughter and I had excruciating stomach cramps which lead to diarrhea which lead to us being room bound for several days. 'My daughter was so distressed the whole time we were away as she couldnt go far from a toilet. 'Even when we could leave the room we couldnt go far from a toilet and had this diarrhea for the full duration of our stay.' Ms Kirton-Darling took this picture of the pool at the hotel in Cuba before falling ill and spending days in her bed Ms Kirton-Darling has filled out a survey informing Thomas Cook of her experience, but is still waiting to hear back. She said: 'This was supposed to be the holiday of a lifetime for me and my daughter and it was completely ruined by illness.' She is now also hoping to contact lawyers Irwin Mitchell alongside the 37 others. The firm launched previously successful claims in 2014. In a statement given to The Sun, Lawyer Jatinder Paul said: 'We are advising a growing group of holidaymakers.' Some of the recent claims report days of sickness and eventual trips to the GP. Stephen Denham, 57, and wife Kathleen, 59, spent a good portion of their break in June vomiting. Mr Denham, of Radcliffe, Gtr Manchester, who was put on a drip told The Sun: 'It's very worrying to see there have been similar issues in the past.' Before the ordeal: Matthew and Leigh Hall on the beach in Cuba One such person was Leigh Hall, 29 and from Bristol, who spent 3,750 on a dream wedding with her partner Matthew Hall, 29, at the hotel in August. But just hours after tying the knot in a romantic beach ceremony, she was barricaded in her hotel bathroom with diarrhoea and a fever. The optical assistant then spent her honeymoon bedridden, unable to see her new husband or their baby. She said: I had diarrhoea and I was vomiting. My temperature was high and I kept shaking. 'Eventually, in the early hours, my mum and dad collected me and we went to the local medical centre in a buggy. I was put on a drip for three hours. The treatment left us with a 600 bill which we are still trying to claim back with our travel insurance. She added: The doctor in Cuba never told me what I had, but that [salmonella] is what the others at the resort had. 'It wasnt just the sickness and the bad belly I still didnt feel right for days after I got home. I lost nine and a half pounds in that time. The optical assistant spent her honeymoon bedridden, unable to see her new husband or their baby (pictured on a drip in hospital) Other tourists have been taking to TripAdvisor to report similar symptoms. One TripAdvisor reviewer, who goes by the name gpt92018 and is from Windsor, claimed he was bedridden for ten days. He wrote two weeks ago: 'We had our evening meal in the buffet restaurant which was not up to a 4 * standard, and then returned to our new room. 'My son then complained of feeling ill some two hours later and spent the night on the toilet with a very upset tummy. 'Later my wife then also became ill with a severe upset tummy and started taking Imodium which did not help I then also became ill. 'Eventually my wife and I were confined to the room as we dare not venture too far.' It wasn't just British tourists who reported getting ill while at the resort. This reviewer from Canada experienced similar issues over the summer One reviewer recalls witnessing a child vomit right next to her dining table during her stay at the resort Another reviewer reported a 'major outbreak of food poisoning' at the resort during their stay Eventually the reviewer claims he had to be taken to the GP and was given an injection and put on a drip. He said: 'This is the very first time that I and my family have ever been sick whilst away, it was not travelers tummy or poor hygiene nor excessive drinking. 'It was something picked up at the resort which cost me my two weeks holiday and a lot off money apart from the family 'together' time which is irreplaceable.' Another reviewer, called Melanie D, claims three or four ambulances came to the resort while she was staying there following reports of people getting sick. Recalling the scene, she said: 'Everyone I spoke to was affected, three or four ambulances I saw in the first week taking people to hospital to be put on a drip . 'One child ran out of the beach restaurant and was sick right at the side of my table. It was rife. 'I have never been so scared to eat and never been so hungry on an all inclusive holiday.' A reviewer from Manchester, called bigduck554, reported a 'major outbreak of food poisoning' during his stay at the resort. Writing on TripAdvisor, he said: 'Everybody you spoke to had been affected. 'I am sure the only reason we were not seriously ill was that I carried my own hand gel that we all used all the time and we only ate a very limited amount of food.' Not everyone has been unimpressed with the resort recently, however. One reviewer from Hampshire, named nickys111, said: 'The staff are fantastic and do everything they can to help you and make your holiday special.' While another, who also left the resort a five out of five rating, said: 'The staff and food were excellent. 'The hotel was spotless every member of staff made you welcome. There was no problem getting served. 'It was very clean everywhere you walked. It was so good Im going to book to go back next year'. John Cooper, 69, and wife Susan, 63, (pictured) died while on a Thomas Cook holiday in Egypt last month and although their post-mortems were 'inconclusive' Egyptian authorities maintain it was due to E.Coli bacteria John Cooper, 69, and wife Susan, 63, died while on a Thomas Cook holiday in Egypt last month. Although their post-mortems were 'inconclusive' Egyptian authorities are maintaining that their deaths were caused by E.Coli bacteria. Responding to the recent reports of sickness at the Cuba hotel, a Thomas Cook spokeswoman told Mail Online: 'We were aware of a small increase in illness reports from customers staying at the Playa Pesquero earlier this year. 'Our team worked closely with the hotel and extra measures were put in place to ensure there was a high standard of hygiene at all times and we continue to monitor this closely.' The New York truck driver accused of being drunk when Australian tourist Madison Lyden was killed riding a bike in Manhattan has appeared in court. Police alleged they found three empty beer cans inside Chairez's sanitation truck after Ms Lyden crashed into it while swerving to avoid an Uber driver who cut into a bicycle lane on August 10 along Central Park West. Felipe Chairez had his case in the New York Criminal Court on Friday adjourned to October 22. The New York truck driver accused of being drunk when Australian tourist Madison Lyden (pictured) was killed riding a bike in Manhattan has appeared in court Felipe Chairez (right) had his case in the New York Criminal Court on Friday adjourned to October 22 Chairez was arraigned on a misdemeanor charge of operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Chairez allegedly had a blood-alcohol level at the time of between .04 and .06. Commercial drivers in New York are prohibited from having a reading of .04 or higher. Ms Lyden's heartbroken parents in Tasmania and the NYPD wanted the Uber driver, Jose Peralta, charged, but Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance determined 'a gap in the law' meant he could not. A spokesperson for Mr Vance told the New York Post that state law did not allow for a criminal charge of a driver who has not made contact with other vehicles or people. Police alleged they found three empty beer cans inside Chairez's sanitation truck after Ms Lyden (pictured) crashed into it Labour's leadership will resist pressure to hold a second Brexit referendum, shadow chancellor John McDonnell (pictured) said Labour's leadership will resist grassroots pressure to commit to a second referendum on Brexit, shadow chancellor John McDonnell has said. Speaking on the eve of the party's annual conference in Liverpool, Mr McDonnell warned of the risk that a re-run vote could stoke far-right populism and xenophobia. More than 100 constituency parties and trade union branches have submitted bids for the referendum issue to be put to a vote in Liverpool. MPs and senior trade unionists are set to join a People's Vote march in the city on Sunday. But leader Jeremy Corbyn has resisted such calls, preferring to press for a general election if Theresa May is unable to get a Brexit deal through Parliament as many MPs expect. Mr McDonnell signalled the party's position in that event would be unchanged from last year's snap election. 'We would be in the same situation there, where we would be saying we're accepting that original vote, this is the sort of deal that we want,' he told The Guardian. 'The debate around the next manifesto will go on, but I really worry about another referendum. 'I'm desperately trying to avoid any rise of xenophobia that happened last time around, I'm desperately trying to avoid giving any opportunity to Ukip or the far right. I think there's the real risk of that. 'We're not ruling out a people's vote, but there's a real risk, and I think people need to take that into account when we're arguing for one.' The shadow chancellor also suggested the rail industry could be renationalised within five years under a Labour government. He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme it would be 'possible' to bring all franchises back under public control during a single term in office, amid reports he is planning a Public Ownership Unit within the Treasury to deal with renationalisations. Jeremy Corbyn (pictured with London mayor Sadiq Khan) has resisted calls for a second referendum, preferring to press for a general election if no Brexit deal is passed Mr Corbyn hopes to use the conference, held under the slogan 'Rebuilding Britain, for the many, not the few', to put behind him a difficult summer dominated by a bitter row over anti-Semitism. But while the leadership aims to shift the focus on to expected high-profile policy announcements on issues like housing and business, Brexit and party infighting are likely to make the headlines. The party's National Executive Committee (NEC) will meet on Saturday to discuss changes to leadership election rules, which left-wing activists claim could keep supporters of Mr Corbyn off the ballot. At the same time, the activist group Momentum which helped propel Mr Corbyn to the leadership is pushing for another rule change which could make it easier to de-select sitting MPs. It is likely to revive fears among critics of Mr Corbyn of a left-wing purge of the moderates - including some of his fiercest critics in the row over anti-Semitism. Labour has promised to put equality centre stage at its Women's Conference, taking place on Saturday a day ahead of the main gathering in Liverpool. Shadow women and equalities secretary Dawn Butler has unveiled plans to establish a standalone department for women and equalities with a minister at the Cabinet table in a future Labour government. Theresa May makes a statement on the Brexit negotiations in Downing Street on Friday At the Labour Women's Conference, Ms Butler will say equality should no longer be considered an 'afterthought'. She will say: 'So far we have seen seven different ministers for equality tagged on to four different departments and a budget that's nearly been halved. 'This proves the Tories are not taking equalities seriously. By establishing a Department for Women and Equalities, Labour will ensure equalities is the common thread running through its government. 'The next Labour government will put equality centre stage.' She will also announce plans to introduce a requirement for all employers to have a domestic abuse policy and provide 10 days' paid leave for victims, if Labour win power. 'Employers have a duty of care to employees experiencing domestic abuse and should put in place a range of workplace policies to help victims,' Ms Butler is expected to say. 'This crucial time will allow women to leave their abusive partners safely, get the help, protection and support they need, knowing their livelihood is secure. 'These 10 days could literally help save the lives of those women.' And Ms Butler will call for a 'localised' approach to tackling domestic abuse, with a 'national oversight mechanism to set quality standards for refuge provision and support'. Police are investigating a stabbing of a British man as he left a hairdresser's in the upmarket Costa del Sol resort of Puerto Banus near Marbella. The violent crime occurred ten days after a 35-year-old British man was shot, stabbed, beaten and given a Glasgow Smile close to the same area after being abducted by a gang of criminals over a drug deal. The torture victim was later identified as Craig Moran, jailed for 13 years for his part in a September 2003 armed raid on a jeweller's in Nottingham in which shop owner Marian Bates was killed. A 24-year-old man has been attacked in same area where a 35-year-old man was tortured and given a Glasgow smile after being abducted by a gang of criminals over a drug deal The victim of the latest incident has been identified as a 24-year-old man, although he has not been named at this stage. He was stabbed twice in the legs by an assailant who attacked him in the street without warning after getting out of a getaway car he fled in. The victim was rushed to Marbella's Costa del Sol Hospital, the same medical centre 35-year-old Moran was operated on after being left for dead in a roadside ditch in the early hours of September 9. The latest incident happened at around 6pm on Wednesday in the centre of Puerto Banus, near the Pyr Hotel which is popular with British holidaymakers. Craig Moran (left), who was attacked in Spain, was jailed in 2005 for his part in a robbery on a jewellery store in Nottingham in which Marian Bates (right) was killed The hairdresser's he had just left has not been identified. It is not yet clear if police believe the two violent crimes may be linked, although the lack of cooperation from both victims is understood to be hindering the investigations. No arrests have yet taken place in either case. The investigation into the first attack is being led by a specialised Costa del Sol National Police group called Udyco - which in English stands for 'Group Against Drugs and Organised Crime.' The second attack is being probed by Marbella National Police Station's UDEV group which investigates specialised and violent crime. The latest victim was rushed to Marbella's Costa del Sol Hospital (pictured), the same medical centre 35-year-old Moran was operated on after being left for dead in a roadside ditch Moran acted as the getaway driver and lookout in the raid on the Time Centre in Arnold in which Mrs Bates, 63, was shot dead as she shielded her daughter. He was jailed in 2005 after being found guilty of conspiring to rob the premises. Peter Williams, 19, was later found guilty of the murder and given life with a minimum of 22 years. The sadists who abducted the unnamed 35-year-old the weekend before last cut the tendons in his right hand as well as slashing him from the mouth up to the ears and leaving him with the infamous scar dubbed the Glasgow or Chelsea Smile. Allies of Jeremy Corbyn have 'emergency plans' in place in case he is suspended from Parliament over alleged undeclared trips abroad, it has been claimed. Labour figures are said to have drafted a clause for the party constitution which would prevent deputy leader Tom Watson changing party policy if he became caretaker leader. The Labour leader is said to be under fire over nine trips he allegedly failed to declare when he was a backbench MP. Party sources said Mr Corbyn's office was concerned about a suspension after Ian Paisley Jr was given a 30-day punishment over undeclared holidays in Sri Lanka, the Daily Telegraph reported. Allies of Jeremy Corbyn, pictured arriving at the Labour conference in Liverpool today, are claimed to have 'emergency plans' in place in case he is suspended from Parliament Mr Corbyn's trip to Tunisia in 2014, when he laid a wreath at a controversial ceremony at a Palestinian graveyard, is claimed to be one of the trips under investigation. His alleged undeclared visits are also said to include a trip to the West Bank and Israel in 2010 paid for by Middle East Monitor and the Friends of al-Aqsa. He is also claimed to have visited Lebanon in February 2011 in a visit sponsored by the Palestine Return Centre and the Council for European Palestinian Relations. MPs must declare overseas visits paid for by third parties under parliamentary rules. Tory MP Andrew Bridgen reported Mr Corbyn to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards saying that the Tunisia trip had not been declared in the register of members' interests. A source told the newspaper: 'Jeremy and the team are s*** scared of the idea of the suspension. It's a deep-rooted fear.' The Labour leader came under fire when pictures emerged of him laying a wreath near the graves of PLO terrorists behind the murders of Israeli athletes in Munich in 1972. Mr Corbyn said he had been paying his respects to those killed by an Israeli air strike on Palestine Liberation Organisation offices in Tunis in 1985. His office reportedly did not deny 'administrative errors' but rejected the claim that plans had been drawn up to deal with a suspension. Today Mr Corbyn arrived in Liverpool for his party's annual conference where Labour's Brexit policy is expected to dominate proceedings. Jeremy Corbyn arrives for a visit to the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool on Saturday morning ahead of Labour's annual conference which begins on Sunday Top Labour figures are said to have drafted a clause for the party constitution which would prevent deputy leader Tom Watson (pictured) changing policy if he became caretaker leader A Buddhist teacher who is considered the most famous after the Dalai Lama has been accused of sexually abusing his female followers and keeping a harem. Sogyal Rinpoche, 71, was for years adored and looked up to by many and his book The Tibetan Book Of Living And Dying sold more than three million copies. But behind his fame and influence lay a dark secret. The Tibetan is said to have surrounded himself with a harem of beautiful young women upon whom he would inflict sexual and emotional abuse. Sogyal Rinpoche (pictured), a Tibetan meditation master and teacher of the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, is now facing allegations of sexual misconduct Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama (right) is seen here with Sogyal Rinpoche (left). The Dalai Lama is said to have disowned Rinpoche following news of the scandal The formerly world-renowned Buddhist teacher from Tibet Sogyal Rinpoche (pictured seated in the front row and holding a programme) is reportedly currently in Tibet and has apologised for any hurt caused Some of his depraved requests reportedly included asking followers to wipe his backside and passing off unprotected sex as opening a path to enlightenment. A scathing report released earlier this month revealed the extent to which many of his followers suffered serious physical, sexual and emotional abuse. Commissioned by Rigpa a Tibetan Buddhist meditation centre of which Rinpoche was spiritual head - and undertaken by law firm Lewis Silkin, the report highlighted some of the depraved acts his followers were asked to endure. Ex-devotees of the Buddhist who retired in 2017 after the allegations first came to light have been speaking to The Sun about his behaviour. One said: Sogyal is part-tyrant and part-spoiled child. He seems to be addicted to sex, food, smoking and hitting. Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama (left) and France's first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy (centre) are seen next to Sogyal Rinpoche (right) While another said: Sogyal and the girls thought everything that went into him and came out of him was holy. So the girls wiped his a*** for him. He liked to have work gatherings while he took a s*** with the door open. He also chewed his food then exchanged it with a kiss to the girls. The report by Rigpa comes just weeks before The Charity Commission launches an investigation into the handling of the scandal by the Rigpa Fellowship. It labelled some of the allegations brought to light in the report extremely concerning. The fellowship which spans some 100 different centers across 40 countries is now having to face up to the scandal. A former follower of Rinpoche spoke to Canadian TV in 2011 about his behaviour - well before the scandal came to light. She claimed the teacher had unprotected sex with her and said: 'Look into my eyes, this is the moment you connect with your master.' Rinpoche no longer has any role in Rigpa and the charity said it was sorry 'for the hurt experienced by past and present members'. Rinpoche (pictured) is said to have inflicted upon some of his followers serious physical, sexual and emotional abuse Rinpoche (right) retired in 2017 after the allegations first came to light and is now said to be living in Tibet Despite being disowned by the Dalai Lama himself, Rinpoche - who is believed to be in Thailand - has spoken out following the recent report. In a letter to law firm Lewis Silkin he said: 'Whatever I have said or done when interacting with my students has been with the aim of helping them to awaken their true inner nature. 'Nonetheless, I see this intention has been misunderstood and my actions have been judged otherwise. 'For some, this way of training may not have had the desired outcome. 'I must accept my own responsibility in this, and apologise to anyone who feels this way.' A couple at the centre of a six-hour stand-off with police say it was like it 'was like an adventure' and officers can 'come back anytime'. Mohammed, 37, and his girlfriend Mikaela, 22, were arrested by police on Friday evening after their south-west Sydney street was placed into lockdown when residents reported hearing gun shots. Speaking to reporters the day after the dramatic siege, Mohammed said he 'laughed it off' and that it was 'like an adventure yesterday... I love it', Seven News reported. He also criticised the treatment they received by the armed police during the siege. 'My hands were up, her (girlfriend) hands were up, yet I still got tasered,' he said. When asked if he thought police would return, he said 'they can come back anytime they like and this time if I'm awake - I'll answer the door'. Officers including the Riot Squad had shut down Sylvanus Street in Greenacre on Friday afternoon after being told there were two individuals still inside the house. Terrified neighbours told of their shock when they saw police swarm the property. 'We heard the shots... and then a few hours later the whole street was surrounded by police,' one neighbour told 9 News. Mohammed, 37, was tasered by police and taken away as the tense six-hour stand off came to a close Mohammed and his girlfriend Mikaela claim they were asleep during the entire raid and don't know who owns the alleged stolen vehicles found inside their home 'We heard so many shots,' another said. Police closed-in on the property at about 2.45pm but it was not until 8.30pm that they eventually stormed the house; ultimately resulting in two arrests. The couple were taken away and charged after police had broken down the door of the property. Police had at one point tasered the man. Officers seized numerous items including a motor vehicle, two motorcycles allegedly stolen, cash and numerous mobile phones and credit cards. Despite the evidence found inside, the pair are maintaining their innocence. They claim they were upstairs asleep during the whole siege and don't know who owns the allegedly stolen goods that were found in their home. Both Mohammed and Mikaela have been issued with future court attendance notices for the unrelated offences of intimidation and drug possession. Police are still waiting for forensic testing before any more charges are laid. Richwood, TX (77531) Today Partial cloudiness early, with scattered showers and thunderstorms overnight. Low 66F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%.. Tonight Partial cloudiness early, with scattered showers and thunderstorms overnight. Low 66F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%. An Australian filmmaker who was accused of spying and sentenced to six years in a notorious Cambodian jail is set to return home this weekend. James Ricketson, 69, was pardoned by the Cambodian government on Friday following a widely criticised trial and guilty verdict. He is expected to arrive in Sydney on Sunday evening after spending 14-months in a Cambodian jail. Ricketson's lawyer, Kong Sam Onn, said his client was staying at his son Jesse's house in Phnom Penh after being released from jail on Friday evening. Australian filmmaker James Ricketson (pictured), 69, who was pardoned by the Cambodian government on Friday is expected to arrive in Sydney on Sunday Ricketson's lawyer, Kong Sam Onn, said his client (pictured) was staying at his son Jesse's house in Phnom Penh after being released from jail on Friday evening The 69-year-old was issued a royal pardon signed by Senate President Say Chhum, the acting head of state in the absence of King Norodom Sihamoni on Friday, AP reported. A week earlier, Ricketson was delivered a guilty verdict for an espionage charge at a Phnom Penh court. Prosecutors didn't specify who Ricketson was allegedly spying for. Ricketson was arrested in June last year after flying a drone without a permit over a political rally in the lead up to an election. The arrest came after Prime Minister Hun Sen's leadership began to crackdown on political rivals and critics. The ruling party won the recent general July election by a landslide and numerous political prisoners have since been released. Ricketson, who has been filming documentaries in the country for the past 20 years, was arrested in June last year after flying a drone without a permit over a political rally in the lead up to an election The arrest came after Prime Minister Hun Sen's leadership began to crackdown on political rivals and critics Pardons are typically issued at the request of Prime Minister Hun Sen who has been power for 33 years. Ricketson, who has been filming documentaries in the country for the past 20 years, was intending to use the drone footage in a film about street kids but the government believed the footage could threaten the country's national security. Ricketson's son James told 7.30 his father would pursue a royal pardon, instead of appealing the conviction. The ruling party won the recent general July election by a landslide and numerous political prisoners have since been released In an update to the Change.org petition to bring Ricketson home, his adopted daughter Roxanne Holmes confirmed the pardon. 'Dad is coming back to us and he will be safe with his loved ones. It feels like the pain of the last 14 months has hit me in one go, so many emotions but above all, I am so happy,' Ms Holmes wrote. 'Our deepest thanks to all those who have supported us from Australian filmmakers to politicians and to every single person who signed, shared, called, emailed - you made this happen.' The petition, which received over 100,000 signatures, drew attention to Ricketson's deteriorating health as he spent over a year behind bars. 'Unless the Australian government responds quickly, my innocent dad could die in jail. Im petrified - every day matters now as he gets sicker,' the petition read. UKIP has called for Muslim-only jails to stop extremist prisoners converting fellow inmates to their ideology. A manifesto released for this weekend's UKIP conference in Birmingham also called for the screening of Muslim immigrants to stop extremists arriving in the UK. But activist Maajid Nawaz said the proposed policy was in 'danger of becoming a first step to Muslim concentration camps'. The hard-line proposals came as UKIP leader Gerard Batten denied that he was steering the party to the far right, after he confirmed that Tommy Robinson would be allowed to join the party. Former leader Nigel Farage warned the party faces 'total and utter marginalisation' if it moves to the extremes of politics. Nigel Farage, pictured in Bolton today, warned the party faces 'total and utter marginalisation' if it moves to the extremes of politics In proposals to crack down on Islamic extremism the UKIP policy document calls for Muslim prisoners who try to convert other inmates to be jailed separately. The document says: 'Islamic extremism is actively fostered in HM Prisons at state expense. 'Islamic gangs hold sway in some prisons and non-Islamic prisoners are converting for their own protection. 'UKIP would introduce the separation of prisoners or prisons exclusively for Islamic prisoners who promote extremism or try to convert non-Islamic prisoners.' The party also called for a ban on overseas funding for mosques and imams, an end to legal recognition for sharia law and limits on migration from Muslim countries. 'Under a security-based screening policy we restrict any limited migration from Islamic countries to those people we can be sure, as far as possible, do not follow a literalist and extremist interpretation of Islam,' the document says. 'The worst excesses of a literalist interpretation of Islamic doctrine has seen unprecedented acts of terrorism in Britain and across the world. 'This can only be countered with practical measures.' UKIP leader Gerard Batten, pictured in Birmingham yesterday, denied that he was steering the party to the far right, after he said Tommy Robinson would be allowed to join the party The plans come amid an escalating feud between current leader Mr Batten and former party chief Mr Farage who called for UKIP to back away from the far right. A speech by Mr Farage at a gala dinner on Friday during its annual conference was met with only 'polite applause', according to a source who was present. It is also understood that Mr Farage left the dinner before Mr Batten gave his own speech to the gathered party faithful. The ex-leader said on Friday he was 'upset' by the prospect of figures such as Tommy Robinson being admitted into the party. He said UKIP was 'in danger now, unless it changes direction very, very quickly, of total and utter marginalisation'. Current leader Mr Batten confirmed that he would approve of party membership for Mr Robinson, and said he stood by his descriptions of Islam as a 'death cult' which sanctioned the use of sex slaves. He hit back at his predecessor on Friday, suggesting he should be 'a little bit more careful about criticising me' when Mr Farage had himself shared platforms with right-wing German party Alternative fur Deutschland. A taxi driver has been jailed for 14 years after admitting a series of sex attacks on drunk and vulnerable customers. Ruhen Miah, 42, of Newbury, Berkshire and of Bangladeshi origin, used his job as a licensed taxi driver to attack four women who were trying to get home safely after a late night out in Newbury town centre. Judge Angela Morris, sentencing at Reading Crown Court, told Miah that some of the victims were 'so intoxicated they had no chance of defending themselves against your sexual offending'. The judge said there was 'a degree of targeting' in Miah's behaviour and he had abused the trust not just of his victims but also the friends who had put them in his taxi and urged him to get them home safely. Ruhen Miah, the Newbury taxi driver rapist jailed for 14 years after attacking four women Miah was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment for rape, five years for assault by penetration, eight years for an attempted rape and 18 months each for two counts of sexual assault. He had previously pleaded guilty to all counts. The sentences are to be served concurrently. The women, including three who were 19 and another who was 29, were attacked between January 1 and February 24. There were two assaults on two different women within 90 minutes of each other in January. Miah stopped a male friend who was with one of the women he went on attack from getting into his taxi so she was alone and defenceless. He raped another woman in his friend's empty council flat, the court heard. There were two victims who reported being attacked. DNA evidence also matched Miah to the crimes and dashcam footage helped place some of the victims in the taxi. Bangladesh-born Miah, who had no previous convictions, is married with three children. The court heard he had described himself as a pillar of the community and had run a restaurant that closed in September 2017. Prosecutor Alan Blake said the rape victim recalled 'he kept repeating to her 'in my country, we are very respectful of women'.' Mr Blake said: 'Her next memory is him driving her back to the road where she lived and told her that she did not have to pay.' She went to bed and later reported the rape to hospital staff. Newbury taxi driver rapist's Citroen taxi he used when targeting his four victims In her impact statement, the rape victim said: 'That night I should have been safe in that vehicle. He should have taken me home safely but he took advantage of me in the worst possible way.' She pointed out that her life is very different now as she is not able to sleep, and suffers anxiety and depression. She has been robbed of some independence and wonders if she will ever be able to confidently get into a taxi again. Another distraught victim now describes herself as 'damaged goods' adding 'this will have a huge impact on my life and being able to trust'. In her impact statement, she said: 'It is horrible that one person can have such power over me.' She fears getting into taxis, and is no longer a strong and confident person and instead suffers from low self-esteem. Michael Wolkind QC, defending, said Miah has 'remorse and horror over what he did' and described him as a 'good man who went wrong for a number of reasons'. This included his business failing and his relationship with his wife going wrong. The women had variously described themselves as 'the drunkest I have ever been,' as being 'obliterated' and having 'had far too much to drink' but all were vulnerable, Mr Wolkind noted. He said: 'A taxi should be a place of trust. The driver should be a decent friend. 'Indeed the more drunk a passenger is, the more vulnerable she is.' 'Take a picture in the shower': Sean Price lured the girl from Sydney, Australia to Queens, New York, for sex Snapchat sex groomer Sean Price, 39, has been sentenced to 35 years behind bars after a US jury found him guilty of transporting a minor for the purpose of sexual activity and attempted sexual exploitation offenses. Home affairs secretary Peter Dutton has since encouraged Australian families to warn their children to be wary of who they talk to online. Price gave the 16-year-old private school girl from Sydney's upper north shore more than $USD900 to flee her Australian home for his mother's basement in Queens, New York, last year. She jumped on a flight from Sydney to Los Angeles in April 2017 and Price then drove her across the country to his home. US court documents revealed new details of the bizarre saga - and the months of conversations where Price gradually lured her some 16,000km from home. The shocking texts - and promises of marriage and US citizenship - that a convicted killer used to lure a Sydney schoolgirl to New York for sex have been revealed. 'Take a picture in the shower,' Price told her, in one conversation on social media. 'I want to see your (private parts)'. 'Take a picture in the shower': One of the lurid exchanges sent between the girl - known as 'Jane Doe' in court documents - and Sean Price, who faces life in prison for his crimes 'This is horrifying,' said Price's former wife, Rhyse (pictured with Price), when she spoke to Daily Mail Australia last year The girl, left, travelled to Los Angeles to meet Price Price told police the pair first met on Snapchat in October 2016, court documents said. In their conversations, Price called her 'my princess' and after learning she didn't need her parents' permission to fly internationally, said: 'So you coming to papa?' Price promised the girl 'marriage, a family and the hope of US citizenship' in their chats, a prosecution letter to the court said. He encouraged her to find people who could get her a fake passport and they exchanged sexual pictures. Price - whose lengthy criminal record includes a criminally negligent homicide conviction for a passenger's death in a car crash - wired her money and gave her suggestions on how to cover her tracks and destroy their communications. In court documents, the prosecution argued that the trial evidence would show '(the girl) believed that she was in a romantic relationship with the defendant'. '(Price) had agreed to help her run away from home notwithstanding the fact that he knew she was 16 years old and suffering from mental illness.' The girl was a prolific user of social media - with more than 40,000 followers on Instagram, a defence letter to the court said. Investigators were told the Australian often used social media to speak to American men aged between 20 and 40. Friends said she generally only followed one person on Instagram - the man she was speaking to at the time. Far away from home: This is the double-storey property in Jamaica, New York, where Sean Price was living with the 16-year-old girl in May 2017 Pictured is room inside the property which NYPD officers stormed to rescue the girl in May 2017 'He might drive me': In one exchange, contained within court documents, the girl said an Uber driver who followed her on social media might transport her on the 4,500km trip from LA to NY Messages contained in a defence letter show the girl talking about plans for the 4500km leg of the trip from LA to New York. 'good news. some uber driver follows me. and (h)e might drive me to NY,' she said. 'From where?' Price asked. The girl said: 'LA' 'I don't know about that we'll talk about it later,' Price said. In the same letter, the defence pointed to a lengthy diatribe where she accused him of ignoring her three days before she was due to travel to the United States. 'Baby I can see your (sic) online ... WHY THE F*** ARE YOU IGNORING ME ... I wake up to u IGNORING ME. 'Baby I'm gonna start login off I was sleeping wyd (what you doing),' Price said. 'Relax yourself'. Three days before she fled Australia for the United States, the girl and the convicted criminal had this exchange on Facebook messenger, according to court documents Price, 39, has been sentenced to 35 years behind bars after grooming a 16-year-old girl for sex online The girl flew to LA on April 11, 2017. Price met her there, hiring a rental car and driving her across the country to his mother's home in New York, the court heard. She texted a friend on April 14 to say: 'I am happy for once', Price's defence lawyer claimed in a court filing. In the weeks that followed, Australian police searched the girl's laptop and spoke to her friends, court papers claimed. In May - a month after she left Australia - NYPD officers raided Price's home and recovered the girl and she was brought home to her parents. Price was last month was found guilty of interstate and foreign transportation of a minor to engage in sexual activity and attempted sexual exploitation of a child. He was found not guilty of child porn charges. In a statement, US Immigration official Angel Melendez said: 'Price lured a teenage girl across the globe to satisfy his own sordid desires, taking advantage of her youth and preying on her vulnerability.' The local US Attorney said Price had been 'held ... accountable for his predatory conduct'. A young man who complained he couldn't get a job because he had 'DEVAST8' tattooed across his face in prison is back in court charged with assault. Mark Cropp made international headlines last year when he begged for a job after the prominent tattoo across his lower face made employers turn away. The 21-year-old said his brother did the regrettable tattoo while they were drunk on alcohol brewed behind bars in Christchurch, New Zealand. Mark Crop, who last year complained he couldn't get a job because he had 'DEVAST8' tattooed across his face in prison, is back in court charged with assault. Cropp was serving a two-year jail sentence for aggravated robbery after he pulled a knife on a tourist in a fake drug deal. Now the young father has more legal trouble on his hands after being charged with assaulting a woman and making threats to kill. Court records showed he would stand trial before a judge alone in November, according to the New Zealand Herald. Cropp's Facebook plea for a job went viral and got him a position at scaffolding company PR Contracting, earning $22 to support his girlfriend Taneia Ruki and their child. This appeared to be so successful he was in August filmed shooting cash into the crowd at an Auckland nightclub. Mark Cropp made international headlines last year when he begged for a job after the prominent tattoo across his lower face made employers turn away Cropp originally wanted to raise enough money to get the tattoo removed but stopped the treatment he was offered for free after the first session He in December began working as a traffic controller in Hamilton and was spotted wearing hi-vis jacket and a hard hat while on the job. Before his final desperate plea on Facebook the teenager said people 'laughed in (his) face' when he had asked for work. Cropp originally wanted to raise enough money to get the tattoo removed but stopped the treatment he was offered for free after the first session. He last year revealed Devast8 was his nickname, but not for reasons he was proud of, and it appeared had returned to his life. 'You know there was a long time there where I would devastate everything I touched,' he told Daily Mail Australia. 'I would end up devastating everyone I met or got close to. In December he began working as a traffic controller in Hamilton and was spotted wearing hi-vis jacket and a hard hat while on the job He wanted to get a job so he could provide for his girlfriend Taneia Ruki and their child 'They would be disappointed with something I had done or said - I was always hearing 'that's devastating'.' The tattoo was drawn with a homemade gun which used a needle made from the spring of a pen and powered by a cassette player. Plastic knives and forks are burnt to a black plastic powder and mixed with toothpaste and water to create the ink. 'Once it was started, I thought, I can't go back on it now. I wish I had stopped while the outline was there to be quite honest,' he said. 'Before I knew it I had this on my face... It was swollen like a bloody pumpkin.' A close ally of Jeremy Corbyn caused fury among fellow Labour MPs today by heaping praise on the hard-Left council that ran Liverpool in the 1980s. Shadow equalities minister Dawn Butler hailed the Militant-dominated authority which set an illegal budget in 1985 in protest at government cuts. The Brent MP praised the Militant council for standing up to Margaret Thatcher, saying it was 'better to break the law than break the poor'. Her extraordinary endorsement, as Ms Butler kicked off the party's annual conference in the city, sparked outrage from party colleagues who said the remarks were 'another nail in Labour's coffin'. Shadow equalities minister Dawn Butler hailed the Militant-dominated authority that set an illegal budget in 1985 in protest at government cuts Speaking to Labour's Women's Conference in Liverpool, Ms Butler praised councillors who were fighting against cuts imposed by Theresa May's government. 'Local councils have seen nearly 50 per cent of their funding cut - I want to give a shout out to all the councillors fighting every day against these Tory cuts,' she said. And she added: 'Conference, we are in Liverpool where over 30 years ago the council stood up to Thatcher and said, better to break the law than break the poor.' Former leader Neil Kinnock's conference speech in 1985, when he denounced the Liverpool councillors, is seen as the turning point when moderates wrestled control from the union-controlled hard-Left. Kinnock told the party faithful that he would not tolerate the 'grotesque chaos of a Labour council - a Labour council - hiring taxis to scuttle round a city handing out redundancy notices to its own workers'. The Militant group's hold over parts of the party was broken soon afterwards, culminating in the expulsion of figures including Liverpool council's deputy leader Derek Hatton. However, since Mr Corbyn took charge of Labour in 2015 the Left has reasserted its power. Former minister Chris Leslie told MailOnline that Ms Butler's remarks were 'astonishing'. 'I can only assume these remarks come from ignorance about the disastrous policies of the Trotskyist Militant tendency - whose mismanagement led to the issuing of thousands of redundancy notices to their own local council workers,' the MP said. 'That type of hard leftism should have no place in a modern Labour Party - and it's certainly not something to be proud of.' Another livid MP said: 'Another nail in the coffin of the party. And a clear signal that the hard Left are rampant.' John Woodcock MP, who recently quit the party in protest at its lurch to the Left, said: 'A current member of the Labour shadow cabinet praising the misery Militant brought to Liverpool. 'A powerful demonstration of just how fundamentally my former party has changed.' Conservative chairman Brandon Lewis said: 'This is the sorry state of Labour today: Shadow Cabinet members praising the hard-left militants of the 1980s. 'Militant controlled Liverpool of the 1980's boasted it was better to 'break the law, than break the poor' but ran out of money and was forced to sack its own workers. 'As Neil Kinnock said himself at the time: 'You can't play politics with people's jobs and people's homes and people's services. 'Labour has learnt nothing from the past and would take the country back to bankruptcy, job losses and worse public services.' Derek Hatton, who was deputy leader of Liverpool council when it was run by the hard-left Militant group. He was later expelled from the Labour party Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock is pictured at the 1985 party conference in Bournemouth where he condemned Militant in a defining moment in Labour history Labour peer Baroness Thornton slammed Ms Butler's praise for the rebel councillors in a series of tweets. 'Great to be at Women's conference, but am surprised that @DawnButlerBrent has just praised a Liverpool Council in the past - that of Derek Hatton - who issued redundancy notices to their own public sector employees, and failed to protect services too!' said Lady Thornton. 'And @DawnButlerBrent Derek Hatton's Militant colleagues were misogynistic bullies. We should not be praising them at @UKLabour Women's Conference.' Mr Corbyn and shadow chancellor John McDonnell wrote to all Labour council leaders in 2015 calling on them to resist calls to set illegal budgets. A Labour spokesman said: 'The point Dawn was making was that like the Thatcher government of the 1980s, this Tory Government has prioritised tax cuts for the rich while cutting services like women's refuges that save lives and keep women safe. 'Labour will invest in our communities to rebuild Britain for the many not the few.' The row overshadowed a speech by Jeremy Corbyn earlier on Saturday in which he said Labour could have more women than men in the House of Commons. Labour could have more women than men on the government benches if it wins the next general election, Jeremy Corbyn has said Mr Corbyn said Labour was the 'party of women' and would measure the success of its policies by their impact on women. Labour had more female members than the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats had members at all, Mr Corbyn claimed. He also attacked Theresa May for her 'hostile environment' policy when she was Home Secretary, calling it 'disgusting and disgraceful'. Mr Corbyn said afternoon: 'We have a parity of women and men in the shadow cabinet and the next parliamentary Labour party when we've won a general election will in all probability have a majority of women MPs as members of it. 'The Tories may talk about equality, they may say their Government delivers for all, but the lived experience of women in Britain tells a different story. 'Labour is the party of equality, the party of women, the party committed to measuring all our policies on their impact on women in society. 'Our Labour government will measure its success on the eradication of discrimination, poverty, inequality and injustice within society.' In 2017 there were 119 women elected as Labour MPs, just under half of the 262 seats the party won at the snap election. Mr Corbyn said companies who did not work to close the gender pay gap would be fined, in plans originally unveiled in March, and attacked the Conservatives for failing to tackle 'burning injustices' which Theresa May had spoken about. The party leader praised Labour MP Dawn Butler (pictured) who unveiled plans to establish a stand-alone department for women and equalities with a minister at the Cabinet table He said: 'The Tories' eight years of austerity is responsible for what the PM delicately calls burning injustices that she said she was going to tackle. 'But far from building an economy for everyone and helping the 'just about managing' this government has transferred cash from the purses of women into the bank accounts of the very richest men'. During his speech at the women's conference he said he would go to Brussels to visit a square named after Jo Cox, the Labour MP who was murdered by a far-right extremist in 2016. Mr Corbyn also acknowledged shortcomings in Labour's handling of allegations of sexual harassment and abuse in the party, admitting: 'We have not always met necessarily the highest standards, which rightly are demanded of us.' He said: 'I am absolutely determined our party and our movement will always have the very highest standards so everybody is safe and secure in our movement and sexual harassment has no place whatsoever in our movement.' The party leader praised Labour MP Dawn Butler who unveiled plans to establish a stand-alone department for women and equalities with a minister at the Cabinet table in a future Labour government. 'The next Labour government will put equality centre stage,' Ms Butler said. A New York Times reporter has responded to Rod Rosenstein's claims that he was joking when he said he wanted to wear a wire to secretly record President Donald Trump, saying: 'This wasn't a flippant remark.' A New York Times report Friday claimed the Deputy Attorney General had discussed the possibility of recruiting members of Trump's Cabinet to declare him unfit for the job with other Justice and FBI sources. Rosenstein and several Justice Department officials have said the comment was made as a joke, and that the AG does not actually believe Trump should be removed from office via the Constitution's 25th Amendment. However, New York Times journalist Adam Goldman defended his reporting, telling CNN's Jake Tapper Friday: '[Rosenstein] was, in fact, very serious. And the circumstances in which it was described to me are different now than what's being put out I guess by the government.' New York Times journalist Adam Goldman (left) has defended his research in Friday's bombshell report that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein (right) said he wanted to wear a wire to secretly record President Donald Trump during a May 2017 meeting Rosenstein (right) reportedly talked with FBI officials, including then-acting director Andrew McCabe, about wearing a wire to secretly record Trump in order to build a case for removing him from office in May of last year Goldman went on: 'But, you know, it's important that your listeners understand something. That as I was pursuing this story for a very long time, people were reluctant to talk about it, because of the gravity of the story. 'There was concern that if it got out, that, you know, Rosenstein had wanted to actually, you know, wear a wire, and suggested Andy McCabe, the acting director at the time wear a wire, that Rob might get fired. People were sincerely concerned about this. Not because he made a flip remark. Because of the seriousness surrounding the remark.' Rosenstein disputed the New York Times account on Friday, and a Justice Department official who was reportedly in the room when Rosenstein talked about using the 25th Amendment to end the Trump presidency says he was being sarcastic. That account agrees with a Fox News report based on sources who were in the room and said the meeting took place May 16, 2017. The Washington Post, too, cited a source who said Rosenstein's comment was biting but unserious. The 25th Amendment allows for a majority of the president's cabinet, or 'such other body as Congress may by law provide,' to decide if an Oval Office occupant is unable to carry out his duties and then to put it to a full congressional vote. Reports emerged Friday that then-Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe (pictured) was in the room when Rosenstein uncorked his idea, and an Obama-era DOJ spokesman hinted that he might have planted the story Fox also reported that then-Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and FBI lawyer Lisa Page were in the room when Rosenstein raised the subject. Page had been half of the infamous texting romantic-affair couple who mused in 2016 about how to 'stop' Trump from becoming president. An Obama-era Justice Department spokesman suggested Friday afternoon that McCabe leaked the story to the Times. 'Dangerous game Andy McCabe is playing right now,' Matthew Miller tweeted. Ari Fleischer, who was White House press secretary during the George W. Bush administration, lashed out separately at McCabe. 'This story reads like Andy McCabe trying to burn down the house he once lived in,' he tweeted. 'Looks to me like McCabe is trying to get revenge on those he used to work with, after they challenged his honesty and fired him.' McCabe is himself facing a federal probe over allegations that he misled investigators about the sources of press leaks. Attorney General Jeff Sessions terminated his employment this year, just days before he was scheduled to retire with a full pension. In the Post's telling, McCabe had proposed opening an investigation into the president after the firing of FBI Director James Comey. 'What do you want to do, Andy, wire the president?' Rosenstein chided him, according to one source. Hours after the New York Times published its report, Trump pledged to rid the Justice Department of its 'lingering stench' at a campaign rally on Friday night in Missouri. 'Just look at what is being exposed in our Justice Department,' he said during the event in Springfield supporting Republican Senate nominee Josh Hawley, who is running against two-term Democratic senator Claire McCaskill. 'We have great people in the Department of Justice. ... But you've got some real bad ones. You've seen what's happened at the FBI. They're all gone. 'But there's a lingering stench and we're going to get rid of that, too.' It was unclear what Trump was referring to and he didn't specifically name anyone. However, the president is in a running war with the Justice Department, starting with Jeff Sessions, his hand-picked attorney general. Matthew Miller called the Times story the result of a 'dangerous game' McCabe is playing while he is himself under federal investigation President George W. Bush's former press secretary Ari Fleischer blasted McCabe on Twitter for 'trying to burn down the house he once lived in' 'Shocked!!! Absolutely Shocked!!!' the president's eldest son tweeted. 'Ohhh, who are we kidding at this point?' Sixteen days ago the Times published an unsigned opinion essay from a purported senior administration official who claimed the Constitution's procedure for firing a president was discussed quietly in the first days of Trump's tenure. 'Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president,' the author wrote. 'But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis.' Donald Trump Jr. had a different take on Friday, casting the Times report as substantially true and evidence of a cabal out to hamstring his father. 'Shocked!!! Absolutely Shocked!!!' the president's eldest son tweeted. 'Ohhh, who are we kidding at this point?' 'No one is shocked that these guys would do anything in their power to undermine @realdonaldtrump.' Friday's explosive allegation, based on unnamed sources, stems from a period of time when the White House seemed to ratchet up its chaos level with each day. Trump had just fired Comey and was pilloried in the press for sharing Israeli intelligence about the ISIS terror army with Russian emissaries in the Oval Office. And Rosenstein, the Times reports, thought the president had turned him into a patsy by leaning heavily on a memo he wrote when he swung the axe at Comey. Trump had asked him to summarize the reasons he could use for firing Comey; Rosenstein reportedly never expected his response to be made public. As a result, Rosenstein began recruiting Cabinet members to execute on a future 25th Amendment plan and suggesting that FBI officials who were on Trump's short list to replace Comey could make clandestine tapes of their job interviews with Trump. Rosenstein was at the time acting as the de facto attorney general on matters related to the longstanding probe of alleged ties between Russian agents and Trump's presidential campaign. Sessions had already recused himself from those mattters since he had been a campaign adviser and could be a fact witness in the investigation. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, laid down a marker on Friday, warning the president in a statement not to leverage the Times story as a rationale for jettisoning Rosenstein. Trump has long loathed Rosenstein for appointing Special Counsel Robrt Mueller after the Sessions recusal. 'This story must not be used as a pretext for the corrupt purpose of firing Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein in order install an official who will allow the president to interfere with the Special Counsel's investigation,' Schumer said. Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer, was also reportedly in the room with Rosenstein and McCabe when the idea of secretly taping Trump came up Rosenstein said Friday in a statement to reporters: 'The New York Times's story is inaccurate and factually incorrect.' 'I will not further comment on a story based on anonymous sources who are obviously biased against the department and are advancing their own personal agenda. But let me be clear about this: Based on my personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment.' The Times reports that Rosenstein never actually recorded conversations with Trump. The newspaper's sources said Rosenstein spoke about a constitutionally director bloodless coup with Andrew McCabe, who was acting FBI director after Comey's ouster. McCabe memorialized the conversations in writing, including notes about Rosenstein's desire to recruit Sessions and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly to help bring a 25th Amendment plan to fruition. Rosenstein, according to the Times, had said recording an Oval Office discussion would be easy because White House staff never checked his cell phone before he entered. In a statement to The Washington Post, McCabe lawyer Michael Bromwich said his client 'drafted memos to memorialize significant discussions he had with high level officials and preserved them so he would have an accurate, contemporaneous record of those discussions.' 'When he was interviewed by the special counsel more than a year ago, he gave all of his memos classified and unclassified to the special counsel's office. A set of those memos remained at the FBI at the time of his departure in late January 2018. He has no knowledge of how any member of the media obtained those memos.' Page wrote her own memo, the Post reported, but made no mention of the 25th Amendment. The explosive New York Times report claiming that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said he wanted to wear a wire to secretly record President Donald Trump in order to oust him from office has been met with widespread speculation. A New York Times report Friday claimed the Deputy Attorney General had discussed the possibility of recruiting members of Trump's Cabinet to declare him unfit for the job during a May 2017 meeting with Justice Department and FBI officials. In the wake of the report several Twitter users are saying it was leaked in an effort to oust Rosenstein from Trump's inner circle. Scroll down for video Speculation is circling the New York Times report that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein (above) said he would wear a wire to secretly record Donald Trump in order to build a case for removing the president from office in May of last year Dozens of Twitter users responded to Friday's New York Times report saying that it had been planted to set Rosenstein up to be fired by Trump, whose inner circle is famously volatile Several Twitter users also slammed the Times for its report as Rosenstein and several other officials responded by saying the AG's remarks were made in jest. Justice Department officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, claimed Rosenstein does not actually believe Trump should be removed from office via the Constitution's 25th Amendment. However, New York Times journalist Adam Goldman defended his reporting, telling CNN's Jake Tapper Friday: 'You know, my understanding of what happened is that this wasnt a flippant remark.' Justice Department officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told NBC Rosenstein does not actually believe Trump should be removed from office Several Twitter users also slammed the Times for its report as Rosenstein and several other officials responded by saying the deputy attorney general's remarks were made in jest Goldman continued: '[Rosenstein] was, in fact, very serious. And the circumstances in which it was described to me are different now than what's being put out I guess by the government. 'It's important that your listeners understand something. That as I was pursuing this story for a very long time, people were reluctant to talk about it, because of the gravity of the story. 'There was concern that if it got out, that, you know, Rosenstein had wanted to actually, you know, wear a wire, and suggested Andy McCabe, the acting director at the time wear a wire, that Rob might get fired. People were sincerely concerned about this. Not because he made a flip remark. Because of the seriousness surrounding the remark.' Rosenstein disputed the New York Times account on Friday, and a Justice Department official who was reportedly in the room when Rosenstein talked about using the 25th Amendment to end the Trump presidency says he was being sarcastic. That account agrees with a Fox News report based on sources who were in the room and said the meeting took place May 16, 2017. The Washington Post, too, cited a source who said Rosenstein's comment was biting but unserious. The 25th Amendment allows for a majority of the president's cabinet, or 'such other body as Congress may by law provide', to decide if an Oval Office occupant is unable to carry out his duties and then to put it to a full congressional vote. Reports emerged Friday that then-Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe (pictured) was in the room when Rosenstein uncorked his idea Fox also reported that then-Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and FBI lawyer Lisa Page were in the room when Rosenstein raised the subject. Page had been half of the infamous texting romantic-affair couple who mused in 2016 about how to 'stop' Trump from becoming president. An Obama-era Justice Department spokesman suggested Friday afternoon that McCabe leaked the story to the Times. 'Dangerous game Andy McCabe is playing right now,' Matthew Miller tweeted. Ari Fleischer, who was White House press secretary during the George W. Bush administration, lashed out separately at McCabe. 'This story reads like Andy McCabe trying to burn down the house he once lived in,' he tweeted. 'Looks to me like McCabe is trying to get revenge on those he used to work with, after they challenged his honesty and fired him.' McCabe is himself facing a federal probe over allegations that he misled investigators about the sources of press leaks. Attorney General Jeff Sessions terminated his employment this year, just days before he was scheduled to retire with a full pension. In the Post's telling, McCabe had proposed opening an investigation into the president after the firing of FBI Director James Comey. 'What do you want to do, Andy, wire the president?' Rosenstein chided him, according to one source. On Friday night at a campaign rally in Missouri, Trump pledged to rid the Justice Department of its 'lingering stench', saying it housed some 'great people' but also 'some real bad ones'. He said the bad ones are gone, 'but there's a lingering stench and we're going to get rid of that, too'. It was unclear what Trump was referring to and he didn't specifically name anyone. However, the president is in a running war with the Justice Department, starting with Jeff Sessions, his hand-picked attorney general. Matthew Miller called the Times story the result of a 'dangerous game' McCabe is playing while he is himself under federal investigation President George W Bush's former press secretary Ari Fleischer blasted McCabe on Twitter for 'trying to burn down the house he once lived in' 'Shocked!!! Absolutely Shocked!!!' the president's eldest son tweeted. 'Ohhh, who are we kidding at this point?' Sixteen days ago the Times published an unsigned opinion essay from a purported senior administration official who claimed the Constitution's procedure for firing a president was discussed quietly in the first days of Trump's tenure. 'Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president,' the author wrote. 'But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis.' Donald Trump Jr. had a different take on Friday, casting the Times report as substantially true and evidence of a cabal out to hamstring his father. 'Shocked!!! Absolutely Shocked!!!' the president's eldest son tweeted. 'Ohhh, who are we kidding at this point?' 'No one is shocked that these guys would do anything in their power to undermine @realdonaldtrump.' Friday's explosive allegation, based on unnamed sources, stems from a period of time when the White House seemed to ratchet up its chaos level with each day. Trump had just fired Comey and was pilloried in the press for sharing Israeli intelligence about the ISIS terror army with Russian emissaries in the Oval Office. And Rosenstein, the Times reports, thought the president had turned him into a patsy by leaning heavily on a memo he wrote when he swung the axe at Comey. Trump had asked him to summarize the reasons he could use for firing Comey; Rosenstein reportedly never expected his response to be made public. As a result, Rosenstein began recruiting Cabinet members to execute on a future 25th Amendment plan and suggesting that FBI officials who were on Trump's short list to replace Comey could make clandestine tapes of their job interviews with Trump. Rosenstein was at the time acting as the de facto attorney general on matters related to the longstanding probe of alleged ties between Russian agents and Trump's presidential campaign. Sessions had already recused himself from those mattters since he had been a campaign adviser and could be a fact witness in the investigation. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, laid down a marker on Friday, warning the president in a statement not to leverage the Times story as a rationale for jettisoning Rosenstein. Trump has long loathed Rosenstein for appointing Special Counsel Robrt Mueller after the Sessions recusal. 'This story must not be used as a pretext for the corrupt purpose of firing Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein in order install an official who will allow the president to interfere with the Special Counsel's investigation,' Schumer said. Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer, was also reportedly in the room with Rosenstein and McCabe when the idea of secretly taping Trump came up Rosenstein said Friday in a statement to reporters: 'The New York Times's story is inaccurate and factually incorrect.' 'I will not further comment on a story based on anonymous sources who are obviously biased against the department and are advancing their own personal agenda. But let me be clear about this: Based on my personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment.' The Times reports that Rosenstein never actually recorded conversations with Trump. The newspaper's sources said Rosenstein spoke about a constitutionally director bloodless coup with Andrew McCabe, who was acting FBI director after Comey's ouster. McCabe memorialized the conversations in writing, including notes about Rosenstein's desire to recruit Sessions and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly to help bring a 25th Amendment plan to fruition. Rosenstein, according to the Times, had said recording an Oval Office discussion would be easy because White House staff never checked his cell phone before he entered. In a statement to The Washington Post, McCabe lawyer Michael Bromwich said his client 'drafted memos to memorialize significant discussions he had with high level officials and preserved them so he would have an accurate, contemporaneous record of those discussions.' 'When he was interviewed by the special counsel more than a year ago, he gave all of his memos classified and unclassified to the special counsel's office. A set of those memos remained at the FBI at the time of his departure in late January 2018. He has no knowledge of how any member of the media obtained those memos.' Page wrote her own memo, the Post reported, but made no mention of the 25th Amendment. A woman who set fire to her nail salon which resulted in the deaths of two firefighters in Kansas City has been sentenced to 74 years in prison. Thu Hong Nguyen, 46, was convicted in July on two counts each of second-degree murder, arson and assault and was sentenced for the crime on Friday. Firefighters Larry Leggio and John Mesh died when the wall of a three-story building in the 2600 block of Independence Boulevard collapsed on them. Two other firefighters were seriously injured in the blaze in October 2015. Prosecutors argued the wall had been weakened by a fire that was set by Thu Hong Nguyen, who managed a nail salon on the first floor of the building. Thu Hong Nguyen (pictured) was sentenced to 74 year in prison for deliberately starting a fire at her nail salon which caused the deaths of two firefighters and injured two others Firefighters John Mesh (left) and Larry Leggio (right) died tragically when a wall collapsed on them which had been weakened by the fire started by Ngyuen at her first floor nail salon There were 16 residential units on the floors above but none of the tenants were injured. Ngyuen's sentencing was briefly delayed when she began having breathing problems during victim impact statements. Emergency responders came to the courthouse to treat her and the sentencing eventually was completed. Nguyen, who is originally from Missouri, allegedly used flammable liquids kept in a store room at the back of her business to start the fire. Jackson County Circuit Court Judge Joel P Fahnestock sentenced Nguyen to 30 years each for two counts of felony murder and seven years each for two counts of second-degree assault for two firefighters who were permanently injured. She also sentenced Nguyen to 30 years and 15 years for two counts of arson, to run concurrently with the others. After the sentencing, Leggio's wife Missy told Kansas City Star: 'So much has been stolen from each one of our lives'. Missy Leggio said she was in the neighborhood of the fire, saw the lights and knew her husband would be among those fighting the blaze. Her husband's body was crushed from head to toe and every organ was damaged, she said, adding that she is thankful his death was instant. 'So much has been stolen from each one of our lives,' Leggio said, attributing her loss to Nguyen's 'selfish and greed-driven act.' Mesh's brother Jim also became emotional when remembering his beloved brother. He said: 'We lost a father, a son, a brother, a husband, an uncle and a beloved friend of so many. 'Instead of making new memories with John, we talk about the memory of John'. Prosecutors labeled Nguyen a 'serial arsonist' who had a history of burning businesses for insurance money. She had also been convicted of arson for a fire at a different nail salon in 2013 and received a $52,000 payout. Prosecutors said Thu Hong Nguyen (pictured) had a history of burning businesses for insurance money and was convicted of arson for a fire at another nail salon in 2015 The fire started by Hong Nguyen (pictured) spread upwards within minutes and had to be battled by 100 firefighters before they were ordered to leave Alyssa Mesh, 19, read a statement written by her sister Adriana Mesh. In it she remembered a dad who 'never got hurt or sick or anything. He was a rock.' She called him a superhero and the world's best father. Adriana wrote of her mother's face when she came to get her at work that night to take her and her three sisters to the hospital. 'There was six of us and suddenly there was only five,' Adriana wrote of her family. 'Everything in your life was upside down in a matter of minutes'. Nguyen started the blaze before leaving work shortly after 7pm. She had purchased eight gallons of acetone and rubbing alcohol earlier that day and placed them in a storeroom at the back of her LN Nails and Spa. Larry Legio's wife Missy (pictured) said Hong Nguyen had stolen so much from her family's life due to her 'selfish and greed driven act' Nguyen was the last one out of the shop, one of four commercial spaces on the ground floor with 16 apartments on two upper floors. Within minutes, the fire spread up and out through the space between the first and second floors. Within an hour, the eastern wall of the three-story brick building collapsed into an alley. A commander at the scene had earlier ordered 18 firefighters out of the structure in the rapidly deteriorating situation. Most occupants of the apartments got out on their own but some had to be rescued. Another order went out for firefighters to back away from the building, but some remained in the alley on the east side next to Snyder's grocery. In the aftermath, the fire department was forced to acknowledge it did not have a clear policy for making sure firefighters get the message when a 'collapse zone' is declared. Officials say they have since rectified that by requiring a head count when a collapse zone is declared. A woman who was viciously mauled by a shark in the idyllic Whitsunday Islands has shown signs of a miraculous recovery - spurred on by the sound of her husband's voice. Justine Barwick, 46, opened her eyes and blinked after spending three days fighting for her life in hospital. She underwent 18 hours of intensive surgery after she was attacked by a shark on Wednesday afternoon, and it wasn't until she heard her husband Craig speak almost a week later that she showed signs of life. Meanwhile, 12-year-old Hannah Papps remains in a critical condition clinging to life after she was bitten at Cid Harbour, near Hamilton Island less than 24 hours after Mrs Barwick was attacked. Justine Barwick (pictured) has miraculously opened her eyes after hearing her husbands voice, following 18 hours of intensive surgery The moment before Justine Barwick, who is in the dinghy, is rescued and rushed to hospital Mrs Barwick was originally taken by helicopter to Mackay Base Hospital in Queensland, however she has since been transferred to the Royal Brisbane and Womens Hospital. There she received the surgery on her right leg, which was left severely injured in a shark attack at the Whitsundays. Her surgery finished at 1am on Friday, the Daily Telegraph reported. A group of passers-by found Mrs Barwick with life-threatening bites to her upper right leg on Wednesday night. The 12-year-old girl mauled by a shark and showed incredible strength when she gave emergency workers a smile and thumbs up after the attack has been revealed as Hannah Papps (pictured) 12-year-old Hannah Papps was attacked less than 24 hours later in the same stretch of water close to Cid Harbour. The Melbourne schoolgirl remains in a stable but critical condition in hospital. The shark tore a large piece of flesh from Hannah's upper thigh. Her rescuers told the Herald Sun about the moment they loaded her into the air craft and she gave them a smile and a thumbs up. RACQ Central Queensland helicopter crewman Ben McCauley said it was always difficult for everyone when the victim of an incident was a child but she showed strength beyond her years. The state government issued a catch and kill order in Cid Bay, the location of the attacks. Baited drum lines were also put in the water and a sea and water patrol was established. Since then three sharks have been killed in Cid Harbour, after they were caught on baited drum lines. Fisheries Queensland confirmed to Daily Mail Australia that they caught three large Tiger sharks on a single drumline in the Cid Harbour area on Saturday, however they remain unsure whether these are the sharks that committed the attacks. 'One measured 3.3 metres and the other was over 2 metres,' a spokesperson for Fisheries Queensland said. 'While sharks of this size are potentially very dangerous to humans, it is unclear if they were responsible for injuries caused to two swimmers this week. The shark carcasses will be towed well out to sea for disposal.' Despite the drumlines being put in place, Fisheries Queensland advises that people should still exercise caution. A number of people took to social media to give their views on the baiting and killing of sharks in the aftermath of the attack. 'Why? You possibly got the wrong sharks. Its their playground not ours,' one user wrote. A baited drumline is a favoured technique for luring and killing sharks by using a large hook with bait Two Tiger sharks have already been caught and killed in Cid Bay both were caught on baited drumlines (pictured) 'And how did they know they were the 'guilty' ones,' another added. 'That'll send a clear message through the shark community,' another Facebook user wrote. A spokesman for the Humane Society International told The Australian they wanted to see new 'non-lethal measures to protect ocean users' introduced. A baited drum line is a favoured technique for luring and killing sharks by using a large hook with bait, they are typically installed near popular beaches or in the area of a viscous shark attack. A brave firefighter whose suspected gallstones turned out to be pancreatic cancer has died just three months after his wedding. Father-of-two Dean Patten, 45, died on September 14 following his short battle with cancer, after his shock diagnosis in April gave him just six to eight months to live. Despite the devastating news, the proud firefighter married long-term partner Nicola, 39, in June in an 'amazing' ceremony. Dean Patten (left) pictured with his wife Nicola at their wedding in June. He tragically died just three months later Mr and Mrs Patten pictured with their family following the wedding in June. Mr Patten found out he had cancer just months before the ceremony Mr Patten, who had proudly worked as a firefighter for the last six years, went for an ultrasound when he became jaundice, and doctors suspected he had gallstones. But tragically, his family were told it was pancreatic cancer that had already spread to his liver. His wife Nicola, 39, from Somerton, Somerset, described Dean as a 'hero' with a 'real lust for life'. In a moving tribute following his death, she said: 'Dean was my everything. He was a proper family man. He had a real lust for life and couldn't do enough for anyone. Dean and Nicola Patten cut their wedding cake following an 'amazing' ceremony 'He couldn't sit still and we were always out and about doing something with the kids. 'Joining Somerton Fire Station in 2012 as a retained fire fighter was probably his proudest achievement. 'He was a big part of station life and was known for his constant cleaning of the appliance, again his pride showing through. 'Throughout his short battle with cancer he showed us all the hero he really was.' Dean, known as Deano to his friends, dad to Eleanor, 12, and Max, nine, married long-term partner Nicola in June, following his tragic diagnosis. Nicola, who has been with Dean for 16 years, said: 'Even when he was advised he may have six to eight months, he remained positive. 'He didn't have a bucket list and said he had no regrets with the life he had led. We married in June. We had the most amazing wedding, organised by our friends.' 'In July Dean was admitted to hospital with pneumonia, which took such a toll on him that he was not strong enough to undertake the chemo that had been planned. 'Towards the end of August Dean became weak and was admitted to St Margarets in Taunton on the September 6 and passed away in the early hours of September 14.' Nicola also described Dean as 'a massive petrol head', having left school to do a mechanic apprenticeship at Langport Motor Company. Dean Patten, 45, tragically died on September 14 following his short battle with cancer. The father-of-two worked joined Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue in 2012 as a retained firefighter and it was 'his proudest achievement' As well as being a retained firefighter, Dean worked a second job at Abbey Garage in Street for many years. She continued: 'My thoughts are with everyone that knows and loves Dean and I'm sending my love to all of you, knowing Dean meant so much to so many. 'He was loved by so many and we both felt through all of this that he won at life. Whilst I would give anything to have him here, I'm lucky to have had him for the time I did. 'There are no words to express how any of us are feeling right now, whether family, friend, colleague or DSFR family, there is a Dean shaped hole in all our lives. 'Please know the messages, kind words and memories being shared mean the world to me, as I'm sure they do to everyone that reads them. 'Remember him with a smile, we were lucky, we knew him. The big man will live on forever'. Ms Patten's tribute, which was posted on Facebook, has received more than 150 comments with many sharing their condolences following the sad news. Sara Dyer said: 'He will never be forgotten. Such a great man . Always smiling. We are all richer for knowing him but today we became a little bit poorer when he gained his wings.' While Lisa Marie Brazey said: 'Dean was an amazing guy and was always so kind to me when I worked with him and never failed to make me laugh.' Many spoke of how much of a role model the firefighter was. Gemma Victoria said: 'It was such an honour to have him to look up to and guide me through life. He was my role model and someone who I looked up to for advice.' While Philip Peach said: 'The knowledge and experience I gained from him I will be for ever grateful.' Dean's funeral will take place on Tuesday, October 2, meeting at Somerset fire station at 2.30pm. A spokesman for Somerton Fire Station said: 'Dean was a valued member of our team and the community. 'All our thoughts are with his wife Nicola Patten and his two children, Max and Ellie and all his family and friends.' A male doctor can choose to only treat female patients if an observer or chaperone is present under proposed Medical Board of Australia guidelines. The board is finalising new rules for doctors to use nurses or receptionists as a 'witness to the consultation' under draft guidelines on sexual boundaries for doctors and patients. It follows growing fears of doctors having false abuse allegations made against them in light of the '#MeToo' movement. Australian Medical Association ethics committee chairman Dr Chris Moy said some patients have a 'malicious intent - similar to the people putting needles in strawberries'. 'The whole sexual boundaries issue is a bit of a moving feast because the '#MeToo' situation is changing the cultural norms a little bit,' Dr Moy said. The '#MeToo' movement gained prominence after several high profile Hollywood figures including producer Harvey Weinstein were accused of sexual assault. Medical Board of Australia is currently finalising new guidelines on sexual boundaries in the doctor patient relationship (stock image) 'A doctor may choose to have an observer present during an intimate examination of a patient or in any consultation,' the draft guidelines state. 'An observer can provide an account of the consultation if later there is an allegation of improper behaviour.' If a patient declines to have an observer present, the doctor can proceed with the consultation or help the patient to find another doctor. A number of Brisbane specialists will only take appointments for female patients when a receptionist can be a chaperone, The Sunday Mail reported. 'There've been a couple of times when I've felt unsafe with a woman patient,' an unnamed specialist told the publication. The draft guidelines advice that doctors should only conduct physical examinations if they are clinically warranted and that 'unnecessary physical examinations may constitute sexual assault or abuse'. A male doctor can choose to only treat female patients if an observer or chaperone is present under new guidelines (stock image) 'There is a wide range of behaviours that breach sexual boundaries, from making unnecessary comments about a patient's body or clothing to criminal behaviour such as sexual assault,' the draft guidelines state. 'Unnecessary physical examinations or touching during a consultation and examinations without informed consent are criminal offences. Other breaches include asking a patient about their sexual history or preferences, when these are not relevant to the patient's clinical issue. Even the shaking of hands could 'breach sexual boundaries. The medical board plans to publish its final guidelines in the coming months. 'The whole sexual boundaries issue is a bit of a moving feast because the '#metoo' situation is changing the cultural norms a little bit,'Australian Medical Association ethics committee chairman Dr Chris Moy (pictured) said Many doctors and medical associations responded when the board called for public submissions on the guidelines earlier this year. The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners believe the guidelines need to consider the broader context of a doctor-patient relationship to avoid unwarranted malpractice claims. 'Guidance is needed to help protect patients from inappropriate behaviour and harm by doctors, but this should be approached in a manner that does not inflict unwarranted stress and concern to all individuals involved,' its submission to the board states. 'As currently written, the RACGP believes the guidelines might have the unwanted consequence of being misused to support unwarranted claims of sexual misconduct by doctors. Routine and important procedures, such as taking a sexual history, could be interpreted as harassment.' The RACGP also expressed concerns about delayed diagnosis and 'placing the patient at unnecessary risk'. Rape and Domestic Violence Services Australia called for guidelines should include a medical professionals right to access support when they receive a disclosure of sexual assault. 'Vicarious trauma refers to the deleterious effects upon people not directly affected by traumatic events, but nevertheless exposed to them in some way,' executive director Karen Willis wrote. 'Vicarious trauma is common among professionals who receive disclosures of sexual assault. Strategies which may assist with managing the risk of vicarious trauma include education, risk reduction, monitoring, early intervention and offsetting symptoms.' She also recommended guidelines be amended to clarify the rights of medical practitioners who are subject to sexual harassment or sexual assault by a patient. 'In particular, the guidelines must make clear a medical practitioners right to report these behaviours and access appropriate support,' Ms Willis wrote. A huge end-of-school party has ended in disaster after three teenagers were hospitalised due to suspected drug overdoses. About 600 adolescent revelers were partying at Darling Harbour, Sydney to celebrate the end of school term. The party was shut down after police arrived about 6.30pm to discover that some of the teenagers had consumed high levels of alcohol and allegedly overdosed on drugs. A huge end-of-school party has ended in disaster after three teenagers were hospitalised due to suspected overdosing Three teenagers were hospitalised due to excessive drinking. A further three were treated for intoxication at the scene The large group of school students aged between 16 and 17 had planned to go on a boat cruise. However police were notified of their plans and stopped them from boarding the vessel. Three teens were taken to Royal North Shore and Sydney Hospital for treatment. They are believed to be in stable conditions with non-life-threatening injuries. 'The remaining three were picked up by their parents after being treated by paramedics,' a NSW police spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia. Emergency worker Clare Beech told 9 News that the teenagers were lucky to be alive. 'We've seen excessive drinking, we understand that we actually had a patient who was unconscious as a result of the excessive drinking,' Ms Beech said. 'It's taking it too far.' Police have warned party-goers to exercise caution and be aware that alcohol and drug consumption can be a matter of life or death. The incident comes less than a week after two people died from an apparent drug overdose at Defqon.1 music festival in Penrith. This is the shocking moment gunmen disguised as soldiers opened fire at an annual Iranian military parade, killing at least 25 people and injuring 53. The attack in the southwest city of Ahvaz saw four gunmen fire from a park near the parade into a crowd of marching Revolutionary Guardsmen, bystanders and government officials. As the violence erupts innocent civilians and the wounded are seen crawling on the ground trying to escape the assault in which the Iranian officials present were targeted. Video footage captures the moments following the assault by gunmen disguised as soldiers at an annual Iranian military parade where at least 25 people were killed During the video injured soldier and civilians are seen crawling on the ground in fear of their lives The attack in the southwest city of Ahvaz saw four gunmen fire into a crowd of marching Revolutionary Guardsmen, bystanders and government officials The event was to mark the anniversary of the Islamic Republic's 1980-88 war with Iraq. An Arab opposition movement called the Ahvaz National Resistance and Islamic State (IS) militants have both claimed responsibility for the attack. Three of the gunmen died at the scene while the fourth succumbed to his wounds at a hospital. Following the bloody assault, paramedics were seen tending to wounded civilians and soldiers. The parade was being held to mark the start of the Islamic Republic's 1980-88 war with Iraq An unnamed wounded soldier told the state-run IRNA news agency: 'They were just aimlessly shooting around and did not have a specific target' State television immediately described the assailants as 'takfiri gunmen,' a term previously used to describe the Islamic State group, however later said that Arab separatists in the region were responsible. An unnamed wounded soldier told the state-run IRNA news agency: 'We suddenly realised that some armed people wearing fake military outfits started attacking the comrades from behind (the stage) and then opened fire on women and children. 'They were just aimlessly shooting around and did not have a specific target.' An Iranian soldier is seen carrying a child at the site of the attack on the military parade in the southwestern Iranian city of Ahvaz A man is seen helping women and children as they try to flee at the scene of the attack at the military parade Housing Secretary Ben Carson believes a 'socialist' plot to take over America has fueled allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The former neurosurgeon, who was appointed secretary of urban housing and development in March 2017, blamed the controversy over Kavanaugh's nomination on people who want to 'fundamentally change this country'. Carson echoing President Trump's earlier remarks, said Kavanaugh's accusers had become 'desperate'. 'They don't like what America is and what it represents, and they want to change us to another system,' he said. 'In order to do that, there are three things they must control: the education system, the media, and the courts. The first two of those they have. 'The other they thought they had, but it was snatched out from under their noses in November of 2016.' Housing Secretary Ben Carson (pictured) said he was once accused of fathering a child outside marriage but wasn't worried as he 'only ever slept with my wife in my entire life' Carson was one of the first members of Trump's Cabinet to directly address the allegations, which have divided the nation and, increasingly, threaten to divide the Republican party. He said: 'If you really understand the big picture of what's going on, then what's going on with Kavanaugh will make perfectly good sense to you. 'There've been people in this country for a very long time, going all the way back to the Fabians, people who've wanted to fundamentally change this country'. The term 'Fabians' refers to the Fabian Society, a British socialist organization that was founded in the 19th century, and which today functions as part of the UK's Labour Party. An American chapter of the Fabian society was established in 1895 in Boston, but it is no longer active in the United States. Carson's remarks about Ford echo Trump's assertion earlier Friday that his nominee was 'under assault by radical left wing politicians who don't want to know the answers.' Carson and his wife Candy (pictured) met when they studied at Yale and married in 1971 During a speech on Friday, Carson, 67, described an incident in his own career when he was accused of fathering a child out of wedlock. However, he said he wasn't intimidated because 'I knew that the only woman I had ever slept with in my entire life was my wife.' Kavanaugh, 53, who was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Donald Trump in July, has seen his confirmation process disrupted by an allegation from a California Professor that he sexually assaulted her while they were in high school. He has denied the allegation and negotiations are underway about having his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Carson, who was born in Detroit, touched on the allegation made against him during a speech at the annual Values Voter Summit in Washington on Friday. Carson and his wife Candy met in 1971 as students at Yale University. They married in 1975 have three sons Rhoeyce, Benjamin Junior, and Murray, as well as several grandchildren. Carson claimed that the so-called forces 'are like wet hornets, just completely lost control off the deep end, and the further they get away from being able to control the courts the more desperate they become,' he added. Carson continued: 'Sexual predators, people who prey upon people who are weaker than them or in a lower position, is abominable. And there's just no room for it, as far as I'm concerned, OK?' 'Having said that, we must also recognize that there are two sides to every story'. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh (pictured) has denied the allegations of sexual assault which were made by University Professor Christine Blasey Ford last week Christine Blasey Ford (pictured) has been given extra time to decide whether she will testify against Kavanaugh at a Senate Judiciary Committee, with a decision due imminently Kavanaugh currently serves as a judge on the powerful US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. President Trump (pictured) attacked Christine Blasey Ford's credibility on Friday The allegations were first reported to two Democratic lawmakers in July, but only became public this month, as Kavanaugh's confirmation seemed all but assured. Kavanaugh has denied assaulting Ford, and he has agreed to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding the allegation. As of Friday, representatives for Ford were still negotiating terms under which the California psychology professor would be willing to testify before the committee about what she says was a violent attempted rape in 1982. A few hours before Carson spoke on Friday, President Trump attacked Ford directly by accusing her of exaggerating what happened and accusing Democratic lawyers and operatives of plotting to ruin Kavanaugh. Donald Trump's tweet (pictured) about Christine Blasey Ford has been widely denounced He tweeted: 'I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. 'I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place!' Establishment Republicans were quick to distance themselves Friday from Trump's remarks. Kavanaugh is expected to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee next week. A multi-million pound oyster farm and hotel has burned down after bungling workers sprayed the entire pier with flammable mosquito spray. Sinmana Farmstay, a floating sea resort which allowed guests to catch the molluscs, was expecting a big tour group today. Ahead of their arrival workers sprayed the stilted structure with a thick fog of the repellent, reportedly a mixture of oil, diesel and gas. A multi-million pound oyster farm and hotel has burned down after bungling workers sprayed the entire pier with flammable mosquito spray Although it is currently unclear how, a spark ignited on the first floor and engulfed the artificial grass, causing the blaze to spread through the building off the coast of Surat Thani, southern Thailand at 5pm yesterday evening. Rescue crews arrived by boat and for several hours battled the inferno, which caused 20 million baht (620,000USD) in damage. Owner Somchai Sinma said: 'Workers were spraying mosquito spray because a big tour group was coming today. Sinmana Farmstay, a floating sea resort which allowed guests to catch the molluscs, was expecting a big tour group today Ahead of their arrival workers sprayed the stilted structure with a thick fog of the repellent, reportedly a mixture of oil, diesel and gas Although it is currently unclear how, a spark ignited on the first floor and engulfed the artificial grass, causing the blaze to spread through the building off the coast of Surat Thani, southern Thailand at 5pm yesterday evening 'A spark ignited the spray and it quickly spread. They couldn't put out the flames and they spread very quickly on the artificial grass.' The 200 square metre farm and hotel allowed guests to learn about oysters, catch them and eat them in the Bandon Bay. Nobody was injured in the incident. Somchai said he would now begin trying to repair the building. Owner Somchai Sinma said: 'Workers were spraying mosquito spray because a big tour group was coming today New York's subway woes aren't solely the city's fault passengers are to blame, too, according to the city's subway chief. NYC's mass transit delays have long been a sore subject for both elected and appointed officials and millions of daily passengers alike. The city's Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is said to deploy more than 8,000 subways trains each weekday, to service some five million riders, and up to 6,000 trains at the weekend. However, in June this year 72,000 trains were reported to be delayed - this is around one in three services. While train delays are often caused by signal failures and mechanical issues, New York City transit officials said passengers holding train doors were partially to blame for the delays, too Meanwhile, a recent Riders Alliance study revealed signal problems or mechanical issues delayed trains every weekday morning, from 6 to 10am, of the month of August save August 23 impacting commutes for large swathes of the city's population. New York City Transit Authority president Andy Byford has been tasked with revamping the rapid transit system But subway officials also blame passengers claiming they contributed to delays by holding doors open - preventing trains from leaving stations on time, the Wall Street Journal reported. In August, the MTA launched new efforts to reduce train delayy, including training conductors to be more aggressive when it comes to closing train doors. This can mean only reopening doors just wide enough for a rider to pull free whatever appendage or property they've used to keep the doors from closing, instead of opening them all the way so the passenger and a stream of others behind them can get aboard. The theory behind this is that the quicker trains can leave stations, the more likely they will arrive at the next stop on time, increasing overall train punctuality. 'You want reliable transit. We want to give it you,' New York City Transit Authority president Andy Byford told the Wall Street Journal, also nothing that straphangers 'have a part to play in this.' Train conductors are now being instructed to be more aggressive with closing doors as every second a train is held up in a station by a door holder contributes to delays on the line (stock) Passengers said they held doors because they didn't trust another train would arrive soon As in other large cities, including London and Tokyo, the MTA employs subway platform controllers. In New York, these controllers are also tasked with attempting to get riders to obey common sense subway etiquette, such as letting passengers exit cars before boarding. Straphangers, however, seem to resent the notion that they bear any responsibility for delaying trains and insist that what's actually needed is more frequent train service. One rider told the Wall Street Journal that the reason why people hold doors and try to force their way onto trains is because they don't believe that another train will arrive quickly, creating a now or never situation. The MTA is in the midst of an $800million overhaul which is seeing signal upgrades and track cleaning efforts. Byford, however, said $40billion would be needed to overhaul the more than 100-year-old subway system to match that of other major cities' rapid transit systems. Images of aged platform ceilings crumbling onto platforms below have caused a stir on social media in recent months, while rat sightings and loose trash are also an issue in subway stations. Garrett Ventry, 29, has resigned from his role as communications aide for the Senate Judiciary Committee amid reports that he was fired from a previous political job after a female coworker accused him of sexual harassment A press adviser leading the GOP's response to the sexual assault allegation against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh has resigned. Garrett Ventry, 29, stepped down from his role as communications aide for the Senate Judiciary Committee amid reports that he had been fired from a previous political job in part because of a sexual harassment allegation against him. Ventry denied any past 'allegations of misconduct' in a statement to NBC News Saturday. Reports of Ventry's alleged misconduct come as the committee chaired by Iowa Sen Chuck Grassley struggles to respond to claims that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted his classmate Christine Blasey Ford at a high school party 36 years ago. When asked about the allegations against the committee aide, spokesman Taylor Foy responded in a statement: 'While [Ventry] strongly denies allegations of wrongdoing, he decided to resign to avoid causing any distraction from the work of the committee.' Ventry had been leading the GOP's response to allegations that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh assaulted his classmate Christine Blasey Ford at a high school party 36 years ago NBC reports that Republicans familiar with the situation were concerned that Ventry could not lead an effective communications response to the Ford allegations because of his history. However, insiders have remained quiet following the news of his resignation. North Carolina House Majority Leader John Bell, who fired Ventry from his role of social media adviser in 2017, told NBC: 'Mr Ventry did work in my office and he's no longer there, he moved on.' Sources say Ventry was booted from Bell's office after a female coworker accused him of sexual harassment. He was also found to have embellished parts of his resume, according to NBC. One insider claimed Ventry's termination was unusually abrupt, telling the news outlet: 'It caused a lot of staff drama. It was the chatter of the staff. 'The whole thing got turned into a he said, she said, and then Garrett was fired.' NBC has reached out to the woman who allegedly accused Ventry of harassment but she has not responded as of midday Saturday. Ventry declined to answer questions regarding his departure from Bell's office but released the letter of resignation he had sent to the North Carolina representative. 'Thank you for the opportunity to serve on the staff of the North Carolina House Majority leader at the North Carolina General Assembly,' the letter said. Ventry also resigned Saturday from the public relations company where he had been on a temporary leave of absence to work for the Judiciary Committee. Police have charged the woman they say went on a stabbing spree at an illegal birthing facility in New York, cutting three infants and two adults, with another infant suffering a head injury, before attempting to take her own life. Yu Fen Wang, 52, who worked at the Mei Xin Care underground establishment, has been charged with five counts of attempted murder, police said. The terrifying incident unfolded at around 3.40am on Friday morning inside of a three-story townhome on 161st Street between 45th and 43rd avenues in Flushing, Queens. The victims included a 63-year-old worker, a 31-year-old man and four infant girls, aged three days, two weeks, three weeks and one month, the New York Post reported. The three-week-old was not stabbed, but instead suffered a fractured skull, the cause of which was still being investigated on Saturday, police said. Wang was found unconscious in the basement when police arrived at the scene, where they also found a butcher knife and meat cleaver. All of the victims, and Wang, survived. Wang remained in custody Saturday at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Queens, where she was undergoing a psychiatric evaluation. Scroll down for video Yu Fen Wang, 52, has been charged with five counts of attempted murder following a stabbing that took place at Mei Xin Car daycare center in Queens, New York; A woman is pictured leaving the maternity center on Friday afternoon after police say three baby girls and two adults were stabbed by worker Yu Fen Wang, with another infant suffering a head injury The location of the brutal attack is said to provide housing for foreign mothers have come to America in order to give birth to their children on US soil in hops of later earning them citizenship. There were nine babies inside the Mei Xin Care facility when the terror unfolded, five of which were girls and four were baby. The man who was injured is the father of one of the injured infants. He was struck in the ankle during the stabbing. Wang's colleague was inflicted with wounds on her torso, police said. It remains unclear how many stab wounds the child victims suffered and where on the body they were struck. The three-week-old baby girl who suffered the fractured skull was rushed her to the hospital by her parents before cops arrived, police said. It was not immediately clear on Saturday whether that child was injured as a result of the stabbing spree, or in some other manner. An empty Pampers box was left discarded outside the home next to a pool of spattered blood In the 911 call on Friday morning, one of the injured babies' mothers reported the terror as it unfolded. 'Help, help, help!' she said, according to NBC which obtained the call. 'Hurry, my baby has already been stabbed twice.' Another person called later, saying: 'Im sleeping and then I heard somebody yelling and then they are killing people. 'I just saw blood on the floor and that somebody got hurt.' That person told the operator they were scared to go outside in case they too were harmed, saying, 'I'm afraid.' The chaotic scene continued into the day on Friday as the investigation progressed Authorities work at the scene on Friday as the victims recover in the hospital The stabbing is understood to have happened on the ground floor and in the basement. Wang, who sources said has psychological problems, then allegedly fled to a separate area in the basement of the brick home and slit her left wrist in an apparent attempt to take her own life. Police discovered her unconscious and used a tourniquet to stem her bleeding, after which she was revived. One of the baby girls was more severely injured than the others, NYPD Assistant Chief Juanita Holmes said. Police initially feared for her life but her condition has improved to critical but stable since she was taken to the hospital, Holmes said. Holmes added that the property was split between living quarters but that they had uncovered paperwork which showed it was a daycare center too. There is no record for any business at that site online. The building where the horror unfolded is a multi-family townhouse which contains several separate apartments. The center is one of many other similar clandestine facilities across the country where foreign pregnant women come to give birth to their babies on US soil so that they may later gain citizenship. One of the injured babies' mothers told the New York Post she paid $4,600 to stay there for a month. The Office of Child and Family Services distanced itself from the facility after the stabbing and said it was not certified by them in anyway. 'OCFS is saddened by this horrific situation and investigating it as a possible illegal operation,' the agency said. This is the bizarre moment a pensioner rode his mobility scooter through a road tunnel before being arrested. The 65-year-old man found himself in trouble with the police in the town of Izola on south-western Slovenias Adriatic coast. His journey triggered alarms in the Markovec tunnel as sensors mistook the scooter for a pedestrian illegally using the road tunnel. The 65-year-old man rode his mobility scooter through the 1.2 mile Markovec tunnel in the south-western Slovenian town of Izola. Police thought it was a prank or a forfeit for a lost bet He was met by police officers as he emerged from the end of the 1.2 mile (two kilometre) tunnel in the early hours of the morning. The man, whose name has not been released, was issued with an on-the-spot fine for an undisclosed amount for his journey. Police told local media the man had been unable to give them an explanation for the stunt and they assumed it was a prank or a forfeit for a lost bet. The video is proving popular with viewers after it was posted online by road safety officials as a warning to others. Chinese President Xi Jinping has congratulated Chinese farmers for their first harvest festival. Xi, also general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and chairman of the Central Military Commission, sent greetings and good wishes to the country's farmers on behalf of the CPC Central Committee ahead of the festival, which falls on Sept. 23, the Autumnal Equinox of this year. Chinese President Xi Jinping. [File Photo: Xinhua] The CPC Central Committee's decision to create the Chinese farmers' harvest festival further demonstrates that work related to agriculture, rural areas and farmers is a top priority and holds a fundamental position, Xi noted, calling the creation of the festival "an event with profound and far-reaching influence." "China is a large agricultural country. Priority on agriculture is the foundation and essential for the rule of the country and the people's security," Xi said. Chinese farmers have made great contributions throughout the country's history, he said, noting that historic achievements and reforms have been made in agricultural and rural development over the past four decades of rural reform. Xi called on the country's farmers and all sectors of society to vigorously participate in the festive events and foster a good environment for the development of agriculture and rural areas as well as the wellbeing of farmers. He also urged moves to stimulate farmers' enthusiasm, initiative and creativity so as to fully implement the rural vitalization strategy, win the tough battle against poverty and accelerate the modernization of agriculture and rural areas. Officials in Virginia have shared images of a two-headed venomous copperhead snake, leaving many social media aghast at the reptile's appearance. The serpent was spotted last week in resident's backyard in Woodbridge, Virginia, according to officials with the Virginia Wildlife Management and Control. In addition to the photos, wildlife management officials shared a video of the two-headed serpent twisting and wriggling inside a container. Rare two-headed copperhead snake found last week in a resident's backyard in Woodbridge, Virginia and is believed to have been there for a number of days The two headed serpent (pictured) was discovered by a resident in his backyard last week The snake is currently being monitored by a state herpetologist after it was examined at the Wildlife Center of Virginia in Waynesboro. A veterinary hospital spokesman told WTVR : 'It appears as though the left head is more dominant it's generally more active and responsive to stimulus. 'Radiographs revealed that the two-headed snake has two tracheas [the left one is more developed], two esophaguses [the right one is more developed], and the two heads share one heart and one set of lungs. 'Based on the anatomy, it would be better for the right head to eat, but it may be a challenge since the left head appears more dominant'. The photos and video of the snake went viral after Virginia Wildlife Management and Control shared them on Facebook earlier this month. Virginia Wildlife Management and Control owner Rich Perry said the person who found the snake called his company's 24-hour Snake identification hotline in an effort to better determine what she found. Perry's business later posted the photos, without many details, on Facebook. He said the person who found the snake asked that their name not be released. 'That snake has been going crazy,' Perry said in reference to his social media post. He said he had been fielding calls and messages from around the country from people looking to buy the rare reptile. Social media users have questioned whether the two-headed snake (pictured) is real The two-headed copperhead snake (pictured) is said to be doing well but the rare reptiles have a short lifespan and for now the creature will be monitored at a Virginia veterinary hospital For now, the snake will remain with the state herpetologist. 'Wild two-headed snakes are extremely rare,' a spokesperson for the veterinary hospital added. 'They just don't live that long. The herpetologist will continue monitoring the snake; if it survives, it will likely be placed in an educational facility'. While some social media users questioned the authenticity of the post, the department assured the photos and video were both very real. 'Absolutely not a fake! We assure you, it's very real and was shedding its skin.' Two-headed snakes are rare and typically do not survive for long in the wild, according to National Geographic. The rare genetic abnormality can hinder the snake's ability to catch prey. 'Snakes operate a good deal by smell, and if one head catches the scent of prey on the other's head, it will attack and try to swallow the second head,' National Geographic reported. The magazine said two-head snakes develop similarly to Siamese twins when an embryo does not properly split into two. The White House has drafted an executive order for President Donald Trump's signature that would open an investigation into the practices of Google, Facebook and other social media companies. The order, which officials say is still in its preliminary stages and has yet to be run by other law enforcement agencies, instructs US antitrust authorities to 'thoroughly investigate whether any online platform has acted in violation of the anti-trust laws'. The goal of the order is to 'protect competition among online platforms and address online platform bias'. While the draft obtained by Bloomberg doesn't name any companies specifically, it is understood to target social media entities such as Facebook, Google and Twitter, which Trump has repeatedly accused of silencing conservative voices and news sources. The White House has drafted an executive order that if signed by President Donald Trump would open an anti-trust investigation into the practices of Google, Facebook and other social media companies (stock image) Trump hinted at his plan to address possible bias within media companies in a tweet last month, writing: 'Social Media is totally discriminating against Republican/Conservative voices. 'Speaking loudly and clearly for the Trump Administration, we won't let that happen. They are closing down the opinions of many people on the RIGHT, while at the same time doing nothing to others.' Days later Trump slammed Google for not highlighting his State of the Union speech on its front page despite having always done so for President Obama. However, that claim was found to be false as Google did in fact promote the address just as it had for Trump's predecessor. Trump has repeatedly accused social media platforms of intentionally silencing conservative voices and news sources Top officials from Twitter and Facebook testified before Congress earlier this month, maintaining that the sites did not make any intentional efforts to censor views from the right nor the left. Still, the Justice Department announced the same day that Attorney General Jeff Sessions would meet with state attorneys general to determine if tech companies are 'intentionally stifling' free speech on their platforms. 'The Attorney General has convened a meeting with a number of state attorneys general this month to discuss a growing concern that these companies may be hurting competition and intentionally stifling the free exchange of ideas on their platforms,' a Justice Department spokesman said. More concerning than the political aspect of the drafted executive order is the antitrust aspect - which could end up costing companies millions. Google, Facebook and other sites have been accused of anti-competitive behavior by pundits on both sides of the aisle. The companies have argued that they do in fact face robust competition and especially given that many of their products are free. A chef was left facing deportation after his visa request was wrongly declined and he had his passport confiscated. Ryan Magnus, 36, lives in Nottingham with his wife but is able to remain in the UK indefinitely as she has lived here since 2001. He moved from South Africa to Nottingham in 2016 after having a spousal visa granted for two and a half years. Ryan Magnus, 36, lives in Nottingham with his wife but is able to remain in the UK indefinitely as she has lived here since 2001 Mr Magnus was hoping to extend his visa for another two and a half years before he can be granted indefinite leave to remain in the country like his wife, who is also South African. Yet when applying for a new visa in July, he was refused one on September 7 because he had not provided an English language certificate following a rule change. After being told the application was rejected, Mr Magnus' passport was confiscated under section 17 of the Asylum and Immigration Act 2004 - to assist with removing him from the country. Mr Magnus, who is a chef at Colwick Hall, said: 'When I got a letter saying I wouldn't get my passport back I was devastated. I felt like I was being treated like a criminal. 'I made a slip up because I had completed the A1 English Language certificate and not the A2 one. I didn't know the rules had changed in 2017. 'I wanted to resubmit my application and take the test but with them holding my passport I wasn't able to. I was trapped.' The Home Office has told Magnus that his passport will be returned to him but he still needs to resubmit an application and complete and English test. He added: 'I will then have to wait one to two months for my application to be redone and my visa runs out on Friday, September 28. 'I booked months ago to return to see my mum in South Africa so if this is stalled that will be more than 1,000 wasted and I won't be able to see her. Mr Magnus moved to the UK in 2016, and his wife had been living in Britain since 2001 'We have spent so much money on these applications. We are supposed to be saving for a house but now we have just scraped together everything we have so that our family can stay togther.' Mr and Mrs Magnus were childhood sweethearts who tied the knot three years ago, and have begun to built their life together in Nottingham. However the fiasco surrounding Mr Magnus's possible deportation from the country has raised doubt as to their future together. Mrs Magnus, 36, a sales supervisor, said she has not slept since her partner's passport was taken away. She said: 'I honestly don't think I have slept since this started. He was basically told "no you can't stay" and we're keeping your passport to facilitate you leaving the country. 'The emotional stress that has caused is so upsetting. It could tear our family apart and we have set up a life here.' Mr and Mrs Magnus said they are trying to raise awareness of their case so that others in a similar situation do not fall into the same trap. The couple set up a petition to get his passport returned and MP Chris Leslie has also backed the case. Mr Leslie said: 'In pursuing the issues raised in this case, I have made representation and am trying to help get his passport back so that he has a chance to stay in the UK with his wife without having to go back to South Africa. 'I hope that the Home Office will respond quickly to this.' A Home Office spokesman said: 'We have spoken to Mr Magnus to apologise for the delay in returning his passport. His passport will be returned as a matter of urgency.' The family of Christine Blasey Ford is continuing to publicly show their support after the California college professor accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers. During an appearance on Good Morning America, Ford's sister-in-law Deborah Ford Peters spoke out on why Ford wants her story to be heard. 'I assume that she was very concerned about Judge Kavanaugh being considered for the Supreme Court,' Peters said. 'I think she doesn't want her story misrepresented, in the way that it leaked, but she also strongly believes that story needs to be heard by the American public, that they need to know what this man did in his youth so that he can be held responsible.' Deborah Ford Peters (pictured on Good Morning America) showed support for her sister-in-law Christine Blasey Ford Ford accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting at a party when they were in high school Kavanaugh, who is Trump's Supreme Court nominee, denied the allegations Ford accused Kavanaugh of attempted rape, telling the Washington Post that he allegedly pinned her down on a bed and tried to take her clothes off at a party in high school. She said he covered her mouth when she tried to scream. Ford, who said their are details she does not remember, told the outlet that she believes the attack happened in the early 1980s when she was 15. At the time, Ford did not tell anyone about her encounter with Kavanaugh. She and her husband said the first time she mentioned it was in 2012 during a couples therapy session. Kavanaugh denied the allegations, while some Republicans have suggested that Ford may be mistaken and the person who allegedly attacked her was someone else. Peters, however, is sure Ford is telling the truth and has the right guy. 'I can't imagine any reason that it would be a mistaken identity,' she said on GMA. 'Specifically working with people who have been through traumas, the details of the traumas are often etched in their minds forever.' She added: 'I feel very proud and kind of impressed and amazed that she has the courage to come out and face whatever consequence she has to face. But she's a strong person. She's showing us she's capable of doing it.' Peters' comments came days after several members of Ford's family wrote a public letter of support, telling senators 'her honesty is above reproach'. Disney star Bridgit Mendler, Ford's niece, posted the letter on her Twitter page with a note praising her 'Aunt Chrissy'. 'Dr Christine Blasey Ford, or Aunt Chrissy as I know her is the person who patiently helped me with my college application, she was the first to give me a hug when I saw my family on vacation. Please remember her humanity. This is a message from our family,' Mendler wrote. Christine Blasey (now Ford) and Brett Kavanaugh in their respective high school year books Bridgit Mendler posted the family's public letter of support on her twitter account The signers include Ford's husband Russell Ford, Mendler and 10 other family members who identify as Christine Ford's in-laws. The letter speaks of Ford's 'honesty and compassion'. 'Chrissy has tremendous compassion for others, goes out of her way to support and encourage the young ones in our family and does so with great warmth and generosity,' the letter notes. 'We especially admire the way she is raising her children to be genuinely good people who are considerate of others,' it says. 'As a family member, Chrissy can be can be counted on in any kind of difficulty. Her honesty is above reproach and her behavior is highly ethical and respectful of everyone's point of view. We believe that Chrissy has acted bravely by voicing her experiences from he past and we know how difficult this is for her.' The letter concluded: 'Chrissy is not someone who chooses to be in the spotlight. We ask that her decision to share a private and difficult recollection be treated seriously and respectfully, and we ask that you please make every effort to respect Chrissy's and our family's privacy as this issue is investigated.' Additionally supporters gathered outside of Ford's home in Palo Alto, California, to show their support for her with many waving 'thank you' signs. Ford's attorney and friends have said she and her family cannot stay in their home because she has received death threats since coming forward with her accusation. Ford, a psychology professor at Palo Alto University, is gearing up to testify before the Senate about her allegations. Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley gave Ford and her attorney a Friday night deadline to decide if she was going to appear before the committee on Wednesday. Supporters rally outside of Ford's house in Palo Alto to show their support for her Trump tweeted Friday that Kavanaugh is a 'fine man with an impeccable reputation' The president also questioned why Ford, who said the assault happened when she was 15, didn't come forward years ago Debra Katz, one of Ford's lawyers, accused Republicans of trying to 'bully' Ford into quickly testifying to 'deprive her of the ability to make a considered decision that has life-altering implications for her and her family'. Her attorneys are pushing for a Thursday hearing so she has enough time to drive across the country from her home in California to DC. According to Politico, Ford reportedly told friends that she has trouble with confined spaces and indicated a physical difficulty in making the trip by plane. Trump nominated Kavanaugh for Supreme Court in July, and has repeatedly backed him amid the sexual assault allegation. In tweets on Friday, the president called Kavanaugh a 'fine man' and questioned why Ford didn't come forward years ago. 'Judge Brett Kavanaugh is a fine man, with an impeccable reputation, who is under assault by radical left wing politicians who dont want to know the answers, they just want to destroy and delay. Facts dont matter. I go through this with them every single day in D.C,' he wrote. In a second tweet, he added: 'I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place!' A murder investigation has been launched after a man collapsed and died in a bar just minutes after he had been attacked in another pub. A man believed to be Colin Barrett, who was in his 50s, died at the Hare and Hounds pub on Vicarage Road in Sunbury, Surrey, on Friday evening. Police say they were first called to a fight between a group of men at the Running Horse public house on Groveley Road but the punters had fled by the time officers arrived. Minutes later Surrey Police received another 999 call saying that a man had collapsed in the Hare and Hounds - a pub less than a ten minute walk away. A man believed by police to be Colin Barrett, who was in his 50s, was pronounced dead at the Hare and Hounds pub (pictured) on Vicarage Road in Sunbury, Surrey, at around 7pm on Friday When the police arrived they found Mr Barrett and he was pronounced dead at the scene. One man has been arrested on suspicion of murder but police are still appealing for anyone with information about what happened on Friday night to come forward. A spokesman for Surrey Police said: 'We are appealing for witnesses following a fight involving two groups of men at a pub in Sunbury last night (September 21). 'Officers were called to the Running Horse in Groveley Road just before 7pm following a report of a fight between two groups of people. All those involved had left before officers arrived. 'Officers were then called to the Hare and Hounds pub in Vicarage Road shortly afterwards where one of the men believed to have been involved the earlier fight had collapsed and was pronounced dead at the scene. 'The man is believed to be Colin Barrett, in his 50s. His next of kin have been informed. 'One man was last night arrested on suspicion of murder, and subsequently violent disorder, however officers are continuing to establish the circumstances of the death this morning and are urging anyone who has any information to come forward.' Police had first been called to the Running Horse on Groveley Road (pictured) after reports of two groups of men fighting however the punters had fled by the time officers arrived Senior Investigating Officer Detective Chief Inspector Till Sanderson said: 'We are treating this incident extremely seriously and I would urge anyone with any information to come forward. 'Our thoughts continue to remain with the family and friends of the man who died last night. 'Being a Friday night there's no doubt that both the Running Horse and Hare and Hounds would have had plenty of people in. 'We want to hear from anyone who saw the first fight and anyone who knows those involved, but what is also crucial is what happened to the man who later died and how he travelled between the two pubs and what caused him to collapse. 'Any information no matter how insignificant it may seem could be crucial. 'We know that not everyone will feel comfortable enough to report information to police officers. If this is the case you can report any information in complete anonymity to the independent charity Crimestoppers by calling 0800 555 111. 'Alternatively please call us on 101 or use report.police.uk and quote the reference number PR/P18228598.' Six of 10 siblings of an Arizona Republican running for reelection have thrown their weight behind his Democratic challenger in a new series of harsh ads speaking out against their brother. The trio of ads, which were released Friday on YouTube, show six of Arizona Republican Rep. Paul Gosar's siblings encouraging Arizona voters to vote against their brother and for his Democratic challenger, Dr. David Brill, in the upcoming midterm election. Paul is a strident Trump supporter who subscribes to far-right views, including being anti-DACA and pro-border wall. He also believes a conspiracy theory that suggests that the 2017 Charlottesville white supremacist rally was created by liberals. The trio of ads released Friday, six of Arizona Republican Rep. Paul Gosar's siblings, including David Gosar (left) and Grace Gosar, encouraging Arizona voters to vote against their brother. Paul Gosar (in January) is a strident Trump supporter who subscribes to far-right views, including being anti-DACA and pro-border wall Paul is also said to be a birther who believes that financier and Holocaust survivor George Soros collaborated with the Nazis. And, Paul made headlines in July for traveling to London to attend a rally for Tommy Robinson, the anti-Muslim activist who founded the Islamophobic English Defense League. In the video testimonial ads, the six Gosar siblings Tim, Jennifer, Gaston, Joan, Grace, and David lament what they are doing, but also reveal emotional, personal stories and tell voters why they have decided to speak out against their brother now. Sister Joan Cosar, an engineer, says, 'I think my brother has traded a lot of the values we had at our kitchen table.' 'This isn't just about Paul, this is about our family,' says sister Jennifer Gosar, a medical interpreter. 'It's horrible to have to do this.' 'None of this is pleasant for any of us,' says brother David Gosar, a lawyer, noting that 'We gotta stand up for our good name. This is not who we are.' 'It's intervention time,' says brother Tim Gosar, a private investigator. The Gosar siblings have thrown their support behind their brother's challenger, Dr. David Brill Gaston Gosar and Joan Gosar spoke out against their brother in Brill's campaign ads Tim Gosar said it was 'intervention time.' Sister Jennifer said 'it's horrible to have to do this' The siblings also spoke about Paul's record on Social Security, health care, water policy and his apparent disinterest in helping his rural constituents. At the end of each ad, the six siblings all say that they endorse Paul's rival, Dr. Brill. There are other ads, which have not yet been made public, too. In one of those ads, CNN reported, Paul's sister Grace Gosar, a rural physician, says, 'It would be difficult to see my brother as anything but a racist.' In an interview with the Washington Post, David said that he does not speak with his brother much and that their relationship began to fray once he said he discovered Paul was a birther during his first congressional run. David said that their parents are Republicans who support Paul and noted that he was disappointed by the other three siblings who did not appear in the ad, including a brother, Pete, who ran for governor of Wyoming as a Democrat in 2014. The Gosar family was raised in Wyoming, where many of the siblings still live. Paul moved to Arizona after college. The ads were filmed several weeks ago in Jackson and Laramie, Wyoming, where the featured siblings live, according to the Phoenix New Times, which also reported that the siblings were contacted by Brill's campaign team after seeing their criticism of Paul on social media. Brill told the newspaper that while Paul's siblings are 'really upstanding, wonderful people,' he has not yet met them and was not involved in the making of the ads so that he would not influence their testimonials. In October 2017, following the broadcast of a VICE News interview in which Paul stated his Soros/Nazis conspiracy claim, seven of Paul's siblings including Pete wrote a letter to the Daily Miner, the local paper covering Paul's districts, condemning his statements and demanding an apology for them. 'We are aghast that Paul has sunk so low that he now spews the most despicable slander against an 87-year-old man without a shred of proof, and then doesnt even have the guts or decency to apologize? Our parents are 87 and 83 and we would be outraged if some sleaze did to them what Paul shamelessly did to Mr. Soros,' the letter read. Paul Gosar responded to his siblings' campaign ads for Brill in a series of tweets Saturday 'Those arent our family values or the values of the small Wyoming town we grew up in. Character assassination wasnt revered. Lies and distortions do reveal much about the character of the congressman of Arizonas 4th congressional district, however.' The letter went on to say that 'It is extremely upsetting to have to call you out on this, Paul, but youve forced our hand with your deceit and anti-semitic dog whistle. We look forward to your apology on Vice.' Paul has not yet apologized. Brill is said to have a difficult fight against Paul ahead of him, as the district is deeply Republican and overwhelmingly voted for Trump. On Saturday, Gosar posted a series of tweets in which he called his six siblings 'disgruntled Hillary supporters' and made a communism reference, dropping Trump's #MAGA slogan and highlighting his popularity at the polls and attempting to make light of the situation. 'Not one of my siblings lives in Arizona and my opponent's policies are out of sync with what Arizona wants and the country needs. I will not be deterred from fighting for our conservative values regardless of these attacks,' he tweeted first. He followed that tweet with another, reading, 'My siblings who chose to film ads against me are all liberal Democrats who hate President Trump. These disgruntled Hillary suppporters are related by blood to me but like leftists everywhere, they put political ideology before family. Stalin would be proud.' He then wrote, 'You cant pick your family. We all have crazy aunts and relatives etc and my family is no different. I hope they find peace in their hearts and let go all the hate. To the six angry Democrat Gosarssee you at Mom and Dads house!' As a parting shot, he noted, '94,000 Arizonans in my district just voted for me. I got the highest vote total for any congressional House race in Arizona last month.' The Gosar siblings' ads for Brill are expected to start airing on television soon. A married man has been arrested in connection with at least ten rapes across Northern California between 1991 and 2006, Sacramento police announced. Roy Charles Waller, 58, from Benicia, was arrested without incident at the University of California in Berkeley, where he worked for 25 years as a safety specialist in the office of environment, health and safety. District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert said her office used DNA and genealogy websites to catch Waller out in what has become known as the NorCal Rapist case. His arrest comes five months after police used the same tactic to arrest former police officer Joseph DeAngelo, 72, in the Golden State Killer case. Video courtesy of FOX 40 Roy Charles Waller (pictured) was arrested in connection with the rapes of at least ten women which took place across Northern California between 1991 and 2006 Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert (pictured) gives details on the DNA and genealogy websites that were used to catch out University employee Roy Charles Waller Schubert said at a news conference announcing Waller's arrest: 'DNA is the silent witness to the truth'. Waller is suspected of raping women in six Northern California counties from Sacramento to Chico. He is scheduled to be arraigned Monday in Sacramento Superior Court. It is presently unclear if he has an attorney. Detective Avis Beery, who worked on the case for 12 years, said she has been 'waiting a really long time for this day to come'. 'I never gave up hope,' she said, adding that she called one of the victims of the NorCal Rapist on Friday morning to tell her the news. 'She was overcome and over the top with emotion and happiness to see that this person is in custody and that no one else has to worry about him anymore,' Beery said. 'The victims in this case can stop looking over their shoulders'. She described the NorCal Rapist's modus operandi, saying that he typically would break into houses late at night, often when women were asleep. 'He would overcome them, he would bind them, and then repeatedly sexually assault them,' she said. Sometimes he would kidnap the women and force them to withdrawal money from ATMs, and sometimes stole their personal items. Officials said that he targeted Asian women, local news outlets reported. Nicole Earnest-Payte , from North Bay, said she felt so many emotions when she learned the man who raped her 27 years ago was caught. She told ABC7 News: 'I don't cry a lot about this. I've been waiting for this for a long time,' she said through tears. 'It's interesting, when I saw his face, I felt nothing, numb.' Victim Nicole Earnest-Payte (pictured) says she is relieved Waller has finally been caught Police released a detailed map (pictured) outlining where the different attacks happened Sacramento Police Chief Daniel Hahn called the crimes 'horrific,' saying the victims were terrorized for hours at a time. He told the San Francisco Chronicle: 'There's one less dangerous predator on our streets'. Benicia police said Waller was not on their radar but they are now investigation past cases to see if there is any connection with those cases. Waller was arrested Thursday in the city of Berkeley, where he worked at the University of California's environment, health and safety office as a safety specialist, according to its website. Waller has been married and had the same job for about 25 years, officials said Thursday. None of the suspected rapes occurred in Alameda County, where the university is located. A university spokesman told the San Francisco Chronicle: 'We were shocked today to learn that a campus employee was arrested in connection with a series of rapes that occurred over more than a decade ago in several Northern California communities'. Another victim speaking previously on the horror of being attacked including having a gun pointed to her head before being tied up According to the university police and the Sacramento Police Department there is no indication that any crimes occurred within the campus community. However, the campus police will review any open sexual assault cases to determine if any might be related, he added. The NorCal Rapist's assaults began in 1991, when the attacker slipped through an unlocked door and raped a woman in her Rohnert Park townhome. The man went on to attack a woman in Vallejo in 1992, and then another in Martinez on Halloween 1996. In the Martinez case, police said, the assailant wore a skeleton mask and called the victim at work weeks later to apologize. Later crimes were committed in Woodland and Davis in Yolo County, Chico in Butte County and in Sacramento, authorities said. Police tied the cases together through DNA evidence from more than a decade ago, but until now they weren't able to match the crimes to a suspect. Investigators tied DeAngelo to the crimes with the help of an open-source genealogy website called GEDmatch. Police previously issued a graphic (pictured) of the suspect based on descriptions given by victims that included him being a heavy-set man with a protruding stomach Police used the same tactic to arrest former police officer Joseph DeAngelo (pictured) in the Golden State Killer case, which is connected to at least a dozen rapes and killings throughout the state in the 1970s and 1980s. Investigators pieced together Waller's ID by plugging in DNA from the rapist's crime scenes into GEDmatchthe same site used to find "Golden State Killer" suspect Joseph James DeAngelo. A fairly close match popped up and from there the sleuths built a family tree that led them to Waller, who matched up with the rapist's age and weight descriptions. Neighbors of Waller told The Chronicle they knew little to nothing about the couple who live in the modest yellow home in Benicia the only one on the block with a white picket fence. Marcia Shigemoto, a neighbor from across the street, said she never noticed him until last week, when he was on the roof of his house pruning the trees. 'I was worried he might fall,' she said. She asked her boyfriend to go help, but he declined. 'And there was a woman there, too, a younger woman,' Shigemoto said. 'And their interactions seemed pleasant, seemed normal'. Waller has been booked into Sacramento County jail and is facing three felony charges. He is being held without bail and his first scheduled court date is September 24. Dr Christine Blasey Ford has agreed to testify about her sexual assault claims against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh next week, her lawyers have revealed. In a 15-minute phone call between the Senate Judiciary Committee and Ford's attorneys on Saturday night, a source claimed to Politico the panel tentatively agreed to a Thursday hearing in private, despite publicly trying to rush the confirmation of Kavanaugh along. Negotiations are expected to continue over the weekend, with Ford's team and the panel still not able to agree on crucial details of the hearing. While all parties have agreed on only using pool cameras, keeping Ford and Kavanaugh separate and providing police security for the renowned psychologist, there is still no consensus on whether alleged witness Mark Judge will be subpoenaed. Ford's complaint centers around an incident that took place at a high school party in the 1980s, where she alleges Kavanaugh and Judge, his friend, followed her upstairs when she went to the bathroom and pushed her into a bedroom. Ford (left) is expected to testify against Kavanaugh (right) on Thursday of next week, before the Senate holds vote to determine whether he will be seated on the Supreme Court There, she alleges the Supreme Court nominee held her down, covered her mouth, groped her and tried to rip off her swimsuit . 'I thought he might inadvertently kill me,' she told the Washington Post. Her escape came only when Judge, who was in the room with them, jumped on top of the pair, she says. Kavanaugh denies the allegations and has said he would testify to clear his name. Judge has denied any recollection of the event. News of Ford's decision to testify at all came just as the Senate Judiciary Committee's extension ran out at 2.30pm EST Saturday. A statement from Ford's lawyers, posted on Twitter by Washington Post reporter Emma Brown, said: 'Dr Ford accepts the Committee's request to provide her first-hand knowledge of Brett Kavanaugh's sexual misconduct next week. 'Although many aspects of the proposal you provided via email, on September 21, 2018, at 2:33 pm, are fundamentally inconsistent with the Committee's promise of a fair, impartial investigation into her allegations, and we are disappointed with the leaks and the bullying that have tainted the process, we are hopeful that we can reach an agreement.' The statement is signed by attorney's Debra Katz and Lisa Banks. Dr Christine Blasey Ford has agreed to testify about her sexual assault claims against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, the accusers lawyers have revealed The White House also released a statement in response to the announcement on Saturday night. They said the Kavanaugh is looking forward to testifying so he can clear his 'good name'. 'Brett Kavanaugh has been clear from the beginninghe categorically and unequivocally denies this allegation and is eager to testify publicly to defend his integrity and clear his good name. 'On Monday, Brett Kavanaugh met with Committee counsels to answer questions subject to criminal penalties and offered to testify publicly Tuesday morning. 'Since then, we have heard about different dates, conditions, and ever changing schedules, but today we appear no closer to a fair hearing. But one thing has remained consistent: Brett Kavanaugh remains ready, willing and eager to testify as soon as possible.' Committee Chairman Senator Chuck Grassley reluctantly granted Ford an extension Friday night, writing in a string of tweets: 'With all the extensions we give Dr Ford to decide if she still wants to testify to the Senate I feel like Im playing 2nd trombone in the judiciary orchestra and [Senator Chuck] Schumer is the conductor.' This came after Grassley rejected Ford's key concessions under which she would testify and then gave her until 10pm Friday night to come to a 'reasonable resolution'. He said if Ford and her lawyers failed to reach a decision his Republican-run panel would vote on sending Kavanaugh's nomination for Supreme Court Justice by Monday. But before the 10pm deadline, Ford's lawyer said her client wants another day to consider terms for testifying about her allegations that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were teens. Attorney Debra Katz called Friday's deadline 'arbitrary', saying 'its sole purpose is to bully Dr Ford and deprive her of the ability to make a considered decision that has life-altering implications for her and her family.' Now a 53-year-old California psychology professor, Ford says an inebriated Kavanaugh pinned her on a bed, muffled her cries and tried removing her clothes when they were teens in the 80s Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley gave Dr Christine Blasey Ford an extension to decide if she wants to testify against Judge Kavanaugh Senator Chuck Grassley tweeted to Brett Kavanaugh that he is granted Dr Ford an extension Earlier Friday he gave Dr Ford until 10pm Friday to decide He appeared reluctant to grant the extension to decide if she wants to testify against Brett Kavanaugh Meanwhile, Ford's family has expressed their continued support of the accuser. During an appearance on Good Morning America, Ford's sister-in-law Deborah Ford Peters spoke out on why she wants her story to be heard. 'I assume that she was very concerned about Judge Kavanaugh being considered for the Supreme Court,' Peters said. 'I think she doesn't want her story misrepresented, in the way that it leaked, but she also strongly believes that story needs to be heard by the American public, that they need to know what this man did in his youth so that he can be held responsible.' Peters insisted that Ford is telling the truth about the alleged encounter with Kavanaugh 36 years ago, saying she's sure she has the right guy. 'I can't imagine any reason that it would be a mistaken identity,' she said on GMA. 'Specifically working with people who have been through traumas, the details of the traumas are often etched in their minds forever.' She added: 'I feel very proud and kind of impressed and amazed that she has the courage to come out and face whatever consequence she has to face. But she's a strong person. She's showing us she's capable of doing it.' Peters' comments came days after several members of Ford's family wrote a public letter of support, telling senators 'her honesty is above reproach'. Disney star Bridgit Mendler, Ford's niece, posted the letter on her Twitter page with a note praising her 'Aunt Chrissy'. 'Dr Christine Blasey Ford, or Aunt Chrissy as I know her is the person who patiently helped me with my college application, she was the first to give me a hug when I saw my family on vacation. Please remember her humanity. This is a message from our family,' Mendler wrote. Deborah Ford Peters spoke in support of her sister-in-law Christine Blasey Ford on Good Morning America Friday Earlier this week several members of Ford's family wrote a public letter of support, telling senators 'her honesty is above reproach'. Disney star Bridgit Mendler, Ford's niece, posted the letter on her Twitter page with a note praising her 'Aunt Chrissy' For days the public has been anxiously waiting for Ford to decide if she wanted to relive her alleged trauma in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee as Grassley imposed several deadlines. In Friday's tweet storm he wrote: 'Five times now we [have] granted extension for Dr Ford to decide if she wants to proceed [with] her desire stated one [week] ago that she wants to tell senate her story Dr Ford if u changed ur mind say so so we can move on I want to hear ur testimony. Come to us or we to u.' In a follow-up tweet, Grassley wrote: 'Judge Kavanaugh, I just granted another extension to Dr Ford to decide if she wants to proceed w the statement she made last week to testify to the senate She [should] decide so we can move on I want to hear her. I hope u understand. Its not my normal approach to [be] indecisive.' The latter tweet confused some Twitter users, who speculated the tweet was meant to be a direct text. Ford met with the FBI for several hours about death threats she has received and wants to consider her response until at least Saturday. Grassley had said if no agreement is reached the panel may vote Monday on Kavanaughs nomination. He turned down Ford's request that only senators, not attorneys, be allowed to ask questions. He also rejected her proposal that she testify after Kavanaugh, a position lawyers consider advantageous because it gives them a chance to rebut accusations. 'We are unwilling to accommodate your unreasonable demands,' Grassley said earlier Friday. Grassley sent Ford's attorneys a proposal earlier Friday offering a Wednesday hearing - Ford preferred Thursday - and said: 'It is not fair to him or to his family to allow this situation to continue without a resolution and without an opportunity for him to clear his name.' In this Sept. 4, 2018, file photo Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh stands with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley R-Iowa, during his confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill Grassley said he was rebuffing Ford's proposals that she testify after Kavanaugh and that only senators, not outside counsel, be allowed to ask questions. The committee's 11 Republicans - all men - have been seeking an outside female attorney to interrogate Ford, mindful of the election-season impression that could be left by men trying to pick apart a woman's assertion of a sexual attack. He also refused to call additional witnesses. Ford wants an appearance by Mark Judge, a Kavanaugh friend who Ford asserts was at the high school party and in the bedroom where Kavanaugh's assault occurred. Ford eventually escaped. Grassley said he'd consented to several other Ford demands, including that she be provided security and that Kavanaugh not be in the hearing room when she testifies. Friday was the latest in a string of tumultuous days for Kavanaugh, whose ascension to the Supreme Court seemed a sure bet until Ford emerged last weekend and provided details of the alleged assault. Kavanaugh, a District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals judge, has repeatedly denied the accusation. News of Ford's decision to testify broke just hours after Senate Judiciary Committee press adviser Garrett Ventry announced his resignation amid reports that he was fired from a previous political job for sexually harassing a female coworker. Ventry denied any past 'allegations of misconduct' in a statement to NBC News Saturday. When asked about the allegations against the committee aide, spokesman Taylor Foy responded in a statement: 'While [Ventry] strongly denies allegations of wrongdoing, he decided to resign to avoid causing any distraction from the work of the committee.' NBC reports that Republicans familiar with the situation were concerned that Ventry could not lead an effective communications response to the Ford allegations because of his history. However, insiders have remained quiet following the news of his resignation. North Carolina House Majority Leader John Bell, who fired Ventry from his role of social media adviser in 2017, told NBC: 'Mr Ventry did work in my office and he's no longer there, he moved on.' Sources say Ventry was booted from Bell's office after a female coworker accused him of sexual harassment. He was also found to have embellished parts of his resume, according to NBC. Labour plunged into fresh chaos over Brexit today as Jeremy Corbyn said he is ready to endorse another referendum - but a union crony warned that staying the EU should not be an option in any vote. The leader said his preference is to have a general election, but he would 'obviously' comply if party activists demand one. The concession came as MPs joined anti-Brexit protests at the gathering in Liverpool, and deputy leader Tom Watson urged a debate on the issue on the conference floor. But Unite chief Len McCluskey, a key supporter of Mr Corbyn, waded in to the row by insisting even if there is another national vote it should merely be between any package the government negotiates and no deal. He said the public had already settled the fundamental question of whether Britain should leave the bloc in 2016. The manoeuvring lays bare the depth of divisions within Labour over how to handle Brexit - and whether it should happen at all. Jeremy Corbyn told the BBC's Andrew Marr show today (pictured) there would be a 'clear vote' at conference on the referendum issue Anti-Brexit protesters gathered in Liverpool today to demand a 'People's Vote' on any package the government manages to negotiate Mr Corbyn (left) and Tom Watson took to the stage at Labour conference together today. Relations between the two men have been tense amid clashes over Brexit, the anti-Semitism crisis, and a deselection campaign against moderate MPs Jeremy Corbyn addressed thousands of supporters at a rally in Liverpool today Mr Corbyn has been under massive pressure from his own MPs to shift position on the referendum issue. Up to now he has insisted that the idea should be kept 'on the table', but refused to actively call for one to be held. Speaking to the Sunday Mirror, Mr Corbyn said: 'What comes out of conference I will adhere to. But I'm not calling for a second referendum. I hope we will agree that the best way of resolving this is a General Election. 'But I was elected to empower the members of the party. So if conference makes a decision I will not walk away from it and I will act accordingly.' Remain should NOT be on the ballot if there is a second referendum, says Corbyn ally Unite chief Len McCluskey risked inflaming Labour tensions over Brexit today by insisting staying in the EU should not be on the ballot paper if there is a second referendum. The close Corbyn ally dismissed the idea that the verdict from the 2016 national vote should be revisited. Instead he suggested the public should have a choice between whatever Theresa May negotiated and 'no deal'. 'The people have already decided on that,' he told Pienaar's Politics on BBC Radio 5 Live. 'We very rarely have referendums in this country. The people have decided against my wishes and my Union's wishes but they've decided.' Mr McCluskey added: 'Here's one of the problems Labour have, there are significant numbers of traditional Labour supporters who are saying we're going to vote Conservative because we don't trust labour to take us out of the European Union despite the fact that Jeremy has said repeatedly, of course we recognise the result of course we respect the result, we're coming out of the European Union.' Advertisement Mr Corbyn told the BBC's Andrew Marr show today there would be a 'clear vote' at conference on the referendum issue. 'Let's see what comes out of conference. Obviously I am bound by by the democracy of our party.' His remarks come as a poll published by the Observer found 86 per cent of party members think there should be a vote on the outcome of Brexit negotiations. It also found that 90 per cent of Labour members would vote to remain in the EU. Thousands of protesters took to the streets in Liverpool today as part of the campaign for a so-called 'People's Vote'. Mr Watson, who has been engaged in a long-running feud with Mr Corbyn's hard-Left allies, pointed out that 100 motions had been submitted that could be considered on the conference floor. 'I want a debate on it,' he told Sky News Sophy Ridge programme. He also told The Observer: 'Jeremy and I were elected in 2015 to give the Labour Party back to its members. 'So if the people's party decide they want the people to have a final say on the deal, we have to respect the view of our members and we will go out and argue for it.' Mr McCluskey inflamed the tensions by insisting staying in the EU should not be on the ballot paper if there is a second referendum. 'The people have already decided on that,' he told Pienaar's Politics on BBC Radio 5 Live. 'We very rarely have referendums in this country. The people have decided against my wishes and my Union's wishes but they've decided.' Mr McCluskey added: 'Here's one of the problems Labour have, there are significant numbers of traditional Labour supporters who are saying we're going to vote Conservative because we don't trust labour to take us out of the European Union despite the fact that Jeremy has said repeatedly, of course we recognise the result of course we respect the result, we're coming out of the European Union. 'For us to now enter some kind of campaign that opens up that issue again I think would be wrong.' In Liverpool last night, Corbyn echoed his calls for a general election ahead of the annual party conference. Speaking to thousands of supports, some of whom were waving EU flags, Corbyn said: 'We've got big issues coming up in Parliament in the near future. Corbyn hinted that the best way to settle the issue of Brexit was to hold a general election 'We will challenge this Government on whatever deal it brings back, on our six tests - on jobs, on living standards, on environmental protection and protection of those jobs and the ability of an incoming Labour government to invest and intervene in an economy to bring about decent wages, jobs and full employment. 'And if this Government can't deliver then I simply say to Theresa May: the best way to settle this is by having a general election.' Shortly after getting off stage, Corbyn posted a picture of himself addressing the crowds on his Twitter page. Supporters of Corbyn hold up placards for the Labour leader as he addressed the crowds He wrote: 'Our movement is about bringing people together. Tonight in Liverpool, people came out to defend jobs, to demand properly funded public services and say we have to rebuild Britain so it works for the many, not the few.' Shadow chancellor John McDonnell had taken to the stage earlier in the evening, also indicating that he was willing to take the fight to the Conservative should there be another General Election. McDonnell said: 'The Tories hate each other now more than they hate us. 'So I believe they could fall apart at any time.' Earlier today, McDonnell said he did not want to take the 'option of a people's vote on the table' after Labour has come under increased pressure to back another Brexit referendum. He added that the Prime Minister should call another general election following her break-down in talks with Brussels. McDonnell told ITV News: 'In a general election you have a wider debate, but also you choose the team. We need a Labour team negotiating.' Corbyn took to the stage after Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell also called for a general election Despite the Labour leadership calling for another general election, twice as many voters believed the party was more 'decent' under Gordon Brown than the current leader. A new opinion poll by ComRes for Jewish News found 48 per cent considered the party was more decent when Mr Brown was leader as against 24 per cent who thought it was under Mr Corbyn. Following a string of headlines of alleged anti-Semitism within Labour, half of voters said the party was doing enough to stamp out the issue, while just 19 per cent thought it was. Nearly a third of voters, 31 per cent, said Labour deserved the title 'the nasty party' - nearly as many of the 34 per cent who believed it belonged to the Tories when the term was originally coined. The ComRes survey was carried out on 2,002 British adults online between 19 and 20. It is the question that has gripped the nation: just who is behind the bomb attack that apparently killed Home Secretary Julia Montague? For weeks, viewers of BCC1's hit drama Bodyguard have been sifting through endless clues and a long list of suspects from politicians and police officers to criminals - and even the bodyguard himself. The whodunnit, created by Jed Mercurio, who also wrote the award-winning Line Of Duty, has attracted more than 11 million viewers and Sunday's finale is set to be watched by one of the largest TV audiences for a drama series for a decade. Mercurio has admitted that he and the cast have enjoyed winding everyone up over recent weeks but, as rumours swirl over a possible sequel, he has promised to deliver on answers in the final episode. Here, The Mail on Sunday has trawled through the evidence to identify some of the main suspects... Man with blood on his hands? Bodyguard David Budd (pictured) is one of the possible people behind the bombing that apparently killed Julia Montague, the Home Secretary he was tasked with protecting It isn't only the chiselled good looks of diplomatic protection officer David Budd (Richard Madden) that have attracted attention. The former soldiers links to fellow Army veteran Andy Apsted who tried to kill Montague before telling Budd to finish the job have yet to be uncovered by police. Is the bloodied Budd taking revenge for the trauma he suffered in a foreign war? Bookies odds: 5-1 Bullied wife or terrorist? Nadia (pictured in the first episode of the drama) has been portrayed as a bullied wife who was forced to take part in a bomb plot on a London-bound train - but could it all be an act? Nadia (Anjli Mohindra) has been portrayed as a bullied wife coerced into a suicide bomb plot by her husband. She finally claimed to Budd that shadowy MI5 agent Richard Longcross had met her husband. Budd earlier revealed to Nadia details of his children, whose school was later targeted by terrorists with a truck bomb. Montagues death would be the ultimate prize. Bookies odds: 6-1 Minister's murderous look? Security Minister Mike Travis could also potentially be behind the bomb with a bookie's odds of 8-1 that he's responsible He was portrayed as a well-meaning, if rather inadequate, Minister trailing in Montagues wake. But did this flash of anger by Security Minister Mike Travis (Vincent Franklin) towards Montagues plotting special adviser Rob MacDonald (Paul Ready) demonstrate a brutal and potentially murderous character lying beneath that facade? Bookies odds: 8-1 The mystery of Vicky's new man Bodyguard David was devastated when he found out wife Vicky was seeing someone else. Could her new flame, who hasn't been seen yet, be behind the attack on Julia? Budd is devastated by the collapse of his marriage and the discovery that wife Vicky (Sophie Rundle) has a new and as yet unseen boyfriend. Writer Mercurio has form for introducing key characters at the last minute so will the boyfriend emerge as a key figure? Alternatively, will Charlotte Foxfield, named in MI5s secret dossier as the alleged victim of a sexual assault by the Prime Minister, emerge from the shadows? Bookies odds: 4-1 Met chief straight out of Shakespeare Met counter-terror chief Anne Sampson has already called the Home Secretary 'someone who must be stopped.' Bookie's say there's a 3-1 odds that it was her In Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet, Sampson a Capulet servant loathes the Montagues. Met counter-terror chief Anne Sampson (Gina McKee) is of a similar mind towards the Home Secretary, describing her as a very dangerous politician someone who must be stopped. After losing her power battle with MI5, did she decide that Montague must go? Bookies odds: 3-1 A boss with a ruthless streak Budd's boss Lorraine Craddock is not afraid of some tough talking, having threatened to kick his family out of their safe house. Could she be revealed as the brains behind the bomb? Like Mike Travis, Budds boss Lorraine Craddock (Pippa Haywood) has often appeared a sympathetic character. But she threatened to kick Budds family out of their safe house if he failed to spy on Montague and would have known all the details of his and Montagues movements. Bookies odds: 20-1 Glimpse of a real criminal The last episode revealed a new theory that organised crime would also have been hit by Montague's plan for stricter security laws - making criminal Luke Aitkens a suspect The penultimate episode revealed a relationship between Montagues sacked PR aide and a criminal called Luke Aitkens (Matt Stokoe). However, eagle-eyed viewers will have seen him in the first episode at Apsteds peace rally. Lukes glance towards the bodyguard suggests he knows him. Montagues new security laws would hit organised crime. Bookies odds: 6-1 PS. And the big question ... is Julia alive? Julia Montague has been spotted in the finale's trailer - but could that just be a flashback? The odds for Julia being alive are 6-4 Will Julia (Keeley Hawes) rise from the dead like Shakespeares Juliet? Fans have pointed out that the Home Secretary is in the finales trailer and the cast list but will it be a flashback or a resurrection? Bookies odds on Julia being alive: 6-4 A former university student has been sentenced to life in prison for stabling a UCLA sorority girl and setting her apartment alight. Alberto Hinojosa Medina, 25, was convicted in May of the fatal stabbing of Andrea DelVesco, 21, a Texas native, along with arson, burglary and cruelty to an animal. Firefighters discovered the charred remains of DelVesco, a Phi Beta Phi sorority sister and inside her burning apartment. It took 32 firefighters about 15 minutes to extinguish the blaze and DelVesco, originally from Austin, Texas, was pronounced dead at the scene. She had been stabbed by Medina 19 times. Alberto Hinojosa Medina (left) has been sentenced to life in prison without parole for the fatal stabbing of UCLA student Andrea DelVesco (right) in her Westwood apartment in 2015 Andrea DelVesco, 21, (pictured) was described as a 'beautiful and friendly' girl by friends Courtesy of KTLA The Los Angeles County District Attorneys Office announced that Medina has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Medina and his accomplice Eric Marquez, 25, were arrested and charged with DelVesco's murder on September 28, 2015. Medina, a former Fresno State University student, was found guilty of one count of first-degree murder with the special circumstance of murder during a burglary. Medina also was convicted of one count of arson of an inhabited structure, two counts of first-degree burglary and one count of animal cruelty. DelVesco's dog, Shay Panda, sustained severe injuries in the fire and was later put down. His accomplice Marquez, who also attended UCLA, was charged with one count of murder and two counts of burglary. In December 2017, Marquez pleaded guilty to one count each of first-degree burglary and accessory after the fact. He was sentenced in June to two years and eight months in prison. During Medina's sentencing hearing, DelVesco's family and friends about the pain her death has caused. Medina's accomplice Eric Marquez (pictured) was charged with one count of murder DelVesco's mother said: 'This is the date that he made the choice to take my wonderful, amazing daughter's life. 'May his life, as he has known it, also end today.' 'To express the agony is impossible. It's excruciating to me to see the pain that he has caused. True justice would be that he feels the pain and heartache every single second for the rest of his life,' Leslie added. Judge Mark Windham (pictured) said Medina is too dangerous to ever be released Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Mark Windham said Medina is too dangerous to ever be released. He said: 'He brutally murdered a beautiful, innocent person. He seriously wounded an entire community. He must never walk free again'. Medina burglarized an apartment in the 10900 block of Roebling Street before breaking into DelVesco's apartment nearby, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office said. 'He fatally stabbed DelVesco and set her apartment on fire,' according to the statement. Investigators tracked Medina down in his hometown of Fresno five days after the killing, according to authorities and Los Angeles County booking records. A knife with DelVesco's blood on it was found in his home. Friends said DelVesco, a fourth-year psychology student was a bright and bubbly girl and a great friend. She was a member of the Phi Beta Phi sorority. Friends including those in her sorority shared through tears the deep impact she had on their lives. They described her 'magic' and ability to empathize and connect with others. Friends said DelVesco (pictured) had a magical ability to empathize and connect with others DelVesco (pictured) was part of the Phi Beta Phi sorority sisterhood and had many friends Her friend Heather Hourdequin said: 'Today is my chance to fight back,' 'To my kooky friend, Andy: Thank you for wearing color as you danced in this world.' The case drew scrutiny, and ultimately resulted in the termination of two LAPD officers, after it emerged that officers had checked on a report of suspicious circumstances at the home less than an hour before it went up in flames. The officers, along with their rookie trainees, responded to a call reporting a woman heard screaming about 6:15 a.m, according to CNN. They looked around and left six minutes later, noting there was no evidence of a crime. The officers did not knock on any doors at the apartment complex. The same neighbor called police a little more than half an hour later after DelVesco's apartment went up in flames. It was then that her body was discovered with 19 stab wounds. A survivor was rescued from a capsized ferry in Tanzania today two days after the ship sank with the loss of more than 200 people. Divers plucked the man, the ships engineer, from inside the sunken MV Nyerere ferry in Lake Victoria after hearing sounds coming from inside the submerged vessel. The survivor, who was named locally as Alphonce Charahani, shut himself inside the upturned ferrys engine room. Rescuers sit in a boat on Lake Victoria during searches for victims a day after the ferry MV Nyerere capsized It is believed the man survived due to an air pocket inside the vessel, which overturned on Thursday, sinking just yards from the dock on Ukerewe, the lakes biggest island. Divers continued the grim rescue effort today as bodies continued to float to the surface. A Tanzanian minister last night said the death toll had reached 207. Tanzanias president John Magufuli, who announced four days of national mourning, said the captain of the ferry who was not on board at the time of the disaster had been arrested. Control of the ship had been left to someone who had not had proper training. Mr Magufuli said: More bodies are trapped in the vessel. Even the cargo was more than the 25 tons allowed. A test given to hundreds of thousands of students, including rock stars Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison, nearly 60 years ago could hold the answers to whether a person will develop dementia. Researchers at the Washington-based American Institutes for Research, which administered the test to some 440,000 high school students across the US in 1960, have been studying the teen's answers and believe they have found a link to student's who scored low on the test and Alzheimer's disease. According to the Washington Post, researchers compared results for more than 85,000 testers with their 2012/2013 Medicare claims and expenditures and found that warning signs of memory loss may present itself as early as adolescence. The study, published on September 7, looked at how students scored on 17 areas of cognitive ability such as clerical skills, language, math, abstract reasoning and visual and spatial prowess. Researchers say that those teenagers who scored lower on the test are more prone to developing Alzheimer's disease and related dementia in their 60s and early 70s. Researchers believe a test given to students in 1960 can tell whether they will develop Alzheimer's disease. Students in a class are seen taking the test, called Project Talent Engineer John McMillan works on the first machine built to process full paper sheets, instead of punch cards, to collect data from the Project Talent pool The study found specifically that those who scored low on mechanical reasoning and memory for words had a higher risk of dementia later in life. Researchers found that low-scoring men were 17 per cent more likely to get dementia, while low-scoring women were 16 per cent more likely. The test, called Project Talent, was administered to high school kids from 1,353 public and parochial schools across the country. It was funded by the US government. The teens had to answer questions about academics and general knowledge as well as health, their home lives, personality traits and their aspirations. According to the Post, one question quizzed students about the biblical figure Samson. Another asked students what two colors mixed together make chartreuse, while a third question asked students what a camper should do if he sees a garter snake. Joan Levin, who attended Parkville Senior High School in Maryland, took the test when she was 15. The Post reports that it took two-and-a-half days to administer. Levin, now 73, recently received her results and scored over 75 per cent with very high marks on vocabulary, abstract reading and verbal memory. She had low scores in clerical tasks and table reading. Based on her performance, Levin is low-risk for dementia but told the Post that if she had done poorly on the test she would still want to know. 'I'm kind of a planner, and I look ahead,' she said. 'I'd want my daughter and her family to maybe have an idea of what to expect.' Joan Levin, 73, recently found out her results and scored high on the test meaning she is low-risk for dementia Rock stars Jim Morrison (left) and Janis Joplin (right) also took the tests as high schoolers Cliff Jacobs, who attended a high school in New Jersey when he took test, said he would also want to know if he was at risk for dementia. Jacobs, 75, has not yet been told how he did. 'The statistical correlation is not one that will necessarily apply to you, but they can give you some probabilities,' he said. 'I guess basic human nature would be, 'Yeah, you'd probably want to know'.' Joplin took the test as a senior at Thomas Jefferson High School in Port Arthur, Texas. Morrison took it as a junior at George Washington High School in Alexandria, Virginia. Susan Lapham, director of Project Talent, told the Post that the hope is the test could help lower the number of Americans who develop dementia in the future. According to the Alzheimer's Association, 5.7million people in the country currently have the disease. That number is expected to rise to 14million by 2050. 'If Project Talent can be for dementia what the Framingham study was for heart disease, it will make a difference in public health,' she said. 'It indicates that we should be designing interventions for kids in high school and maybe even earlier to maybe keep their brains active from a young age.' Pastor Paul Song has been suspended while Brixton prison examine his claims that prisoners behaved 'inappropriately' in Bible meetings at the South London jail A Christian prison chaplain who revealed how his Bible meetings were hijacked by Islamic extremists has been warned he may be barred from working at the jail. Pastor Paul Song last week detailed his fears to The Mail on Sunday over the influence of Muslim extremist gangs at Brixton prison. He has been suspended while an investigation is held but claims the governor of Brixton told him the outcome could mean permanent exclusion. Mr Song has worked there for 19 years. He was only recently reinstated to the South London jail after a year-long investigation cleared him of calling a prisoner a terrorist and acting aggressively towards the imam head chaplain. Brixton governor David Bamford said the new investigation would examine the pastors claims that Muslim prisoners behaved inappropriately, including disrupting chapel meetings by praising the killers of Fusilier Lee Rigby. It will also decide if Mr Song compromised the privacy or safety of staff or prisoners by speaking to this newspaper without permission. Mr Song said: I cant believe this is happening after David Bamford himself invited me for a meeting to tell me that my name had been cleared, that I would now be reinstated. Mr Song has worked at the prison for 19 years and claimed last week that his bible classes were hijacked by Islamic extremists who even praised the killers of Fusilier Lee Rigby (stock picture of HMP Brixton) Andrea Williams, of the Christian Legal Centre, which has been supporting Mr Song, said: It was very brave of Pastor Song to tell the public the appalling truth about what was happening in Brixton. Astonishingly, we now find that instead of sorting out the Islamists domination of the prison, the authorities have chosen to shoot the messenger. The Ministry of Justice confirmed a member of the jail staff had been suspended, adding: There is absolutely no evidence to support claims of extremist behaviour. Theresa May making a statement on Brexit negotiations at 10 Downing Street on Friday The EUs shock rejection of Theresa Mays Chequers plan threw Downing Street into a tailspin. An agreement already loathed by large sections of her party for cleaving too close to Brussels had been thrown out by European leaders for being too advantageous to the UK. It is that mind-numbing difficulty of devising a plan acceptable to the EU that would also be voted through a hung Parliament which has led two senior No 10 advisers to advocate the previously unthinkable: another snap General Election. The powerful aides have argued in the wake of the Salzburg humiliation that the only way to make the Commons arithmetic work could be to ditch Chequers, and please the Brexit wing of the Tory Party by swinging behind the Canada model: leaving the Single Market and Customs Union completely, before striking a free-trade deal with Brussels. With her partys most militant wing now behind her, Mrs May could then go to the country in November and win a majority sufficient to push through the deal over the objections of pro-Remain MPs when it was put to the Commons vote. Their wargame scenario has been boosted by the latest polling which indicates a slump in support for Jeremy Corbyn among those who voted Labour at the 2017 Election. Latest polling indicates a slump in support for Jeremy Corbyn among those who voted Labour at the 2017 Election About 63 per cent of 2017 Labour voters now view Mr Corbyn in a favourable light, down from 86 per cent in June last year. Overall, the Tories have a four-point lead. A source said: It is being discussed seriously. As things stand, even if we get a deal with the EU, it is hard to see us getting any agreement through the Commons. Either the Brexiteers or the Remainers would stop it. We are running out of options. Even if the EU backs down on its Salzburg stance and accepts Chequers as it stands, Mrs May will struggle to win the crunch Commons vote. The idea is likely to send a shiver through Tory MPs still haunted by the Prime Ministers catastrophic performance at the 2017 Election, which led to the elimination of the Conservatives majority. Attempts by both the EU and UK sides to break the deadlock have been fraught with difficulty. At one stage, The Mail on Sunday understands that officials working for EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier told Brexit Secretary Dominic Raabs team that the UK had to choose between four off the peg models for a deal Norway, Canada, Ukraine or Switzerland. However, it offered to camouflage the process by describing whatever was chosen as bespoke for the UK to limit the political fallout in Britain. The offer was declined on the grounds that it would fool no one. The Salzburg fiasco has also led to renewed criticism of Mrs Mays Brexit adviser, Olly Robbins, who is being blamed within Downing Street for intelligence failures about the mood on the continent towards Chequers which led to Mrs May being blindsided. Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab in Westminster Mr Raab has successfully asserted his control over Mr Robbins by insisting that he is shown copies of documents produced by the adviser at the same time as the PM. The Brexit Secretary will tomorrow announce the final batch of technical notices covering the UKs preparation for no deal in several areas including flights, motor insurance and pet passports. The wargames inside Downing Street have also extended to the emergency summit in November when the final Brexit deal is due to be signed off. Frustration in No 10 has grown over the EUs insistence on a backstop arrangement for Ireland if a deal is not cut on avoiding a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. The EUs plan to keep Northern Ireland in the Customs Union, large parts of the Single Market and the EU VAT system would effectively create a border down the middle of the Irish Sea, which Mrs May rejects as a threat to the integrity of the UK. Under one plan which has been discussed, the UK delegation would physically walk out of the summit in November and refuse to return unless the EU compromised. Pro-Brexit Tory MPs, who object to Chequers on the grounds that it will lash the UK to many EU regulations after Brexit, accuse No 10 of using the threat of an Election to cow them into submission on key votes. During charm-offensive dinners at Downing Street and arm-twisting meetings with Chief Whip Julian Smith, the threat of losing their seats or ushering a Corbyn-led government has been deployed repeatedly. However, last night one long-standing, pro-Brexit critic of the Prime Minister admitted that if she called a snap election on the platform of negotiating the Canada model, he would hold my nose and endorse her. A Downing Street spokesman said: The Prime Minister is fighting for the best deal for Britain and is in the job for the long term. No 10 is not planning for an election. Watching Theresa May give an icy blast to EU leaders after they ambushed her in Salzburg, I was cheering her on. I suspect many others were doing the same whatever their view of Brexit. No British Prime Minister should be treated with barely concealed disrespect by our allies. Theresa May making a statement on Brexit negotiations at 10 Downing Street on Friday As someone who campaigned hard for Remain, it pains me to say that the EU lived up to the worst caricature of its opponents. Arrogant, inflexible and ideologically driven. I can understand the immediate emotional response, which is to say that if you want to behave like that then were off. No more talks, no deal, and in particular, no more money from the British taxpayer. It is all very tempting. But we need not just to be strong, as the Prime Minister was in her Friday statement, but also coldly logical. We must ask, as she always does, what is in Britains long-term interest. And we should not under-estimate the potential economic damage of walking away, however high our emotions are running. Queues on the motorways as the ports clog up would be the visible sign of chaos. But the real danger is less visible, as around the world companies take the decision not to make their next investment in Britain. Theresa May showed in her immediate reaction that she is not to be messed with. Watching her statement, at times I thought she was channelling Margaret Thatcher. Mrs May will deal with this crisis calmly and methodically. She does not indulge in ranting and raving. Instead she demands more evidence, more proposals, and reaches a conclusion after weighing up the evidence. Once she has reached a conclusion, she is not to be budged. No British Prime Minister should be treated with barely concealed disrespect by our allies, writes Damian Green So what happens now? Are we at the end of the road? I think not. Much of the Salzburg ambush has the air of a theatrical production. At some stage in these negotiations there had to be a breakdown, or the drama would not have been complete. We are now in the breakdown phase, which is why the most significant words in the Prime Ministers statement were the final ones: We stand ready. This puts Britain in the position of wanting to resume negotiations when the Europeans are ready. Since we only have a couple of months to go before the absolute deadline for the end of these talks, I imagine they will start again later this month. The first problem to solve is the Irish border, and the next is the outline of the future trade relationship. Both of these are huge issues. The next couple of months are the biggest test Theresa May has ever faced. She will approach them with the determination she always shows. European leaders may have underestimated that strength, but they will not do so in future. But just as she will not be pushed around, she will also not be driven off her path of looking for a deal. If the Europeans respond sensibly, the ice will melt. The bullying approach taken towards Theresa May at Salzburg has revealed more about the weakness of the EU than its strength, writes Jacob Rees-Mogg (pictured) A French president emerged from the sewer of his own scandals to accuse the British of lying. An unelected Pole made a joke that accidentally summed up the European Unions contempt both for the United Kingdom and our Prime Minister. Then the leader of mighty Malta told our nation to vote again. This, combined with the bullying approach taken towards Theresa May at Salzburg, has revealed more about the weakness of the EU than its strength. The European project is a failure, unpopular across the continent, where its economic policies have blighted the lives of millions, especially of young people who cannot get jobs. Instead of fostering democracy, it is now encouraging the growth of extremist parties, with voters driven into their arms by a complacent and uncaring EU elite. A wise organisation would have seen the Brexit vote as a warning, an indicator of the deep-seated discontent that is not a uniquely British feature, but instead, the EU wants a punishment Brexit, modelling itself on the less attractive elements of the Mafia. This Salzburg summit has proved a useful reminder of why we voted to leave in the first place. Some timorous souls domestically, sometimes linked to the Treasury, are so frightened of the European bully that they argue that we should capitulate and agree almost any terms. Not only would this be a rejection of the largest vote in the nations history but it would be the ultimate signal of national decline and weakness. The Suez Crisis was a turning point in the countrys fortunes but would look minor if we succumbed to the aggression of our so-called European partners and the bad manners exhibited towards Mrs May. Boadicea would have been impressed by Theresa May as she spoke from a room festooned with Union flags in Downing Street on Friday. The strains of Rule Britannia could have been playing in the background because her words made it clear that Britons never shall be slaves. This glorious, widely praised performance showed the Prime Minister at her best. Polite and conciliatory though she is in normal times, when treated rudely there is an inner steel. Not that this should blind people to the problems with her Chequers plan. Her stirring speech does not make a bad plan good, but it does show that she has the willpower to deliver something better. The EU is blind to have turned down the Chequers proposal it offers Europe almost all it wants, but in its greed it asks for more. As proposed it would leave the UK a vassal state, chained to rules it could not alter and denied the liberty it voted for. That, in its overbearing arrogance, the EU has rejected this has saved the United Kingdom from a bad deal, but a good solution has always been partly on offer. Theresa May making a statement on Brexit negotiations at 10 Downing Street on Friday As Theresa May says, no Government can accept the break-up of the United Kingdom to fit in with the convenience of the Brussels bureaucracy. However, recently the EU has said that technology can be used between Great Britain and Northern Ireland to meet its requirements. In which case, logically, the same can be done between the UK and the Irish Republic. There is nothing to fear from the alternative, leaving with no agreement, on World Trade terms. Apart from saving 40 billion, this is how we already trade successfully, with higher growth rates, with the rest of the world. It allows just in time delivery from manufacturers, as checks in Southampton average just six seconds. It would permit the UK to lift tariffs on goods we do not produce, particularly helpful to the least well-off in society. It is a much better option than leaving ourselves in servitude to an organisation that does not wish us well. Salzburg, literally the salt fortress, showed that the relationship between the UK and the EU has been as effectively poisoned as the fields of Carthage once were. Fortunately, this creates more opportunities. It ought to stop the damaging Chequers proposal and open the way for the UK to embrace the benefits of leaving sooner and being able to manage our own trade, economic and regulatory policy. The EU, by discourteously overplaying its hand, has offered us real freedom and the Prime Minister looks willing to grasp the initiative. It needs one more step and then the country can unite against an EU that is unquestionably hostile. Home Secretary Sajid Javid arriving at 10 Downing Street Home Secretary Sajid Javid has warned that Britain will be powerless to restrict EU immigrants if we leave the EU without a deal. Mr Javid told Cabinet colleagues last week it would be impossible to have preventative checks at airports and ports because of the sheer volume of passengers. He said that to avoid gridlock, EU citizens would still go through electronic passport gates and avoid questioning by Border Force officials. His warning is seen as an attack on Theresa May as she prepares to argue in Cabinet tomorrow that post-Brexit immigration policy should stop favouring EU citizens. It takes an average of 45 seconds to check an EU passport but four minutes for other countries. Non-EU visitors already face delays of more than three hours at Heathrow because of staff shortages. Brexit is meant to signal the end of freedom of movement, with new arrivals from the EU losing their automatic right to reside. But Mr Javids comments raise questions about how that will be policed. His remarks were interpreted by No 10 as a criticism of the amount of planning by Government for a no-deal Brexit. It also suggests that if EU countries impose entry restrictions on British citizens, the Government will be unable to use the threat of reprisals to force a climbdown. Mrs May has been growing increasingly frustrated over Mr Javid, regarding him as blatantly manoeuvring for the leadership. She has also been angered by his rebelliousness over policy affecting the Home Office, her former department. Last month he accused her of making the wrong decision after she blocked a three per cent pay rise for police officers. A source said: Both Sajid and the PM know that she would have sacked him after the Election if she had won a majority, so he doesnt feel he owes her any loyalty. The Prime Ministers preferred candidate to succeed her is understood to be Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who has shared her political journey from Remain supporter to pragmatic lets get on with it Brexiteer. Theresa May making a statement on Brexit negotiations at 10 Downing Street on Friday Theresa May last night ramped up her war of words with Brussels by demanding a pledge to protect expats living in Europe if Britain leaves the EU without a deal. The Prime Minister, who is in increasingly defiant mood after the rejection of her Chequers deal by EU leaders last week, told The Mail on Sunday that protecting expats was the right thing to do. The move designed to demonstrate the seriousness of preparations for a no-deal Brexit follows Mrs Mays dramatic live broadcast from Downing Street on Friday, when she criticised Brussels for a lack of respect. EU leaders stunned Downing Street at Thursdays Salzburg summit by condemning the Chequers plan as unworkable, leaving negotiations deadlocked with just six months to go before Brexit Day on March 29 next year. Mrs May faces a crunch Cabinet meeting tomorrow originally called to discuss post-Brexit immigration policy which is expected to be dominated by debate over whether her Chequers deal can be salvaged. Pro-Brexit Cabinet Ministers, including International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt and Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey, are being monitored closely by No 10 for signs they could resign if no alternative to Chequers is presented. In her No 10 speech, Mrs May promised that the rights of more than three million EU citizens living in the UK would be protected, even if negotiations broke down completely. Last night she told this newspaper: We took this decision because it is the right thing to do. And I call upon the EU to reciprocate for UK citizens living in the EU. That, too, is the right thing to do. Mrs May also promised to remain calm in the face of the EUs provocation. Now is the time for cool heads. And it is a time to hold our nerve, she said. Amid growing demands within Labour for a second referendum, the Prime Minister accused Jeremy Corbyn of trying to thwart Brexit at every step and seeking to exploit this moment for political gain. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt joined the concerted Government fightback yesterday, urging the EU to step back from the abyss of a no-deal Brexit. He told the BBC: What Theresa May is saying is, Dont mistake British politeness for weakness. If you put us in a difficult corner, we will stand our ground that is the kind of country we are. Mr Hunt directly criticised Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, and Frances Emmanuel Macron. After Donald Tusks Instagram jibe, left, Tory MP Vicky Ford went on Twitter to point out Belgian buns do in fact have cherries Mr Tusk had posted an Instagram picture that showed him offering Mrs May a cupcake at a buffet. Underneath was the comment: A piece of cake, perhaps? Sorry, no cherries. EU leaders had complained the UK was trying to cherry-pick the best of the Single Market. Mr Hunt said: Insulting Mrs May on social media, getting to these stand-offs where you are calling people liars and so on is not the way that we are going to get a solution to this difficult situation. The EUs intransigent approach has prompted some Tory MPs who have been critical of Mrs May to rally to her defence. Former party chairman Grant Shapps, who voted Remain, called for the Prime Minister to threaten to cancel Britains 39 billion divorce payment. It is increasingly questionable whether the EU is approaching these negotiations with the same sense of honour as us, he said. Now might be the time to let the EU know that the UK intends to withhold that 39 billion we set aside to help plug Europes budget black hole after we leave. 'For a centre-ground Conservative MP such as me, I might just about be able to live with Chequers in return for its sustaining open trade in goods with the EU. But water the plan down much further and, well, we might as well just leave. Mr Shapps also blasted President Macron, saying: A foreign leader insulting over half the electorate who unlike me voted to leave, is no way to constructively engage with the UK. 'The problem is that we dont appear to have a serious partner in Europe with which to negotiate. If that is the case, it might be better to take that giant cheque off the table. A Labour MP critical of Jeremy Corbyn is in secret negotiations to receive a 24-hour armed guard after being subjected to chilling death threats, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. The backbencher has been in talks with Commons security advisers about being given unprecedented police protection on a par with the Home Secretary. If agreed, it will be the first time that a rank-and-file MP on mainland Britain has been granted such security. One senior Commons source said: This is an extremely serious threat. I would say that this MP needs this protection more than the Northern Ireland Secretary does which is a sign of the times. The MP, whom The Mail on Sunday has chosen not identify because of the safety risk, has received frequent abuse on social media for criticising Mr Corbyn. Security outside the Labour Party conference in Liverpool. A Labour MP could be having the same level of protection after receiving death threats It is not known who is behind the death threats, but they are specific. We have also chosen not to describe their precise nature. Separately, it can also be revealed today that a 29-year-old man has been arrested over accusations that he sent abusive emails and phone calls to Labour MP Joan Ryan, the chairman of Labour Friends of Israel. Ms Ryan, who has been fiercely critical of Mr Corbyn over his handling of Labours anti-Semitism storm, is currently facing a deselection threat by members of her local party who are loyal to the Labour leader. This newspaper has been told that the man, who has been released on a months bail by Gloucestershire police, had allegedly bombarded Ms Ryans Enfield North constituency office with offensive calls. Ms Ryan earlier this month narrowly lost a no-confidence motion in her local party amid claims she had smeared Mr Corbyn. In what Ms Ryan called an appalling infiltration, the private meeting that debated the motion was broadcast on Iranian channel Press TV allegedly by an employee who was also a local party member. The MP, a former Minister in Tony Blairs Government, responded by lashing out at Trots, Stalinists, Communists and assorted hard-Left after losing the vote. She and fellow Corbyn critic Gavin Shuker later receiving mocking farewell cards left outside their Commons offices. Ms Ryan was unavailable for comment last night. Labours ruling National Executive Committee last night agreed rule changes to make it easier for constituency parties to deselect sitting MPs and giving grassroots activists and trade unions more say in future Party leadership elections. The proposals will be put to delegates at the Labour Conference when it opens today. The new revelations about the harassment of MPs will cast a shadow over the conference, where bosses will be hoping to move on from the deep internal divisions dogging the party not least over the damaging and persistent claims of anti-Semitism. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn leaves the party conference. A backbench MP critical of his leadership is in talks about getting 24-hour armed guard It also emerged yesterday that, in the wake of the claims, extra bodyguards have been drafted in to protect the Labour Friends of Israel annual reception at the conference in Liverpool. Last night, one Labour MP and critic of Mr Corbyn said: I am afraid that Jeremy Corbyns leadership has injected a poison and hatred into the Labour Party which we have never seen before. When asked to comment on the plans to give one of their MPs an armed guard, Labour responded last night by highlighting how many recent threats had come from Right-wing extremists rather than Left-wing ones. A spokesman said: There have been a number of cases in recent years of serious threats, plots and one fatal attack against our MPs from far-Right white supremacists. We liaise closely with MPs about security threats and do not comment on individual cases. Party sources added that they did everything we can to support our MPs and ensure they receive specialist police and security services advice and support. But another Labour MP said: Whoevers making these disgraceful threats whether its a Left-wing nutter or a Right-wing one the point is that some MPs critical of Corbyn have been subjected to a torrent of abuse by so-called supporters of our Party leader which has whipped up hatred against them. The unprecedented move to place the MP under the armed protection of the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command was first mooted with the Commons authorities earlier this month after the politician was advised to beef up their security urgently. This newspaper understands that the case will be assessed by Scotland Yards Parliamentary Liaison and Investigation Team at Westminster, set up after the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox in 2016. Mother-of-two Mrs Cox died after being shot and stabbed in her West Yorkshire constituency by neo-Nazi extremist Thomas Mair, who was jailed for life for her murder. The elite police unit assesses threats to MPs safety to ensure they are properly investigated, after complaints that many had been ignored. In March this year, the Met police revealed that 237 incidents had so far been brought to the teams attention. These included 97 claims of malicious communications often abuse made on social media along with two allegations of assault and 85 of possession of a blade, thought to refer to items found on visitors to the Palace of Westminster. Abdel Basit was having lunch with his family when a barrel bomb exploded in front of his home. The vicious, indiscriminate weapon, dropped from a Syrian army helicopter, tore away his legs and killed his mother and sister instantly. Heartbreaking footage, captured just minutes after the attack, showed the ten-year-old reaching up from the rubble-strewn street, desperately pleading to his father: Daddy, pick me up. Abdel, one of hundreds of children who have lost limbs in the bitter Syrian conflict, is now being cared for at a medical centre across the border in Turkey. Abdel Basit lost both his legs in a barrel bomb attack on his village in Idlib province in 2017 Last week, The Mail on Sunday met the surprisingly cheerful youngster, who lost both of his legs from just above the knee. He was completing a punishing set of exercises intended to help him walk on his hands and lift himself in and out of a wheelchair. Why is Abdel being put through this routine, which he endures without complaint? Because despite pleas to Britains Foreign Aid Minister Penny Mordaunt, he and hundreds like him have been denied the modern prosthetic limbs that would give them some semblance of a normal life. Abdel says: I want to be brave, not sad. I dont want losing my legs to mean that my life is bad and I will make myself strong. But I would like prosthetics so I can walk and play. All the exercises are hard, but I will work to make my family proud and to thank all the medical staff who help us all. Incredibly, the prosthetic limbs he needs could be made within hours using a state-of-the-art 3D printer. Doctors at the clinic say as many as 50 children could have legs and arms built for them in weeks. Heartbreaking footage captured minutes after the attack showed the ten-year-old reaching up from the rubble-strewn street, desperately pleading to his father: Daddy, pick me up At the moment it takes a team of technicians five days to produce a single artificial limb. The only obstacle to purchasing such vital equipment is funding. The charity Syria Relief, which runs the clinic in Reyhanli, southern Turkey, cannot afford the 130,000 it costs to buy a 3D printer (ideally it would like to buy three to make artificial limbs for the 250 children on its waiting list). Staff expect this figure to rise as war continues to rage in the provinces where Bashar Assads forces are seeking to retain control. The clinic, just a mile from the Syrian border, is also pitifully rundown. Staff are forced to use antiquated equipment and there are frequent power cuts because the charity cannot afford to buy a back-up generator. On the day we visited, a power cut stopped the basic machinery used to mould prosthetics and plunged physiotherapy rooms into darkness. Prosthetic limbs Abdel and many others needscould be made within hours using a state-of-the-art 3D printer Last year, senior members of Syria Reliefs medical staff flew to London to plead their case with senior officials from the UKs Department for International Development (DFID), which is responsible for delivering Britains 13 billion foreign aid budget. The charity was refused any direct funding. As a result, it has been forced to go cap in hand to larger humanitarian organisations such as Save The Children. According to Syria Relief, this process leaves it with only a fraction of the financial support it needs. Last night, DFID confirmed it had rejected Syria Reliefs appeal for direct funding. The department also said it had no plans to consider any other similar requests from charities in the region. The UK has launched its largest ever humanitarian operation in response to the war in Syria, committing 2.71 billion to the region since 2012. But earlier this year, a report by the Independent Commission For Aid Impact found DFID had been slow to shift its focus away from emergency relief and that a lack of knowledge and experience had led to gaps in its provision of funds to smaller projects. Last night Syria Reliefs medical manager Dr Malik Nizamettin, 33, told The Mail on Sunday: We travelled to the UK for the sake of Abdel and all the children here. We cannot make enough limbs to keep up with demand and who knows how more casualties there will be in the battles to come. We made our case to DFID and a number of MPs based on our six-month waiting list for limbs and in anticipation of our caseload increasing as the fighting continues in areas such as Idlib province. Our staff have gone weeks without pay, our equipment is very basic, and when the electricity supply fails, which happens a lot, we cant make any legs or arms at all. We cant afford a back-up generator. Children are suffering because of these shortages. The Syrian conflict has cost nearly half a million lives and displaced 12 million people from their homes, including 5.6 million refugees who have fled to neighbouring countries such as Turkey. A quarter of the civilians who have been killed are children and almost all died in bomb attacks on areas thought to have been launched by Assads forces. A 3D printer would cut production time for prosthetic limbs at the Reyhanli clinic from five days to just three hours - but the charity Syria Relief cannot afford the 130,000 price tag While many of the children are desperate to return to their homes, Abdel has no desire to go back to his village of al-Hbeit in Idlib because the memories of the attack 18 months ago are too painful. He said: I saw the helicopter above me. My daddy told us to leave our meal and run back into the house but it was too far to run. We were helpless. Suddenly I felt like there was a fire burning in my back and legs. There was smoke and dust everywhere and everyone was screaming. Then I saw my legs had gone and I cried for my daddy to come because I couldnt move myself. I was driven to hospital where I spent 15 days. Just 130,000 buys a 3D printer which can transform the young lives shattered by war A 3D printer would reduce the time it takes to produce prosthetic limbs at the Reyhanli clinic from five days to three hours but the charity Syria Relief says it cannot afford the 130,000 price tag. The process is started by a special camera which takes highly detailed scans of the casualtys leg or arm stump. These images are fed into a computer program, which calculates the exact measurements for the 3D socket. An electromechanical machine, pictured left, then builds the mould layer on layer, before the finished mould, right, is attached to a mechanical artificial limb. Fitting children with prosthetics is difficult because the limbs need to be replaced constantly as the patient grows. Since most prosthetics are very expensive, this is often unaffordable for charities working in war zones and in the developing world. However, a 3D printer reduces the costs significantly. Syria Relief, which runs three clinics for disabled children, is the lead organisation in the National Syrian Project For Prosthetic Limbs. Two of its medical centres are in southern Turkey, while a third is at Bab Al Hawa Hospital in Syria. Currently only one of these clinics is equipped with a 3D printer. Advertisement The bomb was full of shrapnel so the doctors had to remove the metal pieces from my wounds before sealing them. My sister, who was three, was killed, and my mummy, so why would I want to go back? I want to stay at the clinic, get a proper set of legs and build a new life in Turkey. Experts estimate that hundreds of thousands of Syrian children suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the war. Symptoms include nightmares, learning difficulties and incontinence, even among teenagers. During our visit, we also met ten-year-old Alaa Al-Ahmad who was critically wounded in a rocket attack in Idlib province in January. She lifted her hair to show us the scars on her neck following surgery to remove shrapnel. The metal shards severed her spinal cord and she lost all movement in her body. Since then she has made a remarkable recovery. She says: I was strapped to a bed for three months, staring at the ceiling, unable to move a muscle. Then there was a miracle and I regained some feeling in my hands. Little by little I have regained movement in my arms and legs. Standing up for the first time was amazing. I owe everything to the medical staff here. They come to the clinic to help me even though they are no longer getting paid. Syria Relief, which counts the celebrated British surgeon Professor David Nott among its advisers, was founded in Manchester in 2011. It has raised 100 million for medical, education and training projects in the war-torn country. DFIDs response to the Syria crisis is its largest-ever financial commitment. The funding has provided 27 million food rations, more than 13 million medical consultations, 11 million relief packages and ten million vaccines. Last night a DFID spokesman said: Government programmes are delivered by agencies with proven track records which have been chosen based on their ability to deliver value for money. Our partners in Syria have to pass robust due diligence processes before they can receive funding and our programmes have tight financial controls in place to ensure aid reaches those who need it. The younger brother of Lord Lucan has died in South Africa, sparking speculation he may reveal details about what became of his notorious sibling from beyond the grave. Hugh Bingham died in July, aged 78, following a long illness. He had been living a reclusive life in a suburb of Johannesburg where he had worked as librarian to the Theosophical Society, a non-religious organisation. Hugh Bingham died in July, aged 78, following a long illness The 7th Earl of Lucan - Lord Richard John Bingham - with Veronica Duncan, who later became Lady Lucan, on the eve of their engagement Lord Lucan and Veronica Duncan after their marriage in 1963. He vanished in November 1974, the day after the murdered body of their nanny, Sandra Rivett, was found at the family home in Belgravia, London The Oxford graduate was close to his older brother, John, the 7th Earl of Lucan, who vanished in November 1974 after being named as the killer of his childrens nanny, Sandra Rivett. He moved to South Africa just months after his brothers disappearance, sparking unsubstantiated rumours that he may have been in contact with his sibling who had managed to slip out of Britain. Mr Bingham who believed his brother was innocent had been working on a ghost-written autobiography of Lucan putting forward theories about his possible escape and various guises that he may then have adopted. James Sanders, an investigative journalist who knew him well, said Mr Bingham would regularly hint at vital evidence about Lord Lucans fate, but stop short of providing solid evidence. He would talk at length about his brothers innocence, yet refused to reveal if Lucan was still alive or where he had lived, said Mr Sanders. It was impossible to know if they were in touch, though it seemed likely. Lucan went missing on November 7, 1974, after an intruder at the family home in Belgravia, Central London, bludgeoned Mrs Rivett to death and attacked the peers estranged wife (pictured) Lady Lucan later identified her attacker as her husband, and an inquest named him as Mrs Rivetts (pictured) killer With Mr Binghams death, there is now speculation that documents may emerge detailing what became of Lucan. It is also anticipated there could be further clues in the book he was working on. In an interview with The Mail on Sunday in 2016 after the High Court ruled his brother was dead, Mr Bingham said: John had no option but to flee. He would have considered his chances of a fair trial to be very slim. Hugh Bingham had been living a reclusive life in a suburb of Johannesburg (pictured) He revealed that one of the theories covered in his Lucan autobiography described the peer escaping Britain with a fake passport and building a new life as a farm manager in South Africas KwaZulu Natal province. Mr Bingham also suspected Lucans wife, Lady Veronica, who died last year, had been involved in an affair with a Scotland Yard officer. Speaking about how Lucan had trusted him, he said: He confided in me during the most difficult times in his marriage, and I sympathised deeply with his plight. He made his fortune by reinventing the vacuum cleaner. And now tycoon Sir James Dyson has seen his wealth soar by another 200 million by blowing consumers away with his new bladeless hairdryer. Dysons family-owned company this weekend revealed it made a record 3.5 billion last year a rise of 40 per cent from 2016. James Dyson (pictured) saw his wealth soar by 200million thanks to the company's new Supersonic Hair Dryer 'exceeding expectations' in its first full year on the market The Dyson Supersonic Hair Dryer which costs 299 in the UK has been credited as one of the firms major successes, exceeding expectations in its first full year on the market, with Asian consumers responsible for three-quarters of the growth. Accounts for Weybourne Group the parent company of Dysons business empire show dividends of 34 million and 52 million were paid to shareholders. The company refuses to say how much of Weybourne is owned by Dyson himself. However, he is the majority shareholder and is believed to control the company with his family, who are understood to hold almost all the rest of the shares between them. A spokesperson for the company said that 73 per cent of growth last year came from Asia and a further 21 per cent from Europe (pictured is Dyson CEO Jim Rowan) The 2017 accounts also reveal that in the new financial year there were two further dividend payments of 62.3 million and 46.7 million, taking the total released by the company to its owners to 195 million. A spokesman said that 73 per cent of its growth last year came from Asia, where, in Sir Jamess words, people have an extraordinary enthusiasm for technology that works. A further 21 per cent came from Europe. There does not appear to be much evidence supporting the notion that legalized medical marijuana increases the rate of violent or property crime, according to a new analysis of city-level data from states where medical pot use is legal. Opponents to the legalization of medical marijuana use often state that there is a correlation between pot use and criminal activity, as a reason to keep marijuana on the illicit drug list. But, the analysis carried out by economist Yu-Wei Luke Chu, writing for The Conversation, revealed that medical marijuana laws haven't led to an increase in the actual rate of violent or property crimes in nearly all of the states in which medical marijuana is legal. An analysis of city crime data revealed that medical marijuana laws haven't led to an increase in the actual rate of violent or property crimes in nearly all of the states in which medical marijuana is legal (stock) And, in California, where it is possible to obtain weed legally, crime rates actually appeared to decrease by about 20 per cent, Chu wrote. Although he concedes that there is a relationship between marijuana users and criminal activity, based on positive test results carried out on those who had been arrested, Chu wrote that is likely due to the fact that people who use pot illegally are more likely to be the same people who are willing to break laws in the first place. To arrive at results indicating that medical marijuana legalization has no direct impact on crime rates, Chu analyzed 25 years worth of data from cities with populations of more than 50,000, between the years 1998 to 2013. A 'synthetic control method' was also created, allowing Chu and his team to 'estimate the effects of medical marijuana laws in each city,' using data from cities that don't have medical marijuana laws. Chu's research found that the crime rates in medical marijuana cities tended to move in step with that of those in their 'synthetic' cities. This appeared to be true when evaluating data from crimes including murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and theft. In California, where there has actually been a decrease in crime rates, likely due to the reduction in illegal marijuana sales, Chu postulates that the legalization of pot may actually have allowed police to work on deterring crime rather than running around trying to enforce marijuana drug laws. In California, where it is possible to obtain weed legally, crime rates actually appeared to decrease by about 20 per cent, according to the study (stock) Medical marijuana purveyors say that it's no surprise that crime rates have gone down, since patients no longer need to break the law to get their medication (stock) 'A lot of people dont realize that with these dispensaries come very high tech security systems, often operated by former police officers or even correctional facility directors,' said Mark Zatyrka, CEO of INSA, a Massachusetts-based craft medical marijuana dispensary. At INSA, Zatyrka said, there are more than 200 security cameras. This is no surprise, considering the fact that pot dispensaries are often required to work with cash, since the federal government still classifies marijuana as a Schedule 1 narcotic the same as heroin which means that banks can be charged with money laundering if they touch dispensary money, according to The Economist. Zatyrka also pointed out that, 'with legal medical cannabis, patients no longer have to break the law to get their medication. So it makes sense that we would see a decline in crime rates.' Additionally, studies have argued that a decrease in violent crimes in Mexico border states has been due to the fact that medical marijuana laws have helped to reduce crimes traditionally affiliated with Mexican cartels and drug smuggling. Cities themselves have started to relax the way they handle police reactions to marijuana use, freeing up officers to tend to other crimes. In Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser and Police Chief Peter Newsham announced Friday that arrests for 'public consumption' of pot would be noncustodial from now on, provided the person being arrested falls within certain perimeters, according to the Washington Post. Now, instead of being put in jail, people caught consuming pot on the street will be given a citation, requiring them to go to the police station for booking within 15 days and either go to court or pay a $25 fine. Exceptions to the new rule include juveniles, those with outstanding warrants, those who cannot be positively identified and those who authorities don't believe will show up for booking later. The new policy, Bowser said, will 'allow us to better focus our efforts and resources on building a safer, stronger D.C.' Millions of holidaymakers are being misled by phoney reviews on leading travel website TripAdvisor, it has been claimed. Hotels have been accused of trying to manipulate their ratings on the site by paying third parties to lavish fake praise and five-star write-ups on their establishments and to rubbish their rivals. Fakespot, a website that seeks to weed out bogus reviews, claims that up to a third of reviews posted on TripAdvisor are not legitimate. And it says that supposedly top-rated bed and breakfasts have almost twice as many fake reviews as less favourably reviewed accommodation. Millions of holidaymakers are being misled by phoney reviews on leading travel website TripAdvisor, it has been claimed However TripAdvisor angrily rejected the claims as inaccurate, misleading and unreliable. Fakespot founder Saoud Khalifa said: I would advise TripAdvisor users to approach every review with scepticism. His company uses algorithms to seek the sort of language, posting patterns and account details that suggests a phoney review. I would advise TripAdvisor users to approach every review with scepticism. Fakespot founder Saoud Khalifa Another survey by the British Hospitality Association found that more than half of British hoteliers believe TripAdvisor is not very helpful at all at dealing with malicious content. The website receives 50 million visits from the UK every month and it has been estimated that its reviews influence how 14 billion is spent annually. While no company has been taken to court in the UK over fake reviews, the owner of a firm that sold fake TripAdvisor write-ups in Italy was jailed for nine months. A TripAdvisor spokesman said: We totally reject the inaccurate and misleading findings [of Fakespot]. The usefulness and accuracy of the content on TripAdvisor is what has made our site popular to hundreds of millions of consumers. Its why we fight fake reviews so aggressively. The claims about fake reviews are based on entirely flawed techniques. Their methods are unreliable for one simple reason: they have no access to the technical data you would need to determine whether or not a review is fake. We do and we have been using this data for over a decade to track millions of reviews. If Fakespots methods were in any way reliable, we would be using them. We have tested their analysis, with reviews we know to be either genuine or fake, and the results show it to be completely unreliable and inaccurate. Teardowns of Apple's latest devices have revealed the unseen features not detailed in the firm's unveiling event. The studies by repair firm iFixit and chip analysis firm TechInsights, published this week, are among the first detailed teardowns of the phones, which became available for purchase in stores around the world on Friday. A piece-by-piece analysis of the new handsets shows not too much has changed from their predecessor, the iPhone X. But, the changes that were incorporated could be significant. Scroll down for video Teardowns of Apple's latest devices have revealed the unseen features not detailed in the firm's unveiling event. The studies by repair firm iFixit and chip analysis firm TechInsights, published this week, are among the first detailed teardowns of the phones IPHONE XS MAX SPECS Display: 6.5-inch OLED screen Cost: From $1,099 (1,099) Ships: September 21 Battery life: 1.5 hours longer than the iPhone X Cameras: Dual 12MP rear-facing, dual 7MP front-facing Powered by: A12 Bionic chip Memory: 64GB, 256GB or 512GB Colours: Gold, silver and space grey Waterproof rating: Up to 2 meters (6.5ft) deep for several minutes Improved augmented reality tools Advertisement iFixit's teardown shows the iPhone XS has swapped the previous dual battery system for a single L-shaped battery. The XS Max, however, didn't get such a dramatic change. 'The XS battery looks weird, and new, while the XS Max battery sticks to a familiar design,' the iFixit team notes. The newly designed battery in the XS has a lower capacity, at 10.13 Wh (2,659 mAh at 3.81 V). In addition, the camera bump on the phones is larger, meaning you may need to get a new case. 'There was one thing Apple forgot to mention about the new camera: all that 32% had to go somewhere, and it turns out the camera bump had to grow a littleyour iPhone X case may not fit your iPhone XS,' iFixit says. The teardowns also show that Apple's latest iPhones use components made by Intel Corp, Micron Technology, and Toshiba, among others. Supplying parts for Apple's iPhones is considered a coup for chipmakers and other manufacturers. While Apple publishes a broad list of suppliers each year, it does not disclose which companies make which components and insists its suppliers keep quiet. iFixit's teardown shows the iPhone XS has swapped the previous dual battery system for a single L-shaped battery. 'The XS battery looks weird, and new, while the XS Max battery sticks to a familiar design,' the iFixit team notes That makes teardowns the only way of establishing the breakdown of parts in the phones, although analysts also recommend caution in drawing conclusions because Apple sometimes uses more than one supplier for a part. What is found in one iPhone may not be found in others. Apple could not immediately be reached for comment. The breakdowns listed no parts from Samsung and no chips from Qualcomm Inc. IPHONE XS SPECS Display: 5.8-inch OLED screen Cost: From $999 (999) Ships: September 21 Battery life: Half an hour longer than the iPhone X Cameras: Dual 12MP rear-facing, dual 7MP front-facing Powered by: A12 Bionic chip Memory: 64GB, 256GB or 512GB Colours: Gold, silver and space grey Waterproof rating: Up to 2 meters (6.5ft) deep for several minutes Improved augmented reality tools Advertisement Samsung in the past has supplied memory chips for Apple's iPhones and was believed by analysts to be the sole supplier of the costly displays for last year's iPhone X. Qualcomm has been a supplier of components to Apple for years, but the two have been locked in a wide-ranging legal dispute in which Apple has accused Qualcomm of unfair patent licensing practices. U.S.-based Qualcomm, the world's largest mobile phone chipmaker, has in turn accused Apple of patent infringement. Qualcomm said in July that Apple intends to solely use 'competitor's modems' in its next iPhone release. The iFixit teardown showed iPhone Xs and Xs Max used Intel's modem and communication chips instead of Qualcomm's hardware. The latest iPhones also had DRAM and NAND memory chips from Micron and Toshiba, according to iFixit's study. Previous teardowns of the iPhone 7 had shown DRAM chips made by Samsung in some models. Apple's new iPhone XS (left) and XS Max (right) officially hit the shelves Friday September 21 TechInsights' dissection of a 256-gigabyte storage capacity iPhone Xs Max, on the other hand, revealed DRAM from Micron but NAND memory from SanDisk, which is owned by Western Digital Corp and works with Toshiba for its supply of NAND chips. Toshiba's chip unit Toshiba Memory was purchased by a private equity-led consortium earlier this year that Apple joined. In the past, TechInsights found Apple used different DRAM and NAND suppliers in the same generation of phones. iPhone XR vs iPhone XS vs XS Max Screen Size: Display Type: Processor: Water Resistance: Battery Life: Fast Charge: Wireless Charge: 3D Touch Display: Dual Cameras: Optical Zoom: FaceID: Weight: Software: Price: Colours: iPhone XR 6.1-inch LCD A12 Bionic IP67 Up to 15 hours Yes Yes No No No Yes 194g (6.84 oz) iOS 12 $749 (749) Yellow, White, Coral, Black, Blue, and Product Red iPhone XS 5.8-inch OLED A12 Bionic IP68 Up to 12 hours Yes Yes Yes Dual 12MP Lens Yes. 2x Yes 177g (6.24oz) iOS 12 $999 (999) Gold, Space Grey, Silver iPhone XS Max 6.5-inch OLED A12 Bionic IP68 Up to 13 hours Yes Yes Yes Dual 12MP Lens Yes. 2x Yes 208g (7.34 oz) iOS 12 $1099 (1099) Gold, Space Grey, Silver Advertisement 'For memory - Apple obviously competes with Samsung and wants to reduce their reliance as much as possible - so totally consistent that we'd see Toshiba for NAND flash storage and Micron for DRAM,' Morningstar analyst Abhinav Davuluri said. Jim Morrison, vice president of TechInsights, told Reuters that it appears that one of Dialog Semiconductor's chips has been replaced in the iPhone Xs Max by one of Apple's own chips, but it's not yet known whether that also applies to the iPhone Xs. Dialog did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In May, the chip company said Apple had cut orders for its chips. IFixit and TechInsights technicians also found components from companies including Skyworks Solutions, Broadcom , Murata, NXP Semiconductors, Cypress Semiconductor, Texas Instruments and STMicroelectronics. The general manager introduces himself as we order coffee in the morning. He must have heard that I caused a fuss the night before. I didnt really. Just felt that when you are paying 450 for a room (the cheapest on offer) you expect something other than a pokey attic with sloping windows, no bath and a one-way system round the bed because space is so tight. To make matters worse, we had been allocated a Bulgarian butler who kept asking if there was anything he could do. Sultry: L'Oscar (above) 'would not look out of place in Abu Dhabi,' wrote The Inspector A better room would be nice, I told him. At first, reception said it would not be possible, but when I threatened to empty the place by taking off my clothes and dancing naked on the black glitzy tables under the mirrored ceiling speckled with LED disco lights, we were swiftly given the keys to a superior room. LOscar, near Holborn Tube station in London, is a lavish, new hotel (decadence by design the website says) which would not look out of place in Abu Dhabi. All is dark and self-consciously sultry, with acres of silks, velvets, tassels in mustard and mauve, and glass birds on gold wall lights. This was once the headquarters of a Baptist Church hence the main bar and Baptist Grill in the octagonal former chapel, where you sit on sumptuous thrones rather than chairs. Prices are absurdly steep (rib-eye steak 44) and we have to ask if the dreadful techno music can be turned down. Our improved room has a huge bedhead that looks like peacock feathers, complicated lighting and overly-shiny repro portraits of Bloomsbury Set types. But the fixtures and fittings are of the highest calibre, with a marble bathroom, thick carpet and a gorgeous duvet. Pop of colour: A 'Deluxe Bedroom' (above) features a seating area and private hallway We are paying 450, room only. If we had gone for B&B the price would have risen to 520. That means 35 per person for brekkie which is why we order just two coffees. I tell the general manager that the original room was a poor reflection on LOscar. I shall make a note in your guest profile so that on the next occasion you will automatically be upgraded, he says. There wont be a next time but I appreciate the thought. She's an Australian actress known for her roles in iconic television shows such as Heartbreak High and Police Rescue. However her most well-known role is her appearance on long-running soap opera Home And Away. Her character first arrived in Summer Bay as a runaway bride, so do YOU recognise the star from this sweet childhood throwback as a flower girl? Guess who! Ada Nicodemou posted a sweet throwback snap to her first time as a flowergirl The star in question is 41-year-old Ada Nicodemou, who has played Leah Patterson-Baker on Home And Away since 2000. The brunette took to Instagram on Friday to share the adorable snap from her youth. Ada captioned the photo: 'I think I was five or six and it was the first time I was a flower girl.' 'Still the same smile': One fan said that Ada looked the same as she did in the old photograph (Pictured at the Jersey Boys premiere) Summer Bay feeling: Ada said in an interview last year that she still loves every day on set even after being on Home And Away for 18 years (Pictured with Ray Meagher, who plays Alf Stewart) 'I was super excited and didn't sleep for days.' One fan commented that the star looked exactly the same as she did back then. Ada, who was born in western Sydney, is wearing a white dress with ruffle sleeves in the picture. She is smiling at the camera, showing off her lace head piece with purple detailing. Ada has starred in Home And Away for 18 years and is one of the longest-running cast members on the show - along with Ray Meagher and Lynne McGranger. Ada has starred in Home And Away since 2000 and is one of the longest running cast members on the show - along with Ray Meagher and Lynne McGranger Last year she told TV WEEK: 'I love the people on Home And Away. I love the crew and I love the cast. 'We have such a great laugh. There isn't a day when I'm like, "I don't want to be here anymore" like, literally in 18 years, which is pretty rare. 'I'm a Greek girl too, so I like stability and don't like change.' Ada also starred in 1990s hit show Heartbreak High, which was her first acting role. Their parents recently sold off their lavish Mosman estate for a whopping $11 million. And now twin models Jordan and Zac Stenmark's family have 'downsized' into a smaller property in the affluent Sydney suburb. News Corp are reporting that the clan have just snapped up a stunning home with water views for a cool $7.5 million. Not bad for 'downsizing!' Jordan and Zac Stenmark's family snap up a $7.5 million home (pictured) in Sydney's Mosman... after selling their lavish estate in the same affluent area for a whopping $11 million In one image of the new property, the pad has high and ornate ceilings, marble floors and an all-white interior. It also features gorgeous harbour views from a large balcony. It has four bedrooms and two bathrooms. Models of the moment: Pictured are Jordan and Zac Lavish: In July, Jordan and Zac's parents Damien and Susie, sold their Cardross estate (pictured) for $11 million In July, Jordan and Zac's parents Damien and Susie, sold their Cardross estate for a whopping $11 million. The home had five bedrooms, five bathrooms, and a pool. Realestate.com.au reported that the twins' childhood home sold to former Foxtel CEO Richard Freudenstein. Mansion: The home had five bedrooms and five bathrooms, and a pool Susie and Damien - who have four children - had originally purchased the home in 1998 for $2.65 million. According to Property Observer, Zac was the first of the twins to leave the family nest, buying a $965,000 two-bedroom apartment in Manly in 2016. Jordan soon followed, spending $1.19million on a two-bedroom apartment in Bondi. After launching their fashion careers while students at the University of Sydney, Zac and Jordan have since featured in campaigns for the likes of Abercrombie & Fitch, Ralph Lauren, and Calvin Klein. They tied the knot in a fairytale ceremony in West Sussex in June. And Millie Mackintosh and Hugo Taylor looked like the picture of newlywed bliss as they attended Jodie Kidd's star-studded 40th birthday party with Perrier-Jouet at The Mandrake in London on Friday. The Made In Chelsea star, 29, looked smitten as she cuddled up to her former co-star, 32, at the party - where Jeremy Clarkson put on a giddy display while posing with the birthday girl. Cute couple: Millie Mackintosh and Hugo Taylor looked the picture of newlywed bliss as they attended Jodie Kidd's star-studded 40th birthday party at The Mandrake in London on Friday Millie looked typically chic on the night, donning a navy velvet slip dress with a plunging neckline and a sheer lace hemline. Adding an androgynous edge to her ensemble, she wrapped up in a longline black duster coat. The reality star styled her caramel-hued tresses in a sleek middle-parting and framed her features with minimal make-up. Three's a crowd: Jeremy Clarkson looked giddy as he posed with Jodie Kidd and his girlfriend Lisa Hogan Double trouble: Millie looked typically chic on the night, donning a navy velvet slip dress with a plunging neckline and a sheer lace hemline Glam; The reality star styled her caramel-hued tresses in a sleek middle-parting and framed her features with minimal make-up The fashion designer and make-up artist married at his uncle's country estate, Whithurst Park, in West Sussex on June 22 in front of a host of famous faces. The couple dated in 2011 while on Made In Chelsea, but split when it emerged Hugo had cheated on her with her friend Rosie Fortescue, who attended the wedding alongside a bevy of their other co-stars including Caggie Dunlop and Jamie Laing. They reunited in May 2016 shortly after Millie's split from first husband, rapper Professor Green. Millie was married to the musician, real name Stephen Manderson, 34, for two-and-a-half years. Silver siren: Jodie Kidd wore a stunning metallic knitted midi dress and layered necklaces Smitten: Jeremy appeared to be in great spirits as he posed with Lisa No, YOU'RE the best! Jeremy and Jodie appeared to be having a heart to heart at one point Come here, you! The pals wrapped their arms around each other in a friendly embrace The couple announced their split in February 2016 and finalised their divorce in May 2016, the same week that Millie went public with Hugo. Hugo then popped the question during a holiday in Mykonos, Greece, in July 2017. Talking about his bride, Hugo told Hello! magazine at the wedding: 'I knew she was The One within about five minutes of us getting back together.' Woman of the moment: Model Jodie stopped the proceedings to give a speech Sweet: Jodie looked utterly loved-up as she cosied up to her boyfriend, creative agency executive Joseph Bates Looking good: Jodie seemed smitten as she cuddled up to the former Royal Marine Pucker up: The pair didn't seem to care who was looking as they locked lips Millie concurred: 'But if we'd stayed together when we were younger, we wouldn't be together now. We had to go away, do our separate things and grow as people. We needed that time apart.' After years of partying, it is not surprising that the couple injected details of their wild child ways into the day as they revealed they had named tables after nightclubs they held dear to their hearts - with them sitting on the 'Boujis' table. Speaking of the big day, Millie said: 'The whole day has felt like an out-of-body experience. 'Even in my wildest dreams I didn't imagine it would be this perfect. I am so excited to finally be married to Hugo - he's the love of my life.' Not you as well! Jodie couldn't contain her joy as she kissed a female pal on the lips when presented with her birthday cake Joyous celebration: She tenderly cupped her friend's face as her pals looked on Happy couple: Ben Fogle and his wife Marina looked stunning at the event Ayda Field was moved to tears when an emotional X Factor audition song reminded her of her long-lost father's shock death. The 39-year-old's Turkish dad Haldun Evecan, who she didn't speak to between the ages of three and 18, died of a heart attack aged 68 in 2014. And the wife of Robbie Williams recalled her agony at the tragedy when contestant J-Sol sung a track in memory of his mother Victoria, in heartbreaking scenes set to air on Saturday night. Devastating: Ayda Field was moved to tears when an emotional X Factor audition song reminded her of her long-lost father's shock death Discussing his death she told The Mirror: 'I will never forget how the world swallowed me up on that day when I found out.' The mother-of-three then explained that J-Sol's original song forced her to confront the grief she's buried for several years. 'When he sang the first note, I was like, "Oh my God, here we go",' she said. 'It touched me. I feel I needed to hear that song. I needed to feel some things I wasn't ready to deal with. I was grateful.' Tragedy: The 39-year-old's Turkish dad Haldun Evecan (pictured), who she didn't speak to between the ages of three and 18, died of a heart attack at 68 in 2014 Ordeal: And the wife of Robbie Williams recalled her agony at the tragedy when contestant J-Sol sung a song in memory of his mother Victoria, in heartbreaking scenes set to air on Saturday night (pictured with Haldun and her mother Gwen Field) Ayda's parents, Hollywood film producer Gwen Field and advertising agency boss Haldun were married for four years between 1978 and 1982. They split when she was three and he went to Istanbul. Haldun then remarried and had daughters, Ilgi, 30, and Oyku, 26 - who Ayda met for the first time 10 years ago. Ayda had no contact with Haldun until she was 18, although he said he fought a legal battle to be able to see her. She was reunited with her dad during an emotional phone call just before she married Robbie in the US in 2010. Heartbreaking: Discussing his death she told The Mirror : 'I will never forget how the world swallowed me up on that day when I found out' (pictured with husband Robbie Williams) Grief: The mother-of-three then explained that J-Sol's original song forced her to confront the grief she's buried for several years (pictured, Haldun with his daughter Ilgi) Haldun later said: 'I told her I didn't give her much and certainly not as much love as I would have liked and that will haunt me.' He had offered to throw Ayda a second wedding in Turkey as he would not be at the first. She couldn't fly to his funeral in 2014 because she was seven months pregnant with her second child Charlton Valentine. Tragic: She said: 'When he sang the first note, I was like, "Oh my God, here we go". It touched me. I feel I needed to hear that song. I needed to feel some things I wasn't ready to deal with. I was grateful' (pictured, Haldun with his daughters Ilgi and Oyku) Gutting: After his split from Ayda's mum, he went to Istanbul, remarried and had daughters, Ilgi, 30, and Oyku, 26 - who Ayda met for the first time 10 years ago. Ayda (pictured as a child) had no contact with Haldun until she was 18, though he said he fought a legal battle to see her Although Ayda has lost her father, she has reunited with the 'secret family' she never knew existed for almost two decades. The beauty has formed a close bond with her two lookalike half-sisters Ilgi and Oyku, who she met up with London - and Ayda was even invited to Ilgi's wedding. After spending essentially a lifetime apart, Ayda is really happy to be getting to know her sisters properly,' a friend told MailOnline. Missed opportunities: She was reunited with her dad during an emotional phone call just before she married Robbie in the US in 2010. She couldn't fly to his funeral in 2014 because she was seven months pregnant with her second child Charlton Valentine 'She didn't speak to her dad between the ages of three and 18 and by then she'd missed much of her sister's childhoods. 'But the way they get along now it's like they grew up together. She talks about her 'sisters' and there is a real love between them.' J-Sol, from East London, whose previous musical experience includes opening for Boyz II Men, left the other X Factor judges equally emotional with his performance. Louis Tomlinson, whose mother Johannah Deakin, 43, passed away from leukaemia in 2016, said: 'Such a beautiful song that has touched us all on this panel.' She split from Pete Wicks after he cosied up to another girl during a holiday. And Shelby Tribble launched a scathing expletive-laden attack on her ex-boyfriend as a major 'f**k you' when she spoke candidly on Access All Areas on Friday. The TOWIE bombshell, 25, freely expressed her heartache as she exclaimed she wasn't having her love treat her badly. 'I'm not having it': TOWIE star Shelby Tribble launched venomous attack on her ex Pete Wicks in major 'f**k you' rant as she told all on her heartache She ranted on Access All Areas aired on FUBAR Radio: 'The way he's treated this whole thing is good because where it hurt me more and more it makes you stronger, you know what? F**k you! I'm not having it. 'He obviously does not give two s**ts, so Im thinking, why am I wasting my time and energy crying over someone who obviously doesnt care about me?' The reality star insisted she will be well and truly off the dating market while she picks up the pieces of her broken heart. 'Im staying single for a long, long time!!' Shelby explained. 'But I'm happier now. With him, I was so unhappy and so down. Heartbreaking: The TOWIE bombshell, 25, freely expressed her heartache as she exclaimed she wasn't having her love treat her badly 'Me being insecure and having really low self-esteem, he obviously didn't help that so he brought me to a place where I really was in a bad way. 'When you're blinded by love, when you come out of it, you notice how bad it actually was.' Devastated Shelby confided in her TOWIE pal Yazmin Oukhellou before she cooled things off with her ex man. Devastating: She split from Pete (pictured in London, September 2018) after he cosied up to another girl during a holiday A source told The Sun: 'Shelby ended up finishing with Pete but only because he forced her hand and she felt like there was nothing else she could do to save their romance. 'She found out about texts he sent another girl shortly after they started dating but loved him enough to let it slide. 'But she couldnt cope with feeling like a rebound following his time with Megan, and friends of theirs saying she was too boring for him, so ended it for good.' Pete's fiery romance with Megan McKenna widely dominated his screen time on TOWIE before their love went down in flames. Adventure: Heiress Elizabeth Wilson and Guy Pelly While the Duchess of Sussex enjoys marital bliss in this country, one of Prince Harrys closest confidants is hoping to find happiness by moving in the opposite direction. I hear that court jester Guy Pelly is spending so much time in his wifes native America that friends claim he will move there for good. Youll never believe it, but Guys going to be a farmer, a chum tells me. Hes bought a house in Tennessee to be near his in-laws, which is why we think the move is permanent. It would be a radical change for the urbane former nightclub boss, but may please his wife, Holiday Inn heiress Elizabeth Wilson. They married in Memphis in 2014 in a three-day bash attended by Princes William and Harry. This year, William asked him to be godfather to Prince Louis. Pellys absence means Londons social scene will never be the same. The 36-year-old organised Williams stag night and is known for such antics as shimmying 40 feet up a marquee during a Princes Trust concert, stripped to his boxer shorts. The move may, however, please courtiers whose patience has been tested over the years. Indeed, royal officials have been known to speak wistfully if jokingly of the days when such a troublesome figure could be banished from the kingdom. When, infamously, Harry was photographed wearing a Nazi uniform to a private fancy dress party, Pelly was at his side dressed as the Queen, whom he apparently mimicked to great effect. Pelly shares an unshakeable bond with the royal brothers. When he was erroneously blamed by Palace officials for introducing the teenage Harry to drugs, and ostensibly cast out of the royal circle, he didnt complain and stayed silent. When it later emerged that hed had nothing to do with Harrys adolescent experimenting with cannabis, Pelly was welcomed back into the royal fold almost as a third brother. Home on the range: How Guy might look if he turns his hand to cattle ranching His latest adventure makes sense for Pelly, who graduated from Newcastle University with a land management degree. He would be a great farmer, says his pal. Hes got sound business sense and loves the life of the great outdoors. Pelly, who has a five-month-old daughter with Lizzy, assured me recently that he led a salubrious life as a house-husband. Im not doing any nightclubs now, he declared. Im at home with the baby. Last night, Pelly was keen to play down suggestions the move would be permanent. Chivalry is well and truly alive among the horsey set, but some members are prepared to go the extra furlong. The British Horseracing Authority chairman, Steve Harman, 62, has just asked one of the Queens confidants, Harry Herbert, if he would mind if Harman courted his glamorous ex-wife, Francesca, 55 known as Chica (right, with her former husband). I did the gentlemanly thing, Harman tells me. Ive known Harry for eight or nine years, so asked him if it would be all right if I took Chica out for dinner. We have been going out for three months now. Shes absolutely lovely. Happily, Harry, 59 whose brother, the Earl of Carnarvon, lives at Highclere Castle, where Downton Abbey is filmed was delighted to give his blessing. Especially now that he also has a new filly of his own Irish chef Clodagh McKenna, 43. Sir David Attenborough has found a surprising new habitat in which to forage and wade around. The celebrated naturalist, 92, who is said to have a fortune of some 25 million, has been regularly spotted in the dank and musty climes of the bargain basement at a second-hand record shop in Londons Notting Hill. Sir David practically lives in here and has been known to get down on all fours rummaging through our cardboard boxes and shelves to dig out bargains, says a source at the Music & Video Exchange. He is completely mad for classical music Bach cantatas, if you must know. Prices in the basement start at 10p and rarely exceed 5. Described as a Cameron cutie when first elected as a Tory MP in 2010, Claire Perry has splendidly reconciled the demands of a parliamentary career with the hurly-burly of romance. The 54-year-old, who was appointed as a Business Minister last year, has, I hear, just got married to Professor Bill ONeill of Cambridge University. It was a hush-hush affair, says one of Perrys constituents in Devizes, Wiltshire. When the MP separated in 2013 from her first husband City fund manager Clayton Perry, with whom she has three children she dismissed suggestions that she was having an affair as wild speculation, only for a newspaper to reveal her relationship with ONeill three months later. Daughters everywhere will have felt a warm frisson as Meghan stepped out on her first solo official royal project with her mum, Doria. Yes, the Duchess of Sussex is now 37 and married, but at heart she is still a mummy's girl like so many of us. And didn't Doria look a million dollars? Her smile and confident composure said it all, as did her simple statement of introduction: 'Hi, I'm Meg's mom.' The Duchess was launching a cookbook celebrating the women of the Grenfell community. Asked if she felt proud of her daughter, Doria said: 'Very proud. Head over heels.' The Duchess (centre) talks to her mother Doria (left) with Prince Harry (right) as they attend a reception for the launch of cookbook 'Together', at Kensington Palace We always knew Meghan would ring the changes, but what a change it is to invite your mum to be the star turn at your first solo royal venture and then to introduce a noticeably political message to the proceedings. Meghan spoke of the importance of diversity and multiculturalism; her mum of the power of women. As if to prove Doria's point, there was Harry who, to be fair, was not expected to attend the launch walking three paces behind the two women, very much as an extra. I'm not saying he was thinking of that old Ken Dodd joke 'I haven't spoken to my mother-in-law for 18 months, I don't like to interrupt her.' Just that, as in most marriages, Harry knew his mother-in-law was the most important person there. Duchess of Sussex (centre) helps to prepare food at the launch of a cookbook with recipes from a group of women affected by the Grenfell Tower fire Doria was dignified and courageous at the couple's wedding when she sat alone in her pew as the sole representative of Meghan's family. And at the Grenfell community book launch, her elegance and vivacity reminded us what a special woman she is. But Meghan and she should tread carefully if they plan to continue this royal double act. Although she's a frequent visitor to the Royal Box at Wimbledon, Carole Middleton has been the model of discretion where Kate's royal duties are concerned. She's a deeply supportive, hands-on granny whom Kate can turn to at any moment but she never steals the royal limelight. Meghan, Duchess of Sussex (centre) arrives with her mother, Doria Ragland (left) and Prince Harry (right), to host an event to mark the launch of a cookbook with recipes from a group of women affected by the Grenfell Tower fire at Kensington Palace in London Meghan Markle and her mother, Doria Ragland, arriving at Cliveden House Hotel on the National Trust's Cliveden Estate to spend the night before her wedding to Prince Harry Whisper it quietly, but for me, Meghan's mom-and-daughter act felt a little too staged, with a hint of MeToo virtue-signalling and a tad too much showbiz. More Hollywood, you might say, than Holyrood. No surprises that one of the Duchess of Cambridge's favourite designers, Orla Kiely, has ceased trading. With her sludge colours and circa 1950 tea-towel print frocks, Kiely was the only woman who ever managed to make the magnificently stylish Kate look frumpy. A sad time for Gerry Next week Gerry McCann will open his heart about losing Maddie 11 years ago. He said: 'I decided it was a good opportunity to say something about the special bond between fathers and daughters.' Next week Gerry McCann (left) will open his heart about losing Maddie 11 years ago And it is special. I speak to my father every day and we have a rule that we always end on a happy memory. Yesterday's memory was the trip we did together, just the two of us, in a camper van after I'd fallen in love for the first time, aged 16. It's heartbreaking that Gerry will never get to share similar memories with Madeleine. Radiant 2 (and mum) We're used to seeing Radio 2's Chris Evans's beautiful wife Natasha looking more glamorous than a woman has a right to be. So how refreshing when she surfaced carrying her one-day-old twins Boo and Walt, with hardly a scrap of make-up, her hair in pigtails, a loose-fitting denim dress and comfy flip-flops, topped off with a smile as wide as an ocean. Simply post-baby perfect. Natasha Evans (pictured) carrying her one-day-old twins Boo and Walt Three years after they separated, Left-wing commentator Will Self is at loggerheads with his estranged wife Deborah Orr. She's deeply distressed because he is demanding access to their former family home to put 'red stickers' on 'his' belongings. As someone who has been through a ghastly divorce myself, I'd advise Deborah to give him everything he wants. It's only stuff, after all. The sooner his possessions are out of your home, the quicker you can get on with your own life. Who needs a battered copy of Confessions Of An English Opium Eater anyway? Would a real fashion Queen take a bow? Great to see Claire Foy collecting her Emmy for her role as the young Queen in The Crown, but perhaps she could have taken a tip from Her Majesty's fashion bible: always wear colour and pay particular attention to what you look like from the front. Claire Foy (pictured) wore a white dress with a big bow feature to the Emmy Awards Claire was wrapped in what looked from the front like a belted piece of stiff, shapeless white cardboard. It was the low back that revealed a sumptuous bow and extravagant detail. As the Queen knows, people remember what you look like coming towards them, not walking away. I have no truck with Trump, but aren't the former porn star Stormy Daniels's comments on the President's manhood rather tawdry? She admits she only had sex with him because he promised her a place on his celebrity version of The Apprentice. What a fool she was to believe him she's no apprentice in the bedroom herself and should have known better. She may be the highest paid female star at the BBC, but it hasn't stopped Claudia Winkleman adding a few bob to her coffers by flogging Head & Shoulders Shampoo. Claudia Winkleman has added a few bob to her coffers by flogging Head & Shoulders shampoo In the TV ad, her jet black hair is silken. But at a London Fashion Week bash this week, with her weird new blonde-tipped hairstyle, her tresses looked like the lion's in The Wizard Of Oz. If that's a good look, I'm a munchkin. Man Booker Prize chairman of judges Kwame Anthony Appiah says each novel on the shortlist explores 'the anatomy of pain'. They tell the tales of: a girl searching for the mother who abandoned her at birth; women in prison; child slavery; a veteran with PTSD; and the 'universal experience of societies in crisis'. Sounds like the stuff of nightmares. Westminster wars + Mischievous commentators have set Theresa May's Salzburg humiliation to The Sound Of Music's song So Long, Farewell. Surely her theme tune from that movie is The Lonely Goatherd. 'One little girl in a pale pink coat heard, lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo.' Mischievous commentators have set Theresa May's Salzburg humiliation to The Sound Of Music's song So Long, Farewell + Shadow chancellor John McDonnell says he wants the next leader of the Labour Party to be a woman. Why not kill two birds with one stone and pick Diane Abbott: they'd not only have the first female leader but also the first black leader. Abbott's also a single mum and would appeal to 36 per cent of voters who are classed as overweight. + After Theresa May photo-bombed an unsuspecting couple posing for wedding pictures, the groom said he'd have preferred Boris to gatecrash his wedding. Steady on, your wife is a gorgeous 32-year-old blonde . . . A close friend of Princess Eugenie says in Vanity Fair that she planned to wed Jack 'Tequila' Brooksbank last year but had to postpone it due to Harry and Meghan's wedding. Now she wants a day that's 'big with all the frills'. A subtle reference to mother-of-the bride, Fergie? Princess Eugenie (pictured) says in Vanity Fair that she planned to wed Jack 'Tequila' Brooksbank last year but had to postpone it The distraught, sobbing mother of the Westminster terrorist Khalid Masood asks: 'What did I do wrong?' Not reporting him to police when her violent, Islam-convert, jihadist-ranting son said to her six days before he murdered five people in 82 seconds: 'They will say I'm a terrorist. I'm not.' A bit of a hint there as to what he might do, surely. Yes, a mother's love is blind, but if Janet Ajao had warned police then, perhaps there would not now be five families blinded by grief. Rocker Ozzy Osbourne's son Jack is still working out the details in his pending divorce from estranged wife Lisa Stelly, but they've at least finalized their real estate arrangements. The Blast reported Thursday that the 32-year-old reality star will keep their $3.2M Studio City mansion while the 32-year-old Fancy Sprinkles CEO got the deed to their $1.8M Sherman Oaks home. The London-born, LA-raised star's property not only costs $1.3M more than his ex's - it boasts 2,642 more square footage as well as five bedrooms rather than four. Not over yet: Rocker Ozzy Osbourne's son Jack is still working out the details in his pending divorce from estranged wife Lisa Stelly, but they've at least finalized their real estate arrangements (pictured in 2015) His is bigger and more expensive: The Blast reported Thursday that the 32-year-old reality star will keep their $3.2M Studio City mansion while the 32-year-old Fancy Sprinkles CEO got the deed to their $1.8M Sherman Oaks home Jack's two-story digs - which they bought in 2014 - also features seven bathrooms and a larger swimming pool than Lisa. Meanwhile, Stelly's picket-fenced palace has three and a half bathrooms and only one story. At least the pink-haired baker's house has a large kitchen so she can continue to craft her confections in a roomy setting. His: The London-born, LA-raised star's property not only costs $1.3M more than his ex's - it boasts 2,642 more square footage as well as five bedrooms rather than four They bought it in 2014: Jack's two-story digs also features seven bathrooms and a larger swimming pool than Lisa Hers: Meanwhile, Stelly's picket-fenced palace has three and a half bathrooms and only one story Her domain: At least the pink-haired baker's house has a large kitchen so she can continue to craft her confections in a roomy setting It was Lisa who originally filed for divorce from Jack in May after six years of marriage, and they wrote in their announcement that they 'still love each other' and 'remain best friends.' Stelly is seeking spousal support, attorney fees, as well as joint legal and physical custody of their three daughters - Pearl, 6; Andy, 3; and Minnie, seven months. But TMZ reported August 16 that the Battle of the Network Stars contestant already gave Lisa 'a sizable cash payout upfront in lieu of spousal support.' 'I know my bathroom is a wreck': It was Lisa who originally filed for divorce from Jack in May after six years of marriage, and they wrote in their announcement that they 'still love each other' and 'remain best friends' (pictured August 10) 'This sums my girls up perfectly': Stelly is seeking spousal support, attorney fees, as well as joint legal and physical custody of their three daughters - Pearl, 6; Andy, 3; and Minnie, seven months (pictured September 3) 'Blindsided' by her new beau: Osbourne is lucky that Lisa's new boyfriend - It Model Michael G. Gabel - decided not to press charges after a remorseful Jack 'punched him in the face' at her home on August 4 (pictured Wednesday) Osbourne is lucky that Stelly's new boyfriend - It Model Michael G. Gabel - decided not to press charges after a remorseful Jack 'punched him in the face' at her home on August 4 - according to TMZ. The nepotistically-privileged millennial is likely hoping the A&E Network will renew his show Ozzy & Jack's World Detour (co-starring his father and sister Kelly) for a fourth season. Jack - who's reportedly 15 years sober - was diagnosed six years ago with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. She and late actor Heath Ledger both appeared on the long-running Australian soap, Home and Away, at the start of their careers. And on Thursday, Isabel Lucas stepped out at the 10th Anniversary of the Heath Ledger Scholarship event in Los Angeles. The blonde beauty, 33, cut a causal figure on the outing, wearing a black delicate lace dress on the red carpet. Former Home and Away star Isabel Lucas cuts a casual figure in a delicate lace dress as she attends the 10th anniversary of the Heath Ledger Scholarship event in Los Angeles Isabel - who has appeared in films including Transformers - cinched in the dress at the waist with a black belt. It also featured sheer detailing at the bottom of the skirt. The blonde - who now lives between both Los Angeles and Byron Bay - wore her long locks out and over her shoulders, with natural looking makeup. Looking nice: Isabel - who has appeared in films including Transformers - cinched in the dress at the waist with a black belt Honouring Heath: She and late actor Heath Ledger both appeared on the long-running Australian soap, Home and Away, at the start of their careers A star in the making? She and other guests celebrated Australian and Zimbabwean actress Charmaine Bingwa (pictured) winning the scholarship She and other guests celebrated Australian and Zimbabwean actress Charmaine Bingwa winning the scholarship. Isabel appeared on Home and Away from 2003 to 2006, while Heath appeared on the show in 1997. In 2010, Isabel was linked to American actor Jake Gyllenhaal, 37, who co-starred with Heath in the film Brokeback Mountain. Late star: Isabel appeared on Home and Away from 2003-2006, while Heath (pictured) appeared on the show in 1997 Beach babe! Last month meanwhile, Isabel spoke about her quieter life in Australia's coastal town of Byron Bay, saying she's happy to leave the bright lights of Hollywood behind and only travel there for work if necessary Last month meanwhile, Isabel spoke about her quieter life in Australia's coastal town of Byron Bay, saying she's happy to leave the bright lights of Hollywood behind and only travel there for work if necessary. Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, the stunner said: 'I'm really happy.' Byron Bay is also home to her ex-boyfriend Chris Hemsworth, who bases himself in the small town with actress wife Elsa Pataky and their three young children. The Hollywood heavyweight and Isabel first met on the set of long-running drama Home And Away and they dated from 2005 to 2008. She's been storming the runways of all the elite fashion houses during Milan Fashion Week. And Bella Hadid proved she can command attention just as easily off the catwalk, as she attended the Bulgari Spring/Summer '19 dinner party in Italy's fashion capital on Friday. The 21-year-old brunette bombshell looked ravishing in a sequinned thigh-split gown at the bash, where she was joined by fellow model Jasmine Sanders. Looking good: Bella Hadid looked stunning as she attended the Bulgari Spring/Summer '19 dinner party in Italy's fashion capital on Friday Bella certainly cemented her sartorial credentials in the gown, which featured decadent beading and a one-shoulder neckline. Letting the statement garment do all the talking, she boosted her already statuesque frame with a killer pair of ankle-strap courts. Injecting a dose of colour into the ultra-luxe ensemble, she accessorised with a pink diamond necklace and a silver clutch. The girlfriend of The Weeknd wore her raven tresses swept back into a sleek chignon and framed her features with a slick of eyeliner and berry lipgloss. Stunning: The 21-year-old brunette bombshell was joined by Jasmine Sanders (pictured) who dazzled in a pleated navy gown Shine on: Bella looked ravishing in a sequinned thigh-split gown at the bash Chic: Bella certainly cemented her sartorial credentials in the gown, which featured decadent beading and a one-shoulder neckline Glam: The girlfriend of The Weeknd wore her raven tresses swept back into a sleek chignon and framed her features with a slick of eyeliner and berry lipgloss Bella has been the talk of international fashion weeks, having strutted her stuff in Paris, New York, London and now Milan. Days before their landing, Bella was seen enjoying a romantic ice-cream date with her on-off boyfriend and music heavyweight The Weeknd. The Weeknd and Bella have been inseparable since rekindling their romance at May's Cannes Film Festival, some 18 months after their relationship had ended. Killer footwear: Letting the statement garment do all the talking, she boosted her already statuesque frame with a killer pair of ankle-strap courts Ravishing: Injecting a dose of colour into the ultra-luxe ensemble, she accessorised with a pink diamond necklace and a silver clutch Double trouble: Bella later cosied up to Americana actress Laura Harrier Speaking about the break-up, Bella told Teen Vogue: 'As an outsider, you might think I handled it so well, but it's always in your heart, and you always feel it very heavily.' She added: 'It'll be hard for a while. Love hurts, but you have to pull through.' After their split, The Weeknd dated Selena Gomez from January 2017 to October of the same year. Bella, meanwhile, reunited with her ex, Justin Bieber, who is now engaged to his on-off lover, Hailey Baldwin. Meanwhile, Bella was linked to Drake earlier this year, although she has denied dating him. Model behaviour: Jasmine dazzled in diamonds at the lavish bash Strike a pose: Jasmine and Laura flashed their best smouldering glances at the camera Yummy: The star looked sensational as she posed away before enjoying her meal Wow: Nieves Alvarez dazzled in a sparkly royal blue semi-sheer number Monochrome maven: Laura turned heads in a thigh-grazing zip-down LBD Ready for her close-up: The Spiderman: Homecoming actress, 28, wore her hair in glossy curls and framed her features with a slick of eyeliner Oz Comic-Con is one of the most important events on the pop-culture calendar. And this weekend, some of Hollywood's biggest stars have arrived in Brisbane to meet their biggest fans. From Shadowhunters' Dominic Sherwood and Matthew Daddario, to Australia's own Pheobe Tonkin - here's who to look out for in Queensland over the next few days. The Vampire Diaries star Phoebe Tonkin and Shadowhunters hunks Dominic Sherwood and Matthew Daddario (both pictured) arrive in Brisbane to meet fans for Oz Comic-Con Coming home: Phoebe Tonkin is returning to Australia once again - but not for a role, for Comic Con Phoebe, who stars on The Vampire Diaries, will be at this year's comic con and has attended the biggest convention of all in San Diego, California, before. Phoebe stars as Hayley Marshall in hit show and its spin-off The Originals. She plays a werewolf-vampire hybrid and is mother to the child of the most feared original family member of them all - Klaus Mikaelson. Other stars to offer meet-and-greets in Brisbane this weekend are The Vampire Diaries' Nathaniel Buzolic, Star Trek's Dominic Keating and Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Clare Kramer. Nathan Jones, a wrestler and actor from Australia, will also appear at the Brisbane event over the weekend. Convention time! Phoebe's co-star Nathaniel Buzolic (pictured), who plays Klaus' tortured younger brother Kol, will also be at Sydney's event Figurines galore! Dichen Lachman pictured) has a bobble head figurine of her from her role as Anya on The 100 The 36-year-old most recently starred as Frankie in the American television series Animal Kingdom, based off of an Australian film of the same name (Dichen pictured on set with Dennis Leary and Ben Robson) Sydney's two-day event on September 29 and 30 is set to be the biggest in terms of guest appearances, with the event's website listing various stars as expected to attend. Phobe's co-star Nathaniel Buzolic, who plays Klaus' tortured younger brother Kol, will also be at Sydney's event. The former Home And Away actor has also starred in Pretty Little Liars as Spencer Hastings' substance abuse counsellor. Another day, another convention! Another Australian on the guest appearance list include Nikolai Nikolaeff, who starred in Daredevil Another big Aussie name returning for the convention is Dichen Lachman, who has appeared on The 100, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and Supergirl. The 36-year-old most recently starred as Frankie in the American television series Animal Kingdom, based off of an Australian film of the same name starring Ben Mendelsohn and Jacki Weaver. She told TV Week that she loved being back in Australia and that there are some Funko Pop figurines with her likeness. Reunited! Back home he is known for his roles on The Saddle Club, Blue Heelers and Round The Twist (Pictured with Dichen) Another Australian on the guest appearance list include Nikolai Nikolaeff, who starred in Daredevil. Back home he is known for his roles on The Saddle Club, Blue Heelers and Round The Twist. Other international stars that don't have Australian roots such as Clare Kramer, from Buffy, and Matthew Daddario, from Netflix's Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments, are also travelling Down Under for the event. Aly Michalka is a Disney star known for her roles in Phil Of The Future and Bandslam, will also be at the convention. The 29-year-old, who has also appeared in iZombie and Hellcats, is only appearing at the Sydney weekend. Grant Crapp sensationally claimed this month that his former girlfriend Tayla Damir had created a bit**y 'girls' pact' against him after they broke up. But on Friday, nothing could have seemed further from the truth when the Canberra-based electrician, 23, posed with co-stars Edyn Mackney, 22, and Shelby Mills, 25. Attending a Sea FM event on the Gold Coast, hunky Grant looked perfectly at ease as the two busty beauties affectionately put their arms around his waist. Scroll down for video Thought they hated you? Love Island winner Grant Crapp, 23, cosied up to co-stars Edyn Mackney, 22, (left) and Shelby Mills, 25, at a Sea FM singles event in Sydney on Friday Not showing a hint of upset, Grant sported a Cheshire grin on his face while both Eden and Shelby also flashed the lens a smile. The trio were at a singles party 'Thai Your Luck' for the station, and were joined by a host of former reality stars from Ten's The Bachelor franchise. Earlier this month, Grant claimed that the majority of Love Island co-stars 'hate' him following his high-profile split with ex Tayla - whom he won the series with. Friends again? Grant looked happy and relaxed with Edyn (left) and Shelby, after he accused his former Love Island girlfriend Tayla Damir of turning the female co-stars against him Speaking exclusively to Daily Mail Australia, Grant said he was subjected to 'really unfair and childish' taunts from the female Islanders. Grant claimed the only female Islander who speaks to him is Kim Harnett, while he maintains friendships with Teddy Briggs, Jaxon Human and John James Parton. 'I never knew [Tayla] would be one of those bi**hy sort of girls who would go behind your back and slam you,' Grant claimed. 'It totally surprises me, because I never realised she was like that.' Turning them against him! Grant sensationally hit out at Tayla, blaming her for him being subjected to 'really unfair and childish' taunts from his female co-stars Grant and Tayla and known to be in the midst of a feud, following their bitter break-up after the revelation that Grant had a secret girlfriend. 'She's been posting s**t here and there that's apparently been aimed at me, but I don't follow her at all on social media,' he divulged. 'I try not to let anything get under my skin, because I know I'm going forward. If Tayla is going to go out and silently try to make stabs at me, I'm not going to bite back. 'It's funny because Tayla hasn't made headlines [for] herself except by slagging me. I always have a bit of a laugh about that.' Girls' pact! Earlier this month, Grant slammed Tayla (centre, left) for creating a bitchy 'girls pact' on him. Picture here with Millie Fuller, 25, Eden Mackney, 22, and Shelby Mills, 25 Hunky Grant recently signed with celebrity agent Max Marxson, with him heading to the UK and Ireland for a promotional tour later this year. And while the hot tradie said he didn't mind if the cast mates were slagging him off, he said fans shouldn't hold out for a reunion of the reality show. 'It's disappointing because we went through an amazing experience together and we should all be good mates. I'd hate to see a reunion. It would be shocking.' She adopted her daughter August in 2015. And Charlize Theron was seen doting on the three-year-old while stepping out in Los Angeles this Friday, the sunny last day of summer. The 43-year-old actress scooped August up into her arms and gave the tyke a kiss on the head while strolling through a parking lot. Loving mother: Charlize Theron was seen doting on the three-year-old daughter August while stepping out in Los Angeles this Friday, the sunny last day of summer Charlize opted for a casual outfit, teaming a midnight blue tank top with black leggings and accessorizing with cat-eye sunglasses from Sunday Somewhere. In addition to August, the Academy Award-winning movie star also has a six-year-old son called Jackson whom she adopted in 2012. This summer, South Africa-born Atomic Blonde star was the subject of a swirl of rumors that she was dating her co-star Alexander Skarsgaard. Alexander and Charlize, who were also briefly linked in 2012, worked together this year on an upcoming movie called Flarsky. Family outing: The 43-year-old actress scooped August up into her arms and gave the tyke a kiss on the head while strolling through a parking lot From 2001 until 2010, she was in a relationship with Stuart Townsend - who shortly before had been cast as Aragorn in Peter Jackson's The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, only to be fired a day prior to the start of filming and replaced by Viggo Mortensen. She famously became engaged to Sean Penn in 2014, having dated him since the previous year, but over the summer of 2015 they split up. The blonde bombshell, who morphed garishly into serial killer Aileen Wuornos for an Oscar-winning turn in Monster, has complained of the drawback of being beautiful. Keeping it simple: Charlize opted for a casual outfit, teaming a midnight blue tank top with black leggings and accessorizing with cat-eye sunglasses 'Jobs with real gravitas go to people that are physically right for them and thats the end of the story,' she whinged to British GQ in 2016. 'How many roles are out there for the gorgeous, f***ing, gown-wearing eight-foot model? When meaty roles come through, Ive been in the room and pretty people get turned away first,' claimed the two-time Academy Award nominee. Next year will see the release of Flarsky, a political comedy with a cast that includes Andy Serkis, Seth Rogen, June Diane Raphael and Randall Park. Former Neighbours actress Imogen Bailey, 41, has revealed her secret struggle with anxiety before hitting out at the use of social media. On Saturday, the blonde beauty, who had a stint on the popular soap as Nicola West back in 2008, was candid in her remarks about the disorder. Speaking to BW Magazine, Imogen confessed she was forced to hide her personal battle but tried to manage it by avoiding social situations. 'I had to hide it': Former Neighbours actress Imogen Bailey, 41, reveals her secret battle with anxiety before hitting out at how isolating social media can be for young people. Here in 2012 'I suffered from social anxiety when I was young and even in my adult world,' she divulged, before saying she hid it throughout her career. 'I avoided social situations and did the bare minimum appearances. People would comment "You're so quiet" and that would make it worse, to have that attention.' Imogen, who has featured on the cover of Ralph magazine, FHM Australia, and Black + White, went on to say she thinks social media could act as a trigger. 'We're living in a culture now where we are only as good as our last Instagram Story": The blonde beauty was candid when speaking about the chaos caused by social media She added that she worries about teenagers who are glued to their phones, who often miss out on the all important face-to-face interaction. 'We're living in a culture now where we are only as good as our last Instagram Story and if you're using your fuel on social media, you won't have time left to do it in person.' Recalling her move to Los Angles, Imogen said she would able to address the problem head on by creating talking circles for women. Starlet! The blonde bombshell appeared on Neighbours in 2008. she played Nicola West in the long-running soap. Pictured here in 2008 She also organises them for teenagers and men. The blonde beauty went on to say that she often had female friends over in Los Angeles for chanting and storytelling, adding it held as many benefits as the gym. Imogen, however, went in to battle against the practice being stereotyped as for 'hippies,' with her instead saying anyone can get the benefits of it. 'People may think this is just a hippie thing with crystals and incense but I even do these in a corporate setting.' Cardi B was 'so proud' of her younger sister and 'rock' Hennessy Carolina for strutting her stuff down the Philipp Plein SS/19 catwalk during Milan Fashion Week on Friday. 'I could cry. I'm so proud of @hennessycarolina!' the 25-year-old rap star - who boasts 43.2M followers - gushed on Instagram. 'Henessy is soo swaggy, talented, and pretty. She is my rock and I can't believe she evolving in to this beautiful woman! In my eyes she still little Hennessy!' 'Tonight was a dream!' Cardi B was 'so proud' of her younger sister Hennessy Carolina for strutting her stuff down the Philipp Plein SS/19 catwalk during Milan Fashion Week on Friday The 25-year-old rap star gushed: 'I could cry. I'm so proud of @hennessycarolina! She is my rock and I can't believe she evolving in to this beautiful woman! In my eyes she still little Hennessy!' The 22-year-old FIT student not only got to model in the Thriller-themed presentation, she got first-hand experience observing the 40-year-old German designer run his show. Hennessy (last name Almanzar) showcased her runway walk while clad in a sophisticated black belted blazer over a silver fringed skirt and black pumps. When Carolina - rocking a sleek raven ponytail - reached the edge of the catwalk, she dramatically removed her sunglasses. Aspiring designer: The 22-year-old FIT student not only got to model in the Thriller-themed presentation, she got to observe the 40-year-old German designer run his show Parading: Hennessy (last name Almanzar) showcased her runway walk while clad in a sophisticated black belted blazer over a silver fringed skirt and black pumps Big finish: When Carolina - rocking a sleek raven ponytail - reached the edge of the catwalk, she dramatically removed her sunglasses Cardi also proudly shared a video of her 'sister-in-law' Michelle 'Melo' Diaz, wearing PVC pants in the show, and thanked her for 'making my sister happy and more calm.' Hennessy - who came out as bisexual on June 6 - has been dating Michelle as far back as May 2017 and frequently refers to her as her 'wife.' Philipp Plein also enlisted controversial performers 6ix9ine aka Tekashi69 (who will soon register as a sex offender) and R&B belter Chris Brown (who assaulted Rihanna in 2009) for his show. The girlfriend: Cardi also proudly shared a video of her 'sister-in-law' Michelle 'Melo' Diaz, wearing PVC pants in the show, and thanked her for 'making my sister happy and more calm' Came out as bisexual on June 6: Hennessy has been dating Michelle as far back as May 2017 and frequently refers to her as her 'wife' (pictured September 14) #MeToo? Philipp Plein also enlisted controversial performers 6ix9ine aka Tekashi69 (who will soon register as a sex offender) and R&B belter Chris Brown (who assaulted Rihanna in 2009) for his show The two-time Grammy nominee's sibling support came the day after she celebrated her first wedding anniversary with husband Offset, whom she began dating in February 2017. On Wednesday, the Bronx-born Latina Insta-storied a glimpse of the arm of her seven-week-old daughter Kulture with the 26-year-old rapper (born Kiari Cephus), who has three other children. The former stripper last made headlines for sustaining a bump on the head after throwing her Gucci heels at Nicki Minaj at the September 7th Harper's Bazaar Icons bash. They began dating in February 2017: The two-time Grammy nominee's sibling support came the day after she celebrated her first wedding anniversary with husband Offset She's the true blue wildlife conservationist who has been making Australia proud since the day she was born. But despite loving all things Aussie, Bindi Irwin has admitted that her favourite toilet paper is an American brand. During a Facebook Q&A, the 20-year-old admitted that there's only one brand of toilet paper she uses - and that she loves it so much she even has it shipped to Australia. Down Under: Bindi Irwin has revealed the ONE brand of toilet paper she uses The brand that Bindi adores is the Charmin 'ultra soft' toilet paper, which bills itself as featuring 'irresistible comfort cushions you can see and feel.' 'My aunt texted me from Oregon and she said what would you like for your birthday? and, I love cards because I love writing to people, so I asked her for cards and toilet paper,' Bindi said. The young star often posts throwback photos of her family which include her late father Steve. Soft: The brand that Bindi adores is the Charmin 'ultra soft' toilet paper, which bills itself as featuring 'irresistible comfort cushions you can see and feel' But her latest social media post on Friday may be the most touching one yet. The now 20-year-old is barely older than a toddler in the picture, which also features her father and mother Terri. 'I just came across this photo and had to share it. My heart is so happy,' Bindi wrote in the picture's caption. 'I just came across this photo and had to share it': The young star often posts throwback photos of her family which include her late father Steve 'From the moment I was born my wonderful mum and dad started introducing me to wildlife. Our conservation work has been my life since the very beginning.' The 12th anniversary of The Crocodile Hunter's death passed on September 4. On the day Bindi shared an image of herself, her parents and little brother Robert with the caption, 'Together forever'. The Australian actor has spent the last three months in London shooting the anticipated Men In Black spin-off movie. And on Friday, Chris Hemsworth wrapped filming in England as he heads overseas to shoot other scenes across the globe. 'Finished the London portion of Men In Black, now we go to Morocco, a little bit of Italy, a little bit of Paris,' he told fans on social media. Scroll down for video That's a wrap! Chris Hemsworth ends London filming of new Men In Black movie as he boards a private jet to continue filming overseas Uploading a behind-the-scenes clip in his character's white suit, he joked that he was temporarily done with production and needed a shower. Pointing to his dirty dress shirt and trousers, Chris comically suggested he was overdue for a change of clothes. He later stood outside on an airfield as he boasted about having a private jet ready for the crew's transportation. 'Finished the London portion of Men In Black, now we go to Morocco': Chris claimed they were filming further scenes for the spin-off movie in Morocco, France and Italy While Morocco was next on the agenda for the Men In Black flick, Chris said he was first headed to Atlanta for additional Avengers photography. On Thursday, the actor also shared a comedic behind-the-scenes clip from on set in London. Dancing and pulling faces for the camera, the 35-year-old appeared in high spirits in the video shared to Instagram. And... action! Chris Hemsworth (right) has shared hilarious behind-the-scenes videos from the new Men In Black film, MIB. Pictured with his co-star Tessa Thompson (left) Chris filmed himself walking to a catering van parked on set, saying he 'needed to fill the vessel'. Heading inside the food truck wearing his Men In Black suit, he recorded himself making coffee and cooking on the stove. Clearly having fun, the father-of-three danced around and pretended to play the piano in the air. Break time! Chris filmed himself walking to a catering van parked on set, saying he 'needed to fill the vessel' What's cooking? Heading inside the food truck wearing his Men In Black suit, he recorded himself making coffee and cooking on the stove Chris also shared a photo of himself and co-star Tessa Thompson on set. (The two actors previously worked together in the movie Thor: Ragnarok.) The Byron Bay local has also posted clips of himself with his longtime stunt double Bobby Holland Hanton. In one video, he tricked his doppelganger into thinking he was about to shave his eyebrows. Chris has worked closely with Bobby over the past five years and the two men appear to share a close friendship. MIB is a spin-off based on the 1997 sci-fi film Men In Black, starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. MIB is due for release in cinemas next year She's one of Australia's biggest Hollywood exports, known for roles in big hit movies including Muriel's Wedding and About A Boy. And Toni Collette, 45, has admitted that she pays no attention to ageism in Hollywood. The blonde revealed that some people often remind her about being 'middle-aged' in the industry, but she couldn't care less. 'So what? It's not important to me': Toni Collette (pictured), 45, says she pays no attention to ageism in Hollywood... as she reveals people in the film industry often remind her that she's 'middle-aged' 'People say, ''Oh you're middle-aged now in this industry, blah,' Toni said in an interview published in The Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday. 'And it's like, "So what?" It's not important to me.' Toni said that as she gets older, she's becoming more 'spiritual' and tries to remain fit and healthy. Star attraction: Toni is one of Australia's biggest Hollywood exports, known for roles in big hit movies including Muriel's Wedding and About A Boy Racy! Toni has been making headlines of late for her raunchy new show, Wanderlust (pictured) But she said she isn't going to push herself. 'I'm healthy, yeah, but trying to live longer is ridiculous,' she said. Toni has been making headlines of late for her raunchy new show, Wanderlust. 'I was the first woman to have an orgasm on the BBC': Recently, Toni (right) star told Radio Times it was an honour to portray a middle-aged woman in a way that has not been substantially seen on TV In the show, she plays a counsellor desperately trying to save her marriage, with temptation all around her, her husband and their friends. Recently, the star told Radio Times it was an honour to portray a middle-aged woman in a way that has not been substantially seen on TV. She told the publication: 'Someone told me I was the first woman to have an orgasm on the BBC... and I'm happy to take the accolade.' 'It's so honest and fresh in the way the women are portrayed': Toni also admitted she hopes Wanderlust broadens the spectrum on how middle-aged women can be cast and viewed in the media Toni also admitted she hopes Wanderlust broadens the spectrum on how middle-aged women can be cast and viewed in the media. The Little Miss Sunshine star said it was the honest depiction of female pleasure on-screen that what drew her to the project, which is a co-production with Netflix. She said: 'It's so honest and fresh in the way the women are portrayed. To be a middle-aged woman, to be in a long-term relationship and to be alive, dealing with a lot of things, it's tough. 'Certainly a middle-aged woman's sense of self-esteem, of sexuality, is not often talked about.' Australian reality star Josie Capllonch has opened up about the pricey plastic surgery makeover that transformed her from a baby faced brunette into a Barbie doll bombshell. The 31-year-old, who starred on Channel Seven's Please Marry My Boy and Love Island Sweden, told Daily Mail Australia that she's spent over $50,000 on everything from multiple boob jobs to a Brazilian butt lift. 'I look nothing like I used to and people love to hate on it,' Josie said. EXCLUSIVE: A nose job, two boob jobs, Brazilian butt lift, fillers, Botox and more! Reality star Josie Capllonch (pictured) spilled on the shocking $50,000 plastic surgery makeover that turned her from a sweet brunette into a Barbie bombshell on Saturday Josie revealed that she's had two boob jobs, a nose job, Botox, fillers in her cheeks, lips, and jawline, and even a Brazilian butt lift to plump up her derriere. 'For the Brazilian butt lift, they transferred fat from my stomach, back, and inner thighs to my booty,' she explained. While the BBL only set her back $5000, Josie admits that her two boobs jobs cost $10,000 a pop, her nose job was $18,000, and that her fillers and Botox total over $4,000 a year. Barbie girl: Josie, 31, revealed that she's had two boob jobs, a nose job, Botox, fillers in her cheeks, lips, and jawline, and even a Brazilian butt lift to plump up her derriere 'For the Brazilian butt lift, they transferred fat from my stomach, back, and inner thighs to my booty,' she explained to Daily Mail Australia Fill me up! The Swedish-Australian stunner spends $4000 a month on facial fillers Instead of being satisfied with her new look, the stunning star says she's planning to go back under the knife for a third boob job, a second nose job, and eyelid surgery. Explaining her reasons for undergoing another breast augmentation, Josie said that her last procedure left her with scarring and the wrong sized nipples. 'I wanted smaller nipples last time, but it backfired and now I got huge scars all around my nipples and they've gotten even bigger now.' She added: 'I'm not comfortable without a bra on, which I hate.' Long way to go! Instead of being satisfied with her new look, the star says she's planning to go back under the knife soon for a third boob job, a second nose job, and eyelid surgery Brand new me! Josie, who was once a fresh-faced tourism student, is now a blonde bombshell Josie, who is Swedish but is based between Los Angeles and Sydney, was a 24-year-old tourism student when she tried to woo Matt Kenny on Please Marry My Boy. She was briefly linked to Penrith Panthers player Sandor Earl after the series, but faded away from the spotlight after that. She returned to screens last month for a short stint on Love Island Sweden. 'I'm not comfortable without a bra on': Explaining her reasons for undergoing another boob job, Josie said that her last procedure left her with scarring and the wrong sized nipples Do you recognise her? The former Channel 7 reality star looks nothing like her old self now Despite being unlucky in love on reality television, the personal trainer hasn't ruled out another on-screen romance in the future. 'I've tried everything to find love and failed, so I'd definitely give it another shot,' she admitted. 'I think people who go on TV to find love are open minded and a little bit crazy, just like me,' she continued. 'I can't do normal, boring people!' Innocent: The brunette affectionately cradles a Pomeranian in this photo taken in 2015 Fresh and fit: The old Josie is seen at work as a personal trainer in this photo from 2014 The Swedish-Australian stunner recently expressed her disappointment over her Love Island Sweden appearance, claiming that she was booted from the show too early. 'When I applied for Love Island Sweden in March this year, I did so with the obvious intention and hope of finding love,' she said. Unfortunately, her dreams were shattered when she entered the villa as a late season intruder which saw her quickly eliminated from the show. 'I think people who go on TV to find love are open minded and a little bit crazy, just like me!' Josie is keen for another stint on reality television ''I never got the chance I deserved!' The bombshell expressed her disappointment over her Love Island Sweden appearance, claiming that she was booted from the show too early 'I never got the chance I wanted and deserved and would I have known how I was going to be used, I would NEVER have participated in the show in the first place,' she wrote on Instagram after her exit. She added: 'I put myself out there and opened myself up to an experience I thought was going to change my life forever, only to be used in a production for viewer value.' The busty blonde now works as a personal trainer in Sydney and Los Angeles. She is the Real Housewives of Sydney star who is a passionate lover of animals. And Lisa Oldfield has revealed she handled a venomous red-bellied black snake found in her neighbour's home and relocated it to the bush, on Saturday. The 43-year-old took to Instagram to share a photo of a bucket with the scaly creature curled up inside. She's fearless! Lisa Oldfield revealed she handled a venomous red-bellied black snake at her neighbour's home and relocated it to the bush, on Saturday. Pictured: Lisa at the Star Wars: The Last Jedi Sydney Screening in 2017 She told Daily Mail Australia: 'I am a Sydney Wildlife rescuer, I relocated this snake from a neighbour's garage today and released him back into the bush.' 'I have been involved with Sydney Wildlife for three years and just this year won an Australia Day Award for the work I do with them,' she added. In her caption of her social media post, Lisa wrote: 'Love this time of year when all my #snake friends come out to play! Here's a #redbelly #blacksnake hiding in a bucket.' Shock! The 43-year-old took to Instagram to post a photo of a bucket with the scaly creature curled up inside. In her caption, Lisa wrote: 'Love this time of year when all my #snake friends come out to play! Here's a #redbelly #blacksnake hiding in a bucket' The reality TV star contacted Sydney Wildlife Services and reminded her fans watch out for pets and to contact animal authorities if they find a reptile lurking at home. In the past Lisa has not been shy about her love for all creatures great and small, and often posts pictures of herself with her pet miniature pony Tyrion and native animals. She introduced her 10-foot pet python, Shelley, on the first episode of Real Housewives of Sydney in 2017. Animal lover: In the past Lisa has not been shy about her love for all creatures great and small, including native animals At the time she told Daily Mail Australia her sons 'get in the bath with her (Shelley the snake)' and added that the boys also help to feed it. Family pony: In the past, Lisa has shared pictures of herself with her pet miniature pony Tyrion The kids love her: On the first episode of Real Housewives of Sydney, in 2017, Lisa introduced her 10-foot pet python, Shelley. At the time she revealed to Daily Mail Australia her young sons Harry and Bert often share a bath with the rescue serpent The reality star's heroic effort comes her after son Bert, six, was rushed to hospital after his older brother Harry, eight, punched him. Lisa updated Daily Mail Australia on her youngest son's current state, 'Bert is doing fine.' 'Fortunately his collarbone isn't broken, just some bruising and soft tissue damage, he's taking it easy this weekend,' she said. She's known for showing off her sartorial prowess and chic looks. And Lady Kitty Spencer was back to her old tricks again, as she stepped out in Milan wearing a flared rainbow trousers and a simple white T-shirt on Friday. The 27-year-old socialite looked stylish as she walked around the Italian city ahead of her day out at Milan Fashion Week. Colourful: Lady Kitty Spencer looked stylish in rainbow print trousers and a white T-shirt on the way to Milan Fashion Week on Friday Stepping out in a pair of dark blue wedge heels, the beauty complemented her colourful number with a chic red handbag. Kitty's blonde tresses were styled with a middle parting, and she wore them in loose curls which framed her stunning face perfectly. She shielded her eyes with a pair of stylish shades, and wore a natural palette of make-up to highlight her pretty features. Lady Kitty's outing came after she raised many eyebrows among fans last month, for posing in what appeared to be a necklace covered in cannabis leaves. Looking good: Stepping out in a pair of dark blue wedge heels, the beauty complemented her colourful number with a chic red handbag The niece of Princess Diana was snapped in one of her latest campaigns for Marie Claire Italy while wearing the chain, which came from a range by Bulgari and had been branded the 'happy leaves necklace.' Several fans commented on the nature of the necklace, with one writing: 'That marijuana necklace though!'. Describing their new collection as 'Roman creativity mixed with the disruptive spirit of the eighties', the designer wrote: 'Wild Pop is the quintessence of Bulgari's rule-breaking approach to jewellery inspired by a roaring era.' Kitty has had a busy summer, and just last week shared snaps as she enjoyed a break in St Tropez with Viscountess Weymouth, 32. Suprising: Lady Kitty's outing came after she raised many eyebrows among fans last month, for posing in what appeared to be a necklace covered in cannabis leaves The Tatler cover girl, who last month jetted back from Rome where she walked for Dolce & Gabbana, is notching up the engagements after turning up at a never-ending reel of celebrity parties this summer not to mention a flurry of weddings. Kitty boasts also 440,000 followers on Instagram, where she posts endless photos showcasing her glamorous modelling career and glitzy social life. The socialite grew up in South Africa, reading psychology, politics and English at the University of Cape Town. She's recently been feuding with iconic rapper, Eminem. But on Friday, hit-maker Iggy Azalea, 28, didn't let that dim her shine when she attended the iHeart Music Festival in Las Vegas. Proving she's not shy, the curvaceous blonde beauty flaunted her hourglass figure in a quirky yet chic ensemble at the star-studded event. Scroll down for video Looking Fancy! Rapper Iggy Azalea (pictured), 28, flaunted her hourglass silhouette in a quirky striped pants and T-shirt ensemble at the iHeart Music Festival in Las Vegas on Friday Walking the red carpet solo, without her new boyfriend Playboi Carti, Iggy reveled in her daring side while posing at the media wall. Showing her knack for style, Iggy opted to wear a pair of fitted white pin strip pants which stopped at her ankles. The Australian-born chart topper, who has recently made a comeback with her single KREAM, paired the chic pants with a nude short sleeve T-shirt. Sultry! The blonde bombshell struck a number of different poses at the event, opting for a pair of white pin stripped pants and a tight fitting nude coloured T-shirt with patterns The T-shirt, which clung to her chest, featured a number of black-and-white stenciled patterns, which looked spray-painted on. The controversial music maker matched her long, poker-straight blonde hair with a glossy make-up palette which included silver eye shadow. The outing comes after Iggy hit out at Slim Shady rapper Eminem on Twitter recently, after he dissed her by calling her a 'h*' in the track Killshot. High glam! Iggy, who has recently been feuding with rapper Eminem, chose a glossy make-up palette for the event, including silver eye shadow Iggy, however, hit back on social media after its release, saying the fellow rapper shouldn't fill out his songs with celebrity name drops. 'Diss songs shouldn't be filled with celebrity name drops to pad out lazy bars,' Iggy wrote. It's been a big month for Iggy, who dropped a bombshell on her Australian fans by saying she won't be touring Down Under any time soon. Earlier this month she announced her Bad Girls US tour, but said she won't make it to Australia because it's too 'hard to profit from' and is 'too far' away. The Black Widow rapper will be hitting the road in the US from late October, stopping at cities including Nashville, New York, Detroit and LA. She will also perform a show in Canada. Myleene Klass and Carol Vorderman have joined forces nearly three decades after they first met. Klass was only 12 years old when she first met the former Countdown star, 57, and the pals delightedly came together for a snap at RAF's consecration parade for 617 Squadrons new standard in Norfolk on Friday. 'Have known her for forever...since back in the day when I wanted to be an engineer,' Myleene, 40, captioned the snap, before adding: 'Today were at RAF Marham for something very special. 'Back in the day': Myleene Klass and Carol Vorderman joined forces nearly three decades after they first met 'Known her forever': Klass was only 12 when she first met the former Countdown presenter, 57, and the pals delightedly came together for a snap at RAF's consecration parade for 617 Squadrons new standard in Norfolk on Friday Myleene added a slew of photos chronicling their friendship over the years and the oldest image saw the former Hear'Say star as a school girl while an adult Carol towered over her. Further images saw the pair through the years as they were frequently reunited at events. Meanwhile, Vorderman ensured all eyes were on her at RAF Marham in Norfolk thanks to her incredibly smooth visage and her sharp pilot uniform. The Dambusters got their nickname after embarking on a night-time raid on three heavily defended dams deep in Germany's industrial heartland. Good times: Further images saw the pair through the years as they were frequently reunited at events Soaring success: Meanwhile, Vorderman ensured all eyes were on her at RAF Marham in Norfolk thanks to her incredibly smooth visage and her sharp pilot uniform They flooded the Ruhr valley and delivered a crucial blow to the Nazi war machine. Their success was immortalised in the classic 1955 film The Dambusters, its thrilling theme tune and gung-ho script evoking the best of British. The glittering event takes place every 25 years and this is the first standard since the squadron reformed in April. At the event, the Countdown host discussed how she was left disappointed when she couldn't join the RAF during her university days. She said: 'I wanted to join up as a fighter pilot when I was in my teens. I went to Cambridge University and I did an engineering degree. Sad: At the event, the Countdown host discussed how she was left disappointed when she couldn't join the RAF during her university days 'But I wasn't allowed to join the university squadron because I was a girl, back in the seventies. But I don't bemoan this fact. 'My daughter went to Cambridge University and she was allowed to join up. 'She was in her squadron for four years. It's a celebration for me that things have changed so much.' Meanwhile, in another snap, Myleene went on to reveal her day with the RAF had 'blown her mind' and she shared why she had attended the event when she took to her Instagram platform. Hot to trot: Myleene gave onlookers a sneak peek at her tremendous legs in the sexy split of her dress as she strutted her stuff in her boots Day out: Carol and Myleene attended the glittering event which takes place every 25 years. This is the first standard since the 617 Squadron reformed in April 'It was incredible': Myleene went on to reveal her day with the RAF had 'blown her mind' and she shared why she had attended the event when she took to her Instagram platform. She penned: 'So today I finally came face to face with a small fleet of #f35s. They can travel at 1.6 xs the speed of sound (1.6 Mach) thats 1200mph and cost 80 million each. 'I love the #RAF. They flew me out to Afghanistan where I was entertaining the troops, ditto Norway where they managed to land on a mountain top, in the dark, in the thickest of snow in -40 conditions. Theyve always brought me home safely. 'They are incredible and today has absolutely blown my mind. #forces #navybrat #f35 #raf #royalairforce.' (sic) She is famed for her fiery temperature. Yet Megan McKenna proved her looks are just as saucy as he temperament as she took to Instagram on Friday night to share a duo of smouldering snaps. The 25-year-old former TOWIE star looked incredible as she stripped down to saucy black lingerie with a push-up bra and bondage-inspired bottoms. Wow! Megan McKenna proved her looks are just as saucy as he temperament as she took to Instagram on Friday night to share a duo of smouldering snaps Megan proved she knows exactly how to work it in front of the camera as she knelt down while running her hands through her extension laden hair. Her bouncy blow-dry was accompanied by her flawlessly made-up visage, complete with thick strip lashes and her incredibly plump pout. She made the most of her physique by flaunting her washboard abs from beneath the racy strappy knickers and giving her cleavage a boost with the padded bra. Megan's saucy snaps come a month after she addressed her break up from Mike Thalassitis as she confessed it was 'pretty awkward' on Good Morning Britain. Hot stuff: The 25-year-old former TOWIE star looked incredible as she stripped down to saucy black lingerie with a suspender belt, triangle bra and sexy bottoms 'Muggy' Mike confirmed their split in July after he was seen moving his belongings out of Megan's home before she deleted all trace of him on Instagram. Although insisting 'everything happens for a reason', the High Heeled Shoes hit maker stressed she was keeping 'very busy' to help heal her heartache. Megan revealed she had been on holiday to Ibiza just shortly after the break up and she had been focusing on her music to 'clear' her head. She elaborated: It's pretty awkward, I do think everything happens for a reason, I've been away, I've cleared my head, I'm very busy I'm doing my music. Different looks: 'Muggy' Mike confirmed their split in July after he was seen moving his belongings out of Megan's home before she deleted all trace of him on Instagram Hot stuff: The reality star couple had been known for documenting their lavish holidays and romantic date nights together on social media 'I'm working on an album. I just feel like everything does happen for a reason, the path I'm going on right now... The reality star couple had been known for documenting their lavish holidays and romantic date nights together on social media. Sparks first started flying when they were dating in March, with their romance immediately taking off with a holiday to Barbados together. However, two months later the pair had unfollowed each other on social media and they were seen in a fierce row in the street following a night out. Jodie Whittaker is set to light up the small screen next month as the first female Doctor Who. And with the thirteenth season of the iconic sci-fi series marking the first time that a woman has stepped into the titular role, Jodie is all too aware that the job comes with a huge responsibility as a role model. In a new interview with The Australian, the 36-year-old recounted a recent experience in which a young male fan was dressed as her female version of the Doctor at a recent event. Scroll down for video Inspiring: 'Boys looking up to women is just as important': Jodie Whittaker (pictured, second from right) says she's ready to be a role model as the first female Doctor Who... after a young MALE fan dressed as her character 'I am asked an awful lot about girls looking up to me as the first female Doctor,' she said, 'but just as important is boys looking up to women.' Despite landing the coveted role, Josie has admitted that she had never watched Doctor Who before. Speaking with Marie Claire as their October cover star, the actress admitted she was concerned about her lack of research, yet was told it would be better to audition for the role with 'fresh eyes'. 'I am asked an awful lot about girls looking up to me as the first female Doctor,' she said, 'but just as important is boys looking up to women' Jodie confessed: 'Doctor Who wasnt something that was on TV in my house when I was growing up, so I thought I'd have to cane it before the first audition and watch every single episode. 'Thankfully, Chris [Chibnall, the producer] said, "I dont want you to. I want you to come in with fresh eyes and bring what you would do in this environment".' Jodie, who will make her debut as the Time Lord on October 7, admitted she was prepared for the backlash of casting her as the first female to take on the role, but claims that gender shouldn't even come into discussion when playing an alien. Newcomer: Despite landing the coveted role of Doctor Who, Josie has admitted that she had never watched Doctor Who before She reasoned: 'I knew that there would be a huge amount of people it would be a shock for. But this job celebrates change more than any other role you have a physical regeneration, so casting [a woman] supports that story and doesn't go against the rules of the show in any way. 'I'm playing a Time Lord who's essentially an alien and inhabits different bodies and this one is female. 'The best thing for me though is that, for the first time in my life, I am not playing a stereotypical woman because as much as I approach everything as an actor, I am continually labelled by the female version of that character.' 'The best thing for me though is that, for the first time in my life, I am not playing a stereotypical woman because as much as I approach everything as an actor, I am continually labelled by the female version of that character,' she said She recalled: 'I recently had someone ask me, "Are you playing it [the Doctor] as a girl or a boy?" I replied, "Im just playing it." This is the most freeing role because there are no rules.' Phoebe Burgess has emerged for the first time after her husband Sam Burgess was embroiled into the South Sydney Rabbitohs lewd photo 'sexting' scandal. The 29-year-old WAG, who is currently heavily pregnant with the couple's second child, stepped out in Sydney on Saturday afternoon with their daughter Poppy. Earlier this week Sam denied all involvement with the controversy, and hired celebrity lawyer Chris Murphy to pursue defamation actions after he was cleared of any wrongdoing by the NRL. Scroll down for video Brave face: Pregnant Phoebe Burgess (pictured) emerged for first time with daughter Poppy on Saturday after husband Sam denied being involved in Rabbitohs 'sexting' scandal Phoebe put on a brave face during the outing in Sydney's Paddington with 18-month-old daughter Poppy. The pair enjoyed some retail therapy while shopping in the lively area as the WAG flashed a defiant smile at one stage as she was photographed. The beauty, who is 27 weeks pregnant, clutched her burgeoning bump while wearing a white maternity style skater mini dress as she ran errands. Out and about: The 29-year-old WAG, who is currently heavily pregnant with the couple's second child, stepped out in Sydney on Saturday afternoon with their daughter Poppy (pictured) After hitting the shops, the mother-daughter duo then appeared carefree while playing in a nearby children's playground. A family friend then joined Phoebe as she returned to her white Range Rover. Putting it behind them: Earlier this week, her husband Sam denied all involvement with the controversy and was cleared of any wrongdoing by the NRL Defending his name: Sam has now hired celebrity lawyer Chris Murphy to pursue defamation actions. Pictured: Phoebe with Poppy Growing family: Phoebe is currently pregnant with the couple's second child Her outing comes after the Rabbitohs star stated he was pursuing legal action against the defamatory claims after being cleared of all accusations. The Rabbitohs on Friday said no player had broken club or NRL rules after a complaint was made by a woman alleging Rabbitohs players exposed themselves to her via Facebook in May. Shortly after the NRL club released their statement, Burgess revealed on Twitter that he is now exploring legal avenues over the saga. 'I have not sexted anyone. I fully cooperated with the inquiry as I said I would. I have engaged lawyer Chris Murphy to pursue my remedies and he has retained defamation lawyers,' he said. 'I have given a full account to the Inquiry and answered every questioned asked. It's now in Mr Murphy's hands. The next move is up to him. I have nothing more to say at this stage.' Mother and daughter time: Phoebe put on a brave face during the outing in Sydney's Paddington with 18-month-old daughter Poppy Girls' day: The pair enjoyed some retail therapy while shopping in the lively area as the WAG flashed a defiant smile at one stage as she was photographed Playtime: After hitting the shops, the mother-daughter duo then appeared carefree while playing in a nearby children's playground Exciting times: The beauty showcased her burgeoning bump while wearing a white maternity style skater mini dress Bumping alone nicely: Phoebe is currently 27 weeks pregnant The woman, who was believed to be on holiday in South Africa, was this week interviewed by NRL integrity unit investigator Karyn Murphy but declined to be quizzed by a five-person panel. 'Based on a thorough review of the available evidence before it, the panel was not satisfied that any South Sydney player engaged in any actionable misconduct resulting in a breach of their NRL playing contract, the NRL rules or the SSFC code of conduct,' the club said in a statement. A spokesman for the NRL said based on the information available, the NRL was satisfied with the position the panel has reached with respect to the allegations against players. 'If any additional information emerges it will be considered,' the spokesman said. 'Moments in the sun with my babies': Although Phoebe is yet to publicly address the scandal, she hinted that she is standing by her man in this Instagram post on Monday Subtle: Despite not specifically mentioning Sam, she tagged him in the photograph Welcome: A family friend later joined Phoebe during the outing Two players were believed to have exposed themselves to the woman, who complained to the club via an anonymous email over a period of three months between May and August. The matter rocked the league last week when News Corp Australia published the images, and named Burgess as the owner of the social media account. It overshadowed the Rabbitohs' semi-final win over St George Illawarra, and has since dominated headlines ahead of their grand final qualifier against the Sydney Roosters on Saturday. An emotional Burgess also fronted the media this week, where he thanked his wife and family for their support and said he was 'happy for the truth to come out'. Clearing their names: The Rabbitohs on Friday said no player had broken club or NRL rules after a complaint was made by a woman alleging Rabbitohs players exposed themselves to her via Facebook in May 'I have not sexted anyone': Shortly after the NRL club released their statement, Burgess revealed on Twitter that he is now exploring legal avenues over the saga. Pictured: Phoebe Burgess 'I fully cooperated with the inquiry as I said I would. I have engaged lawyer Chris Murphy to pursue my remedies and he has retained defamation lawyers,' Sam said The panel comprised ARL Commissioner Lea Drake, club chairman Nick Pappas, club staffer Emily Grant, chief executive Blake Solly, and Murphy. Murphy has previously represented former NRL Canterbury star Hazem El Masri when charges of domestic charges against him were dropped in 2016. He is also currently representing Australian actor John Jarratt, who has been charged with raping a woman over 40 years ago. Controversy: The matter rocked the league last week when News Corp Australia published the images, and named Burgess as the owner of the social media account Although Phoebe is yet to publicly address the scandal, she hinted that she is standing by her man in an Instagram post on Monday. The WAG shared a photo which showed her sitting on a picnic rug beside Poppy. While Phoebe didn't address the scandal, she tagged Sam's name in the image, suggesting that she is supporting her husband through the ordeal. 'Moments in the sun with my babies,' Phoebe captioned the Instagram snap, which saw her turning her head away from the camera. The beauty wore black leggings and a white crop top, which allowed her to flaunt her burgeoning baby bump. Phoebe and Sam married on 28 December 2015 at her parents' sprawling home in Bowral, in the New South Wales Southern Highlands. She's the brazen Real Housewife of Sydney who's always willing to set the record straight when it comes to her personal opinions on any topic. Now Lisa Oldfield, 43, has admitted she has never really been a big fan of former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Speaking exclusively to Daily Mail Australia in a recent interview, the mother-of-two was candid about her views on the former leader of the Liberal Party. 'He's an absolute disgrace!': Real Housewife star Lisa Oldfield (pictured) slammed former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull for his 'childish' behaviour recently 'He could have just walked away with dignity, Malcolm Turnbull is an absolute disgrace. He's left nothing good for us, he's an embarrassment,' she said. 'He's a hell of a lot better than bloody Turnbull,' the reality star explained after being questioned on her thoughts about new Prime Minister Scott Morrison. 'Hasn't Turnbull proved himself to be an absolute p****? Anything good he has done with his career has been blown away, he's like a perpetuate school boy.' 'He's an embarrassment' Speaking exclusively to Daily Mail Australia in a recent interview, the mother-of-two was candid about her views on the former leader of the liberal party She continued: 'He's in New York having a sook on Twitter. I mean he could have been a Real Housewife the way he was carrying on.' And after her blatant rubbishing of Turnbull, Lisa spoke of approvingly of Scott Morrison. 'I think the best chance the coalition have of retaining government is with ScoMo at the helm,' she confessed. Confession: 'He could have just walked away with dignity, Malcolm Turnbull is an absolute disgrace. Hes left nothing good for us, hes an embarrassment,' she said 'Malcolm Turnbull has always been there for Malcolm Turnbull, so I just say give the guy [Scott Morrison] a chance.' And although the reality star had a lot to say about politics, the brunette beauty shared some insightful information about her upcoming work projects. 'I've got a show in the pipeline at the moment, diametrically opposed and could not be any different to the Housewives (franchise),' Lisa said. Opinion: 'Malcolm Turnbull has always been there for Malcolm Turnbull, so I just say give the guy [Scott Morrison] a chance' (Pictured: Lisa Oldfield with her two sons Harry, five, and Bert, six) 'It's a documentary that I'm hosting, it's a very scandalous and historical documentary. Information will be forthcoming soon. It's a project that we've been working on for six months and I can't wait.' Lisa added that while she's working on new projects, family is her number one priority. 'At the end of the day, the documentary is nice, but it's really about reprioritising and what's really important are my kids, nothing really else matters,' she said. 'My husband [David Oldfield] has also been extremely supportive throughout my whole journey,' she said. Brooke Satchwell has shared her thoughts on domestic violence. The 37-year-old's ex-boyfriend Matthew Newton was arrested in 2006 for allegedly physically assaulting her, and he later pleaded guilty to 'common assault' in court. Speaking to Stellar, Brooke said: 'I think in the early stages it was all about outrage, and everyone being horrified.' Speaking out: Brooke Satchwell (pictured) has shared her thoughts on domestic violence She continued: 'But the conversation didn't necessarily progress into what it meant, or what could help shift and change people's understanding and how people can become so entrapped in situations.' The former Neighbours actress went on to say that she supports the current public conversation around domestic violence, and specifically singled out domestic violence campaigner Rosie Batty, 56, for her positive work with the cause. Matthew, 41, who is the son of Australian TV legend Burt Newton, was arrested for the alleged physical assault of former girlfriend Brooke in 2006. Flashback: The 37-year-old's ex-boyfriend Matthew Newton (pictured) was arrested in 2006 for allegedly physically assaulting her, and he later pleaded guilty to 'common assault' in court He pleaded guilty to 'common assault' after prosecutors withdrew three more serious charges, including assault occasioning actual bodily harm and stalking and intimidating Brooke. The conviction was later overturned by a court. In 2010, Matthew's then-girlfriend Rachael Taylor filed a protective order against him, alleging physical, verbal and emotional abuse, and he entered Sydney's Northside West Clinic for treatment. He was also arrested twice in Miami, Florida, in 2012 - the first for trespassing and resisting officers, while a second incident saw him charged with battery and resisting arrest after he attacked a hotel receptionist. Incident: In 2010, Matthew's then-girlfriend Rachael Taylor filed a protective order against him, alleging physical, verbal and emotional abuse Following the charges, Matthew checked into the Betty Ford Center in California for 90 days of alcohol and drug treatment. Both matters were later dismissed under the conditions that Matthew completes community service and writes a letter of apology to the hotel clerk. Matthew, who lives with his fiancee Catherine Schneiderman in New York's Upper West Side, recently stepped down as the director of Jessica Chastain's film Eve after his controversial past sparked a public backlash. Arrest: Matthew was also arrested twice in Miami, Florida, in 2012 - the first for trespassing and resisting officers, while a second incident saw him charged with battery and resisting arrest after he attacked a hotel receptionist 'Yesterday I notified Jessica Chastain and the other producers on the film Eve that I will be stepping down as director,' Matthew said in the statement. 'Since the announcement of this film, the responses, which are powerful and important, have not fallen on deaf ears. I am profoundly aware that I have a responsibility to lead where I have failed in the past. 'I can never undo the harm that I've caused the people I've cared about and I carry that shame and responsibility with me every day.' She's had a rocky year since settling a 5.5billion divorce with ex-James Stunt. But on Friday Petra Ecclestone showed it was all behind her as she went out for dinner with her new beau Sam Palmer on Friday night. The billionaire heiress, 29, looked the essence of cool as she rocked a trendy double denim look while dining in west Hollywood. Petra Ecclestone, 29, looked the essence of cool as she rocked a trendy double denim look while dining in west Hollywood with beau Sam Palmer The mum-of-three showed off her washboard abs in a tiny black crop top and high-waisted jeans and she teetered out the car. Her lithe limbs were elongated with open toe black stiletto heels and half-denim half-leather trousers. Looking every inch the yummy mummy, the daughter of Formula One tycoon Bernie sported an over-sized denim jacket with her car dealer beau. Petra ensured all eyes were on her as she styled her golden tresses loose and lightly curled. Every inch the Yummy Mummy: Petra ensured all eyes were on her as she styled her golden tresses loose and lightly curled Blossoming romance: The star's night out comes as it was revealed she's been dating her beau Sam since late last year, as she and ex-husband James finally reached a divorce settlement in October after six years of marriage The socialite accentuated her beauty with shimmery eyeshadow, rose-tinted blush and light pink lipgloss. Petra was joined by Essex native Sam, 34, who went casual in a baggy slogan jumper, jeans and white trainers. The star's night out comes as it was revealed she's been dating her beau Sam since late last year, as she and ex-husband James finally reached a divorce settlement in October after six years of marriage. While no details of the settlement were released, it was reported that James signed a 16million prenuptial agreement, with Petra also awarded sole custody of the couple's three children in January. Petra, who is mother to daughter Lavinia, five, and twin sons, Andrew and James, both three, has been photographed in the past with her new man, a vintage car dealer who is friends with her sister Tamara's husband, Jay Rutland. 'It's very early-on dating,' she told Mail On Sunday's YOU magazine. 'The whole thing is quite strange because my life didn't pan out the way I expected it to. I thought I wasn't the type who believed in divorce. 'I go to church and I got married thinking I would be with that person for the rest of my life. But things happen for a reason and, whatever that reason is, I've now got my three kids.' She's been making the promotional rounds as a star of A Faithful Man. And Lily Rose Depp cut a stylish figure as she posed up a storm at the photo call for the film at the San Sebastian International Film Festival in Spain on Saturday. The actress, 19, looked chic in a black dress, which fit snugly on her slim frame as a monochrome belt accentuated her trim waist. Chic: Lily Rose Depp cut a stylish figure in a black dress as she attended the photo call for A Faithful Man in Spain at the San Sebastian International Film Festival in Spain on Saturday Lily boosted her height with a pair of white heels, and she kept her accessories to a minimum so she didn't distract from her stylish ensemble. The model wore a natural palette of make-up, including a slick of nude lipstick and dark eyeliner to accentuate her pretty features. Shielding her eyes with a pair of retro rectangular shades, she let her brunette locks fall past her shoulders in a sleek, straight style. Laetitia Casta put on a glamorous display at the photocall in a red dress which had a plunging neckline to show off a glimpse of her cleavage. Monochrome: Lily, who joined by her co-star Laetitia Casta, boosted her height with a pair of white heels, and she kept her accessories to a minimum so she didn't distract from her stylish ensemble Finishing touches: Shielding her eyes with a pair of retro rectangular shades, she let her brunette locks fall past her shoulders in a sleek, straight style Stunning: The model wore a natural palette of make-up, including a slick of nude lipstick and dark eyeliner to accentuate her pretty features Louis Garrel, who both stars and directs the film, looked sharp in a black suit which he paired with a crisp white shirt which he wore without a tie. A Faithful Man is an French romantic comedy, and sees Lily takes on the role of Eve, while Louis plays Abel and Laetitia is Marianne. The film's synopsis is as follows: 'A couple's relationship becomes complicated when she leaves him for his best friend, and returns after he dies.' Together: Lily was joined by her cast members Louis Garrel (centre) and Laetitia (left) New project: A Faithful Man is an French romantic comedy, and sees Lily takes on the role of Eve, while Louis plays Abel and Laetitia is Marianne Busy bee: Lily's outing came as she continued to promote her new film A Faithful Man, which recently had its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival Lily's outing came as she continued to promote her new film A Faithful Man, which recently had its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. The star also recently avoided a nasty run-in with her ex-stepmother Amber Heard as they both attended a HFPA and InStyle bash in the Canadian city. Luckily the pair did not seem to cross paths as they arrived at the event. Strike a pose: Lily showed off her modelling prowess at the photocall Pretty: The model was sure to wow audience members with her stunning looks Vision in red: Laetitia put on a glamorous display at the photo call in a red midi-dress which had a plunging neckline to show off a glimpse of her cleavage Amber married Lily's father Johnny, 55, in February 2015 before filing for divorce from the screen star just 15 months later. Months after their bitter divorce, which saw Amber obtain a temporary restraining order against Johnny, the pair issued a joint statement, stating: 'Our relationship was intensely passionate and at times volatile, but always bound by love.' Since then Amber went onto have a relationship with businessman Elon Tusk, but the couple split in August 2017. Dapper: Louis, who both stars and directs the film, looked sharp in a black suit which he paired with a crisp white shirt which he wore without a tie Avoided her: The star also recently avoided a nasty run-in with her ex-stepmother Amber Heard as they both attended a HFPA and InStyle bash in the Canadian city Out and about: The actresses made their way to the venue for the photo call His fiancee, Ariana Grande, has a tattoo of the phrase 'Mille tendresse,' a French expression meaning 'a thousand tendernesses.' And now Pete Davidson has the exact same tattoo. The body art is located at the back of the couple's necks, and is an expression made famous by the 1961 film, Breakfast At Tiffany's. Tatt's amazing: Pete Davidson, 24, has a tattoo of the phrase 'Mille tendresse,' a French expression meaning 'a thousand tendernesses' Ariana, 25, got the tattoo back in 2014, but Pete has only recently added it to his already abundant collection of inkings. The No Tears Left To Cry songstress has been happily adding to her tattoo collection since she started her romance with Pete Davidson in spring. In addition to their H2GKMO tattoos the pair have matching heart tattoos on their fingers and both have Pete's father's FDNY badge number 418 on their skin. Pete recently revealed the hilariously awkward origin of his first tattoo at 17, explaining to Variety magazine how it was partially inspired by his fiance's ex boyfriend Big Sean and his lyrics in the Kanye West song Mercy. Permanent: Ariana, 25, got the tattoo back in 2014, but Pete has only recently added it to his already abundant collection of inkings Candid: Pete recently revealed the hilariously awkward origin of his first tattoo at 17, explaining to Variety magazine how it was partially inspired by his fiance's ex boyfriend Big Sean. Seen here on Thursday No ragrets: The 24-year-old explained how his ink of the phrase 'swerve life' was inspired by the Kanye West song Mercy Opening up during a video accompanying his Variety cover, the 24-year-old explained how his ink of the phrase 'swerve life' was inspired by the Kanye West song Mercy, which Sean is prominently featured on. A 17-year-old Pete and his best friend Ricky decided on the matching ink all the way back in 2011, thinking it would be a timeless catchphrase. 'We were like, "That's gonna last forever," so now that's on our legs,' he laughed. She married her actor beau Oliver Mellor in a stunning beach ceremony in Turkey last week. And Rhian Sugden, 32, has continued the celebrations on the Turkish coast, sharing a sizzling bikini picture with her thousands of Instagram followers on Friday. The glamour model - who announced her departure from topless modelling earlier this year - ensured all eyes were on her as she flaunted her eye-popping cleavage in a tiny pink bikini. Beach babe: Rhian Sugden, 32, posted this eye-popping photo on Saturday. The model is currently on honeymoon in Turkey celebrating her marriage to long-term beau Oliver Mellor Wearing, bahimi beachwear, the busty blonde held bunch of posies that matched her skimpy swimsuit. Her luscious golden locks were loose framing her gorgeously tanned face. She finished off the look with oversized sunglasses as she looked back over the idyllic coastline. The Manchester born beauty looked on cloud nine for her walk down the aisle to the Beatles hit Here Comes The Sun in Kalkan, Turkey, last week. Just married: Rhian Sugden has married her actor beau Oliver Mellor in a stunning beach ceremony in Turkey, wowing in a lace and tulle dress Rhian wed Oliver, her boyfriend of six years, in a blissful ceremony by the Mediterranean sea, with their close friends and family in attendance. Guests were reduced to tears as Oliver's sister Kate read an emotional poem while the couple read their own vows. The bride chose a gorgeous dress with a figure-hugging bodice in delicate white. Rhian lifted up her full tulle skirt to flash her legs as she walked, also flaunting her silver strappy heels. A simple silver pendant was the only bit of bling the low-key bride needed, while her blonde locks were styled into loose curls and pinned back with a glittering diamante hair clip. Oliver proposed at a sold-out Manchester theatre in 2014. Kiss me quick: The glamour model - who announced her departure from topless modelling earlier this year wed her former Coronation Street beau by the Mediterranean Before she met Oliver, Rhian was involved in a scandal with Vernon Kay, with the starlet first coming to the forefront when she went public with several racy messages sent by the married TV presenter in 2010. It was then revealed the pair had got back in touch in 2015, with Vernon sending hundreds of texts asking to 'reconnect' with the model. After a break of six years, the busty blonde candidly and shockingly admitted that it felt like an 'old friendship coming back'. Long term love: The couple have been dating for six years, and Oliver popped the question at a sold-out Manchester theatre in 2014 The blonde beauty recently claimed however that she had been treated as 'the villain' in the light of the sexting scandal, while the radio host has had a career boost. The 44-year-old was famously forced to make an apology to his wife Tess Daly on BBC Radio 1 following the sexting scandal. Vernon went on to promise live on air that he would no longer contact Rhian or the four other women he had been caught messaging at the time. We did it! Rhian looked stunning in her full length tulle gown with a figure-hugging bodice while Oliver chose a dapper waistcoat and pink tie combo She's the model and actress who's no stranger when it comes to flashing her ample assets on social media for her 18.7 million followers. And Emily Ratajkowski left little to the imagination as she attended Milan Fashion Week in Italy on Saturday. The model, 27, went braless as she showed off her enviable figure in a plunging teal blazer and shorts combination. Work it: Emily Ratajkowski left little to the imagination as she attended Milan Fashion Week in Italy on Saturday She accessorised her look with a pair of knee-high white snakeskin heeled boots, a blue snakeskin clutch bag, gold earrings and black sunglasses. Emily styled her brunette locks into a sleek blow-dried hairdo, as she added a slick of glamorous make-up. The Gone Girl actress knew how to work her best angles as she posed up a storm and used the pavement as her catwalk. Later, she shared a revealing picture to Instagram in the same outfit, which showed plenty of cleavage. Strike a pose: The model, 27, went braless as she showed off her enviable figure in a plunging teal blazer and shorts combination, with knee-high white snakeskin heeled boots Milan Fashion Week started on Wednesday and continues until Tuesday, it comes shortly after both New York and London Fashion Week earlier this month. Emily's appearance comes after she took to the runway at the star-studded Versace show on Friday. The brunette beauty oozed glamour in a striking black silk strappy gown with a soaring thigh-high split, which revealed her honed legs in all their glory. The stunning gown flashed a hint of cleavage while cinching in at her waist with a leather and gold chain belt. Catwalk star: Emily's appearance comes after she took to the runway at the star-studded Versace show on Friday Emily was propelled her into stardom after she appeared in Robin Thicke's controversial video for his song Blurred Lines, back in 2013. But modelling was supposed to be just a day job for the star, a temporary gig that would enable her to make some money before possibly going back to school. 'To have something that I was just viewing so much as a 9-5 job turn into something I really was not expecting was super surprising,' she added. Emily has stuck with modelling, appearing on the cover of Cosmopolitan, Glamour, and CR Fashion Book, among other publications. She has walked the runways of some of the highest-profile designers, including Marc Jacobs and Miu Miu. Sexy: Later, she shared a revealing picture to Instagram in the same outfit, which showed plenty of cleavage Ruth Wilson has called for more 'male orgasms' to be shown on TV, revealing she's sick of women always being filmed in the throes of pleasure. The 36-year-old, who stripped off several times for Sky Atlantic's raunchy drama The Affair, said there is a lack of equality when it comes to sex scenes. 'Why have I always got to do the orgasm face? There should be a male orgasm face,' the British beauty asked The Sun. Not impressed: Ruth Wilson has called for more 'male orgasms' to be shown on TV, revealing she's sick of women always being filmed in the throes of pleasure She added: 'Why is it always the woman who's orgasming - why aren't we thinking about that a bit more?' Ruth revealed she'd had enough of showing her breasts in sex scenes with The Affair co-star Dominic West, so the actor was made to bare more skin. Ruth said: 'Dom and I had to do so many sex scenes and I decided at one point I wasn't going to show my nipples any more. So poor Dom had to get his a**e out more. The actress even jokily referenced Dom's behind in her Golden Globe speech for Best Actress, saying his bum is 'something of great beauty'. Backlash: The 36-year-old, who stripped off several times for Sky Atlantic's raunchy drama The Affair, said there is a lack of equality when it comes to sex scenes (pictured on the show with Dominic West) While the Luther star always looks glam and preened to perfection on the red carpet, she revealed that she used to be teased at school for her striking looks. The actress said she was mocked for her full lips - but denied ever having collagen put in them - and said she got flak for her 'Jack Nicholson eyebrows. Ruth's character Alison Bailey was killed off in the middle of season four of The Affair, leaving fans devastated. Inequality? 'Why have I always got to do the orgasm face? There should be a male orgasm face,' the British beauty asked The Sun Getting her own back: Ruth revealed she'd had enough of showing her breasts in sex scenes with The Affair co-star Dominic West, so the actor was made to bare more skin Initially it appeared Alison had killed herself but later on it was revealed she'd been murdered. She denied her sudden departure was anything to do with her salary, telling The New York Times: 'It isn't about pay parity, and it wasn't about other jobs.' 'But Im not really allowed to talk about it.' The Luther star added. The interviewer then notes that after a long pause Wilson added cryptically: 'There is a much bigger story.' She's mom to a baby daughter, who was born in June. And 55-year-old Brigitte Nielsen looked the epitome of glamour as she stepped out arm in arm with her husband Mattia Dessi, 39, on Friday. The proud parents of Frida took a break from changing nappies to stroll around in the sunshine in Beverly Hills, California. Hot momma: 55-year-old Brigitte Nielsen looked the epitome of glamour as she stepped out arm in arm with her husband Mattia Dessi, 39, on Friday The ex-wife of Sylvester Stallone dazzled in a colourful dress which showcased her slender physique. She looked to have already bounced back into pre-baby form, as a mustard yellow belt cinched her trim waist. The statuesque Dane added low heels, as she accompanied her husband of twelve years. Striking: The ex-wife of Sylvester Stallone dazzled in a colourful dress which showcased her slender physique She wore giant dark glasses to make sure she kept her enigmatic allure, and added large earrings. Her trademark bright blonde crop was softly styled, as she later showed off her dangly earrings on her social media. The 6ft 1in beauty - who has four adult sons - gave birth to a baby girl back in June. Prints charming: The proud parents of Frida took a break from changing nappies to stroll around in the sunshine in Beverly Hills, California Slender: She looked to have already bounced back into pre-baby form, as a mustard yellow belt cinched her trim waist The Rocky star conceived her youngest child through in vitro fertilization, having had the foresight when she was 40 to have her eggs frozen. The five-times married actress and model shares son, Julian Winding, 34, with her first husband, Kasper Winding, she also has 28-year-old Killian Gastineau with ex-fiance Mark Gastineau and has two sons with fourth husband Raoul Meyer - Douglas Aaron, 25, and 23-year-old Raoul, Jr. Just last week, the star showed off the newborn in a social media photo; she wrote in the caption: 'She is my rainbow' Bold: She later showed off her dangly earrings on her social media Platinum locks: Her trademark bright blonde crop was softly styled Proud parent: The 6ft 1in beauty - who has four adult sons - gave birth to a baby girl back in June Holding her teeny infant, who was dressed in a pastel rainbow striped dress and a matching yellow headband, Brigitte showcased her toned post baby body. She, perhaps, has kept her fitness through taking hikes and dog-walks with her infant daughter. The striking momma shared a picture with Frida in her pram, on August 31, as they appeared to be hitting some of the trails around Los Angeles. She married Mattia in Malta in July 2006, and they now live in Palm Springs. Oh baby: Last week the Rocky star shared a sweet photo holding her newborn on Instagram, she called her 'my rainbow' She has been at the heart of Milan Fashion Week ruling the runways across the Italian fashion capital. And Winnie Harlow kept up her fashionable image when she joined forces with the stars at the amfAR dinner during Milan Fashion Week on Saturday. Sexily wearing the straps of her sheer scarlet gown off her shoulders, the supermodel showed off as much bare skin as possible. Winnie Harlow exposes some serious skin in sheer dress as she led the glamour at the star-studded at amfAR gala dinner during Milan Fashion Week, in Italy on Saturday From the runway to the red carpet, the model put on a titillating display by putting her white briefs on display in the transparent floor-length dress. Dazzling gems were stitched into the fine fabric of the number to bring a hint of showbiz sparkle to Winnie's red carpet look. Already standing tall at 5ft 7inchs, the fashion icon slipped on steep silver heels while she mingled with the stars at the bash. From the runway to the red carpet! The model put on a titillating display by putting her white briefs on display in the transparent floor-length dress Dazzling diva: Gems were stitched into the fine fabric of the number to bring a hint of showbiz sparkle to Winnie's red carpet look Winnie was seen cosying up to newly-single Liam Payne when they were sat indulging on the sumptuous banquet. The Bedroom Floor hitmaker has been mending his heartache after splitting from Cheryl, his long-term ladylove and the mother of his son Bear. Statuesque Winnie wasn't the only model to catch his eye on the evening as he was later seen mingling with the glamorous Amber Valletta. Good company: Winnie was seen cosying up to newly-single Liam Payne when they were sat indulging on the sumptuous banquet No signs of heartbreak! The Bedroom Floor hitmaker has been mending his heartache after splitting from Cheryl, his long-term ladylove and the mother of his son Bear Here come the girls! Amber Valletta and Olivia Palermo joined forces when they put on equally fashionable displays in the Italian fashion capital Amber teased a glimpse at her toned pins in the saucy little split of her floor-length black dress which seductively revealed her legs and heels. Meanwhile, Olivia Palermo burst onto the scene in her emerald green ballgown featuring a ruffled skirt and raunchy thigh-split detailing. Leonardo DiCaprio's model ex-girlfriend Nina Agdal was also on the guest list when she made her presence known at the bash. Catch me if you can! Leonardo DiCaprio's model ex-girlfriend Nina Agdal was also on the guest list when she made her presence known at the bash Party time! Nina enjoyed a glass of bubbly with a bevy of beautiful women Getting pulses racing: Zoe Larsson left very little to the imagination in her nude sheer dress with only twinkling gems covering her modesty The blonde bombshell provocatively gave onlookers a glimpse of her legs in her semi-sheer spotted skirt of her dress. Zoe Larsson also left very little to the imagination in her nude sheer dress with only twinkling gems covering her modesty. Despite just days ago being spotted off the coast of Monaco on a superyacht, Lady Victoria Hervey ensured she didn't miss the hottest party in Milan on Friday. Dazzling diva: The songstress accessorised with huge glittering earrings to pick out the sequins stitched into her dress Queen! Despite just days ago being spotted off the coast of Monaco on a superyacht, Lady Victoria Hervey ensured she didn't miss the hottest party in Milan on Friday Boasting of a sun-kissed tan from her luxurious getaways, the socialite simply donned a racy mesh dress over her briefs. Extravagant floral embroidery in pink barely covered her ample assets in Lady Victoria's typical racy fashionable style. Stealing a good deal of the limelight was Jasmine Sanders when she posed on the red carpet showing her slender model figure in her backless ivory dress. ! Stealing a good deal of the limelight was Jasmine Sanders when she posed on the red carpet showing her slender model figure in her backless ivory dress Amazing looks: The model drew accessorised with a jewel necklace to draw eyes to her cleavage in her seductive keyhole neckline So gorgeous! Glamorous Jasmine brought a splash of colour to her dinner party look with a slick of deep red lipstick The model drew accessorised with a jewel necklace to draw eyes to her cleavage in her seductive keyhole neckline. Glamorous Jasmine brought a splash of colour to her dinner party look with a slick of deep red lipstick. Laura Whitmore looked ravishing in a perilously plunging suit and she wore her outfit with a scarlet lip for a flash of colour. Cosy! Caroline Daur flashed a glimpse of her lingerie when she cuddled up to the glamorous Jasmine inside the swanky venue Suits you, Laura! Whitmore looked ravishing in a perilously plunging suit and she wore her outfit with a scarlet lip for a flash of colour The exact moment Winnie found out she had earned her wings has been uploaded to Models Daily's Twitter account and it has also been reported she went on to make the official announcement at the IMG VIP Lounge by Principessa Prosecco. Winnie - who has skin condition vitiligo - also recently discussed the changes in the modelling industry in an interview with ELLE magazine. She explained: 'There is a big shift happening in the fashion industry in terms of beauty standards, and I feel Im part of that shift. Flower power! Adwoa Aboah looked blooming lovely in her strapless floral print ballgown She's a natural: The VOGUE cover girl looked stunning when she topped up her features with light touches of make-up Three's a party! Adwoa Aboah showed she was a social butterfly when she joined forecs with Mariacarla Boscono and Karen Elson at the party Charming company: Edward Enninful and Moran Atias were in high spirits at the bash 'I remember on Americas Next Top Model, Tyra Banks asked me if a photographer told me to cover my skin for a shoot, would I do it? 'I said no. I dont care who it is, or who thinks I should. Im going to stay true to myself.' She previously lashed out at being branded 'a sufferer' of pigment disease Vitiligo, as she penned on Instagram: '"I'm not a 'Vitiligo Sufferer" I'm not a 'Vitiligo model. 'I am Winnie. I am a model. And I happen to have Vitiligo. Stop putting these titles on me or anyone else.' Sizzling: Kat Graham was the picture of summer in her yellow mini dress at the star-studded bash A crane will be used to clean up the Devonport site where an out-of-control train was deliberately derailed, and safety investigators are also heading to the scene. Two passers by were injured by flying debris when the driverless train ploughed into fences after it was derailed on the northern Tasmanian city's waterfront just after 9am on Friday. The crane was moved on site on Friday and is likely to be used as "part of the recovery process", according to a TasRail statement. Four safety investigators from Brisbane, Canberra Melbourne, and Adelaide will also travel to the site to collect evidence. "The ATSB's safety investigation will include an examination of the locomotive and wagons, interview witnesses, and obtain any available recorded data for analysis, amongst other activities," a spokesman for the organisation said. No one was on board the train which was being operated by remote control from a loading yard - a method that has been used for more than 15 years at Devonport. Remains believed to be those of missing South Australian woman Colleen Adams will undergo an autopsy, after they were recovered from the backyard of her former home. Mrs Adams disappeared in 1973 and was missing for 45 years until her husband, Geoffrey Adams, led police to the burial site earlier this week and faced court charged with her murder. Discovered at Maitland home the couple shared with their young children, the recovery effort was made difficult by the consistency of the soil. It concluded on Friday, when the hole dug by police was filled and the tenants of the house allowed to move back in. The remains have been sent to Adelaide to undergo a formal identification process. Adams had previously told police he awoke about 7am on November 22, 1973, to find Mrs Adams fully dressed with two packed suitcases. According to Adams, she said she was leaving and never wanted to see him or the children again, before getting into a car with a middle-aged woman he did not know. The couple's youngest daughter, Kaye, visited the site on Thursday and delivered a statement to the media through victim contact officer Debbie Gibson. "Today I have finally found my mother," the statement said. "After 45 years of hoping, we have found her." Suncorp settled insurance claims from people who lost homes in Victoria's Christmas Day 2015 bushfires for cash amounts based on the lowest quote, banking royal commission lawyers say. The cash settlement sums offered by its AAMI business may not have been sufficient for people to repair or rebuild their own homes on a new for old basis, counsel assisting the commission said. The inquiry heard that in some cases the cash settlements were hundreds of thousands of dollars less than the home owner's own rebuilding quotes. Counsel assisting said Suncorp cash settled sums based on the lowest quote it obtained, raising serious concerns about whether the cash settlement amounts were sufficient. The barristers have recommended a misconduct finding against Suncorp over misleading ads that promised AAMI would repair or rebuild damaged homes "no matter the cost". AAMI copped a $43,200 penalty over the misleading statements about complete replacement cover, when it could have faced criminal charges and up to $7.2 million in fines. That was despite the regulator having reasonable grounds to believe AAMI had broken financial services laws by making false or misleading representations. While the Australian Securities and Investments Commission closed the advertising matter without taking criminal or civil action, the royal commission could still make findings against Suncorp. Counsel assisting said the insurer may have engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct by advertising that AAMI would repair or rebuild an insured's house no matter the cost. That is not a criminal offence provision, but the alternative suggested breach of the law by making false or misleading representations can attract civil or criminal penalties. The lawyers also recommended a number of findings of conduct falling below community standards and expectations, including by cash settling claims based on the lowest quote the insurer obtained. AAMI also sent policy renewal letters to customers whose properties were destroyed in the fires and charged them premiums for home and contents insurance. The Christmas Day bushfires destroyed 116 properties, many of them holiday homes, in Wye River and Separation Creek. Suncorp received 63 claims, half under its AAMI brand. Counsel assisting also recommended misconduct findings against insurer Youi over the cases of a Queensland couple whose home was badly damaged by Cyclone Debbie in March 2017 and a Broken Hill family after their house was left "broken" in a freak hail storm in November 2016. Both families are still waiting for their homes to be fixed so they can move back in. The suggested findings involved misconduct by failing to handle the two claims as required under the general insurance code of practice and conduct falling below community expectations related to Youi's home policies excluding additional costs from properties not being up to code. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has told Multiculturalism Minister Ray Williams he faces the axe if he continues to push a spill motion against Liberal frontbench colleague Dominic Perrottet. Her warning comes after her deputy Mr Perrottet, member for Hawkesbury, announced his intention to challenge colleague Mr Williams for his old seat in neighbouring Castle Hill. The spat has threatened the stability of the government, with Mr Williams calling on the Treasurer to step down as deputy leader of the party or face a spill motion on Tuesday. Ms Berejiklian revealed on Friday she reminded both cabinet members the government was expected "to be solely focused on delivering for the community", although she added that her deputy Mr Perrottet has her full backing. She also demanded Mr Williams refrain from proceeding with the spill motion, "otherwise, his position in cabinet is untenable". Mr Perrottet says his reason to contest pre-selection in Mr Williams' seat was to balance work and family commitments while giving the people of Hawkesbury the representation they deserve. "This is not a decision I have taken lightly and comes after a great deal of reflection and discussions with my family and colleagues," he said in a statement. Mr Williams, however, is refusing to budge. In a statement, he said: "My community is everything to me and I will be contesting the seat of Castle Hill at the next election and will continue to work hard on behalf of my local community. "Given Dominic is challenging myself as both a fellow member of parliament and a ministerial colleague I believe it is untenable for him to remain as the deputy leader." Opposition Leader Luke Foley said the situation showed the Liberals had learned nothing from the backlash that followed the toppling of former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull. "The public are sick and tired of politicians focusing on themselves," he told reporters in Sydney. "The Liberal Party civil war has moved from the federal parliament to the NSW parliament and good government has been totally ignored." Prime Minister Scott Morrison, a former Liberal Party state director, said it wasn't for him to address the issues inside the NSW wing of the party. "I tend to stay out of the politics of other chambers," he told reporters in Sydney. Lesotho's army commander was shot dead by rival officers at a military barracks, an official told AFP, in an apparent assassination set to revive instability in the mountainous African kingdom Lesotho's army commander was shot dead by rival officers at a military barracks Tuesday, an official told AFP, in an assassination likely to revive instability in the mountainous African kingdom. The two senior officers behind the attack were also killed in the gunfight with Khoantle Motsomotso's bodyguards, just two months after elections meant to usher in a new era of peace. "They attempted to forcefully enter his office. There was a shoot-out between the two... and the commander's bodyguards," a military official who declined to be named told AFP. Prime Minister Thomas Thabane confirmed the deaths at a press conference, describing them as "a serious setback to vigorous efforts to restore peace and stability." Thabane's new coalition government took office in June after the third general election since 2012 as Lesotho endures a series of political upheavals. Thabane, 78, previously served as premier after the 2012 elections but was forced to flee to South Africa -- which entirely surrounds landlocked Lesotho -- following an attempted coup two years later. In August 2014, soldiers led by sacked army chief General Tlali Kamoli seized control of police headquarters after Thabane had suspended parliament to avoid a no-confidence vote. - Regional intervention - Thabane's All Basotho Convention (ABC) party won snap elections on June 3 this year but failed to get an outright majority, leading it to negotiate joint rule with three other parties. Thabane's estranged wife was shot dead two days before his inauguration. Known as Africa's Switzerland because of its mountainous scenery, Lesotho has a long history of political instability having also suffered coups in 1986 and 1991. In 2015, a former army chief was gunned down by soldiers who claimed that he was resisting arrest outside the capital Maseru. Critics accuse the military of favouring Thabane's old rival Pakalitha Mosisili who ruled from 1998-2012 and 2015-2017. Lesotho is important to South Africa as it provides much of the water supply to Johannesburg, while the regional Southern African Development Community (SADC) has worked for years to try to resolve its political tensions. "I am hoping that we can have a peaceful Lesotho," South African President Jacob Zuma told reporters from a summit in China. "From the SADC point of view, we thought that the Lesotho problem ended and this is what we were promised by the new prime minister who said that now there is going to be peace now in Lesotho. "Actions that people take there must not lead into another situation." Lesotho is a constitutional monarchy ruled by King Letsie III, who has no formal power. The country was a British protectorate known as Basutoland before independence in 1966. Years of political friction have hampered attempts to fight dire poverty and the world's second highest HIV infection rate. A Russian IL-20M plane similar to the one shot down on Monday lands at an unknown location on July 23, 2006 Israel's coordination with Russia on its attacks in Syria remains unchanged despite the deadly downing of a Russian plane, and the Jewish state retains its right to decide on military actions, an Israeli official said Friday. Syrian air defences mistakenly shot down the military plane following an Israeli raid on Monday night, killing 15 Russians and fuelling speculation Moscow would seek to curb Israeli actions in Syria. Israel, which carries out regular strikes against pro-government forces in war-torn Syria, has a de-confliction agreement with key regime backer Russia to avoid clashes between their respective air forces. An Israeli military official, speaking to journalists on condition of anonymity, said Friday that the deal remained in place. "There have been no changes to the de confliction mechanism as a result of this unfortunate event," the official said. He said the two sides had committed to the "very effective" mechanism but stressed that Israel's "freedom of movement is paramount". Israel and Russia created the mechanism in 2015, when Russian forces intervened in Syria's civil war to support its ally President Bashar al-Assad. Israel regularly carries out strikes in Syria against the Syrian government, its Lebanese ally Hezbollah and Iranian targets. An Israeli flag waves at the embassy in Moscow on September 18, 2018 Despite the mechanism, Syrian air defences on Monday night mistakenly struck a Russian Il-20 military plane after an Israeli raid on a Syrian army facility, killing all the crew members. The Russian military accused Israeli pilots of using "the Russian plane as a cover, exposing it to fire from Syrian air defences", saying they reserved the right to respond. But Russian President Vladimir Putin later adopted a more conciliatory tone, saying the incident was the result of "tragic accidental circumstances". An Israeli military delegation travelled to Moscow on Thursday to express sorrow over the deaths and to share information on the incident with their Russian counterparts. - 'Irresponsible' - The Israelis "provided proof" to the Russians that their plane had been shot down because the Syrian batteries had "fired recklessly, irresponsibly and unprofessionally, long after our planes were no longer there," the official said. The Syrians fired for a total of 20 missiles, he said. Israeli planes were "not anywhere near the Russian plane," he added. He also disputed initial claims by the Russians that the Israelis had only warned them of their planned attack a minute before, and had used the Russian plane as a cover. Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) speaks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Kremlin on July 11, 2018 "We definitely gave a warning time much longer than one minute, we acted in accordance with the standard operating procedures that are in place with the Russian military, this time as we have done before." He denied reports that Russian officials had rejected the Israeli conclusions, adding that Israel would continue to constantly review the existing protocols with Moscow. "There might be improvement, mutual improvement. But it's still unclear. The mechanism continues to work, it continues to operate, it continues to de-conflict," he said. Israel has struck multiple times inside Syria in recent months and says it will continue to operate to stop weapons reaching Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based movement backed by the Jewish state's arch-rival Iran. A planned protest against a sharp hike in internet costs in Benin was blocked on Friday in Cotonou, the country's commercial hub, after the authorities refused to grant a licence for the demonstration. This week saw the start of a new law, imposed without explanation, that has driven up the price of using social networks from 2 CFA francs to 10 CFA francs per megabyte. "The request for authorising the demonstration was refused by the mayor," general secretary of the Benin association of web activists Hugues Sossoukpe told AFP. "We have abandoned the protest because the commissioner says there aren't enough police to monitor us," said Sossoukpe, adding that another protest was planned for next Wednesday. Opposition to the increased charges are growing momentum, ironically on social networks where activists have launched hashtags like #TaxePasMesMo (Don't tax my megabytes) and an online petition that has collected over 13,000 signatures. "We think that the Beninese government should rather compel telecom operators to improve the quality of their service," said the petition on the change.org platform. "This tax increase isn't justified and was done without any consultation," said consumer rights campaigner Alban Tometissin. During the Benin investment forum in August, Finance Minister Romuald Wadagni hinted that "the cost of internet will be more expensive for those who criticise the government." He claimed it was a joke but Sossoukpe takes a more cynical view. "The government of Benin has just suppressed communication, a fundamental right that can't be compromised," Sossoukpe said. "This tax strangles democracy and freedom of expression, epitomised by the fiery debates on social networks." The opposition Party for the Liberation of the People said it "castigates the imposition of these taxes and the disregard of operators" calling for "strong citizen action". Sources close to the Benin presidency told AFP they were in talks with telecom companies about the higher fee. Africa has the highest price of internet relative to monthly income in the world, according to data published by the Alliance for Affordable Internet. In late May, Uganda introduced a tax for WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter to silence "gossip" that has been met with fierce resistance. Tanzania has also introduced a new law requiring online platforms to pay for a licence and regulating internet content, requiring operators of online platforms to divulge the names of their sources and contributors if the authorities require it. Cody Wilson holds a 3D-printed gun, called the "Liberator," in his factory in Austin, Texas A Texas man who has played a central role in the US debate over 3D-printed weapons and is wanted for having sex with a 16-year-old was arrested in Taiwan on Friday, Taiwanese authorities said. Cody Wilson advocates 3D-printed weapons as a bulwark against gun control and has caused panic by publishing firearm blueprints online. Critics warn that these weapons give criminals access to untraceable firearms. Taiwan's National Immigration Agency said in a statement that Wilson was caught by the police earlier Friday and handed over to immigration authorities to process his deportation. Austin Police Department announced Wednesday that the 30-year-old is wanted for sexual assault, saying he was in Taiwan and missed a flight back to the United States. "The foreigner came legally to Taiwan visa-free but he no longer has a valid passport ... the agency will discuss with the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) to arrange the return to his country soon," the Taiwan Immigration Agency statement read. AIT is the de facto US embassy in Taiwan as Washington officially recognises Beijing over Taipei. According to Taiwanese authorities, Wilson arrived on the island on September 6 and attempted to rent an apartment in Taipei but was yet to move in. The real estate company that he signed a contract with earlier this month contacted the authorities after watching news about his sexual assault case on TV, police said. The US investigation into Wilson began after a counselor to whom the victim had spoken notified police "that a juvenile female under the age of 17 had reported having sexual contact with a 30-year-old male." The victim met Wilson on sugardaddymeet.com, a website that bills itself as the "Best Sugar Daddy Dating Site for Attractive Women and Wealthy Men Seeking Mutually Beneficial Relationships." Wilson and the 16-year-old had sex at a hotel, and he paid her $500, according to Austin police. Before leaving the United States, Wilson was informed by a friend of the victim that she had spoken to police, they said. Wilson published downloadable gun blueprints on his website after reaching a deal with President Donald Trump's administration in June that ended a multi-year effort by the federal government to block him. But multiple states filed a joint lawsuit claiming Wilson endangered public safety through his actions, and a federal judge issued a temporary order prohibiting the distribution of the digital blueprints. Wilson -- who subscribes to an anarchist philosophy that the free exchange of ideas on the internet is a check on government -- then said he interpreted the ruling as only barring the free online distribution of the blueprints, and began offering the files for sale. Police in the southern state of Kerala, home to India's largest Christian population, did not formally question Bishop Franco Mulakkal for months after he was accused of raping a nun An Indian bishop accused by a nun of raping her was arrested Friday, in a high-profile abuse case that had triggered angry protests by clergy over police inaction, Press Trust of India reported. Bishop Franco Mulakkal was arrested on Friday evening, a day after Pope Francis relieved him from duty over the scandal, according to PTI who quoted local police official Vijay Sakhare. The nun, who has not been named, first accused Mulakkal in late June of raping her 13 times between 2014 and 2016. But police in the southern state of Kerala, home to India's largest Christian population, did not formally question him until September. The lack of action provoked outrage, as five nuns -- in a rare show of dissent within the Indian Church -- and dozens of supporters staged days of protests. Pope Francis relieved Mulakkal from duty on Thursday and appointed another bishop in his stead. Mulakkal, who has rejected the accusations, had written to the pontiff requesting he be temporarily relieved of duties while the investigation was underway. The alleged victim has also approached the Vatican representative in India to press her case. Her letter, leaked to Indian media, said Mulakkal was "using political and money power to bury the case". Mulakkal has called the whole scandal a conspiracy by those against the Church, and has won backing from his congregation at the Missionaries of Jesus Church. In July, two priests were arrested for allegedly raping and blackmailing a woman for over 20 years in Kerala. Sexual abuse by clergymen and the failure of senior Church officials to take action has been one of the biggest scandals facing the Catholic Church in recent years in several countries. An Ultra-Orthodox Jewish man walks past signs forbidding "immodestly dressed" women from entering part of Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Mea Shearim on September 13, 2017 An Israeli court has fined an ultra-orthodox Jewish radio station one million shekels ($280,000) for excluding women from its programmes over a two year period, local media said. Broadcaster Kol Barama's "total and deliberate exclusion damages dignity and self-worth, deepens perceptions of female inferiority and prevents the influence of women in public discourse," the court ruled on Thursday, according to the Times of Israel. Ultra-orthodox interpretations of Judaism forbid men from listening to women sing, and some of the most radical strands also oppose females appearing in public, particularly in broadcast media. A class action lawsuit was filed in 2012 by the Orthodox feminist association Kolech and the Israel Religious Action Center, the Times of Israel said. The complainants accused the radio station of failing to bring a single female voice to air during its first two years of operation, between 2009 and 2011. The court ordered Kol Barama to donate its fine to initiatives bolstering women's place in society, IRAC said in a statement. Kol Barama said had not given air time to women over the period in question because the ultra-orthodox community -- its target audience -- did not want to hear female voices. Since 2013, it has employed female broadcasters, but it still does not play songs sung by women. A 2012 survey by Kolech found 20 percent of the station's listeners were shocked by its exclusion of women. Kol Barama broadcasts current affairs programmes, music and discussions on Jewish faith and philosophy. The accused priest, Arthur Perrault, had been on the run for 25 years, mainly in Morocco, according to federal authorities A Catholic priest on the run for more than 25 years has been arrested in Morocco and extradited to the United States to face charges that he sexually assaulted a young boy in the 1990s, federal prosecutors in New Mexico said Friday. Arthur Perrault, now 80 years old, stands accused of aggravated sexual abuse of a minor under the age of 12 on several occasions in 1991 and 1992, while he served as a military chaplain at Kirtland Air Force base outside Albuquerque. The boy was assaulted both at the base and at Santa Fe National Cemetery, US prosecutor John Anderson told reporters. "The indictment alleges a profound breach of trust by an individual who was widely perceived as a mentor to young people and a respected figure in the community," Anderson said in a statement handed out by the Justice Department. The priest vanished in 1992, shortly before lawsuits were filed against the Archdiocese of Santa Fe over Perrault's alleged abuse of seven children in his parish, Anderson said. According to investigators, Perrault first fled to Canada and then Morocco, where the Federal Bureau of Investigation agents eventually tracked him down last year. He was arrested in October 2017. If convicted of the charges covered in the indictment, unsealed on Friday, Perrault could face up to life in prison. Local media reported that Perrault had worked as an English teacher in Morocco, notably at the American Language Center in Tangier. Anderson said he was extradited to the United States on Thursday. "Perrault will finally appear in an American courtroom to answer for the charges against him," said FBI special agent James Langenberg, who is in charge of the investigation. He thanked Morocco for its cooperation. "But this case is not over. The FBI is seeking information from individuals who may have additional information about Perrault's contacts with minors over the years," Langenberg added. Authorities are concerned that the priest, who worked in New Mexico from 1973 to 1992, may have abused many others. The indictment is the latest development in the roiling abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church, with shocking revelations of endemic abuse in Australia, Chile and the United States. Bundles of Liberian dollars rest on the table of a money exchanger in Monrovia, where ministers have denied claims that some 15 billion of the currency had disappeared from state coffers Liberian ministers have denied a clam that tens of millions of dollars had disappeared from state coffers, seeking to douse widespread public anger after a government probe sparked speculation that vast sums destined for the central bank had gone missing. The impoverished west African country has been gripped by the scandal, which broke this week when the country's information minister suggested that an official inquiry had been launched in August into the whereabouts of some 15 billion Liberian dollars ($97 million, 83 million euros). Authorities this week imposed travel bans on 15 people, including the son of ex-president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, as part of the probe, which made headlines across the country, stoking public ire and even inspiring a popular new song by Liberian rapper Kpanto entitled "Bring Our Container Back". But in public statements both the minister of finance and the minister of justice said Thursday that the inquiry was into whether sums of money brought into the country had been properly declared, not whether it had disappeared. "I am saying that there is no missing money. No one is looking for billions of dollars," said Finance Minister Samuel Tweah on local radio, as several groups prepared to hold demonstrations on the issue in the country. He also appealed for people not to "listen to what the information minister is saying", as cracks appear in the government, led by President George Weah who took over in January vowing to crack down on corruption. Ahmed Assad Barakat (in handcuffs) has been described by Washington as a "global terrorist" Brazilian police on Friday arrested a Lebanese citizen on suspicions of raising funds for Lebanon-based Shiite military group Hezbollah, which the United States considers a terrorist group. Assad Ahmad Barakat, 51, was arrested on Brazil's three-way border with Argentina and Paraguay close to the world-renown Iguazu Falls, accused of carrying fake identity documents, federal police said. "Members of the Barakat Clan made purchases worth $10 million, without declaring their value, at a casino in the Argentine city of Iguazu," Brazilian police said, "with the view to laundering the organization's money." The money was allegedly destined for Hezbollah's coffers, but the funds and other assets were frozen by Argentine authorities, Brazilian police said. Barakat spent six years in a Paraguayan prison for tax evasion but was released in 2008, after which he moved to Brazil. In 1989 he had obtained Paraguayan nationality but was stripped of it in 2003 following his conviction. Yet in April he was issued a Paraguayan passport, according to Asuncion, which says it is investigating that case. In 2006 Barakat was added to a US list of individuals and groups operating in the triple border area and financing Hezbollah, which has close links to Iran's regime. The US Treasury Department described Barakat as a "global terrorist," and said his network was a "major financial artery to Hezbollah." Around one million people live in three cities that converge on the triple border, an area US officials suspect of harboring dormant Islamic terror cells. As well as a military group, Hezbollah also has a political wing that features prominently in Lebanon's governing coalition. While Washington considers the whole group a terrorist organization, the European Union only designates its military wing as such. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the parade attack in southwestern Iran Iranian President Hassan Rouhani vowed a "crushing" response after assailants sprayed a crowd with gunfire, shooting dead at least 29 people including women and children Saturday at a military parade near the Iraqi border. The Islamic State (IS) group claimed responsibility for the rare assault in the southwestern city of Ahvaz, while Iranian officials blamed "a foreign regime" backed by the United States. A local journalist who witnessed the attack said shots rang out for 10 to 15 minutes and that at least one of the assailants, armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, wore the uniform of Iran's Revolutionary Guards. "We realised it was a terrorist attack as bodyguards (of officials) started shooting," Behrad Ghasemi told AFP. "Everything went haywire and soldiers started running." "The terrorists had no particular target and didn't really seem to care as they shot anyone they could with rapid gunfire." Ahvaz lies in Khuzestan, a province bordering Iraq that has a large ethnic Arab community and has seen separatist violence in the past that Iran has blamed on its regional rivals. Iran summoned diplomats from Denmark, the Netherlands and Britain over their "hosting of some members of the terrorist group" which carried out the attack, state media said Sunday. Iran "It is not acceptable that the European Union does not blacklist members of these terrorist groups as long as they do not perpetrate a crime on... European soil," official news agency IRNA quoted foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi as saying. After addressing a similar parade in Tehran to commemorate the start of the 1980-1988 war with Iraq, Rouhani warned that "the response of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the smallest threat will be crushing". Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the attack was carried out by "terrorists recruited, trained, armed & paid by a foreign regime". "Iran holds regional terror sponsors and their US masters accountable for such attacks," he wrote on Twitter. - 'Bloody crime' - IS claimed the attack via its propaganda mouthpiece Amaq and, according to intelligence monitor SITE, said the attack was in response to Iranian involvement in conflicts across the region. A local journalist at the scene in the city of Ahvaz said shots rang out for 10 to 15 minutes State television gave a toll of 29 dead and 57 wounded, while IRNA said those killed included women and children who were spectators at the parade. Three attackers were killed at the scene and the fourth died later of his injuries, said armed forces spokesman Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi. The Revolutionary Guards accused Shiite-dominated Iran's Sunni arch-rival Saudi Arabia of funding the attackers, while Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also blamed Iran's pro-US rivals. Tehran-backed Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah condemned the "terrorist" attack, saying that "repulsive Satanic hands" were behind it. "This operation was a continuation of the other forms of war the United States and its allies are waging, directly or indirectly," it said. In a message to Russia's close regional ally, President Vladimir Putin said he was "appalled by this bloody crime", while Syria, another ally, neighbouring Turkey and France also expressed condolences. Iranian officials have blamed the parade attack on a 'foreign regime' backed by the United States Khuzestan was a major battleground of the 1980s war with Iraq and the province saw unrest in 2005 and 2011, but has since been largely quiet. Kurdish rebels frequently attack military patrols on the border further north, but attacks on regime targets in major cities are rare. On June 7, 2017 in Tehran, 17 people were killed and dozens wounded in simultaneous attacks on the parliament and on the tomb of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini -- the first inside Iran claimed by IS. In April, 26 alleged members of the Sunni extremist group went on trial in connection with the attacks. - Rouhani defiant - The attack in Ahvaz came as Rouhani and other dignitaries attended the main anniversary parade in Tehran. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has vowed a 'crushing response' to the Ahvaz attack In a keynote speech, he vowed to boost Iran's ballistic missile capabilities, despite Western concerns that were cited by his US counterpart Donald Trump in May when he abandoned a landmark nuclear deal with Tehran. "We will never decrease our defensive capabilities... we will increase them day by day," Rouhani said. "The fact that the missiles anger (the West) shows they are our most effective weapons." The United States reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran last month, and another round of even harsher sanctions targeting Iran's vital oil sector is set to go back into effect on November 5. Washington has said it is ready to open talks on a new agreement to replace the July 2015 accord, but Tehran has repeatedly said it cannot negotiate under pressure from sanctions. Rouhani leaves Sunday for New York to attend next week's United Nations General Assembly along with Trump, but Iran has repeatedly ruled out any meeting. The Asian Network for Free Elections said the political environment in the tourist paradise was heavily tipped in favour of President Abdulla Yameen and they did not expect a fair contest Maldivian police raided the opposition campaign headquarters on Saturday, the opposition said, on the eve of Sunday's presidential election that international monitors fear will be rigged. Police stormed the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) office in Male during the afternoon without a warrant and carried out a search, the party said in a statement. For their part, police said in a brief statement that they acted to prevent "illegal activities." An MDP official outside the building said party workers were prevented from going in to the campaign headquarters, but no arrests had been made. Campaigning came to an end at 6:00 pm (1300 GMT) and any canvassing after the deadline is a criminal offence. The police action followed a street rally by MDP supporters carrying yellow flags of the party. President Abdulla Yameen's supporters also took to the streets in another part of the small capital city. Earlier in the day, the Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL) said the political environment in the tourist paradise was heavily tipped in favour of Yameen and they did not expect a fair contest. "The ANFREL denounces recent developments... which ensure that the upcoming presidential election of September 23 cannot be considered free and fair," the group said in a statement. It said it was recognised by the Maldivian Elections Commission and given accreditation to monitor the voting, but that its staff were denied visas to enter the country. A number of international journalists have also been denied permission to cover the polls. "It appears that Maldivian authorities are granting visas only to observers and monitors they perceive as friendly, while using ANFRELs name and that of other applicants in an attempt to gain international legitimacy," the organisation said. The statement came a day after exiled former leader Mohamed Nasheed urged the international community not to accept the outcome of what he said would be a flawed ballot. Nasheed, the country's first democratically-elected leader, told reporters in neighbouring Sri Lanka that Yameen would "lose the election" but would "hold onto power" after rigging the electoral process. - 'Sombre events' - ANFREL also asked foreign governments to be vigilant about the election and predicted "sombre events" for the 340,000 Maldivians in a country otherwise known as a paradise for well-heeled tourists. Nasheed was forced to withdraw from the contest after the Maldives election commission disqualified him because of a 2015 terrorism conviction. The United Nations has said Nasheed's conviction and 13 year jail term were politically motivated and asked Yameens government to overturn the decision and pay him reparations. Nasheed has lived abroad since travelling out of the country on prison leave. His MDP is the only challenger in Sunday's vote after securing the support of all other opposition parties. A relatively unknown politician, 54-year-old Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, is backed by Nasheed to try and beat Yameen, who came to power following a controversial run off against Nasheed in the 2013 election. The second round of voting then was delayed, giving Yameen more time to pull together a coalition. The United States and European Union have expressed deep concern over Yameen's actions, and rights activists have called for sanctions on the president and his aides. The existing US-Mexico border fence near downtown El Paso, Texas, is being replaced under President Donald Trump's border wall program The United States was to begin construction in Texas on Saturday of part of President Donald Trump's border wall designed to curb illegal immigration, which he calls a security threat. Running along four miles (six kilometers) of the 2,000-mile border with Mexico, the new section will replace existing fencing along the boundary between El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, US Customs and Border Protection said in a statement. "This new wall will be far more durable and far more effective in deterring would-be illegal entrants," Aaron Hull, Chief Patrol Agent in the El Paso sector, said in the statement. It said the existing fencing will be replaced by an 18-foot (5.4 meter) steel post barrier which allows Border Patrol agents to see through to the other side. The $22-million project is to be completed in about seven months. In April, the Border Patrol announced the start of construction of a 20-mile stretch of wall to replace an existing barrier in Santa Teresa, New Mexico. Much of the border already has fencing or other barriers, but Trump has ordered a "contiguous, and impassable physical barrier," which scientists say would threaten more than 1,000 species of animals. Congress has so far approved $1.6 billion of $25 billion Trump had sought for his wall. He initially demanded that Mexico pay for the barrier, which added to tensions between the two neighbors. Many of the migrants trying to reach the United States are fleeing gang violence and poverty in Central America. Somali soldiers look at the site of a car bomb blast near where an American special operations soldier was killed in southern Somalia in June 2018 United States and allied forces came under attack in Somalia, triggering an air strike which killed 18 Al-Shabaab militants, the US military said on Saturday. The incident occurred on Friday 50 kilometers (30 miles) northwest of Kismayo in the south of the Horn of Africa country where Somali commandos work side-by-side with the American forces that train them. Air assaults and missile strikes have increased in recent months. "The US airstrike was conducted against militants after US and partner forces came under attack," US Africa Command said in a statement. US forces also partner with the United Nations-backed African Union Mission in Somalia, which aims to counter the threat from Al-Shabaab jihadists. The air strike was conducted "in self-defense," killing 18 militants, Africa Command said. Two other militants "were killed by Somali forces with small arms fire during the engagement," it added. In June an American commando was killed during an attack in southern Somalia that also wounded four US military members and a Somali soldier, officials said at the time. More than 500 American personnel are partnered with African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and Somali national security forces. Al-Shabaab, an Al-Qaeda affiliate, is fighting to overthrow the internationally-backed Somali government in Mogadishu. Aquarius spent 19 days docked in the French port of Marseille after Gibraltar revoked its flag Panama announced on Saturday it will revoke its flag from the migrant rescue ship Aquarius due to "non-respect" of "international legal procedures" relating to the rescue of migrants in the Mediterranean. Aquarius spent 19 days docked in the French port of Marseille after Gibraltar revoked its flag last month, and the ship only set sail again days ago once the process to acquire Panamanian recognition was completed. But Panamanian authorities issued a statement on Saturday saying "an official revocation procedure" had been launched following a complaint by Italian authorities that Aquarius's captain had "refused to return migrants and refugees back to their point of origin." Aquarius picked up 11 migrants off the coast of Libya on Thursday but refused to take them back to the North African country and instead went in search of an alternative port. The vessel, which has been operated by charities SOS Mediterranee and Doctors Without Borders since 2016, had asked Italy, Malta and Tunisia if they could help. Italian authorities said on Friday it was "floating in the Mediterranean" but that it wasn't welcome to dock in Italy. The Aquarius has been banned from Italian ports since June, when Prime Minister Matteo Salvini decided the country would take in no more migrants. The search for safe havens has taken the ship to Spain and Malta in order to offload migrants rescued at sea, often in a precarious situation aboard vessels ill-equipped for an ocean journey. WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon says the remains of three U.S. Marines killed when their helicopter was shot down during the Vietnam War will be buried next week at Arlington National Cemetery. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced Friday that the remains of the three men will be buried as a group with full military honors next Thursday. The three men are: Capt. John A. House II, of Pelham, New York; Lance Cpl. John D. Killen III, of Davenport, Iowa; and Cpl. Glyn L. Runnels Jr., of Birmingham, Alabama. The Pentagon says their remains were identified in March 2017. Military officials say House, the oldest at 28, was the pilot of the Sea Knight helicopter that crashed after being hit by enemy fire on June 30, 1967. Four others also were killed, including 18-year-old Killen and 21-year-old Runnels. GAZA CITY, GAZA STRIP (AP) - Gaza's Health Ministry says a Palestinian has been killed and dozens injured by Israeli fire at a border protest. Israel's military said Palestinians hurled grenades, explosive devices and rocks toward troops and one soldier sustained light injuries from shrapnel. It said aircraft struck several targets in Gaza in response Friday. Gaza's militant Hamas rulers are working to escalate weekly protests with additional days and locations since Egypt-mediated cease-fire talks stalled this month. Protesters gather while Israeli troops fired teargas near the fence of Gaza Strip border with Israel during a protest east of Gaza City, Friday, Sept. 21, 2018. Gaza's Health Ministry says a Palestinian was killed and dozens injured by Israeli fire at a border protest. (AP Photo/Adel Hana) Hamas has been leading protests since March in part to draw attention to a decade-old Israeli-Egyptian blockade imposed after it took control of the territory in 2007. Since then, 135, mainly unarmed, protesters have been killed by Israeli fire, according to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry and local rights group. An Israeli soldier was killed by a Gaza sniper in that time. Protesters burn tiers as they move to another place near the fence of Gaza Strip border with Israel during a protest east of Gaza City, Friday, Sept. 21, 2018. Gaza's Health Ministry says a Palestinian was killed and dozens injured by Israeli fire at a border protest. (AP Photo/Adel Hana) Protesters hurl stones while others burn tires near the fence of the Gaza Strip border with Israel, during a protest east of Gaza City, Friday, Sept. 21, 2018. Gaza's Health Ministry says a Palestinian was killed and dozens injured by Israeli fire at a border protest. (AP Photo/Adel Hana) A smoke raises while protesters run to cover from airstrike near the fence of Gaza Strip border with Israel during a protest east of Gaza City, Friday, Sept. 21, 2018. Gaza's Health Ministry says a Palestinian was killed and dozens injured by Israeli fire at a border protest. (AP Photo/Adel Hana) Protesters gather while others burn tires near the fence of Gaza Strip border with Israel during a protest east of Gaza City, Friday, Sept. 21, 2018. Gaza's Health Ministry says a Palestinian was killed and dozens injured by Israeli fire at a border protest. (AP Photo/Adel Hana) BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - A civil service board has delayed an appeal hearing for a former police officer who fatally shot a black man during a videotaped struggle outside of a Louisiana convenience store. The Advocate reports the board voted Thursday to move the hearing for former Baton Rouge police officer Blane Salamoni. It's now set for Dec. 20-21. Salamoni's attorney says both parties agreed to seek a delay due to the amount of materials they'll have to review before the hearing. Police Chief Murphy Paul fired Salamoni after Louisiana's attorney general ruled out state criminal charges in Alton Sterling's 2016 death. Salamoni and a second white officer wrestled Sterling to the ground. Salamoni shot Sterling six times and the second officer shocked Sterling twice with a stun gun. NEW DELHI (AP) - Indian police on Friday arrested a Catholic bishop accused by a nun of repeatedly raping her over a period of two years. The arrest of Franco Mulakkal came after police questioned him for three days in southern Indian city of Kochi. The nun with the Missionaries of Jesus order filed a police complaint in June accusing the bishop of raping her from 2014 to 2016. Mulakkal is the bishop of the northern Indian city of Jalandhar. He denied the accusations, saying the nun was angry because he had ordered her disciplined. Police officer Hari Sankar told The Press Trust of India news agency that Mulakkal will appear in court. Dozens of nuns, activists, students and advocates have been protesting outside a court in Kochi for two weeks demanding his prosecution. In her police complaint, the nun alleged that Mulakkal raped her at a guest house in May 2014 and later sexually exploited her on several occasions. She said she had to approach police because church authorities did not act on her complaints. Earlier this month, she had written to the Vatican's representative in New Delhi, alleging that the bishop was using "political and money power" to "bury" the case and seeking his removal. On Thursday, the Vatican relieved Mulakkal "temporarily" of all pastoral responsibilities as thebishop of the Jalandhar diocese, the Press Trust reported. Police officer Hari Sankar told reporters on Friday that the police would now investigate charges of rape, illegal confinement, unnatural sex and intimidation. A judge would decide whether Mulakkal would be formally charged. India has been shaken by a series of sexual assaults since 2012, when a young woman was fatally gang-raped on a moving New Delhi bus. While the government has passed a series of laws increasing punishment for rape of an adult to 20 years in prison, it's rare for more than a few weeks to pass without another brutal sexual assault being reported. TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) - A Republican group is resurrecting an embarrassing scene in a strip club from a Democratic congressional candidate's past in a television ad that characterizes him as "shady." The Congressional Leadership Fund, a political action committee aimed at maintaining GOP control in the U.S. House, is running an ad in eastern Kansas that targets former state legislative leader Paul Davis. The ad describes Davis' presence during a 1998 drug raid in a club where an officer reported finding him in a dark back room with a nearly naked woman. FILE - In this Aug. 24, 2018, file photo, Paul Davis, the Democratic candidate in the 2nd Congressional District in Kansas, answers questions during a news conference in Topeka, Kan. A Republican group is resurrecting an embarrassing scene in a strip club from Davis' past in a television ad that characterizes him as "shady." (AP Photo/John Hanna, File) Davis' spokeswoman notes the incident happened 20 years ago when Davis was a 26-year-old new lawyer who went with his boss to meet an unsavory client, who owned the club. Local police have said Davis wasn't accused of wrongdoing. The ad begins: "What's worse than getting caught at a strip club during a drug bust? Ask Paul Davis." The ad goes on to say Davis was found in a VIP room with a woman wearing only a G-string. The ad also says Davis voted in the Legislature to allow strip clubs near homes, churches, schools and day cares. The ad is referring to 2011 legislation that would have barred strip clubs and other sexually oriented businesses within 1,000 feet of schools, churches, homes and libraries. Davis was among 28 Kansas House members who voted against the legislation, which died in the Senate. The ad concludes: "Shady Paul Davis can't be trusted." The strip club story also briefly gained attention during Davis' 2014 run for governor against former Republican Gov. Sam Brownback. Davis is currently running against Republican and political newcomer Steve Watkins for the 2nd District seat being vacated by Republican Rep. Lynn Jenkins, who has opted not to seek re-election . Davis carried the district in his narrow statewide loss to Brownback. "It's our hope Steve Watkins will stop hiding behind attack ads and focus on the issues that every day Kansans face," Davis campaign spokeswoman Kelsi Browning said. When the strip club incident was cited in the 2014 race, Davis said he'd been in "the wrong place at the wrong time." He said his firm represented the owner of the strip club. Davis released a statement from Independence Police Chief Harry Smith, who participated in the raid as a detective, saying Davis was not involved in any wrongdoing. He wasn't arrested. The owner spent six years in federal prison after the raid. The Congressional Leadership Fund signaled in August that it planned to remind voters about the incident. McClatchy Newspapers reported that after Davis complained about an ad that falsely stated he supported Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, fund executive director Corry Bliss said: "Paul Davis should be careful what he wishes for - when the Pelosi ads come down, the strip club ads go up." Davis early in his congressional campaign promised to oppose Pelosi's return as U.S. House speaker if Democrats won back the House. The Congressional Leadership Fund, headed by U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, has set up an office in the Kansas district and in the neighboring 3rd Congressional District covering Kansas City and its suburbs. The moves are part of a nationwide effort to maintain GOP control of the House, where Democrats need to pick up 23 seats nationally to gain the majority. TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Militants disguised as soldiers opened fire Saturday on an annual Iranian military parade in the country's oil-rich southwest, killing at least 25 people and wounding over 60 in the deadliest terror attack to strike the country in nearly a decade. Women and children scattered along with once-marching Revolutionary Guard soldiers as heavy gunfire rang out at the parade in Ahvaz, the chaos captured live on state television. The region's Arab separatists, once only known for nighttime attacks on unguarded oil pipelines, claimed responsibility for the brazen assault. In this photo provided by Mehr News Agency, an Iranian army member carries away a child from a shooting scene during a military parade marking the 38th anniversary of Iraq's 1980 invasion of Iran, in the southwestern city of Ahvaz, Iran, Saturday, Sept. 22, 2018. Gunmen attacked the military parade, killing at least eight members of the elite Revolutionary Guard and wounding 20 others, state media said. (AP Photo/Mehr News Agency, Mehdi Pedramkhoo) Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif blamed regional countries and their "U.S. masters" for funding and arming the separatists, issuing a stark warning as regional tensions remain high in the wake of the U.S. withdraw from the Iranian nuclear deal. "Iran will respond swiftly and decisively in defense of Iranian lives," Zarif wrote on Twitter. The attack came as rows of Revolutionary Guardsmen marched down Ahvaz's Quds, or Jerusalem, Boulevard. It was one of many around the country marking the start of Iran's long 1980s war with Iraq, commemorations known as the "Sacred Defense Week." Journalists and onlookers turned to look toward the first shots, then the rows of marchers broke as soldiers and civilians sought cover under sustained gunfire. Iranian soldiers used their bodies at time to shield civilians in the melee, with one Guardsman in full dress uniform and sash carrying away a bloodied boy. "Oh God! Go, go, go! Lie down! Lie down!" one man screamed as a woman fled with her baby. In the aftermath, paramedics tended to the wounded as soldiers, some bloodied, helped their comrades to ambulances. Video obtained by The Associated Press of the aftermath showed bodies of soldiers, some appearing lifeless, laying on the ground in pools of blood. One had a blanket covering him. A man screamed in grief. The attack killed at least 25 people and wounded over 60, according to the state-run IRNA news agency. It said gunmen wore military uniforms and targeted a riser where military and police commanders were sitting. At least eight of the dead served in the Revolutionary Guard, an elite paramilitary unit that answers only to Iran's supreme leader, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency. "We suddenly realized that some armed people wearing fake military outfits started attacking the comrades from behind (the stage) and then opened fire on women and children," an unnamed wounded soldier told state TV. "They were just aimlessly shooting around and did not have a specific target." State TV hours later reported that all four gunmen had been killed, with three dying during the attack and one later succumbing to his wounds at a hospital. President Hassan Rouhani ordered Iran's Intelligence Ministry to immediately investigate the attack. "The president stressed that the response of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the slightest threat would be harsh, but those who support the terrorists should be accountable," IRNA reported. Meanwhile, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei described the attack as exposing "the atrocity and viciousness of the enemies of the Iranian nation." "Their crime is a continuation of the conspiracies by the U.S.-backed regimes in the region which have aimed at creating insecurity in our dear country," Khamenei said in a statement. "However, to their dismay, the Iranian nation will persist on the noble and prideful path they have taken and will - like before - overcome all animosities." Tensions have been on the rise between Iran and the U.S. The Trump administration in May pulled out of the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran, and since then has re-imposed sanctions that were eased under the deal. It also has steadily ramped up pressure on Iran to try to get it to stop what Washington calls "malign activities" in the region. Despite those touchy relations, the U.S. government strongly deplored the attack, saying that "the United States condemns all acts of terrorism and the loss of any innocent lives." "We stand with the Iranian people against the scourge of radical Islamic terrorism and express our sympathy to them at this terrible time," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said. Initially, authorities described the assailants as "takfiri gunmen," a term previously used to describe the Islamic State group. Iran has been deeply involved in the fight against IS in Iraq and has aided embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad in his country's long war. But later, state media and government officials seemed to come to the consensus that Arab separatists in the region were responsible. The separatists accuse Iran's Persian-dominated government of discriminating against its ethnic Arab minority, though an Ahvazi Arab, Gen. Ali Shamkhani, serves as the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council. Khuzestan province also has seen recent protests over Iran's nationwide drought, as well as economic protests. Iran has blamed its Mideast archrival, the Sunni kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for funding Arab separatists' activity. State media in Saudi Arabia did not immediately acknowledge the attack, though a Saudi-linked, Farsi-language satellite channel based in the United Kingdom immediately carried an interview with an Ahvazi activist claiming Saturday's attack. Hamid Baeidinejad, Iran's ambassador to the U.K., called the channel's decision a "heinous act" in a post on Twitter and said his country would file a complaint with British authorities over the broadcast. Yacoub Hor al-Tostari, a spokesman for the Arab Struggle Movement to Liberate Ahvaz, later told the AP that members of an umbrella group of Ahvazi activists his organization leads carried out the attack. The attack undermined the Iranian government "on the day it wants to give a message to the world that it is powerful and in control," al-Tostari said. To bolster his claim, he gave details about one of the attackers that the AP could not immediately verify. The Islamic State group also claimed responsibility for the attack in a message on its Amaaq news agency, but provided no evidence it carried out the assault. They also initially wrongly said the Ahvaz attack targeted Rouhani, who was in Tehran. The militants have made a string of false claims in the wake of major defeats in Iraq and Syria. In Tehran, Rouhani watched a military parade that included ballistic missiles capable of reaching Israel and U.S. military bases in the Mideast. Rouhani said the U.S. withdraw from the nuclear deal was an attempt to get Iran to give up its military arsenal. United Nations inspectors say Iran is still complying with the deal, which saw it limit its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. "Iran neither put its defensive arms aside nor lessens its defensive capabilities," Rouhani said. "Iran will add to its defensive power day by day." Meanwhile, Iranian Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi, a spokesman for the armed forces, alleged without evidence that the four militants involved in Saturday's attack "were dependent to the intelligence services of the U.S. and the Mossad" of Israel. "They have been trained and organized in two Persian Gulf countries," he said, without elaborating. Saturday's attack comes after a coordinated June 7, 2017 Islamic State group assault on parliament and the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution. At least 18 people were killed and more than 50 wounded. That assault shocked Tehran, which largely has avoided militant attacks in the decades after the tumult surrounding the revolution. In the last decade, mass-casualty militant attacks have been incredibly rare. In 2009, more than 40 people, including six Guard commanders, were killed in a suicide attack by Sunni extremists in Iran's Sistan and Baluchistan province. ___ Associated Press writer Nasser Karimi reported this story in Tehran and AP writer Jon Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. AP writers Sarah El Deeb in Beirut, and Maamoun Youssef in Cairo and television producer Mohammad Nasiri in Tehran contributed to this report. In this photo provided by the Iranian Students' News Agency, ISNA, a Revolutionary Guard member carries a wounded boy after a shooting during a military parade marking the 38th anniversary of Iraq's 1980 invasion of Iran, in the southwestern city of Ahvaz, Iran, Saturday, Sept. 22, 2018. Gunmen attacked the military parade, killing at least eight members of the elite Revolutionary Guard and wounding 20 others, state media said. (Behrad Ghasemi/ISNA via AP) In this photo provided by Mehr News Agency, civilians try to take shelter in a shooting scene, during a military parade marking the 38th anniversary of Iraq's 1980 invasion of Iran, in the southwestern city of Ahvaz, Iran, Saturday, Sept. 22, 2018. Gunmen attacked the military parade, killing at least eight members of the elite Revolutionary Guard and wounding 20 others, state media said. (AP Photo/Mehr News Agency, Mehdi Pedramkhoo) In this photo provided by the Iranian Students' News Agency, ISNA, security forces try to control the scene after a shooting during a military parade marking the 38th anniversary of Iraq's 1980 invasion of Iran, in the southwestern city of Ahvaz, Iran, Saturday, Sept. 22, 2018. Gunmen attacked the military parade, killing at least eight members of the elite Revolutionary Guard and wounding 20 others, state media said. (AP Photo/ISNA, Behrad Ghasemi) In this photo provided by the Iranian Students' News Agency, ISNA, Iranian armed forces members and civilians take shelter in a shooting during a military parade marking the 38th anniversary of Iraq's 1980 invasion of Iran, in the southwestern city of Ahvaz, Iran, Saturday, Sept. 22, 2018. Gunmen attacked the military parade, killing at least eight members of the elite Revolutionary Guard and wounding 20 others, state media said. (AP Photo/ISNA, Behrad Ghasemi) In this photo provided by the Iranian Students' News Agency, ISNA, Revolutionary Guard members carry a wounded comrade after a shooting during their parade marking the 38th anniversary of Iraq's 1980 invasion of Iran, in the southwestern city of Ahvaz, Iran, Saturday, Sept. 22, 2018. Gunmen attacked the military parade, killing at least eight members of the elite Revolutionary Guard and wounding 20 others, state media said. (AP Photo/ISNA, Shayan Haji Najaf) Iran's President Hassan Rouhani speaks at a military parade marking the 38th anniversary of Iraq's 1980 invasion of Iran, in front of the shrine of the late revolutionary founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, outside Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Sept. 22, 2018. Gunmen attacked the military parade, killing at least eight members of the elite Revolutionary Guard and wounding 20 others, state media said. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi) Iran's President Hassan Rouhani, top center, reviews army troops marching during the 38th anniversary of Iraq's 1980 invasion of Iran, in front of the shrine of the late revolutionary founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, outside Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Sept. 22, 2018. Gunmen attacked the military parade, killing at least eight members of the elite Revolutionary Guard and wounding 20 others, state media said. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi) Iran's President Hassan Rouhani, top centre, reviews army troops marching during the 38th anniversary of Iraq's 1980 invasion of Iran, in front of the shrine of the late revolutionary founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, outside Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Sept. 22, 2018. Gunmen attacked the military parade, killing at least eight members of the elite Revolutionary Guard and wounding 20 others, state media said. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi) Iranian armed forces members march in a military parade marking the 38th anniversary of Iraq's 1980 invasion of Iran, in front of the shrine of the late revolutionary founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, outside Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Sept. 22, 2018. Gunmen attacked the military parade, killing at least eight members of the elite Revolutionary Guard and wounding 20 others, state media said. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi) Iranian armed forces members march in a military parade marking the 38th anniversary of Iraq's 1980 invasion of Iran, in front of the shrine of the late revolutionary founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, outside Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Sept. 22, 2018. Gunmen attacked the military parade, killing at least eight members of the elite Revolutionary Guard and wounding 20 others, state media said. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi) Iranian armed forces members march in a military parade marking the 38th anniversary of Iraq's 1980 invasion of Iran, in front of the shrine of the late revolutionary founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, outside Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Sept. 22, 2018. Gunmen attacked the military parade, killing at least eight members of the elite Revolutionary Guard and wounding 20 others, state media said. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi) LONDON (AP) - Britain's foreign secretary on Saturday urged European Union leaders to "step back from the abyss" and seek a compromise over stalled Brexit negotiations. Jeremy Hunt told the BBC that the EU should work with Britain to try to find a way to make British Prime Minister Theresa May's "sensible, concrete proposals actually work" in the divorce between Britain and the bloc. He spoke a day after May used a rare televised address to complain the EU was acting in bad faith by rejecting her proposed Brexit plan without offering an alternative. She said talks were at an "impasse" over future trade relations and a possible border between the Republic of Ireland, an EU-member, and Northern Ireland, which is part of the U.K. Britain's Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt talks during a meeting with government officials Thursday, Sept. 20, 2018, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar. Hunt is on a two day visit to the country. Hunt is on a two day visit to the country. (Ye Aung Thu/Pool Photo via AP) A gathering of EU leaders in Salzburg on Thursday not only failed to make progress on the topic of Brexit but led to bitter recriminations from both sides. Since the failed summit, the usually reserved May has used unusually blunt language to complain that EU leaders are not taking her proposals seriously. EU Council President Donald Tusk used a satirical Instagram post showing him giving May some sweets with the caption "Sorry, no cherries" - a reference to the EU's refusal to allow Britain to cherry-pick what aspects of EU membership it would like to keep after Brexit. The British foreign secretary said this approach, and comments by French President Emmanuel Macron characterizing the leaders of Britain's Brexit campaign as "liars," are counterproductive. "Insulting her on social media, getting to these standoffs where you are calling people liars and so on is not the way we are going to get a solution to this difficult situation," Hunt said. The increasingly bitter stalemate has raised the prospects that Britain will leave the EU in March without a deal. The value of the British pound dropped Friday because of fears of the possible economic costs of a "no deal" Brexit scenario. LA GUAIRA, Venezuela (AP) - A Chinese navy hospital ship docked near Venezuela's capital on Saturday as the OPEC nation's deepening economic crisis garners the attention of the U.S. and other world powers. Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino was on hand to greet the People's Liberation Army Navy's ship, the Peace Ark, on its latest stop as part of the 11-nation "Mission Harmony" tour announced in June. "This is how you undertake diplomacy in the world," Padrino said, "with concrete actions of cooperation and not stoking the false voices of those who beat the drum of war." Venezuelan dancers welcome the arrival of Chinese navy hospital ship " The Peace Ark" docked at the port in la Guaira, Venezuela, Saturday, Sept. 22, 2018. The stop by the People's Liberation Army Navy's ship is the latest in an 11-nation "Mission Harmony" tour and will provide free medical treatment for Venezuelans. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos) Interest in the goodwill visit has been building since the Pentagon announced in August it was sending its own hospital ship, the USNS Comfort, to neighboring Colombia to provide free medical treatment for thousands of Venezuelan migrants fleeing their homes amid widespread food and medicine shortages. U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, in a visit to Colombia last month, called the ship's deployment a humanitarian mission to deal with the fallout of President Nicolas Maduro's mismanagement of the economy. The United Nations estimates that 2.3 million Venezuelans have fled the crisis-torn country in recent years, mainly to Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Brazil. But top officials in Venezuela's socialist government saw the Comfort's deployment as a threat, part of an effort by the U.S. to pave the way for a military intervention on humanitarian grounds. Padrino on Saturday said the Chinese boat's visit was part of the government's "strategic defense operation." The Peace Ark's humanitarian tours around the world have become a sign of China's outreach efforts and Beijing's ambitions of gradually expanding its military influence abroad. The ship, which has 300 beds, eight operation rooms and a medical helicopter, has carried out such missions to more than 40 countries provided free medical services for more than 180,000 people since it was commissioned in 2008. Such goodwill visits have been the mainstay of U.S. diplomacy in Latin America for decades. The Chinese ship has twice before visited Latin America, in 2011 and 2015, but never has stopped in Venezuela. It will also visit the Caribbean island of Grenada and Ecuador on its current deployment. Maduro, who came back a week ago from a visit to China where he sought fresh investment and financing from one of Venezuela's top ally, said on Twitter that the boat will stay in Venezuela for about a week. Chinese navy hospital ship "The Peace Ark" arrives at the port in la Guaira, Venezuela, Saturday, Sept. 22, 2018. The stop by the People's Liberation Army Navy's ship is the latest in an 11-nation "Mission Harmony" tour and will provide free medical treatment for Venezuelans. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos) Chinese navy hospital ship "The Peace Ark" arrives at the port in la Guaira, Venezuela, Saturday, Sept. 22, 2018. The stop by the People's Liberation Army Navy's ship is the latest in an 11-nation "Mission Harmony" tour and will provide free medical treatment for Venezuelans. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos) Chinese navy hospital ship "The Peace Ark" arrives at the port in la Guaira, Venezuela, Saturday, Sept. 22, 2018. The stop by the People's Liberation Army Navy's ship is the latest in an 11-nation "Mission Harmony" tour and will provide free medical treatment for Venezuelans. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos) Chinese navy hospital ship "The Peace Ark" arrives at the port in la Guaira, Venezuela, Saturday, Sept. 22, 2018. The stop by the People's Liberation Army Navy's ship is the latest in an 11-nation "Mission Harmony" tour and will provide free medical treatment for Venezuelans. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos) Chinese children holding a Chinese flag and standing over a Venezuela's flag watch the navy hospital ship "The Peace Ark" arriving at the port in La Guaira, Venezuela, Saturday, Sept. 22, 2018. The stop by the People's Liberation Army Navy's ship is the latest in an 11-nation "Mission Harmony" tour and will provide free medical treatment for Venezuelans. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos) Chinese ship commander Guan Bai Lin , left corner, speaks with Venezuela's Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino, right corner as they tour the Chinese navy hospital ship "The Peace Ark" at the port in la Guaira, Venezuela, Saturday, Sept. 22, 2018. The stop by the People's Liberation Army Navy's ship is the latest in an 11-nation "Mission Harmony" tour and will provide free medical treatment for Venezuelans. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos) Theresa May has been warned Britain is staring down the barrel of no deal after she issued a defiant Brexit challenge to the EU. A day after her humiliating rebuff from EU leaders in Salzburg, the Prime Minister came back fighting, warning Brussels there could be no further progress in Brexit talks unless it put forward fresh ideas on Northern Ireland and trade. Standing at a lectern before two Union flags in 10 Downing Street, a steely-faced Mrs May said the EUs dismissal of her Chequers plan without an explanation was not acceptable and demanded respect for the UK from Brussels. No-one wants a good deal more than me, but the European Union should be clear I will not overturn the result of the referendum, nor will I break up my country, she said. We need serious engagement on resolving the two big problems in the negotiations and we stand ready. Mrs May spoke in 10 Downing Street in front of two Union flags (Jack Taylor/PA) Acknowledging that talks have reached an impasse with just six months to go to Brexit day on March 29, the PM left no doubt she was ready to contemplate a no-deal withdrawal. She issued promises that, if no deal is secured, the rights of 3 million expats will be protected and the Government will do everything in our power to prevent a hard border in Northern Ireland. European Council President Donald Tusk said EU leaders had studied the Chequers plan in all seriousness and had issued their warning it would not work in response to the surprisingly tough and in fact uncompromising stance taken by Mrs May. Despite the furious row, he said that he believed that a deal could still be reached. While understanding the logic of the negotiations, I remain convinced that a compromise, good for all, is still possible. I say these words as a close friend of the UK and a true admirer of PM May, he said. The pound plummeted following Mrs Mays speech, giving up four days of gains on the US dollar to shed 1.5% and close at 1.30 in London. Versus the euro, the British currency was down over 1% at 1.11. Leading Tory Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg welcomed the PMs strong and forthright tone, but said it was time for her to ditch Chequers and go for a simple Canada-style free trade agreement with the EU. Cabinet minister Penny Mordaunt said she believed that voters still want a deal but (are) content to go without one. Speaking to constituents today, it is clear that EUs behaviour in recent days is increasing support for us leaving the EU. Ppl still want a deal but content to go without one, even folk who voted remain. Important statement from PM re rights for EU migrants in a no deal scenario. Penny Mordaunt (@PennyMordaunt) September 21, 2018 Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said Mrs May had shown herself incapable of delivering a good Brexit deal, and shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer accused her of being in denial. The Prime Ministers negotiating strategy is collapsing around her and thats why were in this impasse and the country is staring down the barrel of no deal, said Sir Keir. In Brussels, one EU official said: The Commission is, and will continue, working constructively, as President (Jean-Claude) Juncker outlined in his State of the EU speech. Mrs May promised to draw up alternative proposals to unblock the Irish border issue ahead of a crunch summit on October 18 described as the moment of truth by Mr Tusk. But she stood by the blueprint agreed by the Cabinet at her country residence in July as the best way to protect jobs in Britain and Europe and to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland. She blamed the EU side for failing to explain its objections to her blueprint, which would see the UK enter a free trade area for goods with a common rulebook or to put forward its own ideas. Far from accepting the message of EU leaders in Salzburg that it was for the UK to come up with credible new proposals over the next four weeks, Mrs May said the ball was now in Brusselss court. At this late stage in the negotiations, it is not acceptable to simply reject the other sides proposals without a detailed explanation and new proposals, she said. So we now need to hear from the European Union what the real issues are and what their proposals are so we can discuss them. Until we do, we cant make progress. Mrs May said that Brusselss backstop proposal to keep Northern Ireland in the EU customs area unless a better solution can be found was unacceptable to Britain because it would create a customs border down the Irish Sea. Her new alternative would preserve the integrity of the UK while delivering on a commitment not to establish new regulatory barriers with the rest of the UK without the agreement of the Executive and Assembly in Belfast. Her position was welcomed by DUP leader Arlene Foster, who said: The Prime Minister is right to stand firm in the face of disrespectful, intransigent and disgraceful behaviour by the European Union. The United Kingdom will not be treated in such a manner. In a possible sign that she was smarting over Mr Tusks mocking Instagram photo, showing him offering her a cake with the caption Sorry, no cherries, Mrs May made a point of stressing that she had always shown respect towards her EU counterparts. Throughout this process, I have treated the EU with nothing but respect, said the PM. The UK expects the same. A good relationship at the end of this process depends on it. Mrs May said: As I told EU leaders, neither side should demand the unacceptable of the other. We cannot accept anything that threatens the integrity of our union, just as they cannot accept anything that threatens the integrity of theirs. We cannot accept anything that does not respect the result of the referendum, just as they cannot accept anything that is not in the interest of their citizens. Liberal Democrat leader Sir Vince Cable said the Chequers plan was dead as a dodo, killed in London by Tory fundamentalists, while Green MP Caroline Lucas said the current deadlock was predictable and Mrs Mays response pathetic, painful and petulant. Despite its emphatic rejection by EU leaders in Salzburg, Theresa May has refused to ditch the Brexit plan agreed by the Cabinet at Chequers. But as the scheduled date for UK withdrawal from the EU on March 29 draws nearer, she is likely to come under intense pressure to change course. What are the options open to her? Stick with Chequers A lot has been said about the Chequers agreement, the White Paper and what it actually means for Brexit. PM @Theresa_May explains what the government has agreed, and what this means for us leaving the EU. pic.twitter.com/85KsAyLizq UK Prime Minister (@10DowningStreet) September 18, 2018 In her Downing Street statement, the Prime Minister insisted the blueprint agreed at her country retreat is still the only credible plan for Brexit. She has promised to tweak her proposals for the Irish border in time for next months Brussels summit in the hope of making it more palatable for the EU, but this would still leave massive differences over trade. The EU has a record of taking negotiations to the wire before agreeing a compromise at the last minute, and this may be what the PM is pinning her hopes on. But even then, she would struggle to get a package based on Chequers through Parliament. Free trade agreement There is growing pressure from Eurosceptic Conservatives, including Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg, for Mrs May to switch tack and go for a simple Canada-style free trade agreement with the EU. But critics fear a deal like this would disrupt industrial supply chains and limit access to European markets for financial services. And it might not resolve the Irish question, as Brussels could still demand the North remains in the EU customs area to avoid a hard border. Soft Brexit Labour is urging the Prime Minister to opt for the closest possible relationship with the EU after Brexit, through membership of a customs union and an internal market arrangement. The Scottish National Party, which opposes Brexit, says that customs union and single market membership are the only way it can be made workable. But Tory critics dismiss this Norway-style option as Brexit in name only, and Mrs May gave it short shrift in her Downing Street speech. Divide and rule In the face of inflexibility from Brussels chief negotiator Michel Barnier, the UK has attempted a charm offensive to win support for its position in the 27 EU capitals. But despite some helpful noises from Hungary and Poland, this tactic has so far borne little fruit. Key EU power-brokers Angela Merkel of Germany and Emmanuel Macron of France were among the most dismissive of the PMs position at Salzburg and other leaders stressed the premium they place on maintaining unity. Hopes of forging a coalition of sympathetic states to overrule Mr Barnier and offer Britain a generous deal at next months summit appear slim. Angela Merkel was among the most dismissive of the PMs position at Salzburg (Matthias Schrader/AP) No deal The nuclear option. Mrs May has always said that no deal is better than a bad deal, and the Government insists it is well on the way to preparing for departure without an agreement. But experts warn that an abrupt withdrawal on March 29 could cause chaos, with speculation over gridlock at the Channel ports, empty supermarket shelves, a collapse in the value of the pound and even aeroplanes being stopped from flying. Brexiteers argue that the UK could save its 40 billion divorce bill by leaving without a deal, but this could be challenged by the EU in the courts. Pause Article 50 Article 50 of the EU treaties allows two years for negotiations after a member state has signalled its intention to leave. For the UK, this deadline runs out on March 29, 2019, when all EU treaties, rules and regulations will cease to apply to Britain from 11pm London time. The deadline can be extended by unanimous agreement of the remaining 27 members, and some of the PMs critics have called on her to request a pause to allow more time for talks. But it is far from clear that the EU27 would agree to any such request, particularly if it took the negotiation period past the date of European Parliament elections in May 2019. General election After throwing away her majority in the disastrous 2017 snap election, Mrs May is likely to be wary about going to the country again. But if she believes she could secure a solid majority in the Commons this time round, she may see it as a way to shore up her position, giving her the authority to force any deal she reaches through Parliament. Resignation With her plans apparently in tatters, Mrs May could decide that it is time to step back and let another leader have a go at finding a way to make Brexit work. A swift resignation would give time for a Brexiteer like Mr Johnson to attempt to secure the clean withdrawal which many Tories would prefer. But Mrs May has time and again shown her determination to soldier on after setbacks which would have floored other politicians, and few in Westminster think she is ready to throw in the towel now. Second referendum Mrs May has repeatedly stated that there will be no re-run of the 2016 poll in which the UK voted to quit the EU. But pressure is building for what supporters call a Peoples Vote on the final deal. If she faces deadlock in the Commons over any agreement she reaches with Brussels, Mrs May could opt for a fresh poll to give her a mandate to force it through. And if the prospect of leaving without a deal proves too terrifying to contemplate, a second referendum may offer a way out. A Catholic bishop accused of repeatedly raping a nun has been arrested by police in India. Franco Mulakkal was formally arrested after police questioned him for three days in the southern Indian city of Kochi. The nun with the Missionaries of Jesus order filed a police complaint in June accusing the bishop of raping her from 2014 to 2016. Mulakkal is the bishop of the northern Indian city of Jalandhar. Catholic nuns hold placards demanding the arrest of the bishop (AP) He denied the accusations, saying the nun was angry because he had ordered her to be disciplined. Police officer Hari Sankar told The Press Trust of India news agency that Mulakkal will appear in court. Dozens of nuns, activists and advocates have protested outside a court demanding his prosecution. In her police complaint, the nun alleged that Mulakkal raped her at a guest house in May 2014 and later sexually exploited her on several occasions. She said she had to approach police because church authorities did not act on her complaints. Earlier this month, she wrote to the Vaticans representative in New Delhi, alleging that the bishop was using political and money power to bury the case and seeking his removal. On Thursday, the Vatican relieved Mulakkal temporarily of all pastoral responsibilities as the bishop of the Jalandhar diocese, the Press Trust reported. Mr Sankar told reporters on Friday that the police would now investigate charges of rape, illegal confinement, unnatural sex and intimidation. A judge would decide whether Mulakkal would be formally charged. India has been shaken by a series of sexual assaults since 2012, when a young woman was fatally gang-raped on a New Delhi bus. While the government has passed a series of laws increasing punishment for rape of an adult to 20 years in prison, it is rare for more than a few weeks to pass without another brutal sexual assault being reported. Peace campaigners are to gather at the home of the UKs nuclear deterrent for an international rally. Demonstrators will walk from the peace camp at Faslane in Argyll and Bute to the gates of HMNB Clyde, where the countrys nuclear submarines are based. Key figures from the disarmament movement are expected to attend the Nae Nukes Anywhere rally, including representatives from the US, Israel, Russia and Germany. Demonstrators are meeting at the home of the UKs nuclear submarines (Jane Barlow/PA) They will be welcomed in an address by Scottish makar Jackie Kay. Organisers said: Scotland is a significant and relatively autonomous part of a nuclear-armed state which opposes its possession of weapons of mass destruction. As things stand we cannot become a party to the new UN Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, but there are lots of ways in which we can align ourselves to the Treaty. The rally will be a fine opportunity to mark our determination to do so. A court in Maharashtra has rejected a petition to recall a non bailable warrant issued against the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and asked him to appear in the court on October 16. Dharmabad court in Nanded had issued the warrant against Naidu and 16 other leaders of Telugu Desam party in connection with a 2010 case of protest against Maharashtras irrigation project Babili. They were asked to appear before the court today but only three of them including a former MLA Gangula Kamlakar today appeared. The court granted them bail. Naidus counsel G Subba Rao moved a petition to recall the warrant but the judge rejected it and issued a fresh warrant ordering all the accused to appear before him on October 16. On the plea of the counsel that Naidu was not in a position to come judge remarked, nobody is above law. Be it a Chief Minister or anybody else everybody has to abide by he court order. It is not possible to give special treatment to anybody. Later the counsel sought some more time. Chandrababu Naidu after consulting the advocate general D Srinivas and other officials had decided not to appear in Maharashtra court and sent a lawyer from Hyderabad to represent him. Chandrababu Naidu and several leaders of his party were arrested by Maharashtra police on border when they tried to enter the state to protest against Babili project. Naidu was then the lease of Opposition in United AP Assembly. In a disclosure which could have repercussions across the political spectrum in the country, senior BJP leader and Rajya Sabha member Subramanian Swamy stated on Friday that Sonia Gandhi, the then Congress president, P Chidambaram, the then Union Home Minister and Velupillai Prabhakaran, the chief of the dreaded Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were hand in glove with each other. In a message posted on his micro-blogging platform, Swamy said Chidambaram had sent a message to Prabhakaran during the 2009 battle (which saw the annihilation of the LTTE) to await Indian Navy to come to rescue him. Navy did come but it was Sri Lankan Navy. Prabhakaran walked out of the jungle into the beach thinking it was the Indian Navy and hence was killed, said Swamy in his posting. He also said that PC (Chidambaram) had sent the message to Prabhakaran at the behest of TDK (the abbreviation usually used by Swamy to describe Sonia Gandhi) during the final days of the May 2009 war. He said the Indian Navy ship which was expected to reach the theatre of war did not leave Indian shores because of stiff Opposition from highest authorities. Prabhakaran could not be informed by the Congress leadership about the change of plan, said Swamy. Swamys disclosure comes immediately after the visit of Mahinda Rajapaksa, former president of Sri Lanka to New Delhi at the invitation of Swamy. Rajapaksa, who was the President of Sri Lanka during the civil war of May 2009, had told Prashant Tiwari of The Pioneer in an exclusive interview that the Governments of India and Sri Lanka had worked in tandem in the 2009 civil war in the island nation which resulted in the annihilation of the dreaded Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a terrorist organisation. We had a mechanism during the war (against the LTTE in 2009) called the Troika, where three officials from both sides (India and Sri Lanka ) were able to discuss any issue, even in the middle of the night, said Rajapaksa. Experts are of the view that the Troika had played a major role in scuttling the move to save Prabhakaran. According to Rajapaksa, three high officials from Sri Lanka and India were deputed for regular exchange of information to facilitate proper coordination during the operation against the LTTE terrorists during the month of May 2009. This was known as Troika System and these officials met even in the middle of the night. What we need is a system like this in our economic cooperation also, Rajapaksa had said. This is in stark contrast to the claims by the DMK, then an important ally of the UPA Governnment led by Manmohan Singh. Karunanidhi, the then Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu had said that the Centre had told him that the operation by the Sri Lankan Government was only to nab LTTE chief Prabhakaran and India had no role in the military operations. The AIADMK on Friday declared that it would launch a massive agitation all over Tamil Nadu on September 25 to highlight how the DMK had betrayed Tamils all over the world because of its complicity in the civil war. Karunanidhi in the company of his two wives had staged a two-hour long fast at Marina Beach questioning the then Union Governments complicity in the civil war in Sri Lanka and had called it off following assurances from the Centre that it had no role in the military operations. The LTTE had used innocent Tamils as human shields to save the LTTE chief Prabhakaran and his henchmen from the Sri Lankan army. K P Munusamy , the AIADMK strongman told reporters at Chennai on Friday that the disclosure by Rajapaksa proved that the DMK too was engaged in the killing of Tamils in northern Sri Lanka during May 2009. The Indian Government was offering military assistance to the Sri Lankan Government in the attack against the LTTE. The DMK is responsible for thousands of Tamils who got killed in the war, said Munusamy. France says Rafale maker given free hand; unnecessary row, says Indian Defence After former French President Francois Hollandes reported sensational comments that India proposed Reliance Defence as offset partner for the Rs 59,000 crore Rafale fighter jet deal, the French Government on Saturday said it is in no manner involved in the choice of the Indian partner. It added French companies have the full freedom to select Indian firms and Dassault Aviation, manufacturer of Rafale jets, said it is the companys choice to partner with Reliance Defence. Dassault Aviation has decided to make a partnership with Indias Reliance Group. This is Dassault Aviations choice, the company said. Reacting to the French Governments claim and Dassault Aviations admission, the Indian Defence Ministry said unnecessary controversies are being created and reiterated that the Indian Government had had no role in the selection of Reliance as an offset partner in the deal. The French Government and Dassault companys clarifications came after Hollande in an interview to a French publication Mediapart said on Friday, It was the Indian Government that proposed this service group, and Dassault negotiated with Ambani. We had no choice, we took the interlocutor who was given to us. Reacting to Hollandes comments, the Indian Defence Ministry had said on Friday, It is reiterated that neither the Government nor the French Government had any say in the commercial decision. On Saturday, the Defence Ministry said, Unnecessary controversies are being sought to be created following media reports regarding a statement purportedly made by the former French President, Francois Hollande, concerning the selection of Reliance Defence as the offset partner by Dassault. The reported statement perhaps needs to be seen in its full context where the French media has raised issues of conflict of interest involving persons close to the former President. His subsequent statements are also relevant in this regard. For a rounded appreciation of this matter, it may be pertinent to dwell upon why and how Offset Policy came into play. The Offset Policy was formally announced for the first time in 2005 by the then UPA Government and has been revised several times. To leverage its huge arms imports in order to develop a strong indigenous industry, a flow-back arrangement is made in the defence contracts, which is widely known as offsets, and constitutes a certain percentage of the contract value. The key objectives of the Defence Offset Policy is to leverage the capital acquisitions to develop Indian Defence industry by fostering development of internationally competitive enterprises; augmenting capacity for research and development in Defence sector and to encourage development of synergistic sector like civil aerospace. The offset can be discharged by many means such as direct purchase of eligible products/services, FDI in joint ventures and investment towards equipment and transfer of technology. As per Defence Offset Guidelines, the foreign Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) is free to select any Indian company as its offset partner. It has been reported that a joint venture between Reliance Defence and Dassault Aviation came into being in February, 2017. This is a purely commercial arrangement between two private companies. Incidentally, media reports of February, 2012 suggest that Dassault Aviation, within two weeks of being declared the lowest bidder for procurement of 126 aircraft by the previous Government, had entered into a pact for partnership with Reliance Industries in Defence sector. Dassault Aviation has issued a Press release stating that it has signed partnership agreement with several companies and is negotiating with hundred odd other companies. As per the guidelines, the vendor is to provide the details of the offset partners either at the time of seeking offset credit or one year prior to discharge of offset obligation, which in this case will be due from 2020. In view of above, it is once again reiterated that the Government of India has no role in the selection of Indian Offset partner which is a commercial decision of the OEM, the statement said. The decision to procure 36 Rafale fighter jets in a government to government deal with France was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi after holding talks with then French President Hollande on April 10, 2015 in Paris. The formal contract was signed in September 2016. Responding to Hollandes reported remarks, the French Government said it is in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners who have been, are being, or will be selected by French companies. Some television channels reported that Hollandes office said he stood by his remarks made to Mediapart. In its statement, Dassault Aviation said it has decided to make a partnership with the Reliance Defence in accordance with the policy of Make in India. This offsets contract is delivered in compliance with the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) 2016 regulations. In this framework, and in accordance with the policy of Make in India, Dassault Aviation has decided to make a partnership with Indias Reliance Group. This is Dassault Aviations choice, the French company said. The French Government said, In accordance with Indias acquisition procedure, French companies have the full freedom to choose the Indian partner companies that they consider to be the most relevant, then present for the Indian Governments approval the offsets projects that they wish to execute in India with these local partners so as to fulfil their obligations in this regard. The French Government also said the inter-Governmental agreement it signed with India for supplying 36 Rafale aircraft concerns its obligations solely with regard to ensuring the delivery and quality of the aircraft. As it happens, agreements have already been signed by French companies with many Indian firms, both public and private, under the framework of Indian laws, the statement said. The Indian offset policy mandates that foreign defence manufacturers have to invest at least 30 per cent of the total amount of the deal in India. In case of the Rafale deal, the offset obligation is nearly 50 per cent. Ten days after the Government to Government pact, Reliance Defence and Dassault had announced a joint venture (JV) in the aerospace sector and a year later, the foundation stone of a manufacturing facility was laid in Mihan, Nagpur. In its statement, Dassault Aviation said the contract for supply of 36 Rafale jets is a Government-to-Government agreement, adding It provides for a separate contract in which Dassault Aviation commits to make compensation investments (offsets) in India worth 50 per cent of the value of the purchase. The company also said its partnership with Reliance has led to the creation of the Dassault Reliance Aerospace Ltd (DRAL) joint-venture in February 2017. Dassault Aviation and Reliance have built a plant in Nagpur for manufacturing parts for Falcon and Rafale aircraft. The Nagpur site was chosen because of the availability of land with direct access to an airport runway, an essential condition of aeronautic activities, it said. Other partnerships have been signed with other companies such as BTSL, DEFSYS, Kinetic, Mahindra, Maini, SAMTEL, Other negotiations are ongoing with a hundred-odd other potential partners. Dassault Aviation is very proud that the Indian authorities have selected the Rafale fighter, said the company. Manto *ing: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Tahir Raj Bhasin, Rasika Dugal, Rajshri Deshpande, Rishi Kapoor, Paresh Rawal, Javed Akhtar Rated: 8/10 The power of Manto, as a writer, personality and self-destruct mode carries the power of an atomic bomb and most of it gets translated into this sepia shaded movie by Nandita Das. The power of this film and its subject Saadat Hasan Manto lies in the gentle unfolding of the life and times of the writer whose cutting-edge pen was the toast of most Bollywood scripts at one time. He loved Mumbai as much as he loved himself and yet decided to quit everything dear to him, including the graves of his parents and son, to leave for Lahore because he was itna toh musalmaan hoon ki maar diya jaoon. Those were violent and divisive Partition days and Nandita does well to bring up one of the major faultlines in Mantos personality by telling us of his inherent fear of things. He loved with passion, had immense anger issues over intangibles like the state of society and lived life as a smouldering ember in a time and place where almost everything and anyone was somehow struggling to survive the first wave of independence. Manto, being the volatile writer who saw the wrongs, especially on women, much more than others, made brevity as much his virtue as revelling in the painful times his vice. A film on a personality like Manto is bound to be powerful unless the director gets it entirely wrong. The power of Das Manto lies in the fact that it interestingly captures all the nuances of the times and the people in a gentle unfolding of explosive events in the life of its main protagonist. The ambience and the atmosphere of those smoky times when intellectuals like Ismat Chughtai and Manto intermingled with the glamorous world of cinema and powered scripts with their literature, thoughts and philosophy over liberal round tables splashed with whiskey and cigarettes, are aptly captured on camera. The dialogues, pithy and cutting, get to you with one-liners that unfold an entire life and time in a stunning frugality of words. Das compels you to question why Manto would self-destruct in such a manner. Brilliantly, she tells you that the only reason why such a brilliant short story writer with immense power of thought could die at 42 was his belief that he had the artistic licence to do so. The other high point of the film is the stunning way in which Das inserts the dramatisations of Mantos most loved stories Thanda Gosht, Khol Do and Toba Tek Singh, never once deviating from Mantos unfolding life story. Cameos by Rishi Kapoor, Javed Akhtar, Vinod Nagpal, Divya Dutta, Ranvir Shourie are impactful and rounded. Nawazuddin Siddiqui loses himself completely in Manto and proves his versatility and brilliance as an actor yet again. Manto was a meteoric writer who died a meteors death a fire of brilliance burning out brightly in the literary sky, often questioned and defiled for speaking the ugly truth of people and society with no punches spared. He was the badshah of brevity both in writing and death, 42 being no age to die as an alcoholic who desperately wanted to live without alcohol but the realisation came too late in life and too close to death. A rare movie on a rarest of rare writer! Reacting to the corruption allegations levelled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi against the BJD Government on Saturday, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said, He (PM) must have said so to enthuse his political workers. In fact, they should be thinking of their own Skill India mission and Ujjwala scams and also thinking very seriously about the record rocketing fuel prices. On allegations of Odisha not opting for the Centres Ayushman Bharat scheme and Food Security Act, Patnaik said, The States health scheme covers extra 50 lakh people which the Central scheme doesnt provide for. The States Food Security Act also covers additional 25 lakh people; and our health scheme provides health benefit of Rs 7 lakh to women against Rs 5 lakh provided under the Central scheme. Also responding to Modis allegations, BJD spokesperson Arun Sahoo said whatever assistance is being given to Odisha is through the Food Security Act and not as charity. The PM was addressing own party activists and it was not a public meeting. The MCI and many experts have hailed the Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana, which is better than the Centres Ayushman Bharat, said Sahoo. Sahoo further stated that in many sectors, Odisha is the model State which has been recognised by the Government of India itself. The Congress on Saturday emerged as the clear winner in the Punjab Zilla Parishad and Panchayat Samiti polls, winning the most number of seats against its rival Shiromani Akali Dal. Counting of votes for the local polls took place on Saturday after the state went to vote on September 19. A total of 354 zila parishad and 2,900 panchayat samiti members are to be elected through these polls. There are 22 zila parishads and 150 panchayat samitis in the state. 33 candidates were earlier elected unopposed to various zila parishads and 369 nominees were elected unopposed to the panchayat samitis. There are a total of 1,27,87,395 registered voters in Punjab, comprising 60,99,053 women and 97 third-gender voters. Earlier, Opposition party Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) accused the ruling party of electoral fraud. Former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal at Muktsar claimed a large number of Congress workers, brandishing swords, were involved in booth capturing. He accused the police of being "mute spectator". "Booth capturing is taking place and as an MLA I will not tolerate this in my area. Police was not performing its duty. What kind of elections were these, where booths were captured and nomination papers of Akalis rejected," he asked. Further, the SAD alleged bogus votes were polled at some locations. Clashes between Congress and Akali workers were reported from Rajasansi in Amritsar, Jhoke Harihar in Ferozepur, Lodhi Gujjar in Ajnala and Sohia Kalan in Majitha. During the clashes members of both factions pelted stones at each other and used sticks as weapons causing minor injuries to a few. In Bathinda, former minister and Akali leader Sikander Singh Maluka accused Congress workers of booth capturing at Kangar, Bhai Rupa and Salabatpura. Akali workers led by Maluka blocked Bhagta Bathinda Road to register their protest against the ruling party. A total of 17,268 polling booths were set up, 35 observers appointed and around 50,000 police personnel deployed for the polls in Punjab.The Congress was touted as the favourite to win the zila parishads and panchayat samitis after a gap of 10 years. CAPT AMARINDER HAILS CONGRESS POLL VICTORY AS ENDORSEMENT OF HIS GOVTS POLICIES Chandigarh: Soon after the results, Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Saturday hailed the Congress victory in the Zila Parishads and Block Samitis poll results claiming it to be an endorsement of his governments policies and programmes, and a total rejection of the Oppositions malicious campaign against the ruling dispensation. In a statement issued here, Capt Amarinder congratulated the people of Punjab for standing firm against the Oppositions attempts to sway them, and to thwart the free and fair democratic poll process, with its cheap pressure tactics and false propaganda. He also lauded the State Election Commission, Civil and Police administration, and all the poll officials for ensuring smooth conduct of Zila Parishads/Block Samitis elections in a free, fair and transparent manner. Pointing out that this was the fourth consecutive humiliating defeat of the SAD-BJP combine, after back to back victories for the Congress in the State Assembly, Urban Local Bodies, Gurdaspur Parliamentary and Shahkot Assembly by-polls, the Chief Minister termed it a vindication of his partys efforts to bring the state out of the quagmire of devastation into which it had been plunged by the previous SAD-BJP government. Capt Amarinder trashed the Akali allegations of booth capturing by the Congress, saying that it was the SAD, on the contrary, which had stooped to all kind of hooliganism to try and derail the poll process, particularly in Sri Muktsar Sahib. He cited the video of SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal, which had gone viral and which showed him ordering his party men to intimidate voters. These last ditch efforts by the Akalis to stall the Governments efforts to ensure free and fair polls was a clear sign of their growing frustration and dejection over their repeated electoral defeats, he added. As many as six crore people from 1.18 crore families of Uttar Pradesh will be benefited by free medical treatment under a health insurance scheme named Ayushman Bharat National Protection Mission. The scheme will be launched in the country on Sunday. The scheme was announced by the Centre in the Union budget for 2018-19 in February and took around six months time to complete the process of implementing it. In UP, six crore people will be entitled for the health insurance cover of Rs 5 lakh and get free medical facility in private and government hospitals. Most beneficiaries will be from the socially and economically backward sections. Families included in Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) 2011 are the targeted social group under the health insurance scheme. In UP, state and district level committees have been constituted and have been asked to expedite the process of enlisting hospitals for implementation of the health scheme. UP Health minister Sidharthnath Singh held camps in government hospitals in Lucknow to make health officials, para medical staff and beneficiaries aware about the scheme. Chief Secretary Anoop Chandra Pandey said in Lucknow on Saturday that the process to implement the scheme had been completed and it would be launched on Sunday. Pandey added that to facilitate beneficiaries, Ayushman Mitras would be appointed in each district to help patients in availing facilities under the scheme like identification of beneficiary, pre-authorisation of treatment package and assist them in admission to hospitals. The Ayushaman Mitras will be paid an monthly honorarium of Rs 5,000 each and Rs 50 as incentive on each beneficiary of the scheme. The Chief Secretary also directed Health department officials to ensure that Pradhan Mantri Jan Aushadi Kendra were opened in each district where medicines at rates lower than the market were available to the common man. So far, such kendras have opened in 62 districts. hry guv, CM to unveil Jan Arogaya Yojana Chandigarh: Haryana Governor, Satyadeo Narain Arya and Chief Minister, Manohar Lal will inaugurate Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogaya Yojana on Sunday at Kalpana Chawla Government Medical College, Karnal. Health Minister, Anil Vij will preside over the function. Additional Chief Secretary, Medical Education and Research, Amit Jha, Additional Chief Secretary, Health and Family Welfare, R. R. Jowal, Chief Executive Officer of Ayushman Bharat-Haryana Health Protection Mission, Dr. Saket Kumar, Haryana Director of NHM and Health Secretary, Amneet P Kumar Director, Kalpana Chawla State Medical College, Karnal, Dr. Surender Kashyap, and Deputy Commissioner, Karnal, Dr. Aditya Dahiya will also be present on this occasion. Rs 45 Crore for road renovation in Sonepat Chandigarh: Haryana Urban Local Bodies Minister, Kavita Jain on Saturday said that 83 kilometer long roads of various sectors of Sonepat would be renovated at an estimated cost of Rs.45 crore and this work would be completed within next five months. Jain was addressing the public after inaugurating the construction work of these roads. She said that we will also find a permanent solution to repair the roads which gets damaged time and again due to heavy rains. Now these roads will be constructed with interlocking tiles and the main roads with coal tar. This work will be completed in three to five months and it would help in smooth flow of traffic in these sectors. Haryana CM gives NOC to Kishau Dam Chandigarh: Haryana Chief Minister, Manohar Lal has given No Objection Certificate (NOC) for the construction of Kishau Dam on river Tons, a tributary of river Yamuna along the border of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. With the construction of this Dam, Haryana would get additional 709 cusecs of water for drinking and irrigation purposes. An official spokesman on Saturday said that as per MoU signed between six states in the year 1994, Haryanas share in the Kishau Dam is 709 cusec water out of the live storage capacity of 1324 MCM. Manohar Lal along with Chief Ministers of Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi has inked (MoU) with Union Water Resources Minister, Mr Nitin Gadkari in New Delhi for construction of Lakhwar multi-purpose project in the Upper Yamuna Basin. With the construction of this project, Haryana would get 177 cusecs as its share of water which constitutes about 47 per cent of the total storage capacity. Online counselling for admission to ANM, GNM Chandigarh: Haryana government would conduct Online Centralized Combined Counselling for admission to ANM, GNM, MPHW (M) courses in government and private nursing schools in the State for the academic session 2018-19. The detailed process explaining the procedure for admission can be downloaded from the website www.dmerharyana.org. A spokesman of the Haryana Nurse and Nurse-Midwives Council said that under first round of admissions, the candidates can get themselves registered up to September 25. Mowgli Bal Utsav-2018 to be held on Sept 24 Bhopal: A State level Master Trainer and Quiz Master training programme will be organised under the Mowgli Bal Utsav-2018 on September 24 by the Environmental Planning and Co-ordination Organisation (EPCO). Master trainers and quiz masters from all 51 districts will participate in the programme to be held at EPCO auditorium from 12 noon to 5 pm.The subject experts will provide information about the activities of eco club school, work plans of environment conservation run in the districts etc to the master trainers. The participants will be trained to organise competitions among schools at the district level. Trained quiz masters will organise questionnaire contests in their respective districts. Two boys and two girls selected from each district through the competition will take part in the Mowgli Bal-Utsav. The Mowgli Bal Utsav 2018 will be organised in four national parks of the state including Kanha National Park, Mandla, Bandhavgarh National Park, Umaria, Pench National Park, Seoni and Madai National Park, Hoshangabad. Mukhya Mantri Medhavi Vidyarthi Yojana beneficiaries can apply for second year Bhopal: Students who have availed the benefits of Mukhya Mantri Medhavi Vidyarthi Yojana in the session 2017-18 in the first year can apply for the scheme for the second year by opting for the renewal option on the portal through their old login ID and password. Director, Technical Education Virendra Kumar told that the mark-sheet of Ist year, entrance form of IInd year and details/ receipt of fees of IInd year must be uploaded mandatorily. This years proceedings have to be done according to the procedure adopted for verification and forwarding in the first year in all the institutions located in Madhya Pradesh. The beneficiaries from outside Madhya Pradesh will have to submit the verification papers online along with the hard copy of the application and the necessary documents and the verification slip to the Directorate of Technical Education. Detailed information in this regard is available on the portal of the Yojana. Alcohol Prohibition Week to be held from Oct 2 to 8 Bhopal: An Alcohol Prohibition Week will be organised from October 2 to 8, 2018 in state on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti. Awareness programme will be organised from district to gram panchayat level during this period. Director, Social Justice and Disabled Welfare told that like every year, students and the society are apprised with the ill-effects of consumption of alcohol, tobacco, gutka, cigarette and other intoxicants during the alcohol prohibition week organised from October 2 (Gandhi Jayanti). Public welfare programmes are organised by departments of Education, Health and Family Welfare, Woman-Child Development, Transport, Home, Sports and Youth Welfare, School Education and local organisations during the week. He said that support will be sought from voluntary organisations also in this work. A district level implementation committee has also been constituted in the State headed by the Collector to put a check on substance abuse. The awareness programmes will include events like administering pledge against substance abuse, filling affidavits, exhibition, organizing debates in educational institutions, speech, painting and slogan-writing contests, essay competition, etc. Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the much-awaited Jharsuguda airport under the regional air connectivity scheme Udega Desh ka Aam Nagrik (UDAN) here on Saturday. The airport was named after the regions legendary freedom fighter Veer Surendra Sai. Modi said, Today, after so many years, a second major airport of Odisha has been made operational. The VSS Airport is located at a prime location having connecting links with Bhubaneswar, Raipur and Ranchi. This airport will provide wings to development of the region. The Prime Minister further said, While being happy this airport is opening, we also need to wonder why it took so many years for a second airport in Odisha. Connectivity is at the core of all round development. Our Government has devoted significant efforts to enhance connectivity all over the nation, Modi added. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said State Government had earlier requested Modi to name Jharsuguda airport after Veer Surendra Sai. The State Government has sanctioned 120 acre land for the airport free of cost and Rs 75 crore from the State fund, said Patnaik. Patnaik further urged the Government of India to make Jharsuguda airport into a full-fledged commercial airport. I request the Government of India to consider the introduction of commercial flights in addition to the UDAN flights. To begin with, one of the Air India flights from Bhubaneswar may be routed through Jharsuguda airport, said Patnaik. Governor Ganeshi Lal, Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Union Minister of Tribal Affairs Jual Oram Union Minister of Civil Aviation Suresh Prabhu and Bargarh Lok Sabha MP Prabhas Singh were also present. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, along with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, will launch Ayushman Bharat scheme in Lucknow on Sunday. Sources in the BJP said that Singh would reach Lucknow from New Delhi on Sunday morning and go straight to Indira Gandhi Pratishtan to inaugurate Ayushman Bharat scheme in Uttar Pradesh. The scheme will provide cashless health insurance of Rs 5 lakh per year to a poor family. It will cover old diseases and also include pre- and post-admission, surgery expenses, tests and medical examinations during admission in the hospital. Besides, it will also cover transport expenses of patients. Around 10.74 crore families in the country, including around 1.18 crore from UP, will be benefited by this. The Centre would spend around Rs 12,000 crore on the scheme. Meanwhile, during his two-day stay in Lucknow, the Union Home Minister will attend an Assembly sector coordinators meeting and a BJP workers meeting in Alamnagar on Sunday. On Monday, Singh will attend a function at a private educational institute and, thereafter, attend an inter-state council meeting at Yojna Bhawan. In the evening, he will inspect works of Gomti Nagar railway station and thereafter attend a function to felicitate newly-appointed Governor of Bihar Lalji Tandon. Ayodhya Nagar police have nabbed a boy who works as a helper with school bus and sexually assaulted a three-year-old baby girl of Sagar International School on Thursday. Police said that the matter came to fore after the victim reached home and reported the act to her parents after which a complaint was lodged with the police and acting swiftly the accused was nabbed. In the initial investigation police found that it is a mini-bus with 14 seats which used to drop and pick the victim and at the time of the incident along with the accused a lady attendant was also travelling in the bus but failed to find the wrong doing. Victim told her mother regarding pain and inappropriate touch by the accused in the school bus after which the parents came to know about the atrocity. SHO Ayodhya Nagar Baljit Singh said that after the parents came to know about the incident of sexual assault with their daughter, they lodged a complaint against the helper of bus. Based on the complaint after the preliminary investigation the police have registered a case under sections 376 A and 376 B of the IPC and sections 5 and 6 of the POCSO Act. The accused has been nabbed who was identified by the victim after photographs were shown to the victim to identify the accused. The accused is claiming that his age is 17 and to confirm the age medical would be conducted of the accused. The victim studies in Kindergarten of Sagar International School owned by Sagar group of institutions. Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (UKD) activists torched effigy of the State Government on Saturday to vent anger over the poor condition of the female hospital of Government Doon Medical College (GDMC). The partys women wing activists gathered outside the female hospital- now in the eye of a storm following the death of a mother and her newborn due to alleged medical negligence- in the afternoon and staged a stir. Led by the women wing chief of the party Rameshewari Chauhan, the workers put to flame an effigy of the state government. Agitated workers also stormed into the hospital and yelled slogans in the office of CMS Dr Meenakshi Joshi. Tension running rife, some of the UKD activists were involved in minor skirmishes with the hospital staff. Police had to intervene to restore peace. Later, the nursing staff of the hospital staged a protest outside the administrative block of the hospital. The nurses and other staff members demanded that the hospital administration should provide them with adequate security in view of the repeated assault attempts on them. The agitated nurses were later pacified by the assurance of security being strengthened in the hospital campus from Monday. They thereafter returned to their duty. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has come out with a draft of microdot system to curb incidents of motor vehicle thefts in the country. Under this, thousands of small dots laser etched will be sprayed with a vehicle identification number on all over the vehicles body including its engine. As the dots are less than 1mm in diameter it is impossible to locate and remove everyone. This makes it very difficult for a car thief to conceal the vehicles true identity. It also allows usually untraceable parts to be linked to a particular vehicle, thereby aiding in the recovery of stolen components. The technology is being used in countries like South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Taiwan, Canada, the US and the European Union (EU), among others to prevent and reduce motor vehicle theft. Officials of Home Ministry said that a microdot is text or an image substantially reduced in size onto a small disc to prevent detection by unintended recipients. It involves spraying thousands of the small dots laser etched with a Vehicle Identification Number (VIN), throughout the vehicle. The dots, which are less than 1 mm across, are carried in an adhesive that fluoresces under Ultra Violet light. Its a simple matter then to identify a treated area and recover one of the dots for viewing under a special magnifier, which reveals the dots number. Because the dots are spread throughout the vehicle, it is impossible to find and remove every one. The microdots are brushed or sprayed onto the key parts of an asset to provide complete parts marking, officials said. All the text on every microdot shall be legible with equipment that magnifies the text at least 60 times. Characters on the microdot shall be consecutive and not separated by spaces, the draft said. According to officials, the ministry discussed the technology with several industry experts before arriving at the final conclusion. The use of marking vehicles with microdots is called Whole of Vehicle Marking (WoVM), officials added. In South Africa it is a legal requirement to have microdot fitted to all new vehicles sold since September 2012. As per Home Ministrys National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) data, as many as 2.14 lakh vehicles are stolen across India annually. According to NCRB, Delhi is top in the list of vehicle theft as many as 38,644 cases were reported in 2016 followed by Uttar Pradesh with 34,480 automobile thefts. Maharashtra reported third highest 22,435 thefts of vehicles followed by Rajasthan 17,544 and Madhya Pradesh 15,878. As per Delhi police data, in 2018, an average of 110-120 vehicles being stolen in the capital every day has been reported. What is more shocking is the fact that less than 8 per cent cases are solved by the police. Motor vehicle thefts account for nearly one-fifth of the total number of cases registered under the IPC in Delhi. Last year, cops recovered only 10 per cent of the stolen vehicles. The Delhi Police report states that 41,000 vehicles were stolen in the last year of which around 30 vehicles a month were recovered. The much awaited 1.2 km Jagatpur flyover on Outer Ring Road, connecting Mukarba Chowk to Wazirabad in North Delhi, was thrown open to the public by the Minister of Public Works Department, Satendar Jain on Saturday. The flyover is part of signal free scheme in which grade separators at Bhalswa, Mukundpur and Burari have already been opened for traffic. To work in marshy land was a challenge near Jagatpur Village. Marshy land on village side was stabilised and strengthened by using construction waste generated from the project. Approximately 1000 cum of Construction and Demolition (C&D) waste has been utilised, said a senior PWD official. According to the officials, the stretch will reduce carbon dioxide emissions and will provide smooth and uninterrupted movement of traffic on this junction by which around 2 tons of carbon dioxide emission will be curbed per day. Further the three way grades separator will facilitate easy movement for the people living nearby the dense populated areas of Jagatpur Village, Sangam Vihar, Wazirabad Village, Jharoda, Nathupura and Sant-Nagar to Outer Ring Road. This was considered essential in view of the fact that the Jagatpur Village Road (ROW 100m as per MPD 2021) is an important connectivity considering the future development of the area which is part of Zone P2 in the zonal Developmental Plan of DDA. Further, the Flyover will provide unhindered movement to CC Parallel Road, added the official. The budget of this 1.2 km stretch is Rs 72 crores. The construction was started in 2014 and completed within a period of three years in August this year. The two lane separators are Jagatpur Village, Sangam Vihar, Jharoda, Wazirabad, Nathupura, Burari, Sant Nagar. India's decision to cancel the foreign minister-level meeting in New York was "arrogant", Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said Saturday, asserting that he was "disappointed" by the New Delhi's "negative" response. India on Friday cited the "brutal" killing of three policemen in Jammu and Kashmir as well as the release of the postal stamps "glorifying" Kashmiri militant Burhan Wani for calling off the meeting between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York this month. Announcing the cancellation of the meeting, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said in New Delhi that the incidents "exposed" the "true face" of Pakistan's new Prime Minister Imran Khan to the world as well as Islamabad's evil agenda behind the proposal for talks. "The latest brutal killings of our security personnel by Pakistan-based entities and the recent release of a series of 20 postage stamps by Pakistan glorifying a terrorist and terrorism confirm that Pakistan will not mend its ways," Kumar said. "Disappointed at the arrogant and negative response by India to my call for resumption of the peace dialogue," Prime Minister Khan said in a tweet. "However, all my life I have come across small men occupying big offices who do not have the vision to see the larger picture," he said in a sharp reaction to India's cancellation of the meeting. Kumar said talks with Pakistan after the "two deeply disturbing" developments would be "meaningless". "In view of the changed situation, there will be no meeting between the Foreign Ministers of India and Pakistan in New York," he said. Reacting to india's remarks, Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Faisal said Friday that the "so-called 'disturbing developments'" alluded to in the Indian statement predated the Indian agreement to hold the bilateral meeting in New York. He said the alleged killing of a BSF soldier took place two days prior to the Indian announcement of its agreement to hold the bilateral meeting. When the allegations of Pakistan's involvement first appeared, Pakistani rangers clearly conveyed to BSF through official channels that the country had nothing to do with it, he said. "Pakistan...Categorically reject these allegations...Our authorities would be prepared to conduct a joint investigation to establish the truth," Faisal said. On the issue of the postage stamps, he said they were issued before the July 25 elections and before Prime Minister Khan assumed office on August 18. "We choose not to further comment beyond saying that these comments are against all norms of civilised discourse and diplomatic communication," Faisal said. "We believe by its ill-considered cancellation of the meeting, India has once again wasted a serious opportunity to change the dynamics of the bilateral relationship and put the region on the path of peace and development," he added. American Consumer News, LLC dba MarketBeat 2010-2021. 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By Trend Establishment of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR) and its parliament in 1918 was a manifestation of the statehood potential of the Azerbaijani people in new historical conditions and realization of the dream of independence, Speaker of Azerbaijan's parliament Ogtay Asadov said Sept. 21 at a solemn meeting dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Azerbaijani parliament. "Implementation of the parliamentary republic system, confident steps on the path to democratic and secular statehood opened a new page in the political life of not only Azerbaijan, but the entire Muslim East, the speaker said. Asadov noted that the progressive legislative acts adopted by the ADR parliament in the political, economic, social, cultural and military spheres created conditions for the effective activity of the state. For the first time in the East, the ADR enshrined equal suffrage for men and women, he said. Azerbaijani parliament carried out its activities on the basis of democratic principles. This legislative body represented all political forces and trends, representatives of various nationalities in Azerbaijan. The ADR played an important role in the development of the ideology of statehood and political culture in our country. The successful activity of that parliament testifies that the Azerbaijani people are able to create a national state based on democratic principles. BrightSphere Investment Group, Inc. is a holding company, which engages in the provision of asset management services. It also focuses on the development of new business opportunities in domestic and international markets. The firm operates through the following segments: Quant & Solutions, Alternatives and Liquid Alpha. The Quant & Solutions segment leverages data and technology in a computational, factor-based investment process across a range of asset classes and geographies, including Global, non-U.S., emerging markets and managed volatility equities, as well as multi-asset products. The Alternatives segment comprises liquid and differentiated liquid investment strategies that include private equity, real estate and real assets; including forestry, as well as a growing suite of liquid alternative capabilities in areas such as long/short, market neutral and absolute return. The Liquid Alpha segment comprises of specialized investment strategies with a focus on alpha-generation across market cycles in United States. The company was founded in 1980 and is headquartered in Boston, MA. Read More BT Group plc provides communications services worldwide. Its Consumer segment sells telephones, baby monitors, and Wi-Fi extenders through high street retailers, online BT Shop, and Website BT.com; and offers home phone, copper and fiber broadband, TV, and mobile services in various packages. The company's EE segment offers 2G, 3G, and 4G mobile network services; broadband, fixed-voice, and TV services; and postpaid and prepaid plans, and emergency services network. This segment also sells 4G mobile phones, tablets, connected devices, and mobile broadband devices from various manufacturers. Its Business and Public Sector segment provides fixed voice, mobility, fiber and connectivity, and networked IT services to retailers, utilities, public sector, healthcare, sports, construction, finance, and educational sectors. The company's Global Services segment offers business communications and ICT services comprising BT Connect, BT Security, BT One, BT Contact, BT Compute, BT Advise, and BT for financial markets. This segment serves approximately 5,500 customers in 180 countries. Its Wholesale and Ventures segment enables communications providers and other organizations to provide fixed or mobile phone services. Its ventures provide mass-market services, such as directory enquiries and payphones; and enterprise services comprising BT Fleet and BT Redcare. This segment also provides broadband and Ethernet, voice, hosted communication, mobile virtual network operator, managed solutions, machine-to-machine, roaming, and media services. The company's Openreach segment engages in the provision of services over the local access network; and installation and maintenance of fiber and copper communications networks that connect homes and businesses. The company was formerly known as Newgate Telecommunications Limited and changed its name to BT Group plc in September 2001. BT Group plc was incorporated in 2001 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom. Read More Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, a diversified financial institution, provides various financial products and services to personal, business, public sector, and institutional clients in Canada, the United States, and internationally. The company operates through four strategic business units: Canadian Personal and Business Banking; Canadian Commercial Banking and Wealth Management; U.S. Commercial Banking and Wealth Management; and Capital Markets. The company offers chequing, savings, and business accounts; mortgages; loans, lines of credit, student lines of credit, and business and agriculture loans; investment and insurance services; and credit cards, as well as overdraft protection services. It also provides day-to-day banking, borrowing and credit, investing and wealth, specialty, and international services; correspondent banking and online foreign exchange services; and cash management services. The company serves its customers through its banking centers, as well as direct, mobile, and remote channels. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce was founded in 1867 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada. Read More Deutsche BArse AG operates as an exchange organization in Europe, the United States, and the Asia-Pacific. The company operates through seven segments: Eurex (Financial Derivatives), EEX (Commodities), 360T (Foreign Exchange), Xetra (Cash Equities), Clearstream (Post-Trading), IFS (Investment Fund Services), and Qontigo (index and analytics business). The company engages in the electronic trading of derivatives, electricity and gas products, emission rights, and foreign exchange; operating of Eurex Repo over the counter (OTC) trading platform and electronic clearing architecture; and operating as a central counterparty for on-and-off exchange derivatives, repo transactions, and OTC and exchange-traded derivatives. It also operates in the cash market through Xetra, BArse Frankfurt, and Tradegate trading venues; operates as a central counterparty for equities and bonds; and provides listing services. In addition, the company offers custody and settlement services for securities; investment fund services; global securities financing services; and global securities finance and collateral management, as well as secured money, market transaction, and repos and securities lending transaction services. Further, it develops and markets indices, as well as portfolio management and risk analysis software; markets licenses for trading and market signals; provides technology and reporting solutions for external customers; and offers link-up of trading participants. Deutsche BArse AG was founded in 1585 and is headquartered in Eschborn, Germany. Read More By Trend Azerbaijani Defense Minister, Colonel General Zakir Hasanov met with newly appointed Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Azerbaijan Mikhail Bocharnikov on September 21, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said in a message. Congratulating the ambassador on the beginning of diplomatic activity in Azerbaijan, Hasanov wished him success regarding the expanding cooperation between Azerbaijan and Russia. Hasanov stressed that bilateral relations between Azerbaijan and Russia, like in many areas, are successfully developing in the military, military-technical spheres and in the field of military education. Noting that the Azerbaijan-Russia relations have rich history, Hasanov expressed confidence that the relations will continue to develop successfully. Expressing satisfaction with the beginning of activity in Azerbaijan as ambassador, the diplomat assured that he would make every effort to develop the Azerbaijan-Russia relations, in particular, cooperation in the military sphere. During the meeting, the parties discussed the military-political situation in the region, the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and other issues of mutual interest. Helix Energy Solutions Group, Inc. is an international offshore energy company. It focuses on subsea construction, maintenance and salvage services to the offshore natural gas and oil industry. The firm also provides specialty services to the offshore energy industry, with a focus on well intervention and robotics operations. The company operates through three segments: Well Intervention, Robotics and Production Facilities. The Well Intervention segment offers vessels and related equipment that are used to perform well intervention services primarily in the Gulf of Mexico and North Sea regions. The Robotics segment involves four chartered vessels and also includes ROVs, trenchers and ROVDrills designed to complement offshore construction and well intervention services. The Production Facilities segment includes its investment in the Helix Producer I and Kommandor LLC. Helix Energy Solutions Group was founded in 1979 and is headquartered in Houston, TX. Read More Invesco DB US Dollar Index Bullish Fund's stock was trading at $26.16 on March 11th, 2020 when COVID-19 reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, UUP shares have decreased by 2.8% and is now trading at $25.43. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. 11 hours ago With high-profile backers, EV startup Rivian goes public SILVER SPRING, Md. (AP) Shares in Rivian Automotive are set to trade publicly Wednesday, and the world should get a better idea of just how excited investors are about the electric vehicle market. Rivian, the EV startup backed by Amazon and Ford, hopes to raise about $12 billion with the sale of 153 million shares, which would top the $8 billion Uber raised in its IPO in 2019. Read Article By Trend Irans Army and the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) are holding a joint military exercise in the Persian Gulf. The war game involves various units of the Iranian Army and IRGC including the Rapid Reaction Unit, the Artillery Unit, and the Drone Unit, Tasnim news agency reported on September 22. More than 600 military vessels are involved in the drill, showing strengthen in waters of the Persian Gulf near the Strait of Hormuz. Before the beginning of two major parades in the cities of Tehran and Bandar Abbas, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani made speeches in the capital and the southern city, respectively. The drill involves the military and IRGCs fighter jets, including F-4, Mirage and Sukhoi-22. Five logistics and combat helicopters are also taking part in the exercise over the Persian Gulf waters and the Sea of Oman. In addition to a show of strength, this ceremony is a message of peace and friendship for friendly and neighboring countries, Colonel Yousef Safipour, the deputy commander of the army for public relations said earlier. And if the enemies and arrogant powers have an eye on the borders and land of Islamic Iran they will receive a stern response in the fraction of a second. According to analysts' consensus price target of C$2.05, TMAC Resources has a forecasted upside of from its current price of C$0.00. TMAC Resources has received a consensus rating of Buy. The company's average rating score is 3.00, and is based on 1 buy rating, no hold ratings, and no sell ratings. 4.1 Community Rank Outperform Votes TMAC Resources has received 324 outperform votes. (Add your outperform vote.) Underperform Votes TMAC Resources has received 206 underperform votes. (Add your underperform vote.) Community Sentiment TMAC Resources has received 61.13% outperform votes from our community. MarketBeat's community ratings are surveys of what our community members think about TMAC Resources and other stocks. Vote Outperform if you believe TMR will outperform the S&P 500 over the long term. Vote Underperform if you believe TMR will underperform the S&P 500 over the long term. You may vote once every thirty days. Previous Next Invesco National AMT-Free Municipal Bond ETF's stock was trading at $26.58 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, PZA stock has increased by 1.7% and is now trading at $27.04. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. By Trend The Chairman of the Great National Assembly (Parliament) of the Republic of Turkey Binali Yildirim will arrive in Uzbekistan on September 23 with an official visit, the Uzbek news agency Podrobno.uz" reported. "It is expected that the Chairman of the Turkish Parliament will be received by the President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev," the press service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan said in a statement. The program of the visit of the Turkish delegation includes meetings and negotiations with the heads of the chambers of the Parliament of Uzbekistan, representatives of the Cabinet of Ministers, a visit to Samarkand and Bukhara cities. There is not enough analysis data for BlackRock Enhanced Global Dividend Trust. 4.1 Community Rank Outperform Votes BlackRock Enhanced Global Dividend Trust has received 262 outperform votes. (Add your outperform vote.) Underperform Votes BlackRock Enhanced Global Dividend Trust has received 155 underperform votes. (Add your underperform vote.) Community Sentiment BlackRock Enhanced Global Dividend Trust has received 62.83% outperform votes from our community. MarketBeat's community ratings are surveys of what our community members think about BlackRock Enhanced Global Dividend Trust and other stocks. Vote Outperform if you believe BOE will outperform the S&P 500 over the long term. Vote Underperform if you believe BOE will underperform the S&P 500 over the long term. You may vote once every thirty days. Previous Next By Trend Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif condemned a recent attack by extremists against a military parade in Irans southwestern city of Ahvaz, stressing that Iran will respond swiftly and decisively. Terrorists recruited, trained, armed & paid by a foreign regime have attacked Ahvaz. Children and journalists are among casualties. Iran holds regional terror sponsors and their US masters accountable for such attacks. Iran will respond swiftly and decisively in defense of Iranian lives, Zarif said in a message posted on his Twitter account on September 22. Several people have been killed after unknown gunmen opened fire during a military parade in the city of Ahvaz on Saturday morning. Saturday's attack killed at least ten members of the IRGC and wounded 20 people, including a woman and child, according to the Iranian state-run IRNA news agency. Ali Hossein Hosseinzadeh, deputy governor in Khuzestan province, said that two attackers had also been killed and another two were arrested. Irans Armed Forces staged the countrywide military parades to mark the Sacred Defense Week on the 38th anniversary of the onset of the Iraqi imposed war on the Islamic Republic back in 1980. The following companies are subsidiares of Banco Santander: 2 & 3 Triton Limited, A & L CF (Guernsey) Limited (f), A & L CF June (2) Limited, A & L CF June (3) Limited, A & L CF March (5) Limited, A & L CF September (4) Limited, AFB SAM Holdings S.L., ALIL Services Limited (b), AN (123) Limited, ANITCO Limited, Abbey Business Services (India) Private Limited, Abbey Covered Bonds (LM) Limited, Abbey National, Abbey National Beta Investments Limited, Abbey National Business Office Equipment Leasing Limited, Abbey National International Limited, Abbey National Nominees Limited, Abbey National PLP (UK) Limited, Abbey National Property Investments, Abbey National Treasury Services Investments Limited, Abbey National Treasury Services Overseas Holdings, Abbey National UK Investments, Abbey Stockbrokers (Nominees) Limited, Abbey Stockbrokers Limited, Ablasa Participaciones S.L., Administracion de Bancos Latinoamericanos Santander S.L., Aduro S.A., Aevis Europa S.L., Afisa S.A., Albert., Aljardi SGPS Lda., Alliance & Leicester, Alliance & Leicester Cash Solutions Limited, Alliance & Leicester Commercial Bank Limited, Alliance & Leicester Investments (Derivatives) Limited, Alliance & Leicester Investments (No.2) Limited, Alliance & Leicester Investments Limited, Alliance & Leicester Limited, Alliance & Leicester Personal Finance Limited, Altamira Santander Real Estate S.A., Alternative Leasing FIL, Amazonia Trade Limited, Amherst Pierpont, Andaluza de Inversiones S.A., Aquanima Brasil Ltda., Aquanima Chile S.A., Aquanima Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Aquanima S.A., Arcaz - Sociedade Imobiliaria Portuguesa Lda., Argenline S.A. (b), Asto Digital Limited, Athena Corporation Limited, Atual - Fundo de Invest Multimercado Credito Privado Investimento no Exterior, Atual Servicos de Recuperacao de Creditos e Meios Digitais S.A., Autodescuento S.L., Autohaus24 GmbH, Auttar HUT Processamento de Dados Ltda., Aviacion Antares A.I.E., Aviacion Britanica A.I.E., Aviacion Centaurus A.I.E., Aviacion Comillas S.L. Unipersonal, Aviacion Intercontinental A.I.E., Aviacion Laredo S.L., Aviacion Oyambre S.L. Unipersonal, Aviacion Real A.I.E., Aviacion Santillana S.L., Aviacion Suances S.L., Aviacion Triton A.I.E., Aymore Credito Financiamento e Investimento S.A., BEN Beneficios e Servicos S.A., BRS Investments S.A., BZW Bank, Banca PSA Italia S.p.A., Banco Bandepe S.A., Banco Madesant - Sociedade Unipessoal S.A., Banco PSA Finance Brasil S.A., Banco Popular, Banco Santander (Brasil) S.A., Banco Santander (Mexico) S.A. Institucion de Banca Multiple Grupo Financiero Santander Mexico como Fiduciaria del Fideicomiso 100740, Banco Santander (Mexico) S.A. Institucion de Banca Multiple Grupo Financiero Santander Mexico como Fiduciaria del Fideicomiso 2002114, Banco Santander (Mexico) S.A. Institucion de Banca Multiple Grupo Financiero Santander Mexico como Fiduciaria del Fideicomiso GFSSLPT, Banco Santander - Chile, Banco Santander Consumer Portugal S.A., Banco Santander International, Banco Santander International SA, Banco Santander Mexico S.A. 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Unipersonal, First National Motor Business Limited, First National Motor Contracts Limited, First National Motor Facilities Limited, First National Motor Finance Limited, First National Motor Leasing Limited, First National Motor plc, First National Tricity Finance Limited, Fondos Santander S.A. Administradora de Fondos de Inversion (en liquidacion) (b), Fortensky Trading Ltd., Fosse Funding (No.1) Limited, Fosse Master Issuer plc, Fosse Trustee (UK) Limited, GTS El Centro Equity Holdings LLC, GTS El Centro Project Holdings LLC, Gamma Sociedade Financeira de Titularizacao de Creditos S.A., Gesban Mexico Servicios Administrativos Globales S.A. de C.V., Gesban Santander Servicios Profesionales Contables Limitada, Gesban Servicios Administrativos Globales S.L., Gesban UK Limited, Gestion de Instalaciones Fotovoltaicas S.L. Unipersonal, Gestion de Inversiones JILT S.A., Gestora de Procesos S.A. en liquidacion (b), Getnet Adquirencia e Servicos para Meios de Pagamento S.A., Global Vosgos S.L. Unipersonal, Grupo Empresarial Santander S.L., Grupo Financiero Santander Mexico S.A. de C.V., Grupo Financiero Santander SAB de CV, Guaranty Car S.A. Unipersonal, HQ Mobile Limited, Hispamer Renting S.A. Unipersonal, Holbah II Limited, Holbah Santander S.L. Unipersonal, Holmes Funding Limited, Holmes Master Issuer plc, Holmes Trustees Limited, Hyundai Capital Bank Europe GmbH, Iberica de Compras Corporativas S.L., Independence Community Bank Corp., Insurance Funding Solutions Limited, Interfinance Holanda B.V., Inversiones Capital Global S.A. Unipersonal, Inversiones Maritimas del Mediterraneo S.A., Isla de los Buques S.A., Klare Corredora de Seguros S.A., Landcompany 2020 S.L., Langton Funding (No.1) Limited, Langton Mortgages Trustee (UK) Limited, Langton Securities (2008-1) plc, Langton Securities (2010-1) PLC, Langton Securities (2010-2) PLC, Laparanza S.A., Liquidity Limited, Luri 1 S.A. en liquidacion (b) (e), Luri 6 S.A. Unipersonal, Master Red Europa S.L., Mata Alta S.L., Merciver S.L., Mercury TFS, Mercury Trade Finance Solutions S.A. de C.V., Mercury Trade Finance Solutions S.L., Mercury Trade Finance Solutions S.p.A., Moneybit S.L., Mortgage Engine Limited, Motor 2016-1 PLC, Motor 2017-1 PLC, Mouro Capital I LP, Multiplica SpA, NW Services CO., Naviera Mirambel S.L., Naviera Trans Gas A.I.E., Naviera Trans Iron S.L., Naviera Trans Ore A.I.E., Naviera Trans Wind S.L. (b), Naviera Transcantabrica S.L., Naviera Transchem S.L. Unipersonal, NeoAuto S.A.C., Norbest AS, Novimovest Fundo de Investimento Imobiliario, Open Bank Argentina S.A., Open Bank S.A., Open Digital Market S.L., Open Digital Services S.L., Operadora de Carteras Gamma S.A.P.I. de C.V., Optimal Investment Services SA, Optimal Multiadvisors Ireland Plc / Optimal Strategic US Equity Ireland Euro Fund, Optimal Multiadvisors Ireland Plc / Optimal Strategic US Equity Ireland US Dollar Fund, PBE Companies LLC, PECOH Limited, PI Distribuidora de Titulos e Valores Mobiliarios S.A., PSA Bank Deutschland GmbH, PSA Banque France, PSA Finance UK Limited, PSA Financial Services Nederland B.V., PSA Financial Services Spain E.F.C. 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Sociedad Operadora de Fondos de Inversion, SAM Investment Holdings S.L., SAM UK Investment Holdings Limited (b), SANB Promotora de Vendas e Cobranca Ltda., SCF Eastside Locks GP Limited, SDMX Superdigital S.A. de C.V., SMPS Merchant Platform Solutions Mexico S.A de C.V, Sancap Investimentos e Participacoes S.A., Santander (CF Trustee Property Nominee) Limited, Santander (UK) Group Pension Schemes Trustees Limited, Santander Ahorro Inmobiliario 1 S.A., Santander Ahorro Inmobiliario 2 S.A., Santander Alternatives SICAV RAIF, Santander Asesorias Financieras Limitada, Santander Asset Finance (December) Limited, Santander Asset Finance plc, Santander Asset Management - S.G.O.I.C. S.A., Santander Asset Management Chile S.A., Santander Asset Management LLC, Santander Asset Management Luxembourg S.A., Santander Asset Management S.A. Administradora General de Fondos, Santander Asset Management S.A. 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(b), Santander Consumer Holding Austria GmbH, Santander Consumer Holding GmbH, Santander Consumer International Puerto Rico LLC, Santander Consumer Leasing GmbH, Santander Consumer Mediacion Operador de Banca-Seguros Vinculado S.L., Santander Consumer Multirent Sp. z o.o., Santander Consumer Operations Services GmbH, Santander Consumer Receivables 10 LLC, Santander Consumer Receivables 11 LLC, Santander Consumer Receivables 3 LLC, Santander Consumer Receivables 7 LLC, Santander Consumer Receivables Funding LLC, Santander Consumer Renting S.L., Santander Consumer S.A., Santander Consumer S.A.S., Santander Consumer Services GmbH, Santander Consumer Services S.A., Santander Consumer Technology Services GmbH, Santander Consumer USA Holdings Inc., Santander Consumer USA Inc., Santander Consumo S.A. de C.V. S.O.F.O.M. E.R. 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E.F.C., Santander Finance 2012-1 LLC, Santander Financial Exchanges Limited, Santander Financial Services Inc., Santander Financial Services plc, Santander Finanse Sp. z o.o., Santander Fintech Holdings S.L., Santander Fintech Limited, Santander Fundo de Investimento SBAC Referenciado di Credito Privado, Santander Gestion de Recaudacion y Cobranzas Ltda., Santander Global Consumer Finance Limited, Santander Global Facilities S.A. de C.V., Santander Global Facilities S.L., Santander Global Operations S.A., Santander Global Services S.A. (b), Santander Global Sport S.A., Santander Global Technology Brasil Ltda., Santander Global Technology Chile Limitada, Santander Global Technology S.L., Santander Global Trade Platform Solutions S.L., Santander Guarantee Company, Santander Holding Imobiliaria S.A., Santander Holding Internacional S.A., Santander Holdings USA Inc., Santander ISA Managers Limited, Santander Inclusion Financiera S.A. de C.V. S.O.F.O.M. E.R. Grupo Financiero Santander Mexico, Santander Insurance Agency U.S. LLC, Santander Insurance Services UK Limited, Santander Intermediacion Correduria de Seguros S.A., Santander International Products Plc. (d), Santander Inversiones S.A., Santander Investment Bank Limited, Santander Investment Chile Limitada, Santander Investment I S.A., Santander Investment S.A., Santander Investment Securities Inc., Santander Investments GP 1 S.a.r.l., Santander Inwestycje Sp. z o.o., Santander Lease S.A. E.F.C., Santander Leasing LLC, Santander Leasing S.A., Santander Leasing S.A. Arrendamento Mercantil, Santander Lending Limited, Santander Mediacion Operador de Banca-Seguros Vinculado S.A., Santander Merchant Platform Operations S.A. de C.V., Santander Merchant Platform Services S.A. de C.V., Santander Merchant Platform Solutions Mexico S.A. de C.V., Santander Merchant Platform Solutions S.A., Santander Merchant Platform Solutions Uruguay S.A., Santander Merchant Platform SolucoesTecnologicas Brasil Ltda., Santander Merchant S.A., Santander Mortgage Holdings Limited, Santander Paraty Qif PLC, Santander Pensiones S.A. E.G.F.P., Santander Pensoes - Sociedade Gestora de Fundos de Pensoes S.A., Santander Private Banking Gestion S.A. S.G.I.I.C., Santander Private Banking UK Limited, Santander Private Banking s.p.a. in Liquidazione (b), Santander Private Real Estate Advisory & Management S.A., Santander Private Real Estate Advisory S.A., Santander Real Estate S.A., Santander Retail Auto Lease Funding LLC, Santander Rio Asset Management Gerente de Fondos Comunes de Inversion S.A., Santander Rio Trust S.A., Santander Rio Valores S.A., Santander S.A. Sociedad Securitizadora, Santander Secretariat Services Limited, Santander Securities LLC, Santander Seguros y Reaseguros Compania Aseguradora S.A., Santander Servicios Corporativos S.A. de C.V., Santander Servicios Especializados S.A. de C.V., Santander Technology USA LLC, Santander Tecnologia e Inovacao Ltda., Santander Tecnologia Argentina S.A., Santander Tecnologia Espana S.L.U., Santander Tecnologia Mexico S.A. de C.V., Santander Totta SGPS S.A., Santander Totta Seguros Companhia de Seguros de Vida S.A., Santander Towarzystwo Funduszy Inwestycyjnych S.A., Santander Trade Services Limited, Santander UK Group Holdings plc, Santander UK Investments, Santander UK Operations Limited, Santander UK Plc, Santander UK Technology Limited, Santander Wealth Management International SA, Santander de Titulizacion S.G.F.T. S.A., Santusa Holding S.L., Services and Promotions Delaware Corp., Services and Promotions Miami LLC, Servicio de Alarmas Controladas por Ordenador S.A., Servicios de Cobranza Recuperacion y Seguimiento S.A. De C.V., Sheppards Moneybrokers Limited, Shiloh III Wind Project LLC, Sociedad Integral de Valoraciones Automatizadas S.A., Sociedad Operadora de Tarjetas de Pago Santander Getnet Chile S.A., Socur S.A., Sol Orchard Imperial 1 LLC, Solarlaser Limited, Sovereign Community Development Company, Sovereign Delaware Investment Corporation, Sovereign Lease Holdings LLC, Sovereign REIT Holdings Inc., Sovereign Spirit Limited (f), Sterrebeeck B.V., Suleyado 2003 S.L. Unipersonal, Summer Empreendimentos Ltda., Super Pagamentos e Administracao de Meios Eletronicos S.A., Superdigital Argentina S.A.U., Superdigital Colombia S.A.S., Superdigital Holding Company S.L., Superdigital Peru S.A.C., Suzuki Servicios Financieros S.L., Swesant SA, TIMFin S.p.A., TOPSAM S.A de C.V., Taxagest Sociedade Gestora de Participacoes Sociais S.A., Teatinos Siglo XXI Inversiones S.A., The Alliance & Leicester Corporation Limited, The Best Specialty Coffee S.L. Unipersonal, Time Retail Finance Limited (b), Tonopah Solar I LLC, Toque Fale Servicos de Telemarketing Ltda., Tornquist Asesores de Seguros S.A. (b), Totta (Ireland) PLC, Totta Urbe - Empresa de Administracao e Construcoes S.A., Trabajando.com Mexico S.A. de C.V. en liquidacion (b), Trabajando.com Peru S.A.C., Trans Rotor Limited (b), Transolver Finance EFC S.A., Tresmares Growth Fund Santander SCR S.A., Tresmares Santander Direct Lending SICC S.A., Tuttle and Son Limited, Universia Brasil S.A., Universia Chile S.A., Universia Colombia S.A.S., Universia Espana Red de Universidades S.A., Universia Holding S.L., Universia Mexico S.A. de C.V., Universia Peru S.A., Universia Uruguay S.A., Uro Property Holdings SOCIMI S.A., WIM Servicios Corporativos S.A. de C.V., WTW Shipping Designated Activity Company, Wallcesa S.A., Wave Holdco S.L., Waypoint Insurance Group Inc., and Wirecard (Technological Assets). The following companies are subsidiares of Barclays: Adler Toy Holding Sarl, Aequor Investments Limited, Alymere Investments Limited, Alynore Investments Limited Partnership, Analog Analytics, Analog Analytics Inc, Analytical Trade Holdings LLC, Analytical Trade Investments LLC, Analytical Trade UK Limited, Archstone Equity Holdings Inc, Ardencroft Investments Limited, B D & B Investments Limited, B.P.B. (Holdings) Limited, BB Client Nominees Limited, BBAIL SAS, BCAP LLC, BIFML PTC Limited, BMBF (No.24) Limited, BMI (No.9) Limited, BNC Brazil Consultoria Empresarial Ltda, BNRI ENG 2013 Limited Partnership, BNRI ENG 2014 Limited Partnership, BNRI ENG GP LLP, BNRI England 2010 Limited Partnership, BNRI England 2011 Limited Partnership, BNRI England 2012 Limited Partnership, BNRI Limehouse No.1 Sarl, BNRI PIA Scot GP Limited, BNRI Scots GP LLP, BPB Holdings SA, BVP Galvani Global S.A.U., Barafor Limited, Barclay Leasing Limited, Barclaycard Funding PLC, Barclaycard International Payments Limited, Barclays (Barley) Limited, Barclays Aldersgate Investments Limited, Barclays Alzin Investments S.a r.l., Barclays Asia Limited, Barclays Asset Management Limited, Barclays BR Investments S.a r.l., Barclays BWA Inc., Barclays Bank (Suisse) S.A., Barclays Bank Delaware, Barclays Bank Ireland PLC, Barclays Bank Ireland Public Limited Company, Barclays Bank Mexico S.A., Barclays Bank PLC, Barclays Bank UK PLC, Barclays Bayard Investments S.a r.l., Barclays Bedivere Investments S.a r.l., Barclays Bordang Investments S.a r.l., Barclays Brasil Assessoria Financeira Ltda., Barclays CCP Funding LLC, Barclays Cantal Investments S.a r.l., Barclays Capital (Cayman) Limited, Barclays Capital Asia Holdings Limited, Barclays Capital Asia Limited, Barclays Capital Canada Inc., Barclays Capital Casa de Bolsa S.A. de C.V., Barclays Capital Derivatives Funding LLC, Barclays Capital Effekten GmbH, Barclays Capital Energy Inc., Barclays Capital Equities Trading GP, Barclays Capital Finance Limited, Barclays Capital Futures (Singapore) Private Limited, Barclays Capital Holdings (Singapore) Private Limited, Barclays Capital Holdings Inc., Barclays Capital Inc., Barclays Capital Japan Securities Holdings Limited, Barclays Capital Luxembourg S.a r.l., Barclays Capital Mauritius Limited, Barclays Capital Nominees (No.2) Limited, Barclays Capital Nominees (No.3) Limited, Barclays Capital Nominees Limited, Barclays Capital Principal Investments Limited, Barclays Capital Real Estate Finance Inc., Barclays Capital Real Estate Holdings Inc., Barclays Capital Real Estate Inc., Barclays Capital Securities Client Nominee Limited, Barclays Capital Securities Limited, Barclays Capital Securities Mauritius Limited, Barclays Capital Trading Luxembourg S.a r.l., Barclays Claudas Investments Partnership, Barclays Claudas Investments S.a r.l., Barclays Commercial Mortgage Securities LLC, Barclays Converted Investments (No.2) Limited, Barclays Corporation Limited, Barclays Direct Investing Nominees Limited, Barclays Directors Limited, Barclays Dryrock Funding LLC, Barclays Electronic Commerce Holdings Inc., Barclays Equity Holdings Limited, Barclays Equity Index Investments S.a r.l., Barclays Europe Client Nominees Designated Activity Company, Barclays Europe Firm Nominees Designated Activity Company, Barclays Europe Nominees Designated Activity Company, Barclays Executive Schemes Trustees Limited, Barclays Financial LLC, Barclays Financial Planning Nominee Company Limited, Barclays Funds Investments Limited, Barclays Funds and Advisory Japan Limited, Barclays Global Service Centre Private Limited, Barclays Global Shareplans Nominee Limited, Barclays Group Holdings Limited, Barclays Group Operations Limited, Barclays Group US Inc., Barclays Index Finance Trust, Barclays Industrial Development Limited, Barclays Industrial Investments Limited, Barclays Insurance Guernsey PCC Limited, Barclays Insurance Services Company Limited, Barclays Insurance U.S. Inc., Barclays International Luxembourg Dollar Holdings S.a r.l., Barclays Investment Management Limited, Barclays Investment Solutions Limited, Barclays Investments & Loans (India) Limited, Barclays Korea GP Limited, Barclays Lamorak Investments S.a r.l., Barclays Leasing (No.9) Limited, Barclays Leto Investments S.a r.l., Barclays Long Island Limited, Barclays Luxembourg EUR Holdings S.a r.l, Barclays Luxembourg Finance S.a r.l., Barclays Luxembourg GBP Holdings S.a r.l., Barclays Luxembourg Global Funding S.a r.l., Barclays Luxembourg Holdings S.a r.l., Barclays Luxembourg Holdings SSC B, Barclays Marlist Limited, Barclays Mauritius Overseas Holdings Limited, Barclays Mercantile Business Finance Limited, Barclays Merchant Bank (Singapore) Ltd., Barclays Nominees (George Yard) Limited, Barclays Nominees (Guernsey) Limited, Barclays Nominees (Jersey) Limited, Barclays Nominees (Manx) Limited, Barclays Oversight Management Inc., Barclays Payment Solutions Inc., Barclays Pelleas Investments Limited Partnership, Barclays Pelleas Investments S.a r.l., Barclays Pension Funds Trustees Limited, Barclays Principal Investments Limited, Barclays Private Asset Management (Monaco) S.A.M, Barclays Private Bank, Barclays Private Clients International Limited, Barclays Receivables LLC, Barclays SAMS Limited, Barclays Securities (India) Private Limited, Barclays Securities Japan Limited, Barclays Security Trustee Limited, Barclays Services (Japan) Limited, Barclays Services Corporation, Barclays Services Jersey Limited, Barclays Services LLC, Barclays Services Limited, Barclays Shea Limited, Barclays Singapore Global Shareplans Nominee Limited, Barclays Switzerland Services SA, Barclays Tenedora De Immuebles SL., Barclays Term Funding Limited Liability Partnership, Barclays UK Investments Limited, Barclays US CCP Funding LLC, Barclays US Funding LLC, Barclays US GPF Inc., Barclays US Investments Inc., Barclays US LLC, Barclays Unquoted Investments Limited, Barclays Unquoted Property Investments Limited, Barclays Wealth Management Jersey Limited, Barclays Wealth Nominees Limited, Barclays Wealth Services Limited, Barclays Wealth Trustees (India) Private Limited, Barclayshare Nominees Limited, Barclaytrust Channel Islands Limited, Barcosec Limited, Barsec Nominees Limited, Blossom Finance General Partnership, Branchcall Computers (Pvt) Limited, Braven Investments No.1 Limited, CP Flower Guaranteeco (UK) Limited, CP Newco 1 Limited, CP Newco2 Limited, CP Newco3 Limited, CP Propco 1 Limited, CP Propco 2 Limited, CP Topco Limited, CPIA Canada Holdings, CPIA England 2008 Limited Partnership, CPIA England 2009 Limited Partnership, CPIA England No.2 Limited Partnership, CPIA Investments No.1 Limited, CPIA Investments No.2 Limited, CRE Diversified Holdings LLC, CREW Tahoe Holdings LLC, CREW Tahoe LLC, Calthorpe Investments Limited, Capton Investments Limited, Carnegie Holdings Limited, Central Platte Valley Management LLC, Chapelcrest Investments Limited, Charles Schwab Europe, Claudas Investments Limited, Claudas Investments Two Limited, Clydesdale Financial Services Limited, Cobalt Investments Limited, Compania Regional del Sur S.A., Compania Sudamerica S.A., Condor No.1 Limited Partnership, Cornwall Homes Loans Limited, Crescent Crown Land Holding SPV LLC, Crescent Legacy LLC, Crescent Plaza Residential L.P., Crescent Plaza Residential LLC, Crescent Plaza Residential LP LLC, Crescent Real Estate Member LLC, Crescent Resort Development LLC, Crescent TRS Holdings LLC, Crescent Tower Residences GP LLC, Crescent Tower Residences L.P., Curve Investments GP, DBL Texas Holdings LLC, DMW Realty Limited, Desert Mountain Development LLC, Desert Mountain Properties Limited Partnership, Develop Training Group Limited, Dorset Home Loans Limited, Durlacher Nominees Limited, EWRD Summit LLC, Eagle Financial and Leasing Services (UK) Limited, East West Resort Development V L.P. L.L.L.P., East West Resort Development VII LLC, Equity Limited Partnership, Equity Value Investments No.1 Limited, Equity Value Investments No.2 Limited, Erimon Home Loans Ireland Limited, Expobank, FIRSTPLUS Financial Group Limited, Finpart Nominees Limited, First Assurance, Foltus Investments Limited, Full House Holdings Limited, Gallen Investments Limited, Global Dynasty Natural Resource Private, Globe Nominees Limited, Gracechurch Services Corporation, Grays Station LLC, Grupo Financiero Barclays Mexico S.A. de C.V., Hawkins Funding Limited, Heraldglen Limited, Holding Stuttgarter Strae GmbH, Hurley Investments No.1 Limited, Imalivest Mineral Resources LP, Investors In Infrastructure Limited, J.V. Estates Limited, JV Assets Limited, Kirsche Investments Limited, LTDL Holdings LLC, La Torretta Beverages LLC, La Torretta Hospitality LLC, La Torretta Operations LLC, Lagalla Investments LLC, Leonis Investments LLP, Liability Partnership, Long Island Assets Limited, Long Island Holding A LLC, Long Island Holding B Limited, MK Opportunities GP Ltd, MK Opportunities LP, MVWP Investors LLC, Maloney Investments Limited, Marbury Holdings LLC, Menlo Investments Limited, Mercantile Credit Company Limited, Mercantile Leasing Company (No.132) Limited, Meridian (SPV-AMC) Corporation, Mintaka Investments No. 4 Limited, Mira Vista Development LLC, Mira Vista Golf Club L.C., Mountainside Partners LLC, Murray House Investment Management Limited, Naxos Investments Limited, Nile Bank, North Colonnade Investments Limited, Northstar Mountain Properties LLC, Northstar Trailside Townhomes LLC, Northstar Village Townhomes LLC, Northwharf Investments Limited, Northwharf Nominees Limited, OGP Leasing Limited, Oakes Millers Ltd, Ownership Trustee Limited, PIA England No.2 Limited Partnership, Palomino Limited, Pecan Aggregator LP, Pelleas Investments Limited, Pelleas Investments Two Limited, Pippin Island Investments Limited, Preferred Liquidity LLC, Preferred Liquidity Limited Partnership, Procella Investments LLC, Procella Investments No.1 LLC, Procella Investments No.2 LLC, Procella Investments No.3 LLC, Protium Finance I LLC, Protium Master Grantor Trust, Protium Master Mortgage LP, Protium REO I LP, R.C. Grieg Nominees Limited, RVH Limited, RVT CLO Investments LLP, Razzoli Investments Limited, Real Estate Participation Management Limited, Real Estate Participation Services Limited, Relative Value Holdings LLC, Relative Value Investments UK Limited, Relative Value Trading Limited, Roder Investments No. 1 Limited, Roder Investments No. 2 Limited, Ruthenium Investments Limited, SPM GP Limited, Securitized Asset Backed Receivables LLC, Servicios Barclays S.A. de C.V., Societe Civile Immobiliere 31 Avenue de la Costa, Solution Personal Finance Limited, Southern Peaks Mining LP, Standard Life Aberdeen, Surety Trust Limited, Surrey Funding Corporation, Sussex Purchasing Corporation, Sutton Funding LLC, Swan Lane Investments Limited, TPLL LLC, TPProperty LLC, Tahoe Club Company LLC, Tahoe Club Employee Company, The Logic Group Enterprises Limited, The Logic Group Holdings Limited, Third Energy Holdings Limited, US Real Estate Holdings No. 2 Limited, US Real Estate Holdings No.1 Limited, US Real Estate Holdings No.3 Limited, US Secured Investments LLC, Union Center LLC, United Counties Bank, Verain Investments LLC, Walbrook Group Ltd, Wedd Jefferson (Nominees) Limited, Wessex Investments Limited, Westferry Investments Limited, Wilmington Riverfront Receivables LLC, Woolwich Homes Limited, Woolwich Plan Managers Limited, Woolwich Qualifying Employee Share, Woolwich Surveying Services Limited, Woori BC Pegasus Securitization Specialty Co. Limited, and Zeban Nominees Limited. The Boeing Co. is an aerospace company, which engages in the manufacture of commercial jetliners and defense, space and security systems. It operates through the following segments: Commercial Airplanes; Defense, Space and Security; Global Services; and Boeing Capital. The Commercial Airplanes segment includes the development, production, and market of commercial jet aircraft and provides fleet support services, principally to the commercial airline industry worldwide. The Defense, Space and Security segment refers to the research, development, production and modification of manned and unmanned military aircraft and weapons systems for global strike, including fighter and combat rotorcraft aircraft and missile systems; global mobility, including tanker, rotorcraft and tilt-rotor aircraft; and airborne surveillance and reconnaissance, including command and control, battle management and airborne anti-submarine aircraft. The Global Services segment provides services to commercial and defense customers. The Boeing Capital segment seeks to ensure that Boeing customers have the financing they need to buy and take delivery of their Boeing product and manages overall financing exposure. T Read More There is not enough analysis data for Centaur Media. 5.0 Community Rank Outperform Votes Centaur Media has received 441 outperform votes. (Add your outperform vote.) Underperform Votes Centaur Media has received 135 underperform votes. (Add your underperform vote.) Community Sentiment Centaur Media has received 76.56% outperform votes from our community. MarketBeat's community ratings are surveys of what our community members think about Centaur Media and other stocks. Vote Outperform if you believe CAU will outperform the S&P 500 over the long term. Vote Underperform if you believe CAU will underperform the S&P 500 over the long term. You may vote once every thirty days. Previous Next By Trend The meeting of the People's Council, which is the supreme legislative body of Turkmenistan, will be held on September 24-25, 2018, the Turkmen government said in a statement. The event will be held on the eve of Independence Day (September 27). In early October of 2017, a decision was made on the transformation and renaming of the Council of Elders into the People's Council. Prior to that, the Council of Elders played the role of a purely advisory body. At the same time, in the period from 1992 to 2008, the People's Council was the highest representative body of Turkmenistan. Nuveen Enhanced AMT-Free Municipal Credit Opportunities Fund operates as a closed-end investment fund/investment trust. Its investment objective is to provide current income exempt from regular federal income tax and to enhance portfolio value relative to the municipal bond market by investing in tax-exempt municipal bonds that the fund's investment adviser believes are underrated or undervalued or that represent municipal market sectors that are undervalued. The company was founded on July 12, 1999 and is headquartered in Chicago, IL. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Exxon Mobil: AKG Marketing Company Limited, Aera Energy LLC, Al-Jubail Petrochemical Company, Ampolex (Cepu) Pte Ltd, Ancon Insurance Company Inc., Barnett Gathering LLC, Barzan Gas Company Limited, Caspian Pipeline Consortium, Celtic Exploration Ltd., Coral FLNG S.A., Cross Timbers Energy LLC, Ellora Energy Inc., Esmeroon Oil Transporta Imperial Oil Limited, Esso (Thailand) Public Company Limited, Esso Australia Resources Pty Ltd, Esso Deutschland GmbH, Esso Erdgas Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, Esso Exploration Angola (Block 15) Limited, Esso Exploration Angola (Block 17) Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Angola (Overseas) Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Chad Inc., Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria (Deepwater) Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria (Offshore East) Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria Limited, Esso Exploration and Production UK Limited, Esso Global Investments Ltd., Esso Italiana S.r.l., Esso Nederland B.V., Esso Norge AS, Esso Petroleum Company Limited, Esso Raffinage, Esso Societe Anonyme Francaise, Exxo Holdings Inc., Exxon Azerbaijan Limited, Exxon Chemical Arabia Inc., Exxon International Finance Company, Exxon Luxembourg Holdings LLC, Exxon Mobile Bay Limited Partnership, Exxon Neftegas Limited, Exxon Overseas Corporation, Exxon Overseas Investment Corporation, ExxonMobil (China) Investment Co. Ltd., ExxonMobil (Taicang) Petroleum Co. Ltd., ExxonMobil Abu Dhabi Offshore Petroleum Company Limited, ExxonMobil Alaska Production Inc., ExxonMobil Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., ExxonMobil Australia Pty Ltd, ExxonMobil B Resources Company, ExxonMobil Capital Finance Company, ExxonMobil Capital Netherlands B.V., ExxonMobil Central Europe Holding GmbH, ExxonMobil Cepu Limited, ExxonMobil Chemical France, ExxonMobil Chemical Gulf Coast Investments LLC, ExxonMobil Chemical Holland B.V., ExxonMobil Chemical Services (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ExxonMobil China Petroleum & Petrochemical Company Limited, ExxonMobil Development Africa B.V., ExxonMobil Development Company, ExxonMobil Egypt (S.A.E.), ExxonMobil Exploracao Brasil Ltda., ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Malaysia Inc., ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Norway AS, ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Romania Limited, ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Tanzania Limited, ExxonMobil Finance Company Limited, ExxonMobil Financial Investment Company Limited, ExxonMobil France Holding SAS, ExxonMobil Gas Marketing Europe Limited, ExxonMobil General Finance Company, ExxonMobil Global Services Company, ExxonMobil Golden Pass Surety LLC, ExxonMobil Holding Company Holland LLC, ExxonMobil Holding Norway AS, ExxonMobil Hong Kong Limited, ExxonMobil International Services SARL, ExxonMobil Iraq Limited, ExxonMobil Italiana Gas S.r.l., ExxonMobil Kazakhstan Inc., ExxonMobil Kazakhstan Ventures Inc., ExxonMobil LNG Services B.V., ExxonMobil Lubricants Trading Company, ExxonMobil Oil Corporation, ExxonMobil PNG Limited, ExxonMobil Petroleum & Chemical BVBA, ExxonMobil Petroleum & Chemical Holdings Inc., ExxonMobil Pipeline Company, ExxonMobil Production Deutschland GmbH, ExxonMobil Production Norway Inc., ExxonMobil Qatargas (II) Limited, ExxonMobil Qatargas Inc., ExxonMobil Ras Laffan (III) Limited, ExxonMobil Rasgas Inc., ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company, ExxonMobil Russia Kara Sea Holdings B.V., ExxonMobil Sales and Supply LLC, ExxonMobil Technology Finance Company, ExxonMobil Ventures Finance Company, ExxonMobil Ventures Funding Ltd., Fujian Refining & Petrochemical Co. Ltd., Golden Pass LNG Terminal Investments LLC, Golden Pass LNG Terminal LLC, Gulf Coast Growth Ventures LLC, Imperial Oil Limited, Imperial Oil Resources Limited, Imperial Oil Resources N.W.T. Limited, Imperial Oil/Petroliere Imperiale, Infineum Italia s.r.I., Infineum Singapore Pte. Ltd., InterOil Corporation, Jurong Aromatics Corporation Pte Ltd, MPM Lubricants, Marine Well Containment Company LLC, Mobil Australia Resources Company Pty Limited, Mobil California Exploration & Producing Asset Company, Mobil Caspian Pipeline Company, Mobil Chemical Products International Inc., Mobil Corporation, Mobil Equatorial Guinea Inc., Mobil Erdgas Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Mobil Exploration & Producing Australia Pty Ltd, Mobil International Petroleum Corporation, Mobil Oil Australia Pty Ltd, Mobil Oil Exploration & Producing Southeast Inc., Mobil Oil New Zealand Limited, Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited, Mobil Producing Texas & New Mexico Inc., Mobil SerLimited, Mobil Venezolana De Petroleos Inc., Mobil Yanbu Petrochemical Company Inc., Mobil Yanbu Refining Company Inc., Mountain Gathering LLC, Mozambique Rovuma Venture S.p.A., Palmetto Transoceanic LLC, Papua New Guinea Liquefied Natural Gas Global Company LDC, Permian Express Partners LLC, Phillips Exploration LLC, Qatar Liquefied Gas Company Limited, Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Company Limited, Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Company Limited (II), SPI Limited, Saudi Aramco Mobil Refinery Company Ltd., Saudi Yanbu Petrochemical Co., SeaRiver Maritime Inc., South Hook LNG Terminal Company Limited, Tengizchevroil LLP, Terminale GNL Adriatico S.r.l, Trend Gathering & Treating LLC, Wolverine Pipe Line Company, XH LLC, XTO Delaware Basin LLC, XTO ENERGY, XTO Energy Canada, and XTO Holdings LLC. The Department of Economic Development (DED) - Abu Dhabi has launched a number of initiatives since the beginning of the year to drive economic growth in the emirate by bolstering the investment-conducive environment boasted by the emirate, and accelerating FDI inflows. In collaboration with the Executive Committee of Executive Board of Abu Dhabi, the emirates Smart Solutions and Services Authority, DED has launched "Tamm", a new system for the electronic issue of economic licences. reported state news agency Wam. Tamm represents a paradigm transformation at the international level, enabling the issuance of an economic licence for investors at the earliest possible moment, from anywhere, without the need to visiting any relevant government authority, it stated. It comes in alignment to the vision and direction set forth by the executive committee and the economic stimulus package approved by Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, and Chairman of the Executive Board of Abu Dhabi, aimed at strengthening the economic development and progress of Abu Dhabi for the coming three years. DED also announced recently that it has expanded its Tajer Abu Dhabi licence package by opening it up to all GCC nationals and UAE residents and increasing the number of eligible activities to 1,057 commercial activities, all exempted from having a physical presence or an office, it added. The department also expanded the legal formats accepted under Tajer Abu Dhabi licence to three: Establishment and one-person company for Emiratis and GCC nationals, and limited liability company for residents in partnership with Emiratis. Tajer Abu Dhabi was originally launched by DED late last year allowing Emiratis to establish businesses in 100 different business activities without the need of physical presence. The electronic service also sped up the licensing process with licenses granted in only two steps; entering data and paying fees after a review of the application, said the report. Most recently, DED has launched the smart information board "Al Marsad" (Observatory) as part of its investment in the latest artificial intelligence technologies and applications, it added. SAdzucker AG produces and sells sugar products in Germany, rest of Europe, and internationally. It operates through four segments: Sugar, Special Products, CropEnergies, and Fruit. The Sugar segment produces and sells sugar, sugar specialty products, molasses, and animal feed to food industry, retailers, and agriculture markets, as well as offers by-products of sugar. The Special Products segment produces functional food ingredients, including inulin, oligofructose, Isomalt, and Palatinose, as well as rice starches, rice flours, rice proteins, and wheat proteins for food, animal feed, non-food, and pharmaceutical sectors. This segment also offers frozen and chilled pizzas, frozen pasta dishes and snacks, baguette, and sauces and dressings; starches, sweeteners, animal feed; and portion packed foods and non-food products to hotels, caterers, and restaurants. The CropEnergies segment produces fuel-grade ethanol, rectified spirits, protein-based food and animal feed, and liquid CO2 to oil and pharmaceutical companies, food and animal feed producers, and beverage and cosmetics producers. The Fruit segment produces fruit preparations for the dairy, ice cream, bakery, and food service industry; and fruit juice concentrates, pure juices and purees, fruit wines, natural aromas, and beverage bases for beverage industry. It is also involved in agricultural activities; and cultivation of wheat, sugar beet, corn, chicory, rapeseed, soybean, and other products. The company was founded in 1837 and is headquartered in Mannheim, Germany. SAdzucker AG is a subsidiary of SAddeutsche ZuckerrAbenverwertungs-Genossenschaft eG. Read More Banco Latinoamericano de Comercio Exterior, S.A., a multinational bank, primarily engages in the financing of foreign trade in Latin America and the Caribbean. The company operates through two segments, Commercial and Treasury. It offers short and medium-term bilateral, structured and syndicated credits, and loan commitments; financial guarantee contracts, such as issued and confirmed letters of credit, and stand-by letters of credit; and guarantees covering commercial risk and other assets, as well as co-financing arrangements, underwriting of syndicated credit facilities, structured trade financing in the form of factoring and vendor financing, and financial leasing. The company also provides treasury solutions, which include term deposits and private placements. It primarily serves financial institutions, corporations, and sovereigns and state-owned entities. The company was formerly known as Banco Latinoamericano de Exportaciones, S.A. and changed its name to Banco Latinoamericano de Comercio Exterior, S.A. in June 2009. Banco Latinoamericano de Comercio Exterior, S.A. was founded in 1977 and is headquartered in Panama City, the Republic of Panama. Read More HELLA GmbH & Co. KGaA, together with its subsidiaries, develops, manufactures, and sells lighting and electronic components and systems for automotive industry worldwide. It operates through three segments: Automotive, Aftermarket, and Special Applications. The Automotive segment offers headlamps, rear combination lamps, car body and interior lighting products, and radomes; and body electronics, energy management, lighting electronics, and steering solutions, as well as driver assistance systems and components, including sensors and engine compartment actuators. The Aftermarket segment produces and sells automotive parts and accessories primarily in the areas of lighting, electrics, and electronics; and provides workshop solutions in the areas of diagnostics and calibration, as well as various services for wholesalers and workshops. The Special Applications segment develops, manufactures, and markets lighting technology and electronic products for special vehicles comprising construction and agricultural machinery, buses, and motor homes, as well as for the marine sector. The company has strategic collaboration with AEye, Inc. to develop LiDAR sensor systems. The company was formerly known as HELLA KGaA Hueck & Co. and changed its name to HELLA GmbH & Co. KGaA in October 2017. HELLA GmbH & Co. KGaA was founded in 1899 and is headquartered in Lippstadt, Germany. As of June 26, 2020, HELLA GmbH & Co. KGaA operates as a subsidiary of Hella Stiftung GmbH. Read More Airbus, an international pioneer in the aerospace industry, said its smartphone-tetra device Tactilon Dabat which boasts several key built-in security features, has won the Intersec Award 2018 in the category Innovative Security Product of the Year. The Security, Safety and Fire Protection Middle East Awards were held recently at the Habtoor Palace in Dubai to recognise industry's best projects and products in the field of security in the Middle East. A secure Android smartphone and Tetra-Radio in one, Tactilon Dabat opens up the world of secure multimedia communication to professionals, said a statement from the company. The Tactilon Dabat, which has already won the International Critical Communication Awards this year, combines various security features which make it unique in the area of professional communication. It disposes broadband features and applications which have been specifically designed to provide best support for operations of public safety or industrial users. "Once again the Tactilon Dabat has convinced experts for the path breaking role it will take in the coming years," remarked Selim Bouri, VP and Head of Middle East, North Africa and Asia-Pacific for Secure Land Communications at Airbus, after winning the award. "We are extremely grateful for this award because it signifies that we have developed a device that fits completely in the critical communication landscape in the Middle East," he added. The Tactilon Dabat serves as the platform of a multitude of highly useful applications certified by Airbus. These applications can be arranged individually on the Dabat according to the wishes of user organisations. Thanks to the Airbus applications developer programme SmarTWISP, which was created to build an application ecosystem for the Tactilon Dabat, the number of new apps is increasing to offer a large variety of innovative communication solutions, noted Bouri. Furthermore, the smart device can be applied in various sectors: from police, military and fire brigades to rescue services, hospitals and industries, users can facilitate their daily operations. It can also easily be incorporated in existing and future security infrastructures, such as Closed Circuit Television (CCTV), or Artificial Intelligence (AI), as the device allows secure access to essential intelligence source, he added. The Tactilon Dabat is being showcased at the CC Mena exhibition from September 23 to 25 and at Gitex from October 14 and 18 (both in Dubai).-TradeArabia News Service Keywords Studios plc provides integrated outsourced creative and technical services to the video game industry. The company offers art creation services related to the production of graphical art assets for inclusion in the video game, including concept art creation, as well as 2D and 3D art asset production and animation. It also provides audio/voice-over services, including script translation, actor selection, and talent management through pre-production, audio direction, recording, and post-production, as well as offers music licensing or music soundtracks selling services. In addition, the company offers localization services related to translation and cultural adaptation of in-game text and audio scripts in various game platforms and genres; and localization testing services consisting of testing the linguistic correctness and cultural acceptability of computer games. Further, it provides functional testing services related to quality assurance services provided to game producers to ensure game functions. Additionally, the company provides player support services related to the live operations support, such as community management, player support, and associated services to producers of games, as well as software engineering services for developing video games. It serves game companies and publishers. The company operates in Ireland, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Japan, Italy, France, India, Germany, Singapore, Spain, Poland, Brazil, China, and Mexico. Keywords Studios plc was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. Read More 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. GlaxoSmithKline Plc is a healthcare company, which engages in the research, development, and manufacture of pharmaceutical medicines, vaccines, and consumer healthcare products. It operates through the following segments: Pharmaceuticals; Pharmaceuticals R&D; Vaccines and Consumer Healthcare. The Pharmaceuticals segment focuses on developing medicines in respiratory and infectious diseases, oncology, and immuno-inflammation. The Pharmaceuticals R&D segment focuses on science related to the immune system, the use of human genetics and advanced technologies, and is driven by the multiplier effect of Science x Technology x Culture. The Vaccines segment produces pediatric and adult vaccines to prevent a range of infectious diseases including, hepatitis A and B, diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough, measles, mumps and rubella, polio, typhoid, influenza, and bacterial meningitis. The Consumer Healthcare segment develops and markets brands in the oral health, pain relief, respiratory, nutrition and gastro intestinal, and skin health categories. The company was founded in 1715 and is headquartered in Middlesex, the United Kingdom. Read More Oman Data Park, the first managed service provider in the sultanate, said its chief executive Engineer Maqbool Al Wahaibi has been named as the Technology Person of the Year at the annual AIWA Awards held in Muscat. The first localised cloud service provider in the Sultanate, Oman Data Park currently runs three data centres located in Kom, Wattayah, and Duqm. These three are interconnected to provide resilience, interconnectivity of data and business continuity. The award was presented by Dr Rasheed bin al Safi Al Huraibi, Chairman, Oman Tender Board, to Al Wahaibi at the red-carpet awards ceremony held recently at Hotel Sheraton Oman. This year marked the eighth edition of the annual AIWA Awards, instituted by Alam Al Iktisaad Wal Amal (AIWA), the leading Arabic business publication from United Media Services. Top five best performing companies, based on their performance on select seven financial parameters in the financial year 2017, were felicitated in three different categories. The achievements that went beyond the balance sheet were also recognized through special awards, said a statement from Oman Data Park. Al Wahaibi was felicitated for his exemplary services in leading Oman Data Park to provide reliable, secure and flexible solutions delivered with unmatched expertise and quality of service, it stated. As a part of the executive management and founding team that established Oman Data Park, Al Wahaibi has been instrumental in developing solutions tailored to address the banks, financial Institutions, oil and gas sector, healthcare, government, education and professional services sectors, it added. On the big win, Al Wahaibi said: "The award is a recognition of Oman Data Parks contribution not only in providing ICT services to the corporates in the sultanate, but also in being instrumental in the countrys digital transformation and smart revolution." Currently Oman Data Park is serving around 450 corporates ranging from large to mid to small companies. They include the largest banks and the largest oil and gas companies in the country. It is also serving some of the leading companies in Oman such as Occidental Oman, Oman Oil and Haya Water besides some overseas clients. "The recognition reiterated the industrys confidence in the products and services offered by ODP," he added.-TradeArabia News Service North American Construction Group Ltd. provides mining and heavy construction services to the resource development and industrial construction sectors in Canada and the United States The company's Heavy Construction & Mining division offers constructability reviews, budgetary cost estimates, design-build construction, project management, contract mining, pre-stripping/pit pioneering, overburden removal and stockpile, muskeg removal and stockpile, site preparation, air strip construction, site dewatering/perimeter ditching, tailings and process pipelines, haulage and access road construction, tailings dam construction and densification, mechanically stabilized earth walls, dyke construction, and reclamation services. Its Equipment Maintenance Services division provides fuel and lube servicing, portable steaming, equipment inspections, parts and component supply, major overhauls and equipment refurbishment, onsite haul truck brake testing, onsite maintenance support, under carriage rebuild, machining, hose manufacturing, and technical support services, as well as welding, fabrication/repairs, weld certification, and inspection services. As of December 31, 2020, the company had a heavy equipment fleet of 626 units. The company was formerly known as North American Energy Partners Inc. and changed its name to North American Construction Group Ltd. in April 2018. The company was founded in 1953 and is headquartered in Acheson, Canada. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of The Procter & Gamble: "Procter & Gamble Services" LLC, "Procter & Gamble" LLC, Agile Pursuits, Agile Pursuits Franchising, Arbora, Arbora & Ausonia, Arborinvest, Billie, Braun (Shanghai) Co., Braun GmbH, Braun-Gillette Immobilien GmbH & Co. KG, Celtic Insurance Company, Compania Procter & Gamble Mexico, Compania Quimica S.A., Corporativo Procter & Gamble, Cosmetic Products Pty. Ltd., Detergent Products B.V., Detergent Products SARL, Detergenti S.A., Eurocos Cosmetic GmbH, FPG Oleochemicals Sdn. Bhd., Fameccanica Data S.p.A., Fameccanica Industria e Comercio Do Brasil LTDA., Fameccanica Machinery (Shanghai) Co., Fater S.p.A., Fountain Square Music Publishing Co., Gillette (China) Ltd., Gillette (Shanghai) Ltd., Gillette Aesop Ltd., Gillette Australia Pty. Ltd., Gillette Canada Holdings, Gillette Commercial Operations North America, Gillette Diversified Operations Pvt. Ltd., Gillette Egypt S.A.E., Gillette Group UK Ltd, Gillette Gruppe Deutschland GmbH & Co. oHG, Gillette Holding Company LLC, Gillette Holding GmbH, Gillette India Limited, Gillette Industries Ltd., Gillette International B.V., Gillette Latin America Holding B.V., Gillette Management LLC, Gillette Nova Scotia Company, Gillette Pakistan Limited, Gillette Poland International Sp. z.o.o., Gillette Poland S.A., Gillette U.K. Limited, Gillette del Uruguay, Giorgio Beverly Hills Inc., Hyginett KFT, Industries Marocaines Modernes SA, LLC "Procter & Gamble Novomoskovsk", LLL "Procter & Gamble Distributorskaya Compania", Laboratorios Vicks, Liberty Street Music Publishing Company, Limited Liability Company 'Procter & Gamble Trading Ukraine', Limited Liability Company with foreign investments Procter & and Gamble Ukraine, MDVIP, MERCK KGAA NPV, Marcvenca Inversiones, Modern Industries Company - Dammam, Modern Products Company - Jeddah, New Chapter, New Chapter Canada Inc., Olay LLC, Oral-B Laboratories, P&G Distribution Morocco SAS, P&G Hair Care Holding, P&G Industrial Peru S.R.L., P&G Innovation Godo Kaisha, P&G Israel M.D.O. Ltd., P&G K.K., P&G Northeast Asia Pte. Ltd., P&G Prestige Godo Kaisha, P&G Prestige Service GmbH, P&G South African Trading (Pty.) Ltd., PGT Health Care (Zhejiang) Limited, PGT Healthcare LLP, PPI ZAO, PT Procter & Gamble Home Products Indonesia, PT Procter & Gamble Operations Indonesia, Phase II Holdings Corporation, Procter & Gamble (Chengdu) Ltd., Procter & Gamble (China) Ltd., Procter & Gamble (China) Sales Co. Ltd., Procter & Gamble (East Africa) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Egypt) Manufacturing Company, Procter & Gamble (Enterprise Fund) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Guangzhou) Consumer Products Co. Ltd., Procter & Gamble (Guangzhou) Enterprise Management Service Company Limited, Procter & Gamble (Guangzhou) Ltd., Procter & Gamble (Health & Beauty Care) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Jiangsu) Ltd. China, Procter & Gamble (L&CP) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Procter & Gamble (Manufacturing) Ireland Limited, Procter & Gamble (Shanghai) International Trade Company Ltd., Procter & Gamble (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Procter & Gamble Acquisition GmbH, Procter & Gamble Administration GmbH, Procter & Gamble Algeria EURL, Procter & Gamble Amazon Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Amiens S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Argentina SRL, Procter & Gamble Asia Pte. Ltd., Procter & Gamble Australia Proprietary Limited, Procter & Gamble Azerbaijan Services LLC, Procter & Gamble Bangladesh Private Ltd., Procter & Gamble Blois S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Brazil Holdings B.V., Procter & Gamble Bulgaria EOOD, Procter & Gamble Business Services Canada Company, Procter & Gamble Canada Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Chile , Procter & Gamble Chile Limitada, Procter & Gamble Colombia Ltda., Procter & Gamble Commercial LLC, Procter & Gamble Commercial de Cuba S.A., Procter & Gamble Czech Republic s.r.o., Procter & Gamble DS Polska Sp. z o.o., Procter & Gamble Danmark ApS, Procter & Gamble Detergent (Beijing) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Deuttschland GmbH, Procter & Gamble Distributing (Philippines) Inc., Procter & Gamble Distributing New Zealand Limited, Procter & Gamble Distribution Company (Europe) BVBA, Procter & Gamble Distribution S.R.L., Procter & Gamble Eastern Europe, Procter & Gamble Ecuador Cia. Ltda., Procter & Gamble Egypt, Procter & Gamble Egypt Distribution, Procter & Gamble Egypt Holding, Procter & Gamble Egypt Supplies, Procter & Gamble Energy Company LLC, Procter & Gamble Espana, Procter & Gamble Europe SA, Procter & Gamble Export Operations SARL, Procter & Gamble Exportadora e Importadora Ltda., Procter & Gamble Exports, Procter & Gamble Fabricacao e Comercio Ltda., Procter & Gamble Far East, Procter & Gamble Finance (U.K.) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Finance Holding Ltd., Procter & Gamble Finance Management S.a.r.l., Procter & Gamble Financial Investments LLP, Procter & Gamble Financial Services Ltd., Procter & Gamble Financial Services S.a.r.l., Procter & Gamble Finland OY, Procter & Gamble France S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Germany GmbH, Procter & Gamble Germany GmbH & Co. Operations oHG, Procter & Gamble GmbH, Procter & Gamble Grundstucks-und Vermogensverwaltungs GmbH & Co. KG, Procter & Gamble Gulf FZE, Procter & Gamble Hair Care, Procter & Gamble Hellas Ltd., Procter & Gamble Holding (Thailand) Limited, Procter & Gamble Holding France S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Holding GmbH, Procter & Gamble Holding S.r.l., Procter & Gamble Holdings (UK) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Home Products Private Limited, Procter & Gamble Hong Kong Limited, Procter & Gamble Hungary Wholesale Trading Partnership (KKT), Procter & Gamble Hygiene & Health Care Limited, Procter & Gamble Inc., Procter & Gamble India Holdings, Procter & Gamble Indochina Limited Company, Procter & Gamble Industrial - 2012 C.A., Procter & Gamble Industrial Colombia Ltda., Procter & Gamble Industrial S.C.A., Procter & Gamble Industrial e Comercial Ltda., Procter & Gamble Interamericas de Costa Rica, Procter & Gamble Interamericas de Guatemala, Procter & Gamble Interamericas de Panama, Procter & Gamble International Operations Pte. Ltd., Procter & Gamble International Operations SA, Procter & Gamble International Operations SA-ROHQ, Procter & Gamble International S.a.r.l., Procter & Gamble Investment Company (UK) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Investment GmbH, Procter & Gamble Italia, Procter & Gamble Japan K.K., Procter & Gamble Kazakhstan Distribution LLP, Procter & Gamble Kazakhstan LLP, Procter & Gamble Korea, Procter & Gamble Korea S&D Co., Procter & Gamble Lanka Private Ltd. Sri Lanka, Procter & Gamble Leasing LLC, Procter & Gamble Levant S.A.L., Procter & Gamble Limited, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing (Thailand) Limited, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Belgium N.V., Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Berlin GmbH, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing GmbH, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Procter & Gamble Manufacturing SA (Pty) Ltd, Procter & Gamble Marketing Romania SRL, Procter & Gamble Marketing and Services doo, Procter & Gamble Maroc SA, Procter & Gamble Mataro, Procter & Gamble Mexico Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Mexico Inc., Procter & Gamble Middle East FZE, Procter & Gamble Nederland B.V., Procter & Gamble Netherlands Investments B.V., Procter & Gamble Netherlands Services B.V., Procter & Gamble Nigeria Limited, Procter & Gamble Nordic, Procter & Gamble Norge AS, Procter & Gamble Operations Polska Sp. z o.o., Procter & Gamble Overseas India B.V., Procter & Gamble Overseas Ltd., Procter & Gamble Pakistan (Private) Limited, Procter & Gamble Partnership LLP, Procter & Gamble Peru S.R.L., Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals France SAS, Procter & Gamble Philippines, Procter & Gamble Polska Sp. z o.o, Procter & Gamble Portugal - Produtos De Consumo, Procter & Gamble Product Supply (U.K.) Limited U.K., Procter & Gamble Production GmbH, Procter & Gamble Productions, Procter & Gamble Productos de Consumo, Procter & Gamble RHD, Procter & Gamble RSC Regional Service Company Ltd., Procter & Gamble Retail Services BVBA, Procter & Gamble S.r.l., Procter & Gamble SA (Pty) Ltd, Procter & Gamble Satis ve Dagitim Ltd. Sti., Procter & Gamble Seine S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Service GmbH, Procter & Gamble Services (Switzerland) SA, Procter & Gamble Services Company N.V., Procter & Gamble Services Ltd., Procter & Gamble Share Incentive Plan Trustee Ltd., Procter & Gamble South America Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Spol. s.r.o. (Ltd.), Procter & Gamble Sports and Social Club Ltd., Procter & Gamble Sverige AB, Procter & Gamble Switzerland SARL, Procter & Gamble Taiwan Limited, Procter & Gamble Taiwan Sales Company Limited, Procter & Gamble Technical Centres Limited, Procter & Gamble Technology (Beijing) Co., Procter & Gamble Trading (Thailand) Limited, Procter & Gamble Tuketim Mallari Sanayii A.S., Procter & Gamble UK, Procter & Gamble UK Group Holdings Ltd, Procter & Gamble UK Parent Company Ltd., Procter & Gamble Universal Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Verwaltungs GmbH, Procter & Gamble Vietnam, Procter & Gamble d.o.o. za trgovinu, Procter & Gamble de Venezuela S.C.A., Procter & Gamble de Venezuela S.R.L., Procter & Gamble do Brasil S/A, Procter & Gamble do Brazil, Procter & Gamble do Nordeste S/A, Procter & Gamble-Rakona s.r.o., Progam Realty & Development Corporation, Redmond Products, Richardson-Vicks Real Estate Inc., Richardson-Vicks do Brasil Quimica e Farmaceutica Ltda, Riverfront Music Publishing Co., Rosemount LLC, SPD Development Company Limited, SPD Swiss Precision Diagnostics GmbH, Scannon S.A.S., Series Acquisition B.V., Shulton, Surfac S.R.L., Sycamore Productions, TAOS - FL, TAOS Retail, Tambrands Inc., Temple Trees Impex & Investment Private Limited, The Art of Shaving - FL, The Dover Wipes Company, The Gillette Company, The Gillette Company LLC, The Gillette co., The Procter & Gamble Distributing LLC, The Procter & Gamble GBS Company, The Procter & Gamble Global Finance Company, The Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Company, The Procter & Gamble Paper Products Company, The Procter & Gamble U.S. Business Services Company, This is L., US CD LLC, Vidal Sassoon (Shanghai) Academy, Vidal Sassoon Co., WEBA Betriebsrenten-Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Walker & Company Brands, and iMFLUX Inc.. 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.. Brunswick Group, a global advisory firm specialising in critical issues and corporate relations, has promoted Heather Salmond as the head of its Abu Dhabi office. She joined the group in 2012 as a partner based in the UAE. Salmond has 20 years international communications experience working in London, New York and the Middle East and has advised on corporate and financial communications including reputation management, M&A, IPOs and investor relations. She provides strategic counsel for a wide range of businesses across the Mena region and across various sectors, from financial services to oil and gas as well as TMT, education and healthcare. Salmond had advised international companies on communicating their equity growth stories through transactions, capital raising and special situations. Prior to Brunswick, she led the financial practice for a large, international communications firm across the Middle East. Heather has written various guides on Communicating an IPO and has Welcoming the appointment, CEO Neal Wolin said: "Since she joined Brunswick, Salmond has been essential to the growth of our Gulf business. Her long-term experience working in the region across multiple clients and sectors, means she has a deep understanding of the complex communications challenges our clients face in the region." Her appointment, he stated, would further strengthen the group's management capabilities in the UAE. "Our Abu Dhabi team as part of our wider UAE business, advises a portfolio of high-profile clients including major public and private sector companies, operating across core economic sectors as well as important cultural institutions," he added. Prior to Brunswick, Salmond led the financial practice for a large, international communications firm across the Middle East. She has written various guides on Communicating an IPO and has been a regular speaker on the subject, joining the London Stock Exchange on its presentations around the world. Heather read Modern Languages (Spanish and French) at the University of St Andrews and graduated with MA Honours.-TradeArabia News Service Bank of Montreal provides diversified financial services primarily in North America. The company's personal banking products and services include checking and savings accounts, credit cards, mortgages, and financial and investment advice services; and commercial banking products and services comprise business deposit accounts, commercial credit cards, business loans and commercial mortgages, cash management solutions, foreign exchange, specialized banking programs, treasury and payment solutions, and risk management products for small business and commercial banking customers. It also offers investment and wealth advisory services; digital investing services; financial services and solutions; and investment management, and trust and custody services to institutional, retail, and high net worth investors. In addition, the company provides life insurance, accident and sickness insurance, and annuity products; creditor and travel insurance to bank customers; and reinsurance solutions. Further, it offers client's debt and equity capital-raising services, as well as loan origination and syndication, balance sheet management, and treasury management; strategic advice on mergers and acquisitions, restructurings, and recapitalizations, as well as valuation and fairness opinions; and trade finance, risk mitigation, and other operating services. Additionally, the company provides research and access to markets for institutional, corporate, and retail clients; trading solutions that include debt, foreign exchange, interest rate, credit, equity, securitization and commodities; new product development and origination services, as well as risk management advice and services to hedge against fluctuations; and funding and liquidity management services to its clients. It operates through approximately 1,400 bank branches and 4,800 automated banking machines in Canada and the United States. The company was founded in 1817 and is headquartered in Montreal, Canada. Read More Gunmen attacked an annual Iranian military parade on Saturday in the country's oil-rich southwest, killing at least 29 people, which included both military personnel and civilians and wounding 53 others, reported Bloomberg, citing local mediapersons. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the assault in Ahvaz, which saw gunfire spray into a crowd of marching Guardsmen, bystanders and government officials watching from a nearby riser. The state TV reporter said the gunfire came from a park behind a riser. The semi-official Fars news agency, which is close to the Guard, said two gunmen on a motorcycle wearing khaki uniforms carried out the attack. Videos of the attack published online and by local media outlets show scenes of chaos as soldiers and civilians flee gunfire and attempt to treat the wounded. Some images show bloodied soldiers in military fatigues, and ambulance sirens can be heard wailing in the background, reported The Washington Post. "Terrorists began shooting from a long distance while inside the park, at the armed forces as well as civilians watching the parade," Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarch, a spokesman for the Iranian armed forces told MEHR, another Iranian news agency. Three of the attackers were gunned down during clashes with the security forces and one other arrested, news agencies reported. The separatist group the Patriotic Arab Democratic Movement in Ahwaz claimed responsibility for this attack, reported CNN. "The terrorists disguised as Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) and Basiji (volunteer) forces opened fire to the authority and people from behind the stand during the parade," Governor of Khuzestan Gholam-Reza Shariati said, according to IRNA. Khuzestan Governor Gholamreza Shariati told state-run IRNA news agency that two gunmen were killed and other two had been arrested. More than 20 people had been wounded, including a woman and a child. Iran had faced a bloody assault last year from the Islamic State group, while Arab separatists in the region have attacked oil pipelines there in the past, it added. State television aired footage of the aftermath of the assault on Ahvaz's Quds, or Jerusalem, Boulevard, which like many other places around the country saw an annual parade marking the start of Iran's long 1980s war with Iraq. The images included paramedics trying to help one person in military fatigues as other armed security personnel shouted at each other. The semi-official ISNA news agency published photographs of the attack's aftermath, with bloodied troops in dress uniforms helping each other walk away. A local news agency in Khuzestan province, of which Ahvaz is the capital, aired grainy mobile phone footage showing parade goers fleeing as soldiers lay flat on the ground. Gunfire rang out in the background. "Security forces have restored security in the area but the parade has totally been disrupted," a reporter on the scene for Iranian state television said by phone in a live broadcast. "People have been killed but we have no figures yet." Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Twitter blamed regional countries and their "U.S. masters" for the attack and warned that "Iran will respond swiftly and decisively in defense of Iranian lives." He said children and journalists were casualties in the attack, reported Bloomberg. Zarif added that the gunmen were "terrorists recruited, trained, armed & paid by a foreign regime." He did not immediately elaborate. However, Arab separatist groups in the region have launched attacks on oil pipelines there in the past, it added. The UAE Federal Transport Authority-Land and Maritime (FTA) has signed an agreement with Ireland-based Cork Institute of Technology (CIT). The MoU aims to implement collaborative programmes and projects between both sides in the areas of research, education, training, technology transfer, information and economic development, said Hessa Al Malek, the executive director of the FTA, after signing the deal with Cormac Gebruers, the head of the CIT. The signing ceremony was attended by Dr Abdullah bin Mohammed Belhaif Al Nuaimi, Minister of Infrastructure Development and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the FTA. The MoU is aimed at launching applied research programmes and activities between both parties and benefit from them. Gebruers expressed his appreciation for the FTAs commitment and cooperation and its positive and active role in facilitating maritime cooperation between the UAE and Ireland. Dr Al Nuaimi and Gebruers discussed the developments in the maritime transportation sector and exchanged their opinions, said the statement. The duo also discussed issues of mutual interest, such as developing the relations between the FTA and the Irish companies and adopting joint initiatives, through establishing the future partnership and cooperation agreements with Irish universities and institutes that specialise in maritime transportation, it added.-TradeArabia News Service Gastech 2018, the global exhibition and conference at the forefront of the international gas and LNG industries, which was this year co-located with GPEX, the global event enhancing energy transition, ended on a successful note drawing more than 30,000 visitors over four days - a record for the 30th edition of the event. The four-day exhibition and conference held in Barcelona brought together 500 global exhibiting companies and a record number of visitors from across the upstream, midstream and downstream gas, LNG and energy industries worldwide. The industry-leading event saw more than 1,200 CEOs, Chairpersons, Managing Directors, Presidents, Government Officials and Ministers among 2,500 global conference delegates consider the key challenges facing the industry today, and discuss the most important topics that will shape the future of the worlds gas, LNG and energy industries for decades to come. During the event, 300 speakers examined the global drive towards the greater adoption of gas and LNG as the fuel of choice and how the industry continues to see signposts pointing towards further long-term growth. Gastech 2018 explored the new demand centres for gas, the challenges for the gas sector in Spain and beyond and a range of other issues including the burgeoning trading sector, project financing, the interplay between gas and renewable energy in power generation, project development, managing emissions and project financial risk management. Another key theme was the growth of the North American gas and LNG industry, a topic that will be a focus for Gastech 2019, which will be co-located again with GPEX at the NRG Centre, Houston, from September 17 to 19. Gastech and the inaugural GPEX (Global Power & Energy Exhibition), the new hub for the international power and energy community, shared the same location this year. The GPEX exhibition and conference focused on the current transition in the energy industry, including new business models, innovative technologies and novel approaches to power generation, transmission and distribution. Jenny Kelly, the conference director, Gastech, said: Gastech has once again been an enormous success and has provided an unrivalled platform for global gas companies, organisations and influential figures to network, share their thoughts on the most pertinent issues affecting our industry today and to do business. "We are grateful to everyone who made Gastech and GPEX such excellent events, including dignitaries, consortium members, exhibitors, speakers and attendees. But now our focus is completely on Gastech and GPEX 2019 in Houston," stated Kelly. "As the worlds energy capital, Houston is the perfect location for Gastech, which returns to North America for the first time in 20 years, and we expect to build on the success of our first GPEX," noted Kelly. "Houstons first class facilities and infrastructure make it an excellent destination to host events of the magnitude of Gastech and GPEX for the worlds strategic and technical energy professionals. We look forward to seeing you all in Houston!," he added. Preparations are already underway for Gastech and GPEX 2019, which will take place at the NRG Centre in Houston, Texas.-TradeArabia News Service Top Israeli military figures have slammed as empty and inappropriate the recent anti-Iran remarks made by the Israeli regimes army chief of staff lieutenant general Aviv Kochavi. In his remarks on Tuesday, Kochavi said the Israeli military was revising its attack plans against Iran amid fresh efforts by the new US administration to reverse Trumps Iran policy. He warned the Biden administration against rejoining the 2015 landmark Iran nuclear deal, which was abandoned by the Trump administration in May 2018, saying such a move would be bad and not the right thing to do. I instructed the army to prepare a number of operational plans in addition to the existing ones, Kochavis said. We are taking care of these plans and will develop them during the coming year. Those who decide on carrying them out, of course, are the political leaders. But these plans have to be on the table, the Israeli general said. Kochavis remarks were met with trenchant criticisms even among the critics of the nuclear agreement, which was reached during former President Barack Obamas time in office. Amos Gilad, a former head of Israeli Military Intelligence, said the threat of military action against Iran was an empty one and such a strike would never happen without the backing of the United States. You think you would carry out a strike without strategic cooperation with the United States? It will never, ever happen, Gilad said in an interview on the 103FM radio station on Wednesday. Understand that these are all just words. He warned that harsh remarks that contradict the position of the new American administration could be seen as defiance by the White House, adding, Thats not how you lead a policy. (PRESS TV) BEIRUT, LEBANON (8:20 P.M.) The spokesman for the Iranian armed forces, Major General Abu Fadl Shikaraji, threatened to destroy Tel Aviv in case Israel makes any mistake against Iran. Israels threats are part of psychological warfare, and if they are realistic, then they are illusions, Shkaraji said, adding that the Iranian army will destroy Tel Aviv and erase it if Israel commits any stupidity against our nuclear facilities. The Israeli army lives in a state of terror and is too weak to carry out its threats on the ground, he said, adding that Israels threat to destroy our nuclear facilities is just illusions and pipe dreams. Shkharji stressed that the Iranian army will destroy the Israeli missile bases as soon as Iran is exposed to any attack, noting that the large part of Irans military capabilities have not been revealed. (AMN) If the Zionists make a foolish move or any mistake, even the slightest one, against Iran, they will face a reaction that will destroy Tel Aviv and hasten the end of their regime, Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi told Iran's Arabic-language Al Alam news network. He also said the Iranian Armed Forces have been strengthening their defensive capabilities day by day, and that the country is capable of carrying out strategic operations to level the enemy to the ground. (PRESS TV) These excerpts from Iranian Press TV and Al Masdar News articles capture the current state of play in the ongoing Israeli-Iranian confrontation. Israeli and Iranian verbal chest thumping is at an all time high. If blustery language were bombs, wed be deep into WW III. However, Gilad is correct. Without US strategic cooperation, there will not be a massive conventional air attack on Iran. And that strategic cooperation is unlikely to be forthcoming under Biden, even though there are still plenty of Borg clowns in this administration just itching for just such an attack. Throughout the Obama and Trump administrations the most probable scenarios involved massive US air and missile strikes against Iran to obliterate Tehrans nuclear infrastructure and bring about regime change. These strikes would be in conjunction with Israeli strikes or reluctantly launched after an insufficient initial Israeli strike. The goal, Israels goal, was always to eliminate Iran as a threat to Israel. There was nothing in it for us other than pleasing Israel and risking WW III. The goal of US administrations was to prevent this, usually by placating Israel in various ways. No one, not Bush, not Obama, nor Trump wanted the US involved in a war against Iran. However, they were all plagued by swarms of Israel Firsters praying, many literally praying, for war. Obamas approach was the JCPOA. Israel viewed the JCPOA as an existential threat to their goal. Trump had a different approach, trash the JCPOA and embark on a policy of maximum pressure to collapse the regime in Tehran. Like previous administrations, this maximum pressure policy did not envision a massive US air attack. Israel decided she could work with this. This became apparent when we learned of another Trump Tower meeting in 2016. This one had nothing to do with Russia. It was all about Iran and how the US, Israel, the UAE and the Saudis would force regime change in Tehran. It included a proposal to create a UAE-Saudi anti-terrorist force that would supplant the need for the US to police the region. Not that bad a plan, really. Getting rid of JCPOA was easy. It was an Obama agreement. Of course Trump would scuttle that. The same for selling weapons and ordnance to the Saudis and UAE. Thats profitable business. The assassination of Qasem Soleimani may or may not have been a part of this maximum pressure policy. An important part of this grand plan was a robust regional strategic realignment. Israels close military cooperation with the UAE began in the 1990s. It was low key, but extensive. Kushners grand Middle East bargain last year just made that official. The UAEs Mohammed bin Zayed (MBZ) appears to be the true power broker on the Arabian Peninsula rather than the Saudi Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). He was the driving force behind the Abraham Accords. MBZ is a Sandhurst graduate and has built the UAE military and intelligence into competent forces although they are largely foreign. He is measured, pragmatic and sits atop large oil reserves as well as a growing international financial hub. His hand is behind many of the events throughout the Arab world. He is definitely worth watching. Now back to Israel and Iran. At one time the best Israel hoped for was the unhindered flight of the IAF across Saudi airspace enroute to Iranian targets. That limited hope has morphed into the possibility of the active involvement of UAE and even Saudi bases and forces in an attack on Iran. The addition of fifty F-35s to the UAE Air Force would greatly increase the strike capabilities of the current hundred or so F-16 and Mirage 2000 aircraft. Even though reaching full operational capability would be several years away, I think the IAF would be giddy with anticipation of this possibility in spite of their apprehensions about Arab F-35s. In the meantime, Israel and the UAE are building a joint intelligence base on Socotra. Both the UAE and Saudi Arabia are cooperating with Israel on missile defense, intelligence sharing, reconnaissance (both airborne and at sea) and cybersecurity. This Israeli-Emerati confidence building and integration will continue as long as MBZ sees it as advantageous. The Saudi war on the Houthis has not helped Israel. Even though the UAE has pulled out of the conflict, Israels closeness to the UAE and growing cooperation with the Saudis have made Israel an active enemy of the Houthi. In response Iran has introduced the Shahed-131 and the more advanced Shahed-136 loitering munition UAVs to the northern Yemeni province of Al-Jawf. The Shahed -136 has an effective range of over 1,200 miles bring southern Israel and Gulf of Aqaba ship traffic within range. In response, Israel has had to station Patriot and Iron Dome AD systems at Eilat - the opening of an unwanted southern front in addition to the constant threat of Hezbollah to the north. This is also whatever missiles and drones Iran may have stationed in Iraq and Syria. So, how will the Biden administration change Israeli calculations for a strike against Iran? Of primary interest to Israel is Bidens desire to reenter the JCPOA and improve relations with Tehran. As I alluded to earlier, this is anathema to Israel. Will this make Israel antsy enough to strike? I dont think so. Biden is also withdrawing support from the Saudi war in Yemen. He halted logistical and munitions support to the Saudis and paused the effort to provide F-35s to the UAE. The latter may even give MBZ pause for further open military cooperation with Israel. He wants those F-35s. Well never abandon Israel, but can we be relied on to provide logistical, intelligence and strike support to an Israeli initiated attack on Iran? In my opinion, it is no longer a sure thing. And then there is Russia. The last thing she wants is an expanded war in the Middle East. Russia has recently signed several agreements to bolster Iranians defenses both air defenses and cyber defenses. Lavrov said that the construction of new units of the Bushehr nuclear power plant was discussed during his recent meeting with his Iranian counterpart. He also said "Russia hopes that the United States will return to the JCPOA and that this will be a condition for Iran to implement the JCPOA" and that "Moscow will continue its efforts to ensure that Iran and the United States fully comply with their obligations to the JCPOA in the near future." Russias demonstrated expertise in radio-electronic combat should make Israel think twice about a first strike. Not only would this expertise bolster Irans defenses, but Russia could hamper Israels strike capabilities from her bases in Syria and her ships in the Mediterranean. Russia would not sit this one out. In my opinion, an Israeli strike on Iran is not imminent. Nor is it in the cards in at least the next several years. Israel has to be sure of a convincing victory. A draw would further damage Israels aura of invincibility. Without that, Israels best and brightest will fly away leaving nothing but Talmudic scholars and angry Palestinians to hash things out. There will be conflict as well as more big talk and selling of wolf tickets like I posted at the top of this article. The political maneuvering will continue. Military capabilities will continue to be developed. The intelligence conflict will continue. The cyber conflict will continue. All this will continue until something breaks one way or the other. TTG https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2021/01/29/644100/Israeli-figures-slam-Kochavi-empty-rhetoric https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/iranian-army-spokesman-threatens-to-destroy-tel-aviv-if-israel-attacks-irans-nuclear-facilities/ https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2021/01/28/644011/Iran-Israel-threat-Dehqan-Shekarchi By Arif Sajad The incident of Tharoijam, has shocked and created a climate of fear in the people of state, particularly on the minority community. There is a feeling of insecurity, deprivation, betrayal prevailing amongst the minorities there. The recent incident is a challenge to social fabric, communal harmony, peaceful coexistence, diversity in unity, spirituality, morals, values, toleration and liberal values of Manipur. This article will not give views on allegation to victims as vehicle theft. The case has been initiated and let it be decided by honourable judiciary. This articles will give insight on the root causes of the incident and what can be done to mitigate such incidents. Mob lynching of people from minority on allegations of vehicle theft has been happening frequently at least once a year. So we need to look beyond incidents and search for root causes. Many innocents are becoming victims on false allegation. This allegation has become a tool in the Meitei community in justifying atrocities and hatred towards minority. Support TwoCircles In my perspective, the problems of mob lynching is associated with banality of evils in our society and glorifying hatred. It is a sign of downfall of humanity in our society. In Hindu mythology, the worth of life is described as even Lord Brahama cant be born as a human despite his several attempts. In case of mob lynching, they seems to punish an anti-social person, however the reality is that they are destroying their character, human values, religious tenets. Mahatma Gandhi said, hate the sin, not the sinner. A man of civilized society is symbolized by kind, merciful, love, dutiful and reasonable rather than brutality, rudeness and violence. The role of government is minimal in a civilized society. Strong state is only essential in barbaric society. The need of a strong Government ( rules and punishments ) are needed if we cannot by ourselves lead a life of high values, morals and principles. We are not animals who need external force in the form of punishments and laws to make us live in a humane way. The incident of mob lynching poses two questions. First, Can state provide security of our life? Is Manipur a failed state? A failed state is defined as a state whose political or economic system has become so weak that the government is no longer in control. It has been shown clearly in Tharoijam incident. The police whose main function is attributed as maintaining law and order and protecting people, have enjoyed the violent drama of killing a man. Secondly, Will the faith of the minorities survive and function in the present system? This doubt plagues the minority community. This system is ruled by the majority community from bottom to top. The present government has carried out timely actions against those who were involved. Instead of complaining about the governments failures, we should also to introspect our perceptions towards the other group and communities. The real factors that instigated this incident is breeding of hatred and stereotyping. Such incidents can be minimized if we all self-examine our tolerance levels towards one another. In the case of Tharoijam, the real factors is how the Meiteis view the pangal. It is not consequence of one day, one week or one year. It is the products of decades. The real culprits behind the incident are Meiteis intellectuals (They should not be identical with intellectuals of Manipur because the latter would emphasize on characters of Manipur), Meitei centric organizations and media house. The intellectual of Meiteis are always connecting pangal with the problem of illegal migrants in every debate, discussions and writings. They establish linking of trespassers with pangals. They cant classify the difference between the Muslims outside and the Pangals in the state. The Meitei believe that the Pangal are responsible for illegal migrants of Bangladeshis and Tripuris. The issues of vehicles theft, drug smuggling and anti-social activities have been primarily associated with Pangal as can be understood from the arguments floating around. Instead of relating it to a specific community they should search for the causes of such problems in our society. It would provide genuine solutions. Instead they apply their minds perpetually in arousing hatred and stereotyping a particular community. When I observe most of the organizations existing in Manipur, I can conclude that: there is no single organization that represents the diversity of our state. And those organizations that call themselves as Manipuri organizations focus on the development of only one particular community. They are mainly Meitei centric organization and represent the interests of Meitei community only. They lack involvement on issues of other communities. It may be one of the reason for increasing mistrust among different communities of Manipur. In a diversified society, an organization has vital role in constructing a peaceful coexistence and harmonious society through becoming a space for exchanging and flowing different interests, ideas and views. These organizations should act as an interface of different community. It will be very helpful in forming a collective and sharing interests. At present, however, we cant see such organizations in Manipur. We need either to form such organizations or rectify the challenges and problems in the existing organizations. The freedom of press is fundamental to a democratic state. However in the case of Manipur, the minorities feel that the media is polarising the two communities. Minority feel that media houses are biased, partial and unethical. So the neutrality and impartiality of media house is questionable. Instead of digging out the roots and authenticity of increasing cases of drugs abuse, theft and smuggling in Manipuri society, the media houses give their verdict and declare the pangal to be the culprits. Even the way of portrayal of the Pangal community in films, dramas, sumang lila to entertain the audience and get claps and cheers, gives a negative image of the Pangals. These negative images are generalized and are prejudiced. It encourages stereotyping. The aforesaid anti-social activities are directly proportional to the conditions of society or community, their educational backwardness, economic deprivation and consumerism effects. No parent likes his son to be a thief. There is no one on Earth who does not want to pursue a good life. The maladministration of government, deprivation of pangal in governance, consequently alienations from consumerist societies are responsible for the underdevelopment of pangal. The defunct, delayed, deferred, diverted governments welfare schemes have also impacted enormously on the vulnerabilities of this section of people. Minority sections belong under the category of vulnerable sections. Their economic condition is miserable. They struggle for basics necessities and they cant spend on improvement of standard of living. They cannot afford the cost of educations in private institutions. And most of governmental institutions are paralysed. They remain in the perpetual trap of poverty. These conditions of minority have been aggravated by corruptions, nepotism and collusion inside the system. Before it is too late, the government should deal these issues. The other main reason is progressing consumerism creating an imbalance between spirituality, ethics, societal values and individual morals. Basic human values are compromised for the sake of worldly things. Apart from the pangal community, all others enjoy political power, economic strength, employment opportunities, educational advancement in Manipur. The uneducated, poor, undeveloped, dusty Pangal youth fall either in drugs or anti-social, illegal activities thus compromising the tenets of ethics, religious and conscience, to live at par with materialistic society of Manipur. Consumerism needs to be stopped at some point. If this is not done then the disparity among people will only increase and consequently produce more frustrated sections of people. We the Pangals have also to assess ourselves before pointing towards others as the reason for us becoming downtrodden. We have to change our traditions and conservative way of life. We are living in a democratic country. We are equal with others in eyes of constitution, laws and regulations. We have to articulate our demands, needs, aspiration through different channels. For this the role of representatives of Pangal in the legislative assembly is very important. However the Pangal representatives are at present passive. They are just procedural representatives. They are unable to articulate, compose and demand the aspirations & interests of minority people. Until and unless, we do not elect right person, we will become an orphan in our own State. The Pangal community does not have any dedicated, inspired, committed, and consistent organization of their own which can effectively, diplomatically forms public opinion and pressurize to government for fulfilling of peoples interest. They are also trapped by several challenges. They are not ideologically strong. Their functions is also inconsistent and uncertain. Another main challenge is scarcity of resource. Due to these challenges, they join politicized organizations of few Pangal Brahmins for their existence. However it is a good sign that some organizations of Pangal community like DAMMS, PFI, AMMUCO, AMMSO, PSO, are starting to work in a more committed and consistent manner by pressurizing the government and in developing the community. They need to work together with consistency of ideologies and functions. A coherent society needs sharing of history, culture and customs. The culture and customs of the Pangal and Meitei are extensively similar. However, we do not get to see so much overlapping between the two communities in history. But that does not mean we do not share the same history, contributions and pains. In my opinion, history is a literature which is highly politicized. In our school textbook, we were taught only about how the Pangals came to Manipur but not about their contribution to Manipur. A few negligible amount of stories about the participations of Pangals at Manipur Darbar can be seen here and there. Even in the major events of history like Anglo- Manipur war, Nupi-Lal, statehood movement, the participation and contribution of Pangal is not written in our history textbooks. This is also one major source of mistrust between the two communities. It has created a divide between us. In a state like Manipur where there is extreme diversity, inhabited by different communities and ethics, our school textbooks should cover the contributions, the sharing, the cooperation extended to one another among the different communities to bind them all together. Instead we see no such thing. These lessons if included in the school textbooks will give birth to trust, love and sharing right from the childhood. The rifts are growing at a great pace amongst the communities of Manipur. The tribals do not believe the people from the valley and the people from the valley consider the tribals to be a problem. The rift between Meitei and Pangal has widened. These can easily create fragmentation of Manipur and plague the progress of development and prosperity. If we do not act today, to block this bleeding in the veins of our Manipur, we may never be able to heal the wounds. In my opinion, there are three important actors which can heal such wounds. Firstly, the role of the government is very important. They should remember that peace and prosperity are interlinked. Secondly, Meitei, as a majority community of state, should act the role of guardian of other minority communities, rather than thinking of themselves as superior than others. Meitei should not then they are the synonym of Manipuri. They should be accommodative. Lastly, other communities should also think of themselves as Manipuri, rather than being obsessed with their own community. The most important requirement in Manipur society is to develop the feeling of being a Manipuri. The future of Manipur lies on them, not on any community. Note: Meitei is the majority community of Manipur. 2. Pangal is the minority community of Manipur. 3. This article brings the source of stereotyping against Pangal community. In recent years, on the suspicion of vehicle theft and other false allegations, persons of Pangal community was lynched by the people of majority community. Some incidents are given below: https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/mob-lynching-communal-tension-in-manipur-after-five-arrested-for-beating-man-to-death-on-suspicion-o-1916868 http://kanglaonline.com/2015/11/msad-and-damms-condemn-the-killing-of-muhammad-hasmad-ali/ https://kohraam.com/national/manipui-muslim-students-protest-at-manipur-bhawan-demand-action-against-attackers-of-muslim-boys-57850.html https://www.ifp.co.in/page/items/25808/public-protest-held-against-md-lukman-killing/ The views expressed are personal of the author who can be contacted at: [email protected] Companies today understand this and realize that there are significant business benefits to modernizing and automating their IT processes. We live in an age of constant innovation and disruption, today merely transforming digitally is not enough for businesses to sustain. After all the business landscape in India is constantly being disrupted by IT-driven innovation, and in order to endure in this new digital era, businesses must take a fundamental step to transform their IT to bring products to market faster, create a digital advantage and remain competitive. Companies today understand this and realize that there are significant business benefits to modernizing and automating their IT processes. By doing so, they can improve operational efficiencies, boost productivity, reduce costs and invest these savings in new initiatives and innovations to increase their competitive edge. IT transformation becomes a business imperative Today, fast-emerging technologies, including the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence, are driving new IT imperatives. At the same time, IT practices and cultures have also progressed, most notably with IT departments moving from isolated, technology-centric units into becoming more business focused and integrated. What has changed most over time is the urgency and importance of IT transformation initiatives. Most business activities and goals have become fully dependent on, and inseparable from IT operations. Companies that hope to survive and prosper in todays digital world can do so only by aggressively modernizing and automating their IT infrastructure, adopting new deployment models such as cloud computing, and fine-tuning their operational practices and IT skills. IT transformation in India 90 per cent of Indian respondents agree that failing to embrace IT transformation will hurt their companys competitiveness. Also, IT transformed organizations in India are 10X more likely to execute the majority of application roll-outs ahead of schedule compared to lower scoring organizations. This indicated that, IT Transformation is already gaining strong momentum in India. Today, Indian organizations not only realize the importance of transforming their IT infrastructure to ensure they have a competitive edge, but they also now know that it is crucial to turn data into business intelligence. This requires an end-to-end IT infrastructure that can manage, analyze, store and protect data everywhere it lives. IT transformation as a revenue generator IT transformation initiatives are not just about reducing costs or becoming more efficient, they are also about taking the necessary steps to ensure business success. Efforts to transform IT operations through adoption of technologies such as hyper-converged systems, flash storage, cloud, data protection etc. leads to improving the businesses ability to respond to business needs and achieve better business results. This further helps them to improve agility, business continuity and meet changing business demands- all that will ultimately generate more revenue for the organization. I personally believe its important to give customers the ability to make end-to-end strategy a reality, driving disruptive innovation without the fear of being disrupted themselves. Meeting or staying ahead of customer expectations means every business needs to become fully digital to prosper. That requires data center modernization and migration efforts that not only transform IT, but do so in an efficient, non-disruptive fashion. -By Mr Niladri Saha, GM- Modern Infrastructure, Dell EMC India, India Mumbai: Actor Abhishek Bachchan has defended the decision of the makers to delete three scenes from his latest Manmarziyaan, and said the sequences did not impact the story anyway. The scenes in question featuring Abhishek and Taapsee Pannu smoking had upset a certain section of the Sikh community, following which they were omitted from the film. When asked about the issue, Abhishek said, "Each individual is allowed to react the way they have, and they want to. It's their personal opinion. For me, it's not a big deal. My film isn't about anyone smoking, I have no problem cutting that out if someone has taken objection to it." The actor stressed that the intention of the makers was not to hurt anyone. "The intention of the makers is (not to) upset any community or ruffle any feathers. We just wanted to make a nice love story, and that's what the film is about. If by cutting out one or two shots, if it's going to placate someone and make them feel better, I've no problem doing that." Abhishek was in conversation with journalist Mayank Shekhar at the Jagran Cinema Summit here. When asked if the move sets a bad precedent, the actor said one has to look at the issue in totality. "You have to look at why and who is objecting, what's the purpose behind the objection. If that's genuine, look into it genuinely and address it... You need to ask who's the loser here? In the situation like we are in right now, it's the exhibitors." The actor said so many people down the cinema chain would stand to lose money if one sat on their "ego" over certain scenes. "If there is an objection or a protest, a cinema hall might get vandalised, shows of the exhibitors might get cancelled and that person is going to lose money. If you say it's a bad precedent, please underwrite all the loses that people down the chain are going to face. I'll stand by you. "That's my industry as well, and I've got to think about that. Those one or two shots aren't going to change the story, so take it out. If it's changing the narrative or the reason why I'm making the film, then no. Like in 'Udta Punjab'... But here, I'm not going to sit on my ego for three basic shots, which might affect the exhibitors. New Delhi: Telugu movie 'Ee Maya Peremito' landed in trouble on the day of its release as Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) Chairperson Prasoon Joshi received a letter from Telangana MLA T. Raja Singh stating that one of the songs in the film, Arihanthanam, hurts religious sentiments. Also read: Rahul Vijay is well prepared! Singh, in his letter to Joshi, wrote that the lyrics of the track, which was released over two months ago, are taken from a sacred Jain song, which has hurt the sentiments of the Jain community. The MLA, therefore, requested the makers to remove the words from the song. Several members from the Jain community also took to Twitter to request the film unit to remove the song. Also read: Nani gives voice for Ee Maya Peremito 'Ee Maya Peremito', which released on September 21, has five songs, and 'Arihanthanam' is one among them. Mani Sharma has composed the music for this soundtrack, while Shree Mani wrote the lyrics for it. Anurag Kulkarni and Sahithi Chaganti rendered their voices for the track, which was released online in July. Researchers found that the rate of first-time cardiovascular events was 20 to 30 percent higher among people who started taking diclofenac. (Photo: Pixabay) The commonly used painkiller diclofenac may be linked with an increased risk of heart problems, a large Danish study suggests. Diclofenac is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) thats often used to treat arthritis and other painful joint conditions. In many countries, its available without a prescription. Researchers found that the rate of first-time cardiovascular events was 20 to 30 percent higher among people who started taking diclofenac than among people who started taking ibuprofen or naproxen, which are also NSAIDs, or paracetamol (acetaminophen). These events included heart attacks, development of an irregular heart rhythm called atrial fibrillation, or death from heart problems. The rate of new heart problems was 50 percent higher for diclofenac users than for people who werent taking any painkillers. The researchers analyzed data from the Danish national patient registry. Altogether, they had information on nearly 1.4 million diclofenac users, 3.9 million ibuprofen users, 292,000 naproxen users, 765,00 paracetamol users, and 1.3 million people not on any of these painkillers. It is important to note that the absolute risk for the individual patient is low, Morten Schmidt, lead author of the study, told Reuters Health in an email. For example, among every 400 study participants taking diclofenac, roughly one person per year had a cardiovascular event, his team calculated. Fewer people had cardiovascular events while taking other painkillers. Schmidt and his coauthors say there is little reason to use diclofenac before trying other NSAIDs first. The drug should not be available over the counter, they say, and when prescribed, should be accompanied by appropriate warnings about its potential risks. The increased risk was apparent even within 30 days of starting the drug and even with low doses, the researchers reported in The BMJ. Schmidt said diclofenac was also associated with an increased gastrointestinal bleeding risk compared with ibuprofen. The real question is, do these different NSAIDs carry different risks... and the study showed that modestly diclofenac appears to be worse, David Kaufman, Director of the Slone Epidemiology Center at Boston University, who was not involved with the study, said. Because it wasnt a controlled experiment, the study cant prove that diclofenac actually caused more cardiovascular events. Still, the authors say, their study included more people than most previous analyses and provides strong evidence to guide clinical decision making. It is time to acknowledge the potential health risk of diclofenac and to reduce its use, the research team concludes. The running battle between the liberals and the bhakts is the spice of twitter space. We seem so sharply divided along political lines now that the opposing groups are just waiting to troll each other the moment they smell an opening. And Mohandas Pai, an IT veteran who is now an academician, left himself open to ridicule by quoting an obvious fake site with regard to an Indian political party being among the most corrupt in the world. No tweet testimonial may be needed for a party to be thought corrupt and Indians ones probably as much as the best in the world in this matter. The story on the fake site titled, Top 10 List of Most Corrupt Political Party in the World 2018 listed Indian National Congress in second place, sharing honours with the Nazi Party, Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) and National Fascist Party. How someone with Pais IT experience could pick a notorious fake site, which once said Narendra Modi ranked among the most corrupt world leaders, is beyond comprehension. And it took him more than a while to acknowledge that the bbcnewshub was a fake, having earlier said that it did not matter to him whether a site was fake or genuine and it is the information on the site is what matters. Twitter space was extremely busy for a while, even if the exchanges were more of hate than humour. Shashi Tharoor @iamsashitharoor Vivek Agnihotri: Urban Naxal Mohandas Pai: Cyber NaxalVK Singh: Prestitute NaxalAmit Malvya: Pidi NaxalShefali Vaidya: Paupu Naxal all of them should be jointly awarded Noble Prize for online trolling! Rajdeep Sardesai @sardesairajdeep Dear Mr Pai, whether they are corrupt or not, to quote from a fake site, attribute it then to the venerable BBC, is very bad form. Isn't it better to delete your original tweet rather than seeking to confuse people? Ramesh Menon @krameshmenon It has nothing to do with being well read, having data et al. It has to do with being biased, blinkered, having blind hatred towards someone and being influenced by others who think the same way Sachin@sxpati2 Replying to @TVMohandasPai Is this how you ran the Infosys by providing false references, unverified sources and testimonials? Reena Satin@ReenaSatin Tomorrow i make a site and include Pai and others in the list of aghoris, would he say the site does not matter, the names are the issue? Siddharth @Actor_Siddharth Ultimately, we will be remembered and quite rightly so by quality of the people we side with. "Trump is right... " - Mohandas Pai (2018). Do you also like 'alternative facts'? We can continue this discussion when the SC rules on the matter. Till then it's just #News twitter.com/TVMohandasPai/ V Nagaraj @nagarajv2121 Forget the news site being fake or not. In any case there are no prizes for answering correctly as to which Pol Party is among the most corrupt in the world! There is proverb @Nidhi that one doesn't need a mirror to see a wound on one's hand!! JayEnAar? @Gorway Global STOP. Right there. Its a fake website. Lets not give it any importance lest we validate Pai's fondnesd for #FakeNews. The ppl named may well be corrupt but we must cite reliable evidence or else we'll have to give credence to any and all bullshit Atul Patel @atoolpatel I beleive ??@TVMohandasPai?? is not sharing any article from NDTV...!!! Why are you rattled? The pioneer in fake news peddling should not complain While u need to troll Mohandas pai to get some attraction from main stream, pl choose the topics wisely Satyam Tripathi @satyam6247 Replying to @TVMohandasPai Kindly name the cases in which INC leaders have been convicted by a court, and have served! Since you consider it to be one of the most corrupt in entire world, atleast name 10 Mohandas Pai@tvMohandas Pai The issue is the names in the list and the info,not the site. Have you read the list,would you say those political parties have no history of corruption?Most of them are more than 50 years and have a well documented history!why defend the names when you are well read,have Data Nidhi Razdan@Nidhi How sad that you would seek it fit to share "news" from what we all know is a fake news site. That's the issue here Hyderabad: A second case of sexual assault at Azaan International School came to light on Friday. The second victim, Class I student, was reportedly assaulted on September 14, the same day a four-year-old LKG student was raped by a school employee. The school had organised a science exhibition on that day. It was not clear if the Class 1 student was assaulted by the same man, supervisor Mohd Jeelani, who allegedly raped the LKG student. Golconda inspector Mohd Munnawar told this correspondent: A parent approached us alleging that his daughter, who is studying in Class I, was sexually assaulted on September 14 on the school premises. We have registered a case and started investigations. Golconda inspector Mohn Munnawar, who said the parent of the Class 1 student had filed a complaint, said: They said they wanted to file a complaint the same day, but backed off after noticing the trouble and media glare at the school when the other case was reported. Mohd Jeelani, a supervisor, arrested for allegedly for sexually assaulting the four-year-old student, has been since sent to judicial remand. The first case resulted in locals vandalising the school and police registering four cases against the protestors. The incident came to the fore when the girl complained of pain to her father. She was taken to a hospital, where she narrated the episode to the doctors. A case has been booked against the man. Based on a complaint filed by the parents in the first case, the Golconda police station registered a case under IPC Section 376 2(i) (public servant taking advantage of his official position and rapes a woman in his custody) and relevant sections of POCSO (Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences) Act of 2012. The accused was sent to judicial remand. The car, which they were driving, was seized and bags of ganja was found in the trunk of the car and also hidden within the seat cushions. Chennai: Directorate to revenue intelligence (DRI) sleuths nabbed two men who smuggled ganja into Tamil Nadu from Andhra Pradesh with intent to send it overseas to Sri Lanka on Saturday. Acting on a tip-off they received two days ago, DRI officials had been watching all activities along the Andhra Pradesh-Tamil Nadu border for the last two days. Zeroing in on a car travelling into the state in the wee hours of Saturday morning, they waited at Sulurpet in Sriharikotta. As expected, the car crossed into Tamil Nadu, and was cornered. Two men, who were in the car, attempted to flee but were nabbed by the DRI. On investigation, it was found that the two men were only transporting the drugs and had no other role to play, sources said. The car, which they were driving, was seized and bags of ganja was found in the trunk of the car and also hidden within the seat cushions. A total of 230 kgs of ganja, worth over Rs 5 crore was seized, they said. The two men confessed that they were to drive to Nagapattinam and hand-over the drugs, which would be sent to Sri Lanka, by sea. They have been taken to the DRI office in T Nagar for further investigation. They have also confessed that five people were involved in smuggling. Further investigations are on. Majority of the arrested accused told the police that they took to crime because they did not have a stable job. It was also found that they were influenced by others with criminal background in their localities. (Representional Image) Bengaluru: School dropouts and ex-criminals now have a chance to lead a normal life with the city police launching a programme, 'Bharawase' (Hope), to bring them back to the mainstream. The West division police in the city, who have started the programme after consulting City Police Commissioner T. Suneel Kumar, found that muggings, thefts and robberies were occurring mainly because of unemployment and lack of proper education. Majority of the arrested accused told the police that they took to crime because they did not have a stable job. It was also found that they were influenced by others with criminal background in their localities. A senior police officer said, "The West division has a number of slums under its jurisdiction and there are hundreds of school dropouts in these pockets. They are easily influenced by criminals as they are young. When we were investigating several cases, the common factor was that these teenagers and even adults did not have stables jobs. We decided to help them in some way and thought of training them in carpentry, painting, soap making and other courses and also to enrol them in personality development classes. This has been received well by the people. We are planning to start the programme across the city to ensure that the younger generation does not go astray." Deputy Commissioner of Police (West) Ravi D. Channannavar, who is the brain behind the programme, said, "We coordinated with an NGO, Amruthabindu, and designed the programme. Currently, we have three batches with 50 students each from all age groups. Our aim is to ensure that they give up their criminal ways and learn how to read and write Kannada or English. These people are also being trained in carpentry, plumbing, drawing and more. This will keep them busy and will not allow them to get their mind diverted. It will also prevent them from getting influenced by anti-social elements." He said that the programme should be introduced across the city to help such people lead a normal life. An analysis of the existing rules for community pharmacies and e-pharmacies shows that the draft rules for e-pharmacies are much better and user friendly than the pre-independence Drugs and Cosmetic Rules for physical pharmacies. Finally, the idea of e-pharmacy is about to take off in India. The Union government has notified the draft rules on the establishment of legal e-pharmacies in the gazette last month, inviting objections and suggestions within 45 days. What does it promise to the Indian customer? After prolonged deliberations and studies, the Union government has notified the draft rules on the establishment of legal e-pharmacies in the gazette on August 28, inviting objections and suggestions within 45 days. In an era of globalisation, e-pharmacies cannot be blocked. However, a section of the community pharmacies lead by All-India Chemists and Druggists Association is agitating against the approval of e-pharmacies by observing a 24-hour strike on September 28. The brick and mortar community pharmacies have a natural fear that e-pharmacies will take a share of their business. But they fail to understand that such agitations will only help to popularise e-pharmacies. They can very well demand similar renovations in the area of physical pharmacies, majority of which are not in good shape and situations. Government support is needed for bringing quality services and reasonable profit margins in pharmacies which are essential to bring them to global standards. There are about eight lakh community pharmacies and two lakh hospital pharmacies working with licenses from the regulators in India. Another two lakhs are working without proper licences. Most of the brick and mortar type pharmacies are yet to have a proper prescription filing system in India, though the Pharmacy Practice Regulations 2015 and the Drugs and Cosmetic Rule insists for the same. Breaking barriers of information and services Digital India is a flagship programme of the government of India. It aims to transform India into a digitally empowered nation with the support of creating digital infrastructure, digital literacy and digital delivery of services. It aims to empower society to avail government services transparently, conveniently and easily. Digital India is expected to boost the economic growth of the nation and improve the lives of people. There is dramatic growth in the number of online transactions involving citizens and the government ( e-governance) in recent times. If it was 840 million in 2013, it became 2,580 millions in 2015 and increased many folds during 2017-18. E-pharmacy can very well align with the national development objectives and has clear and tangible benefits to the consumers as well as the industry. A unique feature of information technology is its ability to break barriers of information lying with experts. E-governance, e-health, e-pharmacy are all its beneficiaries. Studies have shown that a significant proportion of the Indian population is willing to purchase medicine, pharmaceuticals and other related products over the internet due to its inherent advantages. Quality assurance, economic prices, incentives, schemes, discounts, convenience in ordering, transparency and tracking system, home delivery with preferred time and address are some of the important advantages that will motivate consumers/ patients to shift towards e-pharmacy, like other e-commerce activities. Potential for e-pharmacies in India At the global level e-pharmacies have a market of $29.3 billion in 2014, both North America and Europe sharing it. It is estimated that by 2023, the global market of e-pharmacy will be $128 billion. According to one Boston Group report in 2016, China has an e-pharmacy market share of $1.1 billion. The potential area for the global e-pharmacy market lies in the Asia Pacific market. Though e-pharmacy is only in the gestational stage in India, it has the potential to become a very large industry segment in the very near future. Rapidly changing consumer behaviour, increasing penetration of internet to the rural areas and the availability of smart phones are some of the major driving forces for the popularisation of e-commerce and e-pharmacies in India. Strength of Indian e-pharmacy rules Though there are some grey areas in the draft rules, the Indian e-pharmacy rules are better than that of many other countries where legal pharmacies are in existence, including the US. The Central Drugs Control Authority will have to notify all the approved e-pharmacies in their web- portal. E-pharmacies have to disclose all specified information on their websites and can sell medicines only with the support of cash bills. It is to be noted that currently there is no such portal notification even for the manufacturing firms and their products in India. An analysis of the existing rules for community pharmacies and e-pharmacies shows that the draft rules for e-pharmacies are much better and user friendly than the pre-independence Drugs and Cosmetic Rules for physical pharmacies. In fact, the arrival of e-pharmacies in a professional and smart manner will only help improve the quality of services of existing traditional pharmacies. It will also help modernise our out-dated prescription dispensing practice styles in India. Let there be a healthy and professional style of competition. E-pharmacies implemented under the new Rules will not promote self medication or irrational use of medicines compared to the existing physical pharmacies. In its proposed structure, e-pharmacies can promote prudent use of medicines. E-pharmacies are expected to open newer avenues for qualified pharmacists with innovative ideas. Drug regulation including supervision and monitoring will become transparent and effective in the case of e-pharmacies. It will also necessitate to make our drugs control/FDA smart and effective both at centre and state levels. They have to seek the support of IT experts with them. E-pharmacies Vs physical pharmacies Currently there is lot of misunderstanding about e-pharmacies in India. Some believe that it will have an adverse impact on the traditional brick and mortar pharmacies and argue it will take away the employment potentials of pharmacists. Others anticipate promotion of unethical practices in pharmacy practice. All are just hypothetical phobias. In reality, e-pharmacy models can help the existing traditional pharmacies to grow and expand. They will help community pharmacies to cater to a broader set of customers and ensure that the inventory is consolidated by reducing the budget requirements, removing wastage from system and increasing margins, thereby making the community pharmacies more sustainable. Existing physical pharmacies too can start online operations and serve a broader set of customers. Similarly a network of pharmacies also can integrate one platform and access a broader customer base. Since e-pharmacy has a stringent documentation process, the taxes paid on all transactions will largely benefit the Government . Every order dispensed through e-pharmacy will have a valid bill or cash receipt and tax to the Government has to be paid in full. Grey areas in new rules The new Rules failed to specify an outline of standard operating procedure (SOP) for the e-pharmacies, including storage, transport inventory control and the role of personnel employed including pharmacists. Storage plays a vital role in preserving the potency of medicines in general and items to be preserved in cool and cold places in particular. Integrity, quality and effectiveness of medicines have to be preserved while packing, transporting and delivering. The principles of generic prescription and dispensing needs to be addressed specifically. Since a prescription cannot be over dispensed with respect to items and quantities, can a scanned copy of prescription as such be made valid for dispensing of prescription items through e-pharmacies? Many international e-pharmacies are operating illegally in India and the new draft Rules are silent in that issue. Its advantage customer when sales of drugs go online Tracking of Data All the details regarding the e-pharmacy transactions will be properly documented on e-platforms. All transactions could be tracked with details of the medicines, batch number, date of manufacture and expiry, e-pharmacy name and address, prescribing doctor, dispensing pharmacist and patient details, reducing many unethical issues and practices. E-pharmacies can store and analyse data on consumers, which would be useful for planning public health policies. Authenticity, quality The IT-based tracking systems of e-pharmacies will help make the medicine market transparent and authentic. Back-tracing facility to identify the manufacturer/channel/supplier will help identify and avoid the sub-standard or low quality medicines and counterfeit medicines. As the government is working on the introduction of bar codes for all medicines and has already introduced the system of generic dispensing in the country, e-pharmacies can act as a catalyst in cost reduction, quality assurance and availability of medicines at economic costs. Improved accessibility With the use of information technology and access to inventory of multiple stores at a time, e-pharmacies can aggregate supplies, making otherwise difficult-to-find medicines available to consumers across the cou ntry. Community pharmacies can generally keep only a limited inventory forcing the consumer to visit multiple pharmacies to procure the medicines. E-pharmacies enable access to rural areas where there is shortage of community pharmacies. E-pharmacies will be much helpful and useful for regular users of medicines and also for senior citizens and disabled who find it difficult to travel to the community pharmacies. Medicines will reach their door steps, quite often at less costs. Professional service India has already introduced the system of generic prescriptions and dispensing. Doctors who were not taught about brand names or trade names during the education period are prescribing costly brands to poor people in the name of quality. Quality is not related to brand or generic names, but to the manufacturers and their process. It is the responsibility of the governments to ensure quality of medicines manufactured/ marketed in the country. E-pharmacies allow the consumer to choose from a wide range of generic equivalents for a particular branded drug. This is currently not possible in the Indian community pharmacies. OTC medicines can be sold through the e-pharmacies without prescriptions as in the case of other pharmacies. Cost benefits E-pharmacies will help pharmacy entrepreneurs to broaden their customer base while reducing financial investment, working capital and overhead costs. They will also get increased margins. Patients and consumers will get quality medicines at lower costs. Medicine safety Questions about medications could also be answered by e- pharmacists using e-mail, Whatsapp or other real-time chat options. As pharmacists at the e-pharmacy will be the final decision maker for dispensing a drug, e-pharmacy shall have a team of competent pharmacists for validation of a prescription and for handling any drug related queries from the patients. Qualified pharmacist would be necessary in e-pharmacies to provide value added professional services. Medication errors can be more effectively addressed through e-pharmacies than the existing Indian community pharmacies. OTC medicines can be sold through the e-pharmacies without prescriptions as in the case of other pharmacies. E-prescriptions E-pharmacies would also enable the doctors to adopt e-prescriptions, which in turn can address issues of errors due to misreading of doctors bad handwriting and also help to recording of data for public health planning programmes. Chavan further alleged that details pertaining to the Rafale deal, which he claimed was a scam, was being brushed under the carpet under the guise of national security. (Photo: PTI/File) Mumbai: The Maharashtra Congress will carry out a protest march on September 27 here to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the formation of a Joint Parliamentary Committee to probe the Rafale fighter jet deal. Addressing a press conference Saturday, Maharashtra Congress chief Ashok Chavan hit out at Modi claiming that for the latter, business interests of friends was greater than the interest of the nation. He further alleged that details pertaining to the Rafale deal, which he claimed was a scam, was being brushed under the carpet under the guise of national security. "Modi and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman are misleading the people and betraying their trust. Both should resign immediately. Due to the scam, Modi's corrupt face has been exposed," Chavan claimed. The Congress has been accusing massive irregularities in the deal, alleging that the government was procuring each aircraft at a cost of over Rs 1,670 crore as against Rs 526 crore finalised by the UPA government when it was negotiating procurement of 126 Rafale jets. Chavan also hit out at the Centre for not having a firm policy on restive Kashmir. "The government is preparing to celebrate surgical strikes (as Surgical Strike Day on September 29). But, terrorists severed the head of a soldier. Army personnel are getting martyred in Kashmir every day," he said. The University Grants Commission (UGC) had Thursday directed varsities and higher educational institutions across the country to observe September 29 as "Surgical strike day". In another development, Nationalist Congress Party's Maharashtra unit chief Jayant Patil Saturday claimed that the Modi government's clarification on the Rafale aircraft deal had no meaning after former French President Francois Hollande's comment on it. "The Modi government has been fully exposed," Patil claimed. Hollande was quoted in a French media report as purportedly saying that the Indian government proposed Anil Ambani-led Reliance Defence as the partner for Dassault Aviation in the Rs 58,000 crore Rafale jet fighter deal and France did not have a choice. The Defence Ministry, in a statement Saturday, said "unnecessary controversies" are being sought to be created following media reports regarding a statement purportedly made by Hollande concerning the selection of Reliance Defence as the offset partner by Dassault Aviation, the manufacturers of Rafale aircraft. "The government has stated earlier and again reiterates that it had no role in the selection of Reliance Defence as the Offset partner," the ministry said on Saturday. 'Modi Ji you dishonoured the blood of our martyred soldiers. Shame on you,' Congress president Rahul Gandhi tweeted. (Photo: File | PTI) New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday accusing him of "betraying" the country with his role in the Rafale deal. Rahul Gandhi said the Prime Minister and owner of Reliance Defence Anil Dhirubhai Ambani jointly carried out a surgical strike" worth one hundred and thirty thousand crore on the Indian defence forces. "Modi Ji you dishonoured the blood of our martyred soldiers. Shame on you," the Congress chief tweeted. The PM and Anil Ambani jointly carried out a One Hundred & Thirty Thousand Crore, SURGICAL STRIKE on the Indian Defence forces. Modi Ji you dishonoured the blood of our martyred soldiers. Shame on you. You betrayed India's soul. #Rafale Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) September 22, 2018 Rahul Gandhi's attack on PM Modi and Anil Ambani comes a day an article by a French website quoted former French President Francois Hollande claiming that the Indian government had asked the French government to nominate Reliance Defence as its India partner for Rafale deal. "We had no say in this regard," Hollande was quoted by the website as saying. "The Indian government proposed this service group and Dassault negotiated with Ambani." Since then, the Modi government has come under severe attack from the Congress over the Rafale deal. Read: No choice given, India suggested Reliance for Rafale deal: Hollande In response to the claim, the statement on Friday said: "The French government is in no manner involved in the choice of the Indian industrial partners who have been, are being or will be selected by French companies." Also Read: Not involved in choosing Indian partners in Rafale deal, clarifies France Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the procurement of a batch of 36 Rafale jets after holding talks with then French President Hollande on April 10, 2015 in Paris. The opposition party has been accusing the government of choosing Reliance Defence over state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd to benefit the private firm though it did not have any experience in the aerospace sector. The deal to purchase 36 Rafale fighter jets from France was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015. (Photo: File | PTI) New Delhi: Hours after the interview of former French president Francois Hollande published in the French publication quoted him saying that the Indian government was the one which proposed Anil Ambanis Reliance Defence as Dassault Aviations partner in the multi-billion dollar Rafale fighter jet deal, a new political storm brewed up in India on Friday. To clarify its stand, Dassault Aviation, the makers of the Rafale jet, put out a statement after Francois Hollande's interview was published. Heres the full text of Dassault Aviation's statement on Rafale deal contract: About the Rafale contract for India (Saint-Cloud, France September 21, 2018) - Dassault Aviation provides the following clarifications regarding the contract signed in 2016 for 36 Rafale aircraft to India: 1. This contract is a government-to-government agreement. It provides for a separate contract in which Dassault Aviation commits to make compensation investments (offsets) in India worth 50 per cent of the value of the purchase. 2. This offsets contract is delivered in compliance with the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) 2016 regulations. In this framework, and in accordance with the policy of Make in India, Dassault Aviation has decided to make a partnership with India's Reliance Group. This is Dassault Aviation's choice, as CEO Eric Trappier had explained in an interview published in MINT newspaper on April 17, 2018. This partnership has led to the creation of the Dassault Reliance Aerospace Ltd (DRAL) joint-venture in February 2017. Dassault Aviation and Reliance have built a plant in Nagpur for manufacturing parts for Falcon and Rafale aircraft. The Nagpur site was chosen because of the availability of land with direct access to an airport runway, an essential condition of aeronautic activities. 3. Other partnerships have been signed with other companies such as BTSL, DEFSYS, Kinetic, Mahindra, Maini, SAMTEL,... Other negotiations are ongoing with a hundred-odd other potential partners. 4. Dassault Aviation is very proud that the Indian authorities have selected the Rafale fighter. The French government clarified their in picking Indian industrial partners in the Rafale jet deal. It said, The French government is in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners who have been, are being, or will be selected by French companies. In accordance with Indias acquisition procedure, French companies have the full freedom to choose the Indian partner companies that they consider to be the most relevant, then present for the Indian governments approval the offsets projects that they wish to execute in India with these local partners so as to fulfil their obligations in this regard, it added. It said that the intergovernmental agreement was signed on September 23, 2016 between the Indian and French governments for supplying India with 36 Rafale aircrafts. (Screengrab: https://in.ambafrance.org/India-15906) The deal to purchase 36 Rafale fighter jets from France was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015. The UPA government was earlier negotiating a deal to procure 126 Rafale jets, with 18 to come in flyaway condition and 108 to be manufactured by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) under licence. The Modi government has repeatedly said it was Dassault that chose its India partner for offsets and that the Indian government had no say in the deal. Hyderabad: Caretaker irrigation minister T. Harish Rao created a political flutter on Friday after he talked about quitting politics. The statement gained significance in the backdrop of his supporters saying he was being sidelined. Mr Harish Rao made these comments while addressing people at a function in Ibrahimpur, a village he has adopted, where he was felicitated for bringing in development. Locals took out a huge rally in support of Mr Harish Rao and passed a unanimous resolution that they would vote only for the minister in the upcoming election as a token of gratitude. Mr Harish Rao who turned emotional at the show of affection said, I feel like quitting politics now when I am enjoying enormous love and tremendous support. I will continue to serve you irrespective of whether I will be in politics or not. His comments created a political furore in the TRS. His supporters claim that Mr Harish Rao was upset with the party leadership for sidelining him to clear the way for the elevation of Mr K.T. Rama Rao, son of TRS president and caretaker Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, as CM. Mr Harish Rao, who has been giving interviews to various TV channels of late, is being asked a common question: Whether or not he would be willing to work in KTR's Cabinet. Mr Harish Rao has offered a standard reply: He was ready to work with anyone as directed by his boss, Mr Chandrasekhar Rao. Mr Harish Raos supporters claimed that he was not only being sidelined in the party. Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next. In the photograph shared widely by social media users, the boy, believed to be Anil's son, was seen grieving next to his body. (Photo: Twitter | Screengrab) New Delhi: Disputing claims over Rs 57 lakh raised by an NGO to help the family of a 27-year-old man who died while manually cleaning a sewer line at a residential apartment in Dwarka area of Delhi have triggered confusion. The NGO had decided to raise the money after a photograph of a boy grieving next to Anil's body had gone viral on social media. Anil died on September 14 after he slipped when descending into the 20-feet deep sewer as the rope tied around his waist snapped and he went into a free fall. In the photograph shared widely by social media users, the boy, believed to be Anil's son, was seen grieving next to his body. The photograph moved netizens and NGO Uday Foundation launched a campaign to help Anil's family. However, his sister Geeta said Anil never married and the woman, who has claimed that she is his wife and mother to the boy seen in the photograph and two other children, is Anil's maternal aunt. "There is some foul play in his death. The woman who claims to be his wife is actually our mausi (maternal aunt). Her husband lives in Mumbai and Anil had been living with her for close to three years. He was never married but used to treat her kids as his own children," Geeta told PTI. Geeta claimed Anil was in a live-in relationship with his maternal aunt. She said she is ready to share the money raised by the NGO with their mausi. Anil and his maternal aunt had a biological son who died of pneumonia four months ago, a member of the NGO said. "We are deeply pained. The children were adopted by Anil and he had raised them as his own. The children are in a vulnerable condition. We will take a collective decision on the funds raised through the social media campaign," said Yashwant Deshmukh, one of the founding members of the foundation. Hyderabad: With the grand alliance pitting a common candidate against him, attention is turning to how caretaker Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao will perform in his Gajwel seat. In the eight elections from 1983, Gajwel has never repeated its legislator in straight elections. Only Dr J Geetha Reddy from the Congress and the TDs B. Sanjeeva Rao have won twice from Gajwel but not in consecutive elections. In 2014, Mr Rao won Gajwel with 19,391 votes against the TDs Vanteru Pratap Reddy who is now being fielded by the Congress. The TRS polled 86,694 votes while the TD got 67,303 votes and the Congress 34,085, which totals about 1 lakh votes. These two parties are on the same side now. Mr T. Narsa Reddy, the 2014 Congress candidate, has joined the TRS. While the Congress, TD, CPI and the TJS are coming together, the Chief Minister in the last four years has changed the face of Gajwel by spending crores of rupees and taking up development works. The TRS is confident that Mr Rao will get a bigger margin, though some TRS local leaders have switched over to the Congress. There is another sentiment attached to Gajwel. In the last eight elections, the party that won Gajwel also formed government in the state. The TD did this four times, the Congress in 1989, 2004 and 2009 and the TRS in 2014. HYDERABAD: The BJPs AP unit has challenged the CM Mr Naidu to dissolve the House and seek early poll as it has lost legitimacy to govern. Lawlessness prevails in AP as police and politicians trade in accusations and counter accusations, stated the BJP. Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha leader Mr Vishnuvardhan Reddy on Saturday, said that AP was fit to go for early polls as there was a breakdown of constitutional machinery with no co-ordination between police and administration leading to utterly chaotic conditions in the state. Posing a question to Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu to name his finance minster as most of the state briefs pertaining to finance and revenue were being answered by the Planning Commission vice-president Mr C. Kutumaba Rao, Mr Reddy asked, Who is the finance minister of AP? Is it Yanamala Ramakrishnudu or C. Kutumba Rao? He demanded that the AP Government should make its stand clear on this and rein in Kutumba Rao who was seen as a first-line defender of the State Government. Mr Vishnuvardhan Reddy said that both Rayalaseema and north coastal districts were neglected by the Naidu government. He alleged that the CM had diverted central funds granted to Rayalaseema elsewhere. He urged State Governor Mr. ESL Narasimhan as head of the state to advise the Chief Minister Mr. N Chandrababu Naidu to not allow politically nominated representatives like Kutumba Rao to hold press briefs on behalf of the finance ministry. Following complaints by residents of East Division, BBMP officials filled the potholes with crushed stones and assured that asphalting will take place on Monday Image: DC Bengaluru: On Saturday, residents from Banaswadi, Seva Nagar, Kasturi Nagar, Horamavu, Ramamurthy Nagar and surrounding areas, which fall under the East division of the BBMP, stormed into the jurisdictional Palike office, asking officials as to why potholes in residential areas were not being filled, while major repair work has been taken up across the city. Since the Karnataka High Court ordered the BBMP to fill all the potholes in the city by Monday, the BBMP has gone on an overdrive. But people from residential areas have been complaining that roads in the interiors and residential areas are being ignored, even though they are full of potholes. When the citizens laid siege to the BBMP office, the dumbstruck officials immediately ordered contractors to ensure that even interior roads are repaired. An official from the BBMP East division, who wished not to be identified, said, "When the residents started asking us why interior roads in residential areas were not being covered, we did not have a reply. We immediately consulted our senior officers, who told us to ensure that interior roads too are pothole-free. We then asked the contractors, but they maintained that the interior roads were in good shape and did not need repairs. When we reported it back to senior officials, they warned the contractors, went to the spots where potholes were seen in residential areas and ensured that they were filled. As of Saturday, we have cleaned and covered the potholes with crushed stones. We will take up asphalting work on Monday." The residents said that the sudden spurt in BBMP activity is only to cover up their past mistakes. "When the High Court ordered that there should no potholes in the city, it means even roads in residential areas that have potholes. But the BBMP is concerned only about main roads. In fact, roads in the interiors and residential areas are in far worse condition than main roads and have not been asphalted for ages. If the BBMP fails to act, we will approach the High Court to ensure that no area is neglected. Remember, we also pay our taxes," Mr Ramesh Narasimha, a resident of Horamavu, warned. Another resident said that unless the public take to street, no work gets done. Mr Shantha Kumar, a resident of Ramamurthy Nagar, said that it is the duty of every citizen to question the officials. "It is only when we questioned that the BBMP officials sprung into action and deployed a JCB machine and a team of workers, who started covering potholes in residential areas of Ramamurthy Nagar," he said. Problem between contractors, BBMP Another senior officer from the BBMP, who did not want to be named, said that as per rules, the contractors are under contractual obligation to maintain roads for a certain period, but they don't do it. "We should just get rid of contractors and all the works should be handled by the government or BBMP. Until the contractors exist, the city will never improve. The contractors don't maintain the roads after laying them, and we get blamed for their mistakes." Will the deadline be met? The BBMP has to further hasten the repair works to meet the Monday deadlines set by the Karnataka High Court to make Bengaluru pothole-free, experts said. But Mayor Sampath Raj was confident of clearing the city of all potholes in the next 24 hours. "The work is being carried out at a brisk pace and we are confident that we will finish it by Monday. If required, we will work even on Sunday. Till Saturday, the officials have worked round the clock," he said. Chennai: A lifer in a child rape case was acquitted by the Madras high court ordering his release from the prison while slamming the police for its sham investigation and the trial court too for failing to spot the real culprit. In an interesting twist in the case, a prime witness has now landed in trouble as the division bench comprising Justices S. Vimala and S. Ramathilagam directed the prosecution to arraign him as the real accused and remitted the case back to the trial court to complete the trial within three months. The six-year-old girl was abducted around the midnight of February 6, 2008, while sleeping beside her father and visually challenged mother. The parents were tenants of a realtor called Kaatu Raja at whose construction site in Saidapet she was later found unconscious with bleeding injuries on her head and private parts. She was rushed to the Corporation hospital in Saidapet, shifted to the Egmore children's hospital and finally to the Rajiv Gandhi government general hospital, where she regained consciousness three months later and was in a condition to speak t the police. The police team investigating the crime arrested young Iyyappan, working as coolie for Kaatu Raja in his building works after the latter pointed finger at him when asked by the investigating officer (IO) if there was any unmarried man in that area. The Mahila Court in Chennai conducted the trial and sentenced Iyyappan to life imprisonment after accepting the prosecution case that his employer Kaatu Raja had himself identified him while the child victim did not remember who had abducted her. Iyyappan moved an appeal before the high court. Pulling up the police for its flawed probe, the Bench said it appeared that Kaatu Raja as a good script-writer had himself inspired the prosecution story so as to escape detection by getting his worker Iyyappan trapped. Perhaps he would later get him released if possible. That explained the IO's question on 'unmarried man' which could have been actually penned by Raja himself. The climax sent the innocent behind the bars, while the manipulator went whistling scot free, said the Bench. When there were accused persons ranging from adolescents to octogenarians, it was not known what made the investigating officer to question as to who was the unmarried person in the area, said the Bench. Besides, the IO did not bother to take into account the statement made by the child victim to the doctor that she was hit on the head by Kaatu Raja, nor did the trial court lean on it while arriving at its verdict. Both went by the childs admission she did not see the face of the abductor. How a sleepy child could have seen the face of her abductor at midnight, wondered the Bench, pointing out that the victim had told the doctor she was hit by Kaatu Raja. However, the child would have got the opportunity to see the face at the time when she had been beaten, sexually abused etc., She might have identified the accused even by his voice. Without understanding the situation in a realistic way the (trial) court has simply brushed aside the statement of the victim child, the Bench said. The Bench said when the child had stated once before the doctor, once before the police and once before the (trial) court that it was only Kaatu Raja who was the culprit, what was the difficulty to proceed against Kaatu Raja was a mystery to be found out. The Bench said the judicial propriety requires a quality to read in-between the lines what the prosecution relies, claims and to find some hidden agenda into the scheme by the prosecution. Bengaluru: If the JD(S)-Congress coalition government in Karnataka thought it had seen off the threat from the BJP to pull down their four-month-old government, think again! On Saturday, Operation Kamal 2 was back in play as two Congress MLAs and an independent MLA, left the city for an undisclosed destination, with the speculation being that they were the latest targets of the BJPs Operation Lotus. Hosakote MLA, M.T.B. Nagaraj, Chikkaballapur MLA, Dr Sudhakar and Mulabagilu independent MLA, H. Nagesh all of whom have been upset over not getting a berth in the Cabinet who left after lunch at a hotel in the city, were seen heading to Chennai, setting off speculation that they could be going to Mumbai via Tamil Nadu to confuse the JD(S) and the Congress bigwigs who had been asked to keep an eye on them. Although Dr Sudhakar sent messages to some of his friends claiming he was still in Bengaluru, it is believed the MLAs are heading to Maharashtra to meet with a prominent BJP politician from the BJP run state, who has reportedly been given the task of wooing Congress MLAs from Hyderabad and Mumbai Karnataka. Meanwhile, Mr Siddaramaiah, who has started giving pep talks to unhappy party MLAs, met Mr Anand Singh and Mr Zameer Ahmed Khan at his home on Saturday. He has reportedly tasked water resources minister, D.K. Shivakumar with guarding the party MLAs just like he did the Gujarat MLAs during the Rajya Sabha polls. BJP insiders said that they were engaged in talks with 10 Congress legislators, to make up the shortfall and boost the BJP from 104 to more than the required 114, while others said the BJP wanted to bring the government down in November and keep the assembly in suspended animation until possible polls. Mr. Renukacharya, a close associate of BJP state chief B.S. Yeddyurappa denied the party was trying to woo Congress MLAs. New Delhi: Terming Indias decision to call off the bilateral meeting between external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York as arrogant and negative, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Saturday lashed out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi without naming him. All my life I have come across small men occupying big offices who do not have the vision to see the larger picture, Mr Khan tweeted on Saturday. His sharp reaction came after the Pakistani foreign ministry, late on Friday night, reacted to Indias decision, saying Islamabad is deeply disappointed and that the reasons being given by India for calling off the meet are entirely unconvincing. On Friday, the Indian government, citing the latest brutal killings of our security personnel by Pakistan-based entities and the recent release of a series of 20 postage stamps by Pakistan glorifying a (slain) terrorist (Burhan Wani) and terrorism, had called off the meeting in New York. Challenging Indias reasons, the Pakistan foreign ministry said the killing of the BSF soldier had taken place before Thursdays announcement by India of the bilateral meeting and that the postage stamps on Burhan Wani had been issued before Mr Khan assumed office as Pakistans PM. Denying any role in the killing of the BSF soldier, Islamabad also offered to conduct a joint investigation to establish the truth. India had, Pakistans foreign ministry said, by its ill-considered cancellation of the meeting, has once again wasted a serious opportunity to change the dynamics of the bilateral relationship and put the region on the path of peace and development. On September 14, Mr Khan had written to Mr Modi about India and Pakistan resuming dialogue that have been suspended since 2015. Kanyakumari: Promising to upgrade Nagercoil municipality in Kanyakumari district into a city corporation, Chief Minister, Mr Edappadi K. Palaniswami also announced a rope car facility to Vivekananda rock memorial near here to boost tourism in Kanyakumari. Speaking at the MGR centenary celebrations at Nagercoil on Saturday, he said that the state government has implemented several schemes for the development of tourism in Kanyakumari district, which was visited by around 75 lakh tourists from across the country and abroad every year. Among these only 22 lakh tourists are able to visit the Vivekananda rock and Thiruvalluvar memorial annually, said Palaniswami, adding, the AIADMK government in a bid to enhance the number of visitors to Vivekananda memorial rock, planned to buy two more boats at the cost of Rs 6 crore. It will also construct two more boat jetties at an estimated cost of Rs 20 crore. Mr Palaniswami also disclosed that his government planned to install a rope car facility to Vivekananda rock memorial from the shore and a marine bridge connecting Vivekananda rock and Thiruvalluvar rock. These projects are planned to be implemented through public private participation at Rs 120 crore and would help to increase the tourist flow to Kanyakumari district, CM added. Recalling the AIADMK governments role during the Ockhi cyclone and the flood situation that followed, Mr. Palaniswami said that the government has ensured job to the kin of all 136 fishermen who died in the ockhi tragedy. The affected farmers in the district due to the cyclone too were compensated to the tune of Rs 36 crore by the state government, he reminded the people, adding a new fishing harbor at Colachel would come up. The Chinnamuttom fishing harbor would also be developed at the cost of `96.20 crore. The Chief Minister also pointed that the Thengaipattinam fishing harbor under construction would be commissioned within this year. These fishing harbor projects in the district will no doubt encourage fishing industry in the region, hoped Mr. Palaniswami. Stating that works are on to upgrade the Nagercoil municipality in as the 13th city corporation in the state, he said that heeding the demands of the people two more new taluks-Killiyoor taluk and Thiruvattar taluk would be created soon. Announcing various schemes to enhance the medical facility at the Asaripallam Government Medical college hospital, he assured to increase the total number of seats for MBBS course at the government medical college at Nagercoil to 150 from the present 100 seats from the next academic year onwards. Inaugurating 28 projects completed at the total cost of Rs 13.07 crore and laying the foundation stone for new projects worth Rs 31.34 crore in the district, he said as former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa wished, his government has been striving to make Tamil Nadu Numero Uno state. There is really no need imagine or interpret the message of the September 17-19 event of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) at Vigyan Bhavan, where by and large only functions related to the government or international organisations are held. The RSS sarsanghchalak, or supremo, Mohan Bhagwat, declared it at the very beginning of his first-day sermon delivered on September 17. He said: Sangh ko samajh ne ke liye is kaaryakram ka aayojan hua hai kyonki sangh ab ek shakti ke roop mein is desh mein upasthhith hai (This programme has been organised to enable people to understand the Sangh because the Sangh today is present as a force in the country). He also said that this was in response to the demand of the RSS members in New Delhi who felt that such a meeting should be organised in the national capital to explain the nature and working of the RSS to bigwigs from different walks of life. Neither the RSS nor the media have reported in any detail about who were the people who attended the three-day RSS conclave. The Bharatiya Janata Party is in power at the Centre with a bare majority of its own in the Lok Sabha, and perhaps the RSS brass must have felt that they would not have an opportunity like this ever again, because the outcome of the 2019 Lok Sabha election is up in the air. So, in the fourth year of the BJP government, the RSS had decided to have its social outing, though strictly speaking it was a political outing. It is a different matter, though, that the saffron event has turned out to be a flop politically as none of the leaders of the major parties other than the BJP had turned up at the event. And on all the three days, it was a pure Bhagwat monologue. The media was more than a little bowled over by the open event of the secretive organisation which controls the BJP, though the relations between the political party and the ideological organisation remains as murky as ever. BJP leaders declare their allegiance to the RSS as a badge of courage, and the RSS demurs. But it is known to everyone that the president of the party is nominated by the RSS, and it is not a party affair. The RSS protests that it does not micro-manage the BJP, which is an interesting way of putting it because it leaves enough room for the RSS to manage the BJP anyway. A senior leader of the BJP had confessed that the RSS volunteers had campaigned for the BJP in 2014, and the only other time they did was in the 1977 post-Emergency election. The RSS still claims that it has nothing to do with politics and its ambition, as stated by its founder Baliram Hedgewar, is to train swayamsevaks, or volunteers in every village of India, who are trustworthy, virtuous, who do not discriminate and hate anybody. And Bhagwat lets slip in the confession that this was for the rejuvenation of Hindu society. In the second lecture, he did not say that the Sangh ideology was different from Hinduism but that ism is a closed concept and it does not apply to the Hindu faith. Then he resorts to the usual term of Sanatan Dharma. And taking Hindu as a geographical and civilisation notation, he argues quite unconvincingly and sheepishly that everyone living in India is a Hindu! The interesting twist in Bhagwats monotonous exposition was that he stuck to Hedgewar and passed in silence over M.S. Golwalkar, the man who took over as RSS chief after Hedgewar died. Bhagwat took care to explain that Hedgewar wanted to prepare citizens who were able to take up the responsibilities of an independent India. Hedgewar was certainly a lower middle class Hindu conservative from the Vidarbha region, who perhaps did not preach the clash between Hindus and Muslims in the militant tone that Golwalkar did. Deleting Golwalkar from the RSS discourse should indeed raise eyebrows. The RSS seems to be learning from the experience of the BJP that you cannot survive in politics by catering only to Hindus. The RSS is now updating itself. But the devil is in the details. For both the RSS and the BJP, diabolical nationalism is the hammer that they want to use to threaten religious minorities and every other dissident group. Bhagwat could not wriggle out of this dilemma because all he could refer to was to Hindu traditions where atheists had their place as well. It is tempting to speculate whether there is a simmering tension between the RSS and the BJP, and that the RSS too wants its rightful place in the sun. And it is important to ask whether the RSS volunteers will work for the BJP in 2019 in the same way that they did in 2014. The RSS had officially endorsed the Congress victory in the 2009 Lok Sabha election, so it should not come as a surprise if the RSS were to entertain second thoughts about Prime Minister Narendra Modis candidacy. Whatever may be their sibling rivalries, it is inevitable that the RSS and the BJP will hang together. And the truth is that the RSS is not the force in the country that Bhagwat claims it to be. Its strength and importance are overstated both by the partisans and unflinching ideological foes of the RSS. The reason for the growing unimportance of the RSS in India is quite simple. The RSS is not liberal enough to be a cultural organisation, nor does it have the intellectual rigour to be a conservative bastion. It has fashioned itse lf in the mould of the Boy Scouts, so it cannot but linger at the infra-intellectual level. The author is a Delhi-based commentator and analyst If there is one thing you cannot accuse Mayawati of, its modesty. Just take a look at her blatant, brazen extravagance. The BSP strongwoman does not believe in discretion. Nor is a humble lifestyle her mantra. Ms Mayawati likes to live life queen size no apologies. No fake alibis. She wants the world to know she has made it! And that she most certainly has! Take a look at her latest acquisition a stupendously lavish 71,000 sq ft mansion in the heart of Lucknow (9 Mall Avenue, to be precise). As we all know, Behenji loves statues. And Behenji loves her own statues the most. Why, this wonderful lady has taken inspiration from various historic sources while commissioning a column at the entrance, which features not one but four statues of herself. Each statue faces a different direction. In other words Ms Mayawati has the east-west-north-south covered. She isnt taking any chances. The massive sandstone mansion also showcases the dalit movement through gigantic bronze relief work which, but naturally features the proud owner of the property. Ms Mayawati claims the mansion serves a dual purpose it will also function as a party office. Which is a bit odd, given that the BSP headquarters is next door. But why quibble? Next to her opulent residence are the sprawling parks and memorials commissioned by Ms Mayawati a few years ago. This is called progress, Mayawati style. Future home minister sahiba has her own home perfectly sorted! Given her strategic importance in the upcoming elections, no politician wants to question, much less criticise Ms Mayawati for her OTT lifestyle. Her palace may just become the impressive showpiece for the next generation of party followers to droll and gasp over. Besides, as Ms Mayawati has frequently pointed out dont most of the spaces in and around Delhi belong to the Nehru-Gandhi family? Doesnt India have far too many statues of Jawaharlal Nehru in almost every city? Why are important airports and flyovers named after Rajiv Gandhi? Ms Mayawati has a point. A big one. This is her moment. And she is making the most of it. I recall sniggering at those early statues of hers the ones with a handbag slung on her arm. Her hair was coiffed in a Memsaab bob cut, and she was dressed in her trademark kurta-pajamas. Her admirers couldnt get enough of those statues. Then came the elephants and parks. All of them highlighted her position within the BSP. At some point, Mentor saab Kanshi Ram was converted into a prop. He was downgraded and rendered incidental. Not for nothing is Ms Mayawati described as a mass leader a symbol of hope. Her constituency sees nothing odd about their leader spending scads of money to create an opulent mahal for herself. They feel proud to see her grandeur and applaud the expenditure. Yes, it is their money. Yes, Ms Mayawati has plenty more stashed away. But as the loyalists say, No money, no power. Around the same time that Ms Mayawati was busy showing off her new digs to the media, one more dalit worker, cleaning sewage pipes in Delhi, was brought out dead. He was the sixth man to die while cleaning up rich peoples excreta. Sounds awful? It IS awful! Somehow, the cruelty, the paradox, the irony passed without comment. Another dramatic event was taking place in New Delhi, with RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat launching an outreach programme to explain why the Sangh was established and its real motive. He talked about Indias diversity and described the Sangh as the most democratic organisation. His Future of Bharat address was like an eggless cake! He tried too hard to sound egoless. But in the bargain, he ended up sounding phony. Especially since he spoke of himself in the third person often enough. Something, his star protege Narendra Modi also does, much to the annoyance of audiences. Oh yes. Mr Modis 68th birthday was sandwiched in between all these developments making it a triple sundae treat. The PM should have practised his dexterity with a broom a little more before posting that video which showed him energetically sweeping dust into the bushes but leaving discarded paper behind. Pretty pointless! Making a clean sweep suddenly looked like a futile exercise as trolls poked fun of the man who launched the significant Swachchh Bharat initiative as soon as he took office. No matter. Mr Modis birthday inspired the likes of Mallika Sherawat and Kangana Ranaut to shoot special videos for the occasion. Mallika tried (and failed hopelessly!) to do a Marilyn Monroe (remember Monroes breathless and oh-so-oomphy Happy Birthday greeting to her lover President John F. Kennedy?). Kangana had pitched her greeting perfectly dressed in costume for Manikarnika in which she plays Laxmibai, the heroic Jhansi ki Rani, Ms Ranaut, pretty in a pink sari, blushed and played coy during the short clip. I wa s waiting for Priyanka Chopras video. But I guess Priyanka was busy feeding birthday cake to her newly-minted fiance Nick Jonas, who turned 26 during the same week. Age clearly lost out to youth. Rahul Gandhi, meanwhile, who has turned into an overnight Shiv bhakt, spent his time eating laddoos in Bhopal, and thundering that his party (errr the Congress, bhaisaab!) would abolish the GST if the vote went in their favour! Hmmmm a rash promise. But I guess nobody will hold him or his party to it. Mauka hi kidhar hai? Lots of fun stuff coming up. As for me, my eyes are on Ms Mayawati. When a she-elephant goes on a rampage, even tigers hide! Readers can send feedback to www.shobhaade.blogspot.com The lion will lie down with the lamb And what will the offspring look like? From The Bachchoonama A straight question to Narendra Modiji, to Amit Shah and all the RSS leaders in existence: Have you never during the Holi festivities had a sip of bhang in a milk or lassi drink? They can either lie or acknowledge that as good ritual-and-tradition-embracing Hindus they have indeed quaffed the exhilarating soma, as our old history books used to put it. I am no etymologist but with to point out the similarity between the haoma of Zoroastrian texts and the soma of Vedic ones. S was often transformed in those Aryan times to H and vice versa as in Sindhu to Hindu. If Modiji and the others do admit to having had a sip they should be mindful of the statement issued by the Mumbai police last week. It said: Be mindful, as of now, consumption, possession and transportation of marijuana invites harsh punishment as per provisions of NDPS Act 1985. Thats clear. What is perhaps not as clear to most bhangees is that what they are imbibing is that self-same marijuana which the Mumbai police warns against. My extensive socio-scientific researches turn up the fact that friends dont realise that bhang is indeed a concoction of cannabis sativa the marijuana plant of which ganja, charas, hashish, grass and dope are all products. The Mumbai police issued its dire warning in a public reply to a handsome Indian actor called Uday Chopra who a few days ago called on the social media for the legalisation of marijuana in India. He naturally denied, perhaps a trifle disingenuously, ever using the stuff. Why put yourself in the way of NDPS Act 1985? Chopra quotes several reasons for legalising it. He rightly says its an integral part of Indian culture. Once in my joyous boyhood, as William Wordsworth would have put it, I descended upon a grove in Bihar now in Jharkhand, where I was to spend some weeks in communion with nature and recall several blissful evenings spent with the priest of the village temple devoted to Shiva smoking the dried leaves of a plant that grew prolifically for at least an acre behind the temple. He taught me to hold the clay pipe, shaped like an ice-cream cone, with a dirty stained rag for a filter at its sucking end and inhale the smoke from the smouldering leaves. He taught me to say, in flat musical tones Shambho hai Shambho! Jai Shambho! What could be more Hindu cultural than that? And no, I am not about to give the location of his village to the Mumbai police so they can close in on him quoting the dreaded NSPC Act 1532, or whatever! Secondly, the young but wise Mr Chopra says legalising it would remove the threat of the said NKVD Act 1766 which hangs like a sword of Damocles over the throats of millions, including perhaps PM Modiji and president saheb Amit Shah. (Kindly note I have not anywhere implied that they have admitted to drinking bhang or being willing witnesses to celebrations in which it was the elixir of choice! Your Honour!) Just think about the number of policemen and women it would take during the festival of Holi to arrest all those who had a sip of bhang! There would be no policemen on our streets or in the thane to deal with rapists, murderers, corrupt politicians and black money launderers or even to do the splendid job they do of controlling our cities free-flowing traffic. Chaos yaaron! Thirdly, the talented and prophetic Mr Chopra, with millions of followers on his netfeed, or whatever its called, contends that it would, if legalised and sold, presumably by the seer by paanwallas and in branded packets in metropolitan malls, be a source of huge income to the State. In several countries of the world and in some states of America this legalisation has not yet led to huge revenues flowing in. But in India one can be sure that the big capitalists will seize the opportunity legalisation would bring and immediately clear the acreage of tribal forests, grow marijuana, package it with brand names like Mushy Khushy and advertise it on TV with the old rhyme Charsi kaddi na marsi! with fair-skinned raven-haired temptresses smoking chillums on screen. Then, as they always do, they would openly declare their profits and pay their fair share of tax to the government, the revenues of which could be used to treat drug addicts. Baat bangayi beytein! In the UK, a lady has just won a case in the courts to legalise the medical use of marijuana for her son whose epilepsy, she and some doctors contend, is relieved by its ingestion. Some say it cures everything though it didnt do that for Bob Marley. Myself? I had a rare experience with legalised cannabis. As a UK TV bureaucrat I went with my colleagues to a film festival in Amsterdam where I was scheduled to speak. A couple of hours before the event we gathered in a pub and were having a drink when we noticed that legalised cannabis was being sold from a showcase. We took the young vendors advice and bought a stinky variety of ganja called skunk, rolled joints and passed them around. Nothing happened. Deceptive Dutchmen! Then we stepped out and when the fresh air hit me I felt the world spinning and saw dinosaur mocking me from the canals. I said I was going back to my hotel, I was out of it and unable to stand, leave aside lecture. No, said my colleagues. Rule Britannia, I had to do my duty by Queen, country and my employer Channel 4 TV. They dragged me to the auditorium and onto the stage. I remember nothing of it, but my colleagues said it was the clearest and most incisive speech they had heard me make. Jai Shambho! Be it factory faults or physical damage, all products do need service centres to get them up and running again. There are thousands of Mi service centres across the country that can take care of these issues. In 2014, Xiaomi was a little known brand that entered India. The Chinese brand stood silently and watched their first smartphone surprise them on how the country accepted the brand with craze. In three years, the brand rose to the top, not only to be the number 1 smartphone brand in the country, but also to beat many old-time seasoned rivals at their own game. Xiaomi is presently the most favorable, recommended, trusted and sought-after brand in the market today. Xiaomi not only manufactures smartphones, but has a plethora of digital and non-digital devices under their name. While most of them are available in China, we have seen a few end up in India. Apart from smartphones, TVs, routers, air purifiers, speakers and a few more are already doing good sales, beyond the expectation of the brand themselves. After China, India is the most profitable playground for Xiaomi. While many ended up buying their millions of products, there are a lot of them who suffer device breakdowns. Be it factory faults or physical damage, all products do need service centres to get them up and running again. There are thousands of Mi service centres across the country that can take care of these issues. While factory faults are self explanatory, there are many out there who suffer problems post the warranty period and want to service the same using genuine parts. So if you have unfortunately broken your smartphone or TVs display, or if your battery needs a replacement, it is always recommended that you head for genuine spares. But how would you know how much will your smartphones repairs and spares cost you? The only possible way is to head to the nearest Mi service centre, submit the device and get a quote. Later you can decide whether it is worth the repair or simply scrap it and buy a new one. But did you know that you could actually save some time on doing that? So if you know that your smartphones display is broken and needs a replacement, you could simply check out the price for the spare part(s) and take a call whether you need repairs or simply upgrade to a new phone. For example, if you broke your Redmi Note 5 Pros display, you could end up spending Rs 3,599 + service charges + taxes. Of if you managed to break the Xiaomi 55-inch Mi TVs panel, you would end up with a whopping Rs 29,999 + service charges + taxes. The following list will give you a heads-up with an approximate and estimated repair cost for the spare part needed for your device and you could then take a call later. Apart from this, you could also be assured that the Mi Service Centre (or partner service centre) is not cheating you by quoting you a wrong price. So check out the entire list of Xiaomi smartphone and TV spare parts below in case you need service for your device. (PSST: Even if you dont need service/parts for your Xiaomi device, the following parts prices will at least tell you how carefully you should handle your phones or TVs.) (Source) Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter. Beijing on Friday urged the United States to withdraw sanctions or bear the consequences. Moscow: Moscow and Beijing lashed out on Friday at Washingtons new anti-Russian sanctions that also target China for the first time, warning the US could face consequences. The US is playing with fire, Russias deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said, while Beijing voiced strong indignation over the move. United in their resentment of Americas global influence, China and Russia have sought in recent years to tighten up their ties and this month conducted week-long joint military drills, Moscows largest ever war games. On Thursday, China which is also locked in a trade war with Washington got caught up in the sanctions war against Russia as the US announced a new raft of measures that would punish third countries for dealing with Moscow. Stepping up pressure on Moscow over its malign activities, the US State Department said it was placing financial sanctions on the Equipment Development Department of the Chinese Ministry of Defence, and its top administrator, for its recent purchase of Russian Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets and S-400 surface-to-air missile systems. Beijing on Friday urged the United States to withdraw sanctions or bear the consequences. The US actions have seriously violated the basic principles of international relations and seriously damaged the relations between the two countries and the two militaries, said foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang, adding Beijing had lodged an official protest with the US. We strongly urge the US to immediately correct their mistake and withdraw their so-called sanctions, otherwise the US will have to bear the consequences. US officials said it was the first time a third country has been punished under the CAATSA sanctions legislation for dealing with Russia, signalling Donald Trumps administration will risk relations with other countries in its campaign against Moscow. Moscow said Washin-gton was rocking global stability and said sarcastically that placing sanctions on Russia has become Washingtons favourite pastime. It would be good for them to remember there is such a concept as global stability which they are thoughtlessly undermining by whipping up tensions in Russian-American ties, said Ryabkov. Playing with fire is silly, it can become dangerous, he said in a statement. The State Department also announced it was placing 33 Russian intelligence and military-linked actors on its sanctions blacklist. All of them defence related firms, officers of the GRU military intelligence agency, and people associated with the Saint Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency disinformation group were on previous US sanctions lists. Twenty eight of them have already been indicted by Robert Mueller, who is probing election meddling by Russia. US officials said that the US could consider similar action against other countries taking delivery of Russian missiles. Turkey is in talks to buy S-400 missile systems from Russia. Ryabkov reiterated that none of the rounds of sanctions had managed to force Russia to change its course so far. It appears that it has become a sort of national pastime there, he added, noting the latest round of anti-Russian measures was the 60th since 2011. For all of Russias seemingly upbeat rhetoric the new measures can hurt the countrys struggling economy. Arms exports are an important source of revenue for the country and last year Russia sold more than $14 billion worth of arms overseas. A senior US administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, insisted the ultimate target was Russia. CAATSA sanctions in this context are not intended to undermine the defence capabilities of any particular country, the official said. CAATSA, or the Countering Amer-icas Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, was passed in 2017 as a tool that gives the US more ways to target Russia, Iran and North Korea with sanctions. Qureshi said India's 'stubbornness' is also adversely affecting future of the SAARC countries, the Radio Pakistan report said. (Photo: File | PTI) Islamabad: Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi Friday expressed disappointment at India calling off a meeting between him and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in New York and alleged that "internal pressure" forced New Delhi to make the "unfortunate" move. India cited the "brutal" killing of three policemen in Jammu and Kashmir as well as the release of postal stamps "glorifying" Kashmiri militant Burhan Wani for cancelling the meeting between Swaraj and Qureshi on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York this month. Read: India calls off meeting with Pak, MEA says PM Khan's 'true face' exposed Qureshi expressed disappointment at the cancellation of the foreign minister-level talks, saying it was "unfortunate." "It is unfortunate that India has not given a positive response. Indian has once again wasted an opportunity for peace," Qureshi told the media here. He said that it was important to sit and talk for the sake of peace and stability in the region. "The refusal of India shows that Indian government is facing internal pressure," he said. "It seems that India is already preparing for its elections due in the country next year," Qureshi was quoted as saying by the Express Tribune. He said Pakistan sincerely wants resolution of all outstanding issues, including Kashmir, with India through negotiations. Pakistan has always extended an olive branch to India for the resolution of problems and enhancing bilateral ties in an amicable manner, but New Delhi does not come out of its "internal politics", state-run Radio Pakistan quoted him as saying. The minister said Pakistan can only wish India to come to the negotiating table, but "we can neither pressurise anybody nor will accept the same for this purpose." Qureshi said the world wants connectivity and promote regional trade, but India is creating problems. He said India's "stubbornness" is also adversely affecting future of the SAARC countries, the Radio Pakistan report said. But, Qureshi reiterated that dialogue is the only way to come to the resolution of any issue. "We said that we want dialogue - but in a dignified manner," he added. Meanwhile, the Foreign Office (FO) in a statement remarked that the reasons cited by India for calling off the talks "within 24 hours of its public confirmation are entirely unconvincing". "The so-called 'disturbing developments' alluded to in the Indian statement predated the Indian agreement to hold the bilateral meeting in New York," FO spokesman Dr Mohammad Faisal said in the statement. He said the alleged killing of a BSF soldier took place two days prior to the Indian announcement of its agreement to hold the bilateral meeting. And when the allegations of Pakistan's involvement first appeared, Pakistani rangers clearly conveyed to BSF through official channels that the country had nothing to do with it. He said Pakistani rangers also extended help in efforts to locate the soldier's body. These facts were known to the Indian authorities and yet "this motivated and malicious propaganda continued". "Pakistan...categorically reject these allegations...Our authorities would be prepared to conduct a joint investigation to establish the truth," Faisal said. On the issue of the postage stamps, he said they were issued before the July 25 elections and before Prime Minister Imran Khan assumed office. Faisal said that most unfortunate part of Indian statement is the reference to the person of the Prime Minister of Pakistan. "We choose not to further comment beyond saying that these comments are against all norms of civilised discourse and diplomatic communication," he said. "We believe by its ill-considered cancellation of the meeting, India has once again wasted a serious opportunity to change the dynamics of the bilateral relationship and put the region on the path of peace and development," he added. Announcing the cancellation of the New York meeting, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said in New Delhi that the incidents "exposed" the "true face" of Pakistan's new Prime Minister Imran Khan to the world as well as Islamabad's evil agenda behind the proposal for talks. "The latest brutal killings of our security personnel by Pakistan-based entities and the recent release of a series of 20 postage stamps by Pakistan glorifying a terrorist and terrorism confirm that Pakistan will not mend its ways," Kumar said. He noted that "two deeply disturbing developments have taken place" since yesterday's announcement of a meeting between the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan in New York later this month. "In view of the changed situation, there will be no meeting between the Foreign Ministers of India and Pakistan in New York," he said. Kumar said talks with Pakistan in such an environment would be "meaningless". Former High Commissioner to India, Abdul Basit said he was surprised by India's move as New Delhi should not have agreed for it in the first place due to forthcoming elections but after agreeing for a meeting it was more surprising that it backed out. Former advisor on foreign affairs Sartaj Aziz said that it was "unfortunate" that India cancelled the meeting as it would have created an environment for peace. Former foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri said the cancellation reminded him of the Agra summit when everything was ready for joint statement but India backed out at the last minute. Indias second largest IT services provider Infosys has announced a new partnership with Google Cloud to develop cloud transformation and migration services. Through this partnership, the company will offer solutions and services on Google Cloud Platform (GCP), by aiming at creating a scalable, on-demand cloud model that will enable enterprises transition and adopt a cloud-first strategy. As part of this partnership, Bengaluru-based IT major has built artificial intelligence and machine learning-driven industry-specific solutions on GCP, such as Analytics Workbench, which is expected to augment data platforms to deliver end-to-end self-service capabilities. These solutions will enable enterprises to modernise their IT and use the power of insights to monetise and digitise their businesses as they navigate the next stages in their transformation journey, the company said. In addition to this, the company also announced the launch of a new offering called the Data Native Intelligent Enterprise powered by the Infosys Digital Brain on GCP. Data Native Intelligent Enterprise is a solution that learns from the data collected from various sources, connects it across silos using Artificial Intelligence and encodes this intelligence. We see Google Cloud as a key partner in the cloud-first landscape, putting our partnership in a great position to provide exceptional value to our global customer base, Ravi Kumar, President and Deputy Chief Operating Officer, Infosys, said. Kevin Ichhpurani, Corporate Vice President, Strategic Alliances at Google Cloud, said on the occasion, " The new Digital Brain from Infosys is a great example of how customers can benefit from Google Cloud's technology in combination with Infosys' unique consulting services. Manvendra Singh, son of former Union minister Jaswant Singh, is all set to hold a rally in Pachpadra in Barmer on Saturday. Manvendra's announcement of the Swabhiman rally (Rally for self respect) has fueled speculation that he may quit the BJP. He is presently a sitting BJP MLA from Sheo. Manvendra has had strained relations with the party since 2014 after his father Jaswant Singh was denied a Lok Sabha ticket from Barmer. Manvendra, who had earlier skipped Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje's Gaurav Yatra in Barmer and Pachpadra, said whether he will stay with the BJP or not will depend on the response of crowd attending his rally. "I am overwhelmed with the response from different communities. This rally is to safegaurd the dignity of people and communities. Lakhs of people from all castes and communities will be attending the rally on Saturday", Manvendra told DH. However, he remained mum on the speculations of forming a new party or joining the Congress. Interestingly, the posters and pamphlets distributed ahead of his rally have huge pictures of Jaswant Singh, urging people to reach in numbers to Pachpadra (venue), for their swabhiman (self respect). Moreover, old video clips of Jaswant Singh calling people to save his 'swabhiman' have also become viral on social media and have a similar message of taking 'revenge for the insult' Posters also have the poetry of Atal Bihari Vajpayee scribbled all over it. Manvendra garnered support from all sections in the Marwar region, particularly from the Rajput community, which is currently upset with the ruling BJP. India's first ever passenger cruise line service between Mumbai and Goa will set to sail on October 11. Union Shipping and Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari will launch the ship at a newly constructed domestic terminal at Mumbai Port. The premium cruise service is a joint venture between Mumbai Port Trust and Angriya Sea Eagle Cruise Pvt Ltd. The ship Angriya is named after first Maratha Navy Admiral (Sarkhel) Kanhoji Angre and the great Angria bank coral reef near Vijaydurg, Maharashtra. Though the price of the ticket is yet to be announced, the cost per person for one way travelling will be between Rs 7,000 to Rs 10,000 which also includes food. In the cruise ship, there will be multiple restaurants, coffee shops, recreation room, swimming pool, lounge and discotheque. It can carry 400 passengers and has 104 cabins of different categories, said an official in the Union Ministry of Shipping. The ship will depart from Mumbai at 5 pm and reach Goa around 9 am. It will return to Mumbai on alternate days. In the later stage, the government plans to include Mangaluru, Kochi and other important coastal places in cruise liner destination, said the official. Earlier, Gadkari said this will boost tourism activities in both Maharashtra as well as Goa and also create employment opportunities. He said every year India receives 80 foreign cruise liners and the government plans to increase the number to 1,000 in the next five years. Gadkari also announced the Centre's plan to start the cruise liner between Varanasi- Allahabad and Varanasi-Patna-Kolkota. Former French President Francois Hollande's purported remarks that India proposed Anil Ambani's Reliance Defence as an offset partner for Dassault in the Rafale deal kicked up a political storm on Friday putting the Narendra Modi government under renewed Opposition fire. French media outlet 'Mediapart' quoted Hollande that his government "did not have any say" in choosing Ambani's company and the "Indian government proposed this service group and Dassault negotiated with Ambani". Defence Ministry spokesperson said the report referring to the former French President's statement that the insisted upon a particular firm as offset partner for the Dassault Aviation in Rafale is being verified. "It is reiterated that neither the GoI nor French Govt had any say in the commercial decision," the spokesperson tweeted. Mediapart quoted Hollande as saying, "We did not have a say in this...The Indian government proposed this service group, and Dassault negotiated with Ambani. We did not have the choice, we took the interlocutor who was given to us." His statement to a French media outlet 'Mediapart' runs counter to Defence Minister Nirmala Seetharaman's remarks that Dassault, the maker of Rafale jets, alone selected Reliance as its partner. Congress led the Opposition charge against Modi government as it tweeted, "former President of France Francois Hollande exposes the web of lies spun by the Modi government. The Modi government compelled Dassault to tie up with the Reliance group." Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram said the Defence Minister has been "called out again" and "this time by then President of France". "In the NDA negotiated Rafale aircraft deal, we have got no aircraft, we have got only lies. What is the new lie that the government will put out in response to Mr Hollande?" CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury said the Modi government has "lied and misled" Indians. "The whole truth must come out now. Why was the Indian government batting for one corporate house with no experience in defence manufacture?" he tweeted. "This is very startling. The Prime Minister should answer why he insisted on Anil Ambani. What is the relationship between the Prime Minister and Anil Ambani," Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted. The Congress and its president Rahul Gandhi have been vociferous about the government-to-government deal for buying 36 Rafale jets from French firm Dassault. They and other opposition parties have been claiming that Ambani's firm was chosen in a corrupt manner. Indian Navy has launched a mission to rescue Commander Abhilash Tommy who is stranded somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean after the mast of his sailboat was snapped in rough weather and he became immobile with a back injury. Tommy was representing India in the Golden Globe Race in the indigenous sailing vessel Thuriya. Flagged off on July 1, it is a solo circumnavigation race around the world without the help of any modern navigational aid. He is in the south Indian Ocean, approximately 1900 nautical miles from Perth, Australia and 2700 nautical miles (approximately 5020 km) from Cape Comorin (Kanyakumari). Indian Navy stealth frigate INS Satpura with a Chetak helicopter and tanker INS Jyoti that were operating in the Indian Ocean were dispatched for the rescue mission, a Navy spokesperson said here on Saturday. The boat, Thuriya, was dismasted in extremely rough weather and sea condition, with wind speeds of 130 kmph and 10 mt high waves. In his last message via satellite phone, Tomy indicated he is safe in the boat, but immobile due to a back injury, he said. The Australian Rescue Coordination Centre at Canberra is coordinating the mission and Australian warships too joined the search operation. The 30,000 nautical miles Golden Globe Race is being held to commemorate the 50th anniversary of such a race held for the first and last time, which saw Sir Robin Knox-Johnston successfully completing the voyage in 312 days, to become the first human to finish solo, unassisted and non-stop circumnavigation of the world. There were 18 skippers at the start line and Cdr Tomy of the Indian Navy was a special invitee. On Saturday, 11 participants were left in the race, out of which Tomy was at number 3 position. He sailed 10,500 nautical miles in the last 84 days. The biggest challenge at the GGR is to have equipment, tools and boat which resemble the ones used by Sir Johntson, despite the change in technology. Navigation will have to be done looking at celestial objects using physical maps. Communication with the outside world will also be limited as the lone satellite phone is for use in medical emergency alone. Starting from Les Sables d'Olonne harbour in France, skippers went south till Cape of Good Hope and continued sailing eastward in the southern hemisphere to pass the international dateline. They will have to pass Cape of Horn to start sailing north in the Atlantic Ocean for the final leg. Cdr Tomy had first circumnavigated the globe in 2012-13, becoming the first Indian to achieve the feat by sailing for 151 days in INS Mhadei. France on Saturday clarified that the French government had no role in the selection of Anil Ambani-led Reliance Defence as an offset partner in the Rs 59,000-crore contract to buy 36 Rafale fighter aircraft from Dassault Aviation for the Indian Air Force. The fighter jets manufacturer Dassault Aviation too distanced itself from Hollandes claims. The French government is in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners, who have been, are being or will be selected by French companies, said the statement issued by the spokesperson of the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs. The clarification comes within hours of former French president Francois Hollande dropping a bombshell by claiming that Paris had little choice in deciding the Indian partner with the Indian government pushing for Reliance in that role. AFP reported on Saturday that Hollande told it on the sidelines of a meeting in Canada on Friday that France did not choose Reliance in any way. When asked whether the Indian government had put pressure on Reliance and Dassault to work together, Hollande said he was unaware and only Dassault can comment on this. NDTV reported on Saturday that Hollandes office said he stood by his comments. The statement by Hollande, given in the course of an interview to a French website, has added fuel to the relentless attack by Congress and other parties over the deal. Countering the charges, the French government spokesperson said, In accordance with Indias acquisition procedure, French companies have the full freedom to choose the Indian partner companies that they consider to be the most relevant. Agreements have already been signed by French companies with many Indian firms, both public and private, under the framework of Indian laws. The French governments obligation lies solely with regard to ensuring the delivery and quality of the equipment, it added. Meanwhile, Dassault Aviation said in a statement, The offset contract is delivered in compliance with the Defence Procurement Procedure 2016 regulations. In a bid to ramp up sales of Malaysian sand, which has had no takers, the state Cabinet on Thursday decided to allow sale of sand in bulk (truckloads), as opposed to sandbags. This is said to bring down the prices of the imported sand by around Rs 300 per tonne. Presently, Mysore Sales International Ltd (MSIL) is selling Malaysian sand at Rs 200 per 50 kg bag (Rs 4,000 per tonne). In addition to MSIL, three companies - Akar Enterprises, D2S Company, Integrated Solutions - had obtained permissions to import sand from Malaysia and sell it within the state. The companies had imported 1.5 lakh tonne (50,000 tonne each) in the month of January this year, but had refused to lift and sell the raw material. Arguing that the sale of sand in bags was not viable, they had sought revisions to the guidelines. While there is no packing unit in Mangaluru, the companies had said that packing (bag) cost of Rs 200 per tonne could be avoided, if sand is allowed to be sold in bulk. The government which had brought in a new policy by amending the Karnataka Minor Minerals Concession Rules, 1994, to allow traders to import sand from Malaysia, had mandated that sand could be sold only in 50 kg bags. The idea was to curb adulteration of the imported sand with substandard sand. The government has finally yielded to the demands of the traders by allowing sale of sand in bulk. This imported sand will, however, be transported in GPS enabled trucks. The government has also decided to allow traders to sell future stocks of imported sand outside Karnataka. However, the present stock has to be sold within the state. In the meanwhile, MSIL, which had imported around one lakh tonnes of sand from Malaysia, has been able to sell only 4,000 tonnes in the last 9 months. MSIL had imported sand from Malaysian through the Krishnapatnam port in Andhra Pradesh. Imported sand is said to be around Rs 2,500 lesser than sand extracted in Karnataka. The government resorted to importing sand to reduce the demand-supply gap and also to curb illegal sand mining. A team of students from Tel Aviv University, Israel, are in Hiremagaluru to attend a Sanskrit learning camp to be conducted at the historic Kodandarama Swamy Temple from September 25. The team from the Sanskrit Language Study Department of Asian Culture Division of Tel Aviv University, led by the department head Rafael Peled, informed that the objective of the study is to get acquainted with nuances of Sanskrit language and its cultural background. A team of scholars in Sanskrit will conduct the camp, according to a source. Rafael said that Kannada priest Hiremagaluru Kannans brother Pandit Perumal will elaborate on the subject. The Israeli students had completed the first year of their degree in Sanskrit and were keen on spending their vacation at Hiremagaluru for two weeks. Every day, two hours in the morning and two hours in the evening will be devoted to the learning of Sanskrit language. Besides Sanskrit learning, students will get a glimpse of the local culture, he added. Rafael Peled remembered visiting Chikkamagaluru in 2012 with friends who were learning Yoga. Rafael, who met Hiremagaluru Kannan, was inspired to learn more about Sanskrit language and Indian culture. Hiremagaluru is one of my favourite destinations and I will spend a whole week here, he said. I have learnt the nuances of Sanskrit from Kannan and Perumal. I am able to recite many verses in Sanskrit now, Rafael revealed. Rafael had studied Sanskrit in Madras Christian College under the guidance of Prof A Vishnu Bhat and is now teaching the language in Tel Aviv University, Israel for the past 20 years. MEDIA COURTHOUSE Delaware County United for Sensible Gun Policy announced its slate of endorsed candidates from both sides of the aisle at an event Friday afternoon that highlighted the organizations mission to tamp down gun violence through legislation. We endorse candidates from a bipartisan perspective, said Delco United Co-Chair and former Chester Mayor John Linder. Today, were showing our appreciation for these candidates for the work theyve done to support common sense gun legislation. Among them was Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr., who is seeking a third term this year. He faces Republican Lou Barletta, currently a member of Congress in Pennsylvanias 11th District, in the November general election. Casey highlighted proposals to limit the size of magazines, institute universal background checks and disallow those on the no-fly list from owning firearms, all of which he said had bipartisan support and are in line with the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. There are a number of measures that we can pass that would be bipartisan, but there is a strong and powerful force that doesnt even allow, in the United States Congress, votes like this or bills like this to in fact have a vote, said Casey. We have to take action. We should not surrender to this problem. Democrat Mary Gay Scanlon, who faces Republican Pearl Kim in November for the newly formed 5th Congressional District seat, couched the issue in terms of other public health crises like drunk driving or smoking cigarettes. When we looked at drunk driving, we didnt teach pedestrians to leap out of the way of cars, she said. When we looked at cigarettes we didnt teach people to put an extra filter on. We looked at the causes of deaths and thats what we need to do here. This is not a Democrat or Republican issue, said state Sen. Tom McGarrigle, R-26, of Springfield, who is facing a challenge from Democratic Swarthmore Mayor Tim Kearney in November. This is pretty much where youre from in Pennsylvania. When youre from the southeast, every single day on Action News you see gun violence. State Rep. Jamie Santora, R-163, of Upper Darby, said House leadership has committed to bring two bills up for a vote before the legislative session expires in November: House Bill 2060, which would require anyone convicted of a domestic violence crime to surrender firearms to law enforcement agency, a licensed dealer or their lawyer within 48 hours; and HB 2227, which provides a mechanism to implement an Extreme Risk Protective Order to temporarily prohibit anyone at significant risk of harming themselves or others from possessing firearms. We are not trying to take away anyones rights and you heard it over and over and over again from Democrats and Republicans if you can legally own a gun, we are not trying to take your rights away, said Santora. He added that he intends to reintroduce a background check bill next session that was defeated in the House Judiciary Committee this year by just one vote, and would work to educate those colleagues who shot it down in the meantime. State Rep. Leanne Krueger-Braneky, D-161 of Swarthmore, said a common theme to gun control measures is that they come up every session only to stall in committee. She said gun lobbyists are currently calling and visiting legislators in an attempt to kill HB 2060 ahead of the session resuming next week. So the threat to real reform is real, she said. This is not just about talk, this is not just about a nice endorsement to put on a campaign website, we need to fight for action and we need to fight for change in Harrisburg. For Democrat Jennifer OMara, who is challenging freshman Republican state Rep. Alex Charlton in the 165th District, the issue of gun violence hits close to home. OMaras father committed suicide with a firearm when she was just 13 and her husband, Brad Bitting, is a two-time Purple Heart recipient who suffered from multiple gunshot wounds during two tours of duty in Afghanistan. For me, this is not a political issue, this is a family issue, she said. I know that now is not the time for thoughts and prayers by themselves we also need policy and change, and we need elected officials who are not afraid to take this fight to the NRA and to the gun lobbyists. State Sen. Anthony Williams, D-8, of Philadelphia, said that for the African-American community, gun violence has been an ongoing epidemic since at least the late 1980s and has continued to destroy communities unabated ever since. He said reforms need to be built on broad platforms that reflect the entirety of victims of gun violence, including those nameless and voiceless victims represented by teddy bears on corners across the commonwealth. Im grateful that there is momentum born out of the outrageous occurrences by those in other places, but the truth is weve had a cancer in Pennsylvania for a long time, he said. Chester is in the middle of the most egregious level of gun violence ever seen in Chesters history. Chester needs to be number one in the list of places mentioned when we talk about what gun violence has done to destroy lives and families. From my standpoint, were fighting an active lobbying group in Harrisburg and were doing it with volunteers, said state Rep. Chris Quinn, R-168 of Middletown. As a group, you can see a consistent message that we have: We need to act and we need to act now. Quinn thanked Delco United for the endorsement and for giving him what he said was the strength and resolve to continue working on gun issues in Harrisburg. We all have to come together from the idea that were all simply trying to take guns away from bad people, he said. Were not trying to take guns away from hunters. Were not trying to take guns away from farmers. Were trying to take guns away from bad people. Were trying to close loopholes. Were trying to just come together as a society and deal with this curse that we have in our inner cities and these school shootings. Delco United co-chair Jessica Frankl said the organization has also endorsed several elected officials who were unable to attend Fridays rally, including Gov. Tom Wolf and state Reps. Brian Kirkland, D-159 of Chester, Margo Davidson, D-164, of Upper Darby, Greg Vitali, D-166 of Haverford, Maria Donatucci, D-185 of Philadelphia, and Joanna McClinton, D-191, of Philadelphia, as well as Democratic candidate Anton Andrew, who is challenging longtime Republican state Rep. Steve Barrar in the 160th District. I believe Christine Blasey Fords accusation of attempted rape against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh for a number of reasons, or at least I believe she perceived the alleged incident as a rape attempt. No woman in her right mind makes a false accusation to bring a Supreme Court nominee down knowing the hellfire that Anita Hill went through in 1991 and the even greater abuse, lies, humiliation, character assassination and death threats she would face in todays electronic social media age. No woman in her right mind, if she does fabricate such an accusation, places a friend of the would-be rapist in the same room with him during the act as a witness. No person lays the groundwork for such a false accusation by telling a spouse and a therapist about the attack six years before the alleged attacker is nominated. That makes as much sense as former President Barack Obamas family planting false birth announcements in two Honolulu papers in 1961 knowing he would run for president in 2008. And no woman in her right mind, having made such a false accusation, would insist that the FBI investigate her and her corroborating witnesses. Lying to the FBI is a crime in and of itself. Blasey is a trained psychologist and university professor whom no one has said is not in her right mind. I also believe her because I was once a teenaged girl, in the age of black leather jackets, ducktail haircuts, first cars, drive-in movies and intense pressure from boys to have sex. I dont believe Kavanaugh for pretty much the same reasons he was a teenaged boy subject to the same raging hormones and addled brains, likely made much more impulsive by alcohol and a sense of privilege. No teenaged boys (or girls) are thinking about 35 years down the road when they may have to swear they led absolutely blameless lives from the cradle to obtain a lifetime seat on the most powerful political body in the land. Kavanaughs corroborating witness, Mark Judge, the person who Ford says was in the room with them, wrote a memoir, Wasted, in which he detailed his blackout drinking and alcoholism and the binge drinking of his high school friends, including, arguably, Kavanaugh. Judge now refuses to testify under oath. I wonder why. He quoted Noel Coward in his high school yearbook, circa 1982 Certain women should be struck regularly, like gongs. Judges yearbook entry also asks cryptically, Bart, have you boofed yet, which may have been a reference to Kavanaugh. Boofing, by varying accounts meant having anal sex, ingesting drugs or alcohol through the anus or getting wasted on methamphetamines. Kavanaughs own yearbook page refers to Keg City Club and 100 kegs or bust, which implies routine heavy drinking. Where were those Jesuit teachers, those molders of chivalric manhood at Georgetown Prep, when those pages were being put together? But none of this matters. Both Blasey and Kavanaughs lives are now blighted no matter what happens. The issue now is purely political. How can the Republicans get their fair-haired candidate up on the Supreme Court as soon as possible so he can be the deciding, negative vote on Americans health care, womens bodies, voters rights and workers rights for the next 30 years or more? Can Democrats stop it? The voters were warned in 2016 that the Supreme Court was perhaps the most important issue of that election and so it has proven to be. Maybe the voters have finally absorbed that lesson, a little late but in time for the upcoming Nov. 6 congressional election. Women, who staged the largest demonstrations in American history the day after President Donald Trumps inauguration, surely know it. The Republicans are likely to ram this nomination through come hell or high water because this may be the last chance they get for generations to pack the Supreme Court with right-wing ideologs. So the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee will probably go ahead with Mondays farce of a show trial. Its not clear that Blasey will go along with the charade but if she does, she will show herself to be as courageous as Boudicia, the Celtic queen who led her troops into battle against the Roman Empire. Or just out of her mind. Two members of the all-male, all white Judiciary Committee who treated Hill the most abusively in 1991 were Chuck Grassley and Orrin Hatch. Now in their mid-80s, they are still on the committee and can be counted on to be just as abusive and dismissive today as they were then. But things are a little different this time. There are three Democratic women on the panel and one of them, Kamala Harris, was an able prosecutor and the former attorney general of California. She will be in her element. Democrats Richard Blumenthal, also a former prosecutor and a former attorney general of Connecticut, Dick Durban of Illinois and Cory Booker of New Jersey are not to be trifled with either. The grilling will be fierce on both sides this time. If Kavanaugh gets on the bench, his tenure will be just as tainted as Clarence Thomas has been. Thomas has been the Republicans totally reliable conservative lapdog vote on the court, but he has been a terrible judge. He never asks a question at oral argument and he writes when the rest of the court allows him to write the most turgid opinions. He will never be much quoted in future law review articles for his brilliant legal insights. It is obvious to us all that Trump nominated Kavanaugh specifically to find a way to overturn the Affordable Care Act, abolish abortion and, most importantly, protect Trump in any upcoming legal battles with special counsel Robert Mueller. Let him take his place beside Thomas on the bench and in the history books. It may be too little too late, but women are watching and they will vote. Jodine Mayberry is a retired editor, longtime journalist and Delaware County resident. Her column appears every Friday. You can reach her at jodinemayberry@comcast.net. Uh-oh! It could be you, or it could be us, but there's no page here. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Hurricane Florence were the top names in news headlines this past week. "I do not have an attorney general," President Donald Trump said about Sessions in a recent interview with Hill.TV. Trump also criticized Sessions' handling of immigration, saying he was "disappointed" with the attorney general for "many reasons." A wrench was thrown in the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination hearings after Dr. Christine Blasey Ford came forward accusing him of sexually assaulting her while they were in high school. Ford says she will not testify until a full FBI investigation has taken place, but Senate Republicans insist she testify, either publicly or privately, on Monday. Trump announced he had approved a further wave of tariffs on Chinese imports. The president is adamant that China takes advantage of the United States, but critics say these tariffs will only hurt the United States. Other stories this week included news about the booming economy (and whom to thank for it), testing of a new presidential alert system and moves by North Korea to speed up denuclearization. Although letters to the editor are often used to thank heroes for their service, they can seem inadequate. A few sentences cant do justice to a soldiers battlefield death or a civilian first responders sacrifice to protect strangers, their homes or Americas natural or historic resources. So I choose to use a guest opinion to thank the people of Utah and your fellow Utahn, Battalion Chief Matt Burchett of Draper, who lost his life in August fighting a wildfire far from his home and much closer to mine. Burchett came to California in response to one of our most devastating recent wildfire seasons. He was killed when a supertanker, a 747 that carries 12,000 gallons of fire retardant and can spread it in a mile-long path over a fire, apparently deposited its load near a fire crew and dislodged a tree that fell on the group. People nationwide know about these wildfires an annual struggle for every Western state and province. The hearts of Californians still ache over last years losses. The October cluster in Napa, Sonoma and neighboring counties killed 44 people and consumed 8,900 buildings, including 5 percent of residences in Santa Rosa, a city of 175,000 people. Only weeks later, 22 people in Ventura and Los Angeles counties died and 1,000 buildings were destroyed in a series of wildfires and resulting landslides; until August 2018, that was the largest wildfire in state history. This years Yosemite-area wildfire got worldwide attention because it closed the park for several weeks, but Southern California also saw major fires. Farther north, one near Redding and Shasta Lake killed three firefighters and five residents and burned 1,000 homes; the Mendocino Complex conflagration 100 miles north of San Francisco exploded into 720 square miles, Californias biggest ever, and took the life of Matthew Burchett. He did not have to come here; he volunteered, along with other Utah firefighters and hundreds from around the country. In fact, help often comes from Eastern states, Canada and even Australia and New Zealand, which are well suited to exchange wildfire mutual aid with California because our summer is their winter. Utah news media described Burchett as an outstanding firefighter, neighbor, family member and friend exactly the kind of person who thinks of others first and volunteers when it would be easier and safer to stay home. This is true of countless military, police, fire, health, public utility, transportation and other personnel who keep their fellow citizens safe 24/7/365. As a retired fire inspector, I have a special perspective on first responders. My task was to prevent calamities through education and code enforcement, so I was not routinely in harms way. However, I was also a 911 dispatcher, a first responder in another sense. Dispatchers are often the first to know when lives are in danger. I had to use my judgment to evaluate calls and send emergency responders to situations that could have put them at risk. In a public safety career of three decades, I worked with hundreds of police and fire personnel, and as a longtime National Park Service volunteer, I work with rangers and other park staff. Over the decades, I have come to see all first responders as brothers and sisters, and the loss of one of them is a personal loss to me. So I want to reach across the miles separating me from most Deseret News readers to express Californias gratitude. Our states share the yearly ordeal of wildfires and will continue to answer the call to each others need, and dedicated professionals will always be ready to risk their lives to save people they will never meet. Thank you, Chief Burchett, and thank you, Utah. OGDEN Weber State University is renaming its School of Nursing in honor of Annie Taylor Dee, a catalyst for bringing quality medical services to Ogden following the deaths of a son and her husband. To mark the occasion, a celebration will be held Oct. 2 at 5:30 p.m. in the Weber State University Ballrooms with students, alumni and members of the medical community. Annie Taylor and her husband, businessman Thomas Dee, married and settled in Ogden in 1871. Tragedy struck the family in December of 1894, when the couples 21-year-old son, Thomas Reese, developed severe abdominal pain. At that time, there was no place in Ogden to receive emergency medical treatment. Following a crude operation performed on the familys dining room table, he suffered an agonizing death from a ruptured appendix. Eleven years later, Thomas Dee accidentally slipped into the Ogden River and got chilled. By the time he returned home, he had developed pneumonia and died on July 9, 1905, at age 60. Annie Dee resolved to honor her husbands memory by building a community hospital and donated three acres of land on the corner of Harrison Boulevard and 24th Street. The hospital, dedicated Dec. 29, 1910, housed the formal nursing school in Utah. In 1932, the Dee Hospital School of Nursing aligned its coursework with Weber College. But in the 1950s, a nursing shortage plagued the U.S., and an experimental program sought to train nurses in two years instead of three or four. Weber College was one of only seven schools in the nation selected to pilot the associate degree model of nursing education, and in September 1953, Weber College opened its first nursing classes. In 1955, the Dee Hospital School of Nursing was phased out, and students were integrated into Weber Colleges program. The Dee Hospital was closed on July 12, 1969, when patients were moved into Ogdens new McKay-Dee Hospital. Today, the original Dee Hospital site is a community park. Annie Taylor Dee died in 1934, and her legacy of giving is sustained through charitable foundations established by her descendants. SALT LAKE CITY Only around 4 in 10 eligible voters cast a ballot in a typical midterm election, according to the United States Elections Project. That's 15 to 20 percentage points lower than turnout during presidential elections, which is already low compared to data from other countries. Candidates aren't the only ones looking to increase participation in this year's election, which could shift the balance of Congress. In the final six weeks before election day on Nov. 6, faith leaders are also working to get out the vote in their congregations and beyond. Ahead of National Voter Registration Day on Sept. 25, around 150 congregations across the country are taking part in a Voter Sabbath this weekend, encouraging members to register to vote and discussing election-related issues. Other faith groups have launched new community organizations and awareness campaigns, presenting casting a ballot as an important religious or spiritual act. These efforts are a natural extension of the typical work of faith communities, said Megan Black, national clergy organizer for Faith in Action, the interfaith social justice organization behind Voter Sabbath. Electing smart and ethical leaders is a way to serve members in need, like food or clothing drives. "A lot of our congregations are deeply rooted in communities that are profoundly affected by decisions politicians make on a day-to-day basis," she said. Political engagement programs are also a way for faith groups to become more visible and educate nonmembers about their core values, said Avais Ahmed, chair of the board of directors for the recently formed Utah Muslim Civic League, which aims to increase political participation among Utah Muslims. "We want to make sure people see us as part of the community," he said. However, voter awareness efforts do come with some risks for faith groups that want to increase political engagement, not partisanship. Voter registration drives and election-related sermons shouldn't make members of a particular political party feel unwelcome in their house of worship, experts said. Faith and elections Faith-based voter engagement efforts are not a new phenomenon. In the run-up to election day, faith leaders regularly speak about the value of voting or discuss their tradition's teachings on campaign issues like the death penalty or abortion. These practices help explain why religious groups often punch above their weight during election season. For example, 23 percent of actual voters in the 2016 presidential election identified as Catholic, compared to 20 percent of registered voters, according to Pew Research Center and national exit polls. In 2018, voter engagement efforts have taken on new significance for many religious Americans, who feel a more urgent desire to get involved and more pressure to avoid partisanship, Black said. "The politics of today are deeply moral and ethical and represent deeply moral and ethical conundrums," she said. "We have a voice and perspective on that." Issues like immigration, gun violence and health care have been in the news repeatedly over the past two years. So have the white evangelical Christians who influence President Donald Trump's policy priorities. These religious leaders have been criticized for actively supporting a president whose personal life conflicted with traditionally religious values. Joseph G. Fleming, director of Catholic organizing for Faith in Action, said participants in Voter Sabbath are instructed to take care to avoid being partisan. They register people from all political backgrounds to vote and focus on the importance of voting in general, not the importance of voting for a specific candidate or party. "We are encouraging faith leaders and their members to be political," not partisan, he said. They want to avoid "deepening polarization." Ahmed, who serves on the executive committee of the Islamic Society of Greater Salt Lake, noted that organizers of the Utah Muslim Civic League have been careful to gather input and volunteers from multiple mosques in the state. They're focused on unifying the Muslim community in Utah, not exacerbating political tensions. "We're a nonpartisan organization. What we're going to do is educate Muslims on different views" and different candidates, he said. The League will also register voters. In the face of potential pushback, clergy members draw inspiration and courage from the conviction that voting is a way to turn religious beliefs into action, Black said. They can emphasize the moral stakes of election season. "Our congregations and (faith-based) organizations have a role to play in the political landscape of this country and insights to offer," she said. This year, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which does not endorse political candidates, has been vocal about the moral implications of Proposition 2 in Utah, a ballot initiative seeking to legalize medical marijuana use. The church is not opposed to medical marijuana use, but is concerned that Proposition 2 lacks the control and safeguards that protect youth and the community. At the end of August, Elder Craig C. Christensen, Area President of the Utah Areas in the church's Quorums of the Seventy, sent an email to church members in the state urging them to vote "no" on the initiative in November, the Deseret News reported. Increasing engagement Voter Sabbath, the national event led by Black's organization, takes different forms in different congregations. The overarching goal is to get more people engaged with election season. "It's an opportunity for congregations and organizations to really dive into the election and what voting means for (them) right now," Black said. Clergy members offer prayers or sermons on the importance of voting and provide voter registration resources to congregation members and non-members. Voter registration helps create a bridge between congregations and their surrounding community, Fleming said. It's an opportunity to start conversations about desired policy changes and show that living a life of faith is about more than private prayers and rituals. "Faith is not just about your relationship to God. It's also about your relationship to the whole community," said Fleming, who is Catholic. "It's always been really natural to me to integrate faith and civic participation." Leaders in the secular movement, from organizations like American Atheists and the American Humanist Association, have offered similar assessments of their get-out-the-vote campaign, called Secular America Votes. A conversation about how to fill out a voter registration form can turn into a discussion of what issues matter most to the secular community in 2018 and beyond, as Sarah Levin, director of grassroots and community programs at the Secular Coalition for America, told the Deseret News earlier this year. "We want to have a conversation about what our values are and what we're looking for in our candidates across the political spectrum," she said. One-on-one connections can help change voter turnout trends, Fleming said, noting that Faith in Action wants to be in touch with at least 1 million potential voters before Nov. 6. "Relationships really drive participation" in elections, he said. "It's people knowing people and talking about the issues they care about most that will ultimately animate them to get to the polls." SALT LAKE CITY The Parents Television Council announced its support for a new bill put forth by Utah Rep. Mia Love. The bill, HR6816, is called the Family Movie Act Clarification Act of 2018. The bill, which was referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary on Sept. 13, will look to exempt certain performances from copyright and trademark infringement, and for other purposes. Conservative watchdogs see it as an update to the 2005 Family Movie Act that would give filtering services like VidAngel and ClearPlay a chance to edit and filter films without worry of copyright or trademark infringement. This bill is a long-overdue update to the Family Movie Act of 2005 and would give parents the digital ability to plug their kids ears and cover their kids eyes to harmful and explicit streaming content, just as the 2005 act allows them to do via a DVD," PTC President Tim Winter said in a statement. Winter said in his statement that Love battled Hollywood lobbyists to prevent any pushback. Winter said Hollywood lobbyists pushing against the bill likely have some sort of agenda. Make no mistake: this is a win-win for Hollywood and for parents. Families would be able to protect their children from harmful content in movies they stream; and Hollywood immediately increases its revenue capacity by broadening the marketplace for its products. Any publicly traded studio that opposes either the spirit or the letter of this legislation is acting against its own fiduciary interests and, therefore, violating its corporate duty to shareholders, Winter said. We call on congressional leadership, both in the House and in the Senate, to deliver a Christmas present to parents and families, and pass HR6816 before the end of this year. The Protect Family Rights Coalition similarly praised the bill, saying its a coordinated effort to defend filtered movie streaming. The 2005 Family Movie Act was a long and extremely hard-fought battle in which we were outspent and outmanned, and yet despite major pressure from Hollywood, were able to convince both parties in Congress to do the right thing for parents and their children. Today is no different, said Bill Aho, former CEO of ClearPlay and executive director of the Protect Family Rights Coalition. We call on the House Judiciary Committee, the administration, and representatives in both parties and both chambers to immediately get behind this bill and see that it arrives on the presidents desk. We are united in our resolve to see this through. Utah Reps. John Curtis, Rob Bishop and Chris Stewart all support the bill. Meanwhile, 30 pro-family leaders including Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, James Dobson of Family Talk, Bishop Harry Jackson of ICC Churches, and Ted Baehr of Movieguide signed a letter sent to House Speaker Paul Ryan supporting the bill. SALT LAKE CITY Fall season is a spooky time for the Utah theater scene. Wait Until Dark the film featuring Audrey Hepburn in one of her most suspenseful roles is in full swing on the Hale Center Theatre stage. In a few weeks, other Utah theaters will continue the spookiness with productions of The Addams Family and Sweeney Todd. Its a great way and for some lucky Utah theatergoers, a free way to get into the Halloween spirit. Between Sept. 23 and Oct. 7, Now Playing Utah is hosting a giveaway for a Free Night of Theater, an event that aims to expand theater audiences in Utah. To take part in the giveaway, visit freenight.nowplayingutah.com to create a profile, and then select the top two performances youd like to see. Entering gives applicants a chance to win up to four tickets to two performances, according to a news release. All applicants will be notified of the winners via email on Oct. 14, and performances will be held between Oct. 21 and Nov. 17. When selecting performances, applicants chances of winning increase if they choose theaters theyve never attended, according to freenight.nowplayingutah.com, since the goal is to encourage audiences to experience new arts organizations. We are excited to be able to offer the Free Night of Theater again to open the world of live performance to new audience members in Utah, said Pat Holmes of NowPlayingUtah.com in the release. We have some pretty amazing theater productions this year with 17 generous theaters providing free tickets to 19 different productions. Here is a full list of the available productions, and don't worry they're not all spooky: SALT LAKE CITY Want to visit one of Utahs five national parks? Dont want to pay the admission fee? You're in luck. In celebration of National Public Lands Day tomorrow, the National Park Service will be offering free admission to all of the countrys national parks and monuments, according to the Deseret News. Retweet to spread the word! Were waiving entrance fees to all public lands on Saturday, September 22, to celebrate National Public Lands Day. Pic: Candy Butterscotch #NPLD pic.twitter.com/cgNq0wcL17 US Department of the Interior (@Interior) September 20, 2018 According to the official NPS website, tomorrow also marks the 25th anniversary of National Public Lands Day, which is celebrated on the fourth Saturday of September each year, adding an extra layer of celebration to the holiday. According to the Deseret News, the annual holiday was established in 1994. The day aims to celebrate "the connection between people and green space in their community, inspires environmental stewardship and encourages use of open space for education, recreation and general health," the Deseret News reported. It is also the 50th anniversary of the National Trails System and National Wild & Scenic Rivers System. The parks may still charge for concessions, camping, tours and other services, accoridng to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. For those unfamiliar with how much it costs to get into a national park on a normal day in peak season, it usually averages to around $30. Recently, however, there was talk about increasing the fee. Recently, the National Park Service had considered raising the fee to $70 at 17 of the busiest parks. The potential move would help address maintenance and other costs, but it's drawn criticism from conservation groups arguing the locations should remain affordable to visitors. In the end, the NPS decided to raise prices by $5 for one-time entry, or $5 to $10 for an annual pass, though some fees won't rise until 2020, according to Mental Floss. For those looking to give back, anyone who volunteers at one of the special work projects set up at the parks will be given a voucher for free admission to a national park or monument that can be used at a future date, according to the NPS. In Utah, these projects will be taking place at Arches and Canyonlands National Parks as well as Cedar Breaks National Monument. If youre looking for something to do in Zion, last year the Deseret News published these tips from the USA Today that may prove helpful. If youre still not sure how to celebrate National Public Lands Day, you may want to check out the flowchart provided by the NPS below. Editor's note: Portions of this column were previously published on the author's website. Theres a legend about Sir Edmund Hillary, one of the first two men to conquer Mount Everest in 1953, that he also climbed Kings Peak in Utah. This is actually a true story, but it happened in the summer of 1978 when Sears and Kellwood (an outdoor equipment manufacturer), was testing camping gear in the Yellowstone drainage of the High Uintas. Hillary, then age 59, was said to have had little trouble hiking Kings Peak and the Uintas. No stranger to Utah, Hillary had also floated the Green River in 1969, as part of the centennial commemoration of John Wesley Powell's 1869 original exploration of the area. And Hillary had first visited the High Uintas in July of 1962, when he and his family enjoyed a four-day camping trip in the Granddaddy Basin area. "New Zealand mountain climber and family thrilled with pack trip into High Uintas areas" was a July 19, 1962, headline in the Uinta Basin Standard newspaper. Duchesne District ranger Larry Colton served as a guide for the Hillarys, as the family hiked and fished. According to the newspaper, Hillary's wife, Lady Louise, and their three children Peter, 7, Sarah, 5, and Belinda, 3 ventured into the primitive area of the High Uintas. Hillary was under contract with the U.S. Forest Service to make a report on campgrounds in the Western U.S. that year. The family began at Mirror Lake, backpacked into the Granddaddy Basin area and then returned to Mirror Lake. They did a lot of hiking, but not any serious peaks. Hillary said this trip was for finding "smiling" and not "fierce" peaks, according to the newspaper account. The only negative to the trip were all the mosquitoes that they encountered, but they said they got used to them. Another Utah newspaper, the Vernal Express, reported that on that 1962 trip, Hillary declared it "absolutely wonderful." Kings Peak in the High Uintas hasnt always been recognized as the highest point in Utah. According to the Salt Lake Tribune of Aug. 18, 1881, Gilbert's Peak was believed to be Utah's tallest at 13,687 feet above sea level. Kings Peak was not even mentioned back then. In 1903, it wasn't much more accurate. A Salt Lake Tribune article from Dec. 8, 1903, reported that Uintah County surveyors were claiming that Emmons Peak was tallest in the state at 14,449 feet above sea level. A decade later, the Vernal Express newspaper on Jan. 23, 1913, stated that South Kings Peak was the states tallest summit at 13,498 feet. North Kings was second at 13,496 feet. It stated that a "South Baldy" and a "North Baldy" were previously thought to be Utah's tallest summits at 12,210 and 12,680 feet above sea level. The Richfield Reaper newspaper of April 5, 1906, reported that a Mount Hodges had supposedly been named by U.S. surveyor Clarence King in the 1800s, but that now no one seems to know where that peak actually is. The newspaper called it "the largest unlocated peak in Utah." Could that have been today's South Kings Peak? Perhaps. The Salt Lake Tribune of April 10, 1914 finally got it somewhat right: it had Kings Peak as tallest at 13,498, followed by Mount Emmons, 13,428, and Gilbert Peak, 13,422. The Roosevelt Standard newspaper reported on Aug. 20, 1924, that members of Salt Lakes Wasatch Mountain Club had hiked Kings Peak (today's South Kings Peak). On top, they salted the peak by placing a bottle of briny water from the Great Salt Lake on its lofty summit. The water bottle also had the signatures of Utah Gov. Charles R. Mabey and others on it. A Jan. 30, 1947, article in the Vernal Express newspaper stated that in the mid-1940s, two men climbed North Kings Peak and constructed a 2-foot-high monument on the highest part of the summit. Then, one of the men proclaimed, "There, that makes them even." Other newspapers of the era referred to the "twin Kings Peaks." For 53 years, that was the accepted belief, that South Kings was the tallest in the Beehive State. So, anyone hiking Utahs tallest in that time period went to the southern peak, usually missing or passing by the actual tallest peak North Kings Peak at 13,528 feet. It wasnt until 1966 that new measurements by satellite proclaimed North Kings Peak as the highest and remeasured South Kings Peak to be second highest at 13,512 feet. (Ironically the U.S. Forest Service had placed the first official plaque on Kings Peak one year earlier in 1965. Back then, it estimated that only 30 people a year on average hiked to the summit.) Kings Peak, Duchesne County, though it is the king of Utah peaks, is actually named for Clarence King of the U.S. Geological Survey, who explored the Uinta Mountains from 1868-1871. He was later the director of the U.S. Geological Survey. By the 1970s, the Forest Service had a metal plaque on the correct tallest Kings Peak. However, that plaque vanished in the late 1990s, presumably taken by vandals, who either took it or cast it off nearby cliffs. PROVO After more than a week of evacuations due to blazing wildfires, residents of Woodland Hills and Elk Ridge cities will be able to return home Saturday morning. During a community meeting Friday evening at Salem Hills High School, the displaced residents learned they can return to their homes at 9 a.m. However, they should be prepared to evacuate again should the need arise, Woodland Hills Mayor Wendy Pray said. All other evacuations remain in place. The announcement was met by loud applause, whistling and cheering from hundreds of people sitting in the bleachers of the school's gym. "This has been a long haul. It's not been fun for any of us. But I have seen the best of the best through all of this. And it's been an opportunity for our communities to unite," said Elk Ridge Mayor Ty Ellis. However, the battle isn't over as other areas remain threatened, Pray said, asking residents to pray for firefighters. Ellis asked that when community members return to their homes, they stay there for "a few hours" so those following will have access to the cities, as traffic is expected to become congested in the area. During the meeting, incident commander on the Bald Mountain Fire, Todd Pechota, thanked residents for their support. "I just want to try to look you all in the eye and say thank you," he said, praising residents' patience and support. He said a burnout on the west side of Payson Canyon of a 300-acre "piece of dirt was absolutely critical to helping us button up a large portion of the north end of the fire." "We believe that we've reached the point right now where we are at low risk of future threat to anybody in this room," he said, prompting another round of applause from the crowd. The Pole Creek Fire is currently burning about 98,600 acres and was 32 percent contained Friday. Meanwhile, the adjacent Bald Mountain Fire is scorching about 18,000 acres with 12 percent containment. Ariel Chandia said hearing the news that her family could go home was "like Christmas." With an infant and a 4-year-old, she said the experience has been a "little stressful but it's been like an adventure." "Yeah, we went to an aquarium the first day because the kids just needed distraction, you know? But it was really stressful at the very first. You have to go through your house and say, 'What to take?'" Laura Chandia, Ariel's mother-in-law, chimed in. "And really, there isn't much that can't be replaced." Laura Chandia's son serves on the Elk Ridge volunteer fire department and works as a full-time firefighter in Ogden, "so he's been between Ogden and Elk Ridge and totally exhausted. But those men and women have done an amazing job," she said. Ariel Chandia said it was "definitely a lot harder without having that extra pair of hands. But we just buckled down and we did what we had to do." Early Friday afternoon, a group of local officials from throughout the state met with Rep. John Curtis, R-Utah, to discuss the fires and their potential aftermath. "We've been so concentrated on these fires, and rightly so, we haven't wanted to take our eye off the ball," Curtis said after the closed meeting in his Provo office. He called the meeting the first "deep dive" on what comes next. "But now as we start seeing the heavy rains in sight, we're starting to ask questions of what are our worries, including mudslides and debris flows. So today was kind of beginning that dialogue, and how do we start preparing for that?" After the meeting with the congressman, a group of county commissioners gathered in a small office room to voice their frustration over federal land management, which they said has allowed vegetation to accumulate and become fuel for fires. "First off, notice that those Type 1 teams that are here, they're doing phenomenal work. It's almost magical what they're doing as individuals but there's a couple parts of this that I think is missing in the conversation," said Utah County Commissioner Bill Lee. Lee said he is concerned that there will be flooding after the fires, with rocks and debris that will flow past the fire's burn scar. He also expressed frustration that the federal government comes to fight the fires but leaves for the aftermath, when rains start flowing. "There are 2,000 (firefighters) up there help us fill the sandbags, or is it just going to fall back on us?" Lee asked. "The policies that get us to this point have failed us. The experiments should be over with this type of management that is going on right now when it comes to wilderness management," Lee said. According to Beaver County Commissioner Tammy Pearson, "We know what's going on in our own backyard. There needs to be more local input." She said the fires can't be blamed solely on circumstances like lightning strikes which caused the Pole Creek and Bald Mountain fires but a "tinderbox" created by vegetation. "At any point in time, it could be any one of us, whether it's a spark off of a four-wheeler, or if it's somebody's backyard barbecue, or anything, this can start this catastrophic flare in your backyard or in my backyard. It's 100 years of fire suppression that has caught up with us. It's the perfect storm," Pearson said. "So one thing I don't want to make people feel like is we're against the Forest Service or we're against the BLM people that are up there. But I think it's the national policies that actually drive the things that we're seeing today," said Uintah County Commissioner Duane Shepherd. Curtis said he had a telephone conversation Friday morning with interim Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen, during which she committed that a "full and complete transparent review" on the fires will take place. Christiansen also said potential mudflow and debris slides will be given the "same level of urgency" as the fires themselves, Curtis said. And after review, the Forest Service will be open to changes and open to consider "how they're doing things here," according to Curtis. "I do think I have the ability to call Washington's attention out here and make sure that they're listening," the congressman said, adding that local, state and federal government working together will be key. And for those who were evacuated due to the flames, Curtis said, "Thank you for your patience. Clearly, this group of displaced residents are worth bragging about in Washington, D.C., as well as those who have taken them in." 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 SALT LAKE CITY Laura Rough's dream of becoming a nurse hatched while she was in high school. With Rough having been born with a severe hearing impairment, many people she knew believed her career goal was audacious. When her eyesight also began to deteriorate in her early 20s, that chorus of doubts grew. "That fact that people said to me I couldn't be a nurse gave me the drive to say, 'I'm going to show you, I'm going to do it,'" Rough says. "And I did it." Rough is now a nurse of more than 20 years, having previously worked in the emergency room and intensive care unit, currently working as a utilization nurse for University of Utah Health. As she reflects on her career, she says the main lesson she has learned is that "I have to focus on the positive." "You have to, or you may never leave home," she said frankly. Rough was one of close to 200 people to gather at DeafBlind Awareness Day on Friday, hosted by Deafblind Advocacy of Utah at the Department of Workforce Services offices in Salt Lake City. The daylong gathering was centered on socializing and networking opportunities for those who with varying degrees of deafness and blindness, or some combination of the two. It was a chance to connect them to important services, including help seeking a job, and building a sense of community among both service providers and clients. "I think it reminds people we're not alone," Rough said. Stephen Ehrlich, 70, who is completely blind and deaf, agreed it was important "to meet each other, to socialize." "It's important for us to get together because we are isolated a lot," Ehrlich told the Deseret News through an interpreter. "It gives us hope." Ehrlich, a part-time tactile interpretation instructor at the Robert G. Sanderson Community Center of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Taylorsville, said services and events for the deaf and blind in Utah have improved significantly since he first moved to Utah 20 years ago, when "resources were very limited." "I am hopeful we can improve even more," Ehrlich said, calling events like the one held Friday "a good beginning." Guests at the awareness day conference were treated to a barbecue lunch, speaker lectures, drawings for crocheted and quilted items, and numerous informational booths from organizations serving the deaf and blind. For the curious, there were also demonstrations showing how a blind person learns to navigate using a white cane or guide dog, and some participants got to experience the world of a deaf-blind person by using Google Vision technology and a hearing barrier. Laura Benge, Rocky Mountain Region representative for the Helen Keller National Center for Deaf-Blind Youths and Adults, praised the conference as a way for service providers to better "meet the people they're supposed to be serving." "It's really great for (providers) to be at gatherings like this," Benge said. "It's really good to see the experiences of people you're working with, in a different (setting)." Benge said her organization is a federally funded nonprofit that serves the deaf-blind, their families and the professionals who serve them. She noted that one way service providers can improve resources offered to a deaf or blind person is to be attentive on their long-term ambitions rather than simply assisting with day-to-day needs. For example, she said, some deaf or blind high school students enjoy accessible classrooms and learning materials, but aren't given individualized career guidance. In some cases, "Nobody's ever had the conversation, to talk to you about, 'What do you want to do?' Or 'What's available?'" she said. For Utahns who want to more thoughtfully interact with a deaf or blind person they know or come into contact with, frequently "intimidation is the biggest barrier" to starting a conversation, Benge said. She offered a simple remedy: "If you don't know how to approach (them) just go up and ask. Be friendly." "Most people can guide you" on the norms of such a conversation, she added. Ehrlich said that while people like himself have some unique life experiences compared to those "in the seeing and hearing world," in the most important ways they are just like anybody else. "We all are human, with emotion," he said. "We have happiness, we have sadness. We suffer, we have joy." SALT LAKE CITY Utah's Supreme Court heard arguments but didn't rule Friday on whether Holladay residents can vote down the Cottonwood Mall development in November, in a pressing case that both sides fear could set a harmful precedent for city land use. On one hand, justices wondered whether a ruling for the developers would encourage city governments to create "anything goes" zones, in which voters would lose their right to challenge new land uses long before any of the particulars are known. On the other hand, justices asked attorneys whether the approval of the development plan which Ivory Homes and Woodbury Corporation submitted this spring under a loosely defined zone that won legislative approval in 2007 differs from other land-use decisions that are commonly considered administrative, and thus not subject to referendum. The court could rule anytime before Election Day, Nov. 6. Afterward, Holladay Mayor Rob Dahle said he didn't have a feel for which way the five justices were leaning. "Listening to it, I think you could tell why we're here," he said. "It's not a clear issue." The case stems from a proposal to build 775 high-rise apartments, more than 200 homes and dozens of shops and restaurants at the 57-acre site of the old mall, most of it dormant for more than a decade. Holladay's City Council unanimously approved the plan in spring, but citizen organizers primarily objecting to its density and the potential effect on traffic collected about 6,500 certified signatures to put two questions on the ballot. In one, they would ask whether residents approve of the plan, and in the other, whether they approve of an agreement that would give the developers a tax increment subsidy. City officials rejected the referendum, determining that the council's approval had been an administrative not legislative act. The legislative portion, city officials argued, came and went when the city zoned the mall acreage for an undefined blend of residential and commercial uses back in 2007. After referendum organizers sued, 3rd District Judge Richard McKelvie ruled earlier this month that the first question should be on the ballot because the development plan involved the type of broad policy considerations that are the telltale signs of legislation. The second question was a "close call," McKelvie wrote, but amounted to an administrative act and was correctly rejected. Various pro-development organizations wrote in court briefs that such referendums could stymie development and cost developers hundreds of millions of dollars, but McKelvie said that wasn't an argument for depriving voters of their rights. The top court now has mere weeks to re-evaluate a case that has far-reaching implications for high-density developments in Utah, where the population is expected to balloon from 3.2 million to 5 million by 2050, according to an estimate from the University of Utah's Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute. Earlier this year, the threat of referendum preceded Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams' decision to veto an 8,800-unit development on unincorporated county land near Herriman, and Orem residents gathered enough signatures to challenge on November's ballot 1,600 units of student housing near Utah Valley University. Before a packed courtroom Friday, justices lingered on questions of what constitutes legislative zoning and whether the development plan approved by the Holladay council would apply to any other land-use applicants as zoning decisions would. Chief Justice Matthew Durrant said the original 2007 zoning adopted by Holladay's council was "almost as broad as it can be." "It seems to me, at least at this point that this (additional development plan) really effectively functions as a zone," Durrant said. But attorney Alan Sullivan, representing the developers, said there's nothing in the law that says zones need to be especially detailed, and that many cities have mixed-use zones that are just as broadly defined. What's more, Sullivan said, the development plan is pursuant to a binding agreement between the developers and the city. That makes it contractual, he said, not legislative. Justice John Pearce asked attorneys whether cities could create hypothetical free-for-all zones that they could then amend later, after the voters' opportunity for a referendum had passed. Durrant added that all Holladay's voters knew in 2007 was that a development at the Cottonwood Mall site would be at least 30 acres and involve some mix of uses. "They have precious little information," Durrant said. "If that was their only opportunity, were they able to make an informed decision? Are they effectively cut out of the process, in terms of a referendum?" Justice Constandinos Himonas said that under the 2007 agreement, a development could involve 1 percent commercial uses and 99 percent residential uses, or vice versa. "You've created this general vessel in which you get to pour all these decisions and mix it around." Attorney J. Craig Smith, for the referendum organizers, agreed. After Sullivan distributed the development plan to the justices to show that the level of specificity went far beyond what most people would associate with zoning, Smith asked them to take another look. In his opinion, Smith said, that plan constitutes "the meat and potatoes of zoning." But Smith faced hard questions, too. Justices seemed unconvinced that the development plan qualifies as legislation, given that it applies specifically to Ivory and Woodbury, even if it does involve momentous land-use decisions. The same ends could be achieved by clearly administrative acts, they pointed out, like conditional use permits. Justices didn't say when they would rule on the case. Holladay needs to send out ballots to voters in the military by Monday. The rest of the ballots will be mailed Oct. 8. Smith suggested the justices could rule at any time before Election Day, and that it would do no harm to simply print the ballots with the referendum question and void the results if the court decides it isn't referable. But Dahle said he was disappointed not to have more clarity. "There had been some indications that maybe the court would make a decision tonight," he said. SALT LAKE CITY New federal data indicates the proportion of Utah teenagers protected by a cancer prevention HPV vaccine increased by about 7 percentage points in 2017, but the state still ranks near the bottom nationwide. The increase was significant for Utah boys ages 13 to 17, whose estimated HPV coverage rate jumped to 32.9 percent in 2017 compared to 20.3 percent the year before, a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. However, in the same time frame, the coverage rate stayed roughly the same for girls in the state, with an estimated 42.1 percent of them covered compared to 41.3 percent previously, per the report. Overall, the proportion of Utah teenagers 13 to 17 covered fully by the two-shot HPV vaccine increased from 30.5 percent in 2016 to 37.4 percent in 2017. But that rate, compared to other states, ranks 47th in the country and is well below the national average of 48.6 percent, said Shannon Rice, the HPV outreach and education coordinator for the state Department of Health's immunization program. The findings are based on the CDC's National Immunization Surveys, comprising of a series of questionnaires. HPV, short for human papillomavirus, is actually a collection of over 150 related viruses, the CDC says. HPV is transmitted sexually. More than 90 percent of people will have some type of HPV during their lifetime, Rice said, many of whom will exhibit only mild or negligible symptoms or even no symptoms at all. However, a few versions of HPV can lead to six types of cancers affecting either the throat, cervix or genitals. There are more than 29,000 cases of HPV-related cancer each year in the United States, the Utah Department of Health says. The HPV vaccine, which prevents infection with the types of HPV that can lead to cancer, first became available in the United States in 2006. So far, there have "been no studies showing any waning immunity" for the early recipients of the vaccine, Rice said. Still, she said, the vaccine, which is recommended by the state but not required, has had a hard time catching on in Utah. "We do have parents who think getting the vaccine might give license for kids to go ahead and have sex," Rice said. "We have studies out there showing that's not the case." She said such research has shown no increase in sexual activity, pregnancies or sexually transmitted disease among teenagers who have received the vaccine. While the vaccine is approved for anyone from ages 9 to 26, it is "recommended for preteens, both males and females, at age 11 or 12, so they are protected before ever being exposed to the virus," the Department of Health said in a release. "We want to vaccinate sooner rather than later," Rice said. "The older you get, the less responsive (the body) is to this HPV vaccine. And, of course, if you have already been exposed the vaccine can't be as effective." Despite Utah's low prevalence of HPV vaccine coverage, the state has been incrementally improving its rates, "every year at least a little bit," Rice said. "I mean we had, nowhere to go but up. Utah adolescents are having trouble accessing this vaccine, I mean the numbers show that," she said. Rice hypothesized that the vaccine's lower prevalence among Utah teenage boys may be due to the fact that it has been available to them for fewer years than it has been for girls. Efforts to administer it to more boys has been a process of "trying to play catch up," she said. The CDC awarded a grant four years ago to some states with low HPV prevention coverage rates to help with messaging campaigns promoting the use of the vaccine, Rice said. Currently, that campaign is focused on a social media presence, as well as advertisements on traditional radio and platforms such as Pandora, she said, teaching people that the vaccine exists in the first place. "Our message is, it's cancer prevention," Rice said. Other outreach efforts from state health leaders have included educating physicians on how to better teach their patients about the vaccine, Rice said. She said she is also hopeful more Utahns will learn that most health insurance carriers provide coverage for the vaccine. SALT LAKE CITY A couple who support Democratic Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams in the contentious 4th Congressional District race was distressed to see themselves in a TV commercial for his opponent, Rep. Mia Love, R-Utah. And as the race heats up, McAdams faces his own accusation from a business association that he is making misleading statements about tax hikes. Footage of the couple, Don and Marilyn Remington, shot for the mayor's 2016 re-election campaign, appeared at the start of the newest TV commercial from the two-term congresswoman labeling McAdams a "tax and spend Democrat." The commercial, the first negative advertising of the campaign, shows the couple outside McAdams' orange campaign bus before shifting to an interior shot where passengers react with concern to critical statements about the mayor. A lawyer representing the couple, Perrin Love, sent letters Thursday to TV stations and cable providers saying the couple was distressed by use of their likenesses without permission, calling it illegal and demanding the commercials be pulled. The use of their likenesses, the lawyer said, "is not incidental, and falsely implies that the Remingtons want to get off the Ben Bus and do not support Ben McAdams for Congress. They remain enthusiastic McAdams supporters." Love's campaign attorney, Matthew Sanderson, responded Thursday calling the objection to the use of the images "nothing more than a political ploy by the McAdams campaign and its allies to silence criticism." Sanderson said the supporters make only a fleeting appearance in the commercial and are not identified, and are a model example of "incidental use" under a 1988 Utah Supreme Court ruling on a case involving an ad for Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. Love's campaign spokeswoman, Sasha Clark, said Friday that no station or cable outlet had stopped running the ad. The campaign is expected to begin airing a new spot on Tuesday. Clark said it was "another desperate media circus attempt from the McAdams campaign as they are consistently behind in the polls and scrambling to distract" from his record. McAdams' campaign manager, Andrew Roberts, said Friday the complaint was made by the Remingtons and that their attorney, Perrin Love, had "no connection whatsoever" to the campaign. Roberts said McAdams "was disappointed to see that the Love campaign used them, without their consent, to run misleading ads against him. He is grateful they stood up to this negative Washington, D.C., tactic." The flap comes on the heels of a news release from the Utah Taxpayers Association describing claims made in a McAdams' TV commercial that he worked with Republicans to lower the county tax rate every year. The business-oriented association, headed by state Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, called the claim misleading, citing a 2015 decision that didn't allow property tax rates to decrease as much as they could have under the truth in taxation law. McAdams' campaign says the rate was still lower than the previous year. Billy Hesterman, the association's vice president, said Love's claims in her current TV commercial that McAdams repeatedly supported higher taxes was not part of the analysis because the mayor's claim "stood out the most to us." Hesterman said the association was "not going to pick sides in the race" and may consider looking at statements Love has made about taxes. He said the analysis was done as a reminder the association is "trying to be a watchdog on taxes." Roberts said McAdams "lowered the tax rate every year since taking office in 2013" while balancing the county budget with the Republican-majority Salt Lake County Council. Clark said the association "is an independent, respected institution making valid points about Ben's multiple tax increases." The association also referenced a 0.25 percent sales tax increase for transportation backed by the county. Donegal Heritage Officer Joseph Gallagher was in Dublin on Wednesday for the launch of Donegal Culture and Creativity Strategy 2018 - 2022. The launch, took place at the Irish Architectural Archive in Merrion Square and was attended by An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar TD, Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Josepha Madigan TD., and Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government Eoghan Murphy TD. The Donegal Culture and Creativity Strategy 2018 - 2022, is part of the all-of-government Creative Ireland Programme. Speaking at the event the taoiseach, said: Creative Ireland is all about improving access to culture and creativity in every county nationwide, to improve public wellbeing. The Culture Teams in each local authority have been absolutely essential to fulfilling this aim. We believed that by bringing people across a range of disciplines together in our Local Authorities, we could achieve more than the sum of their individual efforts. The strategy has been developed by the Donegal Culture Team and local Creative Ireland Programme coordinator, in consultation with local artists, creatives, cultural and heritage organisations, community groups, the creative industries, centres of education and schools. Donegal County Council CEO Seamus Neely said; Donegal County Council is fully committed to the continued development of culture and creativity in Donegal and we believe that by investing in arts, culture, heritage and language we are committing to a healthier, more fulfilled, prosperous, successful place. The Donegal Culture and Creativity Strategy 2018 2022 sets out a clear framework that will enable us in collaboration with all stakeholders in this vibrant sector to achieve our ambitions. 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. There are 32,226 young people living in County Donegal and, with our growing youth population set to surpass one million by 2025, investment in universal youth services is more important now than ever. That was the message from James Doorley, National Youth Council of Ireland (NYCI) Deputy Director, speaking after the publication of the organisations pre-budget submission recently. In its Pre Budget 2019 submission Future Proof with Investment in Youth the NYCI, which represents youth organisations working with over 380,000 young people nationwide, is calling on Government to invest a further 11.5 million in universal youth work in Budget 2019 to strengthen voluntary youth work organisations, to provide more supports and activities for young people and to meet the needs of a growing youth population nationally and locally. Mr Doorley explained: The 2016 census results indicate that the number of young people aged 10 to 24 will increase by 13.2% between 2015 and 2025 and will be just over one million young people by 2025 (1,005,938)[1], making Ireland one of the only European countries with a growing youth population. NYCI is of the view that wise investment in our growing youth population now would be the best way to ensure long term social and economic success and better secure us against potential economic and financial shocks and difficulties. Investment in youth work services from the Department of Children and Youth Affairs (DCYA) decreased by 31.7% over an eight year period, from 73.1m in 2008 to 49.9m in 2015. While funding for youth work from DCYA had recovered to 58.9m by 2018, mostly for targeted schemes, it is still 20% below that of a decade ago, explained Mr Doorley. These severe cutbacks have left significant deficits and have put a strain on volunteers, staff and organisations trying to deliver quality youth services and supports for the growing number of young people, while also meeting the increasing level of governance requirements. The Government urgently needs to address the overall funding deficits in Budget 2019. In 2008, the investment in youth work services was 76 per young person. By 2014, this had collapsed to 58 per young person. So while there has been an increase in funding, the youth population is also growing significantly. This means the actual investment for 2018[2] comes to just 64 per young person or just under 1.25 a week per young person. We propose that investment in universal youth work services should be increased to 85 per young person by 2020 - which amounts to 82m - to ensure every young person is able to avail of a youth work opportunity in their local community. In order to achieve this, Government must invest an additional funding allocation of 11.5m in Budget 2019, said Mr Doorley. For every 1 spent on youth work, the state gets a return on investment of over 100%, according to an Indecon report on the economic benefit of youth work, added Mr Doorley. Investment in youth work services will not just make a difference now, but will generate a social and economic dividend over the coming decades. As the title of our Pre-Budget submission Future Proof with Investment in Youth illustrates, the best means of securing long-term social and economic sustainability is investment in our people, in particular our growing youth population. We call on Government to make that choice in Budget 2019, concluded Mr Doorley. (Photo: REUTERS / Rupak De Chowdhuri)Catholic nuns from the Missionaries of Charity, the global order of nuns founded by Mother Teresa, take part in a mass to mark the 17th anniversary of her death in Kolkata September 5, 2014. Mother Teresa, a Nobel Peace laureate who died in 1997, was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2003 at the Vatican. Police in the southern Indian state of Kerala have arrested Roman Catholic Bishop Franco Mulakkal for allegedly raping a nun multiple times between 2014 and 2016. India Today reported that Mulakkal has become the first Indian Catholic bishop to be arrested in a case of sexual abuse against a nun. The arrest was made on Sept. 21 in Kochi in the southwest of India after three days of interrogation. Police said a 44-year-old woman registered a police complaint in June, alleging that the Catholic Church had taken no action despite repeated appeals. Mulakkal, 54, wrote to the Vatican last week asking to be relieved of administration of his diocese, Catholic News Agency reported. His request was granted, and Bishop Agnelo Gracias, an Auxiliary Bishop Emeritus of Bombay, was appointed apostolic administrator of Jullundur on Sept. 20 said CNS. It said a nun, who is a member of the Missionaries of Jesus, had said that Bishop Mulakkal raped her during his May 2014 visit to her convent in Kuravilangad, in Kerala. In a 72-page complaint to police, filed June 29, she alleged that the bishop sexually abused her more than a dozen times over two years. It led to unprecedented protests by nuns who came out in support of her. The case has shocked what is one of India's oldest Christian communities and attracted national attention, reported the BBC. Bishop Mulakkal denies the accusations and he was to appear in court on Sept. 22. Mulakkal is the bishop of a diocese in Jalandhar in the northern state of Punjab. The nun has not spoken to the media but she petitioned the Vatican and wrote an open letter to the Pope's representative in the Indian capital of Delhi earlier this month. She claimed that this was the fourth letter she had addressed to the Vatican said the BBC. Nuns in Kerala have called for the bishop's arrest for weeks "We experience neglect from every side. We feel the Catholic Church is having concern only for the bishops and priests. We would like to know if there is any provision in the Canon Law for justice for nuns and women,'' she wrote. Christians account for a tiny minority in India making up less than 3 percent of the population. In Kerala state, however Christians make up around 20 percent. Christians have lived and worshipped in Kerala for around 2,000 years. Kranganor, on the coast of Kerala, is the cradle of Christianity in India where according to legend, St Thomas, or Doubting Thomas - one of the 12 apostles of Jesus - first came ashore there in AD52. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sanghs claim of an inclusive Hindutva is more ephemeral than real. A s the general elections loom, different political forces are making calculated attempts to politically position or reposition themselves in order to forge a winning combination. It is also interesting that this positioning and repositioning around the notion of a common good is mutually conflicting. The parties in opposition, for example, seem to be suggesting that they are committed to positioning themselves with each other, and around the universal perspective that is inclusive of values like democracy, secularism, and freedom from fear. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), on the other side of the spectrum, are attempting to convince the public that Hindutva is the only universal common good. However, such attempts by the Sangh Parivar chief to calculatingly flesh out an all-inclusive position is couched more in self-confidence and, therefore, devoid of egalitarian conviction. His attempts both at outreach through a lecture series and at underplaying Narendra ModiAmit Shahs pet slogan of a Congress-mukt Bharat (Congress-free India) could be seen as a part of this repositioning. Moreover, the accommodative posturing of the RSS can also be seen as resulting from the recognition of widespread public discontent against the policies of the current government. Seeking an extended meaning in Hindutva is fundamentally motivated by the need to maintain its control over levers of formal political power. The posturing that the RSS is not interested in formal political power, therefore, is necessarily a defensive ploy; a reasserted political will to push forward its Hindutva agenda. In electoral terms, it would mean presenting to the public a supposedly moderate face of the RSS. Chemists may soon play a key role in making next-generation extracorporeal life support devices more effective and less invasive Smoke inhalation, pneumonia, and combat-related trauma are just a few causes of acute respiratory distress syndrome - a condition where the lungs fill with fluid, and is too often fatal. To help these critically ill patients, doctors use extracorporeal life support - a cardiopulmonary bypass system that artificially re-oxygenates blood when the lungs are too damaged to breathe normally. This critical care technology has saved many lives, but it needs improvement. Together with trauma care doctors, Colorado State University chemists may soon play a key role in making next-generation extracorporeal life support devices more effective and less invasive. CSU Monfort Professor and Associate Professor of Chemistry Melissa Reynolds is sharing in a $3.4 million grant from the Department of Defense for developing better treatments for acute lung injuries, particularly in the context of military combat and medical emergencies. She has teamed with Dr. Andriy Batchinsky, a trauma surgeon who oversees research laboratories at the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research and the Geneva Foundation. The problem Reynolds and her team will address involves a common, life-threatening complication for patients on life support: the body's tendency to form blood clots around the inserted machinery. The standard of care for reversing the blood clotting problem is administration of systemic blood thinners such as heparin, but these medicines come with major side effects for already extremely sick patients. In many cases, the immune system attacks the non-clotting cells as non-functional cells, leading to further infections and complications. Reynolds' goal for this project is to help Batchinsky's team create life-support systems that eliminate the need to administer blood thinners at all. Reynolds' lab makes advanced biocompatible materials for clinical applications, with the goal of making minimally invasive, implantable devices that the body does not reject. A chance meeting with Batchinsky at a conference several years ago seeded a partnership between two scientists working on essentially the same problem - patient mortality and critical care treatments - from different angles. "We are interested in the blood or tissue response in medical devices," said Reynolds, who also serves as associate dean for research in the College of Natural Sciences. "We are happy and very excited to work with any group with a challenge of mitigating those blood-device interactions." For the life-support project, Reynolds will lead the development of biologically friendly coatings that will be chemically incorporated into the polymers that the system components are made of - the catheters, circuits and other devices that must come in contact with a patient's blood. The coatings are made of metal-organic frameworks, designed to resist blood coagulation by replicating the natural function of endothelial cells through the release of nitric oxide. The Reynolds lab will oversee this important advance, which should solve the blood compatibility problems so pervasive in extracorporeal life support systems and eliminate the need for blood thinners. Reynolds and her students will work on the chemistry and engineering side of the framework additives, while Batchinsky's team will lead in-vivo experiments to test the new systems. "I am particularly enthusiastic about this collaboration because Dr. Reynolds brings a much-needed potential solution for the problem of thrombogenicity of blood-polymer interactions during extracorporeal life support," Batchinsky said. "As a leader of a premier Department of Defense-affiliated research laboratory and program, I am focused on solving this problem with Dr. Reynolds' help, and we will test the new devices coated by our partners at Colorado State, in a clinically relevant setting." ### In the brain, as in business, connections are everything. To maintain cellular associates, the outer surface of a neuron, its membrane, must express particular proteins--proverbial hands that reach out and greet nearby cells. And, like a creepily long handshake, surface molecules can overstay their welcome: A protein that lingers too long on the membrane may compromise the connections, or synapses, between cells. In a new study, Rockefeller scientist Mary E. Hatten and research associate Hourinaz Behesti demonstrate that the protein ASTN2 helps move proteins away from the membrane in a timely fashion. The researchers also propose a mechanism by which ASTN2 defects lead to neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism and intellectual disabilities. Proteins that need proteins Neurons send messages to one another in the form of chemicals, or neurotransmitters, which activate receptor proteins on the surface of neighboring cells. Chemical communication is highly dynamic, which means that receptors must be dynamic too: they perpetually rotate on and off the membrane, ensuring rapid response to incoming signals. This process requires assistance from additional proteins, so-called traffickers that nudge receptors to move along. Hatten, the Frederick P. Rose Professor, has demonstrated that the protein ASTN2 acts as such a trafficker during cell migration in early development. When Behesti joined Hatten's lab, she proposed that the protein might also play a role later in life, an idea supported by the fact that ASTN2 had been shown to be present in the adult brain. Specifically, the protein appears to be disproportionally expressed in the cerebellum--a brain region that some researchers suspect may govern complex aspects of cognition, in addition to its more-established role in regulating movement. Hatten and Behesti wanted to better understand the function of ASTN2 in the adult cerebellum. An initial clue came by way of collaborators at Johns Hopkins University, who identified a family that had multiple members with ASTN2 mutations and neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism and language delays. Concurrently, an independent study of a large population showed that ASTN2 mutations are associated with a wide variety of brain disorders. Hatten and Behesti therefore set out to determine how defects in this protein might disrupt cerebellar circuitry, and brain activity at large. On the surface The researchers used a special microscopy technique to determine where ASTN2 is expressed in the mouse cerebellum. They found that it appears primarily in components of neurons responsible for moving proteins around, and they identified a collection of molecules that attach to ASTN2. These "binding partners" included proteins involved in synapse formation and protein trafficking. When the researchers increased the expression of ASTN2 in mouse neurons, levels of its binding partners decreased, suggesting that ASTN2 attaches to these proteins and then ushers them away from the membrane for degradation within the cell. Working with researchers at Duke University, the scientists also observed that cells with heightened ASTN2 formed stronger synapses; and they suspect that decreased ASTN2 yields the opposite effect. "Our data suggest that people who have mutations in ASTN2 make less of the protein, which leads to slower or weaker synapses," says Behesti. The researchers propose that without sufficient ASTN2, proteins accumulate on the cell surface, which hinders neuronal connections and communication. "Synapses aren't static. They need to respond in real time to dynamic stimuli; and one of the ways they do this is by changing their surface protein expression," says Behesti. This research supports a broader view that the disruption of surface protein composition may underlie a number of neurodevelopmental disorders. It also points to the cerebellum as a potentially fruitful research subject for understanding these conditions. "People are just beginning to realize that the cerebellum isn't just there to control movement and motor learning," says Hatten. "It has much more complex roles in cognition and language." ### Tokyo, Japan - Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have discovered a new way of controlling the drying patterns formed by re-crystallizing salt. They found that the coffee ring effect can be used to pin the edge of drying droplets, creating a range of different geometric patterns. The same principles may be applied to understand and improve the adhesion of printer ink to surfaces and the manufacture of film-based devices. Anyone who has visited the beach this summer would have felt large chunks of salt form on their skin after a splash in the sea. These large, crystalline chunks are formed by re-crystallization as the sea water dries off and leaves the salt behind. The drying of salt solution is actually a very complex phenomenon involving the interplay of many variables, including concentration and density profiles, heat transfer, as well as a wide range of environmental factors such as temperature and humidity. Understanding and controlling the mechanisms behind re-crystallization is crucial to understanding drying-related industrial processes like the adhesion of printer ink, the manufacture of devices based on thin films, as well as phenomena like salt damage in brick and the dissolving of pharmaceuticals in the human body. Drying droplets of solid-laden solution often leaves large, uneven chunks deposited at the edge. This is a fairly common sight; take the ring-like deposits left by spilt coffee. This so-called coffee ring effect is a result of different rates of evaporation on the top and at the edge of droplets, leading to a flow inside the droplet which drives an accumulation of solid particles at the edge. Ultimately, the droplet edge retracts, leaving a deposited ring. Though this effect is useful in concentrating the solute, it can be a nuisance when we are after a uniform coating. Yet, a team from Tokyo Metropolitan University led by Associate Professor Rei Kurita showed that the same effect can be leveraged to achieve a very different effect. By artificially adding microscopic latex particles to droplets of salt solution, they found that the coffee ring effect took particles to the edge which subsequently pinned the droplet rim, keeping the droplet circular for the whole duration of the drying process as the salt re-crystallized. This led to the formation of beautiful, snowflake-like patterns, including dendritic, radial and concentric geometries, depending on temperature and humidity. The variety of behavior they uncovered is in stark contrast to the random re-crystallized chunks observed in drying droplets without these particulate additions. By systematically varying initial salt concentration and evaporation rate, they found that they could tune the morphology. High initial concentrations and slower vaporization led to radial patterns, while the opposite led to ridged, concentric patterns. Further to the promise of new ways of artificially controlling drying in a wide range of industrial processes, the team hopes to build on their success to gain a deeper understanding of the mechanisms behind the dynamic processes underpinning this fascinating phenomenon. ### This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant-in-Aid (18J21231) for Young Scientists (17K14356) and for Scientific Research (B) (17H02945). The study has been published online in the journal Scientific Reports. 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. The economic adviser to incoming Mexican President Andres Lopez Obrador on Friday took on a sanguine tone when discussing strained U.S.-Mexico relations, saying the leftist politicians administration understood the importance of U.S.-Mexico trade and was prepared to move forward with a revamped NAFTA with or without Canada. We hope that it will be an agreement of the three countries, but we are going to do it in whatever manner we need to do it, Sergio Silva told 25 U.S. and Mexico border city mayors meeting in San Antonio. It is not that the next government has an interest in whether we want it to work; it has to continue, he said. After more than a year of contentious talks, U.S. and Mexican officials on Aug. 27 announced a two-country, or bilateral, agreement to update the North American Free Trade Agreement. There was an urgency to making the announcement since the Trump administration was aiming to meet a deadline for sending it to Congress before Lopez Obrador takes office. Negotiations with Canada are ongoing. Trump has signaled he does not expect to sign a revised NAFTA until after the midterm elections. The convergence of mayors, now in its seventh year, comes as the U.S.-Mexico border area increasingly identifies itself as a region with common interests in maintaining and facilitating trade. It was hosted by San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg. Although San Antonio is not directly on the border, U.S.-Mexico trade is a significant segment in its economy. Much of the conferences dialogue focused on the outlook for NAFTA negotiations, a need for better infrastructure to shorten bottlenecks at international bridges and continued intelligence-sharing about terrorists and transnational gangs by Mexico City and Washington. But when it comes to trade, ignore Mexico City and Washington, D.C., said former Mexican Ambassador to the U.S. Arturo Sarukhan. The future of the U.S.-Mexico trade relationship is in the cities. Its the mayors. The mayors discussed the obstacles that are crippling trade growth. Martin Sanchez Valles, mayor of Ojinaga, Chihuahua, across the border from Presidio, spoke of the U.S. building a road bridge on its side while Mexico was building a bridge also but for rail. Neither looked to be near completion, he said. El Paso Mayor Dee Margo said that the border was seeing a steady increase in truck traffic, exports to Mexico and output by cross-border factories, or maquilas but understaffed U.S. border inspection facilities were leading to wait times that were stifling just in time trade. We need to have the bridges fully staffed, he said. Accenture (Analytics) estimates that the delays at the El Paso ports of entry result in economic losses for our nation as a whole totaling $1.5 billion per year in lost output, 6,700 fewer jobs, $400 million in lost wages and $200 million in lost tax revenue. John Cook, executive director of the Border Mayors Association, bemoaned that many who made decisions on border affairs came from inland states and had little knowledge of the border. Lets not allow people who dont understand border trade, border economics to destroy something thats working, Cook said. McAllen Mayor Jim Darling noted that the State Departments level four travel warning for the state of Tamaulipas, across the Rio Grande from McAllen, was equal to the agencys warning for Syria. We dont think its the same thing as Syria I dont think anybody in their right mind would think that, he said. The concern is that decisions by Washington affect our local economies, our local people, our local relationships (and) have very, very far-reaching effects, but are made without explanation and/or assistance. Sarukhan, the former ambassador, said regional leaders had to continue to drive home the importance of U.S.-Mexico trade. We have to continue to bang away at those numbers; we have to continue to underscore how much we trade, which is $1.4 billion a day, he said. How many jobs depend on trade with Mexico? Five million U.S. jobs directly depend on trade with Mexico. How many states in the United States have Mexico as a No. 1 trading partner? Twenty-five. Trump and Lopez Obrador have outwardly been on a honeymoon period, exchanging cooperative words and vowing to move forward on trade. Sarukhan, ambassador from 2007 through 2013 under then-Mexican President Felipe Calderon, shrugged off what he termed the bromance between the two presidents and blamed Trump for a low point in U.S.-Mexico relations not seen since 1980s policy crashes over Central America. He warned those gathered not to expect a two-country revamp of NAFTA to make it into law. We do not have white smoke from our Canadian friends, he said of negotiations to update the trade agreement. Let me be very, very clear about this. A deal Im using a term that Ive publicly said we should not be using an agreement between Mexico and the United States that does not include Canada will not fly through Congress. Period. He said it was unclear whether Trump has the authority to float a bilateral deal. But even if Trump does, Sarukhan said, there were too many members of Congress whose states had a stake in Canadian trade to back it. So right now, the key to this is, can our Canadian friends, after the bluster and the anti-Canada tirades of Donald Trump, find a way to save face? Because they will now have an election next year in Canada, Sarukhan said. If that doesnt happen, I think all bets (on an updated NAFTA) are off. lbrezosky@express-news.net A southwest Harris County man has died of complications from the West Nile virus, the second Texas death from the mosquito-borne disease this year. Harris County public health officials reported Thursday that the man was between 45 and 54 years old and had underlying chronic health conditions. He died last week and the county received confirmation the death was West Nile-related Wednesday night. We are devastated to report the first West Nile virus-associated death, and our hearts go out to the family, said Dr. Umair A. Shah, executive director of Harris County Public Health. Its also a reminder that West Nile can be serious and cause complications, including death. Death from West Nile is relatively rare. Shah said this one was reported as a neurologic case, which can mean the virus caused encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) or meningitis (membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord) or other serious injury to the nervous system. Shah provided no other information, citing federal patient confidentiality laws. The death comes late in the West Nile season, which typically runs from June through October, though it can last as long as high temperatures and humidity linger. Texas health department spokesman Chris Van Deusen said West Nile started late this year July instead of May probably partly because the winter was particularly cold in most of the state. He said Texas is still seeing new cases so people should continue to take precautions, such as using insect repellent and removing standing water from their property. Mosquitoes breed in and around standing water. Dallas County reported the first West Nile-related death last month. The states latest report, which lags behind local data and doesnt yet reflect the Dallas and Harris county deaths, shows 45 cases of West Nile disease in Texas this year as of Tuesday. The state is waiting for additional documentation on the Dallas death. There have been six West Nile cases in Harris County this year, including the newly confirmed death. West Nile, which first arrived in the United States in 1999 and Texas in 2002, is unpredictable, hitting hard some years and mildly others. Texas peak year was 2012, when there 1,868 cases and 89 deaths. Dallas was the epicenter, but 101 of the cases and four of the deaths occurred in Harris County. Last year, there were 133 cases and five deaths in Texas, including 15 cases and one death in Harris County. The low number of human cases in Harris County this year comes despite no shortage of West Nile being found in traps. As of Thursday, West Nile has been found in 303 mosquitoes, nearly three times the amount last year. Shah said the low number of human cases is a testament to both the countys spraying and other activities to protect residents and residents own efforts, like using mosquito repellent and reducing mosquito-breeding sites. Most people infected with West Nile do not develop any symptoms, but roughly one in five develop a fever with other symptoms such as headache, body aches, joint pains, vomiting, diarrhea or rash. More severe symptoms include high fever, stiff neck, stupor, disorientation, tremors, convulsions, muscle weakness, vision loss and encephalitis or meningitis. todd.ackerman@chron.com twitter.com/chronmed The Trump administration this week proposed eliminating a decade-old regulation that puts hospitals at risk of losing their Medicare funding if too many of their patients die or suffer organ failure after receiving transplants. The rule the government is proposing to scrap is the same one that led the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to cut off funding last month for heart transplants at Baylor St. Lukes Medical Center in Houston after an investigation by the Houston Chronicle and ProPublica revealed an outsized number of patient deaths and complications in recent years. The proposal was unveiled Monday as part of the White House's push to cut the red tape and do away with burdensome regulation that officials said put paperwork ahead of patients. In a speech announcing the proposed changes, CMS Administrator Seema Verma said the agencys existing policies have put lives in danger. We are proposing to remove those inefficiencies to reduce the amount of time patients have to wait, so that they can begin healing, Verma said. HEART FAILURE: At St. Luke's in Houston, patients suffer as a renowned heart transplant program loses its luster The proposal, now subject to public comment and revision before it is finalized, surprised many transplant physicians who have long called for relaxed federal oversight. Theyve argued that the rules requiring that hospitals meet certain survival thresholds for transplants discourage them from taking on risky patients or accepting less-than-perfect organs, lengthening the time patients spend on the waiting list. Some experts, however, said the proposal would not help patients because it would weaken the governments authority to hold transplant programs accountable if they fail to provide safe patient care. The regulation was put in place in 2007 after a series of scandals at transplant programs revealed lax federal oversight. Several transplant programs had compiled abysmal patient survival statistics for years while continuing to receive Medicare funding. Even though it has the authority to do so, Medicare rarely terminates programs for poor outcomes. It is far more common for the government to force underperforming programs into systems improvement agreements, in which hospitals agree to make certain changes and be subject to stepped-up oversight. Medicare bypassed that process and cut off funding for heart transplants at St. Lukes in August after the hospitals one-year patient survival rate fell below national norms from 2014 to mid-2016. A few St. Lukes cardiologists grew so concerned that they started sending some of their patients to other hospitals for transplants. Elizabeth Conley, Staff photographer / Houston Chronicle St. Lukes has appealed its Medicare termination, saying, we do not believe CMS recent decisions reflect our ongoing progress and accomplishments to improve the quality of our care. A spokeswoman said officials are still reviewing the Medicare proposal and declined to comment. In a statement to reporters Friday, CMS said it would continue monitoring transplant programs and is strengthening its process for inspecting transplant programs to ensure they are providing safe, quality care. CMS will continue to collect the data on each transplant programs performance with regards to patient and graft survival, the agency said in the statement. These data, rather than being a stand-alone measure, will be used as a component of the survey process to further inform and direct the survey. If the proposed regulatory change had been in place previously, its not clear whether St. Lukes would have faced punitive action from Medicare. LATEST: St. Luke's appeals loss of federal funding for heart transplants I am probably in the minority in the transplant community, but I think, based on what is proposed, this is a bad idea, said Laura Aguiar, an Arizona-based transplant consultant who has spent years helping programs improve their outcomes to stave off Medicare penalties. I have been around long enough to remember that there were very valid reasons why CMS, in the George W. Bush administration, took the steps they took in implementing all of this. Since the rules were put in place 11 years ago, the percentage of patients who survive at least one year after receiving heart, kidney, lung and other organ transplants has increased nationally. But some experts say those gains have come at a cost. Jesse Schold, a researcher at the Cleveland Clinic, has spent years chronicling what he calls the unintended consequences of holding transplant programs accountable for poor outcomes. Even though CMS relies on data that has been adjusted to ensure that programs arent punished for treating sicker patients or accepting riskier donor organs, Schold said the rules have created a perception that programs need to turn away some ailing patients and reject less-than-ideal organs in order to meet outcome targets. As a result, Schold said, some potentially viable donor organs are discarded while thousands of patients die on waiting lists each year. Schold said he was surprised to learn a study he co-authored was among the research cited by CMS as justification for the policy change, which he said would be a significant net positive for patients. I don't want anything to in any way imply that I'm a fan of the current administration, Schold said, referencing the Trump administration's aggressive and often controversial efforts to slash regulations. However, in this case, I think it is something that is beneficial. Dr. Joel Adler, a liver surgeon at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health whose research also was cited by CMS, said a major weakness of the current regulation is that it focuses only on the survival of patients fortunate enough to have received a transplant. Medicare, he said, does not take into account the percentage of patients who die awaiting a transplant. That can discourage programs from accepting organs for patients who might be less likely to survive afterward. Despite identifying problems with the current rules, Adler and his co-author did not propose eliminating Medicares standards, but they instead suggested ways to improve outcome measures and create incentives for programs to perform more, not fewer, transplants. Should we get rid of (the regulation) entirely? Alder said. I dont know. I suspect well swing back to somewhere in the middle, because there has to be some mechanism of capturing things when they are really, really bad. That has to exist. Elizabeth Conley, Staff photographer / Houston Chronicle Medicare isnt the only organization that oversees transplant centers. The United Network for Organ Sharing, a federal contractor that operates the national waiting list for organs, can put programs on probation or even revoke their good standing for continued poor results, though it rarely takes such actions. Similarly, another federal contractor, the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients, analyzes transplant outcomes and publicly reports which centers have mortality rates that are higher than expected based on the characteristics of their patients. TROUBLED LEGACY: Houston heart surgery 'legend' a factor in transplant deaths, a St. Luke's colleague told inspector Even if the proposal is approved, it would not mean CMS would stop regulating transplant programs. Last year, for example, CMS cut off funding to Medical University Hospital in Charleston, South Carolina, after the program failed to perform the minimum number of heart transplants required by CMS to maintain certification. That provision, also added during the reforms of 2007, would not be affected by the changes proposed this week. The Charleston hospital, the only heart transplant program in South Carolina, made necessary changes and regained Medicare certification this year. Alexander Aussi, a San Antonio-based consultant who specializes in helping transplant programs satisfy regulatory requirements, said he understands the desire to reduce the number of rules and regulations that transplant centers must follow. But he said he fears that the CMS proposal would return the transplant field to an earlier era when some programs were cowboyish about their outcomes. I cannot tell you in good conscience that if you remove those guidelines and metrics that youre going to have better outcomes, Aussi said. On the contrary, I believe youre going to have a lot of transplant programs reversing course. Aguiar, the Arizona-based consultant, shares those concerns. Even without strict CMS oversight, she said, many transplant programs will continue providing high-quality care, but some wont. There will be others that will take the removal of these requirements as a blessing to go back to the bad old days, she said, and it is patients who will end up paying the price for it. *** This story is the result of a collaboration between the Chronicle and ProPublica, an independent nonprofit newsroom based in New York. Mike Hixenbaugh is an investigative reporter at the Houston Chronicle. Charles Ornstein is a senior editor at ProPublica. Air Education and Training Command bases, two of them in Texas, led lists of Air Force installations where both women and men were estimated to be at the highest risk of being sexually assaulted, the Pentagon said in a RAND report released Friday. Based on a 2014 survey, the RAND Corporation report put the Texas bases, Laughlin AFB in Del Rio at No. 2, and Goodfellow AFB in San Angelo at No. 5, near the top of its list of 15 installations estimated to be at high risk for women, along with Columbus AFB in Mississippi at No. 4, and Vance AFB in Oklahoma, which was No. 1. Altus AFB in Oklahoma ranked third-highest in risk to women and was No. 1 in the Air Force for the risk to men of being sexually assaulted, followed by Laughlin at No. 2 and Columbus at No. 5. All are AETC bases, but Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph, home to the training commands headquarters, was rated among the lowest in the Air Force for risk of sexual assaults to both women and men. The RAND study provides data that attempts to further our understanding of installation-level risk factors for sexual assault. We take ownership of the issue and ensuring safe training environments for our airmen, the training command said in a statement Friday. Calling its work a continuous process, AETC said it will begin administering a sexual assault prevention and response curriculum that is tailored to each trainee in basic training starting next year. The program, it said, will consist of knowledge application and skills practice. RAND examined the risk of sexual assault and harassment among active-duty personnel, using survey data to estimate comparative risks of sexual assault and sexual harassment at military installations, and found a high correlation between the two across locations. The report said the risk of women suffering sexual assault in the Air Force was, on average, lower than for women in other services. It found that a large proportion of sexual assaults occur in a few large installations, including Army and Marine Corps bases that had an estimated 500 or more sexual assaults of women and men in 2014. Two Army posts in Texas, Fort Hood and Fort Bliss, ranked No. 10 and 15, respectively, in risk of women suffering sexual assault. Fort Hood ranked No. 8 for the risk to men. Goodfellow ranked No. 9 on the Army list, as it is home to cryptologic and intelligence training for airmen, soldiers, sailors, Marines and the Coast Guard. Risks of sexual assault in the Navy for both men and women usually came aboard large ships, among them the USS George Washington, USS Theodore Roosevelt and the USS George H.W. Bush, the study said. Naval Support Activity Charleston ranked No. 1 in the risk to women. Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, in Arizona, and MCAS Beaufort in South Carolina were associated with what the report called high installation-specific risk. In all, 170,000 personnel were surveyed on their experiences with sexual misconduct as part of a RAND Military Workplace Study. The report said service members estimated risk depended to a substantial extent on his or her assignment to a particular unit, command, and installation, but did not attempt to provide reasons, noting there was a wide range of possible explanations for these differences. The report said, however, that bases with large populations of younger, less educated, unmarried, and more-junior-ranking service members would be expected to have a higher rate of sexual assaults than would the Pentagon, for instance, and said such population differences might be reflected in the rankings as much or more than any differences in command climates or other installation-specific characteristics. The report said the unprecedented scale of the study captured a sufficient number of sexually assaulted men to establish how these sexual assaults differ from those on women. The information, it said, could help identify the need for additional training or prevention efforts, educate leaders about problems in their commands, improve understanding of the organizational or environmental risk factors. The Pentagon said it has made progress battling sexual assault. It noted that rates of past-year reported occurrences of sexual assault for active duty men and women in 2016 decreased significantly from 2014, and that theyre at the lowest levels recorded since 2006. It also said around one in every three sexual assault victims chose to report their incident to a military authority in 2016, a figure far higher than the one in every 14 who reported in 2006. The estimates provided by RAND reflect risk at military locations based on data collected in 2014, cautioned Maj. Carla Gleason, a Pentagon spokeswoman in a prepared statement. Given the highly mobile nature of the military force, the estimates could not fully capture where the sexual assaults actually occurred. A scandal at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland starting in 2012 helped launch congressional investigations and an AETC makeover of basic and technical training. It saw 35 military training instructors investigated for assaults and harassment of 69 recruits and technical training students. In an investigation published the next year, the San Antonio Express-News documented repeated cases of retaliation against assault victims in the military, failure to provide legal and medical support for them and their dismissal from the service on dubious grounds after they reported abuse. Don Christensen, a retired Air Force colonel who heads the advocacy group Protect Our Defenders, agreed with RANDs belief that sexual harassment and assault are linked. Christensen said he was told the report was released to commanders Friday. I think theres generally an attitude thats kind of dismissive of sexual harassment in the military, which is a real strong sign the military needs to take sexual harassment seriously and thats something that should have been out to the field as soon as possible, he said. The military uses RAND all the time and it makes no sense to delay releasing this. Sig Christenson covers the military and its impact in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | sigc@express-news.net | Twitter: @saddamscribe Police are often accused of protecting their own. This is a story about a department that tried to hold one of its own accountable but couldnt. It begins late one night in April 2015, when Juan Martinez Jr. and cousin Miriam Aquino drove to an East Side apartment complex to buy marijuana. Two police officers watched the transaction and followed the pair as they drove away in Aquinos Honda Civic, with Martinez behind the wheel. After pulling them over, the officers ran Martinezs name and learned he had warrants for traffic offenses. They cuffed him and put him in the back of their patrol car. Officer Matthew Martin searched the Civic and found two bags of marijuana. He asked Aquino if there was more. She told him there wasnt. She said she was a single mother and needed to get home to her kids. When Martin told Aquino he was going to call in a female officer to search her, she relented: The rest of the marijuana, she admitted, was in her bra. Then the encounter took a surreal turn. In the rear of the patrol car, Martinez listened on a video monitor as Martin and his partner conversed outside. Martin had muted his mic, but his partners picked up snippets of the exchange. take the fall for all of this, Martin told the other officer, according to a police transcript of the video. have her get out of here; take the car. Martin walked over to Aquino. This what Im going to do, OK? he told her. Im going to take the cuffs off; take it [the marijuana] out, OK? and youre going to put it on the seat. Hes got to go down, OK? Oh my God, yall are the best, Aquino said, relieved. Were going to say we found it all in the same spot and thats that, Martin said. Aquino was allowed to leave with her car. As for Martinez, the officer told the prisoner what he already knew: They were letting Aquino slide, but they would have to take him. More than three years later, its Martin who has been allowed to slide. Internal police investigations found he tampered with evidence and lied repeatedly: in his incident report, again to investigators and again under oath before an arbitrator. Nonetheless, Martin has continued to work in law enforcement as an investigator for prosecutors in Wilson County, a job that involves safeguarding the integrity of criminal cases. Maria Haberfeld specializes in police integrity at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. She said truthfulness in police work is paramount. Its above and beyond anything and everything else, Haberfeld said. I dont care if a police officer can do 17 pushups in 10 seconds, the profession is all about integrity and accountability. Insufficient evidence That night, Martinez was charged with possession of all the marijuana: less than 2 ounces total. In his report, Martin placed the pot on Martinezs side of the car. The officer wrote that hed looked down between the driver seat and door (and) saw in plain view all three bags of marijuana. He made no mention of Aquino other than as the vehicles owner. Bexar County District Attorney Nico LaHoods office was first to alert the San Antonio Police Department to discrepancies between Martins report and the dash cam video. Interrogated by detectives, Martin, an 8-year veteran of the force, was untruthful, police said. Mrs. Aquino had informed me that all of the marijuana belonged to Mr. Martinez and he had asked her to hide some of it in her bra to avoid detection, he told detectives, according to an internal affairs report. Aquino later denied to police that shed said this, and investigators noted the dashcam video did not include such an exchange between Aquino and Martin. The video also showed Martin digging in the car for the marijuana, eventually finding the two bags near the center not on Martinezs side. Martin told police, On this night I found myself sympathetic to Mrs. Aquino and her plight as a single parent. I admit that I cut her a break. However at the time I still felt that Mr. Martinez was the owner of the marijuana. Police werent swayed. In a prosecution guide forwarded to LaHoods office, investigators wrote: There is probable cause to believe Officer Matthew Martin knowingly altered physical evidence (packages of marijuana) during a traffic stop and arrest of Juan Martinez Jr. Additionally Officer Martin knowingly made a false entry in a governmental record when documenting the traffic stop and arrest of Juan Martinez Jr. Then-Police Chief Anthony Trevino handed Martin an indefinite suspension, tantamount to a firing, in September 2015. That same month, the Police Department filed felony charges against Martin with the district attorneys office: tampering with evidence and tampering with a governmental record. Yet, in an about-face from its initial flagging of the police report, LaHoods office informed SAPD in March 2016 it had rejected the case. There is insufficient evidence of intent to prove the offense beyond a reasonable doubt, Assistant Criminal District Attorney Jason Todd wrote to a detective. (Todd did not respond to requests for comment for this article.) Later that year, in a bid to win back his police job, Martin testified under oath at an arbitration hearing. Asked whether he had served in the military, Martin answered, United States Marine Corps. He said he was deployed to Afghanistan in 2001 with the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, Cold Weather Mountain Warfare, a storied unit that fought at Iwo Jima in World War II. Martin also testified that he had graduated from Ohio State University. None of it was true. Work in Wilson County One of Martins defense attorneys at his arbitration hearing was a former captain with the San Antonio Fire Department named Tom Caldwell. Caldwell and Martin have remarkably similar employment histories, both marred by accusations of untruthfulness. Like his client, the former firefighter lost his job with the city after being accused of committing a crime and lying about it to investigators. In Caldwells case, the allegation was felony fraud. After suffering an on-duty injury at a fire station in 2014, Caldwell secured workers compensation benefits and was prohibited from engaging in outside employment. According to city officials, the firefighter picked up work as a criminal defense attorney during that period in dozens of cases. Caldwell said in a sworn statement to the citys Office of Municipal Integrity in 2015 that he had notified city officials about the outside work. That response was untruthful, Fire Chief Charles Hood wrote in a notice of indefinite suspension, adding that Caldwell also lied to a claims adjuster. In January 2015, the Texas Department of Insurance was investigating Caldwell on a charge of fraudulently obtaining benefits of over $20,000, a third-degree felony, according to a letter Hood wrote to the Texas attorney generals office. That investigation was dropped, but Caldwell was indefinitely suspended from SAFD over the allegations in April 2015. (He is appealing.) Despite his rocky record, Caldwell in 2016 was elected Wilson County attorney: a law enforcement position with authority to prosecute misdemeanors. Caldwell took office in January 2017. At the time, Martin was trying to win back his job through arbitration. That same month, Caldwell hired the disgraced police officer his own client as one of his investigators. Given a gun, badge and arresting powers, Martin followed up on cases filed by law enforcement agencies to prepare them for trial. He did a lot of family violence cases, Caldwell said, cleaning them up, making sure we had everything. He added, I dont have any problems with his credibility. And my understanding is the district attorneys office didnt either. His higher-ups sure did. All of this sounds like sour grapes to me. I was his lawyer. I know the facts. Ive seen the evidence. Boot camp washout In March 2017, the arbitrator concluded that the citys evidence against Martin in the tampering case was sufficiently credible and reasonably persuasive. The arbitrator, Don B. Hays, wrote, Although obligated by oath and professional position to tell the truth, on this occasion (Martin) acted and/or spoke untruthfully on many of the subjects that he knew, or reasonably should have known were of material interest to both the district attorney, the citys investigators and to us. He continued, Martin carried out a unilateral decision to singularly charge Driver Martinez with all of the narcotics recovered from Ms. Aquinos bra. He (Martin) also decided to disregard a material part of his discovery and unconditionally released Ms. Aquino and her vehicle. Sometime thereafter Martin willfully elected to exclude that aspect (Aquino) of such encounter, including the actual location of each of the bags of illegal drugs, when he was preparing and submitting his official SAPD arrest and incident report. Hays added that Martin unexplainably elected to conceal improper conduct and/or evidence that he knew, or reasonably should have known to be incompatible with strict law enforcement and good police work. Nonetheless, Hays reinstated Martin to the Police Department. (His partner enjoyed a similar outcome: terminated by the department for going along with Martins actions, then reinstated by an arbitrator.) Hays justified his decision in Martins case part by asserting that the officers untruthfulness was not self-rewarding. Officer Martin appears to have let his sympathetic perceptions regarding personal hardships, which might have resulted from an arrest of Ms. Aquino, to temporarily eclipse his reportedly usual good judgment, compromise his professional training and cause him to act in complete disregard of all of his law enforcement experience, Hays wrote. Back on the force in April 2017, Martin was assigned to desk duty, allowed only to answer phones and handle walk-in reports. He remained a full-time investigator in Wilson County through May 2017: a violation of city rules. In reinstating Martin to the force, Hays noted the officers significant academic accomplishments and his serving honorably in the military. About a year after Martin rejoined the department, however, police received an anonymous complaint that he had lied under oath about his education and military record. Reviewing Martins applications to the Police Department he applied three times between 2001 and 2006 police found he reported hed earned a GED certificate, nothing more. The registrars office at Ohio State University confirmed there was no record of Martin attending the school, contrary to what hed told the arbitrator. Nor had he ever become a Marine. Hed indicated as much in his applications to the police department, writing N/A under Military History in 2001 and typing None under Military Record in 2006. More than likely a boot camp washout, an Air Force official told police. Another rejected case In June, the Police Department once again filed criminal charges against Martin with the Bexar County district attorneys office. This time, the allegation was perjury. Once again, LaHoods office refused to prosecute. On Aug. 3, police received a terse email from Jim Wheat, chief of special crimes for the DA. It indicated that a deal had been reached. Upon Matthew Martins resignation with SAPD, this case will be rejected, Wheat wrote. (He, too, did not respond to requests for comment for this article.) LaHoods office could have forced Martin to surrender his peace officer license in lieu of being prosecuted, but it did not. LaHood, who campaigned for re-election this year as a DA who passionately pursues truth, declined to answer questions for this article. LaHood lost in the Democratic primary in March and is leaving office at the end of the year. Martins attorney, Therese Huntzinger, declined to comment for this article. She said Martin, now 40, was unavailable for an interview. An SAPD spokesman also declined to comment. The Wilson County Sheriffs Office continues to hold Martins peace officer license for Caldwells office, according to Caldwell and the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement. To be honest with you, he still works for me, Caldwell said last week. Hes a reserve. Ill call him if I need him. I would if I needed him. Hes a good cop. Steve Hilbig, who served as Bexar County district attorney from 1991 to 1998, has trouble understanding why a prosecutors office would employ an investigator with such a problematic past. Any misconduct by the officer would have to be disclosed to defense counsel if hes part of that investigation, Hilbig said. I would have a hard time imagining that a prosecutor would possibly want to taint their case by having this person play any meaningful role in their investigation, he said. Justice About two months after Martin arrested him that night in April 2015, the charge of marijuana possession against Juan Martinez Jr. was dismissed due to insufficient evidence. Outside his South Side apartment this month, Martinez, 29, held his infant daughter, whom he had named Justice. He recalled that the arrest temporarily disrupted his life. He admitted that he used to smoke weed and that he bought some that night. But he doesnt understand why Martin went to such lengths to put all the blame on him. He was surprised to learn that the officer was still working in law enforcement. Bottom line, I dont think he should, he said. Not only did he make the wrong choice, he could influence someone else to make that choice. Martinez added, The most shocking part of it was when I saw and heard what he did. I heard him say everything. bchasnoff@express-news.net The chairwoman of the Bexar County Democratic Party said Friday she would seek to revisit the groups endorsement of the fire unions controversial charter amendments, a day after fire union President Chris Steele held a news conference touting it. Monica Alcantara, who ousted former party chairman Manuel Medina in the March primary, sent a press release Friday that said the endorsement has created serious concerns among a significant number of members of the BCDP County Executive Committee (CEC) and Democratic elected officials and candidates. Due to the numerous calls I have received from members of the BCDP since (Thursdays) press conference, I will be recommending that the proposal to endorse the charter amendments be re-visited at the next meeting of the CEC, she said in the release. Alcantara was not at the party headquarters when Steele and several of his allies packed into a small room to announce the endorsement on Thursday. Just a few hours later, Steele pulled out of a long-planned debate against Mayor Ron Nirenberg at the downtown campus of the University of Texas at San Antonio. The town hall, sponsored by the San Antonio Express-News and UTSA, was supposed to focus on the charter amendments. Steele did not respond to a request for comment Friday. The resolution to endorse the charter amendments brought forward by precinct chairman Rudy Morales, a high-ranking member of the San Antonio Professional Fire Fighters Association won an August vote among precinct chairmen loyal to Medina, whod been endorsed by the fire union in his 2017 failed bid for mayor. Alcantara said that a majority of the precinct chairs were not present at the meeting, and therefore didnt vote for the endorsement. Though the party appears fractured and rife with infighting, its endorsement of the charter amendments is the highest-profile support the fire union has earned in its campaign. Heres another example of the unions bullying tactics gone wrong, said Christian Archer, the Democratic political consultant running the Go Vote No campaign with longtime friend Kelton Morgan, a Republican strategist. The more people understand about these propositions, the more people agree to go vote no. Archer applauded Alcantaras willpower to stand up against the faction of the party that is using the unions bullying-style tactics to jam through the endorsement. The proposed amendments would make it easier to use referendums to challenge council decisions, including on tax and utility rates; cap the salary of future city managers; and give the fire union unilateral power to decide when contract negotiations would be taken to binding arbitration. In her release, Alcantara said a majority of the 263 precinct chairs who currently compose the CEC were not present and did not vote at the August meeting. The endorsement of the amendments... is particularly concerning because the union has publically (sic) endorsed 21 Republican candidates running in Bexar County, including top Republican elected officials Governor Greg Abbott, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, and Attorney General Ken Paxton, she wrote. The union has also endorsed Republican Congressman Will Hurd for reelection especially troubling to Democrats given the districts battleground status. All of those candidates, the party chairwoman said, face Democratic opponents endorsed by the county party. Josh Baugh is a staff writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | jbaugh@express-news.net | Twitter: @jbaugh WASHINGTON The drama unfolding over Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh has sprung up in congressional races such as the contest for an open seat in the San Antonio area, a conservative district but one with segments of GOP suburban women. The 21st Congressional District between Austin and north San Antonio has been held by conservatives since the 1970s, but it has trended younger and more diverse in recent years. It also has 11,000 more women than men, a disparity that could come into play if the Republican-led Senate Judiciary Committee ends up being viewed as treating Kavanaughs accuser unfairly. Joseph Kopser, the Democrat in the race, is speaking out strongly in favor of slowing proceedings for a more thorough investigation of Christine Blasey Fords charge that Kavanaugh assaulted her when both were teenagers. Kopser, an entrepreneur and Iraq war veteran, likely needs support from Republicans and independents if he is to defeat Chip Roy, the Republican in a district in GOP hands since the 1970s. Its a lifetime appointment; theres no reason to rush, Kopser said in an interview. Because it is 100 percent possible that a person, any person publicly could present himself or herself as an upstanding, forthright wonderful person and still have things in the past that are dark or terrible. Meanwhile, Roy, a protege of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, is decrying what he calls a political spectacle and unconscionable efforts by Democrats to slow the proceedings. The Democrats ought to be ashamed of making it a political issue and the entire Senate Judiciary Committee should be ashamed for allowing this to become such a show, Roy said this week during an interview on KSAT radio in San Antonio. Roy and Kopser, both of Austin, are competing in the district held by Lamar Smith of San Antonio, who is retiring after this term, his 16th. The sexual assault allegation shows signs of becoming a significant political issue heading into the November election, with Democrats in Congress vowing to investigate Kavanaugh even if he is confirmed. The controversy presents challenges both for Roy and Kopser. Roy and other GOP candidates could see blowback from supporters if the Senate doesnt succeed in appointing a certifiably conservative Supreme Court, a long-sought prize. Democrats pledge to keep issue alive til November For Kopser, the task ahead is appealing successfully to women in the district who may be troubled by treatment in Washington of Christine Blasey Ford amid the effects of #MeToo movement politically and culturally. In the broader election landscape, women already favor Democratic candidates for Congress over Republicans by a record margin 20 percent, according to a recent Quinnipiac poll. In addition, more women than ever before are running for Congress this fall: 235 women won nominations in House races and 22 women are on Senate ballots, according to a tally by the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. Among them is Gina Ortiz Jones of San Antonio, a Democrat seeking to unseat incumbent San Antonio Republican Will Hurd in a congressional district that stretches from San Antonio nearly to El Paso. Women like Dr. Christine Blasey Ford who come forward should be heard, not threatened, bullied or rushed through a hearing without a proper investigation, Jones said this week. Kopser, 47, referred to a recent spate of high-profile cases in which women have come forward to describe attacks and improper advances in the past. This is a very complex problem that is not going to go away just because someone puts up a hashtag that says MeToo, he said. There are plenty of good reasons why a lot of women have been silent on this issue for 30 years, as she has. It does not negate the fact that we need to give every one of these people their day being heard and our best attempt to investigate what they are saying. Kopser was asked in a radio interview last week if Democrats were trying to push Kavanaughs nomination beyond the Nov. 6 election. You mean the same way McConnell did it in November 2016? Yes, he responded, referring to Republicans success in denying a confirmation hearing of appeals court judge Merrick Garland, who was Barack Obamas selection to fill the court vacancy after the death of Antonin Scalia. Roy, 45, recalled working for Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn as a staff member on the Senate Judiciary Committee when, he said, matters like the allegations against Kavanaugh were handled differently and on a bipartisan basis. There is a process to handle any kinds of things that come up like this to take in any issues that come up, on background checks or issues that are raised, and be able to deal with them behind closed doors and handle them in the proper way, he said in the radio interview. Senate leader to Republicans: Dont get rattled Derrick Crowe, who Kopser defeated in the primary, contended that Republican women in portions of the district could be a significant factor given the tepid support of this administration by women in general. And now Republicans in Congress are trying to hand wave past allegations of sexual assault, adding to what already exists out there that encourages suburban Republican women to stay home, he said. JoAnn Fleming, executive director of Grassroots America-We The People and a key Roy backer, said she is aware of concerns by some GOP women about President Donald Trump. A lot of women may not like the way he speaks about something or what he tweets. They may not like those things, but they care about a Supreme Court appointment, about border security and they care very much about the future of their children, she said. Republicans hoped to enter the stretch run of the campaign with the fresh success of Kavanaughs confirmation to encourage the partys base. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ken., on Friday told the GOP dont get rattled and assured his party that the Senate will complete the confirmation. Nonetheless, Fleming said that many conservatives in Texas are concerned about what they are seeing. People are expecting Republicans to get something done while they are in power, she said. Out of all of the noise that comes out of Washington, people can understand the lasting effect of the judiciary, especially the Supreme Court. The political intensity continues to grow Kavanaughs confirmation, thought for weeks to be a certainty, is drawing opposition from portions of the electorate who hadnt bothered previously to weigh in. On Friday, the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, representing 45 Latino advocacy groups, declared opposition to Kavanaugh - the first time in its quarter-century existence that the Latino umbrella group has opposed a court nominee. Thomas A. Saenz, who heads the organization, said Latinos acted because Kavanaughs nomination has been unduly rushed and incomplete. On social media, the Kavanaugh nomination is triggering a torrent of activity. Cornyns tweet on Friday accusing Democrats of more gamesmanship for refusing to release Fords initial letter spelling out her allegations charges was met with a storm of biting comments, in addition to expressions of support. In one response on Twitter a woman wrote: Imagine if white men were as upset about sexual violence toward women as they are when men take a knee before a game. When Julian and Joaquin Castro were kids and a fight broke out between them, they had a systematic way of pummeling each other. The future San Antonio mayor (and HUD secretary) and future congressman would stand face-to-face and take turns punching each other in the shoulder, each brother patiently allowing the other to take his turn. After they got tired of the whole exercise, theyd stop and compare bruises. This was our oddball ritual, and nobody else knew about it, Julian Castro recalls in his new book, An Unlikely Journey, which is set for release on October 16. It says a lot that even when Castro and his identical twin were furious with each other, they handled their violent outbursts in an organized, dispassionate, rule-of-law kind of way. That sensibility also informs the former mayors first literary offering. Castros writing voice will be recognizable to anyone who has ever heard him on the council dais or at a political forum: earnest, nuanced and thoroughly contained. Castros book only reinforces our long-held sense that he and his brother were responsible, respectful, overachieving kids who grew up to be responsible, respectful, overachieving adults. It makes for a thoroughly admirable American success story, but not necessarily one thats loaded with dramatic highs or calamitous, self-destructive falls from grace. Aside from Castros weird decision to squirt Elmers glue into a fish tank in seventh-grade Science class, its hard to think of a single act of rebellion that he reveals about himself in the book. This book has been nearly six years in the making and its meaning if not its narrative focus has changed considerably in that time. When Little, Brown signed a publishing deal with Castro, he was a young mayor coming off a star-making turn as the keynote speaker at the 2012 Democratic National Convention. As the book ships to stores, however, he is a 44-year-old former office holder in limbo, eyeing a possible 2020 presidential run. Most books authored by politicians fall into one of two categories: the personal memoir or the how-to-fix-America manifesto. Castros book falls into the former camp. Its obvious model is Dreams from My Father, the 1995 family chronicle that President Barack Obama wrote at the dawn of his political career. But while Obamas book was about a search for cultural identity, retracing the steps of the Kenyan father he never really knew, Castro had no such questions about his own identity. The central character of Obamas book was a mystery to him. By contrast, the key figure in Castros book, his grandmother Mamo, was a daily presence in his young life, someone so close to him that she shared a small bedroom with the twins in their West Side home. If Castros most consistent theme as a political figure has concerned the need for this country to close its opportunity gaps, this book connects the dots on what has driven that obsession. Mamo came to the United States in 1922 as a 7-year-old orphan. She was pulled out of school in third grade, never learned to drive, worked for meager wages cleaning peoples homes and faced such smothering discipline from her San Antonio guardians that she didnt have her first boyfriend until she was 32. Castro consistently emphasizes the way mere survival crowded out the prospect of any dreams or aspirations for his grandmother. The books most fascinating character is Rosie, Mamos rebellious daughter and the devoted mother of Julian and Joaquin. Castro tells the story of Mamo bringing a young Rosie with her on a house-cleaning job, in which the homeowners expected Rosie to take their cocker spaniel out to the backyard and pick fleas off of it. During a break, an enraged Rosie found some rocks on an elevated part of the property and began throwing them at the parked cars below. As an adult, Rosie would throw metaphorical rocks at the political establishment, getting arrested in the early 1970s for picketing the business of then-Mayor William McAllister after he denigrated Mexican Americans in an NBC News report; fighting for single-member council districts; and battling the patriarchal stranglehold of the Good Government League with her fellow activists in La Raza Unida. The book also reveals that Rosie went through a period of excessive drinking and struggled so much with the stress of work and family responsibilities that at one point her hair started falling out. Castro also offers new details about his distant father, Jesse Guzman, a teacher and activist who was married with five children when he got together with Rosie. The books title comes from a phrase in Castros 2012 DNC speech and it alludes to a three-generation journey: from the immigrant girl stifled by her circumstances to the daughter who fought the system to the twin grandsons who found a way to thrive within the system. The best part of that journey might still be unwritten for Julian Castro. @gilgamesh470 Gilbert Garcia is a columnist covering the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | ggarcia@express-news.net | Twitter: @gilgamesh470 BRIDGEPORT Five men claim in lawsuits filed Friday that they were sexually abused as children by priests in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport. The lawsuits, filed in state Superior Court in Bridgeport, claim the abuse occurred from the late 1980s to the early 2000s and was perpetrated by three priests the Rev. Walter Coleman, the Rev. Robert Morrissey and the Rev. Larry Jensen, in Bridgeport, Brookfield, Danbury and Ridgefield. The suits are filed at a time when the Roman Catholic Church is reeling in the wake of reports of years of abuse of children being covered up in Pennsylvania and around the world. Last week, Bishop Frank J. Caggiano ordered parishes in the diocese to hold special masses of reparation for the abuse. Once again, we see the lives of people forever damaged by the sexual abuse by their parish priest, said Cindy Robinson, whose Bridgeport law firm, Tremont Sheldon Robinson and Mahoney, represents the five men. It is heartbreaking to hear about these stories, which are so similar to what we all read about in the Pennsylvania grand jury report several weeks ago. Connecticut has a five-year statute of limitations on criminal charges, but in 2002 the state extended the limit on filing lawsuits until the alleged victims reach the age of 48. The legislatures of New York and Pennsylvania are debating similar laws, but are facing stiff opposition from the church. Admissions The Diocese of Bridgeport lists 26 priests on its website who have credibly been accused of sexual abuse in the diocese. Since the 1960s, according to the dioceses own records turned over to the courts, abuse allegations against priests were hidden and the priests accused of abuse were moved from parish to parish. Bishop Walter Curtis hid priest abuse in the 1970s and Bishop Edward Egan, who later became New Yorks cardinal, continued the practice of keeping the misconduct secret into the late 1990s, the records show. Since the early 1990s, the Tremont law firm has represented dozens of abuse victims in lawsuits against the diocese, resulting in more than $35 million in settlements. The Connecticut Post began publishing reports about abuse in the diocese in 1993. At that time, the diocese spokesman, the Rev. Chris Walsh, denied officials had ever received complaints against priests. The coverups have caused harm to so many children who loved their church and revered their parish priest, said Jason Tremont, urging the diocese to release all documents regarding sexual abuse by its priests for real transparency to occur and allow victims to heal. The diocese has been made aware of these cases over the last several months and is cooperating with attorneys for the victims, said Diocese spokesman Brian Wallace. Four allegations involve three diocesan priests (Coleman, Morrissey and Martin Federici) who were credibly accused of past abuse and removed from ministry. The fifth allegation involves a Maronite (order) priest, Father Larry Jensen, and was alleged to have happened in a Maronite facility, Wallace said. The diocese is committed to seeking justice, healing and reconciliation for victims, and preventing any further abuse through its Safe Environments programs. More for you Diocese, Holy Cross fight to keep abuse documents secret in... Documentation Coleman, who died in October 2016, served in 12 parishes in the diocese since 1960, according to diocese records. Diocesan officials first began getting complaints accusing him of abusing children in the 1970s. Court records show that Monsignor Laurence Bronkiewicz, the assistant to then-Bishop Egan, was informed in 1994 about accusations that Coleman had abused children. Coleman was allowed to retire in 1995, after the first lawsuit was filed against him. But after he retired, Hearst Connecticut Media discovered Coleman was serving as a priest in the Archdiocese of Miami. Court records show Bronkiewicz, now pastor of St. Marys in Ridgefield, told Miami church officials in a letter in 1996 that he was unaware of abuse complaints against Coleman. Colemans authorization to practice as a priest was removed by Bridgeport Bishop William E. Lori in 2002. Two of the men in the new lawsuits were altar boys at St. Patricks Church, now known as The Cathedral Parish, in Bridgeport, and students at St. Patricks School when they were allegedly abused in the 1970s and 1980s by Coleman, who was pastor of the parish. The third man claims he was sexually abused by Coleman at St. Josephs Parish in Brookfield in the 1980s, when Coleman was reassigned there as pastor. The fourth plaintiff was allegedly sexually abused by Morrissey at St. Marys Parish in Ridgefield in the 1990s. In 2001, Morrissey, speaking from the pulpit of St. Marys, angrily denounced accusations of abuse against priests as a witch hunt. He resigned a year later after two men filed suit claiming Morrissey abused them at parishes in Stamford and Greenwich in the 1970s and 1980s. Removed from ministry in 2004, Morrissey died in December 2014. The fifth alleged victim first met Jensen in the early 2000s at an Emmaus retreat. Emmaus is a youth ministry operated by the diocese for decades, and thousands of children throughout Fairfield County have attended its overnight retreats. Jensen, the spiritual director of the dioceses Danbury program, is accused of abusing the plaintiff at St. Anthony Maronite Catholic Church, where the program was held. Jensen served eight years at the Danbury church before being transferred to St. Joseph Maronite Catholic Church in Waterville, Maine. He was removed from the priesthood in 2017 after the Tremont firm reported the claim and the Eparchy of St. Maron of Brooklyn, N.Y., determined it was substantiated. Nabors Industries Ltd. engages in the provision of platform work over and drilling rigs. It operates through the following segments: U.S. Drilling, Canada Drilling, International Drilling, Drilling Solutions, and Rig Technologies. The U.S. Drilling segment includes land drilling activities in the lower 48 states and Alaska, as well as offshore operations in the Gulf of Mexico. The Canada segment consists of land-based drilling rigs in Canada. The International segment focuses in maintaining a footprint in the oil and gas market, most notably in Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Argentina, Colombia, Kazakhstan, and Venezuela. The Drilling Solutions segment offers drilling technologies, such as patented steering systems and rig instrumentation software systems that enhance drilling performance and wellbore placement. The Rig Technologies segment comprises Canrig, which manufactures and sells top drives, catwalks, wrenches, drawworks, and drilling related equipment, such as robotic systems and downhole tools. The company was founded by Clair Nabors in 1952 and is headquartered in Hamilton, Bermuda. Read More 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 iShares MSCI Chile ETF's stock was trading at $25.05 on March 11th, 2020 when COVID-19 (Coronavirus) reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, ECH shares have increased by 9.2% and is now trading at $27.35. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. Anadarko Petroleum Corporation engages in the exploration, development, production, and marketing of oil and gas properties. It operates through three segments: Exploration and Production, WES Midstream, and Other Midstream. The company explores for and produces oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids (NGLs). It is also involved in gathering, processing, treating, and transporting oil, natural-gas, and NGLs production, as well as the gathering and disposal of produced water. The company's oil and natural gas properties are located in the United States onshore and deepwater Gulf of Mexico; and Algeria, Ghana, Mozambique, Colombia, Peru, and other countries. As of December 31, 2018, it had approximately 1.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent of proved reserves. The company was founded in 1959 and is headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas. Read More Guyana Goldfields Inc. provides exploration and production of gold. It engages in the acquisition, exploration, development, production, and operation of gold mineral properties. The company also owns and operates gold drilling rights. The company was formerly known as Chiboug Copper Company Limited and changed its name to Guyana Goldfields Inc. in January 1995. Guyana Goldfields Inc. was incorporated in 1994 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada. As of August 25, 2020, Guyana Goldfields Inc. operates as a subsidiary of Zijin Mining Group Company Limited. Read More Genesee & Wyoming Inc. owns and leases freight railroads. It operates through three segments: North American Operations, Australian Operations, and U.K./European Operations. The company transports various commodities, including agricultural products, autos and auto parts, chemicals and plastics, coal and coke, food and kindred products, lumber and forest products, metallic ores, metals, minerals and stone, petroleum products, pulp and paper, waste, and other commodities. It owns or leases 122 freight railroads, including 105 short line railroads and 2 regional freight railroads located in the United States, 8 short line railroads located in Canada, 3 railroads located in Australia, 1 railroad located in the United Kingdom, 1 railroad in Poland and Germany, and 2 railroads in the Netherlands with a total of approximately 16,200 miles of track. The company also operates 6,200 additional miles of track that is owned or leased by others. In addition, it operates deep sea maritime containers and provides bulk haulage, including coal, aggregates, cement, and infrastructure services. Further, the company provides rail service at approximately 40 ports; rail-ferry service in North America, Australia, and Europe; and contract coal loading and railcar switching for industrial customers. Genesee & Wyoming Inc. was founded in 1899 and is headquartered in Darien, Connecticut. Read More There is not enough analysis data for Mongolia Growth Group. 4.5 Community Rank Outperform Votes Mongolia Growth Group has received 35 outperform votes. (Add your outperform vote.) Underperform Votes Mongolia Growth Group has received 16 underperform votes. (Add your underperform vote.) Community Sentiment Mongolia Growth Group has received 68.63% outperform votes from our community. MarketBeat's community ratings are surveys of what our community members think about Mongolia Growth Group and other stocks. Vote Outperform if you believe YAK will outperform the S&P 500 over the long term. Vote Underperform if you believe YAK will underperform the S&P 500 over the long term. You may vote once every thirty days. Previous Next 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].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. Category Select Category Apparel/Garments Textiles Fashion Technical Textiles Information Technology E-commerce Retail Corporate Association Press Release SubCategory Select Sub-Category Heres What Kareena Had Said "I am not exactly following her filmography in detail so I don't remember when she made her debut. In terms of acting, my body of work is a lot more so if I look at it like that then I am sure she would not have meant it in any other way but this," had said Kareena in 2012, while speaking to HT. Kareena On Competing With Katrina She had further added, "There can never be any sort of a competition between we two as we are two different sorts of actresses." Later, Kareena Was Heard Bonding With Katrina When Bebo graced Koffee With Karan's couch, she shared that she once visited Saif Ali Khan while he was shooting with Katrina Kaif in Beirut. One evening Saif went to sleep as he wasn't keeping well, so she and Katrina went out for coffee and even spent two to three hours together. Katrina Is Perfect For Ranbir: Kareena In the same Koffee With Karan episode, which she graced along with Ranbir Kapoor, she was also heard calling Katrina her sister-in-law' leaving all Ran-Kat fans very happy! She also went on to say that she will dance on Katrina's popular songs at Ranbir-Katrina's wedding. In 2015, while speaking to Filmfare, Kareena had also said that she believes that Katrina is perfect for Ranbir. Katrina Had Also Praised Kareena For Her Sweet Words Katrina, who was dating Ranbir Kapoor in 2014, was quoted as saying, "Kareena has always been supportive. Actually, she has been openly supportive on many different occasions. And I have heard this from several people. It has always come back to me." Kareena Has Been Kind: Katrina "And what people do behind your back rather than in front of you is more important. She has spoken well about me. So, obviously I have a lot of fondness for her. She has always been extremely kind." But Kareenas Fondness Towards Katrina Changed Just After Her Break-up With Ranbir When Kareena was in her last trimester of pregnancy and was on Neha Dhupia's podcast #NoFilterNeha, she was asked, who she thinks was a better girlfriend to Ranbir - Katrina Kaif or Deepika Padukone. Within a few seconds, the actor replied, "None," leaving everyone pretty surprised! Salman Khan in TROUBLE: FIR against Salman, Aayush Sharma & others because of Loveratri | FilmiBeat Salman Khan's brother-in-law Aayush Sharma is all ready to make his Bollywood debut with 'Loveyatri'. However before the release, the film has already got itself in a controversy over the last few days. The film was earlier titled 'Loveratri'. But, a section of people had a problem with the title of the film. They alleged that it is hurting Hindu sentiments as the film is based against the backdrop of Navratri. Ranveer Singh's Simmba Will Not Clash With SRK's Zero; Rohit Shetty Reveals The Reason! To ensure a smooth release, the makers of the film and Salman Khan who is producing it, decided to change the title to Loveyatri. Salman had made this announcement a few days back while unveiling a new poster of the film. But, it looks like the trouble for the film won't be ending anytime soon. Reportedly, a FIR has been lodged in Bihar against Salman Khan and others, who are associated with the film. The case was lodged at the Mithanpura police station in pursuance of an order passed by Sub Divisional Judicial Magistrate (East) Shailendra Rai on September 12. The order was passed on the complaint of an advocate Sudhir Kumar Ojha, who has alleged that the film's title made fun of the holy festival of Navaratri which is celebrated across the world by Hindu's. He has also alleged that the movie's promos suggest that it has certain instances of vulgarity which could hurt Hindu sentiments. Nick Jonas Opens Up About His Fiancee Priyanka Chopra, Reveals How He Fell In Love With Her! "We have filed an FIR against Salman Khan and others on the directions of the court. We will investigate the matter and take necessary action," Vijay Kumar Rai, SHO Meethanpura police station was quoted as saying. Advocate Sudhir Ojha in his complaint had also maintained that the film's previous name Lovaratri, denigrated Goddess Durga. Directed by Abhiraj Minawala, Loveyatri marks the Bollywood debut of Warina Hussain. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 22) The police chief of Bocaue, Bulacan was arrested Saturday for alleged robbery-extortion and carnapping. The Bulacan police said the appropriate charges will be filed against PSupt. Jowen Dela Cruz, who was nabbed in an entrapment operation past 12 midnight on Saturday. This follows a complainant's report to the Counter-Intelligence Task Force that Dela Cruz asked for an iPhone X from his brother in exchange of the Montero SUV, which the Bocaue police seized when his brother was arrested on drug charges. The vehicle was not declared in the blotter book as evidence, police said. Two motorcycles and three other cars were seized from the town's top cop during the operation. The Bulacan police said Dela Cruz's arrest is part of the Philippine National Police's crackdown against rogue cops. NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / September 22, 2018 / (United Nations) HealRWorld(HRW), a social impact company dedicated to spurring the growth of sustainable small and mid-sized (SMEs) businesses globally, has partnered with the leader in blockchain and tokenization solutions, Bahamian-based Unify Earth (UE), to launch an upcoming Token Generation Event (TGE) and blockchain solutions for HRW to deliver platforms that address the $2T+ shortfall in SME funding. SMEs and the World's Most Powerful Blockchain: Unify Earth is Humanizing the Blockchain with the first end-to-end service to assist entrepreneurs, investors, and SMEs that are dedicated to addressing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG's). Over 190 countries around the world have adopted this roadmap to a sustainable future, and Unify Earth is determined to power this movement with their revolutionary Blockchain 3.0 Technology. HealRWorld is at the forefront of the integration of business and social/environmental values-driven enterprise with the world's largest database of privately held sustainable companies across all areas of environment, social, and governance factors (ES&G) and has a strategic partnership with global business data and analytics leader Dun & Bradstreet (D&B). Unify Earth Systems' Blockchain 3.0, with over one thousand enhancements to the Blockchain Core, led by Chief Technology Officer Scott Searle, has delivered the fundamental upgrades necessary to optimize mining, security, and smart contracts, marking the dawn of Blockchain 3.0. Unify Earth delivers a number of measurable enhancements on its Blockchain 3.0 that will increasingly allow this expanding global revolution to fulfill its promise as the world's largest decentralized database for the good for all humanity in a system that is now more highly secure and streamlined for both large-scale commercial applications and meaningful startups. Further, HealRWorld's integration with UE's Wallet 5.0 will foster a secure global marketplace and funding platform for sustainably-committed SMEs and values-based consumers to spur global innovation. "HealRWorld is a social-impact company founded on the belief that the best way to achieve global sustainability is through the empowerment of small businesses and consumers, said Michele Bongiovanni, CEO, and Founder of HealRWorld. "We unite consumers and businesses alike to make values-based decisions on where and how they spend their money through our online digital community platform. We support the Sustainable Development Goals through our products and services and are excited to partner with Unify Earth who shares our commitment to fostering financial inclusion for SMEs through frontier technologies and has the talent, expertise, and resources to make it happen." Bo Rinaldi, CEO, and Founder of Unify Earth commented, "We are proud to partner with HealRWorld in bringing the SDGs of the United Nations to the SMEs of the world. Seldom in business has there been a_ nexus like we've found in each other's models. We see an evolution of e-commerce in this partnership that will enable a massive upgrade of human transaction as we know it." Having developed one thousand enhancements to the Blockchain Core, Unify Earth's software team, led by Searle, has delivered the fundamental upgrades necessary to optimize mining, security, and smart contracts, marking the dawn of Blockchain 3.0. Learn More at Unify.Earth. Bongiovanni, Founder of HealRWorld, is not only leading the charge for sustainable SMEs, but is a champion for women-led businesses. Her vision of a global digital community platform that levels the playing field and unites socially minded consumers with businesses committed to their values is becoming a reality. With over one million businesses in her network, this initiative is important and timely. "We have aggregated certification data globally on SMEs across all areas of sustainability and proven through partnering with Dun & Bradstreet that sustainably-committed SMEs are on average three times more creditworthy than their peers. Our goal is to leverage these insights to drive greater access to capital and more reasonable financing rates to these sustainable SMEs globally and further prove that sustainable business is good business. " Learn More at HealRWorld. About HealRWorld HealRWorld is a social-impact company founded on the belief that the best way to achieve global sustainability is through the empowerment of small businesses and consumers. Our mission is to help support and promote the Conscious Capitalism movement by connecting like-minded individuals and businesses, providing unique ES&G data on family-owned and privately-held companies, as well as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), allowing consumers and businesses alike to make values-based decisions on where and how they spend their money. About Unify Earth Unify Earth Network is a Bahamian-based technology company whose values encompass inclusion for all global citizens utilizing its decentralized Blockchain 3.0 platform. Guided by and committed to the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Unify Earth is leading with values first, delivering a future-proof platform that has been designed for the good of all humanity. *Media and news distributions services provided by 1-800-PublicRelations(1800pr) in support of the UN SDGs. Contact: Arnold V. Strong Unify Earth Systems Communications Director 503.428.0579\ arnold@unifyholding.com SOURCE: HealRWorld View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/512431/HealRWorld-and-Unify-Earth-Systems-Ltd-Announce-Strategic-Partnership-to-Deliver-Blockchain-Solutions-for-SMEs-Through-Tokenization By Teis Jensen and Pamela Barbaglia COPENHAGEN/LONDON (Reuters) - Danske Bank's money laundering scandal spread on Friday to Britain where the National Crime Agency (NCA) said it is investigating the use of UK-registered companies. Concern about the extent of possible money laundering involving Danske Bank's Estonian branch is mounting and European Union Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager joined a growing chorus of calls for a clampdown on the billions of euros alleged to have been 'washed' through several European banks. 'This is a giga scandal,' Vestager said, as Danske Bank's already battered shares fell a further 3.9 percent. By Teis Jensen and Pamela Barbaglia COPENHAGEN/LONDON (Reuters) - Danske Bank's money laundering scandal spread on Friday to Britain where the National Crime Agency (NCA) said it is investigating the use of UK-registered companies. Concern about the extent of possible money laundering involving Danske Bank's Estonian branch is mounting and European Union Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager joined a growing chorus of calls for a clampdown on the billions of euros alleged to have been "washed" through several European banks. "This is a giga scandal," Vestager said, as Danske Bank's already battered shares fell a further 3.9 percent. Britain's NCA said it was "aware of the use of UK registered companies in this case and has related on-going operational activity", adding that the threat posed by the use of UK-registered companies for money laundering was "widely recognised" and that Britain was working to restrict it. British and Russian entities dominate a list of accounts used to make 200 billion euros ($236 billion) in payments through Danske Bank's Estonian branch between 2007 and 2015, many of which the bank said this week are suspicious. By 2013, the number of UK-registered customers in its non-resident portfolio topped 1,000, Danske Bank's report revealed, ahead of Russia, the British Virgin Islands and Finland. We are following and analysing the situation closely... Samu Kurri, head of financial analysis and operational risks at Finland's Financial Supervisory Authority told Reuters. Investor concerns over the potential penalties Danske Bank could face have increased, with particular focus on what action U.S. authorities might take after an investigation commissioned by the bank exposed control and compliance failings. The bank faces Danish and Estonian criminal inquiries following complaints filed by U.S. fund manager Bill Browder, who is campaigning against corruption in Russia. So far the United States has not said whether it is investigating and while Danske Bank Chairman Ole Andersen said that the lender had made an assessment of whether it violated any U.S. laws, he declined to share its conclusion of this. "We need to do more to prevent money laundering from happening," Vestager told reporters in Copenhagen following the resignation on Wednesday of CEO Thomas Borgen, who was in charge of Danske Bank's international operations including Estonia between 2009 and 2012. Danske Bank's tiny Estonian branch accounted for as much as 10 percent of group profit during the period when suspected money laundering was conducted via its operations there. Borgen said on Wednesday that he had been "personally cleared from a legal point of view", while Danske said its board had not breached their legal obligations. The European Commission last week recommended banking supervision changes, including bolstering national authorities, but stopped short of setting up a new financial crime agency called for by the European Central Bank. Denmark's central bank said on Friday that it supported a proposal for tougher laws to prevent money laundering agreed by politicians on Wednesday and called on the management of Danish financial institutions to ensure none took place. "As the largest bank in the country, Danske Bank is of major importance to the reputation of the financial sector and hence the financial stability of Denmark." The left-wing Red-Green Alliance has summoned business minister Rasmus Jarlov to an open parliament committee meeting on Tuesday to discuss the "political aftermath" of the case. "We must discuss if we should continue to have banks that are as big as Danske Bank, who with their irresponsible behaviour pose a threat to the economy and financial stability, or if they should be split up into smaller units," the Red-Green party's business spokesman Pelle Dragsted said. Jarlov has so far rejected calls to split up Denmark's largest banks, which also include Nordea, Nykredit and Jyske Bank. Although credit ratings agency Moody's said on Friday that it saw no reason to date why Denmark's AAA rating should be affected, it lowered Danske Bank's outlook to negative from stable, citing risks related to the scandal such as "further investigations and regulatory penalties". 'DEEPLY REPREHENSIBLE' Within Denmark, which often tops surveys as one of the world's least corrupt countries, the saga has stirred a political storm and prompted a backlash against Danske Bank. "We don't think it's appropriate, with the things that have been unearthed, that Thomas Borgen is still heading the bank," Anders Schelde, head of investments at MP Pension, told Reuters. The Danish pension fund, which holds Danske Bank shares worth around 600 million Danish crowns, will not buy any more shares in the bank while Borgen, who will stay on until a successor is appointed, is still in charge. Meanwhile, the charity CARE Danmark said it was severing ties with Danske as its main bank. "We've decided to drop Danske Bank due to the money laundering scandal which is incompatible with the values our organisation stands for, and what our members expect of us," CARE Danmark CEO Rasmus Stuhr Jacobsen told Reuters. Denmark's largest NGO, the Danish Refugee Council, said it is also considering dropping Danske Bank, Secretary General Christian Friis Bach told online media outlet Altinget. And the mayor of Aalborg, Denmark's third largest municipality, said he would discuss its partnership with Danske Bank at its next committee meeting, but noted that there were only two Danish banks able to handle a municipality its size. "Danske Bank has been involved in money laundering which is deeply reprehensible and outrageous but Nordea has been involved in tax havens, so the entire bank sector needs to clean up for us to have a trusting collaboration with the banks," Thomas Kastrup-Larsen said. ($1 = 0.8487 euros) (Reporting by Pamela Barbaglia and Teis Jensen; Additional reporting by Emil Gjerding Nielson and Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen; writing by Alexander Smith; editing by Jason Neely) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. By Joe Bavier JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Effective collaboration between companies across South Africa's defence industry and lucrative export markets from Central Asia to Saudi Arabia offer a way out of a crisis in the sector - once a pillar of Africa's most advanced economy - a top industry figure said. By Joe Bavier JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Effective collaboration between companies across South Africa's defence industry and lucrative export markets from Central Asia to Saudi Arabia offer a way out of a crisis in the sector - once a pillar of Africa's most advanced economy - a top industry figure said. Squeezed global military budgets, domestic economic headwinds and a contracting home market have hit the South African defence industry hard. But seated in front of a Marauder - a 15-tonne armoured truck that gained a cult following after a civilian version appeared on the British motoring programme Top Gear - Ivor Ichikowitz, chairman of its manufacturer, the Paramount Group, was upbeat. "The industry is in a state of crisis at the moment. But there's nothing like a good crisis to create opportunity for regrowth," he told Reuters on the sidelines of an aerospace and defence expo outside Johannesburg. "The entire industry now has to reinvent itself to be relevant to the rest of the world." A United Nations arms embargo imposed on South Africa's apartheid government in 1977 forced it to produce all its own military hardware. And by 1994 when Nelson Mandela was elected president in the country's first democratic elections, the industry employed over 100,000 people. But South Africa's defence spending has steadily declined since, and just 15,000 work in the sector today, a trade association official said last month. If it is to survive, Ichikowitz said, the industry as a whole must take a lesson from Paramount, which uses portable production to establish manufacturing operations around the world. Paramount now operates in around 30 countries and, according to the company, has posted year-on-year sales growth of 20 to 30 percent over the past decade. Now Ichikowitz wants South Africa's optical, electronics, system integration and defence platform industries to work more closely together. "We're saying the time has come to create Team South Africa," he said. "The fact that South Africa is non-aligned gives us a huge advantage ... That puts us in a position where a lot of markets are open to us." "CRAZINESS IN THE WORLD" Paramount manufactures military vehicles, aircraft, ships, and weapons systems. It is expanding its production lines in Kazakhstan from armoured vehicles to new areas including unmanned aerial vehicles. It is partnering with Italy's Leonardo Sp to weapons one of its aircraft for the African market. This week it announced it would team up with Singapore's ST Engineering to market a line of armoured vehicles internationally. And it is planning to produce a variant of one of its light attack aircraft for the U.S. market. But a much bigger prize may be up for grabs in Saudi Arabia. One of the world's largest arms purchasers, Saudi Arabia is seeking international partners to develop its manufacturing capabilities with the aim of producing half of its required military equipment domestically by 2030. Ichikowitz told Reuters in April that Paramount was in talks with the Saudi government to establish production facilities in the kingdom. And representatives from state-owned Saudi Arabian Military Industries were in South Africa this week to speak with other defence companies. "South Africa has a huge role to play in helping to enable and facilitate the establishment of industry in Saudi Arabia," Ichikowitz said. Saudi Arabia has been fighting a costly war in Yemen since 2015 in support of the internationally recognised government against the armed Couth movement. "I think the craziness in the world that has created an inward-looking America, an inward-looking Europe, an inward-looking Asia has created a massive opportunity for Africa," he said. (Reporting by Joe Bavier, editing by Louise Heavens) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. The executive committee of the board of directors of Havells India at its meeting held has considered and approved the scheme of amalgamation of the subsidiaries. New Delhi: Homegrown-consumer electric goods maker Havells on Friday announced the integration of business operations of its subsidiaries Havells Global, Standard Electrical, Lloyd Consumer and Promptec Renewable Energy Solutions by merging into the company. The executive committee of the board of directors of Havells India at its meeting held has considered and approved the scheme of amalgamation of the subsidiaries. "The scheme of amalgamation will enable optimisation of legal entity structure through rationalization of the number of subsidiaries, which will result in the integration of business operations and consolidation of the activities leading to operational synergies," Havells informed BSE in a regulatory filing. It added: "The Scheme will also result in a reduction in the multiplicity of legal and regulatory compliances." The company also informed that "the scheme is conditional upon and subject to necessary statutory and regulatory approvals under applicable laws, including approval of the NCLT". By Daniel Wiessner (Reuters) - The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Friday filed a lawsuit accusing Walmart Inc of forcing pregnant workers at a Wisconsin warehouse to go on unpaid leave and denying their requests to take on easier duties. By Daniel Wiessner (Reuters) - The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Friday filed a lawsuit accusing Walmart Inc of forcing pregnant workers at a Wisconsin warehouse to go on unpaid leave and denying their requests to take on easier duties. The EEOC, which enforces federal laws banning discrimination in the workplace, said Walmart's distribution center in Menomonie, Wisconsin, has discriminated against pregnant employees since 2014. Federal law requires employers to accommodate workers' pregnancies in the same way as physicaldisabilities. Arkansas-based Walmart, the largest U.S. retailer, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Wisconsin, stems from a complaint filed by Walmart employee Alyssa Gilliam. The EEOC in the lawsuit said Gilliam became pregnant in 2015, and Walmart denied her requests for restrictions on heavy lifting, additional breaks, and a chair to sit in while working. The commission said Walmart refused similar requests by other pregnant workers at the warehouse, but granted them for workers with disabilities or injuries. The federal Pregnancy Discrimination Act prohibits workplace discrimination against pregnant women. In a 2015 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court said the law requires employers to provide the same accommodations to pregnant women as it does disabled workers. (Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Bill Berkrot) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is assessing China's response to the Trump administration's latest round of tariffs and does not have a scheduled date to announce for another round of talks, a senior White House official said on Friday. The official said he is optimistic there is a positive way forward with China on trade, but that President Donald Trump has made clear U.S WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is assessing China's response to the Trump administration's latest round of tariffs and does not have a scheduled date to announce for another round of talks, a senior White House official said on Friday. The official said he is optimistic there is a positive way forward with China on trade, but that President Donald Trump has made clear U.S. resolve to stand up to trade practices that hurt the U.S. economy. He said the two sides remain in touch. The official, speaking to reporters on the condition of anonymity, also said he hoped Canada would agree to join a U.S.-Mexico trade deal by the end of the month, while saying he thought U.S. lawmakers would support a bilateral deal with Mexico if that did not happen. (Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Paul Simao) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. By giving up to 5 lakh health insurance coverage to 10.7 crore families, the government is bringing healthcare to the poorest of the country, and if realised, it promises a revolution Haryana/New Delhi: Emerging into the sunlight from the doors of the Kalpana Chawla Government Medical College and Hospital in Karnal, its patients are fated to walk towards hard times. The 500-bed, multi-speciality facility, its floors mopped to an almost mirror-like shine, gives no reason to complain but that isnt the reason to pray never to encounter its wards. Tens of thousands Indians die because they cant afford medical care; families are bankrupted keeping loved ones alive. But one young woman from an impoverished rural home, discharged after a surgery last week, was smiling and the story of why could mark an unnoticed turning point in our national life. This month, the government will roll out Ayushman Bharat-National Health Protection Mission, giving the poorest 40 percent of Indians over 10.7 crore families access to quality hospital treatment for the first time. Billed as the worlds largest scheme of its kind, Ayushman Bharat promises insurance cover of up to 5 lakh a year at empanelled hospitals. By its sheer scale and ambition, Ayushman Bharat promises to drag the debate around healthcare perhaps the single biggest burden an Indian family will confront out of Indian homes, and on to the centre stage of national political discourse. Anchal Sharma, a young computer engineering graduate, began working at the Ayushman Bharat office in Kalpana Chawla hospital on 14 August her first job. Her first neat-pink patient file arrived the next morning. Prepared by the gynaecology ward, recording the case of a pregnant 24-year-old woman from a Below Poverty Line family, in urgent need of a caesarean. Forty-eight hours later, Mousami emerged from the hospital with her second child, Karishma, without having paid a paisa, thanks to Sharma and the Ayushman Bharat office. Three years ago, when Mousami had arrived at the very same Karnal hospital, her experience had been very different. When her labour began, the family first took her to their nearest government health centre in Indri. The staff kept her there for three days and then referred her to Kalpana Chawla hospital. Mousami was dying of pain, recalls her brother-in-law, Manjeet, She couldnt even breathe. In spite of her deteriorating condition, the family alleges, doctors flatly refused to operate. Fearing Mousami would die, the family rushed her to a private nursing home, where they ended up paying 1.5 lakh for a caesarean delivery. Mousamis husband makes 300 a day, if he gets work, says Pramod, Mousamis mother-in-law. In her office, Sharma describes how Mousamis case was handled by Ayushman Bharat. Beneficiaries are identified in the common server by filing in their ration card information, phone number or Aadhaar number. Their claims are then filed and sent for approval, all without any paperwork. Mousamis claim is one of the three cleared so far in the hospital. Thirty-nine more are in various stages of settlement. Why does India need Ayushman Bharat? Like Mousami's family, millions of Indians end up spending money they just cannot afford on what ought to be relatively minor healthcare procedures. Out-of-pocket expenditure pushes a staggering 55 crore Indians into poverty each year, said a study by Sakthivel Selvaraj, Habib Hasan Farooqui and Anup Karan from Public Health Foundation of India in the British Medical Journal this June. The National Health Systems Resource Centre describes healthcare expenditures that exceed 10 percent of a households annual consumption expenditure as catastrophic. Eighteen percent of Indian families, the National Sample Survey Office found in 2011-12, faced catastrophic health expenditures in that financial year. For most Indians, public healthcare just doesnt exist. More than 94 percent of Indians pay out of pocket for healthcare, governments Household Health Expenditure Report found in 2014. Private health insurance accounts for less than 5 percent of total health spending, the National Health Accounts in India determined in 2014-15. Only about 5 percent population is covered by any government insurance schemes, like the CGHS. This is the scale of the problem Ayushman Bharat seeks to address and its no small task. To put it simply, the problem is: India just doesnt have a big-enough public health infrastructure, or the funds to grow it. The need for public health care is met by 1,56,000 government-run health sub-centres, 25,650 primary health centres (PHCs), and 5,624 community health centres (CHCs) but we need 34,946 more sub-centres, 6,409 PHCs and 2,168 CHCs. There arent enough doctors, either. India has 10,41,395 qualified practitioners, but only one in 10 serve in government hospitals. This means there is just one doctor for every 11,082, according to the Medical Council of India and Directorate General of Health Services. Only 27,124 doctors work in rural PHCs where they are most needed; there are just 4,156 specialists available to all CHCs. Infrastructure needs money, but India will only spend 1.28 percent of its GDP on health, up marginally from 1.12 percent in 2009-2010. World Health Organisation data shows that it is below what low-income countries spend on healthcare, which is 1.4 percent. In the long-term, spending more on health could create more infrastructure but that will take time. This is where Ayushman Bharats model of involving the private sector comes in. In theory, the availability of patients with insurance cover will lead private investors to create health infrastructure in rural areas, drawing in the funds that are so desperately needed. Elephants in the ward From his office in New Delhis Jeevan Bharati Building, Ayushman Bharats chief executive officer, Indu Bhushan, is working overtime to build the networks needed to make the project work. "People are here 'till nine-ten at night," he says, adding, "A lot of them are working almost as volunteers. He needs them all: 7,872 people have been trained so far to help administer Ayushman Bharat, but the big colour-coded spreadsheet on Bhushans desk shows that only 25 out of 32 states and union territories have high readiness for the launch. Things havent been helped by the fact that at the village level the scheme isnt well-understood. Anju, who lives in the village of Norta, not far from Karishmas village, thinks the child received free healthcare because "she was born on 15 August when national flags were hoisted across the country". Maya, a neighbour, fondly imagines it is because Karishma was a girl. "Her education will be paid for by the government," she says, adding, "After that she will be given a government job. The government will also pay for her wedding." Lots of other problems need to be ironed out. Private hospitals, for example, complain they still dont know how they will be paid for the services. "We are already part of the state health insurance scheme, but we have not received any guidelines yet from the government," said Hitesh Popli, credit manager of Cygnus Hospital in Karnal. "As we speak," Bhushan responds, We are holding meetings to expedite empanelment. We have a huge number of applications, and we are going to have as many hospitals on board as possible." Tougher problems lie ahead The health ministrys household health expenditure survey shows that more than half of the out-of-pocket is made on out-patient department (OPD) care, mainly on purchasing medicines and other medical goods. Ayushman Bharat, though, only targets hospitalisation costs, which make up less than a third of the out-of-pocket expenditure. The government is moving to address some of these problems. In August, health minister JP Nadda announced that 1.5 lakh health sub-centres will be upgraded to health and wellness centres that will conduct universal screening for everything from cervix and breast cancer to hypertension, diabetes, tuberculosis and mental health. There is also a new energy driving the Jan Aushadhi Yojana, a United Progressive Alliance-era scheme to provide low-cost generic medication. Centrestage health But one key gain is already evident. Modis unprecedented public health push is built on the realisation that the cost of life quite literally has become a huge issue for millions of ordinary people. The government intends to demonstrate that it, unlike its predecessors, is listening. In a recent article, the editor-in-chief of the medical journal The Lancet noted that the debates swirling around healthcare will give the next government "the opportunity to redefine the idea of India for a new generation". At a gathering of private healthcare providers in August, Bhushan outlined the gross inequities that characterise Indias access to medical care. "In the government sector, the use of services by the top 40 percent of the population is 50 percent more than what the bottom 20 percent uses, he said. There is inequity. In the private sector, the use of services by the bottom 40 percent is even lower. By giving up to 5 lakh health insurance coverage to 10.7 crore families, the government is bringing healthcare to the poorest of the country. That promise, if realised, promises a revolution to rival the most seismic events India has ever seen. Bishop Franco Mulakkal has been sent to police custody till 24 September and his bail application has also been dismissed by the magistrate court. Bishop Franco Mulakkal, who has been accused of raping a nun multiple times between 2014 and 2016, was produced in a magistrate court in Pala on Saturday and has been sent to police custody till 24 September. His lawyer had filed for a bail application, which was dismissed by the court. Kerala nun rape case: Former Bishop of Jalandhar, Franco Mulakkal, sent to police custody till 24 September. His bail application has been dismissed. pic.twitter.com/EDbtCyr3XN ANI (@ANI) September 22, 2018 In its remand report, the police said that Mulakkal came to the convent with the intention of sexually assaulting the nun and on 5 May, 2014, he illegally confined her in Room 20 of the guest house at around 10.48 pm and "subjected her to unnatural sexual assault". The police further said that the accused threatened the nun with dire consequences if she ever revealed the incident. "He raped her the next day (6 May, 2014) as well. Between 2014-2016, the victim was subjected to rape and unnatural sex 13 times in the same room," the remand report stated. Accused threatened victim of dire consequences if she ever revealed the incident. He raped her on the next day (6 May '14) as well. Between 2014-2016, the victim was subjected to rape and unnatural sex for 13 times in the same room: Police in remand report on Kerala nun rape case ANI (@ANI) September 22, 2018 The bishop was arrested on Friday amid mounting public outrage over the allegations against him. He was arrested by the Kerala Police after intense interrogation over the last three days. The development came after the Vatican relieved him "temporarily" of all pastoral responsibilities as the bishop of the Jalandhar diocese of the Missionaries of Jesus Congregation. The nun had accused the 54-year old bishop of repeatedly raping and having unnatural sex with her between 2014 and 2016. In her complaint to Kottayam police in June, the nun had alleged that Mulakkal raped her at a guest house in Kuravilangad in May 2014 and later sexually exploited her on several occasions. Members of various Christian reformation organisations and also the nuns of the Missionaries of Jesus, who were staging a protest close to the Kerala High Court premises for the last 13 days for the bishop's arrest, erupted with joy as the news of his arrest broke. The five nuns who were taking part in the protest welcomed the arrest of the bishop and said they would end their agitation for the time being. Earlier this month, the nun had written to the Vatican's representative in New Delhi, alleging that the bishop was using "political and money power" to "bury" the case and sought his removal. The bishop too filed a complaint against the nun, claiming he was being blackmailed by her for not extending her favours. With inputs from agencies CBI on Friday described the complaint by its Special Director Rakesh Asthana to the CVC against its chief Alok Verma as 'malicious' and 'frivolous'. New Delhi: The CBI on Friday described the complaint by its Special Director Rakesh Asthana to the CVC against its chief Alok Verma as "malicious" and "frivolous" and said that the complaint is aimed to malign his image and intimidate the officials. "It is unfortunate that baseless and frivolous allegations are being made publicly without proper verification of facts to malign the image of the Director of CBI and intimidate the officials of the organisation," the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said in a statement. It is stated that the CVC has sought for certain case files from the CBI on the basis of a complaint filed by its Special Director. "In its response to the CVC letter, the Chief Vigilance Officer (CVO) of CBI has pointed out that the complaint is an attempt by the complainant (Asthana) to intimidate the officers of CBI who are investigating his role in at least half a dozen cases," it said. The CBI remarks came after media reports claimed that Asthana had filed a complaint before the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) alleging interference in the probes undertaken by the Special Investigation Team under him. The agency said that the "CVC should opine on the maintainability of the complaint and consider it malicious and frivolous in order to protect the integrity of the organisation". The agency also said that the CBI has pointed out in its letter to CVC that the issue relating to the IRCTC (Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corp) case was raked up earlier also and brought before the Supreme Court on two occasions. "The matter was dismissed by the Supreme Court. The petitioners were also in possession of information from highly confidential internal documents, which is a serious offence. "Irrespective of the maintainability of the complaint, CBI has provided most of the files as requested by the CVC and the remaining will be submitted soon. There is no substance in the media reports that CBI is not cooperating in the enquiry," it said. The agency also refuted the allegation of preventing raids against the accused in the IRCTC case. "The investigation of the case has resulted in filing a chargesheet before the designated court. This could not have been possible without the explicit approval of the CBI director," it added. Francois Hollande has flung gallons of fuel into the fire over the Rafale deal and actually let down Dassault, which has been forced into clumsy denial. Should India take Francois Hollandes bombshell over the Rafale deal at face value, or is there a need to be circumspect? After all, if Hollande had smelled a rat, he could have easily asked what was going on, and why they were not made a party to the exercise of choosing the Indian firm. Clearly, the former French president's statement is an afterthought, and he has to back his words with rock solid evidence. So far, it is just a statement. Even if India had recommended a specific entity, the fact that France readily agreed to it indicates a certain happy collusion. Naturally, Congress president Rahul Gandhi has jumped the gun and, in a statement on Twitter, accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of having betrayed India and having dishonoured the blood of our soldiers. These are opportunistic histrionics by a man who is now pretending that it was at his behest that the former French president made these revelations. However, leaving this aspect aside, the Rafale deal has begun to emit a stench of its own and rival the controversies over the Bofors guns and AgustaWestland choppers. At this juncture, Hollande has flung gallons of fuel into the fire and actually let down Dassault, which has been forced into clumsy denial today. The firm is visibly into damage control of a rather pathetic kind. Denying the claim of your former president cannot be pleasant. Whichever way one sees the issue, one of them is lying, and that is unconscionable. Why has Hollande been silent all this while, and what has prompted him to come forward now? Is there some disenchantment between him and Dassault, or has some promise not been honoured? Is he deflecting attention from some other latent scandal whose skeletons are rattling in the cupboard? It is not normal for a former president of a nation to let down a major corporation that flies the same flag. Behind this controversy, there may be a war in the corridors of power in France, or Hollande may be seeking a little of the lost limelight by being outrageous. Of course, it is possible that the Indian government indicated its desire to give the contract to Reliance Defence. But surely a company like Dassault would still engage in due diligence before handing over the whole blueprint for building their jet fighters, risking their credibility and that of Rafale globally. So, if we accept that France was comfortable with Reliance Defence's capability, we are now left with Hollande versus Dassault on the issue of whether the Modi government favoured a particular firm. The answer to that depends largely on how Hollande backs the statement he gave to French journal Mediapart. Before the controversy escalates, it is necessary for Modi and his frontline to respond to Hollande's allegations. What the government should do is to share the inside story about the deal without engaging in any prevarication. It should do this in a manner which is unconnected to the impasse in France between a former president and the top aviation manufacturer in that country. That is their fight, this is ours. The European Union has put forward its own infrastructure and investment plan for Asia with emphasis on sustainability and rules-based investment aspects which Chinas Belt and Road Initiative has been accused of lacking. As South China Morning Post writes in an article "European Union has a plan for Asian infrastructure but will it collide with Chinas belt and road?", the EUs investment in Asia could increase up to fourfold in its next budget, strengthening its presence in the region, which is in need of 1.3 trillion euros (US$1.5 trillion) for infrastructure investment a year, according to EU officials. The bloc did not say if it was competing with China, but said the plan was urgently needed because other players were setting their own strategies. Observers said it would rival the belt and road plan President Xi Jinpings flagship project to boost infrastructure and trade links which was launched in 2013 with plans to invest more than US$80 billion for infrastructure linkages for more than 60 nations from Asia to Africa. Under its plan, the EU will seek to extend the current Trans-European Network for Transport which stretches across Eastern Europe and the Caucasus region to Asia through a combination of rail, sea and inland waterways. The EU will also pursue air transport agreement negotiations with Southeast Asian nations, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Qatar. Energy infrastructure projects, as well as interpersonal exchanges and scholarships to increase flows between Europe and Asia are also suggested. The plan will build off the billions of dollars the EU has previously committed to Asia. The EU external action budget will be increased to 123 billion euros for 2021-27. The EU has already mobilised 4.2 billion euros between 2010 and mid-2018 for its Asia Investment Facility and the Investment Facility for Central Asia. The bloc said its investment would be driven by a sustainable and rule-based model, which it said would adhere to high standards of transparency and environmental protection, and ensure a level playing field for enterprises. The plan was put forward as other major players have also introduced connectivity programmes for the region. In July, the US announced US$113 million in new investment for the Indo-Pacific region. Both the US and Europe have said Chinas belt and road programmes are not transparent and benefit Chinese enterprises which hire Chinese workers instead of local people, while causing damage to the environment. EU Vice-President Federica Mogherini highlighted the potential differences with the belt and road plan in a press conference in Brussels on Thursday, saying a European approach would be based on international rules, and aim to create jobs and sustainable development in Asian partner countries. Mogherini said European Union investments could increase three to four times as a result of the new policy. But she said the EU would not officially decide its position on the relationship between its plan and the belt and road strategy until the policy was adopted next month, adding that it was in the best interests of both parties to increase connectivity between Asia and Europe. Frans-Paul van der Putten, senior research fellow of the Clingendael Institute, a Dutch policy research organisation, said the EUs implicit message was that its own approach was actually more attractive than Chinas. Ding Chun, an economics professor at the Centre for European Studies at Fudan University, said the plan had competitive and cooperative elements in relation to Chinas initiative, but that the two could work together to open new markets that would benefit all parties. The Belt and Road Initiative has its fans and critics within Europe, but ultimately the EUdoes not want to miss out on the opportunities, Ding said. Cui Hongjian, a senior fellow with the China Institute of International Studies, said the belt and road strategy had helped spur Europe to create its own plan. Whether you see the relationship as competition or cooperation, its clear Europe accelerated the preparation of its initiative in response to the belt and road, he said. But he believes Europes plan may encounter difficulties when it brings its rules and norms to Asia. The EUs rules may work well within its own borders, but they should prepare themselves for the possibility that Asian countries may not accept them, he said. Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Friday expressed disappointment at India calling off a meeting between him and external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj. Islamabad: Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Friday expressed disappointment at India for calling off a meeting between him and external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj in New York and alleged that "internal pressure" forced New Delhi to make the "unfortunate" move. India cited the "brutal" killing of three policemen in Jammu and Kashmir as well as the release of postal stamps "glorifying" Kashmiri militant Burhan Wani for cancelling the meeting between Swaraj and Qureshi on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York this month. Qureshi expressed disappointment at the cancellation of the foreign minister-level talks, saying it was "unfortunate." "It is unfortunate that India has not given a positive response. Indian has once again wasted an opportunity for peace," Qureshi told the media. He said that it was important to sit and talk for the sake of peace and stability in the region. "The refusal of India shows that Indian government is facing internal pressure," he said. "It seems that India is already preparing for its elections due in the country next year," Qureshi was quoted as saying by The Express Tribune. He said Pakistan sincerely wants resolution of all outstanding issues, including Kashmir, with India through negotiations. Pakistan has always extended an olive branch to India for the resolution of problems and enhancing bilateral ties in an amicable manner, but New Delhi does not come out of its "internal politics", state-run Radio Pakistan quoted him as saying. The minister said Pakistan can only wish India to come to the negotiating table, but "we can neither pressurise anybody nor will accept the same for this purpose." Qureshi said the world wants connectivity and promote regional trade, but India is creating problems. He said India's "stubbornness" is also adversely affecting future of the SAARC countries, the Radio Pakistan report said. But, Qureshi reiterated that dialogue is the only way to come to the resolution of any issue. "We said that we want dialogue but in a dignified manner," he added. Meanwhile, the Foreign Office (FO) in a statement remarked that the reasons cited by India for calling off the talks "within 24 hours of its public confirmation are entirely unconvincing". "The so-called 'disturbing developments' alluded to in the Indian statement predated the Indian agreement to hold the bilateral meeting in New York," Foreign Office spokesman Dr Mohammad Faisal said in the statement. He said the alleged killing of a BSF soldier took place two days prior to the Indian announcement of its agreement to hold the bilateral meeting. And when the allegations of Pakistan's involvement first appeared, Pakistani rangers clearly conveyed to BSF through official channels that the country had nothing to do with it. He said Pakistani rangers also extended help in efforts to locate the soldier's body. These facts were known to the Indian authorities and yet "this motivated and malicious propaganda continued". "Pakistan... categorically reject these allegations... Our authorities would be prepared to conduct a joint investigation to establish the truth," Faisal said. On the issue of the postage stamps, he said they were issued before the 25 July elections and before Prime Minister Imran Khan assumed office. Faisal said that most unfortunate part of Indian statement is the reference to the person of the Prime Minister of Pakistan. "We choose not to further comment beyond saying that these comments are against all norms of civilised discourse and diplomatic communication," he said. "We believe by its ill-considered cancellation of the meeting, India has once again wasted a serious opportunity to change the dynamics of the bilateral relationship and put the region on the path of peace and development," he added. Announcing the cancellation of the New York meeting, external affairs ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said in New Delhi that the incidents "exposed" the "true face" of Pakistan's new Prime Minister Imran Khan to the world as well as Islamabad's evil agenda behind the proposal for talks. "The latest brutal killings of our security personnel by Pakistan-based entities and the recent release of a series of 20 postage stamps by Pakistan glorifying a terrorist and terrorism confirm that Pakistan will not mend its ways," Kumar said. He noted that "two deeply disturbing developments have taken place" since Thursday's announcement of a meeting between the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan in New York later this month. "In view of the changed situation, there will be no meeting between the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan in New York," he said. Kumar said talks with Pakistan in such an environment would be "meaningless". Former High Commissioner to India, Abdul Basit said he was surprised by India's move as New Delhi should not have agreed for it in the first place due to forthcoming elections but after agreeing for a meeting it was more surprising that it backed out. Former advisor on foreign affairs Sartaj Aziz said that it was "unfortunate" that India cancelled the meeting as it would have created an environment for peace. Former foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri said the cancelation reminded him of the Agra summit when everything was ready for joint statement but India backed out at the last minute. Aasha said it is difficult for women to stand against the corrupt politicians of Jammu and Kashmir, who never take women representatives seriously. Editor's note: With municipal and panchayat elections round the corner in Jammu and Kashmir, Firstpost will run a series of ground reports on different aspects of the polls, as well as the state of panchayati raj institutions and how they can empower democracy at the grassroots. The series will also look into the state of security arrangements, as voters and candidates face threats of attacks by militants. Read part I, part III, part IV, part V and part VI of the series here. *** Wussan, Tangmarg: When Aasha Bhat, a Kashmiri Pandit, got elected sarpanch in a Muslim-dominated village, politicians and television crews made beelines outside her single-storied, crumbling house in north Kashmir's Wussan village. Her fortunes changed overnight: she became the face of women's empowerment and hope for the Valley and Kashmiriyat. She was even invited by Bollywood actor Aamir Khan to appear on his show Satyameva Jayate. It was a feel good story. Her victory symbolised how women can act as a binding force between communities sitting on the fault lines of history. Besides, the participation of women in the last panchyat elections added a different and critical dimension to the whole idea of participatory democracy. It was, so to say, a mini-revolution in a conservative region and it combined the idea of women's empowerment with grassroots politics. But reality soon dawned. Aasha and her husband, Radha Krishan, never left Kashmir, unlike the majority of the Kashmiri Pandits. For decades, they lived in abject poverty, but never left their ancestral village. Aasha has been working as a sanitation worker at a local school for the past three decades. Her salary has increased from Rs 25 per day to Rs 75 per day. When I thought of fighting elections, my Muslims neighbours supported me. I defeated Sarwa Begum by 11 votes, Aasha, 59, said at her crumbling home. People had expectations. They wanted to see some change in their lives, but the government did not support us, she said. My village is very dear to me. I cant live outside its boundary. All I wanted was to help my neighbours, but the government did nothing. Aasha said it is difficult for women to stand against corrupt politicians, who never take women representatives seriously. When she fought for the macadamisation of a road which passes through her village, she ended up paying a bribe for its completion. From chowkidars to ministers, everyone is corrupt, she added. My villages is backward, I wanted it to progress, but I am so fed up now. I have no reason to fight again. That is why I went back to sanitation work at the school, Aasha Bhat said. Forget women's empowerment, my own sons mocked me for failing to help the people who had faith in me. In the 2011 panchayat polls (between 13 April and 27 June), over 79 percent of the electorate exercised their franchise. The process, which stretched over 17 phases, saw 5.07 million voters elect 4,130 sarpanches and 29,719 panchs. The three-month process saw 29 women seal their victory as sarpanches: A dismal success rate of less than one percent. Anantnag and Shopian in south Kashmir elected four women as sarpanches out of 453 posts. Aasha was among them. These women, initially, became local power centres. Wherever they got elected, locals would flock to their homes for birth certificates of their newborns and other small matters. In many places, they ran dispute resolution mechanisms which became an eyesore for political brokers. This also earned them many enemies: they became targets for unknown gunmen and at least four of them were killed in the run-up to the election. In January 2013, Zoona Begum was closing the main gate of her home in Sopore's Yemberzalwari area when she was shot by suspected militants. On that ill-fated day, after more than two years had passed since her election, a stranger appeared at the her door. In a threatening tone, he told Zoona that she ought not to have fought the election. Zoona told him it was none of his business. When I closed the door, I felt something hit my forehead. It felt like a stone, Zoona added. It was a bullet. The projectile hit her forehead, bore through her mouth and exited on the left side of her neck. I spent a month in the ICU and then three more years getting medical treatment. It cost more than Rs 6 lakh. My husband had to sell land to pay the medical bills, Zoona said, speaking from her home in north Kashmir, Scarred for life, Zoona said she will never contest another election. Because it means nothing, Zoona added. It is only to parade elected representatives before TV cameras. I thought concerned women like me will take change of the village affairs and community development, but that was all a cruel joke. Despite the Jammu and Kashmir government ordering 33 percent reservation for women in 4098 posts of sarpanches and 29,402 panch segments, and call for rotation of wards reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, the Valley may yet again witness negligible participation of both men and women in the upcoming panchayat elections due to rising violence. The killing of three policemen in Kapran on Friday sent a clear message. The threat to our lives and our families is greater this time around," Aasha said. There are more important issues that need to be resolved, and that is why I will not be fighting the election. Read Part I: Jammu and Kashmir local body polls: Panchayati raj institutions fail to take wing; locals blame 'political interference' The ABVP has won everywhere nearly consistently, except JNU, and the Left is on a retreat everywhere, except JNU It takes special talent, nay chilling depravity, to organise mass violence against your political opponents, and then portray yourself as the victim. The Peace March in JNU, organised by the Left teachers and students on 17 September to protest ABVPs alleged violence in the aftermath of the recent JNU Students Union election, is a classic example of how Communist, totalitarian regimes and organisations the world over have used sophisticated propaganda to win sympathy and gain legitimacy. Yet, the Peace March also reveals a moral paradox that the Left is unwilling to confront and unable to resolve. Remember Arundhati Roys theorising of Maoists as Gandhians with Guns, and the subsequent denial? Socialist ideologies, specially the Marxist-Leninist variants, are essentially undemocratic and authoritarian. For them to gain ground in the land of Gandhi and Buddha, semantic subterfuge of the kind provided by Roy and intellectuals of similar ideological persuasions, is resorted to frequently. This cynical Peace March was another semantic and visual subterfuge, aimed at glossing over a series of attacks that the members of the Left Unity launched against ABVP members immediately after the former won the JNUSU elections. It may look intriguing, but isnt difficult to discern, why the members of the Left Unity, despite winning the elections, transmogrified into remorseless goons. The orgy of violence fits into a pattern established by their Maoist brethren in the Dandakaranya Forests. Eyewitness accounts and those of the victims from ABVP say the Left Unity members formed gangs of 50 to 100 members, combed the campus, raided hostels and messes at unearthly hours, singling out ABVP members for untold violence. The Red Hounds didnt even spare female students and activists, ripping their clothes, molesting them, and thrashing them with alarming impunity. Angshuman Choudhury, wrote in Firstpost on 19 September, The margins of loss were less than consoling: The ABVP president candidate, Lalit Pandey, lost to his Left Unity counterpart, N Sai Balaji, by a daunting 1,179 votes. A victory of this scale should normally occasion rejoicing and a renewed commitment to work towards ensuring a conducive, peaceful academic environment. But what followed was a horrific wave of attacks, as the Left marauders, armed with sticks, iron rods, and sharp weapons, reportedly went on a rampage, leaving many ABVP members with grievous injuries. So, what prompted this violence? Fear. ABVP, through its years of activism, has grown into a largest single organisation on campus. Lets face it. On a one-on-one basis, ABVP outnumbers every other organisation electorally. Its this fear of electoral annihilation at the hands of an ascendant ABVP that forced at least four organisations (AISA, SFI, AISF, DSF) to forge an opportunistic alliance called Left Unity in the first place. Subsequently, the post-poll violence was aimed at striking fear into the heart of ABVP and demobilise it psychologically as well as politically. That the ABVP observed extraordinary restraint amid extraordinary violence is commendable, and reflects its resolve to wage a political battle against the Left organisations and their ideological mentors among the faculty. The premeditated violence unleashed by the Left members, ably supported by outsiders with alleged Maoist links, is also reflective of the fact that the ABVP has firmly secured a moral and ideological victory. To then dub this victory as an inglorious defeat electorally for the ABVP is living in denial. The ABVP has had a stunning electoral run in Delhi University, and across campuses in Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Bihar, and, hold your breath, Kerala. Yet, the Communists, and their mentors and sympathisers in the academia and media have a propensity to extrapolate the results in JNU and portray them as a mandate against the BJP government at the Centre. To be fair, this contrived naivete is a clever Communist ploy to project an outsize salience of JNU in the national political milieu, as it helps the leaders and academics of the Left retain their relevance in, and, stranglehold over intellectual and political discourse. It is in this context that the relentless misinformation and slander campaign against ABVP to turn it into a political pariah must be seen. Towards this end, the Left organisations use a familiar trope of fatigued and discredited labels such as Communal and Casteist for ABVP and the larger Sangh Parivar. This has a parallel in the national politics as well. The more the political rivals, especially the Left parties, sought to outcast the BJP by calling it communal, the stronger it grew. A cursory look at Indias map will tell you the dramatic surge of the BJP and a concomitant shrinkage of the Left and others. The ABVP has won everywhere nearly consistently, except JNU, and the Left is on a retreat everywhere, except JNU. In that sense, JNU is the last refuge for the Left and a final frontier for ABVP. The battle is going to be intense. The author is a journalist and an alumnus of JNU. He was an ABVP activist during his student days. Mulakkal complained of chest pain when he was being taken to the Kottayam Police Club from the Crime Branch office in Thrippunithura in Ernakulam district. Kottayam: Bishop Franco Mulakkal, arrested by the police over allegations of repeatedly raping and sexually assaulting a nun, has been admitted to a government hospital in Kottayam after he complained of chest pain, official sources said on Friday night. He complained of chest pain when he was being taken to the Kottayam Police Club from the Crime Branch office in Thrippunithura in Ernakulam district Friday night, they said. The vehicle carrying the Bishop was directed to the Medical College Hospital when it reached Ettumanoor at around 11 pm after the Bishop complained of chest pain, sources said. He is under the observation in the cardiology section of the college after his blood pressure shot up, they said. Sources said his ECG and other cardiac-related tests are being performed at the hospital. Earlier, Mulakkal's medical check-up was done at the Government Taluk Hospital in Thrippunithura Friday night, immediately after his arrest. In her complaint to the Kottayam police in June, the nun had alleged that Bishop Mulakkal raped her at a guest house in Kuravilangad in May 2014 and later sexually exploited her on several occasions. She said she had to approach the police as the church authorities did not act on her repeated complaints against the clergyman. Narendra Modi on Saturday inaugurated a new airport at Jharsuguda, which he said will attract investors to the mineral-rich area. Jharsuguda: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday inaugurated a new airport at Jharsuguda, which he said will attract investors to the mineral-rich area and would act as a lifeline in the western region of the state. The prime minister said the airport would go a long way in transforming the state into a modern and developed one. Noting that only one major airport existed in Odisha for so many years, Modi said Kutch district in Gujarat alone has five airports. "Now, the second airport of the state would act as a lifeline in western region of Odisha and attract investors to the mineral-rich region," he said. Asserting that the BJP-led government has been taking concrete steps for strengthening the aviation sector, he said only 450 aircraft operated in the country since Independence, while steps have been taken for 950 new aircraft during the last one year. Highlighting the importance of Jharsuguda Airport, Modi said it would act as a junction for neighbouring Raipur and Ranchi and strengthen connectivity. Development of eastern Indian states, including Odisha, West Bengal and Assam, is essential for achieving balanced development of the country, the prime minister said. Modi said the new airport is named after freedom fighter Veer Surendra Sai, as demanded by the Odisha government. Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik, while addressing the ceremony, thanked the prime minister for naming the new airport after Sai, and said steps should be taken for quick introduction of regular commercial flights from Jharsuguda. He said the state government has provided land and free power for setting up the airport. Modi also inaugurated the Garjanbahal open cast mine of Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL), which has coal block reserves of 230 million tonne with an annual production capacity of 13 million tonne.It will generate direct employment opportunity for 894 people and indirect job opportunities for 5,000. The prime minister also launched the 53.1-km long Jharsuguda-Serdega railway line constructed by the MCL, and said it would strengthen connectivity in the tribal-dominated region. Modi also dedicated to the nation Dulanga Coal Mining Project of NTPC in Sundargarh district. This is the second mine of the state-run company to be operational and its first in Odisha. Coal produced from this mine shall be used in the under-construction 1600-MW Darlipali Super Thermal Power Plant of NTPC in Sundargarh district, officials said. The Jharsuguda Airport has been developed by the Airports Authority of India in collaboration with Odisha government at an estimated cost of Rs 210 crore, with Rs 75 crore contribution from the state. The airport has been developed under the Centre's UDAN scheme. Spread across over 1,027.5 acres of land with a 2,390-metre long runway, the area of terminal building of the airport is 4,000 square metres. The airport has been developed for all-weather operations, including night operations for A-320 type of aircraft. Narendra Modi said Odisha lagged on Swachh Bharat campaign parameters and Naveen Patnaik should improve the level of cleanliness in the coastal state. Talcher: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday slammed Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik for rejecting the Centre's flagship Ayushman Bharat health insurance scheme for the poor and alleged that a "PC" (percentage commission) culture has become the state government's identity. Addressing two public meetings in Talcher and Jharsuguda, Modi said Odisha lagged on Swachh Bharat campaign parameters and Patnaik should improve the level of cleanliness in the coastal state. "Everyone is aware of the importance of Ayushman Bharat scheme, but Naveen Babu does not understand. Odisha government should come forward and join the programme," Modi said. The prime minister is set to launch the programme countrywide from Jharkhand on Sunday. The scheme aims to provide Rs 5 lakh health insurance coverage per family annually to more than 10 crore poor households. The Odisha government has not joined the central scheme, saying it has introduced a better programme, Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana, in the state. Modi said because of the state government's decision, a large number of poor people in Odisha would be deprived of the benefits of Ayushman Bharat scheme, which, he added, aims to create a healthy, capable and content new India. "Once again, I publicly urge Naveen Babu to link people of the state with Ayushman Bharat health insurance scheme which seeks to cover 10 crore poor families and effectively 50 crore people in the country," he said. At the public meeting in Talcher after commencing work for the Rs 13,000-crore coal gasification based fertiliser plant, the prime minister said the Odisha government lagged on Swachh Bharat campaign parameters. Noting that rural cleanliness in Odisha was only 10 percent in 2014, Modi said it has increased to 55 percent but a lot more was needed to be done. "I had told Naveen ji about the importance of Swachhata and I once again request him to give cleanliness due importance," Modi said, adding, cleanliness is essential for good health. Stepping up his criticism of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) government ahead of Assembly polls and parliamentary elections next year, Modi alleged that a "PC" (percentage commission) culture and delaying decisions have become the identity of the Odisha government resulting in the state's tardy development. At the second public meeting in Jharsuguda after inaugurating a new airport named after freedom fighter Veer Surendra Sai, Modi claimed people were denied benefits of the central government's welfare programmes such as construction of toilets and in irrigation sector if they don't pay bribe under the BJD rule in the state. Modi said there was a need for "bade parivartan" (big change) to give pace to Odisha's development. Targeting the Congress party, Modi referred to former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi's famous remark that only 15 paisa out of a rupee sanctioned by the Centre for welfare of people reaches the intended beneficiaries. "They knew about the 'bimari' but had no vision to solve it," he said. He said the BJP government's decision to directly transfer money to the bank accounts of beneficiaries has curbed the practice of middlemen in implementation of welfare schemes. "If our government releases Re 1, entire 100 paise reaches the poor," he said. Modi targeted the Opposition also for stalling the triple talaq bill in Rajya Sabha. He said justice will be done to Muslim mothers and sisters. Stating that three days ago the central government took a decision that was required for decades, he said the ordinance on triple talaq has made it illegal. Accusing the previous UPA government of being responsible for closure of several industrial units, Modi said the BJP-led NDA government is taking concrete steps to revive closed plants. He claimed that the UPA government lacked a clear vision and a clean intention and said all attempts by them to revive closed industries were limited to papers, files and public announcements. However, now Talcher Fertilise Plant is being revived with an investment of Rs 13,000 crore, he said, adding that other fertiliser plants in Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Telangana and Bihar were also being restarted, he said. Asserting that the Centre is committed to provide not only economic justice but also social justice to people, Modi said the Centre would ensure housing for all by 2022. Pointing towards the large gathering of people at Talcher rally, Modi said it "clearly showed" what the people of Odisha have in mind. Under the Rafale deal, France must spend amounts totalling around half the eight billion euros ($9.4 bn) paid by the Indian government. New Delhi: Former French president Francois Hollande has fuelled controversy over India's multi-billion-dollar 2016 purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets, saying that France was given no choice on the Indian partner for manufacturer Dassault. His comments on Friday stoked debate over a subject which has gained significant traction in recent weeks, since the Opposition Congress party accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of favouring a private conglomerate over a public company in the aircraft deal. The party alleges Modi gave preferential treatment to industrialist Anil Ambani, the billionaire chairman of Reliance Group, to the detriment of state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). Officials in India and France say Dassault had freely chosen to partner with Reliance, despite Ambani having no previous experience in the aeronautics sector. "We did not have a say in that," Hollande told investigative website Mediapart. "It was the Indian government that proposed this service group (Reliance), and Dassault who negotiated with Ambani. "We did not have a choice, we took the interlocutor who was given to us," added Hollande, who was president of France from 2012 to 2017. French firm Dassault had spent years negotiating a deal for 126 fighter jets to be manufactured in India with HAL, but talks had stalled. On taking office, the Modi government cancelled the negotiations and decided to directly purchase 36 jets made in France. Hollande denied any conflict of interest with Reliance, which partially financed a film produced by his girlfriend Julie Gayet in 2016. "That is why, moreover, this group (Reliance) did not have to give me any thanks for anything. I could not even imagine that there was any connection to a film by Julie Gayet." Speaking to AFP on the sidelines of a meeting in Canada on Friday, the former French leader insisted that France "did not choose Reliance in any way". When asked whether India had put pressure on Reliance and Dassault to work together, Hollande said he was unaware and "only Dassault can comment on this". Contacted by AFP, France's embassy in New Delhi did not comment. India's defence ministry wrote on Twitter that neither the Indian nor French government "had any say in the commercial decision". The French foreign ministry later issued a statement saying that "the sole obligations of the French government were to assure delivery and the quality of the equipment". Paris was "in no way involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners," it added. For its part, Dassault Aviation said in a statement Friday that the contract was "a government-to-government agreement". Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who has led the Opposition's focus on the deal, wrote: "Thanks to Francois Hollande, we now know he (Modi) personally delivered a deal worth billions of dollars to a bankrupt Anil Ambani." "The PM has betrayed India. He has dishonoured the blood of our soldiers," Rahul added. Foreign manufacturers obtaining arms contracts in India are obliged to reinvest a portion of the sums collected in India. Under the Rafale deal, France must spend amounts totalling around half the eight billion euros ($9.4 bn) paid by the Indian government. Dassault has invested more than 100 million euros in its joint venture with Reliance. Indiathe world's largest defence importerhas been investing tens of billions in updating its Soviet-era military hardware to counter long-standing territorial disputes with its nuclear-armed neighbours, including a strengthening China. It intends to use compensations payments such as in the Rafale deal to create a local defence industry. Francois Hollande's revelations in connection with the Rafale controversy has sparked a political maelstrom in India. Francois Gerard Georges Hollande has given Rahul Gandhi an early Diwali gift. The Congress president has been firing at Narendra Modi over alleged cronyism in the $8.7 billion Rafale fighter aircraft deal but so far, his painstaking efforts had met with little success. Rahul Gandhis charges were seen more as desperate mud-slinging by the beleaguered leader of a sinking party whos hoping for some dirt to stick on Modi still the most popular Indian leader by a mile. The Congress president was perceived as lacking in credibility. Not anymore. For the first time since allegations of corruption were leveled against the NDA government for its purchase of 36 Rafale jets, the accusations have gained some traction and may seriously damage the prime ministers image of incorruptibility. Rahul has Hollande to thank for it. The former French presidents revelations to a French media outlet, that Indian government proposed the name of Anil Ambanis Reliance Group as partners for the offset clause in the 2016 deal leaving French manufacturer Dassault with no option, has sparked a political maelstrom in India. The Narendra Modi government has held all along that the deal between Dassault Aviation SA and Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group is a commercial agreement between two private entities and the government on both sides had no role to play in it. We did not have a say in that, Hollande told Mediapart, a French website which is investigating the Rafale deal. It was the Indian government that proposed this service group (Reliance), and Dassault who negotiated with Ambani, added Hollande, who was the President of France from 2012-2017 and in office when Modi government inked the deal in 2016. The interview was published in French and remains accessible only to subscribers of the outlet. Excerpts of the interview were shared by a French journalist on Twitter. We did not have a choice, we took the interlocutor who was given to us, Hollande is quoted as saying. Assuming that the report is accurate, and nothing has been lost in translation, Hollandes statement is in direct contradiction with Indian and even his own governments stand. The fact that these words were uttered by a former French president who presided over the deal makes it even more serious. The Congress has expectedly latched on to Hollandes sound bites. Rahul Gandhi had shot off two tweets since the excerpts of the Hollande interview became public in India. He has charged Modi of cronyism, accused him of betraying India, dishonouring the blood of our soldiers and betraying Indias soul, ostensibly because (according to him) Modi had intervened to let Reliance Group have a share of the pie. The PM personally negotiated & changed the #Rafale deal behind closed doors. Thanks to Francois Hollande, we now know he personally delivered a deal worth billions of dollars to a bankrupt Anil Ambani. The PM has betrayed India. He has dishonoured the blood of our soldiers. Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) September 21, 2018 The PM and Anil Ambani jointly carried out a One Hundred & Thirty Thousand Crore, SURGICAL STRIKE on the Indian Defence forces. Modi Ji you dishonoured the blood of our martyred soldiers. Shame on you. You betrayed India's soul. #Rafale Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) September 22, 2018 Senior Congress leader Anand Sharma has said that Modi has no moral right to remain in office after this revelation. The developments put the Indian government in a spot. Whether or not the charges are true, Congress has been able to attach a "murky" prefix to all Rafale deal references in public discourse. It has successfully created a perception of corruption around the deal, which the NDA claims is "clean". In politics, perception is truth. The Congress has also perversely benefited from the fact that big-ticket defence purchases in India have often been mired in controversies. It is easier to convince the public that "something is wrong" than "everything is right" when it comes to such deals because given past experience, people find it easier to believe charges of cronyism. The government has so far remained steadfastly silent except one tweet from the ministry of defence reiterating its earlier stance that government of India has taken a hands-off approach on offsets contract. The report referring to fmr French president Mr. Hollande's statement that GOI insisted upon a particular firm as offset partner for the Dassault Aviation in Rafale is being verified. It is reiterated that neither GoI nor French Govt had any say in the commercial decision. Defence Spokesperson (@SpokespersonMoD) September 21, 2018 Interestingly, speaking to news agency AFP on the sidelines of a meeting in Canada on Friday, Hollande reiterated that France did not choose Reliance in any way and when asked whether India had put pressure on Reliance and Dassault to work together, Hollande said he was unaware and only Dassault can comment on this. And Dassault did comment. The French manufacturer issued a late-night statement on Friday proclaiming that it had opted for Reliance Group as an offset partner on its own accord and was not coerced by anyone in making that choice. Calling it a government-to-government agreement, the French manufacturer stated that in accordance with the policy of Make in India, Dassault Aviation has decided to make a partnership with India's Reliance Group. This is Dassault Aviation's choice, as CEO Eric Trappier had explained in an interview published in MINT newspaper on April 17, 2018. In that April 2018 interview referred to by the statement, Dassault CEO Trappier had said: We are going to prepare for the RFI (request for information). There is a process for the RFI which is to be followed by a RFP (request for proposal). We have a partnership with Reliance, part of the offset obligations of the Rafale deal. It was our choice, we continue with our choice. (sic) In the wake of Hollandes claims, the French firm further stated on Friday: This partnership has led to the creation of the Dassault Reliance Aerospace Ltd (DRAL) joint-venture in February 2017. Dassault Aviation and Reliance have built a plant in Nagpur for manufacturing parts for Falcon and Rafale aircraft. The Nagpur site was chosen because of the availability of land with direct access to an airport runway, an essential condition of aeronautic activities. Dassaults statement is in direct contradiction with Hollandes claims. It backs Modi governments contention that it had no role to play in the offset agreement between two private parties. On why Dassault chose Reliance Group over Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, there could be speculations at this stage. London-based Financial Times in a 2011 report titled US Doubts Over India Jet Fighter Partner had quoted then US ambassador to India Timothy Roemer in saying the potential for HAL to successfully partner with US firms on a truly advanced aircraft remains untested and suspect. The statement was part of a confidential cable leaked by WikiLeaks and seen by the newspaper. The report further states that after a visit to the companys (HAL) plant in Bangalore in February 2010, he (Roemer) described Indias aviation industry as two to three decades behind the United States and other western nations despite advances. Manu Pubby writes in The Economic Times that Dassaults decision to settle for Anil Ambani-led Reliance Defence might have something to do with the original talks held with Mukesh Ambani, whose company had been in discussion with the French manufacturer to be the key private sector partner for Rafale when it was being negotiated by the UPA government. The UPA had failed to close the deal before being voted out of power. A lot of the work had already been done prior to 2014, including feasibility studies, the report quoted a source as saying. News agency PTI had reported in 2013 that Dassault Aviation and Reliance Industries are planning to set up a facility to produce wings of Rafale combat aircraft selected by IAF for meeting its requirement of 126 fighter planes and that the Rs 1000-crore unit may come up in Bangalore. If this gives us some perspectives about Dassaults decision, what is the Emmanuel Macron governments stand in the controversy? The French government also came out with a statement that seems to corroborate the line taken by the Indian government and Dassault Aviation and contradicts the comments of former President Hollande. According to the statement released by the French embassy in New Delhi, the French government is in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners who have been, are being, or will be selected by French companies. In accordance with Indias acquisition procedure, French companies have the full freedom to choose the Indian partner companies that they consider to be the most relevant, then present for the Indian governments approval the offsets projects that they wish to execute in India with these local partners so as to fulfil their obligations in this regard. Now, we come to a situation where Hollandes words have been contradicted by three parties. The Oppositions entire case, therefore, rests on an assumption that Hollande alone is speaking the truth and everyone else (the Indian government, Dassault and French government) is lying. Interestingly, according to a report in French website Le Monde, Hollande uses this argument to defend himself against any possible conflict of interest with Reliance Group, which partially funded in 2016 a film of his companion, Julie Gayet. The website quotes the former French president as saying that in addition, this group (Reliance) was not in me to do some favour for anything. I could not even imagine that there was any connection to a film by Julie Gayet. Ergo, if Modi government had proposed the name of Reliance to French government and forced Dassault to choose Anil Ambanis group as its offset partner, that insulates Hollande from charges of any conflict of interest. With France and Dassault both denying any coercion on Indias part, it weakens Hollandes claims. As far as Modi government putting forward any private players name as offset partner (the key charge made by Congress citing Hollandes claims) is concerned, an article in The Economic Times written by Thomas Mathew is instructive. Mathew, who was additional secretary to former President Pranab Mukherjee, and was a part of the group that formulated the offset policy in 2005, writes that foreign vendors can under clause 4 of the Defence Offset Guidelines, choose to collaborate with Indian Offset Partners (IOPs) of their choice to fulfil offset obligations. The government cannot decide on behalf of the contracting firm, nor mandate which IOP it should collaborate with. This seems to further weaken Hollandes contention that Indian government had proposed Reliance Groups name. Be that as it may, the government must come up with a clear, pointed and precise rebuttal of the charges made by the Opposition. Short of that, it may weaken Indias procurement of Rafale. It will be a shame if the much-needed fighter jet is grounded due to a political dogfight. Thanking former French President Francois Hollande over his statement on the controversial Rafale deal, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Friday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has betrayed India, and has dishonoured the blood of our soldier New Delhi: Thanking former French president Francois Hollande over his statement on the controversial Rafale deal, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Friday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has betrayed India, and has dishonoured the blood of our soldiers. Rahul Gandhi tweeted on Friday: The PM personally negotiated & changed the #Rafale deal behind closed doors. Thanks to Francois Hollande, we now know he personally delivered a deal worth billions of dollars to a bankrupt Anil Ambani. The PM has betrayed India. He has dishonoured the blood of our soldiers. Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) September 21, 2018 The Congress president's post comes after Hollande in an interview to a media house said that Dassault Aviation was given no choice but to partner with Anil Ambani-led Reliance Defence for the offset clause in the Rafale fighter jet deal. In an article published by French journal Mediapart, Hollande on a question about who selected Reliance as a partner and why, said it was the Indian government that proposed Reliance Defence's name and Dassault had no choice but to take the company given to it. "We did not have a say in that. The Indian government proposed this service group, and Dassault negotiated with Ambani. We did not have a choice, we took the interlocutor we were given," said Hollande. The interview was published in French and excerpts of Hollande's interview were tweeted by French newspaper LeMonde's journalist Julien Boissou. His reported statement contradicts Indian government's claim that the agreement between Dassault and Reliance Defence was a commercial pact between two private parties and the government had nothing to do with it. In response to the interview, Defence Ministry spokesperson tweeted: "The report referring to former French President Hollande's statement that GoI insisted upon a particular firm as offset partner for the Dassault Aviation in Rafale is being verified. It is reiterated that neither GoI nor the French government had any say in the commercial decision." Too many people have said too much on the hotly contentious Rafale Deal since former French President Franco Hollande indicated that the Indian government pushed Dassault to partner with Reliance Defence for the Rs 58,000 crore fighter jet deal. Reactions have flown thick and fast since former French president Francois Hollande indicated that the Indian government pushed Dassault to partner with Reliance Defence for the Rs 58,000 crore Rafale fighter jet deal. Domestically, while the defence ministry has come out with a standard we-had-no-role-we-are-probing-it response, the Opposition is lapping up the prized opportunity it got to make Rafale Narendra Modi's Bofors. Internationally, the French government and Dassault Aviation, the makers of the fighter aircrafts, have each come out with their statements. We summarised the complex web of claims and counterclaims for our readers: Francois Hollande, former French president The multi-million dollar defence deal has been a simmering potboiler of controversies ever-since Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a surprise move, announced signing of a fresh deal with France during his official tour to the country in April 2015. However, pivot of the most recent set of allegations and counter-allegations is centred on an interview given by France's then president Francois Hollande to a local journal Mediapart. In response to a question on Rafale deal, Hollande told a French journalist that Dassault Aviation had no choice but to take the business offered to it and that the French government had no role in picking Reliance Defence over public sector Hindustan Aeronautic Limited (HAL). What many argue Hollande stopped short of saying is that the Government of India pushed for a private sector firm to be chosen as a business partner in the deal. The French media report quoted Hollande as saying, "We did not have a say in this...the Indian government proposed this service group and Dassault negotiated with (Anil) Ambani group. We did not have a choice, we took the partner who was given to us." What Hollande's statement does in effect is it contradicts the Indian governments claim that the agreement between Dassault and the Indian firm was a commercial pact between two private parties and the government had nothing to do with it. The former French president also reacted to the subsequent clarifications that came from his own country's government and Dassault. Hollande's office later told NDTV that he stands by his statement that Reliance Defence's name was proposed by India. Government of India The Ministry of Defence was quick in their response to Hollande's statement. The defence spokesperson put out a guarded official response saying that neither country's government had a role in choosing a business partner for Dassault Aviations and they would investigate the statements attributed to Hollande. "The report referring to former French president's statement that Government of India insisted upon a particular firm as offset partner for the Dassault Aviation in Rafale is being verified. It is reiterated that neither Government of India nor French government had any say in the commercial decision," the defence spokesperson said. However, apart from the above tweet by the defence spokesperson, no one from the government has come out with a response on the issue. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, both of whom have vociferously denied the government's role in promoting a private firm over public-owned HAL are also yet to put out an official response. Home Minister Rajnath Singh merely reiterated the defence ministry's tweet adding that all the allegations were baseless. There is no point in raising controversies about Rafale deal. Defence Ministry has released a statement on the statement of Former French President (Francois Hollande), that they are verifying it. All the allegations are baseless: Home Minister Rajnath Singh on #RafaleDeal pic.twitter.com/JE9K4QU2q9 ANI (@ANI) September 22, 2018 Indian National Congress party Unsurprisingly, the Congress party, which has been labeling the Rafale deal a scam, stepped up its attack against the government alleging that the government's "complicity, collusion and conspiracy" to benefit Modi's "crony friend" has been exposed. In a statement on Twitter, the Congress said that Hollande's statement "exposes the web of lies spun by the Modi government". Congress president Rahul Gandhi tweeted: The PM personally negotiated & changed the #Rafale deal behind closed doors. Thanks to Francois Hollande, we now know he personally delivered a deal worth billions of dollars to a bankrupt Anil Ambani. The PM has betrayed India. He has dishonoured the blood of our soldiers. Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) September 21, 2018 Congress spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi alleged that "Rafale Minister" and "Reliance Defence's Publicity Minister" colluded to throw HAL out of the deal and hand it over to their dear friend. "National Security can go take a hike. Yaara teri yaari, desh se zyaada pyaari," she said, according to PTI. The Congress has been accusing massive irregularities in the deal, alleging that the government was procuring each aircraft at a cost of over Rs 1,670 crore as against Rs 526 crore finalised by the UPA government when it was negotiating procurement of 126 Rafale jets. The Congress has also alleged that the government was benefitting Reliance Defence through the deal as the company has set up a joint venture with Dassault Aviation to execute the offset obligation for the deal. The Opposition parties have also alleged that the Reliance Defence was formed just 12 days before the announcement of the Rafale deal by the prime minister on 10 April 2015. The Reliance group has rejected these charges. French Government Following Hollande's statement, the French government on Friday night clarified that they were not involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners. The French government said their role was just to ensure the "delivery and quality of the aircraft". "The French government is in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners who have been, are being, or will be selected by French companies," a statement by the French government said. It also added that the French companies enjoy the freedom to select their business partners. "In accordance with India's acquisition procedure, French companies have the full freedom to choose the Indian partner companies that they consider to be the most relevant, then present for the Indian government's approval the offsets projects that they wish to execute in India with these local partners so as to fulfil their obligations in this regard," the French government's Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs said in a statement. Dassault Aviation Dassault Aviation, the makers of Rafale, had chosen Reliance Defence as its partner to fulfill offset obligations of the deal, which includes generating business worth Rs 30,000 crore in India. On Friday's controversy, the Dassault Aviation clarified that the government-to-government contract between India and France was separate from its negotiations with Reliance Defence. It said that its CEO "chose" the private sector firm and the city of Nagpur for setting up the plant for manufacturing parts of the aircraft. "This offsets contract is delivered in compliance with the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) 2016 regulations. In this framework, and in accordance with the policy of Make in India, Dassault Aviation has decided to make a partnership with Indias Reliance Group. This is Dassault Aviation's choice..." In April 2018, Trappier had told Livemint that the aviation company had 'chosen' Reliance Aviation as their partner and they stand by that choice. "We are going to prepare for the RFI. There is a process for the RFI which is to be followed by a RFP (request for proposal). We have a partnership with Reliance, part of the offset obligations of the Rafale deal. It was our choice, we continue with our choice," he had said. Under India's offset policy, foreign defence entities are mandated to spend at least 30 percent of the total contract value in India through procurement of components or setting up of research and development facilities. Ten days after India sealed the government-to-government agreement on the Rafale deal, Reliance Defence and Dassault had announced a joint venture (JV) Dassault Reliance Aerospace Limited (DRAL) in the aerospace sector and a year later, the foundation stone of a manufacturing facility was laid in Mihan, Nagpur. Antonne Rouget, French journalist who interviewed Hollande Speaking to NDTV, Rouget whose interview of Hollande is at the eye of the storm, said that the former French president clearly told him that the name of the Indian partner came from the Indian government. "We revealed the underside of the sale of the 36 Rafales manufactured by the French group Dassault for India. As part of this investigation, we questioned Hollande who was the French president until 2017 and who managed this dossier personally. And he clearly told us that in the context of the discussions around the Rafale contract, the Indian partner of the Dassault group, on the sidelines, was proposed by the Indian government..." Rouget told the news channel. Rouget said that Hollande told him that he was personally not aware of the Reliance group's and its owner Anil Ambani's history. "He (Hollande) clearly told us he did not know this group," Rouget said. He also claimed that defence analysts in France have expressed concerns over choosing Reliance Defence which he said might be "financially powerful but has no experience" in defence equipment manufacturing as business partner for Dassault, "a group of international reputation with a serious image". With inputs from agencies Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia called on the ministers of the Georgian Orthodox Church (GOC) to refrain from a temptation to interfere in the state affairs. This seems to have become necessary after the apparent aggravation of the relations between the state and the church regulated by a concordat - an agreement on non-interference in each other's affairs. However, in recent days, there have been signs of violation of the concordat, and as a result, the tension has arisen, which is especially unpleasant for the secular authorities. For many years, according to the various polls, the GOC has been the most influential institution in Georgia, ahead of the government, parliament, as well as any other department and organization. And according to the same polls, Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II is the most influential person, far ahead of the president, the prime minister, the speaker of the parliament, and any other political or public figure, including pop-stars and movie-stars. Given this situation, for many years, a catastrophically high crime rate was perceived as an unconditional paradox. After all, it seemed that one or two words of the clergy would be enough for the church parishioners to remember the commandments and begin to lead a proper way of life. The priests did their work. But it became safe in the country when Mikhail Saakashvili took over the solution of this problem. Nevertheless, such obviousness was not reflected in the positions of the GOC. The church remains the most influential institution. An attempt by the secular authorities, and then it was the United National Movement (UNM), to change the way things were, was not of a great success but contributed to the emergence or strengthening of the liberal wing in the GOC. On such actions of the authorities, the church responded by supporting the Georgian Dream (GM) in the parliamentary elections in 2012 and contributed a lot to the change of power. At the same time, there were no signs of an obvious or gross violation of the concordat. Though there was enough of the back-door action, as it is clear from various memories. Nevertheless, on the surface, the church seemed to be quite well-treated by the government, which, at least, did not object the increase of the churchs wealth by acquiring of the real estate, land allotments and luxury goods. All this took place under the sauce of restoration of the downtrodden church honor and justice during the communist period when the church's wealth was confiscated, priests were repressed, and temples were remodeled into storehouses and warehouses, or in the best case scenario into museums. The contradictions between the ecclesiastical authorities and secular power in post-Soviet Georgia have become clear only recently when their unity seemed to be stronger than ever. The leader of the ruling Georgian Dream party Bidzina Ivanishvili, before coming to power, showed unprecedented generosity towards the clergy, building temples for them, including the new cathedral, which turned out to be one of the highest in Europe, and showered the servants of the cross with quite an earthly splendour, at the same time generously financing various kinds of expeditions, including foreign, associated with the Christian religion. But the situation has changed. First, there was a troubled story with plans for poisoning or alleged poisoning of Ilia II or some of the closest to His Holiness persons, in which, apart from a whole group of opposing clergymen, the representatives of both the former and present secular authorities were involved. Eventually, what was concealed became revealed - there are two opposing wings in the church, and, probably, each of them has its own links with the secular authorities. At the same time, the church representatives commented on the inadmissibility of interference of the secular authorities in its affairs. But a few months later, the church itself openly and directly interfered in the state affairs. The government's legislative initiative on the cultivation and export of marijuana for medical purposes - controversial and far from ambiguous - was opposed by the servants of the church who organized two large-scale rallies through Tbilisi streets and a conference in the Patriarchate, which resulted in an appeal or even a demand to the government to immediately refuse from this ploy capable of killing the whole generations in Georgia. The GOC took an extremely tough position. The statement of Parliament Speaker Irakli Kobakhidze that the secular and ecclesiastical authorities would hold consultations to reach a consensus was immediately and radically disavowed by the influential clergymen: there would be no consultations as it was said to refuse the bill on cannabis and full stop. The church has already demonstrated its strength by arranging the rallies mentioned above. Yes, it can easily gather thousands of people at any time, disrupting some major events as it was with sexual minorities, for instance. It is not easy to ignore such a force. The government hoped to refill the budget by introducing the bill on cannabis, but it has hung in uncertainty. Simultaneously, a number of the Georgian Orthodox Church representatives allowed themselves to interfere in purely political processes, more precisely, in the campaign for the presidential elections to be held in October this year. One of the most influential clergymen, to whom the rumors attribute friendly ties with the former authorities, struck a blow to the presidential candidate - Salome Zurabishvili who is officially supported by the ruling Georgian Dream. A whole sermon was dedicated to her explaining why it is a crime to vote for a former foreign minister. The representative of the Georgian Orthodox Church, armed with an ambiguous statement by Zurabishvili on the reasons for the 2008 Russian-Georgian war, declared her unworthy of the presidential post. It is a blow not only to her but to the ruling party that did not nominate its own candidate and decided to support a formally independent but affiliated politician. Explosive Zurabishvili responded with a sharp accusation of the church violating the concordat. The authorities, albeit unwillingly, supported her. And then Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II, understanding the shattering situation in the country and foreseeing the unreadable consequences of the discord between the state and the church, called upon the ministers of the church not to interfere in the temporal affairs. However, according to some Tbilisi theologians, a consent between the state and the GOC is necessary. And the need for this grows as the denouement of the situation with the Ukrainian church trying to secede from the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) is approaching. The time will soon come when the GOC will have to speak on this issue and take a clear position. Each of the two options for the G0C is bad - one will complicate the relations with Kiev, the other - with Moscow. But it is necessary to choose. And the GOC will not be able to resolve such a zugzwang without the help of the native state and its political resources and capabilities. Government sources on Thursday dismissed as 'factually incorrect' media reports of former Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) chief TS Raju claiming that the defence undertaking had signed a work-share contract with French company Dassault Aviation New Delhi: Government sources on Thursday dismissed as "factually incorrect" media reports of former Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) chief TS Raju claiming that the defence undertaking had signed a work-share contract with French company Dassault Aviation the manufacturer of Rafale fighter jets. "In the news item published (Thursday) ex Chairman and Managing Director, (CMD) HAL has been quoted as stating that an agreed work-share with Dassault Aviation (DA) was submitted to government. The same news item also referred to the cost of the aircraft, life cycle cost issues, etc. The statement attributed to ex CMD, HAL is factually incorrect," said the sources. The sources said that Raju was a member of the Contract Negotiations Committee of the Ministry of Defence (MOD) and "there were many major areas of disagreement between HAL and DA". They said that the HAL, in a letter on 10 October, 2012 to the MOD, "brought out these disagreements pertaining to the work-share between them". "Subsequently in July 2014, HAL in its letter to MOD has also highlighted one major unresolved issue regarding responsibility sharing between DA and HAL for licence manufacture of the aircraft. "Further, the man hours required for manufacture of various components of the aircraft in HAL was also a point of disagreement between DA and HAL. There is, therefore, a contradiction in the claims attributed to Raju," they said. The sources also said that the since the work-share between DA and HAL was "never agreed upon", the statement claiming lower life cycle cost is "completely presumptive". They said that because of these reasons, the proposal for 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) could not be progressed further. In an interview to a national daily, Raju who retired from the HAL on 1 September, asserted that HAL "could have built Rafale fighters in India had the government managed to close the original negotiations with Dassault". Riding on Raju's statements, the Congress led by its president Rahul Gandhi demanded Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's resignation accusing her of "lying". The party claimed that Raju's remarks "nailed Sitharaman's lie" that HAL didn't have the capability to build the Rafale. The French government Friday said it was in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners for the Rafale fighter jet deal, asserting that French companies have the full freedom to select Indian firms for the contract. New Delhi: The French government Friday said it was in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners for the Rafale fighter jet deal, asserting that French companies have the full freedom to select Indian firms for the contract. The statement by the French government came following a French media report which quoted former French President Francois Hollande as saying that the Indian government proposed Reliance Defence as the partner for Dassault Aviation in the Rs 58,000 crore Rafale deal and France did not have a choice. "The French government is in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners who have been, are being, or will be selected by French companies," it said. The report in Mediapart, a French language publication, quoted Hollande as saying, "It was the Indian government that proposed this service group, and Dassault which negotiated with Ambani. We had no choice, we took the interlocutor who was given to us." Asked who selected Reliance as a partner and why, Hollande replied, "We had no say in this regard." Dassault Aviation, the makers of Rafale, had chosen Reliance Defence as its partner to fulfill offset obligations of the deal. The government has been maintaining it did not have any role in selection of the offset partner by Dassault. In a statement, Dassault Aviation said it has decided to make a partnership with the Reliance Defence in accordance with the policy of 'Make in India'. "This partnership has led to the creation of the Dassault Reliance Aerospace Ltd (DRAL) joint-venture in February 2017. Dassault Aviation and Reliance have built a plant in Nagpur for manufacturing parts for Falcon and Rafale aircraft," the company said. The French government said, "In accordance with India's acquisition procedure, French companies have the full freedom to choose the Indian partner companies that they consider to be the most relevant, then present for the Indian government's approval the offsets projects that they wish to execute in India with these local partners so as to fulfil their obligations in this regard." The Congress has been accusing massive irregularities in the deal, alleging that the government was procuring each aircraft at a cost of over Rs 1,670 crore as against Rs 526 crore finalised by the UPA government when it was negotiating procurement of 126 Rafale jets. The Congress has also alleged that the government was benefitting Reliance Defence through the deal as the company has set up a joint venture with Dassault Aviation to execute the offset obligation for the deal. The opposition parties have also alleged that the Reliance Defence was formed just 12 days before the announcement of the Rafale deal by the prime minister on 10 April 2015. The Reliance group has rejected the charges. The French government said the inter-governmental agreement it signed with India for supplying 36 Rafale aircraft concerns its obligations solely with regard to ensuring the delivery and quality of the aircraft. "As it happens, agreements have already been signed by French companies with many Indian firms, both public and private, under the framework of Indian laws," the statement said. The Congress has also been demanding answers from the government on why state-run aerospace major HAL was not involved in the deal as finalised during the UPA. Under India's offset policy, foreign defence entities are mandated to spend at least 30 per cent of the total contract value in India through procurement of components or setting up of research and development facilities. Ten days after India sealed the government-to-government agreement on the Rafale deal, Reliance Defence and Dassault had announced a joint venture (JV) in the aerospace sector and a year later, the foundation stone of a manufacturing facility was laid in Mihan, Nagpur. As the situation on the border remains tense, it seems the government is making no effort to give the uniform its due The proposed changes to the system of functioning of the Indian Armed Forces would be fine if they were aimed at upgrading, modernising and making the military more efficient. But some of them defy logic. The proposal to send to send to the UN peacekeeping missions only those officers who failed to get into the Defence Services Staff College at Tamil Nadu's Wellington, in the Nilgiris, is a doozy. Where once we sent the best to show off our might, we will now dispatch lower calibre officers who couldnt make the grade. How is this designed to show our armed forces in the best light globally? By the same token, it is difficult to look for virtue in the plan to downgrade those who complete Higher Command and National Defence College courses, both highly prestigious qualifications that position you for star ranks. In the same vein, no extra marks for undergoing the technical staff officers course (TCOS) or the Staff College, thereby making these efforts redundant. Amusingly, taking Chinese, Tibetan, Bhutanese, Burmese language courses will be equivalent to these top military oriented courses thereby equating tactics and strategy in the art and science of war with essentially a diplomatic ability to speak a native language: mutually exclusive talents, but no one is seeing that. From the days of the unfinished business of One Rank One Pension, to the melting of the cantonment sanctity to cutting free rations for those in peaceful areas to limiting canteen services, the list of meddlesome new schemes has been regularly lengthened with the top brass of the military showing the resistance of marshmallows. There are even plans afoot to drop the rank of brigadier while that of colonel is the most redundant and arbitrary in that some hop right over it. Then there is the latest icing on the cake. A recent resolution to open the Outpatient Department of the five military hospitals in Uttarkhand (MH Dehradun, MH Lansdowne, MH Ranikhet, MH Roorkee, 161MH Pithorgarh) to civilianson the grounds that it being a hilly terrain, the facilities are limitedhas the army appalled. That sorry confession is bad planning by the state government. Get the facilities. That is their job. Overloading military hospitals already stretched at the seams handling vets and their families is not the answer. And while army chief General Bipin Rawat may be permitting this experiment in his own state, it can catch on across the country and create total chaos. The irony is that even as the facility is being commandeered, the post of director general medical services lies vacant with the most senior aspirant Major General M Ganguly being compelled to seek redress in court because his promotion and command are not being cleared. As a result of his petition, the Supreme Court quashed the appointment of Lieutenant General Sanjiv Chopra as DGMS, thereby creating an unseemly conflict in the higher ranks, something that is just not done and never was the norm in the armed forces. Brother officers were not pitted against one another. Before so generously opening the doors to civilians, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman would do well to assess the pressure on the military hospitals. She does not have to venture far. New Delhis Research and Referral Institute, the finest in the forces, is a monument to the impossible being accomplished every day. Doctors put in 18-hour days, their dedication is truly valiant and the waiting time for tests and results from a backed up system is way out of kilter. The corridors resemble a railway station: The lines of elderly parents of officers and men are sinuous and courtesy is preserved and is of the essencedespite the pressing demandsbecause it is the armed forces. That in itself must be exhausting. The dated building, the stretched resources, the ad hoc arrangements and yet, the best possible attention: that's a severe contrast. It is not inconceivable that most outpatient departments in the 112 military hospitals, 12 air force hospitals and 9 naval hospitals will go the same way. This medical access is a privilege owed to the men and women of our forces. Let them have it. Even as these bewildering events are occurring, there is also a political fallout with BJP MP and former minister Major General BC Khanduri being removed this week as chairman of the Standing Committee on Defence. In March, Khanduri attacked the government for the critically low stock of armaments, and said 68 percent of equipment of the armed forces belongs to the 'vintage' category. His successor, former Union minister Kalraj Mishra, is 75-years-old. So another point of contention goes thus: Anyone who bats for the forces gets shown the door. As the situation on the border remains tense, it seems the government is making no effort to give the uniform its due. Do we need a war to back off with messing with military rights and traditions? Kulwant Singh told the militants who had entered his house on Friday that he was announcing his resignation from the Jammu and Kashmir Police at 4 pm and that he was happy running a small cosmetics shop, yet they took him away. His bullet-ridden body was found later that day Batgund, Shopian: A Class 6 student, Yudvir Singh sits calmly besides the bullet-riddled body of his father, Kulwant Singh, a Kashmir policeman who was killed by militants on Friday morning after being abducted from his home. A tall, bearded man wearing a skullcap, fans the corpse with his bare hands to keep hungry mosquitoes away. Yudvir doesnt move an inch from his position. He looks intensely at his father's face without blinking his eyes. I saw them (militants) taking him away but I thought he would be back soon, like he always did whenever we called him and asked him to return home, Yudvir said. My father was good man; he was a Rajput, Yudvir said. The Rajputs are a tiny minority in the Muslim majority Kashmir valley. They have lived here for hundreds of years and speak fluent Kashmiri and Dogri. But in recent decades, their population in the Valley has decreased. The youngsters prefer to live outside the state than living in the rural areas of the Valley. The Singhs are the only Hindu household in this small neighborhood of Batgund village. More than 40 other families live in a cluster of villages spread across Shopian and Kulgam districts. Although all the Kashmiri Pandit families moved out of the Valley when the turmoil broke out in the early 90s, the Rajputs had consciously decided to stay back. Pushpa Devi, 72, Kulwant's mother, is being consoled by her Muslim neighbours. At least seven militants had cordoned their single storied house before gaining entry. They awakened Kulwant while his mother was making rotis in the kitchen. "Are you in the police? Show us your identity card, the militants asked Kulwant. He showed them his identity card and told them that he was announcing his resignation from the police department at 4 pm and that he was happy running a small cosmetics shop, said Pushpa. "He worked day and night for us. Yesterday, we worked in the orchard together, we ate together and in the morning when they (militants) created noise in the house, I got up and looked out from the window. I saw him being taken away," said Yudvir, adding, I will never forget that. Three policemen were killed by militants on Friday after being abducted from their houses in a carefully planned operation. According to local sources, a group of nearly two dozen militants swooped down on the village and split into two groups. Four days ago, he (Kulwant) put a Rs 100 note in my pocket at the bus stand, saying I might need this. I said no, but he insisted. He was such kind of man," reminisced Naseema Begum, Kulwant's neighbour. Rajender Singh Jamwal, a pharmacist, informs that every Rajput household has few orchards which are their main source of income; some from the community also work in the government sector. He says that when Kashmiri Pandits left in the early nineties, the thought of migrating also came to their mind but the community never left their villages. Kulwant, be informs, is the first Rajput to die in the 29 years of conflict in Kashmir. No one in safe in Kashmir, neither Hindus nor Muslims. But this is our land and we will never leave this place. We were born here and we will die here, he said. The government reiterated that it had no role in the selection of Reliance Defence as the Offset partner in Rafale deal. After the recent controversy triggered by former French president Francois Hollande's reported statement that Dassault Aviation did not have a choice in selecting its partner in the Rafale deal, the Ministry of Defence on Saturday published a clarification on the same. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tweeted the same clarification. A report in Mediapart, a French language publication, quoted Hollande as saying, "It was the Indian government that proposed this service group, and Dassault who negotiated with Ambani. We had no choice, we took the interlocutor who was given to us." Asked who selected Reliance as a partner and why, Hollande replied, "We had no say in this regard." Here is the full text of the government's statement: Unnecessary controversies are being sought to be created following media reports regarding a statement purportedly made by the former French president, Francois Hollande, concerning the selection of Reliance Defence as the Offset partner by Dassault, the manufacturers of Rafale aircraft. The reported statement perhaps needs to be seen in its full context where the French media has raised issues of conflict of interest involving persons close to the former president. His subsequent statements are also relevant in this regard. The government has stated earlier and again reiterates that it had no role in the selection of Reliance Defence as the Offset partner. For a rounded appreciation of this matter, it may be worthwhile to briefly dwell upon why and how Offset Policy came into play. The Offset Policy was formally announced for the first time in 2005 and has been revised several times. To leverage its huge arm-imports in order to develop a strong indigenous industry, a flow-back arrangement is made in the defence contracts, which is widely known as offsets, and constitutes a certain percentage of the contract value. The key objectives of the Defence Offset Policy is to leverage the capital acquisitions to develop Indian defence industry by fostering development of internationally competitive enterprises; augmenting capacity for research and development in defence sector and to encourage development of synergistic sector like civil aerospace and internal security. The offset can be discharged by many means such as direct purchase of eligible products/services, FDI in joint ventures and investment towards equipment and transfer of technology. As per Defence Offset Guidelines, the foreign Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) is free to select any Indian company as its offset partner. It has been reported that a JV between Reliance Defence and Dassault Aviation came into being in February 2017. This is a purely commercial arrangement between two private companies. Incidentally, media reports of February, 2012 suggest that Dassault Aviation, within two weeks of being declared the lowest bidder for procurement of 126 aircraft by the previous government, had entered into a pact for partnership with Reliance Industries in defence sector. Dassault Aviation has issued a press release stating that it has signed partnership agreement with several companies and is negotiating with hundred odd other companies. As per the guidelines, the vendor is to provide the details of the offset partners either at the time of seeking offset credit or one year prior to discharge of offset obligation, which in this case will be due from 2020. In view of above, it is once again reiterated that the Government of India has no role in the selection of Indian Offset partner which is a commercial decision of the OEM. The entire text has been taken exactly as posted in a press release on PIB's official website and has not been edited by Firstpost for style or content. Amit Shah asked Congress chief Rahul Gandhi if he supported 'urban Naxals' plotting to assassinate the prime minister. Raipur: BJP president Amit Shah on Friday asked Congress chief Rahul Gandhi if he supported "Urban Naxals" plotting to assassinate the prime minister and demanded he clarifies his stand on the issue to people in poll-bound Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Shah's comments come in the wake of the Maharashtra police arresting five human rights activists late last month for their alleged links with Maoists. "The BJP government in Maharashtra recently arrested urban Maoists. Questions were raised about their arrest as they have the right to speak. Shouldn't those possessing mortar (guns) and plotting to assassinate the prime minister be arrested?" Shah asked. He asked Congress president Rahul Gandhi if he supported those who "wanted to break the country". "The Congress president should make clear his party's stand on the Maoist issue in the poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan," Shah, addressing a gathering of party workers, said. He alleged that Gandhi and the UPA have no concern for national security. "Our party's stand is clear right from the time of foundation of the Jan Sangh (the BJP's predecessor) that we have zero tolerance for anti-national forces," he added. The BJP chief also lauded the efforts of Chief Minister Raman Singh's government for eliminating the menace of naxalism from Chhattisgarh. Speaking about the publication of National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, Shah said the BJP will ensure that no illegal infiltrator stays in the country. "The National Register of Citizens was implemented and prima facie as many as 40 lakh people were identified as illegal immigrants in Assam," he said. "Suddenly they (Congress) started showing concern for human rights of infiltrators," he added. "Rahul Gandhi should answer (why) he can speak of human rights of infiltrators but can not speak about human rights of people who suffer due to illegal immigrants," Shah said. "He can not see human rights of people killed in bomb blasts. He should think of human rights of the youths of the country instead of that of infiltrators," he added. "Rahul Gandhi, do whatever you want to do, but in 2019, the BJP will not allow any infiltrator to stay in the country after it again storms to power... It is our resolution," the BJP chief said. "When the Jan Sangh was formed, it had only 10 members but now it (the BJP) has around 15 crore active members and the flag of the BJP is now flying over around 70 percent of the country," he said. He asked party workers to work hard so that the BJP has a strong presence from panchayat to Parliament for the next fifty years. Shah also mocked Gandhi, calling him "Rahul baba" and saying he is "day-dreaming" about the Congress' victory in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, BJP-ruled states where elections are due by year-end. "There is no ban on dreaming, but who dreams in broad daylight with eyes open?" Shah asked. The Congress president should see the poll results since 2014 and then he will realise what is going to happen in these three poll-bound states, he said. Expressing confidence of a fourth consecutive victory for the BJP in Chhattisgarh, Shah asked the party workers to resolve to win at least 65 out of 90 seats. Singh and other party leaders were present on the occasion. On Friday, Kejriwal had asked the Centre to come clean on the Rafale deal in light of Francois Hollande's purported statement 'directly contradicting' its stand. New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi call a special session of Parliament to discuss Rafale jet fighter deal. On Friday, the chief minister had asked the BJP-led central government to come clean on the Rafale deal in light of former French president Francois Hollande's purported statement "directly contradicting" its stand. "(Narendra Modi) should call a special session of Parliament to discuss Rafale," Kejriwal tweeted. On Friday, a French media report quoted Hollande as purportedly saying that the Indian government proposed Reliance Defence as the partner for Dassault Aviation in the Rs 58,000 crore Rafale jet fighter deal and France did not have a choice. Earlier on Saturday, Congress president Rahul Gandhi, in a stinging attack on Modi, said Hollande's remarks on Reliance Defence showed "clear cut" corruption in the Rafale deal and questioned the prime minister's "silence" on the issue. Soon after, Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad condemned as "shameful and irresponsible" Gandhi's remarks against Modi over the Rafale deal, saying no president of any party has ever used such language against a prime minister. Ravi Shankar Prasad alleged that by demanding that details of the Rafale aircraft be made public, Rahul Gandhi is 'playing into the hands of Pakistan and China.' Barely two hours after a combative Rahul Gandhi sought the response of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the Rafale controversy, the BJP dismissed the Congress president's charges in a press conference. Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad termed Rahul's remarkscalling the prime minister a 'thief''shameful and irresponsible.' Terming the Gandhi family as the 'source' of corruption, Prasad remarked, "I can understand the pain of Rahul Gandhi. Under the Narendra Modi-led government, the doors have been closed for brokers and middlemen." The law minister further said, "There is evidence available that a proper Memorandum of Understanding existed between Dassault and Reliance as early as on 13 February, 2013, that is one year and four months before we came to power." Prasad also said that the government bought only 36 jets as the rest would be made in India. The law minister added that this would create employment opportunities in different parts of the country. With respect to the price of the Rafale aircraft, Prasad asserted, "The price negotiated by the NDA is 9 percent less for the basic aircraft and 20 percent less in case of fully loaded aircraft, as compared to the UPA's price." Referring to former French president Francois Hollande's statement that Dassault had no choice in selecting its Rafale deal partner, Prasad said, "We do not know what his compulsion was. It is none of our concern." The law minister also alleged that by demanding that details of the aircraft be made public, the Congress president is "playing into the hands of Pakistan and China." Earlier in the day, Rahul said there was "clear-cut" corruption in the Rafale deal and asked Modi to clear his position on the issue. Rahul's blistering attack on Modi came a day after Hollande was quoted as saying that the Indian government proposed Anil Ambani's Reliance Defence as the partner for Dassault Aviation in the Rs 58,000 crore Rafale jet fighter deal. With inputs from PTI The BJP's reaction came hours after a local court recorded the statement of Congress leader Digvijay Singh in connection with a private complaint. Bhopal: The ruling BJP in Madhya Pradesh Saturday accused the Congress of trying to mislead the people on the Vyapam issue. The saffron party alleged that the Opposition was scared of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's "popularity" and hence moved the court ahead of the state Assembly polls. The BJP's reaction came hours after a local court recorded the statement of Congress leader Digvijay Singh in connection with a private complaint filed against chief minister Chouhan, Union minister Uma Bharti and five others in the Vyapam scam. "Congress doesn't believe in any investigating agency. They questioned the police investigation into the Vyapam case. Hence, the probe was handed over to the STF (special task force). But since it was not satisfied, a high court-monitored SIT investigated the charges," MP's Public Relations minister Narottam Mishra told reporters. "The investigation was later handed over to the CBI, but the Congress is still not satisfied," he said. Mishra said although the CBI did not find any tampering with the electronic evidence in the Vyapam case, the Congress continued to mislead on the issue. Raising a question mark over the timing of Digvijay Singh's petition in the local court, Mishra said, "Instead of going to the public, the Congress moved the court ahead of the state Assembly elections to mislead the people." "The case was discussed in the local court, the high court as well as the apex court, yet the Congress leaders did not produce the evidence. Now, they have moved the court ahead of the election," he said. In his plea filed in the local court, Digvijay Singh has sought criminal prosecution of Chouhan, Bharti and five others in the Vyapam scam. "Digvijay Singh has submitted an electronic evidence copy that states the name of Chouhan 48 times in a Vyapam scam investigation document," Congress leader Kapil Sibal, who appeared as Digvijay's lawyer, told reporters after appearing in the court in the afternoon. He alleged that earlier the STF and now the CBI were trying to shield people, especially Chouhan, in the Vyapam scam. Sibal alleged that Chouhan was the root of the scam. "With Digvijay Singh's private complaint, we are going to prove Chouhan's involvement in the scam," he said. The Vyapam scam refers to irregularities in exams held by the Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board, also called Vyavasayik Pareeksha Mandal or Vyapam, for admission in professional courses and state services. Iran is forecast to add the highest trunk pipeline length in the Middle East oil and gas pipelines industry between 2018 and 2022, contributing a total length of 12 698 km, which will account for more than 50% of the regions planned and announced oil and gas pipeline length additions, according to data and analytics company GlobalData. As World Pipelines writes in an article "Iran will contribute more than 50% of Middle Easts oil and gas pipeline additions to 2022, says GlobalData", the companys report, Oil and Gas Pipelines Industry Outlook in Middle East to 2022, forecasts that around 24 066 km of planned oil and gas pipeline length will be added in the Middle East by 2022, which will take the regions total oil and gas pipeline length to around 106 325 km by 2022. Iran has new build CAPEX of around US$22.3 billion for the forecast period. Iranian Gas Trunk line-IGAT IX is the longest planned pipeline in the region and is expected to start its operations in 2020, with a planned length of 1900 km and diameter of 56 in. Soorya Tejomoortula, Oil & Gas Analyst at GlobalData, comments: Iran is planning to ramp-up its oil and gas production, which in turn is necessitating the new pipeline network. The country is also planning a couple of long natural gas pipelines for exports to Greece and Oman. GlobalData identifies Iraq as the second highest in terms of oil and gas pipeline length additions and the highest for spending on planned pipelines in the Middle East oil and gas pipelines industry. The country has planned investment of around US$29.6 billion by 2022 and plans to add a total length of 5105 km of oil and gas pipelines by 2022. Major pipelines in the country are Basra-Aqaba Oil and Basra-Aqaba Gas pipelines, each with lengths of 1700 km. Tejomoortula adds: Iraq is planning two multibillion dollar pipelines to Jordan for export of oil and gas. The country is also planning a pipeline to Turkey for oil exports from the mature Kirkuk field. Turkey is the third highest among the countries in the Middle East, in terms of oil and gas pipeline length additions as well as new build capex spending with around US$5.8 billion planned investment during the forecast period. Turkey is expected to add around 2030 km of planned and announced oil and gas pipelines by 2022. The three longest planned and announced natural gas pipelines in the Middle East between 2018 and 2022 are Iranian Gas Trunk line-IGAT IX pipeline in Iran, Trans Anatolian (TANAP) pipeline, and Iran-Turkey-Europe Gas (Turkey Section) pipeline with lengths of 1900 km, 1850 km and 1800 km respectively. The Goa Congress chief's allegation comes a day after Vijai Sardesai, president of coalition ally Goa Forward Party, told the media that Parrikar spoke to him over the phone on Thursday over administrative matters. Panaji: The Congress on Friday alleged that ailing Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar is "threatening people" from his hospital room. The party also demanded a medical bulletin on the status of the chief minister, who after being hospitalised in Goa, Mumbai and New York over the last few months, is now being treated for advanced pancreatic cancer at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi. "He may be in the hospital yes. I hope you (Parrikar) are very well but I am getting messages that while sitting in the hospital, you are calling people, threatening them," Congress observer for Goa A Chellakumar said. This is the first direct assault by the Congress. The allegation comes a day after Vijai Sardesai, president of coalition ally Goa Forward Party, told the media that Parrikar spoke to him over the phone on Thursday over administrative matters. Chellakumar also said that in view of the Chief Minister's alleged involvement in a Rs 1.44 lakh crore illegal mining scam which is being probed by the Goa Lokayukta, he should assure the people that he would forfeit his properties if he is found guilty. "I pray to God even now, let Manohar Parrikar get well soon. Let God give him a long life, but it is my duty also to remind him. All these days you initiated so many actions on so many former ministers. In all the corruption charges, you filed complaints. Moreover, you have attached some of their properties also. Now it is your turn," Chellakumar said. The Goa Lokayukta is probing the mining lease allotment scam, in which former Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar, who succeeded Parrikar and held office from 2014 to 2017, is one of the key accused. Parsekar in his affidavit filed before the anti-corruption body has said, that he renewed the bulk of the mining leases by adopting processes put in place by his predecessor and that the renewals were done in adherence to a formal policy, on advice from the advocate general and were in sync with a High Court ruling. The BJP has denied the allegations, calling them "baseless and unsubstantiated". The Congress observer is in Goa to monitor political developments following Parrikar's hospitalisation that have raised doubts over the continuance of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led coalition government. With ruling allies and several Independent MLAs stepping up pressure on the BJP for a greater role in governance as well as on issues related to the choice of a leader of the coalition, the Congress too claims that it is in touch with disgruntled non-BJP MLAs, who Chellakumar said, are keen on a switchover. However, he clarified that the Congress is not in a hurry to form a government in the coastal state. The legislators of Jammu and Kashmir have denied grassroots democratic institutions their rights. It appears that they believe that the empowerment of these institutions may devalue them. Last Saturday (15 September) was a very eventful day for Jammu and Kashmir as Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Shaleen Kabra announced a schedule for elections to urban local bodies (ULBs). On the next day, he made another announcement declaring the schedule for holding of panchayat elections. Earlier, doubts were expressed regarding these elections as two main Kashmir-based regional parties, the National Conference (NC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had announced that they will boycott them. Another party, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) had also announced a poll boycott, with lone CPM legislator Yusuf Tarigami making this announcement. Given these boycott calls, it was feared at one time that the government headed by Governor Satya Pal Malik, may backtrack from holding of elections. As if on cue, some reports of targeting buildings of panchayat ghars were received from some rural areas of Kashmir. At most of these places, miscreants set fire to panchayat ghars and this led to some damages to these structures. However, at most of these places, the locals immediately tried to rush in and extinguish these fires. Clearly, the local populace did not want wanton destruction of these community assets. Incidentally, the state unit of the Congress has declared that it will participate both in the elections for the ULBs and the panchayats. The second largest political party in the state, the BJP, which has 25 elected MLAs in the 87-member Legislative Assembly, is also scheduled to take part in these elections. An announcement to this effect was made by the Jammu and Kashmir Congress chief Ghulam Ahmed Mir in Srinagar on Wednesday in the presence of senior party leaders. Some party leaders from the Jammu region had also gone to Srinagar to be present at a press conference which Mir addressed. With the Congress present in all the three regions of the state Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh the stage is thus set for a show of strength between the BJP and the Congress at most places in the state. It may be recalled that the BJP had parted company with the PDP on 19 June saying the party was withdrawing support to then Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti. This had ended the bonhomie between the coalition partners, the PDP and the BJP, which had started with the swearing-in of Mufti Mohammed Sayeed on 1 March, 2015. Interestingly, National Conference patriarch Farooq Abdullah was the first to announce the decision to boycott ULB and panchayat polls. Its arch rival in state politics, the PDP, followed suit some days later. Giving reasons for the boycott of polls, Abdullah said that the atmosphere in the state was not conducive to holding of elections. He claimed that the onslaught on the special status of Jammu and Kashmir had come via litigation against Article 35A of the Indian Constitution in the Supreme Court. Is it true that the challenge to Article 35A is the real reason for his partys decision to boycott the elections? It seems doubtful as the stated reason of boycott call seems to be a ruse or an excuse to try and shore up the NCs electoral fortunes. It also seems like a clever attempt to play politics and force the rival PDP into a corner by forcing it to follow suit. Of course, the PDP acted along predicted lines and also announced a poll boycott call along with the NC. The two arch rivals, the NC and the PDP, now find themselves on the same page as far as boycotting the elections goes. This also has bracketed them with the separatists, who do not take part in electoral politics. Like the NC, the PDP too has blamed the atmosphere created in the Kashmir Valley in the wake of challenges to Article 35A in the Supreme Court. The PDP has declared that it will go to any extent to safeguard Article 35A, which allows the Jammu and Kashmir legislature to define permanent residents of the state. It must be said that debates around Article 35A have led to a rise in the political temperatures in the state. Opinions of people vary across regions of the state, with large parts of Jammu and Ladakh being opposed to Article 35A. In the Kashmir Valley, however, a near uniformity has been observed among various sections of the people. Even separatists, who declare time and again that they do not have any faith in the Constitution of India, are strenuously defending an Article inserted into it through a presidential order on 14 May, 1954. In the Ladakh region, voices in favour or against Article 35A are almost muted, with hardly any leader of some standing making clear his or her stand on the issue. One reason for it could be that Ladakh has remained comparatively aloof from whatever has happened in the past in Jammu or in Kashmir. The most important political demand of Ladakhis have been the grant of Union Territory (UT) status to the entire region. Ladakhis, as such, remain fairly non-committal about airing their views on Article 35A. It may be noted here that the last panchayat elections were held in 2011 and the term of the office-bearers had ended in mid-2016. The tenures of the ULBs in the state had lapsed much earlier and today, neither are there any panchayats nor are there ULBs in place. On the other hand, elections to the Lok Sabha seats in the state and to the State Legislative Assembly are being held regularly since 1996, over two decades ago. Think about it carefully. Elections to the state Legislative Assembly were held in 1996, in 2002, in 2008, and then in 2014, more or less on time regularly, at intervals of six years. Similarly, elections for the Lok Sabha constituencies have also been held on time, all this while after every five years. How is it that time and again, when the elections to ULBs or panchayats are to be organised, successive state governments cite the vitiated atmosphere as the reason for not holding them? These repeated excuses of the state governments for not holding elections to the grassroots democratic institutions were accepted readily by the central governments earlier. On the one hand, Jammu and Kashmir claims it is the most autonomous of all states of India, but on the other hand, its institutions seem most powerless. This is a strange paradox wherein the state governments deliberately deny all chances of grassroots democracy to flourish. In fact, if the elections to ULBs and panchayats are held, as scheduled, and these are empowered as per their mandates under 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments, there will be a huge inflow of funds to Jammu and Kashmir. The legislators of the state have systematically denied these grassroots democratic institutions their rights. It appears that they believe that the empowerment of these institutions may devalue them. The funds to both ULBs and the panchayats will accrue from the Centre and not from the state government. The legislators of the state have needlessly been blocking empowerment of the ULBs and the panchayats. Former Union minister Jaswant Singh's son and BJP MLA Manvendra Singh Saturday announced he has quit the party. Barmer/Jaipur: Weeks ahead of the Assembly polls in Rajasthan, former Union minister Jaswant Singh's son and BJP MLA Manvendra Singh Saturday announced he has quit the party. I will contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections from home, he said, referring to the Barmer-Jaisalmer parliamentary constituency which in the past has been represented by his father. The MLA from Sheo said he has no plan to join the Congress as of now. I am not in touch with any Congress leader, he told reporters after addressing a public meeting at Pachpadra in Barmer, where some supporters raised pro-Congress slogans. He said he will meet his supporters and will take a decision based on what the people wanted. At the public meeting, dubbed 'swabhiman' (self-respect) rally, he had referred to the party's lotus symbol and said associating with it had been a big mistake. Kamal ka phool, badi bhool, he said. When contacted by PTI after the rally, the MLA said, I am no longer in BJP. Singh said the 'swabhiman' mision began in 2014 when his father Jaswant Singh was denied the party ticket in the Lok Sabha polls. He said Narendra Modi, now prime minister and the then Gujarat chief minister, had called him up saying he was not present at the meeting where that decision was taken. Manvendra Singh said Modi had then asked him to remain patient. But the limit of my patience is now over he said at the well-attended rally. He said those who had supported the family in 2014 had faced hardships, and this had now become an issue of self-respect. Singh said two people from Delhi and one from Jaipur were responsible for his father not getting the party's nomination in 2014. The MLA said he had told the prime minister and party chief Amit Shah about the situation in the state. He referred to the police encounters in which alleged criminals Anandpal and Chatur Singh were killed, leading to resentment in their Rajput community. Singh concluded his address by chanting, Kamal ka phool, badi bhool.' His supporters shouted Kamal ka phool, hamari bhool (picking Lotus, our mistake). His wife Chitra Singh called upon the people to vote out the Vasundhara Raje government in Rajasthan the coming Assembly elections. A large number of his supporters from Marwar region were present at the meeting. After denial of the party nomination in 2014, Jaswant Singh contested the elections as an Independent candidate. But he lost the seat to BJP's Sonaram, who had switched over from Congress and was backed by Vasundhara Raje. The decision of not allowing Jaswant Singh to contest had antagonised people in the Rajput community who held Raje responsible. Terming Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy's remark as a 'call for anarchy,' the BJP staged a protest near the Mysore Bank Circle holding placards and raising slogans against former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda and his sons. Bengaluru: The Karnataka wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday accused Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy of sedition and sought action over his remark asking people to "rise in revolt" against the saffron party for its alleged attempts to destabilise the state government. In its complaint to the state Director General of Police (DGP) Neelamani N Raju, the BJP alleged that the chief minister had violated section 124(A) (relating to sedition) and other sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Holding placards and raising slogans against former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda and his sons, including Kumaraswamy, the BJP staged a protest near the Mysore Bank Circle, the nerve centre of the city, terming the chief minister's remark as a "call for anarchy." "Kumaraswamy, who holds a constitutional post, has given a call for people to rise in revolt," BJP MP from Udupi Chikkamagaluru constituency Shobha Karandlaje said. Talking to reporters after submitting the complaint to the DGP, she said the person who was supposed to protect the Constitution and citizens of the country was "provoking" people. "Whatever was in Kumaraswamy's mind finally came out in the form of words," the BJP MP charged. Another BJP parliamentarian Prahlad Joshi termed the statement as the "most irresponsible and unpardonable offence" and said the chief minister's choice of words displayed his state of mind. Upset over the alleged toppling game of the BJP, an angry Kumaraswamy had on Thursday warned BJP to be restrained in its speech about Gowda and his family, saying he can even ask people to rise in revolt against it if it continued to disturb Congress-Janata Dal-Secular coalition government headed by him. Launching a no-holds-barred attack on state BJP chief, Kumaraswamy had said: "If you dig too much (into our affairs), then we too have many things at our disposal." "Government is in our hand. Don't I have the authority to do whatever I can? I caution him to be careful," he added. Hitting back, Yeddyurappa said if the state government was with Kumaraswamy, the central government was with the BJP. Soon after, Congress and JD(S) activists staged a demonstration outside Yeddyurappa's house raising slogans against him for his alleged attempts to destabilise the coalition government. The BJP condemned the demonstration, saying that the state government was trying to muzzle the voice of the Opposition, which showed its "anti-democratic face". Rahul Gandhi questioned Narendra Modi's silence after Francois Hollande's reported statement and asked him to clarify if the same is true or not. Congress on Saturday continued its attack on the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi after former French president Francois Hollande reportedly said Dassault Aviation did not have a choice in selecting its partner in the Rafale deal. Congress president Rahul Gandhi questioned Modi's "silence" after Hollande's reported statement and asked the prime minister to clarify if the same is true. "The prime minister is completely silent. Not even one word has come out of his mouth after Hollande's statement," Rahul added. What I'm surprised with is that PM is completely silent. Not one word has come out from PM's mouth on this. This is from a President of France, who had a one-to-one meeting with PM where the Rafale deal was decided: Congress President @RahulGandhi #RafaleModiKaKhel pic.twitter.com/duaHhPDOAA Congress (@INCIndia) September 22, 2018 Rahul further added, "For the first time, an ex-French president is calling our prime minister a thief. It is a question of the dignity of the Office of Prime Minister." "Anil Ambani has never built an aircraft in his life. He floated his company just a few days before the deal and yet, the deal was taken away from HAL and given to Anil Ambani, who has a Rs 45,000 crore debt," Rahul alleged. Anil Ambani has never built an aircraft in his life. He floated his company few days before the deal, yet, the deal was taken away from HAL and given to Anil Ambani, who has a 45000Cr debt: Congress President @RahulGandhi #RafaleModiKaKhel pic.twitter.com/Sjs7nXfJLg Congress (@INCIndia) September 22, 2018 "We are absolutely convinced that the prime minister is corrupt," Rahul said. He added that a joint parliamentary committee should be formed so that the truth comes out. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman or finance minister Arun Jaitley didnt sign the contract, Modi did and he must be the one to give answers, Rahul added. On Friday, Rahul attacked Modi over Hollande's reported statement and said the prime minister betrayed India and "dishonoured the blood of our soldiers". He also alleged, "The prime minister personally negotiated and changed the Rafale deal behind closed doors. Thanks to Francois Hollande, we now know he personally delivered a deal worth billions of dollars to a bankrupt Anil Ambani." Congress alleged on Friday that the government's "complicity, collusion and conspiracy" to benefit Modi's "crony friend" has been exposed following Hollande's reported comments. The report in Mediapart, a French language publication, quoted Hollande as saying, "It was the Indian government that proposed this service group, and Dassault who negotiated with Ambani. We had no choice, we took the interlocutor who was given to us." Asked who selected Reliance as a partner and why, Hollande replied, "We had no say in this regard." Meanwhile, Dassault Aviation, the makers of Rafale, clarified that the government-to-government contract between India and France was separate from its negotiations with Reliance Defence. It said that its CEO "chose" the private sector firm and the city of Nagpur for setting up the plant for manufacturing parts of the aircraft. Reuters Googles Chief Executive Sundar Pichai denied reports of efforts to politically bias the companys internet search results, Axios reported on Friday citing a memo. The Wall Street Journal citing internal emails reported on Thursday that the companys staff discussed ways to alter search functions to counter the Trump administrations 2017 travel ban. The Journals report said Google did not go through with the ideas that were brainstormed. According to Axios, Pichai wrote an email to Googlers saying an internal email to suggest the company would compromise the integrity of its search results for a political end were absolutely false. Its important to me that our internal culture continues to reinforce our mission to organize the worlds information and make it universally accessible and useful. Recent news stories reference an internal email to suggest that we would compromise the integrity of our search results for a political end, Pichai was quoted as saying by Axios. Google was not immediately available for comment. Reuters Google has tweaked the privacy policy of its Indian digital payments mobile application, days after local rival Paytm complained that the US tech giants platform allowed disclosure of customer data for advertising and other purposes. The row has erupted amid heightened debate about user privacy and how technology firms treat data in India and abroad. India is developing a new data protection law which could force companies to change how they transfer or store customer data. In a letter to the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), dated Sept. 13, Paytm complained that Google Pays privacy policy amounted to clear disregard for a consumers need for privacy. Google Pays privacy policy had said it could collect, store, use and/or disclose personal data and any communications made through Google Pay. A Reuters review of Googles privacy policy that was updated on Thursday showed the company had dropped the word disclose from its privacy clause. Google told Reuters in a statement that the changes were made to make it easier for customers to understand their monetisation and data usage policy. It declined to comment on whether they were made due to Paytms letter or any subsequent communication from the NPCI. These changes are done from time to time and are based on product features and development, a Google spokesman said. Dilip Asbe, the chief of the NPCI which oversees the payments services in India, declined to comment. Paytm, which is backed by Chinas Alibaba and Japans SoftBank, also declined comment. Paytms letter to NPCI indicates the increasingly fierce competition in Indias digital payments market, which is expected to grow five-fold to $1 trillion by 2023. Other companies vying for a bigger share of the market include PayPal and Facebooks Whatsapp. Paytm gained traction in India after Prime Minister Narendra Modi banned high-value notes in November 2016, boosting digital payments. It has 95 million active monthly users, compared to Google Pays 22 million. Both apps offer payment services using NPCIs Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system that allows instant money transfers and merchant payments. Google Pays new privacy policy stated that UPI transaction data could be used for monetisation purposes only by the platform itself. But the company said it did not do so now. Agence France-Presse Indian authorities on 21 September ordered a probe into the deaths of a dozen endangered wild Asiatic lions, half of them cubs, over the last 10 days, officials said. One lioness died after preying on a poisoned boar while eight others lions died of an infection in the lungs and liver. Three cubs were killed in infighting while other three passed away in the course of treatment. Gujarat officials have sent the lions' carcasses to a veterinary hospital for further analysis into the cause of infection. "Primarily the deaths appear due to natural causes or some infection," Vijay Chaudhary, forest department official, told AFP. Listed as critically endangered in 2000, wild Asiatic lions reside only in one Indian forest the Gir Sanctuary spread over 1,400 square kilometres (545 square miles) in the western state of Gujarat. The lions, a major tourist attraction in the state, have been a target of poachers in the past. Experts said that the deaths cannot be dismissed as part of a natural cycle. "There needs to be some preventive action by tracking the pride of lions in the area and checking them for infections," Priyavrat Gadhvi, a wildlife expert and members of state wildlife board in Gujarat, told AFP. According to the latest lion count done in 2015, there are 521 Asiatic lions. About 10 of them died in floods in 2016. Agence France-Presse The images of a thin group of seasonal electric blue clouds on the cusp of our atmosphere captured by a new NASA balloon mission may lead to improved weather forecasting, the US space agency has said. Data from these clouds, known as noctilucent clouds or polar mesospheric clouds (PMCs), may help scientists better understand turbulence in the atmosphere, as well as in oceans, lakes and other planetary atmospheres, NASA said in a statement on Thursday, 20 September. The NASA long-duration balloon mission observed these clouds over the course of five days at their home in the mesosphere. Scientists have just begun to analyse the photos captured by the mission, the statement added. "From what we've seen so far, we expect to have a really spectacular dataset from this mission," said Dave Fritts, principal investigator of the PMC Turbo mission at Global Atmospheric Technologies and Sciences in Boulder, Colorado. "Our cameras were likely able to capture some really interesting events that we hope will provide new insights into these complex dynamics," Fritts added. NASA's PMC Turbo mission launched a giant balloon on 8 July to study PMCs at a height of 50 miles above the surface. For five days, the balloon floated through the stratosphere from its launch at Esrange, Sweden, across the Arctic to Western Nunavut, Canada. During its flight, cameras on board the balloon captured six million high-resolution images filling up 120 terabytes of data storage most of which included a variety of PMC displays, revealing the processes leading to turbulence, NASA said. Noctilucent clouds coalesce as ice crystals on tiny meteor remnants in the upper atmosphere. These clouds are affected by what is known as atmospheric gravity waves caused by the convecting and uplifting of air masses, such as when air is pushed up by mountain ranges. The waves play major roles in transferring energy from the lower atmosphere to the mesosphere. "This is the first time we've been able to visualise the flow of energy from larger gravity waves to smaller flow instabilities and turbulence in the upper atmosphere," Fritts said. "At these altitudes you can literally see the gravity waves breaking like ocean waves on the beach and cascading to turbulence," Fritts added. On 1 October, UN chief Antonio Guterres will formally open the new UN House in New Delhi, and on 2 October he will participate in the closing session of the Mahatma Gandhi International Sanitation Convention. United Nations: UN chief Antonio Guterres will travel to India early next month, his first trip to the country as head of the world body that coincides with the commencement of events marking the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. The Secretary-General will arrive in New Delhi on 1 October. His visit coincides with the beginning of events to celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi on 2 October next year, Deputy Spokesman for the UN Secretary-General Farhan Haq told reporters on Friday. On 1 October, Guterres will formally open the new UN House in New Delhi and on 2 October, the Secretary-General will participate in the closing session of the Mahatma Gandhi International Sanitation Convention. During the visit, he will meet President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on 3 October. He will also meet with Speaker of the Lok Sabha Sumitra Mahajan before giving a lecture at the India Habitat Centre on Global Affairs on the theme 'Global challenges, global solutions'. The Secretary-General will also take part in the General Assembly of the International Solar Alliance. In the afternoon of October 3, he will visit the Golden Temple in Amritsar and will return to New York on 4 October. Guterres had visited India in July 2016, just months ahead of the election for Secretary General. During his visit then, he had met Swaraj. Replying to a question on Guterres' trip to the Golden Temple, Haq said that the visit is essentially a personal one as the UN chief wanted to see the holy Sikh pilgrimage site. When asked if Guterres will be asked questions about the 1984 Sikh riots, Haq said it was a bit "premature" to mention the topics he will bring up. Haq also expressed the world body's gratitude to the Indian government for its contribution of $1 million to install solar panels and a green roof on the Conference Building of the United Nations Secretariat. The contribution was received by Under-Secretary-General for Management Jan Beagle, who said that "India's generous contribution sends a strong message promoting innovation for action on climate change, and to enable greater efficiencies". The initiative will help the Secretariat reduce its carbon footprint and promote sustainable energy, Haq added. Donald Trump's much-vaunted peace plan for the Middle East appears to be in deepening trouble - before it has even been unveiled. We have been waiting for the details for more than a year, but Palestinians and veteran US diplomats have told Sky News it may end up doing more harm than good. As Sky News writes in the article Trump's Middle East peace plan appears to be in deepening trouble, this week, the Palestinians' chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, told Sky's Middle East correspondent, Alex Rossi, the Americans are cutting out his side of the conflict as they prepare to announce their plan. Erekat has had multiple meetings with US officials, including the president's son-in-law and Middle East peace envoy Jared Kushner. But he says "they haven't shared a single sentence with me about what they intend to do". He fears a fait accompli is coming, imposed on the Palestinians by the Americans and Israelis with the acquiescence of Sunni Arab governments. Erekat added: "They want to say to me, 'come here boy, we know what's best for you and if you don't accept this you're going to be called a terrorist, we're going to cut your aid, close your schools, shut your hospitals, starve your children'... and this is happening in 2018." The Trump administration's strategy appears to be forcing the Palestinians back to negotiations with increasingly punitive measures. Kushner has said as much in recent interviews. But veteran US diplomats who know the Middle East far better than the 37-year-old son-in-law of the president say that will not work. Nicholas Burns, who worked as a junior diplomat in Jerusalem before becoming US ambassador to NATO and Greece, told Sky's World View programme this week: "When you cut off all aid to the Palestinians, cut off funds for cancer patients in east Jerusalem, cut of funds for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, this doesn't make sense. "And if the Trump administration's view is that by cutting off all aid they'll drive the Palestinians to the negotiating table... I think the reverse will happen." The Trump administration has ended funding for aid for Palestinian refugees after almost seven decades of US support. It has moved the US embassy to Jerusalem against the protests of Palestinians and recognised the city as Israel's capital even though Palestinians claim it too. Burns says America is going back on decades of even-handed diplomacy in the region. "I don't think either party is ready for peace but that doesn't make it smart for the United States to essentially pull the rug out from the Palestinians," he said. Britain and other European countries are increasingly concerned that US policies are making a two-state solution to the conflict impossible. The alternative, says Erekat, is a one-state solution where Palestinians are second-class citizens without rights, like black Africans were in South Africa. "The question to them, these geniuses, is what are you going to do with me? One state, two systems. You plan to achieve apartheid. It's not doable. It's not sustainable." The United States is optimistic about finding a way forward in its trade dispute with China, but it does not have a date scheduled for further talks as it assesses Beijings response to the latest round of tariffs, a senior White House official said on Friday. Washington: The United States is optimistic about finding a way forward in its trade dispute with China, but it does not have a date scheduled for further talks as it assesses Beijings response to the latest round of tariffs, a senior White House official said on Friday. The official said despite its protestations, China was well aware of US demands it halt what Washington considers unfair trade practices. US president Donald Trump has made clear his resolve on the issue, the official said, and the two sides remain in touch. We have been very clear in all of these meetings about what is ... required, the official said. I am still optimistic that there is a positive way forward, and the president wants us to continue to engage to try to achieve a positive way forward. The officials comments came ahead of a report by the Wall Street Journal that China had cancelled mid-level trade talks with the United States, as well as a proposed visit to Washington by vice premier Liu He originally scheduled for next week. Earlier this week, China added $60 billion of American products to its import tariff list as it hit back at US duties on $200 billion of Chinese goods that go into effect from 24 September. The escalating trade dispute has spooked financial markets. Speaking to reporters at the White House on condition of anonymity, the official made clear the administrations ultimate goal was not to separate the interlinked US and Chinese economies, but he said companies could choose to alter their supply chains if Beijing did not change course. Our goal here is not to cleave off the Chinese market from the US market, I dont think thats good for long-term growth, he said. In the short term, there is, of course, a risk that if China continues on the path it is, that some companies as a result of this may start ... to move supply chains. The official also said he hoped Canada would agree to join a US-Mexico trade deal by the end of the month while saying he thought US lawmakers would support a bilateral deal with Mexico if that did not happen. US and Canadian officials have been engaged in talks to modernise the North American Free Trade Agreement, a 1994 deal that underpins $1.2 trillion in trade between the United States, Canada and Mexico. The official dismissed concerns separate deals with Canada and Mexico would have a negative impact on supply chains. I think its overblown to say that if we have separate deals with these two, that there still cant be a really high degree of integration, he said. Pakistan's prime minister Imran Khan on Saturday reacted to India calling off the proposed talks between the foreign ministers on the sidelines of UNGA. Pakistan's prime minister Imran Khan on Saturday reacted to India calling off the meeting between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi in New York, calling it an "arrogant and negative response by India to my call for resumption of the peace dialogue." Khan also said he had often come across "small men occupying big offices". Disappointed at the arrogant & negative response by India to my call for resumption of the peace dialogue. However, all my life I have come across small men occupying big offices who do not have the vision to see the larger picture. Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) September 22, 2018 Citing the "brutal" killing of three policemen in Jammu and Kashmir as well as the release of postal stamps glorifying Kashmiri militant Burhan Wani, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Raveesh Kumar in a press conference on Friday announced that the meeting between the foreign ministers of the two countries on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) had been called off. "The latest brutal killings of our security personnel by Pakistan-based entities and the recent release of a series of 20 postage stamps by Pakistan glorifying a terrorist and terrorism confirm that Pakistan will not mend its ways," Kumar had said. He had noted that "two deeply disturbing developments have taken place" since the announcement of a meeting between the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan in New York later this month. "In view of the changed situation, there will be no meeting between the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan in New York," he had said. Pakistan's foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi had on Friday also expressed disappointment at India calling off the meeting. "It is unfortunate that India has not given a positive response. India has once again wasted an opportunity for peace," Qureshi had told the media. He had said that it was important to sit and talk for the sake of peace and stability in the region. "The refusal of India shows that the Indian government is facing internal pressure," he had said. "It seems that India is already preparing for its elections due in the country next year," Qureshi was quoted as saying by The Express Tribune. He had said Pakistan sincerely wants resolution of all outstanding issues, including Kashmir, with India through negotiations. Pakistan has always extended an olive branch to India for the resolution of problems and enhancing bilateral ties in an amicable manner, but New Delhi does not come out of its "internal politics", state-run Radio Pakistan had quoted him as saying. The minister had said Pakistan can only wish that India comes to the negotiating table, but "we can neither pressurise anybody nor will accept the same for this purpose." Qureshi had said the world wants connectivity and promote regional trade, but India is creating problems. He had said India's "stubbornness" is also adversely affecting the future of the SAARC countries, the Radio Pakistan report said. But Qureshi had reiterated that dialogue is the only way to come to the resolution of any issue. "We said that we want dialogue but in a dignified manner," he had added. Meanwhile, the Foreign Office (FO) in a statement had remarked that the reasons cited by India for calling off the talks "within 24 hours of its public confirmation are entirely unconvincing". "The so-called 'disturbing developments' alluded to in the Indian statement predated the Indian agreement to hold the bilateral meeting in New York," Foreign Office spokesman Dr Mohammad Faisal had said in the statement. With inputs from PTI By Michael Georgy DUBAI (Reuters) - Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused U.S.-backed Gulf Arab states of carrying out an attack on a military parade that killed 25 people, almost half of them members of the country's elite Revolutionary Guards. Khamenei ordered security forces to bring to justice those responsible for one of the worst assaults ever against the Revolutionary Guards, the most powerful and heavily armed military force in the country, which answers to him. By Michael Georgy DUBAI (Reuters) - Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused U.S.-backed Gulf Arab states of carrying out an attack on a military parade that killed 25 people, almost half of them members of the country's elite Revolutionary Guards. Khamenei ordered security forces to bring to justice those responsible for one of the worst assaults ever against the Revolutionary Guards, the most powerful and heavily armed military force in the country, which answers to him. The allegation will likely ratchet up tensions with Iran's rival Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies, who along with the United States have been working to isolate the Islamic Republic. "This crime is a continuation of the plots of the regional states that are puppets of the United States, and their goal is to create insecurity in our dear country," Khamenei said in a statement published on his website. He did not name the regional states he believed were to blame. Israel is also a key U.S. ally opposed to Tehran. The assault, which wounded more than 60 people, targeted a stand where Iranian officials had gathered in the city of Ahvaz to watch an annual event marking the start of the Islamic Republic's 1980-88 war with Iraq, state television said. The bloodshed struck a significant blow to security in the oil producer, which has been relatively stable compared with neighbouring Arab countries that have grappled with upheaval since the 2011 uprisings across the Middle East. An Iranian ethnic Arab opposition movement called the Ahvaz National Resistance, which seeks a separate state in oil-rich Khuzestan province, claimed responsibility for the attack. Islamic State militants also claimed responsibility. Neither claim provided evidence. All four attackers were killed. Women and children died in the assault, state news IRNA agency reported. The assailants had hidden weapons in an area near the parade route several days in advance, said Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi, a senior spokesman for Iran's armed forces. "All four terrorists were quickly neutralised by security forces," Shekarchi told state television. "A four-year-old girl and a wheelchair-bound war veteran were among the dead." Attacks on the military are rare in Iran. POWERFUL FORCE The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) has been the sword and shield of Shi'ite clerical rule in Iran since its 1979 Islamic Revolution. The Guards have a big say in Iran's regional interests and a vast stake worth billions of dollars in Iran's economy. A video distributed to Iranian media showed soldiers crawling to escape gunfire. One picked up a gun and scrambled to his feet as women and children fled for their lives. A video on state television's website showed confused soldiers. Standing in front of the stand, one asked: "Where did they come from?" Another responded: "From behind us." Ahvaz is in the centre of Khuzestan province, where there have been sporadic protests by minority Arabs. Activists said the Revolutionary Guards had arrested several people in Ahvaz after the attack. The gunmen were trained by two Gulf Arab states and had ties to the United States and Israel, according to Shekarchi. There was no immediate Gulf Arab comment on his remarks. REGIONAL TENSIONS Mainly Shi'ite Iran and mostly Sunni Saudi Arabia support opposite sides in wars in Syria and Yemen and rival political parties in Iraq and Lebanon. The attack occurred a day before Iranian President Hassan Rouhani heads to New York to address the annual U.N. General Assembly next week. "Rouhani will use the terrorist attack to justify Irans presence in the Middle East...The attack will strengthen the IRGCs position inside Iran and in the region, Tehran-based political analyst Hamid Farahvashian said. Iran will face pressure to respond to the high-profile attack, which has hurt the security establishment's prestige. "The attacks are doubtlessly meant to tarnish the prestige of the IRGC, but I believe the terrorist incidents will strengthen the IRGC's standing and even mobilise some public support," said Ali Alfoneh, senior fellow at the Gulf Arab States Institute in Washington. Hardliners like the IRGC have gained standing at the expense of pragmatists in Iran's multi-tiered leadership since President Donald Trump decided in May to pull the United States out of the 2015 international nuclear deal with Tehran and reimpose sanctions on the Islamic Republic. Kurdish militants killed 10 Revolutionary Guards in an attack on an IRGC post on the Iraqi border in July. Last year, in the first deadly assault claimed by Islamic State in Tehran, 18 people were killed at the parliament and mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic. (Reporting by Dubai newsroom, additional reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin, Parisa Hafezi and Babak Dehghanpisheh, writing by Michael Georgy, editing by Mark Heinrich and Gareth Jones) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Mike Pompeo did not say in the speech whether he would take punitive measures or not. Washington: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday denounced "awful abuses" of Muslim Uighurs detained in Chinese re-education camps. "Hundreds of thousands and possibly millions of Uighurs are held against their will in so-called re-education camps where they're forced to endure severe political indoctrination and other awful abuses," Pompeo said in a speech on the state of religious freedom around the world. Beijing has rejected United Nation's estimates that more than a million members of Muslim minorities are being held in internment camps in China's western Xinjiang region. In a letter to Pompeo and US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Republican and Democratic members of the US Congress late last month called for sanctions on Chinese officials implicated in the internment of Uighurs. Pompeo did not say in the speech whether he would take punitive measures. He also expressed concern about the fate of Christians in China, who he said had been targeted in a government crackdown. The government, he said, has been "closing churches, burning bibles and ordering followers to sign papers renouncing their faith." Tanzania's president John Magufuli had ordered the arrest of all those involved in the management of the ferry that capsized, killing 136. Tanzanian president John Magufuli on Friday ordered the arrest of the management of a ferry that capsized in Lake Victoria, as the death toll climbed to 136 and rescue workers pressed on with the search to find scores more people feared drowned. The MV Nyerere may have been carrying as many as 200 passengers double the ferry's capacity when it capsized close to the pier on Ukara Island on Thursday, according to reports on state media. Witnesses reached by AFP said the ferry sank when passengers rushed to one side to disembark as it approached the dock. In a speech broadcast on TBC 1 public television, Magufuli said "it appears clear that the ferry was overloaded", adding that "negligence has cost us so many lives... children, mothers, students, old people". "I ordered the arrest of all those involved in the management of the ferry. The arrests have already begun," he added. The president declared four days of national mourning while saying at least 131 people had died, updating an earlier death toll of 126. Magufuli also announced the government would cover the funeral expenses of the victims. Mwanza governor John Mongella had earlier said the number of survivors was 40, but it was unclear whether any new survivors had been found since rescue operations resumed with police and army divers on Friday morning. "Operations are continuing," he said, but hopes are fading that more survivors might still be found. State television cited witnesses reporting that more than 200 people had boarded the ferry at Bugolora, a town on the larger Ukerewe Island, where it was a market day when locals said the vessel was usually packed with people and goods. "I have not heard from either my father or my younger brother who were on the ferry. They had gone to the market in Bugolora to buy a school uniform and other supplies for the new school term," said Domina Maua, who was among those seeking information about loved ones. Davita Ngenda, an elderly woman in Ukara, had already received bad news. "My son is among the bodies recovered," she said, weeping. "He had gone with his wife but she has not been found yet. My God, what did I do to deserve this?" Sebastian John, a teacher, said such tragedies had become part of life for those living on the lake. "Since my birth, people have gone to their deaths on this lake, but what are we to do? We did not choose to be born here, we have nowhere to go," he said. Overloading and 'negligence' It remains unclear how many people are still missing. Tanzania's Electrical, Mechanical and Services Agency, which is responsible for ferry services, said it was unknown how many passengers were aboard the MV Nyerere. The ageing ferry, whose hull and propellers were all that remained visible after it overturned, was also carrying cargo, including sacks of maize, bananas and cement, when it capsized around 50 metres from Ukara dock. The cause of the accident was not immediately clear, but overloading is frequently to blame for such incidents. The country's opposition has accused the government of "negligence". "We have often raised concerns about the poor condition of this ferry, but the government turned a deaf ear. We have repeatedly denounced this negligence," said John Mnyika, deputy secretary general of Chadema, the main opposition party. Mnyika said overloading was "another failure of the authorities" and criticised "inadequate relief efforts as well as delays" in the rescue operation. Russian President Vladimir Putin and the leaders of Uganda and Kenya offered their condolences, while Pope Francis in a statement expressed "the greatest solidarity with those who have been bereaved" by the disaster. With a surface area of 70,000 square kilometres, oval-shaped Lake Victoria is roughly the size of Ireland and is shared by Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya. Capsizes are not uncommon in the massive lake, and the number of fatalities is often high due to a shortage of life jackets and the fact that many people in the region cannot swim. The deadliest such accident in recent decades was in May 1996, when around 800 people died after their ferry sank on the way to Mwanza in Tanzania. The energy sector is broad and diverse, and changing faster than ever. Some companies, like ExxonMobil, are focusing their efforts on core competencies. Others are taking a different approach, reaching well beyond their historical roots to expand into new areas. Two stocks you should keep a close eye on today are NextEra Energy, Inc. (NYSE:NEE) and Total S.A. (NYSE:TTE). 1. Two companies in one NextEra Energy is a U.S. utility company. However, under that veneer are two very different entities. The first is a regulated utility, Florida Power & Light, that is among the largest in the nation. The second, with the rather nondescript name NextEra Energy Resources, is one of the largest owners of solar and wind power in the world. The numbers can vary greatly from year to year, but in 2016 and 2017 NextEra Energy Resources contributed around 40% and 55% of the parent company's earnings, respectively. To put it simply, renewable power is not a small business. And NextEra is keenly focused on growing its renewable footprint. Between 2017 and 2020, the company plans to spend as much as $44 billion on capital projects. Of that total, between $17.5 billion and $19 billion is earmarked for its regulated assets. That means that $25 billion or more is going to go toward expanding NextEra Energy Resources. Renewable power is not a fad for NextEra, and the company is very serious about growing this business so that it plays a key role in the shift to clean power that is taking place today. While NextEra is not forgetting about its regulated assets -- in fact, it just expanded its reach in Florida by acquiring a utility from competitor Southern Company -- the growth plans on the renewable power side are notable. The company currently has around 20 gigawatts of renewable capacity, but has a pipeline of projects with a capacity of 22 gigawatts. It wants to expand its project pipeline to 40 gigawatts by 2020. So as you look at the energy space and note the shift toward renewable power, keep NextEra in mind -- it is helping to lead the charge toward renewables. That said, NextEra isn't exactly cheap today, but its spending plans (on both sides of the business) are expected to push earnings higher by 6% to 8% a year through 2020, with dividends expanding as much as 14% a year, as the utility lets its payout ratio inch higher. For growth-minded investors, it's worth a close look. 2. Cleaning up its act Another company to watch in the energy space is France's Total, an integrated energy giant. To be clear, Total generates almost all of its revenue and earnings from carbon-based energy sources. That includes everything from drilling for oil and natural gas to processing them to selling the end products. This is not going to change anytime soon, partly because it is a very profitable business when oil and gas prices are high. But, and this is a big but, there's something going on that investors need to consider. While peers like Exxon are doubling down on oil and gas drilling, Total has started to shift gears. It's beginning to look at energy with a broader lens, and recently purchased European utility Direct Energie for roughly $1.6 billion. This move isn't taking the company too far afield, as Direct Energie's main markets are France and Belgium. And compared to the company's capital budget for 2018 of $14 billion, the investment in Direct Energie is hardly make-or-break. So it's not like Total is trying to switch from oil to electricity overnight. That, however, is part of the allure. The global transition from oil and natural gas is likely to be a long one and Total is trying to use the profits from the cash cow oil business to reach into a new one that appears to have a brighter long-term future. In fact, Direct Energie isn't the first move Total has made: The oil giant bought a controlling stake in SunPower Corporation in 2011 and it's made other purchases outside of oil and gas, as well. So you need to think of Total as an oil and gas company today, but don't overlook the changes it's making. It's leading the oil industry toward a cleaner future that may no longer include oil. While Total's top and bottom lines will fluctuate along with the price of oil, it's performing well right now as oil prices have risen well off the lows reached during the last downturn. And, just as important, it's generating ample cash to support the shift it's making toward electricity. Like NextEra, it is worth a deep dive today. Agents of change, in unusual places When you look at the energy industry you'll find plenty of pure-play renewable power companies. They are, indeed, pushing the industry toward a cleaner future. But don't ignore the old guard thinking that they are sure to be casualties of the industry shift. Not every energy company is willing to accept that fate. NextEra Energy and Total are two agents of industry change that you might miss if you aren't willing to dig just a little deeper. Quote: Curt's05 Originally Posted by In Mn 05 excursion $71, 2016 F150 $388 & 2018 $437 when we have Jessie Ventura as gov, tabs where 1/3 of what they are now. He had a dozen vehicle registered in mn... Hmm. Having lived in Hibbing, MN from 1988-1993, I recall the cost to register any vehicle 10 years old or older was $35. So the cost to reg your Excursion has doubled, but not tripled. We never had anything newer than 10+ year old vehicle back then, so I wouldn't know how to compare.My 2017 F-350 dually Lariat Ultimate cost over $1400 to register here in NH where I now live. My current 2017 F-250 XLT cost over a grand the first year; dropped to just under in year two. We do have safety and emissions inspection, but fortunately any vehicle over 8500GVW is exempt from emissions testing. I just got my F-250 inspected today, cost $30.You couldn't pay me to live in any of the west coast states, despite the beautiful geography. The actions were a protest against economic sanctions imposed over the purchase of Russian fighter jets and surface-to-air missile equipment, South China Morning Post reports. China summoned Americas ambassador and recalled its naval chief from the US on Saturday to protest sanctions Washington slapped on Chinese entities for procuring military equipment from Russia, the latest escalation in tensions between the two countries playing out on multiple fronts. Beijing also postponed a three-day bilateral military dialogue in Beijing, expected to begin on Tuesday, and warned of possible further measures if Washington does not withdraw the sanctions, according to reports by Chinas state broadcaster CCTV. The meeting was to be the second of its kind, part of a series of multi-track bilateral dialogues started after US President Donald Trump took office last year. On Saturday, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev expressed his condolences to Iranian President Hassan Ruhani in connection with the death of people during the terrorist attack at the military parade in Ahvaz. "Dear Mr. President, deeply saddened by the news of the death and injury of people as a result of a terrorist act committed in your country. We are extremely indignant by this terrible event, we condemn terrorism and consider it important to conduct a resolute struggle against all its forms and manifestations. Gunmen have opened fire on an Iranian military parade in the south-western city of Ahvaz, killing several people, including civilians, and injuring at least 20, BBC reported citing state media. The attackers shot from a park near the parade and were wearing military uniforms, reports say. State media say Islamist militants are thought to be behind the attack. Fars news agency said the attack started at 09:00 local time (06:30 BST) and appeared to involve four gunmen. The attackers fired at civilians and attempted to attack military officials on the podium, Fars reports. Two of the gunmen were killed by security forces, while the other two were arrested, the local deputy governor, Ali Hosein Hoseinzadeh, said. Up to nine members of the military were killed, and a child is among those wounded, reports say. Pictures from the scene show wounded soldiers being taken to safety. No group has said it carried out the attack, which lasted for about 10 minutes. State media and officials have blamed Sunni militants or Arab nationalists. The ASIA AUTO plant in Ust-Kamenogorsk City of Kazakhstan is starting to manufacture the new LADA Granta cars, AzerNews reported citing Kazakh media. "LADA retains the status of an anchor brand in Kazakhstans automotive industry. This is the most popular brand among residents of the country: since the beginning of the year, almost a quarter of buyers of new cars in Kazakhstan preferred LADA vehicles. In the first eight months of this year their number increased by 70 percent. Today, the LADA vehicles account for the main share of output of the Kazakh automobile industry. Since the beginning of the year, 51 percent of all cars have been manufactured in Kazakhstan under this brand," President of ASIA AUTO JSC Erik Sagymbayev said. The Kazakh citizens can already order the new cars, the media reported. The first new Granta cars will arrive in the 19 branches of BIPEK AUTO LLP in November. The LADA Granta cars of the second generation will retain their place among the leaders of affordability in the market of Kazakhstan. The prices for these cars will start from 2,945,000 tenge. The universal Granta SW with an automatic transmission is offered at the price of 3,950,000 tenge. Mamuka Bakhtadze is visiting the USA within the working visit - GeorgianJournal (CNN) Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang died on Friday aged 61 at a military hospital in the capital Hanoi following a period of illness, state media said. Quang was appointed president, a largely ceremonial role, in April 2016, and served alongside Vietnam's de facto leader Communist Party Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc. Before that he served as minister of public security. As president, Quang was reputed to be tough on dissent, with his government overseeing a crackdown on rights groups. "President Quang's legacy is a multi-year crackdown on human rights and putting more political prisoners behind bars in Vietnam than any time in recent memory," said Phil Robertson, Deputy Asia Director, Human Rights Watch. "More than anyone else, he's responsible for the ministry of public security's expansion into all aspects of daily Vietnamese life, bringing all the rights abuses, corruption and extortion that come with increased police presence," he added. Quang was promoted through the Communist party's ranks, rising to become a police general and member of the politburo. At an APEC meeting in Danang in November last year, he hosted a group of world leaders, including US President Donald Trump and China's Xi Jinping. This story was first published on CNN.com, "Tran Dai Quang, Vietnamese President dies aged 61 after illness." Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has called his Fridays talks in Sochi with Russian leader Vladimir Putin challenging but productive, TASS reported citing the BelTA news agency. "The talks with the president [of Russia] were mostly held in the one-on-one format. The negotiations lasted for six hours or even longer. Frankly speaking, these talks were not even difficult, but challenging. But they yielded a result," Lukashenko said. On Saturday, Lukashenko held a meeting with the government members to discuss the outcome of his talks with Putin on vital issues of bilateral relations and how to implement the agreements reached in Sochi. "First of all, this concerns the so-called extra customs procedures, supplies of dark oil products and natural gas to Belarus and the payment for natural gas by Belarus," Lukashenko said. It is planned to create a unique mound archaeological park in Azerbaijan for the first time in the world, said Parviz Gasimov, head of Public Relations Department of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of ANAS. He said that the archaeological park is planned to build around Ganja city, AzerNews reported. It is envisaged that the top cover of the mound will be covered with a transparent, plastic coating after being investigated. Thus, tourists can get familiar with the shape of the grave chamber, and the burial customs of the Bronze Age, he added. The head of the department mentioned that in 2015, the expedition team of the Institute conducted archaeological exploration activities in Ganja city and surrounding areas. The GPS coordinates of the mound-type grave monuments discovered from the Ganja airport to the cemetery called "Yeni Sabzikar" and from the city entrance to the administrative borders of Goygol region were taken and mapped. It is believed that mound type monuments belong to the Bronze Age. At present, the Azerbaijani-Italian expedition team conducts research in one of the mounds. The graves will be museumized after a thorough research, Gasimov stated. This work will take long. The numbers of explored mounds will be increased from year to year. Accordingly, copy of the exhibits for the museum will be created by architects, he said. Gasimov noted that the creation of this park will provide more detailed information about the history of Azerbaijan. The European Unions heads of state and government met in Salzburg last week, as Austria currently holds the rotating EU presidency. One of the main items on the agenda was a discussion with United Kingdom Prime Minister Theresa May on Brexit. Prime Minister May negotiated based on her Chequers proposal, a British plan for an orderly exit from the EU, assuring free trade but not a free exchange of people. The plan has been in discussion for a while now. Mrs. May, however, has very little room to make any further compromises, due to her governments fragile position domestically. The EU side showed a lack of pragmatism, giving Mrs. May a take it or leave it offer. Unlimited freedom in exchanging goods, capital and services is always desirable in a trade relationship. For the EU, this free exchange is unacceptable if it is not linked with the free exchange of people. By all appearances, logic was nowhere to be found at the discussions in Salzburg For those who think logically and pragmatically, it would appear more desirable to maintain the free exchange of goods, services and capital, even without the free exchange of people, than to have none at all. By all appearances, logic was nowhere to be found at the discussions in Salzburg. Instead of a constructive discussion, we witnessed a celebration of bureaucratic fundamentalist ideology. It was embarrassing. But there is a lot at stake, not only for the UK, which is a crucial trading partner for most EU countries. The argument that access to the internal market can only be granted when all conditions are fulfilled was elevated to dogma, even though it neglects the negative consequences. It also fails to take into account that the biggest promoters of the everything or nothing position are the same people who have recently tried to limit the EUs economic freedoms and curb internal competition when it suited their interests. French President Emmanuel Macron, for example, uses minimum wages and social security pretexts in an attempt to limit the posting of workers, mainly from Central European businesses, throughout the union. In another example, last year his government seized French shipyards to block their acquisition by an Italian company. Fading optimism Until now, one could have been optimistic and believed that finally, some reasonable decision makers would have pushed for more flexibility, not only in the interest of European economies. Europe is built on diversity, and the future of the EU will depend on the ability to respect and take advantage of this diversity. Unfortunately, the approach of increasing harmonization and the insistence that one size fits all is killing the European spirit and sapping its strength. As opposed to political fundamentalism, business thinking tends to be pragmatic and logical. What business often neglects to take into account, however, is the irrationality of bureaucratic politics. So far, businesses have believed that a mutually acceptable solution to Brexit would be found. Expecting businesses to invest huge sums to prepare for the bizarre alternative is asking a lot. Some will be caught unprepared. The EU leaders in Salzburg have set October 18 as the deadline to resolve the impasse not even four weeks. A miracle could still happen, although by definition, miracles are rare. Third-party app developers can still read your Gmail News oi-Sandeep Sarkar Gmail still allows third-party developers to integrate services into its platform. Earlier in July this year, Google had received a lot of backlash from the public following the reports that the third-party app developers can read the Gmail of users. Google had then promised the users that going forward it will stop scanning a user's Gmail for keywords which helped the tech giant in target advertisement. Now, it appears that Google is not keeping its promise and the third-party app developers can still read a user's Gmail, which is quite a concern. As per a new report from CNNMoney, Gmail still allows third-party developers to integrate services into its platform. Google has also sent a letter to the US Senators which quote "Developers may share data with third parties so long as they are transparent with the users about how they are using the data". Back in July this year, The Wall Street Journal had reported that even after assuring the users to "remain confident that Google will keep privacy and security paramount", Google is still giving permissions to the third party developers to go through the users Gmail account, which is a bit concerning. Susan Molinari, Vice President of Public Policy and Government Affairs for the Americas at Google had also mentioned in the letter that Google also makes "the privacy policy easily accessible to users to review before deciding whether to grant access. Google later took it to its blog post to reveal that it is screening all the third party developer's app which is integrated with Gmail prior it is opened for general access. The tech giant further provides both the consumers as well as the enterprise admins a complete transparency and control over how their data is being used. Suzanne Frey, Director, Security, Trust and Privacy, Google Cloud said: "We make it possible for applications from other developers to integrate with Gmail - like email clients, trip planners and customer relationship management (CRM) systems - so that you have options around how you access and use your email". Back in 2017, Google had claimed that the computers will soon stop reading the emails of its Gmail users in order to personalize their ads. Now, it appears that Google is not living up to its promise which raises concerns among the users related to privacy. It still remains to be seen if the tech giant makes any move to fix this any time soon. 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 "Kara Karaev is a wonderful, phenomenal composer," Olga Rostropovich, president of the Mstislav Rostropovich Cultural and Humanitarian Programs Foundation, told to a correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza. A concert dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kara Karaev took place today at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow. "I remember him well, he visited us, worked with my dad and was generally a wonderful person," she shared her memories. "Of course, I felt that I should be here today, Olga Mstislavovna said. Bellingcat Says Data 'Confirms' Skripal Suspects Had Links To Russian Military Intelligence RFE/RL September 20, 2018 The independent Bellingcat research organization claims to have more information that the two men suspected in the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal have links to Russian military intelligence, known as the GRU. Bellingcat said on September 20 that a joint investigation with Business Insider "can confirm definitively" that the two suspects, Ruslan Boshirov and Aleksandr Petrov, have links to the GRU, "based on objective data and on discussions with confidential Russian sources familiar with the identity of at least one of the two persons." On September 14, Bellingcat said it had reviewed Russian documents that indicated the two men had no records in the Russian resident database prior to 2009, a sign they may be working as operatives for the government. "Crucially," Bellingcat added at the time, "at least one man's passport files contain various 'top-secret' markings which, according to at least two sources consulted by Bellingcat, are typically reserved for members of secret services or top state operatives." In its latest report, Bellingcat said it and Business Insider obtained Petrov's and Boshirov's border-crossing data for several European and Asian countries. It said the men's names are believed to be aliases. "Their globe-trotting, unpredictably meandering itinerary is at times reminiscent of characters out of [film series and television program] Mission Impossible, yet a focus on the countries of Western Europe is clearly visible," it said. Bellingcat said a source in a Western European law enforcement agency informed it that the suspects had been previously arrested in the Netherlands, but "no information has been provided as to the time and context" of the arrests. Passport Numbers Bellingcat said it discovered there were just 26 intervening passport numbers between Petrov's document and the cover passport issued for Eduard Shishmakov, aka Shirokov, a former Russian military attache in Warsaw expelled by Poland in 2014 for espionage. Shishmakov's passport was issued in August 2016, the report said. The finding suggests that the special authority that issued the passports had only granted 26 passports between April and August 2016, Bellingcat said. It has been previously reported that the passport numbers of Boshirov and Petrov differed only three digits and that they held "Top Secret" and "Do Not Provide Information" markings. The documents were allegedly issued by an authority normally reserved for intelligence officers and important government officials, it said. Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were found unconscious on March 4 on a bench in the southern English town of Salisbury. They were seriously ill but later made a full recovery after spending several weeks in a hospital. British officials said the two were poisoned with Novichok, a military-grade chemical weapon that was developed in the Soviet Union, and blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin's government for the attack. In June, a British citizen, Dawn Sturgess, died and her boyfriend, Charlie Rowley, fell ill when they stumbled across remnants of the poison in a town near Salisbury. Britain on September 5 announced charges against the two Russian men as police issued photographs of the suspects. The men acknowledged they were in Salisbury at the time, but claimed they were there as tourists. Russia has denied any involvement in the poisoning. With reporting by telegraph.co.uk and themoscowtimes.com Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/bellingcat-insider- investigation-novichok-suspects-russia-military-intelligence -gru-evidence-/29501102.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 Restore hope that peace will come to the Middle East, UN negotiator urges Security Council 20 September 2018 - Negative humanitarian, security and political developments in Gaza outweigh any positive news concerning the search for peace in the Middle East, the United Nations negotiator for the process has said, urging the international community to help restore hope that a solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict can be found. "The urgency of the situation that we face on the ground is really desperate Gaza can explode any minute," underscored UN Special Coordinator Nikolay Mladenov, briefing the Security Council. "We have a humanitarian responsibility to react but we must understand that it cannot be solved only on the basis of humanitarian action...It must be solved with a political perspective to resolving Israeli-Palestinian conflict and we have a responsibility to support the parties." In his briefing, Mr. Mladenov spoke of Israel's continued military occupation of Palestinian territory; uncertainties about the future of the peace process and the two-state solution; Hamas' continuing hold on Gaza and its militant activity, as developments which continue to complicate the situation on the ground. "No steps have been taken during the reporting period to cease settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem," he said, reiterating that settlement activities are "a violation of international law and a major obstacle to peace." Violence, acts of provocation and inflammatory rhetoric both by Hamas and Israel also continued during the reporting period, he added, noting that on at least three occasions the situation "escalated dramatically" and calm was restored only after Egypt and the UN intervened to de-escalate tensions. On the humanitarian side, of most concern is the power crisis in Gaza and, with the UN running out of funds for emergency fuel, critical health, water and sanitation facilities are at "immediate risk" of shutting down. Levels of critical medicines are also running dangerously low. The crisis is being further exacerbated by the serious cash shortfall - due to the withdrawal of US funding - confronting UNRWA, the Organization's Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, he said, calling for urgent funding to allow it to continue its vital services. Concluding his briefing, Mr. Mladenov reminded the Security Council that twenty-five years have passed since the Oslo Accords were signed in the US capital, Washington D.C. "It was a historic moment that captured the world's attention and filled Palestinians, Israelis and the region with hope that a genuine peace could be realized. Sadly, that courageous vision of a lasting peace now lies in tatters," he said. "We must restore that hope the alternative is perpetual cycles of violence. We must overcome the current impasse and refocus our efforts on ultimately returning to meaningful negotiations to end the occupation and bring a just, lasting and comprehensive resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." Ahead of the Security Council meeting, France, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom (EU member countries with a seat on the Council); Belgium and Germany (incoming Council members in 2019) and Italy (a Council member until last year) issued a joint statement urging Israeli authorities to reconsider its decision to demolish Khan al-Ahmar, a Palestinian village in the West Bank, as well as highlighting the importance of a negotiated two-State solution. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address ISR-I assesses garrison infrastructure for future improvements By Ms. Mary Ann Davis (IMCOM) September 21, 2018 KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany -- U.S. Army Garrison Rheinland-Pfalz has more than 3,000 facilities on 29 sites, so ensuring building conditions are accurately assessed and documented for future funding is essential to their upkeep. That's why the garrison conducts Installation Status Report-Infrastructure assessments to promote the longevity and management of garrison structures. ISR is used as a decision-making tool for senior leaders to evaluate installation facility condition and adequacy, as well as identify improvement costs. "ISR-I provides an evaluation of the mission support functional capability, quality, quantity and readiness of Army infrastructure for each reporting location to established Army standards," said Gregory A. Williams, USAG RP Director of Public Works. "It also calculates costs to improve the inventory." Assessors use established, Army-wide standards to evaluate the condition of facilities and infrastructure; and identify substandard buildings or shortfalls. This helps the garrison compute restoration costs and coordinate restoration efforts across reporting locations, Williams explained. Tenant organizations, garrison functions and community support partners occupying garrison buildings assist with assessments. Many evaluators receive ISR training before inspecting structures, roads, grounds and utilities, said Mathias Reh, a DPW general engineer and ISR-I program manager. Reh is responsible for verifying and approving inspection results, managing and approving garrison ISR-I accounts as well as developing ISR-I curriculum and conducting ISR-I inspector train-the-trainer courses. "The program has a yearly data collection cycle. Facilities like dining facilities, child development centers and barracks need to be inspected annually," Reh explained. "Other facilities need to be inspected at least every five years. Regardless of scheduled inspections, any facility can be inspected out of cycle if significant damage occurs in between the last regular inspection and next scheduled inspection." This year the garrison had approximately 1,600 facilities to inspect in the USAG RP footprint, and it wouldn't be possible without help from tenant organization personnel to conduct evaluations. Chief Warrant Officer 3 Tom McCleave, 21st Theater Sustainment Command construction engineer, coordinated with several units to ensure facility inspections were completed. This was no easy task considering the multitude of exercises, real-world contingencies and unit training depleting the amount of Soldiers who could assist with assessments. "I coordinated between DPW and our 21st TSC units and between the two, we got a pretty good head start this year," said McCleave, who was recognized for his excellent work with a garrison commander's coin. "We looked at the facilities that needed to be inspected, Reh reviewed them, and then we all came to an agreement regarding the findings." Reh agreed with the chief, "It took a lot of communication to coordinate between the units and DPW. It was a very important group effort, and we appreciated the assistance." USAG RP Commander Col. Jason T. Edwards evaluated a building in Baumholder recently to get a better grasp of the ISR-I process and observe what assessors were tasked to do. "The best assessment of any process is one done in person. I am now able to understand the process, the time it takes for a properly executed inspection and how this inspection directly relates to our infrastructure readiness," the commander said. "It was a blessing to meet these 16th Sustainment Brigade Soldiers and see first-hand the passion they have for their facilities. This is despite decades-old barracks always in need of paint, patch and repair. The quality of their inspections will certainly create the demand signal for future funds towards renovations." Although tenant organizations don't own the facilities they work in, their cooperation in performing these duties and ISR-I inspections is crucial to the readiness of garrison structures, and their reports are an essential driving force to Army funding and investment decisions. "More importantly is not only the readiness of the infrastructure, but the time it takes to properly execute the inspection," Edwards explained. "Trained Soldiers should take between two to three hours for a quality inspection and then an additional hour to upload the narrative details within the required reporting apparatus. Every step counts and measuring the time to ensure we are reporting to standard takes communication with units and agencies always driving towards 100 percent accountability of assigned structures." The inspection information is then entered into a database to prioritize and calculate ratings for future funding. That's why it's important for unit personnel to accomplish the inspections, because they typically work in the building they are evaluating, Williams said. "The ISR-I inspector should be someone intimately familiar with the building -- a person with a vested interest in the structure. DPW doesn't have sufficient staff to conduct ISR-I for all 3,407 buildings within USAG RP," Williams said. Taking care of garrison structures is a community effort, and with the help of our tenant units, it can be accomplished quickly and easily, the commander said. "It is my intent to meet IMCOM reporting standards and provide the best comments to describe the status of our infrastructure," Edwards concluded. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address S. Arabia bombs Yemen residential areas IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, Sept 21, IRNA -- Saudi Arabia launched airstrikes on residential areas in Saada province in northern Yemen. According to Almasirah news network, residential areas of border cities of Razah and Sheda suffered heavy damage during the attacks. Meanwhile, Saudi fighters attacked areas in Saada and Baqem city and Takhiyeh district of Majaz. Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating military campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the aim of bringing the government of Hadi back to power and crushing the country's Houthi Ansarullah movement. Some 15,000 Yemenis have been killed and thousands more injured since the onset of the Saudi-led aggression. The assaults of the Saudi-led coalition forces have failed to stop the Yemenis from resisting the aggression. Recently, the Yemeni army unveiled its home-made underground missile launching pads. 8072**1396 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Yemeni drone attack aggressors in western coast IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, Sept 21, IRNA -- In a joint operations, the UAV unit of Yemeni army and navy attacked a joint base of aggressor forces in the western coast of Yemen, Almasirah news network reported Friday. An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) attacked a base of the Saudi-led coalition forces in the western coast of Yemen, inflicting heavy losses on it, Almasirah said. Last Friday, the command center of the United Arab Emirates troops in the western coast incurred heavy losses when it came under attack of the Yemeni army. Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating military campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the aim of bringing the government of former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power and crushing the country's Houthi Ansarullah movement. Some 15,000 Yemenis have been killed and thousands more injured since the onset of the Saudi-led aggression. More than 2,200 others have died of cholera, and the crisis has triggered what the United Nations has described as the world's worst humanitarian disaster. 1396**1396 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address NATO Deputy Secretary General visits Georgia NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation 21 Sep. 2018 NATO Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller is in Tbilisi today (21 September 2018) to reaffirm NATO's strong commitment to Georgia. In her press conference with Georgia's Deputy Foreign Minister, David Dondua, she reiterated NATO's position that Georgia will join the Alliance, and thanked Georgia for its strong commitment to NATO. She said, "You are one of the largest troop contributors to our training mission in Afghanistan, helping to stabilize the country, and deny safe haven to terrorists. We deeply appreciate Georgia's strong support for NATO's operations and missions." While in Tbilisi, the Deputy Secretary General is also meeting with President Giorgi Margvelashvili, Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Internal Affairs, Giorgi Gakharia, First Deputy Minister of Defence, Lela Chikovani, and other senior officials. Between her official meetings, the Deputy Secretary General spoke with students at Tbilisi State University. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Submarine Squadron 15 Supports Sister Village in Typhoon Mangkhut Recovery Navy News Service Story Number: NNS180921-09 Release Date: 9/21/2018 2:40:00 PM From Lt. Lauren Spaziano, Commander, Submarine Squadron 15 Public Affairs INARAJAN, Guam (NNS) -- Sailors assigned to Commander, Submarine Squadron (COMSUBRON) 15 and Performance Monitoring Team Detachment (PMT DET) Guam volunteered time to assist with typhoon recovery in the command's sister village of Inarajan, Sept. 17-19. The command dedicated 20 volunteers over a three-day period in a collaborative effort with the Inarajan mayor's office to clear fallen trees and brush following Typhoon Mangkhut, which hit the island Sept. 10. "After the storm, we knew we wanted to reach out to our sister village and offer our assistance," said Capt. Timothy Poe, COMSUBRON 15. "They've always been welcoming and supportive, and I am glad we were able to send some volunteers to help them. We all live on this beautiful island, and we do what every good neighbor would do: we help each other out in times of need." The collaborative recovery effort was an opportunity for the Sailors and their families to engage with the residents of Inarajan and foster relationships between the military and local community. It also allowed the village to recover at a quicker pace. "It really touches my heart for you folks to come down here and help us during the typhoon recovery efforts," Inarajan Mayor Doris Lujan said. "I really appreciate each and every one of you for helping the community." COMSUBRON 15 and PMT DET Guam volunteers included Sailors, family members and friends, and they were joined by the staff of the Inarajan mayor's office. Together, they cleared fallen trees, brush and trash along Route 4 in Malojloj and Inarajan as well as three side roads. Residents thanked the volunteers for assisting with the clean-up as they came by clearing debris. "The clean-up was a wonderful experience," said Electronics Technician (Navigation) 1st Class Alex Hepburn, a volunteer from COMSUBRON 15. "Our volunteers came together with our sister village to achieve the same goal. It was a great opportunity, and I loved working side by side with the hardworking people of Inarajan." The mayor's office provided lunch for volunteers on all three days and plans to throw a fiesta to celebrate the teamwork between the Sailors and the village during the recovery efforts. "On behalf of the community of Inarajan and the mayor's office and staff, I would like to express our big 'thank you' for helping us with the typhoon recovery efforts," said Lujan. "This is really great for the community and the partnership we have with the submarine squadron." COMSUBRON 15 participates in volunteer events with Inarajan throughout the year, fostering the strong relationship between the Sailors and the local community. The command plans to assist Inarajan with the Guam International Coastal Cleanup on Sept. 29, which was rescheduled from Sept. 15 due to the typhoon. "The submarine squadron is always there with us, and we really appreciate it," Lujan said. "Thank you from the bottom of our hearts." COMSUBRON 15 Sailors and family members join other service members from Indo-Pacific Command in providing Department of Defense support and working with Guam and Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands' civil and local officials for Typhoon Mangkhut recovery efforts. COMSUBRON 15 is located at Polaris Point, Naval Base Guam in Apra Harbor, Guam, and consists of four Los Angeles-class attack submarines. The squadron staff is responsible for providing training, material and personnel readiness support to these commands. Also based out of Naval Base Guam are submarine tenders USS Frank Cable (AS 40) and USS Emory S. Land (AS 39). The submarines and tenders are maintained as part of the U.S. Navy's forward-deployed submarine force and are readily capable of meeting global operational requirements. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Saudi trying to stop Yemen war crimes probe: HRW Iran Press TV Fri Sep 21, 2018 06:45PM Human Rights Watch (HRW) has condemned attempts by the regime in Riyadh and its ally the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to stop an investigation into crimes committed in Yemen. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are trying to shut down a UN-backed war crimes investigation in Yemen, HRW said on Friday. The 47-member United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva is divided into two distinct groups. One group made up of European countries and Canada calls for a one-year extension after investigators issued a damning report saying the conflicting governments of Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the UAE could be responsible for war crimes in Yemen. The second group, led by Arab state Tunisia on behalf of the Saudi-led coalition, makes no mention of extending the probe but calls for Yemen's almost defunct National Commission of Inquiry to continue investigating the conflict. The two sides could bridge differences before the council session ends on September 28. "By definition, there are differences," council spokesman Rolando Gomez said Friday. "One speaks to technical assistance. One is slightly more of a condemnatory nature. There are informal consultations that are under way. There are always efforts to meet in the middle." Mona Sabella, an international advocacy officer at the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, said independent investigations like those led by experts were important for the credibility of the council. She said failure to renew or strengthen such mandates would "empower repressive governments that want to destroy the UN human rights system." "The choice is clear for UN member states: Support the renewal of independent and international investigations into war crimes in Yemen, or bow to Saudi threats and allow these investigations to be quashed," she wrote in an e-mail. "Nothing would make Saudi Arabia and the UAE happier than to do away with independent investigations into war crimes in Yemen." HRW described the Saudi attempt to kill the investigation as a "blatant attempt to avoid scrutiny." "The Saudi-led coalition's campaign to discredit and undermine a UN investigation into abuses by all Yemen's warring parties is yet another blatant attempt to avoid scrutiny of the coalition's own actions in Yemen," John Fisher, HRW's Geneva director, said in a statement. "The Human Rights Council cannot afford to fail Yemeni civilians. States should renew the mandate of the (probe) or risk the Council's credibility," he added. Saudi-led forces are accused of numerous war crimes in Yemen including the bombing of civilian targets such as a school bus and hospitals. The Saudi-led aggression on its southern neighbor Yemen has turned the impoverished Arab country into what the UN has described as "the world's worst humanitarian crisis." Since the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen started in March 2015, some 15,000 Yemenis have been killed and thousands more injured. Millions risk disease and starvation. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Trump To Address 'Iran, Skripal Case' During UN Assembly Speech RFE/RL September 21, 2018 President Donald Trump will speak about Iran, the Skripal poisoning case in England, chemical weapons, and North Korea when he addresses the United Nations next week, the U.S. ambassador says. "It is time for us to have a real discussion [about Iran] and that's what you will see the president do when he chairs the Security Council," Nikki Haley told Fox News on September 20. "It will be the most watched Security Council meeting ever, I'm sure," she added. Trump will address the General Assembly's 193 member nations at the official opening on September 25 and the next day chair a Security Council meeting focusing on Iran, nonproliferation, and chemical weapons attacks in Syria and Britain. "With Iran, he does not think we should turn away. He does not think we should let our focus go away. He thinks they're dangerous. He thinks there are issues, and he thinks the international community has to take that into account," she told Fox. Trump in May pulled out of the 2015 nuclear accord that Iran signed with six world powers and last month began reimposing sanctions that had been eased as part of the deal in return for curbs on Tehran's nuclear program. The other signatories of the accord have vowed to remain in the deal amid threats by Washington to sanction any companies that continue to deal with Iran. In Tehran, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called Trump's administration a "threat" to the Middle East and to the global community. "It is true that there is a real threat to our region and to international peace and security: That threat is the Trump Administration's sense of entitlement to destabilize the world along with rogue accomplices in our region," Zarif tweeted on September 21. "The US must start acting like a normal state," Zarif added. Ambassador Haley said Trump was also "going to talk about the chemical weapons issue that we had to work on this month to prevent from happening in Idlib, Syria." Western powers have expressed concerns that the Syrian government could use chemical weapons as it launches an offensive in Idlib Province to drive out the remnants of rebel fighters in that country's seven-year civil war. Haley said Trump will also discuss North Korea and efforts to bring about denuclearization on the peninsula. 'We're Being Strong Again' The president will address "the fact that we had to take on the Russian incident in the U.K. with the Skripals," she added, referring to the Novichok poisoning case in the English city of Salisbury that the West has blamed on Russia. Moscow has denied the allegations. Haley was not more specific on what Trump would say on the issues listed. She said the president will also discuss foreign aid but would "lay down a marker that while the U.S. is generous, we are going to be generous to those who share our values and not those who try to stop the United States and say they hate America." She acknowledged that many countries are upset with U.S. policies, but she said that was because "we're being strong again" and that "we're not going to have these multilateral organizations mandate" U.S. actions. Trump has so far pulled out of several international accords, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, the Paris climate accord, and the UN's science, educational, and cultural organization. "A lot of leaders have gamed out how to deal with the president," Jon Alterman, senior vice president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the Associated Press. "They will be nice to him in person, but will work to create broad coalitions to block or undermine a lot of the president's initiatives because they think they are misguided. They'll try to use this meeting to advance strategies that promote their vision and not the president's, but not rub the president's face in it," he added. With reporting by dpa, Fox, and AP Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/trump-un- assembly-iran-russia-skripal-syria- chemical-weapons/29501645.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 Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang Dies at 61 Sputnik News 07:55 21.09.2018(updated 11:10 21.09.2018) The President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Tran Dai Quang, has passed away at the age of 61, according to Vietnamese state media. Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang succumbed to a serious illness and died Friday morning, Reuters reports, citing Vietnamese state TV. Tran Dai Quang had been in office since April 2, 2016; he was nominated by his predecessor Truong Tan Sang and elected to the post by the National Assembly of Vietnam. He had previously served as the country's Minister of Public Security and as Vice Head of the Committee on HIV/AIDS Prevention. Vietnam state TV reported that the president had died of a "serious illness despite efforts by domestic and international doctors and professors," according to Reuters. He passed away at the 108th Central Military Hospital at 10:05 am local time (3:05 am GMT), Vietnam News Agency reported. Condolences Over Death of Vietnamese President Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed his condolences to the Vietnamese people, family and friends of deceased Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang, the Kremlin press service said on Friday. The Russian Embassy in Hanoi on Friday conveyed condolences to Vietnam over the death of President Tran Dai Quang. "We express our deepest condolences over the passing away of the president of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, comrade Tran Dai Quang," the embassy wrote on Twitter. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday denounced the attack on an army parade in Iran, offering condolences to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and calling for deeper anti-terror cooperation. "Please accept the deepest condolences regarding the tragic consequences of the raid by terrorists in Ahvaz. We are appalled by this bloody crime," Putin wrote to Rouhani, according to the text of the telegram posted on the Kremlin website, RadioFarda reported. "We expect that everyone involved will face a deserved punishment," Putin said. "This event once again reminds us about the necessity of an uncompromising battle against terrorism in all of its manifestations. I would like to confirm our readiness to continue building cooperation with Iranian partners in resisting this evil." UN: We Are 'Losing Fight Against Famine' in Yemen By Margaret Besheer September 21, 2018 The U.N.'s humanitarian chief warned Friday that aid workers are "losing the fight against famine" in war-torn Yemen. "The position has deteriorated in an alarming way in recent weeks," Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock told the Security Council. "We may now be approaching a tipping point, beyond which it will be impossible to prevent massive loss of life as a result of widespread famine across the country." The U.N. has been raising alarm bells on the food crisis in Yemen for more than a year. Lowcock said Yemen's deepening economic troubles have escalated the situation. Millions of Yemenis no longer have regular salaries, including public servants who have not been paid in two years. In the past month, the local currency has plunged 30 percent in value, throwing one of the world's poorest countries into further economic despair. "Because almost all the food consumed in Yemen is imported, that translates directly into a sharp increase in the price of food for some 10 million Yemenis who are food insecure but are not reached by the relief operation," Lowcock said. He said humanitarians are starting to see pockets of famine-like conditions, including where people are eating leaves because they have no other food sources. Aid workers currently assist some 3 million people each month, but Lowcock said they hope to massively expand to reach 8 million this month. But that is a fraction of those in need. The U.N. says 18 million Yemenis are food insecure, and 8 million of them are severely insecure and do not know where their next meal will come from. Food insecurity is also being exacerbated by an intensification of fighting around the strategic Red Sea port city of Hodeida. Hodeida is a lifeline for Yemen. The country imports 90 percent of its food, fuel and medicines, and 70 percent of those goods come through the city's port. The Houthis have controlled Hodeida for the last two years and the Saudi-led coalition has stepped up military efforts to break their hold. Despite an international arms embargo against the rebels, the coalition accuses them of using the port to smuggle weapons into the country, a charge the Houthis deny. "We have to keep all the ports open, we have to keep all the main roads open, we have to keep them functional, we have to keep them safe," Lowcock told council members. "The lifeline through which the aid operation runs now hangs by a thread." The aid effort is well-funded, with $2.6 billion committed this year, including large contributions from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who are conducting the airstrikes. The Saudi-led coalition began bombing Houthi rebels in support of the Yemeni government in March 2015. Since then, the U.N. estimates more than 10,000 people have been killed, mostly due to airstrikes. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Britain to create massive cyber warfare unit with 2,000 personnel Iran Press TV Fri Sep 21, 2018 11:38AM The British government is to massively expand its cyber warfare infrastructure with the creation of a 2,000-strong unit that could absorb some 250 million pounds of annual funding and even more. The Sky News reported on Thursday that the initiative would represent a near four-fold increase in manpower focused on United Kingdom's offensive cyber operations. It said that officials from the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) will be staffed to the plan by the British Ministry of Defense which is aimed at countering the increasing cyber threats from countries like Russia. "By adopting offensive cyber techniques in the UK we are leveling the playing field and providing new means of both deterring and punishing states that wish to do us harm," said General Sir Richard Barrons, a former commander of Joint Forces Command. Some sources said that the annual budget earmarked for the new project will even exceed 250 million pounds. Britain has claimed that it has faced numerous cyber attacks from Russia over the past few years. Moscow denies the allegations. The two countries have also been at odds over the alleged poisoning of a former Russian double spy. British authorities have accused Russian government of direct involvement in the incident in March in the southern English city of Salisbury. Russia has rejected the claims, saying it is a scenario staged by British intelligence agencies to further undermine the bilateral relations. British authorities admitted recently that they had used cyber weapons for the first time to fight Daesh, a terrorist group that has now been almost obliterated from its bastions in Iraq and Syria. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Xi calls for focusing reforms on solving practical problems People's Daily Online (Xinhua) 07:25, September 21, 2018 BEIJING, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), called for focusing reforms on solving practical problems on Thursday. Xi, also Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks while presiding over the fourth meeting of the central committee for deepening overall reform, which he heads. Both the importance and difficulty of reform lie in implementation, Xi said. Saying that there are more and more favorable conditions for carrying out reforms and focusing on implementation, he called for putting more energy and efforts into implementation and focusing reforms on solving real problems. Li Keqiang and Wang Huning, both members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and deputy heads of the reform committee, attended the meeting. The meeting approved a number of documents: -- a document on promoting high-quality development; -- a document on establishing more effective mechanisms for coordinated regional development; -- measures on supporting pilot free trade zones' efforts to deepen reform and innovation; -- a guideline on improving regulation of systematically important financial institutions; -- a document on reforming and improving the national vaccine regulation system; -- a document on integrating systems of planning to make national development plans play a better role of strategic guidance; -- a document on promoting the alignment of small farmers with the development of modern agriculture. More efforts should be made to formulate policies that promote high-quality development in important areas including manufacturing, high-tech industries, service and infrastructure, and public services, and to put protecting the people's interests at a more prominent position, said a statement released after the meeting. More effective mechanisms for coordinated regional development should be set up by sticking to the new development philosophy, giving play to comparative advantages of each area, and narrowing regional development gap, said the statement, Pilot free trade zones should be granted more power to reform and further open up, as well as policy support to create a good environment for investment, boost trade facilitation, and make financial innovation serve the real economy, said the statement. Policies should be clarified to put in place institutional arrangements for identifying, regulating and dealing with systematically important financial institutions, it said. On vaccine regulation, strong measures should be adopted to enforce strict market access, strengthen market supervision, improve logistics and delivery, standardize vaccination management, eradicate regulation loopholes, and crack down on acts violating laws and regulations, it said. More efforts should also be made to set up a policy system supporting small farmers' development, boost their level of organization, and improve their production and operation capabilities, to transform them from traditional small farmers into modern ones, according to the statement. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Chinese Foreign Ministry Urges US to Lift Sanctions, Warns of Consequences Sputnik News 11:31 21.09.2018 BEIJING (Sputnik) - China urges the United States to immediately lift the new sanctions against Beijing over military cooperation with Russia, otherwise Washington will have to bear the consequences, Geng Shuang said. "We urge the US side to immediately correct its mistakes, lift the so-called sanctions, otherwise the US side will have to face the consequences," the spokesman told a briefing, commenting on the new sanctions. China has made a harsh representation to the United States over the sanctions against Beijing for military cooperation with Russia, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said on Friday. "The Chinese side expresses its extreme outrage with the mentioned actions and has already made a harsh representation," the spokesman told a briefing. The US sanctions, imposed against China over military cooperation with Russia, are a gross violation of the principles of international relations, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said. "The actions of the US side have grossly violated the basic principles of international relations The actions of the US side significantly undermine relations between the armed forces of China and the United States," the spokesman told a briefing, commenting on the new sanctions. The spokesman stressed that the cooperation between Russia and China, including in the defense area, did not violate international law and was not directed against third countries, adding that Beijing would continue to enhance collaboration with Moscow despite the US sanctions. On Thursday, a senior US administration official told reporters that the United States had sanctioned China's Equipment Development Department (EDD) and its Director Li Shangfu for buying missile defense systems and combat aircraft from Russia in violation of the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). Earlier this month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov criticized what he said was Washington's "sanctions-first" approach to diplomacy. The United States passed the CAATSA legislation in August 2017 in response in part to Russia's alleged interference in the 2016 US presidential election. Russia has denied all allegations of meddling in the election, calling the accusations "absurd." Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Hong Kong's High Speed Rail Debuts Amid Political Turmoil By Erin Hale September 21, 2018 As the first high speed train pulls out of Hong Kong's West Kowloon Station early Sunday morning to mainland China, it will cement a major change to the autonomous city's relationship with Beijing due to an unprecedented immigration deal, according to lawmakers and legal experts. Much of the concern is centered on an important feature of the HK86.42 billion ($11 billion) rail link, which has given China legal jurisdiction over part of the train station and the entire rail link, an arrangement known "co-location." It's a deal the Hong Kong government has said will ease immigration procedures, allowing travelers to go onto any Chinese city along the rail line. It's similar, they also say, to arrangements that exist between the United States and Canada, where travelers go through immigration in places like the Montreal airport before flying onto New York, according to promotional information on the rail line. But legal experts like Philip Dykes, chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association, said the agreement differs in small but crucial ways from other countries, beginning with the full powers given to Chinese immigration agents, which could have a serious impact on residents. "What is different about the arrangements we have made here is that the Hong Kong authorities have agreed that Chinese authorities may make full jurisdiction - that is to say not merely can they refuse entry but they can detain and remove," Dykes said. "So Hong Kong residents, in fact anybody who may use the new facility, may cross a line marked in the station which marks the end of Hong Kong jurisdiction, pass over into mainland controlled area and if he or she falls foul of those authorities they may be detained and then taken away into the mainland." While the powers of U.S. immigration agents in Canada were recently expanded, they are still significantly more limited than in Hong Kong, Dykes said. U.S. agents in Canada, for example, are not permitted to interrogate or arrest a traveler at their own discretion under Canada's Pre-clearance Act of 2016. Similar restrictions do not apply to Chinese agents in Hong Kong. Then there is the fact that while the United States and Canada have comparable legal systems, Hong Kong and China differ in significant ways. Hong Kong police, for example, can only hold someone for 72 hours without charge. In China, a suspect can be detained for up to 37 days without being arrested, after which time they may wait months before being formally charged. But it's not just technical concerns, though, that have lawyers and pro-democratic legislators worried. They have also expressed deep concerns about what granting China a legal foothold in Hong Kong territory would mean long term for the former British colony. One country, two systems Under the terms of the return of Hong Kong to China in 1997, it is supposed to have separate rights and privileges until 2047 in an arrangement known as "one country, two systems." Many of these are spelled out in the Basic Law, including Article 18, which says no Chinese laws, with few exceptions, will apply on Hong Kong soil. "Now what ever happened to 'one country, two systems'? And you would say 'Oh it's just an arrangement, for the sake of they say for speed convenience, expediency. But then technically, a Hong Kong person within Hong Kong territory from now on if you go inside that station will not be able to apply for habeas corpus to Hong Kong courts because that's already Chinese territory," said Claudia Mo, a legislator for Kowloon West who has previously spoken out against the co-location agreement. "Now they've done this, once they've done this, they can declare any space in Hong Kong, this legislature for example, Chinese territory and they can say mainland Chinese laws apply here. And this is just not right," she added. The Hong Kong government directed VOA to a previous statement from late last year in response to questions on the co-location agreement. In the statement, the government said the Chinese "port area" of West Kowloon Station is legally "situated in the Mainland," Article 18 and the Basic Law do not apply in this case. "For the high-speed rail passengers who use the procedures for exit and entry under the co-location arrangement, the procedures and their rights are basically the same as those under the traditional "separate location" arrangement," it said. "The main difference is that co-location arrangement is more convenient and efficient." The immigration arrangement will be the subject of a legal case at Hong Kong's High Court on October 30. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Despite Optics of Inter-Korea Summit, Denuclearization Still Distant By Kim Young-nam, Patrick Park September 20, 2018 Despite the sound bites and photos that emerged from the third summit between the leaders of South Korea and North Korea, peace and denuclearization remain distant, experts said. "The video images of the hand-holding and hugging" gave "the impression that things are much farther along toward a peaceful settlement of disputes between North and South Korea than we know is in the reality," Douglas Paal, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said of the meeting. The three-day summit began Tuesday with thousands of North Koreans lining the streets of Pyongyang to welcome South Korean President Moon Jae-in on his first trip to North Korea. It concluded with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Moon, and their wives, making a highly symbolic visit to Mount Baekdu, an active volcano near North Korea's border with China that is the mythic birthplace of all Korean people, and the purported birthplace of Kim's father. Joint statement disappoints The joint statement announced by the two leaders Wednesday, however, did not achieve the kind of concrete advance on denuclearization that North Korean watchers in Washington had hoped for after U.S.-North Korea relations appeared to hit a snag with the late August cancellation of a planned trip by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Pyongyang. "[The summit] certainly improved the atmospherics on the peninsula in a way that I think is historic and certainly unprecedented," said Christopher Hill, a chief negotiator with North Korea during the George W. Bush administration. The two Korean leaders agreed to transform the peninsula into a "land of peace without nuclear weapons and nuclear threats." That prompted Pompeo to invite North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho to meet in New York next week, where both are scheduled to attend the United Nations General Assembly. "I don't think, however, there's a big change on the denuclearization," Hill said. Other experts said the joint declaration that the two leaders signed lacked substantive denuclearization agreements. "I think it's beneficial that [denuclearization] was raised as a topic," Paal said. "But we're not any closer to the steps toward real denuclearization as a result of this document so it should not be mistaken for progress." Paal added that absence of specific steps toward denuclearization "reflects (the) current status of the impasse between the sides on this issue." Kim sleight of hand Although Kim agreed to dismantle the Tongchang-ri missile test facilities, also known as Sohae, under the observation of international inspectors, "for the first time to witness the destruction. It doesn't mean very much because you don't need outside inspection to verify that these big facilities have been destroyed" given that satellites can track the process, according to Gary Samore, the White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction during the Obama administration. And because Kim had already agreed to partially destroy the Tongchang-ri site, which mainly was used to test engines built for long-range missiles such as the Hwasong-15, during the Singapore summit with President Donald Trump in June, "It's selling the dead horse twice," Paal said. In the joint declaration, Kim also expressed his intent to dismantle the Yongbyon nuclear test site upon "corresponding measures" by the U.S. but "Yongbyon can easily be reactivated after being suspended, as we saw with its reactivation in 2003 after having been suspended since 1994," said Sung-Yoon Lee, a professor of Korean studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. "It's all a sleight of hand. Kim is the magician we are being conditioned to believe." General Jack Keane, a retired four-star Army general and former Army vice chief of staff said dismantling the Yongbyon facilities "is still not disarmament." He added, "Without disarming nuclear weapons and their fuel and destroying ballistic missiles we have a long way to go." The kind of corresponding measures Kim is seeking most likely will involve "the question of the [South Korea]-U.S. alliance," Hill said. What Pyongyang wants North Korea could ask for measures such as a peace declaration, which both Koreas want as a way to end the Korean War that was suspended in 1953 with an armistice rather than a peace treaty, said Michael Fuchs, deputy assistant secretary of state for Eastern Asia and Pacific affairs during the Obama administration. Pyongyang is also likely to reiterate its demand for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the peninsula, Paal said. North Korea has repeatedly said that the U.S. military presence in South Korea poses a threat to its regime. Currently, there are about 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea. Bruce Klingner, a onetime intelligence officer specializing in Korean affairs who is a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said evidence points to the contrary. "When North Korea says it needs evidence that the U.S. and South Korea don't have a hostile policy, well, which Korea invaded the other in 1950? Which Korea has committed countless acts of terror, war, threatened and killed [citizens of] the other Korea?" Klingner said. "It's always North Korea that's done the heinous acts, so it's the U.S. and Seoul which should be demanding actions first from North Korea, not only to fulfill the requirements under the 11 U.N. resolutions, but also to prove North Korea doesn't have any more hostile intent." Keane said the U.S. will maintain its military presence until North Korea removes its complete stockpile of nuclear weapons and missiles. "We are not going to fall into that trap," Keane said. "The United States sees that for what it is, and we are not certainly removing any troops from South Korea until such time as [there are] no nuclear weapons and no ballistic missiles in the North." Inter-Korea projects At the summit, Moon agreed with Kim to start construction of a railroad to connect the countries, and resume operations at the Kaesong Industrial Complex and tours on Mount Kumgang. The ventures have the potential to violate international sanctions imposed on North Korea. "So here, President Moon is making a lot of promises he can't fulfill without the U.N. or the U.S. backing off on enforcement of U.N. sanctions and U.S. law," Klingner said. "Many, particularly in Seoul, are advocating relief or release from sanctions. But all of the U.N. and U.S. sanctions and targeted financial measures are a response to North Korean illegal or aberrant behavior." The agreement to reduce tensions along the North Korean and South Korean division of demilitarized zone (DMZ) is real progress, however. "The most tangible progress here in terms of improving the situation on the Korean Peninsula is the multiple-page military agreement that was signed by both sides that outlines a significant number of steps to try to reduce military tensions at the DMZ, which I think is a good step," Fuchs said. At the summit, South Korean Minister of National Defense Song Young-moo and First Vice Minister of People's Armed Forces of North Korea No Kwang Chul signed a comprehensive military agreement to halt military exercises along the military demarcation line by Nov. 1 and remove 11 guard posts in the DMZ by year's end. Keane said the plan to have "the two armies from South and North pull away from each other," is a good sign as they will no longer be "deployed inside their respective countries to go to war and return to their bases and just doing their routine training." However, he added, "I think that we could have to see all of that before we would consider reducing our troop's level." VOA's Christy Lee contributed to this report. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address President Moon Jae In and His Party Leave Samjiyon--Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un Sees off Moon Jae In at Samjiyon Airport Korean Central News Agency of DPRK Pyongyang, September 21 (KCNA) -- Kim Jong Un, chairman of the Workers' Party of Korea and chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the DPRK, said goodbye to President Moon Jae In making his way home after the successful historic north-south summit meeting and talks. Supreme Leader of the Party, state and army Kim Jong Un and his wife Ri Sol Ju greeted President Moon Jae In and his wife Kim Jung Sook at Samjiyon Airport on Thursday afternoon. Present at the airport were Kim Yong Chol, vice-chairman of the WPK Central Committee, Army General No Kwang Chol, minister of the People's Armed Forces, Ri Son Gwon, chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country, Ri Sang Won, chairman of the Ryanggang Provincial Committee of the WPK, and Ri Song Guk, chairman of the Ryanggang Provincial People's Committee. There was a ceremony of seeing off Moon Jae In. Moon Jae In together with Kim Jong Un reviewed the honor guard of the Korean People's Army. Women workers presented bouquets to Moon Jae In and his wife. Kim Jong Un exchanged warm farewell with Moon Jae In. Moon Jae In and his party boarded the plane, amid warm send-off by people of Samjiyon County. Kim Jong Un and his wife Ri Sol Ju warmly saw off Moon Jae In and his wife. The historic September Pyongyang meeting and talks between the top leaders of the north and the south marked an epochal turning point in further consolidating the valuable achievements made by the north and the south and developing with added speed the north-south ties along the new orbit of peace, orbit of reconciliation and cooperation so as to open the heyday of the great cause of reunification. -0- (2018.09.21) NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address As India mulls buying S-400 from Russia, US threatens it with tough sanctions IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency New Delhi, Sept 21, IRNA -- The purchase of major military equipment like the multi-billion-dollar S-400 Triumf from Russia would be considered as a 'significant transaction' and has a potential for imposing tough US sanctions, the Trump administration said Friday, as India mulls buying the air defense systems. Trump on Thursday signed an executive order, paving the way for slapping crippling sanctions on countries and foreign entities and individuals violating the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA).After signing of the order, the US imposed sanctions on a Chinese entity, the Equipment Development Department and its director Li Shangfu for its recent purchase of Russian Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets and S-400 surface-to-air missile, a senior administration official told reporters during a conference call, according to DNA India. The CAATSA that imposed sanctions on Iran, North Korea and Russia, has the potential to affect India's defence purchases as it is planning to buy five S-400 Triumf missile air defence systems from Russia for around USD 4.5 billion. 'We want to stress that the legislative standard here is a significant transaction with an entity that appears on the List of Specified Persons. We took these actions because China took delivery of 10 Sukhoi fighter aircraft, specifically Su-25s, in December of 2017, after the CAATSA statute came into force. It also took delivery of a batch of S-400 sometimes known as SA-21 surface-to-air missile systems or related equipment in January of this year,' the official said. The US official, who did not wish to be identified emphasized that the ultimate target of these sanctions was Russia. 'CAATSA sanctions in this context are not intended to undermine the defense capabilities of any particular country. They are instead aimed at imposing costs upon Russia in response to its malign activities,' he said. 'Those malign activities are undertaken to compete with the US and its allies and partners. This is for the first time that the US has sanctioned anyone under Section 231 of CAATSA, which focuses upon, those who engage in significant transactions with entities that appear on the LSP (List of Specified Persons),' the official said. He declined to answer a question whether the US would be taking similar action against countries, like Turkey, that buy S-400 missile defense system. 'As to other potential recipients of the S-400, we haven't made any determinations yet with respect to what to do about those, but you can be confident that we have spent an enormous amount of time talking about prospective purchases of things such as S-400s and Sukhois with people all around the world who may have been interested in such things and some who may still be,' the official said. He said the Trump administration has made it 'very clear' to these countries that these systems like the S-400 are a system of key concern with potential CAATSA implications. 'So while decisions on other cases have yet to be made, and indeed other transactions have yet to occur, we hope that at least this step will send a signal of our seriousness and perhaps encourage others to think twice about their own engagement with the Russian defense and intelligence sectors, which would of course be precisely what we hope Congress intended, and what we are required to do pursuant to the fact,' the official said. In the recent 2+2 Dialogue held in New Delhi, US Defense Secretary James Mattis had said, 'The sanctions aren't intended to adversely impact countries like India. They are intended to have an impact the sanctioned country, which is Russia. And so we'll work our way through the waiver decision as the days and weeks proceed, and we'll do that alongside our partner, India, as well.' He had also said that the US was working to impose CAATSA Section 231 in a way that is appropriate and lawful and to exercise that waiver authority only where it makes sense. 8072**1396 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US threatens India with sanctions over plan to buy S-400 system Iran Press TV Fri Sep 21, 2018 08:44PM The United States has threatened India with sanctions over New Delhi's decision to buy the S-400 air defense missile system from Russia. The Trump administration issued the warning on Friday, saying that buying such an advanced system would be considered as a "significant transaction" and that there could be "implications". This comes one day after President Donald Trump signed an executive order, allowing the imposition of sanctions on countries and foreign entities as well as individuals that violate the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). Washington imposed sanctions on China for recently purchasing Russian Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets and the S-400 surface-to-air missile system, according to a senior US administration official, who talked to reporters during a conference call. The CAATSA that imposed sanctions on Iran, North Korea and Russia, has also the potential to affect India's defense purchases. "We want to stress that the legislative standard here is a significant transaction with an entity that appears on the List of Specified Persons. We took these actions because China took delivery of 10 Sukhoi fighter aircraft, specifically Su-25s, in December of 2017, after the CAATSA statute came into force. It also took delivery of a batch of S-400 - sometimes known as SA-21 - surface-to-air missile systems or related equipment in January of this year," the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said. The US official also emphasized that the ultimate target of these sanctions was Russia for what he described as Moscow's "malign activities". "Those malign activities are undertaken to compete with the US and its allies and partners. This is for the first time that the US has sanctioned anyone under Section 231 of CAATSA, which focuses upon, those who engage in significant transactions with entities that appear on the LSP (List of Specified Persons)," the official stated. India, China and Vietnam are the principal sources of demand for Russian weapons in the region. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran denies report of request for meeting with Trump Iran Press TV Fri Sep 21, 2018 10:39AM Iran's foreign ministry has categorically rejected "ridiculous" media reports that the country had requested a meeting with US President Donald Trump. Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi on Friday dismissed as "ridiculous" claims attributed to US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani had asked for a bilateral meeting with Trump. Speaking to IRNA, Qassemi referred to the report as part of a media campaign launched by certain circles in a naive attempt to distort realities on the ground. "Our memory is filled with such campaigns," Qassemi noted, reiterating that Iran has never called for a meeting with the US president. His comments came as Trump is set to chair a UN Security Council meeting next week on Iran and other issues, and has already expressed his willingness to meet his Iranian counterpart in that meeting. Rouhani will leave Tehran for New York in the coming days to attend the UN General Assembly, but has no plan to attend the UN Security Council meeting. Haley claimed earlier that Trump may consider accepting an Iranian invitation for a bilateral meeting with President Rouhani. Iran, however, has declared there will be no point in a meeting between the two presidents after Trump's decision to unilaterally withdraw from the multi-national nuclear deal in May. Last month, Rouhani dismissed Washington's offer of talks, saying the US had burned its bridges for negotiations with Tehran. "The US itself has acted in such a way that has destroyed the circumstances required for negotiations. It has burned its bridges," he noted on August 15. "Now, the US is standing on the other side," wondering how to cross, the president noted, adding, "If it is honest, it should fix that bridge again." The US president said on July 30 that he is ready to meet his Iranian counterpart "any time they want to," adding, "No preconditions. If they want to meet, I'll meet." Trump's call for talks with Rouhani comes as he has vowed to impose the "strongest sanctions in history" against Iran unless the country fulfills a list of demands. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says the Islamic Republic will give a "crushing" response to the slightest threat against the country, PressTV reports. The Iranian president made the remarks during separate phone calls with Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli and governor of the southwestern Iranian province of Khuzestan on Saturday, following a terrorist attack on a military parade in the provincial capital of Ahvaz. "Those who are providing these terrorists with propaganda and intelligence support must be held accountable," Rouhani said. He expressed his sympathy with the bereaved families of the victims of the terrorist attack and ordered Iranian officials to adopt immediate measures to treat the injured. Iran's Army, IRGC hold joint aerial drills in Persian Gulf, Sea of Oman Iran Press TV Fri Sep 21, 2018 08:51AM The air forces of Iran's Army and Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) have started joint aerials drills in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman. The drills came on the eve of the Holy Defense Week which would start on Saturday. The Holy Defense Week is an annual event meant to honor eight years of resistance against the invading forces of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein who launched a war on Iran from September 22, 1980 to August 20, 1988. Twenty-six military aircraft, including F-4s, Sukhoi-22s, and Tucanos, as well as five helicopter gunships, including Chinooks, would be flown during the drills, said the Army's Information and Public Relations' Deputy, Colonel Yousuf Safipour, IRNA reported. The military official said the event was used to showcase the country's power. "Should the enemies and the global arrogance covet the Islamic country's territory, they would be served with a crushing response within a fraction of a second." The exercises, however, also aim to send across a message of peace and friendship to friendly and neighboring countries. 'Iran's regional superiority' Speaking on the sidelines of the drills, Brigadier General Amir Vahedi, the deputy commander of the Army's Air Force, asserted that the country had displayed its superiority to the entire world during years of war with Iraq. "Currently, no country in the region is capable of confronting us at all. We are strong defenders in the face of aggressors, and will make aggressors regret their incursion," he asserted. He hailed the state-of-the-art and indigenous quality of the entire equipment used by the country's defense forces. Vahedi also noted that despite the enemies' desire to create division between the Army and the IRGC, the forces maintained optimal coordination and synergy with one another in ensuring the security of the country and its people. The Army and the Corps are also to hold a joint parade in the capital Tehran and the port city of Bandar Abbas simultaneously on Saturday to mark the beginning of the week that commemorates Iran's eight-year resistance against Iraq's 1980-88 invasion. The joint parade deploys 600 naval vessels and dozens of fighter planes to display the country's deterrence power. According to IRGC spokesman Brigadier General Ramezan Sharif, the parade "will show that, towards preserving the country's national preferences and interests, the armed forces of the Islamic Republic are prepared to act on the will of its Islamic establishment and people to confront any threat posed by the enemies in this strategic region." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran Holds Air Drill Near Crucial Oil Chokepoint Amid US Sanctions - Reports Sputnik News 17:05 21.09.2018 The Iranian military and the Revolutionary Guard have deployed planes and helicopters for an exercise over the Persian Gulf. This comes on the heels of Tehran's threat to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz over looming US oil sanctions. Iran's air force has launched a drill near the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping waterway linking the oil-rich countries of the Persian Gulf with the open ocean, the state-owned news Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported Friday. The exercise involves aircraft of Iran's military and the Revolutionary Guard Corps, a special unit tasked with protecting the ideals of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. They include US-made F-4, French Mirage, Brazilian Tucano, and Russian Sukhoi Su-22 and Yakovlev Yak-12 jets as well as American Chinook and Bell 212 helicopters. A spokesman for Iran's air force said that the drill was a warning to Tehran's enemies that military action against the country would trigger a "quick and stern response." The exercise marks the start of the Sacred Defense Week, an annual commemoration of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war. The first day of celebrations begins on the day Iraqi President Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in 1980. In July, Iran warned that it would shut down the Strait of Hormuz, which handles some 30 percent of the world's crude oil trade, over renewed US sanctions. This came after US President Donald Trump pulled America out of the landmark Iran nuclear deal between Iran and world powers in May, citing what he saw as flaws in the agreement. Trump re-imposed crippling economic sanctions on Tehran and companies doing business with it, prompting a withdrawal of investors from the Iranian market. Washington's oil sanctions on Iran, which are set to resume on November 4, have already led to a sharp drop in Iran's oil exports: according to Forbes, the country's crude sales dropped by a whopping 62 percent since May. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Tehran Refutes Reports About Requesting Meeting With Trump Sputnik News 06:53 21.09.2018(updated 12:46 21.09.2018) MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Iranian Foreign Ministry on Friday denied reports that Tehran requested a meeting between President Hassan Rouhani and US President Donald Trump under the framework of the UN General Assembly. "I reiterate that the Iranian side has never requested a meeting with Mr. Trump," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said. Earlier in the day, US Ambassador to UN Nikki Haley said in a briefing that US President Donald Trump, who will chair a UN Security Council meeting next week on Iran and other nations with weapons of mass destruction (WMD), would consider accepting an Iranian invitation for a bilateral meeting with President Hassan Rouhani "Certainly, if Rouhani requested a meeting, that would be for the president to decide whether he wants to do that," Haley told reporters. Haley explained that the agenda for Wednesday's meeting, which was originally intended to focus on Iran's involvement in a number of global hot spots, has since been broadened to focus on multiple WMD nations such as Iran, North Korea and Syria. Trump will host the UN Security Council on Wednesday, during a week of meetings marking 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly. The session begins on Tuesday and runs for nine days. Previously, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that there was no point in a meeting between Hassan Rouhani and Donald Trump after the latter's decision to leave the nuclear deal with Iran, noting that it would depend on Trump whether Tehran would be ready to sign the new deal with the United States. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Pakistan's PM Khan urges India to resolve disputes, including Kashmir Iran Press TV Fri Sep 21, 2018 08:39AM Newly-elected Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has called on his Indian counterpart to engage in bilateral efforts to resolve outstanding disputes, including the issue of Kashmir. Pakistan's Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Faisal tweeted Thursday that Khan sent a letter to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in response to Modi's call for a "meaningful and constructive engagement" earlier this month. Khan called for a meeting between the two nations' foreign ministers on the sidelines of the annual session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York later in September. New Delhi's foreign affairs ministry has responded affirmatively to the suggestion for the UN meeting. Tensions remain high in Indian-controlled Kashmir, where its predominantly Muslim population has demanded autonomy from New Delhi or a merger with Pakistan. India has ignored the call and continues to police the region with military force. About 70,000 people have been killed in India's crackdown in Kashmir since 1989. The disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir has been partitioned and divided between the two nuclear power countries but claimed in entirety by both countries since they gained independence from Britain in 1947. India and Pakistan have fought three wars over the disputed territory. Despite a ceasefire agreement that was reached in November 2003, sporadic skirmishes continue in Kashmir. Pakistan invites Saudi to invest in China-funded corridor Islamabad has also invited Saudi Arabia to invest in the China-funded, multi-billion-dollar infrastructure corridor being built in the country, according to its information minister. The announcement on Thursday came amid growing concerns over Pakistan's debt levels and warning by analysts that its new prime minister will need to adopt urgent measures, such as seeking a bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), unless it can secure other funding. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is an ambitious plan to build energy and transport links connecting the western Chinese region of Xinjiang with the Arabian Sea via Pakistan, as part of Beijing's broader Belt and Road initiative. The opaqueness of CPEC financing, however, has generated concerns since Islamabad faces a looming balance-of-payments crisis, including fears about its ability to repay Chinese loans. "Saudi Arabia is the first country whom we have invited to join CPEC as third partner," Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry announced in an Islamabad press briefing following Khan's recent tour of the Saudi Kingdom, his first foreign visit since becoming prime minister. Chaudhry further stated that a Saudi delegation, including the finance and energy ministers, will visit Pakistan in the first week of October to lay the foundations for "big financial cooperation" between the two countries. China's "Belt and Road" initiative aims to build a modern-day "Silk Road" at a cost of $1 trillion. The ancient trade route will be revived through a massive rail and maritime network across Asia and Europe. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Kremlin Scrambles As Regions Prepare For Runoff Votes Matthew Luxmoore September 21, 2018 There is an unspoken agreement in the Russian political scene: the heads of the country's 85 regions enjoy the Kremlin's backing, and in exchange they deliver high local support and election turnout for the ruling United Russia party. Yet a handful of unexpected results in gubernatorial elections, including the surprising annulment of a runoff vote in Russia's Far East, have exposed possible cracks in that arrangement. United Russia candidates -- including incumbent governors -- were forced into unexpected runoff elections on September 23 against candidates whose financing and administrative resources pale in comparison. The opposition, however, is seen to benefit from simmering public anger over the government's plans to reform the pension system by hiking the retirement age by five years. The government's approval rating has dropped precipitously since the initiative was announced in April, and many analysts see protest votes behind the four September 9 polls that will ultimately be decided in the upcoming runoffs. Vyacheslav Polovinko, a political analyst for the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, says that "protests against the pension reform and the government's disgusting conduct in elections plays perfectly into the hands of the left." But the Communist Party (KPRF), which is fielding runoff candidates in two of the four regions, is unlikely to take advantage. "The KPRF doesn't need a conflict with the Kremlin," Polovinko notes. An Omen To The Kremlin? The Kremlin appears to be scrambling to avert second-round upsets. Ahead of the September 23 votes, it has dispatched officials from its Domestic Policy Directorate to three of the regions -- Primorye, Vladimir, and Khabarovsk. In the fourth, Khakasia, the Communist candidate has been pressured to withdraw amid threats of a black PR campaign against him, sources in his party told the newspaper Vedomosti. It's unclear who issued the threats, and the Communist Party has publicly refuted the claims. The recent failure of United Russia to walk away with a victory in Primorye, seven time zones from Moscow, may serve as an omen for the Kremlin. The election commission there stands accused of brazen vote tampering during the region's September 16 runoff, an alleged effort to secure the victory of Andrei Tarasenko, the United Russian candidate and acting governor since October 2017. Late on September 16, with 95 percent of the ballots counted, Tarasenko was nearly 6 percentage points behind his Communist challenger, Andrei Ishchenko. Ishchenko's supporters began reveling in an astounding victory over a system they believed was rigged. "It was PEOPLE who voted for Andrei Ishchenko," one wrote on Facebook. "Ballot stuffing, double-voting, bribes, blackmail and threats -- none of this worked." But the celebration proved premature. An extraordinary last-minute surge handed Tarasenko a razor-thin victory. Ishchenko cried foul, announcing an indefinite hunger strike and calling on his supporters to join him in central Vladivostok. On September 19, the Central Election Commission (TsIK) in Moscow called for the result to be annulled and a new vote to be held by December. It will mark the first time since Vladimir Putin took power that an election rerun will determine the governor of a Russian region. Moscow has conceded that vote-rigging took place on September 16, but far from admitting systemic problems, it portrayed the situation in Primorye as an isolated incident. Ella Pamfilova, the former human rights ombudswoman who now heads the TsIK, warned that the perpetrators of the election fraud would face up to four years in jail. 'Systemic Opposition' Polovinko believes the Kremlin has learned its lesson, and that "it will try to at least soften the falsifications" after the debacle in Primorye. "And if the systemic opposition wins," he adds, "then it won't insist on its candidates but build relations with the new governor." Polovinko says not to expect anything revolutionary, however, even if the results go against the ruling party. The candidates running against United Russia in the September 23 runoff votes, he argues, are from the so-called "systemic opposition" -- meaning they "fit into the system." "The Kremlin cares less about a United Russia victory than that the winning candidate can be worked with," he adds. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/kremlin-scrambles-as-regions- prepare-for-runoff-votes/29502726.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 China, Russia Agree to Speed Up Talks on Joint Helicopter Project Minister Sputnik News 09:53 21.09.2018(updated 10:44 21.09.2018) KUNMING (Sputnik) - China and Russia have agreed to accelerate negotiations on the project for the joint development of a heavy-lift helicopter, Chinese Minister of Industry and Information Technology Miao Wei said on Friday. "We discussed with colleagues relevant issues concerning the project to develop a heavy helicopter. We have already reached a consensus on the majority of them and agreed to accelerate the negotiation process on the remaining issues," Miao told reporters after the meeting. According to the minister, China and Russia "exchanged views on cooperation in civil aviation and discussed issues concerning further promotion" of the joint project of building a wide-body long-range passenger aircraft, named CR929. The sides also set out their ideas and concrete proposals on further cooperation in development of aircraft engines, Miao added. Earlier in the day, Miao and Russian Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov took part in the third meeting of the Russian-Chinese subcommittee on industrial cooperation. Back in May 2016, the Russian Helicopters, part of the state corporation Rostec, and the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) signed a framework cooperation agreement on development of an advanced heavy-lift helicopter with maximum take-off weight of 38.2 tonnes. The CR929 aircraft project was developed by Russia's United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) and the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC). Its cost is estimated at $13-20 billion, while the jet is expected to be put into commercial production between 2025 and 2027. The sides are planning for the jumbo jet to have a capacity of 250 to 300 passengers which will be able to rival other leading aircraft manufacturers Airbus and Boeing and occupy an essential market share not only in Russia and China, but in other countries as well. Russia is ready to provide export assistance to all joint industrial projects implemented in Russia with Chinese participation, Manturov said. Earlier in the day, Manturov and Chinese Minister of Industry and Information Technology Miao Wei met for the third meeting of the Russian-Chinese subcommittee on industrial cooperation "In the context of development of cooperation between our two countries, I would like to stress that we are ready to provide complex export support in promoting the jointly manufactured products to all industrial projects implemented in Russia with the participation of capital from China," Manturov said during the meeting. The minister expressed belief that Russian companies and their Chinese partners would seize this opportunity to step up exports which would, in turn, accelerate the development of high-tech processing industries and diversification of the respective economies. Manturov also praised mutual trade growth, noting that there were all prerequisites for bilateral trade to surpass $100 billion. Russia Plans to Organize Construction Materials Production in Syria Russia plans to organize production of construction materials in Syria, which would be used in the local market, Russian Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov said on Friday. "We have been cooperating with Syria for a long time to supply road construction equipment there. Building materials are the first thing which will go to Syria for reconstruction. [Russia plans] to organize the production of construction products and materials for use in the local market," Manturov told reporters. Over the past years, Syrian government forces regained control over vast territories once controlled by terrorists. The local authorities are currently engaged in rebuilding the country as thousands of Syrian refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) are returning to their homes. Moscow has been actively supporting the Syrian authorities' humanitarian and reconstruction efforts. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russian Bombers Carry Out Scheduled Arctic Ocean Flights, Shadowed by UK Jets Sputnik News 06:46 21.09.2018 MOSCOW/LONDON (Sputnik) - Two Russian Tu-160 strategic bombers have conducted scheduled flights over neutral waters of the Arctic Ocean, the Russian Defense Ministry said late on Thursday. "Two strategic Tu-160 bombers carried out a planned flight over the neutral waters of the basins of the Barents, Norwegian and Northern seas. Aviation support for the long-range aircraft was provided by the crews of MiG-31 fighters," the statement read. The flight's duration was more than 14 hours, according to the ministry. "At separate stages of the route, Russian aircraft were shadowed by Eurofighter Typhoon and F-16 fighters of the Royal Air Force," the ministry noted. The flights of the Russian planes are carried out in full compliance with the international law without violating any third country's airspace, according to the ministry. The UK Ministry of Defence, in its turn, said on Thursday that the Royal Air Force Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) Typhoon fighter jets monitored two Russian planes approaching UK airspace. "The Russian [Tu-160] Blackjacks long-range bombers were not talking to air traffic control, making them a hazard to all other aviation," the UK ministry said in a statement. The UK fighter jets escorted the Russian aircraft north out of the UK area of interest, according to the statement. The UK Defence Ministry noted that the Russian bombers had not entered UK airspace. UK Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson called the incident "another reminder of the very serious military challenge" that Moscow posed to London. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Germany breaks Saudi arms ban promise Iran Press TV Fri Sep 21, 2018 06:45AM Germany has approved selling artillery positioning systems to Saudi Arabia, going back on a ban that the European country had ordered on the sale of weapons to the countries involved in the war on Yemen. Economy Minister Peter Altmaier announced the permission in a letter to lawmakers, Reuters reported citing a German government document. The positioning systems, four of which are bound for Saudi Arabia, enable spotting of "enemy fire," thus lending more precision to counterstrikes. Germany, one of the world's biggest arms exporters, had ordered the ban on the weapons delivery in March in an apparent reaction to the Saudi-led invasion of Yemen. The reversal came less than a week after Spain, which had earlier suspended the sale of 400 laser-guided bombs to the Saudi kingdom, said it would reauthorize the sale to "honor" a contract made with Riyadh by the previous government in 2015. Last week, Spanish media outlets said that Riyadh was preparing to react to the freeze by cancelling a warship contract worth $2.2 billion with Madrid. The outlets said that the warship deal would create 6,000 jobs in Spain. Saudi Arabia led many of its allies in the invasion that started in 2015 to restore power to Yemen's former Riyadh-friendly authorities. Around 15,000 have lost their lives ever since, and now, the United Nations says more than eight million Yemenis are on the brink of famine. The kingdom and its allies are accused of committing war crimes against the Arab world's most impoverished nation. A report launched on August 28 by the Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen (YemenGEE), which was established in 2017 by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, concluded that individuals in the governments of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Riyadh's key ally in the invasion, could be liable for acts that amounted to international crimes. "There is little evidence of any attempt by parties to the conflict to minimize civilian casualties. I call upon them to prioritize human dignity in this forgotten conflict," said Kamel Jendoubi, chairperson of YemenGEE. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Syrian army tightens noose on Daesh terrorists in al-Safa IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, Sept 21, IRNA -- Syrian Army units tightened the noose on Daesh (ISIS) terrorists fortified in al-Safa hills deep into Sweida badiya (desert), killing and wounding many of their members. The terrorists were left hemmed in after the army consolidated its points deep into the steepy rocky cliffs ringing al-Safa hills which are cleaved by holes, burrows and crevices that terrorists have been using for hiding, SANA reporter said. The reporter added that the Syrian air force and artillery continued to pound terrorists' fortification and dens in the area, killing a number of them and aborting infiltration attempts towards army positions. 1396**1396 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russia asks Israel to give more explanation on plane downing in Syria Iran Press TV Fri Sep 21, 2018 10:08AM Russia's Foreign Ministry has urged Israel to provide further explanations on the deadly crash of a Russian military plane in the Syrian province of Latakia, which was shot down as a result of the Israeli pilots' unprofessional actions. Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Thursday said Russian experts had confirmed the actions of Israeli pilots resulted in the downing of the aircraft by the Syrian air defenses and deaths of 15 Russian servicemen. She stressed that Israeli pilots were behaving in an unprofessional manner at the very least, saying that Russia still needed to hear more "explanations from Israel". Her comments came after an Israeli delegation led by Amikam Norkin, the regime's air force commander, traveled to Moscow on Thursday with information about the crash. However, the delegation's explanations apparently failed to convince the Russian government. On the same day, the Russian Embassy in Tel Aviv lashed out at Israel for its "irresponsible and unfriendly actions," and pinned the blame on Israel's Air Force, which was conducting aerial assaults against Syrian army positions when the incident happened. "Moscow views as irresponsible and unfriendly actions of Israeli Air Force, which exposed Russian Il-20 aircraft to danger and led to death of 15 servicemen," the Russian embassy said in a tweet. "Russia would take all necessary measures to eliminate threat to life and security of our military fighting against terrorism," it added. The Israel regime has over the past years carried out numerous strikes against Syrian army positions in what is widely viewed as an attempt to help the terrorists survive in the face of successful Syrian army operations. It has defied criticisms of its unlawful military actions against Syrian soil. The regime's minister for military affairs, Avigdor Lieberman, said Thursday that the regime would not stop such attacks, but would do more to "de-conflict" them with Russian forces. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address resident Hassan Rouhani said Saturday the United States became isolated after President Donald Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal with the world powers, Iran Daily reports. He made the remarks at a military parade in Tehran marking the start of Iraqs 1980-88 war against Iran. The Iranian president said Trump will fail in his confrontation with Iran, just like Iraq's dictator Saddam Hussein. "Saddam did not achieve its objective during the imposed war despite being supported by all global and regional powers," Rouhani said. "We won back our territory from the aggressor. The UN and the Security Council designated Saddam as the person who began the war and all the countries that had helped Saddam later expressed regret and confessed to their crimes," he said. Israeli Air Force Chief Holds 'Open' Talks In Moscow On Syrian Downing Of Russian Plane RFE/RL September 21, 2018 Israel's air force chief held "professional, open" talks with officials in Moscow in the aftermath of the shoot-down of a Russian warplane by Syria earlier in the week that Russian officials said was caused by Israeli actions. Major General Amikam Norkin traveled to Moscow on September 20 to share his military's findings on the incident in which 15 Russian service-members aboard the Il-20 surveillance plane were killed off the coast of Syria. Russia has acknowledged that antiaircraft forces of its ally Syria inadvertently brought down the plane, but it also blamed Israel for conducting a fighter jet raid on Syrian forces around the same time. A statement released by the Israeli military after Norkin's Moscow visit said that "the meetings were held in good spirits, and the representatives shared a professional, open, and transparent discussion on various issues." "Both sides emphasized the importance of the states' interests and the continued implementation of the deconfliction system," the statement said. Israel and Russia have set up an exchange of information between their forces operating in and around Syria to reduce the risk of air incidents. The Russian plane was shot down by Syrian air defenses on September 17 after Israeli missiles struck the coastal region of Latakia. The Israeli military said its jets had targeted a Syrian site that was in the process of transferring weapons to Iran-backed Hizballah militants. It added that Israeli planes were already in Israeli airspace when Syria fired the missiles that hit the Russian plane. Israel insisted it warned Russian forces of its raid ahead of time in accordance with previous agreements. Russia's Defense Ministry said the Israeli warning came less than a minute before the strike, and it accused the Israeli military of using the Russian plane as a cover to dodge Syrian defense systems. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Russian President Vladimir to express sorrow over the deaths of crew member, blaming Syria and offering to send Norkin with detailed information. "I told him that we have the right of self-defense," Netanyahu said on September 20, adding that "there is also very great importance to maintaining the security coordination between Israel and Russia." Russia, along with Iran, has given Syrian President Bashar al-Assad support throughout the country's seven-year civil war, which began with a government crackdown on protesters in March 2011. Russian air support has been particularly crucial in allowing Assad to hold off Islamic insurgents and Western-backed rebels and maintain power. With reporting by AP and AFP Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/israel-syria-russia- warplane-shoot-down-moscow-meeting/29501591.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 Netanyahu Orders Commander to Continue Contacts With Russia on Il-20 Incident Sputnik News 19:29 21.09.2018(updated 19:44 21.09.2018) TEL AVIV (Sputnik) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday received a report from Air Force Commander Maj. Gen. Amikam Norkin on the results of his talks in Moscow on the crash of the Russian Il-20 in Syria and instructed him to continue contacts with Russia on this matter, Netanyahu's office said. "This morning, Prime Minister Netanyahu held a meeting with the leadership of the security bloc, during which he listened to a detailed report of Air Force Commander Norkin on the talks in Moscow," the press release said. "The prime minister instructed [Norkin] to continue constant contacts with Russia," the office said in a statement. An Israeli military delegation led by Norkin visited Moscow on Thursday to defuse tensions over the downing of a Russian plane by Syrian air defenses during an Israeli air raid on Latakia. Earlier this week, the Russian Defense Ministry stated that contact with the Russian Il-20 returning to the Hmeymim Airbase was lost late on September 17. The ministry said that at around that time, four Israeli F-16 fighters attacked Syrian targets in Latakia. According to the ministry, Israeli pilots put the Russian aircraft in the line of fire of Syria's air defenses, and the Il-20 was shot down by an S-200 missile. All fifteen Russian servicemen onboard were killed. The Russian Defense Ministry stated that the Israeli aircraft had deliberately created a dangerous situation in Latakia, as Israel had not warned the command of the Russian group of troops in Syria about the planned operation in the area. The Russian military noted it regards Israel's provocative actions as hostile and reserves the right to a proper response. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address IDF Source Claims Israel Warned Russia Much Earlier Than Minute Before Airstrike Sputnik News 15:27 21.09.2018(updated 19:36 21.09.2018) A high-ranking IDF source said that Israel was ready to provide Russia with any additional details that may be required to identify the reasons why the IL-20 crashed. The Israeli military insist that they warned their Russian colleagues about the operation in Syria's Latakia province, during which the Russian Il-20 military aircraft was shot down, far earlier than one minute ahead of the airstrikes, a source in the Israeli military command said on Friday. "We definitely gave the warning much earlier than one minute ahead," the source told reporters. He also said Israel believes military talks in Russia on the downed Il-20 jet were professional, and that the Russian side perceived the information positively, adding that Israel is ready to provide Russia with any additional information that may be required to establish the causes of the crash. "Throughout the meetings, we stressed that there is no justification for the theory that this was an Israeli provocation or Israeli planes, at least somehow, used the Russian Il-20 as a shield. We presented evidence that refutes this untrue story We proved that thoughtless fire from the ground became the direct cause of the Russian aircraft's crash," the source stated. Speaking further, the IDF source noted that the deconfliction mechanism between the Russian and Israeli military forces kept working despite the crash of Russia's Il-20 off the coast of Syria. "The deconfliction mechanism remains in force and is used as before. Changes may be made to it by mutual consent," the source said at a briefing following the visit to Moscow by a delegation led by Israeli Air Force Commander Maj. Gen. Amikam Norkin. The Russian Defense Ministry said earlier that the Israeli military had warned about the airstrikes only one minute beforehand, which had not allowed the Russian aircraft to be directed to a safe zone. Earlier this week, the Russian Defense Ministry stated that contact with the Russian Il-20 returning to the Hmeymim Airbase was lost late on September 17. The ministry said that at around that time, four Israeli F-16 fighters attacked Syrian targets in Latakia. According to the ministry, Israeli pilots put the Russian aircraft in the line of fire of Syria's air defenses, and the Il-20 was shot down by an S-200 missile. Fifteen Russian servicemen were killed. The Russian Defense Ministry stated that the Israeli aircraft had deliberately created a dangerous situation in Latakia, as Israel had not warned the command of the Russian group of troops in Syria about the planned operation in the area. The Russian military noted it regards Israel's provocative actions as hostile and reserves the right to a proper response. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Turkey arrests dozens of on-duty soldiers over affiliation to Gulen movement Iran Press TV Fri Sep 21, 2018 12:55PM Turkish security forces have arrested dozens of on-duty soldiers on suspicion of affiliation to a movement led by US-based opposition cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom the Ankara government accuses of having masterminded the July 2016 coup attempt against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Police sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the suspects were detained in the capital Ankara and 15 other provinces across Turkey. The sources added that the arrests came after the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office in Ankara issued warrants for 110 soldiers from the Turkish Air Forces Command. The prosecutor's office said three colonels, two lieutenant colonels, six majors, three captains, 18 first lieutenants, a second lieutenant and 77 sergeants, are those ordered held in the operations. The remaining 25 suspects are still being sought. During the 2016 botched putsch, a faction of the Turkish military declared that it had seized control of the country and the government of Erdogan was no more in charge. The attempt was, however, suppressed a few hours later. Ankara has since accused Gulen of having orchestrated the coup. The opposition figure is also accused of being behind a long-running campaign to topple the government via infiltrating the country's institutions, particularly the army, police and the judiciary. Gulen has denounced the "despicable putsch" and reiterated that he had no role in it. "Accusations against me related to the coup attempt are baseless and politically-motivated slanders," he said in a statement. The 77-year-old cleric has also called on Ankara to end its "witch hunt" of his followers, a move he says is aimed at "weeding out anyone it deems disloyal to President Erdogan and his regime." Turkish officials have frequently called on their US counterparts to extradite Gulen, but their demands have not been taken heed of. Turkey, which remains in a state of emergency since the coup, has been engaged in suppressing the media and opposition groups suspected to have played a role in the failed coup. Tens of thousands of people have been arrested in Turkey on suspicion of having links to Gulen and the failed coup. More than 110,000 others, including military staff, civil servants and journalists, have been sacked or suspended from work over the same accusations. The international community and rights groups have been highly critical of the Turkish president over the massive dismissals and the crackdown. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Dangers, Opportunities for Turkey in Idlib Deal, Analysts Say By Dorian Jones September 21, 2018 Ankara is signaling its readiness to use force against radical groups in the Syrian Idlib enclave as part of a deal struck with Moscow, which has been pressuring the Turkish government to comply with terms of an accord made between the Russian and Turkish presidents. Earlier this month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, agreed to create a demilitarized zone (DMZ) in the rebel-controlled Idlib enclave. The deal, heralded as a diplomatic triumph by Ankara, averted a Syrian regime offensive backed by Russian forces against the last rebel bastion. With 3 million people trapped in the region, aid groups have been warning of a humanitarian catastrophe. Ankara now faces the formidable task of removing radical Islamist groups, along with the heavy weapons of rebel forces, from a 15- to 20-kilometer zone by October 15. "It is one thing to speak in the chambers of the palaces to hold press conferences and so forth. It's another thing to fight on the ground," former senior Turkish diplomat Aydin Selcen said. "Especially because of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham elements, which are a 30,000-strong jihadi force in west Idlib, and especially near the Turkish border and within Idlib town itself, what will they decide? Will they agree on this solution? This is the question." While addressing reporters Friday, Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin indicated a readiness to use force against radical groups if they don't agree to leave the DMZ. "Persuasion, pacification, other measures, whatever is necessary," Kalin said. Last month, Ankara designated Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, (formally called al-Nusra), as a terrorist organization. Tall order Analysts say Ankara will be careful to avoid a military confrontation and will look to its influence on the rebel opposition. "The leverage Turkey has is that Turkey is still supporting the Free Syrian Army and many other groups. From the very beginning, they have looked to Turkey for support in fighting [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad," according to international relations professor Huseyin Bagci of Ankara's Middle East Technical University. "But the radical groups linked to Daesh [Islamic State], al-Qaida, al-Nusra," Bagci continued, "whether Turkey will be effective with those groups, I have some doubts. But Russia is expecting Turkey to get full success to convince all of them to leave, which is very, very difficult, I would say." Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stepped up the pressure on Ankara. "Nusra Front terrorists should leave this demilitarized zone by mid-October; all heavy weaponry should be withdrawn from there," Lavrov told a press conference Friday. Critics of the Idlib deal insist Moscow has trapped Ankara into committing itself to remove or eradicate radical groups from the DMZ, which carries the risk of Turkey being sucked into a conflict with the jihadis. However, the Idlib deal gives Ankara an opportunity to strengthen its hand in Syria. "Turkey will definitely increase the number of military personnel in [Idlib] and its influence [in Syria]," said Bagci. "It [Turkey's military presence] will become a part of the negotiations process in the future with Russia. Definitely, Turkey is using the opportunity, since it's available, to get more military personnel there and keep them there longer." Under a previous agreement between Moscow and Tehran, Ankara established 12 military observation posts across Idlib. The outposts were part of a deal to create a de-escalation zone for Syrian rebel forces and their families. The threat of a Syrian regime offensive against the region prompted the Turkish military to bolster its presence around the outposts. 'Twin objectives' Analysts suggest a further consolidation of Turkey's military presence in Idlib, along with Turkish forces' current control of a large swath of northern Syria, will strengthen Ankara's efforts to secure its Syrian goals. "Turkey wants to create a situation in Syria so that these neighboring regions to Turkey that are controlled by pro-Turkish elements continue [to be controlled by them] so that there is no security threat to Turkey," said Sinan Ulgen head of the Istanbul-based Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies, or Edam. "Secondly, as a result of a political settlement," he continued, "enough of [a] security guarantee would be provided so that some of the Syrian refugees [in Turkey] can go back to their homes. They are the twin objectives of the Turkish government regarding Syria." Turkey claims it is hosting more than 3.5 million Syrian refugees. The Idlib deal between Ankara and Moscow at least for now has removed the threat of another significant exodus of refugees into Turkey. With Lavrov warning the deal is only an "intermediate step," critics caution the Idlib deal may offer only a reprieve from a Syrian regime offensive against the rebel enclave. As Ankara seems prepared to use the coming weeks to step up its military presence in Idlib, that will bring a heightened risk of confrontation with jihadi groups. Analysts say such a marked armed presence, however, also likely will enhance Erdogan's bargaining position the next time he sits down with Putin to discuss the future of Idlib. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UK, France dispatch jets to intercept Russian bombers over North Sea Iran Press TV Fri Sep 21, 2018 05:17AM Britain and France have separately scrambled fighter jets to intercept two Russian long-range bombers that they said were approaching UK airspace over the North Sea. According to the British Defense Ministry, two British warplanes were deployed from a base in northeast Scotland to the coast off Newcastle on Thursday to monitor Russian long-range Blackjack bombers. It said in a statement that the Russian aircraft did not respond to requests from air traffic control and continued flying through a UK "area of interest" over the North Sea. "Subsequently, our fighters escorted the Russian Blackjacks north, out of the UK's area of interest. At no time did the Russian bombers enter UK sovereign airspace," it explained. The ministry also confirmed that "at no time did the Russian bombers enter UK sovereign airspace." French fighter jets were also deployed from an airbase in north-eastern France and detected one or several Russian planes, according to a spokesman for the French Air Force, Cyrille Duvivier. "The usual response mechanisms were triggered: Rafale fighters took off in the late morning from the base of Saint-Dizier with a refueling plane and positioned themselves for possible intervention," the spokesman said. Referring to the incident, British Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson said the activity is "another reminder of the very serious military challenge that Russia poses us today." The defense ministry says its military jets regularly monitor Russian aircraft near the country's airspace and that they intercepted jets near Romania last month. Britain's Minister of State for the Armed Forces, Mark Lancaster, said last month that the Air Force had had to scramble jets more than 80 times over the last decade to intercept Russian military aircraft. Lancaster said in a speech in London that they were facing "an ever more assertive Russia." Russia, however, has previously warned Britain about the moves, calling them "provocative." In an incident in August, Moscow said the UK air force jets intercepted its military aircraft over the Black Sea in a dangerous fashion. "Instead of strengthening anyone's security, the British authorities are using such a military presence (in the Black Sea area) for provocative actions," Russian embassy in London said in a statement at the time. Russia says its activity in the Black Sea region is routine and compliant with international law. Tensions between Britain and Russian have been high since the government in London accused Moscow of masterminding a nerve agent attack against Russia's former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia on the British soil back in March. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russia Beefs Up Crimea Defense With Another Battalion of S-400s Sputnik News 21:55 21.09.2018(updated 21:56 21.09.2018) There are now three battalions of the advanced Russian air defense system stationed in the Crimean peninsula, which is a major strategic strongpoint for the military and the home of Russia's Black Sea Fleet. The third battalion of eight launchers, 112 missiles and command and support vehicles has been deployed in Evpatoria in western Crimea, the press service of the Black Sea Fleet confirmed Friday. Later in the day, a military source said that a fourth battalion would soon be deployed outside the town of Dzhankoy in Crimea's north. S-400s were earlier deployed to Feodosiya and Sevastopol in January 2017 and 2018, respectively. The S-400 Triumf surface-to-air missile system is Russia's latest generation mobile air defense system. As of 2016, at least 312 S-400 launchers were deployed across 39 regiments. The S-400's missiles are capable of targeting enemy aircraft, drones and cruise and ballistic missiles at a range of up to 400 km. The Russian military has put considerable emphasis into beefing up Crimea's defenses since the peninsula voted overwhelmingly to break off from Ukraine and rejoin Russia in 2014. Military observers say the peninsula's anti-air and anti-ship defenses effectively allow Russia to secure the airspace and waters across virtually the entire Black Sea. In addition to the S-400, Crimea's air defense troops are armed with the S-300P, Buk-M2, and Osa missile systems. China and Belarus also operate the S-400, and Turkey, India, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Iraq have expressed an interest in the system. On Thursday, the US Treasury slapped China with sanctions over its purchase of a battalion of S-400s earlier this year. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Defence Secretary announces extension of support to Ukraine's Armed Forces Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson has reaffirmed the United Kingdom's commitment to Ukraine in visit to Marinka and Kyiv 21 September 2018 In his first visit as Defence Secretary to Ukraine, Gavin Williamson announced that the UK will be extending its military training operation there for a further two years until 2020. Mr Williamson met with Defence Minister Stepan Poltorak and General of the Army, Victor Muzhenko, to discuss the threats faced by Ukrainian Armed Forces. He also announced the expansion of the UK Defence Section in Kyiv and introduction of a permanent Naval Attache to help build Ukrainian naval capability. The Defence Secretary also met President Poroshenko reaffirming the UK's commitment to their country. He also discussed the Russian security forces continuing to disrupt merchant vessels trying to access Ukrainian ports in the Sea of Azov, posing negative effects on Ukraine's economy. He also travelled to Marinka in the east of Ukraine to see the effects of the four-year conflict in the Donbas region, and received an operational update from the Joint Force Operation Commander Lt Gen Serhiy Nayev. The visit to Marinka highlighted the severity of the ongoing conflict, including its humanitarian and environmental impacts, driven by Russian aggression. Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said: "I witnessed first-hand the suffering caused by the brutal conflict in eastern Ukraine - a conflict that is being prolonged by the Russian-backed separatists." "By extending and expanding our training programmes, we are sending a clear message - we support the people of Ukraine and are firmly committed to its sovereignty as it faces down blatant Russian aggression." The training, delivered through Operation Orbital, has been expanded in 2018 to include anti-armour, infantry skills, counter-sniping and mortar planning. This is in addition to the defensive skills programmes such as the identification of mines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs), medical care and logistics that UK personnel have been delivering since early 2015. British personnel have trained over 9,500 of the Ukrainian Armed Forces since the start of Operation Orbital in 2015. The coming year will see a continuing growth in joint training activity with our Canadian allies as well as initiatives between UK personnel and other nations who have also committed themselves to supporting Ukraine. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russia will not participate in the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway project with the United States in its current form and may create its own station, Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russian state space corporation Roscosmos, said on Saturday, UrduPoint reported. "The Russian Federation cannot let itself participate [in the project] as a second fiddle," Rogozin said. He added that Russia may develop its own lunar orbital project instead, possibly an international one. "Whether it will be a Russian or an international station is subject to discussion," Rogozin said. The Roscosmos head did not exclude that the United States could take part in the new Russianproject, adding that BRICS association members Brazil, India, China and South Africa could partake in the station's development as well. According to Rogozin, he would have a meeting with the administrator of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), James Bridenstine, to discuss Russia's position on the issue of lunar orbital bases. Red Bull driver Max Verstappen produced a brilliant drive in Singapore last weekend to secure second place and interrupt an intense battle between winner Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel. The talk pre-Singapore was dominated by the title battle that is in progress between Hamilton and Vettel, but Verstappen's faultless performance in Asia deserves more credit than it has gotten. The media have crazed about Hamilton's excellent drive at the Marina Bay Street Circuit - and rightly so, it was a huge performance from the Mercedes man. However, the lack of attention that Verstappen has received is surprising from an outside point of view. Mika Hakkinen said in his Unibet column earlier today that the Red Bull youngster deserves a lot more credit for his superb drive in Formula One's night race. There was mass controversy after Verstappen refused to give up his place to Valtteri Bottas in Italy following their collision and the driver being informed about his penalty. Verstappen, at the time was clearly furious with his anger pouring out on Red Bull's team radio and it may have been a distraction for the Dutchman the following Grand Prix in Singapore. It was anything but that, the performance from the 20-year-old, who is no stranger to the controversy on and off the track, was impeccable. The maturity level of Verstappen was something I personally, was very surprised to see in Singapore - there is such a hype around the highly-rated driver; and Singapore showed me a bit more of a complete Verstappen designed puzzle. The US evacuated the ISIS (banned in Russia) militants from the Syrian province Deir-ez-Zor, the media report with a reference to the local sources. It is reported that the coalition carried out an assault near the village of al-Murashida, where the ISIS forces are concentrated, and took away the groups officials in an unknown direction. The US and its allies have been conducting an operation against ISIS in Iraq and Syria since 2014. They are operating in Syria without a consent of the official Damascus, RIA Novosti reminds. TRS Shuts Door On Hyderabad Brother? Former Congress MLA from Gosahamahal Mukesh Goud, who has been dilly-dallying over defecting to the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, is now neither here nor there. The TRS leadership is understood to have shut the doors on Mukesh Goud, after getting frustrated with his indecisiveness. Apparently, Mukesh is said to have put the condition that he would join the TRS only if he and his son Vikram Goud are given tickets this time. But the TRS has refused to entertain both father and son. In fact, the TRS leadership has asked Danam to move to Khairatabad, hoping that the Goshamahal seat would be reserved for Mukesh. But now, the party is considering sending Danam back to Goshamahal, paving for fielding former CLP leader P Janardhan Reddys daughter Vijaya Reddy from Khairatabad. Now, Mukesh cannot make demands while continuing in the Congress. He lost his bargaining power because everybody knows he had been trying for defecting into the TRS. It remains to be seen whether Congress leadership would forgive him and give him the Goshamahal ticket again! 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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. Lithuania-based startup Debitum Network (DEB) co-founder Martins Liberts and his team have delivered on their promise. Debitum is indeed a real product that allows small business owners and entrepreneurs to be in charge of their future. This unique platform offers loan agreement opportunities, with returns of 10% to 15%, to investors of all sizes via smart contracts. Basically, you no longer have to be Warren Buffet to make money off of the hard-earned cash you have collecting dust in your bank account. Now you have the decentralized Debitum Network. After raising $17 Million in its initial coin offering (ICO) launch March 2018, Debitum Network entered a period of sonic speed development. By September 03, 2018 Debitum Network was ready for Crowdsale Round B where it raised 1.2 Million Dollars, enough for initial product development and launch. Now that the Crowdsale is over, Debitum Network has turned its focus on expanding the ecosystem in 15 countries across Europe and the Balkan region by 2019. Debitum will exceed all expectations as its global ambition is to grow their operation in 50 countries around the world most in need of access to financing. Although Small & Medium Enterprise debts are profitable; traditionally centralized financiers make it complicated and even challenging for the average investor to engage in the process directly. Small business find it almost impossible to secure the finance they need from conventional banks. Up to 70% of SMEs lack access to adequate finance according to the World Bank (https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/smefinance), the problem is particularly acute among developing economies. Debitum has solved the problem by creating a standardized and streamlined Ethereum-based decentralized platform where global business borrowers can easily access global business lenders. This hybrid ecosystem bridges the gap between crypto and real-world lending by combining features of cryptocurrency transactions and traditional lending thus providing everyone an opportunity to profit from SME capital revenue without being intercepted by opportunistic middlemen. Fintech and blockchain community influencer Egle Nemeikstyte, CEO of Blockchain Center Vilnius praised the Debitum Network platform, known as Abra 1.0, for being an excellent example to other fintech startups adding Debitum Network were the first in the Vilnius Blockchain Center community to show blockchain applicability in the fintech industry, and were the fastest to raise capital and launch their product. They proved that blockchain fintech projects could keep their promises, stick to deadlines and be efficient. While loans are delivered in traditional fiat currency, DEB provides speed together with end-to-end integrity and transparency in the platforms internal processes. Funding market operators can finally access their clients without suffering high expenses. With individual investments starting from 50 EUR to a maximum of 10 Million EUR, investors can begin deploying their money as soon as they have completed a short authentication process on DEBs fast and flexible platform. DEB opens up lending opportunities to the average person by allowing flexible options such as covering all or part of a borrowers loan request. The decentralized nature of blockchain technology, combined with the use of smart contracts allows Debitum Network to rid the market of the time consuming and cumbersome process of traditional centralized funding outlets so investors can place their money to work in a more stable financial instrument at a time when crypto prices remain volatile; in as little as 24 hours. Participants can keep track of their investments as well as potential investment opportunities ranked according to risk., via a central dashboard in an ecosystem that includes debt collectors, risk assessors, and insurance providers, while amassing 10% to 15% on their investment in a single, transparent, trust-based and easily accessible ecosystem. Martins Liberts, Donatas Juodelis, and Justas Saltinis are among the Debitum Network core team of motivated finance and technology experts who already have a remarkable track record of creating working alternative financial solutions in Europe. These seasoned financial specialists are pioneering decentralized financing into a promising economic future. As if DEB successfully tackling the worldwide shortage of funding for underbanked small and medium-sized businesses by utilizing blockchain technology to deliver a unique ecosystem based on trust, full end-to-end financing process and structuring arent impressive enough already. This exciting and expanding platform assures beneficial growth for investors and funding recipients alike with its utility token given the fixed supply. No additional minting or mining of the tokens will be possible as a limited amount of DEB tokens were produced during the Token Generation Event (crowdsale round A). The fixed supply implies that as Debitum Network increases activity between borrowers, investors and service providers of the lending process, token demand will grow. As the demand on the Network grows, so will the value of DEB tokens. Supply & Demand on a stable decentralized financing platform is indeed a beautiful (and profitable) opportunity. For more information, visit: https://debitum.network/ https://crowdsale.debitum.network/whitepaper Media Contact Company Name: KuCoin Contact Person: Media Relations Email: Send Email Phone: 0871979465 Country: Singapore Website: kucoin.com GREENWICH -- The images of crying teenagers outside a church last week were heartbreakingly familiar. Many of the hundreds who attended the funeral of Emily Fedorko on Monday, were at a similar service for another of their own, Bart Palosz, almost exactly a year ago. As those students, most of them members of the Greenwich High Class of 2016, prepare for the start of school Aug. 26, educators, parents and local mental health professionals stand at the ready. The acute loss many are feeling can reignite once students are back on familiar ground with their friend missing. And, for some, experiencing the death of someone their age can threaten their sense of security. There is little doubt some students will need support services. But many juniors, amid their sadness, are expressing a quiet belief that while Emily's death has indelibly changed them, it will not break them. And they know this specifically because they have lived through this experience before. "The past has shown us that Greenwich High School can come back from tragedy, stronger as a school community," senior Blake Reinken, Greenwich High's student body president, wrote last week in a Facebook post. "We must come together as one student body and learn to appreciate one another because as we learned today, for the second time in a year: life is short." Bart took his own life after the first day of his, and their, sophomore year, Aug. 27, 2013. Bart's death, much like Emily's, shocked their classmates much as hers did. Vigils and funerals They turned out en masse not only for his funeral, but for a vigil at the high school as well. Reports of persistent bullying prompted a wave of public introspection. Students started websites, joined a march against bullying and founded an anti-bullying club, GHS Connections, that was joined by hundreds. In days since they packed St. Clement Church in Stamford for Emily's funeral, students have met in public and private gatherings to share their feelings. Much like they did after Bart's death, they've taken to Twitter and Facebook to process their grief together. "Losing another member of our family is especially unfortunate; everyone's felt devastated," said junior Ashley Jones. "But I definitely see the students of the Class of 2016 coming together again, and I see that continuing." That Emily was so popular will only serve to intensify that process. "Emily was friends with so many different kids, kids that were in different friend groups, and suddenly all the different groups were joining together and mourning this horrific loss together," said junior Emily Graffeo, a longtime friend of Emily. "There was just such an extreme sense of unity between everyone that knew Emily." Nonetheless, Spencer Faragasso, the junior class president, described the losses of Emily and Bart as "equally tragic." "They were both Greenwich High School students, they are Cardinals," he said. "They will never be forgotten." Still, no matter how much comfort and resolve they find in one another, some students will need professional help to process the emotions they are experiencing, from intense mourning to more complex feelings they might not be able to express. More Information The Greenwich school district and a number of local agencies outside the district are offering counseling and support services to community members in response to the death of Emily Fedorko in an Aug. 6 boating accident. GREENWICH PUBLIC SCHOOLS For questions and further information about the school district's counseling and support services, contact Judith Nedell, the district's director of guidance, at: Judith_nedell@greenwich.k12.ct.us or cardshelp@greenwichschools.org. OTHER SERVICES AND RESOURCES Child Guidance Center The Child Guidance Center provides immediate mental health support and crisis stabilization services seven days a week for children and adolescents experiencing severe reactions to a traumatic event. They also provide on-site assistance and counseling in response to emergencies affecting large groups. Call 211 for the Emergency Mobile Crisis Hotline http://www.childguidancect.org/ --- Family Centers The following programs are part of Family Centers: The Den for Grieving Kids provides non-therapeutic support groups for children, teens and families. http://familycenters.org/The-Den-for-Grieving-Kids The Center for Hope "provides comprehensive services for adults and children living with an illness, grieving a loss or coping with a life-altering circumstance. All counseling, support and education services are facilitated by specially trained professionals in an atmosphere of hope and renewal." http://familycenters.org/Center-for-HOPE The Trauma Response Team provides on-site counseling and crisis debriefing services http://familycenters.org/index.php?ID=2109&XID=2087:2109:0:0:0&PID=2087 Call Family Centers at 203-655-4693 --- Kids In Crisis Kids in Crisis outreach counselors are available 24/7 to provide counseling and support for children and families. The Kids in Crisis Hotline is monitored 24 hours a day. The Kids in Crisis hotline is 203-622-6556 https://www.kidsincrisis.org/ See More Collapse `Life is fragile' "If their friends are dying, it makes them realize that life is fragile," said Jessica Gelt, director of crisis services at Child Guidance Center. "Adolescents tend to have a sense of immortality and feeling invincible, and kids have to confront that sooner when see these tragedies happening." Within 24 hours of the Aug. 6 tragedy, the school district mobilized a team of counselors, psychologists and social workers to offer counseling and other support services to students. Several local nonprofits such as Child Guidance Center, Kids in Crisis and Family Centers have made their own mental-health professionals available to help. An information session for parents is scheduled for Sept. 3 at Greenwich High, when school mental-health professionals will discuss how parents can help their children as they grieve. It is normal for students to respond to the trauma of losing a classmate through reactions such as increased anxiety, nightmares, lack of sleep or irritability, Gelt said. But those with pre-existing mental health issues, a history of experiencing traumatic events or less resilience might be more vulnerable to more intense and longer-lasting reactions. Mental-health professionals add that the approaching start of the school year can also be a palliative for students, by providing a sense of security through the normalcy and routines of going to classes and doing extracurriculars. Greenwich High students are aware of the resources available to them, and know they will be needed. But they also say it is they who will have to take the lead in getting each other through difficult times ahead. "We, the students, connected with Emily on a personal level," said junior Madeleine Hitel. "It is hard for a school, no matter how good the counselors or psychologists are, to truly sympathize with how we are feeling. "As classmates, we must be the ones to step up to the challenge and comfort each other. The Class of 2016 has been through a lot together, but we only get closer in times of adversity." pschott@scni.com; 203-625-4439; twitter: @paulschott WILLOWS, Calif. - A firefighting crew traveled 8,000 miles from Saipan to assist with firefighting efforts in Northern California this summer, and worked on both the Carr and the Delta Fires. Their deployment began on Aug. 6. The firefighters from the Commonwealth of Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI) work as a wildland hand crew. They are certified as a Type 2 U. S. Forest Service crew. They are one of 540 such crews that apply their skills to firefighting each year across the United States, according to a spokesperson for the Mendocino National Forest. When working on the Carr Fire, squad boss trainee Linus Mizutani said, "All we could see on both sides of us was burned area. It was huge!" He said more than 15 of their islands would have fit within the fire area. At the Delta Fire the crew worked with the Mendocino Hotshots, who taught them more about new fire ignition techniques used during night burns to improve containment lines. Mizutani said, "It's one thing to read about it in books or watch it on YouTube, but feeling and smelling it, you won't forget that." He said now they will go home and share the experiences and lessons learned with other firefighters who were not able to make the trip to Northern California. The crew consists of firefighters from Saipan, Tinian and Rota. Sixtus Aquino, Saturnino Kaipat and Linus Mizutani all served in leadership roles as squad bosses or Type 1 firefighters. Squad bosses supervise up to six firefighters each. Marlon Garde, Shelwyn Taisacan, Jamaal Mresbang, Mizutani and Kaipat also worked as sawyers on the fires, after completing a wildland power saws course offered by the Mendocino National Forest. (See more of this story below the photograph) Other NCMI firefighters on the crew were Kyoshi Kileleman, Mathew Dala Cruz, Joseph Sablan, Raccine Hizon, Lucio Kalen, Sammy Litulumar, Matthew Dueans and Stanley Santos. Most of the crew has returned home to the Marianas. Garde, Kalen and Taisacan are working the rest of the 2018 fire season at the Los Padres National Forest. The group received basic wildland firefighter training earlier this year in the islands under the U.S. Forest Service's Cooperative Fire Program. The mission is to work with Pacific Island partners in the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, Hawaii, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Republic of Palau, American Samoa, and the Federated States of Micronesia to "increase capacity in the fire community," according to Forest Service officials. Several mentors assisted the visiting fire crew this summer, including Crew Boss trainees Jeremy Lander, Mark Walls and James Blass. Other mentors included Crew Bosses Ricky Auspiro, Nate Goodchild, Lee Ibarra, Andy Reyes, Edgar Valencia, Chris Mallek and Jeremy Vance. The crew from the Commonwealth of Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI) were able to reunited with the Feather River Hotshots, a firefighting elite group that they had worked with before. They also were able to work with firefighter David Palacios, who hails from the Marianas, and is currently working as a Northen California firefighter. Last summer a crew came out from the CNMI to work on the Modoc and Six Rivers National Forests. Google is partnering with uBreakiFix to provide assistance to those in the areas affected by Hurricane Florence. If you are in the Coastal areas of Virginia, North or South Carolina, you are eligible to get a Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel 2, or Pixel 2 XL if it has undergone damage during or after the storm. The repairs are being performed for free and all you have to do to receive one is walk into any uBreakiFix store in any of the three states mentioned: Virginia, North Carolina, or South Carolina. Following the devastation of Hurricane Florence, uBreakiFix and Google are once again offering free repairs on all Pixel models for those affected in the coastal Carolinas, Coastal Virginia, and beyond Our hearts go out to all those affected and we want to help you stay connected to family, friends, and anyone who can help in the aftermath of the storm. The repairs will cover water damage and/or devices with cracked screens starting now and will be available through October 19. There are limited supplies so dont wait until the last few days to get your Pixel repaired. You can head to uBreakiFix to find the location nearest to you. If you have a loved one who is over in the affected areas, be sure to forward along this post. Source Time capsule shows benefits of gateway zoning City Manager John Connet narrates a slideshow that highlights the consequences of Hendersonvilles gateway ordinance. From the mid-1980s through the mid-90s, Hendersonville and Henderson County had endured more than a dozen controversies that centered on development, some of it unwanted. The town had gotten used to the serpentine Main Street and the continued movement of retail trade to the big box stores in the suburbs. Henderson County was still the Wild West when it came to zoning and as a result new and unexpected problems popped up. Disruptive land uses that got people riled up included an asphalt plant in 1991, the Mountain Home incinerator in 1990, city annexation across I-26 in 1994, Ingles zoning application on N.C. 191 at North Rugby Road in 1995. Other topics that caused civic commotion included the fluoridation controversy in 1995, what to do with the Historic Courthouse once the Grove Street opened in 1995, cell tower regulations in 1997, a proposed speedway in Naples in 1998, even a proposed topless bar, in 1998 (didnt happen). Gateway ordinance An entry corridor ordinance was on the table at City Hall. By todays standards, the ordinance would not seem particularly burdensome. Back then, however, development interests viewed the regulations as a threat. On Aug. 2, 1998, the Times-News published a Yes and No feature on its business page, responding to the question: Should city regulate, business signs, landscaping? Architect Ken Gaylord wrote the Yes respond. Business leaders and landowners Dan Waddell and Bob Quattlebaum co-authored the No answer. For the Hendersonville Rotary Club, the entry corridor ordinance seems to have represented a tipping point. The controversy led the club to convene a panel of wise and respected leaders, who would weigh in on the entry corridor ordinance, whether zoning could regulate esthetics, banning billboards citywide and preserving farmland and open space. Inspired by Dr. Ken Cosgrove, the club devoted two meetings, on Sept. 8 and 15, to the discussion. Panel members were Kermit Edney, the WHKP Good Morning Man, who purportedly became so agitated after the first week that he quit and gave his spot to Dave Cooley; Rick Merrill, a Flat Rock Planning Board member and president of ECO; Frank Coiner, the longtime Hendersonville city attorney; Edneyville sod farmer Fred Pittillo; and civil engineer Bill Lapsley, who is now a county commissioner. Times-News reporter Jim Wooldridge covered the Sept. 8 panel discussion that explored the tension between property rights and zoning. Several panelists agreed that zoning requirements like signage and landscaping can be too restrictive, hurting property values. Merrill said that the citys entry corridors were in bad shape and needed attention. Lapsley said that the issue had become an issue with the widening of Asheville Highway, which was under way then, while it had not been an issue on Spartanburg Highway or Four Seasons Boulevard. Fear of the unknown A video of the panel discussion, news clips, Rotarians responses to questions on the future of Henderson County and a video of the citys entry corridor were all tucked away in a time capsule. The Rotary Club opened the time capsule and last week presented a program on what it contained. The thought was to open the time capsule in 2018 to see how much the city has changed and if the change was for the good, Matt Matteson, who was the clubs program director in 1998, wrote. At the Rotary Club meeting last week, City Manager John Connet narrated a slide show that showed before and after photos of commercial development old shopping centers like Sky City, now home to Harris Teeter, and Roses, now home to the Fresh Market. We took pictures of the corridor 20 years later, he said. Change is hard and the unknown change is super hard. I think thats what we were dealing with. We had the same debate recently over the Balfour Parkway the fear of the unknown. We had a lot of business people who were fearful of the unknown or the change and this is the result 20 years later. The photos showed how the entry corridor rules, which the City Council ultimately adopted, had resulted in lots of landscaping and flood control measures at shopping centers and retail stores at the citys gateways. The biggest change in Hendersonville that you will see is the South Hendersonville area, Connet said, showing a slide of the Walgreens on Spartanburg Highway at Greenville Highway. That area flooded on a regular basis. Walgreen has been built up. Were not only dealing with appearance, were also dealing with flooding issues in the South Main area. In the video youll hear Ken Cosgrove talk about the Roses shopping center, where Fresh Market is today. A good example today is go to the Bi-Lo shopping center Four Seasons Boulevard, that would have been a pre-1998 ordinance. It didnt have to make improvements and lacks landscaping. Side-by-side photos showed a barren parking lot at the old Sky City shopping center, and the Harris-Teeter in the same location. You can see the vegetation along the roadway, whereas before, the asphalt would have gone all the way to the street, he said. At Walmart and Highland Square, photos showed smaller signs and landscaped roadways and parking lots. Twenty years ago, many Rotarians responding to the survey favored banning billboards. That hasnt happened. Although the city adopted new billboard regulations, old ones can stay because theyre grandfathered. We still have many of the same billboards prior to 1998 but until they fall or are removed they can remain there, Connet said. Some signs are gone. We have a fewer number in our community now. A serial burglar smashed in the door of a city centre coffee shop three days after Christmas. Colm Donnelly (43) had just been released from prison when he "continued on the same path", Dublin District Court heard. Judge John Cheatle jailed him for nine months. Donnelly, a father-of-two with an address at a city centre hostel, pleaded guilty to burglary and criminal damage. A garda said the front door of Insomnia on South Leinster Street was smashed open on December 28 last year. Culprit Donnelly was found nearby, matching the description of the culprit, and was arrested. The premises lost business as it had to remain closed for several hours the following morning because of glass on the floor. Donnelly had 156 previous convictions. He was already serving an 11-month sentence when he appeared on the latest charges. The only explanation he could give was that he was released from Mountjoy Prison after a sentence, was back on the streets and continued on the same path, his lawyer said. He had also had a drug problem all his life. CHICO, Calif. - A Chico woman is behind bars after resisting arrest and also spitting on an officer. At around 10:56 a.m. on Sept. 21, Chico Police were called to the 1100 block of Bidwell Avenue after there were reports of a female screaming. When the officer arrived, they located three people next to Big Chico Creek. One of the people, Micheal Ashley Childers-Marchick, immediately ran away. They were instructed to stop, but she continued to flee the area. Officers located her behind Depot Park and took her into custody. Immediately after she was handcuffed, she spit on one of the arresting officers. Childers-Marchick had a warrant out for her arrest. She was booked into Butte County Jail for her warrant, resisting a peace officer and assaulting a peace officer. Jordan Smyth (20), who is serving time for aggravated burglary,accepted full responsibility for having the phone, the court heard. Stock image A young prisoner caught illegally using a mobile phone in his cell has spent all his adult life behind bars, a court was told. Jordan Smyth (20), who is serving time for aggravated burglary, tried to hide the phone by putting it down his shorts when he was confronted. Judge Grainne Malone adjourned the case after Smyth's lawyer asked her not to add to the accused's current sentence. Smyth, of Glenshane Crescent, Tallaght, admitted unlawfully having the phone in his cell at Mountjoy Prison. Dublin District Court was told that staff carried out routine checks on prisoners on March 1. As they passed Smyth's cell, they saw him holding a mobile phone. They asked him to hand it over but he put it down his shorts. When told he would be searched, he tried to discard it by throwing it out on to the landing. The phone was not his, and he had borrowed it to call people outside prison because he had used up his call allowance. The court heard he had a number of previous convictions, the most serious of which was for aggravated burglary, handed down at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on July 6, 2015. Remission He was jailed for eight years, three of which were suspended. He had a release date, with remission, of October 10 this year. Smyth was just 16 when he went into custody for the burglary in 2014, said his lawyer. He accepted full responsibility for having the phone and his lawyer asked the judge not to extend his sentence. Smyth had made good use of his time in prison, completing his Leaving Certificate as well as taking a health and fitness and other courses. He had a job lined up cleaning vents when he is released from prison. "He has spent his entire adult life and a significant part of his later teenage years in custody," his lawyer said. Judge Malone noted that although the defendant pleaded guilty he had done so on a hearing date, after initially contesting the charge. Four prosecution witnesses had taken the time to come to court, she said. The judge deferred a decision on the case until supporting documentation was provided to the court. The case was adjourned until later this month. A drug dealer targeted in a series of raids on the Kinahan cartel is also suspected of supplying mobile phones to the gang's associates in prison. Detectives searched seven homes this week and seized a number of encrypted devices linked to the cartel's north inner city associates. The young criminals targeted are closely connected to senior cartel member Gary Finnegan but are considered "lower-level" operators. The Herald has learned that a heroin dealer targeted in the raids was also recently caught with five mobile phones. Expand Close Phones and other items seized in a raids against cartel-linked criminals. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Phones and other items seized in a raids against cartel-linked criminals. The devices were found after he was arrested on suspicion of drug dealing, and gardai suspect the phones were to be delivered to cartel members in Mountjoy. Tactic "He was lifted for drugs and found with the small phones. The belief is that they were to be thrown over the prison wall, which is an old and rarely used tactic in this day and age," the source said. This man, in his mid-20s and from the East Wall area, is also a close associate of a north Dublin criminal suspected of carrying out a shocking murder recently - the details of which cannot be specified for legal reasons. On Wednesday, detectives from the Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau raided seven homes in Dublin city centre as part of an operation to disrupt the cartel's inner city network. They were supported by members of the Special Crime Task Force and gardai from the North Central Division. During the searches, several encrypted phones were recovered, as well as a small quantity of heroin. Gardai are hopeful that examinations of the encrypted devices will shed light on connections between the cartel and offer fresh intelligence. A 24-year-old was arrested on suspicion of drug trafficking but later released without charge. Two of the targets of the operation are suspected of being used as guns-for-hire, and have been quizzed over foiled hits, including the attempted murder of Jonathan Hutch. Assistant Commissioner John O'Driscoll said the searches provided evidence of the "unrelenting efforts to dismantle organised crime groups that are involved in drug trafficking and a wide range of other criminality, and who are attempting to murder particular people". The Rose of Tralee selection process is set to get a major shake-up in 2019, which will see Co Waterford - which had the winning Rose this year - and Carlow without Roses until 2020. Organisers have decided to axe the unpopular method of cutting down the Roses to 32 from the 66 regional qualifiers in Tralee the weekend before the live broadcast. Instead, some 'Rose centres' will only enter the competition every second year - meaning there will always only be 32 Roses selected to head to Tralee and all will be interviewed by Daithi O Se in the Dome. For the past three years, Roses were informed just days before the live shows if they would make the final cut. In the new format, Dublin, Cork and hometown Rose Kerry will always have a representative in the contest. Warned Next year, Irish Rose centres taking part will include Antrim, Donegal, Down, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Longford, Meath, Wexford, Galway, Mayo, Clare and Limerick. However, organisers have warned that this is not set in stone just yet, as there may be circumstances that lead to a centre not entering a Rose. As for Roses from overseas, organisers explained that core centres like London, New York and Texas, as well as Australian centres, will typically always have a Rose or at the very least have an entrant two out of every three years. Rose of Tralee International Festival executive chair Anthony O'Gara said the decision had been made as the old selection process "did not sit well" with organisers of the festival. "Moving from the Regional Festival staged from 2004 to 2015 to bringing all our Roses directly to the Rose of Tralee International Festival for the past three years has been generally very positively received," he said. "There is one challenging aspect to the new format that does not sit well with any of us and that we want to address: the selection of 32 Roses from 66 for the TV selection. Positive "We appreciate that the change to the format is significant, but on balance we believe it will be a positive development that will enhance our festival and protect its long-term future." Next year marks the 60th year of the festival and organisers said they want to bring the Irish community together. Transport Minister Shane Ross has been accused of seeking to "duck responsibility" for the controversial overhaul of bus routes in the capital. Mr Ross is under fire over the BusConnects plan, amid claims that he sought to distance himself from the project at a residents' association meeting in his Dublin Rathdown constituency. During the week he faced pressure in the Dail when Fianna Fail tabled a motion calling for the protection of Dublin Bus services. Fine Gael TDs also raised serious concerns over the BusConnects plan at a private party meeting on Wednesday night, with fears it could become as politically dangerous as the water charges fiasco. Communities around the city have expressed concern at proposed changes to routes serving their neighbourhoods under the plan overseen by the National Transport Authority (NTA). The public consultation period ends on September 28. It has been reported that Mr Ross told a residents' meeting in his constituency that he had nothing to do with the BusConnects plan, prompting a wave of criticism of the minister. Asleep Fianna Fail's Dublin spokesman John Lahart said "the mind boggles", adding that the plan is in the Government's Project Ireland 2040 initiative. "He's the transport minister, isn't he?," asked Mr Lahart. His party colleague Robert Troy said the NTA was answerable to Mr Ross but claimed that, "when backed into a corner in his own backyard he tries to duck responsibility". Labour Party senator Kevin Humphreys claimed Mr Ross was "asleep at the wheel on BusConnects". Mr Ross told RTE Radio that he had told residents at the meeting that he does make Government policy on BusConnects and transport, but he does not "micro-manage" the details, such as the routes proposed on a map on display that night. Mr Ross last night declined to respond to opposition attacks on him, saying the BusConnects issue is "above politics". "The important thing is that people participate in the public consultation process in order to change the parts of this BusConnects proposal which are a problem for the elderly, children going to school and students going to university," Mr Ross told the Herald. "The map was not drawn by me but by the NTA. I have no intention of micro-managing the process. "It's a good project but there are problems for communities that need to be ironed out." Meanwhile, Fine Gael TD Noel Rock has called on the NTA to extend the public consultation period for the project. OROVILLE, Calif. A 26-year-old man from Alabama was arrested in Oroville for possession of seven pounds of cannabis, after allegedly colliding into a detectives vehicle in a parking lot with his car. The incident occurred on Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2018. (Information on the incident was released on Saturday, Sept. 22, 2018) The vehicle that was allegedly hit by suspect Keith Deshawn Hudson was being driven by a Butte County Sheriffs Office Special Enforcement Unit (SEU) detective. Sheriffs Office officials said there were no injuries during the traffic incident. The SEU Detective that was driving the Sheriff's vehicle found Hudson and noticed the smell of marijuana, say officials with the Sheriffs Office. They said they searched his vehicle and discovered seven vacuum sealed bags of cannabis in the spare tire area. Each bag weighed one pound. Hudson was arrested at the scene for possession of marijuana for sale and transportation of marijuana for sale. Hudson was booked into the Butte County Jail with a bail set at $6,000. All gave some; some gave all. Here's how to honor veterans this year local At the Constitution Club in Delhi on July 7, the weekend before the five-member Supreme Court (SC) bench began its deliberations on Section 377, the mood was sombre. All of us gathered there lawyers, activists, academics, representatives of NGOs and the corporate world knew well how precarious our hope was, especially after our elation was snuffed out when, in 2013, the SC reversed the 2009 Delhi High Court judgment, which had read down Section 377. Three days later, as the Supreme Court hearings began on the petitions pleas by transgender individuals such as Akkai Padmashali, activists like Arif Jafar and Ashok Row Kavi, businesspeople such as Keshav Suri and Ritu Dalmia, groups of individuals representing alumni of the different Indian Institutes of Technology, collectives like Voices against 377, parents of LGBTI individuals, mental health professionals and more millions of Indians held their breath. It was a chance to witness history being created. Menaka Guruswamy, an advocate for a clutch of IITians, emphasised that her petitioners were the makers of modern India scientists, engineers, government servants, all of whom are closeted. She said: It is not just consensual sex between homosexual partners that this Court should recognise, but their love for each other. How strongly must you love knowing that you are unconvicted felons under Section 377. As we now exhale in relief after reading the unanimous verdict, two things come to my mind. First, the language of the verdict, which makes it clear that the idea of India shared by the judges of the Supreme Court, is very much in line with our brilliant Constitution. The law matters. The law protects. The law empowers. This progressive Supreme Court judgment adds another layer of protection. The Constitution bench has established jurisprudence that will protect our countrys LGBT citizens and also opens the doors to further legal victories. Globally, LGBT equality has led to the legalisation of marriage, rights for same sex couples to adopt children, and inherit their partners property, and I see no reason why India should not embark on a similar journey too. In his comments about the Union governments stand on Section 377, our law minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad, stated: Maybe sexual preference is also a personal choiceother issues like same sex marriage are a separate matter. Additional solicitor general, Tushar Mehta, openly remarked in court that he was worried that scrapping Section 377 would open the door to the granting of further rights to Indias LGBT citizens. Why shouldnt these doors b, e opened? We are no longer criminals. Why should we be anything less than equal to other citizens of this country? The bigoted views expressed by those opposing decriminalisation in the SC may have been dismissed by the judges present, but so many people continue to think like this. We will have to work collectively on transforming this into tolerance, acceptance and inclusion, across the political spectrum. Queer activism across the country has been doing this. We are successfully creating safe spaces for our own selves. It is now time to extend these efforts outwards. One of the places where we can achieve results is the Indian workplace. A 2016 MINGLE report stated that two-thirds of Indian employees hear homophobic remarks. Transpersons are routinely harassed and denied jobs. Despite these challenges of persistent homophobia, transphobia and harassment, I see a new India forming itself each day in offices across our country. In Godrej, I am part of the recruitment team for bringing in new talent. Almost every college campus I go to, I speak about LGBTQ inclusion. Most of them now have LGBT initiatives, like IIM Ahmedabads Ally, or conduct their own Pride Marches on campus, like the Indian School of Business did recently on its Mohali campus. It is pretty clear that for young India, the future generation of this nation, acceptance and inclusion of LGBTQ individuals is the norm. I am also a part of conferences like the Out & Equal LGBTQ India Forum which was held last month, and was attended by 100 executives from Indian and multinational corporations. When we launched the United Nations Global Standards of Business Conduct for LGBTQ inclusion at Godrej some months ago, 40 companies showed up. More and more companies are putting up their hand in corporate India to bat for inclusion. There is enough data now showing that focusing on LGBTQ issues for corporations is good business sense. According to the venture capital firm LGBT Capital in 2015, globally the spending power of the LGBTQ community was between $3.7 trillion to $4.6 trillion. In India, according to a 2016 World Bank report, our countrys loss in GDP due to homophobia was valued at $32 Billion, or 1.7% of our GDP. I believe that corporate India out of enlightened self interest will push for change more and more over the coming years. The SC judgment has enabled queer India to have our own tryst with destiny, and now the time is here for all of us LGBTQIA, straight, allies, however we choose to identify to roll up our sleeves, and get to work to redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. I for one, couldnt be happier to be part of this new India. (Parmesh Shahani heads the Godrej India Culture Lab, a senior TED Fellow, and a member of the World Economic Forums Young Global Leaders network. The views expressed are personal) Vilnius, Lithuania Everyone has the right to live by the River Vilnel and the River Vilnel has the right to flow by everyone. Thus starts the Constitution of the Republic of Uzupis. The 41-point charter inscribed on metal plaques along a narrow alley in bohemian Vilnius is not the only visible sign that heralds the existence of a state within the Lithuanian capital. Everyone in the neighbourhood flies the flag with a spread out palm. The hand with a hole apparently symbolises the spirit of sharing as enshrined in the Constitution. Local cafes and multinational supermarkets flaunt the sub-identity at full mast. It is not a joke, warned Donald the bartender. But you should not take it seriously. The cheeky citizens have definitely earned the state they deserve. An army of 12 The Uzupio Respublika, as the parody state is called in Lithuanian, joins a league of entities recognised by no one and appreciated by everyone. It is no banana republic though. The republic formed in 1997 by a group of artists and musicians to define their favourite neighbourhood has attracted the nouveau rich of Vilnius. The address turned hip from hippy. Twenty years later, the citizens OF Uzupis remain faithful to the 22nd charter: No one has the right to have a design on eternity A Jewish quarter before the Holocaust, Uzupis became a squatter paradise during the Soviet era. After Lithuania became an independent state in 1991, free-spirited artists found a den in this dodgy quarter cocooned within a loop in the river. Riverside cafes and art galleries lent a glamorous ambiance to Uzupis. Music concerts brought in the crowds. The natives played along as the artists and musicians proclaimed the creation of a republic. Most visitors to Uzupiss Paupio Gatve can read the quirky republics constitution in their own language. Even in Hindi! (Don Sebastian) Uzupis has a cabinet of ministers and a formidable army of 12 men at last count. It even has a few bills it claims to be in currency. The Dalai Lama is one of the honorary citizens. (A small park by the river is named Tibet Square.) The republic has a list of ambassadors, including a cafe owner in the wannabe republic of Antakalnis, an adjoining district known for the cemetery where 12 of the last victims of Soviet repression were buried. As many as 14 civilians were shot down by Soviet soldiers or crushed under tanks after Lithuanians laid siege to the Vilnius TV tower in January 1991 to liberate their country. Lithuania was the first of the Soviet republics to declare independence. The ensuing era of economic crises and corruption scandals had an unusual byproduct: Uzupis rose like a study in black humour. The missing president The denizens of Uzupis celebrate their national day, rather predictably, on April 1. They take out a carnival in fancy costumes ranging from medieval gentry to Super Bowl cheerleaders to mark the day when the president of the republic addresses the gathering. Who is the president? He is a musician who arranges various programmes in Uzupis, said Donald. He could not remember the presidents name though. Maria, the bookseller, said the president was a film director. He has made a film on Uzupis. Romas Lileikis turned out to be all these and more a poet and musician. He sat down with artist Tomas epaitis to draft the unusual Constitution one summer evening in 1998. The charter was inscribed on a plaque and mounted on the wall of the red-brick Uzupio Kavin bar at the riverside end of the republics main street, Uzupio Gatv. A telling relief in front of a watering hole in Uzupis (Don Sebastian) The constitution was later translated into about 30 languages. The latest plaques on Paupio Gatv include Hindi, Urdu and Sanskrit. So what are my chances of meeting the president? I felt like taking a selfie with a head of state. Very low, unless you know what he looks like. He could be anywhere, Maria scuttled my shot at reflected glory. Oh, you might find the minister for foreign affairs (who turned out to be epaitis). I just crossed paths with him on my way to work. He should be around somewhere. I said goodbye to Maria and her sleepy cat. My boss, she explained. The cats right to be detached is protected by the Constitution: The cat is not obliged to love its owner but must help in times of need. If you are a dog person, this might help: A dog has the right to be a dog. The president loves dogs and the foreign minister loves cats. A bend away from Marias shop on Paupio Gatv, curious tourists flocked around the 26 plaques that havent made history yet. Article 14 justified the evasive president: Sometimes everyone has the right to be unaware of their duties. It is unclear whether the statehood of the republic, recognised by no government, is intended to be serious, tongue-in-cheek, or a combination of both, admitted the founders in a neglected official website. Zappa the guardian angel I traced my way back to the icon of the republic: The bronze statue of a trumpeting angel perched atop a tall column on a squeezed-in town square. Romas Viliauskas sculpted Archangel Gabriel as a symbol of the artistic revival of eastern Europe. The republic is not so apolitical after all. The republic is strewn with strange symbolism, including a marooned mermaid, a backpacker Jesus and an upright penis. Street art is everywhere along the riverside facade of the republic and it is changing always. Uzupis drifts around its guardian angel, the trumpeting Gabriel (Don Sebastian) Across the River Vilnel, Vilnius is no less artsy. The unleashed artistic energies have manifested in quirky forms of installations. When the statues of the communist heroes were pulled down, nobody knew what to do with the vacant plinths. One of them became the abode of Frank Zappa, commissioned by a hastily formed fan club of the American pop icon. Zappa had nothing to do with Lithuania but the fans insisted they were free to do anything. A few years later, they formed the republic and Zappa became one of its leading lights. The cat is not obliged to love its owner, says the constitution of Uzupis (Don Sebastian) Uzupis is slowly shifting from the bohemian free world it aspired to be. The neighbourhood has risen in real estate charts after the bizarre charter started drawing in more visitors than the Gediminas castle that overlooks it on the other side of the river. The area stills draws in artists, though they have been outnumbered by new entrants who bring with them unwanted items such as gates. The only locks appreciated in this republic are the ones left behind by lovers on the cast-iron railings of the bridge over the Vilnel. Twenty years after its creation, the republic remains unconquered and its citizens faithful to the 22nd charter: No one has the right to have a design on eternity. From HT Brunch, September 23, 2018 Follow us on twitter.com/HTBrunch Connect with us on facebook.com/hindustantimesbrunch Early next month the country, and the world, will mark the 149th birth anniversary of the Mahatma. Between then and the next 2nd of October, Gandhi will be remembered and misremembered by many people, not least politicians seeking to whitewash their sins by associating their name with his. While we await the unfolding of Gandhi@150, let me share some celebrations of the Mahatmas birthday in his own lifetime. On the 2nd of October 1939, Gandhi turned seventy. To mark the occasion, the philosopher Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan edited a volume on Gandhis life and work, with essays by, among others, the scientist Albert Einstein, the poet Yone Noguchi, the novelist Pearl Buck, and the philosopher Gilbert Murray. These Gandhi admirers were all globally renowned; here, they rubbed shoulders with the Mahatmas close friends, such as C. F. Andrews, Rabindranath Tagore, Mirza Ismail, and Henry Polak. I own a first edition of the Radhakrishnan volume myself. My favourite essay is by the South African politician Jan Smuts, who describes, with a mixture of admiration and exasperation, his dealings with Gandhi the agitator. Gandhis distinctive contribution to political method, said his old adversary, was to make himself a sufferer in order to move the sympathy and gain the support of others for the cause he has at heart. Where ordinary political methods of reasoning and persuasion fail, he falls back on this new technique, based on the ancient practices of India and the East. The book edited by Radhakrishnan has been reprinted many times. Far scarcer is a volume issued five years later, on the Mahatmas 75th birthday, and edited by a group of four others: D. G. Tendulkar, M. Chalapathi Rau, Mridula Sarabhai, and Vithalbhai K. Jhaveri. The foreword to this book is by Jawaharlal Nehru. There are fresh, albeit brief, messages from Pearl Buck and Albert Einstein, but otherwise this volume is dominated by Indian contributors. They include Gandhis fellow freedom fighters J. B. Kripalani, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, Sushila Nayar, and Yusuf Meherally, the journalists Frank Moraes, K. A. Abbas, and S. A. Brelvi, and the artist Nandalal Bose. My favourite essay in this volume is by the British-born Indian anthropologist Verrier Elwin. Whereas other contributors chose to write on the Mahatma, Elwin sent in a moving profile of Mahadev Desai, who had recently died in prison, and who had been absolutely indispensable to Gandhis life and work between 1917 and 1942. Mahadev was officially merely Gandhis secretary, but, as Elwin pointed out, he was much more than that. He was in fact Home and Foreign Secretary combined. He managed everything. He made all the arrangements. He was equally at home in the office, the guest-house and the kitchen. He looked after many guests and must have saved ten years of Gandhis life by diverting from him unwanted visitors. These books are both very valuable, as a record of what Gandhi meant to India and the world in his own lifetime. But I want to juxtapose to these two published tomes, birthday wishes offered by less well known Indians. On the 2nd of October 1919, Gandhi turned fifty. The occasion was marked by celebratory meetings across the country. For instance, in a meeting in Belgaum, one speaker said that since the Mutiny [of 1857], Mr. Gandhi was the first man to prove that Government could be made to yield to Satyagraha. The audience, he hoped, would be infected by [a] hundredth part of Gandhis brilliant character. Another speaker claimed that whatever Tilak and others did in words, Gandhi had done in deeds. The most remarkable tribure to Gandhi on his fiftieth birthday came in the form of an epic poem, almost four hundred lines long. Entitled The Ascetic of Gujarat, it was written in Gujarati by one Nanalal D. Kavi. The Bombay Governments hardworking police department had it translated in its entirety. A few lines follow: Truth is his motto. Asceticism is his armour, His banner is of Brahmacharya, his saints bowl, Inexhaustible waters of forgiveness are in, His skin is of forbearance, An heir to the Yoga of the eternal Yogi family, Above storm-winds of passions, The great living teacher of Bharata, He is the ascetic of Gujarat, The great-souled Mahatma Gandhi. Let me fast forward twenty-seven years, to the 2nd of October 1946. On this day, Gandhi turned seventy-seven. As ever, he received many letters from friends and well-wishers. They included the Vietnamese nationalist Ho Chi-Minh, the Burmese nationalist Aung San, and the British Labour leader Stafford Cripps. The file in Gandhis papers containing these letters from the Great Men of History also has a lovely letter from an unknown American, who wrote: Today at lunch I got the urge to tell you that small towns, like Forty Fort [in Pennsylvania] where I live, all over the world have been made better because of your life. Perhaps it is not so strange after all that you, Hindu leader, should remind the world and Palestine to adopt the methods of Jesus, our Christ. Jesus lives today and perhaps he speaks through you. To me it is one of my great blessings that I have lived in the same generation with you. Between 2nd October 2018 and 2nd of October 2019, we shall hear many effusively complimentary things said about the Mahatma. Can we hope that at least some of these tributes are as insightful as those offered, during Gandhis lifetime, by Jan Smuts and Verrier Elwin; and some at least as sincere as those penned by Nanalal Kavi and that man from Forty Fort? Ramachandra Guhas books include Gandhi Before India The views expressed are personal Do we, as citizens of a democracy, have the right to be fully informed of the health of those who govern us as well as the amount spent by the exchequer on their treatment? In any other democracy the answer would be an unequivocal yes. In India, unfortunately, we have equivocation. Even the media is in two minds. In America, details of not just a presidents health but those of all contenders for the job are made fully public. In Britain, when Tony Blair needed hospital treatment, the British public was immediately informed. Indeed, much the same happened in India when Manmohan Singh underwent heart surgery in 2009. However, a curtain of silence was drawn around Sonia Gandhis hospitalisation in 2011 and the same is true of Manohar Parrikars illness today. Yet in both cases this is not a private matter nor can their families have the last word on the subject. In Sonia Gandhis case, Ambika Soni, then Information and Broadcasting Minister, actually told the media: Only that much information would be shared which they (the Gandhis) would want to share. She even suggested the government was not fully briefed when she added you will get all the information as soon as its made available to us. In Manohar Parrikars case, when he was first admitted to the Lilavati Hospital, his office variously called it a routine check-up and mild pancreatitis. The hospital, whilst denying unspecified malicious and misleading reports/rumours only added that the Hon. Chief Minister of Goa is being treated and is responding well to the treatment without bothering to state what the treatment was for! Since then hes flown to America three times for treatment and news reports suggest a fourth visit is likely. Yet even now all were told is hes suffering from a pancreatic ailment. Now, if India was a western democracy our media would have thrown all the resources it could muster to find out the truth about Sonia Gandhi and Manohar Parrikar and ensure it was fully revealed to the public. They would also have found out or accurately estimated the cost and published that as well. The reason is simple: in a democracy the peoples right to information about their leaders, which can and does affect their politics and governance, takes priority over the individuals right to privacy. This is because the stability of UPA-2 or the present Goa government is contingent upon the healthy functioning of its most important leader. Instead, our media is divided between those who believe these details, both medical and financial, must be fully revealed and others who argue that respect for the individuals privacy must be maintained and that it would be intrusive to follow western precedents. However, that wasnt the case when Manmohan Singh underwent heart surgery but, perhaps, he insisted on complete disclosure. Other politicians have, sadly, not lived up to his exemplary standards. So now we have a genuine debate. Am I right in my view that we must be fully informed and that this takes priority over the concerned individuals privacy? Or should we value and protect the restraint with which we treat such matters? After all, if the media doesnt reveal the love lives of our leaders, why should it reveal the details of their health and treatment? Manohar Parrikars illness has brought this issue to the fore. It gives us another chance to decide one way or the other. Surely that would be better than just muddling along? Karan Thapar is the author of The Devils Advocate: The Untold Story The views expressed are personal Witnessing in London the political chaos created by implementing Brexit, Britains departure from the European Union, has led me to think of Indias politics. There is a civil war raging in the Labour party between the supports of the radical leader Jeremy Corbyn and his centrist opponents. Europe has caused further divisions in that party. There is a civil war in the Prime Minister Theresa Mays Conservative party between those who want a negotiated break with Europe and the far right element who are prepared to see Britain crash out of Europe without an agreement. Thats a prospect which the head of the Tata owned British car-manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover, Ralf Speth, has said would mean the loss of 10,000 jobs and would wipe out the companys profits. There is a great deal of speculation talk about the possibility of the two main parties splitting when Theresa May presents her plan for a negotiated Brexit to Parliament. As the two main parties are being pulled apart by their extreme wings there should be an opportunity for the small Liberal party who are committed to Europe to occupy the centre ground but their leader Sir Vince Cable has called for a new centrist movement to be formed. Although that does not seem to be going anywhere, the political columnist for the pro-European Sunday Observer, Andrew Rawnsley, does believe that the present chaotic situation in British politics, with the possibility of a radically left or radically right government coming to power, could lead to a new centrist formation emerging. In a centre page article he said, it is perfectly possible to inspire passion and mobilise enthusiastic support from a broadly centrist position. He quoted as examples of politicians who had done that, Tony Blair, Emmanuel Macron of France, Justin Trudeau of Canada, and Barack Obama of America. But to win by standing on the centre ground requires, according to Rawnsley, leaders who have sufficient experience to be taken seriously, enough freshness to be exciting, and a body of smart ideas that are both galvanising and credible Rawnsley added, a bit of charisma and a sprinkling of star dust would be a great help in animating support. Coming to India the leadership attributes Rawnsley suggests are the attributes which enabled Narendra Modi to create the new BJP. A comparison with the Advani-Vajpayee BJP demonstrates that it is new. I would argue that to mount an effective challenge to the BJP the opposition needs to find a leader with Rawnsleys attributes including star dust. History has shown that Indians vote for leaders rather than parties. This brings me to Rahul Gandhi. The queues outside Delhis Indira Gandhi Museum indicate that some of her star dust might still be sprinkled on Rahul. He may not be a star yet, but he attracts attention wherever he goes and whatever he does. He has had been in politics for some time now which counts as experience, although his experience would be more saleable if he had joined Manmohan Singhs government. He hasnt so far produced any attention-grabbing new policies. He is not highly rated by political pandits. Nevertheless he is the only national centrist politician on the scene who could lead a new formation to oppose the BJP. But he cant do that at present. Rahul is now planning to set sail in a leaky ship, a hotchpotch coalition which hasnt even come together yet. He knows it will sink before it sets sail if he demands to be captain, so he is not doing so. Congress optimists believe that if the ship survives the electoral voyage ahead of the BJP, Rahul will then be able to claim the captaincy because his party will be is the largest one on board. But that also would sink the ship. However if he bides his time and lays the foundation of a new formation, New Congress, just as Tony Blair occupied the central ground by building New Labour, his day could still come. There is not much prospect of any other politician emerging as Indias Tony Blair. The views expressed are personal Five men were arrested while two managed to escape on charges of attempting to rape a 21-year-old information technology (IT) professional in a plush condominium in Sector 86 on Thursday night when she was climbing the stairs to her second-floor apartment in a case with all the ingredients that many believe makes Gurugram unsafe: wild young men with means; gangs; guns; and liquor. High drama ensued after the woman raised an alarm, with residents of the condominium claiming that two of the men arrested, both residents of a first-floor apartment in the same condominium, were habitual offenders and alleged that the police delayed filing an FIR and tried to cover up the matter, eventually registering an FIR several hours later only after senior police officers were informed . Police identified the arrested men only by their first names: Ankit alias Kali, his brother Sawan, Abhishek, Mukesh alias Monty and Sachin. Hemant, a native of Badha village near Sector 86 and Kamal alias Nandi are at large. According to the police, Hemant was given police protection after a suspected gangster opened fire on him last year. It isnt clear why, or whether Hemant is part of a gang. The flat was owned by Ankit and Sawans grandfather; the duo hails from Safidon in Haryanas Jind district. According to the police, Ankit and Sawan have been staying in the apartment for over two years. While Ankit drives a cab for a private cab aggregator, Sawan works in a private company. Abhishek and Mukesh are from Lucknow, UP, and had come to the city to attend a function. Sachin hails from Badha village, said police. According to the police, the incident took place around 9.45pm when the victim, who returned from office, was cornered by one of the accused in the staircase on the first floor. Kherki Daula station house officer Kuldeep Kumar said the brothers had invited the five others for a party and were drunk. The victim opted to take the stairs to her apartment and was assaulted by the accused in the staircase near the first floor. She managed to run and informed her parents, said Kumar, adding that the police was informed of the incident at 11.30 pm. In the FIR filed by the complainant, she said she was startled in the stairs by a man, who made a bad noise causing her to drop her tiffin. I was about to pick it up when the man tried to grab my hand. I managed to run. I heard more people laughing (and thought they) may be following. After I reached home, I informed mom and dad. I was really scared. They also tried to threaten my parents , she wrote in the complaint. The womans parents were taking a postprandial walk inside the complex. A case was registered against the seven accused on Friday at 5.31am under IPC sections 354-A (sexual harassment), 376 (rape), 506 (criminal intimidation), 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) and 511 (punishment for attempting to commit offences punishable with imprisonment of life or other imprisonment) at Kherki Daula police station, said police. Police said the five arrested were produced in district court on Friday and remanded to judicial custody. Denying allegations of any laxity in the probe, the police said a team of officers , including the Assistant Commissioner (south), SHO Manesar, SHO Kherki Daula and others rushed to pacify the residents and avert a law and order situation. Some of the accused were roughed up by the residents and police tried to prevent the situation from getting out of hand. The investigating team returned around 4am and filed the FIR, said Kumar. Residents alleged that several among the accused habitually indulged in delinquent behaviour, including rash driving, getting drunk and misbehaving with people. Jigar Shah, who moved into the condominium over three years ago said: One of the accused used to flaunt guns in front of the security staff and create a ruckus after drinking. Residents complained to the security team several times and they were let off with a warning. He added that there had been no previous police complaint. Another resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the gunman protecting one of the accused, was also involved in the incident and was also drunk. Dharambir Singh, ACP, Manesar, said a Haryana police constable was assigned to an accused, Hemant, after an attack on him last year by a gangster. We are probing the incident of the previous night and if any evidence is found against the gunman for negligence in duty, a departmental enquiry will be initiated, he added. Police said the victims statement was not recorded before a duty magistrate on Friday as she was traumatised. At least four people were killed and nine others were injured, two of them seriously, when an overloaded SUV plunged into a 300-foot gorge in a remote area of Doda district in Jammu and Kashmir in bad weather on Saturday morning. Around 10.45 AM on Saturday an overloaded Tata Sumo plunged into a deep gorge. The vehicle was on its way from Seru Khal Jugassar towards Gowari in remote Gandoh area, Doda deputy commissioner Simrandeep Singh told HT over phone. At least four people have died and nine others are injured, two of them critically. The weather is bad and chopper cannot fly. Therefore, we are treating and stabilizing the injured at health centre in Gandoh, he said. Army, police and locals are carrying out the rescue operations. Seven of the injured will be to Doda district hospital while the two critically injured passengers will be airlifted to government medical college and hospital in Jammu as soon as the weather improves, he said. Singh said that it was a clear case of overloading that led to the accident. There were 13 people including the driver in the eight-seater vehicle. The dilapidated roads in the Doda region comprising Kishtwar and Bhaderwah coupled with official apathy and overloading besides reckless driving have made the region a death trap for the commuters. Former Governor NN Vohra, who had a 10 year long tenure in the state, had repeatedly asked successive regimes in the state to check frequent road accidents in the hilly state, especially Doda region. This is the fourth major accident in region in the last one month. On September 14, at least 17 people were killed after an overloaded minibus plunged into gorge in adjoining Kishtwar district. On August 21, 13 Machail Yatra pilgrims were killed when their cab plunged into a gorge while seven people were killed and 12 others injured when two vehicles were hit by boulders a day earlier. An eight-year-old boy, son of a migrant labourer couple in Rajkot who went missing on Thursday, was found dead early Saturday and is suspected to have been killed by a neighbour in a sodomy case, police said. The neighbour allegedly took advantage of the fact that Class I student preferred to sleep at his home which has a fan, instead at the construction site in Rajkot where his family has been staying for the past two years. We have arrested one Bittu Bhaiver. This 34-year-old runs a small shoe shop. The construction site where the boys family worked is located adjacent to his house. He has admitted to have choked the boy to death, said Bhaktinagar police inspector V K Gadhvi. The police suspect Bhaiver sodomised the boy, but are waiting for the post-mortem report. From the post-mortem report we will be able to say if the boy was sodomised, the officer added. His parents, who hail from Madhya Pradeshs Jambuwa, had registered a missing person complaint on Thursday. The examination of CCTV footage from cameras installed around the construction site where the victims parents work showed the accused taking the taken the boy to his home on Thursday. He is suspected to have killed him the same day. The police said that after dumping the body, the accused pretended to help the family in searching for the boy. The police quoted the boys parents as saying that he knew the accused very well as he often used to prefer sleeping under his roof which has a fan. Police investigation has also revealed that other boys from neighbourhood also used to sleep in accuseds one-room house for the same reason. The abduction and killing of three policemen in south Kashmirs Shopian early on Friday have vitiated the already tense atmosphere for the upcoming municipal and panchayat elections in the state. The killings have prompted a double impact: a wave of fear among local special police officers (SPOs), many of whom took to social media to distance themselves from the police department, and triggered more worry among people who have been associated with the local bodies. With each passing day, the atmosphere is turning scary. The incidents of violence are continuing, which is really a matter of concern for us, said Shafiq Mir, president of All J&K Panchayat Conference (AJKPC), an organisation of former panchayat members of the state. The AJKPC had earlier announced that its members would contest the rural bodies polls to be held in November and December amid calls from militants and separatists to boycott the elections. SPOs Nissar Ahmad, Firdous Ahmad Kuchay and Kuldeep Singh were killed after suspected militants barged into their homes in Shopian and abducted them early on Friday. Hours later, their bodies were recovered nearby. The polls for 72 municipal committees, six municipal councils and two municipal corporations will start from October 8 while elections to 35,096 panch constituencies will be held in nine phases from November 17. In the last four days, the response to calls to file nomination for the municipal polls has been very poor. An official of the urban local bodies said the enthusiasm among people for filing nomination for the municipal polls has been missing. The emerging situation has put an effect on the overall election process and the latest killings of policemen will obviously have an impact. From the government side, preparations are on in full swing, he said. The states two major political parties, National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party, have announced that they will not participate in the elections, citing an atmosphere of fear due to the assault on the special constitutional position (Article 35 A) of Jammu and Kashmir. Last month, militant outfit Hizbul Mujahideen issued a strong warning to those planning to participate in the polls, asking them to get shrouds along with elections forms. The separatists have asked people to boycott the polls, saying India projects elections in the state as a referendum in its favour. J&K chief election officer Shaleen Kabra said the subdued response to filing nomination was a usual process. In every election, the process starts up slowly. We expect people will participate in these elections as these are meant for local issues. Not only the candidates, but we expect people to come out to vote, Kabra said. Muscular policy not working: Mehbooba Former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir and president of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Mehbooba Mufti said on Friday that she was aghast over the killing of three policemen, adding that the central governments muscular policy was not working in Kashmir. Mehbooba said condemnations will bring no solace to the families of the three policemen who were abducted and killed in Shopian. Three more policemen have lost their lives to militant bullets. Outrage, shock & condemnation will be expressed by all of us on expected lines. Unfortunately, it brings no solace to the families of the victims, she wrote on Twitter. Clearly, with the rise in kidnapping of police personnel and their families, the Centres muscular policy is not working at all. Dialogue, the only way forward, seems to be a distant dream for now, she said. The PDP-BJP coalition government was ruling the state till the latter parted away and the state came under governors rule in June. On Thursday, Mehbooba had stressed on the need for dialogue when news percolated that Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan had written a letter to his Indian counterpart. The meeting was called off on Friday by India with a foreign ministry spokesperson citing the abduction and killing of the policemen in south Kashmir on Friday as the reason. Mehbooba termed the development as bad news. Calling off meeting between India & Paks FMs is bad news for J&K. Both countries owe it to people of state & country to carry on dialogue rather than talking through media. Karnatakas ruling partners the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular) have regularly had to battle rumours that their legislators are set to desert them to help the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) topple chief minister HD Kumaraswamys four-month-old government. So it was on Saturday amid buzz that three Congress MLAs were headed to Chennai. That the three - MTB Nagaraj, D Sudhakar and H Nagesh who had contested as an independent but subsequently joined the Congress - could not be reached for comments fuelled the speculation that they were BJP-bound.The Congress rubbished the rumours, confirming late in the evening that the three were in touch with former chief minister Siddaramaiah and were not planning on quitting the party. The Congress again alleged that some BJP leaders, including state president BS Yeddyurappa, have been in touch with legislators of the ruling coalition, promising monetary incentives to make them switch over, allegations that have been denied by the BJP. They offered Rs 5 crore to our legislator CS Shivalli, alleged state Congress president Dinesh Gundu Rao on Saturday, referring to the party MLA who was allegedly approached by the BJP. Earlier this week, the Congress had even filed a complaint with the income tax department alleging that the BJP was collecting black money in order to indulge in horse-trading. The latest round of desertion rumours were sparked after a turf battle within the Congresss Belagavi district unit spiraled out of control. However the three in the centre of Saturdays rumour are not from the district. The Congress alleged the BJP has approached its leaders in an attempt to dislodge the Congress-JD(S) coalition, which managed to form the government in the state despite the BJP having got the highest number of seats in assembly elections this year. A senior BJP leader who did not want to be named, claimed that it was the Congress leaders who had reached out to the party. We followed up on those conversations, it wasnt the other way around, the leader said. Congress leaders admit privately that the threat of desertion is being used by some members as leverage with an eye on a cabinet expansion that chief minister Kumaraswamy is likely to effect soon. The Jarkiholi brothers - minister Ramesh Jarkiholi and his brother Satish - had used this successfully, kicking up a row earlier this month over elections to a local cooperative bank, which was controlled by them till recently. Congress first-time MLA Lakshmi Hebbalkar had decided to prop up local leaders close to her to challenge their control. The brothers signalled that some people in the party were working to weaken their hold over the Belagavi district, publicly criticising state leaders and holding many discussions with MLAs close to them. That had sparked speculation that they were considering quitting the Congress. However, they havent quit, with a compromise solution struck up after senior Congress leaders intervened allowing the Jarkiholis to pick president and vice-president candidates from among Hebbalkars group, allowing the brothers to claim the bragging rights in the battle. Even as the Congress quelled that round of dissent, other leaders saw an effective tactic to lobby for ministerial posts, a senior party leader said, adding, The lead up to a Cabinet expansion is always a time of anxiety for parties, because those who lose out are sure to kick up a fuss.. But both the Congress and the JD (S) are confident that they have matters under control. The Congress leader pointed to a letter written to Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar as the reason for this confidence. In the letter, the JD(S) said there were reports of horse trading and, hence, the speaker must not accept resignations, if tendered, without first investigating the matter. The Jharkhand government plans to include all households under the Centres flagship scheme Ayushman Bharat, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch from Ranchi on Sunday. If implemented, it could become the countrys first state to provide health insurance cover to all its residents, senior health officials said on Friday after the government signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the National Insurance Company Ltd (NICL) to provide medical facilities to the people of the state under Ayushman Bharat Yojana. The health insurance scheme will cover 57 lakh families of the state who are enrolled under National Food Security Act. However, the Raghubar Das government is contemplating to add remaining 11 lakh families, who are not enrolled under NFSA, to the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY), said state health minister Ramchandra Chandravanshi. Read more: Ayushman Bharat, building Indias new health base Out of 10.74 crore families in the country, the centre has selected 25 lakh families from Jharkhand through the socio-economic caste census (SECC)-2011 data under the scheme, Chandravanshi said. Centre, State to share cost The Centre would finance 60% and the state would contribute 40% for the health insurance of these 25 lakh families. Jharkhand is probably the first state which has decided to include 32 lakh more families, enrolled under NFSA, under the scheme. The state will bear entire financial burden of these families, which would be around Rs 540 crore, the health minister added. Read more: All you need to know about Ayushman Bharat scheme Chandravanshi said the government was drafting modalities to include remaining 11 lakh families of the state under the scheme. Since these families are not financially weak, they would have to bear a certain cost of premium to avail the benefit of the scheme. With this, all 68 lakh families of the state would be covered under the ambitious scheme, said the minister. Hybrid model The state government has chosen hybrid-model of the scheme in which health cover of Rs 1 lakh would be disbursed through the government approved insurance company. Health claim of above Rs 1 lakh and up to Rs 5 lakh would be disbursed through trust mode by the implementation support agency-Jharkhand State Aarogya Society (JSAS). The National Insurance Company Limited was earlier servicing Jharkhands Mukhya Mantri Swasthya Bima Yojana (MSBY) which has now been merged with Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana (PMJAY). Health care facility up to Rs 1 lakh would be provided by us. Annual insurance burden on each family would be Rs 900, which would be paid by the government in three instalments, said NICLs chief regional manager DS Pente. Facilities for patients He said portability is the major difference between MSBY and PMJAY. With rolling out of Ayushman Bharat, patient would have the facility to get treatment from any empanelled hospital in the country, which was not available with the MSBY. Jharkhand health secretary Nidhi Khare said the department has received 603 applications from the private hospitals for empanelment under Ayushman Bharat. We have so far empanelled 280 hospitals. All government hospitals which have facility up to 10 beds would be deemed empanelled. Letters are being sent to all beneficiary families on behalf of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The scheme will cover 1350 packages over 23 surgical and medical specialties. The beneficiaries are also entitled to get treatment in any empanelled hospital. Army chief General Bipin Rawat said Saturday stern action is needed to avenge the barbarism by terrorists and the Pakistan Army against Indian soldiers without resorting to brutality. The comment comes after a BSF jawan was shot and his throat slit recently, followed by the abduction and killings of three policemen in Jammu and Kashmir. We need to take stern action to avenge the kind of barbarism that terrorists and the Pakistan Army have been carrying out against our soldiers. It is time to give it back to them in the same coin, but not by resorting to similar kind of barbarism..., the Army chief said at a press conference here. ...If you look at it, the casualty and damage suffered by the other side (Pakistan) is far more than what we have been suffering. We have done it a professional and a military-like manner, the army chief insisted. Asked to comment on Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khans tweet expressing disappointment on Indias decision to cancel a meeting of foreign ministers, the Army chief said talks and terrorism cannot go hand in hand and Pakistan needed to curb the menace of terrorism. He said the government was fully supporting the force which also had the liberty to carry out their actions. And you can see its result in Kashmir and the northeast, he said. Rawat also claimed that the surgical strike in 2016, in the wake of Uri attack, was a first-of-its-kind operation. The Army chief was in Jaipur to review the Haifa Day Mounted Parade at the 61 Cavalry ground here. Haifa Day is celebrated every year to commemorate the liberation of Israeli city Haifa from the occupation of the Turks by the British Indian Army soldiers, led by Major Dalpat Singh, on September 23, 1918. The Bheem Army has demanded security for its chief Chandrashekhar Azad, citing the large number of people visiting his house since his release from the jail on September 14. Bheem Army Saharanpur district president Kamal Walia said supporters and volunteers were facing a tough time managing the crowd of visitors at Azads house in Chutmalpur. So, his safety was a cause of concern. A delegation of Bheem Army has demanded that the administration provide adequate security to Chandrashekhar, said Walia, adding that they sought a posse of security men around him. However, sources said, the brewing tension between Dalits and Rajputs in Saharanpur district since last years clashes was a major factor behind the demand as Azad is planning a tour to strengthen his outfit. Clashes broke out between Dalits and Rajputs on May 5 last year after a dispute arose over loud music being played during a Maharana Pratap Jayanti procession in Shabbirpur village. A youth belonging to the Rajput community died in the clashes, following which Rajputs allegedly torched over 50 Dalit dwellings in the village. The clashes, in Shabbirpur and Saharanpur brought the Bhim Army and its founder Azad to national attention. The organisation and its chief also emerged as the voice of Dalits after it accused the administration of siding with the Rajputs. A clash was also reported between Bheem Army supporters and the police after they were denied permission to hold a panchayat of Dalits over the issue. Senior superintendent of police (SSP), Saharanpur, U K Aggarwal, confirmed that a security request was made over the phone and no written complaint has been filed. Let the demand come in writing and we will take cognisance... Notably, Walias younger brother Sachin Walia was found shot dead a few months ago and officials have provided two security personnel to the family. Kamal has also demanded that they be permanently deputed. He added that the SSP had assured him for the same. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in West Bengal has called for a 12-hour statewide strike in protest against the death of two men in alleged police firing in North Dinajpur district over recruitment of teachers in a high school, a leader said Saturday. Rajesh Sarkar, 19, and Tapash Burman, 21, both former students of Darivit High School in Islampur where the violence over appointment of Urdu and Sanskrit teachers took place Thursday, died of bullet injuries, even as North Dinajpur superintendent of police Sumit Kumar denied claims the police had opened fire. The SP, however, admitted that the students had received bullet injuries and had said the police were investigating who had opened fire. Kumar added eight people have been arrested in connection with the clash. The families of both the victims have demanded a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation, and refused to cremate their bodies until then. Villagers told CPI(M) leaders Sujan Chakraborty and Ashok Bhattacharya who met the families at their homes in Daribhita village that they have buried the two bodies and are keeping watch over the graves so that the bodies are not taken out and cremated. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who is in Milan (Italy), released a statement vowing to keep the situation normal in the state, while alleging the role of BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in spreading communal tension in the region. The deaths are unfortunate. But the police did not open fire. It was the goons. The BJP and the RSS are playing with blood. The BJP has to answer for this, she told the media there. At a press conference in Kolkata, BJPs state vice-president Pratap Banerjee announced the call for a strike. We have called for a Bengal bandh on September 26 for 12 hours to protest against the atrocities in Darivit High School in Islampur, he said. The chief minister vowed action against any strike. There will be no bandh in Bengal. If anyone tries to paralyse normal life, the administration will take stern action. These are tactics to divert public attention from issues such as rising prices of fuel and the Rafale deal, she told the media. The chief minister had left on a 12-day trip to Germany and Italy to bring in investments, and is likely to return on September 28. BJP state chief Dilip Ghosh has demanded a CBI probe into the two deaths. He said he didnt go to meet the families deliberately as he wanted to avoid stoking tension. I may go there tomorrow or the day after. The RSS has supported the bandh, and accused the state government of failing to control the situation in Islampur. Its south Bengal general secretary Jishnu Basu sought an unconditional apology from state education minister Partha Chatterjee, who had on Friday blamed the organisation for orchestrating trouble at the school, which led to students clashing with the police. The RSS in no way is involved in it. He (Chatterjee) should either prove what he has said or apologise publicly or else we will launch a massive movement, Basu said, adding, We demand a CBI inquiry into the incident to bring out the truth. The state government is trying to hide facts. Speaking on the violence and the controversy over the appointment of teachers, the chief minister said, Students cannot decide which teacher will join duty. There are places in Bengal where more than 10% of the population comprises Muslims. Islampur is one of them. That is why we wanted to appoint an Urdu teacher. But the students were not willing to let him in, though they did not say anything about the Sanskrit teacher. The BJP and the RSS are clearly making a communal issue out of this. They brought goons from outside and opened fire (on the students). Meanwhile, the parents of the two victims have demanded a CBI probe. We have no faith in the police. The post-mortem was done at midnight. We demand a CBI investigation. The body may have to be examined again, Rajeshs father Nilkamal Sarkar said. The mother, Jharna, said the police shot (her son) dead. Tapashs mother Basanti said her son was at his shop... when a bullet hit him from behind. Sarkar and Burman sustained bullet injuries during the clash between the police and students of the school in Islampur, about 488km north of Kolkata. The students were demanding appointment of teachers for science and literature while protesting the recruitment of newly-appointed Urdu and Sanskrit teachers. (With PTI inputs) Congress president Rahul Gandhi asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday to clear the air over Indias purchase of 36 Rafale jets from France and demanded a joint parliamentary committee probe into the deal a day after former French president Francois Hollande fuelled controversy by saying Reliance Defences choice as an offset partner of Dassault Aviation, (which makes the aircraft) was Indias . The principal Opposition party has alleged that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government chose Anil Ambanis Reliance Group over state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) for an offset deal in the $8.7-billion purchase initiated in 2016. The ministry of defence said on Saturday that unnecessary controversy was being created by the opposition parties. The government has stated earlier and again reiterates that it had no role in the selection of Reliance Defence as the Offset partner, it said, explaining that offset partners are chosen by the supplier and that neither France nor India, in this case, had a role to play. As per Defence Offset Guidelines, the foreign Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) is free to select any Indian company as its offset partner, the ministry said. A report in a French investigative website on Friday quoted the former French president as saying that the Indian government proposed the name of Anil Ambanis Reliance Group as Dassault Aviations offset partner. We had no say in this regard. The Indian government proposed this service group (Reliance Defence), and Dassault Aviation negotiated with (Anil) Ambani. We did not have a choice, we took the interlocutor who was given to us, the website Mediapart quoted Hollande as saying. On Saturday morning, when news agency AFP asked Hollande whether India had put pressure on Dassault to pick Reliance, the former French President , who was in Canada at the time, said he was unaware of this, and that only Dassault can comment on this. Hours after Hollandes remarks on Friday, French aerospace major Dassault said it had made the decision to partner with Reliance Defence Ltd for the deal. The French government also released a statement, saying it was not involved in the choice of the Indian partner and that French companies had complete freedom to select Indian firms for the offset part of the deal. The Congresss attacks on the government began within hours of the Mediapart story being published, with Gandhi tweeting on Friday that Modi had personally negotiated & changed the #Rafale deal behind closed doors. He renewed his attack on Saturday morning, saying Modi and Anil Ambani had carried out a a One Hundred & Thirty Thousand Crore, SURGICAL STRIKE on the Indian Defence forces. On Saturday, he addressed a news conference where he said: What I am surprised with is that PM is completely silent. Not one word has come out from the PMs mouth on this. This is from a President of France, who had a one-to-one meeting with PM where the Rafale deal was decided, referring to Hollandes remarks. Modi announced the deal to buy 36 Rafale jets after holding talks with then French president Hollande on April 10, 2015 in Paris. The Congress president said Modi should clear his stand over the issue. We are absolutely convinced that PM of India is corrupt. Im trying to help him protect his office, he said. A joint parliamentary committee should be formed for the truth to come out, Gandhi added. Home minister Rajnath Singh said the verification of the French media report will reveal the truth. One should think four times before levelling any baseless allegation. One should not make allegations without proof, Singh said in reaction to Gandhis remarks. Accusing Gandhi of helping Pakistan, Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad asked why Gandhi was playing into the hands of the enemy by insisting that India disclose details of the weapon system that will be added to Rafale aircraft. Prasad called the Gandhi family the source of corruption in the country, and alleged that the UPA government had decided to re-examine the Rafale deal in 2012, perhaps because the company had refused to pay bribe. He called Gandhis attack on the Prime Minister shameful and irresponsible. What else can you expect from someone who has become president of the Congress party not because of his capabilities, but because of his dynasty, Prasad said. He said each aircraft, without the weapon, was 9% cheaper than the rate negotiated by the UPA government and that the fully loaded aircraft was 20% cheaper. BJP president Amit Shah, too, attacked Gandhi over his remarks. Rahul Gandhi says Modi Hatao. Pakistan says Modi Hatao. Now Pakistan also supports Rahul Gandhis baseless allegations against PM Modi. Is Congress forming an International Mahagathbandhan against PM Modi? Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said the PM should call a special session of Parliament to discuss the issue. Hollandes comments published on Friday contradict the governments position that it had nothing to do with Dassault Aviation selecting Reliance Defence as one of the companies that would implement its offset obligations in the Rafale deal. This has also been Ambanis position on the matter. NDTV later reported that Hollandes office said he stood by his remarks made to Mediapart. The NDA governments decision to enter the government-to-government deal with France to buy 36 Rafale warplanes made by Dassault was announced in April 2015, with an agreement signed a little over a year later. This replaced the previous United Progressive Alliance regimes decision to buy 126 Rafale aircraft, 108 of which were to be made in India by the state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. The deal has become controversial with the Opposition, led by the Congress, claiming that the price at which India is buying Rafale aircraft now is Rs 1,670 crore for each, three times the Rs 526 crore, the initial bid by the company when the UPA was trying to buy the aircraft. It has also claimed the previous deal included a technology transfer agreement with HAL. The controversy is also regarding the offset deal signed by Dassault with the Reliance Group of Anil Ambani. The Congress claims the earlier deal was scrapped and a new one signed just to provide Ambani this opportunity. Both the government and Reliance have repeatedly denied this. The government has also said the two deals are not comparable, that cost- and timing-issues would have ensured the older deal never closed, and that the planes it has ordered come with customized weaponry. It has, however, declined to provide the exact costs for them, citing a confidentiality agreement with France, and larger, security concerns. T Suvarna Raju, who was heading HAL till three weeks ago, told HT on September 19 that the public sector undertaking could have built Rafale fighters in India had the government managed to close the original negotiations with Dassault for the 126 fighters and that there was a work-share agreement between the two companies. However, he admitted that it would have cost HAL more to make the aircraft. Rajus statements became the basis for a sharper attack by the Congress, with party chief Gandhi demanding defence minister Nirmala Sitharamans resignation for lying about the capability of HAL to build the fighter aircraft and the latter claiming the Congress-led UPA was responsible for HALs decline, and that the decision to drop the state-owned aircraft maker from the deal was taken during the UPAs rule. The Congress message for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections will sharply focus on jobs and farmers, party leaders familiar with the matter said on Saturday, yet again highlighting the ongoing agrarian crisis in many parts of the country and the jobs scenario. The two issues came in for special attention at the first meeting of the partys manifesto committee held earlier this month, when around 18 to 19 senior Congress leaders gathered to thrash out the basic contours of the partys manifesto for 2019. According to two leaders present at the meeting, issues such as corruption (especially the Rafale deal) and mismanagement of the economy will also be accorded high priority . Both jobs and the agrarian crisis are contentious issues, with the government defending its record on both. It recently increased the price at which it buys 14 crops to ensure farmers earned a 50% return on their investment, and it claims that in the absence of jobs data, the fact that loans to small enterprises and the number of provident fund accounts have increased, indicate that jobs are being created. The Congress will approach this election in a more structured way with peoples issues right on the top, said a senior strategist of the party, pointing out that this is the first time party president Rahul Gandhi has formed a core committee for the polls. At the meeting, different leaders were also asked to prepare notes on specific sectors. The notes will provide an outline on how the Congress will approach the sector and its related issues in the run up to elections. Former Union minister Salman Khurshid has been asked to prepare a note on minorities and Shashi Tharoor will give a note on young professionals. Former finance minister P Chidambaram will work on economic issues while Anand Sharma will handle the trade and commerce sector, said a leader. The party will soon upload a dedicated website for its 2019 campaign to seek ideas from the people. It will be our answer to Prime Ministers Mann ki Baat where he talks about his ideas. Our forum will be to listen to the peoples mann ki baat, said another Congress leader. On Saturday, interacting with professors and teachers at an event in the capital, party president Rahul Gandhi hinted that the Congress would listen to different stakeholders and incorporate their views in the manifesto. Congress party is commencing its work in drafting a manifesto. I want the teachers to form a delegation and come to us with your demands, Gandhi told the gathering of professors. Rahul Gandhis key aide K Raju is coordinating with leaders from different regions and acting as a bridge between the grass-roots level workers and the officers of the party. Even as work on the manifesto and strategy continue, the Congress is keen to tap young volunteers with some connections with the Congress in large numbers for back-end support. For logistics support, we may tie up with some organisations that will help us campaign in other parts of the country, especially in rural India, said a third leader. As the party embarks upon a mammoth exercise to take on the BJP, party leaders observe that the process of coming up with a manifesto and strategy is more focused and better co-ordinated than in previous years. Last time, our preparations were a disaster. There were too many bosses, one person didnt know what another was doing and ego clashes hampered effective coordination, said a senior functionary of the party who asked not to be named. While manifesto is an important part of any political party in an election, the overall campaign, the direct outreach to the people and the organisational strength will finally matter in this election. Every opposition party also must understand that the BJP is not only a very strong party it also has possibly the best campaign mechanism, said Afzal Amanullah, former parliamentary affairs secretary. Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan has hit out at India in angry tweets, alleging that the decision to call off foreign minister level talks is an arrogant and negative response to his offer for dialogue. Disappointed at the arrogant & negative response by India to my call for resumption of the peace dialogue. However, all my life I have come across small men occupying big offices who do not have the vision to see the larger picture, he said in tweets in English and Urdu. India on Friday cancelled a meeting it had announced just the day before between external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and her Pakistani counterpart, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, in New York citing the brutal killing of security personnel by Pakistan-based entities and the recent release of a series of 20 postage stamps by the neighbouring country glorifying a terrorist and terrorism. External affairs ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar also launched a frontal attack on Pakistan and its premier, saying the evil agenda of the neighbour has been exposed and the true face of the new Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, has been revealed to the world in his first few months in office. In view of the changed situation, there will be no meeting between the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan in New York, he said. Qureshi on Friday expressed disappointment at India calling off the meeting, alleging that internal pressure forced New Delhi to make the unfortunate move. It is unfortunate that India has not given a positive response. India has once again wasted an opportunity for peace, he told the media in Islamabad, reported news agency PTI. He said that it was important to sit and talk for the sake of peace and stability in the region, but Indias refusal shows that the Indian government is facing internal pressure. Indian Navy Saturday said all efforts were being made to rescue its officer Abhilash Tomy, who has been injured after his vessel was hit by a vicious storm mid-way across the south Indian Ocean while taking part in the Golden Globe Race. Rescue efforts, led by Australian Defence Forces, are underway off Perth to find the 39-year old sailor. Golden Globe Race is a sailing race around the world that started on 1 July from France. Commander Tomy, who became the first Indian to have circumnavigated the globe in 2013, is the only Indian participating in the Golden Globe Race that involves a gruelling 30,000-mile solo circumnavigation of the globe Commander Tomy, sailing on an indigenously built sailing vessel Thuriya, suffered a back injury Friday after the yacht was dismasted in extremely rough weather and sea condition, with wind speeds of 130 kmph and 10 metre high waves. All out efforts are being made to rescue Abhilash Tomy. Indian Naval stealth Frigate, INS Satpura operating in the Indian Ocean has been dispatched for the rescue mission, a Defence spokesman said here. The Indian Navy commander is in the south Indian Ocean, approximately 1,900 nautical miles from Perth in Australia, and the Australian Rescue Coordination centre at Canberra is coordinating the rescue mission in conjunction with many agencies including the Australian Defence Department and the Indian Navy, he said quoting information received from organisers. He was in 3rd position and has sailed over 10,500 nautical miles in the last 84 days, since commencement of the race on July 1. According to a report issued from the Les Sables dOlonne, France Friday night, the 70 knot winds and 14 metre high seas have left the yachts of Indian Navys Tomy and Irelands Gregor McGuckin dismasted, and have twice knocked down the yacht of second-placed Dutchman Mark Slats. Both McGuckin and Slats report that they are okay, but 39-year-old Tomy, a commander in the Indian Navy making his second solo circumnavigation, has been injured, it had said. It had also said other entrants were asked to make towards Tomys position if possible, and added that the weather was extreme. The nearest yacht happens to be that of Gregor McGuckins Biscay 36 Hanley Energy Endurance, some 90 miles to the southwest of Tomys Thuriya, but she too was dismasted in the same storm. lobe Race: All efforts made to resuce injured sailor, The judicial first class magistrates court in Pala on Saturday remanded the former Bishop of Jalandhar Franco Mulakkal , finally arrested by the Kerala police on Friday on charges of raping a nun, to police custody for two days. The bishop, who tried to brazen it out when the charges first emerged was arrested on Friday after three days of questioning, but soon admitted to a hospital because he complained of uneasiness a standard ploy among many people arrested so as to avoid custody. On Saturday, though, he was discharged from the hospital after doctors said he was not suffering from any major ailment. Mulakkal, accused of raping the nun 13 times between 2014 and 2016, was relieved of his church duties by the Popes Ambassador on Thursday. In court, the police sought a three-day custody of Mulakkal but his lawyer opposed this, saying he had already been questioned for eight hours in Jalandhar and three consecutive days in Kerala and sought bail for him. After the police countered that they still had to collect evidence against him and that he would have to undergo several tests, including a so-called potency examination the court agreed to a two-day remand. The accused also complained to the judge that police forcibly took his blood and saliva. Mulakkal was charged under Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 342 (wrongful confinement), 376 (rape), 377 (unnatural offence) and 560 (1) (criminal intimidation). Prosecution said that there are 81 witnesses in the case and the number may go up. The former bishops bail plea is to come before the Kerala High Court on Sept 25. Police officers who asked not to be identified say their investigations have unearthed the picture of a habitual offender and predator and that separate FIRs will be filed against him if other victims are ready file complaint. Most complaints of this nature are usually sent first to church authorities. In this particular case, the church chose to ignore the nuns complaint against Mullakal. In her letter to the Popes Ambassador last week, the victim, a mother superior, alleged that 20 nuns had left the Missionaries of Jesus congregation after the former bishops advances. Mullakal has denied the charges. Meanwhile five nuns protesting in Kochi for two weeks, seeking justice for the survivor, formally ended their stir on Saturday. The Church was not with us but the Lord never let us down. Out struggle was not against any person but against corrupt practices. We are really grateful, the people of Kerala stood with us, said Sister Anupama, one of the five nuns who led the stir. She said that if church authorities take any action against them for their protest, they will hit the streets again, adding that the arrest of Mullakal will give a strong signal to others who exploit nuns. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said that he would return in three years to inaugurate the countrys first coal gasification based fertiliser plant at Talcher Fertilizer Plant in Odishas in Angul district which he inaugurated, exuding confidence said the NDA government will retain power in the general elections next year. When BJP govt came to power in the centre, the work on fertiliser plants picked up speed. I ensure you that the construction of Talcher Fertiliser Plant will be completed in 36 months and Ill again come here to inaugurate it, he said he said at a public rally after laying the foundation stone. He also attacked previous UPA government for closure of industries during its rule. UPA regime failed to revive closed industries. The NDA government is reviving them for development, he said. Odisha had lost hope of the fertiliser plant but we did it despite several hurdles. We vowed that with new energy and new speed, we will take the country to a new height, he said. The plant is being developed by Talcher Fertilisers Limited (TFL), a joint venture of GAIL (India) Limited, Coal India Limited (CIL), Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers Limited (RCFL) and Fertilizer Corporation of India Limited (FCIL). He said the revival of the Talcher fertiliser plant in Odisha will create employment for 4500 people in the region while making the country self-sufficient in fertiliser production. The Talcher plant will start production in 36 months with an investment of Rs 13,000 crore, said Modi. It would also reduce Indias dependency on importing gas and urea, he added. The plant, targeted to be commissioned by 2022, will ensure easy availability of urea in Odisha as currently there is no urea plant in the state. Earlier this week, the Union Cabinet approved the proposal of the Department of Fertilizers for equity investment of Rs 1033.54 crore for setting up the fertilizer project in Talcher Fertilizer Ltd (TFL) by the state-owned Rashtriya Chemicals & Fertilizers Ltd (RCF). A 23-year-old engineering student was found hanging in his hostel room at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM) on Saturday, having allegedly committed suicide. After being informed of the incident by the IIT Madras security officer, the Kotturpuram police reached the spot and retrieved the body. Police sources identified the deceased as a fifth year student of the ocean engineering course. The student was in a depressed state for the past few days allegedly due to a family problem. When his friends noticed his room in Jamuna hostel was locked for a prolonged time on Saturday, they knocked on the door. However, no one opened it. When the students looked inside through the windows, they were shocked to see him hanging on a ceiling fan, an official of the Kotturpuram police station told HT. Kotturpuram police have filed a case of unnatural death. Police officials also said that they have not found any suicide note. We have passed information to the students father. The body has been sent to Royappettah government hospital for the autopsy procedures, the police official added. India has sought cooperation from Russia in specific areas of its manned space programme life-support systems, crew modules and training of astronauts to fulfil its mission of putting an Indian in space by 2022, according to officials familiar with the development. India plans to complete Gaganyaan, the countrys first manned space mission, in the next four years in sync with Prime Minister Narendra Modis statements in his Independence Day speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort on August 15. We have decided that by 2022, when India completes 75 years of Independence, or before that, a son or daughter of India will go to space with a tricolour in their hands, Modi said in his address to the nation. If successful, India will be the fourth country in the world to launch a manned space mission after Russia, the US and China. Russia has been a close partner of India in space programmes for four decades, with the cooperation extending to lunar and Mars missions. The former Soviet Union helped launch Indias first two satellites, Aryabhata and Bhaskara. In 2004, India and Russia signed two space-related agreements during Russian President Vladimir Putins visit. The strengthening of cooperation in this field, including helping India for the manned space mission, came up during a meeting in Moscow between Union external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and Russias deputy prime minister for defence and space industry Yuriy Borisov about a week ago. The two sides discussed threadbare the space cooperation at that meeting and decided to strengthen their ties in the field of joint scientific research and use of outer space for peaceful purposes. In this context, particular discussion took place on the human space programme, including life support system, crew module and astronaut training, said a diplomat who asked not to be named. Advanced technologies in remote sensing, ground stations for satellite navigation systems (Glonass and Navic) and space solar power systems were also discussed, the diplomat added. Glonass, or global navigation satellite system, is Russias version of GPS (global positioning system). Navic is the operational name of the Indian regional navigation satellite system. It provides accurate real-time positioning and timing services. It covers India and a region extending 1,500km around it, and the country has plans to extend its coverage area. Soon after Modis August 15 announcement, the chief of the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) confirmed the timeline for the human space programme and said the pilots and the crew would spend at least seven days in space. (The) PM has given the target of 2022, and its our duty to meet it, Isro chief K Sivan said last month. A second Indian space programme official said India has completed several technologies linked to the human space programme, on which it has been working since 2014, and Russian help would complement Indias efforts. We have credible prowess in this field. For example, we have creditably and credibly competed some technologies such as the escape system and crew module, the official said. The manned mission is expected to cost Isro around $1.45 billion, according to the space agency. India has also lined up two unmanned expeditions before the human space programme takes off. Former Isro chairman G Madhavan Nair said, We certainly we have the capability to launch a human space mission by 2022. He said the 2022 target for a human space mission will be achievable with Russias help in a few areas. Manvendra Singh, Rajasthan MLA and son of former union minister Jaswant Singh, said today that he was quitting the BJP, calling his decision to join the party a mistake. Kamal ka Phool, Badi Bhool (it was a big mistake to be associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party), he said, addressing what he called a swabhiman or self-respect rally at Pachpadra in Barmer district. He only hinted at quitting the party during his speech, but later confirmed to Hindustan Times that he had resigned. Singh would not, however, say whether he is headed to the Congress, denying that he has met the partys top leaders. There is much speculation that the he could join the Congress, which hopes to wrest back Rajasthan from the BJP in assembly elections to be held this year. At his rally today, when leaders of Manvendra Singhs Swabhiman Sena asked the crowds what his next steps should be, his supporters said in a roar, Join the Congress. Singh said he would accept the peoples verdict. Congress sources said the partys national general secretary (organization) Ashok Gehlot and Rajasthan unit president Sachin Pilot have been in touch with Singh. They have also taken feedback from local Congress leaders on whether Singhs joining will help the party in Barmer. Singhs joining the party could dent the BJPs Rajput vote, the Congress reckons. Prominent Rajput leaders were present at Singhs rally today. Singh has been peeved with the BJP ever since the party refused to field his father in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Today he claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had at that time reached out. During the 2014 elections, one day at 12.30pm then Gujarat chief minister and now prime minister Narendra Modi called me and said we have old relations...he told me that whatever had happened was wrong and that he had nothing to do with it. Modi, Singh said, had told him there was nothing he could right away and had asked him to be patient. Modi revealed that the persons behind refusal of ticket to Jaswant Singh included a person from Jaipur and two from Delhi. I need not take their names, he said at the rally, adding that his self respect was hurt during the 2014 elections. Chief minister Vasundhara Raje is seen to have played a role in Jaswant Singh being sidelined and Manvendra Singh has had strained relations with her ever since. Jaswant Singh had contested as an Independent candidate and lost, and his supporters in the region say they havent not forgotten the slight to their leader, who served as the countrys finance, defence and external affairs minister. Raje had skipped only Manvendra Singhs constituency Sheo during her Gaurav Yatra. Singh had announced his Swabhiman rally soon after. The Union environment ministry will be soon issuing a draft notification declaring the Western Ghats as eco-sensitive area (ESA) for a second time after a similar draft in 2014 expired due to a lack of consensus among states and the Centre. Karnataka, one of the six states to be affected, has already said it will not accept the fresh notification as it will have an adverse effect on states economy. The affected states that also include Tamil Nadu, Goa, Maharashtra, Kerala and Gujarat will have 60 days time to respond to the draft. The first draft notification declared 56,825 sq km of the ghats in these states as ESA. AK Mehta, additional secretary, environment ministry said, We are in the process of republishing the draft notification. We will have a discussion with Karnataka on the matter because they are not willing to accept the notification. Karnataka forest minister, Shankar R, said the state will not accept any curbs under the ESA notification. The Western Ghats ESA notification will have major impact on the states economy. There are already various legislations including the Forest Conservation Act 1980, which ensure protection of forests. Why do we need one more legislation? All red category industries will be restricted in the Ghats, which will affect livelihoods. Red category industries are heavily polluting industries like pesticides, petrochemicals, pulp and paper and cement. The ESA completely restricts mining, setting up of new thermal power plants, polluting industries and all new large township and area development projects. After the environment ministry issued the notification in 2014, Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu raised objections, saying it will impact economic development in affected villages and towns. It eventually led the notification to get lapsed. A senior environment ministry official, who didnt wish to be named, said this time the other five states seem to be on board requesting minor amendments. Karnataka, however, is not agreeing with even the concept of ESA, the official said. The declaration of Western Ghats ESA has assumed significance because of the massive Kerala floods in July. Prominent ecologists like Madhav Gadgil have linked unprecedented rainfall, deforestation, mining, construction of dams and ecologically destructive activities to the exacerbation of floods. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) had on September 1 barred any reduction in the ESA area in view of the Kerala floods. It has directed the environment ministry to not reduce the area covered and issue the notification in to-to. The environment ministry, however, is issuing a draft notification to give states some more time to respond. We will go back to NGT if states back out, the official cited above added. The new ESA notification is based on an assessment by a high-level working group headed by space scientist K Kasturirangan. Before that, a working group headed by Gadgil set up in 2010 had recommended 75% of the Western Ghats area be declared ESA as opposed to 37% proposed by the Kasturirangan committee. The Gadgil committee had recommended that local bodies and villagers should be consulted before any development project comes up in the ESA. I dont think the state government has changed its view on ESA. It had opposed the Gadgil report and 2014 notification, but after the Kerala floods, they have been quiet. From an ecological point of view and after seeing the massive destruction in places like Wyanad and Idukki, we want the Madhav Gadgil committee report to be discussed again, said R Sridhar of Thanal, a Kerala-based environmental NGO. Rahul Gandhi playing into hands of Indias enemies: RS Prasad He is asking for the price of the Rafale jet, so that our enemies are alerted. He wants to help Pakistan. Its my charge with full sense of responsibility, Rahul Gandhi is playing into the hands of the enemies of India by insisting upon disclosure of all weapon system, says Ravi Shankar Prasad. France issued clarification against Rahuls claims in Parliament: RS Prasad Government of France issued clarification against Rahul Gandhis claims in Parliament about his conversation with French President. Rahul Gandhi said Manmohan Singh was also present there. Can Manmohan Singh confirm if Mr. Gandhi said in Parliament was correct? asks Ravi Shankar Prasad. French govt has stated choice of partner was Dassaults alone: RS Prasad Government of France has publicly stated that the choice of the partner was Dassaults alone. The French reporter spoke of some conflict of interest, that is not our concern, says Ravi Shankar Prasad. I will ask Rahul Gandhi to stop playing with the countrys security, he says. Ravi Shankar Prasad on price of Rafale jets On the price of Rafale jets, it will not be desirable or appropriate for me to disclose this. I can say the price of the aircraft minus the weapon is 9% less than the price negotiated by UPA. The price of the aircraft with all weapon systems is 20% less than the price negotiated by UPA, says Ravi Shankar Prasad. Dassault and Reliance signed pact before BJP came to power: RS Prasad Report of Dassault and Reliance signing a pact came on Feb 13, 2012, one year four months before we (BJP) came to power, says Ravi Shankar Prasad. There was pressure for extraneous considerations for not finalising Rafale deal during UPA rule, alleges Ravi Shankar Prasad. Never before has a party president used such words for a PM: RS Prasad Never before in history of independent India, has a party president used such words for a PM. We cant expect anything else from Rahul Gandhi. He has no quality or ability, hes there due to his family: Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Rahul Gandhis statement ...desh ka chowkidaar chor hai. PM must clarify: Rahul Gandhi We are absolutely convinced that the prime minister is corrupt... He must clarify, Rahul Gandhi said. It is very important for the prime minister now to either accept Mr. Hollandes statement or state that Mr. Hollande is lying and tell what the truth is, PTI quoted the Congress president as saying. There should be a joint parliamentary committee probe: Rahul Rahul Gandhi says, It is clear why various defence ministers of this government have been lying; they want to protect PM Modi. There should be a joint parliamentary committee probe, former French president Hollande can also be called, Rahul Gandhi says. Why is PM silent, asks Rahul Gandhi PM Narendra Modi must clear his stand on Rafale deal after ex-French President Francois Hollandes remarks: Rahul Gandhi Why is PM silent, it is a matter related to defence forces, it is a matter related to corruption, he says. PM should clarify: Rahul For the first time, an ex- French President is calling our PM a thief... The ex-president of France has made a statement about the PM of India. He says with regard to Rafale contract, we didnt have any say in this matter. Its the Indian govt that proposed. Now, the Prime Minister should clarify on his statement: Rahul Gandhi. Prime Minister Narendra Modi Saturday slammed Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik for saying no to the Centres flagship Ayushman Bharat health insurance scheme and alleged that a PC (percentage commission) culture has become the state governments identity. Patnaik, however, dismissed the corruption allegation, saying Modi must have said it to enthuse BJP workers. The war of words between Modi and Patnaik comes ahead of the Odisha assembly polls and general elections next year. Addressing two public meetings in Talcher and Jharsuguda, Modi spoke about the BJD government in Odisha rejecting the mega health insurance scheme and also lagging on Swachha Bharat campaign parameters. Stepping up his criticism of the Patnaik-led government, Modi alleged that a PC (percentage commission) culture and delaying decisions have become the identity of the Odisha government resulting in the states tardy development. The prime minister said PC impacts implementation of housing and toilet schemes and other welfare projects. There have been allegations of corruption in sapling plantation, polythene packaging of milk, road construction and irrigation, he alleged. There are allegations of widespread corruption with involvement of people from the ruling party, Modi said, adding, how can development take place under such a situation. Reacting to Modis remarks, Patnaik said the Centre should rather think about the scam in the skill mission and Ujjwala schemes. In fact, they should be thinking about their skill mission scam and Ujjwala scheme scam .. They should be considering that, the chief minister told reporters on returning from Jharsuguda, where he was with Modi at the inauguration of a new airport. The Centre should also seriously think about the record increase in prices of petrol and diesel because of which the people of the country are suffering, the BJD president said. On the Ayushman Bharat scheme, Patnaik said the states scheme is better than the centres as it covers an extra 50 lakh people and provides Rs 7 lakh to women as against Rs 5 lakh by the central programme. Similarly, an extra 25 lakh poor people are covered under the food security scheme in the state, he said. The Odisha government has not joined the central scheme and instead gone for Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana. Noting that rural cleanliness in Odisha was only 10 per cent in 2014, Prime Minister Modi said it has increased to 55 per cent but a lot more was needed to be done. I had told Naveen ji about the importance of Swachhata and I once again request him to give cleanliness due importance, Modi said, adding, cleanliness is essential for good health. Everyone is aware of the importance of Ayushman Bharat scheme, but Naveen babu does not understand. The Odisha government should come forward and join the programme, he said. The prime minister will launch the programme countrywide from Jharkhand on Sunday. The scheme aims to provide Rs 5 lakh health insurance coverage per family annually to more than 10 crore poor households. Claiming that the BJP-led NDA government has been supportive to Odisha, Modi said, While the previous UPA government could allocate only Rs 80,000 crore, the NDA government on the other hand has given Rs 2 lakh crore in the last four years. However, the people of Odisha are not getting benefits from the central allocations at the ground level as the state has been indifferent. Where is the central fund going, he asked. Modi said there was a need for bade parivartan (big change) to give pace to Odishas development. Pointing towards a large crowd gathered at the BJP public meeting in Talcher, he said it clearly showed what the people of Odisha think. Targeting the Congress, Modi referred to former prime minister Rajiv Gandhis famous remark that only 15 paisa out of a rupee sanctioned by the Centre for welfare of people reaches the intended beneficiaries. They knew about the bimari but had no vision to solve it, he said. The BJP governments decision to directly transfer money to the bank accounts of beneficiaries has curbed the practice of middlemen in implementation of welfare schemes, Modi said. If our government releases Re 1, entire 100 paise reaches the poor, he said. Modi targeted the Opposition also for stalling the triple talaq bill in Rajya Sabha. He said justice will be done to Muslim mothers and sisters. The ordinance on triple talaq has made the practice illegal and three days ago the Centre took a decision that was required for decades, Modi said. Accusing the previous UPA government of being responsible for closure of several industrial units, Modi said the BJP-led NDA government is taking concrete steps to revive closed plants. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said he was disappointed at Indias response to his peace overtures, termed it arrogant and negative, and said all my life I have come across small men occupying big offices who do not have the vision to see the larger picture, a comment that is certain to raise hackles across the border. Khans response on Twitter came even as Pakistans information minister Fawad Chaudhry said on Saturday that despite the unfortunate cancellation of the planned meeting of foreign ministers on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Pakistan is ready to open the border for Indian pilgrims to access Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur. India will have to decide on the future course of engagement with Pakistan but Islamabad is ready to discuss all outstanding issues as it believes wars and hostility provide no solution, Chaudhry said in a phone interview a day after India called off a meeting between the foreign ministers of the two countries over terror-related concerns. The real issue between the two sides remains Kashmir, he said, adding that Pakistan is ready to discuss everything. There are several ways we can handle things. One way is we could go to war, both countries have atomic weapons and those who survive can handle the outstanding issues. But it is foolish to think we can go to war, said the minister, who is considered to be close to Khan. The other way is the approach advocated by (Indian national security adviser Ajit) Doval of defensive offence where both sides use measures to internally weaken each other. Or we can sit and discuss all issues between us and find a solution. He added: We are ready to discuss everything. We have fought three wars over the past seven decades and we cant change our neighbours. It is for India to decide. But then elections are coming up in India and maybe anti-Pakistan slogans sell in India. Anti-India slogans dont sell in Pakistan. Chaudhrys claims are interesting because New Delhi thinks that even if the civilian government of Pakistan wants peace, Rawalpindi General Headquarters (GHQ), its army command, calls the shots, especially where the countrys relationship with India is concerned. Commodore (retired) C Uday Bhaskar, director of Society for Policy Studies, said terror had once again disrupted tentative attempts at engagement between the two sides. The reality is that India-Pakistan relations have been hostage to terrorism for almost 20 years and both sides have been unable to surmount this challenge, he said. But Bhaskar said it was unlikely Imran Khan would have been able to make a gesture (for peace with India) without keeping the army in the loop. India on Friday called off the planned meeting between foreign minister Sushma Swaraj and her Pakistani counterpart, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, citing the killing of security personnel by Pakistan-based entities and the release of 20 Pakistani stamps glorifying slain Hizb-ul-Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani. Chaudhry said Pakistan too had concerns about terrorism purportedly backed by India in Balochistan. Our intelligence agencies believe India is sponsoring the movements in Balochistan and then there is the case of (Kulbhushan) Jadhav This issue of cross-border terrorism goes both ways, he said. He added that the real issue between the two countries is Kashmir and lakhs of Pakistanis back the struggle in Jammu and Kashmir. Blaming everything on Pakistan is not right, India too should correct its mistakes. Blaming us for the administrative, financial and other problems in Kashmir is ridiculous, he said. Chaudhry also said it would not be possible for both countries to guarantee that there wouldnt be terror attacks whenever efforts are made for peace talks. Our understanding is that the abrupt cancellation of the meeting reflects the confusion within the government in Delhi and the divisions on this issue. You cant accept (a proposal for a meeting) and reject it within a day, he added. Chaudhry said peace efforts had suffered a big hit because of the meeting being called off. Pakistan and India should have moved forward, he said. He said India should take advantage of the current consensus between Pakistans civilian and military leadership on foreign policy issues. The government and military are very close and there have been few occasions when their relations have been as exemplary as now, he said. Prime Minister Imran Khans policies are linked to the economy and not security, Chaudhry said. He (Khan) wants to bring crores of people above the poverty line and the latest developments have jeopardised peace efforts in the whole region, he said. Despite the latest developments, Pakistan is prepared to open the border at Kartarpur to allow Indian pilgrims to access Gurdwara Darbar Sahib, believed to have been built at the site where Guru Nanak died. We have completed all the arrangements. This is an issue of the ordinary people, Sikhs and other Indian pilgrims, and an issue of faith. They shouldnt suffer and we want to formalise the informal proposal the Pakistan Army chief made to (Punjab state minister Navjot) Sidhu, Chaudhry said. Chaudhry added: We have extended a hand to India but you need two hands to clap. If India doesnt want to, nothing will happen. BJP govt is able to feel the change being brought in country: PM Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the BJP government is able to feel the change taking place in the country today. He also said the current government is making efforts to develop east India and is trying to increase connectivity. Need to wonder why it took so many yrs for second airport in Odisha: PM This airport in Jharsuguda is well located to serve the needs of the people of Odisha. This is going to be the second airport in the state. While being happy this airport is opening, we also need to wonder why it took so many years for a second airport in Odisha,PM Modi said after inaugurating the airport in Jharsuguda. PM inaugurates airport in Jharsuguda Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated a local airport in Odishas Jharsuguda today to ease transportation in the state. He is also expected to visit Chhattisgarhs Janjgir Champa to lay the foundation stone for highway projects and a railway line. There was an effort to stall Triple Talaq law in RS: PM Modi The Prime Minister said that there was an effort by political parties to stall the passage of the Triple Talaq law. When the intentions are clear, then one needs to take decisions that no other can dare to take. One of these decisions was Triple Talaq. When our government made the decision on Triple Talaq, there was an effort to stall it in the Rajya Sabha, he said. Odisha has a lot left to do, says PM PM Modi said that Odisha has a lot left to do, especially in matters of cleanliness. I had spoken to CM Naveen about it. The entire country is becoming cleaner because of the cleanliness drive by our govt but Odisha is left behind. he said. Thievery continued for years: PM Modi I am left stunned when i think about how such fertilizer plants have been promised for years, but no actual work has taken place. You might remember, we had a PM in the country who had said that if rupees 1 is sent from Delhi, then just 15 paisa reaches the states. Such thievery continued for years. However, our govt is making sure that whatever money is allotted, all of it reaches the people, PM Modi said. Talcher fertilizer plant will be ready in 36 months, I will come again then PM Modi said that in 2000, the government had taken the decision to start the Talcher fertilizer plant but everything stayed on paper. I had asked the workers by when can they finish the pending work here and they have promised me that it will be done within 36 months. I will come back to you after 36 months. I am left stunned when i think about how such fertilizer plants have been promised for years, but no actual work has taken place.. he said. PM Modi lays foundation stone of Talcher Fertiliser Plant PM Modi laid the foundation stone of Talcher Fertilizer Plant today. He will also address a public meeting before inaugurating an airport in Jharsuguda. PM Modi is also expected to visit Chhattisgarhs Janjgir Champa where he is expected to lay the foundation stone for highway projects and a railway line. Odisha: Prime Minister Narendra Modi lays foundation stone of Talcher Fertiliser Plant in Talcher pic.twitter.com/LjQ43NPsyV ANI (@ANI) September 22, 2018 PM Modi interacts with Anganwadi workers upon his arrival in Talcher Prime Minister Narendra Modi met and interacted with Anganwadi workers upon his arrival in Talcher where he arrived to mark the commencement of work in the Talcher Fertilizer Plant. Odisha: Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets and interacts with Anganwadi workers upon his arrival in Talcher pic.twitter.com/CA1a7Di7Wd ANI (@ANI) September 22, 2018 Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik receives PM Modi in Talcher Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik receives PM Narendra Modi in Talcher. PM Modi will attend an event to mark the commencement of work in the Talcher Fertilizer Plant and address a public meeting. pic.twitter.com/0JvOsfjYzG ANI (@ANI) September 22, 2018 PM Modi arrives in Bhubaneswar Prime Minister Modi arrived in Bhubaneswar today morning. He is expected to attend an event in Talcher to mark the commencement of work in the Talcher Fertilizer Plant and will also address a public meeting before inaugurating the airport. PM Modi at Bhubaneswar airport ( ANI Photo ) Jalandhar Bishop Franco Mulakkal, who is accused of raping a Kerala nun, is among the most powerful Christians in Punjab. Wooed by political parties across the board, the 54-year-old bishop commands great spiritual influence over Catholic Christians in the state. Christians constitute slightly more than one per cent of Punjabs population, with the majority settled in Amritsar, Jalandhar and Ludhiana. The bishop offered to step aside from his position Monday following the controversy. In June, a nun in Kerala had alleged that the Jalandhar-based bishop had raped her 13 times between 2014 and 2016 during his visits to the southern state. The bishop has denied the charges claiming that anti-church forces were bent upon bringing a bad name to the institution. He alleged that the nun was involved in an illicit relationship with her relative and he had ordered action against her. The bishop arrived in Kochi for questioning by the Kerala police on Wednesday. He had handed over the administration of the diocese to another priest before heading for Kerala. A powerful diocese Before Partition, Jalandhar was under Lahore diocese and remained abandoned for years after Independence. In 1952, Rome declared the Jalandhar Prefecture and put a British national in charge. In 1971, the unit was upgraded to a diocese. The Jalandhar diocese is a powerful body that promotes all Catholic Christian activities in Amritsar, Faridkot, Ferozepur, Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur, Jalandhar, Kapurthala, Ludhiana, Moga, Muktsar, Nawanshahr, Tarn Taran in Punjab besides Chamba, Hamirpur, Kangra and Una in Himachal Pradesh. As its head, the bishop commands control over the hundreds of institutions educational and charitable spread across the two states. Catholic church-run schools are the most sought-after in Punjab. In 2016, the bishop tried to promote course sheets to replace heavy school bags in the schools the diocese runs. He also rooted for eco-friendly Diwali and Christmas celebrations in schools run by the diocese. Apart from the schools and colleges run by the diocese, it also directs all spiritual activities of the Church, patronising several convents, seminaries and houses in the state. Humble beginnings Bishop Mulakkal belongs to Thrissur in Kerala. His father was a headmaster in a local school. Mulakkal studied at St Marys Petit Seminary there. Impressed with the work of Bishop Keeprath (of Jalandhar diocese from 1971 to 2007), Mulakkal decided to shift his base to Punjab. He was first ordained as a priest in Jalandhar in April 1990. He did his Masters in English and sociology from Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, and earned a doctorate degree in moral theology from Alphonsian Academy of Lateran University, Rome. He remained international treasurer of the Priest Union of India while he was there. In 2001, he authored A theological investigation into the moral teachings of Guru Nanak from a catholic perspective, his doctoral work. He remained head of the department and professor at Holy Trinity Regional Major Seminary in Jalandhar and member of the diocesan College of Consulters. He also served the Jalandhar diocese as its spokesperson. Mulakkal was appointed auxiliary bishop of Delhi and titular bishop of Culla in 2009. He remained the regional chairman of Northern Regional Youth Commission, secretary of the regional bishops conference of North India and consulter of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, Rome. Pope Benedict XVI appointed the bishop as the consulter for the pontifical council of inter-religious dialogue in Rome. In June 2013, Pope Francis appointed him the Bishop of Jalandhar. He paid obeisance at the Golden Temple in Amritsar soon after his coronation in the first week of August. The event was attended by almost 25,000 people, including over 700 sisters, 400 priests, 27 bishops and a cardinal. Politicians flocked to him In August 2014, then deputy chief minister of Punjab Sukhbir Singh Badal met the bishop at Trinity College in Jalandhar where a sarv dharma prayer had been organised by the diocese. Then chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and Akal Takht jathedar Giani Gurbachan Singh too attended the prayer. Punjabs former education minister Daljit Singh Cheema was the chief guest at the silver jubilee celebrations of the bishops baptism as a priest in May 2015. The elaborate celebrations took place at the bishops native place in Thrissur in Kerala. Apart from the senior Akali leader, former union minister Oscar Fernandes, Thrissur MP CN Jayadevan, members of the minority commission were also present at the celebrations. According to some reports, he is considered to be close to the Akalis. Slammed Sikh holy book desecration Before the 2009 parliamentary elections, Mulakkal made it clear that the Christian community will show its resentment against riot-accused BJP candidates in Odisha by not voting for tainted persons. Last year, he led a delegation to meet former Akal Takht jathedar Giani Gurbachan Singh to express dismay over the desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib at Bhangawa village, for which a Christian was arrested. (By special arrangement with ThePrint) The Supreme Court has sought assistance from Nandan Nilekani, co-founder and non-executive chairman of tech giant Infosys and former head of the Aadhaar project, and IT companies to give technological solutions for disputes that arise during inspections of various private medical colleges by the Medical Council of India. A bench of justices SA Bobde and LN Rao also gave liberty to Nilekani to seek technical assistance from various IT companies, such as Wipro, Infosys and Accenture. Nilekanis name was finalised at the instance of senior advocate Kapil Sibal who has been assisting the court in the matter. Every year the SC is flooded with litigation by private medical colleges against MCIs refusal to grant them either recognition or refusal to admit students. As a regulator of medical education the MCI inspects a new college every year for five years until it is accorded recognition. Once a college is recognised, an inspection is done after five years or surprise checks happen in case of a complaint. There are incessant disputes which reach this court about what actually transpired at inspections of various private medical colleges by the MCI. The parties contest virtually every fact that is recorded in an inspection, the order said. During the hearing on Wednesday Sibal said a computer network based technological solution such as artificial intelligence should be explored to resolve such disputes. MCI counsel Gaurav Sharma welcomed Sibals suggestion for a concrete solution to the problem. As per the order, MCI shall convene a meeting with Nilekani and Sibal within a period of 15 days. Any lawyer who is associated with the matter can also attend the meeting to be chaired by Sibal. Congress president Rahul Gandhi Saturday said there was a feeling among people that one ideology was being imposed upon them and asserted that the country cannot be run on one single idea. The strength of the country, he said, is that people are allowed to discuss ideas. Attacking the government over its education policy, Gandhi said government institutions should be given precedence over private institutions and the government should put money to strengthen them. Government institutions should be the guiding light and not private institutions. The government should put money in the system to strengthen government institutions, he said addressing eminent academicians at an event at Siri Fort auditorium in New Delhi. He said there is feeling that ideology is being imposed. You feel an ideology is being imposed upon you. This sense and this feeling is not only in your heart but it is in everybodys hearts from farmers to labourers. The country cannot be run from one single idea, he said. The fact that we allow people to talk to discuss. This is the strength of our country it is not the weakness of our country. If we see 3000 years of Indias history, we are going to win. We are not going to lose, he said. A three-and-a-half-year-old girl was allegedly molested by the driver and conductor in a school bus over several days in Nainital districts Kathgodam before the duo was arrested Friday evening. The accused Ratan Singh and Pradeep Joshi - the driver of the school bus - are being interrogated, said Amit Shrivastava, city superintendent of police Haldwani. Shrivastava said police have registered a case under Indian Penal Code (IPC) section 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty) and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act 2012 against the two accused. He said the girl is suspected to have been assaulted over several days. Her parents took her to a doctor on September 17 after she complained of pain in her private parts, the officer said. Captain (retd) Anil Gupta, a social worker, who came to know about the incident from the doctor who examined the nursery student, lodged a formal complaint. After that we approached the school authorities and got details of the driver and conductor, he said. The latest outrage comes days after the alleged gang rape of a 16-year-old girl in a boarding school in Dehradun came to light. Shrivastava said a woman sub-inspector, Lata Bisht, has been appointed the investigating officer in the case and she tried to speak to the girl. But the girl seems too scared, he said. Shrivastava said the statements of the school authorities, parents of the girl and the doctor who examined her are being recorded. The assault also highlighted a brazen violation of the Supreme Courts guidelines on school buses. There was no attendant from the school in the bus. Nainital district magistrate Vinod Kumar Suman said the authorities would issue notices to all schools on strict implementation of the Supreme Court guidelines for school buses. Action will be taken against those not following the guidelines, he said. The BJPs youth wing Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha staged a demonstration outside the school on Friday after it became public that the conductor of bus lived in the school premise. The incident has shocked people in the area with parents being worried for the safety of their children. CS Rawat, a parent from Nainital, said: The Supreme Court guidelines on a woman attendant and CCTVs on buses are not followed by school buses in the area. We feel helpless as we cant stop sending our children to school. In May this year, the Uttarakhand State Commission for Child Rights (SCPCR) wrote to the Uttarakhand government to assign the task of checking the violation of safety norms by school buses to police, if the transport department could not handle it. The child rights body during an inspection of school buses found they were not following the Supreme Courts guidelines. In November 2017, the transport department too had issued a circular on strict implementation of the guidelines. Suresh Singh Duseela, president Kumaon Bus Union Haldwani said there are around 500 school buses operating in the Haldwani area. This is a shocking incident. We should ensure a safe environment for our children. Authorities should ensure that there is a woman attendant in school buses and check the antecedents of drivers and conductors, Duseela said. The alleged rapes of two four-year-old girls at a popular school in one day has sent shockwaves through Hyderabad and triggered demands that the institution be shut down. Both alleged rapes happened on September 14. While one was reported the same day, the police complaint for the second was filed on September 21. The Hyderabad police registered a case on Friday (September 21) evening against an unknown person who allegedly raped a first standard student in the school in the old city on September 14, the police said. The girls father, a software engineer, lodged a complaint with the Golconda police station on Friday stating that she was sexually abused in the school by a person whom she could not identify. We have registered the first information report and booked the cases under sections of rape and POCSO Act. The case is under investigation. The girl was sent to the hospital for medical examination, a police official at the Golconda police station, who refused to be named, told HT. On September 14, the Golconda police had registered the first complaint against a supervisor of the same school, who allegedly raped a four-and-a-half-year-old kindergarten girl in the school. The accused allegedly lured her with chocolates and took her to the wash room on the first floor of the school building, where he assaulted her. On returning home, the child complained of pain in the abdomen. When her mother noticed the bleeding, the parents approached the police, who arrested the accused on September 16 after making enquiries with the school management. Doctors at the Niloufer childrens hospital confirmed sexual assault on the girl. She later underwent a surgery and is said to be recovering. Subsequently, the school management offered to pay Rs 5 lakh to the girl , besides offering to bear the entire expenditure of her hospitalization and her further studies till she completes the high school. We shall cooperate with the investigating officers and take measures to strengthen our security, the schools administrator had told the media. Hyderabad district education officer Venkata Narsamma said the department had sought explanation from the school on the incidents. I have served a notice on the school management . They replied to my first notice with which we were not satisfied. I served a second notice three days ago giving them seven days to reply, she added. Andhra Pradesh child rights association president P Achyuta Rao demanded that the government withdraw the permission given to the international school and close it down as it failed to provide security to the girl students. The association was formed in undivided Andhra Pradesh. UN chief Antonio Guterres will travel to India early next month, his first trip to the country as head of the world body that coincides with the commencement of events marking the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. The Secretary-General will arrive in New Delhi on October 1. His visit coincides with the beginning of events to celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi on October 2 next day, Deputy Spokesman for the UN Secretary-General Farhan Haq told reporters here Friday. On October 1, Guterres will formally open the new UN House in New Delhi and on October 2, the Secretary-General will participate in the closing session of the Mahatma Gandhi International Sanitation Convention. During the visit, he will meet President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on October 3. He will also meet with Speaker of the Lok Sabha Sumitra Mahajan before giving a lecture at the India Habitat Centre on Global Affairs on the theme Global challenges, global solutions. The Secretary-General will also take part in the General Assembly of the International Solar Alliance. In the afternoon of October 3, he will visit the Golden Temple in Amritsar and will return to New York on October 4. Guterres had visited India in July 2016, just months ahead of the election for Secretary General. During his visit then, he had met Swaraj. Replying to a question on Guterres trip to the Golden Temple, Haq said that the visit is essentially a personal one as the UN chief wanted to see the holy Sikh pilgrimage site. When asked if Guterres will be asked questions about the 1984 Sikh riots, Haq said it was a bit premature to mention the topics he will bring up. Haq also expressed the world bodys gratitude to the Indian government for its contribution of USD 1 million to install solar panels and a green roof on the Conference Building of the United Nations Secretariat. The contribution was received by Under-Secretary-General for Management Jan Beagle, who said that Indias generous contribution sends a strong message promoting innovation for action on climate change, and to enable greater efficiencies. The initiative will help the Secretariat reduce its carbon footprint and promote sustainable energy, Haq added. I havent been on a Ferris wheel in years. But I sent out eight Ferris wheel emojis last week my personal shorthand for everyday joy. Online order arrived: [FERRIS WHEEL]. Canteen has medu wadas: [FERRIS WHEEL]. Socks dried despite the rain: [FERRIS WHEEL][FERRIS WHEEL]. Emojis are 20 years old this year. Emoticons, their punctuation-based precursors, turned 35 this month. Both have cut across continents, devices, situations and cultures to change the way we communicate. Some 92% of online users, regardless of which language they speak, use emoji in text and email. Did you send out a [SMILE] today? Maybe you added a [BALLOON] to decorate your Hello. Used a [POODLE] to mean airhead. Called on [NAIL POLISH] to sprinkle in some sass. Or found [GHOST] to be warmer than a hug emoji. As our thumbs fly over keypads, this ever-growing set of symbols is replacing the LOL-type abbreviations of the previous wired generation. Teachers are adding them to exam grades. Theyre in movie promos, in tweets by national leaders, in feedback forms, on cushions. American graphic artist Joe Hale has even attempted retelling fairy tales through emojis. Many believe theyre becoming the worlds first universal language for communication. How does that make you feel: [GRIN] [FROWN] [SMIRK] or [FERRIS WHEEL]? STARTING TO SMILE It started innocuously enough, in September 1982. When the internet itself was mostly bulletin boards. Scott Fahlman, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, was looking for a way to mark posts that were made in jest. He proposed the use of :-) and :-( to tag emotions, and the emoticon was born. Wed all have cricks in our necks if it wasnt for Japanese artist Shigetaka Kurita. In 1999, working on a tight deadline, he created 176 symbols for the telecom company Docomo. The set was basic, taking cues from manga, street signs and Chinese characters to render pixelated, colourful, cross-stitch-like designs on a 12x12 grid. It was intended to help cellphone users say more within the 250-character texting limit. The cutesy shortcuts became so popular, platforms around the world (iMessenger, MSN Messenger, GChat and the like) developed their own icons over the 2000s. But each platform had its own codes for the symbols, so a smiley sent from an iPhone would read as a blank square on Gmail. It wasnt until 2010 that the Unicode Consortium, which sets compatibility standards across platforms, recognised emojis and worked out common codes for the first 722 icons on iPhone and Android. Thats when the party really started. As of June 2018, Unicode recognises 2,823 emojis. The face icons now come in several skin tones; there are fairies, falafels, female detectives and factories. You can say [CHEERS] on WhatsApp, [RAISE YOUR HANDS] in #MeToo solidarity on Twitter, respond to an Instagram story with [FLAME], or get an [AIRPLANE SEAT] on Outlook Mail. The most popular, though, are hearts, smileys and hand gestures. Theres a growing sense that given enough emojis, regular language could become redundant. [SMIRK] Nothing could be further from the truth, say language experts. SIGN OF THE TIMES Emojis arent language. They lack the tenses, prepositions, syntax and active-passive voice essential for complex communication. What they are is a sort of universal expansion pack for all languages, as Gretchen McCulloch puts it. The Canadian linguist is working on a book in defence of internet language, and she thinks of emojis as gestures that accompany words but are not effective independently. A sort of universal expansion pack for all languages. Like using hand signs in a foreign country, youll get by, but you wont get far, she says. When emojis are combined with words, they give context to text. This is particularly useful online, when you cant see, hear or otherwise gauge a persons sentiment. Research by Owen Churches of Flinders University, Adelaide, identified that emoji faces are interpreted by our brain in the same way as real faces, says Jurga Zilinskiene, CEO and founder of Today Translations. And this begins to explain their value. Her UK firm was among the first to offer emoji interpretation services. Our born-of-the-web expansion pack is not without its bugs. Even emoji faces are open to misinterpretation. Kuritas original emojis descended from Japanese anime, which, McCulloch says, focus on the eyes, not the mouth. The happy face had an ^^ eyes and an O mouth. The crying one had the same O mouth, but TT eyes as tears, she says. Western users, accustomed to curved-up smiles and curved-down frowns, had trouble reading the expressions. The Tears of Joy emoji, the Oxford English Dictionarys Word of the Year in 2015 due to its widespread use, is often misinterpreted as tears of sadness, says Zilinskiene. For non-face emojis, its a straight-up [ROLLERCOASTER]. In China, [WAVING HAND] isnt hello or bye. Its a rude dismissal, kind of like giving the finger. Zilinskiene says [THUMBS UP] is offensive in central Asia. But because its used to mean like on Facebook, its standardising the positive interpretation of the gesture around the world. Like slang, symbols now play double roles too. We dont have to tell you what the brinjal emoji resembles, but [SKULL] is now common code for a dying phone. Because the word poo is similar to luck in Japan, poo emojis fly across phones at exam time. Alt-right groups and white nationalists now identify with the Glass of Milk emoji. When the Chinese social-media platform Weibo blocked the #MeToo protest hashtag, women began using the [RICE] and [BUNNY] emojis. Why? The local words for rice and bunny are pronounced mi and tu. FAMILIAR FACES Theres plenty of politics in the world of emojis. Campaigns to get new ones have focused on greater inclusivity and the representation of a wider variety of cultures; battles to take existing ones down have often been based on similar issues of identity, race, gender and prejudice. Where the public has rallied to include same-sex and single-parent family emojis in the West, there have been strong campaigns in Arab nations to ban them, and to introduce polygamous family emojis. Until this summer, the Taiwan flag emoji read as an invalid input on iPhones registered in China. Its a lot of fuss over a few pixels. McCulloch says emojis spark such spirited reactions because they represent us but are out of our control. Theyre independent units. I can write a new word with existing letters in my language, but I cant create an emoji, she says. The billions of us are depending on the 30-odd people at Unicode. Parikshit Deshmukh decided to go a different way. In 2015, the user experience designer conceptualised a set of 10 Indian stereotype emojis as a semester project at IIT-Guwahati. Among them, an auntiji, a daakuji and a netaji. Theres more impact when you localise, he says. The secret to designing emojis well is to respect the pixel limit and prescribed palette. The emoji hed most like to see? Biryani. As with most requests, and flare-ups, his one-wish emoji is an object, not an expression its always about the nouns, about what and who is represented and left out. SIGNS OF TOMORROW Widespread, rapid, confusing emoji use has already prompted Zilinskiene at Today Translations to create a hitherto non-existent post: emoji translator. In 2016, the firm placed an ad for someone who could demonstrate a passion for emojis and display cutting-edge knowledge of how they are used and understood in different parts of the world. They hired Keith Broni early last year an Irishman with an IT and business psychology background whod completed a dissertation covering emojis in Emotional Brand Attachment and Brand Personality Appeal. Much of his work involves consulting on international digital marketing campaigns. Hell have his hands full. In the future, there are likely to be more emojis outside of Japanese and Western culture. Locating the right symbol under more and more keyboard tabs will be a challenge. And given that Unicode doesnt remove codes for emoji, a growing number of signs will become obsolete like the CD emoji. Perhaps, McCulloch suggests, the digital world will eventually come up with a way to bypass Unicode and create our own emojis. Will you be feeling [FERRIS WHEEL] or [Smirk]? Ahead of the big visarjan on Sunday, the Mumbai police have taken action against 103 Ganpati mandals across the city for flouting noise levels during the 11-day festival. On September 14, the Bombay High Court (HC) had refused to relax the regulations banning Dolby sound systems and DJs during Ganeshotsav. This is the first year that the blanket ban is in effect during the festive season in Mumbai. According to the police, members of 103 Ganpati mandals and DJ organisers were charged with violating the Noise Pollution (Regulation and Control) Rules, 2000. Manjunath Shinge, deputy commissioner of police (operations) and spokesperson for Mumbai police, said action was taken against after receiving complaints from residents about noise levels at specific pandals. The police will now file a report on the defaulters and send it to the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board for further action. Shinge also said elaborate arrangements had been made for Sunday, which is the final day for immersions. Routes have been chalked out for the processions accompanying idols for visarjan to minimise traffic jams. Fifty-four roads will be closed while 56 roads will be made open to only one-way traffic. There will be 99 no parking zones across the city. The police presence will add up to over 50,000 officers in addition to support from the State Reserve Police Force (SRPF), Civil Defence, Home Guards and other agencies. Officials will be on duty at the citys 162 immersion points where 6,400 sarvajanik idols and over 1.55 lakh household idols will be immersed. Five hundred traffic wardens and 8,000 volunteers from National Cadet Corps, Scout groups and non-governmental organisations will pitch in to assist the police in making way for Ganesh idols. Two hundred female cops will be in plain clothes, to curb incidents of harassment. The immersion points will also be under the surveillance of 5,000 CCTVs, managed by five control rooms and help centres equipped with first aid and ambulance services. The police will also co-ordinate with other agencies and departments like those of disaster management, fire brigade, coast guard, the navy and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation. The Savitribai Phule Pune University has come second in the list of non-agricultural public universities in the state that partnered with the industry for research and development (R&D) activities in 2017-18, according to the state governments data. The University of Mumbai (MU) stood a distant fifth and Shivaji University in Kolhapur (SUK) topped the list. While the Kolhapur university engaged with 381 industries, it was followed by Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) (213), Shreemati Nathibai Damodar Thackersey (SNDT) Womens University (145) and Solapur University (138). The MU reported 69 industry engagements. The Kolhapur university also registered the highest number of memoranda of understanding (MoUs) and other forms of collaborations with various companies, as well as the number of faculty members and the students working on industrial projects. SPPU leads the varsities in industrial consultancy and technology transfer categories. MU, however, stood second in four categories industrial consultancy, MoUs, number of faculty members and students working on industrial projects. Established in 1962, SUK has 280 affiliated colleges in Kolhapur, Satara and Sangli districts. Around 800 colleges in Mumbai, its suburbs and Konkan region are affiliated to MU one of the three oldest universities in the country that was established in 1857. According to experts, the universities in western Maharashtra SPPU, SUK and Solapur University lead owing to the high density of industries in the region. Alumni of Walchand Institute of Technology, Solapur and SVER Institute, Pandharpur have established several companies in the region. The region is home to a large number of sugar factories which have tie-ups with colleges. The colleges also collaborate with the textile industry in Solapur and leather industry in Kolhapur and Solapur. The Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) also has a presence here, said an official from the Solapur University. The government is pushing the public universities to focus on skill development and enhance the employability of students. Universities have been directed to interact with local industries to improve their curriculum and align it with local requirements. The universities in the state currently lack the initiative to partner with industries in their respective regions. We have obtained the micro-, small- and medium-industry (MSME) profile of each district in the state and conveyed to university officials. MIDC officials have also been roped in, said an aide to education minister Vinod Tawde. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) rebels led by Bholath MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira and others on Friday demanded registration of a first information report (FIR) against former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) chief Sukhbir Singh Badal and former DGP Sumedh Saini and their arrest in the Kotkapura firing case. The demand was made after an all-party meeting held by the Khaira group on the issue of sacrilege incidents. A decision has been taken by all like-minded people present at the meeting to organise a protest march from Kotkapura to Bargari passing through the affected villages on October 7 to force the Congress government to take action against those responsible for the police action firing in 2015. We will also set up an 11-member action committee for this, Khaira said at a press conference after the meeting. He was accompanied by suspended AAP MP Dr Dharamvira Gandhi, Kharar MLA Kanwar Sandhu and Lok Insaaf Party (LIP) chief Simarjit Singh Bains. Though Khaira had invited Punjab Congress president Sunil Jakhar, ministers Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa, Sukhjinder Randhawa and Navjot Sidhu, AAP MLAs and several other leaders of different parties, including Aapna Punjab Party chief president Sucha Singh Chhotepur, the meeting was a damp squib. No one from the ruling Congress and pro-Delhi faction of the AAP showed up. Both the Congress and the AAP had showed complete disinterest in the meeting from the outset. Gandhi, seven dissident AAP legislators, two MLAs of LIP and former deputy speaker Bir Devinder Singh were the only prominent political faces at the meeting. Sant Samaj leader Baba Sarabjot Singh Bedi, radical leader Mokham Singh, SGPC members and Bharatiya Kisan Union leaders Satnam Singh Behru and Balbir Singh Rajewal were also present. The meeting was being seen in political circles as an attempt by Khaira, who challenged AAP national convener and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and formed his faction within the party two months ago, to bring together the party rebels, smaller political groups and former leaders of other parties on this emotive issue. As he appears to have reached the point of no return with the AAP leadership notwithstanding their public proclamations, Khaira and seven other party MLAs who are supporting him, need to stitch together a third front that they have talked about repeatedly. At the press conference, Khaira said he had spoken to Congress and AAP leaders about the meeting and invites were also sent to them. They said they will consider, but did not come...all well-wishers of Punjab are present here, he said about the meeting in which seven resolutions, including four proposed by Gandhi, were passed. He accused the Congress and the SAD of colluding to deny justice. The Congress government continued with the director general of police appointed by the previous regime and has even got him a three-month extension, he added. Sandhu said the government was going slow against the police officials named in the Justice Ranjit Singh Commission report on sacrilege incidents and police firing in 2015 and allowing them time to take legal recourse to seek relief. There is no stay from the court with regard to the Kotkapura incident. The government should name the Badals in the FIR and take action without further delay, he said. Other resolutions were passed asking the Congress and the SAD to stop playing politics on this issue and need to end political interference in religious affairs of Sikhs and on steps needed for de-politicisation of police. The arrest of bishop Franco Mulakkal for raping a nun got a mixed response in Jalandhar with some members of the Christian community distributing sweets and church representatives saying that the action was taken under pressure. Kerala Police arrested Mulakkal in Kochi on the third day of questioning on Friday. The development came a day after Pope Francis and the Catholic Bishop Conference of India temporarily relieved Mulakkal of his pastoral responsibilities of the Jalandhar diocese. Members of the local Punjab Christian Movement gathered outside the Sacred Heart Catholic Church, where the residence of the bishop is located, and distributed sweets to celebrate the arrest. His actions have hurt the sentiments of our community. The Kerala high court should not give him bail on September 25, said Hamid Masih, the movements president. Masih alleged that the authorities should probe transaction of funds in the Jalandhar diocese in the past three months. We suspect he used money for personal purposes, he said. Peter Sahota, a member of the Roman Catholic Union, said, He has been punished for insulting Punjabis. After taking over in 2013, he said Punjabis are not fit to be appointed to the post of bishop. We have been opposing him since then. Sahota said the bishop appointed for the Jalandhar diocese should be a Punjabi. Kerala Police arrested the bishop (Reuters) The Punjab Christian United Front, however, cited the bishops arrest as one made under pressure and condemned the distribution of sweets. The Kerala police have arrested him due to the pressure of protesting nuns. The police dont have any evidence, said front president George Soni. Distributing sweets is condemned. Even if he is accused of rape, he is still our guru, he said. Vijay Goriya, the chairman of the Samson Brigade Christian Youth, Punjab, said the police should make evidence against the bishop public. If the allegations are proved right, we are ready to boycott him. I dont believe one who follows this path in our community can do such act, he said. Father Peter Kavumpuram, the bishops spokesperson, said the police should have waited till the hearing of the bail plea. Truth will prevail. Ive heard of fabricated documents being made. Perhaps the police are under pressure, he said. Members of the Christian community held a protest outside the church on Friday evening, raising slogans against the Kerala Police. Anti-terror raids by the police in the Midlands on Tuesday here were allegedly linked to the arrest in Punjab of British national Jagtar Singh Johal and were conducted at the behest of India, a Sikh group claimed on Saturday. The raids were conducted by counter-terrorism units in the West Midlands and Leicester in connection with what they called allegations of extremist activity in India and fraud offences. There were no arrests, but electronic equipment was allegedly removed. Johal was reportedly arrested in November last year in connection with the murder of RSS leader Ravinder Gosain. A campaign has since been launched in the UK for his release, accompanied by allegations of his torture in custody. The police did not release details of the raids, but the Sikh Federation (UK) said they were conducted at the residences of six Sikh activists in Birmingham, Coventry, Leicester and London. They were reportedly linked to the campaign to release Johal. The raids by around 70 police officers lasting 12-36 hours not only targeted Sikh activists, but their elderly and disabled parents and young children who have been left traumatised and suffering from nightmares, it said in a statement. (These) raids appear not to have been based on evidence-based intelligence, but have been carried out to demonstrate to the Indian authorities the UK is willing to help take actions against Sikh activists, the group added. Labour MP Preet Kaur Gill, who is also chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for British Sikhs, met the head of the West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit on Friday, and questioned the raids, the group said. Bhai Amrik Singh of the Sikh Federation (UK) said: We know the police officers used heavy handed techniques, have made several fundamental mistakes that lawyers have picked up on and action will be taken against police officers, especially the way they treated the families involved. Following comments of Punjab Police officers the Sikh community and lawyers are in no doubt these raids are linked to a search for evidence against Jagtar Singh Johal. Meanwhile, the Punjab Police has confirmed that raids were conducted at at least five places including at the house of Gursharanbir Singh, a UK resident wanted in India for his involvement in RSS leader Rulda Singhs murder case and the recent targeted killings in Punjab. The raids were the result of diplomatic pressure created by India on the UK. Gursharanbir was the key conspirators of targeted killing cases and is an accused in the cases being investigated by National Investigation Agency (NIA). Gursharanbir has provided weapon training to the killers at a shooting range in Dubai, said an official, adding, It would be interesting to see of UK allows extradition of Gursharanbir. Held up as the only option on the table, Prime Minister Theresa Mays Chequers plan to leave the EU was rejected by European leaders in Salzburg, leaving her politically weaker on Friday to face critics at the annual Conservative Party conference on September 31. Amid high-profile resignations and criticism since the plan was unveiled in July at Chequers, the prime ministers country residence, May has insisted it alone is capable of honouring the 2016 referendum vote to leave the 28-nation bloc, due on March 29, 2019. May was greeted with bruising headlines in the British and European press on Friday, describing her Salzburg trip as a humiliation and disaster and saying that she was sent packing, after European Union leaders described her plan as unworkable. Worse, France President Emmanuel Macron called pro-Brexit leaders liars, riling many in the UK. Admitting negotiations had reached an impasse, May stuck to her stand in a televised statement from Downing Street, seeking to put the ball back in EUs court: At this late stage in the negotiations, it is not acceptable to simply reject the other sides proposals without a detailed explanation and counter proposals. So we now need to hear from the EU what the real issues are and what their alternative is so that we can discuss them. Until we do, we cannot make progress. The oft-repeated criticism in Westminster on Friday was that May was in denial, after she and her allies stuck to the line that the Chequers plan envisaging continued links (common rulebook) with the EU after Brexit was still workable. Another major hurdle has been Mays plan to avoid a hard border after Brexit between Ireland (a EU country) and Northern Ireland (part of the UK). The two are closely linked by culture, history, politics, economy and the long period of conflict. Leaving the EU means leaving the single market and the customs union, which implies new border arrangements between the UK and the only EU country with which it will share a border: Ireland. In short, the reality of geography poses a major challenge to Brexit plans. Communities secretary James Brokenshire sought to defend Mays approach: "The Chequers deal is a workable, credible deal to meet our ambitions. They (the EU) have said that it's about the integrity of the single market and we believe the Chequers deal responds to that, and it's for the EU to engage with what's on the table." However, Scotland's first minister Nicola Sturgeon tweeted: "Now that the EU has explicitly rejected it, the Chequers pretence has to stop. At the very least, single market/customs union membership must be back on the table and the Article 50 clock must be stopped to avoid a cliff edge." Shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer told BBC that if the negotiations ended without a deal, it "would be catastrophic for our economy, plunging it into real crisis. Really, the next few weeks should be all about how does the prime minister avoid that. "She needs to accept that we need a customs union and a strong single market deal, both for the Northern Ireland border and for our economy," he added. The Pakistan Army on Saturday said it is ready for war but chooses to walk the path of peace in the interest of its people, comments which came in response to Indian Army chief general Bipin Rawats remark that stern action is needed to avenge the brutal killing of Indian soldiers. In an interview to Dunya TV, Pakistan Army spokesperson Asif Ghafoor said the country has a long-standing record of fighting terrorism and we know the price for peace, The Dawn reported. Pakistans desire for peace should not be mistaken for weaknessWar is imposed when you are not ready for it. But we are a nuclear nation and ready, he said. Earlier in the day, commenting on the recent brutal killing of a BSF jawan and three policemen in Jammu and Kashmir, General Rawat in Jaipur said stern action is needed to avenge the barbarism by terrorists and Pakistan Army against Indian soldiers. We need to take stern action to avenge the kind of barbarism that terrorists and the Pakistan Army have been carrying against our soldiers. It is time to give it back to them in the same coin but not by resorting to similar kind of barbarism. I think the other side must also feel the same pain, he said at a press conference here. Rawat insisted that action against Pakistan was needed but not in a barbaric manner. Refuting Indias claim of Pakistani soldiers killing the BSF jawan, Ghafoor said, We have struggled to achieve peace in the last two decades. We can never do anything to disgrace any soldier. They (India) have in the past as well laid the blame on us for mutilating the body of a fallen soldier. We are a professional army. We never engage in such acts, he added. We (Pakistan Army) are ready for war but choose to walk the path of peace in the interest of the people of Pakistan, the neighbours and the region, the spokesperson said. Ghafoor said the Indian Army is hurling irresponsible statements to divert attention from its domestic issues. The Indian government is facing graft scandals at home. And in a bid to divert attention from their domestic issues, the Indian army is hurling irresponsible statements of war, he said. The war of words between the armed forces of the two countries came a day after India called off the foreign minister-level talks with Pakistan in New York this month on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. General Rawat also said the Indian Army had carried out successful operations against the Pakistan Army whenever they did something against India along the border. Pakistan has suffered many casualties and we have been able to take on their defence system to a large extent, but we never resorted to barbarism. They requested for a ceasefire in May and we agreed, but if they continue to do this, we will need to take other action, he said. Ghafoor also defended the issuance of postal stamps by Pakistan, glorifying Kashmiri militant Burhan Wani and others, saying, The UN had released a human rights violation report following which the then interim government issued those tickets highlighting the plight of Kashmiris. He said India should come forward for a dialogue. Whenever attempts for dialogue have failed, it is because India has run away from the table, he claimed. Meanwhile, Pakistans minister for information and broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry also said, Pakistan and India are nuclear powers; a war is out of question. In a statement, he said, the Indian army chiefs remarks were inappropriate. As a peace-loving nation, Pakistan desires peace (with India), the minister said. (This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text.) Pakistan has said Saudi Arabia has agreed to join the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and invest in its infrastructure and industrial projects. The agreement was reached during Prime Minister Imran Khans meetings with the Saudi leadership during his recent visit to Riyadh, information minister Fawad Chaudhry said. A high-level coordination committee, proposed by Saudi King Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud, has been formed to work out details, he added. Saudi Arabia plans to send a high-level delegation, including the ministers of finance and energy, to Pakistan in the first week of October, Chaudhry said. He told a news conference: Saudi Arabia...will be our third strategic economic partner in CPEC, and Saudi Arabia is expected to bring massive direct investments to the project. CPEC, a $60-billion trade and transit corridor centred round Pakistans Gwadar port, is a key part of President Xi Jinpings Belt and Road Initiative. The corridor aims to link Gwadar and Chinas landlocked Xinjiang region with international markets. Chaudhry also clarified China had been taken into confidence avout Saudi Arabia joining CPEC. He was responding to a tweet by the former interior minister, Ahsan Iqbal of PML-N, who asked whether Beijing had been taken on board before Riyadh was invited to join the venture. Chinese assent was sought and the "expansion of CPEC is in China and Pakistans interest", Chaudhry said. Chaudhrys announcement came against the backdrop of Khans visit to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Islamabad is currently looking for foreign funding to tide over a financial crisis. Pakistan Army chief, Gen Qamar Bajwa, who also visited China recently, has said Pakistan is committed to the CPEC. Chaudhry also said Pakistans strategic cooperation with Saudi Arabia has been revitalised. We have assured the Saudi leadership that we will continue to provide security to their country and provide strategic support wherever needed, he added. A horses head and 24 pounds of beef every two or three days - that was the intake of an iconic Bengal tigress presented to the fourth Duke of Marlborough in Oxfordshire by Robert Clive, according to a set of rediscovered 18th century ledgers. The cost of feeding the hungry beast presented by Clive, who was then governor of the Bengal presidency, in 1762 was about the same as that of feeding three servants in Blenheim Palace. It was a time when exotic animals, including lions, tigers and elephants, were considered the ultimate status symbols for the wealthy British aristocracy. The tigress was immortalised in three paintings by renowned animal painter George Stubbs, who visited the palace to paint her from life. One is on display in the palace, while another was sold for 7.9 million at an auction in 1995. The tigress was looked after in a special menagerie built at Park Farm on the Oxfordshire estate, and one ledger, now in the British Library, reveals she got through around 24 pounds of beef every two or three days. The butchers bill for the tiger offers a fascinating glimpse back through history and literally fleshes out the true story of one of Stubbs most unusual and rarest paintings, said Blenheim Palace archivist Alexa Frost. One account of the bill is: Meat for the tiger: 24 lbs of beef delivered every 2 or 3 days, at 3/- a time, with sometimes a head 4d. In three spring months, the tiger consumed 4 4s. 2d. worth of beef; in the previous January on the other hand, the six poorest families in Hensington...had been given 12 loaves of bread and 52 lbs of meat by their benevolent Duke, at a total cost to him of 1 3s. 4d. The tigress was kept at the palace for a short period of time and there are no clear records as to where she went afterwards, although there is a suggestion she may have become part of a travelling menagerie. The duke was among several influential figures who received similar gifts from the ambitious and hugely wealthy Clive, who was the commander-in-chief of British India, but became one of the most controversial figures in colonial India. Blenheim Palace, which has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was built in the early 18th century. It was the venue where Prime Minister Theresa May hosted a dinner for US President Donald Trump during his July visit. An Israeli court has fined an ultra-orthodox Jewish radio station one million shekels ($280,000) for excluding women from its programmes over a two year period, local media said. Broadcaster Kol Baramas total and deliberate exclusion damages dignity and self-worth, deepens perceptions of female inferiority and prevents the influence of women in public discourse, the court ruled on Thursday, according to the Times of Israel. Ultra-orthodox interpretations of Judaism forbid men from listening to women sing, and some of the most radical strands also oppose females appearing in public, particularly in broadcast media. A class action lawsuit was filed in 2012 by the Orthodox feminist association Kolech and the Israel Religious Action Center, the Times of Israel said. The complainants accused the radio station of failing to bring a single female voice to air during its first two years of operation, between 2009 and 2011. The court ordered Kol Barama to donate its fine to initiatives bolstering womens place in society, IRAC said in a statement. Kol Barama said had not given air time to women over the period in question because the ultra-orthodox community -- its target audience -- did not want to hear female voices. Since 2013, it has employed female broadcasters, but it still does not play songs sung by women. A 2012 survey by Kolech found 20 percent of the stations listeners were shocked by its exclusion of women. Kol Barama broadcasts current affairs programmes, music and discussions on Jewish faith and philosophy. US deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein had reportedly suggested recording conversations with President Donald Trump and discussed trying to remove him from office on grounds of being unfit to discharge his duties. He had made the suggestions in conversations with officials of the justice department and the FBI in the days after the firing of James Comey as FBI director in May 2017, The New York Times reported on Friday, based on interviews with officials briefed on these conversations or notes kept by officials including former acting director of the FBI Andy McCabe. Rosenstein had played an important role in Comeys firing and the White House had cited a note written by him as grounds for the presidents decision. The deputy AG was then new in the job and had been taken aback by being put front and centre of the firing, and was disappointed and angry about it. He had suggested secretly recording conversations with Trump then, and initiating a move to have him removed through US Constitutions 25th amendment that provides for the cabinet to remove the president for failing to perform his duties. He had believed he could persuade attorney general Jeff Sessions and then secretary of Department of Homeland Security John Kelly, who is now the presidents chief of staff. In a statement, Rosenstein called the report inaccurate and factually incorrect. But let me be clear about this: Based on my personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment, he added. He followed that up with a second statement, denying he ever suggested recording the president or advocating his removal. But the revelations triggered speculation the president might use them to fire him. Though a Trump nominee, Rosenstein has been in the presidents crosshairs mainly for appointing Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 elections and collusion, if any. Trump routinely attacks the probe as a witch-hunt. Ahead of his scheduled interview on Italian TV, Asia Argento has warned Jimmy Bennett to keep mum unless he wants to face further legal action. Actress Asia Argento rocked the World a couple months ago when her messy 2013 affair with the-then teenage actor came to light. Argento fervently claims that she consented to sexual intercourse with Bennett under the impression that he was "of age," though he looked "juvenile" by the looks of the picture text that accompanied the ran adjacent with the story. Argento's warning to him was posted via her attorney who reiterated that Bennett's allegations were "slanderous, defamatory" and "untruthful" in spite of the fact they decided as a team to settle out of court for the sum of $380,000. Jimmy's television interview is scheduled for sometime this weekend, media outlets across the boot-shaped country have put on notice. Argento who holds dual-citizenship in Italy and America has gone to great lengths to invert the story, claiming that it was Bennett who infringed upon her fundamental rights, not the other way around. "I had sex with him and it felt weird. I didnt know he was a minor until the shakedown letter. The public knows nothing, only what NYT wrote. Which is one-sided. The shakedown letter. The horny kid jumped me," Argento wrote via text to a media liaison not too long ago. Crude oil prices are hovering near their highest levels in more than two months ahead of a potentially contentious meeting between OPEC, Russia and other oil-producing nations. The key issue is whether Saudi Arabia and Russian, two of the worlds top three producers, will raise output to offset the production and export declines of targets of U.S. sanctions Iran and Venezuela. Iran, which views its market share at risk, has accused the Saudis and Russians of plotting to supersede the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and vowed to veto any decisions to lift production above levels the cartel set earlier this year. The outcome will likely determine whether the recent rally in oil prices that has pushed U.S. crude above $70 a barrel and Brent crude, the international benchmark, near $80, will continue and with it the U.S. production boom that has revived Houstons energy industry and economy. Analysts said the most likely scenario is that Saudi Arabia and Russia will agree to ramp up their production volumes as needed to keep prices stable, said Matt Reed, vice president of Foreign Reports, a Washington consulting firm focused on Mideast oil politics. Without naming names, they can pledge to offset future losses from Iran and Venezuela through the rest of 2018, Reed said. The message they need to send is that theyre not asleep at the wheel. OPEC triggered the oil secotors recovery with its 2016 agreement to cut production after refusing to take action in late 2014 and sending prices crashing. OPEC, especially the Saudis, started increasing volumes this summer to offset the declines from Iran and Venezuela. More Information via Twitter See More Collapse And there may be little Iran can do about it, said Jamie Webster, senior director at Boston Consulting Group's Center for Energy Impact in Washington. Iran is angry. Iran is justified. But Iran is weak, Webster said. When you're weak, what can you do but yell and holler? Iran has accused the Russians and the Saudis of succumbing to pressure from the Trump administration to increase output to moderate prices. President Donald Trump warned OPEC this week against letting oil prices rise further thereby pushing gasoline prices higher ahead of the midterm elections and $80 a barrel Brent oil appears to be his red line, Webster said. Higher oil prices also can weaken global demand. "We protect the countries of the Middle East, they would not be safe for very long without us, and yet they continue to push for higher and higher oil prices!" Trump said in Twitter post. The alliance between Russia and Saudi Arabia plus other non-OPEC nations led by Russia has the potential to diminish the clout of the other 14 members of OPEC, analysts said. The Saudis and Russians may comply with Trumps wishes, but without acknowledging the pressure from the White House, said Jim Krane, a Rice University fellow for energy studies in the Middle East They dont want to look subservient like theres some puppet master in Washington pulling the strings, Krane said. Of course, Krane added, Trump is responsible for higher oil prices because of his decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear accord and impose sanctions on Iran. Trump also is freezing former President Barack Obamas fuel efficiency standards, Krane said, which in theory would lead to greater domestic oil demand and higher crude prices. jordan.blum@chron.com twitter.com/jdblum23 Visitors have many reasons to appreciate the refurbished Menil Collection, which reopens Saturday after a six-month closure. Though every public nook and cranny of Renzo Pianos modest landmark building has been refreshed, the spirit of discovery that the late Dominique de Menil wanted to achieve appears stronger than ever. Menil regulars have long felt they could drop into and out of the galleries quickly when they needed a moment of quiet inspiration. Its still that place. But the new installations also encourage lingering to examine the many works that have not previously been shown at the museum or havent appeared in years. Going to the Menil has never felt like more of an experience; its enough to make an art lover downright giddy. Director Rebecca Rabinow and the curators let the objects dictate the design. For the first time since the museum opened 31 years ago, everything on display belongs to the Menil or is a promised gift. The deep dive into the Menils vaults enabled the curators to play up some under-known aspects of the collection, such as its depth of Fernand Leger and Victor Brauner works. Although the collection has nearly doubled since de Menil died in 1997, the displays honor her distinctive, slightly quirky perspective. Most of the works will be up for a year, until temporary shows are inserted here and there; and Rabinow said permanent displays will never be static. Here are a few ways to start exploring. The Menil Collection When: 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Wednesdays-Sundays Where: 1533 Sul Ross Details: Free; 713-525-9400, menil.org See More Collapse 1. Look for vistas. You can walk through one way and have one experience, turn around and have a different experience, Rabinow said. Everything you see in one room speaks in some way, whether art historically or formally, to the works you see through into the next room. For example, viewers can see the symbiotic flow from Picassos Cubism (a pivotal decade that sets the stage for work to come, senior curator Michelle White said) to the development of abstraction and Abstract Expressionism. Down the other corridor, people standing in the small, dark Byzantine icon room may think theyre inside a chapel when they look out onto Francois de Nomes monumental 17th-century painting Interior of a Cathedral. 2. Breathe it in. The new installations make the Menil feel bigger than it is, giving ample elbow room to monumental masterpieces. Yves Kleins Blue Rain, which has never been shown with its pit of pure blue pigment at the Menil, puts a wow factor in the entry to the post-war and contemporary galleries. Richard Serras Two Corner Cut, High Low, which was commissioned by the museum in 2012, fills a made-to-spec room where the scent of oil stick is discernable. Cy Twomblys massive Treatise of the Veil has a wall to itself. The signature Surrealism galleries open with a spacious room devoted to Max Ernsts forest-themed works, hinting at another strength: The Menil owns the largest collection of works by Ernst. 3. Find surprises. I want a secret niche! White said when she discovered the nook created behind a new, open gallery carved into the east-wing corridor. The antithesis of the giant canvases across the hall, a Bering sea ivory carved in the shape of a head no bigger than an inch or two lives there in the space created by curator of collections Paul Davis. The artworks open mouth reflects the singing expression of a much larger, 18th-century mask by the Nuu-chah-nulth peoples that hangs out in the open nearby, Davis pointed out. And White did build in a surprise, installing a small, lit model by Christo within one of the walls of the post-war and contemporary galleries. 4. Salute female artists. The de Menils did not collect the works of many female artists, but the museum has purposefully worked to represent women better with its later acquisitions. White is especially proud of an abstract mosaic from 1950 by Jeanne Reynal, a friend of Arshile Gorky who has been completely unknown in the history of art, she said. Giving women much-deserved cred within view of powerful canvases by Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman, this room also includes masterful drawings by Perle Fine, Lee Krasner, Sonia Gechtoff, Toni LaSelle and Hedda Sterne. Across the museum, Niki de Saint Phalle, Louise Nevelson, Suzan Frecon and Roni Horn hang with the post-war and contemporary guys. And Leslie Hewitt is the first person to be featured in the Contemporary Focus gallery devoted to living artists; her elegant, powder-coated steel sculptures speak fittingly to erased histories. The theme of women even gets a nod in the African galleries, where Davis has installed a selection of sublime fertility figures. 5. Rethink history. The Guyana-born Frank Bowlings complex Middle Passage, on view at the Menil for the first time even though it was commissioned by the de Menils in the early 1970s, sets the tone in the foyer. Other major works by artists of color hang opposite those of famous white men to present a more inclusive version of contemporary art history. The museum still doesnt put didactic text on its walls. Grab a gallery guide to learn more about the complex stories conveyed in the liminal space devoted to de Menils Image of the Black in Western Art project, a counterpoint to works from Central and West Africa. One fine example: Gabriel Mathias Grand Tour-style, 18th-century portrait of William Ansah Sessarakoo as a European gentleman has a fascinating backstory. It was created in London after Sessarakoo, the son of a prominent African slave trader, was himself kidnapped and sold into slavery before being rescued by his father. 6. See what floats. Many small, previously unshown objects appear now, thanks to some low-tech but updated display work. About 60 new, barely-there mounts hold treasures in glass enclosures so they can be viewed from all sides. Its a classic museum problem, Rabinow said. How do you display works of art so you can show the bottoms of things? 7. Chuckle. Everything doesnt have to be serious. Claes Oldenburg and the Geometric Mouse, the first in a series of Collection Close-Up mini-shows that will explore museum holdings in depth, makes me grin from well, ear to ear. This room of drawings, sculptures and posters shows how inventively the American conceptual artist played with ideas about Mickey Mouses geometric potential in the 1960s and 70s, including concepts for his proposed Maus Museum. molly.glentzer@chron.com Of all the British culinary traditions fish and chips, Yorkshire pudding, shepherds pie, beef Wellington, Cornish pasty, bangers and mash, bubble and squeak none is more quintessential, or regal, than the afternoon tea. But it is actually a relatively new practice, introduced to England in 1840 by the Anna, the seventh Duchess of Bedford, who apparently got a little peckish in the late afternoon. She would have a tray of tea and cakes brought to her room in the late afternoon; it caught on among her friends, and soon became something quite festive and quickly adopted by the upper class. Today, afternoon tea is revered on home turf and observed around the world. And that custom is just one of the veddy British practices celebrated in Central Markets Passport United Kingdom, a culinary immersion into the food and drink of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Running Sept. 19 through Oct. 2, its the eighth year Central Market stores have collectively dived into the flavors native to a specific country. More than 200 new products and prepared foods from Welsh cakes, Scottish salmon, haggis and Irish cheese to English cider, preserves, pasties and curries will be added to regular store inventory. Especially notable is the first stateside introduction of Mey Selections, artisan foods from 150-mile radius of the Castle of Mey. Prince Charles launched Mey Selections in 2005 to promote and preserve the foodways in the Highlands of Scotland. Passport United Kingdom at Central Market Through Oct. 2 at 3815 Westheimer. For more information on daily events and cooking classes: centralmarket.com. See More Collapse There will undoubtedly be tea, too. In addition to the large assortment from around the world, the store is hosting traditional afternoon tea for $25 per person which, compared to afternoon tea at fancy hotels, is a bargain. The grocer consulted with the British Consul General in Houston and Hummingbird Tearoom & Bakery in The Woodlands to ensure a proper service. On HoustonChronicle.com: Where to take afternoon tea in Houston Today, afternoon tea is still served in tea rooms, restaurants and cafes across the U.K., from cream teas in the West Country to afternoon tea at the Ritz in London, said Consul General Karen Bell. The good news for peoples waistlines is that the full experience, complete with scones, jam, clotted cream and perhaps a glass of English sparkling wine is very much a treat rather than an everyday experience. But a pot of tea and a biscuit is still something most Brits will look forward to, most days of the week. Central Market Houston general manager Patrick Gural and cooking school manager Juan Gonzalez could practically give lessons on afternoon tea theyve studied it so intently in recent months. Dont clink your spoon when stirring, go back and forth with the spoon, Gonzalez said. No pinkies. And dont blow on the tea, Gural added. There are many more particular parts of the tea, which theyre happy to teach. Its a very particular process, Gural said. Its a ritual. And a lot of fun. Central Market has invested in porcelain tea services and fitting tea accoutrements, too: all the sweets and savories, including cucumber, salmon, egg salad and watercress and Coronation Chicken sandwiches, scones and cakes. And if you want to host afternoon tea at home, the store will stock everything you need to make it happen. The attraction to British culinary practices is not lost on Central Market there are more than 50,000 British expats living in Houston and it aims to keep them in blue Stilton, sticky toffee pudding and traditional pork bangers (sausages) to their hearts content. And even for Houstonians who have never been to jolly old England, Britannias pull is considerable: When Harry wed Meghan in May, Anglophiles raided Central Market for party goods; the store sold out of clotted cream almost immediately. Dont worry, theyre plenty stocked for Passport. Recipe: Coronation Chicken Tea Sandwiches Recipe: Smoked Salmon, Caper & Cream Cheese Tea Sandwich Recipe: Goats Cheese, Walnuts and Roasted Pepper Tea Sandwiches greg.morago@chron.com twitter.com/gregmorago Houston police officers voted overwhelmingly Friday to ratify a new contract with the city that would give officers a staggered 7 percent raise over two years. "We are overjoyed that our membership has passed this contract by 96 percent of those who voted," HPOU President Joe Gamaldi said. "It's the highest approval rating for any contract we've ever had." Gamaldi did not provide a breakdown of how many of the city's 5,200 officers actually voted. The contract now must go to Houston City Council for approval. The proposal, which would take effect in July 2019, comes as the city is waging a high-profile campaign to defeat a firefighter-backed referendum on "pay parity" aimed at bringing firefighter salaries in line with police officers. The police contract -- staggered over two years -- would go into effect for officers who have completed their six-month probationary periods, raising pay from $55,000 to about $57,000 in July 2019, and then by another $1,500 in 2020. The city has estimated the overall cost of the proposal at approximately $52 million. Background: Proposed contract would give Houston police 7 percent raise over two years. Shortly after the vote's result was announced, Police Chief Art Acevedo took to social media to congratulate his officers. "The results are a testament to the leadership of the @hpou & @SylvesterTurner & the maturity of our work force," he tweeted. "Proud of our team & community." St. John Barned-Smith covers public safety and major breaking news for the Houston Chronicle. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. Send tips to st.john.smith@chron.com. It was a fruitful morning for a pair of prison guards who uncovered some monkey business when they spotted $17.8 million of cocaine hidden inside a shipment of bananas donated to the Texas prison system. Two sergeants at the Scott Unit set out on Friday morning to pick up two pallets of already-ripe fruit - 45 banana-filled boxes - from the Ports of America in Freeport. When Daniel DiNardo was appointed Texas first Catholic cardinal in 2007, hundreds of Houstonians followed him to Rome, and nearly a thousand people greeted him with fanfare when he returned. But when DiNardo traveled to Rome this month, the visit was more solemn. He and other U.S. Catholic leaders met with Pope Francis to discuss the churchs response to the latest clergy sex abuse scandal. And as DiNardo prepared for his audience with the pope, he himself was hit with allegations that he hadnt done enough to stop a former Conroe priest accused by two people of sexually assaulting them when they were teenagers some two decades ago. Suddenly DiNardo, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the leader of Galveston-Houstons 1.7 million Catholics, faced questions about his handling of sex abuse allegations not long after he had criticized the grave moral failures of judgment on the part of church leaders in responding to the broader scandal. The controversy has put an unwelcome spotlight on DiNardo, 69, a dynamic figure known for his oratory skills, approachability and conservative positions on social issues. Experts agree that DiNardo will be tested anew by the crisis given the recent accusations and his role leading the nations bishops. Kathleen McChesney, a former FBI agent who was hired by the bishops delegation to lead its child and youth protection efforts during the 2002 clergy sex abuse crisis in Boston, said DiNardo represents a major figure as the church seeks to rectify this issue. Cardinal DiNardo is responsible for dealing with the various leadership to help them to find solutions, McChesney said. But its more in the area of transparency and accountability where he will be very influential among his brother bishops. The scandal has reached the highest levels of the church, with Pope Francis even accused by a prominent archbishop with whom hed clashed of covering up alleged abuse by a former U.S. cardinal. Francis said he would not utter a word about the allegations, which some say reflected the unhappiness of church conservatives with Francis more inclusive vision for the church. DiNardo kept quiet on details of his recent meeting with the pontiff, but he told the National Catholic Register, a conservative Catholic publication, that he was filled with hope. He listened very deeply from the heart, DiNardo said in a written statement. It was a lengthy, fruitful, and good exchange. Its unknown whether the men discussed recent claims by a man and a woman that DiNardo failed to take seriously allegations that they had been sexually assaulted by a former Conroe priest, Father Manuel La Rosa-Lopez. Conroe police this month arrested and charged La Rosa-Lopez, 60, with four counts of indecency with a child. The priest has denied the allegations. The accusers told Conroe police recently that they were abused when La Rosa-Lopez was the parochial vicar at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Conroe. The Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston has defended its handling of the matter, noting that the complaints, received 17 years apart, were both referred to Child Protective Services. We take these matters very seriously, which is why we reported the information we received from both individuals to CPS and removed Father La Rosa-Lopez from ministry, the statement said. Michael Norris, leader of the Houston chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said that while DiNardo has done good work in the community, he should be opening his books and sharing what he knows with his parishioners. Hes got blood on his hands, just like the rest of the bishops, archbishops and cardinals, Norris said in a phone interview. He portrays himself as this guy whos trying to do the right thing. He might be a good man but hes just like the rest of them. DiNardo and the Archdiocese did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story. Rise to prominence The son of an Italian immigrant, DiNardo, 69, was born in Steubenville, Ohio, and grew up in the Pittsburgh area. As a speaker, he has a commanding delivery that includes a hushed style of storytelling that makes parishioners lean in. He just seems like a man of the people, said Rachel Soto, a 56-year-old Houstonian who was recently confirmed in the Catholic faith by DiNardo. The cardinal felt the calling to be a priest at an early age he pretended to say Mass as a child, wearing vestments sewn by his mother and using an altar constructed by his father, DiNardos twin sister told the Houston Chronicle in 2004. After high school, he enrolled in St. Paul Seminary and Duquesne University in Pittsburgh and later received a masters degree in philosophy from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. DiNardo earned theological degrees in Rome and was ordained a priest in the Diocese of Pittsburgh in 1977. He returned to Rome in 1984 to work in the Vaticans Congregation for Bishops, a powerful department that oversees the selection of bishops. He became the bishop of Sioux City, Iowa, in 1997 shepherd to just more than 94,000 Catholics and moved to Houston as the coadjutor bishop of the then-diocese in 2004. He became archbishop in 2006 and was elevated to cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI in 2007, a move that some say was aimed at recognizing the diversity of the fast-growing region. DiNardo later was a member of the Conclave that selected Pope Francis. His visibility grew when he was elected vice president of the bishops conference in 2013 and president in 2016. His three-year term extends through most of 2019. The Rev. Harvey Clemons, the pastor of Pleasant Hill Baptist Church, said DiNardos approachability is surprising, considering how well-regarded he is by the Vatican. Clemins said the cardinal has a dry sense of humor and brings a deliberate manner to his work. I have found him to be very sober, quite knowledgeable about our faith, said Clemons, whos worked with him on local matters. Hes very easy to talk to, and seems to be abreast of whats happening, (not only) within his diocese, but also with whats going on with social justice issues. Cynthia Nunes Colbert, the CEO of Catholic Charities in the Archdiocese, praised DiNardo as a good listener and clear communicator. In his homilies, DiNardo often flashes a friendly smile, as if hes about to tell a joke. He sings the liturgy, even though he wears hearing aids because of calcium deposits in his middle ear. He is to be admired, Clemons said. With the strain that the faith community is going through, particularly Catholicism now, I certainly wouldnt want to see him tainted by the behavior of other people. A little complicated DiNardo has described himself as a traditional priest, and he maintains traditionally conservative positions on social issues that have long divided the church. According to news reports, he marched against the death penalty and in 2009 objected to the selection of President Barack Obama, who is pro-choice, as a commencement speaker at Notre Dame University. When DiNardo was elected president of the bishops conference in 2016, some suggested that he was chosen as a conservative counterweight to the progressive pope something that DiNardo has denied. If they want to construe this as somehow Im not with Pope Francis, thats crazy, he told Crux Catholic Media at the time. I enjoy Pope Francis; I think hes doing some marvelous things for the church. I think most bishops have a tendency to support whoever is pope, said Father Thomas Reese, a Jesuit priest and prominent Catholic writer. How enthusiastic they are about that, whether they like one pope better than another, most bishops dont show their cards on something like that. Perhaps the most obvious act of dissension occurred in 2015, when DiNardo was one of 13 cardinals revealed to have signed a letter to the pope, lodging objections to decisions he took or approved in the Synod on the Family, according to America Magazine. DiNardo has held firm on core teachings that divorced and remarried Catholics should not be able to receive communion without annulments, and on teachings about contraception, birth control and homosexuality. When Francis famously made his statement regarding homosexuality Who am I to judge? DiNardo supported the pope while still defending the traditional teachings. "We must always be careful about our judgments of persons, but we can speak about the morality of human actions, DiNardo said at the time. DiNardo maintains order and isnt looking to cause problems with the pope, Doyle said. Whereas DiNardo is not in favor of every element of the popes agenda, it seems to me he is someone who wants to speak civilly and preserve the dignity of the bishops, he said. Hes at least a little complicated. DiNardo is in line with Francis on refugee and immigration policies. The cardinal called the Trump administrations policy of separating mothers and children at the U.S. border immoral. Months earlier, he urged Congress to protect Dreamers, the young people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children, from deportation. He views the issues with a clarity of mind, Clemons said. Its not overly dramatic in terms of expectations but at the same time, he pushes us to the limit, expects us to do as people of faith. DiNardo also works frequently with Catholic Charities on matters ranging from Hurricane Harvey relief to refugee and immigration work in Houston. Hes a great voice for the underprivileged, for those who need help, Nunes Colbert said. Daunting task DiNardo now faces a daunting task: Helping bishops and parishioners reconcile the church they know with the church facing a crisis on a worldwide scale. A Pennsylvania grand jury report released this summer alleges that at least 1,000 children were molested by upwards of 300 clergymen since the 1940s, according to the Associated Press. That came on the heals of the resignation of Archbishop Theodore McCarrick, who has been accused of sexually abusing minors and young priests. Its unclear how the recent allegations against DiNardo will affect his work on the crisis as a whole. The most recent accuser met with church officials Aug. 10, the Archdiocese said. The man told the Chronicle that DiNardo was dismissive of his story and told him, Well, you shouldve told us earlier. The womans allegations were brought to the Archdiocesan Review Board in 2003, before the cardinal arrived in Houston, and La Rosa-Lopez was permitted to return to parish ministry in 2004. She said she checked in with the Archdiocese in 2010 and was told that La Rosa-Lopez had been placed in an administrative position where he had no contact with children or teenagers. When La Rosa-Lopez was arrested, he was still the pastor at St. John Fisher Catholic Church in Richmond and episcopal vicar for Hispanics in the Archdiocese. She told Conroe police that she decided to file a police report in part because of the perceived duplicity of DiNardo, La Rosa-Lopezs arrest warrant stated. Church officials said the female accuser had decided not to pursue the matter in 2001 and that they only recently received a formal complaint from the male accuser. To anyone affected by any form of abuse by anyone who represents the Church, the Archdiocese deeply regrets such a fundamental violation of trust, and commits itself to eliminating such unacceptable actions, church officials said in a statement. As a spokesman of the U.S. bishops, DiNardo can be expected to play a key role setting the tone for how the church handles the crisis. He cant tell all the other bishops what to do, Reese said. He can lead; he can try to persuade; he can encourage. DiNardo and the bishops have announced a plan that they say will make reporting of abuse and misconduct by bishops easier and improve procedures for resolving complaints against bishops. Pope Francis has scheduled another meeting with top Roman Catholic officials for February. I think the American bishops have grown to understand, finally, that you cant just cover these things up, Father Reese said. (DiNardos) speaking for the rest of the bishops who are frustrated that these abuse stories keep coming forward. A mobile billboard truck displaying an old Trump tweet calling Ted Cruz an "all talk, no action pol!" will make its way to Houston on Sept. 30, when the Texas senator will debate Democratic challenger Beto O' Rourke at the University of Houston. The truck, which is currently in the Dallas area for today's debate between Cruz and O'Rourke, is looking to "remind Texans of the truth" behind the president's relationship with the senator, according to a GoFundMe page that collected donations for the project. RELATED: How to watch the Ted Cruz vs. Beto O'Rourke debate Friday night "Why would the people of Texas support Ted Cruz when he has accomplished absolutely nothing for them," Trump's 2016 tweet read. "He is another all talk, no action pol!" The president's relationship with the senator has softened since the election, when Trump often referred to Cruz as "Lyin' Ted." Since Trump took office, Cruz has sided with him in votes more than 90 percent of the time, according to Texas Monthly. Trump also recently said he plans to rally for Cruz in October in the "biggest stadium in Texas." "Terrific! Texas will be glad to see you," Cruz said in a tweet responding to the plan. "Working together, we've won major victories for the people of Texas: historic tax cuts, repealing job-killing regulations, rebuilding the military & confirming strong constitutionalist judges. And as a result, the Texas economy is booming!" Houston activist Antonio Arellano originally developed the idea for tweet billboard after Trump announced plans for the rally. According to the Washington Post, the idea picked up steam after Arellano posted a mock-up of the billboard on Twitter. "My followers were saying,'Where can I donate? Let's make this happen," he told the Post. Arellano started a GoFundMe page earlier this month for the project. Other activists, including former Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student David Hogg, joined the effort. The campaign quickly garnered $9,760 before the organizers stopped accepting donations, the Post reported. RELATED: Ted Cruz holds 9-point lead on Beto O'Rourke, new poll shows Since then, the truck has made stops in Dallas, Irving, Arlington , Grand Prairie, Denton and Fort Worth. According to a tweet from Arellano on Thursday, the truck will stay in Houston from Sept. 30 until Oct. 6. "Should we park it outside Rafael Edward Cruz's office?" Arellano asked in the tweet. Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message. Julian Gill is a digital reporter in Houston. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and on our subscriber site, houstonchronicle.com. | julian.gill@chron.com If you didn't watch the first debate between Ted Cruz and Beto O'Rourke, the only thing you need to know was that both candidates were true to form. Those three words, uttered at the end of the night by O'Rourke, might as well have been the only interesting and unexpected thing to come out of Friday's political show at Southern Methodist University. Most of the night was clearly dominated by Cruz, who answered questions, framed his political worldview and punched at O'Rourke with ease at moments putting the Democratic challenger on his heels. Of course, that's to be expected from a Princeton debater and Supreme Court lawyer. After posing the usual questions about Dreamers, criminal justice reform and all the expected issues, the moderators asked the two candidates to say one thing they admired about the other. O'Rourke offered a safe, if bland, comment about how Cruz works hard, loves his kids and fights for what he believes, even if they disagree on the issues. Cruz responded by saying more or less the same thing, but then took a turn for the bizarre by expounding on how he had debated U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on CNN and that he admires Sanders for saying what he believes just like how O'Rourke also believes wacky left-wing ideas. You can almost hear Donald Trump's voice in your head: lyin' Ted. He just couldn't pass up an opportunity to say something positive without spinning into a slimeball attack. Or, as O'Rourke put it: "True to form." It was one of those moments when Cruz could have demonstrated his humanity his ability to relate to people beyond politics and he failed. There's a reason why one of the political activist groups in this senate race is named "Humans Against Ted Cruz." Besides being unnecessary, the attack was untrue. To paraphrase a past debate performance by a Texas senator: I know leftists. I work with leftists. Leftists are friends of mine. Beto O'Rourke is no leftist. Just ask his primary opponent, Sema Hernandez, an actual socialist. The O'Rourke campaign is radical in a different way in its attempt to visit all 254 counties in Texas, engage with people earnestly, and aim for some kind of statewide consensus and cooperation. During the debate, O'Rourke even touted how he had worked with Cruz's senior counterpart, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, on a border security bill. Throughout the hour-long event he tried to avoid the usual back and forth no doubt in part because Cruz is simply a better debater. Instead, O'Rourke attempted to turn his answers into short soliloquies about bipartisanship, justice and the people he has met during his statewide campaign. I can't remember the last time a statewide candidate referenced the people of Roscoe and Sweetwater. True to form, for O'Rourke. It has been a while since someone earnestly tried that strategy in Texas. So far it seems to be working at least according to some polls even if the odds still remain clearly on the side of a Cruz victory. O'Rourke also happens to benefit from the fact that his opponent is one of the most reviled characters in Washington politics. South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham probably put it best: "If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you." Or, to quote former Speaker of the House John Boehner: "I have Democrat friends and Republican friends. I get along with almost everyone, but I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life." Where does this animosity come from? It has nothing to do with policy these attacks come from within the Republican party. Instead, it is all about personality. Cruz is the sort of person who refused to endorse his Texas colleague, Cornyn, in the 2014 Republican primary. (Cornyn returned the favor during Cruz's 2016 presidential run.) Cruz takes credit for other people's work. His first television campaign ad touted all the work he did after Hurricane Harvey, despite the fact that Cornyn did the heavy lifting. Overall, he simply isn't a team player, and spent his short career working against his fellow Republicans to further his own ambitions. Can you blame Cruz? It worked! He is a hero of the Republican Party grassroots, nearly became the Republican candidate for president in 2016 and in the process emerged as a national figure. Now Cruz just has to see whether these tactics will work for his first reelection race. Even before the candidates went on stage Friday night, voters knew where the two stood on the issues. O'Rourke wants Dreamers to have citizenship, Cruz wants to deport them. O'Rourke wants to end the War on Drugs, Cruz doesn't. O'Rourke is open to impeaching Donald Trump, Cruz isn't. The real takeaway from the debate setting was seeing how the two men think on their feet, respond to challenges in person, and act without a script. Both O'Rourke and Cruz were true to form. Mintz is deputy opinion editor. Update: Democrat Beto O'Rourke accused Sen. Ted Cruz of "working for the clampdown and the corporations" as the two Senate candidates debated the merits of the 2017 Republican tax overhaul. "We're not giving away to corporations and special interests," O'Rourke said. "That's what Sen. Cruz would do, thanks to the contributions he's received from those political action committees." O'Rourke is not accepting contributions from PACs. Cruz was not given a chance to respond, but when asked to "say something nice" about O'Rourke, he tied him to Sen. Bernie Sanders, a socialist. Click here for the full story of Friday's debate "I think Congressman O'Rourke is passionate, he is energetic, he believes what he's fighting for," Cruz said, before mentioning Sanders and socialism. "I think you are absolutely sincere, like Bernie, that you believe in expanding government and higher taxes, and I commend you for fighting ... for the principles you believe in." "True to form," O'Rourke responded. Update: Now Playing: FOX 26 News reporter Ivory Hecker Video: Fox 26 Houston Sen. Ted Cruz on Friday criticized the Affordable Care Act for creating "skyrocketing premiums," while Democrat Beto O'Rourke advocated for Medicaid expansion in Texas and "universal guaranteed care." The candidates, debating for the first time in their race for U.S. Senate, disagreed on how to provide protections for people with pre-existing conditions. O'Rourke, an El Paso congressman, questioned how Cruz proposed to maintain protections while repealing Obamacare. He also said Texas left billions of dollars on the table by refusing to expand Medicaid. "We can protect pre-existing conditions," Cruz said. "But we also need more choices, more competition, more options, so that prices drop." Update: Sen. Ted Cruz and his Democratic challenger, Beto O'Rourke, revealed their differing opinions on how gun laws should be enforced in Texas during their first debate Friday. Cruz said survivors of the May Santa Fe high school shooting told him they believe "gun control is not the answer," instead advocating for more armed officers in schools. O'Rourke, who supports universal background checks and a ban on assault weapons, told Cruz that "weapons of war belong on the battlefield, not in our schools." "Thoughts and prayers, Sen. Cruz, are just not going to cut it anymore," he added. Cruz shot back: "More armed police officers in our schools is not just thoughts and prayers. And I'm sorry if you don't like thoughts and prayers." Update: Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Beto O'Rourke, D-El Paso, opened their first debate Friday by trading blows over perhaps the most divisive issue of their Senate race: immigration. Asked about their views on providing a path to citizenship for undocumented people living in the country, the candidates disagreed sharply. O'Rourke stated his support for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. "Sen. Cruz has promised to deport each and every single Dreamer," O'Rourke said. "That cannot be the way that Texas leads on this issue." Cruz responded by pointing to the "stark divide" between himself and O'Rourke on the issue. "My views on immigration are simple, and I've summed them up many times in just four words," Cruz. "Legal: Good. Illegal: Bad. I think the vast majority of Texans agree with that." He added a jab at O'Rourke, calling him "out of step with Texas." "There is a right way to come into this country. You wait in line, you follow the rules, like my father did in 1957." O'Rourke, given a chance for rebuttal, stood by his answer. "The alternative, as Sen. Cruz has proposed, is to deport 11 million people from this country," O'Rourke said. "Imagine the cost. Imagine the stain on our conscience going forward." ------ Sen. Ted Cruz and Democrat Beto O'Rourke are facing off Friday evening in Dallas for the first of three scheduled debates in a race that has drawn national attention. O'Rourke, a congressman from El Paso, has outraised Cruz for months, and the Cook Political Report rated the race a "Toss Up" Friday, a shift from its "Lean Republican" grade. Cruz, R-Texas, led O'Rourke by 9 percentage points in a recent poll, one day before a different poll showed O'Rourke with a two-point lead. The debate starts at 6 p.m. on the campus of Southern Methodist University, which is hosting the event with NBC 5/KXAS and the Dallas Morning News. It will stream at NBCDFW.com and Dallasnews.com. In Houston, News KUHF-88.7 FM and KUHT-Ch. 8 will broadcast the debate. The two candidates have found almost no common ground on the campaign trail, staking out opposing positions on topics such as immigration, gun laws, and the Republican tax cut plan. The debate will cover domestic policy. Friday's debate is the first of three between Cruz and O'Rourke. The last two will take place Sept. 30 at the University of Houston and Oct. 16 in San Antonio. Videos Sorry, there are no recent results for popular videos. Imperial Valley News Center FTC Brings First-ever Action Targeting iV Cocktail Therapy Marketer Washington, DC - The Federal Trade Commission today, for the first time, charged a marketer and seller of intravenously injected therapy products (iV Cocktails) with making a range of deceptive and unsupported health claims about their ability to treat serious diseases such as cancer, multiple sclerosis, and congestive heart failure. The proposed FTC order settling the claims prohibits the company, which operates a string of clinics in north Texas; New Braunfels, Texas; and Vail, Colorado, and its owner from making such claims, unless they can be supported by competent and reliable scientific evidence. The iV Cocktails, which were advertised as an alternative to traditional medical therapy, are actually a simple mix of water, vitamins, minerals, and herbs injected directly into the bloodstream for between $100 and $250 per treatment. Such therapy, sometimes referred to as Intravenous Micro-Nutrient Therapy, Intravenous Vitamin Therapy, and Hydration Therapy, has recently seen an increase in popularity throughout the country. This enforcement action should send a clear message to the burgeoning iV therapy industry and sellers of all healthcare products, said Joe Simons, Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission. Health claims must be supported by competent and reliable scientific evidence. What the FTC Did to Protect Consumers According to the FTCs complaint, A & O Enterprises Inc., doing business as iV Bars Incorporated and iVBars, and its owner and operator Aaron K. Roberts deceptively advertised, promoted, and sold a line of iV Cocktails, including one called the Myers Cocktail, to consumers seeking alternative treatments for major diseases. In marketing its products online, the iV Bars respondents (iV Bars) allegedly made a range of unsupported health and efficacy claims for the treatments. Beginning in mid-2015, iV Bars used its website and social media to advertise a variety of iV Cocktails to consumers, designed to be administered directly into the bloodstream, typically through a vein in the arm. Each iV Cocktail costs $100 or more per session. iV Bars claimed the iV Cocktails could treat serious diseases including cancer, congestive heart failure, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, fibromyalgia, and neurodegenerative disorders. iV Bars also claimed that their iV Cocktails produced fast, lasting results, and in many instances, were more effective and better-tolerated than conventional medical therapies. The complaint alleges that iV Bars health treatment and efficacy claims either were false or not supported by competent and reliable scientific evidence. It also alleges that iV Bars made false establishment claims that iV Cocktails were clinically or scientifically proven to provide the health benefits advertised. What the Settlement Means The proposed settlement order, which is subject to public comment, prohibits iV Bars from making the false or unsubstantiated claims that its iV Cocktails: 1) are an effective treatment for any of the diseases included in the complaint; 2) produce fast, lasting results; or 3) cure, mitigate, or treat any diseases, unless the claim is supported by competent and reliable scientific evidence. The order also prohibits iV Bars from making any express or implied health, safety, or efficacy claims unless they are not misleading and are supported by scientific evidence. In connection with the advertising, marketing, promotion, or sale of any covered product, the order prohibits iV Bars from misrepresenting that it has had medical professionals test or approve the product, or that it has a research facility. The order also prohibits iV Bars from misrepresenting the existence or conclusions of any scientific evidence, or that a product, including iV Cocktails, is scientifically or clinically proven to produce any benefit. Finally, the order requires iV Bars to preserve any underlying scientific data and documents used to support health claims made for any product. Notice to Consumers About the Myers Cocktail In addition to agreeing to the terms of the proposed order, on September 4, 2018, iV Bars emailed a notice to consumers who bought the Myers Cocktail before the FTC-challenged health claims were eliminated from the companys advertising. The notice, signed by respondent Roberts, makes clear to consumers that: Contrary to the companys marketing materials, studies have not shown that the Myers Cocktail is an effective treatment for any disease, including nine specific diseases, ranging from cancer to multiple sclerosis and diabetes; Consumers should consult a doctor or other healthcare provider before using any alternative disease treatments; Consumers should talk with their doctor or healthcare provider before stopping any prescribed treatments; and It is important for consumers to talk with their healthcare provider to ensure all aspects of their medical treatment work well together. The Commission vote to issue the administrative complaint and to accept the consent agreement was 5-0. The FTC will publish a description of the consent agreement package in the Federal Register shortly. The agreement will be subject to public comment for 30 days, beginning today and continuing through October 22, 2018, after which the Commission will decide whether to make the proposed consent agreement final. Interested parties can submit comments electronically by following the instructions in the Invitation To Comment part of the Supplementary Information section Imperial Valley News Center Presidential Proclamation on National Hunting and Fishing Day, 2018 Washington, DC - The United States is blessed with abundant resources and unrivaled natural beauty. Our wildlife has provided ample opportunities for generations of Americans to enjoy hunting and fishing with their family and friends. On National Hunting and Fishing Day, we recognize the important contributions that Americas hunters and anglers make to our society, our thriving economy, and our continued conservation successes nationwide. We also encourage Americans to experience the wonders of the great outdoors and learn the responsibilities of hunting and fishing. According to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, more than 35 million Americans fished and more than 11 million hunted in 2016. These impressive numbers highlight our countrys connection with the great outdoors, and also represent a tremendous boost to our Nations economy. Hunters and anglers invest more than $70 billion each year on licenses, tags, equipment, travel, and more. From the waters of the gulf coast to the mountain ranges that reign over the West, American adventurers are supporting thousands of jobs and contributing to the revenue streams of all States. Hunting and fishing provide Americans new experiences to explore, protect, and learn about the vast frontiers of our environment. Sportsmen and women are our Nations most committed conservationists. This is the result of spending time connecting with the land, water, and wildlife, and understanding the link between healthy habitats and thriving sporting opportunities. Hunting and fishing are premised on respect for wildlife and the formidable beauty of the natural world, and increase our appreciation for the food we eat, prepare, and provide to others. Hunting and fishing also keep our waters stocked and our forests healthy, ensuring that our countrys public and private lands continue to provide both sustenance and sport for future generations. The traditions and ethics of hunting and fishing are inseparable from the American way of life and are at the foundation of our culture. My Administration is committed to keeping Americas lands and waterways open for hunters and anglers to enjoy for years to come. We have already opened or expanded hunting or fishing opportunities on more than 380,000 acres. Today, we celebrate the rugged and enduring spirit of our Nations hunters and anglers, and we acknowledge the countless benefits hunting and fishing bring to the United States of America. NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim September 22, 2018, as National Hunting and Fishing Day. I call upon the people of the United States to join me in recognizing the contributions of Americas hunters and anglers, and all those who work to conserve our Nations fish and wildlife resources. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-first day of September, in the year of our Lord two thousand eighteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-third. DONALD J. TRUMP Imperial Valley News Center Governor Brown Announces Appointments Sacramento, California - Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today announced the following appointments: Gayle Miller, 43, of Sacramento, has been appointed senior policy advisor to the director at the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration. Miller has been deputy controller and director of policy in the Office of the State Controller since 2018. She served as a policy consultant in the Office of the California State Senate President pro Tempore from 2016 to 2018. Miller was a consultant in the California State Senate Office of Research from 2014 to 2016, staff director for the California State Senate Governance and Finance Committee from 2006 to 2014 and principal consultant for the California State Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee from 2001 to 2005. She was director of government affairs at Anthem Blue Cross from 2005 to 2006, legislative director in the Office of California State Assemblymember Alan Lowenthal from 1999 to 2001 and legislative aide and assembly fellow in the Office of California State Assemblymember Tom Torlakson from 1997 to 1999. Miller earned a Master of Business Administration degree in strategy and communications from the University of California, Berkeley and a Master of Business Administration degree in economics and finance from Columbia University. This position does not require Senate confirmation and the compensation is $163,800. Miller is a Democrat. Ned Coe, 61, of Alturas, has been appointed to represent the First District on the Modoc County Board of Supervisors. Coe has been a partner at Ned and Valerie Coe Cattle since 2013 and field representative at the California Farm Bureau Federation since 2001. He was a partner at Bill Coe and Sons from 1986 to 2012, feed mill manager at Alturas Ranches from 1996 to 2000 and ranch manager at Whipple Ranch from 1981 to 1986. Coe is a member of the California Cattlemens Association and the California Farm Bureau. This position does not require Senate confirmation and the compensation is $14,905. Coe is a Republican. Alexis Barries, 24, of Stockton, has been appointed to the Homeless Coordinating and Financing Council. Barries has been a community advocate and employment specialist at Aspiranet since 2014 and an advocate at the John Burton Advocates for Youth Foundation since 2014. This position does not require Senate confirmation and there is no compensation. Barries is registered without party preference. Joseph Bacchetti, 51, of Tracy, has been reappointed to the 2nd District Agricultural Association, San Joaquin County Fair Board of Directors, where he has served since 2014. Bacchetti has been an owner at the Bacchetti Hay Service since 1987. Bacchetti is president of Reclamation District 773 Fabian Tract, chairman of the San Joaquin Farm Bureau Federation Board of Directors, vice president of the Young Mens Institute in Tracy, vice president of the Italian Catholic Federation in Tracy and a swine leader at Banta 4-H. This position does not require Senate confirmation and there is no compensation. Bacchetti is a Republican. Elizabeth Nicole Linnerman, 46, of Stockton, has been reappointed to the 2nd District Agricultural Association, San Joaquin County Fair Board of Directors, where she has served since 2014. Linnerman has been an insurance examiner at the California Employment Development Department, State Disability Insurance Office in Stockton since 2003. She was an executive administrative assistant at River View Financial Insurance from 2001 to 2003, a shipping supervisor at Weber Distribution in 1998 and receptionist at J and R Distribution in 1997. This position does not require Senate confirmation and there is no compensation. Linnerman is a Democrat. Jaime Hurtado, 53, of Moreno Valley, has been reappointed to the 46th District Agricultural Association, Southern California Fair Board of Directors, where he has served since 2014. Hurtado has been chief of staff for Riverside County Supervisor Marion Ashley since 2003. He is a member of the Inland Empire Hispanic Leadership Council. This position does not require Senate confirmation and there is no compensation. Hurtado is registered without party preference. Cindy Palumbo, 50, of Temecula, has been appointed to the 46th District Agricultural Association, Southern California Fair Board of Directors. Palumbo has been an owner at the Palumbo Family Winery since 2000. She is a member of Loma Linda University Childrens Hospital Foundation and the Oceanside Junior Lifeguard Program Board. This position does not require Senate confirmation and there is no compensation. Palumbo is a Republican. Gene Skala, 80, of Riverside, has been reappointed to the 46th District Agricultural Association, Southern California Fair Board of Directors, where he has served since 2010. Skala has been an insurance agent at State Farm Insurance since 1964. He is a member of the Riverside Rancheros and the DeAnza Trail Caballeros. This position does not require Senate confirmation and there is no compensation. Skala is a Republican. Louis Tavaglione, 89, of Riverside, has been reappointed to the 46th District Agricultural Association, Southern California Fair Board of Directors, where he has served since 1986. Tavaglione has been a partner at J and L Properties since 1960. He was executive vice president at Tavaglione Construction and Development Inc. from 1962 to 2012 and a real estate broker at Tava Realtors from 1950 to 1962. He is a founding member of Riverside Rancheros Equestrian Center and a member of the DeAnza Trail Caballeros. This position does not require Senate confirmation and there is no compensation. Tavaglione is a Democrat. Governor Brown Issues Proclamation Declaring POW/MIA Recognition Day Sacramento, California - Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today issued a proclamation declaring September 21, 2018, as POW/MIA Recognition Day in the State of California. PROCLAMATION Of the men and women who served our country in World War II, Korea, Vietnam and later conflicts, there are currently more than 82,000 whose fates and whereabouts remain unknown. Some of these are prisoners of war (POWs) who were taken captive by enemy forces and never returned to us. Others are missing in action (MIA), a term defined under the Missing Persons Act (10 U.S.C. 1510) as applying to any member of the armed forces on active duty who becomes involuntarily absent as a result of a hostile action and whose status is undetermined or who is unaccounted for. The observance of POW/MIA Recognition Day began in 1979 to raise awareness of the large number of Americans who were still missing after the end of hostilities in Southeast Asia. Today, we honor our missing warriors for their service and sacrifice, and rededicate ourselves to the cause of finding them. While we applaud the ongoing efforts of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, the numbers of unaccounted-for personnel, including 1,594 from the Vietnam era, are still far too high. On this day, by displaying the POW/MIA flag at our homes, businesses and government buildings, we send to these men and women and their families a clear message embodied in the words on the flag: You Are Not Forgotten. NOW THEREFORE I, EDMUND G. BROWN JR., Governor of the State of California, do hereby proclaim September 21, 2018, as POW/MIA Recognition Day. IN WITNESS WHEREOF I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Great Seal of the State of California to be affixed this 20th day of September 2018. ______________________________ EDMUND G. BROWN JR. Governor of California ATTEST: ________________________________ ALEX PADILLA Secretary of State Leopold Award finalists announced for 2018 Sacramento, California - The Sand County Foundation, the California Farm Bureau Federation and Sustainable Conservation are proud to announce the 2018 finalists for the prestigious California Leopold Conservation Award. The award honors private landowner achievement in the voluntary stewardship and management of natural resources. The finalists are: Lundberg Family Farms, Butte County, is a multi-generation organic rice farm and rice-products company. The Lundberg family has a long commitment to sustainable farming practices that care for the soil, wildlife, air and water. Their conservation achievements include growing rice following national organic standards, utilizing natural methods of pest control, and flooding fields to break down rice stubble and to provide habitat for millions of migrating waterfowl each winter. Rominger Brothers Farm, Inc., Yolo County, is a diversified farm and ranch owned and operated by fifth-generation farming brothers Bruce and Rick. They grow a variety of vegetable, tree, fruit and grain crops, having spent the last 30 years evolving their operation into a model of sustainability. Included in their list of accomplishments is growing their main crop, tomatoes, with water-wise drip irrigation and in-field moisture sensors to ensure theyre applying no more water than their crops need. Sweet Haven Dairy, Fresno County, a dairy run by brothers Donny and Andy Rollins. The brothers conservation commitment led them to test and scale an underground water-wise drip irrigation system to grow cow feed in lieu of the standard irrigation technique of flooding fields. This and other water-saving practices have helped them reduce their water use by 50% and save tens of millions of gallons of water each year. The brothers are also pioneers in the use of conservation tillage on their cow-feed crops. The 2018 California Leopold Conservation Award will be presented in December at the California Farm Bureau Federations Annual Meeting in San Diego. Each finalist will be recognized at the event. The award recipient will receive a crystal depicting Aldo Leopold and $10,000. U.S. Citizen Dr. Serkan Golge Washington, DC - We welcome the Turkish Court of Appeals decision to reduce the sentence against Dr. Golge. That said, we continue to believe that the case against Dr. Golge lacks credible evidence and that he should be freed immediately to be reunited with his family. We will continue to follow Dr. Golges case closely, along with other unjust prosecutions against U.S. citizens and our own locally employed staff at Mission Turkey. Expanded Comprehensive Partnership Between the United States and Mongolia Washington, DC - The United States and Mongolia, recognizing that persistent efforts by both sides across thirty-one years of diplomatic relations have deepened political, economic, educational, cultural and people-to-people ties between the two countries, declared that their bilateral relationship had reached a new level of expanded comprehensive partnership. The two sides recognized that the basic principles set forth in the 2007 Declaration of Principles for Closer Cooperation, and supported by the 2004 and 2005 U.S-Mongolia Joint Statements, have provided a solid foundation for the development of a relationship based on shared values and common strategic interests. Both countries reaffirmed their commitment to these principles as they pursue avenues to further broaden and deepen their bilateral relationship. The United States hailed Mongolias transformation into a free and democratic society, reaffirming both the friendship between the two countries and Mongolias role as an important Indo-Pacific partner. Mongolia expressed appreciation both for the unwavering support of the United States during Mongolias transition to democracy and for continued U.S. partnership as Mongolia works to strengthen its market economy, build strong governance institutions, and foster sustainable economic development. Mongolia reaffirmed the role of the United States as a significant third neighbor, a close friend, and an important partner. Regional and Global Security The United States commended Mongolia for the long and distinguished service of Mongolian forces serving in Afghanistan and expressed anticipation for its contribution to the Resolute Support Mission beyond 2018. The United States also expressed appreciation for Mongolias contributions to global peacekeeping, including its efforts to enhance the peacekeeping ability of other nations through the Khaan Quest exercises. Mongolia thanked the United States for its support of the exercises and of capacity building within the Mongolian armed forces. Both sides pledged to continue to provide mutual support in their shared pursuit of a secure, stable, prosperous world of independent and sovereign countries. Both sides also reaffirmed the essential importance to regional and global security of the final, fully verified denuclearization of the DPRK, and pledged to continue cooperation and information sharing to ensure the full implementation of all UN Security Council resolutions. The United States thanked Mongolia for its assistance in this regard and urged continued support for the efforts of the international community. Strengthening Economic Cooperation Under the new expanded comprehensive Partnership, Mongolia and the United States expressed their intent to strengthen their shared economic, trade, and investment relationship for the benefit of both peoples. To that end, both sides noted with approval the completion of the Roadmap for Expanded Economic Partnership between the United States of America and Mongolia and expressed their desire to take positive and effective measures to expand economic relations. Both sides welcomed the signing of Mongolias second Millennium Challenge Corporation Compact, which will support vital improvements to infrastructure supplying water to Ulaanbaatar, and will secure the long-term sustainability of that infrastructure through policy reforms. The United States observed that the Compact is representative of the U.S. desire to protect and promote the principles of freedom, openness, sovereignty, and transparency in Mongolia and across the region. Mongolia highlighted that the Compact is a symbol of the lasting friendship between the Mongolian and American peoples; and it has an important contribution to the economic development of Mongolia. Recognizing that a stable investment and financial environment is an essential component of deepened U.S.-Mongolia economic relations, both sides acknowledged the importance of strengthening Mongolias defenses against financial crimes, improving transparency, and securing macroeconomic stability. Mongolia expressed support for further cooperation on developing its anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism regimes, and reiterated the countrys commitment to fulfilling its commitments as part of its IMF program. Shared Values and People-to-People Exchange The United States and Mongolia affirmed that the two countries shared commitment to freedom, democracy, and human rights represented a cornerstone of their bilateral relationship. Mongolia thanked the United States for hosting the Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom, and expressed Mongolias desire to promote religious freedom in the Asia-Pacific region and around the world. The United States welcomed Mongolias announcement at Julys Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom of its appointment of an Ambassador at Large for Religious Freedom. Both sides committed to explore avenues through which to deepen cooperation in securing and expanding religious freedom, with Mongolia as a leader on this issue in the region. Underscoring the importance of cultural and educational cooperation, the two countries reaffirmed their commitment to broadening educational programs through public-private partnerships, increasing direct exchanges, promoting both commercial and non-commercial cultural exchanges, and enhancing collaboration through an increase of Peace Corps volunteers and their activities in Mongolia, including, but not limited to, expanded English language teaching programs. With the view of deepening these ties, Mongolia and the United States agreed to announce 2019 as the U.S.-Mongolia Youth Year. The two sides also noted the importance of maintaining the frequency of high-level dialogues and bilateral mechanisms, including the Annual Bilateral Consultations, defense talks, the Economic Policy Dialogue, TIFA talks, and the Energy Cooperation Dialogue to discuss and collaborate on efforts to advance bilateral priorities and international peace and prosperity. Mongolia and the United States reaffirmed their shared commitment to the principles of democracy, good governance, respect for human rights, and promotion of peace, stability, and prosperity in the region and beyond in the spirit of true partnership. Armenia National Day Washington, DC - Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo: "On behalf of the government of the United States, it is my pleasure to congratulate the people of Armenia on the 27th anniversary of your historic vote to reclaim and restore your national independence. This year is especially important because it also represents the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the first Armenian state in modern history and the centennial celebration of U.S.-Armenian friendship. "This year brought remarkable changes to Armenia. The peaceful popular movement that transformed the government has ushered in an exciting new chapter of Armenian history. I look forward to working with the people and government of Armenia as you seek to build strong democratic institutions, tackle corruption, and boost economic growth. "The United States also remains committed to finding a peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and urges the parties to resume intensive negotiations as soon as possible. "We look forward to further strengthening our bonds in the coming year." Malta National Day Washington, DC - Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo: "On behalf of the Government of the United States of America, I wish to convey my best wishes to the people of Malta on their 54th Independence Day. "Our ties of friendship span over 200 years dating back to Americas own War of Independence, during which over 1,000 Maltese enlisted in the French Navy to assist the American colonies in their quest for freedom. The Liberty Bell, cast by John Pace, a Maltese immigrant to the United States, forever serves as a reminder of our strong bond and shared history. "We look forward to maintaining and strengthening our partnership, particularly in the realms of peace, security, trade, and cooperation in the Mediterranean and beyond." Absurdly Driven looks at the world of business with a skeptical eye and a firmly rooted tongue in cheek. Lately, it seems that baggage handlers have been the subject of numerous passenger videos. In many cases, this is because the passenger has found the baggage handler's behavior entirely beyond reason and therefore worth social media shaming. This Delta baggage handler, for example. Now, yet another video has emerged of a baggage handler who may really beat them all. Not in a good way. This video was taken by Elizabeth Evans, a Ryanair passenger at Manchester Airport in the U.K. It shows a baggage handler going about his task in a somewhat less than caring manner. All he has to do is get the bags onto a trolley, just a few feet away. Instead, he tosses them at the trolley and watches as one after another slide off the trolley and onto the ground. Naturally, the footage incited something of a reaction. Ryan Williams, who posted it on Twitter, suggested the baggage handler really didn't care about his job. He suggested this in a somewhat more earthy manner. After all, the last suitcase in the video is tossed by the baggage handler without him even looking where it was going. Yes, it ended up on the ground too. Williams, though, elicited a response from Manchester Airport: We're aware of this video and are disappointed to have seen this unacceptable baggage handling. This has been raised with Swissport, the baggage handler in question, directly. Baggage is not handled by Manchester Airport, each airline employs their own baggage handler. The airport demanded that Swissport take serious action. Manchester Airport's CEO has vowed to crack down on ground handlers following an incident yesterday, which showed employees of Swissport, the handler employed by Ryanair, causing damage to passenger belongings. pic.twitter.com/jbdtDlAB0u -- Manchester Airport (@manairport) September 21, 2018 Oddly, this isn't the first time Manchester Airport has featured in a story about careless baggage handling. Recently, I wrote about rugby star Daniel Mortimer. He arrived at that airport and watched with bemused humor at the treatment his flight's luggage received from the handlers. Managing those who really aren't enamored with their jobs isn't an easy task. There is, though, one recent example of the absolute opposite of this baggage handler's utter carelessness. Please admire Ephraim Sibeko, a baggage handler at Lanseria Airport in South Africa. He waits for each bag to come down the chute. Then he straightens them and ensures that the handles face outwards to make them easier to be identified and picked up. Some people choose to do their jobs with dignity. Others just don't care. Google and Facebook may have a big challenge ahead. Reports from Bloomberg and Business Intelligence today say a new draft executive order, yet to be signed by Trump, call for antitrust investigations into Facebook and Google. Not for commercial domination of their markets. It's for perceived political "bias." We've seen Facebook recently slammed for its use of personal data, Google criticized for the same at various times, and the controversy that companies can face when they become overtly political. This potential step by the White House, however, is a dangerous and hypocritical one, based on the claim that platforms discriminate against conservative views, that needs to be checked for multiple reasons. Here's an excerpt from the copy obtained by Jim Edwards at Business Intelligence Whether reading news or looking for local businesses, citizens rely on search, social media, and other online platforms to provide objective and reliable information to shape a host of decisions ranging from consumer purchases to votes in elections. Because of their critical role in American society, it is essential that American citizens are protected from anticompetitive acts by dominant online platforms. Vibrant competition in the online ecosystem is essential to ensuring accountability for the platforms that hold so much sway over our economy and democratic process. The draft order -- which still might not ultimately be signed by Donald Trump, but also could be -- then directs administration "departments and agencies with authorities that could be used to enhance competition among online platforms" to use those powers to "ensure that no online platform exercises market power in a way that harms consumers, including through the exercise of bias." Part of that is explicitly an investigation into whether online platforms have violated antitrust laws. That would potentially include the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice at the least. Such a move would establish dangerous precedent for business and ultimately be injurious to business and entrepreneurs. It would also be indefensible on the basis of political and social principles of this country. Freedom of speech doesn't mean speech quotas The First Amendment guarantees that the government cannot curtail speech. In business, that includes the imposition of required speech outside of something like a warning label or ingredients list. To threaten legal attack on companies because a given administration or political party doesn't perceive companies to be sufficiently friendly toward a desired political orientation is constitutionally challenged at the outset. It is a step toward censorship of brands, corporate values, and individuals. Claims are ill-informed To claim that conservative views are excluded from social media is absurd. They exist in robust and extensive degrees, as simple searches on Facebook, Google, Twitter, Instagram, and other platforms will show. One could argue algorithm-driven content that drives people to only what they are inclined to like and believe is an ill-advised approach for public policy. But people's interest in tribal views, which drives the result, has been around for generations. In the past, Nation subscribers likely did not also receive the National Review. Finding other schools of opinion are even more easily available today, especially on platforms. Government should be even-handed It is wrong, meddlesome, and imprudent for government bodies to take their revenge on one group of businesses while allowing others to act as they will. If there is a complaint that not enough conservative ideas are available on platforms, be fair and point to the thin representation of liberal takes on Fox News. Regulation is frequently important to ensure the interests and safety of the public at large. This is a case of overreach. Use laws for their intended purpose, not as political weapons This proposed executive order is also an example of hypocrisy. Up until now, the administration has shown distinct disinclination toward most business regulation. If there is a perceived need to check monopolistic tendencies, then do so on pure commercial and economic grounds -- that is, on the basis of existing law. The concern over supposed "bias" is nothing more than a case of political sour grapes by a group whose preferred opinions aren't more widely popular. A music venue in Bristol will play Totos hit song Africa on a loop for an entire night to raise funds for an African charity. DJ Michael Savage is set to play the US rock band's biggest hit on vinyl for five hours straight at The Exchange on 30 November. He told the BBC that people can be sponsored for how long they last or can donate to not go to the event at all. What started out as a really stupid idea from a stupid drunken night out has become a stupid reality, he said, adding that he felt quite sorry for the bar staff." The bar at The Exchange will also be playing cover versions and remixes of the classic 1980s track, which is Toto's biggest hit and still receives millions of streams. I love the track, it's unusual - the ultimate guilty pleasure - but I'm not sure whether I'll fall asleep or not, DJ Savage said. The event is raising funds for Temwa, a Bristol-based charity which supports people in remote rural areas of northern Malawi. Earlier this year a fan campaign successfully convinced the rock band Weezer to release a cover version of Toto. Since 1992, the LA-formed band had performed several memorable cover songs including Radiohead's Paranoid Android, Velouria by The Pixies, and War Pigs by Black Sabbath. Enjoy unlimited access to 70 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music Sign up now for a 30-day free trial Sign up A fan campaign led by dedicated Twitter account @WeezerCoverAfrica had spent months asking the band to cover the classic 80s anthem, to no avail, although drummer Patrick Wilson responded with I laughed to one tweet.Weezer then trolled fans by releasing an upbeat cover of Rosana, the original version of which charted at No.2 in the UK and earned Toto a Grammy in 1983 for Record of the Year. Weezer seems to be straight-up f**king with us at this point, Noisey noted. However, Weezer eventually conceded and released their version of Africa on their official YouTube account. The song charted at No.1 on the US iTunes chart. Huge spikes in toxic air pollution on an idyllic Greek island have been blamed on the cruise ships entering its waters. Tests carried out in the popular tourist destination of Santorini found that concentrations of dangerous ultrafine particles were up to 100 times higher near the ships than in surrounding areas. This pollution has been linked to heart attacks and strokes, and experts say it is particularly dangerous for elderly people with pre-existing health problems. The research was carried out by the Hellenic Ornithological Society (HOS) with air pollution experts from Germanys Nature and Biodiversity Union (Nabu). Ships traversing the Mediterranean can use heavy fuel oil dubbed the dirtiest of all fuels without exhaust cleaning systems as they are subject to weaker standards than those governing road vehicles. This results in ultrafine particles, carcinogenic compounds and soot being emitted into the atmosphere, which can pose a threat to those both on the boats and near the ports when they dock. We found concentrations of over 340 particles per cubic centimetre, said Dr Axel Friedrich, who carried out the tests earlier this week. In a very busy street, you will find 20 to 30. The load of air pollutants that the ships cause was enormous. 'What are you picking on boats for?': Londoners react to news that Thames traffic is exempt from low-emissions restrictions Nabu is calling on the shipping industry to switch to safer, low sulphur fuels and install systems that remove harmful pollutants from exhausts. They also said Greece should support the designation of the Mediterranean as a sulphur emission control area. This status has already been given to the North and Baltic seas, and has resulted in a sharp drop in sulphur pollutants. European Commission figures estimated that 50,000 people die prematurely every year in Europe due to air pollution from shipping. Philippa Hobson, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, urged tourists travelling on cruise ships to be cautious, especially if they already suffer from heart and circulatory diseases. Recommended Container ship crosses Arctic for first time due to melting sea ice Our research shows that even short-term exposure to air pollution just one or two hours can have a lasting, negative impact on the heart and circulation, she said. If you are worried about your health and are travelling on a cruise ship, it is best to try and minimise your exposure to air pollution by avoiding the areas near or downwind of the engine funnels try to seek out the sea breeze on the decks. Sonke Diesener transport policy officer at Nabu stated: People living on the Greek islands as well as tourists visiting them are suffering from shipping emissions. Thick smog engulfs New Delhi as air pollution peaks in the city Show all 10 1 /10 Thick smog engulfs New Delhi as air pollution peaks in the city Thick smog engulfs New Delhi as air pollution peaks in the city A battery run tricylce rickshaw passes by the Red Fort amid heavy smog in New Delhi AFP/Getty Images Thick smog engulfs New Delhi as air pollution peaks in the city Indian visitors walking through the courtyard of Jama Masjid amid heavy smog AFP/Getty Images Thick smog engulfs New Delhi as air pollution peaks in the city An Indian policeman wearing a protection mask as he works near India Gate AFP/Getty Images Thick smog engulfs New Delhi as air pollution peaks in the city New Delhi during heavy smog REUTERS Thick smog engulfs New Delhi as air pollution peaks in the city Indian commuters wait for transport amid thick blanket of smog on the outskirts of New Delhi AP Thick smog engulfs New Delhi as air pollution peaks in the city Prince Charles and Camilla arrived at Indira Gandhi International Airport surrounded by smog on November 8 Getty Images Thick smog engulfs New Delhi as air pollution peaks in the city Prince Charles and Camilla depart their plane in New Delhi to smog Getty Images Thick smog engulfs New Delhi as air pollution peaks in the city The morning sun is enveloped by a blanket of smog on the outskirts of New Delhi AP Thick smog engulfs New Delhi as air pollution peaks in the city Indian residents walking along a road amid heavy smog AFP/Getty Images Thick smog engulfs New Delhi as air pollution peaks in the city A woman drives a scooter through the morning fog to drop off a child at school AP We have seen these high concentrations of air pollutants in many different ports cities in the Mediterranean region and all over the world. However, this is no excuse for ship operators to go on with their reckless pollution. Nabu has been measuring pollutant levels in port cities around Europe, and recently called for coastal communities to ban high-polluting ships until their owners take responsibility. In response to a report on cruise ship pollution released by the German environmental watchdog in August, the Cruise Lines International Association said their rankings used a non-scientific approach. Recommended Air pollution from UK shipping is four times previous estimates They also said that the cruise ship industry shared Nabus objective of lowering emissions and protecting the environment. Konstantina Ntemiri, environmental policy officer at HOS, called for immediate political action to protect public health and the environment on Santorini. Companies involved in the management and operation of cruise ships in general make a lot of money from cruise tourism, as it is considered to be the segment with the highest growth in the tourist industry, she said. Island officials have imposed a limit of 8,000 ship passengers per day due to the enormous social, economic and environmental pressures placed on Santorini by the hundreds of cruise ships visiting each year. Thousands of wildlife enthusiasts have gathered from across the country to take part in a peoples walk through London to raise awareness of the catastrophic declines in Britains plants and animals. An eclectic mix of participants that included Green Party co-leader Caroline Lucas, musician Billy Bragg and the major environmental groups gathered in Hyde Park before marching on Downing Street. Attendees were encouraged to show support for their favourite British wildlife by dressing in costumes and bringing banners (PA) Led by naturalist and TV presenter Chris Packham, The Peoples Walk for Wildlife was organised as a peaceful protest in response to the failure of political efforts to save species from near extinction. People of all ages were encouraged to dress as their favourite animals and play a chorus of birdsong from their phones in a show of solidarity with Britains wildlife. The walk was accompanied by the release of a manifesto that laid out nearly 200 measures conceived by wildlife experts to save the UKs nature. A copy of the manifesto, which includes suggestions ranging from twinning schools with local farms to introducing a tax on pesticides, was handed to Downing Street as the march drew to a close on Saturday afternoon. The march drew a large crowd in spite of the rain (PA) Packham said The Peoples Walk for Wildlife was initially born out of frustration with the way conservation has been handled in the UK. We conservationists have got our fingers on the pulse of the UKs countryside and many of the species that live there with a great degree of accuracy, he told The Independent. So we know with authority that many of our species are in deep trouble. If we dont take some action to look after them now, we are going to lose them, said Packham. Habitat destruction and the intensification and farming have been some of the major culprits blamed for these declines, but Packham insisted we have the tools to make things better. TV naturalist Chris Packham was behind the event, which he hopes will demonstrate young peoples enthusiasm for nature (PA) He said he wanted the event to unite those from across British conservation and act as a celebration of young peoples interest in the natural world. Attendees at the march heard talks from scientists and conservationists involved in the creation of the manifesto, specialising in everything from rewilding to nature-friendly farming, laying out their strategies for the future. The ultimate goal is to galvanise policy makers, conservation groups and the general public to begin implementing these changes and save wildlife from mass extinction in our own backyard. [People] have travelled from all over the UK from Scotland, Ireland, Wales, England and they have come to Hyde Park because they want to show through strength of numbers that we as a community care but now, critically, we are going to take some action too, said Packham. It's said that your wedding day is supposed to be the happiest day of your life - but that doesnt mean it has to be the most expensive. Jenny and Rob Somerville from Raleigh, North Carolina, recently proved that a ceremony can be beautiful and affordable - and the pictures will inspire future brides to update their Pinterest boards. The couple, who tied the knot in a backyard wedding ceremony, spent just $2,000 (1,500) on their special day - a decision they made after seeing friends go into debt with their own weddings. Recommended The wedding traditions modern couples are ditching in 2018 For the thrifty bride and groom, this meant planning their elopement nuptials in their own backyard, and creating DIY-decor to transform the space. Of the details, Jenny told PureWow: Think to yourself, What do I want? No, really, though, What do I want? If you like a tradition, keep it. If you dont, skip it! Theres so much freedom when you decide to do things the way you truly want, rather than how you think youre supposed to. Sticking to her own advice, Jenny incorporated things she already owned, such as a beautiful wooden altar, and decorated on a budget - finding bottles and vintage letters at Goodwill. The couple's wedding looked more expensive than it was (Danielle Riley Photography) The decor was inexpensive (Danielle Riley Photography) For the dress, she opted out of bridal boutiques in favour of a white lace floor-length dress from boho-brand Show Me Your Mumu and accessorised with a jean jacket her mum decorated with white lettering to read: Just married. The bride's mum decorated a jean jacket (Danielle Riley Photography) The seating was provided by the couples own dining room and decorated with lavender bunches tied with twine - and the outdoor reception was creatively-crafted out of disposable cutlery, materials from Home Depot, Amazon, Ikea and Walmart, and items borrowed from friends. The seating was from the couple's own living room (Danielle Riley Photography) Lavender was tied to each seat (Danielle Riley Photography) The bride and groom didn't want to go into debt planning their wedding (Danielle Riley Photography) Jennys makeup and hair was done as a wedding gift by a friend - and the 22 guests were fed Mexican food from a favourite nearby restaurant and miniature blueberry pies for $100 instead of a wedding cake. The couple only spent $2,000 on the entire wedding (Danielle Riley Photography) The couple catered with Mexican food (Danielle Riley Photography) Jenny designed the wedding programs (Danielle Riley Photography) The couples biggest splurge was on the wedding photographer, Danielle Riley, who captured the stunning shots of the outdoor wedding. The couples who travel instead of having a wedding - In pictures Show all 16 1 /16 The couples who travel instead of having a wedding - In pictures The couples who travel instead of having a wedding - In pictures Cheetah Platt and Rhian Woodyard in Las Vegas The couples who travel instead of having a wedding - In pictures Cheetah and Rhian by the Sydney Opera House The couples who travel instead of having a wedding - In pictures Cheetah and Rhian in Chiang Mai, Thailand The couples who travel instead of having a wedding - In pictures Cheetah and Rhian in Bangkok The couples who travel instead of having a wedding - In pictures Cheetah and Rhian at the Ajanta cave in India The couples who travel instead of having a wedding - In pictures Cheetah and Rhian in Nairobi, Kenya The couples who travel instead of having a wedding - In pictures Cheetah and Rhian in Giza, Egypt The couples who travel instead of having a wedding - In pictures Cheetah and Rhian in Giza, Egypt The couples who travel instead of having a wedding - In pictures Tessa and Matt in Montreux, Switzerland The couples who travel instead of having a wedding - In pictures Tessa and Matt in Madrid The couples who travel instead of having a wedding - In pictures Tessa and Matt in Norway The couples who travel instead of having a wedding - In pictures Tessa and Matt in Rothenburg The couples who travel instead of having a wedding - In pictures Tessa and Matt in Rothenburg The couples who travel instead of having a wedding - In pictures Tessa and Matt by the Matterhorn The couples who travel instead of having a wedding - In pictures Tessa and Matt in Madrid The couples who travel instead of having a wedding - In pictures Tessa and Matt in Ireland As Jennys number-one priority and a non-negotiable expense, the $1,000 elopement package was worth it. The bride and groom had their first dance on a friend's rug (Danielle Riley Photography) The couple danced as guests held sparklers (Danielle Riley Photography) The picture-perfect wedding ended with a sparkler send-off and the couples first dance - while Jennys younger brother DJed. A Japanese spacecraft has dropped two small rovers onto the surface of an asteroid zooming through space. If they land safely, the unmanned Hayabusa-2 would be the first spacecraft to ever successfully place robotic rovers onto a space rock. Japans space agency (JAXA) hopes that the mission will provide clues about the origin of the solar system. Recommended Japanese space agency to land spacecraft on asteroid The agency is expecting to receive data from the rovers at some point on Saturday confirming whether or not the mission has been a success. Hayabusa-2 first arrived near the asteroid, known as Ryugu and situated 280 million km (170 million miles) from Earth, in June. The spacefract approached as close as 55m (180 feet) to the asteroid, dropping the rovers and waiting for a minute before rising back to its waiting position about 20 km (12 miles) above the surface. JAXA said the release went successfully. The solar-powered rovers voltage plunged as night fell on Ryugu, a sign that they are on the asteroid, according to Hayabusa project team spokesman Takashi Kubota. Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Show all 30 1 /30 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Solar Flare An image from Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows a 200,000 mile long solar filament ripping through the Sun's corona in September 2013 Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Nasa Celebrates 50 Years of Spacewalking For 50 years, NASA has been "suiting up" for spacewalking. In this 1984 photograph of the first untethered spacewalk, NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless is in the midst of the first "field" tryout of a nitrogen-propelled backpack device called the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space A Hubble Cosmic Couple The spectacular cosmic pairing of the star Hen 2-427 more commonly known as WR 124 and the nebula M1-67 which surrounds it ESA/Hubble & NASA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Veil Nebula Supernova Remnant Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope has unveiled in stunning detail a small section of the Veil Nebula - expanding remains of a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago Nasa's most stunning pictures of space The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launch The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday, Nov. 24, 2014, carrying three new astronauts to the International Space Station. It also took caviar, ready for the satellite's inhabitants to celebrate the holidays Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Earth from the ISS From the International Space Station, Expedition 42 Flight Engineer Terry W. Virts took this photograph of the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. Gulf Coast at sunset Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Black Hole Friday Nasa celebrated Black Friday by looking into space instead sharing pictures of black holes Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space NuSTAR X-rays stream off the sun in this image showing observations from by NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, overlaid on a picture taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Cassiopeia A c A false colour image of Cassiopeia A comprised with data from the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes and the Chandra X-Ray observatory Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Orion Capsule splashes down The Orion capsule jetted off into space before heading back a few hours later having proved that it can be used, one day, to carry humans to Mars Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Earth Observations From Gemini IV in 1965 This photograph of the Florida Straits and Grand Bahama Bank was taken during the Gemini IV mission during orbit no. 19 in 1965. The Gemini IV crew conducted scientific experiments, including photography of Earth's weather and terrain, for the remainder of their four-day mission following Ed White's historic spacewalk on June 3 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Frosty slopes of Mars This image of an area on the surface of Mars, approximately 1.5 by 3 kilometers in size, shows frosted gullies on a south-facing slope within a crater. The image was taken by Nasa's HiRISE camera, which is mounted on its Mars Reconaissance Orbiter Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Yellowstone from space NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman shared this image of Yellowstone via his twitter account Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Saturn This near-infrared color image shows a specular reflection, or sunglint, off of a hydrocarbon lake named Kivu Lacus on Saturn's moon Titan Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Worlds Apart Although Mimas and Pandora, shown here, both orbit Saturn, they are very different moons. Pandora, "small" by moon standards (50 miles or 81 kilometers across) is elongated and irregular in shape. Mimas (246 miles or 396 kilometers across), a "medium-sized" moon, formed into a sphere due to self-gravity imposed by its higher mass Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Solar Flare An X1.6 class solar flare flashes in the middle of the sun in this image taken 10 September, captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Mars Rover Spirit Nasa's Mars Rover Spirit took the first picture from Spirit since problems with communications began a week earlier. The image shows the robotic arm extended to the rock called Adirondack Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Morning Aurora From the Space Station Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station Nasa/Scott Kelly Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Launch of History - Making STS-41G Mission in 1984 The Space Shuttle Challenger launches from Florida at dawn. On this mission, Kathryn Sullivan became the first U.S. woman to perform a spacewalk and Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space. The crew of seven was the largest to fly on a spacecraft at that time, and STS-41G was the first flight to include two female astronauts Nasa's most stunning pictures of space A Fresh Perspective on an Extraordinary Cluster of Galaxies Galaxy clusters are often described by superlatives. After all, they are huge conglomerations of galaxies, hot gas, and dark matter and represent the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Hubble Sees a Galactic Sunflower The arrangement of the spiral arms in the galaxy Messier 63, seen here in an image from the Nasa Hubble Space Telescope, recall the pattern at the center of a sunflower ESA/Hubble & NASA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Pluto image Four images from New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with colour data from the Ralph instrument to create this enhanced colour global view of Pluto Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Fresh Crater Near Sirenum Fossae Region of Mars The HiRISE camera aboard Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter acquired this closeup image of a "fresh" (on a geological scale, though quite old on a human scale) impact crater in the Sirenum Fossae region of Mars. This impact crater appears relatively recent as it has a sharp rim and well-preserved ejecta Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Hubble Peers into the Most Crowded Place in the Milky Way This Nasa Hubble Space Telescope image presents the Arches Cluster, the densest known star cluster in the Milky Way NASA & ESA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space An Astronaut's View from Space Nasa astronaut Reid Wiseman tweeted this photo from the International Space Station on 2 September 2014 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Giant Landform on Mars On Mars, we can observe four classes of sandy landforms formed by the wind, or aeolian bedforms: ripples, transverse aeolian ridges, dunes, and what are called draa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Expedition 39 Landing A sokol suit helmet can be seen against the window of the Soyuz TMA-11M capsule shortly after the spacecraft landed with Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, and Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan (NASA/Bill Ingalls) Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Jupiter's Great Red Spot Viewed by Voyager I Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system and perhaps the most majestic. Vibrant bands of clouds carried by winds that can exceed 400 mph continuously circle the planet's atmosphere Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Chandra Observatory Sees a Heart in the Darkness This Chandra X-Ray Observatory image of the young star cluster NGC 346 highlights a heart-shaped cloud of 8 million-degree Celsius gas in the central region We are very hopeful, said project manager Dr Yuichi Tsuda. Im excited about seeing the pictures. I want to see the scenery of space seen from Ryugus surface. Each solar-powered robot is around the size of a biscuit tin, and their aim is to capture image of the asteroids surface and measure its surface temperature, laying the groundwork for a larger rover and lander that will be released at a later date. Recommended Nasa reveals plans to protect Earth from deadly asteroids They will move by hopping up to 15m (50 feet) at a time across the surface of the 1km-wide asteroid, because its extremely weak gravity makes rolling difficult. The release on Friday bolstered the project members confidence ahead of the difficult manoeuvres in the future, according to Dr Tsuda. Hayabusa2 is scheduled to attempt three brief touch-and-go landings on the asteroid to collect samples in hopes of providing clues to the origin of the solar system and life on Earth. Since it arrived at Ryugu, scientists have been looking for suitable landing sites on the uneven surface, and its first attempt is expected in October. Nasa working to fix small leak on International Space Station The spacecraft is set to release a German-French lander called MASCOT carrying four observation devices in early October and a bigger rover called Minerva-II-2 next year. JAXA intends to detonate an explosion on the surface of Ryugu that will leave a hole in its surface. Hayabusa-2 will then descend into the crater to collect rocks that have not been exposed to the space environment. It will ultimately return to Earth in late 2020, carrying samples the length of the solar system and providing scientists will the opportunity to study them close up. Additional reporting by AP. Jeremy Hunt has signalled that the UK could now accept a Canada-style free trade agreement from Brussels as it quits the EU. The foreign secretary refused to rule out taking such a deal, which has been advocated by Theresa Mays rivals such as David Davis and Boris Johnson, but said the government preferred to try to make the prime ministers Chequers proposals viable. It comes after a major row with EU leaders over her proposals for Brexit, which have also been attacked by Tory MPs. On Thursday, European Council president Donald Tusk said Ms Mays plan will not work, prompting the prime minister to deliver a stern Downing Street statement demanding the EU treat the UK with respect. Mr Hunt insisted the government was still focused on winning support for the Chequers plan, but did not rule out a Canada-style deal if that fails. I am not dismissing anything, he told BBC Radio 4s Today when asked about the potential for a Canada-type model. But he added: We have been very clear that we are prepared to negotiate on the Chequers proposal but we cant talk to a void we have to have a counter party thats prepared to sit down and go through the details. We think these proposals are better than the Canada proposals because of the fact that they work better on the Northern Irish border. Thats the main reason we came up with them. The deal agreed between Canada and the EU covers free trade but is significantly less comprehensive than the arrangement Britain is seeking with the EU. A Canada-style deal is favoured by some Brexiteers because it would not keep Britain so closely aligned with the EU. Mr Hunt attacked European leaders for the inherent unreasonableness of their negotiating position, saying it was unacceptable and a parody of an institution that claimed to respect democracy. People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Show all 30 1 /30 People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Rex People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal AFP/Getty Images People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal A young protestor shouts as she takes part in the People's Vote demonstration against Brexit Getty Images People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Reuters People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal A protester's pro-EU t-shirt EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal AFP/Getty Images People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal AFP/Getty People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Gina Miller and Caroline Lucas EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Tens of thousands of people march through London EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Demonstrators at the People's Vote March Getty People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal 'Two months too young to decide on my future' REUTERS People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal PA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal A young girl joins in the march PA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal An EU flag is draped across the statue of Winston Chruchill in Parliament Square REUTERS People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal AFP/Getty Images People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Vince Cable MP, Pro-EU campaigner Gina Miller, Tony Robinson and Caroline Lucas MP join with crowds PA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal PA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Crowds gather on Pall Mall PA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal A man resembling Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, joins EU supporters Reuters People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Reuters People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal People gather in Trafalgar Square REUTERS People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Pro-EU campaigner Gina Miller and Tony Robinson PA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal EU supporters, calling on the government to give Britons a vote on the final Brexit deal, participate in the 'People's Vote' march REUTERS But despite talks being deadlocked, he said he had received messages from two EU foreign ministers following the Salzburg summit earlier this week saying they believed a deal was still possible, and that Mr Tusk had expressed the same view. He said: What we need to be doing in a situation like this is bringing people together. This is a time for people in the EU to step back from the abyss, to sit down and to talk to us about how we can make these sensible, concrete proposals actually work. On Friday, Ms May warned EU leaders she would not accept any solution that would create a new customs border in the Irish Sea. Theresa May on Brexit deal: 'no-one wants a good deal more than me' She said the EU plan was something I will never agree to and something no British prime minister would ever agree to. Saying she had always treated the UK with respect, she said the UK expects the same and called on EU leaders to explain what the real issues are and what their alternative is so that we can discuss them. She was speaking after Mr Tusk poked fun at the prime minister by tweeting a photo of him offering her cake, alongside the caption: A piece of cake, perhaps? Sorry, no cherries. Mr Hunt said: What Theresa May is saying is Dont mistake British politeness for weakness. If you put us in a difficult corner we will stand our ground. That is the kind of country we are. Insulting her on social media, getting to these standoffs where you are calling people liars and so on is not the way we are going to get a solution to this difficult situation. If we are going to work seriously towards a solution then we need to avoid revving up the situation, making it worse by appealing to audiences on social media. Harmful chemicals including bee-killing pesticides, skin irritants and hormone disruptors could be allowed into the UK following Brexit, experts have cautioned. The trade union Prospect, which represents many of those working in the industry, has warned of chemical chaos as plans for the sector and its employees remain uncertain. Britains regulators are scrambling to prepare for a future outside the EU, but there are fears that they lack the time and resources to work out a strategy. As the deadline fast approaches the chemicals regulation division of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has been forced to create a list of dangerous pesticides it says should be kept out of the country. HSE says these banned substances will not be allowed in following Brexit, but Prospect members are concerned that the bans will not be fixed into UK law before the exit date in March. This is one of a number of concerns voiced by those in the sector who feel that the nations chemicals industry with its annual turnover of 32bn will be compromised by Brexit. Chemical control is currently undertaken with other EU members, and the UK is considered one of the top regulators in Europe. However, it is unclear the extent to which Britain will be involved in this system following Brexit, and whether it will have any say in decisions made by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA). There are potentially worrying implications here for the UK moving from a situation where we are a key player in all of this to an almost passive bystander with much less control over what goes onto the shelves, said Sue Ferns, Prospect senior deputy general secretary. Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Show all 14 1 /14 Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Internal divisions in the Conservative Party have exploded into a bitter public row over Boris Johnsons disgusting criticism of Theresa May. Some senior Tories furiously denounced the former foreign secretary after he accused the prime minister of having wrapped a suicide vest around Britain Reuters Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Sajid Javid, Home secretary Sajid Javid, the home secretary, rebuked his former cabinet colleague and said: I think there are much better ways to articulate your differences. He told the BBCs Andrew Marr Show that the public wanted politicians to use measured language BBC/PA Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide But other MPs leapt to Mr Johnsons defence, as dividing lines ahead of a possible leadership contest begin to take shape. The Uxbridge MP has repeatedly criticised Ms Mays Chequers plan and used a newspaper article on Sunday to suggest it amounted to wrapping a suicide vest around the British constitution. His latest salvo at the prime minister prompted immediate condemnation, with one minister publicly vowing to end Mr Johnsons career over the matter PA Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Alan Duncan, Foreign minister Alan Duncan, a foreign minister who worked in Mr Johnsons team for two years, wrote on Twitter: For Boris to say the PMs view is like that of a suicide bomber is too much. This marks one of the most disgusting moments in modern British politics. Im sorry, but this is the political end of Boris Johnson. If it isnt now, I will make sure it is later. Getty Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide James Brokenshire, Housing secretary Housing secretary James Brokenshire added his voice to the criticism, calling Mr Johnsons comments wrong He said: I think he is wrong on this...I think the tone that he has used isnt right and I think that we just need to be very focused on actually moving forward with the Chequers plan. AFP/Getty Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Zac Goldsmith But as Tory hostilities spilled over into open public warfare, Richmond Park MP Zac Goldsmith, an ally of Mr Johnson, hit back at Mr Duncan. He wrote: There are a number of possible motives behind this tweet, but given its author, we can be certain principles arent one of them. Getty Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Jacob Rees-Mogg Senior Tory Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg told The Independent he thought Mr Johnsons suicide belt accusation was little more than a characteristically colourful catchphrase. He added: I agree with the sentiment. The criticism of Boriss wording merely serves to highlight his point. It means more people hear of Boriss criticism of Chequers and many will agree with him. Reuters Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Nadine Dorries Nadine Dorries, another Brexit supporter, said Mr Johnsons opponents were terrified of his popular appeal, adding: Dont underestimate the vitriol thatll be directed towards Boris today. He delivered the Leave vote, Remainers and wannabe future PMs hate him. If Mr Johnson became leader and prime minister he would deliver a clean and prosperous Brexit, she said Rex Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Andrew Bridgen Andrew Bridgen said Ms May was to blame for her leadership problems. Asked if Mr Johnson had put a bomb under her leadership, Mr Bridgen said: I think that Theresa May did that herself when she put forward the Chequers proposals without consulting widely prior to that. Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Steve Baker, former Brexit minister Steve Baker, the former Brexit minister, warned Ms May the Conservatives faced a "catastrophic split" if she did not jettison her Chequers plan. Mr Baker, who quit the government in July over the scheme, said: When negotiating, the prime minister needs to demonstrate her intent and also her power to deliver. "If we come out of conference with her hoping to get Chequers through on the back of Labour votes, I think the EU negotiators would probably understand that if that were done, the Tory party would suffer the catastrophic split which thus far we have managed to avoid. But he insisted he did not want a change in the Conservative leadership, saying Brexiteers did not want to be in a position of conflict with our own prime minister Reuters Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Tom Tugendhat The deep divisions on the Tory benches were laid bare as Tom Tugendhat, who chairs the Commons foreign affairs committee and is a possible leadership rival to Mr Johnson, also hit out at the former foreign secretary. Recalling how he encountered a suicide bomber in Afghanistan during his time in the army, Mr Tugendhat told Mr Johnson to grow up. He said: A suicide bomber murdered many in the courtyard of my office in Helmand. The carnage was disgusting, limbs and flesh hanging from trees and bushes. Brave men who stopped him killing me and others died in horrific pain. Some need to grow up. Comparing the PM to that isnt happy. PA Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Alistair Burt Alistair Burt, another Foreign Office minister who worked in Mr Johnsons team, said: Im stunned at the nature of this attack. There is no justification for such an outrageous, inappropriate and hurtful analogy. If we dont stop his extraordinary use of language over Brexit, our country might never heal. Again, I say, enough. AFP/Getty Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide It comes amid that Ms Mays former aides drew up a dossier on Mr Johnsons sexual encounters with the aim of undermining his leadership prospects. The document was compiled in 2016, when the Uxbridge and South Ruislip MP was seen as the main rival to Ms May in her bid to enter No 10. Downing Street and Conservative Campaign Headquaters (CCHQ) both denied having leaked the 4,000 word memo after it was circulated around Westminster AFP/Getty Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Mr Johnson confirmed that his 25-year marriage to wife Marina had ended AP Our members livelihoods are at risk if the UK does not negotiate as full an agreement as possible that maintains the UKs voice in the ECHA. HSE has been preparing for all possible scenarios, including supporting the government in developing an emergency IT system to replace Reach the ECHA database covering most non-pesticide chemicals that has been a decade in the making in the event of a no-deal outcome. The government has stated it wants to pay for participation in ECHA, including Reach, but so far it has not committed to staying within all the EUs chemical-related laws. Without full involvement the UK could be frozen out of discussions about new chemicals and would likely not be able to block new products entering the country as it can today. The great fear in Brexit is that we leave Reach, either by design or because we crash out with no deal, and end up with an empty chemicals database and weak regulation, said Libby Peake, senior policy adviser at Green Alliance, an environmental group that has consistently raised the issue of post-Brexit chemical safety. For the benefit of public health, animal health, businesses and the environment, the UK and EU need to find an agreement. Accepting European chemical regulations without having a say could leave the UK vulnerable to chemicals that as a member state it has been able to block. As an insurance policy against this HSE has issued a list of banned pesticides to the EU that it has deemed unacceptable. However, this list must itself be agreed by the EU before the withdrawal date if it is to be copied into UK law. Emmanuel Macron calls Brexit campaign leaders 'liars', in extraordinary attack A vote on this list is expected in the coming months, and given this an HSE spokesperson said chemicals deemed unacceptable to the UK before we leave the EU would not be allowed to enter the UK once we have left. In response, Ms Ferns said: Staff at HSE are working incredibly hard to prepare the UK for Brexit, but the simple truth is that the arbitrary timetable set out by the government puts them at the mercy of events in the EU. Having contributed so much to chemical regulation in the EU it is deeply frustrating that the government are pulling us out of collaborative structures, such as the unacceptable co-formulants regulations, that help to protect people and the environment from dangerous chemicals. If this vote does not take place before we leave the EU then we need a guarantee that the UK will adopt the full list of banned substances that we have helped to build. Rachael Maskell, Labour MP for York Central, where many HSE employees are based, said people in the chemicals sector clearly dont know what their future is going to be after 29 March. Jobs for specialist and technical staff may be at risk if the UK loses its leading role in Europe, but Ms Maskell said that this is an issue that affects everyone. This will be about what is in our food chain, it has catastrophic consequences to get this wrong and yet the attention to detail that this government has failed to bring is quite astounding, she said. This just highlights the complexity of Brexit which the government neither prepared for or has focused on since the vote. The Independent approached the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for comment but had not heard back at the time of publication. Jeremy Corbyn laid a wreath to victims of the Hillsborough tragedy during a visit to Anfield on Saturday. The Labour leader laid the tribute outside the stadium before watching Liverpools home match against Southampton. Mr Corbyn, in the city for his partys conference, also visited a nearby foodbank and dropped off a donation. A lifelong Arsenal fan, Mr Corbyn chatted with supporters and campaigners during his visit to the Fans Supporting Foodbanks mobile facility on Anfield Road. One person he met affixed a sticker with the crest of Liverpools arch-rivals Everton on Mr Corbyns lapel. It prompted one Reds fan to joke: Jeremy, youve got a bit of bird shite on your lapel. Mr Corbyn later attended the match, won 3-0 by Liverpool, with local MP Dan Carden. I couldnt say no when Dan Carden invited me to see Liverpool play, said the Labour leader. Liverpool fans are united in their fight for social justice. Ive long admired the incredible campaigning work done by the Hillsborough Justice Campaign. Labour leader lays wreath for Hillsborough victims (PA) Mr Corbyn added: I had the opportunity to meet the Fans Supporting Foodbanks, supporters who are doing all they can to fight hunger and come together for the greater good of their community on match day. But they shouldnt have to provide this much needed lifeline for those struggling to get by. There is no place for foodbanks in Britain in 2018. We need to transform our economy so that it works for the many, not just for the few. Mr Corbyn was given a warm reception at his partys Womens Conference earlier today. Labour is the party of equality, the party of women, the party committed to measuring all our policies on their impact on women in society, he told delegates. The Labour leader kicked off his weekend with a visit to the International Slavery Museum on Albert Dock. Additional reporting by Press Association A row has broken out on the first day of Labour conference after a shadow cabinet minister appeared to praise the hard-left Militant Tendency group that clashed with Neil Kinnock in the 1980s. Dawn Butler, shadow equalities minister. hailed the actions of Liverpools council 30 years ago, which was then run by Militant, for setting an illegal deficit budget during the Tory administration of Margaret Thatcher. Mr Kinnock denounced the group at party conference in 1985 after the citys council ran out of money and had to sack workers. But on Saturday Ms Butler said of the groups actions that it had been better to break the law than break the poor, sparking anger from another frontbencher. Ms Butler said: Local councils, have seen nearly 50 per cent of their funding cut I want to give a shout out to all the councillors fighting everyday against these Tory cuts. Conference, we are in Liverpool where over 30 years ago the council stood up to Thatcher and said: better to break the law than break the poor. Three years ago, Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell signed a letter urging present-day Labour councils not to follow Militants example. Corbyn takes on Margaret Thatcher over homelessness in Parliament in 1990 Ms Butlers comments were condemned by Glenys Thornton, Labours shadow health minister in the House of Lords, who said the group were misogynistic bullies and should not have been praised, particularly on the day of the 2018 conference dedicated to female party members. Richard Angell, who chairs the Progress group on Labours right wing, said: The Militant Tendency did break the law, left the bills to be picked up by the poor and kept the Tories in power for 12 years more. In 1982 Liverpools Labour party adopted Militants agenda, setting a deficit budget in the face of cuts from the Thatcher administration and was later found to have breached the law. It was proscribed by Labours national executive committee later that year and its members subsequently expelled from the party, with Mr Kinnock launching a devastating attack on the group from the conference stage in 1985. A Labour party spokesperson said on Saturday: The point Dawn was making was that, like the Thatcher government of the 1980s, this Tory government has prioritised tax cuts for the rich while cutting services like womens refuges that save lives and keep women safe. Labour will invest in our communities to rebuild Britain for the many not the few. (ANSA) - Milan, September 21 - A Milan appeals court in Friday halved, from a year to six months, the jail term of former VIP photographer and 'paparazzi king' Fabrizio Corona for hiding 2.6 million euros. The money was found in 2016, part of it behind a false wall in the attic of his friend and aide Francesca Persi and another part in safety deposit boxes in Austria. Prosecutors had asked for a jail term of two years and nine months. On May 15 a surveillance judge ruled that could work again including using social networks after serving time for blackmailing clients. Judge Simone Luerti said Corona can again "carry out his working activities" and since "the advertising and media element is an essential component" of his "special activity", he will also be able "to use social networks" and give interviews but "not directly relating to the the therapeutic process in course". Corona left prison on February 21 and returned to a therapeutic community near Milan. The former VIP photographer was released by the same detention-review court that later ruled he could return to work. He went to the community at Limbiate. In January a Milan prosecutor asked a seized-assets board to confiscate Corona's home but give him back 1.8 million euros. In April, Corona got back some 1.9 million euros of a total of 2.6 million seized from him after being found in a ceiling and safety deposit boxes in Austria. His flat is in Via de Cristoforis, a stone's throw from Corso Como, the heart of the Milanese night scene. Corona has pled for the house to be left to him so he can sell it and raise some of the money he still owes. In June 2017 Corona was given the one-year jail term by a Milan court for the case concerning around 2.6 million euros in cash found hidden in a ceiling and in safety deposit boxes in Austria. Corona, a controversial figure, banged his fists on the table in celebration and shouted "justice is done" when the relatively lenient sentence was read out. Prosecutors had asked for a five-year term, but Corona was acquitted of two charges - false registration of assets and violation of asset regulations - and convicted only of fraudulent tax evasion. Corona's assistant, Francesca Persi, was given a three-month term. Corona was arrested in October 2017 while doing social work to serve the final part of a previous jail term for the fraudulent bankruptcy of his agency and for blackmailing VIPs with compromising photographs. In 2013, the photographer was sentenced to roughly five years in prison. The June 2017 ruling came just days after finance police seized the Milan apartment worth approximately 2.5 million euros investigators believe Corona bought through a dummy purchaser - possibly his co-defendant in the trial, Persi - with financial resources drained from his once high-flying photography agency. Labour will launch a plan to force an election by seeking a motion of no confidence in the government within days if Theresa Mays Brexit deal is defeated in parliament, The Independent has learnt. Jeremy Corbyn and his top team will launch an attempt to force the Conservative administration to go to the people at what they believe will be a moment of maximum weakness for the prime minister. Multiple sources confirmed party chiefs have game-planned their approach if Ms Mays beleaguered proposals are vetoed in a crucial commons vote or if she fails to get a deal in Europe, which looks increasingly likely after EU leaders torpedoed them earlier this week. A motion of no confidence would need some support from Conservative MPs to pass, but either way would act to severely destabilise the prime minister as internal pressure for her to quit peaked. The moment could also prove critical for Labours own approach to Brexit, with the party having stated its preference for an election while signalling that if one is not possible it could back a new referendum. It comes as Labour starts its 2018 conference in Liverpool, with Brexit and the partys approach to holding a fresh public vote on the outcome of negotiations set to dominate the agenda. Mr Corbyn and his allies have up to now made no secret of their desire for a new election, but it is the first time that those in the shadow cabinet have set out how they would begin to push for an election immediately if a major Brexit crisis engulfs Ms May. Jeremy Corbyn arrives at Labour party conference in Liverpool A senior Labour source said: If Theresa Mays deal is voted down in parliament, then expect to see Labour come forward with a vote of no confidence within days. The party has always been clear that an election is needed, and we would push for that hard and immediately. If Theresa Mays deal is voted down in parliament, then expect to see Labour come forward with a vote of no confidence within days Senior Labour source Under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act passed during the coalition years, there are only two routes to securing an election outside of the allotted date every five years. The first is if a motion for an early general election is agreed either by at least two-thirds of the whole House of Commons or passed without disagreement. The second, said to be favoured by Labour strategists, is the motion of no confidence. The wording of the motion is set out in the 2011 legislation, meaning MPs would simply be asked to vote that this house has no confidence in Her Majestys government. PMQs: Jeremy Corbyn accuses the government of being 'too busy fighting with each other' to negotiate Brexit If it the motion passes by a simple majority, then a 14-day countdown would begin during which there is a window for another government to be formed. If one can be, it would need approval from the Commons; but if one cannot, then an election takes place. A member of the shadow cabinet told The Independent: There are two things that you have to separate out: Mays position and that of the government. If her deal is voted down or there is no deal, then May could go, but the government may try to continue on, but I think thats going to be very difficult for them. Pressure for an election would mount. So it is true to say that we would act very quickly as an opposition in trying to bring forward a motion no confidence, and that only requires a simple majority. A source in Mr Corbyns leadership team confirmed that bringing a quick motion of no confidence was a plan the party was looking at, but said there were other options to try and force an election as well. Brexit so far: in pictures Show all 53 1 /53 Brexit so far: in pictures Brexit so far: in pictures Brexit campaign Boris Johnson led the VoteLeave campaign PA Brexit so far: in pictures Brexit campaign Boris Johnson MP, Labour MP Gisela Stuart and UKIP MP Douglas Carswell address the people of Stafford in Market Square during the Vote Leave Brexit Battle Bus tour on 17 May 2016. Their lead line on the tour was: We send the EU 350 million a week, let's fund our NHS instead. Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Voting day A man shelters from the rain as he arrives at a polling station in London on 23 June 2016. Millions of Britons voted in the referendum on whether to stay in or leave the European Union AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Referendum results Leader of Ukip, Nigel Farage, reacts at the Leave EU referendum party at Millbank Tower in central London as results indicated that it was likely the UK would leave the European Union AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Protesting the result A young couple painted as EU flags and a man with a sign reading Im not leaving protest outside Downing Street against the voters decision to leave the EU on 24 June 2016 Getty Brexit so far: in pictures David Cameron resigns British Prime Minister David Cameron resigns on the steps of 10 Downing Street on 24 June 2016 after the results of the EU referendum were declared and the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Theresa May Becomes the new Conservative Party leader Theresa May receives a kiss from her husband Philip, after becoming the new Conservative Party leader on 11 July 2016. May became Prime Minister two days later and although she voted to remain in the referendum was keen to lead Britains Brexit talks after her only rival in the race to succeed David Cameron pulled out unexpectedly. May was left as the only contender standing after the withdrawal from the leadership race of Andrea Leadsom, who faced criticism for suggesting she was more qualified to be prime minister because she had children AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Lancaster House keynote speech on Brexit British Prime Minister Theresa May delivers her keynote speech on Brexit at Lancaster House in London on 17 January 2017. Where she spoke about her offer to introduce a transition period after the UK formally leaves the European Union in March 2019. Despite repeating the pro-Brexit mantra of no deal is better than a bad deal, the Prime Minister claimed she wanted a tone of trust between the negotiators and said Britain was leaving the EU but not Europe. She said there should be a clear double lock needed for the transitional period to make sure businesses had time to prepare for changes to their trading relationships with the EU Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Triggering of Article 50 British Prime Minister Theresa May in the cabinet, sitting below a painting of Britain's first Prime Minister Robert Walpole, signs the official letter to European Council President Donald Tusk invoking Article 50 and the United Kingdom's intention to leave the EU on 29 March 2017 Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Gibraltar nonsense Tensions have risen over Brexit negotiations for the Rock of Gibraltar. The European Council has said Gibraltar would be included in a trade deal between London and Brussels only with the agreement of Spain. While former Conservative leader Michael Howard claimed that Theresa May would be prepared to go to war to protect the territory. Spain's foreign minister stepped in only to assert that there was no need for the dispute Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Shock snap election Soon after triggering Article 50, Theresa May called on 18 April 2017 for a snap general election. The election would be on 8 June and it came as a shock move to many, with her reasoning to try to bolster her position before tough talks on leaving the EU AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Dissolution of Parliament for General Election Campaign Prime Minister Theresa May makes a statement in Downing Street after returning from Buckingham Palace on 3 May 2017. The Prime Minister visited the Queen to ask for the dissolution of Parliament signalling the official start to the general election campaign Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Conservatives lose parliamentary majority An arrangement of British daily newspapers showing front page stories about the exit poll results of the snap general election. British Prime Minister Theresa May faced pressure to resign on 9 June 2017 after losing her parliamentary majority, plunging the country into uncertainty as Brexit talks loomed. The pound fell sharply amid fears the Conservative leader would be unable to form a government AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Labour gains Britains opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn gives a tumbs up as he arrives at Labour headquarters in central London on 9 June 2017 after the snap general election results showed a hung parliament with Labour gains and the Conservatives losing their majority AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Brexit negotiations begin Brexit Minister David Davis and European Commission member in charge of Brexit negotiations Michel Barnier address a press conference at the end of the first day of Brexit negotiations in Brussels on 19 June 2017 AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures May speaks in Florence British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks on 22 September 2017, in Florence. May sought to unlock Brexit talks after Brussels demanded more clarity on the crunch issues of budget payments and EU citizens' rights AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures EU council summit insufficient progress German Chancellor Angela Merkel joins other EU leaders for a breakfast meeting during an EU summit in Brussels on 20 October 2017. The EU spoke about Brexit and announced that insufficient progress had been made AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures DUP derails settlement on the withdrawal part of Brexit DUP Deputy Leader Nigel Dodds walks off after speaking to members of the media as a protester holding flags shouts after him outside the Houses of Parliament on 5 December 2017. British Prime Minister Theresa May was forced to pull out of a deal with Brussels after the DUP said it would not accept terms which see Northern Ireland treated differently from the rest of the UK Getty Brexit so far: in pictures May suffers defeat over EU (Withdrawal) Bill Theresa May suffers defeat in parliament over EU (Withdrawal) Bill on 13 December 2017. The Government was defeated by Conservative rebels and Labour MPs in a vote on its key piece of Brexit legislation. MPs amended the EU (Withdrawal) Bill against Theresa May's will, guaranteeing Parliament a meaningful vote on any Brexit deal she agrees with Brussels. Ms May's whips applied pressure on Conservative rebels who remained defiant in the Commons throughout the day and in the end the Government was defeated by 309 votes to 305 Brexit so far: in pictures EU council summit sufficient progress Britain's Prime minister Theresa May arrives to attend the first day of a European union summit in Brussels on 14 December 2017. European leaders discussed Brexit and announced there was finally sufficient progress at the end of the two days AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures The game moves to transition Brexit Secretary David Davis gives evidence on developments in European Union divorce talks to the Commons Exiting the EU Committee in Portcullis House, London, on 24 January 2018 PA Brexit so far: in pictures Trade deal is what May wants French President Emmanuel Macron gestures to Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May after they hold a press conference at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, on 18 January 2018. May and Macron agreed a new border security deal, through which the UK will pay more to France to stop migrants trying to reach British shores on 18 January 2018 AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Transition period agreed The UK and EU agree terms for Brexit transition period on 19 March, 2018 Reuters Brexit so far: in pictures No agreement on Irish border The EU and UK however failed to reach an agreement on the Irish border during the successful talks on other Brexit issues AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures EU attacks Mays fantasy strategy For months after the March deal is struck there is little significant progress in talks. One senior EU official tears into Britains fantasy negotiating strategy and accuses Theresa May of not even having a position on a variety of important issue Getty Brexit so far: in pictures UK releases Ireland plan Britain releases a new customs plan to solve the Northern Ireland border but Michel Barnier says it leaves unanswered questions and would not prevent a hard border EbS Brexit so far: in pictures Chequers plan agreed The cabinet agrees on a plan known as the "Chequers deal" on July 6 2018. The plan seeks regulatory alignment on goods and food, divergence on services, freedom from the European Courts of Justice and an end to free movement. Many were surprised that the hard Brexiteers of the cabinet would agree to this plan PA Brexit so far: in pictures Chequers plan sparks resignations Brexit Secretary David Davis and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and numerous ministers resign in the days following the Chequers agreement Reuters Brexit so far: in pictures Davis out, Raab in On 9 July, Dominic Raab replaces David Davis as Brexit Secretary. Raab is a keen Brexiteer and was a housing minister before taking over from Davis Reuters Brexit so far: in pictures Barnier's "deal like no other" EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier claims on August 29 2018 that they are prepared to offer Britain a trade deal like no other, though he stressed that they will not divide or change the single market to accommodate Britain AP Brexit so far: in pictures "My deal or no deal" In an interview on Panorama on September 17, the Prime Minister insists that any Brexit deal will be offered to the EU on her terms. She asserts this amongst continued attacks on her approach to Brexit by Boris Johnson and the European Research Group, headed by Jacob Rees Mogg BBC/Jeff Overs Brexit so far: in pictures EU leaders reject Chequers Quite the blow was dealt to the Prime Minister at a EU leaders summit in Salzburg on September 20. European Council President Donald Tusk stated that the Chequers deal "will not work" Reuters Brexit so far: in pictures May demands respect Following the rejection of her Chequers plan the day before, the Prime Minister voiced her anger that the EU had dismissed it without offering an alternative. She stated that throughout this process, I have treated the EU with nothing but respect. The UK expects the same. A good relationship at the end of this process depends on it." Getty Brexit so far: in pictures People's Vote march As the People's Vote campaign and The Independent's Final Say campaign gain traction, 700,000 people turn out in London to demand a final say on the UK's Brexit deal on October 20 2018 PA Brexit so far: in pictures More resignations As the Prime Minister settles on a Brexit deal, Brexit secretary Dominic Raab resigns along with Work and Pensions secretary Esther McVey and many other ministers Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Final Say petitions delivered to Downing Street People's Vote supporting MPs Chukka Umunna, Justine Greening and Caroline Lucas and The Independent editor Christian Broughton deliver over a million signatures in favour of a People's Vote to the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street on December 3 2018 PA Brexit so far: in pictures May delays vote On December 10, the Prime Minister delayed the vote on her Brexit deal as it was near certain not to pass through the Commons due to Tory rebels and lack of DUP support AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures No confidence motion Tory MPs triggered a confidence vote in the Prime Minister on December 12. She won by 200 votes to 117 Reuters Brexit so far: in pictures Commons rejects the deal Following the delay, the Prime Minister's deal was rejected in the Commons by a historic 230 votes AFP Brexit so far: in pictures Corbyn tables a no confidence motion Following the rejection of the Prime Minister's deal, opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn tabled a motion of no confidence in the government, which the government won by a margin of 19 AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Plan B The Prime Minister won the support of the commons to return to Brussels to renegotiate the backstop on January 29. In the same sitting, MPs also voted against a no-deal Brexit in a non-legally binding motion PA Brexit so far: in pictures EU council president savages Brexit campaigners who failed to plan for departure: Special place in hell There is a special place in hell for pro-Brexit campaigners who demanded Britain leave the EU without explaining how it should happen, Donald Tusk has said. The European Council president launched the scathing attack as he accused anti-EU campaigners of pushing for Brexit without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely. Mr Tusk also dismissed suggestions that the EU could reopen negotiations over the controversial Northern Ireland backstop, dealing a blow to Theresa Mays hopes of securing fresh concessions as she tries to get her exit deal through parliament. Speaking in Brussels alongside Irish taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Mr Tusk said: Ive been wondering what a special place in hell looks like for people who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely. He also tweeted the accusation moments later Getty Brexit so far: in pictures EU and UK announce talks to restart after Theresa May visits Brussels Both have agreed to restart Brexit talks to find a way through the deadlock in Westminster, following a visit by Theresa May to Brussels. In a joint statement the British government and European Commission said Ms May had had a robust but constructive meeting with president Jean-Claude Juncker, and that the pair would meet again before the end of the month. But the EU again refused to reopen the withdrawal agreement and its controversial backstop with any negotiations expected to focus on the future relationship between the UK and EU instead Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Brexit strategy lost MPs voted down May's Brext plans, with a majority of 45. The prime minister did not appear in parliament to see another defeat PA Brexit so far: in pictures Labour and Conservative MPs resign and create the Independent Group Back row of Chris Leslie, Gavin Shuker, Chuka Umunna and Mike Gapes, middle row of Angela Smith, Luciana Berger and Ann Coffey and front row of Sarah Wollaston, Heidi Allen, Anna Soubry and Joan Ryan PA Brexit so far: in pictures Non-biding votes on amendments to Brexit motion On February 27 he house held a series of votes, unanimously calling for the UK and EU to guarantee citizens rights in a no-deal scenario AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Attorney General publishes legal advice A hammer blow for May as Geoffrey Cox said her renegotiated deal can still leave UK in backstop against its will. Mr Cox did say the prime ministers efforts had reduced the risk of the UK being trapped in the backstop indefinitely. MPs went on to vote against her deal by 391 to 242 UK Parliament/PA Brexit so far: in pictures No-deal off the table MPs rejected a no-deal Brexit by 43 votes on March 13, with cabinet ministers rebelling in another humiliating defeat for Theresa May. A day later they voted in favour of the prime minister seeking an extension to Article 50 AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures House speaker bans May from third Commons vote on same Brexit deal John Bercow sensationally told Theresa May he would stop her making another attempt to pass her Brexit deal unless she has secured changes. The Speaker said a further meaningful vote would be ruled out of order if the motion was the same or substantially the same under an ancient convention to stop the government bullying parliament on issues MPs have rejected Parliament Live Brexit so far: in pictures May writes to Tusk The prime minister wrote to Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, to ask for a three-month extension to give her more time to try to get her deal through parliament. However the European Commission advises the EU27 should offer a short extension to May 23 or a longer one meaning the UK would participate in European elections 10 Downing Street/AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures European Council summit Theresa Mays request to extend triggering Article 50 until the end of June was rejected by the EU, and instead offered a shorter time frame. She accepted the offer of a delay until May 22 if her withdrawal deal is approved by Parliament. If MPs rejected it for a third time, the EU said Britain must propose a new plan by April 12. Ms May said she will not support a long delay because it would mean Britain participating in elections for the European Parliament Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Brussels confirms preparations for a no-deal Brexit are completed They warned that it is increasingly likely the UK will crash out. In a statement the European Commission (EC) said preparedness and contingency work, which the EC has been conducting since December 2017, was now finished. The announcement came days after EU leaders agreed to a request by Theresa May to extend the UKs Brexit date AFP Brexit so far: in pictures May resigns Reuters If a motion is to succeed it would need some support from Tory MPs, which is a stumbling block given many Conservatives are fearful of losing their seats and allowing Mr Corbyn the opportunity to take power. But the move would be a clear signal of intent from the opposition and would, following a collapse in Brexit talks, come at time when the number of Conservative MPs exasperated with Ms May could easily outnumber her majority. A Tory rebel move to replace Ms May with a new leader without holding an election, meanwhile, could prove electorally toxic for an incoming Tory leader. Polls show a majority some 51 per cent of the public wanting a new election if Ms May is replaced in a Conservative coup. Shadow chancellor John McDonnell confirmed earlier this week that if the party cannot get an election then backing a second referendum would be an option for the party. He said in a webchat with users of the Mumsnet website: Our position is that any Brexit deal negotiated has to protect our economy and jobs. [Shadow Brexit secretary] Keir Starmer set out our six tests for any deal. If they are not met by whatever Theresa May brings back from Brussels, then we will not vote for the deal. My view, then, is that we should have a general election because, in a general election, people can not only debate the range of issues in full, they can also select the team that will then negotiate our future position. If we cant get a general election, we are keeping the option of another vote a peoples vote on the table. At the conference this week more than 100 constituency Labour branches have submitted motions calling for the party to back a referendum on any final Brexit deal, with some kind of motion likely to be voted on. Labour has warned that the NHS is teetering on the brink of another major winter crisis after accusing the government of breathtaking complacency in the face of last years chaotic scenes. Jonathan Ashworth urged ministers to reassure patients there will be no repetition of the worst ever winter where intense pressures forced hospital bosses to defer thousands of routine operations. He also demanded ministers at least guarantee there will be no relaxation of mixed-sex ward rules, a practice that the government had promised to eliminate because many patients find it humiliating and inappropriate. His concerns have also been raised by experts, who said a recent government pledge to invest 145m in emergency department upgrades and 900 more beds will not scratch the surface of the shortages gripping the health service. Speaking to The Independent on the eve of Labours annual conference, the shadow health secretary said patients should be concerned about a repeat of terrible scenes where sick and elderly people were left languishing on hospital trolleys. He said: Im very worried and I think the government has shown a breathtaking complacency so far. We had quite a devastating winter on the back of another very serious winter. The previous winter was described as a humanitarian crisis by the Red Cross, for goodness sake. This winter, we saw blanket cancellations of non-urgent operations and again we saw terrible scenes on the televisions of people, often elderly, confused, people languishing on trolleys for hours in corridors. Im really worried that we are on the brink of another serious winter of cancellations, of people trapped in ambulances in the cold, confused, in the dark, unable even to get into hospital. He added: Patients should be concerned. Nobody wants to see their grandmother lying in a state of confusion, of distress on a trolley for hours and hours and hours in a corridor in a hospital. Both Theresa May and ex-health secretary Jeremy Hunt were forced to apologise in January when hospitals were told to defer around 55,000 operations to free up capacity for the sickest patients. Mr Hunt even acknowledged that it was the worst ever for the NHS, compounded by flu outbreaks and shortages of beds. Doctors have also warned that the NHS is facing a strain on services in the summer months which is usually seen in the winter, when poor weather and seasonal flu heap pressure on hospitals and GPs. Weve got no clarity on whether elective operations will be cancelled again, Mr Ashworth said. I suppose the challenge for the new health secretary is to tell us whether he will be imposing a blanket cancellation of operations like his predecessors did this year. The other challenges for the health secretary is to tell us whether mixed sex breaches will go up like they have done. Of course we are supposed be stamping out mixed-sex ward breaches because we know it can be undignified for the patients. If elected, Labour would set out plans for a 500m winter bailout fund to allow local commissioning groups and hospital trusts to decide where the need is greatest, such as social care, staffing or hospital capacity. The government announced 145m would be given to emergency departments from its existing budgets towards more beds earlier this month. To mark the NHSs 70th birthday, Ms May pledged an additional 20bn a year for the health service by 2023. However this funding doesnt begin until next year. Mr Ashworth also set out his concerns about Brexit, saying its potential impact hangs like a sword of Damocles over the health service. He also branded the governments no-deal planning useless. The Leicester South MP said: I will be insisting in any deal, that the NHS is safeguarded, not just the staff, which gets well talked about, but our access to medicines, the way in which medicines cross the border on a daily basis but also our ongoing access to various research initiatives and research fields. He said Labour have to wait and see what deal the prime minister brings back from Brussels before it could decide whether to vote against it. People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Show all 30 1 /30 People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Rex People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal AFP/Getty Images People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal A young protestor shouts as she takes part in the People's Vote demonstration against Brexit Getty Images People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Reuters People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal A protester's pro-EU t-shirt EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal AFP/Getty Images People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal AFP/Getty People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Gina Miller and Caroline Lucas EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Tens of thousands of people march through London EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Demonstrators at the People's Vote March Getty People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal 'Two months too young to decide on my future' REUTERS People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal PA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal A young girl joins in the march PA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal An EU flag is draped across the statue of Winston Chruchill in Parliament Square REUTERS People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal AFP/Getty Images People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Vince Cable MP, Pro-EU campaigner Gina Miller, Tony Robinson and Caroline Lucas MP join with crowds PA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal PA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Crowds gather on Pall Mall PA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal A man resembling Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, joins EU supporters Reuters People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Reuters People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal People gather in Trafalgar Square REUTERS People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Pro-EU campaigner Gina Miller and Tony Robinson PA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal EU supporters, calling on the government to give Britons a vote on the final Brexit deal, participate in the 'People's Vote' march REUTERS Asked if he would back a second referendum on the final deal, he said: Our focus is the vote in parliament but if parliament cant agree then Keir Starmer [shadow Brexit secretary] and John McDonnell [the shadow chancellor] have said we wont take anything off the table. Brexit divisions could dominate Labours conference in Liverpool this week, as local constituency parties have put forward around 150 motions for discussion on Britains exit from the EU. Mr Ashworth said: We are a pro-European, internationalist party and we are very proud of being a pro-European internationalist party, and it is something which I think the delegates at conference will feel very passionate about. They will want to, Im sure, debate the issue properly and thoroughly. But I think people understand our stance, they understand that we want a good deal for the country but I think our delegates will share our scepticism that Theresa May is equipped to deliver this deal. However he claimed the party is more united on this issue than sometimes people on Twitter suggest. Voters now think Labour is almost as much of a "nasty party" as the Conservatives, a new poll has found. Almost a third (31 per cent) see Labour as "the nasty party", while 34 per cent say the title still belongs to the Conservatives, according to a ComRes poll for Jewish News. The survey also found that twice as many voters think Labour is less "decent" under Mr Corbyn than under Gordon Brown than express the opposite view. It follows months of controversy over antisemitism in Mr Corbyn's Labour Party, and criticism of the party leadership's handling of the issue. Recommended Union leader suggests Israel created Labour antisemitism row The "nasty party" phrase was famously used by Theresa May, then the Tory chairman, in 2002, when she warned her party it needed to improve its image among voters. ComRes found that almost half of voters (48 per cent) thought Labour "was a more decent party" under Mr Brown than under the current leadership - twice as many as the 24 per cent who thought it was more decent under Mr Corbyn. The poll also revealed that just 19 per cent of people think Labour is currently doing enough to tackle antisemitism. 50 per cent said the party was not doing enough, while 32 per cent said they did not know. The antisemitism row has prompted some Labour figures, including Streatham MP Chuka Umunna, to claim the party is "institutionally racist". Protests against Labour antisemitism Show all 14 1 /14 Protests against Labour antisemitism Protests against Labour antisemitism Protesters clashed during the demonstration Reuters Protests against Labour antisemitism Members of the Jewish community hold a protest against Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn and antisemitism in the Labour Party AFP/Getty Protests against Labour antisemitism Protesters hold placards and flags during a demonstration, organised by the British Board of Jewish Deputies for those who oppose antisemitism, in Parliament Square Reuters Protests against Labour antisemitism Hundreds of people gathered in Parliament Square to protest against antisemitism in the Labour Party EPA Protests against Labour antisemitism Labour MP Luciana Berger speaks during the protest PA Protests against Labour antisemitism A protester blows through a shofar during the demonstration Getty Protests against Labour antisemitism Members of London's Jewish community protest in support of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn outside parliament EPA Protests against Labour antisemitism Labour MP John Mann speaks during a protest against antisemitism PA Protests against Labour antisemitism People protest against antisemitism in the Labour Party as Jewish community leaders have launched a scathing attack on Jeremy Corbyn, claiming he has sided with antisemites again and again PA Protests against Labour antisemitism Labour politicians Stella Creasy and Chuka Umunna leave after attending the demonstration Getty Protests against Labour antisemitism A pro-Jeremy Corbyn protester holds a placard during a counter-protest Getty Protests against Labour antisemitism A support of the Labour Party hold up a placard during the demonstration Reuters Protests against Labour antisemitism Jeremy Corbyn supporters during the demo Reuters Protests against Labour antisemitism A protester holds up a sign reading For the many, not the Jew AFP That view is shared by more than one in four voters (28 per cent), according to the ComRes poll, although 40 per cent said they disagreed. Andrew Hawkins, chairman of ComRes, said: "There is widespread acknowledgement that British politics has turned nastier; this poll suggests that the Labour Party may be slipping into a quagmire of its own making by failing to persuade voters that it is serious about tackling antisemitism and by losing its reputation for decency. "That the Tories were seen as the nasty party for the best part of 25 years gave Labour something of a monopoly on kindness but that advantage seems to be being squandered. Some voters have suggested the row over antisemitism in Labour is an orchestrated "smear" campaign by Mr Corbyn's opponents to discredit him. 28 per cent of voters said they agreed with this assessment, but 45 per cent thought the Labour leader was "either unwilling or unable to act decisively against antisemitism in his party". A Labour Party spokesperson said: "The Labour Party is fully committed to the support, defence and celebration of the Jewish community and its organisations. "We are taking action against antisemitism, standing in solidarity with Jewish communities, and rebuilding trust." A democrat running a long-shot bid to unseat a Republican incumbent in Arizona has released one of the most searing adverts of the 2018 midterm season, with some pretty damning testimonial from some very surprising voters. The advert features several people attacking Representative Paul Gosar on a range of issues from health care to immigration to the environment. Mr Gosar, they say, is unfit for office. Heres the catch: The naysayers are Mr Gosars siblings. The advert spread online Friday evening, with what appeared to be pretty run-of-the-mill voter testimonial for an attack advert. Then Tim, David, Grace, Joan, Gaston, and Jennifer Gosar revealed themselves as the congressmans family. If he actually cared about people in rural Arizona, I bet he'd be fighting for Social Security, for better access to health care, Jennifer Gosar said. I bet he would be researching what is the most insightful water policy to help the environment of Arizona sustain itself and be successful. He's not listening to you, and he doesn't have your interests at heart, said Tim Gosar, who made the final plea to Arizona voters to elect democrat David Brill. Arizona boycotted over 'Nazi' purge of migrants Show all 3 1 /3 Arizona boycotted over 'Nazi' purge of migrants Arizona boycotted over 'Nazi' purge of migrants 373003.bin AP Arizona boycotted over 'Nazi' purge of migrants 373005.bin AP Arizona boycotted over 'Nazi' purge of migrants 373004.bin GETTY IMAGES The advert is not the first time that Mr Gosars family has publicly rebuked the Republican, who represents a district that stretches from northeastern Arizona down alongside the border until hitting part of Yuma, in the far south of the state. The district is massive, and encompasses largely rural parts of the state. Last October, brother David Gosar told The Phoenix New Times that he and his family have been anything but shy in their attempt to warn Arizonans about the policies their brother supports and that they, clearly, do not appreciate. There's no dispute about our opposition to him, David Gosar told the newspaper. It's something that has been building for some time. Watching what he does up there in Congress. It's ridiculous. Republicans have a heavy, 26-percentage-point voter registration advantage in the district. But, Mr Brill has told that same newspaper that he is thankful for the support of his opponents family, whom he says are upstanding, wonderful people. The fight against famine is being lost in Yemen, the United Nations humanitarian chief has warned. Mark Lowcock called the situation bleak and told the Security Council it had deteriorated in an alarming way in recent weeks. We may now be approaching a tipping point, beyond which it will be impossible to prevent massive loss of life as a result of widespread famine across the country, he said. We are already seeing pockets of famine-like conditions, including cases where people are eating leaves. The middle eastern country is already facing the worlds worst humanitarian crisis with 75 per cent of its 29 million people in need of assistance. Mr Lowcock said two recent developments threaten to overwhelm the aid operation a dramatic economic collapse that has reduced the value of Yemens currency by some 30 per cent and intensified fighting around the Red Sea port of Hodeida, which is key to deliveries of food, medicine and other vital supplies. The conflict in Yemen, the Arab worlds poorest country, began with the 2014 takeover of the capital, Sanaa, by Houthi rebels which toppled the internationally recognised government and forced president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to flee the country. A Saudi-led coalition allied with the government has been fighting the Houthis since 2015. Over 10,000 people, including many civilians have died in the country where a cholera epidemic has also broken out. Mr Lowcock said that during the first six months of this year, the United Nations and humanitarian groups provided assistance to more than 8 million of the most vulnerable Yemenis who dont know where their next meal will come from. Last year food was reaching 3 million people a month. Brutal effects of Yemeni war Show all 12 1 /12 Brutal effects of Yemeni war Brutal effects of Yemeni war Yemen organised by the UAE's National Media Council shows a Yemeni woman holding a child diagnosed with malnutrition at a hospital in the southeastern port city of Mukalla, the capital Hadramawt province AFP/Getty Images Brutal effects of Yemeni war Mohamed, 2, is treated for Malnutrition in Mukalla, the capital Hadramawt province, Yemen Bel Trew Brutal effects of Yemeni war a trip in Yemen organised by the UAE's National Media Council (NMC) shows a Yemeni woman holding a child diagnosed with malnutrition at a hospital in the southeastern port city of Mukalla, the capital Hadramawt province. AFP/Getty Images Brutal effects of Yemeni war UAE's National Media Council (NMC) shows a Yemeni woman sitting next to a child diagnosed with malnutrition at a hospital in the southeastern port city of Mukalla, the capital Hadramawt province. AFP/Getty Brutal effects of Yemeni war AFP/Getty Images Brutal effects of Yemeni war Mohamed, 2, is treated for Malnutrition in Mukalla, the capital Hadramawt province, Yemen Bel Trew Brutal effects of Yemeni war A Yemeni child suffering from malnutrition is weighed at a hospital in the northern district of Abs, in Yemen's Hajjah province AFP/Getty Images Brutal effects of Yemeni war A Yemeni child suffering from malnutrition awaits treatment at a hospital in the northern district of Abs, in Yemen's Hajjah province AFP/Getty Images Brutal effects of Yemeni war A Yemeni child suffering from malnutrition awaits treatment at a hospital in the northern district of Abs, in Yemen's Hajjah province AFP/Getty Images Brutal effects of Yemeni war Yemeni nurses weigh a malnourished child at a hospital in the northern district of Yemen's Hajjah province AFP/Getty Images Brutal effects of Yemeni war A Yemeni woman carries a malnourished child as she waits during food distribution in the province of Hodeida AFP/Getty Brutal effects of Yemeni war AFP/Getty Images Because almost all Yemenis rely on imported food, Mr Lowcock said, the currency depreciation translates directly into a sharp increase in the price of food for some 10 million Yemenis who arent getting enough food but arent part of the aid operation. There has also been an unprecedented increases in the price of fuel, he said. Intensified fighting in recent weeks around Hodeida is choking the lifeline for getting aid to those in need, he added. Fighting in recent days has cut the main road from Hodeida to the countrys capital, which is the principal conduit for both commercial importers and aid groups for moving supplies, he said. Other routes are heavily damaged, he said. Armed groups have occupied humanitarian facilities, and attacks have resulted in dozens of deaths and serious damage to public health and water facilities as well as other aid infrastructure, Mr Lowcock said, adding: We estimate that an additional 3.5 million people may soon be added to the 8 million already severely food insecure. The UN continues to push to scale up its aid operation, but he said that humanitarian organisations simply cannot look after the needs of all 29 million Yemenis. That is untenable. He urged the Security Council to press for immediate measures to stabilise Yemens economy and support the exchange rate, including ensuring liquidity for the central bank and implementing longstanding commitments to pay salaries of teachers, doctors, health workers and other public service employees throughout the country. Mr Lowcock also urged that ports be kept open, warning that the lifeline through which the aid operation runs now hangs by a thread. He called for the protection of civilians, schools, hospitals and other civilian infrastructure, the establishment of an air bridge for medical evacuations and serious negotiations on a positive path towards peace. Associated Press Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell say they want a general election. On what platform would they fight it? Pro-Brexit or anti-Brexit? Paying their respects to Militant-run Liverpool council in the 1980s or to the moderate social democracy they sometimes claim to stand for? The overthrow of capitalism or a gradual renationalisation of the railways that may take five years? The task for Mr Corbyn at Labours annual conference in Liverpool, which opens tomorrow, is to try to bring some coherence to the contradictions. Europe is the most urgent question. When Mr Corbyn and Mr McDonnell are pressed on their support for a referendum to give the British people a final say on Brexit, they say they would rather have a general election. As we report today, the Labour leadership plans to table a motion of no confidence in the government if the Brexit talks fail, in order to force a general election. But Mr McDonnell yesterday suggested that, if there were an election, Labour would fight it on a pledge to press ahead with Brexit. Were accepting that original vote, the shadow chancellor said in an interview. Labour would negotiate a better deal, he said, that will meet peoples objectives. We have to say that we are not convinced, either that Labour could force an election or that a Labour negotiation would lead to a better outcome than the present talks. The Independent believes that it would be easier to mobilise a majority in the House of Commons for a new referendum than it would be for a new election. However, let us take the Labour leadership at its word. If it wants to fight an election, let us have some clarity about the kind of Labour government for which it would be asking us to vote. Labour did well in the election last year on a hurriedly compiled manifesto that was surprisingly popular, but which was not subjected to deep scrutiny because most people assumed Theresa May would win easily. Let Mr Corbyn start with what Dawn Butler, shadow equalities minister, said today. She praised the Militant-led Liverpool council in the 1980s for standing up to Thatcher and said it was better to break the law than break the poor. Does she know so little of her partys history? Does she not know that the Militant Tendency broke the law and betrayed the poor, not least the councils own employees, when it was reduced to hiring taxis to scuttle round a city handing out redundancy notices to its own workers, in Neil Kinnocks words? For those voters who were pleasantly surprised by the mild social democratic tone of Labours 2017 manifesto, would Mr Corbyn care to reassure them that a Labour government would not be run by ministers trying to immiserate the workers in order to sharpen their class consciousness? Mr McDonnell did a reasonable job this morning of making renationalising the railways sound like a pragmatic adjustment of the public-private mix rather than the dramatic seizure of the commanding heights of the economy. But there is a contradiction at the heart of Corbyn-McDonnellism. With one breath they condemn the centrist or moderate social democracy they claim has failed all over Europe and extol the popularity of radical socialist solutions. And in the next they assail the extremism of Theresa Mays government and pose as the Swedish-style pragmatic alternative. We look forward to greater clarity and coherence in the next few days. I voted Remain in the referendum as I believed that our future belonged firmly with Europe and especially not with the United States. We are naturally and politically more akin to Europe than than any part of the globe. At least I thought so. After this last week I have changed my mind. The European Union (or at least its leaders) are now behaving in a manner more like the old Soviet Union. They treated our prime minister with a complete lack of respect and even contempt. Michel Barnier, Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker behaved like schoolroom bullies during the Salzburg summit. Who elected them? Not the British people. This, all because we had the temerity to exercise our democratic right and vote to leave. Woe betide any other country who decides to do the same. The Labour Party is also behaving disgracefully using this for political opportunism. They do not have a coherent policy on Europe but continue to oppose everything and anything that is proposed by the government. Why is Jeremy Corbyn so quiet these days? Sadly, I would now more likely vote Leave than Remain. Julian Read Haddington, East Lothian I have read with interest but not surprise the speech from Theresa May yesterday after the Salzburg debacle. The bulk of it is the same old predictable rhetoric other than, in my opinion, the statement that we deserve more respect. This minor admonishment needs analysis: was it not our politicians who blamed all problems on Europe for decades? Was it not a British prime minister who called a referendum to garner votes for an election? Was it not British politicians who stated we must follow the will of the people? It was our politicians who knew full well that we have a land border with the EU and Gibraltar. The insoluble nature of border controls was as plain as a pikestaff, yet they still pushed on. The four freedoms of the EU are also not new and not secret, so why on earth have we wasted over two years on trying to nullify one or more of them? I have not even mentioned ludicrous speeches from our politicians that have insulted the intelligence of said Europeans. Respect does not even enter the arena. The EU has been patient with us for years, and now I fear they have just about given up on our self-inflicted path to ruin. Robert Boston Kent Another day another meaningless slogan to add to the will of the people. We now have threatens public trust in our democracy. Someone needs to tell Theresa May the public lost trust in the Tories idea of democracy a long time ago. Whether from the many broken manifesto promises of her predecessor, the downright untruths propagated by the disgraceful Leave campaign or the the totally unrepresentative influence of a minority of extremist Brexiteers who have only their own self interest, be it power or money, at heart. How can she expect anyone to show her or her plans respect when even her own senior colleagues refuse to. G Forward Stirling Our indifference to Yemen is disgraceful Over five million Yemeni children are threatened with malnutrition and famine and the United Nations humanitarian chief is stating that Yemen might reach a tipping point where the irreversible loss of life becomes inevitable. Isn't that perplexing? It is cynical that we reached a stage where we have become indifferent to the harrowing images of children clinging to life, of homes destroyed and women brutalised by war, sexual violence, forced labour, starvation, impoverishment and physical and psychological traumas. Children in Yemen face uncertain futures. Yemen is increasingly becoming a failed state, an ideal environment for the nourishment of terrorism and extremism. Yemen is close to Europe. What if Yemenis start mimicking their Syrian brethren and start flocking in hordes to European shores? Will they then make front page headlines? Dr Munjed Farid Al Qutob London NW2 Tess Holliday could be a great role model but not because of her weight The controversy around Tess Hollidays cover on Cosmopolitan misses the point about what models are for. Female models have always offered an aspirational version of womanhood. Holding this in mind, in modern life models hold an important role in reflecting how we incorporate diversity of colour, religion, physical ability, age or life achievements in valuing women in society. However, presenting Tess Holliday, an obese woman, as not only an acceptable but an aspirational physical model is, considering the health risks, offensive and frankly dangerous. We all need to be realistic about the choices we make in bearing extra weight.. On the other hand, to represent her as a strong mental health role model for as a woman dealing with public shaming, less focussed on justifying her size than on the challenges this has placed on her would make her inclusion in the rota of cover girls more meaningful. I'm just not sure dressing her in a swimming costume really achieves this goal. Jane Pickard Address supplied Our excessive travel is an environmental concern We have become addicted to tourism, and the results can be extremely harmful. Sustainability requires an assessment of the risks and designing suitable solutions. As with plastics and (very much related) carbon emissions, accepting sustainability often means not doing or using something. Holidays are healthy, but if all you want is sun, try the quieter spots. Culture is less than 50 miles away. Natural beauty is less than 50 miles away. Love where you live, or speak to your councillors and MP. The pleasures of foreign cultures, customs, and practice are unarguable, but like good food should be taken in moderation that doesnt harm you or others. Its why I live in Shropshire. Michael Mann Shrewsbury This started with Pete Willsman, the first on the list. I didnt include accidental recordings, with microphones left on, such as John Majors bastards, George W Bushs Yeah, Blair* or Gordon Browns bigoted woman. 1. Pete Willsman: They can falsify social media very easily. Member of Labours National Executive ranted at its meeting in July about the 68 rabbis who complained to the party about antisemitism among members. His comments were reported, but it wasnt until the recording became public that he was removed from the Momentum slate of Jeremy Corbyn supporters. He was re-elected this month nevertheless. Recommended Top 10 famous schoolmates 2. Paul Mason: Jeremy Corbyn doesnt appeal to the mainstream working class vote. In a cafe in Liverpool at Labour conference in 2016, the Corbyn-supporting journalist was recorded saying the Labour leader should be replaced by Clive Lewis, the Norwich South MP. Thanks to Anna Rhodes. 3. Donald Trump: When youre a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Video recorded in 2005 that surfaced a month before the 2016 presidential election. Nominated by Matthew Hoffman. 4. Mitt Romney: Forty-seven per cent. At a private fundraiser in the 2012 presidential campaign he said 47 per cent of the people would vote for Barack Obama no matter what, because they were dependent upon government. Nominated by Graham Kirby and Omer Lev. Especially good since it was done by a member of the waiting staff who was disgusted by what he was hearing, said Tom Doran. 5. Vince Cable: I have declared war on Mr Murdoch. The business secretary was stripped of his responsibility for media takeovers in 2010 after boasting to undercover reporters posing as constituents. Thanks to Claire Ellicott. 6. Howard Flight: The start. Deputy chair of the Conservative Party repeated Oliver Letwins error at the previous election of telling a private meeting of Conservative Way Forward in 2005 the partys planned cuts in public spending of 35bn would only be the start. Michael Howard, the Tory leader, sacked him and stopped him standing again as an MP. Nominated by Jonathan Isaby. 7. Oliver Letwin: Tactical disagreement. The shadow chancellor went into hiding in the 2001 election campaign after Labour recorded him at a tax-cutting think tank saying he had only a tactical disagreement with an economist who wanted to cut public spending by 10 per cent of GDP. 8. Monica Lewinsky: taped by Linda Tripp, an older colleague at the Pentagon public affairs office, where Lewinsky worked after she was an intern at the White House. Tripp handed the tapes to Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel investigating Bill Clinton, in 1998. Thanks to Graham Kirby and Roxanne Escobales. 9. Richard Nixon: a special case, of a US president who incriminated himself by secretly recording himself and his aides. The tapes and transcripts were made public in 1974, months before he resigned to pre-empt impeachment proceedings over Watergate. 10. Adolf Hitler: I would rather have three or four teeth pulled than sit through another conversation with Franco. After their only meeting in 1940, Hitler confided his views to Benito Mussolini, which came to light years later in the diplomatic papers of Count G Ciano, the Italian foreign minister, according to Robert Boston. *I will go to my grave insisting it was yeah not yo. Listen here. Next week: Adjectives used only of women, to commemorate Carrie Symonds, described by some newspapers as flirty Coming soon: Fluffed lines, in memory of Vince Cable, who delivered erotic spasm as exotic spresm in his Lib Dem conference speech The book of Top 10s, Listellany, is still available as an e-book for 4.74 Your suggestions please, and ideas for future Top 10s, to me on Twitter, or by email to top10@independent.co.uk British foreign minister Jeremy Hunt said on Saturday that the European Union should end its blanket refusals of British proposals in Brexit talks, as any belief that Britain would capitulate was misplaced. Hunt, who voted 'remain' in the 2016 referendum on EU membership, said that people in Britain were increasingly content to leave the bloc without a deal, a day after Prime Minister Theresa May said talks had hit an impasse and demanded new proposals and respect from EU leaders. "If the EU's view is that just by saying no to every proposal made by the United Kingdom, we will eventually capitulate and end up either with a Norway option or indeed staying in the EU, if that is there view then they've profoundly misjudged he British people," Hunt told BBC radio. "We may be polite, but we have a bottom line. And so they need to engage with us now in seriousness." He also said; Tony Smurfit, CEO of Irish packaging giant Smurfit Kappa, has rounded on the Government for failing to voice support for the global company as it was pursued in an acrimonious 9bn takeover attempt by Memphis-based International Paper this year. The takeover approach by the US firm ultimately failed, but Mr Smurfit told an Institute of Directors lunch audience he was surprised, given the global scale of Smurfit Kappa and its contribution to the Irish economy, that no messages of support were received from Government. Smurfit Kappa, with a market capitalisation of 8.3bn, paid 14m in corporation tax in Ireland last year on pre-tax profits of 576m, compared to 24m in corporation tax in 2016 on pre-tax profits of 654m. Its revenue last year was 8.5bn. "We were often asked, especially in our European countries, was the Government going to help?" said Mr Smurfit of the takeover attempt. "Of course, governments have no place in takeover activity. But I was a little surprised that, given the fact that Smurfit Kappa and its predecessor, Jefferson Smurfit, have been a significant economic and social contributor over decades, that we had no message at all of any support from any direction." He added: "If we were subsumed into a US company, our benefit to the Irish economy would have significantly decreased." Mr Smurfit also had a pop at media reporting of the takeover attempt, claiming there had been a "lack of balance". Some shareholders agitated behind the scenes for acceptance of an offer. "Maybe I should not be, but I was surprised at the lack of balance of certain media commentary," said Mr Smurfit. "The views of a couple of vocal shareholders, who are very short-term by their very charter, do not necessarily reflect the views of the vast majority." Supervalu and Centra owner Musgrave plans to add new Donnybrook Fair outlets after sealing a deal to buy the Dublin deli chain yesterday. The Cork-based grocery and wholesale giant is understood to be paying around 15m for the family owned business, as well as assuming 10m of debt. Donnybrook founder Joe Doyle, on left of picture, is a craft butcher who developed the high end food brand into a chain of outlets in wealthy areas in and around the capital. He will remain with the business. "We plan to retain the Donnybrook Fair brand and invest in it post-acquisition, with Joe Doyle remaining in the business. We are also open to increasing the number of stores. Pending approval from the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, Musgrave will fully own the company," the firm said in a statement. Musgrave will take control of Donnybrook Fair's stores in Donnybrook, Stillorgan, Malahide, Greystones and Baggot Street in Dublin 4, as well as its food production facility. "Donnybrook Fair represents a fantastic addition to Musgrave," Chris Martin, Musgrave CEO, pictured on right, said. "With its focus on creating a destination retail experience as well as a premium food offering, it aligns with our Growing Good Business strategy. We are focused on developing opportunities around every food occasion in a growing market." Donnybrook Fair employs 250 people. The latest accounts filed with the Companies Office show sales of 27m last year, and a profit of 185,000 - which included a 423,464 boost from the sale and lease back of its Greystones premises. BAY CITY HIGH ROLLERS: San Francisco is a town where you need to be wealthy, with average rents of $2,500 a month for studio apartments. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg Housing prices are famously out of control in many US cities - the average studio apartment in San Francisco is nearly $2,500 (2,120) a month, and over $2,900 in Manhattan. This trend has inspired a movement called "Yimby," for "Yes, in my backyard!" Yimbys push for reductions on zoning restrictions to increase the supply of housing, reasoning that all new housing, market rate as well as subsidised, helps to keep housing prices under control. "We should build more housing in every neighbourhood - especially high-income neighbourhoods," reads the mission statement of the Yimby Party, based in San Francisco. "Increasing supply will lower prices for all and expand the number of people who can live in the Bay Area." The Yimby movement has become popular enough to win some bipartisan support: Secretary of Housing Ben Carson endorsed on Twitter a pro-Yimby column by Bloomberg's Noah Smith. But Yimbys face enormous opposition from self-styled progressives who dismiss the idea that adding new market-rate housing to a city will improve housing affordability. Sometimes these activists go even further, and argue that adding market-rate housing to cities hurts the poor (on the grounds that expensive apartments attract wealthier residents who push up rents). Such activists will even fiercely oppose even new market-rate buildings that include subsidised units. They end up allying themselves with Not-in-my-Backyard (Nimby) homeowners who oppose all new construction in their areas. Working together, the two groups help choke off new construction that could ease housing prices. Call this attitude "Left NimbyISM." Left Nimbyism not only flatly contradicts the logic of supply and demand but also flies in the face of empirical studies of what happens when cities see new construction. In its stubborn rejection of empirical reality, the Left Nimbyist view of housing markets share characteristics of ideologically motivated refusals to accept evidence in other contexts, such as climate change or the safety of vaccines. Four authors for the Coalition for Community Advancement flatly asserted in 2016 that market-rate housing had no role to play in the policy discussion over housing affordability. Under a headline that said "Supply is Not the Solution," they wrote: "The only increase in housing supply that will help to alleviate New York's affordable housing crisis is housing that is truly affordable to low-income and working-class people." Bizarrely, the group was arguing against a plan to build 6,500 new apartments, of which fully half would go for below-market rents. The Los Angeles Chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America put that idea more bluntly: "New housing is built at the high end of the market not to bring working-class people of colour in, but to shut them out." The logic underlying these sorts of statements is remarkably flimsy. Attributing rent increases to new market-rate housing is like attributing rainstorms to umbrellas. High demand for housing is driven by jobs that attract newcomers who bid up rents. If new market-rate housing is not built, then wealthier-than-average people will just place higher bids on existing units, thereby preventing "filtering". Filtering is the process by which, as housing ages, it becomes less desirable to wealthier residents, thereby becoming affordable to the middle class and poor. A huge share of affordable housing is hand-me-down housing: One study, by the Hudson Institute's John C Weicher and Econometrica's Frederick J Eggers and Fouad Moumen, found that, between 1985 and 2013, 45.2pc of rental units that were affordable to very low-income renters in the US had filtered down from owner-occupied or higher-rent categories. As Syracuse University's Stuart Rosenthal wrote in an 'American Economic Review' article in 2014, the "direct evidence that housing filters down, on average" is so indisputable that "there should no longer be debate on this point". Why such intense hostility to the evidence about housing markets? First, anti-market community organisers tend to think in hyper-local terms. The effects of adding new market-rate housing are geographically uneven. New market-rate housing slows rent increases citywide. But a fancy apartment could simultaneously increase rents in a particular neighbourhood. The rational response to such "amenity effects" is to fight against restrictive zoning in already-expensive neighbourhoods, where such effects are minimal. Anti-market housing activists, however, don't rally for taller towers even in wealthy neighbourhoods: They fight such development. Second, consider the role of political strategy. Activists need votes from local legislators on a host of labour, environmental and civil rights issues aside from zoning. But local legislators tend to favour Nimby homeowners when their home values seem threatened by new construction. Hills is the William T Comfort, III professor of law at New York University. The Washington Post A teenage boy who attacked a Dublin Bus driver in a row over a fare and then passed out in a "rage blackout" has been spared a custodial sentence. The 17-year-old boy, who cannot be named because he is a minor, was sentenced to four months' probation after he pleaded guilty to attacking the driver on the afternoon of January 16, 2017, at Manor Street, Dublin. The Dublin Children's Court heard the youth, who was travelling with his mother, punched the driver and then passed out in a blackout brought on by his aggression. Garda Aideen Walsh told Judge John O'Connor the driver had a red mark to his left eye. She was given a description of the boy and he was arrested near the scene. Questioned by the garda in the presence of his mother, the teen admitted punching the driver in a row over the fare. The garda agreed with defence solicitor Niamh Kelly that the teenager was fully co-operative and had no previous convictions. Apologise The judge noted the driver, who was not present for the hearing, did not want to give a victim impact statement. "I would like to apologise to the bus driver for my reaction," the teen told Judge O'Connor. Ms Kelly said she was instructed that on the day, the teen suffered a blackout due to his aggression. He had issues taking direction and instructions from people in authority but was dealing with his anger, the court heard. The teen no longer associated with a negative peer group. He was heavily involved in sport, had completed a Safe Pass course and was making efforts to find work, the judge was told in pleas for leniency. He had another minor drugs-related case coming against him, the court heard. Judge O'Connor noted the teenager's talents at sport and said "not many people have it". He told the boy he had a great future if he stuck at it as he imposed a four-month probation bond. The boy must stay out of trouble and take help from the Probation Service otherwise the case would be re-entered and he could get a custodial sentence. As Ireland's most commercially successful fashion designer ever, Orla Kiely's dramatic decision to shut her retail business this week was a bolt from the blue. It was also a huge blow to staff, suppliers and a legion of fans. It's unlikely to be the last act in what had been a stellar career for National College of Art & Design (NCAD) graduate Kiely, and her husband and business partner Dermott Rowan. Accounts for their UK-based business Kelly Rowan PLC, which is now in liquidation, make clear that the brand name 'Orla Kiely' is owned by the couple, separate to that company. It will remain a prized asset. The brand was being used under licence by their own trading business, and separately for homeware and accessories collections for the likes of John Lewis - which is not affected by the closure. That means reviving the brand, launching new design lines through a new company of their own or under licences, will be pretty straightforward. Still, the collapse of their retail and wholesale business late on Monday, is a huge blow to Orla Kiely, the Irish designer who had created a massive lifestyle brand starting with one stylised leaf-and-stem print and a range of 'must have' bags. Her rise was secured with unbuyable endorsement from fans like Kate Middleton and Alexa Chung, catapulting Kiely into the affections of Britain's smart-set over the past decade. More recently, the proliferation of Orla Kiely branded products and a shift into the mass market may have diluted the cachet somewhat, but if so, the accounts show little sign of it. Sales at Kiely Rowan PLC were 8.3m (9.2m) last year, up from a dip to 7.2m in 2016. The business was profitable up to the most recent accounts - for the year to the end of March 2017. As directors, Orla Kiely and Dermott Rowan were paying themselves a healthy, though hardly outrageous 200,000 each a year. The major dark cloud was just over 2m owed to the UK business by its US subsidiary, which included the costs of setting up a store on New York's hip but expensive Bleecker Street in 2016. That shop was shut earlier this year, and is likely to have left the bulk of its inter-company debt unpaid. In fact, while Orla Kiely's designs may be known globally, Britain's well-heeled 'Sloan Rangers' remained the core market - accounting for a whopping 70pc of sales. It has been a busy first three weeks for new Garda Commissioner Drew Harris. Prior to moving into the Phoenix Park headquarters, he briefed himself up to date on the crises and controversies that resulted in the resignations of his two predecessors. And from day one he has hit the organisation by storm, fitting in visits to Garda stations as well as getting to grips with running the day-to-day business of the force. He also found time to make it clear to the representative associations, who welcomed his appointment with open arms, that he would not be a soft touch when it came to budgets and intended to oversee a review of how existing money in the purse was being spent before determining whether he should go to the Government to seek more. He didn't need to look very far to realise that spending on overtime was way out of kilter with projections for the year. He chaired his first senior management meeting, with money the only item on the agenda, at the Phoenix Park on Monday last week and then held another in Ballymun last Friday. The outcome was the announcement two days ago that the current overtime spend had to be curtailed by around 30pc between now and the end of the year. So far this year, the force has spent 20m more than its overtime budget of 90m and this will increase to 30m without implementing cutbacks. This will bring down the overtime spend per roster - there are 13 rosters in the year - from 9m to between 6.5m and 7m, compared with 8m per roster in 2017. Mr Harris is also facing the problem of requiring a supplementary budget to meet running costs for the rest of 2018. And he has to convince officials from the Department of Public Expenditure that he is taking action to curb the overtime, which was meant to drop this year as a result of extra gardai being available on the streets through recruitment. The provision of a supplementary budget for the Garda has become an annual event around this time of the year and underlines the futility of successive governments failing to provide sufficient funds. The finances of the force can only be run efficiently when the need for overtime has been eliminated, apart from special circumstances, by boosting the strength of the Garda and providing budgets that will last for a year rather than nine months. Another area he has to review is the decision to fund the cost of parading time, a 15-minute briefing period for gardai before the start of their shift, from the overtime budget. This should be covered in the overall pay allocation but was moved into the overtime spend as part of the Haddington Road pay agreement and now accounts for an estimated 20pc of that budget, while another 20pc to 30pc is lost on court duties. So almost half of what should be spent on operations is used up by non-core duties. Earlier in the week, Mr Harris was given a glimpse of what his force might look like towards the end of his term of office with the publication of the Commission on the Future of Policing report. Like most, he will welcome many of the recommendations and, no doubt, his senior management team will be relieved at the move towards a reduction in oversight bodies as the leadership is snowed under by the amount of paperwork. He will now keenly await the response of Government and discover whether this time the politicians intend to implement the proposed comprehensive reform of the force or simply consign the report to the groaning shelf of tomes. Less than half of all hospital staff got the flu vaccine last winter - leaving themselves and patients at risk of the virus, new figures reveal. A member of healthcare staff is 10 times more likely than a worker outside the service to get the flu. They are in turn a risk to vulnerable patients as well as their immediate family and colleagues. The take-up among all hospital healthcare workers was just 44.8pc, despite the fact the flu is a significant contributor to illness and death and exacerbates the trolley crisis. The HSE has set a modest target of 40pc of staff getting the vaccine. The highest uptake was by staff in children's hospitals. But it was as low as 37.1pc in hospitals in Cork and Kerry while only marginally better at 37.1pc in the Saolta Group in the west, including the overcrowded University Hospital Galway. Doctors were more likely to get the flu vaccine than nurses. Although the flu jab only offers partial protection from the illness, the message is that it is better to have some than none. This time last year there were fears about the 'Aussie flu' which emerged as a major threat in Australia during its winter. The reports this year are that the flu season in Australia has been very mild. But this is still no guarantee that the pattern will be repeated here. It usually peaks around December and the early months of the year when A&E departments are at their most congested. Meanwhile, as trolley numbers reached all-time high levels in August, hospitals are still not sure of how many additional beds will be available to ensure last winter's record overcrowding is not exceeded. The HSE has made a submission for around 500 extra beds to be phased in over the winter and the early part of next year. But Health Minister Simon Harris is reliant on the 2019 estimates to get enough funding and there is the added obstacle of securing enough staff to man the beds. The health service is heading for a 600m deficit and another end-of-year bailout. At the end of June, it was reported the HSE was 341.7m in the red. The main drivers are spending in acute hospitals, particularly due to the rise in older patients who require long stays in hospital and have more complex needs. There has been a rise in the over-75s since the beginning of the year who need to be admitted to hospital. Other pressures that pushed up the bills included the rise in emergency places for people with disabilities. Added costs have also been incurred due to orders by the Health Information and Quality Authority to improve the conditions and safety in long stay centres, including public nursing homes. The health service also had the unexpected financial outlay of Storm Emma and higher payouts by the State Claims Agency. A ship of the Modern Spanish Armada was welcomed to County Sligo by the Minister for Justice and Equality Charlie Flanagan, as part of a weekend of events to remember the fallen of the Spanish Armada of 1588. Minister Flanagan was in the coastal village of Grange to officially open the Spanish Armada Interpretive & Visitor Centre. The centre is the fruition of many years of hard work by the Grange and Armada Development Association to give a visual display for tourists informing them about the three ships wrecked off Streedagh Beach, just one mile outside the village. The opening was part of the annual Remembering the Armada Festival which is run in the village around the anniversary of the sinking of the three ships on September 25 1588. As part of the weekend of festivities a Spanish Navy Ship, the OPV Atalaya under the command of Commanding Officer Lt Cmdr Alvaro Calderon Izquierdo, is visiting Ireland for the third year in a row. The ship will lie at anchor off the coast of Sligo on Saturday and Sunday and several of its officers and other crew will disembark to take part in the Twilight Parade at Streedagh Beach at 6pm Saturday. While Minister Flanagan acknowledged that the three day voyage was somewhat less than comfortable for the Spanish Navy, he said It was much more comfortable than that which was experienced by your predecessors. He also welcomed representatives of the Irish Navy who will partake in events over the weekend. 1,800 men are believed to have drowned when the La Lavia, La Juliana and Santa Maria de Vision grounded near Streedagh beach. One of the some 100 survivors was Captain Francisco de Cuellar, who chronicled his experiences in Ireland and his journey home to Spain. Deputy Head of Mission at the Spanish Embassy Javier Gonzalez Sanjuan said Armada wrecks have a deep emotional value but it is only thanks to Grange and Armada Development Association and support of Irish institutions such as the Irish Government and the county council that those wrecks have become part of the cultural identity of this western region of Ireland. Some historical events of the Spanish Armada have different expressions and provoke different experiences. It is an example of how history can be a springboard for a common future whose best expression of a closer union among the peoples of Europe, he said. The work of the group was also commended by Cathaoirleach of Sligo County Council, Cllr Martin Baker. Chairman of Grange and Armada Development Association Eddie OGorman said to have a Government Minister officially open the event has made the group even more determined in their aims. Its a big endorsement of everything we are trying to do to make Grange the Armada Centre for the island of Ireland. This is the start of a suite of facilities based on the Armada and de Cuellar stories that will bring tourist footfall to Grange and the wider North West region, said Mr OGorman. He added that the group has received huge Spanish support even from the Royal family. The fact that this is the third year running we have a ship from the modern armada visiting is an indication of growing Spanish interest and engagement in all we are trying to do in remembering the fallen of 1588. The Ambassador is a great advocate and King Felipe VI is aware of our work, said Mr OGorman adding that the group were the first Irish recipients of The Plate of the Order of Isabel La Catolica, the highest civil order granted by King Felipe VI, in 2017. The festival will see lectures from speakers such as Dr Stephan Boyd (Lecturer in Dept. of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies at University College Cork), Dr Francis Kelly (Expert on the life & career of Captain Francisco de Cuellar), Dr Connie Kelleher (Underwater Archaeology Unit) and Dr Karena Morton (Head of Conservation. National Museum of Ireland). As well as the De Cuellar Trail, a walk in the footsteps of the aforementioned Spanish captain on Saturday and a musical event entitled Canon in Sea, a production inspired by the discovery of nine Spanish Armada cannon, at Streedagh Beach in Sligo in 2015, the weekend will conclude with a family day featuring market stalls and music in Grange village New birth certificates will soon allow for the word 'parent' to be used instead of 'father' or 'mother'. The move means same-sex couples will be able to register both of their names on their baby's birth certificate. Measures are also being introduced to ban anonymous donations of sperm, eggs and embryos and to allow donor-conceived children to request information about their genetic parentage from the age of 18. Traditionally, birth certificates have used the terms mother and father, meaning one parent in a same-sex couple was not able to register as a parent. This has created significant difficulties for same-sex couples, particularly when it comes to getting passports for their children. Under changes intended to be introduced this autumn, the terms mother and father will be retained, but there will also be the option to use the term 'parent' instead. In a statement to the Irish Independent, the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection said: "The words 'mother' and 'father' will not be replaced. There will, however, be an additional option to use the term 'parent' for any parent, who, where appropriate, wants to avail of it. Read More "The main reason for the change is to facilitate registration of births for same-sex couples that would include the details of both parents in the birth registration." The change cannot happen until two parts of the Children and Family Relations Act 2015 are commenced by Health Minister Simon Harris. The statement said officials were working to ensure the appropriate regulatory and operational mechanisms were in place to allow for the earliest possible commencement of these parts of the act. The Government's Special Rapporteur on Child Protection, Dr Geoffrey Shannon, described the measures as "a significant positive step forward". He said the act sought to provide for the best interests of children in donor- assisted situations by ensuring it was clear who were the child's legal parents. Dr Shannon also said the ban on anonymous donations and provisions allowing donor-conceived children to request information on the identity of the donor were also important developments. He said Ireland had "a dark history" when it came to the tracing of genetic parents, as could be seen from various controversies in the area of adoption. The new measures, he said, "will be an opportunity to draw a line in the sand in so far as the past is concerned and to establish a new regime where we value the right of a person to know who their genetic parents are". "The right to know your genetic parentage is a key human right," he said. Under the act, children conceived with the assistance of a donor will be able to get information about their origins once they reach the age of 18. This information will be kept by the registrar of births, and a child will be able to request the name, date of birth and contact details of the donor. However, the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission believes children should be able to request this information at an earlier age if they are sufficiently mature. The controversial Help-to-Buy scheme looks set to be extended for another year after Fianna Fail dropped its opposition to the tax break for first-time buyers. The Fianna Fail U-turn on the first-time buyers scheme comes despite widespread criticism of the tax rebate. The Government tax break of up to 20,000 has been blamed for inflating property prices during the housing crisis. Critics have also said the scheme is benefiting only house buyers at the higher end of the market. When appointed Fianna Fail housing spokesperson, Darragh O'Brien said he would move to abolish the scheme during Budget talks with Fine Gael. However, it is understood Fianna Fail will no longer seek to have the tax break dropped during negotiations in the coming weeks. The moves means the Government can now extend the tax break for another year. Yesterday, one Fine Gael minister said the scheme was working and should be extended. "The data shows it is having an impact and reaching the people we want it to reach," the minister said. Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe's spokesperson said he would not discuss Budget matters. Earlier this week, the Construction Industry Federation (CIF) also called for the Help-to-Buy scheme to be extended. Speaking at the Oireachtas Budget Oversight Committee, CIF director general Tom Parlon said: "This measure has been instrumental in enabling housebuilders to build first-time buyer starter homes again. "This has removed first-time buyers from the second-hand market for larger homes, reducing acute demand in these segments. "Most importantly, it has created a market of viable buyers for starter homes again. Certainty around this measure it is critical to give confidence to the banking system and the housebuilder community," Mr Parlon added. However, Central Bank Governor Philip Lane previously told an Oireachtas Finance Committee hearing he believed the tax break was driving up house prices. A report from economic consultants Indecon for the Government found that while there was no evidence that the scheme was leading to an increase in house prices or new supply, some borrowers who were not in need of support could be availing of the relief. The Help-to-Buy scheme was introduced in 2017 to assist first-time buyers struggle to meet the Central Bank's strict mortgage rules. The Irish Independent previously revealed 12,364 people applied for tax rebates potentially worth 68.9m under the Help-to-Buy scheme between July 19, 2016 and January 2, 2018. This would equate to an average tax refund of almost 14,300. Of these, some 5,392 claims have been made, of which 4,824 have been approved. Of the 5,392 claims, some 2,052 (38pc) are in Dublin. Increased childcare support for workers such as gardai, nurses and teachers is on the table in talks on the upcoming Budget. Children's Minister Katherine Zappone is exploring how targeted childcare subsidies can be expanded to include more squeezed workers in both the public and private sectors. None of the targeted subsidy options is currently available to families with a net income of more than 47,500. It is understood Ms Zappone is keen to expand childcare subsidies to include more families. Sources pointed out a lot of public sector workers like gardai, nurses and teachers are on lower incomes at the start of their careers. Despite this, they don't necessarily qualify for the targeted subsidies. One measure under consideration is raising the 47,500 threshold, though a source stressed that a new cap is not yet agreed and is all "subject to negotiation". Any change to the cap would benefit both public and private sector workers up to a certain income threshold. At present, parents who benefit from the targeted childcare subsidies include those on a low income, with medical cards, or in receipt of various social protection payments. These childcare subsidies range from 50 to 145 a week depending on their circumstances. The families of more than 45,000 children have availed of these targeted subsidies since their introduction in September last year. When the supports were first announced in 2016, Ms Zappone said she hoped to be able to increase this threshold in future Budgets. Sources stressed the details of any childcare measures in the Budget are still being thrashed out over the next fortnight. Changes to the wider-ranging universal subsidy, which is worth 80 a month, are also under consideration with just over two weeks to Budget day. However, a source said it's "too early" in the negotiations to put a figure on any possible increase in that payment. Ms Zappone is due to have a Budget meeting with Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe in the coming week. Talks are also ongoing between the Government and Fianna Fail, which is putting pressure on the Government to double the current universal subsidy from 80 to 160 per month. The families of more than 38,000 children avail of the universal payment which covers children aged between six months and three years who are enrolled in Tusla-registered childcare. A spokesperson for Mr Donohoe declined to comment on childcare measures under consideration in the Budget. Any childcare measures will be subject to the constraints of the limited sums available. The Government is also working on a new Affordable Childcare Scheme that's due to be introduced next year. Speaking in the Dail, Ms Zappone said the interim measures - including the targeted and universal subsidies - will remain until the new scheme goes live. "We are turning Ireland's childcare system from one of the most expensive in the world into one of the best," she said. This is a "massive challenge" but she argued that the Government is "well on the way to delivering the childcare supports Irish families need and deserve". Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin has described Taoiseach Leo Varadkar of being media obsessed and lacking humility on tonights Late Late Show. In a wide-ranging interview with Ryan Tubridy, the leader of the opposition talked about his time at the helm of Fianna Fail, rebuilding the party and his vision for the future. But when asked for his opinion on Varadkar, Mr Martin said he believes the Taoiseach is a leader that operates differently. The question was put to him after Sinn Feins Mary Lou McDonald described him as smarmy on the Late Late Show in February. I think hes very obsessed in terms of media presentation. Everything is through the lens of how its perceived, he said. Mr Martin then referred to the Taoiseach as immature after revealing his intention to the media about extending the confidence-and-supply agreement by two years. This was after the two party leaders agreed to discuss the matter at a following date. I dont do business that way and I think he can do with a degree more humility, said Mr Martin. I thought it was a bit immature in terms of his approach and I think it was wrong. The Cork politican added that he believes Michael D Higgin's is the best candidate in the upcoming presidential election, despite voting for Sean Gallagher in the 2011 election. Look, no driver: Jamie Cudden, Dublin Smart City manager, Neil Cunningham, CEO of the capital Civic Group and Owen Keegan, city chief executive, Dublin City Council inspect Irelands first driverless public transport vehicle, the EZ10. It features in the Future of Mobility event on North Wall Quay today from 11am to 5pm. Picture: Andres Poveda Transport minister Shane Ross has been accused of seeking to "duck responsibility" for the controversial overhaul of bus routes in the capital. Mr Ross has come under fire over the BusConnects plan amid claims he sought to distance himself from the project at a residents' association meeting in his Dublin-Rathdown constituency. During the week he faced pressure in the Dail after Fianna Fail tabled a motion calling for the protection of Dublin Bus services. Fine Gael TDs also raised serious concerns over the BusConnects plan at a private party meeting on Wednesday night with fears it could become as politically dangerous as the water charges fiasco. Political parties have held public consultation meetings on the proposals which are overseen by the National Transport Authority. Communities around the city have expressed concern at proposed changes to routes serving their neighbourhoods. The public consultation period ends on September 28. The 'Irish Times' report claims Mr Ross told a residents' meeting in his constituency that he had nothing to do with the BusConnects plan, prompting a wave of criticism of the minister. Fianna Fail's Dublin spokesman John Lahart told the Irish Independent the "mind boggled" and added the plan was in the Government's Project Ireland 2040 initiative. His party colleague Robert Troy said the NTA was answerable to Mr Ross but claimed: "When backed into a corner in his own backyard he tries to duck responsibility." Asleep Labour Senator Kevin Humphreys claimed Mr Ross was "asleep at the wheel on BusConnects". He argued Mr Ross didn't understand his role if he believed the largest review of public transport seen in Dublin in decades had "nothing to do with him". Mr Ross told RTE Radio that he had told residents at the meeting that he did make Government policy on BusConnects and transport, but he didn't "micro-manage" details such as the routes proposed on a map that was on display that night. He later said he would make a submission on the BusConnects project as a TD, not as a minister. Mr Ross last night declined to respond to opposition attacks on him saying the BusConnects issue was "above politics". He told the Irish Independent: "The important thing is that people participate in the public consultation process in order to change the parts of this BusConnects proposal which are a problem for the elderly, children going to school, and students going to university. "The map was not drawn by me but by the NTA. I have no intention of micro-managing the process. "It's a good project but there are problems for communities that need to be ironed out." Meanwhile, Fine Gael TD Noel Rock called on the NTA to extend the public consultation period for the network redesign "to ensure we have the best possible bus network". He said extending the process would "improve the prospects of a positive outcome". Co Down man Benjamin Davis (22) died in California on Wednesday in a road traffic accident A school is mourning the second sudden passing of a former pupil this week. Co Down man Benjamin Davis (22) died in California on Wednesday in a road traffic accident. It followed the tragic death of electrician Matthew Campbell who died in a tree fall during Storm Ali. Both were former pupils at Royal Belfast Academical Institution (RBAI). The school paid tribute to Benjamin and Matthew. On Thursday it dropped its flag to half mast to mark their passing. Fiancee's anguish over death of man crushed by falling tree day before they were to collect wedding rings RBAI principal Janet Williamson described Benjamin as a "model student". She said he was a "very approachable young man, a very personable and well-liked pupil. He really embraced our mantra of participation through the Duke of Edinburgh and sport," she told the News Letter. He was definitely a role model and a very generous and kind young man. Benjamin played for Instonians Rugby Club. A spokesperson described him as a "son we all would have been proud to call our own". His family are currently making arrangements to return Benjamin to Northern Ireland. On social media the Davis family paid tribute to the former rugby player who was also a keen surfer. They thanked those that had given their support. They said the support was keeping them strong. They said Benjamin was always smiling. It started off as a mere idea but Culture Night is firmly wedged into the social calendar as thousands of people thronged to events around the country. Celebrating its 13th year, Culture Night 2018 offered something for everyone with hundreds of events taking place. There were aerial displays in Dublin, a free open air concert in Collins Barracks, puppet shows in Cork and scary movies in Kerry. Free buses were also provided in some towns to help people attend events. In Limerick, large crowds flocked to Bedford Row to enjoy hip-hop performances, dance classes and songs by Limerick Music Generation and the Mary Immaculate Community Choir. The city's Garda HQ was also opened to the public, giving law-abiding citizens an exclusive tour of its premises. Meanwhile, King John's Castle in the city hosted a display of archery and ancient weaponry. The Dowtcha Puppets troupe in Co Cork enthralled children and adults alike with a tale of faeries, talking animals and a sleeping lighthouse keeper who must be stirred before a ship crashes against the rocks. In Galway, the City Museum offered a tour around many of the hidden parts of the town where noise is "screened" by buildings or "masked" by natural sounds. Horror movie fans spilled into Killorglin, Co Kerry, to take in locally made films, while in Tralee music lovers enjoyed trad tunes at Baile Mhuire Day Care Centre. The capital was also full of colour and excitement, with hundreds of events taking place throughout the night. The National Museum at Collins Barracks once again saw a huge crowd to hear the likes of the Villagers, Mick Flannery and the RTE Concert Orchestra. Mary Kennedy, from Dundalk, brought her two children to the nursery rhymes and story telling show outside the Smock Alley Theatre. She told the Irish Independent: "It's a really great initiative and I'm just sorry I've never experienced Culture Night before. "I think it's very important that we embrace our culture and heritage because it's something that we often take for granted. "In other European countries they do these sort of events all the time so it would be nice to expand Culture Night into an entire month of cultural events." Jason Shields (30) and girlfriend Jane Kelly (27), from Castleknock, north Dublin, chose to visit the Freemasons Grand Lodge on Molesworth Street. "It's something that I mean to go to every year and I'm always kicking myself that I never went," said Mr Shields. "They're apparently only open to the public once a year so I'll be really eager to see what the big fuss is about." Dundalk writer Jaki McCarrick is making a big impression in New York where the world premier of her play 'The Naturalists' is getting an enthusiastic reception. Produced by the Pond Theatre Company at the Walkerspace Theatre, off Broadway 'The Naturalists' opened on Friday September 7 and runs until Sunday September 29 and is already getting an enthusiastic response from audiences and critics alike. A delighted Jaki told her Facebook followers on Thursday:'I saw my play' The Naturalists' for the first time last night. Before that it only existed in my head and on the page. It was incredible to see these fantastic actors inhabit the characters of the play. I was a bit stunned by it actually.' The Hi Drama! tv channel stated 'Jaki McCarrick has written a beautiful play, based on a turbulent political event so distant it has almost faded into myth. Simple and well crafted, the dialogue is as natural as a conversation over dinner.' 'This is fresh and authentic theater. The direction is deft. The characters capture you quickly; you never doubt them. The script is a glimpse of a moment fraught with all the breakage engendered in the Troubles before, all the specific damage visited on these four people, and all the slim hopes of redemption,' enthused the Front Row Center website. Broadway World also gave the play the thumbs up: 'The production is largely successful in its goals, scarring the range of emotions as the audience gets a glimpse into the quiet yet troubled lives of a group of Irish people living in the countryside.' Even the prestigious New York Times reviewed the play, and although the reviewer took issues with the slowness, conclude; 'the play and its desultory rhythms are a gift to its actors. The Everyman Agency tweeted 'A subtle, haunting work of gentle beauty has taken shape Off-Broadway' while a theatre-goer commented: 'With only two nights in New York, I'm so glad I decided to see @thepondtheatre1's beautiful production of The Naturalists, an intimate, delicately understated play with some of the most truthful acting I've seen in years.' Jaki wrote The Naturalists in 2009 and it was first read at the Flat Lake Festival in 2010, directed by Padraic McIntyre of Livin' Dred Theatre Company. However, after overhearing someone commenting 'who needs another Troubles' play?', she stuck it in a drawer for five years. She eventually returned to the play and it had readings at theatres in London and Manchester , before coming to the attention of New York's The Pond Theatre company. Like her first play The Mushroom Pickers, it's set in a small hamlet in Co Monaghan, close to the border and revolves around a character with a Republican past. The play is inspired by the killing of 18 British soldiers at Narrow Water outside Warrenpoint on August 27 1979. Jaki admits that she doesn't remember the incident, which was overshadowed by the killing the same day of Lord Mountbatten and three others on a boat in Mullaghmore, Co Sligo. In 'The Naturalists', Jaki casts the fictional character of bomb maker in the lead, and looks at how his life has evolved over the years since then. Francis now lives with his brother in a mobile home on a farm in Co Monaghan, where they dream of restoring the family home and shop, without making any effort to make that dream a reality. Their isolated existence is changed by the arrival of a young woman, Josie, who shakes them out of their lethargy. A visit from a figure from the past threatens to end the peaceful existence they have carved out. 'In Francis, I wanted to create a character with a past that was problematic,' explains Jaki. 'I wanted the character to have done something so dark that he could barely forgive himself for it - mainly, because I wanted to see how a broken human being can come back to a moral stature of some kind, be able to reset his moral compass. I also wanted to examine what such a crime does to the immediate family of the perpetrator (and not the victim - or victims - in this instance) - and how, through the forces of nature and love, he and his brother Billy find their way back to some semblance of normality.' Set in contemporary Ireland, 'The Naturalists' also looks at how the country has changed over the intervening decades, 'It also examines a changing Ireland; how it has become more open-minded on moral issues and is more flexible on who we can love,' she says. This is the second of Jaki's plays to be staged in the United States, as The Belfast Girls premiered in Chicago in May 2015 and has since been staged in a number of America theatres as well as Canada and Australia. Joe Rooney is to headline Copper Comedy Club's third show upstairs in the Imperial Hotel on Friday September 28. Voted Best Comedian 2017 at the recent Pure M Awards, Joe has been a headline act in venues all over Britain and Ireland for many years and over the past year he has performed his show in Chicago, Dubai, Kansas City, Glastonbury Festival and Bangkok. His energetic mixture of stand up and musical comedy and ability to engage with the audience has proved a hit with all ages and nationalities. Joe is also a successful actor and writer having acted as Father Damo in Father Ted and Timmy in the long running RTE sitcom Killinaskully as well as a host of short and feature films, and has got critical acclaim for his theatre work. Supporting Joe Rooney is Billy Anderson, an American comedian who has lived in Ireland for over five years and is the inaugural winner of the Charleston Comedy Festival and a lead writer for the web series 'The Ricky Erlando Show'. Also appearing on the night is Micheal Kierans, who was third runner-up at this years Show Me The Funny competition, securing a spot at this years Vodafone Comedy Carnival in Galway. The host is local comedian Aidan Shields who has been making a name for himself as a highly regarded MC and comedian. Doors are at 8pm. Show at 9pm sharp. On Friday night I headed for the Marquee in Toales Bar where a special 30th birthday party was being held for Leanne McConville from Ath Lethan and there to make sure she had a fantastic night were daughter Keeley, boyfriend John Hughes from Beechmount Drive, brother Tommy from Ath Lethan and sister Paula from Lios Dubh and a huge collection of family and friends. Leanne who is number one barwoman in McManus bar in Seatown was looking exceptionally well on the night and wanted to thank her family, friends and workmates for making it such an excellent night and wanted a special mention for her daughter Keeley and niece Amber McArdle from Lios Dubh too. I wasn't too long in the door when I got talking to all her mates from McManus Bar and they included Paddy Cunningham from Ashbrook, Tony Kavanagh from Patrick Tierney Crescent, Clare Keenan from Ard Easmuinn and Gareth Woods from St. Clements Park who were with 'the boss' Valerie Lawless who all wanted to wish Leanne a very happy birthday and Valerie also wanted a big shout out for the McCourts over in Boston too. Seated close by were Sheree Cooney and Eddie both from Blackrock who were up for a mad one with everyone there. I then caught up with main man Sean Hughes from Beechmount Drive who was having a laugh with Bernard Kelly from Cedarwood Park and Sharon Tuite from Redbarns Road who weren't going to miss this night for anything because they knew it was going to be an epic. After this I headed over for a word with cousins Ava Connolly from Kilkerley and Kayla Cunningham from Castle Park who were looking extremely well and wanted to wish Leanne all the best on her big night. Also in their company was Leanne's brother Tommy McConville from Ath Lethan who introduced me to his girlfriend Emma Behan from Dublin who were in great form and looking forward to a mad one with everyone there. Not too far away I met up with cousin Alison Connolly from Kilkerley who was sitting chatting to family friend Gerry Tuft from Bachelors Walk who told me it was quiet now but they were expecting a more than lively celebration later on. Making my way over to an adjacent table where I met up with William Duffy from Armagh Road who was with Ciara McGee from Farndreg and they were with Leanne's sister Paula and Don McArdle from Lios Dubh who said the party was only just getting going and were there to make sure Leanne had an insane night. Meanwhile over at another table I got talking to Denise and John Hughes from Beechmount Drive who were with son John and daughter Kellie as well as Majella Gray from Cedarwood Park and they all wanted to wish Leanne all the best on her big night. Just arrived in were Michelle Carroll from McSwiney Street and Yvonne Mulligan from Patrick Tierney Crescent who wanted to wish her workmate all the best and they were there to party. After this I caught up with Thomas Campbell from Oliver Plunkett Park (the posh end) who wanted to wish his friend Leanne all the best and hopes she had a mental night. Finally, before I departed I got talking to Roland Foley and Anita McDonnell both from Castle Park who were ready to party the night away with Niall Redmond from Point Road and were going to make sure Leanne had a mad night. Sadhbh's Tribe, a group of local people who have signed up to do the gruelling 'Hell and Back' course in Bray, Co Wicklow, are doing so to make up the shortfall in funds which the Louth/Meath Branch of Down Syndrome Ireland needs to provide much needed services for families and children. Having first completed the challenge in 2016, they are hoping to exceed the 17,000 they raised two years ago, and with more than twice the number of participants this year, they are on course to do just that. The group is headed by Kevin Haughey and Conal Kellegher, who were inspired to raise funds by Conal's five year old daughter Sadhbh, who has Down's Syndrome. Having always wanted to do a Hell and Back, Kevin managed to persuade Conal to do it by suggesting that they use it as an opportunity to raise funds for the Louth/Meath Branch of Down Syndrome Ireland. As he had made the suggestion on Facebook, there was no turning back for Conal and Sadhbh's Tribe was born, On their first time taking on the challenge, they had a team of 38 participants, but this time almost seventy volunteers have signed up, with some travelling from as far away as America,France,Sweden and Switzerland. Conal says that he and Deidre were 'blown away' by the support which they received, both by those who did the challenge and those who donated money. 'We are very proud of what we did in 2016 and we are aiming to raise more than we did two years ago,' says Kevin. The money will go towards making up the shortfall in funding which the Louth/Meath branch of Downs Syndrome needs to provide supports to families of children with Downs Syndrome. 'The cost of running these services annually is roughly 150,000, but the branch receive only 30,000 in government funding,' explains Conal. 'As these services are considered a vital tool in getting people with Down Syndrome to be able to reach their full potential and contribute to their community, the shortfall in funding is left to parents and their family and friends to try and make up. It's an ongoing battle and constant effort as we all just want the best for our loved ones.' Conal and Deidre have seen the benefits of these services as Sadhbh, who has just started attending mainstream school Realt na Mara primary school, made the transition quite easily thanks to the support she had received from a range of programmes provided by the Louth/Meath branch of Down Syndrome Ireland. These include Early Intervention and The Home Teacher Programmes. Sadhbh's Tribe are busy training for their Hell and Back challenge, which they tackling on Saturday September 29th. Billed as Ireland's toughest mental and physical endurance challenge, Hell and Back requires participants to complete a 10-15KM trail route crossing rivers and lakes, climbing hills and mountains and crawling through bogs and swamps on the Killruddery Estate, Co Wicklow. After completing the challenge, Sadhbh's Tribe are heading to The Spirit Store when they get back in Dundalk, where they are hosting host an After Party. There will be a BBQ and live music from Finnian Kelleher, Jinx Lennon and The Country Gentlemen with DJs Kirkface Killa and B Augustus. 'The After Party is for everyone ,whether you did Hell and Back or not and we would love to see as many there as possible,' says Conal. 'There is no cover charge for the festivities but donations are most welcome.' Anyone who would like to sponsor Sadhbh's Tribe can do so by visiting their GoFundMe page. Louth Councillor Tomas Sharkey, has been appointed the new principal of Colaiste Chu Chulainn in Dundalk. It was confirmed that he will leave his role as principal at Inver College, Carrickmacross where he has been based for two years having started there in 2016. The announcement from LMETB indicated that it will see Mr Sharkey take up his new role in Dundalk, following the 'unexpected departure of Principal Deirdre Ui Liathain from Colaiste Chu Chulainn.' In a statement, a spokesman said: 'During his time in Inver College, Carrickmacross Tomas oversaw the review and implementation of new management team structures, the implementation of the new Junior Cycle, formulation of short courses in Enterprise and Design, Digital Media Literacy and Learning to Learn. He has also led the growth in enrolment in Inver College and the Student Voice initiative in his school in conjunction with the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment.' Prior to his appointment to the position of Principal at Inver College, Tomas was a teacher of Gaeilge and History at LMETB's Bush Post Primary School, Riverstown, Dundalk. Thomas also worked with the Department of Education and Skills Second Level Support Service for Gaeilge and the Professional Development Service for Teachers (PDST) as an Advisor from 2007 to 2015. 'In this role Tomas was responsible for the formulation, development, implementation, review and evaluation of training for teachers on the teaching and assessment of Gaeilge. Thomas also facilitated workshops nationwide on School Self Evaluation, Positive Behaviour Management, Co-operative Learning and Differentiated Approaches to Teaching, Learning and Assessment,' Speaking about the school, Tomas explained that Colaiste Chu Chulainn/Colaiste Lu is a co-educational, multidenominational learner-centred school. Colaiste Lu opened in 2013 while Colaiste Chu Chulainn opened its doors in September 2014 with 80 1st Year students. 'In late August 2018, over 500 students have now taken their place in their new state of the art, modern school building at the Marshes Shopping Centre, Dundalk.' He added: 'With the remaining 50% of the building to be handed over in November 2018, the school campus at the Marshes will have capacity for 1000 students.' The LMETB spokesman added: 'The school endeavours to provide a comprehensive education in which every member of the school community is encouraged to learn, develop and attain excellence.' 'Tomas brings a wealth of experience to the post. Together with teaching staff at the school he will have a strong focus on a high quality teaching, learning and assessment experience for all. 'In order to ensure that students attending the school have access to the most up to date teaching, learning and assessment methodologies, Thomas will commit to supporting and promoting continuous professional development for his staff.' Student attainment, achievement and progression routes will be another area which the LMETB said the new Principal will monitor closely as part of the school's school self evaluation process. 'Tomas places great value on student involvement in co-curricular and extra-curricular activities and plans to support and develop further the very diverse range of such activities which currently are in place at Colaiste Chu Chulainn/Colaiste Lu.' 'He would like to extend a thanks to the staff of Colaiste Chu Chulainn/Colaiste Lu for the warm welcome which he received during his recent visit to the school.' Also a sitting member of Louth County Council, Tomas Sharkey is expected to take up his role as Principal in the coming days. He added that he is looking forward to working with the Deputy Principal and the staff in developing further the strategic plan for the future of the school. 'Together with his teaching staff, Thomas looks forward to welcoming prospective students and their parents/guardians to the school's open night over the coming few weeks'. Further queries regarding Colaiste Chu Chulainn/Colaiste Lu can be forwarded to colaistecc@lmetb.ie or contact us by phone 042 9354553. The Living with Cancer Conference organised by NECRET and Professor Bryan Hennessy is dedicated to people impacted by cancer and takes place on Saturday, 1.30pm to 5.30pm, in the City North Hotel, Gormanstown. NECRET is the charity who support the Oncology and Haematology in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, which provides treatment to cancer patients from throughout the north East, including Dundalk and north Louth. As one of Ireland's leading medical oncologists Professor Bryan Hennessy explains that one of the major benefits of the Living with Cancer Event 'is that at times people feel more comfortable asking a range of questions that they might not necessarily ask in the clinical environment.' Joining Professor Hennessy on the cancer specialist panel will be renowned cancer specialist Professor Joe O'Sullivan, Clinical Director of Northern Ireland Cancer Centre and Professor of Radiation Oncology Queen's University Belfast. Both will speak and will be available to answer questions from people who are living with cancer, their family members, friends or carers. The conference promotes an open, relaxed and comfortable environment, providing information on the various types of cancer and the latest treatments or developments related to that. Entrepreneur and broadcaster Bobby Kerr and former champion jockey Pat Smullen will be among the well known Irish personalities who will share their own story of dealing with the disease and how they have faced the challenge. AA new feature this year is the Living Better and Wellness Panel Discussion facilitated by Advanced Nurse Practitioner Elizabeth Summersby. This will provide a valuable opportunity to get information on many issues related to cancer and its treatment, including nutrition, exercise, fatigue, psycho-emotional and advise on what to tell your pharmacist. This session will be followed by a Citizens Information Centre spokesperson who will outline the various social welfare entitlements available to cancer patients. Carers Allowance eligibility will also be covered. The day will conclude with a discussion and demonstration of the benefits of meditation in coping with stress. There will also be complementary refreshments, therapy workshops and make over demos kindly provided by the Boots No. 7 Team, and a free prize draw. Various cancer charities such as the Irish Cancer Society, Cara Cancer Support Centre and Gary Kelly Cancer Support Centre will have information stands at the event. Entry is free but tickets are required. These are available from the Oncology Unit reception in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital and Cara Cancer Support Centre. Three seals who had been rescued after they became separated from their mothers as pups were released into the sea at Gyles Quay on Saturday afternoon after being rehabilitated at seal rescues centres in Co Wexford and Co Down. One of the seals, Noodles, had been rescued by members of Dundalk Sub Aqua Club when they were diving in Carlingford Lough earlier in the summer, and several members joined the on-lookers who turned up to see the seals being released. Noodles, it turned out, was the first common seal pup to be rescued this year. He had been cared for by the volunteers at Seal Rescue Ireland, Co Wexford, along with Pizza, who was rescued off the west coast. The third seal released was Rachel, who had been found off the north Antrim coast and had been rehabilitated in Exploris, Portaferry. 'Noodles was only a day old when he was found by Phil Scott of Dundalk Sub Aqua Club,' explained Mel Robinson, Director of Animal Care, Seal Rescue Ireland, Courtown, Co Wexford. During their time in the rescue centres, the pups were taught to eat and placed in special rock pools so that they didn't become too used to humans. Once released into the sea, 'their natural instincts kick in and they will hunt fish,' says Mel. Dundalk Sub Aqua divers Phil Scott and Seamus Campbell who had helped bring Noodles ashore after he swam up to them while they were diving off Greenore on May 20, were delighted to see him returned to the wild, having kept track of his progress in the centre. The investigator appointed by the Department of Education and Skills to look into certain procedural matters relating to the Kildare Wicklow Education and Training Board (KWETB) has asked the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau to carry out its own investigation into certain occurrences within the body. Dr Richard Thorn's report into the KWETB was published last week and in it he noted there are 'several inconsistencies surrounding procurement of minor building works' that were beyond his power to investigate and added 'this matter has been referred to the Garda Economic Crime Bureau'. The report raised a number of concerns around past tendering and public procurement within the organisation. The referral was with regard to Dr Thorn's examination on 'the purpose for, and the procurement and award of a contract to an independent expert for a school building project'. In his report Dr Thorn noted: 'KWETB is the contracting authority for the building of 'School 1'. In 2016, a dispute arose between the main contractor and some members of the design team.' Dr Thorn further noted that the then Chief Executive, in an attempt to solve the problems on the contract, procured on an emergency basis the services of 'Company 5'. A letter of engagement issued by Company 5 was signed on August 15, 2016, by the then Chief Executive of the KWETB and a representative of 'Company 5'. The purpose of the contract was to engage a mediator/expert in the dispute. The total amount paid to Company 5 in respect of the contract was 9,787.75. In January last year, in response to a request from the main contractor, KWETB instructed 'Company 5' to expand the scope of its work and a contract to that effect was signed on January 23, 2017. The total amount paid by the KWETB to 'Company 5' in respect of the expanded scope of work was 14,138.85. Dr Thorn said that guidelines on the approval process be held on file for audit purposes, however, no such documentation was provided to the investigator. In particular, he expressed concern that the follow-up contract to expand its services represented a 'roll-over' agreement which would have been in breach of Procurement Guidelines that specifically prohibit such open-ended agreements rolling over. Dr Thorn recommended that the KWETB Board utilise the services of an external agency to develop a checklist of policies and procedures covering procurement and any related matters to include version control, promulgation and sign off by Board members and members of the Executive. He also said that policies and procedures should be developed for managing real or perceived conflicts of interest at both Board and Executive level. His report also examined the payment of 483,000 for costs arising from 'a requirement for early completion' of a school project which was effectively part of 'an acceleration' process. Dr Thorn stated in his report that the acceleration was 'not in accordance with Department contract management guidelines'. The report stated that direct involvement of the employer, represented by the then Chief Executive, was 'ill-conceived and likely to lead to confusion and increased difficulty in agreeing final accounts'. The publication of the report was welcomed by the organisation's current Chief Executive, Dr Deirdre Keyes, who, in a statement issued to this newspaper said the KWETB will continue to work closely with the Department of Education and Skills and other relevant bodies and agencies. Dr Keyes welcomed the directions outlined by Minister Bruton under Section 41 of the Education and Training Board Act 2013 and expressed satisfaction that the minister acknowledged the 'proactive approach [of the Board] to improving governance arrangements and addressing matters of concern raised in the report'. Dr Keyes also confirmed that work is 'well under way' on the implementation of the KWETB Action Plan which is also included in Dr Thorn's report. The Board of KWETB will meet shortly to review the specific directions of the Minister for Education. Minister Bruton also asked that the Board provides 'a comprehensive update to the Department' on the performance of the ETB's functions in accordance with Section 41 of the Education and Training Board Act 2013 within three months and quarterly thereafter until otherwise notified. Mick 'The Book' Kelleher has been an institution in Bray for as long as many of the town's library users can remember. Last Saturday, he was inundated with cards, gifts and well wishes as he worked his last day. From morning to evening, visitors wore a path through the Eglinton Road doors to shake hands with the Co Clare man who found his place in Bray. A massive outpouring of warmth for the beloved librarian came from cabinet ministers and celebrities, small children and elderly members, exam students, colleagues past and present, and book lovers from all walks of life. The phrase on everyone's lips has been 'the library won't be the same without him'. 'It's an extraordinary thing that people responded in such numbers,' said an overwhelmed Michael. Not so extraordinary, really, given his more than 40 years as part of the very fabric of the place. In 1974, bookish Michael Kelleher had left University College Galway early. 'Maybe I was young, or ill-disciplined,' he said. He was looking for a job, and spotted library positions advertised in the newspapers, one in Kildare, the other in Bray. He came to Bray for an interview the weekend President Childers died. It was a Friday in the middle of November. He met head librarian Eileen Murray, who saw that Michael was the right man for the job, and in February 1975, he started. 'Eileen was very tolerant and a great librarian,' said Michael. She was one of those to visit him in the past week, and congratulate him on his retirement. He was living in Ranelagh at first, and after the occasional missed bus, Eileen persuaded him to move out to Bray. 'It has always been an interesting place to work,' said Michael, whose fondness for the work extends to the building, the books and the people. 'It's a fine structure, and self-contained with materials for adults, children, local history and reference.' He has seen changes and developments, with improvements in 1988 and 2016, and computerisation of the catalogue from 1991. The service has moved with the digital revolution, which hasn't appeared to put a dent in membership or love of the printed word. 'Our footfall is higher than every,' he said. Bray Library has stood at Eglinton Road in the town's centre since 1910 and remains a focal point. The most recent refurbishment included what Michael thought was a very generous allocation for studying, and he mentioned that to county librarian Brendan Martin. 'The student area is a very important part of that library,' Brendan replied. Generations of Junior Cert and Leaving Cert students will testify to the invaluable help and encouragement they got in Bray, and in particular from Mick, during their studies. Nothing would be beyond his ken, but history loomed large and is of particular interest to Michael. 'The variety of material is quite astonishing,' said Mick, who continues to devour books and strive to learn even more. A legend that he is banned from pub quizzes is something he is reluctant to dispel, although anyone pitted against him would be glad if it turned out to be true. He has not, however, read every book in the library, despite local myth, but he does know where to find them. 'A friendly face is one of the most important things for librarians. I generally try to show that, and sometimes remind myself that if I'm having a bad day, it's not the public's fault.' No borrower ever came and went without that friendly face, a chat about the books crossing the desk, reassurance for a child who may be a little late returning items, or invaluable advice for a research project. 'If you're working in an environment you enjoy and like, working in the area of books, it's easily done,' said Michael. 'I like the world of books. My reading is good and wide. I like old, antiquarian books, dipping in and out of stock and so on.' And now, as a member of the library, his passion for the written word continues. He is a member of a book club or two, and can hardly get in his own front door for books. 'They are part of my hinterland,' he said. The library, to which he will return as a member of the public, and all libraries, are 'open, non-judgemental and democratic', he said. 'They have a significant role in the community.' He is always particularly pleased to see the use of the service by people who have relocated to Ireland from different countries. 'Libraries are community hubs, sometimes places of shelter which are cool in the winter and warm in the summer,' he said. The reaction of the public to Michael's retirement is something he has, very humbly, found uplifting and life-enhancing. 'It's made me feel like I might have done a little bit, and it points out to me the importance of the library service in the community, and the importance of human contact. The resources are there and they have to be maintained.' Michael also paid deep tribute to his colleagues past and present. 'I couldn't have worked with a finer collection of colleagues,' he said. 'We always had cordial and friendly relations all through the years.' 'I plan now to enjoy the scenery of Bray, and perhaps carry out some local research and history projects, get engaged in the community and do some of the things myself I have seen other people do over the years.' He may travel a little in Ireland, and will certainly enjoy his extensive collection of vinyl records, and everything the library has to offer. 'I'm retiring from the world of books, yet still remain in the world of books; I'm retiring from a large community yet remain linked to that community.' The official opening of Colaiste Raithin secondary school in Bray has been marked by the company involved in completing its construction sponsoring free ice cream for everyone in the facility. The school was one of a number of new education centres affected by the collapse of the UK company, Carillion, and as a result its scheduled opening date was put on hold. However, Woodvale Construction Ltd. from Omagh was contracted to complete the works on a number of the Carillion related schools including Colaiste Raithin. While the students have already moved into the building the construction company last week decided to mark the new beginning and the end of summer with free ice cream for everyone. The significance of the gesture did not go unnoticed and school Principal Traolach O Maolchathaigh told this newspaper that it was a brilliant thing for the company to do. 'It was a wonderful gesture and it was really appreciated by everyone,' he said. 'We are really appreciative to the company and to its site manager, Eugene, for doing it because it was a really nice thing to do,' he added. Mr O Maolchathaigh said everyone has settled in comfortably to life in the school which has 284 pupils. 'Everyone is looking forward now very positively and we are very grateful to everyone involved in helping the school make this positive step forward,' he said. 'We moved in last Wednesday and it's been a very positive start,' he added. Mr O Maolchathaigh said the school will be holding an open door event for parents this evening, Wednesday, September 19, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. to give them an opportunity to view first-hand the building and facilities that all concerned 'have always wanted'. The Creative Ireland Programme is an all of government five-year initiative that seeks to place creativity at the centre of public policy and at the heart of everything we do as a people. The Programme is built around five key pillars: Enabling the Creative Potential of Every Child; Enabling Creativity in Every Community; Investing in our Creative and Cultural Infrastructure; Ireland as a Centre of Excellence in Media Production; Unifying our Global Reputation. Local Authorities have been mandated to take the lead on encouraging creativity in every community and to this effect 31 City and County Plans (representing the 31 Local Authorities in Ireland) have been put together. These strategies were drawn up around the country in consultation with local artists, creatives, cultural and heritage organisations, community groups, people involved in the creative industries, and many more besides. The Strategy aims to provide meaningful opportunities for citizens and local communities, together with our Local Authorities, to nurture, sustain and facilitate participation in cultural and creative activities. The Strategies were recently launched on the National Level by An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar TD., joined by Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Josepha Madigan TD., and Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government Eoghan Murphy TD. Speaking at the launch in Dublin the Taoiseach noted "Creative Ireland is all about improving access to culture and creativity in every county nationwide, to improve public wellbeing. Through Creative Ireland we are prioritising and promoting arts and culture at a local, national and international level because an active and engaging cultural sector can enrich every aspect of our society and every stage of our lives. "Through these Culture and Creative Strategies, we hope more and more people will become involved in artistic and cultural pursuits in their own local area, with all of the vitally important social, and indeed economic, consequences that follow." The County Cork Culture and Creativity 5-Year Strategy will be launched at the local level on November 9th 2018 as part of the Creative Ireland County Cork Conference, which will be held in Baile Mhuirne. There will be much more on the strategy launch and the conference over the coming weeks. In 2018 a variety of great projects were supported under the Cork County Creative Ireland Grant Scheme, with one of these being a proposed publication - 'County Cork 101 Interesting Facts'. The publication is being undertaken by Brendan John Murphy who has already published "County Kerry 101 Interesting Facts"; "Dublin 101 Interesting Facts" and "County Galway 101 Interesting Facts". Brendan J.'s focus is now on the Rebel County and for the publication he is seeking interesting, quirky, unusual and informative facts that are unique to County Cork, with topics including famous people and the not so famous; places, history, geography, flora, fauna, animals, landmarks, great events, films, commercial companies, castles, monasteries, tragic events, museum pieces, folklore, songs, customs and crafts, festivals/fetes/regattas, holy wells, unique landscape, traditional music, the famine and emigration. If you would be interested in getting involved and have any ideas for inclusion, just send an email to cork101facts@gmail.com. Anyone starting out in a new business or, indeed, running an existing enterprise will know all too well the headaches that it brings - renting an office and having high speed internet at the mere click of a button; then factor in rates, insurance, heating, along with a host of other bills that must be paid. This problem has now been solved by two Mallow brothers, Brian and Myles Carey, who have set up CoWork, a flexible work hub which takes the headache literally out of work. The hub does what it says - it offers a modern co-working space with both private and shared work spaces. Brian told The Corkman that the concept means that a person can work in an office environment but all resources are shared. "One of major selling points is that we have 400 megabytes of internet supply along with a redundant 50 mega bytes back-up supply so the service is super fast. We also have very modern facilities and a person can rent a desk from 7 per day," he said. Presently there are spaces for 25 to hot desk but there is also a meeting room for up to 10 people. "It is very cost effective for anyone in business who wants to work but not have all the overheads," he said. Brian and Myles are the sons of the late Eugene Carey - the larger than life legal eagle who passed away after battling cancer in December 2007. CoWork is based in O'Brien Street, Mallow - the home of their late father's firm. "There is history attached to O'Brien Street as we will be the third generation doing business on this street," said Brian. Brian's grandmother, Maureen was a Pharmacist for 55 years on O'Brien Street and she set up her own business when she was only 25 years old. Her son, Eugene, then operated a hugely successful legal practice on O'Brien Street and now Brian and Myles will etch out their own slice of history as they take on this new business. Brian worked for 12 years in the oil and gas industry, which saw him travel to the UK, the Netherlands, Africa, America and South East Asia, where he held roles in business development along with project management. He eventually moved back to Dublin and is married to Fermoy native Aisling, and with three children in tow, the tug of home became even stronger for him. "I was brought up in Mallow and really love this town. I was hurling with Mallow last year and used to travel down from Dublin for training. I know it was a bit mad," he smiled. He said for him there is an "emotional connection" to the town and there is nowhere else he would want to raise his family. While Myles is also involved in the business '50 -50', he will be doing so in a very modern business sense - remotely. He lives in San Francisco where he works in hedge funds but with modern technology the way it is he will be well able to keep up to date on the financial aspect of the business. While Myles lives over 5,000 miles away, he still travels home to Mallow five to six times per year. So it is safe to say, with Myles clocking up 50,000 miles in the air per year he, too, has a gra for Mallow. Mallow has been short-listed in a prestigious nationwide competition that is bringing local businesses and community groups together in a bid to find Ireland's most enterprising towns. A panel of judges from the 2018 Bank of Ireland sponsored National Enterprise Town Awards will visit Mallow next Wednesday, when they will be give a presentation by Mallow Chamber at the GAA Complex in Carrigoon before being taken on a tour of the town. Mallow, which was nominated for the competition by Cork County Council, is vying for top spot in the large town category for urban areas with a population of more than 10,000. Chamber President Pat Hayes said he believed Mallow was more than capable of winning not just the regional and national titles but also the overall award, bagging a cool 33,000 in prize money along the way. "To be nominated in itself was a major achievement and is recognition of the fact that so many people from across all sectors of the local community are regularly delivering innovative and exciting projects," said Mr Hayes. "This is a wonderful opportunity for Mallow to shine on the national stage and we have been working with local businesses and community groups over recent weeks to put together what we believe is a strong and compelling case for the judges," he added. Judging will take in a number of different headings including the extent and range of business activity, local enterprise initiatives, Mallow's appearance and attractiveness, town leadership, inclusion and diversity, community support and its engagement with other towns across the region. Mr Hayes said that he was confident that the panel would be impressed with the sheer depth and scope of business and community activity in Mallow and how different interest groups have come together on a wide variety of projects. "It is that sense of togetherness and pride in our town that makes Mallow such a great place to live and work in," said Mr Hayes. "I have no doubt that the impressive presentation we have put together will highlight all that is great about Mallow and show the country how enterprise and community can work together to create a thriving and vibrant town," he added. The future king of England will be able to trace his ancestors right back to Lombardstown and Newberry cemetery, near Mallow. And it's all thanks to local history buffs Donie O'Sullivan, Jerry O'Keeffe and Pat Mulcahy. The trio, as part of a project initiated by IRD Duhallow, have spent the last two years deciphering inscriptions on hundreds of graves at the cemetery. As part of Heritage Week, Mr O'Sullivan showed people a tomb wherein he said lies the "direct ancestors of Princess Diana and Nano Nagle." And as with all stories, it is best to start at the beginning. He said that James Lombard of Lombardstown stated in his will in and around 1680 that he was to be buried in the Lombard family vault in Kilshanning (Newberry). He said that James Lombard had acquired 358 acres of land in the townland of Gortmolire and created Lombardstown. When he died one of his daughters married David Nagle of Ballygriffin. And their son, Garrett, had two daughters, Nano and Margaret. Margaret married into the Curtin family, who hailed from east of Cork city, and their granddaughter married Edmond Roche, who was another famous landlord family based in Trabolgan, which also covered lands in Castletownroche. Their son, Edmond Burke Roche, became the first baron of Fermoy and their son, James Burke Roche, became the second baron of Fermoy and their son then Maurice Roche became the third baron of Fermoy and his daughter, then Frances, married Edward Spenser. So the link is that Frances Roche married Edward Spenser and their daughter, Diana, was born in 1961. Diana, of course, became Princess Diana when she married Charles, Prince of Wales. Princess Diana had two sons, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Harry, Duke of Sussex. "The significance of this is that a future king of England will be able to trace his ancestry right back to Lombardstown and Newberry Cemetery. This piece of family history indicates a most unlikely kinship between Nano Nagle and Princess Diana. The Nagles were staunch Catholics, as were the Lombards, who changed their allegiance during the Penal times to hold onto their estate," said Mr O'Sullivan. Mr O'Sullivan said there is quite a lot of history already recorded about the Lombards and one very detailed book was done way back in 1837. Another local historian, John Joe Kavanagh, of Dromahane also wrote a book in 1982. "There was a lot of sources for us to work with. The Nagle family history is all on the internet now but with the Lombards and all their descendants it meant that we had to go digging. I went to the National Library and went through the Lombard papers and also went to the Deeds Office and got deeds going back to the 1700s, and slowly began to put it all together," said Mr O'Sullivan. When asked if he would be penning a letter to Buckingham Palace to detail what he has unearthed, with a huge laugh he said he wouldn't as he wouldn't know how far the letter would get. However, there is a huge amount of history attached to Kilshannig. He said Daniel O'Connell's mother, Catherine Mullane, is buried there. The former prime minister of Australia, John Curtin, his great great grandparents were Curtin from Kilpeadar, which is west of Dromahane village. Mr O'Sullivan said when he hosted a heritage walk at the cemetery four years ago about 180 people attended. "When you are in the graveyard it's sometimes hard to imagine that within just one acre there is such a huge amount of history," said Mr O'Sullivan. Recent rainfall has done little to alleviate serious water shortages across Cork County, with Irish water saying that supplies to many schemes around the region still remain dangerously depleted. An Irish Water spokesman has said that supplies to several key schemes are still under "serious pressure", leading to speculation that the hose pipe ban currently in operation may be extended beyond the end of this month. "While recent rainfall has helped to replenish some surface water sources, the soil moisture deficit resulting from the historically dry summer means that it will take longer for groundwater supplies to return to sustainable levels," said the spokesman. "For that reason, it is important that people continue their efforts to conserve water so that sources can recover and further restrictions on supply can be avoided." With particular reference to north Cork, levels in the Newmarket Regional Supply are still "extremely low", affecting towns and villages across Duhallow including Newmarket, Kanturk, Tullylease, Kilbrin, Meelin and Boherbue, where night-time restrictions will remain in place for the foreseeable future. "Together with Cork County Council, we are working to find and fix leaks, manage existing supplies and identify and investigate alternative sources. However, as this area is served by groundwater sources which have become very depleted following the dry summer it will take some time before a normal supply can be restored," warned the spokesman. "We are also appealing to customers served by the Charleville water supply scheme, which serves Charleville, Buttevant and Newtownshandrum to continue water conservation efforts." Meanwhile, historically low levels at Inniscarra lake are also impacting supplies to a number of areas across the mid-Cork region including Ballincollig, Ovens, Blarney and Tower. "With the help of Cork County Council we are managing supplies to ensure maximum availability of drinking water. While there is no immediate risk to these supplies, the lack of rainfall has continued into September and we are therefore asking the public to do all that they can to reduce water usage," said the spokesman. Irish Water has yet to confirm whether the hosepipe ban will, as had been hoped, be lifted at the end of the month. However, the lack of appreciable amounts of rainfall over the past weeks and days is making it more likely that it will be retained for at least another month. "The Water Conservation Order will remain in pace until September 30, at which time it will be reviewed again," said the spokesman. "We would like to thank customers for their efforts to date to conserve water and once again remind people that despite recent rainfall, it will take some time for water sources to return to normal," he reiterated. Just a bit extraordinary, a solo exhibition by the artist Theresa Nanigian is set to open this Saturday 22nd September at the Highlanes with an artist's in conversation with writer and critic Gemma Tipton. The exhibition takes its title from one of the photographed sitter's responses to the common link across each exhibition - the Twenty Statements self-concept survey by sociologist Manfred Kuhn, which asks individuals to respond to the prompt 'I am'. Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda, the tour initiator and producer, led by curator/director Aoife Ruane, will exhibit the three 'chapters', Highlanes having toured two of the chapters already to The Lab Gallery in Dublin, and Limerick City Gallery of Art. A full colour exhibition catalogue with essays by Tipton, Orla Fitzpatrick and Carissa Farrell will be available at the opening. Funded by the Arts Council of Ireland and Louth County Council, it was awarded a Touring and Dissemination Grant to enable the tour, the accompanying publication, and access through Arts & Disability Ireland to audiences who are blind and with visual impairments using the Discovery Pens, exploring the works through audio descriptions, artist's and curatorial statements. The exhibition and tour is sponsored by Drogheda Credit Union. They came together, huddled and bold, nervous and cold, and left refreshed and vibrant. The annual Dip in the Nip does more than raise money for a great cause. It can ignite a fire in the soul that sustains many through hard and difficult times. Hundreds turned out recently at a mystery beach in the North East to cast aside their clothes and dash into the Irish Sea, In aid of the oncology unit at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, the Dip in the Nip casts aside all barriers as many of the swimmers admitted. "It makes us realise our bodies are wonderful; too often we abuse them and don't see the beauty. In the ocean everybody is equal. Proud bellies, mastectomy scars, cellulite, we're all there. Skinny-dipping is the ultimate in life affirmation, so the Dip in the Nip lets us celebrate life in all its beauty". Many of our participants had experienced cancer, either their own, or with somebody close. Some had lost loved ones and, indeed, some even joined while in treatment,' one of the dippers remarked. Now running for seven years, the Dip is likely to top the 50,000 mark this year. The day was full of all kinds of surprises, partners and supporters the Westcourt Hotel start the day off sweetly with glasses of bubbly and tea and coffees. There were novelty prizes for best non-dressed people, some of the entrants were, the Flamingos, The Flower ladies, Jelly Tubbies, Cowgirls, Sprinkle Ladies, the list goes on. The winners were 'Cruella de Ville and the 101 Dalamations'. 'People often ask how can you win a best-dressed prize for a naked dip but it's all about the body art and wigs and hats. This year the judging was made very difficult because Fuschia had kindly adorned all our ladies with amazing angel dust. After the reception in the Westcourt Hotel, Gerry Carroll and Matthews buses were lined up to take everyone off to the secret location, its amazing site to see over 200 ladies dressed in towels and dressing gowns heading down West Street in the early hours, the few cars that passed by were scratching heads wondering what the hell was going on,' a spokesperson stated. When at the beach the ladies head straight for the "wishing tree" where they tie on a special wish either for themselves or for a loved one. A very special reward awaited them when they returned from the water, The Rumbles food company truck surprised everyone with hot food. With special assistance from Orlaith Carmondy and all the Dip in the nip Volunteers. After the hot food everyone headed to the NEM Marquee to change and head back to the buses which bring brought everyone back to Drogheda for the sweetest treat of all, coffee and buns in the Moorland Cafe. So if reading this makes you want to join in next year please send NECRET a request to notify you the dates for next year. Fresh produce company Meade Potato Company won on the double at the recent Food & Drink Business Awards, taking home the Fresh Produce Company of the Year Award as well as Sustainable Factory of the Year. The inaugural Food and Drink Business Awards celebrated the best of manufacturing and the people behind the products, attracting a large number of high profile entries to the CityWest Hotel. Other winners on the night included Dairygold Dairy Ingredients, the Happy Pear, Britvic Ireland, East Coast Bakehouse and Manor Farm. "We're thrilled to win both awards amid such tough competition. We've been working away here in the heart of the Boyne Valley in County Meath, trying to increase efficiency, quality and sustainability in our growing and supply operations and it's nice for our entire team to get recognised for all their hard work," said Eleanor Meade of Meade Potato Company on the night. The Lobinstown company had humble beginnings and began when Philip Meade Sr. first began selling potatoes in the towns around Meath and Louth in 1977. The Meade Potato Company was incorporated in 1982. Their passion for potatoes soon extended to Irish vegetables, and later, to Irish and other fruit. What started out as a love affair with the Irish spud soon transformed into a mission to bring all types of tasty, wholesome and healthy produce into the Irish kitchen. From their family farm in Lobinstown, Meade Potato Company have now been growing, packing and distributing premium quality potatoes, fruit, vegetables, salads and organics over the past five decades. Senator Ged Nash has said that the time has come for Drogheda to formally adopt a 'Business Improvement District' or 'BID' scheme 'to enhance and promote the centre of the town as a place in which to shop, visit, work, live and enjoy.' He has revealed that he has been engaging with local businesses and informally with the local authority on the prospect of such an initiative for several months now, and that the idea is gaining considerable traction. BID schemes are provided for under law. In essence, they involve the ratepayers in a defined area (i.e. the urban area of Drogheda) coming together to establish a limited company with the support of the local Council to develop a business plan and a series of concrete proposals for the improvement of the town through agreed common projects which are of economic, social and cultural benefit to all. The BID schemes are democratically operated and are funded by a small, agreed levy on top of the existing annual rate paid to the local authority. The schemes also employ a full-time Town Centre Co-Ordinator. The local Senator said, "My work on this potential project commenced a number of months ago and was sparked by an approach from a number of very progressive business people in Laurence Street. "I believe that the appetite is now there in the context of the momentum generated by the Fleadh for such a scheme to operate in Drogheda. "The Fleadh Cheoil has proven that when we take control of our own destiny, we can make things happen. "This is not about an extra levy on anybody to fund core work that the Council should be doing anyway. It is about bringing additionality to that work, and putting a progressive vision of what Drogheda can be into action. "BID schemes have generally worked well in Dundalk, Sligo, Sandyford and other parts of the country and I believe that the time is right to start work on the adoption of such a scheme in Drogheda." Senator Nash has said he will be inviting local businesses to a meeting on the issue in Drogheda in the coming weeks. St. Aidans Cathedral group who completed CFR Training, given by Enniscorthy Red Cross members Sally Flynn and Paddy Redmond, were presented with their certs on Thurdsay night St Aidan's Cathedral received a massive boost recently as a group of volunteers were issued with their certificates having completed Cardiac First Response (CFR) training with Enniscorthy Red Cross. With big crowds attending Mass at the Cathedrals on Saturdays and Sundays in particular, it was considered a perfect place to install a defibrillator, and there is now one installed there should there ever be an emergency. Installing an AED was only half the battle, however. It was necessary to ensure that enough people were trained in its use so that there would always be someone on hand in case of an emergency. Paddy Redmond and Sally Flynn from Enniscorthy Red Cross provided training to those who volunteered and the course covered quite a bit. 'It's not all just the defibrillator,' Paddy explained. 'The most important thing is CPR. The course covered that, dealing with a heart attack, choking in babies and adults, the FAST test for strokes and then obviously the use of the defibrillator as well. 'This group volunteered to do it on behalf of the church and it is hoped now that there will always be someone around in the case of an emergency.' 'The goal,' he continued, 'is to grain as many people as we can and get as many defibrillators out there as possible. 'Overall, I think we've trained somewhere in the region of 80 people in the local area in the past six to eight months.' Paddy and Sally were delighted to hand out the certificates at the Cathedral last week and among those receiving them was Fr Billy Swan. Those who participated in the course thanked the Red Cross for their expertise and the whole initiative has the potential to save lives should an incident occur in or close to the Cathedral. While most of Enniscorthy was still sleeping, a major operation saw over 50 gardai swoop on a total of 11 houses in Enniscorthy town and environs on Thursday morning, targeting a notorious burglary gang believed to be behind at least 45 robberies nationwide in the past year. Dubbed the 'Hole in the Roof Gang', the targets of the operation were a Romanian organised crime gang who are suspected of robberies of commercial premises all over the country in the past five years, netting more than 1million in stolen cash and cigarettes. The gang are believed to have been military trained and have been under garda surveillance for quite some time. The garda raids, taking place under Operation Thor, got underway at 5.30 a.m. and involved over 50 personnel from divisions in Tipperary, Kilkenny, Carlow, Waterford and Wexford. Armed gardai were also present in the form of the South Eastern Regional Armed Support Unit and the Garda Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau were briefed prior the operation. The operation was coordinated by the South Eastern Regional Organised Crime Unit under the direction of Detective Superintendent Michael Hennebry. The search began simultaneously at 11 houses and during the course of the searches gardai seized cash, electronic devices including phones and satellite navigation systems, walkie talkies, car key reader, a small quantity of cigarettes, and financial documents. Sniffer dogs, drafted in from the Customs Dog Handling Unit in Rosslare Europort, also played a part in the searches. A total of five people were arrested as a result of the operation - two men in their thirties, two in their forties and one woman in her 20s. All were detained under Section 50 of the Criminal Justice Act at stations across Wexford. A spokesman for Enniscorthy Gardai refused to comment on the exact locations of the raids, but said that the 'vast majority' were within Enniscorthy town. He described the gang as a 'major crime operation' and said that they had been under surveillance for some time. 'I think we've got who we were looking for,' he said. 'The real success of the operation will be measured with the charges that will hopefully follow. Investigations will continue and what we've found today will lead to more investigations and enquiries. A lot of work has gone in up to this point, however.' It is believed that the gang members chose Enniscorthy as a base as a result of its easy access to Rosslare Europort. 'All the information indicates that they use the port to come in and out - it seems that Enniscorthy was deemed a handy location because if there was any hassle they could just flee the country through the port,' a senior source said. The major organised crime gang is said to have links throughout the EU and is suspected of a multitude of similar crimes throughout the UK and mainland Europe. All five suspects have since been released from Garda custody and a file is being prepared for the DPP. Just ten days after celebrating her wedding day at her side, family and friends of Nan 'Nanny' O'Connor (nee Murphy) of 11 Redmond Street gathered at St Aidan's Cathedral on Thursday with the difficult task of bidding her a fond and final farewell at her funeral mass. Just over two months ago, Nanny was diagnosed with cancer and, although she battled bravely and remained upbeat throughout, the prognosis was not good. It was with this in mind that she finally decided to tie the knot with her partner of over forty years and the love of her life, Patrick O'Connor, or 'Pimple' as he is affectionately known. Described as a beautiful and emotional day, the pair were married by Fr O'Connell at the chapel in Wexford General Hospital and though she was married just a short time, she went to her eternal rest as a happily married woman, something which meant a lot to both herself and Patrick. Sadly there were emotions of a different kind at the Cathedral on Thursday as a huge crowd gathered to pay their respects to a much loved member of the local community and offer their support to her heartbroken family. In an extremely fitting eulogy, Nanny's brother-in-law Lou Brooks described a woman who made time for everyone. 'A very humble, pleasant, thoughtful, kind, caring and sincere woman,' he said. 'I could go on but words alone would never fully describe this woman. She was always known as Nanny to all that knew her and a more apt name couldn't be given to someone like her. She was like a Nanny to everyone.' Lou spoke of how family was everything for Nanny and how she had come through some difficult times too. 'Sadly she lost her daughter Chris a few years ago and also lost a part of herself,' he said. 'Her daughter Bridget, whom Nanny adored, has the same will to live and love of life. Without her, the last few years would have been a lot tougher.' Speaking of her new husband, Lou said: 'He was the love of her life for over forty years, but her husband for just a few short days. Nanny, I'm sure, will rest peacefully knowing that she went to her eternal rest a happily married woman. At their wedding, Fr O'Connell said "If you love someone and someone loves you, then God loves you both". I thought that was very fitting.' It was also recalled how Nanny had spent an unbelievable 54 years working for the Kerr family, looking after the children and three generations. '54 years I think in any one job is a remarkable achievement and the Kerr children are testament to that.' Nanny was also a doting grandmother to Sean, Dylan and Michael, who were described as the 'apples of her eye' and special reference was also made to her holiday friend and confidante Bernie Dempsey, with whom great times were enjoyed. Following a moving ceremony, Nanny was laid to rest in Enniscorthy Cemetery, where a stirring rendition of 'The Fields of Athenry' was sung at her graveside. She is mourned by her loving husband Patrick, daughter Bridget, grandsons Sean, Dylan and Michael, son-in-law Michael, family in the UK, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, the Kerr family, nephews, nieces, extended family, neighbours and a large circle of friends. For the third year running, the Turret Writers group have launched a collection of stories and poems written by its creative members. The launch took place recently at the Bracken Court Hotel and was a proud moment for the group's members, many of whom were being published for the first time. Entitled 'More Tales from the Turret' and is the third book of its kind, compiling the short stories, reflections and poetry of the group's members. The stories in the collection are entirely fictitious. Some are fantasy stories while others are more take a more grounded and serious approach. The opening poems present a tongue-in-cheek version of a female perspective on some of Ireland's myths. 'The Tear Stones' is a variation on another Irish myth. The book was launched by Dr Jane Carroll of Trinity College. A writer herself and she spoke eloquently of the trials and tribulations of getting that story on the page. She referred to Maeve Binchy and Gordon Snell as influences and her speech was very well received by an appreciative audience. Some group members read their work,including poetry, a short story , a reflection and a memoir. Family, friends and visitors mingled at the launch and afterwards both writers and audience allike got together for a cup of tea and a chat. The Turret Writers group was founded in August 2016 by Sheila Weir, who sadly, passed away recently. They meet in Balbriggan Library every Saturday morning from 11am to 12.30pm. New members are always welcome and are encouraged to write in whichever genre they are most comfortable. In particular, they are anxious to attract young writers. There is a social aspect to the group also, as they go to lunch after their meeting and sometimes go on cultural outings and attend writing workshops. Anyone who wishes to join the group can just go along and enjoy this lively, varied writers' collective. A Fingal-based antiques duo with the largest collection of mid-20th century furniture in Ireland, will be showcased on the national stage at Timeless, The Irish Antique Dealers Fair, in Dublin's RDS, from September 28-30. Mid-20thcentury furniture is enjoying a fashionable moment and it seems Killian McNulty and Will Walsh of the Vintage Hub in Oberstown are the masterminds behind it. 'The trend has really taken off in the last two to five years with TV dramas set in the 1960s and '70's such as 'Mad Men' and people seeing mid-century pieces in films and design magazines,' said Killian. 'Mid-century and vintage furniture gives people the opportunity to express themselves as individuals, these beautiful pieces have stood the test of time and look fantastic in a modern setting,' said Will. The annual Timeless fair at the RDS combines contemporary design history with the best of Irish antiques, giving attendees a unique chance to find that perfect piece. Among the items the Vintage Hub team will be showing is a giant 1.2 metre can opener and the type of 1960's sideboard favoured by movie star Brad Pitt. The oversized can opener is a piece of 1960's wall art by metalwork artist Curtis Jere and Brad Pitt is a big fan of mid-20th century furniture - we have a 1960's Danish rosewood sideboard in a style he particularly likes,' said Killian. The pair's Fingal base is home to Ireland's largest warehouse of vintage, mid-century, and retro furniture. They say the 'Mad Men' cocktail vibe is big news at the moment and among the choice pieces in their Timeless collection is a Danish Rosewood drinks bar from the late 1960s-early 70s and a beautiful, slightly curved sofa, circa 1960, by American designer Paul Cobb. Visitors to Timeless will also be able to view the treasures of Salvador Dali for the first time in Ireland. Gormleys Fine Art are bringing a collection of 14 Dali works, worth over 300,000, to the event, the first time that a display of this size has come to Ireland. 'This will be the first chance for many people to experience so much of Dali's work at close hand,' said Oliver Gormley. The top Irish jewellers will also be in attendance at the Fair which features a carefully selected blend of contemporary and antique-focused exhibitors, allowing all ages to focus on the once-off, yet affordable, design that appeals to them. Admission to Timeless - The Irish Antique Dealers Fair - at the RDS from September 28 to 30 is just 10, and tickets to the fair will be available at the door. For more information on the event, please check the Timeless website at timelessantiquesfair.ie. The Petermarkathon is back and coming to a salon near you! The annual fundraiser by Ireland's largest hairdressing group takes place from October 26 to 28 in salons across the country. This year the Peter Mark team will be raising vital funds for the Irish Cancer Society to help support its Cancer Nurseline a free helpline staffed by trained cancer nurses, to offer a listening ear and practical advice to anyone who has concerns or questions about cancer. Each salon across Dublin is tasked with coming up with its own unique way to raise money, so visitors to their local Peter Mark Dublin salon can expect bake sales, pyjamas parties, fancy dress and lots of other fun events over the weekend! Commenting on the launch, Peter O'Rourke, CEO, Peter Mark said: 'Our annual Petermarkathon is a key event in our calendar and one we as a team very much look forward to. 'Over the years we have raised hundreds of thousands of Euros for charities across Ireland. 'Each year we select a new charity to raise money for and we are delighted to partner this year with The Irish Cancer Society. In particular, we will be raising money to support the wonderful work of the Cancer Nurseline.' Averil Power, CEO of Irish Cancer Society said: 'We are delighted to be the beneficiary of the Petermarkathon which will raise vital funds for our Cancer Nurseline service.' She wished the venture the best of luck. The Catherine Lawlor School of Art Annual Art Exhibition recently took place in Malahide Tennis Club in aid of St Francis Hospice, raising a whopping 2,100 in the process. The exhibition is well established locally and is now in its 16th year. Spokesperson for the school, Paula Murry said: 'Each year the exhibition raises money for a different charity and this year St. Francis Hospice in Raheny is our chosen charity. 'Last year we raised much needed funds for the Jack and Jill Foundation and other charities we supported previously include Temple Street Children's Hospital, Our Lady's Children's Hospital in Crumlin, Marie Keating Foundation, Down Syndrome Dublin, CF Hope Foundation, Irish Osteoporosis Society, Oncology Ward in Beaumont, ChildVision, Casa Malahide and Cardiac Risk in the Young.' Catherine Lawlor was delighted to have many of her long standing students exhibiting again this year and extended a very warm welcome to the many new students who will be exhibiting with the school for the first time. There were 148 paintings on display by a total of 62 artists covering a large variety of subject matter to suit all tastes with different mediums including watercolour, oils, acrylic, pastels, pen and wash and mixed media. Catherine Lawlor School of Art runs classes Monday to Friday, mornings and afternoons to suit all levels from beginner to advanced. Classes take place on the Malahide Road in Balgriffin Hall. On Saturdays, Catherine also runs many workshops, for example palette knife classes where you can complete a painting in one day. There are demo days and studio visits with many local artists and trips around the country as well as abroad to paint. For further information, contact Catherine at 085 7106895. With the Junior Certificate results released last week, The Fingal Independent caught up with a number of Fingal schools who were eager to share news of their success. In Balbriggan's Ardgillan Community College, where 147 students sat the exam, Principal Michael O'Leary was thrilled with the positive results: He said: 'We were absolutely delighted. This year's results are the best we've had to date. It was one of our best groups of Junior Cert. students we've had, and there were very few fails on any subjects. 'As the school principal I'd like to thank the students and the parents for all their hard work. It shows that if you put in the effort, you can achieve excellent results.' The school principal gave a special mention to one particular student, Emily Cathcart, who achieved 11 'A's in the exam and was the school's top scorer. Emilly is no stranger to the pages of the Fingal Independent as a regular participant in the Young Scientist Exhibition so it is no surprise she has finished top of the class in Ardgillan. Equally jubilant, Principal Peter McNamara of Swords Loreto spoke of the achievements of his own Junior Cert. students: He said: ''The results were excellent, and we were delighted with the girls. We had 120 girls who sat the Junior Cert., and we're proud of all their achievements. 'We have a particular group of girls who between the six of them got 47 'A's, one of them getting 10 'A's herself. We're very thankful to the teachers for all of their work over the three years. 'We had an extremely high number of students sitting higher level papers in English, Irish and Maths; the vast majority did higher level papers and got the honours.' 'The English exam has changed this year, so the English Department were delighted that so many girls got distinctions.' The Fingal Independent cameras also captured joyous scenes at St Finian's Community College in Swords and those scenes were repeated in schools all over Fingal as the results envelopes were ripped open to reveal the results of all that hard work in the junior cycle . A man accused of producing a Hurley and accused of assaulting another person causing them harm has been sent forward for trial. Christopher McNicolls (45) appeared before Balbriggan District Court when a book of evidence was served upon him by Sergeant Darren Farrelly. The Director of Public Prosecutions consented to him being returned for trial on indictment. The defendant, of Pinewood Green Court in Balbriggan is charged with assaulting Joseph Power causing him harm on September 28, 2017. He is further charged with the production of a hurley during the course of the incident. Judge Dermot Dempsey gave the accused the formal alibi warning, telling him he has 14 days to provide to the State details of anyone he proposes calling as a witness in his defence. He made an order sending the accused forward to Dublin Circuit Criminal court where he will make his next appearance on October 26. The local branch of Junior Chambers Ireland gathered for their annual award ceremony in Malahide recently where they honoured some of Fingal's more friendly businesses. The JCI Fingal Friendly Business Awards 2018 was hosted in the O'Carolan Suite, Grand Hotel, Malahide recently. Malahide Craft Butchers, Kerrigans Meats beat off stiff competition, taking the Overall Winner's prize on the night. The highly anticipated awards ceremony saw businesses from across the Fingal community compete across seven categories. Other businesses awarded on the night included; Customer Care Award, Body First Nutrition (Swords), Community Impact Award, The Seamus Ennis Arts Centre (Naul), Eco-Friendliness Award, Llewellyn's Orchard (Lusk), Shop Layout & Design Award, Neola Apparel (Malahide), and Disability Access Award, The Brick House (Skerries). The Dublin Rose 2018, Tanya Feighery, presented the Overall Winner Award to Kerrigans Meats. A number of special guests including the Dublin Rose, were amongst those attending the JCI Fingal Friendly Business Awards 2018. Special guests included, the first citizen of Fingal, Mayor Cllr. Anthony Lavin, Wim de Jong, CEO Hope Beer (Overall Winner 2017), Coilin O'Reilly, Fingal County Council, Jenny Waldron, AIB Malahide, Pol O Murchu, AIB Dublin North & David Creegan, Jigsaw. Aisling Brady, President of JCI Fingal said, 'The evening was a huge success for JCI Fingal and the Fingal business community. We are very grateful to our sponsors, Fingal County Council, and AIB, and our partner the Grand Hotel, Malahide. Small to medium businesses deserve recognition for when they go that extra mile and we are delighted to have been able to reward their efforts.' The awards ceremony was proudly sponsored by Fingal County Council, and AIB, in partnership with the Grand Hotel Malahide. Guests enjoyed a canape and prosecco reception on the night, offering a fantastic opportunity to meet and greet other businesses in the Fingal area. A raffle was also held on the night to raise funds for Jigsaw Youth Mental Health Services. JCI Fingal is a local chapter within Junior Chamber International Ireland. JCI is an international youth network that encourages personal and professional development. Through organising the annual JCI Fingal Friendly Business Awards, JCI Fingal seeks to recognise, promote, and reward the vital role small and medium businesses play in the local economy. This awards ceremony is about rewarding businesses that go that extra mile to provide an excellent service to their customers and their community at large. The Overall Winner & Digital Experience winner was Kerrigan's Meats, Malahide The Disability Access award went to The Brick House, Skerries The Customer Care award went to Body First Nutrition in Swords. The Community Impact award went to the Seamus Ennis Arts Centre in Naul. The Eco-Friendly award went to Llewellyn's Orchard in Lusk and finally, the Shop Layout and Design Award went to Neola Apparel from Malahide. The night was a fantastic celebration of businesses who go out of their way to deliver a great customer experience in their businesses and who make an impact on the wider community in a positive way. JCI Fingal deserve huge credit for putting the whole mammoth event together each year and this year's renewal was bigger and better than ever. No doubt the hard-working officers and members of JCI Fingal are already planning ahead to next year's awards and uncovering more extra-friendly businesses from right across the business community right here in Fingal. The newly-established Land Development Agency is to take control of two council-owned sites in Fingal with the aim of delivering at least 800 new homes. Some 200 of those are to be delivered at Hacketstown in Skerries and the rest at Hampton in Balbriggan. These landbanks were already earmarked for development but the method of delivering the homes will change under the control of the Land Development Agency. Fine Gael TD for Dublin Fingal, Alan Farrell welcomed the move, saying: The Land Development Agency will take control of these sites, and develop plans to deliver at least 600 residential homes on the Hacketstown site, with a further 200 to be delivered on the Hampton site. It is important to note, however, that this will be subject to the full public consultation process. 'In both Hacketstown and Hampton, 10% of the houses delivered will be utilised for social housing, while a minimum of 30% must be delivered as affordable homes. It is vital that the number of social and affordable houses on our local communities is increased, and I am pleased to see plans coming forward for significant affordable housing delivery in the North County.' Local councillor, Tom O'Leary welcomed the move as did, Senator James Reilly who said these two sites would be key priorities for the Land Development Agency to 'deliver new homes for the people of Fingal'. He also welcomed the mixed tenure nature of the developments and the fact that developers will mandated to provide 30% affordable housing and 10% social housing on each of the land banks. Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy signed the new agency into law last wee, by Statutory Instrument, with a chief and management team already in place. According to the Government, the agency has an initial pipeline of State land which is capable of delivering 10,000 homes, with 3,000 of those homes on lands which have already been secured. . The LDA is modelled on best systems already operating in Germany and the Netherlands. At the monthly meeting of Fingal County Council, the Chief Executive, Paul Reid, mounted a robust defence of the council's record on housing and homelessness when he informed Councillors that he has written to the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government in response to his letter dated September 5, 2018, in relation to 'Tackling Homelessness in Fingal County Council'. The Chief Executive added that the Minister's request for a submission to be prepared for the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive on Fingal County Council's plans in relation to Emergency Accommodation and Family Hubs would be completed by the deadline set by the Minister. In his letter to the Minister, the Chief Executive addressed the issue of homelessness in Fingal and the Council's focus on minimising the time people spend in emergency accommodation with 259 families having already exited this year. He also highlighted Fingal County Council's performance within the Rebuilding Ireland programme where it exceeded its 2015-2017 target by 62% in delivering 2,241 social housing homes and is currently on schedule to meet its 2018 target of providing 1,637 homes having already delivered 1,099 to the end of August. Mr Reid also highlighted the Council's efforts in stimulating construction within the private sector with Housing completions in Fingal up by over 70% year on year while there are currently 72 active sites which will deliver over 12,000 homes with planning permission for another 55 sites and over 5,000 more homes. He added that Fingal is committed to providing affordable as well as social homes and is progressing with plans to develop land banks in its ownership across the county. The Chief Executive pointed out that Fingal County Council has overseen a drawdown of over 3.7 million in Rebuilding Ireland Home Loans since the scheme started in February and was the first Local Authority to bring a project under the Local Infrastructure Housing Activation Fund (LIHAF) to construction. Fingal's three LIHAF projects in Donabate, Swords and Baldoyle will deliver almost 7,000 mixed tenure homes between them. Mr Reid concluded his letter by stating that the Minister will continue to receive the fullest support from himself and the Council's Housing Department. Fingal County councillors have voted in favour of a motion from the Green Party calling on the highest level of wastewater treatment for the outfall at Portmarnock from the controversial giant regional sewage treatment plant planned for Clonshaugh. A planning application for the project is going through an extended period of public consultation currently and was up for debate in the council chamber before it goes to An Bord Pleanala for a decision, next month. The council's executive outlined its position on the application and while it said it had no objection in principle to the project, it did have a number of concerns about the planning application, and chiefly about the lack of detail in the documentation explaining how the project will achieve some of the claims Irish Water the Greater Dublin Drainage Project make for it. At the end of the council executive's presentation on the project, the debate opened up on the council floor and resulted in two motions. The first came from the Green Party insisting on tertiary treatment for the waters outfalling off Portmarnock and close to Ireland's Eye, from the plant. The second came from Fianna Fail councillors calling on An Bord Pleanala to simply scrap the project and refuse to grant it planning permission. Cllr David Healy (GP) who proposed the first motion, said it was not clear in the application. why this location had been chosen for the outfall or why the project team did not opt for tertiary treatment. He said the outfall should be treated to the highest standard and the outfall should be further out to sea. Cllr Eoghan O'Brien who proposed the second motion, said the project should be scrapped in favour of a network of smaller plants. Cllr Brian McDonagh (Lab) described that idea as 'a fiction' and said it would result in smaller plants with outfalls much closer to the shore. However, the Labour councillor who swims in Portmarnock regularly he said he '100%' backed the Green Party motion to insist on tertiary treatment for the waters. While the Fianna Fail motion to scrap the project was defeated, a strong majority of councillors voted in favour of the Green Party motion to insist on tertiary treatment was passed although council officials warned that the term 'tertiary treatment' could mean a number of things and they weren't sure what effect the motion would have. If Richard Curtis transplanted one of his frothy romantic comedies full of beautiful, privileged people falling in love across the class divide to the Far East, the result would be strikingly similar to Crazy Rich Asians. Based on the novel by Kevin Kwan, Jon M Chu's crowd-pleasing confection relies on well-worn genre tropes and lovingly gift-wraps every luxurious frame in the splendour of modern-day Singapore. Chu's film invests almost two hours showcasing the south-east Asian state's breath-taking beaches, spectacular high-rise hotels, designer boutiques and mouth-watering street food. If the island wasn't already high on your list of dream holiday destinations, it will be before the end credits roll. Scriptwriters Peter Chiarelli and Adele Lim don't stray from tried and tested rom-com conventions and they arm the good-looking all-Asian cast with some crisp one-liners including some standout barbs from Awkwafina, who was last seen stealing scenes and jewels in Ocean's eight. The upbeat soundtrack seamlessly melds east and west with Chinese Mandarin cover versions of familiar hits including Money (That's What I Want), Madonna's Material Girl and Coldplay's anthem Yellow. New York University lecturer Rachel Chu (Constance Wu) has been raised in America by her single mother Kerry (Tan Kheng Hua), who worries about her daughter's sense of cultural identity. 'I'm so Chinese, I'm an economics professor who's lactose intolerant,' jokingly retorts Rachel. The tug of war between east and west intensifies when Rachel's boyfriend Nick (Henry Golding) invites her to accompany him to Singapore to attend the wedding of good friends Colin (Chris Pang) and Araminta (Sonoya Mizuno). Rachel is blissfully unaware that Nick is the golden boy of Singapore's wealthiest dynasty headed by ferocious matriarch Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh), who expects her boy to take up the reins of the family business and marry into money. Eleanor is deeply unimpressed with lowly academic Rachel as Nick's choice of partner and the mother makes clear her intent to remind her son of his responsibilities. 'When children are away from home too long they forget who they are,' she observes coldly. Meanwhile, Rachel supports Nick's cousin Astrid (Gemma Chan) as her marriage fractures and the new arrival prepares for the wedding with a makeover courtesy of her fashion-conscious friend Goh Peik Lin (Awkwafina) and Nick's flamboyant second cousin Oliver (Nico Santos), who playfully describes himself as 'the rainbow sheep of the family'. Crazy Rich Asians is a sweet and heartfelt frolic through the battlefields of love, which delivers a full complement of uproarious laughter and tugged heartstrings. Wu and Golding, making his feature film debut, are a delightful on-screen pairing while Yeoh keeps her fiercely protective mother the right side of caricature. A prologue set in a rain-drenched 1995 London is hard to swallow but the rest of director Chu's silky-smooth cocktail goes down a treat. A family act from Killorglin are lighting up St John's with their country sound on Friday next, September 28, in a must for country fans across North Kerry and beyond. The Murphy family are considered one of the country's top acts in the genre, songwriters of great renown responsible for such hits on the country charts as Streets of Promise, My Connemara Marble Ring and The Empty Room, all of which reached number one on the official UK Radio Airplay Charts for Irish Country. Back with their band in their home county, they can't wait to entertain their North Kerry and West Limerick fans in Listowel. Doors open at 7.40pm. As is the always the case in St John's, there is something for everyone, with a night of great classical music on Wednesday, September 26, in concert 'Classical Favourites'. Austrian flautist Karin Leitner and Irish harpist Teresa O'Donnell join musical forces for a night of unmitigated classical joy for fans. The concert is sponsored by the Austrian Embassy in Dublin. Doors open at 7.40pm. And American Country and bluegrass fans are in for a rare treat on Tuesday, September 25, with the arrival of Tennessee band Midnight Run, featuring four of the finest musicians of the sound on guitar, fiddle, banjo, bass and mandolin. Doors open at 7.40pm. A group of innovative young students at the Gaelcholaiste Chiarrai in Moyderwell were awarded a major prize this week recognising the brilliant work they undertook recently in aid of mental health promotion among their age group. Saoirse Ni Mhaoldomhnaigh, Cheyenne Tanner, Eoin Mac Uileagoid and Molly Ni Bhrosnachain were named as Cycle Against Suicide Ambassadors in a wonderful achievement this week, recognising 'the work the students did last year in the school to promote positive wellbeing'. The Ambassador School Programme is school-led, and involves the completion of "Five Gears" over the course of a year, all of which are aimed at raising awareness of the message that "It's OK not to feel OK; and it's absolutely OK to ask for help". Through their work, more and more young people are coming to learn this vital lesson. A brave Tralee woman will take one small step into the 10,000 ft unknown next month as she takes part in a charity skydive. Mary Kate Heasman is just 21 years old but is proving that age is no barrier to generosity as she bids to raise money for her charity, the Youth Suicide Prevention Of Ireland (YSPI). "All their work is funded through donations. All the money will be put towards staff training on how to tell the signs and how to deal with them, more school programmes on the issue, crisis information services, administration costs and counselling support," said Mary Kate, speaking to The Kerryman. "I feel like I need to do this as they are so important and are there to try their best to save as many lives as they can, as one life lost is one life too many". While this is her first jump, Mary Kate hopes to make it an annual event if her debut on October 20 goes well. Donate by texting YSPI SAS3006 50300 to donate 4 Castleisland-based AHAR has opposed the appointment of two external members to the five-person board of the animal charity which had been proposed by the Charities Regulator of Ireland's (CRI). AHAR Manager Suzanne Gibbons had until the close of business on Thursday (September 13) to formalise and accept the CRI's recommended appointment of David Hall - current CEO of the Irish Mortgage Holders Organisation - and Dr Andrew Kelly of the ISPCA. However, AHAR did not comply with the deadline. "We want to meet with the CRI to look at ways to move forward," Ms Gibbons told The Kerryman. "We do not want anyone to take over AHAR. The main thing is that we want AHAR to be allowed to grow into the rescue centre that it should be, and not to have a gun to our heads. We have built this place from the mud to an empire in just five years," Suzanne said. When contacted for a response, the Charities Regulator said it did not wish to comment on queries raised against any individual charity as it could prejudice any potential future statutory investigation or court proceedings. In January 2017 the Charities Regulator requested that AHAR maintain its accounts in a more efficient manner and in April 2017 the CRI ruled that AHAR had complied with the recommendations outlined under the Charities Act 2009. Ms Gibbons says that AHAR is by far one of the most investigated animal charities in Ireland, suggesting that if there were any irregularities regarding cruelty and accounts, as suggested in a TV documentary last year, it would be closed by now. She stressed that AHAR had fallen behind in its book keeping due to a combination of personal illness and being unable to source volunteers who, she claims, are afraid to work at the centre because of online abuse. "We don't want a takeover, we want to work with the CRI to make AHAR the best rescue there is," she added. MEP Sean Kelly is calling for more funding for Irish ports to reduce our dependence on the UK 'landbridge' post Brexit. Kelly called for the EU to deliver additional funding for the nation's ports as it sets the EU Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), the Union's budget for the periuod 2021-2027. He said that identifying additional funding for Irish ports should be a 'key priority' as preparations for the UK's leavetaking continue. Kelly, who is Ireland's representative on the European Parliament's Industry Committee, proposed a number of amendments to the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) on Friday that would bolster his goal. CEF is the 42.3 billion fund for the energy, transport and digital networks of the EU. "I welcome the Commission's proposal for the new Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), however, I believe that in the context of the UK's imminent withdrawal, there is a need to shift the focus more towards ensuring that the essential infrastructure is in funded so that we are in a position to deal with the likely impacts," Sean Kelly said on Friday. "For this reason, I am seeking to expand the scope of the eligibility criteria for CEF to specifically allow for actions necessary to build or upgrade infrastructure to handle the consequences of the withdrawal of the UK from the EU to qualify for grant funding. "I think this is a crucial addition, and it will ensure that our ports are position to avail of EU funds for the upgrades they need to handle increased trade by sea. Brexit means that Ireland needs to diversify its trade routes to the other EU Member states; we cannot rely solely on the UK land bridge. My proposed amendments to the CEF would ensure that ports such as Shannon Foynes, Cork, Waterford, Rosslare and Dublin would be prioritised. "Additionally, I am calling for the 'Motorways of the Sea' to be considered a key priority under the CEF. The Commission's Motorways of the Sea aims to improve maritime logistics chains in Europe." Miriam O'Callaghan will be amongst the many speakers at the upcoming Castleisland Chamber Alliance's forum on the economy this weekend. The forum, which will be held in the Riverisland Hotel from 2:30pm to 5:30pm on Saturday, September 22 will aim to discuss all upcoming economic opportunities for Castleisland and the surrounding areas. A number of high profile guests and speakers will be present on the day, with a number of guests having strong connections to the Castleisland area and who aim to outline their vision for Castleisland on the day. The only 'non native' on the panel is Con Lynch who chose Castleisland as the location for his successful international business. The event will consist of a brief presentation from each guest followed by a panel discussion and question and answer session which Miriam will moderate. Some of those who will be taking part in the forum include David Walsh, Group CEO of Netwatch, Liz Shanahan a member of the Global Irish Economic Forum and current London Kerry Person of the Year and Stephen Reidy, the current C.I.O of 'Three Ireland. There will also be an event held that morning which will focus on three young entrepreneurs, all alumni of the local secondary schools, who will make presentations of their businesses. These three entrepreneurs will be Shane McAuliffe, Shane O'Leary and Ciara Murphy. Tickets for this forum are available from Eventbrite at www.eventbrite.ie/e/castleisland-economic-forum-tickets. A garda search for the remains of a man thought to have been executed by the IRA during the war of independence has yielded no results. Early on Tuesday morning, members of the Garda Technical Bureau's Crime Scene Investigation unit, assisted by local Gardai, mounted a search operation in a small field at Boolteens near Castlemaine. The excavation was aimed at locating the remains of a north Kerry man - suspected of being a British informer - who was killed by a local IRA unit during the War of Independence. According to local folklore, the dead man - who is believed to have been a wandering salesman, named Brennan, from north Kerry - was shot near Boolteens cross and later buried in a shallow grave in a field a short distance up the road. Gardai said that they recently received "detailed information" on the location of the man's remains. It is understood the tip came from a close acquaintance of one of the long-deceased IRA men that was involved in the killing. Inspector Donal Ashe from Tralee Garda Station said that the information provided about the events and the location of the shallow grave was "very detailed". The excavation and search operation - involving several gardai and using a large digger - lasted for several hours, but no remains were discovered and the search has now been called off. A Garda spokesperson said that the excavation was carried out in order to provide a humane burial to any remains that may have been found, and not for any investigative purposes. There is no Garda enquiry into the century-old cold case. Tuesday's search has piqued the interest of historians, as Mr Brennan has never featured in a list of civilians and suspected informers killed by the IRA in Kerry during the 1919 to 1921 independence struggle. Nine identified civilians and informers are known to have been killed by the IRA in Kerry during the war. If Mr Brennan - who it is thought earned his living selling miraculous medals and other religious items - was killed by the IRA, it would add a tenth name to that list. Renowned historian Ryle Dwyer - an expert on the period - said he had never seen mention of Mr Brennan, or his death, in any files or witness testimonies from the time. Customs and Revenue officers have made over 130 unannounced visits to Kerry Airport so far this year according to new figures released by the Government. On foot of a Dail question from Social Democrat TD Catherine Murphy, Finance Minister Paschal Donohue issued a breakdown of customs and excise visits to all Irish regional airports and aerodromes. The figures show that between January 1 and August 31 this year, customs officials made 136 unannounced visits to the airport in Farranfore. Revenue said that the decision to visit a given airport or airfield is typically based on a risk assessment based on range of factors including intelligence on potential smuggling operations. According to Revenue such visits are usually unannounced. Officers from An Garda Siochana did not accompany Revenue officers on any of the visits to Kerry Airport. In the same period there were 275 customs visits to Knock Regional Airport. The other three airports with 'regional' status had far fewer visits. There were 17 in Sligo; 10 in Waterford and nine in Donegal. The reason for the visits to Waterford and Sligo are unclear. Waterford airport has had no scheduled flights since the collapse of Belgium's VLM Airlines in mid 2016, while there have been no scheduled flights to or from Sligo since 2011. There were also 87 visits to Weston Aerodrome. A Castlegregory man who is currently being detained in Greece, accused of helping illegal immigrants into Greece, espionage and money laundering, has been moved to jail on the island of Chios this week having lost an appeal against his detention last week. Speaking to The Kerryman, on Monday from Greece, Seans mother Fanny, said that he is holding up well despite the ordeal he is facing. "You get happy with the small things. Today I got to hug him," she said. "He is happy after weeks in a cell that he will now be able to get out more," she said. Fanny spoke with him three hours after his move to Chios on Monday but visits to her son will now be restricted to just three times a week. She had been able to see him daily while he was detained in a cell in Lesvo at a police station. Up until his arrest on August 21 and his detention on August 24, Sean had been volunteering with Emergency Response Centre International (ERCI). He and other volunteers were arrested. The charity has strongly denied the accusations. Sean, who was born in Germany, moved to Castlegregory when he was five years old and attended Gaelcholaiste Chiarrai and later Trinity College where he studied Political Science, Economics, Philosophy and Sociology. He then completed an MA in International Relations with a focus on conflict management and had decided to volunteer with a refugee organisation in Greece to get practical experience before getting a job. He was due home in October to Cork where his mother now lives. Sean's family and friends maintain his innocence. "Everybody that knows Sean is angry and shocked that they would accuse him of this. He lives for helping others," said Fanny. "He would never jeopardise what he studied for." Last week his first appeal of his detention was refused but his legal team is now preparing for a second appeal, which will hopefully take place in the next four weeks. "We want bail for him in the interim to the trial. Our main concern is that this appeal won't get through and he will be detained for 18 months without charge," said Fanny. "What we are pushing for is a quick trial as soon as possible so that this can be over. Justice will prevail." Fanny says that the family have been "living in a nightmare" since they got the call almost a month ago. She travelled to Greece immediately to be close to her son. "I couldn't stay so far away I had to come. It is good that somebody is here to look after hin and give him a voice outside." "It is so hard to have a child in prison but when he has done nothing wrong it is so difficult." Sean has a German passport but spent much of his life in Ireland and his family and friends are now calling on MEPs in both countries to help them. Sean's family in Castlegregory including his aunt, Maja who runs a business in Tralee, are all supporting Sean and many have already written to TDs and MEPs in support of Sean. "Sean is humbled by the belief in his innocence," said Fanny. "We have got great support from the people of Kerry. Everyone is behind him." The family is calling on everyone to write to their local MEP and support Sean's campaign on www.freehumanitarians.com. Michael Healy Rae blasted the latest objections to the proposed Shannon LNG plant this week, claiming they would hurt the entire county if upheld in the High Court shortly. Friends of the Irish Environment (FIE), successfully applied to the High Court on September 6 for leave to seek a judicial review of An Bord Pleanala's decision to extend planning permission for the proposed terminal. It will be heard on October 4 and comes just after Shannon LNG partnered with an energy giant in hopes of finally building the plant. It could see up to 500 employed over the four years it is estimated construction will take. If FIE secure a judicial review it could involve the plant in a legal battle lasting months, however. This is leading to fresh fears for the whole project. In a swipe at 'objectors' this week, Michael Healy Rae asked: "When people object do they really think of the consequences of their objections?" He asked whether they cared 'that they could be hurting our county in an extremely negative way?' The Kerryman was unable to contact FIE. A statement published on the organisation's website in the past week said it could not comment on the LNG application 'as the matter has yet to be heard'. Deputy Healy Rae's comments come amid apparent growing unease in County Clare about the potential siting of an LNG plant on the estuary, however. A number of leading environmentalists recently addressed an LNG 'awareness' event in Kilkee organised by group Futureproof Clare, also opposed to the plant. Natural gas was pushed to the hilt as the answer to climate change by the Obama administration as it releases half the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) when burned as is released by coal when burned. Futureproof Clare has cited research, published by a Harvard team two years ago, which concluded that methane was being released by 'leakage' into the atmosphere in massive amounts, however. It's believed the explosion in fracking in the US is behind the soaring levels of methane. Environmentalists believe the research should cast the Kerry plan in a new light as gas to be processed at the plant might be sourced in part in the US, where fracking accounts for much of production. Supporters say the project has already been tested to the full extent of Irish planning law, passing every criteria, however. Since planning was obtained, Ireland has banned fracking. Protest group Safety Before LNG this week said it believes the whole plan would be illegal if it uses fracked gas: "The Prohibition of Onshore Hydraulic Fracturing Act 2017 not only banned onshore fracking in Ireland but it also made it illegal for any person to 'take', or 'carry away' any fracked gas situated in the State and its internal waters...Once LNG tankers are in the estuary they are in internal waters. If any of these ships contain fracked gas then it will be illegal to transport it into the Irish network." A detailed search of a suspected drug-running boat stopped off the Skelligs has failed to uncover any narcotics. The yacht - which was en route from the Azores to Dingle and had been tracked as it crossed the Atlantic - was stopped and boarded by the Irish Naval Service near the Skelligs last Thursday morning. The 'Sun Magic' yacht was escorted to Kinsale Harbour, where customs agents began a detailed search of the vessel. The search involved divers who checked the underside of the yacht for concealed drugs. The boat was later lifted from the water, and customs agents cut into the hull in a bid to find hidden contraband. The extensive search failed to find any trace of drugs on the vessel. On Friday evening three men - all aged in their 30s - who were found on board the yacht and arrested on suspicion of drug smuggling were released without charge. Two of the men are from Louth while the third is a Czech national. Gardai said the operation had involved the Naval Service, Air Corps, Customs and a number of specialist garda units. The yacht had been under surveillance by international intelligence agencies who had alerted Irish authorities. Gardai said the search is linked to ongoing investigations into drug smuggling in the Munster region. International agencies and gardai are working to establish if the yacht met any other boats before it was detained. Storm Ali swept across Kerry on Wednesday morning leaving a trail of damage and disruption in its wake. Kerry, Cork, Limerick and Galway were the counties worst hit with gusts of up to 106 kilometres an hour recorded at Valentia weather station. Across Tralee the high winds brought down numerous trees leading to major traffic disruptions all over town during the morning rush hour. Trees were uprooted or blown down in many areas including Cahermoneen, where several houses narrowly escaped serious damage; Caherslee; Oakpark; Ashe Street; and on the main Tralee to Ardfert Road. The public were also advised to steer clear of Tralee Town Park where there was a risk of falling-branch debris during and after the storm. Kerry County Council crews were out in force to clear the fallen trees which had completely blocked roads in several areas. Tralee wasn't the only area affected with fallen trees blocking roads all over the county. The high winds also led to power cuts in numerous locations with hundreds of homes and businesses left without power for several hours on Wednesday. Outages - mainly caused by fallen trees hitting power lines - were reported at Oakpark in Tralee as well as Camp, Inch, Kilflynn and near Kilgarvan. Like their council couterparts ESB workers were out in large numbers to repair the faults and by mid-afternoon power had been restored in most of the affected areas. There was also an element of travel disruption with both the inbound and outbound early morning flights on the Kerry Dublin route cancelled due to the stormy conditions. While there was significant disruption no injuries were reported and the scale of the damage was relatively minor compared with prior storms. Minister of State at the Department of Housing Damien English answered a series of 31 questions from councillors about housing issues in the county at the monthly meeting of the body. The Minister attended the County Council meeting following a stop-off in Enniscorthy, where he had cut the ribbon on a new 1.6m social housing development. Cllr Malcolm Byrne said the demand for affordable housing schemes in County Wexford is enormous. He said there are people ending up on council housing lists who shouldn't be there, adding that Gorey residents are paying very high rents. Mr English said local authorities, including Wexford County Council, have to do some research into the availability of housing schemes. Cllr Byrne asked why it takes two years during a four-stage process for a local authority from original plans to reach construction, suggesting that local authorities could get involved. He sought a commitment from Mr English that his department would support any building initiatives put forward by the body, adding: 'In north Wexford we have seen some disastrous large scale developments.' Cllr John Fleming said measures need to be put in place to encourage builders to get back building. Cllr Barbara-Anne Murphy said at a time of economic growth the government should be building houses. Cllr Lisa McDonald said houses should be built far quicker. She said Wexford County Council's building programme is delayed by all the processes involved. '59 weeks is too long. How come Dublin can come along with a tender worth 950m to build rapid build pod houses?' Cllr McDonald said it doesn't make sense for the department to keep redesigning new schemes, project by project, when excellent housing estates have been built. 'We need to cut the red tape to deliver the houses quicker to the people. The private sector doesn't have the same moral obligation. The process is the problem, not the time frame. If the houses are good enough for Slippery Green or Enniscorthy they are good enough for other areas.' Cllr McDonald called for an increase in Housing Assistance Payments allowances saying they are nowhere close to meeting the average rents in the county. 'HAP is a very long-standing temporary solution and it's not working in Wexford town or in Gorey. In Wexford renting a three-bed houses costs 1,000 on average. That's not workable on a limit of 565 and I know it's worse in Gorey. A lot of people wouldn't have the personal skills to deal with this. We need an increase in HAP limits in this county.' Mr English said 38,000 people are using the HAP scheme nationally. 'For the majority of them it's a good solution. It gets them into a house until they get a permanent home. I accept there are pressure zones and we do track this all the time.' He said 20 per cent can be added on to HAP payment limits, adding that most of the time the payment add on is 16 per cent. 'I have seen the statistics in Gorey where it's an issue.' Mr English said the reason it takes 59 weeks to get houses built is due to the processes of designing the houses and estates, acquiring land and the Part VIII planning process. 'If it can be done in 30 weeks we are all for that,' he said. Cllr McDonald said: 'You are talking about people who are engaging in HAP. I am talking about people who are not reaching the limit and who are in dire straights.' Cllr Johnny Mythen called for the system to be changed whereby councillors can be notified about tenants who are moved into estates. He said tenants with a history of drug or anti-social behaviour issues are often moved into old, established estates. 'They could be putting in a gurrier who will wreck the place overnight.' Mr English said Data Protection is an issue, adding: 'But we need to find a solution to this.' Cllr Mythen sought a tick box on application forms for social housing granting permission to elected members to access information including the names of the persons and addressees of the housing units that are allocated to the successful applicants. Cllr McDonald said: 'The HAP scheme needs to be a lot more robust. You should be treated the same way.' Cllr Michael Sheehan said tenants are being made homeless because their landlords are deciding to renovate their houses or pass them on to their children, with a view towards selling them on or going back into the market at a higher rate. Cllr Sheehan said 1.25 billion is being allocated to a new housing agency. 'We are looking for every opportunity for the council to advise the department of social housing. It's the last bastion that councillors can have a significant contribution in.' He said first time buyers grants should never have been abolished as it allowed social housing tenants to get onto the housing ladder. HAP is the last bastion. Cllr Davy Hynes said Ozanam House has always been there for men who are going through family break ups. Cllr Tony Walsh the HAP scheme forces people on low incomes to compete in the private rental market with people on high incomes, calling it a disaster. Mr English disagreed, saying: 'I meet people every week who are on HAP who are very happy. It's wrong to say that it's not working and it's unfair on the housing team who are working at the front-line day in, day out. It's not all rosy for landlords either.' Cllr Walsh acknowledged that council housing staff are working 'tirelessly'. 'I know they do work tirelessly and I think it's a thankless job. Outside of all the efforts they make it's a well publicised disaster out there, which is no reflection on the staff. They are playing catch up. HAP is unfair in many senses.' Mr English said tenants are getting a raw deal in County Wexford from private landlords, 'with or without HAP'. Cllr Tom Forde called on the minister to ensure that at least 20 per cent of houses in estates are social and affordable housing on all new developments. 'The current provision is only 10 per cent, however developers can opt out of this. Will the minister remove opt outs to truly enable more social and affordable hosing on all new developments?' He asked what the minister is doing to ensure that survivors of domestic abuse are being protected by law and supported to secure a home and place to rebuild their lives. Cllr Forde also called on the government to build more student accommodation. Mr English said an additional 7,000 student apartments are being built. 'In the last year we had 5,000 new builds and 5,000 are being constructed today and another 7,000 have gotten planning. It won't be enough to solve the problems but it will help.' He said any developer building a new estate has to provide 10 per cent social and affordable housing to local authorities, adding that there were changes to law in 2017 which provide clear guidelines in relation to a blanket support for domestic abuse victims when it come to allocating housing. Cllr Mythen asked several questions about NAMA. He called for the government under the Rebuilding Ireland Programme to stop excluding family income supplement payments as they are putting people over the limit by as little as 2,000. He also called for the deposit to be reduced to 3 per cent. Mr English said: 'The Central Bank are approving plans. I can accept these protections can be difficult to manage. We need to stick to what the Central Bank plan is.' The Help to Buy scheme is helping people, Mr English said. 'We don't want people on low paid jobs to have high mortgages for 30 years like in the past. I do understand that it is regarded as extra wage. Mr English said the Repair & Lease Back Scheme whereby property owners are given a 40,000 grant to improve their accommodation to be leased to the public within five years has had a very low take up, adding that the councils have a role in promoting this. He said not every property in NAMA is suitable for social housing. Paddy Harmon, postmaster, at the door of Glynn PO, one of the Co Wexford post offices closing its doors Head of An Post Retail Debbie Byrne is being invited to Wexford County Hall to explain to councillors the reason behind the company's move to close 11 post offices in rural Wexford. In a motion Cllr Michael Whelan called for An Post to change its policy of closing post offices following the take up of redundancy by postmasters and postmistresses. He said their closure threatens the survival of the commercial and community life of the villages affected. 'I don't see anything in place from stopping An Post from reversing its decision to close post offices in the county.' Cllr John Fleming said from New Ross to Bunclody there will be no post offices open. Cllr Michael Sheehan suggested inviting Ms Byrne to the meeting, saying it is the retail department that is behind shutting down the post offices. Cllr Tony Dempsey said the heart of rural Wexford has been 'torn asunder' by the decision to offer redundancy to postmasters and postmistresses. 'This at a time when the British Government is investing 800m to support rural post offices in the UK.' Cllr Fionntain O Suilleabhain said the services offered by small rural post offices needed to be expanded. 'This should be a red line issue in budget negotiations,' he added. Cllr John Hegarty said the reason post offices are closing down across the county is because the people running them decided to take up a redundancy offer. He said rural post offices and shops only survive if people within the immediate locality support them. 'It's very difficult for rural shops to compete with Lidl, Aldi and Tesco where people want to go. We don't want to look silly either when people are taking redundancies.' Cllr Malcolm Byrne seconded the motion which was unanimously supported. 'I thought I'd woken up in a Spike Milligan novel.' This was Cllr Oisin O'Connell's initial reaction when he discovered that Foulksmills village - close to where he lives - is now partially in the new Kilmore electoral area and partly in New Ross. The more he looked into the changes wrought by the commission earlier this year, the less they made sense, he told Wednesday's monthly meeting of New Ross Municipal District council. Cllr O'Connell said when he first saw the new electoral map he assumed Clongeen had been split from Foulksmills. It wasn't until he received an official report from the department that he discovered the anomaly. 'The Department and the minister will say that no-one is responsible for anything. I didn't imagine they could be more stupid but the supplementary map with the orange line proves they could,' Cllr O'Connell said. Using an orange spray paint canister Cllr O'Connell has highlighted how the village is literally divided, to the extent that residents standing on one side of the road are in one electoral area and by walking a few steps are suddenly in another electoral area. Cllr O'Connell said: 'The iconic oak tree will be in Kilmore and the Oak Tree Tavern opposite will be in New Ross. When I first looked at it I had this strange notion that this felt familiar and then I remembered the comedian Spike Milligan's satirical novel Puckoon. I literally felt like I'd woken up in a Spike Milligan novel. It was meant to be a satirical novel not a how to guide for the Boundary Commission. This is absurd, this is embarrassing. I have barely talked to anyone in the village about this as it's an embarrassment.' He asked how Foulksmills village and its residents can be represented politically when the area is located between two entirely separate electoral districts thanks to the Boundary Commission's decision. 'When one side of the bridge is in one area and the other is in another how do you apply for an Arts and Amenity grant? Coming into the village from one direction the electoral areas change three times and they change four times coming into it from the other side. They are using this and slavishly following the line as a border. There is no rational reason for that. This has been done in a way that everyone can avoid responsibility for this. How can you get a group of well educated people sitting around a table and actually say they are satisfied with this. How does this fulfil local democracy? 'With the amount of swapping around of the chess board over the last decade when exactly does this stop? Every five years the commissars in Dublin will put in a new district like a colonial landscape curiosity. This is not funny.' Criticizing the patent lack of overall vision being applied by the Boundary Commission, Cathaoirleach Cllr John Fleming said: 'It's unbelievable. Common sense doesn't apply here. This impacts everyone.' Cllr Martin Murphy said he fully supported Cllr O'Connell. 'It's absolutely ridiculous. I don't know what the processes could be to end up like this. We should have been afforded an opportunity to object,' Cllr Murphy said. Cllr Willie Fitzharris had a theory, saying as he understands it the commissars are following old parish lines. 'But it's a bit crazy. I on longer represent the people who are living 100 yards away from the border in the village. Oisin and I have been savaged by the commission and we want some extra support from other areas,' he said. Cllr Larry O'Brien said when it comes to allocating roads budgets Foulksmills will be negatively affected. Cllr O'Connell put forward a motion calling for the Boundary Commission map not to be slavishly followed in the event that it would split a village, which was unanimously supported. Ireland's longest bridge will finally be named in a fortnight's time after councillors in Piltown and New Ross voted by a small majority last week in favour of the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy name at separate council meetings. Both New Ross and Piltown Municipal District Councils met last week where the long-running saga of what to call the new bridge took up considerable time at both meetings. In New Ross, Cllr Michael Sheehan went against his colleagues and opted for the William Marshal Bridge, with the seven other councillors voting for the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Bridge. Over in Piltown, five out of the six sitting councillors voted for the Pink Rock Bridge. However, the fact that a single councillor in Piltown voted in favour of Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy means that, as it stands, the vote is at 8-6 in favour of naming the 887m bridge after John F Kennedy's mother. New Ross and Piltown councillors will meet together on October 3 at the Rhu Gleen Hotel in Slieverue, where the name will be voted on for a final time. If all 14 councillors from New Ross and Piltown vote as per last week, the iconic bridge will officially be named the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Bridge, ending a two-year saga over what to call the impressive structure. District director Eamonn Hore said there were many names put forward to both the Piltown and the New Ross councils. 'Piltown suggested the Pink Rock name,' he said. In a public submissions process in May there were 142 valid submissions from County Wexford residents and 47 different names were suggested. 71 valid submissions were received in Kilkenny, with 30 names proposed. 27 people made submissions for the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy name to New Ross Municipal District, followed by 17 for the Pink Rock Bridge and 16 for the William Marshal Bridge. One person suggested the Michael D Higgins Bridge. Mr Hore said: 'The bypass will have a defining impact on the town of New Ross. It will be a catalyst for improved quality of life and future prosperity for the town and the region.' He said we are ten months out from the opening of the bypass, which, he said, will fundamentally change New Ross town. 'Whilst the entire N25 New Ross bypass represents an amazing technical and construction undertaking, there can be little doubt that the magnificent bridge over the River Barrow is the outstanding technical achievement in all of Ireland in recent times and a technical achievement of international standing.' Cllr Willie Fitzharris said: 'The public supported the decision made in this chamber without any shadow of a doubt and I would be very supportive of the name, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. The public have had their say and I think they should be listened to.' Mr Hore said: 'I have every confidence that the elected members will come to an agreement at that meeting.' Cllr Michael Whelan agreed that the public are behind the Kennedy name. 'We have to go out of here united to the joint meeting with Piltown. Are they going to stand behind our decision?' 'It might come down to persuasion,' Mr Hore said. Cllr Larry O'Brien said: 'This got out of hand. The bridge is going from County Wexford into County Kilkenny. The people of Dunganstown should have been asked to name the bridge as it's in their parish. It's not a New Ross bridge; it's a Dunganstown bridge.' He said the people of Dunganstown want the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy name and asked if there is a casting vote in the process. 'We just have to be ready for all eventualities,' he said, highlighting the need for a full compliment of members to be behind the name. Mr Hore said: 'This was a really well publicised bridge naming. We even had submission forms at the Killag Show. The names and figures that came forward are very interesting.' Cllr Oisin O'Connell said he was very satisfied with the process. 'It has been very well thought out and open. I can accept that some of my personal favourites didn't get through. The name people preferred has heritage and would spark people's imagination. The roots of the Kennedy and Fitzgerald names go into both localities and the economic factor is a big one, along with the personal connections. I am very happy with Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy as it works on many levels, including social inclusion.' He said the name is steeped in Norman and Gaelic history, adding that Rose Kennedy name is known throughout the world, adding that from a tourism and an economic viewpoint it also works. Mr Hore said: 'There was careful consideration given to the names. I think they can all be developed in the future. Look at the Kennedy and Fitzgerald Norman connections. Maybe people aren't aware of what we're doing with them. On the Norman end, the town of New Ross is being branded on the bypass as a Norman Heritage town. We have the Norman Way and we have three priceless Norman monuments in Tintern Abbey, Hook Lighthouse and St Mary's Church. They all have Kilkenny connections as well.' Cllr Sheehan questioned why the matter was listed 'so low on the agenda' He said the new bridge is an important piece of infrastructure, calling for the matter to be deferred to allow members more time to decide what name to bring forward to the joint meeting. 'To be given the report today and to be asked to make a decision irrespective of what the meeting in progress is. I have no difficulty with the submissions but this lands on the table as a fait accompli' Mr Hore said: 'I have no issue if you want to take it away and come back for a special meeting.' Cathaoirleach Cllr John Fleming said: 'We all know the name of the bridge and we are aware for years. It's on the agenda where it should be. It's there in black and white. It's not an issue for anyone else here but for the same person as usual.' Cllr O'Brien said the name was arrived at through a fair process. 'Are we going to say we shouldn't have asked the people. They have spoken.' Cllr Fleming agreed, saying: 'Look at the crowds that came to the town for the Kennedy Summer School.' Cllr Anthony Connick said: 'We all knew it was coming up. With the publicity it got I found it absolutely astonishing that only 142 people made a submission on such a big issue. I supported the name from the first day. It was a history lesson. The director gave a mind blowing presentation. Kilkenny didn't carry on like this. They put through their recommendation.' Cllr Sheehan proposed the William Marshal Bridge name but had no seconder. The Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy name was approved by a 7-1 majority, having been proposed by Cllr O'Brien on the basis that it was the public's choice. In opposing the proposal, Cllr Sheehan said: 'That is democracy. People are allowed to talk in a democracy without being smeared.' Cllr Fitzharris asked if all councillors would support the Kennedy name at the joint meeting. Mr Hore said: 'Cllr Sheehan is entitled to his opinion and I have no problem with that.' Speaking after the meeting Mr Hore said a survey carried out recently found that 80 per cent of people think New Ross should use the Kennedy brand name. 'There would be no John F Kennedy Arboretum, Homestead or Dunbrody centre without the Kennedy name. It's a no brainer. I thought it was genius when Gene Kennedy Smith came up with the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy name as it works on so many levels for New Ross.' Cllr Sheehan said he favours the William Marshal name, believing the town's authorities are overusing the name of Kennedy. The third Wicklow Film Festival takes place this weekend with a series of screenings and discussions at the Mermaid Arts Centre in Bray. This year's festival, which takes place from Friday, September 21, to Sunday, September 23, is a collaboration between the Mermaid and Bray-based filmmaking collective, No WiFi (North Wicklow Films). Founding members of No WiFi, David Butler and Gerry Cannon, lead the selection of films under the theme of 'Ireland, Past and Present'. 'Like no other medium, the feature film has the power to take us right into the heart of an issue and to experience the full panoply of emotions involved, all within the space of an hour-and-a-half!,' said Mr Butler. 'A film fails if it is simply a vehicle for a message. All the films curated here win us by their power to engage, to entertain and to provoke thought, and I'd heartily recommend them to anyone with an interest in our changing society.' The festival is a part of Mermaid's mission to promote the arts for all. According to the Mermaid's Artistic Director Niamh O'Donnell, the glamour of the film industry can be distracting and allow people to forget the 'intense power' of film. 'Film holds the possibility not just to transport us to other worlds but also to have an intensely transformative effect. Almost all of us have seen a film that fundamentally changed and altered our outlook and opinions. Films tell us a story, but it can be those stories that shed light on issues, narrate history, expose injustices and initiate social change,' she said. The festival kicks off on Friday with two screenings of The Breadwinner, at 11 a.m. for schools and 5 p.m. as part of Culture Night. The movie, based on Deborah Ellis' award-winning novel, tells the extraordinary story of an eleven-year-old Afghan girl who finds strength in the love of her family and the power of storytelling. At 7.30 p.m., there will be a screening of Michael Inside, followed by a post-film discussion with its director, Frank Berry. The film tells the tale of luckless 18-year-old Michael, who is misfortunate to be sent to prison. Vulnerable and alone, he is taken under the wing of a score-settling older prisoner (a quietly unhinged performance by Moe Dunford). The Mermaid will host three screenings on Saturday, beginning with Citizen Lane at 2 p.m. A multifaceted portrait of the art collector and gallery founder Sir Hugh Lane, this hybrid docu-drama boasts a standout performance from Tom Vaughan-Lawlor. Combining careful reconstructions with insightful observations from contributors Roy Foster, Paul Rouse and Morna O'Neill, the film Lane's obsession with making his collection of impressionist painting accessible to every class of society. The screening will be followed by a discussion with the movie's writer, Mark O'Halloran. At 5 p.m., Shot in Wicklow will see short films shot entirely or partially in Co Wicklow hit the big screen. Among them will be Remains by writer/director Ian Campbell (featuring Niall Toibin, who came out of retirement for this shoot) and Sinead O'Loughlin's Homecoming, which was featured earlier this year on RTE2's Shortscreen series. The programme will also include some new work from NoWiFI. The final event of the day will be Dublin Oldschool at 7.30 p.m., followed by a discussion with it's director, Dave Tynan. The film tells the tale of wannabe DJ Jason (Emmet Kirwan) who fuels himself with drink and drugs ahead of a weekend of parties before bumping into his estranged, homeless brother Daniel (Ian Lloyd Anderson), a smart but troubled heroin addict. As they struggles to reconnect, Jason is forced to come to terms with the consequences of his own lifestyle. The final screening of the festival is the powerful Philomena at 4 p.m. on Sunday, September 23. The movie tells the true story of Philomena (Judi Dench), who has spent her life dreaming of the newborn son she was forced to give up for adoption as a young unmarried Irish woman. With the aid of a BBC reporter (Steve Coogan), she sets out on a quest for the truth which takes her to Ireland and America. Afterwards, there will be a post-film discussion with poet Annemarie Ni Churreain. No Wifi (North Wicklow Films) is a Bray-based collective of film-makers, actors and enthusiasts whose aim is to hone their skills at film-making. Founded in late 2016, they have made more than 30 films over the last 20 months. For more information visit www.nowifi.ie The very first Coolgreany Vintage Day held last weekend has been described as the most successful event in the village this year with an estimate of 2,000 visitors. 'We could not be happier with the day,' said Dan Kennedy, chairperson of Coolgreany Vintage Club. 'The money we raised will be donated between North Wexford Hospice Homecare and Coolgreany Tidy Towns.' There was a huge number of vintage tractors, smaller engines, vintage cars and a few stationary engines. Dan said the children had great fun at the carnival, bouncy castle, the pets corner and face painting. 'We had volunteers do traditions that date back a good few years ago,' said Dan. 'In one area we had bread making over an open fire and the old way of washing clothes.' Around the field there was a variety of different stalls that included bric-a-brac, antiques, arts and crafts, and homemade goods. Dan said some of the stall holders came from afar to attend the event. Because of the huge demand for it next year, the club are already planning the Vintage Day for 2019. The Coolgreany Vintage Club said they would like to thank all who attended, the volunteers who gave a hand, to those who sponsored the event and to all who donated. Dan said it was definitely one of the best vintage days he has seen. The Wicklow Way is one of the most picturesque amenities in the country. Photo: visitwicklow.ie A new online resource is available to help users of the Wicklow Way plan their trips in a manner that will maximise their enjoyment of the amenity. The extensive online support portal has been developed by Wicklow County Tourism (WCT) on the visitwicklow.ie website. The Wicklow Way is around 130km long and crosses the Wicklow Mountains from Marley Park in Dublin to Clonegal in County Carlow. It's one of the most popular and well-known public walks in Ireland and is usually split into seven sections along which there are several accommodation providers. Speaking about the latest development WCT Manager, Fred Verdier, expressed delight that the information provided online will greatly assist users of the amenity. 'We are delighted with the information provided and our Wicklow Way online section is already proving popular with users,' he said. 'We recently organised a press trip along the southern part of the Wicklow Way and the information available proved very useful not only when planning the walk but also during it by using our mobile phones for maps and local info,' he added. The extensive data compiled for the resource was gathered by Adventure.ie which is a company based in Laragh that has many years experience of outdoor activities in the mountains. The project was overseen by Cindy Doyle from Adventure.ie who said it took several months to compile the required information. 'It took us several months to gather the information [through] meeting and chatting with users and other stakeholders,' she said. Ms Doyle added that compiling the data also required travelling along the Wicklow Way during peak and off-peak times. Adopting a true hands-on approach to the task Ms Doyle said her team put themselves in the shoes of walking visitors to get a better understanding of the needs of people who use the route. 'We feel we have provided Wicklow Tourism with the most relevant information to them,' she said. Meanwhile, Mr Verdier said that while a 'tremendous amount of work has been done' to make the new information available the overall project is very much a work-in-progress. 'Having the information online means that we can update or enhance any data at any time,' he said. He encouraged members of the public who use the route to provide feedback about their experience. On the website visitors will find online, printable and downloadable maps along with planning suggestions and detailed information about each of the sections along the route. Information on points of interest and exit locations is also included. There was a large turnout in Grangecon last Saturday for the annual remembrance ceremony for the late Cpl Michael Nolan. Organised by Post 21 IUNVA (Irish United Nations Veterans Association) the ceremony and wreath laying served to remember the life of Cpl Nolan, who was killed in action in the Congo at the age of 23 during Ireland's first major military deployment since Independence. He died trying to save his colleague Tpr. Patrick Mullins in 1961 when the armoured car he was travelling in came under attack by rebel troops. The ceremony was attended by relatives of the late Cpl Nolan as well as member of the IUNVA National Executive, Post 21 and other Posts as well as members of the Organisation of National Ex Service Men and Women (ONET), Royal British Legion, the American Legion, the local community and political representatives. The wreath laying which took place at St Oliver Plunkett's Church was preceded by a parade through the village. ON Saturday several wreaths were laid to honour Cpl Nolan. In 2012 a commemorative memorial stone was installed in Grangecon which has been cared for by the Nolan family who have also taken on the responsibility of planting the surrounding area. Michael's remains are interred in the army plot in Glasnevin beside his comrades who died at Niemba in November 1960. Tpr Mullins[' body was never found. A new local bus service will connect Wicklow town with Glendalough. Last week the National Transport Authority (NTA) approved funding for the new route as part of its Local Link Programme. The route will provide a seven day, hourly bus service taking in Wicklow Gaol, Wicklow Train Station, Rathnew, Ashford, Roundwood, Laragh and Glendalough. It is hoped that the route will be up and running by November. Social Democrats Cllr. Jennifer Whitmore, and General Election candidate for Wicklow, has welcomed the news. 'I am delighted that this funding has been announced. I have been working with Local Link and Wicklow Tourism for some time now on developing a number of options for local shuttle services around the county. These daytime routes were devised with local community groups following stakeholder consultation. 'In May of this year, I collected over 3,300 signatures in support the proposals and handed them into the NTA. I'm delighted to see that the high demand for this service has been recognised by the NTA and that funding has been made available for the Wicklow-Glendalough route. 'This is a very important route, not only for tourists coming to Wicklow to explore our county, but for all the local towns and villages on the route. Small towns like Roundwood and Ashford will now have a regular bus service that can connect them with Wicklow Town. I believe this service will be a game-changer for the people and businesses of Wicklow.' Fred Verdier, CE Wicklow Tourism said the new route will allow tourists visiting Glendalough to stay in Wicklow for longer. 'This is a fantastic achievement and a huge step forward for Wicklow as a tourist destination. Up to now, visitors travelled from Dublin to enjoy Glendalough and then would make their way back to Dublin. 'There was no public transport available to allow them travel around and enjoy our other tourist sites. Now, this new route will open up Wicklow to tourists and enable Wicklow Town to become the base for exploring our beautiful county. This is a great opportunity and Wicklow Tourism looks forward to working with our local businesses to ensure that we maximise on its potential.' A spokesman for Ringalink, agent for LocalLink said: 'We have been working closely with the NTA to secure a seven day a week service from Glendalough to Wicklow town. 'The need for this service was identified early in consultation with local stakeholders and in literature/data reviews. The success is testament to the work already undertaken and enthusiastic engagement by local stakeholders and participation by the general public in highlighting their transport needs and wishes. 'The route is currently out to tender to interested operators and we hope to start it by November 2018. There is a mechanism in place to increase the capacity of the route for the summer months if required.' Niall OConnor (left) with Eileen Whelan, Philip Ryan, Minister Simon Harris and Joanna and Hilary Hamilton at the launch of Niall and Philips book Leo Varakdar: A Very Modern Taoiseach in Bridge Street Books on Thursday Local author Niall O'Connor got terrific support last week when he launched his first book, Leo: A very modern Taoiseach. the first biography of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar. Niall, a former political correspondent with the Irish Independent, co-wrote the book with Philip Ryan, Deputy Political Editor with the Irish Independent. Launching the book in Marine House, the home of the KWETB, in Wicklow town Niall said when they were approached about writing the book they decided to grasp the opportunity. He said as two of the youngest journalists in Leinster House they relished the chance of telling the story of Leo Varadkar whom he described as part of the 'so-called new generation of politicians'. He said they wanted to write a book that was accessible to everyone, not just political enthusiasts. 'I hope that those who read the book will have a better understanding of a politician who will be one of the most talked about for decades to come'. At the launch, which was carried out by RTE newsreader Eileen Whelan, Niall paid tribute to his late father Brendan and his mother Carmel, as well as his co-author Philip. Niall said that the bar in the KWETB facility at Marine House was called Bren's Bar, named after his father who had been caretaker of the school for many years and had a long association with the building. He said that although Brendan wasn't part of the celebrations, he was very much there in spirit, adding he would have really meeting friends and family. Niall said that the plaque at the entrance to Marine House reading 'Proof that all things are possible as long as you believe' was especially poignant on the night and showed the 'tremendous impact my father has had on so many lives, especially the lives of the young people of the Educate Together school, who he cherished dearly before he died'. The book is dedicated to Niall's parents, Carmel and the late Brendan, and Philip's parents, Liz and Brendan Ryan. At the launch, Niall paid tribute to Eileen Whelan for her support and for launching the book and thanked Joanna and Hilary Hamilton of Bridge Street Books for their support. He said their 'willingness to support local authors is fantastic'. The book is now currently on sale. At least 136 people have died after a passenger ferry capsized on Lake Victoria. It is believed the ferry was carrying more than 300 people despite the vessel only having capacity for 100. The ferry MV Nyerere rolled over close to the pier on Ukara Island on Africa's largest lake when passengers rushed to one side to disembark as it approached the dock. Tanzania's police chief Simon Sirro said yesterday that at least 136 bodies have been retrieved and scores more were still feared missing as rescuers searched for survivors after the disaster. Thirty-seven people were reported to have been rescued from the lake. Witnesses reported that more than 200 people had boarded the ferry at Bugolora, a town on the larger Ukerewe Island, where it was market day. Locals said the vessel was usually packed with people and goods. "I have not heard from either my father or my younger brother who were on the ferry. They had gone to the market in Bugolora to buy a school uniform and other supplies for the new school term," said Domina Maua, who was among those seeking information about loved ones. Davita Ngenda, an elderly woman in Ukara, had already received bad news. "My son is among the bodies recovered," she said, weeping. "He had gone with his wife but she has not been found yet. My God, what did I do to deserve this?" Sebastian John, a teacher, said such tragedies had become part of life for those living on the lake. "Since my birth, people have gone to their deaths on this lake, but what are we to do? We did not choose to be born here, we have nowhere to go," he said. It remains unclear how many people are still missing. Tanzania's Electrical, Mechanical and Services Agency, which is responsible for ferries, said it was unknown how many passengers were aboard. Its hull and propellers were all that remained visible after it overturned. The Nyrere was also carrying cargo, including sacks of maize, bananas and cement, when it capsized around 50m from Ukara dock. The cause of the accident was not immediately clear, but overloading is frequently to blame for such incidents. President John Magufuli was "deeply saddened" by the disaster and called on Tanzanians to "stay calm during these difficult times". The country's opposition, however, accused the government of "negligence". "We have often raised concerns about the poor condition of this ferry, but the government turned a deaf ear. We have repeatedly denounced this negligence," said John Mnyika, deputy secretary general of Chadema, the main opposition party. Undated handout file photo issued by the National Crime Agency of George Powell, 42, who has been sentenced to six years and nine months imprisonment for his part in a people-smuggling gang that hatched a scheme to bring migrants across the English Channel on jet skis. National Crime Agency/PA Wire Undated handout file photo issued by the National Crime Agency of Leonard Powell, 66, who has been sentenced to nine years imprisonment for his part in a people-smuggling gang that hatched a scheme to bring migrants across the English Channel on jet skisNational Crime Agency/PA Wire Undated handout file photo issued by the National Crime Agency of Alfie Powell, 39, who has been sentenced to six years imprisonment for his part in a people-smuggling gang that hatched a scheme to bring migrants across the English Channel on jet skis.National Crime Agency/PA Wire A gang of people smugglers who hatched an "alarmingly amateur" plot to bring migrants across the English Channel on jet skis have been jailed. Seven men, including Kent-based trafficking criminals and their Albanian "travel agents", were said to have "scant regard" for safety during a string of bungled operations. At least 18 Albanian migrants were transported from near Calais to Dymchurch in Kent in 2016, using dangerously overcrowded inflatable boats designed for six. When the rigid-hulled inflatable boats (RHIBs) got into trouble, ran out of fuel and had to be rescued, the plotters bought a three-person jet ski for their next mission. A National Crime Agency-led surveillance operation put a stop to the unlikely plan, which would have taken migrants across the world's busiest shipping route. The men were arrested and convicted of conspiracy to breach immigration law. Expand Close Undated handout file photo issued by the National Crime Agency of Leonard Powell, 66, who has been sentenced to nine years imprisonment for his part in a people-smuggling gang that hatched a scheme to bring migrants across the English Channel on jet skisNational Crime Agency/PA Wire / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Undated handout file photo issued by the National Crime Agency of Leonard Powell, 66, who has been sentenced to nine years imprisonment for his part in a people-smuggling gang that hatched a scheme to bring migrants across the English Channel on jet skisNational Crime Agency/PA Wire On Friday, Judge Mark Dennis QC sentenced father and son Leonard Powell and George Powell as the "organisers and controlling figures" of the conspiracy. Leonard Powell, 66, from Dartford, was found guilty after trial in August, while son George Powell, 42, from Farningham in Kent, pleaded guilty to the same offence in May. They were sentenced to nine years imprisonment and six years and nine months imprisonment respectively during a hearing at the Old Bailey. Mr Powell's other son Alfie, 39, of no fixed address, was said to have held a non-organisational role and received a six-year jail sentence. Expand Close Undated handout file photo issued by the National Crime Agency of George Powell, 42, who has been sentenced to six years and nine months imprisonment for his part in a people-smuggling gang that hatched a scheme to bring migrants across the English Channel on jet skis. National Crime Agency/PA Wire / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Undated handout file photo issued by the National Crime Agency of George Powell, 42, who has been sentenced to six years and nine months imprisonment for his part in a people-smuggling gang that hatched a scheme to bring migrants across the English Channel on jet skis. National Crime Agency/PA Wire They were joined in the dock by Sabah Dulaj, 24, of south-east London and Artur Nutaj, 39 - said to be "leading figures" in the plot, who provided the link between the smugglers and migrants in Europe. Mr Dulaj, who was of previous good character, received seven years in prison while Mr Nutaj received a sentence of seven-and-a-half years. Co-conspirators Wayne Bath, 39, of Sheerness, Kent, and Albert Letchford, 42, of Dartford, received six years for their roles in the plot. The judge said: "The execution of the smuggling operation at times proved to be alarmingly amateur and could have resulted in tragic consequences at sea." The seven defendants were sentenced in front of a packed public gallery of family and friends, who waved goodbye and yelled "love you" as the men were led from the dock. The court heard that migrants, including men, women and children, were charged up to 5,500 each to journey across the English Channel. This would have amounted to 99,000 for the trip with 18 passengers. "Clearly, a very lucrative trade," prosecutor Timothy Probert-Wood QC said on Friday. All defendants except Dulag had previous convictions, the court was told. The criminals had little boating experience or knowledge of the danger to which they were exposing passengers. They are believed to have carried out one successful trip in an RHIB called Rebel, which was found abandoned by border officials in Kent. On May 26 2016, French police spotted a group of people signalling a boat in the water off Cran d'Escalles beach near Calais. Gathered migrants began to wade out to meet it but the Antares RHIB left after a parked car signalled using its headlights. Mr Probert-Wood told jurors during the trial that the group were "clearly not there for a day on the beach". Two days later, the gang attempted again to reach French shores with the newly acquired White Scanner RHIB, under the watch of NCA agents. The White Scanner picked up 18 migrants from France - including two children aged 16 and 17 and a woman. On the return journey, they ran out of fuel and the passengers were forced to start baling out as the vessel flooded with sea water. The group were in "extreme fear for their lives", the prosecutor said on Friday, with one sending a desperate text message reading: "We are in England, tell police, we are drowning." The Coastguard helicopter and RNLI launched a rescue operation and found the inflatable vessel. One female migrant had been "overcome by hypothermia" and required "immediate attention", the Old Bailey heard. The judge said: "Scant regard was had for the safety of the migrants being transported by boat, there were no life jackets provided for the 18 migrants. "The migrants on the Scanner were left stranded in the dark in a heavy swell, many fearing they were going to drown." In July 2016, the White Scanner two-man crew of Mark Stribling, 35, from Farningham, Kent, and Robert Stilwell, 33, from Dartford, Kent, were jailed. Undeterred by the failed Scanner operation, the gang bought another larger boat from Southampton in 2016 - referred to as The Boat With No Name. NCA operatives planted a bug on the boat to listen in as the gang plotted their next migrant run. On August 13, the NCA secretly filmed a meeting of the Kent gang and their Albanian partners in a pub car park. They went together to buy a 1,900 jet ski with a view to using it to transport migrants from France to Britain. The NCA moved in to arrest them over safety fears if the jet ski was brought into use. "A clear inference from the purchase of the jet-bike was that that was also to be used for the purposes of trafficking - clearly something that would have been a grave risk for everyone," the prosecutor said on Friday. Brendan Foreman, of the NCA, said: "What this group were attempting was reckless and wilfully negligent of the risks associated with crossing one of the world's busiest shipping lanes. "But, as the events of 28 May 2016 clearly demonstrated, they were quite happy to risk lives for the sake of profit, using vessels that were not fit for purpose. "The severity of what these men were involved in is reflected in the sentences handed down today." Emma Moore, Border Force chief operating officer, hailed her officers' role in rescuing those on board. She said: "On 28 May, in dreadful sea conditions, Border Force officers launched their RHIB from the relative safety of the Border Force Cutter 'Valiant' multiple times to rescue all of those who were on board the smugglers' boat. "If it had not been for that bravery and exceptional seamanship I am convinced there would have been fatalities." Russia is set to allow women to take jobs as truck and train drivers, and to operate heavy machinery, lifting a ban that was intended to protect their health. A list of jobs and professions prohibited for women will be amended in the near future, Labour Minister Maxim Topilin saud yesterday. The list contains 456 professions in 39 industries - mostly those requiring work with various chemicals, heavy machinery or complex vehicles - that are considered dangerous for women's health. It was adopted in 1974 and last revised in 2000. Women will now be allowed to take jobs in six categories: bread-making, sea, river, air and railway transport, driving heavy trucks and specialised vehicles. It wasn't immediately clear precisely which trades will be removed. Women are not allowed to do work that involves operating heavy machinery in baking, being a member of deck and engine crews on ships, driving different kinds of trains and doing certain types of maintenance on trains, planes and ships. "Adopting an amended list will give women more job opportunities," Mr Topilin said. The minister said it was important to revise the list as the job market tightened - for women and men - because of the increasing role of technology and modern equipment. The issue of professions that are banned for women in Russia made headlines in 2016, when the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women sided with 30-year-old Svetlana Medvedeva, who had been trying to become a ship captain since 2012. She was promoted after the UN ruling. The Republican Congressman is standing for re-election in November (AP) Six siblings of a Republican Congressman standing for re-election in the US have taken the unusual decision to release an advert telling people not to vote for him. Six of Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar's siblings have endorsed his rival, Democrat David Brill on the TV advert. To give their endorsement more impact, the ad doesn't name the six speakers until the end. It begins with a woman "Grace, rural physician", saying, "Paul Gosar the congressman isn't doing anything to support rural America." Next is a statement from "David, lawyer", saying "Paul's absolutely not working for his district". Next up is "Jennifer, medical interpreter" who says "If he actually cared about people in rural Arizona, I bet he'd be fighting for social security, for better access to healthcare." A man called "Tim" quickly agrees, saying "He is not listening to you, and he does not have your best interests at heart". - It is only at this moment that we realise they are Mr Gosar's family, when he says, "My name is Tim Gosar". Local paper the Arizona Republic called the ad "brutal, but not unexpected". Mr Gosar got a lot of media attention after the violent neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, when he suggested it was planned by "the Left" to undermine the president. He also called Democratic Party donor George Soros a Nazi collaborator in an interview with another news outlet. Seven of his siblings signed an open letter to the Kingman Daily Miner, stating: "It is extremely upsetting to have to call you out on this, Paul, but you've forced our hand with your deceit and anti-Semitic dog whistle." Mr Gosar has not yet responded to the ad campaign. The Republican is considered likely to keep the seat he has held since 2011. The Chinese government has called on the US to "correct the mistake" and withdraw new sanctions on the Chinese military over deals with Russia or "bear responsibility for the consequences". The Trump administration imposed sanctions on the Chinese military on Thursday for buying fighter jets and missile systems from Russia, in breach of a sweeping US sanctions law punishing Moscow for meddling in the 2016 US election. In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said: "China expresses strong indignation at these unreasonable actions by the US side and has already lodged stern representations." Speaking to reporters in Beijing, he said the move seriously harmed bilateral relations and military ties. "We strongly urge the US side to immediately correct the mistake and rescind the so-called sanctions, otherwise the US side will necessarily bear responsibility for the consequences," he said, without giving details. China has "normal" military exchanges and co-operation with Russia, aimed at protecting regional peace and stability, which is not against international law or aimed at any third party, Mr Geng added. China will continue to work with Russia to promote strategic co-operation at an even higher level, he said. The US State Department said it would immediately impose sanctions on China's Equipment Development Department (EDD), the military branch responsible for weapons and equipment, and its director, Li Shangfu, for engaging in "significant transactions" with Rosoboronexport, Russia's main arms exporter. The sanctions are related to China's purchase of 10 SU-35 combat aircraft in 2017 and S-400 surface-to-air missile system-related equipment in 2018, the State Department said. They block the Chinese agency, and Mr Li, from applying for export licenses and participating in the US financial system. It also adds them to the Treasury Department's list of specially designated individuals with whom Americans are barred from doing business. The US also blacklisted another 33 people and entities associated with the Russian military and intelligence, adding them to a list under the 2017 law, known as the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, or CAATSA. CAATSA also seeks to punish Russia for its aggression in Ukraine and involvement in Syria's civil war. Doing significant business with anyone on the US blacklist can trigger sanctions like those imposed on China. Some of those added to the list, which now contains 72 names, were indicted in connection with Russian interference in the 2016 US election, a US official said. President Donald Trump on Thursday issued an executive order intended to facilitate implementation of the sanctions. One US administration official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, said the sanctions imposed on the Chinese agency were aimed at Moscow, not Beijing or its military, despite an escalating trade war between the United States and China. "The ultimate target of these sanctions is Russia. CAATSA sanctions in this context are not intended to undermine the defence capabilities of any particular country," the official told reporters. "They are instead aimed at imposing costs upon Russia in response to its malign activities." In Moscow, Russian member of parliament Franz Klintsevich said the sanctions would not affect the S-400 and SU-35 deals. Security analysts in Asia said the move was largely symbolic, would have "zero impact" on the arms sale and would only push Moscow and Beijing closer together. ( Daily Telegraph London) Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021] Standing together: Supporters of US President Donald Trump attend a campaign rally in Las Vegas, Nevada. Photo: Mike Segar/Reuters Michael Cohen, Donald Trump's former personal lawyer, has said he is providing "critical information" as part of the federal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and possible co-ordination between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign. Having admitted guilt to a string of charges last month, Cohen said he was handing the information to special counsel Robert Mueller's prosecutors without a co-operation agreement. Mr Trump's former fixer could be a vital witness for investigators as they examine whether the president's campaign co-ordinated with Russians. Cohen was the billionaire's personal lawyer for more than a decade, a key power player in the Trump Organisation and a fixture in Mr Trump's political life. Pressure is mounting on the president as big names, particularly his former campaign manager Paul Manafort, have co-operated with Mr Mueller. "The walls [are] clearly closing in" on him, said two Democratic members of congress last week. Cohen pleaded guilty in August to eight federal charges and said Mr Trump directed him to arrange payments before the 2016 election to buy the silence of porn actress Stormy Daniels and a former 'Playboy' model who had both alleged they had affairs with Mr Trump. It was the first time any Trump associate implicated Mr Trump himself in a crime, though whether - or when - a president can be prosecuted remains a matter of legal dispute. On Thursday night, Cohen tweeted: "Good for @MichaelCohen212 for providing critical information to the #MuellerInvestigation without a co-operation agreement. No one should question his integrity, veracity or loyalty to his family and country over @POTUS @realDonaldTrump." The tweet was deleted almost immediately and was later reposted by his attorney, Lanny Davis, who said he wrote the tweet for Cohen and asked him to tweet it because he has a "much larger following". Mr Davis said he was delayed posting the tweet on his own account, so Cohen tweeted it first. ABC News reported earlier that Cohen has met several times - for several hours - with investigators from the special counsel's office. The television network, citing sources familiar with the matter, said he was questioned about Mr Trump's dealings with Russia, including whether members of the Trump campaign worked with Russians to try to influence the outcome of the election. Mr Davis had asserted last month that his client could tell the special counsel that Mr Trump had prior knowledge of a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer, Mr Trump's son-in-law and Mr Trump's eldest son, who had been told in emails that it was part of a Russian government effort to help his father's campaign. But Mr Davis later walked back the assertions, saying that he could not independently confirm the claims that Cohen witnessed Mr Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, telling his father about the Trump Tower meeting beforehand. In the last two weeks, the special counsel secured the co-operation of Mr Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort; signalled that he has obtained all the information he needs from former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who was also a government co-operator; and dispensed with the case of the campaign aide who triggered the Russia probe. The president has continued a very public battle against the Mueller investigation, repeatedly calling it a politically motivated and "rigged witch hunt". He has said he is going to declassify secret documents in the Russia investigation, an extraordinary move that he says will show that the investigation was tainted from the start by bias in the Justice Department and FBI. Meanwhile, President Trump yesterday sought to cast doubt on the woman who has accused his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, saying if the attack was "as bad as she says" it would have been immediately reported to police. After days of restrained comments on the allegations by California professor Christine Blasey Ford, Trump took to Twitter to question her account of what happened between her and Kavanaugh at a party in 1982 when they were in high school. The tweets came as a Republican-controlled U.S. Senate committee struggled on how to proceed with Kavanaugh's nomination. Democrats have demanded more time for scrutiny and Republicans want to move ahead quickly with a confirmation vote in an increasingly volatile political climate ahead of the Nov. 6 congressional elections. The Senate Judiciary Committee had delayed a vote on Kavanaugh's confirmation after Ford's allegations emerged last week, and her lawyers and committee staff are negotiating how and when she will testify. Deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein says the story is inaccurate and factually incorrect (Evan Vucci/AP) US President Donald Trump has issued an ominous warning about the Justice Department and the FBI, promising further firings to get rid of a lingering stench following reports that deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein discussed secretly recording him. Trump, speaking at a rally in Missouri on Friday, did not explicitly mention the Rosenstein furore, which was first reported by The New York Times and confirmed by The Associated Press. But Trump lashed out against what he sees as anti-Trump bias in the Justice Department, touting the firings he has orchestrated, unnerving many in federal law enforcement and sparking fears about the future of the special counsels Russia probe, which Rosenstein oversees. Youve seen what happened in the FBI and the Department of Justice. The bad ones, theyre all gone. Theyre all gone, Trump said. But there is a lingering stench and were going to get rid of that, too. One person present during Rosensteins remarks said he was being sarcastic. The Times also said he raised the idea of using the 25th Amendment to remove Trump as unfit for office. Rosenstein said the story is inaccurate and factually incorrect. It was the latest storm to buffet the White House, which this week was battered by a number of potentially damaging stories. Beyond the speculation about Rosenstein, it was revealed that Trumps former fixer, Michael Cohen, is co-operating with special counsel Robert Muellers investigation. Expand Close Deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein says the story is inaccurate and factually incorrect (Evan Vucci/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein says the story is inaccurate and factually incorrect (Evan Vucci/AP) The president also backed off his plan to declassify documents related to the ongoing probe, and the fate of his Supreme Court nominee remained uncertain. Negotiations continued about a possible appearance by Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who accused Judge Brett Kavanaugh, Trumps nominee, of sexual assault at a high school party more than three decades ago. Trump made the future of Kavanaugh and the federal judiciary a centrepiece of his rally in Springfield, which was designed to support the states Republican Senate candidate, Missouri attorney general Josh Hawley, in his race against Democratic incumbent Claire McCaskill. Expand Close Supporters cheered as Donald Trump arrived to speak in Missouri (Evan Vucci/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Supporters cheered as Donald Trump arrived to speak in Missouri (Evan Vucci/AP) I dont know who she is with but she is not with the state of Missouri, Trump said. (Kavanaugh) is a fantastic man, a fantastic man. She wont vote for him. But Trump, who used Twitter earlier Friday to cast doubt on Fords claim, preached optimism on Kavanaugh, saying he was born for the US Supreme Court and reassuring the crowd that its going to happen. Its going to happen. He added: We have to fight for him, not worry about the other side. And by the way, women are for that more than anybody would understand. When Hawley praised Trumps judicial picks, the crowd began chanting Kavanaughs name. And the president, drawing energy from a packed, raucous crowd, dished out plenty of red meat, pledging to build his signature border wall, telegraphing that he is willing to escalate trade conflicts with both China and Western allies and suggesting he was willing to wait to make a peace deal with North Korea. A Bhopal university has come under fire for introducing an Adarsh Bahu course to teach women to keep families together. Bhopals Barkatullah University has found itself in the middle of controversy, all thanks to a new course. Plans are afoot to introduce an Adarsh Bahu certification course. As the name suggests, the proposed three-month-long course prepares girls to adjust to the new family after marriage. According to Prof D.C. Gupta, this course is offered as part of women empowerment and the universitys responsibility towards society. Its ultimate aim seems to be to create brides who will keep families together. The course is expected to commence by next academic year in the departments of sociology, psychology and womens studies as a pilot project. The University plans to admit 30 girls in the first batch. For many, this course is a hard pill to swallow. People have lashed out at the idea of exclusively training girls to run successful families. Youngsters, parents and academicians across the country air their opinion on the Adarsh Bahu certification course. Its blasphemy Mahamaya Mojumder, homemaker The concept of this course is absolute blasphemy. First of all, it is understandable that an individual may need some counselling before getting married because there is a tectonic shift in your lifestyle. But your parents are usually the best counsellors in such a scenario. They are the ones who understand what kind of support you will need, instead of some three-month bookish course to teach you life skills. Secondly, why is the course only for girls? Women are not the only ones who are a part of a marriage. It needs to be a symbiotic relationship between two individuals and how they adjust 'with' each other instead of 'for' one person in the relationship. A primitive move Saranya, service provider, Govt Snehitha Gender Help Desk Do we really need a course to teach us how to be an ideal daughter-in-law? How can a piece of paper or a certificate rate us on how good we are? How do we define the concept of Adarsh Bahu? The move to make it a certificate course is itself one of the most absurd ideas that have popped up recently. Universities are apex academic institutions and this move is shocking. The university authorities claim their objective is positive and this is a part of women empowerment, but it is not. This course is a step back and towards the primitive. Pressure to be perfect Sonu Venu Gopal,YouTuber, feminist Training before marriage has been happening for a long time. With this course, there will be a physical certificate that you can use to decorate the wall. Before you jump the gun, I am being sarcastic. I have two issues the need for training and the training being gender specific. Marriage is a partnership, which means the boy and the girl are in it completely with all their senses intact (hopefully!). This course is a result of the societal pressure to be perfect and marriage is anything but perfect! The idea of a perfect marriage is to be happy and not perfect! Good initiative Sunmita Shinde Arun, school Real education will allow a person to think intensively and critically. It will lay a strong foundation to build both character and intelligence. It has to be open for all and not limited. Moreover, it has to be constantly evolving and dynamic. The 'Adarsh Bahu' course is a good initiative by Barkatullah University. We must welcome more such initiatives for men also. A good and civil society can be built through such an enterprise. Kudos to the first biggest step. Shared responsibility Bhavya Soni, Management Professor The proposed course by Barkatullah University, Bhopal, is a classic example of our stereotypical definition of daughters-in-law. These stereotypes are so engraved in our thought processes that they seem too obvious at times. The rationale of this course as stated is to stop families from breaking away. But the responsibility of keeping a family together is a shared one and everyone is 100 per cent responsible for it. Then why only Adarsh Bahu? Reinforcing prejudices Dhrupad Suri, Parent The conceptualisation of such a senseless course only reinforces the age-old thought of women being the weaker sex. It also throws light on the preconceived notions of certain members of society who believe that only women are to be blamed for a failed marriage. If there really needs to be a course for 'Adarsh Bahu', they might as well have a course for 'Adarsh Pati' keeping in mind we have a pretty high domestic violence rate in India. As a father of a girl child, I can only say that if you really need to empower women, teach them to respect themselves. Teach them their rights and educate them so they can stand tall. life lessons needed for both Gautam Sankar, analyst It's hard to comment on this initiative without knowing the actual content or the exercises done as part of the course. But its worth pointing out that keeping the course exclusive to girls would immediately make the initiative sound as archaic as it could possibly be. Both genders could do well with a bit of life lessons to get them warmed-up for married life. This initiative is missing this basic point. Since the time Bigg Boss 12 has premiered, 65-year-old Anup Jalota and his 28-year-old girlfriend Jasleen Matharu have been making headlines for strange reasons every day. They are undoubtedly the most controversial Jodi this time. Twitter After shocking fans with his love affair with a 37 years younger woman, Anup Jalota is once again hogging the limelight for he has been reportedly accused of sexual assault by a TV actress. The actress has claimed that he demanded sexual favours on the pretext of getting married. Furthermore, she said that he had even promised that he would take part in Bigg Boss 12 with her as a Jodi. We even had sex twice in the last six months. I did not mind having sex with Jalota as he professed his love for me and said he wanted to settle down with me, the victim was quoted as saying by India Scoops. Also Read: 9 Facts That Prove Anup Jalota Is Having More Fun Than Any Of Us, #6 The Movie We All Missed Twitter She said about a month ago, he had stopped taking her calls and she thought that they both couldnt make it to the show. I felt nothing was happening and left for the USA in August. I feel so miserable. Also Read: Rakhi Sawant & Her Outrageous Claims About Anup Jalota & His Girlfriend Will Make You Cringe Voot However, she was shocked when he saw Anup Jalota and Jasleen Matharu together on Bigg Boss 12. She now wants Anup Jalota to be arrested soon. Alsoo Read: Rhea Chakraborty Posts A Picture With Mahesh Bhatt, Fans Troll & Compare Him To Anup Jalota The Supreme Court of India has decriminalised homosexuality putting a full stop to a 157-year-old colonial-era law that considered consensual sex between homosexuals as against the order of nature. Since the apex court has read down Section 377, now homosexuals and other members of the LGBTQ community will be entitled to report cases of sexual assault and any injustice that they may have to face. Earlier, due to absence of any legal law or judgement, LGBTQ+ members were often blackmailed or manipulated into money extortion for availing their fundamental rights. In Pune, the police officials have arrested a 23-year-old man for allegedly stabbing his 46-year-old gay partner, news agency ANI reported. In the incident which took place on September 19, Senior Inspector (SI) of Khadak Police Station informed that the complaint had been lodged by Rajesh Vartak who claimed that he had been attacked by his gay partner and attempted to murder him. The investigation further revealed that the men had been in a consensual gay relationship for almost two years. Vartak had been a dominant partner in the relationship and was demanding excessive sex from his partner which led to the attack. Vartak works as a businessman while his 23-year-old partner earns a living as a waiter in a hotel. On the basis of the complaint, police have registered a case under section 307 (attempt to murder) of Indian Penal Code against the accused. As Volkswagen decided to discontinue its iconic Beetle and shift its focus towards more eco-friendly cars, there has been a shift in car manufacturing trends over the years as consumers become more and more environmentally conscious. Students of the R.V Engineering college, Bengaluru have come up with yet another astounding innovation. The students have made a single-heater, electric car which they say can run upto 75 metres in five seconds with a maximum speed of 120 kmph, reported Times Of India. Photo: Times Of India Once the electric car is fully charged, it can cover up to 40 kms at a racing speed. It takes around four hours to charge the vehicle which operated under the banner name of Team Chimera. The electric car was one of the main attractions of a three-day Electric Vehicle Technology Expo (EV South Expo) that began in Jayanagar on Friday. The expo is exhibiting the latest, technologically advanced two and three wheeler electric vehicles that are also pollution free. E-rickshaws, E-carts, E-bikes, E-scooters, E-bicycles are among 40 national and international companies that are being displayed at the expo. Photo: Times Of India Team captain of Chimera, Shrikesh S said that it took a year and Rs 12 lakh to build the car from scratch. The fully electric automobile weighs around Rs 250 kg excluding the driver. Our focus switched from hybrid to electric as we believe electric is the future. This car was designed and built by students on the college premises, he further told TOI. A Hyderabad based electric vehicle online store named E V Max will also focus on creating an ecosystem for faster adoption of electric vehicles, starting October 02. Photo: Chinu Kwatra On the seventh day of the festival this year, immersion of idols created havoc as thousands of dead turtles and fishes washed ashore on Dadar and Juhu beaches. The reason behind this mass death of marine animals is due to the Plaster Of Paris (PoP) that is used in preparing the idols. Read More. Here's More Top News For The Day: 1) India Has Amazingly Taken 271 Million People Out Of Poverty In Just Last 10 Years! Photo: Indiatimes India has reduced its Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) by almost half between 2005-06 and 2015-16, according to MDP 2018 released by the the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Read More. 2) India Is Third Worst Terror Affected Country In The World, Only Iraq & Afghanistan Are Ahead For second year in a row, India is the third largest victim of terror attacks across the world after Iraq and Afghanistan while CPI- Maoists, which carried out 53% of the total attacks in India, is the fourth deadliest terror group after Islamic State, Taliban and Al-Shabaab, according to the data released by US Department of state on Thursday. Read More. 3) Indias First Community-Based Warning System For Landslides Has Been Set Up In Darjeeling, All You Need To Know Photo: BCCL Residents have a rain-gauge installed in their village where they monitor the water level whenever there is a rainfall. If the water levels exceed the 123 mm mark then the villager should forget about all the worries and continuously monitor the level in case it exceeds the 143 mm mark. Read More. 4) Munnar Has Survived Deadly Kerala Flood And Spectacular Neelakurinji Are Blooming Again! The rains, which continued well into the end of August meant that a lot of Neelakurinji plants and flower buds got decayed. Given the destruction I was in almost planning to cancel my vacation when some good news reached me earlier this month - the sun is out and Neelakurinji has begun blooming in Vattavada, Kolukkumalai, Top Station and Rajamala. Read More. 5) After Being Hounded At His Office, 33-YO Gay IT Professional Finds Support From Family Gaurav, who was group lead (training) at Tech Mahindra, finally left the company on September 2016. On September 9, Gaurav tweeted screenshots of his mail to Gautam in which he called her out for her bigotry. It eventually forced Tech Mahindra to sack the senior employee on discrimination charges. Read More. Mumbai is always buzzing with festivities of Ganesh Chaturthi. Bright idols of Lord Ganesha can be seen during processions, decked up in various markets as people and celebrities alike get ready for one of the most auspicious occasions of the year. The city never stops and perhaps, the waste that is left behind on beaches is never ending as well. Every year during Ganpati Visarjan, the residents of Mumbai leave behind millions of milk dairy packets, remains of coconut and other prayer material on the beaches. Photo: Chinu Kwatra Photo: Chinu Kwatra Immersion of idols of Lord Ganesha not only pollutes the sea but also causes heavy damage to the aquatic life. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) along with Non-Governmental organizations have been struggling to deal with this menace over the years. On the seventh day of the festival this year, immersion of idols created havoc as thousands of dead turtles and fishes washed ashore on Dadar and Juhu beaches. The reason behind this mass death of marine animals is due to the Plaster Of Paris (PoP) that is used in preparing the idols, the lead in their paints and the nirmalya (flower offerings) that are immersed, notes the Mumbai Mirror. Photo: Chinu Kwatra Excess chemicals have not only washed away the aquatic life but broken idols of Lord Ganesha can also be seen on the shore after some time, which is a miserable sight for the devotees to behold. Chinu Kwatra who made headlines this year for cleaning the Dadar beach started Save The Beach campaign when he saw the sorry state of Mumbai beaches post the Visarjan ceremony. On 14th September, the young army worked hard to scan the beaches, collecting broken pieces of the idols with utmost care and later handing them over to Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) officials, the logical Indian reported. Speaking to Mumbai Mirror, Kwatra said that water snakes and fish had died due to the toxic chemicals that were present inside the PoP idols, as well as the overload of bacteria that resulted due to the immersion of flowers, prasad and other offerings into the sea. Photo: BCCL He went onto say that the paint on the idols contains chromium, lead, aluminium and copper, which dissolve and turn into toxic compounds in water. This damages the gills of the fish, the most important organ from which the fishes breathe. On Friday, Kwatra and other volunteers who have designated themselves as beach warriors picked up around 95 such idols that were thrown away on the Dadar beach. They were returned to the BMC to turn them into chalk. All the volunteers and other warriors who had washed tonnes of garbage from the Dadar beach were in for disappointment as the beach had gone back to being full of squalor and dirt. Photo: Chinu Kwatra The Biological Oxygen Demand and Chemical Oxygen Demand determine if marine life will survive. Untreated sewage water let into the sea is also adding to the pollution. On top of that, PoP idols spell doom for all marine life and water bodies. said Stalin D, director of the NGO Vanashakti to MM. While the marine life is already bearing the brunt of Ganpati Visarjan, the eleventh day of this festival usually witnesses the highest number of immersions. Large amounts of plastic and prayer material is expected to be left behind by the devotees who have contributed little to save the nature and marine life. A group clash in a village near Tadipatri in Andhra Pradesh resulted in a clash between a police inspector and a member of parliament. According to a report in Hindustan Times, MP J C Diwakar Reddy accused the policemen that they did nothing to control the situation and fled the scene like eunuchs. Reddys comments enraged inspector Madhav of Kadiri in Anantapuramu district and speaking at a press conference he said, We have so far observed restraint. Henceforth, if anybody talks against the police beyond the limits, we will not tolerate. We will cut their tongues. Inspector Madhav made these comments targeting the ruling Telugu Desam Party MP. Listening to the inspectors remark, Reddy responded by saying where should he come to get his tongue cut. BCCL/Representational Image "Should I come to your house, police station, the village of your birth or the Anantapuramu Clock Tower centre where do you want me to come? Remove your khaki uniform and I too will come in plain clothes", the MP challenged. He later filed a complaint against Madhav though Tadipatri Sub-Divisional Police Officer Vijaya Kumar said that no FIR has been registered so far. While the policemen remain tight-lipped over the heated arguments, Reddy said that he had to run to protect himself, as the police had also started running away. Reportedly, he further said, In that respect, I too behaved like an eunuch. Representational Image Tadipatri SDPO told PTI, Its a non-cognizable offence under Section 506 of IPC (criminal intimidation). We have referred the complaint to the district SP and also seeking legal opinion. We have so far not registered an FIR. after Reddy went to the police station to warn them and challenged the inspector openly. Following the MPs remark, Madhav said that the tongues of such MPs, MLAs will be slit who will try to hurt the polices morale. According to HT, a senior police official though said that it was not appropriate for an officer to make such comments against government representatives. In this fast-paced world, people are only in touch with their dear-ones over Whatsapp or Facebook. Forget talking on the phone, even the closest friends barely have time to check up on one another. As the hustle-bustle of a 21st century takes over, very few of us have the time to help a grief-stricken stranger. 43-year-old, Syed Nasser Hussain, a resident of Mumbai is one of these people. Hussain became a saviour when he prevented an 18-year-old girl from committing suicide, reports The Mumbai Mirror. Hussains experience over the year, strong intuition and a kind nature had made him skilled in identifying people in stress. On Monday night, Syed who owns a plumbing material shop was going back home at around 8:30 pm on his bike when he spotted an 18-year-old girl walking barefoot on the Vashi bridge. Photo: BCCL/ Vashi creek bridge Having previously saved two other women in the last two years from committing suicide, Syed remembered that both of them were walking barefoot as well. The 18-year-old was already holding the railing of the Vashi bridge, ready to jump into the sea. Hussain dropped his bike and ran for the girl before she could end her life. A small crowd gathered around her, with Hussain spending the next hour counselling her. He not only asked about her parents, her friends, colleagues but also the issues that had led her to take this ill-fated step. After much hesitance, the girl revealed that she had been cheated on by her boyfriend. Reluctant to tell Hussain about her address, she said that she lived in Mandala, a small locality between Mankhurd and Deonar. As Syed dropped the woman in Mandala, it turned out that she hadnt given the correct address due to nervousness. Finally, after much persuasion, she revealed that she lived in Mankhurd with her parents. By midnight, Hussain took the girl to her house Mankhurd but it was locked as the parents had gone to the hospital and had dropped off the keys with the neighbour. He asked the neighbours to take care of her and returned. However, mid-way, Hussain realized that he had made a mistake leaving the girl alone at home. So, he went back to check up on her. He was right about his intuition because the girl had locked herself in. He broke open the door with help of the neighbour and found her hanging from the ceiling. After being untied and a few minutes of artificial resuscitation, the girl was rushed to Shatabdi Hospital and from there to Sion Hospital. Yesterday, doctors told Mumbai Mirror that she was stable and out of danger. Since the incident, Hussain has visited the girls home twice and had detailed conversations with them about her career, her emotional state and that she should complete her education. The father of the girl was thankful to Hussain for his unfading support. However, Hussain has identified one more issue than just being emotionally broken. Near the Vashi bridge, there are no streetlights. It is pitch-dark hence, the bridge has become a prominent suicide spot. He urged the municipal authorities to do something about it. Apple device launches are always an attention-grabber. Thousands or even tens of thousands of people tune in across the world to catch the launch live. And now, it seems brands are catching onto the opportunity this presents, to piggyback on Apples draw. Images courtesy: Reuters Just recently, Huawei showed up at an Apple Store in Singapore. Since the Chinese smartphone maker new people were going to be lining up to get their hands on the new iPhone XS and XS Max, it decided to horn in on the action. Huawei actually showed up with portable power banks, and began handing them out to people in line. The company also made an appearance at an Apple store in London, but not with just power banks. Instead, they appeared on the scene with a juice van, offering buyers charging ports and free refreshments. Say hello to the Huawei Ju%ce Van, it comes with brain-boosting drinks (with no traces of apple) to recharge minds, and plug sockets to recharge battery-depleted phones. A #HigherIntelligence is coming 16.10.18 pic.twitter.com/jJLMbJmnnD Huawei Mobile UK (@HuaweiMobileUK) September 21, 2018 Huawei wasnt the only sneaky showman this week either. Deliveroo went a step further, potting out a fairly strange press release. The company promised to, and did, deliver food to fans standing in line at Apple stores across UK. Forget crushed crisps and soggy sandwiches to snack on when waiting in the cold and rain to get the newest iPhone, its press release said. And while its a very similar move to Huaweis it somehow seems a little bit tackier to send out a press release in advance, as well as try to steal another companys limelight. But thats the thing here, we actually believe this sort of thing is going to get a lot more common in the next year. The technology market, especially for apps and smartphones, has reached saturation point. Theres a new smartphone launching practically every month, a new food delivery app, or instant messenger, or new social media rolling out as well. Frankly, its getting harder and harder to stand out. And then theres Apple, a monolith in the industry thats far ahead of the likes of Huawei, Xiaomi, and many others. Even Apples new iPhone going on sale is a big event, one with a guaranteed audience thats going to stick around all the way through. Its actually surprising companies havent tried tapping this market sooner. From a brand perspective, it makes perfect sense. You supply a demand created by hungry, crank, tech-loving people all stuck in one place at one time, and youre automatically memorable. Huawei probably didnt convert any Apple fans over to Android, much less Honor smartphones, but you can be sure the Android users noticed. And for tertiary-related brands like food delivery service Deliveroo, its a complete win-win. After all, people waiting in line at Apple trying out your service, as well as being too committed to the event to leave if you start a sales pitch; frankly thats better advertising than you could get on YouTube. In the future, we might even start seeing even more brands laying out early plans to crash an Apple sale. Taking a flight can force you to miss out on some crucial calls and messages, be they texts from your family or emails from your office. Now, the Indian government says that may not be the case anymore, and as soon as within a few days from now. Images courtesy: Reuters Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundarajan told PTI that in-flight connectivity (IFC) will be launched on all domestic and international flights in India, either this week or early next week. Supposedly, the central government plans to issue a notification regarding the same soon. IFC would basically mean that you could make calls and use the Internet on your devices during a flight, at least while within India airspace. Aside from being a matter of convenience for customers, it would let local airlines tap another source of revenue, as far as onboard WiFi is concerned. Many global airlines already have WiFi offerings on their flights, but theyve so far been forced to switch it off within Indian airspace. IFC may happen this week or may be early next week because we have already finalised the guidelines. Sundarajan said. Just the notification is to be issued. The telecom secretary says the response from both foreign and domestic airline operators so far has been positive See a lot of the airline operators have been quite keen on IFC, she added. They see it as a competitive strategy to attract customers. International operators like INMARSAT also are keen to come in and of course, our own local players are there. Definitely, there is lot of interest. Unfortunately, it seems like the government will leave the pricing of these services up to the airlines, with Sundarajan saying India doesnt have a history of regulators fixing tariffs. However, she does hint there might be some oversight from the telecom ministry. Either way, maybe you could just stream Netflix on your next flight instead of having to download episodes beforehand. We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form Weep copious amounts as you follow the lives of these two Pak families. Yakeen Ka safar Star Rating: 4/5 Must-watch: the chemistry between the two lead characters is perfect. Those strong emotional scenes are very real and lifelike. There was a time when the nation was (ironically) hooked to Pakistani plays thanks to Zee Zindagi. But except for Humsafar and Zindagi Gulzaar Hai, none of the dramas matched up to expectations. So, it was with some trepidation that one watched the first episode of Yakeen Ka Safar on Youtube. But this weepy saga (from the Humsafar makers) has been rated as one of the top 10 all-time popular dramas. The presence of the immensely talented Sajal Aly (who played Sridevis daughter in Mom and was said to be very close to the late star) certainly piqued our interest levels. It would not be an exaggeration to call her the Alia Bhatt of Pakistan, given the powerful performance (she even won the best actress award for her role) as Dr Zubia, a young woman who undergoes tremendous upheavals and hardships with great sabr (tolerance) on her Yakeen Ka Safar. The tagline Ghumman (doubt) ke baad, yakeen ka safar traces the parallel lives of two families, where members have had to undergo their own share of azmaish (tests) before they find their peace.Zubia Khalil mourns the tragic loss of her mother (who is physically pushed to death by her cruel father), and how her life changes living under the overbearing presence of a rigid father and a spineless brother (whose love turns hostile), who is strongly influenced by his manipulative wife. On the other side of the spectrum is Barrister Usman Ali Khan and his cohesive family comprising his upright lawyer son, Daniyal , who goes over and above the call of duty to fight for justice for rape victim Noori who has been brutally gang raped by a politicos son and his friends. The fallout of taking on a powerful politician leads to repercussions that impact the Khan family, especially his wife Gaiti and his mum, Lubna. Daniyas younger brother, a hitherto carefree long haired guitarist and upcoming doctor Asfandyar Khan (played by debutant actor Ahad Mir), who grows up overnight going from fun-loving dude to a sober doctor. Everybody faces their own demons in this 29 episode series. Asfandyar who heads to the US to do his masters in medicine returns to Neelam Valley to set up a hospital for the underprivileged. It is here that he meets Zubia, who has moved from her parental home to her aunts home in Peshawar before finding her bearings in this new environment. The relationship between Asfi and Zubia ais fraught with tension. The scenes remind you of the chemistry of Rahat Kazmi and Marina Khan (who play doctors in the 80s classic Dhoop Kinaare). Neelam Valley offers solace and comfort to heal for all the characters, each of whom is dealing with their personal battles. The ending comes as a welcome relief not just for the audience but for these characters too, who finally make peace with their past. If there is one thing you can be assured of is weeping copiously as Pakistani dramas revel in lingering on tragic moments with almost sadistic pleasure. That is all the secret of their high TRPs. Pakistani Rangers (black uniforms) and Indian Border Security Force personnel (brown uniforms) take part in the daily beating of the retreat ceremony during India's 69th Republic Day celebrations at the Indian Pakistan Wagah Border post about 35km from Amritsar Jan. 26. India has called off talks between its foreign minister and her Paksitani counterpart after an Indian border guard was killed in Kashmir by Pakistani troops. (Narinder Nanu/AFP/Getty Images) Settlers Storm Al-Aqsa on Yom Kippur (video) by IMEMC Friday Sep 21st, 2018 2:57 PM Heavily armed Israeli forces escorted large groups of Israeli settlers as they stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Wednesday, for the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. Copy the code below to embed this movie into a web page: Spokesman of the Islamic Endowment Department (Waqf), Firas al-Dibs, said that, within half an hour, about 40 Israeli settlers stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque through the Moroccan Gate, under the heavy protection of Israeli forces. Al-Dibs added, according to Maan, that Israeli forces and police escorted the settlers into the compound as they were deployed across the mosques premises, prior to the opening of the Moroccan Gate. Israeli settlers reportedly stormed the compound to perform religious Jewish prayers on the day of the Yom Kippur Jewish holiday, also known as Day of Atonement, one of the most sacred holidays in Judaism. Al-Dibs mentioned that Israeli forces stood at the entrances of the compound and confiscated IDs of Muslim worshipers before allowing them entry. Israeli forces also banned head of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compounds female guards, Zeinat Abu Sbeih, from entering the compound, serving her with a summons for interrogation at the Israeli police station, in the Old City of Jerusalem, on Thursday morning. Tensions are high after at least 326 Israeli settlers stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Tuesday, and performed religious Jewish prayers while under the protection of Israeli forces who assaulted several Muslim worshipers and staff members of the Islamic Endowment Department (Waqf), as well as detained several others while in the compound. The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, which sits just above the Western Wall plaza, houses both the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa mosque. The third holiest site in Islam, it is also venerated as Judaisms most holy place, as it sits where Jews believe the First and Second Temples once stood. According to the Israeli news outlet Israel National News, the Western Wall Heritage Foundation reported that more than one million Israelis have visited the Western Wall, which sits besides the Al-Aqsa Mosque, in the last month. A statement by the foundation said that every year the number of (Jewish) worshipers at the Western Wall during the Days of Awe rises. Resolution in Support of the Sept. 29 Global Day of Action for the Driscoll's Boycott and in Support of the San Quintin (Mexico) FarmworkersWhearas, on July 14, 2015 the San Francisco Labor Council adopted a resolution in support of the 70,000 farmworkers in the Valley of San Quintin, Baja California (Mexico), who have been waging intermittent strikes and organizing mass mobilizations since mid-March 2015 to demand an increase in their daily wage, an eight-hour workday, healthcare, overtime pay and vacation days, an end to the widespread sexual abuse, and, most important, the legal recognition of their independent union and the signing of a collective-bargaining agreement; andWhereas, the San Francisco Labor Council noted that these farmworkers pick strawberries, tomatoes, and other fruit primarily for export to the United States under the label of Driscoll's, through its Mexican subsidiary, BerryMex; andWhereas, the San Francisco Labor Council voted to call upon the entire trade union movement in the United States to add Driscoll's to their "Do Not Patronize" list and to actively promote a boycott of Driscoll's produce; andWhereas, in a resolution adopted July 14, 2017 in opposition to NAFTA and in support of workers' rights in Mexico, the San Francisco Labor Council reiterated its support for the San Quintin workers and their struggle to get Driscoll's to sit down with the leadership of their independent union - the SINDJA - and sign a collective-bargaining agreement that addresses the workers' just demands; andWhereas, the leadership of the Alianza de Organizaciones Sociales and of SINDJA have called for a Global Day of Action on September 29, 2018, in support of the Driscoll's boycott and in support of the farmworkers' fight to obtain a collective-bargaining agreement;Therefore be it Finally Resolved, that the San Francisco Labor Council will forward this resolution to other Bay Area labor councils and to the California Federation of Labor for concurrence.Submitted by Alan Benjamin, OPEIU 29; Olga Miranda, SEIU 87; Alisa Messer, AFT 2121; Vince Courtney, LIUNA 261; Conny Ford, OPEIU 29; and Shelia Tully, CFA, and adopted unanimously by the San Francisco Labor Council on September 10, 2018.Respectfully,Rudy GonzalezExecutive DirectorOPEIU 29 AFL-CIO 11San Francisco Labor Council1188 Franklin Street, Suite 203San Francisco, CA 94109 Medicare, the federal health insurance program primarily for adults 65 and over, pays doctor and hospital bills for many older Americans. However, it doesnt cover everything. Long-term custodial care for help with the activities of daily living such as bathing, dressing, and eating, are not covered under the plan. There are other uncovered costs as well. These can be devastating to your finances if you don't have a plan in place. So what do you do to cover the most burdensome of medical costs for yourself or another older member of your family? Read on to discover some of the ways you can plan ahead. Key Takeaways Most people will require eldercare at some point, but few can really afford the high cost. In order to qualify for Medicaid, individuals need to meet and fall below a certain income level. Older people can set up irrevocable trusts or gift their assets to a child or other family member. Other options include annuities, pooled trusts, or personal care agreements. If all else fails, the older person's spouse may sign a spousal refusal. The Costs of Eldercare Many older people will eventually need eldercareperhaps because of a physical or mental impairmentand they and their families will have to find a way to pay for it. Unfortunately, it is rarely cheap. In fact, it can quickly wipe out a persons life savings. A semi-private room in a nursing home in the United States costs an average of $255 a day, or $7,756 a month in 2020, according to the most recent report on long-term care by Genworth. A private room averaged $290 a day, or $8,821 a month. For people who dont need the level of care that a nursing home provides, a one-bedroom unit in an assisted living community runs about $141 a day, or $4,300 a month, according to Genworth's report. Home health aides for people who are able to remain in their own homes but still need some assistance can cost as much as $24 an hour. These are just averages, of course. In high-cost areas such as New York City, the bills can run much higher. 1. Long-Term Care Insurance Privately purchased long-term care insurance is one way to handle some of these costs. It provides coverage for nursing home care, home health care, personal care, and adult daycare. But long-term care insurance can be expensive and is not for everyone. Its also generally most cost-effective when purchased before age 60. The average annual premium in 2021 for a couple, both 55-years-old, is $5,025, according to the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance. Long-term care insurance offers more flexibility and options than public assistance programs, such as Medicaid. 2. Medicaid and Eldercare Another solution is applying for Medicaid, a joint federal and state program, and the largest national program that provides health-related services for low-income individuals. Though the specifics vary by state, Medicaid generally covers nursing home services. In some states, Medicaid also covers services that can help people remain in their homes. In order to be eligible for Medicaid, you must meet specific income and asset requirements, although the amount varies widely by state. In New York, for example, the 2021 Medicaid income eligibility level is $15,900 and below for individuals and $23,400 for couples. In order to qualify, a potential beneficiary must also have total countable assets under a certain amounttypically $2,000 for an individual and $3,000 for couples. Countable assets include bank accounts, stocks and bonds, the cash value of life insurance policies, and, in some cases, retirement assets. A home, if the person owns one, may be excluded, though home equity over a certain level can affect eligibility. Once the home is no longer the persons principal residence, it will be counted as a resource and can become subject to a Medicaid claim for reimbursement. Traditionally, people have often reached the eligibility threshold either by giving money to family members or through a spend down. This occurs when they pay for their own care until enough of their assets are depleted, which is often quickly. However, there are legal strategies that can help older people qualify for Medicaid without impoverishing themselves or their spouse. Though the rules are complex, some of the specifics vary by state and the services of a knowledgeable lawyer are essential, here are a few options to investigate. Because Medicaid rules vary by state, it may be best to speak directly to a regional office to obtain the correct guidelines for your home state. You can find a link to connect you via the Medicaid website. 3. Asset Protection Trusts A properly established irrevocable trust can be one way to shelter assets where they will not affect Medicaid eligibility. An irrevocable trust, which transfers assets to the control of a trustee, effectively removes them from the older persons control. This means that once established, this kind of trust cannot be changed or broken without the beneficiaries' permission. This is in contrast to a revocable trust, in which the person retains the right to change the arrangement. Revocable trusts, which are also referred to as revocable living trusts, have their uses, but qualifying for Medicaid isnt one of them. Example of an Irrevocable Trust David A. Cutner, an elder law attorney with Lamson & Cutner, P.C., offers an example of an irrevocable trust using New York State's rules that are slightly simplified: Suppose a person transfers $120,000 to an irrevocable trust, enters a nursing home thereafter and applies for Medicaid. Using Medicaids regional rate of $12,000 per month for nursing home care in that geographic region, the penalty period of ineligibility can be easily calculated in the following way: The $120,000 transfer divided by the regional rate of $12,000 equals a 10-month period of ineligibility. The penalty period starts when the person is in the nursing home, has applied for Medicaid and is otherwise eligible for benefits. In New York, the look-back period applies only to nursing homes and not to assisted living or home care. In other states, it may apply to all three. So it's important to check what the rules are for your state. In most cases, the actual cost of nursing home care is higher than Medicaids regional rate. As a result, the out-of-pocket cost of nursing home care during the penalty period will be greater than the amount of the transfer that caused the penalty. That is where the next strategy comes in. 4. Gifting Assets Before Eldercare Another option would be to simply give the money to a responsible child or another relative. However, Cutner says that route can be far riskier. Once the money is transferred, it legally belongs to the other person. So even if the person is totally trustworthy, events in their own lifea divorce, a business failure, a lawsuit, their deathcould put that money in jeopardy. Creating a trust instead can avoid these risks. Medicaid currently has a five-year look-back period, so if someone transfers assets into a trust and enters a nursing home more than five years later, the money in the trust will not be counted toward Medicaid eligibility. However, if the money was transferred within the five-year look-back period, that will affect their eligibility for a certain period of time. 5. Set Up an Annuity If a person needs to apply for Medicaid before the five-year look-back period is up, it still may be possible to preserve a significant portion of their assets by using a properly drafted private annuity or promissory note that complies with federal law, according to Cutner. Suppose the person in the example above transferred $60,000 into a trust and used the remaining $60,000 to purchase a private annuity prepared by an elder law firm. The monthly annuity payments, along with the persons Social Security and any other income, could be used to pay the nursing home bill for the five months that the person was now ineligible for Medicaid$60,000 divided by $12,000. There would be no transfer penalty for the money used to purchase the annuity under federal law so it wouldnt affect the persons eligibility. Plus, the $60,000 in the trust would now be preserved. The person could also have transferred that same remaining $60,000 to someone in return for a promissory note, with a similar $12,000 monthly payback period. As with a private annuity, such an agreement would need to be structured by an elder law attorney to make sure it met Medicaid requirements. Using the annuity or promissory note strategy, many people can protect from 40% to 50% of their assets, Cutner says. High-net-worth individuals, with, say, $1 million or more in assets, are unlikely to benefit. For example, for someone transferring $500,000 to trust in a locale where the regional rate is $8,000, the penalty period would be greater than the look-back period and might be longer than the persons nursing home stay. 6. Pooled Trusts States differ in how they treat income for Medicaid purposes. In general, a Medicaid recipient who is in a nursing home must turn over all of their income, except for a small monthly allowance, in order to defray the cost of care. If the person needs home care or lives in a continuing-care retirement community, the state may consider any income over a certain limit to be excess or surplus and require that it go toward the cost of care. In those instances, a pooled trust can protect some of that income. With a pooled trust, the older person arranges for their excess income to be paid to a charitable organization. The person no longer has control over the money, but can submit bills to the charity for payment. Someone who is still living at home might use it for food and utilities, for example. This allows the person to defray everyday living costs that might exceed Medicaids relatively low limits. Only a limited number of states permit pooled trusts. 7. Personal Care Agreements A lump sum paid to a caregiver for future services may not be considered a penalized transfer if it is structured correctly. That can serve a number of purposes. One is to reduce the size of the estate, so the person will be eligible for Medicaid. Another is to buy the older person some care beyond what Medicaid provides. This kind of personal care agreement can also help ease the financial strain on a child or other relative who has given up work and sacrificed income in order to provide care. Often, Cutner says, it can help prevent family rifts when the burden of caregiving falls disproportionately on a particular child. Such an agreement can also be used with an agency that provides home care services. 8. Spousal Transfers and Spousal Refusal A transfer of assets from one spouse to the other is not penalized under Medicaid, so a common move is for a spouse who needs to go into a nursing home to turn over their assets to their spouse. Even so, the spouse is still legally obligated to provide for the other spouses care, and their collective assets will be considered for Medicaid eligibility purposes. By signing a spousal refusal, however, the healthy spouse may be able to renounce that responsibility, making the other spouse immediately eligible for Medicaid. The documents, usually prepared by a lawyer, are sent and filed with the Department of Social Services. After the documents are reviewed, and each requirement from Medicaid is met, the state's healthcare program can begin paying for health services. Medicaid can attempt to collect reimbursement from the spouse at a later date, though Cutner says strategies are available that may lessen the impact. Even if Medicaid does collect, the couple is likely to benefit, because Medicaids reimbursement will be based on the discounted rate it pays nursing homes rather than on the private-payer rate the couple would otherwise have had to pay. This option is not available in every state so make sure to check first. The Bottom Line If older family members lack the funds to pay for the care that they need when they become mentally or physically frail, investigate these ways to help pay the bills without impoverishing the individual or their spouse. Healthy older adults should use this information to plan ahead for the care they might need in the future. What Is SEC Form DFAN14A? The term SEC Form DFAN14A refers to a filing made with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for non-management proxy solicitations not supported by the registrant. SEC Form DFAN14A covers "definitive additional proxy soliciting materials filed by non-management." Put simply, the form is designed to provide information to all parties involvedinvestors, financial professionals, and other key personnelabout proposed changes such as nominations to a company's board of directors made by a third party. Key Takeaways Form DFAN14A is designed to provide information about proposed changes such as nominations to a company's board of directors. Changes outlined in the form are normally made by a third partyentities not affiliated with the company itselfsuch as an institutional investor. The form must identify the filer, their investment position in the company, the action to be taken, and what they wish to achieve. Understanding Form DFAN14A SEC filings are financial documents and statements that must be completed and submitted to the agency on a regular basis so investors have the most accurate information about companies when they make their investment decisions. The SEC requires regular filings from public companies, brokers, and certain individualsnotably, people with insider information such as board members, people on the executive team, and other key company personnel. The most common types of SEC filings are the 10-K and 10-Q statements. The 10-K is a company's annual report, while the 10-Q is a company's quarterly report. Other forms outline changes in stock ownership, notice to file initial registration, registration of securities, filing of sales literature, revised proxy statements, initial public offering (IPO) registration, and amendments to other filings. Each form is identified with a series of letters and numbers and can be found on the agency's EDGAR database. SEC Form DFAN14A must be filed by someoneusually a third partywhenever they want to take any definitive action that would make changes to a company such as nominating members to the company's board of directors or to enact new advisory agreements. The form identifies the party taking action, that party's investment position in the company, the action to be taken, and the desired result of such action. The purpose of the form is to ensure that timely information is distributed to all interested parties since the intended result is to force a change not proposed by the company. Special Considerations A proxy fight is a term used to describe a battle between a company and a shareholder or a group of shareholders to win a shareholder vote. SEC Form DFAN14A can signal a proxy fight for board control or another initiative, such as changing management compensation or rejecting a takeover bid. Activists may seek a proxy fight for a variety of reasons, including looking to replace management or to force the sale of a company. The proxy materials in SEC Form DFAN14A are meant to help persuade shareholders to vote in favor of the activists board nominees or initiatives. A DFAN14A filing may signal a proxy fight for board control or another initiative, such as changing management compensation or rejecting a takeover bid. As noted above, SEC Form DFAN14A is filed when someone other than company management is nominating members for the board. This generally happens when investorsnotably activist investorsseek board representation when they feel the board is failing at its job. They may feel management oversight is lacking, hence, an investor may ask that shareholders vote new members onto the board. These board nominees can be direct members or affiliates of the activist investor or individuals that the investor thinks could bring value to the board. Nominees that dont have a direct relationship with the activist investor are considered independent board nominees. SEC Form DFAN14A vs. SEC Form DEF 14A SEC Form DFAN14A is a subset of SEC Form DEF 14A, which must be filed every time a shareholder vote is required, per section 14(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. SEC Form DEF 14A is the key document that lays out the information about the companys board of directors. It also contains details about the shareholder meeting, including the time, date, and location of the vote. Form DEF 14A is filed by the company or another party on its behalf. It's an important form that many investors tend to ignore but shouldn't. By Mike Dorning and Vildana Hajric US President Donald Trump has continued to hit out at China days after announcing another round of tariffs, signalling the trade war wont end any time soon. Its time to take a stand on China, he said. We have no choice. Its been a long time. Theyre hurting us. Mr Trumps biggest strike yet in a growing trade fight between the worlds biggest economies will see a 10% duty applied to $200bn (170bn) of Chinese imports, which could rise to 25% next year. Hes threatened duties on a further $267bn of made-in-China goods, which would hit nearly all other consumer products including mobile phones, shoes, and clothes. The latest round of duties comes on top of a 25% tariff already imposed on about $50bn in Chinese goods, which spurred counter- tariffs from Beijing. China plans to retaliate on the USs $200bn tariff round by slapping levies on $60bn of American goods. Officials in Beijing worry Mr Trumps latest tariff salvos mark a steady march towards a long-term competition that could thwart Chinas rise. Mr Trumps latest comments and the ascendancy of China critics within his administration will only compound such concerns. Adding to frictions, China yesterday demanded the US withdraw penalties it placed on a defence agency and its director for purchasing Russian weapons in violation of American sanctions or bear the consequences. The Trump administration hasnt put a process in place for companies to get exemptions from the most recent tariffs it is imposing, unlike earlier rounds of the duties. The US has justified its decision by saying that it is giving companies more than three months to transition their supply chains away from China before the tariff rate increases. The decision is likely to put additional pressure on US companies that say Mr Trumps trade dispute with Beijing is increasing uncertainty and boosting costs. US industry groups, including the National Retail Federation, have been pushing the administration to spare firms and consumers from import tariffs. Companies cannot shift their supply chains on a dime. It takes months, if not years, to find new suppliers who can meet all of a retailers sourcing requirements, said Jonathan Gold, the federations vice- president of supply chain and customs policy. These tariffs will unfairly punish US companies and, ultimately, US consumers. We have a recent survey of our membership, and three-quarters of our companies are going to be hurt by the US tariffs, said William Zarit, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China. The administration argues that tariffs give the country leverage as it pushes China to reduce trade barriers and protect US firms from unfair practices, such as theft of intellectual property. Despite the trade war escalation talk, US stocks looked poised for a second straight weekly gain amid continued calm. The bullish mood that has characterised most of the week continued to buoy global equity markets. Stocks rallied in Europe and Asia. The euro slipped from a three-month high after data showed eurozone expansion edged lower in September. Sterling slumped after Theresa May said the UK and the EU were at an impasse on Brexit. - Bloomberg Nearly 80 Sarvajanik Ganesh Mandals have threatened not to carry out the immersion of Ganesh idols on Sunday. More than 80 mandals on Saturday held a press conference in Pune to announce their decision and demand a revocation of the ban. (Representational Image) Pune: Nearly 80 Sarvajanik Ganesh Mandals have threatened not to carry out the immersion of Ganesh idols on Sunday if high-tech sound systems are not allowed in processions. More than 80 mandals on Saturday held a press conference in Pune to announce their decision and demand a revocation of the ban. Representatives of the mandals claimed that the festivals of Hindus are being targeted under the guise of noise pollution control and demanded that chief minister Devendra Fadnavis intervene in the matter to provide them relief. The state governments affidavit supports the ban on high-tech sound systems. This has led to the high court decision continuing the ban. Mr Fadnavis should now intervene and take measures to allow us to use such sound systems, a representative said. Defending the ban on the use of DJ and high-decibel audio systems, the Maharashtra government on Wednesday told the Bombay high court through its affidavit that such sound systems could not be allowed during Ganeshotsav and Navratri. The high court on Thursday rejected the petition filed by the Professional Audio and Lighting Associatio-n challenging the ban. Meanwhile, the MNS has supported Gane-sh mandals demand. If speakers and DJs are not allowed to play in the procession, mandals will not immerse their Ganpati. Why are only Hindu festivals being targeted? said MNS womens cell city president Rupali Patil. MNS chief Raj Thackeray, after a meeting with DJ system operators on Thursday, has extended his support to them. By Christopher Johnson Oil prices rose ahead of a meeting of Opec and other large crude exporters that will focus on production increases, as US sanctions restrict Iranian exports. Opec and its allies are scheduled to gather in Algeria tomorrow to discuss how to allocate higher supply to offset the shortage of Iranian supplies. Brent crude was up 16c at $78.86 a barrel. US light crude was up 77c at $71.09. Brent is close to four-year highs, trading just below $80 (68) a barrel, as investors bet that the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries will be unable to compensate fully for the loss of oil from Iran, Opecs third-biggest producer. But the meeting tomorrow is unlikely to be able to change production policy. Such a move would require Opec to hold what it calls an extraordinary meeting, which is not on the agenda. US president Donald Trump increased pressure on Opec on Thursday, calling on the organisation to get prices down now! We protect the countries of the Middle East, they would not be safe for very long without us, and yet they continue to push for higher and higher oil prices, Mr Trump wrote on Twitter. Mr Trumps criticism was directed primarily at Saudi Arabia, Opecs biggest producer, after the kingdom said it could tolerate oil prices above $80, at least in the short-term, said Commerzbank commodities analyst Carsten Fritsch. Saudi Arabia now faces a dilemma, Mr Fritsch said. Refusing to step up production would mean going against the will of ally Trump, but giving in to Trumps demand would make it his accomplice, which could see Opec tested to the limit. Tanker tracking and industry data show Iranian exports of crude have already begun to decline well before the imposition of new US sanctions on Tehran. Iranian crude exports are coming (down) earlier and bigger than expected, at a time when seasonal demand is strong. With spare capacity also falling sharply, the market remains exposed to supply-induced price shocks, ANZ Bank analysts said. Jason Gammel, analyst at US bank Jefferies, said he expects Saudi Arabia to try to keep the oil market adequately supplied into 2019, but at the cost of spare capacity, a key supply buffer to prevent oil price volatility. - Reuters By Sean McCarthaigh Around a quarter of the most common mobile phone handsets sold on the Irish market fail to meet internationally-recognised quality standards for downloading data, according to a new research. The survey by ComReg, the telecommunications regulator, found some popular phones used by Irish consumers did not meet recommended levels of quality for accessing data on their handsets. A similar study carried out by ComReg earlier this year to measure the quality of voice calls on mobile handsets revealed less than a third of models achieved a recognised standard. The latest survey tested 71 mobile phones including Apple, Samsung, Huawei, HTC and Sony models for the strength of the downlink between mobile base stations and handsets. Phones were scored on their Total Isotropic Sensitivity (TIS) which is a measure of the quality and consistency of mobile data services with the lower scores indicating the strongest downlink connections. The Cellular Telephone Industries Association, an international industry trade group, has recommended minimum TIS levels for various bandwidths including -89.5 for phones accessing the 800 MHz band a common bandwidth used in less populated parts of Ireland. The average score was -91. ComReg measured the download quality of the different handsets across four bandwidths when used with both the left and right hands giving a total of eight scores for each model. The average score was better than the recommended level in all eight tests but 13 handsets failed to meet the 800Mhz band including the Apple iPhone 6, HTC 10, and Motorola Moto E3. Among the best performing handsets for the quality of accessing data were the iPhone 7+, Samsung Galaxy S8, Huawei P10 and Sony Xperia M4. ComReg said there was only a very small variation produced in the results between left and right hand use for all the bands. Factors which affect the quality of service with mobile handsets include local terrain, the number of base stations, the users distance from a base station, spectrum bands and the ability of radio waves to travel over distance and penetrate buildings as well as the number of people using phones at the same time and location. ComREg said the one factor that is relatively constant for users is their mobile handset. Radio waves in lower-frequency spectrum bands are better suited to providing mobile coverage over larger geographic areas and at a relatively lower cost because fewer masts and base stations are needed. Higher-frequency bands, usually above 1GHz, are used mostly in more populous urban areas. Like many other countries Irish mobile network operators use a mixture of bands to provide a service to consumers which means most handsets contain multiple antennas capable of transmitting and receiving signals. The latest study is a third in a series conducted by ComReg to better understand and objectively measure factors that affect mobile coverage In February it published the findings of an analysis on the voice call performance of the same 71 handsets. It showed that less than a third of the most popular phones sold in the Republic met internationally recommended quality levels for making voice calls. None of seven Apple handsets tested met the recommended standard including three versions of the iPhone which featured in the bottom five scores. Last month the regulator published another report on the results of its measurements of the effect of building materials on indoor mobile performance. It revealed that foil-layered insulation as well as aluminium and PVC window frames can significantly lower the strength of mobile phone signals. The research found that energy efficient building materials could reduce signal strength be between 100 and one million times. ComReg said it would continue to measure the performance of all new makes and models of mobile handsets that become available on the Irish market on a regular and ongoing basis for voice and data. Story updated on September 28, 2018. By Giles Turner, Dinesh Nair and Eric Newcomer Uber Technologies is in early talks to buy food-delivery company Deliveroo for several billion dollars, according to sources. A bid for London-based Deliveroo, last valued at more than $2bn (1.7bn), would mark a major attempt by Uber to dominate the food-delivery business in Europe. An acquisition price is unknown. Any offer would need to be considerably above its latest valuation. The talks could fall apart, in part because Deliveroo and its investors have been reluctant to relinquish independence, sources said. Spokesmen at Deliveroo and Uber declined to comment. Although little-known in the crowded US market, which it has avoided, Deliveroo is ubiquitous in Europes capitals. The service is available in more than 200 cities on four continents. Shares in rival food delivery companies dropped yesterday. FTSE 100 company Just Eat dropped as much as 9% in early trading before closing down 34p, or 4.8%, at 674p. Uber chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi has made the companys food-delivery business a top priority ahead of a planned IPO in the second half of 2019. The San Francisco-based company is weighing other acquisitions, too. Its in talks with Middle Eastern ride-sharing rival Careem, according to sources. After selling its ride-hailing businesses in south-east Asia, China and Russia, Uber is eager to buy competitors, rather than sell its remaining local businesses. Deliveroo is one of Europes biggest startups and last year raised about $480m from investors including Fidelity Investments and T Rowe Price Group. The company competes directly with Uber Eats, Ubers food delivery business. Deliveroo was in financing talks last year with SoftBank, one of Ubers major investors. The negotiations abruptly ended after SoftBank concentrated on backing Uber. If it goes through, the acquisition would be the latest example of a European or Middle Eastern startup falling into foreign hands. Over the past two years, Apple acquired music-identification service Shazam for about $400m, despite initial concern from European regulators; Amazon snapped up Dubai-based online retailer Souq for $580m, shocking locals; and Chinese travel giant Ctrip International agreed to buy Scottish flight-booking site Skyscanner for $1.7bn. - Bloomberg One of the countrys top doctors has criticised the HSE for not putting doctors on board Irelands first charity air ambulance service. Stephen Cusack, the first academic professor of emergency medicine to be appointed in Ireland and a pioneer in the development of pre-hospital care here, described it as a missed opportunity. Dr Cusack spoke out last night as the aircraft, which will provide the new helicopter emergency medical service (HEMS), touched down in Kerry marking the end of a decade-long campaign by the Irish Community Rapid Response charity to launch an air ambulance service here. The HEMS is being supported by the HSE and the National Ambulance Service (NAS). Medical crew training is under way and it is hoped it will go live under the 999/112 system next month. However, the Irish Examiner revealed this week that plans to launch a doctor-led service have been shelved. The service, to be based in North Cork, will be crewed by an advanced paramedic and an emergency medical technician in line with the existing Athlone-based Air Corps 112 HEMS service. Irish Community Rapid Response founder John Kearney said it has been a long campaign to get the service off the ground, and that as it develops, he hopes it will move to a physician/advanced paramedic model. Dr Cusack said it is important to welcome the service, but he said he is very disappointed that physicians are not part of the crew from the outset, particularly given the history of pre-hospital care in this region. Last night, the HSE said crew arrangement for the HEMS is based on the successful Athlone-based service which has, over the last five years, successfully dealt with thousands of patients, the overwhelming majority of whom have had their medical needs met by this model. NAS are exploring how this might be further enhanced in the future, it said. This could include physician crewing, expanding the scope of practice of advanced paramedic crew, or a combination of both. By Juno McEnroe and Elaine Loughlin An emergency fund to save Brexit-hit agri-food groups and SMEs in the event of a no-deal must be factored into the budget, Fianna Fail has told the Government. Following the EUs rejection of British prime minister Theresa Mays Brexit plan this week, there are growing concerns about the prospect of Britain crashing out of the EU next March. The Irish Examiner understands that Fianna Fail, which supports the Fine Gael-led government under the confidence and supply agreement, wants an emergency no deal fund readied for Budget 2019. It would draw funds from the exchequer as well as off-balance-sheet funds and potentially amount to hundreds of millions of euro, senior Fianna Fail sources confirmed. The idea has already been put to Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe. While money could come from the extra 800m available for next years budget, other sources being considered are the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland, through the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund. This could be off-balance- sheet and support SMEs. Fianna Fail wants a full diagnostic of financial needs in health laid bare for the budget. Finance spokesman Michael McGrath said: We have been left with a lack of transparency in the last number of years for health. It emerges later that the HSE was looking for more than allocated. We want a requirement to improve services in 2019, including deficiencies in the acute hospital and disability services. However, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar yesterday reiterated there are limited funds for Budget 2019, saying: The budget numbers are tighter than people may expect. Because of all of the money that we are putting into the health service, there will be a health overrun this year, and thats because of all the extra staff we are hiring; thats because we are reducing average waiting times for people waiting for an operation down to six months or less; so its money well spent, but its money nonetheless. Also, we have made commitments to restore public sector pay so we have made a lot of commitments already and that means that the room for manoeuvre on budget day is limited. A medical law expert and a patient safety advocate have both urged a rethink of provisions in the Patient Safety Bill that would criminalise medical practitioners for failure to disclose information in relation to serious mistakes. Simon Mills, a barrister and former doctor, and Bernie OReilly of the Patients for Patient Safety initiative who lost her husband to medical misadventure said the aim should be to foster a culture of willing open disclosure instead of threatening medics with jail. Mr Mills said the open disclosure provisions of the Civil Liability Amendment Act 2017, which come into effect today, should be given time to bed in. Instead there was a rush to criminalise. The 2017 Act was designed to encourage open disclosure by enabling an apology to be made without it invalidating a practitioners insurance or being taken as an admission of liability in court. It was also intended to give the medical regulatory bodies stronger grounds on which to commence fitness to practice proceedings and/or sanction a practitioner. The proposed Patient Safety Bill goes a step further by making open disclosure a legal duty under threat of criminal prosecution, fines of up to 7,000 and/or six months in prison. Mr Mills said there may be an argument for institutions to be made criminally liable but targetting individuals was a rushed response to the CervicalCheck scandal. Politicians need to be seen to do something, he said. We have two parallel systems in train. One is creating space for open disclosure to take place and the other is, without waiting to see whether that fixes the problem, raising the idea of criminalising individuals or systems and it seems to me for the two of those to be proceeding in parallel rather than sequentially may well turn out to be a mistake. Ms OReilly spent years trying to get the truth behind her husband Tonys death after bowel surgery in 2006 and still has unanswered questions which she said might have been answered if there had been automatic preservation of all materials relating to his case and timely disclosure of the events that went wrong. However, she added: I dont think anybody should be criminalised. I think when something awful like that happens, you should learn from it and involve the family in that learning. Mr Mills and Ms OReilly were addressing a conference hosted by the State Claims Agency which heard the agency was currently handling 3,342 medical negligence claims and 7,579 general personal injury claims with a total estimated liability of 3.2bn, of which the medical negligence claims made up 2.32bn. Former doctor Adam Kay, now comedian and author of This Is Going To Hurt, his diaries from his time as a physician, said health services also needed to review the way they treated staff involved in serious incidents. Mr Kay said it was not until he was published that those close to him realised he had left the profession in devastation over a tragic case which he only attended when it had already become an emergency but which still had a profound effect on him. I didnt tell anyone, he said. Theres a stiff upper lip approach. He said he asked if he could work part-time for a while but the response was akin to: Why? Are you pregnant? We dont like to think of our doctors as human because when someone is looking at an MRI of your brain, you want them to be God or Google or something equally infallible, said Mr Kay. Medical schools are not honest about what the job is. If you are going to be a train driver, they will do a psychological test on you. If youre going on Big Brother they will check youre not going to crack. But if you want to be a doctor all they will check is whether you have enough As in your grade. A memo will go to the Government in the coming weeks outlining how to deal with the infant remains found at the site of the former mother and baby home in Tuam. Childrens Minister Katherine Zappone also told the Dail the final report of the scoping exercise investigating the scale of illegal birth registrations has been delayed until the middle of December. Ms Zappone is waiting on a report from Geoffrey Shannon, the special rapporteur on child protection, on the human rights issues arising from the discovery at Tuam. A decision on what to do with the site after the Cabinet examines this report is due this month. The scoping exercise was announced by Ms Zappone at the end of May following the discovery by Tusla of 126 cases in which births were illegally registered between 1946 and 1969 in the records of St Patricks Guild. The records transferred to the agency in 2016. It is being led by independent reviewer Marion Reynolds and will involve the Adoption Authority of Ireland (AAI) and Tusla. It was due to publish its report at the end of October but Ms Zappone said the report would now not be ready until the middle of December. She said the delay was due to a very complex task and issues have arisen in relation to data protection and GDPR. She said: I want to get to the truth and I believe that further analysis which has commenced, together with the ongoing work of the commission of investigation into mother and baby homes, will be extremely important in helping us to shape the further steps to be taken. The Department of Children and Youth Affairs has declined to reveal the sample size of the 150,000 records to be examined or the methodology. The scoping exercise has also been criticised for being focused only on illegal registrations and not all forms of illegal adoption. Ms Zappone was asked why her department has failed to launch an investigation into illegal adoptions before now and why it has not initiated a full audit of adoption records. The Irish Examiner has revealed issues around illegal adoptions for many years, including the fact that the regulatory body for adoption, the AAI, warned the department about the scale of the problem in 2011, 2013, and in 2015. In 2015, it sent the department a detailed spreadsheet containing 90 cases that it felt represented illegal registrations. This information was not acted upon at that time. Ms Zappone defended the actions of her department, stating that the AAI information supplied to it did not contain sufficient evidence to be confirmed as illegal registrations. As I said on my press statement of May 29, [the AAI] is examining these unconfirmed cases further to see if any further facts can be established but its really difficult to prove these cases in the absence of good records, she said. But, if the AAI, following this validation exercise, reaches the high level of certainty that I have spoken of, these cases will be added to the 126 that have already been confirmed and announced by me. Ms Zappone also said that she is still awaiting a reply to a letter she gave Pope Francis last month about the need for the Church to contribute substantially towards the cost of whatever is done to deal with babies remains at Tuam. By Aodhan O Faolain and Ray Managh Former Garda commissioner Noirin OSullivan application to be allowed bring a defamation action against a national daily newspaper has been adjourned. Ms OSullivan, who served as commissioner between 2014 and 2017, claims she was defamed by the Irish Examiner. She seeks a court order allowing her to extend the time legally allowed to bring defamation proceedings against the newspaper. The matter was mentioned before Mr Justice Tony OConnor at the High Court, who was informed that both sides had consented to the matter being adjourned to October 2, when the new legal term commences. Shane English, counsel for the newspaper, said yesterday that directions for the hearing of the application had been agreed with the former commissioners legal representatives. Under the 2009 Defamation Act, litigants have up to 12 months from the date of publication to bring defamation proceedings against the publisher. However, under section 38 of that act, the High Court can extend the 12-month time limit to a maximum of two years. Ms OSullivans counsel Gary Compton told the court that in his clients case, the two-year period expires in early October. No details of the alleged defamation have been aired in open court. By Juno McEnroe and Elaine Loughlin The Government has played down defiant warnings of a hard Brexit from British prime minister Theresa May and awaits her alternative backstop proposals to guarantee there will be no hard border in Ireland. Another standoff between Mrs May and Brussels looks set to again stall talks, after she yesterday fired back at the EUs humiliating rejection of her Brexit plan. She has challenged the EU to come up with its own alternative proposals, saying negotiations were deadlocked. Amid warnings from Taoiseach Leo Varadkar that talks are entering a rocky patch, it has emerged that an emergency fund for a no deal Brexit is now part of the budget negotiations. Tensions have ramped up in the Brexit talks after a declaration by EU figures in Austria this week that Ms Mays Chequers plan was unworkable. She was back on the offensive yesterday, issuing a demand for respect from EU leaders and declaring that negotiations were now at an impasse. Its not acceptable to simply reject the other sides proposals without a detailed explanation and counter-proposals, said Ms May. So we now need to hear from the EU what the real issues are, what their alternative is, so that we can discuss them. Until we do, we cannot make progress. Ms May reiterated that no deal is better than a bad deal. The DUP, which props up Ms Mays minority Tory government, criticised the disgraceful, bullying tactics from the EU. Despite the exchanges, the Irish Government said it remained focused on securing a Brexit withdrawal deal before the end of the year, ideally in October, November. Mr Varadkar said: What I owe to the Irish people is to do everything I can do to ensure that we dont have a hard Brexit, a cliff-edge Brexit, next March, and I think thats achievable. The negotiations have certainly entered a rocky patch, but that is only going to cause us to redouble our efforts. Government sources were positive about Ms Mays speech, noting that she recommitted to coming forward with alternative proposals to guarantee no border. Warnings of a no deal or hard Brexit were nonsense, said employers body Ibec. European Council president Donald Tusk tried to cool tempers last night, saying the EU would treat Ms Mays Chequers plan as a step in the right direction. Amid the chaotic negotiations, it has also emerged that Fianna Fail is pushing for an emergency fund to save Brexit-hit agri-food groups and SMEs in the event of a no deal. The party wants the emergency fund readied for Budget 2019 next month. The duo were arrested for clicking objectionable photos of their massage clients and blackmailing and extorting money from them. The arrest comes after one of the victims of the couple approached the police on Wednesday claiming that the accused -- Shadab Gowhar and his accomplices had blackmailed and extorted Rs 3 lakh from him. (Representational image) New Delhi: A 25-year-old man and his girlfriend were arrested for allegedly clicking objectionable photos of their massage clients and blackmailing and extorting money from them, the police said on Friday. The arrest comes after one of the victims of the couple approached the police on Wednesday claiming that the accused -- Shadab Gowhar and his accomplices had blackmailed and extorted Rs 3 lakh from him, they said. According to police, the victim had come in contact with Shadab earlier this month while searching for massage service providers on the internet. The accused had introduced himself as Armaan Sharma and on September 8 asked the victim to come to a hotel room in Vaishali. He charged Rs 12,000 for the massage, police said. Days later, Shadab again asked the complainant to meet him for another massage session in the same hotel room, they said. Around 20 minutes into the massage, there there was a knock at the door and Shadab opened it. Two of his female accomplices, Anukriti and Renu (names changed) entered the room and immediately took away the victim's clothes, wallet and mobile phone, they said. As Shadab began assaulting and abusing the victim, one of the women threatened to tear her clothes and implicate the victim in a fake rape case, police said. The trio then demanded Rs 10 lakh from the victim who agreed to give them Rs 3 lakh in cash which was kept in his car, they said. The complainant was further forced to sign four cheques amounting to Rs 4.5 lakh and was allowed to leave with a warning to arrange the remaining amount soon or his nude photos and videos would be shared with his family, they added. However, the complainant got the payment of the cheques stopped and filed a police complaint, police said. Police managed to arrest Shadab and his girlfriend Anukriti from a mall in Saket where they had come to collect Rs two lakh from the victim, they said. "Shadab (Gowhar) revealed that he came to Delhi along with girlfriend. On August 23, he made a profile on a website and on September 4, came in contact with the complainant," said Ram Gopal Naik, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Crime. "They met on September 8 after the accused successfully gained the confidence of the complainant," he added. The duo formed a gang roped in other members including women. They used the same modus operandi to extort money from other victims as well, police said. The Irish Aviation Authority is to get additional resources to implement changes proposed in a report highlighting a fragmented and sometimes disconnected level of oversight of search and rescue aviation operations. The AQE Review of the Oversight of Search and Rescue (SAR) Aviation Operations in Ireland was carried out by a panel of independent experts and follows the interim safety recommendation report delivered to the Government last March into the Rescue 116 accident in 2017. Four rescue crew [pictured] Captain Dara Fitzpatrick, Captain Mark Duffy, Paul Ormsby, and Ciaran Smith died in the tragedy. Transport Minister Shane Ross said he accepted all 12 recommendations in the report. I have instructed that all necessary steps be taken without delay to ensure speedy implementation of all of the recommendations, he said. The report highlights how areas of responsibility seem to criss-cross agencies and bodies, painting an often confusing picture regarding which organisation is responsible for specific areas. One example from the report states: AQE has identified a gap in understanding between some of the key players in relation to the concept that the National Maritime SAR Framework should serve as the National Search and Rescue Plan, and the narrower interpretation of it as reference document for use by all Irish search and rescue authorities working in the maritime domain. This lack of clarity is a significant source of divergence in understanding between the Department, the [Irish Coast Guard], and the [Irish Aviation Authority] regarding the roles and responsibilities of the key stakeholders in the Irish SAR system. Elsewhere, it states: According to the National Maritime SAR Framework document, the [Aviation Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Shannon/Air Rescue Sub-Centre in Dublin] is limited to requesting aviation resources only in response to an aviation incident, without mentioning who should provide these resources and when. Among the recommendations is that the department ensure that personnel involved in managing and tasking SAR aviation operations including the tasking of helicopter missions, are appropriately skilled, knowledgeable, and qualified. It says agencies such as the Irish Aviation Authority should be properly resourced, particularly in areas where it may need to take on additional responsibilities. A department spokesperson said: The IAA is working through what additional resources it requires to implement those recommendations in the report that are directed at it. It will be able to recruit whatever additional staff it needs. Dont price gouge for Rods sake. That was the message to hoteliers last night following confirmation that legendary rocker Rod Stewart is set to perform in Corks Pairc Ui Chaoimh next May. Stewart, 73, who signed his first solo recording contract some 50 years ago, will perform on Leeside on May 25, with tickets due to go on sale at 9am next Thursday. He has promised a show featuring a mix of his classic hits alongside some new songs from his 30th studio album, Blood Red Roses, a personal 13-track collection of originals and three covers, due for release next week. Its expected that it will be his only Irish date in 2019. And the concert announcement by Aiken Promotions led to calls to the hotel industry not to engage in price gouging. Hoteliers faced criticism last year for hiking room prices in the wake of the announcement of the hat-trick of Ed Sheeran gigs at the stadium across the 2018 May bank holiday weekend. Labour Party representative Peter Horgan said next years gig by the Have I Told You Lately and Maggie May star will attract fans from all over Europe. While Ed Sheeran was a success there was the highly-inflated hotel room prices across the weekend that many people commented on to me, he said. Hotels that benefit from the 9% Vat rate cannot keep blaming algorithms and must show that they have competitive rates not ones that are increased at an uncontrolled rate. Showing the world that you can afford to come to Cork and stay for a concert at reasonable prices will do far more than any new branding will. This will be another feather in the cap for Cork and I look forward to seeing the residents and businesses consulted with thoroughly, well in advance of the event. Stewart has earned countless industry awards, including two inductions into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the ASCAP Founders Award for songwriting, the New York Times bestselling author, Grammy Living Legend, and in 2016 he was knighted by Britains Prince William for his services to music and charity. The Law Society of Ireland has said there is no doubt that a key recommendation in the Policing Commission report to remove gardai for court prosecutions would represent major change and require considerable investment. The reaction from the countrys representative body for solicitors follows the publication of the landmark report on Tuesday, which laid out a general blueprint for reform of policing and oversight. The Future of Policing in Ireland report contains a radical recommendation that would involve a massive reorganisation of the criminal justice system by removing gardai from key roles they currently fulfil. All prosecution decisions should be taken away from the police and given to an expanded State solicitor or national prosecution service, states the report. We also recommend that the practice of police prosecuting cases in court should cease. It says that the commission heard, in the course of public consultations, that gardai in charge of prosecutions may not be trained to the level of the opposing defence lawyer. Some gardai have undoubtedly become skilful prosecutors through experience, but this should not be their job and it does not justify taking them away from frontline duties, it states. The Future of Policing in Ireland report says that most comparable jurisdictions recognise that investigation and prosecution processes should be separate. The involvement of gardai in prosecutions and the amount of time they spend in court or preparing for court is enormously wasteful of police resources that should be deployed on core police duties, the Future of Policing in Ireland report states. Given that sergeants prosecute cases in district courts up and down the country, this proposal would involve a massive increase in the provision of staffing in the State solicitor network or a national prosecution service. The report is silent as to how this transformation would occur in practice and it may be something that the implementation group will take up. In response to queries from the Irish Examiner, the Law Society said: There is no doubt that some of the recommendations, in particular, would, if implemented, represent a very significant change and would inevitably require considerable investment by the State. The society is looking forward to carefully considering those recommendations and developing policy positions in due course. The implementation group will examine any supporting documentation the commission may have to guide it on how this transformation would take place. The group will also have to examine how it can implement related proposals regarding the removal of gardai for non-core duties. These include providing security at courts, transporting remand prisoners, serving summonses, attending minor road traffic accidents, and safeguarding examination papers for schools. It said that many hours of sworn police time is squandered on such duties and that action should be taken immediately. In its statement, the Law Society welcomed other recommendations in the report, including the development of a scheme of continuous professional development for gardai, a plan to deploy body-worn cameras, and the emphasis on stronger community policing. The overwhelming majority of farm families believe mobile phones should be banned from all schools. An Irish Examiner/ ICMSA poll found almost nine in 10 respondents (88%) agreed with an outright ban. There was strong support across all age groups and demographics, with those aged under 35 least enthusiastic although even there, 72% are in favour of a ban. While the poll of farmers represents a strong vote from parents on banning phones at school, teachers and students responding to the poll took a different view. The Association of Secondary Teachers of Ireland (ASTI) said the poll findings were very interesting and indicate that as a society we are concerned about our use of the internet and related devices, but added schools were often the safest places phones could be used. An ASTI spokesperson said: It is important to note that the vast majority of second-level schools already have robust policies in place in relation to the use of mobile phones. Most of these policies specify that students must have mobile devices switched off during the school day or during tuition hours. In many cases, these policies have been drawn up in consultation with students and parents. This has the distinct advantage of producing a policy which has buy-in from the whole school community something a blanket ban cannot achieve. We must remember that 18 and 19-year-olds attend second level schools, and student voice in developing policies enables a rights and responsibilities-based approach to policy development. The spokesperson said the draft legislation for a Parents and Students Charter will ensure that meaningful consultation will take place with parents and students on key school policies such as mobile phone usage. It is important to point out that the Governments digital strategy for schools emphasises greater use of digital technologies in schools to enhance teaching, learning and assessment, said the spokesperson. School is possibly the safest place for young people to learn how to use such technologies responsibly. Irish young people must be prepared for the revolutionary impact which digital technologies are driving across our economy, society and personal lives. Blanket bans on mobile devices in schools will not facilitate this imperative. The Irish Second-Level Students Union (ISSU) said it believed a common sense approach to the use of mobile phones in schools must be found between students, parents, teachers, and school management. ISSU deputy president Sarah Harte said: We believe in a ban on unnecessary phone usage in schools, however we do not believe in a complete ban on devices for both practical and educational purposes. Both teachers and students can benefit from using phones as an educational tool, for example interactive learning through Kahoot, or by recording oral work in Irish or other foreign languages. ISSU has welcomed the fact that students, teachers, and parents were to be consulted as part of a recent circular issued by Education Minister Richard Bruton. I think they should be allowed in schools at the discretion of school management and teachers, said Ms Harte. Schools have to take an active approach to tackling issues like cyber-bullying and image sharing in schools. A complete ban of the device that is used will not change the problem. Education is the only way forward and the ISSU support initiatives like Webwise that try and educate students, teachers, and parents of the dangers online. Update: A fourth man has been arrested after gardai conducted searches in Wexford today targeting organised criminal activity. The 44-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of money laundering offences. He and three other men aged 47, 38 and 29 are currently detained under Section 4, Criminal Justice Act, 1984 at Wexford garda station. Gardai estimate that a total of 1.2m was seized in relation to three searches carried out in today by the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau. Officers stopped two vehicles off the Clonard Road in Wexford Town at around 10.45am this morning. They later conducted another search this evening which led to the arrest of the fourth man. In a separate search in the Ballyfermot area of Dublin earlier, gardai said they had seized "a very significant sum of cash". Earlier: 'Substantial' sum of cash seized after searches in Wexford and Dublin Gardai have seized "a substantial sum of cash" today in searches in Dublin and Wexford today. Officers investigating organised crime stopped two vehicles off the Clonard Road in Wexford Town at around 10.45am this morning. The cash, the total of which is yet to be determined, was seized and three men aged 47, 38 and 29 were arrested on suspicion of money laundering offences. They are being held at Wexford garda station under the provisions of Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act 1984. Following the search in Wexford, further operations were carried out in Dublin which resulted in "a very significant sum of cash" being seized. Speaking earlier today, Assistant Commissioner John ODriscoll, who is head of Special Crime Operations (SCO), said: "Depriving organised crime groups (OCGs) of the proceedings of their criminal activity is a particular priority for the Garda Siochana. "For this purpose, today, the Garda National Drugs & Organised Crime Bureau (GNDOCB) is undertaking searches in Dublin and Wexford, which has resulted in the arrest of three suspects and the seizure of a very significant quantity of cash." File photo. Digital Desk Three brave superheroes have joined forces to spearhead a campaign to help other young cancer patients. Wonder Woman Alex Madden, aged six, from Aherla; Batman Olan Hanrahan, aged seven, from Charleville; and Superman, Kumail Alhlaichi, from Blackpool, who are all patients at the citys Mercy University Hospital (MUH), swooped in for a special photoshoot to announce details of the Mercy Heroes campaign next month. It aims to raise enough money to expand MUHs unique kids cancer outreach service, Paediatric Oncology Outreach Nursing Service (POONS), which allows children with cancer to receive treatment in the comfort of their own home. It is the only service of its kind in Ireland and is funded entirely by donations. It has been offered for the last five years across a large area in Cork from Youghal to Bantry, and from Mitchelstown to Kinsale. It has also been provided to some children in surrounding counties. Now the hospital hopes to raise 40,000 to maintain and expand it. Alex, who is being treated for a rare ras mutation cancer, was one of the first children to avail of the POONS service more than four years ago. Her mum, Jennifer Coughlan, said: For us, it meant that Alex could stay at home. It meant the treatment wasnt as frightening. It made it normal. The nurses, Peg and Olga, came out at a time that suited us, and delivered the treatment sitting at the kitchen table. Alex underwent a bone marrow transplant over a year ago and is now doing well while still undergoing treatment every three weeks, under the care of haematologist Clodagh Ryan. Olga Buckley, a paediatric oncology and haematology clinical nurse specialist at MUH, said the home-based treatment option also enhances the quality of life for the children. It allows for some normalisation of family life during cancer treatment, she said. It also means there is a reduction in hospital admissions and promotes early discharge from the hospital. Micheal Sheridan, CEO of the hospitals fundraising wing, the Mercy Hospital Foundation, encouraged people to get involved in the Mercy Heroes event on October 19, by hosting a coffee morning, a dress up or dress down day at work or school, or even helping out with street collections. Anyone can be a hero, and we want to celebrate our Mercy Heroes and so we are encouraging the people of Cork to join with us on Friday, October 19, he said. You can register your event at mercyfundraising.ie and receive a free Mercy Heroes pack full of information and ideas. Less is more and bold is better next spring, as fresh skin and rainbow brights dominate and light up the catwalk. Rachel Marie Walsh reports Skincare is the new foundation, was the message from catwalks in both London and New York this fashion month, as even the finest serum makeup was ditched in favour of care n bare. There is little time for pampering treatments backstage but a makeup artists station is always good for a quick-fix. Cult moisturisers Weleda Skin Food, 9.05 at hollandandbarrett.ie, and Embryolisse Lait-Creme Concentre Nourishing Moisturiser, 16.99, kept skin supple and glowing at multiple shows. Skin Food is packed with sunflower seed-oil and Both suit normal-to-dry and sensitive skin. Artists at Badgley Mischka even put Skin Food on a damp sponge and used it as subtle highlighter. At Alexa Chung models went foundation-free but had Gankin facial massages to reduce puffiness, enhance natural contours and smooth the appearance of lines. The invigorating nine-step technique can be emulated at home following a video on Japanese cosmetics brand Suqqus YouTube channel. A rich moisturiser like either of the above promotes a dewy finish. Results can last up to twelve hours. Victoria Beckham treated models to the same Foreo UFO Mini LED Thermo Activated Smart Mask Device, 191.99, she uses in her own bathroom. The disk-shaped tool uses both heat and light therapy to help protein and vitamin essences penetrate the skin more deeply, improving your complexion in just 90 seconds. Alexas method is free but Victorias is far less fuss. Roses round the crown at Rodarte NARS artist James Kaliardos knows art history at least as well as makeup artistry. The Detroit native studied art at Parsons School of Design and co-founded both Visionaire and V magazine in the 1990s. Hes worked with Ellen Von Unwerth, Irving Penn, Steven Meisel and just about every Vogue-worthy photographer of the last two decades. Cute fact: he also created a New York theatre company that re-worked classic plays with fresh art and fashion touches. In his notes from Rodartes show in New York he cites modern art as a jumping-off point, specifically the Tate Modern exhibition on Picassos Year of Wonders (1932) this summer. Needless to say, nobody wants to look exactly like the women in those paintings, with their warped or layered faces. Kaliardos drew from the palettes: bright yellow, fuchsia and cerulean shadows popped against bare skin. Graphic but softly geometric blocks of NARS Single Eyeshadow, 25, in Douro, Domination and Baby Jane are new on counters this month. NARS Powermatte Lip Pigment, 26, in Dont Stop a blue-red that he insists works on every skin tone, made a striking contrast. The makeup was gorgeous but the hair was couture-worthy. Stylist Odile Gilbert spent five hours weaving fresh roses and metal accessories, including medieval crowns, into 48 models hair. NARS Eye Shadow in Baby Jane Joyful colour-pops at Paul Costelloe The Dublin designers joyful palette of blue and white checks and pretty florals was picked up by Lisa Potter-Dixon, Head Artist for Benefit Cosmetic, who focused on fresh skin with touches of colour. She blended High Beam, 27, the brands pink-champagne highlighter, with Hello Happy! Soft Blur Foundation, 30, to give a soft-focus glow to the face. A flirty, soft coral eye was created using Galifornia Powder Blush, 14. This look was also a nod to the Eighties tailoring of the collection. Blue Theyre Real! Mascara was applied to the bottom and outer corners of the upper lashes, giving it a modern twist. It wouldnt be a Benefit eye without a great brow. Lisa made the most of every hair her models had by filling gaps with Precisely, My Brow Pencil, boosting volume with Gimme Brow+ Gel and fixing the look with 24-Hour Brow Setter, each 26.50. Super-dewed skin at Temperley London Charlotte Tilbury created a dewy look at Temperley London Charlotte Tilburys success comes at least in part from an ability to respond to and improve upon what is hot on social media. For the Temperley London SS19 show, her signature glow was amped up to an almost wet look for evening, something like the Dewy Dumpling skin popularised by red-carpet artist Nam Vo in recent months. Of course it all began with her Magic Cream, 90, which gives skin an instant moisture boost with a hint of shimmer. She then mixed her Light Wonder Youth-Boosting Foundation, 42, together with Hollywood Flawless Filter, 40, to create a dewy, instantly illuminated and full-coverage base (this is a lot of makeup, the latter looks dewy alone in my view). Her new Magic Away Liquid Concealer, 30, is the kind that covers both spots and undereye circles without caking. It is also camouflages pores and contains palmitoyl glycine, which gives skin a plumped, bouncy appearance. For a final, radiant flourish, she blended liquid highlighter on top of the cheekbones, taking it down towards the apple of the cheeks. By Carl Miller ID NEVER met him before, but he leaned towards me, so close that our faces almost touched. It was just before Christmas 2016, and the pub was hot and cramped, full of musty clothes and yuletide hubbub. I stared at the phone he was holding. Look, he said. A video was playing. On the screen was only darkness and the sound of ragged, uneven breathing. Ten seconds passed. Then 20. And suddenly the screen was full of light. Fire streaked along the ground, weaving away from the camera and towards the dim outline of a car some metres away. Within a moment, it was covered in flames, rolling out from the undercarriage and licking up around and over the roof. A scrap of paper was held up to the camera, a dedication it read. And there lit a lurid orange by the car now torching ferociously in the background, this mans name, Chris, was printed in large, black font. Early 30s, smartly dressed and with black hair cropped close to his head, Chris looks like any of the thousands of central London workers that pour into the pubs after office hours. And by day, this is exactly who he is: An IT specialist a sysadmin at a large company in central London. But the reason we met is because of what Chris does when he gets home from work. Darknet researcher, ethical hacker, cybercrime investigator, Im not sure there is yet a neat label for what Chris is. But in his flat, six screens in front of him, Chris plunges into the darkest and most dangerous places that exist on the internet to investigate what theyre really like. Eyes cast down onto the table in front of him, Chris explained that he was deep into his most serious of forays into a strange, scary world. For over a year, he had been investigating one of the most pervasive rumours about what the internet could now provide. Something hed been sure was a scam, a myth. Yet scammers dont do that, said Chris, contemplating the video. For the first time in all of Chriss investigations, it was ambiguous whether hed found a real operation. One selling murder on demand. Chris was only one of a remarkable cast of people that I met over the next year. There was Eliot Higgins, the softly spoken, details-obsessed citizen journalist who had begun by arguing in the comment threads of newspapers and leapt onto the front page of the New York Times. There was the middle-aged hacker who casually told me how hed managed to reset the mini-bar bill of everyone staying at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, just using the televisions remote control. Id come face-to-face with the blanched, terrified face of a cyber-criminal who was part of a community of thousands of men stealing private sexual images from womens iPhones and trading them as a currency. Surrounded by the towering neon of Seoul, Id met a teenager known as a hikkikomori, one of tens of thousands of young South Koreans who had departed from society. He never left his house, and only lived his life online. Id gone on a cybercrime raid with the police, lived in a political-technology commune in east London (twice), peered into the mechanics of algorithms that have been kept secret. It was the strangest year of my life. I had immersed myself in the stories and lives of these people because I was searching for a single idea. One I thought we needed to understand the world today. Across the world, again and again, the old familiarities were tumbling down and new social orders, new hierarchies, new winners were emerging that all, in one way or another, traced back to digital technology. The idea we needed was power. Who could reach into our lives and change them? What shaped our choices and preferences? Whether soft and subtle, or coercive and scary, power over people was what I was trying to understand: How it was being won and lost, fought over and transformed across almost every aspect of our lives. Understanding the reality of power was, I thought, the best way of understanding the world today. And it was people like Chris that could teach us what power, now, was really like. Chris target was an assassination market nestled on the darknet, a slice of the internet where nobody knows who you are and nobody knows where you go. Hire a killer or a hacker, reads the websites slogan. If you want to kill someone, it promises, we are the right guys. Killings start from $5,000 (4,250) for basic killers, but for $30,000 you could hire an ex-military trained hitman with a sniper rifle on buildings. The sites USP was that technology now meant that contract killings, like anything else, could be transacted distantly and anonymously. Clients interested in these services were directed towards an online order form. Chris had tweaked and probed and before long a spectacular breakthrough led him deep into the workings of the site. Hed found a way to download the entire message database, and built a window into what was really happening there: Who was registered, what they were saying, even who was paying money. For months he quietly waited, watching the site in operation and recording the 800 messages that were exchanged between its users and a shadowy administrator. Id be scrolling through the messages, said Chris. Troll, troll, troll, troll. As he suspected, Chris found that the website never actually supplied murders, preferring instead to extort money from the people seeking to use it. But some of the messages sent to the site seemed genuine. Hed found 12 significant targets for whom money had been paid, and about as many people again who had wanted, possibly, to sign up to carry out killings and other forms of violence. As he began to publicly debunk it, hed started to receive those threats. He'd gone to his local police station. Hed phoned the British police. Hed phoned the LAPD, then the FBI. From Chris perspective at least, nobody was taking him seriously. An Albanian mafia group conducting murder-for-hire as an e-commerce venture? The darknet? Bitcoin? I knew for a fact the police were not looking into this, Chris told me. So he decided to take matters into his own hands. Chris next move was a strike on the assassination market itself, an attack as surreal as anything on the site. Chris called it Operation Vegetable. He uploaded something called a shim to the website a smuggled fragment of code. That fragment opened a tiny lever of control for Chris within the website itself. On July 3, 2016, he struck, using that lever to wrestle the website offline. People trying to visit the site were now diverted to another that Chris had set up, with the message: This website has closed for business. In the background a song was playing. Goodbye, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye. As I followed Chris through his journey into the heart of an assassination market, it was so otherworldly, so bizarre, that it felt disconnected from all the rest of us who do not choose as Chris does to spend time in the darkest recesses of the internet. His story was frightening, yes, but also distant. A window into life at the fringes of society, but certainly not most peoples everyday. But I slowly began to realise that Chris story was far from unusual. Again and again, I saw the same echoes of Chris in what was happening to power everywhere. Organised societies have always tried to cage power. Professional standards, ethical frameworks, regulation, public scrutiny, the law itself, are all meant to keep power under control, to limit how people use it. But wherever I looked, the rules were breaking down. The police were facing perhaps the worst crisis of law enforcement in their history. It had become unbelievably easy to do cybercrime and almost half of crime now happened through the internet. Online fraud had become the most common crime in most developed countries. You are 20 times more likely to be robbed at your computer than mugged in the street. Your social media accounts are as likely to be burgled as your house. You are more likely to be targeted by a computer virus than all forms of violent crime put together. Yet thanks to the internet, crime could pass unbelievably easy across borders. Again and again, investigations foundered as the police struggled to locate the victims, perpetrators, and evidence scattered all across the world, separated by borders that they often couldnt reach across. The political mainstream was besieged. The monopolies mainstream parties are long used to holding of mass messaging, the mobilisation of enormous numbers of people things that used to be difficult and expensive, that needed planning and hierarchies and money, had come tumbling down. Protests were becoming known by hashtags, and more and different kinds of digital-first political parties were jumping in to contend mainstream elections across the world, driven by rapidly changing forms of digital campaigning and activism that regulators struggled to even monitor, let alone enforce. Media was faring little better. The famous global titles rumbled onwards, but underneath there was a bloodbath. Hundreds of local papers had shut, and as thousands of journalists lost their jobs, 2016 became the first year they were outnumbered by those in public relations. It was the mediators of content Google and Facebook not the creators of it, that were now in the driving seat. Professional journalists told me they had become content factories, churning out newswires and borrowed stories to harvest the clicks they needed to keep things going. It was now often citizen journalists, like Eliot, doing the tedious, gritty, investigative work because they had exactly the one thing that the professionals often lacked: time. Capitalism itself was under strain by the new economies driven by data and platforms. The largest hotelier in the world is a software company. So too is the largest taxi company, telecoms provider, payments and recruiting and advertising firms. But as software eats industry after industry, it created in each monopolies, duopolies, oligopolies, vast concentrations of wealth and power packed into the sprawling, primary-colour campuses that dot Silicon Valley. The digital world didnt create new markets, it created single, take-all winners, and the century-old laws that existed to protect the lifeblood of capitalism open competition simply didnt recognise the new economic logics unleashed by the digital age. Crime had changed, but the police couldnt. Politics had changed, but parliaments stayed the same. Enormous new companies had exploded to the stop of the economy, but the laws governing them hadnt stayed in touch. In information warfare, the armies of liberal democracies that did play by the rules were the ones most disadvantaged. And the actual developers of technology could change each of our day-to-day outside of any kind of professional guidelines. Id met the makers of algorithms who could accidentally influence millions by tweaking a single digit in their unbelievably complicated creations. Id sat next to the creators of bots who could build activists far louder and more tireless than any human could be in real life. Id seen citizen journalists break enormous stories from their arm-chairs half a world away. Id seen hackers explain in dull monotone how they could cause wind farms to burst into flames, who could control laptops with just a flashing light. The people who hold power over the lives of others are a little like the gods of Greek or Roman myth. They shape our preferences, choices, desires, indeed our lives. We are stepping into a world where power is, I think, more accessible to each of us. We are all a little closer to the gods than we were before. But the gods are closer to us too. And they hold forms of power that we cant always see. We now face a world beset by the onrush of both liberation and control. A world where technology is allowing the more perfect expression of those conflicting qualities that humans have always carried inside themselves: the desire to dominate and control, and also the potential to be brave and selfless. The new gods have broken out of their cages, and we are only beginning to comprehend the world they are making. - The Death of the Gods: The New Global Power Grab by Carl Miller is out now on William Heinemann. The ties between Jaswant Singhs family and Vasundhara Raje strained during her first tenure as CM. Though, Singh did not comment on his future course of action. It is speculated that he might join the Congress after a meeting with Rahul Gandhi. (Photo: File) Jaipur: Former union minister and one of the founding members of the BJP, Jaswant Singhs family has snapped ties with the party. Jaswant Singhs son and BJP MLA from Sheo in Barmer district Manvendra Singh today quit the party. Manvendra announced his decision in swabhiman rally in Pachpadra on Saturday. The rally was called after what was seen as a snub to him by Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje who skipped Manvendras assembly constituency when she came to Barmer for her Gaurav Yatra early this month. Manvendra Singh too had skipped Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje's Gaurav Yatra in Barmer and Pachpadra earlier this month. The ties between Jaswant Singhs family and Raje strained during her first tenure as CM when the formers wife Sheetal had filed a police case against Raje over a poster in which she was depicted as goddess Annapurna. Raje hit back with a case against Jaswant Singh for organising Riyan (a ritual in which opium-laced milk is served to guests). After a brief truce, the old wounds opened up in 2014, when Jaswant Singh was denied ticket by the party for Barmer Lok Sabha seat. Raje was suspected to have played the key role in it. A key leader during the Vajpayee era, Jaswant Singh contested the election as an independent candidate against the BJP's Colonel Sonaram Choudhary. However, he lost. Manvendra despite being BJP MLA had campaigned for his father. "Kamal ka phool hamari bhool thi, said Manvendra who was buoyed by the impressive turnout in the rally that mostly consisted of Jaswant Singhs loyalists. Self-respect is must; one cannot work in politics by compromising honour, he said. Though, he did not comment on his future course of action. It is speculated that he might join the Congress after a meeting with Rahul Gandhi. Former union minister and Rahuls close confident Bhanwar Jitendra Singh is said to be working on this to win over the Rajputs in Marwar who are presently not happy with the BJP. Jaswant Singh is not just respected by Rajputs but has a huge fan following among minorities in border areas. My father may not be well but he still commands respect in Marwar. With his blessings, I will be successful in politics, Manvendra said. His wife Chitra Singh who had gone door to door to invite people for the rally said, People are angry and upset; their demands have not been met. Farmers are angry. It's not about the dignity of my family but about the self-respect of the people of this entire region. The rally was also attended by Sri Rashtriya Rajput Karni Senas president Sukhdev Singh Gogamedi and mother of gangster Anandpal Singh who had been killed in a police encounter last year. Joyce Fegan asks how is it we have managed to engineer the most connected society of all time while also creating an epidemic of loneliness? Every so often I drive past this small building that has a sign outside that reads Mens Sheds. Ive been driving past this particular building for years. I wondered if it was what I thought it was a place where men went to meet up, to avoid feeling lonely. In my mind I pictured retired men mostly, maybe single men or widowed men, and fathers whose adult children had scattered like the four winds, never to call Ireland home again. I imagined all these guys coming together, and I wondered was it awkward for them initially? Walking through the door was akin to saying out loud, Im a bit lonely. Im in need of a chat. I saw more of them popping up around the country. And then, at 32 years of age, I started to think about loneliness. The author John Boyne had been on the radio with Ryan Tubridy in February 2017, he was talking about the book he had out at the time, The Hearts Invisible Furies. The two men talked about loneliness. John, a man in his 40s, talked about his own experience of loneliness. Loneliness, in my mind, was a feeling only experienced by 80-year-old bachelors living in the west of Ireland. And then I realised the anonymous feeling I had been carrying around with me was in fact loneliness. It was a slow, dawning realisation. I was newly married, from a large family, had a wide circle of friends, a job I got satisfaction from and one that came with decent, supportive colleagues. Everything was perfect on paper. But the feeling on the inside didnt match up with the life on the outside. I lost the assumption that loneliness was something octogenarians in Connaught had the monopoly on and I started looking around at everyone; new mums, who were home alone and solely responsible for their infants life, college graduates from the country who were up living in Dublin and part of the rat-race commute. My own loneliness had caught me off guard, but surely I wasnt the only one under 80 to get a waft of it? I asked my father had he ever felt lonely during his life. Hell be 70 soon and has a very active social life. He said that, as the youngest of four, when all his siblings went off and got married, hed had his brush with loneliness. It was the Swinging Sixties, he was in his 20s and living close to the capital. Everything, again, looked good on paper. To say youre lonely is a bit embarrassing isnt it? Weve just reached a stage in Ireland where some of us can admit to feeling anxious. Braver ones still might mention feeling low. But lonely? Who one wants to declare themselves a Billy No Mates? But loneliness is not about the quantity of friends you keep, its about the quality of the connection you maintain. Connection is underpinned by that daring act honesty. How often do you respond with fine when a family member or an old friend asks you how you are? And the trouble is we get used to saying it. Honesty, after a while, starts to become an unfamiliar and scary concept. In my own life it was social media and instant messages that caused the loneliness. My group of friends could stay in touch via a buzzing WhatsApp group, with some living in the southern hemisphere, others in America, and some being first-time mums. When life is busy and priorities change, it is easy to reach for the phone and think itll help you to maintain your most valued friendships. But WhatsApp can never replace face-to-face connection. The ability to check-in with a WhatsApp message or survey a friends life via Facebook gives you the illusion of connection. But connection isnt something that can be faked. This week, I drove past that same Mens Sheds. It was on the same morning I had read all about the movement of Mens Sheds in this newspaper. I read of stories of connection and community and support. There was one woman, in the west of Ireland, whose builder had let her down at short notice, for a charity event she needed to construct a platform for. Someone thought to contact the local Mens Sheds. Within an hour, six men, aged from 55 to 75, had come together, tools in hand, to step in and save the day. That same day I met one of those valued friends, whos home from America. She told me that her parents, rain, hail, or shine, take off every morning at 8am to go for a walk with six friends. Its their way of checking in on each other: Whos had a hip replacement? and Who needs a few shepherds pies for the freezer? See, these wiser generations use their phones not as a replacement for connection but as a tool to organise ways to connect. These phones and apps and social media platforms are the microwave meals of friendship. They give us instant, easy ways to connect with friends, but are they actually nurturing relationships? Its estimated that 400,000 of us will suffer from loneliness at one point or another thats according to Tilda, The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing. Women, despite our reputation for being open with our emotions, are more likely to feel lonely (41% of women compared with 33% of men). And research done in Germany found that loneliness peaks at around age 30, not 80 as the stereotype suggests. Human beings thrive on social connection, its as fundamental a need as food or shelter. And yet how is it we have managed to engineer the most connected society of all time while also creating an epidemic of loneliness? Next time you go to send a WhatsApp message, maybe take a leaf out of the Mens Sheds groups, and use it to arrange a meet-up instead of as a paltry stand-in for connection. Far from a political stunt, the PAC is rather belatedly but correctly exercising its powers to examine where public monies are being spent. Since President Higgins declared his intention earlier in the summer to stand again, the question of how taxpayers money has been spent by Aras An Uachtarain has arisen. Reports in the media, most notably by Philip Ryan in the Sunday Independent, showed how 30m has gone on running the Presidents establishment since President Higgins took office in 2011 and 50m over the past decade. Added to that, the Presidents office is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act so routine questions about expenditure at the Aras have been refused. The minister who introduced that exemption was Brendan Howlin when he refreshed the FoI legislation in 2014. Speaking at his partys think-in last weekend, he said he exempted the President because of the Constitutional provision which states the President is beyond accountability from the Oireachtas. However, he said he would not have any issue re-examining that exemption in light of the ongoing controversy. Article 13.8.1 of the Constitution states: The President shall not be answerable to either house of the Oireachtas or to any court for the exercise and performance of the powers and functions of his office or for any act done or purporting to be done by him in the exercise and performance of these powers and functions. The only caveat to that provision is if the Oireachtas decides to begin a process of impeachment. So while the Constitution is clear that the President is beyond the accountability functions of the Oireachtas, what is also clear is that his office and the monies given to that office are not exempt. Monies from the Department of an Taoiseach budget (Vote as it is technically called) go toward the running of the Aras. Separate monies from the budget of the Office of Public Works (OPW) also go to the running of the Presidents establishment. Both budgets (Votes) are subject to annual audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG), Seamus McCarthy, whose reports are the basis of the work of the PAC. On August 13, the chairman of the PAC, speaking to this newspapers political correspondent, Fiachra OCionnaith, made it clear he thought it appropriate that the expenditure of the Aras should be examined by the committee. I want to be clear it is 100% within our remit to do so and I will be asking the committee to allow it to be included in the work programme in our next meeting in September. "It is certainly on our radar, said Mr Fleming, adding that any examination will have to take place before Octobers presidential election in order to be relevant. His call to examine the spending came after it was claimed President Higgins stayed at a five-star, 3,000-a-night hotel last year in Geneva, Switzerland. But others were not so sure. This week, ahead of the PACs first meeting of the new term, a letter was sent by Martin Fraser, secretary general to the Government and therefore the accounting officer for the Aras, warning them to stay clear of the issue. I believe your proposal to have a meeting on the issue appears to be unconstitutional and to undermine the principle of the political impartiality of the Civil Service, Fraser wrote in the letter. He noted in particular Article 13.8.1 of the Constitution which states the president is not answerable to either house of the Oireachtas or to any court for the exercise and performance of the powers and functions of his office or for any act done or purporting to be done by him in the exercise and performance of these powers and functions. Mr Fraser said it would be impossible not to breach this constitutional provision were any members of the PAC or public servants to ask or answer questions on the issue of expenditure. As regards the impartiality of the civil service, he said its members could not become involved in an election. I cannot accept your suggestions that the campaign period has not yet started, he wrote. It is absolutely clear that a campaign for the office of the presidency is fully underway. The proposed meeting, he argued, could only address questions relating to one of the candidates, the incumbent. Published by the Irish Examiner on the morning of the meeting, Frasers letter was met with furious anger from some members of the PAC, who branded it as dangerous. At the meeting, Fleming made the proposal that the committee should hear from Fraser next week, but was met with some concerns from Labours Alan Kelly and Fine Gaels Peter Burke. Kellys opposition to the move was understandable, given his former party colleague, President Higgins, is caught in the middle of this. Burke as a Government TD, no doubt acting on off his own steam, just so happened to be totally in sync with the views emanating out of Government Buildings. Sinn Feins David Cullinane sought clarity from Fleming as to why he brought this issue forward but also from the Comptroller and Auditor General as to what could be asked were the meeting to go ahead. McCarthy, a good Youghal man who prides himself on being a no-nonsense operator, brought a great deal of clarity and sense to proceedings. He said the presidential spending is audited in the same way as all other votes. There is no difference, he said. The accounting officer here does not have an executive function as to how spending is done. Those decisions are made by the Aras. The audit is the same and the questions are the same and the answers are given as normal. The accounting officer is the secretary general to the Government, he continued. But then came the key intervention. My understanding is that it is more about why the money is being spent, that is probably the question he [Fraser] would baulk at. I dont think he would have a problem in saying how the money was spent, he said. Cullinane and others immediately moved to back the meeting going ahead. Shane Cassells and Marc MacSharry of Fianna Fail voiced their support but also vented their anger at Frasers letter. We are at a stand off here. . . I strongly refute what is said here [in the letter], he said. If that is the sphere we are getting into then that is a dangerous assertion in itself, he added. MacSharry said he was annoyed in a major way by its content which, he said, was an attempt to influence the business of the PAC. The tone of the letter did bother me. It goes on to say that if we do this it would in some way undermine the impartiality of the civil service and I resent that suggestion, he said. Thanks Mr Fraser for the advice. I think its flawed; I think its incorrect. Outside the committee room, a major question mark was raised about the PACs actions by Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin. I do think its interesting that its seven years on from the last presidential election and they begin to look at the accounts now, Mr Martin said. I think now because we are in the middle of an election, the PAC should in my view desist. It should wait until after the election, he said. Those who have opposed the move have said this is all a political stunt, opportunistically being used to damage President Higgins. Or that there are plenty of more important issues to deal with ahead of this one. But in truth, if as we are told, the Aras is under budget and no issues have arisen, then there should be no problem. If the Aras has nothing to hide, then it has nothing to fear from such a probe. More pointedly, if Michael D has nothing to hide, then he has nothing to fear, particularly if Fleming and the PAC seem intent on respecting the boundaries of the Constitution. In the end, the committee took the highly rare step of taking a vote on the matter with Kelly and Burke losing six votes to two. The meeting is scheduled for next week. Rather than being dismissed, the meeting should be welcomed by anyone who seeks to hold those in power to account. End of story. Dateline Will the Tatmadaw Still Be in Control 30 Years from Now? -- Kyaw Zwa Moe: Welcome to Dateline Irrawaddy! Sept. 18 marked 30 years since the Tatmadaw [Myanmars military] staged a coup. In the post-independence period, the Tatmadaw has held power for around 60 years. And the 2008 Constitution grants it a political role in the country. In other words, it is fair to say that the Tatmadaw holds [political] power. Im joined by 88 Generation student leader U Ko Ko Gyi and executive director Ko Ye of the Tagaung Institute of Political Studies to discuss whether the Tatmadaw will still be playing a role in the political leadership of the country 30 years from now. Im The Irrawaddy English editor Kyaw Zwa Moe. As Ive said, the Tatmadaw has ruled the country for around 60 years, and it still holds certain powers under the Constitution. The assumption is that the democratic transition is reducing the political role played by the Tatmadaw over time in order to ensure [an eventual] civilian administration. Ko Ko Gyi, when do you think the political role of Tatmadaw will diminish? Ko Ko Gyi: It is difficult to predict a time frame. It will depend on the efforts of the concerned leaders. The civilian-military problem in our country is a tripartite problem. The Tatmadaw entered politics under the pretext of [ending] a civil war. The ethnicities demand equality and a federal Union, but the [government and political actors] are not just negotiating with them; at the same time there is also a need [for them] to negotiate with the Tatmadaw, taking into account its perspective on [what it sees as a] civil war. The Army chief said that the Tatmadaw would retire from politics after the country achieves peace and the armed conflict ends. He has linked the ethnic armed struggle with the Tatmadaws participation in politics. So, to answer your question, it depends on how fruitful the efforts of the civilian, Tatmadaw and ethnic leaders are. KZM: Ko Ye, you have studied civilian-military relations for a long time, and learned a lot about the military leaders and the history of the country. What is your assessment of the concepts and sentiments of the military leaders? How long will it take for them to make the decision to retire from their political leadership positions? Ko Ye: My study of the Tatmadaws participation in politics is based on the fact that our country is very militarized because of the civil war. The military is involved not only in the political leadership of the country; it is involved in various sectors. The military is involved in the bureaucracy and administrative mechanisms. And its involvement is systematically arranged. Taking a look at our closest neighbor Thailand; the military frequently stages coups there. According to our study, more than 94 percent of the ministers between 1974 and 1988 in Myanmar were military officials. Civilian ministers only accounted for some 5 percent. There were frequent military coups during the same period in Thailand, and the military had a strong influence there. The Thai military held 25 percent of the cabinet seats from 1974 to 1979. But civilian ministers accounted for more than 50 percent. And through 1988, the Thai militarys percentage of cabinet portfolios fell to 23 percent as more businesspeople came into the cabinet. In our country, the political leadership is militarized and the bureaucracy is also militarized. According to statistics, a total of 1,724 military officials were transferred to ministries, including peoples councils, between 1974 and 1988. And the situation was even worse after 1988 when the country was under a dictatorial military regime. The whole administration was controlled by military officials. So, there is a long tradition of pervasive militarization. Under such circumstances, the military developed its political ideology. This ideology has two elementsone is political doctrine and the other is political interests. The doctrine is about guardianshipthe belief that Im the only [institution] that can provide proper leadership and manage the country well; Im the only one that can save the country from the brink of breaking up. And in terms of its interests, these combine national interests, institutional interests and business interests. The political ideology is developed from these two. That ideology is found in the 2008 Constitution. So to answer your question, it depends on two pointshow much can we reduce militarization and how much can we change their ideology? KZM: As everyone knows, the Tatmadaw has full control. The National League for Democracy [NLD] government, or civilian government, came to power in 2016, but the Tatmadaw maintains its position under the Constitution. At least we have got a space. [But] democracy is about 100 percent control by a civilian government elected by the people. Military leaders understand this. What strategic and tactical actions can political forcesof various partiesdo to make military leaders accept that and make changes? Otherwise, we are likely to continue to see what people call a hybrid military/civilian government for the next 60 years, as we have for the past 60 years. What can be done to avert this? KKG: Id like to add some points to what Ko Ye has discussed. The Tatmadaw developed an ideology to justify its political leadership. It used the civil war and the threat of a break-up of the Union as an excuse. It built its ideology on that. And the interests followed the ideology. It trumpets national interests, but these have become intertwined with the interests of the establishment and individual interests. At the same time, it holds up the threat of the Union breaking up. It has used this threat to justify its role in politics, saying it is necessary because of national security. Politicians need to thoroughly understand the foundation of the military. If we are to reduce its role, we have to first strengthen ourselves. It seems now as if we have been fighting a war without an army. There are resentment and grievances against the military about its repression and imprisonment of us. It is easy to talk about national reconciliation, but in reality it is hard to achieve. We have enough courage to dare to take risks in opposing the military, but were are weak when it comes to finding an answer. KZM: It is fair to say that the Tatmadaw took total control from 1958 to 1960 and then from 1962 to 2016. Now, we have a hybrid government. Under the Constitution, it has 25 percent of seats in the Parliament and three ministerial positions, and can also appoint a vice president. When Daw Aung San Suu Kyi answered a question about the probability of a military coup during a lecture in Singapore recently, she did not give an exact answer. But she never said it is unlikely. In Thailand, the military has staged coups some 18 times. The Tatmadaw is still granted considerable power by the Constitution, but are military leaders likely to stage a coup on the pretext of instability in the country, and of its sovereignty being at risk? Ko Ye: If so, it is not good [for the country]. It wasnt easy for the military to take on its current role, and it wont be easy for it to give it up. It has had to make arrangements for the long term. Once it takes on the role, it cant give it up easily. KZM: The difference between the military leaders of other countries and our country is that in Thailand, the military only takes control for a maximum of two government terms. But in our country, it takes control for 30 to 60 years. This might be a reason. Their mentality is different. Ko Ye: To play a long-term role, one has to build institutions. As the military gained power through the coup, the institutions are authoritarian institutions. Erik Meyersson released a study in 2016. It is quite interesting. He studied 232 coups in 94 countries from 1950 to 2016, and pointed out that those coups seriously affected economic growth. Some argue that a coup has nothing to do with the economy. Some point out the case of Chile, where the Chicago Boys [a group of right-wing, U.S.-educated Chilean economists] managed to boost the economy. But after studying all 232 coups, [Meyersson] came to the conclusion that coups seriously delay economic growth. And in the countries that experienced the coups, per capita GDP declined by between 1 and 1.3 percentage points within 10 years of their coups. So, he said that coups have grave implications. Taking a look at GDP growth in our country, it was around 4.9 percent between 1962 and 1965. That figure was partly driven by the previous era [the previous civilian government]. Between 1965 and 1969, under the management of generals, GDP dropped to 2.2 percent. From 1969 to 1970, it further declined to 1.3 percent, but it rose sharply in 1974 to around 4 percent. But the number was lower than that of the 1962-1965 period. GDP increased further to around 6.5 percent in 1980. It then became relatively stable. But in 1987-88, as you know, it dropped to -1.7 percent. It fell steeply. It is said that the country only had 300 million kyats in reserve currency. The population growth was 2.1 percent then, but economic growth from 1962 to 1988 was just 1.7 percent. So, economic growth lagged behind population growth. After 1988, the official [GDP growth] figures released by the government were 12 or 13 percent. But agencies like ESCAP [the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific] said it was just over 3 percent. At that time, even countries like Laos had GDP growth of 6 percent, and we had just over 3 percent. So, we have had bitter experiences. According to studies, coups bring about bitter experiences. So I think a coup is not something we even want to consider. KZM: To sum up, there is still no answer as to how to reduce the role of the military in the next 30 years. KKG: It is not that there is no answer at all. KZM: I mean we cant give a timeframe. As Ive said, democracy is 100 percent control of the country by a civilian government elected by the people. There is no answer for the time being as to when we will see that day. KKG: It is hard to predict the time frame. It will depend on the degree of effort [to bring about change]. Ko Ye: In my view, to reduce militarization, there is a need to broaden the role of political parties and civilian government. For that to happen, political parties and political forces must form a strong alliance. Chile is an example in this regard. KZM: We are weak in that regard. Ko Ye: In Chile, the constitution was changed 15 years after the transition [to democracy] started. Then, the civilian government purged the military leadership. The military leaders could do nothing. They were overcome during those 15 years by the forging of a strong alliance between civilian political forces. And it is important that civilian politicians have vision. In my view, politics is about managing hopes and materializing a vision. It is not just about a power game. So, if civilian politicians can manage this well and urge the military to professionalize, then we will be able to see a better situation eventually. KZM: Thank you for your contributions! A group of privacy and rights organisations have called on Australian politicians to reject the encryption bill which was introduced into Parliament last week, as it creates insecurity by design which will get in the way of Australian companies who seek to do business in European markets. The organisations said rejecting the bill was recommended "as this is the most appropriate response to the exposure draft in the opinion of the authors of this submission". The organisations represented in this submission, among the 10 which have been published by the Department of Home Affairs, are the Australian Privacy Foundation, Digital Rights Watch, Electronic Frontiers Australia, Future Wise, The Queensland Council for Civil Liberties, The New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties, Access Now, and Blueprint for Free Speech. The Department of Home Affairs said the submitters were agreeable to having their submissions published, and that more would follow. The period for public comment on the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Bill 2018 ended on 10 September after the draft was released on 14 August. Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton introduced the bill into Parliament on Thursday last week. The Labor Party hason proceeding with the bill, while the Greens havethat Australian cyber security "will be significantly diminished by undermining the fundamental principles of end-to-end encryption". The BSA, the software alliance, a group representing dozens of big software companies, apart from Google and Facebook, has urged judicial oversight and a challenge mechanism for the bill. And three big organisations representing the telecommunications industry, the mobile device makers and Australian IT organisations have warned that cyber security, at large, would be harmed by the bill. The rights and privacy groups said they had many concerns with the draft bill, in particular that it: "Introduces a seemingly scopeless definition of 'designated communication providers'; "Increases the obligations on communication providers to assist with law enforcement agencies; "Introduces covert computer access warrants enabling law enforcement to search computers and electronic devices without an individuals knowledge; and "Increases the powers of law enforcement to use and apply the currently available search and seizure warrants." They highlighted the lack of oversight of new powers granted to the director-general of security, the chief officer of an interception agency and the attorney-general to issue new types of orders which could, both directly and indirectly, force communications and technology companies to provide information about how networks are built and how information is stored, or to directly access encrypted data if they had a key. "Taking this further, the Bill also grants the power to compel companies to engage in actively building new tools and mechanisms at the request of law enforcement agencies," the submission said. While the right to challenge such orders in court was possible, the process had not been defined, the group said. And as far as the orders issued by the authorities cited earlier went, there was no restriction apart from the requirement that they be "reasonable and proportionate". The draft bill contains language that is ambiguous, as iTWire has pointed out on the day it was issued, specifically the use of the word systemic. It says: "A technical assistance notice or technical capability notice must not have the effect of: "(a) requiring a designated communications provider to implement or build a systemic weakness, or a systemic vulnerability, into a form of electronic protection; or "(b) preventing a designated communications provider from rectifying a systemic weakness, or a systemic vulnerability, in a form of electronic protection." (emphasis added) But the word "systemic" is not defined at any place in the draft. The rights and privacy bodies also pointed to this lack of specific definitions, saying the draft did not appear to be limited by what assistance organisations could be ordered to provide. "The government claims the legislation specifically forbids activities that would provide a systemic weakness or vulnerability into an encrypted system. However, the kind of operation that the government is planning doesnt require an active creation of a weakness, instead opting for an end-point activation," the submission said. "Most encrypted services allow you to have multiple devices such as a phone and a computer, which can be end-to-end encrypted between all endpoints. If the government could secretly add a new device to that conversation without your knowledge, it would be building a new door into that encrypted communication." The scope of the draft bill was so wide, that even companies with little connection to Australia could face fines, the submission claimed. It pointed out that any organisation that did not toe the line on a notice, could be fined $10 million, while an individual could be out of pocket by $50,000 and also face up to 10 years in prison. The submission contains 35 recommendations. Contributors to the submission included Dr Adam Molnar, Lizzie OShea, Dr Monique Mann, Angus Murray, Peter Tonoli, Bruno Watt and Dr Suelette Dreyfus. Support Local Journalism Now, more than ever, the world needs trustworthy reportingbut good journalism isnt free. Please support us by subscribing or making a contribution. Subscribe or contribute 'Unnecessary controversies are being created and the statement perhaps needs to be seen in its full context', Ministry said. The Modi government has repeatedly said it was Dassault that chose its India partner for offsets and that the government had no say in the deal. (Photo: File) New Delhi: The Ministry of Defence on Saturday reiterated its stand by saying that the Government of India had no role in the selection of Indian Offset partner for the Rafale deal. On Friday, former French president Francois Hollande claimed that the Indian government proposed Anil Ambani's Reliance Defence as the India partner for the 36 Rafale jet deal. He also stated that the French government were given no choice in the said matter. Reacting to Hollande's statement, the Ministry of Defence today said that the reported statement perhaps needs to be seen in its full context where the French media has raised issues of conflict of interest involving persons close to the former President. Also Read: Hollande says PM of India thief: Rahul questions Modi's silence on Rafale deal It added, "Unnecessary controversies are being created following reports regarding a statement purportedly made by former French President Hollande." The Modi government has repeatedly said it was Dassault that chose its India partner for offsets and that the government had no say in the deal. On Saturday, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said the allegations against the government on the Rafale deal were baseless and that there was no point in raising controversies about it. The Opposition, however, slammed PM Modi over his silence and urged him to clarify the statements made by Hollande. Calling the Rafale deal corrupt, Rahul Gandhi underlined 'PM Modi is corrupt' and urged Modi to break his silence. Rahul accused Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman of shielding the Prime Minister and demanded a Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Rafale deal. (Photo: ANI/Twitter) New Delhi: In one of the biggest attacks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi after the former French president claimed that the Indian government proposed Anil Ambani's Reliance Defence as the India partner for the 36 Rafale jet deal, Congress president Rahul Gandhi said, former French president Francois Hollande for the first time is calling the Prime Minister of India a thief. Calling the Rafale deal corrupt, Rahul Gandhi underlined "PM Modi is corrupt" and asked the Prime Minister to break his silence over the deal. "Former French president calls our PM a thief... What is staggering is that the prime minister is still silent on it. Not a single word from him," Rahul Gandhi said at a press conference on Saturday. We're absolutely convinced that the Prime Minister of India is corrupt. This question is now clearly settled in the mind of the Indian people that 'desh ka chowkidaar' chor hai (The watchman of the country is a thief), the Congress chief said. Rahul said the Prime Minister should clarify if what the ex-French President is saying is true or false. Rahul Gandhi's attack comes a day after Hollande told a French investigative journal that the Indian government proposed Reliance Defence as the India partner for the 36 Rafale fighter jet deal and that the French government wasn't given a choice on the matter. Also Read: 'Shame Modiji, you betrayed India's soul': Rahul attacks PM on Rafale deal Rahul alleged that PM Modi got the contract for Anil Ambani to bail him out. "The prime minister himself has given a contract of Rs 30,000 crore to Anil Ambani. Anil Ambani had a debt of Rs 45,000 crore and was bailed out by PM Modi," the Congress chief said. Rahul accused Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman of shielding the Prime Minister and demanded a Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Rafale deal. "It is clear why various defence ministers of this government have been lying; they want to protect PM Modi," he said. Francois Hollande's claims have been contradicted by both the France government and Dassault Aviation, the maker of the Rafale jet. The French government had on Friday night said they were in no manner involved in the choice of the Indian industrial partners who have been, are being or will be selected by French companies. Dassault Aviation said that it was their choice to partner with the Reliance Group. The Modi government has repeatedly said it was Dassault that chose its India partner for offsets and that the government had no say in the deal. On Saturday, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said the allegations against the government on the Rafale deal were baseless and that there was no point in raising controversies about it. The National Database on Sexual Offenders (NDSO) will assist in tracking and investigating cases of sexual offences, government has said. The database will be accessible only to law enforcement agencies and not to the public, with 440,000 names registered, including those convicted of rape, gang rape, child sex crimes and sexual harassment, according to a home ministry statement. (Representational Image) New Delhi: The centre has launched its first national register of sex offenders in a bid to stem crimes against women as the country reels from a series of high-profile rape cases. The database will be accessible only to law enforcement agencies and not to the public, with 440,000 names registered, including those convicted of rape, gang rape, child sex crimes and sexual harassment, according to a home ministry statement. It will also provide their photos, addresses and fingerprints, without compromising "any individual's privacy". "The National Database on Sexual Offenders (NDSO) ... will assist in effectively tracking and investigating cases of sexual offences," the ministry said in the statement late Thursday. The register comes as a spate of sexual assault cases have rocked the country. Earlier this week, police arrested the principal and four staff members of a boarding school in Dehradun over the rape of a teenage student. Police said they detained four male students for the rape, which left the girl pregnant. The school staff are accused of destroying evidence and covering up the crime. In Kerala, a bishop accused of repeatedly raping a nun over a period of two years was finally arrest after protests and calls for justice. In August, police in Uttar Pradesh rescued 20 girls and three boys from a home where they were sold for sex. That raid came just weeks after police rescued nearly 30 girls who were sexually assaulted and tortured at a shelter in Bihar. Privacy concerns The urgency to establish a sex offenders register gained momentum following nationwide outcry over the rape and murder of a Muslim girl in a Hindu-dominated area of Jammu and Kashmir earlier this year. The accused are currently on trial. The case prompted the government to approve the death penalty for the rape of girls under 12, and also increase the prison term for the rape of older girls and women. Despite various measures, rapes in India have shown no sign of dying down. More than 100 cases were reported daily in India in 2016, the latest government data shows. But the new sex offenders register has some people worried the government could overreach and misuse data. Jayshree Bajoria of Human Rights Watch said that even a rumour could prove dangerous in a country where incidents of mob justice have spiked recently. "For any real change, the government must do the hard work of actually implementing the laws and policies" that were put in place after the gang rape of a young woman in Delhi in 2012 on a moving bus, she said. Bajoria urged authorities to focus on supporting and protecting victims of sexual assault to ensure they are able to report crimes and receive justice without facing stigma and harassment. Many countries, such as the United States, Britain and South Africa keep a record of people who have been convicted of sexual offences such as paedophilia and rape. The United States, for example, has an online database which is open to the public. It provides information including the offender's photograph and address, as well as details of the crime. In other countries, such as Britain, the policy entails offenders registering with their local police station. Key people within the community such as doctors, youth leaders, landlords are informed and police monitor the offender. Reddit Email 34 Shares Jerusalem (AFP) Israels coordination with Russia on its attacks in Syria remains unchanged despite the deadly downing of a Russian plane, and the Jewish state retains its right to decide on military actions, an Israeli official said Friday. Syrian air defences mistakenly shot down the military plane following an Israeli raid on Monday night, killing 15 Russians and fuelling speculation Moscow would seek to curb Israeli actions in Syria. Israel, which carries out regular strikes against pro-government forces in war-torn Syria, has a de-confliction agreement with key regime backer Russia to avoid clashes between their respective air forces. An Israeli military official, speaking to journalists on condition of anonymity, said Friday that the deal remained in place. There have been no changes to the de confliction mechanism as a result of this unfortunate event, the official said. He said the two sides had committed to the very effective mechanism but stressed that Israels freedom of movement is paramount. Israel and Russia created the mechanism in 2015, when Russian forces intervened in Syrias civil war to support its ally President Bashar al-Assad. Israel regularly carries out strikes in Syria against the Syrian government, its Lebanese ally Hezbollah and Iranian targets. POOL/AFP / Yuri KADOBNOV. Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) speaks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Kremlin on July 11, 2018. Despite the mechanism, Syrian air defences on Monday night mistakenly struck a Russian Il-20 military plane after an Israeli raid on a Syrian army facility, killing all the crew members. The Russian military accused Israeli pilots of using the Russian plane as a cover, exposing it to fire from Syrian air defences, saying they reserved the right to respond. But Russian President Vladimir Putin later adopted a more conciliatory tone, saying the incident was the result of tragic accidental circumstances. An Israeli military delegation travelled to Moscow on Thursday to express sorrow over the deaths and to share information on the incident with their Russian counterparts. Irresponsible The Israelis provided proof to the Russians that their plane had been shot down because the Syrian batteries had fired recklessly, irresponsibly and unprofessionally, long after our planes were no longer there, the official said. The Syrians fired for a total of 20 missiles, he said. Israeli planes were not anywhere near the Russian plane, he added. He also disputed initial claims by the Russians that the Israelis had only warned them of their planned attack a minute before, and had used the Russian plane as a cover. We definitely gave a warning time much longer than one minute, we acted in accordance with the standard operating procedures that are in place with the Russian military, this time as we have done before. He denied reports that Russian officials had rejected the Israeli conclusions, adding that Israel would continue to constantly review the existing protocols with Moscow. There might be improvement, mutual improvement. But its still unclear. The mechanism continues to work, it continues to operate, it continues to de-conflict, he said. Israel has struck multiple times inside Syria in recent months and says it will continue to operate to stop weapons reaching Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based movement backed by the Jewish states arch-rival Iran. Featured Photo: AFP / Nikita SHCHYUKIN. A Russian IL-20M plane similar to the one shot down on Monday lands at an unknown location on July 23, 2006. Reddit Email 39 Shares By Sebastian Smith | Washington (AFP) The woman whose sexual assault allegation threatens to bring down Donald Trumps Supreme Court nominee rejected an ultimatum Friday for testifying in the Senate after the US president turned against her, claiming her accusation could not be true. The increasingly ugly fight over the fate of Trumps bid to put conservative judge Brett Kavanaugh into the lifetime position on the Supreme Court appeared to be nearing its end game, though still with no clarity on whether the woman at the center of the row will testify. AFP/File / MANDEL NGAN. In comments that tore up days of a relatively cautious approach, Donald Trump rejected the credibility of the university professor who claims she was sexually assaulted by a drunken Brett Kavanaugh in the 1980s. Christine Blasey Ford, a California professor who says Kavanaugh carried out a violent sexual assault against her when he was 17 and she was 15, insists she is ready to testify under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee. However, she rejected a deadline of late Friday imposed by the committees Republican leader to agree to his terms for the hearing, which he said should take place next Wednesday. If she didnt agree, committee chairman Charles Grassley said, he would go ahead and schedule a vote on confirming Kavanaugh on Monday, but without her testimony. A statement by Fords lawyers carried by CNN asked for one more day to respond, calling the deadline arbitrary. Its sole purpose is to bully Dr. Ford and deprive her of the ability to make a considered decision. Our modest request is that she be given an additional day to make her decision. Ford has said she wants to testify Thursday at the earliest and to be able to call as a witness a man who she says was present during the assault, when they were all teenagers attending private schools near Washington, DC. The committees Republican leadership has turned down those demands. But there was no immediate response from the Republicans to Fords latest message asking for extra time. Presidential pressure After several days of maintaining a relatively neutral posture, Trump took off the gloves Friday to declare that Ford could not be believed. The aggressive posture reflected Trumps fear that time is running out to get his hand-picked judge confirmed thereby tilting the Supreme Court firmly to the right for years to come before November elections when Republicans risk losing control of Congress. TAKE THE VOTE! Trump tweeted, blaming radical left wing politicians for the controversy. Trump rejected the credibility of Fords claim that a drunken Kavanaugh tried to pin her down and remove her clothes, muffling her cries, in the early 1980s. According to Trump, the fact that Ford remained silent until now shows the incident probably never happened even if this runs counter to what experts say is the typical reaction of sexual assault victims afraid or embarrassed to report. I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr Ford was as bad as she says, Trump wrote, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. Why didnt someone call the FBI 36 years ago? The senior Democrat in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, called Trumps logic a highly offensive misunderstanding of surviving trauma. More concerning for Trump might have been the angry reaction of one of his own Republican senators, Susan Collins, who sits on the Judiciary Committee. I was appalled by the presidents tweet, she told US media. We know that allegations of sexual assault are some of the most under-reported crimes that exist. So I thought that the presidents tweet was completely inappropriate and wrong. Trumps outburst saw a new #MeToo era hashtag storm the internet, with #WhyIDidntReport the top trending conversation starter on US Twitter, as people mostly women vented outrage over past transgressions and voiced solidarity with Ford. High stakes Republicans are frustrated over what they say was the deliberate timing of the last-minute revelation of Fords allegation, accusing Democrats of seeking to prevent the process from finishing before the November midterm elections. Democrats hope to recapture at least one chamber of Congress in the vote. For their part, Democrats say Republicans are mounting an unseemly rush to get Kavanaugh into the nine-member Supreme Court while they still control the legislature. Kavanaugh has repeatedly agreed to testify before the Republican-led Senate Judiciary Committee, saying he wants to clear his name. A distinguished judge seen as favoring conservative interpretations of the constitution, he has not been accused in other sexual misconduct related cases and no further witness has come forward to corroborate Fords claims. While Kavanaugh has seen his near coronation transformed into a fight for his basic reputation, Ford has found herself thrown into the harsh light of an all-out Washington political fight. Her lawyers say the professors life has been turned upside down, having received death threats and been forced out of her home. Featured Photo: AFP/File / Brendan SMIALOWSKI. Kavanaugh has repeatedly agreed to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, saying he wants to clear his name of sexual assault allegations. From parties to dynasties. Who owns the political parties in Vanuatu? The bail application of Bishop Mulakkal has been dismissed by the Magistrate Court, Pala on Saturday afternoon. Police team interrogated the bishop for three consecutive days from September 19 before arresting him on Friday. (Photo: Screengrab | ANI) Kochi: Bishop Franco Mulakkal, who was arrested on Friday for allegedly raping a Kerala nun repeatedly between 2014 and 2016, has been sent to police custody till September 24. The bail application of Bishop Mulakkal has been dismissed by the Magistrate Court, Pala on Saturday afternoon. Police team interrogated the bishop for three consecutive days from September 19 before arresting him on Friday. Bishop Mulakkal, who had complained of chest pain and uneasiness while being taken to Kottayam Police club from the Crime Branch office in Thrippunithura in Ernakulam district in Kochi on Friday night, was admitted to the Cardiology department of Kottayam Government Medical Colleges. He was discharged on Saturday morning after which the police took the custody of the accused bishop. He was then produced before the court. In the court on Saturday, Mulakkals lawyer failed a bail plea and had also put forward a condition that his blood samples and saliva should not be taken without his permission citing that it can be misused. Kerala police in its remand report to the court on nun rape case said Bishop Franco Mulakkal came to the convent with the intention of sexually assaulting the victim. On May 5, 2014, he illegally confined her in room no. 20 of the guest house at around 10:48 pm and subjected her to unnatural sexual assault. Reports said that while Mulakkal, during police interrogation, stuck to his claim that he did not rape the nun, he was arrested following contradictions in his statements, circumstantial evidence, statements of witnesses, and the nuns statement under Section 164 of the CrPC. In June, a Kerala nun in her late 40s had complained that Bishop Mulakkal had raped her several times between 2014 and 2016 at the mission house in Kottayam district. The survivor nun said she had to approach the police as the church authorities did not act even after repeated complaints. Reddit Email 198 Shares The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Wednesday that Syrian armed factions have rejected an agreement reached by Turkey and Russia on setting up a demilitarised zone between the armed opposition and Syrian government troops in Idlib as of 15 October. The Observatory said in a statement that the factions of Religious Guards Ansar Al-Tawheed, Ansar Al-Din, Ansar Allah, Al-Furqan and the Soldiers of the Caucasus Army as well as other jihadi factions operating within the Al-Sham Liberation Army have refused to withdraw from contact lines with the regime forces in Idlib. According to the statement the factions announced that they will confront any party that seeks to withdraw their weapons or force them to leave and that they will continue to fight the Syrian regime army and the Russians. Idlib offensive paused as Russia, Turkey agree on buffer zone The observatory explained that it is still unknown if the Syrian Liberation Front will fight the groups opposing the agreement, especially after receiving large arms shipments from Turkey for three consecutive days. Observatory director Rami Abdul Rahman told AFP that thousands of displaced persons have benefited from the period of calm that accompanied the Russian-Turkish negotiations to return to their homes in Idlib. He pointed out that nearly 7,000 displaced people have returned to their towns and villages since the Russian-Turkish agreement was announced, especially in Idlibs southeastern countryside and the Hama countryside. Via Middle East Monitor. Creative Commons License This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. - Bonus video added by Informed Comment: CGTN:UN chief welcomes Russia-Turkey deal on demilitarized zone in Syrias Idlib Reddit Email 442 Shares BETHLEHEM (Maan) Spain has become the latest country to voice its readiness to recognize the State of Palestine and that it will promote a European Union (EU) move to recognize Palestine as an independent state. Spains Minister of Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, spoke at a conference of EU leaders in Austria, saying that the Spanish government will promote an EU move to recognize Palestine. Borrell said that if the EU is not able to reach a unanimous decision, then each to their own. He added that if the move fails, the Spanish government will consider a Spain-only recognition, noting that the last option of individual recognition of Palestine is on the table. Borrell confirmed that he will initiate an intensive consultation process to set a timetable for achieving a common position on the given subject, as EU policy is unclear concerning unilateral recognition. The Palestinian Authority (PA) said that there are 139 countries that have recognized Palestine. In January, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas urged the EU to recognize Palestine as an independent state within the 1967 borders, following the United States Trump administrations decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and subsequently moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Additionally, in 2017, the Spanish government requested that Israel denounce the recognition of Catalonia as an independent state, however, Israel declined to support either side, calling it an internal European conflict. Featured Photo: Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores de Espana, in Palacio de Santa Cruz in Madrid. By Luis Garcia (Zaqarbal), This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Via Maan News Agency Reddit Email 749 Shares The New York Times reports that deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein talked about wearing a wire to record Trumps insane prattering, and spoke of invoking the 25th amendment, which allows the cabinet to remove the president if he is incapacitated. Rosensteins office says that the remarks were facetious. They were recorded in memos by former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, that somehow came into the possession of NYT reporters. Trump has wanted to fire Rosenstein for some time, and this news report (which Rosenstein says is full of inaccuracies) could well push the volatile hotelier over the edge. One reason Trump wants to get rid of the deputy Attorney General is that he oversees Robert Mueller, who is investigating the Trump campaign for evidence of collusion with the Russian Federation in electoral irregularities that may have won Trump the White House. Trump has speculated about firing Mueller, who has indicted a number of close associates of Trump. But the president cannot fire Mueller. He works for Rosenstein. If, however, you fired Rosenstein and replaced him with a dutiful Trumpie, then the new deputy AG could fire Mueller, or could just bury his investigation. But that series of events leads to the Great American Apocalypse. Lets say the Republicans in the Senate put Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court next week. And lets say Trump fires Rosenstein next week. The Senate would likely have to confirm any successor appointed by Trump (just as that body confirmed Rosenstein). So lets say Mitch McConnell can march the appointment through promptly, before the midterms. The House and the Senate may both fall into Democratic hands in November. And lets say that Trump has the new guy fire Mueller and discontinue his investigation, and that Muellers findings are not released. The new Kavanaugh Supreme Court would back Trump in the firing and suppression of Mueller. Then I think were heading to serious steps toward impeachment early in the new year. But what if Trump, who isnt known for his collegiality or grasp on reality, announces that he wont step down under any circumstances? What if he tells Mattis to put tanks in the streets to put down building protests, and emulates Lincoln in declaring martial law and a suspension of habeas corpus throughout the United States, this time without Congressional approval and in defiance of Posse Comitatus? (Trump after all doesnt know what that is). What if Mattis says no and Trump fires *him*? Since the 25th amendment specifies that the vice president and 14 cabinet members are needed to remove the president for being incapacitated, I doubt that Pence would do it. But if Pence wont do it, does he become implicated in Trumps crimes? If the Dems have Congress, they could refuse to confirm a replacement for Mattis. At that point, the fate of the nation would be in the hands of deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick M. Shanahan. He is a civilian who came out of Boeing, rather than a military man. Would he buck Trump if he was ordered to implement national martial law? Would the Joint Chiefs of Staff go along? Again, the Kavanaugh court would likely prove useless in challenging any Trumpian extra-constitutionality. Then what if the Dems actually arrange a vote on impeachment? Would some Republicans finally peel off and vote with the Dems to impeach? Would they impeach both Trump and Pence (the latter for refusing to implement the 25th Amendment?) If so, Nancy Pelosi could be president by next February (the speaker of the house is next in line after the vice president). But then the possibility of a revolt by the Trumpies, who include Neo-Nazis and biker gangs and other criminal elements, rears its ugly head. And, could Putin stand by and see an administration come to power that might challenge him in the Ukraine and Syria? Would Pelosi need a taster to avoid being poisoned? Or, a whole new scenario. What if the Dems fail to take either house of Congress in November, and the Republicans go along with the declaration of martial law, and refuse to consider impeachment? And what if the Kavanaugh court sides with Trump that Posse Comitatus is unconstitutional? Then, game over for the 242-year-old experiment in American democracy. Thirteen years ago, Tom Friedman of the New York Times so often suggested that the next six months would prove fateful for the Iraq War that it was sarcastically called the Friedman unit. This time, the Friedman unit will determine the fate of these United States of America. Bonus video: Representative Ted Lieu: This Is Not Enough To Fire Rod Rosenstein | All In | MSNBC Jayakumar said a decision to seal the plant was taken 'in line with the sentiments of the people of Tuticorin.' The Tamil Nadu government had ordered permanent closure of the copper smelter plant on environment grounds in the wake of protests by locals. (Photo: File) Chennai: The Tamil Nadu government Saturday asserted that the Sterlite Industries' plant in Tuticorin would not be re-opened as its policy decision to seal the Vedanta Ltd unit was in line with people's sentiments. This comes on a day when a three-member panel appointed by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) and led by former Meghalaya High Court Chief Justice Tarun Agrawal, is slated to visit the copper smelter plant in the southern district. "Our stand is that once it is closed, it is closed. A policy decision was taken by the government and based on that the plant was sealed. They (Vedanta) have moved the NGT against the sealing and a panel was formed. We have moved the Supreme Court saying not even that panel is required," Fisheries Minister D Jayakumar told reporters here. Jayakumar said the local people were against the plant, and therefore the government took a decision to seal it "in line with the sentiments of the people of Tuticorin." "Once closed, it is closed. There is no chance of re-opening it by the government," he asserted. The Tamil Nadu government had ordered permanent closure of the copper smelter plant on environment grounds in the wake of protests by locals. The locals held protests demanding the closure of the Sterlite factory for 99 days and the agitation turned violent on May 22 on its 100th day leading to 13 agitators being killed in police firing. The state government had last Tuesday urged the Central Pollution Control Board to postpone today's visit of the expert committee to the closed Sterlite Industries, citing pendency of its appeal in the SC against the NGT order setting up the panel. In its communication to CPCB, the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) referred to pending cases in the Supreme Court against the NGT order on setting up the panel. Earlier, the state government had also rejected the Centre's report on groundwater contamination in Tuticorin in the backdrop of the Sterlite controversy, saying it was "absolutely vague" and seemed to support the Vedanta unit which was "totally unwarranted." It had said the state "strongly feels that the report is motivated and has been prepared only to prejudice the Tamil Nadu government and the TNPCB cases in various judicial fora." I hadnt had time to do any research about where to eat when spending a few days in Ross-on-Wye to attend a pottery course recently, so was relieved that the hosts of our beautiful bed and breakfast gave us a list of recommendations, one of which was Yaks & Yetis, a Ghurka restaurant, serving predominantly Himalayan and Nepalese cuisine, with some Thai dishes also available. As you might expect, many of the ingredients and flavours used in Nepal have a lot in common with the food of India and Bangladesh, as well as Tibetan and Chinese influences. But there are a number of distinctly Nepalese dishes on offer, making this a restaurant well worth visiting for anyone who already enjoys the better-known food of Nepals neighbours. For our starters, we shared an order of Pork Momos (4.95 for four pieces served with a punchy orange sauce). The dumplings were full of flavour, soft and juicy inside, and a great start. We also ordered Lamb Samosas (4.95, for three pieces, served with a sweet chilli sauce). Wrapped in filo pastry rather than the more traditional, thicker pastry Im familiar with, they were nonetheless excellent hot, crunchy, and delicious. Asking our waiter for recommendations for dishes that were typically Nepalese, we ordered Kathmandu Lamb Curry (8.95) and Sandeko Khukura (7.95, described as chicken breast marinated in ginger, garlic, vinegar and soy sauce and cooked with onion, tomato and spices). The latter, although less expensive, also came with salad and rice. As the Kathmandu curry didnt come with a side, we also took an order of plain Nepalese Bread (1.95, also available in garlic and garlic coriander versions). This was quite unlike the various Indian breads Im familiar with, made from wheat flour, yeast, butter and eggs, it was almost savoury scone-like in texture. For drinks, I loved my plain sweet Lassi (2.75). Nepalese beers and your usual selection of wine and soft drinks are also available. Service was warm and friendly, and we enjoyed our meal. We are hoping to go back to the area soon to attend another pottery course, so Im sure well visit Yaks and Yetis again when we do. Save for later: The party also said that it had finalised its poll alliance with Ajit Jogis newly floated party in Chhattisgarh. Bhopal: A day after the Bahujan Samaj Party announced its decision to go solo in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, the Congress put up a brave front saying it is still hopeful of entering into an electoral understanding with Mayawatis party in the state, failing which it would go with its Plan B under which, to stop the splitting of non-BJP votes, it will go for a friendly fight with BSP in some Assembly constituencies in the state. On Thursday, the BSP delt a blow to the Congress plans to sew up an alliance by announcing 22 candidates for the Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections and saying it will contest all 230 seats on its own. The party also said that it had finalised its poll alliance with Ajit Jogis newly floated party in Chhattisgarh. MP Congress chief Kamal Nath had contacted Mayawati on Thursday night and discussed the issue with her. We are still optimistic that Mayawati will reconsider her decision to go alone in MP, a senior Congress leader told this newspaper on Friday. The party says it is also mulling over its Plan B under which it will have an understanding with the BSP in some seats in MP. On Thursday, some Congress leaders had claimed that Mayawati is under intense pressure from the BJP not to join any Opposition alliance. We are ready with Plan B in case the seat-sharing talks with BSP in MP fail. We are exploring the possibility of striking a deal with the BSP to have a friendly fight with us in the Assembly constituencies where Mayawatis party has influence to stop division of non-BJP votes, the Congress leader disclosed. Sources said the Congress has identified 25 Assembly seats, considered BSP pockets, to have friendly fight with the Mayawatis party. Seat-sharing talks between the two parties could not make headway due to the BSPs demand for 50 seats. The Congress is not willing to share more than 24 seats. In the 2013 Assembly polls, the failure to form an alliance with the BSP had cost the Congress 41 seats. Besides, the Congress is also considering offering its tacit support to the ongoing agitation against the amendment to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act by upper caste and OBCs in MP. People belonging to the upper caste and OBC, constituting nearly 60 per cent of the total population in MP, are considered the BJPs vote bank, particularly in urban areas. Congress can cause erosion of the saffron vote bank by giving tacit support to the stir, a Congress leader, who is also a poll strategist of the party, revealed. In Chhattisgarh, the Congress has decided to review its strategy for the year-end Assembly elections following Thursdays development. We do not consider the alliance between BSP and Ajit Jogis Janata Congress Chhattisgarh (Jogi) will affect our prospects since the BJP won nine out of 10 seats reserved for SCs in the state in the last Assembly elections. However, we have decided to launch a campaign that Mayawati was under compulsion not to have alliance with Congress due to pressure by BJP-led NDA at the Centre to woo the SC people, spokesman of Chhattisgarh Congress said. The woman's throat was slit and her daughter was killed with blunt force, Delhi police said. Their hands and mouths were tied. Police said that there was no CCTV outside the home. The maid too had used a different door to enter. (Photo: Twitter | @ANI) Delhi: A 60-year-old woman and her 40-year-old differently-abled daughter were found dead at their residence in Delhi's Mianwali on Saturday. Shashi Talwar's throat was slit and her daughter Nidhi was killed with blunt force, the Delhi police said, adding that their hands and mouths were tied. Police that it was a friendly entry, citing two teacups that were found lying in the drawing room. Officials said that robbery has been ruled out as being the reason for the attack as pieces of jewellery were found intact at the residence. The bodies were discovered by a maid who then placed a call to the police control room. Police said that there was no CCTV outside the home. The maid too had used a different door to enter. Police is interrogating people and investigation is underway. Shashi Talwar has two sons who live in Canada and Mumbai. Her husband had died two years ago. (With ANI inputs) Claire Trevett reports: The Herald has learned that after Ardern became Prime Minister, the guidelines for ministers overseas travel set by the Cabinet Office were reviewed and changed. The rules are not set by the Cabinet Office. They administer them. The rules are set by Cabinet. They now allow a minister with a young infant to take someone other than a partner to care for that child or for a minister with a disability to take a support person if needed. Ardern said she had not sought the change for parents of babies and did not intend to use the extra entitlement herself. She would only allow it for other ministers in exceptional circumstances. So why only for Ministers? Why do Ministers deserve to have taxpayers pay for nannies to fly with them, but no one else in the public service? How about Public Service Chief Executives? Why shouldnt they get nannies to travel with them if they have young children. Or Deputy CEs? Or Principal Policy Analysts? Or all staff? Why should only Ministers get the taxpayer to pay for travel for their nannies? Is the $300,000 salary not enough? John Key as PM basically banned Ministers from taking their partners on overseas travel. Labour is saying you can take your nanny and charge it to the taxpayer. I have no problem with the PM having their partner attend overseas events at taxpayer expense. It is expected. But if there is a case for Ministers to have taxpayers pay for nannies to fly overseas with them, then why do only Ministers get this paid for? Many public servants do far more overseas travel than Ministers. Do they get taxpayer funded nanny travel if they have young children? UPDATE: Even worse the Government has kept this hidden. They havent updated the Cabinet Manual or published a Cabinet Circular with the new rule. There was no pro-active release of this change. Share this: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn More Reddit Pinterest Print Tumblr I have been sent the following statement: As a lecturer in the School of Humanities at Massey University, I wish to go on record in joining the call for the resignation of Professor Jan Thomas as Vice-Chancellor. I believe that Professor Thomas handling of the Don Brash affair, as documented both in her public statements and in the newly released batch of e-mails, reveals three things about her leadership: (a) She is a woman of strong political beliefs. (b) In support of her core beliefs, she feels entitled to banish any potentially offensive speaker or idea from the university over which she presides. (c) She is prepared to use any means necessary to achieve (b), in whatever way seems easiest to spin for PR purposes. While I respect Professor Thomas for (a), I vehemently disagree with the attack on the freedom of academic speech and debate contained in (b). But for me as a lecturer, point (c) is the most troubling, since it means that I can no longer trust my own boss. If Professor Thomas decides one day that my teaching and research or even my personal opinions are not in harmony with a Te Tiriti-led university, will she take overt or covert steps to have me removed too, without being upfront about her reasons for doing so? Effective teaching, research, and learning at a university are impossible under a regime of thinly veiled, ideologically driven censorship. Dr Jonathan Tracy Lecturer in Classical Studies, Massey University Around 4.30 am, the girl had stepped out of her ward seeking a nurse. Seeing her, the accused took her to his quarters and raped her. The accused worker was employed on a contractual basis. (Representational Image) New Delhi: Delhi Police on Friday arrested a sweeper of an ESI hospital for raping a minor girl patient within the compound. Police said the girl,11, was admitted to the ESI Hospital in Rohini on September 13. On Friday morning around 4.30 am, the girl had a stomach ache due to which she stepped out of her ward in search of a nurse. "The 40-year-old accused identified as Radhe spotted her and took her to his quarters where he allegedly raped her. He was later arrested," Deputy Commissioner of Police Rajneesh Gupta said. The accused worker was employed on a contractual basis. The Sun reports: A TRANSGENDER lag who carried out four sex attacks at a womens prison was an occasional crossdresser who played the system, her ex girlfriend has claimed. Karen White, 52, previously known as David Thompson, was sent to HMP New Hall despite not having gender reassignment surgery. The former drag artist was a paedophile on remand for multiple rapes with a long list of sexual and violent offences against women. But White claimed to be transgender to authorities and within days of moving to the female prison, she carried out the attacks. This shows how barmy officials can be. White is a convicted rapist. He has raped multiple women. He is sent to jail. He then says I am now a woman and they send him to a womens prison where within days he starts sexually assaulting more women. Of course the government should generally be considerate of prisoners and those who are genuinely transgender should be imprisoned in the safest environment for them. But if the prisoner has been convicted of raping women, and hasnt undergone surgery or hormone treatment, then you dont stick then in a womens prison. Former neighbours at Elphin Court in Mytholmroyd, West Yorks, have also said White made little effort to transition. One transgender neighbour told The Times: Other than wear a wig and put on womens clothing, she has made no more effort. I believe Karen is not a transgender, I believe she is more transvestite than transsexual with no real desire to be a woman. Whites interest appears to be assaulting women, not being one. While at New Hall, West Yorks, White was also charged with a 2003 rape and has now pleaded guilty to four rapes. Guilty of four rapes and White was put into a womens prison. Madness. Share this: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn More Reddit Pinterest Print Tumblr 2 Islampur students were killed in police firing while protesting against appointment of Urdu teachers. Kolkata: Mounting pressure on the Trinamul Congress government the BJP has called a 12-hour bandh in the state on September 26 to protest the death of the two students who were killed allegedly in police firing during a violence over the teachers recuritment at Daribhit High School in Islampur of South Dinajpur recently. It also demanded a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the incident. State BJP president Dilip Ghosh made the announcement of the bandh while addressing a rally in the district on Saturday. Later BJP leader Pratap Banerjee said at state party headquarters, The bandh is called calling off the March to Nabanna programme on September 26. We also demand a CBI probe in the two students killings so that those who are guilty get punishment. Soon after the BJPs announcement of the bandh chief minister Mamata Banerjee who is in Milan made it clear that under no circumstances the bandh would be allowed. I am hearing that some people have called a bandh in our state. We will not allow anyone to observe bandh. Anyone who tries to impose the bandh forcibly, will face action, she said. The chief minister said students should concentrate on their studies and not on who are appointed teachers. It is the job of the governing body or the school committee to look into such matters. Even we (the state government) do not interfere into it. You (students) are opposing when a Urdu teacher is appointed but not when teachers of other subjects are appointed. Countering the chief ministers warning senior BJP leader Mukul Roy said, The bandh will certainly be observed. Once Ms Banerjee had observed a bandh for 36 hours at a stretch. Now she is alleging that we are playing with fire. She is not correct. It is Ms Banerjee who is playing with fire. The way the violence is unfolding in West Bengal, we can see democracy is dying a pathetic death. We want CBI inquiry into the matter. Alongwith female BJP leader Locket Chatterjee he is expected to visit the two victims families at Islampur on Sunday. CPI(M) MLA Sujan Chakraborty and Siliguri Mayor Ask Bhattachajee met the two families during the day. Meanwhile the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has demanded an apology from education minister Partha Chatterjee for his comments of a conspiracy by the BJP and RSS in the firing and the killings of the two students. It also threatened to take legal action against him if he would not apologise. RSS (South Bengal) general secretary Jishnu Bose said, The education minister should apologise within 24 hours otherwise we will take legal action against him. He took our organisations name to defame it. Two innocent children were killed. But the Trinamul are politicising the issue and defaming our organisation by saying such things. He added, Mere allegations will not suffice. They will have to prove their allegations. Else they will face legal action which we are planning. We also demand a CBI investigation to unravel who opened fire at the students. The moment South Korean President Moon Jae-in and first lady Kim Jung-sook are greeted by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his wife Ri Sol-ju at Sunan International Airport in Pyongyang on Sept. 18 ahead of their third inter-Korean summit is broadcast live at Seoul Station. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul Seven out of 10 South Koreans expressed support for the outcome of President Moon Jae-in's latest summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, a poll showed Friday. In the survey on 501 adults conducted by pollster Realmeter, 71.6 percent of the respondents are supportive of the results of the third inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang, while 22.1 percent gave a negative assessment. President Moon visited Pyongyang from Tuesday to Thursday for his third summit with Kim, followed by summit talks in April and May. Kim agreed to "permanently" dismantle a key missile testing site under the observation of international experts. He also expressed the country's readiness to close its nuclear complex in Yongbyon, depending on corresponding actions by Washington. North Korea's new United Nations Ambassador Kim Song, left, shakes hands with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at the U.N. chief's office in New York. Yonhap By Jung Da-min North Korea's new Ambassador to the United Nations Kim Song started working Thursday after the three-day inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang ended. Ambassador Kim met U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at the organization's New York headquarters to present his credentials. Kim told reporters he was ready to "work with the U.N." on international affairs and that he would like to express North Korea's "supreme leader" Kim Jong-un's "warm greetings." The flick is inspired by the real Batla House encounter that took place a decade ago on September 19. New Delhi: After teasing the audience with his look, Bollywood star John Abraham on Saturday shared the first poster of his upcoming thriller drama 'Batla House'. The 45-year-old took to social media to unveil the poster, writing, 95 mins that took 8yrs to be resolved and changed his life forever. The story of Indias most Decorated/Controversial Cop. #BatlaHouse. Encounters: 70 Cases: 33 Convictions: 22 Gallantry Awards: 9 Accusations: 1 When everything youve achieved could be wiped out in that one moment. The story of Indias Most Decorated/Controversial Cop@itsBhushanKumar @nikkhiladvani @TSeries @EmmayEntertain @johnabrahament pic.twitter.com/krYFmqracU John Abraham (@TheJohnAbraham) September 21, 2018 The flick is inspired by the real Batla House encounter that took place a decade ago on September 19. The 'Parmanu' star will portray the role inspired by Sanjeev Kumar Yadav, who spearheaded the encounter. As the tagline says, 'The story of India's Most Decorated/Controversial Cop', the case was about this one man who has had 70 encounters, a record 22 convictions from 30 cases and nine Gallantry Awards. Talking about the film, John said, "Being recognised for films like 'Madras Cafe' and 'Parmanu', I automatically gravitate towards scripts like 'Batla House'. However, that also means that the script needs to live up to those standards. With 'Batla House', Ritesh Shah (writer) blew me over with his precision in the storytelling as well as the emotional roller coaster of the characters. I am truly excited to bring this story alive to audiences." The film, which goes on floors by mid-October, will hit the big screens on August 15, next year. However, its release date might not please Ranbir Kapoor and the team of Brahmastra, as it will also arriving on Independence Day, 2019. With the way Johns Satyameva Jayate gave Akshay Kumars Gold a run for its money earlier this Independence Day, Ranbir, co-star Alia Bhatt and Karan Johar, the producer of Brahmastra, will surely not take it lightly. Not just that, even current sensation Rajkummar Rao, who delivered his biggest hit Stree, will also have a release on the same day, Made in China, opposite Mouni Roy. After double-header clashes, its going to be a three-way battle this time around. On August 11, 2018 at 2:00 AM KYCW-LD will move from channel 19, broadcasting from our Fordland tower to channel 25 broadcasting from the studio tower at 999 West Sunshine in Springfield. This move is necessitated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as they begin their repack of television stations across the country into a tighter bundled broadcast spectrum. By moving KYCW from channel 19 to channel 25 it allows us to prepare for the move of KYTV, KSPR and The Ozarks CW later this year. Channel 25 will broadcast a directional pattern 30 degrees north at a much reduced height. This means that some over the air viewers will no longer be able to receive these signals (Antenna/Cozi/WX 24/7). The CW will still be on our full power KYTV transmitter, virtual channel 33-2. We recommend viewers rescan their TVs and have an outdoor antenna aimed toward our studio tower (999 West Sunshine in Springfield). For deeper technical help and explanations please call (417) 268-3000 and ask for engineering. Antenna, Cozi and The KY3 Weather Channel channels will be available, as usual, on Mediacom, Suddenlink, Fidelity, COMO cable and the Ozarks Go network. The long term plan is to move KYCW-LD back to the Fordland tower late this year after the KYTV repack construction is complete. Kathmandu is convinced that the Modi government is undermining its Prime Minister K.P. Oli as it suspects him to be closer to China. Ever since the BJP-led government came to power over four years ago, mediapersons have been fairly obsequious towards ministers and generally refrained from asking difficult questions at official press briefings. This was because word had got around that the BJP leadership and ministers did not take kindly to tough questioning and that this could have serious repercussions. However, there appears to be a perceptible change in recent days. Mediapersons are no longer hesitant about questioning ministers. For instance, journalists openly told Union agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh at his recent official briefing that it had yielded no news. Similarly, railway minister Piyush Goyal was persistently questioned about spiralling fuel prices when his press conference was on a different subject. Mr Goyal was clearly not amused. More recently, law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad was taken aback when presspersons asked him if it was proper for him to go public about the ordinance banning triple talaq when the President had yet to sign the document. Mr Prasad was left speechless. The minister again looked flustered when a pressperson asked him if the BJP would follow up on its move to ban triple talaq and start giving tickets to Muslims, especially women. Mr Prasad brushed off this question on the ground that it was a political issue. These are admittedly baby steps but can also be seen as a reflection of the changing public mood. At the same time, mindful of the changing ground situation, senior ministers have started holding informal chats with small groups of journalists to get their feedback about issues like the Rafale jet deal. India was understandably peeved when Nepal pulled out of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) joint-military exercise held in Pune earlier this month. However, it recovered subsequently, stating that this development would not impact relations between the two countries. According to government insiders, Kathmandu had explained that its Army Chief Purna Chandra Thapa could not make it because his presence was required back home for some religious rituals. Though this explanation seems far-fetched, Indian officialdom appeared to be reasonably satisfied with it. However, this does not take away from the fact that after saying no to India, Nepal decided to participate in a joint-military exercise Sagarmatha Friendship-2 with China. Kathmandu was apparently upset because it felt New Delhi had announced its participation in the military exercises without taking it into confidence. In addition, Kathmandu is convinced that the Modi government is undermining its Prime Minister K.P. Oli as it suspects him to be closer to China. Shipping and surface transport minister Nitin Gadkari may not hail from Gujarat but he has the necessary genes of a businessman from that state. Owner of a successful group of companies in Nagpur (now managed by his family), Mr Gadkari is constantly alert to a possible business opportunity. This is exactly what happened when the construction on the multi-storey parking facility at the Transport Bhavan was completed recently. Realising there was a business opportunity here, he decided to offer the top floor to a restaurant and initiated the necessary paper work for this project. However, he faced stiff resistance from security agencies who red flagged it as a security risk because the top floor of the parking lot offers a panoramic view of the Parliament House. But Mr Gadkari refused to back off and insisted on going ahead with his brainchild. After prolonged discussions, the security agencies gave in but only when the ministry agreed to introduce several safeguards. Last heard, the tendering had been completed and the contract had been awarded to Sukh Sagar, a Mumbai-based chain of restaurants. When Congress president Rahul Gandhi chose Kamal Nath to head the partys state unit in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, it was believed he would work in tandem with senior leader Digvijay Singh. There was great bonhomie between the two leaders soon after Mr Nath took over his new post but relations between the two are learned to have soured. Reports from Bhopal say Mr Nath has now emerged from Mr Singhs shadow and is increasingly depending on senior leader Suresh Pachauri for advice. A short video clip is being circulated in the state as an example of Mr Naths falling out with Mr Singh. The clip shows a reporter asking Mr Singh for his reaction to a survey showing that Mr Nath and Jyotiraditya Scindia are favourite choices for the CMs post. Mr Singh is seen brushing off the journalist, saying, If I had money, I too could have emerged as the number one choice. Diplomacy to be effective must be embedded in a strategic matrix. The question is not whether we should talk to Pakistan or not. I have great personal respect for Sushma Swaraj. She is, by far, one of the most competent ministers in the current Cabinet. It is for this reason that I am at a loss to understand what is happening with regard to our policy towards Pakistan. It is abundantly clear to anyone remotely in the know that Pakistan is quite clear about how to deal with India. Pakistans policy is, as I have said on countless occasions, one of explosive aggression followed by tactical appeasement. This policy has undergone no change with Imran Khan becoming the PM of Pakistan. In fact, any civilian PM of Pakistan is a puppet of the deep state consisting of the ISI and the Pakistani Army. PMs may come and go, but the policy of the deep state remains unchanged, and the incumbent civilian, who is ostensibly democratically elected, has no option but to follow this policy. This situation explains why Mr Khan, on assuming power, held out an olive branch to India, while Pakistan relentlessly continued its support and sponsorship of terrorism against India. Ceasefire violations have escalated; the Pakistani Army has upped its shelling from across the border, killing and displacing civilians; terrorists sponsored by Pakistan have claimed with impunity the lives of our brave armed forces and paramilitary personnel. Aggression, followed by appeasement, has been the consistent policy. What has been our response? I am afraid, we have neither been consistent, nor prepared, nor armed with a strategic response of our own. On the one hand, we have publicly maintained, for some time now, that there can be no talks with Pakistan in the shadow of terrorism. Formal comprehensive talks were suspended by the previous UPA government precisely for this reason. Even though PM Narendra Modi invited former Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif for his swearing-in ceremony, and later air-dashed to Lahore to give a hug to Mr Sharif on his birthday, these talks were not resumed, because Pakistans transparent nexus with terrorism directed against India not only continued, but escalated, with such brazen attacks as that of Uri and Pathankot. While not agreeing to the resumption of the composite dialogue process, we have, in addition, made countless statements that no talks with Pakistan will be our policy so long as it does not end its verifiable nexus with terrorism. Ms Swaraj herself said that until the perpetrators of the Mumbai carnage are brought to book, any talks with Pakistan are out of the question. But, just a few weeks after her statement, PM Modi met with his counterpart, Mr Sharif, on the sidelines of the Ufa summit, and issued a rather ambivalent and questionable joint statement after that. Mr Khans offer of talks with India was something we should have expected, and been prepared for. In fact, even better, we should have proactively pre-empted Pakistans move by becoming the prime mover ourselves. Immediately after his election, we should have issued a formal statement expressing the hope that the new PM of Pakistan will eschew the path of terrorism, so that the comprehensive dialogue process can be renewed, with terrorism as the first item on the agenda. Then the ball would have been in Pakistans court. It would have to respond, and we could manoeuvre the response trajectory. However, since we were not proactive, the opposite has happened. Pakistan has made the offer of talks, and we are scurrying around to respond. And, our response has been to say the least rather egregious. First, we said that the two foreign ministers will meet on the sidelines of the UNGA in New York. Then we clarified that this will be a meeting, not a dialogue. What is the difference between the two? When two people meet, at the level of foreign ministers, what they say to each other unless they are on maun vrat, a vow of silence constitutes a dialogue. Such a dialogue may not be at the level of the structured comprehensive dialogue, but it is a dialogue. Hair splitting on what is a talk and what is a dialogue is, frankly, quite silly. But more egg on our face was to follow. The very next day the MEA said that this meeting has been cancelled. The reason given for this reversal was the killing of our security personnel by Pakistan-based entities, and the release of postage stamps of Pakistan-glorifying militant Burhan Wani, who was killed in an encounter by our security forces. The MEA spokesperson said the evil agenda of Pakistan stands exposed, and the true face of the new Pakistan PM, Imran Khan, has been revealed to the world. This is truly mystifying. Were Pakistan-based entities not killing our security personnel when we agreed, just 24 hours earlier, for Ms Swaraj to meet with her Pakistani counterpart, Shah Mehmood Qureshi? Were we in any doubt that Burhan Wani was a terrorist trained and supported by Pakistan, for us to suddenly realise, in the space of 24 hours, that a stamp issued in his name by Pakistan showed the true face of the Pakistan PM? The truth is that our response was a plain and simple flip-flop, whose underlying cause is the transparent absence of a well-thought out strategic policy to deal with our hostile neighbour. In the absence of such a policy, our responses become ad hoc. We appear as diplomatic dilettantes on the international stage, and the advantage, quite unnecessarily, accrues to Pakistan. In this instance, while we were busy explaining the reasons for the abrupt reversal of our decisions, Pakistan has conveyed to the world that India has spurned its offer for talks. Mr Qureshi said as much: It is unfortunate that India has not given a positive response. India has once again wasted an opportunity for peace. Diplomacy to be effective must be embedded in a strategic matrix. The question is not whether we should talk to Pakistan or not. The real issue is that whatever we do must be in accordance with a wellcalibrated strategic policy. There is no point in diverting attention from this basic issue by planning the celebration of anniversaries of the surgical strike. That was a move we welcomed and paid tribute to our brave soldiers. However, one strike alone is not enough to overlook the continued violence against us from across the border. Nor is a muscular posture a substitute for strategic clarity. The computer-generated trio at the centre of Balmains new campaign is the latest example of fashion brands embracing technology. Best known of the three is Shudu, a black digital model created by visual artist Cameron-James Wilson last year. The three women gazing into the camera in an advert for French luxury label Balmain look like they could fit in at any high-end shoot, but Shudu, Margot and Zhi are digital models whose rise is dividing the fashion world. The computer-generated trio at the centre of Balmains new campaign is the latest example of fashion brands embracing technology to lure digital-savvy younger clients. Best known of the three is Shudu, a black digital model created by visual artist Cameron-James Wilson last year. She has her own Instagram account with 145,000 followers which describes her as the worlds first digital supermodel. Modelling shots include her wearing Tiffany jewellery for Vogue Australia. Responses from the industry during New York and London fashion weeks were mixed, with designer Michael Kors among those critical of computer-generated imagery (CGI) being used in this way. I am not into a digital model. I am into real people with personalities and opinions, Kors said at his show in New York. The idea of digital models is something that I hope does not gain popularity. But British designer Alice Temperley believes using CGI could help cut costs. I quite like the idea of doing some of that for the commercial and then spending the money on doing events, Temperley said at London Fashion Week. I think CGI for computer, for website, for selling purposes, for walking backwards and forwards and showing a product on a website is genius, but not necessarily to bring life and flavor into a brand, because thats much more personal. Shudus creator said the rise of CGI in fashion was inevitable. After all we see CGI being used in almost every other industry, Wilson said in an emailed statement. 3D and fashion were two worlds destined to collide. Virtual influencer Miquela has gained 1.4 million Instagram followers since she was created in 2016. Pictures show her in everyday scenarios wearing designer labels and she promoted Prada clothes on the social media platform during Februarys Milan Fashion Week. I think its good that things change once in a while, model Gisele Alicea during New York Fashion Week. But I dont think theyre ever going to replace models. But then again, the world changes all the time. But I would wish that they would use real models, I dont want to lose my job. Model Ashanti Hildreth said she did not feel threatened. Virtual reality is going to cost way more than using a real model ... you have to have to pay for someone to edit, she said. With real people, the clothes just look better. In London, model Aweng Choul said the use of digital models took the humanity away from modeling. Paying a digital model when you should be paying a real model takes away from reality and what human is, she said. Shudu, Zhi and Margot - who are black, Asian and white respectively - have also re-ignited a debate about diversity in the fashion world, which is frequently criticized for the lack of racially-diverse models on the catwalks. Where we are at in society right now, I think we need to be uplifting real people and people who deserve the representation that modeling can provide, model Hunter Schafer said. Shudu creator Wilson said CGI could address the issue. I think its important to explore diversity across as many media as possible, and the (Balmain) campaign was the start of really embracing that, he said. This season, several designers have used a wider range of women for shows. Rihannas Savage X Fenty lingerie line show featured models of different sizes and races while Temperley had women of various ages. Its cool and interesting, but we feel like ... its sort of a form of animation, David Blond, creative director of The Blonds, said of CGI models. Im sure it can be amazing to utilize at some point but for now we prefer humans. (Source) This women-only code competition invites women coders to share their ideas and product solutions in different programming languages. TechGig Geek Goddess, India's leading coding arena for women, launched its fourth edition in association with American Express, a globally integrated payments company. The title sponsor for the event will be Goldman Sachs, a leading global investment bank and active investor in India. The event offers prizes worth Rs 7, 50,000. Team TechGig, the holder of Guinness World Record for hosting the world's largest online programming contest, Code Gladiators manages Geek Goddess. The grand finale of the event will be held on November 23 followed by Women Disruptors Conference on November 24 in Bengaluru. This women-only code competition invites women coders to share their ideas and product solutions in different programming languages and ropes in IT industry leaders to mentor these coders. Announcing the new season, Ramathreya Krishnamurthi, Business Head, Times Jobs & Tech Gig said, "The brilliance of women technologists remains unsung in many companies. TechGig Geek Goddess is a unique opportunity for women technologists where they can showcase their genius without facing any bias. I invite women coders from all walks of life to join in as we put up this mega show to celebrate talented women technologists with our presenting partner American Express." Ruchika Panesar, Vice President, Global Services Group and Head of Technology, American Express India also expressed delight over their the association with TechGig Geek Goddess and said, "In the age of continuous disruption in the payments ecosystem, technology is the key differentiator. We, at American Express, have been on a journey of building technology and engineering capabilities across the globe and great technology talent are critical to our business. As we continue to grow our team in India, we aspire to be the 'Best place to work for engineers' in the country. As a Woman in technology, I am personally excited by the platform TechGig Geek Goddess provides us to take this vision further and bring talented 'Women who code' and 'Women Technologist" to the organisation'." Gunjan Samtani, Co-head of the Goldman Sachs in Bengaluru, said, "To achieve and maintain our country's engineering excellence, we must have the most talented workforce. At Goldman Sachs, where technology is a key component driving our firm's growth, we believe a talented workforce comes from a deliberate and committed focus on diversity that allows us to bring the best ideas and services to our clients. Our firm is proud to be associated with this significant initiative that encourages women to embrace engineering and further strengthens the national talent pool." The latest edition of TechGig Geek Goddess also has CGI as the platinum partner, Expedia group as the diamond partner, ABB as the Internet of Things theme partner and Mphasis as the base partner. The last edition of TechGig Geek Goddess had seen a massive participation of 49,000 coders. New themes like UI, Data Science and IoT were intentionally introduced in last season to let the programmers experiment vigorously in technology environments. As per the organisers, the contest has already garnered 25,000+ registrations so far and counting. TechGig Geek Goddess has been instrumental in bringing women technologists to the forefront and presenting a latent talent pool to IT employers. (Source) Guwahati, Sep 22 (PTI) Days after the arrest of a Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) operative from Kanpur and subsequent arrests of seven of his associates from the state, the Assam Police has intensified operations on terrorist activities here, Director General of Police Kuladhar Saikia said on Saturday. "The arrest of HM operative Kamar-uz-Zaman from Kanpur, who hails from Assam, was a combined effort of several agencies. We have made seven arrests here following Kamar's arrest," Saikia told reporters at a press conference here. Interrogation of the arrested so far in Assam for suspected HM links is going on and enquiry is progressing in the right direction, Saikia said. On Kamar being taken into custody, he said, "The team of Assam Police that had gone to Kanpur has returned. We will work on their feedback". Besides making arrests and bringing about improvement in its won technical capabilities, the police is working to fight and defeat terrorist activities in the state by engaging the social media to connect to the public, he said. The DGP further said the strong social fabric of the state did not allow fundamentalist elements to gain any foothold here. Additional DGP Pallab Bhattacharjya, who was also present in the press conference, said plans have been put in place to form special cells to combat the fundamentalist threat. "These (terrorist) organizations operate surreptitiously and in a clandestine manner. The police also has to act likewise to defeat them," Bhattacharjya said. PTI (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Washington DC [USA], Sep 22 (ANI): United States Secretary of State, Michael R. Pompeo has warned Iran of "direct action" for any attacks on Washington in Iraq, even those using proxy forces, against US interests. In an interview to CNN, Pompeo said, "We have told the Islamic Republic of Iran that using a proxy force to attack an American interest will not prevent us from responding against the prime actor." Pompeo further accused Iran of confronting the world as the "world's largest state sponsor of terror." "We will not let Iran get away with using a proxy force to attack an American interest; Iran will be held accountable for those incidents," he added while speaking on the recent rocket attack that was allegedly carried out by Iran-backed militias this month. The attack was said to target the US missions in Iraq. The White House blamed Shia militia groups for it and stated, "Iran did not act to stop these attacks by its proxies in Iraq, which it has supported with funding, training and weapons." However, Iran's Foreign Ministry called the claims of the US as "astonishing, provocative, and irresponsible." The tension between the two counties has increased after US President Donald Trump withdrew Washington from the Iran nuclear pact. On May 8, Trump administration announced withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or the Iran nuclear deal that limited Tehran's uranium enrichment in exchange for relief from some sanctions. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) New Delhi, Sept 21: The Enforcement Directorate has attached assets worth Rs 42.88 crore in connection with the bitcoin scam involving 'cryptocurrency guru' Amit Bhardwaj. The seizures include properties under the banner of Variabletech Private Ltd, a company owned by Bhardwaj and his accomplices. Apart from the properties, ED has also frozen and seized bank accounts linked to Variabletech. As per the ED's investigation, the company was floated by Bhardwaj in Singapore in 2015, and through its website - www.gainbitcoin.com - he launched the ponzi scheme. Enforcement Directorate (ED) attaches assets worth Rs 42.88 crore in connection with Bitcoin Scam masterminded by Amit Bhardwaj and associates. pic.twitter.com/XA4dT1SP8k ANI (@ANI) September 21, 2018 Notably, Bhardwaj and his younger brother Vivek, and their two accomplices - Pankaj Adlakha and Hemant Bhope - are lodged in jail. (Also read: Cryptocurrency Scam Unearthed By Delhi Police: Bitcoins & Huge Stack of Cash Seized During Arrest of Darwin Labs' Owners!) Bhardwaj was first arrested in Bangkok on March 31, and later extradited to India. Cases against him has been filed in various parts of the nation, prominently in Pune, Chandigarh and Delhi. He has been booked under IPC 406, 420, 34, 409, 120B, 109 and MPID Act 3 and 4, and IT Act, Section 66B. According to estimates, the total value of the bitcoin scam amounts to nearly $300 million. Apart from Variabletech, three other companies are involved in the cryptocurrency scam. They are: Gain Bitcoin, GB Minors and GB 21 -- all owned by Bhardwaj. Duped investors claim that the "extravagant meetings" were organised by the three firms in 2016 in Dubai and Macau to lure investments. The ED is probing the funding of such meetings -- whether they were wholly sponsored on the ponzi collections or involved other financial sources. (The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 21, 2018 09:55 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com). New Delhi, Sept 22: Army chief General Bipin Rawat supported the Centre's decision to call off the meet proposed by Pakistan between the two countries' foreign ministers at the sidelines of United Nations General Assembly. Gen Rawat, while lauding the decision, said "talks and terror can't go hand-in-hand". The meeting, expected on September 26-27, was cancelled by India on Friday -- a day after accepting the proposal for talks by Pakistan. The Ministry of External Affairs has cited the latest killing of a BSF jawan by Pakistani troopers, along with the release of stamp duties by Islamabad featuring anti-India "terrorists" as the reason for not resuming the dialogue with the neighbouring nation. Imran Khan Targets PM Narendra Modi as India Calls Off Meeting With Pakistan, Says 'Small Men Occupying Big Offices'. Gen Rawat said India must unequivocally avenge the barbarism afflicted by Pakistani troopers, and the terrorism used as a state policy by Islamabad. "We need to take stern action to avenge the barbarism that terrorists & the Pakistan Army have been carrying out. Yes,it's time to give it back to them in the same coin, not resorting to similar kind of barbarism. But I think the other side must also feel the same pain," he said. The Army chief's remarks comes shortly after Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan expressed anguish over the manner in which India turned down his proposal of dialogue. Disappointed at the arrogant & negative response by India to my call for resumption of the peace dialogue. However, all my life I have come across small men occupying big offices who do not have the vision to see the larger picture. Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) September 22, 2018 Talks between India and Pakistan stands suspended since September 2016, when cross-border terrorists attacked an Army camp in Uri killing 18 soldiers. Following the election of a new government in Pakistan, Islamabad made a fresh pitch for talks to the Modi government. Experts, however, claim that the dialogue could resume only after the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, as the ruling BJP is unlikely to dent its "nationalist" image by resuming the bilateral process with Pakistan. (The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 22, 2018 06:39 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com). Christine Blasey Ford, the California woman who alleges Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in high school, is willing to provide her firsthand knowledge to the Senate Judiciary Committee this week, her attorneys said Saturday, and the committee has tentatively agreed to hold a hearing on Thursday. Lawyers for Ford, a research psychologist at Palo Alto University, said they want another meeting with committee staffers to negotiate her appearance, however, meaning a resolution to the politically sensitive standoff is not yet certain. In an email to the Judiciary Committee, Fords lawyers said they were disappointed with the leaks and the bullying that have tainted the process since Fords name and allegations first surfaced last weekend, abruptly putting Kavanaughs nomination into jeopardy. The Senate committee tentatively agreed to let Ford testify Thursday, the Associated Press reported late Saturday, although its not clear if Kavanaugh will face off against his accuser, or who will conduct the questioning. Representatives of the committee will speak to Fords lawyers Sunday to continue working out details. Advertisement Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), the committee chairman, had not spoken publicly about the new developments as of late Saturday. He may yet decide to move forward with a committee vote on Kavanaugh on Monday, as he had wanted, or postpone a vote to accommodate Fords requests. Other Republicans on the committee expressed frustration at the latest communication, with some dismissing it as a delaying tactic for partisan purposes less than two months before the midterm election. This is exactly where we were on Monday morning without agreeing to a date, time, and terms we are no closer to hearing from Dr Ford then we were when her lawyers said Dr. Ford was willing to testify during their media tour, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) tweeted Saturday. Fords allegation that an inebriated Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed and attempted to remove her clothing while muffling her cries at a party in the early 1980s, when both were students at elite private high schools near Washington, D.C., has roiled Kavanaughs expected confirmation. President Trump weighed in Friday, tweeting, If the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. In response, tens of thousands of Americans began using the hashtag #WhyIDidntReport to describe their own experiences with assault. Kavanaugh has vigorously denied Fords accusation. In a statement Saturday, White House spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said the nominee is ready, willing and eager to testify as soon as possible. Republican leaders need to tread softly as they work to get Kavanaugh onto the Supreme Court with a slim, 51-to-49-seat majority in the Senate. His confirmation could shift the ideological makeup of the nations highest court for decades. Several Senate Republicans have indicated they are eager to hear from Ford and then move forward with the process, fearful that repeated delays will prevent Kavanaugh from assuming the bench. But some GOP senators considered likeliest to join Democrats in voting against Kavanaugh have emphasized that they arent comfortable moving ahead without hearing directly from Ford. They will be closely watching how the Judiciary Committee treats her. Grassley has agreed to Fords requests to allow just one TV camera to be in the hearing room and to limit news media access, to provide breaks during the testimony, and to keep Kavanaugh out of the room while Ford testifies. But he balked at her requests that Kavanaugh testify first, that only senators and not committee attorneys ask questions, and that subpoenas be issued to compel other potential witnesses to testify. Democrats on the committee have joined Ford in pushing for those stipulations, saying that senators have a responsibility to ask the questions, and accusing Republicans of not taking the accusation seriously by rushing the hearing. Republicans hope to avoid a repeat of the divisive confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas in 1991, and the politically awkward optics of a panel of men in the #MeToo era questioning a woman alleging being the victim of a sexual attack. All GOP members of the committee are male. They have pushed for staff or outside counsel to ask Ford and Kavanaugh questions. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the highest-ranking Democrat on the committee, accused Republicans of bullying Ford and said there were unpleasant echoes of how Thomas accuser, Anita Hill, was treated before Thomas was confirmed. Its clear that Republicans have learned nothing over the last 27 years, Feinstein said Friday. Bullying a survivor of attempted rape in order to confirm a nominee particularly at a time when shes receiving death threats is an extreme abuse of power. Ford first contacted Feinstein in a letter in July, seeking confidentiality. After Fords name and allegations became public last weekend, Feinstein was criticized by Republicans and her general election opponent, Democratic California state Sen. Kevin de Leon, for not sharing her information before Kavanaugh had undergone his confirmation hearings. Spokesmen for Grassley and Feinstein did not return requests for comment Saturday. After a week of mostly silence from Fords attorneys, Grassley initially set a 5 p.m. Friday deadline for Ford to make a decision on whether to testify, but then postponed that to 10 p.m., adding that if she did not reply the committee would go forward with a hearing Monday without her and vote on Kavanaughs nomination. Fords attorneys asked late Friday evening for an extra day to consult with their client, saying the Republicans deadline was aggressive and artificial. Grassley said Friday he would give Ford more time to make a decision, but signaled his patience was running thin. Dr Ford if u changed ur mind say so so we can move on I want to hear ur testimony. Come to us or we to u, he tweeted. In a separate development, a top aide leading the Republican response on the Judiciary Committee abruptly resigned late Friday over an allegation of sexual harassment. NBC News reported Saturday that Garrett Ventry resigned after the network questioned a claim made against him when he was employed by the North Carolina General Assembly. Ventry has denied any wrongdoing. The latest from Washington More stories from Sarah D. Wire sarah.wire@latimes.com Follow @sarahdwire on Twitter UPDATES: 5:55 p.m.: This story was updated with the committees tentative agreement to let Ford testify on Thursday. 3:28 p.m.: This story was updated with details of Fords offer to testify. 1:25 p.m.: This story was updated with details of Fords offer. 11:45 a.m.: This story was updated to say Ford had offered to testify. This story was originally posted at 10:20 a.m. Digitization, which was one of the end goals of demonetization, wasn't as instant for non-urban India's cash-based economy. In November 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetization of the 500 and 1000 denomination notes. It was a turning point for India's economy as the entire nation was about to be introduced to digital payments and transactions in a big way. In the following days, city dwellers like me switched to our mobile wallets and UPI apps for digital payments. However, digitization, which was one of the end goals of demonetization, wasn't as instant for non-urban India's cash-based economy. A USAID-Intellecap study says that even today, 22 months later, the level of cash in circulation is pretty much the same as it was before demonetization. This indicates that people living in the smaller cities and towns in India still haven't adopted digital payments and transactions. With cash still being the preferred mode of payment, Bharat is a far cry from a cashless economy. To give you an idea, out of the 300 million people in India that use Smartphones, a staggering 270 million people rely on cash payments for simple tasks such as a mobile recharge. One might wonder - why aren't these people using technology to make their lives easy? Why is Bharat Reluctant to Use Technology: The author believes that there are three factors that stop Bharat from embracing technology: Language Barrier: In a country that has at least 22 major spoken languages, technology providers face the challenge of reaching out to non-English speakers. Apps with an English language interface have a slim chance of reaching out to India's 70 per cent population that doesn't know the language. Thanks to Smartphone penetration and competitive internet tariffs, nine out of ten people who are using the internet for the first time today are non-English speakers. There is a growing number of internet users today who prefer to interact in their native language, and they will soon outnumber English speaking users. India saw the first step in localizing technology in 2017 when the government mandated local phone manufacturers to include official languages support. Today, a few messaging, social media and utility apps have also joined the bandwagon and provide user-interface in multiple Indian languages. If technology companies want to deep dive into Bharat, they should enable users to do more than just chatting and browsing through social media in their native language. While eCommerce apps have made their interface available in Indian languages, the payment interface is still in English, thereby discouraging masses from transacting online. In the 2012 film English Vinglish, the protagonist Shashi learns English in a foreign land to earn her family's love and respect. Today, the tables have turned. If tech companies want their products to be accepted and used by Bharat vasis, they need to sideline English and focus on Vinglish. In other words, they need to build end-to-end products with multiple native language capabilities - not as an add-on but as a primary offering. Complicated Interface: There is a steep learning curve involved when it comes to online transactions, mostly due to complicated digital interfaces. Users need to read, learn and understand a lot to carry out simple transactions. So even if an internet user knows the language, an interface with many tabs and prompts can be intimidating for a first time user. Tech companies should look at making their digital interfaces so simple that both non-English speakers and first-time internet users can adopt to it. Personal Touch: We have been traditionally conversing with human beings for all our transactional needs - right from our vegetable vendor to our bank teller. However, online transactions are entirely different in nature. The huge difference between these interactions holds the non-urban India back from transacting online. Adding a human touch to digital interactions can warm up people to the idea of online transactions. The next frontier for Bharat - AI and ML: Global internet and technology giants such as Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are all leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to solve the above barriers. Technology providers are using Automated Speech Recognition (ASR), Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Natural Language Understanding (NLU), to assist users with more than just translation. With the ability to understand the context and interpret the sentiment and intent behind the text, across multiple languages, NLP equipped bots can humanize digital transactions. An increasing number of companies, across multiple sectors, are leveraging ASR, NLU and NLP to build AI voice assistants to help users with online transactions. The author sees some early adopters, and they are not limited to global giants such as Amazon and Google. Homegrown startups such as Niki.ai are harnessing AI to build localized and voice-first interfaces that are easy to use, even for first-time users. The startup's conversational commerce interface has been widely adopted by players in the BFSI sector. Niki.ai has already built for hindi and english consumers, and will be launching for tamil too this year. The growth story of Indias digitization has shifted from the metros to Bharat. Were still far from reaching the inflexion point of non-english speakers coming online for the first time. Technology companies today are sitting on a goldmine - trillions of dollars of untapped Bharat market. Now, more than ever, for a nation as diverse as ours, is the time to harness the power of AI to truly understand, solve and lead Bharat towards complete digitisation. Ronnie Srewvala, Entrepreneur and Philanthropist BY JOHN BEST Lehighvalleylive.com contributor Water in a popular boating and fishing spot in Hunterdon County may be dangerous to anglers, kayakers, pets and others who come in contact with the water. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection issued a "harmful algal bloom" advisory for Spruce Run Reservoir in Union Township. Potential effects on humans, pets and other animals include skin irritation and rashes, gastroenteritis, headache, fevers, muscle weakness, seizures and respiratory failure. Swimming in the reservoir was prohibited for a few days in early August due to potentially harmful bacteria levels. Last week, the DEP issued the danger warning for all people and animals involved in activities in the water. Signs have been posted around the reservoir alerting people about the danger. "A confirmed Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB) is present with levels quantified at or above the NJ Health Advisory Guidance," according to the DEP's website. "There should be no contact with the water including, but not limited to, swimming, wading, and watersports. People, pets, and livestock should not contact or swallow the water. Fish caught in this waterbody should not be eaten." An algal bloom is a rapid increase or accumulation in the population of algae and algae-like bacteria in a waterbody. These blooms often result in a thick coating or mat on the surface of the water, which can also result in lowering the dissolved oxygen in the water, according to the DEP. Certain environmental conditions, such as sunlight, high nutrient concentrations, warm temperatures and calm water can favor the development of a bloom. However, not all algal blooms are harmful. Non-toxic "nuisance blooms" can result in discolored water and/or offensive odors. Cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, are responsible for the majority of freshwater HAB occurrences, according to the DEP. Cyanobacteria are naturally present in lakes and streams and can form both toxic and non-toxic blooms. Some, but not all, Harmful Algal Blooms produce chemicals that can be toxic to humans and animals if ingested, inhaled or if contacted by skin or mucous membranes. These toxins can accumulate in fish and shellfish, which can cause illness when eaten. These blooms can also occur in saltwater. Marine HABs are mostly caused by single celled algae called phytoplankton. Phytoplankton are abundant in both marine and freshwater ecosystems and are an essential component of the food chain. An abundance of phytoplankton can produce discolored waters and form both toxic and non-toxic blooms. Harmful algae that can have negative effects on humans and animals are a small subset of the species, according to the DEP. DEP spokeswoman Caryn Shinske said cooler temperatures usually lead to reduced bacteria levels. Confirmed testing of reduced levels will result in the advisory begin lifted. "HABs are naturally occurring things," Shinske said. "They have to dissipate on their own." The DEP could not locate any studies that indicate whether hunted waterfowl are safe to eat, Shinske said. However, an Australian government website cautions against humans or dogs eating offal -- internal organs and entrails -- from a duck harvested in HAB waters. The DEP website lists 16 N.J. waterbodies where HAB advisories are continuing. The website will indicate when the advisory is lifted for Spruce Run Reservoir or the other waterbodies. Tap water that reaches residents from the reservoir is not hazardous, according to New Jersey American Water spokeswoman Denise Venuti Free. The advisory is only for drinking untreated water directly from the reservoir, she said. The reservoir feeds into the South Branch of the Raritan River. New Jersey American Water's intake is about 20 miles south of the reservoir and by the time the water travels in the river and goes through the treatment plant, it is safe for consumption, Venuti Free explained. "New Jersey American Water's water is safe and meets all federal and state drinking water standards," Venuti Free said. John Best is a freelance writer. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. 'It is unfortunate that India has not given positive response. Indian has once again wasted an opportunity for peace,' Qureshi said. Qureshi said India's 'stubbornness' is also adversely affecting future of the SAARC countries, the Radio Pakistan report said. (Photo: File | PTI) Islamabad: Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi Friday expressed disappointment at India calling off a meeting between him and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in New York and alleged that "internal pressure" forced New Delhi to make the "unfortunate" move. I ndia cited the "brutal" killing of three policemen in Jammu and Kashmir as well as the release of postal stamps "glorifying" Kashmiri militant Burhan Wani for cancelling the meeting between Swaraj and Qureshi on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York this month. Read: India calls off meeting with Pakistan, MEA says Pak's evil agenda exposed Qureshi expressed disappointment at the cancellation of the foreign minister-level talks, saying it was "unfortunate." "It is unfortunate that India has not given a positive response. Indian has once again wasted an opportunity for peace," Qureshi told the media here. He said that it was important to sit and talk for the sake of peace and stability in the region. "The refusal of India shows that Indian government is facing internal pressure," he said. "It seems that India is already preparing for its elections due in the country next year," Qureshi was quoted as saying by the Express Tribune. He said Pakistan sincerely wants resolution of all outstanding issues, including Kashmir, with India through negotiations. Pakistan has always extended an olive branch to India for the resolution of problems and enhancing bilateral ties in an amicable manner, but New Delhi does not come out of its "internal politics", state-run Radio Pakistan quoted him as saying. The minister said Pakistan can only wish India to come to the negotiating table, but "we can neither pressurise anybody nor will accept the same for this purpose." Qureshi said the world wants connectivity and promote regional trade, but India is creating problems. He said India's "stubbornness" is also adversely affecting future of the SAARC countries, the Radio Pakistan report said. But, Qureshi reiterated that dialogue is the only way to come to the resolution of any issue. "We said that we want dialogue - but in a dignified manner," he added. Meanwhile, the Foreign Office (FO) in a statement remarked that the reasons cited by India for calling off the talks "within 24 hours of its public confirmation are entirely unconvincing". "The so-called 'disturbing developments' alluded to in the Indian statement predated the Indian agreement to hold the bilateral meeting in New York," FO spokesman Dr Mohammad Faisal said in the statement. He said the alleged killing of a BSF soldier took place two days prior to the Indian announcement of its agreement to hold the bilateral meeting. And when the allegations of Pakistan's involvement first appeared, Pakistani rangers clearly conveyed to BSF through official channels that the country had nothing to do with it. He said Pakistani rangers also extended help in efforts to locate the soldier's body. These facts were known to the Indian authorities and yet "this motivated and malicious propaganda continued". "Pakistan...categorically reject these allegations...Our authorities would be prepared to conduct a joint investigation to establish the truth," Faisal said. On the issue of the postage stamps, he said they were issued before the July 25 elections and before Prime Minister Imran Khan assumed office. Faisal said that most unfortunate part of Indian statement is the reference to the person of the Prime Minister of Pakistan. "We choose not to further comment beyond saying that these comments are against all norms of civilised discourse and diplomatic communication," he said. "We believe by its ill-considered cancellation of the meeting, India has once again wasted a serious opportunity to change the dynamics of the bilateral relationship and put the region on the path of peace and development," he added. Announcing the cancellation of the New York meeting, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said in New Delhi that the incidents "exposed" the "true face" of Pakistan's new Prime Minister Imran Khan to the world as well as Islamabad's evil agenda behind the proposal for talks. "The latest brutal killings of our security personnel by Pakistan-based entities and the recent release of a series of 20 postage stamps by Pakistan glorifying a terrorist and terrorism confirm that Pakistan will not mend its ways," Kumar said. He noted that "two deeply disturbing developments have taken place" since yesterday's announcement of a meeting between the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan in New York later this month. "In view of the changed situation, there will be no meeting between the Foreign Ministers of India and Pakistan in New York," he said. Kumar said talks with Pakistan in such an environment would be "meaningless". Former High Commissioner to India, Abdul Basit said he was surprised by India's move as New Delhi should not have agreed for it in the first place due to forthcoming elections but after agreeing for a meeting it was more surprising that it backed out. Former advisor on foreign affairs Sartaj Aziz said that it was "unfortunate" that India cancelled the meeting as it would have created an environment for peace. Former foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri said the cancellation reminded him of the Agra summit when everything was ready for joint statement but India backed out at the last minute. A dump truck slammed into an overpass on Route 33 spilling its load on the highway in Northampton County, Pennsylvania State Police said. The crash occurred just before 8:30 p.m. Friday on Route 33 South, at the Kromer Road overpass near mile-marker 14.5 in Plainfield Township, according to state police at Belfast. Driver Ryan R. Cortazza, 29, of Bangor, was uninjured, police said. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation inspected the bridge that carries Kromer Road over the highway and found only minor damage to the bridge support rail. There was no structural damage underneath, allowing police to reopen the southbound lanes about 1 a.m. Saturday. PennDOT also repaired damage done to the road in the incident. Kromer Road will remain closed at the overpass until a follow-up inspection of the road surface, police said. A news release from police does not explain why the dump body raised as Cortazza was driving. Cortazza declined to comment Saturday afternoon to lehighvalleylive.com. His Facebook profile identifies him as the owner of Image Landscape & Design in Upper Nazareth Township. The dump body hit the overpass so hard it became dislodged from the truck chassis, and wedged between the bridge and the highway, according to police. Cortazza continued driving for about 0.2 of a mile before stopping on the shoulder. The truck, a 2005 International Harvester, sustained damage to its hydraulic lines and piston that raise and lower the dump body, according to police. Easton Auto Body removed the truck and dump body. The Plainfield Township Volunteer Fire Co. also assisted at the scene. Police were continuing to investigate. Cortazza was not facing any citations as of Saturday afternoon. Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. Authorities were still looking Friday for the suspect in a shooting Sept. 14 outside a Phillipsburg bar, according to the Warren County Prosecutor's Office. Samaad K. Williams (Courtesy photo | For lehighvalleylive.com) Samaad K. Williams, 25, is this week's fugitive of the week from the prosecutor's office. Williams is accused of shooting Easton area resident Steven Margeson in Pear Alley after an altercation at the nearby Hilltop Bar, 148 Hudson St. in Phillipsburg. Williams, whose last known address was in the 100 block of Chambers Street in Phillipsburg, is described as standing 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighing 220 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes. He is wanted on a charge of attempted murder, the prosecutor's office said. The prosecutor's office asks anyone with information about Williams to contact investigators via a tip line at 908-475-6643, the fugitive unit at 908-475-6272 or via fugitive@co.warren.nj.us. Editor's note: The Northampton County Sheriff's Department did not release a fugitive of the week for Sept. 22, 2018. Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. Little Laois girl Mary-Claire Knowles who features on television documentary 'The Town' about Portlaoise, is still getting life threatening seizures, the most recent happening two weeks ago. The little Ballyroan girl has been saved well over 30 times by emergency teams in Portlaoise Hospital because she regularly suffers long brain seizures, a symptom of Dravats Syndrome which can stop her breathing . It is nearly a year since her mother Rose Maher first stood up and made an emotional plea to keep Portlaoise A&E open, at a public meeting in the parish centre. Back then Rose told the Leinster Express how Mary-Claire's life depended on Portlaoise hospital. That situation is still the same today she says. Portlaoise ambulance staff are are at her side within 15 minutes of a call, with a team ready in the A&E. For us and other families, we depend on Portlaoise. For Mary every second counts, Rose told the Leinster Express this week. Mary-Claire's most recent seizure was on September 6. She had gone nearly the whole summer without one, Rose said. Mary-Claire had started on a new drug, but because Dravat's is a drug resistant syndrome, every drug slowly stops working. She went 56 days without a seizure. One of the boys picked up a virus in playschool, she got sick and that caused a seizure. After that she was 66 days seizure free, said Rose. They were expecting the calm period to end, but it was an intense seizure when it came, happening becuase Mary-Claire developed a throat and ear infection. It lasted for 50 minutes. Her airways needed support, her breathing slowed down but didn't stop. The emergency team had her under control ten minutes after she arrived in Portlaoise but after an hour and a half she had another seizure for ten minutes. They gave her IV rescue medication, it relaxes the brain. She slept for nearly a day and a half after, she said. Mary-Claire is still recovering. She still has an ear infection. She couldn't walk for nearly five days, she lost her balance from the seizure, her speech became a bit slurred, but she is doing well again now, back on track, she said. The programme makers filmed the family last winter and spring. Rose is glad they took part because it has raised awareness of Dravat's Syndrome but it was hard to watch on television. I got very emotional. When you are in the moment, you switch to automatic mammy mode, focusing on getting Mary safe , she said. A lot of people were absolutely shocked, they didn't realise how hard our life is. People say ah she'll grow out of it, but you don't. She won't be grand, she said. She, her husband Anthony Knowles and sons Daniel, 6, and Anthony, 3, live on eggshells awaiting the next emergency. Keeping their home free of viruses is vital, so visitors are asked not to call if if they have a cold. People come up to wish her well and I do say please don't touch her. The boys know the first thing when they get home is to sterilise hands at the front door. Nobody if they think they have a cold, comes into the house, Rose said. Her immune system is so low, I don't think Mary will be going to playschool, my job is to prevent seizures and I don't want to put her at risk. I hope the older she gets the hardier she gets, she said. Her brothers give her lots of playtime and social fun though. They love her to bits, they have really brought her on, Rose said. Mary-Claire turned two in April and despite the many seizures, is miraculously not brain damaged. Her parents went to Glasgow and Holland for second opinions and doctors are awed at her resilience. The Dutch doctor they saw recommended medicinal cannabis as a rescue med, but on return home, they were disappointed at the Irish doctor' responses. The door was shut, they can't even discuss it here, said Rose. Rose is now getting texts from other families in the same boat sharing words of support, as well as from many well wishers. It's fantastic, they are wishing Mary well, telling us to stay strong, it means the world to me, she said. ATHEA has lodged a powerful appeal to An Post setting out a comprehensive list of reasons why post office services should be retained in the West Limerick village. And, as part of that appeal, the Athea Community Council, has called on An Post to keep the existing post office open until the appeal has been heard and decided. It is essential that we retain the Post Office and its customer base until such time as a new Post Office arrangement is in place in the village, the community council as a body says. The post office, they argue, is critical to generating footfall at the other businesses in the village. And their hope is that An Post will agree to transfer the service to one of two businesses in the village that have expressed a keen interest in continuing the service on a co-location basis. Among the facts they have marshalled in support of their case is population. Up to 2000 people live in the parish, they point out, and over 800 within two kilometres of the village centre. This, they argue, more than qualifies them for An Posts population criterion of 500. They also argue that population in the village is set grow as a result of a new sewerage treatment plant currently being installed. Up to now, the lack of sewage capacity meant that new housing was confined to one-off houses on the outskirts. There are 300 pensioners in the parish, who, along with over 190 people who are unemployed, disabled or incapacitated, receive various social welfare payments, they point out. Sending them to Abbeyfeale, 12km away, would have a detrimental impact on existing businesses. It would also lead to longer queues at Abbeyfeale post office, they argue, a town which suffers from traffic congestion and parking difficulties. In addition, the appeal points out, census figures show that approximately one in four (24%) people in Athea do not have a car and would therefore have to pay up to 20 on taxis for a round trip. There is no ATM in Athea, they point out, making access to electronic payments impossible locally. The Post Office is a critical lifeline for people who dont use, or who have no access to, banking services, they argue. In addition, they say: There is no regular public transport in our parish. Another argument put forward is environmental, stressing the parishs green credential. Windfarms in Athea produce enough electricity to power over 37,000 homes, they point out and the community has replaced public lighting with LED lights. No post office in Athea, the community council estimates, would necessitate a very conservative extra 200 road trips a week, clocking up an additional 4,800 km per week or 250,000km a year at a time when the country is struggling to meet carbon emission targets. This is very counterproductive in our efforts to reduce the carbon footprint of our community and it is very myopic on the part of the State not to consider these knock-on impacts, the document states. The appeal document, which stretches over 29 pages, outlines the impressive record of positive community and development projects that have been undertaken in Athea. This, they state, has been achieved under difficult circumstances and the loss of their post office now, at a time of new investment from the state in sewage treatment and broadband, would be an extremely retrogressive development. They find it quite perplexing and frustrating they say, to have one arm of the state currently investing in Athea while another arm, An Post, is removing an essential service. We propose conducting an information campaign to promote Post Office services and encourage an increased uptake of these within the community, the appeal concludes. And they want An Post to provide Athea with the full range of all its services, particularly banking services. It is unclear when the appeals board will make known its decision on Athea. THE EVERLY Brothers song, Bye Bye Love rang out after the tractor run in Murroe on Sunday. Bye bye happiness, hello loneliness, I think I'm-a gonna cry-y. The lyrics couldnt have been more more out of place. The sun was shining, everyone was smiling, tractor engines were revving and Seamus Hickey brought the Liam MacCarthy Cup home. With military precision tractors left the village just before 2pm after organisers had raised thousands for Down Syndrome Limerick. Then it was time for Seamus Hickey, accompanied by Diarmaid Byrnes and Cian Lynch, and the triumphant Murroe-Boher U-12s to bring the Cup in to Harty Park. Their mode of transportation was a vintage tractor and trailer borrowed from the run. Murroe-Boher GAA Club and tractor run organisers deserve great credit for how well the day was organised, and Sergeant Helen Holden, Garda Tom McGlinchey for keeping traffic flowing. Seamus took the stage with his daughter Anna as some 1,200 fans cheered and clapped for one of their own. Paul Coffey, MC, said countless people have said to him they were absolutely delighted Seamus Hickey won an All-Ireland medal. Youre there a long, long time and you have given great service over the years. Everybody here will 100% back me up on that, said Paul. The loudest cheer of the day went up. Since 2006, Seamus has played corner back, full back, half back, centre back, midfield and at half forward. Wherever he was put he gave his all for Limerick. I didnt dream of a homecoming, I didnt dream of standing in front of Harty Park where we trained for so long at underage. This is surreal, this is incredible, I owe it all to lads like Cian and Diarmaid who played so well throughout the year. I am delighted they came and Id like to thank them for coming, said Seamus. He recalled being seven in 1994 and nine in 1996 when Murroe-Boher GAA men, Owen and Sean ONeill were playing with Limerick. Ive idolised the players that have come from this club that have played for Limerick - James Butler, the Tobins. I was blessed to play with the Tobins, all three of them [Seanie, Kevin and Pat] for so many years in the Limerick senior set-up. Im just blessed to be one of the 36 lads who actually won an All-Ireland medal, said Seamus, who spoke of the passion and energy the children in Murroe and Killinure National Schools have for hurling. Seamus could see himself in all the young boys and girls in the schools and running around Harty Park with hurleys. When I got to play my first game for Limerick it was a primary game. I got the bug and it just took off. I never wanted anything else only to play senior hurling for Limerick. Ive been blessed, Ive been to a minor final, Ive won a Munster medal all those things along the way are part of the bigger dream of playing for Limerick. All I wanted to do was to wear the green and white until somebody else took it off me. Ive been blessed to have been part of something really successful but the journey is the most important. Liam MacCarthy is in @MurroeBoher Huge crowds in attendance! pic.twitter.com/Q6rKUfb39s Donal O'Regan (@DonalORegan1) September 16, 2018 Seamus, Diarmaid and Cian were joined on stage by the Murroe-Boher U-12s who won the Tom Blake memorial tournament in Ahane on Saturday and the Liam ODonoghue tournament on Sunday. Seamus had a message for those players and all the boys Dream big and folllow it. And here they are in @MurroeBoher as the sun beats down pic.twitter.com/1alKVzIltp Donal O'Regan (@DonalORegan1) September 16, 2018 It doesnt matter what you win or achieve or lose along the way, it is the dream and journey of getting there. Never give up on it. Keep practising, keep dreaming and keep working. This is an amazing thing to be part of and to be home here is humbling, said Seamus, who cut the ribbon on the new 85,000 ball wall/astro turf area with the chairmen of Murroe-Boher GAA Club and Bord na nOg, Paul Byrnes and Owen ONeill. A LIMERICK businesswoman is celebrating this week after winning a major national award. Caroline Dunlea, co-director of Core Optimisation, won an award for the best use of digital at the annual Network Ireland business awards in Galway. The annual awards, celebrate the excellence, professionalism, vision and leadership of business women in Ireland. As a member of Network Ireland Limerick, Caroline was put forward after winning the regional businesswoman of the year awards in Limerick last May. Also awarded on the night was the Network Ireland 2018 Trish Murphy Memorial Award for Outstanding Contribution, traditionally conferred by the President of Network Ireland to an Irish Woman of their choosing for an outstanding contribution to society. This years nominee was courageous cancer campaigner Vicky Phelan. Speaking about the nomination, Network Ireland president Roseann Halvey said When it came to a decision about who to award the Outstanding Contribution Award to, I didn't have to think too long. Vicky Phelan is an inspiration to us all. Despite everything she has had to face, she has never given up, she is incredibly resilient. She has empowered other women, she continues to support other women and is an articulate voice for women who dont have a voice. She is the embodiment of what Network Ireland stands for. Network Ireland Limerick which exists to support women in business and the arts meets on a monthly basis. More information: 061-458834. THE latest twist in the long-running proposal to build a liquefied natural gas plant at Tarbert Ballylongford has sparked yet another war of words between environmentalists and those who want the promised jobs. But it will be the decision by An Bord Pleanala to extend the planning permission for the proposed Shannon LNG plant that will be at the heart of the matter when High Court proceedings open in Dublin next month. The legal proceedings were initiated by a group called Friends of the Irish Environment who applied to the High Court on September 6 for leave to seek a judicial review of the An Bord Pleanala decision made in July. The application has now been adjourned until October 4 for hearing but meanwhile, an injunction was granted to the environmental group. Ironically, this latest development comes just weeks after new life was injected into the project when the US-based equity firm New Fortress Energy announced they were coming on board as new backers for the 500m plant at the Tarbert Ballylongford landbank. Neither Shannon LNG nor New Fortress Energy have responded to a request for comment this week and Friends of the Irish Environment are equally maintaining silence. As the matter has yet to be heard, Friends of the Irish Environment is not in a position to make any further comment at this stage, they stated on their website. Earlier this year, however, some of the difficulties about the planning permission were spelled out by another environmental group, Not Here, Not Anywhere and reported in the Limerick Leader. The original planning permission for the gas plant was due to run out in March 2018 and Shannon LNG applied to An Bord Pleanala for a five-year extension under the Strategic Infrastructure Act 2006. On January 11, An Bord Pleanala ruled that any extension of planning permission constituted a material alteration to the terms of the development" and ordered a consultation as to whether that change would have significant effects on the environment. On February 6, however, the Bord said it had subsequently revised its position and was now inviting submissions before it decided whether the extension of planning was a material change or not. Environmental groups from Ireland, Belgium, Germany and the USA submitted a joint objection against the extension of planning on the grounds that it would contribute significantly to climate change, destroy local biodiversity, involve more fossil fuel lock-in and damage the up-and-coming Irish renewables industry. They also pointed out that since the original planning permission was granted, the estuary had been designated as an EU Special Protected Area. In July, An Bord Pleanala granted the five-year-extension and it is this which is now being challenged in the High Court. Meanwhile, public representatives and others have been vocal in condemning what they regard as a further delay in a much-needed project which would deliver investment and jobs to the area; 400 during construction and up to 100 permanent jobs. IF A person works from 9pm to 5pm in Limerick city centre and wants to take the train home to Castleconnell it will take them two hours and 57 minutes. The journey takes 20 minutes. This is because the last direct train leaves at 4.55pm. After that you could take the 5.50pm train from Colbert Station to Limerick Junction. Change trains to go to Ballybrophy, then get out and take another train back to Castleconnell. Arrival time is 8.47pm. Deputy Jan OSullivan is calling on Irish Rail to give the evening Limerick to Nenagh train a later departure time. The Labour TD was one of many guests on a special train to Castleconnell to mark the 160th anniversary of the line. My Labour colleague Virginia ODowd, in conjunction with the Nenagh Rail Partnership, fought hard for a commuter service from Nenagh to Limerick. At present the evening Ballybrophy train which services Castleconnell, Birdhill and Nenagh leaves Limerick at 4.55pm If the departure time could be changed to 5.15pm or 5.30pm it would make the service much more attractive to commuters working in the city centre, said Deputy OSullivan. A review of rail services by the National Transport Authority in 2016 singled the Ballybrophy line as the most subsidised railway line in the country and it has been often suggested that the line should close, she continued. A report found that the railway line between Limerick and Ballybrophy is costing 550 per passenger to operate. In comparison, the subvention for every passenger journey on the Dart is 90 cent. However, Deputy OSullivan said if there was an evening return service to Nenagh, timed to meet the needs of working people, commuters would start to see the train as a viable alternative to driving and this line would get a badly needed shot in the arm. The Climate Change Advisory Council has said we are not going to meet our target to cut carbon emissions by 2020. As a result we will be faced with heavy European fines. The government should be providing a proper modern-day fit for purpose train service outside Dublin to encourage people to leave the car at home, concluded Deputy OSullivan. A spokesperson for Irish Rail said they will channel Deputy OSullivans feedback to their operations planning department for any future timetable planning. All draft timetables are subject to public consultation and are ratified by the National Transport Authority, said the spokesperson. Love Castleconnell and Castleconnell Tidy Towns were involved in organising the special 160th celebrations with Irish Rail. There were speeches from the Mayor of Limerick City & County, James Collins, Margaret Freeney from Castleconnell Tidy Towns and railway historian, Joe Coleman, who gave details of the vibrant history of the railway in Limerick. The Limerick to Castle Connell (then spelt as two words) railway was the third line to be built in the Limerick area and opened for business on the morning of Saturday, August 28, 1858. The other two were Waterford to Limerick in 1848 and the Limerick to Foynes in 1856 / 1857. Nicky McNamara, of Love Castleconnell, said they are very proud of their railway station. It was during the organisation of its 160th birthday that we found that, amazingly, there are people living here who arent aware of this service. Any change in train times to help those working in Limerick city can only be good news. Love Castleconnell is actively promoting the village as a destination for visitors to come and experience our heritage and enjoy our riverside walks. And the community workshops are all part of that to create a grand plan for the future of Castleconnell, said Ms McNamara. The first of the workshops she mentions takes place on Thursday, September 27 at 8pm in the parish hall. Ballyhoura Development has agreed to provide Castleconnell with a professional facilitator to talk and listen to the community with the purpose of developing a three to five year community plan. All are welcome to attend at the first of three workshops. by Teresa Thu Thao The authorities want to build a house of culture for another village. In the past two years, parishioners in Phu Yen fought to help the fishing communities and the victims of the worst environmental disaster in the country's history. The Pastoral Council and the local Women's Association came together to pray but were threatened by party officials and ex-soldiers. Hanoi (AsiaNews) An Hoa is a village in Quynh Luu District (Nghe An province, northern Vietnam). Local and district authorities want to seize land owned by the Phu Yen Catholic parish in order to build a public house of culture. Local Catholics are opposed to the project, which they view as retaliation against them for demonstrating and showing support for the victims of an environmental catastrophe that devastated Central Vietnam in 2016. Local Catholics are new to government bullying. The local church was set on fire and destroyed during the wave of persecution following the anti-Catholic edict issued by Emperor Tu uc in 1830. The church was rebuilt in 1879 and still serves the An Hoa community, about a thousand people, most of whom are Catholic. Fr John Tran Quoc Long has been the local vicar since 7 February when he replaced Fr Anton ang Huu Nam (picture 4). In the past two years, the latter led his parishioners in protest (pictures 1, 2, 3) to help the fishing communities affected by the worst environmental disaster in the countrys history in their fight to obtain proper compensation from the Formosa Plastic Group, a Taiwanese company responsible for what happened. As a result of such action, Fr ang was the victim of a smear campaign orchestrated by Communist authorities. To this must be added the intimidation of Red Flags militants, a pro-regime group that described the clergyman as a "reactionary enemy". Recently, the Quynh Luu authorities decided to build a house of culture for the village of Tan An on land owned by Phu Yen parish despite the opposition expressed by local parishioners to this "absurd project" when the city administration consulted them. Despite the negative response by locals, the district government announced several times via the media the imminent construction to inform residents in An Hoa and Tan An. Catholics accuse local officials of trying to take "revenge against the community for their support of the victims of the Formosa environmental disaster, Catholics and non-Catholics". "The accident left millions of people out of work. Many have become ill and the health of many others is still at risk. So many lives have been lost," they say. Three days ago, the Pastoral Council and the Women's Association of Phu Yen Parish met at the site where the authorities want to build the house of culture. Kneeling on the ground, they prayed and sang hymns with great emotional participation. Despite the peaceful nature of the demonstration, Quynh Luu district authorities sent party officials and ex-soldiers to the site to threaten the families of each parishioner, shouting at them: Mo mom ra la bat het! (If you open your mouth and talk about the building, we will arrest all of you!) by Card. Joseph Zen Ze-kiun Hong Kong (AsiaNews) Following reports about todays signing of a provisional agreement between China and the Holy See on the nomination of bishops, the bishop emeritus of Hong Kong, Card Joseph Zen, sent the following statement to AsiaNews. A masterpiece of saying nothing in many words The long-awaited press release from the Holy See is a masterpiece of creativity in saying nothing in many words. It says that the agreement is provisional, without saying how long it will be valid; it says that it provides periodic reviews without saying when the first deadline will be. After all, any agreement can be considered provisional since one of the two parties can always ask for a change or even the cancellation of the agreement. But the important thing is that if nobody asks to change or cancel the agreement, this, even if provisional, remains in place. The word "provisional" says nothing. "The agreement is about the appointment of bishops". The Holy See has said that many times for a long time. So, what is the result of all this work? What is the answer to our long wait? Nothing is said! Is it secret? The whole statement boils down to "There was the signing of an agreement between the Holy See and the People's Republic of China on the appointment of Bishops". All the rest are meaningless words. So, what is the message the Holy See intends to send to the faithful in China with this statement? "Have faith in us, accept what we have decided"(?) And what will the government say to Catholics in China? "Obey us, the Holy See already agrees with us"(?) Are we to accept and obey without knowing what must be accepted, to what one must obey? An obedience tamquam cadaver to quote Saint Ignatius? We are particularly concerned to know if "the appointment of Bishops" also includes giving legitimacy to the seven. Does it include reappointing the bishops of the "underground" community presented this time by the government? What about those who wont accept reappointment? Do we just thank the government for finally recognising them as bishops emeriti? If you look at old newspaper clippings, aging paper documents and books that are past their prime, you'll notice that they likely have a yellow tinge. But why do old paper products turn this golden hue? It's not that books would rather be blond, but rather that paper is made from components that yellow over time at least when they're exposed to oxygen, Susan Richardson, a chemistry professor at the University of South Carolina, told Live Science. Most paper is made from wood, which largely consists of cellulose and a natural wood component called lignin that gives land plant cell walls their rigidity and makes wood stiff and strong. Cellulose a colorless substance is remarkably good at reflecting light, which means we perceive it as being white. This is why paper including the pages of everything from sheet music to dictionaries is usually white. [Why Is Cow's Milk White?] But when lignin is exposed to light and the surrounding air, its molecular structure changes. Lignin is a polymer, meaning it's built from batches of the same molecular unit bonded together. In the case of lignin, those repeating units are alcohols consisting of oxygen and hydrogen with a smattering of carbon atoms thrown in, Richardson said. But lignin, and in part cellulose, is susceptible to oxidation meaning it readily picks up extra oxygen molecules, and those molecules alter the polymer's structure. The added oxygen molecules break the bonds that hold those alcohol subunits together, creating molecular regions called chromophores. Chromophores (meaning "color bearers," or "color carriers" in Greek) reflect certain wavelengths of light that our eyes perceive as color. In the case of lignin oxidation, that color is yellow or brown. Oxidation is also responsible for a sliced apple browning when it's abandoned on the kitchen counter. Oxygen in the air enters the fruits tissue, and enzymes called polyphenol oxidase (PPO) oxidize polyphenols (simple organic compounds) in the skin of the apple, Lynne McLandsborough, a professor of food science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, told Scientific American. This process yields chemicals called o-quinones that then produce brown-colored melanin the dark pigment present in our skin, eyes and hair. Typically, paper manufacturers try to remove as much lignin as possible by using a bleaching process, according to Richardson. The more lignin that's removed, the longer the paper will remain white. But newspaper which is made cheaply has more lignin in it than a typical textbook page, so it turns a yellow-brown color faster than other types of paper, she said. Interestingly, the producers of brown paper grocery bags and cardboard shipping boxes take advantage of lignin because it makes their products sturdier. These paper products aren't bleached, leaving them much browner than a typical newspaper, but also stiff enough to give a bag carrying a milk carton and other groceries its strength. According to Richardson, theoretically, you could preserve your high school yearbookin pristine condition, provided you kept out both oxygen and light indefinitely. "Oxygen is the enemy," she said. "Keep the book in a perfectly sealed box and replace the oxygen with nitrogen, argon or another inert [meaning it doesn't readily undergo chemical reactions] gas, and you're set." But while oxygen-rich conditions are bad for paper, sunlight and high-moisture levels can also negatively impact paper preservation, Richardson noted. For instance, any book that's surrounded by oxygen will yellow, even if it's kept in a dark room. "Sunlight just speeds up the oxidation process," she said. Ensuring that our newspaper clippings stay crisp and legible is one thing, but preservationists, archivists and librarians wage a constant war against paper degradation and oxidation. Preserving important historical documents anything from a nondigitized will to the Emancipation Proclamation requires an awareness of what environmental factors can damage paper products. Original article on Live Science. A bus service linking Houston and Galveston will be discontinued due to a lack of ridership and funding sources, the city of Galveston announced Friday. The Island Express service, which began operating a year ago, will take its last ride on Sept. 28. The Galveston City Council voted on Aug. 23 to cancel an interlocal agreement with Texas City, Houston, and the Texas Department of Transportation that enabled the service. The bus line offered Galveston residents three roundtrip daily trips to Houston on weekdays via a transfer at Houston Metro's park-and-ride in Webster. The bus also stopped in Texas City. The fare is $9 for a one-way trip to Houston. The bus line averaged fewer than 10 riders a day, which, combined with the loss of rural grant funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation, renders the service unsustainable. Galveston is no longer eligible for 5311 rural program bus program funding for the service because of the island's reclassification back to the small-urban FTA program, which partially paid for the bus line. Communities with more than 50,000 residents are considered urban and do not qualify for this particular U.S. Department of Transportation grant. Galveston surpassed the 50,000-threshold last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The grant would have provided $120,000 for operation of the line over two years. Without the grant, the city would have had to cover approximately $100,000 for the service in Fiscal Year 2019, which begins Oct. 1. The city said the line did not attract enough daily riders or generate enough revenue to make continuing the service an economically-sustainable option. Assistant City Manager Rick Beverlin told the Galveston County Daily News he hoped the city could come up with a new route to Houston in the future. Nick Powell covers Galveston County for the Chronicle. Follow him on Twitter and send him tips at nick.powell@chron.com Authorities in California said they arrested a man they suspect is a serial sexual offender who committed a string of horrific crimes over 15 years, earning the name the "NorCal rapist." They attributed the breakthrough in the case to DNA, drawing parallels to the Golden State Killer case that made headlines earlier this year. Officials, including Sacramento District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert and the city's police chief, Daniel Hahn, said at a news conference in the city Friday that they had arrested Roy Charles Waller, 58, and charged him with 12 counts of forcible sexual assault, according to the Sacramento Bee. He is currently being held without bail before his arraignment on Monday. The NorCal rapist victimized at least 10 women in six northern California counties over a period of 15 years starting in 1991, Schubert said. Detective Avis Beery, who has been working on the case for more than 12 years, described the NorCal Rapist's methodology: He would enter houses, usually when the victims would be asleep, then overcome and bind the women before sexually assaulting them. Sometimes he'd kidnap them and take them to an ATM to get money out of their accounts; other time's he'd steal from their homes, Beery said. Officials said that he targeted Asian women, local news outlets reported. Waller was arrested Thursday in the city of Berkeley, where he worked at the University of California's Environment, Health & Safety office as a "safety specialist," according to its website. Waller has been married and had the same job for about 25 years, officials said Thursday. None of the suspected rapes occurred in Alameda County, where the University is located. "We were shocked today to learn that a campus employee was arrested in connection with a series of rapes that occurred over more than a decade ago in several Northern California communities," spokesman Roqua Montez told the San Francisco Chronicle. According to the university police and the Sacramento Police Department "there is no indication that any crimes occurred within the campus community," he said. However, the campus police will review any open sexual assault cases to determine if any might be related, he added. Waller's duties included "managing programs to help ensure safety and training regarding the use of equipment and machinery including forklifts, aerial lifts, respirators" Montez said. The first attack was in 1991, when a woman was raped in Rohnert Park. Then another attack in Vallejo, and another in Martinez on Halloween in 1996, the Chronicle reported. In that case, the man wore a skeleton mask then called the victim at work less than a month later to apologize, the Chronicle reported. Schubert said that the unifying thread in the cases was the suspect's DNA. "For 27 years there has been one common thread, his DNA," she said. "I have often said in my career that DNA is the silent witness to the truth." The arrest was reminiscent of that of Joseph James DeAngelo, who was arrested in April on the suspicion that he was the so-called "Golden State Killer," who was wanted for raping dozens of women and killing at least 12 people in a bloody swath of crime that spanned decades in the state. Like DeAngelo, Waller was arrested after police searched the genealogy site GEDmatch for leads. In DeAngelo's case, officials did what's called a familial DNA search of GEDmatch, in which they sought to find someone who was closely genetically related to him, and worked backward to find a suspect. Familial DNA searching, particularly as it relates to government-run DNA databases, has come into wider use around the country, but it raises complicated questions about whether it means that the privacy rights of people are forfeited, in effect, by the decisions made by their relatives. It was not immediately clear if police did a familial search in Waller's case or found his profile in GEDmatch. In the hours after a suspected terrorist attack on a military parade in the Iranian city of Ahvaz on Saturday left more than two dozen dead, countries from around the world offered their sympathies to the victims. Some analysts wondered, however, why there wasn't a stronger response from the United States. Neither the White House nor the State Department released statements within the first few hours after the attack. When WorldViews contacted National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis on Saturday afternoon to ask if a statement from the White House would be coming, Marquis offered his own brief response. "The United States stands with the Iranian people and encourages the regime in Tehran to focus on keeping them safe at home," Marquis said in an emailed statement. The State Department later offered a statement from spokeswoman Heather Nauert, who said that the U.S. government was aware of the reports of an attack. "We stand with the Iranian people against the scourge of radical Islamic terrorism and express our sympathy to them at this terrible time," Nauert said. This muted stance was in contrast to that of other nations, which had offered their sympathies to the victims and condemnation of the attack, with several ambassadors in Tehran writing their own personal messages, while heads of state such as Russian President Vladimir Putin released official statements. The United States was not the only country to delay its messages of condolences to Iran - notably, unlike many other nations, it does not have an ambassador in Tehran. However, some analysts suggested that the scale of the attack merited a response from a senior U.S. figure. President Donald Trump himself often offers quick responses on Twitter to suspected terrorist attacks, especially those that appear to have been perpetrated by the Islamic State extremist group. The Islamic State released a statement that claimed responsibility for Saturday's attack shortly after it occurred, though a separatist Arab militant group also claimed it was behind the attack. It was not immediately clear if either group had organized the violence. Last year, after two attacks linked to the Islamic State left 23 dead in Tehran, the White House released an official statement from the president that offered sympathy for the victims of the attack, but added that "states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote." Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif later called the message "repugnant." Tehran and Washington have had tense relations over a wide variety of issues, including Iran's nuclear program and American influence in the Middle East, for many years. The two nations have not had formal diplomatic relations since 1980. However, under the Trump administration, these relations have deteriorated further as the American leader pulled the United States out of a nuclear agreement that had been agreed to with Iran and other nations under his predecessor, President Barack Obama, and moved to reimpose sanctions on Tehran. Iranian leaders accused the United States of complicity in the attacks in Ahvaz. On Twitter, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, blamed the attack on American allies in the region, calling it "a continuation of conspiracies by US-backed regimes in [the] region which have aimed at creating insecurity in our dear country." A number of Iranian officials, including Zarif and President Hassan Rouhani, are expected to travel to Trump's hometown of New York City next week for high-level meetings at the United Nations General Assembly. Though many are expecting a tense reception from the American leader, Trump has suggested he would be open to meeting Rouhani on the sidelines of the U.N. events. ISTANBUL - A group of gunmen who fired on a military parade in Iran's Ahvaz killed more than two dozen people and wounded more than 50 others in a rare attack on the country's powerful security establishment, state media said Saturday. The assault by alleged militants in Ahvaz - in southwestern Iran and the hub for a minority Arab community - marked one of the deadliest attacks in Iran in years and threatened to raise tensions in a region already plagued by turmoil. Iranian state media said that 25 people, including civilians and members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard, had been killed. At least 60 others were wounded, including some who were in critical condition. Iran's state-run IRNA news agency said at least four gunmen - some apparently dressed in military uniforms - opened fire on reviewing stands for a parade to mark the start of Iran's war with Iraq during the 1980s. The provincial governor in Ahvaz, Gholamreza Shariati, told IRNA that two gunmen were killed and two others were arrested. It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack. The Islamic State claimed responsibility in a statement carried by the affiliated Amaq News Agency. Iran is predominantly Shiite Muslim and is at odds with Sunni extremist groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, which view Shiites as heretics and have attacked Shiite targets across the region. But a competing claim of responsibility also came from the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz, a separatist faction that seeks an Arab-led state in southwest Iran. Yacoub Hor al-Tostari, a spokesman for the separatist group, told The Associated Press that the attack was carried out by Ahvaz militants. Islamic State militants were believed linked to twin strikes in June 2017 against Iran's parliament and the shrine of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran's 1989 Islamic revolution. At least 18 people were killed in the two attacks. However, the Islamic State often asserts a role in bloodshed around the world without providing clear evidence to support the claim and its statement was greeted skeptically. The statement initially said that the attack had targeted Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who was not at the parade. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif vowed Saturday on Twitter to "respond swiftly and decisively in defense of Iranian lives." "Terrorists recruited, trained, armed & paid by a foreign regime have attacked Ahvaz. Children and journos among casualties," Zarif said. "Iran holds regional terror sponsors and their U.S. masters accountable for such attacks." While the identities of the attackers remained unclear, a spokesman for Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps blamed minority Arab separatists for the bloodshed. He accused Saudi Arabia, a regional rival, of funding the militant group he said was responsible. Earlier, state television said the attack was carried out by Sunni "takfiri terrorists," a reference to Muslims viewed as traitors to their own faith. In a series of messages on Twitter, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, blamed the attack on American allies in the region, calling it "a continuation of conspiracies by US-backed regimes in region which have aimed at creating insecurity in our dear country." Ahvaz is home to the small Arab minority in Iran, which is mainly ethnic Persian, and has been the site of sporadic unrest. This summer, residents of the area staged protests amid severe water shortages. Members of the Ahvaz Arab minority have long accused the government in Tehran of neglect. In one video posted online, soldiers participating in the parade initially seemed confused about the source of the gunfire. They soon scatter as the shootout intensifies. "Get on the ground!" one man yells. Images also showed bloodied soldiers limping toward ambulances and troops helping escort women and children to safety. A regional Guard commander in Khuzestan, Hassan Shahvarpour, said all four of the assailants were killed in clashes with security forces on the scene, state television reported. A resident of Ahvaz, who wished to remain anonymous, said that police and security forces were "everywhere" in the city and that movement between neighborhoods was difficult. In Washington, National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis said: "The United States stands with the Iranian people and encourages the regime in Tehran to focus on keeping them safe at home." In 2017, the assailants were identified as members of Iran's Sunni Kurdish minority who had joined the Islamic State. In July, Iran executed eight people convicted in the attacks. - - - The Washington Post's Adam Taylor and Brian Murphy in Washington contributed to this report. by Nirmala Carvalho Mgr Franco Mulakkal experienced chest pain on his way to hospital for medical examinations. For former Caritas India director, The Church respects the law; it does not avoid it. The president of the Bishops Conference has full confidence in the judicial system of our country. Mumbai (AsiaNews) - Mgr Franco Mulakkal, the Indian bishop arrested yesterday in Kottayam (Kerala) after a nun accused him of rape, was admitted to hospital after he was suddenly taken ill. The bishop, who suffers from high blood pressure, felt chest pain yesterday as he was taken to Kottayam Medical Hospital for medical examinations after he was formally charged following questioning. Upon arrival, the doctors who treated him said his blood pressure shot up. For now, the bishop remains in hospital. According to police, if he is not released soon, he will be further questioned in the medical facility. Mgr Mulakkal is embroiled in a sexual abuse scandal involving a nun from the Missionaries of Jesus. The case came to light in July but became front-page news when a group of nuns organised a protest demanding justice for the victim of the alleged violence. For his part, the bishop has always denied the allegations, claiming that the charges are the result of personal revenge. A few days ago, he asked for a leave of absence as head of the Diocese of Jalandhar (in Punjab). Pope Francis accepted his request two days ago, relieving him of his post. "Sexual abuse is a crime and must be dealt with the law, said Fr Frederick D'Souza, former director of Caritas India, speaking to AsiaNews. Taking him into custody is a good thing right now so that the Church can be cleaned up. The Church's attitude is to respect the law of the state, to work with the legal system and submit to the mechanisms of the law. The Church respects the law; it does not avoid it. With respect to the victim, "The Church offers all her sympathy and pastoral care. In doing so, she follows the example of the Holy Father who has apologised for the abuses committed by the Church. The Church must ask for forgiveness for the traumas she has caused but at the same time [we have to wait] because responsibility has not been determined. The investigation is still underway." Yesterday, when Mgr Mulakkals arrest was reported, the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India (CBCI) released a statement signed by its president, Card Oswald Gracias. The note reads: We have learnt from the media about the developments in Bishop Franco Mulakkals case. It is a sad moment for all of us. We pray for all involved: Bishop Franco, the nun concerned, the diocese of Jalandhar and the Congregation of the Missionaries of Jesus. We have full confidence in the judicial system of our country. As said before we expect the law to take its course and for the truth to emerge. At this moment our prayers is for healing. WASHINGTON - A conservative legal commentator on Friday denied communicating with the White House or Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh about his theory that the woman accusing Kavanaugh of sexual assault was mistaking him for someone else. "I have not communicated at all with [White House counsel] Donald McGahn or anyone at the White House, or Judge Kavanaugh, about the topic of the Twitter thread," Ed Whelan said in a brief interview with The Washington Post. Whelan, president of the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center, declined to discuss his since-deleted tweets speculating on who might have assaulted Christine Blasey Ford in the early 1980s or whether he had spoken with other top Republicans about the matter. Ford's allegation that Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed, groped her and tried to pull off her clothes at a party in Montgomery County, Maryland, while they were teenagers has upended his Supreme Court confirmation process and threatened a nomination that Republicans believed was headed for a straightforward conclusion this month. Kavanaugh, a judge on the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, has strongly denied the allegations, saying in a statement that he has "never done anything like what the accuser describes." Whelan's claims on Twitter on Thursday evening that Ford might have been assaulted by someone else raised immediate questions about whether he had spoken to or coordinated with Republican leaders about his theory. Republicans on Capitol Hill and White House officials sought to distance themselves from Whelan's claims, saying they were not aware that he was going to suggest Ford could have been attacked by a former classmate of Kavanaugh's. Whelan has been involved in helping to advise Kavanaugh's confirmation effort and is close friends with Kavanaugh and Leonard Leo, the head of the Federalist Society, who has been helping to spearhead the nomination. On Sunday, Ford noticed that - even before her name became public - Whelan appeared to be seeking information about her. That morning, Ford alerted an associate via email that Whelan had looked at her LinkedIn page, according to the email, which was reviewed by The Post. LinkedIn allows some subscribers to see who views their pages. Ford sent the email about 90 minutes after The Post shared her name with a White House spokesman and hours before her identity was revealed in a story posted on its website. A White House spokesman said Friday that neither Kavanaugh nor anyone in the White House gave Ford's name to Whelan before it was disclosed by The Post. After The Post contacted the White House for comment Sunday morning, deputy White House press secretary Raj Shah called a number of Trump allies to warn them about the upcoming story, according to a person familiar with the calls, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. He disclosed Ford's identity to a number of these people but did not talk to Whelan, the person said. Other White House officials, including McGahn, also made calls according to a second person, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity. Whelan did not respond to a request for comment on how he first learned of Ford's identity. Kavanaugh and his allies have privately discussed mounting a defense that would not question whether an incident involving Ford happened, but instead would raise doubts that the attacker was Kavanaugh, The Post reported Thursday. In the wake of Ford's allegation, Kavanaugh told White House officials and Republicans on Capitol Hill that it was potentially a case of mistaken identity, according to people who heard his comments or were familiar with the discussions. Kavanaugh did not respond to requests for comment. Nevertheless, White House officials and Kavanaugh were caught off guard by the claims Whelan made on Twitter, according to a senior official. Top aides including McGahn, Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway and deputy White House press secretary Raj Shah were frustrated by his tweets, which they believe did not help Kavanaugh, officials said. Whelan, a former clerk to the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, is a well-connected stalwart of the conservative legal establishment. He and Kavanaugh served at the same time in the George W. Bush administration, when Kavanaugh worked in the White House Counsel's Office and Whelan was the principal deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, according to the biography posted on the website of the center where Whelan works. Whelan also worked for the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1992 to 1995 as a senior staffer to Sen. Orrin Hatch, Utah, then the panel's top Republican, according to congressional testimony he gave in 2015. Shortly after Ford went public with her allegations in an interview with The Post, conservatives began floating the idea that she was misremembering the night of the alleged attack - or mistaking the identity of her attacker. "Somebody's mixed up," Hatch told CNN on Monday after speaking privately with Kavanaugh. "Mistaken identity is also possible," the Wall Street Journal's editorial board wrote Tuesday. Whelan hinted throughout the week on Twitter that he was gathering information that would vindicate Kavanaugh and show Ford "got the wrong guy." The tweets circulated and came to the attention of the White House and senior Republicans on Capitol Hill, according to people familiar with internal discussions. On Thursday, Whelan posted detailed and unverified exhibits as he identified a possible location for the party where Ford said she was assaulted, including a map, floor plans and photos of a house in Chevy Chase and photos of a former Kavanaugh classmate at Georgetown Preparatory School. The theory was discussed on "Fox and Friends" and promoted by right-wing online media outlets such as Gateway Pundit. Ford dismissed the notion that she had identified the wrong person, saying in a statement late Thursday that she knew both men and had "socialized with" the classmate and once visited him in the hospital. "There is zero chance that I would confuse them," she said in a statement. Whelan apologized Friday morning for naming the former classmate and suggesting he could have been responsible for the alleged assault. "I made an appalling and inexcusable mistake of judgment in posting the tweet thread in a way that identified Kavanaugh's Georgetown Prep classmate. I take full responsibility for that mistake, and I deeply apologize for it," Whelan tweeted. The former classmate, now a middle school teacher, did not respond to a note requesting comment left at his house. Whelan's hints at an alternative explanation for Ford's account had piqued the interest of Kavanaugh allies and Senate Republican staffers. Matt Whitlock, a spokesman for Hatch, was among those who called attention on Twitter to Whelan's promise of information that would refute the charges against the judge. Once Whelan laid out his specific theory - including naming a possible other suspect - Whitlock deleted his tweet and distanced himself from the effort. He said in a statement Friday that he did not know what Whelan was planning. "He didn't share details about what he had, how it would exonerate Kavanaugh, and certainly not how he would reveal it," Whitlock said in a statement, adding that Hatch, while longtime friends with Whelan, "had no idea what Ed was planning." On Twitter and in columns for National Review Online, Whelan has been one of Kavanaugh's most active defenders, pushing back against those on the right who have suggested he is not sufficiently conservative. Whelan is no stranger to controversy online, having apologized in 2009 for revealing the identity of pseudonymous blogger "Publius" and retracted a post in February 2017 arguing that "liberal judicial activism" contributed to the shooting death of a Whittier, Calif., police officer. "I have tried to follow a practice of scrupulously correcting my errors and of not making points that I can't responsibly support. I wish that others would follow this same practice," he wrote in a post about the retraction. - - - The Washington Post's Robert Barnes, Josh Dawsey, Sharon Dunten, Seung Min Kim and Michael Kranish contributed to this report. ISTANBUL - As the chief backer of Syria's embattled opposition, Turkey now faces a perilous task. It must disarm its rebel allies in Syria's Idlib province, under a new agreement with Russia, and eliminate the hardcore jihadists in their midst. If not, Syrian and allied Russian forces have threatened an all-out assault to retake the territory - a battle that aid agencies say would be the most devastating of the war. The cost to Turkey itself could be immense. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, announced an 11th-hour plan on Sept. 17 to avert the bloodshed, giving Turkey more time to convince its proxies to disarm. Under the pact, Turkish and Russian troops would patrol a demilitarized zone - about nine to 12 miles deep and free of extremists and heavy weapons - and eventually open Idlib's highways to traffic. Idlib's roughly 3 million residents may have a reprieve, but the fate of the province remains uncertain. It represents the opposition's final stronghold in Syria after nearly eight years of conflict, and the stakes for Turkey are high because it borders the province and has troops stationed there. "Turkey's interests are enmeshed in Idlib's in a way that makes Turkey exceptionally vulnerable," said Sam Heller, a Beirut-based analyst at the International Crisis Group. Turkey projects influence by helping keep Idlib in opposition hands, and this, Heller said, "secures Turkey more of a foothold in the running negotiations for Syria's political future." Turkey's presence in the province also forces Russia, which is the dominant military power in Syria, to take heed of Ankara's interests. But Turkey is also dangerously exposed. "There are genuinely disastrous implications for Turkey if Idlib were to collapse," Heller said. A battle for Idlib could send millions of new refugees toward the border, which officials fear would stir social and political upheaval inside Turkey. More than 3 million Syrian refugees already live in Turkey, and while "there are very few issues that unite most Turks, one of them is opposition to Syrian refugees," said Soner Cagaptay, author of "The New Sultan: Erdogan and the Crisis of Modern Turkey." As rumors of an offensive swirled in recent weeks, more than 30,000 people fled to different parts of Idlib, the United Nations said. Some of them returned home recently. The Turkish government is also worried that an influx of displaced Syrians could be infiltrated by hardcore militants, leaving Turkish towns and cities - and even countries in Europe - vulnerable to extremist attacks. There is the risk that "armed radical groups that resent Ankara's mediation efforts will punish Turkey by launching terrorist attacks in Turkey," Metin Gurcan, a former Turkish military adviser, wrote in a column for the online news portal Al-Monitor. Turkey has long supported anti-government rebels in Syria and invested heavily in Idlib province with troops and military equipment, seeking to separate al-Qaeda-linked fighters from the ranks of more mainstream rebels. Turkey has recently reinforced its observation posts in Idlib, established as part of an earlier agreement with Russia and Iran, deploying tanks, commandos and multiple rocket launching systems, Gurcan said. The aim is to demonstrate Turkey's commitment to Idlib and enhance its defense against militant attacks, Gurcan said. The agreement reached last week, while short on specifics, "has bought more time so that diplomats, politicians can still do their job and avert what still may be very bad developments for civilians," a senior United Nations official, Jan Egeland, told reporters in Geneva. "This is not a peace deal, this is an 'aversion of whole-scale war' deal," he said. But the agreement halted what "seemed to be a relentless countdown" to conflict, he said, even if the message U.N. officials were receiving from both Turkey and Russia is that "we are still working, ourselves, on the details." Turkey now faces a tight - and some say unrealistic - deadline to demobilize allied rebels and convince al-Qaeda-linked groups to give up the fight. The document signed by Putin and Erdogan imposes an Oct. 10 deadline for all heavy weapons - including tanks, mortars and artillery systems - to be removed from the horseshoe-shaped zone. And by Oct. 15, all designated terrorist groups must be cleared from the area, including Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former al-Qaeda affiliate and the largest armed faction in Idlib. The agreement "puts hard dates" on Turkey to demobilize its partners and "handle HTS," Aaron Stein, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, wrote on Twitter. "The dates come fast." HTS, which has about 10,000 fighters, called the agreement an attempt to "weaken the mujahideen" by disarming their ranks. "Where will the terrorists from Idlib go? What are they going to do there?" wrote veteran Turkish foreign affairs columnist Sami Kohen, questioning the deal's wisdom in Turkey's Milliyet newspaper Friday. "Will they give up their actions and agree to be integrated into the Syrian society?" Kohen asked. "A more pessimistic possibility is that the terrorist groups refuse to abandon their weapons and positions and resist the Turkish soldiers." If Turkey fails to persuade its rebel allies to comply with the deal, they could become even more belligerent. A spokesman for the Turkey-backed National Liberation Front, an opposition umbrella coalition in Idlib, said rebel groups remained on "high alert." "I don't think that Turkey will give anything" to Russia in negotiations, the spokesman, Capt. Naji Mustafa, said. "Turkey has been supportive of the Syrian revolution since the beginning." But, he added, "Turkey knows that if a military operation took place, the people in Idlib would not go back to areas under regime control. They will try to go to Turkey. And Turkey does not want that." - - - The Washington Post's Zakaria Zakaria contributed to this report. From the golden Dome of the Rock mosque to the ragtag stalls of the Old City's market, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is all over east Jerusalem. Muslim worshipers raise his picture at Friday prayers, restaurants display the Turkish flag on their walls, and tens of thousands of his citizens have been sent to the Israeli-controlled holy city on pilgrimages to prevent its "Judaization." Inside the cobble-stoned market, Arab merchants on Khan al-Zeit street point to once-crumbling masonry patched up by the Erdogan government, and praise Turkey for its handouts to the poor. Perceived as one of the few Muslim leaders still championing the Palestinian cause, Erdogan's focus on Jerusalem is part of a broader ambition to establish Turkey as the world's foremost proponent of political Islam and resurrect its past influence in a troubled region. His growing footprint is unsettling the three governments with a direct stake in this contested city: Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan. It also presents a challenge to Saudi Arabia, whose oil wealth and status as the birthplace of Islam have long established it as a patron of east Jerusalem. Sacred to Christians, Muslims and Jews, Jerusalem lies at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israelis claim it as the undivided capital of a Jewish state but Palestinians want the mostly-Arab eastern side, home to the holiest sites, as the capital of their future state. Most countries do not recognize Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem, but with peace talks stalled and Palestinians divided, rival governments have sought to assert their influence. "The Saudis have Mecca and Erdogan wants Jerusalem," says Pinhas Inbari, an Israeli analyst at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs research center. "Israel has a critical security interest in making sure that Turkey doesn't try to exercise authority over Al Aqsa and upset the status quo." A vehement critic of Israel, Erdogan is seeking to do just that. When Washington recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital, over Palestinian objections, it was Erdogan who led the charge on their behalf, calling the Trump administration a ''partner in bloodshed." The Arab response was more measured. Many Arab leaders value Trump's uncompromising policy on their regional rival Iran and it was four months before they held an Arab League summit reinforcing high-level commitment to Palestinian claims. Erdogan has gone as far as restoring the Islamic crescent to the Dome of the Rock's glittering cap, which dominates Jerusalem's skyline from the hilltop compound revered by Muslims as the Al Aqsa mosque complex and by Jews as Temple Mount, the site of their biblical temple. "Protect Mecca and Medina. Protect these holy lands as your honor. Protect Jerusalem," Erdogan said in a speech last month. Erdogan "is a strong man who loves Palestine," said Salahadin Nasradin, owner of a cut-rate electronics store in the market. "We pray that he will lead all Islamic countries one day." The Palestinian Authority led by Mahmoud Abbas doesn't share the enthusiasm for Erdogan felt in the Old City alleys, where shopowners in a cacophony of Arabic and Hebrew hawk jewelry, religious relics and T-shirts, and the aromas of cumin and turmeric mix with the smoke from sizzling chunks of lamb. While the Palestinian Authority welcomes Ankara's investment in the Old City, Turkey also supports Abbas's bitter rival, the Hamas militant group that rules the Gaza Strip, and its parent group, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. That makes Palestinian officials reluctant to speak on the record. "Since Erdogan took office he's been working to restore Turkey's role as a strategic player in the region and as a rival to Sunni countries such as Saudi Arabia," said Jehad Harb, an analyst at the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah. "The Palestinian Authority wants the financial support that Turkey is offering, but is very cautious in its dealings" because of Turkey's ties to Hamas, Harb said. Israel, whose once-warm relations with Ankara have soured under Erdogan, is watching Turkey's growing Jerusalem foothold with suspicion, and may restrict its activities if it's seen to be stepping up support for radical Islamist groups, said Michael Oren, Israel's deputy minister for public diplomacy. "We're monitoring it," Oren said. Turkey's foreign aid agency said in its 2015 annual report -- the last with details on Jerusalem investments -- that it has undertaken more than 500 projects valued at nearly $30 million in the Palestinian territories, 81 in east Jerusalem. Erdogan's presence there has fueled concern in Jordan that he may challenge its historic guardianship over the eighth-century Al Aqsa complex. After Israel captured east Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East war, it allowed the Jordanian religious administration known as the Waqf to continue managing the compound, with Israeli forces maintaining security control. "We will not accept any competition," said Sheikh Omar al-Kiswanii, director of the Al-Aqsa mosque, from his office near the shrine, where a giant portrait of Jordan's King Abdullah overlooks the building's stone staircase. Turkey's activities could also pose a challenge to Saudi Arabia, which has poured more than $6 billion into Palestinian programs since 2000 -- including $285 million earmarked for Jerusalem -- according to a statement in May by Abdullah Al Rabeeah, an adviser to the Royal Court and supervisor-general of the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center. The Saudi king, officially the "custodian" of Islam's holiest mosques in Mecca and Medina, also pledged $150 million to the Palestinians in April, with a focus on maintaining Jerusalem's Islamic heritage. Just as Khan al-Zeit street has been adopted by Turkey, Saudi Arabia has spruced up shops along Al-Wad Street, the artery that leads from Damascus Gate to the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews are allowed to pray. Until a few months ago, a building on the street bore a stone plaque describing the work Saudi Arabia financed there, said Ziad Ghnem, 60, who owns the adjacent toy store. "They took it down because people would line up outside hoping to get some money," Ghnem said, chuckling amid piles of knockoff Barbie dolls, beach balls and toy guns. Israel's acceptance of Turkish and Saudi activities has seesawed in line with diplomatic developments, said Alon Liel, a former Israeli envoy to Turkey. Erdogan was given a relatively free hand after the countries mended their rupture over a deadly 2010 Israeli naval raid on a Turkish ship challenging the Israeli blockade of Gaza. The detente fell apart in December. By contrast, Saudi Arabia's involvement in Jerusalem is being encouraged as secret business ties and communications through the Trump administration and other intermediaries blossom, Liel said. While Trump's Middle East peace team has consulted closely with the Saudis, Erdogan has been among the president's harshest critics. "The Saudis are friends now," Liel said. "They probably have our blessing." - - - Bloomberg's Selcan Hacaoglu and Vivian Nereim contributed. ROME - The Vatican said on Saturday that it had reached a "provisional agreement" with China on the process used to appoint bishops, a breakthrough after years of contentious negotiations on the management of Catholic leadership in the Communist country. The deal paves the way for bishops to be recognized by both the Vatican and the Chinese government, a step toward ending the current system - one that has divided followers - in which some bishops are backed by only one side or the other. The accord marks a potentially transformative step in relations between the world's most populous country and one of the most powerful religious institutions. Some outside experts say the agreement could end seven decades of strain between the sides, opening the door for the possible resumption of diplomatic ties, which were severed in 1951. Beijing and the Holy See have long been at odds on leadership of Catholics in China, where the government has appointed bishops and authorized which churches can operate. Their deal comes even as President Xi Jinping has tightened his grip on power, cracking down on freedoms and saying that any practice of religion must be "Chinese in orientation." For Pope Francis, the outreach to China has been perhaps his most ambitious diplomatic venture, an effort to broaden the appeal of a faith that has lost ground in much of the Western world and is dealing now with a global wave of sexual abuse cases. In China, Catholicism is one of the five religions officially tolerated by Chinese leaders, but it has been steadily eclipsed in popularity by Protestant and evangelical denominations. Francis will probably draw pointed criticism from many Catholic opponents of the deal, who say the church is eroding its credibility by compromising with an officially atheist country that has long targeted Catholics and others with surveillance and persecution. Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican's secretary of state, said the agreement reached on Saturday in Beijing "is of great importance, especially for the life of the Church in China." "What is required now is unity, is trust and a new impetus; to have good Pastors, recognized by the Successor of Peter - by the Pope - and by the legitimate civil Authorities," Parolin said in a statement. After announcing the agreement, the Vatican said it was lifting the excommunications of seven Chinese bishops ordained without papal approval. That concession, a central part of the agreement, means that all bishops in China are now recognized by the Vatican - and operating under the pope's authority. "Of course, this is not an accord that solves all problems of the church in China, but certainly it's a historic step," said Elisa Giunipero, director of the Confucius Institute at Milan's Sacred Heart Catholic University. The church in China has long been split between Catholics who swear allegiance to the Vatican and others who practice the faith in state-sanctioned churches supervised by the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association. Some church leaders have the backing of the Vatican but not of the Chinese government, meaning they operate furtively in unofficial churches. The agreement reached Saturday was not published and neither the Vatican nor China said how the issue of those leaders would be addressed. Estimates put the number of Catholics in China between 10 and 12 million. About half are affiliated with government-managed churches. Citing "Vatican sources," Reuters said the deal gives the pope veto power in the naming of candidates for bishop. "Pope Francis hopes that, with these decisions, a new process may begin that will allow the wounds of the past to be overcome, leading to the full communion of all Chinese Catholics," the Vatican said in a statement. The issue of bishop appointments has for decades been the main point of contention between the Vatican and China, which have negotiated since the 1980s to end the impasse. But those efforts have faced significant opposition, particularly from Catholics in Hong Kong, who say that Chinese Catholics have a right to practice their religion without the meddling of the Chinese government. Cardinal Joseph Zen, the former bishop of Hong Kong, said earlier this year that "if the government is managing the church, it is not the Catholic Church anymore." Under Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, the Vatican recognized some bishops appointed by the Chinese government. But the diplomatic efforts increased under Francis, continuing even as the church dealt with sexual abuse scandals. Francis has talked about his wish to travel to China, and spoke in a 2016 interview about the "greatness of the Chinese people." At the beginning of the year, in a conciliatory move, the Vatican urged two bishops unsanctioned by the Chinese government to step aside in favor of figures with government backing. "We don't have to look at the agreement as a point of arrival, but as a starting point," the Rev. Antonio Spadaro, a confidant of Francis's, wrote in an op-ed in La Civilta Cattolica, a Rome-based periodical. "The improvement of Chinese Catholic religious quality of life won't be automatic. Challenges still remain, but of course the process is a positive factor for Chinese Catholics." The Vatican said its agreement with China "is the fruit of a gradual and reciprocal rapprochement" and includes a possibility for "periodic reviews of its application." The Chinese foreign ministry released a statement saying that "China and the Vatican will continue to maintain communications and push forward the process of improving relations between the two sides," according to the Associated Press. The accord is also a sensitive issue for Taiwan, which is viewed by China as a breakaway province. The Vatican is the only European state to maintains full diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Taiwan's foreign ministry said in a statement that it had been assured by the Vatican that the deal with China would not affect diplomatic relations. - - - The Washington Post's Stefano Pitrelli contributed to this report. RICHMOND, Va. - Virginia is gearing up to expand Medicaid eligibility to as many as 400,000 residents in January, but requirements that recipients work and pay premiums could lag two years behind, officials said this week. The gap has infuriated Republican state senators who opposed the expansion effort and viewed work requirements as making it slightly less objectionable. But the state's director of medical services, Jennifer Lee, told lawmakers this week that the timetable is largely up to authorities in Washington who have to grant Virginia a waiver to impose restrictions on the federally funded Medicaid program. "There is no defined time frame for [federal officials] to approve a waiver application," Christina Nuckols, spokeswoman for the state Department of Medical Assistance Services, said Friday. The state unveiled details of the Medicaid expansion plan last week. Virginia Medicaid recipients would have to work or participate in a list of "community engagement" activities for 20 hours a month in the first three months of enrollment. The hours requirement would increase in stages, reaching a maximum of 80 hours per month after a year of enrollment. Participants also would have to pay premiums of up to $10 a month, based on income. The plan will undergo a 30-day public comment period, with explanatory hearings held around the state, before being finalized and submitted in early November. Federal authorities have taken a year or more to review and approve such plans in other states, and Virginia officials said it could take up to a year after approval to put the mechanisms in place. "While I don't support Medicaid expansion, I do believe if we're going to have it, it needs to have the work requirement, and it needs to be in there as soon as possible," said state Sen. Richard Stuart, R-Stafford, a member of the Senate Finance Committee who got a briefing from the state Department of Medical Assistance Services. Fellow committee member Sen. Ryan McDougle, R-Hanover, said he is frustrated that the administration of Gov. Ralph Northam, D, can't give a more specific timetable for the work requirement. "I have no confidence, based on what I heard yesterday, that the work requirement will be put into effect in a timely way or that it will have any significant enforcement," McDougle said Friday. Stuart and McDougle were not among the four Republicans in the state Senate who voted with Democrats to authorize Medicaid expansion in May, breaking an impasse that had left the General Assembly unable to adjourn as scheduled in March. Republicans had resisted for four years, but public support for Medicaid expansion has steadily grown. A poll released last week by the University of Mary Washington found that 76 percent of Virginians favor expanding Medicaid. The General Assembly's plan calls for expansion to go into effect Jan. 1 as the state works separately to seek the federal waiver for work requirements. As the program rolls ahead, Virginia won federal approval to tax hospitals to raise nearly $300 million to cover the state's portion of the program's cost. The federal government will cover 90 percent of Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. Before expansion, Virginia made Medicaid available only to pregnant women or children under age 18 in families making less than twice the federal poverty level, which is $42,599 annually for a family of three; people with disabilities making less than 80 percent of the poverty level, or $9,712; and parents making less than 33 percent of the federal poverty level, or $6,924 for a family of three. Beginning next year, the federal health insurance will be available to disabled people and families making up to 138 percent of the poverty level. That's annual income of $16,750 for disabled individuals or $28,700 for a family of three. Childless adults will be eligible for the first time if they make less than $16,750 per year. The work requirements, once they kick in, would include a broad range of activities under the proposal unveiled this week: Job skills training, education, community volunteering and job search activities would all meet the definition. Anyone who failed to meet the requirement for three months out of a year of eligibility would be booted from the program. There would be a host of exemptions from the work requirement, including for recipients who are pregnant; primary caregivers for children or elderly people; and people who have serious medical conditions. The state also proposes creating programs to help find work and training for people who are eligible for Medicaid, as well as setting up services to help them find or maintain housing. Taxes on private, acute-care hospitals will cover the state's expenses, as well as provide extra funds to allow the state to increase its Medicaid reimbursement rates. The hospital industry has supported this approach, saying that extending insurance coverage to more people will create more revenue and cut down on expensive emergency room visits. The taxes are capped at 6 percent of net patient revenue, and public, psychiatric and children's hospitals are excluded from them. Because Medicaid will take over some functions now paid for by the state government, Virginia expects to save $355 million over the next two years through the expansion program. State officials will hold four public hearings over the coming weeks to explain the proposals, including Sept. 25 in Richmond; Oct. 3 in Roanoke; Oct. 9 in Great Falls; and Oct. 11 in Virginia Beach. Details are available on the state's Department of Medical Assistance Services website, dmas.virginia.gov, and residents can check their eligibility at coverva.org. At the beginning of his trip to the Baltic countries, Pope Francis mentioned the 25th anniversary of Saint John Paul IIs visit. Lithuania has a population of around 2.9 million, 79 per cent of whom are Catholic. "Welcoming differences" is the model Lithuania experienced in its past, to be proposed today to the world. Young people "are not only the future but also the present of this nation, if they can remain attached to the roots of the people. Vilnius (AsiaNews) Lithuania, which in its history has always been capable of "welcoming differences", can offer itself as a model of cohabitation "to the international community and in particular to the European Community, said Pope Francis in his greetings to the people of Lithuania in his first address in the square in front of the presidential palace in Vilnius. The pontiff left Rome this morning for a visit to the Baltic states (Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia) which will last until Tuesday (25 September). Upon arrival at the airport of the Lithuanian capital, he was welcomed by President Dalia Grybauskaite. Together they travelled to the presidential palace. After a private meeting, Francis met the authorities, the diplomatic corps and representatives of civil society groups; in all, a few thousands of people. Lithuania has a population of around 2.9 million, 79 per cent of whom are Catholics. In his address, after mentioning John Paul IIs pilgrimage 25 years ago, the pope urged the people of Lithuania "to make its own the struggles and achievements of the past, and to honour in the present the memory of all those who have gone before ", a century after the declaration of independence of the country, "a century marked by your bearing numerous trials and sufferings: detentions, deportations, even martyrdom. Throughout its history, Lithuania was able to shelter, receive and accept peoples of various ethnic groups and religions. All found a place to live in this land Lithuanians, Tartars, Poles, Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Armenians, Germans Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, Old Catholics, Muslims, Jews lived together in peace until the arrival of totalitarian ideologies that, by sowing violence and lack of trust, undermined its ability to accept and harmonize differences. "If we look at the world scene in our time, more and more voices are sowing division and confrontation often by exploiting insecurity or situations of conflict and proclaiming that the only way possible to guarantee security and the continued existence of a culture is to try to eliminate, cancel or expel others. Here you Lithuanians have a word of your own to contribute: welcoming differences. "Through dialogue, openness and understanding, you can become a bridge between Eastern and Western Europe. This is the fruit of a mature history, which you as a people can offer to the international community and to the European Community in particular." Francis also turned his thoughts to young people, who are not only the future but also the present of this nation, if they can remain attached to the roots of the people. The Lithuania of which they dream will depend on tireless efforts to promote policies that encourage the active participation of young people in society. Doubtless, this will prove a seed of hope, for it will lead to a dynamic process in which the soul of this people will continue to generate hospitality: hospitality towards the stranger, hospitality toward the young, towards the elderly and the poor, and, ultimately, hospitality toward the future. Finally, Francis assured that the country can count on the efforts and the cooperation of the Catholic Church, so that this land can fulfil its vocation as land that serves as bridge of communion and hope. The mother of a Santa Fe High School shooting victim interrupted Ted Cruz at a rally on Thursday, confronting the senator over gun reform and her slain daughter. "Don't disrespect my daughter. My daughter died. My daughter died," yelled Rhonda Hart to Cruz at a town hall event in Webster. Hart's 14-year-old daughter, Kimberly Vaughan, was one of the 10 people fatally shot in May. Hart accused Cruz of ignoring her phone calls and sending her a flag "with thoughts and prayers" addressed to her and her ex-husband. "You still have not introduced common-sense reform," she added. Cruz denied the accusations, claiming he and his office reached out to Hart on multiple occasions. "I am more than happy to meet with you at any time," Cruz said as the audience broke into applause. Cruz then offered his condolences and outlined his plan to prevent mass shootings like Santa Fe. "The number one thing that makes schools safer is having more armed police officers on campus," Cruz said. "The number one thing that stops a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a gun," he said to cheers. RELATED: How to watch the Ted Cruz vs. Beto O'Rourke debate Friday night Cruz went on to lament the fact that a 2013 gun control bill he co-sponsored, which strengthened punishment for people who lied about their criminal histories to buy firearms and also increased funding for school safety, was filibustered by Democrats and could have prevented recent mass shootings if it had not failed to pass. Elizabeth Conley, Staff / Houston Chronicle After discussing more would-be policies from the failed bill, Cruz summarized his thoughts. "What works is focusing on felons, fugitives and bad guys and stopping the criminals," Cruz said. "Not the political objective of trying to undermine the rights of law-abiding citizens." After the rally, Hart told ABC 13 that she came to the campaign event to confront Cruz. "I wanted to be able to call him out," she said. "His inaction regarding the children of Santa Fe. Children died under his watch and he accepts money from the NRA. There is still not any sort of common-sense reform." Fernando Ramirez covers Texas news and politics. Read him on our breaking news site and on our subscriber site. | Fernando.ramirez@chron.com | @fernramirez93 The Provisional Agreement concerns the appointment of bishops. The Global Times today cited Chinas Foreign Ministry, which denied the presence in Beijing of a Vatican delegation. Chinas leadership appears divided on the matter. The goal of this accord is not political but pastoral. Vatican City (AsiaNews) A "Provisional Agreement on the appointment of Bishops" was signed this morning in Beijing at a meeting "between Mgr Antoine Camilleri, Undersecretary for the Holy Sees Relations with States, and H. E. Mr Wang Chao, Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Peoples Republic of China, respectively heads of the Vatican and Chinese delegations," the Holy See Press Office said in a statement released at noon today. "This is not the end of a process. It's the beginning, said the Holy See Press Office director Greg Burke. This has been about dialogue, patient listening on both sides even when people come from very different standpoints. The objective of the accord is not political but pastoral, allowing the faithful to have bishops who are in communion with Rome but at the same time recognized by Chinese authorities". However, just this morning, the Global Times denied the presence of a Vatican delegation in China, a clear sign of a rift within the Chinese leadership. Here is the full statement by the Holy See Press Office follows: Today, 22nd September 2018, within the framework of the contacts between the Holy See and the Peoples Republic of China that have been underway for some time in order to discuss Church matters of common interest and to promote further understanding, a meeting was held in Beijing between Mgr Antoine Camilleri, Undersecretary for the Holy Sees Relations with States, and H. E. Mr Wang Chao, Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Peoples Republic of China, respectively heads of the Vatican and Chinese delegations. During that meeting, the two representatives signed a Provisional Agreement on the appointment of Bishops. The above-mentioned Provisional Agreement, which is the fruit of a gradual and reciprocal rapprochement, has been agreed following a long process of careful negotiation and foresees the possibility of periodic reviews of its application. It concerns the nomination of Bishops, a question of great importance for the life of the Church, and creates the conditions for greater collaboration at the bilateral level. The shared hope is that this agreement may favour a fruitful and forward-looking process of institutional dialogue and may contribute positively to the life of the Catholic Church in China, to the common good of the Chinese people and to peace in the world. A man who stole women's clothing for his own sexual gratification has been told he is a menace to society by Judge Seamus Hughes. Convicted sex offender Patrick Nulty of 7 Pound Street, Edgeworthstown, Co Longford was ordered to avail of specialised treatment after being sentenced to six months in prison for the offence at last weeks District Court sitting. The 45-year-old was charged with the theft of a womans jacket from Cooneys Hotel in Ballymahon on January 22, 2017. It was alleged Mr Nultys victim was sitting at the bar when she noticed a male fitting the defendants description paying her attention. A short time later, at around 11:40pm, the woman went to the toilet but on her return noticed her jacket, containing car keys and house keys was missing. The woman reported the incident to Ballymahon Garda Station and was able to give a cursory description of the accused, the court was told. It also emerged the jacket was not recovered and neither were its contents. Gardai, however, were able to identify Mr Nulty from CCTV footage and from his court previous appearance over the theft of a suitcase in Edgeworthstown. Garda Fox said when questioned Mr Nulty admitted the offence, saying his reasons for taking the jacket were to satisfy his sexual tendencies. He (Mr Nulty) discarded the coat outside as his urges had dissipated at that stage, said Garda Fox. It was also revealed Mr Nulty had been due to appear back before Longford District Court on June 16 for payment of 500 in compensation relating to the aforementioned Edgeworthstown incident. Defence solicitor Brid Mimnagh said Mr Nulty had a very serious problem in relation to keeping his sexual impulses in check. She also explained her client had been sentenced to nine years in prison for a serious sexual related offence but had been released seven years into that term on licence. Asked by Judge Hughes what enticed him to steal the womans jacket, Mr Nulty replied in a low pitched voice: I do get sexual urges. Not hearing the response, Mr Nulty was asked to speak up before appearing to whisper something towards Ms Mimnagh. Tell the Judge I get horny, she said on her clients behalf. It was a response which drew a terse reaction from Judge Hughes. You were before the court when you committed this offence, he unequivocally put it. So you are not one thats afraid of gardai or the system. Why did you take that ladies jacket and size her up? Why did you do all of that when you were appearing before me? You know what could have happened you in other countries? Hands clasped, Mr Nulty again offered up a muffled retort: I shouldnt have taken it. Mr Nulty said he served his previous jail term in Dublins Wheatfield Prison without engaging in any meaningful treatment and Judge Hughes said he harboured little sympathy for him. You are a menace to society and a danger to females, he said, prior to asking Mr Nulty if he had a penchant for pornography. The defendant said he did through an account with grocery giant Tesco, prompting Judge Hughes to quip: Tesco give a great service dont they? Ms Mimnagh said Mr Nulty was very much conscious of his own issues and had tended to behave himself a little better when under the watch of probation staff. Garda Fox put forward a different view, claiming the Gardai held grave concerns over Mr Nultys apparent propensity to travel to various towns across the region to drink in. Judge Hughes said he shared those concerns and referenced a case similar to Mr Nultys which resulted in him instructing the alleged offender to carry out a specialised course in Cork. Addressing Ms Mimnagh directly, Judge Hughes said: I have to say that hasnt been very successful and he continues to re-offend. I am dealing with this as a stand alone case and I am going to give your client six months in prison. In signing off on his closing remarks, Judge Hughes said the court would be pressing for Mr Nulty to obtain specialised treatment for (his) sexual predilections to curb any future offending. The annual Red Mass and brunch is an opportunity for members of the legal community to reflect on the message of St. Thomas More - patron saint of lawyers, civil servants and politicians - that he would rather "lose goods, land and life as well, rather than to swear against my conscience." This year, the Most Rev. Timothy A. McDonnell, retired bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield, will celebrate the Red Mass on Sept. 30 at 10 a.m. at St. Michael's Cathedral, 260 State St. Persons involved in the administration of law and justice in the Western Massachusetts community are encouraged to attend, and the Mass is open to the public. The Red Mass is an adaptation of the church's age-old expression of dependence on God for the needs and institutions of the courts and the law. In particular, the Mass calls upon the holy spirit to grant light and inspiration to the attorneys in pleading cases and to the judiciary in adjudicating them. The first recorded Red Mass was celebrated in 1245 in Paris. In England, the tradition of the Red Mass began in 1310 during the reign of Edward I. The entire bench and bar attended the celebration together at the opening of each term of court. Because the celebrant for the Mass wore red robes, the celebration became known as the Red Mass. The Red Mass is currently celebrated in dioceses throughout the United States to invoke God's blessing upon the members of the bench, bar, Legislature, law enforcement, governmental agencies and all protectors and administrators of the law. "Each fall, for the past 17 years, the Red Mass has been a positive event at which we have celebrated the contributions of those committed to the highest ethical principles within the legal system," said attorney Michael G. McDonough, director of the St. Thomas More Society. The first Red Mass in the United States was celebrated in Detroit in 1877. The St. Thomas More Society, which hosts the Red Mass and the brunch that follows, consists of lawyers, judges, paralegals, court officers, law enforcement agents and volunteers and other participants from throughout the Western Massachusetts legal community. "The St. Thomas More Society strives to foster and promote high ethical and moral principles and the pursuit of truth in the legal profession," explained McDonough. "Bishop McDonnell has a phenomenal record of engaging the community in Western Massachusetts. We are honored that he is taking the time to lead us at this Red Mass and to help us celebrate our six honorees." This year's St. Thomas More medal honorees include: * Kathryn Y. Callahan, of South Hadley, who has served for many years as community outreach coordinator at the Hampshire County Jail and House of Correction and is being cited for her leadership role in the parent-child program that enables inmates to receive in-person visitation with their children; * Martin J. Dunn, of Holyoke, a practicing attorney who is being cited for his years of service in municipal and state government, including having been a city councilor, mayor, state senator and legal counsel to the state Senate; * Rev. Msgr. George A. Farland, of Springfield, who is being cited for his 50-year ministry at Sacred Heart Church in Springfield that includes 30 years of service as a chaplain to the Springfield Police Department and for his service as a psychological assessor for the marriage Tribunal of the Diocese of Springfield; * Michael J. Moriarty, of Holyoke, an attorney, who is being cited for his service as executive director of HolyokeOne Community Development Corp. and his service as a member of the Holyoke School Committee and as a member of the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education; * Sister of St. Joseph Julia M. Sullivan, a native of Worcester, who is being cited for her many years of religious ministry, including providing direct service to inmates at Berkshire County Jail and House of Correction in Pittsfield; and * Ariane D. Vuono, an attorney and now judge of the state Appeals Court, who is being honored for her long career in the public sector, including having been a law clerk to the justices of the Superior Court, chief of the appellate division of the Northewestern District Attorney's Office and 11 years as an assistant U.S. attorney. Farland said he was "kind of taken aback" by news he would receive the award, but as a chaplain he always tried to be helpful to families and police officers who were struggling. "The church does and should be on the front line for justice for all," he said, adding that he is inspired by St. Thomas More and his "commitment to justice and to the church." St. Thomas More (1478-1535) was a husband, father, lawyer, statesman, public servant and martyr who was a recognized humanist scholar and occupied public offices, including that of Lord Chancellor during the reign of Henry VIII. He authored several scholarly and literary works and is recognized as having a major influence on developing equity as a segment of the legal system in English law. He was put to death by order of Henry VIII for refusing to support the king's plea to the pope for an annulment of his first marriage. He was canonized in 1935 and is recognized as the patron saint of statesmen and lawyers. The Red Mass will be followed by a brunch at the Log Cabin Banquet & Meeting House at 11:30 a.m. in Holyoke. Brunch tickets are $50 and may be ordered by contacting William Kern at 413-262-2905. The number of former Massachusetts State Police troopers receiving pension payments, amid an alleged overtime abuse scandal that has shaken the law enforcement agency, has grown to six. Eight current and former troopers have been hit with federal and state charges related to the investigation into overtime abuse within the state law enforcement agency. Dozens more remain under investigation as state prosecutors say more indictments are coming. The total amount for the six who retired and now receive pension payments comes to nearly $44,000 a month. The payments started earlier this year. Two troopers who are among the charged have been suspended from their jobs and haven't retired. Pensions are based on base salaries, not overtime or detail work. And while officials like Gov. Charlie Baker have called on the accused troopers to lose their pensions due to the alleged overtime abuse, but there's not a simple process for that to happen. The amount of money the state retirement board, which handles their pensions, can stop from going out, or even claw back from public employees, remains a complicated legal issue. The board can't take action on benefits until the employee has been convicted of a crime related to their job. Three former lieutenants who worked as supervisors were indicted by Suffolk County grand jury, Attorney General Maura Healey's office said this week. One of them, former Lt. David Wilson, is also facing a federal-level charge in the overtime abuse scandal. A 57-year-old Charlton man, Wilson pleaded not guilty to the federal charge of embezzlement and hasn't yet been arraigned on the state charges. Wilson is receiving a monthly pension payment of $8,791.02. The other two indicted by the Suffolk County grand jury are 68-year-old John Giulino of Lanesborough, who is receiving $7,465.20, and 52-year-old David Keefe of Norfolk, who is receiving $8,605.05. The former troopers who were charged at the federal level include 47-year-old Gregory Raftery of Westwood, 50-year-old Paul Cesan of Southwick and 56-year-old Daren Dejong. Raftery is receiving $6,017.07 a month; Cesan sees a $6,639.43 payment; and Dejong gets $6,251.99. The two troopers who are suspended and face a federal charge are 45-year-old Gary Herman of Chester and 40-year-old Kevin Sweeney of Braintree. Raftery and Sweeney have pleaded guilty and Herman has agreed to do so, federal prosecutors say. In the case of Raftery, the retirement board remains in a holding pattern since he hasn't yet been sentenced. For the retirement board, the next step after sentencing is sending a notice and acknowledging that the accused person has a right to an administrative hearing. Everything that a public employee paid into their pension, they can keep, but the board can take away the state's portion, as well as fringe benefits. After the administrative hearing, the board would make a decision on the forfeiture of the pension. State statute calls for uniformed members of the State Police to serve a minimum of 20 years in order to receive benefits. The benefits come to 60 percent of the average annual rate of regular compensation in the 12 months before they retire. The maximum benefit is 75 percent of the last 12 months' salary, available after 25 years of service within a department. Vatican City (AsiaNews) Along with reports that China and the Holy See have signed a provisional agreement on the appointment of bishops, the Holy See Press Office has released two important statements. In the first one, Pope Francis lifts the excommunication of seven official bishops, who had been ordained without a pontifical mandate. The second says that the Vatican has decided to create the Diocese of Chengde out of territory taken from other dioceses (in particular Jehol/Jinzhou and Chifeng). This will allow Mgr Guo Jincai, who is back in the ecclesial communion, to have a diocese in his own right, without sharing it with other bishops. Earlier this year, the Vatican had asked the legitimate bishops of Shantou and Mindong, Mgr Peter Zhuang Jianjian and Mgr Joseph Guo Xijin respectively, to step aside in favour of Mgr Joseph Huang Bingzhang and Vincent Zhan Silu, who are now reconciled with the Pope. At present it is not clear if this will happen. Excommunications lifted With a view to sustaining the proclamation of the Gospel in China, the Holy Father, Pope Francis, has decided to readmit to full ecclesial communion the remaining official Bishops, ordained without Pontifical Mandate: H.E. Mgr Joseph Guo Jincai, H.E. Mgr Joseph Huang Bingzhang, H.E. Mgr Paul Lei Shiyin, H.E. Mgr Joseph Liu Xinhong, H.E. Mgr Joseph Ma Yinglin, H.E. Mgr Joseph Yue Fusheng, H.E. Mgr Vincent Zhan Silu and H.E. Mgr Anthony Tu Shihua, OFM (who, before his death on 4 January 2017, had expressed the desire to be reconciled with the Apostolic See). Pope Francis hopes that, with these decisions, a new process may begin that will allow the wounds of the past to be overcome, leading to the full communion of all Chinese Catholics. The Catholic Community in China is called to live more brotherly collaboration in order to promote with renewed commitment the proclamation of the Gospel. Indeed, the Church exists to bear witness to Jesus Christ and to the forgiving and salvific love of the Father. The new Diocese of Chengde Eager to promote the pastoral care of the Lord's flock and to more effectively look after their spiritual good, the Supreme Pontiff Francis decided to establish in mainland China the Diocese of Chengde, suffragan of Beijing, with episcopal see in the cathedral church of Jesus the Good Shepherd, located in the Administrative Division of Shuangluan, in the city of Chengde. A significant part of the territory of the new diocese historically belonged to the Apostolic Vicariate of Eastern Mongolia, which was set up on 21 December 1883, and erected as the Diocese of Jehol/Jinzhou in the Bull Quotidie Nos of by Pope Pius XII on 11 April 1946. The new ecclesiastical district is located in Hebei province. Its territory is defined by the municipal boundaries of the city of Chengde and includes eight rural districts (Chengde, Xinglong, Pingquan, Luanping, Longhua, Fengning, Kuancheng and Weichang) and three administrative divisions (Shuangqiao, Shuangluan and Yingshouyingzikuang). As a result of this, the ecclesiastical boundaries of the Dioceses of Jehol/Jinzhou and Chifeng are being modified, so that a portion of the territory of each now becomes part of the new Diocese of Chengde. The latter covers an area of 39,519 km2 with a population of about 3.7 million people, including, according to recent estimates, some 25,000 Catholics divided in 12 parishes and served by seven priests, a dozen women religious and some seminarians. GREENFIELD -- Some activists are saying that radioactive waste stored at two closed nuclear power plants should not be moved to "centralized interim storage sites" in New Mexico or Texas. The anti-nuclear Citizens Awareness Network made a swing through Greenfield last week with a demonstration, including musicians, speakers, and a full-sized mockup of a nuclear waste can being pulled by a hearse, reports the Greenfield Recorder. "The trouble is this is a really bad idea," said CAN leader Deb Katz. "We all want the waste off the site, but we want it done right. And we want it done once." The group cited concerns with safety and environmental justice, and said the government should establish "deep geological storage" based on science instead of setting up temporary storage that would accept truckloads of nuclear waste canisters. There are currently 121 sites containing nuclear waste in 39 states. At former atomic energy plants in Rowe and Vernon, Vt., canisters of high-level nuclear waste are being stored onsite in "dry cask" conditions. The activists, who took their case to the Massachusetts State House on Friday, said they oppose a bill before the U.S. Congress that would let such canisters be shipped to interim facilities in the Southwest. The cans would stay there while the government tries once again to find long-term storage. After three decades of controversy, efforts to license Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a permanent home for the nation's nuclear waste were terminated by the Obama administration. The Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act would designate Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear waste repository, once and for all. The bill passed the House in May and could go before before the Senate in November, after the midterms. Congressman Jim McGovern, D-Worcester, voted against the bill, while Richard Neal, D-Springfield, voted for it. The left-wing activists, who say Yucca Mountain poses too many environmental and economic risks, have a powerful GOP ally -- Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) has vowed to stonewall the bill, saying it will damage his state. Neal visited the facility in Rowe last year and heard from state and local officials on the financial impact of hosting the waste locally. Yankee Rowe Nuclear Power Station shut down in 1992, and was demolished and decommissioned by 2007, but the fenced and isolated site on the upper Deerfield River still hosts 127 tons of spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste in 16 concrete casks under 24-hour security. SPRINGFIELD - Every September, as National Recovery Month rolls around, an event is held in Springfield to inform residents about all of the health resources available to those struggling with addiction. The event was held Friday afternoon at the Social Center of Holy Name Church on Alderman Street and hosted by MOAR, the Massachusetts Organization for Addiction Recovery. MOAR has hosted the event in Springfield for over a decade, every year inviting community members to learn about the variety of health and recovery services that the city has to offer for those struggling with addiction. At least one hundred people crowded into the gymnasium of the Center to listen to speakers from MOAR Friday. City officials such as DA Anthony Gulluni and Sheriff Cocchi were also slated to attend. Booths for local, regional and state recovery organizations like The Phoenix House, the Parent Support Group of Western Massachusetts, and the Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling were set up for visitors to receive information from, while food and refreshments were also provided. Maryann Frangules, the founder and executive director of MOAR, said Friday that the event was meant to show people that there were always resources available for their struggles. MOAR was founded to demonstrate to people the value of recovery while also emphasizing the "devastation" that addiction can bring to a human life, Frangules said. Having struggled with alcoholism long ago, Frangules has a personal sympathy with those struggling with addictions. "People do recover and they need resources and support," she said. "National Recovery Month is all about celebrating the fact that people do get better." Frangules also said that those in the recovery community have been celebrating the culture shift in state and local law enforcement surrounding addiction--with more and more agencies shifting a focus to rehabilitation rather than incarceration. "There's nobody out there not touched [by opioids]," Frangules said, explaining that the severity of the opioid crisis has really helped to spur a change in thinking about addiction. For more information about MOAR, visitors can go to the organization's website. For other resources on health and rehabilitation services, you can also visit the website for the National Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Massachusetts National Guard members are delivering hot plates to thousands of people in Lawrence and distributing them to other communities affected by the Sept. 13 gas explosions and fires. The deliveries are part of efforts to restore gas service to the parts of Lawrence, North Andover and Andover, which could take roughly two months. A target date of Nov. 19 was announced at a Friday press conference with Gov. Charlie Baker and Columbia Gas officials. Roughly 24,000 space heaters will be delivered starting on Monday. Lawrence Mayor Dan Rivera on Saturday posted a picture to Twitter of the Guardsmen and said the hot plates are "Fire Dept approved." UPDATE: Starting at noon MA National Guardsmen will be going door to door in the impacted area in Lawrence to hand out Fire Dept approved electric hot plates. #MVGasFire #recovery pic.twitter.com/2ihUDcnr8P Dan Rivera (@danrivera01843) September 22, 2018 Columbia Gas is working to replace 48 miles of gas pipelines after the disaster, which remains under federal investigation. More than 8,000 customers were affected by the disaster, which was likely caused by an overpressurization of gas pipes. A man from Lawrence, Leonel Rondon, was killed in one of the explosions. Many customers have been able to return home but face the onset of fall temperatures amid no gas for meals and hot water. Joe Albanese, a retired US Navy captain, was tapped as the chief recovery officer for the effort. Material from Associated Press was used in this report. NORTHAMPTON - The 24-year-old Northampton woman whose body was discovered in the Mill River earlier this week was a graduate of Smith College, according to a school spokesperson. Lucy-Lynn Ming Graves was declared the victim of an accidental death after she went swimming in the Mill River Tuesday and was found dead in the same river several days later. Northampton police named Graves as the victim in a post over social media Friday afternoon. The name of the woman whose body was recovered from the Mill River yesterday (Thursday) is Lucylynn M. Graves. She was... Posted by Northampton Police Department on Friday, September 21, 2018 Graves graduated from the school in 2015 before going on to graduate from the Smith School for Social Work in 2018, said Stacey Schmeidel, director of media relations for Smith. Marianne Yoshioka, dean of the Smith SSW, also sent a letter to the school's community about Graves, describing the late student as a "smart, capable, and gentle person" who was also an excellent clinician. "This is an enormous loss for her family, our community, and for the field of social work," said Yoshioka. "In moments like this one, we are reminded anew of the importance of our relationships and of our community. Please reach out to others for support in the wake of this sad news. I encourage each of you to take care of yourselves and one another," Yoshioka added. Yoshioka said that the school's Schacht Center for Health and Wellness and the Center for Religious and Spiritual Life will be offering support services to students. Information about a service for Graves will be made available to students in the near future, Yoshioka added. Yoshioka's full letter can be read below: To our SSW community: I am writing with sad news. Our recent graduate, Lucy-Lynn Ming Graves, has died recently in an apparent accidental drowning. Her death has now been confirmed. As all of us who knew Lucy can attest, she was a smart, capable, and gentle person. She was an excellent clinician. This is an enormous loss for her family, our community, and for the field of social work. For those in the area, the college's Schacht Center for Health and Wellness and the Center for Religious and Spiritual Life will be offering support to students. More information will be forthcoming. When we learn more about a service for Lucy, I will pass that information along as well. In moments like this one, we are reminded anew of the importance of our relationships and of our community. Please reach out to others for support in the wake of this sad news. I encourage each of you to take care of yourselves and one another. With love and compassion, Marianne Yoshioka, PhD, MSW Hours after a New York Times report stating that a top Justice Department official raised the possibility of secretly recording him, President Donald Trump said he plans to get rid of a "lingering stench" inside the government agency. "You've seen what happened in the FBI and the Department of Justice. The bad ones, they're all gone. They're all gone," Trump said at a rally in Missouri, according to the Associated Press. Trump was likely referencing FBI director James Comey and deputy director Andrew McCabe. "But there is a lingering stench and we're going to get rid of that, too," the president added. The New York Times reported that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein talked about wearing a wire and deploying the 25thAmendment to declare Trump as unfit for office. Rosenstein, who has oversight of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into ties between Russia and Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, criticized the New York Times story as "inaccurate and factually incorrect." Rosenstein appointed Mueller after Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself. The move angered Trump, who has spent months ridiculing Sessions publicly and privately. Trump was in Missouri to lend a hand to Josh Hawley, the state attorney general who is the GOP challenger to US Sen. Claire McCaskill, the Democratic incumbent. At the rally, Trump talked up his Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh was accused by Christine Blasey Ford of sexual assault at a high school party 35 years ago. Kavanaugh has denied the allegations. Trump, accused of multiple sexual assaults, called Kavanaugh a "fantastic" man who will be confirmed to the court. Earlier in the day, Trump took to Twitter to question the claims of Blasey Ford. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said Friday night on Twitter that Blasey Ford could have more time to go over the terms of her appearing in front of the committee. The committee had initially pushed for Ford to meet a Friday night deadline to respond, or the committee would vote on Kavanaugh on Monday. The committee votes on a Supreme Court nomination before it's sent to the full US Senate. Material from Associated Press was used in this report. Baphomet is back. The seven-and-a-half foot tall bronze statue, a goat-headed figure with horns and a beard, recently returned from Arkansas to its home in Salem, Massachusetts, in time for the Halloween season and the grand re-opening of the headquarters of the Satanic Temple. The Bridge Street headquarters underwent renovations and re-opens to the public on Sept. 24. The headquarters, inside a Victorian house built in 1882, houses an art gallery inside and a gift shop. The Baphomet statue had been in Little Rock as members of the Satanic Temple sought to have next to a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the state capitol in Arkansas. Members made a similar attempt on the grounds of the Oklahoma state capitol. A monument is joining the Baphomet statue: A veterans' memorial, created by Adam Volpe of Pretty Hate Machining, was set to be installed in Belle Plaine, but became part of a legal fight. The website VICE describes the veterans' memorial monument as a "black cube holding an upturned helmet with inverted pentagrams on its sides." An exhibition, "Moon Magic," will be on display inside the headquarters from Sept. 24 through Dec. 21. The artist, Rebecca Petrie, "explores the sinister veneer of the illumination of the night and colors seen beyond black." The headquarters also has an exhibit on the history of Satanism. The headquarters closed at the end of 2017, and the organization worked on the foundation and added a new heating and cooling system, vintage lampposts, and a new kitchen. Support braces were installed under the floor so the Baphomet statue could be moved inside, instead of sitting out in a shed. A "Black Mass" ritual will occur at the end of October. An "Unbaptism" ritual and a "Devil's Dinner Party" are also planned. The headquarters is open Sundays through Thursdays, 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. and between 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. This post was updated with details of the renovations. SPRINGFIELD -- City councilors said they will gather more information about the potential for creating a fiber-optic internet system to serve Springfield businesses and homes, although it may be too costly. A citywide high-speed broadband network could bear an overall cost exceeding $50 million, which might involve city funds, grants and consumer charges, said Andrew J. Doty, chief information officer for the city. During a meeting Thursday at City Hall, several councilors and residents agreed a community broadband system would be of great benefit to retain and attract businesses and homeowners. Councilors also acknowledged that such a system might prove too expensive. Further information will be gathered and another meeting is expected in October, said Councilor Melvin Edwards, chairman of the council's General Government Committee. "In theory, it sounded like something we should consider and do more investigation to determine if it is feasible or not," Edwards said. Councilors Michael Fenton and Jesse Lederman agreed the idea merited further consideration. There is frustration about cable service being largely a monopoly now, and about the quality of service, Edwards said. Robert Hendrickson is among residents urging the city to consider community broadband. He appeared before the council at its Sept. 10 meeting and again this week before the General Government Committee, saying Springfield will lose businesses if it does not go after the state-of-the art system. Hendrickson said there are state and federal funds that can assist with the costs. He warned city officials not to be "left in the dust." He spoke of the ever-increasing costs of cable and internet service. Westfield is among communities in Massachusetts that have community broadband systems, through its municipal gas and electric department. In August, Gov. Charlie Baker praised Westfield Gas & Electric for its plans to build fiber-optic networks in 20 small towns that have struggled without high-speed internet service. Networks are already live in Otis and Alford, with 18 other towns in the planning stage. Doty gave the following breakdown of necessary components and associated costs: Connections from trunk lines to homes can range in cost from $1,500 to $3,000. The trunk lines, which connect data centers to the neighborhoods, can range from $15,000 to $25,000 per mile of cabling. Switching equipment can range from $10 million to $20 million. The city would need to register as an MLP (municipal lighting plant). Control and maintenance software would be required, as well as billing software, with integration between the two. Cost is unknown at this time. Not related to infrastructure would be vans, installation and maintenance personnel, and diagnostic tools. Call center personnel. The city does not own utility poles and conduits and likely would need to pay rental fees, which can range from $1 to $10 per mile per month in the case of the conduit or per pole when above ground. In addition, the city would need to have an outreach program to assess interest in the program and a potential number of customers. High-speed connectivity is available from companies such as Comcast and Verizon, Doty said. In addition, it is also available from companies like CrownCastle, Sprint, AT&T, MBI/Axia, AccessPlus and Crocker, he said. The city does have its own fiber cabling system for municipal purposes, including public safety communications and cameras, Doty said. Lederman said he has heard from many residents interested in the community broadband system, including those concerned that their cable internet bills keep going up. He praised the effort and said it is worth exploring. MILTON - A Massachusetts State Trooper in Milton had a busy Saturday morning, according to a release by police. While in the process of questioning a suspected meth trafficker on Route 93 around 1:25 a.m. he witnessed a car barreling down the road in the wrong direction. The vehicle, a Nissan Altima, peeled off of nearby Bryant Street, attempting to drive the wrong way into the southbound lane of Route 93, where the trooper was standing. The trooper, who just had pulled over 38-year-old Dorchester man Darryl Malloch after he witnessed him change lanes without signalling, told Malloch to stay put before attempting to flag down the Nissan, whose operator--it was soon discovered--was intoxicated. The driver, whose name has not been released by police, was a 55-year-old man from Weymouth. He now faces charges for operating under the influence of alcohol, negligent operation of a motor vehicle, and improper operation of a motor vehicle. After placing the drunken driver under arrest, the trooper returned to Malloch, who had been driving an unregistered and uninsured vehicle. A closer inspection of Malloch's vehicle also revealed approximately 29 grams of suspected meth, drug paraphernalia and $1,750 in cash, according to police. Malloch was subsequently arrested for trafficking methamphetamine, distributing hypodermic syringes withou a license, and numerous vehicle and traffic violations. Malloch was held on $25,000 cash bail. He will be arraigned in Quincy District Court next week. A 31-year-old Lawrence woman was killed in a two-vehicle crash on Route 290 eastbound in the Worcester area, authorities said Saturday. Massachusetts State Police troopers are investigating the cause of the crash, which occurred around 2:30 a.m. Her name has not yet been released as police seek to notify her family. The woman, who was in a 2017 Honda Civic, was rear-ended by a Ford F-350 pickup truck towing a car carrier while driving on Route 290 eastbound. The woman and two of the woman's passengers, a 24-year-old man and a 25-year-old man, had to be removed from the vehicle with help from the Worcester Fire Department. The woman was pronounced dead at UMass Medical Center. The pickup truck driver wasn't injured, according to State Police. CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Red Sox manager Alex Cora said he's likely to carry all three catchers (Sandy Leon, Christian Vazquez and Blake Swihart) on his ALDS roster. But Swihart has made only two starts at catcher since Vazquez's return from the disabled list Sept. 1. Would Cora consider giving Swihart -- the best hitting catcher of the three -- a start in the postseason? "I don't know," Cora said. "We'll see. We'll see where we're at. We feel comfortable with Christian, Sandy and Blake. One thing for sure: He'll catch throughout the (final) week." Cora said he considered pairing up Swihart with ace Chris Sale vs. the Indians here at Progressive Field on Friday. "But then it's 5 innings, it's Chris," Cora said. "For how bad we want Blake to catch him, it's an important start for Chris. And I'm not saying using Blake makes no sense for us. But we know where we're going with Chris. So we want Sandy back there." The Red Sox view this as an extremely important start for Sale and rightfully so. They need him to pitch 5 innings (75 pitches) as he continues to try to stretch out for the postseason. He has only one other regular season start remaining (Wednesday vs. the Orioles at Fenway). Sale hasn't pitched well vs. the Indians historically. It's best he works with the catcher he has felt most comfortable with this season. Cora said Sept. 13 he wanted his starting pitchers to have thrown to all three catchers before the end of the regular season. That hasn't happened. But Swihart But as Cora mentioned, Swihart will catch games during the final week. THE value of Australias farm production is forecast to remain relatively unchanged at $60 billion in 201819, well above the 10-year average of $56 billion, despite very dry conditions in some places. ABARES executive director, Dr Steve Hatfield-Dodds, said the latest forecasts were released last week in the September quarter Agricultural commodities report. Although dry conditions are affecting agricultural production in eastern Australia, expected strong production in Western Australia, and rising grain prices, high livestock prices and a lower Australian dollar are providing support to farm incomes, Dr Hatfield-Dodds said. The value of crop production is forecast to decline by 3 per cent to $30 billion in 201819, reflecting a 12 per cent fall in the volume of winter crop production nationally, especially in drought-affected cropping regions in New South Wales and Queensland. Offsetting this lower volume we are expecting higher prices for canola, coarse grains, cotton and wheat, and a favourable exchange rate will result in a much smaller decline in the value of production, and help maintain returns to Australian exporters. Also in Australian Food News Warmer winter A warmer winter has supported the production of a range of fruits and vegetables, and sugar and wine grape production have not been significantly affected by the drought. Were expecting the value of livestock production to increase by 2 per cent to $30 billion in 201819, driven by increased supply of livestock as farmers destock in response to scarce pasture and rising feed costs. Relatively high world prices for meat are providing some support for cattle prices in Australia, but we are expecting beef prices to fall by around 9 per cent from the historically high levels of recent years. As weve seen, rising input costs are a significant challenge for some producers and we can expect increased competition in export markets as more cattle are turned off in the United States in response to dry conditions there. Despite a higher value of production, total export earnings are forecast to decline by 5 percent from $49 billion to $45 billion, largely due to lower exportable supplies of canola, coarse grains, and wheat, and an increased domestic demand for grain. However these declines will be offset by a rise in export earnings for lamb, mutton, rice, cotton and cheese, due to strong global demand resulting from an increase in global economic growth. Export earnings for fisheries products are forecast to increase by 2 per cent in 201819 to $1.6 billion, after increasing by an estimated 10 per cent in 201718. CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Red Sox's Sam Travis belted his first major league home run in the third inning here at Progressive Field on Friday. He put Boston ahead 1-0. The 25-year-old crushed a 97.1 mph, 352-foot blast just over the wall in right field. He connected on an 83.8 mph slider from Indians right-handed reliever Shane Bieber. Sam Travis' to-do list: Hit first career MLB home run pic.twitter.com/WmXWTqteqh NESN (@NESN) September 21, 2018 Travis has had an impressive week. He made a 5-star catch (per Statcast) with a 15-percent hit probability at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday. He crashed right into the wall after making the grab. "I knew I was going to catch it the whole time if it stayed in the yard," Travis told MassLive.com. "I knew it (the wall) was coming but I didn't really have much of a choice." Travis is making his just second major league start in the outfield here Friday. He started 37 games in the outfield in the minors. Travis said he played left field in the Cape Cod League in 2012. "It was a long time ago but it's not unfamiliar to me," Travis said. , Mediapool.bg, , - . - , . 18:00 . by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, September 21, 2018 Siding against Crunch Fitness, a federal appellate court revived a lawsuit accusing the company of violating a federal text-spam law by sending three messages to a gym member. The ruling, issued this week, stems from a class-action complaint filed in 2014 by Jordan Marks. He alleged that Crunch violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which prohibits companies from using automated dialers to send SMS messages to consumers without their permission. Specifically, Marks alleged that he received three text messages from Crunch in an 11-month period, and that his carrier charged him for each message. U.S. District Court Judge Cynthia Bashant in the Southern District of California trial judge dismissed Marks' lawsuit in 2014, ruling that he hadn't shown that Crunch used an automated dialer. Bashant said in the ruling that an automated dialer must have the ability to generate random or sequential phone numbers, as opposed to storing a list of numbers. advertisement advertisement On Thursday, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit reversed Bashant's decision, writing that her definition of autodialer was too narrow. "We conclude that the statutory definition of ATDS [automatic telephone dialing system] is a device that stores telephone numbers to be called, whether or not those numbers have been generated by a random or sequential number generator," the judges wrote. The appellate panel added that the texting system used by Crunch "dials numbers automatically," and therefore potentially meets the definition of autodialer. But the judges stopped short of ruling either that Crunch's system is definitively an autodialer, or that Crunch violated the law. Instead, they said they sent the case back to the district court for further proceedings. The decision is at odds with a recent ruling issued by a different appellate court -- the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals. That court recently sided with Yahoo in a similar dispute over whether its texting system is an autodialer. That ruling stemmed from a 2013 lawsuit by Philadelphia resident Bill Dominguez, who alleged that Yahoo sent him more than 27,000 text messages that were meant for the phone's previous owner. Earlier this year, the 3rd Circuit upheld a trial judge's decision to dismiss the case. The trial judge had ruled that Dominguez didn't prove Yahoo's system was capable of both generating and calling random or sequential numbers. Supermarkets competitive lansdcape explained THE supermarket industry is on the threshold of a fresh wave of competition. The major players, Coles and Woolworths, are girding themselves for a fresh set of competitive threats on all sides, in an industry that, for well over a decade, has been dominated by a seemingly unassailable duopoly. Australias largest industry research company, IBISWorld, has explored these latest threats the pair will likely face, and predicts that new players, price wars and the Food & Grocery Code Review will not only loom over Coles and Woolworths, but also shake up the entire industry as a whole. Aldi According to IBISWorld, Aldis success has been surprising, but also limited. The company has successfully targeted a specific section of the Australian market that values price over anything else, including product range and customer service. The focus on price has seen the company own a 9.0 per cent market share over the past five years, with compound annual growth in the double digits. While this has been an astonishing success for a new entrant, Aldis focus on a specific subset of consumers will likely limit its ultimate growth potential. There are some signs that new Aldi stores are already creating market share cannibalisation issues for the company, and there are concerns about its ability to continue its streak of strong growth over the next five years unless it can appeal to a wider range of shoppers. Nevertheless, the impact of Aldi is already irreversible, said senior industry analyst, Andrew Ledovskikh. Not only is the company likely to continue to maintain a significant market share in the Australian market for years to come, it has also signalled to multinational operators around the world that it is possible to break into the Australian market and take on the big domestic players, said Mr Ledovskikh. This message has been received by multinational operators, and the pending entry of European hypermarket store chain, Kaufland, is possibly just one symptom of the changing shape and perception of the Australian supermarket industry, according to IBISWorld. Also in Australian Food News Kaufland IBISWorld analysts believe the entry of Kaufland presents a different challenge for local operators to that of Aldi. Kaufland has announced plans to compete heavily on price, and is likely to present a threat to not only Coles and Woolworths, but also Aldi. However, unlike Aldi, Kaufland offers a point of differentiation for consumers other than price. Kauflands hypermarkets are expected to offer more than double the product range of the traditional supermarkets, and offer not only groceries, but traditional department store products such as homewares and outdoor equipment. This will mean Kaufland will not only compete on price, but also in terms of convenience. Convenience-based competition can be very dangerous for more specialised operators, said Mr. Ledovskikh. The decline of major toy retailers, such as Toys R Us, over the past five years can be, largely, attributed to competition from department stores, which allow consumers to shop for clothing, stationery, homewares and toys all at once. Woolworths and Coles will have to compete with a more convenient shopping experience for time poor consumers, offered by Kaufland. This market has the potential to be substantially larger than the one targeted by Aldi, and this is likely to worry Coles and Woolworths, said Mr. Ledovskikh. Costco and Amazon Meanwhile, Coles and Woolworths will have to contend with a potential entry from Amazon Fresh, and the expansion of the Costco store chain and its launch of a significant online offering. The potential entry of Amazon Fresh has been well documented, and its fair to say that the big two supermarkets are concerned about its potential impact on their business models. Both companies have increased their spending on data analytics and upgrading their loyalty programs over the past two years. Indeed, the new Flybuys Max scheme steals more than a few pages from Amazons grocery business model, said Mr Ledovskikh. Both companies have also invested in pilot programs, such as the Woolworths 3.0 store and the Woolworths Metro store that, aim to create a differentiated shopping experience designed to increase the convenience of its online offering and defending its market share among young urban professionals, who are most at risk of being drawn into Amazon Freshs orbit, said Mr Ledovskikh. Costcos entry into the online grocery market is also a potential threat, with the company constructing a $78 million distribution centre in Sydney. Costco will be able to couple the convenience of online shopping with prices that are often 25-30 per cent cheaper than their competitors. Costcos well-established membership program also encourages strong customer loyalty, influencing customers to stick with them year-round to maximise the value of their membership fees, said Mr Ledovskikh. Woolworths and Coles are not taking these threats lightly, however adapting is costly, and the companies are likely to see rising capital costs as they work to refurbish existing stores, launch new concept stores and continue to build their data analytics departments, said Mr Ledovskikh. Innovation is key to a successful business, particularly one with rising competition, but as with all ventures, there will likely be a few costly missteps that are likely to weigh down profit margins for these companies over the next five years, according to IBISWorlds predictions. Price Wars There have been indications over the past six months that the worst of the price wars, which started in 2011, are over. Coles and Woolworths have looked at other avenues of competition and gradually started to adjust their consumer pitches away from prices. However, considering the rising competition in the broader industry, IBISWorld sees this a short to medium-term armistice rather than a full-on peace treaty between the two rivals. Coles and Woolworths are indicating a reduced focus on rampant discounting, building up profit margins and cash for investments into innovation. This is key to testing and deploying new concepts that will help the companies differentiate themselves from online competitors such as Amazon and Costco. However, considering the competitive forces that are likely to be stacked against them over the next five years, its not hard to imagine that there will be a new price war within the next few years, said Mr Ledovskikh. Food and Grocery Code Review Considering the rising competition in the Supermarkets and Grocery Stores industry, suppliers may be more vulnerable than ever to unethical behavior on the part of supermarkets, said Mr Ledovskikh. Coles and Woolworths have had multiple run-ins with ACCC concerning their dealings with suppliers over the past decade. In 2014-15, the ACCC penalised Coles over their 2011 ARC program, which coerced suppliers into providing rebates. Woolworths was accused of unconscionable conduct in 2015 in reference to its pressuring of suppliers to provide payments to help the company close gaps in its profit margins. Although the company was found to have not broken consumer law, many remained unconvinced that suppliers had not been unduly imposed upon. In response to concerns about the treatment of suppliers, the Food and Grocery Code of Conduct was established in 2015. The purpose of the Code was to protect suppliers in their dealings with supermarkets. However, the Code is voluntary and not everyone signed up. Metcash, for example, has refused. In 2018, a review of the Code was instigated. Draft recommendations include independent adjudicators employed by the supermarkets to monitor dealings with suppliers, banning retrospective changes to supply agreements and banning a recently reported practice whereby the supermarkets required suppliers to show their financials to justify price increases. Graeme Samuel, the independent expert designated to oversee the review, has also suggested that operators like Metcash be forced to either sign on to the revised code of conduct, or have a mandatory code imposed upon them. The review is ongoing, and it is not clear which of these provisions will make it into the final draft. However, it is clear that a tougher code of conduct is necessary. The entry of Kaufland and Amazon, as well as the expansion of Costco, will all work to intensify competition in the industry, making a new price war more likely over the next five years. Against this backdrop, suppliers will need more protection than ever, said Mr. Ledovskikh. A new study, published in the journal Science, has found that the process through which the gut communicates with the brain is much quicker than previously believed, relying on synapses more than it does on hormones. Share on Pinterest Nerves before an important meeting can make us feel sick, and now, new research helps us understand why. Over the past 2 decades, the gut-brain axis has been thoroughly documented. This started with a study in the early 1990s that showed that oral antibiotics can successfully treat a brain disorder called hepatic encephalopathy. Fast forward to 2013, when research revealed that the bacteria in our guts influence anxiety and depression. Even more recently, a review that was published only last month made it clear that gut bacteria can influence mood and emotions, highlighting their connection with a range of psychiatric disorders. Medical News Today have also reported that changing the composition in our gut microbiota could enhance our resilience to stress, and that eating fiber promotes a more diverse range of gut bacteria, which, in turn, keeps our brains healthy and young for longer. These studies are unraveling, bit by bit, the guts vast influence on the brain, but the exact process through which this second brain influences our mental states and behavior remains unclear. Some scientists believe that the main way in which the gut communicates with the brain is through hormones that are released into the bloodstream. However, a new study challenges this claim. Researchers led by Diego Bohorquez, Ph.D., an assistant professor of medicine at Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, NC, suggest that the conversation between the gut and the brain occurs much more quickly and is more direct than previously believed. This is the age of selfies, so no matter which way you lay your eyes, you're bound to come across a zillion people clicking away at their own godly faces for no particular reason at all. It's no news that we've been witness to numerous unfortunate selfies doing the rounds on the world wide web either because they went viral or perhaps because they were turned into memes. But no matter the reason behind the #selfiefails, what we cannot deny is that there is no room for such mishaps when you're trying to share a snap with a girl, more so if she's potentially your future girlfriend too. Fear not, for we've got you covered and taken the help of one of India's most eligible bachelors, Rahul Khanna, to help you decode the Dos of taking a selfie for every occasion and ace at flat-out impressing that girl. The Woke Up Like This Selfie If you ever get too tempted to send her a 'good morning' selfie that's just you with a mussed head and puffy eyes, we'd say you refrain from the idea and instead choose the tactic of peek-a-boo that Mr. Khanna resorts to in this selfie. A little 'hiding' from the camera can lead to a lot more 'seeking' off it. (Did you get the pun, eh?) Instagram The Hot & Sweaty Workout Selfie Another selfie inclination most guys harbour in their hearts is of conveying to the girl that they're into fitness which leads to them sending a selfie in which they appear to have been sloshed with a fresh drizzling of sweat. No. That's not how you do it. A workout selfie needs to be aesthetically appealing, where the sweat does only as much to add sheen to your body. Instagram The Freshly Served Selfie If you feel there's nothing like a good selfie right outta shower, wait a second before you go all out with a mirror selfie in a towel. Instead of that, try this. Take care of your dishevelled hair, look a little prim and perhaps also try to keep the focus above the waist to add a bit of tease. Instagram The Lazy Afternoon Selfie On days you're staying in and got a good enough lazy vibe going on for you, take this selfie as your inspiration to send that lazing around selfie that's evident yet gives the viewer something to behold and admire all at once. Don't forget to add a hint of that lazy grin into the selfie, okay? Instagram The Traveller Selfie That's another one to pop-up quite often as pictures you'd wanna share with a girl, right? But be smart and avoid sending her a selfie of you stuck between an endless stream of traffic to make the point. Restrict these selfies to those where you add a bit of the vista you're enjoying so that it appeals to both the travel bug in her as well as gives her a happy traveller's face to behold. Instagram The For Your Eyes Only Selfie Let's keep this as a special one, or perhaps even a bonus you'd wanna throw in when you want her to think of you a little longer than she'd like. How you ask? Just bring in your pets into the frame and you have a selfie that's sure to strike a few chords of her heart and make her go aww. Instagram The Work Mode On Selfie The work attire selfie is for those days when you're dressed for the job and feel capable of taking on anything life throws at you while at work. Happens not so often but there are always those days you feel and look good in dashing workwear. Well, just steal a selfie on such days! Instagram The Dapper In Tux Selfie There mustn't be a need for an excuse to click and send a selfie when you're dressed in a tux. Period. Whether you're out for a office dinner with the hotshots of your company or it's a wedding you're dressed to kill for, be sure to send a selfie of yourself when you're looking like a business mogul. Instagram The Dream Of Me Selfie This one has a LOT of potential. When you're done for the day, and ready to unwind, send your girl a quick selfie reminding her of the good, hard work you've gotten done that day while she can take in tousled hair look of you and hold her breath in awe. Instagram Take inspiration from these selfies and go at it 'cause this is gonna work, we tell you. Aged care choking deaths rising, but preventable PEOPLE are increasingly choking to death in aged care, an alarming fact made worse by the lethal multiplier laid bare in early Royal Commission talk a lack of adequate supervision. Experts say any Royal Commissions terms of reference into Australias aged-care crisis must take in the rising death toll from choking on food, the second highest cause of preventable death in aged care [1]. Particularly at risk are people suffering the effects of stroke, dementia or Parkinsons diseases. By that circumstance they require help to eat, or supervision while eating, but also need to be receiving the proper texture modified food to reduce the choking risk that is often unappealing, fortified pureed or chopped meals. Some protections, including supervision, already exist for these vulnerable people under the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code where it deals with food for special medical purposes at standard 2.9.5 [3]. About 40-60 per cent of people in aged care have trouble with chewing and swallowing to the point where they are at risk of choking on food. People over the age of 65 years have 7x the risk of choking on food as children aged 1-4 yrs Aged-care service providers are required to be compliant with the standard though its unclear if they are so well aware of their obligations under the Act. Reports out of Monash University show that external causes of death including falls, choking and suicide increased from 1.2 per 1000 admissions in 2001-02 to 5.3 per 1000 admissions in 2011-12. Choking deaths at 7.9 per cent was the second most frequent mechanism of death in Australian nursing homes of deaths reported to Coroners between 1 July 2000 and 30 June 2013. Dr Julie Cichero, a speech pathologist internationally recognised for her work in the field of feeding and swallowing disorders and an honorary University of Queensland researcher agrees, citing recent government reports that choking deaths in aged care for people with disability are increasing [2]. Choking deaths are a combination of eating and/or food-related behaviour problems and are increased if there is inadequate supervision, Dr Cichero says. Her point is backed up by government reports released at the end of August that state: A momentary lapse in supervision while staff responded to other residents needs was all that was needed for a fatal choking event to occur. She says a 2015 NSW Ombudsmans report in reviewable deaths of people with disability in residential care specifically recommended the following: Active supervision of people with swallowing and/or choking risks around food Ensuring staff had clear guidance about the persons choking risks and what they need to do, and Staff being alert to choking risks of individuals and always following support plans and other guidance to manage the risks. In order to enact these recommendations, there needs to be appropriate clinical assessment of choking risk, and appropriate carer training around choking risk, including the need for meal time supervision, Dr Cichero says. Speech Pathologists are the health professionals with expertise to assess, manage and make recommendations around food choking risks. Speech Pathologists also provide training to care staff and indicate where supervision is necessary. Dr Cichero wants the Royal Commissions terms of refence to include choking deaths in aged care. I think at a minimum making sure there is assessment for choking risk, but also for nutritional adequacy is important for aged care, she says. Following on from identification of potential choking or malnutrition problems, then making sure people who care for the residents are (a) trained, (b) recognise risks, (c) know who to contact for help, and (d) that there sufficient staffing ratios for them to meet their duty of care. The recommendations for prevention of choking deaths in aged care from Prof Joseph Ibrahim Department of Forensic Medicine at Monash University, provide an excellent blue print. Some numbers from media reports since the Royal Commission was announced About 240,000 people, and one in four Australians over the age of 85 will live in aged care this year. About half of them suffer some form of dementia, around one-third from severe dementia. It is estimated that more than 80,000 new aged-care places will be required in the next decade. Most facilities are more than 20 years old. Despite funding rising by $1 billion/year to nearly $20 billion this year, demand outstrips supply, complaints and risks rise. The average stay in aged care is 2.3 years. The aged-care sector is made up of 902 residential care providers, 702 home care providers, and 1621 home support services. More than half of all residential care providers are not-for-profits, 63 per cent operate just one residential care home, three are ASX-listed. Also in Australian Food News Dr Julie Cichero is an Honorary Senior Fellow at the University of Queenslands School of Pharmacy, Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences. She is an expert researching, among other things related to swallowing, thickened liquids and texture modified foods. Measurement and standardisation of names and definitions for texture modified foods and thickened liquids used for individuals with dysphagia (feeding and swallowing problems). [1] The Conversation Many Older people in care die prematurely, and not from natural causes, May 2017 http://theconversation.com/many-older-people-in-care-die-prematurely-and-not-from-natural-causes-77942 [2]Ombudsman NSW (2015) Report of Reviewable Deaths in 2012 and 2013, Volume 2: Deaths of people with disability in residential care. [3] Food Standards Australia New Zealand Act 1991 Cherie Hugo ABC interview from Rob Layton on Vimeo. UPPER THUMB -- The leadership teams at McKenzie Health System (MHS) and Marlette Regional Hospital (MRH) welcome Deckerville Community Hospital (DCH) as the newest affiliate of United Healthcare Partners (UHP). The original UHP collaboration, which started in 2013, was aimed at providing patients with access to more services, medical staff and resources while maximizing efficiency by working together. This latest step will allow us to continue these goals to a broader community. "Each organization and their patients benefit from shared resources," said Dan Babcock, CEO of MRH. "Since the affiliation between MHS and MRH was finalized, there have been numerous examples of these benefits including shared staffing, equipment and materials; pooling of resources when needed; and attraction of specialists to the area." "We are continually finding new opportunities to consider," he added "As we observed declining populations, decreasing reimbursement to hospitals and increasing requirements associated with healthcare reform, affiliation made sense because together we are stronger," said Steve Barnett, president/CEO of MHS. "Through collaboration, which now includes Deckerville Community Hospital, we have an opportunity to turn challenges into successes. Now we are able to continue to build on each other's strengths, and that's exciting." Each organization will retain its own licenses, names, services and continue to retain the funds and assets they have accumulated in the past and will accumulate into the future. The parent company, UHP, will have equal representation from all three organizations and will focus on making decisions in the best interest of the larger community. The first board meeting that will include DCH will be on Oct. 8. "Through our affiliation, our community receives improved access to high-quality medical services while we maintain local independence to provide outstanding care," added Angela McConnachie, CEO/CNO at Deckerville. "That's a win-win situation for everyone, and we know we are taking the right steps for our community." CASS CITY -- Hills & Dales General Hospital recently welcomed Gerald Schell, M.D., to its speciality physician staff. Dr. Schell is a neurosurgeon and pain management physician who has been practicing in Saginaw and the surrounding areas since 1989. Schell is board-certified and will be doing pain management at Hills & Dales, which will include consultations, cervical injections, lumbar injections, sacroiliac injections and spinal cord stimulation. He and his team will also be doing neurosurgical consults. Additionally, he will perform minimally invasive spinal surgeries at Hills & Dales that include cervical fusion, lumbar fusion, lumbar decompression, sacroiliac fusion for chronic and acute back and neck pain. And he will provide treatment for carpal tunnel and ulnar neuropathy. Schell earned his medical degree at Michigan State University's College of Human Medicine in East Lansing, and completed his neurosurgical rotation at The University Hospital in Syracuse, New York. He has also completed special rotations at Washington University in Saint Louis and Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, New York. He is a member of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, and he was the surgeon to perform the first artificial lumbar disc surgery in the state of Michigan. He is also involved in the experimental development of single-level and two-level artificial discs for cervical disc problems. "Dr. Schell is a great addition to our specialty physician staff," said Jean Anthony, president and CEO of the hospital. "We know that there is a need in the region for a pain management physician and Dr. Schell is one of the best. We welcome him and his team to our facility." Schell will begin seeing patients on Oct. 1 at Hills & Dales Speciality Clinic, 4675 Hill St. Patients can call 989-799-8712 to schedule an appointment. KINDE -- North Huron Schools joined more than 12 million children and adults around the globe in 175 countries to celebrate International Dot Day -- a grass roots creativity and courage movement started in 2009 by a teacher in Iowa. Inspired by New York Times best-selling author/illustrator Peter H. Reynolds' classic storybook for all ages The Dot, International Dot Day inspires young and old to embrace the power of personal creativity to help make their mark on the world, and move it to a better place. Just as a succession plan is necessary for our personal wealth, a succession plan for our business is equally critical. When we write our will, we carefully consider how we want our hard-earned wealth to be distributed upon our passing: to whom, when, and how much. Similarly, if we own a business, we should plan for what will happen to it when we are gone, making thoughtful decisions as to its ownership and management. Will it be transferred to the next generation? Or will it be sold? From the passing down of a mom-and-pop grocery store to the changing helm of an aerospace manufacturer, a generational transfer may be tricky business. When there are multiple heirs involved, sometimes a few may want nothing to do with it. Other heirs may have grown up in the business and want to keep it in the family. If the business owner decides to transfer the business to the next generation, he or she may want to embark on a succession, family governance or legacy plan to help guide the transition. A family governance or legacy plan outlines the structure for future business scenarios. It can help answer the following questions: Who among the family will take over the business? Which aspects of the business will they manage? What will the configuration look like? When will changes take place? A formalized working agreement can help make the transfer seamless, addressing not only current concerns but issues the family may not have considered. What is the ownership structure, including buy-sell agreements? How are dividends paid, and how are family members compensated? What are the employment standards, career development policies, retirement ages, and approaches to charitable giving? Ultimately, the goal of a business succession plan is to generate a multigenerational team in which the succeeding generations participate in decision-making and leadership long before their parents pass on. If there are no children interested or available to carry the business forward, many owners may decide to sell the business outright. They may decide to sell to a partner or manager, to an investment group, or to an outside third party. Moreover, many business owners bank on the proceeds from the sale of their business. According to a 2015 survey, 78 percent of small-business owners plan to fund their retirement by selling their business. The survey added that many business owners bank on funding 60 percent to 100 percent of their retirement needs from the sale of the business. If a sale is looming, planning long before the target date of the sale is recommended. Starting the process at least three to five years early usually allows for enough time to prepare the business for sale and allow for a series of negotiations with a third-party buyers. Its important to consider personal objectives and financial goals early, to ensure that the sale of the business fits into an overall financial plan. That also means arriving at an accurate valuation of the business early on. Selling the business requires two basic decisions. The first one outlines the current owners role. Will he or she remain involved in the business after the sale? If so, how and to what extent? The second decision is what will happen to employees, customers, suppliers, stakeholders, etcetera. How and when will the sale be communicated to those involved in the business? What will happen to them in the process? Regardless of the path chosen for future of the business, it is advisable to engage legal counsel, an accountant, an investment banker or business broker, and a financial adviser. If transferring business ownership and interests to family members, an investment banker or business broker might not be needed, but an outside business appraiser might be worthwhile. A carefully thought-out and professional plan for the future of a family business can make the difference between a process that is fraught with disagreement and secession, and one that is harmonious and profitable to boot. Joseph Matthews is a Financial Advisor with the Wealth Management Division of Morgan Stanley in Fairfield. He can be reached at 203-319-5165 or by email at joseph.matthews@morganstanley.com. Follow Joe on Twitter @jmatthewsMS. The information contained in article is not a solicitation to purchase or sell investments. Any information presented is general in nature and not intended to provide individually tailored investment advice. The strategies and/or investments referenced may not be suitable for all investors as the appropriateness of a particular investment or strategy will depend on an investor's individual circumstances and objectives. Investing involves risks and there is always the potential of losing money when you invest. Morgan Stanley and its Financial Advisors do not provide tax or legal advice. Information contained herein has been obtained from sources considered to be reliable, but we do not guarantee their accuracy or completeness. The views expressed herein are those of the author and may not necessarily reflect the views of Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, or its affiliates. Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC, member SIPC. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Friday that the recent identifications of the remains of two soldiers missing from the Korean War should inspire the nation to a renewed commitment for a full accounting of the lost and fallen from all conflicts. All who have served, or will ever serve, must know that "their fellow citizens will go to the ends of the Earth to bring them home," Mattis said, after presiding at a pass-in-review by troops of all the services on the Pentagon parade grounds to mark the annual National POW/MIA Recognition Day. "Our POWs, our missing in action, their families -- they have met the most terrible challenges undeterred with the highest fortitude, honoring a nation that loves them for what they call out in each of us," Mattis said in remarks to an audience that included former POWs and families of the missing. "For that, we owe them an irredeemable debt of gratitude." He added that they could take encouragement from the identifications announced Thursday by President Donald Trump of the remains of two soldiers who went missing in what is now North Korea in 1950. The remains of Army Master Sgt. Charles H. McDaniel, 32, of Vernon, Indiana, and Army Pfc. William H. Jones, 19, of Nash County, North Carolina were the first to be identified from the 55 cases of remains returned by North Korea which arrived in the U.S. last month at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii. Mattis described them as "two long-lost heroes," and "two beloved sons of America, finally home on our soil." Recognition Day honored "two categories" of the nation's warriors, Mattis said: those who were held captive and those who never returned from battle. In the first category, Mattis cited former POWs in the audience and also the late Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, a naval aviator and POW in Vietnam for nearly five years, for their continuing service after their release. McCain "did not let the torture he endured define his lasting service to America," Mattis said. He returned "ready without reservation to serve once again," Mattis said. "We will never let their sacrifices wither in the compost of history," Mattis said of the POWs. In the second category, Mattis referred to the missing in action, and also their families, as well as the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency and Veterans Service Organizations, for their refusal to give up hope on a full accounting. He noted the presence in the audience of Ann Mills Griffiths, 77, head of the National League of POW/MIA for more than 40 years. Her older brother by 11 months, Jimmy, had been missing since his Navy F-4B Phantom went down off the coast of Vietnam in 1966. Last month, DPAA announced that the remains of Cmdr. James B. Mills had been identified. He will be interred at Arlington National Cemetery next June. "We will never forget our duty to keep searching for those still awaiting their homecoming," Mattis said. -- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com The original Tun Tavern in Philadelphia was the birthplace of the Marine Corps and was almost as old as the city itself. When Hurricane Florence flooded Marine Cpl. Jordan Taylor and fiancee Jilia Arroyo's wedding venue and forced his training dates to be bumped forward, the couple arranged a quiet, last-minute ceremony at a Catholic church near Fort Hood, Texas -- no photographer, no cake, no flowers. But Taylor's mom Stacee, an Air Force veteran and Army spouse, wanted the day to be special. Unable to leave South Carolina herself, she couldn't be there to stand next to her son. So she did the next best thing: She called on her Texas-based military spouse friends. On Sept. 20, less than 24 hours after his mom asked for help, Taylor and Arroyo were married with all the trappings of a traditional wedding, surrounded by a group of military spouses who dropped what they were doing and made the wedding happen. "It doesn't matter what race, religion or color -- when people in the military need help, we respond," said Theresa Johnson, whose husband recently retired from the Army. "For us, that's what we do." After her son called to tell her the wedding had been bumped up, Stacee Taylor went into panic mode, she said. She didn't want to miss the special day, but because she was stuck in South Carolina, she knew she wouldn't be able to attend. So she messaged Johnson out of desperation Sept. 19, in hopes that she could help her find a photographer to capture the day. "I asked one question 'do you know of a photographer?'" she told Military.com. Never in her wildest dreams did she expect what happened next. Instead of just finding a photographer, Johnson phoned a Navy wife friend, Mindy Brewster, and asked for help, then posted a message to her Facebook page asking the military spouse community to step up. And that's exactly what they did. Marie Reed, who runs Moving With the Military, saw Johnson's post and got a message from Stacee Taylor at about the same time. Armed with her business' photography and film crew, she knew they would have no problem taking video and photos at the ceremony and dove in to work on other details. Brewster, a former wedding planner, took point on making arrangements, keeping Stacee Taylor in the loop and sourcing cake and other items. Leslie Draffin, a local news anchor and military spouse, worked with Brewster to coordinate donations from local businesses. Johnson, who was several hours away, drove up to be at the wedding. She also made sure the bride had her "something borrowed" and stood in as a surrogate mom. Cpl. Jordan Taylor, Jilia Arroyo and Theresa Johnson on Taylor and Arroyo's wedding day. (Photo courtesy of Theresa Johnson). The bride's family threw together food for a reception. The groom's grandmother, who lived locally, was the only member of his family able to attend. For Reed, Brewster and Johnson, surrounding the bride and groom with help and giving them a loving send off into military life was more than worth the chaos of last-minute wedding planning. Helping the newlyweds, they said, was about more than throwing them a great ceremony; it was about showing them how the military community can be there when you need it. > Mother of the groom Stacee Taylor chats with her son, Cpl. Jordan Taylor and his grandmother. (Photo courtesy of Mindy Brewster) "This was, 'Let's show her from the beginning that she can count on us,' " said Brewster, who had her own last-minute wedding in 2003 before her husband's deployment to Iraq. "It may not be the most perfect day, but it's going to be the most memorable day." Reed said -- in a world where military spouses need to rely on each other for help -- she wanted the bride to see the support and be ready to pay it forward. "I want her to know, 'Welcome to military spouse life, and know that you have a community that will rally behind you,' " she said. "If you have a need, [know] that we're there, but also be there for other people, because you will meet them along your journey and people will need help." > Cpl. Jordan Taylor and Jilia Arroyo married Sept. 20, 2018 with help from the military spouse community. (Photo Courtesy of Mindy Brewster) Stacee Taylor, who was able to watch the wedding over Facebook livestream, said she spent much of the wedding day "ugly crying" with joy and the overwhelming emotion that comes when your community steps in when you need them. > Mother of the groom Stacee Taylor chats with some of the military spouses who helped pull together her son's wedding. (Photo courtesy of Mindy Brewster) "I told Theresa, "I help people all the time -- whatever you need, count me in, I got you,'" she said. "And I've never known the feeling of someone really helping me, and I think that's why I'm so emotional. I said 'Y'all, I just don't understand. All I asked for was a photographer.' I'm just overwhelmed by my military spouse community and how they just took it and made it their own." -- Amy Bushatz can be reached at amy.bushatz@military.com. Select Mineral List Type Standard Detailed Strunz Dana Chemical Elements Commodity List This is a list of exploitable or exploited mineral commodities recorded at this locality. Gold Mineral List Arsenopyrite Gold Pyrite 3 valid minerals. 3 valid minerals. Detailed Mineral List: Arsenopyrite Formula: FeAsS Reference: Simpson, E.S. (1948), Minerals of Western Australia, Vol 1, p152 Gold Formula: Au Reference: Kalgoorlie Miner newspaper (1912), Coolgardie Goldfield. Geologist's Report, 30/03/1912 'commodity:Gold' Formula: Au Reference: From USGS MRDS database Pyrite Formula: FeS 2 Reference: Simpson, E.S. (1948), Minerals of Western Australia, Vol 1, p152 List of minerals arranged by Strunz 10th Edition classification Group 1 - Elements 'Gold' 1.AA.05 Au Group 2 - Sulphides and Sulfosalts 'Arsenopyrite' 2.EB.20 FeAsS 'Pyrite' 2.EB.05a FeS 2 List of minerals arranged by Dana 8th Edition classification Group 1 - NATIVE ELEMENTS AND ALLOYS Metals, other than the Platinum Group Gold 1.1.1.1 Au Group 2 - SULFIDES A m B n X p , with (m+n):p = 1:2 Arsenopyrite 2.12.4.1 FeAsS Pyrite 2.12.1.1 FeS 2 List of minerals for each chemical element S Sulfur S Arsenopyrite FeAsS S Pyrite FeS 2 Fe Iron Fe Arsenopyrite FeAsS Fe Pyrite FeS 2 As Arsenic As Arsenopyrite FeAsS Au Gold Au Gold Au Regional Geology A closed formr gold mine.Other mines that form part of the Flagstaff group of mines include Sherlaw's Perseverance, Lady Charlotte and the New Australasian mines.Flagstaff mine was located about 5 kilometres south-east of Coolgardie. Gold was found in sulphide ore which historically caused some difficulties in processing. The earliest report found was April 1895 when the English based Flagstaff Gold Mining Company purchased the Star of Coolgardie lease.Indeed the next time the mine appears is October 1897, when it is sending ore from its Flagstaff mine by rail to a battery in Northam. All the information on this mine appears at the end of the company's operations, and it is puzzling the silence from a public company. Development work and some ore is taken out across 1899. During this year they purchase the 20 head battery from the nearby Big Blow mine, which eventually was re-erected at the Flagstaff property.Late 1902 the company was reconstructed. They hoped to dig further down to avoid the sulphide ore but instead the lode narrowed and became uneconomic. At the time of the reconstruction the tailings were sold for 1950 pounds. The purchaser was never able to recover enough gold from them to make a profit. The shaft was down to 250 feet deep, and the mine employed 25 men. The money provided by the reconstruction saw a new winding and compressor plant installed. There was also talk of the Foreign and Colonial Gold Recoveries Company building a trial plant at the mine to treat the sulphide ore, but it is doubtful this went ahead.By 1903 it was decided to voluntarily wind up the company, and close the mine. The plant, battery and assets were sold to Greenmount Gold Mines Ltd, and Flagstaff shareholders got some shares in this company. It was the intention of removing the battery to the Greenmount mine at Southern Cross, but by the end of 1904, the battery was still operating at Flagstaff crushing ore for nearby mines. During the period of the Flagstaff Company's operations it crushed 10 846.50 tonnes of ore from the mine, yielding 4565.56 ounces of gold.The following years there was several owners, tributers and mine name changes.May 1907, Patrick McGuiness takes Greenmount Gold Mining Company to the Warden's Court for forfeiture of the Flagstaff lease, claiming it had been left idle. However, between lodging the action, and it going to court, the company and McGuiness came to an arrangement for him to take over the mine. The Warden stated it was an act of collusion to hide the fact the mine had been idle. Regardless the case was withdrawn, and McGuiness is noted as putting through several crushings over the next 18 months.Ballantyne and party are briefly mentioned as tributing in September 1907. John Taylor has a crushing from the mine in December 1908, but calls it the Sickle. John owned the neighbouring lease, and noticed it unworked by Patrick McGuiness, Robert Mitchell and un-named others. He requested forfeiture to his name in the Warden's Court July 1908. McGuiness never turned up to defend the lease so it was awarded to Taylor.Cecil and Moor are noted as owners in October 1909 GML 377, and intend to form a small syndicate of Coolgardie and Perth men with a total of 20 shares, calling the mine Victor. As tributers, there are a couple of minor crushings from Vance and Popham (surnames), the mine now called the Florida. Further, Cecil/Moor are sending concentrates for processing to the Fremantle Smelting Works.The leases (now downgraded to P.A. 786), come up for forfeiture in the Warden's Court February 1913. The previous owners were James Madden and Richard Williams. The mine was applied for by Thomas Hansbury. Madden appeared stating he had no problem with Hansbury taking over the mine, and so it was. A couple of crushings are noted by Hansbury in 1913 and 1914.In January 1910, the local Warden questions leases held by Flagstaff relating to water rights. It was no surprise, considering the company had not existed since 1903, that no-one turned up to the Warden's Court, and therefore the leases reverted back to the Crown.February 1915, John Kay Hall applies for a licence to treat the tailings, under the mistaken belief the lease was surrendered, but was informed Hansbury still owns it.The northern section of the Flagstaff leases, was called the Lady Carmen, and A. Enors is noted as owning this mid 1916. This is sold to Harry Clegg and Charles Gatley in November 1918. Enors is said to have produced during the prior 2 years 616 tonnes of ore for 74.83 ounces of dollied gold, and 299 ounces of fine gold. This part of the lease is still active in 1922. The Coolgardie State Battery decided to reinstall Wilfley Tables, to cope with sulphide ore the owners of the Lady Carmen wanted to place through the battery. It was an experiment, though possibly not successful as no more was heard.The New Venture Gold Mining Company took an option over the Flagstaff leases around 1935, but then abandoned them. In 1936, the Consolidated Gold Mines of Coolgardie Ltd (Tindals Gold Mines Ltd) purchased the lease along with several others in the area. These were abandoned in 1949. This geological map and associated information on rock units at or nearby to the coordinates given for this locality is based on relatively small scale geological maps provided by various national Geological Surveys. This does not necessarily represent the complete geology at this locality but it gives a background for the region in which it is found. Click on geological units on the map for more information. Click here to view full-screen map on Macrostrat.org Data and map coding provided by Macrostrat.org, used under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License References Sort by Year (asc) Year (desc) Author (A-Z) Author (Z-A) Kalgoorlie Miner newspaper (1909), Coolgardie, 02/10/1909 Kalgoorlie Western Argus newspaper (1908), Coolgardie, 29/12/1908 Kalgoorlie Western Argus newspaper (1908), Coolgardie, 14/07/1908 Kalgoorlie Western Argus newspaper (1909), Coolgardie, 02/11/1909 Kalgoorlie Western Argus newspaper (1910), Coolgardie Courts, 25/01/1910 Western Mail newspaper (Perth) (1936), Coolgardie District, 19/11/1936 Kalgoorlie Miner newspaper (1907), Coolgardie Mining, 02/09/1907 Western Argus newspaper (Kalgoorlie) (1918), Coolgardie Goldfield, 05/11/1918 The West Australian newspaper (Perth) (1904), Coolgardie Mining, 28/10/1904 Launceston Examiner newspaper (1895), Star of Coolgardie, 25/04/1895 Kalgoorlie Miner newspaper (1922), Coolgardie State Battery, 21/03/1922 Kalgoorlie Miner newspaper (1910), Coolgardie, 11/10/1910 Kalgoorlie Miner newspaper (1912), Coolgardie Goldfield. Geologist's Report, 30/03/1912 Kalgoorlie Miner newspaper (1935), Mining at Coolgardie, 20/06/1935 Kalgoorlie Western Argus newspaper (1910), Coolgardie, 30/08/1910 Kalgoorlie Western Argus newspaper (1913), Coolgardie Warden's Court. Coolgardie. Jan 29, 04/02/1913 Kalgoorlie Western Argus newspaper (1907), Coolgardie Warden's Court, 28/05/1907 Kalgoorlie Western Argus newspaper (1915), Coolgardie Warden's Court, 16/02/1915 Kalgoorlie Western Argus newspaper (1916), Coolgardie State Battery, 25/07/1916 Kalgoorlie Western Argus newspaper (1903), The Flagstaff, 12/05/1913 Kalgoorlie Miner newspaper (1903), Flagstaff Gold Mine, 24/08/1903 Western Mail newspaper (Perth) (1899), Coolgardie, 16/06/1899 Kalgoorlie Miner newspaper (1903), Flagstaff Gold Mines, 03/09/1903 The West Australian newspaper (Perth) (1902), Coolgardie, 14/01/1902 Victor Martinez will take the final at-bat of his career this Saturday, per Chris McCosky of The Detroit News. Friday and Saturday against Kansas City will be the final two games of Martinezs career. It seems, then, that Martinez has put aside any remaining doubt as to his intentions. He said recently, in reference to the remainder of the 2018 season, that he was pretty sure this is going to be it, as Evan Woodberry of MLive.com was among those to cover. Its now clear that Martinez will hang up his spikes after taking the final at-bat of his career in front of his home crowd in Detroit which, as Woodberry tweets, is the way the veteran wants to wrap things up. Martinez, a native of Venezuala, signed as an amateur free agent with the Cleveland Indians in 1996. After breaking into the majors as a catcher with the Indians in 2002, Martinez played his first full season as a 24-year-old the following season. Cleveland traded their star catcher to the Boston Red Sox at the 2009 deadline for a package of Nick Hagadone, Justin Masterson, and Bryan Price. After finishing out the 2009 season with a disappointing ALDS loss to the Angels, Martinez returned to Boston for the 2010 seasons his last year of playing full-time at catcher. As a free agent in 2011, Martinez joined the Detroit Tigers on a four-year, $50MM contract, where he became a primary designated hitter. The Tigers won the AL Central in all four seasons of Martinez initial deal, prompting the Tigers to re-sign him after the 2014 season to a second four-year pact, this one worth $68MM. That contract runs out at the end of this season. The last two seasons have not been kind to Martinez, but he was legitimately one of the most feared hitters in the American League for a ten-year stretch from 2004-2014. His best season came with the Tigers in 2014 when he hit .335/.409/.565, leading the league with an impressive .974 OPS. For his career, Martinez slashed .296/.360/.455, with 246 home runs and a 118 OPS+, making the All-Star team five times and winning a Silver Slugger Award twice in 2004 as a catcher and in 2014 as a DH. Unfortunately, Martinez never won a World Series, but he was no stranger to the postseason, reaching the ALCS with Cleveland in 2007 and again with Detroit in 2011. Martinez missed the entirety of the 2012 season after tearing his left ACL during offseason conditioning, which was unfortunately for Martinez the year Detroit won the American League Pennant, getting swept by the San Francisco Giants in the World Series. With 32.3 career rWAR, theres a Hall of Fame case to be made for the switch-hitting catcher/1B/DH but its unlikely. His 30.6 JAWS score puts him well below the average Hall of Fame score of 44.0 for catchers, but certainly impressive enough to receive some votes and remain on the ballot for a few years. Nevertheless, Saturday will mark the final playing time in a long and impressive career for Martinez, who turns 40 in December. Martinez will retire having made over $140MM across 16 major league seasons. Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images. Learn about West Michigan's refugees in a program called "Refugees Next Door: How They Got There and How You Can Help" from 7 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 2, at the Georgetown Township Public Library program room, 1525 Baldwin St., Jenison. Presenters from Bethany Christian Services will be exploring the experience of the refugee and highlighting some information about the current refugee crisis. There are also a couple of refugee youth who will share their experiences of what they endured overseas and the difficult adjustment to their new life here. Bethany Christian Services will also explain more about how our community can get involved with the work of refugees and provide some resources. ANN ARBOR TWP., MI - Washtenaw Community College is opening the doors to its classrooms, labs and performance spaces for its annual Fall Open House. This year's open house, which began in 2015 when WCC combined its Free College Day and Cars & Bikes on Campus, is Sunday, Sept. 30. The event has grown to include new features and activities, including this year's addition of "Open Arts," a celebration of the arts at WCC that includes a gallery show and live performances by students, faculty, staff and alumni. Open to the public, Free College Day takes place from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. A variety of 25 free classes led by WCC faculty and community partners are offered during two sessions, starting at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. Registration is required and seating is limited. Classes being offered include: A Brief History of 'Fake News' Adult CPR Biology and Aging: Positive Effect of Exercise Campus Tree Walk Chair Yoga for Flexibility Computer Networking for Home or Office Creating Customer Advocates Creative Writing and Chinese Food Demystifying College Educating a Police Officer Financial Fitness for Young Adults Fun and Easy Fabric Collage #Hashtags# for Social Media Marketing Have Your DNA and Eat It, Too! Improv Yourself iPhone Photography Journal Writing Muscle Fibers: Biology Behind Training & Adaption Parenting Toolbox: Helping Our Littles with Big Emotions Physiological and Psychological Tolerance of Opioid Use Psychology: Controversy to Science Social Media Best Practices STEM Labs Backstage Pass Taking a Peek at Brazilian Portuguese Wills 101 Cars & Bikes on Campus, on the other hand, takes place from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. WCC's 15th annual show features cars, motorcycles and revved-up competitions. Register your vehicle in advance or beginning at 9 a.m. the day of the event. Enjoy music, food and activities for children. The day also features an open house where labs across campus are open to the public from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Guests can see an operating room, participate in a welding competition, view an art exhibit, try out airbrushing and see a 3D printer and dynamometer. Those attending also can complete an open house scavenger hunt for a chance to win an Apple Watch 3. Also during that time, WCC is hosting a party in the park in Community Park on campus. The mini-carnival includes free cider and doughnuts, inflatables, life-sized Jenga, wax hands, airbrush tattoos and other fun activities for kids of all ages. Jennifer Mann, a WCC librarian and well-known storyteller with the Michigan Humanities Council, will conduct "Tell Me a Story" from noon to 1 p.m. at the park. WCC staff and alumni also will participate in a live talent show from 2:15 to 3:30 p.m. in Towsley Auditorium. Registration is required only for Free College Day classes. All other events are free and open to the public. Classes are open to all ages, though children 14 and younger must be accompanied by an adult. Suggested parking is in Parking Lot 4, off East Huron River Drive. Cars & Bikes on Campus will be held in Parking Lot 3. DETROIT -- Gov. Rick Snyder's office says progress is being made in a dispute between a road construction workers union and contractors that has held up numerous Michigan projects. Though two sides have been slinging dirt at each other via press releases this week, Snyder spokesman Ari Adler said Friday they've agreed to stop their public bickering and meet with the governor in pursuit of a deal. Work halted on major highway and local street projects around the state earlier this month, with the Michigan Infrastructure and Transportation Association (MITA) calling it a defensive lockout, and the Operating Engineers 324 (OE324) union describing the situation as a mass layoff. The contractors' group alleges "coercive, disruptive and unlawful activities" by the union, and the union accuses MITA of trying to "force financial desperation" on workers in order to impose unfavorable new contract terms. The previous union contract expired June 1. "We have achieved a positive step forward in the road-building dispute," Adler said. "Both MITA and Operating Engineers 324 have agreed to cease the public battle in the media and attend a meeting - together - with Gov. Snyder next week. It is our hope that after a short cooling off period and with assistance from the Governor, both sides can see through their differences and focus on the vital work that needs to be completed so the motorists of Michigan can have road projects finished and their travel routes restored prior to winter. The Governor's Office will alert you to any other updates as they become available. Adler's statement came after the two sides released contradictory statements about efforts to come to a resolution with the help of the governor's office. On Thursday, OE324, whose members's contract ended on June 1, called for a meeting with Gov. Rick Snyder to end the "layoff" but it was denied, the union said in a news release. The union instead met with his staff and claims MITA laid off its members on Sept. 4, putting a hold on projects across the state. The union on Thursday said it had agreed to a proposal from the governor's office that would allow construction to continue, and claimed that MITA "refused the agreement." "Operating Engineers 324 has bent over backwards during this entire process to make sure that critical road projects are completed without pain and inconvenience for Michigan drivers. Our road builders showed up every day to do their job, even without a contract since June," OE324 President Ken Dombrow said. "We are deeply disappointed that MITA is now torpedoing our agreement with the Gov. Rick Snyder administration that would have brought workers and contractors together. The only fair way to resolve this dispute is for OE 324 leaders to meet with the governor immediately so that we can get back to work fixing the roads." But MITA on Friday accused the union of making false claims. "The truth is that MITA and OE 324 were asked to meet with the Governor's Office Monday in an attempt to start some sort of talks. Both parties met separately with the Governor's team, but no form of an agreement was ever finalized," said Mike Nystrom, vice president of MITA. "OE 324 has now walked away and continues to refuse to meet to even start real and productive talks, just as they have all summer long. "MITA member companies are more unified than ever, and I will say it again: This defensive lockout will end as soon as the union ratifies the industry-proposed contract. The industry will work with the Governor's Office and MDOT in order to make progress on as many road projects as possible with available workers who are qualified to safely operate the equipment needed to complete a quality project." Meanwhile, a number of major road projects have been slowed or halted, including the following, according to the Michigan Department of Transportation Macomb County: M-59/Hall Road, M-53 to Romeo Plank Road I-696, Dequindre Road to I-94 Oakland County: I-696, 275 to Dequindre I-75 BL at Perry Street M-1/Woodward, 14 Mile to 16 Mile US-24, M-59 to James K. near Orchard Lake Wayne County: An 8-year-old girl from Honokaa, Hawaii who traveled to a Michigan hospital for cancer treatment over the summer completed her last session earlier this month. Beaumont Hospital in July 2017 opened a proton therapy center, a cancer treatment facility that uses proton radiation to destroy cancerous cells and prevent regrowth. Auriana Charbonneau, 8, spent six weeks being treated at the Royal Oak facility more than 4,000 miles away from home. At 2 years old, she underwent surgery to remove a tumor that caused headaches and loss of vision in her left eye. Due to its location, doctors felt additional surgery was no longer viable, fearing neurological damage or death, according to Beaumont. Ten months prior to her treatment in Michigan, an MRI scan showed her tumor was growing. After her parents and doctors researched options, the 8-year-old was brought to Royal Oak. The treatment emits a scanning beam of proton radiation that can target a tumor "within less than a millimeter," for greater precision to destroy cells while sparing healthy tissue alongside the growth, according to Beaumont. "Unlike traditional X-rays that continue to exit through the surrounding tissue, protons get to where they need to go and then abruptly stop. The amount of healthy brain being exposed to unnecessary radiation is considerably reduced," said Prakash Chinnaiyan, M.D., radiation oncologist at Beaumont. "This minimizes long-term side effects and complications associated with radiation, including neurocognitive deficits, endocrine abnormalities and vision loss. By reducing radiation exposure, proton therapy also decreases the chances of developing secondary cancers later in life." Chinnaiyan added that her prognosis is positive. "Her future, decades down the road, looks bright. For an 8 year old, she really is an amazing patient. I was so impressed by her maturity, attitude and courage," Chinnaiyan said. Twenty-eight treatments later, her father Matthew Charbonneau, who lived in Oakland County until he was six years old, said the decision to bring Auriana to Beaumont was "all worth it." "Auriana got to know most everybody at the Proton Therapy Center, the staff and medical team," he said. "They all couldn't have been any nicer. They go above and beyond. When we meet with the nurse navigator and Dr. Chinnaiyan, they are so caring, it feels like family." He added the visit was a chance to show his wife, son and three daughters his roots in Metro Detroit. A Grand Rapids business is picking up where CarePages, the now defunct website where patients provided health updates to friends and family, has left off. OST, a business technology and IT consulting firm, launched CareCircle earlier this month, a website modeled after CarePages that gives hospital patients the ability to share updates on a secure website rather than social medial platforms like Facebook. The idea came from Nathan Loding, a software developer at OST who says he struggled to find an effective way to provide updates to friends and family when his daughter was undergoing chemotherapy treatment for a rare disease. "It really became difficult to call everybody, to email everybody," he said. "You put it on Facebook, but not everyone's on Facebook." CarePages closed last year. CareCircle is a subscription-based service. Under the company's business plan, Hospitals would pay a monthly fee to offer the service to patients. Hospitals would have the ability to customize their CareCircle website to include their logo, company colors and other promotional materials. OST - which has about 230 employees and offices in Grand Rapids, Southfield and Minneapolis - has not yet announced any clients for CareCircle, though it says one "nationally recognized hospital system" will soon announce its use of the service. Despite the immense popularity of Facebook and other social media platforms, company officials say hospitals are eager to offer other ways for patients to communicate with friends and family. Laura Vaughn, a product manager at OST, said her company surveyed more than a dozen hospitals and all expressed interest in the concept. "We're confident that CareCircle fills a void for health systems looking to expand their patient experience into the digital space," she said. Michael Lomonaco, OST's director of marketing and communications, said hospitals are increasingly focused on providing a more personalized, consumer-oriented experience. And offering a tool to facilitate communication with friends and family is part of that, he said. "The healthcare game is changing," he said. "It's not quite retail, but it's not what it used to be." CareCircle gives users the ability to share messages and updates with a select group of people. Messages can be shared with family and close friends or a broader group, including co-workers and other acquaintances. The site will also feature a "how you can help" feature, in which patients can list things they need, including a request for meals, company during a certain time of day, or a link to a GoFundMe page or a request for company during a certain time of day. Vaughn acknowledged that most people are on Facebook, but said CareCirlce offers a more intimate, "focused" setting to provide health updates. Company officials also emphasized the site will be secure and doesn't carry the concerns over data privacy that have arisen at Facebook and other tech companies. OST officials declined to share how much revenue they need to generate to make the site viable. Vaughn said the company would like to have 10 hospitals using the service before the end of the year. Wyoming, MI -- Police are in a stand-off with a person described as a possible suspect in two deaths in northern Kent County. Police have surrounded an apartment at Ramblewood Apartments off 44th Street SW, with armored vehicles standing by. The person had been holding three hostages -- his wife and two young children, ages 4 and 2 -- until they were released from the apartment at about 6:30 p.m. The wife was speaking with police. The standoff started about three hours after police responded to a residence in the 10000 block of Rooksby Street NE east of Sand Lake and found two people dead. The people in the home were a man and woman. Police were called to the residence to check on their well-being after a family friend knocked on their door and received no response. Police did not say how the two people died. Police soon developed a "possible suspect" that led them to an apartment along Stonebridge Avenue SW at Ramblewood Apartments. They tried to make contact with that person but he refused to cooperate and would not come out. Since the release of the hostages, officers continue to negotiate with the man and are hopeful for a peaceful resolution. SATURDAY MORNING UPDATE FROM U.S. COAST GUARD: "At 4:31 a.m. this morning, water current freed the vessel Defiance and barge Ashtabula, a 720-foot integrated tug and barge, from the clay bottom in Round Island Passage in the Straits of Mackinac. "The vessel has not reported any injuries, pollution, or flooding and is transiting to conduct further damage assessments. The Coast Guard conducted an overflight with a pollution responder on Friday evening and did not identify any signs of pollution. Another overflight is planned for this morning." STRAITS OF MACKINAC, MI - A tug-barge combination vessel ran aground in the Round Island Passage amid strong winds Friday afternoon, prompting the U.S. Coast Guard to create a safety zone around it to keep other ships away from it. The vessel that ran aground is the 720-foot Defiance and barge Ashtabula. It got hung up just before 3 p.m. in the Straits of Mackinac, between Mackinac Island and Round Island. "The vessel departed Cedarville, Michigan and was transiting to its next port of call in Buffington, Indiana when it ran aground. The cause of the grounding is under investigation," the Coast Guard said. Coast Guard Sector Sault Ste. Marie is handling the response. No injuries, pollution or flooding have been reported. The Defiance is carrying 97,918 gallons of diesel fuel and more than 2,900 tons of stone, the military said. "The vessel is taking precautionary measures to assess any damage," the Coast Guard said. The safety zone surrounding the ship prevents any vessel over 100 gross tons from going through the Round Island Passage. It also keeps any vessel from coming within 200 yards of the tug/barge combo. Though built in Great Lakes shipyards in 1982, the tug and barge worked largely on a circuit between Tampa Bay and the Lower Mississippi River, according BoatNerd.com. They were created to work together as a self-unloading bulk carrier. The combo returned to Great Lakes routes in 2012. EATON COUNTY, MI -- A former Eaton County Sheriff's clerk is accused of making a false sexual assault claim against a deputy she previously dated. Kellie Leigh Bartlett, 35, of Charlotte was arraigned Friday, Sept. 21 in Eaton County District Court. According to prosecutors, she is charged with false report of a felony, using a computer to commit a crime, unauthorized access to a computer, stalking, intentional dissemination of sexually explicit visual material and identity theft. Barry County prosecutors reviewed the police evidence because of the potential conflict in Easton County. Prosecturos said Bartlett and the Eaton County sheriff's deputy were in a relationship from 2015 to early 2017, but the deputy ended the relationship and told Bartlett not to contact him. Sometime after that, police investigated Bartlett for stalking because the deputy said she continued to contact him. Prosecutors said Bartlett's employment with the Eaton County Sheriff's Department ended in December 2017. The following month, she filed a complaint with the state police, saying that the deputy sexually assaulted her in March 2017. Barry County Prosecutor Julie Nakfoor-Pratt said it took months to analyze the "voluminous and multi-faceted" material in the case before coming up with a decision. Bartlett's bond was set at $50,000. Rachael Denhollander, the first woman to speak publicly about her sexual assault by ex-Michigan State University Dr. Larry Nassar, said in a statement Saturday that the Ingham County Prosecutor's office declined to prosecute Nassar on sexual assault charges, a characterization the chief assistant prosecutor refutes. The issue, first raised in December of 2017, bounced to the forefront of the governor's race earlier this week when the Michigan Republican Party released an ad saying Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gretchen Whitmer refused to press charges against Larry Nassar when she served as Ingham County Prosecutor. Attorney General Bill Schuette, the Republican candidate for governor, ended up charging Nassar with criminal sexual conduct. Whitmer at a Friday press conference said the Republican ad's assertion was not true, and she referred the case to Schuette after realizing that it crossed multiple jurisdictions. Schuette at a Friday press conference said Whitmer's version of events was false and that the Michigan State University Police had referred the case to his office. Denhollander released a statement on Saturday. It was not political and did not name either candidate. In it, Denhollander said she sought to "clarify certain facts" after having been asked to. "It is accurate that the Attorney General's office was called because a decision had been made not to prosecute any sexual assault claims, including mine and Kyle Stephens', along with all other files, as of October 2016," Denhollander said in a statement posted on Facebook. Denhollander said the decision was not based on the existence of multiple jurisdictions or a desire from the Ingham County Prosecutor to move the case to the Attorney General's office. She said the MSU Police Department alone brought the case to the Attorney General after the Ingham County Prosecutor chose not to pursue charges for any sexual assault. Chief Assistant Prosecutor Lisa McCormick, who was at the Ingham County Prosecutor's Office at the time, said unequivocally the office, then led by Whitmer, did not decide not to prosecute. "What I can say without doubt is that our office never made a charging decision because we never received any request to charge," McCormick said. The Ingham County Prosecutor never got a police report or a request to charge, McCormick said, and could not have made a decision on whether or not to charge without those things in place. She provided a screen shot from the county's computer system, below, that showed no police report coming in on Nassar in 2016, when Whitmer was serving as prosecutor. An image of the Ingham County Prosecutor's computer system, provided by Chief Assistant Prosecutor Lisa McCormick. McCormick said the image of their system shows that no police report on Nassar came in in 2016, when Whitmer served as Ingham County Prosecutor. (Courtesy photo.) The MSU Police did request some warrants related to Nassar, one of which McCormick signed herself. And they consulted with the prosecutor's office about the statute of limitations, she said. Ultimately it went to the Attorney General's office. "From my perspective it was a joint decision to go to the Attorney General's office. It was about what was right," McCormack said. Asked about Denhollander's statement, Whitmer released a statement. "At yesterday's press conference, I was joined by law enforcement officials and prosecutors who reaffirmed what Bridge Magazine's independent truth squad unequivocally reported: as Ingham County Prosecutor, my office acted swiftly and decisively to get the warrants that produced the evidence that led to Larry Nassar's first 60 year conviction," Whitmer said in the statement. "As a rape survivor myself, nobody will fight harder than I will to deliver justice for the survivors of sexual abuse. Bill Schuette and the Republicans should listen to what Nassar survivors requested yesterday and stop running ads that exploit and weaponize the Nassar case for political gain." Schuette in a statement said "This new information confirms that Gretchen Whitmer chose not to prosecute Larry Nassar and did not tell the truth about it yesterday at her press conference." Denhollander said in her statement she decided to release a statement after being repeatedly asked to clarify facts claimed by candidates seeking office in Michigan. She has not and will not endorse any candidate, she said. "We, and our stories, are not political pawns to be used by either side of the aisle. I sincerely hope that this will end. The only people who should bear slogan 'tough enough to take on Larry Nassar' are the nearly 200 women who showed up in Eaton and Ingham County to testify and ensure the full breadth of Larry's crimes were brought to light and punished accordingly," Denhollander said in the statement. Nassar was convicted on federal child pornography charges and state sexual assault charges. He is currently in federal prison. OTSEGO, MI -- After an additional round of testing, the city of Otsego found a trace amount of dioxin in one of the city's municipal water wells, Otsego City Manager Aaron Mitchell said on Friday, Sept. 21. "We had one well with the slightest trace of Dioxins," Mitchell said in a news release. "After analysis by the MDEQ and MDHHS, they have calculated that to a Toxic Equivalency (TEQ) of less than 1. In fact it is at 0.092. So very, very small." The city's two other wells were non-detect, meaning no dioxin was found, he said. The result means Otsego city water is safe to drink, Mitchell said. The city tested for a full-panel of Dioxins along with some rarely found PCBs on Friday, Sept. 7, for all three municipal wells. The testing procedure was designed to be identical to the testing that was recently conducted on private wells in nearby townships, Mitchell said in a news release. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services used a health protective U.S. Environmental Protection Agency threshold of 12 parts per quadrillion (ppq) TEQ before any recommendations would be made, which puts the 0.092 ppq-TEQ found in Otsego "well below any advisory level," Mitchell said. The city plans to add the testing results to its website alongside the others, he said. The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality is still continuing to do additional methodology validation with the laboratory, which could take some time but they are confident the 0.092 ppq-TEQ result will not change, according to Mitchell. Mitchell said he is ecstatic about the results. The MDHHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the testing results Friday. Mitchell said the city had plans in place, including a truckload of water, in case the results were bad. "We are confident that we accomplished our goal with the assistance of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, Allegan County Health Department, and Allegan County Administration," Mitchell said. He thanked everyone for their patience in waiting for the results. "I believe the testing we have gone through has been more rigorous than any municipality in the state. And after all of that testing, we know that Otsego has clean drinking water," he said. The city ordered increased testing of its city water system in early September. It was soon after dioxins were found in 19 private drinking water wells in the Otsego area, according to the Allegan County Health Department. Mary Zack, a former Otsego resident and cancer survivor, started asking questions in early 2018 about why several of her friends from high school had cancer and other serious diseases. Her questions caught the attention of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other agencies, leading to environmental testing to search for chemicals used historically by industries in the area. Growing up, Zack said she lived in a house supplied buy city water. Before the expanded city water testing was performed, she questioned why the city water was not included in initial testing for contaminants. She said she is happy to see the testing results for city water, but she still has questions about the trace amount of dioxin, how long dioxin has been present, and whether any amount is safe to drink. Zack continues to receive health surveys from people in the city and in the area, now up to about 800 responses, she said. "We're not giving up," she said. "If it's not the water, we are filing as a non-profit to start collecting donations to look for other pathways of contamination. I don't know if it's the soil. We're almost in disbelief because we really thought it was in the water." A likely source of the environmental contaminants found in the private wells is sludge that was spread on farm fields in the area, the Allegan County Health Department said in an earlier news release. SAGINAW, MI -- A new report says the city of Saginaw ranks fourth out of 25 cities that are becoming safer, based on a 10-year trend from 2006 to 2016. FBI statistics were analyzed by Your Local Security, an affiliate website of home security company ADT. The report looked at the amount of reported crime, including violent crime, murder, robbery, assault, property crime, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft and arson for each city. Rape was not included because the definition of rape was changed between 2006 and 2016, the report states. Saginaw Police Chief Bob Ruth said he isn't surprised by the report's findings. "Crime is going down in the city of Saginaw and I can see it," Ruth said. Saginaw News reporting shows crime overall continues to decrease in Saginaw, but the number of homicides increased in 2017 for the second year in a row and is on pace to increase again in 2018. There have been 15 homicides in Saginaw this year, compared to 16 for the full year in 2017. In 2016, there were 11. In 2015, there were eight, according to Saginaw News records. According to data from Saginaw police, 1,499 serious crimes were reported in 2017, while 1,546 were reported in 2016. While shootings and rapes remained about the same, arsons, larcenies and burglaries fell. Federal statistics show that in 2009 Saginaw was the most violent city per capita in America, comparing cities with populations greater that 50,000. Then-Saginaw Police Chief Gerald H. Cliff said at the time that even though Saginaw was considered "the most violent," crime was decreasing. "The number (of violent crimes) is the lowest as it has been in eight years," he said in 2010. "I'm grateful that we're going in the right direction." There were 440 fewer violent crimes reported in 2009 compared to 2008. Today, razing blighted buildings, cooperation with other law enforcement agencies, changes in policing and neighbors speaking up about crime are some of the reasons for lower crime, Ruth said. "Ten years ago, you couldn't go into downtown Saginaw and see no crime like it is now," Ruth said. "There is no crime there." Tearing abandoned structures down means "one less place for crime to occur," Ruth said. In 2015, the city approved a "crime-free" lease addendum for rental property. The ordinance requires all Saginaw landlords to include a special addendum in their leases requiring that residents agree that neither they nor their guests will "engage in criminal activity" and that if they do, it would be "good cause for immediate termination" of the lease. This year, on Feb. 20, council passed an ordinance requiring all businesses in the city of Saginaw to install three security cameras at each building and put up parking lot lights by March 1, 2019. Help from the state In 2013, Gov. Rick Snyder proposed "Secure Cities Partnership" to assign Michigan State Police to fight crime in four of Michigan's most dangerous cities and the roadways that connect them. Troopers were assigned to Saginaw, Flint, Pontiac and Detroit. Though these things have helped make the city safer, Ruth said there is plenty of work yet to be done. "Are we where we want to be?" Ruth asked. "No, but it is a start." Ruth said officers are working hard to keep the city safe. "We couldn't have done it without the Michigan State Police, the sheriff's department, surrounding law enforcement, the prosecutor's office, the courts, Michigan Department of Corrections, CAN Council and all of the other agencies that we work with internally," Ruth said. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced on Aug. 20 that Saginaw is one of the latest cities selected for the National Public Safety Partnership. The partnership is an effort to fulfill President Donald Trump's initiative to combat violent crime through the Department of Justice, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office of Eastern District of Michigan. Other cities make list In the new report ranking safer cities, Saginaw ranked fourth out of the top 25. Three other Michigan cities made the list of cities becoming safer. Ypsilanti was number six, Grand Rapids was number 18 and Three Rivers came in at 19. Alma, a city with a population of 9,149 according to 2016 U.S. Census data, was the lone Michigan city on the report's top 25 list of cities becoming more dangerous. A total of 3,483 U.S. cities were evaluated, according to the report. Prime Minister Narendra Modi live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More The National Health Agency (NHA), the implementing body of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's signature scheme Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY) or Ayushman Bharat, said it's fully prepared for the launch of the scheme across 26 states and 450 districts on September 23. "We are fully prepared, it's a big scheme, there is no start or end point, it's a continuum," said Indu Bhushan, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY) and NHA, in a telephonic interview to Moneycontrol. "We will continue to deepen the scheme in terms of capacity, in terms of number of hospitals, in terms of awareness. It will take some time before it becomes mainstream," Bhushan added. Ayushman Bharat, popularly known as ModiCare, aims to provide Rs 5 lakh coverage to 10 crore poor families or nearly half a billion people and is considered an important scheme politically for Narendra Modi to showcase to voters as he heads for the general elections next year. The scheme will cover medical and hospitalization expenses for almost all secondary care and most of tertiary care procedures. PM-JAY has defined 1,350 medical packages covering surgery, medical and daycare treatments including medicines, diagnostics and transport. 31 states on board Bhushan said 31 states have so far signed memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with the Centre, and 26 of them, including all BJP-ruled states, will be rolling out the scheme on September 23. Bhushan added that majority of the states who are following the trust-based model have completed the critical work of forming trusts and hiring third-party agencies to implement the scheme. In a trust-based model, each individual state will form its own trust to manage the scheme and claims will be disbursed from a corpus created from central and state government contributions. Congress-JDS ruled Karnataka, which was dilly-dallying on whether to join the scheme or not, finally came on board on Friday. Five states who have opted out of the scheme are Punjab, Delhi, Kerala, Telangana and Odisha. These states already have an existing healthcare insurance scheme and they don't see any urgency to sign up with the Centre. Also with the coverage going up under the PM-JAY scheme, these states are worried about the financial implication. The cost of the scheme will be shared between the Centre and states in a 60:40 ratio. 9,000 hospitals and counting On getting private hospitals on board, Bhushan said NHA has made quite a progress. "So far, nearly 9,000 private hospitals have got empanelled in the scheme, and another 3,000 applications are pending with the agency. We will clear them in the days to come," Bhushan said. Bhushan added that large hospital chains like Medanta have joined the scheme, while Apollo Hospitals and Narayana Health expressed interest and will soon be part of the scheme. Bhushan said with Tamil Nadu and Karnataka signing MoUs, "we expect Apollo and Narayana Health to be part of the scheme, as both the hospital chains are part of the respective states' health assurance schemes". As over 70 percent of healthcare in India is provided by private hospitals, getting participation from these hospitals is critical to the success of Ayushman Bharat. Large private hospital chains haven't been very keen on joining the scheme citing the proposed reimbursement package rates as unscientific, arbitrary and insufficient. Apollo Hospitals and Fortis Healthcare have indicated that they were negotiating with the government to review the package rates. Moneycontrol earlier reported that the Centre has initiated cost studies of 1,350 medical procedures covered under the scheme and assured private hospitals that rates will be revised, if they were found to be too low based on the outcome of cost studies. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Tata Steel has signed agreement to acquire the steel business of Usha Martin in a deal sources put at Rs 4,600 crore. The Tata company on Saturday said it has signed definitive agreement for the acquisition. But an executive added that the final valuation will depend on impairment of some assets and risk mitigation. "The closing of the acquisition is subject to fulfilment of various conditions under the agreements. The parties shall jointly work towards fulfilment of conditions precedent," Tata Steel said in a statement. The company added that employees of Usha Martin unit will "transfer as part of the acquisition." Sources said apart from Tata Steel, three more companies Vedanta, JSW Steel and Kalyani Steels also put in bids. But Tata's bid was the most aggressive, while others' were in the region of Rs 3,500 crore. The steel unit makes 1 million ton of alloy a year and its facility in Jamshedpur makes products used in the construction industry. The unit also comes with an iron ore mine and a coal mine that is under development, and power plants. "The acquisition is part of the overall strategy to build capability in long products and expand product offerings including high-value added products," Tata Steel said. by Mahul Brahma If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? The Merchant of Venice, Act 3, Scene 1 by William Shakespeare There is a saying that I run on reputation. I am the Phantom of reputation. I am the Rolls Royce Phantom. I am the mark of class, snobbery the ultimate in luxury. When I drive down the road, people bow with respect and awe. When I was brought to London I was treated like a king. I have seen my guards not allowing commoners to even get close to me. And then one day I saw a sharp-looking young Indian in very English attire walking into the store and looking straight at me. It was a very appreciative look. Suddenly, Luke, the store attendant very rudely asked him to leave the store. Sir, I will request you to leave immediately, otherwise I will have to call security. The India was red with anger, and shouted, How dare you speak to me like that? Do you have any idea who you are speaking to? Luke raised his voice and made him leave in seething anger. I felt so bad for him. The next day, I came to know that a Maharaja from India was coming to see us. And if he liked us, he would take all six of us to his kingdom. I was happy that I would be a royal ride, befitting my stature. The store was all decked up with a red carpet rolled out for the Maharaja. And then I saw him, in all his grand attire, walking the red carpet, ushered by the manager Mr Jerry himself. The face looked familiar. He came and stood in front of me, looking straight at me. I now could recognize it was the young Indian who had been asked to leave this store, standing in front of me in his finery. Without wasting a minute he ordered his manager to buy me and paid even the shipping changes upfront. Jerry meekly came forward to apologize, I am sorry, Your Highness, the attendant Luke could not recognize you yesterday. Luke profusely apologized. The Maharaja smirked, didnt say a word to him. Little did I know what was in store for me. I was shipped for India within a week. And it seemed like ages when I finally reached the shores of India. During the 1920-30s, India was one of the largest consuming nations for the RR Phantom. It took five hours for the royal attendants to make me ready for the Maharaja. I had never seen such beautiful decorations all adorned in gold, exquisitely hand-crafted. I was feeling like a king who was getting ready to greet another king. A royal meet. It was sunset, and the tint of the orange sun had given an ethereal glow to my golden costume. The Maharaja walked in. He stood before me for long, just admiring my royalty. He ordered something in his local dialect, which I could not understand. He looked at me. He smiled and then left abruptly. He would not take me for a drive? Why was I decked up then? May be he didnt because it was dark. Hed probabaly take me out in the morning. I couldnt sleep that night. The palace was on top of a hill, within a high fortress. There were dangerous edges, which fell very sharply to the seemingly bottomless ravine. The next morning when I was expecting the Maharaja, the attendants came to me again. They changed my attire and dressed me up in another royal golden suit. Yes, the mighty Maharaja would drive me around his kingdom now. I really wanted to explore his kingdom. After hours of patient waiting, I was finally ready. To my surprise a man in a white local dress with a turban came up to me and started my engine. You commoner, how dare you drive this majestic Phantom? He drove me down the hill through the terrible roads for twenty kilometers, reaching a village market. A crowd immediately gathered around me, admiring my royalty. Then he suddenly killed the engine and jumped on my bonnet. Are you crazy you commoner? You will be punished for insulting me. The Maharaja will never spare you. The commoner shouted something to the crowd in a local dialect, after which there was pin drop silence. Not a single villager was uttering a word. They looked confused. Then they all went away. The commoner got down and opened all my doors and trunk wide. In a few minutes I saw the villagers coming back with things in the hands. Before I could realize what was happening, one old man threw what he was carrying inside me, on the backseat. It was garbage. The next ten minutes felt like an eternity. I couldnt believe what was happening. All the villagers were filling the mighty Phantom up with garbage. Why would the Maharaja do such a thing to the mighty Phantom? Why would a Maharaja not respect the Phantom? It was dusk when we reached the palace. The entire garbage of the village was inside me. I was made to wait for the Maharaja to come. The commoner stood by my side. I was stationed at an edge, a beautiful edge which led straight down a few hundred feet if you were not careful. The Maharaja walked in and stood on the edge. The grin on his face visible. I know this grin this is a grin of victory, of triumph. The Maharaja told me he loved this spot. He loved it as it was an edge of mystery, an edge that separated life and death. He stood there, still, enjoying the setting sun. He then looked at me. The humiliated Phantom the garbage bearer. He shouted to me, Make no mistake, this will be your routine till your last day and then you will be sold as scrap. And if I feel like, I will throw you down this hill right now, you filthy garbage carrier. You piece of garbage! The Maharaja started laughing. His laughter echoed in the hills. I am the Phantom, the car of the elite, and this is my fate? I cried silently. I was standing still in the shadows watching the laughing Maharaja, just a few feet away. My driver was grinning as well. I couldnt take the insults any more. I flashed my headlamps on the Maharaja. The strong lights blinded him for a moment. He shouted at my clueless driver. I hit the accelerator hard. My 624 horsepower engine roared. In a blink I hit the Maharaja and threw him off the edge into the depth of the hills. I needed to see the garbage fall. I enjoyed his warm blood on me as I fell down the hill along with him. He had forgotten, after all, I was the Phantom. India Pakistan The ruling BJP, on Saturday, lashed out at Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, saying he is in the chair on the directions of his country's army and India will not hold talks with the neighbour as long as its soldiers are being killed. The Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) remarks came after Khan hit out at India for cancelling a meeting between the foreign ministers of the two countries on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York this month. "..all my life, I have come across small men occupying big offices who do not have the vision to see the larger picture," Khan tweeted earlier on Saturday. Senior BJP leader and Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad asked what else can be expected from a "person who is sitting in the position of prime minister at the directions of his country's army". "There will be no talks with Pakistan till our soldiers keep getting killed," he said at a press conference here. India, on Friday, cited the "brutal" killing of three policemen in Jammu and Kashmir and the release of the postal stamps "glorifying" Kashmiri militant Burhan Wani for calling off the meeting between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi. Announcing the cancellation of the meeting, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar had said the incidents "exposed" the "true face" of Pakistan's new Prime Minister Imran Khan to the world as well as Islamabad's evil agenda behind the proposal for talks. Bollywood actor-turned-politician and candidate of the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Shatrughan Sinha salutes during an election campaign rally in the northern Indian city of Chandigarh May 11, 2009. India is holding a general election between April 16 and May 13. REUTERS/Ajay Verma (INDIA POLITICS ELECTIONS) - GM1E55B1OBR01 Disgruntled BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha on Saturday said the Union government should come clean on the Rafale fighter jet deal. Speaking to reporters at Katol near Nagpur in Maharashtra, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader said the questions arising from former France president Francois Hollande's statement must be answered. "The statement has come from a person who was not only a former France president but the one under whom the (Rafale) deal was sealed. Some questions have arisen from it, which need to be answered," Sinha, who has been consistently critical of his party's government, said. A French publication has quoted Hollande as saying that the Indian government proposed Reliance Defence as the partner for French aerospace giant Dassault in the Rs 58,000 crore Rafale deal. "People are questioning why an experienced company like HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Limited) was set aside and a new company (Reliance Defence) got the opportunity (for offset contract under the deal)," Sinha said. "How this thing happened without the knowledge of the defence minister?...the person in the know should not hide it as it will come out one way or the other," the actor-turned-politician said. "It will be in the interest of the country and the party that the truth comes out with transparency," Sinha said in the presence of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Sanjay Singh. Sinha, who is rumoured to be joining the AAP lauded the work done by the Arvind Kejriwal government in Delhi while claiming that in the Narendra Modi-led dispensation at the Centre, most work is done by the prime minister's office, and not by the ministers. "People call me (BJP) rebel, but I speak in the interest of the country and the party. If I say demonetisation was wrong, what is wrong with that...people suffered a lot during demonetisation due to an individual's decision. I want to state very responsibly that it was not a party's or a cabinet's decision," he said. "According to some people even the finance minister did not know about it," he alleged. Sinha was interacting with the media at the 'Katol festival' organised by local BJP MLA Ashish Deshmukh. Senior Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia on Friday assured people that no one would be implicated falsely in Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act cases. Scindia made the assurance Friday when protesters hailing from unreserved categories arrived here to register their anger at the amendments to the SC/ST Act. He, however, parried a question on making any amendments to this Act in case the Congress came to power in poll-bound MP. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had Thursday announced that a directive would be issued shortly to ensure that the amended SC/ST Act is not misused in the state. Talking to protesters, Scindia said, "I assure you that no one will be allowed to be implicated falsely under SC/ST Act not only in Shivpuri but in the entire state." When protesters asked if the Congress, if elected to power, would introduce amendments in this Act, Scindia said, "I will answer this question when the Congress will form a government." Scindia is the chairman of the Congress' state election campaign committee. The protesters also asked him why he did not speak against the amendments when they were tabled in Parliament. In reply, Scindia alleged that they (Congress) were not allowed to speak in Parliament when such proposals come up for discussion. A large posse of police was present due to proposed protest organisations opposing the SC/ST Act amendments. Protesters had also reached the doors of Scindia's Jai Vilas Mahal in Gwalior vent their ire against the amendments to the SC/ST Act and show the Guna MP black flags. However, Scindia got a whiff of the ruckus brewing at the palace gates and managed to leave from the back door of the sprawling estate. He then proceeded to Shivpuri. Meanwhile, Congress workers thrashed the convener of Karni Sena, Atul Singh, after he threw a black flag towards Scindia when he was coming out after attending a programme here. Later, Singh filed a complaint with Kotwali Police Station. "We have received a complaint and investigations are on," said Kotwali police station in-charge Rakesh Sharma. Pakistans Prime Minister Imran Khan wished all Hindu citizens on the occasion of Diwali. Prime Minister Imran Khan wishes a happy Diwali to all Hindu citizens, tweeted Prime Ministers Office in Pakistan. India's decision to cancel the foreign minister-level meeting in New York was "arrogant", Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Saturday, asserting that he was "disappointed" by the New Delhi's "negative" response. India on Friday cited the "brutal" killing of three policemen in Jammu and Kashmir as well as the release of the postal stamps "glorifying" Kashmiri militant Burhan Wani for calling off the meeting between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York this month. Announcing the cancellation of the meeting, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said in New Delhi that the incidents "exposed" the "true face" of Pakistan's new Prime Minister Imran Khan to the world as well as Islamabad's evil agenda behind the proposal for talks. "The latest brutal killings of our security personnel by Pakistan-based entities and the recent release of a series of 20 postage stamps by Pakistan glorifying a terrorist and terrorism confirm that Pakistan will not mend its ways," Kumar said. "Disappointed at the arrogant and negative response by India to my call for resumption of the peace dialogue," Prime Minister Khan said in a tweet. "However, all my life I have come across small men occupying big offices who do not have the vision to see the larger picture," he said in a sharp reaction to India's cancellation of the meeting. Kumar said talks with Pakistan after the "two deeply disturbing" developments would be "meaningless". "In view of the changed situation, there will be no meeting between the Foreign Ministers of India and Pakistan in New York," he said. Reacting to India's remarks, Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Faisal said Friday that the "so-called 'disturbing developments'" alluded to in the Indian statement predated the Indian agreement to hold the bilateral meeting in New York. He said the alleged killing of a BSF soldier took place two days prior to the Indian announcement of its agreement to hold the bilateral meeting. When the allegations of Pakistan's involvement first appeared, Pakistani rangers clearly conveyed to BSF through official channels that the country had nothing to do with it, he said. "Pakistan...categorically reject these allegations...Our authorities would be prepared to conduct a joint investigation to establish the truth," Faisal said. On the issue of the postage stamps, he said they were issued before the July 25 elections and before Prime Minister Khan assumed office on August 18. "We choose not to further comment beyond saying that these comments are against all norms of civilised discourse and diplomatic communication," Faisal said. "We believe by its ill-considered cancellation of the meeting, India has once again wasted a serious opportunity to change the dynamics of the bilateral relationship and put the region on the path of peace and development," he added. Prime Minister Narendra Modi Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Saturday, targeted the Congress over corruption and for ignoring farmers' interest, as he kicked off BJP's election campaign by asking people to elect a stable government in poll-bound Chhattisgarh. He stressed that the BJP-ruled state has shown that development is possible with a stable government. Addressing a farmers rally here, Modi said the only objective of the BJP-led governments at the Centre and in Chhattisgarh were the welfare of the poor and the common people. He said Chhattisgarh was earlier used to be identified with "jungles, tribals, terrorism and naxalism". "If news used to come (from the state), they would be about abduction, bomb and pistols and those of bloodshed by misguided youth... But, the BJP-led Chhattisgarh government braved all these challenges with an aim to take the state on the rapid path of development," the prime minister said. Modi said "our policies are clean and intention is clear" and whether it is Delhi or Raipur, the aim is to ensure "sabka samagra vikas" (all round development of everyone). Referring to "lack of development" during the long Congress-rule in the country after Independence, he said in those times, Centre used to send money to the states, but it was not utilised for development works. Modi said a former prime minister from the Congress had once said that if a rupee is sent from Delhi, only 15 paise reach the intended beneficiary. "Whose Panja (palm) took away the (rest of the) money?" he said, in an apparent reference to the Congress' election symbol. "Now, all of 100 paise reach the beneficiary which is why development is seen every where. My Government frames programmes and policies for all," he said. Modi said whatever development is being seen in Chhattisgarh is under the BJP government and it is from that same rupee only. He said the former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's idea of creating smaller states of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand has resulted in the development of hilly and backward areas in these regions. "Had Chhattisgarh remained part of Madhya Pradesh and the Congress continued to be in power at the Centre, there would have been no development in the state," he said. "Earlier, Chief Ministers would come here from Bhopal (when the state was part of Madhya Pradesh) if they got time. You know and I know why they came here. The less said the better (about it)," Modi said cryptically. He said Chhattisgarh has changed people's perception that smaller states suffer from political instability. The prime minister said the NDA government did not believe in making schemes for vote bank or to win elections. "Programmes and policies framed by my government are for benefit of all, not targeted at a particular vote bank," he said. Modi also thanked people of Chhattisgarh for electing a stable government in the state. Raman Singh is the longest serving BJP's chief minister of Chhattisgarh. He has been ruling the state since December 2003. "Despite allegations, rumours and misinformation, people of Chhattisgarh have been giving stable governments," Modi said, as he also asked them to elect a stable government in the upcoming Assembly polls due later this year. He said 'chawal wale baba' (man with a sack of rice) a term used to describe Raman Singh for distributing rice at a very low price to poor people will ensure development of all. Modi said the BJP wants to create a new, modern Chhattisgarh and it is moving ahead with the mission of "Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas". Citing various Centre-run schemes targeted at benefitting farmers, he said the government will ensure that farmers income is doubled by 2022. The prime minister said the central government will ensure that power connection is given to each home across the country under the Saubhgya Yojana. Modi also laid foundation stones of developmental projects worth over Rs 3,000 crore including Rs 1,607 crore Bilaspur-Pathrapali four-lane road and Rs 1,697 crore Bilaspur-Anuppur third railway line. The South-Eastern Central Railway's Bilaspur-Anuppur division's third line will link Bilaspur-Anuppur district headquarter town in Madhya Pradesh. The length of the track will be 152 km out of which 119.55 km falls under Chhattisgarh and around 32.45 km in Madhya Pradesh. The transportation of coal from South Eastern Coal Limited from Raigarh and Mand region will be easier after the implementation of the region. Chief Minister Raman Singh, Union Ministers Nitin Gadkari and Vishnu Dev Sai besides other state ministers and officials were present during the event at Janjgir, about 156 kms from state capital Raipur. Singh, in his address, thanked the prime minister for providing relief to people of the state through different Centre-run welfare schemes like Ujjwala and housing for all programme. The Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP), a constituent of NDA, on Saturday, blamed Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JD(U) for creating a "confusion" over seat-sharing within the ruling coalition. The RLSP's attack on the JD(U) came in the backdrop of media reports after a recent meeting of Kumar with BJP president Amit Shah in Delhi. Quoting JD(U) sources, they said seat-sharing talks were "in final stages" and as per the tentative formula Union minister Upendra Kushwaha's party is likely to get not more than 2 out of a total of 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar. NDA in Bihar constitutes the JD(U), BJP, RLSP and Union minister Ramvilas Paswan's LJP. JD(U) leaders such as Kumar's confidant and national general secretary RCP Singh have claimed that talks on seat-sharing were in final stages. "The confusion arose ever since Kumar returned to the BJP-led coalition last year. It is his party which keeps coming up with claims of being a big brother in the alliance and the chief minister being the face of the coalition in the Lok Sabha polls," RLSP national general secretary and spokesman Madhaw Anand told PTI over the phone from Delhi. "Soon after meeting Shah in July in Patna, Kumar had publicly stated that seat-sharing arrangement would be finalized within four to five weeks. He should tell us what happened to his claim, now that more than two months have passed," Anand said. The RLSP general secretary was responding to queries about a statement by Nagmani, one of the founding leaders of the party. "It is unfortunate that the BJP is pampering the JD(U) which is left with no public support, while we are being belittled. We wonder if we are being indirectly told to quit the NDA and rush into the arms of the opposition Mahagathbandhan," Nagmani had told a news channel here. Nagmani, who has been pitching for declaration of Kushwaha as the face of the NDA in the Lok Sabha polls next year and the assembly elections in 2020, also said Kumar has the votes of only Kurmis while Kushwaha is the leader of Koeris, a much more populous social group. In response to Nagmani's remarks, BJP state vice-president Devesh Kumar said, "In politics statements are issued but political strategies are not made on the basis of these. Let the time come. All issues will be amicably settled." Anand said, "Nagmani ji is our respected leader. The party has, however, no problem with the BJP. It is the party with which RLSP and LJP had formed an alliance. It is the BJP which will have to, in due course, bring all allies together and take the lead in coming up with a seat-sharing formula that is acceptable to all." He said the JD(U) had fought separately in 2014 and despite being the chief minister's party, it won only two seats with small margins and forfeited deposits in most constituencies. "On the other hand, we made our debut with a cent percent strike rate as we won all the three seats we had contested," he said. Anand said they were sure that the BJP would take these things in account and not blindly accept the JD(U)'s demand for being given a lion's share. "The BJP leadership is well aware that Kumar is fighting for his survival. He is faced with a humiliating situation wherein RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav who is out of power openly proclaims that doors are closed for the chief minister's entry into the Mahagathbandhan. It is not difficult to see the writing on the wall," he said. Meanwhile, JD(U) leader and state minister Jai Kumar Singh said the RLSP would do well not to belittle Nitish Kumar whose popularity is acknowledged even outside Bihar and it might not be good for the RLSP's own political future. A former close aide of Kumar, Kushwaha had floated the RLSP after quitting the JD(U) in 2013, comprising mostly disgruntled party leaders. Despite its fine performance in 2014, the RLSP fared dismally in the assembly polls a year later as it returned with a tally of two in a 243-strong Vidhan Sabha. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, on Saturday, advised Congress president Rahul Gandhi not to make allegations against the government on the Rafale issue without proof. Singh said the verification of the French media report, which quoted former French President Francois Hollande on the purchase of the Rafale fighter jets, will reveal the truth. Hollande was quoted in a French media report as purportedly saying that the Indian government proposed Anil Ambani-led Reliance Defence as the partner for Dassault Aviation in the Rs 58,000 crore Rafale jet fighter deal and France did not have a choice. "The government has issued a statement on the issue. Let the verification of the report take place. It will clear the situation, it will reveal the truth," Singh told reporters here. The home minister, who was here to attend a meeting of the cooperative societies sector, went on to advise Gandhi that he should not make allegations without proof. "One should think four times before levelling any baseless allegation. One should not make allegations without proof," Singh said to a question on what he would like to tell Gandhi who has been dragging the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the deal. Gandhi had dragged Modi into the imbroglio by alleging that the prime minister was involved in the Rafale "scam". Reacting to Hollande's reported remark, which is at variance with the Indian government's position on the Rafale deal, a Defence Ministry spokesman had Friday said, "The report referring to former French President Hollande's statement that government of India insisted upon a particular firm as offset partner for Dassault Aviation in Rafale is being verified." Earlier addressing members of 11 cooperative societies at a meeting here, Singh asked them to enter the housing sector to fulfil the prime minister's dream of housing for all by 2022. "Our prime minister has a dream that everyone in the country should have a house and his dream can be fulfilled easily if the cooperative sector comes forward (to take part) in the housing sector," he said. "People can get affordable houses if the cooperative sector enters the housing sector," the home minister said. Singh told the gathering that the cooperative sector is active in Gujarat and Maharashtra and such activity is required in other states as well. He claimed that the rate of interest on agriculture loans was reduced for the first time when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was prime minister, and he was Union agriculture minister. "Now I am glad to know that cooperative banks here are giving agriculture loans on zero per cent interest," he said. "India's prosperity depends on that of the farmers. If the farmer of the country is prosperous, no one can stop India from becoming prosperous," he said. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More As India continues to mature in formulating buying trends, especially for automobiles, the government too seems to be in sync with the buyers and vehicle-making companies. From stricter emission guidance to pushing electric vehicles and other alternate fuel technologies, the government has indeed pulled out all stops to push for better vehicular standards. More on this later in the copy. Here is the list of all the major developments in the automotive space this week. Mahindras e-mobility company record losses Despite the governments high decibel campaign for shifting to electric mobility, Indias biggest manufacturer of electric vehicle Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) is fighting mounting losses amid declining sale. Mahindra Electric Mobility (formerly Mahindra Reva), a subsidiary of M&M, has seen its accumulated losses since 2010 balloon to Rs 686 crore as of March. Last fiscal, its losses increased 14 percent to Rs 129 crore as compared to Rs 113 crore in FY17. Harley-Davidson enters used bike segment One of worlds largest cruiser bike manufacturers Harley-Davidson has announced its foray into the pre-owned bike market in India. The official launch precedes the pilot testing Harley-Davidson has been undertaking since the start of the year through select sales outlets. Tata Motors market cap falls below Bajaj Auto Jaguar Land Rover is proving to be a drag on Tata Motors financials, so much that N Chandrasekaran-led carmaker's market capitalisation currently is even lesser than that of two-wheeler companies Bajaj Auto and Eicher Motors. At Rs 73,300 crore, Tata Motors' market capitalisation has now slid to the fifth spot in the auto segment, due to JLR's flagging sales in high-growth markets such as China and Europe. The market cap has fallen from the Rs 1.7 lakh crore-mark it hit in September 2016. Suzuki wants to sell India-made cars to the world Suzuki Motor Corporation is keen to sell those cars to the world that are developed and made in India as the country assumes a bigger place in the Japanese companys strategy till 2030. The parent company of Maruti Suzuki, Indias largest car maker, has called for a change in its 'way of thinking to achieve these targets. Jaguar Land Rover to cut production Tata Motors-owned Jaguar Land Rover on September 17 confirmed a cut in its production schedule at the Castle Bromwich plant manufacturing Jaguar cars in the West Midlands region of England due to "continuing headwinds" impacting the British car industry. The change in schedule, described as "standard business practice" by the Tata Group company, will see nearly 1,000 workers at the plant shifting from a five-day work schedule to a three-day one until Christmas this year. Mercedes-Benz launches new C-Class The largest luxury car maker Mercedes-Benz, which controls over 40 per cent of the market, on September 20 launched a new C-Class, one of its most popular executive saloons, with BS VI diesel engine. The fifth generation C-Class, for the first time, is mounted on a BS-VI engine, and is priced at Rs 40 lakh (C 220 d Prime), at Rs 44.25 lakh for C 220 d Progressive and the topend C 300 d AMG line comes with a price tag of Rs 48.50 lakh, the Pune-based company said in a statement. Eases in import norms to boost new launches The government last week decided to ease import norms for automobiles, paving the way for a possible boost in new model launches. The rule of the minimum value of the car being $40,000 and two-wheelers with minimum engine size of 800cc, has been done away with. However, only 2500 units can be imported by a company in a year. Also, there will be no need to certify roadworthiness of such imported vehicles using Indian testing standards. A certification from the country of origin of the vehicle will be enough to meet the requirements. What this effectively means is that those companies such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, Jaguar Land Rover, Volvo, Ducati, Harley-Davidson, Triumph and Kawasaki, who do not have a significantly large manufacturing operation in the country, can now import with less restrictions. These vehicles will still have to pay the same rate of taxes before retailing them to the local buyers. Indias import tax structure is such that in many situations, the final cost of the vehicle is double than its cost in international markets. This is done to discourage imports and boost local manufacturing. Companies can, however, now save on homologation (local testing and certification) expenses. In addition, they can now import even inexpensive models for test marketing purposes as the minimum requirement of $40,000 price tag is gone. This would be beneficial to companies such as Volkswagen, Honda, Toyota, Skoda, Ford, Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi who have international products that could be suited for the Indian buyer as well. As the cost of such vehicles will still be prohibitively high coupled with a limited number of import volumes experts are not expecting any impact on local manufacturing. Ecuador in 2017 gave Wikileaks founder Julian Assange a diplomatic post in Russia but rescinded it after Britain refused to give him diplomatic immunity, according to an Ecuadorean government document seen by Reuters. The aborted effort suggests Ecuadorean President Lenin Moreno had engaged Moscow to resolve the situation of Assange, who has been holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy for six years to avoid arrest by British authorities on charges of skipping bail. The incident was revealed in a letter by Ecuador's foreign ministry to a legislator who had asked for information about Ecuador's decision last year to grant Assange citizenship. Ecuador last Dec 19 approved a "special designation in favor of Mr. Julian Assange so that he can carry out functions at the Ecuadorean Embassy in Russia," according to the letter written to opposition legislator Paola Vintimilla. "Special designation" refers to the Ecuadorean president's right to name political allies to a fixed number of diplomatic posts even if they are not career diplomats. But Britain's Foreign Office in a Dec 21 note said it did not accept Assange as a diplomat and that it did not "consider that Mr. Assange enjoys any type of privileges and immunities under the Vienna Convention," reads the letter, citing a British diplomatic note. Ecuador abandoned its decision shortly after, according to the letter. British authorities have said they will arrest Assange if he leaves the embassy, meaning he would have needed to be recognized as a diplomat in order to travel to Moscow. Lawyers for Assange in the United States and Britain did not respond to requests for comment. WikiLeaks website did not respond to an email seeking comment. The Ecuadorean foreign ministry could not be reached for comment. The plan to make Assange an Ecuadorean diplomat was made public last year, but the effort to send him to Moscow has not been previously reported. U.S. intelligence agencies in 2017 said they believed WikiLeaks was an intermediary used by Russia to publish emails hacked from top Democrats to embarrass 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. U.S. President Donald Trump faces an investigation into whether his campaign colluded with Russia to win that election. Assange denies receiving the emails from Russia but has not ruled out having obtained them from a third party. Trump and Russia deny collusion. The Guardian newspaper on Friday reported that Russian diplomats held secret talks in London to help Assange flee Britain through an operation tentatively scheduled for Christmas Eve, 2017. The story, which cited unidentified sources, said "details of the plan were sketchy" and that it was aborted because it was deemed too risky. "The Embassy has never engaged either with Ecuadorian colleagues or with anyone else, in discussions on any kind of Russia's participation in ending Mr Assange's stay within the diplomatic mission of Ecuador," Russia's embassy in London wrote on its website in a response to The Guardian story. It was not immediately evident if Ecuadorean officials had any contact with Russia as part of the Assange appointment. Reuters was unable to obtain comment from Russia's foreign ministry on Ecuador's plan to make him a diplomat there. The letter from Ecuador's foreign ministry was a summary of 28 documents that were sent to Vintimilla in response to her request. Among those documents is a Dec. 4 letter from Assange in which he renounced his request for political asylum from Ecuador in preparation to become an Ecuadorean diplomat. The letter, which was seen by Reuters, said he ultimately planned to travel to Ecuador. Vintimilla, who discussed some of the documents during a Thursday press conference, said Assange should lose his citizenship as a result of that letter. Assange sought asylum in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden to face questions about allegations of sex crimes, accusations that were later dropped. Ecuador's president Moreno has said Assange's asylum cannot be eternal but has also been reluctant to abruptly halt it on concerns that Assange's human rights could be at risk. This week in IT: Regulatory issues continue to plague tech giants; firms turn focus on skills In spite of the increasing focus on data protection and local data storage, political parties across the board continue to use Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter, Youtube and so on to take their promises and messages to the citizens Neha Alawadhi September 22, 2018 / 04:33 PM IST The past week, the technology services sector saw several big and small associations and a focus on skills, even as regulatory and governmental issues continued to plague the tech giants operating in India. Moneycontrol on Monday reported that the Reserve Bank of India, whose deadline of October 15 to store all financial data in India is approaching, has asked the Ministry of Electronics and IT to put pressure on Google for compliance. Google's UPI-based payments app Google Pay has become very popular since its launch last year, and the recent missives by the ministry were a move to try and get the tech giant to comply. The data protection Bill, which is currently accepting public comments until September 30, continues to be a talking point in the industry. Jayant Saran, partner at Deloitte India, told Moneycontrol what the potential impact the Bill could have on the data forensics industry in its current form. With instances of ransomware and cybercrime increasing, data forensics is an area that is gaining more and more importance. Amidst all this talk of foreign technology companies taking over the Indian market, homegrown IT security services provider Quick Heal is looking at its government and enterprise businesses to spur the next leg of growth. In a conversation with Moneycontrol, the Pune-based company's chief technology officer spoke about the future plans of the firm and the rising demand for security online. Thursday was rather eventful in the IT services arena, with TCS, Infosys and HCL Technologies announcing interesting partnerships and deals. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) said on Thursday it has partnered with The Training Room, a leading UK provider of technical training courses and careers support. TCS iON is a no-frills technology product that aims to cater to sall and medium businesses. The partnership will help students from and beyond the United Kingdom, who are want to take up skills and technical courses, and employers looking for dynamic solutions for recruitment, in-house training, and staff retention. Also Read: TCS iON partners with The Training Room to provide skilling platform in UK The same day, Infosys announced the launch of its learning solution based on open source technologies, called Wingspan. The cloud-first and mobile-first solution is designed to provide a seamless interactive learning experience accessible anytime, anywhere and on any device. Also, HCL Technologies said it has signed a three-year contract to drive IT transformation at the United Kingdom's third-largest grocery retailer, Asda. Also Read: HCL Technologies signs three-year contract with UK retailer Asda Friday, Infosys also announced a partnership with Google Cloud to develop cloud and migration services. By the end of the week, Google Pay was in the limelight again. this time, because of wallet app Paytm's letter to the National Payments Council of India, alleging that the tech giant's app was sharing data with its group companies and third parties. Talking of technology giants, in an interview with Moneycontrol, social media strategist for several political candidates, Naresh Arora told Moneycontrol that Facebook-owned Instagram was likely to be a game-changer in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections next year. The threat of a global trade war has been looming over 2018 like a dark cloud. Here at Money Weekend, weve written extensively on the impact a trade war breakout between the US and China could mean for Australia. And its not pretty The back and forth between the two economic powerhouses began earlier this year. We all know the story, the US put down a 25% and 10% tariff on steel and aluminium, respectively. And its grown from there. It caused market turbulence in the beginning, but it quickly steadied and the market hasnt been affected by the trade threats and tariffs laid down since. But that might be all about to change. On Tuesday (Monday US time), it was announced that US President Donald Trump and the governments trade officials had announced their plan to impose 10% tariffs on US$200 billion Chinese imports which could grow to 25% by the New Year. What a trade war means for Australia? These tariffs could have a significant impact not just on China and the US, but globally and more specifically here at home in Australia. And with the Australian economy already on a knifes edge with it heavily reliant on house prices, which have tumbled this year, more threat to the economy could see Australias bull bubble burst. KPMG, an auditor and professional services company, believe that over the next decade, $36 billion could be taken from the Australian economy. Last month KPMG released a report on the effects a trade war could have on the Australian economy. We told readers about what could potentially happen if scenario one was put in place, and thats whats just happened. With the 10% tariffs announced this week by the US on Chinese imports, Australia could lose $36 billion over 10 years. Now, Scenario One was conductive to a 15% tariff. The tariff currently sits below that. But, in three and a half months, Australia could find itself in Scenario Two, which is a lot direr. As we reported a few weeks ago, scenario two could see Australia lose $58 billion from its economy. It also looks likely that China will hit back at the US with new tariffs of their own. The constant back and forth from both nations could see other nations then impose their own tariffs, leading to an all-out global trade war. In this free report, economy expert reveals four ways you could cash in on the global infrastructure boom. Download now. How the markets have reacted In just hours following the announcement made by Trump, US futures and Asian stocks fell on the market. While KPMG have released what they believe could happen should the trade conflict escalate, MPs admit they arent too sure what Australians could expect, but they agree it wont be pleasant. Labor frontbencher Brendan OConnor told Sky News: There will be ramifications the extent and nature of which we dont know yet but therell be some impact on Australia. Trade Minister Simon Birmingham agreed with OConnor that Australia would be impacted. He expanded further, telling ABC radio: The retaliation is going to ripple through this region, without a shadow of a doubt. Weve continued consistently to urge parties not to pursue distorting subsidies and not to pursue unilateral tariff actions Tariffs ultimately result in consumers paying more and disruptive trade practices ultimately hurt economies rather than help them Thats why we continue to urge everybody to think carefully about the consequences of doing so, to recognise that hurts their economies, it has possible negative impacts on other economies. It means consumers end up paying more, taxpayers end up subsiding more. Theyre not good things. But ultimately, Australia started feeling the effects of the tariffs immediately. It was the resources sector that drove down share prices on the S&P/ASX 200. But it wasnt only Australia that saw markets down, England and New Zealand also saw stocks fall. Unsurprisingly, China returned serve to the US and also raised their tariffs, hitting the nation with $60 billion on US imports. If youre concerned about the long-term impact a declining economy may have on your wealth, then you can check out what controversial economist and Editor of The Boom & Bust Letter, Harry Dent recommends Australians do to protect themselves from any future financial crisis. Go here to find out the details. This week in Money Morning In Mondays Money Morning, Harje looks to the future of financial markets. Unlike the thousands of doomsayers who predicted the end of the Earth, we know financial apocalypses do happen (like in 2008, but no one saw that one coming). JPMorgans models and all models in fact, are only as good as the assumptions theyre built on. If just one assumption is off, then the whole model will struggle to be accurate. The point Harje tries to make is that its incredibly difficult trying to predict what the market will do. Youre essentially making a bet on human behaviour. To find out more, go here. In Tuesdays Money Morning, Harje discusses how Seek has had stagnant profit growth over the last two years, but that may not mean the business is damned and wont recover with new offshore strategies. On a five year basis, however, Seek trades for less than 30-times average earnings. To find out more about Harjes views and analysis about Seek, go here. On Wednesday, Harje discussed the rise of Smart Cities and how 5G technology is absolutely necessary to transmit data faster between users, as populations grow and more and more people come online. Places like Hong Kong are following suit (from Singapore). Their plans to create a Smart City include: a connected transport system, ubiquitous use of digital payments, clean green connected energy and, innovation incubators for youths and entrepreneurs. But unless we get 5G, its hard to imagine a future of driverless cars, remote surgery or the Internet of Things. Partly its because we cannot transmit data fast enough. Its why theres so much hype around 5G. Its not just the answer to more data and faster connection speeds. It could bring on true Smart Cities, where everything is connected. To find out more, click here. In Thursdays Money Morning, Harje looks at hedge funds and questions whether they are actually necessary. However, Harje claims that they can be useful in certain situations such as shorting stocksand while some are guilty of misconduct there are a few good hedge funds out there. What value do they offer? Well, the good ones put more money in your back pocket. But these good ones are becoming few and far between. As Harje explains, they can aggressively short stocks, even though this can be risky trading. The market can always rise higher. But because of very little regulation, hedge funds can pursue this strategy aggressively. The problem with the hedge fund industry isnt the greedy managers. People will always be greedy. The problem is those people pouring money into the industry, entities like sovereign wealth funds and alike. To find out more, go here. In Fridays Money Morning, Harje discusses how the US-China trade spat is getting worse, how tariffs are bad for everyone, and the media focusing on the drama creates more uncertaintybut then Harje explains why you shouldnt panic, and should ignore the doomsayers. Harje believes another financial meltdown is likely on the way in the next few years, but we cant know when exactly, and you wont benefit by burying your head in the sand and ignoring your opportunities in the meantime. And as Harje explains, there are some great potential gains to be made. Go here to find out more. Kind regards, Alana Sumic, Editor, Money Weekend PS: Population growth is booming find out how you can make the most of a massive global infrastructure rush in this free report. Get access now. Michael Ciaglo/Houston Chronicle Rig counts are on the positive side for the Permian, Texas and Midland County this week, according to Bake Hughes oil field services company. The basin is up five for a total of 488, Texas is up six for a total of 531, and Midland is up one for a total of 59 rigs. Reeves, the Permians busiest county, has 76 rigs, a loss of one. A man shot and killed after police say he opened fire at a Wisconsin workplace has ties to Jacksonville, according to background records. Police fatally shot Anthony Y. Tong, 43, after he opened fire Wednesday at WTS Paradigm, a software company in Middleton, Wisconsin. At least four people were injured, three of them seriously, according to authorities. Tong was identified as an employee of the company. Authorities said there still was no motive known for the shooting and were spending the time since the shooting trying to piece together information about Tongs past. According to details of a search warrant released Friday, Tong had illegally obtained the 9mm pistol used in the shooting. He had been barred from purchasing firearms in 2004 after telling South Dakota police he thought co-workers were talking bad about him, according to court records and police. Tong moved to South Dakota after leaving Jacksonville around 1999, according to background records. He spent much of his childhood in the city, graduating in 1993 from Jacksonville High School. He did not have any court or police records on file. His father, who died in 2010, was an Illinois College professor until his retirement in 1993. Tong said he believed his neighbors were spying on him after police were called to his Sioux Falls apartment in 2004. Officers handcuffed Tong for their own safety because he was acting delusional and paranoid, and seized a pistol and an AR-15 rifle from his home, according to South Dakota court documents. Middleton (Wisconsin) Police Chief Chuck Foulke said during a news conference Friday that Tong had no criminal history, but said his run-in with police in South Dakota resulted in a judge revoking his concealed-carry permit over mental health questions. That revocation would have red-flagged him on a gun background check, making it illegal for him to purchase firearms, Foulke said. It absolutely seems as though with some loophole he was able to get that firearm, and he should not have been able to do that, Foulke said. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was trying to track down the origin of the pistol used in Wednesdays attack but agents were running into problems with the trace, Foulke said. Theres something unique about that weapon that theyre having trouble finding out where it came from and what hands it passed through, the police chief said. He declined to elaborate. Tong moved to the area from South Dakota in March 2017, a month before he started his job with WTS Paradigm, Foulke said. The chief said he didnt know what Tong was doing for a living before moving to Wisconsin. According to South Dakota court records, the manager of Tongs Sioux Falls apartment complex called police in August 2004 because the fire alarm had been disconnected in Tongs apartment. Tong told officers he had disconnected the fire alarm. Inside his apartment they discovered he had disconnected a host of other electronic devices, including ceiling fans, lights and smoke detectors. Tong told police he disabled the devices because people in the apartment below were eavesdropping on him. Officers reported that Tong took several minutes to answer simple questions and was defensive when he did answer. He also blocked a bedroom door when police asked if anyone else was in the apartment. Officers handcuffed him and found a .40-caliber pistol under his shirt. They also found a can of pepper spray and a folding knife on him, according to court documents. In the bedroom, the officers discovered an AR-15 rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. Tong told them he needed the guns for protection. Defendant made statements that there were people at work that were talking bad about him, but would not elaborate, an affidavit said. He was taken to a mental hospital on a 24-hour hold. A state judge revoked his concealed-carry permit that November. On Friday, authorities in Wisconsin said the conditions of the three seriously wounded workers had improved. The woman and two men had been upgraded from serious to fair condition at University Hospital in Madison, according to UW Health. Police dont know if the victims were targeted or shot at random. Their names havent been released. We will demonstrate if you don... Tom McClintock and Jessica Morse View Photos Mariposa, CA The incumbent and challenger for the Mother Lode District 4 race square off tomorrow afternoon in Mariposa. This will be the first debate for Republican Congressman Tom McClintock from Elk Grove and Democrat Jessica Morse of Pollock Pines. The two were scheduled to debate last week in Lake Tahoe but McClintock backed out due to concerns that the co-host of the debate, Sierra Business Councils President, was a Morse backer. McClintock has held the seat since 2009. On his website he is described as the gold standard for fiscal conservatism and touts his voting in favor of the tax overhaul. His opponent Morse made a stop in Sonora yesterday at the Democrats Headquarters on South Washington Street and was greeted by supporters. Morse, a fifth generation Northern Californian, has been focusing on issues like funding wildfire prevention, increasing vocational training and ensuring access to affordable healthcare. Tomorrows debate at the Mariposa County High School auditorium located at 5074 Old Highway North in Mariposa is expected to be a packed house with 180 tickets already doled out to the public via a lottery. The other half of the 360 available seats went to the McClintock and Morse campaigns. The debate is scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. A Southeast Texas man on Wednesday dropped a long custody battle for his 12-year-old daughter, saying her mother and other relatives successfully brainwashed her against him. Roy Bryan "Bubba" Smith, 48, who lives between Orange and Vidor, had been fighting for custody of Nocona Lynn Smith since her birth in 1991. In 1996, he led a "rescue" party in an attempt to bring her back from Honduras. The girl now goes by Nocona Burton, her mother's maiden name. She was returned to the United States in September. "He gave up his rights to me, and so I'm really happy right now," Nocona said Wednesday after her father's decision at the Orange County Courthouse. "I'm just going to jump up and down and do cartwheels," she told Beaumont television station KFDM. "It's been really different, pretty scary." Nocona's mother, Joney Burton, 31, continues to have parental rights, but Nocona will be living with her maternal grandfather, Owen Burton, 51, and his wife, Nelda, 50, in nearby Mauriceville. Joney Burton said she had no idea Smith was planning to relinquish his rights. "That was tremendously shocking to me. I didn't expect that, obviously, but we're feeling jubilant now. Just happy it's over," she said. The girl's maternal grandmother, Frances Harris, ex-wife to Owen Burton, fled to Honduras with the child, who then was 3, after a 1994 court custody hearing in Orange. Harris alleged Smith had abused the girl, an allegation that Smith denied. Joney Burton later joined her daughter and mother in Honduras. All three became Honduran citizens whose efforts were embraced by residents in the Central American country, according to Houston private detective Clay Titus, whom Smith hired to locate the three. Smith gained emergency temporary custody of his daughter in June 1995 in the hope that he would eventually find her. Smith, his sister and four other people were arrested on April 24, 1996, after entering a Honduras school and whisking away the girl, who was 5 at the time, into a waiting automobile, They then headed for an airport on the island of Roatan, just off the Honduran coast. Teachers called police, who chased the car to the airport, where a rented Cessna twin-engine plane was waiting to fly them to the United States. At the time, Joney Burton told reporters she blamed Smith for the attempted kidnapping. The FBI arrested Harris in September and brought her and Nocona back to Texas. Nocona hadn't seen her grandmother since then. Asked what she would say to her grandmother, Nocona said on Wednesday, "I'd say, `I love you and I miss you.' " Harris pleaded guilty in February to the charge of international kidnapping. Sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 15. She faces up to three years in prison. CHESHIRE A Granby-based marketing firm has been hired by school district officials to develop a communications strategy designed to reach a broader segment of the community. Prism Marketing will be paid up to $9,000 to help school officials assess the effectiveness of their existing communication efforts and suggest ways to better reach community members who dont have children in the school system, Superintendent of Schools Jeff Solan said Thursday night. Solan hired the company after consulting with the Board of Educations communications committee, using money already budgeted for that purpose. We spend $70 million and that is a lot of money, Solan said of the districts budget. With that comes the responsibility of informing everybody how that money is being spent. Board member Neeta Vatti objected to the expenditure. I have a real problem with spending $9,000 when there are other needs not being met, Vatti said, citing the lack of air conditioning in all but one of the districts schools as an example. Theres more that we can do on our own. Kathryn Fabiani, the boards vice chairwoman, said she supported Solans decision. Its not like were taking money from something else (in the budget) to do this, Fabiani said. Other board members agreed with Fabiani. Were trying to reach out to the empty nesters and the senior citizens, said Cathy Hellreich, the boards chairwoman. Solan said one thing officials with Prism Marketing will do for the district is determine the best way to distribute a survey asking community members about how effective the districts existing communication methods are now. That survey will go out by the end of October or in early November, he said. Board member Adam Grippo said the hiring of a communication consultant makes sense at this time. Weve got some complex issues coming up, Grippo said. The issue of personalized learning is very complex and the communication issues around it werent handled very well the last time. Grippo was referring to the launch of a controversial online learning platform in the district during the fall of 2017. Solan ended up suspending use of the Summit Learning Program in December of last year. Solan cited what he called a substantial degree of misunderstanding and misinformation within the community about the program as a reason for suspending its use. A group made up of community members and educators was created to make recommendations as to what the next step should be in terms of using an individualized learning platform like Summit. Grippo said the findings of that group will be presented in the coming months. Parents had a variety of concerns about the program, from inappropriate third-party advertisements, articles and videos that it links to, to worries that students were getting frustrated by the self-directed Summit curriculum. There also are concerns about the privacy of students information, which some parents think the board sold in order to get access to the Summit program for free as well as the roughly 130 Chromebook computers that came as part of the deal. luther.turmelle@hearstmediact.com UPPER THUMB The Catholic Diocese of Saginaw says it will cooperate with the Michigan Department of Attorney Generals investigation of all seven Catholic dioceses in the state regarding alleged sexual abuse and assault. Attorney General Bill Schuettes office, on Friday, released a response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request confirming the investigation of religious order priests in Michigan from 1950 to the present. Allegations related to the cover up of sexual abuse or assault will be included in the investigation, which began in August. The Saginaw Diocese released the following statement Friday in response to the investigation: "The Diocese of Saginaw stands ready to fully cooperate with the Michigan Attorney General's investigation of the seven Catholic dioceses in Michigan." "While the diocese is confident the policies and procedures it has put in place and carefully followed for over 15 years are effective, it welcomes the opportunity to work with law enforcement authorities to determine if there is more it can do to protect children." In the FOIA response, Schuettes office noted a website has been established to allow for confidential reporting of information: Michigan.gov/CI Also, the departments investigation hotline is prepared to receive information at 844-324-3374 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Victims are also encouraged to call their local law enforcement agencies. As a start this week, can we all agree that every person and every property in Greenwich deserves the highest level of fire and public safety protection? Seems like a no-brainer, right? Well, to hear Fire Commissioner and First Selectmen Peter Tesei tell it, people and property in the northwest corner of town have been living in a danger zone for years. The cause: Some streets in that hood do not have a Greenwich-based firehouse within an acceptable distance, though it has never been stated just what that distance is. To be clear, there are fire stations that could help Glenville and Round Hill firefighters more than adequately cover the northwest corner. But they are across the border in New York State. That seems to be important to some, though I have to think if your house is burning you really dont care who owns the hose pouring water on the flames or the ladder supporting the firefighter trying to save your life. This week, Tesei, joined by his two fellow selectmen, Republican John Toner and Democrat Sandy Litvack, convinced the RTM to pass a resolution supporting construction of a new firehouse in the northwest corner. There is so much that is odd about this sudden surge of support for a new firehouse that it bears some "unpacking," as my friends on public radio are fond of saying. What new information has come forward since 2016, the last time the first selectman failed to win support for the new fire station? There was no new data presented this time. But there was a nice big house fire in mid-August that made a great visual presentation. And then there were the neighbors who stood in horror as a house burned to the ground with no firefighters rushing in to extinguish the flames. Their stories were quite compelling to more than a few RTM members. But, the house on King Street and Locust Road was abandoned and had no electric service. Department policy forbids any firefighter from entering an abandoned building unless there are signs of human life at risk, such as a light on in the building or a car parked in the driveway. Abandoned buildings are far too dangerous to risk a firefighters or anyone elses life. "Abandoned houses are firetraps," said one town firefighter who asked to remain anonymous because he is not authorized to speak for the Fire Department. "The best way to fight a fire is from the inside, but that is not an option at an abandoned building. When responding to an abandoned property, our first priority is protecting neighbors and their houses. And that is exactly what happened." I called Fire Chief Peter Siecienski Friday to ask him what caused the fire, but he did not return my call. An RTM committee chairman asked the chief that same question earlier this week and was told it was an "active investigation" and he could not discuss it. Then there is the last proposed location for the new building, on almost 5 acres of land owned by Fairview Country Club on King Street, just a solid six-iron from the New York State line. A sale would benefit Fairview, which is trying to rebuild its treasury after an expensive and over budget renovation several years ago. But is a site so close to the towns border the best location to serve as much of Greenwich as possible? If we accept Teseis premise that the northwest corner is not adequately covered, then we have to ask him what alternatives has he pursued since the RTM withheld money for a new building in 2016. His role as fire commissioner obligates him to explore all options to beef up fire coverage if he thinks a part of town is in danger. A new firehouse is not the only way to increase coverage. What discussions has he had with either Purchase, Rye Brook or Armonk officials about a shared service arrangement? These are fairly common among neighboring towns; in fact, Greenwich has such an automatic aid agreement with Banksville, a New York-based fire company that is part of the Greenwich dispatch system. It has served the town well, so doesnt it make sense to replicate that arrangement with other neighboring towns? The RTMs vote this week in support of a new northwest Greenwich firehouse was simply a "sense of the meeting" resolution that telegraphs memberships sentiment toward the project. There were no dollars attached to the plan, no real discussions about the increased operating cost of hiring 12-18 firefighters to staff the station 24/7, or even how much money the town would spend to buy the land and build the facility. In other words, the vote had no context. It was not selected over other projects such as the proposed, 20-year, $750 million school capital budget, or the Eastern Greenwich Civic Center, or the townwide sewer and storm drainage system that is not aging well. What the vote lacked in substance, it made up for in political significance. Tesei teamed up with new RTM members, many of whom are first-time politicians who ran for local office last year to express displeasure with President Donald Trumps election a year earlier. They were also largely responsible for Teseis near defeat in 2017. It is a fair bet that many of them did not follow the failed effort in 2016 to win approval for a new firehouse. It is a complex issue that extends well beyond the drama of an abandoned house burning to the ground. It is about the often-contentious relationships between paid and volunteer firefighters. It is about the best use of limited resources. And it is about priorities. No one wants any part of town to be under-protected. But it is not at all clear that the northwest corner is. Bob Horton can be reached at bobhorton@yahoo.com. New York President Donald Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid an unannounced visit Friday to the federal courthouse in New York where he pleaded guilty a month ago. Cohen, 51, left the building about 1:30 p.m. Friday, declining to say why he was there. It wasn't known what time he'd arrived. He also shook his head in response to a request to comment on discussions he's had with special counsel Robert Mueller. Mueller is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. On Thursday, Cohen and one of his lawyers confirmed in a tweet that he had met with Mueller and provided "critical information." Cohen is awaiting a December sentencing after pleading guilty to tax fraud, bank fraud and campaign finance violations. During his plea, Cohen said Trump directed him to arrange a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels and a $150,000 payment through a media company to Playboy playmate Karen McDougal to influence the 2016 election. As part of his plea, Cohen agreed not to challenge any sentence of less than five years and three months in prison. Even without a cooperation agreement, he might still be able to win a measure of leniency at sentencing by cooperating with authorities in New York and Washington. Cohen was not scheduled for any courtroom appearances Friday, but individuals awaiting sentencing sometimes meet with Probation Department officers who prepare a pre-sentence report that will include a recommendation on what his sentence should be. Cohen, wearing a suit and tie, was accompanied by one of his lawyers. He traded pleasantries with journalists and warned a photographer to be careful not to injure himself as he snapped pictures with moving traffic nearby. Cohen said he planned to spend the weekend with his family. Nicholas Biase, a spokesman for Manhattan prosecutors, said he could not confirm Cohen's purpose for a courthouse visit. He said it was possible Cohen was making a regularly scheduled visit with a representative from the probation office. For more than a decade, Cohen was Trump's personal lawyer and also worked for the Trump Organization. New York Kayla Cho woke up shortly after 3:30 a.m. Friday to the sound of screaming coming from a home on the block where she lives. Another neighbor, Mike Hsu, heard loud thuds. Soon the frightening noises turned into a cry for help from what neighbors described as a day care in a red brick townhouse in Queens. "A woman was screaming, 'Help me! Somebody just help me!" Cho said. Moments later, police swarmed the block and discovered a ghastly scene: three infants, including a 3-day-old, and two adults, had been stabbed by an employee who then cut her own wrist. The stabbings occurred about 3:40 a.m. at the facility, a residential day care center in the Flushing neighborhood, police said. The infants, all of whom were less than 1 month old, were taken to New York-Presbyterian Hospital. One of the adults who was stabbed was the father of one of the infants, police said; he was stabbed in the leg. The other adult was a co-worker of the employee and was stabbed in the torso, police said. All of the victims were in critical but stable condition. The facility was first identified as a day care center but according to the New York state Office of Children and Family Services, the facility was not a licensed or regulated child care program. Monica Mahaffey, a spokeswoman for the agency, said that state regulated child care programs are prohibited from caring for infants less than 6 weeks of age unless they meet additional requirements. When officers first arrived at the location, the employee who had cut her own wrist was unconscious, police said. But she regained consciousness after officers applied a tourniquet to stop the bleeding, and the employee, 52, was placed in police custody. Two police investigators in white crime scene suits went in and out of the home all Friday morning. Two knives were recovered at the scene, police said. Galivants Ferry, S.C. With muddy river water still washing over entire communities on Friday, eight days after Hurricane Florence slammed into land with nearly 3 feet of rain, new evacuation orders forced residents to flee to higher ground amid a sprawling disaster that's beginning to feel like it will never end. At least 42 people have died, included an elderly man whose body was found in a submerged pickup truck in South Carolina, and hundreds were forced from their homes as rivers kept swelling higher. Leaders in the Carolinas warned residents not to get complacent, warning additional horrors lie ahead before things get much better. "Although the winds are gone and the rain is not falling, the water is still there and the worst is still to come," said South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster. Speaking in Las Vegas, President Donald Trump said South Carolina is in for a "tough one" as flood waters keep rising. "They got hit, but the big hit comes days later and it will be the biggest they've ever had," said Trump, who visited North and South Carolina this week. While most peoples' lights are back on in the Carolinas and Virginia and trucks are picking up mountains of storm debris, water draining toward the sea from inland areas is sending rivers over their banks across a wide region. Rescuers wearing night vision goggles used helicopters, boats and big-wheeled military vehicles overnight to evacuate about 100 people from a southeastern North Carolina county where high water breached a levee, flooding a town. In South Carolina, emergency managers ordered about 500 people to flee homes along the Lynches River. The National Weather Service said the river could reach record flood levels late Saturday or early Sunday. In tiny Galivants Ferry, Audra Mauer said she lost her home two years ago when Hurricane Matthew hit and she's losing it again to Florence. No area improvements were made after Matthew, she said, and a frustrated Mauer has no faith any will happen now. "They didn't clean the ditches," she said. "Same levee. Same dams. What have we been doing for two years?" About 25 miles nearer to the South Carolina coast, Kevin Tovornik tore out carpet and removed furniture as a preventative measure because he expected flooding at the house he has owned for 20 years in Conway, where the Waccamaw River was still rising. Bridges are starting to close because of flooding, he said, and friends were struck in traffic for hours trying to cross the town of 23,000. "This is ridiculous. This is the worst I've ever seen," Tovornik said. Road travel also was a daunting problem in Wilmington, a city of 120,000 people. Washington The deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, suggested last year that he secretly record President Donald Trump in the White House to expose the chaos consuming the administration, and he discussed recruiting Cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office for being unfit. Rosenstein made these suggestions in the spring of 2017 when Trump's firing of James Comey as FBI director plunged the White House into turmoil. Over the ensuing days, the president divulged classified intelligence to Russians in the Oval Office, and revelations emerged that Trump had asked Comey to pledge loyalty and end an investigation into a senior aide. Rosenstein was just two weeks into his job. He had begun overseeing the Russia investigation and played a key role in the president's dismissal of Comey by writing a memo critical of his handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. But Rosenstein was caught off guard when Trump cited the memo in the firing, and he began telling people that he feared he had been used. Rosenstein made the remarks about secretly recording Trump and about the 25th Amendment in meetings and conversations with other Justice Department and FBI officials. Several people described the episodes, insisting on anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The people were briefed either on the events themselves or on memos written by FBI officials, including Andrew McCabe, then the acting bureau director, that documented Rosenstein's actions and comments. None of Rosenstein's proposals apparently came to fruition. It is not clear how determined he was about seeing them through, though he did tell McCabe that he might be able to persuade Attorney General Jeff Sessions and John Kelly, then the secretary of homeland security and now the White House chief of staff, to mount an effort to invoke the 25th Amendment. The extreme suggestions show Rosenstein's state of mind in the disorienting days that followed Comey's dismissal. Sitting in on Trump's interviews with prospective FBI directors and facing attacks for his own role in Comey's firing, Rosenstein had an up-close view of the tumult. Rosenstein appeared conflicted, regretful and emotional, according to people who spoke with him at the time. Rosenstein disputed this account. "The New York Times' story is inaccurate and factually incorrect," he said in a statement. "I will not further comment on a story based on anonymous sources who are obviously biased against the department and are advancing their own personal agenda. But let me be clear about this: Based on my personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment." A Justice Department spokeswoman also provided a statement from a person who was present when Rosenstein proposed wearing a wire. The person, who would not be named, acknowledged the remark but said Rosenstein made it sarcastically. Yet according to the others who described his comments, Rosenstein not only confirmed that he was serious about the idea but also followed up by suggesting that other FBI officials who were interviewing to be the bureau's director could also secretly record Trump. McCabe, who was later fired from the FBI, declined to comment. His memos have been turned over to the special counsel, Robert Mueller, in the investigation into whether Trump associates conspired with Russia's election interference, according to a lawyer for McCabe. "A set of those memos remained at the FBI at the time of his departure in late January 2018," the lawyer, Michael R. Bromwich, said of his client. "He has no knowledge of how any member of the media obtained those memos." Days after ascending to the role of the nation's No. 2 law enforcement officer, Rosenstein was thrust into a crisis. On a brisk May day, Rosenstein and his boss, Sessions, who had recused himself from the Russia investigation because of his role as a prominent Trump campaign supporter, joined Trump in the Oval Office. The president informed them of his plan to oust Comey. To the surprise of White House aides who were trying to talk the president out of it, Rosenstein embraced the idea, even offering to write the memo about the Clinton email inquiry. He turned it in shortly after. A day later, Trump announced the firing, and White House aides released Rosenstein's memo, labeling it the basis for Comey's dismissal. Democrats sharply criticized Rosenstein, accusing him of helping to create a cover story for the president to rationalize the termination. UPPER THUMB You have 17 days to register to vote in the Nov. 6 general election with an upcoming deadline of Tuesday, Oct. 9. There are three state ballot proposals and numerous local, state and congressional contested elections. Ballot proposals include legalizing recreational marijuana in Michigan; putting the power of redistricting into the hands of an independent citizens commission; and a state constitutional amendment instituting a voting rights initiative. In Huron County, contested races to be decided in November include the following: Governor: Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, a Republican, and Democrat Gretchen Whitmer, a former Democratic member of the Michigan Senate, will face off for governor. Congress: Republican John James will challenge U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat. Kimberley Bizon, a Lexington Democrat, will challenge U.S. Rep Paul Mitchell, a Dryden Republican, for the District 10 U.S. House of Representatives seat. State Legislature: Dan Lauwers, a Republican from Brockway Township, will face Democrat Debbie Bourgois of Fort Gratiot for the 25th District State Senate seat. Republican Phil Green of Millington faces Democrat William Shoop of Vassar for the 84th District State Representative. County and Local: Huron County Commissioner Steve Vaughan, a Republican, will defend his seat against Democrat Rich Swartzendruber in the District 4 race. Three candidates will vie for two seats on the Harbor Beach City Council. They are: Incumbent Matthew Woodke and newcomers Kevin F. Guitar and Dale Schultz. Robert J. Swartz will challenge Harbor Beach Mayor Gary S. Booms. Five people will vie for one seat as Village of Elkton trustee. They are: Incumbent Bridgette McCarty and newcomers Daniel T. Armbruster, David Fisher, Jaime C. Murphy and Gail Schember. Four people will compete for three seats as Village of Kinde trustee. Newcomer Kenneth W. Church faces incumbents Carl T. Dickinson, Harvey L. Hagle and Scott. W. McIntyre. Four people are running for three seats as Village of Pigeon trustee. They are: Incumbents Matthew R. Esch and Kent Shetler, who face challengers Allen Collison and Shelly Gunden. Four people will compete for three seats as Village of Port Hope trustee. They are: Newcomer John W. Blum and incumbents Christopher Gust, Roy Reinke and Ronald Steinhorst. Competing for the open seat of Village of Sebewaing president are Paul Engelhardt and Julie Epperson. For Village of Sebewaing Trustee, seven people will compete for three four-year seats. They are: incumbents Brandy Gunsell and Larry Heider; and challengers Les Alexander, Melinda Driscoll, Dennis F. Kundinger Sr., Paul Schnitker and Nathan O. Schulz. School Board: Two seats are available on the Bad Axe School Board. Newcomer Autumn Howard will challenge board members Michael H. Anderson and Denise McVey. Four seats are available on the Laker School Board. Newcomer Paul Scaddan will challenge: R. Keith Hatfield, Heath Krohn, Mary F. Tait and Tyler Williams. Four people will compete for two seats in the Unionville Sebewaing Area School District: Incumbent Michelle Currey faces newcomers Deborah L. Beers, Leanne Lindenberg and Elijah Meek. See a future edition of the Huron Daily Tribune for profiles of these candidates. How to Register Here are voter registration guidelines, according to the Michigan Secretary of States Office: To register to vote, you must be all of the following: A U.S. citizen. At least 18 years old by Election Day. A resident of Michigan. A resident of the city or township where you are applying to register to vote. If you want to check to see if you are registered, visit www.Michigan.gov/vote. There you will find information about registering to vote and voting, voting equipment, polling place locations, state and local ballots, the candidates, campaign finance and more. Your local clerk can help with questions about your voter registration, polling place location and working at the polls. You may obtain the application at one of the following: Your local Secretary of State branch office Your local county, city or township clerk's office Offices of several state agencies, like the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Community Health, and the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs Military recruitment centers Voter registration drives Online at www.Michigan.gov/sos If you hand deliver your application, the staff person helping you will take your form and you don't need to do anything else. If you have never registered to vote in Michigan and choose to mail in your application, you will need to meet an identification requirement. This means you must: Enter your driver's license number or personal identification card number where requested on the form. Or send a copy of one of the following forms of identification with your application: A photocopy of your driver's license or personal ID card, or A photocopy of a paycheck stub, utility bill, bank document or government document that lists both your name and your address. NEW HAVEN A new controversy related to Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh rose up at Yale Law School Friday, with signs in the schools courtyard calling the school a model of complicity in the accusations that Kavanaugh may have assaulted a woman when they were in high school. A story in The Guardian newspaper of London on Thursday claimed that law professors Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld, who are married, would advise female students applying for clerkships with Kavanaugh to have a certain look during their interviews. It went on to say that Chua would tell students it was not an accident that Kavanaughs female law clerks all looked like models. Kavanaugh, 53, a federal appeals judge for the District of Columbia Circuit, graduated from Yale in 1987 and received his Yale law degree in 1990. He has been accused of sexually assaulting Christine Blasey Ford, now a professor at Palo Alto University, when they were in high school. A sign posted next to Kavanaughs portrait in the law school says, We believe Dr. Christine Blasey Ford #MeToo. Another quotes professor Ahkil Reed Amar as saying that nominating Kavanaugh is the one most sane, most sober, most classy thing that the administration has done. Chua, who gained national notoriety in 2011 with her book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, advocating a super-strict parenting style, fell ill shortly after the fall semester began and reportedly was hospitalized. She has been known as a mentor for potential Kavanaugh law clerks and one of her two daughters is set to clerk for him if he is not confirmed as a Supreme Court justice. Chua issued a statement disputing that Kavanaugh seeks attractive women as law clerks. For the more than ten years Ive known him, Judge Kavanaughs first and only litmus test in hiring has been excellence, she wrote. He hires only the most qualified clerks, and they have been diverse as well as exceptionally talented and capable. There is good reason so many of them have gone on to Supreme Court clerkships; he only hires those who are extraordinarily qualified. The Guardian also claimed that Rubenfeld is the subject of an internal investigation at Yale focused on Rubenfelds conduct, particularly with female law students. The newspaper quotes a statement from Rubenfeld saying he was told he was the subject of an informal review but that he was not told specifics. I was further advised that the allegations were not of the kind that would jeopardize my position as a long-tenured member of the faculty. That quote is also posted in the Yale Law School courtyard. While law school spokeswoman Janet Conroy said she could not confirm or deny the existence of an investigation, Dean Heather Gerken issued a statement addressing the reports. The allegations being reported are of enormous concern to me and to the School, Gerken wrote. While we cannot comment on individual complaints or investigations, the Law School and the University thoroughly investigate all complaints regarding violations of University rules and take no options off the table. Neither the Law School nor the University prejudges the outcomes of investigations. Any statements to the contrary are inaccurate. Gerken added, Faculty misconduct has no place at Yale Law School. You have my word that we will take appropriate action on any complaints. I think people are unbelievably upset about the alleged investigation, said a second-year law student who would not give her name. I think theyre serious about investigating, but they havent done anything to show students that theyre serious about investigating. But the decades-old sexual assault allegation and the Guardians story have mobilized students, who reportedly plan a sit-in on Monday unless classes are canceled so they can go to Washington to protest at Kavanaughs confirmation hearings. Dana Bolger, a third-year law student, said in a Facebook message that a number of professors have cancelled class, in response to students requests. Everybodys talking about it in the hallways and people are extremely passionate and are mobilizing and having conversations about how to proceed, said a first-year student. When theres bias in who gets these clerkships, that means bias in whos going to get on the Supreme Court 20 years from now, the student said. The things that are talked about were open secrets and are things that students hear even before they start at the law school. Lorianne Updike Toler, a fellow at the law school, said she thought the criticism of Chua and Rubenfelds coaching of women who wanted to be clerks was silly. Theres no allegations here. Youre talking about being dressed femininely or assertively. Its unclear what theyre charging. Kavanaugh hires and promotes and forwards the careers of women. He takes on diverse women. On Friday, 49 Yale Law School faculty issued an open letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, saying they are concerned about a rush to judgment that threatens both the integrity of the process and the publics confidence in the Court. Allegations of sexual assault require a neutral factfinder and an investigation that can ascertain facts fairly, the letter states. Those at the FBI or others tasked with such an investigation must have adequate time to investigate facts. In subsequent hearings, all of those who testify, and particularly women testifying about sexual assault, must be treated with respect. The letter concluded, The confirmation process must always be conducted, and appointments made, in a manner that gives Americans reason to trust the Supreme Court. Some questions are so fundamental to judicial integrity that the Senate cannot rush past them without undermining the publics confidence in the Court. This is particularly so for an appointment that will yield a deciding vote on womens rights and myriad other questions of immense consequence in American lives. Kavanaugh, who would replace retired Justice Anthony Kennedy, is expected to create a strong conservative majority on the court, with opponents fearing that he would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion. His nomination split the law school community as soon as he was nominated July 9, when the school issued a press release in which Gerken and faculty praised the judge. I can personally attest that, in addition to his government and judicial service, Judge Kavanaugh has been a longtime friend to many of us in the Yale Law School community, Gerken wrote. Ever since I joined the faculty, I have admired him for serving as a teacher and mentor to our students and for hiring a diverse set of clerks, in all respects, during his time on the court. That prompted a July 10 letter from students, alumni and faculty who said they were ashamed of our alma mater. The press releases focus on the nominees professionalism, pedigree, and service to Yale Law School obscures the true stakes of his nomination and raises a disturbing question: Is there nothing more important to Yale Law School than its proximity to power and prestige? Judge Kavanaughs nomination presents an emergency for democratic life, for our safety and freedom, for the future of our country. Two days later, a pro-Kavanaugh letter stated: Judge Kavanaugh is eminently qualified to serve as a Supreme Court justice and called him one of our nations most distinguished jurists. He has demonstrated a principled approach to interpreting the law. He has reached legal conclusions free of political partisanship. Judge Kavanaugh has devoted his professional life to upholding the rule of law and our Constitution. edward.stannard@ hearstmediact.com; 203-680-9382 It wasnt unusual for Priscilla Pris Trawick to find mounted animal heads in her dining room, but the deer being carried through the house was new. A favorite pastime of her husbands, Jack Sid Trawick, was taking wounded soldiers on hunting and fishing trips in Texas. On this particular day, Trawick and the two young men accompanying him had killed a deer but arrived at the local game processing operation too late. The only alternative was taking the deer home and stuffing it in the refrigerator. However, the animal was so large it kept popping the door open, and all Pris could do was laugh. There were crazy things, and sometimes Id get mad as a hornet, but life was never dull, she said. Every person who spent time with Sid has a weird story to tell. Sid Trawick died Sept. 6 of cancer. He was 80. More information Born: Nov. 12, 1937, Seminole, Ok. Died: Sept. 6, 2018, San Antonio Preceded by: Parents James and Edna Trawick, sister Barbara Bock Survived by: His wife, Priscilla "Pris" Trawick; sons David and Jim Trawick; daughter Melissa Trawick-Sullivan; sister Nancy Shields; and four grandchildren. Services: Thursday, Sept. 20 at Porter Loring Mortuary North See More Collapse The son of a dentist in Seminole, Oklahoma, Trawick started going by Sid in the first grade. He was one of seven boys in the class named Jack, and the teacher asked whether any of the them would mind using their middle name. Thats fine with me, Trawick said, according to Pris, before asking the teacher what his middle name was Sidney. In high school Trawick was involved in debate, drama and band, where he played the trombone. He claimed his talents were limited, but the band director assured him he had to stay involved because he had more volume than anyone else, Pris said. He planned to join the military and was set to go to West Point, but his color blindness prevented him from doing so. Trawick considered careers in law and medicine before settling on dentistry because of the shorter academic requirements. After stints at Oklahoma University and Oklahoma Baptist University, he enrolled in Baylor College of Dentistry in Dallas. Shortly afterward he met Pris, then Priscilla Waters, who would become his wife of more than 50 years. While working on a construction crew in Colorado to pay for dental school and expenses, Trawick convinced the directors of a Boy Scout camp nearby to give him food and lodging in exchange for organizing some of the camps facilities and scouts. Pris was a counselor at another camp down the road, and they met when he drove some scouts over for a dance. When Pris discovered he was moving to Dallas for dental school, the Dallas native offered to show him around when he arrived. No one ever takes you up on that, but he did end up calling, Pris Trawick said. They were married during Trawicks junior year of dental school and he was drafted into the U.S. Army Dental Corps. in 1962. The plan was to fulfill their military obligation and then set up a private dental practice; instead, they spent the next 30 years on assignments that took them to Fort Sam Houston; Fort Hood; Fort Sill, Kansas City; Fort Riley, Germany; Vietnam and Italy. It was too fun to give up, said Pris Trawick, who works as a travel agent. The couple and their three children loved experiencing different cultures and traveling the world, she said. In his roles as clinician, teacher, staff officer and commander, Sid was a hard worker who refused to ask someone to do something he wouldnt do, Pris Trawick said. At the events he planned, his goal was to ensure everyone enjoyed themselves and felt included. After Sid Trawick retired in 1992, the family settled in San Antonio and Trawick worked in private practice for the next 15 years. In addition to the outdoor trips, he was involved with the Alamo Chapter of the Association of the U.S. Army, the Army All-American Bowl, Meals on Wheels and the Alamo Heights Rotary Club. He wasnt born in Texas but he loved calling himself a Texan, Pris Trawick said. miszler@express-news.net | @madisoniszler Overnight rain in San Antonio has made September 2018 the wettest September for the city in recorded history, according to the National Weather Service. "From midnight to about 7 a.m. we received 1.86 inches of rain," said Bob Fogarty, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. "That placed us at 16.82 for September." San Antonio police arrested an off-duty Bexar County Sheriff's Office deputy early Saturday morning for DWI, bringing the total number of deputies arrested this year to 20. Deputy Diana Barrera, 51, was a 12-year veteran of the department who according to a release, had been on unpaid administrative leave since August for an unrelated incident. Barrera had been assigned to the county's Detention Bureau. A fire early Saturday caused about $10,000 in damages to a San Antonio Mexican restaurant, according to authorities. San Antonio firefighters responded about 12:25 a.m. to the 12000 block of O'Connor Road where a grease fire started in the kitchen at Taqueria Chapala Jalisco Mexican Restaurant, according to the SAFD. RELATED: Fire causes $90,000 of damage to North Side Mexican restaurant No injuries were reported. Firefighters quickly got the blaze under control and contained it to the kitchen. Although fire damage was limited to one wall only, the kitchen sustained heavy smoke damage, SAFD at the scene said. San Antonio police are trying to unravel the events leading to the shooting death of a 15-year-old boy Saturday morning on the city's South Side. According to police, Sonny Vidales burst into the bedroom of a sleeping relative at a home in the 300 block of Adolph Street about 1:45 a.m. claiming he had been shot. One doesnt always leave the hairdresser looking the way one hoped. Sometimes all you need is a trim, maybe a little off the top or a quick shortening of the bangs but half an hour later, you walk out of the salon looking like Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carreys character in Dumb and Dumber). Its painful to wait for things to grow out, but when changes are permanent it really hurts. Thats what could happen for many Texas high-school students studying to become barbers, hairdressers and salon technicians because of legislation meant to give them a boost. In July, the State of Texas gave the nod to H.R. 2353, the Strengthening Career and Technical Education (often shortened to CTE) for the 21st Century Act. This was an update to legislation passed in 2003 that created programs of study that provide funding to put Texas high-school students on a nontraditional track to get a degree or industry-recognized certification that would help them find jobs after graduation. Think technical programs, vocational office education or programs that teach computer system security and maintenance. This years changes to the legislation bolster the wording, in one case to indicate such paths should lead to high-demand and high-wage jobs or to a clear path to continuing education. But there is one cluster of professions being taught in high schools that does not meet the new criteria and is at risk of getting washed out. According to figures reported in the Texas Tribune, cosmetology programs are putting students on the path to earn yearly salaries of $21,507 and $30,056 well below the median salary set by the new legislation, which aims to put students in careers that will pay at least $35,339. Because of this, the Texas Education Agency is beginning the process of reshaping what the CTE field looks like, and that includes the option to clip cosmetology. But taking such action is akin to cutting your own hair with a hand mirror and a pair of those tiny scissors that come in a dollar-store manicure set: it might work, but it probably wont. Lets brush aside that such a motion would unfairly target women, who as a whole earn lower salaries than men. Getting rid of such programs based on reported annual salaries doesnt account for the side gig opportunities this skill set yields. People get professional haircuts, perms and updos in air-conditioned garages on weekends; braids are set, heads are shaved and roots disappear in kitchens all the time. A motivated person with shears who will travel can earn a lot. Then theres the cost of training to students who really want to go to work making others beautiful. The price tag for beauty school can run well into the thousands. But a high school student taking a cosmetology course is only responsible for a few hundred dollars in lab fees; a senior with enough lab hours can take a certification exam and go to work right away without the burden of student loans. For many students, this is a way to work their way through college. For others, its a way to put food on the table for themselves and their families after graduation. And for those at risk of dropping out, showing up at cosmetology class is often the motivator for staying in high school. There are several cosmetology courses in San Antonio, most often through magnet programs. Students from Northeast ISD attend classes at the Legacy of Educational Excellence campus and students from Kennedy and Memorial High Schools go to Edgewoods Fine Arts Academy. Taft High Schools Raiders Salon serves the schools community in their on-campus lab, with supervised students providing services to teachers and family members after they have completed 100 hours of training. According to the Northside ISD website, Holmes and Jay high schools offer similar courses. The intent is good. But this particular clip job just needs to be swept away. mariaanglinwrites@gmail.com President Mnangagwa has appointed former Minister of State for Midlands Provincial Affairs Owen Ncube as Minister of State Security. Cde Ncube took his oath of office before President Mnangagwa at State House this afternoon. Ncube is the former Minister of State for Midlands Province and the current member of parliament (MP) for Gokwe-Kana. Ncube who is a long time ally of President Emmerson Mnangagwa will now take charge of the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO). This brings the number of Ministers in President Mnangagwas administration to 21 Cabinet Ministers 14 Deputy Ministers 9 Ministers of State For Provincial Affairs 2 Ministers of State In the Vice Presidents Office Responding to the appointment Jonathan Moyo said, Say what? Please say this is not true. Please. For the sake of Zimbabwe. Please! https://twitter.com/Mathuthu/status/1042417267722649602 Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News Ishmael Maukazuva, an MDC Alliance councillor has complained against Chikomba District Administrator Michael Mariga who he accuses of forcing him to swear by the Bible during last weeks swearing in ceremony at the council offices. Maukazuva who is an electrician with the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC) is a Moslem and had made prior request for the Koran to be provided for him during the swearing in ceremony. Zanu PF councillors called for his immediate recall when he refused to hold the Bible. Maukazuva was then ordered by Mariga to take the oath while holding a bible. He gave in but murmured his pledges in disappointment. Mariga said, I did not force him to swear by the Bible, he did it willingly, when asked for a comment. He later on called The Mirror and changed his statement saying that the acting CEO was handling the swearing in and he was a mere observer before accusing The Mirror of trying to tarnish his image. Maukazuva who is a councillor for the first time said that he held the Bible because he didnt want to be at war with the DA. He said that he was however very hurt and felt abused. The Constitution of Zimbabwe allows for freedom of worship and it is therefore illegal for anyone to force someone to join a religion against his or her wish. I am not a Christian. I am a Moslem who is loyal to my religion. I gave in to the demands of the DA just for the sake of the electorate, whom I didnt want to upset. I will however perform a cleansing ritual on myself after this incident, said Maukazuva. Constitutional lawyer Tawanda Kanengoni said Forcing the councillor to take the oath in a way which is against his religion was a deprivation of his freedom of worship inshrined in the constitution. Section 60 (2) of the Zimbabwean Constitution states that No person may be compelled to take an oath contrary to their religion or belief or to take an oath in a manner that is contrary to their religion or belief. Meanwhile, Ward 17 Councillor Israel Dhikinya of Zanu PF was unanimously elected Chikomba RDC chairperson after another nominee, Learnmore Mufamba withdrew from contesting. MasvingoMirror Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News The teacher at St Johns College, a private high school for boys in Harare, stood up at assembly on Friday morning and told students: Im gay. Neal Novelmeier said he had made the decision to declare his se_xuality in the hope that it would curb homoph0bic behaviour at the school located in the plush neighbourhood of Borrowdale. I simply feel and believe that as an educator I will be able to better address and advance this issue if I am prepared to be fully open and transparent about it myself, he said in a letter to parents, seen by ZimLive. He has been supported by the schools headmaster, Cavaliere Corrado Trinci, deputy headmaster Andrew Sakala and Charles N. Msipa, the chairman of the schools board of governors. The unusual step taken by Novelmeier, thought to be the first school official to do so, will test the attitudes of parents with children at the school to hom0sexuality. Hom0sexuality is banned in Zimbabwe. Former President Robert Mugabe once said gays were worse than pigs and dogs, and new President Emmerson Mnangagwa told CNN in an interview in January that in our constitution, it is banned and it is my duty to obey my constitution as he refused to state what his personal opinion was on the matter. Novelmeier, who teaches the Upper Sixth class, said a number of former students who gain the confidence after school to pursue their chosen orientation had told him that during their time at the school they had experienced intolerance, intimidation and homoph0bia. He added: I felt increasingly troubled by the fact that we as an institution have never openly dealt with trying to curb homoph0bic behaviour and, equally, failed to provide a safe learning environment for students who may identify as being gay or bise_xual to truly flourish and feel accepted. Headmaster Trinci said Hovelmeier was a teacher of impeccable credentials. It suffices for Mr Sakala and I to say that this college campus is a place where diversity is embraced and a safe and caring environmewnt is provided for all persons regardless of race, religious beliefs, gender, se_xual orientation, abilities or disabilities or any other real or perceived difference, Trinci said in a letter to the parents. Hovelmeier said he had received overwhelming levels of support from the students and staff after his disclosure, for which he was heartened and grateful. ZimLive Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News Zanu PFs first woman chairperson, Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri, (OM) broke new ground when she was appointed Zimbabwes first female Defence minister. She speaks to NewsDay (ND) reporter Blessed Mhlanga on the journey she has walked, challenges she has faced and her plans for the ministry. Below are the excerpts. ND: How do you feel stepping into that important role and breaking new ground in both government and party? OM: This is something that we appreciate as the women of Zimbabwe, but moreso as Zanu PF. This was overdue considering that we shared trenches with our male counterparts during the liberation struggle. So we owe it all to the new and second President of the Republic who is gender sensitive and appreciates that the war which liberated this country was fought by both men and women. So for this, we appreciate. ND: There have been calls for security sector reforms amid allegations that the military is an extension of Zanu PF, how are you going to tackle this as Defence minister? OM: You need to appreciate that this is delegated power. The Commander-in-Chief is the President. I am looking forward to conferring with the President if it means that the reforms that you are talking about will be necessary, because this has been an issue raised over and over again. But I am really looking forward to working with my colleagues who are still within the defence sector. I am willing to learn as much as possible. You also need to know that our force is recognised the world over. You know they have served at UN (United Nations) and AU (African Union) levels. With the challenges that you are raising, I am sure to these agencies they dont see any problems, but they see excellence on the work performed by our forces. ND: As a war veteran, what things are on your to-do list as you take over this important ministry? OM: I am glad because the war veterans are part and parcel of the portfolio. The new Constitution is very clear. It articulates the significant role that was played by war veterans and war collaborators and recognises that we need to do as much as possible to address their concerns. When you go to the United States or South Africa, or in the region, war veterans have a special place and these are issues that I am going to be really looking into. The President has a passion and a soft spot for the welfare of war veterans. So I hope this is an opportunity for me and (Victor) Matemadanda my deputy to address these issues once and for all. So we see this as an opportunity to finally take on board their aspirations. ND: The national cake is small and government is struggling to even pay fees for children of war veterans, do you think government can afford taking care of war veterans? OM: We are not thinking small. I am sure you know the developments. You know even the selection of Cabinet really demonstrates serious business. So we are looking forward to growing the cake. That cake will have to be shared, especially with those that paid the supreme sacrifice for us to get to where we are today. ND: Government is accused of dumping and refusing to compensate war collaborators, what plans do you have for them? OM: Yes, they are part and parcel of the ministry and like you are saying that resources permitting we will definitely address the issue. I dont have a timeframe for it because resources will determine how fast we can address these issues. ND: You have come through the structures of Zanu PF and today you are the most powerful woman in the country. Tell us more about this journey? OM: It has been very tough because we are fighting for limited space. As you will see, Cabinet is very small. Women are happy that although not many are in Cabinet, but you have seen ministers of State, who will be representing us in the provinces. Most of them are women, so we really celebrate that and deputy ministers as well. So for us it is quite an honour, but we are looking forward also, even in Parliament to have women at the helm chairing various committees. So for us, we are very happy even though its slow. We are eventually getting there. The nation has matured and we hope that the contribution of women is being felt. ND: Have you faced any challenges either in government or party from people who resist your leadership on the basis of your gender? OM: Well here and there, there are challenges of course, but its individuals. The organisation is very clear in terms of the Constitution, but individuals, yes they have a problem. But we eventually find each other and authority is respected. ND: Have you ever felt like you are just a figurehead being placed there just to fill the womens quota and that you have no genuine power? OM: My dear, this path that I have walked being a Minister of Women Affairs, I had real power and managed to push through a number sweeping changes and these cannot be viewed as cosmetic. Even in Parliament, you can see womens representation in decision making, it speaks volumes. So to say I am a figure head would not be true. We need to give credit where it is due. The men in Zanu PF have been very understanding. Even men of Zimbabwe, you have been very understanding, so give yourself credit, but of course attitudes are very hard to deal with and address. NewsDay Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News Fifteen Chinese nationals were on Wednesday arrested at a brothel in South C, Nairobi with immigration authorities saying they are believed to have been engaging in pr0stitution. In a post on its Twitter handle, the Immigration department said they were being processed for deportation. They were arrested in a joint operation conducted by immigration officers and detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations. 15 Chinese were arrested by Immigration officers @DCI_Kenya this morning in South C estate BROTHEL, its believed they have been engaging in pr0stitution. They are being processed for deportation, the Immigration Department. It is the first pr0stitution incident involving Chinese nationals but shows a growing change of stance within government, which has for long allowed them to engage in all manner of activities in the country. Recently, a Chinese national was deported after a video in which he insulted Kenyans, including President Uhuru Kenyatta, calling them monkeys went viral. Although pr0stitution is not criminalised in the country, the Penal Code makes it illegal to profit from the pr0stitution of others, and to aid, abet, compel or incite pr0stitution. This includes operating brothels. Last year, Nairobi Members of County Assembly passed a motion to ban pr0stitution in the capital though the same is yet to be enacted into law. A Chinese road contractor He Zhifhang was arraigned in court for allegedly operating an illegal tea processing plant at a construction site without a licence from the Kenya Tea Board. The government has been cracking down on foreign nationals residing or working in the country without requisite permits and Chinese nationals, including journalists, have not been spared in the exercise. China has been Kenyas foremost bilateral partner pumping billions of shillings into infrastructural projects in the country but recently cut funding for the second phase of the Standard Gauge Railway a move said to have ruffled feathers in official circles. There have been previous reports that Chinese criminal networks, which have been linked to human trafficking, pr0stitution, loan-sharking, gambling, murder and gun smuggling have set up base in the country. BusinessToday Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who is currently in New York for the UN General Assembly, had a busy schedule with international media stampeding for interviews with him. Day Two of President Mnangagwas stay New York saw him granting interviews to various global media houses, including CNNs Christian Amanpour and the Bloomberg newspapers. They wanted to know what the new political dispensation is Zimbabwe is all about and what the government is focusing on. They also asked about the recent harmonised elections and some past issues. President Mnangagwa is also expected to address a Zimbabwe investor forum to market investment opportunities in the country, an exercise that the President has been undertaking since he assumed office. Finance and Economic Development Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube and Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Dr John Mangudya were expected to meet business people at Wall Street yesterday evening. ZBC Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News - Micah Adjarkoh was hailed a hero after saving his mothers life - The toddler managed to call emergency services when his mother repeatedly fainted - If it wasnt for his cool and calm demeanor, Micahs mother might not have been alive today At only 4 years, Micah Adjarkoh, is already being hailed a hero after saving his mothers life. In the face of true pandemonium, little Micah from Camberwell in south London, remembered his moms cellphone pin to unlock her phone and call emergency services. In a chilling recording, Micah gave the operator his address and postal code, with the help of his 24-year-old mother, Chancelvie Ngoy. She managed to cough out some words in the background of the call. Litte Micah Adjarkoh saved his mother's life. Image source: CATERS/WWW.MAGAZINEFEATURES.CO.ZA When the operator asked little Micah what his mothers name is, he replies, Mumy. According to a report by the You magazine, at one point during the 13-minute emergency call, Micah tells the operator his mother is sleeping when hes asked what shes doing. READ ALSO: Nigerian man narrates how a mother refused to break car window to save her child Like a true hero, Micah also made sure the front door to their home was open so that paramedics could enter it when they arrived. Chancelvie, who is a receptionist was taken to the hospital and was treated for a blood clot. She spent almost a week in hospital. In an interview with The Sun, Chancelvie said Micah saved her life: Hes our hero. PAY ATTENTION: Get the Latest Nigerian News on Legit.ng News The mother said while she was terrified, blacking out every so often, Micah did everything so well. Legit.ng gathered that Micah only cried when emergency services put a mask on his mother and told him he was not allowed in the ambulance. PAY ATTENTION: Get your daily relationship tips and advice on Africa Love Aid group Brave boy! Nigeria Breaking News: 34-Year-Old Woman Gives Birth to a Set of Quintuplets in Awka | Legit.ng TV Source: Legit.ng As the electorates await the gubernatorial election in Osun state, Nigerians have taken to social media to give their predictions on who will emerge winner in the election. Four main candidates are expected to contest in the Saturday, September 22 election. The candidates are Moshood Adeoti of the Action Democratic Party, Iyiola Omisore of the Social Democratic Party, Senator Ademola Adeleke of the Peoples Democratic Party and Gboyega Oyetola of the All Progressives Congress. For some Nigerians, the election will be a test of the strength of the APC in gauging the performance of Governor Rauf Aegbesola of the APC. Others however see it as an opportunity for the opposition PDP to show how ready it is to wrestle power in 2019. READ ALSO: Former governor Oyinlola predicts winner of Osun governorship election Legit.ng readers seem to be torn in their views on who will emerge winner of the Osun election. For Leke Ajala, it is the Osun State electorates that will decide that. It is left for them to make the right choice. They need to shun the bait (vote buying) so that they don't struggle with the hook for another four years. I am just a political watcher & a neutral observer of Nigeria's political arena." Some Nigerians based their predictions on the outcome of the Osun state gubernatorial debate which incidentally was not attended by the PDP candidate. Sola Sojimi noted that After watching the Osun governorship debate, I realized how brilliant Iyiola Omisore is and the APC candidate. I give it to one of them. Either of them will make a good governor for Osun state. One Momodu Rufai Dee Man insisted that the APC has been doing well in the southwest and predicted victory for the party. Akinyemi Ashim also predicted the candidate of the APC will win claiming the party is associated with good projects. ComradeJayeola Olanrewaju Gcfr in his summation countered those tipping the APC to win. He said: "The incumbent Governor who is a member of APC is owing the workers of the state and retirees 32 months salary ( Highest in the history of Nigeria) . Just felt I should let those of you supporting APC should know. Another Nigerian noted that the PDP was likely to win in the election and that the Senator Adeleke had what it takes to pay the salaries of staff. Sam Olabisi Olarinde tipped the APC to win because the candidate was experienced in the private sector. He said: APC is likely to win base on the candidate pedigree from private sector to public as the engine room of this administration, not a looter like some still returning their loot, not a duller like some running after school cert, not a betrayer like some who abandoned ship as at yesterday to come out from one obscure platform that can not take them beyond their wards,and not a political jobbers like all those serial contestants,therefore how you see am? In the Legit.ng twitter poll however, Senator Adeleke had 56% followed by Oyetola who had 36%. Omisore and Adeoti had 7% and 1% respectively. PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 new app Legit.ng earlier reported that Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the national leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) said that the party is capable of winning the September 22 governorship election in Osun. Tinubu said this in an interview with State House correspondents after he led the partys stakeholders from the southwest to a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja on Thursday, August 30. Osun Election 2018: How Much is Enough to Vote for a Politician? Osun Residents Speak | Legit.ng TV Source: Legit.ng - The Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) predicted cloudy to cloudy conditions over the central states of the country - NiMet also predicts chances of rainfall and thunderstorm activities over most parts of Nigeria - Southern states will experience thunderstorms and rain showers throughout the forecast period The Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) has predicted chances of rainfall and thunderstorm activities over most parts of the country on Saturday, September 22. NiMets Weather Outlook by its Central Forecast Office (CFO) on Friday, September 21, predicted partly cloudy to cloudy conditions over the Central states in the morning hours. It predicted scattered thunderstorms over Abuja, Lafia, Jos, Bauchi, Gombe and Yola in the afternoon and evening hours with day and night temperatures of 28 to 30 and 20 to 24 degrees Celsius respectively. READ ALSO: President Buhari mourns death of former Kwara military governor The agency predicted partly cloudy conditions over the Northern region in the morning with thundery activities over Southern Borno in the afternoon and evening hour. It also predicted day and night temperatures in the ranges of 28 to 34 and 21 to 24 degrees Celsius respectively during the forecast period. According to NiMet, Southern states will experience thunderstorms and rain showers throughout the forecast period with day and night temperatures of 27 to 30 and 21 to 24 respectively. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Nigeria Breaking News: Kogi Flood Sacks Residents from Their Homes | Legit.ng TV Source: Legit A presidential aspirant under the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and senator representing Kano central senatorial district in the National Assembly, Rabiu Kwankwaso, has stated that the PDP lost the 2015 presidential election, because they fielded only one candidate. Speaking on Friday, September 21, during an interview on Channels Televisions Sunrise Daily, Kwankwaso boasted that the partys chance of victory in next years election was high based on the number of aspirants in the presidential race compared to that of 2015. His words: In 2015, PDP had only one candidate and it lost the election. If you look at it statistically, from 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2011, PDP had very competitive (aspirants) at primary elections and was winning the general elections in those election years. But in 2015, it decided to print only one form for one person and it lost the election. READ ALSO: 2019: I am well-prepared to provide 21st century leadership - Tambuwal He claimed many PDP members left for the All Progressive Congress (APC) after the 2015 general elections, because of impunity. PDP, in my opinion, learnt its lessons. In 2015, PDP was very arrogant and believed that whatever happens, they would win the elections, he said. They (PDP) never thought that an incumbent could lose the election. They had at that time, some level of impunity that many of us felt that was not the best way to handle the government, the party and of course the country. That was why we decided to defect to the APC, mobilised the people and at the end of the day, we won the election, he added. Kwankwaso's comments comes a month after he visited the former president in his Abuja residence, as part of his consultations for the 2019 elections. PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 new app Last week, Kwankwaso declared that history is about to repeat itself in Nigeria as the 2019 general elections draws nearer. Kwankwaso, a former governor of Kano state, stated that the indices on ground have proven beyond every reasonable doubt that the ruling All Progress Congress (APC) has lost electoral value just within three years. He made the comments in in Sokoto on a visit to state PDP executives ahead of the partys presidential primaries in October. Senator Kwankwaso Rabiu announces his Presidential Bid (Election 2019) | Legit.ng TV Source: Legit Newspaper The Nigerian Army on Friday, September 21, released an update in a statement on the search and rescue operations for Maj Gen IM Alkali (Rtd) who has been missing since September 3. Alkali, immediate past chief of administration, Army Headquarters, Abuja, was declared missing after leaving Abuja for Bauchi state. Legit.ng gathered that the Army in a statement said the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Lt Gen TY Buratai constituted a Joint Task Force comprising officers and soldiers from 3 Division Quick Response Team, Operation Safe Haven, Nigeria Police Force, Vehicle Inspection Office, Fire Service, as well as local divers to unravel the circumstances surrounding the senior officer's disappearance. READ ALSO: Former governor Oyinlola predicts winner of Osun governorship election It was added that several logistics issues including sabotage from the host communities have hampered the success of the operation. The Nigerian Army conducts search and rescue operations for Maj Gen IM Alkali (Rtd). Photo credit: Facebook, Nigerian Army Source: Facebook Read the statement below: "Update on Search and Rescue Operations for Maj Gen IM Alkali (Rtd). The Nigerian Army in its quest to unravel the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of Maj Gen IM Alkali (rtd) has been conducting several search and rescue operations around the last known location of the missing senior officer. Consequently, the COAS Lt Gen TY Buratai constituted a Joint Task Force comprising officers and soldiers from 3 Division Quick Response Team, Operation Safe Haven, Nigeria Police Force, Vehicle Inspection Office, Fire Service, as well as Local Divers. Several logistics issues including sabotage from the host communities have hampered the success of the operation. Due to the terrain in the general areas of Paddock in Lafendeg Du Plateau State, the task force consulted a Chinese construction company working in that area who promised to assist in drilling out water from the pond where it was suspected that the vehicle belonging to the senior officer was pushed into. Several logistics issues have hampered the success of the operation. Photo credit: Facebook, Nigerian Army Source: Facebook However, the Chinese company was forced to withdraw from their services due to continuous threats and protest by women in the community clad in black dresses. In the midst of this challenge however, the Task Force continued with its search and rescue operation which led to the recovery of an 18-Seater Hummer Bus door. This discovery indicates that there could be other vehicles in the same pond hence the continued protest by the community. Suffice to add that the NA would not relent in its search and rescue Operation until the retired general is found." A pond being evacuated by the Nigerian Army, in a bid to locate Major General Idris Alkali, who has been missing since September 3. Photo credit: Facebook, Nigerian Army Source: Facebook PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 new app In a previous report by Legit.ng, the Nigerian Army evacuated water from a mining pond at Dura, Du District, Jos South local government of Plateau, in search of Idris Alkali, a missing retired major general. Alkali, immediate past chief of administration, Army Headquarters, Abuja, was declared missing on the 3rd of September. He was on his way to Bauchi after leaving Abuja in the morning, NAN reports. Brig Gen Ibrahim Mohammed, garrison commander, 3 Division Garrison, Nigeria Army, Rukuba, Jos addressed newsmen on Thursday, September 20, shortly after the commencement of the evacuation. Nigerian Air Force Day Celebration 2018 (54th Anniversary) - on Legit.ng TV: Source: Legit - Theatre commander of Operation Lafiya Dole Maj.-Gen. Abbah Dikko has ordered troops to mercilessly deal with Boko Haram - The commander described a great achievements the successes recorded during the counter-attack in Damasak - Dikko added that the command would also organise an in-house training on counter terrorism campaign for new troops Maj.-Gen. Abbah Dikko, Theatre commander of Operation Lafiya Dole has ordered troops to mercilessly deal with Boko Haram whenever they attack any military formation Dikko gave the order while addressing troops of Sector 3 conducting Operation LAST HOLD in Munguno on Friday, September 21. The commander described a great achievements the successes recorded during the counter-attack in Damasak where Boko Haram fighters were outgunned and their equipment recovered while attempting to attack 145 Battalion. READ ALSO: CBN revokes Skye Banks licence as Polaris Bank takes over He charged the troops to be more committed, focused and proactive in the conduct of their operations. He explained that troops of the Rapid Development Force (RDF) will soon arrive Kinnasara Cantonment, Monguno for deployment to support the ongoing operations. Dikko added that the command would also organise an in-house training on counter terrorism campaign for new troops that would be deployed to the sector. The acting commander Sector 3 Brig. Gen. Uwem Bassey, also promised that the Sector will continue to maintain high level of fighting spirit and professionalism which the Nigerian Army is known for. Bassey praised the recent feats recorded by troops and hoped they would ginger troops of the sector to put in more efforts. Legit.ng had earlier reported that the Nigerian Army on Friday, September 21, released an update in a statement on the search and rescue operations for Maj Gen IM Alkali (Rtd) who has been missing since September 3. PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app Alkali, immediate past chief of administration, Army Headquarters, Abuja, was declared missing after leaving Abuja for Bauchi state. Nigerian Air Force Day Celebration 2018 (54th Anniversary) - on Legit.ng TV: Source: Legit The eight-year tenure of Governor Rauf Aregbesola is gradually winding up as the residents of the state troop to the polls today, Saturday, September 22, to decide who will be the next governor of the state of Osun. Although there are 48 parties and thus 48 governorship candidates cleared to contest for September 22 governorship election in Osun state, about five of them are expected to be the major contenders jostling for the 1,246,915 votes in the state. These are a former secretary to the state government, Fatai Akinbade of the ADC; immediate past secretary to the state government, Moshood Adeoti of the ADP; the candidate of the governing APC, Adegboyega Oyetola; a senator, Ademola Adeleke of the PDP; and a former senator, Iyiola Omisore of the SDP. READ ALSO: Unconfirmed results trickle in as APC, PDP battle for victory in Osun election Who will Osun people give the mandate to become the next state governor among these candidates? Is it going to be Oyetola? Adeleke? Omisore? Or a new fresh face? Legit.ng is on ground, live and direct from Osun state, to bring you insightful live updates as Osun people troop out to cast their votes for their preferred candidates today, Saturday, September 22, 2018. INEC has started announcing the result of the election Dont forget to refresh your browser always for fresh updates. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5.30pm: A Premium Times report says the PDP defeated the APC in the polling unit of the ruling party's pioneer national chairman Bisi Akande at Polling Unit 12, Ward 4, Ita Aewogbade, Ila local government area. PDP candidate, Ademola Adeleke won the polling unit with 78 votes to the APCs 49. _________________________________________________________________________________ 4.40pm: A report from Vanguard has stated that the PDP won in the polling unit of an ADC chieftain and former governor of Osun state, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola. At the Court Hall 1, PU 001 at Oba Ojomu in Odo-Otin local government area, the PDPs governorship candidate, Adeleke won with 107 votes as the APCs governorship candidate came second by scoring 69 votes while the ADCs governorship candidate, Alhaji Fatai Akingbade scored 20 votes. The Social Democratic Party, SDP, scored 13. Oyinlola recently defected from the APC to the African Democratic Party (ADC). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.11pm: Jubilations as Oyetola wins polling unit, LA pry school ward 1 unit 2C Iragbiji APC - 123, PDP - 43, SDP - 2, ADC - 0, ADP - 9 Void - 10 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.50: NOTE: Electoral officials have started announcing results in some polling units but the final result will be announced at INEC head office in the state. For unofficial results trickling out from the various polling units, click here. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.38pm: Jubilation as Adeleke wins his ward. Adeleke reportedly polled 154 votes to defeat Gboyega Oyetola of the All Progressives Congress and other candidates at the Abogunde/Sagba ward 2, unit 9 in Ede. Osun Decides 2018: LIVE UPDATES from the governorship election Source: Original Osun Decides 2018: LIVE UPDATES from the governorship election Source: Original Osun Decides 2018: LIVE UPDATES from the governorship election Source: Original -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.10pm: There is palpable tension in Ife Central local government area where the SDP is currently leading. Some of the voters, especiallly the SDP supporter,are accusing an INEC ad-hoc staff of collecting bribe from other parties after declaring many of their ballot papers invalid. Soldiers have been deployed to the polling unit to restore sanity. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2.37pm: Sorting of votes begins in Oyetola's polling unit. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2.31pm: At the Akarabata polling Unit 1A and B, SDP defeated other parties. Results have started trickling in from different centres. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2.29pm: Counting of votes has started in some parts of Ife Central local government area -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2.22pm: Thugs invade polling unit in Egbedore, steal ballot boxes Some suspected thugs invaded Okini in Egbedore local government and snatched away ballot box during the voting process. It took the intervention of the security agents who promptly swung into action to arrest the invaders. Osun Decides 2018: LIVE UPDATES from the governorship election Source: Original The security agents later brought calmness and order to the polling as sorting began after the thugs were taken away. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2.11pm: The police have reportedly arrested 10 impersonators at Olorunda Ward 11 Units 1,2,4,5 who attempted to vote with PVCs that are not theirs. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.40pm: At Ilesha west local government, Moroko Ward 9 PU 6, The Cable reports that vote counting has started. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1pm: Police arrested two suspects for allegedly inducing voters Iwo LGA. The sum of N604,000 was reportedly found on them. Police arrested two suspects for allegedly inducing voters Iwo LGA. The sum of N604,000 was reportedly found on them. Source: Twitter -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12.50pm: Olagunsoye Oyinlola, a former governor of the state, voted at unit 3, ward 1, Okuku, Odo Otin local government area. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12.40pm: The Cable reports that Mansur, a voter at Obada ward 1, unit 1, in Ede South, said party agents take voters to a corner to swear with a Quran if indeed they voted for their candidate. Thereafter, they are handed N1,000 naira -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12.30pm: The governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Senator Iyiola Omisore, on queue to cast his ballot in Ile-Ife at his More Ward. Omisore on the queue at his polling unit. Credit: Nigerian Tribune Source: Twitter The SDP candidate took a 'selfie' with his supporters after voting. Credit: Nigerian Tribune Source: Twitter -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12: 26pm: Despite the warning against vote-buying and selling, reports from various parts of the city indicate politicians and the electorate are still enaging in the electoral malpratice. Legit.ng correspondent can confirm that some residents of Ede have expressed their displeasure with the SDP and ADP for not 'sharing' money to them. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12.20pm: There have been few cases of card reader glitches. At St Georges School, Ofatedo, Egbedore ward 10, card readers reportedly not showing faces of voters who transferred their PVCs from other units -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12.14pm: A PDP agent has been arrested for alleged vote-buying at ward 1, unit 1, Obada Ede local government area, The Cable reports. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11.50 am: Aregbesola votes, describes election as festival of democracy. He says the exercise has been peaceful so far -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- OBSERVATION: 11.28am: There is a massive turn out of voters as observers commend INEC and security agencies. The head of foreign election observer for Osun 2018 election, Ketil Karlson, said the conduct of the election not only impressive but commendable. He said he was amazed about the large turnout of people to perform their civil rights. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11.12am: Fatai Akinbade, ADC governorship candidate, casting his vote at ward 3, unit 1, Ogbagba. Fatai Akinbade, ADC governorship candidate, casting his vote at ward 3, unit 1, Ogbagba. Credit: The Cable Source: UGC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10.40am: Oyetola addressing the media. The APC candidate said so far, the exercise has been going on smoothly. He expressed confidence that he would be victorious at the end of the election. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10.12am: The APC governorship candidate has just voted at LA primary school, ward 1 unit 2. Osun Decides 2018: LIVE UPDATES from the governorship election Source: Original Osun Decides 2018: LIVE UPDATES from the governorship election Source: Original Osun Decides 2018: LIVE UPDATES from the governorship election Source: Original Osun Decides 2018: LIVE UPDATES from the governorship election Source: Original Osun Decides 2018: LIVE UPDATES from the governorship election Source: Original -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9. 51am: People conduct themselves in orderly manner as voting commences in LA primary school, ward 1 unit 2. The APC governorship candidate, Gboyega Oyetola, is yet to arrive. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9.40am: Senator Adeleke addresses the newsmen. The PDP candidate said he would emerge the winner of the election, provided it is free and fair. Osun Decides 2018: LIVE UPDATES from the governorship election Source: Facebook -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8.45am: Accreditation of voters started in Oyetola home town, Iragbiji. Osun Decides 2018: LIVE UPDATES from the governorship election Source: Original -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8.44am: Reports reaching us from our correspondent state that the gubernatorial candidate of the PDP, Senator Adeleke has cast his vote. He reportedly voted at about 8:08am. Senator Adeleke voted at Ward 07 in Sagba Abogunde area of Ede North. Osun Decides 2018: LIVE UPDATES from the governorship election Source: Original Osun Decides 2018: LIVE UPDATES from the governorship election Source: Original Osun Decides 2018: LIVE UPDATES from the governorship election Source: Original Osun Decides 2018: LIVE UPDATES from the governorship election Source: Original ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8. 30am: There is morning shower in Ede area of the state. Hopefully the people of Ede will defy the early morning rain to come and vote for their preferred candidates. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8am: Polling units are being set up by INEC staff across the state as residents troop out to check their names on the voters accreditation list. Osun Decides 2018: LIVE UPDATES from the governorship election Source: Original Osun Decides 2018: LIVE UPDATES from the governorship election Source: Original Osun Decides 2018: LIVE UPDATES from the governorship election Source: Original -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8am: Quick facts you should know as the election starts in a moment: 1,687,492 registered voters 48 governorship candidates 1,246,915 PVC distributed -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7.51 am: Road leading to INEC office cordoned off by security officials. Our correspondent can confirm that Osogbo residents came out early to check out their names on the list of accredited voters. Theres a general lull in most parts of Osogbo and the road leading to Ede. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, September 22: 7am: The election day. INEC has promised that the election activities will kick-off at 8am this morning. However, voters are already seen trooping to various polling units, ready to excersise their franchise. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pre-election day recap: Friday, September 21: The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) distributed all sensitive election materials to all the 30 local government areas of the state under the keen eyes of security officials. INEC ad-hoc staff with election materials. Source: Original INEC ad-hoc staff checking and packing election materials. Source: Original Security operatives on ground as INEC distributes election materials. Source: UGC The state resident electoral commissioner, Segun Agbaje, addressed the press talking about key issues ahead of the election. He dismissed the allegation that INEC placed a ban on the use of phones in the polling units and also warned politicians and the electorate against vote-buying and vote-selling. The state resident electoral commissioner, Segun Agbaje, addressed the press talking about key issues ahead of the election. Source: Original I will surely win this election - Senator Adeleke| Legit.ng TV Osun Election 2018: How Much is Enough to Vote for a Politician? Osun Residents Speak | Legit.ng TV Source: Legit - The outgoing French ambassador to Nigeria spoke about the rampant killings in the country - He said he does not believe foreigners are responsible for the killings - The envoy listed some measures needed to put in place to stop the killings The outgoing French ambassador to Nigeria, Denys Gauer, has reportedly said that he does not believe that foreigners are involved in the killings across the country. The Cable reports that the Frenchs envoys position contradicts that of President Muhammadu Buhari. Recall that President Buhari had said that the killings are as a result of the influx of mercenaries from the Sahel region. READ ALSO: Former governor Oyinlola predicts winner of Osun governorship election It has always been there, but now made worse by the influx of armed gunmen from the Sahel region into different parts of the West African sub-region, the president had said when Justin Welby, archbishop of Canterbury, visited him in London back in April. But speaking with journalists on Friday, September 21, in Abuja, Gauer said impunity is encouraging the killings in the country and those responsible must be punished. Legit.ng gathers that the envoy spoke to journalists in commemoration of the 2018 French National Day. The reason for the killings is demography; some people are fighting for land, so there must be direct policy to develop agriculture and animal husbandry, he said. I think impunity is encouraging the killings and those responsible must be punished. I dont believe foreigners are involved in the killings. The second is justice. When there is that kind of killing, there must be proper prosecution and perpetrators must be properly sentenced. If that does not happen then, it cannot end. PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 new app Meanwhile, Legit.ng had previously reported that President Buhari on Monday, June 25, decried how desperate politicians have increasingly cheapened the human life in their quest to establish a reign of instability and chaos in the country for political gains. President Buhari, who was reacting to recent clashes in Plateau which left scores dead, said in a statement by his senior special assistant on media and publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, in Abuja, that those behind the killings hoped that it would give them an advantage in the coming elections. National Day of Mourning for Victims of Violent Killings Across Nigeria | Legit.ng TV: Source: Legit - Denys Gauer, outgoing French Ambassador to Nigeria has faulted the insinuation that foreigners are involved in the killings across the country - Gauer countered President Buhari, saying impunity is encouraging the killings in the country - President Buhari had said that the killings in some parts of Nigeria were as a result of the influx of mercenaries from the Sahel region The outgoing French ambassador to Nigeria, Denys Gauer, says he does not believe that foreigners are involved in the killings across Nigeria, The Cable reports. Legit.ng gathered that the Frenchs envoy position contradicts that of President Muhammadu Buhari who said that the killings are as a result of the influx of mercenaries from the Sahel region. Back in April 2018 when Justin Welby, archbishop of Canterbury, visited President in London, the president had said: It has always been there, but now made worse by the influx of armed gunmen from the Sahel region into different parts of the West African sub-region. READ ALSO: Osun Decides 2018: LIVE UPDATES from the governorship election Gauer speaking with journalists on Friday, September 21, in commemoration of the 2018 French National Day in Abuja, said impunity is encouraging the killings in the country and those responsible must be punished. He said: The reason for the killings is demography; some people are fighting for land, so there must be direct policy to develop agriculture and animal husbandry. I think impunity is encouraging the killings and those responsible must be punished. I dont believe foreigners are involved in the killings. The second is justice. When there is that kind of killing, there must be proper prosecution and perpetrators must be properly sentenced. If that does not happen then, it cannot end. PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app Legit.ng previously reported that the United Kingdom parliament described recent killings by the suspected herdsmen and other violent acts in the north central states of Nigeria as deeply disturbing, urging President Muhammadu Buhari to take urgent steps to stop the carnage. Lord Alton of Liverpool raised the Nigerian security issue at the House of Lords on Thursday, June 28, drawing support from members across party lines. The verbatim report of the debate of the Nigerian security challenges by the UK House of Lords are contained in the parliaments records website: hansard.parliament.uk. Read more: Nigeria News 2018: Why President Buhari Cannot Control Killings in Nigeria | Legit.ng TV Source: Legit - 72 Nigerians and a Togolese women are to be deported from Ghana for being in the country illegally - Some of these deportees were also said to have engaged in prostitution in Ghana, apart from lacking the requisite resident permits The Enforcement Unit of the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) is set to deport total of 73 foreign nationals over their illegal stay in the country. The deportees, made up of all women, includes 72 Nigerians and another from Togo. While most of them are being deported for staying in the country illegally, others are also reported to have engaged in prostitution. Some of the suspects at the immigration office in Accra. Source: Graphiconline.com.gh READ ALSO: Osun 2018: Why APC will emerge victorious - Etteh Meanwhile, nine other Ghanaians were also arrested when a team of officers invaded the Redco Flats neighbourhood at Madina on Thursday. The Ghanaian suspects have since been handed over to the Ghana Police Service for prosecution. Briefing the media on the matter, 2IC at the Public Affairs of the GIS, Deputy Superintendent of Immigration (DSI), Linda Asare Mantey, said all the suspects were arrested in and around the Junior Hotel at Madina, which is known for prostitution activities. She explained that the Immigration Service invaded the place after gathering intelligence that certain illegal acts were being perpetrated in the area. She disclosed that the foreign nationals among the suspects will all be deported whiles the Ghanaians will face prosecution. It is illegal to come to the country and engage in prostitution, Supt. Mantey said. According to her, although eight of the foreign nationals claimed they had passports, they could not produce any such documents. She added that the GIS has requested for their travel certificates from the Nigerian High Commission as well as the Togo Embassy to send them back to their various countries. Supt. Mantey further warned that the Ghana Immigration Service will go after owners and managers of hotel facilities who hire their facilities as prostitution destinations. PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app Legit.ng previously reported that the federal government has approved the immediate deportation of 36 Indians and 2 Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea nationals with immediate effect. The minister of interior, retired Lt.- Gen. Abdulrahman Dambazau, disclosed this in a statement issued by the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Dr Mohammed Umar, on Tuesday, September 11, in Abuja. Mass deportation: Tales of woes from Libya on Legit.ng TV Source: Legit.ng - Two Nigerian men and one Tanzanian have been arrested for electronic fraud in Kenya - The suspects were charged with defrauding local banks and withdrawing the proceedings outside the country - ATM cards, Laptops, Cheque books and among other exhibits were confiscated from the suspects Reports reaching Legit.ng reveal two Nigerian men identified as Uduebor Uche Folorunsho and Adebowale Oluwafemi including one Tanzanian man identified as Omari Abby Kajuna have been arrested for electronic fraud in Kenya. The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) operatives arrested the suspects on September 21 and confiscated several items including ATM cards, Laptops, Cheque books and among other exhibits. Reports show that the suspected fraudsters defrauded local banks of huge amounts of money which they withdrew outside Kenya. READ ALSO: Identical twin sisters give birth to adorable sons on the same day The suspects are currently in lawful custody and will be arraigned in court on Monday, September 24. One of the suspects, 27-year-old Uduebor Uche bursts into tears as he was captured after being arrested with his fellow fraudsters. The photo of him crying has since gone viral, with everyone blaming him for putting himself in such situation in the first place. 27-year-old suspect, Uduebor Uche Folorunsho, is to arraigned in court on September 24 Source: UGC Source: UGC The other Nigerian, Adebowale, is 31 years of age and there's no telling if he or the others will be delivered from the big pot of soup they've landed in. 31-year-old, Adebowale Oluwafemi, was arrested alongside two other fraudsters in kenya Source: UGC Source: UGC READ ALSO: Laura Ikeji celebrates Linda as she talks about the N120m Bentley she bought for her son The Tanzanian suspect, Omari who is 37 years of age is the oldest of the trio. Tanzanian Omari Abby Kajuna is the oldest of the three-men crew being 37 years of age Source: UGC Source: UGC Meanwhile, recently, two Nigerian cyber criminals, Olayinka Olaniyi and Damilola Solomon Ibiwoye, have been sentenced to prison in Georgia, USA. Both fraudsters were found guilty of charges bordering on cyber fraud and impersonation. The charges also involved the act of hacking the websites of universities and stealing more than $6 million. PAY ATTENTION: Read best news on Nigeria's #1 news app Robbers Return Firearms to Nigerian Police (Crime News in Nigeria) on Legit.ng TV: Source: Legit Police in Osun arrested two people suspected involved in vote buying as polls got underway on Saturday, September 22. In a tweet on its official Twitter handle, police said its election-duty team arrested the suspects at Iwo LGA of Osun, and recovered N604,000 from their possession, adding that investigation is still on going. READ ALSO: Osun guber: What I will do if I lose the election - Senator Adeleke Two (2) suspected vote buyers have been arrested by a team of police personnel on election duty at Iwo LGA of OSUN State and the sum of N604,000 recovered from their possession. Investigation is being intensified. PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app Meanwhile, Legit.ng had previously reported that the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola, expressed satisfaction in the ongoing governorship election in Osun state. Oyetola gave his verdict after he and his family voted in his polling unit 2 located at LA School Popo at Boripe local government area of the state. He said: "The process has been credible so far, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has been doing a good job. The people have been coming out to cast their votes without any intimidation. The card reader is working well, there has been no issue, the law enforcement agencies are doing their job, people are peaceful and I look forward to a credible election. Follow our live coverage of the Osun governorship elections here. I will surely win this election - Senator Adeleke| Legit.ng TV Source: Legit - Governor Ortom said the 200 herdsmen were arrested for violating Benue's anti-grazing law and 49 of them have been convicted - Ortom says he is ready to die in the defense of his people who have suffered great loss of lives an properties in the hands of killer herdsmen - The governor also promised to protect the anti-grazing law from 'outside forces' because he sees it as the only to peace for his people Benue governor, Samuel Ortom has expressed his satisfaction at the implementation of the states anti-grazing law which has led to the arrest of around 200 herdsmen. Ortom said of those herdsmen arrested for grazing their herds in the wrong places, 49 have been convicted by courts of law. The governor also expressed his readiness to lay down his life in defense of the people of the state. READ ALSO: Osun Decides 2018: LIVE UPDATES from the governorship election Daily Sun reports that Governor Ortom revealed the statistics and made the declaration on Friday, September 21 in Abuja while speaking at the maiden public lecture of the Conference of Benue Journalists. The governor was presented with an award for the defense of Benue at the event and he vowed to resist attempt from outside forces to repeal the law. Ortom, who also lamented the plight of IDPs, insisted that only ranching could keep the peace in the state and he promised to ensure that nothing stops the anti-grazing law. He said: I stand on the path of truth and on the defense of my people who elected me. As long as I am alive, I will continue to defend my people and the unity of this country. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android and read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Over 200 people who would have been in school are currently at home while about 500 thousand IDPs are scattered across various camps in the state. Some died while running away from death. "When the Sharia law was enacted in Zamfara state, Benue indigenes who were not comfortable with the law relocated to their state. How can we achieve development in the midst of lawlessness? Meanwhile, Governor Ortom on Thursday, September 20 confirmed that the state received N14.9 billion final tranche of the Paris Club refund from the federal government. Legit.ng reported that the Benue state leader vowed to use 80% of the funds for payment of salaries, pensions and gratuities. A statement obtained by Legit.ng through Ortom's chief press secretary, Terver Akase, which confirmed receipt of the funds, said the governor is working on how to properly share the money. The statement read in part: ''Ortom has also set up a committee headed by the deputy governor, Engineer Benson Abounu to work out modalities for immediate disbursement of the funds." Benue Elders Speak on Herdsmen Attacks - on Legit.ng TV Source: Legit - The NDIC said employees of the defunct Skye Bank Plc would be offered new contract terms under the management of Polaris Bank. - The corporation head communications and public affairs, Mohammed Kudu, made this known on Saturday, September 22 - The Central Bank of Nigeria earlier revoked the operating licence of Skye Bank Plc with immediate effect The Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) on Saturday, September 22 disclosed that employees of the defunct Skye Bank Plc would be offered new contract terms under the management of Polaris Bank. The Punch reports that the corporation made this known in a statement through its the head communications and public affairs, Mohammed Kudu. The NDIC in the statement came after the revocation of the operating license of Skye Bank by the CBN, the NDIC has commenced the processes for its liquidation. The statement read: The NDIC carried out the Bridge Bank option to resolve the Skye Bank Plc in order make certain that its depositors are fully protected as their deposits with Polaris Bank limited remain insured under the NDIC Act. The customers of Skye Bank Plc can also continue to transact their businesses with Polaris Bank Limited thereby ensuring the non-disruption of their banking transactions. PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app Furthermore, the adoption of the Bridge Bank model for the resolution Skye Bank Plc, guarantees that most of the employees of that bank will not lose their jobs and they will continue their employment with POLARIS Bank Limited under fresh contracts of employment. The NDIC, as deposit insurer, acted to ensure the continued safety of depositors funds and to proactively manage potential threats to financial system stability. Meanwhile, Legit.ng had reported that he Central Bank of Nigeria, on Friday,September 21, revoked the operating licence of Skye Bank Plc with immediate effect. The CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, disclosed this during a news conference in Lagos. Emefiele said the decision had been reached following the inability of the owners of the bank to shore up the capital of the distressed bank which had earlier recieved a N350 billion intervention in July 2016. Skye Bank requires urgent recapitalization as it can no longer continue to live on borrowed times with indefinite liquidity support from the CBN. According to him, Skye Bank requires urgent recapitalization as it can no longer continue to live on borrowed times with indefinite liquidity support from the CBN. We have decided to establish a bridge bank, Polaris Bank, to asuume the assets and liabilities of Skye Bank. Source: Legit - Oil workers' unions NUPENG and PENGASSAN say their members across Nigeria will embark on strike action - The strike is to protest the alleged planned mass sack of thousands of their members by a foreign oil company - NUPENG president, William Akporeha says the strike will be carried out by all oil workers across all fields Nigeria may experience yet another round of fuel scarcity as the countrys two main oil unions have prepared their members for a nationwide industrial action. TVC News reports that the workers, who are aggrieved over a dispute with a foreign oil company, made this known on Saturday, September 22. The oil unions the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) and Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) accused the oil company of plotting to sack thousands of Nigerian workers. READ ALSO: Unconfirmed results trickle in as APC, PDP battle for victory in Osun election This, they say is in violation of their contracts. NUPENG and PENGASSAN will not hesitate to embark on nationwide industrial action on this matter and we have already placed our members on red alert should the management of Chevron remain recalcitrant or adamant to rescind its anti-labor decision, the unions said in a joint statement. NUPENG president, William Akporeha said the strike action would be a nationwide one that would involve all members of the unions who cover a broad range of jobs across the countrys oil industry. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android and read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Legit.ng reported earlier that labour leaders in Nigeria, on Wednesday, September 12, cautioned the federal government to stop foot dragging on the new minimum wage and allow the tripartite committee conclude its job to avoid industrial crisis. The labour leaders, who are members of the minimum wage committee at a joint news conference addressed in Lagos, gave the federal government 14 days to ensure that the committee conclude its work or be ready to face industrial action. Local government employees stage MASSIVE protest in Lagos - on Legit.ng TV Source: Legit.ng - The screening process for PDP governors/candidates in the South-south was held on Saturday, September 22 - The governors of Delta, Rivers, Cross River and Akwa Ibom participated in the process - The screening was held at the PDP zonal office in Port Harcourt, the Rivers state capital The screening process for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governors/candidates in the South-south was held on Saturday, September 22 ahead of the 2019 general elections. Governors Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta, Nyesome Wike of Rivers, Ben Ayade Cross River and Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom all participated in the process Legit.ng gathered that the screening was held at the PDP zonal office in Port Harcourt, the Rivers state capital. Governor Okowa who was the only Deltan that picked the gubernatorial form of the party in a brief interview with journalists shortly after the screening, described the exercise as a very fruitful session. READ ALSO: Osun election: APC loses to PDP in Bisi Akandes polling unit We have gone through similar process in the past, as you can see, we don't have any opponent but, with the rules of our party, we will have affirmative congress, thereafter, the campaigns will start, Governor Okowa stated, assuring, from feelers across the country, we are very hopeful that we will win in the elections. Chairman of the 5-man panel that screened the governors, Honourable Muraina Ajibola had in a speech, said the screening exercise was very important for the PDP to field credible candidates in the 2019 general elections, observing, the PDP has a very strong hold in the South-south and we want to maintain such. Members of the includes; Alhaji Buba Galadima, Mr Chuks Akwitti, Engr. Muktar Ahmed and Rt. Hon. Boyele Debekeme who served as secretary of the committee. PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app Meanwhile, a coalition of Northern youths within the PDP has accused the leadership of the party of conniving with Governor Wike to rig the presidential primaries of the party by moving the convention to Port Harcourt. In a press statement sent to Legit.ng and signed by its convener, Honourable Awwal Dahiru, the group alleged that the plot by the Uche Secondus-led National Working Committee is to move the convention to Port Harcourt to enable Governor Wike conveniently install his preferred aspirant as the presidential candidate of the party. The youth group warned the PDP leadership not to allow the governor have his way, adding that the plot will lead to the destruction of the party. Nigeria News Today: Will Buhari Get Votes Of Nigerian Youth? | Legit.ng TV Source: Legit Ancient Megadrought Causes Present-Day Drama National Geographic Famed mathematician claims proof of 160-year-old Riemann hypothesis New Scientist Watch a big net snag a piece of space junk in first-ever test of new cleanup system BGR (David L) Japan has attempted to land two tiny rovers on a distant asteroid ars technica. Does this asteroid have enough gravity for anything to land? Cornell professor resigns after review questions his food studies Syracuse (bob) Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Growth Rate Carl Edward Rasmussen. Anthony L: The most depressing thing Ive read this week. Underwater walls could stop glaciers from melting, scientists say CNN FCCs Ajit Pai labels California net neutrality law illegal Engadget. Kevin W: Saw the section that says: What also speaks volumes is the context of Pais remarks, and who he was addressing as he headlined a fundraiser for the Maine Heritage Policy Center. If youre unaware, the MHPC is behind a failed attempt to rig taxation to shrink public services in Maine, opposes universal health care, and argue that raising the minimum wage harms everyone. The MHPC is part of the State Policy Network, a coordinated network of ultra-conservative and libertarian policy groups. The poisoning of Willowbrook Capitol Fax and a follow up THE BLOG I NEVER WANTED TO WRITE Andrea Thome (Jerry B). Wowsers. Why a human-centred Universe is not a humane one Aeon (Chuck L) Could we save the world if we all went vegan? Financial Times Florence China? Danske Bank Money-Laundering Case Spreads to U.K. Wall Street Journal (Kevin W) Big Macs in big countries: an update on euro area adjustment Bruegel French court orders Le Pen to submit to psychiatric evaluation Reuters Brexit Multiple Online Banking Systems Go Down in the UK Wolf Richter (EM) Syraqistan Big Brother is Watching You Watch Trump Transition Kavanaugh Trumps Opposition Supports All His Evil Agendas While Attacking Fake Nonsense Caitlin Johnstone Set Theory of the Left Counterpunch. On intersectionality. Hes Been There: Trump Stumps for Sen. Heller in Vegas RealClearPolitics. UserFriendly: Out of context the headline comes across like an insult. Odd given the right tilt of RCP. Interesting that he didnt fill the arena and how his most insane supporters treat the press. Ted Cruz and Beto ORourke Clash Over Jim Crow, Immigration and Kavanaugh in Debate New York Times Former Aides Give Wisconsin Gov. Walker Re-Election Headache RealClearPolitics. UserFriendly: Not even rats fleeing a sinking ship, this is genuine criticism. U.S. Rep. Keith Ellisons ex-girlfriend posts medical record alleging abuse StarTribune. UserFriendly: She somehow thinks the fact that she told a doctor Ellison was emotionally abusive vindicates her. The note specifically says she had no physical injuries. Her entire claim is that Ellison was emotionally abusive and one time pulled her leg without enough force to knock her off the bed. This kind of BS makes it sooo much harder for women who are actually abused to be believed. Fake News Crisis Orgy Taxpayer Money Threatens Medicare-for-All (And Every Other Social Program) Counterpunch (jerryb) The Customer Is Not Always Right: A Reply to Elliot Berkman Quilette (KF). Important. Study: Widely Used Nonprofit Efficiency Tool Doesnt Work ScienceBlog (Dr. Kevin). Also important. Class Warfare Antidote du jour. From Eddie M in 2016: And a bonus video: See yesterdays Links and Antidote du Jour here. A councillor's campaign to get Tipperary County Council to slash grave digging fees in Thurles is in danger of landing Clonmel residents with higher fees for opening graves at the town's St Patrick's Cemetery. Thurles Cllr David Doran (SF) repeated his call at this month's Co. Council meeting for the grave digging charges at Thurles's St Patrick's Cemetery to be "harmonised" with the cheaper fees charged at the Clonmel cemetery. He declared that the discrepency in the grave digging charges between both towns was "scandalous" and "unfair" with opening a grave in Thurles costing grieving families almost double what it cost in Clonmel. He also complained that there was a big difference in the cost of digging a grave in Thurles on weekdays compared to weekends and bank holidays. Cllr Doran said there had been a lot of talk in the Council about the harmonisation of charges around the county and he proposed that the Council harmonise grave digging charges by bringing the Thurles charges down to the level of those levied in Clonmel. Clonmel Workers & Unemployment Action Group Cllr Pat English, however, said he hoped the grave opening prices in Clonmel didn't increase to the Thurles cemetery rates. His concern was, no doubt, heightened when the Council's Director of Environment & Water Services Sean Keating gave his response to Cllr Doran's appeal. Mr Keating acknowledged there was a difference in the price of opening graves in different towns in the county. But it appeared to him that the charges in Thurles were the "most realistic" and he indicated the Council was going to have to bring charges levied in other towns into line with the Thurles grave digging fees. Cllr Doran responded that the grave opening fees in Thurles were "astronomical" and "very unrealistic" and he reiterated his appeal to reduce them to the rates charged in Clonmel. Mr Keating had the last word on the matter when he assured Cllr Doran the Council would come back to the elected members to speak about the issue. (Natural News) In a bid to protect the dwindling wetlands of southeastern Nebraska from the encroachment of aggressive reed canarygrass and preserve them from conversion into farmland, researchers suggest using the lush region of the Rainwater Basin as grazing or haying grounds for domesticated cattle, reported a Newswise article. This way, an aggressive invasive species gets reduced, the cattle receive plenty of natural nutrition, human producers gain an economic incentive to preserve the remaining wetlands, and tens of millions of waterfowl can continue to use the Basin as a resting and feeding ground during their migration. Today, the highly important Rainwater Basin is down to less than one percent of its original coverage. Most of it has been converted into cropland. To make matters worse, the remaining wetlands are being overtaken by invasive reed canarygrass. A hardy, non-native perennial species, Phalaris arundinacea forces out native species of seed-producing plants that provide migratory birds with food for their long journey. Its aggressive, said John Guretzky, a grassland systems ecologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). Nothing stops its growth. Guretzky sought out a way to preserve his home states remaining wetlands from the dual threat of encroaching humans and invasive plant species. He decided to investigate if wetlands infested by reed canarygrass could serve as forage areas for livestock. Were trying to encourage producers to graze or harvest the wetlands, he explained. That way producers could still get value through the land. A farmer could use wetlands as free sources of food for his own herd of cows, rent out the land to cattle farmers, or even harvest the reed canarygrass and sell it as cattle feed. (Related: A student has discovered that feeding cows microalgae increases the omega-3s in cheese.) As the choking clumps of canarygrass are cut down by humans or eaten by livestock, the resulting open space can be recolonized by native plants, which in turn attract migrating waterfowl. Wetlands can feed both cattle and migratory waterfowls The UNL research team simulated grazing events on two wetland plots in Seward County, Nebraska by mowing down reed canarygrass in those areas for three years. They measured the amount of fodder during each harvest to see if wetlands could provide enough food and nutrients for livestock. Cattle producers are concerned about their cattle health, explained Guretzky, who estimated that the wetland plots provided enough fodder to satisfy the concerns of cattle owners. Furthermore, the research team observed the effect of repeated harvests on the native and invasive plant species found in wetland plots. They determined that more frequent grazing events gave local species a better chance to recolonize an area formerly dominated by reed canarygrass. Removing all that top growth lets more light in on the soil, Guretzky said. The tall stems and large leaves of reed canarygrass blot out sunlight and stifle smaller annual plants. Multiple grazing/harvesting/mowing events gave the native plants the room they needed. However, the UNL researchers found that reed canarygrass was very resilient. Their mowing events only achieved minor reduction of the invasive species in one of the two plots over the course of three years. If you dont maintain that grazing pressure, you wont see a strong decline in the reed canarygrass, Guretzky warned. We didnt have quite the impact we expected to. According to the research team, the next step would be to use actual cows to graze the wetlands during the growing season. They believed the steady application of grazing pressure would achieve better success in cleaning out reed canarygrass from Rainwater Basin wetlands. The results of the study were published in the Agronomy Journal. To learn more about similar ecological developments, visit Ecology.news. Sources include: NewsWise.com DL.ScienceSocieties.org FWS.gov (Natural News) If you value privacy and freedom, it may be time to ditch your iPhone (if you havent already). Thanks to some clever fine print, Apple is now granting itself the right to monitor users phone calls and emails. What is the massive left-wing tech company doing with this information? Generating trust ratings for Apple product users a similar endeavor is currently underway in communist China. Overseas, the Chinese government is issuing social credit scores to its citizens, and now Big Tech is taking on a similar mission here on U.S. soil. As Aldous Huxley once said, Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards. And we surely are moving backwards: Under the regressive Left, technology today is now being used to quash freedom and silence dissenting thoughts and opinions, rather than to share information (as was once intended). Apple now spying on users, giving out trust ratings Apple has gone full-blown authoritarian with its latest initiative to crack-down on freedom. The corporate behemoth says that the trust ratings, which were added quietly in the latest iOS update, are benevolent in nature; supposedly these ratings will help with fraud prevention. Despite Apples insistence that the company is fully committed to transparency, and that the scores are privacy-preserving, how monitoring peoples phone calls and emails will prevent fraud (or preserve privacy) is never explained. In fact, Apple hasnt even provided a single scenario in which the trust score would prevent fraud. Users cant even see their own trust scores, unless they contact Apple directly and ask for their data. This is where things go from authoritarian to Orwellian: Apple is now telling its users that by spying on them, the company is protecting them and preserving their privacy. This is what Orwell would have called doublethink. Big Tech and their followers see no quandaries with the idea of spying as a way to obtain privacy and seemingly fail to notice these two ideas are at odds, probably because theyve been indoctrinated into believing Big Brother knows best. By now, anyone who partakes in the world of tech has accepted that they are being spied on to some degree and thats what theyre banking on. Tech companies like Apple are quietly inching towards the goal of total domination, slowly but surely. Some have already called Apples new trust scores dangerous, and its easy to see why. Big Tech is on a slippery slope The tech industry has come under fire for censoring dissenting thought, whether it be promoters of natural medicine, critics of the vaccine and pharma industries, or proponents of conservative politics. The freedom to think for yourself is being attacked by the regressive Left and silenced by the tech industry in one way or another. While leftists whinge about the need for more tolerance when it comes to diversity in appearance, they are increasingly intolerant of diverse thoughts. Now, Big Tech is taking yet another page from Communist China by instituting trust scores which are all too reminiscent of Chinas social credit score system. The one which prohibits untrustworthy people from being able to fly, purchase property or send their kids to good schools. Earlier this year, a Chinese journalist revealed that he was unable to buy a home because of a bad social credit score. Liu Hu stated further that he was banned from flying because he was deemed untrustworthy by the government, and that he couldnt send his child to private school. Liu had been ordered by Chinese courts to apologize for a series of tweets hed written, but authorities said it was insincere. If Apples new trust rating is any indication, we are headed in the wrong direction. See more coverage of stories about assaults on your freedom at PrivacyWatch.news. Sources for this article include: TheSun.co.uk Independent.co.uk Payment processor PayPal has banned Infowars in what represents nothing less than a political ploy designed to financially sabotage an influential media outlet just weeks before the mid-term elections. (Natural News) (Article by Paul Joseph Watson from Infowars.com) Company representatives called Infowars yesterday to confirm that PayPal was terminating its agreement after a comprehensive review of the Infowars site. The company claimed that Infowars violated PayPals acceptable use policy because it promoted hate and discriminatory intolerance against certain communities and religions. No specific examples whatsoever were officially provided to back up this claim, which relies on a nebulous definition of hate which is so vague that virtually anything could qualify. Off record, Infowars was told that criticism of Islam and opposition to transgenderism being taught to children in schools were two of the examples of hate. The ban was instituted despite InfowarsStore.com containing no political content whatsoever, emphasizing how the decision was a broader attack on the Infowars platform. PayPal representatives said they were giving Infowars 10 days to switch payment processors, after which all services would be terminated. The ban was handed down just weeks after George Soros-funded group Right Wing Watch published an article demanding that PayPal terminate its agreement with Infowars for egregious violations of the platforms own terms of service. Right Wing Watch routinely violates copyright by uploading entire sections of other peoples videos to YouTube without any pretense of fair use, yet the groups channel has not been deleted. Right Wing Watch is owned by People For the American Way, which is funded by George Soros Open Society Initiative. In addition, the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post published an article less than two weeks ago that served as a dog whistle for PayPal to ban Infowars. Entitled As Alex Jones rails against Big Tech, his Infowars stores still thrive online, the article bemoaned the fact that despite Alex Jones being banned by every other Big Tech platform, the censorship had, left intact key elements of his moneymaking machinery digital storefronts. The article then specifically mentions how Infowars uses PayPal to generate a high rate of sales. This is yet another example of a competing media outlet abusing its dominant position to lobby to shut down a smaller media outlet. PayPal banning Infowars is the ultimate culmination of what represents a de facto Communist Chinese-style social credit score, where first you are demonized, then censored, before your basic ability to operate freely in the marketplace is withdrawn. The decision is also blatantly political given the fact that the mid-terms are now just weeks away. The crusade to ban Alex Jones and Infowars from a myriad of other platforms was amplified by Democratic Congressman Ted Deutch (D-FL), who demanded to know why Facebook and YouTube hadnt banned Jones. Both companies complied with Deutchs demand within weeks. As Breitbart reported, the mass deplatforming of Jones occurred, One week after Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, led a charge threatening new regulation of social media companies who cannot stop bad actors from using their platforms. This illustrates how lawmakers are colluding with Big Tech to silence conservative voices. The argument that PayPal, like the plethora of other Silicon Valley giants that banned Infowars and Alex Jones, is just a private company is wearing increasingly thin. To what degree will conservatives allow themselves to be punished for their political opinions? Will it get to the stage where conservatives are banned from having bank accounts or making credit purchases because of their personal beliefs? This is absolutely chilling. People like David Horowitz and Robert Spencer have already had their access to the marketplace restricted because of their criticism of Islam. Are we now to understand that questioning an often violent and intolerant belief system is all it takes to have your basic right to engage in commerce withdrawn? PayPal is akin to the public square of transactional commerce. It could be legally argued that their decision represents tortious interference, interference in interstate commerce and racketeering. The ban represents nothing less than politically motivated financial discrimination by a giant corporation abusing its monopolistic status to attack the basic right to engage in commerce. PayPal still offers its services to all kinds of unsavory groups and organizations, including groups linked to Palestinian terrorists and extremists like Louis Farrakhan. Why arent they banned? Who decides what constitutes hate? Infowars was also tipped off by sources in DC that payment processors would be the next target, with Infowars being the first victim, after which leftists would attempt to bring down the NRA and more mainstream conservative groups. Just as Wikileaks ability to process payments was sabotaged after it angered the deep state, the financial attack on Infowars is being orchestrated by resistance holdovers who are still in government positions. Other prominent conservatives and political groups must realize that while this is happening to Infowars today, they are next. This is election meddling writ large. This is giant corporations taking their orders from the deep state and mobs of leftists and then destroying peoples livelihoods by restricting their access to the marketplace. This is an echo of how authoritarian regimes throughout history eviscerated either political adversaries or minority groups by removing their right to engage in commerce. Now instead of the government taking that role, its giant monopolistic corporations who are able to get away with it because conservatives have their heads buried in the sand. This is why it is imperative that President Trump pass an executive order that offers protection for conservatives whose rights are being violated on a regular basis by Big Tech monopolies. With PayPal now buying up global credit card payment processors, Trump must surely look at blocking such activity under anti-trust laws. This sets off a horrific domino effect and an awful precedent for free speech and freedom of commerce. PayPal must reconsider this atrocious decision. Infowars is currently considering all legal options in response to PayPals announcement. Please support Infowars by purchasing the products while you still can. Subscribe to the podcast or donate directly. Read more at: Infowars.com It might not be able to turn Pinocchio into a real boy, but these newly designed robotic skins can make the puppet move like one. The remarkable technology from Yale University isn't just for puppets and stuffed animals either, but can transform virtually anything into an automaton. Robotic Skins Animate Everyday Objects Researchers have developed "skins" that can be slipped on inanimate objects to turn them into robots. The team, led by Yale's Rebecca Kramer-Bottiglio, published their findings in the journal Science Robotics. The new robot technology is light, functional, and easily adjustable. Made from elastic sheets embedded with sensors and actuators, these robotic skins are also reusable and highly customizable to perform a variety of tasks. Tasks depend on the properties of the objects and the way the skins are placed. "We can take the skins and wrap them around one object to perform a task locomotion, for example and then take them off and put them on a different object to perform a different task, such as grasping and moving an object," Kramer-Bottiglio, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and materials science, says in a statement. "We can then take those same skins off that object and put them on a shirt to make an active wearable device." The robotic skins' capability to change for various purposes is a game-changer, considering most robots are made for a single, specific purpose only. Kramer-Bottiglio points out that it could be used for search-and-rescue automatons, wearable technology, or even tasks that weren't even considered when the sheets were designed. In a video posted online, the scientists demonstrate the adaptability of their robotic skins using it in various ways from making stuffed animals walk to correcting poor posture in people. The skins could, the authors note, even be layered to create more complex movements. Ideal For Use In Space The idea for the robotic skins came to Kramer-Bottiglio when NASA put out a call for soft robotic systems a few years ago. Indeed, the design is ideal for astronomers as it would allow them to accomplish a number of tasks using a single material. "One of the main things I considered was the importance of multifunctionality, especially for deep space exploration where the environment is unpredictable," she explains, adding that the team needed to figure out how to prepare for the unknown. Next steps for the team would include streamlining the design and potentially using 3D printing for the different parts. A woman dressed as a handmaid from Margaret Atwoods dystopian novel A Handmaids Tale stood in front of the FBI headquarters in San Francisco Friday to support Brett Kavanaughs accuser Christine Blasey Ford. Brandy Sejeck told NBC Bay Area that she picked the red outfit of a handmaid made famous by the on-screen adaptation of the book by the award-winning Hulu show of the same name because it represented the current state of affairs in American politics.[[494009831, C]] Im here because I want to support Christine Blasey Ford Im dressed as a handmaid to illustrate the oppression and the absurdity of whats going on right now. I think its really absurd that shes not allowed to have an investigation because the While House wont allow it. Sejeck said that Ford who teaches at Palo Alto University should be talking to the FBI about the death threats she was receiving. She should also be getting a fair investigation on her sexual assault claims and her attempted rape claims, she said, Congress is failing. Take this as a lesson, Sejeck added. The novel is set in a totalitarian state where woman are subjugated by a patriarchal society. The Senate Judiciary Chairman on Friday rejected key conditions that Ford wants if she is to testify about her claim of sexual assault, and said his panel would vote Monday on Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination without an agreement. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said he was giving attorneys for Christine Blasey Ford until 10 p.m. Friday to come to a "reasonable resolution" or his Republican-run panel would vote on sending Kavanaugh's nomination to the full Senate. "We are unwilling to accommodate your unreasonable demands," Grassley wrote. The Associated Press contributed to this story. A portion of State Route 4 is now named for Hayward Police Sgt. Scott Lunger, who was killed three years ago during a traffic stop, according to the California Department of Transportation. The agency Saturday unveiled signs for the Police Sergeant Scott Lunger Memorial Highway, on State Route 4 between Laurel Road in Oakley and Balfour Road in Brentwood. Lunger, of Brentwood, was 48 years old when he was gunned down near Myrtle and Lion streets in Hayward about 3:15 a.m. July 22, 2015. He was pronounced dead at Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley a short time later. His accused killer, Mark Estrada, is charged with murder for allegedly shooting Lunger after the sergeant and another officer stopped his pickup truck for driving erratically. Estrada, 24, of Oakland, is set to stand trial later this year. Lunger, a father of two, served 15 years with Hayward police force. "Sgt. Scott Lunger was a dedicated officer who exemplified the true character of the brave men and women who devote their lives to law enforcement, said Assembly member Jim Frazier, who authored a resolution to name the route after Lunger. What to Know Columbia Gas holds job fair today to find skilled plumbers, electricians, and other skilled workers to help restore gas service. Officials say extra staffing is needed in order to restore gas to all customers by the November deadline. National Guard has been activated to hand out hot plates and space heaters to some residents. Columbia Gas held a job fair in Lawrence today to find skilled plumbers, electricians, and other workers to aid in the effort to restore gas service to 8,600 customers affected by last week's explosions and fires in Merrimack Valley. Many of those who stopped by were offered jobs on the spot as the extra personnel is needed to restore service before winter. The effort could take as long as two months, officials say. Meanwhile, the National Guard has been activated to distribute hot plates and space heaters to those gas customers in Lawrence, Andover and North Andover who are without service. While Saturday's daytime temperatures remain mild, the mercury could drop into the 40s and 50s overnight into Sunday. See the latest forecast The company said gas service will be restored to all customers by mid-November as they work to replace 48 miles of pipeline. The Sept. 13 disaster killed one person, injured 25 others and damaged or destroyed dozens of homes and businesses in the three communities. While most residents who were forced to flee their homes have been allowed to return, thousands remain without natural gas service needed for cooking, hot water and to heat their homes as fall arrives and temperatures begin to drop as soon as this weekend. On Saturday, Columbia Gas sought additional help to get the job done. The job fair was held at Greater Lawrence Technical School in Andover. "We are asking for plumbers and electricians," said Columbia Gas spokesman Ken Stammen. "On the customer service positions, we are making offers on the spot today." "This is going to be extra work for us which is good," said Michael Mooneyhan, who works as a plumber for Ricker Plumbing and Heating. Richard Ricker who owns Ricker Plumbing and Heating was also one of those who walked away with a job. The inspector was there, said Richard Ricker who owns Ricker Plumbing and Heating. The Lawrence inspector. And he said, 'youre all set'. It was a silver lining under very tragic circumstances. "Yea we get work out of it but the poor families that were left out and still are and are suffering," Mooneyhan said. At about the same time as the fair, National Guard troops went door to door in South Lawrence delivering hot plates for families who are currently living without gas. "So now people are home," said Lawrence Mayor Dan Rivera. "And they have electricity. And now the next step is how do we bring a sense of normalcy to them? And that is, yeah they can get their hands on some food, but their own place to cook it." The Padilla family in Lawrence can't believe how long they may have to go without service at their Dunstable Street home. They're already boiling water for baths and showers. "Every day, for everyone to take a shower, they need to heat it up in the microwave," said Camila Lopez. "[They] let it cool down and everyone takes a shower with that." "We all share the same goal of getting people back to their normal daily life, whether it's a hot shower, a home-cooked meal or the ability to open up a business," said Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, who declared a state of emergency last week. "We're bringing every available resource to make this happen." Twenty crews are currently deployed to work on the pipeline, with that number increasing to 60 on Monday. By Oct. 8, 195 crews will be working to restore the pipeline. Retired U.S. Navy Capt. Joe Albanese will serve as chief recovery officer for the restoration project. Baker and local officials also announced Friday that hotplates for cooking and space heaters for warmth will be distributed to residents without natural gas service. The self-contained hotplate units will be delivered door-to-door to Lawrence residents beginning on Saturday and will be distributed to affected Andover and North Andover residents at designated claim centers in those towns over the weekend. About 24,000 space heaters will be made available to homes and businesses starting on Monday, but officials said local fire chiefs and electricians must first certify that the devices can be operated safely in each of the homes before they can be used. For homes where space heaters are not an option, "alternative home heating options'' will be explored. "Safety will be paramount," said Albanese. "I'm not crazy about a space heater, but I mean, if it's going to help," said Joan Mejia of Lawrence. Mejia also says he's sick of going to the gym to shower, and he has many questions for Columbia Gas that he says he can't get answered. "Are my pipes going to freeze? Am I going to have to leave my house again? That type of stuff," he explained. The governor said members of the Massachusetts National Guard have been activated to assist with the distribution of the hotplates and heaters. As many as 2,000 natural gas meters could be turned back on within a couple of weeks, according to officials, and the utility hopes to have nearly 200 crews working on the ground by early October. Joe Hamrock, the CEO of Columbia Gas' parent company, NiSource Inc., said the company on Wednesday would begin deploying teams to homes and businesses to determine if any damaged appliances need to be replaced before gas can be safely restored. "We owe it to this community to make sure everyone's needs are addressed," he said. Meanwhile, a claims center remains open for Andover, North Andover and Lawrence residents where customers can file loss and damage claims as well as receive gift cards to cover the costs of food for the week. The investigation into the explosions is ongoing. The National Transportation Safety Board said it is looking into work that was underway at a Columbia Gas site at Winthrop and South Union streets in Lawrence. The agency said it discovered evidence that pressure sensors had been attached to a gas line that was being taken out of service on the day of the explosions. While the agency has not identified this as the cause, they explained that the sensors are used to indicate when gas is low and more is needed. Feeney Brothers Utility Services of Dorchester was one of two subcontractors used by Columbia Gas in Lawrence, according to the city's Public Works Department. The company issued a statement Friday confirming that one of its crews was working at the direction of Columbia Gas on a low-pressure to low-pressure gas main tie-in at the intersection of South Union and Salem streets on the day of the gas explosions. Feeney Brothers said it is assisting with the NTSB's investigation and four of its crew members have been interviewed by the agency. "While the investigation will take time, we have no doubt that Feeneys crew will be found to have done their work professionally, safely and correctly. We stand by our crew and all our workers," the company said in its statement. U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren planned to meet with Lawrence Mayor Dan Rivera later Friday to discuss recovery efforts before attending a cookout for affected residents being hosted by the Lawrence Housing Authority. Warren and the state's other U.S. senator, Democrat Edward Markey, wrote to utility officials earlier this week that the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration had determined that the pressure in gas pipelines prior to the explosions and fires was 12 times higher than it should have been. Two secretaries-general and diplomats from the world that Kofi Annan served for nearly 45 years paid tribute to him at the United Nations Friday, but the most moving words were from his wife and son who urged people everywhere to continue his fight for a fairer and peaceful planet. The ceremony in the General Assembly hall where the U.N.'s 193 member nations meet began with traditional music and drums from Annan's native Ghana, and a silent tribute to the world body's seventh secretary-general who died on Aug. 18 in Bern, Switzerland at age 80. Annan's widow, Nane, recalled sitting in the General Assembly hall the day he was elected secretary-general in December 1996. "The office of secretary-general is based on persuasive powers, and did he ever use his persuasive powers to the fullest," she said. "His whole being (was) intent on finding solutions to challenges at hand, thinking outside the box, the rebel on the 38th floor" where the U.N. chief's office is located. Her voice cracking, Mrs. Annan said: "He died too soon, leaving us heartbroken and bereft, but he lived exactly as he wanted to the fullest, packing in so many lifetimes in those 80 years of his." "I was lucky," she said of her 35-year marriage. "He had this glowing aura of radiant warmth and joy of life which you literally could see, and left his impact on people near and far." Nane said retirement was never for Annan. "How could there be? There was still so much to do, so many challenges to think of," she said. "His legacy will live on in his foundation and in all of us." Kojo Annan said in an emotional tribute that his father's death had raised many "existential" questions and he realized that being a global citizen isn't about stamps on your passport or where you live it's "about completely embracing the common humanity of all of the world's citizens. It's about seeing potential in anyone, and helping build a world where anything is possible for that someone." He recalled that Edmund Burke's words "the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" became his father's "code." "It's why he always felt at home here, surrounded by and working with you the dedicated men and women of the U.N. and the member states who shared that code," Kojo Annan said. "If my father were here he'd implore you to keep fighting the good fight, to beat back the forces of inequality, disease, injustice and strife, and he'd implore me to do the same," he said. "My father's passing has made it absolutely clear that I need to follow in his footsteps, not as secretary-general or as a politician, but as a humanitarian, doing my little bit wherever I am and however I can for humanity." "We can all do our little bit for a fairer, more peaceful world," Kojo Annan said. "We all make peace personal in honor of daddy." Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who was chosen by then secretary-general Annan to be the U.N.'s refugee chief in 2005, recalled that Annan described the United Nations as the "last best hope of humanity." "Throughout his tenure Kofi Annan urged us never to be bystanders in life. He summoned us all to act against bias, brutality and bloodshed," Guterres said. "He was a multilateralist through and through, a true U.N.-blue believer in a rules-based global order. And, I must say, his loss cuts even deeper because we have never needed that faith and inspiration more." Former secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, who succeeded Annan in 2007, said "the international community was continually astounded by Kofi Annan's razor-sharp intellect, moved by his vibrant compassion, and encouraged by his driving idealism." Ban said he struggled to put in words how much Annan helped him personally, "and how well he served humanity." But he said "I am confident history will show as the years pass that Kofi Annan was a monumental leader." Annan's former chief of staff Iqbal Riza recalled the highs of Annan's first term as secretary-general culminating with sharing the Nobel Peace Prize with the U.N. and the lows in his second term including the Iraq war and allegations of corruption in the U.N. oil-for-food program which helped Iraqi civilians cope with U.N. sanctions. Riza, a Pakistani diplomat, said Annan "the consummate U.N. insider" was his first friend when he joined the organization in 1978. "I sensed his special qualities exceptional intelligence and acumen, an inner courteousness, a quiet self-assurance and slightly impish sense of humor," he said. "Later, other attributes emerged a deep commitment to the goals of the U.N., a strikingly wide circle of friends outside the U.N., a dazzling memory and natural charisma." At least 12 people were wounded in shootings over a span of 24 hours Friday across Chicago. The last shooting of the night wounded a man as he was walking on the West Side. About 11:40 p.m., the 28-year-old was walking in the 3000 block of West Chicago Avenue when someone in a passing brown car opened fire, according to Chicago police. He was struck by a bullet and was taken to Norwegian American Hospital, where his condition stabilized, police said. Almost an hour earlier, three people were wounded in a shooting, including two women, in the South Side Englewood neighborhood. About 10:55 p.m., they were standing on a sidewalk in the 7300 block of South Carpenter Street when shots rang out, according to police. One woman, 22, was shot in her chest and was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in serious condition. The second woman, 24, was struck in her torso and leg, and was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center in serious condition, according to police. The third victim, a 27-year-old man, suffered a graze wound to his leg. His condition stabilized at the University of Chicago. About 10:50 p.m., a man was wounded in a shooting in the Lawndale neighborhood on the Southwest Side. The 37-year-old was walking outside in the 3600 block of West Douglas Boulevard when someone approached him and opened fire, according to police. The man was struck in the hip and was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where his condition stabilized, police said. A woman was seriously wounded in a shooting in the Morgan Park neighborhood on the Far South Side. At 8:27 p.m., a male walked up to her as she sat inside the front of a vehicle parked in the 11100 block of South Halsted and fired shots at her, according to police. Two other people inside the vehicle were not struck by gunfire. She was taken to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn with gunshot wounds in her left shoulder and side, police said. She was in serious condition. Two teenage men were wounded in a drive-by shooting in the Back of the Yards neighborhood on the South Side. At 7:48 p.m., the 18-year-olds were walking down the 800 block of West 54th Street when two males got out of a black Lexus car and shot them, according to police. One was shot in the lower back and taken to University of Chicago Medical Center, where his condition was stabilized, police said. The other was taken to St. Bernard Hospital with a graze wound in his leg, police said. He was in good condition. A man was wounded by gunfire in the Englewood neighborhood on the South Side. At 5:06 p.m., the 24-year-old was walking down the 700 block of West 61st Street when a male, also on foot, shot him in the leg, according to police. He was taken to St. Bernard Hospital in good condition. A 14-year-old boy was shot in the Bronzeville neighborhood on the South Side. The boy was walking about 4:30 p.m. in the 2700 block of South Dearborn when someone fired at him and ran off, police said. The boy was struck in the arm and taken to Comer Childrens Hospital, where his condition had stabilized, police said. Earlier in the morning, a 23-year-old man was critically wounded in a shooting in the Brighton Park neighborhood on the Southwest Side. The man was shot in his left leg about 3:30 a.m. in the 3300 block of West 47th Street, according to police. He was driven to Mount Sinai Hospital in critical condition, police said. He was unable to provide detectives with details about the shooting. In the first shooting Friday, a man was wounded in a shooting in the Roseland neighborhood on the Far South Side. The 31-year-old was sitting on a front porch at 12:18 a.m. in the 300 block of West 114th Street when someone in a passing vehicle pulled out a gun and opened fire, according to police. The man was struck in his right leg and took himself to Roseland Community Hospital, where his condition stabilized, police said. Several kids, including an 11-year-old, drove an Indiana school bus at the behest of its adult driver, who now faces charges, authorities said. The bus driver, Joandrea McAtee, 27, was arrested Friday after the Porter Township Schools Administration and Porter County sheriff's deputies investigated a parent's complaint, according to county sheriff's office. McAtee was charged with neglect of a dependent. Videos posted on social media show children allegedly driving the bus, and authorities said other students witnessed it. https://twitter.com/DavidYatsko/status/1044241386407636993 According to the Northwest Indiana Times, a parent contacted a Boone Grove High School resource officer on Thursday about a bus driver letting students take turns driving her bus. McAtee allowed three students, ages 11, 13 and 17, to drive her bus as she was dropping students off from school, deputies said. The students drove a short distance in a rural part of Valparaiso. McAtee was fired, according to bus company First Student, which said in a statement, "We are incredibly disappointed by the actions of our former driver." She was arrested by sheriffs deputies when she went to pick up her final pay check on Friday, according to the Times. "The students and parents that immediately came forward with this information should be commended for doing exactly what we teach, which is 'See something, say something,'" Sheriff David Reynolds said. "An investigation was immediately started and no one was injured or harmed. The Sheriffs Office and the Porter Township School Corp. takes safety and security of every student seriously and every parent must understand that this case will be investigated thoroughly." It was unclear if McAtee was still in custody or if she had a lawyer. A woman at an address listed as McAtee's offered no comment on Monday. The city of Middletown is celebrating the grand opening of a new FedEx facility that's expected to bring in hundreds of new jobs. The 900,000-square foot distribution hub is located on the site of the former Aetna office building, right off Industrial Park Road. FedEx said theyve already brought in more than 500 new employees to staff the facility and with the holiday season coming up, theyll be adding more jobs. Up to 45,000 packages whizz through the new campus every hour. The Pittsburgh-based shipping giant said they expect that number to climb. "Well right now were handling about 130- to 150,000 a day in this operation. It will get up over probably closer to 250 thousand," explained Scott Burns, the regional vice president of Eastern Operations, FedEx Ground. Local officials said the new facility will bring more opportunities for locals looking to work. "They built the interior to approximately 60 percent capacity with room for growth. So over the next few years, theyre actually going to be adding hundreds of more permanent positions here," said Middletown Mayor Dan Drew. Drew said his team fought off competition from Massachusetts and Rhode Island to bring the company to the site, betting tax abatements plus a location near the Interstate 91 corridor would give them a leg up. "This is probably the largest economic development projects in multiple decades. This project is going to generate millions of dollars in tax revenue and more than 1,000 jobs by the time its done," Drew said. Drew said much of the $250 million construction cost of the facility went back into the region, and he hopes neighboring businesses with prosper. "Theres going to be a large scale regional impact," he said. The development is part of a national expansion for the company, which said that business has doubled in the last 10 years. An Oakdale man was killed in a crash following a police pursuit in Montville Friday night. Connecticut State Police said 48-year-old Judd Moyer was driving a 1993 Geo Prizm when he was involved in a crash with another vehicle in the Turnpike Cafe LLC parking lot in Montville. According to police, Moyer took off from that scene, and was driving on Raymond Hill Road near Sarah Drive when his car went off the road, rolled over into a ditch and hit a tree. Moyer was extricated from the vehicle and rushed to Backus Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. State Police are investigating the crash. Anyone who witnessed the crash or the moments before is asked to contact Trooper Joseph Hayward at 203-630-8085. If Halloween is approaching, then it must be time for another retailer to pull its Halloween costume for bad taste. This year the early offender is an online lingerie store that has removed a sexy Handmaids Tale costume from its website after receiving massive backlash on social media. The show, which was based on the book by Margaret Atwood, was set in a dystopian America where women were forcefully used as surrogates and sex slaves. The product description for Yandys Brave Red Maiden costume makes a direct reference to the critically acclaimed Hulu drama, USA Today reported. "An upsetting dystopian future has emerged where women no longer have a say," the description reads. "However, we say be bold and speak your mind in this exclusive Brave Red Maiden costume." Todays sign of the apocalypse- this Sexy Handmaids Tale costume. For real?! Did anyone actually watch the show? #sunrisers pic.twitter.com/YERPRzts0x Lauren Leamanczyk (@LaurenKARE11) September 21, 2018 Many social media users commented on the misogynistic aspect of selling a costume about female oppression. Some also noted the irony that this product was removed when many stores continue to sell offensive race- and culture-inspired costumes. This is not the first time that Yandy has marketed a Halloween costume that might provoke backlash. Last year, the company began selling its Reality Star in the Making costume for $59.95 with a product photo featuring a pregnant Kylie Jenner look-alike in a short, tight white dress. The description promises to boost your shows ratings with the help of a "faux pregnant belly." Yandys questionable product choices are a part of a long retail Halloween tradition of selling controversial costumes. In 2017, Walmart and several other retailers took down a World War II Evacuee costume, which included a green beret, a blue dress and a satchel. The item caused an outrage because of its resemblance to Jewish Holocaust victim Anne Frank. Amazon, however, continues to carry the product on its website. Walmart also had to pull its $4 Razor Blade Suicide Scar Wound Latex Custom Makeup kit in 2016 after receiving complaints that the kit supported self-injury. In the same year, online retailer Costumeish faced a social media outcry in 2016 after posting a Parisian Heist costume parodying Kim Kardashians robbery in Paris. The listing sported a bound and gagged model who looked like Kardashian dressed in a white bathrobe and wearing a huge ring. Time reported that social media users also accused the Disney online store of racism in 2016 after it attempted to sell a costume of a character from the Moana movie. The Maui costume included a brown bodysuit and tattoos, which would make the wearer dress up as a person of color. Disney later apologized and quickly took the costume off its website. LRT I've seen horrible "Sexy [outlandish thing]" takes for Halloween but I think "sexy Handmaid's Tale" costume is probably the worst?! Flavia Dzodan (@redlightvoices) September 21, 2018 https://twitter.com/bari_talley/status/1043164017009676288 Actual #KimKardashian robbery Halloween costume for sale. Too soon? pic.twitter.com/X8bk8aidZW Mike Sington (@MikeSington) October 11, 2016 Hey @Walmart what's the deal? Think it's funny to joke about self harming? How dare you. pic.twitter.com/0gcaNH1j05 Jessica Shaw (@JessiBooShaw) October 25, 2016 Like those companies, Yandy seems to be reflecting on its decision to sell the handmaid costume after the retailer said it received many sincere, heartfelt response, supported by numerous personal stories. A statement on Yandys site, which has since replaced the red cape, mini dress and bonnet ensemble, apologized for the offensive costume. The company called the incident unfortunate and said it was not their intention on any level. Over the last few hours, it has become obvious that our 'Yandy Brave Red Maiden Costume' is being seen as a symbol of women's oppression, rather than an expression of women's empowerment, the statement reads. Our initial inspiration to create the piece was through witnessing its use in recent months as a powerful protest image. Dubai's flagship airline Emirates is looking at taking over unprofitable neighbor Etihad, according to four people familiar with the matter, in a move that would create the world's biggest carrier by passenger traffic. The talks, which are at a preliminary stage, would see Emirates acquire the main airline business of Abu Dhabi's Etihad, which would keep its maintenance arm, according to the people, who asked not to be named because the matter is confidential. The negotiations could yet fall through, they said. Any deal would require the blessing of the rulers of the richest sheikhdoms in the United Arab Emirates. For Abu Dhabi, which sits on 6 percent of global oil reserves, it would advance a drive to overhaul state-controlled entities as it adapts to lower crude prices. The airlines have traditionally been arch rivals, with their hubs competing to attract the same transfer passengers making long-distance trips between Asia and the West. Read more from our media partner The Dallas Morning News. A storm system dumped record amounts of rain in parts of Oklahoma and caused flooding in Texas, including in the Dallas area, where floodwaters swept a man from a bridge to his death near the University of Texas' campus in nearby Arlington. "(A) witness ... stated that the victim was swept under a bridge by rushing waters," shortly before midnight Friday, according to Arlington Fire Department Lt. Mike Joiner. The man's body was found a few hours later. His name hasn't been released. The Dallas Fire Department said at least 15 people were rescued from the rising waters at about 7 a.m. Saturday, including five Dallas police officers and a motorist. The officers became trapped while trying to rescue the motorist. Up to 45 homes in Everman, south of Fort Worth, were damaged by floodwaters as some residents were forced to scramble onto roofs to escape rising water. "We had residents stranded up on top of their homes. People begging for help, screaming for help," Everman police Chief Craig Spencer told NBC 5. Austin fire officials said some 60 people attending a wedding reception were rescued from rising waters that surrounded the venue early Saturday. Some at the reception were forced to climb trees to avoid the water, officials said. In the Central Texas city of Killeen, patients were evacuated to other medical care facilities when a lightning strike knocked out power to Metroplex Hospital. Thirty-four patients were transported and there were no reports of injuries, according to a hospital statement. A record 14 inches (35.56 centimeters) of rain fell Friday at the Oklahoma Climatological Survey's site in Fittstown, about 75 miles (120 kilometers) southeast of Oklahoma City, and more than 2 additional inches fell before noon Saturday, said National Weather Service meteorologist Forrest Mitchell in Norman. The previous record of just less than 7 inches was set in July 1997, according to Mesonet records. The downpours and threat of more rain has also forced cancellation of events from the Dallas area to northeastern Arkansas, including balloon festival in Plano to the Northeast Arkansas District Fair in Jonesboro, 390 miles (628 kilometers) away, where the already wet grounds were expected to be inundated by additional rain. The weather service has said a zone of low-pressure over West Texas, tropical moisture off the Gulf of Mexico and an approaching cold front combined to produce the heavy rain that was moving into Arkansas, prompting flash flood watches until Sunday morning. Light rain continued Saturday in southeastern Oklahoma and northeastern Texas while the leading edge of the storm moved into southwestern Arkansas, according to the weather service. "In southwest Arkansas, another 3-4 inches" was expected as the slow moving storm tracked northeastward, according to meteorologist Tabitha Clarke with the weather service in Little Rock. "Already in southwest Arkansas, 3-5 inches" had accumulated. Travel remained dangerous Saturday in southeastern North Carolina, where the governor warned of "treacherous" floodwaters more than a week after Hurricane Florence made landfall, and urged residents to stay alert for flood warnings and evacuation orders. Gov. Roy Cooper said nine of the state's river gauges are at major flood stage and four others are at moderate stage, while parts of Interstates 95 and 40 will remain underwater for another week or more. Emergency management officials said residents whose homes were damaged or destroyed will begin moving into hotel rooms next week. "Hurricane Florence has deeply wounded our state, wounds that will not fade soon as the flood waters finally recede," Cooper said. South Carolina also has ordered more evacuations as rivers continue to rise in the aftermath of a storm that has claimed at least 43 lives since slamming into the coast more than a week ago. The small farming community of Nichols, South Carolina, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) from the coast, was completely inundated by water, Mayor Lawson Batter said Saturday. He called the situation "worse than Matthew," the 2016 hurricane that destroyed almost 90 percent of the town's 261 homes. Battle said flooding from Florence has wiped out the 150 or so homes rebuilt afterward. "It's just a mess," said Battle, who was awaiting a visit from Gov. Henry McMaster. "We will try everything we can to come back ... but we need to have federal and state help." Benetta White and David Lloyd were among 100 people rescued with helicopters, boats and high-wheeled military vehicles during a six-hour operation in southeastern North Carolina's Bladen County that lasted into Friday morning their second evacuation in a week. White and Lloyd, who live in the North Carolina town of Kelly, were given little time Thursday night to evacuate when the Cape Fear River came rushing onto their property. By the time they loaded their van, they had to slog through waist-high, foul-smelling water to get to a neighbor's pickup. From there, they went to the town's fire department and were taken by an Army truck to a shelter at a Bladen County high school. "We had to evacuate again, all over again, and got trapped in a bunch of water and almost lost our lives," said White. In Wilmington, where Hurricane Florence made landfall and which had been cut off by floodwaters, officials said they'd identified three safe routes into town. They encouraged people to avoid travel in areas where the risk of flooding remains. North Carolina Emergency Management Director Michael Sprayberry said Saturday that eastern counties continue to see major flooding, including areas along the Black, Lumber, Neuse and Cape Fear rivers. The Cape Fear river is expected to crest Sunday and remain at flood stage through early next week. He said residents who register with the Federal Emergency Management Agency can begin moving into hotels Monday. The program initially will be open to residents in nine counties, then will be expanded. A FEMA coordinator said about 69,000 people from North Carolina already have registered for assistance. North Carolina environmental officials said they're closely monitoring two sites where Florence's floodwaters have inundated coal ash sites . The state is using drones to get photos and video of a dam breach at the L.V. Sutton Power Station in Wilmington, where gray muck has been seen flowing into the Cape Fear River, and at the H.F. Lee Power Plant near Goldsboro, said Michael Regan, secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality. He said Saturday that the video and photos show sand and "potential coal ash" leaving the Sutton site, and the DEQ will put people on the ground when it is safe. He said that DEQ staff has seen that coal ash left the basin and entered flood waters at the H.F. Lee plant, and is trying to determine "how much of that, if any" has entered into the Neuse River. In Conway, South Carolina, water from the Waccamaw river began flowing into a Santee Cooper ash pond. The company said in a statement that the overtopping occurred Saturday morning, but no significant environmental impact was expected because nearly all of the ash had been excavated from the pond. The National Weather Service confirmed Saturday that 10 tornadoes spawned by Hurricane Florence touched down Monday in Virginia, the strongest of which leveled a flooring company in Chesterfied and killed one worker. An economic research firm estimated that Hurricane Florence has caused around $44 billion in damage and lost output, which would make it one of the top 10 costliest U.S. hurricanes. The top disaster, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, cost $192.2 billion in today's dollars, while last year's Hurricane Harvey cost $133.5 billion Moody's Analytics estimates Florence has caused $40 billion in damage and $4 billion in lost economic output, though the company stressed that the estimate is preliminary and could go higher or lower. South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster has estimated damage from the flood in his state at $1.2 billion. He asked congressional leaders to hurry federal aid. Also contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Jeffrey Collins, Dee-Ann Durbin, Chevel Johnson, Meg Kinnard, Denise Lavoie, Jay Reeves, Michael Biesecker and Tammy Webber. The head of the federal disaster response agency used government vehicles without proper authorization, but will not lose his job over it, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said Friday. Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator William "Brock" Long had been under investigation by the Homeland Security Department's watchdog over possibly misusing government vehicles to travel to his home in Hickory, North Carolina. Word leaked of the investigation just as Hurricane Florence was poised to make landfall earlier this month. Nielsen said in a statement Friday that there had been a longstanding practice to transport FEMA administrators in government vehicles to ensure they could remain connected during a crisis. But despite this practice, use of government vehicles for home-to-work travel was not officially authorized, and that practice was eliminated in April. Nielsen said the report by Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General also found Long used government vehicles for non-official reasons. She said they spoke about the problems and Long agreed to reimburse the government, though it wasn't clear how much money that might be. She said she directed the department to review policy on home-to-work transportation problems, assess communication requirements at FEMA so officials can be best connected during disasters, and to review of and training regarding proper use of government vehicles. "We had a productive conversation where we discussed my expectations regarding the agency's use of government vehicles going forward," Nielsen said in a statement. "The administrator acknowledged that mistakes were made, and he took personal responsibility." The inspector general's report has not been made public. The House Oversight Committee is also looking into the allegations and has asked Long to turn over to the committee all documents related to the trips by Oct. 1, including whether his staff was put up in hotels paid for by taxpayer dollars. The inspector general's office has turned the review over to federal prosecutors to determine whether any criminal charges are warranted, according to a person familiar with the probe. It's not uncommon for an inspector general to refer cases so federal prosecutors can determine whether charges are warranted, and it doesn't mean he'll be charged with a crime. The person was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter and requested anonymity. In the days after Florence struck, Long said he was not focused on the investigation, and instead was working to help the region get back on its feet after the devastation. More than 40 have died and rising floodwaters cut off roads and drowned livestock. In a statement Friday, Long said he accepted full responsibility. "The secretary and I are taking corrective action to prevent such mistakes from happening in the future," he said. "I remain committed to the critical mission of FEMA - helping people before, during and after disasters." He has been head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency since June 2017, presiding over a particularly grueling hurricane season that included Irma, Harvey and Maria, plus wildfires in California. The response to Maria has been heavily criticized and Long has said FEMA learned lessons on how to better prepare for this year's storms. Other Trump administration officials have lost their jobs over ethics issues related to travel, but they involved more outsized allegations. The former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, resigned in July after allegations of massive security spending, first-class flights and a sweetheart condo lease. Republican incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz and Democratic challenger Rep. Beto O'Rourke squared-off Friday night in the first of three planned debates ahead of the November election. The hosts of Lone Star Politics, NBC 5 political reporter Julie Fine and The Dallas Morning News political writer Gromer Jeffers, moderated the evening. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke squared-off in the first of three debates ahead of the November election. The debate's moderators, NBC 5's Julie Fine and Gromer Jeffers of The Dallas Morning News, shared their thoughts about the evening. There were no restrictions on topics. The race is drawing national attention and recent polls show it is close. A Texas NBC News-Marist poll of registered voters showed ORourke trailing by 4 points, with 45 percent of the vote, to Cruzs 49 percent. Cruz was elected to the Senate in 2012, and ran for President in 2016. ORourke was elected to serve El Paso in 2012. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke squared-off in the first of three debates ahead of the November election. Highlights from the debate, as well as video clips of each question, can be seen below. The first question of the debate centered around immigration and the Texas border. "There is no better people than those of us here in the state, Republicans and Democrats, Independents alike, the defining border experience, the defining immigrant experience and state to rewrite our immigration laws in our own image," said U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-El Paso). "When it comes to immigration, we need to do everything humanly possible to secure the border. That means building a wall, that means technology, infrastructure, that means boots on the ground, and we can do all of that at the same time that we are welcoming and celebrating legal immigrants," said U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-El Paso) address their views on the DREAM Act and a pathway to citizenship. The second question to the candidates addressed the recent shooting death of Botham Jean by off-duty Dallas police officer Amber Guyger. "What happened to Mr. Jean was horrific. Nobody should be in their own home and be shot and killed in their own home," Cruz said. "With the tragic shooting death of Botham Jean, you have another unarmed black man killed in this country by law enforcement. Now, no member of law enforcement wants that to happen. No member of this community wants that to happen, but we've got to be doing something better than what we've been doing so far," O'Rourke said. The candidates addressed the recent shooting death of Botham Jean by off-duty Dallas police officer Amber Guyger. The third question to the candidates addressed the National Anthem kneeling controversy. "There are too many unarmed African American men loosing their lives in this country. To peacefully protest that injustice, non-violently and to call attention to that, to prick the conscious of this country, so that those in positions of public trust will finally do something. Standing up not just for your rights but for everyone's rights in this country, there's nothing more American than that," said U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-El Paso). "When you have people during the National Anthem taking a knee, refusing to stand for the National Anthem, you are disrespecting the millions of veterans, the millions of soldiers and sailors and airmen and marines that risk and fight and die to protect that flag and to protect out liberty," said U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). The candidates addressed the National Anthem kneeling controversy. The fourth question the candidates fielded addressed the debate over the confirmation hearing of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court. "Congressman O'Rourke doesn't want Judge Kavanaugh confirmed. He said that before these allegations, he said that after these allegations. He didn't want Neil Gorsuch confirmed. Congressman O'Rourke agrees with Hilary Clinton. He wants liberal judicial activists on the court, who will impose their particular policy view," said U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). "Judge Kavanaugh does not meet the bar for Texas to serve on the Supreme Court in a state that is now 50th in voter turnout. Judge Kavanaugh has a troubling history on voter rights protections," said U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-El Paso) The candidates address their views on the recent accusations made against Judge Brett Kavanaugh and how they should affect his confirmation hearing to the U.S. Supreme Court. The fifth question to the candidates addressed the debate over gun control. "Weapons of war belong on the battlefield, not in our schools or our churches or our concerts or our public life," said U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-El Paso) "The number one answer I heard from the students and parents and teachers in Santa Fe is more armed police officers in schools to keep our kids safe, we can make our schools safer by having officers protect them," said U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) "Thoughts and prayers, Senator Cruz are just not going to cut it anymore, the people of Texas, the children of Texas deserve action," said U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-El Paso). The candidates addressed the debate over gun control. The sixth question asked of the candidates addressed Cruz's relationship with President Donald Trump. "I've got a responsibility, which is to fight for every person here and every person in this state. So, I have worked hand in hand with the president on substance and we have delivered remarkable victories," said U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). "If the president attacks you personally, your wife, your father, how you respond is your business. But when the president attacks our institutions, this country, allows a foreign power to invade our democracy, that is our business," said U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-El Paso). The candidates addressed Sen. Ted Cruz's relationship with President Donald Trump and how it's evolved since the 2016 presidential campaign. The seventh question to the candidates addressed drunk driving. "If my experience can contribute to an understanding that allows me to work with Republicans and Democrats alike on real and meaningful criminal justice reform to ensure that everyone is able to live to their full potential and that no one's mistake defines them for the rest of their lives, that would be something good in whatever meaningful way it is that have come out of that terrible decision on my part," said U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-El Paso). "Legalizing marijuana is actually a question where I think reasonable minds can differ, I've always had a libertarian bend myself, I think it ought to be up to the states, I think Colorado can decide one way and Texas can decide another," said U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). The candidates addressed drunk driving and marijuana laws. The eighth question asked of the candidates addressed their views on healthcare in the United States. "The biggest reason people are unhappy with Obamacare is it's made their premiums skyrocket. I hear from Texans all over this state, 'I can't afford health insurance,'" said U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). "I don't know how you're going to repeal every single word of the Affordable Care Act and keep protections for preexisting conditions," said U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-El Paso). The candidates discuss the U.S. healthcare system and the Affordable Care Act. The next topic to the candidates addressed President Trump's trade agenda. "This state, with its farming and ranching and producing, manufacturing and export based economy needs a senator who will work with the President where we can and stand up to him where we must," said U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-El Paso). "I have made the case to President Trump directly and personally dozens of times that we should be expanding our access to foreign markets and opening up the Mexican energy markets and expanding our access to Canada," said U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). The candidates discuss President Donald Trump's trade agenda. The next topic to the candidates addressed Tax Overhaul. "I believe not in investing in corporations and in special interest. I believe in investing in people. In universal pre-K for every child so everyone has the same starting line in life, in healthcare, for every Texan and every American to be their best. "So understand what Beto O'Rourke is promising you. If he's elected, he will fight to raise your taxes. That is not consistent with what the people of Texas want," said U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). The candidates discuss their views on taxes. When it came to discussing who best represented the values of Texans, the candidates had the following to say. "As (Rep. O'Rourke) takes extreme left-wing positions; positions further to the left of Elizabeth Warren, or Bernie Sanders, or Nancy Pelosi, he gets millions of dollars," said U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). "In 2016, (Sen. Cruz) missed one half of the votes in the United States Senate. You tell me who can miss half the days at work and then be rehired for the same job going forward," said U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-El Paso). Sen. Cruz and Rep. O'Rourke discuss which candidate is better equipped to represent the values of Texans. In the final question of the debate, moderators asked the candidates what they admired about each other. "We may have differences of opinions on what our destination might be and how we're going to get there, but I have no question that Senator Cruz wants to do the best for America," said U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-El Paso). "I think Congressman O'Rourke is passionate. He is energetic. He believes in what he's fighting for," said U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). [[494008471,C]] Hundreds of guns and multiple cases of ammunition were seized from a Lakeside home during a raid tied to a year-long, multi-agency crackdown on San Diego County gangs, according to a complaint unsealed Thursday. Inside Robert Thomas Welsh's home, the San Diego Sheriffs Department found 228 firearms, including AR-15 rifles and guns with destroyed serial numbers, multiple high capacity magazines and firearms silencers. Welsh is one of 27 people indicted by the Southern District of California U.S. Attorney's Office for their alleged connection to criminal gang activity in San Diego County, according to a complaint unsealed Thursday. Welsh told deputies that he considers himself a stay at home dad and has been colecting guns for more than 15 years, the complaint said. The defendants were charged with racketeering, drug trafficking, and felony firearm possession, among others. All entered a plea of not guilty to their charges. If convicted, the defendants could face anywhere from three years to life in prison. They are set to next appear in court on September 25. About 200 local, state and federal law enforcement agencies raided dozens of locations in San Diego County before dawn Thursday looking for people who were believed to be street gang members and members of the Mexican Mafia prison gang, U.S. Attorney Adam Braverman said. A total of 20 people are in custody. Another five suspects remain at large, the attorney's office said. About seven pounds of methamphetamine with an estimated street value of over $150,000 was also seized as a result of the raids. The raids came as the result of an investigation into drug and gun-related conspiracies that includes allegations of attempted kidnapping and attempted armed robbery, both of which were thwarted by law enforcement, according to the the U.S. attorneys office. The U.S. attorney's office said the year-long investigation was part of Project Safe Neighborhoods backed by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said Friday that he is "not yet" in support of a bullet train route, selected by California High-Speed Rail Authority staffers, that would travel through Pacoima and other neighborhoods in the northeast San Fernando Valley. The proposed route, which still needs to be approved by the California High-Speed Rail Authority's board, calls for the 38-mile Burbank-to-Palmdale section to include 24 miles underground and a portion in the Pacoima area above ground. During an hourlong news conference with reporters where he took questions on a number of subjects, Garcetti was asked about the route and said, "I haven't come out in support of it, but I haven't opposed it." The mayor said he wanted to know more about the route, including what kind of an impact it might have on local jobs. "I want to make sure that there's a benefit for the people there. Are they making promises for jobs, for instance ... for folks living in low-income areas and who may need good middle class jobs," Garcetti said. "Will they make some benefit to the beautification of the area, because it's a very dense area, perhaps the densest area in the state that it will go through,short of downtown, for that line to be there. I'm supportive of us having high speed rail in the state, I think it's going to be very necessary to meet our environmental goals." In a webcast this week where the route was announced as the preferred one among three being considered, Michelle Boehm, the rail authority's Southern California regional director, said it "strikes the best balance" while considering safety, cost and the impact on communities and the environment. The organization S.A.F.E. (Save Angeles Forest for Everyone) said it opposed all three routes under consideration and wants the rail authority to come up with new alternative routes. "This imperfect announcement matches its imperfect timing, its imperfect result, its imperfect intent, and its imperfect agency," the group said in a statement. "Rather than clearing the decks by abandoning all three flawed alternatives and heading back to the drawing board as we've strongly recommended, CHSRA believes they've chosen the alternative that is the 'best candidate' or `strikes the best balance.'" The $77 billion Los Angeles-to-San Francisco portion of the train project has an estimated completion date of 2033, but there is no funding in place yet to build the Southern California portion while work is currently underway on the Central Valley portion. Garcetti said he is concerned that SoCal could end up with no train but with its taxpayers helping pay the bill of a Northern California route. He also said he had strongly opposed another considered route that would have built a bridge over the Tujunga Wash and had advocated for the existing Metrolink commuter rail right-of-way from Burbank to Palmdale to be considered, although rail authority staffers said it was too curvy. He also said that he hopes a tunnel or trench will still be considered for the San Fernando Valley portion. What to Know Six members of a Mexican Mafia-linked street gang were convicted in a federal racketeering scheme that could send them to prison for life. The gang operated out of Santa Fe Springs and Whittier. One of them was convicted of an attempted assault of a fellow inmate who was thought to be a police informant. Six members of a Mexican Mafia-linked street gang were convicted in a federal racketeering scheme that could send them to prison for life, prosecutors said Friday. Officials described the gang that operated out of Santa Fe Springs and Whittier as a dangerous organization that caused misery in several communities. "These convictions are part a larger case that illustrates our dedication to improve our communities by combating the mayhem caused by violent criminal gangs," said United States Attorney Nick Hanna in a statement. Enrique "Boxer" Holguin, 56, was described as a senior member of the Canta Ranas gang. Authorities said he had direct communication with David Gavaldon, a Mexican Mafia member, currently serving a life sentence in state prison after being convicted of murder, authorities said. Holguin played a key role acting on behalf of Gavaldon and setting up a group of Mexican Mafia-affiliated inmates who controlled illegal activities inside the California Institute for Men in Chino, prosecutors said. Holguin was also convicted of an attempted assault of a fellow inmate thought to be a police informant. Donald "Wacky" Goulet, 31, collected taxes, once committed a violent home-invasion robbery and was tasked with helping Gavaldon expand the gang's territory into Riverside, authorities said. Emanuel "Blanco" Higuera, 33, a member of the Brown Brotherhood, another gang controlled by Gavaldon, was found guilty of trafficking drugs on behalf of the gang, officials said. Monica "Smiley" Rodriguez, 40, was described as one of Gavaldon's secretaries, who passed gang-related messages between Gavaldon and gang members, and acted as Gavaldon's eyes and ears on the street, prosecutors said. Alexis "Lex" Jaimez, 30, a foot soldier, was involved in a an assault that left a victim with severe, permanent injuries, authorities said. Newly released court records show three additional search warrants have been served in the investigation into the death of Botham Jean, the Dallas man shot and killed in his own apartment by Dallas police officer Amber Guyger. Guyger has told investigators she mistakenly believed the apartment was her own and that Jean was a burglar. The new warrants show investigators with the Dallas County District attorneys office have been seeking additional video footage from surveillance cameras on townhomes across the street from the South Side Flats apartments where Jean and Guyger both lived. Two of the warrants request doorbell video from two addresses on Arch Place. The warrants were served on Ring, a California-based company that provides doorbell security cameras systems. In a third warrant, investigators are seeking security camera video from ADT Security Services, for additional camera footage from an address on Arch Place. A resident at one of the homes targeted in the search warrants told NBC 5 that investigators were looking for video showing Guyger and Jeans apartments. The resident said the view from his camera is obstructed. Video of the area may be crucial evidence for investigators as they try to re-trace Guygers steps in the minutes leading up to the shooting. Guyger has told investigators she returned home at the end of her shift and found the door ajar at what she believed to be her apartment. In an arrest warrant affidavit, investigators have said Guyger described seeing a large silhouette in the apartment and that she gave verbal commands that were ignored prior to firing the shots that killed Jean. Jeans family and their attorneys dispute those accounts and say information they have gathered from witnesses will contradict Guygers statements. Guyger has been arrested and is facing a manslaughter charge but Dallas County prosecutors have said they will conduct their own review to determine if a murder charge or other charges are more appropriate. What to Know Christine Blasey Ford has a deadline of 2:30 p.m. Saturday to decide if she will accept the invitation to testify to the Senate The back and forth between Ford's lawyers and Sen. Chuck Grassley have left Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation in jeopardy Plans to hold a high-stakes hearing next week with testimony from Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, teetered with uncertainty Sunday as a Senate panel scrambled to resolve potentially make-or-break details, such as potential witnesses who could corroborate her decades-old sexual assault claim. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said lawyers for Ford are contesting two GOP conditions of the proposed 10 a.m. Thursday hearing that Ford and Kavanaugh will be the only witnesses and that an independent counsel will ask the questions. "If they continue to contest those two things, there won't be a hearing," Graham said. "We're not going to let her determine how many people we call" and on outside counsel. "I hope she comes." A final accord could bring a close days of brinkmanship that have roiled Washington ahead of midterm elections and threatened to jeopardize Kavanaugh's confirmation to the court, even as some Republicans say the additional hearings may do little to change their support for him. Graham, speaking on "Fox News Sunday," promised a fair hearing in which both Ford and Kavanaugh "will be challenged" but said "unless there's something more" to back up her accusation, then he's "not going to ruin Judge Kavanaugh's life over this." "I want to listen to her, but I'm being honest with you and everybody else. ...What am I supposed to do? Go ahead and ruin this guy's life based on an accusation?" Graham asked, explaining his dilemma over an allegation of a 1980s incident that is past the statute of limitations for criminal charges. "But she should come forward. She should have her say." Lawyers for Ford and bipartisan representatives of the committee came to a tentative agreement for a Thursday hearing after a short but productive phone call late Saturday, said a person briefed on the matter, who was not authorized to speak publicly and requested anonymity. But unresolved is who would question the 51-year-old California college professor and other potential witnesses. Ford wants an appearance by Mark Judge, a Kavanaugh friend who Ford asserts was in the room when the incident occurred. Meanwhile, the committee's 11 Republicans all men have been seeking an outside female attorney to interrogate Ford, mindful of the election-season impression that could be left by men trying to pick apart a woman's assertion of a sexual attack. Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat on the committee, said Sunday he believed Ford's requests have been "reasonable" and that she deserves a fair hearing to determine whether her allegations are "serious" enough to vote down Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination. He acknowledged that lawmakers will "probably not" be able to know the truth of Ford's decades-old accusation that Kavanaugh assaulted her at a house party when they were teenagers. But Durbin left little doubt that that Democrats will go after Kavanaugh's drinking history to help shed light on the matter. Ford has alleged Kavanaugh was "stumbling drunk" when it happened. "There have been a lot of things said about the alcohol that was consumed by the judge as well as by others in his school. That has to be part of any relevant questioning," he said. Durbin told ABC's "This Week" that some Republicans "reached out to Democratic senators and assured them that they are looking to this as kind of a determination as to how their final vote" on Kavanaugh is cast. Tensions have been running on overdrive since Ford went public last week with her allegation that Kavanaugh assaulted her when they in high school. Kavanaugh, an appellate court judge, denied the allegation and said he wanted to testify as soon as possible to clear his name. Republicans had grown frustrated as Ford's lawyers insisted on a hearing next Thursday rather than Monday or even Wednesday and made other requests, some of which the committee chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, rejected. Democrats, against the backdrop of the #MeToo movement, countered that Ford should be shown respect and given accommodation to tell her story. Republicans viewed Ford's requests as a way to delay voting on President Donald Trump's nominee. The White House is approaching Ford's potential testimony with trepidation, nervous that an emotional performance might not just damage Kavanaugh's chances but could further energize female voters to turn out against Republicans in November against the backdrop of the #MeToo movement. Moreover, the West Wing aides who had urged Trump to remain muted in his response to the accusations worried about how the president might react to an hourslong, televised hearing. In tweet Friday, Trump broke his silence to cast doubt on Ford's story in ways Republicans had been carefully trying to avoid. Trump mused to confidants that the "fake" attacks against his nominee were meant to undermine his presidency, according to a White House official and a Republican close to the White House. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss private conversations. The lawyers for Ford wrote to the committee on Saturday that she "accepts the Committee's request to provide her first-hand knowledge of Brett Kavanaugh's sexual misconduct next week." Attorneys Debra Katz and Lisa Banks said that many aspects of Grassley's latest offer were "fundamentally inconsistent" with the committee's promise of a "fair, impartial investigation." They said they remained disappointed by the "bullying" that "tainted the process." Yet they remained "hopeful that we can reach agreement on details." Patience among Republicans, though, is running thin. The GOP is facing enormous pressure from its base of conservative leaders and voters to swiftly approve Kavanaugh, who would become the second of Trump's nominees to sit on the nation's highest court, ahead of the Nov. 6 election. What to Know An equipment malfunction left nearly 14,000 customers without power or hours in New Jersey on Saturday morning The malfunction at an East Orange substation knocked out power shortly before 6 a.m., a PSE&G spokeswoman said The blackout affected Newark, East Orange and Irvington An equipment malfunction left nearly 14,000 customers without power for hours in New Jersey early Saturday, gas and electric utility PSE&G said. The malfunction at an East Orange substation knocked out power shortly before 6 a.m., a PSE&G spokeswoman told News 4 New York. More than 7,400 customers lost power in Newark, more than 3,400 lost power in East Orange, and more than 1,200 lost power in Irvington, according to PSE&G. As of around 8 a.m., power had been restored to approximately 12,000 customers, and only around 1,600 were still waiting for power to be restored, the company said. The power has since been restored to the remaining customers. What to Know Authorities in New York City face a security challenge with the coming arrival of Trump and other leaders for the UN General Assembly The 73rd Session of the General Assembly began on Sept. 18, but the higher-level meetings start Monday The NYPD's main line of defense will be thousands of extra police officers flooding the streets Authorities in New York City are facing a security and logistical challenge of epic proportions with the coming arrival of President Donald Trump and other world leaders for the United Nations General Assembly. Though there's been no credible threats against the event, the security concerns are so broad that the New York Police Department has considered how it would stop assassins armed with poison or killer drones. The NYPD's main line of defense will be thousands of extra police officers flooding the streets as part of a carefully coordinated effort with the Secret Service and other federal and local law enforcement agencies to protect both the United Nations and Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan, said Police Commissioner James O'Neill. "Since the end of last year's General Assembly, we've been planning how to best protect the various sites and all the people inside them, while also minimizing the impact on New Yorkers," O'Neill said at recent news conference at a command center at police headquarters. The 73rd Session of the General Assembly began on Sept. 18, but the higher-level meetings start Monday. The security arsenal features police boats patrolling the East River near the U.N., aviation units overhead and teams of officers trained to respond to chemical, biological and other potential terror threats. About 50 city Department of Sanitation dump trucks filled with sand and 230 concrete barriers will be positioned at intersections and other strategic locations to guard against car or truck attacks like the one last year that killed eight people on a bike path in Lower Manhattan. Police said other preparations have included consulting with British authorities about the poisoning of a former Russian spy there earlier this year by way of a weapons-grade nerve agent. British officials say the attack was carried out by Russian operatives. Police have also studied an attack on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro last month using drones rigged with explosives. Maduro said this past week that he may have to suspend a planned trip to the United Nations because of concerns his opponents would try to kill him if he travels abroad. But the NYPD is expecting more than 200 other world leaders to show up, all needing to move around the city in motorcades with police escorts. Those foreign dignitaries flying state aircraft into New York's Kennedy Airport will be greeted with strict enforcement of security rules requiring the planes to depart within two hours of touching down. The crackdown comes after the indictment of an airport supervisor on charges he took bribes to let Qatar and other countries park their planes overnight during the gathering. Trump is expected to arrive for a rare hometown visit and a possible stay at Trump Tower, his longtime home he has rarely visited since becoming president. Outside the skyscraper, police plan to set up a series of barriers and security checkpoints. Police said they expect more than 60 demonstrations outside the United Nations, foreign consulates and Trump Tower at various times during the week. The bad news for motorists: Officials say all the activity will cause worse gridlock than the traffic jams during the Thanksgiving Day Parade, the tree-lighting ceremony at Rockefeller Center and the New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square. Authorities said they hadn't calculated the cost of the security operation. But they said there's been a $20 to $30 million bill for past General Assemblies, and that the federal government covers most of it. What to Know David Hamilton is wanted for allegedly sexually assaulting multiple Bucks County children, police said. Hamilton's car was found early Friday and he was spotted in the woods near New Hope later in the day. Police say he attacked an officer too. A large manhunt is now underway around Solebury Township that has caused roads to be shut down. The manhunt for a sex assault suspect in wooded areas of Bucks County entered a second day Saturday as the man remained on the loose. David Hamilton, 47, was spotted Friday in the woods near Sugan and Stoney Hill roads in Solebury Township, police said. Hamilton is wanted on a warrant out of Lower Southampton Township for allegedly carrying out multiple sexual offenses against kids, according to police. Police found his 2016 Toyota Corolla in Morrisville and he was spotted riding a bike across the Calhoun Street bridge into Trenton, New Jersey, early Friday morning. Then, Friday afternoon, a hunter saw Hamilton walking through the woods in the New Hope area. Officers responded and attempted to capture him, but police say he attacked an officer and tried to steal his gun. Hamilton was able to get away. Police set up a 40-acre search area on the ground and New Jersey State Police scrambled a helicopter to assist from the air. Several roads are closed in the New Hope area. Hamilton was last seen wearing a dark colored T-shirt, gray cargo shorts and sneakers. Anyone with information is asked to call 911. Mercer County, you're off the hook. For the last four decades, a 16-mile stretch of highways around Trenton constituted the last stretch of the East Coast's Interstate 95 that wasn't technically I-95. But when massive steel beams went up over an existing stretch of I-95 in Bristol Township in mid-February, they symbolized an end to the Mercer County "missing link." Now, on Friday, the Pennsylvania Turnpike announced those steel beams and the concrete roadway poured on top of them are opening to the public for use as early as this weekend, or, by the latest, the Monday morning commute Sept. 24. Motorists who travel in this area have been waiting a long time to realize the benefits this direct link will bring, namely reduced congestion on Bucks County roadways and improved traffic flow in the Philadelphia region and the entire east coast, Turnpike Commissioner Pasquale T. "Pat" Deon Sr. said. The overpasses, or flyovers as they are also called, are just north of Philadelphia and connect the New Jersey Turnpike to I-95 in Pennsylvania, ending the need to use Interstate 195 and Interstate 295 for 16 miles around Trenton. Its the last piece to a highway more than 60 years in the making, first envisioned as a crucial part of the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System. And its the completion of a 1,900-mile road that finally links Maine to Miami seamlessly. "This is the last piece of that original system," engineer Jay Roth told NBC Philadelphia in March. Roth, of Jacobs Engineering, has been involved in the elusive connection for most of his long career. "It is meaningful to a number of people." About 75,000 vehicles travel through that area on I-95 (around what used to be exit 40) each day, and another 50,000 travel the Pennsylvania Turnpike there. Not only will there be a smooth transition from the New Jersey Turnpike to I-95, there will also be the first-ever connection between I-95 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Towns in the area will have to deal with far fewer vehicles exiting the highways, and swamping local streets. All this translates into a big deal for the area's transportation system in an age when large-scale improvement projects have proven rare. "Back in the '50s and '60s, a project like this happened every day," Roth said. "But with how built up the east side of the country is, (these days) were typically rebuilding. The accomplishment is that this is one of the big ones." In the early 1980s, the first plan to close the I-95 hole in central New Jersey proposed a new highway through Mercer County, but opponents there were able to scuttle the project. The county executive at the time, Bill Mathesius, described the local feelings as "a specific revulsion to tearing up a rustic community a rural community and putting 95 through it." "There would be fundamentally a six-lane highway going through this area, with off-exchanges in one or two places," Mathesius told National Public Radio. "Those places would have been developed." It took some 35 years, spanning whole careers for many accomplished planners and engineers, to solve the Mercer County obstacle. The plan now bypasses the central Jersey communities just east of the Delaware River, and uses long-held right-of-ways to connect the New Jersey Turnpike near exit 6 to Interstate 95 in Bristol, Bucks County. This map illustrates the before-and-after designations. Click on the slider to see the differences. The cost of such a project is monumental beyond the time it has taken. Then again, the $425 million in financial costs doesnt truly capture the incredible coordination that goes into a federal highway project spanning two states. There is the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, which is overseeing the major components of the project. There are three Departments of Transportation involved. There is the numerous local communities involved. There are hundreds of contractors and vendors and suppliers who did the work and provided the material and transported, for instance, those massive steel beams. Here's a look at the old signage versus what drivers now see. Note how I-295 now goes all the way to Bristol where the new interchange has been constructed. What to Know Police are searching for a driver accused of shooting another mans car during a road rage incident on I-95. The incident occurred in Bensalem Township, Pennsylvania, Friday around 5:30 p.m. Police identified the suspect as Kalief Armstrong, 30, of Philadelphia. They say he was driving a gray, 2015 Hyundai Sonata. Police are searching for a driver accused of shooting another mans car during a road rage incident on I-95. Police say the victim, a 32-year-old Philadelphia man, was driving on Street Road and the Route 13 ramp in Bensalem Township, Pennsylvania, Friday at 5:30 p.m. As the man drove, he was nearly struck by a gray, 2015 Hyundai Sonata, police said. The man then yelled at the driver, identified by police as Kalief Armstrong, 30, of Philadelphia. Words were then exchanged between the two men, according to investigators. The 32-year-old man then drove onto I-95 south and was traveling in the middle lane. He then spotted Armstrong in the left lane approaching his vehicle, police said. The 32-year-old man told police Armstrong was waving something. He then heard a loud gunshot noise and Armstrong then sped away. The man believed Armstrong took the Academy Road exit, according to investigators. The 32-year-old man then pulled over to a safe location and spotted a bullet hole on his driver side rear door close to the front door. Police say Armstrong is driving a gray, 2015 Hyundai Sonata with the Pennsylvania registration KMV-9744. Police have obtained a warrant for his arrest. If you have any information on the incident or Armstrongs whereabouts, please call the Pennsylvania State Police, Trevose barracks at 215-942-3900 and reference PA18-1093557. Five California Lottery employees on Thursday demanded the resignation of senior department executives amid an investigation into alleged misconduct on a work-related trip and an audit of expenses. The five veteran employees asked for the resignations at the state Lottery Commission a month after an anonymous letter was sent to Gov. Jerry Brown's office with photos alleging that a senior leader had put his head under the front of a woman's shirt. The woman was not identified. The letter said the photos were taken at a piano bar following a sales conference two years ago, and alleged that Lottery officials used crude language, disparaged employees and showed favoritism. "This is unacceptable in state service. It is not who we are and it is time for these people to go," said Paulina Vasquez, a lottery sales representative and union shop steward, according to the Sacramento Bee . Catherine Alvarado, a 25-year Lottery employee, said "it's time to bring back honesty, integrity, professionalism and trust to our management team." Brown asked the attorney general's office to review the allegations in the letter, and Lottery employees say agents are beginning to interview workers. Lottery Director Hugo Lopez and Lottery Commission Chairman Gregory Ahern outlined unfolding investigations into the allegations after the employees' remarks. "Please be aware that these matters are being addressed," Ahern said. Lopez said the department has stressed in recent training a state law that allows public employees to be disciplined if their actions discredit their employer. "Whether or not any allegations are substantiated, this incident has served as a reminder of what is expected of Lottery employees," he said. Separately, the state controller's office is conducting an audit of Lottery expenses. A Potomac, Maryland, man who vanished after going for a hike during his honeymoon in Hawaii has been found dead, police say. The Maui Police Department said Stephen Kramar's body was found Friday about 9:16 a.m. Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time. Stephen Kramar and Jeffanie Kramar went to the island of Molokai after getting married on Sept. 8 in Falls Church, Virginia. Stephen went missing Monday after setting out alone to find a hiking trail. Jeffanie Kramar told News4 via Skype on Thursday that her husband was an avid hiker and had gone to find a path that they could both handle together during their trip. "He's experienced, you know, I wasn't worried at all about that," Jeffanie Kramar said. She said she started to worry later Monday because she Stephen texted her in the afternoon that he was on his way back, but he never showed. "At 9:30 I called him a few times and it rang so I knew his phone was on, but then around 9:45, 10 o'clock, like, the seventh or eighth attempt of calling him, it went dead. It went to voicemail," Jeffanie Kramar said. Police said his body was found on a hillside in an area called Pia Gulch, about a half-mile away from the Wavecrest Resort where the couple was staying. Search teams used helicopters, K-9s and volunteers to try to find him. The couple was set to fly back home on Friday. The circumstances surrounding Kramar's death are unclear. Police said an autopsy would be scheduled to determine his exact cause of death. What to Know About two out of every three sexual assaults go unreported to police, according to the anti-sexual violence non-profit RAINN After Trump wondered why Ford didn't report her alleged assault, Twitter users shared the hashtag #WhyIDidntReport with their own stories Sexual assault can leave victims with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and suicidal thoughts, says the Joyful Heart Foundation Some of the most vocal proponents of the #MeToo movement and droves of other women have come to the defense of Christine Blasey Ford after President Donald Trump questioned her credibility and wondered why she didnt report her sexual assault at the time she said it happened. In a slew of unrestrained tweets Friday, Trump contended that if the attack Ford said happened at the hands of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was as bad as she claims, she would have immediately reported it to local authorities. He asked her to produce the report to prove the details of her alleged assault and wondered, Why didnt someone call the FBI 36 years ago? The president's brazen comments sparked the birth of a new trending hashtag, #WhyIDidntReport, and inspired victims to reveal their own stories of assault and share their reasons for not telling anyone about the violence. One of those victims was Alyssa Milano, who has helped propel the #MeToo movement into the national spotlight in the last year. She threw her support behind Ford and told Trump to pay attention to the stories being told. I was sexually assaulted twice. Once when I was a teenager. I never filed a police report and it took me 30 years to tell [my] parents, the actress wrote on Twitter. Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, the professor accusing President Trump's Supreme Court nominee of sexual assault, may end up testifying after all. Attorneys for Dr. Ford said she's too busy dealing with death threats to prepare for hearing on Monday. Written testimony by Friday morning's deadline won't happen. Everything else, they say, is negotiable. #WhyIDidntReport jumped to the top of Twitters trends in the wake of Trump's claims, with social media users challenging the presidents assertions. Several women shared incidents they said happened when they were young children, saying they didnt know what had happened to them at the time. Others said they felt ashamed or embarrassed about their role in the situation, thinking they asked for the assault or didnt do enough to stop it themselves. Others described feeling powerless against their attacker, saying they felt they had no one to report the assault to, that those they did tell didnt do anything or that they would suffer further harm if they spoke out. Ford has accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were teens in the 1980s. She said he pinned her on a bed, groped her, tried to undress her and held his hand over her mouth when she tried to scream. Ford said in her interview with The Washington Post that she didn't tell anyone about the incident until 2012, when she was in therapy sessions with her husband. Kavanaugh has denied the claims, but the allegation has halted his confirmation proceedings. Trump himself has been accused of sexual assault and harassment as well, by at least 19 women. One of those known accusers, Jessica Leeds, claimed Trump groped her breasts and put his hand up her skirt on an airplane in the early 1980s. She told The New York Times she did not report the incident at the time because she had experienced that behavior from men before in the 70s and 80s. "We accepted it for years, she told the Times of the behavior. We were taught it was our fault. The White House has said the allegations against Trump are "false." The woman accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of pinning her to a bed and putting his hand over her mouth came out of anonymity for the first time in an interview with The Washington Post. Christine Blasey Ford, a professor with Palo Alto University, said she decided to come forward after parts of her story leaked. But the #WhyIDidntReport testimonies being shared on social media fall in line with national statistics on sexual violence. About two out of every three sexual assaults go unreported to police, according to the anti-sexual violence non-profit RAINN, which stands for Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. Reasons for not reporting the assault to police include fearing retaliation, believing police would not do anything to help, believing it was a personal matter, having already reported it to a different official and believing it was not important enough to report. The organization also operates the National Sexual Assault Hotline (800-656-4673). The Bureau of Justice Statistics also reports that a majority of rapes and other sexual assaults aren't reported to police. Between 2006 and 2010, an average of about 211,200 rapes and sexual assaults went unreported each year. But even if a victim does report their assault, the likelihood that the perpetrator will be held accountable is slim, according to RAINN. Out of every 1,000 rapes, only 57 cases lead to an arrest and 11 cases will be referred to prosecutors. Only seven cases will lead to a felony conviction. Ashley Judd, who accused disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment and claimed he hurt her career after her rejections, also tweeted her own #WhyIDidntReport. The first time it happened, I was 7. I told the first adults I came upon. They said Oh, hes a nice old man, thats not what he meant. So when I was raped at 15, I only told my diary. When an adult read it, she accused me of having sex with an adult man, Judd wrote. Men shared the hashtag too, supporting women victims and also offering their own stories. Many said they feared they wouldnt be believed if they came forward with their accusation. One out of every 10 rape victims is male, according to RAINN. And nearly half of transgender people are sexually assaulted in their lifetime, according to the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey. President Donald Trump said Tuesday he "feels terribly" for Judge Brett Kavanaugh and his family. The Senate is trying to schedule a hearing to hear from Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, who alleges Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a high school party about 35 years ago. Sexual assault can leave long-term effects on victims, including post-traumatic stress disorder, severe anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts, according to the Joyful Heart Foundation, an anti-sexual assault group founded by "Law and Order" actress Mariska Hargitay. Most women who are raped 94 percent experience symptoms of PTSD in the two weeks following the rape, according to RAINN. And 30 percent experience symptoms in the nine months after. About 70 percent of sexual assault victims experience moderate to severe distress, a larger percentage than for any other violent crime, according to RAINN. Ford, in her Post interview, said she has suffered "long-term effects" from the assault and has sought treatment for it. One Twitter user named Kirsten King, a writer, reminded readers that those participating in the #WhyIDidntReport hashtag are "reliving their trauma to try and teach folks to extend long overdue empathy and protection. The folks posting are only a drop in the bucket so many people aren't (and may never be) ready to relive that trauma." Her tweet garnered more than 3,800 likes by Friday evening. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 provides people in distress, or those around them, with 24-hour support. The Crisis Text Line allows people to text 741-741 to connect with crisis counselors. Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz had a chance to show off his often praised debating skills Friday in his first match-up against Democratic challenger Beto ORourke, the El Paso congressman running a competitive campaign against him. Cruz is trying to win a second term in the U.S. Senate in a race that the Cook Political Report on Friday rated a toss-up. New polls show the competition tightening with a Reuters-Ipsos poll on Wednesday giving ORourke a two-point lead in a typically reliable red state. Countering those indications is a Quinnipiac poll that had Cruz ahead by nine points. U.S. Rep. Beto ORourke and Sen. Ted Cruz faced each other in the first of three planned debates Friday in what has become a neck and neck race for the Texas senate seat. ORourke is a three-term congressman. He has raised more money than Cruz, a presidential hopeful in 2016 against now President Donald J. Trump, drawing national attention to the race. ORourke, who became an El Paso city councilman in 2005, is hoping to become the first Texan elected to the Senate since 1988. Friday's hourlong debate was the first of three the men are scheduled to participate in. Here were some of the evenings highlights: Strong winds were expected to continue throughout SoCal, with advisories expected to expire around Noon in LA County and tomorrow for inland and valley areas. Shanna Mendiola has the forecast for Friday, April 15, 2016. This is why people do not like Washington, D.C. A particularly sharp exchange between the two contenders came as they addressed police shootings of unarmed black men, one of which occurred about two weeks ago when a white off-duty Dallas police officer shot her black neighbor, Botham Jean, to death in his own apartment. Police Officer Amber Guyger, who has been charged with manslaughter, has told investigators that she mistook his apartment for hers. Cruz accused ORourke of calling police officers modern-day Jim Crow, a reference to local laws that enforced racial segregation in the South, and deemed the description offensive. That is not Texas, he concluded. What Senator Cruz said is simply untrue, ORourke responded. I did not call police officers modern-day Jim Crow. Video of ORourkes town hall on Wednesday at Prairie View A&M University, a historically black college in Prairie View, Texas, shows him talking about a system that he said suspects a person based solely on the color of their skin, that searches, stops or shoots someone based on the color of their skin. It is why some have called this, and I think it is an apt description, the new Jim Crow, he said. Cruz, when asked whether he thought the police shootings a problem, said that everyones rights should be protected, but blamed irresponsible and hateful rhetoric for shootings of police officers among them the killing of five Dallas police officers in 2016. He accused ORourke of repeating things he knew were not true, including accusing white police officers of shooting unarmed African American children, and said that The Washington Post had fact checked the claim and found it to be untrue. The contest for who will become the next head of the Federal Reserve appears to be coming down to Kevin Warsh and Jerome "Jay" Powell. This is why people do not like Washington, D.C., ORourke said. You just said something that I did not say and attributed it to me. What did you not say? Cruz asked. Im not going to repeat the slander and mischaracterization, ORourke said. Youre not going to say what you did say? Cruz asked. This is your trick in the trade, to confuse and to incite based on fear and not to speak the truth, ORourke said. "This is a very serious issue." The Washington Post did examine a quote from ORourke but did not rate it given varying interpretations that were possible. The quote: Black men, unarmed, black teenagers, unarmed, and black children, unarmed, are being killed at a frightening level right now, including by members of law enforcement without accountability and without justice. Cruz's dignity and President Trump During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump attacked Cruz viciously, suggesting that Cruzs father had been involved in the assassination of President John Kennedy and tweeting an unflattering photograph of Cruzs wife, Heidi, and threatening to spill the beans on her. How did Cruz, who later endorsed Trump and praised him, respond to critics who said he had lost his dignity? Cruz called his father his hero and his wife his best friend and the most beautiful woman on the planet. After the election, he faced a choice and decided to work with the president on cutting taxes and regulations and creating new jobs, he said. So yes, I could have chosen to make it about myself, to be selfish and say, You know what, my feelings are hurt so Im going to take my marbles and go home. But I think that would have been not doing the job I was elected to do. ORourke said that how Cruz responded when the president attacked him personally was his business. But the congressman also raised allegations that Trump had colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election and said he had attacked the countrys institutions. We need a U.S. senator who will stand up to this president, ORourke said. Ted Cruz probably wishes he missed the phone call. Jimmy Fallon brought back his amazing Donald Trump impression Thursday night on "The Tonight Show" and decided to give his opponent, Cruz, a little bit of help ahead of the Canadian-born politician's visit to the late night series. True to Form When the men were asked in the final moments of the debate what they admired about their opponent, ORourke said he knew how hard Cruz worked, the time he had spent away from his children and the sacrifices he had made. He said he had no question that despite their differences, Cruz wanted to do the best for America. So I thank you Sen. Cruz for your public service, ORourke said. Cruz agreed that the time away from their children was a sacrifice for both men and that ORourke was passionate, energetic and believed in what he was fighting for. Then Cruz compared ORourke to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who he said advocated socialism, higher taxes and expanding government. Youre fighting for the principles you believe in and I respect that, Cruz said. True to form, ORourke responded. Thoughts and prayers The men clashed over how to protect students from shootings in school, both referring to the killings at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas, in May. Cruz called for more armed police officers in school, and rejected any new gun control measures. There is something deeply wrong that we have these shootings. There are a lot of things behind it that have nothing to do with government. They have things to do with things like removing God from the public square, like losing the moral foundation of much of our society, like losing the binds of community and family. ORourke argued that bringing a firearm into a classroom would not make students safer. Thoughts and prayers, Sen. Cruz, are just not going to cut it anymore, he said. The people of Texas, the children of Texas, deserve action. More armed police officers in our schools is not thoughts and prayers, Cruz answered. Im sorry you dont like thoughts and prayers. I will pray for anyone in harms way but I also will do something about it. Differing Views on Drugs On drugs, Cruz said that ORourke, while on the El Paso City Council, had called for a national debate on legalizing all narcotics, including heroin and cocaine. There is consistent pattern when it comes to drug use that in almost every single instance Congressman ORourke supports more of it, Cruz said. Cruz said that the issue was personal; his older sister died of a drug overdoes. ORourke, who was arrested for drunken driving in 1998, said that he wanted to end the war on drugs and to end the prohibition on marijuana. To be clear, I dont want to legalize heroin and cocaine and fentanyl, he said. Republican Ted Cruz and Democrat Beto O'Rourke repeatedly traded barbs during a testy first debate Friday night, underscoring how a Texas Senate race that long looked like a cakewalk for the conservative incumbent now appears to be anything but one. Cruz went on the attack moments after stepping on the stage, charging that his opponent suggested that police officers embodied "modern-day Jim Crow" laws in response to a question about a Dallas policewoman who shot and killed her unarmed, black neighbor after mistakenly entering his apartment, thinking it was her own. O'Rourke responded that the accusation was "simply not true." Cruz appeared to be referring to O'Rourke previously suggesting that inherent biases in the criminal justice system promote racism. Later, when Cruz tried to say O'Rourke wanted to abolish the Second Amendment, the Democrat said it wasn't so, and the candidates sniped while the moderators pleaded for them to stop and for the audience to stop hooting. O'Rourke said Texas was ready for a senator who will protect the Second Amendment while imposing small restrictions to save lives and prevent mass shootings. He suggested those were supported by "gunowners and non-gunowners alike," but when he said the common GOP refrain after gun violence of offering "thoughts and prayers" wasn't enough, Cruz bristled. "I'm sorry you don't like thoughts and prayers," he said. "I will pray for anyone in harm's way." Cruz was also asked whether Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's accuser could say anything that might make him question his support for the nomination. Cruz said "absolutely," but didn't elaborate while calling the allegations serious. Democrats have long dreamed of flipping heavily Hispanic Texas, the country's largest red state, and transforming the national electoral map. O'Rourke is giving up his El Paso-based U.S. House seat to try and upset Cruz, even though his party hasn't won any of Texas' two dozen-plus statewide office races since 1994, America's longest political losing streak. The debate at Dallas' Southern Methodist University also saw Cruz criticize O'Rourke's past support for legalizing marijuana, evoking his older half-sister, Miriam, who died of a drug overdose. O'Rourke, meanwhile, has been open about his 1998 arrest for drunken driving in El Paso, but said for the first time Friday that he did not try to flee the scene, as a witness suggested in the police report. He called the incident a "terrible mistake" The pair will square off again next weekend in Cruz's hometown of Houston, and a third and final debate is set for San Antonio three weeks before the Nov. 6 election. Cruz didn't speak to the media afterward except to say he thought the debate "went great." But O'Rourke said the senator "has a tendency to mischaracterize a position." "If he's talking about NFL players kneeling during the national anthem at a football game to call attention to injustice in this country, he'll talk about flag burning," O'Rourke said. "If we're talking about ending the war on drugs, the war on people, and some people over other people in this country, and ending the prohibition on marijuana, he'll talk about legalizing heroin and cocaine. No one wants to do any of that." An ex-punk rocker who has attracted glowing attention from national liberal circles for his high-energy campaign and monster fundraising, O'Rourke has been mentioned as a possible 2020 Democratic vice presidential candidate and even a 2020 White House hopeful. Though he may not knock off Cruz, the argument goes, a close loss could only further boost his national profile. O'Rourke, however, has repeatedly insisted he has no political plans beyond this race. He's visited all 254 Texas counties, including areas that Democrats long ago gave up on a fact he mentioned repeatedly during the debate. Cruz dismissed many such visits as photo-ops. Cruz finished second in the 2016 Republican presidential primary. But a variety of polls show that O'Rourke is staying within striking distance prompting Cruz to go negative in ads lately, attacking his opponent for defending NFL players' right to protest during the national anthem and his opposition to the Trump administration's hardline stance on immigration. President Donald Trump has announced that he'll rally in Texas for his once bitter rival Cruz next month previously unthinkable in a state where Republicans usually rack up landslide victories. A truck mounted with a portable billboard of a February 2016 Trump tweet declaring, "Why would the people of Texas support Ted Cruz when he has accomplished nothing for them?" was parked near Friday's debate site. It's frequently hit Texas political events since Trump announced plans to visit. Asked Friday about Trump's 2016 criticism, which included making fun of Cruz's wife's appearance and suggesting that his Cuban-born father had a hand in the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Cruz said, "I could have chosen to make it about myself," but instead he said he worked with Trump to further Texas interests. That ignored Cruz drawing the ire of many Texas conservatives for refusing to endorse Trump during the 2016 Republican National Convention. He eventually supported his party's candidate, though. O'Rourke criticized Cruz during the debate for failing to rebuke Trump administration tariffs against China, which he said would hurt Texas trade interests. Things are likely to stay nasty in coming weeks. Asked what he admired about O'Rourke, Cruz managed to compare him to socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. O'Rourke drew laughs by replying simply of Cruz: "True to form." A Maryland woman who said she was a psychic and scammed customers out of $340,000 to cure them of "curses" has been sentenced to six years in prison. Gina Marie Marks, who identified herself as Natalie Miller in her meetings with clients, stole from five people who sought her help over the course of more than two years. Marks pleaded guilty to felony theft in February. "I'm not a monster. I'm a good person," Marks said in court Friday. The judge said her actions were premeditated and she preyed on vulnerable people. Marks was also ordered to pay restitution to the victims totaling about $300,000. "This is really an important sentence that balances both restitution to the victims and protecting society," said Ramon Korionoff, spokesperson for the Montgomery County State's Attorney's Office. In February, Marks said her services are legitimate and she really is a psychic. People are racist from gypsies, Marks said from beneath a black, puffy coat. Theyre racist on my culture. We do have power. Were not allowed to talk about it. Police first learned of Marks tactics in May 2016, after a 26-year-old Chinese immigrant learned that her boyfriend was married to another woman. Seeking guidance, the woman saw an online ad for Readings by Natalie. When the woman contacted Marks, she told her she would be able to cast love spells. But she said she would need large amounts of cash to do it. Marks had the woman meet her at stores, where Marks used the woman's credit card. The customer got suspicious after Marks had received more than $80,000 from her in cash and purchases. The woman asked for her money back and called the police and a private investigator. On four other occasions, Marks told clients she had the ability to reverse curses. In June 2014, one victim paid Marks and said she was told she would get her money back once the curse was broken. She never got back the $2,654 she paid. As Marks received cash and shopping trips with her clients credit cards, she posted pictures to social media of herself with expensive clothes, jewelry and purses. Eventually, the private investigator hired by one customer was able to track down Marks at Miami International Airport. She was arrested before she was able to flee the country. Public health officials have announced 10 new human cases of West Nile virus, bringing to 24 the number of human cases acquired in Massachusetts this year. The newest reported cases are predominantly among older individuals. Public Health Commissioner Monica Bharel said Friday that the state has seen four times as many cases compared to last year. She said even with the start of fall and cooler temperatures, mosquito season isn't over. It's not unusual to see people infected in October. West Nile Virus is usually transmitted to humans through the bite of an infected mosquito. While it can infect people of all ages, people over the age of 50 are at higher risk for severe disease. Most people infected have no symptoms. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the most effective method to prevent West Nile infection is to wear insect repellent, long-sleeved shirts and pants, and take steps to control osquitoes indoors and outdoors, including emptying stagnant water in planters, birdbaths, and trash containers. Symptoms can include fever and flu-like illness but while people older than 60 years old are at greater risk, severe illness can occur in people of any age. Those with the highest medical risk are those with medical conditions that include cancer, diabetes, hypertension, kidney disease and who have received organ transplants. The CDC reports one in 10 people who develop severe illness affecting the central nervous system die. The latest Massachusetts statistics are a marked increase over previous years. Last year, there were six reported cases in the Bay State and 17 in 2016. In 2012, Massachusetts reported 33 cases, its greatest number of cases in a single year, since data collection began in 1999. Associated Press reports contributed to this story. The state agency charged with ensuring the safety of Massachusetts' natural gas system had only a fraction of its inspector positions filled just last month, a staffing deficit that could delay required pipeline and utility audits, a newly-released federal report said. The report raised alarms just days before explosions and fires rocked the Merrimack Valley, killing one, injuring about two dozen and displacing thousands. "Without enough inspectors, you might miss something. I think the whole point of having inspectors is to actually catch things before they become catastrophic failures," said state Rep. Lori Ehrlich (D-Marblehead), who has written bills for tighter state regulation of gas infrastructure. Federal investigators from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration visited the state Department of Public Utilities, the agency responsible for overseeing the 20,000 miles of natural gas pipelines buried under Massachusetts, in late August to wrap up an annual evaluation of the state's safety program. The report, just released this month, stunned some gas safety experts, including Ehrlich and Bob Ackley, an expert and consultant. He pointed to replacement workers at National Grid, filling in for the union employees that have been locked out all summer, as an extra reason state oversight is critical. "We have safety issues all over the state," Ackley said. "We've got contractors working all over the state. We've got National Grid in a lockout with contractors running around all over the place." The federal report noted that, "Due to recent inspector attrition, only three qualified inspectors on staff (sic)." "At the time of this evaluation only two inspectors are available to perform inspections," it continued. The report determined that all of last year's inspections happened on schedule, but the feds raised concerns that because of understaffing, "The program will likely have to make some risk based decisions" in the future "that could delay safety reviews." It is unclear whether any direct line can be drawn between understaffing and last week's explosions in Lawrence, Andover and North Andover. National Transportation Safety Board investigators point to over-pressurization of a distribution pipeline in Lawrence, and they are looking at a subcontractor's role in a pipeline replacement project there. "A lot of people refer to this as the Black Swan event: low probability, high consequence," Ackley said. The federal report noted that the target number of inspectors for the safety program is 10, but again they noted DPU at the time had "only the three qualified inspectors, two more had been hired and a job offer had been made to one more." "If you don't have enough inspectors to cover the territory then you're apt to miss things which can lead to loss of life," Ehrlich said. "It wasn't a systemic failure of some kind, it was related to a particular event attached to a particular project," Gov. Charlie Baker told reporters after an event in Lawrence on Tuesday. After the federal visit, the state scrambled to hire inspectors. Baker said the agency now has eight inspectors on staff and is looking to hire more. When the NBC10 Boston Investigators pushed a DPU spokesman for more detail, he conceded only six are currently certified to conduct inspections, and he did not answer questions about whether they are actually out inspecting pipelines. "We need to have an adequate number of trained inspectors on the job to make sure that things are being done right. We depend on them to keep us safe," Ehrlich said. All utilities have their own inspectors. The DPU inspectors' job is to make sure the companies are following proper procedures and to address any violations. Rather than showing up to inspect work sites and infrastructure the way a health inspector might go to a restaurant, DPU pipeline inspectors audit the voluminous reports utilities are required to file with the state to ensure utilities are conducting their own inspections and following state regulations, and they follow up on complaints. They typically do not sign off on individual jobs. DPU scored very well on its evaluation, but got dinged for overall program performance. Requests to sit down with the director of DPU or any of the agency's three commissioners did not receive any response. When NBC10 Boston tried to talk with the Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs after a press conference Friday, a spokesman for Baker told a reporter to wait, but later came back to say the secretary had ducked out another way. What to Know The crash involved a jogger who was struck and killed on Route 110 at about 9 p.m. Police said the driver remained at the scene following the crash. No charges have been filed in connection with the investigation. Police have identified a jogger struck and killed by a car on Friday night in Westford, Massachusetts. Ulhas Kudva, 45, of Westford, was struck around 9 p.m. on Route 110 in the area of Technology Park drive. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Officials said the driver remained at the scene after the jogger was struck. No charges have been filed in connection with the investigation, according to police. The Middlesex District Attorney's Office, Westford police, and the Massachusetts State Police are investigating the accident. New Englanders are remembering the killer storm known as the Great Hurricane of 1938, 80 years to the date after its devastation. We just hadnt ever seen anything like it, recalled Richard Hamilton, 96, who remembers uprooted trees, blocked roads, and property losses in Brattleboro, Vermont. It was severe winds that brought such destruction. Near Boston, data from the Blue Hills Observatory showed sustained winds topping 120 miles per hour, with a gust of 186 miles per hour. New London, Connecticut saw catastrophic fires from downed power lines, according to the National Weather Service, and downtown Providence, Rhode Island was left underwater after a storm tide of 20 feet. There was even a frantic race to save the Vermont State House in Montpelier, curator David Schutz said. It nearly lifted the dome off the top of the building, Schutz said last week when giving a tour of the dome. So for the very first time, they took efforts to tie the dome to the buildingphysically tie it down. Numbers from the National Weather Service showed hundreds were killed across the northeast, with nearly 9,000 homes and buildings ruined, and many more damaged. The company AIR Worldwide, which creates models of catastrophes, estimated that if the same storm were to hit today, it would bring a $50-billion impact. It scared me half to death, remembered Lorna Maloney, who was 5-years-old when the hurricane hit New England. Maloney and her older sister, Gloria Goulet, who is now 88, said in the era before TV meteorologists, they did not have any warning about the danger coming their way in the small town of Washington, Vermont. Our radio didnt come in half the timewe didnt have a telephone, Goulet remembered, adding that in the days after the storm, she saw severe wind damage that was stunning to a small child. At the Vermont Historical Society in Barre, executive director Steve Perkins called the 38 hurricane a defining event for New England. Perkins said neighbors helped neighbors clean up, towns rebuilt, and vowed to get strongerfor all the storms to come. Communities came together, Perkins said of the aftermath of the storm. I think its horrible that we have [devastating storms], but reflecting on them, we can think about what it means to be a Vermonteror a New Englander. Babies born before their due date show better brain development when fed breast milk rather than formula, a study has found. Experts say that helping mothers to provide breast milk in the weeks after giving birth could improve long-term outcomes for children born pre-term. Premature birth has been linked to an increased possibility of problems with learning and thinking skills in later life, which are thought to be linked to alterations in brain development. Studies have shown that pre-term birth is associated with changes in the part of the brain's structure that helps brain cells to communicate with one another, known as white matter. Researchers at the University of Edinburgh studied MRI brain scans from 47 babies from a study group known as the Theirworld Edinburgh Birth Cohort. The babies had been born before 33 weeks gestation and scans took place when they reached term-equivalent age, an average of 40 weeks from conception. The team also collected information about how the infants had been fed while in intensive care - either formula milk or breast milk from either the mother or a donor. Babies who exclusively received breast milk for at least three-quarters of the days they spent in hospital showed improved brain connectivity compared with others. The effects were greatest in babies who were fed breast milk for a greater proportion of their time spent in intensive care. The study was funded by the charity Theirworld and was carried out in the Jennifer Brown Research Laboratory at the University's Medical Research Council Centre for Reproductive Health. It is published in the journal NeuroImage. Professor James Boardman, Director of the Jennifer Brown Research Laboratory at the University of Edinburgh, said: "Our findings suggest that brain development in the weeks after preterm birth is improved in babies who receive greater amounts of breast milk. "This study highlights the need for more research to understand the role of early life nutrition for improving long-term outcomes for pre-term babies. "Mothers of pre-term babies should be supported to provide breast milk while their baby is in neonatal care - if they are able to and if their baby is well enough to receive milk - because this may give their children the best chance of healthy brain development." Sarah Brown, President and Trustee of Theirworld, said: "I am so proud of the achievements of the Jennifer Brown Research Laboratory. This latest report delivers valuable evidence to support breast milk feeding for even the tiniest, most vulnerable premature babies, to give them the best start in life. "An immense debt of gratitude is due to the families of the Theirworld Edinburgh Birth Cohort, who are dedicated to sharing information to support their own little ones, and benefit many other premature babies in the future." Researchers from Michigan State University College of Human Medicine and physicians from Spectrum Health have identified for the first time in a human patient a genetic disorder only previously described in animal models. The disorder is caused by mutations in a gene known as ornithine decarboxylase 1 (ODC1) and is defined by a number of clinical features including large birth weight, enlarged head size, hair loss, reduced muscle strength, skin lesions, hearing loss and developmental delays. The disorder is, as of yet, unnamed, and its long-term effects, which include impacts on the neurological system, are not completely known. Their study is published in the American Journal of Medical Genetics Part A. "This remarkable case represents the first human example of a disorder that was described by researchers in a transgenic mouse model more than 20 years ago," said senior author Andre Bachmann, PhD, Michigan State University professor and associate chair for pediatric research. "The ODC1 gene plays an important role in a number of physiological and cell developmental processes including embryo and organ development," said lead author Caleb Bupp, MD, Spectrum Health medical geneticist. "The long-term impacts of this disorder are not completely known." Researchers also theorize that the ODC inhibitor DFMO, a water soluble, FDA-approved drug, may serve as a disease-modifying drug, and an early therapeutic trial in a new diagnosis may prevent some of the clinical symptoms. DFMO has been used for many years in the treatment of trypanosomiasis, a tropical disease transmitted by biting insects and more recently entered clinical trials for pediatric neuroblastoma and colon cancer. DFMO prevented hair loss and also partially restored hair growth in mice and is considered a well-tolerated drug. The female patient was examined at Spectrum Health Helen DeVos Children's Hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan, at 11 months of age. Blood samples for testing were drawn at age 19 months and 32 months. Two developmentally normal, age/gender matched patients that were being sedated for outpatient same-day procedures served as controls. The parents of the patients provided written informed consent and the protocol was approved by the institutional review board (IRB) of Spectrum Health. Bachmann and Bupp were joined in the study by MSU research assistants Chad Schultz and Katie Uhl and Helen DeVos Children's Hospital Medical Director of Research and critical care physician Surender Rajasekaran, MD. The original ODC1 mouse model was developed by the late Dr. Thomas G. O'Brien in 1995 at the Lankenau Medical Research Center in Pennsylvania. Source: https://newsroom.spectrumhealth.org/msu-spectrum-health-researchers-identify-new-genetic-disorder/ GamesRadar+ is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more Amazing Spider-Man #78 opens the door to the Nextwave connection it's been teasing for months Amazing Spider-Man's Beyond era is about to meet the Beyond Corporation's biggest enemy Manila : The death toll from a landslide in Philippines has reached 22, an official said on Friday. Garry Cabotaje, the spokesman for Naga city government, expressed hope that more survivors will be rescued a day after the tragedy struck the mountainside community. "We are still hoping that many villagers will be rescued today," Cabotaje told Xinhua news agency. As of 12 midnight Thursday, Cabotaje said that 22 bodies have been recovered while nine survivors have been rescued. The landslide that occurred on Thursday morning and buried over 50 houses, took place due to heavy rains in the region. According to media reports, the victims refused to leave the landslide areas despite evacuation warnings. London : Russian diplomats held secret talks in London last year with people close to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to assess whether they could help him flee the UK, the Guardian has revealed. A tentative plan was devised that would have seen Assange smuggled out of Ecuador's London embassy in a diplomatic vehicle and transported to another country. One ultimate destination, multiple sources have said, was Russia, where Assange would not be at risk of extradition to the US. The plan was abandoned after it was deemed too risky. The operation to extract Assange was provisionally scheduled for Christmas Eve in 2017 and was linked to an unsuccessful attempt by Ecuador to give him formal diplomatic status, the Guardian said. The involvement of Russian officials in hatching what was described as a "basic" plan raises new questions about Assange's ties to the Kremlin. The WikiLeaks editor is a key figure in the ongoing US criminal investigation into Russia's attempts to sway the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. According to Robert Mueller, the special counsel conducting the investigation, WikiLeaks published "over 50,000 documents" stolen by Russian spies. The first tranche arrived on July 14, 2016, as an encrypted attachment. Assange has denied receiving the stolen emails from Russia. Ecuador's new president, Lenin Moreno, has said he wants Assange to quit the embassy. In March, the government in Quito cut off his internet access and restricted his visitors. Moscow : The US' latest batch of sanctions targeting Russian businesses and China undermine global stability and are akin to playing with fire, officials here said on Friday. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov's comments came after Washington on Thursday imposed a new batch of sanctions, hitting 33 of Russia's most high-profile citizens with ties to the Kremlin. Ryabkov said the sanctions were aimed at Russian defence organizations, politicians and businessmen. "It would be good for them to recall the notion of global stability, which they recklessly upset by whipping up tensions in Russian-US relations," Ryabkov said in a statement cited by TASS news agency. "It's foolish to play with fire, because things could get dangerous." "We've been keeping a close eye on how the US applies it sanctions against our country. This seems to have turned into some sort of national sport, with yesterday's anti-Russian measures becoming the 60th since 2011. "Every new round of sanctions shows that our enemy's previous attempts to pressure Russia have failed to yield any result. Numerous US blacklists duplicate each other more and more. That's funny, but this is true," the minister said. Among the blacklisted people was billionaire mogul Yevgeny Prigozhin, known as "Putins chef" and allegedly responsible for orchestrating the digital fake news campaign against the US. The security and military businesses targeted by the sanctions included the Wagner Group, a private security company which Moscow allegedly use in their Syria operations; Oboronlogistika 000, responsible for feeding and transporting Russian troops in Crimea and KnAAPO, an aircraft manufacturer. China was also targeted in the new wave of sanctions for buying weapons from a previously blacklisted Russian arms dealer. "We recommend that Washington's operators of the sanctions machine at least superficially acquaint themselves with our history to stop going round in circles," Ryabkov said. Washington : US President Donald Trump has issued an executive order to further implement a US sanction act against Russia. Named Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act of 2017 (CAATSA), the order "authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State, to employ all powers granted to the President by the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and certain sections of CAATSA for the implementation of certain sanctions with respect to the Russian Federation," said a White House statement on Thursday. In a separate statement issued on the same day, US State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said that in line with this executive order, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has taken actions to implement his delegated authorities "and to further impose costs on the Russian Government in response to its malign activities", Xinhua reported. According to the statement, Pompeo added 33 additional entities and individuals to the CAATSA List of Specified Persons "for being a part of, or operating for or on behalf of, the defence or intelligence sectors" of the Russian government. These sanction actions are "in response to Russia's aggression in Ukraine, annexation of Crimea, cyber intrusions and attacks, interference in the 2016 elections, and other malign activities," Nauert said, urging all countries to curtail relations with Russia's defence and intelligence sectors and claiming "both of which are linked to malign activities worldwide." The US Treasury Department in March announced a decision to sanction five entities and 19 individuals under the CAATSA. The US has been accusing Russia of interference in the US presidential elections in 2016, hacker attacks against the United States, among others. Russia has repeatedly denied such allegations. Sorry! This content is not available in your region Dear Newsie Readers, Newsie has now permanently ceased it's services as of Friday 20th December 2019. Newsie has been an owner-funded operation since day one. Coming up to three years old, while we still firmly believe Newsie has a place in the New Zealand media landscape, the cost in both time and money has become too burdensome for the owners to continue alongside other ventures. With the current government looking to restructure public broadcasting, and seemingly supporting NZME buying a ring-fenced Stuff, the time seems right to call it a day. Should it happen, the combination of NZME and Stuff will ensure New Zealands national media will die a death by a thousand opinion-based articles. Newsie has always tried to stick to balanced news, to inform readers of the facts of a situation, amid being largely ignored by government. Hopefully, one day someone else will take up the challenge to fight the good fight. The good news, however, is that there were no job losses as a result of Newsie closing. Thanks to careful structuring, everyone involved in Newsie will retain their current positions. We hope you all have a happy Christmas and new year. Stay safe, and stay out of the news. The team at Newsie New Delhi: It seems like Bollywood actor Arjun Kapoor is running with a lot on his plate these days. His next flick Namaste England is yet to hit the theatres and while the actor is busy with the promotions, reports suggest that he has nailed his role in Singh is King 2. Vipul Shah has finalised filming the movie with Arjun as the lead, according to a daily. This will be a sequel of 2008 release Singh is King which starred Akshay Kumar and Katrina Kaif in the lead. Also Read | Wink diva Priya Prakash fails to keep up with being the 'National crush'! Any word about the making of Singh is King 2 has been on hold for quite a while, as rumours suggest about the ongoing arguments between Vipul Shah and Anees Bazmee. Vipul is quite excited to work with Arjun, as stated in the daily. Arjun Kapoor and Parineeti starrer Namaste England is riding high on promotions and while the duo is leaving no stones unturned to promote their film, it seems that the reel chemistry can anytime to transformed into a real-life Jodi. If sources are to be true, Arjuns grandmother Nirmal Kapoor has liked their on-screen romance so much that she wants them to get hitched in real life, too. The Gunday actor stated, After watching Namaste Englands trailer, dadi said that out of all my co-stars, I look best on screen with Parineeti. She thinks that Parineeti is the perfect bride for me in real life as well. Also Read | Anup Jalota gobble up more limelight for a yet stranger reason! Find out more here Namaste England revolves around a typical Bollywood love drama between Jasmeet (Parineeti) and Param (Arjun). The film unites Arjun and Pari on silver screen after their Bollywood debut Ishaqzaade. For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Indian Army Chief General Bipin Rawat has reacted sharply to Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khans tweet after India called off the meeting between Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi. ANI quotes General Rawat as saying, I think our government's policy has been quite clear and concise. We've made no bones about the fact that talks and terrorism can't go hand in hand. Pakistan needs to curb the menace of terrorism. Read More | Anup Jalota gobble up more limelight for a yet stranger reason! Find out more here He said, We need to take stern action to avenge the barbarism that terrorists and the Pakistan Army have been carrying out. Yes, its time to give it back to them in the same coin, not resorting to similar kind of barbarism. But I think the other side must also feel the same pain. Khan on Saturday expressed his disappointment over Indias rejection to his call for resumption of the peace dialogue and termed the move arrogant and negative. In a veiled reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Khan said small men were occupying big offices in India who didnt not have the vision to see the larger picture. Also Read | Imran Khan calls India arrogant after cancellation of 'peace talks' Disappointed at the arrogant & negative response by India to my call for resumption of the peace dialogue. However, all my life I have come across small men occupying big offices who do not have the vision to see the larger picture, Khan wrote on Twitter. The Pakistani prime minister had written to Modi seeking a meeting between the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan on the side lines of United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session later this month. When asked about the buying of new weapons, the Army Chief was quoted as saying, We continuously need modern weapons. There is a limit till which we can use a particular weapon, and as new technologies come, we also want them to be included in our forces. So buying of weapons continue. On being asked about the Army being used in political campaigns, General Rawat was quick to say that he didnt want to comment on any political issue, adding that, But I'll like to say that we're getting full cooperation. We're given freedom on how to carry out our operations. And you can see its effect in Kashmir the North-east. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Congress President Rahul Gandhi attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the Rafale deal in a series of tweets on Saturday morning. The PM and Anil Ambani jointly carried out a One Hundred & Thirty Thousand Crore, SURGICAL STRIKE on the Indian Defence forces. Modi Ji you dishonoured the blood of our martyred soldiers. Shame on you. You betrayed Indias soul. (sic), tweeted Gandhi. Read More | Bigg Boss 12: Know the surprise TWIST of first Weekend Ka Vaar In another tweet, Gandhi said, The PM personally negotiated & changed the #Rafale deal behind closed doors. Thanks to Francois Hollande, we now know he personally delivered a deal worth billions of dollars to a bankrupt Anil Ambani. The PM has betrayed India. He has dishonoured the blood of our soldiers. (sic) Gandhi had attacked Modi on Friday, too, following former French President Francois Hollandes reported remarks on the Rafale deal, saying he has betrayed India. Also Read | Asia Cup 2018, India vs Bangladesh | Top 3 talking points as Ravindra Jadeja makes perfect comeback Modi had announced the procurement of a batch of 36 Rafale jets after holding talks with the then French President Hollande on April 10, 2015 in Paris. The opposition has been accusing the government of choosing Reliance Defence over state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) to benefit the private firm though it did not have any experience in the aerospace sector. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: In a massive set back to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Rajasthan ahead of Assembly elections, BJP co-founder and former cabinet minister Jaswant Singh's son Manvendra Singh on Saturday quit the party, saying that choosing the Lotus flower (election symbol of the BJP) was a mistake. The BJP lawmaker made the announcement during his Swabhiman rally in Rajasthan's Barmer. Earlier, he had announced a rally to "fight for self-respect" of voters. "There have been many rallies on Gaurav (pride) and Sankalp (determination) but today's rally is the biggest - it is the rally for Swabhiman (self-respect), said Manvendra, adding that "swabhiman is our right and we are committed to it." Also Read | Video: When Vasundhara Rajes stage turned into Big Boss house Manvendra had been at loggerheads with the state BJP leadership ever since his father was denied the during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Raising the issue again, Manvendra claimed that in 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had called him after his father was denied the ticket. During the meeting, he claimed, Modi told him that "we have old relations and whatever has happened about the Barmer ticket is very sad." "The Prime Minister said somebody in Jaipur and two people from Delhi are behind this conspiracy," the lawmaker from Barmers Sheo said. Also Read | On Rafale deal, Rahul Gandhi questions PM Modis integrity, calls him corrupt The rebel BJP leader also challenged Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and said that "a storm is brewing here and it's headed eastwards...it's a storm that will reach Jaipur." For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday arrived in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, where he was welcomed by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in Talcher. PM Modi interacted with Anganwadi workers and laid the foundation stone of Talcher Fertiliser Plant. Following that, Modi launched a several projects including a local airport at Jharsuguda. The Talcher plant is the first of its kind in India to that have coal gasification-based fertiliser unit. The plant will also produce natural gas, as per an official statement. Chief Minister Raman Singh, Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister of State for Steel Vishnu Deo Sai were present on the occasion. ALSO READ: Rahul Gandhi to meet eminent academicians at Siri Fort today I look forward to being with my sisters and brothers of Odisha tomorrow. I would visit Talcher to join the programme marking the commencement of work in the Talcher Fertilizer Plant. I will also be in Jharsuguda to inaugurate the local airport. Various projects including the Garjanbahal coal mines and the Jharsuguda-Barapali-Sardega rail link will be dedicated to the nation. The projects in Odisha will benefit the energy sector and enhance connectivity, Modi tweeted Friday. I look forward to being with my sisters and brothers of Odisha tomorrow. I would visit Talcher to join the programme marking the commencement of work in the Talcher Fertilizer Plant. I will also be in Jharsuguda to inaugurate the local airport. Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 21, 2018 The BJP-leader is also scheduled to address a Kisan Sammelan between 3:30 pm and 4:30 pm. ALSO READ: Asia Cup 2018, India vs Bangladesh | Top 3 talking points Narendra Modi in Odisha LIVE Updates: # Prime Minister Narendra Modi e-inaugurates the local airport in Jharsuguda. Odisha: Prime Minister Narendra Modi e-inaugurates the local airport in Jharsuguda. pic.twitter.com/ouiaZUyLTH ANI (@ANI) September 22, 2018 # UPA regime failed to revive closed industries, NDA government reviving them for development: PM Modi # One of these decisions was Triple Talaq. When our government made the decision on Triple Talaq, there was an effort to stall it in the Rajya Sabha, PM Modi # Three days ago, the central govt took a decision that was needed since decades. The decision was on Triple Talaq. No one was ready to even talk about it due to the fear of losing votes. Now, it has been declared illegal: PM Modi Three days ago, the central govt took a decision that was needed since decades. The decision was on Triple Talaq. No one was ready to even talk about it due to the fear of losing votes. Now, it has been declared illegal: PM Narendra Modi at a public rally in Talcher. #Odisha pic.twitter.com/UpIKzuPuZK ANI (@ANI) September 22, 2018 # Now by bringing the ordinance on three divorces it has been declared unlawful. We will continue to try to lagavai the seal from Parliament as soon as possible: PM Modi # Three days ago, the central govt took a decision that was needed since decades. The decision was on Triple Talaq. No one was ready to even talk about it due to the fear of losing votes. Now, it has been declared illegal: PM Modi Three days ago, the central govt took a decision that was needed since decades. The decision was on Triple Talaq. No one was ready to even talk about it due to the fear of losing votes. Now, it has been declared illegal: PM Narendra Modi at a public rally in Talcher. #Odisha pic.twitter.com/UpIKzuPuZK ANI (@ANI) September 22, 2018 # When BJP govt came to power in the centre, the work on fertiliser plants picked up speed. I ensure you that the construction of Talcher Fertiliser Plant will be completed in 36 months & I'll again come here to inaugurate it: PM Modi at a public rally in Talcher # I had urged CM Naveen Babu that Odisha will be left behind in cleanliness. But today, when I have come here, I again urge Naveen Babu to give priority to cleanliness in Odisha for the health of the people here: PM Modi When BJP govt came to power in the centre, the work on fertiliser plants picked up speed. I ensure you that the construction of Talcher Fertiliser Plant will be completed in 36 months & I'll again come here to inaugurate it: PM Modi at a public rally in Talcher. #Odisha pic.twitter.com/Ja70Uqg42j ANI (@ANI) September 22, 2018 I had urged CM Naveen Babu that Odisha will be left behind in cleanliness. But today, when I have come here, I again urge Naveen Babu to give priority to cleanliness in Odisha for the health of the people here: PM Modi at a public rally in Talcher. #Odisha pic.twitter.com/cXQP8w30L3 ANI (@ANI) September 22, 2018 # Rs 360 crore is being spent on the modernisation of existing medical colleges of Cuttack, Burla and Baharampur: PM Modi # The central Government is striving to improve health services and you may not have to go to large-scale cities to treat diseases. Ayushaman Bharat Scheme is also preparing to open a wellness centre in large panchayats of your state under India. Further 5 new medical colleges are also being opened in the state: PM Modi # Under Ayushman Bharat Scheme, a health insurance of up to Rs 5 lakh will be provided to the countrys 10 crore families for treating serious illness: PM Modi # The margin of rural sanitation in 2014 was just around 10% but has now reached 55% and I firmly believe that in the coming months, the campaign will further intensify and achieve a complete hygiene goal: PM Modi # People here in Odisha must remember that a PM once said that people receive only 15 paise of the Re 1 that the government gives them. The PM knew about the problem but did nothing to solve it: PM Modi # "Our aim is to take India to new heights of growth. Projects like the fertiliser plant here are central to India's growth story. This plant will use latest technology as well": PM Modi # "I am happy to be in Talcher. I am happy we are taking an important step of beginning work in a fertiliser plant here. We are fulfilling dreams that should have been fulfilled long ago," says PM Modi # "You have broken all records of previous rallies. This huge crowd portrays the sentiments of the people of Odisha", says PM Modi # PM Modi addresses a public rally in Talcher after laying foundation stone of Talcher Fertiliser Plant in Odisha. #WATCH Live from Odisha: PM Modi addresses a public rally in Talcher https://t.co/E8GcRrqtSw ANI (@ANI) September 22, 2018 # Prime Minister Narendra Modi lays foundation stone of Talcher Fertiliser Plant in Odisha Odisha: Prime Minister Narendra Modi lays foundation stone of Talcher Fertiliser Plant in Talcher pic.twitter.com/LjQ43NPsyV ANI (@ANI) September 22, 2018 # Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacts with Anganwadi workers upon his arrival in Talcher in Odisha. Odisha: Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets and interacts with Anganwadi workers upon his arrival in Talcher pic.twitter.com/CA1a7Di7Wd ANI (@ANI) September 22, 2018 # Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik receives PM Narendra Modi in Talcher. Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik receives PM Narendra Modi in Talcher. PM Modi will attend an event to mark the commencement of work in the Talcher Fertilizer Plant and address a public meeting. pic.twitter.com/0JvOsfjYzG ANI (@ANI) September 22, 2018 # PM Modi is also scheduled to visit Chhattisgarh today. Glad to be visiting Chhattisgarh tomorrow. I shall be in Janjgir Champa where I will lay the foundation stone for highway projects and a railway line. I would also visit exhibitions on handloom and agriculture, sectors where Chhattisgarh has done well under @drramansingh Ji. Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 21, 2018 # Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives in Bhubaneswar, Odisha to attend the event in Talcher and mark the commencement of work in the Talcher Fertiliser Plant. He is also scheduled to address a meeting and launch local airport in Jharsuguda. PM Narendra Modi arrives in Odisha's Bhubaneswar. He will attend an event in Talcher to mark the commencement of work in the Talcher Fertilizer Plant, address a public meeting & inaugurate the local airport in Jharsuguda. pic.twitter.com/umIqKNJyMU ANI (@ANI) September 22, 2018 For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Malayalam actor Mohanlal has opened up about his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 3. Following the meeting, speculations started doing rounds that 58-year old Malayalam film actor might join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. ALSO READ | Kerala Nun Rape: Bishop in the dock "There were speculative news reports about my meeting with the PM. Being an Indian citizen, if I have permission, I can always meet him. What is surprising is that the PM did not speak a word about politics," he said in his latest blog. Mohanlal added that his meeting with the Prime Minister took place on the actor's request. "I got permission to meet him because I requested for a prior appointment. Surprisingly, he himself came to welcome me. He hugged me saying, 'Mohanlal ji.' He patted on my shoulders thrice. He knew me," wrote the Malayalam film actor. ALSO READ | CPWD announces Swachh Building Competition We talked about Kerala floods, his NGO ViswaSanthi Foundation, among other topics. Prime Minister is always ready to provide all help for Kerala, irrespective of politics." he added. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to visit Odisha and poll-bound Chhattisgarh on Saturday and launch several projects there, his office has said. He will unveil a plaque to mark the commencement of work for the revival of Talcher fertiliser plant in Odisha. This is the first plant in India to have a coal gasification-based fertilizer unit. In addition to fertilizer, the plant will produce natural gas, which will contribute to the countrys energy requirements, the statement said. Modi will then travel to Jharsuguda to inaugurate an airport there. It will bring western Odisha on the aviation map of India, and facilitate regional air connectivity through the UDAN scheme, it said. Also Read | Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has a better plan for Prime Minister Narendra Modi on celebrating 'Surgical Strike Day' The prime minister will dedicate the Garjanbahal coal mines, and the Jharsuguda-Barapali-Sardega rail link to the nation. He will also unveil a plaque to mark the commencement of coal production and transportation from Dulanga coal mines. He will then arrive in Chhattisgarhs Janjgir-Champa district at 3.20 pm where he will visit an exhibition on traditional handloom and agriculture. He will lay the foundation stone for national highway projects and the Pendra-Anuppur third railway line. The prime minister will also address a Kisan Sammelan between 3:30 pm and 4:30 pm. The PM will lay foundation stone for the Rs 1697.79 crore Bilaspur-Anuppur Third Rail Track Project in Bilaspur-Anuppur section of South East Central Railway. The 152 km rail route runs for 119.55 km in Chhattisgarh and 32.45 km in Madhya Pradesh, an official said. This track will not only ease passenger services but also augment coal transportation of SECL for its mines in Raigarh and Mand areas, the official added. Read More | Asia Cup 2018: 3 possible changes India could make in playing XI for the Super Four stage Chief Minister Raman Singh, Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister of State for Steel Vishnu Deo Sai will be present on the occasion. The chief minister extended his gratitude to the prime minister for the visit and said it was his sixth visit to the state in four years, a measure of the priority he gave to development of the state. The prime minister will depart from Janjgir-Champa by helicopter at 4.50 pm and land at Swami Vivekananda Airport in Raipur at 5.40 pm. He will then proceed to New Delhi at 5.45 pm, the official informed. The term of the Chhattisgarh Assembly will end in January, 2019, and election dates are likely to be announced in the coming weeks. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: The Union Defence Ministry has denied any role of the government in the selection of Reliance Defence as offset partner in the Rafale deal, on Saturday. The ministry said, Unnecessary controversies are being sought to be created over media reports regarding purported statement by former French president Francois Hollande, adding that, the joint venture between Reliance Defence and Dassault Aviation is a purely commercial arrangement between two companies. On Friday, the French government asserted that it was in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners for the Rafale fighter jet deal. It also said that French companies have the full freedom to select Indian firms for the contract. The French government made the statement following a French media report which quoted former French President Francois Hollande as saying that the Indian government proposed Reliance Defence as the partner for Dassault Aviation in the Rs 58,000-crore Rafale deal and France did not have a choice. The French government is in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners who have been, are being, or will be selected by French companies, it said. The French government said, In accordance with Indias acquisition procedure, French companies have the full freedom to choose the Indian partner companies that they consider to be the most relevant, then present for the Indian governments approval the offsets projects that they wish to execute in India with these local partners so as to fulfil their obligations in this regard. The report in Mediapart, a French language publication, quoted Hollande as saying, It was the Indian government that proposed this service group, and Dassault which negotiated with Ambani. We had no choice, we took the interlocutor who was given to us. Asked who selected Reliance as a partner and why, Hollande replied, We had no say in this regard. The Congress has been accusing massive irregularities in the deal, alleging that the government was procuring each aircraft at a cost of over Rs 1,670 crore as against Rs 526 crore finalised by the UPA government when it was negotiating procurement of 126 Rafale jets. The Congress has also alleged that the government was benefitting Reliance Defence through the deal as the company has set up a joint venture with Dassault Aviation to execute the offset obligation for the deal. (With PTI inputs) For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: What has been a taboo, stigma and a siege of the worst kind for centuries just because of a personal sexual choice in case of some has finally been broken today. A five-judge constitution bench of the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra struck down the Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. For over a century-and-half this piece of law treated gay sex among consenting adults of same sex as an offence punishable under the law. The sentence for this could go up to as long as 10 years in jail. And, thus, the members of the LGBT, or lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, community, who always lived under the dreaded shadows of this oppressive law, came out into the open for the first time to hail and welcome the top court order by breaking into never-before-seen jubilation. Read | Gay Sex: Why is the land that has 'Manusmriti' and 'Kama Sutra' celebrating it today? At the core of the issue before the court has been the right to love as per ones choice or sexual preference and discretion. The society and, thus, the law too thought it to be too queer to be allowed and tolerated. Gay sex has always been taken as a threat to morality and established order of human conduct and behavior though it did not harm anyone, nor did its practitioners intend to challenge the general heterosexuality by intruding into others lives. Yet, the society and governments in the past were not ready to make an exception for homosexual sex through consensus among two grown up individuals. More than the law, the homosexuals faced the contempt and derision of the society with the result of their being pushed to the margins where even a violent outrage against them was a real possibility. It was under these highly discriminatory and often trying circumstances that a movement for gay rights started building up both in the country as also elsewhere or mainly in the West. Violence and intimidation besides general castigation forced a few among the gays to take to activism for their rights. Court battles began both in the West as also within the country. An NGO, Naz Foundation, working for the rights of HIV-AIDS patients and on sexual health issues, filed a petition in 2001 in the Delhi High Court against Section 377 IPC. Eight years later, or in 2009, the Delhi High Court called the Section 377 which has been in force for as far back as 1861 to be in violation of the fundamental rights guaranteed by the constitution. Soon religious groups went in appeal to the Supreme Court against the High Courts decision. Read More | SC Verdict on Gay Sex: Celebs celebrate death of Section 377, say proud moment for India The Delhi High Court judgment was reversed by the apex court in 2013. The Supreme Court ruled that amending or repealing Section 377 should be a matter left to Parliament and it was beyond the realm of the judiciary. However, in February 2016, a three-judge bench headed by the then Chief Justice TS Thakur said that all the curative pleas of the Naz Foundation and a few gay rights activists would be reviewed afresh by a five-member constitutional bench. The next year, the Supreme Court gave a partial relief to the LGBT community by holding that their right to privacy was a fundamental right. About sexual orientation, the court said, it is an essential component of identity; and the rights of LGBT population are "real rights founded on sound constitutional doctrine". In July this year a constitution bench of the Supreme Court took up a review of its 2013 decision and hearing of petitions challenging Section 377 began once again. During the hearings, Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra made indications that over 150-year-old ban on gay sex may well be scraped. "We intend to rule, subject to arguments, that two consenting adults even if engaged in 'unnatural sex' will not be liable for prosecution for any offence," Justice Misra had observed. And in keeping with this refrain the controversial penal section was dumped once and for all on Thursday, September 6. Read More | 2+2 talks: Hope of good beginning in India-US trade ties The petition that was allowed was filed by five eminent persons who have distinguished themselves in their respective fields. One of the judges on the bench remarked that the unjustified penal section remained on the statute book because of the lethargy of law though this could well be the lethargy of the legislature besides that of the courts which are supposed to test the spirit of laws to keep them in tune with the constitution. One argument that kept the controversial section going for an unusually long time has been that homosexuality was against the order of nature. The court observed about this by posing the question as to who could decide about the order of nature. And in this case obviously others were deciding for the gays. But now with the courts order it is going to be a past story. Hopefully, the courts judgment will show the way for the mainstreaming of the LGBT community and the discrimination against them will end as per the spirit and intent of the landmark judgment. More so since the judgment came after a long and hard-fought battle by thus far much maligned LGBT people. New Delhi: The alacrity shown by a BJP Minister from Yogi Adityanaths team in UP by claiming that the Supreme Court is ours while talking about the possibility of Ram Temple construction at Ayodhya is indeed symptomatic of not only the impossibility of justice for Muslims but also end of impartiality under the present regime. So much so that this may well cast its shadow on others and affect people at large. ALSO READ | A degree of restraint would be expected of Ranjan Gogoi as CJI The Minister Mukut Bihari Verma gave some of his bizarre takes on the Supreme Court and the Ram Janambhoomi temple before television cameras in his home district Bahraich on Sunday, or September 9. It was a day when his partys national executive was meeting in New Delhi and Prime Minister Narendra Modi was about to address the partys crucial forum. Significantly, the Mandir issue remained off the deliberations held in the Delhi conclave of the ruling party. Yet, the Ministers observations were never reflected upon, or discussed, by the BJP higher ups who briefed the media after Modis concluding speech. Their silence over the issue raised by their state satrap and which involved independence of the highest judicial body was not only conspicuous but can also amount to a tacit and veiled agreement or at least a way to build pressures on judiciary vis-a-vis the temple. ALSO READ | DMK Family Feud: Miffed Alagiri all out to wreck Stalin's prospects As none was either pleased or displeased by not so well known a minister of UP, at least in Delhis political circles, when he spoke to reporters on his home turf the question that arises is whether his is a lone voice on the contentious issue or there is more to it. The BJP generally says that it is committed to build a grand temple at Ayodhya. And off and on, its one or the other leaders or functionaries voice their entreaties or fulminations over the issue of temple. Sometime ago, it was UP Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya who had exhorted for a law to be passed through legislature (presumably that of the Centre) to pave the way for the construction of Ram temple in case the Supreme Court either goes against this or delays the matter by keeping it pending. Taken together Minister Vermas latest loud thinking over the temple issue with his other party cohorts, what is palpably clear is that by and large there is a broad consensus in the BJP vis-a-vis the issue of building the temple and what remains to be decided is only as to how the way for this is to be cleared. The fact that the temple issue is mostly raked up whenever elections are near points to its being used somewhat blatantly for bringing a possibly monolith system in the country where not only an affected party like Muslims since a mosque was demolished to clear space for the temple in Ayodhya but also dissenters of myriad kinds and Opposition parties could be silenced and nullified. This is how the fervent desire to build the temple is not meant to browbeat Muslims alone but it is finally aimed at creating scope for a single party rule in the country as has mostly been the case with some of the Communist states that crumbled only under the weight of their single party rule through the decades in the past. ALSO READ | SC Verdict on Gay Sex: Stigma against LGBT community must end Hence, the BJP that has of late been castigating what it calls to be urban Maoists, as was also the case during its national executive, has strangely been showing signs of following the footsteps of yesteryears Chinese dictator Mao Zedong after whom the urban Maoists are actually known. So as against them the new and virtual saffron Maoists draw their strength for a single party rule like that of erstwhile Soviet Russia or may be Maos China from their leaders like Modi and Amit Shahs repeated refrains like Congress Mukta Bharat, or India shorn of Congress. At the two-day BJP national executive that concluded in the Capital on Sunday evening Shah vowed to keep the BJP in power for no less than 50 years after possibly winning next years general elections; and Modi pointed to what he called to be an unjustified comparison between his 48-month rule with that of 48 years by the Congress which was led by a family. And as against the rule of the Nehru-Gandhi family led by Congress, the BJPs top echelons take pride in coming from the large ideological family built for over nine decades or so from now by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), where often frenzy and stridency have been the preconditions for climbing the ladder of power and position. So much so that BJPs tryst with power at the Centre began when the late Atal Behari Vajpayee, often described as a moderate among hawks, became the prime minister. Yet, on the other rungs of the ladder of power created in his lifetime were none-too-moderates like LK Advani, Modi and Yogi Adityanath. How Modi surpassed Advani so soon to become Hindu Hirday Samrat, or virtual ruler of Hindu hearts, is now an old story. So, when a minister from Yogis bandwagon ended in flaunting what he called to be the Sanghs sway over Supreme Court besides other organs of the country like executive and legislature, he was only toeing the line set by his partys top bosses. Thus, playing the Mandir tune may well be a strategically profound move for him and his party comrades but this also reminds and signifies a race for power both within the BJP and outside the confines of the Sangh Parivar to possibly have an absolute and exclusive sway over power in the times to come. The peril with this is that not only Muslims but also all those who can ever try to differ with the saffron ideology and politics could easily get vanquished, tamed, or silenced. Lunchtime has been part of school culture for decades, with districts across the country providing low-cost or free lunches to students since 1946. But offering breakfastthe so-called most important meal of the day is less common. And its more unusual for students even those from low-income families to eat school breakfast when their districts offer the program. A recent study from End Hunger Connecticut showed the number of districts providing breakfast to students is growing, but the state still lags behind the rest of the country. Shannon Yearwood, executive director of End Hunger Connecticut, said this is due in part to the cost to rural towns and because Connecticut started paying attention to the issue relatively recently. We could do better, she said. What I would love to see is for us to catch up to the rest of the nation and continue to see some strong growth. Connecticut ranked 45th in the country for schools offering both lunch and breakfast, with just under 85 percent of schools in the state providing both meals, compared to 92.5 percent nationally, during the 2016-17 year. Most districts in the Danbury area offer breakfast to students, but the majority arent eating it at school. This could be in part because of the complicated logistics of serving breakfast, said Joe Martino, director of finance for Danbury. In Danbury, students eat their breakfast in the cafeteria before class, rather than being served in the classroom. Breakfast in the classroom is problematic, Martino said. It does create additional distractions in the classroom. If buses or parents run late, then fewer students have a chance to grab a bite to eat before class, he said. Short of making drastic changes in schedules, I dont think there is any way to drive more people through the lines, Martino said. Because of the short time window, Yearwood said she recommends a grab and go model, where students take their food back to the classroom, instead of eating in the cafeteria. Still, Danburys program is much more popular than other districts. Almost 27 percent of the overall school population ate school breakfast in 2016-17, while 30 percent of students eligible for free or reduced-price meals participated. About 54 percent of students were eligible for free or reduced-price meals in 2016-17. But nearby Newtown is among the districts with the lowest percentage of students eating school breakfast Just over 1 percent of Newtown students who qualified for free or reduced-price meals participated during the 2016-17 academic years. Less than half of 1 percent of the overall student body ate school breakfast. Why the lag? Yearwood said many people still think parents should provide breakfast for their kids. Some folks philosophically dont believe schools should be serving breakfast, she said. The state paid little attention to school breakfast until 2009, when a coalition of state officials and advocates formed the Connecticut Breakfast Expansion Team, Yearwood said. This group has stressed the benefits of school breakfast and supported towns as they try to implement programs. That is a resource that has been instrumental to the breakfast growth in the state, she said. During the 2015-16 and 2016-17 academic years, 30 more schools in Connecticut launched breakfast programs, making the meal available to 14,440 additional students. This is an increase of 16 percent, well over the national average, according to the Food Research and Action Center. The Connecticut Breakfast Expansion Team has emphasized districts miss out on federal dollars by failing to serve breakfast to all students. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reimburses districts for each meal they serve, based on whether students receive free, reduced-price or full-price meals. Were leaving money in D.C. with our districts names on it to provide the most important meal of the day, Yearwood said. Danbury, for example, could have received $1.8 million between the 2015-16 and 2016-17 years if every student who ate school lunch also ate school breakfast. But for some small districts, this money does not cover the cost of the program, Yearwood said. Shipping food to rural towns can be more expensive and towns often need to coordinate with others, she said. This is a problem for Housatonic Valley Regional High School, which serves students from Kent and other Litchfield County towns, Principal Ian Strever said. The nutritional guidelines are pretty stringent, he said. You have to balance that with your bottom line as part of your food program, unless you want to charge an exorbitant amount. Strever said Region 1 uses a consultant, who works with other Litchfield County schools, to help the district affordably meet nutritional rules. The district has seen a large jump in the percentage of low-income students who eat school breakfast, going from about 6 percent in 2015-16 to 27 percent in 2016-17. But Strever said the hike is likely because the school is so small that a handful of students throw off the numbers. Ready to learn Expanding school breakfast could help students excel in the classroom. Students who eat school breakfast score 17.5 percent higher on standardized math tests and attend 1.5 more school days per year, according to No Kid Hungry, an advocacy group. You learn more when you have a full stomach, said Amanda Riley, Bethels food service director. From a nutritional point of view, if the kids are fueled, theyre going to be ready to learn. In schools that offer breakfast, students are 14 percent less likely to visit the school nurse and 57 percent less likely to be disciplined, compared to children in schools where breakfast is not provided, according to End Hunger Connecticut. School breakfast is also an important way to provide students with nutrition, Yearwood said. The school breakfast is going to be healthier and more balanced than what parents are going to be able to provide at home, and its going to be more cost effective in a lot of cases, she said. Thriving in Bethel The program has caught on in Bethel, where almost 30 percent of low-income students ate school breakfast in 2016-17 and just under 12 percent of the overall student population did. The staff do an excellent job of menu selection, Superintendent Christine Carver said. They make things kids want to eat. At Rockwell and Berry elementary schools, children receive a bag of food to take to their classroom. In Johnson Elementary School and the middle and high schools, students eat in the cafeteria before going to their classrooms. Items on the menu include hot foods, such as a sausage, egg and cheese sandwich, and pre-packaged items, such as muffins, Riley said. But Riley said it also helps that any student who qualifies for a reduced-price lunch gets breakfast for free, a policy she said other districts do not have. In 2016-17, about 20 percent of Bethel students were eligible for free or reduced-price meals. Riley said the program is most popular at Rockwell Elementary School. The other day, about 70 kids had breakfast at school, but at the end of last year about 100 kids participated. No breakfast here Ridgefield and Redding did not offer breakfast in 2016-17, but the percentage of low-income students was less than 3 percent in both towns. Connecticut ranks 38th in the nation for low-income students eating school breakfast and lunch. Only 51.6 percent of Connecticut students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals eat both breakfast and lunch at school, compared to 56.7 percent nationwide. The Food Research and Action Center aims to bring that number up to 70 percent nationwide, which would bring school breakfast to 2.9 million children in the country and 31,550 students in the state. In Brookfield, the district hopes to start serving breakfast this year or next year, but administrators are still working on the logistics. The district was spurred by a hike in the number of kids who qualify for free and reduced-price lunch, said Ken Post, business director. Less than 10 percent of students were eligible in the 2016-17 year, compared to 19 percent this year, due to children qualifying through Medicaid. On the same day that legislative leaders detailed a new sexual harassment policy, a survey was released showing that one in five people who work at the state Capitol in Hartford have experienced sexual harassment. Legislators were the most frequent perpetrators of the sexual harassment, which included sexual jokes, comments or unwanted touching, according to the survey released Friday. Also on Friday, legislative leaders released a new sexual harassment policy more than twice the length of their old one which adds new training requirements and ways victims can report harassment. The news comes as lawmakers in Washington wrestle with how to handle a report of sexual assault against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. In the past year, an explosion of sexual harassment allegations have ensnared high-profile men from Harvey Weinstein to Louis C.K. to Al Franken and produced a #MeToo movement that continues to expand. State lawmakers reacted by holding a public hearing on sexual harassment in April and conducting a survey. The anonymous online survey was emailed by the Office of Legislative Management to all who work in the Capitol building including lawmakers, legislative aides and interns, full-time legislative staff, vendors who work in the building and press. Almost 600 Connecticut lawmakers and Capitol employees responded. After an extensive review of the results of last springs survey, and working with experts and outside counsel, we believe that the updated policy makes clear that the General Assembly does not tolerate sexual harassment in any form, said Democratic and Republican leaders of the state House and Senate in a joint statement Friday. The survey found 100 people, or 18 percent of respondents, had experienced sexual comments, compliments or innuendos at the Capitol. Another 87 people had heard sexual jokes or stories. Fifty-five had felt unwelcome physical contact such as kissing, touching, patting, pinching, or brushing against a person's body. About 3 percent of people reported they had been offered a job-related benefit in exchange for sexual conduct. The sexual harassment people experienced mostly occurred in the last five years, according to the survey. The survey respondents were 49% female and 42% male (some respondents preferred not to answer), but there was no gender breakdown on individual question respondents. If someone experienced sexual harassment at the Capitol, he or she most commonly did nothing about it, according to the survey. If he or she did take action, most people chose to avoid the perpetrator, and some asked the perpetrator to stop. But less than 1 percent of respondents only four individuals said they reported their sexual harassment. People largely did not report because they believed nothing would be done, the survey showed. Many people also feared retaliation. Only 63 percent of respondents had taken sexual harassment training while working at the Capitol. Sexual harassment is endemic to all workplaces, said Christine Palm, who used to run sexual harassment trainings for state agencies and now has a private business conducting trainings. This has been going on for a really, really longtime and the consciousness of the prevalence of it is rising. Is the behavior diminishing? We have a lot more work to do. New guidelines The new policy published Friday says all lawmakers, employees and interns must take a two hours of sexual harassment training within six months of being hired, and every two years after. The old policy from 2014 only said all staff had to take a training. While the old policy gave victims a small list of employees to whom they could give a sexual harassment complaint, the new policy allows victims to give a complaint to any legislator, employee or designated outside party. The complaint recipient then must give it to human resources. Now the policy covers behavior away from the Capitol complex, including at legislative-sponsored events or meetings. It also allows individuals to make an informal or formal complaint. It specifies that victims can ask for a decision on their case to be reviewed, and the accused can appeal the decision. The policy states that legislators and employees have a responsibility to report sexual harassment and supervisors and human resources should monitor the workplace for it. Our goal is to provide a work environment in which instances of harassment can be reported without fear of retaliation and where everyone is treated with dignity and respect, and free from sexual harassment, both subtle and overt, legislative leaders wrote. The Connecticut Alliance to End Sexual Violence and Connecticut Womens Education and Legal Fund said they are analyzing the policy and will issue comments on it soon. It is good to see them take the step of sharing this survey and updating their policy, said Kate Farrar, executive director of CWEALF. emunson@hearstmediact.com; Twitter: @emiliemunson NEW FAIRFIELD Even before he saw the finished product, 90-year-old veteran Chuck Finnegan had one word to describe the experience of having dozens of volunteers spend the weekend fixing up his Barnum Road home overwhelming. There is no end to my gratitude none, Finnegan said. I appreciate what every one of them is doing. By the end of the day Saturday, the volunteers would apply a fresh coat of paint to nearly every room in Finnegans house, replace bent shingles on the back of the home and finish trim or other repairs outside. The day before, they had replaced all of the homes drafty windows and storm and entry doors that had been broken. About 15 volunteers worked on the home Friday night and around 30 for most of the day on Saturday. The project was led by Stamford-based nonprofit HomeFront, the Home Depot Foundation, high school volunteer organization RebelsCare and St. Edwards Church. Volunteers also included Western Connecticut State University students and teachers. Its a collaboration, said Doris McDermott, a volunteer coordinator with RebelsCare. The Finnegans residence was the 30th home revitalization for a veteran that Home Depot Foundation funded with HomeFront, which aims to keep low-income homeowners in their homes by providing substantial repairs at no cost to them. For years, The Home Depot Foundation has led by example when it comes to honoring the sacrifices of veterans, said Kenneth Wiegand, chair of Homefronts board. HomeFront is proud to join forces with them. Overall, HomeFront has revitalized more than 3,000 homes and provided $50 million worth of service over 20 years. McDermott said that once a homeowner is chosen for a project, she and Volunteer Coordinator Debbie Blum do a walk through the home and identify what needs to be repaired. They then call on groups of local volunteers to help get the work done. And though Finnegan, who was in the Navy during the Korean War, humbly insisted that he wasnt deserving of the help the volunteers disagree. Rich Drygas, who has volunteered with HomeFront for 20 years, said he got involved to help his community and neighbors in New Fairfield. When a project is completed, he said, it is a good feeling to see the homeowner happy. Its a way to pay it forward, Drygas said. Hopefully we wont need it in the future, but somebody will. aquinn@newstimes.com Trump said he agreed with Duda that Moscow had acted aggressively in the region and said the request for a US military base in Poland was under consideration. Trump appreciated Dudas offer to put more than $2 billion into the project. Poland joined NATO in 1999 along with Hungary and the Czech Republic, and since then other former communist states, including Baltic republics bordering Russia, have joined despite Moscows strong opposition. Poland has repeatedly requested a permanent U.S. military presence on its soil. The United States currently rotates troops through Poland temporarily but permanently stationing forces there would be expensive because of costs that can include housing for families, schools and hospitals. The plan would deploy 15,000 US troops and 250 tanks and armored vehicles in Poland. Any decision to base such a force in Poland would be seen in Moscow as a serious breach of the 1997 Nato Russia Founding Act, through which Nato agreed not to deploy permanent forces in eastern Europe as part of its expansion plans. The Russia-Ukraine war has continued from 2014 to today. Russian troops in uniforms without identifying insignia occupied and took Crimea. Russian intelligence and military services provided leadership, funding, ammunition, heavy weapons and regular units of the Russian army to launch and sustain a separatist conflict in Donbas. More than 10,500 have died. A substantially improved Ukrainian military has managed to stabilize the line of contact that separates it from Russian and Russian proxy forces. Ukraines 2019 elections could shift Ukraine to the EU and US but will the reforms in Ukraine happen and will the EU and the US make the financial commitments? Sea of Azov The Sea of Azov increasingly represents a point of contention between Ukraine and Russia. On March 25th Ukraines maritime border guards detained a Crimean-registered fishing vessel, Nord, charging the captain with entering illegally from Crimea (special immigration procedures are in place between Ukraine and Crimea). Since the end of April, Russia has been conducting a concerted campaign of detentions and inspections of commercial vessels in the area. The shallow-water ports of the Sea of Azov are generally used by small ships to supply Ukrainian- and Russian-produced grain, mainly to Turkey. The fact that the Sea of Azov is legally shared by Ukraine and Russia complicates the issue, making the prospect of a resolution of the conflict remote. The latest controversy adds to existing issues caused by Russias construction of the Kerch Strait Bridge, which has allegedly restricted some Ukrainian sea traffic. The bridge allows for the transit of ships with a maximum height of 33 metresmuch lower than is customary for such bridges. Russia claims that it took ship dimensions into account when it built the bridge. In return for fewer maritime restrictions, Russia could well be trying to force Ukraine into resuming water supplies to Crimea, cut off by Ukraine in 2014 after Russias illegal annexation of the peninsula. Crimea relied heavily on these supplies, and drought on the peninsula is currently a concern. Economics and Politics In March 2018, Ukraine gas company, Naftogaz, was awarded $2.5 billion in a lengthy, ugly legal battle with Russian gas behemoth Gazprom. The Stockholm Arbitral Tribunal ruled in favor of Naftogaz. The tribunal in Stockholm found that Gazprom defaulted on its shipment obligations and awarded damages of $4.63 billion. The award means Gazprom has to make payments to Naftogaz in the order of $2.56 billion after residual payments for gas delivered in 2014 and 2015 have been settled. Ukraine has a GDP of about $120 billion. About $2-4 billion depends on Russias natural gas. Talks between the European Commission, Russia and Ukraine are working on Russian gas transit via Ukraine post-2019. Moscow hopes to have its 55 Bcm/year Nord Stream 2 pipeline and its 31.5 Bcm/year TurkStream link ready to flow gas to Europe by the end of 2019, leaving only limited volumes for transit via Ukraine. Russian gas company Gazprom estimated its sales to Europe and Turkey may reach 205 Bcm or more in 2018. The Danish government has come under fierce lobbying by Russia, EU allies and the United States over the 9.5 billion euro (8.5 billion) Nord Stream 2 project led by Gazprom (GAZP.MM) and financed by five Western firms. The United States opposes the project while some eastern European countries fear it will make the EU a hostage to Russian gas. Sweden has given a permit. Russia thinks they can get a route for the pipeline that would avoid Denmark. In Sept 13 2018, the US said it repeated threats to impose sanctions over the construction of Nord Stream 2 between Russia and Germany, U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry has said. Gazprom sent 94 Bcm through Ukraine to Europe last year, the highest amount since it brought its 55 Bcm/year Nord Stream gas pipeline to Germany online in 2011. Gazprom has previously said volumes through Ukraine could fall to 10-15 Bcm/year after 2019, assuming Nord Stream 2 and TurkStream come online before then. Economic reforms in 2014-2015 helped secure a program with the International Monetary Fund worth $17.5 billion in low interest credits over four years. The pace of reform, however, slowed in 2016 and has not rebounded. As Ukraine has failed to deliver on measures such as land privatization and harmonization of gas prices, the IMFs program has disbursed no money for 10 months. IMF officials now seem especially concerned about the need for more effective steps to combat corruption, which continues to plague many areas of Ukrainian life. They have focused in particular on establishing a special court to try corruption cases. Ukraine will have elections in 2019. Polling shows the current President Poroshenko in third place with 9.4 percenta dramatic decline from the 55 percent he won in 2014. Tymoshenko is in the lead with 18-20%. She wants for Ukraines integration into the European Union and strongly opposes the membership of Ukraine in the Eurasian Customs Union. Yulia Tymoshenko supports NATO membership for Ukraine. She says that Ukraine must complete anti-corruption reforms and obtain more precise defensive lethal weapons. Ukraine must become stronger economically. Economic growth is the soft power that can convince people to stay in Ukraine. Anatoliy Stepanovych Hrytsenko is in second place with about 10%. He is in the current Ukrainian parliament, former Minister of Defence, member of the Our Ukraine political party and leader of the Civil Position party. In April, 2018, Ukraine received $250 million in actual military aid from the USA. They got some Javelin anti-tank missiles and other weapons. NEW HAVEN The music drew them in. People heading for a lunch break, getting off the bus or shopping downtown heard the drums and followed the call. Musicians with Bergamos Healing Drums had made themselves comfortable Friday near the closed Bennett water fountain at the corner of Church and Chapel streets and just started playing. The dozen or so initial group of passersby were soon keeping time to the music. Some couldnt help but break into a dance. Standing still was not possible. The numbers swelled to almost 50 people at one point, as the audience waxed and waned, many taking videos with their phones. It was the first of many events that Kica Matos, a proprietor of the Green, and Becky Bombero, director of Parks, Recreation and Trees, have scheduled for the two-block center of the city, to focus on the positive. The proprietors are a self-perpetuating group responsible for the Green since 17th century with a title out of that era. The full name is the Committee of the Proprietors of Common and Undivided Lands at New Haven. Bergamos, headed by Rafael Ramos, deputy director of housing code enforcement at the Livable City Initiative, gave up his lunch hour to lead the drummers, who throughout the performance would switch seats with audience members eager to sit in. Matos, a well-known civic leader, also took a turn on the drums, dancing up the circle to play and dancing away when she was done. They stepped forward immediately, Matos of the drummers, when she looked for volunteer talent. They want to be part of a group who wish to return the Green to the people. There were more than 100 incidents of overdoses of K2, a synthetic marijuana, involving nearly 50 users on the Green last month, an aberration that drew national attention. Bombero said Matos is out looking to book performers (at no pay), while the parks director does the scheduling and provides logistical support. Matthew Byrd stayed for most of the hour that Bergamos drummed on. Its beautiful here. Everyone comes in to play if they want to. Its your roots, he said of the Afro-centric sound. He was visiting Beauty Plus when he heard the drumming and headed for the Green where his brother, Michael Mills, a drummer for decades, was playing. The energy is amazing, Matos said. Mills said every summer he plays music at the camp Ramos runs. He said it is not so much to teach neighborhood kids, but to evoke their spirits. We allow them to be free. When they are in the hood, they are restricted. ... We give them love to be free, to set the fire and passion in their hearts. They drum freedom. Raphael Joseph was happy he was close by when the music started. I love it. That is my culture, he said. Joseph suggested the next one be scheduled when schoolchildren are around. Lesley Porter was on the other side of the Green when she heard the drums. The music is awesome, she said, before starting to dance. Egged on by a friend, Kharisma Redding, who just had a birthday and started a new job nearby, sat in with the group for awhile just more good karma for a positive week. Im surprised at how many people had time to stop ..., Ramos said, declaring it a success. The group plays the second Tuesday of the month from 7 to 10 p.m. at the Bergamos Community Theater at 491 Blatchley Ave. He said it is free and open to the public. Just bring your own water and your drum, he said. As for the upcoming events: Bregamos Healing Drums will be back next Friday at noon; Sept. 29, the Movimiento Cultural Afro Continental will perform at 2 p.m.; Oct. 6 the Elite Drill Squad and Drum Corps will perform, but the time has yet to be finalized; Nov. 2 Unidad Latina en Accion will have a Day of the Dead event to include performers from Mexico; Elm City Dance Collective will be featured at a later time. mary.oleary@hearstmediact.com; 203-641-2577. NEW HARTFORD A scuba diver who was in distress was pulled from West Hill Pond on Saturday, according to the Connecticut State Police. Troopers from the Troop B barracks in Canaan performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on the unresponsive diver, who was pulled from the water shortly after 9:10 a.m., state police said. The diver was taken to an area hospital via the LifeStar helicopter, state police said. Update: The bridge reopened as of 4:40 p.m. Saturday, according to an alert from the Burlington County Bridge Commission. Drivers who use the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge will have to find another route for now. The bridge was stuck in the up position Saturday, according to police. The bridge became stuck around 1 p.m., authorities from the Burlington County Bridge Commission told news outlets. Tacony Palmyra Bridge stuck in the open position. all traffic diverted use any other #delawareriver crossing. WW, BF, Betsy Ross #NewJersey #philly #Traffic pic.twitter.com/HgNUg8D0Jw TTWN Philadelphia (@TotalTrafficPHL) September 22, 2018 The bridge connects the Tacony section of Northeast Philadelphia to Palmyra, Burlington County. Bridge Commission phones lines were busy when NJ Advance Media repeatedly tried to call it. Cassidy Grom may be reached at cgrom@njadvancemedia.com Follow her at @cassidygrom. Find NJ.com on Facebook.Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips A 64-year-old man was killed Friday when his motorcycle crashed into an oncoming car just outside his Winslow neighborhood, police said. Kenneth Borusewicz died at a local hosptal a short time after the 10:15 a.m. crash at Sicklerville Road and Scenic View Drive, Winslow police said. Borusewicz lives on Scenic View Drive inside the the development which has an entrance where he crashed. Police said it appears he was making a right turn from Scenic View Drive onto southbound Sicklerville Road when for unknown reasons he crossed into the northbound lanes and collided with a northbound Jeep Grand Cherokee. Borusewicz was driving a 2010 Honda Fury. The Jeep driver, a 33-year-old woman from Gloucester City, was not injured. The investigation into the crash was ongoing Friday and police said no charges had been filed. Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @kevintshea. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Sylvia Joseph, a school bus driver, wasn't worried when co-workers delivered the bad news on Sept. 6. While she was out on her route, Newark police had ticketed and towed her car for being parked when the street was to be cleaned on North 13th Street between Fourth and Park avenues. Joseph knew the city had messed up, because she had gotten a similar ticket once before. Last year's ticket, issued by the Newark Parking Authority, and this latest ticket from Newark police -- should have never been written. She received the same $45 ticket on Sept. 20, 2017, but this time she was also hit with a $138 towing fee. "I'll get it back," said Joseph, a Newark resident. "They're going to hate to see me coming again." That section of North 13th Street where she received the ticket is not listed in the municipal street sweeping ordinances. (I know because I wrote a column about last year's ticket, too). Only two sections of North 13th Street, from Davenport to Third Avenue and from Third to Springdale Avenue, are listed in city ordinances. Last year, Joseph went to court and told municipal prosecutors there was no signage that said motorists couldn't park on the street. There weren't any street poles, either. Benjamin Ramos, chief of Traffic Signals Maintenance and Operations, confirmed her complaint last year when an investigation was done the same day. He wrote a letter to the court that said her ticket should be dismissed. It was, but Joseph still wasn't satisfied. She wanted to know how people would know that they should not park on the street if there aren't any signs. The court, she said, told her that the city did not have to post the street signs. That explanation didn't make sense to her (or to me), or Ramos, who had said federal law requires signs to be installed. The issue reached City Clerk Ken Louis, who said the ticket should not have been written once he saw that the city's street sweeping ordinances didn't include the block where Joseph was parked. The parking authority, which uses city ordinances as a guide to issue tickets, said it would not monitor that street anymore, and Newark was supposed to install accurate signs so motorists would not be confused about parking on the street. We now know that didn't happen. Instead, the city actually installed no parking during street sweeping signs. Joseph said she continued to park on the street where her job is located and didn't have any problems until Sept. 6 of this year. The Newark police officer, not realizing that residents could actually park on the street, ticketed and towed several cars, including Joseph's. She filed her complaint a week later on Sept. 12, and that's when the city realized it had erred - again. In a letter to Joseph, Ramos wrote the city is aware that there is no ordinance for street sweeping on the street where she received the ticket for the second time. He copied the municipal court administrator, and requested that Joseph's summons be dismissed. "The signs should of never been put back up due to no ordinance for street cleaning," he wrote on a traffic ticket complaint sheet. Kimberly Singleton, manager of the Division of Traffic & Signals, has now solved the problem once and for all -- we hope. A day after Joseph filed her complaint, Singleton had all of the signs on that street removed. In the meantime, Joseph will be reimbursed. She filed a claim with the law department. But, what about the other people who were ticketed and towed that day? They're clueless. If they're reading this story, the city owes them a refund. (Make sure you have the ticket and tow receipt.) And, write a thank you note to Ms. Joseph. She was on the case last year and knew what to do when the same mistake happened again. Read More 'This place is an institution.' Clothing store closing after 119 years. Principal gave bullied kids a way to wash clothes at school, now Ellen gave him $50K 'Experienced in grief,' New Jersey's 9/11 families help others cope Barry Carter may be reached at bcarter@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @BarryCarterSL. Find NJ.com on Facebook. A police SWAT team stormed a home Friday evening after a woman was found stabbed in a Gloucester County driveway, according to authorities. Police responded to the home on Magnolia Lane in Washington Township just before 8 p.m. and found that the stabbing suspect, also a woman, was still inside the home, refusing to surrender, according to a police report posted to Facebook. The cops tried to convince the woman to come out but their attempts were unsuccessful. Local police then called in the county SWAT team, which entered the home and made the arrest without incident, authorities say. Police did not release any details about the two women or their relationship, if any. Two police dispatchers told NJ Advance Media no one was available to answer any additional questions Saturday morning and to call back Monday. The victim was transported to Cooper University Hospital. The suspect, who was taken to Jefferson Hospital and treated for self-inflicted stab wounds, was charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose. Cassidy Grom may be reached at cgrom@njadvancemedia.com Follow her at @cassidygrom. Find NJ.com on Facebook.Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips In a single tweet, President Donald Trump appears to have upended the GOP's strategy on accusations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. "I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents," Trump tweeted. "Judge Brett Kavanaugh is a fine man," he added, "with an impeccable reputation, who is under assault by radical left wing politicians." Christine Blasey Ford's accusations have set the stage for a broader test just seven weeks before the midterms of who people will believe when there can be no definitive proof and what kind of behavior if the allegations are true will society tolerate in 2018. Previously, the president had led Republicans in insisting that Ford must be given a respectful, fair hearing, even if he fully vouched for Kavanaugh's character. Ford, a professor of clinical psychology in California, alleges that during a house party in Montgomery County, Md., during the early 1980s when she was 15 and Kavanaugh was 17 he pinned her to a bed on her back and groped her over her clothes, grinding his body against hers and clumsily attempting to pull off her one-piece bathing suit and the clothing she wore over it. She said that, when she tried to scream, he put his hand over her mouth. Trump's outburst saw a new #MeToo era hashtag storm the internet, with #WhyIDidntReport the top trending conversation starter on Twitter, as people mostly women vented outrage over past transgressions and voiced solidarity with Ford. Kavanaugh's confirmation has been transformed into a do-over of the 1991 Clarence Thomas hearings, which launched the Year of the Woman in 1992. Law professor Anita Hill accused Thomas, then a Supreme Court nominee, of sexual harassment. Thomas denied the allegation and was confirmed to the high court. Angry about how Hill was questioned and dismissed by the senators, a record number of women ran for office in 1992. Only two women served in the Senate during the Thomas hearings. Four more would be elected the next year. Today there are 23 female senators. Do you think Trump's attacks will hurt the #MeToo movement? Or will it turn into another Year of the Woman? Vote in our informal and unscientific poll and tell us what you think in the comments section. JERSEY CITY A local college will be honoring the first African-American mayor of the city in an exhibit. New Jersey City University will host the opening reception of an exhibit for Glenn D. Cunningham on Oct. 9 at 6 p.m. It will be held on the third floor of the Frank J. Guarini Library building, located on the main campus. Artifacts and other mementos will be on full display thanks to the Sandra and Glenn D. Cunningham Foundation. The event is free and open to the public. "We are grateful for Senator Cunningham's gift," said Sue Henderson, President of NJCU, in a statement. "This collection shares the legacy of his good work." Cunningham, the 43rd mayor of the city, died at the age of 60 on May 25, 2004, of a heart attack, while still in office. He was elected in 2001. He enlisted as a Vietnam-era U.S. Marine and served as a uniformed usher at the funeral of late President John F. Kennedy. He later spent 25 years in the Jersey City Police Department as an officer, sergeant, homicide detective and captain. The Jersey City native also spent time as a city council president, Hudson County freeholder, Hudson County public safety officer, U.S. Marshal and state senator. However, before his careers, he was a student. Cunningham graduated from NJCU in 1974 with a degree in political science. You can also find him in a yearbook for School 29, School 14 and Snyder High School. His name still lives on through the Sandra and Glenn D. Cunningham Foundation, which was founded shortly after Cunningham was elected mayor of Jersey City. The non-profit provides financial assistance and one-on-one mentoring to help guide the youth in their education. The Osiris spacecraft is now approaching a small asteroid called Bennu. Named after an Egyptian mythological bird, it is 1,600 feet in diameter. The asteroid is of interest to us because in about 150 years it will come dangerously close to Earth. In an effort to better understand near-Earth asteroids, NASA launched the probe in 2016. The spacecraft's full name is Osiris-Rex, which stands for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security - Regolith Explorer. The acronym was chosen as a reference to Osiris, the Egyptian god of the underworld and lord of the dead. NASA's OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission launched in 2016 and is now in its approach phase. OSIRIS-REx will arrive at asteroid Bennu in December, 2018. OSIRIS-REx will help unveil the mysteries of our solar system's formation. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Katrina Jackson The mission's main goal is to touch down on the surface of Bennu, take samples and return them to Earth for further study. This is not the first time this has been done. The Japanese pioneered asteroid sampling with the Hayabusa probe in 2010. That mission was only partially successful and is being succeeded by the Hayabusa 2 spacecraft, which reached the asteroid Ryugu in June. Size comparison of asteroid Bennu to the Empire State Building and the Eiffel Tower. Bennu is about 1,600 feet in diameter. Osiris is now approaching its target. The spacecraft is less than 670,000 miles from Bennu and has started taking images and other measurements. It will undertake an extensive mapping program during the next 505 days. The results will allow scientists to pick the best spot on the asteroid's surface to collect a sample. Osiris has enough fuel for three attempts. If successful, the sample will be placed into a capsule that will be launched back to Earth in the summer of 2020. We will have to be patient for the results, however. The capsule is not expected to arrive until September 2023. Osiris will reach Bennu on Dec. 3. For the latest images from the mission, see the Osiris-REx website. Kevin D. Conod is the planetarium manager and astronomer at the Newark Museum's Dreyfuss Planetarium. For updates on the night sky, call the Newark Skyline at (973) 596-6529. Police on Friday asked for the public's help to identify a man wanted for peering in windows at a Berkeley Township senior citizen community while performing a "lewd act." The suspect was last seen apparently wearing women's undergarments, according to police. He committed the disturbing act overnight Thursday near Jamaica and St. Catherine boulevards, police said. The same man was suspected in an attempted burglary around the same area. Police released photos of the man, who is described as in his 20s or 30s. Anyone with information was asked to police at 732-341-1132 x611 or email tips@btpdnj.org. Noah Cohen may be reached at ncohen@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @noahyc. Find NJ.com on Facebook. It is uncertain how many thousands of unauthorized immigrants are driving in New Jersey without a license today, but it's clear to everyone that this practice must end. And it must be stopped by making state residents - regardless of their immigration status - eligible for drivers licenses, because doing anything else is nonsensical. Our elected officials are finally catching on to the irrefutable logic of it: As Senate President Steve Sweeney told 101.5 last week, "They're going to be driving, whether we like it or not. We've just have to figure out how we do it in the right way." Consider the alternative: There are more than 500,000 unauthorized neighbors in our state, most of them work, some in places where buses do not go, they have kids, and as Sweeney suggests, we cannot ignore the fact that many get behind the wheel every day. They haven't passed a driver's test. Their car is probably unregistered. They have no insurance. And if you get struck by one of them, the damage may not be covered by your policy. Why perpetuate that? Sen. Joseph Vitale (D-Middlesex) has asked that question for years, so he is reintroducing a bill that establishes licenses for unauthorized residents - one that enhances road safety, helps the state economy, improves welfare of families, and establishes cooperation with law enforcement. Twelve other states have granted licenses to unauthorized immigrants with great success, and research from New Jersey Policy Perspective shows why. Start with the economic gains: NJPP said roughly 460,000 residents would take advantage of Vitale's bill, which would boost license fees by $12 million every four years and vehicle registration fees by $4 million annually. Insurance company revenue would increase by $223 million annually. And as more drivers are trained, licensed, and insured, they'd contribute more to local economies because they tend to have more purchasing power. The safety data from those 12 states is also compelling. In Utah, the uninsured rate dropped 20 percent. In New Mexico, the rate of uninsured vehicles decreased by 24 percent and traffic fatalities fell 23 percent. In California, research linked its license law to a sharp decline in hit-and-run accidents. Upshot: "When you are driving, it doesn't matter where the person driving next to you was born," Erika Nava of NJPP said. "And it shouldn't, so long as they know how to drive and are adequately insured." For those still clutching their pearls, note that Vitale's bill, which will employ the federal Real ID system, does not grant anyone legal status. It does not allow license-holders to apply for state programs such as NJ FamilyCare, or board a plane, or authorize them for work. But it allows them to gain some normalcy, and it makes them better neighbors. Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook. By Kathleen O'Brien As Judge Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation process spreads in an ever-widening circle of controversy and contention, there is one magic way he can make it all disappear: Stop debating whether the episode took place, and focus instead on what impact it should have now. Here, for free, is testimony President Trump's nominee for the Supreme Court could give to restore peace and sanity to the topic: KAVANAUGH: Thank you for allowing me to address this matter. Christine Blasey Ford's account is credible to me. It is clear some boy did assault her. It is with deep, almost paralyzing shame I have concluded I could well have been That Boy. I would love to be able to say I wasn't, but the best I can manage is to say is I have absolutely no memory of attacking her. We drank -- I drank -- a lot back then. When it comes to alcoholic blackouts, a lack of memory does not equal innocence. So if you were to tell me I got so wasted one night I threw up on John Holtfretter's mother's begonias, I'd be in no position to deny it. This is an unsatisfactory confession, to be sure. It's as if the young George Washington told his father, "I have no memory of cutting down the cherry tree, but my friends and I were so hammered it's entirely possible I did." The road from boyhood to manhood is not straight, nor smooth, nor constant. It has detours, pauses, backtracks, meanderings. As many a parent will confirm, sometimes it seems that no forward progress whatsoever is taking place. While that may be an explanation for what took place back then, I am not offering it as an excuse. That Boy was old enough to know better. The locked door and stifled cry demonstrate he knew what he was doing was wrong. Accepting the possibility that I was the one who stifled another human being's cries necessitates many, many apologies: I apologize first to my parents. The world needs to know that is not the way they raised me. I apologize to my teachers, the Jesuits, as well. That is not the way they taught me. I apologize to my wife, for bringing my shame into our wonderful life. I apologize to my daughters. I have basked in their admiration for years, and hope they will continue to love me now that I have tumbled off their pedestal. Most of all, I apologize to Dr. Ford. The damage done by That Boy's callousness is searing and real. It's instructive to all of us to see how 60 seconds that mean so little to one person can be life-altering to another. I can never truly make amends to her, and must now live with the shame of that. It is a small price to pay compared to the burden That Boy thrust upon her. I'm trying to start with the simple act of believing her. Needless to say, my attorney strongly advised me against making these comments. He is worried I might open myself up to criminal prosecution for that event so long ago by conceding my possible involvement. I accept that possibility and place my fate in the hands of the American justice system. What kind of judge would I be if I were unwilling to have faith in a fair trial with a verdict rendered by my peers? What started out as a politically contentious confirmation process has become a teachable moment about far more than me or a vacancy on the Supreme Court. Seventeen-year-old boys are watching: What conclusions will they draw about how they should behave? Fifteen-year-old girls are watching: What conclusions are they reaching about how the world values them? As for the committee, you must now weigh the unsavory actions of a drunken teenager against a long career of jurisprudence. You may find the episode is too damning to support my nomination. Or you may decide this juvenile misstep might actually make me a better Justice - more compassionate toward crime victims, more willing to give credence to the underdog, more able to weigh damage that can't be measured in dollars and cents. In my earlier testimony, I spoke at great length about the genius of our Constitution. It has proved durable enough to point the way to fairness and equity in all sorts of circumstances. Let it guide the committee now. Thank you. Kathleen O'Brien is a former Star-Ledger columnist and NJ Advance Media health reporter. Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook. At age 15, Cory Booker once wrote, he tried to grope the breast of a girl who had given him "an overwhelming kiss" on New Year's Eve. She pushed his hand away once, and then he succeeded on his second try. Nothing more ensued. Booker, now a Democratic U.S. senator from New Jersey, wrote about the incident as a student at Stanford University in a column taking aim at the campus culture of men trying to get women to sleep with them. "I had begun listening to the raw truth from men and women discussing rape about two years ago as a peer counselor," Booker wrote. "The conversations were personal accounts, not rhetoric; they were real life, not dorm programing. It was a wake-up call -- I will never be the same." Conservatives resurrected Booker's account on their websites and on social media after he defended Christine Blasey Ford, the Northern California research psychologist who claimed she was sexually attacked by U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh while both were in high school. It also got the attention of conservative columnists and commentators, including The Star-Ledger's Paul Mulshine. "Do you not see the hypocrisy and double standard?" said Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity. Hannity was joined by other allies of President Donald Trump, who nominated Kavanaugh to the delight of his supporters. You have to be laughably and shamelessly biased, creatively stretch the truth more than you stretch saltwater taffy, and just love Spartacus too much to write this! Reminds us again why we can't trust the media anymore. https://t.co/1xZbtFFlCZ Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) September 21, 2018 A member of the Senate Judiciary Committee considering Kavanaugh's nomination, Booker supported delaying a vote until Ford testifies, objected to the panel's Republicans demanding she appear Monday or not at all, and backed an independent investigation of her allegations. Booker's spokeswoman hit back against the comparison. "Senator Booker's Stanford Daily column has been the focus of disingenuous right-wing attacks that have circulated online and in partisan outlets for the past five years," Booker spokeswoman Kristin Lynch said. "These attacks ring hollow to anyone who reads the entirety of the column, which is in fact a direct criticism of a culture that encourages young men to take advantage of women -- written at a time when so candidly discussing these issues was rare -- and speaks to the impact Senator Booker's experience working to help rape and sexual assault survivors as a college peer counselor had on him," she said. Richard Painter, the White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, said the two incidents were not similar. "Attacks on Cory Booker over this are political smears or political correctness run amok," he tweeted. "He is honest about his bad behavior as a 15 year old and better attitude as an adult." He also said there were "very different facts." Ford has contended that at a house party, a drunken Kavanaugh tried undressing her and stifling her cries on a bed before she fled. Kavanaugh has repeatedly denied her accusation. Attacks on Cory Booker over this are political smears or political correctness run amok. He is honest about his bad behavior as a 15 year old and better attitude as an adult. Also very different facts from our current controversy.https://t.co/R9npnDEM3K via @Shore News Network Richard W. Painter (@RWPUSA) September 21, 2018 Booker claimed a "Spartacus moment" during the hearings when he released documents that a Republican lawyer initially classified as private. The lawyer, Bill Burck, had approved some of the papers for public release before Booker's action. Burck, a Bush lawyer who also has represented members of the Trump administration, was overseeing the document release because Judiciary Committee Republicans refused to wait for the National Archives to fulfill its traditional role in deciding which papers involving a Supreme Court nominee should be made public. Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant or on Facebook. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook. The home of a supporter of U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer was vandalized with a swastika and other graffiti Friday evening, the homeowner and the congressman's campaign reported. The incident occurred in Hampton along Route 521. Handout photo Gottheimer, a Democrat who represents New Jersey's 5th congressional district, is Jewish. Signs in front of the home were vandalized also, along with two of a neighbor's signs. One sign, a large Josh Gottheimer for Congress banner, had "VOTE MAGA" and "GO TO CALI DEMS," and LIBS SUCK" spray painted on it. A swastika was painted on a speed limit sign next to the family's house, said homeowner Adam Stolarsky. His garage's door handles were tampered with so it looked as if someone was trying to break in. "Making America Great Again should not include painting swatistaks on peoples houses, going on people's property to deface their property," Adam Stolarsky, 48, said. "We have three teenage children," he said. "We can't let the worst voices be heard the loudest. If they continue to attack our sign we'll continue to put it up." He reported the incident to the New Jersey State Police. "There's no place for white supremacists or anti-Semitism in our broader community, and this vile hate-motivated crime certainly does not reflect the values of the people of Sussex County," Gottheimer said in a statement. "I'm grateful to law enforcement for their quick response," he said. Gottheimer's GOP opponent, John McCann, responded to the incident via a statement on his Facebook page, calling the act "abhorrent." "There is no room for racism in our politics, in our state or in our country," the statement read. "I find this particularly offensive because I had the honor of serving as Shabbos goy in the neighborhood where I grew up." On Thursday, Gottheimer joined other officials in condemning the racist remarks of Bergen County County Sheriff Michael Saudino, aimed at black residents and N.J. Attorney General Gurbir Grewal. Saudino resigned Friday. The New Jersey State Police said they would have more information on the incident on Monday. Editor's Note: This story has been updated with the comments of John McCann. Taylor Tiamoyo Harris may be reached at tharris@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @ladytiamoyo. Find NJ.com on Facebook. One person is in custody after an early morning stabbing in a North Jersey motel. Details remain scarce Saturday, but authorities say they were called to the Sussex Motel on Route 23 at about 3 a.m. for a report of a stabbing, according to New Jersey State Police spokesman Sgt. Jeff Flynn. Flynn said the victim was flown to St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center in Paterson with non life-threatening injuries. Authorities would not make public any additional information about the incident, including the name of the person charged, the person's sex, charges or the relationship between the two, if any. A person who answered the phone and identified himself as a manager at the motel said he didn't know any details about the incident. Taylor Tiamoyo Harris may be reached at tharris@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @ladytiamoyo. Find NJ.com on Facebook. The books, CDs and DVDs, video games and other materials are available to be checked out. But that's only some of what the new Warren County Library Southwest Branch offers. Consider the indoor play-set for kids modeled after the iconic New Jersey diner, the 3D printer and row of exercise bikes. "The books are still here, but now you've got computers; 3D printers; a place for innovation, for creativity, for learning and doing; a place for community, for older adults, language-learning immigrants; support for busy parents and welcoming spaces for the poor and for young people," LibraryLinkNJ Assistant Director Joanne Roukens said Saturday. Warren County residents gathered with local and state officials at the new branch, 404 Route 519 in Greenwich Township, for a grand opening. The soft opening was Aug. 1, and the branch has already seen more than 2,000 new patrons sign up, county Library Director Maureen Baker Wilkinson said. The Southwest Branch replaces the Franklin Branch that had been housed at Warren County Technical School in Franklin Township. It is one of four branches, along with the Catherine Dickson Hofman Branch in Blairstown Township, county library headquarters in White Township and the Northeast Branch in Independence Township. The libraries are free for county residents. Phillipsburg, Alpha, Washington and Hackettstown have their own municipal libraries, and their residents may visit the county libraries but cannot check out materials, Baker Wilkinson said. Created inside what had been a warehouse, the Southwest Branch is 14,090 square feet and cost the county about $5 million. That's about $1 million under budget, Freeholder Deputy Director Jason Sarnoski said, and the project did not require borrowing any money. "When you can provide better services for less money it's a win for Warren County, and that's we're doing here at the new Southwest Branch," he said at Saturday's ribbon-cutting. "This is a beautiful, state-of-the-art facility. I'm going to call it probably the best library right now in Warren County." "On budget and actually better than budget," said Freeholder Director Ed Smith. "That's a great job by everybody and I'm very pleased." Freeholder Rick Gardner, the board's liaison to the library system, touched on the financials, as well, calling the financial planning typical of the freeholders' "pay-as-you-go method." He also thanked the library system staff as the reason the county was awarded the most improved library system in 2017 by the New Jersey State Library Association. From New Jersey's 23rd Legislative District covering Warren and Hunterdon county communities, Sen. Michael Doherty and Assemblymen John DiMaio and Erik Peterson also spoke Saturday, as did Pohatcong Township Mayor James Kern III and Lopactong Township Mayor James Mengucci. The new Southwest Branch serves a particularly populous pocket of the county, officials said Saturday. "The way I see it, we are investing in the success and productivity of our neighbors and ourselves," said Warren County Library Commissioner Virginia Rutledge. "Our library should always be a welcoming place where individuals can gather to study, research, explore, create and even just relax." Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. The Times-Picayune is marking the tricentennial of New Orleans with its ongoing 300 for 300 project, running through 2018 and highlighting 300 people who have made New Orleans New Orleans, featuring original artwork commissioned by NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune with Where Y'Art gallery. Today: civic activist Hilda Phelps Hammond. The icon: Hilda Phelps Hammond. The legacy: When U.S. Sen. Huey Long fired Dock Board lawyer Arthur Hammond in 1930, it was intended both as a display of political power and a measure of payback to Hammond's in-laws, who ran The Times-Picayune, a vocal opponent of the former governor. It ended up, however, earning Long an unexpected but determined nemesis in Hammond's wife, Hilda Phelps Hammond. A socially active New Orleans housewife with an English degree from Newcomb and, apparently, little patience for bullies, she marshaled an army of like-minded women -- organizing as the Women's Committee of Louisiana -- for what would become a relentless national public opinion campaign targeting what they characterized as the dangerous influence of a corrupt man. That fight, which earned Phelps national recognition, would end only with Long's death in 1935, but her example would inspire a generation of New Orleans women to enter the political fray -- and put the local political establishment on notice that the city's women were no longer content to watch from the sidelines. The artist: Maddie Stratton. The quote: "This is a national, not a state matter. It is a fight for decency in government and politics. ... When a man is so powerful that he can stop investigations of fraud by the United States Senate, that man is a menace to the whole United States." -- Hilda Phelps Hammond, referring to then-Sen. Huey P. Long Explore more of Stratton's work online at WhereYart.net and in person at the Where Y'Art gallery, 1901 Royal St. Hilda Phelps was born in New Orleans in 1890, a daughter of Blanche Moulton Phelps, a former Carnival queen who reigned as Comus' consort in 1884, and Ashton Phelps, the longtime president of the Times-Democrat and, after its 1914 merger with The Daily Picayune, of The Times-Picayune Publishing Co. Source: The Times-Picayune archives; "Silk Stockings and Ballot Boxes: Women and Politics in New Orleans, 1920-1963," by Pamela Tyler; staff research More on 300 for 300: Some anonymous person, or -- more likely -- more than one anonymous person went through considerable effort earlier this month to paint a cinder block in honor of Gen. Robert E. Lee and then lift it up in the air so that it could be lowered down around a steel sign post. That cinderblock was one of several so-called "rebel rocks" that have been positioned around New Orleans. This particular one was black with Lee's name and a cross formed by 13 stars painted in white. And it was placed outside Hynes Charter School, an elementary campus on Harrison Avenue in Lakeview. On Sept. 7, Annette Hollowell, a black woman with daughters at Hynes, saw the "rebel rock." It was helpfully labeled "REBEL ROCK," and she decided that it could not be allowed to remain in place. "I had to figure out how to throw it to the top of a 7-foot pole," she wrote on Facebook, "and then position it on top of the pole before I could fully remove it by jumping and throwing it the rest of the way off. Glad I've been strength training, but my arms are sore as hell." There seems to be a metaphor in that. Removing celebrations of Confederate-era military officials and leaders has taken a tremendous amount of effort, effort that freedom-loving people shouldn't have to expend. But if that energy isn't expended, then what's the result? The backwards-looking, backwards-thinking devotees of the Confederacy successfully trolling us? No, that's not a fight that they can be allowed to win. The same day that Hollowell removed the cinder block positioned across the street from her children's school, other Hynes parents were reporting sightings of other rebel rocks. One parent sent me a photo of a large stone -- it appeared significantly larger than a cinder block -- that also was decorated to celebrate Robert E. Lee. This one, placed at the Interstate 10 City Park Avenue exit, describes him in all capital letters as a MAN OF HONOR. It also celebrates "LEE'S TIGERS," the Louisiana contingent of soldiers who fought for the Confederacy in Virginia. Another parent reportedly recovered another stone painted to look like the Confederate battle flag on Poydras Street. The Robert E. Lee statue and monuments to Jefferson Davis, Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard and the Reconstruction-era sore losers called the White Leaugue were removed by the New Orleans city government after the City Council properly labeled them nuisances. And what do backwards-thinking devotees of the Confederacy do in response? They embark upon a public nuisance campaign. Two weeks after she removed the rebel rock from outside Hynes, Hollowell said in a phone conversation that some people she's talked about it have said, "Oh, you must have been really mad." "I wasn't mad," she said. "It just had to be done." But since it was a job that so obviously had to be done, Hollowell wonders why nobody before her had seen fit to do it. "It's not acceptable to say, 'I saw it,' and keep moving," she said. There's another way that the placement of this rebel rock and its removal are metaphorical. The battle between the people who fought to keep the monuments up and the people who fought to bring them down has been, at many times, a battle between people who prefer the shadows of anonymity and those who say and do what they do in public and on the record. For example, we know the names of the people associated with Take 'Em Down NOLA. They've given interviews, held press conferences -- many of them. We don't know the identities of those who threatened businesses who might consider assisting in the removal of the monuments. We don't know the names of the people who've wasted time and paint on rebel rocks. Why don't we know those names? If they feel so strongly about their position, why don't they come out of hiding and tell the world who they are, what they believe and what they're willing to sacrifice for their position? Hollowell's assertion that she wasn't mad when she removed the rebel rock is also a succinct rebuttal to all those who see activism as some kind of emotional outburst and not a well-thought out and logical response to the presence of injustice. The truth is that it's perfectly OK to be angry -- it would have been fine for Hollowell to have been angry at the cowards who left an homage to Lee outside her daughters' school -- but describing black people as angry is a common tactic used by folks who are looking to avoid addressing the injustice that's causing the anger. To Hollowell, the rebel rock embodied both the psychological and the physical weight of racism. "Now I can't even pass the school without looking at the pole to see if they tried to put one back," she said. As for the one she took, "I had it on my porch for about a week," she said, "and then I decided to move it by the dumpster." What better location for such trash? Jarvis DeBerry is a columnist on the Latitude team at NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune. Latitude is a place to share opinions about the challenges facing Louisiana. Follow @LatitudeNOLA on Facebook and Twitter. Write Jarvis at jdeberry@nola.com or @jarvisdeberry. The exercise is as old as the Republic, but the first thing you need to understand about redistricting is that hot-water cornbread is as ubiquitous in north Louisiana as etouffee is in the south, says Rick Gallot, the Ruston Democratic representat North Augusta, SC (29841) Today Partly cloudy skies this evening will become overcast overnight. Low 51F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Partly cloudy skies this evening will become overcast overnight. Low 51F. Winds light and variable. Get the DealBook newsletter to make sense of major business and policy headlines and the power-brokers who shape them. __________ Airbnb wants its hosts to be shareholders. The start-up sent a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission asking it to revise its rules on whom private companies can award equity to, Axios reported. Under federal security law, private firms can grant stock to employees but not to contractors. Airbnb wants the S.E.C. to add an exemption for participants in the so-called sharing economy. Airbnb believes that 21st-century companies are most successful when the interests of all stakeholders are aligned, the company said in its letter. For sharing economy companies like Airbnb, this includes our employees and investors, but also the hosts who use our marketplace. The boom in corporate Americas bottom line looks set to continue. With just a few weeks until companies start reporting third-quarter results, analysts are again forecasting robust profits. Companies in the Standard & Poors 500-stock index are expected to report that earnings grew 19.3 percent, according to FactSet. But this year is most likely as good as it gets for earnings. Analysts expect profits to increase 10.3 percent next year. Speaking of earnings, how much credit should last years tax cut get for the soaring profits? Perhaps not as much as conventional wisdom holds. Sales growth, not taxes, deserves much of the credit, according to the Leuthold Group. Profits increased 22.2 percent in the second quarter. Rising sales accounted for half that growth, while the tax cuts drove roughly a third. The cases against Harvey Weinstein and his former businesses have moved from the court of public opinion into two courts in New York City. First, at State Supreme Court in Manhattan, prosecutors filed a motion last week arguing that the rape and sexual assault charges against Mr. Weinstein should not be dismissed. The same afternoon , less than a quarter mile away, defense lawyers in Federal District Court challenged a lawsuit accusing Miramax and the Weinstein Company both of which have produced some of Hollywoods biggest films of covering up the actions of the disgraced movie mogul. The sexual assault conviction of Bill Cosby, whose two-day sentencing is set to begin Monday, was widely viewed as evidence that juries are willing to give more weight to accusers voices in the wake of the #MeToo movement. I have absolutely no idea what, if anything, happened between Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford at a party in Maryland in the early 1980s. Unless you were at the party, I believe that you dont, either. I believe that statements on the controversy that begin, I believe Blasey, or I believe Kavanaugh because they jibe with personal experience or align with a partisan motive are empirically worthless and intellectually dishonest. I believe the defect could be corrected by saying, I want to believe Blasey or Kavanaugh. I believe that when Kirsten Gillibrand says, I believe Dr. Blasey Ford because shes telling the truth, the senator from New York is either deceiving herself or deceiving you. I believe that the actions of which Blasey accuses Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge are grave. I believe locking a young woman in a room, groping her aggressively against her will, and turning the music loud so her cries cant be heard, isnt harmless teenage horseplay. Recent news stories reference an internal email to suggest that we would compromise the integrity of our Search results for a political end. This is absolutely false, Mr. Pichai wrote in the email, which was obtained by The New York Times. We do not bias our products to favor any political agenda. The trust our users place in us is our greatest asset and we must always protect it. Mr. Pichais email did not address recent reports that Google is developing a search product for use in China that would censor certain results at the behest of the Chinese government. Google employees have said in an internal letter that the project, code-named Dragonfly, raises urgent moral and ethical issues. Google did not immediately have a comment on Mr. Pichais email to staff. Google has recently been under scrutiny for whether its search results are biased after Mr. Trump said last month that the internet company was intentionally suppressing conservative news outlets supportive of his administration. The company did not show up at a congressional hearing this month that was attended by Twitters chief executive, Jack Dorsey, and Facebooks chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, to address lawmakers questions about social media manipulation. Keep the faith. Dont get rattled by all of this. Were going to plow right through it and do our job. MITCH MCCONNELL, the Senate majority leader, reassuring a meeting of religious conservatives of the Republicans resolve to confirm Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court despite an accusation that he sexually assaulted a woman in high school. For years, the military had been heading the other way. Mandatory budget cuts caused the Army to shed more than 100,000 troops from 2010 to 2016. The Army was not only recruiting fewer soldiers, but was forcing troops out. It was on course to shrink to 450,000 soldiers in 2017 when Mr. Trump did an about-face. Fulfilling a campaign promise to stop the drawdown, he signed a bill that expanded the Army to 476,000. This year it was supposed to grow to 483,500, but actual numbers remained flat. The Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps met their recruiting goals for 2018, but the Army, which is by far the biggest branch of the military, had to recruit more than twice as many troops as other branches. Initially, the Army planned to recruit 80,000 soldiers in 2018, but lowered its goal to 76,500 in April because it was able to retain more soldiers already in the force. That still left a much larger-than-normal task for Army recruiters amid a roaring economy. At an urgent care center in the suburbs of Denver on Friday, Josh Griffin, a high school senior, had just finished taking a drug test for a new job at a discount tire company down the road. He said that recruiters had talked to him in high school, and that the military sounded appealing at first: money for college, a steady job and a way to give back to his country. But now he sees better options, he said, adding, I dont have any doubt in my mind about finding a job. The militarys promise of college tuition and other benefits has less of a draw, said Sgt. First Class Michael T. Peppers, the commander of a strip mall recruiting station next to a Subway and a Tasty Tacos in Urbandale, Iowa. Were competing with other businesses offering the same things, he said, noting that even McDonalds has a program to help employees pay tuition. The military also says it has to pick from young adults who are increasingly unqualified to serve because of mental health issues, criminal convictions or obesity. Ms. Wieczorek said she sees in the controversy a double standard for men and womens behavior that is already well entrenched in high school. A boy is figuring out how to be a man, but girls are told, You better shape up in order to be respected, she said. That much was clear at her school, she said, in the detentions frequently handed out to girls for dress code violations a skirt judged as too short, spaghetti straps, a glimpse of bare midriff, anything teachers deem too distracting. Boys, she said, are not subject to such dress-related infractions. Its telling girls you exist as an object for someone elses attention, rather than youre here to learn and that your education is important, she said. On Tuesday, Emma Thatcher, a high school student in Florida, tweeted: I would just like to say that the emergence of this whole teenage boys should get a pass because theyre not mature enough to understand consent narrative is probably one of the most unsettling things I have ever witnessed. Despite the rise of #MeToo, girls said they still felt objectified by their male classmates. A recent nationwide survey by PerryUndem, a research and polling firm, found that about three-quarters of girls 14 to 19 said they felt judged as a sexual object or unsafe as a girl. And compared to boys, they were more likely to say they felt pressure to put others feelings before their own. Amy Zhou, a 17-year-old high school senior in Scottsdale, Ariz., said that during a national teen leadership summit she attended this summer, some of the boys were caught ranking online photos of the female participants by attractiveness. Even after conference officials addressed the incident, only one boy apologized, she said. We need to send a message that people should respect men and women, she said. Kavanaughs going to be upholding the supreme law of the land, so obviously hes supposed to embody that principle. The phrase coal ash made headlines this week after a dam on a lake at the site of a power plant in Wilmington, N.C., was breached, allowing the hazardous ash into a river that supplies drinking water to much of the southeastern part of the state. The plant that was shut down, owned by Duke Energy, had been a growing concern since last week after heavy rains associated with Hurricane Florence caused a coal ash landfill at the site to erode, spilling ash onto a roadway. What is coal ash? Coal ash is the powdery substance that remains after burning coal. What remains after coal is burned includes fly ash, bottom ash and so-called scrubber sludge, said Lisa Evans, chief counsel to Earthjustice, an environmental law organization. The sludge, which is created from solutions sprayed inside exhaust stacks to capture the harmful chemicals that cause acid rain, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, falls to the bottom. WILMINGTON, N.C. The family knew that it would be dangerous to stay in their home in Wilmington, N.C., as Hurricane Florence roared into the Carolinas. But family members, the youngest of which was a few months old, came to a grim realization: They did not have the money to leave. Thursday night we were all sitting around laughing and playing board games, Chyna Doughty, 21, said. Everything was just fine. But on Friday as the storm moved inland, we heard a loud crash and the entire house shook, Ms. Doughty said. My grandma, my sisters and I all ran out of the bedrooms. We had no clue what the crash was. A tree had fallen onto the house, killing her mother and her mothers baby, Adam Johnson, who was 7 months old. An oligarch who helped finance a Russian gun rights activist accused of infiltrating American conservative circles has been a discreet source of funds for business ventures useful to the Russian military and security services, according to documents and interviews. The oligarch, Konstantin Nikolaev, emerged in July as the enigmatic backer of Maria Butina, the activist charged with conspiring to use the National Rifle Association to cultivate Republicans in the United States. Mr. Nikolaev has acknowledged underwriting her gun rights advocacy in the past, but denies any involvement in a Russian influence operation and says his only dealings with his government are limited to routine business needs. [Read a special report on Russias 2016 election plot.] Though his public persona is that of a billionaire in the prosaic industries of ports and railways, a cache of 9,000 hacked emails from the account of Alexey Beseda, whose father is a general in Russias Federal Security Service, the successor to the K.G.B. reveals another side to his business activities. Mr. Nikolaev has been an investor in a gun company run by his wife that developed a sniper rifle used by the Russian National Guard, which reports directly to President Vladimir V. Putin. He is also a major investor in a satellite imagery firm that has a license from the Federal Security Service, or F.S.B., to handle classified information. Patti Davis, the author and daughter of President Ronald Reagan, came forward on Friday with an account about being sexually assaulted decades ago, adding her voice to those of women defending Christine Blasey Ford. In an opinion piece in The Washington Post, Ms. Davis said she was at a prominent music executives office about 40 years ago when he crossed the room and forced himself on top of her so quickly that she froze. I lay there as he pushed himself inside me, Ms. Davis wrote. The leather couch stuck to my skin, made noises beneath me. His breath smelled like coffee and stale bread. He didnt use a condom. Ms. Davis, 65, is a writer and speaker whose latest novel, The Earth Breaks in Colors, was published in 2015. Her opinion piece in The Post, which did not name an assailant, came five days after Dr. Blasey, 51, came forward as the woman who had accused Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, a Supreme Court nominee, of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers. Judge Kavanaugh has denied the allegation. Theyre all gone, he added, but theres a lingering stench, and were going to get rid of that, too. His remarks capped a week in which he ratcheted up complaints about Attorney General Jeff Sessions, casting some federal law enforcement officers as a cancer on the country. Mr. Trump came here, to a state he won by 19 percentage points in 2016, to boost Josh Hawley, the Republican attorney general who is challenging Senator Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, in a race that Republicans regard as one of their best opportunities this year to pick up a Democratic seat. Polls show the two in a statistical tie, and the outcome could be critical in determining who controls the Senate, where Republicans hold a 51-to-49 edge. But the event, like all of the campaign stops the president has held across the country in the run-up to the midterm elections, looked and sounded more like a boisterous re-election pep rally for Mr. Trump himself than a well-coordinated effort to lift the candidate. Get out in 2018, because youre voting for me in 2018, Mr. Trump told thousands of supporters in the JQH Arena, on the campus of Missouri State University. They arent just extreme, he said of Democrats. They are frankly dangerous, and they are crazy. Mr. Hawley had only five minutes at the lectern, which he spent effusively praising Mr. Trump and savaging Ms. McCaskill for not being supportive of him. He criticized the senator for mocking the presidents vows to build a border wall, for opposing the tax cut Mr. Trump pushed through, and for coming out in opposition to Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court nominee who is facing an accusation of sexual assault. The biggest and most pleasant surprise for me from this newsletter is that I am now in touch with readers far more often than at any point in my career. I read every email, and my weekend rituals now include trying to respond to each them. My apologies to anyone Ive missed. We really do love hearing from you, and your feedback has helped both the Canada Letter and, I think, how we report on Canada. To mark the 100th edition of the Canada Letter, The Times has created a survey to more formally collect your feedback on what were doing and, more important, how we can do it better. Whether youre a new or longtime reader, I very much hope you can take a bit of time to complete it. [Read: Share Your Feedback on the Canada Letter] Trans Canada Alan Rappeport and Catherine Porter have produced revealing portraits of the two very different people now facing off at the Nafta negotiating table: Chrystia Freeland, Canadas foreign minister, and Robert E. Lighthizer, the United States trade representative. The eye-popping values of Canadian marijuana company stocks have led many to suggest a financial bubble. But Stephen Grocer wrote in DealBook that things are not going well for investors who are betting that those shares will collapse, known as short sellers. Court documents released this week provided more details on a deadly shooting rampage in Toronto this summer and a look into the life of the man who repeatedly pulled the trigger. The N.H.L. is focusing its attention on a country not usually associated with hockey: China (with some help from The Great One). Heres an astonishing Toronto hockey fact from an article by Curtis Rush: John Tavares is the first homegrown hockey superstar to play for the Maple Leafs since Charlie Conacher in the 1930s. Fans of other teams may insert their jokes about the last time the Leafs won the Stanley Cup here. An essay by Jian Ghomeshi, the former C.B.C. Radio host who was acquitted of sexual assault charges, set off a shake-up at a highly regarded literary magazine. Around The Times Its not easy to sort out Russian connections to President Trump and the role they may have played in the last presidential election. Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti have done that work for you. The latest iPhones have changed Brian X. Chens mind about larger and larger smartphone screens. And whatever the screen size of smartphones, France is barring them from classrooms. WASHINGTON As Syrias seven-year civil war enters a climactic phase, the Trump administration is grappling with how to address the emerging political dynamics. President Bashar al-Assad has retaken control of most of Syrian territory, and experts said there is almost no chance that rebel groups will topple him or change the course of the war. But this week, Russia and Turkey proposed a demilitarized zone to stop a military offensive that Mr. Assad had planned against Idlib Province, the last major rebel enclave in Syria. Even a delay in the rampage would buy time for the United States to help draw up new strategies for dealing with Syria if it definitively falls under Mr. Assads rule. At next weeks meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, heads of state and top diplomats are expected to discuss how to protect Idlibs residents from Mr. Assad and, ultimately, end the civil war. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, who has opposed Mr. Assad and deployed Turkish troops to Idlib, is scheduled to speak at the annual forum on Tuesday, as is President Hassan Rouhani of Iran, one of the Syrian governments most loyal allies. President Trump will also address the world body that day. He has repeatedly threatened to withdraw American troops from Syria, where they are fighting the Islamic State in the countrys east. But in April, Mr. Trump for the second time ordered airstrikes to punish Mr. Assad for using chemical weapons. The Trump administration is also clinging to a mostly stalled peace process that was begun under President Barack Obama. The experiment was a success. Mr. Fruhauf began keeping bakers hours, and Mr. Schills former customers started coming to the bookstore to buy their daily bread. Some, like Norbert Bergmann, a retired Catholic priest, got into the habit of picking up a book or TV guide, too. Some of Mr. Fruhaufs regular customers found the idea strange at first, but they came around quickly. Its fun to eat breakfast again, said Regina Kistner, who raised her family here, and had been making do with the processed rolls sold at the supermarket. These taste good, she added, leaving the store with two rolls (one rye and one sesame), a tabloid paper (for her neighbor) and the British romance novel A Summer at Sea. Mr. Schill, the baker, said he for one was very happy to have found such an open-minded partner in the bookseller. Theres a saying, I remember learning as a child, from the old people. Go with the times, or with time, youll go. Before long, customers asked Mr. Fruhauf if he could start selling the sausages Mr. Schill used to sell like the bakeries, the towns once plentiful supply of butchers had dwindled, as shops went out of business or owners grew old and died. Customers, particularly older ones, were not always able to drive out of town to get their cumin or garlic fix. So Mr. Fruhauf cleared some more space and bought a small refrigerator. He is the son of Dr. Loretta L. Patton-Greenidge and Royston A. Greenidge of Brooklyn. The grooms mother, who is retired, was a family-practice physician and the acting chairwoman for family practice and community medicine at the Catholic Medical Center of Brooklyn and Queens. His father owns and manages residential and commercial properties in Brooklyn, and is also an artist and was the founder of Stepstone Art Gallery in Brooklyn. The couple met in the fall of 2016, in Washington, at the annual legislative conference of the Congressional Black Caucus. Mr. Greenidge was then working in the office of the New York mayor as an assistant director for external affairs, and Ms. Davidson was a regional political director for Hillary Clintons presidential campaign. A mutual friend introduced them moments after another friend had finished telling Mr. Greenidge that he needed to open himself up to the possibility of meeting someone. She left to have a drink and I turned around and Linara was there, he said. Ms. Davidson said that Mr. Greenidge made an immediate impression on her, too. To be honest, when I saw him and its a wonky thing to say the moment that I saw him, something said to me in my head, that is my husband right there, she said. But I didnt pay too much attention to it. The two began chatting and soon realized that, with all that they had in common it was amazing that they hadnt already met. They both had jobs in New York politics, including a brief period when they both worked in the mayors office, went to prep schools in New York, took part in Jack and Jill of America, have parents who were physicians. And, their families even knew each other. A campaign sign for Representative Josh Gottheimer and the home of one of his supporters were defaced with swastikas, profanity and racial epithets in Hampton Township, N.J., early Saturday morning. The sign, a large banner, was defaced with anti-Semitic and racist remarks written in black spray paint. Vote MAGA, Libs suck. Go to CALI Dems, was scrawled across the other side of the sign, which supported the re-election of Mr. Gottheimer, a Democrat. The home was also vandalized with a large swastika painted on the garage door. Bright yellow Weichert real estate broker signs on an adjacent property were also vandalized with swastikas and male genitalia, as was a nearby road sign. We were first alerted by a text from our neighbor, said Adam Stolarsky, 48, who lives in the house with his girlfriend, Colleen Murch. A couple of years ago, my parents moved into Brooksby Village, one of the largest retirement communities near Boston. The residents like to joke that its a cruise ship that never docks. There are restaurants, recreation rooms, variously denominated chapels. And there are corridors, many of them, all seemingly identical. You can easily get lost, particularly if your cognitive faculties arent what they once were. I expect its partly for this reason that the management at Brooksby installed a shelf in the hallway next to each apartment door. The shelves are small, about two feet long and one foot deep, and are all the same. But the residents use them in endlessly varied ways. My parents choose to display a blue glass vase (a gift from me) and, somewhat incongruously, a little bronze Komodo dragon. Some shelves feature sentimental cards or teddy bears or flowers, real and artificial, or mementos of loved ones. Others bespeak the eclectic ethnic mix of the community and are filled with Irish and Italian and Polish and Russian tchotchkes and flags. On others still are crafts, paintings, sculptures some souvenirs from past travels, some made by the residents themselves. And yet, as spring approached, my mother began to miss the rhythms of her barrio. In February, we heard that the power there had been restored. Her sister, Mercedes , and her neighbors had made their way back. Though we had wanted so much for her to stay, we knew it was time for her to do the same. She needed to be in the place that made her feel alive. What will it take to help all these young people change the future of their countries? We can learn from what has worked in the past: investments in people, especially their health and education, and in innovation. In general, leaders prefer to spend money on things like roads, ports and bridges, because the impact is immediate. When they strengthen health and school systems, the results, from an economic point of view, come decades later. The effect of investments in science and technology is even more delayed. But these investments pay off. In 1990, the typical Chinese young person received an eighth-grade education. Now, as a result of government investments in the school system, he or she receives some college education. In 1990, one in three Chinese children were chronically malnourished. Now, thanks to increased agricultural productivity and improved health care, its fewer than one in 10. In India, innovation is leading to remarkable change. The 1960s best seller The Population Bomb predicted that famine and food riots would sweep across the country. What actually swept across India were new agricultural techniques and technologies, and now Indian farmers get almost four times the amount of wheat from the same piece of land as they got 50 years ago. The challenge now is for todays poorest, fastest-growing countries to make the same kinds of investments. If they cant, if their futures resemble their recent pasts, then the world will get poorer. But if they can, we could see extreme poverty disappear from the earth. Even though the projections were talking about are in the distant future, the time to act is now. Investing in health and education is especially urgent at this precise time in the history of sub-Saharan Africa because of the regions youth boom. The children who can transform the continent have already been or are about to be born. It will be up to them to lead the innovation their societies need: to transform subsistence farms into profitable small businesses, to provide a bank account for every adult on their mobile phones, to eradicate malaria and other neglected diseases. Our foundations mission is to help all people lead a healthy, productive life. In some ways it is going to be even more difficult to deliver on that promise in the future than it was in the past. Fortunately, recent history shows that progress is possible, even under what experts used to consider impossible circumstances. It also provides a very specific blueprint for how we can work together to create it. Bill Gates and Melinda Gates are the founders of the Gates Foundation, which recently issued a report on progress and youth demographics in sub-Saharan Africa. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter. Earlier this week, I wrote a column taking the view that conservatives supporting Brett Kavanaughs nomination to the Supreme Court because they hope he will overturn Roe v. Wade should be willing to encourage his withdrawal if his accuser testifies credibly against him, and the cloud over his nomination cant be expeditiously cleared up. Even if Kavanaugh is innocent of the charge of a teenage sexual assault, I argued, to give such prominence and power to a man credibly accused would both leave an unnecessary taint on his future rulings (especially given his appointment by our Playboy president) and alienate social conservatives from the persuadable Americans, women especially, whose support any pro-life program ultimately requires. This argument was not well-received among many of my conservative friends. So I spent the week having private arguments about whether it was really fair to ask a public servant to withdraw in a kind of tacit shame, for some greater ideological good, on the basis of a single unprovable allegation and whether that kind of standard would inevitably lead to less-provable allegations against more probably-innocent figures down the road and how you could expect any decent person to put themselves forward for high office in the climate such a precedent would create. The strongest point that Kavanaughs defenders made to me was that pace the claim that theres no punishment involved in being denied a Supreme Court seat, his withdrawal under the shadow of Christine Blasey Fords allegation would be regarded by much of the country as an admission of guilt an admission he was once a would-be rapist and is a perjurer today. So to pull him back wouldnt just be like denying someone an important job after an unsuccessful interview; it would emblazon a scarlet R on a man who might well not deserve it. And that, my friends argued, would be a grave wrong no matter what it might gain politically and culturally for his conservatives further down the road. There are many things wrong with this policy. There is no dark magic that turns teenagers into criminals on their 18th birthday, even if they were born outside the United States. Given the damage that incarceration can do to young adults, every alternative should be pursued before turning teenage asylum seekers over to adult detention. And, as the Ramirez lawsuit indicates, the procedure itself may be illegal. Federal law requires ICE to place children and teenagers in the least restrictive setting possible, even after they turn 18. Critics say the number of migrant children who face jail as they age out of youth shelters is climbing, and its easy to see why. The number of detained migrant children has already quintupled since last year, largely because children are being held in shelters longer. The average length of stay has increased from 34 days in 2015 to almost 60 days now, and many children are kept much longer. Yearlong stays are not uncommon, and cases of 500 days or more have been reported. As those numbers grow, the entire shelter system (some 100 facilities scattered across the country) is nearing capacity. The best of those shelters may feel like havens to children who fled extreme poverty or violence, and faced incredible risks to make it across the border. The worst shelters are dens of abuse and neglect. At either end of the spectrum, the children themselves face tedium, a lack of freedom and profound uncertainty, especially when their 18th birthday approaches. Its a really anxiety-inducing period, says one of Mr. Ramirezs lawyers, Kate Melloy Goettel. We try to prepare them for it, but it can be hard to grasp. Health and Human Services officials have said that the longer stays are an unfortunate but inevitable byproduct of improved safety precautions: It takes time to verify that prospective sponsors are who they claim to be, and to ensure that these already vulnerable and traumatized minors wont be subjected to abuse once they leave the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. As proof of the necessity of their diligence, they point to a handful of children who were unwittingly placed with human traffickers in 2014. That argument withers under scrutiny. Yes, the threat of trafficking is real, and protections are needed to guard against it. But its difficult to see how incarcerating teenagers for the crime of turning 18 protects them more than, say, releasing them to a willing sponsor who has cleared a basic but thorough background check. Stricter requirements have succeeded in scaring off prospective sponsors, many of whom are undocumented themselves or who have undocumented relatives. But their fear does not necessarily speak to their fitness as guardians. My family was down there somewhere maybe five miles away. It felt much farther. This is an advantage of hiking, of walking away more generally: It can create what Nietzsche called the pathos of distance. This sense of being higher, of looking down, gives rise to the craving for ever new widening of distances within the soul itself the development of ever higher, rarer, more remote, further stretching, more comprehensive states. This impulse to strive was at the core of Nietzsches perfectionism. We are Hyperboreans, he wrote, we know well enough how remote our place is. I pitched a small stone over the edge. One. Two. Three. Almost four seconds before it exploded on the rocks below. About 300 feet. I often tell my 6-year-old daughter that having courage doesnt mean that you arent scared. It means that you do it anyway. What I dont tell her is that courage can eventually get you stuck. Ive hiked the backcountry many times in my 38 years, but Im still not any good at it. Im frightened every time I set out. When I was 19, on my first trip to the Val Fex, I tried to walk from Splugen to St. Moritz, over the Piz Platta at 13,000 feet, in running shoes not unlike these. I thought that if I went in a straight line, skipping all those seemingly unnecessary switchbacks, it would be only 25 miles. I could do this. I left the trail in the early morning. Fifteen hours later, I stopped; I had traveled roughly eight miles, quite far enough to be terrified. The next morning, after a frost-nipped night on an unmarked ledge, I turned back. I got lost and it took me two more days to return to Splugen. The backcountry is an ideal place for Nietzsches hard questions: What am I trying to escape by making this dangerous trek? What is the point of this risk? Am I really, precisely, this alone? Ive found that the disruptions of going off-road brings them into sharper focus. Am I going to die? Its only a matter of time. The valley below me lit up with late-afternoon light. It began to rain. I know there are far more treacherous and heroic climbs: Everest, Mont Blanc, Kilimanjaro. I also know there are writers who spend not hours but months or years on the trail of self-realization: Cheryl Strayeds Wild and Peter Matthiessens The Snow Leopard spring from such journeys. When I first read these books, I thought the point of arduous walking was to find yourself. And in a certain sense, it is. As Nietzsche says in The Gay Science: What does your conscience say? You should become who you are! For many women, the past year of #MeToo has been a time of intense and often private reflection. Women in the Senate, long a male-dominated backroom-cigar sort of place, have suffered their share of professional reckonings: Although the climate is slowly improving, only 23 senators are women, and the body only recently, and with considerable delay, created a modernized sexual harassment policy. But the workplace culture of the Senate isnt important just on an individual level. As the Kavanaugh hearings bring #MeToo to its most public and political height so far, female Senate aides are both responsible for the outcome of the process and enduring its brutal, and extremely personal, fallout. Last week, I spoke with a number of female midlevel and senior Senate staff members on both sides of the aisle. Nearly all described the Kavanaugh hearings as uniquely wrenching. Its not as though these women are surprised by the intensity of the debate. Some of them have worked on the Hill for decades, experiencing the Anita Hill hearings as well as the 1995 resignation of Senator Bob Packwood after charges of sexual harassment. Looking back at that period, a senior Democratic aide said: I think, how did we live through that? We were so angry. (She, as well as most other sources in this article, spoke on background to discuss private reactions.) But there was an institutional acceptance of harassment at the time everyone knew you didnt get in the Senate elevator alone with Strom Thurmond and anger was mixed with fear. Women were intimidated and werent comfortable coming forward, said Maura Keefe, Senator Jeanne Shaheens chief of staff, who has worked in Congress since the early 1990s. Over the years, several of the women I spoke with experienced off-color comments, uncomfortable jokes or the standard everyday gut-punch of men talking over them in meetings. They, like women everywhere, always, learned well how to paste on a frozen smile or deflect an ugly comment with humor. A senior aide to a Republican senator described a conversation about one of the recent sexual assault scandals, in which her boss said he couldnt believe people close to the alleged perpetrator hadnt known what kind of man he was. The aide shrugged and responded with a non-answer. But privately, she thought, You have no idea what kind of men work for you, having fielded constant pornographic remarks from her male co-workers. The past year has brought some validation to female Senate aides. We never thought there would be any kind of accountability, so to see it happening feels like you can finally exhale, Ms. Keefe said, speaking about the general #MeToo movement. But the scrambling over Judge Kavanaugh has reawakened old traumas while creating some new ones. VICENZA, Italy Vicenza is quaintly medieval at its center, a dense jumble of old butter-toned dwellings along narrow byways that occasionally give way to some of the Renaissances most elegant architecture, but these structures mask an industrial might that has made this small city Italys most productive capital of jewelry. We were born to do this kind of thing, said Roberto Coin, whose namesake company is one of Vicenzas most successful brands worldwide. We were born to create beauty, we were born to create new ideas. Its in our DNA. Its what we know how to do. Nearly 10 percent of the 100,000-plus population is employed in the jewelry sector, and teenagers can replace high school with jewelry studies at the Scuola dArte e Mestieri. The local legacy of jewelry-making predates even the cobbled streets: As far back as 600 B.C., the Vicentini were crafting clothing fasteners, called fibula, and other ornaments in bronze. But it was the 14th century, with its emphasis on craft and guilds (and a 1339 statute recognizing the goldsmiths fraglia, or guild), that crowned Vicenza as a prominent center of the jewelry arts and made its jewelers guild a political force among the nobles and merchants and of city society to this day. Justin Theroux was crouched in the passenger seat of a black Chevrolet Suburban creeping through the Lower East Side of Manhattan, looking exactly like you would expect Justin Theroux to look, wearing a black T-shirt, gold aviators and a black Wu-Tang cap pulled low. It was around 11:30 p.m. on a sweltering Wednesday in August, and he was out on the town with his boys, in this case, the director Cary Joji Fukunaga and the night life impresario Carlos Quirarte. Nights like this happen a lot these days. Mr. Theroux, as you may have heard, is single again. The evening began with a spirited dinner at Lilia, the impossible-to-get-into pasta temple in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn. Conversations touched on fake news (There are now actually people who believe the world is flat, Mr. Theroux said) and D.N.A. ancestry kits (Part Italian, part French, he said, to which Mr. Quirarte added, and 100 percent hot, without missing a beat). Sipping a double Titos with soda and three limes (never two, never four), Mr. Theroux joked that he wanted to keep the giant robotic sex toy that his character wears in Maniac, Mr. Fukunagas mind-melding new Netflix psychological thriller, as a souvenir. As the rest of the tech industry has focused on robotic cars and other contraptions that can navigate roads and warehouse floors, Boston Dynamics, which is owned by the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, has plugged away at machines that can walk through the woods, into a rock quarry, across your home. These robots can climb stairs, said Sangbae Kim, a professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is working on similar machines. They can jump on a table. But if driverless cars are still years away from everyday use, walking robots are even further. Though these machines are shockingly lifelike, they have limits. They can handle some tasks on their own, like spotting a curb and climbing over it. But when moving across unfamiliar spaces, like the parking lot outside the Boston Dynamics lab, they still need a human guide. In person, they stumble and fall more often than they do on YouTube. Walking through the Boston Dynamics lab, Mr. Raibert, 68, wore bluejeans and a Hawaiian shirt, as he does nearly every day. He wants to build robots that can do what humans and animals can do. That was his aim in the early 1980s, when he founded the Leg Lab at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. And it was his aim when he moved the lab to M.I.T. In 2013, Google acquired Boston Dynamics during a broad push toward driverless cars and other robotics. But just four years later, Google, known for its moonshot bets on long-term tech projects, sold Boston Dynamics to SoftBank. Mr. Raibert declined to say how much Google or SoftBank had paid for the company. He said both owners had provided ample funding for its research, and their involvement shows the potential of his work. No machine comes closer to his vision than Atlas, a 165-pound anthropomorphic robot that can run, jump and even do back flips. Mr. Raibert would not let us shoot video of Atlas or other robots while inside the lab. But he did give a brief demonstration of the machine. Mr. Moss, perhaps the epitome of a hacker who has jettisoned anonymity and entered the public sphere, has had an evolving relationship with aliases. Like many of his early online friends, he was interested in hacking and phone phreaking (the manipulation of telecommunications systems) stuff that wasnt really legal, he said. Aliases provided cover for such activity. And every once in a while, he explained if a friend let slip your name, or if you outgrew a juvenile, silly alias youd have to burn your identity and come up with a new name. In my case, I had a couple previous identities, he said, but when I changed to The Dark Tangent, I was making a clear break from my past. Id learned how to manage identities; Id learned how the scene worked. He also remembers when everything changed. During the dot-com boom, many hackers transitioned to real jobs, he said, and so they had to have real names, too. My address book doubled in size, he said with a laugh. And in time, as Defcons popularity ballooned, his list of formal appointments grew, too: membership at the Council on Foreign Relations, a seat on President Obamas Homeland Security Advisory Council. The thing I worry about today, he added, taking a more serious tone, is that people dont get do-overs. Young people now have to contend with the real-name policy on Facebook, he said, along with the ever-hovering threats of facial-recognition software and aggregated data. How are you going to learn to navigate in this world if you never get to make a mistake and if every mistake you do make follows you forever? Rates From $249 a night. The Basics The George, in the New York City suburb of Montclair, N.J., is a collaboration between Bobbi Brown, the founder of the beauty line Bobbi Brown Cosmetics, and her husband, Steven Plofker, a real estate developer. The 32-room property, open since April 1, was originally built in 1902 as the private home of Charles Van Vleck, a wealthy local businessman. In the 1940s, the building was converted into The Georgian Inn, a residential- style hotel that hosted many long-term guests (the property's original name inspired its current one). Mr. Plofker and Ms. Brown bought the property in a run-down condition in 2015 and spent two years modernizing the building, along with restoring many of its original elements such as the stained-glass window in the lobby. The hotels interior now has contemporary furniture and decor and a slightly industrial feel, with touches like exposed brick walls and guest rooms with metal closets. Mr. Plofker and Ms. Brown are longtime Montclair residents, and The George is their first hospitality venture. Were avid travelers and love small hotels with personal touches, Ms. Brown said. We wanted to create one in our hometown . Location Montclair, 12 miles from New York City, is an affluent suburb that is home to producers, artists and other creative types. The George is about a 15-minute walk from downtown Montclair, a vibrant area with restaurants and locally owned boutiques, and near the Montclair Art Museum, which has a notable collection of American and Native American art. New Jersey Transit has several trains a day between Montclair and New York Penn Station; the ride takes from 50 minutes to an hour. WASHINGTON The return on investment for many of the Republican Partys biggest political patrons has been less than impressive this year. But not for Sheldon Adelson. Mr. Adelson, the billionaire casino magnate, and his wife, Miriam, a physician, have emerged as the biggest and potentially most influential contributors to Republicans in the midterm season. Despite initially harboring qualms about President Trumps leadership, the Adelsons have found much to like in a Republican-controlled government that has aligned with their most cherished priorities: unflinchingly pro-Israel, unaccommodating to Middle Eastern adversaries and dedicated to deregulation and lower taxes. Mr. Adelson in particular enjoys a direct line to the president. In private in-person meetings and phone conversations, which occur between the two men about once a month, he has used his access to push the president to move the United States embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and, more recently, cut aid to the Palestinians, according to people familiar with their discussions, who spoke anonymously to discuss private matters. Mr. Trump has done both, triggering a backlash from some American allies. Republican control of the House and the Senate is so vital to maintaining these policies, the Adelsons believe, that they have given $55 million in the last few months to groups dedicated to making sure it stays that way. That makes them not only the largest donors to national Republican electoral efforts in this election cycle, but the biggest spenders on federal elections in all of American politics, according to publicly available campaign finance data. The Chinese received the aircraft in December 2017 and an initial batch of the missile equipment in 2018, the department said. Both were the result of deals negotiated before August 2017 between the Chinese military organization and Rosoboronexport, a state organization that is the main arms exporter of Russia. Such military cooperation between the countries was normal, and in line with international law, said Mr. Wu, the military spokesman, according to the Xinhua report. The State Department said it was imposing the sanctions against Russian and Chinese officials for violating a law enacted by the American government last year to punish Iran, North Korea and Russia for what American officials called hostile behavior. In the case of Russia, the act is intended to punish its military actions in Ukraine and Syria and cyberinterference in the American presidential election of 2016, among other things. Tensions between the United States and China have escalated over a trade war that President Trump and his economic advisers started over the summer. Mr. Trump announced tariffs last week on an additional $200 billion worth of goods from China, prompting China to retaliate by promising to impose similar tariffs on $60 billion worth of goods from the United States. China also canceled trade talks that had been scheduled for this week in Washington. Relations between the countries have grown strained on other fronts. Trump administration officials have scolded China for not doing enough to pressure North Korea over its nuclear program; criticized what they call Chinese military expansionism in the Pacific and Indian Oceans; and are weighing sanctions against Chinese officials for the repression of ethnic Uighurs in the region of Xinjiang, where up to one million Uighurs are being detained in re-education camps. As well, American officials are anxious about Chinese influence in Latin America. This month, the State Department recalled its three chiefs of mission in Panama, the Dominican Republic and El Salvador as a rebuke to those nations, which recently chose to drop diplomatic recognition of Taiwan in favor of recognizing China. The United States has recognized China since 1979, but wants the handful of small countries that recognize Taiwan to continue doing so as a hedge against Chinese power. They said the children of immigrants who are in the United States legally could be the most vulnerable. Indeed, immigrant parents who work low-wage jobs and rely on assistance may need to remove their children from the programs to keep their families together in the United States. Unauthorized immigrants are ineligible for nearly all public benefits. Trump administration officials say the rule is intended to promote fiscal responsibility. Self-sufficiency has been a basic principle of United States immigration law since this countrys earliest immigration statutes, the proposal says. It remains United States policy that the availability of public benefits not constitute an incentive for immigration to the United States. The government has traditionally considered someone who relies on government cash assistance for more than half of his or her income a public charge. Now, however, officials will take into account whether an individual or a family has received any of an assortment of noncash public benefits, such as aid from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps; the Section 8 program, which provides housing assistance; or the Medicare prescription drug program for older adults. This is long overdue, said Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, whose research supports decreased immigration. This country has defined public charge in a fictional way in order to facilitate high levels of low-skilled immigration. But this is simply a 21st-century definition of what public charge is. Officials said that the new rule did not apply to refugees or asylum seekers who enter the country, or to legal immigrants who serve in the military. Cash or other assistance given to the immigrant victims of natural disasters would not be counted against them. Critics of the new rule argue that it deviates from longstanding precedent and from Congresss original intent for the public-charge statute. They also say it violates states rights to provide benefits to children and immigrants experiencing short-term crises. Nearly 20 million children in immigrant families could be affected by the policy changes, according to a report by the Kaiser Family Foundation that examined a draft of the new rule that was even broader than the one announced on Saturday. Almost nine in 10 of those children are United States citizens. From the sexual assault allegations against Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh to developments in the Russia investigation, its been a busy week in American politics. Here are some of the biggest stories this week (and some links if you want to read further). A woman came forward with sexual assault allegations against Judge Kavanaugh Judge Brett M. Kavanaughs nomination for the Supreme Court was thrown into upheaval Sunday after a woman publicly came forward with allegations that he sexually assaulted her more than three decades ago when the two were teenagers. [Read the story] As lawmakers tussled over how to handle the revelations, the woman, Christine Blasey Ford, indicated through her lawyers on Thursday that she would be willing to testify but not this coming Monday, as Republicans had hoped. [Read the story] Initially (and unusually) restrained in response to Ms. Fords allegations, Mr. Trump on Friday questioned Dr. Blaseys credibility, saying that if the attack was as bad as she says, she or her parents would have brought it to the authorities. [Read the story] The amendment also outlined what to do if the president was unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. After suffering a severe stroke, President Woodrow Wilson was virtually incapacitated late in his tenure, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower suffered a heart attack and two other major illnesses. The nightmare situation was a president who was in a coma but could not be removed because there was no provision for it. In the nuclear age, when a commander in chief might have to make world-altering decisions in minutes, that was no longer considered tolerable. The amendment has since been invoked to temporarily transfer power to the vice president during short periods of medical procedures, as when President George W. Bush twice underwent colonoscopies. But only once before has a White House staff been known to seriously contemplate invoking the amendment to permanently replace the president. When President Ronald Reagan appointed former Senator Howard H. Baker Jr. as chief of staff after the Iran-contra scandal broke, the new team arriving in the West Wing heard that the aging president was increasingly inattentive and inept, as a report prepared by a Baker aide put it. White House officials signed Mr. Reagans initials to documents for him. But after Mr. Baker ordered aides to observe the president closely to see if it might be necessary to invoke the 25th Amendment, he came to the conclusion that Mr. Reagan, while older, was still fit. Within a couple days of when we got there, we had this lunch and Senator Baker says, You know, boys, I have no doubt this presidents fully capable of performing the job of president of the United States, recalled Tom Griscom, one of Mr. Bakers aides. As a practical matter, the notion that Mr. Trump would be removed through the 25th Amendment is more opposition fantasy than plausible outcome, absent a significant change in circumstances. The amendment does not define unable to discharge and was devised mainly for a situation when a president had a serious health problem, not for a president whose behavior seems erratic and would fight removal. The amendment can be put to use only if the vice president agrees, and few can imagine Mr. Pence, who has made public loyalty to Mr. Trump his calling card, going along without a more extreme situation. The amendment then requires the support of a majority of the cabinet or some other body designated by Congress. Congress has never designated such a body, leaving the matter to the cabinet. Even if the vice president and a majority of the cabinet were to decide to invoke the amendment, there is an appeals process. The deposed president could inform Congress that he is, in fact, capable of carrying out the duties, and it would require a two-thirds vote of both the House and the Senate to reject that determination and remove him a burden even higher than impeachment, which requires only a majority in the House as well as a two-thirds vote of the Senate for conviction and removal. WASHINGTON A federal court ruled this month that a Montana insurer is entitled to federal compensation for subsidy payments under the Affordable Care Act that President Trump abruptly ended last October, a ruling that could reverberate through insurance markets and cost the government hundreds of millions of dollars. At issue are payments for so-called cost-sharing reductions, discounts that enhance the value of health insurance policies purchased from the Affordable Care Acts marketplaces by reducing deductibles, co-payments and other out-of-pocket costs for low-income consumers. President Trump ended the payments in October, one of a series of executive actions intended to undo President Barack Obamas signature domestic achievement. But Judge Elaine D. Kaplan of the United States Court of Federal Claims said this month that Mr. Trumps actions violated a government promise to insurance companies participating in the health law. Although Congress never explicitly provided money for the subsidies, the court said, the government had a legal obligation to pay them. The statutory language clearly and unambiguously imposes an obligation on the government to reimburse insurers for the discounts they were required to provide to low- and middle-income people, Judge Kaplan said in her decision. NAIROBI, Kenya A day after the Tanzanian authorities said they were unlikely to locate any more survivors from a ferry that capsized in Lake Victoria, an engineer who worked aboard the vessel was discovered alive in an apparent air pocket inside the overturned boat, the authorities said on Saturday. Divers rescued the engineer from the ferry, the MV Nyerere, on Saturday morning, nearly two full days after the vessel overturned, the countrys minister for communication, transport and infrastructure, Isack Kamwewle, said on the state-run Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation. By Saturday afternoon, the authorities said the death toll had climbed to 209 people, according to the broadcaster. The precise number of passengers on board has been difficult to pin down. Although the ferry had an official capacity of only 100 people, it may have been carrying three times that number of passengers when it overturned, according to some estimates. MONTREAL Rosalie Pelchat is typical of the younger generation of Quebecers here. She switches effortlessly from French to English. She spends hours each day surfing Facebook or watching Netflix in the language of Shakespeare. And, like many of her generation, she is uninterested in fighting for an independent Quebec. We dont feel the same insecurity about language as our parents generation did, Ms. Pelchat, a 17-year-old science student, said in the cafeteria at College de Maisonneuve, a Francophone college. We are better off economically in Canada and open to the world. Talk of independence is a total turnoff. As Quebecers prepare to go to the polls on Oct. 1 in provincial elections, the polarizing issue of whether the province should secede from Canada has been sidelined for the first time in decades. It underscores how the culture wars of the past have shifted in this Francophone province where language and culture are deeply bound up with identity. Instead of focusing on Quebecs independence, the campaign has been dominated by talk of education, health care and, especially, immigration. The center-right party is trying to appeal to Quebecers by proposing that the provinces autonomy be preserved by limiting immigration and imposing a values test and a French language test on newcomers. Gunmen killed at least 25 people and wounded 60 on Saturday in an attack on a military parade in a restive Iranian province that is home to most of the countrys Arab minority, state media said. The Islamic Republic News Agency reported the casualty figures at the parade in Ahvaz in southwestern Iran, and added that, with many of the wounded in critical condition, the death toll was expected to rise. The dead and injured were a mix of members of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and civilian onlookers, semiofficial news agencies reported. They included families that had gathered to watch the annual military parade. The reports said that there were four gunmen wearing military uniforms and that security forces had killed two and captured the other two. Ears Wide Open By Kim Tingley A modern building of cedar, stone, steel and glass, set in a wooded sanctuary, houses the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, N.Y. On a wet morning in August, I visited the office of Mike Webster, the director of the labs Macaulay Library, home to one of the most comprehensive collections of natural-sound recordings in the world. Webster is a biologist who studies sexual selection and mating behavior in wild birds, and that includes the question of how their songs evolve. Decoding birdcalls and songs has always been a crucial component of ornithological research, but scientists are also increasingly analyzing the acoustics of many other species as a way to measure their health and that of their habitats. The Macaulay Library is not a real good name, Webster told me. A better way of thinking about what we are is as a biological research collection or museum. In most places, you have skins and bones. Specimens capture traits over time. But traits that are not captured are behavior. So were like a collection of behavior. As Webster searched the Macaulay database for samples to play, it struck me that I had so far considered him and his lab only visually: Id noticed the striking architecture, all the trees, the slate-colored sky, along with his beard, his plaid shirt and the friendly-seeming crinkles around his eyes. And though the pitter-pat of the rain and the tone of Websters voice undoubtedly shaded those impressions, I was not aware of their doing so. Nor, if I had been, would I have had much of a vocabulary to translate those sounds into print. Part of the reason for this is straightforward biology: As primates, we tend to see better than we hear. Culturally, a preponderance of visual communications (street signs, books, body language, Tinder) reinforce this preference for sight. But another, more complicated reason has to do with what sound is and is not. I can play a heartbreaking one for you, I heard Webster say, followed by a click. Consider that click, remarkable in its onomatopoetic ordinariness. We know instantly where it came from: Websters mouse. Or did it? Depending on your philosophical bent, it could have also come from his finger, or the movement of his finger against the mouse, or a burst of energy traveling outward from the mouse through the air in waves, or from the vibration of the drums in Websters and my ears in a manner our brains registered as click. It could have originated as all of these; in that case, is it still a finite unit from inception through reception? Defining that click invisible, temporary, a byproduct of an event that ended the moment it began prompts us to re-examine our concept of reality in a way that looking does not. This is what sound is, Michel Chion, a French composer and filmmaker, writes in Sound: An Acoulogical Treatise, this coming and going where something has moved in the meantime, between the coming and the going. In short, sound is, by its very nature, not an object but a journey through space and time. Paradoxically, the photographs on the following pages, accompanied by recordings, are fixed. They are defined by the page, whereas sound has no similar boundary. We see them in the present tense, but we listen (always, but doubly so with recordings) to the past. What, then, can a picture tell us about a sound what can looking teach us about listening and vice versa? One answer is that the evanescence of sound underscores the inevitability of loss and, in turn, deepens our capacity to appreciate what is beautiful to be surprised. Click. Strains of discrete, flutelike notes filled the room. I heard them as playful, cheerful, until Webster explained that they were the voice of a long-dead bird, captured on tape back in 1976. Kauai Oo, Webster said between calls, naming the extinct Hawaiian species, whose mating pairs duetted. This is the last one ever recorded. Hes waiting for someone to respond. Humans are a visual species except, crucially, at our beginning and end. In terms of development, hearing is one of the first things that turns on, Aaron Rice, a bioacoustics researcher at Cornell, pointed out, referring to our time in the womb, when, at about 15 weeks, we begin to develop the ability to hear the swishing, thumping cacophony of our mothers body. They tell emergency medical services to always keep talking to a victim, because hearing is the last thing to turn off. Our middle ears and those of countless other creatures originated as the gill- and jawbones of fish and help us balance ourselves. Below 20 hertz, we stop hearing a sound and start feeling it as vibration. Hearing is a way of touching at a distance, the Canadian composer and environmentalist R. Murray Schafer writes in The Tuning of the World, and the intimacy of the first sense is fused with sociability whenever people gather together to hear something special. Eons ago, as early mammals grappled with the challenges of finding insects among the foliage of dimly lit forests, they evolved large, front-facing eyes and bigger brains, which eventually led to the dependence on sight for orientation and communication among modern humans and other primates. Storytelling, though, remained an oral tradition in the West until the advent of the printing press in the 15th century. Over the next 400 years or so, the eye gained an advantage as a collector, retainer and disseminator of information. Then the arrival of Thomas Edisons phonograph offered a widespread way to record and play back sound. As audio recording gradually improved, musicians were among the earliest to appreciate what this new technology could reveal about the natural world. In the 1990s, Bernie Krause, a soundscape ecologist and former professional musician, put forward the hypothesis, now generally accepted, that each creature in a given soundscape occupies an acoustic niche, a finite bandwidth at a certain frequency and time of day or night, ensuring that it can be heard. By comparing spectograms visualizations of sound of recordings he made at various sites over years and even decades, he began to show that masking an animals bandwidth with human noise could be tantamount to bulldozing its physical habitat. Around the same time, Christopher W. Clark, whose musical background included training as a choirboy, founded a bioacoustics laboratory at Cornell and enlisted colleagues there in linguistics, engineering, anthropology and other disciplines to help him develop a language to describe the ineffable qualities of music and the recordings that biologists were bringing back from the field, some of which were inaudible to the naked ear. Mayflies stridulating on a weed stem sounds like jug band, Clark says. Speed up the blue whales song 60 times, and you hear the rhythm. Perhaps the greatest value of eavesdropping on these previously unheard utterances, Clark and other bioacousticians felt, was the chance it offered people who were neither scientists nor musicians to connect with other beings. The biology of sound in land, sea and skies, the magnificence of the living symphony everybody gets it in terms of music, he says. Though our ears, unlike our eyes, are open at all times, we often fail to perceive consciously what we hear. In the 1960s, Schafer urged university students in an experimental-music class he was teaching to notice the sounds of their own environment and the sounds they themselves inject into their environment voices, breath, the rustling of fabric, the scratching of a pencil. He gave them ear cleaning assignments: Write down everything you hear; try to find silence; tape a conversation, replay it and note sounds you did not intentionally record. Before we train a surgeon to perform delicate operations, we first ask him to get into the habit of washing his hands, he pointed out. Ears also perform delicate operations, and therefore ear cleanliness is an important prerequisite for all music listening and music playing. Greater acoustic awareness, however, comes at a price. Go to the most peaceful place you can think of, and try Schafers exercises; odds are it will never seem quite as peaceful again. And in fact, a collaborative study by the Natural Sounds and Night Skies division of the National Park Service has documented that human-made noise has doubled the background sound-level volume in more than half of its protected areas, disrupting wildlife and detracting from the experience of visitors who are, of course, making much of that noise themselves. In humans, prolonged exposure to noise has been linked with cardiovascular problems, heightened stress levels, decreased immune-system function and cognitive impairments, as well as feelings of helplessness that are a risk factor for depression. Researchers have also found that what we hear changes what we see. People who look at photos of national-park vistas while listening to natural sound rate them significantly higher in terms of scenic beauty, freedom, tranquillity and such qualities than they do when the same images are paired with noise from motorcycles, snowmobiles or plane propellers, according to a joint study by Colorado State University, Penn State University and the natural-sounds division. Even so, we continue to elevate landscapes at the expense of soundscapes: To wit, motorcycles, snowmobiles and planes are vehicles that national-park visitors use to sightsee; onboard, those visitors are unable to hear a thing outside their own acoustic bubbles. Recently, I sought advice from Davyd Betchkal, a soundscape technician and biologist with the natural-sounds division for the Alaska region: What insights could readers could hope to glean from a photography issue devoted to hearing? He directed me to Chion and his fellow filmmaker Walter Murch, specifically to a remark by Murch published in 2005: You have to invoke the possibility of the sound. You cant simply be silent and say, This silence is great; instead, you have to imagine the hundred musicians onstage in order for their silence to mean anything. You have to work with the psychic pressure exerted by the instruments or sounds that are not playing. This is the underpinning of what I try to do with sound, which is to evoke the individual imagination of each member of the audience. The potential of those musicians or volcanoes, or bats, or sand dunes can be conjured with a photograph. But with the development of recording devices capable of operating by themselves in the field for weeks and even months at a stretch, researchers have also begun to capture sounds whose origin is completely unknown, and thus for which not even a mental image exists. At Cornell, Holger Klinck, the director of the ornithology labs bioacoustics research program, played me recordings he made in Antarctica. Youre standing on the ice, a flat sheet of ice, everything is white or blue, theres nothing going on, maybe a few penguins, he told me. Put the hydrophone in the water, and you think youre in a freaking jungle. Many of the sounds the laser-gun-like glissandos of the Weddell seal; the drumroll-to-static collision of two icebergs have been identified. Others an elephantine bellow, a guttural moaning, a sustained foghorn remain a mystery. These sounds in particular, out of context and untethered to images, create a unique version of the psychic pressure Murch describes: a visceral sense of the physical power required to bring them about and, in the formlessness of that power, an awareness of the vast scale at which so much else has come and gone, and continues to come and go, without our notice. Recording offers ecologists and others a chance to preserve pristine acoustic environments for posterity and make the public case for saving them from extinction. The idea for the Macaulay Library came in the late 1920s, with the emergence of talking films, a medium that invented novel techniques for artificially coupling images and sounds to elicit emotion. Until then, Murch has written, sounds seemed to be the inevitable and accidental (and therefore mostly ignored) accompaniment of the visual stuck like a shadow to the object that caused them. ... Recording magically lifted the shadow away from the object and stood it on its own. Early reel-to-reel recorders weighed upward of 15 pounds, and because each reel lasted 30 minutes at most, a biologist had to lug mountains of tape into the field too. Advances in technology have significantly decreased the size of recording equipment while exponentially increasing the amount of data they can store; the challenge for bioacoustics researchers now is analyzing the vast quantities of sound they can capture. They are also seeking ways to use that information in real time. For instance, Cornell has buoys in Massachusetts Bay that record underwater 24/7 and process that data automatically; if they detect the acoustic signature of an endangered right whale, they alert an analyst at the lab who can post a warning for nearby ships, say, to slow down, warding off potentially fatal collisions. But the magic trick that the Macaulays natural-sound recordings perform, of asking us to consider what we hear in our surroundings independently of what we see, has existential implications for us all. Eleanor Ratcliffe, an environmental psychologist at Imperial College London who has shown that people perceive bird song as having restorative effects, told me that her subjects often shared anecdotes of bird song in which the sound seemed to color the passage of time, connecting them to memories of growing up and important life events. Jacob Job, a recordist for the park services natural-sounds division, told me that when park visitors see him out with his parabolic-dish microphone, they frequently ask what hes doing. When he explains that hes making an acoustical snapshot (a mixed metaphor that signals the complex relationship between sight and sound and memory), they almost always respond with descriptions of sounds from their own lives. Sound, he said, evokes emotion and memory so well. Indeed, not long after speaking with him, on a visit to my Florida hometown, a friend and I were reminiscing about a hurricane that hit there in August 2004. The storm knocked the power out for days even weeks, in some spots: Refrigerators ceased humming; radios, televisions and air-conditioners fell silent. It took a while for people to acquire generators, and for that first night, at least, we were quiet and exposed. The sound of the place we had always lived in permeated our dark homes: a cacophonous chirping and trilling so intense it seemed impossible that we had been oblivious to it before and would become so again as soon as our appliances came back to life. In our memories, the strangeness of that soundscape defines the event frightening, magnificent and lends its chaos meaning: We were able, in the absence of our own noise, to hear how mighty and resilient life on our planet is, how vulnerable and temporary we are. Center Parcs recently announced that it will host two public recruitment information days for prospective employees on Friday, 12th and Saturday 13th October in Longford Rugby Club. Center Parcs is starting to recruit for the 1,000 permanent roles that will be required to power the much anticipated Center Parcs Longford Forest premium short stay resort when it opens in Summer 2019. The events will take place from 10.00am 7.00pm on Friday, 12th and from 10am 4pm on Saturday 13th and provide prospective employees the opportunity to meet with current Center Parcs employees and find out first hand what is required to become a Center Parcs employee. A 30-strong Center Parcs team comprising of existing UK staff, the growing Center Parcs Ireland team and Center Parcs UK senior management will attend on both days. The team of employees will represent all segments of the business including; leisure, retail, catering, technical services and much more. They will be on hand to talk to prospective candidates and bring to life what its like to work at Center Parcs. Candidates are advised that CVs can be submitted online to the Center Parcs careers portal at www.centerparcscareers.ie as these information days are not designed for accepting applications. The focus is on outlining what roles and opportunities exist at Center Parcs Ireland and what qualities, skills and experience is desirable amongst potential candidates. Commenting ahead of the Recruitment Open days, Daragh Feighery, General Manager of Center Parcs Longford Forest, said: These events mark yet another key milestone for Center Parcs in Ireland. Were very excited about hosting these recruitment information days to outline our employment plans and the 1,000 careers on offer at Center Parcs Longford Forest ahead of opening next year." "Most of our employees live locally so we are expecting great interest in the roles. There is no need for people to bring CVs on the day as all future news and applications for employment will be available at centerparcscareers.ie. Center Parcs Longford Forest is due to open in Summer 2019. Once operational, the forest holiday village will have capacity for up to 2,500 guests. Center Parcs estimates that the new holiday village will add approximately 32 million to Irish GDP per annum, having a transformative impact on Co. Longford and the surrounding midlands region. The Most Extensive and Reliable Source of Information Related to the Mexican Drugs Cartels. You will not find this level of coverage anywhere else, join us! Send information, pictures or videos, you remain 100% anonymous. Envia fotos, videos, notas, enlaces o informacion todo 100% Anonimo. Want to be a contributor or citizen reporter for Borderland Beat? We love to have you in our team, send Sol Prendido or HEARST an email! WARNING: Posts may contain strong violent material, discretion is advised. COMMENTS: We do not publish all comments, and we do not publish comments immediately. Utica, N.Y. CoveyCS, a software strategy and automation consultant, and software development company, has promoted team members Keith Fosmire and Joshua Locash. Fosmire has been promoted to a full-time software developer. He joined CoveyCS in 2017 as an intern from SUNY Oswegos Computer Science program. Fosmire is a U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army veteran, who served his country through six deployments throughout the Middle East and a tour in South Korea. His goals, as a developer with CoveyCS, are to hone his software development skills and participate in projects with his team. Fosmire and his wife, Alisa, plan to start a family. Locash has been promoted from intern to full-time software developer. He is currently studying computer science at Mohawk Valley Community College and looks forward to graduating with his associates degree. After graduation, Locash plans to pursue his bachelors degree at Suny Polytechnic Institute. His goals, while studying and working at CoveyCS, are to continue improving as a developer. In his free time, Locash enjoys kayaking, fishing, and playing video games, and working on personal projects. I am very excited and thankful to be given such an opportunity, Locash said. Ever since I realized that I wanted to be a software developer, I have strived to work my hardest and learn as much as I can, and I couldnt ask for a better place to begin my career. I cannot wait to see what challenges lie ahead. BWSSB tanker releases sewage directly into a stormwater drain Bengaluru oi-Chennabasaveshwar P Bengaluru, Sep 22: The video of a BWSSB tanker releasing sewage directly into a stormwater drain in front of Hosmat Hospital in Bengaluru went viral. Lakshmikanth M, who works with United Bengaluru, uploaded the video on Twitter. The video clip was retweeted several times. As on Saturday evening, it garnered over 2,500 views. "This is how our lakes are getting diluted. What I saw on Wednesday explains why Bellanduru is getting polluted," Lakshmikantha tweeted, raising alerts across social media. Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar brought the issue to the attention of Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy and calling the incident as result of the 'inept, corrupt and callous' coalition government. Suburban trains to cost more than expected for Bengalureans Violation of NGT order: The blatant violation of law comes even after the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has imposed Rs five lakh fine discharge of waste in lakes and rajakaluves in Bengaluru. The tribunal held CEOs and the Senior most Officers of the Lake Development Authority, Pollution Control Board and the Bangalore Development Authority responsible compliance of the order in its 2017 verdict. Will Bengaluru be pothole free by today? HC fixes deadline The NGT verdict clearly stated, "No waste of any kind including municipal solid waste or C&D or domestic waste shall be dumped into the lake or on the buffer zone of the lake which we have already fixed in terms of our judgement dated 04th May, 2016. If anybody is found to be dumping waste of any kind either in the lake or in its buffer zone, shall be liable to pay environmental compensation of Rs. 5 Lakh per event. The CEOs and the Senior most Officers of the Lake Development Authority, Pollution Control Board and the Bangalore Development Authority, shall be personally responsible for compliance of this order, without default and delay." For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, September 22, 2018, 19:04 [IST] A Hizbul terrorists lifespan is just one year and we have the SPOs of Kashmir to thank India oi-Vicky Nanjappa Srinagar, Sep 22: On Friday, the Valley witnessed the killing of three policemen. After being abducted by the Hizbul Mujahideen, the three special officers were killed by terrorists, sending shock waves across the country. Incidentally the the killings come just three days after the terrorist outfit had posted a video calling for the resignation of all police officers, especially the special police officers (SPO). In the video message, the Hizbul targets the SPOs in particular. It says that it would kill policemen, especially the SPOs if they do not resign within four days. The SPOs are recruited by the police on a fixed monthly renumeration of Rs 6,000. Also Read | True colours out: Pakistan issues postal stamp glorifying Burhan Wani as freedom fighter They form a very important part of the police force, especially when it comes to gathering local intelligence. There are around 30,000 SPOs in Jammu and Kashmir and their services are being renewed from time to time. Why are the SPOs targeted: As mentioned above, they form a crucial part of the police team. They gather the intelligence from the ground, which is then shared both with the police as well as the Army. This is the intelligence that has led to the precision killing of terrorists in the Valley in the past one year. Also Read | Spooked over pinpointed intelligence, here is why Hizbul wants cops targeted Take for instance, the case of Shopina, which is infested with terrorists. This year, statistics reveal that 28 terrorists were killed in Shopian alone. This is thanks to the precise intelligence that has been gathered with the help of the SPOs. The SPOs work on a honorarium and it was in January that it had been doubled to Rs 6,000. The decision was taken to boost the morale of the SPOs, who play a vital role in combating terrorism in the state. A change in pattern: Back in the 1990s, when terrorism was at its peak, the terrorists did not target police personnel. In fact they tried to win them over rather than trying to kill them. Following the restoration of normalcy in the Valley in the late 1990s, the police had become extremely active and the local cops were able to get pin-pointed information. The other forces in the Valley do not have their routes in the state. Hence it becomes extremely difficult for them to get information easily. This is when the SPOs and other local police personnel came in handy to deliver on the intelligence front. It became easier for the cops to gather information Kashmir is a very interactive and closely integrated society. The police have always known, who is the terrorist and who is not. Also Read | Desperate Hizbul tells Kashmir cops to resign in 4 days or face death In the recent wave of encounters, the speciality was that they were pin-pointed. The security forces rely heavily on the ground level intelligence from the local cops as a result of which they have not just gunned down ordinary terrorists, but top commanders as well. The former chief of the Research and Analysis Wing, C D Sahay tells OneIndia that every operation of the forces has been backed by pin-point information, which has been given by the local police. What is more important is that real-time information is being fed and this has helped neutralise terrorists with ease, Sahay also explains. What is more important is that this sort of intelligence has reduced the lifespan of Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists to less than a year, he also says. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, September 22, 2018, 16:56 [IST] BJP to unleash campaign for Citizenship Amendment Bill to help persecuted Hindus and non-Muslim India oi-Vinod Kumar Shukla New Delhi, Sep 22: As the matter was very extensively discussed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in its national executive meeting in Delhi, now the party is about to launch a mass reach out programme over the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill. The Bill facilitates Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan eligible for Indian citizenship. Sources said that the BJP asked all its chief ministers to get all provisions of the proposed Bill to be translated into local languages of their state, get them printed as pamphlets and distribute them to people. There are a big number of persecuted refuges living in India as illegal migrants. This is to recall that the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha in 2016, but it got stuck because of strong opposition from different quarters. As per the existing provisions of the Citizenship Act, 1955, the applicant must have lived in India during the past 12 months and for 11 of the previous 14 years to apply for Indian citizenship. But the amendment proposes to replace the 11-year clause to six years for people belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jains, Parsi and Christian communities. 2019 Lok Sabha Election: NRC, Citizenship bill on BJP's agenda Sources said that the national BJP president Amit Shah discussed this outreach programme at a meeting with chief ministers of the BJP-ruled states in New Delhi last month. Shah spoke about it in the national executive and many other forums. The BJP president has strongly backed the bill in the past and has asked the Opposition political parties to clear their stand on this issue. A BJP leader said that the programme was targeted at the northeastern states, West Bengal, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan where lots of such people are living. However, a huge number of Hindu refugees like in Madhya Pradesh and many other parts of the country including Delhi. Sources said that the Bill is also being opposed by certain other quarters for Muslims not included in it by saying that Shia and Ahmadia too are persecuted but the BJP was of the view that persecuted people from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh are given citizenship who don't have any other place to look at. Also Read | Will Modi govt be able to ignore strong protests against Citizenship Amendment Bill in Assam? BJP critiques say that it was a deliberate move to throw Muslims out and Hindus in with the help of National Citizenship Register and Citizenship Bill but the BJP leaders say that NRC is very important on many counts as it is not only impacting demographic change in the country but impacting cultural and linguistic change besides posing threat to national security. NRC is meant for identifies infiltrators from Bangladesh while the citizenship bill talks about citizenship to persecuted Hindus and non-Muslim minorities. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, September 22, 2018, 9:42 [IST] BJP versus JD(S): Political war escalates in Karnataka; no end in sight India oi-Deepika S Bengaluru, Sep 22: The war of words between Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy, who is struggling to keep the coalition intact and BJP chief BS Yeddyurappa for the last few days has reached a peak leading to fluid political situation in Karnataka. While JD(S) sought the speaker's intervention to foil BJP attempts to get ruling party MLAs to resign, the BJP urged the governor to take steps to prosecute Kumaraswamy under the sedition law for saying he would have to ask people to revolt against the saffron party if it persisted with attempts to destablise the government. "You are aware of efforts of the BJP to poach Congress and JD(S) MLAs by offering huge money," JD(S) spokesperson Ramesh Babu said in a letter to speaker. "Many MLAs are on record on this. In a democracy, MLAs resigning due to the lure of money is a shameful act. We request you not to allow any MLA to resign under pressure, duress or for any kind of allurement." MLC polls: Is Karnataka Congress staring at another dissent? Continuing his attack on Karnataka CM, Yeddyurappa on Saturday termed the attempts of the Chief Minister calling the people to 'revolt' against the BJP as " Nero was fiddling when Rome was burning. The Farm loan waiver announced by the government was farce,'' he alleged. He said when Farmers in the State commiting suicide, ''our Chief minister H.D.Kumaraswamy is roaming around the state visiting temples and attacking Opposition BJP to suppress his failures. Whenever BJP and I criticised him on his failure to govern the state and mitigate farmers and poor peoples sufferings , he comes out with an alibi that BJP is trying to destabilise his government''. Karnataka: Govt formation in sight, BJP says Yeddyurappa will take final call The former Chief Minister said Karnataka was facing a grim situation on the farm and peoples front but Kumaraswamy failed to address the concerns of the farmers and common people. It all started when Kumaraswamy, in a fit of anger had asked the people to revolt against the BJP for trying to topple his Government but later he said his statement was misquoted. Yeddyurappa too charged JD(S) and Kumaraswamy as commission agents. BWSSB tanker releases sewage directly into a stormwater drain The BJP termed the use of the word 'revolt' as "seditious" and appealed to Governor Vajubhai Vala to initiate action against the CM. Soon after the CM's statement, there was a snap protest by a few Congress workers at the residence of BJP state president BS Yeddyurappa. The saffron party has also threatened to take legal action against Kumaraswamy. Operation Kamala surfaces The Congress and HD Kumaraswamy's JDS has alleged that the BJP is trying to destabilise its three-month-old alliance government in Karnataka by attempting to poach on its lawmakers. JDS leader and minister Sa Ra Mahesh has told reporters that the BJP has been trying to pull another "Operation Kamala" -- a term coined in 2008 when the BJP, three seats short of majority, had managed to secure support of lawmakers from rival parties and form the government. Sedition charges against Kumaraswamy Countering the JDS, the BJP approached Governor Vajubhai Vala and DGP Neelamani N Raju with whom it filed a complaint of sedition against the chief minister, besides staging a protest against HD Kumaraswamy over his remarks. In their letter to the Governor, the BJP demanded that he take action to prosecute the chief minister for his statement 'to wage a war'. Congress, JD(S) draw up plan to tackle BJP threat Alliance partners Congress and the JD(S) have chalked out a plan to keep their house in order and to prevent the BJP from poaching their legislators. Both parties want to make sure all legislators are together, especially ahead of the crucial Legislative Council bypolls. The alliance partners are apprehensive of cross-voting because secret ballots will be used. Top coalition leaders, including Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Siddaramaiah and Water Resources Minister D K Shivakumar, discussed ways to deal with the situation at the latter's residence Friday. Siddaramaiah- go-to-man during crisis The political crisis that has pushed the coalition government to the brink seems to have come as a blessing in disguise for former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. With the Congress itself assigning him the task of defusing the crisis hours after he returned from his Europe trip, the developments have helped him reassert his position as the party's "go-to man" in Karnataka. Kumaraswamy advised to be careful with his words Some Congress leaders and Ministers are said to have expressed their displeasure with Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy's statement calling for a "revolt" against the BJP for its alleged attempts to topple the government. They have reportedly told the CM that such a statement would damage the image of the party and the government. Former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is also said to be unhappy with the turn of events, and has told Kumaraswamy to mind is words when speaking to the media. Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president Dinesh Gundu Rao said there was "no need to make a big issue" out of the comment. He pointed out that many BJP leaders, including K.S. Eshwarappa, Nalin Kumar Kateel, Shobha Karandlaje, and Union Minister Anantkumar Hegde, have made controversial statements in the past. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, September 22, 2018, 22:39 [IST] Congress anti-BJPism turned into anti-Hinduism, tells book on Ayodhya India oi-Vinod Kumar Shukla By Vinod Kumar Shukla New Delhi, Sep 22: The book by senior journalist Hemant Sharma Yudhdh Me Ayodhya released in the presence of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national president Amit Shah and Union Home minister Rajnath Singh recently tells that the Ram Janmabhoomi Temple movement was mediated with the Congress by respectable saint Deoraha Baba and the then PM was convinced about temple construction but he was opposed by the then chief minister of Uttar Pradesh Narayan Dutta Tiwari. It was Vishwa Hindu Parishad that had made Deoraha Baba mediator and he got the then PM convinced for the building of Ram Temple at the place where the VHP was demanding for it. Declare support for Ram Temple, BJP dares Congress As per the book Deoraga Baba had gone to Vrindavan to meet Rajiv Gandhi and told him that temple should be built there. He requested him to get stone laying done without changing the venue that was agreed upon. He called up Shrish Chandra Dikshit of the VHP to assure him that the PM agreed upon to allow stone laying at the place where the VHP wanted. It had happened later on which was decided in the meeting. Both the groups were having full faith in Baba. But suddenly chief minister of Uttar Pradesh Narayan Dutt Tiwari took a different view and refused to obey the PM. Rajiv Gandhi wanted the state government to tell the court that the place where stone laying had happened is not the disputed site but Tiwari did not agree to it. After him Kamala Pati Tripathi also revolted against Rajiv Gandhi. Elections happened and the Congress was confined to 15 seats in Uttar Pradesh. Take Ram mandir issue 'seriously' after Bhagwat comments: Sena to Modi govt The book also says that all non-BJP political parties passed a resolution that the government must not allow stone laying ceremony in Ayodhya. Babri Masjid Action Committee was of the view that the land on which stone laying was supposed to be done that was plot no 586 a cemetery. Meanwhile, Justice V M Tarkunde filed a writ petition to stop stone laying and Shila Yatra which was rejected by the Supreme Court saying that taking out religious procession is fundamental right of people. The government wanted stone laying to take place but on a changed venue in its attempt to hit two birds by one stone. The government even offered another piece of land. The book further mentions that the Ramjanmabhooomi movement was continuing for very long and the VHP was reaching out to people by stone relics but the person working from the background was Moropant Pingle. Pingle was constantly trying to get people connected with this movement emotionally. He was the real strategist for the Ram Janmabhoomi temple who was called Field Marshal of the Ramjanmabhoomi movement. He got 2 crore people connected with the movement. This was the first such movement that has so intensely done by reaching maximum household. Actually the Congress got entangled into the agenda of the BJP as the date of Shila Pujan was November 9 and election date has been declared as November 22-24. Prime Minister P V Narsimha is quoted in the book that the BJP started looking for Hindutva agenda after 1985 and the Congress was under the agenda of umbrella. Congress' anti-BJPism has turned into anti-Hinduism and the Congress got stuck into the BJP's agenda resulting into a perception building for the common man who has thinking the BJP is the only saviors of Hindu religion. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, September 22, 2018, 20:27 [IST] Congress trying to turn tide of upper caste anger in its favour by more tickets to community in MP India oi-Vinod Kumar Shukla New Delhi, Sep 22: The Congress in Madhya Pradesh is trying to take advantage of the palpable anger of the upper caste community with the government in the state. Even discussion at the three-day long Congress screening committee meeting in Delhi has been centered around this issue only and the leadership has reached a point where the Congress might give more tickets to upper caste candidates in the state. Actually the recent developments caused a sharp division among different communities and anger among the upper castes. Moreover the protest movement led by the upper cast communities had its visible impact in Madhya Pradesh where it had caused divide even among the officials and workers in the government. Officials in the MP government secretariat got emotionally driven by this movement and university and colleges did not remain unaffected with this movement rather providing support and resources for it. Also Read | Missing: Digvijaya Singh does not feature on Congress posters in MP Interestingly the big Congress leaders are tolerating even harsh words and abuses of the upper caste demonstrators in the want of their votes who have always been tilted towards the BJP. However, the BJP leaders and ministers got force used against the upper caste demonstrators outside their houses and programmes of the BJP while the Congress leaders were deliberately tolerating them. None of the Congress leaders lodged any campaign against the upper caste demonstrators while they too were targeted. Sources said that when the home ministry officials and police spoke to the Congress leaders for any action against these demonstrators, but the Congress leaders refused. The Congress leaders are secretly meeting officials, lawyers and intellectuals from the upper caste and expressing their sympathy. The Congress leaders have been indirectly asked its leaders to refrain from using words like Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and Dalits. Small and the big Congress leaders have been following this order from the past two weeks. Also Read | Resentment of upper caste becomes a major cause of concern for the BJP It is also being said that the Congress has stopped organising any programme for the scheduled castes at least for the time being. The Scheduled Caste Cell of the party has not only been confined to the reserve seats in the state Assembly but have been asked to silently work and campaign instead of making much a hullabaloo. A senior Congress leader said that this is part of the election strategy. The upper caste communities might be appealing to push NOTA button but one must understand that their anger is against BJP not the Congress. Will be taken up at highest level: India on unprovoked killing of fisherman by Pakistan How Pakistan stage managed the attacks on cops to derail talks with India India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Sep 22: The unfortunate killings of a BSF jawan and three special police officers derailed the foreign minister level talks. India made it clear that with such intentions there can be no question of talks with Pakistan. The calling off of the talks comes on expected lines and this has been an old dirty trick by Pakistan. They usually tend to show to the world that they want peace with India and while everything is agreed upon, they orchestrate a barbaric attack, knowing fully well that the talks would be called of. Also Read | Kashmir: Behind the resignation drama of cops,some disgruntled elements and Hizbul's propaganda wing A top official in New Delhi said that India approached the talks with the right intention. However after these attacks, it became more or less clear that Pakistan was never serious about the talks. It also went on to show that Pakistan Prime Minister is a puppet in the hands of the army and ISI, the officer also noted. These attacks after the talks were announced were pre-planned. The attacks on the police personnel in Kashmir in particular was timed in such a way that the talks would be called of. It is not for the first time that such occurrences have taken place. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a surprise visit to Pakistan and extended his hand of friendship, the ISI and army hit back by carrying out the attack at Pathankot. Also Read | J&K: All 3 cops kidnapped by terrorists found dead in Shopian; several resignation videos emerge India did act maturely and ensured that the dialogue process would not stop as a result of this attack. The National Security Advisors continued to stay in touch and even met several times at neutral venues. While the government in Pakistan at that time ensured that the dialogue process continued, the army there upped the ante and staged back to back attacks in Kashmir. The Uri attack was one such strike, which ultimately led to India launching a surgical strike. An Intelligence Bureau official explained to OneIndia that the pattern was very visible. On Tuesday the Hizbul Mujahideen circulated a video threatening to kill policemen in J&K, if they did not quit their post within four days. Barely 70 hours later, the terrorist group abducted three police personnel and killed them. This was clearly pre-planned the officer said and was done only with the intention of derailing talks, the official said. The ISI and army does not want peace with India as they have to keep their terrorists happy. Moreover when talks are held, the first pre-condition by India would be to curb terror and allow peace on the borders. Both these conditions have never been met by Pakistan. Also Read | True colours out: Pakistan issues postal stamp glorifying Burhan Wani as freedom fighter Moreover when such attacks happen, India is bound to cancel talks stating that talks and terror cannot go together. Pakistan would then argue that it was India that called off the talks, despite it extending a hand of friendship. Officials in India say that this has been their old trick. While at first, many nations did agree with their point, today it has become too blatant. The trick is outdated now, the officer also added. The MEA statement: "Since yesterday, the announcement of a meeting between foreign ministers of India and Pakistan, two deeply disturbing developments have taken place. The brutal killing of our security personnel by Pakistan entities and the recent release of series of 20 postal stamps by Pakistan in which it had glorified terrorists, has forced India to cancel the talks." For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, September 22, 2018, 13:21 [IST] Indians are convinced that our Prime Minister is corrupt: Rahul Gandhi India oi-Pushyarag Shetty New Delhi, Sep 22: "We're absolutely convinced that the Prime Minister of India is corrupt. This question is now clearly settled in the mind of the Indian people that 'desh ka chowkidaar' chor hai," said Rahul Gandhi, Congress party president as he came out all guns blazing against Prime Minister Modi regarding the alleged scam in the Rafale fighter plane deal with France. Speaking to the media personnel at the AICC headquarters, Delhi on Saturday (Sep 22), Rahul Gandhi looked determined to bring Prime Minister Modi down. Quoting former French President Francios Hollande's words from the recent interview where he had claimed that PM Modi had insisted that the deal has to go to Indian business tycoon Anil Ambani's Reliance defense, Rahul Gandhi alleged that Modi has 'gifted' Indians' tax money to Anil Ambani. Also Read | Dassault aviation clarifies; Says Indian govt had no hand in choosing partners Lashing out at PM Modi, Rahul Gandhi said that, "For the first time, an ex- French President is calling our PM a thief." He urged the Prime Minister to either accept the accusations or deny them and prove what is the truth. He said, "The Prime Minister should clarify if what the ex-French President is saying is true or false." He also said that due to the accusations from the former French President, the dignity of the PM's office as well as that of our defence force has been lost. "Prime Minister has betrayed our soldiers and all the people of our country," he added. Read more | Not involved in choice of Indian partners for Rafale deal, says French govt Questioning the credibility of Anil Ambani's Reliance defence company, Rahul Gandhi said that "HAL has 80 years of experience where as Reliance was only opened ten days before the deal was signed." PM Modi sat with the then France President Hollande and insisted that the deal has to go to Reliance. How else can one explain the deal going to Reliance, he questioned. Rahul Gandhi also urged for a JPC enquiry regarding the matter which should also bring Ex France President Hollande into the investigation. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, September 22, 2018, 15:59 [IST] Judge who delivered Mecca Masjid blast verdict set to join BJP India oi-Vicky Nanjappa Hyderabad, Sep 22: The judge who delivered the Mecca Masjid blast verdict is set to join the BJP. Retired Metropolitan Sessions Judge Ravinder Reddy, it may be recalled had acquitted all the accused in the case. During the visit by BJP president, Amit Shah, Reddy had taken an appointment with him. The BJP's Telangana chief Dr. K Laxman said that Reddy could contribute to the party as an intellectual or even join electoral politics. He however added that it is not clear if he would be admitted into the party and if so, what his role would be. On April 16, Reddy after delivering the verdict had resigned from his post. He had acquitted all five accused including Swami Aseemanand, following which he sent a letter to the Chief Justice stating that he was resigning on personal grounds. Also Read | Aseemanand's confession to police not voluntary: NIA court During Reddy's meeting with Amit Shah, he is said to have expressed his desire to work for the BJP, while terming it as a nationalist and patriotic party. He also told Shah that his services for the party could be utilised as he pleases. In his verdict, Reddy had said that the prosecution could not prove beyond reasonable doubt that Aseemanand and other were involved in the planning and execution of the bomb blast at Mecca Masjid on May 18 2007. He further said that just by being a member of the RSS, one does not become communal. The RSS is not a proscribed terror organisation and if anyone works for it, it does not give scope to become communal and anti-social, Reddy had also observed. Also Read | Mecca Masjid blast verdict: The Hindu terror theory is falling like nine pins Reddy, it may be recalled had been suspended along with 11 other judges for protesting the appointment of judges who hail from Andhra Pradesh in Telangana. The suspension was however revoked. Reddy, at the time of his resignation was under investigation by the High Court on the allegation that he had shown undue haste, while granting anticipatory bail to an accused in a land dispute case. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, September 22, 2018, 8:25 [IST] How the National Investigation Agency is getting the better of terrorists in J&K Kashmir: Behind the resignation drama of cops,some disgruntled elements and Hizbuls propaganda wing India oi-Vicky Nanjappa Srinagar, Sep 22: It was a depressing Friday in Jammu and Kashmir with the Hizbul Mujahideen killing three policemen after abducting them. The warning bells were on the wall and it was Tuesday that the terrorist outfit had put out a chilling warning for the police personnel of the troubled state. An operative of the Hizbul Mujahideen had said in a video circulated on Tuesday that all the police personnel especially the special police officers must resign. The terrorist also went on to say that the police officers would killed if they failed to resign within four days. Barely 70 hours after the video was released, the terrorists went on to abduct the SPOs, following which they were killed. Also Read | J&K: All 3 cops kidnapped by terrorists found dead in Shopian; several resignation videos emerge The incident has sent shock waves across the nation and following this a chain reaction followed on the social media in which some cops tendered their resignations. The policemen who resigned on the social media, identified themselves as Nawaz Lone, Shabir Thokar, Tajallah Hussain, Umar Bashir, Naseer Ahmed, all SPOs and Irshad Baba, a constable. In a video message, Lone said that he was resigning out of his own will and not due to any compulsion. The resignation letter that he sent to the Baramulla SSP reads, "with due respect and humble submission, I constable Mukthar Line Belt No 1468/B... keeping in view the present scenario and day by day threatening of militant groups, I myself tender resignation from police department." Mischievous: Sources in the Union Home Ministry tell OneIndia that this is nothing but a false propaganda by the Hizbul Mujahideen. While terming the death of the police personnel as unfortunate, the source said that the resignations are nothing but false propaganda by mischievous elements. Also Read | J&K: Wave of Army men being killed by terrorists while on leave continues An Intelligence Bureau official said that this was the handiwork of the Hizbul's propaganda division. They are trying to create an atmosphere of fear and attempting to demoralise the force. The officer also added that this is a larger part of the strategy by the terror group. The MHA said in a statement that the Jammu and Kashmir police have clarified that media reports about the policemen resigning were untrue. The statement further said that the J&K police are a committed force which is fully geared up to meet security challenges, including those relating to the panchayat and urban body elections. Also Read | Spooked over pinpointed intelligence, here is why Hizbul wants cops targeted Further the MHA also said that there are over 30,000 special police officers and their services are renewed from time to time. Some mischievous elements are trying to project that the SPOs whose services were not renewed due to administrative reasons have resigned. Militants are on the backfoot in Jammu and Kashmir, the Home Ministry also added. Officials said that some of those persons whose services were not renewed have played into the hands of the terror groups. They have used this as an opportunity for their own personal reasons. In the meantime the propaganda machinery of the Hizbul Mujahideen too was quick to pick this up and add to the panic. These issues would be resolved and the killing of the three SPOs will be avenged, the official also added. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, September 22, 2018, 8:36 [IST] Modi promises to inaugurate Talcher Fertiliser Plant after 36 months India oi-Chennabasaveshwar P Talcher, Sep 22: Prime Minister Narendra Modi after laying the foundation stone of Talcher Fertiliser Plant assured people of Odisha that the construction of fertiliser plant will be completed in 36 months and he would come again to inaugurate. PM Modi said, "When BJP govt came to power in the centre, the work on fertiliser plants picked up speed. I ensure you that the construction of Talcher Fertiliser Plant will be completed in 36 months and I'll again come here to inaugurate it." Taking a dig at UPA government, Modi said, "Previous government decided to start Tacher project but only on papers. They did not have any intention to work for the people." Tactical ballistic missile 'Prahaar' successfully test fired "I had urged CM Naveen Babu that Odisha will be left behind in cleanliness. But today, when I have come here, I again urge Naveen Babu to give priority to cleanliness in Odisha for the health of the people here. PM Modi laid the foundation stone of Talcher Fertiliser Plant in Talcher. The coal gasification-based fertilizer plant which will be first of its kind in India. Journalist Abhijit Iyer Mitra arrested in Delhi for making anti-Odisha remarks In 2014, the Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister Shri Ananth Kumar had said that he expected the fertilizer plant at Talcher, Odisha will again be re-opened by the Prime Minister by 2019 as being proposed. Jharsuguda airport: The Prime Minister will go to Jharsuguda, where he will inaugurate the Jharsuguda airport. This airport shall bring western Odisha on the aviation map of India, and facilitate regional air connectivity through the UDAN scheme. Earlier, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met and interacted with Anganwadi workers upon his arrival in Talcher. Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik received PM Narendra Modi in Talcher. Will be taken up at highest level: India on unprovoked killing of fisherman by Pakistan Need to pay back terrorists, Pakistan in same coin: Army chief India oi-Deepika S New Delhi, Sep 22: Army Chief General Bipin Rawat on Saturday said India will have to respond to Pakistan in their own language without resorting to barbarism. "I think our government's policy has been quite clear and concise. We've made no bones about the fact that talks and terrorism can't go hand in hand. Pakistan needs to curb menace of terrorism," Gen Rawat was quoted saying by ANI. On BSF soldier's killing and Burhan Wani stamps, here is what Pakistan is saying The comment comes after a BSF jawan was shot and his throat slit recently, followed by the abduction and brutal killings of three policemen in Jammu and Kashmir. "We need to take stern action to avenge the kind of barbarism that terrorists and the Pakistan Army have been carrying out against our soldiers. It is time to give it back to them in the same coin, but not by resorting to similar kind of barbarism. I think the other side must feel the same pain," the Army chief said at a press conference here. Referring to the killing of the BSF solider whose mutilated body was found in Jammu, the Army chief said such acts were unacceptable and there was a need to avenge it. He said the Indian Army had carried out successful operations against the Pakistan Army whenever they did something against India along the border. J&K: All 3 cops kidnapped by terrorists found dead in Shopian; several resignation videos emerge" title=" J&K: All 3 cops kidnapped by terrorists found dead in Shopian; several resignation videos emerge" /> J&K: All 3 cops kidnapped by terrorists found dead in Shopian; several resignation videos emerge "Pakistan has suffered many casualties and we have been able to take on their defence system to a large extent, but we never resorted to barbarism. They requested for a ceasefire in May and we agreed, but if they continue to do this, we will need to take other action," Rawat said. "If you look at it, the casualty and damage suffered by the other side is far more than what we have been suffering. We have done it a professional and a military-like manner," he insisted. The Army chief also made it clear that India and the Indian Army would not be scared by any threat from Pakistan. Asked to comment on Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan's tweet expressing "disappointment" on India's decision to cancel a meeting of foreign ministers, the Army chief said talks and terrorism cannot go hand in hand and Pakistan needed to curb the menace of terrorism. Spooked over pinpointed intelligence, here is why Hizbul wants cops targeted The USA, that once used to be close to Pakistan, is now dominating on Pakistan and our government has been successful to a large extent in isolating Pakistan at an international level, Rawat claimed. He said the government was fully supporting the force which also had the liberty to carry out their actions. "And you can see its result in Kashmir and the northeast," he said. However, he said action was needed against radicalisation and social media campaigns which, he suggested, were being run from outside. Rawat also claimed that the surgical strike in 2016, in the wake of Uri attack, was a first-of-its-kind operation. When questioned about delays in the weapons procurement process, he said modern equipments and weapons were the need of the hour but delay in procurement did not mean that the forces could not function normally. However, he said delay in procurement was not good. The Army chief also said that consideration on incorporating robo technology in the forces was underway. He added that strategic issues, planning and other aspects would be discussed in the upcoming Combined Commanders' Conference which is going to be held at the Jodhpur Air Force station later this month. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to attend the conference where the brass of Army, Navy and the Air Force would be present. The Army chief was in Jaipur to review the Haifa Day Mounted Parade at the 61 Cavalry ground here. Haifa Day is celebrated every year to commemorate the liberation of Israeli city Haifa from the occupation of the Turks by the British Indian Army soldiers, led by Major Dalpat Singh, on September 23, 1918. The Army chief also visited the South Western Command where Lieutenant General Cherish Mathson briefed him on operational matters and other related issues. The Sriramulu factor: Why he is next only to Yeddyurappa Operation Khanij Khoj: Why opening up virgin forests for iron ore is disastrous for Ballari India oi-Chennabasaveshwar P Bengaluru, Sep 22: The exploration of iron ore and manganese deposits in 10 virgin areas in Sandur taluk, Ballari district, is not making headway due to non-availability of clearance from the state forest department. The State Government has hired the exploration of iron ore to two Central government agencies - Geological Survey of India (GSI) and Mineral Exploration Corporation Limited (MECL). The estimated exploration cost is around Rs 68 crore. According to reports, exploration is being carried out in the forest land has made little progress despite the union ministry of mines directing all states to complete exploration activities by the end of the year. Also, the exploration exercise in Ballari has been taken up in the backdrop of the expiry of hundreds of mining leas across the state by March 31, 2020. Also Read | On the dusty roads of Ballari, why has the 'M' word gone silent? If the ore exploration is not being carried, then it will hamper the objectives of 'Operation Khanij Khoj' launched by Union Ministry of Steel & Mines in 2016. Why exploration is being carried out in Ballari? 'Operation Khanij Khoj' launched in 2016 is aimed at exploring concealed and deep seated mineral deposits. Under the programme Geological Survey of India (GSI) has identified 100 mineral blocks for regional exploration by private companies. The identified blocks include total area of about 12,000 sq. km with prospects for minerals such as, basemetal, gold, iron, tin/tungsten, strategic minerals, etc. GSI has planned two projects in (i) Northern parts of Arravallies and Bundelkhand craton; (ii) Western and Eastern Dharwad cratons for mineral exploration. Initially, 100 blocks for were identified reconnoitre survey. The identified blocks include the total area of about 12,000 sq. km with prospects for minerals such as, base metal, gold, iron, tin/tungsten, strategic minerals, etc. Also Read | Karnataka pushes for increase in cap of iron mining, to approach CEC During the launch of the programme, Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, had said, "Mineral exploration in India needs to be done in a proactive and time-bound manner. The government has taken several decisions to enable this, and to build exploration capacity in the country." "Mineral exploration and mining are independent of each other," added Tomar. Local activist opposes forest clearance for exploration: However, the local activist has opposed iron ore exploration in Sandur forest area of Ballari district. Activist Shivakumar G Malagai opined that clearance should not be granted for exploration citing 'expiry of mining lease'. Malagai said, "The Union Ministry of Mining unilaterally took a decision and went ahead 'Operation Khanij Khoj'. They are opening fresh virgin forest areas for exploration which is disastrous to the environment." Also Read | Here is why the Karnataka mining case worth Rs 35,000 crore is falling apart "Expiry of the lease by 2020 does not mean mining will not be banned or stopped. It means, these mines will be open for auction and the successful bidders will get the lease and will start mining the ore. Shortage of minerals and expiry of mining lease are not linked to each other as saying government argues." Most importantly, Malagai said, "The forest area doesn't fall under Schedule 5 and 6 the of Constitution (The tribal areas specified under these schedules enjoy special protection). This gives ample opportunity to exploit resources in the forest area." Taking note of Union Minister Narendra Tomar's statement differentiating between 'exploration and mining', Malagi said, "Even for exploration you need to cut off thousands of hectares of forest area." "In Karnataka, more than 35 C-category mines have got ore deposits. Out of 35, they have auctioned 12, still, 23 mines can be used for the steel industry. So, why to open up new area for exploration?, Malagi asked. 'While exploitation of natural resources one has to keep in mind 'intergenerational equity',' added Malagi. Now Ayushman Bharat Card will be free: Find out how to get the card and insurance of Rs 5 lakh PM to launch Ayushman Bharat two days before schedule date due to Pitra Paksha India oi-Vinod Kumar Shukla By Vinod Kumar Shukla New Delhi, Sep 22: One of the most ambitious projects of the Narendra Modi government, Ayushman Bharat Scheme will now be launched on September 23 from Ranchi that is two days before it was originally scheduled to be launched. The scheme was scheduled to be launched on September 25 that happens to be the birth anniversary of Bharatiya Janata Party ideologue Pt Deen Dayal Upadhyay. But interestingly change in the date of launching this programme has been attributed to inauspicious days of Pitra Paksha. What is Ayushman Bharat or Modicare Sources said that the PM announced launching of this programme on August 15 that this would be launched on September 25. Sources said that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh sent a message to the government that launching of this biggest healthcare scheme of the world by the government during the inauspicious day was not proper so the sudden rescheduling has been done. Actually the demise of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee did not allow the party to deliberate upon it. So in the beginning of September, the government changed its strategy and started giving launch date from September 25 to 23. As per sources, Pitra Paksha will start from September 25 to October 8. Prime minister's September 23 programme was pre-scheduled therefore it was decided to launch Aayushman Bharat Scheme from Ranchi. During the launch of this programme Union health minister J P Nadda, Jharkhand chief minister Raghubar Das and Minister of state for health Anupriya Patel will be present. Also Read | Meet India's first Ayushman Bharat baby- Karishma Sources said that the Prime Minister will launch this scheme from Prabhat Tara ground of Ranchi. The PM will reach Ranchi at 11.30. Earlier the launch of this programme was planned at 1 PM and the PM was scheduled to reach at 2 but as per Jyotish calculation now it will start 10 AM. The PM will reach at the programme venue at 11.30. Also Read | Aayushman Bharat not to take off in Delhi as state works on CM Insurance Scheme Under this Ayushman Bharat Health Scheme 50.74 crore poor people will be provided Rs five lakh's insurance, which is 40 per cent of the population of the country. Around 26 states including Karnataka will start while rest of the state will join the programme gradually. Delhi will not join it. Around 15000 private and government hospitals expressed their willingness to join this programme that included 800 private hospitals. In the current financial year Rs 3500 crore will be spent on this. 'Rahul ka Pura Khandan Chor': Nirmala Sitharaman on Rafale row India oi-Deepika S New Delhi, Sep 22: Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday hit out at Congress President Rahul Gandhi for using "abusive language" about Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman attacked the Congress president saying "Rahul ka pura khandan chor". Slamming the Congress President for the "abusive" language against PM Modi, Sitharaman wrote that Rahul Gandhi and the Congress betray their sense of desperation being out of power. The @INCIndia & Shri. @RahulGandhi repeat untruth several times and use brazen & abusive language about @PMOIndia @narendramodi. They betray their sense of desperation in being out-of-power. In our govt there is no corruption. No wonder today the buzz is #RahulKaPuraKhandanChor https://t.co/o76HiaYtDh Nirmala Sitharaman (@nsitharaman) September 22, 2018 The tweet was attached to another tweet by India's Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri which stated that: "From the Jeep Scam of 1948 when Nehru was the PM, to Indira Gandhi's infamous election scandal of 1971 among others. From Rajiv Gandhi's Bofors deal to a barrage of scams, frauds & scams of UPA. The family has kept itself busy with self-development." Meanwhile, many BJP leaders have attacked Rahul Gandhi for his abusive remarks against PM Modi. Truth is clearly not Rahul Gandhi's forte, but even dignity is too much to expect from him! His only qualification is a surname. His entire family has bn involved in scams. Ironic of him to blame PM @narendramodi ji, India's most honest PM,in Rafale deal!#RahulKaPuraKhandanChor Rajyavardhan Rathore (@Ra_THORe) September 22, 2018 Out on bail Rahul Gandhi & his family have long been the primary source of corruption in the country. They are today blaming Honble PM Narendra Modi in the Rafael deal, who has given India its most honest administration since Independence. #RahulKaPuraKhandanChor Piyush Goyal (@PiyushGoyal) September 22, 2018 Rahul Gandhi is out on bail. His family is responsible for some of the most reprehensible acts in our history. Many @INCIndia leaders are facing serious corruption charges. Today they are blaming Honble PM Modi, who has run Indias most honest Govt! #RahulKaPuraKhandanChor Jayant Sinha (@jayantsinha) September 22, 2018 Earlier in the day, Rahul Gandhi said the former French President had called PM Modi a "thief" in the Rafale deal and sought a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into the agreement to purchase 36 fighter jets from France. "Now what the ex-President of France is saying is that the Prime Minister of India is a thief... that is what the statement is saying. It is very important for the PM now to either accept Hollande's statement and say that he is telling the truth or that Hollande is not telling the truth and here is the truth," Gandhi said. Rahul Gandhi's allegations came after former French president Francois Hollande's said that it was the Indian government which proposed the name of Anil Ambani-led Reliance Defence as its India partner in the Rafale jet deal. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Sunday, September 23, 2018, 1:53 [IST] Will provide financial support to 7 new defence companies if required: Rajnath Singh India not for starting conflicts but always ready to face challenges: Rajnath Singh Think 4 times before levelling allegations: Rajnath Singh tells Rahul Gandhi India pti-PTI Ahmedabad, Sep 22: Union home minister Rajnath Singh Saturday advised Congress president Rahul Gandhi not to make allegations against the government on the Rafale issue without proof. Singh said the verification of the French media report, which quoted former French President Francois Hollande on the purchase of the Rafale fighter jets, will reveal the truth. Indians are convinced that our Prime Minister is corrupt: Rahul Gandhi Hollande was quoted in a French media report as purportedly saying that the Indian government proposed Anil Ambani-led Reliance Defence as the partner for Dassault Aviation in the Rs 58,000 crore Rafale jet fighter deal and France did not have a choice. "The government has issued a statement on the issue. Let the verification of the report take place. It will clear the situation, it will reveal the truth," Singh told reporters here. Had no role in selection of Reliance Defence for Rafale deal: Govt The home minister, who was here to attend a meeting of the cooperative societies sector, went on to advise Gandhi that he should not make allegations without proof. "One should think four times before levelling any baseless allegation. One should not make allegations without proof," Singh said to a question on what he would like to tell Gandhi who has been dragging the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the deal. Gandhi had dragged Modi into the imbroglio by alleging that the prime minister was involved in the Rafale "scam". Dassault aviation clarifies; Says Indian govt had no hand in choosing partners Reacting to Hollande's reported remark, which is at variance with the Indian government's position on the Rafale deal, a Defence Ministry spokesman had Friday said, "The report referring to former French President Hollande's statement that government of India insisted upon a particular firm as offset partner for Dassault Aviation in Rafale is being verified." Earlier addressing members of 11 cooperative societies at a meeting here, Singh asked them to enter the housing sector to fulfil the prime minister's dream of housing for all by 2022. "Our prime minister has a dream that everyone in the country should have a house and his dream can be fulfilled easily if the cooperative sector comes forward (to take part) in the housing sector," he said. "People can get affordable houses if the cooperative sector enters the housing sector" the home minister said. Singh told the gathering that the cooperative sector is active in Gujarat and Maharashtra and such activity is required in other states as well. He claimed that the rate of interest on agriculture loans were reduced for the first time when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was prime minister, and he Union agriculture minister. "Now I am glad to know that cooperative banks here are giving agriculture loans on zero per cent interest," he said. "India's prosperity depends on that of the farmers. If the farmer of the country is prosperous, no one can stop India from becoming prosperous," he said. PTI Utterly irresponsible says Ravi Shankar Prasad on Rahul's Rafale attack India oi-Deepika S New Delhi, Sep 22: Dismissing Rahul Gandhi's allegations, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad accused the Congress of corruption in the Rafale deal. "Congress tried to renegotiate Rafale deal in 2012 for kickbacks," he said. Addressing a press conference Prasad said "Never before in history of independent India, has a party president used such words for a PM. We can't expect anything else from Rahul Gandhi. He has no quality or ability, he's there due to his family." Indians are convinced that our Prime Minister is corrupt: Rahul Gandhi He also ruled out a joint parliamentary committee probe saying it cannot be done to satisfy the ego of an "ill-informed leader". Prasad accused Gandhi of "playing into the hands of Pakistan and China" by seeking the details of the Rafale fighter jets. He also alleged that there was pressure for extraneous considerations and "bribe" for not finalising the Rafale deal during the UPA rule despite holding negotiations for years. He said Reliance and Dassault had entered into agreement as early as 2012 when UPA was in power. Attacking the Congress chief for PM Modi on corruption allegations, the Union minister said that "Rahul Gandhi is chargesheeted in National Herald case with his mother. He is silent on land grabbing accusations against his brother-in-law (Robert Vadra)." "It is important to expose Rahul Gandhi's lies. In August 2007, a Request for Proposal was issued. Two companies came forward. The deal was finalised after nine years," he said. "We need weapons, missiles, defence machinery on it. We need to fit it with bombs. So we are not irresponsible like Rahul Gandhi to disclose exact details," he further said. As mentioned by (Finance Minister) Arun Jaitley, the price negotiated by NDA is 9% less for basic aircraft and 20% less in case of fully loaded, as compared to UPA's price," said Ravi Shankar Prasad. The Defence Ministry too issued a statement reiterating that "the government has no role in the selection of Indian Offset partner which is a commercial decision of the Original Equipment Manufacturer." Rahul Gandhi, in his sharpest attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, today said "former French president Francois Hollande is calling the Prime Minister of India a thief" and that the PM needs to break his silence. Calling the Rafale deal corrupt, Rahul Gandhi said it was "obvious that PM Modi is corrupt." PM has betrayed Indian soldiers and India's soul: Rahul Gandhi "Former French president calls our PM a thief... What is staggering is that the Prime Minister is still silent on it. Not a single word from him... It is very important for the prime minister now to either accept Hollande's statement or state that Hollande is lying and tell what the truth is," Gandhi said at a press conference this afternoon. Attack on Iran army parade: 24 killed including elite revolutionary guards International oi-Pushyarag Shetty Iran, Sep 22: A group of militants opened fire on people, killing 24 people, including members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, as well as civilians who had gathered in street to watch the march of military units marking the beginning of the Sacred Defense Week in this provincial capital city in Khuzestan Province, southwestern Iran, Saturday (Sep 22) morning. Atleast 53 people including a woman and a baby have been wounded in the attack on Iran army parade. It is being feared that the death toll might increase. Further reports are awaited. Protesters storm Iranian consulate in Iraq's Basra According to reports, two gunmen on a motorcycle wearing khaki uniforms carried out the attack on the people who had gathered to watch the Iran military parade which was conducted as part of the Sacred Defense Week that was organised in Khuzestan province. Dassault aviation clarifies; Says Indian govt had no hand in choosing partners International oi-Pushyarag Shetty New Delhi, Sep 22: Just hours after the French government contradicted its former president Francois Hollande's claim that Modi's government chose Reliance defence as its industrial partner, the Dassault aviation, the manufacturing company of the Rafale planes has clarified that it was the company who could choose the partners and not the government. Dassault Aviation' Clarification: Dassault Aviation provides the following clarifications regarding the contract signed in 2016 for 36 Rafale aircraft to India: 1. This contract is a government-to-government agreement. It provides for a separate contract in which Dassault Aviation commits to make compensation investments (offsets) in India worth 50% of the value of the purchase. 2. This offsets contract is delivered in compliance with the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) 2016 regulations. In this framework, and in accordance with the policy of Make in India, Dassault Aviation has decided to make a partnership with India's Reliance Group. This is Dassault Aviation's choice, as CEO Eric Trappier had explained in an interview published in MINT newspaper on April 17, 2018. This partnership has led to the creation of the Dassault Reliance Aerospace Ltd (DRAL) joint-venture in February 2017. Dassault Aviation and Reliance have built a plant in Nagpur for manufacturing parts for Falcon and Rafale aircraft. The Nagpur site was chosen because of the availability of land with direct access to an airport runway, an essential condition of aeronautic activities. 3. Other partnerships have been signed with other companies such as BTSL, DEFSYS, Kinetic, Mahindra, Maini, SAMTEL,... Other negotiations are ongoing with a hundred-odd other potential partners. 4. Dassault Aviation is very proud that the Indian authorities have selected the Rafale fighter. Not involved in choice of Indian partners for Rafale deal, says French govt The statement by the French government came following a French media report which quoted former French President Francois Hollande as saying that the Indian government proposed Reliance Defence as the partner for Dassault Aviation in the Rs 58,000 crore Rafale deal and France did not have a choice. Talks with China will not help says USA NSA on situation on Ladakh 20 members of a family removed from US flight after mask of 1 slipped under nose Lord Ganesha finds himself as an election symbol in USA and hell breaks loose International oi-Shubham Ghosh Washington, Sept 22: Even if Ganesha is an Indian God, in this age of globalisation, one can't complain if he finds himself landing in a controversy in the United States. It indeed happened that the elephant god found himself at the centre of a political controversy in the US, thanks to an advertisement in a newspaper in Texas. It so happened that the advertisement carried an image of Lord Ganesha and asked: "Would you worship a donkey or an elephant? The choice is yours". The ad which came out in The India Herald newspaper was put there by the Republican Party of Texas's Fort Bend County, reports said. Also Read | US shutdown extended as crunch vote in Senate delayed The elephant is the symbol of the Grand Old Party while the donkey is the one of the Democrats. Ahead of the mid-term elections in the US in November, the political atmosphere has seen polarisation and Lord Ganesha, because of his resemblance with the Republicans' symbol, also found himself at the centre of a ruckus. Texas Republicans apologise to Indians for 'offensive' Hindu ad: The ad, meant to celebrate a festival for elephant-headed deity Ganesha, offended Hindus instead. pic.twitter.com/OblcQwNd4b Toufaani (@Toufaani) September 21, 2018 Speaking to The Independent, The India Herald's editor Seshadri Kumar said he was consulted by the chairman and that he did not find the ad offensive. Also Read | How #DesiWallofShame exposes powerful Indian-Americans supporting Trump's 'divisive politics' However, soon after the Hindu-American community in Houston got upset because of the ad and the Republican Party apologised. The Hindu American Foundation sought a clarification from the party of President Donald Trump, saying while it had no problem with the party's attempt to reach out to the Hindus by banking on a festival, equating their reverence for Lord Ganesha with choosing a political party was something that it did not find right. Fort Bend Republican Party apologised saying the ad was not meant to hurt anybody's customs and sentiments. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, September 22, 2018, 14:14 [IST] On BSF soldiers killing and Burhan Wani stamps, here is what Pakistan is saying International oi-Vicky Nanjappa Islamabad, Sep 22: The Pakistan government while reacting to the cancellation of Foreign Minister level talks said that it was deeply disappointed with the announcement. The talks were to be held on the sidelines of the UNGA in New York. The reasons cited by the Indian side for the decision to cancel the Foreign Ministers' meeting, within 24 hours of its public confirmation, are entirely unconvincing. The so-called "disturbing developments" alluded to in the Indian statement predated the Indian agreement to hold the bilateral meeting in New York, read a statement. Firstly, the alleged killing of BSF soldier took place two days prior to the Indian announcement of its agreement to hold the bilateral meeting. When the allegations of Pakistan's involvement first appeared, the Pakistan Rangers clearly conveyed to BSF through official channels that Pakistan had nothing to do with it. Pakistan Rangers also extended help in efforts to locate the soldier's body. These facts were known to the Indian authorities and a part of the Indian media also reported that Pakistan had refuted its involvement. Yet, this motivated and malicious propaganda continued. Pakistan takes this opportunity to categorically reject these allegations once again. Our authorities would be prepared to conduct a joint investigation to establish the truth. Also Read | How Pakistan stage managed the attacks on cops to derail talks with India Secondly, the postage stamps mentioned in the Indian statement were issued before the 25 July 2018 elections, as a result of which the Government of Prime Minister Imran Khan assumed office. The stamps highlight the gross and systematic human rights violations in Indian Occupied Kashmir, which were extensively documented also in a comprehensive report issued by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights as late as June 2018. By falsely raising the canard of "terrorism", India can neither hide its unspeakable crimes against the Kashmiri people nor can it delegitimise their indigenous struggle for their inalienable right to self-determination. Most unfortunate is the reference in the Indian MEA statement to the person of the Prime Minister of Pakistan. We choose not to further comment beyond saying that these comments are against all norms of civilised discourse and diplomatic communication. Also Read | Kashmir: Behind the resignation drama of cops,some disgruntled elements and Hizbul's propaganda wing Prime Minister Imran Khan had, in his first public comments after his electoral success, outlined a forward-looking vision of Pakistan-India relations. He had clearly stated that if India took one step forward, Pakistan would take two. In the same spirit, Prime Minister Imran Khan in his reply letter endorsed Prime Minister Modi's call for "constructive engagement" and proposed the meeting of the two Foreign Ministers in New York to discuss a way forward on bilateral and SAARC-related matters. We believe by its ill-considered cancellation of the meeting, India has once again wasted a serious opportunity to change the dynamics of the bilateral relationship and put the region on the path of peace and development. Pakistan has always desired peaceful and good-neighbourly relations with India, on the basis of sovereign equality, mutual respect and mutual benefit. In our view, dialogue and diplomacy are the only constructive way forward for the two countries to address mutual concerns, rebuild trust, resolve longstanding disputes, and establish durable peace in South Asia. Also Read | True colours out: Pakistan issues postal stamp glorifying Burhan Wani as freedom fighter For its part, Pakistan will persist with its quest for peace and development. But, as we have consistently emphasised, our approach will continue to be guided by the aforementioned principles and the dictates of national dignity. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, September 22, 2018, 16:34 [IST] Are Imran Khan and Gen Bajwa at war over appointment of new ISI chief? 'Small men who lack vision': Imran Khan counter attacks after India cancels talks International pti-PTI Islamabad, Sep 22: India's decision to cancel the foreign minister-level meeting in New York was "arrogant", Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said Saturday, asserting that he was "disappointed" by the New Delhi's "negative" response. India on Friday cited the "brutal" killing of three policemen in Jammu and Kashmir as well as the release of the postal stamps "glorifying" Kashmiri militant Burhan Wani for calling off the meeting between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York this month. On BSF soldier's killing and Burhan Wani stamps, here is what Pakistan is saying Announcing the cancellation of the meeting, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said in New Delhi that the incidents "exposed" the "true face" of Pakistan's new Prime Minister Imran Khan to the world as well as Islamabad's evil agenda behind the proposal for talks. "The latest brutal killings of our security personnel by Pakistan-based entities and the recent release of a series of 20 postage stamps by Pakistan glorifying a terrorist and terrorism confirm that Pakistan will not mend its ways," Kumar said. "Disappointed at the arrogant and negative response by India to my call for resumption of the peace dialogue," Prime Minister Khan said in a tweet. How Pakistan stage managed the attacks on cops to derail talks with India "However, all my life I have come across small men occupying big offices who do not have the vision to see the larger picture," he said in a sharp reaction to India's cancellation of the meeting. Kumar said talks with Pakistan after the "two deeply disturbing" developments would be "meaningless". "In view of the changed situation, there will be no meeting between the Foreign Ministers of India and Pakistan in New York," he said. Reacting to india's remarks, Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Faisal said Friday that the "so-called 'disturbing developments'" alluded to in the Indian statement predated the Indian agreement to hold the bilateral meeting in New York. He said the alleged killing of a BSF soldier took place two days prior to the Indian announcement of its agreement to hold the bilateral meeting. When the allegations of Pakistan's involvement first appeared, Pakistani rangers clearly conveyed to BSF through official channels that the country had nothing to do with it, he said. Need to pay back terrorists, Pakistan in same coin: Army chief "Pakistan...categorically reject these allegations...Our authorities would be prepared to conduct a joint investigation to establish the truth," Faisal said. On the issue of the postage stamps, he said they were issued before the July 25 elections and before Prime Minister Khan assumed office on August 18. "We choose not to further comment beyond saying that these comments are against all norms of civilised discourse and diplomatic communication," Faisal said. "We believe by its ill-considered cancellation of the meeting, India has once again wasted a serious opportunity to change the dynamics of the bilateral relationship and put the region on the path of peace and development," he added. PTI Amarnath yatra suspended today in the wake of strike called by separatists in valley True colours out: Pakistan issues postal stamp glorifying Burhan Wani as freedom fighter International oi-Vicky Nanjappa Islamabad, Sep 22: Pakistan has gone on to glorify dreaded terrorist Burhan Wani. Pakistan has released a series of commemorative postal stamps glorifying the slain terrorist, Wani. He has been referred to as a freedom fighter in the stamps. Wani was killed in an encounter with the security forces on July 8 2016. The stamps were issued on Kashmir Martyrs Day, with several captions. The captions referred to the use of chemical weapons, pellet guns, braid chopping and mass graves. The stamps were made available on online sites. The price of each stamp if Pakistan Rs 8. Also Read | Hurriyat fades in the Kashmir Valley as Al-Qaeda ideology gains steam The Pakistan Post went on to release a total of 20 such stamps in which Burhan Wani and some other slain terrorists have been portrayed as victims of atrocities by Indian forces in Kashmir. The Burhan Wani stamp bears the caption, "Burhan Wani (1994-2016) freedom icon." The killing of Wani had triggered a spate of protests across the Valley. There were around 50,000 people who attended his funeral in the Valley. The Hizbul Mujahideen to which he belonged used this as a propaganda material to recruit scores of youth into the outfit. Also Read | Burhan Wani 2.0: Hizbul resorts again to photo strategy Wani was dubbed as a social media terrorist, who put up more posts than the bullets he had fired. Diwali 2021: How to perform Lakshmi puja at home, puja samagri, vidhi and shubh muhurat Double murder in Delhi's Mianwali area, Police begins probe New Delhi oi-Chennabasaveshwar P New Delhi, Sep 22: In a horrific incident, mother and daughter were found dead in Delhi's Mianwali area on Saturday. Bodies indicate murder happened last evening/night. According to police, entry to the house is friendly. The incident was reported to the police today in the morning when the maid went for work. As soon as the information about the murder, the Delhi Police police reached the spot and sent the bodies to post-mortem. Also Read | 5 Juveniles murder warden and inmate as their supply of 'cough syrups' shuts off According to Zee news, Police suspected that mutual animosity could be the reason for the murder. At the same time, some people property dispute could have led the murder of the women. However, the police have refused comment on this matter. For More New Delhi News, Click Here For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, September 22, 2018, 13:31 [IST] Rahul Gandhi interacts with academicians, attacks PM at every given opportunity New Delhi oi-Pushyarag Shetty New Delhi, Sep 22: In what seems as a preparation for the 2019 Loksabha election, Rahul Gandhi, the Congress supremo is meeting every sections of the society and interacting with them. Rahul Gandhi on Saturday (Sep 22) held am interaction session with academicians in Delhi's Siri Fort Auditorium. Speaking in the interactuion, Rahul Gandhi said that the Indian education system must be allowed to have its own voice and express its own opinion. He malso urged the government to see education as a central part of India's strategic resource. "I understand you feel under pressure, threat and that an ideology is being imposed on you. A country of over a billion people cannot be run with one single idea," he said. Pointing his attack on Prime Minister Modi, Rahul Gandhi said that, "When Modi ji came to power, an officer was chosen to head SPG. After sometime he told me he was leaving. He said that he had been given a list of ppl RSS wants to put in SPG, and he refused. The Idea is that there shouldn't be an institution that doesn't have tentacles of RSS inside it," he said. PM has betrayed Indian soldiers and India's soul: Rahul Gandhi Rahul Gandhi also called out RSS supremo Mohan Bhagwat and said that, "I once heard Mohan Bhagwat say, "We are going to organise the whole nation." Who are you to organise the whole nation, Mr Mohan Bhagwat? Are you some kind of a God? The nation will organise itself," he said. Work-wise Rahul Gandhi is preparing for the 2019 Loksabha elections where he will be once again facing the Modi led NDA. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, September 22, 2018, 14:20 [IST] Church of the Brethren Newsline September 21, 2018 Brethren Disaster Ministries (BDM) and its associated programs have had an especially busy few weeks and they have monitored Hurricane Florences advance toward the United States and begun response efforts following the hurricanes landfall on the North Carolina coast on Thursday, Sept. 13. BDM has already had a long-term presence in the Carolinas, with teams working at rebuilding projects since fall 2016 in the wake of Hurricane Matthew. Work began in the area of Columbia, S.C., and later moved to MarionCounty before expanding earlier this year to sites in both North and South Carolina, sending more than 30 volunteers and leaders each week. The current work housing site has been in Lumberton, N.C. Volunteers from Atlantic Northeast, South/Central Indiana, and Virlina districts scheduled for the week of Sept. 9-15 still traveled to the area and did what rebuilding they could ahead of the storm, including a completely new roof on the Wednesday morning before the storm hit, replacing one that had been damaged in 2016. The volunteers then traveled home that day ahead of Florences landfall. Project leaders Steve Keim, Kim Gingerich, Henry Elsea, and Rob and Barb Siney stayed behind in Lumberton, however, to prepare for Florence, as the host churchlocated in the northern part of the cityhad avoided flooding in 2016. They filled water coolers, set up a generator, moved vehicles and trailers to safer spots, and strapped down several trailers. The Lumberton site experienced several power outages during Florence, but power had returned Sunday night, according to the team. There were also several roof leaks, but the site remained safe even as the lower-lying southern part of the city flooded. The affected area included a warehouse that BDM shares with United Methodist partners to store construction materials. Volunteers had worked earlier in the week to move items to higher shelves. Volunteers were also keeping an eye on Nichols, S.C., where a large amount of clean-up and rebuilding work has taken place in the past year. Only about half the affected residents had returned prior to Florence, with some of them just recently having their homes completed. The water began entering Nichols on Sept. 18 and eventually flooded all the homes that BDM had worked on plus some that had not flooded in 2016. As of yesterday, reports said that rivers in both North and South Carolina might not crest until the middle of next week. BDM said it would continue to wait out the storm and flooding and have volunteers return as soon as possible, according to a release. North Carolina state officials had been asking this past week that no one travel in or to the state due to numerous road closures and ongoing rescue operations. When the flood waters recede, BDM said, volunteers will work with our local partners to identify how best to help at attempt to contact past clients who might have been re-affected. Meanwhile, BDMs Childrens Disaster Services (CDS) also began monitoring the hurricanes approach about a week before landfall and, at the request of the National Red Cross, began creating multiple standby teams to respond once needs were assessed. The initial child care teams were activated for deployment on Sept. 15: one team to South Carolina and three to North Carolina, arriving on Sept. 17. As of the most recent report, 17 CDS volunteers were on the ground in the two states providing care for children in shelters. The South Carolina team was first assigned to a shelter in Dillon, but they were not able to travel safely to the area due to increased flooding. The team was instead reassigned to North Carolina and is now working at the Pender High School shelter in a rural area in the southern part of the state. While frustrating, this shows how quickly response work changes soon after the disaster, especially when flooding is continuing, a CDS release said. The North Carolina volunteers have been stationed along the coast, at Topsail Beach, where they set up a CDS Center for the children at the shelter there. The school they are using sustained significant water damage and was soon closed as the shelter population moved to other shelters further inland. The volunteers were expected to be working in several new locations by this weekend depending on the size of the shelter population. Additional CDS volunteers are standing by to deploy as needs arise or to provide relief to current teams stationed in the Carolinas. CDS has created several resources in both English and Spanish. Anyone able to use them with parents or caregivers should feel free to print them out on card stock or place an order by sending an email to cds@brethren.org: CDS From fear to hope: Helping children cope with war, terrorism, and other acts of violence CDS Trauma and your children: For parents or guardians after disasters or traumatic events Childrens Disaster Services tiene los siguientes recursos en ingles y espanol. Si puede usarlos con los padres o cuidadores, no dude en imprimirlos en cartulinas o hacer un pedido para ellos, enviando un correo electronico a cds@brethren.org: CDS Del miedo a la esperanza: Ayudar a los ninos a lidiar con la guerra, el terrorismo y otros actos de violencia CDS El trauma y sus hijos: Para padres o cuidadores despues de desastres or eventos traumaticos. Go to www.brethren.org/Newsline to subscribe to the Church of the Brethren Newsline free e-mail news service and receive church news every week. Automotive Industry News On Bearings Market 2018 Key Players are Brammer PLC, Timken, NSK Global, SKF, Daido Metal Company Limited, Minebea Company Limited, JTEKT, NTN Corporation, and Schaeffler Group. Bearings Market https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/111 https://www.gminsights.com/inquiry-before-buying/111 https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/bearings-market-report www.gminsights.com Bearings Market in Asia Pacific will grow at over 8% CAGR from 2015 to 2022 due to substantial demand across various sectors such as electronics, automotive, and industrial equipment. Government norms and initiatives are favoring the industry growth. For instance, Chinese government is encouraging their manufacturers of mechanical and electronic bearings to expand domestically.Sample copy of this Report @Bearings Market will observe a steady growth over the foreseeable timeframe. It is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 7.6% and surpass USD 140 billion by 2022. Rising demand for automobiles and spare part components will boost the global bearings market share over the forecast timeline. Various technological developments in lubrication, weight reduction, seal technologies will present huge opportunities for the industry participants.Ball bearings market is the leading revenue generator and is estimated to foresee a growth of 7.5% from 2015 to 2022. This growth can be attributed to their ability to decrease friction and their capability to spin effortlessly. Growing investments in railway and aerospace sector is anticipated to drive the segment growth. Furthermore, growing demand for fuel efficient passenger vehicles across Asia Pacific will stimulate the bearings market over the forecast timeframe.Bearings Market by application Agriculture Electrical Automotive Mining & Construction Railway & AerospaceThe railway & aerospace applications are projected to exhibit rapid growth over the next few years. Rising number of travelers using public transportation is predicted to be the key growth factor. High demand for precision components used in aircraft engines will positively impact the ball bearings market size. Increasing investments to improve the railway and aerospace infrastructure motivated by the increasing rail and air traffic are forecast to present attractive growth opportunities to industry participants.Make an Inquiry for purchasing this Report @Automotive sector holds the highest revenue generator segment and will continue to dominate over the forecast timeline. This can be attributed to rising demand for technologically advanced solutions in the vehicles. Furthermore, popular trends such as development of application specific solutions is expected to drive the bearings market growth.Growing demand for high performance bearings have led producers to integrate sensor technology. The sensors digitally monitor axial movement, acceleration, deceleration, rotation speed and load carrying capacity.Growing penetration of commercial vehicles across the globe will drive demand over the coming years. Increasing requirement for high performance, light weight automobiles, to enhance energy efficiency and curtail friction-based energy loss is contributing towards the demand for efficient products. Moreover, customer preferences to utilize fuel-efficient, advanced vehicles equipped with additional safety features is expected to boost the ball bearings market share over the forecast period.Browse Report Summery @Manufacturers are investing heavily in R&D in order to offer innovative products and address increasing competition. For instance, ceramic ball bearings will drive the industry growth owing to its additional feature such as lightweight and more efficient in reducing friction & energy consumption during operations. The business is primarily driven by design innovations and new offerings. However, rising circulation of counterfeit products pose a threat for the industry. Engineers and quality inspectors are under constant pressure to indentify the fake bearings before assembling the product. Financial losses and cost incurred in these checks which includes hiring of trained anti counterfeit personnel are difficult to enumerate.The players involved in the global bearings market include Minebea Co. Ltd., Daido Metal Co., Timken, NTN Corp., Schaeffler Group, Brammer PLC, SKF, NSK Global, JTEKT. New product development, and high profile raids in order to minimize loss due to counterfeit products are the major competitive strategies adopted by the industry participants.About Global Market Insights:Global Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology.Contact Us:Arun HegdeCorporate Sales, USAGlobal Market Insights, Inc.Phone: 1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email: sales@gminsights.comWeb: Beverage Refrigeration Market 2018-2024 Global Industry Players GE, Electrolux, Whirlpool Corporation, Dover Corporation, Haier. Beverage Refrigeration Market https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/2111 https://www.gminsights.com/roc/2111 https://www.gminsights.com/inquiry-before-buying/2111 https://www.gminsights.com/ Beverage Refrigeration Market to reach USD 4.5 billion by 2024. North America Beverage Refrigeration Market is anticipated to surpass USD 1 billion by 2024. This can be credited to escalating consumption of refreshment drinks and technological improvements in refrigeration systems. In addition, government encouraging utilization of energy-efficient and eco-friendly technologies in refrigerators.Escalating demand for refrigerators to store and serve drinks for social gathering and private events, is a key factor driving beverage refrigeration market growth. Ongoing technological advances to reduce the overall cooling time and consumer demand for distinctive features such as bottom freezer drawer and powerful filtered water will boost beverage refrigeration market.Sample copy of this Report @Increasing consumer preference for packaged drinks which are convenient to consume at home will support the product demand. According to recent statistics, the global consumption of packaged drinks was estimated more than 1.05 trillion liters in 2016 and Chinese consumption amounted to about 178.6 billion liters.Manufacturers are anticipated to invest in new product development to comply with new energy standards implemented by the regulatory bodies. Further, increasing penetration of refrigerators that employ specific features such as modifiable shelves to accommodate bottles and cans will boost product sales.Beverage Refrigeration Market, By Producto Under counter beverage refrigerator Gliding door Swing Dooro Countertop beverage refrigerator Gliding door Swing dooro Storage beverage refrigeratoro Milk coolersRequest for a customization of this report @Under counter beverage refrigerator was valued at over USD 1 billion in 2016. Product offering such as stainless-steel body or custom panel-ready fronts are stimulating the demand. In addition, better shelving and temperature control will support segment penetration over the forecast period.Rising demand to preserve milk in dairy shops will propel coolers demand over the projected timeframe. Diary companies are upgrading their existing capacities, and setting up cold storages along with the processing plant. This will generate the overall revenue over the forecast period.Asia Pacific market holds over 20% of overall industry share in 2016. According to industry estimates, the region is anticipated to account for more than two-thirds of the global beverages consumption by 2020. The region accounts for 60% of the world population and increasing consumption will provide lucrative opportunities for manufacturers.Make an Inquiry for purchasing this Report @Global Beverage Refrigeration Market is fragmented in nature. Key industry players are Electrolux, Daikin Industries, Avanti, Dover Corporation, KingsBottle, Whirlpool Corporation, Edgestar, Haier, Ford and General Electrics. Other Industry participants are Koolatron, Coca-Cola, Danfoss, Gamko, Liebherr, Marvel, Kegco, Danby, Johnson Controls, U-line, HABCO, Allavino, Kenmore, Marvel, United Technologies Corporation and Illinois Tool Works.About Global Market Insights:Global Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology.Contact Us:Arun HegdeCorporate Sales, USAGlobal Market Insights, Inc.Phone:1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email: sales@gminsights.comWeb: Condom Market with Top Key Players are Ansell, Reckitt Benckiser Group, Sagami Rubber Industries https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/request-pdf/869 https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/ongoing-insight/condom-market-869 Condom is a sheath shaped barrier used during sexual intercourse to reduce the chances of pregnancy and protect against sexually transmitted diseases. World Health Organization listed condoms as essential for health systems. Use of condoms reduces the risk of diseases such as chlamydia, trichomoniasis, gonorrhea, hepatitis B and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).Increasing awareness regarding sexually transmitted diseases and public health and promotional campaigns creating regarding advantages of condoms against unwanted pregnancy are boosting growth of the condom market. Increasing concerns regarding family planning pose as a major factor driving demand for condoms. Innovation in female and male condoms such as anti-ejaculation chemicals are increasing customer interest. According to Centre for Young Womens Health (CYWH), female condoms offer around 95% accuracy for contraception effectiveness and barrier to various sexually transmitted diseases. This has increased the demand for female condoms, which in turn is propelling growth of the condom market. Several myths regarding the use of condoms, alternative methods of contraception, and social stigmas in emerging economies are some of the major factors restraining growth of the condom market.Download PDF Brochure at :Global Condom Market Outlook:Asia Pacific is the dominant region in the global condom market. Asia Pacific comprises of economies with largest population such as China, India, and Indonesia, which in turn contributes to growth of the global condom market in the region. China has a large market for condom manufacturing and brand enterprising. According to China National Centre for STD/AIDS Prevention and Control, in 2014, around 501,000 people suffered from HIV, from which around 21000 people die of the disease. The government of China has supported efforts to prevent the spread of AIDs and sexually transmitted diseases. This boosts growth of the market in China. Increasing awareness about sexually transmitted diseases, family planning campaigns, and brand advertisements are some of the major drivers expected to fuel growth of the condom market in Asia Pacific over the forecast period.North America accounts for a major share in the condom market. The U.S., Canada, and Mexico are major economies in manufacturing condom. According to study conducted by Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) between the year 2012 to 2014, the most popular form of contraception in the U.S. is condom, with its use recorded to be higher among the age group of 15 years -19 year, than 33 years - 44 years age group. Despite the increased use of condoms, the STIs rate is rapidly increasing. Over 4.5 hundred million condoms are sold annually in the U.S. Governments and high schools are playing an important role in educating students and creating awareness about STIs and contraception.The U.S Agency for International Development (USAID), has centrally financed female and male condoms as per the U.S. Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). This enables several economies to make condoms available to vulnerable and poor individuals for highly subsidized prices. Over 770 million female and male condoms are provided to 37 economies in USAIDs Asia, Latin America, and Africa.In February 2017, Reckitt Benckiser acquire Mead Johnson Nutrition manufacturers Enfa food. Reckitt Benckiser is a leading brand for Durex condom, Dettol, Lysol cleaner, and Mucinex cough remedy, while Mead Johnson is the worlds third largest baby food company. By acquisition with Mead Johnson, Reckitt Benckiser raises its standing among many multinationals such as Nestle, Unilever, and Procter & Gamble, by adding Enfant food to its large portfolio in household products.Key Market Players in the Global Condom Market:Some of the major key market players operating the global condom market include Ansell Ltd (Richmond, Australia), Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc (England), Sagami Rubber Industries, Reckitt Benckiser Group, Karex Industries Sdn. Bhd (Johor, Malaysia), Graphic Armor LLC, Thai Nippon rubber Industru Co. Ltd (Sathon, Bangkok), Church & Dwight, Okamoto Industries, HLL Lifecare, and Guilin Latex.For More Information :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 U.S. (USA) Medical Marijuana Market 2018 Key Players Canopy Growth, Aurora Cannabis, Inc., Medical Marijuana, Inc., GW Pharmaceuticals, Aphria, Inc., CanniMed Ltd., Tilray, Emerald Health Therapeutics, and United Cannabis https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/2890 https://www.gminsights.com/inquiry-before-buying/2890 U.S. Medical Marijuana Market size is set to exceed USD 8.0 billion by 2024; according to a new research study published by Global Market Insights, Inc.Growing prevalence of chronic pain associated with neurological disorders, cancer, HIV/AIDS, and arthritis will drive the U.S. medical marijuana market. The preference of marijuana over opioid medication is also boosting market revenue in the U.S. as opioids are associated with various side lethal side effects. Therefore, the demand for medical marijuana is continuously on an upsurge in various U.S. states, thereby accelerating market sales.Request sample copy of this report @Medical marijuana programs in the U.S. have continued to develop, and most of the states have started to approach medical marijuana from the perspective of public health rather than from a recreational use prospective. Various states in the U.S. have demonstrated positive public health outcomes through the application of medical marijuana, hence boosting the marker size.The U.S. medical marijuana pain management market segment is forecasted to grow rapidly at 13.3% CAGR during the forecast period. Growing cases of chronic pain which is the most common cause of long-term disability in the United States will drive the segment growth. In addition, the U.S. population has been using marijuana for pain management as compared to other traditional opioids which have lethal side-effects.The U.S. topical medical marijuana market segment valued USD 179.3 million in 2017. Increased number of companies are manufacturing lotions and creams that are absorbed through the skin for localized relief of pain and inflammation. Furthermore, topical route of administration is preferred by most of the patients as it results in maximum therapeutic benefits without the cerebral euphoria associated with other delivery methods.The U.S. medical marijuana dispensaries market segment will expand at a robust 13.3% CAGR over the forecast period owing to presence of number of legal dispensaries operating in a most of the states. With each state legalizing marijuana for medical purposes, more and more dispensaries are being set up in the country, hence propelling the market growth of the segment.California medical marijuana market is estimated to grow at 13.7% from 2018-2024. Medical marijuana is legalized in California since 1996. The manufacturing, distribution, transportation, and sales of medical marijuana is completely legal in California, thereby boosting the market growth in the coming years.New Hampshire medical marijuana market is forecasted to expand at 24.1% CAGR during the forecast period. New Hampshire ranked second in the country for the highest opioid overdose rate. With the legalization of medical marijuana, it will result in improvement of health outcomes for individuals suffering from pain, thereby driving the segment growth in the long run.Make Inquiry about this report @Prominent industry players in U.S. medical marijuana market include Canopy Growth, Aurora Cannabis, Inc., Medical Marijuana, Inc., GW Pharmaceuticals, Aphria, Inc., CanniMed Ltd., Tilray, Emerald Health Therapeutics, and United Cannabis. These companies are opting for strategic mergers, acquisitions, and partnerships to expand their geographic reach, and product portfolio, hence resulting in improved position in the overall market.U.S. medical marijuana market research report includes in-depth coverage of the industry with estimates & forecast in terms of revenue in USD million from 2013 to 2024, for the following segments:U.S. Medical Marijuana Market by Application Pain Managemento Neuropathic Paino Cancer Paino Others Muscle Spasms Nausea Anorexia Seizures OthersU.S. Medical Marijuana Market by Route of Administration Inhalation Oral TopicalU.S. Medical Marijuana Market by Distribution Channel Dispensaries OnlineThe above information is provided for the following U.S. regions and states: North Easto Connecticuto Maineo Massachusettso New Hampshireo Rhode Islando Vermonto New Jerseyo New Yorko Pennsylvania East North Centralo Illinoiso Michigan South Atlantico Delawareo Floridao Marylando Washington DC West North Centralo Minnesota Pacific Centralo Alaskao Californiao Hawaiio Oregono Washington Mountain Stateso Arizonao Coloradoo Nevadao New Mexicoo MontanaGlobal Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology.Arun HegdeCorporate Sales, USAGlobal Market Insights, Inc.Phone: 1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email: sales@gminsights.com Global Machine Learning Courses Market 2023 report outlining the current state of the industry, major provincial sectors, immense amount of market information, key players like edX, Ivy Professional School https://www.itintelligencemarkets.com/request_sample.php?id=3366 https://www.itintelligencemarkets.com/ask_for_discount.php?id=3366 https://www.itintelligencemarkets.com/enquiry_before_buying.php?id=3366 The market is increasing at a fast rate because of the rising awareness of machine learning among students and professionals. The inclusion of analytics and robotics in numerous industries is prompting organizations to upscale the knowledge of their employees in the AI domain. With the help of image recognition tools, one of the major companies, Trademark Vision has developed a technology that helps in validating brand logos.The rise in online retail has led to an increase in the number of applications using the recommendation systems. This will in turn, fuel the growth of the machine learning courses market due to the increasing R&D activities on search engines by companies in the online retail sector. These courses provide more career opportunities as users can adopt or come up with new technologies in machine learning.Get Sample Copy@Global Machine Learning Courses Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of +15% during the forecast period 2018-2023Key players: edX, Ivy Professional School, NobleProg, Udacity.The report provides the figures of the global Machine Learning Courses Market and presents consistent forecasts as to the markets development prospects over the coming years. The historical growth trajectory of the market is studied in the report, offering solid factual support to the examination and estimations presented in the report.On the basis of geography, the global Machine Learning Courses Market is divided into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa and Latin America. The report witnesses that North America will be a key regional market in the overall market. A list of leading players has been given main value to safeguard their approaches are understood in this particular market.The report offers subjective as well as quantitative researched information of the Global Market. The Porters five theory and SWOT examination have also been utilized for analyzing the market data. The fundamental plans accepted by the prestigious players for a better penetration in the Global Machine Learning Courses Market also form a vital section of this study.Early buyers will receive up to 40% Discount on this reportTable of Contents:Global Machine Learning Courses Market Research Report 2018-2023Chapter 1: Machine Learning Courses Market OverviewChapter 2: Global Economic Impact on IndustryChapter 3: Machine Learning Courses Market Competition by ManufacturersChapter 4: Global Production, Revenue (Value) by RegionChapter 5: Global Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by RegionsChapter 6: Global Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by TypeChapter 7: Global Market Analysis by ApplicationChapter 8: Manufacturing Cost AnalysisChapter 9: Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream BuyersChapter 10: Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/TradersChapter 11: Machine Learning Courses Market Effect Factors AnalysisChapter 12: Global Machine Learning Courses Market ForecastTo get more information, Ask for Sample PDF illustration with TOC, Tables, Figures and Charts @About Company:We at IT Intelligence Markets conduct intensive market research and generate detailed reports about the products and services offered in the IT domain. Our team is devoted to providing custom reports that are taylor-made to suit the customers requirements. We make sure to keep our customers updated with the latest market dynamics as IT industry is undergoing sea change intrinsically & extrinsically by forces such as regulatory fluctuations, rapidly evolving consumer preferences, and newer technologies. Not only do our market research analysts scrutinize market requirements but also track competitors relentlessly for obtaining the most updated scenario of the market.Name: Vijay TannaCompany: IT Intelligence MarketsAddress: Survey No-9/4, Flat# 6, Panchshil Park, Ganpati Marg, Nigidi, Pune 411044Mail Id: sales@itintelligencemarkets.comContact No: +91 705-760-0700 3D Cell Culture 2018 Global Market Key Players 3D Biotek, Advanced Biomatrix, Becton and Dickinson Company (BD), corning Incorporated, Global cell solutions Inc., Thermo Fisher scientific Inc. https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/3D-cell-culture-market/request-for-free-sample https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/3D-cell-culture-market/inquire-before-buying https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/3D-cell-culture-market/ www.polarismarketresearch.com The Global 3D Cell Culture Market Size is anticipated to reach over USD 2,768.8 Million by 2026 according to a new research published by Polaris Market Research.3D cell culture is a cluster of biotic cells that are allowed to cultivate in artificial media in three dimensions. This type of cell culture used in tissue engineering and drug discovery, due to its property of providing prognostic data for in vivo tests and physiologically pertinent statistics. 3D cell cultures have a longer lifespan as well as more stability when compared to 2D cell culture system. This property makes them appropriate for long-term studies and long-term effects of the drug on cells. 3D cell culture systems are mostly grown in 3D cell colonies or bioreactors. Research studies estimated that they function similar to natural cells. due to which they have applications in oncology research.Request sample copy of this report @Top Key Player:-3D BiotekAdvanced BiomatrixBecton, and Dickinson Company (BD)corning IncorporatedGlobal cell solutions Inc.Thermo Fisher scientific Inc.VWR CorporationNanofiber solutionsLonza Group Ltd.Synthecon incorporatedTecan Trading AG.Rising occurrence of several types of cancer cases and the need for effective and affordable treatment are the major factor driving the growth of the 3D cell culture market. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) 2015, it is estimated approximately 8.8 million deaths due to cancer globally. In addition, development of optimized 3D assays, growing investment in healthcare, rising R&D investments, and other research associated activities are also propelling the growth of 3D cell culture market significantly. The 3D cell cultures are majorly used for testing efficacy of new drug development, which can be further used for the treatment of chronic diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular and neurological ailments. This surges implementation of the 3D cell culture by biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, which in turn is driving the growth of 3D cell culture market.Make Inquiry about this report @The global 3D Cell Culture Market is segmented on the basis of products type, applications, end users, and geography. On the basis of product type, the global 3D cell culture market is segmented into Scaffold-based platforms, Bioreactors, Gels, Microchips, and Services. The scaffold based platforms are further categorized into Macro-Porous scaffolds, Microporous scaffolds, Nanoporous scaffolds, Scaffold free platforms, and Solid scaffolds. Scaffold-based cultures estimated to share the highest market in 2017. Availability of a substantial number of products based on the structure-maintained 3D cell culture is attributive for the estimated share of this segment.Based on the applications the global 3D cell culture market is segmented into Drug Discovery, Stem cell research, Cancer research, and Regenerative medicine. In 2017, Application in cancer research estimated to form the largest demand for 3D cell cultures market. On the basis of end users, the global 3D cell culture market IS segmented into Academic Institutes, Biotechnology & Pharmaceutical Companies, and Contract Research Laboratories. Biotechnology & pharmaceutical sectors dominated the market in 2017, as a significance of the developed application of technology in the drug discovery procedures in order to carry out well-organized screening and board validation.Browse Full Report@About us Polaris Market ResearchPolaris Market Research is a global market research and consulting company. We provide unmatched quality of offerings to our clients present globally. The company specializes in providing exceptional market intelligence and in-depth business research services for our clientele spread across different enterprises. We at Polaris are obliged to serve our diverse customer base present across the industries of healthcare, technology, semi-conductors and chemicals among various other industries present around the world. We strive to provide our customers with updated information on innovative technologies, high growth markets, emerging business environments and latest business-centric applications, thereby helping them always to make informed decisions and leverage new opportunities.We mainly focus on aiding our customers with substantial competitive intelligence, helping them to secure a competitive advantage in the market and accomplish sustainable growth in different market domains. Adept with a highly competent, experienced and extremely qualified team of experts comprising SMEs, analysts and consultants, we at Polaris endeavor to deliver value-added business solutions to our customers. Through dedicated qualitative and quantitative primary and secondary market research and consulting assignments, we adeptly formulate competitive strategies to address business challenges for our clients through analyzing market trends and emerging technologies.Contact us-Mr. NeelCorporate Sales, USAPolaris Market ResearchPhone: 1-646-568-9980Email: sales@polarismarketresearch.comWeb: Push-To-Talk Market 2023 report outlining the current state of the industry, major provincial sectors, immense amount of market information, key players like Verizon, AT&T, Sprint Corporation http://qyreports.com/request-sample?report-id=98163 http://qyreports.com/ask-for-discount?report-id=98163 http://qyreports.com/enquiry-before-buying?report-id=98163 www.qyreports.com Push-to-talk (PTT), also known as press-to-transmit, is a method of having conversations or talking on half-duplex communication lines, including two-way radio, using a momentary button to switch from voice reception mode to transmit mode.The report provides the figures of the global Push-To-Talk Market and presents consistent forecasts as to the markets development prospects over the coming years. The historical growth trajectory of the market is studied in the report, offering solid factual support to the examination and estimations presented in the report.Get Sample Copy@Global Push-To-Talk Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of +8% during the forecast period 2018-2023Key players:Ericsson, Iridium, Kodiak, C Spire, Azetti, HipVoice, Cybertel BridgeDevelopment in the number of mobile devices & network devices and the rising adoption of accessories, such as headsets, ear buds, speakers, and microphones, are among factors driving the push-to-talk over cellular market. Growing demand for push-to-talk over cellular for public safety and security applications as well as developments in mobile communication technologies are some of the main factors promoting the growth of the public safety & security subsegment.On the basis of geography, the global Push-To-Talk Market is divided into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa and Latin America. The report witnesses that North America will be a key regional market in the overall market. A list of leading players has been given main value to safeguard their approaches are understood in this particular market.The report offers subjective as well as quantitative researched information of the Global Market. The Porters five theory and SWOT examination have also been utilized for analyzing the market data. The fundamental plans accepted by the prestigious players for a better penetration in the Global Push-To-Talk Market also form a vital section of this study.Early buyers will receive up to 40% Discount on this reportTable of Contents:Global Push-To-Talk Market Research Report 2018-2023Chapter 1: Push-To-Talk Market OverviewChapter 2: Global Economic Impact on IndustryChapter 3: Push-To-Talk Market Competition by ManufacturersChapter 4: Global Production, Revenue (Value) by RegionChapter 5: Global Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by RegionsChapter 6: Global Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by TypeChapter 7: Global Market Analysis by ApplicationChapter 8: Manufacturing Cost AnalysisChapter 9: Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream BuyersChapter 10: Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/TradersChapter 11: Push-To-Talk Market Effect Factors AnalysisChapter 12: Global Push-To-Talk Market ForecastTo get more information, Ask for Sample PDF illustration with TOC, Tables, Figures and Charts @About Qyreports:We at, QYReports , a leading market research report publisher accommodate more than 4,000 celebrated clients worldwide putting them at advantage in todays competitive world with our understanding of research. Our list of customers includes prestigious Chinese companies, multinational companies, SME's and private equity firms whom we have helped grow and sustain with our fact-based research. Our business study covers a market size of over 30 industries offering unfailing insights into analysis to reimagine your business. We specialize in forecasts needed for investing in a new project, to revolutionize your business, to become more customer centric and improve the quality of output.Contact:QYReportsJones John(Sales Manager)+91-9764607607sales@qyreports.com New Innovation On Detergent Market Report Analysis By Key Players- Henkel, Clorox, Kao, Scjohnson - Gobal Forecast to 2025 Detergent Market Report https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/requested_sample/7915 https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/enquiry_before_buying/7915 https://www.upmarketresearch.com/buy/detergent-market http://www.upmarketresearch.com Detergent Industry research report delivers a close watch on leading competitors with strategic analysis, micro and macro market trend and scenarios, pricing analysis and a holistic overview of the market situations in the forecast period.Get FREE Sample Report Before Buying @Up Market Research offers a latest published report on Global Detergent Market Analysis and Forecast 2018-2023 delivering key insights and providing a competitive advantage to clients through a detailed report. The report contains 90 pages which highly exhibit on current market analysis scenario, upcoming as well as future opportunities, revenue growth, pricing and profitability.Detergent Industry research report delivers a close watch on leading competitors with strategic analysis, micro and macro market trend and scenarios, pricing analysis and a holistic overview of the market situations in the forecast period. It is a professional and a detailed report focusing on primary and secondary drivers, market share, leading segments and geographical analysis. Further, key players, major collaborations, merger & acquisitions along with trending innovation and business policies are reviewed in the report. The report contains basic, secondary and advanced information pertaining to the Detergent Industry global status and trend, market size, share, growth, trends analysis, segment and forecasts from 2018 2023.The scope of the report extends from market scenarios to comparative pricing between major players, cost and profit of the specified market regions. The numerical data is backed up by statistical tools such as SWOT analysis, BCG matrix, SCOT analysis, PESTLE analysis and so on. The statistics are represented in graphical format for a clear understanding on facts and figures.The generated report is firmly based on primary research, interviews with top executives, news sources and information insiders. Secondary research techniques are implemented for better understanding and clarity for data analysis.The report for Detergent market analysis & forecast 2018-2023 is segmented into Product Segment, Application Segment & Major players.Region-wise Analysis Global Detergent Market covers: North America United States Canada Mexico Asia-PacificThe Major players reported in the market include: P&G Unilever Church & Dwight Henkel Clorox ReckittBenckiser Kao Scjohnson Lion Colgate Amway Phoenix Brand LIBY Group Nice Group Blue Moon Shanghai White Cat Group Pangkam Nafine Lam Soon (Hong Kong) Limited Lonkey Reward Group Kaimi Baoding Qilijia Daily Chemical Beijing Lvsan ChemistryFor More Information, Please VisitGlobal Detergent Market: Product Segment Analysis: Dish-washing Detergent Laundry DetergentGlobal Detergent Market: Application Segment Analysis: Tableware Clothing ToiletThe Report covers in-depth analysis as follows: Chapter 1 study coverage Chapter 2 Executive Summary Chapter 3 Market Size by Manufacturers Chapter 4 Detergent Production by Regions Chapter 5 Detergent Consumption by Regions Chapter 6 Market Size by Type Chapter 7 Market Size by Application Chapter 8 Manufacturers Profiles Chapter 9 Production Forecasts Chapter 10 Consumption Forecast Chapter 11 Upstream, Industry Chain and Downstream Customers Analysis Chapter 12 Opportunities & Challenges, Threat and Affecting Factors Chapter 14 AppendixBuy Detergent Market analysis & forecast 2018-2023 Report along with complete TOC @Detergent Market Analysis and Forecast 2018-2023 report helps the clients to take business decisions and to understand strategies of major players in the industry. The report also calls for market-driven results deriving feasibility studies for client needs. UpMarketResearch ensures qualified and verifiable aspects of market data operating in the real-time scenario. The analytical studies are conducted ensuring client needs with a thorough understanding of market capacities in the real-time scenario.Key Reasons to Purchase: To gain insightful analyses of the market and have a comprehensive understanding of the Global Detergent Industry Analysis and Forecast 2018-2023 and its commercial landscape. Learn about the market strategies that are being adopted by your competitors and leading organizations. To understand the future outlook and prospects for Detergent market analysis and forecast 2018-2023.Customization of the Report:Up Market Research provides free customization of reports as per your need. This report can be personalized to meet your requirements. Get in touch with our sales team, who will guarantee you to get a report that suits your necessities.You can also ask for region wise market research report, as below: Detergent -Global Market Status & Trend Report 2013-2023 Top 20 Countries Data Detergent -North America Market Status and Trend Report 2013-2023 Detergent -South America Market Status and Trend Report 2013-2023 Detergent -Europe Market Status and Trend Report 2013-2023 Detergent -EMEA Market Status and Trend Report 2013-2023 Detergent -Asia Pacific Market Status and Trend Report 2013-2023 Detergent -China Market Status and Trend Report 2013-2023 Detergent -India Market Status and Trend Report 2013-2023 Detergent -United States Market Status and Trend Report 2013-2023In this study, the years considered to estimate the market size of Detergent are as follows:History Year: 2013-2017Base Year: 2017Estimated Year: 2018Forecast Year 2018 to 2025About UpMarketResearch:The UpMarketResearch () is a leading distributor of market research report with more than 800+ global clients. As a market research company, we take pride in equipping our clients with insights and data that holds the power to truly make a difference to their business. Our mission is singular and well-defined we want to help our clients envisage their business environment so that they are able to make informed, strategic and therefore successful decisions for themselves.Contact Info:Name: Alex MathewsEmail: Alex@upmarketresearch.comOrganization: UpMarketResearchAddress: 500, East E Street, Ontario, CA 91764, United States. Urinary Products Market Analysis Report By Key Players - Domtar, Medline, 3M, Covidien, B Braun - Global Forecast Urinary Products Market https://www.upmarketresearch.com/buy/urinary-products-market www.upmarketresearch.com UpMarketResearch offers a latest published report on Global Urinary Products Market Industry Analysis and Forecast 2018-2025 delivering key insights and providing a competitive advantage to clients through a detailed report. The report contains 105 pages which highly exhibits on current market analysis scenario, upcoming as well as future opportunities, revenue growth, pricing and profitability.Get Free Sample Report@ https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/requested_sample/7830The report begins with the overview of the Urinary Products market and updates the users about the latest developments and future expectations. It presents a comparative detailed analysis of all the regional and major player segments, offering readers a better knowledge of areas in which they can place their existing resources and gauging the priority of a particular region in order to boost their standing in the global market.Urinary Products market research report delivers a close watch on leading competitors with strategic analysis, micro and macro market trend and scenarios, pricing analysis and a holistic overview of the market situations in the forecast period. It is a professional and a detailed report focusing on primary and secondary drivers, market share, leading segments and geographical analysis. Further, key players, major collaborations, merger & acquisitions along with trending innovation and business policies are reviewed in the report. The report contains basic, secondary and advanced information pertaining to the Urinary Products global status and trend, market size, share, growth, trends analysis, segment and forecasts from 2018 - 2025.The scope of the report extends from market scenarios to comparative pricing between major players, cost and profit of the specified market regions. The numerical data is backed up by statistical tools such as SWOT analysis, BCG matrix, SCOT analysis, PESTLE analysis and so on. The statistics are represented in graphical format for a clear understanding on facts and figures.The generated report is firmly based on primary research, interviews with top executives, news sources and information insiders. Secondary research techniques are implemented for better understanding and clarity for data analysis.The report for Urinary Products market industry analysis & forecast 2018-2025 is segmented into Product Segment, Application Segment & Major players.The major manufacturers covered in this report Kimberly-Clark SCA Unicharm Procter & Gamble First Quality Enterprises Domtar Medline 3M Covidien B Braun Cotton Incorporated Tranquility Hengan Group Coco Chiaus Fuburg AAB Group Coloplast ConvaTec Flexicare Medical Hollister Marlen Manufacturing & DevelopmentWe can also provide the customized separate regional or country-level reports, for the following regions: North America Asia-Pacific Europe Central & South America Middle East & AfricaOn the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split into Urine Absorbents Urine Accepted Products/ Incontinence Bags OthersBy Application, the market can be split into Hospital Homecare Nursing Center OthersThe Report covers in-depth analysis as follows: Chapter 1 Study Coverage Chapter 2 Executive Summary Chapter 3 Breakdown Data by Manufacturers Chapter 4 Breakdown Data by Type Chapter 5 Breakdown Data by Application Chapter 6 North America Chapter 7 Europe Chapter 8 Asia Pacific Chapter 9 Central & South America Chapter 10 Middle East and Africa Chapter 11 Company Profiles Chapter 12 Market Opportunities, Challenges, Risks and Influences Factors Analysis Chapter 13 Value Chain and Sales Channels Analysis Chapter 14 Research Findings and Conclusion Chapter 15 AppendixBuy this report@Global Urinary Products Market Industry Analysis and Forecast 2018-2025 report helps the clients to take business decisions and to understand strategies of major players in the industry. The report also calls for market-driven results deriving feasibility studies for client needs. UpMarketResearch ensures qualified and verifiable aspects of market data operating in the real-time scenario. The analytical studies are conducted ensuring client needs with a thorough understanding of market capacities in the real-time scenario.Key Reasons to Purchase: To gain insightful analyses of the market and have a comprehensive understanding of the Global Urinary Products Market Industry Analysis and Forecast 2018-2025 and its commercial landscape Learn about the market strategies that are being adopted by your competitors and leading organizations To understand the future outlook and prospects for Urinary Products market industry analysis and forecast 2018-2025.For more information@ https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/enquiry_before_buying/7830Customization of the Report:UpMarketResearch provides free customization of reports as per your need. This report can be personalized to meet your requirements. Get in touch with our sales team, who will guarantee you to get a report that suits your necessities.About UpMarketResearch:UpMarketResearch () is a leading distributor of market research report with more than 800+ global clients. As a market research company, we take pride in equipping our clients with insights and data that holds the power to truly make a difference to their business. Our mission is singular and well-defined we want to help our clients envisage their business environment so that they are able to make informed, strategic and therefore successful decisions for themselves.Contact Info:Name: Alex MathewsEmail: Alex@upmarketresearch.comOrganization: UpMarketResearchAddress: 500 East E Street, Ontario, CA 91764, United States People don't go to an airport to see art. But under the Portland International Airport's new art coordinator, Wendy Given, a rotating art program is bringing museum-quality shows to millions of travelers every year. Related: Art at the airport: Sculptures, photos, fiber art and more Given officially assumed her role at the airport in January, but she's been programming exhibitions and installations there in nine pre- and post-security checkpoint spaces since early 2017. A practicing artist, she brings her connections to the local art community and a career's worth of experience as a professional art preparator to the position. Exhibits at the airport must be "apolitical and G-rated," Given says. "At a museum you know people will come for the art. This is about the customer and the traveler. It's more for comfort and enjoyment." "People go to a museum with intent," agrees Megan Callan, the curator in charge of museum affairs at the San Francisco International Airport's SFO Museum, the only accredited museum in a U.S. airport. "We have to be mindful airport-wide that many visitors may not be aware that they're going to a museum." In spite of the directive to present easy-going art, the work Given programs for the airport's six- and 12-month exhibitions isn't facile. In 18 months, Given has mounted compelling exhibitions and shown high-minded work by established and emerging regional artists. Laura Hughes' site-specific acrylic installation, "Imager," is in Concourse A at Portland International Airport. (Courtesy of Port of Portland) In her first year, she arranged for a site-specific installation by Portland artist Laura Hughes, a show by photographer Corey Arnold, a site-specific mural installation by artist and printmaker Roger Peet, a retrospective exhibition of glass work by Portland's Esque Studio and a group exhibition on the theme of nature that she coordinated with the Charles A. Hartman Fine Art gallery. She also tucked a singular work by nonagenarian Op art painter Ellen McFadden into a pre-security space in the main terminal. Since January, she has coordinated several new shows, among them a thoughtful presentation of work by contemporary Native American artists guest-curated by Todd Clark, an exhibition of excavated book sculptures by Portland artist James Allen and a splashy show of large-scale fiber art pieces by emerging artist Xander Griffith. The McFadden painting was recently switched out for a striking, textural mounted wood sculpture by James Florschutz. This mix of new and seasoned artists is a feature of the airport's art program, which is intentionally inclusive and has a straightforward, open-call submission process. "I never experienced anything quite as easy," says Griffith, who struggled to get his work shown in galleries. Griffith submitted a proposal to Given's email address, which is listed in the call to artists on the airport's website. A studio visit followed. In the eight months between being selected for and opening a year-long show in Concourse B, Griffith created four additional works for his first solo exhibition. The response was immediate. Griffith received a commission in the first week of his show and has since garnered another six, with another seven on the horizon. "I don't have to go deliver pizzas anymore," he says. "I'm now able to sustain myself with my art." Xander Griffith's fiber-art piece "Love, Divided" is part of his first solo exhibition, which is at Portland International Airport. (Port of Portland) The airport's art program does a lot with a modest annual budget of around $100,000, which includes Given's salary, maintenance and conservation of the artworks in the airport's permanent collection and the rotating art program. Artists who create new work for a show or site-specific work receive a $1,500 honorarium. The airport also provides professional art handling, as well as insurance. Individual works can't be valued at more than $10,000, which, Given says, opens the program to mid-career or emerging artists or to artists who want to experiment with something new. By way of comparison, the 40-year-old SFO Museum has 36 full-time and 20 part-time employees and a budget of just under $5.5 million. The Denver International Airport, which has a much-lauded art program, has a budget of $300,000 to $400,000 that covers operations and maintenance, contractors for graphic design and installation, and five full-time staff, including a special events coordinator who oversees pop-up programming. The focus of the Portland program is decidedly on art. "Art is an integral part of the passenger experience," says Walter Marchbanks, the airport's manager of customer relations, who oversees the art program. "Art complements the environment and we've made deliberate steps to enhance it." Take the airport's Concourse E extension, which opens in 2020: It will include a climate- and light-controlled display case for Given to program. "They tell me, 'It's going to grow. You have to be patient,' " Given said of the art program as she showed a visitor around recently. Eyeing a newly empty wall created from renovations in Concourse B, she added, "I want to put art everywhere." A few months later the wall has been filled by a series of richly colored still-life photographs of Willamette Valley plants and insects by Portland artist Deb Stoner. "I have lots of ideas," says Given. "There're lots of walls." Deep inside Oregon-based Nike, Meghan Grieve has embarked on an audacious and high-stakes mission: On Sept. 13, she joined the plaintiffs in a sexual discrimination class-action lawsuit against the sneaker giant. What sets Grieve apart from the five other plaintiffs is that she still works at the company. Nike has been rocked by allegations of bullying and sexual discrimination since last spring. In response, the company based near Beaverton has shown a number of executives and managers to the door. Senior executives have publicly admitted the company has struggled to gain traction in hiring women and minorities. Grieve has worked at the company's Washington County headquarters since 2008. Earlier this month, she was promoted to global visual presentation senior manager of its Nike Women unit. "During my time at Nike, I have been paid less than male Nike employees for substantially equal work," she said in a court filing. In recent years, Grieve's pay ranged from $74,275 to $80,730 a year, court documents show. Last week, it was bumped up to $88,000. Grieve claims Nike paid a male colleague in the same job a starting annual salary of $100,000 that's since increased to $103,000. "This same colleague was moved to Men's Sportswear (a smaller role) and he retained the same salary of $103,000," Grieve alleged in court documents. "I know this because my male colleague has shared with me his salary." Grieve claimed she's gone to her boss and to the human resources department to ask that she paid the same as her male colleague but got no satisfaction. Nike officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The company has yet to file an answer to the complaint, which was filed Aug. 9 in U.S. District Court in Portland. Apparel designer Elizabeth Lindsay also joined the plaintiffs after the initial case was filed in August. She claimed that men in identical roles were paid $3,000 to $20,000 more per year than her. It's not clear whether she still works for Nike. Laura Salerno Owens, of the Markowitz Herbold law firm in Portland, said she and other plaintiff's counsel continue to seek current and former Nike women to join the case. Nike has hired the Paul Hastings law firm out of Los Angeles to lead its defense. Paul Hastings is perhaps best known for representing Walmart in the Walmart v. Duke sexual discrimination case. The Paul Hastings lawyers convinced the Supreme Court to rule in Walmart's favor. -- Jeff Manning A woman comes forward with a report on being sexually assaulted by the current nominee for a Supreme Court vacancy and the same old men of the Senate are brushing her off as they did Anita Hill in a previous nomination hearing which ended up with that nominee seated in the Supreme Court. She was not believed. Now Dr. Ford, the current victim, went so far as to take a lie detector test before presenting her case to the current judiciary committee with those same old men from before. She is not believed and has asked for a FBI investigation which President Trump refuses to request, apparently to possibly protect himself as well as Brett Kavanaugh. During a televised hearing, Kavanaugh avoided answering a number of questions from members of Congress yet still his nomination is scheduled for a rushed approval by the Senate Judiciary Committee. We are supposed to have a government that is "of the people, by the people, and for the people." Decisions being made do not appear to be for the people's benefit, instead for the goals of these men who apparently want to seat a relatively conservative young man on the Supreme Court with an appointment that is for the rest of his long life. This Senate Judiciary Committee continues to minimize the importance of women, their honesty, their seriousness, their intelligence and their standing in society, especially when it touches the area of sexual harassment or attack. I call for appointments to this Senate Judiciary Committee to require that new members be selected to serve only one or two six-year terms. Current men on this committee are not keeping up with the times, in which women are now believed even if the president blows them off. Fran Sabin, Beaverton Recently, Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler added a provision to the nation's must-pass funding bill that would take away protections for the beautiful marbled murrelet, a species of bird that requires older growth forests to survive and is struggling in Washington. Removing protections for endangered species would make it easier for mining efforts on Mount St. Helens and disrupt plans for sustainable timber harvests -- which generate revenue for public schools, libraries, hospitals and other trust land beneficiaries. As someone who frequently visits the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, I wish the representative from Washington actually cared for the land rather than wanting to sell it off to a Canadian mining company. Timothy Pape, North Portland CINCINNATI The last surviving Doolittle Tokyo Raider is still telling his World War II stories, and he enjoys hearing new ones that have been passed down to younger generations. Retired Lt. Col. Dick Cole recently celebrated his 103rd birthday. And he's getting ready to attend the Oregon International Air Show in Hillsboro, starting Sept. 28. The Comfort, Texas, resident attended one in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, this summer. Youngsters tell him about their great-grandfathers' World War II memories. "It's fun," Cole, originally from Dayton, Ohio, said by telephone Thursday. "You meet a lot of people and shake a lot of hands. I like to talk to kids. "I enjoy it, and I think they do, too, because they keep coming back." He was mission commander Jimmy Doolittle's co-pilot in the 1942 bombing attack less than five months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The bold raid on Japan is credited with lifting U.S. spirits and helping turn the tide of the war in the Pacific. "I think the main thing was that you had to go in with a positive attitude," Cole said of the against-the-odds mission. "I really didn't worry about it. It was our job, and we knew what to expect." The 80 Raiders were four years ago honored with the Congressional Gold Medal for their "outstanding heroism, valor, skill and service to the United States." Three Raiders died trying to reach China after the attack, and eight were captured by Japanese soldiers. Three were executed, and a fourth died in captivity. Cole parachuted, and he and other Raiders were helped to safety by Chinese partisans. Cole has attended Raider-related events over the years, including funeral services in Missoula, Montana, in 2016 for retired Staff Sgt. David Thatcher, the 79th Raider to die. He also participated in 75th anniversary events in 2017. Cole said since he was older than many of the other Raiders, he didn't expect to be the last. "I figured that Mother Nature and the good man upstairs would pick the time, and I wouldn't have any control over it." He chuckled when asked what it's like to be 103: "A little bit slower than when you're 102." -- The Associated Press A 69-year-old man was arrested Friday after police say he left a threatening note with bullets at a Catholic church on Wednesday and deployed pepper spray through the church's mail slot five days earlier. Benjamin Jaramillo Hernandez was arrested on suspicion of second-degree intimidation, second-degree criminal mischief and second-degree criminal trespass. Hernandez is accused of harassing the clergy and staff at the St. Mary Catholic Church in downtown Eugene over the past few weeks, police said. Hernandez was spotted at the Eugene Library on Friday and arrested. Police have not said why Hernandez allegedly targeted the church. In a letter on the church's website about the incidents, church pastor the Rev. Ron Nelson said they turned over surveillance footage of Hernandez to police, and the pepper spray was shot through the mail slot around 2:30 a.m. last Friday. "We are implementing various practical strategies to [ensure] the security of the parish staff and parishioners, not the least of which is blessing the facilities and invoking the protection of St. Michael the Archangel," Nelson wrote. He later announced Hernandez's arrest. -- Everton Bailey Jr. ebailey@oregonian.com 503-221-8343; @EvertonBailey The campaign against an initiative that would make it more difficult for Oregon lawmakers to trim tax breaks could be fined as much as $11,900 for campaign finance violations, according to the secretary of state's office. The potential penalty is steep because the transactions by the Vote No on (Measure) 104 political action committee were so large: a $250,000 contribution from the Oregon Education Association, followed by transfers of $70,000 and $100,000 respectively to the political nonprofit Our Oregon and its political action committee Defend Oregon. Becca Uherbelau, executive director of Our Oregon, is also director of the Vote No on 104 political action committee. Although the transactions took place Aug. 13 and Aug. 15, the Vote No on 104 political action committee hadn't reported any contributions or expenditures as of Thursday, according to an elections complaint filed by Paul Rainey. That's well past the 30-day deadline to disclose such transactions to the state. Rainey previously worked as the caucus administrator for Oregon Senate Republicans and still works on Republican campaigns. The contributions and expenditures at issue in the secretary of state's potential penalties are the only transactions so far received or given by the anti-Measure 104 political action committee. Katherine Driessen, communications director for Our Oregon and Defend Oregon, said the bookkeeping firm they use, C&E Systems, made a mistake. Driessen shared an email from C&E Systems President Jef Green to Our Oregon, in which Green took responsibility for the late filings and the potential penalty. "Without getting too technical, when we set up the database for the No on 104 database (sic) we didn't enter the proper election day and as a result our software systems that reminds us to file transactions did not flag the pending transactions," Green wrote. "I take full responsibility for the late filings and the proposed penalty." So far, the political action committee supporting Measure 104 has reported raising roughly $230,000 and spending $151,000 this year, according to state campaign finance records. Defend Oregon has been recording quite detailed expenditures with the state. They show Ben Unger, the former director of Our Oregon who led the unsuccessful campaign to pass Measure 97 two years ago, was in Oregon in July. Unger, whose sister Melissa Unger is head of SEIU 503, quit and moved to Atlanta earlier this year. Defend Oregon paid $449 for Unger to stay at McMenamin's Crystal Hotel in downtown Portland in late July, plus $2,073 to cover other unspecified costs he incurred, according to campaign finance disclosures. Driessen said Unger is working on campaigns against Measures 103 and 104. "He is a consultant for us on the campaigns," Driessen said. -- Hillary Borrud 503-294-4034; @hborrud Controversy over foreign meddling in the 2016 Election has been swirling around Washington D.C. since the day Donald Trump was elected president. But some southern Oregon residents are convinced they've got their own case of foreign interference. And if it's not OK for the Russians, they say, why would it be OK for Canadians? "Something sure smells, even if they somehow tweaked the system to make this appear legal," said Larry Mangan of North Bend. Jordan Cove, a subsidiary of Calgary-based Pembina Pipeline Corp., has made $150,000 in political campaign contributions since Sept. 2017, according to Oregon's campaign finance database. The money went to state and local candidates and political action committees that support its plan to build an export terminal for liquefied natural gas on the North Spit of Coos Bay and a 36-inch diameter feeder pipeline that would stretch across southern Oregon. Here's the potential problem: Jordan Cove LNG, the Coos Bay business to which most of those contributions are attributed, is registered as a foreign partnership and a foreign limited liability company with the Oregon Secretary of State's office, one with its principal office in Calgary, Canada. And the campaign finance manual published by its election division says that federal regulations prohibit foreign nationals, corporations and partnerships from making campaign contributions. Period. Jordan Cove LNG's business registration in Oregon. Oregon's campaign finance manual does not address the domestic subsidiaries of foreign corporations. But federal rules do, and Oregon Elections Director Steve Trout said those rules would apply here, too. The federal rules say a domestic subsidiary can set up "a segregated fund" that can make contributions to candidates, but only if the foreign parent does not finance the election contributions, either directly or indirectly, or participate in decisions about the expenditures. There is no segregated fund listed in Oregon's campaign finance database. And Michael Hinrichs, a spokesman for Jordan Cove, said Friday that all the political contributions are direct from Jordan Cove Energy Project LP, a domestic company registered in Delaware. "The funds for this come from Pembina's U.S. assets. Those funds are generated in the U.S. and stay in the U.S. This is in line with Oregon and federal regulations." Hinrichs also said a foreign partnership registered in Oregon simply means it's domiciled out of state. A few of the contributions in the last year identify the company he cited as the contributor. But most are attributed to Jordan Cove LNG, a business entity that alternately lists addresses in Coos Bay, downtown Portland, and even at Hinrich's home. Pembina describes Jordan Cove LNG as a "wholly-owned subsidiary" and Jordan Cove's website describes itself as "a Pembina company." Jordan Cove LNG is financed by Pembina. Those expenditures are considerable, and public. In early August, Pembina executives addressed financial analysts after the release of the company's second quarter earnings. Scott Burrows, Pembina's chief financial officer, said the company had budgeted $10 million a month in development costs for the Jordan Cove project this year. Trout, the elections director, agreed that the Oregon campaign manual does identify the prohibitions against foreign contributions. But he said the Elections Division only launches an inquiry when it receives a formal complaint. As of Friday afternoon, he said, the division had not received a complaint about Jordan Cove. In fact, the Election Division did receive a formal complaint Friday. "I'm asking you to investigate what seems to be sizable campaign contributions by a foreign entity during the present run-up to the November election," Wim de Vriend, a Coos Bay resident and opponent of the project, said in a letter to Secretary of State Dennis Richardson. Trout later said he didn't know about the complaint. But his division responded promptly to de Vriend on Friday afternoon: "See page 30 of the 2018 Campaign Finance Manual (at the link below) which states in part, 'Foreign nationals are prohibited by federal law from making political contributions to influence the election of any candidate.' This prohibition is regulated by the Federal Elections Commission. Therefore, the Elections Division will not be opening an investigation into this matter." Asked why the Oregon Elections Division declined to investigate a potential problem in local and state elections that it oversees, Trout said, "We don't like to be a gotcha agency. We want people to be able to comply with the rules and not pounce on them for making a mistake, which is why we identify federal requirements." De Vriend told The Oregonian/OregonLive he was considering filing a federal complaint. Jordan Cove contributions in Oregon's database. One of the biggest recipients of Jordan Cove's largesse this year has been John Sweet, a Coos County commissioner who's up for reelection in November. Sweet has been vocal in his support of the LNG terminal for the last decade, saying it's the vital ingredient in resuscitating Coos County's economic fortunes. Jordan Cove has poured $20,000 into his campaign coffers this year, making the company his biggest campaign supporter. Sweet recently returned from Colorado, where he and the Pembina executive in charge of Jordan Cove, Stuart Taylor, met with gas producers, local politicians and Francis Fannon, assistant secretary for energy resources at the U.S. State Department. Colorado producers are big supporters of Jordan Cove as a potential outlet for their gas to customers in Asia. Contacted Friday about Jordan Cove's contributions, Sweet said, "I'm perfectly satisfied that what was done is legal. If you have questions you need to ask Jordan Cove. I'm happy the way it was done." His opponent, Katy Eymann, is an outspoken critic of the project, along with her husband, former Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury. She's miffed that the current secretary of state hasn't stepped in. Eymann also claims Jordan Cove is indirectly putting more money into local races without its name on it. She points to Jordan Cove's largest contribution this cycle: $40,000 to Oregonians to Maintain Community Standards, a political action committee for the trade unions. That was one contribution that lists the Delaware registered partnership identified by Hinrichs. Eymann claims that PAC recycles money to other trade union PACS, which then finance activities for local candidates. "I'm going to be doing a mailer reminding people not to let your vote be bought by a foreign corporation," Eymann said. Jordan Cove has spread the wealth to other candidates, most of them with districts close to the terminal or along the pipeline route as well: $15,000 to Rep. Caddy McKeown, D-Coos Bay; $5,000 to Rep. Gary Leif, R-Roseburg; $5,000 to Douglas County Commissioner Tim Freeman; $2,500 to Rep. David Gomberg, D-Central Coast; $2,500 to Rep. Werner Reschke, R-Klamath Falls; $2,500 to Rep. Duane Stark, R-Grants Pass; and $2,000 to Rep. David Brock Smith, R-Port Orford. It also has contributed $2,000 each to Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose and Rep. Brad Witt, D-Clatskanie. "We support organizations and candidates that share our interests in economic development," Hinrichs said. - Ted Sickinger tsickinger@oregonian.com 503-221-8505; @tedsickinger Clarification: A foreign partnership registered in Oregon is one domiciled outside the state. There's good news for fans of "Halloweentown" and the character of "Marnie." Despite earlier reports stating that Kimberly J. Brown, the actress who played "Marnie" in the 1998 Disney Channel TV movie, wouldn't be attending the 2018 "Spirit of Halloweentown" event in St. Helens, Oregon, Brown is indeed returning for the community celebration. "Halloweentown" was partly filmed in St. Helens, and for the last several years, the Columbia River town has held a "Spirit of Halloweentown" event in October. The event gained greater attention in 2015, when Brown announced she would be attending the "Spirit of Halloweentown." Brown continued the tradition in 2016, and in 2017, she was joined by fellow "Halloweentown" cast members who came to St. Helens to honor the memory of the late Debbie Reynolds, who played "Grandma Aggie" in the TV movie. On her Facebook page, Brown has posted a video announcing that she is indeed returning to St. Helens to celebrate the 20th anniversary of "Halloweentown." Spirit of Halloweentown 2018 Come celebrate the 20th Anniversary of #Halloweentown with the cast at the Spirit of Halloweentown Festival in St. Helens, Oregon! We'll be there on Saturday October 13, 2018 lighting the pumpkin and meeting fans where it all began 20 years ago :) Go to www.discovercolumbiacounty.com for more info and https://cityandtownevents.ticketleap.com/ for tickets! Hope to see you there! #Halloweentown20 Posted by Kimberly J. Brown on Friday, September 21, 2018 Brown will be in St. Helens on Saturday, Oct. 13. Brown, and fellow "Halloweentown" cast members will be at a "VIP Meet & Greet," a pizza party (limited to 40 guests) and a celebrity pumpkin lighting. "Halloweentown" cast members expected to join Brown at "Spirit of Halloweentown" include Robin Thomas (Kalabar), Judith Hoag (Gwen Piper), Joey Zimmerman (Dylan Piper) and Emily Roeske (Sophie Piper). For information on schedules and ticket prices, go to http://discovercolumbiacounty.com/20180101/ The following weekend, Oct. 20-21, "Grimm" stars Sasha Roiz, who played Portland Police Captain Renard, and Reggie Lee, who played Sgt. Wu, will be guests at "Spirit of Halloweentown." The two will be available for photo ops at 3:30 p.m. (tickets required) and will also be at the evening celebration that begins at 7:30 p.m., following the pumpkin lighting ceremony in Courthouse Plaza. Here's the description, from the Discover Columbia County website: "7:30 - 9:30 It never looked so Grimm with Captain Sean Renard and Sergeant Wu. Imagine being surrounded by huge boulders from the underworld reminiscent of the popular television show Grimm. A bonfire, sipping drinks and getting to know some of the actors from the iconic Portland television show Grimm a little bit better. Get a selfie and access to our professional photographer from the exclusive site shots too. Choose from a selection of drinks (3 per person), grab a bite, and enjoy this once in a lifetime experience. Music too! This will be horrifically magical. Limited Availability. Tickets at https://cityandtownevents.ticketleap.com/" For details, consult http://discovercolumbiacounty.com/20180101/ or the "Spirit of Halloweentown" Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Halloweentown.OR/ -- Kristi Turnquist kturnquist@oregonian.com 503-221-8227 @Kristiturnquist MSU Extension of Midland County and cooperating parent educators sponsor the Parent's Corner. Send submissions to Midland County MSU Extension Educator, Lisa Treiber, 220 W. Ellsworth St., Midland, MI 48640. Fur Trade Fun Kids will explore a unique historical time of this region when beaver pelts were the currency of the Great Lakes. Travel around various self-guided, hands-on stations throughout the Visitor Center at Chippewa Nature Center, 400 S. Badour Road, Midland. For each activity completed, participants will collect a trading card. Before leaving, head to the Naturalist desk and trade the cards in for a small prize! This fun event takes place 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sept. 22 and noon to 5 p.m. Sept. 23. Full Moon Stroll Chippewa Nature Center, 400 S. Badour Road, Midland, is celebrating the first day of Autumn and the Harvest moon with a full moon stroll. Under clear skies, walkers should get a nice look at the moon, nocturnal wildlife and migrating birds. Wear dark clothing and bring a flashlight on Sept. 23. The walk will take place from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Lumberjack, in Training In the late 1800s, pine was king in the Saginaw Valley and lumbering was big business. Discover how Michigan's vast pine forests were forever changed by the lumberman's axe and saw. In this program kids assume the roles of lumbermen as they perform jobs including sawing and rafting logs, using marking hammers, and loading a logging sled. Kids will have the chance to draw their own logging mark and read the Tales of Paul Bunyan. The program takes place from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Sept. 29, at Chippewa Nature Center, 400 S. Badour Road, Midland. Cooking for Crowds There are a range of food safety risks that can develop when someone cooks large volumes of food. Cooking for Crowds is designed for any group that runs fundraisers such as meals, bake sales, sub sales, potlucks, church dinners and other food related events. Learn to reduce the risks and help prevent the conditions that may lead to a foodborne illness. Each participant receives a safe food handling guide and other food safety tools. Michigan State University Extension will offer this course for volunteers and others from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 23, at the Midland County MSU Extension office. Cost is $10 per person. Registration is necessary at https://events.anr.msu.eduC4CMidland18. For more information, contact Lisa Treiber 989-832-6643 or e-mail treiber@msu.edu. Note: This is not a ServSafe Manager course, but a training for those who volunteer or are not the Person in Charge as designated by Food Code Law. NEMCSA Head Start NEMCSA Head Start is a free preschool program for qualifying families with children ages 3 to 4. Head Start also serves children with special needs and/or disabilities. Head Start is a member of the Midland County Regional Preschool Partnership. Your first step to enroll is to complete a preschool interest form online at www.michiganpreschool.org. NEMCSA Head Start offers full day and half-day preschool classrooms that run four days a week. Classroom locations in the Midland and Sanford areas include sites at Longview Early Childhood Center, First Baptist Church, Grace Bible Church and Sanford Early Childhood Center. Contact Shannon Wakeman at 989-832-0968 or Kelly Schram-Scoles at 989-832-7520 to schedule an application appointment to learn if your family is eligible for these free NEMCSA Head Start Preschool Program. Midland is experiencing the second strongest economic growth per capita in the nation, according to a study soon to be released by the McNair Center at Northwood University. The seventh annual report states that Midland, Grand Rapids and Michigan are national leaders in real gross domestic product growth per capita when measured over the years 2011-2017. "We're trying to measure how, in Michigan and in Midland, the economic growth was taking place, and whether Midland impacted Michigan," said co-author Timothy G. Nash, a Northwood senior vice president and economist. "The answer turned out to be clearly yes." Midland is one of 15 defined metropolitan areas in the state and one of 383 nationwide. Its growth rate of 5.7 percent ranked No. 1 in Michigan. Grand Rapids had a 2.7 percent growth rate to rank second in Michigan and tied for 24th in the nation. The only metropolitan area in the nation growing faster than Midland was Elkhart, Ind., Nash said. It grew at 6.9 percent during the same period. Nash said the results of the study, which are released every fall, surprised him. "I have to say, I knew Midland was doing well. But I was surprised we were doing that well over that period of time." Sarah Opperman, interim president and CEO of Midland Business Alliance, welcomed the news. "This is exciting news for Midland, and provides inspiration for continued growth as a community," she said in a statement. "... Over many, many years, the business community and Midland have grown together, embracing change while continuing to build and support each other." Nash said the state has come a long way since 2012, when Northwood's first national study came out. He said he remembers talking to Rich Studley, president and chief executive officer of the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, about their findings. "We ranked Michigan 47th out of 50," Nash said. "We ran the data 15 times. (Studley) asked if we would run it one more time." But the numbers were correct. "I said at least we're not 48th, 49th or 50th. But it was kind of shocking." Nash said Midland and Michigan have moved up the rankings together. Midland because of positive growth at The Dow Chemical Co., now DowDuPont. And Michigan because of the change in the state's business environment. "Midland is not a huge town, but it has one or two impressive businesses that are doing very well. Having the world headquarters of Dow Chemical, now DowDuPont, is a major factor. Dow has invested locally, especially in the last six or seven years." He said MidMichigan Medical Center-Midland and Northwood University also have experienced major new growth. And seven major local foundations probably have a billion dollars in assets. While Midland is fortunate to have The Dow Chemical Co., Nash said Dow also is probably fortunate to be here. "It's a great community with a strong work ethic. It's a real win-win environment," he said. "You don't see a big anti-business environment in Midland." Nash said the transformation in Michigan occurred when the state changed its business climate. "Michigan was in a real difficult situation, no doubt about it. We had a complex and difficult tax system," he said. "Michigan is now the 11th or 12th most friendly state for business taxes. "The Tax Foundation (a Washington-based think tank) now says Michigan has the eighth most favorable corporate income tax in the country." The Northwood study reports that in real GDP growth per capita, Michigan now ranks No. 1 in the Midwest and tied for fifth in the nation. Besides Nash, the study was co-authored by Keith Pretty, an economist and the president and CEO of Northwood University; Bob Thomas, the director of operations for the Michigan Chamber of Commerce; and Studley, president of the state chamber. The complete study is expected to be released on Oct. 8 by the McNair Center, a Northwood University-based economic think tank. Timothy G. Nash provides his take on the initial report on Page 5A. ABERDEEN, Md. -- The woman who killed three people and wounded others before shooting herself to death at a Maryland drugstore warehouse had been diagnosed with a mental illness and used a legally purchased gun in the rampage, a law enforcement official said Friday. Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler told news reporters Friday that the suspect, 26-year-old Snochia Moseley of Baltimore County, had been diagnosed with a mental illness in 2016. "That's as far as I'll go with it," he said, declining to give any more details about the illness. He said Moseley had become increasingly agitated in recent weeks, and relatives had been concerned for her well-being. Gahler said she used a handgun that she legally purchased in March to fire a total of 13 rounds Thursday morning and died after shooting herself in the head. Gahler identified the three people Moseley fatally shot as Sunday Aguda, a 45-year-old man from Baltimore County; Hayleen Reyes, a 41-year-old woman from Baltimore; and Brindra Giri, a 41-year-old woman from Baltimore County. A family friend said Giri was a mother of two and recent immigrant from Nepal whose relatives were devastated. Attempts to reach family members of the other victims were not immediately successful. The sheriff identified the wounded survivors as Hassan Mitchell, a 19-year-old man from Harford County; Wilfredo Villegas, a 45-year-old man from Montgomery County; and Acharya Purna, a 45-year-old man from New York. He also gave more details about how the violence unfolded. READ MORE: Maryland newspaper shooting suspect had bitter history with Capital Gazette Moseley had been hired for the holiday season and had been working there for less than two weeks. She entered the building at 6:30 a.m. As people lined up to come in the building, Gahler said she cut in line and words were exchanged, but it was a "little incident." She left around 7:21 a.m. Moseley, who had worked security jobs in the past, drove to her White Marsh home and got a handgun, pepper spray and handcuffs. She arrived back at the parking lot around 8:35 a.m. and entered the front door around 8:52 a.m. He says she pulled a hooded shirt over her head and began shooting, striking and killing Aguda outside the building. Inside, where there were about 65 people, she fatally shot Giri and Reyes and also shot Mitchell, Villegas and Purna, who survived. She shot herself twice before police arrived, he said -- once with a grazing wound and then with the fatal shot. She was already down when officers arrived and an officer moved her from the scene, not knowing that she was the shooter, he said. When asked how Moseley could legally buy a gun after being diagnosed with a mental illness, officials said it had not been determined that she had a "propensity for violence to self or others." The sheriff said the motive is still a mystery and may remain so. "There's just no way to make sense of something so senseless," he said. "There's still a lot of questions that we don't know." The shooting sent survivors screaming and running in all directions from the Rite Aid distribution center in northeastern Maryland. Others nearby helped the wounded, and one person tied blood-soaked jeans around an injured man's leg trying to stanch the bleeding. Giri had joined her husband in the U.S. in April, bringing her son and daughter and thinking the children would do well here, said Harry Bhandari, a community leader and candidate for Maryland state delegate who said he has known her family for about 10 years. "It's terrible," he said. Giri was an energetic hard worker who saw the job at the distribution center as a "stepping stone," said Bhandari, who was at a funeral home with her relatives Friday afternoon as they made arrangements. Speaking through Bhandari, Giri's husband said they had married young and were happy together and that there was not a bad thing to say about her. The attack came nearly three months after a man with a shotgun attacked a newspaper office in Annapolis, Maryland, killing five staff members. Authorities accused Jarrod W. Ramos of attacking The Capital Gazette because of a longstanding grudge against the paper. It came less than a year after a fatal workplace shooting less than 10 miles (16 kilometers) from the warehouse, in which five were shot, three fatally. Harford County Executive Barry Glassman said that, unfortunately, shooting like this are "becoming a too-often occurrence" in the nation. ___ David McFadden and Michael Kunzelman of th, Associated Press wrote this story. AP writers Sarah Rankin Richmond, Virginia, and Sarah Brumfield in Washington contributed to this report. Shawn Richard Christy COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The U.S. Marshals Service says a Pennsylvania man accused of threatening President Donald Trump and law enforcement officials has been arrested in Ohio. They say Shawn Richard Christy was arrested at 4:45 p.m. Friday in Mifflin Township, near Columbus, by marshals and task force members from Ohio and Pennsylvania. A federal warrant was issued June 19 for the 27-year-old McAdoo man in connection to Facebook posts threatening to shoot Trump and a district attorney in Pennsylvania. Officials say he also threatened a police chief. Pennsylvania warrants issued for Christy allege burglary, probation violation and failure to appear for an aggravated assault case. Authorities say Christy stole a truck Sunday from the area of McAdoo, Pennsylvania, and fled after abandoning it Sunday on Interstate 71 in the Mansfield area, about 65 miles north of Columbus. A deadlock on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has thwarted the latest attempt by a Harrisburg man to get off death row for the murder of his 14-month-old son. That deadlock was announced Friday by an evenly-split panel of the high court that had weighed the most recent appeal by 52-year-old Herbert Blakeney. In that appeal, Blakeney tried to use the email scandal that prompted the resignation of former Supreme Court Justice J. Michael Eakin as a lever to overturn a Dauphin County judge's decision to dismiss his most recent attempt to void his first-degree murder conviction and death sentence for the February 2000 murder of his son Basil. Police said Blakeney stabbed his estranged wife, then cut his son's throat with a butcher knife as a city police officer yelled at him to release the child. Blakeney only released the boy's body when the officer shot him. The issue that deadlocked the Supreme Court was whether to accept Blakeney's argument that "new evidence" in the form of the Eakin email scandal should override county Judge John F. Cherry's finding that Blakeney's latest appeal was untimely filed. The Supreme Court's deadlock on the matter means Cherry's denial stands. As Justice David N. Wecht noted in an opinion on the case, Blakeney, who is black and a Muslim, argued on appeal that emails found in Eakin's possession that were deemed racist undermined Eakin's ability to fairly weigh Blakeney's earlier appeals of his murder conviction. Eakin did participate with the rest of the court in a 2008 denial of a Blakeney appeal. Blakeney based his latest appeal on what he claimed was newly-discovered evidence provided by an October 2015 story in the Philadelphia Inquirer. That media outlet and others reported on the existence of the Eakin emails. An investigation ensued and Eakin resigned in March 2016. Since he couldn't have known about the Eakin emails, or any prejudice they might have caused to his case, before October 2015, his latest appeal should have been accepted by Cherry, Blakeney argued. He contended as well that the county district attorney's office should have been disqualified from involvement in his appeals because former DA Ed Marsico and current DA Fran Chardo received some of the same emails as Eakin. Marsico and Chardo provided sworn affidavits stating they neither responded to nor forwarded those emails, Wecht noted. The Supreme Court tied 2-2 on Blakeney's arguments. Wecht and Justice Christine L. Donohue concluded Blakeney's latest appeal was not untimely filed and should be reconsidered because of the newly discovered evidence of the Eakin emails. Justices Kevin M. Dougherty and Sallie Updyke Mundy disagreed. Chief Justice Thomas G. Saylor and Justices Max Baer and Debra Todd, who were on the high court when the Eakin email scandal arose, did not participate in the consideration of the Blakeney appeal. Donald Trump Jr. had one emphatic message for Pennsylvania Republicans on Friday: "Donald Trump is on the ticket in November." The president's eldest son's brief remarks before GOP officials at the Hershey Lodge is part of a larger nationwide speaking tour for the 40-year-old real estate scion. Trump Jr. has criss-crossed the country this year attending fundraising and party events as the GOP gears up for a difficult mid-term fight. Poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight currently gives Democrats a four-in-five chance of winning control of the U.S. House and a one-in-three chance of taking the Senate. State polls, meanwhile, have shown Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf and Sen. Bob Casey with double-digit leads against their respective challenges, state Sen. Scott Wagner and U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta. Trump carried Pennsylvania by 44,000 votes, or less than 1 percentage points, in 2016. "You have to realize: it can go away tomorrow," Trump Jr. said. "That is the other side's plan. That is their motivation." He said the tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks that benefitted those in attendance -- Trump Jr. did not mention tariffs or the possiblity of a trade war with China in his remarks -- would be reversed if Democrats retook Congress. But Barletta, Wagner and the slate of congressional candidates would serve as partners to help shepherd Trump's policy goals, Trump Jr. said. "They're going to govern with my father, like my father, for all of you." Some of the biggest laugh lines of the night came as a result of Trump Jr.'s girlfriend, former Fox News TV host Kimberly Guilfoyle, who joked about her extracurricular activities, "playing doctor" with Trump Jr. After Guilfoyle introduced her boyfriend, Trump Jr. quipped, "I was up late last night -- not because of Kimberly. Get your minds out of the gutter." As many as six of Pennsylvania's 18 congressional seats could flip from Republican to Democratic control, due in large part this year's new court-drawn district map. READ MORE: 'I am not sick of winning': Donald Trump Jr. rallies the troops in Hershey | Analysis On Friday, former President Barack Obama was also in Pennsylvania: campaigning for the state's Democrats in Philadelphia. "I have not been here since you guys won a Super Bowl, I know," Pres. Obama says in Philadelphia. "I came here to deliver a very simple message and that is to vote. My message, Pennsylvania, is vote." https://t.co/LqoxDFnyyE pic.twitter.com/b15ukcDOWe CBS News (@CBSNews) September 21, 2018 State GOP Chair Val DiGiorgio said that didn't intimidate him. He claimed Friday's event broke fundraising and attendance records for the party, although it occupied one of Hershey Lodge's smaller ballrooms. "Pennsylvania will continue to be Trump country," DiGiorgio said. Wallace McKelvey may be reached at wmckelvey@pennlive.com. Follow him on Twitter @wjmckelvey. Find PennLive on Facebook. Read the 'TAPPED OUT' special investigation of drinking water and share your comments on Facebook. Harrisburg murder convict Edward Printup lost his bid Friday for a commutation of the life sentence he received for the 1980 shooting death of his step-father, Richard Sergeant. Printup, now 57 and in prison since age 19 with no chance for parole, had hoped to get on a path for release from prison that would permit him to work enough years to eventually qualify for Social Security. But the state Board of Pardons voted Friday, after a face-to-face interview with Printup earlier this week and a public hearing today, to reject his request on a 3-2 vote. As a lifer, Printup needs to have a unanimous vote for his request to be forwarded to the governor's desk. The decisive 'no' votes came from Attorney General Josh Shapiro and Harris Gubernick, the former Director of Corrections for Bucks County. Neither provided any explanation for their vote. Ross Miller, the state Corrections Department official who helps inmates develop their cases, said Printup's chances were undoubtedly lessened by the active opposition of Dauphin County District Attorney Fran Chardo. Chardo said discrepancies in details developed in the case record at Printup's 1981 trial and his account in his clemency application lead him to question whether Printup has fully taken responsibility for his crime. Printup, in his current application, has maintained Sergeant was the latest in a strong of abusive step-fathers who had just left Printup and his mother on the cusp of homelessness. He did not testify at his trial. But in his clemency application, Printup has also contended that the shooting did start as an act of self-defense. Noting Sergeant was shot at least 10 times, with entrance wounds in the back of the head and his back, Chardo countered Friday that that showed a level of malice that argued against Printup's release at age 57. "I'm not saying the defendant never deserves consideration for a commutation," Chardo comtinued. "... but at age 57, it's not appropriate to grant commutation for a case of pre-meditated murder." Chardo, under questioning from Lt. Gov. Mike Stack, said he'd be more comfortable with a parole for Printup after he's reached his 60s, and with a fuller acceptance of responsibility that what he's seen to date. Speaking in Printup's favor were his sister, Harrisburg resident Michele Printup, a family friend who has gotten to know Printup well through her own father's incarceration, and a Native American spiritual advisor. The family friend, Melanie Zampino, said Printup helped provide a crucial advice to her as the child of an incarcerated parent, and is largely responsible for both her and her daughter's completion of school. If released, Zampino said, "hewould not only become a productive member of society, I think he would be a great asset to the community." Printup had the full support of state Corrections Secretary John Wetze, and he also received a boost from the Penn Inmates Project, a program based at the University of Pennsylvania that works to support clemency efforts. All were dejected at the board's decision, one of four commutation rejections this cycle. Kathleen Brown, director of the Penn project that works to support lifers' clemency efforts, said afterward she continues to be concerned that Pardons Board members are too concerned with inmates' original crimes and not concerned enough with their rehabilitation. "Who he is now checks all the boxes" for a safe release, Brown said of Printup's case. "He's going to be OK." "I am disappointed. I think my brother did serve his debt to society," Michele Printup said. "Thirty-seven years, thirty-eight years (in prison)... That's a little bit excessive." Miller, who has the hard task of informing the inmates that they've been turned down, said he knows Printup will be disappointed by the board's denial, but he expects it won't let it wreck the progress he's made. "He'll be disappointed. But he'll just be ready to get back to SCI Huntingdon (Printup's home prison), and get back to his normal routine that he has there," Miller predicted. Printup, he noted, has been recommended by Huntingdon's leaders to begin training as a certified peer specialist, a program that uses people who have successfully come through mental health or drug and alcohol problems to help others. Beyond that, Printup has the right to file a new application for commutation of his life sentence after a two-year waiting period. Police in Lancaster County arrested two men suspected in connection with a robbery last week committed with a crowbar. The victim told police he was in the first block of N. Fourth Street at 3:50 a.m. Sept. 13 in Columbia Borough when a passing truck stopped. A tattooed passenger with a shaved head hopped out and allegedly swung a crowbar at the victim, demanding money. The victim handed over some cash and the crowbar-wielding man fled in a blue and gray late model Ford F-150 with a sunroof and running boards. Surveillance cameras in the area recorded the crime and tips from the public helped with the "timely arrest" of two suspects, according to police. The suspects were arrested Wednesday. Justin McMullen, 34, of Denver, was charged with robbery, aggravated assault and conspiracy to commit robbery. He was jailed in lieu of a $250,000 bond. Jordan Sherman, 28, of Manheim, was charged with robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery. He was jailed with a $100,000 bond. Police note that all suspects arrested are innocent until proven guilty. Pennsylvania's Catholic bishops continued a litany of highly-visible atonement Friday by releasing another statement in response to last month's scathing grand jury report on child sexual abuse by priests in its Pennsylvania dioceses. This time, the bishops in a statement said they are considering the creation of an independent panel to review abuse claims and recommend compensation for victims. Amy Hill, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, said that the fund is just an idea at this point, details are still being discussed and no amount of money had been determined, according to an Associated Press story. She said the bishops were still talking about what kinds of compensation might be offered. Friday's statement comes days after a class-action lawsuit was filed against the church's Pennsylvania dioceses. The bishops' full statement is as follows: Since the release of the grand jury report on Aug. 14, we the Catholic bishops of Pennsylvania have reflected deeply on the ugly record of clergy sexual abuse in our commonwealth, and on times when church leadership failed to protect our people over a period of decades. We fully acknowledge that the church sometimes failed the most vulnerable among us -- children and young adults. We deeply regret the suffering of survivors and any decisions that failed to protect them. As the Pennsylvania General Assembly returns for the fall legislative session, assuring the protection of children and help for survivors of sexual abuse should rightly be one of its top priorities. As various alternatives and programs are proposed, we will support all reasonable and constitutional efforts focused on helping survivors and their families on a path toward healing. We recognize our responsibility to provide an opportunity for sexual abuse survivors whose cases are time-barred from pursuing civil claims to share their experiences, identify their abusers, and receive compensation to assist their healing and recovery. To that end, we commit ourselves to creating or participating in an independent, voluntary program that will include a panel of qualified experts to review individual cases and determine financial assistance. We understand that this compensation program will require substantial fiscal commitment and all dioceses will be seriously impacted. We stress that it is most important for all experts serving on this panel to be independent of the influence of the church or of any institution in which children may have been abused. We believe such a program will expedite the process for survivors to present their cases to experienced, compassionate experts who will determine an outcome for each case in a swift, efficient manner. In doing so, the panel will provide a resolution to survivors and allow them to avoid difficult and prolonged litigation. We believe an independent panel is the best option, considering a window or reviver of the statute of limitations will inevitably result in bankruptcy for dioceses. Bankruptcy would cripple the ability of a diocese to provide compensation and healing for survivors, while vastly reducing or eliminating social service programs that greatly benefit all Pennsylvanians by serving some of the most at-risk people in our communities. We hope that as the program develops it will be open to any youth service organization, private or public, to opt into it to fulfill its obligations to survivors of abuse. We welcome legislative support for such a program. We cannot undo the harm that childhood sexual abuse has caused, but in humility and repentance we hope the path forward offers a way toward healing for survivors and their families. -- The Associated Press contributed to this story. Donald Trump Jr. had a pretty simple message for the Republican faithful who filled a hotel ballroom in Hershey on Friday night. Even though he's not running for re-election until 2020, his father, President Donald Trump, is on the ballot this fall. And if Republicans are happy with a buzzing economy, a muscular military and foreign policy, and an America that puts Americans first, they have to get out to the polls in November. "We need to get the MAGA [Make America Great Again] voter out," the younger Trump told Pennsylvania Republicans during their fall dinner at the Hershey Lodge. "They have to realize what's at stake. They have to get engaged in a way that they were not in 2016. If they recognize that Donald Trump is on the ticket this November, they will win. We have to get that message out." The GOP foot soldiers in the audience ate up. But will it be enough? The younger Trump's visit to the state his father carried in 2016 comes at a precarious time for Pennsylvania Republicans. GOP leaders badly want to hold onto the state that Trump wrenched from Democratic hands two years ago, marking the first time in some three decades that a GOP presidential candidate had carried the state. Trump beat Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by 44,000 votes. And in a rally in Wilkes-Barre last month, the elder Trump waxed rhapsodic - and at great length - about his Keystone State victory. In 2018, however, the terrain is vastly different. Democrats, aided by a massive influx of cash from outside and independent expenditure groups, are looking to win back the state - and Democratic voters - who defected to Trump. Trump Jr., who was joined here Friday by his girlfriend, the former Fox News anchor Kimberly Guilfoyle, was here to make sure that happens, even as he punched up his boyhood ties to Pennsylvania. "Pennsylvania means a lot to me," he said. "I spent a really good portion of my formative years in Pennsylvania," where he picked up a love for hunting and fishing. That regular guy message clashed some with his admission that he attended both the prestigious Hill School, a preparatory school in Montgomery County, and the University of Pennsylvania. Trump's dinner hour appearance in Hershey was part of a broader campaign swing through key states he's making this midterm season. Guilfoyle will return to Pennsylvania next week for an event in suburban Philadelphia. Trump spent the lion's share of his brief remarks punching up his father's achievements, which included, on the domestic front, tax cuts and low unemployment, and, on the foreign side, engagement with North Korea. Predictably, he also pummeled Democrats, saying their only agenda was impeachment. READ MORE: Donald Trump Jr. stumps for GOP in Hershey: 'Trump is on the ticket' "For what? Bringing manufacturing into this country? You're going to impeach him for that? I say it's hate and BS. That's not really a platform," he said, adding that, "if Donald Trump came out today and said 'I am favor of oxygen,' the Democratic Party would come out and say they are vehemently against it." At the same time that Trump Jr. was making his pitch to Republicans, former President Barack Obama was in Philadelphia to rally and fundraise on behalf of Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf and U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa. Despite Trump the younger's optimistic predictions, Pennsylvania Republicans face significant headwinds this fall. At the top of the ticket, Wolf holds a double-digit leader over GOP opponent Scott Wagner, a former state senator. Casey, of Scranton who's seeking a third term on Capitol Hill, holds a similar advantage over his GOP opponent, U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, of Hazleton. In an interview before the dinner, Barletta repeated a by-now familiar claim that the laconic Casey had been keeping a low profile. Barletta launched an attack ad Friday hammering Casey for what he said was a lack of accomplishment during his 12 years in Washington. "I'm feeling good," Barletta, 61, said. "I've been out there talking to people across the Commonwealth. They haven't seen Casey." Republicans hold a 51-49 advantage in the Senate. And what had appeared to be a narrow path to the majority for the Democrats has opened some in recent days with the controversy surrounding U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh. Barletta said that the 36-year-old sexual assault allegations lodged against Kavanaugh by Christine Blasey Ford, "deserved to be heard," but, like other Republicans, he questioned the timing of the charges that now threaten to derail Kavanaugh's nomination. On the other side of Capitol Hill, a redrawn congressional map, imposed by the state Supreme Court, has similarly shored up the electoral chances of Democrats. Democrats need to capture 23 seats to retake control of the U.S. House in November. Pennsylvania could hold the keys to as many as a quarter of those seats. All 203 seats in the state House are up for re-election this year, as is half the 50-member state Senate. Republicans hold significant majorities in both chambers. Still. as many as 10 House seats, primarily in the Philadelphia suburbs, are in play. The same holds true for the Senate, where a half-dozen seats in the collar counties, as well as one in the Pittsburgh suburbs, are in the crosshairs. Pennsylvania state Rep. Jerry Knowles, R-Schuylkill, said rank-and-file Republicans had yet to huddle about the looming election. Nor had leaders given them any message to deliver on the stump, the northeastern lawmaker said. "Everybody knows what the message is," he said With just 45 days until Election Day, the larger question is whether Pennsylvania voters will buy it. West Perry School Board has been working on solving its substitute teacher shortage. The district had intended on creating full-time substitute positions, but board President Charles Thiemann said legal wrangling has blocked that option. Instead, the district is creating three "guaranteed daily substitute teacher" positions. These teachers are committing to the district for half of the school year (90 days). In exchange for that commitment, they will be paid $225.38 per day (the equivalent of full-time pay for first-year teachers). Regular daily substitute pay will remain $100. Thiemann explained by making the positions only half-year at a time, they avoid being classified as full-time positions, which would require pay to be based on the applicant's commensurate experience. Thiemann noted two of the three guaranteed daily substitutes will be used to fill long-term substitute positions. The board also approved an agreement with the Lancaster-Lebanon Intermediate Unit to provide digital training videos for the guest teacher program. The digital training allows for remote training of potential substitutes. Applicants can continue to take on-site training at the Capital Area Intermediate Unit. The guest teacher program allows those with a college degree in any field to act as a substitute teacher. In other news, the district has hired Information Network Associates Inc. (INA) to perform security consulting services at a cost not to exceed $5,000 without written authorization. In personnel moves, the district hired Brittany Lowe as a day-to-day substitute aide and Samantha Hess as a substitute art teacher. Teachers named as mentors for new teachers were: Tina Leister and Melinda Weller at Blain, Stephanie Saylor and Carol Hall at Carroll, Lisa Kennedy at New Bloomfield, Brooke Dyer at the middle school and Cristen Urich at the high school. Each will receive a $275 stipend. Superintendent Ed Burns said the district's comprehensive plan has been submitted and is in compliance. Burns commended the district for its special education initiatives. Burns also praised the district's maintenance staff and administration for having all the buildings ready to go for the start of the school year. Eric Berger was recognized during staff spotlight. Berger has been with the district for two years after working for Newport School District for 17 years. He was credited for getting his wastewater treatment plant operator's license, which allows him to operate the district's plant at the high school campus. The recent Spanish Club trip to Costa Rica was highlighted. Student Tori Ritter said the club members learned a lot about Costa Rica's culture and natural history. They also went white water rafting, snorkeling and zip-lining. Teacher Nathan Grippin, who was a chaperone on the trip, said he received many compliments on the students' behavior and that they immersed themselves in the culture. Finally, middle school Principal Renee Ledonne reported her students will be attending an Army Heritage Day event at the Army War College in Carlisle on Sept. 21. Fitzgerald memorial to be closed to the public and live-streamed The annual S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald memorial event, which takes take place every Nov. 10 at Whitefish Point, will be a closed event this year. With federal and state health officials having approved several COVID vaccines for use in children five and older, Montgomery County and the Montgomery County Immunization Coalition have partnered with members of the medical community to hold a series of virtual town halls on the pediatric COVID-19 vaccine. There, you will be able to get the latest updates on COVID-19 vaccines for... She was a good, caring person that always left you smiling. Brett Tippie 400 [Failed to load instagram embed]https://instagr.am/p/BoA0OwYBBss&maxwidth=1000 400 [Failed to load instagram embed]https://instagr.am/p/BoADvQrB51D&maxwidth=1000 Ingrid Doerr, founder of the early freeride brand Roach Clothing, has passed away.Her clothing was legendary and helped popularize what became the freeride style. Before Roach, mountain bike clothing was mostly lycrano baggies, not much armour, nothing durable. She also loomed large in the Vancouver bike courier scene, with innovative bags and technical clothing.Many of us have fond memories of Ingrid, and our condolences go out to Ingrid's friends and family. We'll be digging around our garages to wear some Roach kit this weekend. 882 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard The top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) warned Trump that any action he takes against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein would be viewed as obstruction of justice. Video: Nadler said on MSNBCs The Beat with Ari Melber, We know that Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein is the lead person in charge of the investigation into the president colluding with the Russians and trying to rig an American election. We know that hes supervising Special Counsel Mueller. We know that he was instrumental in instigating the investigation into the president for obstruction of justice. We know, the president has told us that he wanted to get rid of Rosenstein, essentially to get rid of that investigation, and if he were to move against Rosenstein now on any pretext that would certainly be further evidence of his participation in an obstruction of justice, because it would be clearly designed to interfere with independence and maybe even the existence of these essential investigations. Trump has shown that he fears impeachment Trump has constantly walked up the line on the Russia investigation, but backed off when he was warned by Congress because he fears being impeached. Trump tried to declassify documents related to the Russia investigation, and only backed off when he was warned of the dire consequences that were waiting for him if he followed through. Donald Trump doesnt care about the Constitution or the country. He is in it only for himself. The best way for Democrats to make sure that Trump doesnt cross the line is to be constantly watching and warning him. If Trump tries to fire Rod Rosenstein, he is going to be impeached. Trump would only motivate voters to give Democrats control of the Senate if he moved against the man overseeing the Russia investigation. Trump fears impeachment, which warnings like those issued by Rep. Nader carry such great significance. For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group. Follow Jason Easley on Facebook. 11.2k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Based on results from national polls published over the past few days, Brett Kavanuagh is drowning. Never before has a Supreme Court nominee been this far underwater. Every poll has shown that he is the most unpopular nominee in history. And even though hes really unpopular throughout the entire country, hes even more unpopular in Maine and Alaska. These are the two states, of course, that are represented in the U.S. Senate by Republicans Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski. Both of these women senators have indicated they are pro-choice and do not want the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade overturned. However, neither has come out to say they will vote against Kavanaughs nomination, even though he is decidedly NOT pro-choice, and may in fact vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. This is true even though polls have shown that two-thirds of Americans dont want it overturned. And based on indications of the thinking of their constituents, if Collins and Murkowski vote in favor of Trumps right-wing nominee, they may have to re-think their plans about winning re-election. In short, Kavanaugh is not popular in either Maine or Alaska. A recent poll in Maine found that 56 percent of registered voters opposed Kavanaughs confirmation, including 57 percent of Independents. Collinss base of support, women voters, oppose Trumps nominee by a 39 point margin, 67 percent oppose to 28 percent support. This shows that if Collins votes to confirm Kavanaugh it wont be because of her representing people from Maine. It will be because she is voting for the interests of the right-wing billionaires who fund the Republican Party. Over half of the poll respondents 54% said they will be less likely to vote for Collins in the future if she votes to confirm Kavanaugh. When asked to choose what was more importantstopping Kavanaugh or re-electing Susan Collinsstopping Kavanaugh beat keeping Collins more than a 2-1 margin, 52 percent to 25 percent. Collins is no longer viewed as an independent voice for Maine, according to this poll. Nearly half (48 percent) of Maine voters now believe that Senator Susan Collins answers more to Republican leaders like Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell, than she does to Maine voters. Not even one-third of voters just 32 percent now say shes on the side of Maine. 57 percent of Mainers also believe Kavanaugh will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade if given the chance. With respect to Alaska, a PPP poll also found that keeping Kavanaugh off the Supreme Court is more important to that states voters than re-electing Sen. Lisa Murwowski, by a two-to-one margin. Stopping Kavanaugh is important to 48 percent of Alaska voters while re-electing Murkowski to just 24 percent of her constituents. According to the poll: This finding is consistent across all party lines, with a majority of Democrats (65%), and a plurality of Republicans (39%) and independents (47%) saying it is more important to stop Trumps nominee from being confirmed than to re-elect Lisa Murkowski. One again, the question will become whether or not these senators will listen to the voters in their home states instead of to the big-money interests in Washington. On a personal level, both Collins and Murkowski probably are opposed to Kavanaugh, but they have shown that they can be bought. However, these poll results show that it is politically safe for both Collins and Murkowski to oppose this nomination if those choose to do so. There have been some indications that they may vote against Kavanaugh if the testimony from his accuser, Dr. Ford, is compelling and they believe she is telling the truth. It would be hard for two women of integrity to vote to confirm a accused sex offender to the Supreme Court, especially if they know he is lying. Murkowski is also facing pressure in Alaska from the current governor and from Native Alaskans, one of her biggest groups of supporters. Collins yesterday expressed displeasure with the comments made by President Trump attacking Dr. Ford. We are still in the middle of a high-stakes Supreme Court drama, and Senators Collins and Murkowski are two of the very most important players. In fact, what they ultimately decide to do may determine the fate of not just the Kavanaugh nomination but the direction of the Supreme Court for decades to come. By Alexandra Valencia QUITO (Reuters) Ecuador in 2017 gave Wikileaks founder Julian Assange a diplomatic post in Russia but rescinded it after Britain refused to give him diplomatic immunity, according to an Ecuadorean government document seen by Reuters. The aborted effort suggests Ecuadorean President Lenin Moreno had engaged Moscow to resolve the situation of Assange, who has been holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy for six years to avoid arrest by British authorities on charges of skipping bail. The incident was revealed in a letter by Ecuadors foreign ministry to a legislator who had asked for information about Ecuadors decision last year to grant Assange citizenship. Ecuador last Dec. 19 approved a special designation in favor of Mr. Julian Assange so that he can carry out functions at the Ecuadorean Embassy in Russia, according to the letter written to opposition legislator Paola Vintimilla. Special designation refers to the Ecuadorean presidents right to name political allies to a fixed number of diplomatic posts even if they are not career diplomats. But Britains Foreign Office in a Dec. 21 note said it did not accept Assange as a diplomat and that it did not consider that Mr. Assange enjoys any type of privileges and immunities under the Vienna Convention, reads the letter, citing a British diplomatic note. Ecuador abandoned its decision shortly after, according to the letter. British authorities have said they will arrest Assange if he leaves the embassy, meaning he would have needed to be recognized as a diplomat in order to travel to Moscow. Lawyers for Assange in the United States and Britain did not respond to requests for comment. WikiLeaks website did not respond to an email seeking comment. The Ecuadorean foreign ministry could not be reached for comment. The plan to make Assange an Ecuadorean diplomat was made public last year, but the effort to send him to Moscow has not been previously reported. U.S. intelligence agencies in 2017 said they believed WikiLeaks was an intermediary used by Russia to publish emails hacked from top Democrats to embarrass 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. U.S. President Donald Trump faces an investigation into whether his campaign colluded with Russia to win that election. Assange denies receiving the emails from Russia, but has not ruled out having obtained them from a third party. Trump and Russia deny collusion. The Guardian newspaper on Friday reported that Russian diplomats held secret talks in London to help Assange flee Britain through an operation tentatively scheduled for Christmas Eve, 2017. The story, which cited unidentified sources, said details of the plan were sketchy and that it was aborted because it was deemed too risky. The Embassy has never engaged either with Ecuadorian colleagues, or with anyone else, in discussions on any kind of Russias participation in ending Mr Assanges stay within the diplomatic mission of Ecuador, Russias embassy in London wrote on its web site in a response to The Guardian story. It was not immediately evident if Ecuadorean officials had any contact with Russia as part of the Assange appointment. Reuters was unable to obtain comment from Russias foreign ministry on Ecuadors plan to make him a diplomat there. The letter from Ecuadors foreign ministry was a summary of 28 documents that were sent to Vintimilla in response to her request. Among those documents is a Dec. 4 letter from Assange in which he renounced his request for political asylum from Ecuador in preparation to become an Ecuadorean diplomat. The letter, which was seen by Reuters, said he ultimately planned to travel to Ecuador. Vintimilla, who discussed some of the documents during a Thursday press conference, said Assange should lose his citizenship as a result of that letter. Assange sought asylum in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden to face questions about allegations of sex crimes, accusations that were later dropped. Ecuadors president Moreno has said Assanges asylum cannot be eternal, but has also been reluctant to abruptly halt it on concerns that Assanges human rights could be at risk. (Refiles to erase garble at top.) (Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball in London, Writing by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Alistair Bell) 1.3k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa was clearly frustrated Friday night when he gave in one more time to Dr. Christine Ford. During the day Friday Grassley told Ford that she had a deadline of 10 p.m. to make up her mind whether or not to testify in front of his committee about her sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. When it became apparent Friday night that she would miss Grassleys artificial deadline, he tweeted: Judge Kavanaugh I just granted another extension to Dr Ford to decide if she wants to proceed w the statement she made last week to testify to the senate She shld decide so we can move on I want to hear her. I hope u understand. Its not my normal approach to b indecisive. Judge Kavanaugh I just granted another extension to Dr Ford to decide if she wants to proceed w the statement she made last week to testify to the senate She shld decide so we can move on I want to hear her. I hope u understand. Its not my normal approach to b indecisive ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) September 22, 2018 The tweet was unusual in that he seemed to address it directly to Kavanaugh himself. The Washington Post contacted an aide to Senator Grassley who confirmed that he was granting her request for more time. But he wasnt happy about what was happening, as shown by a second tweet he posted complaining that Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer was more in charge of the process than he was: With all the extensions we give Dr Ford to decide if she still wants to testify to the Senate I feel like Im playing 2nd trombone in the judiciary orchestra and Schumer is the conductor. With all the extensions we give Dr Ford to decide if she still wants to testify to the Senate I feel like Im playing 2nd trombone in the judiciary orchestra and Schumer is the conductor ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) September 22, 2018 As of late Friday night, Fords attorneys and the Judiciary Committee staff were still negotiating the terms and conditions of her testimony. Before Grassley posted his tweets, one of the attorneys for Ford complained about Grassleys arbitrary deadlines and ultimatums. She said that Ford was experiencing a great deal of stress and anxiety because the Republican senator and his committee would not agree to let her testify later next week under the conditions that she had requested. On top of that, Ford met with the FBI on Friday to discuss the many death threats she had received since coming forward with her allegations against the Supreme Court nominee. Your cavalier treatment of a sexual assault survivor who has been doing her best to cooperate with the Committee is completely inappropriate, attorney Debra Katz wrote in an email to Grassley. Despite his frustration with Ford and her attorneys, Grassley did give in one more time. This was probably because he realized he and his fellow GOP committee members looked bad and were losing the public relations battle. By the end of the week Ford was being harshly attacked by Republicans and by their right-wing supporters. But the majority of the voting public especially women who could be crucial swing votes in Novembers elections were on Fords side and thought she should be allowed to testify. Grassley had previously said that the committee vote on Kavanaugh would be held on Monday. 1.2k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Republicans love to attack Nancy Pelosi just as much as Democrats love to attack Donald Trump. Both of them are seen as party leaders and both are polarizing figures in their own way. But if GOP candidates think that attacking Pelosi is a way to assure victory in Novembers midterm elections they may have to think again. It turns out that Pelosi is more popular with the public than Trump, and in fact she would beat him in a head-to-head matchup. The Democratic leader is a frequent Republican target, but an RNC poll shows shes more popular than the president. A recent survey conducted by Public Opinion Strategies and obtained by Bloomberg Businessweek, asked registered voters who they support when the November election is framed by Trump and Pelosi. Poll respondents said they prefer Pelosi-aligned candidates over Trump-aligned candidates by 5 points, 50 percent to 45 percent. The margin was similar for independent voters also. The poll was completed in early September before the publicity surrounding Trumps Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Allegations of sexual assault against Kavanaugh may harm GOP candidates as well as taint the Republican brand. The 78-year-old Democratic House minority leader is one of the presidents favorite targets to criticize. In a sarcastic tweet posted in August he wrote: Democrats, please do not distance yourselves from Nancy Pelosi. She is a wonderful person whose ideas & policies may be bad, but who should definitely be given a 4th chance. She is trying very hard & has every right to take down the Democrat Party if she has veered too far left! Democrats, please do not distance yourselves from Nancy Pelosi. She is a wonderful person whose ideas & policies may be bad, but who should definitely be given a 4th chance. She is trying very hard & has every right to take down the Democrat Party if she has veered too far left! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 10, 2018 Congresswoman Pelosi of course loves to take shots at Trump also. Earlier in the summer she tweeted: Every single day, I find myself asking: what do the Russians have on @realDonaldTrump personally, financially, & politically? The answer to that question is that only thing that explains his behavior & his refusal to stand up to Putin. Every single day, I find myself asking: what do the Russians have on @realDonaldTrump personally, financially, & politically? The answer to that question is that only thing that explains his behavior & his refusal to stand up to Putin. #ABetterDeal Nancy Pelosi (@NancyPelosi) July 16, 2018 These new poll results must be very difficult for Republicans to accept since they have attacked and demonized the former Speaker of the House for years. They have called Pelosi an effete, out-of-touch coastal liberal, and many other less flattering names. In fact, attacking Pelosi may have led to Republican gains in the House in the past two midterm elections, in 2010 and 2014. Almost all political observers believe there is a high likelihood of Democratic gains in the House in Novembers elections. Clearly attacking Pelosi is not going to stop these gains from occuring. Yet Republican strategists are in a difficult situation because they dont have anyone else to attack as a counter to Democratic attacks on Trump. This means the GOP may be forced to stay with the approach of attacking Pelosi despite the polls that show her outperforming Trump. They really dont have any better alternatives at this point. The same survey found that on a generic congressional ballot, voters favor the Democratic candidate by 9 points over the Republican. Which means the GOP has a lot of ground to catch up. Republicans have also found that criticizing Pelosi is popular with their hardcore base of supporters. This helps them raise money and helps energize the base, so theyll probably keep doing it. It may not help them keep control of the House, but it may serve to minimize their losses, which is probably all they can hope for this year. 3.2k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Special counsel Robert Mueller is trying to fend off any effort by Donald Trump to pardon his way out of trouble with respect to the ongoing Russia investigation. According to a new Politico report this week, the recent deal reached between Mueller and former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort included safeguards to discourage the president from pardoning Manafort. The report notes that Mueller took unusual and possibly unprecedented steps to undercut President Donald Trumps ability to pardon his former campaign chairman. Politico explains, [I]f Manaforts guilty pleas or convictions are wiped out for any reason, prosecutors immediately have the right to charge him with any other crimes he may have committed previously or confessed to during recent plea negotiations. Knowing that he could still be prosecuted, even with a presidential pardon, makes it much more likely for Manafort to cooperate instead of holding out for Trump to save him. More from the report: The plea deal Mueller struck with Manafort contains several provisions that appear intended to discourage the former Trump aide from seeking a pardon and to rein in the impact of any pardon Trump might grant. Legal experts with sweeping views of executive power and attorneys who advocate for broad use of clemency criticized what they call an effort by Muellers team to tie the presidents hands. The 17-page deal doesnt explicitly prohibit Manafort from seeking a pardon, but some lawyers said it appears to extract a promise from Manafort not to seek another form of executive clemency that could relieve him of the obligation to turn over property worth tens of millions of dollars to the government as part of the plea bargain. The agreement also says prosecutors can come after the five identified homes or apartments, three bank accounts and a life insurance policy now or at any point in the future without regard to the status of his criminal conviction. Robert Mueller knows Trump is desperate Robert Mueller knows that as Paul Manafort cooperates with the investigation as part of a recent plea deal, Donald Trump will become increasingly desperate. After all, as PoliticusUSAs Leo Vidal pointed out after the former Trump campaign manager flipped, Paul Manafort can be a golden goose for Muellers investigation because he has firsthand knowledge of many key issues and events. This has the potential to take down not just Trump but his family, too. As a way to mitigate that legal disaster and keep Manafort from singing, the president has repeatedly been dangling a pardon for his former campaign manager. But being the thorough, stone cold investigator that he is, Robert Mueller has already prepared for that outcome by Trump-proofing his special counsel investigation. The only way out for Paul Manafort now is to spill the beans. Follow Sean Colarossi on Facebook. 741 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard A new poll published by USA Today shows Donald Trumps Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh to be the most unpopular nominee in history. Clearly the sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh have not helped his standing in the eyes of the American public. Amid these allegations of sexual assault, people surveyed said Kavanaugh should not be confirmed by a margin of 40 percent to 31 percent. This is an unprecedented level of disapproval for a nominee to the nations high court. This is the first time a plurality of Americans have opposed a Supreme Court nominee since polling on the issue began several decades ago. Americans are divided not just by political party but also by gender, and this is the biggest reason that Kavanaughs favorability ratings are under water. By a double-digit margin women are more likely than men to believe the story being told by Dr. Christine Ford, who has accused Kavanaugh of an attempted rape while they were at a house party in Maryland during their high school years. Women believe Ford by a margin of 35 percent to 21 percent while more men believe Kavanaughs denials by a margin of 37 percent to 28 percent. If there is a reaction against Republican candidates because of Kavanaughs nomination to the Supreme Court, and if there is a Big Blue Wave in November, it will be because of women voters turning out in droves to express their displeasure at the ballot box. On the question of whether or not Judge Kavanaugh should be confirmed to the high court, women oppose his confirmation by 20 points, 43 percent opposed compared to just 23 percent in favor. On the other hand, men support Kavanaughs confirmation by four points, 40 percent to 36 percent. Thus the poll shows a 24 percentage point gender gap on the question of Kavanaughs ultimate approval by the Senate for the Supreme Court. This is not good news for Republicans, who are persisting with Kavanaughs nomination regardless of public opinion. Cliff Young, president of Ipsos, the company that conducted the survey, said that both gender and party affiliation were the drivers of the poll results. With the battle over the confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court being charged by sexual assault accusations and at the almost one-year anniversary of the start of #MeToo, youd think that America would be split by gender on this. And we are, but our new poll shows that more than gender, party is the main driver of peoples point of view about this fight, another sign of our highly tribal times. According to Young, just 9 percent of Democrats support Kavanaughs confirmation, compared with 70 percent of Republicans. The negative poll results for Kavanaugh were consistent with other opinion surveys that were conducted earlier in the week. Brett Kavanaugh, and his proposed nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, are getting less popular with Americans every day. GOP senators would love to get Kavanaughs confirmation behind them, but that is not possible so long as they fail to allow Dr. Christine Ford to tell her full story, and so long as they refuse to allow the FBI to fully investigate her allegations. Kavanaughs nomination has gone from a sure thing to a disaster in just one week, and the Republican Party has only itself to blame. 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. The average length of time to complete a full-scale home rehab ranges from four to eight months. But local Lowe's employees will complete a project in seven weeks, as part of the company's Hero Project. During a recent year, workers from the James Island, West Ashley and Mt. Pleasant stores spent time at the Charles Webb Center and renovated playground area, added new raised garden beds and updated the kitchen. Charleston, SC (29403) Today Partly cloudy skies this evening will become overcast overnight. Low 53F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Partly cloudy skies this evening will become overcast overnight. Low 53F. Winds light and variable. Gregory Yee covers the city of Charleston. He's a native Angeleno and previously covered crime and courts for the Press-Telegram in Long Beach, CA. He studied journalism and Spanish literature at the University of California, Irvine. Photo: Contributed A team representing Kelowna Toyota is challenging other businesses in the city to join them in in the fight against homelessness. Kelowna Toyota will compete in the annual Push to End Homelessness, a fundraiser for Inn from the Cold. "The issue of homelessness is a community problem, and requires a community solution," said dealership manager Jamie Kaban. "I believe we have to all work together to deal with this issue. Competing teams are required to raise $1,000 each. However, the Kelowna Toyota team, plans to raise much more. They say they just want to make sure "everybody has a warm place to sleep this winter." Inn from the Cold is in a desperate search to find a location to house its 45 clients. It will permanently close the doors on its Sutherland Avenue shelter Sept. 30 to make way for a new development on the property. Push to End Homelessness is scheduled for Sept. 29. Click here for more information or to make a donation. Paul Bowers is an education reporter and father of three living in North Charleston. He previously worked at the Charleston City Paper, where he was twice named South Carolina Journalist of the Year in the weekly category. Assistant Columbia bureau chief Adcox returned to The Post and Courier in October 2017 after 12 years covering the Statehouse for The Associated Press. She previously covered education for The P&C. She has also worked for The AP in Albany, N.Y., and for The Herald in Rock Hill. Syndicated and guest columns represent the personal views of the writers, not necessarily those of the editorial staff. The editorial department operates entirely independently of the news department and is not involved in newsroom operations. Political Editor Schuyler Kropf is The Post and Courier political editor. He has covered every major political race in South Carolina dating to 1988, including for U.S. Senate, governorship, the Statehouse and Republican and Democratic presidential primaries. DODGE CENTER St. John Baptist de la Salle Churchwill host its 26th annual turkey dinner on Sunday. The meal will be served from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. following the 10 a.m. Mass. Takeout meals are available. Cost is $10 for adults, $5 for children 6 to 10, with preschool children free. All tickets sold at the door. Other activities planned are a raffle, silent auction, bake sale, kids games, quilt raffle and bingo. The church is at 20 Second St. NE in Dodge Center. See the Lite of parish ministry Nick Mezacapa will present "See the Lite" at 6:30 p.m. Monday at Assisi Heights Spirituality Center, 1001 14th St. NW, in Rochester. Mezacapa, an ordained Episcopal priest and retired rector of the Calvary Episcopal Church, will discuss how parish ministry is complex and often intense. However, it is not all sad and painful. Parish clergy are occasionally faced with moments and circumstances that are unbelievably funny. Cost is $10 preregistered and prepaid, $15 at the door. To register, call 282-7441 or go to www.rochesterfranciscan.org. Meditation sessions continue A meditation session will be offered from 5:15 to 5:45 p.m. every Tuesday through Dec. 18 at Assisi Heights Spirituality Center. Meditation is a practice of quieting the mind to bring forth clarity and positivity. The time will begin with Cathy Ashton or Roxanne Schlasner leading a short guided meditation followed by silence .A bell will ring every 15 minutes allowing you to enter or exit as needed. All spiritual paths are welcome. You may register by calling 282-7441 or going to www.rochesterfranciscan.org. There is no registration fee, but donations are welcome. E7: More Faith Focus Take a tour of St. Marys of the Angels Chapel WINONA A tour of St. Mary of the Angels Chapel will be offered 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Wednesday. Completed in 1923, the Chapel of St. Mary of the Angels, has one of the most beautiful Romanesque-Byzantine interiors imaginable. Cost is $59 preregistered and prepaid. It includes bus transportation, lunch and tour. To register, call 280-2195 or go to www.rochesterfranciscan.org. Conversation with Books planned for Thursday "Conversation with Books" will be offered 2 p.m. Thursday at Assisi Heights Spirituality Center. Youre invited to join a lively roundtable discussion with avid book readers highlighting books of literary merit. Whether collecting ideas for reading, or simply jump-starting the conversation about recent or great literature, this event is open to all book lovers. Dessert and beverages will be served. Facilitated by Sister Marlys Jax, the Rochester Franciscan Sisters will be hostesses of this event. Cost is $5 preregistered and prepaid and $15 the day of the program. To register, call 280-2195 or go to www.rochesterfranciscan.org. Friends of the Poor Run/Walk set for Sept. 29 The fifth annual Friends of the Poor Walk/Run and Pancake Breakfast is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 29, at Church of the Resurrection, 1600 11th Ave. SE, in Rochester. Registration begins at 8:30 a.m. begins at Church of the Resurrection. A free-will pancake breakfast will be served be served at the church from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. For more information, email martycormack@svdp-rochmn.org or go to www.svdp-rochmn.org. A Time for Women to gather for fall retreat A Time for Women is having a Fall Craft Retreat from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 29, at Autumn Ridge Church. The retreat will be held in the Summit Room at the church, 3611 Salem Road SW, Rochester. Bring your own project and materials to work on, or help with our sewing project for missions. Please bring a snack to share; coffee and water will be provided. Lunch is on your own. For more information, text or call 507-269-7653. Find us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/a.time.for.women. Architectural tour highlights Stories in Stone Architectural historian Ken Allsen will present "Stories in Stone An Architectural Tour" at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 29, at Assisi Heights Spirituality Center. Allsen will lead a tour at Assisi Heights, 1001 14th St. NW in Rochester, to see architectural features, aesthetic design aspects and often-overlooked artistic features. Wear walking shoes, as this is an indoor and outdoor event. The cost is $10 for preregistration or $15 at the door. You may register calling 282-7441 or by going to www.rochesterfranciscan.org. St. Pius to celebrate fall festival St. Pius X Catholic Churchwill hold its annual two-day fall festival during the weekend of Sept. 29-30. Saturdays events include a rummage sale, beer and brats, polka music, Karaoke, a beanbag tournament, and an outdoor movie showing of "Coco." Sundays events include a Taste of St. Pius, local food vendors, bingo, kids games, obstacle course a silent auction and raffles. For more information, call 507-288-8238. St. Pius is located at 1315 12th Ave. NW in Rochester. Public invited to Applefest Lunch HARMONY The annual Applefest Lunch will be held from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 6, at Harmony United Methodist Church. The menu includes barbecue and turkey sandwiches, pasta and potato salads, apple pie, apple crisp, coffee, milk and lemonade. All lunch items are ordered a la carte. Carryouts are available by calling 886-6851. The church is located at 60 Maine Ave. in Harmony. Wilmington Lutheran to host meatball dinner SPRING GROVE Wilmington Lutheran Church is hosting a meatball dinner from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 7. The menu includes meatballs, mashed potatoes, gravy, vegetable, cranberry relish, assorted salads, desserts, lefse and buns. Cost is $10 for adults, $5 for children for 6-12, with children younger than 5 are free. Carryouts are available for $10. The church is located at the intersection of 21068 Church Road and Houston County Road 17 in rural Spring Grove. It was a nice July day, but more importantly, it followed an overnight rain throughout the area. That was enough for Larry Dolphin to mobilize a crew to test the headwaters of the Cedar River in Dodge County. I was invited to join the effort. Larry, a good friend and former director of Hormel Nature Center in Austin, had been working for years trying clean up the Cedar River, which flows through Austin, with a tributary flowing through the nature center grounds. Larry wasnt as concerned about any litter he might see in or along the river, but worried about the pollutants he couldnt see in the water. Larrys interest in a clean Cedar River began back in the 1980s. Now, in retirement, he has devoted time to that effort. With a three-year Cedar River Pilot Project McKnight Grant given to the Izaak Walton League, Larry and others have been able to quantify the unseen pollution in the Cedar and its tributaries. Doing so has involved taking hundreds water samples throughout the watershed and testing them for E. coli bacteria. This is done following a standard protocol of placing a drop of water on a card with a pink circle embedded with "bacteria food." Incubated for only a few hours, E. coli can quickly multiply and show up as dark spots on the pink "food." It should be noted that E. coli bacteria are an important part of a healthy gut in humans and other animals, but that there are strains of E. coli that can be harmful. Fewer than two spots must appear to meet the acceptable water standard. Many of the hundreds of samples that Larry and his crew have taken during the past two years have shown dozens of spots. But it is hard telling where the bacteria has come from without honing in on it a bit, something the grant supports with expensive genetic tests done in a Florida lab. The lab can zero in on E. coli and determine its source, whether it be human, pigs or cattle. Last year, tests throughout Mower County indicated 70 percent of samples exceeded health standards, with an EPA study indicating that exceeding standards can lead to waterborne illness in humans. As a result, Larry has encouraged canoeists to wash their hands with soap and water after exposure in Austin rivers and streams. The same goes for seventh graders doing macro-invertebrate studies in the creek flowing through the Hormel Nature Center grounds. To help address this problem, Larry and the Ikes have been encouraging the Mower County Board of Commissioners to come up with a multi-year plan to assess the more than 1,700 private septic systems to see if they meet standards. It is assumed that many of the older uninspected systems dont, with some running human wastes directly into road ditches, tile lines and streams. One such site from three residences even showed toilet paper coming out of the pipe directly into a Cedar River tributary. The water sampling I was a part of was at five stream sites in Dodge County, the location of the headwaters for the Cedar River, and dozens of large hog operations that produce millions of gallons of sewage yearly. With Larry and me were Herman Beede, a rural Dodge County resident, and Bill Buckley, an Austin Izaak Walton member. Testing was done purposely after a rain event, as data clearly shows a flushing of bacteria-laden water into the Cedar after rain, with a correlation between the amount of rain and the amount of bacteria. The genetic testing report for Dodge County found pig E. coli in all but one of the five locations, human E. coli in 4 out of 5, and cattle E. coli in 1 out of 5. I played devils advocate when talking with Larry about the testing and asked if the E. coli from humans and livestock is really a problem. He said he wanted the river to be swimmable and neither he, nor members of the Ikes Board, would swim in the Cedar or its tributaries. Surprisingly, Larry indicated that "testing indicates the best place to swim in Austin is right below the sewage plant." Although there are ways to properly handle human waste to avoid polluting public waters, handling livestock waste is trickier. So, I am glad Larry, the Ikes, and others are working on both. Next year, I hope to work with local Ikes to see how the Zumbro fares, with E. coli tests on Silver Lake and other stretches of the river. Travel can be busy, noisy and crowded a potentially daunting environment for anyone. But if youre an introvert, it can drain your internal battery. Studies and experts suggest this personality type processes social stimuli differently from extroverts, who dont mind frequent interaction. Introverts gain energy by reflecting and expend energy when interacting, clinical psychologist and professor Laurie Helgoe writes in her book "Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength." Quiet time alone can help these travelers recharge, as long as they make room for it in their itineraries. Heres how self-described introverts get time to themselves when they travel. PACK SELF-CARE TOOLS Helgoe packs reading materials, earplugs and an eye mask to ward off unwanted small talk. These items politely excuse you from conversations with well-meaning travelers on a plane or at your destination. A camera can also get you out of interaction, according to Helgoe. Wander off to snap that perfect photo, and you get a minute to yourself. SKIP AIRPORT CROWDS Airport lounges, if not crowded, can spare you from noise and interactions. Some airport lounges offer cost-efficient day passes starting around $20. For an annual fee, a travel credit card that includes lounge access can also be your ticket in. Of course, lounges themselves can sometimes suffer from crowding. But for Helgoe, they enhance her experience. "Its a little quieter and the chairs are more comfortable," she says. INFORM FELLOW TRAVELERS If youre traveling with others, communicating your needs before and during your trip is key to a pleasant experience for all. "Its up to you to help them understand that its not anything wrong with them that makes you want to go away and be by yourself," says Nathan Hartle, introvert and blogger at Two Drifters. His wife, extrovert Amy Hartle, knows his needs after a few years of traveling together. He tells her when he needs a moment to himself, and she understands. "Youll be your better self when youve done what you need for self-care," she says. GET YOUR OWN ROOM When youre traveling with other people, a private room at an Airbnb or hotel can offer more opportunities to be alone. Its more expensive than sharing, but there are ways to save. For example, some hotel-branded credit cards offer an automatic free night or ways to earn them. Helgoe saves by signing up for free loyalty programs. "Every hotel seems to have one, so I sign up for all of them," she says. Or you can simply schedule time to step away. For introverts like Dan Kleinow, who vlogs at the YouTube channel Envision Adventure, working at a hostel can get crowded. "I need to always make sure I get time by myself every day," he says. "Here in Puerto Rico, Ill go to the beach or something and just hang out, maybe go to a coffee shop and do some work on my laptop." AVOID PEAK TRAVEL SEASONS The offseason varies depending on location, but booking travel during this time can mean discounts and access to less populated places. "I did a trip to Europe last year, and I intentionally went during May," Kleinow says. Aside from smaller crowds, he says, "it also saves money. Prices are lower. Flights, hostels, everything is cheaper that time of year." EXPLORE ON YOUR OWN Group tours are great for learning about a new destination, but they can leave introverts running on empty. The Hartles prefer visiting local destinations and exploring popular attractions on their own terms. "We like to see the Eiffel Tower, but we didnt feel compelled to go up in it," Amy Hartle says. If you do have the energy or inclination for mingling, do so with locals, who can help you discover authentic and potentially more affordable experiences than you find near busy tourist areas. ENGAGE WHEN YOU CAN Experiences might be waiting inside and outside of your comfort zone. For introverts, its all about finding the right balance. For Helgoe, quiet time on an Amazon expedition birthed the idea for her book. For Nathan Hartle, straying from his comfort zone led him to work at a hostel in Morocco in 2011. "That immersion experience, if its not something thats going to freak you out too bad, can be helpful," he says. He didnt know it at the time, but flexing his social muscles would later help him approach Amy when he met her for the first time in Scotland a few weeks later. Photo: Proactive Investors It is almost time for the legalization of retail marijuana in Canada, and Pretium Group realizes there is plenty of opportunity on the business side of the industry. Thats why the Vernon-based business firm will be hosting the Okanagan Cannabis Business Symposium on Tuesday at the Delta Grand Okanagan Conference Centre in downtown Kelowna. It is nearly sold out. Pretium president Sherman Dahl knew something needed to be done when he noticed one recent morning that more shares of Canopy Growth, a cannabis industry leader from Smiths Falls, Ont., had been traded than those of Canadas five major banks combined. Click here for the complete story. Photo: Contributed This week marks a full year since Foundry Kelowna opened its doors and in that time more than 1,500 youth have come looking for help. Foundry Kelowna is a center that works with youth aged 12 to 24 to get the help they need. There are 25 partner agencies working together, as seamlessly as we can, to reduce the burden young people can feel when they are looking for help, said Foundry Kelowna Manager, Melissa Feddersen. When a youth walks through our doors its a safe and welcoming environment where they only have to tell their story once. That means getting help is less traumatic and less frustrating, Feddersen added. Foundry Kelowna can connect youth to counsellors, physicians, income assistance, housing, and employment services. Weve worked with more than 300 families since we opened. When a young person comes in, sometimes we discover that mom or dad is also experiencing the chaos that comes from navigating services for their child we work with the whole family," Feddersen added. Foundry Kelowna is part of a network of seven centres now open in the province, joining two locations in Vancouver, Abbotsford, Victoria, Prince George and Campbell River. Parties in a petition filed against a proposed renewable energy solar project in Mangilao argued on Thursday over a motion for summary adjudication in the case. Former Sen. Marcel Camacho filed the petition for judicial review, declaratory judgment and injunctive relief at the Superior Court of Guam in February. The Hybrid Guam Land Use Commission, Department of Land Management and KEPCO-LG CNS are identified as respondents to the petition. The petition was filed after the land commission granted the application filed by KEPCO-LG CNS for conditional use to construct and operate a solar power plant in a 276-acre property in Sasajyan, Mangilao. Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Error! There was an error processing your request. The land commission approved the application with conditions on Jan. 25. A notice of action was issued the same month. In the petition filed in court, Camacho raised concerns about the safety of the solar panels and supporting structures in high-speed winds. Camacho said his property, which is adjacent to the project site, would be adversely impacted by the construction and operation of the solar farm. The petition said the approval of the permit was contrary to Guam law. The petition also sought a judgment from the court ordering the land commission to revoke the notice of action issued for the project. During the motion hearing Thursday before Superior Court Judge Arthur Barcinas, the legal counsel for KEPCO-LG CNS, William Blair, said the burden of proof is on the petitioner. Blair added that there is no substantial evidence in the record that supports the concerns that were expressed by Camacho during the GLUC hearings. According to Blair, KEPCO-LG CNS engineers said the solar panels exceed Guam standards. The proposal presented by the company to the land commission is for a solar facility designed in accordance with current building codes. The company said the current codes specify 170 mph wind speed and Zone 4 earthquake requirements. The company had increased their wind speed criteria to 176 mph. The only evidence on record is that this exceeds the Guam applicable standards, Blair told the court. Blair said the court must uphold the commissions decision. Attorney Leevin Camacho, who represents the petitioner, said his client has the right to ask if the land commission had acted arbitrarily when it made the decision on the application. Camacho responded to the issues over the applicable code for the solar farm. The company has not been very candid with the GLUC, he said. According to Camacho, the wind speed criteria for the panels proposed by the company is 20 mph below the current international building codes. If they had presented that information, then we will not be in this position, Camacho told the court. In documents filed in court, Camacho said, The fact that LG-CNS never disclosed this important information to the hybrid commission raises the issue of whether remand at this point may be necessary. Barcinas said he will take the matter under advisement. On Veterans Day, we remember and thank all who have served under the American flag - those who continue the missions today and and those who c Read more Photo: Contributed Ontario's police watchdog says one person is dead and two officers were shot at a gas station in Burlington. The Special Investigations Unit says it's investigating the early-morning incident. Halton Regional Police say two officers are being treated in hospital. Police did not say what the officers' condition were. The SIU is automatically called in to investigate reports involving police where there has been death, serious injury or allegations of sexual assault. SOUTH COVENTRY The Owen J. Roberts School District plans to hold two community forums aimed at addressing the issue of sleep health. The forums, which have not yet been scheduled, will likely take place in October and November, according to school board member Leslie Proffitt, who is working with Director of Pupil Services Richard Marchini to organize the sessions. The goal of the forums will be twofold. During the first session, the district will seek to gain insights from stakeholders in the community and schools regarding concerns over school start times and sleep health. The second session will focus on determining the best methods of addressing those concerns. In addition to the forums, the district will also create a page on its website containing information, research and links to articles devoted to the topic of sleep health, Marchini said. The webpage will enable parents and community members to easily access information. The school board has been criticized by some parents and community members who regularly attend board meetings, voicing concerns about early school start times. Parents Kathy DiMarino and Cheryl Hertzog have both been fighting for later start times for several years, pointing to statistics that link inadequate sleep in adolescents to depression, anxiety and other health issues. They have pled with the board to consider changing start times at the high school and middle school from 7:30 a.m. to no earlier than 8:30 a.m. That suggestion is based on an American Academy of Pediatrics 2014 recommendation that calls for secondary schools to open no earlier than 8:30 a.m. to avoid sleep deprivation in adolescents. In response to parent concerns, the district formed a committee to look at school start times in 2016, and a study was presented to the school board in February of 2017. That study, which is available on the districts website, included the results of a district survey which found that only slightly more than 50 percent of students and parents were in favor of changing to a later start time at the high school. Among district staff, less than 20 percent were in favor. Whats more, the transportation costs associated with changing to a later start time district wide would total $4 million each year. Less costly would be switching high school and middle schools to the 8:30 a.m. start time, and having elementary students begin at 7:30 a.m. But even that would come with a yearly additional cost of $1 million. Last year, the board decided against changing start times, and instead added more online and hybrid courses at the high school aimed at allowing students to tailor their schedules to begin school later if desired. The district has also incorporated sleep hygiene into the health curriculum at all levels. But Proffitt said the board wants to continue to revisit the issue of school start times and sleep health in adolescents. Our goal is to continue probing the community every year, Proffitt said. We do get feedback, but we want to hear from more members of the community. Later school start times have been adopted by several area school districts, including Phoenixville and Unionville-Chadds Ford. Its becoming a trend, Proffitt noted. As more schools are looking at it we want to make sure we are staying current. Once the forums are scheduled, dates will be posted on the districts website and information will be emailed to district and community members. A new school year is underway. Students have new clothes, new pencils and backpacks, and in some districts, new buildings to explore. As this new year begins, a lingering issue looms over public schools in our region. Families, educators and property owners have been pressing for decades to change Pennsylvanias public school funding and fix a system that has been broken for 40 years. Today, as students trek to their classrooms in a new school year, Pennsylvania has the distinction of the widest funding gap in the nation between wealthy and poor districts. The victims are not only the students in poorer districts but also property owners who carry the tax burden of funding education. The state is ranked 47th among the 50 states for its funding share compared to states who dedicate revenue to public schools from state lotteries, business taxes and other broad sources. In Pennsylvania, the property tax and the underfunding of poorer schools is not an issue for schools in counties where real estate value is adequate to educate their students. In the urban areas and towns of southeastern Pennsylvania, however, there are more students and a greater need. Fixing the problem would mean spreading the burden, which is not in the realm of political reality. How long has this issue existed? In a recent column which appeared as a paid advertorial in The Mercury, former editorial writer Thomas Hylton recalled writing about the issue in 1974. He pointed to an article in March of that year which carried the headline: Senator Hopeful for Early Passage of School Tax Bill. The article quoted then-State Sen. John Stauffer: Groups have called me from all over the state to come to their meetings and explain my bill. I now feel the bill has a realistic chance of passage by 1975. Sound familiar? In the 43 years since then, area legislators have introduced property tax reform and fair funding measures to the same regional and short-lived enthusiasm Stauffer describes. Hylton wrote that the 1974 proposal was designed to eliminate the local school real estate tax gradually over a period of 10 years. The tax was to be replaced by increases in the personal income tax, the Pennsylvania stock and franchise tax, and the creation of a new tax on unincorporated businesses. If passed, it was expected to increase the states share of funding from an average of 50 percent to an average of 80 percent over a 10-year period. I think school districts have reached the limit in real estate taxes and many educators agree with me, Stauffer said. People simply cant bear any greater burden in real estate taxes than they have now. Not only did the bill fail, the states share of education funding dropped from 50 percent to 35 percent in the intervening years. According to Hylton, other states, notably Vermont, have dramatically increased their share of school funding during that time. In Vermonts case, the impetus was a lawsuit and court order, which may be the only way funding reform will happen in Pennsylvania. Which brings us to the lawsuit currently before Commonwealth Court brought against the state by the Public Interest Law Center, six school districts including the William Penn School District in Delaware County, seven parents, the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools and the NAACP Pennsylvania State Conference. The suit seeks a court order to compell the legislature to comply with the state constitution and ensure all students receive access to a high-quality public education. In August, the court rejected claims by state Senate President Joseph Scarnati and House Speaker Michael Turzai that the adoption of a Fair Funding formula made the issues in the case moot. The August ruling was seen as a victory by school funding champions who are now optimistic that a trial date in the case may soon be set. In the meantime, legislators, educators and families from areas affected most by the inequities continue to push for change change that has been advocated since the 1970s. New school year, same problem: Taxpayers and schools alike are waiting for a legislative solution to ensure that all students in Pennsylvania get a fair shot at education. If it takes a court order to accomplish that goal, so be it. Forty-four years is a long time to wait. Local public television affiliate TPT hosted a discussion featuring Minnesota attorney general candidates Keith Ellison (Democrat), Doug Wardlow (Republican) and Noah Johnson (Legalize Cannabis) last night on Almanac. The 36-minute segment is posted here. Even before the full legalization of cannabis in Minnesota, we have high times that cry out for an intervention. Hosts Eric Eskola and Kathy Wurzer let Ellison bluster his way through the discussion, but they homed in on the domestic abuse allegations that have dogged Ellison since the weekend before the primary. Mediaite covers this aspect of the discussion in Keith Ellison Gets Slammed With Questions About Abuse Allegations at Minnesota AG Debate. FOX News covers it in Keith Ellison says his accuser fabricated domestic violence abuse story, cant be sure others wont cook up allegations. The video clip is below. On Karen Monahans allegations of abuse, Ellison pleaded: There is an ongoing investigation, Ellison added, which we hope will conclude- Wurzer asked: Will that be done before the election? I dont know, Ellison responded. Its an independent investigation. Now this is laughably false, as is always the case when Ellison addresses his inconvenient past. When it comes to the truth, Ellison is a chronic abuser. He is an audacious and inveterate liar. The independent investigation to which Ellison referred is the one announced a month ago by the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. Recall that Ellison is the endorsed candidate of the Minnesota DFL. Its no wonder we havent heard anything about that independent investigation in the past month. The Washington Times turned to University of Minnesota Professor Larry Jacobs on the independent investigation undertaken by Ellisons endorsers. The Timess Valerie Richardson quotes Professor Jacobs: I think of this not as an investigation to uncover facts and make a public release that would hurt the Democratic Party before the election. Thats not what this is. This is closer to political insurance in case there are revelations that become a kind of October surprise for Ellison and then hurt the entire DFL ticket. Doug himself put it this way in the heat of the moment last night: Its not an independent investigation. Its independent by your friends and fellow party members. Thats not an independent investigation. Good point! Citing a report of a proposed meeting of an investigator with Monahan and Ellison, Wurzer asked whether Ellison had declined. Ellison pretended that the proposed meeting involved something like couples therapy: Well, because I- we broke up two years ago for a reason. I didnt want to be in the relationship and therefore, I left the relationship. And to get back in touch with her again is not something that I am interested in doing. Wurzer also asked about other possible accusers who havent yet come forward. Look, in this political environment, I dont know what somebody might cook up, he said and then seemed to catch himself before saying something that might disappoint Democrats baying at Judge Kavanaugh. But I could tell you that there is absolutely nobody that I am aware of who has any sort of who is threatening or suggesting or who has ever made a prior accusation about me. Doug responded: I think two credible, strong allegations of domestic abuse is enough, Wardlow shot back. Theres documentary evidence. We have a medical record where we have Monahan reported to her doctor the abuse that was going on. As Ellison runs for statewide office in Minnesota for the first time we have a crucial opportunity to put the brakes on Ellisons career. Doug needs only to get the word out about his campaign. Please consider supporting him with a contribution that can be made via Doug Wardlow for Attorney General. In an unannounced visit yesterday sponsored by the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College, Secretary Mattis spoke to Professor Michael Mastandunos Government 54 class (US Foreign and Military Policy), as well as Dartmouth veterans from the college and graduate schools, members of ROTC and the War & Peace Fellows of the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding. In his remarks Secretary Mattis paid tribute to our friend Peter Robinson and spoke about his goals for our defense policy as well as the principles that inform those goals. After speaking for roughly 25 minutes, Secretary Mattis spent the remainder of the class hour taking questions from students. Secretary Mattiss prepared remarks are intensely interesting and let me emphasize this inspiring, as are his responses to the excellent questions posed by the students. He shows off a dry sense of humor and by his presence confers great honor on Dartmouth. I think it unlikely that you can watch this video without learning something. I certainly did. Quotable quote: America today is emerging from a period of strategic atrophy. One more: What I want our adversary to know is please work with our State Department. You really dont want to work with me. Thats our message. To hear the press tell it, President Trump is an unprecedented menace to the republic. Every days news is devoted to undermining him and his administration. Not just the New York Times and the Washington Post, but news outlets that once were regarded as relatively neutral, like the Associated Press, have made war on Donald Trump ever since his nomination for the presidency, if not before. Time after time, they have delivered blows they thought would be fatal. NBCs leak of the Access Hollywood tape is one notorious instance among many. The Russia Hoax is another. And our readers do not need to be reminded of Democratic politicians non-stop hysteria over the last 18 months. Still, despite everythingdespite his own occasional blunders as well as the unremitting hostility of all right-thinking peopleTrumps standing with the voters has barely been dented. His approval ratings move within a rather narrow range. At the moment, he is at 49% approval in the Rasmussen survey, the only rolling daily poll now being published, with 50% disapproving. Moreover, his Approval Indexthe difference between strong approval and strong disapprovalstands at -7. That doesnt sound great, but at the same point in his first term, Barack Obamas Approval Index was -19. The Democrats have yet to come to grips with the fact that so far, President Trump is more popular with voters than their idol Barack Obama. If they were more reflective, Democrats might wonder why this is so. I suppose it has to do with a booming economy, record low unemployment, especially among minorities and women, solid advances in foreign policy, and in general, a sense that we now have a president who is at least trying to advance American interests. To put America first, in other words. If there is a Democratic politician who understands the appeal of economic success, strong foreign policy and a focus on the interests of American citizens, he is assiduously keeping his mouth shut. I am not aware of any dissenters in the Democratic ranks. Democrats are too focused on President Trumps supposed illegitimacy to ponder why he has been successful. In 2010, Republicans gained 63 seats in the House and took control of that chamber, and picked up six Senate seats. That was largely due to President Obamas unpopularity, especially as reflected in the widely disliked stimulus package and Obamacare. No one imagines that the Democrats will do anywhere near as well this year. But then, they dont need to. I believe they only need 23 seats to take control of the House, and the GOP Senate majority is razor-thin. By historical standards, 23 seats is a very low bar for a presidents first midterm election. When Republicans made massive gains in 2010, the press did not hail those midterm results as a repudiation of President Obama, such that he might be evicted from office or effectively neutered for the remainder of his term. Rather, they stuck steadfastly to their support for the president, heedless of his policy failures. That wont happen this year. If Democrats make modest gains, the press will hail them as a definitive repudiation of President Trump and his policies, and will redouble its efforts to incapacitate the administration. None of this is fair, or makes any sense, objectively. But it is the skewed world we live in. The good news is that most voters are on to the Democrats game, and dont care what the press says about the president or, frankly, much else. That is a very healthy development. Which suggests that if the Democrats manage to eke out control over one or both chambers of Congress in November, Trumps supporters will be unfazed and the political battle will continue to rage. The financial sector regulatory authorities decided to adopt the bridge bank option in resolving the Skye Bank crisis to protect depositors funds and employees in the now defunct bank. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Friday approved the revocation of the operating license of Skye Bank, replacing it with Polaris Bank Limited, to ensure normal banking transactions are not disrupted. The new bank, which is to commence business immediately, will take over the assets and liabilities of the now rested Skye Bank and continue to transact businesses from where its predecessor stopped. To make certain that the interest of former customers and depositors in Skye Bank were fully protected, the financial sector insurer, the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), said the successor bank, Polaris, and the customers of Skye Bank remain insured under the NDIC Act. The NDIC spokesperson, Mohammed Ibrahim, said in a statement the adoption of the bridge bank model was equally to guarantee that most of the Skye Bank employees will not lose their jobs. According to Mr Ibrahim, the former Skye Bank workers will continue their employment with Polaris Bank Limited under fresh contracts and employment terms and conditions. The NDIC, as Deposit Insurer, acted to ensure the continued safety of depositors funds in furtherance of the regulatory authorities resolved to proactively manage potential threats to financial system stability, Mr Ibrahim said. In announcing the revocation of the Skye Bank license on Friday, the CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, said the board and management shall be retained given their good performance. Prior to the decision to revoke the Skye Bank license, the CBN governor said since 2016 the bank had been under the regulatory radar of the apex bank after it discovered some unacceptable corporate governance lapses as well as its persistent failure to meet minimum thresholds in critical prudential and adequacy ratios. The shortcomings of the bank, the CBN governor said, culminated in the banks permanent presence at the CBN lending window. On July 4, 2016, Mr Emefiele said the CBN took a regulatory action which led to the resignation of the chairman of Skye Bank, Tunde Ayeni, along with the Group Managing Director/ Chief Executive Officer, Timothy Oguntayo, and all Non-Executive Directors on the Board and the two longest-serving Executive Directors on the management team. To further strengthen investors and depositors confidence in the new banking arrangement, Mr Emefiele said the Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) will immediately commence the process of capitalization of Polaris Bank Limited. As a first step, he said the bridge bank will receive fresh injection of about N786 billion to return it to soundness and profitability to enable its subsequent sale to credible and financially sound third party acquirers. Penultimate week, African leaders, notably presidents and heads of government, were in China for the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in Beijing. The leaders and heads of government were about 50 in all, with the exception of government of eSwatini, which remains committed to its alliance with Taiwan. All of these African states are hoping to get a share of the $60 billion for development projects that president Xi Jinping announced at the conference, which comes on top of billions previously pledged. First, the word fathers in reference to the African leaders in the above title may appear cheeky, but I will come back to that. The debate on whether Africa needs aid or not is always problematic, and in this case, may be needless. The continent, largely through the ineptitude of its leaders, has plunged itself into the ditch of underdevelopment and may not come out except if help comes from the East or the West. For decades, many have argued, its alliance with the west has left it more vulnerable, fueling pessimism among the people as the continent again crawls to the east for help. It is not even helpful that its relatively leading lights, notably Nigeria, has not shown credible leadership as it has been a colossal failure, dashing all hopes and expectations. Now to be sure, Nigeria is not essentially a rich country, contrary to popular notion. Yes, Nigeria has oil but it is not oil-rich. With over 180 million people, the nation pumps an average of 1.8 million barrels per day. So invariably, about 90 Nigerians share a barrel of oil produced. That is a far cry compared to three Saudis (producing 10 million bpd; 30 million people); 1.44 Kuwaitis (2.8 million bpd; 4 million people) and 1.69 Qataris (1.5 million bpd; 2.5 million people). So, for years, the argument has been that it would need to borrow to support industry, fix roads and rails and housing deficit, and create jobs, by extension. Fine. But I have always argued that while the idea of borrowing is quite delicate, given its complication, the biggest concern is our inability to block wastage. In the last two or so years, Nigeria has raised its tax to GDP ratio to about 10 per cent from about 7 per cent, with the prospect of more with respect to the governments reforms in tax administration. But again, our debt to GDP ratio has risen in the said years, averaging 21 percent. Many have raised concerns around this figures, which is poised to balloon as the government keeps moving toward borrowing. Yet when we beam the searchlight on massive losses the nation records in the oil sector, occasioned largely by poor governance and bad contracts signed in the past, vis a vis the huge corruption that has fueled the entire governance architecture of the nation since independence, one may have found answers to the question of Nigerias viability. Supporters of the new romance with China have pushed forward one rationalization: that the structure of Chinese loans, which gives little or no room for diversion, and is often tied to developmental projects, makes it a better option compared to the Wests. Its near-impossible to disagree with this notion, even if Angola has shown that the structure may still not prevent corrupt elements (on both sides) from tampering with the arrangement. Again, more importantly, people gloss over the Chinese human rights records, which they masquerade as non-interference, which people in turn spin as favourable for Africas independence, especially as it relates to the wests admittedly meddlesome tendencies. But whether the Chinese would be meddlesome or not is dependent on time, anyway, especially as it struggles to maintain its One China principle. The biggest worry, for me, about this handshake with Bergin, is that no serious conversation is being held around the loan arrangement. Similarly, we do not seem to be aware of the concerns around this loan, especially with regards to the realities of other nations. The China Exim Bank, for instance, gives the concessional loan while the Ministry of Commerce assigns a Chinese contractor to execute the projectof course with ripple effects on the economy of the recipient country. And from Angola to Zambia, from Malaysia to Ghana, there are numerous concerns around which we could birth conversations. In 2010, the national hospital in Luanda, Angolas capital, witnessed what residents called a quake, and a few officials were quickly evacuated from the facility. That was shortly after it was built. It took about five years of reconstruction before it resurfaced. There have been concerns on the quality of roads constructed by the Chinese, not from apparently biased western media, but from indigenous journalists and independent media in Angola. Details of Chinese human rights records in Luanda, the near-total takeover of the Angolan construction sector, and its ripple effect on how the poor have been crowded out, making Luanda the most expensive city at a time, are well documented. Of course, Angola also provides an exception to the biggest rationale for the Chinese loansthe fear of diversion of fundsas officials on both sides have been alleged to have meddled with the arrangement. Although the Zambian government has typically refuted the claim, the government and civil society actors are currently at loggerheads as the nation risks losing some of its vital assets to default in loan payment. The Malaysian government recently called for a review of an arrangement with the Chinese government, following what local media said were some clauses that may have shortchanged the recipient. In Ghana, the local media reported that there have been concerns raised with regards to the loan, and past agreements, with questions flying here and there among citizens. In Nigeria, however, the closest we have had to a decent conversation is the scaremongering on the one side of social media divide, and the serial bashing of western aid on the other divide. For now, details of the loan and its various clauses remain sketchy. In 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari was quoted to have said that Nigeria did not need aid from the world superpowers, that all it needed was to block wastage. It will be interesting to know what has changed over the years, with regards to the presidents conception of aids and its desirability. For a nation that may have received from Abacha loot in 2018 almost equivalent of what it seeks to borrow from China, the logic may be sound, somewhat. Frankly, no one should be blind to the frenzy in western media over the Chinese deals. It is largely not in the interest of Africa; rather, its restlessness fueled by the fear of losing ones old prey to a rampaging competitor. In essence, while its important that one separates the chaff from the wheat especially in the midst of the fad that is Chinese bashing among partisan western media, it is also important that the concerns are scrutinized deeply. In the end, all gestures should be handled with cautionwhether from the West or from the East. Ultimately, only Nigeria, and indeed Africa, that can rescue the nation/continent from itself. And finally on the choice of the word fathers in the above title, there seems to be a justification: If a continent whose youth population is estimated to be way above 60 percent has the average age of its presidents hovering between 62 and 65, referring to them as fathersif not ancestorsmay not be overly inapt. * Oladeinde tweets at @Ola_deinde and could be reached via olawoyinoladeinde@gmail.com The Nigerian government has launched a new campaign to curb the spread of HIV amongst young people. The National Adolescents and Young People (AYP) HIV Prevention Campaign aims to reduce new HIV infections among young people by increasing their access to gender responsive, HIV prevention information and services. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), adolescents and young people are persons between 10 and 24 years of age. This age group is characterised by rapid physical growth and development as well as sexual maturation. A 2016 report by the United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF) estimates that out of about 1.8 billion adolescents and young people worldwide, about 2.1 million were living with HIV. With about 240,000 adolescents living with HIV, Nigeria has the second highest burden of adolescents living with the virus globally. Speaking at the launch of the campaign in Abuja last week, the Director-General of the National Agency for the Control of Aids (NACA) Sani Aliyu, said it will increase access to HIV information and services amongst young people in Nigeria. Mr Aliyu advised Nigerian youth to embrace the opportunities provided by the campaign to educate their peers and stay safe for the good of their future. UNICEF Chief of Health, HIV Section, Dorothy Ochola-Odongo, described the campaign as timely, saying it should be encouraged. The Director General of the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA), Sani Aliyu and other partners during the launch of the National Adolescents and Young People (AYP) HIV Prevention Campaign. She said UNICEF would continue to sustain advocacy to keep young people alive, noting that preventing young people from contacting HIV would guarantee their future. Some of the issues the campaign aims to address are inadequate knowledge on HIV transmission and prevention, low risk perception, early sexual debut and multiple sexual partnerships. Others are transactional sex (male and female), low condom use, low uptake of HTS, sexual and gender-based violence (GBV) messaging targeting boys and early marriage (for Northern states). The implementation of the campaign has officially kick-started in four states: Benue, FCT, Kaduna and Lagos. Registered electorates in Osun State will today exercise their political rights to elect a new governor who will pilot the affairs of the state for the next four years. The election is significant in many ways; it is the last major election before the 2019 general election, its preceding party politicking is one filled with drama and the election also serves as a litmus test for measures taken to curb vote buying. Beyond this, the contention expected of an election where 48 candidates have emerged from different political parties is an intrigue to await. The election is going to be a shift from a two horse race that is prevalent in many Nigerian elections. At least five major contenders are considered potential winners in the election. They are Iyiola Omisore, a former deputy governor of the state donning the flag of the Social Democratic Party (SDP); Gboyega Oyetola, a former chief of staff to the incumbent governor. contesting under the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC); Ademola Adeleke, a senator seeking to become governor under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP); a former Secretary to the Osun State Government, Fatai Akinbade contesting under the Action Democratic Party (ADC) and another former Secretary to the Osun State Government, Moshood Adeoti of the African Democratic Party (ADP). Even though other political parties may be considered as underdogs, aggressive campaigns and media engagements that played out few days to the election is a pointer to what upset these underdogs could mutter. Beyond party politics, attention is on Osunto see how it fares in the ugly trend of voters inducement which has characterised recent elections in Nigeria. It is still left to be seen if vows by INEC and security agencies will stem the tide. Over one million people are eligible to vote in the election. According to INEC, about 1,246,915 permanent voter cards were collected by potential voters of the 1,682,495 registered voters. Voting is expected to hold in about 3,010 polling units, across 30 local government areas. The intention of the opposition parties is to defeat the ruling APC as the incumbent governor, Rauf Aregbesola bows out in November. The campaigns have been intense and the parties have spared no effort to ensure victory today. However, INEC has promised a free, fair and credible exercise with the support of security agencies, and collaboration of other stakeholders. The Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism, in partnership with the Centre for Democracy and Development, has deployed about 180 observers in the 30 local governments of Osun. Follow PREMIUM TIMES for accurate live update, photos, videos and analyses from all 30 local governments in Osun State. At 7:45 , RA 4polling unit 1, town hall, Presiding officer addresses the voters and party agents to comport themselves and maintain peace. He told them not to come in with phones. 7.33a.m., electoral officers still setting up at PU 9, ward 2, Ede North. The PDP candidate, Ademola Adeleke is expected to vote here. Corps members setting up for the days work in Asumo Ward 10, unit 2, Ede North. They arrived as early as 7a.m. 7.19a.m., Corps members setting up for the days work in Asumo Ward 10, unit 2, Ede North. They arrived as early as 7a.m. 7.19a.m., Corps members setting up for the days work in Asumo Ward 10, unit 2, Ede North. They arrived as early as 7a.m. 6.56a.m. Corps members setting up at Alajue 2 PU, ward 5, Ede South 7:33 Ward 2 PU 6 of Ayedaade LGA. Voting to begin soon 7:35 @ward 5, Ira Gberi 1. Voters names pasted Ede South LGA, Alajue 1/2.At 7:26 the presiding officer introduces the electoral officer. He addresses the electorates about the time for the opening and closing of poll and further emphasizes the refusal to let anybody join the queue after 2:00pm. He went further to tell electorates on what ground they wont be allowed to vote which are likely to be the use of a temporary voters card, electorates whose name isnt on the voters register,if the card does not belong to the polling unit. The assistant presiding officer stated preference would be given to the old, pregnant women and people with disability. An educated looking electorate however called the attention of the PO as regards the rendition of speech in complete English Language. The Spo VP then interpreted in Yoruba language for better understanding. After his speech, flyers were being distributed to the electorates There has been an impressive turn out of voters in Iwo LGA. In some polling units, voters were out at their polling units as early as 6:45am. Materials and INEC officials have generally been prompt in the local government as well. In some of the polling units visited, polling points and materials were already set up as early as 7 am. Voters have also behaved responsibly in most area queuing up peacefully and checking their names on the voters registers. Security officials have conducted themselves properly. There have been no reports of intimidation of voters by either party officials or security personnel. No report of violent any violent clashes as at 8 am, the official start of voting. Ara 1/Ward 02/ Egbedore LGA; As at 8:00am, polling station wasnt set although voters are already present. 8:00am Ward 5, Unit 9, Irewole LGA. Opening of poll by the presiding officer was witnessed by a large turn out of voters. 7:55am The number of electorates in PU 1&2, Ward 5 Ira-Gberi, Egbedore LGA is gradually becoming teeming as it remains 5 minutes before the polls become officially open. 7:57am This is Ward 002, PU 001, Ayedaade LGA. This is a queue for those wanting to check their names on the voters register. As it stands voting wont start 8 here. 7:57am Ede south, ward4,Alajue1. The spo raises the empty ballot box for all to see at exactly. The election to begin at 8:00am. At 8:01 voting yet to commence at PU 002 RA 10 AYESO ilesha west 07:47am. INEC official pasting names of accredited voters for PU 04 ward 03 Oriade local government 7:57am PU 02/ Ward 1, Awo Court Hall/ Egbedore LGA. One of the Corp members present address the voters on how to vote and how the election process will be. The voters where made to understand that once it is 2pm Voting stops and no body will be allowed to vote. 8:00am Ara 1/ward 02/ egbedore. polling station yet to be set and voters are already waiting. 8:00am, Ward 5, Unit 9, Irewole LGA, party agents were bent on ensuring that all the code of conduct were well spelt out. One even warned the APO (Assistant presiding officer) who is about to commence the process to stop and let everyone be informed of the number of materials deployed. The authentication process commenced at 8:12am The APO operating the machine could not get hold of its operations until the PO came to the rescue. At 7:43 am, PU6, Ward 2, Osolo Hall, Oja Oba, Boripe LG, electorates seen checking their names. A Corps member, Idris, said there are 748 electorates expected to vote at the two voting points at the unit. There are 7 police officers presently on duty at the unit. At 8:16,Ede South, Ward 4, Alajue1/2. Voting in progress. Preference is also being given to the elderly 08:01 am, ward 4, polling unit 1 a and b, iperindo, Atakumosa East local government, election is yet to start but the polling unit is set. Total number of registered voters is 1125. There are about 8 security personnel on ground. Party agents are inside and seated Unit1 ward3 Ijebu Ijesha grammer school, Oriade Corp members paste list of accredited voters 8:06am, PU 002, Ward 02, Ipetu-Ile, Methodist Primary School, Obokun LG, voters checking their names. 2 security officers present in the PU. Total Number of Registered Voters 500 At 8:06am Still in PU 1 & 2, Ward 5 Ira-Gberi I, Egbedore LGA, the POs are yet to address the electorates on the process. Therefore, election may not start soon. The first voter at Atakunmosa west, PU 005, ward 3, 8:10 At 8:05am voting begins at Ede south ward 4,Alajue At 8:17a.m., Unit 8, Ward 2 Ede North. The voting cubicle is secluded, affording the voter privacy to vote without being peered on. At 8:20, electorates patiently waiting to exercise their franchise at Ward 7, Polling Unit, Iwo local government. At 8:17 am: Ara 2/ward 3/Obada village/Egbedore LG, election materials,and INEC officials are yet to get to their polling units (PUs). They complained about the bad roads, so they are planning to go by biketo the PUs. As at 8:28am, AUD primary school, Ward 6, Polling unit 6, Orolu L.G. Olufon area. Elderly men and women are given due preference to vote before others. At 8:17 am, voting already going on in PU1, Ward6 Ororuwo, Boripe LG At 8:21. Voting is yet to commence at PU 002, Ward 5 Ira-Gberi, Egbedore LGA. Though the delay is not caused by election materials but the INEC officials on scene. People are getting impatient with the system. Ola-Oluwa: At 8:35 AM. Iwo-Oke II. After ten minutes of repeated attempts, the card reader fails to verify first two voters. The presiding officer is making phone calls, seeking assistance, ostensibly from the INEC office 8:25am Ward 5, Unit 9, Irewole LGA. Voting queue is moving very slowly. At 8:29 am, at polling unit 10, voting point 1, Balogun Imole Ikirun , Ifelodun local government, voters, party agents and security officials are having a serious disagreement on how elderly ones should vote: whether they should be assisted by their relatives or no. Ola-Oluwa LG: At 8:38 AM. Iwo-Oke II. Now, the card verification is successful, but not the fingerprint authentication. The officials are debating what to do. 8:20 am, voting has commenced at PU 003, St. Mary primary school, Igbaye, RA 03, Odo Otin with presiding officer instructing voters not to come with smart phones when they are about to vote. There are 608 registered voters on the list. There are 3 policemen, 1 NSCDC officer, and one immigration officer at the election scene. At 8:22am , at Balogun Imole polling unit, Ikirun, Ifelodun local government, The PO is explaining to voters how to vote after the commencement of voting. At 8;17, PU 003 Baptist PRY School, Oke Ila. Ward 05- OBAALE, Ifedayo local government. A group of police officers trooped in with their guns openly handled. The officer leading the troop sternly warns the INEC officers and security officers around not to allow anybody to show his/her votes to anybody. And they should never allow vote buying. At 8:15, PU 002,RA 5 (Ataoja E) LGA 30( OSOGBO), Osogbo grammar school, election commences and it was attested by the PO that there are 946 registered voters. 8:20am, disagreement among voters as a man jumped the queue at Ward 6, Unit 1, Ororuwo, Boripe LG Ola-Oluwa LG: At 8:40AM. Iwo-Oke II. Voters are getting impatient and threatening to leave. Voting yet to commence. Ademola Adeleke trekking home after voting Ademola Adeleke trekking home after voting 8:36am, PU 008, Ward 02, Ipetu-Ile, Surajudeen Primary School, Obokun LG, voters on the queue to exercise their franchise. The LG chairman of Obokun LG, Barrister Joke will be voting here. At 8:16am Ede south ward4,Alajue1/2.voting in progress. Preference is also being given to the elderly 8:10am In Ward 002, PU 003, Ayedaade LGA, the turnout of electorates is massive. Election is about to start, according to the APO II of the PU. 8:14am Ede South LGA: Alajue 1, Ward 4, PU 008. Voters queuing despite the drizzling rain and divided into three sections according to the number of voting points- 3 VPs FILE: Electorates checking names on voters register PU 8, ward 2, Ede North At 8:07am Election is about to start in Ward 002, PU 003 of Ayedaade LGA. Elderly perons are seen on a separate queue with their seats. According to the APO II, election would start in no time. At 8;10am Voting begins at PU 02/ Ward 1, Awo Court Hall/ Egbedore LGA. 7:48am, Tewogbade market, ward 4 Unit, 002 in Ifetedo, Corp members and party agents on ground before election begins. At PU 003 RA 10 AYESO. Voting has commenced with the elderly people. Number of registered voters 570 8:40am: Irepodun LG, Ward 2, Unit 4, voting has commenced here. There are 457 registered voters. At 8:31 am, voting has started at Ward 8 unit 2 Ikirun, Ifelodun LG. No. Reg voters is 858. According to the presiding officer, the voting started at 8am Ola-Oluwa LG: At 8:44AM. Iwo Oke II. Finally, after skipping the first two, the third voter on the line is able to vote. 8:42am PU 005,ODE AGBON, Irewole local government, a young man who is not a security official was arrested by the security agents for using a security tag. At 8:20am, ward 05, PU 005, Ataoja E, Osogbo LG, the presiding officer is still addressing the voters. Rules and regulations are also being read out. Ejigbo: 8:47am. Baptist Elementary school, Isidun, ward 9, unit 6. There are two voting points. Voting ongoing. No problem with card readers. Security personnel well present. At 8:34am, ward 05, PU 005, Ataoja E, Osogbo LG, voting is still going on. Many people have voted. The atmosphere is safe and everything is going on smoothly. As at 8:52am at PU 05, Registration Area 03, Irewole local government voting ongoing. At 9.04am, voting going on steadily at Ward 7 PU 12, Iwo LG, as the card reader is working well and registered voters are voting in succession. At 8:04am PU 02/ Ward 1, Awo Court Hall/ Egbedore LGA. The Party agents arrived and they are been checked 823am, PU 005, Ward 02, Ipetu-Ile/Adaowode, Voting Point 1,Baptist Primary School, Obokun LG, voters on a long queue to exercise their franchise. At 8:17a.m., unit 8 ward 2 Ede North. The voting cubicle is secluded, affording the voter privacy to vote without being peered on. Voting comences with OKpolling unit 001b African jubilee school Registration area ikoyi /araromi aged as at 8;21. PU 003 RA 10 ilesha west voting ongoing 8:16am, PU 005, Ward 02, Ipetu-Ile, Baptist Primary School, Obokun LG, voters checking their names on the list. 8:19am, PU 005, Ward 02, Ipetu-Ile, Baptist Primary School, Obokun LG, voters on the queue to vote. At 8:17 Ara 2/ward 3/obada village/egbedore, election materials, p.o, apo are yet to get to their polling station, they complained about the bad roads, so they are planning to go by bike At 08:08 am PO addressed electorates in English and Yoruba at Ward 4 Unit 08 Ede South. At 08:19am PO announced there are 1,560 (serial number 000317198-000318757) voting sheets and officially voting starts at 08:20am(the first voter in this unit). In Polling Unit 005 ward 5 ileogbo Ayedire Local Govt Area, the Poling officer complained that the card reader is running out of battery. There are 279, four security personnel I confirmed APC sharing money at this polling units.. Some complained of being given N,2000.00 while some said they were given N500. Two underage persons were caught by the security personnel and they were later allowed to vote. 8.57am: Voting is going on peacefully. The elderly are being assisted as required at Ward 07, PU 007,Community Pry. School, Oke-Ada, Irewole LGA. Controversy between party agents and police officers at Ara/ ward 3/town hall/ Egbedore LG. The police refuse to allow use of mobile phones at the polling booths. At 8:19 a.m. Ward 2 unit 6. Abogunde/sagba 12 Bisiku Lane, Ede North. Voting has commenced but the voting cubicle is somewhat open and accessible. Observers can easily see who a voter is voting for. 9:04 am. Unit 7, Ward 6,PU 008,Irewole local government has 532 registered voter. Voting ongoing. 8:42am PU 005,ODE AGBON, Irewole local government a young man who is not security was just arrested by the security agents for hanging a security tag At 7:56am. At Ward 8, pu 3, Moro, Ife North L.GA. Corp members were seen setting up election materials as security agents are on ground. At ward 4, PU 3, Atakumosa East local government, as at 8:45, voting in progress but the assistant presiding officer at the PU which is making the process kind of slow 07:52 am. Ward 1, PU 006(PU(001) and VP(002)),Ipetumodu Town Hall. Corp members can be seen setting up and pasting names of eligible voters At 8:06am,unit 6, ward 11, Agboko in Ede North. Electorates are in line waiting for the election to commence. The Presiding Officer is showing the party agents the election materials. Voters are checking If their names appear on the accreditation list. At 8:15am, Ayedire local govt. Oluponna community, Araromi market 3, PU code 003, Reg. area Oluponna3, RAC 03, LGA code 04. Voting has started. The card reader refused to work efficiently as it doesnt recognized peoples thumbprint easily and its being addressed to. I left there at 8:35 At 8:39am PU 003, WARD 002 Ira-Gberi, Egbedore LGA is yet to commence election exercise though people are now on the straight line while the officials are still busy sorting election materials. (8:40am) At PU 12, Isedo 1, the polling station of the APC leader, Bisi Akande, the voting exercise is going on peacefully. At PU4 ward 03 oriade local government there are only 331 accredited voter at this unit Still RA 10 PU 2. Two Voting Points. Voting in progress. Party agents represented. Voters coming out. 8:43am The rains is not a hindrance as electorates are seen ready to cast their votes at at ward 4, Unit 4 Ede South. However, the blind are still struggling to cast their votes. At 7:50am PU 7 Ilode 2 ward 3 ife east PO orientating electorates 8:42am PU 005,ODE AGBON, Irewole local government a young man who is not security was just arrested by the security agents for hanging a security tag As at 8:28 am, in AUD Primary School, ward 6, Polling Unit 6, Orolu L.G. Olufon area, the elderly people are being treated with respect by the voting officials. They are asked to sit down and thereafter move towards accreditation point as at when due. A group of police officers trooped in with their guns. The officer leading the troop sternly warns the INEC officers and security officers around not to allow anybody to show their votes to anybody. And they should never allow vote buying. At 8;34, PU 003 Baptist Primary School, Oke Ila. Ward 05- OBAALE, Ifedayo Local Government Area, gun shots were heard from distance. An eye witness, who doesnt want his name mentioned and our driver, who had his car parked close to the area later confirmed to us that the gun shots came from police officers standing around Oke Ila Orangun Police station. Ede South LGA: Ward 4, PU005 9:00am. Card reader could not recognise many of the voters even when they cleaned their fingers as directed. INEC officials, however, working patiently with the voters. The SPO addresses the electorate about the need to be patient. 9:04am, PU 005, Ward 8, Okua/Ekusa St. Thomas primary school II, there are 427 registered voters on the list. The queue is a long one with two policemen and 1 NSCDC officer on ground. The various party agents are confined in a particular spot to monitor the electoral process. At 9:07 at Ward 2 PU1 Ikirun LG, the accredited voters are 800. The PO directed his APO to start making use of the voting point after this observer asked for the numbers of voters in his PU. At 9 :08am, Ike Oja PU 4, Ward 1 of Ifelodun Local Government, the PO refused to disclose the total numbers of ballot papers. But she asserted that there are enough ballot papers for the voters. Ejigbo: 09:12am. Ward 9. PU 6. Some people complaining of not finding their names on the accredited voters list. This has discouraged some people from voting. At 9:12am, Polling Unit 007, Ward 02, Boluwaduro Local govt, voting in progress, however some persons thumbprint could not be authenticated. 09:20 am: Large turnout of voters at Post Office, Gidigbo II, Ward 12.,Iwo Local Government.The polling unit of the ADP candidate, Moshood Adeoti. He is not here yet but voting is going on without hitch and there is no reported issue with the card readers. DSS officials and armed police officer are at the entrance of the polling unit. The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the ongoing Osun election, Ademola Adeleke, has expressed concern over the functionality of card readers in the process. He raised this concern after casting his vote at Polling Unit 9, Ward 2, Ede North Local Government on Saturday. Mr Adeleke voted some minutes after 8a.m. Speaking with journalists after exercising his right, he asserted his optimism at victory while raising concern over the card readers. He said, I hope the card readers work because it took process before the card reader started working. So far so good, its been peaceful. Well have a fair election. Im very optimistic that Im going to win this election. Responding to questions on accusations against him before election, Mr Adeleke said such moves by his opponent were borne out of fear. All allegations levelled against me is (are) false. Its all lies. They tried to make sure that I do not stand this election. Im qualified, I have all it takes. They are afraid of me because they know that in a free and fair election, Im going win. And by the special grace of God, thats whats going to happen. Im going to win. At 9: 28 am, voting is going on peacefully at PU 5, Ward 1 Ikirun, Ifelodun Local Government. At 8;34, PU 003 Baptist Primary School, Oke Ila. Ward 05- Obaale, Ifedayo Local Government Area, gun shots were heard from distance. An eyewitness, who doesnt want his name mentioned, and our driver, who had his car parked close to the area, later confirmed that the gun shots came from police officers standing around Oke Ila Orangun police station. As at 8:59am. In Ajanta junction, Ward 6, Polling Unit 5, Orolu LG, Olufon. Election in going on well, amidst peace and order between electorates and the officials. According to the APO II, materials are available for physically challenged persons. As at the time of this report, she said they have not attended to any disable person. Arrived PU8, ila LG, voting has started at 8.42 8:42am, At PU 002, Town Hall I, Iwo-Oke I, Ola-Oluwa Local government, a child called by an old man assisting to vote at the Cubicle. Osun governorship election used to illustrate the story At 8.46, PU7 , ila LG , very close to PU8, voting has started as well At 8:53am Ede South LGA: ward 4, PU005, Alajue1. Until after 10minutes, card reader could not recognise some voters, but later remediated. At 8:48am Araromi1, PU code-001, RA- Oluponna3, RAC- 003, Ayedire local govt. LG-004. Voting process commenced by 08:12 (according to the officials present and other YIAGA Observers) the voting proper is in order. At ward 4, Unit 4, Ede South Security officials (Police, NSCDC,FRSC and NDLEA)seen at alert. Controversy btwn party agent and police men at Ara/ ward 3/town hall/ egbedore At 8:15am, Ayedire local govt. Oluponna community, Araromi market 3, PU code 003, Reg. area Oluponna3, RAC 03, LGA code 04. Voting has started. The card reader refused to work efficiently as it doesnt recognized peoples thumbprint easily and its being addressed to. I left there at 8:35 ADP governorship candidate, Moshood Adeoti, arrived his polling unit at Post Office, Gidigbo, Iwo LGA but quickly left the polling area into the town to speak with his supporter. The ADP candidate arrived around 9:20 a.m. As at 9:00am, accreditation and voting has already commenced simultaneously in 15 PUs in 5 of the wards visited in Ejigbo town, Ejigbo LGA. Asides minor scuffles by voters that on long queues, the process has been hitch free so far. The cubicles were placed sideways so as to ensure voter secrecy as INEC promised. Earlier signs of rain disappeared as the weather became clearer. There were delays due to hitches caused by some malfunctioning card readers in ward 1, unit 5 at Bada Sakasaka. There was a bit of exchange of words between voters queueing up at Ward 1, unit 1 in Ejigbo town hall, directly opposite the central mosque. The total number of registered voters there is 739. Voting continued normally at all units in Ward 2, Unit 4 in Ogbabijo area; Unit 10 a and b, DC primary school, Iwo road. Unit 5 in Elejigbo has 540 registered voters while Unit 6 in Aromadu area boasts of 714 and Unit 13 in Aluokoso, about 451 registers voters. Ward 3: unit 1 in Beulah Baptist School is with the highest number of registered voters so far, 1,053. However, there were no hitches. Ward5: As at 9:20am, there was increased presence of security personnel at some units in ward 5. While Unit 3 in Akinde/Asaru road appear normal, irregular movement and accosting of voters by party agents was noticed at unit 4 directly opposite Ayegbogbo primary health Centre in Ejigbo town. At 9:27am, voting going on peacefully with underage children hawking and selling for voters on the queue at Ward 1, Unit 2, LA Primary School, Popo Iragbiji, Boripe LG. Several media outlets on ground waiting for the arrival of All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Gboyega Oyetola, at the polling unit At 9:31pm, Ward 05, PU 007, Ataoja E, Odofin Peter Ajibola, Osogbo LG, an SDP agent was seen distributing puff puff to people on the queue. Not everyone collected it though. At 9 33 am, polling unit 06, ward 1, Agbojare, Ifelodun local government. According to a voter who refused to disclose his identity, Out of the three card readers brought by INEC officials, only one is working. When the INEC presiding officer was asked, she refused to give any comment. 9:42am Ward 3, Unit 8A and B, Irewole LGA. Voting in progress. However, the PO complained that the card reader is slow. This could lead to a long queue. 9:39am, RA 01, PU 005, Owode Market Square, Okuku, Odo Otin Local Government Area. with total number of 675 registered voters. Voting is in progress. The party agents are seated, voters are on queue while theres also a secluded area for voters to check the registration list. 8.57am: Voting is going on peacefully, the aged are being as required at Ward 07, PU 007,Community Pry. School, Oke-Ada, Irewole LGA, State of Osun. At 8:19 a.m. Ward 2 unit 6. Abogunde/sagba 12 Bisiku Lane Ede North. Voting has commenced but the voting cubicle is somewhat open and accessible. As evident in the picture officers and a private individual can view the person voting. At 7:40am Ilode 1 ward 2 PU 3 enuwa palace ife east. P.O. ready for electorates while voters look out for their names Ede South LGA: Ward 4, PU005 9:00am. Card read could not recognise another voter with a slightest time. At 9:02am, someone else is also their being attended to. His fingers too were not recognised easily. At 9:03am, another woman is there, with her fingers not easily recognised. Even though voters have been informed to make sure their fingers are clean, but the card reader still persists on its unrecognizing state. At 9:06am, neither voter is being attended to, with the same condition. But theyre all getting the due attention Ilesha West pu; 009 ward: 09 ereja .. Voting yet to commence as card for readers are inactive as at 9;00am. EC8A form reported not available in this center as voters are left stranded At9:04Ede south ward4,Alajue.the spo addressing the electorate about the need to be patient because, as a result of the several assiduous works most of them do their fingerprint isnt showing on the card reader thereby causing an accreditation problem At 9: 45 am, PU unit 6, ward 1 Agbojare, Oke Oja, the SPO of the ward came around to address the party agents and asked them to fill a form indicating that all materials brought to the polling unit are complete and accurate. He also gave his remarks about the unit as being the most peaceful. INEC supervisor and election monitor have just given a stern warning to the PO and APOs that if anyone comes to the PU to vote with temporary voters card, they should not be allowed to vote even if their names appear on the register. This was due to an incident where a man got angry for not being allowed to vote with his temporary card and the case was reported to the INEC supervisor @ ward 4,PU 2 iperindo Atakumosa East local government. 9:21am at Irepodun LG, unit 9, ward 9. Voting is going on smoothly. The security personnel attended to matters that might cause crisis. There are four INEC officials (Two males and two females) By 9:25,In Olorunda LGA, in Ile Agonna, Ward 7,PU 7,there are 852 registered number of voters and voting is going on smoothly 9:32am: A common observation from all the polling units visited in Ward 2, Irepodun LG, is that all the party agents had their tags on and security agents had their tags attached to their uniform as well. RA 10 PU 004 LA school Ogbon Egbe, Ilesa West. At 9:13am, the place is noisy. Everyone is seen complaining. Number of registered voters is 715. According to one of the security agents present, the place is rowdy because some elderly ones didnt know the logo of the party they wanted to vote for and wanted some people to show them. The party agents were angry about this. So the security agents or APOs assisted them instead. But theres still commotion around. At 9:25am, an official of INEC came with a bus, came down and called all party agents available to explain his action of correcting the PU code on the ballot box. He claimed the wrong ballot box was shared between Town Hall I and II of Ward 9, Agbaaja/Iwo-Oke, Ola-Oluwa Local government. At 10.00am, so far so good, no one has been seen using a phone in the voting cubicles in Ifelodun local government. 9:50 am, Voting is in session at St. Anthony Primary school, PU 001, Ward 01, Oba Ojomu registration area of Odo Otin Local Government Area. Voting is going on peacefully in an orderly manner but it seems some vote buying is ongoing in connivance with security officials. An unidentified man, tall, dark with a native attire walked up to this observer and whispered in my ears, in Yoruba saying Egbon, ko si wahala, a ma settle yin (There is no problem here, we will give you some money). He said unnamed persons have gone to bring another round of cash. 10:02am Ward 3, Unit 8, Irewole LGA. Voters on queue are engaged in heated argument over persons disrupting the queue. Security officials and the elderly intervene. Also, quite a lot of voters could not be put through the folding procedures. Hence so many ballot papers were not properly folded, a factor that might lead to some votes being voided. Ademola Adeleke addressing journalists Ademola Adeleke voting 10:02am at PU 007, Registration Area 006(7), Irewole local government. Arguments ensued among the party agents over the directive given by a party agent to help an aged woman to vote. Other agents claimed that the young man directed to help this aged woman belongs to the party of the agent that gave the directive. INEC officials intervened and calmed the situation. 09:36am, At Ward 7, Unit 3, Olorunda LG, voting is in progress. There are 705 registered voters, amid controversies over giving the elderly preference to vote first. Some of the electorates planned to disrupt the voting process if any aged persons are called in. Olorunda local government. In Olorunda LGA, by 9:40 am, Ward 3, PU 1,Voting is ongoing. There are 658 registered voters. Seven party agents are well seated in front of the voting desk and about four security personnel identified. 9:39am, RA 01, PU 005, Owode Market Square, Okuku with total number of 675 registered voters, voting is in progress, Theres a structured like setting here as the voting premises are well confined with ropes, the party agents are seated, voters are queuing from a long distance range while theres also a secluded area for voters to check the registration list. In Olorunda LGA, by 9:20 am, ward 3,PU 3,about 7 security personnel were seen(3 female), voting in progress D smart card reader is working very fast, old men and women are given priority, there are 575 registered no of voters At 9:42 a.m. Unit 15, ward 2, Ede North. Election is smooth and fast. Special attention is given to the elderly. Party agents are present and orderly. 53 Voters has voted and has been accredited in Ifon Orolu Local Government, Olufon Orolu D (Ward 4), Youth Centre (Polling Unit 6) as at 9:21AM . Observers have been warned not to take pictures or video by police. 9:56 a.m. Unit 10, Ward 9. Ede North. The card reader is no longer reading. The APO III said a complaint has be made to the right authorities. 9:35am: Irepodun LG, Ward 2, Unit 6, voting exercise is going smoothly. Voters are confirming their names on the list and the queue is long but peaceful. There are 493 registered voters. 8:48 am at community primary school, Oke-ola, Modakeke Ward C, Ife East. There are 3 VPs in this unit and voters are on the queue but voting have not started. Voting is very peaceful in Ifon Orolu Local Government, Olufon Orolu D (Ward 4), RCM Primary School (Polling Unit 2) as at 9:37AM. Party agents are far away from the Ballot Boxes and Voting Cubicle. At 9:57 Barrister Sagwe, Director of Police Security Committee speaking at PU2, Ward1, LA Primary School, Boripe LG as he addressed the media on security. He claimed the security situation has been fine and with minimum of4 police officers at each polling unit. At 10:07am, APC Candidate, Gboyega Oyetola, arrived Polling Unit with wife at Polling Unit 2, Ward 1, Boripe LG. At 8 different polling units visited in Boripe LG, security and INEC officials are not enforcing the ban on mobile phones at polling booths. Some voters just complied on their own while some took their phones with them. At Ward 010, PU 004, new post office area, two voters were seen snapping the ballot paper after voting in the cubicle. As at 9:20am. Jaleyemi, ward 6, polling unit 2, Orolu L.G. Election is going on smoothly there. The stipulated rule of no permanent voters card, no vote is well observed by the officials. At 10:15 am Unit 1 Ward, Methodist pry school, Oke Afo Ikirun, Ifelodun Local government. No of Reg voters 500. The presiding officer Aisha Abulfatiah said election started at 8:am The former national chairman of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Bisi Akande, has assured that his partys candidate, Gboyega Oyetola, will emerge the winner of the Osun State governorship election. Mr Akande said this after casting his vote on Saturday morning. He arrived at his polling unit, PU 12, Ward 4 of Isedo area in Ila-Orangun local government, at about 10:04 a.m. While addressing journalists after casting his vote, Mr. Akande said: My party has always been assured of victory especially in this part of the country, we are everywhere. A total of 48 parties are participating in the election including the APC whose candidate is Gboyega Oyetola. When asked about his assessment of the 2018 voting exercise in comparison to the ones held in the past, he said: Gone are those days, like four years ago, when people are forced to vote. This time around people are trooping out en masse to happily cast their votes. Mr Akande was the governor of Osun State from 19992003, as a member of the Alliance for Democracy (AD). He was the first chairman of the APC when it was formed in the build up to the 2015 general elections. 10:30am, The candidate of the ADC, Fatai Akinbade, arrives PU1, Ward 3, Ola-Oluwa local government to cast his vote. Ayeso Ward 10 unit 3, Methodist Oke, llesha West. Electorates gathered in small groups discussing how to get their pay from agents of parties they voted for. The police came in, used teargas to disperse the crowd and arrested some men who were later released. The police officers seized the list containing the names of those to be paid. The guys were held in the police van for some minutes, but later released after pleas by voters in the area. 10:29 a.m., PU Agboje, Ede North Local Government, Polling Unit Code 5. A visually impaired woman was assisted to vote. The young man who assisted her to vote was the person who imprinted his finger print on her ballot paper. When other voters raised alarm, they were pleaded with to keep quiet and not cause a commotion. 10:23 am at ward 5, PU 4, in Olorunda LGA, there is problem as some party agents are complaining that, aged persons are not voting for their candidate of choice as the person helping them are putting their fingers on the wrong party. Some of the party agents complaining include those of the SDP, PDP, and APC. However, the security personnel are putting the situation under control. 10:29 am, Polling unit 002, ward 02, Boluwaduro Local Govt. Voting in Progress. According to the PO, there was a case of smart card reader failure to read a voters card, but it has been resolved and the voter has voted. At 10:42 am, Polling Unit 6, Ward 4, Ifelodun local government. Voting is in progress although there is disagreement between police officers and voters about the elderly ones and the pregnant women being allowed to vote before others. 10:36 am, Ward 01, PU 009, In front of PA David Alarans house, Okuku, Odo Otin Local Government Area, voting is in progress with 637 registered voters on the list. There is, however, a long queue of voters standing patiently in the sun to cast their votes. There are five policemen on the ground at the PU. At 10: 42 am, Now at polling unit 6 ward 4 Ifelodun local government, voting is in progress although there is disagreement between police officers and voters about the elderly ones and the pregnant women voting before men. 10:21am Ward 8, Unit 7a, Irewole LGA. Party agents in heated arguments over who to help a voter. Security officials have however intervened. (10:10am) At PU 12, Isedo1, ward 4, the prominent APC leader, Bisi Akande, currently casting his vote. At 10:18am, Gbeyega Oyetola finished the casting of vote with wife at PU2, Ward 1, LA Primary School, Boripe LG Bisi Akande votes, speaks on APCs chance (9:43am) At unit 6, ward 3 of Ila-Orangun LG, this woman, identified as an APC loyalist, is trying to leverage on the illiteracy of the aged voters. She claimed that she is responsible for all the old women around and she has been following them to the cubicle. Voting is going on peacefully and Party Agents can be seen far away from the Voting Cubicle and Ballot box at Ifon Orolu Local Government, Olufon Orolu D (Ward 4), RCM Primary School (Polling Unit 2) as at 9:40AM FILE: At 10:03am pu 004 ward 8 ileogbo Ayedire local govt has 851 registered voters with one Voting point. The PO complained that the card reader doesnt recognized the finger print of the old men and women and they were asked to wash their hands before coming to vote. There are 11 security personnel present at the polling unit and all voters are on queue inside the sun. At 9.42am ward1 PU4, the LG Chairman Orolu was seen giving money to police officers at this PU. Orolu LG 10:14am, PU 013, Ward 04, Ilase/Idominasi, Obokun LG, voting process on going smoothly. At 8:26, pu 05, ward 04, ifedayo L.G first voter to cast his vote. At 10:07am, APC Candidate, Gboyega Oyetola arrived Polling Unit with Wife at Polling Unit 2, Ward 1 , Boripe LG At 10:01am PU 003, WARD 7 IDOO, Egbedore LGA. There election processes are in progress. The PO stated that there has not been any issue card reader. 10:30am: Irepodun LG, Ward 1, Unit 3, everything is going on smoothly. Security agents confirmed that the use of phones at the polling booth havent happened since the exercise commenced. The PO also said everything has been going on well, and the people have been cooperating too. 10:23 am at Ward 5, PU 4, in Olorunda LGA. There is problem as some party agents are complaining that aged persons are not voting for candidates of their choice as the persons helping them are making them thumbprint for the wrong party. However, security personnel were seen trying to resolve the controversy. At 10:47 ward 4 PU 6 Isale oke Ifelodun LGA, the security guys are finding it hard to control the voters to be orderly. 10:40 In Ward 004 PU005 of Ayedaade LGA, vote buying was suspected by the electorates, and an alarm was raised. A security personnel waded in and the act was botched, tentatively. The SPO then ordered that if votes would be bought, it should not be within the voting premises. It can, however, be bought outside the voting area, he added. EJIGBO: 10:50am A minor fight was observed between an APC and a PDP party agent at Ward 2, PU7 in Ejigbo shopping plaza. It was learnt that the misunderstanding was caused by a woman whose name appeared twice in the voters register. However, security operatives in the centre settled the misunderstanding and promised to sort out the issue. At 10:47am, Irepodun LG, Elerin C, PU 06, Ward 09. there are 214 registered voters and ten party agents on ground. A party agent was sharing snacks to both voters and other party agents. Some people were not allowed to vote because their names were not on the voters register. Voters who voted for specific parties had their names written down for payment later, according to a voter who did not disclose his name. At 11:05am, Omisore arrives at PU 3, Ward 1, Ife East LGA to cast his vote. EJIGBO: 10:50 am A minor fight was observed between an APC and PDP party agent at Ward 2, Pu 7 in Ejigbo shopping plaza. It was learnt that the misunderstanding was caused by a woman whose name appeared twice in the voters register. However, security operatives in the centre settled the misunderstanding and promised to sort out the issue. 11:12 pm: All is going on smoothly at Ward 3, Unit 4 and 5, Irepodun LG. A set of security agents mentioned that they are on foot patrol across the ward to ensure that everything goes on peacefully. 10:59am Ward 3, Unit 8, Irewole LGA Voters spotted sitting on the bare ground under the scorching sun as a result of the long queue. EJIGBO: 10:50am A minor fight was observed between an APC and PDP party agents at Ward 2, pu7 in Ejigbo Shopping Plaza. #OsunDecides2018: APC candidate Oyetola votes, speaks on likelihood of victory The candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Gboyega Oyetola, has expressed optimism that he would win the governorship election in Osun State. Mr Oyetola said this while casting his vote in his hometown in Iragbiji, Boripe Local Government Area. The candidate voted at about 10:15 a.m. at PU1, Ward 2, LA Primary School, Popo Iragbiji, Boripe Local Government Area. While addressing journalists after casting his vote, Mr. Oyetola said: From the report reaching me, everything is still going on smoothly but it will be difficult to judge now When asked about the voting process, he said he believes INEC has advanced as the card reader appeared more efficient. I put my fingers and it captured once. It shows that we are advancing. Im optimistic that at the of the day, we will emerge. APC candidate Oyetola votes, speaks on likelihood of victory APC candidate Oyetola casting his vote A total of 48 parties are participating in the election including Mr Oyetola. Mr Oyetola was the former Chief of Staff to the outgoing Osun State Governor, Rauf Aregbesola. At 10:20 am ward 05, PU 004 (Ogidan pry school), Ataoja E, Osogbo LG. The total number of voters is 1158. There are 2 VPs and 2 APOs with nine officials three females and six males. One of the APOs reported that they had issues with the card readers when voting started but it has been resolved and they are working well now. At 11:15, Ward 4, Unit 4, Ojude Oke, Boripe LG, some residents are seen protesting that only the APC candidate should be voted for. While police tried to curb the protest, people are seen vacating polling units for their safety. No APC, No Vote, the protesters chanted, scaring other voters. One of those who vacated the queue alleged that those shouting were doing so based on the money shared in the area last night to the community leaders and area boys. At 11:31 ward 9 PU6 Iba Ifelodun LGA election is going smoothly here and the APO 2 is standing by the cubicle making sure nobody comes there with a smartphone A voter been assisted to vote at iloba pry sch, Atakunmosa west LG, PU 002, they man couldnt recognise his party logo. One of the voters on the queue helped him identify his party. As at 11:27am, at Irepodun LG, Erin C, ward 09 unit 003. There is nobody left on the queue. However, there are 204 registered voters. 11:16 pm ward 9, unit 5, the total number of reg voters 614 at Jehovah jire school, Iba Town, Ifelodun LGA. Voting process is being done in an orderly manner at Ifon Orolu Local Government, Olufon Orolu C (Ward 3), Obada Market Area 2 (Polling Unit 2) as at 11:19AM As at 11:04 am, at ELERIN C, ward 9, P Unit 003. Irepodun LG Voting is going on smoothly. There are five security personel. APC party agents gave drinks to the INEC officials. There are five party agents on ground. At 11:05 am ,Senator Omisore arrived PU 3,ward 1, Ife east to cast his vote Election is going on peacefully at Ifon Orolu Local Government, Olufon Orolu D (Ward 4), Bolorunduro 1 (Polling Unit 5) as at 11:01AM At 10.26, PU006, Ajaba village, ila LG, voting going on well At 11:02 am Ede North. Unit 2, Ward 14. RA- Abogunde/Sagba Officials are waiting for more voters to come in and cast their votes. Theres currently nobody on the queue FILE: Voting in progress (10:52am) At ward 2 PU1, Ila-Orangun LG, the cubicle is well placed and guarded to avoid seeing the choice of the electorates. The first seen in the LGA. 10:46am: Irepodun LG, Ward 3, Unit 3, voting exercise is going well. The above picture shows a police officer standing very close to the polling booth to ensure that phones arent allowed at the booth. 9:09am. Hon Rotimi Makinde during vote cast Ilode 1 ward 2 ife east LGA 9:17 am ,at Akodi Bada, Modakeke ward 3, PU 6, Ife East. LG .There are three Voting Polls in this unit and voting is ongoing. At Orolu LGA, from observation and discussion with some voters, the issue of open vote buying has been curbed as party agents are being extra careful not to be seen. A voter at Ward10 PU1 noted that it was announced that anyone who gives money to voters should be reported to security officials. Sunday taking money from his bag to be given to electorates who had already voted Sunday taking money from his bag to be given to electorates who had already voted At 11:37 am Ward 9 unit 001, Iba open space/RCM1 Ifelodun LGA. A total number of reg voters 484. Fighting started when electorate prevented some thugs that came to steal the ballot box but were later prevented. According to a party agent, it was the (Oba) king, who is a supporter of APC that sent the thug. Further investigation revealed that the Oba of IBA, Professor Oba Adekunle Okooye told the people that they must vote for APC. 10:46am: Ifedayo LG, Ward 06,Polling Unit 3 Aworo/Oke Ila rural. A young man called Sunday was standing some distance away from the polling unit, waiting for voters who their names had already been registered with an older man, who was standing near the cubicle to observe and confirm those that really voted for the party. The cubicle was set in such a way that party agents can see who voters voted for. The attention of the police officers around was drawn to the situation, and they in turn arrested Sunday, the young man sharing the money, and drove him away from the vicinity, followed by older man who was said to be the party leader. After some minutes, the police officers followed took Sunday and the party leader in their vehicle away from the polling station. Sunday returned minutes after the party leader returned. It was also observed that there was an error on the voters registration list pasted on a nearby wall. The polling unit code on the voters PVC contradicts the PU code written on the list pasted on the wall. One of the electorates affected, Mr Bodunpe, narrated his experience. What I have on my PVC is that I am in Polling Uit 004, but the address is directing me to polling units 003. On getting to Polling Unit 003, I saw my data on the wall. I am not the only one affected, some had been allowed to vote before I came but when the population is becoming alarming, we were asked to go to Polling Unit 004 which is on our PVC. On getting there, our data couldnt be found, we were sent back to Polling Unit 003. But when we got there, we were not allowed to vote. However, the Electoral Operation Support Centre (EOSC) officer in charge of the local government addressed the affected electorates, soliciting for their patience and promising to get the issue resolved before 2pm. At 11:40am Ward 09 Unit 01 Aloki/ Akoda Ede South,a voter, Adekoya Adebayo Adeyemi, is devastated for not casting his vote. Mr.Adeyemi claims he has written several letter of complaint to INEC for his PVC but they keep asking him to come back. I have gone to the INEC office several timess, written letters as regards this but nothing has been done about it, I was also at the office last week but I could not get my card. It is sad that I cannot exercise my right even after putting so much efforts he said, as he is seen making an exit from the polling unit. 11:50 am, PU 005, Ward 7, Eripa, Boluwaduro Local Government Area, voting in progress, however, two voters have not been allowed to vote because the names on the Card contrast with those displayed on the smart card reader. At 11: 54 am, PU 003, Ward 9, Oja Obada Iba 1, Ifelodun local government, some persons were seen taking voters who they identified as voting for their party to a particular car park around the centre in order to settle them after penning their names down. Unit 009 Ward 11/St Andrews Pry School, Babakekere, Ibokun Road Osogbo, the setting of cubicles not properly concealed from vote buying perpetrators. However, security Officer, Korma, said phone restriction is fully in force. At 11:58,Ede South,Ward 9 PU 1,.some electorates name appeared twice and while some didnt find their names on the voters register even after affirming they were to vote there. They feel they have been disenfranchised. At 12 pm ward 9 PU 6 Iba IFELODUN LGA a policeman was overheard telling his counterpart that they are have been offered an envelope while another cop said the area is becoming tensed as the thugs sent from the Iba of Iba are planning to carry the ballot box. The voting queue is now populated by guys even the area. A party agent notified the police officers at Ifon Orolu Local Government, Olufon Orolu C (Ward 3), Araromi Area (Polling Unit 5) that information got to him that some hoodlums were around the area to cart away the ballot box. With immediate response, the police officer in charge of the area called for reinforcement from the mobile police to further secure the polling unit. 12:23 pm, PU 001, Ward 5, Baptist Primary School, Ekosin, Ekosin/Iyeku Odo Otin Local Government Area, the voting session is still on. The people are however complaining of the slow process as theyve been in the scorching sun for long. Whos to assist the elderly and the physically challenged during the voting process? Party agents or those who assisted them to the unit? Resolving this was drama at many polling units especially between party agents and INEC officials. At 12:00am, PU 006, Ward 8, Odo Otin, there was a strong heated argument between security operatives and party agents concerning the issue of helping elderly voters. At 12:20 pm, at ward 11, PU 013, Fagbemi Street, Baba kekere, Osogbo LG, the APO 3 reported that the card reader several times rejected voters cards but they were recaptured and it worked. However, two persons have been disallowed to vote so far as the card reader didnt capture their cards at all. #OsunDecides2018: Aregbesola votes, speaks on conduct of election The outgoing Governor of Osun State, Rauf Aregbesola, and his wife, Sherifat, cast their votes in Ilesa during the Osun governorship election. The couple voted at Ward 8, Unit 1, Ifofin polling booth in Ilesa East Local Government Area of the state. Mr Aregbesola, in company of his wife and some family members, arrived the polling booth at about 11.53 a.m. After the duo were told voting rules and regulations by the election officials, they were accredited, and allowed to vote. Speaking with journalists shortly after casting his vote, the governor expressed satisfaction with the conduct of the election so far. He called on the electorate to maintain peace throughout the exercise and after. He also applauded the security arrangements, pointing out that democracy has come to stay, as long as people are allowed to make their choice of leaders without any fear or threat. Mr Aregbesola expressed confidence that his party, All Progressives Congress (APC) will be victorious, just as he assured of maximum support for his eventual successor. APC is one of the 48 political parties taking part in the governorship election. Osun: Police arrest two men inducing voters with money Police officers on election duty in Osun State have reportedly arrested two men who were caught inducing voters with petty cash at a polling unit in Iwo. Iwo has one of the largest concentrations of votes in the state. Although their identity could not be immediately conformed, both suspects are said to be loyalists of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), whose candidate is Ademola Adeleke. They were nabbed in Malete neighbourhood. The police say the suspects will remain in custody as the matter is being investigated. Reports of votes buying in OsunDecides have continued to pile up as the exercise enters mid-day. PREMIUM TIMES observed that both the PDP and the All Progressives Congress, the two largest parties in the election, have been engaged in votes buying tactics through their proxies. Police arrest two men inducing voters with money #OsunDecides2018: Police arrest, release vote buyer A vote buyer was arrested and later released by police officers in Osun State. The buyer, identified as Sunday, was arrested at Polling Unit 03, Ward 06 of Ifedayo Local Governnment Area on Saturday. At about 10:46am, the man was seen standing some distance away from the polling unit as he waited for registered voters to vote and confirm the party they really voted for. Mr Sunday was assisted by an older man who was closer to the voting cubicle to comfrim the electorates vote while he (Sunday) distributed the money. Shortly after, the attention of the police officers around was drawn to the situation, Mr Sunday and his accomplice (who is said to be the party leader) were arrested and taken away from the vicinity in a police vehicle. Mr Sunday, however, returned few minutes later, just after the party leader. Several similar cases of vote buying were witnessed across Osun, where, unlike in Ekiti, the voters were not paid within the vicinity of the polling unit. When contacted, an officer who answered the Osun Police Control Room telephone line, simply said she was not aware of the situation. She also refused to give her name. Please this is the control room line. We only take complaints here. I dont know what you are talking about. Ive not heard that one, she said. In the same polling unit, PREMIUM TIMES also observed that there was an error on the voters registration list pasted on the wall. The polling unit code on some voters Permanent Voters Cards did not tally with the code written on the list pasted on the wall. One of the electorates affected, Mr Bodunpe, said, What I have on my PVC is that I am in Polling Unit 004, but the address is directing me to polling units 003. On getting to Polling Unit 003, I saw my data on the wall. I am not the only one affected. Some have voted before I came but when the population was becoming alarming, we were asked to go to Polling Unit 004 which is on our PVC. I came back here and our data couldnt be found, we were sent back to Polling Unit 003. But when we got there, we were not allowed to vote. However, the Electoral Operation Support Centre (EOSC) officer in charge of the local government addressed the affected electorates, soliciting for their patience and promising to get the issue resolved before 2 p.m. Voting was still going on across the state as at the time of this report. A total of 48 political parties are taking part in the election. At 12:44 ward 11 PU 01 Obagun Ifelodun LGA, total registered voters 546, INEC monitoring officer came to ask the P.O and APO if theyve been paid and they said no. 2:12p.m Ward 3, Unit 9, Irewole LG Total votes = 230 162 successfully accredited while 68 failed. At exactly 2:37 pm at PU003,WARD10 NUD primary school,iree BORIPE LGA Results are as follows: APC-25 PDP-47 SDP-343 ADP-4 VOID-14 2:33 p.m.: Ward 03, PU 005, Boluwaduro Local Government. Total of 64 votes cast, with ADP=12 votes. APC=17 votes. APP=1 vote. NEPP=1vote. PDP=17 votes. SDP= 16 votes. Three rejected ballot papers. 2:33 p.m.: Ward 03, PU 005, Boluwaduro Local Government. Total of 64 votes cast, with ADP=12 votes. APC=17 votes. APP=1 vote. NEPP=1vote. PDP=17 votes. SDP= 16 votes. Three rejected ballot papers. Ifon Orolu Local Government, Olufon Orolu D (Ward 4), Bolorunduro II (Polling Unit 6) as at 2:50PM 197 Voters PDP 73 APC 82 SDP 26 Void 7 PPC 1 FJP 1 APA 1 PRP 1 SME 1 ADC 1 PPP 1 ADP 2 PU 002 (VP B), Ward 10 Okin ni/Olorunsogo/Ofatedo, Egbedore LGA RESULTS *A* = 1 vote *APC* = 46 VOTES *SDP* = 79 VOTES *PDP* = 39 VOTES *ADC* = 4 VOTES *ACD* = 1 VOTE PU 002 (VP B), Ward 10 Okin ni/Olorunsogo/Ofatedo, Egbedore LGA RESULTS: A = 1 vote APC = 46 VOTES SDP = 79 VOTES PDP = 39 VOTES ADC = 4 VOTES ACD = 1 VOTE ADP = 6 VOTES APP = 3 VOTES Results from Aare ward 4 PU 4 Ifedayo, Ife South. 1. PDP: 32 2. SDP: 57 3. APC: 98 4. NPP: 1 5. ACP: 2 6. PDC: 1 7. APA: 2 8. LP: 0 9: SMP: 1 10. PPA: 1 11. ADC: 2 12. ADP: 2 Rejected: 19 Total number of votes cast: 218. Number of accredited voters: 406. Counting ended by 2:35pm. At Polling Unit 13, Ila Local Govt. PDP- 38 APC- 41 SDP- 9 ADC- 0 Rejected vote- 6 Void Vote -1 Total vote- 98 PU 006 , DTC School Ikirun, Ifelodun local government voting point 2, The voting Point election Results PDP : 67 APC : 47 SDP : 18 PPA : 2 ANRP : 1 PPC : 1 UPN : 1 ADP : 19 ADC : 2 NNPP : 1 APP : 1 ADP : 19 YDP: 1 VOIDS : 26 Polling Unit 8, Ward 1, Odo Otin Local Government Results. PDP 75 APC 41 SDP 14 AD -1 GPN -1 ADC -33 Void 4 PU 7 VP 3 ward 3 ife east local government has finished counting votes APC 44 PDP 36 SDP 153 ADC 2 ADP 6 At PU 07 demonstration centre ijebu ijesha ward 03 oriade lga form Ec 60(E) was not pasted at 7:06pm. At 7:04 p.m, Corps members explained their ordeal. Tey are faced with the challenge of moving their materials to INEC office. We called our SPO, but he kept on telling us to find way out to the office by ourselves, a Corps member said. Reporting from Ward 06, Unit 005 (St. Augustines school), Ife North Local Government Area Most of the PUs at Ward 3 Oriade Local Government Area have turned in their results. But, people are scrambling for money at W3 PU07. Also, the police officers are creating a scene, because of the delay in filling the forms concerning the election results. According to the police officers and some voters said voting ended at around 3 pm and the results are not ready still. It is getting darker here and there are fears the results might be manipulated by some hoodlums since there is a power outage in the area. Some of the police officers are threatening to leave the polling Unit at W3 PU07 oriade Local Govt because of the delay in filling the form EC60E, currently being filled by the Presiding Officer and his assistants. There is currently a disagreement between the PO and his assistants, police officers and party agents at w3 PU7 Oriade Local overnment. There is a heavy presence of hoodlums around, whilst the ballot papers are being taken outside the premises by the police officials as at 6.52pm. The campaign organisation of the PDP candidate, Ademola Adeleke, has released the statement below. Dont Tamper with Our Winning Results Adeleke Campaigns Ademola Adeleke Campaign Organisation has warned against the manipulation of the results of the governorship polls,affirming that the will of the people must be respected. As results are being collated across the state, we demand utmost fair play and transparency from the electoral body.We are watching and monitoring closely. Under no circumstance should the collation process be manipulated. Our agents and leaders are on their toes armed with relevant results and forms.The will of the people must be respected.We task INEC and security agencies to obey the directive of President Muhammad Buhari who had ordered that the Osun electoral process should never be manipulated by federal or any related agencies. We call on local and international observers to take note of the ongoing process and assist the people of Osun state to realise the supremacy of their electoral will. Our people should also be ever vigilant to protect their votes and their aspirations for better life. Signed Olawale Rasheed , Director of Media & Publicity, Ademola Adeleke Campaign Organisation. At 8:41pm. At Ife North collation centre, Origbo Community Unity high school, Ipetumodu. Party agents of different political parties were seen calculating results for different wards as collation of result is yet to commence. @8:38, the Egbedore LGA Supervisor introducing other principal officers before the commencement of total result announcement. @8:38, the Egbedore LGA Supervisor introducing other principal officers before the commencement of total result announcement. A former Governor of Osun State, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, who recently defected from the All Progressives Congress [APC] to the African Democratic Congress (ADC) on Saturday failed to deliver his polling unit to his new party at the state gubernatorial elections, PREMIUM TIMES can report. Mr Oyinlola voted at Oba Ojomu, Ward 1, Unit 3, Okuku, Odo Otin Local Government Area was floored in his own home base. The PDPs governorship candidate, Ademola Adeleke, defeated the ADCs candidate, Fatai Akinbade, in that unit by scoring 107 votes to the ADCs 20. Meanwhile, the APC candidate polled 69 votes, APGA polled 4 votes while the Social Democratic party polled 13 votes. While addressing journalists at the polling unit, Mr Oyinlola commended the people for their peaceful conduct in the election. He further lauded the INEC officials for coordinating the exercise well at his ward. At 9:15pm OSI, Ife South Local Govt, Aluti Polling unit was canceled because the electoral officer in charge resorted to using manual accreditation for voting instead of the machine for authentication. The election materials from the collation centre at Apoti Dagbaja, ward 8 Oriade LGA, just arrived the INEC office here at Oriade LGA by 10.25pm. At about 1:30 am There were gunshots outside the premises of the INEC Osogbo LG Secretariat as police tried to quell a fight among party supporters. The loud sound of the gun sent observers and electoral officials inside the secretariat scampering for safety. Some ran under the table with great fear. However, the situation calmed after a senior police officer came in to explain what was going on outside the complex. The National Youth Service Corps has dismissed the claim by the Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, that holding political office compensated for his refusal to participate in the compulsory national service. The spokesperson of the National Youths Service Corps (NYSC), Adenike Adeyemi, said the ministers claim that holding an elective office suffices for the obligatory national service is incorrect. Since PREMIUM TIMES exposed him as an NYSC dodger on Thursday, Mr Shittu has been claiming that his election into the Oyo State House of Assembly immediately after graduation in 1979 replaced the mandatory service. Some lawyers however said Mr Shittus justification for skipping the scheme is flawed and ludicrous. Mrs Adeyemi agreed with the lawyers on the bases for exemption allowed by the law in Section 2 of the NYSC Act. The referenced section exempted only four categories of Nigerians from the national service. Those exempted are those who graduated after their 30th birthday, those who served in the military or the police for at least nine months as well as staff of intelligence agencies. Those conferred with national honours before graduation are also exempted from the scheme. Speaking to Tribune newspaper, the NYSC spokesperson said the provisions of the Act are clear, and that individuals such as Mr Shittu who became a lawmaker at the age of 26 are not exempted. She said, Serving in the National (or state) Assembly is not one of them (conditions for exemption from national service). You have read the Act and you can see the circumstances where someone is exempted, you analyse it if he [Shittu] was exempted duly or there is a reason why he should have served. But the Act is very straightforward on the grounds for not coming up to serve. If you are a graduate locally trained or foreign trained, as long as you graduate before the age of 30, you are expected to serve. Whether foreign or locally trained, the law is the same. Our youths should be rightly guided that if you were able to complete your studies and as of the date of graduation, you are under 30, you are eligible to serve, the NYSC spokesperson said. Mrs Adeyemi insisted that the NYSC law gives no preferential treatment to Nigerians other than those exempted by Section 2 of the Act, emphasising that The NYSC was set up to mobilise all eligible Nigerian youths. The Act does not talk about VIPs or children of VIPs. Anyone who is a Nigerian youth, who has a first degree and under the age of 30 must serve, the issue of VIPs or their children does not apply. However, if there is any reason why a corps member needs a concession, the corps member applies and concession is given, for example, for marital reasons and on health grounds. Everyone is treated the same and where concessions are to be given, it is treated. So, VIPs or children of VIPs do not come into the Act and we do not look at that, she said. Legal position Lawyers who spoke to PREMIUM TIMES on the Shittu scandal said the minister is in breach of the NYSC law for skipping the national service. His membership of the state assembly is not the same as national service, said Huwaila Mohammed, a Kano-based lawyer. He needs to serve, because the section of the law dealing with exemption did not include political office holders like him. Another lawyer, Abdul Mahmud, agreed with Ms Mohammeds position, saying the minister is a dodger who is in breach of the law. He said by the provision of Section 12 of the NYSC Act, Mr Shittu ought to have presented his certificate of national service before he was cleared as minister. The provision is clear, Mr. Mahmud said. It says (you must serve) before you get any job in the federation. Mr Mahmud, who chairs the Abuja-based pressure group, Public Interest Lawyers League (PILL), said Mr Shittus case is worse than that of Kemi Adeosun because he deliberately refused to serve. If we assume as a member of the Oyo House he (Mr Shittu) served, did it not defeat objective 4 (b) stated in Section 1 (4) (b) of the NYSC Act? Members serve in states other than their own, he said. The lawyer said the police should arrest and prosecute Mr Shittu immediately. All positions he has held are illegal and he should return all monies he earned from those posts to government coffers, Mr. Mahmud said. Photo: The Canadian Press A campground patron leaves Goldstream Campground as the provincial government assesses the situation with former Tent City residents who are living at the campground in Langford. Officials are reporting a spike in crime after a tent city was set up in a Vancouver Island provincial campground. Police say they have an extensive log of complaints and calls for service linked to the tent city at Goldstream Provincial Park in Langford. Campers moved into the park last Tuesday and the calls include a break and enter attempt at a house near the park, an outstanding warrant, theft of firewood and open drug use. Police said park rangers have also received reports from campers not associated to the tent city group of theft from other campsites, damage to the park's gate and more complaints of drug use in public washrooms. "It's a little bit frustrating. It's not that it makes me mad, because there also is people in there not on their own terms, but for the people making decisions to put themselves there, it's a little bit frustrating," said neighbour Lucas Crowther. "Especially to be living here my whole life, this is my daily walk and all of a sudden I'm being told that I can't." In a Friday news release, West Shore RCMP said an early morning sweep of the camp turned up several needles strewn on the ground, including an uncapped syringe. The camp leader, known as Ms. Brett, told police the campers would regularly canvass the park and pick up any needles they find. Police plan on increasing patrols in the park. - with files from CTV Vancouver As collation of results for the 2018 Osun governorship elections draws to a close in various wards, the Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism in collaboration with the Centre for Democracy and Development brings you the outcomes of the elections in various local government areas. The winner of #OsunDecide2018 is expected to be announced on Sunday by the election umpire at the INEC secretariat in Osogbo, the Osun State capital. Before the final announcement of results, however, results of each local government will be announced at the INEC collation centre in the local government. With about 180 observers in the 30 local governments, PREMIUM TIMES brings you live updates of results from each local government. Follow the updates here. PDP wins Ede South INEC has officially announced the result of Ede South LGA. PDP candidate, Ademola Adeleke has won the local government with a total of 16,693 votes. Details: Number Of Registered Voters: 46,887 Number of Accredited Voters: 24,888 Result: A 8 AA 0 ADP 14 ACD 18 ACPN 13 AD 5 ADC 3 ADP 357 AGA 9 APA 3 APC 4512 APGA 8 APP 7 DNPP 1 C4C 5 DA 5 DPC 71 DPP 20 RJP 3 JDP 1 JPN 2 JDP 2 KOWA 3 AOWA 3 LP 1 MMN 3 MPN 1 NCP 6 NEPP 1 NNPP 3 NPC 5 PANDEF 3 PDC 123 PDP 16693 PPA 159 PPC 25 PPN 9 PRP 4 PT 4 RP 12 NDP 855 SNP 18 SPN 5 UPN 7 UPP 1 YDP 3 YPP 6 Total Valid Votes: 23,136 Total Rejected Votes: 1,605 Total Votes Cast: 24,741 BREAKING: #OsunDecides: APC Candidate, Oyetola Wins Own Local Government TOTAL RESULT AT BORIPE LOCAL GOVERNMENT Total Registered Voters 57, 397 Accredited: 25, 045 Parties Total Votes: ADC 137 ADP 1137 APC 11, 655 PDP 6, 892 SDP 2730 #OsunDecides2018: The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Ademola Adeleke has emerged winner of Orolu Local Government Area in Saturdays governorship election in Osun state. Mr Adeleke polled a total of 7776 votes beating the candidate of the ruling APC, Gboyega Oyetola, who got 5442 votes according to results released by officials of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Details of the results for Orolu LGA are as follows: Total Number of Registered Voters: 31,904 Total Number of of Accredited Voters-17,485 Result: A-0 Aa-2 ABP-10 ACD-18 ACPN-13 AD-13 ADC-79 ADP-388 AGA-7 AGAP-1 ANRP-8 APA-31 APC-5442 APGA-7 APP-15 BNPP-1 C4C-3 DA-2 DPC-31 DPP-15 FJP-3 GDPN-1 GPN-3 HDP-6 KOWA-1 LP-8 MMN-0 MPN-2 NCP-6 NEPP-6 NNPP-1 NPC-3 PANDEL-5 PDC-54 PDP-7776 PPA-63 PPC-17 PPN-6 PRP-4 PT-7 RP-11 SDP-2043 SNP-20 SPN-2 UPN-12 UPP-5 YDP-4 YPP-2 TOTAL VALID VOTES- 16,157 TOTAL REJECTED VOTES -1,260 TOTAL VOTES CAST- 17,417 FINAL COLLATION report from Ilesha West as read out by the SPO at Ereja town hall. TOTAL REGISTERED VOTERS: 60,600 TOTAL ACCREDITED VOTERS :32,569 RESULT: A 69 AA 02 ADP 21 ACD 32 APN 37 AD 48 ADC 127 ADP 2363 AGA 21 AGAP 4 ANRP 25 APA 53 APC 7251 APGA 14 APP 28 DNPP 0 C4C 3 DA 4 DPC 31 LJP 01 GPN 5 HDP 13 LP 8 NCP 16 NNP 2 NPC 8 PDC 76 PDP 8286 PPA 70 PPC 36 PPN 16 PRP 06 PT 21 SDP 2408 SPN 13 TOTAL VALID VOTES : 21,220 TOTAL REJECTED VOTES: 1,861 TOTAL VOTES CAST . 23,081 Atakunmosa East Local Government Area election results Total number of registered voters: 35,657 Total number of accredited voters:17,086 Total valid votes:15,721 Total rejected votes:1,008 Total vote cast:16,729 A:3 AA:1 ABP:17 ACD:22 ACPN:16 AD:16 ADC:60 ADP:629 AGA:18 AGAP:0 ANRP:7 APA:60 APC:7,073 APGA:11 APP:31 BNPP:4 C4C:3 DA:5 DPC:32 DPP:10 FJP:1 GDPN:5 GPN:3 HDP:7 KP:2 LP:14 MMN:3 MPN:9 NCP:14 NPC:10 NEPP:3 PANDEL:6 PDC:43 PDP:5,218 PPA:77 PPC:23 PPN:19 PRP:3 PT:9 RP:8 SDP:2,140 SNP:33 SPN:8 UPN:19 UPP:14 YDP:4 YPP:4 The final results for Ila LGA (11 wards) as announced by the collation officer Professor Oluwamukomi Total Registered Voters: 39,188 Total Accredited Voters; 21,124 RESULT: A- 4 Aa- 0 ABP- 9 ACD- 14 ACPN- 16 AD- 7 ADC- 96 ADP- 183 AGA- 26 AGAP- 4 ANRP- 1 APA- 48 APC- 8,403 APGA- 4 APP- 25 BNPP- 2 C4C- 1 DA- 5 DPC- 26 DPP- 14 FJP- 3 GDPN- 0 GPN- 1 HDP- 3 KOWA- 2 LP- 6 MMN- 3 MPN- 1 NCP- 12 NEPP- 2 NNPP- 3 NPC- 12 PANDEL- 7 PDC- 61 PDP- 8, 241 PPA- 40 PPC- 12 PPN- 12 PRP- 4 PT- 3 RP- 13 SDP- 3,134 SNP- 26 SPN- 9 UPN- 15 UPP- 4 YDP- 3 YPP- 6 TOTAL VALID VOTES- 20,531 TOTAL REJECTED VOTES 847 TOTAL VOTES CAST- 21,378 FINAL RESULTS FOR IREPODUN LGA TOTAL NUMBER OF REGISTERED VOTERS: 46,558 TOTAL NUMBER OF ACCREDITED VOTERS: 24,307 RESULT: A: 7 AA: 2 ABP: 16 ACD: 43 ACPN: 23 AD: 10 ADC: 158 ADP: 2,564 AGA: 23 AGAP: 4 ANRP: 22 APA: 44 APC: 6,517 APGA: 9 APP: 64 BNPP: 4 C4C: 2 DA: 5 DPC: 48 DPP: 18 FJP: 3 GDPN: 4 GPN: 3 HDP: 7 KP: 5 LP: 11 MMN: 1 MPN: 8 NCP: 15 NEPP: 3 NNPP: 2 NPC: 10 PANDEL: 8 PDC: 52 PDP: 8,058 PPA: 68 PPC: 20 PPN: 20 PRP: 7 PT: 15 RP: 24 SDP: 4,856 SNP: 35 SPN: 10 UPN: 21 UPP: 8 YDP: 0 YPP: 2 TOTAL VALID VOTES 22,859 TOTAL REJECTED VOTES: 1,410 TOTAL VOTES CAST: 24,269 At 1 :47 am, the final results of Ifelodun local Government Area was read out by the local government collation officer. See breakdown below: A 8 AA 40 APP 26 ACP 32 ACPN 35 AD 38 ADC 236 ADP 2834 AGA 31 AGAP 4 ANRP 22 APA 74 APC 9882 APGA 8 APP 35 PNPP 3 C4C 4 GA 11 GPC 74 DPP 30 FJP 17 GDPN 5 GPN 7 HDP 9 KOWA 9 LP 5 MMN 5 MPN 6 NCP 15 LDPP 4 LNPP 7 LPC 10 PANDEL 8 PDC 119 PDP 12269 PPA 130 PPC 32 PPN. 14 PRP 11 PT 27 RP 15 SDP 1970 SPN 4 SNP 26 UPN 43 UPP 3 YDP 7 YPP. 3 ISOKAN LGA RESULTS Number of Registered Voters: 45,903 Number of Accredited Voters: 23,314 Total Valid Votes: 21,723 Total Rejected Votes: 1519 TOTAL NUMBERS OF VOTE CAST: 23,242 RESULT: A 9 AA 4, ABP 26, ACD 40 ACPN 42 AD 20, ADC 56, ADP 682, ADA 27, AGAP 10, ANRP 15, APA 92, APC 7297, APGA 19, APP 79, BNPP 04, C4C 06, DA 09, DPC 59, DPP 70, FJP 11, GDPN 05, GPN 04 HDP 06, KOWA 07, LP 08 , MMN 09, NPN 07, NCP 20, NPDP 13, PANDEL 118, PDP 9048, PPA 177 PPC 43, PDN 33, DRP 13, PT 19, RP 26, SDP 3460, SNP 48, SPN 16, UPN 36, UPP 23, YDP 08, YPP 10 Results for Odo Otin Local Government Area After proper computation of the result for 15 wards across the local government, Heres the official result below as officially declared at the INEC office, Odo Otin Local Government Area, Okuku, Osun State by the collation officer, Dr. Oseni Joseph Olumide TOTAL REGISTERED VOTERS: 57,663 TOTAL ACCREDITED VOTERS: 27,051 TOTAL VALID VOTES: 25,654 TOTAL VOTE CAST: 27,023 REJECTED VOTES: 1,369 ADC 1034 ADP 1112 APC 9996 PDP 9879 SDP 2941 PANDEL 11 KOWA 9 LP 14 APGA 14 At exactly 1: 04 a.m., the electoral officer, PROFESSOR BABATUNDE ADEYEMI, for Ayedire local govt announced the result of the election in the local govt. There are four district in this local government_ *They are: OLUPONA, KUTA, ILEOGBO AND OKE OSUN* See breakdown of results below A..3 AA3 ABP..14 ACPN..17 AD13 ADC144 ADP..166 AGA..1642 ANRP19 APC5474 APP..22 DPC17 DPP..16 FJP..5 GDPN4 GPN..5 HDP..8 MMN 5 NCP1 NNPP..0 NPC4 PANDEL.3 PDC..38 PDP5133 PPA35 PPC20 PPN..15 PRP4 PT..10.. RP9 SDP..2396 SNP..18 SPN..7 UPN8 UPP..O YDP..0 YPP4. TOTAL.. 15240 REJECTED VOTES. 1024 total CAST VOTES. 16264 Results of Ayedaade LGA Result announced by Professor Ayotunde Adeagbo See breakdown of results below A 7 Aa 8 ABP 19 ACD 55 ACPN 37 AD 22 ADC 145 ADP 1654 AGA 27 AGAP 9 ANRP 34 APA 128 APC 10,861 APGA 23 APP 37 BNPP 1 C4C 4 DA 6 DPC 56 DPP 30 FJP 10 GDPN 7 GPN 4 HDP 11 KP 10 LP- 8 MMN 2 MPN 6 NCP 16 NPC 16 NEPP 4 NNPP 7 PANDEL 7 PDC 73 PDP 10,836 PPA 139 PPC 45 PPN 27 PRP 20 PT 25 RP 25 SDP 2967 SNP 66 SPN 12 UPN 42 UPP 11 YDP 9 YPP 5 Full official results for Ede North LGA A 4 AA 3 ABP 15 ACD 23 ACPN 17 AD 12 ADC 89 ADP 758 AGA 4 AGAP 3 ANRP 12 APA 43 APC 7025 APGA 12 APP 8 BNPP 4 C4C 4 DA 7 DPC 62 DPP 28 FJP 2 GDPN 5 GPN 1 HDP 3 KP 5 LP 2 MMN 0 MPN 0 NCP 11 NPC 0 NEPP 2 NNPP 4 PANDEL 13 PDC 111 PDP 18,745 PPA 140 PPC 25 PPN 10 PRP 5 PT 9 RP 9 SDP 1380 SNP 27 SPN 5 UPN 15 UPP 4 YDP 4 YPP 2 Final results for Ife South Local Government has been released INEC Returning Officer for the local government, Ogola Emmanuel, a Professor announced the results in INEC office, Ifetedo, Ife South LGA early on Sunday. A summary of the results for the five leading parties as announced by Mr Emmanuel is as follows; APC=7223 PDP=4872 SDP=6151 ADP=561 ADC=136 Total valid votes = 19,998 Rejected votes=1,399 Total votes cast = 21,397 At exactly, 2:33am. Ejigbo Local Government final result announced at INEC office, Ejigbo by Professor Mboh from FUTA. Registered Voters: 63,652 Accredited Voters: 35,061 ADC: 258 ADP: 592 APC: 14,779 PDP: 11,116 SDP: 4,803 Total Valid Votes: 32,787 Rejected Votes: 2,109 Total Votes Cast: 34,896 Irewole LGA No of registered voters : 61977 No of accredited voters: 30898 Parties: A: 06 AA: 04 APP: 33 ACD: 34 ACDN: 26 AD: 22 ADC: 249 ADP: 1915 AGA: 26 AGAP: 08 ANRP: 24 APA: 84 APC: 10049 APGA: 20 APD: 27 PNPP: 09 C4C: 07 DA: 05 DPC: 93 DPP: 30 FJP: 12 GDPN: 08 GPN: 08 HDP: 06 KOWA: 11 LP: 06 MMN: 04 MPN: 08 NCP: 22 NEPP: 04 NNPP: 03 NPC: 14 PANDEL: 05 PDC: 89 PDP: 13848 PPA: 195 PPC: 43 PPN: 20 PRP: 09 PT: 25 RP: 16 SDP: 1142 SNP: 47 SPN: 05 UPN: 25 UPP: 08 YDP: 09 YPP: 03 TOTAL VALID VOTES : 28267 REJECTED: 2502 VOTES CAST: 30769 Results For Ife North LGA Total number of registered voters 52684 No of Accredited voters- 20549 Accord- 15 AA- 2 ABP- 21 ACD -56 ACPN 34 AD -14 ADC -94 ADP -745 AGA- 27 AGAP 4 ANRP- 14 APA -83 APC- 6527 APGA- 6 APP- 55 BNPP- 5 C4C- 5 DA- 7 DPC- 49 DPP- 16 FJP-2 GDPN- 5 GPN- 1 HDP- 1 Kowa -6 LP- 9 Mmn- 7 Mpn- 3 Ncp -12 Nepp -2 Nnpp -0 Pandel -10 Pdc- 52 PDP -5486 Ppa -79 Pdc- 27 Pdn- 31 PrP- 9 Pt -10 Rp -11 Sdp -5158 SNP -70 Spn- 18 Upn-22 Upp-11 Ydp-5 Ypp-5 Total Valid Votes: 18846 Rejected Votes: 1,674 Total Votes Cast: 20,520 Final results for Ife Central Local Government Area, Ile-Ife. Collation was done at Oluorogbo High School. The overall results for the five major parties after total collation are as follows: ADC 194 ADP -1,053 APC 6,957 PDP 3,200 SDP 20,494 * Registered Voters 106,309 * Accredited Voters 35,588 * Total valid votes 33,304 * Rejected votes 2,144 * Total votes cast 35,448 Final result for Olorunda local government Number of registered voters: 90110 Accredited voters: 40524 A-10 AA-3 ABP-29 ACD-52 ACPN-37 AD-29 ADC-335 ADP-1409 AGA-31 AGAP-3 ANRP-16 APA-140 APC-16254 APP-27 APGA-27 APP-79 BNPP-3 C4C-4 DPP-31 FJP-9 GDPN-6 GPN-2 HDP-7 KOWA-6 LP-18 MMN-2 NPN-2 NCP-31 NEPP-1 NNPP-4 NPC-11 PANDEL-7 PDC-95 PDP-9850 PPA-77 PPC-44 PPN-24 PRP-13 PT-19 RP-26 SDP-7061 SPN-19 UPN-50 YDP-5 YPP-10 TOTAL VALID VOTES: 35990 REJECTED VOTE: 2309 VOTE CAST: 38299 Full results for Egbedore LGA. Number of Registered Voters: 42145 Number of Accredited Voters: 20464 Results for best 15 political parties APC 7354 VOTES PDP 7231 VOTES SDP. 2367 VOTES ADP 636 VOTES ADC 119 VOTES APA 66. VOTES PPA 51. VOTES PDC 50 VOTES APP 28 VOTES SNP 28 VOTES DPC 25 VOTES ADC 19 VOTES ACPN 19 VOTES NCP 17 VOTES PPC 17 VOTES Total Valid Votes: 19193 Rejected Votes: 1144 Total Votes Cast: 20337 Final results from Baptist high school Adeke, Iwo local government where the collation was done. Total registered voters:78120 Accredited voters: 39790 ADC: 1164 ADP :16125 APC :7644 PDP:6122 SDP :4153 Total valid votes:37319 Rejected votes:2290 Total vote casted:39609 Orolu LGA ADC 79 ADP 388 APC 5442 PDP 7776 SDP 2043 Oriade LGA. Collation officer: Joseph Sunday. Total registered vote: 54,921, total accredited vote: 25,697, total valid votes:24,380, total invalid:1186, total vote: 25,566 A -94 AA-03 ABP-28 ACPN-25 AD-25 ADC-109 ADP-1224 AGA-27 AGAP-04 ANRP-10 APA-71 APC-9,778 APGA-20 APP-20 BNPP-02 C4C03 DA-06 DPC-59 DPP-33 FJP-05 GDPN-04 GPN-01 HDP-07 KP-10 LP-15 MMN-04 MPN-06 NCP-27 NPC-12 NEPP-02 NNPP-02 PANDEL-14 PDC-64 PDP-10,109 PPA-89 PPC-35 PPN-18 PRP-09 RP-08 SDP-2265 SNP-51 SPN-08 UPP-05 YDP-04 YPP-07 Atakunmosa West APC- 5019 ADC- 106 ADP- 718 PDP- 5401 SDP- 1570 Ifedayo Local government area APC- 3182 ADC- 52 ADP- 176 PDP- 3374 SDP- 1377 Obokun LGA ADC 106 ADP 663 APC 7229 PDP 10869 SDP 1907 Ilesa East ADC 188 ADP 1275 APC 9790 PDP 8244 SDP 3720 Boripe LGA Total Registered Voters 57, 397 Accredited: 25, 045 Parties Total Votes: ADC 137 ADP 1137 APC 11, 655 PDP 6, 892 SDP 2730 Ilesa West ADC 127 ADP 2363 APC 7251 PDP 8286 SDP 2408 At 1:50am, Ola-Oluwa Local Government final result announced by Olabode Titilayo at Ola-Oluwa Local Government Secretariat, the collation center. APC 5025 PDP 4026 ADP 2194 SDP 2104 ADC 1408 The attempt by the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) to recover over N5.4 trillion bad debts would be impossible without judiciary support, Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Adamu Kafarati, said on Friday. Mr Kafarati was addressing federal high court judges at an interactive session between the National Judicial Institute (NJI), AMCON and federal high court judges in Abuja. He said there was a need for judges in the country to support the recovery efforts by AMCON considering that the corporation was established as a central element of governments response to the financial crisis in the country. AMCONs assignment to recover the huge amount, he noted, was a national assignment deserving of the support of all interest groups, especially the judiciary. That AMCON is coming to save the banks in Nigeria cannot be over-emphasised. So the corporation must be supported through firm judicial processes to recover the outstanding debts since it also borrowed money to rescue the banks, the official said. Highlighting the crisis that could have hit the Nigerian economy if the government did not establish AMCON at the time it did, Mr Kafarati said banks are drivers of the economy, as they supply its oxygen. My Lords, during the 2008/2009 financial crisis in Nigeria (partly triggered by the global financial crisis, and partly by domestic activities), the government intervened to support the banks by bailing them out in order to allow the financial system to continue functioning. In the absence of government intervention in the banks through AMCON, a number of banks in the country would have failed, thereby inhibiting banks from playing their crucial roles in the economy, like payment for services to households and companies extension of credits, savings accounts and financial insurance, among others. Mr Kafarati said an interruption to the critical service provided by the banks, and the likely loss of confidence in the system that could have followed, would have resulted in widespread disruption and ultimate collapse of the countrys financial system. He said the creation of AMCON in 2010 and the injection of capital into the ailing banks in consideration for equity, was the most important step by the government towards resolving the problem of non-performing loans (NPLs) in banks. Adamu Abdu-Kafarati as the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court. [Photo credit: THISDAYLIVE] To recover every outstanding debt, Mr Kafarati said the judiciary must collaborate with AMCON in the purchase of the NPLs, to maximise the value of asset recoveries and minimize costs to taxpayers. AMCON Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Ahmed Kuru, noted the challenges the corporation was facing in the recovery of the outstanding debt of AMCON. He told the judges it was clear AMCON cannot go very far without the support of the courts since the obligors usually deliberately raise technicalities in courts to elongate and delay their cases with AMCON. As part of its renewed strategy for recovering debts, he said AMCON decided earlier in the year to refocus its strategy by shifting gears from restructuring towards enforcement. Out of the 191,766 cases pending at the federal high court, he said more than 3,000 are related to AMCON alone. Police officers on election duty in Osun State have arrested two men who were allegedly caught inducing voters with petty cash at a polling unit in Iwo. Iwo has one of the largest concentrations of votes in the state. Although their identity could not be immediately conformed, both suspects are said to be loyalists of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), whose candidate is Ademola Adeleke. They were nabbed in Malete neighbourhood. Channels TV quoted a police chief, El-Mustapha Sani, as confirming the incident at St. Mary Grammar School. The police say the suspects will remain in custody as the matter is being investigated. Reports of votes buying in the Osun election have continued to pile up as the exercise enters mid-day. Police arrest two men inducing voters with money PREMIUM TIMES observed that both the PDP and the All Progressives Congress, the two largest parties in the election, have been engaged in vote buying tactics through their proxies. Officials of other parties like the ADP and SDP have also been caught engaging in the act; although often outside the vicinity of the polling unit. The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) has arrested four Nigerians for alleged human trafficking, rape and domestic violence. At a press briefing on Friday at the agencys headquarters in Abuja, the acting NAPTIPs director of investigations, Josiah Emeriole, said the briefing is in line with the agencys name and shame strategy of ending the twin problems of trafficking in persons and violence against persons. Mr Emerole named one of the suspects as Stephany Bassey, a Sweden based 43 year old woman, from Akwa Ibom State. According to Mr Emerole, Mrs Bassey was handed over to the agency by officers of the Intelligence and International Cooperation (IICU) through the Embassy of Sweden in Nigeria. Her arrest followed investigations on suspicions that Mrs Bassey was with a child intended for trafficking. Mr Emerole said Mrs Bassey was at the embassy to procure travel documents for a two-month-old baby boy whom she claimed was her child. When she was brought to the agency, Mrs Bassey insisted that the baby was delivered by her. She claimed to have become pregnant for her husband in Sweden but also added that medical examinations could not detect the pregnancy over there. She said she was therefore, advised to return home to Uyo, Akwa Ibom State where the pregnancy would be detected and she will be assisted to deliver safely, the official said. Mr Emerole said Mrs Bassey later twisted the story saying the fat in her body was too much and that a scan and medical examinations would not be able to detect the baby. Mr Emerole said Mrs Bassey had never fed the baby who is now three months old now with her breast milk even for a day. Also a DNA was conducted on the woman and the child and the result clearly indicated that there was no biological relationship between the two. Another suspect, Ifeoma Obinwa, 37 was accused of domestic violence. On September 12, she reportedly inflicted grievous body injury on her 14-year-old house help. The victim, who was promised education had lived with the suspect since 2015 was never enrolled into school. Mr Emerole said the suspect accused the victim of beating her child and punished her with a hot knife. Another, Francis Yusuf, a 37-years-old man from Plateau State and a staffer of the Nigeria Investment Promotion Council (NIPC), Abuja on September 13, also allegedly raped his wifes cousin, who lives with them in their Jikwoyi, Abuja residence. According to Mr Emerole, the suspect (Mr Yusuf) raped the 17 year old girl and locked her inside the house and left with the keys. He added that Mr Yusuf, upon arrest was taken to his residence where it was discovered that the bedsheet was stained with blood source of which he could not explain. Another suspect, 29-years-old Sandra Obiosio, an indigene of Rivers State who resides at Jabi area of Abuja alongside her husband procured a 12-year-old girl from Nassarawa State in 2017 as househelp and allegedly subjected the girl to all manner of abuse and ill-treatment. According to Mr Emerole, the little girl who was also promised education but was not enrolled into school. Mr Emerole after the narration said all these cases are contrary to various sections of the Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition) Enforcement and Administration Act 2015 (TIPPEA) and the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act 2015 (VAPPA). She said as soon as investigations are over, the suspects would be charged to court. NAPTIP is the Nigerian government agency charged with the investigation of illegal trafficking of persons, rape and violence against persons. President Muhammadu Buhari Sunday will depart for New York to participate in the 73rd Session of United Nations General Assembly (UNGA73) which officially opened Tuesday, his office has said. A statement by presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina, gives details of Mr Buharis engagement at the UN event. Part of the statement is below: The theme for this years Session is: Making the United Nations relevant to all People: Global Leadership and Shared Responsibilities for Peaceful, Equitable and Sustainable Societies. The highpoint of President Buharis participation will be his address on Tuesday to the General Assembly on the opening day of the General Debate. The presidents presentation of Nigerias National Statement is expected to reaffirm the nations commitment to international peace and security; sustainable socio-economic development; disarmament and denuclearisation; youth and women empowerment; climate change; rule of law and human rights; among others. He is also expected to particularly canvass international support for the fight against corruption; the return of illicit assets; counter-terrorism and insurgency; curbing irregular migration; re-settling Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs); recharging the receding Lake Chad; and calls for the reform of the United Nations, especially the expansion of the permanent membership of the Security Council to make that vital principal organ of the global organisation reflect regional and equitable geographical representation. The President and his wife, Aisha, will also attend a welcome reception hosted by the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres and his spouse for Heads of State and Government and their spouses. The Nigerian leader and his delegation will participate in a High-Level meeting on the Fight against Tuberculosis organised by the World Health Organisation as Nigeria currently ranks seventh amongst the high TB-burden countries globally, and second in Africa. The Nigerian delegation is expected to attend the Mandela Peace Summit, which is a High-Level Meeting on Global Peace in honour of the centenary birth of the late South African President and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Nelson Mandela. Other side-events lined up for the Nigerian delegation include: High-Level Meeting on Financing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development; World Economic Forums Sustainable Development Impact Summit; the Second Annual Bloomberg Global Business Forum; High-Level Meeting on Action for Peace-Keeping; Commemoration and Promotion of the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons; High-Level Meeting on the Third Industrial Development Decade for Africa; and Pathway to Localising a Global Agenda. During the course of his stay in New York, in addition to the audience with the UN Secretary-General, the Nigerian President is also expected to have bilateral meetings with African and world leaders including Bill Gates with a view to promoting national and African interests. He will also grant audience to a select group of Nigerian professionals based in the United States. Apart from his wife, President Buhari will be accompanied by Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State; Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama; Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami; Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole; Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Okechukwu Enelamah; Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udo Udoma; and the Minister of State for Environment, Ibrahim Jibrin. Others on the presidential entourage include: the National Security Adviser, Maj. Gen. Babagana Monguno (rtd); Director-General, National Intelligence Agency, Ahmed Abubakar; Comptroller-General, Nigeria Immigration Service, Mohammad Babandede; and the Acting Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ibrahim Magu. The police have announced the arrest of a man identified as an agent of the Peoples Democratic Party in Saturdays governorship election in Osun State. Adeogbo Wasiu was arrested with N116,000 in downtown Osogbo, the state capital, on Saturday afternoon, the police alleged on Twitter. He was reportedly inducing voters with cash at Ward 8, Polling Unit 9 in Fiwasaye neighborhood when officers on duty nabbed him. He has been taken into custody as investigation continues. Mr Wasiu is the third PDP loyalist to be arrested for allegedly inducing voters with cash at polling units Saturday. His arrest comes hours after two suspected PDP agents were arrested with N704,000 in Iwo, Osun State. The police are also investigating the matter, but said the suspects would remain in custody. Saturdays election has seen both PDP and All Progressives Congress agents canvass votes at polling areas with financial inducement. The practice is a criminal offence under the electoral law, and electoral authorities and law enforcement agencies have spent the past few days warning Osun electorate against it. While incidents of votes buying continue to be recorded in todays poll, they are not as brazen as what observers witnessed in the neighbouring Ekiti State in July. Police announce arrest of another PDP agent for vote buying Police announce arrest of another PDP agent for vote buying This might be due to improved surveillance imposed by authorities. Still, PREMIUM TIMES can confirm that votes are being bought in a similar scale as Ekiti State. While Ekiti voters sold their votes in cash at the ballot box, the scrutiny of law enforcement authorities has pushed culprits in Osuns election to upgrade their illicit practice. PREMIUM TIMES confirmed that voters are now being asked to write down their names immediately after voting and their cash will be advanced to them later on. President Muhammadu Buhari is reforming Nigeria and requires individuals with similar disposition to trickle down the reforms to the grassroots, a former EFCC chairman, Nuhu Ribadu, has said. Mr Ribadu stated this in Yola on Saturday while declaring his intention to vie for the governorship post of the state. He said Mr Buhari has changed the face of conducting government business in this country by enshrining transparency and accountability in public sector. If elected, he said, he will replicate similar traits in handling the affairs of Adamawa State. It is a common consensus that Nigeria is today a different place on account of the leadership being provided by our dear president, he said. According to him, The days of free for all corruption and wanton abuse of our resources are behind us and Nigeria is opening a new vista in giving the citizens a reason to once again be proud of their country. In this drive to change Nigeria, I believe our president needs support of individuals with similar vision, especially at the sub-national level, he added. Mr Ribadu said the changes being witnessed should not be only at the federal level, saying states must key in for it to be impactful. It is not enough to have a reformed federal government and an honest and sincere president, this has to be replicated at other tiers of government for us to have all-encompassing progress we desire, he said. According to him, his aspiration is driven by passion to uplift the community that I have; it is that spirit with which I am known, all my life. It is that zeal that saw me going into a career in law enforcement to fight injustice and bring about development. In his remarks, Adamawa state chairman of APC, Ibrahim Bilal, pledged that the party will be fair and just in conducting the forthcoming primaries. He said any of the three aspirants who eventually picked the ticket would be supported by the party to victory. Read the full speech below: Let me begin by thanking God almighty for sparing our lives to witness this auspicious day. We commence this journey in His name and we invoke his guidance throughout. I appreciate you all, brothers and sisters for the overwhelming reception you accord me, which is evidenced in the number of people who troop out under the sun to welcome me home. There is no greater show of solidarity than this sacrifice to come out and display sheer love and support. This is very encouraging to me as a person. This is not an ordinary day for me, and I believe it is not for the rest of the patriotic citizens of this State who desire development, who desire hope, who look up for purposeful leadership. Today, I come to you as your son and brother who defines himself in the spirit of community service and development. In the past months, I have had deep reflections about our country and state of affairs in both Nigeria and Adamawa State. As a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and indeed as one who played his own part at the formative stage of the party, I am most proud of a number of things the APC government led by President Muhammadu Buhari. It is a common consensus that Nigeria is today a different place on account of the leadership being provided by our dear President. Both his friends and foes have agreed that President Buhari has changed the face of conducting government business in this country. The days of free for all corruption and wanton abuse of our resources are behind us and Nigeria is opening a new vista in giving the citizens a reason to once again be proud of their country. In this drive to change Nigeria, I believe our president needs support of individuals with similar vision, especially at the sub-national level. It is not enough to have a reformed federal government and an honest and sincere president, this has to be replicated at other tiers of government for us to have all-encompassing progress we desire. The reason for my being here today is that passion to uplift the community that I have; it is that spirit with which I am known, all my life. It is that zeal that saw me going into a career in law enforcement to fight injustice and bring about development. My philosophy, is in that upbringing that taught us to put the interest of the public over any other consideration. In life of service, ones first consideration should be the impact one makes under the circumstance. It is therefore that same will to serve that is responsible for me offering myself for our dear state. Adamawa is in dire need for leadership. A leadership that encompasses the qualities of a good leadership; a leadership that will not lie, a leadership that will not deceive, a leadership that will not put its interests over and above the interest of the entire state. We need a leadership that will restore our dignity as a people and one that will be honest and forthright. Our dear state is facing a number of developmental challenges that require urgent, holistic and strategic handling. We do not need to cosmetics, which do not address fundamental issues that are cornerstone to our development as a people. It takes visionary leadership with capacity and modern thinking to provided that needed redirection, beyond deceptive makeup. It is this much-needed leadership that I promise to offer to our people. I come with genuine intention and I have a burning passion to change the fortunes of our people for good. With all sense of humility, believe I possess the requisite credentials, both academic and character, required to move this state forward. I will run an all-inclusive government where all stakeholders like you truly have stakes. As we move into the primaries, what we require from you, our party leaders, is utmost level of responsibility by allowing free and fair contest. We cannot afford to manipulate our party into failure. Injustice can never stand. Even if it does, it would be on shaky foundations which can collapse at any time. Therefore, skewing a process like the primaries to favour one person, even though unpopular, may only lead our great party to failure, something no genuine party member would desire. I would appeal to all political actors in the state, especially my fellow aspirants, to play politics within the ambits of the rule of law. We should eschew antagonism or stoking primordial sentiments. Elections would come and go but the people will always be together. We should not explore the misfortunes and living conditions of our people to advance ourselves. Even if you succeed in doing that in the interim, you cannot escape the haunting consequences of such action forever. I thank you all for your valuable time and this august reception. Thank you, God bless you all. A vote buyer was arrested and later released by police officers in Osun State. The buyer, identified as Sunday, was arrested at Polling Unit 03, Ward 06 of Ifedayo Local Governnment Area on Saturday. At about 10:46am, the man was seen standing some distance away from the polling unit as he waited for registered voters to vote and confirm the party they really voted for. Mr Sunday was assisted by an older man who was closer to the voting cubicle to comfrim the electorates vote while he (Sunday) distributed the money. Shortly after, the attention of the police officers around was drawn to the situation, Mr Sunday and his accomplice (who is said to be the party leader) were arrested and taken away from the vicinity in a police vehicle. Mr Sunday, however, returned few minutes later, just after the party leader. Several similar cases of vote buying were witnessed across Osun, where, unlike in Ekiti, the voters were not paid within the vicinity of the polling unit. When contacted, an officer who answered the Osun Police Control Room telephone line, simply said she was not aware of the situation. She also refused to give her name. Please this is the control room line. We only take complaints here. I dont know what you are talking about. Ive not heard that one, she said. In the same polling unit, PREMIUM TIMES also observed that there was an error on the voters registration list pasted on the wall. The polling unit code on some voters Permanent Voters Cards did not tally with the code written on the list pasted on the wall. One of the electorates affected, Mr Bodunpe, said, What I have on my PVC is that I am in Polling Unit 004, but the address is directing me to polling units 003. On getting to Polling Unit 003, I saw my data on the wall. I am not the only one affected. Some have voted before I came but when the population was becoming alarming, we were asked to go to Polling Unit 004 which is on our PVC. I came back here and our data couldnt be found, we were sent back to Polling Unit 003. But when we got there, we were not allowed to vote. However, the Electoral Operation Support Centre (EOSC) officer in charge of the local government addressed the affected electorates, soliciting for their patience and promising to get the issue resolved before 2 p.m. Voting was still going on across the state as at the time of this report. A total of 48 political parties are taking part in the election. The candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the ongoing governorship election in Osun State, Iyiola Omisore, has cast his vote at the Polling Unit 3 Ward 1, Ife East. Mr Omisore, a former deputy governor of the state and former senator, arrived the polling unit around 11: 05 am. He voted at St Gabriel Primary School, Moore, Ile-Ife at 11:15 am. Mr Omisore, who addressed the media after voting, said he observed that there were some irregularities in the election. He however said he could commend INEC because of what he had heard and observed about the process so far. Mr Omisore also condemned vote buying. He said those selling their votes had destroyed their destinies because there were no good roads and schools in the state. He said by selling their votes would only compound the problems of the states. I know INEC and other officials are trying to prevent it but it is still happening. People are stylishly doing it, he said. There has been a massive turnout in Ile-Ife. This is one of the places Mr Omisore is expected to garner most of his votes. Voting was also going on peacefully at Court Hall Olode, Ward 7 Unit 001, the home town of the SDP candidate whose father is the paramount king of the town (Olode). Some Nigerians on social media have verbally attacked a senator, Ben Murray-Bruce, for criticising the minister of communications and the Buhari-led administration over the NYSC scandal that has dogged the administration. PREMIUM TIMES exclusively reported how Mr Shittu skipped the mandatory service, an offence that may see him lose his position and earn him a jail term. Mr Shittu failed to participate in the NYSC scheme despite graduating from the then University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University, OAU) at age of 25. The revelation about Mr Shittu, who is currently angling to become Oyo State governor, is coming to light about a week after Kemi Adeosun was compelled to step down from her post as Nigerias finance minister after this medium reported that she skipped the same service and then procured a fake exemption certificate to cover her tracks. Months of discreet checks at the NYSC headquarters showed that the communications minister did not present himself for service after graduation and is yet to do so till date. When contacted Mr Shittu admitted to PREMIUM TIMES that he did not serve but claimed he thought his first political post after graduation could suffice as national service, a claim lawyers and NYSC insiders consider as ludicrous and untenable. Mr Shittu on Friday also claimed that he has not violated the nations constitution. The corps, on Friday, dismissed the ministers claim. It said his (Shittus) holding of a political office could not replace his constitutional duty to participate in the compulsory national service. The spokesperson of the NYSC, Adenike Adeyemi, said the ministers claim that he held an elective cannot suffice for his obligations to the nation. Mr Bruce, who is a member of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), condemned the ministers claim. He lamented how a serving minister skipped the mandatory programme while millions of youth who have undergone the scheme are jobless. As I am reading the story on @PremiumTimesng about another @MBuhari minister who did not serve, I am struck by the sheer number of members of this administration who have high profile, highly paid jobs without serving, yet millions of youth are unemployed despite serving Nigeria, he wrote on his official Twitter handle. His comment, however, did not go down with many Twitter users as they blamed him and the Senate for failure to spot such errors during the screening of presidential nominees. Many have blamed the legislators and the State Security Services empowered to screen presidential nominees for failing to spot abnormalities like the cases of the two ministers. PREMIUM TIMES had earlier reported how the lawmakers rather used the information of Mrs Adesouns forgery to blackmail her to approve suspicious and illicit payments to the National Assembly. On Saturday, seeing that the odds were not in his favour on the Twitter tug of war, the Bayelsa lawmaker, thereafter, backpedalled quickly. He blamed the SSS for the failures. Are you aware that the @NGRSenate screens these ministers based on the information given to us by the security services? If they were able to fool the @PoliceNG and the DSS, how does it make sense to blame me or the Senate? Are you aware that the @NGRSenate screens these ministers based on the information given to us by the security services? If they were able to fool the @PoliceNG and the DSS, how does it make sense to blame me or the Senate? pic.twitter.com/gjTvNdm7Nv Ben Murray-Bruce (@benmurraybruce) September 20, 2018 Below are some reactions from: https://twitter.com/jayhima04/status/1042857239449620481?s=19 This tweet is coming from a senator of this nation. To appoint a minister, the Senate must give approval, so what happened to the wrong approval and clearance you gave to the minister? ooa1st (@Ooa1st_) September 20, 2018 Am also worried that all these appointees apparently pass through senate screening without been spotted, what exactly is the senate screening for? What was screened? Love (MyLove) Ogundipe (@loveog2002) September 20, 2018 I remembered this ministers where screened by the Senate Why all dis noise. Or it's now u know there are grads out there who served the nation n yet to secure a job Abeg talk smfn else Hans momoh (@Hansmomoh) September 20, 2018 But Sen. Ben Bruce was among those who screened and cleared them. Why is he coming here to sound like s hypocrite? Joshua Mimam Sampson (@MrJoshuaSampson) September 20, 2018 You are exposing ur weaknesses as a Senator and the irresponsibility of the institution you which u r a memberis screening ministers not one of the primary responsibilities of ur institution? U r just confused as to know what to tweet n not to.. Raymond Akintayo (@RaymondAkintayo) September 20, 2018 Wait, I Wonder Why You And Many Others Are Not Holding Yourselves Responsible. These Ministers Names Were Sent To The National Assembly Which You Are Part Of For Screening And You Passed Them. So Stop Being Myopic With Your Thoughts. Good Morning OZO (@IsaOzo) September 21, 2018 Sir, before you point fingers, you're one of the culprit yourself. What is the essence of screening this ministers by NASS? its time all political holders publicly present their certificates for screening by Nigerians Dedrey Ogunnoiki (RN) (@dedrey_nrs) September 20, 2018 Will you be honourable enough sir to return the screening money you collected from them and the ones Nigeria paid you for being a senator? If ordinary screening you couldn't handle successfully. People like you should be thinking first before talking. Oh what a nation. WAR AGAINST POVERTY (@WARAGAINSTPOVE1) September 20, 2018 National Assembly misunderstood the power giving to them by the constitution, that ministerial screening to them is just mere interview and presentation. To me, Nigerians should blame NASS not @MBuhari on this contemporary issues of @nysc_ng Sanusi Mohammed, Esq. (@MallSanusi) September 20, 2018 It simply shows that virtually all #Supposed screenings done by d senate are just for formality. It's more like dis is 'Oga's' person, so let him/her thru. As much as it isn't the primary duty of d @NGRSenate to confirm d authenticity of certs, due process would've sorted dat. God'sFavGurl (@drUK_1) September 20, 2018 Photo: Contributed Ute Cummings, VJH Foundation, left, Dan Currie, Owner, Tim Hortons Vernon and Armstrong, Mary-Jo Payeur, Bannister GM Vernon, Lisa Westermark, Executive Director VJH Foundation, Vinder Gahkal, Tim Hortons, Ann Crommer and Franki Beaney, VJH and Brad Nakucyj, Sales Manager, Bannister GM Vernon. A local auto dealer brought 1,000 smiles to Vernon Jubilee Hospital literally. Bannister GM Vernon donated 1,000 Tim Hortons Smile Cookies to VJH Foundation to be distributed to staff and patients. The donation brought life to the Give a Smile, Get a Smile slogan of the annual Tim Hortons Smile Cookie campaign. The Smile Cookie promotion from Tim Hortons is a great way to give back to our community, and the Vernon Jubilee Hospital is a great place to give them out. We hope it brightens up everyones day, said Brad Nakucyj, general sales manager for Bannister GM Vernon. Bannister GM Vernon appreciates everything that VJH Foundation and the hospital does for our community and this is just a small way we can give back and say thank you. Make sure to visit your local Tims to go get a smile and give one too. Everyone was so happy receiving cookies today. It really brought a smile to everyones face, says Lisa Westermark, VJH Foundation executive director. Smile Cookies are available for purchase at all Tim Hortons locations until Sept. 23. All Smile Cookie proceeds from the local Tim Hortons are donated to VJH Foundation. The ban of the use of mobile phones and other recording devices in voting cubicles by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) largely reduced vote buying in the Osun governorship election, the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) reports. CDD monitored the poll in partnership with the Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ). In their preliminary report of the election held on Saturday, the organisation also observed that in most of the polling units, voters complied with the policy, and in cases where attempts were made to violate the policy, law enforcement agents and INEC officials saw to its enforcement. PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported the arrest of a vote buyer identified as Sunday, at Polling Unit 03, Ward 06 of Ifedayo Local Government Area later released by police officers in Osun State. CDD-PTCIJ also observed in Ward 010, PU 004, Boripe LGA, a voter photographing ballot paper after voting in the presence of security personnel. The report also said politicians deployed new tactics to perpetrate vote buying and selling during Osun Governorship election. The groups further said despite the measures introduced by INEC to reduce vote buying in the election, politicians devised means to buy votes. As against the usual money sharing at the polling units, our observers said that the agents of the political parties are now collating names for payment after the vote. This was reported in Ede North Local Government Ward 11 polling unit 3, 4, 5 and 11, Ayedire Local government Ward 5, Polling Unit 005, Atapka Osogbo local government ward 005, polling unit 007. All the leading political parties in the elections are involved in this despicable acts of vote trading, the report said. While commending INEC for the introduction of tactile ballots in the elections, CDD-PTCIJ stated instances of lack of availability of magnifying glasses and materials in some polling units. The priority voting introduced by the commission enables several elderly, pregnant women to vote quickly. However the assistance of the elderly raised concerns amongst party agents who alleged that the elderly are being manipulated to vote for other parties. CDD-PTCIJ deployed about 180 trained observers across the 30 Local Governments (LGAs) in the state for the election. It described as impressive, the voter turnout compared to previous off-cycle elections. As voting ends in many polling units across Osun State, collation of results from such polling units have started. From the polling units, the results will next be collated at ward collation centres, and then at local government collation centres. The final, official result will be declared at the INEC secretariat in Osogbo, the Osun State capital. Download the full report below. Operatives of Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad (FSARS) in Maiduguri have rescued Kashim Bukar-Dalori, the four- year old son of the Borno All Progressives Congress (APC) chairman kidnapped on Wednesday. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the boy was kidnapped from school around 1 p.m. by an unknown woman who falsely claimed to be a relative. Demian Chukwu, The Borno police commissioner, had earlier said that police personnel had launched an investigation to rescue the child from his abductors. A source told NAN that three of the kidnappers were arrested in Maiduguri and Kano on Friday on their mission to collect N20 million ransom from a family member of the victim. The source said: It has been an exhaustive investigation. The suspects, a male who pulled out to collect the ransom of N20 million in Kano, has also been arrested by our personnel. The boy, who was kept in Albarka Hotel in Maiduguri by a lady, was rescued and handed over to the family. It was after collecting the money that our IRT personnel from Kano arrested her. After her arrest, they promptly told us where the boy was kept. So we quickly mobilised our men and cordoned off the hotel in Maiduguri. She was the one that went to the school and picked him. Edet Okon, police spokesperson confirmed the story. Mr Okon said: I can confirm that the son of the APC Chairman that was kidnapped has been rescued and the suspects were also arrested. The suspects would be investigated and charged to court. (NAN) Meanwhile, the chairman of Kiru local government in Kano State, Nasiru Muazu, has confirmed the abduction of his son, Babangida, by gunmen on Wednesday night. Mr Muazu confirmed the incident in a telephone interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Kano. He said that Babangida, aged 28 and father of two, was kidnapped around 12 midnight at his residence in Kiru. The chairman however declined to give further details, but said the matter had since been reported to the state police command. The police have already swung into action with a view to rescuing the victim, Mr Muazu said. NAN learnt that the armed hoodlums, who stormed the residence of Babangida around 12 midnight and whisked him away, are demanding for the payment of N50 million ransom before releasing him. Efforts to get a reaction from the police command was unsuccessful as the phone line of its spokesman, Magaji Majiya, was not going through as at the time of filing this report. A pastor in Edo state, South-south Nigeria, has been arrested for his alleged involvement in human trafficking. The man, Marvelous Odalo, is said to be the General Overseer of Mega Charismatic Fire Ministry in the state. Mr Odalo was arrested alongside his accomplice by the Edo State Taskforce against Human Trafficking for allegedly conniving with a sponsor in Russia to traffic a 22-year-old girl from the state, according to a statement issued on Thursday by the Edo state government. The government claimed the arrest followed a tipoff from the girl. The government did not reveal the victims name but said she has since returned to Edo state from Russia. The victim, according to the statement, claimed she and her sister were deceived by the pastor and his accomplice. The pastor asked me to stand on top a white handkerchief and N1000 note on the altar. He asked me to repeat what he was saying and that if I refuse to pay my madam, something bad will happen to me, she was quoted to have said. I was asked to pay U.S $50,000. They told me that I was going to meet a woman who is pregnant in Russia and that I will assist her with domestic chores. They said I will also be working as a stylist in her saloon. I will pay them that amount since the work is thriving there. I never knew that the lady was neither pregnant nor married. When I got there, it was a different ball game. I was forced to engage in prostitution in Russia which I resisted, I rejected it and told them I will rather go home than sell my body to satisfy one greedy woman. She said she later met a Nigerian in Russia, who introduced her to an aide to Edo governor on human trafficking, Solomon Okoduwa, who took her matter up in Nigeria. The victim said since she came back to Nigeria she has been receiving threats from her madam, demanding for the money spent on the journey to Russia. She thanked the Edo State government for coming to her rescue and appealed for the government to intervene and help stop the threat to her life, as well as help her start up a business to enable her to earn a decent living. The governors aide, Mr Okoduwa, who facilitated the arrest, said the pastor and a woman who is an accomplice have been handed over to the Special Investigation Unit attached to the Government House for further investigation. Edo is one of the worst hit states in Nigeria by human trafficking. The administration of Governor Godwin Obaseki in the state has drawn commendations for its effort in tackling the menace. The Commissioner of Police in Enugu State, Mohammed Danmallam, on Saturday said that inter-agencies partnership and engagement of relevant parties foiled the sit-at-home order by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) last weekend. The IPOB declared sit-at-home order across the five South-east States on September 14. NAN gathered that IPOB had earlier written to various unions and associations in the state, including council areas, to shut down businesses and other activities. The sit-at-home was called to protest the planned Operation Python Dance 3, the recent detention of some Igbo women in Imo and the alleged killing of many pro-Biafra agitators in various parts of the country. Mr Danmallam told NAN that the police enjoyed extensive co-operation with sister security agencies in the state to achieve the feat. The commissioner added that police could not do it all alone as security is inclusive and a shared responsibility of all. He said sister security agencies made a lot of deployments on the fateful day as well as participated in extensive security patrols. The commissioner said: Most especially I must thank the various stakeholders that the command met one-on-one on the issue and they gave their assurances to partner the police to make the sit-at-home of no effect. We thank the various transport unions, the various markets and market unions and bank unions in the state. I will not forget the co-operation of the traditional rulers as well as tips they gave the police on ways to handle the misguided youth. Also, the grassroots mobilisation that 17 council chairmen of the state did help to send a positive message that foiled the temptation for the residents of the state to obey these misguided youths. According to Mr Danmallam, the police command is sending appreciation letters to the various bodies and unions in the state over the matter. While thanking them in the letter, we will appeal for their further co-operation whenever the need arises, he added. NAN reports that the Federal High Court in Abuja on September 21, 2017, gave judicial backing to the Executive Order by President Muhammadu Buhari outlawing the IPOB and declared its activities as acts of terrorism and illegality. (NAN) The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the ongoing Osun election, Ademola Adeleke, has expressed concern over the functionality of card readers in the process. He raised this concern after casting his vote at Polling Unit 9, Ward 2, Ede North Local Government on Saturday. Mr Adeleke voted some minutes after 8a.m. Speaking with journalists after exercising his right, he asserted his optimism at victory while raising concern over the card readers. He said, I hope the card readers work because it took process before the card reader started working. So far so good, its been peaceful. Well have a fair election. Im very optimistic that Im going to win this election. Responding to questions on accusations against him before election, Mr Adeleke said such moves by his opponent were borne out of fear. All allegations levelled against me is (are) false. Its all lies. They tried to make sure that I do not stand this election. Im qualified, I have all it takes. They are afraid of me because they know that in a free and fair election, Im going win. And by the special grace of God, thats whats going to happen. Im going to win. Photo: Contributed Nutty farmers are being encouraged to start planning for the 2019 season by applying for the second intake of Hazelnut Renewal Program funding. Funding applications are now available for hazelnut growers planning for spring 2019. "Anyone who knows me can tell you that I love hazelnuts," said Lana Popham, Minister of Agriculture. "The Hazelnut Renewal Program is directly supporting the revitalization of this important sector, and I encourage our passionate growers to take the opportunity now to apply for funding." The British Columbia hazelnut industry has been battling hard against eastern filbert blight for the past few years, a disease that has been decimating hazelnut crops in regions throughout the province. For the New World Order, a world government is just the beginning. Once in place they can engage their plan to exterminate 80% of the world's population, while enabling the "elites" to live forever with the aid of advanced technology. For the first time, crusading filmmaker ALEX JONES reveals their secret plan for humanity's extermination: Operation ENDGAME. Jones chronicles the history of the global elite's bloody rise to power and reveals how they have funded dictators and financed the bloodiest warscreating order out of chaos to pave the way for the first true world empire. Watch as Jones and his team track the elusive Bilderberg Group to Ottawa and Istanbul to document their secret summits, allowing you to witness global kingpins setting the world's agenda and instigating World War III. to Ottawa and Istanbul to document their secret summits, allowing you to witness global kingpins setting the world's agenda and instigating World War III. Learn about the formation of the North America transportation control grid, which will end U.S. sovereignty forever. Discover how the practitioners of the pseudo-science eugenics have taken control of governments worldwide as a means to carry out depopulation. View the progress of the coming collapse of the United States and the formation of the North American Union. Never before has a documentary assembled all the pieces of the globalists' dark agenda. Endgame's compelling look at past atrocities committed by those attempting to steer the future delivers information that the controlling media has meticulously censored for over 60 years. It fully reveals the elite's program to dominate the earth and carry out the wicked plan in all of human history. Endgame is not conspiracy theory, it is documented fact in the elite's own words. Photo: Contributed Dozens of motorcycle riders were pulled over by police on Glenmore Road Saturday. UPDATE: 4:35 p.m. The police traffic stop of the Hells Angel poker run in Kelowna stemmed from some confusion over the correct route by riders, according to police. Sgt. Brenda Winpenny of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit BC says the confusion over the correct route resulted in the bikers blocking traffic on Glenmore Road. "An RCMP traffic unit initiated a traffic stop with the lead bikers to address the situation," Sgt. Winpenny said. "CFSEU-BC was present and assisted the traffic unit with the stop." The CFSEU-BC, B.C.'s anti-gang police agency, are in Kelowna this weekend for the Hells Angel poker run. "The main objective at these events is to ensure police and public safety and that the participants of the ride abide by the law," Sgt. Winpenny said. The Kelowna RCMP has not yet commented on the ride or the traffic stop. ORIGINAL: 3:30 p.m. Dozens of Hells Angels and associated motorcycle club members were pulled over by police on Kelowna's Glenmore Road Saturday, not long after the riders took off from the Kelowna Hells Angel's clubhouse on their annual Poker Run ride. Upwards of 100 riders were seen pulled over on Glenmore Road, just north of Summit Drive at about noon. Earlier Saturday, the bikers had left from the Hells Angel's clubhouse in Kelowna's North End, on Ellis Street. The Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, B.C.'s anti-gang police agency, is in Kelowna this weekend to support the Kelowna RCMP during the Hells Angel event. The Kelowna RCMP have yet to comment on the ride, or about their interaction with the riders on Glenmore Road. It's unclear if any arrests were made. The poker run involves riding to different locations and collecting playing cards. The cards are then used to make a poker hand at the end of the ride. The Hells Angels set up a chapter in Kelowna around 2006. The gang's clubhouse, while still in use by its members, is the subject of an ongoing BC Civil Forfeiture Office trial in BC Supreme Court in Vancouver. After several police raids on the property over the past several years, the property's assets were frozen in 2016, pending the outcome of the trial. The BC Civil Forfeiture Office is looking to seize the gang's clubhouses in Nanaimo and Vancouver, in addition to Kelowna, arguing the properties will be used to commit crimes in the future. The trial, 10 years in the making, is scheduled into December. VANCOUVER, Sept. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ - Alexco Resource Corp. (NYSE American:AXU) (TSX:AXR) ("Alexco" or the "Company") announced today that it has filed a final short form base shelf prospectus with the securities commissions in each of the Provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario and a corresponding amendment to its registration statement on Form F-10 (Registration Statement) with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) under the U.S./Canada Multijurisdictional Disclosure System which replaces the Company's short form prospectus dated July 29, 2016, which ceased to be effective August 29, 2018. The shelf prospectus filings allow Alexco to make offerings of common shares, warrants, subscription receipts and/or units up to an aggregate total of Cdn$50 million during the 25-month period that the final short form base shelf prospectus remains effective. Such securities may be offered in amounts, at prices and on terms to be determined based on market conditions at the time of sale and set forth in one or more shelf prospectus supplement(s) and, subject to applicable regulations, may include at-the-market transactions, private placements, public offerings or strategic investments. Information regarding the use of proceeds from a sale of such securities will be included in the applicable prospectus supplement. Copies of the Registration Statement, preliminary short form base shelf prospectus and final short form base shelf prospectus, as well as any shelf prospectus supplements that may be filed in the future, can be found on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and on EDGAR at www.sec.gov or may be obtained by request to the Corporate Secretary of Alexco at Suite 1225, Two Bentall Centre, 555 Burrard Street, Box 216, Vancouver, British Columbia, V7X 1M9, Telephone (604) 633-4888. If any securities are offered under the Prospectus or Registration Statement, the terms of any such securities and the intended use of the net proceeds resulting from such offering would be established at the time of any offering and would be described in a prospectus supplement filed with the applicable Canadian securities regulatory authorities and the SEC at the time of such an offering and would be made available by Alexco at the above address. Filing of Amended Technical Report and Annual Information Form In connection with the shelf prospectus filings, the Company has also filed the independent technical report dated March 29, 2017 with an effective date of January 3, 2017, as amended September 14, 2018, prepared by Roscoe Postle Associates Inc. entitled "Technical Report, Preliminary Economic Assessment of the Keno Hill Silver District Project, Yukon Territory, Canada" (the "PEA") and an amended and restated annual information form for the year ended December 31, 2017 (the "AIF") along with an amended annual report on Form 40-F for the year ended December 31, 2017 (the "Form 4-F"). Amendments to the PEA include changes made to (a) update certain terms to reflect the amended standards under the current CIM 2014 Definition Standards; (b) revise certain portions of the PEA to report mineral resources in defined categories pursuant to National Instrument 43-101; and (c) insert requisite cautionary language relating to the preliminary economic assessment and the increased risks associated with production decisions. Amendments to the AIF and Form 40-F include revising technical terms to reflect the current CIM 2014 Definition Standards and updating the technical disclosure therein to reflect the amended PEA. These documents can be found on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and on EDGAR at www.sec.gov and may also be obtained by request to the Corporate Secretary of Alexco at Suite 1225, Two Bentall Centre, 555 Burrard Street, Box 216, Vancouver, British Columbia, V7X 1M9, Telephone (604) 633-4888. About Alexco Alexco owns the majority of the historic high-grade Keno Hill Silver District in Canada's Yukon Territory as detailed in the PEA and anticipates the sequential development of four high grade silver deposits over an eight year mine life producing more than one million tonnes with an average grade of 843 grams per tonne silver, 3.3% lead and 4.6% zinc. Silver production is anticipated to be approximately 3.5 million ounces per year. The PEA is preliminary in nature and includes inferred mineral resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as mineral reserves, and there is no certainty that the PEA will be realized. Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. Alexco also operates a wholly-owned subsidiary business, Alexco Environmental Group, that provides mine-related environmental services, remediation technologies and reclamation and mine closure services to both government and industry clients in North America and elsewhere. Please visit the Alexco website at www.alexcoresource.com This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of any of the securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful, including in the United States. Neither the Toronto Stock Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Certain statements ("forward-looking statements") in this news release contain forward-looking information concerning any shelf prospectus supplements that may be filed, planned exploration and development of its properties, plans related to its business and other matters that may occur in the future, made as of the date of this news release. Forward-looking statements may include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to the any shelf prospectus supplements and any related shelf prospectus filings. Forward-looking statements are subject to a variety of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which could cause actual events or results to differ from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, risks related to regulatory approval of the shelf prospectus supplement filings; risks related to Alexco's ability to raise additional capital; actual results and timing of exploration and development activities; actual results and timing of mining activities; actual results and timing of environmental services activities; actual results and timing of remediation and reclamation activities; conclusions of economic evaluations; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined; future prices of silver, gold, lead, zinc and other commodities; possible variations in mineable resources, grade or recovery rates; failure of plant, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; accidents, labour disputes and other risks of the mining industry; First Nation rights and title; continued capitalization and commercial viability; global economic conditions; competition; and delays in obtaining governmental approvals or financing or in the completion of development activities. Forward-looking statements are based on certain assumptions that management believes are reasonable at the time they are made. In making the forward-looking statements included in this news release, the Company has applied several material assumptions, including, but not limited to, the assumption that regulatory approval of the any shelf prospectus filings and related offerings will be obtained in a timely fashion, that the Company will be able to raise additional capital that the proposed exploration and development will proceed as planned, and that market fundamentals will result in sustained silver, gold, lead and zinc demand and prices. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. The Company expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as otherwise required by applicable securities legislation. SOURCE Alexco Resource Corp. Related Links www.alexcoresource.com NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- ClaimsFiler, a FREE shareholder information service, reminds investors that they have until October 22, 2018 to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against Nevro Corp. (NYSE: NVRO), if they purchased the Company's shares between January 8, 2018 and July 12, 2018, inclusive (the "Class Period"). This action is pending in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Get Help Nevro investors should visit us at https://www.claimsfiler.com/cases/view-nevro-corporation-securities-litigation or call toll-free (844) 367-9658. Lawyers at Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC are available to discuss your legal options. About the Lawsuit Nevro and certain of its executives are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws. On July 10, 2018, analysts reported that a tentative court ruling in patent litigation involving Nevro nullified at least five patents related to the Company's "proprietary" HF10 pain therapy and Senza delivery systems, which resulted in some analysts downgrading the Company. Then, on July 13, 2018, the Company disclosed pre-market that it had terminated the employment of James Alecxih, Vice President, Worldwide Sales. News of both events caused the price of Nevro's shares to plummet, wiping out over $650 million in market capitalization. About ClaimsFiler ClaimsFiler has a single mission: to serve as the information source to help retail investors recover their share of billions of dollars from securities class action settlements. At ClaimsFiler.com, investors can: (1) register for free to gain access to information and settlement websites for various securities class action cases so they can timely submit their own claims; (2) upload their portfolio transactional data to be notified about relevant securities cases in which they may have a financial interest; and (3) submit inquiries to the Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC law firm for free case evaluations. To learn more about ClaimsFiler, visit www.claimsfiler.com. SOURCE ClaimsFiler Related Links https://www.claimsfiler.com ZHUHAI, China, Sept. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The second 21st Century Maritime Silk Road China (Guangdong) International Communication Forum was held in Zhuhai from September 19 to 21. Hundreds of participants from media, political and business circles across the world got together to have in-depth discussions and exchange on the theme "New Era, New Silk Road, New Image". The new practices and achievements in constructing the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road were also demonstrated. According to experts, the forum would advance the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and China (Guangdong) Pilot Free Trade Zone and build a new image of an open Guangdong. As the event's host city, Zhuhai also presented its new image and aspirations on the world stage. "Zhuhai is a cradle of the Maritime Silk Road. Since reform and opening up, Zhuhai has maintained close business and cultural relations with countries and regions along the routes. Against this new historical backdrop, we will strive to transform the city into a new economic engine for the Greater Bay Area and a great magnet with unique features," said Guo Yonghang, Secretary of the CPC Zhuhai Municipal Committee. The presence of Zhuhai as a strategic gateway will be more obvious when the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Bridge begins operation. According to data of 2017 released by the world-renowned shipping consultancy Alphaliner, the container throughput of the Port of Zhuhai grew by 37.3% to 2.27 million TEU, ranking 73rd in the world and registering the 2nd highest growth rate. Zhuhai Port Holdings attributes the rapid growth of its business to the improving infrastructure. Official statistics show that Zhuhai's GDP reached 256.473 billion yuan (USD 37.35 billion) in 2017, up 9.2% from 2016, outracing any other counterparts in Guangdong. Another critical task for Zhuhai to advance the building of the Greater Bay Area is to strengthen cooperation with Hong Kong and Macao and expand connection with the world. An increasing number of Hong Kong-and Macao-based financial institutions are coming to Zhuhai. Official data shows that by the end of June 2018, the Hengqin Area of China (Guangdong) Pilot Free Trade Zone had attracted 144 financial companies from Hong Kong, with a total registered capital of 58.859 billion yuan (USD 8.576 billion) and 18 financial firms from Macao. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) proposed by China will be a catalyst for new markets and new ideas around the world, said Thomas J. Sargent, Nobel laureate in Economics and professor at New York University, at the main forum on September 20. Professor Georgy Toloraya, executive director of the Russian National Committee on BRICS Research and vice president of the Russian Public Diplomacy World Peace Foundation, said that the BRI is not only beneficial to China but also to those countries along the routes. He suggested that the Maritime Silk Road should not confine itself to those countries along the ancient route in South Asia and Southeast Asia, but also extends to the north for the building of a "Polar Silk Road" and common development with Russia's Far East. China will create extensive opportunities for the Latin American and the Caribbean countries as it keeps opening up itself to the world, said Heraldo Laura Gonzalez, executive editor-in-chief of Mexico Reforma, adding that his newspaper is willing to help Guangdong-based companies to increase cooperation with Mexico. Thanks to the glue of cultural exchanges, the BRI, through communication between governments and mutually beneficial cooperation between companies, combines domestic and foreign companies as a community of shared future and shared interests, so as to realize the dream of win-win cooperation. No doubt Zhuhai is now given rare opportunities in this historic period as it pursues the growth of the Greater Bay Area and the Maritime Silk Road. The latest urban planning of Zhuhai shows that the new city map will be centered around the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Bridge extension. By promoting an integrated development of the Hengqin New Area, the bonded zone and the Port of Hongwan, a new city center and economic engine covering 46.64 square km will emerge. What cannot go unnoticed is that Zhuhai, in its so-called "second bid to prosper," focuses more on collaborative innovation with the rest of the world and interconnectivity with the Maritime Silk Road countries in terms of capital, technology and talents. Today, strolling in Zhuhai Hi-tech Industrial Development Zone, one would be surprised to find out there are more than 7000 high-tech firms there. In its bid to be a national independent innovative demonstration zone, the development zone has become the main engine of the city's innovation-driven development by concentrating resources on high-tech industries. Embarking on a new path of development, Zhuhai will provide more opportunities for the world and while its development has only been made possible through pooling elements of innovation from across the globe, said the experts at the forum, adding that Zhuhai's favorable ecological environment and huge potential will be critical in attracting global innovative talents. SOURCE The People's Government of Zhuhai Municipality SAN DIEGO and MARLBOROUGH, Mass., Sept. 22, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Boston Scientific (NYSE: BSX) announced positive 12-month data from the IMPERIAL trial, the first head-to-head drug-eluting stent trial in the superficial femoral artery (SFA). Results were presented during a late-breaking clinical trial session at the 30th Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT), the annual scientific symposium of the Cardiovascular Research Foundation, in San Diego, and at the annual Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiological Society of Europe (CIRSE) congress in Lisbon, Portugal. The clinical findings will be published in The Lancet. The IMPERIAL trial evaluated the Eluvia Drug-Eluting Vascular Stent System versus the Zilver PTX Drug-Eluting Peripheral Stent in patients with symptomatic peripheral artery disease (PAD). PAD occurs when fatty or calcified atherosclerotic material, called plaque, builds up on the walls of the arteries of the legs, restricting blood flow and causing pain, swelling, ulceration and in some cases, the need for amputation of the affected limb. Stents are commonly used to restore and maintain blood flow, reducing symptoms and improving quality of life. In the IMPERIAL trial, the Eluvia stent, which utilizes a drug-polymer combination to offer sustained release of the drug paclitaxel, exhibited superior rates of primary patency, a measure of the target vessel remaining unobstructed at 12 months, and thus able to provide sufficient blood flow to the lower limbs.1 Patients in the Eluvia arm of the study also experienced higher rates of freedom from target lesion revascularization (TLR), thus reducing their need for repeat procedures at one year, when compared to those treated with the drug-coated Zilver PTX. Key findings from the IMPERIAL trial include: Patients treated with the Eluvia stent had a statistically significant difference in the primary patency rate of 88.5 percent, compared to 79.5 percent in patients treated with the Zilver PTX (p=0.0119); 2 Data demonstrated that the Eluvia stent had half the TLR rate at 4.5 percent, in contrast to 9.0 percent observed within the Zilver PTX cohort; Over 95 percent of patients who received the Eluvia stent were free of major adverse events at one year, compared to 91.0 percent of patients who received the Zilver PTX. "These impressive clinical outcomes suggest that sustained elution of paclitaxel, delivered by the Eluvia stent, better matched the timing of restenosis in the SFA that can occur months later, thereby reducing the need for repeat interventions," said William Gray, M.D., system chief, Division of Cardiovascular Disease at Main Line Health, president, Lankenau Heart Institute in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, and co-principal investigator of the IMPERIAL trial. "Based on these findings, we believe that the Eluvia stent can be a preferred therapy option when treating patients with arterial blockages in the superficial femoral or proximal popliteal arteries." The IMPERIAL trial is a global, multi-center, randomized controlled trial that included 465 patients with superficial femoral artery (SFA) and proximal popliteal artery (PPA) lesions up to 140mm in length. It is the first head-to-head trial comparing two different drug-eluting stent systems for the treatment of PAD. "We are pleased by the superior results exhibited by the Eluvia stent," said Ian Meredith, M.D., executive vice president and global chief medical officer, Boston Scientific. "The results from the IMPERIAL trial add to the growing body of evidence supporting the use of the Eluvia stent as a frontline therapy for patients, even those suffering from the most challenging cases of superficial femoral artery disease." The Eluvia Stent System received CE Mark in February of 2016. In the U.S., the Eluvia Stent System is an investigational device and is not available for sale. Superiority determined in Post Hoc Superiority Analysis. 12-Month Primary Patency rate of 86.8 percent in the Eluvia arm vs. 77.5 percent in the Zilver PTX arm (p-value = 0.0144). Kaplan Meier Estimate About Boston Scientific Boston Scientific transforms lives through innovative medical solutions that improve the health of patients around the world. As a global medical technology leader for more than 35 years, we advance science for life by providing a broad range of high performance solutions that address unmet patient needs and reduce the cost of healthcare. For more information, visit www.bostonscientific.com and connect on Twitter and Facebook. Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Forward-looking statements may be identified by words like "anticipate," "expect," "project," "believe," "plan," "estimate," "intend" and similar words. These forward-looking statements are based on our beliefs, assumptions and estimates using information available to us at the time and are not intended to be guarantees of future events or performance. These forward-looking statements include, among other things, statements regarding clinical outcomes, product launches, product performance and impact. If our underlying assumptions turn out to be incorrect, or if certain risks or uncertainties materialize, actual results could vary materially from the expectations and projections expressed or implied by our forward-looking statements. These factors, in some cases, have affected and in the future (together with other factors) could affect our ability to implement our business strategy and may cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated by the statements expressed in this press release. As a result, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any of our forward-looking statements. Factors that may cause such differences include, among other things: future economic, competitive, reimbursement and regulatory conditions; new product introductions; demographic trends; the closing and integration of acquisitions; intellectual property; litigation; financial market conditions; and future business decisions made by us and our competitors. All of these factors are difficult or impossible to predict accurately and many of them are beyond our control. For a further list and description of these and other important risks and uncertainties that may affect our future operations, see Part I, Item 1A Risk Factors in our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which we may update in Part II, Item 1A Risk Factors in Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q we have filed or will file hereafter. We disclaim any intention or obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect any change in our expectations or in events, conditions or circumstances on which those expectations may be based, or that may affect the likelihood that actual results will differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements. This cautionary statement is applicable to all forward-looking statements contained in this document. CONTACTS: Timette Nevala Media Relations Boston Scientific Corporation (763) 494-1284 (office) [email protected] Susie Lisa, CFA Investor Relations Boston Scientific Corporation (508) 683-5565 (office) [email protected] SOURCE Boston Scientific Corporation Related Links http://www.bostonscientific.com Vaccination is the best defense against meningococcal meningitis, yet according to the CDC, more than half of U.S. teens have not yet received the recommended second dose of MenACWY, potentially leaving many adolescents without protection. That's why the NMA is urging parents to ask their teen's healthcare provider about the MenACWY second dose during their 16-year visit. "My life changed forever when my son, Chris, was diagnosed with meningitis and passed away shortly after," said Leslie Maier, Secretary Treasurer of the NMA. "Some parents are aware of the primary dose of MenACWY vaccine at 11-12 years of age, but they don't know CDC recommends a second dose at age 16. I urge every parent to talk to their teen's healthcare provider about the MenACWY second dose at their 16-year old visit and ask about other potentially life-saving vaccines that are available to help protect them." Parents of teens can find more information about the recommended MenACWY second dose and other important vaccinations, including the meningococcal B vaccine, that should be considered for teens at The16Vaccine.org, along with a discussion guide to use at the 16-year visit. The campaign website features emotional firsthand stories of meningococcal meningitis survivors and advocates whose lives have been irrevocably impacted by the disease. Parents can also sign up for a text reminder at The16Vaccine.org, which will alert parents when it's time to schedule an appointment for their teen's 16-year vaccine visit. Anyone at any age can contract meningococcal meningitis, but teens and young adults between 16 and 23 years of age are among those with an increased risk of infection, likely due to common lifestyles and behaviors among this age group, such as living or socializing in crowded conditions. 2,3 Although rare, meningococcal meningitis is a serious, contagious and potentially deadly bacterial infection.4 The bacteria that cause the infection can spread when people have contact with a carrier's saliva, such as through kissing, coughing and sharing beverages.3 It develops rapidly and can cause death in 10-15 percent of cases, sometimes within 24 hours of illness onset.5,7 Among survivors, as many as one in five live with permanent disabilities, including hearing loss, brain damage, kidney damage, or limb amputations.4 "I knew bacterial meningitis was a potentially deadly disease, but I didn't think it would ever affect me, until it did. Looking back on my time in the hospital and the long recovery, I wish I could go back, reverse time and gotten the shot," said Krystle Beauchamp Grindley, meningitis disease survivor and NMA advocate. "As someone who was fortunate enough to survive bacterial meningitis, I encourage every parent to talk to their teen's doctor about getting the critical second dose of MenACWY at 16." About Meningococcal Disease and Meningococcal Meningitis Meningococcal disease is a serious and potentially deadly illness caused by the bacteria Neisseria meningitidis.6 Meningococcal disease may result in inflammation of the lining of the brain and spinal cord (meningococcal meningitis) and bloodstream infections (meningococcal septicemia).6 There are numerous serogroups (types) of Neisseria meningitidis. 2 Serogroups B, C and Y currently cause the majority of disease in the United States. 2 Serogroup W causes a small portion of the disease, and serogroup A is a known cause of disease in developing countries.2 Meningococcal disease can spread from person-to-person when people have close or lengthy contact with a carrier's saliva, such as through kissing, being coughed on, sharing a beverage and even cosmetics.3 Meningococcal meningitis develops rapidly and can cause death in a healthy individual in as little as 24 hours after the first symptoms appear.5 The most common symptoms include stiff neck, high fever, purple rash, sensitivity to light, headaches and vomiting, which can resemble influenza or other viral infections.4,5 Meningococcal disease can affect anyone at any age. However, it most commonly affects babies, preschool children, adolescents and young adults between 16 and 23 years of age.6 About the National Meningitis Association (NMA) The NMA works to protect families from the potentially devastating effects of meningococcal disease by educating the public, medical professionals and others about the disease and its prevention. The NMA network also provides critical emotional support for families who have been affected by meningococcal disease. Visit NMA at www.nmaus.org, and find them on Facebook or Twitter. About Sanofi Sanofi is dedicated to supporting people through their health challenges. We are a global biopharmaceutical company focused on human health. We help prevent illness with vaccines, provide innovative treatments to fight pain, and ease suffering. We stand by the few who suffer from rare diseases and the millions with long-term chronic conditions. With more than 100,000 people in 100 countries, Sanofi is transforming scientific innovation into healthcare solutions around the globe. Sanofi, Empowering Life Media Relations Contact Jorge Gaeta (212) 886-2253 [email protected] Brandon Skop (212) 229-2704 [email protected] References : 1 "Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 24 Aug. 2018, https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/wr/mm6733a1.htm. 2 "Meningococcal Disease." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 6 July 2017, www.cdc.gov/meningococcal/clinical-info.html. 3 "For Parents: Vaccines for Your Children." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2 Dec. 2015, www.cdc.gov/vaccines/parents/diseases/teen/mening.html. 4 "Disease and Prevention Information." National Meningitis Association, www.nmaus.org/disease-prevention-information/. 5 "Meningococcal Invasive Disease - Frequently Asked Questions." New Jersey Department of Health, Feb. 2017, www.nj.gov/health/cd/meningo/documents/meningococcal_faq.pdf. 6 "Meningococcal Disease." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 28 Mar. 2017, www.cdc.gov/meningococcal/about/risk-age.html. 7 "Meningococcal Meningitis." World Health Organization, World Health Organization, 19 Feb. 2018, http://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/meningitis/en/. SOURCE National Meningitis Association Related Links https://www.nmaus.org BLUE BELL, Pa., Sept. 17, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Unisys Corporation (NYSE: UIS) today announced the Philadelphia Business Journal has recognized the company with a "2018 Healthcare Innovator of the Year" award. The publication highlighted Unisys for its ability to provide life sciences and healthcare organizations with secure, leading-edge services and solutions that protect critical customer data, hospital networks and medical devices, so that patients' personal information is safeguarded and providers are equipped to deliver timely, quality care. Unisys and fellow winners were honored at a ceremony in Philadelphia on September 13. In particular, Philadelphia Business Journal singled out the award-winning Unisys Stealth security software suite, which was recently updated to extend protection to purpose-built Internet of Things (IoT) devices and other connected equipment such as medical monitoring machines, health monitors, industrial control systems and surveillance cameras. Announced earlier this year, the latest release of Stealth identity-based, encrypted microsegmentation software protects IoT devices, isolating them from untrusted network segments within a Stealth-protected network to help prevent intrusion and remote tampering on the devices while protecting the corporate network from potential compromises initiated from unsecured devices. By joining a Stealth-defined secure Community of Interest, high-value devices are shielded from unauthorized access, reducing the attack surface. "Zero trust security for medical device has become a mandate for healthcare organizations since would-be attackers began using ransomware to target vulnerable medical devices," said Jeff R. Livingstone, PhD, vice president and global head, Life Sciences and Healthcare, Unisys. "With IoT devices like health monitors and IV pumps vulnerable to cyberattack, it is more important than ever for organizations to implement encrypted microsegmentation to reduce their attack surface, increase data protection, better safeguard data and ultimately the livelihood of the patients they are entrusted to protect." According to Gartner, "Legacy medical devices that were not designed to be internet-accessible are now being connected to the internet as part of healthcare initiatives, increasing risks and the attack surface." Gartner recommends that organizations "create zones to proactively house connected medical devices segmentation."1 Gartner identified microsegmentation as one of its "top technologies for information security in 2017."2 "This latest version of Stealth represents an innovative medical device security solution that brings together identity-based microsegmentation, encryption and cloaking that can move from the cloud, to the hospital floor and to the operating room seamlessly and with a common security policy that works regardless of location or type of device," said Vishal Gupta, senior vice president, Technology and chief technology officer, Unisys. "We are grateful for this recognition from the Philadelphia Business Journal and remain committed to working with life sciences and healthcare organizations around the globe to effectively serve their patients' needs." For more information on Stealth, go to www.unisys.com/stealth. 1 "Gartner, Top Three Security and Privacy Impacts of Connected Medical Devices on Healthcare Providers," Saniye Burcu Alaybeyi, Marc-Antoine Meunier, Gregg Pessin, September 27, 2017 2 Gartner press release, "Gartner Identified the Top Technologies for Security in 2017," June 14, 2017, https://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3744917 About Unisys Unisys is a global information technology company that builds high-performance, security-centric solutions for the most demanding businesses and governments on Earth. Unisys offerings include security software and services; digital transformation and workplace services; industry applications and services; and innovative software operating environments for high-intensity enterprise computing. For more information on how Unisys builds better outcomes securely for its clients across the Government, Financial Services and Commercial markets, visit www.unisys.com. Follow Unisys on Twitter and LinkedIn. RELEASE NO.: 0917/9613 Unisys and other Unisys products and services mentioned herein, as well as their respective logos, are trademarks or registered trademarks of Unisys Corporation. Any other brand or product referenced herein is acknowledged to be a trademark or registered trademark of its respective holder. UIS-C SOURCE Unisys Corporation Related Links http://www.unisys.com TORONTO and CAMBRIDGE, MA, Sept. 17, 2018 /PRNewswire/ - ProMIS Neurosciences, Inc. (TSX: PMN) (OTCQB: ARFXF), a biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of antibody therapeutics targeting toxic oligomers implicated in the development of neurodegenerative diseases, today announced that it will be featured as a presenting company at the Extraordinary Futures Investment Conference, sponsored by Cambridge House. The conference is being held on September 19-20, 2018 at the Vancouver Convention Centre East in Vancouver, British Columbia. Elliot Goldstein, President & CEO of ProMIS Neurosciences will provide a corporate overview in the Workshop 1 room on Thursday, September 20, 2018, at 12:50 p.m. PT, and will be available to participate in one-on-one meetings with investors who are registered to attend the conference. ProMIS will also be hosting a booth at the conference. If you are an investor and would like to attend the Company's presentation please visit https://cambridgehouse.com/register/74 to register for the conference. About ProMIS Neurosciences ProMIS Neurosciences, Inc. is a development stage biotechnology company focused on discovering and developing antibody therapeutics targeting toxic oligomers implicated in the development and progression of neurodegenerative diseases, in particular Alzheimer's disease (AD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and Parkinson's disease (PD). The Company's proprietary target discovery engine is based on the use of two complementary techniques. The Company applies its thermodynamic, computational discovery platform -ProMIS and Collective Coordinates- to predict novel targets known as Disease Specific Epitopes on the molecular surface of misfolded proteins. Using this unique precision medicine approach, the Company is developing novel antibody therapeutics for AD, ALS and PD. ProMIS is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, with offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ProMIS is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol PMN, and on the OTCQB Venture Market under the symbol ARFXF. For more information please visit us at: www.promisneurosciences.com Follow us on Twitter Like us on LinkedIn SOURCE ProMIS Neurosciences Inc. United Nations, Sep 22 : UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said the UN and Kofi Annan (the late former UN secretary-general) were inseparable and it is impossible to say where one ended and the other began. Guterres on Friday led a list of diplomats, staff and family members speaking in the UN General Assembly Hall at a memorial tribute to Annan, who died on August 18 in Geneva after a short illness, a Nobel laureate and native of Ghana, Xinhua reported. "Kofi Annan was uncommonly warm, accessible and of the people -- but above all he was principled and forceful in battling for the values of the UN Charter," said Guterres. "He was charming and wise, kind and courageous. But he also knew how to deliver the barb -- in his masterly subtle way." "And sometimes, people were so captivated by his presence that they did not realize that they were being admonished!" said Guterres, who was appointed by Annan as High Commissioner for Refugees in 2005. But, "Throughout his tenure Kofi Annan urged us never to be bystanders in life," the UN chief said. "He summoned us all to act against bias, brutality and bloodshed." "He was a multilateralist through and through, a true UN-blue believer in a rules-based global order," Guterres said. "And, I must say, his loss cuts even deeper because we have never needed that faith and inspiration more." This was a reference to US President Donald Trump's history of snubbing multilateralism for his bilateral approach to international relations. "Kofi Annan called the UN the 'last best hope of humanity," said Guterres. "He burned with the flame of human rights, dignity and justice." President Maria Fernanda Espinosa of the 73rd General Assembly session, which just began last week, said it is "eminently fitting that we remember him (Annan) on this day -- a day fixed by this Assembly 17 years ago, on his watch and with his strong support, as International Peace Day. For no one laboured more tirelessly or consistently in the cause of peace than did Kofi Annan." "Kofi Annan was a great Secretary-General because he understood that peace cannot be achieved in isolation," she said. Nane Annan said her late husband, "died too soon," shortly after returning from witnessing elections in Zimbabwe, just another one of the many missions he was on since "retiring" at the end of 2006. "The rebel on the 38th floor," where the secretary general's office is located, had a "glowing aura" and was known for thinking "outside the box," she said, expressing gratitude for the memorial and adding, "We shall cherish this moment." Washington, Sep 22 : US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has warned that the Trump administration will take "a serious of actions" against the Venezuelan government in the coming days. Speaking at an interview on Friday with Fox News, Pompeo said that "I think you'll see in the coming days a series of actions that continue to increase the pressure level against the Venezuelan leadership folks", Xinhua reported. Claiming that "we're determined to ensure that the Venezuelan people get their say," Pompeo declined to detail whether Washington will impose more sanctions on Caracas. The remarks came ahead of the annual UN General Assembly slated in New York next week. Several US media outlets reported earlier this month that the Trump administration has talked secretly with rebellious Venezuelan military officers several times to discuss their plans to stage a coup in the South American country. For his part, US President Donald Trump said in August of last year that he would not rule out a "military option" in Venezuela "if necessary," despite his aides' opposition. The US has also announced several rounds of sanctions against Venezuelan government officials ever since. In response, Venezuela has slammed the "warmongering" declarations of Trump as "threats to peace" and a "violation" of UN and international laws. The Nicolas Maduro government has also instructed the military to prepare to "shoulder arms" in case of a US invasion. Beijing, Sep 22 : China has shut down more than 4,000 porn and other websites containing "harmful" information in the past three months. The "clean-up" campaign was jointly launched by the National Office Against Pornographic and Illegal Publications and the State Administration of Press and Publication in May. By the end of August, authorities nationwide have amended over 120 relevant violations and ordered 230 enterprises to rectify irregularities, removing or filtering more than 147,000 pieces of harmful information, Xinhua news agency quoted an official statement. The campaign, targeting content in online novels that spread improper values, vulgarity or obscenity as well as those involving copyright infringement, included measures such as relevant websites' self-checks, authorities' inspections and criminal investigations. The statement said that such measures will be intensified in the future to ensure a healthy and clean online literature environment. NK Kalia, father of Captain Saurabh Kalia, who lost his life in Kargil war, on Saturday, lauded the Indian government's move to call off a meeting between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi. Speaking to ANI, NK Kalia said, "India has taken the right step. No talks should be held with Pakistan till the time it proves that it has sincere intentions." He further stated that Pakistan has always posed a problem for India whenever an agreement aiming to strengthen the relationship was signed. "I am afraid that in the future too they (Pakistan) will not improve themselves. Had this meeting would have taken place, it would have been another futile exercise and sheer wastage of time and energy," he added. He also said that "this bold move by the Indian government will be welcomed by the all the patriotic people of the country". Captain Saurabh Kalia along with five other soldiers of his patrolling team were held as a prisoner of war by the Pakistan Army, kept in captivity where they were tortured, then killed. On Friday, New Delhi called off the meeting with Pakistan just a few hours after two Special Police Officers and one policeman in Jammu and Kashmir were kidnapped and brutally killed by the terrorists. While announcing its decision, Ministry of External Affairs said that the true face of Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan had been revealed in the wake of the brutal killings. On September 18, mutilated body of Border Security Force (BSF) Head Constable Narender Singh was also found with multiple bullet injuries on his torso and neck. The foreign ministers of India and Pakistan were scheduled to meet on the sidelines of the United National General Assembly in New York. The meeting was proposed by Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. -ANI New Delhi, Sep 22 : Even as the French government and Dassault Aviation contradicted former President Francois Hollande's claim on choosing of Indian industrial partners in the multi-million dollar Rafale jet deal, the Congress party on Saturday said the French government "conceals more than it reveals". Congress President Rahul Gandhi called it a "surgical strike" on Indian defence forces. The statement by the French government issued here by the embassy late on Friday came after Hollande claimed in a media report that the Indian government had suggested a particular private firm for the Rafale offset contract. Hollande was quoted in an article by a French website Mediapart as saying that the Indian government had asked the French government to nominate Reliance Defence as its India partner in the deal. "We didn't have any say in this matter," Hollande was quoted by the website as saying. "It is the Indian government which had proposed this service group and Dassault who negotiated with (Anil) Ambani. We didn't have the choice, we took the interlocutor who was given to us." In response to the claim, the Friday night statement said: "The French government is in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners who have been, are being or will be selected by French companies. Dassault Aviation, the makers of the Rafale jets, in a statement, also on Friday night, said: "This offsets contract is delivered in compliance with the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) 2016 regulations. In this framework, and in accordance with the policy of 'Make in India', Dassault Aviation has decided to make a partnership with India's Reliance Group. This is Dassault Aviation's choice." On Saturday, Rahul Gandhi said in a tweet that the "PM and Anil Ambani jointly carried out a One Hundred & Thirty Thousand Crore SURGICAL STRIKE on the Indian Defence forces. Modiji you dishonoured the blood of our martyred soldiers. Shame on you. You betrayed India's soul." The Congress party said that the the French government knows that verbal interactions between former President Hollande and Indian interlocutors were minuted and would emerge. "Speculation of French Parliamentary hearing into Rafale and access to administration documents under France's Freedom of Information Law 1978 rife," Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari tweeted. "What French government/corporate entity has just ended up doing is making Rafale procurement a veritable domestic issue in French politics also". Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in a tweet in Hindi sought to know from the Indian Prime Minister who "pocketed the money from the Rafale scam, you the BJP or someone else." Countering the attack, Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Union Minister Ananth Kumar tweeted: "Nailing the lie on its head -- misinformation about Rafale deal, Dassault being called out by the French government." The Modi government has repeatedly said it was Dassault that chose its India partner for offsets and that the government had no say in the deal. The Paris-based Dassault Aviation further said in its statement that "in accordance with India's acquisition procedure, French companies have the full freedom to choose their Indian partner companies that they consider to be the most relevant, then present for the Indian government's approval the offset projects that they wish to execute in India with these local partners so as to fulfil their obligations in this regard." "Dassault Aviation is very proud that the Indian authorities have selected the Rafale fighter," it added stating that the partnership "between the two giants" led to the creation of the Dassault Reliance Aerospace Ltd (DRAL) joint venture in February 2017. The deal to purchase 36 Rafale fighter jets from France was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015 and signed in 2016. The UPA government was earlier negotiating a deal to procure 126 Rafale jets, with 18 to come in flyaway condition and 108 to be manufactured by HAL under licence. Mediapart, whose focus of the story was about financing of a film being co-produced by actress Julie Gayet, who is said to be a "personal partner" of Hollande, for which the Ambani group had provided funds of up to $1.6 million. It interviewed Hollande on phone in which he further said: "I intervened in this affair (Rafale) with the two prime ministers, to say that I was keen for this negotiation. Initially, the deal was supposed to be for 126 planes, then when the government changed the Indians reformulated their proposition, less attractive for us because it was for 36 aircraft only. But the manufacturing was planned to be in France, contrary to the preceding proposition, we lost on the one hand and gained on the other." Washington, Sep 22 : NASA is on the look out for a partner to conduct a contest among students to name the agency's next rover to the Red Planet -- the Mars 2020 mission -- in the 2019 academic year. The Mars 2020 rover mission addresses high-priority science goals for Mars, including key questions about the potential for life on the Red Planet. Corporations, nonprofits and educational organisations interested in sponsoring the contest can send proposals to NASA. To be considered, all proposals must be received by October 9, NASA said in a statement on Friday. "We've been doing naming contests since the very first Mars rover back in 1997," said Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, in Washington. "Thousands of kids participate, and their enthusiasm for the contest and Mars is infectious," Zurbuchen said. The selected partner will have an opportunity to be part of a historic mission, NASA said. Mars 2020 is targeted for launch in July or August 2020 from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Canberra, Sep 22 : Australian authorities on Saturday caught and killed two tiger sharks, just days after a 46-year-old woman and a 12-year-old girl were attacked by sharks within 24 hours. Fisheries department officers shot the two tiger sharks, including one estimated to be more than four metres long, after the marine predators were netted in Whitsunday Islands, reports Xinhua news agency. On Wednesday evening, a shark mauled the woman swimming in the area. On Thursday, the girl from New Zealand suffered serious leg injuries from a similar attack. Both victims were hospitalized and had multiple blood transfusions and emergency surgery to stabilize them. The attacks prompted Australian authorities to advise tourists against swimming in the area. Phnom Penh, Sep 22 : Cambodia will deport an Australian filmmaker after he received a royal pardon following his conviction on espionage charges, an immigration police spokesman said on Saturday. "He will be deported this (Saturday) afternoon," General Department of Immigration's deputy chief and spokesman Keo Vanthan told Xinhua news agency. James Ricketson, 69, was released from a Cambodian prison on Friday after receiving a royal pardon at the request of the country's Prime Minister Hun Sen. The Australian filmmaker was convicted last month of spying and collecting information that could jeopardize national security and was sentenced to six years in prison. He was arrested on June 3, 2017, in Phnom Penh while flying a drone illegally to capture images of a rally by the court-dissolved opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party. Lucknow, Sep 22 : Former Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police (DGP) Brij Lal, who joined the BJP after his retirement, was appointed the State SC/ST Commission chief arbitrarily and without due procedure, an RTI response has revealed. The Right To Information (RTI) was filed by Lucknow-based activist Nutan Thakur. The Social Welfare Department responded to her query saying the 1977 batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, who retired in 2014, was appointed directly by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, after summoning his file from the department. As per the RTI information, Principal Secretary Social Welfare Department Manoj Singh was directed to present the position of appointments in the State Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Commission. Singh presented the file on April 17. In this file, the Chief Minister directly appointed Lal as the chairman on the same day, without any departmental recommendation or process adopted in this regard. The department was also "directed from the top" to provide "State Minister status" to Brij Lal, a proposal which was presented on April 20, without the recommendation of the departmental minister and Adityanath immediately approved it on the same day. Thakur, the RTI activist told IANS that the matter "sadly demonstrates how major administrative decisions are being made under political pressure from the top, circumventing procedures". Tehran, Sep 22 : At least 24 people, including civilians were killed and over 50 injured when gunmen disguised as soldiers opened fire on an elite military parade in the Iranian city of Ahvaz on Saturday. The dead and wounded were both military personnel and civilians, including a journalist watching the parade, IRNA news agency reported. The attackers opened fire on the parade at 9 a.m. from a nearby park in an assault that lasted around 10 minutes. The parade was part of nationwide celebrations in Iran to mark the 30th anniversary since the end of the eight-year war with Iraq that started in September 1980 and ended in August 1988. "The terrorists disguised as Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) and Basiji (volunteer) forces opened fire to the authority and people from behind the stand during the parade," said Governor of Khuzestan Gholam-Reza Shariati, according to IRNA. The separatist group the Patriotic Arab Democratic Movement in Ahwaz claimed responsibility for this attack. The group is supported by "foreign antagonists," including Saudi Arabia, the agency said. Three of the attackers were gunned down during clashes with the security forces and one other arrested, news agencies reported. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif blamed "a foreign regime" backed by the US for the attack. "Terrorists recruited, trained, armed and paid by a foreign regime have attacked Ahvaz," he said in a tweet, adding: "Iran holds regional terror sponsors and their US masters accountable for such attacks." Earlier, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani used the occasion of the military parade to compare US President Donald Trump to the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, according to Press TV. Speaking at a military rally in Tehran, he said Trump will fail in the "economic and psychological war" he's launched against Iran, just as Hussein failed in his 8-year war against the Islamic Republic". "Iran will neither abandon its defensive weapons nor will reduce its defence capabilities," Rouhani said. "Rather it will increase its defence power day by day. The fact that they are angry at our missiles shows that these are the most influential weapons Iran has." Kottayam (Kerala) : Kottayam (Kerala) Sep 22 (IANS) Bishop Franco Mulakkal, who has been arrested for raping a nun, was on Saturday refused bail by a Kerala court and sent to two-day's police custody. The bishop would be kept at the Kottayam Police Club till Monday, when he would be again produced at a court in Pala, near here, a police officer said. Mulakkal, who headed the Roman Catholic Diocese in Jalandhar, Punjab, was arrested on Friday in Tripunithura after three days of questioning in a sexual abuse case filed by a nun who accused him of repeatedly raping her between 2014 to 2016. The bishop's counsel told the court that his client's blood sample and saliva were forcefully taken. The police said that Mulakkal would be taken to the convent near here, where he is alleged to have raped the nun. He would also have to undergo a potency test. Police had a tough time on Saturday controlling the crowd as people jeered at Mulakkal, who became the first bishop in the country to be arrested for rape. Mulakkal was to be produced in court on Friday following his arrest. However, after he developed chest pains on the way to Kottayam from Tripunithura, he was admitted in the Kottayam Medical College hospital, where he stayed overnight. He was discharged early on Saturday and produced in the court in the afternoon. One of the five nuns who took to the streets in Kochi in an indefinite protest demanding the bishop's arrest, on Saturday told the media: "This protest would not have taken place, had our church authorities taken our complaints seriously." "We never did this for our benefit, instead we wanted to ensure that there would never be another bishop like Mulakkal who would turn a tormentor," the nun added. The protest were called off on Saturday. Islamabad, Sep 22 : Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan on Saturday expressed "disappointment" at India's response calling it "arrogant and negative" after New Delhi called off talks between the foreign ministers of the two countries, blaming Islamabad for glorifying terrorism. "Disappointed at the arrogant and negative response by India to my call for resumption of the peace dialogue," tweeted Khan. "However, all my life I have come across small men occupying big offices who do not have the vision to see the larger picture." Indian External Affairs Ministers Sushma Swaraj and her Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi were set to meet on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York next week, that could have marked the first thaw in bilateral ties that have steadily deteriorated. The Indian government said on Friday that it cancelled talks with Pakistan following two "deeply disturbing" developments that led to Islamabad's "evil agenda" being exposed. In one incident, terrorists abducted and gunned down three policemen in Jammu and Kashmir, marking a sharp escalation in militancy in the state which India says is backed by Pakistan. Also, Islamabad had issued postage stamps in memory of Burhan Wani, a Hizbul Mujahideen leader who was shot dead by Indian security forces in July 2016, sparking widespread street protests. Qureshi had called the development "unfortunate" and claimed that the decision was taken by New Delhi "under internal pressure". "The reasons cited by the Indian side for the decision to cancel the foreign ministers' meeting, within 24 hours of its public confirmation, are entirely unconvincing," the Pakistan Foreign Ministry had said in a statement. Chennai, Sep 22 : Blind chess player Vaishali Narendra Salavkar will become the first Indian female to be part of the International Braille Chess Association (IBCA) team at the world chess Olympiad, starting September 23 at Batumi in Georgia, a top IBCA official said. The IBCA, affiliated to FIDE, sends its teams - open and women - to compete at the chess Olympiad. "Vaishali will be the first Indian blind chess player to participate in the World Chess Olympiad," IBCA President Jadhav Charudatta told IANS on phone from London on Saturday. Charudatta is also the President of All India Chess Federation for the Blind (AICFB). "Forty-five year old Vaishali from Maharashtra has been playing chess for the past 20-25 years. She is am eight-time national champion," AICFB Treasurer Swapnil Shah told IANS. Vaishali has an Elo rating of 1,357 points. Shah said two Spanish women chess players were not able to play in the Olympiad and hence the chance came to Vaishali. As per the Olympiad official website, the other Indian female chess player who will be playing in the Olympiad is Malika Handa (ELO rating 1,334) as part of the International Chess Committee of Deaf (ICCD) team. With these two players, the total number of Indian women chess players including the normal women's team at the Batumi Olympiad will be seven. The Indian women's chess Olympiad team consists of Koneru Humpy, Harika Dronavalli, Tania Sachdev, Karavade Esha and Padmini Rout. Meanwhile, Charudatta requested FIDE - the global chess body- to extend its cooperation in developing chess for the blind. "For instance, FIDE has specific programmes like chess in schools. It can be extended to blind school students. The blind school students could be allowed to attend the chess classes held in normal schools," Charudatta said. He said the three chess federations for differently abled - IBCA, ICCD and International Physically Disabled Chess Association (IPDCA) - could first look forming a common platform to address the problems faced by their players. London, Sep 22 : Russian diplomats held secret talks in London last year with people close to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to assess whether they could help him flee the UK, the Guardian has revealed. A tentative plan was devised that would have seen Assange smuggled out of Ecuador's London embassy in a diplomatic vehicle and transported to another country. One ultimate destination, multiple sources have said, was Russia, where Assange would not be at risk of extradition to the US. The plan was abandoned after it was deemed too risky. The operation to extract Assange was provisionally scheduled for Christmas Eve in 2017 and was linked to an unsuccessful attempt by Ecuador to give him formal diplomatic status, the Guardian said. The involvement of Russian officials in hatching what was described as a "basic" plan raises new questions about Assange's ties to the Kremlin. The WikiLeaks editor is a key figure in the ongoing US criminal investigation into Russia's attempts to sway the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. According to Robert Mueller, the special counsel conducting the investigation, WikiLeaks published "over 50,000 documents" stolen by Russian spies. The first tranche arrived on July 14, 2016, as an encrypted attachment. Assange has denied receiving the stolen emails from Russia. Ecuador's new president, LenAn Moreno, has said he wants Assange to quit the embassy. In March, the government in Quito cut off his internet access and restricted his visitors. Principal of a private school in Nepal's Sunsari district, who was murdered on September 20, has been identified as the ringleader of terror outfit Indian Mujahideen, confirmed the sources in the Nepali Police. Khurshid Alam, who was working as the Principal of Raiyan National School, was shot dead by unknown bike-borne assailants. Alam was shot in his head, abdomen and legs. The attackers fled the site, which is seven kilometre from the Indian territory. Alam died on the spot. "He is publicly identified as Khurshid Alam. He was on the radar of Indian Intelligence as he was suspected to be involved in the 1993 Mumbai attack. The Indian government, about two decades ago, requested the Nepal government to hand over him to them which could not happen as Nepal denied," a high-level police source confirmed to ANI. New Delhi urged Kathmandu to hand him over when Bamdev Gautam of the then Communist Party of Nepal- Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) was the Home Minister. "Bamdev Gautam also rejected the proposal of the Indian government to hand him over, and now he is killed," the source added. Alam had taken the membership of the CPN-UML during the political upheaval in Nepal. The Indian government, at that time, in co-operation with the Intelligence Bureau, also gave the location details and other relevant information to the Nepal government, informing that Alam was involved in terrorist activities. Alam, who was also a cleric, had also sheltered four other suspects of Mumbai terror attack and helped them to fly over to the Middle East countries by arranging passports for them. -ANI New York, Sep 22 : Actress Zoe Kazan and actor-filmmaker Paul Dano, who live in Brooklyn, reportedly became parents to a girl in August. According to sources, Kazan gave birth at the end of August to a baby girl named Alma Bay, reports pagesix.com. The two first worked together in 2007 on the play "Things We Want". Five years later, they teamed up again on the movie that Kazan wrote -- "Ruby Sparks". They even got together for this year's film "Wildlife" as co-writers. New Delhi, Sep 22 : Ratcheting up his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said former French President Francois Hollande has called him a "thief" in the Rafale deal and sought a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into the issue. Addressing a press conference a day after Hollande had said that the French government had no role in making a private Indian firm get the offset contract, Gandhi questioned Modi's silence and asked him to come clean on whether Hollande was telling the truth or not. "For the first time, an ex-French President is calling our PM a thief. It is a question of the dignity of the office of Prime Minister. It is the question of the future of our jawans and the Air Force. It is very important for PM now to either accept Mr. Hollande's statement or state that Mr. Hollande is lying and tell what the truth is," Gandhi said. "What I'm surprised at is that PM is completely silent. Not one word has come out from PM's mouth on this. This is from a (former) President of France, who had a one-on-one meeting with PM where the Rafale deal was decided," he added. Referring to Modi having earlier described himself as "chowkidar (watchman)" Gandhi said he had given a "free gift" of Rs 30,000 crore to his industrialist friend. "This has entered into people's mind that the country's watchman is thief. He should come clear," Gandhi said. Patna, Sep 22 : A case has been lodged against Bollywood actor-producer Salman Khan and others associated with his upcoming home production "Love Yatri", which was earlier titled "Loveratri", in Bihars Muzaffarpur district following the order of the local court, police said on Saturday. "An FIR was lodged on Friday against Salman Khan and six others including Aayush Sharma, Warina Hussain, director Abhiraj K. Minawala, Ram Kapoor and Ronit Roy in Mithanpura police station following the order of the court," police station officer in-charge Vijay Prasad Rai told IANS. Rai said that the case was lodged against Salman and others in pursuance of an order passed by the court of Sub Divisional Judicial Magistrate last week. The court has passed the order on the complaint of an advocate Sudhir Kumar Ojha. In the complaint, Ojha has claimed that the title of the movie made fun of the holy festival of Navaratri. He also alleged that the promos of the movie suggested that it contained vulgarity and could hurt the sentiments of Hindus. "I am happy that a case has been lodged against Salman and others for playing with a popular festival and sentiments of people," Ojha said. Earlier this week, Salman had announced on Twitter that the movie's title has been changed from "Loveratri" to "Love Yatri". The film is slated to open on October 5. New Delhi : The diamonds splendor has been appreciated for centuries. World-famous diamonds such as the Great Mughal, Kohinoor, Regent, Florentine, Darya-i-Noor, Pigott, Tavernier, and Nassak were produced in India. More than the aesthetic and appealing value, diamonds worn in ancient times were believed to promote strength, invincibility and courage. The earliest diamonds were found in India in the 4th century BC and were valued because of their strength and brilliance, and for their ability to refract light and engrave metal. They were worn as adornments, used as cutting tools, served as talismans to ward off evil and were believed to provide protection in battle. In the Dark Ages, diamonds were also used as a medical aid and were thought to cure illness and heal wounds when ingested. Diamond production in India reached its zenith in the 16th century with the maximum output of 1,500 to 100,000 carats. Until the 18th century, India was the only source of diamonds for the whole world. However, when the Indian diamond mines depleted, the quest for alternate sources began. Although a small deposit was found in Brazil in 1725, the supply was not enough to meet the world's demands. Image Source: Xinhua/Lui Siu Wai/IANS An auction house employee shows a blue diamond, weighing 13.22 carats in Hong Kong, South China) Today, the diamond may be the first choice to express love and commitment, there's still a lot to uncover about its the history. Here are some interesting facts about diamonds that you probable never knew: Diamonds were brought to the surface of Earth through intense volcanic eruptions. The eruptions propelled the diamonds, at breakneck speed, hundreds of kilometers from the heart of the Earth to the surface. The molten magma cooled, and on a few very rare occasions, diamonds were born Diamonds were formed long before dinosaurs walked our planet. The youngest diamond is 107 million years old, while the dinosaurs were extinct only 65 million years ago The diamond is the hardest known substance in the world. Billions of years ago, in a deep layer of the earth, a unique combination of chemicals, pressure and changes in temperature, created diamonds out of pure carbon More than half of the rough diamond disappears in the polishing process. It takes two years of apprenticeship to learn the simplest of diamond cuts. It also takes two years for an experienced craftsman to cut the largest and most valuable diamonds Diamonds are rare and getting rarer. The last significant discovery was almost 20 years ago. Only around 50 locations around the world were found to contain diamonds viable for mining, with South Africa, Russia and Botswana being the most well-known India was the world's original source of diamonds, beginning in the 1400s when Indian diamonds began to be sold in Venice and other European trade centers. The most famous of these is the Kohinoor, which is now part of the British Crown Jewels. These facts make diamonds more alluring and enticing than ever and we all can safely agree that diamonds have been and will truly be forever. (Richa Singh is Managing Director, Diamond Producers Association, India. The views expressed are personal) Lucknow, Sep 22 : Eager to expand his newly formed political outfit, the Samajwadi Secular Morcha (SSM), former UP minister Shivpal Singh Yadav on Saturday called on socialist ideologue Bhagwati Singh and "sought his blessings", a party spokesman said. Yadav, who is the younger brother of Mulayam Singh Yadav, tweeted that the "blessings of the senior SP leader were with the SSM". Deepak Mishra, the party spokesman who accompanied Shivpal Yadav for the meeting, told IANS that the senior SP leader is not the only one to have extended his blessings to the new outfit. "There are many like-minded socialist stalwarts who are with the new formation," said Mishra. Shivpal Yadav also handed over the flag of his party to Bhagwati Singh, who has been a close associate of SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav. Socialist ideologue Bhagwati Singh is a follower of Ram Manohar Lohia and has been a minister and an MP. Singh has expressed his unhappiness at the split in the Samajwadi Party. Shivpal Singh Yadav is the estranged uncle of former chief minister and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav. He has already spurned an offer of truce and said that there is no going back to the SP under its present leadership. New Delhi, Sep 22 : Stepping up his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said former French President Francois Hollande has called him a "thief" in the Rafale deal and sought a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into the agreement to purchase 36 fighter jets from France. Addressing a press conference a day after Hollande had said that the French government had no role in making a private Indian firm get the offset contract, he questioned Modi's silence and asked him to come clean on whether Hollande was telling the truth or not. "Now what the ex-President of France is saying is that the Prime Minister of India is a thief. That is what the statement is saying. It is very important for the PM now to either accept Hollande's statement and say that he is telling the truth or that Hollande is not telling the truth and here is the truth," Gandhi said. Gandhi alleged it is "for the first time probably in the Indian history an ex-President is calling our PM a thief and said Modi should make his position very clear." "It is the question of dignity of office of PM, it is a question related to defence, future of our jawans, Air Force. What I am surprised by is that the PM is completely silent. Not one word has come out from the PM's mouth after this comment. After all, this gentleman is the ex-president of France who had a one-on-one meeting with Prime Minister where the Rafale contract was decided," Gandhi said. Referring to Modi having earlier described himself as a "chowkidar (watchman)" Gandhi said he had given a "free gift" of Rs 30,000 crore to his industrialist friend. "We are absolutely convinced that PM of India is corrupt. This question is now clearly settled in the minds of the India people that the country's watchman is a thief. This has gone in the minds of the people." Gandhi began by reading out remarks of Hollande to a French website Mediapart in which he does not mention Modi directly. It interviewed Hollande on phone in which he said: "I intervened in this affair (Rafale) with the two prime ministers, to say that I was keen for this negotiation. Initially, the deal was supposed to be for 126 planes. Then when the government changed, the Indians reformulated their proposition, less attractive for us because it was for 36 aircraft only. But the manufacturing was planned to be in France. Contrary to the preceding proposition, we lost on the one hand and gained on the other." Asked about the French Government stating that it was not involved in selecting the offset partner, Gandhi said: "It is very clear that the French government has given a statement that is stating what the procedures (are)." "Here there was one-on-one meeting with the Prime Minister and the President of France. In that meeting the contract was signed. And the ex-President of France has said that in that meeting I was clearly told that the contract had to go to Mr Ambani. It is now up to the Prime Minister of India to clear his name." Gandhi said he was trying to help the Prime Minister and asking him to give a statement. "I want to save the dignity of his office and tell the people that what Hollande had said is not correct. But you are still unable to speak." Asked if the party will seek Modi's resignation, Gandhi said that ministers of the Modi government were speaking "lies" to protect the Prime Minister. Referring to his speech in parliament during the no-confidence motion, Gandhi said he had mentioned about his meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron and claimed that the French leader had stated that the price of the Rafale fighter jet was not part of the secrecy agreement and it could be revealed. He said the Rafale aircraft was negotiated for Rs 526 crore by the UPA government but purchased for Rs 1600 crore by the Modi government. Gandhi said youth had faith in Modi. "He took the money out of your pocket, from the pockets of all defence personnel. You had reposed faith in the Prime Minister and he has broken that." He said the offsets contract was taken away from Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and one of its former officials had contradicted Defence Minister Sitharaman's claim about the ability of the organisation to build Rafale jets. New Delhi, Sep 22 : Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday dismissed the opposition allegations over the Rafale deal saying they were "false". "On the statement of the former France President, which is being discussed, the Defence Ministry has issued a statement saying that it is being verified. I think all the allegations were false, are false and will remain false," he told the media. Mumbai, Sep 22 : US Ambassador to India Kenneth I. Juster, along with US Consul-General in Mumbai Edgard D. Kagan and other officials visited the Western Naval Command Headquarters, here on Saturday, an official spokesperson said. They interacted with Vice-Admiral Girish Luthra, Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief, WNC, and visited a guided missile destroyer of the Western Fleet, INS Kochi. Indo-US naval cooperation has grown substantially over the past couple of decades and both countries are part of the maritime security dialogue conducted every year, said a defence spokesperson. Even as the relationship between the navies of the two countries has grown stronger, their cooperation is spread on a wide canvas including an annual bilateral naval exercise, Malabar, besides goodwill visits by ships and delegations from both sides. With both navies committed towards ensuring maritime security in the Indian Ocean Region, the US and India have come a long way in institutionalizing their defence relationship. The navies of the two countries share converging views on maritime areas of concern, anti-piracy, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. New Delhi, Sep 22 : The Defence Ministry on Saturday said the Indian government had no role in the selection of an Indian private firm as the offset partner of the French firm Dassault Aviation as it was a commercial decision of the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) which was taken as early as 2012 when the UPA was in power. Reacting to the raging controversy over the deal, a Defence Ministry spokesperson said that unnecessary controversies were being sought to be created following media reports on a statement purportedly made by the former French President Francois Hollande, concerning the selection of Reliance Defence as the offset partner by Dassault. The statement by the Ministry of Defence comes amid media reports of the former French President claiming that the Indian government suggested the private firm for the Rafale offset contract. Hollande was quoted in an article by a French website as claiming that the Indian government had asked the French government to nominate Reliance Defence as its India partner in the deal. "We did not have a say in this. The Indian government proposed this service group and Dassault negotiated with Ambani." The Defence Ministry said that the reported statement by the former President perhaps needs to be seen in its "full context" - where the French media has raised "issues of conflict of interest involving persons close to the former President". "His subsequent statements are also relevant in this regard," it said. The defence ministry statement said "The government has stated earlier and again reiterates that it had no role in the selection of Reliance Defence as the Offset partner." It also said that it has been reported that a joint venture between Reliance Defence and Dassualt Aviation came into being in February, 2017. "This is a purely commercial arrangement between two private companies. Incidentally, media reports of February, 2012 suggest that Dassault Aviation, within two weeks of being declared the lowest bidder for procurement of 126 aircraft by the previous government, had entered into a pact for partnership with Reliance Industries in Defence sector," it said. The ministry said that Dassault Aviation has also issued a release stating that it has signed partnership agreements with several companies and is negotiating with a hundred odd other companies. "As per the guidelines, the vendor is to provide the details of the offset partners either at the time of seeking offset credit or one year prior to discharge of offset obligation, which in this case will be due from 2020," the ministry said. The deal to purchase 36 Rafale fighter jets from France was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015 and signed in 2016. The UPA government was earlier negotiating a deal to procure 126 Rafale jets, with 18 to come in flyaway condition and 108 to be manufactured by HAL under licence. The Modi government has repeatedly said it was Dassault that chose its India partner for offsets and that the government had no say in the deal. Explaining how the Offset Policy came into play, the ministry said "The Offset Policy was formally announced for the first time in 2005 and has been revised several times. To leverage its huge arm-imports in order to develop a strong indigenous industry, a flow-back arrangement is made in the defence contracts, which is widely known as offsets, and constitutes a certain percentage of the contract value. "The key objectives of the Defence Offset Policy is to leverage the capital acquisitions to develop Indian defence industry by fostering development of internationally competitive enterprises; augmenting capacity for research and development in defence sector and to encourage development of synergistic sector like civil aerospace and internal security." The offset can be discharged by many means such as direct purchase of eligible products/services, FDI in joint ventures and investment towards equipment and transfer of technology. As per Defence Offset Guidelines, the foreign OEM is free to select any Indian company as its offset partner. Moscow/Kabul, Sep 22 : Afghanistan's government officials have expressed readiness to meet Taliban's representatives in a meeting hosted by Russia in its capital, the media reported. The meeting was earlier scheduled for September 4. However, Kabul refused to participate in it just days before, Afghanistan's TOLO News reported on Friday. According to TASS news agency, diplomats continued to hammer out all the details for the new meeting in Moscow on the Afghan settlement. "Kabul is upbeat on participating in the upcoming conference", Russia's Special Presidential Envoy for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov told Izvestia daily, following a discussion with Afghanistan's Deputy Foreign Minister Nasir Ahmad Andisha on Thursday. The Afghan minister said that details of the conference were being worked out. The exact date of the meeting is still unknown, but Afghan officials declared their readiness to meet with representatives of the Taliban movement, according to the Russian official. "Kabul is determined to participate in the Moscow-hosted meeting. Now we are in the process of developing modalities for this participation. Currently, the main thing is not the date, but the content, so this is the part that we are working on," he told Izvestia. In August, a delegation from the Afghan Taliban met Uzbekistan officials during a five-day trip to the country. Issues including transport, power lines and peace in Afghanistan were discussed, the movement's political office said. Muhammad Sohail Shaheen, spokesperson for the Taliban's political office, had said the group's representatives met Uzbek Foreign Minister Abdul Aziz Kamilov and Special Representative for Afghanistan Ismatulla Irgashev during the August 6-10 visit. He said they "discussed current and future national projects such as security for railroad and power lines. "Views were also exchanged with officials of Uzbekistan about the withdrawal of foreign forces and how to achieve peace in Afghanistan," Shaheen had said. Nigeria has assured the international community that the 2019 general election will be credible and peaceful. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, gave the assurance at a press briefing in New York ahead of the upcoming high-level General Assembly debate. Onyeama explained that President Muhammadu Buhari had assured the international community that under his watch, there would be credible election because he had himself been a victim and had challenged election malpractices up to the Supreme Court. He said Buhari had experienced how a political party in power organised elections to favour themselves and would not perpetrate same. According to him, the President is a strong believer in the electoral process and added: "We can be certain that he would ensure credible and peaceful election in 2019". "A good example is (Ademola) Adeleke (PDP gubernatorial candidate for Osun) who is contesting election and the security agency invited him but he (Buhari) said he has to conclude the election before he is invited. We also saw recently when the National Assembly was invaded and the head of the agency that carried out the invasion lost his job. So he has zero tolerance for the abuse of the rights of Nigerians. We went to The Gambia to ensure that democracy was sustained when the former President refused to leave power. So it will be an irony if he (Buhari) does that. So you can be sure that he would do everything possible to ensure a smooth general election. But he has also put security measures in place to ensure a peaceful process," Onyeama said. -ANI Moscow, Sep 22 : Members and supporters of Russia's Communist Party took to the streets of the capital on Saturday to protest unpopular pension reforms planned by President Vladimir Putin. Putin took measures to soften his proposed hike in retirement age in August by limiting the increase for women to 60 -- up from 55 -- instead of the initial suggestion of 63, Efe news reported. But the change of plan has so far failed to quell protests against it. He stood by plans to raise men's retirement age from 60 to 65. Protesters held signs emblazoned with slogans such as "Putin Lies". Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov also spoke at the rally. The changes have been given a preliminary green-light by the State Duma, Russia's lower parliament, but have provoked widespread outrage. An opinion poll showed that about 90 per cent of Russians were against increasing the retirement age. Kolkata, Sep 22 : Tata Steel Limited (TSL) on Saturday said it has executed definitive agreements for acquisition of the steel business of debt-ridden Usha Martin for a cash consideration between Rs 4,300-4,700 crore. "...it has executed definitive agreements for acquisition of the steel business of Usha Martin Limited (UML) through a slump sale on a going concern basis," the steel maker said in a regulatory filing. The filing further said: "It is proposed that the steel business of UML will be acquired subject to transaction closing, for a cash consideration of between Rs 4,300-4,700 crore (subject to various transaction adjustments)." The transaction comprises one mtpa specialised alloy-based manufacturing capacity of UML in long products segment based in Jamshedpur, a producing iron-ore mine, a coal mine under development and captive power plants. The acquisition is expected to be completed in the next 6-9 months. The steel producer said the closing of the acquisition is subject to fulfilment of various conditions under the agreements. All the employees pertaining to the steel business will transfer as part of the acquisition. According to the regulatory filing, Tata Steel or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates may carry out this acquisition. The Kolkata-based speciality steel maker UML makes alloy steel long products such as wire rods, bars, blooms and bright bars mostly for commercial vehicles and tractors. It had been looking for buyers of its steel business in order to achieve the "objective of deleveraging the company". The company on Saturday said its board approved the sale and transfer of the company's steel business and the sale would help it in significant reduction of its debt. UML's steel business clocked a revenue of Rs 3,441 crore on a standalone basis in the last fiscal, up from 3,055 crore in the previous fiscal. As on March 31, 2018, its total debt stood at Rs 4,600 crore. The company had repaid close to Rs 540 crore in the last financial year, and was looking to repay close to Rs 320 crore this fiscal, an UML official said. New Delhi, Sep 22 : The Congress on Saturday refuted the claims of Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad that French firm Dassault Aviation, the manufacturer of Rafale jets, had signed a contract with Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Limited in 2012 to execute the offset contract and described it as "totally false". "This is totally false and utter rubbish being dished out, unfortunately by Defence Ministry and the Law Minister," Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala said at a press conference here. He said that "no such Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was ever signed between Dassault Aviation and Mukesh Ambani's company". "They have the records. We challenge the Law Minister and Defence Minister (Nirmala Sitharaman) to make any such record public. As there is no record, the lies would be exposed," Surjewala said. Surjewala's remarks came soon after Prasad recounted the history of the deal from 2006 and said there was contemporaneous evidence to show that the choice of offset partner, a Reliance company, was made in 2012 itself during the UPA rule, much before Modi became Prime Minister. "There is evidence available that a proper MoU existed between Dassault and Reliance industry as early as on February 13, 2013, that means one year, four months before we came to power," he said. Prasad said the offset clause was finalised by the UPA in 2012 and the choice of the private firm in place of HAL was entirely that of Dassault. "In fact, the UPA had ditched the HAL," he said. Prasad was reacting to the raging controversy over the 36 fighter deal with France. His remarks came amid media reports of former French President Francois Hollande claiming that the Indian government suggested the private firm for the Rafale offset contract. The Congress leader attacking the Narendra Modi-led government said, "Truth is that, Dassault Aviation had entered into a work-share arrangement with public sector undertaking Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). And it is proved in annual report 2013-14, in which Eric Trappier, CEO of Dassault, states that 'our main partner is HAL'." He claimed that on March 25, 2015 (just 17 days before Modi's announced the purchase of 36 Rafale on April 10, 2015), Dassualt CEO in the presence of Chief of Indian Air Force and HAL Chairman stated that negotiations with HAL were at final stage and contract finalisation and signature would come very soon. "On March 13, 2014, a work-share agreement was signed between HAL and Dassault Aviation," Surjewala claimed. The deal to purchase 36 Rafale fighter jets from France was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015 and signed in 2016. The UPA government was earlier negotiating a deal to procure 126 Rafale jets, with 18 to come in flyaway condition and 108 to be manufactured by HAL under licence. The Modi government has repeatedly said it was Dassault that chose its India partner for offsets and that the government had no say in the deal. New Delhi, Sep 22 : A political war broke out on Saturday with Congress President Rahul Gandhi terming Prime Minister Narendra Modi a "thief" and "corrupt" in the Rafale deal as the BJP hit back saying the Gandhi family is out on bail and is the "source of all corruption in the country". As the controversy over former French President Francois Hollande's remarks that the Modi government asked them to chose a private firm as offset partner in the Rafale deal snowballed, both the Defence Ministry and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad maintained that the Indian government had no role in the choice of the offset partner. Both suggested that Reliance was chosen by Dassault as early as 2012 much before Narendra Modi became Prime Minister. However, the Congress rejected their claim on Dassault-Reliance deal in 2012 and asked them to produce the relevant records. Earlier, both the French government and Dassault Aviation contradicted Hollande's claim on choosing of Indian industrial partners. Rahul Gandhi led the Congress charge on Saturday following Holland's remarks and said the former French President had called him a "thief" in the Rafale deal. He also sought a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into the agreement to purchase 36 fighter jets from France. "Now what the ex-President of France is saying is that the Prime Minister of India is a thief... that is what the statement is saying. It is very important for the PM now to either accept Hollande's statement and say that he is telling the truth or that Hollande is not telling the truth and here is the truth," Gandhi said. "It is the question of dignity of office of PM, it is a question related to defence, future of our jawans, Air Force. What I am surprised by is that the PM is completely silent," he said, adding that he had a one-on-one meeting with Hollande. Referring to Modi having earlier described himself as a "chowkidar (watchman)", Gandhi said he had given a "free gift" of Rs 30,000 crore to his industrialist friend. "We are absolutely convinced that PM of India is corrupt. The question is now clearly settled in the minds of the Indian people that the country's watchman is a thief. This has gone in the minds of the people." He said the Rafale aircraft was negotiated for Rs 526 crore by the UPA government but purchased for Rs 1,600 crore by the Modi government. Prasad attacked Gandhi and saying "irresponsible, shameless and baseless" remarks were being made against the Prime Minister by a family which is out on bail in the National Herald case and "is the source of all corruption in the country". "Rahul Gandhi's statement is utterly irresponsible. He is playing into the hands of Pakistan and China by insisting on the disclosure of the price and other details which will help our enemies. I charge Rahul Gandhi is trying to help Pakistan," he said. Prasad said there was evidence to show that the choice of offset partner, a Reliance company, was made in 2012 itself during the UPA rule and a proper MoU existed between Dassault and Reliance industry as early as on February 13, 2013. He said the choice of the private firm in place of HAL was entirely that of Dassault. "In fact the UPA had ditched the HAL," he said. "I don't know the reasons and compulsions of the former French President to say what he had said," Prasad said and made a reference to a question of conflict of interest being raised against the former French President whose partner's film was co-produced by the private firm. The Defence ministry also referred to the alleged conflict of interest and said the reported statement by the former President perhaps needs to be seen in its "full context" The Defence Ministry also said that the decision on offset partner was a commercial decision of the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM), which was taken as early as 2012 when the UPA was in power. Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala termed Prasad and Defence Ministry's remarks as "totally false and utter rubbish." "No such contract or MoU was ever signed between Dassault Aviation and Mukesh Ambani's company. We challenge the Law Minister and Defence Minister to make any such record public. As there is no record, the lies will be exposed," he said. A Friday night statement by the French government said it is in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners who have been, are being or will be selected by French companies. In its statement of Friday night, Dassault Aviation, manufacturer of Rafale jets, said the offsets contract is delivered in compliance with the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) 2016 regulations. "In this framework, and in accordance with the policy of 'Make in India', Dassault Aviation has decided to make a partnership with India's Reliance Group. This is Dassault Aviation's choice," it said. Hollande was quoted in an article by a French website as claiming that the Indian government had asked the French government to nominate Reliance Defence as its India partner in the deal. The deal to purchase 36 Rafale fighter jets from France was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015 and signed in 2016. The UPA government was earlier negotiating a deal to procure 126 Rafale jets, with 18 to come in flyaway condition and 108 to be manufactured by HAL under licence. Chandigarh, Sep 22 : The ruling Congress in Punjab on Saturday won the most seats in the Zila Parishad and Panchayat Samiti elections and headed for a landslide victory as counting was underway. The main opposition AAP in the state assembly faced a humiliating defeat. Out of 113 Zila Parishad seats -- out of a total of 354 -- for which results have been declared, the Congress won 106, the BJP-Akali combine six and independents won one. The Aam Adami Party had not won a single seat. Among prominent winners were former Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee President Bibi Jagjir Kaur's daughter Ranjit Kaur; Housing Minister Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa's son Ravi Nandan Singh Bajwa; Congress legislator Ramanjit Sikki's son-in-law Maninderjit Singh Mani; and former Congress legislator Kawaljit Singh Lally's son Mehtab Singh. In Patiala, the home constituency of Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, the Congress has won 43 Panchayat Samiti seats and the Shiromani Akali Dal four. The Akalis suffered a humiliating defeat in their home turf Muktsar as the Congress won 10 of the 13 Zila Parishad zones. All six Zila Parishad seats in Ludhiana were won by the Congress. The Congress won a majority in Gurdaspur by securing 154 of the total 213 Panchayat Samiti zones. In Zila Parishad, the Congress won 15 of the 25 seats and was leading in the remaining seats. Out of the total 148 seats of the Panchayat Samiti in Bathinda, the Congress won 31, Akalis four and the AAP and independents three each. The counting for 107 seats is on. Sporadic skirmishes, mainly between the Congress and the Akalis, were witnessed during the Zila Parishad and Panchayat Samiti polls on September 19. The voting percentage was 58 per cent. A total of 354 Zila Parishad and 2,900 Panchayat Samiti members will be elected. There are 22 Zila Parishads and 150 Panchayat Samitis in the state. Chief Minister Amarinder Singh congratulated his party on their victory saying people had endorsed the positive development and rejected the Akalis' "malicious campaign". Pointing out that this was the fourth consecutive humiliating defeat of the SAD-BJP combine, after back-to-back victories for the Congress in the state assembly, Urban Local Bodies, Gurdaspur parliamentary and Shahkot assembly by-polls, he termed it a vindication of his party's efforts to bring the state out of the quagmire of devastation into which it had been plunged by the previous SAD-BJP government. Panaji, Sep 22 : Amid the ongoing tussle between the Congress and the ruling BJP-led coalition government in Goa, the formalin-in-fish controversy raised its head again on Saturday, after Congress leaders, armed with testing kits, visited a popular fish market in South Goa and claimed that the fish sold there was still being contaminated with formalin. Reacting to the Congress' accusation, Health Minister Vishwajit Rane claimed that the Congress was trying to create panic among the fish-loving population of Goa and that raising the formalism bogey irresponsibly would severely impact Goa's tourism industry. "Our senior leaders visited the South Goa Planning and Development Authority fish market and when we tested some of the fish using formalin-testing kits, we found traces of the mortuary preservative. We will send the samples to the FDA soon," Congress spokesperson Urfan Mulla told reporters. The Congress leaders who conducted the inspection, in presence of everyday market-goers as well as party workers, included state Congress President Girish Chodankar, All India Congress Committee General Secretary A. Chellakumar and several Congress MLAs. Reacting to the "inspection", Rane lashed out at the state Congress President and said that the formalin scare would impact tourism in Goa. "This guy, the so called state president of the Congress is creating a fear psychosis in the minds of the people. They will ruin the tourism and fishing industries in the state. We are grappling with a mining crisis and the Congress is trying to create another crisis," Rane said. "I want to ask Girish Chodankar? Are you an expert or are you a scientist. Just because you are Goa Congress President, you are a nobody. You have no knowledge, all you can do is shout aloud," Rane added. The controversy involving use of carcinogenic cadaver preservative in fish erupted in July this year, after a Food Drugs Administration team found traces of formalin in fish being sold in Goa. The BJP-led coalition government has been on the backfoot ever since, after several of its ministers were accused of allegedly protecting fish-traders who were allegedly importing formalin-laced fish consignments from Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. The re-eruption of the formalin controversy comes at a time, when the BJP-led coalition government is facing a leadership crisis, with Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar battling advanced pancreatic cancer in a Delhi hospital. The Congress has already demanded dismissal of the Parrikar-led regime and has expressed confidence of having enough numbers to stake a claim to form a government. New Delhi, Sep 22 : The conductor of a school bus was on Saturday caught by a police officer while killing the vehicle's driver for not returning his mobile phone. Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Aslam Khan said that Chooda Maniaryal, 23, hailing from Nepal, hit driver Joginder's head with a small fire extinguisher at north Delhi's Rani Bagh at around 11 a.m. He was taken to Bhagwan Mahavir Hospital in the area where he was declared dead. "It was a quarrel over petty issue. The deceased had borrowed the accused's phone yesterday (Friday), but when asked to return on Saturday, Joginder refused to give it back." "During a scuffle over the issue, Chooda got violent and hit him in the head," Khan said, adding that a police officer saw it all. The accused was immediately arrested and a case of murder registered against him. Bhubaneswar, Sep 22 : Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Saturday dismissed the corruption allegations levelled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Patnaik said Modi must have said this to enthuse BJP workers. He also attacked the central government over skill India mission and Ujjwala scams. "He must have said that to enthuse his political workers. In fact, they should be thinking of their own skill mission and Ujjwala scam," said the Chief Minister. The Chief Minister said they (centre) should also think very seriously about the rocketing prices of petrol and diesel for which all the people of the country are suffering. Modi, at a public meeting in Jharsuguda on Saturday, alleged that corruption and delaying decisions have become the identity of the Odisha government resulting in the state's tardy development. He also said that nothing happens in Odisha without PC (percentage commission) as the government and party workers take PC for works. The Prime Minister was in the state to inaugurate Jharsuguda airport and lay the foundation stone for Talcher fertilizer plant. With Prime Minister urging the state government to implement the Ayushman Bharat scheme, the Chief Minister said the state's scheme is better than the centre's as it covers an extra 50 lakh people and provides Rs 7 lakh to women as against Rs 5 lakh by the central programme. "The Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana (BSKY) covers extra 50 lakh beneficiaries which the Centre's scheme does not provide. Under the scheme, we provide health assistance to the tune of Rs 7 lakh for women. As far as food security scheme is concerned, we provide the benefits to 25 lakhs extra poor people," he added. IANS cd/prs New Delhi/Kohima, Sep 22 : Former Nagaland Assembly Deputy Speaker and Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party legislator, Imtikumzuk Longkumer, died at a private hospital in Delhi on Saturday. Longkumer is survived by his wife Imkongzenla and his three children. He was first elected to the 12th Nagaland Legislative Assembly on Congress ticket in 2013 and later joined Naga People's Front. He was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary in the T.R. Zeliang government and was later elevated to post of Deputy Speaker. Longkumer, who retained his Aonglenden assembly constituency in the February 23 Nagaland assembly polls, was appointed as an Advisor to the Sericulture and Excise department in the BJP-backed People's Democratic Alliance government. Mourning Longkumer, Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio said: "His death has left a deep void in the state and is a big loss to the family, village and the party. He was a great asset to the government as well as the NDPP and his absence will be felt tremendously." T.R. Zeliang, the leader of opposition in Nagaland Assembly described Longkumer as a "a very simple man". He said: "He was a man who had a very positive outlook towards life. In his untimely demise, we have lost a good soul." New Delhi, Sep 22 : Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to call a special session of Parliament to discuss the Rafale deal. The Aam Aadmi Party and also demanded a Joint Parliamentary Committee to probe the deal. Senior AAP leader and party's Delhi convenor Gopal Rai also posed questions to Modi while addressing a press conference here. He asked why the price of Rafale fighter jet had "gone up" and "why the secret clause has been added to the contract now". Earlier in the day, Kejriwal, in a tweet in Hindi, sought to know from the Prime Minister who "pocketed the money from the Rafale scam -- the BJP or someone else". Meanwhile, the Communist Party of India-Marxist in a statement said that the Rafale issue was "proving to be a first-rate scam" which the Modi government was "desperately trying to cover up". "The statement of the former French President has exposed the claims made by Modi and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman that the government had no role in it," the party said. "A Joint Parliamentary Committee must be formed without delay so that the role of the Prime Minister and the government is inquired into," the party added. United States Secretary of State, Michael R. Pompeo has warned Iran of "direct action" for any attacks on Washington in Iraq, even those using proxy forces, against US interests. In an interview to CNN, Pompeo said, "We have told the Islamic Republic of Iran that using a proxy force to attack an American interest will not prevent us from responding against the prime actor." Pompeo further accused Iran of confronting the world as the "world's largest state sponsor of terror." "We will not let Iran get away with using a proxy force to attack an American interest; Iran will be held accountable for those incidents," he added while speaking on the recent rocket attack that was allegedly carried out by Iran-backed militias this month. The attack was said to target the US missions in Iraq. The White House blamed Shia militia groups for it and stated, "Iran did not act to stop these attacks by its proxies in Iraq, which it has supported with funding, training and weapons." However, Iran's Foreign Ministry called the claims of the US as "astonishing, provocative, and irresponsible." The tension between the two counties has increased after US President Donald Trump withdrew Washington from the Iran nuclear pact. On May 8, Trump administration announced withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or the Iran nuclear deal that limited Tehran's uranium enrichment in exchange for relief from some sanctions. -ANI Students learn more about sign production and career opportunities in the sign and visual communications industry at Ramsay Signs in Portland, Ore. "The interest in participating proves that this event is providing a solution to that challenge of finding workers." Lori Anderson, ISA president and CEO A record number of sign, graphics and visual communications companies across North America will invite students to learn more about career opportunities as part of ISA Sign Manufacturing Day 2018. The event will be held October 5, throughout the U.S. and Canada.** Sign Manufacturing Day, sponsored by the International Sign Association in conjunction with the National Association of Manufacturers, is now in its sixth year. The event continues to show unprecedented growth, with the number of participating companies up 26 percent over 2017. In 2018, one sign company has had so many schools interested in participating that they have scheduled more than one day to meet the demand. We continue to hear companies discuss the challenge they are having in finding the next generation of workers, said Lori Anderson, ISA president and CEO. The interest in participating proves that this event is providing a solution to that challenge. Companies have successfully used this day to build year-round relationships with local high schools, community colleges and technical schools, and to hire skilled workers to help grow their businesses. Participating companies are provided a toolkit that helps them connect with area educators and helps them showcase the diverse careers available in the sign, graphics and visual communications industry. In 2017, more than 3,700 students visited a sign, graphics and visual communications company as part of Sign Manufacturing Day. ISA Sign Manufacturing Day has grown into the program that we hoped it would: a year-round initiative to showcase the excellent and varied careers that our industry offers, said Alison Kent, ISAs director of workforce development. Participating companies and their workers are thrilled to showcase what they do every day. Students and educators are excited to learn more about the industry. It truly is a win-win for all involved. Companies scheduled to participate in 2018 are: Ace Sign Company, Springfield, IL Acorn Sign, Richmond, VA Aero Sign & Print, Calgary, AB AGC Graphics, Pickering, ON AGI, Virginia Beach, VA AGS, Exton, PA Allen Industries, Greensboro, NC Amor Sign Studios, Inc., Manistee, MI Apex/Southwest, San Antonio, TX Archetype Sign Systems, Bloomington, MN Associated Sign Company, Pheonix, AZ Atlas Sign Industries, West Palm Beach, FL Baker Signs and Manufacturing, Conroe, TX Bluebird Graphic Solutions, Woburn, MA Brooklin Bulletin Signs, Whitby, ON Burke Enterprise LLC, Oakdale, CT Butler Sign Company, Wayne, NJ Canedy Sign & Graphics, Cape Girardeau, MO Casco Signs Inc., Concord, NC Cima Network, Montgomeryville, PA Comet Signs, San Antonio, TX Creative Signs Inc., Apopka, FL DaNite Sign Company, Columbus, OH Decal Impressions, Cincinnati, OH Design Team Sign Company LLC, Savannah, TN Dualite Sales & Service Inc., Williamsburg, OH Enseignes Geneau Sign, Moncton, NB Faces, Pelham, AL Federal Heath, Racine, WI Federal Heath, Euless, TX Federal Heath, Oceanside, CA Federal Heath, Jacksonville, TX Federal Heath, Delaware, OH Freeman Signs, Denver, CO Fresno Neon Sign Co., Inc., Fresno, CA Gordon Sign Co., Denver, CO Graphic Components, Greensboro, NC Grimco Inc, Ashland, VA Hansen Signs, Moncton, NB Hilton Displays, Greensville, SC Huber Wraps, Tulsa, OK Icon, Rolling Meadows, IL Identicom, Farmington Hills, MI Impact Signs, Awnings, Wraps, Sedalia, MO JSJ Electrical Display, Fairfield, CA Lauretano Sign Group, Terryville, CT Leon's Signs, Inc., Tyler, TX Lightking, Doral, FL LSI Industries, Inc., North Canton, OH Mattatall Signs, Ltd., Dartmouth, NS Midtown Signs, LLC, Kansas City, MO Midwest Light & Sign, Farmington, MO Mimaki, Suwanee, GA Montreal Neon Signs, Laval, QC Munn Enterprises Inc., Hattiesburg, MS New Home Media (NHM), Lorton, VA Nova Sign Group, Williamstown, NJ Oxford Graphics, Inc., Little Rock, AR Poblocki Sign Company, Milwaukee, WI Poyant, New Bedford, MA Pride Signs, Cambridge, ON Prismview-A Samsung Electronics Company, Logan, UT Quality Manufacturing, Saint Paul, MN Ramsay Signs, Portland, OR Rea Sign Group Inc., Vaughan, ON Rite Lite Signs, Inc., Concord, NC Ruggles Sign, Versailles, KY Schurle Signs, Lawrence, KS Sebago Signworks, Limington, ME Selkirk Signs & Services Ltd, Cranbrook, BC Signarama (Corporate), West Palm Beach, FL Signarama Brighton, Brighton, CO Signarama Evansville, Evansvlle, IN Signarama Redmond, Redmond, WA Signarama Riverchase, Pelham, AL Signarama Torrance, Torrance, CA Signs by Crannie, Inc., Flint, MI Signs Plus, Prescott Valley, AZ Signs Unlimited, Charlotte, NC Signtech Electrical Advertising, San Diego, CA Sleek Advertising Ltd, Regina, SK SMI Sign Systems, Inc., Frederick, MD Spectra Advertising, Concord, ON Star Signs LLC, Lawrence, KS Steel Art Company, Norwood, MA Stone's Signs, Saint Charles, MO The Signs & Services Company, Stanton, CA Trademark Visual, Inc., Pheonix, AZ Tube Art Group - Seattle Office, Bellevue, WA Twilight Signs & Neon, Inc., Bolton, ON Tyson Sign Company, Myrtle Beach, SC YESCO, Salt Lake City, UT Ziglin Signs, Inc., Washington, MO To learn more about Sign Manufacturing Day, visit http://www.signs.org/mfgday or visit ISAs Career Center, http://www.signs.org/careers. **Some companies may alter the dates to accommodate school breaks and other issues. The International Sign Association (ISA) strives to be the leader in shaping and developing the sign, graphics, and visual communications community worldwide. Jim Gaffigan performs at Mayne Stage in Rogers Park for Georgetown Scholarship Program on Thursday, Sept. 20. The generous support given tonight will help provide students access to resources and a community focused on their success. We are thankful to everyone in attendance, particularly Jim Gaffigan who brought us together for a great cause and a night of comedy. The Standup for Georgetown charity event featuring comedian Jim Gaffigan raised $24,000 for the Georgetown Scholarship Program on Thursday, Sept. 20. The Georgetown alum took time during his Fixer Upper Comedy Tour" to support the event held at Mayne Stage, a historic theatre in Rogers Park. The generous support given tonight will help provide students access to resources and a community focused on their success, says Charles Deacon, dean of admissions at Georgetown University and co-founder of the Georgetown Scholarship Program. We are thankful to everyone in attendance, particularly Jim Gaffigan who brought us together for a great cause and a night of comedy. The successful event produced by Michigan Avenue Magazine and presented by Wintrust Financial and Celebrity Cruises included a meet and greet with the Grammy-nominated comedian. All proceeds benefited the Georgetown Scholarship Program, which helps to empower hard-working, low-income, often first-generation students at the university. We couldnt have wished for a better way to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of Michigan Avenue Magazine, says Dan Uslan, Modern Luxury market president. Jim Gaffigan epitomizes the true spirit of generosity by giving guests this wonderful performance. Since its creation in 2004, the Georgetown Scholarship Program has served over 1,600 Georgetown University students. Over 650 undergraduate students are currently in the program, giving them access to campus assistance, academic and career help, mentorship programs, and a vast network of support. We were happy to donate Mayne Stage for the event and open our doors to alumni, friends and supporters of the Georgetown University Program, says Carmen Korleski, director of hospitality operations at Mayne Stage. Our intimate venue offered a space for guests to experience a personal performance and raise a substantial amount for the scholarship. Mayne Stage is located at 1328 W. Morse Ave in Chicago. It is part of Stone Heritage Collection, a luxury collection of thoughtfully designed lodging and event spaces organized under TAWANI Enterprises, Inc. For more information visit MayneStage.com. About TAWANI Enterprises TAWANI Enterprises, headquartered in Chicago, is an umbrella organization that invests in properties and projects that create value for citizens and the future. The company represents a diversified portfolio of brands, such as the Stone Heritage Collection, TAWANIs hospitality arm of thoughtfully designed lodging and event spaces, the Pritzker Military Museum and Library, the TAWANI Foundation and the Pritzker Military Foundation. Properties under the Stone Heritage Collection include Stone Terrace, Stone Porch by the Lake, Lang House, The Emil Bach House, Mayne Stage and The Lincoln Way Inn. For more information, visit http://www.tawanienterprises.com. About Michigan Avenue Magazine Michigan Avenue magazine is Chicagos premier luxury lifestyle publication chronicling the renowned people, culture, politics and parties that celebrate Chicago as a world-class city in a glossy, oversized format. From the glistening shores of Lake Michigan to the expansive six-county region that comprises the featured coverage area, Michigan Avenue delivers sophisticated content from an insiders point of view. Michigan Avenue is published by Modern Luxury, the countrys largest local luxury media company with 84 titles in the top 24 markets in the United States. https://www.modernluxury.com/ About Modern Luxury Modern Luxury is the countrys largest local luxury media company with 84 titles in the top 24 markets in the United States. We live where luxury lives, with editors and marketers in all of our cities: Aspen, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, The Hamptons, Hawaii, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Orange County, Palm Beach, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Francisco, Scottsdale, Silicon Valley, Washington, D.C., and South Florida & the Caribbean. No one gets closer to the luxury community than Modern Luxury. Yi-Yuan Tang, PhD, talks about "The Neuroscience of Integrative Health" at the 10th annual Dr. Philip Pumerantz Distinguished Lectureship at WesternU. (Jeff Malet, WesternU) Mindfulness meditation can result in improved brain function, reduced stress and self-healing, according to the keynote speaker for Western University of Health Sciences 10th annual Dr. Philip Pumerantz Distinguished Lectureship. The lecture, held Sept. 20, 2018 in Pomona, California, featured Yi-Yuan Tang, PhD, Presence Fellow for the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University and Presidential Endowed Chair in Neuroscience and Professor of Psychological Sciences and Internal Medicine at Texas Tech University. Tang offered an overview of Integrative Body-Mind Training (IBMT), which stresses no effort or less effort to control thoughts, and the achievement of a state of restful alertness that allows a high degree of awareness and balance of the body, mind and environment. Tangs research has shown IBMT improves attention, creativity, self-regulation and immune function, and also reduces stress. Conventional medicine models give patients the mindset that their physician should fix their problems and give them their health back, but this is not a positive, responsible, engaged mindset, Tang said. A better model is to combine conventional treatment with self-regulation of our body, mind and behavior, emphasizing our own responsibility, awareness and care action to maintain health, he said. The physician treats the patient as a whole and we take responsibility, Tang said. They redefine the relationship between the practitioner and the patient by focusing on the whole person and the whole community. Mindfulness is nonjudgmental attention to experience in the present moment, which sounds abstract, Tang said. It seems to involve self-regulation of our thoughts, emotions and sensations. In practice it involves body-mind training, he said. Many scholars are still arguing about the definition, but for me the most important thing is how to translate this work into the patient and into the health care system. IBMT is found to induce self-directed neuroplasticity change in structure and function of the brain, Tang said. This self-directed neuroplasticity refers to the regulation of our own neural network activity through improving effortful and effortless self-regulation or self-control processes, he said. Training a persons attention/self-control network is important. If a person has a problem with attention/self-control, you will find many memory disorders, Tang said. Improving attention/self-control actually could help diverse problems and mental disorders, based on my research. In a randomized clinical trial, subjects received IBMT training therapy 20 minutes per day for five days. The training improved attention significantly. Negative emotions - anger, confusion, depression and fatigue went down and positive emotions vigor and activity increased. In separate studies, IBMT resulted in more efficient processing of information between the two hemispheres of the brain, and even reduced cravings and tobacco use in smokers. Everybody has the capacity to self-heal and to self-rehab, so the patient and physician need to work together to have integrated health, Tang said. The Pumerantz Lecture is named in honor of WesternU President Emeritus Philip Pumerantz, PhD. In attendance was his widow, Harriet Pumerantz, who was serenaded by the capacity audience with Happy Birthday. WesternU President Daniel R. Wilson, MD, PhD, asked the audience to join him in thanking Dr. Elaine Sarkaria. The lecture is endowed through the generous support of the Sarkaria family. The Sarkaria family deeply believes in the mission and future of Western University of Health Sciences, Wilson said. This endowment helps ensure that the philosophy of humanistic science upon which WesternU was founded is reinforced and expanded by a special lecture each year. In author Lee Winds novel, Queer as a Five-Dollar Bill, closeted teen Wyatt struggles for self-realization in the homophobic small town of Lincolnville, Ore. His life takes a confusing turn after an errant kiss leads him to accidentally date his best friend, Mackenzie. Though Wyatt doesnt want to hurt her, hes not feeling what he knows hes supposed to feel, Wind says. In the midst of these circumstances, an assignment about Abraham Lincoln leads Wyatt to a life-changing discovery: letters between Lincoln and his friend Joshua Fry Speed suggest that the two were in love. Wyatt makes a splash by publishing his findings online, and a storm of controversy ensues as his community rages against the possibility that a revered historical figure could be gay. Wind has long worked to further diversify the publishing industry as director of marketing and programming at the Independent Book Publishers Association. He also has a blog called Im Here. Im Queer. What the Hell Do I Read? The literary resource represents Winds ongoing efforts to guide readers through the difficulties he himself faced as a teen; Queer as a Five-Dollar Bill is his #OwnVoices story. Wind himself first learned of Lincoln and Speeds relationship at a talk by Randy Harrison and delved into his own research. I became convinced that Abraham and Joshua were in love, he says. And I kept thinking, if Id known back when I was 15 that Abraham Lincoln was in love with another guy, it would have changed my whole life. Hes on Mt. Rushmore. Hes on the penny. Hes on the $5 bill! Initially, Wind wrote about his discovery in a nonfiction book, The Queer History Project: No Way, They Were Gay?, which focuses on Lincoln and gay figures throughout history. His aim was to break through the inaccurate and reductive ways that history is taught, and the focus on cisgender white men in particular: Learning about Abraham and Joshua can be a crack in that facade that lets all this light from our real diverse history come shining through. The book was picked up by a Big Five publisher about four years ago but then sidelined and never published. Despite the setback, Wind didnt despair. He had already started writing the novel that would become Queer as a Five-Dollar Bill. After completing it, rather than go the traditional publishing route, he crowdfunded on Kickstarter. Within six days, Wind had received the funds he needed to publish the book. He fundamentally believes in the democratization of the industry that self-publishing offersnotably, by offering marginalized individuals more opportunities to tell their stories. These days, Wind thinks a lot about an Anne Lamott quote from Bird by Bird, her book about writing: Lighthouses dont go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining. For Wind, it serves as a powerful metaphor. A lot of my understanding of history, of LGBTQ history, is not what some people want to hear, he says. But I cant worry about them. My job is to shine a light on what Im passionate aboutto tell these stories. If youre interested, come closer and Ill tell you all about it. If youre not, no worries; do your thing and watch outthere are some rocks over there. Fear and Loathing The #1 book in the country is Fear, Bob Woodwards compulsively readable narrative, according to our review, of President Donald Trumps White House. Among its assertions: John Dowd, Trumps lawyer for the special counsel Russia investigation, told Trump that he would end up behind bars if he agreed to be interviewed by the special counsel. Another new title offers an account of a different legally besieged presidency. In Contempt, Ken Starrs self-rightous memoir, our review said, the author recalls his controversial 19951999 stint as independent counsel investigating President Bill Clintons involvement in Whitewater and with a White House intern. It lands at #15 on our hardcover nonfiction list. (See all of this week's bestselling books.) Of She Reese Sings Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, which our review praised for its vivid portrayal of the singular North Carolina setting, pubbed August 14. In a September 6 Instagram post, Reese Witherspoon named the novel her latest book club pick, and weekly print unit sales began to climb. Halloween: Resurrection Weve barely turned the page on summer, but Halloween- and autumn-themed books are out in force. Nearly half of the books on our childrens picture book list reference the spooky season, including the titles in the top four positions. New & Notable Accessory to War Neil deGrasse Tyson and Avis Lang #10 Hardcover Nonfiction Well paced and skillfully written, our review said of Tyson and Langs exploration of the relationship between astrophysics and the military, the narrative seamlessly integrates science lessons, military strategy, and world history. I am Neil Armstrong Brad Meltzer, illus. by Christopher Eliopoulous #15 Childrens Picture Books The latest title in the Ordinary People Can Change the World series profiles the first human to walk on the moon, and pubs several months ahead of the 50th anniversary of the lunar landing, July 20, 2019. Top 10 Overall Rank Title Author Imprint Units 1 Fear Bob Woodward Simon & Schuster 339,104 2 Lord of the Fleas (Dog Man #5) Dav Pilkey Graphix 51,117 3 Girl, Wash Your Face Rachel Hollis Nelson 47,367 4 Juror #3 Patterson/Allen Little, Brown 31,000 5 Crazy Rich Asians Kevin Kwan Anchor 27,001 6 Shadow Tyrants Cussler/Morrison Putnam 17,371 7 The Fallen David Baldacci Grand Central 15,683 8 In His Fathers Footsteps Danielle Steel Delacorte 14,218 9 Leverage in Death J.D. Robb St. Martins 14,201 10 China Rich Girlfriend Kevin Kwan Anchor 13,939 Editors note: Sales for the week ended Sept. 16, 2018 do not include data from the Christian bookstore chain Lifeway. All unit sales per Nielsen BookScan except where noted. Acknowledged as the publishing world's first outsourcing vendor, MPS is closing in on its 50th anniversary, in 2020. Beginning as a production unit established by Macmillan to serve the academic and STM publishing community, MPS has gone on to become a pioneer in delivering large-scale and complex production projects. The company's acquisition by ADI in 2011 marked its transformation into an agile, client-focused operation with major investments in platform technology and infrastructure. The acquisitions of Electronic Publishing Services, Element, and TSI Evolve soon followed, expanding a company that in March 2015 raised $25 million in growth capital through a qualified institutional placement. More recently, MPS acquired Tata Interactive Systems (including its entities in Germany, India, and Switzerland) and entered the enterprise learning space. "In the last three years, we have developed a thriving platform solutions business that has disrupted the publishing outsourcing market," CEO Rahul Arora says. "We have intentionally developed a separate line of platform solutions that allow us to disrupt from within. So, while our content solutions businessauthoring, development, production, and transformationcontinues to be sought after by clients, it is our emphasis on technology-led thinking and implementation that differentiates us." MPS platforms such as DigiCore (content creation, production, and transformation), Magplus (mobile app production and delivery), and Think360 (content management, delivery, fulfillment, and client management) aim to solve complex publishing problems through intuitive yet deep platform technology. "Our platform business, which grew by 20% last year, represents around 20% of our revenues," says Arora, who wants "MPS to stand for Make Publishing Smarter, and to empower client differentiation and competitiveness through smarter publishing." "Our Vision 2023 is about making publishing transparent and happen in real time while focusing on learning outcomes," Arora says. "And our triple-e core principles and valuesexcellence, empathy, and efficiencywill carry us to this goal." These principles have driven many recent platform implementations. Understanding one nonprofit educational publishing client's needs has enabled the MPS team to deliver a customized version of DigiCore that fully integrates the production process (from author submission and Word-based lessons and chapters to print and platform delivery) using cloud-based solutions, editorial tools, and scalable production services. The comprehensive solution, implemented within six weeks, includes several modules of DigiCore (such as auto-composition tool DigiComp and XML-based review and corrections tool DigiEdit) and integration with third-party services. Meanwhile, the new journals platform for the Royal College of Nursing has been created with the modern nursing professional in mind and is based on the MPS ScholarStor technology. "The mobile experience is significantly enhanced through adaptive design to ensure that the latest developments and best-practice guidance are easily available on any device," Arora says. "Users can now access journal content ahead of print, as well as advanced article metrics, which include usage, captures, mentions in news articles or blog posts, social media interactions, and citations. Users can also personalize their experience, select their areas of interest, and choose the frequency of their e-alerts." MPS was also approached by Project Counter, which provides the standards that enable the knowledge community to count the use of electronic resources, to build a cloud-based custom platform for validating report formatting per Counter 5 standards. "Additionally, we developed another custom tool for harvesting consortium reports per the Release 5 code of practice," Arora says, adding that the Counter 4 validation platform, which has been running for the past five years, was also developed and maintained by MPS. Overall, MPS North America is focused on content creation and development for pre-K through higher-ed and adult education markets across all disciplines. "Most recently, we are meeting an increased demand for digital content, both converted and newly created," Arora says. "New and evolving content authoring tools continue to impact the way content is developed and delivered. MPS is a leader in providing content solutions through third-party content authoring tools, such as Gutenberg Technology and Habitat." An increased demand for publishing U.S. content in international markets has seen MPS ramping up its capacity to translate, develop, and produce content in other languages as well as to adapt existing U.S.-centric programs to other markets. In one project, the team enhanced its capacity to translate large volumes of English textbooks into Arabic by developing content production processes that accommodate the language's specialized requirements. "In some cases, deep knowledge of cultural sensitivities aligned with certain geographies is required," Arora says. "It is not just about having the right workflow or the latest automation." It is also not all about work at MPS. Its active CSR programs, on which the company has spent more than $300,000 already this year, include activities that support girls' education, computer education for underprivileged students, mental health care, care for physically challenged children, and remedial education for students with learning disabilities. In opening the 2018 annual meeting of the Association of American Publishers on September 20 in New York City, chairman and Penguin Random House CEO Markus Dohle greeted the roughly 200 attendees by exclaiming, Welcome to the new AAP. Dohle then spent a few minutes reviewing the changes that have taken place at the association over the past 18 months. He explained that when former AAP CEO Tom Allen announced he planned to retire in early 2017, the board felt it was the right time to evaluate where the association stood and what changes needed to be made to keep pace with shifts in publishing and the economy in general. The board settled on two longtime AAP themescopyright protection and the protection of freedom of expressionbut added a new, more aggressive public policy position, through which the AAP plans to advocate about the value of publishing to the culture and to the economy, as well as to more actively support laws and regulations that, according to the AAPs mission statement, incentivize the publication of creative expression, professional content, and learning solutions. To achieve its new goals, the AAP has been refined, Dohle saida process that involved, among other actions, closing its New York City and Philadelphia offices and centering its organization in Washington, D.C. He added that the board has been energized by the early results of the new approach. That approach has been led by Maria Pallante, who was named CEO in January 2017. The shift in focus mandated by the board and executed by Pallante was reflected in the creation of a new AAP award. At this years meeting, the Award for Distinguished Publish Service was given to Doug Collins, a congressman from Georgia and cochair of the Creative Rights Caucus, which was formed to protect the rights of content creators. In presenting the award, Pallante cited Collinss efforts sponsoring policies that respect the value of original works and that distinguish him as someone working to improve the copyright system. The AAPs focus on competing with tech giants was seen in the presentation by Benjamin Marks of Weil Gothsal & Manges, which was titled, Competition and Consumer Protection: What Regulators Are Asking About Big Tech and What It Means for Publishing. He spoke against the backdrop of government hearings being conducted to review antitrust laws and other consumer protection regulations. Marks noted that, under current antitrust laws, regulators are mostly concerned with protecting competition, not competitors, adding that they see nothing wrong with a new company offering products at lower prices, which has the effect of knocking out competitors. But with the new populist sentiment, he said, regulators are considering looking beyond pricing to examine such issues as whether the existence of some mammoth tech companies reduces consumer choice. Marks said that it is reasonable to investigate whether certain technology platforms skew consumer choices, adding that it is only natural to ask whether Amazon favors the products of its publishing division and movie studio over those of competitors. He noted that the current hearings are a golden opportunity for publishers to bring what they see as anticompetitive behavior to the attention of regulators. He also said that the hearings present a chance for publishers to show that, in an era of widespread misinformation, they play an important role in the delivery of credible information. AAPs ongoing commitment to free speech was reflected in the presentation of its 16th International Freedom to Publish/Jeri Laber Award. Freedom to Publish chair Geoff Shandler said the need for the award persists as publishers are threatened in numerous parts of the world. This years award went to Azadeh Parsapour, the publisher of Nogaam Publishing. A native of Iran, Parsapour operates her digital publishing company from London, where she produces a range of books for readers back home that likely would be banned or censored there. Parsapour delivered her acceptance speech in a recorded video, since, being an Iranian citizen, she was prevented by Homeland Security from entering the U.S. On September 23, the Croatian author Dubravka Ugresic read in Rochester, N.Y., as part of a fund-raiser for Open Letter Books, the translation-focused nonprofit publishing house based at the University of Rochester. The choice of Ugresic as a speaker was deliberate: Nobodys Home, one of her collections of essays, was the inaugural title by the press, first appearing in bookstores in 2008 in a handsome paper-over-board edition. A decade later, Open Letter has published 103 books from 44 countries and 26 languages. That Ugresic, who had been published by Dalkey Archive, would take the risk 10 years ago to move to the then-fledgling publishing house is entirely the result of her loyalty to Chad Post, the publisher of Open Letter. Anyone who has worked with Post cannot help but note his unflagging energy. More than a year before Open Letters first books were published, he launched the website Three Percent (an allusion to the approximate portion of American trade books that are translations), and it quickly established itself as the go-to online resource for anyone interested in translated literature. He then built, and still maintains, a database that tracks translations published in the U.S. (now administered by Publishers Weekly); created the Best Translated Book Award for fiction and poetry; and started the Three Percent podcast, which has run continuously for eight years and is nearing its 150th episode. As part of his responsibilities to the University of Rochester, he also teaches classes on literary translation and world literature. Coinciding with Open Letter Books 10th anniversary, Post is being honored with the 2018 Words Without Borders Ottaway Award for the Promotion of International Literature. It will be presented by Will Evans, founder of Deep Vellum Books in Dallas, at the Words Without Borders 15th Anniversary Gala on October 30 in New York City. Chads true power is that he is both an inspiration and a tireless advocate for literary translation, said Evans, who credits Post with motivating him to start Deep Vellum and calls Post his mentor. He has used his platform to open up the industry to the idea that literary translation really matters, and now he is at the center of how translations get talked about, marketed, and sold. Many others could also credit Post and Open Letter with helping them get started in publishing. Among those are translators, such as NEA fellowship recipient Will Vanderhyden; agents, such as Allie Levick, an assistant at Writers House Literary Agency; and editors, such as Kaija Straumanis, Open Letters editorial director. When asked to reflect on what winning the prize meant to him, Post demurred, opting instead to praise the authors and translators who helped put the press on the international map. He called out Ugresic again, and in particular her book Karaoke Culture, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism and was the first Open Letter title nominated for a major book award. He also pointed to Merce Rodoreda and her book Death in Spring, which was the first of five Rodoreda books Open Letter contracted, and the first of the presss titles to go into multiple print runs. Another key author he mentioned is Rodrigo Fresan, whose The Bottom of the Sky was the 100th book Open Letter published, and whose previous book, The Invented Part, was a critical and commercial success. Looking back over his career, Post said, It all started at Quail Ridge Books [in Raleigh, N.C.], where I was a bookseller who fell in love with the work of Argentine author Julio Cortazar, and they allowed me to do my own section of translated books. Then, there were my several years at Dalkey Archive, and now a decade at Open Letter. Post added that his only mission in publishingwhether hes running a house, mentoring, blogging, or podcastinghas been to get more people to appreciate the scope of global literature. Ive been consistent in my message: There is a whole world out there. You need to pay more attention to it! One topic in religion and sexual ethics hasnt been addressed much: the ways womens sexuality has been suppressed and distorted by religions. Books on the topic include Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement that Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free (Touchstone, out now), Linda Kay Kleins account of growing up in the purity movement of the 1990s, which taught that a girls sexual purity was the most important thing about her and proved her good standing as a Christian. It also taught that women are responsible for mens sexual urges: if a girl inspired lustthrough her dress, behavior, or mere presenceshe was a stumbling block, an obstacle to a Christian mans relationship with God. Klein interviewed other women who had absorbed those teachings as girls, and she found that they had been harmed in the same way she had been and were haunted by sexual and gender-based anxiety, fear, and physical experiences that sometimes mimic the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, she writes. Pastor and author Nadia Bolz-Weber calls for a new liberation movement in Shameless: A Sexual Reformation (Crown, Jan. 2019), writing that Christians must reject antiquated and harmful ideas about sex, gender, and their bodies. She illustrates her argument with stories from her own life and her parishioners, then digs into what the Bible really says versus what churches have taught about sex. Bolz-Weber tackles patriarchy and power in the church and shows how they have distorted sex. In Shameless, she circles back to what she calls the heart of Christianity: The Gospel is powerful enough, transgressive enough, and beautiful enough to heal not only the ones who have been hurt but also those who have done the hurting. Sex features prominently in Jessica Wilbankss memoir, When I Spoke in Tongues: A Story of Faith and Its Loss (Beacon, Oct.). Wilbanks was raised in poverty in the backwoods of southern Maryland, and her familys lives revolved around their Pentecostal church. When her parents discovered she had kissed her friend Sophie during a sleepover, everything changed, she writes. My mother was shocked and sad.... [But my father] had tasted more of what the world had to offer than my mother had. He wasnt surprised that I had said yes to cigarettes and alcohol, warm arms and lips, female or male. But they both rejected the idea that I was intrinsically bad. Instead they had decided that evil had gotten into me and jumped under my skin. This unnatural sexual urge that I had was a virus, a pollutant. It went without saying that I would never be allowed to spend time with Sophie again. At 16, Jessica walked away from the church, alienating her deeply religious family. Wilbanks is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and was selected as a finalist for the PEN Center USA Literary Award for Journalism. In Girl Boner: The Good Girls Guide to Sexual Empowerment (Amberjack, out now), August McLaughlin counters negative messages about sex, including those that come from religions. She writes, If you were raised with religion, you might have learned any of the following myths, and then some.... Sex and pleasure are strictly or mostly for guys; preserving your virginity as a young woman is essential for an honorable, moral, and worthy future; masturbating is sinful (but guys cant help it); a womans body is best hidden, to prevent uncontrollable sexual urges in men; gayness, or acting on gayness, is wrong, unnatural, and hellworthy. She adds, Sexual shame related to religion is not only worth addressing, but fully surmountable. And the rewards can be dang near miraculous. Its a common question in our constantly evolving digital world: are publishers adapting quickly enough? Yet through a decade of rapid technological change, a global recession, and ever-shifting consumer expectations, the global book business has shown its resilience. And one needs look no further than the Frankfurt Book Fair for an example of the industrys strength. Our industry is very volatile on the one hand, but on the other hand, if you look into the numbers worldwide, its one of the most stable industries you can speak of, says Juergen Boos, president and CEO of the Frankfurt Book Fair. And I think Frankfurt reflects this. Book publishing is, of course, a mature business in some parts of the world, including Europe and the U.S. But globally, Boos points out, there is strong growth in a number of emerging marketsparticularly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. And that growth is fueling an era of international expansion for the Frankfurt Book Fair. At Frankfurt, over the past 10 years, we went from 60% German exhibitors, 40% international to the other way around, Boos says. We now have more international exhibitors than we do German-language exhibitorsits like 65% to 35%. And along with that international business comes an equally important opportunity: to showcase more talent, stories, and cultures from around the worldsomething fair organizers are always working to encourage. It is very important to listen to other voices, Boos adds, and I think we must invest as an industry to make these voices accessible. Of course, Boos acknowledges that today such a global approach necessarily steers toward some political questionsquestions he says Frankfurt organizers will not shy away from. I think its necessary, given the role Frankfurt plays not only in our industry but in society, he says. Freedom to publish and freedom of speech are really the backbone of Frankfurt. And Frankfurt being the mother of all book fairs, its the most prominent place to discuss a lot of these issues. Indeed, last year, with nationalist movements on the rise in Europe, French president Emmanuel Macron joined German president Angela Merkel at the fair, and the two leaders spoke of a Europe unitedrather than dividedby culture. Macron told fairgoers that books and literature are vitaleven when the ideas expressed make us uncomfortable. This is what holds us togetherwhat prevents us from closing ourselves off, from giving way to fear, brutality, and disunity, he said. In Merkels remarks, she stressed that freedom of expression goes hand-in-glove with political freedom. Politics will likely loom large again at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2018, including for U.S. publishers. On one hand, theyre concerned about Trumps trade policies and his attacks on the press. On the other hand, sales of political books are booming. Last week, NPD Bookscans Kristen McLean reported that blockbuster nonfiction titles have led to growth in print-unit sales through the first half of 2018, with political books posting their highest sales volume in 15 years. U.S. adult fiction print-unit sales, however, are down 4%, and over the past three years have declined roughly 11%. This years fair again features a strong program, and much of it has political overtones. Among the highlights, award-winning Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Americanah) will give the keynote address on October 9 at the fairs opening press conference, which will be set in the new Frankfurt Pavilion, situated at the center of the fairs agora. Later that day, Adichie will be in London, where she will be honored with the PEN Pinter Prize, given annually to a writer who strives to define the real truth of our lives and our societies. And on the fairs opening day, October 10, the annual CEO talk will feature Macmillan CEO John Sargent, who in January made headlines for defying Trumps effort to stop publication of Michael Wolffs Fire and Fury. Of course, the lifeblood of the Frankfurt Book Fair is the rights trade. And this year, the LitAg, where agents and scouts conduct their business, will once again grow, featuring 528 tables, up from 500 last year, with 358 agencies from around the world. The traditional rights business is growing, and on top of that we are seeing a lot of licensing and merchandising activities, Boos says. We believe this is not going to stop. For details on specific programs, check out the Frankfurt Book Fair website. You can follow all the action from Frankfurt through PWs Frankfurt Show Daily, available in print at the show, as well as on the PW website. The Big Titles U.S. Agencies Will Be Selling at the 2018 Frankfurt Book Fair From the outside, it is easy to make the wrong assumption about Canadian publishing. Yes, there are two very different publishing scenes in Canada: French language and English language. And, yes, one is much bigger than the other, publishing more books domestically and both publishing and selling more books abroad. Many will be surprised to learn that its Quebec and Francophone Canadawith a population of just eight millionthat boasts the bigger publishing industry, not English-speaking Canada, which accounts for 29 million people. This was once a surprise to me, too. I left Ireland and came to live in Quebec City in 2003. Aside from the odd mention of an interesting-sounding book on the radio, the Quebec publishing world more or less passed me by. Id read Salut Galarneau! as part of a French literature degree, and that was all I knew. Until Eric Duponts Bestiaire came out in 2007, that is. I was hooked. This, I thought, is a book for me; this is a book I have to translate. A new career was born, first as a literary translator, then as a blogger for my Quebec Reads blog, and now as editor of QC Fiction, a new imprint of the best of contemporary writing in translation from Quebec. To my mind at least, Nicolas Dickners Nikolski marks a watershed moment for Quebec literature. Published in French by Alto in 2005 and then in Lazer Lederhendlers English translation for Vintage/Random House of Canada in 2008, this book set the standard for a new generation of Quebec writers whose work was suddenly fun and invigorating and no longer drew lazy, knee-jerk comparisons to Gabrielle Roys The Tin Flute and Hugh MacLennans Two Solitudes. To schoolchildren across Canada, for whom reading a translation from Quebec was akin to being told to eat their vegetables, suddenly Quebec lit was exciting. Theres hope for literature! Pierre Cayouette proclaimed at the time in Lactualite magazine. The English translation of Nikolski duly won Canada Reads (the Canadian Broadcasting Corporations battle of the books) in 2010. Published by Portobello in the United Kingdom in 2009, it opened a world of opportunities to a slew of young and dynamic storytellers from la belle province. Today, Quebec writers are being published with a different set of expectations: strong sales in Quebec, if all goes well, will be followed by recognition in the rest of Canada (maybe a Governor Generals Award for translation), a rights deal with a household name in France, and translations into German, Turkish, Chinese. The skys the limit! The reason foror perhaps the result ofthis international approach is that, increasingly, Quebec writing is from Quebec but not necessarily about Quebec. Cessez de manger vos emotions by Isabelle Huot and Catherine Senecal (Les Editions de lHomme) is a typical example: strong sales in Quebec, rights sold in France, English Canada, and Italy. It all seems so international, and it is. Quebec writers and publishers are regulars at the leading book fairs around the world. And with Canadas presence as guest of honor at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2020, Quebec fiction, poetry, how-to books, and graphic novels are ready to find new readersbecause quality writing, savvy marketing, and decades of experience have ensured that publishing in Quebec is about bringing fresh new writing to the world. Originally from Ireland, Peter McCambridge holds a BA in modern languages from Cambridge University, England, and has lived in Quebec City since 2003. He runs Quebec Reads and now QC Fiction, a new imprint of Quebec fiction in translation that has been publishing since 2016. Todays Quebec Writing Is Bold, Intimate, And Borderless A Cornucopia of Childrens Books Middle Grade and YA Lit from Quebec Fearless Nonfiction New Frontiers of Crime Fiction Health, How-to, And Happiness In Other Words Quebec City: A Literary Getaway Crossing Borders with Quebec Edition Across the Invisible Frontier: Heather ONeill and Kim Thuy Good Times for English-Language Publishing Quebec publishers and authors are confident looking abroad, searching less for reassurances and acknowledgment from the rest of the world than for new international outlets to share all they have to say. Traveling to foreign rights fairs, whether in London, New York, or Paris, is now routine, and with Canada gearing up to be guest of honor at Frankfurt 2020, Quebec is ready to take its place on the global stage. The Chainsaw School What sets Quebec authors apart is their willingness to take chances and do things differently. Some members of the latest wave of writers, those born after 1970, have been characterized by literary commentator Benoit Melancon, with tongue planted firmly in cheek, as the Ecole de la tchenssa, or Chainsaw School, for their concern with themes such as the outdoors and masculinity. Authors belonging to this school are most often associated with publishers Le Quartanier in Montreal and La Peuplade in Saguenay. Perhaps most interesting, these resolutely local authors are, abroad, among the most recognizable names from Quebec. Authors representing this return to Quebecs roots and rural preoccupations include Samuel Archibald (Arvida, shortlisted for the 2016 Best Translated Book Award); Raymond Bock (Atavisms, published in translation by Dalkey Archive Press); Daniel Grenier (Malgre tout on rit a Saint-Henri, a short story collection, and The Longest Year, a novel published in translation by House of Anansi in 2017); and Genevieve Pettersen (The Goddess of Fireflies, published in translation by Montreals Vehicule Press). Jean-Francois Carons De bois debout (La Peuplade) and Christophe Bernards La bete creuse (Le Quartanier and winner of this years Prix des libraires du Quebec, a major prize awarded by Quebecs booksellers) are two further examples. International Perspectives As popular as Quebec writers are abroad, Quebecs publishers are bringing the world home. From Hugues Corriveaus Liverpool and Patrice Lessards Lisbon to Frederick Lavoies Cuba and Michele Plomers China, there is no shortage of distant places to visit in the pages of Quebec fiction; Maya Ombasics Mostarghia, published by VLB editeur, brings readers to Bosnia and Herzegovina, for example, and is forthcoming in English translation from Biblioasis. Montreals Baraka Books regularly tackles international affairs in books such as Stephen Gowanss Patriots, Traitors, and Empires (about Korea) and Washingtons Long War on Syria. Yannis Tsirbass novella Vic City Express explores contemporary crisis-ridden Greece. The press also brings the best of contemporary Quebec fiction in English translation to an international audience via its new QC Fiction imprint, which focuses on first-time novelists and translators. Linda Leith has published novels about life in Jerusalem (Arabic for Beginners by Ariela Freedman) and China (Shenzheners by acclaimed Chinese-Canadian writer Xue Yiwei), and La Peuplade has recently expanded its focus on Nordic writing to include books by writers from Greenland and Iceland. Vehicule Press, now 45 years old, is another publisher that often turns its attention to global affairs. Dimitri Nasrallah, who heads Vehicules fiction imprint, Esplanade Books, most recently published his novel The Bleeds, which Vehicule describes as an allegory of power and privilege resurrected from the thwarted ideals of the Arab Spring; Nasrallahs first novel, Niko, is an epic tale of life after civil war. Indigenous Writing Encouraged by a drive toward diversity in publishing from the Canada Council for the Arts, publishers are also taking a greater interest in First Nations stories. Esplanade Books published Nirliit by Juliana Leveille-Trudel, the tale of a young woman from Montreal who follows the geese to the Inuit north; Vehicule Press examines the Quebec Inuits fight for their homeland in Wrestling with Colonialism on Steroids by Zebedee Nungak; and Baraka Books published former Nunavut premier Paul Okaliks Lets Move On as well as Carolyn Marie Souaids Yasmeen Haddad Loves Joanasi Maqaittik, the story of a young Syrian-Canadian whose appetite for adventure leads her to a teaching job in the northern Quebec village of Saqijuvik. On the French side, Montreal publisher Memoire dencrier publishes a range of voices, chief among them poets Josephine Bacon and Natasha Kanape Fontaine. Emmanuelle Walters Stolen Sisters (Lux, in English from HarperCollinsCanada) is subtitled The Story of Two Missing Girls, Their Families, and How Canada Has Failed Indigenous Women, and Virginia Pesemapeo-Bordeleaus Ourse bleue (Pleine Lune) is forthcoming in English from Inanna Publications in 2019. Les Editions du Septentrion has no fewer than 86 First Nations titles on its list. Good Times Ahead All of this adds up to exciting times for Quebec writing. In 2017, sales at independent bookstores grew by 6.9%, boosted at least in part by an annual indie bookstore day thats now in its third year and by sales at leslibraires.ca, an online bookstore that offers Quebec readers an alternative to ordering from the internet giants. The site saw a 58% increase in online orders for paperbacks between April 2017 and March 2018. Book fairs are also attracting audiences. These include a salon du livre series that reaches readers all the way to Abitibi-Temiscamingue and tiny Cap-Saint-Ignace, as well as more fringe offerings at Montreals Blue Metropolis and Expozine, Quebec Citys ImagiNation festival, the Montreal Comic Arts Festival, and the Montreal Anarchist Bookfair. Pick up a quiche or a locally made organic soda from the bistro at Montreals Grande Bibliotheque or visit Chez lEditeur, a literary coffee shop belonging to Montreal publisher Quebec Amerique that has become a cultural gathering placeanother example of Quebec trying new things and reaping the benefits. For bookseller Billy Robinson, theres ample reason for optimism. Local writers and publishers dont think twice about publishing surprising books that reflect our everyday experiences and preoccupations, he says. With young authors like Antoine Charbonneau-Demers, David Goudreault, Christian Guay-Poliquin, Mikella Nicol, and Olivier Sylvestre, our future is in good hands. Return to the main feature. ece-auto-gen The forest guards, as part of efforts to clampdown on the destruction of forest reserves yesterday apprehended Emmanuel Mensah, 26 Rashid Alhassan, 50, Zule Ali, 45 and Emmanuel Owusu, 23. They were caught pants down mining gold in the heart of the forest reserve between Akwadum and Potroase within the enclaves of river Pang and Ominatwi. READ ALSO: undefined ece-auto-gen The Kyebi range manager of the forestry service department, Jones Agyei Kumi says the illegal miners have cumulatively destroyed 15 hectares of the forest reserve. He explains that the two rivers polluted by the illegal miners drain into river Densu which provides water for about 5 million Ghanaians for both domestic and agricultural uses. ece-auto-gen All the eight suspects are Ghanaians who hail from Akim Oda and Prankese in the eastern region. READ MORE: Five arrested after Wassa robbery attack The deceased was in a temporary accommodation with three other Chinese nationals when the incident happened. The robbers, according to the police, ransacked their room and made away with Gh45,000 and mobile phone. Wassa Akropong Police Commander, Superintendent Bright Boafo Kwabena, has told Accra-based Citi FM that investigations have commenced into the incident. He explained: This morning around 2:30am they saw about 4 armed men approach their accommodation so one of the them, Lhun Mann, who is now deceased, he approached the men who gave a warning shot, then the 4 men gunned down the man. "The 4 men entered their rooms and ransacked the room and according to the other three surviving Chinese, the armed men made away with Gh45,000 and mobile phone. We went to the village about 2 or 3 hours journey from Wassa Akropong. We started the investigation and we picked the body to the Wassa Akropong morgue, and from the little investigation we made, they were about to start mining because they are not doing any other work there. READ MORE: 5 gold robbers nabbed by the police One of the victims died while boarding the aircraft, the second person passed on after observing the rituals in Mecca while the third pilgrim died at a medical facility. Sheik Quaye described their death as natural which he said was a blessing to their souls according to the principles and beliefs of Islam, while explaining the circumstances that led to their death. In all, a total of 5,700 Ghanaian pilgrims performed this years Hajj, he disclosed. READ MORE: 1st batch of Hajj pilgrims to return on September 6 Shikh Quaye described this years Hajj pilgrimage as one of the best organised. The group claim the recipients account was Chief of Staffs Sundries Account No. 1, with account number 1018631473188 at the Bank of Ghana (BoG), and the alleged illegal transfers were done from August 2015 until early January 2017 when then ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) handed over to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) after the December 7, 2016 general election. Accra-based Citi FM, citing unnamed sources, reports that the request has been turned down because the matter in question is already being investigated by another state institution. A Mackenzie Basin farmer says employee numbers have been in the decline for years, and such a labour shortage needs to be addressed. Paddy Boyd, manager of Haldon Station in the Mackenzie Basin, says employee numbers started to decline five or six years ago. "I think it goes right back to the education stage," Mr Boyd said. He told RadioLIVE that five or six years ago, many workers were discouraged from entering the primary sector because theres no future in agriculture. The reality is that there is a huge future for the rural sector, but Mr Boyd says the right message just needs to get out there. "Let people know, explain to them, show them that there is an opportunity out there." Mr Boyd also believes industry groups are absolutely not doing enough to help with the shortage either. For the past few years, the National Party agricultural spokesperson Nathan Guy has said the value of New Zealand's primary sector exports needs to double by 2025. To get there, Mr Guy estimated that rural New Zealand would need 50,000 additional workers. Listen to the full interview with Paddy Boyd above. Rural Exchange with Hamish McKay, Sarah Perriam and Richard Loe, 5-7am Saturday and Sunday on RadioLIVE with Carters Tyre Service. Click here for all the ways to watch and listen. RadioLIVE. Produced by Francois Odendaal Productions (FOP Films) for South African public broadcaster SABC, the 26 x 30 Siyaya: Come Wild With Us is an adventure series for kids, set in and around South Africas national parks. In each episode, young adventurers, many from disadvantaged backgrounds, explore caves, run wild rivers, abseil down cliffs and encounter nature at its wildest and most wonderful.Scorpion has also secured the rights to the latest in FOP Films Siyaya series: Wildest Cape (13 x 30) where teams of explorers take on a series of white-knuckle challenges, including jumping into cauldrons of white water, scaling cliffs and hanging on ropes between heaven and earth. It has just aired on SABC and will launch internationally at MIPCOM.The London-based distributor has closed a slew of deals for its wildlife-themed series to broadcasters across the globe. The NGC deal follows on the heels of recent sales to UK VOD platform Azoomee, Germanys RTL Disney, Polands iTVN and South Africas Mindset TV. Scorpion is now working with FOP Films to extend the Siyaya franchise and is actively seeking co-productions with local broadcasters, in order to help children from around the world to experience, enjoy and appreciate the nature and wildlife in Africa.Commenting on the deal, David Cornwall, CEO and founder of Scorpion TV, said: FOP Films is unrivalled when it comes to producing natural-history content that is visually stunning, commercially rewarding and makes a real difference to young peoples understanding of wildlife and nature. Thanks to its vast network of scientists, researchers, national-park wardens and environmentalists, its production team has access to locations that are not only surprising, exciting and different, but generally inaccessible to film crews. In a world with a voracious appetite for thoughtful, beautifully made natural-history programming, the Siyaya docs are a sure bet. Panasonic has selected ACCESS COs NetFront Browser BE v2 DTV Profile for its DIGA Blu-ray disc recorder with built-in 4K tuner (DMR-SUZ2060). The DMR-SUZ2060 can be used to view and record new 4K satellite broadcasts and can copy programmes to Blu-ray discs, making it a convenient way for users to archive 4K programmes. The BE DTV Profile is a HTML5 browser for high-end devices; it provides data-broadcast services for traditional TV formats as well as OTT, along with closed-captioning functions. Panasonic plans to release DMR-SUZ2060 with NetFront Browser in November to the Japanese market.The latest version, v2, supports the specifications of Japans new 4K/8K satellite broadcasting that will go into service in December 2018, including multimedia services (ARIB-HTML5), subtitle and closed captions (ARIB-TTML, ARIB STD-B62/TR-B39). It provides a viewing environment for broadcasting services, offering resolution and realism that are four times higher and greater than those of full high-definition television. Editor's Note: This article was first published at ScienceNordic. In the year 536 CE, a volcano erupted in El Salvador. What happened next is fiercely debated, but one hypothesis is that it lead to an extensive but short-lived climate change that was felt across the northern hemisphere. In Northern Europe it was felt as a string of poor summers and failed harvests. Numerous Roman sources describe the sun as dark during the day and according to the 6th century Syriac Chronical written by the Zachariah of Mitylene from Greece, there was great despair among the people. Ice cores from Greenland pinpoint the year of the eruption to 536 CE, right in the middle of all the gold treasure discovered by amateur archaeologists in fields throughout Scandinavia. The most recent discovery was made by a pair of metal detectorists and amateur archaeologists in a field on the Danish island of Hjarn, in Horsens Fjord. It was a spectacular discovery and an expensive one, containing more than 34 objects, 27 of which are pure gold. Forgotten treasure or a gift for the gods? Amateur archaeologist, Terese Refsgaard, alerted us to the discovery at Vejle Museums, in accordance with Danish law. And one of our first questions was whether the objects were buried together as treasure to be hidden, or whether it was intended as an offering to the gods. Treasure is buried in a hurry to hide it during times of threat or during a turbulent situation, and is often intended to be collected again once the threat has passed. But an offering is intended to remain buried as a gift to the gods. Sacrifices often contain a certain combination of objects, probably so that they can be used later on in Valhalla, as described in the Ynglinga saga. There are many indications that the recent Hjarn discovery was such an offering. It contains womens jewellery, gold beads, and bracteatesthin gold discs with a small eyelet worn by women on a string or chain around their neck. They must have belonged to a rich woman of high social status. It also contained numerous small gold pieces that would have been used as a form of payment. Read More: Vikings versus Iron Age: Who made the best swords? Subsequent excavation revealed more than double the amount of Iron Age gold The next question to answer was whether any more gold was hidden at the site? So, in late summer 2018, we started to excavate at the site of the Refsgaards discovery, which was recorded by GPS. We slowly revealed the fine layers of earth and passed metal detectors over the site. We dug down to the subsoil where archaeologists often find post holes and other traces of past life. As we went, we discovered even more goldmore than double the amount originally discovered. This shows just how vulnerable the treasure has been over the years as it was not buried particularly deep. Throughout the following centuries of ploughing its a wonder that it wasnt ploughed away entirely. It just goes to show how quickly relicts from the past can disappear. Read More: Archaeologists uncover remains of a horrifying Iron Age battle in Denmark Perhaps a gift to please the angry gods We could not see that the offering had been buried in a house, as is sometimes the case. So we think that it was a typical offering made in the hope that the gods could help those who buried the treasure through a difficult time. And we know that it dates to the 6th century. Was it intended to appease angry gods and end the poor summers and dark skies following the El Salvador volcanic eruption? Or was it thanks to the ultimate collapse of the Western Roman Empire a few decades earlier, whereby the gold was brought to Denmark by returning new rich aristocrats, who defined a new ritual practice and religion based on the Nordic Gods? We do not know... Read More: The biggest status symbol in the Nordic Iron Age was a goose Chieftains used gold offerings to show off to the gods Regardless of why the offering was made, it was surely buried by a man of high social status, perhaps a chieftain looking to demonstrate his power and influence to the gods. It certainly demonstrated that his wife was powerful enough that she could sacrifice all this gold and probably had more where that came from. In the same way that we today spend money on expensive cars that perhaps cost more than is necessary. In the coming years, Vejle Museums will analyse the objects to discover where the gold came from, how it was made, who brought it to Denmark, and precisely why it was laid in the ground at Hjarn looking out to sea. In the meantime, the gold is on display in Vejle at The Vejle Museums, Museum of Cultural History, from the end of January 2019. Missed Delivery? If missed delivery or wet paper please call our office 909-628-5501 ext 110 Leave a detailed message with name, address, and phone number. Readers must call before 1 p.m. on Saturday. Re-deliveries are available for Chino residents until 1 p.m. Saturdays. Click Here Protectionism is not new as a political placebo. It has long been used to pacify constituencies torn apart by technological change. In its most benign form, it is like a Roman circus of old, distracting the population -- a cheap political trick that when performed appears to have no cost to the constituency. A concept first labeled by Adam Smith and then used by John Maynard Keynes called beggar thy neighbor essentially involves taking a political action that might economically protect your constituency but makes your neighbor poorer. It measures the moment when the political rhetoric of protectionism forces shortsighted political action, passing the cost on to others with no thought of how that cost can ricochet with devastating impact. Yet Donald Trump, with his total lack of any understanding of American or world economic history, has doubled down on this concept to appease his base. There is little doubt that technological change has created severe anxiety in the American workplace. Its impact on the steel industry has served as the red herring for Trumps tariff actions. In the late 1970s, it took 10 workers to make a ton of steel. Today it only takes one. The automobile industry is another sector that Trump uses as a prop for his politically motivated trade war. In 2017, the United States manufactured more than 11.2 million vehicles, about double the quantity of the early 1950s, when there were no imports. Yet those 2017 production numbers were achieved with almost the same number of workers as in 1953, approximately 950,000. The history that President Trump never learned shows that the U.S. automobile industry in its early years also whipped up a technological tsunami of change. Like today, these changes set off political shock waves, forcing Washington to look for a culprit from outside. Washington then engaged in a tariffs game that inevitably resulted in disaster. In the early-to-mid-1920s, the growing of horse feed in the United States, a major part of the American farm economy, was battered by the switch from horse-drawn vehicles to automobiles. It is estimated that one-sixth to one-quarter of all farmland cultivated in the United States before the automobile was dedicated to growing horse feed. With the advent of the automobile, that land was no longer needed for animal feed, and farmers all across the United States planted crops for human consumption on what previously had been oat fields. This naturally caused a severe oversupply of food crops. Prices fell and farm income was drastically reduced, making it difficult for farmers to pay the taxes and bank financing owed on their land. By the late 1920s, approximately 18 percent of American farms were in foreclosure. The farmers at that time and their representatives in government -- in a manner not too dissimilar to advocates of protecting coal or steel today -- pushed for increased tariffs on agricultural imports. Looking at the actual numbers, there was no logical reason to increase agricultural tariffs. Most American farmers faced little competition from agricultural imports. In fact, the opposite was true: Exports accounted for 15 to 17 percent of farm income in 1926-1929. Logical or not, protection against change is the easiest of political sales pitches. It is pure economic populism: The outsider is destroying our economy and must be prevented from doing so. In his campaign for re-election in 1928, President Herbert Hoover promised to help farmers by increasing tariffs on agriculture imports. After his successful re-election, Hoover turned to Congress. Politics being politics, once the bill to raise tariffs on agricultural products was introduced to Congress -- the bill would be known as the Smoot Hawley Tariff Act -- the horse-trading began. Naturally the senators and representatives from non-farm states traded their support for agricultural tariffs by demanding support for higher tariffs on manufactured products. By the time the Smoot Hawley Act was finalized in Congress and sent to Hoover for his signature, it imposed an effective tax rate of 60 percent on more than 3,200 products and materials imported into the United States, quadrupling previous tariff rates on individual items. Smoot Hawleys disastrous impact on the United States and the world was immediate. The press in Belgium, Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland instantly went on the attack. In France, Smoot Hawley was compared to a declaration of war, an economic blockade. In Sweden, the popular press labeled it "the most terrible blow against the economic life of the world," while a newspaper in England compared it to the German attack of 1914. Politically, there was nothing these countries could do to appease their own constituents anger but to adopt their own beggar-thy-neighbor tactics and raise tariffs against U.S. products, in particular against the U.S. auto industry. American autos were an easy target for retaliation, since before Smoot Hawley, American cars made up 54 percent of global trade in motor vehicles. In the category of be careful what you wish for, American farm exports after the passage of Smoot Hawley dropped by a third of their 1929 level by 1933. Retaliation against U.S. cotton as an example was immediate. Three days after the bill became effective, Great Britain prohibited the importation of certain grades of raw apples from the United States, and Argentina imposed restrictions on the importation of American eggs. The severe decline in U.S. agricultural exports made a troubled farm economy much worse. Economists differ over whether the Smoot Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 was one of the main drivers of the Great Depression, or merely an accessory to the crime. But one thing is clear: Technology plus automation equals tariffs is a political formula that always leads to economic disaster. Edward Goldberg is a professor of international political economy at New York Universitys Center for Global Affairs and author of The Joint Ventured Nation: Why America Needs A New Foreign Policy. His next book is Why Globalization Works for America: How Nationalist Trade Policies Will Lead to Ruin Follow him on Twitter @EdwardGoldberg. The views expressed are the author's own. We are weeks away from the 2018 midterm elections, with serious concerns about Russian meddling as American voters go to the polls. We have just watched Russia undertake a massive war game, Vostok 2018. The exercise was Russias largest in the post-Soviet era and was on a scale not seen since 1981, when Leonid Brezhnev led the Soviet Union and a new U.S. president, Ronald Reagan, was just completing his first year in the White House. Russian troops continue to occupy parts of Ukraine and Georgia, and Russia conducts campaigns in Syria even as its bombers continue to buzz the Alaskan coastline. Russias aggressive external actions are rightly capturing the worlds attention. At the same time, Russias internal repression must remain on our radar screens and on Washingtons foreign policy agenda. This wasnt always the case. Before World War Two, non-interference in the sovereign affairs of other countries was a ruling principle in foreign policy. Following Hitlers rise in Germany, a speech in Berlin by U.S. Ambassador William Dodd indirectly criticized Germanys policy toward the Jews. For his intervention Dodd earned a rebuke from his boss in Washington, Undersecretary William Phillips: An ambassador, who is a privileged guest of the country to which he is accredited, should be careful not to give public expression to anything of criticism, because he could lose the goodwill of the officials who are so important to the success of their mission. To the State Department of that time, the priority was to get Germany to pay its debt to U.S. bondholders. No internal human rights issue -- even the incipient genocide of the Jews -- was considered appropriate for a resident ambassador. It wasnt until World War II that we recognized that internal repression went hand-in-hand with external aggression. Ultimately, the concept of human rights as an international concern -- the idea that security among states depends on respect for human rights within states -- became enshrined in the 1975 Helsinki Final Act. With Helsinki, peacetime public defense of fundamental freedoms no longer stopped at the borders edge. For the United States in particular, foreign policy became imbued with our founding principle -- that, in the words of our Declaration, all of us are created equal, endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights. Protecting human rights defenders became a cornerstone of diplomacy after Helsinki, but it would not have been so had it not been embraced by the next two presidents. Jimmy Carter was the first U.S. leader to declare, in 1977, that commitment to human rights is a fundamental tenet of our foreign policy. Carter created the first human rights bureau in the State Department and was the first president to meet with Soviet dissidents like Vladimir Bukovsky. And with a home in the bureaucracy, human rights promotion became central to U.S. foreign policy. The bipartisan nature of this new imperative established itself with the second president in this story: Ronald Reagan made an explicit linkage between progress in respect for human rights, and progress in the bilateral relationship with Moscow. The promotion of fundamental freedoms and the protection of their advocates now occupied a central place in our foreign policy. Presidents may vary in their focus, but human rights promotion has become mainstream in the State Department, and speaking out for those who are persecuted is part of our diplomacy, when the individual is persecuted for expressing views the state does not approve. Consider Oleg Sentsov, a Ukrainian filmmaker who spoke out about Russias unilateral annexation of Crimea. Arrested in 2015, Sentsov was taken to Russia, where he was made a Russian citizen, tried in a Russian military court, convicted of terrorism, and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Even from his cell, Sentsov is fighting for freedom of speech. He has been on a hunger strike since May, calling for the freedom of 64 of his fellow political prisoners. Or take Alexey Pichugin. According to the Memorial Human Rights Center, Russias leading human rights foundation, Pichugin is Russias longest-serving political prisoner. Pichugin has been held by the Kremlin for 15 years on trumped-up charges as part of Putins campaign against Mikhail Khodorkovsky and other leaders of the Yukos oil company. The European Court of Human Rights has issued two judgments calling his conviction and imprisonment contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights. There is a straight line from internal human rights abuses to gross violations of sovereignty. States that do not respect equal justice before the law have no qualms invading their neighbors or using weapons of mass destruction to murder their opponents overseas. That is why -- in Russia as in any autocratic regime -- the plight of each individual prisoner of conscience is our concern as well. By fighting for them, we are fighting for our own security, and for their freedom as well as our own. Former Ambassador to Georgia Ian Kelly served as U.S. Representative to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and in a range of senior positions at the Department of State, including director of the Office of Russian Affairs. This oped is based on his comments at the Oslo Freedom Forum in New York City. The views expressed are the author's own. Find a great selection of commercial real estate, manufactured homes, timeshares and more for Sale Buy real estate. Find a great selection of commercial real estate, manufactured homes, timeshares and more for Sale in US and Canada. Search Real Estate , We're sorry, this article is not currently available The news desk has compiled a list of events going on throughout the upcoming week that are open to Athenians and University of Georgia students. While the directorship change in the LGBT Resource Center has taken longer than most would have liked, Dawn D. Bennett-Alexander reminds us of UGA's dedication to diversity behind finding the next best leaders in the center. TORRINGTON Concrete barriers and a new dead end sign now greet drivers who turn down St. Johns Place. The Torrington Police Department posted a traffic advisory on its Facebook page Wednesday, alerting motorists of the closure. Entrance and exit to St. John Place can only be made from East Main Street, the alert stated. The narrow road has been used for the last few years by residents as a shortcut to City Hall Avenue, according to city officials. The route took them through the privately-owned parking lot of the Warner Theater. The amount of traffic... has increased significantly, wrote Mayor Elinor Carbone in an email Friday. She noted that preschool programs are being held in the former St. Peters School, which borders St. Johns Place. Carbone wrote that there had been a number of near misses between cars using the short cut and patrons of the Warner Theater and children at the school. There were barriers at the end of the road until St. Peters School closed, Carbone noted. The barriers were then removed, and drivers began using it as a pass through, she wrote. To inform motorists of the return of the barriers and that the road was again categorized as a dead end, Traffic Officer Steven Pisarski said he recently installed a new sign. It is posted at the entrance to the road from East Main Street. More for you Torrington to receive infrastructure grant The street was a dead end and it has to be properly marked, Pisarski said. We have all been witness to to traffic traveling through the parking lot at excessive speed, Carbone wrote. (Drivers are) not cognizant of the fact that they were in a private parking lot. Rohingya refugees from Myanmar pray during a ceremony marking the first anniversary of a military crackdown that prompted a mass exodus of people from Myanmar to Bangladesh, at the Kutupalong refugee camp in Ukhia subdistrict of Cox's Bazar in southeastern Bangladesh, Aug. 25, 2018. Politicians in Myanmar on Friday rejected international pressure to hold the countrys powerful military accountable for a brutal crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim minority group. The government of Aung San Sui Kyi has faced mounting pressure over the 2017 campaign that pushed more than 700,000 members of the Muslim minority group to Bangladesh. The Rohingya were also subjected to indiscriminate killings, rape, and torture, and their villages were burned during a campaign of violence that began on Aug. 25, 2017, in northern Rakhine state in response to deadly attacks on police outposts by a Rohingya militant group. The latest international figure to call for Myanmar leaders to take action against top military brass that ordered the crackdown was British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt. What is essential now is that the perpetrators of any atrocities are brought to justice, because without that there can be no solution to the huge refugee problem, Hunt said in a statement issued Thursday. We will use all the tools at our disposal to try and make sure there is accountability. That day, Hunt wrapped up a two-day visit to Myanmar during which he met State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint and toured northern Rakhine to meet with different groups who live in the multiethnic state. Hunts appeal was rebuffed by politicians across the spectrum in Myanmar. Zaw Htay, spokesman for Aung San Suu Kyi, suggested that foreign delegates who visit Myanmar put trade above the Rakhine issue, because the countrys political situation will become more stable if there is a strong economy, and vice versa. Now the government has to spend a lot of time and energy only on this Rakhine issue, he said. For example, whenever we have an international delegation, they raise the Rakhine issue first followed by other important topics such as developing international ties and then trade. Request is 'unacceptable' Nandar Hla Myint, spokesman of the opposition, army-supported Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), said Hunts request that the government prosecute top military leaders is unacceptable. Right now, the international community has pressured us to prosecute our military leaders, he said. It is the international community that is flagrantly interfering in our domestic issues, and we cant accept it. It is important to resolve this problem without hurting the country, the people, and the countrys stability and development, he told RFAs Myanmar Service. The government shouldnt do something whenever it faces international pressure, he said. Nandar Hla Myint dismissed the Rohingya as people from the other country who cross the border illegally and live in our country, underlining the prevailing hard-line view of the ethnic group as Bengali immigrants from Bangladesh. Myo Nyunt, spokesman of the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) party, said that Myanmar's constitution does not allow the government to prosecute top military leaders, as Hunt requested. The constitution says the military can determine and act independently on military matters, he said about the charter drafted in 2008 by a former military junta that ruled the government at the time. It means that the military acted [in Rakhine] according to its constitutional rights, so it would be difficult for the government to take action against it, he said. It will take time Hunts visit came just after a United Nations-mandated fact-finding mission that investigated atrocities committed against the Rohingya in Rakhine state issued a comprehensive report on Tuesday, providing chilling details of violence by security forces and calling for the prosecution of defense force commanders as well as the removal of the countrys military from politics. The mission also called for Myanmar commander-in-chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and other top leaders to be prosecuted for genocide. That same day, the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) opened a preliminary probe into whether Myanmars forced deportations of Rohingya to Bangladesh can constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity. The ICC decided earlier this month that it has jurisdiction over the alleged crime of deportation because Bangladesh is a member of the international tribunal though Myanmar is not. Tun Khin, chairman of Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK, suggested that the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) be used as another way prosecute military commanders responsible for the atrocities. The U.N. General Assembly set up the IIIM in December 2016 to assist in the investigation and prosecution of those responsible for committing the most serious crimes in Syria under international law. But it will take time, he said. If we have international support, we can do it quickly. Kachin group weighs in Meanwhile, the World Kachin Congress on Friday welcomed both the ICC probe and the U.N. fact-finding missions report on evidence of genocide against the Rohingya as well as crimes against humanity committed against ethnic minorities in Myanmar's Shan and Kachin states. Fighting between ethnic armed groups and the Myanmar military in the latter two states has displaced roughly 110,000 civilians, many of whom have been unable to return to their homes as the conflicts continue. Rights groups have accused Myanmar authorities of denying humanitarian access to displaced people in the regions. Moon Nay Li, general secretary of the Kachin Women's Association of Thailand, told RFA that Kachin civilians in Myanmar have suffered greatly at the hands of the military for decades. It is important for the military to stop offensive attacks and remove its camps from ethnic areas, she said. If they do this, then we can build more trust when we have peace talks and it will support having the federal union that we want. Reported by Khin Khin Ei, Wai Mar Tun, and Kyaw Lwin Oo for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denounced the "awful abuses" of Muslim Uyghurs detained in Chinese reeducation camps and criticized what he said was a government crackdown on Christians in the country. The comments on September 21 come after a recent UN report assailed Chinas mass internment of Uyghurs under the pretext of preventing extremism in the western Xinjiang region. "Hundreds of thousands and possibly millions of Uyghurs are held against their will in so-called reeducation camps where they're forced to endure severe political indoctrination and other awful abuses," Pompeo said in a speech on religious freedom. Republican and Democratic members of Congress late last month called for sanctions on Chinese officials implicated in the internment of the minority. Pompeo did not say whether the United States would move toward imposing such sanctions. On September 10, New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said China was carrying out a mass, systematic campaign of human rights violations against its mostly Muslim Uyghur minority population. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman accused HRW of being "full of prejudice" against China and of distorting facts. He said measures in Xinjiang aim to "promote stability, development, unity, and livelihoods," while also cracking down on "ethnic separatism and violent terrorist criminal activities." In his speech, Pompeo also expressed concerns about the fate of Christians in China, who he said had been subject to a government crackdown. He said Beijing has been "closing churches, burning Bibles, and ordering followers to sign papers renouncing their faith." Based on reporting by AFP China has summoned the U.S. ambassador in Beijing to lodge a formal protest after Washington hit a Chinese military organization with sanctions over its purchases of Russian missiles and fighter jets. In a September 22 statement, the Chinese Foreign Ministry called the U.S. sanctions against China's Equipment Development Department, and its top administrator, a "serious violation of the basic principles of international law." The statement, which came a day after Beijing called on Washington to cancel the sanctions or "bear the consequences," said the United States has "no right to interfere" with Chinese-Russian military cooperation. It said Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang summoned U.S. Ambassador Terry Branstad to protest the punitive measures over the Chinese entity's recent purchase of Russian Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets and S-400 surface-to-air missile systems. The sanctions were imposed under a 2017 U.S. law known as CAATSA that Congress overwhelming passed over the objections of President Donald Trump. The law has set up a broad framework to punish Russia for what Washington calls Moscows "malign activities." The U.S. State Department said that the sanctions announced September 20, which also targeted nearly three dozen Russian individuals and companies with ties to military and intelligence agencies, "are not intended to undermine the military capabilities or combat readiness of any country." Instead, their aim is "to impose costs on Russia in response to its interference in the United States election process, its unacceptable behavior in eastern Ukraine, and other malign activities," the State Department said. With reporting by AFP Liviu Dragnea has easily defeated an internal move to oust him as leader of Romanias ruling Social Democratic Party (PSD) after three high-ranking members of the party had called on him to resign because of his previous criminal conviction. The 55-year-old Dragnea on September 21 won a vote of the partys executive committee by a margin of 55-8 after an eight-hour meeting. "My colleagues from many departments have asked me not to quit my positions," Dragnea said after the meeting. The vote came after top politicians in the PSD on September 19 called on the party leader to step down over criminal corruption convictions and party-related violations. The call to resign was delivered in a letter to Dragnea and was signed by three prominent members of the PSD -- Deputy Premier Paul Stanescu, lawmaker Adrian Tutuianu, and Bucharest Mayor Gabriela Firea. The letter said Dragneas previous convictions for abuse of power left the party vulnerable in upcoming elections. Dragnea, considered by many as Romanias most-powerful politician, was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison by the Supreme Court after his 2016 conviction and he was barred from running for prime minister. But the sentence has been suspended pending an appeal, and critics have alleged that the SPD has begun decriminalizing several corruption offenses in what some say is a campaign to save Dragnea from going to jail. The governments actions -- which critics say are hindering efforts to crack down on rampant corruption -- have led to massive street protests over the past two years. In a rally on August 10, some 450 protesters required medical assistance after riot police used water cannons and tear gas against an estimated 100,000 mostly peaceful protesters in a display of violence unseen in Romania since the early 1990s. The European Union condemned the crackdown, but Prime Minister Viorica Dancila asserted that authorities acted legally in their efforts to defend government offices from protesters who tried to break through police lines. Based on reporting by AFP, AP, and Reuters Seven Pakistani soldiers and nine militants have been killed in a firefight in the mountains of North Waziristan near the Afghan border, the military says. The seven soldiers, who included a captain, were killed in an "intense exchange of fire" after they raided militant hideouts near the Gharlamai and Spera Kunar Algad areas, the Pakistani Army's media wing said in a statement late on September 22. It said nine militants were also killed in the battle and that the areas were now cleared by the army. The report, which could not be independently confirmed, said the militants had infiltrated Pakistan by crossing the border from Afghanistan. North Waziristan has long been a sanctuary for the Pakistani Taliban and other militant groups. Islamic militants had a substantial number of sanctuaries in North Waziristan until a 2014 Pakistani Army offensive, after which most militants escaped to Afghanistan. Pakistan has come under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump, who has accused Islamabad of providing militants a safe haven in the country before and after carrying out attacks on U.S. and other forces in Afghanistan. Washington has held back hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid, citing Pakistans lack of action against terrorists. Pakistan rejects allegations it is not doing enough to fight terrorism and that it provides safe havens for militants operating in Afghanistan. In southwestern Pakistan, gunmen early on September 23 attacked a base camp manned by a pro-government militia, killing four of its members, an official said. Assistant Administrator Ali Mohammad said the attack took place in the Dasht-e Goran area of Balochistan. No group has claimed responsibility. Resource-rich Balochistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran, has been plagued by sectarian violence, Islamist militant attacks, and a separatist insurgency that has led to thousands of casualties since 2004. With reporting by AP, dpa, and AFP Pope Francis made a plea for tolerance to Lithuanians as he began a visit to the Baltic states, warning against political forces that would seek to eliminate other cultures. The remarks by Francis in Vilnius on September 22 came on the first day of his four-day visit to Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia as they mark their 100th anniversary of independence this year. Francis called on Lithuania, a predominately Catholic country, to use its decades of occupation by the Soviets and the Nazis as a basis for battling intolerance in the world. "Look at the world in which we are living, in which the voices that sow division and confrontation are becoming ever louder," he said. Speaking outside the presidential palace in Vilnius, Francis said political forces in the world are "proclaiming that the only way possible to guarantee security and the continued existence of a culture is to try to eliminate, cancel, or expel others." Francis, who was greeted by Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite at the airport, said that before Lithuania's occupation by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in the 20th century, the country was home to a range of religious and ethnic groups that lived side-by-side in peace. "You have suffered 'in the flesh' those efforts to impose a single model that would annul differences under the pretense of believing that the privileges of a few are more important than the dignity of others or the common good," Francis said. Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia were part of the Russian Empire and briefly Soviet Russia before they declared independence 100 years ago. The small countries were occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940 and by Germany for three years during World War II. They regained independence from the Soviet Union in August 1991 and joined the European Union and NATO in 2004. On September 23, Francis was set to visit Vilnius's Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights. The museum is housed in a former KGB building and dedicated to the crimes of the Soviet regime. According to the Vatican, around 80 percent of the Lithuanian population is Catholic. Latvia is a primarily Lutheran country, while Estonia is largely nonreligious and has a small Catholic population of around 5,000. John Paul II was the only other pope to visit the Baltic states, in 1993. Based on reporting by dpa, AP, and AFP The U.S. Treasury Department has extended until November 12 a deadline for investors to divest holdings of debt, equity, and other assets in sanctioned Russian aluminum giant Rusal and its parent holding company, EN+. The announcement on September 21 said the extension was being provided to allow the companies to make corporate governance changes, one of which was the breaking of ties with sanctioned Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska. However, the announcement kept in place an October 23 deadline for divesting holdings in automaker GAZ Group. The Treasury had previously extended the deadline for the companies from August 5 to October 23. The sanctions were imposed against Deripaska and eight companies in which he has large holdings, including Rusal, in response to what U.S. officials called Russia's "malign activities," including alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The sanctions primarily targeted Russian oligarchs close to President Vladimir Putin. Deripaska has held a controlling interest in En+, which in turn controls Rusal, the world's largest aluminum producer outside of China. Automaker GAZ is also part of his business empire. The sanctions against Rusal initially disrupted the global supply chain for aluminum and sent prices soaring, raising fears that the company would be unable to finance its operations and stay in business. The scare prompted Rusal to accept the Treasury's offer of an exemption from the sanctions if it severs ties with Deripaska. Rusal is the second-largest aluminum company in the world and an employer of an estimated 61,000 Russian miners and manufacturing workers U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has said the United States was in talks with Rusal to remove it from the sanctions list. Mnuchin said Deripaska was the main target of the sanctions and that it was not Washington's intent to cause the layoff of hundreds or thousands of Russian aluminum workers. "EN+ and Rusal have approached the U.S. government about substantial corporate governance changes that could potentially result in significant changes in control," the Treasury said in its latest statement. "To allow sufficient time for review, we are extending these licenses until November 12," it said. With reporting by Reuters, TASS, and Bloomberg Rallies organized by the Communist Party were held across Russia on September 22 to protest unpopular pension-reform proposals. In July, Russia's parliament gave preliminary backing to a government plan to raise the retirement age to 63 for women by 2034 and to 65 for men by 2028. Tens of thousands have rallied against the proposed reforms in recent weeks, and the popularity of Russian President Vladimir Putin has noticeably decreased in opinion polls. Macedonia's capital, Skopje, has been gripped by hope and uncertainty lately, with the country approaching a historic crossroads. Macedonians vote in a referendum on September 30 on whether to change the countrys name to the Republic of North Macedonia, a possible step toward resolving a decades-old dispute with Greece, which has a province by the same name and has used the dispute as an obstacle to EU or NATO entry for its postcommunist neighbor. A breakthrough agreement between Skopje and Athens, reached in June, hangs in the balance. The carrot, dangled explicitly on the ballot, is the prospect of Euro-Atlantic integration. The referendum is merely consultative, so a "yes" result still must be ratified by a two-thirds parliamentary majority before the country could shed the more cumbersome Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia name adopted as a compromise to join the United Nations in 1993. The name dispute is highly divisive among Macedonians, prompting organizers to link the question on the ballot to the prospect of membership in the European Union and NATO in hopes of boosting the "yes" turnout. But it is nearly as contentious internationally, with accusations and counteraccusations of improper meddling in Macedonia's affairs. European leaders have visited the country in the weeks leading up to the vote to urge Macedonians to seize a "once in a lifetime" opportunity. Russia is said to be wary of further Balkan countries joining NATO, particularly since nearby Montenegro recently joined the transatlantic military alliance. Russian Ambassador to Macedonia Oleg Shcherbak was quick to accuse the West of applying very strong media and psychological pressure on Macedonian voters. Shcherbak said nothing of the anti-referendum Internet trolls that are said to be urging Macedonians to boycott the vote. U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, on his way to Skopje to urge a "yes" vote, accused Russia of financing influence campaigns to undermine the referendum. Some of the unsupported claims that are circulating in apparent support of a "no" vote include speculation that Google would drop the use of the Macedonian language if the name change is approved. The "no" lobby -- some of it anonymous via social media or shadowy websites -- appears to be banking on a boycott, which could render the result meaningless (it requires more than half of the country's roughly 1.8 million eligible voters to turn out) or simply create space for political elements to exploit. The New York Times reported that new posts are popping up daily on Facebook to encourage people to boycott the referendum in a "disinformation-age battle." Meanwhile, the nationalist opposition party, VMRO-DPMNE, has called on its supporters to boycott the vote. Others have pointed out that refusing to vote might be counterproductive. The boycott only means that you leave others to make the decision for you, the president of the National Youth Council of Macedonia, Blazen Maleski, wrote on RFE/RLs youth online column. Two young pro-government activists addressed passersby at the entrance to Skopje's old town on September 16, with one of them at one point explaining his trust in the prime minister, Social Democratic Union leader Zoran Zaev. He didn't enter politics to get rich," he said. "He was already wealthy, as he was a part of a very successful family business. His family produces the best ajvar" -- a traditional vegetable spread based on peppers and eggplant -- "and he grew up selling papers at the market. They said their enthusiasm for the name change was not shared by their parents, who they predicted would nevertheless reluctantly vote yes. They are not happy to be in this situation. They are attached to the name Macedonia," one said. "Their ID card would say that they are from the Republic of North Macedonia, and that sounds strange to them. They are likely to vote yes because of us, as our future is at stake. Of course, negotiations with Greece will continue in the event of a yes vote, and Macedonia may have to make more concessions. The outcome of this process depends...on the negotiating and political power of the countries themselves, academic Taki Fiti, president of the Macedonian Academy of Arts and Sciences (MANU), told RFE/RLs Macedonian unit. "Greece has much greater negotiating power." For many outsiders, it might be hard to understand why the addition of a simple geographic prefix (North) to a countrys name would be so problematic. Skopje is flooded with referendum posters urging people to vote for the name change and a European future, but some Macedonians object to what they regard as the flip side of that coin. Europe wants to take away all that we have. They want to take away our name. I was born a Macedonian, and I want to die a Macedonian," Zoran Stojcevski, a Skopje cab driver in his 60s, told RFE/RL recently. "They want to erase our name. They want to civilize us. I don't want to be civilized! I just want to stay the way I am, and they can call me primitive if they want. This government is worse than a communist government. They put people in prison if they are against the referendum. There has been no evidence of such cases, but the identity fears are real. Zana, a woman in her 50s, offered a glimpse of that fear while giving a tour of Skopje this month to her British friends. Its not only about the name, they want to take our past away from us," she said. "They want to say that we [Macedonians] were not there [at the time of Alexander the Great]. They are taking away our identity. Some things will certainly change if the yes vote decisively prevails in the referendum. The currently nameless equestrian statue in Skopjes central square has been one of the symbolic battlefields in the dispute with Greece. It was erected as a monument to Alexander the Great -- known in some quarters as Alexander of Macedon -- but many Greeks have sought to discourage Macedonians from considering Alexander to be part of their culture. If the countrys name change is ultimately approved by both sides, the horseman will once again bear the name of Alexander but with an explanatory plaque that the ancient king is part of Hellenic culture. It is one reflection of the awkward compromises that might be required of Macedonia, in particular. But for many, that is a small price to pay, given the stakes. The name-change deal with Greece must not fail because that would mean a very uncertain future for Macedonia, former Foreign Minister Professor Denko Maleski told RFE/RLs Macedonian unit. The failure of the referendum, among other things, would likely deepen divisions in Macedonian society, with many in its ethnic Albanian community -- around one-quarter of the countrys population of 2 million -- enthusiastically in favor of the name change and Western integration. The ensuing division [would] closely resemble the Ukrainian situation, which [would] destabilize the country, Maleski said. There is notable support for the yes vote within the Macedonian Orthodox Church. Bishop Pimen, who is widely regarded as a new wave priest, said the September 30 that the referendum was a great opportunity. We are deciding the future of our country, and we must all hold hands, to overcome our differences and quarrels, and come together to choose a European future for our country. This is a historic opportunity that we must not miss, Pimen said. His message incurred an avalanche of insults and hate speech on social media, prompting Pimen to respond that people were free to disagree with him but that he did not approve of the way in which some were expressing their views. In Macedonia, we need to learn basic manners first, and only then should we have democracy, he said. The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of RFE/RL. The Tennessee Fish and Wildlife Commission set the 2019-20 fishing regulations during its September meeting which concluded Friday. The commission heard a preview of the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agencys proposals during the August meeting of the commission. A public comment period on the proposals was held following the August meeting. Several of the new fishing regulations are geared toward the agencys effort to battle the invasive Asian carp. In TWRA Region I and II, skipjack herring, gizzard shad, and threadfin shad will not be able to be transported alive from the Mississippi River and Barkley, Kentucky, and Pickwick reservoirs and any tributaries or oxbows of these waters. The restrictions do not apply to the Duck River above Normandy Dam. These bait species are similar in appearance to small Asian carp. This change is aimed to reduce the risk of accidentally introducing Asian carp into new waterways. Change to seasons on the Tellico River, Citico Creek, and Green Cove Pond will allow optimal stocking and fishing conditions during the permit season. Big Lost Creek, Goforth Creek, Spring Creek, and Greasy Creek and their tributaries in Polk County to have been changed to follow statewide regulations. This adds fishing opportunity to these creeks which are currently closed on Friday. An amendment by the TFWC was passed to include that commercially harvested catfish over 34 inches in length cannot be kept alive after harvest. The commission heard a chronic wasting disease (CWD) risk assessment in Tennessee. Dr. Krysten Schuler, disease ecologist from Cornell University, has helped TWRA use the risk assessment data to develop a weighted, risk-based surveillance plan that staff will begin implementing this fall. Samples from deer will be collected from potentially higher risk areas. Frank Fiss, Fisheries Division chief, introduced its annual award winners. David Roddy, TWRA Statewide Hatchery Coordinator and Aquatic Nuisance Coordinator, was named the Fisheries Biologist of the Year. Marilyn Davis, who works out of Eagle Bend Hatchery in Anderson County, was named Fisheries Technician of the Year. Jason Henegar, Fisheries Division assistant chief, gave an update on the current status of brook trout management and distribution. He also highlighted future directions of management and how additional funding from Trout Unlimited will be used to better inform the agency of future restoration projects. Representatives from the Tennessee Chapter of Trout Unlimited presented the TWRA with a $10,000 donation prior to the Friday meeting to further TWRAs efforts in brook trout restoration throughout their range in Tennessee. Lionel Ferguson, who established a new state record for black crappie, was introduced and officially received his certificate for the record. He landed the 5 pounds, 7.68 ounces record fish from a private pond in Loudon County. Jonesborough resident Kim Woods received special recognition at the meeting in recruiting and promoting youth hunting in East Tennessee. He has introduced many youngsters to the outdoors through his long-time efforts. The TFWCs next meeting will be Oct. 25-26 in Nashville. Hotels around Mexico prepare for massive CFE battle over tariff hikes Cancun, Q.R. Hotels around Mexico are preparing for a massive increase in electricity tariffs which they say in some cases, will reach 300 percent. We can no longer remain indifferent to the abuse of the authorities in energy matters, said the national president of the Mexican Association of Motels and Hotels, Rafael Garcia Gonzalez. In a press conference, the president of the association said that the energy reform, promoted by the administration of Enrique Pena Nieto, has affected the competitiveness of the sector. Garcia Gonzalez mentioned that the hoteliers looked to the Energy Regulatory Commission, the company in charge of establishing energy quotas, to ask for clarification about the increase in rates, however, they did not receive a response. He says that the Mexican Association of Motels and Hotels will ask the commission for patrimonial damage for hotels that have been affected. Paloma Palacios, president of the Mexican Association of Motels and Hotels for Los Cabos, said that hotels from that state have obtained two orders to suspend payment of electricity. The suspension of payment does not mean to stop paying. One part is suspended, while the other is paid, explained the representative, who added that they expect a suspension of payment of 60 percent of electricity rates. Photo: La Asociacion Mexicana de Hoteles y Moteles Los Cabos is one of the main destinations in the country that captures a large number of international visits with seven of every 10 travelers returning. What worries us is that the sector is affected, he said. This situation could generate economic instability, since the hotel industry is one of the largest generators of jobs in the country, he added. The president of the Hotel Association of Cancun and Puerto Morelos, Roberto Citron, said that although the legal processes they plan to undertake will be carried out individually by each company, the union will remain united to face the problem. He explained that the methodology used by the regulator to establish the rates applied by CFE have not been published in the countrys Official Gazette. According to estimates, in 2018, the states most affected by the increase in rates are Quintana Roo with a rebound of 75 percent, Colima also by 75 percent followed by Baja California Sur with 70 percent, Mexico City with a growth of 27 percent and Tabasco with 41 percent. Trump considers attending December inauguration of Lopez Obrador Mexico City, Mexico In a bid to build stronger ties with Mexicos next president, Donald Trump is weighing the idea of attending the December inauguration of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Larry Rubin, representative of the Republican Party in Mexico, says that the attendance of President Donald Trump and the White House would be valued during the inauguration of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on December 1. The Senate of the Republic said that there is an interest by the American president to meet with the man who will be the next president of Mexico. President Trump wants to visit Mexico. For him it is important to strengthen ties with president-elect, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. There is a relationship that is building. For President Trump, Mexico is a priority and they are definitely analyzing the idea in the White House to make it possible for him to be here on December 1 and failing that he could not come, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would be here, explained Rubin. He said that it is also the interest of the United States to strengthen communication with the Mexican Legislative Power after the change of government because issues regarding the bilateral agenda continue to advance and remain a priority. Second-placed Rostov stumbled to a goalless draw at home to struggling Ufa in the Russian Premier League on Saturday, potentially losing further ground on leaders Zenit St Petersburg. A combination of poor finishing and solid defending by Ufa frustrated Rostov in front of a 35,000 crowd and could allow Zenit to pull seven points clear when they host misfiring champions Lokomotiv Moscow on Sunday. "My men obviously lacked creativity in attack today," said Rostov manager Valery Karpin. "Besides, we failed to put enough pressure on Ufa. "It's good that we managed to keep a clean sheet today but we're all upset as we failed to win at home." Anzhi Makhachkala climbed off the foot of the table with a surprise 1-0 win at Dynamo Moscow, as Venezuelan striker Andres Ponce scored the only goal of the match four minutes after the interval. Dynamo had a chance to snatch a point in injury time but Evgeny Lutsenko missed a penalty. Spartak Moscow could reclaim second place when they meet bitter rivals CSKA in Moscow's most famous derby on Sunday. Jonathan Ikone's thunderous strike earned Lille a 2-1 victory over Nantes on Saturday that sent them second in Ligue 1 and maintained their strong start to the new season after narrowly avoiding relegation last term. Portugal defender Jose Fonte scored his first Lille goal since joining from China's Dalian Yifang in July with a looping header on nine minutes at the Stade Pierre-Mauroy. Midfielder Ikone doubled Lille's lead with a magnificent goal on 68 minutes, taking a delightful first touch to control a high ball before unleashing a scorching, dipping 25-yard shot past Ciprian Tatarusanu. Nantes grabbed a consolation through Kalifa Coulibaly as Lille, who finished just above the relegation play-off place last season, won for the fourth time in six games to draw to within two points of defending champions Paris Saint-Germain. Montpellier climbed to third as Gaetan Laborde's first-half tap-in secured a 1-0 win over Patrick Vieira's Nice, while Toulouse are level on points in fourth following a 0-0 draw at Angers. Thomas Tuchel's PSG visit Rennes on Sunday chasing a sixth win in a row in France, having lost 3-2 away to Liverpool in their opening game of the Champions League group stage in midweek. Marseille would reclaim second with victory away to Lyon, although Bruno Genesio's side will hope their impressive 2-1 defeat of Manchester City in Europe can re-energise a flagging domestic campaign. Advocates for the legislation say setting a new hires salary based on previous compensation perpetuates disparities in pay between men and women, who may have been underpaid in the past. Women also tend to work in lower-paying jobs and are more likely than men to take time off or reduce hours to care for children or other family members, which affects prior salary levels. The issue of bishop appointments has for decades been the main point of contention between the Vatican and China, who have negotiated since the 1980s to end the impasse. But those efforts have faced significant opposition, particularly from Catholics in Hong Kong, who say that Chinese Catholics have a right to practice their religion without the meddling of an officially atheist government. After acknowledging the presence of Irina Shostakovich, the composers widow, Muti told the audience that in July he had been to Babi Yar, the ravine outside Kiev where 33,771 Jews were executed by machine gun on Sept. 29 and 30, 1941. The toll had continued in coming months, with about 100,000 Jews and other Nazi targets murdered there by German troops and their collaborators. A 22-year-old woman shot in her chest was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where she was in serious condition early Saturday. A 27-year-old man, a relative of Harts, according to those who knew him, was wounded in the right leg. He was taken to University of Chicago Medical Center and stabilized. Also taken to the university hospital was a 24-year-old woman shot in the right torso and left leg, leaving her in serious condition. The fog wont be the only thing chilling San Francisco come November: A new winter-themed park near City Hall is the latest addition in cooling the city down. The Winter Park at Civic Center is scheduled to open Nov. 30, bringing a 6,000-square-foot ice rink, skating track and lighted tree forest to the heart of the city. Every day from noon to 10 p.m., through Jan. 6, visitors can skate and buy food and drink from vendors. Owner Willy Bietak said Thursday that the beautiful architectural space offers a perfect backdrop for a skating extravaganza. We thought, My God, this could be the ideal place, Bietak said. Its something thats endearing and enduring over many, many years. The park is modeled after Wiener Eistraum in Viennas city square. Wiener Eistraum draws hundreds of thousands of visitors each year, and Bietak said that while the Winter Park at Civic Center wont yet draw such a crowd, it could eventually be very successful. Bietak and San Francisco Recreation and Park Department officials called the park one of the efforts to improve Civic Center and make it family-friendly. The Winter Park at Civic Center joins other new features in the area, including a playground, an Off the Grid food truck location and the Bi-Rite-operated Civic Center Street Cafe. The group will offer events and programs to benefit Tenderloin residents, most notably a family-friendly drag show, free admission for students of Tenderloin schools, and programs for low-income and homeless residents. 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. The Winter Park at Civic Center will be around for years to come, Bietak said, and new interactive elements will be added to the area every year. Tickets start at $15 and will be available for purchase starting Oct. 15 at www.winterparkicerinksf.com. Gwendolyn Wu is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: gwendolyn.wu@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @gwendolynawu Rachel Norton felt so outraged by the sexual assault case of former Stanford University swimmer Brock Turner that she publicly revealed her own rape as a college freshman three decades before. Nortons 2016 blog post didnt identify her rapist. She never reported the assault to police. She tried to bury the memory and never researched her attacker or knew what he did for a living. She didnt want to know. I hate him, said Norton, a member of the San Francisco Board of Education. Then she read last week about Christine Blasey Ford. It took Ford, a Palo Alto University psychology professor, 36 years and an extreme set of circumstances to come forward with allegations that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh tried to rape her when they were teenagers. Kavanaugh denies the accusation. Ford has tentatively agreed to testify Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. On Tuesday, Norton typed her attackers name into a search engine and hit enter. Fords story, the backlash against her and the politically infused debate about what role her accusation should play in a mans career resonates with many sexual assault survivors. More than 323,000 people in the U.S. reported being sexually assaulted or raped in 2016, according to a Justice Department report. No one knows how many victims never come forward, but experts say sexual assault is one of the most underreported crimes. The idea that such a crime should be reported immediately and the assailant identified may seem obvious to those who havent been sexually assaulted. On Friday, for example, President Trump tweeted: I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place! But sexual assault survivors who have had to decide whether to tell the police say the choice is anything but clear. They have to contend with self-recrimination, fear of retaliation, potential lawsuits and possible scandal. Jess Davidson says she was a junior at the University of Denver in 2014 when another student raped her. For others to understand what survivors go through, she said, they should take a moment to consider their most private, shameful experience. Then imagine strangers discussing it, mulling it over. Evaluating them and how they handled it. The fact that people are going to go after you about your most personal and possibly worst experience is horrifying, Davidson said. Its completely understandable why somebody wouldnt want to go through that. Fords lawyers said shes received death threats and has left her Palo Alto home. Kavanaugh supporters have questioned her account, and some have called her an opportunist. Davidson and other women who have never publicly identified their assailants say the only opportunity in coming forward is being forced to relive their attack through taunting and shaming. But if I knew that a sexually violent person was in a position where they could do further harm, I would speak up, said Davidson, now executive director of End Rape on Campus, a nonprofit advocacy group in Washington, D.C. Studies show that most rape victims dont go to the police. Davidson is among them. The idea of handing the power over to a judge, or to peers, to say that whatever happened was valid was not what I needed, she said. I didnt want my case litigated in the court of public opinion. But Davidson asked her school to investigate. The university expelled her rapist but only after he graduated, Davidson said. His degree was not rescinded. Many victims of sexual assault never report the attack at all. I didnt say anything at the time. I didnt see any way that reporting would benefit me, said Denise Caramagno, now the director at UCSFs Campus Advocacy, Resources, and Education for Sexual Assault and Gender-based Violence. Caramagno said she wasnt surprised that it took decades for Ford to reveal what she says happened to her as a 15-year-old in the early 1980s. Kavanaugh, then 17, and another teenage boy pushed Ford into a bedroom at someones house during a party, according to an account Ford gave to the Washington Post. She said Kavanaugh climbed on top of her and covered her mouth with his hand so she couldnt scream as he groped her and she struggled to break free. The friend jumped on top of them, she said, and she was able to escape. It was not until 2012, while in therapy with her husband, that she fully described what happened, Ford said. Caramagno sees that routinely with the survivors she works with some of whom have been sitting on their secrets for as long as 30 years. They tell themselves it wasnt a big deal, she says. They think, I will beat this. They think it will get better eventually. They try not to think about it at all. For some people, they stuff it for a long time, Caramagno said. And you can understand that impulse. But sooner or later it comes up. Meghan Warner was a sorority member at UC Berkeley in 2013 when two fraternity members sexually assaulted her, she said in an interview. One of them raped her. Warner says she wasnt accosted by a stranger in an alley, but was instead drunk at a party. She never consented to sex California rape law says drunken people by definition cannot give consent, as do policies at most college campuses in the state. Yet the circumstances of her attack didnt fit the perfect victim narrative, she said. It wasnt the stereotype of what many people consider rape. Her sorority sisters were the first to lay blame: Warner had hurt the houses reputation by drinking, and she would make them lose the property altogether if it came out that she was drunk when she was raped, they told her. Warner didnt go to the police. She didnt know she could ask UC Berkeley to investigate, and isnt sure she would have if she had known. I cant imagine the level of harassment I would have gotten if I had named the perpetrators and the fraternity, she said. As for Ford, Warner said, shes going to be in for quite the harrowing experience. Warner quit her sorority and resurrected a dormant group, Greeks Against Sexual Assault, which persuaded fraternities and sororities to require sexual assault and harassment awareness training for members every year. Warner joined dozens of UC Berkeley students and alumnae who filed a case with the U.S. Department of Education accusing the campus of acting with deliberate indifference in its handling of sexual misconduct reports. In March, the departments Office of Civil Rights found that UC Berkeley failed to investigate all cases and took too long to resolve those it did look into. Today, Warner is studying sexual violence as a doctoral student in sociology at Stanford University. Luoluo Hong, a vice president at San Francisco State University, has coped with her experience of a vicious, nightlong assault by helping others. She is the campus Title IX coordinator, named for the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in education. 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. Thirty-one years ago, when Hong was a student at Amherst College in Massachusetts, an acquaintance broke into her apartment and raped her repeatedly. Hong told two people: a school counselor, who questioned her background and habits, and her boyfriend, who called her a slut and left her. Hong turned to drinking. At one point, she tried to kill herself. She recovered. But she has never told her parents what happened, and she has never pressed charges or publicly identified her rapist. If she named him, Hong said, attention would very likely shift to him and whether my naming him was right or fair. If she learned that her assailant was being considered for a big job in politics, education or other influential role, she said, she would break her silence but only if she had a viable chance of being heard and taken seriously. People in those roles should be subject to higher standards of conduct, ethical behavior and principled decision-making, she said. I believe a U.S. Supreme Court nominee falls into that category especially because they serve for life. Hong said she prefers to focus on her own life, not her assailants. This is a personal choice that may not be right for everyone, she said. But it was the right choice for me. Jenny Shao of San Francisco made a different choice. She was incensed in 2010 when a UCLA shuttle driver was allowed to keep driving his route after she reported that he rubbed his groin against her and repeatedly asked her out. As a student without a car, she said, she was forced to continue taking that shuttle. I got fed up, Shao said. One day, I got onto the bus and got everyones attention. I said, You need to be cautious! This driver has a tendency to sexually harass and sexually assault! She announced what he had allegedly done to her and called out, Im warning you! You watch out for him! UCLA sent Shao a letter of reprimand, noting that when the driver objected to what she was doing, you told him to shut up. The letter also said that UCLA had advised the driver to call the police if Shao did it again, and that she could face student conduct charges. Shao does not regret publicly shaming the man who she says sexually assaulted her. He was a predator, she said. If you dont speak up, its only going to continue. In the wake of Ford stepping forward, thats an idea suddenly resonating around the country. Norton, the San Francisco school board member, had never looked up the man she says raped her in 1985. Now she typed in his name. There he was. Oh my God, she told The Chronicle. Its terrible. Hes a school principal. Norton is considering what to do next. I do think there is a compelling responsibility to act, she said. And what that means, Im still determining. Nanette Asimov, Jill Tucker and Erin Allday are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: nasimov@sfchronicle.com, jtucker@sfchronicle.com and eallday@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @NanetteAsimov, @JillTucker and @ErinAllday One victim of the Brett Kavanaugh controversy is Joe Biden, whose possible 2020 presidential run may have gone up in smoke. Biden was Barack Obamas vice president, and he developed a lot of goodwill in those years. But well before that, he was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee during Clarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 1991. It was his worst moment as a senator, and now its haunting him. Thomas was accused by his onetime colleague in a federal agency, Anita Hill, of long-running sexual harassment. Biden allowed Judiciary Committee members to savage her during questioning during the Thomas hearings and refused to call witnesses who were prepared to back up Hills testimony. That was all dusty history until Christine Blasey Ford showed up. Now everyone is looking back at Anita Hill, and Bidens performance hasnt aged well. Even he knows it he has said he owes Hill an apology. But sorry wont cut it with the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, whose influence is only growing. If he runs, Biden is going to be spending a lot of time trying to explain his actions from way back then. The second shoe: Democrats and Republicans alike are keeping one eye on the clock and the other eye on the door to see if anyone else comes forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Its happened before Bill Cosby, Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose and Harvey Weinstein all issued denials when their first victims came forward. And then came more. Kavanaugh has strongly denied Christine Blasey Fords accusation that he tried to rape her when they were teenagers. No one else has made a similar accusation against him, and many people who know him say such an attack would be out of character. You can see why Senate Democrats would hope to drag out the confirmation process they want to give anyone else who might have something to say about Kavanaugh as much time as possible to emerge. That also explains why some of them werent thrilled that Sen. Dianne Feinstein sat on Fords allegation after she received it in July those were valuable weeks that were wasted. I suspect, however, that President Trump and other Republicans are privately comfortable with holding off for a bit on Kavanaughs confirmation as well. The longer no one else comes forward, the better their argument that Kavanaugh must be innocent of Fords accusation. And the less chance that if someone does emerge, the Republicans will have already voted to put Kavanaugh on the court. Fumble: Sen. Dianne Feinstein may have done the right thing morally by not passing Christine Blasey Fords letter along to the FBI sooner the Palo Alto University professor had asked that her attempted-rape accusation against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh be kept confidential after she sent it in July. But it was a bad political mistake. What Feinstein presumably didnt know was that even as she asked for anonymity from the senator, Ford was talking to the Washington Post. So when everything blew up, Feinstein was left holding the bag. Now shes being pummeled by both both sides for sitting on the letter. Feinstein broke a basic rule of elected office: If youre handed a grenade with the pin pulled, give it to someone else as fast as you can. Old-school fun: They held a classic car festival at Willie Brown Jr. Middle School the other day. It was a combination fundraiser and a fun day for the students. There were Fords, Chevys and Pontiacs, none of them post-1968. What colors. What rims. What style. Half were owned by Latinos, the other half by blacks. One car was lavender, and the headlights were trimmed in lavender lights. There was a white Cadillac convertible to die for. The owners were decked out as well. And the schoolkids loved it. I was talking with the school Principal Charleston Brown, a young guy with kids of his own. He leaves home at 5 a.m. every day so he can be at school to greet every teacher and student. Five oclock? Where do you live? I asked. Fairfield, he said. I used to be able to sleep until 6, but with traffic these days, I have to build in an extra hour. 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. Thats dedication. Movie time: A Simple Favor. A strange name for a strange movie. Its about an unusually energetic single mother who is thought of as a joke by other parents, and her involvement with a neighbor who goes missing. Its a delightful, clever movie full of twists. No name stars, but for sure star characters. White Boy Rick. Another odd movie, about a father who deals guns, a son who is both a drug dealer and an FBI snitch, and a daughter who is an addict. They are white and caught up in the world of black crime in Detroit in the 1980s. Add in a crew of corrupt DEA agents, and you have a story, but not necessarily an entertaining or enriching one. A last farewell: We said a final goodbye to Chinatown activist Rose Pak the other day at a ceremony at the Columbarium in the Richmond. Rose died in September 2016, but it took two years to sort out the various family and legal spats that followed her death. Supervisors Aaron Peskin, Jane Kim, Norman Yee and Sandra Lee Fewer were all in attendance, as were housing activist Gordon Chin and developer Lawrence Lui. The Columbarium is a beautiful place. I paused to take it all in. Then the gatekeeper looked up and said, Mr. Brown, here to look for a spot? Hopefully not yet. Want to sound off? Email wbrown@sfchronicle.com What was once one of the hottest venture capital firms in Silicon Valley is closing up shop. Chamath Palihapitiya, an early Facebook executive and a part owner of the Golden State Warriors, announced his firm, Social Capital, will no longer accept outside funds for investing in startups. For venture capital firms that routinely raise new funds from pension funds and wealthy individuals, not taking new money is tantamount to a death knell. Palihapitiya doesnt see it that way. In a blog post titled, The Reports of Our Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated, he laid out what he said was a new course for Social Capital. He is turning the VC firm into a technology holding company that will continue to invest in promising startups. It will be funded almost completely with his own fortune, reports the Information, an industry news site. The move brings an end to a months-long saga at Palo Altos Social Capital, which made profitable investments in companies like Box, Slack and SurveyMonkey but has lost investment partners amid a series of jarring changes in strategy. At the start of this decade, the industry saw a trend of powerful individual investors known as angels turning their own investment operations into full-fledged firms, hiring partners and seeking outside investment. Palihapitiyas pullback suggests that for some, the trade-offs in entering the big leagues of venture capital arent worth it. These guys have achieved a level of financial success themselves that they, I guess, are making the decisions, said David Blumberg, a partner at Blumberg Capital of San Francisco. They dont care to manage outside money anymore. Palihapitiya joined Facebook in 2007, when the social network had 50 million users. By the time he left in 2011, it had 700 million users. That year, he joined an ownership group of investors and tech entrepreneurs that bought the Warriors. Facebook went public in 2012, making Palihapitiya wealthy; his exact net worth is unclear, but he is often labeled a billionaire. His tech pedigree and iconoclastic pronouncements about investing made Social Capital one of the most closely watched venture capital firms to emerge in recent years. It manages more than $2 billion of capital, the firm said. Since June, at least 12 employees, including one of the firms co-founders and the head of human resources, have left or announced they are planning to quit the firm. There are more departures to come, Palihapitiya said Thursday. Some of the defectors have regrouped to start a fund of their own. Three former partners Arjun Sethi, Ted Maidenberg, and Jonathan Hsu are raising money for the first fund at Tribe Capital, which was described by one source as like Social Capital, but without Chamath. Palihapitiya, 41, has earned a reputation as a dynamic but erratic investor. He set out to change the way tech investing is done, using data and software to find deals and help entrepreneurs build better companies but struggled to rally his partners behind a constantly changing vision for Social Capital. Social Capital declined to comment. Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes As the firm unravels, Palihapitiya is trying to change the conversation about its future. Social Capital will continue to make new investments, ranging from $50 million to $250 million per company, using internal capital only, Palihapitiya said. The firm will shrink from 70 people at its peak to about 40, according to the Information. I would rather spend time with the people that are 100 percent aligned with what I want to do and the person thats most aligned with what I want to do is me, Palihapitiya told the Information. Palihapitiya is not the only high-profile investor to pull back from the role of traditional venture capitalist this year. Ron Conway, a tech power broker who took early stakes in Google, Twitter and Airbnb, said in May that his firm, SV Angel, would not accept outside money. Conway and his son, Topher, said they would continue to invest in startups, but in smaller amounts and with their own money. Melia Russell is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: melia.russell@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @meliarobin California insurance regulators and Alameda County prosecutors have subpoenaed Gilead Sciences for information regarding the Foster City drugmakers marketing practices and other services. The subpoenas, issued in October by the California Department of Insurance and the Alameda County district attorneys office, were disclosed in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in February. They seek details about Gileads marketing activities, reimbursement support offerings, clinical and education programs and interactions with specialty pharmacies. The news was first reported Friday by the Wall Street Journal. Gilead in September also received a voluntary request for similar information from the U.S. attorneys office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, regarding its hepatitis C drugs Sovaldi and Harvoni. It is unclear whether the California and Alameda inquiries are for these two drugs only, or if they apply to other drugs as well. Sales for Gileads chronic hepatitis C drugs, including Solvadi and Harvoni, fell to $1 billion in the second quarter of 2018 from $2.9 billion in the same period last year as a result of increased competition, Gilead said in its most recent quarterly report in July. In the February SEC filing, the company said it is cooperating with the inquiries. A Gilead spokeswoman declined to comment Friday, or address whether the inquiries are ongoing. The Alameda County district attorneys office did not return requests for comment Friday. The state insurance department did not immediately return requests for further information. Many drug companies have programs aimed at helping patients who take their drug and nurses who are monitoring their condition, such as administrative support, reminders or additional information about the medicines. Some drug manufacturers have gone a step further, making contributions to charities or foundations that help pay for their drugs for Medicare patients a practice that gets the drugs into the hands of more patients, and has come under fire by regulators. Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes It is not unheard of for federal and state officials to seek information about drug companies marketing practices, and some inquiries are part of long-term investigations that dont result in litigation. The requests, though, come at a time of increased government scrutiny at the federal and state level of drug companies pricing, sales and marketing practices. This week, California insurance Commissioner Dave Jones sued the drugmaker AbbVie, alleging the company offered illegal kickbacks to doctors to prescribe the blockbuster arthritis drug Humira. AbbVie has said the allegations are without merit. Catherine Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: cho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Cat_Ho Sandwiched between Building 20 and Building 21 in the heart of Facebooks Menlo Park campus, an approximately 25-foot-by-35-foot conference room is under construction. Thick cords of blue wiring hang from the ceiling, ready to be attached to window-size computer monitors on 16 desks. On one wall, a half dozen televisions will be tuned to CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and other major networks. A small paper sign with orange lettering taped to the glass door describes whats being built: War Room. Although it is not much to look at now, as of next week the space will be Facebooks headquarters for safeguarding elections. More than 300 people across the company are working on the initiative, but the War Room will house a team of about 20 focused on rooting out disinformation, monitoring false news and deleting fake accounts that may be trying to influence voters before elections in the United States, Brazil and other countries. We see this as probably the biggest company-wide reorientation since our shift from desktops to mobile phones, said Samidh Chakrabarti, who leads Facebooks elections and civic engagement team. The company, he added, has mobilized to make this happen. The misuse of Facebook by foreign influence campaigns has been rampant. In July and August, the company detailed previously undisclosed efforts by Iranians and Russians to mislead users of the social network through divisive ads and posts. Now, with the midterm elections in the United States seven weeks away, Facebook is in an all-out sprint to convince the world that it is ready to handle any new attempts at such meddling. It is under tremendous pressure to prevent a repeat of the foreign manipulation that unfolded during the 2016 presidential campaign. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has vowed to fix the problems, and he said this month that the company is better prepared to handle potential interference. But he has acknowledged that Facebook is in an arms race against those who are trying to manipulate the site. The company has taken steps to build defenses against spammers, hackers and foreign operatives including hiring thousands of people to help moderate content and starting an archive to catalog all political ads but the War Rooms half-finished state shows how nascent and hurried many of the efforts are. Already, foreign operatives have evolved their online influence campaigns to skirt the measures Facebook has put in place ahead of the midterms, said Priscilla Moriuchi, director of strategic threat development at the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. If you look at the way that foreign influence operations have changed these last two years, their focus isnt really on propagating fake news anymore, Moriuchi said. Its on augmenting stories already out there which speak to hyperpartisan audiences. She added, Its going to be harder for companies like Facebook and Twitter, from my perspective, to find them now. Facebook invited two New York Times reporters into the War Room before it opens next week to discuss the work of the elections team and some of the tools it has developed to try to prevent interference. The company limited the scope of what the Times could see and publish, out of a concern about revealing too much to adversaries who may be looking for vulnerabilities. The company said the War Room is modeled after operations used by political campaigns, which are typically set up in the final weeks before Election Day. The War Room is a way to build systems in anticipation of attacks, Greg Marra, a product manager working on Facebooks News Feed, said in a conference call with reporters Wednesday. One of the tools is custom software that helps track information flowing live across the social network, said Chakrabarti, who joined Facebook about four years ago from Google. These dashboards resemble a set of line and bar graphs with statistics that provide a live view into how activity on the platform is changing. They allow employees to zero in on, say, a specific false news story in wide circulation or a spike in automated accounts being created in a particular geographic area. The dashboards were tested before the special Senate election in Alabama in December. Without specifying the dashboards, Zuckerberg has said that a new tool helped Facebook identify political interference more quickly in that election. Since then, Facebook has tested and redesigned the software during elections worldwide. This month, before Brazils presidential election, it will introduce the newest versions of the dashboards, Chakrabarti said. Facebook created what it calls its elections and civic engagement team in 2007 to work with governments and campaigns on how they could use the social network most effectively. For a long time, the team numbered just a few dozen people in Silicon Valley; it expanded in 2013 to include people in offices outside of the United States. After Facebook disclosed that agents linked to the Kremlin had manipulated the social network to spread inflammatory messages to American voters during the 2016 campaign, the company began to increase the teams ranks. The group was also restructured to focus more on the security of elections. Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes Since then, the team has mushroomed to its current size, augmented by other people at the company whose jobs involve some aspect of stopping election interference. Facebook has said each of its units including Instagram and WhatsApp has been told to make election security a top priority. Chakrabarti meets several times a month with Facebooks top executives, engineers and product managers. The meetings often include Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer. Facebook decided this year to create a War Room so a core group of engineers, data scientists and executives could sit together in the same space before the midterms. They chose an empty conference room off the hallway that connects Building 20 and Building 21, a central point that is easy for employees to get to. Construction began a few months ago and the room, with its whiteboard walls and clusters of long tables, is set to open for operations Monday. It has been refitted with cables and internet boosters, and new wiring was installed for the monitors and other equipment. What happens in the War Room will be a last line of defense for Facebook engineers to quickly spot unforeseen problems on and near election days in different countries, Chakrabarti said. Many of the companys other measures are meant to stop disinformation and other problems long before they show up in the War Room. Once a problem reaches the War Room, the dashboards will be set to spot and track unusual activity, while data scientists and security experts take a closer look. Chakrabarti said the team is particularly on guard for posts that manifested real-world harm, and plans to remove posts that try to disenfranchise voters by giving incorrect polling data or spreading hoaxes like encouraging people to vote by text message. The best outcome for us is that nothing happens in the War Room, he said. Everything else we are doing is defenses we are putting down to stop this in the first place. Sheera Frenkel and Mike Isaac are New York Times writers. Lawrence Martin-Bittman, who as a Cold War spy for Czechoslovakia specialized in running disinformation schemes to roil the West, and who, after defecting in 1968 to the United States, taught the perils of propaganda to journalism students, died Tuesday at his home in Rockport, Mass. He was 87. His partner, Liz Spaulding, confirmed the death. I openly admit that I did a lot of damage to the West, particularly to the United States, as a specialist in dirty tricks, Martin-Bittman told the NBC News series Dateline in 2009. Martin-Bittman whose original name was Ladislav Bittman joined the Czech intelligence service out of university in 1954 as tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union were rising. The Czech service, which collaborated with others in the Soviet-dominated Eastern bloc, was deeply involved in forgeries, like taking the signatures of U.S. diplomats from Christmas cards and using them on faked documents detailing supposed U.S. conspiracies worldwide, and political sabotage, like setting up a brothel with the Soviets to trap West German politicians in compromising positions. As a spy, Martin-Bittman operated from Berlin and Vienna, elite espionage postings during the Cold War on both sides. In 1964 he became the deputy commander of the Czech services Department for Active Measures and Disinformation. That year, he helped execute a wild plan to discredit West Germany. In Martin-Bittmans account, a Czech television documentary crew was exploring Black Lake, southwest of Prague, in hopes of raising mysterious objects possibly Nazi treasures that they had spotted in earlier dives. Knowing of the crews plan, the Czech service dumped four German military chests filled with blank papers at the bottom of the lake. Martin-Bittman, an experienced diver who posed as a Czech government official, led the crew into the water to retrieve the chests, which were then taken away by intelligence officials claiming they had to be X-rayed for explosives. While the cache was supposedly being examined, intelligence officers replaced the papers with what were billed as Third Reich documents that, when revealed publicly, indicated that former Nazis were working as spies for West Germany. (Another Czech spy, Josef Frolik, wrote in 1975 that forged documents were dumped in the chests.) It was the start of a two-year campaign to revive the threat of Nazism and to point a finger at West Germany and say, They are still there and West Germany is still in great potential danger, Martin-Bittman said in an interview for Soviet Active Measures (1984), a film produced by the U.S. Information Agency. In 1967, he was posted to Vienna at the Czech Embassy; he was ostensibly a press attache, but he was actually directing agents Western European journalists among them who had been recruited by the Communists to gather intelligence and to disseminate disinformation to undermine relations between Western European countries and the United States. He remained a dirty trickster until summer 1968, when, angered at the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic and Slovakia), he defected to West Germany and sought asylum in the United States, where he changed his name to Lawrence Michael Martin. (He later added Bittman to his surname.) The invasion which crushed the liberalizing reforms that had been instituted by Alexander Dubcek, the Czechoslovak leader was the ultimate shock of my life, and this was the moment of truth when it was impossible to fool myself and justify anything I did in the past, Martin-Bittman said in a video interview in 2016 for Silver Mines, a program that appeared on YouTube about the lives of elderly people. Martin-Bittmans defection, which led a military court in Czechoslovakia to sentence him to death, was considered a coup for the United States. Bittman was really one of the great experts of the Communist bloc, the Soviet bloc, on disinformation, F. Mark Wyatt, a retired senior CIA official who was an expert in covert action, told the New York Times in 1994. He is an outstanding defector success story. Ladislav Bittman was born Feb. 14, 1931, in Prague. His father, also named Ladislav, was a welder, and his mother, Andela (Pucenkelova) Bittmanova, was a homemaker who rented out two rooms in their apartment to make ends meet. He was 8 in 1939 when Germany invaded Czechoslovakia. Ill never forget the mass of German soldiers marching through the streets, he said in the Silver Mines video. It was a result of the betrayal of Czechoslovakia by the Western powers. At 15 he joined the Communist Party, as his parents had. He later graduated from Charles University in Prague with degrees in journalism and international law. When his 14 years of spying, forgeries and fake news ended with his defection, Martin-Bittman began to write books about espionage and disinformation, among them The Deception Game (1972) and The KGB and Soviet Disinformation: An Insiders View (1985). In a review for the journal Slavic Review, Josef Korbel, a Czech American diplomat and the father of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, praised Martin-Bittman for the low-key way he recalled his adventures in disinformation. His matter-of-fact, unsensational style in describing them lends credibility to the stories, Korbel wrote. In 1972, Martin-Bittmans career took another turn: He started teaching journalism, as well as courses in propaganda, at Boston University. In 1986, he opened the universitys Program for the Study of Disinformation. He was pleased that the university took a chance on him. Imagine, he told the Times. You search for a job and you are asked, What are your credentials? and you say, Twenty-two years in the Communist Party and 14 years in intelligence as a Communist spy. Not exactly the right experience for this environment, but they were not scared of it. Mark Thompson, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1985 for public service with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, wrote in an email that he took Martin-Bittmans disinformation class in 1975. Beyond the history of his dark art, he wrote, I guess there were only two lessons to be learned in his class: how to deceive, and how to avoid being deceived. Like most good professors, he encouraged us to be skeptics. Martin-Bittman retired in the late 1990s to spend his time painting watercolors, which he said were influenced by artists Josef Lada and Fritz Hundertwasser. In addition to Spaulding, he is survived by his son, Michael Talmor; his daughter, Dr. Katerina Bittmanova; seven grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren. He was divorced twice and widowed once. In 1994, Martin-Bittman held a party after a court in the Czech Republic lifted his death sentence. In invitations to friends and colleagues, he asked them to help him celebrate my re-entering the society of decent human beings on Feb. 24, 1994, from 4 to 6 p.m., in the disinformation documentation center. He added, This is not disinformation. Richard Sandomir is a New York Times writer. LOS ANGELES Southern Californians might remember the summer of 2018 for its sweltering heat waves, record ocean temperatures and destructive wildfires. But it also claimed another distinction: the summer we went nearly three months without a day of clean air. The region violated federal smog standards for 87 consecutive days, the longest stretch of bad air in at least 20 years, state monitoring data show. The streak is the latest sign that Southern Californias battle against smog is faltering after decades of dramatic improvement. WASHINGTON After holding his tongue for a week, President Trump sarcastically assailed the woman claiming a decades-old sexual assault by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, tweeting that if the episode was as bad as she says, she or her loving parents surely would have reported it to law enforcement. Trumps searing reproach of Christine Blasey Ford on Friday defied the Senate Republican strategy and the advice of White House aides of not disparaging her while firmly defending his nominee and the tight timetable for confirming him. The comment came as the California psychology professors attorneys sought agreement from Republicans on terms under which she might testify at a Judiciary Committee hearing next week. That showdown, should it occur, could play out on national television. The presidents tweet brought blistering rejoinders from Democrats and a mix of silence and sighs of regret from his own party. Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who hasnt declared support for Kavanaugh, called the remark appalling. It was also the latest provocation from a man whos faced a litany of sexual misconduct allegations himself of moderate female voters whose support Republicans will need to fend off a robust Democratic drive to capture congressional control in Novembers elections. Kavanaugh, the 53-year-old District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals judge, has repeatedly denied the accusation from his teenage years. Ford, 51, says an inebriated Kavanaugh pinned her on a bed during a high school party in the 1980s, muffled her screams and tried undressing her before she escaped. Minutes after Trumps tweet on Friday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell played verbal hardball of his own, drawing a standing ovation when he assured a gathering of evangelical activists that the conservative Kavanaugh would soon be a justice. Acknowledging the tumult Fords accusation has caused, McConnell said at the Values Voter Summit, Keep the faith, dont get rattled by it. Were going to plow right through and do our jobs. Republicans have pressured Ford to testify at a hearing this Monday, a session at which Kavanaugh has already said hed appear. In bargaining that continued Friday, her attorneys conditionally offered an appearance for Thursday, saying Monday wasnt possible. Ford also wants the government to provide security. Her lawyers say shes relocated her family due to death threats. She planned to meet with FBI agents in the San Francisco area to discuss those threats, said a person close to her. Alan Fram and Catherine Lucey are Associated Press writers. Prosecutors alleged that the officers coordinated their efforts with Van Dyke and others by writing virtually identical reports to make it appear that the shooting was justified. Among the many claims of the police noted in the indictment, it cites Walshs contentions that McDonald swung the knife and appeared to be trying to get up as Van Dyke continued to shoot him. The indictment alleges that March, the detective, submitted a report saying the video was consistent with the accounts of all of the witnesses. Californias 26-year-old rules for penalizing insurers for treating customers unfairly during claim settlements have been upheld by a state appeals court in the case of an insurance company facing $173 million in fines. Overturning a judges decision in 2015 that the rules violated state law, the Fourth District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana allowed Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones to seek $91 million of the penalties he imposed on PacifiCare Life and Health Insurance Co. The remaining $82 million is being challenged in a separate proceeding. Jones levied the penalties after finding that the company had violated state law 908,000 times in handling claims. Jones blamed cost-cutting measures imposed by UnitedHealthcare, which purchased PacifiCare in 2005. The law prohibits pressuring or deceiving policy-holders into accepting inadequate settlements of their claims for example, the court said, by misrepresenting the coverage they hold, or by secretly rewriting their application for insurance. An Orange County judge set the fines aside after ruling in 2015 that the Insurance Departments regulations which increase penalties for serious, knowing and willful violations exceeded the limits of a 1959 state law. But the appeals court allowed Jones office to resume enforcing the regulations in November 2016, and ruled Thursday that the departments procedures were consistent with state law and with the Legislatures intention to give the commissioner authority to protect consumers. I am delighted the Court of Appeal has affirmed the authority of the insurance commissioner to punish insurance companies for knowingly harming even one consumer, Jones said in a statement. The insurance company said it disagrees with the ruling and will appeal to the state Supreme Court. If it were to stand, the ruling would harm efforts to keep escalating health care costs in check, the company said. Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts. One of the laws allows the state to fine insurers for unfair claims settlement practices that are knowingly committed on a single occasion or so often that they indicate a general business practice. PacifiCare argued that only multiple violations showing a general business practice could be punished, and Orange County Superior Court Judge Kim Garber Dunning agreed. But the appeals court said the state Supreme Court had interpreted the law to apply to individual violations in 1979, and had never overturned that decision in later rulings. The language of the law strongly suggests both (individual) acts and (business) practices are prohibited if they are knowingly committed, Justice Thomas Goethals said in the 3-0 ruling. Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter:@BobEgelko American women are getting the message as the spectacle of the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation process continues in Washington: Women are to be ignored. We will not be ignored. Were watching. And acting. This time, it is the voice of Christine Blasey Ford, the Palo Alto University professor who accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her at a party when she was 15 and he was 17. Her story has been discounted, her morals impugned, her reputation attacked. Kavanaugh has said the accusations are completely false and Senate Republicans have sided with him. This, before Fords story has even been fully told. Her testimony, should she give it, will be enormously consequential for her and the nation whether Kavanaugh is confirmed to the court or not. Her experience with reporting a sexual assault, however, is absolutely typical. If you doubt that, scan the hundreds of #WhyIDidntReport tweets since President Trump tweeted Friday morning I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place! Heres a sample of what youll find on Twitter: I did, it didnt matter, I was dismissed, disparaged, & I still get blamed, tweeted one woman, a sentiment shared by many tweeting under that hashtag. Because I had never seen a survivor come forward and be treated with dignity, so why would I believe my case would be different? tweeted @MissAmericaMI. I was sexually assaulted as a child by a family member. I am still dealing with it 50 years later. I told my mother who did nothing. It colors the way I think about my body, my status, my worth. I have spent thousands on therapy. Everyday its in my mind & body. @HeartSmithy The Republican Party will not be unscathed by this dismissiveness of Fords serious allegations. American women will remember the candidate who had boasted of assaulting women and then was elected president. They will take note of Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who, in his rush to confirm Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court justice, discounted the accusers testimony before hearing a word. In fact, while speaking at the Values Voter Summit Friday, McConnell assured attendees that Kavanaugh will be confirmed and thus the court will move one vote closer to overturning Americas abortion law, Roe vs. Wade. They will see how a woman is cast aside when her truth interferes with a seat on the Supreme Court. Dennis Prager, a syndicated columnist, wrote this week: I dont believe her, but also added: I am not interested in whether Mrs. Ford, an anti-Trump activist, is telling the truth. Because even if true, what happened to her was clearly wrong, but it tells us nothing about Brett Kavanaugh since the age of 17. Why would any woman subject herself to the political buzz saw, to death threats, to trashing on social media? We dont know what happened 36 years ago but we deserve to have heard them out in a fair process. And if Kavanaugh did assault Ford 36 years ago and never apologized or acknowledged it was wrong, we need to know that before we name him to the highest court in the land where he judges us, and is a last word on our nations laws. What could possibly justify this rush to confirm, this complete abdication of a fair process? The country must applaud this extraordinary act of courage. The male-dominated Senate Judiciary Committees mistreatment of Anita Hill in 1991 led to the Year of the Woman in the 1992 elections. Here comes the Year of the Woman II. Women are going to be heard on Nov. 6. Lois Kazakoff is the deputy editorial page editor of the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: lkazakoff@sfchronicle.com Pati Navalta Poblete began the week of the fourth anniversary of her sons slaying with a combination of exhaustion, dread and hope. Exhaustion from having gone through the postponement of three previously scheduled trials. Dread at the prospect of a monthlong courtroom ordeal that would test my mental capacity and emotional capacity. Hope that justice would finally be served on the four men involved in the crime that led to the shooting death of 23-year-old Robby Poblete in Vallejo on Sept. 21, 2014. Then came the latest cruel twist. In what she had anticipated as a routine pretrial meeting Monday, Pati learned from the prosecutor that the defendant accused of masterminding the armed robbery might soon go free even if found guilty of first-degree murder. She was incredulous. How can this be? The prosecutor explained that legislation was sitting on Gov. Jerry Browns desk (SB1437 by state Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley) that would significantly narrow Californias felony murder law, which allows defendants involved in a crime to be charged with murder if a victim dies during a felony even if the defendant did not personally inflict the violence himself or herself. SB1437 also allows those convicted of murder under the previous guidelines to petition the court for a reduced sentence, except in cases involving the killing of a police officer. James Anthony Gover, the man accused of directing three others to ambush Robby on a tip that he was with someone carrying a hefty sum of cash, was not at the scene. Gover was nevertheless charged with first-degree murder. If Brown signs SB1437 into law, Gover could be relieved of any accountability for his culpability in the killing. To have the key suspect in my sons case essentially set free ... is beyond infuriating, Pati said. Its a bill thats very much designed for the rights of the suspects, with no regard for the rights of the victims or their families. First, a bit of background about Pati. She is a former colleague on our editorial page, an elegant writer and a fierce advocate of social justice. She was the lead author of an award-winning series of Chronicle editorials that were widely credited with helping to compel reforms to the states foster care system a decade ago. After Robbys death, she created a foundation in his name to raise money to take guns off the streets and turn them into art for public display and to sponsor vocational training and job fairs. Ive worked shoulder to shoulder with ex-convicts, and many of them have committed murders, she said of her efforts with the Robby Poblete Foundation. I have provided scholarships for many of them to get commercial driving licenses or apprenticeships in the trades so they can have a second chance. These are people who have served their time. They have been held accountable for their crimes, are remorseful for them and are trying to rebuild their lives. In other words, Pati never would be mistaken for a throw-away-the-key ideologue about criminal justice. She is keenly sympathetic to the arguments behind reform of the felony murder law. Some 72 percent of women serving time for first-degree murder were not the perpetrators of the homicide. A recent study showed that the felony murder rule has been applied disproportionately against youth of color. Recognizing such injustices, states such as Hawaii, Kentucky, Michigan and Ohio have abolished the felony murder rule. SB1437 author Skinner said current law irrationally treats someone who did not commit murder the same as someone who did. Pati gets all that. This is a rule that definitely needs to be revisited, she said. But you cant take a wholesale approach, because if you look at my sons case, this was not an unwitting girlfriend or wife driving her boyfriend or husband not knowing theres going to be a murder. This was not someone who was naive that he was engaging in a dangerous felony that could lead to someones murder. Law enforcement has taken a near-united stand against SB1437. Even prosecutors who are supportive of the need for reform of the felony murder law point to serious flaws in this iteration. One is the issue that comes to the fore in Robbys death: To get a murder conviction, the prosecution would need to show that a defendant had the intent to kill when ordering a crime that turned lethal. So the ultimate verdict, the one that threatens to supersede anything that happens in the Vallejo courtroom, lies in Jerry Browns hands. Senate Bill 1437 on felony murder a good concept gone too far? Author: State Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley Current law: Provides that a participant in a crime that results in death can be convicted of murder even if he or she was not the actual killer. In effect, someone who "aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces, solicits, requests or assists" in the commission of a serious felony that results in death is just as culpable as the principal offender. In the case of a first-degree murder, the accomplice in the crime can be sentenced to life without parole or even the death penalty (in "special circumstances" that include rape, robbery, arson, carjacking, train wrecking, among other crimes). For second-degree murder, the accomplice could face 15 years to life. What SB1437 does: Significantly narrows the definition of felony murder for those who are not the actual killer. The charge would be limited to instances in which the prosecution could prove the accomplice had an "intent to kill," was a "major participant" who acted with "reckless indifference to human life," or the victim was a law enforcement officer. It also gives those who have been found guilty of felony murder under the previously wider criteria to apply to have their convictions vacated. Around the world: Other nations that link their legal systems to England's common law tradition - including England, Canada, Northern Ireland, Australia - have abolished felony murder. Scotland never had such a rule. Support: A wide variety of civil rights, civil liberties and criminal-justice reform groups Opposition: Major law-enforcement organizations Senate vote: 27 yes, 10 no Assembly vote: 42 yes, 36 no Status: Awaiting signing or veto by Gov. Jerry Brown See More Collapse Does the governor merely exchange one injustice for another? Does he go for the news release claiming reform when the unintended consequences of a flawed bill for a worthy cause are so readily apparent? Or does he veto SB1437, as he should, and ask the Legislature to work with the progressive voices in law enforcement to address its shortcomings? Without the suspect, my son would still be here, Pati said. To lump someone like that with the people this bill is trying to protect is not right. To rush it through is not right, especially for families like ours that have been waiting years and years for justice. John Diaz is The San Francisco Chronicles editorial page editor. Email: jdiaz@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JohnDiazChron The emotional appeal of an initiative to outlaw keeping millions of egg-laying hens in cramped cages stacked three high compelled two-thirds of California voters to make Proposition 2 the law of the land in 2008. Now the proponents, this time joined by some in the egg industry, are back with Proposition 12, the Farm Animal Confinement Initiative. As the earlier measure didnt specify exact dimensions for housing chickens, this initiative establishes a standard of a square foot per hen and gives farmers until 2021 to adapt their operations, according to Prop. 12 proponent Jeff Peterson, who manages an egg farming operation in the Central Valley. It requires the state to enforce the requirements and gives private citizens legal standing to claim a farmer isnt meeting the standard. And it bans the sale of eggs, as well as veal and pork, that dont meet the standards for animal confinement. The first proposition played on Californians concerns about humane treatment after egg farmers began housing their chickens in battery cages, vast industrial arrays of 18-by-20-inch cages, with 10 or 11 hens squeezed into each. That measure merely stated that each chicken be able to extend its limbs fully and turn around freely. The animal welfare movement contended that meant space equivalent to the birds wingspan 2 to 3 square feet but the state Department of Food and Agriculture interpreted it as less than a square foot. By the time the initial proposition went into effect in 2015, concerns about transmitting salmonella already had egg farmers moving away from battery cages and toward operations that keep hens crowded into enormous cage-free barns. Since Prop. 2s passage, California egg production has dropped significantly and egg prices have risen by 33 percent, according to the California Farm Bureau. The new measure is also an effective fundraising issue for the primary proponent, the Humane Society of the United States. The Chronicle recommended a no vote on the first proposition, saying the ballot box is not the place to regulate this aspect of California agriculture. That is also true this time, and voters should reject Prop. 12. This commentary is from The Chronicles editorial board. We invite you to express your views in a letter to the editor. Please submit your letter via our online form: SFChronicle.com/letters. There are lifetime San Franciscans who probably dont even know that a Hard Rock Cafe still exists in S.F. Why would they? It moved from Van Ness Avenue to Pier 39 more than 15 years ago, outside many locals definition of the city limits. But for a brief - and reportedly disastrous - moment in 1984, the rock memorabilia-infused restaurant captivated San Francisco. The Hard Rock Cafe was opening just its third outpost in the United States and sixth in the world, and it was undoubtedly the place to be. There are some dates that stand out in the history of San Francisco, society writer Pat Steger wrote. The great quake (April 18, 1906), the VJ Day riots (August 13-14, 1945) and the day Lee Radziwill left Newton Cope standing at the alter (May 3, 1979). Add September 24, 1984 - the night the Hard Rock Cafe opened - to the list. She seemed to be teasing; the event was filled with logistical problems. (More on those later.) But the guest list was no joke. Robin Williams, George Lucas, Linda Ronstadt, Boz Scaggs and Lauren Hutton were all reportedly in the building. Cyndi Lauper performed a concert at the peak of her fame. The original Hard Rock was in a former auto showroom at 1699 Van Ness. The opening was a $75-a-head fundraiser for the San Francisco Art Institute. But the event was oversold - more than 1,100 people - forcing hundreds of paying customers into a sterile parking garage above the cafe, with Lauper and Girls Just Want to Have Fun appearing on closed circuit TVs. Steger covered the event tactfully, her writing gliding above the problems. She interviewed Robin Williams, who is seen in Chronicle photos wearing a bolo tie and suit jacket. Its like glass underwear, Williams said cryptically of the Hard Rock Cafe phenomenon. A kind of unusual sensation, but nice. On the Datebook page, Rock critic Joel Selvin came in with the hammer, writing a lively dispatch that reads like it was coming from a war zone. He mocked the organizers for sending people to the annex, but ultimately declared them the lucky ones. It was difficult to get much of a party mood out of a crowd packed so tight you couldnt scratch your nose, Selvin wrote. A few people squatted on the sidewalk to peer through the blinds to catch a glimpse of the show. They might have had the best view. Another anecdote had Jefferson Airplanes guitarist fleeing the scene long before Lauper took the stage at 11 p.m. Tourist Trap Day: #TotalSF hosts Peter Hartlaub and Heather Knight have declared Wednesday, Sept. 26, Tourist Trap Day in San Francisco. Readers are encouraged to visit a favorite S.F. tourist trap and share photos and experiences on Twitter and Instagram with the hashtags #TotalSF and #GetTrapped. (Or email them to hknight@sfchronicle.com and phartlaub@sfchronicle.com.) The two reporters will be visiting tourist traps they like all day, ending with Irish coffees at the Buena Vista at 5 p.m. Follow their adventures at www.sfchronicle.com See More Collapse Veteran rock-scene partygoers know a fiasco almost as soon as they hit the place, Selvin wrote. Rock star Paul Kantner, for instance, was strolling out of the la-de-dah extravaganza Monday night that marked the opening of the Hard Rock Cafe just as the party was getting started. Were going to the movies, he said. More from the Archive The Vault Home of the San Francisco Chronicle's archive and more than 150 years of journalism covering the Bay Area and beyond. But if anything the event raised the profile of the Hard Rock Cafe, which was a hit on Van Ness throughout the 1980s. The franchise has 185 locations worldwide in 2018, plus hotels and casinos. Hard Rock Cafe in San Francisco moved to Pier 39 in 2002, into a bigger space vacated by a closed video game arcade. It turned out to be a good decision. A recent visit for a work meeting among Chronicle staffers revealed a thriving space, with a fair amount of locally sourced rock memorabilia - from Steve Perrys black pea coat, to a Chris Isaak ukulele. One waitress on her shift, Diana Smith, has been working at the Hard Rock since the big opening in 1984. Hard Rocks old home, meanwhile, has become a less-than-star-studded thoroughfare. Pacific Union International real estate agency now inhabits 1699 Van Ness. It will be much easier for the internationals (non-U.S. tourists) to find, Deborah Reinow with the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau told The Chronicle in 2002. While there are some great restaurants on Van Ness, it hasnt really caught on as a big restaurant or tourist mecca. Peter Hartlaub is The San Francisco Chronicles pop culture critic. Email: phartlaub@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @PeterHartlaub Around 5:10 p.m., a 24-year-old man was shot in the leg in the 700 block of West 61st Street. He was taken to St. Bernard Hospital and Health Care Center, where his condition had stabilized. The four candidates for District 10 supervisor said Friday that San Francisco needs a new vision for its poorest, most isolated and industrial district, one that includes more affordable housing, increased job opportunities and basic amenities such as a grocery store. The district on the southeast edge of San Francisco is in the midst of a major transformation, with a number of development projects promising to turn underused waterfront land into thriving, mixed-use communities. But some of those projects have focused too heavily on market-rate housing and fancy amenities, while ignoring the needs of the Bayview-Hunters Point community, the candidates said. We have no neighborhood plan, candidate Theo Ellington told The Chronicles editorial board. These six waterfront development projects are all haphazard and dont fit into something that is congruent with the rest of the neighborhood. One proposed development is at India Basin, which runs along the citys eastern edge south of Islais Creek. It includes a restaurant row, waterfront park with boat docks, bike paths, a farmers market and 21st century village homes. If the Board of Supervisors approves the project at its Tuesday meeting, it would add 150,000 square feet of commercial space and 1,575 units of housing, 400 units of which would be affordable. All four candidates in the race Ellington, Board of Education member and former president Shamann Walton; Tony Kelly, president of the Potrero Hill Democratic Club; and Gloria Berry, a former member of the U.S. Navy agreed that the amount of affordable housing was not enough. Walton said he would look to increase the amount of on-site affordable housing for this project and also ensure that the developers hire workers from within the district. I want this development to happen, I think its going to be amazing for our district and our community, Walton said. But there is always more that developers can do when it comes to community. Kelly said a development like India Basin should be built so more residents of District 10 can afford to live there, while Berry said the amount of affordable housing included in the plan is unacceptable. Youre not caring about keeping the culture and the community with those numbers, she said. If elected, Ellington said he would focus on developing a neighborhood plan that would connect the disparate development projects in the area with increased transportation, more public spaces and amenities such as a grocery store. Individualized, project-by-project planning gets us nowhere, he said. We need to tap into additional funding sources, because the city cant do all of these infrastructure improvements nor investment in transportation by itself. Another project, known as the Shipyard, is slated to add more than 12,000 homes, 300 acres of parkland and millions of square feet of schools, retail and office space to the neighborhood. But the project has been snarled in delays following revelations that the site home to the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory from 1946 to 1969 may still be contaminated with radiological waste after the Navy and the Environmental Protection Agency questioned the cleanup and soil testing done by Tetra Tech, an environmental engineering firm in charge of the cleanup. Each candidate called for retesting of the site. Kelly said Tetra Tech should be removed from all city projects. Ellington, who lives at the Shipyard, is involved in a lawsuit against Tetra Tech and the developer. Berry went as far as to say that the city should halt all development on any new building projects in the Shipyard until all necessary testing and cleanup is completed. If you want to build on top of toxic soil and in the area of radiation, I dont see how you are really concerned about the health of the community, she said. Trisha Thadani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tthadani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @TrishaThadani Gov. Jerry Brown on Friday ordered an audit of the state Department of Motor Vehicles amid fury over excessive wait times and reports that the agency botched 23,000 voter registrations. The audit will evaluate the DMVs operations and its efforts to upgrade aging technology systems. Following that assessment, the states Department of Finance will make recommendations to improve the agencys practices and boost customer service. Although the DMV recently extended hours, opened 60 offices on Saturdays and installed self-service terminals throughout the state, its wait times still do not reflect the high standards of service that Californians expect from their state government, Department of Finance Director Keely Martin Bosler said in a letter to DMV Director Jean Shiomoto. While these actions have already brought down wait times, recent developments have also underscored the need for further analysis, Bosler wrote, alluding to the voter registration errors. Earlier this month, DMV officials said they found erroneous data in about 23,000 voter registration records that were sent to the Secretary of States office, from customers who visited a field office between April 23 and Aug. 5. DMV officials blamed the mistakes which included signing people up to vote who did not register, putting in the wrong political party or language preference, and assigning vote-by-mail preferences to people who had not asked for them on antiquated software. The errors occurred when DMV technicians had more than one customer record on a computer at the same time, causing those records to merge. During an additional review of the records, officials found that 3,000 of them had incomplete affidavits or unclear party preferences. Problems have built up over the years as the state and federal governments saddle the DMV with new responsibilities, said Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco. He chairs the Assembly Budget Committee. Obviously, theyre in a very stressful situation, Ting said, noting that DMV staff only began handling voter registration in the past couple years. Now they also have to process applications for RealID licenses, which all persons will need to show to board domestic airline flights beginning in 2020, unless passengers can show a passport. Nonetheless, Ting questioned the departments efficiency even after lawmakers allocated millions of dollars for new field offices in the last two budgets. I havent been very satisfied with the answers that Ive gotten from the department about how staff is being deployed, and where resources are going, he said. Ting called Fridays audit announcement a major step. Republican lawmakers had called for an audit in August, after they were bombarded with complaints from constituents who had to wait weeks for an appointment to obtain or renew a drivers license, only to stand in line for hours at a field office. Three Democratic senators scuttled the investigation by declining to vote, saying the audit would hamper the departments efforts to fix itself. On Friday, lawmakers and politicians from both parties said they support the audit. Democratic Sen. Ben Allen of Santa Monica applauded Browns decision. While progress has been made in reducing wait times, it is clear that in many DMV offices the problems are still very bad, and the public is not being well served, Allen said in a statement. Allen went on to cite the unacceptable new problems in motor voter files. GOP gubernatorial candidate John Cox called the audit better late than never. The Sacramento political class has done a shameful job addressing these real problems plaguing millions of Californians, Cox said. Every hour spent in a DMV line is an hour away from someones job or family. Shiomoto said she welcomed the Department of Finances input into DMVs ongoing efforts to reduce wait times and improve customer service and stand ready to assist with the audit. Rachel Swan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rswan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rachelswan SACRAMENTO San Francisco could tax ride-hailing companies such as Uber and Lyft under a bill signed by Gov. Jerry Brown on Friday. AB1184 by Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, proposes a tax that applies only to trips that originate in San Francisco although it still needs final approval by voters in the city. The proposal calls for a 3.25 percent tax on net rider fares for single-party trips and 1.5 percent on shared rides. The bill was the result of a deal reached among San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin, Uber and Lyft. Peskin had introduced a ballot measure for November asking voters to tax the gross receipts of ride-hailing companies at up to 0.975 percent. He withdrew the measure after negotiations with the ride-hailing companies with that deal being placed into AB1184. The bill was needed to authorize San Francisco to levy local taxes on ride-hailing trips. Instead of taxing gross receipts, the tax under AB1184 applies to the amount companies actually receive, excluding tolls and airport fees. The money, which Peskins office said would amount to $30 million annually over the first few years, would be directed to the San Francisco County Transportation Authority and used for transit uses. Uber and Lyft could pass along the tax to riders. City voters would have to approve the proposal by a two-thirds vote because the tax would go to a specific purpose and not the citys general fund. If approved by city voters next year, the tax would start in January 2020. Melody Gutierrez is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mgutierrez@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @MelodyGutierrez Foreign Cinema is a consensus pick for one of the Most Beautiful Restaurants in San Francisco. The Mission District restaurant, run by chef-owners Gayle Pirie and John Clark for nearly two decades now, is housed in a singular location, a winding amalgamation of spaces that is impossible to predict from the storefront. Pirie compares the raw space to Le Corbusiers brutalism; its height, proportion and light inspired the design, creating an aesthetic that blends industrial, modern and most of all, Californian sensibilities. And along the way, there are some pretty cool references within the space. These are some of those stories. The exterior Vivian Johnson/Special to the Chronicle The metal portal doors, with a hint of nautical inspiration, are a direct homage to Jean Prouve, a renowned French designer and metal worker from the 1950s, celebrated for his ability to blend the industrial with the aesthetic. The aspect of clear glass meeting machinist metal within the nautical windows, says Pirie, echoed the values of the working-class Mission district population, while also embodying a renaissance of sorts, and aspirational design ideals. As for the marquee, when Foreign Cinema opened there was no signage on the building. Pirie recounts diners going in circles, looking for the entry. When Pirie and Clark took over, they bought letters at Anthropologie as a stop-gap. We always wanted this beautiful blue marquee, says Pirie. But it has never been built. The letters remain there to this day. The entry corridor Vivian Johnson / Special to the Chronicle The long hallway that leads from the street to the restaurant was, decades ago, a taqueria; if you look closely, youll still see remnants of that era in the tiles on the floor. For many, the tunnel-like entry evokes Alice in Wonderland, as you go down the rabbit hole to emerge into a world you never knew existed. However, Pirie says they also took inspiration from another place: Jean Cocteaus dreamlike 1946 version of La Belle et la Bete (Beauty and the Beast), particularly the scene where a cautious Belle is walking through a candlelit corridor that may be either enchanted or haunted . Courtyard Vivian Johnson / Special to the Chronicle The courtyard has become the indelible part of Foreign Cinema, the component that distinguishes it and truly makes it part of the pantheon of San Franciscos beautiful restaurants. It was an afterthought, a concrete prison yard full of tires, junk and rats, with no access from the rest of the space except for a tiny metal door. Yet over time, the space was a key influence in the restaurants development of its popular brunch. When Pirie and a cook, Juan Aguilar, began prepping in the yard during off hours, they realized that the courtyard demanded daytime service. But not just any daytime service. Pirie had a very specific idea. The space really did influence the vision, Pirie says. There should be people basking in this sun. There should be glasses being clinked in the silence, and there should be sparkling rose receiving the stark light. Interior Vivian Johnson / Special to the Chronicle Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more. The dining room was inspired by the feeling of Zuni Cafe. Jon Varnedoe, the original owner of Foreign Cinema (Pirie and Clark took over two years in), would spend afternoons sitting at Zuni, thinking about what made it special. So, at Foreign Cinema, he created an atriumlike room full of natural light and warmth (light woods, an actual hearth) to complement the industrial components. These days, exposed concrete and high beams are everywhere in local restaurants. That wasnt always the case. Foreign Cinema wasnt the first to embrace the look, but the singular space made it special. The exhilarating dismantling of the decrepit building down to its pure shell was informative in Foreign Cinemas conception: The more raw the space became, the more beautiful it became, Pirie says. Fun fact: The I-beams within the main walls are painted the exact hue as the Golden Gate Bridge, a main feature in Hitchcocks Vertigo a detail that was not lost during design. Vivian Johnson / Special to the Chronicle Laszlo Whereas the rest of Foreign Cinema drew inspiration from film and from San Francisco, the street-facing bar took its cue from Central Europe. Laszlo was originally an ode to the Loos Bar in Vienna: darkly lit, intimate seating, high ceilings. Laszlo received a remodel in 2016, which brought amber wood finishes, new floors and a black marble-top bar, among other renovations. A $1.5 billion residential and commercial development on San Franciscos Treasure Island moved closer to construction Wednesday when the state Supreme Court turned aside an appeal of the citys environmental review of the project. City supervisors approved plans for the former Navy base and adjoining Yerba Buena Island in 2011. The project, scheduled to take 15 to 20 years, includes up to 8,000 homes, 25 percent of them classified as below-market affordable housing, along with commercial and office buildings, 500 hotel rooms, a ferry terminal, and 300 acres of parks, playgrounds and open space. A group called Citizens for a Sustainable Treasure Island, led by former Supervisor Aaron Peskin, filed a lawsuit claiming San Franciscos environmental study was inadequate. The suit said the study lacked details of street layout and building design and failed to spell out plans to remove the many hazardous materials in the soil, groundwater and existing buildings. But a state appeals court upheld the study in July. The First District Court of Appeal said the city had examined and reported all available information about the project while providing for flexibility needed to respond to changing conditions and unforeseen events. The court also said the Navy is required to remove all toxic substances including oil, pesticides, asbestos, lead paint and low-level radioactive material from each parcel before transferring the land to developers. The environmental report details the locations of known hazards and the procedures the city and the developers would use for any further cleanups, the court said. Opponents appealed the ruling to the states high court, which unanimously denied review Wednesday. Citizens for a Sustainable Treasure Island isnt giving up and has asked federal officials to reconsider their environmental review of the project, said Saul Bloom, who also directs the environmental nonprofit Arc Ecology. He said the state courts decision denied the people of San Francisco an opportunity to be fully informed about this project. Chris Meany of the firm Wilson Meany, one of the developers, said the court order was what he expected. After 31/2 years of unnecessary delay, we can (start to) reclaim this old military base and turn it into a real neighborhood of San Francisco, he said. The case is Citizens for a Sustainable Treasure Island vs. San Francisco, S220652. Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko Treasure Island Community Development Six weeks after San Francisco officials approved the development of a huge neighborhood on Treasure Island, a group filed suit Monday, claiming the city did not adequately assess the environmental impacts of the project. A group calling itself Citizens for a Sustainable Treasure Island said the $1.5 billion development, which includes a ferry terminal and an eco-friendly neighborhood that could house up to 19,000 new residents in the next three decades, has become "bloated and unsustainable." Mike Kepka/The Chronicle City officials and private developers unveiled a preliminary development plan Wednesday for a new community on Treasure Island that would include 6,000 homes, a school and 300 acres of open space. Michael Cohen of the mayor's Office of Base Reuse and Chris Meany, who represented a group of developers, described to the Treasure Island Development Authority a plan that would be funded with taxes generated by increased property values and as a result would take no money from the city's budget. SEATTLE Women suing Microsoft alleging widespread gender discrimination will get another chance to convince a court that their claims should be considered together as a class, after the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to hear an appeal of a lower-court decision. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are seeking to add to the case more than 8,600 women who have worked in engineering jobs at the company, making it a class-action suit. U.S. District Judge James Robart denied the class-action motion in June, saying there were not strong enough similarities between the womens claims to prove company-wide bias practices. Former Officer Joseph Walsh, given immunity by prosecutors to testify despite already facing indictment on charges that he helped cover up the shooting, may have been more helpful to the defense. Performing his version of events leading up to the shooting, Walsh, who was Van Dykes partner that night, stood in front of the jury box as he dramatically demonstrated how McDonald allegedly swung the small knife behind his back and then up to about shoulder height moments before Van Dyke opened fire. Rachel Bolden-Kramer knows what it means to struggle. Despite being the first in her family to go to college (she graduated from Harvard University with a degree in Social Studies and Spanish), she scrambled to find employment in the midst of the financial crisis and subsequent Great Recession. A physical injury inspired her to learn yoga and other natural healing practices, which led her to open a yoga center in New York. But she still relied on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to put food on the table. PHOENIX Six siblings of Rep. Paul Gosar have urged voters to cast their ballots against the Arizona Republican in November in an unusual political ad sponsored by the rival candidate. The television ad from Democrat David Brill combines video interviews with Gosar-family siblings who ask voters to usher Paul Gosar out of office because he has broken with the familys values. They do not elaborate. They previously condemned the congressmans false accusation in 2017 that wealthy Democratic donor George Soros was a Nazi collaborator in World WarII. Its intervention time, Tim Gosar says in the ad, endorsing Brill. And intervention time means that you go to vote, and you go to vote Paul out. Gosar is a fourth-term congressman for a sprawling district in northwestern and central Arizona. He fired back at his brothers and sisters in a series of Twitter posts, calling them disgruntled supporters of Hillary Clinton from out of state who put ideology before family. My siblings who chose to film ads against me are all liberal Democrats who hate President Trump, Gosar said. Stalin would be proud. In a separate video segment, the siblings urge voters to hold the congressman accountable on health care, employment and environmental issues. Paul Gosars comments about Soros came in a TV interview with Vice News in which he also suggested a 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., might have been a liberal conspiracy. In the new ad, Gosars siblings describe their decision to speak out as saddening, horrible and ultimately a matter of pride for the family from Wyoming. I think my brother has traded a lot of the values we had at our kitchen table, says Joan Gosar, an engineer. What I might think would happen is theyd be playing that video in slow motion a number of times, saying, What were you thinking here after the first shot? Did you believe there was an imminent fear? What about the eighth shot. What about the 14th shot? Urdangen said. And the guys on the ground, hes virtually dead, hes not moving. I dont know how you have a good answer for those types of cross-examination questions. Darts lawsuit does not offer a possible motive or explanation as to why the couple may have made the allegations. Culloton said he could not say what the defendants issue was with Dart, but said it would all come out in court. Steven G. de Polo / Getty Image One man is in the hospital with serious injuries after getting shot in Berkeley on Friday afternoon, police said. Berkeley police officers responded to reports of gunfire in the 2900 block of Sacramento Street at around 2:12 p.m. and found a man in his 40s suffering from gunshot wounds, according to a Berkeley Police Department statement. WASHINGTON Negotiators reached a tentative agreement Saturday for the Senate Judiciary Committee to hear testimony Thursday from Christine Blasey Ford, the woman accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of a past sexual assault, according to two people briefed on the matter. Lawyers for Ford and bipartisan representatives of the committee came to the tentative agreement after a short phone call, said one of the people, who was not authorized to speak publicly and requested anonymity. The person said Kavanaugh would also appear. Some details of the hearing, such as the order of their appearance, remained in negotiation. Talks were expected to continue Sunday. The tentative accord could bring to a close days of high-stakes brinkmanship that have roiled Washington ahead of midterm elections and threated to jeopardize Kavanaugh's confirmation to the court. Tensions have been running on overdrive since Ford, a 51-year-old college professor in California, went public with her allegation that Kavanaugh assaulted her when they were at a house party in high school. Kavanaugh, 53, an appellate court judge, denied the allegation and said he wanted to testify as soon as possible to clear his name. Ford initially indicated she wanted to tell her story to the committee, but talks dragged on as her lawyers negotiated terms of her appearance. Republicans grew frustrated as Ford's lawyers insisted on a hearing next Thursday rather than Monday or even Wednesday and made other requests, some of which the committee chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, rejected. Democrats, against the backdrop of the #MeToo movement, countered that Ford should be shown respect and given accommodation to tell her story. As the talks continued, Grassley countered that he would end the standoff by scheduling a Monday vote on whether to recommend Kavanaugh's nomination to the full Senate. Meanwhile, Republicans viewed Ford's requests as a way to delay voting on President Donald Trump's nominee. Earlier Saturday, a senior official at the White House said Ford's requests amounted to "a clever way to push off the vote Monday without committing to appear Wednesday." The official was not authorized to publicly discuss the negotiations and spoke on condition of anonymity. The White House views Ford's potential testimony with trepidation, nervous that an emotional performance might not just damage Kavanaugh's chances but could further energize female voters to turn out against Republicans in November. Moreover, the West Wing aides who had urged Trump to remain muted in his response to the accusations worried about how the president might react if she ended up partaking in an hourslong, televised hearing. In a single tweet Friday, Trump broke his silence to cast doubt on Ford's story in ways Republicans had been carefully trying to avoid. Before her husbands death in 1974, the couple lived in the Winnetka mansion called Edgecliff, where seven galleries housed some of the 2,000 pieces of art the couple had collected. Hand said Mayer and her husband invited many groups into the home for fundraising and charity events. After he died, Mayer initiated a loan program in which pieces from the collection were loaned to as many as 35 university-affiliated museums around the country. KING CITY (BCN) A 34-year-old King City babysitter was sentenced Thursday to six years in prison after she admitted to shaking a 4-month-old baby and causing her major injuries in 2017, Monterey County prosecutors said. Rosa Ramirez was arrested on Sept. 5, 2017 after medical officials responded to an unconscious baby who wasn't breathing. The hospital told police the baby had suffered intracranial bleeding and head trauma after being shaken aggressively, according to prosecutors. When police arrived at the scene, Ramirez told police she was babysitting while the child's parents were at work. She later told police the baby wouldn't stop crying, so she had placed her in a cradle and rocked her back and forth for 30 minutes. She then amended the story to say 20 seconds, according to prosecutors. Ramirez said she told the baby to "shut up" while shaking her, and that the baby began foaming at the mouth and having seizures before becoming unresponsive, according to prosecutors. The baby was taken to Mee Memorial Hospital and Stanford Medical Center for treatment. She survived the assault due to extensive medical care, according to prosecutors. Prosecutors said the baby's mother spoke at the sentencing hearing and described the impact of Ramirez's assault. Judge Julie Culver gave Ramirez the six-year sentence for committing child abuse causing great bodily injury. The charge is considered a "strike" in California's three strikes law, which increases the prison term for subsequent strikes. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) A driver accused of being drunk when he fatally hit a pedestrian and then fled the scene late Tuesday night in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood made his first court appearance today. Allan Quiton, 40, has been charged with gross vehicular manslaughter for the 11:30 p.m. collision at Ninth and Howard streets, which killed 61-year-old Modesto Fegurdo. Quiton has also been charged with driving while under the influence of alcohol causing injury, evading an officer and fleeing the scene. Quiton did not enter a plea this afternoon and his arraignment was postponed until Sept. 25. Judge Robert Foley ordered that Quiton remain in custody without bail for the time being. Quiton is being represented by the Public Defender's Office. According to police, Quiton was driving a black Toyota Prius, heading west on Howard Street when the Toyota collided with Fegurdo. Quiton, however, allegedly made no attempt to stop or help Fegurdo and immediately fled the scene. A driver who witnessed the collision then followed Quiton, called police and gave them Quiton's license plate number. Responding officers were able to catch up with Quiton and arrested him near the corner of 25th and Connecticut streets, police said. Last week, a separate collision on Howard Street killed a bicyclist, just a few blocks away from Tuesday's fatal collision. On Sept. 14, 56-year-old Russell Franklin died after a vehicle struck him while he was on a bike, around noon in the 1600 block of Howard Street. The car's driver stopped and the driver and another bicyclist tried to help Franklin who was taken to the hospital where he died later that night, police said. The car's driver was not arrested and the collision remains under investigation, according to police. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. MARTINEZ (BCN) Four people were displaced this morning after a 1-alarm fire at a Martinez apartment complex, according to the Contra Costa County Fire District. No one was injured in the fire, which was reported at 5:25 a.m. in the 3400 block of Sentinel Drive. The blaze was under control within 20 minutes, Fire Prevention Captain Steve Aubert said. Three of the four people who lived there were home at the time of the fire, according to Aubert. The Red Cross is providing assistance to the residents. The blaze stemmed from an air conditioning unit on the second floor of the unit, but it's unknown why it caught fire, Aubert said. No other units were damaged at the complex. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. A portion of State Route 4 is now named for Hayward Police Sgt. Scott Lunger, who was killed three years ago during a traffic stop, according to the California Department of Transporation. The agency today unveiled signs for the Police Sergeant Scott Lunger Memorial Highway, on State Route 4 between Laurel Road in Oakley and Balfour Road in Brentwood. Lunger, of Brentwood, was 48 years old when he was gunned down near Myrtle and Lion streets in Hayward about 3:15 a.m. July 22, 2015. He was pronounced dead at Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley a short time later. His accused killer, Mark Estrada, is charged with murder for allegedly shooting Lunger after the sergeant and another officer stopped his pickup truck for driving erratically. Estrada, 24, of Oakland, is set to stand trial later this year. Lunger, a father of two, served 15 years with Hayward police force. "Sgt. Scott Lunger was a dedicated officer who exemplified the true character of the brave men and women who devote their lives to law enforcement, said Assembly member Jim Frazier, who authored a resolution to name the route after Lunger. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) About 20 people rallied outside of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in San Francisco today, ahead of an asylum hearing for a San Jose man facing deportation. Misael Quezada Flores emigrated to the U.S. from Mexico nearly 20 years ago and, in May, he was detained by ICE agents outside his home. Since being jailed, he's been moved from the West County Detention Facility in Richmond to a jail in Aurora, Colo. Flores is among several detainees in ICE custody who have been moved from the Richmond jail to states like Washington and Colorado, since the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office terminated its contract with ICE in July. Flores's partner, Fatima Aguilera is more than seven months pregnant with his child. Today, Aguilera said she fears that if Flores is deported, he won't ever get to meet the latest addition to their family. "Misael is a wonderful husband and he belongs with me and our baby who will arrive soon," Aguilera said in a statement. "He calls me everyday to check on us and he worries so much that something bad will happen and that he won't be here to take care of us or ever meet our daughter. All I want is for Misael to make it home in time for the birth of our child because it breaks my heart to think I will have to go through this all alone." According to organizer Rev. Deborah Lee, executive director of the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity, because of the stress of Flores's predicament, Aguilera's pregnancy has become high-risk. "This is a heartbreaking situation and we are praying for a favorable outcome. The life of the baby and the mother has been put at risk because of the trauma that separation, detention and deportation causes," Lee said in a statement. "This family wants nothing more than to live freely in a country that is supposed to protect and value families. They want nothing more than to contribute as members of our community." Flores's hearing was originally scheduled for August, however, technical issues with the teleconferencing system at the Colorado jail caused the hearing to be postponed. Attorneys representing Flores were worried at the time that his case would be ultimately be transferred to Colorado, however, they were able to convince the judge to hear the case in San Francisco. According to Lee, at Flores's hearing today, Judge Joseph Park heard arguments from both sides regarding Flores's release and agreed to grant a withholding of removal. The grant, however, does not mean that Flores will immediately be set free, Lee said, since the government's attorneys have already filed an appeal of the decision. "Others who have been granted a withholding have been able to get out. It's going to take a little bit of maneuvering... but I'm hopeful that he will be released," Lee said. Flores's family has set up a GoFundMe account and is seeking donations to help support Aguilera with expenses during her pregnancy. The page can be found at https://www.gofundme.com/free-misael. Officials with ICE were not immediately available for comment. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. BERKELEY (BCN) A man suffered serious injuries this afternoon in a shooting in South Berkeley, police said. Reports of gunfire came in to the Police Department at 2:12 p.m. The gunfire was in the 2900 block of Sacramento Street. Officers responded and once there they found a man in his 40s with gunshot wounds, police said. Officers began first aid and the man was taken to a trauma center to be treated for serious injuries. Police are asking the community to get in touch with the Police Department's homicide unit if they have any information or video footage related to the shooting. The homicide unit can be reached at (510) 981-5741. Police will be adding patrols to the South Berkeley area, at least in the short term. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. 3 1 of 3 Ben Margot/Associated Press Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Show More Show Less 3 of 3 Protesters urging customers to close their accounts with Wells Fargo and Chase gathered today outside several bank branches around the Bay Area. Parents and their children participated in the "Move Your Money Playdate" actions, according to a news release. Organizers say Wells Fargo and Chase are leading financiers of two large for-profit prison corporations, CoreCivic and GEO Group, which operated immigration detention centers. The banks also continue to finance fossil fuel projects like the Keystone XL Pipeline and proposed arctic drilling projects that are dangerous to the environment, according to organizers. More than 70 groups in the Families Belong Together Coalition around the country took part in similar actions today. "This is an easy choice," said Samantha Liapes of Oakland, an organizer and mother of two who protested at the Oakland 40th Street Branch of Wells Fargo. Liapes said she talked to about 70 people who were either customers or walking by the bank branch. She said that one customer, a mother with a teenager, went into the branch and closed down her account after talking to the protesters. "JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo can choose to be on the right side of history and stop financing inhumane family detention and dangerous oil pipelines or they can do nothing and go down in history as the evil corporations that ignored their customers protests and continued to make money off of caging kids and destroying our planet," Liapes said. The protests were planned at an estimated 20 locations around the Bay, in Alameda, Berkeley, El Cerrito, Oakland, San Jose and San Francisco. Representatives from Chase did not respond to requests for comment. A Wells Fargo spokesman responded, saying that the bank didn't take a position on public policy. "Wells Fargo respects the seriousness of our country's ongoing debate about the criminal justice system," said Ruben Pulido, spokesman for Wells Fargo. "However, we do not as a corporation take positions on public policy issues that do not directly affect our company's ability to serve customers and support team members. "Federal and state governments have for the past 30 years been contracting out detention services. People who want to change that should address their concerns with the appropriate government officials," Pulido said. Pulido added that Wells Fargo supports "responsible development" of all forms of energy and since 2012 has invested more than $83 billion in environmentally sustainable businesses. A Benicia man who worked for 25 years at the University of California at Berkeley was arrested in Berkeley on suspicion of sexually assaulting 10 women in at least six counties between 1991 and 2006. The arrest was made Thursday. Law enforcement agencies and district attorneys from the counties announced the arrest of Roy Charles Waller, 58, allegedly the so-called Nor-Cal Rapist, at a news conference in Sacramento Friday morning. DNA evidence linked Waller to a sexual assault that occurred in October 2006 in Sacramento, the Sacramento Police Department said in a news release. Waller is scheduled to be arraigned Monday afternoon in Sacramento County Superior Court on 12 felony charges, some of which carry life prison terms, Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert said. He is being held in Sacramento County Jail on no-bail status. The alleged rapes occurred in Sonoma, Solano, Contra Costa, Yolo, Butte and Sacramento counties. The first assaults happened in Rohnert Park in 1991 and in Sonoma in 1992. The most recent was in Sacramento in 2006, law enforcement officials said at the new conference. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf thanked Gov. Jerry Brown for signing a bill that allows her city to lease public land for future homeless centers. Schaaf extended her gratitude Friday. Schaaf said Assembly Bill 3139, which she sponsored and was authored by Assemblyman Rob Bonta, D-Alameda, allows Oakland to lease up to 10 unused Caltrans parcels for $1 per month. She said the parcels give Oakland new options to pursue outdoor emergency shelters. "Finding vacant parcels to set up emergency outdoor shelters, such as Oakland's Tuff Shed cabin communities, has proven to be a time-consuming and expensive obstacle in our community's response to the homeless crisis," Schaaf said in a statement. Bonta said, "Housing is a basic human need and a basic human right. Too many Californians are suffering without shelter." About 20 people rallied outside of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in San Francisco, ahead of an asylum hearing for a San Jose man facing deportation. The rally was held Friday. Misael Quezada Flores emigrated to the U.S. from Mexico nearly 20 years ago and, in May, ICE agents detained him outside his home. Since being jailed, he's been moved from the West County Detention Facility in Richmond to a jail in Aurora, Colo. Flores is among several detainees in ICE custody who have been moved from the Richmond jail to states like Washington and Colorado, since the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office terminated its contract with ICE in July. Flores's partner, Fatima Aguilera, is more than seven months pregnant with his child. Friday, Aguilera said she fears that if Flores is deported, he won't ever get to meet the latest addition to their family. A 34-year-old King City babysitter was sentenced to six years in prison after she admitted to shaking a 4-month-old baby and causing her major injuries in 2017, Monterey County prosecutors said. Rosa Ramirez was sentenced Thursday. Ramirez was arrested on Sept. 5, 2017, after medical officials responded to an unconscious baby who wasn't breathing. The hospital told police the baby had suffered intracranial bleeding and head trauma after being shaken aggressively, according to prosecutors. When police arrived at the scene, Ramirez told police she was babysitting while the child's parents were at work. She later told police the baby wouldn't stop crying, so she had placed her in a cradle and rocked her back and forth for 30 minutes. She then amended the story to say 20 seconds, according to prosecutors. Ramirez said she told the baby to "shut up" while shaking her, and that the baby began foaming at the mouth and having seizures before becoming unresponsive, according to prosecutors. Our continuing dry weather, brittle grasslands, warm fall temperatures, low humidity and high winds expected this weekend add up to some critical fire weather, the National Weather Service reported, prompting a call for extreme fire safety in the Bay Area. Weather officials issued their statements Friday. Northerly winds at 10 to 20 mph with gusts to 30 and 35 mph - which could rapidly spread even small wildfires -- are expected to blow through the North Bay mountains and East Bay hills Sunday night into Monday morning, decreasing slightly Monday but remaining breezy. High pressure is forecast to build across the interior valleys with low pressure at the coast, leading to an offshore flow. Humidity levels will also remain low for the next few days. A hazardous weather outlook has been issued, but a fire weather watch may be issued this weekend. A Hayward elementary school teacher is one of 104 educators nationwide recently honored with a 2016 Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching, California Department of Education officials announced. The officials made the announcement Friday. Nancy Wright, who teaches third through sixth grades at Hayward's Lorin Eden Elementary School and also serves as the science teacher on special assignment for the Hayward Unified School District, was declared the winner of the science teaching award for California. She is lauded for increasing students' wonder for science using hands-on activities, according to State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tom Torlakson, a former science teacher himself. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Yet almost simultaneously, the new head of civil rights for the Education Department, longtime pro-Israel activist Kenneth L. Marcus, reopened an old investigation into complaints by Jewish students at Rutgers University in New Jersey. The students had claimed that the university failed to protect them from harassment, and that they were discriminated against by being charged entrance fees to a public pro-Palestinian event in 2011. Those allegations were rejected by a 2014 investigation by the Education Department, which closed the case. Soaring Bay Area housing costs have led to a wave of racial and income segregation, according to a new report from the University of California at Berkeley. The study, announced Wednesday by UC Berkeley's Urban Displacement Project and the California Housing Partnership, shows rising housing costs between 2000 and 2015 contributed to displacement of primarily low-income people of color and formed new concentrations of poverty and racial segregation in the region. "Our research provides quantitative evidence of what activists have been saying for years - the housing crisis is contributing to the re-segregation of the Bay Area," Miriam Zuk, director of the Urban Displacement Project, said. In one example, the report found that 65 percent of San Francisco's low-income black households lived in high-poverty segregated neighborhoods in 2015 - a substantially higher rate than low-income groups of other races. As home costs rose from 2000 to 2015, the city of Richmond, the flatland areas of Oakland and Berkeley and the Bayview district in San Francisco lost thousands of low-income black households to areas with lower housing prices, such as Antioch and Pittsburg as well as Hayward and the unincorporated East Bay communities of Ashland and Cherryland, the report showed. Researchers involved in the study say cities and counties in the Bay Area need policies and investments that support housing affordability and better access to neighborhoods with quality educational and economic opportunities. Displacement pushes low-income people of color "into higher-poverty, lower-resource neighborhoods where the odds are stacked against them," Matt Schwartz, president of the California Housing Partnership, said. "We can and must do better." Further UC Berkeley research from the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society, shows rent control policies are key to stabilizing the state's housing crisis. The research brief found that rent control, when applied with other housing policies, can prevent housing costs from spiraling out of control and forcing families to leave their neighborhoods. The analysis comes as California voters prepare to consider Proposition 10 on the November ballot. Currently, a 1995 state law prohibits cities from adopting rent control ordinances on single-family homes and condos as well as homes built after February 1995, the report said. If passed, Prop 10 would repeal the law, allowing cities to consider adopting rent control on all types of housing. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Jim Agin has lived with his wife in the same Oak Park apartment building for 38 years. Hes now moving out, but not in the way he planned. On Friday, Agin and other residents were sent a letter from the buildings management company informing them that the building had to undergo immediate structural review and that they had to completely move out by midnight Wednesday. According to prosecutors, Foster flew from Atlanta to Chicago on March 13, rented a car and drove to the 1100 block of Holiday Lane in Des Plaines, apparently to confront his romantic rival. When Foster saw the victim, he approached him and began striking him in the head repeatedly with a tire iron until he lost consciousness, authorities said. How many times do you refresh your Instagram feed after you've posted something? Social networks are a regular part of the average person's daily routine, sometimes even dominating that routine. Of course, these networks provide instant connectivity, but for many, participation translates to constant comparison. If networks like Twitter, Instagram or Facebook gave users an option to "hide" things like follower numbers or "like" counts, would you use it? PERSPECTIVES Kanye West took to Twitter to advocate for the option to hide things like follower numbers and "like" counts from view. Kanye, who has 28.4 million followers on Twitter, admits the numbers have a negative impact on his mental health. we should be able to participate in social media without having to show how many followers or likes we have. Just like how we can turn off the comments we should be able to turn off the display of followers. This has an intense negative impact on our self worth. ye (@kanyewest) September 20, 2018 Social media metrics indicate the reach of individual posts. Businesses use social media regularly to monitor audience interactions and more. And for many, reveling in "like" and follower counts is simply fun. When you post something on social media, chances are you are announcing something to friends and family; you might be showing them where in the world you are traveling, telling everyone about a new job or showing friends an apartment in a new city. Seeing who likes your post is akin to conversing with friends about both major and minor life moments. @AustWalsh2 I have 49 followers. Proud of every one of 'em Mark Bentley (@bentleymarkj) September 20, 2018 YouTube allows users to hide their subscriber count, and Reddit doesn't show follower counts at all. If other social networks were to catch on, giving users the option to hide the number of followers they have or the number of "likes" they have on a post, users would be less inclined to compare their numbers to other users. Given the addictive nature of social media, opting to hide these kinds of metrics certainly would not hurt. This is one reason why we don't show followers publicly on Reddit profiles. https://t.co/WW0Sfn8YAV Alexis Ohanian Sr. (@alexisohanian) September 20, 2018 But where would we be without legendary social media moments like Beyonce's pregnancy announcement or Kylie Jenner's introduction of Stormi Webster to the world? Whether it's good for your own mental health or not, "likes" help social media users to see and discuss key moments in culture, politics and much more. If celebrities like Kanye hide their numbers, users' interactions with the medium could shift. The Tylt is focused on debates and conversations around news, current events and pop culture. We provide our community with the opportunity to share their opinions and vote on topics that matter most to them. We actively engage the community and present meaningful data on the debates and conversations as they progress. The Tylt is a place where your opinion counts, literally. The Tylt is an Advance Local Media, LLC property. Join us on Twitter @TheTylt, on Instagram @TheTylt or on Facebook, we'd love to hear what you have to say. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Today's archive page is from Dec. 19, 1960. A&P advertises its Christmas turkey offerings. It is selling ready-to-cook turkeys priced at 39 cents a pound for birds sized at 18 pounds and over. For turkeys that are under 18 pounds, the price is 47 cents a pound. The supermarket urges readers to "Make it the Merriest!" and "Make it the Tastiest!" A&P locations are open late on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, according to the ad. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Mexican culture was on full display on Port Richmond Avenue on Saturday during the first Mexican Independence celebration on Staten Island. The Dream Action Coalition and other community partners joined together to highlight Mexican food, music, artwork, and clothing, allowing Staten Island's large Mexican community to celebrate their culture in their own backyard. Passersby along Forest Avenue stopped to look at the festivities, approached tables with handmade jewelry and authentic garments and moved to the music. Tables were set up with information about job services, legal aid and other community resources. "For years Staten Islanders have been traveling to other boroughs where they have big Mexican Independence celebrations and for us, we really wanted to bring an opportunity for them here," said Cesar Vargas, founder of the Dream Action Coalition and New York state's first undocumented lawyer. Vargas said he wants people to know that celebrating their culture doesn't mean they're not proud Americans. He also hopes to show Staten Islanders that Mexicans are "beautiful people who are doctors, engineers and leaders," instead of being labeled rapists and bad people. The celebration comes at a very important time in history, Gonzalo Mercado, executive director of La Colmena, explained. "At a time when things are so polarized, we want to highlight the contributions of the Mexican community to Staten Island, to the economy and the cultural fabric," Mercado said. Yesenia Mata, political director of the Dream Action Coalition, echoed Mercado about the rhetoric about Mexicans. "Especially in these moments where our community is being constantly attacked by the administration we want to make it known that we are proud of being Mexican; I am a proud chicana, proud Latina, proud Mexican," Mata said. Vargas said his hope is to have a Mexican Independence celebration so large that people from the other boroughs will come to Staten Island to celebrate. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A woman who was busted as part of a major drug takedown last year has pleaded guilty to selling heroin. In January of last year, Amanda Gavrity, 26, was among five suspects arrested in a probe dubbed "Operation Blue Angel." The investigation, which traced the supply of heroin on Staten Island to Edison Township, N.J., stemmed from the overdose death in March 2016 of 25-year-old Annadale resident Sharissa Turk, aka "Blue Fairy," who was eight months pregnant. Police seized 400 glassine bags of heroin and $11,000 in cash in the bust. Prosecutors said police documented the supply chain, which ended in a number of neighborhoods, including Rossville, Richmond, Tottenville, Great Kills and Rosebank. Turk's death had been investigated as a crime scene in an attempt to trace the drugs that killed her to the source, as part of the Overdose Response Initiative spearheaded by District Attorney Michael E. McMahon. Turk performed as the "Blue Fairy" in a music video about prescription drug abuse in 2013. The video went viral after she pleaded guilty to felony drug charges. The operation led police, in part, to Turk's fiance, Frank DeGaetano, who authorities named as a distributor in the takedown. Gavrity also was a distributor, authorities said at the time of her arrest. DeGaetano pleaded guilty in October to felony drug-sale and drug-possession charges and was sentenced in January to three years in prison. In November, another defendant, Jessica Chaikin, pleaded in state Supreme Court, St. George, to third-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance, the top count against her. Prosecutors said she drove heroin and fentanyl from New Jersey into Staten Island for distribution in the borough. Gavrity pleaded guilty Thursday in state Supreme Court, St. George, to third-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance. It was the top charge. In exchange, she must enter an outpatient drug-treatment program, said Eric Nelson, her lawyer. If she completes treatment, she will avoid jail. "She's going to continue her monitoring, and, if successful, she'll get five years' probation at the time of sentence," Nelson said. Gavrity faces five years in prison should she fail the program. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Maliyah Sykes would have turned 3 on Friday. But the little girl never made it to her third birthday. Or her first or her second birthdays, for that matter. Maliyah was only 4 months old when Michael Sykes brutally killed her; her mother, Rebecca Cutler, and her sister, Ziana Cutler, two years ago in a Willowbrook hotel room, a prosecutor told jurors. "One family. Three minutes. Over 90 stab wounds," Assistant District Attorney Michael Tannousis said in his opening statement at Sykes' first-degree murder retrial in state Supreme Court, St. George. "Three years ago today, Maliyah Sykes was brought into this world. The evidence will show that on Feb. 10, 2016, the defendant took her out of it." Tannousis said the motive was simple: Jealousy. Sykes, 27, believed Rebecca Cutler, 26, was cheating on him with another man. "The jealousy raged to the boiling point," said Tannousis. "The type of jealousy that led to carnage that no one wants to believe exists in this world." Sykes was so suspicious he stole Rebecca Cutler's phone the day before he killed her to check her text messages, said Tannousis. After the slayings, Sykes discarded the knife, which was recovered outside the hotel, as well as his jacket, which was found at the St. George Ferry Terminal, said the prosecutor. He also tossed Rebecca Cutler's cell phone into the water in Manhattan while the victims lay dying, he said. DEADLOCKED AT FIRST TRIAL At the time of her death, Ziana Cutler was 11/2 years old, said Tannousis. A third child, Miracle Cuter, then 21/2, was also stabbed, but she survived, said Tannousis, who is prosecuting the case along with Assistant District Attorney Lisa Davis. Miracle and Ziana were Rebecca Cutler's children with another man. Maliyah Sykes was the daughter of Michael Sykes and Rebecca Cutler. Rebecca Cutler and her children had been living in the Ramada Inn in Willowbrook under a homeless-shelter program. In November, a jury in state Supreme Court, St. George, convicted Michael Sykes of second-degree murder in Rebecca Cutler's death. But the panel deadlocked on first-degree murder charges with respect to Ziana Cutler and Maliyah Sykes' deaths. The jury also failed to reach a unanimous decision on attempted first-degree murder charges regarding Miracle Cutler. Sykes, a Brooklyn resident, is being retried on the first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder charges. He faces up to life in prison without parole if convicted of first-degree murder. Sykes is currently serving a sentence of 26 and one-third years to life for killing Rebecca Cutler and stealing her cell phone. The jury has not been told of the original verdict. 'HOMICIDAL MANIAC' OR 'DOTING FATHER'? In his opening argument, defense lawyer Mario F. Gallucci said prosecutors were baldly trying to portray Sykes as a "homicidal maniac" when nothing could be farther from the truth. His client, he said, was a "doting father" to his daughter. In fact, surveillance videotape taken in the Ramada Inn shortly before the killings would show Sykes walking in the hallway carrying Maliyah, he said. "Michael did not do this horrific crime," said Gallucci. Gallucci discounted Tannousis' impassioned opening argument, telling jurors prosecutors have "a whole bunch of nothing." "Not one piece of evidence comes out of his mouth," Gallucci said, referring to Tannousis. No eyewitness to the crime would testify, said Gallucci, who implored jurors to keep an open mind and carefully weigh the evidence. Sykes, who was garbed in a brown dress shirt, tie and slacks, watched silently from the defense table. There were no real surprises as witness testimony kicked off in the morning with Frederica Sykes, the defendant's mother, and Michelle Mathis, Rebecca Cutler's cousin who has adopted Miracle. Both women testified at the first trial and both were emotional at times on Friday, fighting back tears. Frederica Sykes wept as she recalled a phone conversation she and her son had after he left the Ramada Inn on Feb. 10, 2016. "He told me that he had killed Rebecca, and that he loved me, and he was going to kill himself. And he hung up," she said. The witness cried again as jurors heard her 911 call in which she recounted that conversation. A ROCKY RELATIONSHIP Later, under cross-examination by Gallucci, she said she had spoken to Sykes a second time that morning. The witness said she called her son back and asked what was going on. "He told me, 'Mommy, I'm sorry. She killed the kids," said Frederica Sykes. Prosecutors immediately objected. Justice Mario F. Mattei sustained the objection and instructed jurors to disregard that response. The witness said she passed along that information to a detective, but couldn't recall whom. The witness, who is a paraprofessional at Clara Barton High School in Brooklyn, said her son and Rebecca Cutler had met in that school and dated for a time there. She said Cutler was a special-education student. Frederica Sykes said she wasn't happy with the relationship. During that time, her son who had been a "straight A student" began cutting class, not coming home and not answering his phone, she said. Despite breaking up, Sykes and Cutler got back together again years later while she was pregnant with another man's child, said the witness. Mathis, for her part, said Cutler's family wasn't thrilled about the reunification. "No one really approved of her relationship with Michael, and no one wanted him around," she said. "They were always at it. They were always arguing with each other." Mathis said Cutler and her children lived at various times with her, her mother and Cutler's mom. She said she believed Cutler had lived in a homeless shelter for a time in 2014, and she returned to a shelter some time after Maliyah's birth. A TESTY EXCHANGE At that point, the exchange between Mathis and Gallucci, the defense lawyer, grew testy. The lawyer asked the witness is she would rather Cutler live in a shelter than with her if her cousin wanted to have a relationship with Sykes. "I'd rather her be in an apartment," Mathis replied. The witness said she had once inquired if Sykes intended to get an apartment with Cutler. "His answer was, 'No,'" she said, adding she asked because, despite her dislike for Sykes, she wanted the children to be provided for. Mathis also discussed Miracle's wounds. Jurors saw recent photos which showed stab marks and scars on her back, side and arm. A surgical scar ran from the center of her chest to just below her belly button. Mathis said Miracle spent nine days in the hospital. The two have lived together ever since. The little girl is currently in kindergarten. Mathis' face brightened when Davis, the prosecutor, asked how Miracle is getting on. "She's doing amazing in school," said Mathis. 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! Have you noticed how popular the word cynicism has become lately? Over and over we hear journalists and commentators telling us that Australian voters have become "cynical" about politics. The word is being used to describe our disenchantment with politicians, especially in the wake of the latest federal leadership battle. Oddly enough, the same word is also being used to describe those politicians. "Cynical" pollies, we're told, have been deliberately misleading us while organising jobs, visas and other favours for their donors, mates and lovers. Original Cynic Diogenes embraced asceticism by living in a barrel on the streets of Athens. Here's the weirdest part cynicism used to mean the polar opposite of these contemporary definitions. In Ancient Greece the Cynics were people who believed we should live a virtuous life in harmony with nature. Cynics rejected conventional desires for wealth, power, sex and fame (Barnaby Joyce, take note). They believed greed caused suffering, and some of them even gave away their property and fortunes. One famous Cynic called Diogenes embraced asceticism by living in a barrel on the streets of Athens. Apart from the lovely gems of honesty that slip from the lips of this well cast collection of viewers, it's nice just to see friendship in action, or rather, inaction. Offering a refreshing change from so much confected woman-on-woman reality show conflict are mates like Angie and Yvie, who love nothing more than sipping Frangelico and having a snort at the idiots on the telly. LOCH NESS ***1/2 three and a half stars 8.50pm, ABC As we near the end of this minefield of red herrings that have all but upstaged the mythical monster of the highlands, young Evie (Shona McHugh) is proving she has her mother's head for detective work and yet no one seems much closer to nabbing the killer or indeed wiping the smirk of the face of the slimiest teacher on television. An exciting pursuit, however, does spark up this penultimate episode. WAR & PEACE The country's most prominent anti-vaccination activist is claiming to be an expert witness in a family legal brawl over whether their children should be immunised. Judy Wilyman, a militant vaccination critic, has lodged an expert witness statement in a Federal Circuit Court matter, which claims the federal government is suppressing evidence immunisation is ineffective and harmful. Judy Wilyman claims the government is coercing parents and doctors can't prove vaccines are not harmful. Dr Wilyman has provided the statement in support of a mother who does not want her children vaccinated. The father, who does want his children immunised, has drafted in the former director of the National Centre for Immunisation Research, Peter McIntyre, to provide the court with his appraisal of Dr Wilymans claims. Fairfax Media has chosen not to disclose the details of the family who are party to the dispute, heard before the Federal Circuit Court in Brisbane earlier this year. Who would think that the sex lives of two puppets could be so controversial? But were talking about Bert and Ernie, who have been sharing an apartment on Sesame Street since the show began in 1969. Sesame Street characters Ernie and Bert. This week a writer who worked on the show claimed that when he wrote their scenes he always imagined them as a loving couple. The reaction was swift and predictable. Some parents were incensed, writing on the Sesame Street Facebook page that the show was brainwashing children to be tolerant of the LGBTI agenda. Others were concerned that children should not be exposed to issues of sexuality and that their innocence should be preserved for as long as possible. The Sesame Workshop that produces the show was quick to counter that they were simply best friends and did not have a sexual orientation. James Ricketson's family has expressed joy and relief following the Australian filmmaker's royal pardon after 15 months in a Cambodian prison on "outrageous" espionage charges. Targeted by Prime Minister Hun Sen's authoritarian government, Ricketson was sentenced in June to six years' imprisonment. His relatives had feared the 69-year-old would not survive the harsh conditions. James Ricketson has lost weight and is sharing a small cell with over 140 prisoners. Credit:AP Ricketson has left his Phnom Penh jail and will soon be deported to Australia, possibly by Sunday. Fairfax Media has been told former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull played a crucial role in securing Ricketson's release, lobbying the Cambodian leader directly at the ASEAN-Australia summit in Sydney earlier this year. A charity supporting women in prison was forced to move its then-CEO to secure emergency accommodation for more than a week last year, after she allegedly received serious threats from the founder and director of the organisation, herself a former prison inmate. The Women in Prison Advocacy Network, now the Womens Justice Network (WJN), was founded by Kat Armstrong, who served time in and out of jail for robbery and fraud offences between 1988 and 2003. Women's Justice Network founder Kat Armstrong. Credit:SMH Last month Fairfax Media revealed the advocacy group had lodged its financial books with police, after it discovered at least $200,000 had been embezzled from its accounts by an individual who held a senior position at the charity since its inception. While the WJN has refused to confirm who it believes is responsible for the alleged fraud, it is understood Ms Armstrong resigned as president late last year, subject to an investigation into the 2016 and 2017 transactions, which totalled $160,973 and $39,879. I think you should be able to have your phone but maybe put away in class and just dont use it in class unless the teacher wants you to use it for learning purposes, she says. France has banned smartphones at schools for students younger than 15. However, educators and academics are divided on whether phones should be banned in NSW classrooms, with schools adopting different policies on their use during school hours. Finnish education expert Dr Pasi Sahlberg believes smartphone-related distraction is one of the main reasons why Australia and similar countries had fallen in Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) rankings. However, Sahlberg says a complete ban at high school level would be difficult. Elizabeth Stone, the principal of Queenwood School for Girls in Mosman, says the school asks parents of K-6 students to give them basic mobile phones without internet access. For older students, mobiles must be invisible and inaudible during the school day, she says. Students can keep their phones with them, but we expect them to talk to their friends, not text them, and we will swoop and confiscate them if they come out at break. Stone says Queenwood used mobile phones in limited ways, but she questions whether they are essential for learning. Loading Of course they are distracting and addictive," she says. "Adults struggle to keep them within limits, let alone children. Ive worked in schools without restrictions and kids will literally sit at the same table and text each other, or they go off to a corner and watch YouTube at lunchtime. Thats not what our school is about. A similarly strict policy is enforced at St Andrews Cathedral School in Sydney, according to the deputy head Brad Swibel. Students are not allowed to use mobile phones during school hours. If caught with a phone in their hands, a student is required to hand it in until the end of the school day. Swibel says computers and other devices use the schools network, which has firewalls to prevent students accessing games, social media and inappropriate sites. This could be circumvented if students could use their smartphones. He also says smartphones are addictive, distracting and raised privacy concerns. But Swibel says: We dont want to touch their phones for a number of reasons because they are highly expensive. We dont want to lose them. Mobile phones must remain switched off and in a students school bag at Kamaroi Rudolf Steiner School in Belrose. Loading The schools principal Olga Blasch says the school accepted that parents gave their children mobile phones because of an ever-increasing concern about children travelling alone on public transport or commuting long distances to school. This will be the only reason permitted for a child having a mobile phone at school, she says. Blasch says the school did not use mobile phones as learning tools. She says mobile phones and other electronic devices can create a range of hazards such as bullying when brought to school or can be easily lost, stolen or damaged. There is also an increasing trend of high school students who use their mobile phones at school to publicly review their school/s without the knowledge of their parents or an understanding of future consequences for their actions, she says. Loading Cranbrook School in Bellevue Hill has a less strict attitude to mobile phones for its senior students. Headmaster Nicholas Sampson says the school seeks to teach its students age-appropriate messages on how to be responsible digital citizens, including guidance on how to stay safe online. Surely the Liberal Party could have found someone less divisive. However it appears Tony Abbott believes he has a lot of public life left in him. I assume that means he is not finished with the wrecking, sniping and undermining. Graham Lum, North Rocks As Warringah's unopposed, preselected Liberal candidate Tony Abbott is quick to reassure every one of his enduring popularity, but the voting figures at the preselection meeting suggest that he might just be surviving on a wink and a prayer. John de Bres, Rose Bay According to Peter Fitzsimons, Tony Abbott still has leadership aspirations. Abbott really is the gift that keeps on giving, isn't he? To the Labor Party. Keith Binns, Goulburn Church segregation The article about the development plans of the Adventist organisation was an excellent description of the current crisis ("Church at war with itself over plans", September 16). The Church hierarchy and their developers, Bluestone, seem to be under the impression that the local residents, church congregations and parents of Adventist school students are trying to stop the development because they merely don't like change. Nothing could be further from the truth, but then none of them actually live here. The Church seems determined to create a "suburb within a suburb". Nobody, not even the Church's own members, want a bar of that. Until the last few years, this part of Wahroonga had a lovely village atmosphere. The local roads were narrow (they still are) and the bush was, and is, very close to many homes. Residents and their visitors could park easily in the streets. But all that changed when the hospital was enlarged, and then the Clinical Education centre was being built and our streets were suddenly full of tradesman's vehicles, trucks, etc, with the resultant dust and noise for months on end. Love thy neighbour? Apparently not. Patricia White, Wahroonga. Cancer test puzzle If bowel cancer is such a big killer of Australians with experts recommending tests every two years once you hit 50, why does the government only mail out a test kit every five years ("Bowel Cancer Can Be Treated", September 16)? Peter Miniutti, Ashbury School system unfair We tell them, Its so amazing to be bilingual, so amazing to have different cultures and different backgrounds. Its nothing to be ashamed of. Be proud of who you are and where your parents and ancestors come from, she said. Is the annual frenzy of Christmas shopping a cultural event? The Queensland Industrial Relations Commission last week had to determine how significant Christmas shopping was to south-east Queensland, and whether it constituted an event similar in significance to the Gold Coasts Commonwealth Games. The two shopping centres can legally trade overnight on December 23 and 24. Credit:Jim Rice JRZ Two Brisbane shopping centres, Westfield Chermside and Westfield Garden City, recently sought a declaration from the commission to change their permitted overnight shopping hours at both centres in the week before Christmas. In 2003, the Chermside centre was allowed to trade overnight on December 23 and 24, with Garden City shops given the same extension in 2014. "They got into deeper and faster flowing water and called for help and we quickly managed to get a flood boat out to them," he said. Gosford Mayor Laurie Maher expressed concern about the state of the Old Pacific Highway on the Central Coast after a family of five died when a section of road collapsed under their car at Somersby on Friday. Police have issued advice to residents of the Hunter and Central Coast to expect traffic delays on major roads into Sydney on Tuesday as rail services continue to be disrupted by flooding. Nine people have lost their lives since the storms began on Thursday, cutting a swathe of devastation which NSW Premier Morris Iemma estimates has caused tens of millions of dollars worth of damage. The torrent that threatened to inundate Maitland peaked at 10.5 metres early Monday - its highest level since 1971 - but subsided without breaching the town's levee banks. More than 5,000 evacuated residents were allowed to return to their homes as the focus turned downstream to Raymond Terrace, Hexham and Newcastle. As a precaution, crews from Newcastle City Council today cleared streets and stormwater drains of debris in anticipation of flooding in areas adjacent to the mouth of the river. The SES has also dropped food rations to about 50 people on the outskirts of Maitland. Up to 1,000 people isolated on rural properties outside Maitland have decided to stay in their homes and will require SES assistance in the upcoming days, but are in no immediate danger, Mr Campbell said. Visiting Maitland today, Prime Minister John Howard described the waterlogged town as "unrecognisable". "It would appear ... the river didn't quite reach the height expected, affecting Maitland, and that is of course something for which we are very grateful," he said. "But there's still other areas in the river's course that are under threat further down and clearly we are keeping our fingers crossed. "As somebody who has visited this area on numerous occasions in my lifetime ... it's unrecognisable in many ways from the air and very, very different. "It is an illustration to me ... just how savage the storms have been and the tragedy of course is that there has been a loss of life." The prime minister visited an SES base where he chatted to volunteers and thanked them for their hard work. NSW Premier Morris Iemma also toured the area, saying the Hunter Valley resembled "an inland sea", and the damage bill would "run into the tens of millions of dollars". "If I can give you one example of a shopkeeper in Wallsend shopping centre (near Newcastle), he lost his business, his car and he went home that night to find a tree had collapsed on his house," he told Sky News. "I mean, that family has lost a million dollars, so that's some idea of the extent of the damage that we have suffered as a result of the storms." The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) said the intense low pressure system that wreaked havoc in the area and across Sydney over the long weekend was the worst storm to hit NSW since 1998. More than 15,000 insurance claims had been filed since Friday, the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) said. And it could be several more days before power is restored to 34,500 blacked-out homes, mostly in Newcastle and on the Central Coast, Energy Australia said. Mr Iemma said the threat of infection from the floodwaters and sewage overflows was being closely monitored. The SES has advised flood-affected residents to be safety conscious when returning home to survey the damage and to be mindful that floodwaters may have contaminated food and utensils. "A lot of work is going in to ensuring that people have got fresh water supplies, fresh food supply and also to make people aware that infection could become a problem," Mr Iemma said. NSW Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell and Governor-General Michael Jeffery also paid visits to the Maitland area today and thanked SES volunteers and other emergency workers. The Therapeutic Goods Administration expects to notch 2018 up as one of the worst years on record for prescription medicine shortages. There were 200 medicine shortages listed with the administration between January and August. In the coming months that figure is set to eclipse the 224 recorded for 2017, and the 196 noted in 2016. Chemist on Northbourne pharmacist Chris Lawler. The pharmacy is one of few stocking the contraceptive pill Norimin following a national shortage Credit:Jamila Toderas Thousands of Australian women are currently affected by a nationwide shortage of one of the country's main contraceptive pills, Norimin-1, with new supply not expected for several weeks. The Norimin-1 shortage was first listed with the TGA on September 6, with the contraceptive pill expected to be available to patients by October 9. Malcolm Turnbull is reportedly penning a book in New York to be out before the next election. My extensive publishing contacts are surprised. If he is doing so, it is not being hawked around via the usual channels. There is, of course, interest in such a book, but the strong view is that the only way he could get it finished and published before May next year would be if it was focused exclusively on revenge (dishing the dirt on Peter Dutton and Tony Abbott) which would be unlikely to sell well as we in the media would pick the eyes out of the juicy bits and there would be little for the public to need to read. A more timeless book reflecting on his time in politics would sell better, but that would take longer. Now, not that Turnbull would be too fussed about the advance for such a book, but those in the know reckon it would be worth from $60,000 to $200,000, depending on what he intended to cover. Sometimes when I listen to parents discussing the risky topic of school choices I get this strange sensation of otherwise functional adults flipping instantly into an adolescent mindset. Our school years leave a psychological etching; conjure up the rows of lockers and smell of chalk, the longing and frustration worn like tight underwear, and were instantly back there, chronically insecure, vulnerable to peer pressure, barely able to distinguish our childrens trajectories from our own. Peer pressure has seen too many middle-class families ignore the local secondary school. Credit:Shutterstock Peer pressure has seen too many middle-class families ignore the local secondary school, but peer pressure can also work the other way. About 15 years ago an acquaintance told me her children attended a government school in Williamstown because thats where premier Steve Bracks sent his kids, and if the schools good enough for Bracksy, she said, its good enough for me. Loading Were herd-like creatures, tribal too, and in Melbourne these glorious instincts all but create their own weather pattern in the MCG during finals week. "I still didn't understand what had happened or where I was until I saw my mum and she explained everything." Brock was in a coma for nine days. While in hospital, Brock says he developed golden staph and multiple lung infections, as well as malnutrition that caused him to lose 10kg. Depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder soon followed. "One of the hardest parts is when you wake up and it all sinks in," he says. "You start to feel like you can't go out and ride bikes or do the things you used to do ... you can't do it again because if you hit your head you're pretty stuffed." Dianne says the first year after Brock's assault was like Groundhog Day, as the reality of his acquired brain injury became clear. "Every day he woke up and he didn't know who he was, he couldn't remember anything," she says. There was also anger in the aftermath directed at the culprit of the attack. Dianne says she had to keep her family calm and stop them from taking revenge: "It was horrific," she says. Brock says he still sometimes gets angry and tries to avoid things that might remind him about what happened, like violent movies. His memory has only recently improved after years of rehabilitation, which has included brain exercises on an iPad to help create new neural pathways. Brock Turnewitsch still has problems with his memory. Credit:Justin McManus There are still things Brock can't remember, like the years between age 13 and 16. He completed his secondary education at a community school that was able to support his needs. That's allowed him to take a job as a plumbing apprentice. He takes photos of the steps involved in a plumbing job on his phone so he can remember what to do next time. "I've only started recently to become more happy. I think a lot of it is from work," he says. In December 2016, Brock's attacker, Anthony Richardson, was convicted in the Ringwood Magistrates Court after pleading guilty to the charge of recklessly causing serious injury. He was sentenced to a two-year community corrections order. As part of the sentence, Richardson was ordered to undertake 300 hours of community service and participate in an offending behaviour program. He did not respond to a request from The Age for comment. Some of the circumstances leading up to the incident are still unclear as Brock has no memory of what took place. In piecing together the night, Brock says he was walking home from a mate's place about 11pm when he shouted at a car which almost hit him. Brock Turnewitsch and his mother Dianne Toulson feel like they've been let down by the legal system. Credit:Justin McManus The car did not stop but returned about 10 minutes later, he says. At that point Richardson got out of the car and confronted the group. Richardson told police he was angry because he thought the boys had graffitied a bus stop. After throwing the punch that put Brock in intensive care, Richardson left the scene and, later that night, handed himself in at a police station. Both Brock and Dianne feel like the sentence was too lenient and say they've been let down by the legal system. In an uncanny piece of timing, Victoria's one-punch laws came into effect on November 1 in 2014 the day after Brock's attack. Those laws carry a 10-year sentence for offenders for a punch in the head that leads to a victim's death. This week, a play called One-Punch Wonder will open at Theatre Works as part of Melbourne Fringe Festival. Dianne is the general manager of Theatre Works, however, she had no role in the making of the play. The states peak business body has described the governments plan for extended trading hours this Christmas as "pushing shoppers online and strangling WA jobs in the process". The Chamber of Commerce and Industry WA said the 34 hours of extended trading the government approved for Perth metro shops was a 30 per cent reduction from last years 49 hours. Shopping hours will be reduced this Christmas. Credit:James Alcock Under the plan, from December 9 shoppers will have an extra four hours each Sunday to do their Christmas shopping. Shops will be able to open at 8am and close at 6pm through to Sunday December 30. From December 17 shops can choose to open from 7am weekdays. Labor frontbencher Ed Husic has warned the government to "tread carefully" on controversial legislation that seeks to give intelligence and law enforcement agencies greater access to Australians' encrypted data. Echoing concerns voiced by industry and privacy advocates, Mr Husic accused the government of rushing through the Assistance and Access Bill. He said the process needed to be cautious and transparent because of the complexity of the changes, which will introduce obligations for companies to hand over user information. "This has been an area that other governments have taken the time to tread carefully through," Mr Husic, Labor's digital economy spokesman, told Fairfax Media. "And given the number of digital projects the Coalitions stuffed up, youd think they would be cautious about anything to do with tech." He said the government was "rushing it and not being upfront about the concerns raised through the consultation process", noting thousands of submissions had not been made public. Companies with more than 1000 employees will be forced to publicly reveal their gender pay gap, named and shamed if they fail to comply, and excluded from lucrative government contracts, under a Labor government. Loading Fairfax Media can reveal the Opposition is preparing legislation that would also force companies to reveal the difference in pay between managerial and non-managerial staff, and would ban secrecy clauses that prevent employees telling colleagues how much they get paid. While companies already report their gender pay gap to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, Labor would make that data publicly searchable, as well as the pay gap between managers and their employees. Australias national gender pay gap is 15 per cent, or $244.80 per week, which the agency says is its lowest level in two decades. It means the average working woman earns about $27,000 less per year compared to the average man. This blows out to a $53,000 difference for women in managerial positions. The Coalition and Labor are neck and neck exactly six months out from the state election, with Opposition leader Luke Foley edging ahead of Gladys Berejiklian as preferred premier, exclusive new polling shows. Just weeks after an embarrassing loss for the Liberals in the Wagga Wagga byelection, and as ministers engage in open warfare over a bitter preselection battle, the Coalition's primary vote has plunged to "disastrous levels". NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian is facing the prospect of minority government, new polling shows. Credit:James Alcock Senior Liberal strategists now fear the government is certain to lose its majority at the March 23 election. The exclusive ReachTel poll for The Sun-Herald of 1627 NSW voters taken on Thursday night shows the Coalition is locked at 50:50 with Labor on a two-party preferred basis using preference flows from the 2015 election. Janus, 65, of Springfield, was the lead plaintiff in Janus vs. AFSCME, the U.S. Supreme Court case in which justices ruled, in a 5-4 vote, that government workers should not be forced to pay dues to a union they did not wish to join and whose political positions they did not support. Since he was a baby, James* has shuffled between foster families and group homes, unaware that his Aboriginal family were eager to know him and love him. Determined to change this, his case worker Megan O'Neill began knocking on doors in a remote community in northern NSW earlier this year, where she knew his extended family lived. "He was initially really reluctant to be in contact with them, because he felt they had never made an effort to find him. He thought they had never cared about him." Ms O'Neill said. James, who lives in a group home, has been reunited with some of his relatives after his caseworker Megan O'Neill (pictured) tracked them down. Credit:Lynn Rayner In fact, the family had tried to contact James, who is now 15 years old, but they did not know where he was or how to reach him. Indonesian President Joko Widodo has promised payments of between 10 million and 50 million rupiah (about $800 to $4600) to those whose homes have been damaged or destroyed. But only about 1 per cent of those eligible for that money have actually received payment so far. And while 50 million rupiah could cover the cost of a very basic house on Lombok, it isnt anything close to being enough to replace what people have lost. No amount of money would be. The reality is that it will be years before Lombok island and the Gilis fully rebuild and recover. Village after village in the north-west of Lombok was flattened. Contrary to reporting at the time, the Gilis emerged relatively unscathed from the quake. Yes, some houses and walls came down; yes, there were injuries and some tragic deaths on the islands. Ombak Sunset hotel on Gili Trawangan collapsed after the earthquake, but many other resorts are already back in operation. Credit:Amilia Rosa And yes, the moment the earthquake struck was truly frightening once experienced, its impossible to forget the low rumble and violent shaking of the earth. It stays with you for weeks afterwards. But contrary to the reports and images that emerged the chaos of thousands of terrified Westerners fleeing tourist islands that had been wrecked by the quake - the damage wasnt that bad compared to Lombok's. What has happened since is that the tourism industry, the economic lifeblood of the Gilis and the employer of thousands of people on Lombok, has been stopped dead in its tracks. Thats a development that could do long-term damage to the lives of the locals, as well as people like Pratoni and Miller. Staff at Breadelicious, a cafe on Gili Air, are back at work and waiting for tourists to return. Credit:Amilia Rosa When Fairfax Media visited Gili Air and Gili T (as its nicknamed) this week, a majority of businesses had re-opened. Electricity and water had been restored, repairs had been made to buildings, and kitchens and bars restocked. There just werent many tourists. Pratoni and Miller know how lucky they are to be on Gili Air. Their resort reopened a week ago. Three of their rooms are still undergoing repairs, but the damage was relatively minor. The damage on Lombok was much, much worse. Theyve managed to keep paying all 16 of their staff for the last six weeks. Now they just need tourists to come back so their business - and dozens of others can survive. Its not just us, its our staff, our suppliers, the fast boats who bring in the tourists, the laundry lady and masseur across the street, Miller says. Weve been trying to get a positive message out on social media that were open, that people can come back to the Gilis, but its tough. Gili is part of north Lombok but its not a disaster zone, Pratoni adds. We thought we would be closed until October, but our first guest - Max, a German guy - has just left. A usually busy street on Gili Air, one of the three tiny Gili islands to the north of Lombok. Credit:Amilia Rosa If we have a message, its please come back and support the community and local economy, Miller adds. Over on Gili T, at 2pm on a beautiful Wednesday afternoon, most of the restaurants and bars on the main drag are near empty. Staff mill around, chatting, in restaurant after restaurant. A shop selling Rip Curl and Billabong bathers has no customers. Six weeks earlier, Gili T was teeming with tourists. Its the most developed and largest of the three islands, and very popular with young backpackers looking to party. Wildan waits for tourists on Gili Trawangan with his horse and cart. Credit:Amilia Rosa Idomo (horse and cart) drivers line the main street there are no cars on the islands waiting for customers who never come. One of them, Wildan, has been doing the job for 15 years. Typically, he spends two weeks on Gili T and then a week at home with his family in central Lombok. But business is at about 20 per cent of normal at the moment, he estimates, even though more than 60 per cent of the resorts and restaurants have reopened. Those images of fleeing tourists hurt the Gilis badly, he says. I might not be able to feed my family if this continues, he tells Fairfax Media glumly. Spooked by the earthquake, few people are visiting and the tourism dollars have dried up. Hundreds of people living along this coast road rely on work on the Gili islands to support their families. Reconstruction is under way on Gili Trawangan island after August's earthquakes. Credit:Amilia Rosa Hanan, who works on Gili T and lives in the village of Pemenang, is one of them. He and his wife Reniatun had their first child - a beautiful baby girl, Akila - 13 days ago. Reniatun, who was heavily pregnant when the quake hit, still cant talk about that night. Tears brim in her eyes while we speak. Hanan says he has finally returned to work in the last week on Gili T but its now only every second day, and the resort he works at has had just three guests through so far. Hanan and his wife Reniatun with baby Akila, born since the earthquake. Credit:Amilia Rosa Hes built temporary shelter for the three of them, but life is grim. "That's our only income, he concludes glumly. Futher north on Lombok itself, conditions are just as tough. Huge cracks run alongside the road, a reminder of the devastation that was wrought. The damage to buildings in the capital, Mataram, wasnt so bad. Repairs are underway to dozens of buildings and life is beginning to return to normal. Wreckage at the Gili Trawangan port. Credit:Amilia Rosa A trip up the coast road, past the tourist hotspot of Senggigi to the north-west of the island, far closer to the epicentre, reveals the worst of it. Village after village has been razed. Piles of rubble lie where houses used to stand, waiting to be sorted into what can be reused and what must be thrown away. At best, people have managed to construct one-room shacks while they take stock, wait for money to flow from Jakarta, and work out how they will begin to rebuild their lives. At worst, they're still sleeping out in the open air, or in basic tents. A malaria-related emergency has been declared in West Lombok and128 people, including a baby, 10 toddlers and a pregnant woman, have contracted the infection. Help from the Indonesian government has been limited, while a very limited amount of aid from the international community has been allowed in by the government. In the days immediately after the quake, one Indonesian official even went so far as to publicly warn international aid workers who didnt have the correct visa to stay in their hotels and not help while tens of thousands of his compatriots slept outside, without blankets or enough food and water. Katariina Hujanen, from Finland, spends most of her time between Australia and Gili Air. She stayed behind to help with the island's recovery after the earthquake. Credit:Amilia Rosa Community-based organisations like Lombok Hero's and Rebuild Gili are doing their best to step into the breach, but its not enough. Mick Taylor, an Australian helping out with Lombok Hero's, says the organisation saw a lot of aid being misplaced and decided to focus on two things. The first is buying and donating tools to small teams of workers in local villages, who can then begin building basic wooden huts before the rains arrive. The second is getting toilets up and running again. The goal has always been to beat the rainy season and avoid the potential for an epidemic. The crisis is not so much the earthquake - though that was horrible - it's the concern about the spread of disease, he says. Lombok Hero's now has 70 or 80 teams operating within their own villages, constructing temporary shelters. Its slow but crucial work. Back on Gili T, Rhys Wilson and Stephanie Mitchell are a peculiar sight - a pair of actual tourists arriving on the island, backpacks slung over their shoulders, faces dappled red by the hot sun. Rhys Wilson and Stephanie Mitchell booked their holiday after the Lombok earthquake. Credit:Amilia Rosa The couple, from Cradle Mountain in Tasmania, arent your usual 30-year-old backpackers - they booked their trip a couple of days after the August 5 earthquake. Who books a holiday in a disaster zone? The couple, who both volunteer with community groups at home, laugh. We wanted to do something for the local people, Mitchell says. We looked into volunteering here, but the visa is very difficult to get and were only here for a short time, a couple of weeks. Its nice to give your tourism dollars to somewhere that actually needs it, Wilson adds. We had a good chat to a guy in Senggigi who runs a bar the other night and I said to him we had nothing planned, could we come out and help, clean some bricks or something the next day? A speedboat drops and picks up tourists at Gili Air harbour. Credit:Amilia Rosa But the people here, they arent arrogant proud, its not Western arrogance, they just want to do it themselves. He said to go and buy some water, so we did. New York: Every Saturday night, trains shuttling along New York's L line are crammed with sculpted beards, ripped denim and poorly concealed six-packs of craft beer. The L train ferries the hordes of young people between Brooklyn and Manhattan, and, since gentrification turned Williamsburg into the hipster capital of the world about 15 years ago, it has become a kind of code for cool. Commuters struggle to enter and exit a subway car on the L train in New York. Credit:Julia Gillard/The New York Times It has spawned L train merchandise, a namesake magazine, perhaps a few marriages (a 2005 survey reckoned 29 per cent of New Yorkers thought the L train was the best place to find a date), countless song lyrics (I recommend short-lived electro band Out Hud's The L Train Is A Swell Train And I Don't Want To Hear You Indies Complain) and, more recently, pushed hipster civilisation ever deeper into Brooklyn's neighbourhoods. But most of all, it carts 400,000 New Yorkers from A to B every day - that's about half the entire patronage of Sydney trains each day, and almost the entire Melbourne tram network. Washington: US President Donald Trump, changing course after days of unusual restraint, lashed out on Friday at the woman who accused Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her, saying that if the attack "was as bad as she says", she or her parents would have reported it to the authorities when it happened more than 30 years ago. Trump's comment on Twitter was his first direct attack on Christine Blasey Ford, the research psychologist in Northern California who levelled the accusation against Kavanaugh, the president's second nominee to the Supreme Court, just as his confirmation appeared secure. The outburst came as lawyers for Blasey and top Senate Judiciary Committee aides struggled to reach an agreement that would lead to her testimony next week before the committee. Donald Trump has tweeted his doubts over the claims against Judge Brett Kavanaugh. Credit:AP Those talks continued late into Friday night, appearing to break down at one point, but are now expected to resume Saturday. Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on Twitter shortly before midnight that he had granted lawyers for Blasey who sometimes goes by her married name, Ford another day to negotiate. ~Johnson looking at possible motion of no confidence.~ PHILIPSBURG:--- Minister of TEATT Stuart Johnson who is currently in the Netherlands even though he told parliament that he would not be traveling has made several of the United Peoples Party (UP) that are now part of the UD very uncomfortable that they chose to seek the assistance of the opposition to try and get rid of their appointed Minister. Two weeks ago Johnson came under fire when he tried to dismiss one of his cabinet staff, a strong supporter of the UPP/UD. Johnson was trying to create a position in his cabinet for his best friend and also another supporter of the UPP. However, his attempts backfired when he blocked the cabinet staff from entering his office. The entire saga ended up on social media which caught the attention of the UD members which led to an emergency meeting where both Johnson and the staff member apologized to each other while he was ordered to reinstate the staff. It appears that even though Johnson complied with the request of his party members the dust is not quite settled as the main person behind the leader of the UD met with an opposition member of parliament last week to gather support and information in order to force Johnson out of office. The source said that the MP who is well versed on the affairs of TEATT assisted the person representing the UD Leader by providing a host of information as to where Johnson failed within his cabinet. It is also understood that the UP/UD member is seeking the assistance of the opposition to bring a motion of no confidence against Johnson since according to them he is not performing well as a Minister and especially since he has been ignoring the orders given to him by those that appointed him. KilletSoft converts Geodata for Navigation in free Map Services For mapping applications there are free map services like Google Earth, Google Maps, OpenStreetMap and OpenTopoMap available for everyone who is interested. A frequently needed task is the display of own geodata like points, lines and polygons as objects on the maps provided by these services. The geographic objects can be located on the go via GPS with a smartphone, tablet, satnav or notebook, or it can be included in the planning process in a different way. With the program TRANSDAT by KilletSoft geodata from any source can be converted into the file formats KML and GPX. These file formats are used by mapping software witch utilize map services for the display of external geodata on maps or in satellite images. The file format KML (Keyhole Markup Language) can display the graphic elements like point, line, polygon with attributes like point color, line width and fill color in map services. The GPX file format (GPS Exchange Format) serves the exchange of geodata between programs and provides map services with geodata as waypoints and tracks. On the right, an example with external geodata on a satellite map is displayed with the GPX/KML Viewer by the company SeaWellSoft (http://seawellsoft.com). TRANSDAT transforms geodata stored in Text, SDF, CSV, xBase, ArcGenerate or Shapefiles from any Coordinate Reference Systems to the required Geographic Coordinates on the WGS84 ellipsoid, and writes them to KML and GPX files. In addition to the required coordinates and for the purposes of labeling the objects, TRANSDAT can write an object name and an object description into the KML or GPX file to be generated. On the left, the start screen of the program TRANSDAT is displayed. Example for the use of free map services By way of illustration I would like to exemplarily address the solution of a request brought to me by a customer. The customer owns an EXCEL table in which a large number of wooden poles for electricity supply in a rural region are listed. The customer has to make local checks on the wooden poles at regular intervals. He would like the wooden poles to be marked on a map which is displayed on his outdoor device. Such a device can be a notebook, tablet or smartphone for example. With the aid of the activated GPS on the map, the customer wants to locate the wooden poles and be able to directly reach them with his company vehicle. In the further course first is shown how to create a KML file with TRANSDAT. Afterwards several options for the display of the wooden poles in map services using the KML file are described. Here is an excerpt from the EXCEL table Woodpoles.xls which I have altered for data protection reasons and cut down on ten data records for demonstration purposes. The data fields \UTM_East\ and \UTM_North\ describe the location of the wooden poles in UTM coordinates of the Reference System ETRS89. A consecutive numbering of the wooden poles is saved in the data field \PoleNo\. These numbers are to be displayed along with markers on the map by one of the map services. The field \Description\ contains the descriptions of the wooden poles which have been severely shortened in this instance. Important information like addresses or conditions of the wooden poles could be filled here. Most map services allow displaying a description by double-clicking on the marker. Given that TRANSDAT cannot directly work with the XLS format (EXCEL workbook), first of all the table needs to be converted into a suitable data format. For this purpose the formats CSV (Comma-Separated Values) or dBase (Database Format), which can be easily created with EXCEL, are suitable. For demonstration purposes I use the CSV format here. Firstly the rows and columns in EXCEL, which are to be exported, are marked. Then the EXCEL Export Window is opened with the menu option \File / Save As?\. Here you can determine the file location, assign a file name to the wooden pole file and select the file type \CSV\. By clicking on the button \Save\ the file Woodpoles.csv is created. The first row shows the field descriptions. All data fields in the CSV file are now separated from one another by semicolons. Preparing the geographic objects with TRANSDAT The CSV file now can be used for generating a new file in the file format KML. But first a few settings need to be adjusted in the program TRANSDAT for the coordinate transformation. The locations of the wooden poles are available in the CSV file as UTM coordinates in the reference system ETRS89. But map services always use Geographic Coordinates with the worldwide reference system WGS84. This kind of coordinates are also generated by GPS receivers and transferred to the map service installed on the display device. This way it is ensured that the current GPS position on the map will be compatible with the locations of the wooden poles displayed there. For lack of space I am only showing an excerpt from the TRANSDAT main window with the settings that are important for the coordinate transformation. Now the settings for the input and output files need to be adjusted. By clicking on the button \Work with data files\ a further window for the file configuration is opened. Also here, only an excerpt of the window with the required settings is displayed. In both drop down listboxes the formats for the input and output files are set. There is an input file in CSV format and an output file in KML format is to be generated. For the input file the semicolon is chosen as data field separator. The position of the coordinates in every data record of the CSV file starts in the third data field. There you find the east value of the UTM coordinate pair which is complemented by the north value in the fourth data field. The second data field shows the point name which is written at the point position in the map service. We use the first data field as point description which is displayed in the map service by clicking on the point. The first row of the CSV file has to be filtered because it only contains the data field descriptions. They are not required for the KML file to be generated. On the bottom right, we select the option for using the coordinates as waypoints. With the button \Open an input file\ the CSV file must be selected. With the button \Open an output file\ the file path and file name for the new KML file is determined. Because the settings are complete now, the button \Calculate target coordinates\ is clicked in the main window. In case everything has been done correctly, a confirmation message will be displayed. By the way, the last coordinate calculated from the CSV file can already be displayed as a single point in the map services OpenStreetMap, Google Maps and Google Earth. Simply click on the corresponding button at the bottom right in the TRANSDAT main window. Of course, precondition is that Google Earth is installed on the computer or that there is an internet connection. The single point display in map services is a feature of TRANSDAT which works with all file-based and direct coordinate transformations. We do not want to display only a single point, but all geographic objects registered in the KML file that has just been generated. You can now display all wooden poles in Google Earth by clicking on the button \View the output file\ in the file configuration window. For lack of space the excerpt from the program Google Earth illustrated below is reduced to a minimum. On the satellite image you can see now ten wooden poles with markers and point names at their locations. If you click on a marker, the point description will be displayed. By zooming in on Google Earth you can see that the marker positioning is identical with the locations of the wooden poles. In this highly zoomed section you can see the pole with the number 435 and its shadow. The tip of the marker points exactly to the pole step. KML file generated with TRANSDAT The KML file that has just been generated is now available for the display of the geographic objects with the most map services. The file must be copied to the display device and made available for the installed mapping software. In a KML file geographic objects are stored in XML syntax. There are objects for points, lines and polygons. All coordinates are always stored as Geographic Coordinates with the sequence longitude and latitude. In KML files the WGS84 (World Geodetic System 1984) is always used as reference system. On the right, you can see an excerpt from the KML file with the data of the first four wooden poles. The file contains point objects of the ten wooden poles as items with the point names , the point descriptions and the point coordinates . The KML file has a readable format so that the entries can subsequent be modified with an editor. But make sure that after modification the file is saved with the UTF-8 character encoding so that later the umlauts in the point names and point descriptions are displayed correctly on the maps. As the objective of the customer, the generated KML file is to be displayed and navigated on a mobile display device independently of the program TRANSDAT. There are many ways to realize this. In the following explanations only a few possible solutions are briefly addressed. Display and navigation of geographic objects with mapping software The KML file can be used independently of the program TRANSDAT on all display devices with installed Google Earth. There are three options for displaying the wooden poles on the map background: ? By double-clicking on the file entry in the Explorer ? By Drag-and-Drop from the Explorer to Google Earth ? By the menu item \File /Open?\ in Google Earth. Then Google Earth automatically provides a map section that includes all geographic objects. An example is illustrated further above. An interesting program for displaying own geographic objects from KML or GPX files onto the map background of different map services is the mapping software GPS Mate by the engineering office Oestreicher in Munich (Germany). The software supports online maps like OpenStreetMap, OpenCycleMap, OpenSeaMap, Google Maps, Bing Maps or Nokia OVI Maps. Layers in various file formats can be loaded into the program. The route guidance allows the GPS outdoor navigation to the displayed objects. The current GPS position is directly displayed on the maps. The software can be installed on tablets, smartphones, PCs, notebooks and mobile navigation systems (PNA). On the left, you see the wooden poles on a smartphone which are displayed with GPS Mate from our KML file on map material provided by OpenStreetMap. At the URL http://www.gps-mate.de, you find more information about the versatile yet inexpensive software. In Google Maps KML files cannot be imported directly. But in contrast, it is easily possible with Google My Maps, if you are logged in with your Google account. In Google My Maps up to 10 layers can be created and filled with own contents from KML and GPX files. Own geographic objects then can be displayed and navigated on all devices supported by Google. Here is a small map section with the ten wooden poles, that has been created with the Google My Maps account of KilletSoft. By double-clicking on one of the displayed markers the point description will be activated. As desired by the customer, you can navigate from any location to each of the wooden poles. At the URL http://www.atlsoft.de/gpx the company ATLsoft in Plattenberg (Germany) provides a GPS Viewer with map material supported by the German Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (BKG). Optionally, maps by the map services OpenTopoMap or Google Maps can also be used here. You can simply drag the KML file from the Windows Explorer onto the map interface and the objects contained therein will be marked on the map. By clicking on a marker the number of the wooden pole and the description are displayed. Here I have prepared a section with the wooden poles on a map with the GPS Viewer by ATLSoft. GPS reception with TRANSDAT In addition to the possibility to convert geodata of any formats into KML and GPX files, GPS positions can be received directly with the program TRANSDAT. With the integrated GPS receiving function, GPS signals can be received via a GPS antenna and then be analyzed. When using a notebook, an inexpensive GPS mouse (starting at 20 Euro) is used as antenna. This way it makes possible to determine position data in the form of coordinates and altitudes, speed and direction parameters and the exact time and to store this information in a GPS file. After finishing a measurement series, coordinates and additional information contained in the GPS file can be transferred to all file formats supported by TRANSDAT. Of course, also KML and GPX files can be generated for further processing of the received GPS positions in free map services. On the website http://www.killetsoft.de/p_trda_e.htm you can find detailed information about the Coordinate Transformation Program TRANSDAT. You can also download a free trial version there. TRANSDAT performs coordinate transformations fast and with high accuracy. Worldwide the transformation software supports thousands of coordinate systems, geodetic reference systems and datum shifts, user-defined systems, 2D/3D transformations, INSPIRE, NTv2, HARN, EPSG, GPS, continental drift and more. The coordinate converter reads and writes the file systems Text, CSV, SDF, dBase, Arc-Shape, Arc-Generate, KML, GPX and others. Also: Outdoor GPS reception, viewing in Google Earth, Google Maps and OpenStreetMap, Polygonal Validity Scopes in NTv2 files, multilingual user interface. Loni said he hopes to establish a good relationship with kids in the neighborhood. He said he wants young children to feel safe when they see an officer and if there is an emergency. Georgetown, SC (29440) Today Cloudy skies early, then partly cloudy after midnight. Low 47F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Cloudy skies early, then partly cloudy after midnight. Low 47F. Winds light and variable. Namira Salim, founder of Space Trust, joins NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine and others. Space leaders from around the world will convene at the Space2030 event to discuss humanity's peaceful future in space. NEW YORK Next week, leaders in space from around the world will come together for Space2030: Space As a Driver for Peace, an event that will take place at the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly. At this event, on Sept. 25, attendees will discuss the Space2030 agenda, a set of goals focused on the future of human activity and peace in space, which will be presented for approval at the General Assembly in 2020. This event will be presented by convening partners Space Trust, the U.N. Office for Partnerships and the U.N. Office for Outer Space Affairs. The organization Space Trust was founded in 2015 by Namira Salim, who has purchased a ticket to fly to space with Virgin Galactic and so will be the first future space tourist from South Asia and Monaco. According to the organization's website, Space Trust is a "nonpartisan social enterprise that champions world peace through novel space-themed initiatives to inspire change, encourage dialogue and enrich education." Namira Salim, founder of Space Trust, a nonpartisan organization that will convene at the event Space2030: Space As a Driver for Peace to discuss the future of human activity and peace in space. (Image credit: Wikipedia, CC BY-SA) The Space2030 agenda aims to strengthen international cooperation in the peaceful use of space and to help shape the future of human involvement in space. Salim hopes Space Trust can help "make space the new frontier for peace," she told Space.com. Salim said that Space Trust is working to make space more inclusive. Citing the overview effect, Salim aims to engage world leaders and help them to see the world in a different way, beyond political boundaries, as astronauts see the Earth from space, she said. The overview effect refers to a psychological phenomenon that astronauts have reported experiencing in which their perspective shifts after seeing the Earth from space. Space2030 is a unique opportunity for Space Trust to support international collaboration and discuss a peaceful future in space. The organization wants to encourage spacefaring nations like Russia and the U.S., as well as developing nations, new space nations and all other countries to "to come ahead and see the world in a different way from space as if those borders don't exist," Salim said. Salim has always been obsessed with space. As a teenager, she used to tell her family that she was going to be an astronaut, and as an adult, she kind of made that a reality when she bought a ticket on a Virgin Galactic trip to space and trained for the flight she has been called "Pakistan's First Astronaut." Salim told Space.com that in her experiences training and working with Virgin Galactic, she "learned a lot" about spaceflight and the space industry. Salim hopes that Space Trust, through its involvement in Space2030: Space As a Driver for Peace, find "innovative solutions for a peaceful world and" help world leaders "to understand that they can make the world a better place by understanding that space is open to every sector." Editor's Note: Space.com is a media partner of Space2030 and will be attending the Sept. 25 event. Follow Chelsea Gohd on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com. GREENWICH A wrongful death lawsuit involving a 15-year-old boy who killed himself after what his parents say were years of being bullied is headed to the highest court in the state. In August, the state Appellate Court said the trial court judge was correct in rejecting the towns request to dismiss the lawsuit filed by the family of Bart Palosz, based on claims of immunity. The town is now appealing that decision to the state Supreme Court. Bartlomiej Bart Palosz shot himself in the head after the first day of his sophomore year at Greenwich High School in August 2013. His family said officials did not investigate or discipline students who had bullied their son, and they filed a suit against the town of Greenwich and the Board of Education. Lawyer representing the Board of Education and the town have petitioned the Supreme Court to hear the argument for dismissal. The court may or may not review the case. The lawyer for the town, Harold Friedman, is making the argument that there are important legal issues involved in the Palosz case. Friedman is again raising the issue of sovereign immunity, which he said asserts that government employees or bodies cannot be sued for their official acts. The petition to the state Supreme Court also says there needs to be clarification of state anti-bullying policy regarding schools. The plaintiff in this case has filed a complaint which raises significant legal questions which could affect the outcome, Friedman wrote in an email. In this case it has raised questions of law which have not been previously addressed by the Supreme Court of the State of Connecticut. The parties have an obligation to review and determine whether or not these issues of law affect its potential liability and responsibility for damages that have been sustained. No one minimizes the tragedy of this young mans death, he continued, but sympathy is not allowed to be a factor in determining the liability of a party. Because of the importance of these issues, and after careful consideration, the defendants are requesting the Supreme Court to review the legal issues. Besides the issue of sovereign immunity, the petition says the court has an obligation to look at the question of anti-bullying law. It states that the ruling by the Appellate Court conflicts with the language of state law and will open the floodgates to litigation over the manner in which local boards of education comply with that (state) mandate. A lawyer representing the Palosz family, David Golub, said he was dismayed by the latest petition to the Supreme Court. He said the argument being made by the towns lawyers and the logic it followed was troubling. The town is saying that, if we cant protect students from bullying, the town has no legal responsibility, he said. On the issue of immunity, Golub said, I think every court that has looked at this issue has rejected it, and not just in our case, but across the state. This is a claim that has no merit. More than five years after the death of Bart Palosz, Golub said it is imperative for the case to proceed. Theyve stayed this case for five years, so no one has to answer the questions. ... Its reprehensible, he said. Friedman in his email said the Supreme Court petition was not an attempt to delay. The right to petition for review is a fundamental part of the judicial and appellate process that exists to protect the interests of all parties, especially where, as here, important legal issues are not settled law, he wrote. It is our hope that the Supreme Court will accept our petition and issue its ruling in due course. rmarchant@greenwichtime.com Are you feeling too old for Topshop, but not quite flush enough for Fendi? Finding beautifully-crafted, chic clothes with price tags that dont make you want to crumple on the floor and let out a small sob can sometimes feel like an insurmountable task. Its one that Haeni Kim, founder of contemporary womenswear label Kitri, came to know well as she reached her late twenties. I didnt really know where to go to shop anymore, says the 31-year-old London-based South Korean. We all love Zara but I think there comes that point when youve had a rough day at work and you have a nice event to go to in the evening and you want to put on a special piece that is well-made, thats going to make you feel great and is not at a price point that is going to make your eyes water. And so, with no formal design training, Kim set about creating a brand to cater to women who felt lost in the chasm between Primark and Prada. Kitri pop-up, Brewer street / Kitri And boy did she succeed. Kitri clothes are fashionable without being too slavishly on-trend and the quality is a cut above anything youll find on the high street. The best bit however is the prices, which at 80 for a blouse and 150 for dresses and jumpsuits, are quite frankly amazing given how the clothes look and feel. Kim has great working relationships with the factories in China where most Kitri clothes are made thanks to the five years she spent working for a garment manufacturing company in Hong Kong before she moved back to London to start the business in 2017. This, combined with the largely online-only business model allows Kitri to keep costs down. The manufacturers understood the quality we wanted and what we were trying to achieve and have supported us from the beginning, she explains. The name Kitri comes from Kims first career, as a professional ballerina. Its the name of the powerful female heroine from the ballet Don Quixote, her first solo dance. If you think about ballet then you think of quite passive female characters, explains Kim. But Kitri is this wilful, feisty heroine figure. Its quite a meaty character to get into and I wanted to embed that spirit into the brand. Kitri pop-up, Brewer Street / Kitri When I think about the kind of woman I want to see in Kitri, I see strong, professional women who are leading their way in industry. They marry for love, not money and they are creative, strong they have their sh*t together. In this sense, Kim is the living embodiment of the Kitri woman. In 2017 alone she launched a business (in March), organised her own seriously fabulous wedding in June (covered by Vogue) and then launched the brands first ever pop-up in August. Her husband Mike runs the business with her, focussing on operations and finance it can be intense but we have a common goal and work really well together, she says. Maude long-sleeved tea dress, Kitri / Kitri Kitri not only differentiate themselves on price but also exclusivity and only make a limited batch of each style - anything from 50 to 500 depending on the item. We wanted to create classic, playful styles and make them in limited quantities, says Kim. Buy Kitri and its highly improbable youll ever be faced with that all too familiar three girls at the party in the same Zara dress scenario. This means sometimes a style will run out, as it did when fashion influencer Charlotte Groeneveld (@TheFashionGuitar) wore their green dress in a paid-for Instagram post last year. The resulting hype was so great that Kitri couldnt keep the dress in stock. Its amazing how people responded to that, says Kim. Im still surprised and humbled by the reaction. It was a major turning point for us. The dress, which is available online now, was so popular Kim decided to make an exception on the limited stock run policy. We really dont believe in creating thousands and thousands with no reaction or demand, and then having to try and flog them. I think thats really wasteful. Says Kim. That said, we need to find the right balance of keeping limited edition runs but also making a product available if there is a demand for it. The response from our customers reminded me of the emotional side of fashion if they cannot get their hands on a dress, theyll be upset. Kitri have this week opened their second ever pop-up shop in Sohos Brewer Street, with gorgeous lavender and green-hued interiors designed by creative agency of the moment Campbell Rey. Not only does the super-Instagrammable space give people an opportunity to touch and try on the clothes, but its a great way for Kitri to get to know their customers well be listening to what they have to say, getting their reactions to new season styles. Kitri pop-up, Brewer street / Kitri If you are already a Kitri girl, its a lovely space in which to plot your next purchase, if you're new to the brand, might I suggest a visit. The good money says you'll find a super-chic wardrobe workhorse that will put you off fast fashion for good. A 15-year-old boy has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after a teenager was stabbed in east London. Police found a 17-year-old boy suffering from knife wounds in Island Row, Limehouse, after being called at 8.30pm on Friday. The victim was rushed to an east London hospital in an ambulance, where he remained in a critical condition on Saturday evening. Tower Hamlets police are now appealing for more witnesses and information while the 15-year-old remains in custody. Detective Sergeant Lauren Brady of Tower Hamlets CID said: A young man has been seriously injured and we are working hard to piece together exactly what happened in the lead up to him being harmed. Although we have made an arrest, we know that there were many people in the area when the victim was found injured. I am appealing for anyone who with information to come forward." N igel Farage branded the EU "gangsters" and said a no-deal Brexit is no problem as he kicked off a series of Leave Means Leave rallies. The former Ukip leader shared a platform with former Tory Brexit secretary David Davis and Labour Brexiteer MP Kate Hoey at the event in Bolton. He told cheering supporters it is time the UK's own politicians "began to feel the heat" over attempts, he claimed, to overturn the referendum vote. The crowd, waving mini Union Jack flags, heard all three speakers implore them to stick with Brexit as mentions of EU leaders Donald Tusk and Michel Barnier, former prime minister Tony Blair and the BBC were loudly booed. Brexiteers Kate Hoey, Nigel Farage and David Davis / AFP/Getty Images And to cheers and applause, the "gangsters" and "bully boys" of the EU were told to "read some history books" about how Britain reacts "when we are up against it". Mr Farage said out-of-touch "career politicians" do not want to respect the referendum vote to leave the EU and a renewed, cross-party campaign was needed to stay on course for Brexit and counter the "negative" narrative in the media. He said of the EU: "They are a bunch of gangsters. We will explain a free trade deal is possible, if that's what the gangsters in Brussels want. "If they don't, that is fine, if they don't we will leave with no deal. No deal, no problem. "I think it's about time that our elected politicians began to feel the heat over the extent of the betrayal." Nigel Farage was cheered as he branded the EU 'gangsters' / AFP/Getty Images Mr Farage told supporters to "queue up outside the constituency offices" of MPs to tell them to deliver Brexit. He continued: "It is my first day back on the political stage. Today is the re-launch, today is the rebirth of the people's army that gave us Brexit." Mr Farage said Prime Minister Theresa May's Chequers plan for Brexit was "dead" following the debacle in Salzburg when EU leaders told her it was unworkable. He said the plan was "Brexit in name only" and while not Mrs May's "biggest fan", he berated the EU on how she was treated. The campaign bus is seen parked outside the 'Save Brexit' rally / AFP/Getty Images Mr Farage added: "I will be damned if we should allow foreign, unelected bureaucrats to treat our Prime Minister like that." The UK Government's plan for Brexit was agreed by the Cabinet at the Prime Minister's country residence, Chequers, on July 6. It includes an end to the free movement of people, a free trade area for goods under a "common rulebook" and a "facilitated customs arrangement" which aims to maintain easy trade in goods between the UK and the EU whilst allowing Britain to develop an independent trade policy with the rest of the world. The plans prompted Mr Davis to resign from the Cabinet. Mr Davis said the plan was a "fudge" but told the rally he viewed the treatment of Mrs May "with contempt" and said "bad manners and discourtesy are not the hallmarks of great men". He continued: "And if you think you can bully our country, all I can suggest is that you read some history books." Mr Davis claimed the EU was willing to accept a free trade deal with the UK, on the lines agreed with Canada; no freedom of movement, no tariffs and no court oversight. He added: "We are standing on the brink of an historic change. All we need is the courage to reclaim our birthright. "To govern our own country, to make our own laws and to determine our own destiny." Ms Hoey, who is facing deselection from her local constituency party, said: "My country comes before my party." She said she was angry and would not let the referendum result be "stolen" by a second "People's Vote" amid the "patronising voices of the mainly London establishment". Ms Hoey added: "We've had the vote, we don't want another vote, we don't need another vote, we just want to leave." The MP for Vauxhall, London, said Brussels had never negotiated Brexit in "good faith". She added: "They underestimate how strong we are when we are up against it." The rally at the University of Bolton Stadium is the first in a number of events across the country organised by Leave Means Leave, the pressure group campaigning for a "clean, swift exit" from the EU. T he Labour Party's annual conference began this weekend in Liverpool - with the party poised for key speeches on Brexit, nationalisation of the railways and a strong commitment to women and equalities. Eyes turned to the conference as Labour took its first major opportunity to remind the public what it stands for, and leader Jeremy Corbyn hopes to get back to business after a period of internal muck throwing. There has been relative calm for Labour in the past week, with attention shifting onto Theresa May's crumbling grip on the Conservatives amid the EU's rejection of her Chequers proposals for Brussels. Now Labour hopes it has a chance to bring back support, with increasing speculation that Mrs May could face a snap election. So here's everything to expect from the Labour Party Conference, as party members arrived on Saturday afternoon, with events running until Wednesday. Brexit Brexit has dominated the party conference season, and pro-EU MPs and activists are likely to use this week's events to drive for support of the People's Vote campaign for a second referendum. Both Jeremy Corbyn and his top ally, shadow chancellor John McDonnell, have resisted the calls - instead hoping a general election is their best hope. But Corbyn has said he will "reluctantly" back another vote if that's what the party decides this week. The March 29 deadline is fast approaching, and there is likely to be hot debate across the conference. It's understandable, then, that Brexit was the first topic for discussion after the opening speeches on Sunday. Women and Equalities Women and Equalities chief Dawn Butler led a special Women's Party Conference from noon on Saturday, promising to put Equalities centre-stage for the party. She told delegates: "So far we have seen seven different ministers for equality tagged onto four different departments and a budget that's nearly been halved. "This proves the Tories are not taking equalities seriously. By establishing a Department for Women and Equalities, Labour will ensure equalities is the common thread running through its government. The next Labour government will put equality centre stage." Corbyn will be hoping this approach puts the dampeners on an anticipated re-run of bad feeling over his handling of anti-semitism allegations which Gordon Brown called a "stain" on Labour, and some Jewish members said they no longer felt secure in the Party. While there's no specific event booked to discuss anti-semitism, the topic is bound to crop up. Austerity Mr Corbyn announced before the conference that Labour are going to place a huge focus on anti-austerity measures, aiming to make his most direct pitch yet to people in post-industrial towns and communities, with speeches tackling the impact of de-industrialisation and the drop in people's living standards. New policies will also be announced at the event to empower local communities and boost neglected areas, the Guardian reported. In a statement released by the party Corbyn said cuts and government mismanagement have left many of our towns and communities hollowed out and without hope. It is Labours mission to represent the hopes and aspirations of working-class people in our country," he added. "Our country needs to radically change course and this week were going to be laying out our plans to rebuild Britain for the many, not the few. Well show this week how were going to transform our broken economic model, have a rebirth of our great public services and give local communities the control they need to make their towns thrive again. De-selection rules Momentum, the grassroots activists' group which helped to propel Mr Corbyn to the leadership, has pressed for a change to party rules which could make it easier to de-select sitting MPs, prompting fears among moderates of a purge by left-wingers. Momentum was forced to accept a "compromise" ruling on the changes at the National Executive Committee on Saturday, but are likely to continue campaigning. In-fighting Deputy leader Tom Watson will not be speaking from the main platform after failing to agree a satisfactory slot, but he may vent his frustrations with the leadership during a series of appearances on the fringe. "Re-building Britain" Mr Corbyn spoke at a rally at Pier Head in Liverpool on Saturday, to mark the start of conference, and delivers his main speech on Wednesday, while some polls suggesting his popularity with the wider public is slipping. His slogan for the conference is "Re-building Britain, for the many not the few", incorporating his leadership's staple maxim. Labour party Conference Timetable Saturday 22nd September 11:00 Womens Conference Registration 12:00 Womens Conference Auditorium 1A ACC Sunday 23rd September 10:30 Opening Formalities; NEC Chairs Address; CAC Report; General Secretarys Report; Awards 11:20 Part democracy 12:45 Seminar - Brexit 12:45 Seminar - Environment, Energy, and Culture 12:45 Seminar - Work, Pensions, and Equality 14:15 Party Democracy; Women's Conference Motion; Financial Reports Monday 24th September 8:15 Seminar - International 8:15 Seminar - Justice and Home Affairs 8:15 Seminar - Health and Social Care 9:30 CAC Report 9:55 Wales Report 10:05 Public investment and ownership 12:15 Shadow Chancellor's speech 14:15 Scotland Report 14:25 Social security and skills Tuesday 25th September 8:15 Seminar - Early Years, Education, and Skill 8:15 Seminar - Housing, Local Government, and Transport 8:15 Seminar - Economy, Business, and Trade 9:30 NEC and CLP Constitutional Amendments 10:20 Brexit and the economy 14:50 Security at home and abroad Wednesday 26th September 9:05 Tackling inequalities 12:15 Leader's Speech E U leaders have insisted a Brexit deal is still possible as Theresa May was warned she must now find a 'Plan B'. Following the bitter fall-out from Theresa May's appearance at the Salzburg summit, sources said 'Plan A,' Mrs May's Chequers plan, is 'out of the window.' Yesterday the Prime Minister warned she was prepared to walk away from the negotiations after her plan was brusquely rebuffed by leaders of the remaining 27 member states. A source told the Telegraph: "Monday is the crunch point. "That's when every Cabinet minister will have to look again and reassess like Boris [Johnson] and David Davis did." European Council president Donald Tusk said the leaders assembled in Austria had treated her proposals with "all seriousness" / REUTERS "Everybody will want something that can be delivered. We have to have a 'Plan B' now 'Plan A' is out of the window." The source raised the prospect of further senior resignations if a solution is not reached. The strength of the reaction to her treatment in the UK - where it was widely seen as a "humiliation" - appeared to catch Brussels by surprise. In a conciliatory statement on Friday, European Council president Donald Tusk said the leaders assembled in Austria had treated her proposals with "all seriousness" and regarded them as a "step in the right direction". However he suggested they had been taken aback by the "surprisingly tough and in fact uncompromising" approach she had adopted when she addressed them over dinner on Wednesday. "While understanding the logic of the negotiations, I remain convinced that a compromise, good for all, is still possible. I say these words as a close friend of the UK and a true admirer of PM May," he said. Earlier Irish premier Leo Varadkar, who reportedly clashed with Mrs May in Salzburg over the issue of the border with Northern Ireland, acknowledged negotiations had hit a "rocky patch" but said they would keep working for a deal. The Prime Minister won backing from many Tory MPs for her tough, televised statement on Friday in which she denounced her treatment by the other 27 leaders and demanded the UK was treated with "respect". Theresa May delivers statement after Chequers plan disaster in Salzburg With barely controlled anger, she warned that she would never accept any agreement on the Irish border issue which led to the "break up of my country" and made clear she would walk away rather than accept a "bad deal". Her intervention appeared to have won her some breathing space ahead of the Tory Party conference in Birmingham. But while Brexiteer MPs lauded her for standing up to the EU there were also fresh calls to abandon her Chequers plan - which many Tories believe would keep Britain too close to the EU - for a simple Canada-style free trade deal. However any respite may be short-lived as former Brexit secretary David Davis - who quit over Chequers and is promising to publish his own plan for leaving - is due to appear at a Leave Means Leave rally in Bolton on Saturday along with former Ukip leader Nigel Farage. What are the options? Chequers: Theresa May stood fast by her Chequers blueprint yesterday. Under this plan the UK would collect tariffs on behalf of the EU and follow a 'common rulebook' for goods but not services. Canada: A 'Canada' style deal would grant preferential access to the single market without the need to sign up to the EU's four fundemental freedoms of goods, services, capital and Labour. It removes almost all customs duties and tariffs but would not allow Britain's financial services access to the EU market and does not solve the Ireland border issue. No deal: Theresa May said yesterday that 'no deal is better than a bad deal.' Britain would make a clean break from the EU and fall back on its World Trade Organisation membership. It would also spare Britain from paying the 39bn Brexit divorce bill. Meanwhile The Daily Telegraph reported that senior ministers will use a Cabinet meeting on Monday to push Mrs May to drop Chequers and come up with a "Plan B" alternative. Home Secretary Sajid Javid, Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey and International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt were said to be among those pressing for a change of direction. Ms Mordaunt said on Friday she believed voters "still want a deal but (were) content to go without one". For Labour, Jeremy Corbyn said Mrs May had shown herself "incapable of delivering a good Brexit deal", and shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer accused her of being "in denial". I hear the drums echoing tonight But she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation She's coming in, 12:30 flight The moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards salvation I stopped an old man along the way Hoping to find some old forgotten words or ancient melodies He turned to me as if to say "Hurry boy, it's waiting there for you" It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do I bless the rains down in Africa Gonna take some time to do the things we never have The wild dogs cry out in the night As they grow restless longing for some solitary company I know that I must do what's right As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti I seek to cure what's deep inside Frightened of this thing that I've become It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do I bless the rains down in Africa Gonna take some time to do the things we never have It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do I bless the rains down in Africa I bless the rains down in Africa I bless the rains down in Africa I bless the rains down in Africa I bless the rains down in Africa Gonna take some time to do the things we never have F ormer Home Secretary Amber Rudd has opened up about discovering her late ex-husband A A Gill had an affair over 20 years ago. Adrian Anthony Gill, the well-known writer and restaurant critic, had written about his personal life and battle with alcoholism, and died from cancer in 2016, aged 62. Former Tory front-bencher Amber Rudd has described how she discovered her husband was having an affair as she waited for him to return from an assignment in Monte Carlo. And as she stood at the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport she watched as he landed with another woman on his arm. Amber Rudd and AA Gill, helping her political campaign in 2005. The pair became friends again after the break-up in 1995. / Reuters Ms Rudd said she had been convinced he was cheating on her, and waited at the airport hoping to see for herself. She confronted the pair as they arrived in the UK, but without saying anything of the infidelity, simply offered her husband and his mistress a lift back to London. Amazingly, Gill and the mistress accepted, and the three of them exchanged awkward pleasantries as they sat in traffic, Ms Rudd revealed in an interview with the Daily Mail. She told: "We were all in denial. "I was suspicious he was having an affair. I thought there might be more to the Monte Carlo trip than he had let on, so I decided to turn up unannounced at Heathrow to see for myself. When he came out with his girlfriend I knew it was true. "He mumbled something feeble about them having been on the same assignment. It was obviously nonsense, but we all pretended nothing had happened. "I didn't want to have a fight with her. She wasn't my enemy I've never felt that. I've had a few laughs about it since then, but it was upsetting at the time." The events unfolded in 1995, when Ms Rudd was in her 20s and working at JP Morgan, and the married couple had two children, Flora and Alasdair, both in their twenties. Rudd and Gill split the same year, and he spent the rest of his life with the South African-born model and journalist Nicola Formby. This is the first time that Rudd has talked publicly about her marriage to Gill, held by many as the most talented newspaper critic of his generation and a controversial writer, who reportedly had 62 complaint made against him to the Press Complaints Commission in the space of five years. Gill used to refer to his companion in newspaper columns as "the blonde" - leading on readers for years over who his mysterious companion could be. H ong Kong today opened a new high-speed rail link that will vastly decrease travel times to inland China. Costing over 7 billion and taking more than eight years to build, the system aims to transport more than 80,000 passengers daily between the financial centre of seven million people and the neighbouring manufacturing hub of Guangdong province. The train travels the 16 miles through Hong Kong to Shenzhen across the border in China in just 14 minutes. The journey previously took one hour. The through-train to Guangdong's capital Guangzhou will take just over half an hour, about 90 minutes faster than the current service. Ma Xingrui, governor of Guangdong Province, and Carrie Lam, Hong Kong's chief executive, stand next to one of the new trains / REUTERS Once across the border, passengers can link up with the sprawling nationwide high-speed rail network serving more than 44 destinations, including Shanghai, Beijing and the western city of Xi'an. Passengers will clear Chinese immigration at the line's newly built West Kowloon terminus, the source of major legal controversy when it was revealed that mainland Chinese law would apply within roughly one-quarter of the station's area. Some opposition politicians argued the move would be a violation of the Basic Law, Hong Kong's mini-constitution under which it retained its own legal system and civil liberties after reverting from British to Chinese rule in 1997. An attendant stands on duty near the high-tech new train service / AP That guarantees Hong Kong the right to maintain rights such as freedom of speech and assembly, which are routinely violated on the mainland, until 2047. Legal matters related to defence, foreign affairs and national security fall under Beijing. However, Beijing's tight control over the city's politics and a continuing crackdown on politicians calling for greater economy and democratic reforms have spurred worries about an erosion of Hong Kong's remaining autonomy. The new train will slash journey times from Hong Kong to mainland China / AP The Hong Kong legislature's passage in June of the plan to allow Chinese law to apply at the railway terminus was a significant moment for the opposition, coming four years after mass street protests demanding reforms fizzled out amid Beijing's intransigence. Pro-democracy politicians have been expelled and charges brought against more than 100 protesters. A boy has drowned after a boat carrying Syrian refugees sank off the coast of Lebanon today. Some 39 Syrian refugees attempting to make an illegal crossing to Cyprus had to rescued by the Lebanese military - and there are reports one young boy drowned in the waters. Security sources said it appeared to be the first time in almost a year that a group of refugees had tried to get to Europe by boat from Lebanon, where Syrian refugees account for roughly a quarter of the population. Cyprus is around 180 km (110 miles) from the coast of northern Lebanon. Three more of the people on the boat were in a serious condition in hospital, the sources said. Syrians chant slogans and wave flags of the opposition and of Turkey during demonstration against the Assad regime yesterday, in the rebel-held town of Hazzanu, northwest of Idlib. / AFP/Getty/Aeref Watad The UN refugee agency UNHCR says there are close to 1 million registered Syrian refugees in Lebanon. The Lebanese government puts the number at 1.5 million. As Syrian forces and their allies have retaken more territory in Syria, Lebanonas president and other politicians have called for refugees to go back to areas where fighting is over before a deal is reached to end the civil war. A man carries a wounded child after a car bombing in Idlib in May. The city has been devastated by siege, leading to international calls for a ceasefire to prevent a humanitarian crisis. Russia has granted rebels an ultimatum to leave the city or face further conflict. / AFP/Getty/Omar Haj Kadour Some refugees have trickled back to Syria in recent months in what the Lebanese authorities have described as voluntary returns coordinated with the Syrian government. Russia's foreign ministry called for a repatriation of Syrian civilians from Lebanon in July, even as civil war rages on. The calls were made two days after a spate of ISIS suicide bomb attacks around Sweida in southern Syria, killing a total of 246 people according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan met earlier this month to arrange a ceasefire between their warring allies on either side of the conflict in a hope of preventing further devastation in the city of Idlib. / AFP/Getty/Alexander Zemlianichenko The bombings followed reports that Assad's regime had cleared most of the south of the country- and Syria is in a state of relative piece for the time being after Russia and Turkey agreed on a ceasefire to stifle an emerging humanitarian crisis in the city of Idlib. Putin and Erdogan offered an escape corridor for "rebels" who want to put down their arms, but the Wahhabi militia in control of the city have said they will kill anyone trying to leave. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said during a visit to Beirut last month that refugees were concerned about issues including the lack of infrastructure and fear of retribution and military conscription if there were to return to their homes. For larger numbers to decide to go back, he said, more confidence must be created by addressing these issues and UNHCR should have a presence in areas of return, according to a statement on UNHCR's website. A t least eight members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard were killed when gunmen opened fire during an annual parade. Bullets were sprayed into a crowd of marching guardsmen, bystanders and government officials watching from a nearby platform in the attack in Ahvaz. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the assault. However, Iran faced a bloody assault last year from the Islamic State group and Arab separatists in the region have attacked oil pipelines there in the past. Iran's state-run IRNA news agency said 24 people were dead. Members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps march prior to the attack / AFP/Getty Images Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif immediately blamed the attack on regional countries and their "US masters", further raising regional tensions as Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers is in jeopardy after President Donald Trump withdrew America from the accord. "Iran will respond swiftly and decisively in defense of Iranian lives," he wrote on Twitter. State television aired footage of the aftermath of the assault on Ahvaz's Quds, or Jerusalem Boulevard, which like many other places around the country saw an annual parade marking the start of Iran's long 1980s war with Iraq. The images included paramedics trying to help one person in military fatigues as other armed security personnel shouted at each other. Iran's foreign minister said the country would respond 'swiftly and decisively' / AFP/Getty Images The semi-official ISNA news agency published photographs of the attack's aftermath, with bloodied troops in dress uniform helping each other walk away. A local news agency in Khuzestan province, of which Ahvaz is the capital, aired grainy mobile phone footage showing parade goers fleeing as soldiers lay flat on the ground. Gunfire rang out in the background. Soldiers and bystanders take cover during the attack / EPA "Security forces have restored security in the area but the parade has totally been disrupted," a reporter on the scene for Iranian state television said by phone in a live broadcast. "People have been killed but we have no figures yet." Zarif on Twitter said that the gunmen were "terrorists recruited, trained, armed & paid by a foreign regime". Soldiers at the scene of the attack on the military parade / AFP/Getty Images He did not immediately elaborate. However, Arab separatist groups in the region have launched attacks on oil pipelines there in the past and Iran. The separatists also accuse Iran's Shiite theocracy of discriminating against its Sunni Arab citizens. Iran has blamed its Mideast arch rival, the Sunni kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for funding their activity. Reports of how the attack unfolded remained unclear immediately afterwards. The state TV reporter said the gunfire came from a park behind a platform. The semi-official Fars news agency, which is close to the Guard, said two gunmen on a motorcycle wearing khaki uniforms carried out the attack. The semi-official Tasnim news agency said at least eight members of the Guard had been killed. Khuzestan governor Gholamreza Shariati told IRNA that two gunmen were killed and another two were arrested. Who carried out the assault also remained in question. State television immediately described the assailants as "takfiri gunmen", a term previously used to describe the Islamic State group. Iran has been deeply involved in the fight against IS in Iraq and has aided Syrian president Bashar Assad in his country's long war. Among those involved are members of the Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary force answerable only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Guard also has vast holdings in Iran's economy. Meanwhile, Guard spokesman General Ramazan Sharif told ISNA that an Arab separatist group carried out the attack, without elaborating. However, those groups in the past previously have only attacked unguarded oil pipelines at night. Saturday's attack comes after a coordinated June 7, 2017 Islamic State group assault on parliament and the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Tehran. At least 18 people were killed and more than 50 wounded. Khomeini led the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the Western-backed shah to become Iran's first supreme leader until his death in 1989. The assault shocked Tehran, which largely has avoided militant attacks in the decades after the tumult surrounding the Islamic Revolution. O nly one 'WhatsApp lynching" has been reported in India since creators of the app brought in new restrictions on sharing messages that incite violence. Up to 40 people have died in India so far in 2018 amid a plague of smartphone-fuelled mob murders by "ordinary citizens." WhatsApp brought in new rules in July to clamp down on group messages about alleged child abductors which whip up fear among citizens - resulting in random fatal attacks. The app has more than 200 million users in the country. The new rules enforce a limit on the number of times messages can be forwarded to different people. The last reported attack in India of this kind happened at the end of July. One man was said to have been killed. An unidentified 29-year-old man was lynched in Dindori, in the heart of India, on July 28. He had been accused of kidnapping children. His decomposed body was reportedly found down a well a week after the attack. Ten people are said to have been arrested on suspicion of his murder. Nirjhari Sinha, chairman of the civil rights group Jan Sangharsh Manch and pictured at a protest against mob lynchings in July, told the Standard people carrying out the attacks are 'not criminals but ordinary citizens' / Sam Panthaky/AFP/Getty Images Activist Nirjhari Sinha told the Standard it was difficult to say if there is a direct correlation between the change in policy by WhatsApp and the drop in the number of killings. Ms Sinha, who is chair of civil rights group Jan Sangharsh Manch, said the lynching of Shantadevi Nath in her home city is still fresh in the mind. Mohinidevi Nath shows a phone photo of her cousin Shantadevi Nath, who was killed by a mob that falsely believed she was intent on abducting children in Ahmedabad / Sam Panthaky/AFP/Getty Images Ms Nath was part of a nomadic tribe, known as Madari, travelling into Ahmedabad in western India on June 26. Ms Sinha recalled: A mob of about 30 people attacked four women travelling in an auto rickshaw, on the suspicion they were child lifters. Shantadevi died. Those who killed her are also not criminals but ordinary citizens. They really fell for the WhatsApp forward. Indian members of the Vaadi community protest in support of Shantadevi Nath / Sam Panthaky/AFP/Getty Images The other women who were also attacked are shattered. They were obviously very scared, and feeling helpless, that one WhatsApp message can ruin their life. They are very poor and there is a long legal battle ahead. Ms Sinha, who led protests against the lynchings this summer, criticised a lack of action by the Indian authorities, saying it had been left to people like her to draw attention to the issue. WhatsApp pledged to counter false information by limiting the amount of times messages can be forwarded / Prakash Singh/AFP/Getty Images She said: Approaches to solving this issue have mostly been decentralised and piecemeal. There is a lack of initiative at the central policy making level. Efforts have been sporadic and scattered, with the initiative mostly taken by local police stations and civil society representatives. R ihanna has said she "couldn't be more proud" as she accepted the role of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary for her home nation of Barbados. The 30-year-old has eight Grammys, two Brit awards and nine UK number ones under her belt - on top of her other successes with her fashion business and charitable foundation. She now has the special role to promote education, tourism and investment for her native island, and said she would use the "prestigious title" to help "re-imagine Barbados". She said she was looking forward to help "re-imagine Barbados" as she was given the title. Rihanna and Prince Harry took part in the "Man Aware" event at the Barbados National HIV/AIDS commission in 2016. / PA Archive/PA Images "I couldn't be more proud to take on such a prestigious title in my home country," Rihanna said. "Every Barbadian is going to have to play their role in this current effort, and I'm ready and excited to take on the responsibility. "I look forward to working with Prime Minister Mottley and her team to reimagine Barbados." The Caribbean island's prime minister, Mia Amor Mottley said: "Rihanna has a deep love for this country and this is reflected in her philanthropy, especially in the areas of health and education. "She also shows her patriotism in the way she gives back to this country and continues to treasure the island as her home." Already a cultural ambassador for Barbados, her expanded role reflects her "global influence across a much broader range of areas". Rihanna wrote in a column for the Guardian this week that "Growing up in Barbados, school was a grind, as she fights to help the "quarter of a billion young people denied education" around the world by conflict, poverty and sexism. "Im not ashamed to say Im still learning," she wrote. "Ive grown tremendously as an individual through my formal education as well as the global education I have received by travelling the world through music. "The notion that millions of children are desperate to go to school and are not given the opportunity is something I cannot accept." Alongside her astronomical musical career, Rihanna, who has amassed an estimated net worth of 210 million dollars (160 million), has a number of business ventures, notably in the world of fashion and cosmetics. Most recently she wowed London Fashion Week with a masterclass in diversity as she showcased lingerie brand Savage X Fenty. Real name Robyn Rihanna Fenty, she has also carried out international charitable work through her Clara Lionel Foundation, which is named after her grandparents. The pop star has also been a vocal commentator on political and social issues. In 2017 she was a prominent critic of President Donald Trump's response to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria on Puerto Rico. The same year she called for an end to gun violence after a cousin was shot dead in Barbados. A university professor who has accused Donald Trumps Supreme Court nominee of sexual assault has agreed to testify against him in court next week. Christine Blasey Ford has accepted a Senate Judiciary Committee's request for her to tell her story of Brett Kavanuaghs sexual misconduct. But her lawyers said in a letter to the committee's Republican majority that they want to continue discussing the terms of her appearance. Ms Ford, a 51-year-old California psychology professor, claims an inebriated Mr Kavanaugh pinned her on a bed, muffled her cries and tried removing her clothes when they were both teenagers in the 1980s. Mr Kavanaugh, a District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals judge, has repeatedly denied the accusation. President Trump, who nominated Mr Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court, has waded into the issue, claiming that if the alleged attack was that "bad", she would have filed charges at the time. He tweeted on Friday: "I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place!" On Saturday, vice-president Mike Pence described Mr Kavanaugh as "a man of integrity with impeccable credentials". He said the judge's record and career deserve "the respect of every member of the United States Senate". D iscover unique and independent jewellery labels from the comfort of your own home. Just as online clothing stores have changed the way we shop for our garments, jewellery e-boutiques are transforming our experience for accessories. Through the likes of Instagram and retailers like Net-A-Porter, Wolf & Badger and ASOS, we now have access to an endless selection of independent jewellery brands at our fingertips, giving us the opportunity to browse for hours on end to find that timeless set of gold hoops, chunky chain necklace or stackable ring collection. But with so many exquisite e-stores to choose from, where to begin? To help you out, we have compiled a list of the best online jewellers to shop. Upgrade your collection with enviable jewels from some of the best kept secret brands to gift a loved one or better yet, yourself. Get layering with a carefully curated combination of choker, chain and pendant or finally invest in ear candy to achieve that perfectly styled look - without it having to cost a fortune. Best for: Affordability Missoma Trend-setting label Missoma is one of our favourite jewellery brands out there. The demi-fine trinket specialists offer delicate and vintage-inspired pieces that you will be sure to cherish. Leading the pack on some of the most sought-after designs, you will find chunky chains, layering sets, customisable pendants, envy-inducing ear stacks, statement rings and much more. The brand also has an on-going and hugely popular collaboration with blogger Lucy Williams starring coin necklaces, choker and retro hoops. Muru London Struggling with a gift idea for the jewellery lover in your life? Muru has got you covered. The London-based label specialises in meaningful designs that will honour the special occasion with something truly unique. From personalised initial necklaces with hand-stamped designs, to necklaces, earrings, bracelets and anklets adorned with a moon charm to symbolise female empowerment, the pieces are effortlessly chic and are crafted from sterling silver and 18ct gold vermeil. Seol + Gold Fill your jewellery box with playful gold pieces that dont cost a fortune. Seol + Gold are here to bring statement designs with a more is more approach that you can adorn your ears, wrists, fingers and neck with the 9ct plated statement gems. From signet rings, and layerable skinnies, to out of this world celestial adornments, these are fashion pieces that put the fun back into your ever-growing collection. Best for: Supporting Independent Businesses Ruifier Fine and demi-fine British jewellery brand Ruifier centres around intricately detailed creations set with conflict-free stones and diamonds. For its collections, it is split between fun and playful designs as well as technically-impressive architectural styles. Both ranges include necklaces, bracelets, rings and earrings that form truly unique pieces that can be mixed and matched and layered up or adorned solo to highlight their individuality. The Friend bracelets with colourful string and smiley charm or initial embellishments have proven a huge hit among those in the know. STELLAR 79 Based in East London and created by sisters Natasha and Sheena, STELLAR 79 is a luxury British, demi-fine jewellery brand with contemporary attitude and heirloom worthy pieces. Everything from simple structures to intricate designs demonstrate a streamlined elegance free from fussy or overworked themes - raw sophistication at its best. Aurum + Grey London-based jewellery label Aurum + Grey has a celebrity fan base that includes the Kardashian-Jenners, Kaia Gerber and Bella Hadid. The brand may be best known for its delicate initial necklaces that are designed to be layered but the collection extends far beyond these customised designs to include earrings, necklaces and bracelets all of which are produced and personalised in the UK. P D Paola Contemporary Spanish jewellery brand P D Paola launched in 2014 to offer trend-setting designs that ooze with femininity. The affordable pieces all have unique styles and are made from the highest quality materials. You may have already spotted the distinctive multi-hoop earrings or brightly coloured gem-embellished initial necklaces on your Instagram feed but the collection extends much further to also star personalisable pendants like the adorable bond necklace and even has charms for your pets. Wolf & Badger Wolf & Badger is a curated marketplace for independent designers and is best known for its two award-winning concept stores in Notting Hill and Mayfair. This is a go-to destination for chic, unique and instantly wearable pieces to style, stack and keep for years to come. The prices also range hugely between 7-15,202 so theres something for every budget. Olivia Creber British jewellery designer Olivia Creber takes her inspiration from natural landscapes, creating designs with organic shapes and uncut stones. The textural pieces are handcrafted, resulting in a timeless and elegant look. Best for: Instagram-worthy Layering Daisy Jewellery We first spotted British jewellery label Daisy on our Instagram feeds as it has become hugely popular with some of our favourite influencers, including Estee Lalonde who has created a capsule collaboration collection with the understated brand. Daisy Jewellery combines everyday essential designs with statement pieces with adorable, feminine and hugely covetable constructions. The range extends to necklaces, rings, earrings with the likes of chains, chokers and pendants. Stack them up or wear solo. Monica Vinader Designing for men and women, all of Monica Vinaders pieces can be personalised. Their friendship bracelets have already reached cult status, and the other pieces on offer are equally as covetable. Luv AJ LA-based label first launched in 2005 when founder Amanda Thomas was just 16 years old. Since then, it has amassed a cult following with an impressive celebrity roster that includes the likes of Bella and Gigi Hadid, Kylie and Kendall Jenner and even Beyonce. While they may be best known for their hoops earrings - nailing the basic silhouette - head to the brand for signet rings, ear cuffs and chain necklaces that you will want to layer up with. Prices range from around 15 to 200. Tohum Taking inspiration from her love of travel and nature, Tohum was founded in 2009 by Verda Alaton and is composed of statement jewellery that will have you dreaming of your next far flung tropical destination with serious wanderlust. The collections are made up predominantly of gold pieces in which the puka shell takes a starring role across a whole host of bracelets and necklaces. Sydney Evan This LA cool label was launched in 2001 and named after the designer Rosanne Karmes children. It combines fine jewellery with fashion in that typical effortless California style. Each of the pieces are crafted in 14-karat gold with dainty diamond embellishments. The hugely popular Love collection may be the brands signature but the full range is made up of unique and playful bracelets, necklaces, rings and earrings to layer or mix and match that have already proven to be a hit with the likes of Rihanna and Gwyneth Paltrow. Best for: Sustainability In Association With Ethical jewellery label In Association With offers vintage-inspired designs handmade by a small group of artisans in Jaipur. The pieces hark back to a previous time with signet rings, coin pendant earrings and huggie sets that all have a heirloom type feel. To create the trinkets, the artisans wax casted an antique Indian coin to give an authentic look. The jewellery is made from recycled silver or 18k gold vermeil. Thousand Fibres This UK-based label creates handcrafted pieces that are packed with meaning. Each of the necklaces are weaved with red thread into gold to act as a physical reminder of moments, people and places in your life as a silken talisman to bring luck. The drop bar pendants and circular amulets are carved from wax and are hand-finished and threaded. This design process also gives an imperfect organic texture that makes each piece unique. They are crafted entirely from recycled sterling silver and plated with 18ct gold vermeil to ensure they are ethical and sustainable. Edge of Ember Fresh from the opening of its first store in Covent Garden, the London-based jewellery label Edge of Ember puts socially responsible and ethically sound practises at the forefront. The accessories are crafted by small groups of artisans across India and East Asia with pieces made to order. Update your collection with engravable jewels, beach-inspired pieces and solid gold fine essentials. You can also personalise pendants with initials, numbers, gemstones or meaningful charms. Best for: Ethical Jewellery Lark & Berry In addition to dealing in lab-grown diamonds, Lark & Berry plants five trees per purchase made in partnership with One Tree Planted. Kimai London-based Kimai handcrafts its ethical jewellery in Antwerp and delivers it in recyclable packaging. Meghan Markle has this lab-grown diamond set. JEM Pariss first ethical jewellery brand JEM which stands for Jewellery Ethically Minded offers chic geometric pieces made from Fairminded gold and cultured diamonds. Norrfolks Sustainable Scandi brand Norrfolks specialises in everyday cultured diamonds, from tiny studs to stacking rings which also feature 100 per cent reclaimed gold. Taylor & Hart All of Taylor & Harts engagement rings can be set with a lab grown diamond. Because you love the planet as much as you love them. Best for: Work & Other Stories & Other Stories - known for its minimalist Scandi aesthetic and exceptional quality has a wonderfully affordable jewellery collection, with many items on sale for less than a tenner. Your go-to for simple hoops and stylish pendants that will add another dimension to that work blouse or dress. Otiumberg Everyday jewellery on a reasonable budget is what sisters Christie and Rosanna Wollenberg had in mind when they founded Otiumberg in 2014. The sterling silver and gold-plated designs are ultra-wearable, making them perfect workwear accessories. Annoushka Every piece from Annoushkas enviable jewellery range is handcrafted in 18ct gold and set with precious gemstones and diamonds. Drawing from the designers Russian heritage and love of travel, the collection ranges from charms and pendants, to bangles and necklaces. Her initial earrings, however, are what we've got our eye on. Best for: Hot Dates Ania Haie For Instagrammable designs look no further than Ania Haie. Think medallion necklaces and cuff bracelets: her jewellery is designed to be layered or stacked. Gold Philosophy The New York-based label offers cosmic-themed designs juxtaposing pearls and diamonds with spikes. Our favourite piece is the abstract star ear crawlers - they're exquisite. Jessie V E This London-based designer combines traditional goldsmithing techniques with modern technology, creating symbolic pieces with secret messages and hidden twists. The intricate pieces use morse code or constellation patterns as a base for intricate and innovative designs. Best for: Everyday All Day Milk Tooth LDN Your statement earring go-to Milk Tooth LDN is cool girl brand blending together a kind of Aztec vibrancy with Art Deco silhouettes, the designs are unique and positively pop with colour. Each one is gold plated and built to last, making the perfect thoughtful gift the recipient can treasure forever. ASOS For trend-led jewellery that won't break the bank, head to ASOS. Their e-boutique features brands like Olivia Burton, Michael Kors and Sekonda, as well as their own designs for all-manner of occasions. Best of all, you can refine your search by price range. Mejuri Affordable luxury jewellery defines Mejuri. Their handcrafted pieces are sold directly from their Toronto and Seoul manufacturers to keep costs down yet they deliver to the UK free of charge. Using quality materials, Mejuri use only ethically-sourced diamonds for their sparkling designs. Rachel Entwistle Amulets - which date back to Ancient Roman times - are believed to protect their holders, and its such concepts as this which inspire the work of Rachel Entwistle. From her East London neighbourhood, Rachel creates covetable designs that are both symbolic and beautifully handcrafted. Favouring ethically-sourced and recycled materials, she uses precious metals, bronze and gemstones to create geometric and zodiac-inspired designs. Isabella Townsley Adwoa Aboah and Rita Ora are fans - need we say more? Isabella Townsleys designs are inspired by the elegant pieces worn by her grandmother. Think gold GRL PWR rings, evil eye necklaces and disco retro hoops. Repossi When Gaia Repossi took over from her father as creative director, aged 21, it signalled the start of a new era for the House of Repossi. Inspired by structural designs, her pieces take inspiration from contemporary art and sculpture, and architecture. Our favourites are her star diamond ear cuffs and stacked rings. Best for: Black Tie Events Gaviria Inspired by her Colombian and Spanish roots, Paula Gaviria uses materials like cellulose acetate and recycled plastic to create colourful and chunky pieces that are undoubtedly jewellery box-worthy. Violet Black For eye-catching pieces that arrest attention, London-based label Violet Black is where to turn. Specialising in sculptural earrings that can be worn from day to night, they are pleasingly affordable too. Soru Launched by British-Sicilian sisters Francesca Kelly and Marianna Doyle, Soru - which means 'sisters' in Sicilian - is all about bold, statement pieces. Made in Italy and Turkey, their collections are inspired by the jewellery worn by Sicilian women, with agates, moonstones, opals and turquoise amongst the stones in their collections. So elegant are they, its little surprise the label has a VIP following; the Duchess of Cambridge has worn their designs on at least two occasions. Alice Cicolini Handmade in India, Alice Cicolinis jewellery takes inspiration from sacred architecture and the patterns of the silk route. Each piece is a work of art in its own right, and the collections include rings, necklaces and ear climbers, made up with diamonds, pink sapphires, rubies and more. Nadine Aysoy The elaborate designs of Nadine Aysoy exhibit utmost attention to detail. Taking inspiration from nature and art, the exquisite designs are showstoppers see the Petite Tsarina Yellow Gold Ring and you'll see what we mean. Best for: Bridal Astrid & Miyu An Instagramer's dream, Astrid & Miyus designs have been worn by the likes of Georgia May Jagger and Pippa Middleton. Including a wide selection of delicate hoops, studs and initialled earrings in many shapes, sizes and metals for edgy, chic everyday jewellery, look here. Prices: | Shop now Wanderlust Life Wanderlust Life is the brainchild of Devon-based designer Georgie Roberts, and is all about handcrafted, elegant designs inspired by travel. Designs include semi-precious faceted stones, floating on 14ct gold chains, earrings, bracelets and rings. Carousel Carousel offer limited-edition statement pieces - diamonds, precious and semi-precious stones set into sterling silver with 22ct gold plating. Current pieces on offer include gold coin earrings, antique pendants and stacking rings. carouseljewels.com @carouseljewels From PR Best for: Holidays Accessorize Accessorize offers an extensive selection of bohemian-inspired holiday must-haves, taking you from the pool to the party. Head to this high street staple's e-store to tap into the gold hoops trend, invest in a new anklet or to step up your eveningwear with a statement necklace. Nocturne Studio Taking inspiration from Asia, Nocturne Studio create wearable pieces that are colourful and contemporary. Complete your autumnal holiday look with one of their intricate, textured designs - such as our personal favourite, the tassel earrings. Net-A-Porter Net-a-Porter include some of the world's biggest jewellery designers, boasting over 2,600 pieces. You won't fail to find what you're looking for, no matter what holiday you're going on. To make your search that bit easier, however, you can shop by jewellery type, designer and colour. The price range is vast from 30 for a Monica Vinader chain to 303,000 for a Chopard necklace but that just means you're sure to find something within your budget. Best for: Gifts Hurley Burley Hurly Burley specialises in bespoke jewellery for men, women and children. Made up in sterling silver, and rose and yellow gold vermeil, their range includes heart necklaces, charms, cufflinks and rings. Great for Christmas gifts. Kendra Scott American label Kendra Scott designs striking and playful fine jewellery. Available at Selfridges, pieces feature bright, natural gemstones in a range of colours: from ruby red to royal blue opal. The Jewel Hut One of the UKs leading online jewellery shops, the Jewel Hut offers some of the best branded jewellery at competitive prices. Expect nothing but high quality from the likes of Pandora (save 20 per cent), Thomas Sabo and Links of London. Customers get free delivery on all orders over 50. We also love that the website includes Fine Jewellery, Watches and Wedding and Engagement sections. Astley Clarke Award-winning British designer Astley Clarke produces easy-to-wear pieces, from fine diamond to demi-fine gemstone jewellery. With an impressive price range just 15 to 9,996 some of the pieces (such as their lockets) can be personalised. Tiffany & Co. A nt McPartlin has confirmed he has been sober for six months after a public battle with alcohol ended in a drink-drive crash. The TV star checked into a private rehab clinic earlier this year after pleading guilty to drink-driving, and he has taken an extended break from his television commitments while he focuses on his recovery. He has now been praised by his friend Simon Hargreaves for his "strength and determination" in facing his problems. In a message from Hargreaves shared by McPartlin on Ant and Dec's official Twitter page, his friend wrote: "Long overdue catch up with my buddy of 20+ years for lunch this week. 6 months sober, annoyingly healthy looking, and happier than I've seen him in years. "Immensely proud of this lad for his strength and determination to face up to his issues and get help." McPartlin added the message: "Thanks pal. Really appreciate it. Lovely seeing you too. It really was long overdue. #weloveagoodlunch," signing off with his initial A. The TV star's battle with alcohol came to a head in March when he crashed his Mini while over twice the drink-drive limit and was banned from driving for 20 months and handed an 86,000 fine. It was subsequently announced he would take a step back from his television work. Ant McPartlin is taking a break from TV to help his recovery / ITV Holly Willoughby will fill in for him when the new series of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! begins filming later this year. We picked these candidates (with a lot of help from MoveOn) because we believe in what they stand for they each support Medicare for all, debt-free public college, getting big money out of politics and fighting voter suppression, Greenfield said in the news release. The spirit of flavors has always been honorific. This is our way of honoring some of the best up and coming progressive champions across the country. 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 Awarded for the 32nd time, the Johnson Awards are based on scores from a 45-point inspection survey and averaged over a two-year period. Each restaurant is responsible for various forms of food service and meal preparation standards mandated by the Illinois State Food Service Sanitation Code. Social Democratic Party (PSD) leader Liviu Dragnea has received a confidence vote from 55 members of the National Executive Committee (CExN) while 8 voted against, PSD Deputy Secretary General Codrin Stefanescu announced on Friday evening, according to Agerpres. He stated that 64 members of PSD's CExN were present of the total of 65 - the Defence Minister being out of the country. "There were 8 votes against Liviu Dragnea, one abstention and 55 in favour. This was today's vote," Stefanescu specified at the end of PSD's CExN meeting.According to him, an official record was drafted in this regard by PSD's technical secretariat, the votes being open.Stefanescu mentioned that two of the Social-Democrats left during the meeting with reason, handing over their mandate, namely the mayor of Bucharest District 4 and the executive president of Bucharest District 1."Of the members who voted in support of Liviu Dragnea, almost all had mandate on behalf of the organisations. (...) The mandates were put on the table and each of those who voted for Liviu Dragnea was backed by the entire organisation. In the end, the mayor of Bucharest District 5, Daniel Florea suggested a resolution, voted in the organisation's Executive Committee he represents, regarding the ousting from PSD of Mrs. Gabriela Firea [General mayor of Bucharest, e.n.] for the statements she has consecutively made for 11 days and which have immensely damaged the party's image - a thing that we had also discussed among ourselves. Certainly, many of the colleagues requested a vote in this regard and it goes without saying what the vote would have been like under these circumstances. But Liviu Dragnea, the party's leader, called for calm and cooperation, said that in his quality of chairman, he can ask us again to have confidence and not to put it to a vote. This is what happened, 'the dictator' Liviu Dragnea overriding the intention to also vote on this matter. He closed it," Stefanescu explained.He added that another PSD CExN meeting will most likely take place in the upcoming period."Some very interesting proposals were presented here, including that we should assume political responsibility for certain matters. We agreed on many of the points, both I and my colleagues would have liked to leave here with consensus. That was not possible, there was a democratic vote, this is the result," the PSD Deputy Secretary General mentioned. General Mayor of Bucharest Gabriela Firea, Deputy Chair of the Social Democratic Party (PSD, major at rule, e.n.) argued on Friday, at the end of the National Executive Committee (CExN) meeting that it was the first meeting of this forum in which the issues troubling its members were debated in all honesty, according to Agerpres. "The main gain of the Executive Committee was - as several colleagues opined - that it was the first CExN meeting where all the issues that trouble all of us who are members of the Executive Committee were naturally debated in all honesty, with logical arguments. Nobody had that apprehension that has existed so far and I believe it is auspicious that although this common statement regarding PSD's state was, so to speak, contested, it has also brought a good thing, it has been beneficial to the party," she stated. Firea further specified that it was a very long Executive Committee meeting but probably also "one of the most dense", at which approximately 30 people took the floor."There were opinions for and against our demarche to release a joint statement regarding the state of the Social Democratic Party. (...) The joint statement on the state of PSD was signed - practically assumed by signature by 25 of our colleagues. (...) I am a PSD member, I am the party's deputy chair, I considered I have exhausted the statutory stages when I went public with the statements I made; I had colleagues who have thought alike in many regards," she affirmed.The members of PSD's National Executive Committee gave a majority vote of confidence in favour of the party leader, Liviu Dragnea. An investigation was immediately started and no one was injured or harmed. The sheriffs office and the Porter Township School Corp. take safety and security of every student seriously and every parent must understand that this case will be investigated thoroughly. Funding for syringe clean-up among four new ARPA proposals Access Point Pueblo, a syringe access program, was one of four American Rescue Plan Act proposals presented during a Nov. 8 council work session. Heni NSAIBIA Last month, a U.S. Africa Command spokesperson confirmed in a Task & Purpose report that Marine Corps Raiders were involved in a fierce battle in 2017 in an unnamed North African country, where they fought beside partner forces against militants of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). AFRICOM acknowledged that two Marines received citations for valor but withheld certain details, such as the locationundisclosed due to classification considerations, force protection, and diplomatic sensitivities. The command also said the Marine Special Operations unit was engaged while on a three-day train, advise and assist operation. However, subsequent research and analysis strongly suggest U.S. involvement runs much deeper. In fact, the dramatic events described in the award citations obtained by Task & Purpose align with those that took place in Tunisia, which has been combatting a low-level insurgency in its western borderlands for the past seven years. Evidence indicates the battle occurred at Mount Semmama, a mountain range in the Kasserine governorate, near the Algerian border. There, the United States sustained its first casualty in action in Tunisia since World War II. While not of the same magnitude, the events that AFRICOM confirmed took place on Feb. 28, 2017, echo a disastrous ambush less than seven months later in the village of Tongo Tongo, Niger. In that battle, members of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara killed four Army Special Forces soldiers and four Nigerien partners. U.S. partner forces engaged militants of AQIMs Tunisian branch, the Uqba ibn Nafaa Battalion (KUBN) in a firefight, which resulted in the killing of one militant. The engagement also necessitated a request for air support to rout the militants. The jihadis then attempted to flank the joint U.S.-Tunisian force from the rear, forcing the Marines to return fire. While engaged on the ground, U.S. forces were also part of the air-support component. When a Tunisian soldier manning an M60 machine gun aboard a helicopter sustained wounds after being shot twice by militants returning accurate fire, a U.S. Marine Raider took control of the machine gun to maintain suppressive fire against the militants and simultaneously treated the wounded Tunisian soldier. The Marine Raider unit and their Tunisian partner force each sustained one casualty in the battle, both of whom recovered from their wounds. At the time, local media reported the incident without alluding to any U.S. participation. Eventually, Tunisian forces secured the site of the battle and seized an Austrian Steyr AUG rifle, ammunition, and other supplies. Two jihadis were killed in action: a Tunisian and an Algerian. The latter was a veteran insurgent who was wounded a decade earlier by a U.S. airstrike while fighting under the banner of Al Qaeda in Iraq, according to a biographical note published by Al Qaedas North African affiliate. However, any U.S. involvement in connection to his death was never mentioned. The United States has maintained a military presence in Tunisia for at least four-and-a-half years, rendering it unlikely that the events of Mount Semmama were an isolated incident limited to a mere advisory role, as the AFRICOM spokesperson claimed. The battle involving U.S. troops occurred amid an intense campaign aimed at dislodging militants from their mountain stronghold. Eleven days before the jointly conducted U.S.-Tunisia operation, another operation had taken place at a nearby location at Mount Semmama, also resulting in the killing of two militants. It is presently unknown whether U.S. troops participated in the preceding operation. It remains an open question as to whether the knowledge of the U.S. encounter in Kasserine would have eventually surfaced had Task & Purpose not filed a Freedom of Information Act request. It was that request which prompted AFRICOMs release of the partially redacted commendations for valor awarded to two Marine Raiders for their actions at Mount Semmama. Since its 2010 revolution, Tunisia has carried a burden of expectations as a regional model for democracy, challenged with building political consensus, a staggering economy, a population yearning for progress, and rising security challenges. In this context, the United States has sought to sustain Tunisias shaky democratic transition primarily by shoring up its military, which received steadily increasing security assistance from 2014 to 2017. Tunisia now receives more U.S. defense aid than any other country in North Africa and the Sahel region, except for Egypt. The U.S. military presence has been continuous since February 2014, when the Pentagon deployed a team of several dozen special operations troops to a remote base in western Tunisia. Tunisian soldiers accompanied by U.S. military advisors have on at least one occasion discovered and observed a populated militant camp in Kasserine. In the years since, the Air Force component of AFRICOM has frequently flown intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions across Tunisia from bases in Sigonella and Pantelleria, Italy. In the wake of the March 2015 terrorist attack at the Bardo Museum in Tunis, U.S. forces provided operational assistance to a counterterrorism operation targeting core members of KUBN in the town of Sidi Aich, Gafsa. U.S. staff and drones have also operated out of the Sidi Ahmed Air Base in Bizerte. The U.S.-Tunisia partnership in the military and security domain is multifaceted. It is composed of defense capacity-building, strengthening border security, and as is so often emphasized, training partner forces in counterterrorism strategies and tactics. However, the questions of U.S. troops and drones operated out of Tunisia have been a source of polemic and its sensitivity should not be underestimated. American foreign policy is generally unpopular and unfavorable attitudes toward the United States are widespread in Tunisian society. For instance, in 2012 protesters outraged by an anti-Islamic short film ransacked the U.S. embassy and set fire to a nearby American school in the capital of Tunis. More recently, the U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital triggered a wave of protests across Tunisia. The issue of U.S. military presence has also sparked controversy, being the subject of heated debates at the Assembly of the Representatives of the People, Tunisias parliament. On numerous occasions, there has been pressure on President Beji Caid Essebsi and Prime Minister Youssef Chahed on the matter of national sovereignty. Furthermore, the revelation of the clash in Kasserine eighteen months ago testifies to a deeper level U.S. involvement on the ground than AFRICOM is willing to admit. The details of the 2017 battle at Mount Semmama contribute to a slowly growing public understanding of the expansion of covert and overt military action on the African continent, where the United States is secretly at war. nationalinterest.org American leaders, politicians, policymakers and pundits are fond of talking about the Unipolar Moment and Hyper Power position that they imagine the United States enjoys in the world. Totally lacking from this fantasy are any inconvenient historical facts. The US Unipolar Moment (insofar as it existed at all) lasted less than a decade from the break-up of the Soviet Union at the end of December 1991 to June 15, 2001. The US moment barely made it into the 21st Century. On that epochal day of June 15, 2001, two major events happened. First, US President George W. Bush gave a speech in Warsaw pledging to integrate the three tiny Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania into NATO as a prime strategic goal of the United States. That very same day, Russia and China created with four Central Asian nations the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO): The most populous and powerful international security organization in history. This year, the SCO doubled in population by adding India and Pakistan at the same time two major nuclear powers with a combined population of 1.5 billion people. That means the SCO now includes more than 3 billion people, around 40 percent of the human race. From the moment the SCO was created dedicated from its inception to preserve and protect a multipolar world from the domination of any one power, the US unipolar moment was dead and gone. This reality was confirmed less than three months later when al-Qaedas terror attacks of September 11, 2001 killed almost 3,000 people. More Americans died that day than in the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. George W. Bush should have been impeached for his gross incompetence. Instead his popularity soared. Imagining the Unipolar Moment (or Era) to be still in full flood he invaded Afghanistan later that year and Iraq less than two years later. The United States is still endlessly stuck in those unending wars. The patterns of history totally ignored by the US media, pundit-ocracy and political world in fact teach this lesson consistently. Over the past half a millennium, there have been several unipolar moments for great powers seeking to reign supreme over the world and they all collapsed after only a few years. When Habsburg Spain and its allies decisively defeated the huge fleet of the mighty Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, Spains imperial domination over Europe seemed assured. But in fact Spain was already embroiled in a Dutch revolt that started in 1568. Over the following decades, it became even more exhausting than the current US deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq. King Philip II of Spains dream of domination was totally buried only 17 years after Lepanto with the destruction of his giant Armada fleet to conquer England in 1588. France rose next. Its domination over Europe appeared to be sealed with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. But by the mid-1660s, glory-crazed Louis XIV, the so-called Sun King had already repeated the Spanish mistake and bogged his country down in half a century of endless wars in what is now Belgium, the Netherlands and southern Germany. Frances unipolar moment lasted less than 20 years. The British came next. Even after winning the Napoleonic Wars against France, they knew they could not rule the world alone and were forced to share it with the far more conservative major monarchies of Europe Russia, Austria-Hungary and Prussia. Finally in 1848, the kings of France, Austria-Hungary and Prussia were all rocked or topped by liberal popular revolutions. The British thought then, as the Americans did in 1989-91, that their Unipolar Moment had finally come and would last for eternity. The whole world would look to London for guidance and wisdom. It didnt: By 1871, Prussia under its Iron Chancellor Otto von Bismarck had united Germany, smashed France, by then Britains ally and humiliatingly swept the British out of any continental pretensions of power and influence. When asked what he would do if the tiny British Army ever invaded North Germany, Bismarck replied that he would send the police to arrest it. After the defeat of Imperial Germany in World War I, Britain seemed to enjoy another hyper-power moment. The isolationist United States and the Soviet Union both temporarily withdrew from the world stage. However, that British fantasy did not even last until the rise of Hitler in 1933. Two years earlier in 1931, Imperial Japan had occupied Manchuria a huge chunk of Northeastern China: British military leaders were forced to admit to Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald there was nothing they could do about it. Britains unipolar moment had lasted only 12 years from 1919 to 1931. Once these historical facts are understood, it is easy to see why the US Unipolar Moment only lasted even less time than Britains 20th century one had less than a decade. Since 2001, the United States has bankrupted and exhausted itself, just as Habsburg Spain, Bourbon France and post-Victorian Britain did before it in futile, doomed and ludicrous attempts to deny and roll back the inevitable tides of history. That should come as no surprise: As Friedrich Hegel warned us, The only thing that we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history. The issue of nuclear safety has been a hot topic in the second half of 2018. It has just been discussed in detail at the 62nd International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) conference in Geneva, which was held Sept. 17-21. The international conference on The Security of Radioactive Material: The Way Forward for Prevention and Detection, which is scheduled for Vienna, Dec. 3-7, is going to be a landmark international event that will be a focus for the media spotlight. It is true that poor storage conditions and low nuclear-safety standards threaten the environment and increase the possibility of nuclear materials getting into the wrong hands. Russia can be proud of its achievements in this area. The days of the 1990s when it needed outside help to tackle this problem are long gone. In 2013, Moscow ended the joint Russian-US Cooperative Threat Reduction program (the Nunn-Lugar program) because it is now able to manage these issues on its own. The cooperation over the secure storage of weapons-grade materials was suspended in 2014. The IAEA reports that today Russia boasts high nuclear-safety standards. Sophisticated protection equipment has been installed and all nuclear sites are jointly safeguarded by the military, ROSATOM's security agency, and on-site security teams. The materials are properly safeguarded during transportation. A special program to upgrade the transportation infrastructure has been in place since 2010. The report The Use of Highly Enriched Uranium as Fuel in Russia, issued by the International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM), a group based at Princeton University, admits that the country has made great progress to ensure the safety of uranium stockpiles and transportation. It also includes criticism, the absence of which would be odd in any report prepared by a US think tank. It states that highly enriched uranium (HEU) poses special concerns, as it can be used relatively easily in simple nuclear explosive devices by states with limited nuclear weapon expertise or even by non-state actors [Russia] has not made highly enriched uranium minimization a priority. The paper concludes that it is essential to secure Russias commitment to the development of a comprehensive, global, highly enriched uranium minimization strategy. Greenpeace has also acknowledged progress, but criticized Russia for what it sees as shortcomings. But one thing is certain this is not a country where nuclear materials where nuclear materials go missing while being transported to or from storage sites. They are well guarded and all accounted for. Russia is not the only power whose contribution to a global nuclear-safety strategy is crucial. The situation in the United States offers good cause for concern. Repeated safety lapses have hobbled the Los Alamos National Laboratory. It was sheer good luck that prevented real trouble from happening to the surrounding area. According to Science, most remarkably, Los Alamoss managers still have not figured out a way to fully meet the most elemental nuclear safety standards. Theres a systemic issue here, said Michaele Brady Raap, a former president of the American Nuclear Society and a member of the Energy Departments elite Criticality Safety Support Group, a team of 12 government experts that analyzes and recommends ways to improve struggling federal nuclear-safety programs. There are a lot of things there [at Los Alamos] that are examples of what not to do. According to the Center for Public Safety, two security experts from the Department of Energys Idaho National Laboratory drove to San Antonio, Texas, in March 2017 with a sensitive mission: to retrieve dangerous nuclear materials from a nonprofit research lab there and transport them safely back to their state without allowing the materials to fall into the wrong hands. The materials plutonium and cesium as well as equipment were stolen on that trip and have never been found. They were simply left unattended in a car! The incident was concealed from the public, but the information was obtained by the Center for Public Safety under the Freedom of Information Act. That source reports that this was just a part of a much larger quantity of plutonium that over the years has gone quietly missing from stockpiles owned by the US military. Madeleine Jennewein of Harvard University writes in her blog, which is published by Science in the News (SITN), that Across the United States, nuclear waste is accumulating in poorly maintained piles. 90,000 metric tons of nuclear waste requiring disposal are currently in temporary storage. The United States, however, has yet to construct a long-term storage solution for this waste, leaving the nuclear material vulnerable to extreme weather events such as hurricanes, rising sea levels, and wildfire. In 2016, seven electrical engineers who worked for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission took the unusual step of petitioning the NRC as private citizens in hopes of forcing regulators to fix a "significant safety concern'' that affects all but one of the nation's 100 nuclear plants. Nuclear waste is also a big problem in the US. Safety concerns plague key sites that have been proposed for nuclear bomb production. Nuclear safety in the US is a urgent issue that deserves far greater public attention. According to reports, much information is deliberately kept out of the public eye. To be honest, today it is Russia who appears to be in a position to assist the US in its efforts to tackle the issue of nuclear safety, instead of the other way around. Busy waging trade wars with other countries and getting involved in distant conflicts, such as in Syria, that have nothing whatsoever to do with the United States, Washington is largely ignoring a real problem that is threatening the countrys national security each and every day. The documentary series Century Masters has scheduled shooting for three episodes on the history and masters of Chinese red stoneware at the artifact's birthplace Yixing, in East China's Jiangsu province. As a renowned cultural city, Yixing is home to many distinguished artistic figures, such as painters Xu Beihong and Wu Guanzhong. It has also long enjoyed praise from ancient and contemporary literati, because of the beautiful Taihu Lake. And the elegant Yixing red stoneware, made from Taihu clay, exemplifies the sophisticated local craftsmanship. Listed as one of the first national intangible cultural heritages, it carries on a legacy which dates back over a thousand years. The documentary episodes will be the first to reveal the art of red stoneware at such an extensive scale. The production crew works with experts, scholars and artisans to recreate historical details of this art form. More intangible heritages will be included in Century Masters afterwards. "These episodes of Century Masters emphasize cultural heritage and craftsmanship, which will bring the charm of red stoneware to more people," said Shen Jian, Party secretary of Yixing. "Red stoneware is the cultural symbol of Yixing," said Li Xiaolin, executive producer of Century Masters. "It combines some of the best traditional Chinese culture and techniques, and reflects the lifestyle of Chinese people." Bay of Plenty Ever thought of joining the civil construction industry? if so then this is your chance to get a foot in the door. We are... View or Apply on GoodWork.co.nz Concerns over the addictive nature of online gaming and its effects will be addressed by a national expert at a free event in Tauranga. Psychotherapist, and New Zealands leading expert on gaming addiction, James Driver will be hosting Gaming Whats The Fuss? on September 26 at Tauranga Boys College. It is a chance for parents to hear some reasoned discussion on an emotional topic says Bay of Plenty District Health Board registered social worker Caleb Putt, who is part of the organising committee. There is an issue and we need to increase peoples awareness and knowledge so they can make some informed decisions, says Caleb, who advised parents to take a balanced approached. Just because gaming is causing problems doesnt necessarily mean the person concerned is a problem gamer. Tiredness and mood changes can be a problem but it does not define a child as a problem gamer. Theres an important distinction. A problem gamer is someone who is having issues with a combination of things: sleep, school, face-to-face interaction with friends, missing out on other activities and home life. Caleb says gaming could actually be a positive activity and a way for a young person to connect with others, achieve goals and feel good at something. However, if they are primarily getting these important needs met from gaming and nowhere else, such as a sense of achievement, a sense of belonging to a community and a sense of identity, then this can lead to a problem, he says. The BOPDHBs youth alcohol and drugs service, Sorted, developed a pathway to support youth and parents with concerns about gaming a year ago. Caleb says he believed it was the only DHB in the country to do so. We are receiving more referrals as a service as time goes on but the reason for that is not necessarily that the problem is getting worse. Firstly, we only set the service up last July and, secondly, the issue is becoming more widely known. A lot of recent media attention has focussed on the multi-player, last-man-standing fight game, Fortnite, which has become a global phenomenon. Caleb says there was a psychology behind games like Fortnite. Games try to engage you on a couple of levels, to hook you into spending more and more time on them, and into spending money. For most this wont be an issue or might cause some arguments at times, but for a few there can be real problems with real consequences. We hope this event will help out community to understand the difference between the two. For more information call Sorted on 07 557 5052 or email sorted@bopdhb.govt.nz GAMING - WHAT'S THE FUSS? What: One of New Zealand's leading experts of gaming addiction is coming to Tauranga. When: September 26, 7pm to 8.30pm Where: The Graham Young Youth Theatre - Tauranga Boys' College Whakatane will witness a collection of prizewinning New Zealand landscape paintings from the Kelliher Art Trust collection, when a three-stop gallery tour lands in Te Koputu in September. Infinitely Varied - Prizewinning New Zealand Landscape Paintings from the Kelliher Art Competition 1956-1977 is a selection of works from the Kelliher Art Trust collection, which comprises just over 100 paintings, the majority of which are New Zealand landscapes (with some portraits and genre paintings) and have won prizes or awards in the Kelliher Art Competition between 1956 and 1977. All entries in the annual competition exhibition were for sale to the public and most works in the Trust's collection were purchased at the time by Sir Henry Kelliher, who had established the competition. Open to New Zealand resident artists, the objective of the Kelliher was to encourage artists to paint the essential character of the New Zealand scene and the ways of life of its people and, thereby, to develop a livelier appreciation of the fine arts and of the infinitely varied aspects of our land". Works by celebrated New Zealand artists Cedric Savage, Peter McIntyre and Austen Deans will be on display, as well as a special showing of the Trusts only Charles Goldie painting, Portrait of a Maori Chief, 1939. Goldie is possibly New Zealand's best-known painter, whose reputation was largely established by his striking portraits of Maori from around 1900 to 1939, commissioned and admired by Maori as well as admired and purchased by Pakeha. The exhibition will open with an informal gallery talk by Christopher Johnstone, Curator of the Kelliher Art Trust, at 11am on Saturday, September 22. Christopher will address the relevance of the Kelliher Art Competition and landscape painting today, while sharing some his favourite works in the exhibition. Anyone is welcome to attend this event and bookings are not required. Infinitely Varied runs from September 22 to 28 November in the Main Gallery at Te Koputu a te whanga a Toi the Whakatane Library and Exhibition Centre. www.whakatanemuseum.org.nz I wonder if adolescent Trump was ever a stamp collector. Most Americans who know of the existence of Spanish Sahara (1884-1975) only know about it as a part of their collections. It's a big, mostly empty territory south of Morocco and north and west of Mauritania, bordering on a stretch of the Atlantic Ocean. A tiny corner touches southwest Algeria. Today it is a 100,000 square mile-- around the size of Colorado-- disputed area with about half a million people, 40% of whom live in the only real city, Laayoune. The main claimants are Morocco and the Polisario Front, which set up a government-in-exile as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic in Tindouf, Algeria. North of the Spanish Sahara, south of Agadir on the Moroccan coast is a 580 square mile enclave called Ifni (which is also best known in America to stamp collectors). About 50,000 people live there, primarily in Sidi Ifni. Spain occupied it in 1476 but abandoned it after fierce resistance from the locals. Spain reoccupied it in 1859 after a short war with Morocco, but ignored it until 1934. It was reoccupied by Morocco on 1957 and reintegrated into Morocco in 1969. Today Spain has to tiny enclaves-- basically smuggling ports-- on the north coast of Morocco, Ceuta and Melilla. The Sahara Desert-- 3,600,000 square miles, about the size of the U.S.-- stretches from what was until 1975 the Spanish Sahara and Morocco through Mauritania, Mali, Algeria, Tunisia, Niger, Chad, Sudan, Libya, and Egypt. I've been visiting Morocco since 1969 and had started wandering south of the Atlas Mountains in the 1990s. A couple of different times Roland and I drove as far south as Moroccans roads would go, once to Sidi Ifni on the coast and once to M'Hamid on the edge of the Sahara. We rented some camels and a guide and set off for the legendary Timbuktou. We never got close and turned around and headed back for M'Hamid. Years later we made it to Mali, went to Timbuktou and hiked north to trade with Tuaregs in the desert. Another time we took a Nile cruise, got off halfway, got on some camels and rode out into the Libyan Desert, an extension of the Sahara. In all the Sahara desert is about 3,000 miles from east to west, a thousand miles longer than the U.S. border with Mexico. The Guardian So why bring all this up? Trump told the Spanish government-- which hasn't been able to finish building a modern freeway from Madrid to Barajas Airport-- to build a wall across the Sahara to stem the migration of Africans across the Mediterranean Sea and on into Europe. reported that Josep Borrell, Spain's foreign minister, revealed that during a visit to the White House by King Felipe and Queen Letizia in June, Senor Trumpanzee made his crackpot proposal. When someone mentioned that the Sahara is 3,000 miles long, Trump dismissed the objection by stating flatly that "The Sahara border cant be bigger than our border with Mexico." Of course, there is no "Sahara border" and what does it have to do with Spain anyway? Spain has been overwhelmed by over 33,000 refugees getting across the Mediterranean to its shores this year, more than have come via Italy or Greece. The migration issue has been used as a political weapon by rightwing parties who have been accusing Spain's socialist government-- and the EU-- of being too soft on immigration. None of those parties, however, have embraces Trump's insane scheme, which everyone in Europe is laughing about. Meanwhile, Trump was whining and pestering congressional Republicans about not including his own idiotic wall on the Mexican border in the budget. The Chinese Mid-Autumn festivity filled the air at New York city's Lincoln Center on Friday as Asian Cultural Symphony of the USA played traditional Chinese music, ushering in the important traditional family reunion event. A huge crowd of classical music lovers -- many of whom wearing Chinese costumes -- swarmed into the Alice Tully Hall for the Chinese musical feast. Now in its third year, the symphony's Mid-Autumn concert was bestowed with a fortissimo touch from acclaimed Chinese pianist Yin Chengzong. As Yin performed the famed modern Chinese piano-concerto "Yellow River," which he and others adapted from the cantata of the same name by late composer Xian Xinghai in 1939, the hall was overwhelmed with thunderous applause from the audience. Other music and song pieces on Friday's program included "Dance of the Yao Tribe," "The Song of Yangtze River" and "Hulunbuir Grassland." The cellist Lu Meixu and harpist Chelsea Lane played "The Swan from the Carnival of the Animals," with Fang Zhongjing danced ballet to the music. "The concert certainly brings audience good memories of the past when they were at home in China, because many pieces were well-known and nostalgic," said Lu. The Asian Cultural Symphony of the USA is affiliated with Asian Cultural Center. It is made up of nearly 100 members, who don't necessarily have Chinese background but love music and Chinese culture. SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- At a prayer vigil on Friday night, Nitch Jones called on the image of a principal having to tell a teacher that her student wouldn't be in class on Friday because of a Thursday night shooting. He called on the image of the teacher relaying the same message to the student's classmates. Then he called on the image of a mother sleeping in a hospital room with an 8-year-old recovering from a gun shot wound Thursday. "That's the craziest thing ever," Jones said. He invoked the images because an 8-year-old was among five people shot on Midland Avenue and a teenage girl was shot on Furman Street on Thursday night. Jones also mentioned Saturday's murder of Zyree McMullen. Police have not arrested anyone in any of the three shootings. He added that the 8-year-old is doing well and recovering. She is the daughter of a homicide victim from earlier in 2018, Jones said. Jones planned the prayer vigil on Friday at the corner of Tallman Street and West Onondaga Street. There, he asked for the community to stop the violence and for more people to speak up about who commits acts of violence in the City of Syracuse. Approximately 40 people attended the vigil. "We're frustrated. We're angry. We're upset," Jones said. "... We as a community have to open our mouths." After three homicides in three days in late April of this year, Jones held a similar vigil. At that vigil, in April, Jones repeatedly asked "Who did it?" about the three murders. Mayor Ben Walsh and Police Chief Frank Fowler attended the vigil then. "There's no obvious solution," Walsh said then, "but we have to keep trying." Police eventually made arrests in two of the three murders. Though Walsh and Fowler didn't attend on Friday, Jones' refrain remained the same. Instead of sticking with "Who did it?" he simply reiterated that it's important for people to speak up. Jones referenced the Saturday morning double homicide at Chili's on Erie Boulevard East in DeWitt. He said those murders were solved quickly because people spoke up and allowed officers to do their job. Police were able to arrest five people linked to the murder by Thursday morning. "If you're not about change, there's no reason for us to be out here," Jones said. After Jones was done speaking, he had everyone hug at least one person next to them. After Jones spoke, he had invited three pastors and reverends to speak, including Pastor Phil M. Turner of Bethany Baptist Church, Reverend Derrick Tannyhill of Pentecostal Evangelical Missionary Baptist Church and Pastor Ashanti Dickerson of New Hope Missionary Baptist Church. Turner asked for renewal and transformation from the community. Ashanti called for the community to come together. After the three finished, everyone held hands or locked arms in a circle. Together, they sang "Lean on Me" before dispersing. To the Editor: I strongly urge the Syracuse Common Council to vote in favor of full municipal snow removal. As a long-time resident on the east side of Syracuse, I have sent my children off to walk to school in snow-covered streets. I have watched children as young as 5 walk on East Avenue and Salt Springs Road, roads with heavy traffic in the early morning. I have seen mothers with strollers and toddlers forced into the streets. How can we as a community allow this dangerous situation to continue? Children in Syracuse have to live more than one and a half miles from their schools in order to get busing. That means very young children often have to walk substantial distances in snow-covered streets to get to school. Given the rate of poverty in our city, there are large numbers of parents who do not have cars to drive their children to school. The city should add a small fee to our taxes to cover the cost of full municipal snow removal and sidewalk maintenance. The other two options, snow removal in "priority areas" and enhanced enforcement of existing ordinances, do not solve the problem. Other cities such as Rochester have been able to implement full municipal snow removal. We in Syracuse can find a fair way to levy the necessary tax. Snow removal is a municipal imperative, essential to the common good. I am counting on you, councilors, to finally do the right and necessary thing. It might mean a deal with Syracuse University and the hospitals, it might mean subsidizing low-income and fixed income taxpayers who legitimately can't afford $50 or $75 more a year on their taxes, it might mean requiring affluent residents with more valuable properties to pay a little more. Whatever it takes, do it. Margrit Diehl Syracuse City to clear snow on 20 miles of high-traffic Syracuse sidewalks ALBANY - An Upstate New York woman has been arrested and charged with trespassing at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey after police say she tailgated an authorized vehicle through a security gate and drove across runways. Ciara Schultz, 31, of Balston Spa in Saratoga County abandoned her car and ran away Tuesday morning before she was arrested in the nearby town of Moonachie, according to police with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The breach was the "result of a woman in an unauthorized vehicle tailgating an authorized vehicle through a security gate before the guard could stop the unauthorized vehicle," Port Authority police said. "There were no planes on the runways at the time her vehicle crossed the airstrips," the statement said. IN CASE Y'MISSED: A 31-year-old upstate New York woman who drove her car across two runways at Teterboro Airport on Tuesday was hospitalized for a psychological evaluation, authorities said Thursday. https://t.co/qthSQKIAk0 Jerry DeMarco (@CliffviewPilot) September 21, 2018 Police said they were investigating the incident to "determine how to best prevent recurrence," the release said. Schultz's alleged trespass had no impact on flights at the airport, officials said. Schultz was charged Thursday with criminal trespassing and unlicensed entry, disorderly conduct and improper behavior and obstructing administration of law/other government function, police said. She was released to New Bridge Medical Center for evaluation, they said. -- Robert Gavin, Times Union, Albany, N.Y. Scientists describe the Canadian crabs that migrated from Nova Scotia to Maine as aggressive and angry very much unlike the stereotypical Canadian. The variety of green crabs are threatening to cause problems in the local ecosystem, demolishing eelgrass, and eating soft-shell clams. Researchers from the University of New England have studied about 200 Canadian green crabs for a paper that will be published in the coming months. Angry Canadian Crabs According to researchers, the green crabs from Nova Scotia are the same species as the green crabs that have been living in the waters of Maine. However, unlike the aggressive migrants, the local green crab populations are described to be "meek and chill." The green crabs of Maine shrink and hide whenever there is a threat. In comparison, the green crabs of Nova Scotia are always ready to fight any potential predator, even humans. "Any time I went down to grab one they went to grab me instead," said Luis Logan, the graduate student who was tasked to label the crabs captured from Nova Scotia. The researchers recount that whenever a person gets near, the green crabs from Nova Scotia assume a fighting position, ready to use their pincers to attack. At one point, a green crab jumped out of the water, ready for a brawl. The green crabs displayed the same level of aggressiveness during the study. When placed on a bed of eelgrass, the green crabs shredded the plants, determined to find and devour any prey. Getting Comfortable These Canadian green crabs first entered the United States in the 1800s and caused a dramatic decline of the soft-shell clam population. Eventually, however, they moved to Nova Scotia. Markus Frederich, marine sciences professor at the University of New England, said that the Canadian green crabs comprise two to three percent of the green crab population on the ocean floor off the coast of Maine. However, they expect to see the number to grow and compete with the local and docile green crabs that have called Maine their home for more than a century. Eventually, the researchers said that the Canadian green crabs will move further south and no one can do anything about it. The researchers will next explore whether a specific gene is responsible for the green crabs' aggressiveness. They will also be looking at "hybrid vigor," a theory suggesting that the green crabs have grown more aggressive to establish themselves. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. In a new research, a couple of scientists has proposed a crazy idea to build a wall around the ice sheets of Antarctica. Michael J. Wolovick and John C. Moore have published a paper that explores geoengineering options to slow down the collapse of ice sheets. This will buy the human race some time to figure out a way to reverse the effects of global warming. The study was published this week in The Cryosphere. Global Flooding Global warming, which has been causing the rapid collapse of ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland, has been causing the sea level to rise at an alarming rate. According to NASA, since 1993, the global sea level has been rising at an average of 3 millimeters every year caused by melting ice sheets and mountain glaciers. Scientists predict that several states in the United States, especially the ones near the coast, will be plunged underwater if the sea level continues to rise. To prevent this from happening, Wolovick and Moore proposed that a wall should be built under the ice sheets. The study focused on Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica, an unstable glacier the size of Florida that would greatly contribute to the rise of the global sea level. "Thwaites could easily trigger a runaway [West Antarctic] ice sheet collapse that would ultimately raise global sea level by about 3 meters," said Wolovick of Princeton University's Department of Geosciences. Glacier Engineering The researchers used 2-D ice-ocean simulation to explore two ideas: one is to build a wall underwater to block warm water and the other is constructing artificial columns on the sea floor. They found that artificial sill or artificial pinning points could stop ice sheets to collapse. The study also claims that a smaller intervention (size of "existing civil engineering projects) would have a 30 percent success rate. However, bigger and more dramatic structures could be a lot more successful in keeping ice sheets out of the water. The authors of the study also wrote that if geoengineering Thwaites Glacier works, the same idea can be adapted to smaller glaciers. The most sophisticated design, which could become biggest civil engineering project that the human race has ever attempted, could prevent ice sheet collapse for the next 1,000 years. This, of course, would not be the final solution to prevent the sea level to rise any further. The world still needs to find a way to dramatically decrease the volume of greenhouse gases emitted to the atmosphere daily. "The more carbon we emit, the less likely it becomes that the ice sheets will survive in the long term at anything close to their present volume," Wolovick added. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. What is Acanthamoeba keratitis? Researchers have identified the rare eye infection among reusable contact lens users in the UK. While it is still considered largely preventable and rare, the number of infected persons has significantly increased in recent years. Acanthamoeba Keratitis In The UK Acanthamoeba keratitis is a rare eye disease that causes the cornea to be painful and inflamed. It is caused by an infection by a cyst-forming microorganism called Acanthamoeba, and 25 percent of the infected require corneal transplants to treat the disease or to restore vision. Those who get severely infected may remain with less than 25 percent of their vision, or even go completely blind and require long-term treatment. The infection is still considered rather rare, but data collected by researchers from the Moorfields Eye Hospital and the University College London revealed that compared to the 2000-2003 period wherein there were just eight to 10 cases per year, infections increased to 36 to 65 cases per year in recent years. The data they collected were from the Moorfields Eye Hospital, which treats over a third of all acanthamoeba keratitis cases in the UK, so their find is broadly relevant to the UK. Incidentally, acanthamoeba keratitis is also more commonly found in the UK than any other country, possibly due to the higher levels in domestic water supply. Contact Lens Users More At Risk Anyone can be affected by disease, but contact lens users are evidently more at risk of contracting it. In a case-control study the researchers conducted, 63 people diagnosed with acanthamoeba keratitis and 213 without it completed a questionnaire that revealed their risk factors for contracting the disease. The participants were daily reusable contact lens users, and all went to the Moorfields Eye Hospital between 2011 and 2014. Evidently, the risks of contracting the disease is three times greater among those who practice poor contact lens hygiene, those who use a lens disinfectant without Oxipol, those who do not always properly wash and dry their hands before handling the contact lens, those who wore contact lenses in hot tubs and swimming pools, and even those who took showers or washed their faces with the contact lenses on. As such, researchers note that contact lens wearers must be made aware of these risks so as to reduce the increasing incidences of this rare eye infection that can lead to blindness. According to study coauthor Dr. Nicole Carn, their research confirmed the increasing incidences of the potentially life-changing disease, and that there are many things that can be done to prevent people from losing their eyesight to it. This infection is still quite rare, usually affecting 2.5 in 100,000 contact lens users per year in South East England, but it's largely preventable. This increase in cases highlights the need for contact lens users to be aware of the risks, said the study's lead author Professor John Dart. The study is published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. When Louisianas five Catholic bishops met last week in Lafayette for their regular quarterly meeting, there was no need to consult an agenda. Since their last meeting, news had spread of the New Orleans archdiocese settling several claims of abuse involving a defrocked Metairie deacon, George Brignac, without the church following its own guidelines for publicly reporting it. Then came the late July bombshell from a Pennsylvania grand jury, identifying what it said were credible allegations of abuse against more than 300 predator priests and involving more than 1,000 child victims across six of that state's eight dioceses. Bishops across the country have been scrambling to respond, with some deciding to release lists of clergy and other church officials who had been implicated in similar abuses over the years. It was the first thing on our minds: How can we respond to the questions coming at us from all directions? And rightfully so, Bishop Michael Duca of the Diocese of Baton Rouge said Friday. In New Orleans, more quietly settled, decades-old Catholic Church sex abuse cases surface More cases have surfaced involving quietly settled, decades-old sexual abuse claims against the Catholic Church in New Orleans, naming a pair Duca echoed what New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond said Friday in an interview with The Advocate: that Louisiana's bishops are now weighing if, when and how to release a similar list of names of clergy and others who have been the subjects of credible allegations of abuse. Both Aymond and Duca, who served a decade as bishop in Shreveport before moving to the much larger Baton Rouge diocese last month, said Aymond and the states four other sitting bishops havent made any final decisions on what, if anything, to release. Aymond said such a disclosure would require personal conversations with everyone who is going to have allegations against them disclosed. He added that while he would be open to disclosing credible allegations against dead clerics, doing so is more complicated than it sounds, because those people are unable to defend or explain themselves in the course of investigations. Aymond said the investigations of accused clergy members involve both diocesan officials and police speaking to the accuser as well as the accused. "When there's a missing piece, it changes the complexion," he said. 'Disgusting time in our history': Jesuit leader horrified by 1970s abuse claims, urges vigilance The president of Jesuit High School sought to reassure a shaken Jesuit community Thursday that while he was horrified by the sexual abuse th Duca told The Advocate last month that his view of the clergy abuse scandal is that its better to take the Band-Aid off quick and clear it out." He said theres no timetable for a decision, adding that its important that all of the states bishops at least agree on a general template for doing so. This is a big thing for us. Were committed to it. Were taking it seriously, but were going to take the time to do this right, he said. Top stories in Acadiana in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up We want to do it in a way thats transparent, credible, honest, caring and also legal, to make sure were not overstepping our bounds. Duca said Aymond and the other sitting Louisiana bishops are planning a united response to avoid putting added pressure on any particular diocese, although every bishop will have their own unique situation and response. According to bishop-accountability.org, a clergy abuse watchdog site, more than 50 dioceses nationwide out of a total of roughly 200 have released similar lists. But advocates for clergy abuse survivors note that many of those revelations were required under the terms of legal settlements with victims. Other lists have proven much less than adequate, said Tim Lennon, president of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, and himself a victim of a clergy member who was moved from parish to parish. Lennon pointed to Buffalo, New York, where the bishop, Richard Malone, is facing a firestorm after a news station found secret documents showing that his release of the names of 42 priests in March was a severe undercount, and that Malone himself had returned a previously removed priest to the ministry while ignoring new allegations against him. You can see consistently across the nation that theres a pattern of covering up, Lennon said. I would say every state should have a grand jury, every state should have a hotline. Its the only way theyre going to find out the true scope of this. Lennon and other advocates also say the devil is in the details of just what information dioceses release. Do they include priests from independent religious orders such as the Jesuits and Franciscans? Do they include lay people affiliated with the church or other Catholic institutions? +8 Jesuit High sex abuse settlements kept quiet; 1 victim speaks out for first time Ricky Windmann wasnt nervous when he accompanied janitor Peter Modica to his ground-floor maintenance office at Jesuit High School on an othe The Advocate reported this week on previously undisclosed legal settlements involving sexual abuse at Jesuit High School and various church communities within the Archdiocese of New Orleans. Jesuit falls within the archdiocese but is run by the Jesuit order, whose guidelines for disclosure do not precisely match those set forth by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2002 following an earlier wave of sex abuse scandals across the church. Staff writer Ramon Antonio Vargas contributed to this report. New energy technology company BYD debuted its latest sedan model, the Qin Pro, in Beijing on Thursday. The new vehicle comes with three powertrain solutions gasoline, DM (plug-in hybrid) and EV (pure electric) for consumers with different needs with domestic prices ranging from 79,800 yuan (US$11,600) to 189,900 yuan (US$27,698). The Qin Pro DM can accelerate from zero to 100kph in only 5.9 seconds, and its fuel consumption per hundred kilometers is as low as 1L, making it the most powerful hybrid compact car yet. Thanks to the large-capacity batteries featuring high energy density and the newest intelligent battery temperature control/management system, the Qin Pro EV500 can travel as far as 500 km on a single charge and more than 800 km in a day. What's more, its batteries can reach 80 percent charge in just 30 minutes. BYD unveiled its BYD New Architecture (BNA) at the launch ceremony, which comprises a global smart manufacturing platform spanning all kinds of vehicle engines and an intelligent connected platform featuring cutting-edge AI technologies. BNA also encompasses a self-driving platform opening up auto hardware and a world-leading new energy platform, which will become an "incubator for high-level intelligent vehicles" promising infinite ecological potential. The brand's smart sedan is now also available in "Self-driving Developer Version" and "Ecosystem Developer Version" featuring open-source software, which are part of BYD's efforts to embrace global developers and tech firms, as well as spearhead innovation and development in China's auto industry. "In the future, travel will only comprise 1 percent of smart cars, and the remaining 99 percent is open to the human imagination," BYD chairman and president Wang Chuanfu recently said. Empowered by BYD's BNA architecture, the Qin Pro features self-evolving aesthetics, intelligence, quality, power and safety, delivering a superior driving experience and astounding development possibilities. BYD design director Wolfgang Egger designed the car with a new design language known as "Dragon Face," giving the Qin Pro a sporty and elegant appearance, as well as a technologically advanced and luxurious interior. As the world's first car featuring BYD's "D++" open-source ecosystem, which was unveiled at BYD's Worldwide Developers Conference in Shenzhen on Sept. 5, the Qin Pro connects developers, products, users and society. This will lower development costs for smart travel, empowering the industry and present a myriad of new application possibilities. BYD is present in more than 200 cities in 50 countries and regions and was the number one seller of new energy vehicles in the world between 2015 and 2017. Purchases made via links on our site may earn us an affiliate commission Thirty-two ministers and faith-based leaders have attached their names to a letter calling on Connie Bernard to resign from the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board in the wake of last month's profanity-filled confrontation with a group of young party goers. The ministers and faith-based leaders, whove organized as United Faith Leaders, object to Bernards behavior during the Aug. 10 confrontation that happened down the street from her home and was caught on video. They join the education group, Stand For Children Louisiana, which came out six days after the incident calling for her resignation. United Faith Leaders was an outgrowth of Stand for Children, so the two groups are connected. Louisiana education group calls for Connie Bernard's resignation in wake of profanity-filled video Stand for Children Louisiana, a prominent educational group in the state, is asking Connie Bernard to step down from her seat on the East Bato Tony Jones, a minister who trains others and formed United Faith Leaders, composed the letter. He said he became involved in the public education debate last year after Stand For Children brought me on board because of his history of working with faith based leadership and others. After he began speaking to fellow religious leaders, Jones said, they decided to form their own independent group to lobby for improvement in local public education. Bernard on Aug. 31 resigned as the board's vice president. She made no mention the Aug. 10 incident but said she was resigning as the board's vice president because her husband was recently diagnosed with cancer. She has resisted calls to step down from the District 8 seat on the board she has held since 2011. In July, prior to the party incident, she was re-elected to a third term after drawing no challengers. 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 Embattled EBR school board member Connie Bernard gives up VP post, citing husband's cancer diagnosis Embattled East Baton Rouge Parish School Board member Connie Bernard on Friday gave up her position as vice president of the panel, saying her In the letter issued Thursday, Jones and his fellow ministers say they understand and pray for Bernard and her husbands health problems, but added that we have to hold her accountable for how she is handling Gods most precious commodity. Make no mistake, this not about whether we forgive Mrs. Bernard, its about doing whats right, they wrote. They say a teacher in the same situation would be fired, and a school parent would have had to be bailed out of jail. +3 Baton Rouge school board member apologizes for using profanity; DA looking into confrontation District Attorney Hillar Moore said Tuesday he is looking into a confrontation among an East Baton Rouge Parish School Board member and young Bernard received a misdemeanor citation for entering and remaining after forbidden. District Attorney Hillar Moore is still reviewing the citation. Lonnie Payne returned home to East Feliciana Parish in chains Monday, 15 years after he escaped from the parish prison and fled south of the border. A Coast Guard Air Station New Orleans MH-65 Dolphin helicopter aircrew practices helicopter operations on Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans, La. Friday, July 6, 2018. Helicopters out of the Coast Guard Air Station New Orleans in Belle Chasse are among the busiest in the Coast Guard with over 300 rescues a year. With the busy July 4th holiday the Coast Guard reminds boaters to remain responsible on the water and to have people on board wear life vests. According to the Coast Guard in 2016, 83 percent of all recreational boating drowning fatalities were not wearing life vests. U.S. President Donald Trump's belligerent tariff war against China may lead the latter to review its ancient thoughts and modern approaches while carrying on the achievements made over the past 40 years. For every action there is a reason, and the development of China is no exception to the rule. A forum "Reporting changes in a greater era via multimedia" held at the Beijing headquarters of Xinhua News Agency Sept. 19 endeavored to strengthen national confidence in the face of the fierce tariff wars being waged by U.S. President Donald Trump. During the workshop, many panelists agreed that China's rise is entirely natural and does not necessarily mean the decline or fall of the United States, let alone the inevitability of war following the assumptions contained in the "Thucydides Trap", ancient dogma that sees war as inevitable when a rising power causes fear in an established one. Suspicion and fear are part of the instinctive human nature when there is something people don't really understand, Malcolm Clarke, a two-time Academy Award winner for his documentaries, said in his keynote speech delivered at the forum's opening ceremony. "There are Americans and Europeans who do fear China's risebecause we don't know what China really is," he said. According to him, average Chinese understanding of the United States is far better than American understanding of China, so it's an urgent task to tap the information gap. Clarke made his first trip to Beijing in 1981 when the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) news department asked him to produce a documentary film on how China had changed since 1949. In those days, the young British filmmaker was amazed by the throngs of cyclists heading for work. However, when he revisited the city around 2013, Beijing had been transformed into a first-class international city with the bicycles replaced by automobiles. In his latest documentary film - "Better Angles" - he portrays the transformation of China from the world's largest factory to the world's largest market over four decades. "[We are] telling emotional and engaging stories that can touch people's hearts and not just their minds," Clarke said, "I believe all the feelings, the fears, the suspicions, will be replaced by admiration for everything that China has achieved." While appreciating Clarke's efforts in exploring and presenting a true image of their country, especially to Westerners, Chinese scholars believed good cross-cultural communications cannot work without distinctive cultural identities and theoretical backing. Ye Xiaowen, deputy chairman of the cultural and history committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, said, ancient Chinese culture could better serve modern society with its invaluable essence. Age-old philosophies, such as, "sincerity is fundamental to undertakings and magnanimity is the foundation of friendships", and "personal interests and desires can only be fulfilled mutually", can still work as tenets for today's international relations, Ye said. Li Daokui, professor of economics at Tsinghua University, said that fundamental theories are essential when China is telling its stories to Western audiences. "Every Hollywood story comes from a major idea, and now what we lack is not stories but the ideas to back them," Li said. WASHINGTON Thousands of Louisiana flood victims who borrowed money from the Small Business Administration could soon have clearer access to Restore Louisiana rebuilding grants under a deal worked out by congressional leaders. The change to federal disaster-relief policy was included in a compromise struck in the early hours of Saturday morning on a largely unrelated, sprawling reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration and other transportation programs. The overall bipartisan deal was largely negotiated by top committee Democrats and Republicans from the House and Senate over the summer and is expected to be passed into law in the coming weeks without significant additional changes. A final vote in both chambers of Congress had not yet been scheduled but is expected sometime in the coming week, ahead of a Sept. 30 deadline to renew federal aviation funding. News of the deal on Saturday prompted quick responses from Gov. John Bel Edwards and members of the Louisiana Congressional delegation who have been pressing for the disaster policy change for two years. "As soon as Congress finalizes, the President signs, and (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) issues guidance, we will immediately provide the assistance to homeowners who were previously impacted by this impediment deserve, Edwards said. U.S. Rep. Garret Graves, R-Baton Rouge, said the duplication of benefits provisions twice passed by the House in previous votes finally made it into the package, which appears set to make it into federal law. Graves helped author the language and has lobbied colleagues for the past two years to pass a "fix" to the bureaucratic snag. "Persistence overcomes stupidity," Graves said Saturday morning. "Last night, we finally reached an agreement with the Senate and White House on our duplication of benefits legislation that passed the House nearly 10 months ago." The final congressional deal also includes other beneficial disaster policy changes previously adopted in the House, including one that would greatly limit a Federal Emergency Management Agency penalty that has cost local schools millions in aid and another that would ensure nonprofit food banks can get federal help. Livingston schools publicly criticize FEMA for delays in reimbursing for 2016 flood damage After months of private dissatisfaction, Livingston Parish Superintendent Rick Wentzel is now publicly blaming FEMA for delays in repairing th Changing the SBA's so-called "duplication of benefits" rules has been a priority for Louisiana's congressional delegation almost since record-breaking amounts of rain flooded large swaths of the Baton Rouge metro area in August 2016. Federal officials encouraged homeowners to take out low-interest loans from the SBA, which thousands did to rebuild their damaged homes. But few if any realized that federal rules would count those loans against any later grant money under regulations designed to prevent disaster victims from getting paid twice for the same damage. Louisiana homeowners snagged by the rule ended up facing decades of loan repayments when they'd otherwise have gotten grants for the same amount. Pat Forbes, director of the Louisiana Office of Community Development, said Saturday that if SBA loans are completely removed as a duplication of benefits, more than 6,000 Louisiana households would receive roughly $215 million in Restore grants to repair their homes or pay down loans. But Forbes, whose office has wrangled with HUD for two years over its interpretations of disaster policy, also cautioned that he has not seen the legislation's final language. Depending on the wording, he said, the impact could be far less. Louisiana Congressman, however, were bullish Saturday on the legislation's prospects to resolve the longstanding issue. The Senate had appeared less receptive to the disaster policy changes, declining to include them in several previous bills. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, lobbied colleagues and key committees chairs over the past few months to pass the SBA loan fix and other disaster policy overhauls. Thousands of people in the great floods of 2016 were told to get an SBA loan and then found out that, because they did what they were told, they could not get a Restore Louisiana recovery grant. Folks were punished for being responsible and doing the right thing. This bill fixes that, and I look forward to voting for it, said Cassidy. 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 The agreement, Graves said, "finally puts an end to the ridiculous policy that a loan and a grant are the same thing. Most importantly, this allows the release of hundreds of millions of dollars from the Restore Louisiana program to flood victims who deserve the ability to recover." Forbes, the state official charged with managing the Restore recovery program, said many of the households affected by the current SBA duplication of benefits policy received what Restore calls a zero award, meaning no state aid. That happened, Forbes said, because their approved SBA loan amount was greater than their cost of repair. Other households closed on an SBA loan but never took the money, primarily because homeowners didn't think they could pay it back, Forbes said. He said these families haven't gotten any federal help besides FEMA individual assistance dollars that went out shortly after the floods. U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Metairie, the House majority whip, said he looked forward to "leading the effort to get this bill passed through the House next week and to the Presidents desk as soon as possible. "The flawed duplication of benefits rule essentially penalized people for playing by the rules and trying to get their lives back together quickly," Scalise said in a statement. Graves also pushed a number of other disaster policy reforms as part of a larger overhaul, dubbed the "Disaster Recovery Reform Act." The House of Representatives has twice passed the act, including as an attachment to its preliminary version of the FAA legislation passed in May. New Orleans Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-New Orleans, co-authored several of those provisions with Graves. One provision that made it into the final deal, Cassidy said, will modify how FEMA applies an insurance penalty that has cost several area public school districts millions of dollars in federal assistance. FEMA penalizes school systems that don't have insurance for schools in the special flood hazard area, which federal government deems most at risk for flooding. But FEMA has interpreted the $500,000 penalty to apply to each flooded building on a school campus. That view hurt suburban Baton Rouge districts that have several campuses in low-lying areas and can have more than dozen buildings on a single campus. Late last year, school officials in Livingston and Ascension parishes said the FEMA insurance penalty could cost their respective districts $20 million and $21 million each in lost federal aid. School officials had argued they should have been treated as systems were after Hurricane Katrina when the $500,000 penalty was applied once to an entire campus. Cassidy's statement says the final version of the Senate bill will do just that. School officials in Ascension and Livingston have said the penalty didn't halt repairs in most cases but required them to tap reserves or take other steps to provide the upfront cash. The bill also clarifies that food banks and nonprofit long-term recovery organizations are eligible for disaster aid from FEMA and requires FEMA to issue a guidance explaining how the agency will reimburse local governments for flooded roads. Cassidy's statement says FEMA has no clear policy on damaged roads and isn't willing to reimburse local and state governments for flood-related damage. Some parishes, like Ascension, had tried to get FEMA to reimburse it for millions in 2016 flood damage to roads only to be rejected. Liberal Democrats are salivating at the thought of retaking the House in the midterm elections. If they can accomplish that, they can go forth Summer is the high point of the music festival calendar. Hundreds of thousands of revellers spend hundreds of millions of dollars, supporting an industry of ten of thousands of workers and countless artists. It is a fact that many attendees will take illicit substances, a reality best responded to, international evidence proves, with harm-reduction policies rather than prohibition and disproportionate punishment. Better festive than fatal. Credit:Amy Harris/Invision/AP) The drugs that pose the biggest threat to lives are legal alcohol, tobacco and opioids but illegal hallucinogenic and stimulatory substances, usually in the form of pills or powders, can be prevalent at festivals. So, one sensible safety measure is to provide a reliable pill-testing service. International evidence shows that to be not only life-saving, but to save public funds by relieving unnecessary pressure on already overloaded hospital emergency departments. A trial earlier this year in the ACT was declared a success by the police chief. Yet federal Health Minister Greg Hunt is refusing to even countenance expanding the trial, despite growing calls from experts for fundamental changes in drug policy. He should reconsider his position. Advocating harm minimisation does not imply encouragement or endorsement of substance misuse. The safest and sagest approach is not to take drugs. But the unavoidable truth is that the history of drug-taking is as old as humanity, and will not be eradicated by edict or law. Or war. The 50-year-old war on drugs, launched by then US president Richard Nixon, is one of the most costly in terms of lives and public funds failures in the history of public policy. A man and woman have faced court accused of an ice-fuelled spree of car-stealing, including the theft of a $70,000 Mercedes driven in a car chase that ended at a Melbourne university. The court heard Stacey Spencer, 30, was high on ice when she allegedly led police on a pursuit from Heidelberg before dumping the station wagon at a Monash University's Caulfield campus on Thursday morning. Police inspect a black Mercedes in the car park of Monash University's Caulfield campus on Thursday. The next day, Spencer and Steven Kaxos, 29, are accused of stealing another four cars, as well as number plates and a passport. Spencer fronted Melbourne Magistrates Court on Saturday morning following the pursuit, which saw police swarming through the Caulfield campus after she fled the car on foot. Family violence workers know the pattern well. Media coverage of domestic violenceprecedes a sharp spike in calls for help. Now support services are preparing for a barrage of calls on Wednesday, after the Royal Commission into Family Violence delivers its report. The Safe Steps 24-hour helpline usually receives about 170 calls a day but that figure is expected to reach up to 300 on Wednesday. Safe Steps chief executive Annette Gillespie said there would be more staff manning the phones and preparing for complex cases. "We're bracing for impact," she said. Zurich: Pirates kidnapped 12 crew members from a Swiss merchant vessel on Saturday in Nigerian waters as it travelled between the west African country's commercial capital Lagos and the city of Port Harcourt, the ship's operator said in a statement. Massoel Shipping said the pirates boarded the vessel, which was carrying wheat, and kidnapped 12 of the 19 crew. The company did not give the nationalities of the crew members. It said the attack happened around 45 nautical miles south-west of Bonny Island. Pirates are reported to have taken 12 hostage off the coast of Lagos. Credit:AP The company is working with the authorities and specialists to secure the speedy and safe release of those being held, Massoel Shipping said in its statement. The statement did not give the nationalities of the crew members. Dubai: Iranian Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused US-backed Gulf Arab states of carrying out an attack on a military parade that killed 25 people, almost half of them members of the country's elite Revolutionary Guards. Khamenei ordered security forces to bring to justice the "criminals" behind one of the worst attacks ever against the Revolutionary Guards, who answer to him. Iranian army member carries a child away from the shooting scene. Credit:Mehr News Agency The allegation will almost certainly ratchet up tensions with Iran's regional rival Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies, who along with the United States have been working to isolate the Islamic Republic. "This crime is a continuation of the plots of the regional states that are puppets of the United States, and their goal is to create insecurity in our dear country," Khamenei said in a statement published on his website. President Donald Trump has issued an ominous warning about the Justice Department and the FBI, promising more firings to rid a "lingering stench" after reports that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein discussed secretly recording Trump. Trump, at a political rally on Friday night in Missouri, did not explicitly mention the Rosenstein furor, first reported by The New York Times and confirmed by The Associated Press. But the president lashed out against what he perceives as anti-Trump bias in the Justice Department and cited the firings he already has orchestrated. The dismissals have unnerved many in federal law enforcement and raised fears about the future of the special counsel's Russia investigation, which Rosenstein oversees. "You've seen what happened in the FBI and the Department of Justice. The bad ones, they're all gone. They're all gone," Trump said. "But there is a lingering stench and we're going to get rid of that, too." When we think of an adult caring for an elderly parent, a woman in her late 40s or early 50s comes to mind. But now, people in their 60s and 70s are caring for a parent in their 90s or older. (Philippe Leone/ Unsplash) A Late-Life Surprise: Taking Care Of Frail, Aging Parents As parents live to later decades, their elderly children find themselves with unexpected duties This wont go on for very long, Sharon Hall said to herself when she invited her elderly mother, whod suffered several small strokes, to live with her. That was five years ago, just before Hall turned 65 and found herself crossing into older age. In the intervening years, Halls husband was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia and forced to retire. Neither he nor Halls mother, whose memory had deteriorated, could be left alone in the house. Hall had her hands full taking care of both of them, seven days a week. As life spans lengthen, adult children like Hall in their 60s and 70s are increasingly caring for frail, older parentssomething few people plan for. When we think of an adult child caring for a parent, what comes to mind is a woman in her late 40s or early 50s, said Lynn Friss Feinberg, senior strategic policy adviser for AARPs Public Policy Institute. But its now common for people 20 years older than that to be caring for a parent in their 90s or older. A new analysis from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College is the first to document how often this happens. It found that 10 percent of adults ages 60 to 69 whose parents are alive serve as caregivers, as do 12 percent of adults age 70 and older. The analysis is based on data from 80,000 interviews (some people were interviewed multiple times) conducted from 1995 to 2010 for the Health and Retirement Study. About 17 percent of adult children care for their parents at some point in their lives, and the likelihood of doing so rises with age, it reports. Thats because parents whove reached their 80s, 90s or higher are more likely to have chronic illnesses and related disabilities and to require assistance, said Alice Zulkarnain, co-author of the study. The implications of later-life caregiving are considerable. Turning an elderly parent in bed, helping someone get into a car or waking up at night to provide assistance can be demanding on older bodies, which are more vulnerable and less able to recover from physical strain. Emotional distress can aggravate this vulnerability. If older caregivers have health problems themselves and become mentally or emotionally stressed, theyre at a higher risk of dying, said Richard Schulz, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh, citing a study he published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Socially, older caregivers can be even more isolated than younger caregivers. In your 60s and 70s, you may have recently retired and friends and family members are beginning to get sick or pass away, said Donna Benton, research associate professor of gerontology and director of the Family Caregiver Support Center at the University of Southern California. Caregiving at an older age can put hard-earned savings at risk with no possibility of replacing them by re-entering the workforce. Yvonne Kuo, a family care navigator at USCs caregiver support center, has been helping an 81-year-old woman caring for her 100-year-old mom with vascular dementia in this situation. Theres no support from family, and shes used up her savings getting some paid help. Its very hard, Kuo said. Judy Last, 70, a mother of three adult children and grandmother of six youngsters, lives with her mother, Lillian, 93, in a mobile home park in Boise, Idaho. Last moved in three years ago after her mother had a bout of double pneumonia, complicated by a difficult-to-treat bacterial infection that put her in the hospital for eight weeks. You dont know if its going to be permanent at the time, said Last, whose father died of dementia in January 2016 after moving to a memory care facility. Mom had asked me several years before if I would be there when she needed help and I told her yes. But I didnt really understand what I was getting into. Feinberg said this isnt uncommon. People in their 90s with a disability can live for years with adequate support. Last doesnt find caregiving physically difficult even though shes had two hip replacements and struggles with arthritis and angina. Her mother has memory problems and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease relies on oxygen, uses a walker, has lost most of her hearing, and has poor eyesight. But things are hard, nonetheless. I had plans for my retirement: I imagined volunteering and being able to travel as much as my bank account would allow, Last said. Instead, I dont take time off and leave my mother. A big thing I deal with is the loss of my freedom. Hall, whos turning 70 in September and who lives in Cumming, Georgia, managed her mothers and husbands complex needs for years by establishing a strict routine. Monday and Friday they went to a dementia respite program from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. On other days, Hall cooked, shopped, did laundry, helped them with personal tasks, made sure they were well occupied, provided companionship and drove them to medical appointments, as necessary. I did not expect this kind of life, said Hall, who has had two knee replacements and a broken femur. If someone had told me it would be years caring for my mother and your husband is going to get dementia, I would have said No, just no. But you do what you have to do. A few weeks after our conversation, Halls mother entered hospice following a diagnosis of aspiration pneumonia and life-threatening swallowing difficulties. Hall said she has welcomed the help of hospice nurses and aides, who ask her at each visit, Is there anything else you need from us that would make it easier for you? Though older caregivers get scant attention, resources are available. Over the years, Hall has shared caregiving ups and downs at CareGiving.coma significant source of information and comfort. Across the country, local chapters of Area Agencies on Aging run caregiver support programs, as do organizations such as the Caregiver Action Network, the Family Caregiver Alliance, the National Alliance for Caregiving and Parenting Our Parents, an outfit focused on adult children who become caregivers. A helpful list of resources is available at caregiving.org. Sometimes, caring for a parent can be a decades-long endeavor. In Morehead City, North Carolina, Elizabeth Lark Fiore, 67, became the primary caregiver for her parents when they moved around the corner from her, in a mobile home park, in 1999. My dad took me for a walk one day and asked if I could look after them as they got older and I said yes. Im the oldest child and the oldest assumes responsibility, she said. For years her fathera difficult man, by Fiores accounthad heart problems; her mother had a nervous breakdown and a slow, extended recovery. They wanted me to be in their lives and I wanted to do for themIm a Christianbut it was killing me. My heart was in the right place but emotionally, I was a wreck, Fiore said. After her fathers death from kidney cancer in 2010, her mother became even more needy and Fiore found herself spending more time responding to calls for assistanceoften about suspected medical emergencies. My mom had a way of acting as if something was horribly wrong and then it turned out it wasnt, she explained. Fiores health isnt good: She says she has chronic fatigue syndrome and thyroid problems, among other issues. But she didnt know how to ask for help and no one volunteered it, even when her husband, Robert, was diagnosed six years ago with dementia. I always expected myself to handle everything, she said. Finally, the stress became unbearable last year and Fiores mother moved to a senior living community close to Fiores 62-year-old sister, 400 miles away. Now, Fiore spends more time attending to her husbands needs and tries to support her sister as best she can. At 90, my mom is healthy as a horse, and Im glad of that but its been a long time caring for her, she said. Ive changed a lot as a result of caregiving: Im more loving, more aware of people who are suffering. Ive found out that I am willing to go the extra mile. But I have to admit what I feel is tired just tired. Judith Graham is a journalist for Kaiser Health News, which originally published this article. KHNs coverage of these topics is supported by John A. Hartford Foundation, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and The SCAN Foundation. This undated photo provided by Scotty Barr shows Ashley Johnson-Barr. A federal grand jury has indicted on Sept. 20, 2018, an Alaska man linked to the missing 10-year-old girl's death. (Scotty Barr via AP, File) Alaska Man Tied to Girls Death Pleads Not Guilty ANCHORAGE, AlaskaAn Alaska man linked to a 10-year-old girls death through her cellphone pleaded not guilty to lying to federal authorities investigating the case on Sept. 21. After entering his plea in U.S. District Court in Anchorage through an assistant public defender, Peter Wilson was scheduled for a Nov. 19 jury trial. Wilson, 41, is charged with making false statements to the FBI and others as they searched for Ashley Johnson-Barr in Kotzebue, a remote Inupiat town on Alaskas northwestern coast 26 miles (42 kilometers) north of the Arctic Circle. The girl disappeared Sept. 6, and her remains were found Sept. 14 in rugged tundra accessible only by a four-wheeler or on foot. According to a federal grand jury indictment filed Thursday, Wilson took a cellphone away from Ashley and lied when he said he found it on the ground. The indictment also alleges Wilson lied about knowing Ashley and using a four-wheeler the day she vanished. No one else has been charged in connection with the girls death, which authorities say appears to be a homicide. The investigation continues. After Fridays brief proceeding, assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Russo, the criminal chief for the U.S. Attorneys office in Alaska, said the federal grand jury could still bring additional charges against Wilson, a Kotzebue resident. He declined to say if additional charges are anticipated. John Skidmore, the criminal division director for the state Department of Law, said state charges are expected to be filed Monday in connection with the girls death. He declined to say what charges would be filed or if they would be filed against Wilson. Ashleys family asked that any further legal action he held off until after the girls funeral on Saturday, Skidmore said. They want to deal with just the funeral itself, and laying their daughter to rest, he said. How could I say no? For the federal charge of making false statements, Wilson faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release, according to Russo. Ashley Johnson-Barr had her cellphone with her when she was last seen playing with friends at Rainbow Park. Authorities say the phone was found later that day in the pocket of a jacket belonging to Wilson, a woman named in the affidavit only by the initials of JJ told authorities. The woman said Wilson often stayed at her home. Wilson told authorities that he found the phone on the ground about a half mile from the park. On the afternoon the girl went missing, Wilson also disappeared with a four-wheeler for about two hours, according to authorities. The FBI affidavit said the girls body was found on tundra outside Kotzebue, in an area concealed by thick alder and willow brush. After the girl disappeared, Kotzebue residents helped search for her, holding vigils at the park where she was last seen. Similar prayer vigils were held across Alaska. The FBI sent 17 agents to help investigate. Kotzebue is 550 miles (885 kilometers) northwest of Anchorage. It serves as a regional hub for northwest Alaska villages. By Rachel Doro Brett Kavanaugh Accuser Accepts Senate Offer to Testify, Lawyer Says The woman who accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, Dr. Christine Ford, has accepted the Senate Judiciary Committees invitation to testify. A public hearing has been scheduled for 10 a.m. on Monday, Sept. 24, according to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the chair of the committee. The lawyers for Dr. Ford, Debra Katz and Lisa Banks, said in a letter to a Katharine Willey, committee counsel, that Dr. Ford accepts the committees request to provide her firsthand knowledge of Brett Kavanaughs sexual misconduct. The letter was sent on Saturday afternoon, just before the 2:30 p.m. deadline that Grassley had established. Grassley noted on Friday night that the deadline had been moved five times to accommodate Ford, and noted that if she declined to testify then the committee would cancel the hearing and hold a vote on Kavanaugh advancing out of the committee instead. BREAKING: Christine Blasey Fords lawyers say she accepts the Senate Judiciary Committees invitation to testify next week but she requests further negotiations over details of the hearing. pic.twitter.com/iuc2y2IS6t Ryan Saavedra ?? (@RealSaavedra) September 22, 2018 In the short letter, Katz and Banks also said that the details of the hearing should be negotiated further. While the lawyers stated the invitation was accepted, they didnt explicitly state the Monday date was agreed upon, and have previously said Ford wouldnt testify on Monday. A person familiar with the negotiations told the Associated Press that she wants to testify Thursday, though no reason was given as to why. An anonymous senior official at the White House told the AP that the letter amounted to an ask to continue negotiations without committing to anything. Its a clever way to push off the vote Monday without committing to appear Wednesday. The delay over Ford agreeing to testify was claimed by the lawyers to be over conditions of the testimony, with the attorneys at one point trying to get the committee to let Ford testify after Kavanaugh and issuing a subpoena to Mark Judge, who Dr. Ford said was in the room when the alleged assault occurred. Ford has not provided a number of details about her accusation, including a date, time, or the place it occurred, making an investigation difficult. She has, through her lawyers, repeatedly asked for an FBI investigation, but the bureau said it would not investigate the alleged assault, which is said to have happened in 1982 when Ford was 15 and Kavanaugh was 17. Kavanaugh has vehemently denied the accusation and gave testimony to judiciary staff on Tuesday. Staff also obtained testimony from Judge and another person who Ford said was present at the house during the assault. Senator Feinstein and the Democrats held the letter for months, only to release it with a bang after the hearings were OVER done very purposefully to Obstruct & Resist & Delay. Let her testify, or not, and TAKE THE VOTE! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 21, 2018 Top officials have stood by Kavanaugh during the chaos surrounding the accusation, including President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. Trump noted on Friday that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) had held a letter from Dr. Ford for months before the accusation was made public, and Ford revealed herself as the accuser in an interview with the Washington Post. Trump said on Twitter, Senator Feinstein and the Democrats held the letter for months, only to release it with a bang after the hearings were OVERdone very purposefully to Obstruct & Resist & Delay. Let her testify, or not, and TAKE THE VOTE! From NTD.tv This undated photo released by the Sacramento Police Department shows Roy Charles Waller. The Sacramento Bee reports Waller was arrested on Sept. 20, 2018, by Sacramento police. (Sacramento Police Department via AP) California Man Arrested in 10 Horrific Cold-Case Rapes SACRAMENTO, Calif.A married 58-year-old man has been arrested in connection with at least 10 rapes across Northern California between 1991 and 2006 in whats known as the NorCal Rapist case, Sacramento police announced on Sept. 21. Roy Charles Waller of Benicia was arrested without incident at the University of California in Berkeley, where he worked for 25 years as a safety specialist in the office of environment, health and safety. District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert said her office used DNA and genealogy websites to zero in on Waller. His arrest comes five months after police used the same tactic to arrest 72-year-old former police officer Joseph DeAngelo in the Golden State Killer case, which is connected to at least a dozen rapes and killings throughout the state in the 1970s and 1980s. DNA is the silent witness to the truth, Schubert said at a news conference announcing Wallers arrest. Waller is suspected of raping women in six Northern California counties, from Sacramento to Chico. Hes scheduled to be arraigned Monday in Sacramento Superior Court. Its unclear if he has an attorney. Detective Avis Beery, who worked the case for 12 years, said she has been waiting a really long time for this day to come. I never gave up hope, she said, adding that she called one of the victims of the NorCal Rapist on Friday morning to tell her the news. She was overcome and over the top with emotion and happiness to see that this person is in custody and that no one else has to worry about him anymore, Beery said. The victims in this case can stop looking over their shoulders. She described the NorCal Rapists modus operandi, saying that he typically would break into houses late at night, often when women were asleep. He would overcome them, he would bind them, and then repeatedly sexually assault them, she said. Sometimes he would kidnap the women and force them to withdrawal money from ATMs, and sometimes stole their personal items. Sacramento Police Chief Daniel Hahn called the crimes horrific, saying the victims were terrorized for hours at a time. Theres one less dangerous predator on our streets, he said. Constitution Day: The Original Bills of Rights Part 5 of 5 on understanding the Bill of Rights In honor of U.S. Constitution Day, on Sept. 17, we present a five-part series on the Bill of Rights. It reveals how the first 10 amendments to the Constitution guarantee freedom of speech, religion, and the press, and, in so many other ways, limit the power of the federal government and secure the rights of individuals. Congressman James Madison, who co-authored the The Federalist papers along with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, played an important role in drafting the U.S. Constitution at the 1787 constitutional convention in Philadelphia. He also worked for its subsequent ratification. In 1791, he penned what would become the American Bill of Rights. Madison had been an opponent of inclusion of a Bill of Rights as the Constitution was being written, thinking it unnecessary in terms of the structure of the new government. He came to realize, however, that such a list was politically necessary in order to guarantee ratification of the Constitution and the stability of the young nation. As he worked on the draft, he had to win public support while preserving the structural integrity of the Constitution. He reviewed more than 200 proposed amendmentsincluding such things as a proposal from Pennsylvania that farmers should always be guaranteed a bounty for squirrel peltsand distilled them to 20 amendments with a separate preamble. Madison actually wanted to amend the language of the Constitution to insert these rights, but during floor debates, it was decided to add them as an appendix rather than rewrite everything. Only because it was an appendix did it become known as a separate document. If Madison had his way, Americans probably never would have thought of it that way. As it was, people didnt refer to it as the Bill of Rights for many years. George Washington commissioned 14 handwritten copies of that documentone for each of the original 13 colonies and one for Congress. On Oct. 2, 1789, he sent a copy to each of the states and kept one in the Capitol. Twelve of Washingtons original documents survive to this day. Two were lost in fires. North Carolinas copy has the most interesting story. North Carolina wasnt prepared to ratify the Constitution until a bill of rights was added. Immediately following its ratification and its entry into the United States on Dec 22, 1798, one of Washingtons copies was sent to North Carolinas capitol in Raleigh. The front of the parchment was signed by John Adams and Speaker of the House Frederick Muhlenberg. A North Carolina clerk signed the back of it for record-keeping purposes before he put it into a filing box labeled: 1789 Proposed Amendments to the Constitution of the U.S., where it seems to have stayed until the U.S. Civil War. On or about April 13, 1865, Gen. Shermans Union troops marched through North Carolina and into Raleigh. At the capitol, soldiers raided display cases and took what they wanted, leaving papers and broken glass strewn between the Senate and the House of Commons. A Union infantryman took the document as a souvenir and brought it to his home in Tippecanoe, Ohio. On the day after the war ended, the unnamed soldier sold it for $5 to Charles Shotwell, a grain salesman in Troy, Ohio. In 1897, state officials discovered that Shotwell had possession of the document. He refused to return it, and nothing more was heard until 1925. For almost 60 years, Shotwell kept the document at his home. When he finally agreed to part with it, a colleague named Charles I. Reid contacted the North Carolina Historical Commission to offer it for sale. A letter dated March 25, 1925, said that the possessor wished any reasonable honorarium. North Carolina officials, however, said the document was stolen property and had to be returned without payment, so they refused to make an offer. The copy resurfaced in 1995, when a Washington attorney, representing several unidentified individuals, contacted the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources wanting to sell it. The individuals claimed the document was worth $3 million to $10 million. State officials, however, still considered it stolen property and said they wouldnt use tax dollars to pay for it. Then, in 2003, Wayne Pratt, an antique collector who was a regular on PBSs Antiques Roadshow, told potential buyers that he had found one of Washingtons original Bill of Rights in an upstate New York antiques store. He claimed it couldnt be traced back to any state; thus it was perhaps not stolen. (In reality, Pratt had purchased it from two Connecticut women for $200,000.) He tried to sell the document to the National Constitution Center, a museum in Philadelphia. The National Constitution Center sent it to Washington historians, who found a faint bit of handwriting on the back side of the document. It turns out the writing belonged to the same North Carolina state clerk who, in 1789, had first signed it before depositing the document in the archives. Thus, this was the missing North Carolina copy of the Bill of Rights. Next, came an arrest and seizure that could have been ripped from a movie script. It involved an FBI undercover agent posing as a philanthropist, a $4 million check, and half a dozen agents bursting into the room where a deliveryman carrying the document had just arrived. Subsequent court proceedings determined that North Carolina was the innocent owner of stolen property and was entitled to recover the document. Pratt relinquished his claim in exchange for the promise that he wouldnt be prosecuted for any potential crime associated with the attempted sale. So, North Carolinas copy of the Bill of Rights is back home. Due to its age and susceptibility to damage from light, North Carolina only exhibits it on special occasions. The protections that it provides, however, are among the most precious rights of American citizenship. They remain in place, even if not on display, at all times. Ronald J. Rychlak is the Jamie L. Whitten chair in law and government at The University of Mississippi. He is the author of several books, including Hitler, the War, and the Pope, Disinformation (co-authored with Ion Mihai Pacepa), and The Persecution and Genocide of Christians in the Middle East (co-edited with Jane Adolphe). Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Deadline Extended to Saturday for Dr. Christine Ford, Kavanaugh Accuser The deadline for Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, the California professor who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her in 1982, has been extended into Saturday, Sept. 22. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) originally set the deadline for Ford to decide whether she would appear and testify at a scheduled hearing on Sept. 24, for 10 a.m. on Friday. After not getting a definitive response, Grassley twice extended the deadline. Just before 10 p.m., the new deadline, Fords lawyer sent a letter to Grassley that was made public. She claimed that Ford had not received proper time to decide whether to attend the hearing. Difficulty Getting Commitment The hearing was first announced on Monday, giving Ford four days to decide, but her lawyer has attempted to negotiate terms with the Judiciary Committee. Ford wanted to testify after Kavanaugh, for instance, and have lawmakers subpoena Mark Judge, who she has accused of being present when Kavanaugh allegedly assaulted her. Lawmakers said no to both proposals. Expressing his frustration over the tactics of Ford and her legal team, Grassley wrote late on Friday on Twitter, Five times now we have granted extension for Dr. Ford to decide if she wants to proceed with her desire stated one week ago that she wants to tell Senate her story. Dr. Ford if you changed your mind say so so we can move on. I want to hear your testimony, Grassley wrote. Grassley added in another missive that he feels yanked around by all the political tactics. With all the extensions we give Dr. Ford to decide if she still wants to testify to the Senate I feel like Im playing 2nd trombone in the judiciary orchestra and Schumer is the conductor, he said. He also sent a third tweet addressing Kavanaugh, telling him, She should decide so we can move on. I want to hear her. I hope you understand. Grassley did not name a new deadline but sources told Politico it is 2:30 p.m. on Saturday. Five times now we hv granted extension for Dr Ford to decide if she wants to proceed w her desire stated one wk ago that she wants to tell senate her story Dr Ford if u changed ur mind say so so we can move on I want to hear ur testimony. Come to us or we to u ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) September 22, 2018 New: Letter from Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's lawyer Debra Katz to the Senate Judiciary Committee Majority staff. pic.twitter.com/Gn5QV7KusW Yashar Ali ? (@yashar) September 22, 2018 Ford May Not Testify Fords lawyer Debra Katz had said in a letter to Grassley late Friday that the 10 p.m. deadline was arbitrary. Its sole purpose is to bully Dr. Ford and deprive her of the ability to make a considered decision that has life-altering implications for her and her family, Katz said in the letter. She has already been forced out of her home and continues to be subjected to harassment, hate mail, and death threats. Our modest request is that she be given an additional day to make her decision. Grassley originally offered Ford four choices to air her testimonya public hearing, a private hearing, a public testimony with committee staff, or a private testimony with committee staff. Read More Kavanaugh, Accuser Both Agree to Speak With Lawmakers Katz said early in the week when the allegation first surfaced that Ford wanted to testify but later backtracked on that assertation. She has said that Ford feels rushed and is busy meeting with FBI agents over death threats. Fords legal team has also repeatedly asked for an FBI investigation into the alleged assault, even though its outside federal purview. Ford has also not provided a date, time, or specific house, making any criminal investigation unlikely. Kavanaugh has vehemently denied the accusation and gave testimony to judiciary staff on Tuesday. Staff also obtained testimony from Judge and another person who Ford said was present at the house during the assault. If Ford doesnt testify on Monday, the public hearing would be canceled. Grassley scheduled a committee vote to be held if that happens, which would send Kavanaugh to the full Senate for approval to become a Supreme Court justice. From NTD.tv Death Toll 209 as Survivor Found in Capsized Tanzania Ferry NAIROBI, KenyaThe death toll soared past 200 while a survivor was found inside a capsized Tanzania ferry two days after the Lake Victoria disaster, officials said on Sept. 22, while search efforts were ending to focus on identifying bodies. The survivor, an engineer, was found near the engine of the overturned vessel, Mwanza regional commissioner John Mongella told reporters. The Tanzanian Broadcasting Corporation, which reported the death toll, said he had shut himself into the engine room. His condition was not immediately known. Colorful coffins arrived, and the work would now focus on identifying bodies, Tanzanias defense chief Venance Mabeyo told reporters at the scene. Families of victims gathered and prepared to claim the dead. We have found him after three days and now we are transporting his body to Kamasi for burial, said Temeni Katebarira, the brother of one victim. Mass graves were dug, and workers continued to haul the dead from the water. Abandoned shoes were scattered on the shore. From morning till now we have retrieved more than 58 bodies. This includes both children and adults, said TropistaTemi, a Red Cross volunteer. Because of the congestion we have not been able to do full totaling. Later, we will do a full tally. But the total number of deaths might never be known. No one is sure how many people had been on board the badly overloaded ferry, which officials said had a capacity of 101. It capsized in the final stretch before shore on Thursday afternoon as people returning from a busy market day prepared to disembark, while horrified fishermen and others watched. Officials on Friday said at least 40 people had been rescued. President John Magufuli has ordered the arrests of those responsible. He said the ferry captain already had been detained after leaving the steering to someone who wasnt properly trained, The Citizen newspaper reported. This is a great disaster for our nation, Magufuli told the nation in a televised address late Friday, announcing four days of national mourning. Pope Francis, the United Nations secretary-general, Russian President Vladimir Putin and a number of African leaders have expressed shock and sorrow. The MV Nyerere, named for the former president who led the East African nation to independence, was traveling between the islands of Ukara and Ukerewe when it sank, according to the government agency in charge of servicing the vessels. Accidents are often reported on the large freshwater lake surrounded by Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda. Some of the deadliest have occurred in Tanzania, where aging passenger ferries often carry hundreds of passengers and well beyond capacity. In 1996, more than 800 people died when passenger and cargo ferry MV Bukoba sank on Lake Victoria. Nearly 200 people died in 2011 when the MV Spice Islander I sank off Tanzanias Indian Ocean coast near Zanzibar. By Tom Odula The logo of General Electric is seen at its plant in Baden, Switzerland Nov. 15, 2017. (ReutersArnd Wiegmann) Four General Electric Power Turbines Shut Down in US Due to Blade Issue General Electric Co. said on Sept. 20 that four of its new flagship power turbines in the United States have been shut down due to an oxidation issue and warned it expects the problem to affect more of the 51 units it has shipped, sending shares lower. The giant machines form the beating heart of billion-dollar electricity plants around the world. Analysts consider GEs success with the new turbines, known as the HA class, critical to rescuing its power division from a steep decline in sales and profits. This issue, if not quickly resolved, could hurt GEs turbine brand image and market share, Jim Corridore, an analyst at CFRA, said in a note, cutting his price target to $14 from $15. GE stock was down 3 percent at $12.49 on the New York Stock Exchange. The problem was first discovered on turbine blades in a natural gas-fueled turbine operated by Exelon Corp. in Texas a few weeks ago, GE told Reuters. The problem forced Exelon to shut down one turbine. Exelon said it shut down its three other units as a precaution. GE and Exelon said they expect the turbines to return to service soon. Neither company provided details about the oxidation or how it led to the shutdowns. GE is working with other customers to address any impacted unit, GE spokesman Chris Shigas said, adding that 10 other HA turbines in the United States were still operating. But, he added, We expect the same issue will impact other HA units. GE has installed 27 HA units in seven countries since they were introduced two years ago but faces competition from rivals Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems and Siemens AG. GE could be forced to pay millions of dollars in compensation to customers and make costly design changes if the problems persist, industry experts said. By Alwyn Scott Gunmen Attack Iran Military Parade, Killing at Least 25 TEHRAN, IranGunmen disguised as soldiers attacked an annual Iranian military parade on Sept. 22 in the countrys oil-rich southwest, killing at least 25 people and wounding 53 in the bloodiest assault to strike the country in recent years. The attack in Ahvaz saw gunfire sprayed into a crowd of marching Revolutionary Guardsmen, bystanders and government officials watching from a nearby riser. Suspicion immediately fell on the regions Arab separatists, who previously only attacked unguarded oil pipelines under the cover of darkness. Irans Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif immediately blamed the attack on regional countries and their U.S. masters. The attack came as rows of Revolutionary Guardsmen marched down Ahvazs Quds, or Jerusalem, Boulevard, which like many other places around the country saw an annual parade marking the start of Irans long 1980s war with Iraq. Images captured by state television showed journalists and onlookers turn to look toward the first shots, then the rows of marchers broke as soldiers and civilians sought cover under sustained gunfire. Oh God! Go go go! Lie down! Lie down! one man screamed as a woman fled with her baby. In the aftermath, paramedics tended to the wounded as soldiers, some bloodied in their dress uniforms, helped their comrades to ambulances. The state-run IRNA news agency said the attack killed 25 people and wounded 53, citing knowledgeable sources without elaborating. It said gunmen wore Guard uniforms and targeted a riser where military and police commanders were sitting. We suddenly realized that some armed people wearing fake military outfits started attacking the comrades from behind (the stage) and then opened fire on women and children, an unnamed wounded soldier told state TV. They were just aimlessly shooting around and did not have a specific target. Details about the attack remained unclear immediately afterward. The semi-official Fars news agency, which is close to the Guard, meanwhile said two gunmen on a motorcycle wearing khaki uniforms carried out the attack. Khuzestan Gov. Gholamreza Shariati told IRNA that two gunmen were killed and two others were arrested. State TV hours later reported that all four gunmen had been killed, with three dying during the attack and one later succumbing to his wounds at a hospital. Who carried out the assault also remained in question. State television immediately described the assailants as takfiri gunmen, a term previously used to describe the ISIS terrorist group. Iran has been deeply involved in the fight against ISIS in Iraq and has aided embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad in his countrys long war. But in the hours following the attack, state media and government officials seemed to come to the consensus that Arab separatists in the region were responsible. The separatists, however, previously only conducted pipeline bombings at night or hit-and-run attacks. The separatists accuse Irans Shiite theocracy of discriminating against its Sunni Arab citizens. Iran has blamed its Mideast archrival, the Sunni kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for funding their activity. State media in Saudi Arabia did not immediately acknowledge the attack. ISIS later claimed responsibility in a message on its Amaaq news agency, but provided no evidence it carried out the assault. The militants have made a string of false claims in the wake of major defeats in Iraq and Syria. In Tehran, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani watched a military parade that included ballistic missiles capable of reaching Israel and U.S. military bases in the Mideast. Rouhani said the U.S. withdraw from the nuclear deal was an attempt to get Iran to give up its military arsenal. Iran neither put its defensive arms aside nor lessens its defensive capabilities, Rouhani said. Iran will add to its defensive power day by day. Saturdays attack comes after a coordinated June 7, 2017 ISIS assault on parliament and the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Tehran. At least 18 people were killed and more than 50 wounded. Khomeini led the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the Western-backed shah to become Irans first supreme leader until his death in 1989. The assault shocked Tehran, which largely has avoided militant attacks in the decades after the tumult surrounding the Islamic Revolution. In the last decade, such attacks have been incredibly rare. In 2009 more than 40 people, including six Guard commanders, were killed in a suicide attack by Sunni extremists in Irans Sistan and Baluchistan province. Irans Revolutionary Guard is a paramilitary force answerable only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Guard also has vast holdings in Irans economy. By Nasser Karimi and Jon Gambrell How Creativity on Prescription Can Improve Mental and Physical Health Prescribing art and social connection has documented effects on health and diseases like dementia The idea of prescribing social and artistic activity may seem new, but it is actually more than 10 years since United Kingdom government policy first sought to link patients with non-medical support in the community. In the past couple of years, however, calls for the arts to be a core component of social prescribing in the U.K. have been growing. A recent report by Arts Council Wales, for example, has backed the idea. And last summer an all-party parliamentary group for clinical commissioning groups, as well as NHS trusts, and local authorities put forward recommendations to incorporate prescribing arts on prescription into their commissioning plans and redesign care pathways where appropriate. At present there are a number of arts on prescription programs operating around the U.K.encompassing all kinds of human creativity including seated dance, creative writing, forum theatre and object handling in museums. There is a growing body of evidence which shows that different arts being prescribed have a positive impact on a variety of health conditions. One recent review, for instance, reported ten key benefits for those involved in these kinds of schemes. They included self-esteem and confidence boosts, physical health improvements, better social connections, and the acquisition of new skills. But why the arts? Social prescribing aims to address the social causes of ill health and give people the support they need, such as advice about benefits, employment, and housing. It can also include access to exercise, volunteering, and creative or artistic activities. So it may seem like an advice system might be just as useful, but prescribing specific arts activities can have some unique benefits. Mental Health and Well Being There is growing evidence that several different types of arts schemes are not only cost-effective, but can improve well being and have a positive impact on levels of anxiety and depression. Take singing, for example. Research has demonstrated that it can have a positive impact on mental health and well being. In fact, several studies undertaken with older people have found that community singing appears to have a significant effect on their quality of lifehelping ameliorate the effects of anxiety and depression. In addition, findings from a recently published study have demonstrated that new mothers taking part in singing and music groups experience a faster reduction in post-natal depression symptoms than those in control groups. As we age, we are at risk of experiencing loneliness and social isolation through loss of social networks, as well as facing new limitations as a result of decreasing physical health. The arts can create social connections and research has shown that participation in arts programs enables older people to get in touch with others and extend existing networks of support in their communities, helping to alleviate loneliness and isolation. Our ongoing project, Creative Journeys, is looking at ways that the arts can help build social relationships in residential care homes. The study is due to finish in October 2018, but early indications are that the arts activities increase social interactions between residents, and between residents and staff with improved mood and well being as a result. Not only does evidence suggest participation in the arts may delay the onset of dementia, but also that it can affect cognitive functioning through stimulating memories and attention. In addition, art making can improve the mood, confidence, and social engagement of people living with dementia and has been shown to enhance the relationship between caregivers and the people they are caring for. Long-Term Conditions Arts activities are also effective alongside treatment of a number of long-term conditions. Music, singing, and visual arts can all improve confidence and the quality of life of people with stroke, for example. People living with Parkinsons disease who take part in group singing and dance experience improvements in their voice and movements too. In addition, the British Lung Foundation supports singing groups for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary diseaseand research has indicated that there are improvements in lung function and quality of life for people who join singing for breathing groups. Whether it is traditional art lessons, joining a community singing group, or any other creative activity, the evidence is clear: participating in these activities has a positive impact on health and well being. Putting arts on social prescriptions is a start, but we do still need to look at the relative strengths and cost-effectiveness of implementing them across the U.K. Only then can we truly start to develop proper treatment programs for different conditions. Hilary Bungay is a reader in health services research at Anglia Ruskin University in the U.K. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Lawyer for Kavanaugh Accuser Caught on Camera at Resist Rally as Clinton Accuser Offers to Testify The lawyer for Dr. Christine Ford, the woman who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were both high school students in the 80s, was present at a so-called Resist rally in 2017. Debra Katz, the main lawyer for Dr. Ford, attended the rally, which was promoted as protesting against President Donald Trump. Groups and individuals against him often use the word resist. Katz was interviewed by ABC at the rally, which took place in February 2017 after Jeff Sessions was confirmed to the post of attorney general. Identified only as a protester, Katz told the broadcaster: We are going to fight back. We are going to resist. We will not be silenced, reported the Daily Caller. Footage of Debra Katz, the attorney representing Brett Kavanaughs accuser, protesting President Trump at a Resistance rally. She says: We are going to fight back. We are going to Resist. We will not be silenced. Be a shame if people shared this.https://t.co/pQubfIdGUi pic.twitter.com/PlSi8MqW5a Benny (@bennyjohnson) September 21, 2018 Committed to Resistance Katz spoke about her anti-Trump sentiment recently, telling The Gargoyle, an alumni magazine for the University of Wisconsin Law School, in August that shes committed to being part of the so-called resistance. When I go to a march on behalf of Dreamers, I hear young people making connections between DACA and Islamophobia, Katz told the magazine. I hope that energy continues, to retake our democracy that is truly at risk now. The revelation that Katz has pronounced opposition to Trump comes just days after it was revealed that Katz and her colleague Lisa Banks were scheduled to headline a fundraiser for Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.). After CNN inquired about the scheduled October fundraiser, Katz claimed the event was planned before Dr. Fords allegations were made public. Meanwhile, Politico reported on Sept. 20 that Dr. Ford was being advised by Democratic operative Ricki Seidman, who in the past was an investigator for Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy, and also helped Anita Hill testify against Clarence Thomas during his Supreme Court nomination process. Seidman also worked as the communications director for Joe Biden in 2008. I hope that each and every one of us will immediately denounce the horrific treatment of Dr. Blasey Ford. That this brave woman is receiving death threats and has been forced to flee with her family is appalling and heartbreaking. This abuse must stop. Were better than this. Sen Dianne Feinstein (@SenFeinstein) September 19, 2018 Im not afraid to fly. https://t.co/ml6sZVkHxL Juanita Broaddrick (@atensnut) September 21, 2018 Broaddrick Offers to Testify As Dr. Ford delays confirming whether or not shell testify at a public hearing scheduled for Monday, Sept. 24, Juanita Broaddrick has come forward and offered to testify. Broaddrick claims former President Bill Clinton raped her in 1991. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) decried the treatment of Dr. Ford on Twitter later Friday, saying: That this brave woman is receiving death threats and has been forced to flee with her family is appalling and heartbreaking. This abuse must stop. Were better than this. She also called for a reopening of the background investigation into Kavanaugh by the FBI, even though the FBI has already stated it wont investigate Dr. Fords allegation. Responding to Feinstein, Broaddrick wrote on Twitter that she remembered Feinstein refusing to read her deposition brought forward in 1999, eight years after the alleged rape by Clinton occurred. I had first-hand knowledge, along with 5 witnesses 8 YEARS later in 1999. YOU @SenFeinstein refused to read the evidence in my record. You are such a hypocrite! she said. Broaddrick added: Just a thought If Christine Ford declines to be interviewed Monday Im available to answer questions about my Rape by Bill Clinton. From NTD.tv Mountain People Celebrate Traditional Woolen Blankets High in the Carpathian mountains residents gather for a regional festival to celebrate their gift to the world, the lizhunyk. Lizhnyk are blankets made from sheep wool. There is a loom in almost every home in Yavoriv village. Lizhnyk is everything for me, it is my entire life, says craftswoman Hanna Kopilchuk. She has been a professional weaver for over four decades, carrying on a craft she learned from her mother and grandmother. It is an intricate process, she explains: When the wool is trimmed, washed, dried, combed and when the wool is at home it seems like half the work is done, but the second part is left. The wool has to be spun, for example, 5 kilos (11 pounds) of wool is needed for a double size lizhnyk. Then it has to be put into rolls and start weaving. If lizhnyk has the same natural colors as sheep its called self-made, but for other colors, the threads have to be dyed. So we spin, then make such kind of roll and dye it. The word lizhnyk comes from the from Ukrainian word lezhaty meaning to lie down. Many residents of Yavoriv still sleep on woolen blankets and cover themselves with them just as their ancestors did. The first lizhnyks were narrow and long up to 4-5 meters (13-16 feet) because the looms were narrow too. It has been put onto a bench, people lay down on it and cover themselves by it. I want to stress that one sheeps wool was used to weave them, its organic, says Vasyl Losyuk, Director of Folk Arts Center Gutsul Grazhda. In 1920 the manufacturing of lizhnyks started as a business in Yavoriv. People began to weave blankets, not only for family use but also for sale. In Soviet times they were made in factories. Nowadays a craftswoman uses looms that are up to a century old, but in general, the technique of weaving has remained unchanged for centuries. School teacher Maria Rebchuk says it is important to pass handicrafts onto the next generation of artisans. We try to involve children into studying lizhnyks handicraft because this a tradition of our past generations. And our village Yavoriv is one of the villages in Ukraine where the craft of making lizhnyks has being preserved until nowadays. Here schoolgirls are taught how to weave as part of the curriculum. The process of making a lizhnyk consists of around 20 stages from trimming sheep every spring to washing ready blankets in the mountain river. Traditionally lizhnyks are blankets, but one younger designer is using the material to fashion clothes. We weave simple warm coats for everyday wear. It can be grey, white, without complicated ornaments. Our clients order also kinds of festive and elegant coats to wear on special occasions, for example for going to church. Also, we can weave a long modern coat or cardigan with or without sleeves, better without sleeves, then its comfortable for walking in the mountains or in the city, says Natalia Kischuk. The Ukrainian region of Carpathian Mountains plans to apply to UNESCO to recognize lizhnyk as a cultural world heritage. Houses were destroyed after a tornado blasted Dunrobin and Gatineau in the Ottawa area in the afternoon of Sept. 21, 2018. (The Canadian Press) Ottawa Recovering From Devastating Tornado Nearly 150,000 without power OTTAWAOfficials are warning people in the Ottawa area to brace for days without power in the wake of a tornado that ripped through the region on Sept. 21. They encouraged residents to stockpile food and water following the storm, which tore roofs off of homes, overturned cars, and felled power lines in the Ottawa community of Dunrobin and in Gatineau, Que. It looked like something youd see in a movie, or youd see in tornado valley in Oklahoma, said Ottawa mayor Jim Watson, who had seen drone footage of the twister. Nothing like this Ive experienced in all my life living in Ottawa. More than 145,000 customers were without power in the city on the morning of Sept. 22 as a result of damage that Hydro Ottawa CEO Bryce Conrad said was as bad or worse than that caused by a devastating ice storm in 1998. Conrad said the outages come as a result of cascading failure of resources owned by provincial utility Hydro One. Meantime, the Ottawa Hospital tweeted that five people were being treated for stormrelated injuriesdown from six initiallywith two people in critical condition, one in serious condition. and two others are stable. One of those patients arrived in the morning of Sept. 22, the hospital noted. Meanwhile, officials said firefighters are going doortodoor to determine whether structures are safe to reenter. Pennsylvania Man Who Threatened to Kill President Trump Captured A multi-day manhunt for a Pennsylvania man who threatened to kill President Donald Trump ended Sept. 21 when authorities captured Shawn Christy in Ohio. The search for Christy, 27, was triggered on Sunday, Sept. 16 after Christy made a threat against Trump and John Morganelli, the district attorney of Northampton County in Pennsylvania, that was later deleted. Keep it up Morganelli, I promise Ill put a bullet in your head as soon as I put one in the head of President Donald J. Trump, Christy allegedly wrote. Christy made the threat in early June but the manhunt was triggered when he was spotted in Ohio on Sunday after allegedly stealing a vehicle in Pennsylvania and driving into Ohio. He was on the FBIs Most Wanted list. The sighting came after Christy was spotted in August in Maryland sleeping in a stolen vehicle before fleeing the scene prior to officers arriving. Fugitive Shawn Christy is in custody. https://t.co/4sj3TYRzWp pic.twitter.com/oxpdTml4Zy Ohio State Patrol (@OSHP) September 21, 2018 Captured in Ohio Christy had fled Pennsylvania for Ohio and was captured around 4:45 p.m. on Friday in Mansfield. Deputy U.S. Marshal Anne Murphy of the Northern District of Ohio said in a press conference that Christy was captured hiding in a ravine, near Camp Mowana. We have been combing the area for four days, and we finally zeroed in on an area where we thought he was hiding, Murphy said, reported the Mansfield News-Journal. Dozens of law enforcement officers participated in the meticulous search. It was a slow, methodical search. It was slow and took a long time. Finally there he is, Murphy said. We searched through woods, fields, campsites. The teams eventually located him hiding in a ravine. Christy had a gun and a large knife on him when he was captured. Shawn Christy was apprehended today during a combined LE operation with the U.S. Secret Service and our federal, state and local partners. pic.twitter.com/zmk8KDcBLX U.S. Secret Service (@SecretService) September 21, 2018 Breaking: Photos taken by James Zeger from Ohio as search for Shawn Christy takes place near Mansfield on OH-13. Christy crashed a truck he allegedly stole from McAdoo this morning. Christy wanted for allegedly threatening President Trump and others in June. pic.twitter.com/awlnzERO85 Andy Mehalshick (@AndyMehalshick) September 17, 2018 Expected Transfer to Pennsylvania He was taken to a local jail and is expected to be transferred to Pennsylvania after appearing in an Ohio court on Monday. He was wanted on additional charges, including burglary, probation violation, and failure to appear. On behalf of the District of Eastern Pennsylvania, I want to thank our federal, state and local law enforcement partners who worked so diligently to bring this fugitive case to a successful close, U.S. Marshal for the District of Eastern Pennsylvania David B. Webb said in a statement sent to Lehigh Valley Live. This case represents the true definition of teamwork and dedication to the pursuit of justice. And we want to expressly thank those in the community who have shown such tremendous support of our efforts to bring Mr. Christy in safely. Christys father, Craig Christy, told Fox 8 that authorities informed him his son had been taken into custody. Officials told him that his son was receiving full medical attention and was being checked for possible malnutrition. From NTD.tv Rosenstein Denies Newspaper Report He Suggested Recording Trump Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein dismissed a New York Times article as inaccurate and factually incorrect for claiming that in May 2017 he suggested recording President Donald Trump and brought up the possibility of invoking the 25th amendment to remove the commander in chief. The New York Timess story is inaccurate and factually incorrect, Rosenstein said in a statement. I will not further comment on a story based on anonymous sources who are obviously biased against the department and are advancing their own personal agenda. But let me be clear about this: Based on my personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment. A Justice Department spokesperson provided the newspaper with a statement from an unnamed official who was present at the meeting where Rosenstein proposed wearing a wire. The official said that Rosenstein made the remark but did so in jest. The New York Times cites unnamed sources who it purports were briefed on either the substance of Rosensteins conversations or notes taken by the officials involved, including Andrew McCabe, who was the deputy director of the FBI at the time of the alleged events. The memos are not available to the public and were leaked to the New York Times. McCabes spokeswoman, Melissa Schwartz, wrote on Twitter that her client was not the source of the leak. Let me be 100% clear: no one associated with Andrew McCabe or his team shared, read, described, whispered or blinked in Morse Code any part of his memos with any reporter, Schwartz said. Rosenstein oversees the special counsel Robert Muellers investigation of alleged coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia. Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the probe, handing the reins to Rosenstein. Trump has repeatedly slammed the Mueller probe as a hoax and a witch hunt because of the investigations questionable premise. Mueller has not produced any evidence or indictments related to coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia. Prominent Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, expressed concern that the allegations against Rosenstein could serve as pretext to fire him. This New York Times report must not be used as a pretext for the corrupt purpose of firing Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein in order to install an official who will allow the president to interfere with the Special Counsels investigation, Schumer wrote on Twitter on Sept. 21. Republican Rep. Jim Jordan demanded that Rosenstein release McCabes memo to corroborate his denial. Mr. Rosenstein, give Congress the McCabe memos that we asked for in July and all the other documents weve requested so we can all judge for ourselves, Jordan wrote on Twitter. McCabe was fired from the FBI for authorizing a self-serving leak and lying about it to investigators. Republican Rep. Mark Meadows noted that McCabe is under investigation for lying to the bureau and that his words and memos should be viewed with extreme skepticism. But if this story is true, it underscores a gravely troubling culture at FBI/DOJ and the need for FULL transparency. Declassify everything. Let Americans judge, Meadows wrote on Twitter. The Epoch Times did not independently verify the claims in the New York Times report. Students Show Respect While Folding the Nations Flag Respect for the nations flag is deemed fairly important by many. After all, the flag is a symbol of this nation, and respecting that symbol is in many ways showing respect to the people who make up this nation, the traditions that form this nation, and the sacrifices others have made to preserve those traditions. The idea seems so simple, even children could understand it. And in the case of these three elementary students from Idaho, it can be seen that they were taught to respect the flag, and take that idea seriously. Naylan Tuttle, Jack LeBreck and Casey Dolan, all from Hayden Meadows Elementary School, demonstrated their respect for this symbol in a most obvious wayand luckily someone was there to snap a picture. These three fifth-graders were taught that no part of the flag should be allowed to touch the ground while the flag is being attached to a lanyard and raised in the morning, or detached after being lowered in the evening. When the three were tasked with taking care of the flag at the end of the school day on Wednesday, Sept. 19, they had some problems doing the job to the standard they felt it deserved. Because the flag was so large, compared to three there students, they were having trouble folding it properly without letting it drop to the ground. The three were not willing to fail at the duty they had been assigned, so they devised a solution. As shown in the photo, one of the three, Jack LeBreck, laid on his back under that flag while the other two folded it, ensuring that no matter what, no portion of the flag would touch the ground. This is our nations flag, this is our schools flag, its how we represent our country, Jack LeBreck told KHQ. If you let it touch the ground then you disrespect our country is what I heard. Amanda Reallan, parent of a child at the school, saw the boys carrying out the flag-lowering ceremony, and preserved the image of the patriotic gesture. This needs to go viral! she posted on Facebook. I just watched the most amazing act of Patriotism! Was waiting to pick up my children from school when three boys took down the flag. They were having a hard time making sure it didnt touch the ground when the third boy laid under it to honor not letting it touch the ground! she wrote. A lot of things can be taught in class, but the boys learned about the flag ceremony from the school custodian, not a teacher. Mac McCarty, who the children call Mr. Mac, instructed the boys on the proper handling on their countrys flag. Im a 20 year veteran of the United States Air Force, my father was a Marine, my grandfather was a Navy man, McCarty told KHQ, and family thats been in the service for a long time and its just a nice opportunity to express it to the young and let them pick it up. McCarty had nothing but praise for the boys once he learned about the lengths the boys went to in order to carry out their duties properly, They did themselves proud, they did their families proud, they did our school proud and our community and Im very proud of them and Im sure their families are very proud of them as well, McCarty said. Naylan told KHQ that he was thinking of his family while carefully folding the flag. I think it would be very honorable for me, my dad, and my grandfather, theyve been in the service, in the military, so I probably think I would make them proud, he explained. From NTD.tv Texan Running 3-D Printed Guns Company Ordered to Leave Taiwan AUSTIN, Texas/TAIPEIA Texan running a 3-D printed guns company who flew to Taiwan as police investigated an accusation he had sex with an underage girl was detained in Taipei on Sept. 21 and ordered to leave the island after his U.S. passport was annulled, officials said. Cody Wilson, 30, was taken to immigration authorities in the capital by officers from Taiwans Criminal Investigation Bureau, according to officials. He was ordered to leave Taiwan because he no longer has a valid travel document, said Zhang Wen-xiu, a director of the international affairs and law enforcement division at Taiwans National Immigration Agency. Zhang said Wilson was being held by the agency and that its officials were in talks with U.S. representatives in Taiwan concerning his repatriation. The agency hopes to send Wilson back to the United States as soon as possible, Zhang told Reuters, and was in touch with Wilsons lawyer. Wilson had agreed to the arrangement and had expressed willingness to return to the U.S. soon, he added. The United States de facto embassy in Taipei declined to comment on the case, citing privacy concerns. The U.S. Marshals Service, which would likely be responsible for taking Wilson back to the United States, said in a statement it was aware of Wilsons arrest and was fully engaged with our international partners on this matter. Wilson, at the center of a U.S. legal battle over his plan to publish instructions for the manufacture of 3-D printed plastic guns, flew into Taiwan legally, the National Immigration Agency said on Sept. 21. Because his U.S. passport was later annulled, the agency said in a statement, he no longer has the legal status to stay in Taiwan. A lawyer for Wilson and representatives of the Austin Police Department were not immediately available for comment. Taiwan does not have an extradition treaty with the United States. Austin police have said Wilson flew to Taiwan earlier this month after a friend told him officers were investigating an allegation by a 16-year-old girl who said she was paid $500 to have sex with him at a hotel in the Texas capital. Police said investigators interviewed the girl and on Sept. 19 obtained a warrant for Wilsons arrest, but he had flown to Taiwan by then. Police said they are aware that Wilson travels often for business, but that they do not know why he went to Taiwan. Wilson is the founder of Defense Distributed, the focus of a legal and political battle over its placing on the internet blueprints for plastic guns that can be made with a 3-D printer. The files could previously be downloaded for free, but a federal judge issued a nationwide injunction last month that blocked the posting of the blueprints online. By Jon Herskovitz and Yimou Lee President Donald Trump at the White House on Sept. 24, 2017. A declassification order of documents related to the Russia investigations and the spying on the Trump campaign has given him significant leverage. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times) The Art of War: How Trump Gained Significant Leverage With Declassification Order Trump chooses inspector general report as vehicle for declassification as allies panic News Analysis Last night President Trump made a brief but very important disclosure during a live interview with Sean Hannity while at a rally in Las Vegas. Hannity asked the president about the pending release of declassified documents. Here is how the president responded: Well, were moving along, were working along. Were also dealing with foreign countries that do have a problem. I must tell you. I got called today from two very good allies saying, please, can we talk. So, its not as simple as all that. And we do have to respect their wishes. But it will all come out. This morning President Trump sent out a series of tweets on the subject, providing further information: I met with the DOJ concerning the declassification of various UNREDACTED documents. They agreed to release them but stated that so doing may have a perceived negative impact on the Russia probe. Also, key Allies called to ask not to release. Therefore, the Inspector General.. .has been asked to review these documents on an expedited basis. I believe he will move quickly on this (and hopefully other things which he is looking at). In the end I can always declassify if it proves necessary. Speed is very important to me and everyone! An order for declassification, particularly one as potentially broad as this, touches on many different aspects. In a previous article, I noted that the declassification process was more complex than commonly thought. Politics aside, there are four different elements at play. And they all relate directly to President Trumps Declassification Order. First, there is the ongoing process of the declassification order itself. Second, there is the ongoing preparation of the DOJ Inspector Generals report on FISA abuse, which was announced on March 28, 2018. A third element is the involvement of certain U.S. alliesalmost certainly Britain and Australiawith the FBI and CIA in the events leading to the establishment of the FBIs Counterintelligence Investigation. Finally, we have the ongoing investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Besides the ongoing investigation by the Inspector General into potential FISA abuse, he has also at least two subset investigations stemming from his June 2018 report: A Review of Various Actions by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Justice in Advance of the 2016 Election. As part of these ongoing investigations, classified information the Inspector General is using or pursuing must be protected until the conclusion of his investigations. This has almost certainly caused an inherent conflict with the declassification order issued by President Trump. The Inspector Generals focus in his most recent, and ongoing, investigation is very specific: A review that will examine the Justice Departments and the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) compliance with legal requirements, and with applicable DOJ and FBI policies and procedures, in applications filed with the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) relating to a certain U.S. person. As part of this examination, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) will also review information that was known to the DOJ and the FBI, at the time the applications were filed, about an alleged FBI confidential source. In addition, the OIG will also review communications the agencies had with the alleged source as it relates to the FISA applications. The certain U.S. person mentioned is former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. The alleged FBI confidential source is Christopher Steele, the former MI6 spy who was hired to produce the controversial dossier on then-candidate Donald Trump. Another related source is FBI informant Stefan Halper, who will probably come up as part of the IG Investigation. The Inspector General himself needs to pursue a path of declassification prior to releasing any detailed report. The fact that his finalized reports are primarily public require declassification of information being released (classified appendices are sometimes attached). The presidential order to initiate the declassification process directly interacts with the Inspector Generals investigation into FISA abuse. That is, at least in part, why President Trump is referencing the Inspector General in his tweets. Its possible this may indicate, or lead to, a tandem release of the Inspector Generals Report along with declassified documents stemming from President Trumps order. It appears more likely that the Inspector General will now be responsible for releasing manyif not allof the items President Trump specified in his declassification order. As President Trump noted in his tweet, if he is not happy with the results, he can always change course and declassify the documents himself. Foreign Allies In relation to our allies, any information subject to declassification that pertains to foreign intelligence or to the allies themselves would almost certainly result in high-level discussions. In this particular case, it would appear these discussions were of such concern that they resulted in phone calls from two of our allies at levels high enough to reach President Trump directly. These phone calls are telling and likely confirm that British and Australian Intelligence were both involved in the events leading to the establishment of the FBIs counterintelligence investigation. Luke Harding, of the Guardian, has previously reported on the involvement of UK Intelligence, noting that Britains Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) was involved in collecting information and transmitting it to the United States: In late 2015 the British eavesdropping agency, GCHQ, was carrying out standard collection against Moscow targets. These were known Kremlin operatives already on the grid. Nothing unusual here except that the Russians were talking to people associated with Trump. The precise nature of these exchanges has not been made public, but according to sources in the US and the UK, they formed a suspicious pattern. They continued through the first half of 2016. The intelligence was handed to the US as part of a routine sharing of information. In the summer of 2016, Robert Hannigan, then-head of Britains GCHQ traveled to Washington to personally meet with then-CIA Director John Brennan: That summer, GCHQs then head, Robert Hannigan, flew to the US to personally brief CIA chief John Brennan. The matter was deemed so important that it was handled at director level, face-to-face between the two agency chiefs. Interestingly, Hannigans U.S. counterpart was not CIA Director Brennan. Hannigans U.S. counterpart was NSA Director Mike Rogers. Brennan reportedly used the foreign intelligence to launch an inter-agency investigation. Then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper personally confirmed foreign intelligence involvement during Congressional testimony: Feinstein: Over the spring of 2016, multiple European allies passed on additional information to the United States about contacts between the Trump campaign and Russians. Is this accurate? Clapper: Yes, it is, and its also quite sensitive. The specifics are quite sensitive. The BBC reported that Brennans involvement may have gone back to April 2016: Last April [2016], the CIA director was shown intelligence that worried him. It was allegedly a tape recording of a conversation about money from the Kremlin going into the US presidential campaign. It was passed to the US by an intelligence agency of one of the Baltic States. The CIA cannot act domestically against American citizens so a joint counter-intelligence taskforce was created. The taskforce included six agencies or departments of government. Brennan would later refer to this task force during an interview with MSNBCs Rachel Maddow. GCHQs Hannigan abruptly announced his retirement on Jan. 23, 2017following President Trumps Jan. 20, 2017, inauguration. The Guardian reported on speculation that Hannigans resignation was directly related to UK Intelligence sharing: His sudden resignation he informed staff just hours before making this decision public prompted speculation that it might be related to British concerns over shared intelligence with the US in the wake of Donald Trump becoming president. The Australian involvement comes courtesy of diplomat Alexander Downer through his meeting with Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos. It was this meeting, supposedly relayed by Australian intelligence to the FBI in late July 2016 that has been reported as the reason leading to the FBIs Counterintelligence Investigation on July 31, 2016. Downer, who has long-standing ties to UK intelligence, served on the Advisory Board of private UK intelligence firm Hakluyt from 2008-2014. He reportedly still maintains contact with Hakluyt officials. Stefan Halper, the outed FBI spy, also has connections to Hakluyt through Jonathan Clarke, with whom he has co-authored two books. Clarke is the U.S. RepresentativeDirector U.S. Operations for Hakluyt. There are many other interlaced ties. Sir Richard Dearlove, the former Head of MI6, is associated with nearly every foreign intelligence member mentioned. It was Dearlove who advised Christopher Steele and his partner, Chris Burrows, to work with a top British government official to pass along information to the FBI. Dearlove knows Stefan Halper through their mutual association at the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar. Dearlove also knows Sir Iain Lobban, a former head of GCHQ, who is an Advisory Board Member at Hakluyt. These ties appear nearly endless and illustrate why there should be reason for real concern on the part of current British and Australian foreign intelligence officials. George Papadopoulos on Thursday sent out an attention-grabbing tweet: The British and Australian governments attempt to sabotage the Trump campaign is about to backfire in a spectacular fashion. Today, he followed up with this: After reports are finally out that the British and Australian governments were actively spying and trying to sabotage the Trump campaign, those two governments called the president to ask for him not to declassify any FISA documents. Strange. Underlying all of the noise appears to be an effort on the part of the DOJ to control the manner in which information becomes public. After President Trump issued his order for declassification, both the DOJ and two of our allies made their case to limit or delay the release of that information. In exchange for backing away from his immediate declassification request, President Trump has pushed the Inspector Generals Report to the forefront with an accelerated time-frame for its release. Should the IG report prove less revealing, or more drawn out than is required, President Trump can revert to his prior declassification order. This apparent behind-the-scenes negotiating appears to be in regard to managing the damage done to our institutionsand our alliesas a result of the actions under the previous administration. Personally, Im in favor of full disclosure nowand let the chips fall where they may. But I also understand the power of leverage. Despite the disappointment sure to be expressed by many, President Trump is currently holding a position of significant leverage over all of those involvedincluding Britain and Australia. Ask yourself a simple question: Which avenue proves more powerful in manners of public persuasiona forced declassification of a specified set of documents by Trump, or an honest and damning report issued by an independent inspector general who was nominated by President Barack Obama? President Trump has made the decision that a better course is to allow IG Horowitz to manage the information disclosure. If this is not done to President Trumps satisfaction, well, my guess is all bets are off. In the meantime, my expectation is that the release of the Inspector Generals report just got significantly accelerated. Jeff Carlson is a CFA Charterholder. He worked for 20 years as an analyst and portfolio manager in the high-yield bond market. He runs the website TheMarketsWork.com Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Two Sleeping Indiana Teenagers Killed by Father, Who Then Shoots Himself An Indiana father shot his two teenage children to death while they slept before turning the gun on himself, authorities said. Officials said that Harrison Hunn, 15, and Shelby Hunn, 13, were killed by Michael Hunn, 50, at his home northeast of Northfield in rural Boone County. Stephanie Reece, Hunns ex-wife, went to the house after her childrens school called her and said they were absent on Friday morning, Sept. 21. When she arrived, she found the door locked. Her children and ex-husband also werent answering their phones, so she called 911. Boone County Sheriffs deputies soon arrived, went inside, and found the children and Hunn dead. Authorities say these children were the victims in today's double murder-suicide in rural Boone County. Zionsville Community Schools says one teen was in their middle school and the other attended their high school. https://t.co/LWtvZzedov pic.twitter.com/X6XQrpoqqQ FOX59 News (@FOX59) September 21, 2018 Latest updates on the double murder-suicide of a father and his two children in rural Boone County: https://t.co/5kWOx1n5SW Jenna Watson (@JennaRWatson) September 21, 2018 Teens Were Sleeping Sheriff Mike Nielsen said it appeared that Hunn shot his children as they slept before killing himself. Ill never be able to explain why it happens. Its a tragic event, we see it all too often and we just dont have the answers sometimes for why these things occur, Sheriff Nielsen said, reported Fox 59. This is a community thats come together in the past, its going to come together in this particular event as well and were gonna try to get through it. Nielsen said an investigation has been launched but right now the motive for the killings is unclear. It may take us weeks, it may take us months to figure out and during that time the investigation will continue and its going to be important we continue to pray for the family because theyre going to need that closure, Sheriff Nielsen said. Divorce and Concerns Documents obtained by the Indianapolis Star showed Reece and Hunn were married for 17 years before getting divorced in November 2017. Reece stated in divorce proceedings that she was concerned about Hunns behavior around the children and requested the judge reduce his time with them. She also requested he be monitored with a blood alcohol monitoring device. The petition stated that the children had told their grandmother Hunn was drinking and wasnt able to drive them to events or take care of them. A mediation agreement reached in April indicated the divorced couple resolved the issues, with Hunn agreeing to use a mobile breathalyzer system and pay weekly child support. However, in July Reeces attorney told Hunns lawyer that he wasnt paying child support, while Hunn was also on the hook for a toll ticket he had agreed to pay. A petition filed in August based on the issues led to a hearing being scheduled for late September. From NTD.tv A view from a Border Patrol helicopter, shows the Texas Border Patrol and Texas State Troopers detaining illegal aliens from Mexico near McAllen, Texas, on May 30, 2017. (Benjamin Chasteen/The Epoch Times) Up to 29 Million Illegal Aliens in United States: Yale Study Up to 29 million illegal immigrants are currently living in the United States, according to researchers affiliated with Yale University, with a mean estimate of 22.1 million out of the range delivered by a mathematical model. Thats more than twice the number of previous estimates or 11.3 million illegal aliens. The researchers said they used mathematical modeling on a range of demographic and immigration operations data. The lowest estimate based on their modeling is 16.7 million illegal aliens. The results were published in PLOS ONE. Our original idea was just to do a sanity check on the existing number, Edward Kaplan, the William N. and Marie A. Beach professor of Operations Research at the Yale School of Management, said in a Yale press release. Instead of a number which was smaller, we got a number that was 50 percent higher. That caused us to scratch our heads. New Model Produces New Results Jonathan Feinstein, the John G. Searle professor of Economics and Management at Yale School of Management, said that the figure everybody was quoting for a while appears that it might wrong. Theres a number that everybody quotes, but when you actually dig down and say, What is it based on? You find its based on one very specific survey and possibly an approach that has some difficulties. So we went in and just took a very different approach, he said. The 11.3 million illegal immigrant estimate was based on extrapolation of the Census Bureaus annual American Community Survey. Its been the only method used for the last three decades, said Mohammad FazelZarandi, a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and formerly a postdoctoral associate and lecturer in operations at the Yale School of Management. Demographic and Operational Data The new approach the researchers used was based on operational data, including deportations and visa overstays. They combined that with demographic data, including death rates and immigration rates. The paper examined data from 1990 to 2016. We combined these data using a demographic model that follows a very simple logic, Kaplan said. The population today is equal to the initial population plus everyone who came in minus everyone who went out. Its that simple. Because there is significant uncertainty surrounding some of the figures, researchers produced a range of results using the model. The researchers 95 percent probability range is 16 million to 29 million, with 22.1 million as the mean. The researchers noted that they examined the past, and are just presenting a new range of figures that can give new insight into the issues surrounding illegal immigration. They said they hope their research spurs further research into the area. From NTD.tv Vice President Pence Says Kavanaugh A Man of Integrity Vice President Mike Pence said Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is a man of integrity. Following President Donald Trumps support of Kavanaugh, after a California woman accused the judge of sexually assaulting her in 1982, Pence said on Saturday, Sept. 22, that Kavanaugh is a man of integrity with impeccable credentials and a proven judicial philosophy. On the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, he wrote more than 300 opinions that reflect a strong record of support for limited government, religious liberty, and our Second Amendment. Hes a conservative who will interpret the Constitution as written and his record and career deserves the respect of every member of the United States Senate, Pence told a gathering of evangelicals at the Values Voter Summit in Washington. But honestly, the way some Democrats have conducted themselves during this process is a disgrace and a disservice to the Senate and the American people. That being said, the president and I are confident that Senate Republicans will manage this confirmation properly with the utmost respect for all concerned. And I believe that Judge Brett Kavanaugh will soon be Justice Brett Kavanaugh and take his seat on the Supreme Court Of the United States. Judge Kavanaugh is a man of integrity, with impeccable credentials & a proven judicial philosophy. I believe Judge Brett Kavanaugh will soon be JUSTICE Brett Kavanaugh & take his seat on the Supreme Court of the United States. #VVS18 pic.twitter.com/LfJtonQynm Mike Pence (@mike_pence) September 22, 2018 While Republicans have been delivering on a common-sense conservative agenda, Democrats have fallen further to the left than ever beforeThe Democrats are now running actual socialists for higher office this November. #VVS18 Mike Pence (@mike_pence) September 22, 2018 Urges People to Vote Pence made no reference to Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, whose accusation was made public by Democrats only after public hearings on Kavanaugh had concluded, just days before a scheduled vote. Ford, who has not been able to provide a range of details, including the date, time, or place of the alleged assault when she and Kavanaugh were both in high school, agreed to testify, according to a letter her lawyers sent the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 22. The public hearing is scheduled for the morning of Sept. 24. Pence also urged people to vote in the national elections in November. Complacency is the greatest threat to our majority on Capitol Hill. And so I encourage you to leave here today with a burden on your heart. Get out the vote. Well win if we get out the vote. As the president said two nights ago in Las Vegas with his usual economy of words. You gotta get out for the midterms,' he said. With 45 days to go, my fellow conservatives as youve heard at this summit, now is time for the sake of America to pray, to vote, to stand. And I know you will. The other side is mobilized and some say theyre motivated as never before, but I say we must match, in fact I say we must surpass the energy of the American left in their enthusiasm and passion. And if we do we will win. The Associated Press contributed to this report. From NTD.tv Which Factors Will Decide Victory in the SinoUS Trade War? The concept of China as the worlds factory has had its short time in the sun As the SinoU.S. trade war escalates, the tariffs imposed by the United States on Chinese imports can be seen as a red light on Chinese-produced goods, which will divert procurement and supply chains to other locations. As a portion of U.S. imports stops coming from China, it will cause a shift in the Sinocentric global industrial chain that emerged at the beginning of the century. On Sept. 18, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he would implement a $200 billion tariff on China in two phases. Chinas Ministry of Commerce immediately announced that it would counter Trumps move with equal tariffs on Chinese goods. The White House responded to this, saying that once China takes these countermeasures, it would impose tariffs on another $267 billion worth Chinese products. Now that the trade war has begun in earnest, who will come out victorious? We cannot determine victory or defeat simply from the amount of the tariffs levied, but rather from how the tariffs impact the flow of international trade. By turning on the red light of tariffs, the United States may cause the flow of goods to shift to other countries, and China would lose its world factory status that it has enjoyed since the start of the 21st century. The Chinese State Media Are Fighting the Wrong Battle Since the beginning of the trade war, Chinese media have often described the confrontation in military terms, talking about the U.S. tariffs and Chinese counter-tariffs as bullets, as if whoever imposes more tariffs on the other party will win the trade war. But this comparison is very misleading. The tariffs imposed by the United States do not eliminate importers; instead, they are a warninghence the term red lightfor importers that the prices of goods imported from China will rise. One solution is to pass the increased costs to consumers, but if the price of imported goods becomes too expensive, consumers will lose willingness to buy. Another solution then is for importers to pay the costs, which risks a loss of profitability. Mainland Chinese media and U.S. companies that testified and opposed Washingtons policies in government hearings believe that increasing tariffs will force U.S. consumers to buy price-hiked goods. In other words, the bullets that Trump shot at China will rebound to U.S. consumers. In fact, importers cannot actually force U.S. consumers to buy goods and Chinese products are not the only ones available. Chinese Products Can Be Replaced Importers in the United States, such as those that own large retail chains, have been purchasing large quantities of cheap daily necessities from China over the years, such as clothing, footwear, childrens toys, household appliances, office supplies, and the like. These are the main products affected by the tariffs. However, fears that consumers will suffer because of the increased cost of goods from China are unfounded. Take clothing and bedding products as an example. More than a decade ago, American clothing stores and department stores were full of Chinese products. It was difficult to find anything not made in China. However, as the costs of Chinese clothing and bedding started to rise, U.S. importers saw their profits decrease and gradually began transferring their procurements to South or Southeast Asia. Clothing and bedding products increasingly came from countries like India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Vietnam, or Malaysia. From this example, it can be seen that Chinese manufacturers exporting consumer goods, household appliances, office supplies, and hardware tools are not filling an irreplaceable role. In fact, Chinas low-end manufacturing industry faces competition from many countries around the world. Its not difficult set up similar companies in South or Southeast Asia, or to train employees there, as the successful transfer of clothing and bedding supply chains from China to these countries proves. Stopped at a Red Light At the hearing on increasing tariffs on Chinese products held by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, many American companies expressed strong opposition since products imported from China have the ideal balance between price and quality and that increased tariffs would force them to shift the burden to consumers. At the hearing, the government asked the companies if they could place orders with producers in other countries, but industry representatives denied this possibility. But does this hold water? The American clothing and bedding industry has already completed the supply chain transfer; why cant companies in other industries follow suit? The problem is not that the supply chain cannot be transferred, but that doing so would inconvenience the importers, although they do not want to admit this. These companies have long relied on Chinese manufacturing and are familiar with their suppliers, which saves them a lot of trouble when doing business. However, no importer in the United States has a monopoly in the business. If some of these companies start to look for manufacturers to provide stable supply chains in countries other than China, those companies will soon dominate the U.S. market with lower prices. Lazier importers will be forced to do the same, or face bankruptcy. If some U.S. companies insist on using products made in China, they will not only have to face competition from other U.S. companies which have their supply chains in countries other than China, but also competition from Chinese companies. In order to keep the U.S. market and dodge Washingtons tariffs, some Chinese companies have begun to transfer production to Southeast Asian countries and elsewhere. The doubled pressure will compel American importers to shift their orders and adjust supply chains. Daily necessities such as office stationery and hardware dont even have to be manufactured abroad at all. As the price gap between U.S. and Chinese manufacturing closes, the added 25 percent tariffs will allow American manufacturers a chance at competition. This will help revitalize American industry and bring down unemployment, which is one of the reasons Trump began the trade war. As Washingtons tariffs on China turn on red lights for trading firms, the flow of imported goods will detour from China to other source countries. Within a few years, as part of the U.S. imported goods flow leaves China, part of the Sinocentric industrial chain that formed during the economic globalization in this century will also be transferred to other countries. The concept of China as the worlds factory has had its short time in the sun, soon to be replaced by the other nations of Asia. One consequence of this is that as Chinas foreign currency reserves decline in tandem with the fall in exports, the Chinese regime can be expected to further tighten controls on foreign exchanges. Dr. Cheng Xiaonong is a scholar of Chinas politics and economy based in New Jersey. Cheng was a policy researcher and aide to the former Party leader Zhao Ziyang, when Zhao was premier. He also served as chief editor of the journal Modern China Studies. National American Legion Commander Brett Reistad will travel from Indiana to Connecticut for a meeting of the James B. Whipple American Legion Post 86 in Wilton on Oct. 2. The newly elected Commander Reistad is a veteran of the Vietnam War and is the 100th commander of the American Legion, which is the nations largest veterans organization. The visit will include a meet & greet from 12:15 to 2 p.m. at Post 86, 112 Old Ridgefield Rd., Wilton. All veterans, family members and the general public are welcome. Post 86 requests that RSVPs be sent to legionpost86@gmail.com or that guests call Tom Moore, adjutant of Post 86, at 203-918-3767. For more information on Post 86, visit post86legion.org. Circle of Care 5K Support and celebrate children with cancer and their families from around the state by participating in the 4th Annual Circle of Care 5K on Sunday. This is a community-wide event takes runners right through the heart of Wilton Center. It begins and ends at Town Green at Wilton Center, across from Wilton Village Market. The kids fun run begins at 8 a.m., followed by the 5K at 8:30 a.m. Cash prizes will be given to the top three men and women. Sponsorships are still available. If interested, contact Tammi Small at tammi.small@thecircleofcare.org. Religious School Meet & Greet Temple B'nai Chaim, at 82 Portland Ave., will hold a Meet & Greet for its religious school on Sunday from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. It will include a community cookout. Movie night at Merwin Meadows Park Wilton Parks and Recreation is putting on a free movie night for Wilton residents on Sept. 27. The Disney/Pixar movie Coco will run from 7:15 p.m. until 9 p.m. at Merwin Meadows Park, 52 Lovers Lane. Free popcorn will be given out on a first-come, first-serve basis until it runs out. Bring a non-alcoholic beverage and any picnic items you may want with your chair or blankets and enjoy the outdoor movie experience. Come early to get your space and have a picnic on the grass or at one of the picnic tables in the park. No pets please. Pets are not allowed in the park. An update to the Historic House Survey On Sept. 27 from 7 to 8:30 p.m., the public is invited to an illustrated talk given by architectural historians Stacey Vairo of Scheller Preservation Associates and Lucas Karmazinas of FuturePast Preservation at the Wilton Historical Society. A reception will follow the talk. The pair have conducted a historic house survey primarily focused on buildings dating from 1920-1940 in Wilton, of which there are over 400. In all, about 160 structures have been added to Wiltons Historic Resource Inventory. The presentation will include information about how the survey was conducted and used, interesting finds, areas that would be appropriate to be studied for historic district designation and much more. The project has been funded by a Survey and Planning grant of $30,000 from Connecticuts State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) which was awarded to the Society in late 2016. At the lecture, owners of any buildings that appear on the lists will be able to pick up a copy of their homes history. All are welcome, but attendees are encouraged to register at info@wiltonhistorical.org or call 203-762-7257. ALTON The fifth and final suspect police say was involved in the Aug. 26 triple shooting that killed 23-year-old Keron W. Hickman is in custody. Jordan T. Jackson, 20, of St. Louis, was arrested Wednesday by members of the U.S. Marshals Service, St. Louis County Police Department and the Alton Police Department in the area of West Florissant and Chambers Road in St. Louis. Gov. Bruce Rauner shouldnt be worried only about Democratic rival J.B. Pritzker in the four-way race for the governors mansion. A political expert says that Thursdays first gubernatorial forum has convinced him that third-party candidate Sam McCann could be a problem for the first-term incumbent. The gubernatorial forum took a heated turn when Rauner accused former Republican McCann, a state senator from Plainview, of being a plant of House Speaker Michael Madigan. You said you had no social agenda and all youve been able to accomplish is to make yourself the most progressive liberal governor the state of Illinois has ever had, McCann said, to which Rauner shot back with arguably his most pointed line of the night. Mr. McCann, are you getting paid on a per-interruption basis by Madigan or in a lump sum? the governor asked. Rauner has been criticized by conservatives for signing into law legislation that allows for taxpayer funding of elective abortions by state workers and individuals on Medicaid. Associate professor Nick Kachiroubas from DePaul Universitys School of Public Service said Rauner has a real problem with the McCann serving as a hurdle in solidifying a pro-Trump base that the governor needs to beat Pritzker. Seeing the way he was attacking Gov. Rauner and the way he was positioning him against the Trump administration, McCann for good or for bad spoke directly to those people, Kachiroubas said. Although hes a member of the newly-formed Conservative Party, McCanns funding comes almost entirely from labor unions that have close ties to Illinois Democrats. The International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150 donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to McCanns campaign, but endorsed Pritzker for governor. McCann was even asked by the forum moderator if he was placed in the race to foil Rauner. McCann said he was in the race to win. The election is Nov. 6. EDWARDSVILLE Felony charges filed Sept. 20 by the Madison County States Attorneys Office include: Shantae Cannon (AKA Shante Cannon), 24, of Chicago, was charged with aggravated battery, a Class 3 felony, after allegedly striking a state employee, performing official duties Sept. 1 in Alton, on the face and stabbing them with a pen. Bail was set at 80,000. Justin L. Hazelip, 33, listed as homeless by Alton Police, was charged with burglary, a Class 2 felony, after allegedly entering the office of NR Deed LLC, in the 3300 block of Franor Street, Alton, to commit theft. Bail was set at $50,000. Devin S. McVey, 22, of the 300 block of South 13th Street, was charged with aggravated driving under the influence while license revoked/suspended, a Class 4 felony. According to court documents, on Sept. 20 he was arrested by Wood River police. Bail was set at $25,000. Peter R. Stasinec, 55, of Chicago, was charged with forgery, a Class 3 felony, after allegedly attempting to fraudulently cash a $7,000 check on Aug. 3. The case was filed by the Glen Carbon Police Department. Bail was set at $30,000. Melissa A. Brown, 38, of the 400 block of Anna Avenue, Wood River; and Brandon W. White, 39, of the 400 block of Evans Avenue, Wood River, were both charged with unlawful use of a credit card, a Class 3 felony, after using multiple gift cards to purchase more than $300 in merchandise without the consent of the owner on Aug. 16. The case was filed by the Glen Carbon Police Department. Bail was set at $15,000. Curtis J. Jenkins, 25, of the 200 block of Andes Drive, Glen Carbon, was charged with unlawful possession of cannabis with intent to deliver, a Class 3 felony, after allegedly being found in possession of between 30-500 grams of cannabis Aug. 14 in Glen Carbon. Bail was set at $20,000. Monica A. Olenhouse, 26, Of Grain Valley, Missouri, was charged with unlawful possession of a controlled substance, a Class 4 felony, after allegedly being found in possession of less than 15 grams of cocaine May 3 in Glen Carbon. Bail was set at $15,000. Scott E. Ruthardt, 53, of the 200 block of Matterhorn Court, Glen Carbon, was charged with aggravated driving while under the influence, a Class 2 felony. According to court documents, on May 9 he was allegedly driving a 1994 Oldsmobile on N. Bluff Road near Sugar Loaf Road in Collinsville. Documents listed previous convictions out of Lake and DuPage counties in Illinois, and Camden County in Missouri. Bail was set at $25,000. Flash U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday warned that the Trump administration will take "a serious of actions" against the Venezuelan government in the coming days. Speaking in an interview with Fox News, Pompeo said that "I think you'll see in the coming days a series of actions that continue to increase the pressure level against the Venezuelan leadership folks." Claiming that "we're determined to ensure that the Venezuelan people get their say," Pompeo declined to detail whether Washington will impose more sanctions on Caracas. The remarks came ahead of the annual UN General Assembly slated in New York next week. Several U.S. media outlets reported earlier this month that the Trump administration has talked secretly with rebellious Venezuelan military officers several times to discuss their plans to stage a coup in the South American country. For his part, U.S. President Donald Trump said in August of last year that he would not rule out a "military option" in Venezuela "if necessary," despite his aides' opposition. The U.S. side has also announced several rounds of sanctions against Venezuelan government officials ever since. In response, Venezuela has slammed the "warmongering" declarations of Trump as "threats to peace" and a "violation" of UN and international laws. The Maduro government has also instructed the military to prepare to "shoulder arms" in case of a U.S. invasion. Andrew Lichtenstein | Getty Image The Illinois State Museum is looking for photos of immigrants to display in the We are Illinoisans exhibit at the Illinois State Museum from Feb. 23 to mid-June. The exhibit will highlight immigrants to Illinois in the 18th century to today. The week of Sept. 17-21 as seen through the lens of Telegraph photojournalist John Badman. 3 hours ago Beyond Meat Q3 sales fall short as US demand drops Plant-based meat maker Beyond Meat reported lower-than-expected sales in the third quarter due to a slump in U.S. demand. Beyond Meat said its sales increased 12.7% to $106.4 million for the July-September period. Read Article You are here: World Flash Mohamed Choucair, head of the Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture in Lebanon, emphasized Friday the need to remove all obstacles facing the export of Lebanese products to the Brazilian market. "The presence of Lebanese businessmen in Brazil already facilitates the increase in trade between the two countries but more efforts should be done to promote Lebanese products in Brazil," Choucair said. Choucair's remarks came during his meeting with President of the Arab-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce Rubens Hanoun. The meeting aimed at discussing ways of strengthening bilateral ties between Lebanon and Brazil. Hanoun praised the efforts made by Choucair to develop economic ties with Brazil, nothing that there exist a lot of opportunities for business between the two countries. Millions of Lebanese headed to Brazil to leave behind the economic unrest, political turmoil and long periods of security instability that plagued Lebanon during the civil war years. A new report of the research done by the Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC), Uganda Womens Network (UWONET) and Makerere University School of Gender and Women Studies, say there is need to balance the unpaid care work between men and women in the country. Dubbed Gender Roles and the Care Economy in Ugandan Households, the case of Kaabong, Kabale and Kampala Districts, the report highlights how unpaid care and domestic work is distributed in Ugandas households. It warns that if care work is not distributed properly across women and men within and outside the household, heavy care work can negatively affect employment and earnings, leisure time, participation in development initiatives, sleep among others for women and girls. Stories Continues after ad The report defines unpaid care and domestic work (UCDW) as work done in services of others entirely by women and girls, motivated by reasons other than financial compensation. Women income earnings are still low averaging Shs50, 000-200,000 per month, it notes. But Specific policies designed to reduce womens UCDW are non-existent in Uganda. The report says that unpaid care work is primarily carried out by women and girls and states that more men than women spend most of their time in atypical 24-hour day on paid work (24 per cent for men compared to 13.8 per cent for women) According to the report majority of the women said they would spend the time doing more income generating work in case of less care work (Kampala 61.6 per cent) Kaabong 46.6 per cent and Kabale 34 per cent. The report also cites acceptability of violence against women for perceived care failings for example failing to care well for the children. This is higher in Kaboong than in other districts. The report calls on government to adopt triple R approach of Recognizing care at policy, community and household levels, Reducing difficult care work through labour saving technology, and Redistributing the care work costs and responsibilities from men to women. Since childcare is considered the most problematic care activities, the report also advises that women and men decide on the number of children to have given that fewer children reduce care workload. According United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), one of the significant structural barriers to womens economic empowerment is womens disproportionate burden of unpaid work at home that restricts women from taking up paid jobs, undertaking advanced education and skills training, and most importantly participation in public life. Flash U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday that he hopes to travel to Pyongyang, the capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) soon to prepare for the second summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and the DPRK's top leader Kim Jong Un. "I'm hopeful that I'll get a chance to travel again to Pyongyang to continue these negotiations before too long," Pompeo said in an interview with MSNBC. "And then before too long - and in relatively short order - I hope the two leaders get together again to continue to make progress on this incredible, important issue for the entire world." "Ultimately, that'll be a decision for the president," Pompeo said, referring to the second summit between Trump and Kim. Noting that the United States has the "patience and determination" to achieve its goal on Korean Peninsula's denuclearization, he added that the sanctions against the DPRK would remain until the Asian nation denuclearizes. "Those economic sanctions will remain in place until we get to the end, till we get to that final denuclearization," Pompeo said. In a separate interview with Fox News, Pompeo said that regarding the Trump-Kim meeting, there is still "a little bit of work" to do "to make sure conditions are right and that the two leaders are put in a position where we can make substantial progress," Pompeo said. The White House said on Sept. 10 that it has received a letter from Kim Jong Un, requesting another meeting with Trump, noting that it was "open to" the meeting and is already "in the process of coordinating that." The U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton also said earlier that the possibility of another meeting between the leaders of Washington and Pyongyang "obviously exists." At the conclusion of the historic Trump-Kim summit in June in Singapore, the two sides issued a joint statement, agreeing to improve bilateral relations and work together to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the peninsula. However, the current U.S.-DPRK talks have been stuck in an impasse due to their differences in the scale of denuclearization, U.S. sanctions, and whether to issue a war-ending declaration. In August, just one day after Pompeo announced his visit to the DPRK, Trump tweeted that he had asked Pompeo not to go due to the insufficient progress with the DPRK. During his Sept. 18-20 trip to Pyongyang, South Korean President Moon Jae-in held talks with Kim, and signed the Pyongyang Declaration on further steps towards the Korean Peninsula's denuclearization and concrete measures to end hostile acts near inter-Korean border areas. Pompeo said later in response that the United States is ready to transform its relations with the DPRK immediately. He added that "I invited my counterpart Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho to meet in New York City next week where we are both already scheduled to be in attendance at the United Nations General Assembly meeting." "Likewise, we have invited North Korean representatives to meet our Special Representative for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, in Vienna, Austria at the earliest opportunity," Pompeo noted. However, the U.S. State Department said one day later that the denuclearization of Pyongyang has to come first before the U.S. side gives any corresponding reciprocal measures. In a related development, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said on Wednesday that China welcomed the consensus reached by South Korea and the DPRK. "China, as a close neighbor, always supports the efforts of the north and south of the peninsula to improve their ties and push forward reconciliation and cooperation through dialogue and consultation," Geng said, noting that China hopes that the two sides will continue to implement the consensus, endeavor to promote interaction and cooperation and play a positive role in achieving a political solution to the peninsula issue as well as lasting peace in the region. Flash Turkey and Russia agreed on the borders of a disarmament zone in Syria's Idlib province following a three-day meeting, Turkish Defense Ministry announced on Friday. The ministry said in a statement that it held an meeting with the Russian delegation in Ankara on Sept. 19-21 to discuss the implementation of the Sochi agreement for Idlib. "During the meetings, the borders of the disarmament zone were determined after considering the geographical structure and settlements in Idlib," it added. Meanwhile, Turkish and Russian security and intelligence officials are working together on a roadmap planned within the Sochi deal on Idlib, Turkish presidential spokesperson Ibrahim Kalin said Friday. They are seeking an solution to separate radical militants from the moderate opposition and withdraw these groups from the disarmament zone, he said. Turkey will continue taking necessary steps on reinforcing the 12 observation points in Idlib, Kalin stressed. Turkey and Russia stroke a deal on Monday to establish a disarmament zone in Syria's northwestern Idlib province following a meeting in Sochi between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. The memorandum of understanding will see the creation of a buffer zone some 15-20 kilometers deep around the frontlines of Idlib, patrolled by Russian and Turkish troops. Radical rebel groups who currently occupy those areas will be forced to withdraw by October 15. Flash Environment, oceans and energy ministers of the Group of Seven (G7) concluded their three-day meeting here on Friday with a call for globally joint action for healthy oceans, seas and resilient coastal communities. During the meeting, the ministers discussed the need for collaborative partnerships with relevant stakeholders, in particular with local, indigenous, remote coastal and small islands communities, the private sector, international organizations and civil society to foster effective and innovative solutions to improve the health of oceans and seas in the world. The ministers also discussed ways to advance the priorities identified in the Ocean Plastics Charter which was launched at the Charlevoix G7 summit in June and provides an international framework to guide action to stop the flow of plastics to the oceans. The invited countries participating in the G7 meeting promised for strong support the charter. The non-binding charter was agreed to by five of the G7 leaders and the European Union at the G7's Charlevoix summit in June, though neither the United States nor Japan have signed on. At the meeting, major multinational businesses made important commitments to reduce plastic pollution. In addition, working with the World Economic Forum, Canada will invest six million Canadian dollars (4.64 million U.S. dollars) to strengthen public-private partnerships to support global action in plastic pollution hot spots. Because healthy oceans not only help mitigate the effects of climate change, but also is a major source of food for the world's population, a key driver of national and local economies, and an opportunity for new sources of renewable energy, the meeting stressed the need for urgent action to address marine plastic pollution through social and technological innovation and supporting sustainable oceans and fisheries by combating illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. The ministers also agreed to launch the G7 Initiative on Earth Observation and Integrated Coastal Zone Management to improve the availability and accessibility of data and services that are critical to better understand the current state of our oceans and coasts. The meeting is the fourth ministerial meeting of Canada's G7 presidency. The G7 is a group of seven of the world's advanced economies, consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. The European Union is also represented at the G7 meeting. Ministers and representatives from Jamaica, Kenya, the Republic of Marshall Islands, Nauru, Norway, Seychelles, South Africa and Vietnam also attended the meeting on invitation. Cambodia pardons Australian filmmaker jailed for espionage CAMBODIA: An Australian filmmaker jailed for espionage in Cambodia received a royal pardon and was released yesterday (Sept 21), less than a month after he was sentenced to six years in prison in a case observers slammed as a farce. politicscrime By AFP Saturday 22 September 2018, 05:07PM The prosecution had accused Ricketson of working as a filmmaker in Cambodia for years as a front for espionage. Photo: AFP / file James Ricketson, 69, was sentenced in late August following his arrest in June last year after he flew a drone over a rally held by the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), which was effectively banned months later. Convict James Stanforth Ricketson is pardoned, said the royal decree signed by acting head of state Say Chhum. It added that the request for the pardon came from strongman premier Hun Sen. Ricketsons lawyer Kong Sam Onn confirmed Ricketson has been released and is now with his family. His son Jesse said the family was "relieved and excited" to have Ricketson back. It has been a really tough 16 months and Im just kind of in shock now, Jesse said, expressing gratitude to Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni for bringing this nightmare to an end. The six-day trial which featured a surprise appearance by Hollywood director Peter Weir serving as a character witness for his friend ended with the court convicting Ricketson for espionage and collecting harmful information that could affect national defence. The prosecution had accused Ricketson of working as a filmmaker in Cambodia for years as a front for espionage but the verdict did not mention the country that he was allegedly spying for. Human Rights Watch called the trial proceedings a ludicrous charade. Ricketsons release comes after a series of activists and opposition lawmakers were freed in the weeks following Julys national election, which critics have said was neither free nor fair. The CNRP was dissolved in the lead-up to the controversial poll, stamping out the only real competition faced by Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party and paving the way for all 125 parliament seats to be filled by his lawmakers. Following the vote Hun Sen who has been in power for more than three decades returned to a pattern of easing up on dissent. Ricketson's pardon comes just a few days before Hun Sen is scheduled to travel to New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly. Phuket probation officers prepare to use electronic tagging devices PHUKET: Phuket Probation Office Director Prachya Chaiwaranurak yesterday (Sept 21) led a seminar to educate local government officers and about electronic monitoring for offenders. By The Phuket News Saturday 22 September 2018, 12:25PM One of the bracelets fitted with a GPS system to inform court officials of the whereabouts of offenders who are released on bail or on parole. Photo: Bangkok Post The objective of the seminar, at The Pago Design Hotel Phuket, was for participants to be able to use this devices on Effectively and to know about its barrier and suggestions for implementation. Present presiding over the event was Phuket Vice Governor Snith Srivihok. The Department of Probation under the Ministry of Justice is focussing on improving the conditions of the offenders by allowing them back into the community, Mr Prachya said. Several probation offices have already used these devices, with success. For the budget year 2018, the Department of Probation has a policy to expand its operations throughout the country, so people involved in this should know and understand this technology and the related laws, he said. In February, Sarawut Benjakul, Secretary-General of the Office of the Judiciary, and Prasarn Mahaleetrakul, Director-General of the Probation Department, announced that electronic ankle bracelets will be used on offenders in lieu of jail terms at 23 courts nationwide under a pilot project to ease overcrowding in prisons. A total of 5,000 electronic bracelets at a cost of B80.8 million will be used on suspects and defendants in criminal cases, reported the Bangkok Post. (See story here.) The bracelets will track the movements of offenders who are released on bail, put on probation or who are on parole. They will not have to stay in jail but they will have to wear the tracking bracelets so authorities can keep an eye on them. Mr Sarawut said if offenders lack the funds to post a surety bond and do not commit any serious offence, the courts must consider the use of ankle bracelets. Police arrest three drug suspects on the same Phuket Town street PHUKET: Hot on the heels of police arresting seven suspects in the one Drug Street in Phuket Town on Wednesday, Phuket City Police yesterday (Sept 21) arrested three suspects for drugs in a small sidestreet in Phuket Town, with two of the suspects staying in the same rented room mansion. crimedrugspolice By Eakkapop Thongtub Saturday 22 September 2018, 03:54PM The three suspects were arrested in the same street in Phuket Town, with two of them staying in the same rented room mansion on the street. Photos: Phuket City Police Officers led by Col Sompong Thipapakul of the Phuket City Police arrested Wichian Ma Setan, 35, at Thitath Mansion in Soi Kopai, off Phuket Rd, after having him under surveillance for suspect drug dealing. Wichian was found in possession of 14 packs containing a total of 9.35 grams of crystal methamphetamine (ya ice) as well as 184 methamphetamine pills (ya bah). Wichian confessed that he received the drugs from a "Mr Peak", who he contacted by phone, adding that he picked up the drugs from a location along the bypass road and he was to sell them to people in the Phuket City area. Wichian explained that he had divided the drugs into the packets to sell, was arrested before he could do so, reported police. Wichian was taken to Phuket City Police Station and charged with possession of a Category 1 drug with intent to sell. Police are continuing their investigation into Wichiens associates. The officers yesterday also arrested Nittaya Vunsangtum, 30, in a different room at Thitath Mansion after she was found in possession of 50mg (0.05g) of ya ice and 44 kratom leaves weighing in total about three kilograms, police reported. Nittaya was taken to Phuket City Police station and charged with possession of a Category 1 drug (ya ice) and illegal possession of a Category 5 drug (kratom). While they were on Soi Kopai, police also arrested Peerayuth Atikunaruk, 29, after he was found to be carrying 700mg of ya ice. He, too, was taken to Phuket City Police Station, where he was charged with possession of a Category 1 drug. The arrests yesterday follow police on Wednesday arresting seven drug suspects in the same small street, Anupas Phuket Karn Soi 12, including a 63-year-old woman. (See story here.) CALGARYA man accused of raping and killing a Calgary mother of four has been found guilty of first-degree murder. Curtis Healy, who is 29, slouched in his seat after he was convicted in the death of Dawns Baptiste, whom hed met on a light-rail transit train hours before he killed her. Several of Baptistes loved ones were in the gallery, many wearing T-shirts with a photo of the smiling pink-haired woman. Several sighed and weeped after the verdict was read. The jury heard that Healy became enraged when Baptiste told him to leave her alone and that he stomped her head, dragged her into a back yard, raped her and struck her head with a large rock. The Crown argued it was first-degree murder because the killing, sexual assault and unlawful confinement happened together early on Feb. 11, 2015. The defence asked the jury to convict Healy of second-degree murder because the sequence of events was unclear. Jury deliberations were paused for several hours on Friday after it was revealed that jurors had drinks the previous night in their hotels restaurant, where televisions were switched on and other patrons were present. Jurors are not to access the internet, read the news or interact with other members of the public while they are sequestered. Healys lawyer asked for a mistrial but Queens Bench Justice Charlene Anderson denied the request. Read more about: CALGARYFor over 10 years, Stephanie English and her daughters, Joey English and Alison Moses, talked about organizing a walk to spread awareness about missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. Then, Stephanie English lost both daughters and found herself organizing the walk alone. Me and my girls were wanting to do this before they passed, and it was just kind of put off and put off, said English. Now its kind of falling into place. English lost Alison, who was almost 21, in June 2015 to a suspected suicide. Exactly a year later, in June 2016, police found 25-year-old Joeys dismembered body in various locations across Calgary. The medical examiner concluded Joey died of an overdose before a male acquaintance found and dismembered her body. In 2017, Judge Mike Dinkle sentenced Joshua Weise to 18 months in jail plus three years probation for offering an indignity to human remains. Two years after Joeys death, English is hoping her walk, Calling My Spirit Back, will garner attention for Indigenous families struggling with loss. A lot of First Nations are being murdered and nothing is being said or done about it, English said. When it is, theres no closure. Despite Englishs attempts to heal, she said she will never come to terms with the loss of her daughters, especially Joey. I hope for closure but I wont have closure, said English. When your daughter is in the landfill, youll never have closure. English said shes tried therapy, but it hasnt worked. I stopped everything treatments, therapies and doctor suggestions and I went back to my traditional ways, said English, who originates from Piikani Nation. Thats whats grounding me. It helps me get the anger out of my life. English remembers her daughters as two peas in a pod. They were one-of-a-kind, they were really funny. I really miss them, English said. They were really kind girls, really pretty girls, and they had dreams we had dreams. This walk was one of them. Joey and Alison were survived by their children and younger siblings, most of whom live with English. English said her babies are where I get my strength. Now, English is channelling that strength to get through her upcoming walk. English partnered with the Awo Taan Healing Lodge Society, an emergency womens shelter, and received financial support from the Aboriginal Friendship Centre of Calgary. She said both groups have been really awesome and really helpful. The walk will start on Tuesday, Oct. 2 in Piikani Nation. The group will walk north along Highway 2 for 44 hours straight until everyone ends up in Calgary, a journey of roughly 200 kilometres. On Oct. 4 at 11:30 a.m., Calling My Spirit Back will unite with Awo Taans annual Sisters in Spirit Vigil at Calgarys Olympic Plaza. The groups will honour missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls and their loved ones. This journey Im on is to let other people know theyre not alone, English said, adding she wants to halt the ongoing cycle of violence targeting Indigenous peoples. I know that I need to do this, English said. If I can have that support throughout southern Alberta ... I hope that change will come. Good change. Read more about: CALGARYMaria Galura has loved balloons since she was a young girl in the Philippines. Once mass was over on Sunday, vendors would be outside selling balloons ... I would know when it was almost time to get out, so I could go and pick a balloon, Galura said. So it started from there. I was 8 years old when I told myself one day I will open my own party shop just so I could make everyone happy. And this week, the mother of two has made hundreds of people in the city giddy with excitement. Galura has transformed the historic Enoch Sales Residence, which sits abandoned in Victoria Park, into a doppelganger of the home from the 2009 Pixar film Up. Titled Dreams Never Die, the project uses more than 3,700 biodegradable balloons as a piece of artwork for Beakerhead festival. My only pride is that I strung all the balloons myself, Galura said. Galura said shes loved the film Up for years. The soundtrack was the first album she downloaded when she arrived in Calgary seven years ago. She knows every single score from the movie. Shes even decorated her balloon cart after the movie. To her, the movie is about pursuing a dream, even if it takes decades. (Carl) went to Paradise Falls. He was selling balloons at the zoo and he thought Ill do it for myself, even if it took him years, Galura said. It can come true if you work hard on your dream it just takes time. She knows just how long it can take to see a dream come true. Galuras passion for balloons followed her to university, where she would raise money for her engineering courses by selling balloons. Everyone knew that wherever she went, there would be an array of colourful balloons trailing behind her. When she graduated as an industrial engineer, she gave up her life of colour. She stumbled into her former passion years later in Canada; while celebrating the first birthday of her child, she created an elaborate balloon display. I got three tanks of balloons, (after the party) I sold the leftover supplies to another mom on Kijiji, Galura said. She asked how I did it and I told her it was easy. The second birthday I did the same. One mom asked me to do it for her, and then another one and another one. That was four years ago. Since then, Galura has started her own party business, Calgary Party 50, which she runs on the side of her full-time job. Now, as she takes in the hundreds of people who gather to enjoy her creation, shes overcome with emotion. It makes my heart full. Our objective was just to spread happiness and smiles for free, Galura said. Its titled Dreams Never Die and I had this dream when I was young. Although she did not name the project, it holds a special meaning to her, because it reminds her of her father who died 14 years ago. He had a political group back in the Philippines and their song there was a line that said, You know our dreams will never die, dreams see us through, which I think was from Land Before Time, Galura said. When they told me the name to this installation my heart was melting because my dad used to stuff balloons in a big bag so I could sell it in university. That means a lot. And while the Calgary art installation isnt at risk of flying away, its only up for a few more days. But Galura is not sad about that. The purpose of balloons is just to make people happy, so its done its purpose. Read more about: EDMONTONPolice arrested and charged a man connected to an assault at a downtown bar that led to the death of a senior. On Friday, an Edmonton Police Service (EPS) announced that its Homicide Section took Mohamed Ahmed Sassi, 22, into custody. He has since been charged with manslaughter. In the early hours of Sept. 8, police responded to a reported assault at Central Social Hall, a bar on the corner of Jasper Avenue and 109 Street, where they found a 74-year-old injured man. The senior was treated and transported to a hospital following the incident, and died in hospital a week later as a result of his injuries. Detectives proceeded to investigate the death as a homicide following an autopsy on Tuesday. Det. Kurt Martin credited the arrest to witness co-operation, which he said is the most important factor for closing cases. It is because of the courage of the witnesses who came forward that we were able to get some resolution for the victims family, Martin said. Police continue to investigate the assault and ask that any witnesses to the assault, or the events leading up to it, contact EPS at 780-423-4567 or call #377 from a mobile phone. Read more about: HALIFAXYouth from Halifax and around Eastern Canada gathered at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia Saturday afternoon to talk about their experiences as refugees, and show off the art theyve created to express their complex journeys. Collaborators from a slew of immigration settlement organizations, non-profits and universities in Halifax accepted five youth in the area to participate in the new program, which culminated in Saturdays exhibit of photography, paintings, poetry, and story-telling. Project co-ordinator Louise Hanavan said the group met bi-weekly over the past year for workshops on social justice, activism and creative expression. They also had lessons with a professional photographer. Photography has really been a tool for them to share their experiences, she said. They shared with each other peers who had faced similar migration challenges, and who continue to face similar settlement challenges in Canada. I think to hear other people going through the same thing is really powerful, Hanavan added. On Saturday, they also shared their experiences with an audience of close to 100, including several youth from Montreal and New Brunswick who had participated in similar programs. Chadia Kayinamura, 23, was one of the young Halifax-based immigrants who shared her art. Kayinamura was born in Congo, but spent 17 years in a refugee camp in Uganda before immigrating to Canada last July. She said its tempting for refugees to idealize their arrival in a country like Canada after years without citizenship, without security. When we reached Canada, probably most of the time we think thats the end of the story, she said. But when we get here there is a new challenge that we have to begin, and we have to build our dreams, the dreams that we were living back home. Her dream is to become a nurse (shes been studying for the past six months in the licensed practical nurse program at Universite Sainte-Anne) and provide health care to other refugees. Kayinamura started painting in high school, but, busy with work, school, and settling into a new culture, said she didnt have the courage to return to her art since immigrating. Meeting other youth like her gave her that courage, she said. In addition to taking a series of photographs that expressed her immigration journey, she also created a painting inspired by her time in Uganda. So its like a story of a mother coming from maybe the market ... with her children, one in a bag and one walking. And then seeing that airplane in the sky, thinking maybe like in their journey they are going to reach their destination where theyre going to go to change their place, she said, describing the painting. In a corner of the painting is a red palm with a white maple leaf Kayinamuras symbol of a welcoming Canada. Researchers from the Child and Youth Refugee Research Coalition spearheaded the project with the aim of empowering youth to tell their stories. (The project) has a bunch of sort of shared goals, said Hanavan. One of them is to ask ourselves as researchers: what is it that gives youth voice, what is it that can be gained through participating in art for youth whose voices dont normally get heard? El Jones, a local artist and activist who MCed the event, believes its essential that Canadians hear stories of the immigrant experience, not just at the moment of their arrival, but continuously. She said art is a great way to understand someones story and identity more deeply. When people become refugees, as that label, you lose your language, you lose your place in society, you lose your qualifications, you lose all these things. So part of the project of giving people a camera so they can still tell their story even if they dont speak English, they can still be an artist, even if youre not seen as being who you were in the country that you came from, she said. She added that art pushes people to rethink some of the very simple narratives around the refugee experience. This project, said Jones, is unique in showcasing the voices of youth, who arent often included in the public dialogue around migration issues. Read more about: MasterChef Canada champion Eric Chong remembers celebrating Mid-Autumn Festival at his grandfathers house in Richmond Hill. The elder Chongs cooking for the East Asian holiday inspired Eric, co-owner of Torontos modern Chinese restaurant R&D, to pursue a career in food. My grandpa would always cook massive feasts and our whole family would go to his house, Chong says. I never understood why we were celebrating, but he said we were just thanking the moon. " The highlight of the evening came when the meal was over. Heavy pucks of dense mooncake, resembling small rounds of brie only square-shaped, were cut into wedges and served from a decorative metal tin. Chong and his brother Andrew gobbled up the fudge-like slices that their grandfather picked up in Chinatown. We absolutely loved mooncake. I also grew up eating and enjoying mooncake. I enjoy the texture its slightly grainy filling and the light sweetness it isnt cloying but is sugary enough to satisfy. Inside, the salted duck egg yolks play off the main sweet filling, which is encased by a thin, flour-based crust. Read more: The myth of the mooncake The taste of home from around the world Tossing, hiding or being shunned for stinky school lunches: 8 Canadians on the ethnic food they were embarrassed to eat in class Like Chong, my knowledge of the festivals meaning was superficial. I knew it was related to the moon, not only because of the pastrys name, but my mom would tell us to gaze up and admire the moon which always seemed to glow its brightest that day. I later learned that the salted egg yolk centres symbolize the round mid-autumn moon and the festival marks the farming seasons harvest, making me appreciate the holiday even more. Mid-Autumn Festival, traditionally celebrated by Chinese and Southeast Asian Cultures (Thailand, Malaysia also celebrate), takes place on the 15th day of the eighth lunar calendar month and always coincides with a full moon. This year it falls on Sept. 24. I was in university when I discovered that my much enjoyed mooncake is the Asian cuisine equivalent of fruitcake. In 2006, I was an exchange student in Copenhagen a land more or less void of any Chinese culinary authenticity at the time. So, I was surprised to find mooncakes at an Asian grocer just before Mid-Autumn Festival. Excited to share a piece of Chinese culture with my Danish dorm mates, I bought a square and sliced it up in our communal kitchen on the evening of Mid-Autumn. Too polite to voice their thoughts, they instead showed it with silent nods and forced smiles as they attempted to swallow their displeasure. A few years later I moved to Hong Kong, where many of my peers were expatriates trying mooncake for the first time. It tastes like sand mixed with a crystallized egg, said one Texas-born colleague. It took a very tall glass of water to even swallow one bite. At the time the late 2000s bakeries in Hong Kong were in the midst of a mooncake revolution. Whether it was to make the treat more universally appealing, to reflect consumer demands for healthier varieties or simply a natural evolution of a traditional food item, mooncakes were modernizing and are now made of any dessert or anything sweet that can assume a decorative square form. I have eaten varieties made from chocolate, ice cream, and cheesecake, filled with or flavoured by macadamia nut, green tea, apricot, black sesame, red bean, purple yam and durian. The most popular of this new wave is the snow-skin mooncake with a thin mochi-like exterior and typically a lighter filling such as custard or creamy fruit. Shobna Kannusamy, a Cordon Bleu-trained pastry chef, has been making light mochi skin mooncakes for more than five years at her Vancouver-based bakery Soirette. I grew up in Malaysia and remember the festival fondly as a kid, says Kannusamy, who begins developing new flavour combinations months in advance of the holiday. This year, Soirettes mooncake lineup reflects Kannusamys home country with flavours including kalamansi and jackfruit. Soirette is also in collaboration with the Holt Renfrew-housed Colette Grand Cafe in Vancouver featuring macaron centre mooncakes in flavours such as creme brulee and vanilla or Earl Grey and lemon. Back in Toronto, the Euro-Asian bakery Bake Code puts its own twist on mooncakes with a molten egg yolk centre and trendy fillings such as matcha and taro. Canadian grocery stores including T&T are also importing more of these new varieties including low-sugar offerings and that popular snow-skin style that first caught my interest in Hong Kong. But still, Ill always have a soft spot for the densest wedges of mooncake I can find. For 12 years, Loida Sorianos job as an assistant cook at the Hyatt Regency on King St. has won her stability and a way to support her six siblings in the Philippines. But the citys skyline is changing and with it, Sorianos employment prospects. One day you see a hotel, said the 44-year-old Toronto resident. Next thing you see construction. We want security. An estimated 2,500 unionized hotel jobs are at risk from condo redevelopments, according to a recent report from Unifor Local 7575, the union representing hospitality workers. Examples include the Courtyard Marriott on Yonge St. north of Carlton St., and the Chelsea Hotel at Yonge and Gerrard Sts., where condo developers have proposed significantly reducing the number of hotel rooms on site. Now, hotel workers are fighting for new job protections from their employers and calling on the City of Toronto to step in. If my job is secure, I dont have to worry, Soriano said. At the Bloor Marriott hotel in Yorkville, an early victory: members of Unifor Local 7575 have just won new measures that prevent the hotel from laying them off for at least three years due to possible condo redevelopments. Soriano, who is a member of her unions collective bargaining team at the Hyatt, says she hopes to win the same provisions. If they have it, we want it, she said. Municipally, policies already exist to insulate downtown white collar workers from job losses: the citys office replacement policy requires developers who want to repurpose a building to replace office square footage in order to get their application approved. Similarly, lands zoned as employment areas are almost impossible to convert into condos, says Thorben Wieditz, a researcher with Unifor Local 7575, which represents hospitality workers. But since hotels are designated as mixed-use properties, developers dont need to meet the same obligations. Thats a huge loophole in that it allows developers to take advantage of the fact that theres no protection in place for these kinds of jobs. Wieditz said the hospitality sector is one of the few providing unionized jobs with decent wages to a workforce largely comprised of women of colour. Thats also part of the reason he believes the issue has been given short shrift, compared to the closure of places like the Mr. Christies factory in Etobicoke in 2012. There, the city rejected developers bid to change the sites employment area zoning; the latest development proposal now includes retail and transit components as well as residential. You saw a huge outcry in the city, Wieditz recalls. You saw the labour council organize, you saw city council speaking out about the jobs losses. But with hotels its a slow trickling away of thousands of jobs and no one actually gives a damn about it. Its mostly women, its mostly racialized women. Its different to blue-collar jobs that are mostly in male-dominated industries. I think the city hasnt done a proper job in taking this into consideration and actually addressing it in policy terms, he added. Sean Allen, 32, works at the Courtyard Marriott where a proposed condo development would retain a hotel component but slash the number of rooms from 575 to 97. Its created some anxiety and precariousness within the workplace, he said. (We) dont know if theres going to be a hotel here tomorrow, said Allen, who is advocating for stronger protections from the city for work like his. For Allen, who comes from a retail background, hospitality jobs have an edge over industries where the pay and protections are weaker. The one major thing is youre going to have a decent wage. It may not be the most glamorous but it definitely provides a living, he says of his job. Condo conversions also have a broader economic consequences for the citys capacity to host major conventions and events, according to a City of Toronto report from November 2017. The industry generates an estimated $3.1 billion to the regional GDP annually and supports almost 40,000 full-time jobs. The review of the citys hotel capacity and the potential impact of condo redevelopment projects found the number of available hotel rooms has stagnated since 2000, and suggested the city review the potential for the implementation of a hotel accommodation replacement policy. A strong and vibrant tourism industry with a sufficient number of hotel rooms and meeting space is essential to the economic health of Toronto, the report said. Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam (Toronto CentreRosedale) says she has repeatedly advocated for the city to protect both its downtown supply of hotel rooms and the jobs that come with it. Its an issue that resonates with her personally because her father was a unionized hotel worker who eventually lost his job because of downsizing. I know the difference a union wage can make for a family, she said. Wong-Tam says she wants to see the city require developers to replace hotel jobs like-for-like if new condo proposals curtail hotel space. In the absence of those levers, we have to ask (developers) and sit down for some hard negotiations, she said. Cities like San Francisco have put a moratorium on condo conversions in its convention district and also implemented a charge on the sale of hotel rooms to fund a new convention centre. But Wong-Tam says she has faced push back from the City of Torontos economic development and planning staff because while downtown room supply may be under threat, hotels are thriving in other areas like York Region. That, she says, will do little to address the cost of job losses for those living in Toronto. If they lose their jobs, its very difficult to become employed again. Its a very specific set of skills, she said. They do back-breaking work. As for Soriano, the ask is simple. I want to keep my job, she said. So I can support my family. Correction Sept. 24, 2018: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said the number of rooms at the Courtyard Marriott will be slashed from 550 to 289. In fact, the number of rooms in the hotel will be slashed from 575 to 97. Toronto police are treating the death of a man found with very serious injuries, who died on the way to the hospital, as a suspicious incident. Police said they received a call for a medical complaint at 4:07 p.m. and found a man near Carlton and Ontario Sts. with signs of trauma. Paramedics said when they got there, the mans injuries threatened his life. The victim, who, paramedics said, was in his 40s, succumbed to his injuries on the way to the hospital, police said. Paramedics said he had suffered from a head injury. Police said they are treating the incident as a suspicious death, which means they do not know how it happened yet. With megaphone in hand, Thea Baines, 17, led a raucous crowd of students, who walked out of class Friday, in a chant for change, calling on Ontario Premier Doug Ford to reinstate a modernized sex-ed curriculum and improve Indigenous education. No ignorance, no hate, lets not go back to 98, shouted the nearly 500 students from Torontos Western Technical-Commercial School, Ursula Franklin Academy and The Student School, which share a building and school field in the citys west end. Clad in purple, some with purple glitter on their faces, teens waved protest signs that included Education Equals Empowerment, Consent is Key, and Sex Ed Saves Lives. The student led-protest was one of many that took place across Ontario on Friday. Its estimated about 75 schools, or 38,000 students, in cities such as Toronto, Ottawa and Guelph, participated in the walkout, which was organized by student-led groups March for Our Education and Decolonize Canadian Schools. About 35 students took their message directly to Queens Park, where they rallied out front. A walkout is a classic student protest strategy; it shows that we value something over our learning, said Baines, a Grade 12 student at Western Tech, who helped organize that protest. In this case, we value a good education over having an outdated and not-inclusive education, which is what the Ford government is bringing back. The walkout, promoted through social media, was in response to the provinces repeal of the 2015 Health and Physical Education curriculum for elementary students, which some social conservatives say is not age-appropriate. This curriculum was replaced with sex-ed material, used between 1998 and 2014, that doesnt overtly address issues such as gender identity, consent and same-sex relationships. The government will begin public consultations next week on creating a new sex-ed curriculum. Outreach will include telephone town halls and online surveys. Baines told the Star its important high school students speak out because the curriculum change affects our little sisters and little brothers and our cousins. It will affect the next generation of adults and we want everyone to grow up learning about their bodies, consent, mental health and LGBTQ rights. We want to live in a Canada that values diversity and equality. Speaking loudly above the chanting, Malikye Wyse, 15, said he was critical of the outdated sex ed curriculum for not including LGBTQ rights, noting an elementary school teacher of his belonged to the LGBTQ community. Since I grew up around that, I dont quite understand why we would not include that in our sexual education, said the Western Tech student. Theres not really a difference between same-sex marriage and different-sex marriage, even if it looks like that. Love is love. That protest also attracted a few parents, such as Wynne Hartviksen, who was there to cheer on daughter Emma, whos in Grade 9. She had the benefit for grades 6, 7 and 8 of the 2015 curriculum, in the most formative years, and I saw the incredible positive impact of that curriculum on my daughter, she said. There were great conversations about consent that I honestly wish I couldve had myself, even in university Great conversations about gender diversity and LGBTQ issues, and (being) openly able to articulate questions that she had, to us as her parents. Students also criticized the Education ministrys for failing to include more Indigenous content. The government says it remains committed to revising the curriculum. Isabella McConnell, 14, a Grade 9 student at Western Tech, who is Indigenous, said the curriculum needs to reflect the realities of Indigenous communities better, including their experiences in residential schools, which some of her relatives attended. A lot of the times, its glorified as something that was done to help, and its really stupid, because it wasnt, and it caused a lot of damage, she said. At Bloor Collegiate Institute, NDP MPP Marit Stiles, whos also the education critic, told the students she wished they didnt feel like they needed to walk out of class to have their voices heard. Its really important that students know that there are many adults across this province, many educators, who are really concerned about whats happening and who share their passion and their belief that the education curriculm has to remain modern, she told the Star. Stiles left the protest, with a handful of notes and speeches penned by students that she intends to deliver to the premier and Minister of Education Lisa Thompson. Two boys aged 16 and 17 are among three males that have been arrested and charged with kidnapping a boy in Brampton, Peel Regional Police say. In a media release, police said all three males have been charged with using an imitation firearm, weapon offences, robbery, kidnapping and assault. On Friday at around 5:30 p.m. the victim, a 16 year-old boy from Brampton, was at the soccer centre at Sandalwood Pkwy. and Dixie Rd. in Brampton when he was approached by three males and forced into a vehicle at gunpoint and stole his cellphone. The boy, whose identity is protected by the Youth Criminal Justice Act due to his age, told police he attempted to run away, but couldnt and was assaulted by the three males. Police say the boy was then driven to his home, where witnesses interrupted the offence, prompting the males then flee the area in their car. Police said the victim did not sustain any injuries. At 7:48 p.m. that same evening, Tej Boparai, a 20 year-old man, a 17-year-old boy from Richmond Hill and a 16-year-old boy from Scarborough were all arrested and charged. Police said the 17-year-old male from Richmond Hill received an additional charge of Breach of Recognizance breaching one of the conditions of his offence. All three attended the Ontario Court of Justice in Brampton for a bail hearing on Saturday. Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to contact investigators at (905) 453-2121, ext. 2133. Emerald Bensadoun is a breaking news reporter, working out of the Stars radio room in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter: @twerk_vonnegut Read more about: JOHANNESBURGA U.S. military airstrike has killed 18 Al Shabab extremists after U.S. and local forces on the ground came under attack in southern Somalia, the U.S. Africa Command said Saturday. No U.S. or Somali forces were killed or injured in the attack, an AFRICOM spokesman, Nate Herring, told The Associated Press. The airstrike was carried out Friday in self-defence after extremists were observed manoeuvring on a combined patrol, while the U.S. also responded with indirect fire, the spokesman said. The confrontation occurred about 50 kilometres northwest of the port city of Kismayo, the U.S. Africa Command statement said. Two other Al Shabab extremists were killed by Somali forces with small arms fire during the engagement, it said. The operation was Somali-led, the AFRICOM spokesman said. There was no immediate comment from Somali authorities. The U.S. has carried out more than 20 airstrikes this year against the Al Qaeda-linked Al Shabab, the deadliest Islamic extremist group in sub-Saharan Africa. U.S. military involvement in Somalia has grown since U.S. President Donald Trump early in his term approved expanded operations against Al Shabab. Dozens of drone strikes followed. Late last year the military also carried out its first airstrike against a small presence of fighters linked to the Islamic State in northern Somalia. Read more: At least six dead after suicide car bombing in Somalias capital Six dead after attackers target Somalias presidential palace Al Qaeda-backed terrorist group in East Africa has a new target plastic bags Since the expanded operations, two U.S. military personnel have been killed in Somalia. A service member was killed in May 2017 during an operation about 64 kilometres west of Mogadishu. And in June, one U.S. special operations soldier was killed and four U.S. service members wounded in an enemy attack as troops with Somali and Kenyan forces came under mortar and small-arms fire in Jubaland. The U.S. currently has about 500 military personnel in the Horn of Africa nation. Al Shabab, which seeks to establish an Islamic state in Somalia, was pushed out of Mogadishu in recent years but continues to control rural areas in the south and central regions. Its fighters continue to attack the bases of a multinational African Union force that remains largely responsible for security as Somalias fragile central government tries to recover from decades of chaos. In the next few years Somali forces are expected to take over responsibility for the countrys security as the AU force withdraws. Concerns about their readiness remain high, and the UN Security Council recently voted to delay the handovers target date to December 2021. Read more about: Families are complicated, their private tensions and political disagreements often kept under wraps. Thats not the case with Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar, whose opponent in the midterm election just got a boost from Gosars siblings. Six of them. The brothers and sisters Tim, Jennifer, Gaston, Joan, Grace and David appeared in campaign advertisements for David Brill, the Democrat hoping to unseat Gosar in Arizonas 4th Congressional District in the upcoming midterm election. The Gosar siblings framed their endorsement of Brill as a matter of values, saying their brother, who has long drawn headlines for his far-right views, and his politics were simply too much for them to stomach. We gotta stand up for our good name, said brother David Gosar in the advertisement. This is not who we are. I couldnt be quiet any longer, nor should any of us be, said sister Grace Gosar. I think my brother has traded a lot of the values we had at our kitchen table, said another sister, Joan. In an interview with the Washington Post, David Gosar, 57, a lawyer in Jackson, Wyo., said he felt obligated to speak out against his brother because of his views, though he wished it werent the case. There isnt a kooky, crazy, nutty thing that he isnt a part of, he said. What are we supposed to do? David said he doesnt talk to his brother much anymore. The split came around the time of his congressional run, when, David said, his brother told him he believed the birther theory that president Barack Obamas birth certificate is fake. (A 2010 clip from Politico quotes Paul Gosar as declining to say whether he believed Obama was born in the United States, saying it was for the courts and for other people to decide.) I was like, Oh my God, you have to be kidding me, and then he went and got elected, David Gosar said. Im not going to break bread with a racist. Paul Gosar did not respond to a request for comment sent to his spokesperson. Gosar, who became a congressman in 2013, has drawn coverage for his extreme rhetoric in recent years. In January, he drew bipartisan rebukes after he said that he asked the Capitol Police and Attorney General Jeff Sessions to check IDs at the State of the Union to arrest and deport any undocumented immigrants in attendance. At least one senator, Dick Durbin, planned to bring an undocumented dreamer to the speech as a guest. The next month, Gosar said FBI and Department of Justice officials such as Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, former acting Attorney General Sally Yates, and former FBI Director James Comey should face treason charges due to developments in the Russia investigation. This summer, he spoke at a rally in London for one of Britains most notorious anti-Muslim campaigners, Tommy Robinson, drawing rebukes from Muslim-American groups. But perhaps his most notorious moment came in 2017 in an interview with Vice News, when he spread a baseless conspiracy theory that the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., that summer had been created by the left. He also brought up the common right-wing falsehood that the liberal philanthropist and financier George Soros, who survived the Holocaust, had collaborated with Nazis. Seven siblings there are ten in total, including Paul responded at the time by writing a letter to the Kingman Daily Miner, a newspaper in Gosars district, decrying his comments in blunt terms. We are aghast that Paul has sunk so low that he now spews the most despicable slander against an 87-year-old man without a shred of proof, the letter said. Those arent our family values or the values of the small Wyoming town we grew up in. . . . It is extremely upsetting to have to call you out on this, Paul, but youve forced our hand with your deceit and anti-Semitic dog whistle. Pete Gosar, who was the seventh signee of the letter, ran for governor of Wyoming as a Democrat in 2014. Brills ads, of which there are at least three, were filmed in Jackson and Laramie, Wyo.. Brills team reached out to the Gosar siblings after seeing some of their criticism on social media, according to the Phoenix New Times. A doctor and a businessman before he decided to run for office, Brill has campaigned on a public health option like Medicare available to all and a platform of lowering the national debt, according to the Arizona Republic. He faces an uphill battle for the seat; Gosar trounced his Democratic opponent in the deep-red district in 2016, receiving 71.5 per cent of the votes. The counties that make up Gosars district voted heavily for Donald Trump. Family members who split with their political kin tend to draw attention and media coverage and are often sought by opposing campaigns. In the recent election cycle, the son of retiring Republican Rep. Bob Goodlatte of Virginia made waves when he endorsed the Democrat running to replace him in August. In the Wisconsin race to replace Paul Ryan, the brother of Democrat Randy Bryce endorsed his Republican opponent in an advertisement by an conservative group. David Gosar said that Paul Gosars politics have caused a strain in the family, which hails from the small town of Pinedale, Wyo. In one of the ads, Grace Gosar, a doctor, says, It would be difficult to see my brother as anything but a racist. David Gosar said that their parents, who are in their 80s, are Republicans and support his brother. And David says hes disappointed in the other three siblings who didnt stand with them for the advertisement. He said hes also upset by people who tell him that theres something wrong with breaking with his family or who make the situation into a joke. This is serious stuff, and Im tired of people making light of it. This is causing serious damage to the country, he said. If you cant speak out against your family, then dont be a hypocrite and speak out against someone elses family member. WASHINGTONChristine Blasey Ford, the woman who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers, is ready to testify this week in a Senate hearing, her attorneys said Saturday, but a final agreement about the terms of her appearance remained elusive. Fords lawyers informed aides to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairperson Charles Grassley that she was prepared to testify in the coming week, but they stopped short of accepting Grassleys offer for the California professor to speak before his panel Wednesday. Dr. Ford accepts the Committees request to provide her firsthand knowledge of Brett Kavanaughs sexual misconduct next week, said attorneys Debra Katz and Lisa Banks in an email to Grassleys staff. They called much of Grassleys offer inconsistent with the Committees promise of a fair, impartial investigation into her allegations and requested a followup conversation later in the day to continue negotiating. The email marked the latest turn in the tense showdown between Republican senators and Ford that has hovered over Kavanaughs nomination for days. Ford first told her story publicly in an interview with The Washington Post published last Sunday. Kavanaugh has firmly denied her allegations. Read more: Opinion | Heather Mallick: Ghomeshis, Kavanaughs and endless male minions drop fire on brave women Trump attacks Christine Blasey Ford over Twitter as Republicans push Supreme Court nomination forward Republicans try to avoid furious backlash as hearing looms on sexual assault allegation against court nominee Fords legal team planned to continue to press for a Thursday hearing, according to a person familiar with the lawyers thinking. During a Saturday call, the parties discussed the option of holding the hearing on Thursday and agreed to continue their negotiations on Sunday, according to people familiar with the conversation. Several Republicans were skeptical of Fords offer. Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn tweeted the hashtag #Rope-a-dope, referring to a boxing strategy of trying to tire out an opponent by making them consistently go on offence. We have heard about different dates, conditions, and ever-changing schedules, but today we appear no closer to a fair hearing, White House spokesperson Kerri Kupec said late Saturday. But one thing has remained consistent: Brett Kavanaugh remains ready, willing and eager to testify as soon as possible. A senior White House official charged that Fords legal team was trying to continue negotiations without committing to anything. Its a clever way to push off the vote Monday without committing to appear Wednesday, the official said. The official was referring to plans Grassley had set in motion Friday for the Judiciary Committee to vote on Kavanaughs nomination Monday if his demand for a Wednesday hearing was rejected by Ford or he did not receive a response. After Katz asked for more time to reply, Grassley had extended his deadline for a decision to Saturday afternoon. The email from Fords lawyers sent to reporters shortly before the 2:30 p.m. cut-off time Grassley had set does not specify which day Ford would agree to appear. As the talks have continued, Ford has expanded her legal team. Michael Bromwich, a former Justice Department inspector general who has been representing former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, announced Saturday that he was resigning from his law firm, Robbins Russell, to work with Ford. In an email to the firms staff sent two minutes after Ford responded to Grassleys invitation to testify Bromwich said he was resigning because of objections within the firm to his representing Ford while employed there. Ford has alleged that while she and Kavanaugh were teenagers in high school at a house party in the early 1980s, he drunkenly pinned her to a bed, groped her and put his hand over her mouth to stifle her screams as he tried to take off her clothes. Kavanaugh has repeatedly denied the allegation. If a final agreement on the details of a hearing is reached, it would set the stage for a dramatic, searing confrontation in the coming week. Kavanaugh has said that he wants to testify before the Judiciary Committee about the matter. The panel has invited him to do so. The negotiations between Fords lawyers and Republicans on the Judiciary Committee have been contentious. They have centred on several points that have spurred some disagreements, including the prospect of a hearing on Wednesday instead of Thursday. Republicans said they would accommodate several of Fords requests, including ensuring that she had adequate security at the Capitol and that Kavanaugh would not be in the room when she speaks. But the GOP also declined her other requests, including that Kavanaugh testify first and that the committee subpoena Mark Judge a Kavanaugh friend who Ford says was present during the alleged incident and call other potential witnesses to the hearing. The Republican-led committee had wanted to reserve the option of having female staff attorneys on the committee do the questioning, while Ford said she would rather be questioned by senators. If this process to secure her testimony falls apart, the fault is totally and clearly on the Republican leadership, Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal said in a telephone interview Saturday. The person familiar with Fords legal teams thinking said Saturday that the attorneys will continue to push for their other demands, including whether senators will question Ford directly or whether they will use staff attorneys, and whether they will subpoena Judge. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe strategy. Meanwhile, a temporary communications adviser to Grassley during the Supreme Court confirmation fight abruptly resigned after a past accusation of sexual harassment surfaced, which he denied. Garrett Ventry submitted his resignation Friday, he said in a brief telephone interview Saturday. He said he stepped down in order to not be a distraction as Senate Republicans continue to try to get Kavanaugh confirmed. Also Saturday, Vice President Mike Pence joined the chorus of renewed Republican support for Kavanaugh, telling a crowd of around 2,000 conservative activists at the Values Voter Summit that Kavanaugh is a man of integrity, with impeccable credentials and a proven judicial philosophy and that he would soon be confirmed. Pence then took aim at the conduct of Democratic senators during the confirmation process, describing it as a disgrace and a disservice to the Senate and the American people. President Donald Trump, who took to Twitter to cast doubt on Fords credibility Friday, was quiet on the issue Saturday. As the discussions continued late Friday night and into Saturday, Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee were growing weary of the extended talks. Grassley lamented in a tweet Friday that with all the deadline extensions, he felt like he was playing 2nd trombone in the judiciary orchestra, and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer was the conductor. Some Republican senators had just about reached the limits of their patience by Saturday, according to one of them, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly describe the mood. Senate GOP leaders have argued that they have been very accommodating to Fords requests, while Democrats say Republicans have bullied Ford with unreasonable deadlines. At least one Republican on the Judiciary Committee struck a hopeful chord. Progress on a Judiciary Committee hearing is being made, Sen. Jeff Flake tweeted. This is good. Read more about: Ontario was right to eliminate electric car subsidies, Sept. 16 Kenneth Greens opinion piece is incorrect. Based on news articles, including those published in the Star, Tesla did not sue the Ontario government because it cancelled the subsidies for electrical vehicles. Tesla sued because the Ontario government cancelled rebates for Tesla customers effective July 11, while rebates for other electric vehicles were available for vehicles delivered up to Sept. 10. Anthony Martins, Elora, Ont. Information from the Fraser Institute is always partisan and should not be shared with the public as news. This particular article, not surprisingly (considering the Fraser Institutes motivations and funding) contains misleading information about electric vehicles to create confusion and doubt in the public eye about their environmental benefits. Drs. Jeremy Theal and Joyce Lee, Toronto Given the enormous risks posed by global warming, it is important to promote efforts to reduce greenhouse gases. Perhaps a $14,000 EV subsidy is too high, but in this early adoption phase of the product life cycle, a zero Ontario subsidy seems too low. As a bonus, EVs are far superior products compared to the gasoline alternatives. Patrick Chan, Toronto Climate change is the gravest threat to the planet. Failing to address the future cost of inaction in order to placate oil company investors with short-term gains is reprehensible and might even be classed as immoral. Tom McElroy, Toronto Tesla owners are your family, friends, neighbours and run-of-the mill Ontarians who want to reduce their carbon footprint while enjoying real choice in the availability of private transportation. The base model Tesla Model 3 will start at $49,000, not $56,000. Tesla owners are not all millionaires. As a Tesla Model 3 owner, Im confident that Tesla will continue to outsell all other luxury internal combustion engine sedans, subsidy or not. Electric vehicles are just a better proposition. Maureen Huggins, Mississauga Green says: There remains little or no environmental benefit if the power generation for electric cars isnt greenhouse gas emission-free (and in most places, its not). I disagree. Driving an EV produces significantly fewer greenhouse gas emissions than cars powered only by gasoline, regardless of the local power mix. Furthermore, Ontarios electricity mix is fairly clean. Even nuclear power is cleaner than all fossil fuels. Steve Hurschler, Ottawa Tesla is a divisive company and receives much attention from its supporters and detractors. I urge Star readers to not forget how the EV subsidy helped regular people greatly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions one household at a time. Joshua Majonis, Burlington The switch from horse and buggy to horseless carriage did not happen overnight, but was certainly aided by massive investment in infrastructure by governments and business. I guess if Kenneth Green had his way, wed have stuck with the horse and buggy. I suppose thats one way to deal with climate change. MONTREALThis is the time in past election campaigns when the Quebec Liberals would set aside their platform to focus single-mindedly on the Parti Quebecoiss referendum agenda. Forcing the question of whether voters wanted to risk a return to referendum politics on the ballot did not always result in a Liberal victory but it did make a positive difference for the party each and every time. Ask Jean Charest. He spent the last stretch of his first campaign as Liberal leader in 1998 hammering away at the prospect of another referendum. That did not win him the election but he did end up beating Lucien Bouchard in the popular vote. In his last campaign in 2012, a similar message helped Charest avoid a defeat of Wynnesque proportions. Instead, he came a handful of seats from depriving Pauline Marois of a minority government. A year and a half later, Quebecs current premier, Philippe Couillard, led the Liberals back to power by again tapping into the reluctance of a majority of Quebecers to revisit the issue of their political future. But for the first time in decades, there will not be a federalist blitz between now and the Oct. 1 election. Read more: Quebec Liberal Premier doubles down on notion that $75 weekly grocery bill is possible Opinion | Chantal Hebert: Will Quebec be the next province to use the notwithstanding clause? Quebec reaches parity zone of 40 per cent female candidates Thats turning out to be bad news for both the main longstanding protagonists in the lengthy battle over Quebecs future. With sovereignty off the table this time, it is as if the Liberals and the PQ are running on empty. Neither has managed to channel the considerable intellectual energy it used to expend on selling its vision of Quebecs future into what could be described as a compelling narrative. Instead, the pause in the so-called national debate has exposed a void at the heart of their campaigns that they have for the most part tried to fill with electoral snack food. The result has left all but die-hard partisans looking for more. Many Quebec observers were stunned earlier this week when a Leger poll reported that Quebec Solidaire the fourth-place left-wing party in the National Assembly was eating away at the Coalition Avenir Quebecs lead. The two sit at opposite ends of the ideological spectrum and their election promises reflect that ideological distance. But beyond the fact that neither has ever formed a government, what they have in common that contrasts with their power-savvy rivals are aspirational platforms. In different ways, CAQ Leader Francois Legault and his Quebec Solidaire counterpart Manon Masse appeal to Quebecers ambitions for a better collective future. In the last federal election, Stephen Harpers Conservatives railed at Justin Trudeau by calling his platform a unicorns and rainbows plan. But Quebecers have for decades faced an existential political choice when they have gone to the polls to elect their provincial government. They have come to expect leaders to challenge them to dream big dreams rather than woo them with smaller-than-life promises. On that basis, a plurality of Quebec voters happily bought Trudeaus alleged unicorns and rainbows in 2015 and would do so again if a federal vote were held this fall. They succumbed to Jack Laytons progressive appeal in 2011. For almost two decades they supported Lucien Bouchard and Gilles Duceppes bid to give Quebec a distinct voice in Parliament. Brian Mulroney won them over with his commitment to constitutional reconciliation in 1984 and with his dream of a North American free trade zone four years later. Time and again at the provincial level, it was the PQs social policy ambitions that tempted otherwise federalist voters into overcoming their aversion to a referendum to give the party a shot at government. In the eighties and nineties, the Liberals would try to compete with the PQs vision of an independent Quebec with big ideas of their own. More recently they have been increasingly content to use the promise of peace on the referendum front to make up for a lack of policy imagination. With a bit more than a week to go to the election, it has become a mugs game to predict the shape of the post-Oct. 1 National Assembly. Voter fatigue with the Liberals was rampant at the start of the campaign and if change remains a driving force at the ballot box, the Coalition Avenir Quebec and Quebec Solidaire will have a good election night. For more than a few voters, the ideal outcome of the election would be a non-Liberal minority government. But if winning comes down to getting the vote out in hand-to-hand combat in a host of closely fought ridings, Couillard and PQ Leader Jean-Francois Lisee have the most boots on the ground. Regardless of the result though, the Liberals and the PQ will have work to do to justify an ongoing central place in Quebecs political conversation. Chantal Hebert is a columnist based in Ottawa covering politics. Follow her on Twitter: @ChantalHbert Read more about: VANCOUVERThe Vancouver Police Department is thanking a group of construction workers for helping to take down a suspect in a downtown carjacking. On Friday morning, a 27-year-old carjacking suspect was involved in a number of collisions as they drove across downtown Vancouver, from the area of Cambie and Pender streets to West Georgia and Hamilton. Const. Jason Doucette, spokesperson for the Vancouver Police Department, said police received a call at approximately 8:40 a.m. from a driver who reported being pepper sprayed and carjacked. The suspect then headed to the area near West Georgia St. and Hamilton, where they were involved in several collisions with other vehicles and a pedestrian. Doucette said that after the car stopped, the suspect jumped out of the vehicle and was chased by construction workers who happened to be nearby. The group of workers held the man until police arrived but were also pepper sprayed, said Doucette. The pedestrian who was hit was rushed to hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries. No one else was reported injured. VPD Chief Adam Palmer posted a tweet later that day thanking the construction workers for their help. Read more about: VANCOUVERTeara Fraser has flown planes for more than 15 years. Now she owns an airline. Iskwew Air will fly out of Vancouver International Airports south terminal starting in March, offering chartered flights to various communities in British Columbia. The pilot believes this is the first time an Indigenous woman has founded an airline in Canada. Fraser, the CEO of Iskwew Air, was set to participate in a blessing ceremony Friday afternoon with the Musqueam First Nation. Iskwew Air flights will take off from their territory. It was really important for us to begin the journey in a good way by asking the permission of the Musqueam people to conduct business on their territory, Fraser said. Its not uncommon for Indigenous communities to invest in airlines in Canada, but Fraser said she took special care naming hers. I named my airline Iskwew Air as an act of reclamation of womanhood, matriarchal leadership, reclamation of language, said Fraser, a Metis woman from Fort Chipewyan, Alta. Iskwew is Cree for woman. Fraser has lived in the Vancouver area for most of her adult life. She was inspired in the years leading up to the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games to help visitors reach more remote communities and take in Indigenous cultural experiences. One year ago, Fraser decided the time was right to launch an airline, her third business endeavour. She noticed Indigenous tourism was growing in British Columbia and as a result there was an increasing demand for flights to small communities. I thought perhaps this is a way I can contribute to lifting Indigenous people and Indigenous communities with some of the gifts that I have. She bought an eight-person, twin-engine plane and aims to provide charter flights for groups ranging from Indigenous tourism operators to government groups. Ikwew Airs entry into the industry is very significant, said Benjamin Ryan, chief commercial officer at Air North. The Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation owns 49 per cent of the Yukon-based airline. Ryan said this is the first time he has heard of an Indigenous woman owning an airline. He agreed there is a good business case for operating flights to remote areas. There is more demand than you might think, he said. Air North has found success operating flights to several remote communities. The company, founded in 1977, operates daily flights into two Yukon communities and one community in the Northwest Territories. It also offers flights to larger destinations like Kelowna. Opening up access to remote areas benefits those communities, explained Ryan. It brings people into the area and allows youth to leave in order to pursue sports, education and other job opportunities. Correction Sept. 24, 2018: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said that Air North was founded in 1941. In fact, the airline was founded in 1977. Read more about: One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy By Carol Anderson Bloomsbury. 271 pp. $27 --- Yet, the harsh fact is that in many places in this country, men and women are kept from voting simply because they are Negroes. Every device of which human ingenuity is capable has been used to deny this right. (BEGIN ITAL)- Lyndon Johnson, Voting Rights Act Address, 1965(END ITAL) With the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, many Americans (except African-Americans and Latinos) believed that the voting rights fight was over - taken care of, time to move on. Democracy won. Next. But as Carol Anderson demonstrates in her powerful new book, "One Person, No Vote," the right to vote - a central tenet of our democracy - is under threat. Chief Justice John Roberts has said voting is "preservative of all other rights." If that is so, then according to Anderson, all our other rights are in serious jeopardy. Her book is a disturbing drill down into how the right to vote is being slowly destroyed with too few of us noticing. "One Person, No Vote" is an important sequel to Anderson's "White Rage," which examined the nefarious ways white America sought to oppress, repress and marginalize African- Americans after the Civil War. The key element of that oppression was an ongoing - and successful - effort to deny blacks the right to vote. Some tactics were less than subtle: poll taxes, literacy tests, limited hours for voting, allowing only whites to vote in primary elections. Other strategies were violent and cruel: Blacks were subjected to rampant voter intimidation and lynchings. Many were incarcerated on made-up charges and then as felons denied the right to vote. The deterrents worked. In 1867, just after the Civil War, more than 65 percent of newly enfranchised blacks registered to vote in Mississippi; by 1955, that figure had plummeted to 4.3 percent. The same dismal story was witnessed all across the South. But 100 years after the Civil War, the 1965 Voting Rights Act gave blacks unfettered access to the ballot box. And with its passage, it seemed that the moral universe was, to paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr., bending toward justice - and democracy. By 2008, in North Carolina, a higher percentage of blacks voted than whites. But when Anderson examined voting patterns in the 2016 presidential election, she discovered that some black voters had disappeared, a circumstance that she calls "the campaign's most misunderstood story." In 2016, the number of black voters nationwide dropped from a 66 percent turnout to under 60 percent. The decline was even more precipitous in places like Milwaukee, where it slumped from 78 percent of African-Americans voting in 2012 to less than 50 percent in 2016. And thanks to those lower turnouts, Donald Trump carried Wisconsin by a slim margin of fewer than 23,000 votes. Anderson argues that this decline in black voters in 2016 was not a one-time anomaly but rather was evidence of a systemic hijacking of our democracy. The genesis of the hijacking began after Barack Obama's 2008 election. Republicans then faced a quandary: How should they deal with the rising demographic tide of minority voters? In 1992, nonwhites represented just 13 percent of the voting population - by 2012, they were 28 percent. Republicans had a choice: They could change their policies to appeal to new voters or find a way to suppress their votes. As Anderson makes clear, they chose the latter. Republicans took to heart the words of Paul Weyrich, the conservative founder of the Heritage Foundation. In a 1980 speech, he opined: "I don't want everybody to vote. ... As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down." Anderson catalogs how Republicans, beginning after 2008, put Weyrich's manifesto into action. Their tactics included purging voters, gerrymandering, instituting voter-ID laws, closing polling places and preventing felons from voting (1.7 million felons aren't allowed to vote in Florida - representing about a fifth of possible black voters). As Anderson writes, "Voter suppression had now gone nationwide as it became a Republican-fueled chimera that by 2017 gripped 33 states and cast a pall over more than half the American voting-age population." In 2010, Republicans managed, with generous funding from the Koch brothers among others, to take over numerous state legislatures in the midterm elections. Soon, state after state, most of them Republican-controlled, passed new voter laws, often requiring stricter types of identification. These voter IDs included driver's licenses that white voters often had or could easily get. Not surprisingly, these IDs were much less commonly held by minority voters. For instance, when Texas enacted a voter-ID law in 2013, 600,000 African-Americans and Latinos did not have the proper ID to vote. Sherrilyn Ifill of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund sees these voter-ID laws as "old poison in a new bottle." Republicans claimed that voter-ID laws were the perfect prescription for an election system that was riddled with voter fraud. Yet Anderson amply demonstrates that a slew of academic studies prove that voter fraud, or illegal voting, is very rare. In fact the North Carolina Board of Elections found that out of the millions of votes cast in the state in 2016, there was only one case of voter fraud that a voter-ID system would have prevented. Yet half of Americans believe that voter fraud is common. And it is not only politicians who have rallied to the cause of finding new ways to make voting more difficult. In 2013, the Supreme Court, by a 5-to-4 vote, overturned a key clause of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The pre-clearance clause required many Southern states to clear any changes in state election laws with the Justice Department before implementing them. After the court's ruling, a number of Southern states, including North Carolina and Texas, quickly put voter restriction laws into effect. North Carolina's law required a stricter level of voter ID, cut back on early-voting days and did away with same-day voter registration. The illegitimacy of these laws was demonstrated in the summer of 2016 when federal courts struck down or amended many of them. Of the North Carolina law, the federal court wrote that it targeted "African-Americans with almost surgical precision." Despite these federal court rulings, politicians proved adept at coming up with innovative laws to suppress the minority vote. After Obama carried Indiana in 2008, the Republican legislature of this traditionally red state, along with its then-governor, Mike Pence, passed a law that said counties with more than 325,000 registered voters could have only one early-voting site unless the county election board ruled otherwise. In Indiana, there are only three counties with more than 325,000 registered voters; all three have large numbers of black voters. And data shows that blacks vote early in much higher percentages than white voters do. As a result of this new law, early voting in Marion County, which comprises Indianapolis and, as Anderson puts it, "the lion's share of African-Americans in the state," fell 26 percent.In 2012, Indiana went for Romney and in 2016 for Trump. As we look toward this fall's elections, Anderson gives us the lowdown on the voter suppression tactics of two Republican candidates running for governor: Brian Kemp in Georgia and Kris Kobach in Kansas. Both men are currently secretaries of state, the office that oversees state elections. Both preached the dogma of voter fraud and the need for what they call "election integrity" - code words, according to Anderson, for voter suppression. Kobach was also vice chairman of Trump's Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, which was formed after Trump claimed that millions of noncitizens voted illegally in 2016. But the commission crumbled after eight months and found no proof of voter fraud. Nonetheless, Anderson sees Kobach as an accomplished practitioner of the dark art of voter suppression. He passed a Kansas law requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote. The American Civil Liberties Union sued. When a federal court agreed with the ACLU and banned the practice, Kobach quickly adjusted and made proof of citizenship a requirement for registering to vote in state (not federal) elections. For his part, Kemp fought to turn back the rising demographic tide in Georgia. Anderson notes that while the state's population has grown, unbelievably, the number of registered voters has dropped since 2012 (Kemp was elected in 2010). This is due in no small part to Kemp, a "voter-suppression warrior," in Anderson's words, who led a purge of more than 1 million voters from the rolls between 2012 and 2016. If the trend in voter suppression looks bleak, Anderson finds a ray of hope in Alabama's 2017 special Senate election. In that vote, African-Americans overcame myriad voter suppression obstacles and turned out in high numbers to elect the Democrat, Doug Jones, and defeat the Republican candidate, Roy Moore. Moore had infamously said, among other things, that removing all the constitutional amendments passed after the 10th "would eliminate many problems." Those amendments abolished slavery, guaranteed the right to vote without racial discrimination and gave women the vote. While Anderson notes some progress in battling voter suppression, she remains clear-sighted about the continuing dangers. She decries how voter suppression skews the electorate and the resulting consequences to our democracy. "Voter suppression has made the U.S. House of Representatives wholly unrepresentative," she writes. "It has placed in the presidency a man who is anything but presidential. It has already reshaped the U.S. Supreme Court ... and as a slew of Trump's unqualified nominees to the federal bench get greenlighted by a compromised Senate, it threatens to undermine the judiciary for decades to come." Her conclusion: "In short, we're in trouble." --- Smith was a senior producer for MSNBC and currently is the executive producer of a new feature documentary, "Rigged: The Voter Suppression Playbook." It took the photograph of a 11-year-old boy hunched over his fathers body for us to finally care about one of Indias most shameful human rights violations. The moment, captured by Hindustan Times reporter Shiv Sunny, brought home the tragic fate of the countrys sewer/sanitation workers, who are condemned by a combination of caste and poverty. Were it not for the heartbreaking pathos of the picture, Anil, the name of the dead man in the photograph, could have become yet another forgotten statistic in a country where one person has died every five days while cleaning septic tanks, insanitary toilets and drains and sewers. This data compiled by the National Commission for Safai Karamcharis should make us shudder in shame. Yet, each one of us is complicit in the death of these workersI would even use the word killing. This sort of manual scavenging was banned 25 years ago; yet there are still an estimated 50,000 workers compelled to clean putrid, suffocating drains, manholes and latrines. We are all complicit. We either look away while impoverished men and women are forced to do what we would not even contemplate, or worse, we actually employ them to clean the tanks and underground spaces in our homes for just a couple of hundred bucks. We then delude ourselves into thinking we are being fair and generous by providing an economic opportunity. We do not even pause to think that many sanitation workers and sewer cleaners die before retirement. Ninety per cent work without any protective gear and equipment and are constantly exposed not just to filth but also to poisonous gases such as methane and hydrogen sulphide. Illustration: Bhaskaran Activists like Bezwada Wilson, whose team recorded 90 manual scavenging deaths in Delhi alone in the last nine months of 2017, point out that the National Crime Records Bureau figures do not reflect these numbers, though they should. Several state governments have submitted affidavits in court claiming that there is not a single manual scavenger working in their regions. But because there has been no official survey in ten years of how many people continue to have to clean up human excreta, countering them legally becomes impossible. This time a photograph stirred the collective conscience of people and lakhs of rupees were crowdsourced to help Anils family, who did not even have money to cremate him. But one-off compassion is no answer to an institutional betrayal of the very idea of democracy. That an emerging superpower has not been able to develop a mechanised, modern way to clean up our shit, and that we then socially discriminate against the same community of sanitation workers for their caste, should make us ashamed and repulsed as Indians. What should have triggered self-loathing has instead been normalised as a professional practice, one we barely notice, unless a poignant headline screams out at us and forces us to pay attention. Yes, it is a failure by successive governments that alternatives have not been developed to erase the stain of this classist and casteist anachronism. But, we the people, are also responsible. We outrage over a million issues on social media, march in protest against violence and for equal rights. When will we come out on the streets to lend our voice to this abomination? These deaths are not accidents or coincidences or even tragediesthey are a consequence of our wilful apathy. These are killings. editor@theweek.in The adage that failures can teach many lessons seems quite... I was outside the classroom, hanging out with a couple of boys. She was walking towards the school, draped in a white, starched cotton sari. She walked like a peacock. We 'examined' her. She is just out of college; can she handle us? As a new teacher, she seemed nervous. When she walked into our classroom, we wanted to do something to disrupt her life. When she came towards the last bench and leaned on my table to talk to my friends, I felt inspired. I quietly emptied the ink from my pen on her sari. She did not notice it until she reached the staff room. After a while, she summoned me. I guessed it would be one more suspension coming my way that year. But she took my pen, filled it with ink and gave it back to me, said Sadhguru, spiritual leader and founder of Isha Foundation, as he recounted his first encounter with his English teacher, Sarasa. Almost 45 years after that memorable episode, 61-year-old Sadhguru was back in his school in Mysuru, and reminisced about his school days, in conversation with his teacher Sarasa, as part of 'Youth and Truth' his month-long travel campaign to connect with the youth in campuses across the country. During the campaign, Sadhguru promises to answer all questions posed by the youth, celebrities and youth icons. His stopover at Mysuru where he spent his childhood, evoked nostalgia as the sprawling green campus of the Demonstration School was crowded with students, teachers and alumni who waited for the rare spectacle of a teacher seeking answers to the challenges facing the education system and the country, from her student. The exuberant backbencher had transformed into a widely acclaimed spiritual guru with a huge following across the globe. Recalling his school days, Sadhguru said: I loved the open space here, trees and the Bogadi lake. Of all the schools I went to, I enjoyed it here as it was a multi-purpose school with lot of activities. I hope it is still the same. My memory of school is in the visuals, sounds and the aromas. This school is special also because no other school kept me for more than an year. This kept me for two years [Classes 9 and 10]. I did come to school whenever it was must,said Sadhguru, as students cheered. Unravelling his journey as a student, Sadhguru said: When I was eight, a dark cloud of a billion questions was in my mind. But all the answers I got were ready-made. Those who knew me would tell you I had no notes, textbooks or guides. I could spend hours watching the leaves or the ant, trying to figure out how they functioned. I used to sit up all night, he said. Sadhguru called himself an 'absentee student', even though he was physically present. I spent time with the nature of my own body and mind and flirted with 10-15 different ideas at the same time. I appeared withdrawn in school but was exuberantly alive. I knew nothing about the universe, so, became attentivenot in the class, but to the world. My report card never showed more than 37 marks [out of 100]. I used to walk out of the examination hall in 30 min, as it was mandatory to stay back that long. I managed to score pass marks. Education was a sideline. I kept going to the next class as I did not want to be left behind or miss my classmates, he said. When the teacher interrupted to inquire how the youth could be made truthful, Sadhguru said that the idea is not to get the youth to tell the truth but to encourage them to explore the truth. Many people ask me why I did not meet them in their youth. So I decided to step out and connect with the youth. Today, I see youth and children lacking in enthusiasm. They have a hundred questions in their mind. But no religion, teachers, parents or gurus answer the questions. People get angry because they do not have an answer. A few days back, when a reporter asked Sadhguru what purpose would asking questions serve, he said, Asking questions is an effective way to further one's knowledge. And the best thing is that a question can never be wrong. I ask the young to throw any question without fear or reverence. I will answer them. Lakhs of questions have come. We will ensure each of them are answered. You are never to be the problem but a part of the solution. 'Youth and Truth' is an attempt to equip future citizens with clarity to help them make life choices that will allow them to explore their full potential joyfully. He added: What works in all levels of life must be the truth. It is scientifically proven that when you are in the highest level of pleasantness, you are more successful. Your success depends on how well you harness your body and mind. How do I earn a living should not be an issue. It does not need a superman's agenda to live like yourself, the way you want. The problem arises when you want to live like the others. According to Sadhguru, India's demographic advantage (with 52 per cent of population below 35 years) can help it evolve as a powerful force only when its youth realise their full potential. When Sadhguru's teacher sought to know how to rid the parental obsession with marks, he quipped: Stop sending the report cards home. Lamenting that parents were still obsessed with their children pursuing medicine or engineering, he said, As a kid, I consistently got six zeros in my report card, though I would manage to get a few numericals occasionally. I thought the report card was a transaction between my teacher and father. Nobody told me why I should go to school. People always ask will you become doctor or engineer? How are these two connected? My physician father wanted me to become a doctor as my three elder siblings failed him. Unfortunately, every child in India continues to face the same demand. This obsession is a social problem and has got nothing to do with education. Shunning the social hierarchy associated with professions, Sadhguru said, Place all professional on the same level. I am not trying to disqualify our education system. But our approach is flawed. As a country we must produce great electricians, plumbers, carpenters, drivers, teachers, engineers and doctors. Imagine you trying to reach the best doctor in town during a medical emergency and end up hopping into an autorickshaw with a bad driver. All professions are important for our survival. Children are made for the universe, not university, said Sadhguru, who feels that the factory schools are trying to preparing kids for a future and miss out on teaching them how to live in the present and excel. As adults, we bully children and try to teach them many things, warns the guru. I feel the child learns best when he is allowed to explore on his own. When my daughter was a toddler, I used to tell people not to teach her anything. She picked up many languages. Taking on contentious issues like religious fundamentalism, lynchings, Uniform Civil Code and reservation, during his tours, Sadhguru elaborated on the nature of Hindu culture and civilisation. On the need for reservation, Sadhguru noted that the country is known to have treated a mass of people as 'sub-humans', who were not allowed to draw water from the common well, drink tea in hotels or take out a funeral procession inside the village. So, it is important we create a level playing field for all. But entry point reservation is welcome, but not for promotions as necessary credentials are important for a promotion. If you ask if reservation has ended discrimination, we can be assured that many have moved out of that low-caste trap. However a substantial amount of population remains victims of discrimination. But no political leader wants to touch it as election is a number-game, like the examination. As long as you have the concept of a nation, one cannot have people following different sets of rules and talk of integration. We should make Uniform Civil Code possible, he said. Religious fanaticism is anti-thesis to Hindus as India has always been a land of seekers and not believers, said Sadhguru. "Hindu is not a religion. It comes from Himalayas and Indusagaraboth of which protected us and our civilisation. So, even an earthworm born here is Hindu. Rama and Krishna are people like you and me. But we worship them for a reason. Feminists' charge against Rama is that he abandoned Sita. But he sacrificed his family for the good of people. Don't we want such leaders?" he said. When asked to choose between Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi as a leader, Sadhguru said blind support to an individual or party would be detrimental to democracy. "In a democracy every individual decides on his own and votes. All else is like promoting feudalism or monarchy. In the US, people are already committed as Democrats and Republicans. Now, where is democracy? The moment I give a call to vote for a particular party or person, I would be killing democracy." Rod Rosenstein, the US deputy attorney general, has denied that he discussed invoking a consitutional clause to oust President Donald Trump. The allegation is "inaccurate and factually incorrect," he said. A report by the New York Times said that Rosenstein had suggested secretly recording Trump to expose chaos in the White House. But a report in the BBC clarifies that the deputy attorney general was being sarcastic when he made the comment. The comments were made in 2017 after the firing of FBI director James Comey, who had been leading the investigation into the ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. Accoding to the New York Times report, Rosenstein had discussed getting cabinet members to invoke the 25th amendment of the US constitution, which provides for the removal of the president if he is found to be unfit for office. The sources were cited as people who were briefed on the events themselves or on memos written by FBI officials including Andrew McCabe, who became acting director when Comey was dismissed. The proposals did not come to fruition, the Times said. The Washington Post also reported the discussions, citing memos written by McCabe. McCabe has no knowledge of how the memos were made available, said his lawyer Michael Bromwich. Rosenstein has blamed anonymous sources promoting personal agendas. The White House is yet to react to the reports. Trump told a rally at Missouri for for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Josh Hawley, Just look at what is being exposed in our Justice Department. "We have great people in the Department of Justice. ... But youve got some real bad ones. Youve seen whats happened at the FBI. Theyre all gone, he said. But theres a lingering stench and were going to get rid of that, too. A Justice Department spokeswoman provided a statement from a person who would not be identified and was present when Rosenstein proposed wearing a wire to record Trump, the Times said. The person said Rosenstein made the remark sarcastically. Rakesh Sharma, Kalpana Chawla, V.R. Lalithambika, Sunita Williams RAKESH SHARMA Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma was the first Indian to go to space. He flew with the USSR crew in April 1984, aboard the Soyuz T-11 rocket and spent seven days, 21 hours and 40 minutes at the Salyut 7 Orbital Station. When prime minister Indira Gandhi asked him how India looked from space, he famously said, Saare jahan se achcha. With Sharma, India became the 14th country to send a human to space. KALPANA CHAWLA Karnal-born Kalpana Chawla was the first person of Indian origin to go to space. Chawla, an aerospace engineer, joined the NASA Astronaut Corps in 1995, soon after becoming a naturalised American citizen in 1991. Her first space mission was in May 1997 aboard the spaceship Columbia flight STS 87. She spent 15 days in space. Her second flight was on January 16, 2003 aboard Columbia STS 107. Her return flight ended in disaster. A snag in the shuttle during re-entry on February 1, 2003 caused it to disintegrate and all seven crew members were killed. V.R. LALITHAMBIKA V.R. Lalithambika, 56, who till recently was deputy director at Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, will helm the Gaganyaan. She joined ISRO in 1988 and has seen its initial failures as well as the flowering of its reputation. She has worked on the autopilot system of rockets, including that of GSLV Mk III, and has been a launch vehicle girl throughout. A scientist of high calibre, Lalithambika received the Astronautical Society of Indias gold medal in 2002 for launch vehicle technology. Her current role, however, will take her beyond the realm of precision technology and test her acumen as a team leader, collaborator and organiser, too. SUNITA WILLIAMS Sunita Williams was born to an Indian-origin father and a Slovene-origin mother. Commissioned into the US Navy in 1987, she joined the NASA astronaut programme in 1998. A veteran of space flights, Williams has many firsts to her name. She is the first human to run a marathon in space, which she did while her sister, Dina, was running the Boston marathon in April 2007. In 2012, she completed a triathlon in space. She has held records of longest spacewalk, and longest hours for a woman astronaut in space. Williams is also among the few astronauts who have flown into space both from the US and from the Russian space centre in Baikonur. Williams is currently associated with the commercial space programme of the US. Just last month, she was assigned to the first proposed mission of the Boeing CST 100 to the International Space Station. Early on the morning of December 18, 2014, a gigantic muffin landed smoothly in the Bay of Bengal, 600km from Port Blair, its descent aided by two parachutes. The landing was smooth, the muffin bobbed placidly till the Coast Guard recovered it. It was the worlds first glimpse of the vehicle that would take Indian astronomers to space. There is much work in the months ahead. Astronaut selection and training will be one facet of the preparation. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) had just been successful in testing its crew module atmospheric re-entry system. While launching one-way rockets into space is almost childs-play for ISRO, re-entering the earths atmosphere safely was an entirely new aspect. In that same mission, ISRO also successfully tested the first flight of its latest vehicle, the GSLV Mk III, often called Bahubali, as it can lift a payload of four tonnes. It is the heaviest vehicle in ISROs stable. The significance of the event went unnoticed by a nation that was still caught up with the Mars Orbiter Missions spectacular flight and entry into the Martian orbit that September. This July, ISRO cleared another milestone by successfully testing its crew escape system (Pad abort test), for astronauts to safely get out in case of a problem at the launch stage. Again, the event merited barely a mention in the news. But when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on Independence Day that a son or daughter of India would be flying aboard an Indian spacecraft by 2022, people sat up and took notice. Seriously, they asked each other. Will we be ready in 40 months? Are we even prepared for it? ISRO chairperson K. Sivan then announced that not only was India prepared for the deadline, but it might even be able to beat it by half a year. And thus, with political clearance in place, Gaganyaan, a nebulous idea, is rapidly taking shapenot just in public imagination, but in research institutions, factories and government offices across the country. ISRO is in a comfortable space technologically. Away from media glare, the agency has been developing a host of technologies required for this mission since 2004. That was around the time ISRO had added a new dimension of pursuing space science research and planetary exploration to its basic mission of harnessing space technology for national development. Chandrayaan-1 was being readied, and ISRO was building its Deep Space Network (DSN)an assortment of huge antennae to send and receive signals from far reaches of outer space. This facility at Byalalu, a village on the outskirts of Bengaluru, is crucial to any deep space exploration. Indias first human spaceflight will literally be a baby step into the universe, with the flight getting into an orbit only around 400km from the earths surface. But a DSN is still a prerequisite. Galaxy guides: ISRO exhibiting spaceflight enablers at the space expo in Bengaluru | Bhanu Prakash Chandra ISRO also began developing other technologies from its annual budget of Rs 6,000 crore. These included the crew module, as well as the flight suit. So far so good. But there is a lot of homework still to be done. It starts with selecting the crew. The crew, in my opinion, can be anyone. But because this is our first flight, [Air Force] pilots would be preferable, said Sivan. Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, as well as Rakesh Sharma, Indias first cosmonaut, were both test pilots. Gagarin was picked from a team of 200, who were trained for the mission. Rakesh Sharma, too, trained with Ravish Malhotra, though only Sharma got to ride the Soyuz T-11. R. Umamaheswaran, ISROs scientific secretary, however, says that in subsequent flights, they might need expertise from other fields, so every Indian can begin dreaming of going to space. Meanwhile, there is a new energy in academic circles as they brainstorm over the scientific aspect of Gaganyaan. Some days ago, ISRO had a meeting with 35 premier institutes in the country, asking them to plan the experiments for the mission. The experiments are likely to be around microgravity. Microgravity is an environment created when the tug of gravitational force, like the one on earth, is absent. Liquids and gases behave differently in this situation. This branch of science evolved in the 1970s, and there is a lot to be discovered here. When you do something decades after the pioneers, it is how you do it that becomes important. India showed some world-class jugaad with its Mars mission, using the slender PSLV vehicle to send a satellite about 78 crore km away. Since a direct trajectory was not possible for this little vehicle, it cranked up the satellite with a series of elliptical orbits and catapulted it into deep space. India also became the first country to send a successful Martian probe at first attemptall at a cost of 07 per km. Though the mission was primarily a technological one, the orbiter has far outlived its six-month expected life and continues to send images of the red planet to earth. These have been procured by agencies as diverse as NASA and National Geographic. With Gaganyaan, too, India intends to do things the Indian way. While it might be the fourth country to send humans to space (after the USSR, the USA and China), it will be the first to send them without first dispatching other life forms. All other countries sent a menagerie of animals first. We dont need to, said Sivan. There will, however, be two unmanned missions (perhaps with dummies), 30 months and 36 months from now. The cost of the mission, again, is pegged at a very modest Rs 10,000 crore. There is much work in the months ahead. Astronaut selection and training will be one facet of the preparation. A basic training, which does not include the spacewalk, requires a minimum of 18 months. But, there is the entire realm of bioscience and Environment Control and Life Support Systems (ECLSS) that needs to be worked out. This is our biggest challenge now, Sivan said. The ECLSS prototype needs a battery of tests. The government expects Gaganyaan alone to open up at least 15,000 jobs, most of them in the private sector, in manufacturing the hardware, developing the scientific instruments, getting the crew ready, and organising their logistics for the week-long voyage. There are two unmanned flights before the actual one, so there is a lot of manufacturing to be done. The country also hopes that a lot of spin-off technology will emerge, which will have practical everyday applications. The ISRO has recently transferred the technology it developed for lithium batteries to the private sector for use in automobiles and mobiles. These were developed for on-board use in satellites. We have also developed a gel for thermal protection, which could help soldiers in Siachen, said Umamaheswaran, adding, Did you know that the Jaipur foot was also developed by ISRO? Indias space sector is entering its busiest phase, with big ticket missions as well as several routine ones. In the next six months, there are nine launches, including Chandrayaan-2 in early January 2019. There was once a time in the USSR when they said that at least one member of every family in the country was employed, in some manner, with the space industry. India might just be entering a similar phase. IN 1993, WHEN PABLO ESCOBAR, the supremo of the Medellin drug cartel, was killed by the Colombian police, his 16-year-old son Juan Pablo Escobar vowed revenge against those responsible for that. The world expected the boy to follow in his fathers footsteps. Twenty-five years later, he is a man of peace, seeking forgiveness from the victims of his fathers crimes. Marroquin, who is now an architect and author, recently came to India for a private event. When asked whether he hates his father for his crimes, Marroquin said, I cannot hate anyone, that is not the man I chose to be. Edited excerpts: Juan Pablo Escobar, now known as Sebastian Marroquin, is the son of slain Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. He, along with his family, moved to Argentina in 1994, after his fathers death. Marroquin studied industrial design and became an architect. He got featured in a documentary Sins of My Father in 2009, and authored the book, Pablo Escobar: My Father, in 2014. You changed your name from Juan Pablo Escobar to Sebastian Marroquin. Why? Did the long shadow of being your fathers son get too much for you? Not for me. But, the whole world did not want to give us a small place on earth to live. We did not ask for privileges. The airlines did not sell us airplane tickets. We asked the help of the Vatican, the International Red Cross, the United Nations, and nobody helped us. So, the only option to escape from violence was a legal change of identity. And, thanks to that, we are still alive. You believe that your father ordered the assassination of 2,000 people. How did a son grow up sane with that sort of knowledge? My father raised me with love. And, at the same time, he did not give me a good example outside home. I received a lot of love from my mother, too. So, I can say that love saved me from being a bad man as my father was. You have reached out to the families and relatives of those your father killed. Why? Was your apology enough? No apology is enough as my father had inflicted so much pain to those families. I took moral responsibility for his sins and crimes. Who else is there to ask for forgiveness? I believe in forgiving. It is possible. I have already experienced that from more than 100 families who were victims of my fathers actions. Forgiving is not about forgetting things. It is about healing. About finding a way to stop the pain and hate. Justice should be done, but [it does] not always necessarily provide tools to repair the souls of those who suffered. The Netflix series Narcos featured your fathers story. But you were concerned about the fact that it glorified your father. Can you elaborate on your misgivings? They glorified my father. They portrayed him as a hero. No wonder why I received thousands of messages from all over the world from young kids who now dream to be like him someday. When people watch Narcos, they want to become like my father. [But,] nobody will dare repeat his story if they read my book [Pablo Escobar: My Father]. We should all thank my father for showing us the path we should not take. Is it not surreal that there are Escobar tattoos, beer bottles and T-shirts. This is a narcoterrorist we are talking about. Life is surreal. My father is now considered the Elvis of the drug business, thanks to Netflix. He is like a rockstar now. And, some also considered him the Da Vinci of crime. I am just trying to make the world aware of the consequences of this violence sponsored by the war on drugs. Once you understood who your father was, did you hate him? Did you resent him after his death? I would never judge my father. I am part of him. He gave me my own life and raised me with love. I faced him many times and asked him to stop violence, but he never listened. I cannot hate anyone, that is not the man I chose to be. I am a man of peace. I was raised in a culture that says: You should honour your father and your mother. It is hard to stay neutral with a father like him. The official version is that Escobar was shot. You believe that he killed himself to save your family. He allowed his enemies to find him when he intentionally broke his golden rule: Do not ever touch the phone. If you do that, you are dead. I tried to protect him. But, he kept calling. He realised that as [we were] hostages of our own government, the only way out for usas his familywas his death. And, perhaps, he committed suicide as the biggest act of love for his family. Because, that was the only thing that could set us free. You grew up with a surreal amount of wealth. Zoos inside your home and choppers that ferried hamburgers. What do you remember of that time? Imagine having your own Jurassic Park in your backyard. Even before [Steven] Spielbergs movie. What was it like to give up all that wealth? It was the only honest way to start from scratch. Thanks to the Cali cartel [ a rival drug cartel] that took all our money, I am the man I am [today]. Because money can easily change your way of thinking. What was the role of the CIA in the narco business? They used my fathers drugs to fight their war against communism in Central America in the early 1980s. That is Barry Seals [an American pilot who became a drug smuggler for Escobars Medellin cartel] story. Mumbai, Sep 22 (PTI) Rima Das' National Award-winning Assamese feature "Village Rockstars" has been chosen to represent India in the Best Foreign Language category at the 91st Academy Awards next year, the Film Federation of India (FFI) announced Saturday. The film follows Dhunu, a girl who grows up in poverty and learns to fend for herself. However, that does not prevent her from following her dream of forming a rock band and owning a guitar someday. Elated with the news, Das said "Village Rockstars" selection is a "huge recognition" for filmmakers from northeast. "It feels great. I don't have many words to explain. The whole journey is kind of a fairy tale. It is a huge recognition for northeast and I think it is the first Assamese film to get selected. So I believe it will change a lot for filmmakers from the region. "I was always hopeful. I was always looking forward to going to the festivals and winning accolades. But most important for me was that people should connect with the film. That emotional connections is something which I have achieved through this film," Das told PTI. "Village Rockstars", starring Bhanita Das in the lead role, had its world premiere at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and has toured more than 70 prestigious international and national film festivals. The coming-of-age film had bagged the Best Feature Film trophy at the 65th National Film Awards, besides also winning Best Child Artist, Best Location Sound Recordist and Best Editing. The announcement was made by SV Rajendra Singh Babu, Chairman, Selection Committee for Oscar Award, FFI. "It is technically a film with good human concept that would touch people around the world. We are honouring a film that deserves to be at the Oscars. We are hopeful and confident that people will see and respect the film," he told reporters. Sanjay Leela Bhansali's "Padmaavat", Alia Bhatt-starrrer "Raazi", Rani Mukerji fronted "Hichki", Shoojit Sircar's "October", "Love Sonia" directed by Tabrez Noorani, "Tumbaad", "Halkaa", "Kadvi Hawa" and latest release "Manto" were part of the list of 28 films submitted for next year's Oscars. No Indian film has ever won an Oscar. The last Indian film that made it to the final five in the Best Foreign Film category list was Ashutosh Gowariker's "Lagaan" in 2001. "Mother India" (1958) and "Salaam Bombay" (1989) are the other two Indian movies to have made it to the top five. Hindi film "Newton" by director Amit Masurkar and starring Rajkummar Rao was India's official submission to the Oscars last year. PTI KKP SHD RB SHD Mumbai, Sep 22 (PTI) Actor Ayushmann Khurrana's wife Tahira Kashyap has revealed that she was diagnosed with "stage 0" breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy procedure. In an optimistic Instagram post, Tahira said she was "detected with DCIS (ductal carcinoma in situ) in my right breast with high grade malignant cells". "Simply put stage 0 cancer/ pre-cancerous stage, with cancer cells multiplying in a contained area. The result I have become a half Indian version of Angelina Jolie (since only one breast was involved)! I told my doctor now is the time to give some competition to the Kardashians since Pamela is passe. But no one listened to me, so now I have a portion of my back tissue in my breast. Perhaps now I can do chin-ups with my breasts!" she wrote. Ayushmann said that Tahira is doing well and has been discharged after the surgery. "Today is the good day as she is discharged now. We got the shocker. I am glad the surgery happened and was successful. She is a fighter. The last four days I was in the hospital," the actor told PTI. In the post, Tahira said that the diagnosis has given her a "new definition of life". "Respect it's unpredictability and have the faith and courage to be the hero of your own drama of life. The invincible human spirit is God like, gives you the courage to endure and the will to revive. There is nothing that human spirit can't do," she said. She also urged women not to take any kind of symptoms lightly and should immediately consult a doctor if they feel something is wrong. "Also I want women of all ages to be aware. I am 35, and I was returned twice over from a mammogram. If any symptoms come up, think of it as a protective force and get yourselves examined. "This mastectomy has left me with even more self love! Big, small, left or right inclined , gravity pulling or defying, or even none, each breast the presence or lack of it has a story to tell. Mine has made me a 2.0 version of myself! This post is dedicated to awareness, self love and resilience of a warrior that I know each one of us possesses #breastcancerawareness #selflove #determination #faith #bodhisattva #bodhisattvaoftheearth" Tahira wrote. PTI KKP RB SHD RB Beirut, Sep 22 (AFP) The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a deadly shooting at a military parade in southwestern Iran on Saturday, its propaganda agency Amaq said. Citing a security source, Amaq said: "Islamic State fighters attacked a gathering of Iranian forces in the city of Ahvaz in southern Iran". The statement was posted on Amaq accounts on on messaging application Telegram. At least 24 people were killed in the attack, including a young girl as well as troops, Iran's state media reported. Three of the attackers died at the scene while a fourth was arrested and later succumbed to his wounds, armed forces spokesman Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi said. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said earlier he held a US ally in the region responsible. "Terrorists recruited, trained, armed & paid by a foreign regime have attacked Ahvaz," Zarif said in a tweet, adding: "Iran holds regional terror sponsors and their US masters accountable for such attacks". Ahvaz lies in Khuzestan, a province bordering Iraq that has a large ethnic Arab community and has seen separatist violence in the past, which Iran has blamed on its regional rivals. (AFP) KUN KUN Paris, Sep 22 (AFP) The organisers of the round-the-world Golden Globe Race said on Saturday they were scrambling to rescue missing Indian sailor Abhilash Tomy, but admitted he was "as far from help as you can possibly be". Tomy's yacht Thuriya had its mast broken off when it was rolled in a storm on Friday and the yachtsman suffered what he called "a severe back injury". The organisers described him as "incapacitated on his bunk inside his boat" and his yacht is 3,704 kilometres off the coast of Perth, Western Australia. On Saturday, he managed to send a message saying: "Extremely difficult to walk, Might need stretcher, can't walk, thanks safe inside the boat... Sat phone down." The organisers said on the race website: "The Australian Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre is working hard to assess and coordinate all possible options to rescue Abhilash Tomy who is as far from help as you can possibly be." Tomy, a 39-year-old commander in the Indian Navy, is able to communicate using a YB3 texting unit but his primary satellite phone is damaged. He has a second satellite phone and a handheld VHF radio packed in an emergency bag, but organisers said he was unable to reach it for the moment. The organisers said they had urged him to try to get to the bag because it could be crucial in making contact with a plane from Australia and an Indian air force plane which might be able to fly over the area. Given the distance from land, the planes will not be able to spend long in the area, the organisers added. A French fishing boat was also heading to the scene "but may not arrive for a few days". The Golden Globe Race involves a gruelling 30,000-mile solo circumnavigation of the globe in yachts similar to those used in the first race 50 years ago, with no modern technology allowed except the communication equipment. Tomy's own yacht is a replica of Robin Knox-Johnston's Suhail, winner of the first Golden Globe Race. (AFP) KUN KUN Beijing, Sep 22 (AFP) China summoned the US ambassador on Saturday to lodge an official protest over sanctions imposed by the United States against a Chinese military organisation for buying Russian fighter jets and missiles, state media said. Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang summoned Ambassador Terry Branstad and "lodged solemn representations over US sanctions against (the) Chinese military," the People's Daily said online. (AFP) SMJ SMJ Islamabad, Sep 22 (PTI) The Pakistan Army on Saturday said it is "ready for war" but chooses to walk the path of peace in the interest of its people, comments which came in response to Indian Army Chief General Bipin Rawat's remark that "stern action" is needed to "avenge" the brutal killing of Indian soldiers. In an interview to Dunya TV, Pakistan Army spokesperson Asif Ghafoor said the country has a long-standing record of fighting terrorism and "we know the price for peace", The Dawn reported. Earlier in the day, commenting on the recent brutal killing of a BSF jawan and three policemen in Jammu and Kashmir, General Rawat in Jaipur said stern action is needed to avenge the barbarism by terrorists and Pakistan Army against Indian soldiers. "We need to take stern action to avenge the kind of barbarism that terrorists and the Pakistan Army have been carrying against our soldiers. It is time to give it back to them in the same coin but not by resorting to similar kind of barbarism. I think the other side must also feel the same pain," he said at a press conference here. Rawat insisted that action against Pakistan was needed but not in a barbaric manner. Refuting India's claim of Pakistani soldiers killing the BSF jawan, Ghafoor said, "We have struggled to achieve peace in the last two decades. We can never do anything to disgrace any soldier." "They (India) have in the past as well laid the blame on us for mutilating the body of a fallen soldier. We are a professional army. We never engage in such acts," he added. "We (Pakistan Army) are ready for war but choose to walk the path of peace in the interest of the people of Pakistan, the neighbours and the region," the spokesperson said. The war of words between the armed forces of the two countries came a day after India called off the foreign minister-level talks with Pakistan in New York this month on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. General Rawat also said the Indian Army had carried out successful operations against the Pakistan Army whenever they did something against India along the border. "Pakistan has suffered many casualties and we have been able to take on their defence system to a large extent, but we never resorted to barbarism. They requested for a ceasefire in May and we agreed, but if they continue to do this, we will need to take other action," he said. PTI SCY AKJ SCY SCY Tehran, Sep 22 (AP) Gunmen attacked an annual Iranian military parade Saturday in the country's oil-rich southwest, killing at least 24 people and wounding 53 others, local media reported. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the assault in Ahvaz, which saw gunfire spray into a crowd of marching Guardsmen, bystanders and government officials watching from a nearby riser. However, Iran faced a bloody assault last year from the Islamic State group and Arab separatists in the region have attacked oil pipelines there in the past. Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif immediately blamed the attack on regional countries and their "US masters," further raising regional tensions as Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers is in jeopardy after President Donald Trump withdrew America from the accord. "Iran will respond swiftly and decisively in defense of Iranian lives," he wrote on Twitter. State television aired footage of the aftermath of the assault on Ahvaz's Quds, or Jerusalem, Boulevard, which like many other places around the country saw an annual parade marking the start of Iran's long 1980s war with Iraq. The images included paramedics trying to help one person in military fatigues as other armed security personnel shouted at each other. The semi-official ISNA news agency published photographs of the attack's aftermath, with bloodied troops in dress uniforms helping each other walk away. A local news agency in Khuzestan province, of which Ahvaz is the capital, aired grainy mobile phone footage showing parade goers fleeing as soldiers lay flat on the ground. Gunfire rang out in the background. "Security forces have restored security in the area but the parade has totally been disrupted," a reporter on the scene for Iranian state television said by phone in a live broadcast. "People have been killed but we have no figures yet." Zarif on Twitter said that the gunmen were "terrorists recruited, trained, armed & paid by a foreign regime." He did not immediately elaborate. However, Arab separatist groups in the region have launched attacks on oil pipelines there in the past and Iran. The separatists also accuse Iran's Shiite theocracy of discriminating against its Sunni Arab citizens. Iran has blamed its Mideast archrival, the Sunni kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for funding their activity. Reports of how the attack unfolded remained unclear immediately afterward. The state TV reporter said the gunfire came from a park behind a riser. The semi-official Fars news agency, which is close to the Guard, said two gunmen on a motorcycle wearing khaki uniforms carried out the attack. The state-run IRNA news agency said the attack killed 24 people and wounded 53, citing "knowledgeable sources" without elaborating. It said gunmen were dressed in Guard uniforms and targeted a riser where military and police commanders were sitting. Khuzestan Gov Gholamreza Shariati told IRNA that two gunmen were killed and other two were arrested. Who carried out the assault also remained in question. State television immediately described the assailants as "takfiri gunmen," a term previously used to describe the Islamic State group. Iran has been deeply involved in the fight against IS in Iraq and has aided embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad in his country's long war. Among those involved are members of the Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary force answerable only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Guard also has vast holdings in Iran's economy. Meanwhile, Guard spokesman Gen Ramazan Sharif told ISNA that an Arab separatist group carried out the attack, without elaborating. However, those groups in the past previously have only attacked unguarded oil pipelines at night. Saturday's attack comes after a coordinated June 7, 2017 Islamic State group assault on parliament and the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Tehran. At least 18 people were killed and more than 50 wounded. Khomeini led the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the Western-backed shah to become Iran's first supreme leader until his death in 1989. The assault shocked Tehran, which largely has avoided militant attacks in the decades after the tumult surrounding the Islamic Revolution. (AP) RUP RUP Islamabad, Sep 22 (PTI) India's decision to cancel the foreign minister-level meeting in New York was "arrogant", Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said Saturday, asserting that he was "disappointed" by the New Delhi's "negative" response. India on Friday cited the "brutal" killing of three policemen in Jammu and Kashmir as well as the release of the postal stamps "glorifying" Kashmiri militant Burhan Wani for calling off the meeting between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York this month. Announcing the cancellation of the meeting, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said in New Delhi that the incidents "exposed" the "true face" of Pakistan's new Prime Minister Imran Khan to the world as well as Islamabad's evil agenda behind the proposal for talks. "The latest brutal killings of our security personnel by Pakistan-based entities and the recent release of a series of 20 postage stamps by Pakistan glorifying a terrorist and terrorism confirm that Pakistan will not mend its ways," Kumar said. "Disappointed at the arrogant and negative response by India to my call for resumption of the peace dialogue," Prime Minister Khan said in a tweet. "However, all my life I have come across small men occupying big offices who do not have the vision to see the larger picture," he said in a sharp reaction to India's cancellation of the meeting. Kumar said talks with Pakistan after the "two deeply disturbing" developments would be "meaningless". "In view of the changed situation, there will be no meeting between the Foreign Ministers of India and Pakistan in New York," he said. Reacting to india's remarks, Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Faisal said Friday that the "so-called 'disturbing developments'" alluded to in the Indian statement predated the Indian agreement to hold the bilateral meeting in New York. He said the alleged killing of a BSF soldier took place two days prior to the Indian announcement of its agreement to hold the bilateral meeting. When the allegations of Pakistan's involvement first appeared, Pakistani rangers clearly conveyed to BSF through official channels that the country had nothing to do with it, he said. "Pakistan...categorically reject these allegations...Our authorities would be prepared to conduct a joint investigation to establish the truth," Faisal said. On the issue of the postage stamps, he said they were issued before the July 25 elections and before Prime Minister Khan assumed office on August 18. "We choose not to further comment beyond saying that these comments are against all norms of civilised discourse and diplomatic communication," Faisal said. "We believe by its ill-considered cancellation of the meeting, India has once again wasted a serious opportunity to change the dynamics of the bilateral relationship and put the region on the path of peace and development," he added. PTI MRJ AKJ MRJ MRJ MP: Student arrested for sexually harassing Nigerian woman Indore, Sep 22 (PTI) Police Saturday arrested a student of Devi Ahilya University for allegedly sexually harassing a 35-year old Biotechnology researcher from Nigeria. Bhawarkuan Police Station in charge Sanjay Shukla told PTI that the accused, identified as Udham Singh Dohre (22), was arrested following a probe into the victim's comment. The accused is a student of a postgraduate course in the Physical Education department of Devi Ahilya University, he added. Shukla said that Dohre offered tea to the Nigerian researcher at Takshashila campus located at Khandwa Road late Thursday evening. During the meeting, the accused also gave his mobile number to the woman, the official said. "The accused allegedly followed her after she had her tea. After some time, he inappropriately touched the victim who managed to run away and take refuge in a professor's house nearby. The accused fled the spot," Shukla said. A case had been registered against the accused under relevant sections of the IPC for sexual harassment and stalking, an official said. Narendra Dhakad, Vice Chancellor of Devi Ahilya University, said Saturday that a committee was being formed to investigate the matter. "On the basis of the committee's report, appropriate action will be taken against the accused student," he said. Anil Kumar, head the varsity's School of Biotechnology said the victim is a post-doctoral researcher on an international fellowship in the department. Kumar said that the she is posted in a national institute run by the Nigerian government. PTI HWP ADU LAL BNM BNM Congress trying to mislead people on Vyapam issue: BJP Bhopal, Sep 22 (PTI) The ruling BJP in Madhya Pradesh Saturday accused the Congress of trying to mislead the people on the Vyapam issue. The saffron party alleged that the opposition was scared of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's "popularity" and hence moved the court ahead of the state assembly polls. The BJP's reaction came hours after a local court recorded the statement of Congress leader Digvijay Singh in connection with a private complaint filed against chief minister Chouhan, Union minister Uma Bharti and five others in the Vyapam scam. "Congress doesn't believe in any investigating agency. They questioned the police investigation into the Vyapam case. Hence, the probe was handed over to the STF (special task force). But since it was not satisfied, a high court-monitored SIT investigated the charges," MP's Public Relations minister Narottam Mishra told reporters here. "The investigation was later handed over to the CBI, but the Congress is still not satisified," he said. Mishra said although the CBI did not find any tampering with the electronic evidence in the Vyapam case, the Congress continued to mislead on the issue. Raising a question mark over the timing of Digvijay Singh's petition in the local court, Mishra said, "Instead of going to public, Congress moved the court ahead of the state assembly elections to mislead the people." "The case was discussed in the local court, the high court as well as the apex court, yet the Congress leaders did not produce the evidence. Now, they have moved the court ahead of the election," he said adding that the opposition is feared of Chief Minister's popularity. In his plea filed in the local court, Digvijay Singh has sought criminal prosecution of Chouhan, Bharti and 5 others in the Vyapam scam. "Digvijay Singh has submitted an electronic evidence copy that states name of Chouhan 48 times in a Vyapam scam investigation document," Congress leader Kapil Sibal, who appeared as Digvijay's lawyer, told reporters after appearing in the court in afternoon. He alleged that earlier the STF and now the CBI were trying to shield people, especially Chouhan, in Vyapam scam. Sibal alleged that Chouhan was the root of the scam. "With Digvijay Singh's private complaint, we are going to prove Chouhan's involvement in the scam," he said. The Vyapam scam refers to irregularities in exams held by the Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board, also called Vyavasayik Pareeksha Mandal or Vyapam, for admission in professional courses and state services. PTI ADU LAL NP NP Congress workers planning to show black flags to PM detained Janjgir/Bilaspur, Sep 22 (PTI) Over a thousand Congress workers including the party's state unit chief Bhupesh Baghel were detained in Chhattisgarh Saturday as they were heading for Janjgir-Champa district to show black flags to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The opposition party had said it would oppose Modi's rally, to protest against the lathi-charge on Congress workers by police in Bilaspur town of the state on September 18. While 489 Congress workers including Baghel were stopped in Balodabazar district, 676 party workers including senior leader T S Singhdeo were held in Bilaspur district, police said. Baghel and others were proceeding to Janjgir-Champa from Raipur when they were intercepted by police near Katgi, Balodabazar Superintendent of Police Prashant Agrawal said. Durg MP Tamradhwaj Sahu, Rajya Sabha member Chhaya Verma, former MLA Ravindra Choubey and seven sitting Congress MLAs were among those detained for violating the orders prohibiting unlawful assembly, the officer said. Singhdeo and other Congress workers were arrested from separate places in Bilaspur, another official said. All of them were released later, police said. Seven Congress workers were injured in a lathi-charge by police following a protest by party workers outside Urban Administration Minister Amar Agrawal's house in Bilaspur four days ago. Subsequently, the BJP government ordered a magisterial probe into the incident and shunted out a senior police official. However, the Congress had said its workers would show black flags to Modi during his visit to Janjgir-Champa as their demand of registration of FIR against the concerned police officer and enquiry by a high court judge was not met. Modi addressed a farmers' rally at Janjgir Saturday. PTI TKP KRK KRK Nagpur, Sep 22 (PTI) Aam Aadmi Party leader Sanjay Singh said Saturday that former French president Francois Hollande's remarks on the Rafale aircraft deal have proved it was a "big scam". The Rajya Sabha MP's remark on the purchase of 36 fighter jets from France came a day after Hollande was quoted by the French media as purportedly saying that the Indian government proposed Anil Ambani-led Reliance Defence as the partner for Dassault Aviation in the Rs 58,000-crore deal and France did not have a choice. The report in 'Mediapart', a French language publication, quoted Hollande as saying, "It was the Indian government that proposed this service group, and Dassault which negotiated with Ambani. We had no choice, we took the interlocutor who was given to us." Addressing a press conference in Nagpur, Singh said, "The statement made by former French president Francois Hollande on the Rafale deal is shocking and it proves that the Rafale deal is a big scam." "The Modi government should tell why the offset contract was given to Reliance Defence. Hollande's statement proves that the Modi government favoured Reliance Defence in getting the offset contract," he said. Under India's offset policy, foreign defence entities are mandated to spend at least 30 per cent of the total contract value in India through procurement of components or setting up of research and development facilities. According to Singh, a joint statement issued by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Hollande in 2015 has come to the fore now and it showed that there was no change in the technology of the aircraft in the new deal. "It is the same technology as was finalised during UPA-II," he said. He said the government should reveal why the cost of Rs 540 crore per aircraft went up to Rs 1,670 crore and the offset contract was given to Reliance Defence, formed 12 days before the announcement of the Rafale deal. "The country suffered losses to the tune of Rs 36,000 crore...about Rs 1,000 per aircraft. It is the biggest scam in defence deal that the country has ever seen," Singh said. He alleged that the statement made by Hollande proved that the Modi government proposed Reliance Defence for the offset partner, dropped Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd and thus favoured Reliance. "The PM should clarify on this aspect. The defence minister should resign and an investigation should be launched to find who got the Rs 36,000 crore... A JPC probe should be initiated," Singh demanded. The AAP leader also said that his party will contest upcoming elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, and on 80 to 100 seats in next Lok Sabha polls. PTI CLS NP ABH ABH Patna, Sep 22 (PTI) Congress president Rahul Gandhi has assured the revamped Bihar unit that the party's interests will not be compromised while forming alliances, BPCC working president Kaukab Qadri said on Saturday. He said the Congress chief asserted that top priority be accorded to strengthening the party in the state. Gandhi made the remarks at a meeting of top office-bearers of the Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee (BPCC), which was reconstituted earlier this week. All India Congress Committee in-charge for Bihar Shaktisinh Gohil also attended the meeting. "He (Gandhi) made it clear that any pre-poll understanding with other parties must be from a position of strength and too many compromises must not be made to placate alliance partners," Qadri told PTI over phone. "We thanked Rahul Gandhi for infusing new vigour into the state unit. We also requested him to address a rally in Bihar sometime at the end of November, to which he agreed," he added. The Congress chief expressed the desire to interact with Bihar's women and the party's panchayat level office-bearers during his tentative visit in November, Qadri said. "Gandhi appreciated the ongoing drive to strengthen the party at grassroots level by appointing panchayat-level presidents. He was also impressed by endeavours like Shakti app, a tool launched here recently for women in distress, which has struck a chord with the state's females who are suffering on account of increasing lawlessness," he said. PTI NAC RG DIV DIV New Delhi, Sep 22 (PTI) The ruling BJP on Saturday lashed out at Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan saying he is in the chair on the directions of his country's army and India will not hold talks with the neighbour till its soldiers are being killed. The Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) remarks came after Khan hit out at India for cancelling a meeting between the foreign ministers of the two countries on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York this month. "..all my life, I have come across small men occupying big offices who do not have the vision to see the larger picture," Khan tweeted earlier on Saturday. Senior BJP leader and Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad asked what else can be expected from a "person who is sitting in the position of prime minister at the directions of his country's army". "There will be no talks with Pakistan till our soldiers keep getting killed," he said at a press conference here. India on Friday cited the "brutal" killing of three policemen in Jammu and Kashmir and the release of the postal stamps "glorifying" Kashmiri militant Burhan Wani for calling off the meeting between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi. Announcing the cancellation of the meeting, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar had said the incidents "exposed" the "true face" of Pakistan's new Prime Minister Imran Khan to the world as well as Islamabad's evil agenda behind the proposal for talks. PTI UZM KR UZM DIV DIV Srinagar, Sep 22 (PTI) A day after three policemen were abducted and killed by militants, security forces Saturday launched a massive cordon and search operation in Shopian and Pulwama districts of Jammu and Kashmir, police said. The cordon and search operation (CASO) was launched in at least eight villages in Pulwama and Shopian districts in south Kashmir early this morning, a police official said. He said a joint team of police, Army and paramilitary CRPF launched the CASO to flush out militants from the area.The official said the operation was going on when last reports came in. Three cops were Friday abducted and later killed by militants in Shopian district. Meanwhile, clashes broke out between groups of youth and security forces during the CASO at Shermal in Shopian, the official said. He said youth pelted stones on the security forces carrying out searches in the area. The forces fired tear gas shells to quell the protests, the official said, adding, clashes were going on. PTI SSB DV DV oon mission a calculated risk; ISRO chairman Sivan Hyderabad,Sep 22 (PTI) ISRO's moon mission Chandrayaan 2, a 'calculated risk' undertaken in the knowledge that 50 per cent of such launches have failed, will land at a spot where no country has gone before,its chairman K Sivan said Saturday. "Though half of lunar missions have failed, ISRO is taking a calculated risk, because calculated risk along with innovation is absolute essential if we want to be a major player in the space industry. Chandrayan 2 is also a calculated risk," he said. He said the landing site at the Moon is above 70- degree latitude, "where no one else has gone before". He said India has not only developed launch vehicles and satellites, but also undertaken extremely challenging and inspiring missions like Chandrayaan, Mars Orbiter Mission andAstrosat. Sivan was speaking at the ninthConvocation of GITAM Deemed to be University at Rudraram in neighbouring Sangareddy district. Sivan said India will have its first demonstration flight of SSLV by mid-2019, which would be the cheapest launch vehicle in the world with the least turnaround time. He said a lot of innovation has gone into the design to ensure that the vehicle is assembled in around 72 hours rather than 70 days required to assemble other launch vehicles. Just six people with a laptop can assemble and launch the SSLV, a university release quoted him as saying. The ISRO chairman said India today has the worlds second largest internet user base. But the broadband speed at present ranks the nation at 76 in the world, he said. "With high throughput satellites GSAT-11, GSAT-29 and GSAT-20 set to be launched before the end of 2019, the country can enjoy more than 100 Gbps high bandwidth connectivity,which will help bridge the digital divide", he said. Sivan said the Centre has approved Rs 10,900 crore for 30 PSLVs and 10 GSLV Mk-III launches in the next four years, in addition to more than 50spacecraft. He said ISRO was not only interested in engaging with established industries, but would also like to see start-ups taking up the challenge. Sivan also said that ISRO has established a capacity building program office to widen the participation of academia and industry in the space sector. "The idea is to conduct activities related to space technology research across the nation through the establishment of Space Technology incubation centers,"he said. Three Ph.D. degrees and over 1,017 graduate and postgraduate degrees were awarded at theconvocation in the faculties of technology and management, the release added. PTI SJRAPR APR APR Chennai, Sep 22 (PTI) The DMK Saturday demanded an inquiry into the Rafale deal to find out the "truth" following former French President Francois Hollande's reported comments. Hollande was quoted in a French media report as purportedly saying that the Indian government proposed Anil Ambani-led Reliance Defence as the partner for Dassault Aviation in the Rs 58,000 crore Rafale jet fighter deal and France did not have a choice. "PM (Narendra) Modi promised a transparent, corruption free government but former French President Hollande's interview shows that the Rafale deal is suspect," DMK president M K Stalin said in a tweet "The PM is accountable to the people of India. A full fledged enquiry should be ordered to find the truth. #ModiRafaleLiesExposed," he said on Twitter, on a day when Congress president Rahul Gandhi renewed his attack on the Centre over the Rafale deal. Gandhi had earlier said in the day that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Anil Ambani jointly carried out a Rs 130,000 crore "surgical strike" on the defence forces. The French government has said it was in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners for the Rafale fighter jet deal, asserting that French companies have the full freedom to select Indian firms for the contract. Reacting to Hollande's reported remark, which is at variance with the Indian government's position on the Rafale deal, a Defence Ministry spokesman had Friday said, "The report referring to former French President Hollande's statement that government of India insisted upon a particular firm as offset partner for Dassault Aviation in Rafale is being verified." PTI VGN SS ANB ANB Jaipur, Sep 22 (PTI) Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje Saturday targeted AICC general secretary and former chief minister Ashok Gehlot, saying he insulted martyrs and their families by calling "Shahadat ko Salam", government programme held on August 14, a wastage of money. At a public meeting in Bansur of Alwar district under her Rajasthan Gaurav Yatra, Raje said Gehlot should apologise for his remarks. She announced doubling of "Samman Bhatta" for the families of slain soldiers and special training for Class 11 and 12 students to prepare them for the National Defence Academy entrance test. Meanwhile, unruly scenes were witnessed in her rally as two local leaders of the party almost got into a fight and security personnel had to take one of them off the stage. Urban Improvement Trust (Alwar) Chairman Devi Singh Shekhawat and former MLA Rohitash Kumarwere got into a tussle in the presence of the chief minister. Security personnel brought Shekhawat off the stage, but Raje intervened and called him back again. The chief minister also addressed public meetings in Kotputli (Jaipur) and Neem ka Thana (Sikar) in Jaipur division. PTI SDA IJT Jaipur, Sep 22 (PTI) Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat on Saturday laid stress on the expansion of "Shakhas" up to the level of the panchayat in rural areas. Addressing RSS workers and leaders in Nagaur during his visit, Bhagwat highlighted the importance of "Shakhas" in the formation of a well-cultured and united society. Shakhas should be extended up to the level of the panchayat in rural areas, he added. Bhagwat also spoke about personality development works done by the RSS, a release issued here said. The RSS chief reached Nagaur Saturday and will attend RSS programmes in Jodhpur region over next two days, it added. PTI SDA IJT Controversial Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary held a secret meeting with his counterpart at British Airways owner IAG, sparking rumours he may be scouting for a heavy hitter to take over his job, a new book reveals. The meeting with Willie Walsh at a London restaurant in July was quickly followed by speculation at Ryanair's head office that O'Leary was on the brink of stepping down as chief executive at the end of his current five-year deal next year. Last week the billionaire boss known as much for his colourful language as his business acumen cast doubt on his future at a public meeting. Rendezvous: Ryanair's Michael O'Leary, left, and BA chief Willie Walsh He told shareholders he was 'not sure whether I want to sign up for another five years' at the low-cost airline he joined soon after it was founded in 1984. His apparent weariness comes after a summer of battling unions, facing another barrage of passenger ire and a pilot rostering debacle a year ago that led to the cancellation of thousands of flights. The revelations suggest O'Leary has been mulling his departure for some time. The book by Matt Cooper only finalised in recent weeks said O'Leary 'raised the idea of Walsh ditching IAG to return home to Ireland and Ryanair'. And last week O'Leary indicated he was reviewing his options. Speaking after the annual shareholder meeting in which almost 30 per cent of shareholders tried to oust his chairman for 22 years, David Bonderman, O'Leary said: 'I have no idea when I'll have had enough. I like working for this company. I don't do it for the pay I get. 'But as long as it remains interesting and fun and challenging, I see no reason not to continue to try to lead it and lead it forward positively. 'I'm very happy to go on to a rolling 12-month contract. I own 4 per cent of the company. It's not like I'm going to go anywhere. They want me to sign up another contract for a period of years. 'I'm not sure whether I want to sign up for another five years. That would take me to 62. 'I'm not sure Mrs O'Leary would be very happy if I agree to sign up for another five years.' Cooper's book tracks O'Leary's change of attitude towards passengers since 2014. He built his career amid alehouse expletives and wisecracks that should have been enough to make most customers steer clear were it not for the promise of ever lower prices. 'What part of no refunds do you not understand?' he once said. 'We don't fall over ourselves if they say, 'My granny fell ill.' You are not getting a refund, so **** off.' Ryanair declined to comment. Michael O'Leary: Turbulent Times For The Man Who Made Ryanair, by Matt Cooper, is out on Thursday. A controversial group set up by a fraudster to sue the Royal Bank of Scotland is facing a police probe following a 12-month Mail on Sunday investigation. The Ministry of Justice is preparing to hand the City of London Police a dossier on the RBoS Shareholders Action Group, co-founded by businessman Gerard Walsh. This paper has revealed he was named as a fraudster in Jersey Royal Court in 2014. The group was set up to sue RBS on behalf of 7,000 small investors who felt duped into buying shares in a doomed 2008 rights issue. Probe: The action group was set up to sue RBS on behalf of 7,000 small investors The investors won 200million compensation from RBS in 2017 but most of it has yet to be paid out. In April, a court was told Walsh is claiming 3.75million for himself. Several small investors have asked the City of London Polices Action Fraud unit to probe the group. The MoJ intervention piles pressure on the force to act. The action group declined to comment, and instead pointed to a separate complaint it had made to the Solicitors Regulation Authority. TV presenter Noel Edmonds is spearheading a campaign against malpractice by lenders TV presenter Noel Edmonds is demanding that banks should be forced to attach health warnings to their advertising. Edmonds, who is spearheading a campaign against malpractice by lenders, is backing calls by MPs for action in the wake of scandals involving banking mistreatment. Kevin Hollinrake, a Tory MP who co-chairs the All Party Parliamentary Group on Fair Business Banking, has written to the Advertising Standards Authority suggesting that the caution would help to protect business customers. Edmonds has emerged as a champion of small businesses that have suffered financially at the hands of bankers. He told The Mail on Sunday: There needs to be some kind of warning to the public that there is little or no regulation of business banking in the UK. The former Deal Or No Deal presenter is launching a legal action next month against Lloyds Banking Group over the treatment of his Unique Group by HBOS bankers. Edmonds lawyers also filed a complaint this summer to the ASA over Lloyds black horse ad campaign, which features the slogan By Your Side. From the upper echelons of the banking industry, John McFarlane has seen the fortunes of his profession wax and wane over decades. As the six-month countdown to Brexit begins, the 71-year-old Barclays chairman is optimistic the Square Mile will not wither and die as the UK is cut loose from the European Union. But the straight-talking Scot says years of being beaten down by Government-sanctioned regulation in the aftermath of the financial crisis have left our banks lagging competitors in the US and therefore vulnerable to foreign invasions and takeovers. Fighting talk: Barclays chairman John McFarlane To demonstrate his point, he grabs his iPad from a table in his uncluttered Canary Wharf office in London and begins testing me on where UK banks come in a global list ranked by stock market value. HSBC is eighth, then Lloyds in 30th. RBS and Barclays are somewhere in the 50s. JP Morgan is worth $380billion (290million); Lloyds Bank is valued at $55billion. Whats that? Seven times the value? Its pocket money [to a US bank attempting a takeover], says McFarlane, who is stocky, with a shock of white hair, in shirtsleeves, maroon tie and sips black coffee while we talk. 'In 2005 there were four British banks in the top 20 and there is one now. We in the UK will be on the receiving end of consolidation if nothing changes. Barclays, the bank he has overseen for three years now, is a case in point. Since it was linked to an unlikely merger with the Asia-focused Standard Chartered in spring, a power struggle has emerged at the very top of the organisation. McFarlane plays down the idea of a grand merger but, crucially, the lenders lowly share price has increased the influence of an American activist investor who is thought to want its investment banking arm scaled back. Edward Bramson, whose investment vehicle Sherborne has amassed a 5.4 per cent stake in Barclays, is thought keen to release some of the 26billion of capital tied up in that side of the business. Yet by contrast, McFarlanes chief executive, Jes Staley, is keen to push in the other direction and capitalise on the banks strong foothold serving international corporate clients on both sides of the Atlantic. There is growing anticipation that a shake-up is on the way. McFarlane has been widely expected to step down in time for the companys annual general meeting next year and couldnt be clearer: The future of Barclays is still to fight for. Somewhat ominously, the Dumfries-born City grandee has earned the nickname Mack the Knife for deftly dispensing with chief executives and swathes of staff when the going gets tough. He switched to banking from carmaker Ford almost 40 years ago, and 18 years at Citibank led to executive roles at Standard Chartered, based in Hong Kong and London, where he tackled strategy and handled the investigation into a bribery scandal, followed by a decade Down Under, where he revived Australia and New Zealand Banking Group. He arrived back in London on a high in 2008, first as a non-executive director at Royal Bank of Scotland (the view in the City is that he might have chaired RBS had it not fallen into taxpayer hands), then chairing Aviva and now Barclays. We have turned it round': McFarlane says of Barclays Three years ago, he made an internal rallying cry for a strategy that would double the share price from 260p. On Friday, the shares closed at 176.5p. Its clearly the cause of great frustration for McFarlane particularly given that in August, half-year pre-tax profits were up 20 per cent at 3.7billion when legal and conduct costs were excluded. We have turned it round and curiously the value has gone down, McFarlane says. He thinks shareholder nervousness could point beyond Brexit and right to the banks core strategy and specifically the future of the investment arm. There must be something else in shareholders minds [other than Brexit], he says. There is probably an aversion to our significant position in wholesale banking that might be contributing to it. The percentage of fraudulent claims for PPI compensation is enormous Somewhat surprisingly against that backdrop, relations with Edward Bramson and Sherborne appear cordial: The nice thing is he likes me for some strange reason, McFarlane says. Then he adds, intriguingly: He wants me to stay. There was some report in the newspaper that said Sherborne wanted me to go. He immediately came back and said that it is the opposite. He thinks I might be part of the solution. Could McFarlane stay on beyond next years AGM? Could he even grant Bramson a board seat just as Rolls-Royce did for its activist investor ValueAct? That is hard, McFarlane says, without explicitly ruling out the idea. I think if you own 19.9 per cent of a company you think, well hold on Five per cent? Some borrowed? We have not discussed it actually. John McFarlane grows his own olives No wonder rumours of tension between McFarlane and JP Morgan veteran Staley persist. McFarlane stood by his chief executive through a whistleblowing row that could have cost him his job Staley was fined and reprimanded by the regulator for attempting to unmask the employee involved. But Staley could be forgiven for remaining anxious over his future. We get on fine. He is strong-minded and I am strong-minded. We talk frankly about things. For the moment, I have backed him, says McFarlane. McFarlanes biggest concern, he says, is the UK Governments lack of support for the banking industry as a whole. It must decide what the country should excel at, he says. If banks remain important beyond Brexit, it should get behind the industry a decade after the Lloyds and RBS bailouts. They need to do something to assist in the strategic advancement of UK Inc, he says firmly. It is an arresting and in some ways controversial view given that the 2008 crash, excessive pay and mis-selling scandals are still fresh in the memory. McFarlane says lenders have largely cleaned up their act yet badly lag their rivals in the US largely due to hefty fines, conduct costs, heavier capital requirements and tax. In the past six years, McFarlane says Barclays made 9billion after penalties and fines, which sunk to a 1 billion loss following 10billion of taxes and levies. If banks get into trouble, society is safer now. But are banks safer? They are less profitable. John McFarlane, 71: Family man with a love of olive oil McFarlanes son-in-law is broadcaster Richard Bacon Marital status: Married with three daughters. McFarlanes son-in-law is broadcaster Richard Bacon, right, who is recovering after a health scare in July that saw him put into a coma. Hobbies: Enjoys watching drama and science fiction films. Was once in a skiffle band called The Sekrets and his star turn was to perform The House Of The Rising Sun by 1960s rock band The Animals. Grows olives which are pressed to make the familys own olive oil at a holiday retreat in Provence. The scandal of payment protection insurance is a particular niggle. Not that the banks shouldnt refund where appropriate, but, with the final total expected to hit 50 billion, the compensation process has been massively abused, he claims. It is almost inconceivable to think that 50billion was mis-sold, he says. He thinks the claims management firms lack adequate regulation. This is stimulation of the economy by buying flat-screen televisions. The percentage of fraudulent claims is enormous. We have turned portions of Britain into fraudsters. He adds: It was in Governments interests: consumer spending rose and it weakened the banks. So the Government is complicit here in the decline of the City. For the moment I have backed Jes Staley. We talk and get on fine With a fearsome reputation, it is no surprise that McFarlane is a prime mover in trying to preserve London as a global financial services hub after Brexit. As chairman of TheCityUK, a broad Square Mile lobbying outfit, he has hosted dinners with Theresa May and the Chancellor Philip Hammond to press home the industrys points. Lenders have given up on keeping passporting rights which let them serve clients across the EU from a base in the capital. So-called mutual recognition, a plan drawn up by TheCityUK and adopted by the Government whereby the UK and EU would accept each others rules in exchange for broad two-way market access, has also failed to catch fire. Banks are left pinning their hopes on enhanced equivalence, by which the UK can gain EU access as long as it can prove it is following the same laws. It sounds fine, except as it stands equivalence rules give the EU a 30-day notice period for cutting off access far from ideal for banks such as Barclays that want certainty before putting billions to work. McFarlane is realistic that mutual recognition was going nowhere. Since it was dropped, talks have become much more constructive and they made some progress. The UK is playing the financial stability card strongly, suggesting its deep capital markets are not easily replicable elsewhere. However, there are almost daily announcements of jobs leaching on to the Continent as contingency plans are enacted. For its part, Barclays is beefing up operations in Dublin and Frankfurt. Logic says that this is in everyones interests to solve and therefore it will be solved, says McFarlane. He can only hope that Britains biggest banks will prosper on the global stage once again. And it would cap an illustrious career if he could leave Barclays on a high whenever that may be. Green Dot Corp. operates as a financial technology leader and bank holding company, which engages in the provision of modern banking and money movement accessible for all. It operates through the following segments: Account Services; Processing and Settlement Services; and Corporate and Other. The Account Services segment consists of revenues and expenses derived from deposit account programs, such as prepaid cards, debit cards, consumer and small business checking accounts, secured credit cards, payroll debit cards, and gift cards. The Processing and Settlement Services segment comprises of products and services that specialize in facilitating the movement of funds on behalf of consumers and businesses. The Corporate and Other segment represents eliminations of intersegment revenues and expenses, unallocated corporate expenses, depreciation and amortization, and other costs that are not considered when management evaluates segment performance. The company was founded by Steven W. Streit in October 1, 1999 and is headquartered in Pasadena, CA. Read More LIMERICK After two months of back-and-forth debate, bureaucracy won and residents of low-income housing lost. At their meeting Tuesday night, Limerick Supervisors reluctantly voted to discontinue the townships long participation in a federally-funded program that helped make repair to low-income homes. In June, Township Manager Dan Kerr outlined for the supervisors how federal bureaucracy surrounding a Community Development Block program Limerick has used for decades to help low-income home rehabilitation was making the program unsustainable. In July, the supervisors reluctantly decided to keep the program going for another year, despite the added costs. At the Sept. 18 meeting, they reversed that decision as the deadline for applying for another round of funding approached. Kerr said because the arc of the program is so slow, the township still has about $240,000 remaining in the account that can be used to help rehabilitate low-income homes until it runs out. Even doing that will require the spending of between $20,000 to $30,000 of township funds. Kerr has been warning the supervisors for months that the costs of complying with the ever-thickening layers of rules would consume all the money the program provided for administration and require the spending of money raised through local taxes. He said in 2016, the township received $198,000 in CDBG block grant money, but had to spend $24,000 on administration, auditing the contractors, filling out reports and the like. The money once allocated to Limerick between $190,000 to $200,000 per year will instead go to Montgomery County, although there is no saying how much of it will be put into the countys similar low-income housing program. In the future, Limerick properties can still apply for the program run by the county, but they will be competing against applicants from throughout the county. Kerr explained that the rules have become so burdensome that, for example, where once the township could go in and use the program to replace a heater that failed in the middle of winter, the rules now require that the entire building be brought up to code. There are many rules prevailing wage, ensuring women- and minority-owned businesses are among the bidders, requirements that contractors hire low-income workers for the project Kerr said. In June, Kerr offered up the following example: We had a job at a mobile home, I wont say where, where we could have purchased a whole new mobile home for $15,000; just towed away the old one and plopped down a brand new one, for $15,000. However, Kerr said, the programs rules dont allow that, so instead we had to spend $40,000 to bring that mobile home up to code. We used to do 20 major repairs a year, but now were down to six-to-eight a year, depending on how much work needs to be done, Kerr said in June. Its a real shame, said Supervisors Chairwoman Elaine DeWan. We used to help a lot of people with this program. This article first appeared as a post in The Digital Notebook blog. Albany ILUM Health Solutions, a subsidiary of Merck & Co., will team up with the state Health Department and Gaithersburg, Md.-based data analysis company OpGen in a program to detect, track and manage antimicrobial-resistant infections at health care institutions, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Friday. ILUM will relocate to the Capital Region, invest up to $48 million and create up to 115 jobs over a five-year period, the governor said. The move comes as Wadsworth Center, the Health Department's public health laboratory, prepares to move into new Capital Region facilities under a $750 million commitment to move into new facilities. Envisioned as "a lab for the 21st century," Wadsworth is intended to attract private-sector companies and academic institutions to collaborate in research and development. A final location for the new Wadsworth Center hasn't yet been announced, but locations being eyed include the University at Albany's Health Sciences campus in East Greenbush and the Harriman State Office Campus in Albany. An official request for proposals is expected to be issued Monday. "By investing in public health institutions and innovative research, we are working to protect New Yorkers against harmful infectious diseases while cementing our status as a leader in the growing life sciences sector," Cuomo said. "This groundbreaking partnership will create new, cutting-edge tools to bring life-changing discoveries out of the lab and into the world, moving our economy forward and creating a stronger, healthier New York for all." Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. Earlier this month, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals announced it would spend $800 million to expand in East Greenbush and add 1,500 jobs in the next five years to the 2,600 it already has in the area. ILUM in the short term will lease space in downtown Albany near the Corning Tower, an Empire State Development spokeswoman said. That would put it close to existing Wadsworth Center laboratory facilities in the Empire State Plaza. The initiative must meet an initial milestone, which would then lead to a commitment from the New York State Life Sciences to provide $22.4 million in public funding. Washington The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman on Friday rejected key concessions sought by Brett Kavanaugh's accuser if she is to testify about her claim Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers, and threatened a Monday vote by his panel on Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination without a quick agreement. Minutes before a 10 p.m. deadline set by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, an attorney for Christine Blasey Ford asked for another day to decide. Lawyer Debra Katz said the time limit's "sole purpose is to bully Dr. Ford and deprive her of the ability to make a considered decision that has life-altering implications for her and her family." The late-night brinkmanship left in question whether Ford, a California psychology professor, would appear before the GOP-run committee and tell lawmakers and a captivated nation about her allegation that an inebriated Kavanaugh trapped her on a bed, muffled her cries and tried removing her clothes when both were teenagers in the 1980s. Grassley turned down Ford's request that only senators, not attorneys, be allowed to ask questions. The committee's 11 Republicans all men have been seeking an outside female attorney to interrogate Ford, mindful of the election-season impression that could be left by men trying to pick apart a woman's assertion of a sexual attack. He also rejected her proposal that she testify after Kavanaugh, a position lawyers consider advantageous because it gives them a chance to rebut accusations. "We are unwilling to accommodate your unreasonable demands," Grassley said in a written statement. Grassley's stance underscored a desire by President Donald Trump and GOP leaders to usher the 53-year-old Kavanaugh onto the high court by the Oct. 1 start of its new session and before the November elections, when Democrats are mounting a robust drive to grab congressional control. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. Friday was the latest in a string of tumultuous days for Kavanaugh, whose ascension to the Supreme Court seemed a sure bet until Ford emerged last weekend and provided details of the alleged assault. Kavanaugh, a District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals judge, has repeatedly denied the accusation. Earlier, Trump ended a week of constraint and sarcastically assailed Ford, tweeting that if the episode was "as bad as she says," she or "her loving parents" surely would have reported it to law enforcement. The president's tweet brought blistering rejoinders from Democrats and a mix of silence and sighs of regret from his own party. Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who hasn't declared support for Kavanaugh, called the remark "appalling." It was also the latest provocation from a man who's faced a litany of sexual misconduct allegations himself of moderate female voters whose support Republicans will need to fend off a robust Democratic drive to capture congressional control in November's elections. At a campaign rally in Missouri later Friday, Trump didn't mention Ford but said Kavanaugh was born to be on the Supreme Court and "it's going to happen." Semple Stadium, Thurles rocked to its foundations last night as the opening of the Feile Classical brought back memories of the halcyon days of the early-mid nineties when the original and best open air rock 'n roll festival was at its pomp. And, the good news for all those heading along again this evening, is that it will be bigger and better again. An estimated attendance of 8,000 packed in Ardan Ui Riain last last night, but tonights event is sold out with a maximum capacity of 10,000 set to attend. The Stunning brought the house down with their set of familiar music which was so popular at Feile in times past, and they were joined by An Emotional Fish, The Four of Us, The Frank and Walters, Househouse Flowers and of course Something Happens - the Feile Classical being the brainchild of frontman, and host, Tom Dunne. All were joined by the Irish Chamber Orchestra for a memorable evening which also featured Dustin the turkey in dispatches, and video footage of Feile's past. From Prosecco tents to gourmet burgers, wine bars to malt whiskeys and much more besides, Feile Classical was very different from the original Feile, and yet the unique atmosphere associated with "the Irish Woodstock" as one enthusiast dubbed it, was recreated. The music is underway in Semple Stadium right now and the party will continue until well into the night throughout the town. [September 21, 2018] ODEM Activates Smart Contracts on the Ethereum Blockchain VILNIUS, Lithuania, Sept. 22, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- ODEM, creator of the world's first On-Demand Education Marketplace, is pleased to announce the successful activation of smart contracts on the Ethereum Blockchain in support of the ODEM Platform. Dr. Adel ElMessiry, ODEM's Chief Technology Mentor, completed the deployment of the contracts today at a live event at the #SWITCH! Conference in Vilnius, Lithuania. As an audience of mostly students looked on, Antanas Guoga, the Lithuanian representative to the European Parliament, received the first blockchain-based educational certificate to be generated by the ODEM Platform. "Today's activation is a powerful endorsement of our project's technical viability," said Dr. ElMessiry. "I'm really pleased with the progress we've achieved toward making the ODEM Platform a reality." Smart contract activation is a final step in testing interaction between the InterPlanetary Filing System (IPFS) and the Ethereum Blockchain, pillars of the ODEM Platform. Deployment of the smart contracts follows the recent achievement of several significant milestones and achievements on ODEM's road to full activation of the Platform in early 2019. Those accomplishments include:/p> Third-party testing and auditing of the DApp (decentralized application). ODEM Cloud integration with mainnet smart contracts. Quality assurance for viewing of educational certificates. ODEM, based in Zug, Switzerland, is a global leader in addressing the hurdles that students encounter in gaining a higher education. The ODEM Platform is a collaborative, decentralized portal to empower students to engage with top academics to create exceptional educational experiences at a reasonable cost. #Switch! is the largest non-profit networking conference in the Baltic States centered on entrepreneurship, information, communication and technology. More than 15,000 participants are expected at the conference for speeches and discussions focused on blockchain technology, artificial intelligence and cyber security. For more information please see: ODEM.IO. Or join the ODEM conversation on Telegram. Please see Events for a snapshot of upcoming industry conferences that ODEM leaders will attend. Alexa Narma, Sr. Director, Product and Marketing alexa@odem.io press@odem.io Tel: +1 (424) 327-5682 Via Balestra 66830 Chiasso, Switzerland Join The ODEM.IO Conversation on Telegram. https://www.linkedin.com/company/odem-io/ https://www.facebook.com/odemio/ https://twitter.com/ODEM_IO Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/639718/ODEM_IO_Logo.jpg SOURCE ODEM.IO [September 22, 2018] Foresters Financial and KaBOOM! Celebrate Building 150 Playgrounds Together While Increasing Play Opportunities for Minneapolis Kids The Minneapolis community was revitalized today thanks to a new playground built at Jenny Lind Elementary School. In just six hours, more than 200 volunteers from Foresters Financial, Jenny Lind Elementary School and the national non-profit KaBOOM! created the new playspace, which will serve more than 1,300 children and their families in the local community for years to come. Foresters Financial also celebrated its 150th playground build with KaBOOM!. "For over 140 years Foresters Financial has focused on our Purpose, which is to help families and strengthen communities," said Jim Boyle, President and CEO, Foresters Financial. "We've had a special relationship with Jenny Lind Elementary for about five years now, and being able to celebrate this milestone here is exceptional." The design for the new playground is based on drawings created by neighborhood children at a special Design Day event held in June when community members met with organizers from KaBOOM! and Foresters Financial to design their dream playground. The drawings inspired the final playground design. Since 2006, Foresters Financial and KaBOOM! have built 150 beautiful playspaces across 86 cities in 31 states and provinces throughout North America. Thanks to the hard work of over 9,900 Foresters members, sales partners and guests for the last eleven years, we are positively impacting the lives of more than 5 million children by providing them with access to play. Through each new playground, families are better able to spend quality time together right in their own neighborhoods, playing alongside Foresters members and community partners. "This playground will create an innovative space for children and families to engage in play together," said Liz Corris, Assistant Principal, Jenny Lind Elementary School. "Our school community was deeply impacted by three high-profile and tragic events this past summer. We are deeply hopeful that this playground build will provide our community an opportunity to heal from these incidents by coming together for the purpose of creating a safe space for our children to play." Play is the business of childhood and is essential to the physical, cognitive, creative, social and emotional development of every kid. It's how kids build strong muscles and healthy bodies; it's how they learn problem-solving conflict resolution and creativity; it's how they make friends and build strong bonds with adults. Play is critical to a kid's ability to thrive. Foresters Financial is a KaBOOM! Founding Partner and National Partner. Since 1996, KaBOOM! has been dedicated to ensuring that all kids get the balance and active play they need to thrive. About Jenny Lind Elementary School Jenny Lind Elementary School is a Minneapolis Public School located in the Lind-Bohanon neighborhood of North Minneapolis. We are a culturally rich community serving 450 students in Pre-Kindergarten through 5th grade. Our staff create and nurture a supportive, student-centered learning community that promotes personal empowerment, academic growth and social emotional well-being for all. About Foresters Financial Foresters Financial is an international financial services provider with more than three million clients and members in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, and total funds under management of $45.1 billion1. With a history of more than 140 years, we provide life insurance, savings, retirement and investment solutions that help families achieve their financial goals, protect their families and improve their communities. For more information, visit foresters.com. Foresters Financial and Foresters are trade names and trademarks of The Independent Order of Foresters (a fraternal benefit society, 789 Don Mills Road, Toronto, Canada M3C 1T9) and its subsidiaries. Products offered vary by country. Not all products are available for distribution in all jurisdictions. In the United States, products are offered by The Independent Order of Foresters and its subsidiaries, including Foresters Financial Services, Inc. a registered broker-dealer. Securities, life insurance and annuity products are offered through Foresters Financial Services, Inc. or independent producers. Insurance products are issued by Foresters Life Insurance and Annuity Company, New York, or The Independent Order of Foresters. Investment advisory products and services are offered through Foresters Advisory Services, LLC, a registered investment adviser. 1 in Canadian dollars as of December 31, 2017 About KaBOOM! KaBOOM! is the national non-profit dedicated to giving all kids - especially those living in poverty - the childhood they deserve through great, safe places to play. KaBOOM! inspires communities to make play the easy choice and works to drive the national discussion about the importance of PLAYces. KaBOOM! has collaborated with partners to build or improve more than 17,000 playspaces, engaged more than 1.5 million volunteers and served over 9 million kids. To learn why play matters for all kids, visit kaboom.org and join the conversation at twitter.com/kaboom, facebook.com/kaboom and instagram.com/kaboom. #playmatters #PLAYceforKids 414828F CAN/US (09/18) View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180922005004/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] The camera on last year's iPhone X impressed us out of the gate, but Apple was unable to hold the lead for long. Fierce competition from Google's Pixel 2, Huawei's P20 Pro and Samsung's Galaxy S9 series left the iPhone X looking a lot less like a leader in mobile imaging. But the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max promise better photo quality, thanks to a new sensor and welcome new features like Smart HDR. The Galaxy Note 9 has a pretty advanced camera, too. For example, the Note 9's rear shooter has a variable aperture that can switch between f/1.5 and f/2.4, depending on the necessities of the scene. Additionally, the Note 9 employs Samsung's new Scene Optimizer technology, which leverages AI to tune images, depending on the type of scene that's being shot. Both phones have dual, wide-angle and telephoto 12-megapixel lenses equipped with optical image stabilization, both are capable of 2x optical zoom and both can capture shallow depth-of-field portraits with bokeh that can be manipulated after tapping the shutter. To crown a winner, we took to the streets of New York City to capture an assortment of photos across all types of scenarios, from a sunny morning to a starry night. Here's how they compared. Flower We start out with a pair of images of yellow irises captured outside Bryant Park on an overcast afternoon. There's a very clear difference in terms of contrast between the two handsets: The Note 9 favors deeper shadows and brighter highlights, while the iPhone XS steers clear of the highs and lows and delivers an image that is more balanced and less unrealistically saturated. But as a result, the image looks a bit washed out. It's a close call that sets the tone for the rest of this comparison: the iPhone tends to produce more natural photos, while the Note 9 often generates dramatic shots that seem lightly edited. Ultimately, they're different approaches to image processing, and users are likely to fall in one camp or the other. But in this case, we give it to the Note 9 for the punchiness of the yellow and the depth that the more robust contrast lends to the overall composition. Winner: Galaxy Note 9 Bar That leads us to another comparison where the differences between the iPhone XS and Note 9 are very stark. Straightaway, it's easy to tell that Samsung's shooter opted for a warmer color balance. There's a glow to those overhead lamps that's lacking in the iPhone XS' shot, though the iPhone XS doesn't blow out the highlights in the same way. Upon closer inspection, though, the iPhone XS does a significantly better job of capturing the details. Notice how the labels on the bottles are more legible in Apple's effort, and the texture of the man's shirt in the foreground is just glazed over by the Note 9's aggressive algorithms. The Note 9 paints a warm and inviting scene, but when realism and clarity are paramount, the iPhone XS steps up. Winner: iPhone XS Hot Dog Cart The Note 9 opted for its narrower f/2.4 aperture for this shot, which explains its darkness compared to the iPhone XS' f/1.8 rendition. The Note 9's aperture can be controlled manually, but in these tests, we left it in automatic mode. The result is an image that's simply too dim and even a little blurrier than the iPhone's example. That second complaint is particularly surprising, because you'd expect the smaller aperture to deliver a crisper photo. That said, both phones negotiated the intense light from the bulbs quite well. Winner: iPhone XS Outdoor Cafe Viewing an outdoor cafe from afar gave us the perfect opportunity to test the 2x optical-zoom functions in both of these handsets as well as the quality of their secondary lenses. And it's here where the iPhone XS enjoyed one of the most decisive victories of the entire comparison. The Note 9's telephoto lens blows out far too much of the frame. In fact, the entire background is oversaturated in intense white, especially surrounding the buildings behind the cafe. The details at the fringes also get really hazy through the Samsung lens, like the people toward the right edge of the image. On the iPhone, these patrons are depicted clearly, but the Note 9 turns them into bright, glowing smudges. Winner: iPhone XS Portrait The Tom's Guide office was admittedly torn on this one. Some of us preferred the drama of the Note 9's vivid hues and intense contrast. Others preferred the warmth and balance of the iPhone XS' portrait. Ultimately, the devil is in the details, as we found again when we zoomed into each photo. The Note 9 muddies the texture of Caitlin's shirt and takes too many liberties with the tone of her skin. There was also a critical error in the Note 9's bokeh the phone didn't apply the blur to a man walking in the background. The iPhone avoided both pitfalls, earning it the win here. Winner: iPhone XS Church The Note 9 may be falling behind in this battle, but it appears Apple's imaging engineers still have something to learn from the way Samsung's hero device performs at night. This rather dramatic shot looking up at a church may be a bit clearer through the iPhone XS' lens, but the Note 9 illuminates more of the scene, allowing you to see all the way up to the top of the building. On the iPhone, those upper reaches quickly become shrouded in darkness. That's not to say the iPhone handled other aspects better: most notably, the color of the church's brick surface. And while it wasn't quite as warm as Samsung's flagship might lead you to believe, overall, the Note 9 wins for producing something far more visible, given the unfavorable conditions. Winner: Galaxy Note 9 Cupcakes A box of gourmet cupcakes produced one of the closest calls of the entire comparison. The Note 9's attempt stands out for its slightly cooler white balance and more pronounced contrast. The finer details are also more readily apparent through Samsung's lenses notice how much more legible the "Back to School" text is, and the precision with which the Note 9 captures the cloth-like texture. The iPhone XS couldn't quite compete with that, nor could it render the sugar crystals with the same kind of attention to detail as the Note 9's effort. However, the iPhone XS did succeed when it came to capturing the glossiness and specular highlights of the icing so you could argue its cupcakes look a bit more appetizing, even if the overall shot is comparatively more dull. Winner: Galaxy Note 9 Sky Neither of these images turned out particularly well, but you tempt fate anytime you point a camera into the sun. There's a noticeable lens glare on the lower-left corner of the iPhone XS' shot that doesn't happen on the Note 9's attempt. However, Samsung's flagship delivers ugly artifacts in the opposite corner, with a swath of pink static marring an otherwise sunny afternoon scene. The iPhone's cooler hues actually feel a little less appropriate here, but then again, Apple's phone navigates the highlights significantly better, pulling more blue out of the sky and painting the clouds with greater nuance than Samsung's phone could manage. The iPhone also retains its reputation for sharper images as you zoom in; it renders the texture of the library in the background with better precision than the overly processed and blurry effort from the Note 9. Winner: iPhone XS House We end the comparisons with one more nighttime shot, captured without the use of HDR on either phone. Surprisingly, the results are quite good from both rivals. The long shadows from the spotlighting lend themselves to a very dramatic scene that tests the cameras' capability to illuminate the darker regions while keeping those bright spots in check. The iPhone XS just edges the Note 9 in a few key areas. Notice how the light from the window above the door and the part of the porch closest to the foreground are less blown out than those same areas in Samsung's attempt. And pay special attention to the surfaces of the three buildings, which are a bit brighter, warmer and more visible on Apple's handset. Winner: iPhone XS Overall Winner: iPhone XS Apple iPhone XS Samsung Galaxy Note 9 Flower (Outdoor) Bar (Indoor) Hot Dog Cart (Outdoor) Cafe (Outdoor) Portrait (Outdoor) Church (Night) Cupcakes (Indoor) Sky (Outdoor) House (Night) Overall 6 3 Despite the fact that we're dealing with a pair of $1,000-plus phones here, the cameras in the latest iPhone and Galaxy Note are less similar than you might expect. The iPhone XS opts for realistic colors, muted contrast and sharper details, while the Note 9 seemingly applies more aggressive processing aided by Samsung's AI Scene Optimize, to produce shots that are more striking and in many cases, more dramatic. Whichever one you prefer is a matter of taste. But across the majority of scenarios, we found that the iPhone XS was consistently more likely to produce the kinds of images we wanted to share. Mind, it's not quite perfect; although Apple has certainly stepped up its low-light game, the Note 9 was never far behind and, in the case of that one extremely dim church shot, Samsung's handset had the upper hand. But overall, Apple delivered another brilliant pair of shooters in the iPhone XS that continue to push the boundaries of what a mobile device can do. However, the rate of progress isn't slowing down. The iPhone XS will have a new challenger to fend off in the coming weeks, as Google unveils its Pixel 3. That face-off could very well decide the best smartphone camera for the upcoming year, but until then, the iPhone XS gets to walk away with its head held high. Credit: Tom's Guide The iPhone XS and XS Max are already out, the iPhone XR arrives in the middle of October, and the Galaxy Note 9 hit stores about a month ago. That should just about wrap it up for new smartphones in 2018, right? (Image credit: The China-only Vivo Nex S is one of the only phones in the world with an in-display fingerprint sensor. But that will change next month. (Credit: Tom's Guide)) Oh, heavens no. Between this weekends iPhone XS/XS Max launch and next months iPhone XR release, a number of other phone makers are going to what theyve been working on without fear that their announcements will be buried under a metric ton of iPhone news. We count at least seven devices from major phone makers likely to debut in the month of October alone. Some have been confirmed, while others are either heavily rumored or poorly-kept secrets. Either way, with so many new handsets looming on the horizon, you might want to wait a few weeks before plunking down hundreds on a new one. October Phone Releases: Confirmed and Rumored Launch Dates LG V40 ThinQ: Oct. 3 Oct. 3 Nokia Phone: Oct. 4 Oct. 4 Google Pixel 3 and 3 XL: Oct. 9 Oct. 9 Razer Phone 2: Oct. 10 Oct. 10 Huawei Mate 20: Oct. 16 Oct. 16 OnePlus 6T: Oct. 17 (rumored) Oct. 17 (rumored) Honor 8X: October (date TBD) The Heavy Hitters The biggest unveiling belongs to Googles Pixel 3 and 3 XL, which are set to debut at events in New York and Paris on Oct. 9. However, at this rate it doesnt seem theres much left for Google to announce. The larger 6.7-inch model has been leaked to Russia and back, popping up everywhere from the Toronto rail system, to the backseat of a Lyft somewhere in the U.S., to hands-on videos from multiple YouTubers in Ukraine. And in recent weeks, weve even seen renders of the notch-less 5.4-inch variant as well. (Image credit: CAD-based renders of the Pixel 3 and 3 XL. (Credit: MySmartPrice and @OnLeaks)) The new Pixels most notable improvements figure to be a beefed-up Visual Core image processing chip and wireless charging, along with the kind of regular spec updates youd expect from a new premium phone. If Googles planning anything else, we dont know what it could be yet though some of the years most groundbreaking new features, such as an in-display fingerprint sensor or triple cameras, likely wont make it to this round of Pixels. If you want an in-display fingerprint sensor, your best (and likely only bet) will be the OnePlus 6T. The next OnePlus flagship may debut as soon as October but could potentially slip into November, if OnePlus update history is any guide. However, a teaser screenshot from OnePlus depicting the promised fingerprint sensor feature carried a date of Oct. 17, which might provide us with a more precise ETA. (Image credit: A render of the OnePlus 6T said to have been created by OnePlus. (Credit: WinFuture)) The OnePlus 6T is expected to be the Chinese brands first device sold on a U.S. carrier, as a report from PCMag in August claimed that the phone would be arriving on T-Mobile sometime in the fall. When it does, the handset is expected to utilize much of the same design, albeit with a redesigned teardrop notch and the aforementioned new authentication method, which embeds the fingerprint sensor into the AMOLED display. Oh, and OnePlus is doing away with the headphone jack, depressingly. If photography is your first priority, though, you may be more interested in the follow-up to Huaweis Mate 10 Pro. The company already introduced a Lite version of its next Mate offering for the UK at IFA late last month, but on Oct. 16 that device will likely be joined by two more powerful variants with triple-camera systems similar to what we saw on the Huawei P20 Pro. (Image credit: A render of the Mate 20, reportedly constructed based on reference photos of the device. (Credit: XDA Developers)) The P20 Pro utilized a trio of lenses, massive image sensors and AI-assisted processing to consistently deliver the best nighttime photos weve ever seen from a mobile device, and were looking forward to what Huawei is able to pull off with the next iteration of its groundbreaking imaging tech. Additionally, the Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro will offer our first extended look at the companys next-gen Kirin 980 processor, which is expected to outpace the Snapdragon 845 in certain respects while drawing less power. The Alternatives Those are three big reveals for October, and thats not even everything coming down the pike. Huaweis budget-minded Honor brand is preparing a successor to the $199 Honor 7X, called the 8X. Its already been announced in China, and seeing as how we got the 7X on this side of the Pacific last year (and the 6X before that), we expect Honor will offer the upcoming generation in the U.S., too. If youre in the market for an inexpensive phone but dont want to sacrifice performance and features, you couldnt do much better than Honors X lineup in recent years and that makes the 8X a handset to watch. (Image credit: Leaks suggest the Razer Phone 2's exterior will look almost exactly like that of the first Razer Phone, pictured above. (Credit: Tom's Guide)) Gaming giant Razer is also all but confirmed to be delivering a successor to last years Razer Phone an aluminum-clad beast of a handset with a 120Hz display and Snapdragon 835 processor, strangely built off the bones of the Nextbit Robin of all devices. Razer hasnt confirmed that well see a Razer Phone 2 at its event in Los Angeles on Oct. 10, but come on the invite has the unmistakable silhouette of the companys current smartphone. Coupled with all the leaks that have emerged over the last few weeks, its pretty safe to say Razer is looking to challenge Samsungs claim of offering the best mobile Fortnite experience. Given LGs propensity to release lots of phones in 2018, it shouldnt come as a massive surprise that the company is preparing another flagship for the end of the year. Its not wasting any time building hype on what the device might be, either; in mid-September, LG came right out and announced the V40 ThinQ would debut on Oct. 3. (Image credit: The LG V30 will see a successor on Oct. 3. (Credit: Tom's Guide) ) After rolling out the V30 in November, followed by the V30S ThinQ and V35 ThinQ earlier in 2018, LG has mostly rehashed the same design and components through a few iterations. The expectation is that the V40 will bring about major changes, perhaps including the move to a triple-lens camera system around back, dual cameras up front and a notched display more similar to the LG G7, but using OLED rather than LCD technology. Last but not least, HMD Global, which manages the Nokia smartphone brand, will introduce something on Oct. 4, per Pocket-lint, which received an invite to a press event in London. At this time its hard to say what device or devices will bow at the festivities, though the consensus appears to be something new in the Nokia 7 series, likely with Android One branding and software as many of the companys phones have adopted over the last year. We reviewed the Nokia 6.1 in the spring and found it to be a surprisingly well-rounded and well-built handset despite its low price, so whatever the Finnish brand is planning could very well end up one of the best budget options of the upcoming year if the new phone makes it to the U.S., that is. Outlook Got all that? October will be the busiest month the smartphone industry has endured in recent memory, and it still could be overshadowed by a potentially huge announcement in November. Samsung has teased the reveal of its long-awaited foldable Galaxy X handset at its developer conference, which kicks off Nov. 7. If it seems like Samsung has been dangling the Galaxy X in front of us for years now, it has. Even if the device does see the light of day before 2018 is up, it assuredly wont go on sale until next year, which is gearing up to be truly exciting. Both Apple and Samsung will be on tick cycles of their respective flagships, which could result in major redesigns. Add the launch of the first 5G networks and compatible devices to the mix, and October is beginning to look like the preamble to a fascinating 2019. (Image credit: Shutterstock | Oleggg) The way we work is changing. Employees want, or even expect, the freedom and ability to work from anywhere, anytime, on any device. That blurring of lines between home and work life means workers will often use their own devices whether thats a laptop, tablet, or smartphone to conduct business. Employees often bring personal devices into the workplace too, and while on the surface this might not seem like a big deal, it can create endless headaches for the IT department and the broader organization. Here we look at some of the challenges that companies face and how they can keep their businesses secure and compliant while affording team members the flexibility to use their personal devices in the workplace. Top Tips for Making BYOD Secure Alex Ryals, VP of security solutions at tech distributor Tech Data, offers the following tips for securing employees devices: Encryption of laptop hard drives with a technology such as Microsoft Bitlocker. This ensures that if the device is stolen, the data is safe as long as the thief doesnt have the encryption key. The device should be configured to use complex passwords that expire after three to six months to ensure the employee changes their password regularly. Current anti-virus and anti-malware software, often provided by the company, should be installed and running. An approved VPN client should be installed and used by the employee any time they are not on the corporate network. Enable automatic OS updates on the laptop to ensure the device is patched regularly. A best practice, even for personal devices, is to require the installation of a desktop management application, such as Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager, to catalog installed applications and limit network access for devices with known vulnerable apps installed. Define a policy to limit the use of acceptable apps and cloud services for the storage of corporate information. Why Is BYOD so Popular? BYOD stands for bring your own device and is a term coined to describe the trend of employees using their own laptops, phones and other devices at work. The movement gained traction when people began to find that the consumer tech they used in their personal lives was preferred, easier to navigate, or more efficient than the sometimes-outdated IT they were expected to use at work. This consumerization of IT encourages those using the latest smartphone, device or productivity apps in their personal lives to expect the same level of functionality in the workplaceand if that isnt an option, they will simply use their own device. Another factor is an increasingly mobile workforce. A 2017 Gallup study shows 43 percent of Americans spend at least some time working remotely, which means employees today expect to be able to do their job from anywhere, at any time. Its commonplace to check work email from the couch after hours or work on a presentation at a cafe, on the train home from work or even while en route to a business meeting at 30,000 feet in the air. Additionally, there has been a steady increase in the number of freelance workers in recent years, which are expected to use their own devices and software, even when contracted to work on-site at an organization. So Whats the Problem? The benefits of BYOD are numerous. Employees tend to show better productivity when they use devices familiar to them and enjoy a personalized experience that increases their satisfaction. It can also save the employer moneynotably a reduction in the cost of device procurement, employee data plans and IT management. Plus, hardware upgrade cycles could be prolonged as end users take more responsibility for supplying devices and paying for services, for example. But while the flood of personal devices into businesses might seem like a natural progression in our consumer-led, IT on demand world, it can cause a host of security and other problems for employers. Even with the benefits, such as increased productivity and employee satisfaction, there are security concerns that can pose significant risks to businesses ill-equipped to address them, Michael Cantor, chief technology officer at Park Place Technologies, which provides third-party hardware maintenance and IT support services, tells Toms Hardware. Lack of oversight, malware exposure, compliance requirements, data leaks and device theft all make BYOD security a big mess. For example, employees think little of downloading applications that they think will drive productivity to their devices and often dont consider the security vulnerabilities they could be introducing to the company network. Earlier this year network management and security company A10 Networks published its Application Intelligence Report, which noted that nearly a third (30 percent) of employees admit to knowingly using non-sanctioned apps at work, despite incidents such as Google removing 700,000 potentially harmful apps from its Play Store in 2017. Of those who use unapproved apps, 51 percent claim everybody does it, while 36 percent say they believe their IT department doesnt have the right to tell them what apps they cant use. Through careless and sometimes negligent behavior with corporate assets and applications, employees are swinging the cybersecurity doors wide open, leaving their companies vulnerable, notes the report. Meanwhile, 33 percent claim their companys IT department doesnt give them access to the apps they need to do their jobs. Why not use a WhatsApp group message to communicate with colleagues? Why not store sensitive documents in Dropbox for ease of access? The answer is that as well as the obvious security risks, IT admins cannot guarantee corporate or user privacy. Individual teams that use competing or siloed technology makes collaboration difficult. On top of that, there are the costs associated with paying for separate software licenses. Implementing a BYOD Policy Because of the deluge of personal apps and devices finding their way onto corporate networks, IT teams have been forced to implement BYOD strategies to help monitor and manage personal device use across this increasingly distributed workforce. Given that the biggest security risk to any organization are employees and their lack of discipline when it comes to security best practices, BYOD can be a slippery slope if not implemented with a strict set of security policies and controls, Alex Ryals, VP of security solutions at tech distributor Tech Data, tells Toms Hardware. But where to start? Ryals says it is critical that an organization inspects all devices before allowing them onto the corporate network. An easy way to ensure a device is compliant is by placing some corporate services behind a tightly controlled firewall only accessible through a VPN client into the corporate network, he advises. This forces the employee to take their device to IT to have the security certificate for the VPN client installed on the employees personal laptop and also allows IT the opportunity to inspect the device for compliance to corporate security policies. Park Places Cantor also maintains that there are steps IT can take to make sure BYOD programs are executed safely and securely. For starters, they should perform a comprehensive risk assessment that considers how devices engage with personal and company data and update it regularly. They should also develop a clear policy on how personal devices should be used, implementing tools like mobile device management to help enforce it, he says. With device-specific tools like MAC [media access control] address identifiers and identity access management solutions, IT departments can monitor the devices accessing company resources and protect their data from suspicious activity and unauthorized access. Just as important as the technology you use to support BYOD, Cantor adds, are the people behind the screens. IT personnel should be seen by employees as a key resource when they offer assistance in managing their devices and application settings. Having a positive relationship will enable IT to upskill employees to enacting security measures when needed, he notes. The problem of employee-owned devices in the workplace isnt going anywhere. In fact, the IT department will have an even harder job managing personal devices with the expected explosion of Internet of Things IoT endpoints, including wearable smart devices, hitting the network. Nevertheless, says Ryals: The risk of corporate exposure through BYOD devices is great, but by defining clear acceptable use policies for employees who use their own devices, the risk can be mitigated to an acceptable level. However, the employee has to be willing to give up a little bit of their freedom and convenience for the privilege. 'Shalom, y'all!': Jason Kander shares lessons for democracy When Jason Kander was about to deploy to Afghanistan as part of his Army service, an instructor in intelligence school shared this bit of intelligence with him: "... one Jewish soldier to another - [he] told me not to tell any of my translators that I was Jewish, because they wouldn't want to work with me if they found out. Faith based perspective in this passage of a book that's part of the push for the KCMO front-running candidate . . . Credit where it's due, there isn't any other mayoral candidate with a widely celebrated tome to their credit.In this missive, there's a nice inter-faith story highlighted betwixt Jewish & Muslim U.S. troops working together in the war against terror: From there, the Prez riffed on a great many topics but didn't go after Sen. McCaskill like so many expected. In fact, she got off easy and that's more important than any rally size measuring contest. Prez Trump Ready To Fight At Missouri rally, Trump praises Kavanaugh and says, 'We have to fight for him' President Donald Trump on Friday continued his efforts to rally supporters behind Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, calling him a "fantastic man" who was "born to be on" the high court. Trump touted Kavanaugh at the second campaign rally in two nights, this one in front of an enthusiastic crowd here at the JQH Arena. The Prez By Proxy??? At Missouri Rally, Trump Casts Midterm Elections as Referendum on Presidency SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - President Trump cast the midterm elections as a referendum on him and his agenda, arguing at a rally here on Friday that a vote for any Democrat would empower "dangerous" and "crazy" people and sap the Republican Party's fragile congressional majorities. 2-Mile-Long-Line For Prez Trump Josh Hawley: Missouri Rally So Big We Had to Turn Away 20,000 Trump Supporters | Breitbart "Do you know we had to turn away about 20,000 people or something who could not get into the stadium to be here tonight and see this man," Hawley said during the rally with Trump. "It's unbelievable." Hawley recalled that Trump told him to host a political rally at the biggest stadium possible and he would fill it. Think Piece Or Panic Mode??? The GOP Has a Good Chance to Pick Up a Senate Seat in Missouri | National Review Today, President Trump is campaigning in Missouri on behalf of Republican attorney general Josh Hawley, who is running against two-term Democratic senator Claire McCaskill. Earlier this week, polling from the Trafalgar Group showed Hawley leading McCaskill by three percentage points. That's a little outside the poll's margin of error (2.4 percent), an even better sign for Hawley. Show-Me Love Fest Josh Hawley Praises Trump During Rally SPRINGFIELD, Mo- The rally began before the President even showed up at JQH Arena, which was expected to start at 6:30 pm. Hillary All Over Again??? Trump holds 'MAGA' rally in Missouri President Trump was set to hold a "Make America Great Again" rally on Friday night in Springfield, Missouri, where state Attorney General Josh Hawley is battling to unseat Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill. Trump won Missouri during the 2016 presidential election, defeating opponent Hillary Clinton by double digits. Prez Trump High Praise President Trump calls for Missourians to vote for Hawley at JQH Arena President Donald Trump told a crowd of his supporters that they will "make America great again," during an event where he rallied support for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Josh Hawley. Trump called for Missourians to vote for Hawley, Missouri's current attorney general. About last night, let's consider the climax of a rising star career so far . .Check the news collection and tell us if the Josh Hawley rallied his troops just a bit too early . . .Did it work??? You decide . . . Hollywood Life: Candice Swanepoel Proudly Breastfeeds Newborn Baby At The Beach Kansas City Friday Night Lights Shine On New LED lights under Bartle Hall too bright for some drivers KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The Interstate 670 tunnel underneath Bartle Hall is much brighter than it used to be. In January, the Kansas City Public Works Department started a $7.5 million project to install roughly 1,800 LED panels to brighten the tunnel for drivers. KCMO Crash Report Police: 1 hurt in bus-SUV crash near 25th, Holmes KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV) -- One person was injured following a city bus and SUV wreck in Kansas City on Friday afternoon. The crash happened at 4 p.m. at the intersection of East 25th Street and Holmes Street near the UMKC School of Dentistry. The person taken to the hospital did not have life-threatening injuries. Kansas City Steak Out Postscript Haddad Restaurant talks plans for Plaza III in Overland Park - Kansas City Business Journal Plaza III The Steakhouse's lease was about to expire on the Country Club Plaza, and as its owners thought about the future, they knew it didn't involve the historic shopping district. Haddad Restaurant Group Inc. Show-Me More Reasons Politically Speaking: Kavanaugh's views on murky political money prompt a McCaskill 'no' vote U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill's decision to vote against Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court is a key topic of the latest Politically Speaking podcast. St. Louis Public Radio's Jason Rosenbaum and Jo Mannies look into how undisclosed political money is playing into the contest between McCaskill and GOP Attorney Josh Hawley. Big Bucks For Kansas Contender Sharice Davids raised nearly $700K from small-dollar donors in Aug. | McClatchy Washington Bureau Kansas Democrat Sharice Davids raised nearly $700,000 from small-dollar donors in August alone in her effort to unseat Republican Rep. Kevin Yoder, R-Kansas. ATTENTION WHITE LADIES: KANSAS CITY PUMPKIN SPICE SEASON STARTS NOW!!! First Alert: Fall-like temps finally arrive Temperatures will drop back into the lower 50s and even the upper 40s for some areas tonight. Temps will rebound to about 70 degrees for your Saturday. Chiefs Favored To Win San Francisco 49ers vs. Kansas City Chiefs: Prediction, preview, statistics to know Two of the NFL's best young passers go head to head on Sunday This evening we focus on a mommy life juxtaposition as far as pop culture is concerned . . .Closer to home, here's a quick roundup for our most dedicated readers:And this is thefor right now . . . Update 12/30/2019: The BMW 4 Series Convertible was caught on the back of a transport on the way to some final testing before its big debut. Check out the latest pictures in our Spy Shots section below. Heavy camouflage covers the prototype spotted, but this important change is quite evident as the canvas top is left completely bare (quite obviously on purpose). It might be an illusion caused by the camo, but it also appears this new 4-Series has a longer hood and rear decklid compared to its predecessor. BMW is set to launch an all-new 4-Series two-door sometime in 2019 or 2020, and while the G23 coupe version will not feature any dramatic changes over the current model, the G22 droptop will. Spy shots indicate that for the first time in two generations (E93 and F33), BMW is giving up on the folding hardtop design in favor of the more traditional soft top option which it last used on the E46 model discontinued in 2006. Spy Shots December 30, 2019 BMW 4 Series Convertible Sitting on a Transport Carrier This time around, there arent a lot of changes to note, but we can see that most of the heavy padding on the prototype is now gone. The production headlamps and tail lamps are in place, but they are still largely covered by tape. The side profile does seem to feature a sharper body line, while the front end is still covered too much to reveal the larger kidney grilles that have been all but confirmed. The same can be said for the coupe, but we do know the updated 4 Series will feature at least some 8 Series DNA, so it should be quite a looker even with the larger grilles. Expect the 4 Series to debut in the first half of 2020 as a 2021 model. June 24, 2019 BMW 4 Series Cruising With the Top Down Up to this point, weve only seen the next-gen 4 Series Convertible testing with its top up but, this time around, our photographers have managed to catch the next-gen 4 Series drop top with the top and windows down, giving us a clear look of its overall profile. Its the usual story and generally dull above the beltline, however, since this is a soft top, the new 4 Series convertible should offer considerably more cargo room, and it will be lighter than before as well. Unfortunately, we didnt get a good look at the interior, but with this model slated to go on sale in 2020 as a 2021 model, expect its debut to happen in early 2020. It could, potentially, debut in September at the 2019 Frankfurt Auto Show, but well just have to wait and see what happens. March 29,. 2019 - BMW 4 Series Convertible Caught on Video During Cold Weather Testing January 2, 2019 BMW 4 Series Convertible Cruising the Streets in Style As you can see not a lot has changed since the last time we saw the drop-top 4. In terms of exterior styling, the only big news here is that weve learned the new 4 Series will feature a front grille thats inspired by the 2020 BMW Z4. More importantly, however, is the fact that weve finally gotten a decent look at the interior. All we can say at this point is. 3 Series. Seriously, folks. It looks like BMW engineers just copy and pasted the interior from the 3 Series into the 4 Series. The only thing we can spot outside of the camo and general design is the new button near the electric parking brake that is used to operate the convertible top. As a reminder, this generation of the 4 Series Convertible will actually feature a soft top that isnt just lighter but does wonders in terms of exterior styling. Exterior Aside from making the soft top intentionally visible, the prototype spotted hides all details very well. It may have slightly different proportions compared to the current model, but its too early to tell. Its front and rear fascias will be more aggressive versions of what the new 3-Series has - its official reveal will take place at next months Paris Motor Show. Once we see the sedan and wagon model, well be able to make more educated guesses as to what the coupe and cabriolet may look like. One way they could go to differentiate four- and two-door models is to take inspiration from the flagship 8-Series in order to make the latter stand out. BMW is discontinuing the 6-Series nameplate altogether, so it may want the two models to seem more closely related from a visual standpoint (a strategy it could also extend to the next 2-Series). Interior If previous versions of the model are anything to go by, the new 4-Series will have an interior lifted straight from its four-door counterpart. We cant specifically say what that entails yet, as all prototypes spotted have had their interiors curtained off. But realistically, we can expect something very similar to what the automaker already offers in its new X3 and X4 models. The center console buttons and controls, the dials, the infotainment, and the steering wheel will probably be carried over to the 3- and 4-Series. Drivetrain Expect the next 4-Series convertible (as well as the coupe and four-door) to offer both gasoline and diesel engines, as well as electrified powertrains - all of which will be shared with the 3-Series with which it shares the CLAR architecture. Expect it to shed around 100 pounds compared to the current F33 generation, if information on the 3-Series is anything to go by. It should also sit 10 millimeters lower too. The 4-Series will most likely skip the very bottom of the engine range and be offered mostly with 2.0-liter four-cylinder as well as 3.0-liter six-cylinder mills with turbocharging. Be that as it may, a 1.5-liter three-pot cannot be excluded at this point, as anything is possible. One of the aforementioned engines is apparently the most powerful four-pot ever fitted to a series BMW (over 260 horsepower), and it could be badged as a 330i M Sport, although M330i has a nicer ring to it. Hopefully, it will be offered with a manual gearbox option too. Prices BWM usually announces pricing for its models in the time frame between their official debut and them reaching showrooms. The current 4-Series starts from just under $53,000 in the U.S., and for that, you get a 430i with rear-wheel drive only. Competition Launched in 2016 as the first C-Class-badged drop top ever, the current W205 Mercedes C-Class Cabriolet is a very classy alternative in the segment. It looks like a shrunken S-Class, it has a wide range of available engines, and its interior is unmatched in the segment for its luxury feel. It too comes with a power-folding soft top, and it looks especially good with it stowed away, although the wind deflector Mercedes gives you to reduce top-down turbulence in the cabin kind of spoils its lines when erected. You can have one from $51,200 before options. Read our full review on the 2018 Mercedes C-Class Cabriolet. Audi will sell you its A5 Cabriolet starting at $49,600, and for that, you get the best interior in its class in terms of quality, design, and technology (although a well-specced C-Class may still feel more luxurious). From the outside, the A5 is very clean and is really pleasant to behold thanks to its great proportions, and it too looks better with its electric soft top hidden away. Motivating base versions is a 2.0-liter TFSI, which is normal in this company, but the Audi has standard Quattro all-wheel drive - rivals will have you pay extra for it. Read our full review on the 2017 Audi A5 Convertible. Conclusion Its too early to reach any kind of conclusion on the next 4-Series convertible, but between its new (lighter, more compact, and possibly more stylish) soft top, lighter overall weight, and more focus on providing rewarding handling, theres little not to like. If it turns out to look like an 8-Series-inspired foldable roof version of the next 3-Series (with hints of new Z4), then theres nothing to complain about there either. Inside, it will most likely mirror the design and quality of the excellent X3 and bristle with the latest gadgets - it all sounds pretty good and makes the model a highly anticipated one in its segment. Love it Soft top is lighter and helps reduce overall weight Possible 8-Series- or Z4-inspired design touches Leave it Could have a three-cylinder May not be offered in M-form Further reading Read our full review on the 2018 BMW 4 Series Coupe. Read our full review on the 2018 BMW 4 Series Convertible. Update History Update 06/24/2019: Weve received new images of the 2021 BMW 4 Series Convertible testing with its top and side windows down. Check out the spy shots section below to see how it looks for yourself. Update 03/29/2019: How spy photographers managed to catch the 2020 BMW 4 Series Convertible on video as it performed some cold weather testing. Check it out for yourself in our "Spy Shots" section below! Update 01/02/2019: Weve managed to catch the BMW 4 Series Convertible, and while much hasnt changed outside we do finally get a look at the interior. Check out the spy shots section below to learn more. Pirellis been busy outfitting electric cars with its P Zero tires, but one specific EV model is getting the special treatment from the Italian tire maker. That EV is the long-awaited Aston Martin Rapide E. Not only is the Rapide E the first electric car to come out of Aston Martin, its also wearing a set of special P Zero tires that Pirelli created specifically for the Rapide E. The exclusive tires should help Aston Martins EV achieve its promised performance numbers when it goes on sale sometime in the fourth quarter of 2019. The tire requirements among electric cars are different when you compare them to traditional gas-powered cars. Since most EVs are quick to accelerate off the line, specific tread patterns are important to help the cars rear axle handle the amount of torque coming from an electric cars electric motors. Its specific details like this that makes electric cars fascinating. In the case of Aston Martin, it needs a specific set of Pirellis P Zero tires for the Rapide E. According to the tire maker, Astons requirements include different fitments for the front and rear axles. In the front, the British automaker requires 245/35ZR21 (96Y) XL tires, while at the back, Aston Martin needs 295/30ZR21 (102Y) XL tires from Pirelli. The observant among you will notice that the dimensions of the tires are actually similar to the ones that the Aston Martin Rapide AMR is wearing. But theres more to these tires than meets the eye, too. The Y-rating in its nomenclature, for instance, is an indicator that the tires will be able to handle speeds in excess of 186 mph. Other than their ability to withstand speeds that almost reach 190 mph, these tires also ensure low rolling resistance, which, in turn, help improve the range of a single battery charge. They also have to be tough enough to endure the Rapide Es instant acceleration and handling, especially when its pushing its electric motors to their own limits. There are a lot more details in these tires. According to Pirelli, each tire comes with its own Noise Cancelling System, a feature that uses sound absorbing technology to reduce the frequency filtering through the car. The specific requirements are incredible. Then again, all of this is part of the electric car revolution that the industry is in the middle of. Its not just automakers and tech suppliers that have to work on new products that can be used in this new frontier. Tire makers like Pirelli also have to keep up with the times or risk getting left out of it. Its no wonder, then, that even as Pirelli announces the Aston Martin Rapide Es specific tire requirements, its engineers are still hunkered down with counterparts from the British automaker to fine-tune the tire specs that the Rapide E will eventually use once customer delivers start next year. Further reading Read our full speculative review on the 2020 Aston Martin RapidE (EV). Read our full review on the 2016 Aston Martin RapidE Concept. Read our full review on the 2017 Aston Martin Rapide. Source: Carscoops Peugeot Takes a Play Put of Mercedes Playbook by launching the 2019 Peugeot 508 SW First Edition at the Paris Motor Show Looks really tempting, but how much does it cost? editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Mohali, September 22 High drama was witnessed at the counting centre set up in connection with zila parishad and block samiti elections at Khuni Majra village in Kharar here this evening. Avtar Singh Mauli, the SAD candidate for Mauli Baidwan Block Samiti in Zone No. 16, alleged that he was thrashed by Amarjit Singh, aka Jeeti, younger brother of Punjab Cabinet Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu, also Mohali MLA, inside the counting centre. Mauli alleged that Jeeti, along with his certain supporters, attacked him when the process of counting of votes was under way. He alleged that Jeeti and his acquaintances snatched votes from an official, who was counting them. When he (Mauli) raised an objection, they thrashed him, he added. He said his turban was tossed too. Mauli claimed that he was leading at the time the alleged attack took place. I was thrashed and then pushed outside the centre by Jeeti and his supporters, who were more than 20 in number, alleged Mauli, adding that all drama took place in front of senior officials of the Mohali police and the local administration. However, nobody interfered for obvious reasons, he alleged. After the incident, Mauli, along with other Akali leaders, went to the Kharar-Landran highway and blocked it for around half an hour to lodge his protest against the incident. Later, senior officials of the Mohali police pacified them, following which they lifted the blockade. On the other hand, Balbir Singh Sidhu and his brother Jeeti termed the allegations levelled by Mauli as baseless and false. They alleged that Akalis indulged in hooliganism. They (Akalis) were first creating problems in the vote counting centre and then started levelling false allegations when we objected to their illegal act, said Sidhu. Sri Anandpur Sahib MP Prof Prem Singh Chandumajra said Congress men showed their real face by indulging in hooliganism at various counting centres today. The incident of beating up our (Akali) contestant by Balbir Sidhus brother and his supporters is a proof of hooliganism. People will teach them a lesson in the upcoming Lok Sabha poll, he said, adding that complaints regarding Maulis thrashing have been submitted with the police, the administration and the EC. The police, who are being pressured by the minister, have not initiated any action on the complaint so far, alleged Mauli. The charge Avtar Singh Mauli, SAD candidate, alleged that he was thrashed and then pushed outside the centre by Amarjit Singh and his supporters, who were more than 20 in number. The drama took place in front of senior officials of the Mohali police and the local administration. However, nobody interfered for obvious reasons, he added. The denial Cabinet Minister and Mohali MLA Balbir Singh Sidhu and his brother Amarjit Singh (pic) termed the allegations levelled by Avtar Singh Mauli as baseless and false. They alleged that Akalis indulged in hooliganism. They (Akalis) were first creating problems in the vote counting centre and then started levelling false allegations when we objected to their illegal act, said Sidhu. editorial@tribune.com Karam Prakash Tribune News Service Patiala, September 22 The Congress swept the rural body elections by winning all 25 zila parishad and 181 panchayat samiti seats in Patiala district on Saturday. Of 25 zila parishad seats, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) failed to bag even a single seat. The SAD had fielded 21 candidates while AAP had nominated 12 candidates. Of 193 seats in the nine panchayat samiti zones in the district, the Congress won 181 seats while the SAD could win only 10 seats. The BJP could win only one seat from Shambu Kalan. Its candidate Ishwer Devi defeated the Congress nominee by 251 votes. Facing internal bickering, AAP, a first timer, could not win even a single seat. One seat was won by an independent candidate. The Congress hailed the poll results, terming it as the victory of government policies and the defeat of the propaganda by the Opposition. However, the SAD accused the state government of using strong-arm tactics to achieve the victory. Prominent winners Among the prominent winners from the Congress Party were Satnam Singh, son of Shutrana MLA Nirmal Singh from the Arnetu zone and Gagandeep Jalalpur, son of MLA Madan Lal Jalalpur from the Harpalpur zone. SAD candidate Gurjant Singh surprised everyone as he registered victory from the Jalalpur zone. In fact, the Jalalpur zone in Sanaur is considered a stronghold of Congress MLA Madan Singh Jalalpur. In Bhunerheri block, Gurmeet Singh registered an emphatic win over SAD candidate Sher Singh Panjetha, who is a sitting sarpanch. Repolling makes no dent The Congress has won both seats where repolling was ordered due to booth capturing and poll rigging. At Bakshiwala village in the Jassowal zone, Congress candidate Urmila defeated SAD nominee Pawan Preet Kaur. At Khuda village in the Fatehpur Rajputan zone, Congress candidate Kulwinder Kaur defeated SADs Gurjit Kaur. Embarrassment for SAD The SAD faced a major embarrassment as it could grab only 10 panchayat samiti seats. The SAD was on the back foot in the elections following a strong resentment over the Justice Ranjit Singh Commission report. Though SAD denied its impact, the mandate seems to have shown that the report dented its image. Congress men tried to manipulate results: SAD vinaymishra188@gmail.com Ramkrishan Upadhyay Tribune News Service Chandigarh, September 21 Earmarking of space for street vendors in markets has evoked strong reactions from various market associations of the city. Traders at the markets have decided to lodge a strong protest against the authorities and observe a strike in case the process is not stopped immediately. Rajinder Menhdi Ratta, president of the Market Welfare Association, Sector 32, said the MC had allotted space for street vendors in front of the showrooms. How the MC could allow vendors to sit in front of the shops, which they had brought after spending huge money? Now they were left with no other option but to start an agitation soon. Aashish Garg, owner of SCO No. 280 in Sector 32, said how the MC could allow vendors in front of his shop. There would be no place for customers in case vendors were allowed to sit in front of the shops. Ranjan Verma, president, Progressive Traders Association, Sector 22, said the MC had allowed vendors in front of their booths. Security issues would be involved if the vendors were allowed here. Arvinder Pal Singh Bedi, president of the Market Welfare Association, Sector 19, said despite their strong protest in the past, officials again came to earmark the space. They had developed the market after a lot of hard work, but the MC was now taking steps to destroy their business. Jagdeep Mahajan, Booth Welfare Association, Sector 32, said the market would oppose the move strongly. As street vendors bylaws are likely to be notified soon, the MC has started the process of shifting vendors in a phased manner after marking the space. MHC RWA opposes earmarking of vending zone The Residents Welfare Association (RWA), Modern Housing Complex, Mani Majra, has also opposed the earmarking of a vending zone in the area. Col Gursewak Singh (retd), president of the association, in a letter to MP Kirron Kher, said the vendors zone proposed in the MHC, Mani Majra, would create problems for residents. He said the proposed site was in no way suitable for the vendors market. This is a congested area with the market on one hand while a school on the other. The area is surrounded by a network of narrow roads. Lack of parking space is bound to create huge traffic chaos. The thickly populated area will be subjected to higher degree of noise pollution. Moreover, it entails shifting away of the police beat box, which is highly undesirable from the security point of view. CBM delegation meets Joint Commissioner A delegation of the Chandigarh Beopar Mandal (CBM), along with representatives of different affected markets of Sector 19, 22 & 32, met Tejdeep Saini, Joint Commissioner of the MC and in-charge of the Vending Zones. They highlighted their problems and asked him to remove the demarcation for vendors from in front of showrooms and booths of market complexes. Anil Vohra, president, CBM, Charanjiv Singh, chairman, and Sanjiv Chadha, general secretary, along with the traders, met Tejdeep Saini. Charanjiv said the traders, who were stakeholders, should be given due representation in the Town Vending Zone Committee, for which they had already given the names in writing to the MC Commissioner. shalender@tribune.com New York, September 21 Authorities in New Jersey have called for the resignation of a senior law enforcement official after a secret recording surfaced in which he allegedly made racist remarks about Americas first Sikh-American Attorney General Gurbir Grewal over his turban. Bergen County Sheriff Michael Saudino allegedly made multiple controversial remarks in a January 16 conversation that took place after Phil Murphy was inaugurated as Governor of New Jersey, the recordings of which were obtained by WNYC. In the audio, Saudino is heard saying that New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy appointed Grewal because of the turban. He didnt do that because of Bergen County; he did that because of the turban, Saudino said of Murphys selection of Grewal, who at the time was the Bergen County prosecutor. Grewal tweeted that he had listened to the recording. If thats in fact Sheriff Saudinos voice, then he should resign immediately, Grewal said. He further tweeted that he has got thick skin and Ive been called far worse. But the comments about the African-American community are wrong, racist, and hurtful. The comments about our Lieutenant Governor are inappropriate and homophobic. New Jersey and Bergen County deserve better. In July this year, Grewal was racially targeted by two radio hosts who repeatedly called him the turban man on air. Murphy has also called for the resignation of Saudino. In the available audio, Saudino, using expletives, says: let the blacks come in smoke their marijuana, do this do that, and dont worry about it. You know, well tie the hands of cops. On Lieutenant Governor Sheila Oliver, he is heard asking if she is gay. Because shes never been married. A report in NJ.com said Saudino offered his sincere apology to the people of Bergen County for the insensitive recorded remarks made public. PTI editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Faridabad, September 22 The District Legal Services Authority (DLSA) has handed over a cheque for Rs 3 lakh to the kin of the victim of the gangrape incident of September 18. The accused, who are in judicial custody, are likely to be produced in the court on Sunday as the police has sought their custody on production warrant. Stating that an interim relief of Rs 3 lakh had been released to the victim, Ravinder Gupta, advocate, DLSA, said it was part of the help provided by the DLSA under the Haryana Victim Compensation Scheme of the Haryana Legal Services Authority (HALSA). Gupta said the compensation amount could be increased as the maximum limit was Rs 5 lakh per case. He also said that the case would be tried in a fast track court. Meanwhile, Sube Singh, PRO, Police Department, said the SIT would seek the police custody of the accused who would be produced in the court on Sunday. The application for the production warrant had already been placed with the authorities concerned, he said. The victim (20) was gangraped by four accused in presence of her male friend. While the identity of the four accused was still to be disclosed officially by the police, they had committed the crime on Tuesday night when the victim and her male friend were on their way on their motorcycle to some place near the IMT chowk on the bypass road along the Agra canal here. The victim had identified all four accused last evening, it was revealed. editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Hisar, September 22 The post-monsoon rain lashing the region since Saturday morning has left farmers worried, as they were set to harvest the kharif crops, including cotton, paddy, bajra, and moong. Agriculture experts say that the Saturday rain is unlikely to have a major impact on the crops but they can suffer damage if the rain continues for the next couple of days, as forecast by the Meteorological Department. Farmers have started plucking cotton balls in the region and harvesting is likely to pick up next week. However, the rain can lead to moisture in the blooming balls and their blackening. The rain accompanied with strong winds have also damaged standing paddy, moong, jawar, and bajra crops. However, farmers hope that it will be beneficial for the advance sowing of chana and mustard for the coming rabi season. Kuldeep Sheoran, a farmer of Badhra village, said that they also suffered losses due to sudden wilting of cotton. Whatever cotton crop is remaining, the untimely rain is likely to damage it. Bajra has also been flattened by winds accompanying the rain, he said. Baldev Singh of the Indian Meteorological Department in Hisar said that about 44 mm of rainfall was recorded in Hisar till Saturday evening. The weather condition will continue for the next two or three days, he added. Dr Surender Singh, Head of Meteorological Department in the HAU, said that the rain adversely impacted the kharif crops, which are on maturity. More rain is forecast for the next couple of days. The cotton, paddy and moong crops are unlikely to withstand excessive rain and strong winds. However, it will be beneficial for farmers who are planning advance sowing of mustard and chana, he added. Paddy crop flattened Kurukshetra: Standing paddy crop at a few places was reportedly flattened due to rain accompanied by winds in the early hours of Saturday. Deputy Director, Agriculture, Dr Karamchand, said that no major impact on the paddy crop had been reported. However, crops were lodged in a few pockets in low-lying areas, he added. A maximum of 14 mm to 31 mm of rainfall was received in the district. Crop at grain markets drenched Ambala: Standing paddy crop at several places was flattened due to untimely rainfall in the district. The produce lying in grain markets got drenched, resulting in a higher moisture level in the crop. Suresh Kumar, a farmer, said that the crop flattened and now it would be harvested manually. Meanwhile, Deputy Director Agriculture Girish Nagpal, said that, No report of crop loss has been received from any part of the district. Alert sounded Sonepat: The district administration has sounded an alert in villages located along the Yamuna and advised villagers not to enter the river and leave their cattle near it, as the water level is likely to increase considerably in the coming hours following heavy rain in Himachal areas since Friday. The district has received 12 mm to 25 mm of rainfall at different places. Though there has been no report of crop loss, crop harvesting will be temporarily hampered for a few days. Harvesting of flattened crop to be costly Yamunanagar: Farmers are afraid that the excessive rain can result in flooding of their fields, causing damage to their paddy crops. Most of the paddy crop in the district is in the harvesting stage. At this stage, rain could flatten the standing crop or even lead to germination, said Joginder Singh, a farmer from Devdhar village in the district. Arun Kumar, a farmer from Jathlana village, said that farmers had to pay more to labourers or harvesters for harvesting their flattened paddy crop, which is more time consuming and difficult. Also, farmers get a lower yield from the flattened crop, he added. The Jagadhri block recorded the highest rainfall of 48 mm in the past 24 hours up to 8 am on Saturday. The Sadhaura block received 32 mm of rain, Bilaspur block 28 mm, Chhachhrauli 27 mm and Radaur block 18 mm. According to information, Yamunanagar district has 72,000 hectares under paddy crop. Most of the crop is in the harvesting stage. The highest water level in the Yamuna at the Hathnikund barrage here was 16,357 cusecs at 3 pm on Saturday. Surender Kumar Yadav, Deputy Director Agriculture, Yamunanagar, said that they had so far not received any report of damage to the paddy crop due to rain. Chief Ministers rally cancelled The Pragati rally of the BJP to be addressed by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar at Kaimri village in the Nalwa segment of Hisar on Saturday was cancelled due to rain. The BJP had made elaborate arrangements for the rally and party workers had been working hard to mobilise peopley. The Chief Minister cancelled all programmes in Hisar. Warning along Yamuna Hisar: The Central Government has issued a warning to the northern states, including Haryana, about heavy to very heavy rainfall in the region in the next three days. The state government has issued a warning urging people living along the Yamuna not to go close to the river, as the water level is likely to go up in view of the rains in Himachal Pradesh. Following the weather advisory, Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agriculture University has postponed the Krishi Mela to be held on September 24-25 to October 4-5 October. editorial@tribune.com Pratibha Chauhan Tribune News Service Shimla, September 22 Even as a raging debate on One Nation-One Election is being held at the national level, there was skepticism among participants, including Vidhan Sabha Speakers and MLAs, from six states at the regional conference of Commonwealth Parliamentary Association India held here on Saturday. Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan inaugurated the conference in the Council Chamber of the Vidhan Sabha, with participants from Haryana, Gujarat, Jammu and Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Himachal. Throwing open the debate on conducting simultaneous Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, Mahajan said it was an issue which might not happen in the near future, but deliberations could be held to weigh the pros and cons of the system. The participants seemed to be clearly divided on the issue of supporting or opposing the One Nation- One Election theory. While Speakers of the BJP-ruled states like Haryana and Gujarat supported the idea, Congress participants from Haryana, Himachal and PDP MLAs from Jammu and Kashmir opposed it, expressing serious reservations. Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur advocated the concept, saying the nation had a strong leadership in Narendra Modi, who could implement One Nation-One Election concept. He said this would save time and money, which could be used on welfare schemes. Jammu and Kashmir Assembly Speaker Dr Nirmal Singh expressed his apprehension on the success of the proposal. As far as holding of simultaneous elections is concerned, we agree to disagree as there are far too many practical problems and it should be done only with the consensus of all, he said. The issue must address not just the national aspirations, but also the regional needs. Similarly, Leader of the Opposition Mukesh Agnihotri opposed the idea while citing constitutional provision that the term of an Assembly could neither be increased nor decreased. Speakers of the Haryana and Gujarat Vidhan Sabhas Kanwar Pal and Rajendra Suryaprasad Trivedi supported the idea. shalender@tribune.com Tribune News Service Srinagar, September 21 Three police personnel were abducted from their homes in south Kashmirs Shopian district and shot dead by Hizbul Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Toiba militants on Friday, the police said, as a new page opened in the three-decade chapter of militancy in Jammu and Kashmir. The bodies of Constable Nissar Ahmad and Special Police Officers Firdous Ahmed and Kulwant Singh were found in an orchard across a river, officials said. A video purportedly from the Hizbul had warned all Kashmiri residents working as SPOs to tender their resignations. There are over 30,000 SPOs in the state. We have lost three of our brave colleagues in a barbaric terror strike. We will soon bring all the culprits before law, IGP (Kashmir Range) SP Pani said. The three policemen were kidnapped in the morning from their homes at Batagund and Kapran villages, police said. The residents of Batagund chased the terrorists and pleaded with them to not abduct the men. The abductors fired shots in the air and threatened the villagers, officials said. The terrorists crossed a river in the area and shot them dead, the officials added. After the killings, at least 20 SPOs publicly announced their resignations many via mosques and social media. However, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) called such reports a false propaganda by mischievous elements. In a statement, it emphasised that J&K had a professional and committed police force which was fully geared up to meet security challenges, including those related to the ensuing panchayat and urban body elections. There are over 30,000 SPOs and their services are reviewed from time to time. The services of some have not been renewed for administrative reasons. It is being falsely projected that they have resigned. Nonetheless, SPO Shabir Ahmad Thokar of Shopian, claiming to have been working with the police for eight years, declared: Without any fear or pressure, I have resigned. I will sit at home and raise my children with dignity. Another said he didnt want to continue on the job as he feared for his life. I feel threatened. My family wants me to quit, declared yet another SPO, who has been part of the anti-militancy operations in the Valley, even as Constable Mukhtar Ahmad Lone of Hanjipora Shopian, posted with the Railways Department in Baramulla, submitted his resignation. Adviser K Vijay Kumar told The Tribune: We will consider all inputs. Ours will be a measured, calibrated and a professional response. editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Jammu, September 22 Panic has struck civilian areas along the International Border in the Jammu region after the Border Action Team of Pakistan mutilated Border Security Force Head Constable Narinder Singh on September 18. Residents living close to the International Border (IB) have started leaving their homes, fearing there might be an exchange of fire. On Thursday night, Pakistani Rangers resorted to unprovoked ceasefire violation by firing a few bursts of small arms in the Ramgarh sector, creating panic in the area. The guns, however, fell silent soon and the night passed off peacefully. People living close to the IB are living in constant fear that Pakistan might again resort to mortar shelling. The mutilation of BSF Head Constable Narinder Singh was the first-of-its-kind incident on the IB. We havent seen anything like this since firing and shelling began on the IB. Panic has struck people and some of them living close to the IB shifted to safer places for a night after the killing, said Rohit Choudhary, a farmer leader living along the IB. The BSF man was killed on September 18, a day after Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh inaugurated two pilot projects of smart fence on the International Border. The incident happened around 10.40 am and the BSF mans mutilated body was found around 5.20 pm the same day. We have seen soldiers dying in shelling and firing, but such an incident was terrifying and people are living in fear since then, Choudhary said. The Pakistan Rangers usually resort to unprovoked shelling and firing in the last week of October or the first week of November when the harvesting season is over. ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM Majid Jahangir Tribune News Service Srinagar, September 22 A day after abducting and killing three cops, Hizbul militants on Saturday issued threats specifically to 24 policemen, including two officers posted in the militancy-infested South Kashmir, asking them to quit. The Hizbul Mujahideen released pictures of these personnel on the social media (authenticity yet to be verified). It asked these policemen to announce their resignation via a videotape, failing which they would be killed. Posting the picture of a particular police officer, the militants threatened: There is no warning for you, will send you to hell. In another post, the Hizb asked women constables and SPOs to resign too. The Jammu and Kashmir Police see this as part of psychological warfare aimed at demoralising the force. The targeted killing of three policemen in Shopian district on Friday morning had triggered a series of resignations by Special Police Officers (SPOs) who made the announcement via mosques or videotapes. However, the Union Home Ministry dismissed such reports as mere propaganda by militants. The militants had swooped on Kaprin and Batagund villages in Shopian and abducted three cops Nisar Ahmad Dhobi (38), Firdous Ahmad (28) and Kulwant Singh (35). A relative of a cop was abducted too, but was set free later. This year, 37 policemen, including eight SPOs, have been killed by militants so far the highest police fatalities in 12 years. Shopian killings: FIR names 24 ultras Srinagar: The J&K Police have named 24 local militants, including Syed Naveed, who was once a cop, while filing an FIR on the Shopian killings. The militants (named in the FIR), carrying arms and ammunition at the behest of Riyaz Naikoo, a Hizbul Mujahideen commander, entered the houses of the policemen at Batagund and Kaprin and kidnapped them with the intent to kill. It was done to intimidate the cops and their families, the FIR reads. TNS editorial@tribune.com Majid Jahangir Tribune News Service Srinagar, September 22 The J&K Police have named 24 local militants in FIR in the Shopian policemen killings case. According to the FIR registered at the Shopian police station, the act was done to intimidate the police persons and their family members, so as to keep them away from their duties. A group of armed militants swooped Kaprin and Batagund hamlets in Shopian around sunrise on Friday and abducted three cops Nisar Ahmad Dhobi (38), Firdous Ahmad (28) and Kulwant Singh (35). A relative of a cop was also abducted. While the relative was set free, the militants shot dead the three cops in a nearby orchard. The J&K Police blamed the Hizbul Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) for the killings. In the FIR, a copy of which is with The Tribune, the police have named 24 local militants, including Syed Naveed, a cop-turned-militant from Shopian. The police station received information through reliable sources that some active terrorists (the 24 militants in the FIR), having illegal arms and ammunition at the behest of Riyaz Naikoo, Hizbul Mujahideen commander, entered the houses of the policemen at Batagund and Kaprin and kidnapped them with an intent to kill. It was done to intimidate the police personnel and their family members, so as to keep them away from their duties, the FIR reads. Hizbul Mujahideen had recently issued threats to policemen and special police officers (SPOs) to quit their jobs or they would be targeted. The Friday killings sparked a series of resignations from frightened SPOs in south Kashmir. They released their videos on social networking sites to announce their resignation. However, the Ministry of Home Affairs has called the reports of resignation propaganda. Clashes in Shopian during search op Several people were injured in clashes between local youths and security forces during a cordon and search operation (CASO) early Saturday morning at Shirmal village of Shopian district. The clashes erupted after the security forces started to conduct searches following a several hour cordon in the area. The CASO was concluded after searches as no contact could be established with the militants, a police official said. The injured, meanwhile, were treated locally. In neighboring Pulwama district, a door-to-door search operation was launched by the security forces in over 10 villages early. Farooq meets DGP, mourns killings National Conference president Farooq Abdullah visited the police headquarters on Saturday and held a meeting with DGP Dilbagh Singh and other senior officers. The former CM expressed his condolences to the bereaved families of three policemen killed by militants in Shopian district of south Kashmir on Friday. Farooq expressed his condolences to the families of the three police personnel who were martyred in a dastardly act of terrorism yesterday, the J&K Police wrote on Twitter. Farooq said the police was performing its duties for maintaining peace and tranquility in the state. laxmi@tribune.com Ashoka Universitys Centre for Entrepreneurship hosted the inaugural edition of the Ashoka Pillar Award, to select and award young talent for their innovative solutions to tackle the worsening air quality in India on September 18 in Sonepat. The winners included Eklavya Singh for EZ-Harv designed as a solution for the prevention of stubble burning. He got prize money of Rs 6.5 lakh. The second prize was won by Twinkle Malhan and Aadesh Pratap Singh for the The Aerohealer which uses aeroponics technology and the Aloe Vera plant for air purification.They got a sum of Rs 1.8 lakh. Rohit Rawat was awarded the third prize worth Rs 1.4 lakh for the Green Air, an innovative bio-tech air-filter to quantifiably improve air quality. The Ashoka Pillar Award creates a platform for young minds by crowdsourcing ideas, which then leads to crowdsourcing funds for the winning idea, all of which uses the global network to solve problems for those living on the margin. This year entrepreneurs were asked to propose innovative and cost-effective solutions for air pollution. The jury members who evaluated the final six pitches included Anita Manwani, CEO, Carobar Business Solutions, Founder and Trustee, Ashoka University, Bikram Phookun, Prof. of Physics, Ashoka University and Meghna Agarwala, Asst Prof. of Environmental Studies, Ashoka University. Career guidance for students NIIT Limited is organising Career Quest in Delhi/ NCR till September 29 to help youngsters find their dream career through expert on-ground counselling by NIIT across colleges. NIITs expert counsellor will interact with students and help them to find a career best suited for them based on their aspirations and aptitude. Post the completion of the activities the students will be given career guides to help them identify and explore various career options. Through Career Quest NIIT will expose students to new-age career programmes in Digital marketing, Data Analytics, IT, banking and Finance & Accounting and Business Analytics. Earlier this year, NIIT launched aspirational career programmes matching the future-ready talent requirements of the industry with ambitions of the generation next. These programs include, Advanced Programme in Digital Marketing and Branding, Advanced Programme in Data Analytics and Predictive Modelling, Advanced Program in Full Stack Software Engineering, Advanced Programme in Banking and Finance and Advanced Programme in Accounting & Business Analytics. IIM Indore wins NTPC Electron Quiz National IIM Indore team emerged as winner in the NTPC Electron Quiz National Finals 2018 that concluded on September 18, 2018 at PMI Campus. IIT Kanpur and NIT Rourkela secured second and third positions, respectively. The finale saw close competition with teams battling it out for the title till the very end. Samyak Ponangi & Shaurya Saxena from IIM Indore won NTPC Electron Quiz National Finals 2018 with a leading score of 131, Pradunma Choudhury & Anshul Roy from IIT Kanpur came second with a score of 122 and Swayambodha Mohapatra & Abhishek Patra from NIT Rourkela finished with a score of 108. This year, the NTPC Electron Quiz, generated an increased level of interest amongst students across India and witnessed unprecedented rise in participation. About 800 teams from leading institutes having 1,500 students participated in this years competition. laxmi@tribune.com NBCC (India) Ltd, has signed an MoU with Construction Skill Development Council of India (CSDCI) to train and empower 20,000 youths in the next six months and promote skill development in the construction sector. Through the association, NBCC and CSDCI, which is a non-profit organisation under National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), will work towards empowering the youth with relevant skills in various construction trades to make them employable as part of the Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) programme. The MoU was signed by Shri Manas Kaviraj, CGM, HRM, on behalf of NBCC and Shri Anand Kumar Singh, CEO, CSDCI. The purpose to promote this initiative of Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship is to discover and skill large uncertified talented workforce in the country. The RPL scheme would benefit workers like masons, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, etc. NBCC has recently also partnered with Skill Development Institute (SDI) Bhubaneswar, to scale up skill development initiative. shalender@tribune.com Manpriya Singh Who knew that little stars from a hitherto unknown village called Chhaygaon would literally rock the film festival circuit? We guess not the director Rima Das, as she set out with a hand-held camera and shoestring budget to capture the journey of Dhunu, a girl who grows up on the underprivileged side of the world and learns to fend for herself; at the same time never letting go of her dreams which are forming a rock band and owning an electric guitar someday. Set in Das own village of Chhaygaon in Assam, Village Rockstars is the story of poor children who, nevertheless, live a fun-filled life. After the 12-member jury (constituted by film Federation of India and led by Kannada producer SV Rajendra Singh Babu) announced Rima Das National Award-winning Assamese feature film Village Rockstars as the official contender for Oscars 2019 in the Best Foreign Language Film category on Saturday morning, Rima Das probably put her phone on do not disturb mode. But not before conveying her gratitude and saying what she had to! It feels great. I dont have many words to explain. The whole journey is kind of a fairy tale. It is a huge recognition for northeast and I think it is the first Assamese film to get selected. So I believe it will change a lot for filmmakers from the region. I was always hopeful. I was always looking forward to going to the festivals and winning accolades. Were sure by now the tears of joy and the news have sunk in! Spotlight on northeast Yes, it indeed is a huge recognition for cinema from the northeast. The region, which it is no secret, for a long time has felt disconnected from the rest of the country. Director of III Smoking Barrels, Sanjib Dey, feels finally the country is taking note of cinema from the northeast. The whole tradition of cinema in the northeast was quite strong. There was a time when films from this region where highly revered and they did good business too. But with the rise of multiple insurgency movements in the last few decades, I have no doubt that cinema has suffered the most in this region. A great time Actress Dipannita Sharma feels its a great time for Assamese cinema. Being from the northeast and having won accolades for my first Assamese film across the world, it makes me very proud that another Assamese film, which has been appreciated for being real and all heart, is the official selection for the Oscars from India. Meanwhile, starring Bhanita Das in the lead role, Village Rockstars, had its world premiere at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and has toured more than 70 prestigious international and national film festivals. The coming-of-age film had bagged the Best Feature Film trophy at the 65th National Film Awards, besides also winning Best Child Artist, Best Location Sound Recordist and Best Editing awards. Other films that rock As many as 27 other films from the nomination list, including Sanjay Leela Bhansalis Padmaavat, Raazi, Hichki, October, Love Sonia, Tumbaad, Halkaa, Kadvi Hawa, Manto, Bioscopewala, 102 Not Out, Padman, Nude, Gali Guleiyan and Malayalam film Bhayanakam were among the others in the list of films submitted for next years Oscars. Did you know? No Indian film has ever won an Oscar. The Indian films to have ever made it to the final five in the Best Foreign Language Film category include Lagaan, Mother India and Salaam Bombay. Last year, we pinned all hopes on Rajkummar Raos Newton, last to last year on never mind, all eyes (actually hopes) on are on the 91st Academy Awards, scheduled to take place on February 24, 2019. ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM Tribune News Service Kolkata, September 22 The BJP today gave call for a state-wide 12-hour bandh in West Bengal on September 26 in protest against alleged police firing on agitators who were protesting against recruitment of Urdu teachers in a school that reportedly had requirement of teachers in other subjects. Two youths, both former students of the school, were killed in the incident that took place in Islampur in North Dinajpur district of the state. On September 20, students of the school staged a protest demanding appointment of teachers for science and literature and opposing appointment of Urdu teachers. The protest led to a clash between them and the police in which a former student Rajesh Sarkar died and another got severely injured. Injured student Tapas Barman also later died in North Bengal Medical College and Hospital. amansharma@tribunemail.com New Delhi, September 22 The ruling BJP on Saturday lashed out at Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan saying he is in the chair on the directions of his country's army and India will not hold talks with the neighbour till its soldiers are being killed. The Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) remarks came after Khan hit out at India for cancelling a meeting between the foreign ministers of the two countries on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York this month. "..all my life, I have come across small men occupying big offices who do not have the vision to see the larger picture," Khan tweeted earlier on Saturday. Senior BJP leader and Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad asked what else can be expected from a "person who is sitting in the position of prime minister at the directions of his country's army". "There will be no talks with Pakistan till our soldiers keep getting killed," he said at a press conference here. India on Friday cited the "brutal" killing of three policemen in Jammu and Kashmir and the release of the postal stamps "glorifying" Kashmiri militant Burhan Wani for calling off the meeting between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi. Announcing the cancellation of the meeting, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar had said the incidents "exposed" the "true face" of Pakistan's new Prime Minister Imran Khan to the world as well as Islamabad's evil agenda behind the proposal for talks. - PTI ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM Tribune News Service New Delhi, September 22 Congress chief Rahul Gandhi today alleged that former French President Francois Hollandes remarks on Reliance Defence showed clear-cut corruption in the Rafale deal even as the BJP maintained it did not know under what compulsion the statement was made. Questioning Prime Minister Narendra Modis silence on the issue, Rahul asked him to come clean on the allegations of favouring the Anil Ambani-led company as the offset partner and demanded that there be a probe by a joint parliamentary committee, in which Hollande could be called so that the truth came out. Reiterating that PM Modi was a thief and that Hollande too had intended the same, the Congress president said it was important for the PM to either accept the foreign leaders statement or state that he was lying. For the first time, a former French President is calling our Prime Minister a thief. It is a question of the PMOs dignity. It is a question of the future of our jawans and the Air Force, said Rahul. Hitting back, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad called Rahuls remarks as shameful and dubbed PM Modi as a symbol of honesty. We expect nothing better from an ill-informed and corrupt leader (Gandhi) whose family was the source of all corruption in the country. Neither the country nor the world will believe what he said about India's most popular Prime Minister." Prasad went to the extent of accusing Gandhi of playing into hands of Pakistan by asking for complete details of the jet deal. Hollande has been quoted as saying that the Indian Government proposed Anil Ambani's Reliance Defence as Dassault Aviation's partner in the Rs-58,000 crore Rafale deal. While Rahul said the government had never in its statements denied Hollande's claim, Prasad claimed negotiations between Dassault and Reliance dated back to February 2012. "What happened later between the two brothers (Mukesh and Anil Ambani) we do not know, but there is contemporary evidence of MoU between Reliance Industries and Dassault," he said. Minutes later, Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala challenged the BJP to make public the so-called 2012 agreement. "This is something completely false being dished out by the Law Minister. There was no such contract or MoU between Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries or Dassault Aviation. The fact is an understanding had taken place, but between Dassault and HAL," Surjewala said, releasing a video of Dassault CEO Eric Trappier speaking on March 25, 2015 (days before the April 2015 announcement of Rafale purchase) about the impending contract with HAL. Rafale row: Hollande stands by comment AFP reported that former French President Francois Hollande said on the sidelines of a meeting in Canada on Friday that France did not choose Reliance in any way. On pressure by India, Hollande said he was unaware and only Dassault can comment on this. It is very important for the PM now to either accept Hollandes statement and say Yes, it is the truth or Mr Hollande is not telling the truth and here is the truthRahul Gandhi, Cong Chief Nothing better can be expected from a person chargesheeted along with his mother (Sonia Gandhi) in National Herald case and whose entire family is embroiled in Bofors scam. Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union Law Minister monicakchauhan@gmail.com New Delhi, September 22 French aerospace major Dassault Aviation has said it had made the decision to partner with Reliance Defence Ltd for the Rafale deal, comments which came after former French President Francois Hollande's reported claim that the selection of the Indian company was done at the behest of New Delhi. "This offsets contract is delivered in compliance with the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) 2016 regulations. In this framework, and in accordance with the policy of Make in India, Dassault Aviation has decided to make a partnership with India's Reliance Group. This is Dassault Aviation's choice," the company said. The statement by Dassault Aviation came following a French media report, which quoted Hollande as saying that the Indian government proposed Reliance Defence as the partner for the French aerospace giant in the Rs 58,000 crore Rafale deal and France did not have a choice. Hollande's comments to 'Mediapart', a French language publication, triggered sharp reactions from the opposition parties, which have been accusing the government of massive irregularities in the deal and benefiting Reliance Defence Ltd (RDL) despite not having any experience in the aerospace sector. The report quoted Hollande as saying, "It was the Indian government that proposed this service group, and Dassault who negotiated with Ambani. We had no choice, we took the interlocutor who was given to us." The sensational comments quoted to Hollande gave a new twist to the controversy as the Indian government has been maintaining it was not officially aware of whom the Dassault Aviation has selected as its Indian partner to fulfil offset obligations of the deal. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the procurement of a batch of 36 Rafale jets after holding talks with the then French President Hollande on April 10, 2015 in Paris. In its statement, Dassault Aviation said the contract for supply of 36 Rafale jets is a government-to-government agreement, adding "It provides for a separate contract in which Dassault Aviation commits to make compensation investments (offsets) in India worth 50 per cent of the value of the purchase." The company also said its partnership with Reliance has led to the creation of the Dassault Reliance Aerospace Ltd (DRAL) joint-venture in February 2017. "Dassault Aviation and Reliance have built a plant in Nagpur for manufacturing parts for Falcon and Rafale aircraft. The Nagpur site was chosen because of the availability of land with direct access to an airport runway, an essential condition of aeronautic activities," it said. Under India's offset policy, foreign defence entities are mandated to spend at least 30 per cent of the total contract value in India through procurement of components or setting up of research and development facilities. "Other partnerships have been signed with other companies such as BTSL, DEFSYS, Kinetic, Mahindra, Maini, SAMTEL, Other negotiations are ongoing with a hundred-odd other potential partners. Dassault Aviation is very proud that the Indian authorities have selected the Rafale fighter," said the company. Not involved in choosing Indian partners The French government has said it was in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners for the multi-billion dollar Rafale fighter jet deal as former French president Francois Hollande's reported comments that New Delhi proposed Reliance Defence as the Indian partner for the contract escalated the political row over it. While the French government said French companies have the full freedom to select Indian firms for the deal, Dassault Aviation, the makers of Rafale, said it had made the decision to partner with Reliance Defence Ltd. The French government said the inter-governmental agreement it signed with India for supplying 36 Rafale aircraft concerns its obligations solely with regard to ensuring the delivery and quality of the aircraft. "The French government is in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners who have been, are being, or will be selected by French companies," the French government said in its statement. "In accordance with India's acquisition procedure, French companies have the full freedom to choose the Indian partner companies that they consider to be the most relevant, then present for the Indian government's approval the offsets projects that they wish to execute in India with these local partners so as to fulfil their obligations in this regard." "As it happens, agreements have already been signed by French companies with many Indian firms, both public and private, under the framework of Indian laws," the statement said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the procurement of a batch of 36 Rafale jets after holding talks with then French President Hollande on April 10, 2015 in Paris. The final deal was sealed on September 23, 2016. The Congress has been accusing massive irregularities in the deal, alleging that the government was procuring each aircraft at a cost of over Rs 1,670 crore as against Rs 526 crore finalised by the UPA government when it was negotiating procurement of 126 Rafale jets. The Congress has also alleged the government was benefitting the Reliance Defence through the deal as the company has set up a joint venture with Dassault Aviation to execute the offset obligation for the deal. The opposition parties have also alleged Reliance Defence was formed just 12 days before the announcement of the Rafale deal by the prime minister on 10 April 2015. Reliance group has rejected the charges. The Congress has also been demanding answers from the government on why state-run aerospace major HAL was not involved in the deal as finalised during the UPA. PTI pardeepdhull@gmail.com Islamabad, September 22 Pakistans Prime Minister Imran Khan on Saturday expressed disappointment at Indias response calling it arrogant and negative after New Delhi called off talks between the foreign ministers of the two countries, blaming Islamabad for glorifying terrorism. Disappointed at the arrogant and negative response by India to my call for resumption of the peace dialogue, tweeted Khan. However, all my life I have come across small men occupying big offices who do not have the vision to see the larger picture. Indian External Affairs Ministers Sushma Swaraj and her Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi were set to meet on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York next week, that could have marked the first thaw in bilateral ties that have steadily deteriorated. The Indian government said on Friday that it cancelled talks with Pakistan following two deeply disturbing developments that led to Islamabads evil agenda being exposed. In one incident, terrorists abducted and gunned down three policemen in Jammu and Kashmir, marking a sharp escalation in militancy in the state which India says is backed by Pakistan. Also, Islamabad had issued postage stamps in memory of Burhan Wani, a Hizbul Mujahideen leader who was shot dead by Indian security forces in July 2016, sparking widespread street protests. Qureshi had called the development unfortunate and claimed that the decision was taken by New Delhi under internal pressure. The reasons cited by the Indian side for the decision to cancel the foreign ministers meeting, within 24 hours of its public confirmation, are entirely unconvincing, the Pakistan Foreign Ministry had said in a statement. IANS rchopra@tribunemail.com Vibha Sharma Tribune News Service New Delhi, September 22 After former French president Francois Hollandes explosive interview dropped a bombshell on an already roiling Rafale controversy, both ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and rival Congress addressed a series of press conferences on Saturday in a bitter escalation of an issue that remains prime focus less than a year before general elections. Congress president Rahul Gandhi said there was clear-cut corruption in the Rafale deal and asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to clear his position on the issue. Gandhi's blistering attack on Modi during a press conference came a day after former French president Francois Hollande was quoted as saying that the Indian government proposed Anil Ambani's Reliance Defence as Dassault Aviations Indian partner in the Rs 58,000 crore Rafale jet fighter deal. The prime minister must clear his stand on the Rafale deal after Hollande's remarks, he said. "Why is the prime minister silent? It is a matter related to defence forces, it is a matter related to corruption," he said. He also claimed that various defence ministers of the NDA government have been lying to protect Modi. Gandhi demanded a joint parliamentary committee probe and Hollande can also be called. We are absolutely convinced that the prime minister is corrupt... He must clarify, Gandhi said. It is very important for the prime minister now to either accept Mr. Hollande's statement or state that Mr. Hollande is lying and tell what the truth is, he said. BJP strikes back Hours after Gandhis press conference, BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad, a union minister, hit back saying he expected nothing better: from a leader whose family was the source of all corruption in the country. Addressing a press conference of his own, Prasad said neither the country nor the world would believe the things the Congress leader said about Indias most popular Prime Minister Narendra Modi, an epitome of honesty. He even went so far as accusing Rahul Gandhi of playing into hands of Pakistan by asking for complete details of the deal. Prasad said negotiations between Dassault and Reliance Industries dated back to February 13, 2002. Prasad said: What happened later between the two brothers ( Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani) we do not know but there is contemporary evidence of MoU between Reliance Industries and Dassault. The two Ambani brothers split in 2006, after which Mukesh Ambani came to head Reliance Industries Limited. This is the most shameful and irresponsible statement which is not believed by anyone in the country or world. But by levelling these allegations you (Rahul) Gandhi have smeared black paint on your face, Prasad said. He claimed Gandhi had no quality or capability and held on to power because of his family connections. I can understand the pain of Rahul Gandhi and company because the corruption has stopped under Narendra Modi and doors are closed for middleman. Nothing better can be expected from a person charge-sheeted along with his mother in the National Herald case and whose entire family is embroiled in the Bofors case. Another press conference, and a video Within minutes of Prasads address, Congress called another press briefing, this time addressed by spokesperson Randeep Surjewala, to dismiss Prasads charges as attempt to cover up for the central government. This is completely false and utter rubbish being dished out by Defence and Law ministries. There was no such contact or MoU between Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance industries or Dassault Aviation. I challenge them to give out the papers if such an understand had taken place. The fact is the understanding had taken place but between Dassault and HAL, Surjewala said, releasing a video of Dassault CEO Eric Trappier speaking on March 25, 2015, on the impending contact with HAL. He called Prasads arguments meaningless, Abuse and subterfuge is the only weapons left in the armour. To vent his frustration and tied himself up in knots in his verbal diarrhea (sic), he said, adding that the country was watching closely. Surgical strikes Taking to Twitter earlier in the day, Gamdhi called Reliance Defences involvement in the deal surgical strike on the countrys defence forces. The PM and Anil Ambani jointly carried out a One Hundred & Thirty Thousand Crore SURGICAL STRIKE on the Indian Defence forces. Modi Ji you dishonoured the blood of our martyred soldiers. Shame on you. You betrayed Indias soul, Gandhi tweeted. The report in Mediapart, a French language publication, quoted Hollande as saying recently: It was the Indian government that proposed this service group, and Dassault which negotiated with Ambani. We had no choice; we took the interlocutor who was given to us. Modi had announced the procurement of a batch of 36 Rafale jets after holding talks with then French president Hollande on April 10, 2015, in Paris. The opposition party has been accusing the government of choosing Reliance Defence over state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd to benefit the private firm even though it didnt have any experience in the aerospace sector. Hollandes remarks contradict the central governments stand that Dassault chose Reliance Defence as an Indian partner to fulfil its offset obligations and that the establishment had nothing to do with it. No role The Centre said it had "no role" in Dassaults deal with Reliance Defence. The Defence Ministry said "unnecessary controversies" are being sought to be created following media reports regarding a statement purportedly made by Hollande concerning the selection of Reliance Defence as the offset partner by Dassault Aviation, the manufacturers of Rafale aircraft. "The government has stated earlier and again reiterates that it had no role in the selection of Reliance Defence as the Offset partner," the ministry said. With PTI uttara@tribuneindia.com New Delhi, September 22 Congress president Rahul Gandhi Saturday alleged that institutions such as the Supreme Court and the Election Commission were being "systematically captured" by the RSS and said India cannot be run on one single idea. There is a feeling among the people that one ideology is being imposed upon them, Gandhi said at an interaction with academicians here. "(RSS chief) Mohan Bhagwat in his earlier speeches has said: 'We are going to organise the nation'. Who is he to organise the nation? The nation will organise itself. In next couple of months, their fantasy will be smashed," he asserted. During the interaction with eminent academicians from across the country at the Siri Fort, Gandhi said there are two visions of India and the Congress' vision is that India constitutes of people who live in it. The only way to understand India is talk to its people, he said. Gandhi alleged that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's vision of India is that of a golden bird which it views as a product. The product has to be monetised and utilised, and they will decide who will do this, the Congress chief said. What we are fighting is the attempted capture of this 'golden bird' by the RSS. They have understood very clearly that electoral battle for them, they can win it once, but they can't repeatedly win it. They have understood that. So, now what they are doing is that they are saying elections will come and elections will go, let us capture all of India's institutions and let us capture the golden bird with a bypass surgery, he said. Educational institutions, the Supreme Court and the Election Commission of India, all these are "systematically being captured", Gandhi alleged. Citing an example, he alleged: "When Mr (Narendra) Modi came to power, a person from Gujarat was chosen to head the SPG. In a short time, he left the position. He told me that he refused a list of SPG officers handpicked by the RSS, and that is why he was sent home". Gandhi claimed that the reason behind this attack on institutions was that there were monetary benefits for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). He cited the example of the Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh to allege that the BJP government there had taken "control" of the education system and then made money from it. Gandhi also took a jibe at Arun Jaitley, alleging that fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya had met the finance minister before leaving, but he did not act and facilitated his escape. The Congress chief also said that it was impossible for him to lead India, without having a "conversation with India". "The idea is, I should be a reflection of what is in your heart," he said. Gandhi told the professors that he knows that they were feeling the pressure and that an ideology was being imposed on them. You feel that one syllabus has now suddenly become acceptable to every single institution in India and I want you to understand and realise that you are not alone when you are fighting this battle. This sense, this feeling that you are getting is not only in your heart, it is in the heart of every single Indian person, it is in the heart of the farmers, it is in the heart of the labourers, it is in the heart of small and medium business," Gandhi said. A country of over a billion people cannot possibly be run on one single idea and the fact that people are allowed to express is the strength of the country, Gandhi said. "Look at 3,000 years of India's history, we are going to win, we are not going to lose," Gandhi asserted. Attacking the government over its education policy, Gandhi said government institutions should be given precedence over private institutions and the government should put money to strengthen them. "There has to be space for private institutions, but the guiding light, the foundation, the super structure has to be the public education system," he said. "The quality private institutions must look towards government institutions and say look that is an IIT that is something we aspire to, it shouldn't be the other way round," he said, adding that the government has to put money into the system. He also recalled that former US president Barack Obama had said the real competition for America was from the engineers, doctors and lawyers coming out of India. This was praise for the teachers of India, Gandhi said. The Congress chief asserted that when it comes to the Indian education system, two things are non-negotiableteachers should be able to express and they should be given a vision for their own future. Gandhi said the Congress was commencing its work in drafting a manifesto and invited teachers to form a delegation and come forward with their demands. PTI shalender@tribune.com Tribune News Service New Delhi, September 21 Within 24 hours of accepting Pakistan's talks offer, the Union Government on Friday called off a meeting between the Foreign Ministers of India and Pakistan in New York next week, citing two deeply disturbing developments. Sushma Swaraj and Shah Mehmood Qureshi were to meet along the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly session. Now, it is obvious that behind Pakistans proposal for talks to make a fresh beginning, the evil agenda of Pakistan stands exposed and the true face of the new Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, has been revealed in his first few months in office. Any conversation with Pakistan in such an environment would be meaningless, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Raveesh Kumar announced here. Kumar said: The latest brutal killing of our security personnel by Pakistan-based entities and the recent release of a series of 20 postage stamps by Pakistan glorifying a terrorist (Burhan Wani) and terrorism confirm that Pakistan will not mend its ways. He pointed out that this was not in line with the spirit reflected in the letters from the new PM and Foreign Minister of Pakistan. Significantly, while BSF jawan Narendra Singhs mutilated body was found near the International Border in Jammu on September 18, two days prior to the announcement of talks, the postal stamps were reportedly released before the Pakistan elections in July this year. It seems the Indian Government is divided on the issue of negotiations have never seen such a puerile statement by any Foreign Office. The world is watching: Pakistan stands for peace while Indian policies are being guided by extremist ideologies, tweeted Fawad Chaudry, Pakistan's Minister of Information and Broadcasting. The Pakistan Foreign Minister alleged there was a group in New Delhi that didn't want talks to happen. He was quoted by the Express Tribune as saying: It seems that India is already preparing for its elections due in the country next year... Pakistan had asked for talks in the larger interest of the region. True face of imran Evil agenda of Pakistan stands exposed and the true face of the new PM, Imran Khan, has been revealed. MEA spoksperson World watching World is watching. Pakistan stands for peace, while Indian policies are being guided by extremist ideologies. Pak Minister of Information & Broadcasting amansharma@tribunemail.com Shiv Kumar Tribune News Service Mumbai, September 22 Passengers who suffered internal injuries, including damaged hearing, after cabin pressure dropped suddenly on a Jet Airways flight from Mumbai to Jaipur on Thursday are filing police complaints and planning law suits against the airline. According to the Sahar police station, under whose jurisdiction Mumbai airport falls, a police complaint was filed against the Jet Airways by a social activist Asad Ashraf Patel. Patel, who runs an NGO and publishes a newspaper, accused the airline of poor crisis management and not deploying pilots with adequate training for operating aircraft. Patel told reporters that he has filed an FIR against the airline accusing it of attempting to murder 166 passengers on board. Two passengers who are still undergoing treatment after suffering partial hearing loss are also considering filing police complaints against Jet Airways. Jeweller Ankur Kala who is undergoing treatment at Mumbai's Nanavati Hospital is still to undergo various tests as he continued to suffer from headache and discomfort in his ears. According to his relatives, they would shortly be filing a police complaint against the airline. According to doctors at the Nanavati Hospital, the condition of the patients has been identified as Barotrauma and recovery would take about a week. However, they have been advised not to take a flight during this period. The office of the Director General of Civil Aviation said on Thursday that the cabin pressure in the Boeing 737 aircraft dropped suddenly as the cockpit crew had forgotten to deploy the "bleed switch" which controls cabin pressure. As a result within minutes after take off cabin pressure dropped and overhead oxygen masks dropped. Meanwhile, the National Aviators' Guild (NAG) which represents Jet Airways pilots, has objected to the DGCA blaming the pilots for Thursday's incident. "We have had a preliminary look into the incident involving two of our members with regard to the improper handling of pressurisation on the Mumbai-Jaipur flight. The matter is under investigation by DGCA and hence it would prudent to await the results of the probe," NAG said in a statement. pardeepdhull@gmail.com Imphal, September 22 Suspected tribal militants have attacked and looted 20 trucks in Manipur here, abducted a driver and injured two others, police said on Saturday. The trucks were on their way from Assam to Imphal on Friday when the incident occurred on the Maku bridge. The vehicles were ambushed on the national highway as the militants opened fire. They took one of the drivers hostage and brutally beat up another driver and a cleaner. The attackers left with cash and several mobile phones. However, they did not touch the merchandise on board the trucks. No arrest has been made yet. IANS ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM Jaipur, September 22 Army Chief General Bipin Rawat said on Saturday that stern action is needed to avenge the barbarism by terrorists and Pakistan Army against Indian soldiers. The comment comes after a BSF jawan was shot and his throat slit recently, followed by the brutal killings of three policemen in Jammu and Kashmir. We need to take stern action to avenge the kind of barbarism that terrorists and the Pakistan Army have been carrying out against our soldiers. It is time to give it back to them in the same coin but not by resorting to similar kind of barbarism. I think the other side must also feel the same pain, the Army Chief said at a press conference here. He said talks and terrorism could not go hand in hand, and Pakistan needed to curb the menace of terrorism and not allow terrorists to use their soil against India. The Pakistan Army said it was ready for war, but chose peace in the interest of its people. PTI/TNS amansharma@tribunemail.com Smita Sharma Tribune News Service New Delhi, September 22 Amid heated exchanges between India and Pakistan, following cancellation of Foreign Minister talks by New Delhi, people to people ties seem to be once again under stress. The Tribune has learnt that six people with the Chefs Association of Pakistan were invited to be a part of The World Heritage Cuisine Summit & Food Festival 2018. Of these six, invitation letters for four chefs Falak Gohar, Shahid Mahmood, Shumaila and Samina Ahmad had been sent across to the Indian High Commisison as well as the respective individuals for visa applications. Two letters were pending for Ahmad Shafiq and Tipu Imran. The global culinary event, being organised by Indian Federation of Culinary Association (IFCA), is scheduled to be held from October 12 to 14 at the Heritage Fort in Amritsar. Speaking to The Tribune, president of IFCA chef Manjit Singh Gill said, "The invite to chefs from Pakistan to participate in the World Heritage Cuisine Summit & Food Festival in Amritsar between October 12 to 14 was withdrawn as IFCA is unable to fulfil the requirements of the Pakistan visa office." IFCA is a nodal body of culinary professionals in India that calls itself independent, apolitical, non religious and voluntary and is recognised by the Ministry of Tourism. The IFCA is also a National member of the World Association of Chefs Societies (WACS), a global body of culinary professionals, and will be taking care of local hospitality for all the participants attending the event next month. The summit is a celebration of long-standing food traditions showcased by chefs, said the despatched invitation letters dated September 19, 2018 and signed by its president, chef Manjit Gill. The event has invited chefs from 50 countries of which confirmations are in for 48, but Pakistan seems be the only one that will be left out now in the backdrop of bilateral tensions on the rise again. An official source confirmed to The Tribune that India has a restrictive visa policy currently in place for Pakistan except for humanitarian cases. Following indications from the Indian side, Manjeet Gill shot a letter via email subsequently today to the Pakistani chefs, which The Tribune has access to. In his latest communication, chef Gill writes, I have been advised to withdraw all the invites, hence all the invites as per below names withdrawn and cancelled. The email then lists out names of all the Pakistani chefs who were earlier asked to reach Amritsar by October 11, participate in the event and take a trip of the city on October 15 prior to their departure back home. In his response to president Gills letter, Pakistani chef Ahmad Shafiq today wrote, The invitations have been withdrawn under political pressure and discrimination against Pakistan. pardeepdhull@gmail.com Jharsuguda (Odisha), September 22 Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday inaugurated a new airport at Jharsuguda, which he said will attract investors to the mineral-rich area and would act as a lifeline in the western region of the state. The prime minister said the airport would go a long way in transforming the state into a modern and developed one. Noting that only one major airport existed in Odisha for so many years, Modi said Kutch district in Gujarat alone has five airports. Now, the second airport of the state would act as a lifeline in western region of Odisha and attract investors to the mineral-rich region, he said. Asserting that the BJP-led government has been taking concrete steps for strengthening the aviation sector, he said only 450 aircraft operated in the country since Independence, while steps have been taken for 950 new aircraft during the last one year. Highlighting the importance of Jharsuguda Airport, Modi said it would act as a junction for neighbouring Raipur and Ranchi and strengthen connectivity. Development of eastern Indian states, including Odisha, West Bengal and Assam, is essential for achieving balanced development of the country, the PM said. Modi said the new airport is named after freedom fighter Veer Surendra Sai, as demanded by the Odisha government. Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, while addressing the ceremony, thanked the prime minister for naming the new airport after Sai, and said steps should be taken for quick introduction of regular commercial flights from Jharsuguda. He said the state government has provided land and free power for setting up the airport. Modi also inaugurated the Garjanbahal open cast mine of Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL), which has coal block reserves of 230 million tonne with an annual production capacity of 13 million tonnes. It will generate direct employment opportunity for 894 people and indirect job opportunities for 5,000. The prime minister also launched the 53.1-km long Jharsuguda-Serdega railway line constructed by the MCL, and said it would strengthen connectivity in the tribal-dominated region. Modi also dedicated to the nation Dulanga Coal Mining Project of NTPC in Sundargarh district. This is the second mine of the state-run company to be operational and its first in Odisha. Coal produced from this mine shall be used in the under-construction 1600-MW Darlipali Super Thermal Power Plant of NTPC in Sundargarh district, officials said. The Jharsuguda Airport has been developed by the Airports Authority of India in collaboration with Odisha government at an estimated cost of Rs 210 crore, with Rs 75 crore contribution from the state. The airport has been developed under the Centres UDAN scheme. Spread across over 1,027.5 acres of land with a 2,390-metre long runway, the area of terminal building of the airport is 4,000 sqm. The airport has been developed for all-weather operations, including night operations for A-320 type of aircraft. PTI ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM Ruchika Khanna Tribune News Service Chandigarh, September 22 Working as a teacher on a contractual basis, all that Jagmohan of Manuke Gill village in Moga had ever wanted was to rid his family of abject poverty. His father a labourer, he somehow managed to give himself a decent education and got a sarkari naukri. Nine years later, losing all hope of regular employment, he took his own life on September 13. His elder brother Paramjit Singh claims he was heart-broken when told by his superiors that he would not be made a regular employee. Working on a salary of Rs 5,000 per month, he could not bear the thought of having to take up labour like our father. As news of his suicide spread, local politicians urged us to hasten the cremation. No FIR was registered, nor inquest proceedings initiated, he claims. Jagmohan Singhs tragic end has become the trigger for a faceoff between 50,000 Punjab employees 27,000 on contract, 20,000 hired by companies which have been outsourced works and 1,000 enlisted with the Water Supply and Sanitation Department. Beginning next Sunday (September 30), these employees will abandon their young children, mostly toddlers, at the houses of ministers, according to Ashish Julaha, general secretary, Theka Mulazzim Action Committee. Batches of 300 employees will gather outside the residence of Education Minister OP Soni in Amritsar, Technical Education Minister Charanjit Singh Channi in Kharar and PWD Minister Vijay Inder Singla in Sangrur. When it comes to hiking their (MLAs) own allowances, there is no mention of financial constraints. But they continue to deny us our due. While we struggle to educate our wards, most ministers children are studying abroad or in Indias best boarding schools, points out Satpal angrily. He is a Class IV employee at the government dispensary in Tarn Tarans Dyalpura village. The familys sole bread-winner, he works on a monthly salary of Rs 4,000 which works out at Rs 133 per day, much less than the minimum wage of Rs 302 for unskilled labour. I am a qualified lab technician. They cannot expect me to leave after 12 years in service, especially when there are no jobs in the private sector, he says. Ludhiana resident Seema Goel, assistant project coordinator, Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan, says the govt is willing to regularise the services of teachers if they agree to work on the basic pay for three years. I am paid Rs 35,000. How can I agree to work on Rs 10,000 per month (basic pay)? This is gross injustice, she maintains. GOVERNMENT CASH-STRAPPED Officials admit in private that the state cannot take more financial burden. Also, it is feared that a recent HC verdict regarding Power Department employees could be binding on the government, which may have to give full emoluments to the employees on probation. This will entail a cost of Rs 945 crore annually. ABOUT CONTRACTUAL EMPLOYEES shalender@tribune.com Tribune News Service New Delhi, September 21 Faced with incessant disputes over inspection of private medical colleges by the Medical Council of India (MCI), the Supreme Court has asked former UIDAI Chairman and technocrat Nandan Nilekani to examine if a computer network-based technological solution was possible for such inspections. Werequest Nandan Nilekani to go into this problem and give concrete suggestions to this court at the earliest... Nilekani is at liberty to take technical assistance from various IT companies viz.,Wipro, Infosis, Accenture, etc., for making suggestions to this court, said a Bench headed by Justice SA Bobde on Wednesday. It posted the matter for hearing after six weeks. The Bench which also included Justice LN Rao passed the order after amicus curiae senior advocate Kapil Sibal suggested that a computer network-based technological solution, which may include artificial intelligence, would be needed to solve the problem. As Sibal said an expert like Nilekani a co-founder of IT major Infosys could be appointed to look into this aspect, MCI counsel Gaurav Sharma supported his suggestion. The order came during hearing of a petition filed by Azhar Medical College and Super Speciality Hospital of Kerala questioning the MCIs inspection report. Inspection of private medical colleges has been a controversial issue and invariably the MCI teams inspection reports have been challenged in high courts and the Supreme Court. There are incessant disputes that reach this court about what actually transpired at inspections of various private medical colleges by the Medical Council of India (MCI). The parties contest virtually every fact that is recorded in an inspection, noted the Bench. The court directed the MCI to convene a meeting with Nilekani, Sibal and other advocates who might be interested in the matter either in Delhi or any other place in India within 15 days. Sibal shall chair the meeting, the court said. It also asked Sibal and Sharma to prepare a written note highlighting the issues that need to be taken up by Nilekani. pardeepdhull@gmail.com United Nations, September 22 UN chief Antonio Guterres will travel to India early next month, his first trip to the country as head of the world body that coincides with the commencement of events marking the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. The Secretary-General will arrive in New Delhi on October 1. His visit coincides with the beginning of events to celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi on October 2 next year, Deputy Spokesman for the UN Secretary-General Farhan Haq told reporters here Friday. On October 1, Guterres will formally open the new UN House in New Delhi and on October 2, the Secretary-General will participate in the closing session of the Mahatma Gandhi International Sanitation Convention. During the visit, he will meet President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on October 3. He will also meet with Speaker of the Lok Sabha Sumitra Mahajan before giving a lecture at the India Habitat Centre on Global Affairs on the theme Global challenges, global solutions. The Secretary-General will also take part in the General Assembly of the International Solar Alliance. In the afternoon of October 3, he will visit the Golden Temple in Amritsar and will return to New York on October 4. Guterres had visited India in July 2016, just months ahead of the election for Secretary-General. During his visit then, he had met Swaraj. Replying to a question on Guterres trip to the Golden Temple, Haq said that the visit is essentially a personal one as the UN chief wanted to see the holy Sikh pilgrimage site. When asked if Guterres will be asked questions about the 1984 Sikh riots, Haq said it was a bit premature to mention the topics he will bring up. Haq also expressed the world bodys gratitude to the Indian government for its contribution of USD 1 million to install solar panels and a green roof on the Conference Building of the United Nations Secretariat. The contribution was received by Under-Secretary-General for Management Jan Beagle, who said that Indias generous contribution sends a strong message promoting innovation for action on climate change, and to enable greater efficiencies. The initiative will help the Secretariat reduce its carbon footprint and promote sustainable energy, Haq added. PTI shalender@tribune.com Deepkamal Kaur Tribune News Service Jalandhar, September 21 After an inquiry spanning 87 days and interrogation by the Kerala Police for three consecutive days, Bishop Franco Mulakkal was today arrested in the alleged rape case lodged by a nun. The Pope had yesterday relieved him of the pastoral duties of Jalandhar Diocese. The Bishop was being interrogated at the Crime Branch office in Tripunithura, Kerala, for the past three days. His flip-flop and contradictory statements led to his arrest. The Kottayam police took a fresh statement from the nun today. This is the first time that a Bishop has been interrogated and arrested in the country. The arrest came in the evening amidst daylong confusion, with officials confirming the same to the media but not going on record. The nun has served as Mother General with Jesus of Missionaries in Jalandhar but moved to Kerala five years ago. She alleged rape by the Bishop several times at the Kuravilangad convent in Kottayam, Kerala, between 2014 and 2016. Last week, she had written to Pope Francis sharing her plight and alleging that the silence by the church was leading to humiliation and character assassination. The nun, her family and a few other nuns had remained firm on their stand despite attempts to malign them. Sister Anupama, who remained steadfast in her support, even brought out audio recordings to buttress her claim, including the fact that they were being bribed to withdraw the case. The nuns had been mounting pressure on the Kerala Police by holding a protest for the past 14 days. It was the Bishops own move to lodge a complaint with the Kerala Police against the nun and her family alleging death threat that did him in. The rape FIR lodged against him was a counter-complaint by the nun three days later, on June 28. Confident of steering his way out of trouble, the Bishop had hired top lawyers, and had alleged that the nun had relations with her brother-in-law (cousins husband) and that the nuns charges against him were in retaliation to the inquiry ordered by him. After being interrogated in Jalandhar on August 14-15 and summoned by the Kerala Police on September 19, the Bishop had sought permission from the Pope to relieve him of his pastoral duties. Before appearing in Kerala, the Bishop had filed an anticipatory bail plea in the High Court, which was to be taken up on September 25. With his arrest, the application has got infructuous. His Jalandhar-based lawyer Mandeep S Sachdev said: We will file for regular bail with the Sessions Court in Kottayam. After the arrest, members of the Punjab Christian Movement distributed sweets outside the Bishop House in Jalandhar. rchopra@tribunemail.com Tribune News Service Jalandhar/Kottayam, September 22 The bail plea of Bishop Franco Mulakkal, arrested by the police over allegations of repeatedly raping and sexually assaulting a nun, was on Saturday rejected. He will be in police custody till September 24. The 54-year-old clergyman was produced in a magistrate court in Pala. Earlier, Mulakkal was discharged from the government hospital in Kottayam where he was admitted following complaints of chest pain, official sources said. He had complained of pain in his chest while being taken to Kottayam Police club from the Crime Branch office in Thrippunithura in Ernakulam district on Friday night, they said. He was under observation in the cardiology section of the Medical College Hospital for over six hours after his blood pressure shot up, they said. Sources said the ECG and other cardiac-related tests were performed. His health condition is said to be normal. In her complaint to the Kottayam police in June, the nun had alleged that Bishop Mulakkal raped her at a guest house in Kuravilangad in May 2014 and later sexually exploited her on several occasions. She said she had to approach the police as the church authorities did not act on her repeated complaints against the clergyman. However, the bishop has denied the charges. With PTI shalender@tribune.com PK Jaiswar Tribune News Service Amritsar, September 21 Dr Santokh Singh, the president of Chief Khalsa Dewan (CKD), was on Friday sentenced to five years in prison in a land fraud case. The verdict was delivered by Chief Judicial Magistrate RS Bajwa here. Manjit Singh of Gali Waziranwali in Rajasansi and Mohinder Singh of Shaheed Udham Singh Nagar had accused Dr Santokh Singh, his brother Inderpal Singh and two others of trying to grab their ancestral land in Haer village on the airport road. During the trial, Dr Santokh Singh and his brother produced a sale deed agreement, claiming that the land had been sold to them by Bishan Singh and Gopal Dass in 1967. But the complainants pointed out that Gopal Dass had died in 1940 and Bishan Singh in 1950. Counsel Ajay Vermani said the court had found Dr Santokh Singh guilty of forgery under Sections 465, 467, 468 and 471 of the IPC and of criminal conspiracy. He said Inderpal Singh, already declared a proclaimed offender, did not appear in court during the trial. The CJMs court has awarded a maximum of five-year imprisonment and Rs 10,000 as fine under Section 467, four years imprisonment and Rs 10,000 fine under Section 468, two years jail and Rs 5,000 fine under Section 465, two years jail and Rs 5,000 fine under Section 471 and five years imprisonment and Rs 10,000 fine for criminal conspiracy (Section 120-B). The sentences will run concurrently, Vermani said. Meanwhile, the CKD honorary secretary, Narinder Singh Khurana, told The Tribune that senior vice-president Dhanraj Singh would take over as officiating president. The elections to the body are due next year. Unlike the SGPC, the CKD is an apolitical body. It runs 47 schools, three colleges (educational institutes), orphanages, old-age homes, hospitals and clinics. Chief Khalsa Dewan in doldrums once again ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM Amritsar: SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal has accused the Congress of misusing government machinery in the rural elections. Talking to mediapersons after paying obeisance at the Golden Temple on Saturday, he said Congress workers had resorted to large-scale booth-capturing. He said the SAD would contest the panchayat elections, but not on the party symbol. In Chandigarh, Leader of Opposition Harpal Cheema alleged that the Congress government had hijacked the elections with "unbridled use of muscle power and government machinery. Its not a loss for the opposition parties. It's democracy that has lost," he added. He accused the ruling party of unleashing a reign of terror. TNS ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM Tribune Reporters Chandigarh, September 22 Thanks to the widespread rain on Saturday and a similar prediction for the next two days, Punjab is likely to finish this monsoon with normal rainfall. It will be the first time since 2011 that the state will have a normal monsoon. With Saturdays rain, the state has so far recorded 393.9 mm rainfall this season and till the fourth week of September, 468.1 mm is expected. The state was 16 per cent deficient, but according to the Chandigarh Meteorological Centre, the entire gap is likely to be filled with the current spell. The state had last witnessed a normal rainfall in 2011. At that time, it was 7 per cent above normal. Twelve districts have so far witnessed normal rainfall. It was deficient in six districts Bathinda, Moga, Muktsar, Jalandhar, Amritsar and Kapurthala and scanty in Mansa, Fazilka and Ferozepur. Ropar district witnessed excess rainfall with around 1,000 mm so far. The current spell of rain will start receding on Monday, while some isolated places will receive heavy rainfall. A drop in both day and night temperatures was recorded. The maximum temperature fell to 32 degree Celsius and the minimum was 22C. Meanwhile, farmers have said that the current spell of rain will prove harmful for paddy. Jagmohan Singh, state general secretary of BKU (Dakaunda), said those who had sown short-term varieties of paddy would suffer the most as the harvest had already started reaching the market. He said the discolouration of high-quality basmati would affect crop prices. The ongoing showers will also delay harvest, he added. There have been no case of crop damage so far, but if it continues to rain incessantly tomorrow and strong winds blow, then it can result in major crop damage, said Baldev Singh Latala, state vice-president of the All India Kisan Sabha. In Malwa, cotton farmers are a worried lot, apprehending crop loss due to incessant rain. Though the area under cotton cultivation came down in Malwa this year, the farmers were expecting a bumper yield. However, with the forecast of heavy rain in the state for three days just around the harvesting time, they fear the worst now. The cotton had started arriving in the market in areas such as Fazilka and the farmers were upbeat, as their produce was already fetching a price of above Rs 5,800 per quintal. Agriculture experts have advised the farmers not to irrigate their fields in view of the rainfall, as it increases the threat of flattening of crops, if strong winds accompany the rainfall. Earlier this year, the government had raised the MSP of cotton from Rs 4,020 to Rs 5,150 per quintal. Kamal Deep Singh, a farmer from Jalandhar district, said most of the paddy sown on nearly 1,500 acres had got submerged. We have been asking district officials to provide pump sets for draining out water. It seems unlikely that the standing crop will survive if it continues to rain till Sunday morning. In Patiala, the district administration is keeping a close watch on the water level in the Ghaggar. singhking99@yahoo.com Nonika Singh Her frail and gentle looks almost delude you. However, Anupam Sud, one of Indias finest printmakers, is a woman of immense courage both in conviction and determination. Yet she wouldnt go to town either about her achievements or her rather laborious creative process. Back in time, when she decided to be an artist, she thinks it was sheer providence that propelled her on to the artistic path. The choice to be a printmaker too, she feels, was more subconscious than deliberate. She recalls, When I saw other printmakers, my initial kneejerk reaction was never am I going to be a printmaker. It involved so much labour and their clothes were constantly smeared with dirt and oil. But I was soon drawn in. It was like quicksand in which I got trapped and enraptured. The possibilities in the realm of printmaking are immeasurable, almost infinite and she found a mentor in her teacher Jagmohan Chopra, a renowned printmaker whose dedication, she feels, is unparalleled. Where will you find a person who would convert his house into a studio? Imbibing the painstaking technique of printmaking first at the College of Art, New Delhi and later at Slade School of Fine Art, London, she wonders aloud as to how craft can be disassociated from art. Her dexterous mastery over her medium stands out in fine detailing and her treatment of chiaroscuro the play of light and shadow is truly exemplary. Then the evocative expressions hold a mirror to gender relations, to contrasts and ambiguities that life offers. When you are a part of society, you can only draw inspiration from the world around you. However, she doesnt see herself as a critic, only as an observer, and certainly not as a judge of human character. Her works are open to multiple interpretations for she allows viewers both the freedom and the space to draw their own conclusions. Man-woman relationships are often the genesis of her creativity. On women being her constant muse, she says, When men paint women, they see her as an object of beauty and desire. But when I do the same, its a 360 degree experience of inhabiting a female body and knowing exactly what and how she feels. However, in her world, men too are equally important. Negating them would be nullifying nature itself. Her male images have drawn much attention, praise and curiosity. If the inspiration for drawing virile male forms came from her fathers muscular and well-toned physique, her mind was constantly informed by her mothers telling and retelling of mythological fables. Indeed, mythology often permeates her creations. One of her notable works is on Draupadi and she finds goddess Shakti in ordinary women. Like the many-layered mythology, her works are more allegorical than direct. Two of her series, Game and Dialogue, have won her much critical acclaim. Critics might view her works as those of a feminist, but she certainly doesnt see herself as a radical or member of the bra-burning brigade. Be it Gandharis real reasons for going blindfolded (revenge and not pativrata) or her own grandfather seeking advice from her grandmother, feminism for her isnt really an invention of the modern world. As the world of art is in a flux, as digital technology is all set to alter its dynamics, she says emphatically: Reproduction is not art. Yet for someone who taught at the College of Art in Delhi for decades, she is not averse to change either. She is positive that digital works will soon find the same place in annals of art. Masterpieces, she says, are not created but happen perchance with divine intervention, years of diligent practice and imagination. Add to it perceptive observation and you have an answer to what makes her works part of prestigious museums and biennales. Dedication is expensive. It will cost you your life, wrote Irving Stone. And Anupam Sud has dedicated hers to art willingly and enthusiastically, in the process opening many windows to both life and art. Brig Jagbir S Grewal (Retd) Brig Jagbir S Grewal (Retd) The 1971 India-Pakistan War not only liberated Bangladesh, but also provided succour to multitudes of people in Jammu and Kashmir. Liberation of the hamlet of Budgam is one such instance. My battalion, 18 Punjab, was then manning the Line of Control (LoC) in Kargil sector, and from the ridge-line we also overlooked Budgam. Its hutments were tucked within Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, but a few grazier huts stood vulnerably close to the LoC. Otherwise, the entire area was devoid of inhabitation and greenery. A peep below into this pocket of civilisation from our battalions defences presented a soothing view amidst rocks and boulders, because neither a blade of grass, nor trees nor greenery was seen elsewhere, except for this hamlet, where a few groves of dwarfed walnut and apple trees, providing small shady jaunts, stood along the water channels. Here the flattened valley floor, smoothened with fine mud accumulated over the years, had become fertile and cultivable. Budgam gave the illusion of an island of happiness, of people moving about their chores, tending to their terraced fields and their yaks or sheep. Everything about Budgam appeared Utopian, but we were aware of the turmoil that the dwellers stoically endured. Pakistani troops had denied inland access to these folks and poured only bare necessities on them. There were no medical facilities and no schools. Attired in worn-out phirans, shawls or blankets, they consumed whatever they grew. A couple of shops of some peasants doubled up as shopkeepers were visible. Soap and oil were a luxury and utilised once in a while. These people hibernated during harsh winters. Caught in a time warp, they led wretched, primitive lives in perpetual slumber, frozen in time, denied bounties of mans civilised progress. Little did we realise then that soon we would be destined to set foot in that valley during the chilly nights of December 1971. The columns of 18 Punjab stealthily descended at last light on December 6 towards PoK, treading softly, so that no stones rolled down, which could have alerted the Pakistanis. The down-slope gushing, noisy water channels also muffled the sound of our footfalls. The goat track that we followed from our post descended downwards and almost reached the valley floor. Then we negotiated our way uphill, moving vertically across the mountain face. Trudging up the high altitude terrain, we contacted their Post Bahar at dawn. It was dark and hazy, and the darkness thickened further when a Pakistani sentry challenged us, screaming, Kaun hai? Without waiting for a reply, a very light was fired. Even before the very light had extinguished, a Pakistani machine gun opened up tearing the eerie silence, and the valleys reverberated with echo. Suddenly, shapes and silhouettes of the Post Bahar loomed out of the darkness in front of us. Major Sarjit Singh Sahota (nicknamed Shorty) was commanding Charlie Company that led the assault. Shorty, a gallant and dependable officer, raised his walking stick skywards to make his men realise that the fire was going overhead, exhorting his men to move forward. Though wounded by a grenade, Shorty carried on. The high altitude and the intense cold rarefied air made it difficult to make a dash for the final assault. Ultimately, the formidable Brachil Pass was captured. In the next few days, 18 Punjab intruded deep into PoK and earned the Battle Honour, Brachil, Wali and Malik. Budgam was now inclusive in the territory captured by us. People were ferried to see Kargil town, roads, power, and specially screened cinema shows. Civilisation took over their lives; their destinies were re-shaped. Now, the Army reaches out to the population, tending to their health, education and other needs. People of Budgam are now employed in Kargil and elsewhere too, reclaiming their rightful place as citizens of India. Shahzad Raza Shahzad Raza The tricks of ruling the subcontinent for 1,000 years was through a loose confederation, mutually benefitting alliances, religious freedom, inter-faith marriages, economic prosperity and adaptation of local customs and traditions. From Qutb ud-Din Aibak to Akbar, the Muslim rulers successfully deciphered the complexities of sub-continental life. Even the most reviled Mughal emperor, Aurangzeb Alamgir, according to Audrey Truschke, followed his ancestors. The strategy of convoluting foreign with the local culture gave birth to a third-culture life an ideal mix of religions and customs. The subcontinent was more liberal and secular than any modern western society. The colonial forces devastated the Hindu-Muslim unity with their divide and rule strategy. The Great Divide of 1947 led to the divorce of a 1,000-year marriage. Strict supervision and play them off one against the other. That is the secret of our government, wrote Rudyard Kipling in The Education of Otis Yeere. The seed that the colonisers had sowed blossomed into a tree by 1947. The haphazard Partition and mass migration thanks to Lord Mountbatten nurtured it further with the blood of more than 2 lakh people. Both India and Pakistan began their journey as independent countries with animosity and misunderstandings. The last few years witnessed a virtual impasse between the two nuclear neighbours. While the Modi government was surfing the wave of ultra-nationalist Hindu mindset, the establishment and extremists in Pakistan paralysed the Sharif government before he could capitalise on some peace overtures. Both sides committed irrelevant mistakes and pushed the peace process into a gloomy chasm. The reversal is near impossible. Imran Khans succession to power was seen as a glimmer of hope. Though he mentioned the sensitive Kashmir issue (for India), he primarily talked of resuming dialogues and establishing greater trade ties. He subscribed to the vision that inter-state dependencies would create a congenial atmosphere between India and Pakistan. And that would, eventually, enable them to discuss thorny issues. Khan and Modi talked to each other over the telephone. They shared the wish of having a permanent peace in South Asia. Later, Khan wrote to Modi formally proposing the resumption of the stalled peace process. In the backdrop of the developments, the two countries agreed to let their foreign ministers meet on the sidelines of the UNGA in New York. Things looked better and steady. The brighter aspect was that the Pakistani military establishment shared similar views and vowed to back the civil government in its positive overtures towards India. In his speech on Defence Day, Pakistan army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa underlined the importance of trade between India and Pakistan, which, he believed, was necessary to ameliorate the plight of around 2 billion people living in South Asia. What happened should rightly be called a bummer. The scheduled meeting between Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Sushma Swaraj was cancelled. India blamed Pakistan of killing a BSF soldier. It also lodged protest that Pakistan had issued a stamp featuring Burhan Wani. These are strong reasons to cancel the talks as far as India is concerned. However, Pakistan, in defence, has its own arguments. It has clarified that the soldiers killing took place two days before India agreed to the meeting and that the stamp featuring Wani had been issued in July. The language that the Indian MEA spokesperson used against PM Khan was impolite and disrespectful. It is obvious that behind Pakistans proposal for talks to make a fresh beginning, the evil agenda of Pakistan stands exposed and the true face of the new PM has been revealed, spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said. Khan is just a month-old PM. Shouldnt he be given some concessions? Not at all, if the answer is sought from the jingoistic Indian media. Should Pakistan keep on extending the hand of friendship? Not at all, if one asks emotional Pakistani news anchors. The state relations are not defined or established through prime-time shows. The dilemma of Pakistan and India is that they are hostage to the circumstances. They are the victims of negative peace looming large on the horizon. A small-triggering event could jeopardise a great effort. By wasting more time, the two countries are just increasing the number of bitter pills they will eventually have to swallow. The writer is Pakistan-based journalist Saurabh Malik Saurabh Malik in Chandigarh Punjab Governments prescription of a harsher punishment for blasphemy may eventually prove to be a cure worse than the malady. The law is not without inherent flaws and disparity. It is a matter of belief, but a place of worship cannot be said to be of lesser importance than a scripture. However, damage to a place of worship will attract a maximum of two years imprisonment, while harm to a religious book will be punishable by life imprisonment under the new law. Broadly speaking, Section 295 of the Indian Penal Code says whoever destroys, damages, or defiles, any place of worship, or an object held sacred, with the intention of insulting the religion, would be punished with imprisonment for a term up to two years, or with fine, or with both. But the person is liable to be sentenced to life, if he damages or causes injury to a scripture under the new provision 295AA. The only thing certain so far regarding the uncertainties brought about by the new law is the enhanced possibility of incrimination in false cases, akin to the ones where the instruments of implication are not required to be planted from outside against an innocent by the members of a not-so-disciplined force. A law, any law, is as good as its implementation; and even the finest of regulations framed with the best of intentions, keeping larger public good in mind, can find the label of draconian easily attached to it because of faulty execution. Like any law, the task of carrying out the mandate of the new commandment will squarely fall on the police force; and one truth about it is the ability of its officials to tell untruths. The capability of the police to fabricate truth is no more a matter of conjecture and rumours. It is, rather, a fact confirmed and commented upon by a Single Judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in one of its judgments in a matter related to drugs. Justice Amol Rattan Singh, in Sukhvir Singh and another versus the State of Punjab and others, asserted: Simply accepting the word of a police official to be the absolutely true version of any particular occurrence, without any corroboration, amounts to saying that all such police officials are 100 per cent trustworthy and can tell no lie, which unfortunately is not the case. This observation is made with due respect to such police officers and officials, at all levels, who do their duty perfectly honestly and diligently. The observation came during the hearing of bail and suspension of sentence pleas, where the accused suspected of carrying contraband, were not produced before a magistrate or a gazetted officer by the police at the time of search. In the case of Ashok Kumar Jain versus the State of Punjab, the Punjab and Haryana High Court granted Rs 5 lakh compensation to the petitioner-chemist after Justice Rakesh Kumar Jain described the case as a sample of highhandedness on part of the police, who virtually implicated the petitioner in a case concocted by them. As a result, he had to remain behind bars for more than five months before release on bail. The findings of Justice Mehtab Singh Gill Commission looking into the cases of false implications during 10 years of the SAD-BJP regime also confirm that the police functioning has not exactly been above board. In all, recommendations for FIR cancellation and action against cops have been made in almost 350 cases by the Commission set up by the government itself. Action has so far been taken in no less than 272 complaints. The apprehensions regarding the new law largely stem from the fact that the tools of incrimination may not even be required to be planted by the police force in case it takes upon itself the task of implicating someone. A weapon or a sachet of contraband may not be that easy to procure for framing an innocent. But nothing from outside may actually be required in case of unholy intention to trap someone in the name of religion. An accidental damage to a scripture from way back, too, may become a cause of concern for the owner, who may actually find himself in the dock proving his innocence and lack of intention. A related aspect is of authoritarian policing. Retrograde laws that further empower the police and give them additional freedom to act in a manner they like while allowing room for them to get away with their deeds tend to suppress democratic policing. Exercise of unconstitutional powers by the police often leads to reverse effect of the collapse of police apparatus. It, in turn, leads to the evolution of authoritarian regimes that generates fear among the people and leads to a backlash that plays havoc with the existing social setup. Punjab has already suffered because of apparent and alleged unconstitutional policing in the state during the dark days of militancy. To say militancy in the state is an aftermath of police atrocities will be generating a debate, but there is no denial about repercussion of the exercise of extrajudicial powers. People rose to resent and that aggravated the problem. A law that tends to bestow excessive powers to the police force even today may lead to an opposite and worse reaction in cases of false implications. The argument that harsher punishment is a deterrent, again, may not be apt. No punishment has ever possessed enough power of deterrence to prevent the commission of crimes. On the contrary, whatever the punishment, once a specific crime has appeared for the first time, its reappearance is more likely than its initial emergence could ever have been, said philosopher and political theorist Hannah Arendt. One look at the cases under the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act is enough to confirm the applicability of her statement in the local context. Available information suggests that the NDPS Act has a high conviction rate of 77.2 per cent, as well as a high pendency rate of 80.6 per cent. Existing provisions permit death penalty in the case of repeat offenders. A convict may find himself serving a sentence of rigorous imprisonment for 10 to 20 years. Yet, the menace continues. Its extent can be gauged from Punjab Governments own assertion that, in 2003, just about 3,545 FIRs were registered and 4,195 persons were arrested, compared to 10,830 FIRs in 2014 and arrest of 12,695 persons. In 2013, Punjab with 14,654 cases registered under the NDPS Act, out of 34,668 nationwide, topped the list. Since the penalties are stiff, several procedural safeguards, and some immunity, have been provided in the Act. Any amendment to the blasphemy law needs to have a similar protection system. Every law can be misused. But harsher the sentence, tougher has to be the burden of proof on the prosecution. Perhaps, the courts will have to step in for the protection of constitutional rights. International perspective The misuse of blasphemy laws in Pakistan is no more a matter of debate. The laws are believed to be widely misused by religious groups to instituting false court cases against the minorities, including Christians and Hindus. The Pakistan Penal Code prohibits blasphemy against any recognised religion and provides for penalties ranging from a fine to death. Available information suggests over 1,300 persons have been accused of blasphemy from 1987 to 2014. More than 60 accused of blasphemy have been murdered before the conclusion of trial. Section 295AA The Punjab Cabinet only recently decided to introduce in the Indian Penal Code a new Section, 295AA, which states: Whoever causes injury, damage or sacrilege to Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Srimad Bhagwad Gita, Holy Quran and Holy Bible with the intention to hurt the religious feelings of the people, shall be punishable with imprisonment for life. What lies ahead The Union Home Ministrys reaction is yet to be seen. Two earlier Bills amending the CrPC and the IPC, passed by the Punjab Assembly during the previous SAD-BJP regime, were returned by the ministry to the state government. The Bills were reportedly found violating the principle of secularism. The purported need Punjab has seen almost 200 cases of sacrilege in the past three years. The issue was brought to fore only recently with Justice Ranjit Singh Commissions report on the incidents being tabled before the Vidhan Sabha. The existing provisions do not prescribe deterrent punishment. New crimes included The new law is being projected as a move to effectively address the issue of sacrilege. An injury, damage or sacrilege to the holy books with the intention to hurt the religious feelings of the people has been dubbed as an offence and included in 295AA. Nature of law Its far tougher than the existing laws as the punishment for offence under this Section has been enhanced from a maximum of two to three years defending upon the nature of offence to imprisonment for life. Anees Jillani Anees Jillani More wars have been fought in the name of religion than anything else in the history of our world. In other words, more people have been killed for causes that supposedly espouse peace. It is thus always advisable if one wishes to achieve peace and harmony to lower the religious sentiments. Ironically, this conflicts with the fact that it is always easier to exploit peoples feelings in the name of religion and attain popularity and what one wishes to gain politically or otherwise. I was in China a couple of years ago and was surprised when the youth I was talking to gave me a blank expression when I raised the subject of God. They had absolutely no idea about it. There are few places left on our planet now where this is the case. Almost all communities have religions and they have to live together despite all their attempts to maintain homogeneity. Hindus, perhaps, have always been in majority in the Indian subcontinent, but Jains and Buddhists have lived along with them. The Muslims invaded India and most of the Muslim rulers had a liberal, if not totally secular approach towards other religious communities. However, the Muslims in India are now paying the price for some of the follies committed by them. The British brought Christianity and a set of laws and a system which continues to exist in all of their colonies. The Indian Penal Code 1860, which is called the Pakistan Penal Code across the border, is one such law that continues to remain in force despite a lapse of 157 years. Its Section 295 says: Whoever destroys, damages or defiles any place of worship, or any object held sacred by any class of persons with the intention to thereby insulting the religion of any class of persons or with the knowledge that any class of persons is likely to consider such destruction, damage or defilement as an insult to their religion, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both. Section 295-A was added to the Penal Code by the British in 1927 to avert outraging of religious feelings of any community. It states: Whoever, with deliberate and malicious intention of outraging the religious feelings of any class of the citizens of India, by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representations, insults or attempts to insult the religion or the religious beliefs of that class, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, or with fine, or with both. As luck would have it, in 1986, when General Zia-ul-Haq was the President and a civilian government led by PM (Mohammad Khan) Junejo was in power, human rights activist Asma Jehangir, in a press conference, commented on the educational status of Prophet Muhammad. It led to a huge controversy and the government in panic inserted Section 295-C in the Penal Code which read as follows: Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine. There was no looking back. The Federal Shariat Court, another creation of General Zia, in a subsequent ruling held that the words or imprisonment for life be deleted from this provision; it now carries the mandatory death penalty. At the time of addition of Section 295-C, the Criminal Procedure Code 1898 was also amended to state that an accused under this Section or under 295-B (dealing with defiling of the Koran), again inserted by General Zia, can be held without warrant, and that the court of session trying a case under Section 295-C must be presided over by a Muslim. In 2011, governor of Punjab province Salman Taseer and the Federal Minister for Minorities, Shahbaz Bhatti, were killed simply because they had talked of amending the above sections in the Penal Code. The governor was killed by his own guard and only a few dozen dared to attend his funeral prayers. As opposed to this, hundreds of thousands attended his assassins funeral after he was hanged. The judges in the present environment rarely feel secure to dispense justice; and they can hardly be blamed, particularly after the fate of Justice Arif Iqbal Hussain Bhatti, who was assassinated in October 1997 in Lahore. What was the judges fault? He had acquitted Salamat (a 14-year-old), Rehmat and Manzoor Masih, from the blasphemy charge in 1995. The judge who convicted the governors assassin had to leave the country for a couple of years. This is the problem with religious laws. They are easy to enact but very difficult to amend or repeal. Consequently, one should move extremely cautiously while introducing a feature in the legal system which has religious connotations. It may earn one brownie points with the religious community in the short term but is not good for maintaining religious harmony in the long run. They become a tool in the hands of criminal-minded persons who start using them to embroil their opponents in highly questionable litigations that get so controversial during the course of trial that it becomes almost infeasible to decipher the truth. No doubt more Muslims are tried under these laws than minorities but most of the convicted ones belong to the religious minorities. In other words, the laws have become a tool in the hands of a section of the population to crush the religious minorities; if the latter gets into any kind of dispute whatsoever with a Muslim, the easiest way to punish the adversary is by accusing him or her of blasphemy. The state machinery takes care of the rest. The writer is a lawyer in the Supreme Court of Pakistan singhking99@yahoo.com Arunima Patel The prevalence of cancer and number of patients in India do not necessarily show the real picture of the healthcare crisis we are facing. The average prevalence rate for cancers in India is around 100 cases per lakh while in the advanced economies such as the US, it is around 300 per lakh. This comparatively lower prevalence of the disease in an otherwise 1.3 billion plus people is because risk of cancer increases with age and 65 per cent of Indians are younger than 35 years. On the contrary, the US has only around 27 per cent of its citizens under the age of 21 years. As per a report Call for Action: Expanding cancer care for women in India 2017, India is the third country after US and China in terms of high number of cancer cases. In India, one out of three patients does not survive beyond five years or more after being detected with cancer. With over 15 lakh new cases reported every year and a large population turning old, the country is staring at a catastrophe. In terms of gender, while the incidence of cancer is reported higher in men, more women are diagnosed with disease in India. A 2012 World Cancer Report suggests that over 5.37 lakh women were diagnosed with cancer against 4.77 lakh men. The problem of delayed detection While more women in India are diagnosed with cancer, what is worse is that the diagnosis happens at later stages when the cost and suffering during treatment shoots up while the chances of survival decrease. As per a National Institute of Cancer Prevention and Research-Indian Council of Medical Research (NICPR-ICMR) report, over 70 per cent of cancers in women include breast, cervical, and uterine cancer. Accordingly around 1.95 lakh women die of cancer every year. Breast cancer and cervical cancer are one of the major causes of female deaths, leading to an estimated 76,000 annual deaths and 200 deaths daily, respectively. Putting this in to context of the data shared by National Family Health Survey, even in urban areas where awareness is supposed to be better, only 11.7 per cent and 25.3 per cent women in the age-group of 1549 years have ever undergone examination of breasts or cervix, respectively. The major factors behind delayed diagnosis include unawareness about cancer symptoms caused by ignorance or negligence. The prevalent gender bias in our patriarchal society, too, means women tend to compromise on their own health, keeping the health and welfare of husband, children and family first. Financial limitations, especially in the economically weaker sections, prevent women from visiting a doctor unless something serious happens. The early signs, therefore are missed, diagnosis is delayed, and chances of survival drops drastically. Importance of testing and diagnosis in initial stages The importance of early testing and diagnosis cannot be stressed enough. Steps for awareness should be taken at a war-footing to encourage increasing participation. While healthcare facilities and various related stakeholders, including NGOs, medical societies, and others need to actively participate in spreading awareness and breaking the stronghold of socio-cultural myths and stigma, policy-makers and economists need to drive policies that would provide penetration of diagnostic testing in tier-II and tier-III cities and beyond. Today, treatment of many cancerous diseases is possible, especially if detected early. Advanced technology, including vacuum-assisted core biopsy, circulating tumour cells enable diagnosis in a minimally invasive way, ensuring early recovery. Other standard methods including surgical biopsy, core needle biopsy and fine needle aspiration biopsy are also available. Medical science has advanced to the extent that testing can be done based on molecular markers, which includes molecular profiling of somatic mutations. Latest testing methods include next generation sequencing, which helps in sequencing DNA and RNA quickly and accurately, conventional, reverse transcriptase, methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR), flow cytometry and Sanger sequencing. With evolving technology, and increasing knowledge, we need to evolve our thinking and socio-politico-economic systems as well so that the best of the medical innovations can be utilised to benefit the health of maximum number of people. The writer is founder and MD, iGenetic Diagnostics singhking99@yahoo.com Aradhika Sharma My friend, Pinky (yes, I do have a friend with that name), who now lives in Australia and who studied in Chandigarh about three decades ago, was, along with her daughter, Seher, planning a visit to the City Beautiful. In her long, animated emails, she expressed the wish to revisit her old haunts Sector 17 and Sector 22 reminiscing, with fondness and delight, about her shopping sprees there. The very next day of her arrival, she prepared a visitation to her old hunting grounds. I cant wait to show Seher my best loved shopping places in the world! she exclaimed. You know Seher, Sector 22 was a great place for cheap rip-offs. We would purchase all our a la mode wardrobe from there, but wed pretend that wed bought them from the expensive and upmarket Sector 17. We would dress up trendily whenever we went there in case we ran into a snooty girl from college, or a hep boy that we liked. Kewl! drawled her daughter. Cant wait, mom! Well, things do tend to change, I demurred, not wishing to burst their rosy bubble. The gilt has a nasty way of wearing off the golden childhood memories, you know. Youve been corrupted by the mall culture, dear. Thats why you dont appreciate the old-world, elegant charm of strolling in the plaza. You should learn to value your traditions, not trash them, Pinky volunteered her uncalled for advice. Le Corbusier designed such an elegant space for you people. You should learn to appreciate it. Thus judged, I decided to sit back and allow her rose-tinted spectacles to be ripped off by reality. Shortly thereafter, we headed to Sector 17. I had barely parked when Pinky jumped out and looked around eagerly, trying to catch a glimpse of the shopping paradise of her halcyon days. Listen, havent we come to the wrong place? This cant be Sector 17, she cried in dismay, staring at the legions of street vendors proudly hawking their motely wares. Oh yes, heres your old-world, elegant charm in all its glory, I responded. This is Sector 17, Mom? But where are the shops? Seher finally stepped out from the car. Theyre still here. I said You just have to wade through the street merchandise to reach them. Lets walk around and try and recapture your old memories, Pinky. Gingerly, we stepped around mounds of belts, foul-smelling rubber chappals, cheap purses, jeans, and even heaps of fruit and almonds. Whats that man selling out of the steel pot there? Asked Seher pointing to a populated spot. Ah! The ubiquitous momos and soup-wallah! Next to him is the chaat and golgappe-wallah rubbing shoulders with noodle-manchurian-wallah. Want to have some? She shuddered: No thanks! Pinky looked dazed: How could they ruin the heritage of the city? They dont deserve a legacy like this. Brutally practical, as the young are, Seher asked impatiently: Mom, can we just go to the mall? Pinky looked around one last time and then slowly said: Yes, I think wed better! singhking99@yahoo.com H. Kishie Singh Recently, I had taken my car for servicing. In the waiting room, the service manager introduced me to a lady. She was having a new headlight fitted on her car. How did this happen? I asked. I was driving home. It was raining hard. I was not driving fast and when I came to the round about the car refused to obey me. I turned the steering wheel, nothing happened, the car went straight! I climbed the pavement and hit the roundabout. I knew, or rather suspected, what had happened. After coffee, we went into the workshop. It was the tyres that were of concern to me. A quick glance and my suspicions were confirmed. The front tyres were as smooth as the proverbial babys bum! So here is what happened. A sheet of water covered the road. The tyres smooth, devoid of grooves or sipes, had no contact with the tarmac. The car was a projectile with a mind of its own! The momentum gained, made its own trajectory. Steering or no steering, it kept going straight. This was a classic case of hydroplaning or aquaplaning. The tyres, being smooth, failed to remove the water from under the tyres. The result was that the car was riding on a thin film of water, no contact between tyre and tarmac. Your tyre is the only contact with Mother Earth. A good set of tyres and Mother Earth clutches you to her bosom through rain, hail, snow or slush. The tyre manufacturer knows these things happen, so has helped you to know if your tyres are safe. First let us understand the tyre. Next time you are out shopping in the marketplace, there is bound to be an SUV with a tyre on the rear door. It is a combination of rubber, nylon, canvas and high tensile steel cables. You will notice the design on the tyre. This is the tread. The car runs on these grooves which provide traction and stability. They run the length of the tyre. There are also lateral cuts across the tyre, these are called sipes. Their job is to drain water from the grooves away from the tyre. Failing to do so will result in hydroplaning. Look closely on the shoulder of the tyre and you will find a triangle. This is the TWI, Tyre Wear Indicator. Follow the direction of the triangle and, in the grooves, you will see small ridges at the bottom of the grooves. These are the Tread Wear Indicators, also referred to as NSD, Non-Skid Depth Indicators. If the ridges are flush with the tyre, the tyre cannot prevent a skid or hydroplaning. The surface that was designed to prevent skidding no longer exists. The safe depth for 2 and 3 wheelers is 0.8 mm. For four wheelers the depth is 1.6. Currently, the legal speed limit is 120 kmph. It is no problem for any car to get to that speed. Its the stopping that is important. For that you need good tyres. Check them out. Happy Motoring! P.S.: I was not driving very fast, said the lady. Hydroplaning does not occur below 55 kmph. The lady was about to go around a roundabout at 60 kmph in pouring rain! shalender@tribune.com Washington: The first black woman to be credentialed to cover the White House is getting a statue in the Newseum. Alice Allison Dunnigan made history when she received White House press credentials in 1947 and became part of the White House travelling press corps to cover President Harry Truman re-election campaign in 1948. Dunnigan, as Washington bureau chief for the Associated Negro Press, would go to cover Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy before taking a job with in the Kennedy and then President Lyndon Johnsons administration. She died in 1983. AP Vatican announces historic deal with China on bishops Vatican City: The Vatican on Saturday announced an historic accord with China on the appointment of bishops in the Communist country in what could pave the way for the normalisation of ties between the Catholic Church and the worlds most populous country. Beijing immediately said it hoped for better relations, while Taiwan said its ties with the Vatican were safe despite the deal with China. The Vatican has not had diplomatic relations with Beijing since 1951, two years after the founding of the communist Peoples Republic. AFP pardeepdhull@gmail.com Tehran, September 22 Militants shot dead at least 29 people, including women and children, in an attack on Saturday on an Iranian military parade claimed by the Islamic State group, as Tehran accused a US ally in the region of the assault. The attack in the southwestern city of Ahvaz came as the country marked the anniversary of the start of its 1980-1988 war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq and prompted President Hassan Rouhani to warn of a "crushing response". "The response of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the smallest threat will be crushing," Rouhani said on his official website. "Those who give intelligence and propaganda support to these terrorists must answer for it." Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in a tweet that the attack near the Iraqi border was carried out by "terrorists recruited, trained, armed & paid by a foreign regime". "Iran holds regional terror sponsors and their US masters accountable for such attacks," he wrote. IS jihadists said via their propaganda mouthpiece Amaq that "Islamic State fighters attacked a gathering of Iranian forces" in Ahvaz. The city lies in Khuzestan, a province bordering Iraq that has a large ethnic Arab community and has seen separatist violence in the past that Iran has blamed on its regional rivals. State television gave a casualty toll of 29 dead and 57 wounded, while official news agency IRNA said those killed included women and children among spectators at the rally. Many of the wounded were in critical condition. Armed forces spokesman Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi said the dead included a young girl and a former serviceman in a wheelchair. "Of the four terrorists, three were sent to hell at the scene, while the fourth who had been wounded and arrested went to hell moments ago due to his severe wounds," Shekarchi told state television. Khuzestan deputy governor Ali-Hossein Hosseinzadeh told the semi-official ISNA news agency that "eight to nine" troops were among those killed, as well as a journalist. Zarif did not specify which regional government he held responsible for the shooting, but Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards said the attackers were funded by Sunni arch-rival Saudi Arabia. "Those who opened fire on civilians and the armed forces have links to the Ahvazi movement," Guards spokesman Ramezan Sharif told ISNA. "They are funded by Saudi Arabia and attempted to cast a shadow over the Iranian armed forces." Zarif vowed Iran would "respond swiftly and decisively in defence of Iranian lives". In a message of condolence to Russia's close regional ally, President Vladimir Putin said he was "appalled by this bloody crime". "This event once again reminds us about the necessity of an uncompromising battle against terrorism in all of its manifestations." Khuzestan was a major battleground of the 1980s war with Iraq and the attack on the anniversary parade in Ahvaz had significant symbolic value. The province saw unrest in 2005 and 2011 but has since seen been largely quiet. Attacks by Kurdish rebels on military patrols along the border further north are relatively common. But attacks on regime targets inside major cities are far rarer. On June 7, 2017, 17 people were killed and dozens wounded in simultaneous attacks in Tehran on the parliament building and on the tomb of revolutionary leader Ruhollah Khomeini-the first inside Iran claimed by the Sunni Muslim extremists of the Islamic State group. In April, 26 alleged IS jihadists went on trial on charges connected with that twin attack. The attack in Ahvaz came as President Rouhani was among dignitaries at the main anniversary parade in Tehran. In a keynote speech, Rouhani vowed to boost Iran's ballistic missile capabilities despite Western concerns that were cited by his US counterpart Donald Trump in May when he abandoned a landmark nuclear deal with Tehran. "We will never decrease our defensive capabilities... we will increase them day by day," Rouhani said at a military parade. "The fact that the missiles anger you shows they are our most effective weapons," he said, referring to the West. Iran has ballistic missiles with a range of up to 3,500 kilometres, enough to reach both Israel and US bases in the Middle East. The United States reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran last month, and a new round of even harsher sanctions targeting Iran's vital oil sector is set to go back into effect on November 5. Washington has said it is ready to open talks on a new agreement to replace the July 2015 accord, but Tehran has said repeatedly it cannot negotiate under the pressure of the sanctions. Trump and Rouhani will both be in New York next week for the United Nations General Assembly. But Iran has repeatedly ruled out any meeting. - AFP shalender@tribune.com Tehran, September 22 Militants shot dead at least 29 persons, almost half of them members of the Revolutionary Guards, in an attack on Saturday on an Iranian military parade claimed by the Islamic State group, as Tehran accused a US ally in the region of the assault. The attack in the southwestern city of Ahvaz came as the country marked the anniversary of the start of its 1980-1988 war with Saddam Husseins Iraq and prompted President Hassan Rouhani to warn of a crushing response. The response of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the smallest threat will be crushing, Rouhani said on his official website. Those who give intelligence and propaganda support to these terrorists must answer for it. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in a tweet that the attack near the Iraqi border was carried out by terrorists recruited, trained, armed & paid by a foreign regime. IS jihadists said via their propaganda mouthpiece Amaq that Islamic State fighters attacked a gathering of Iranian forces in Ahvaz. The city lies in Khuzestan, a province bordering Iraq that has a large ethnic Arab community and has seen separatist violence in the past that Iran has blamed on its regional rivals. State television gave a casualty toll of 29 dead and 57 wounded, while official news agency IRNA said those killed included women and children among spectators at the rally. Many of the wounded were in critical condition. Armed forces spokesman Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi said the dead included a young girl and a former serviceman in a wheelchair. Of the four terrorists, three were sent to hell at the scene, while the fourth who had been wounded and arrested went to hell moments ago due to his severe wounds, Shekarchi told state television. Khuzestan deputy governor Ali-Hossein Hosseinzadeh told the semi-official ISNA news agency that eight to nine troops were among those killed, as well as a journalist. Zarif did not specify which regional government he held responsible for the shooting, but Irans elite Revolutionary Guards said the attackers were funded by Sunni arch-rival Saudi Arabia. Those who opened fire on civilians and the armed forces have links to the Ahvazi movement, Guards spokesman Ramezan Sharif told ISNA. In a message to close regional ally, President Vladimir Putin said he was appalled by bloody crime. AFP ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM Colombo, September 21 Maldives strongman Abdulla Yameen seeks a second term as President on Sunday in a tourist paradise that has become a battleground for influence between regional giants India and China, and a source of global alarm over political oppression and a muzzling of the media. With all his main rivals in prison or in exile, the odds appear stacked in the Beijing-friendly incumbents favour, and warnings of punitive action from the international community have been flowing in even before a single ballot has been cast. The EU has said it is ready to slap travel bans and asset freezes on individuals if the situation does not improve, while the US has warned it would consider appropriate measures against people undermining democracy and rule of law. India, long influential in Maldives affairs it sent troops and warships in 1988 to stop a coup attempt has also expressed misgivings. But with China bankrolling Yameens regime to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in loans, his grip on the honeymoon archipelago of nearly 1,200 coral islands appears unlikely to loosen. Battered by years of violent intimidation, spurious arrests and enforced exile, the Opposition has united behind a joint candidate the little-known Ibrahim Mohamed Solih. But voters would be hard-pressed to notice, with heavy-handed decrees and reporting restrictions stifling a media already fearful of doing anything to offend the President of the Muslim nation of 340,000 people. AFP Nasheed asks India to exert influence Colombo: Former Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed on Friday asked India to exert its influence to ensure a free and fair election in the country as he fears that the September 23 presidential polls could be rigged. Nasheed, the countrys first freely elected President after 30 years of authoritarian rule, said: Yameen will lose the election, but he will hold on to power. Nasheed, 51, was forced to quit office in 2012. uttara@tribuneindia.com Washington, September 22 The US is not interested in regime change in Tehran, but wants it to change its behaviour and stop continuing with their terror threats to the world, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday as he described Iran as the world's "largest state sponsor of terror". Earlier this year, the Trump administration had withdrawn from the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal and reimposed a series of tough sanctions on Iran. While the first phase of sanctions is already in place, the sanctions would come into full force on November 4 and the US expects all countries, including India, to bring down their import of Iranian oil to zero by then. "We have made very clear that regime change is not President (Donald) Trump's policy. We've laid out what it is we want from the Islamic Republic of Iran," Pompeo told MSNBC in an interview. The demand from the US, he said, is pretty straightforward. "For starters, stop launching missiles into Riyadh, arming Hizbollah, and threatening Israel. How about ceasing to be the world's largest state sponsor of terror. These are simple demands that we make of every country in the world, and that's what we are looking for from Iran as well," Pompeo said. "When the Islamic regime makes that change, we'll be happy to have a conversation with them. President Trump's made that very clear. But there's no signs that they're backing off continuing their terror threats around the world," he said. In another interview with CNN, Pompeo alleged that Iran has been confronting the world as the world's largest state sponsor of terror for quite some time. "They have armed militiasthe Lebanese Hizbollah, Kata'ib Hizballah, and militias in Iraq. They are arming the Houthis in Yemen, launching missiles into the Gulf states. The US has begun to apply economic and diplomatic pressure on Iran to prevent them from doing this. That's our mission," he said. The Trump administration, he said, has told the Islamic Republic of Iran that using a proxy force to attack an American interest will not prevent US from responding against the prime actor. That is, we will not let Iran get away with using a proxy force to attack an American interest. Iran will be held accountable for those incidents, he said. Pompeo said that Iran is going to be held accountable for those acts. "If they're responsible for the arming and training of these militias, we're going to go to the source, he said. The Islamic Republic of Iran continues to be the world's largest state sponsor of terror, Pompeo told Fox News in another interview. We are determined to stop that behaviour and to change the way the Iranian regime inflicts horrors all around the world, he said. A good piece of that was President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which to him made no sense whatsoever, to begin to re-impose costs on Iran so that they don't have the wealth, the contacts around the world, and the capacity to inflict harm on the American people and others around the world. We're looking for our European partners to join us, but we have a big coalition that understands that these sanctions make sense and will continue to assist us in enforcing them, Pompeo told Fox News. PTI shalender@tribune.com Beijing, September 21 An outraged China on Friday lodged a diplomatic protest with the US for imposing punitive sanctions on its military unit for buying Russian weapons, warning of consequences if the sanctions are not revoked. The US State Department said on Thursday that the purchases of Russian Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets and S-400 surface-to-air missiles by Chinas Equipment Development Department (EDD) of Chinas Ministry of Defence violated US sanctions on Russia. Both the EDD and its director, Li Shangfu, have been named in Thursdays sanctions. It is the first time the Trump administration targeted a third country with its Countering Americas Adversaries Through Sanctions Act of 2017 (CAATSA), designed to punish Russia for its seizure of Crimea and other activities. Reacting to the US move, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said, China is strongly outraged by this unreasonable action of the US and lodged stern representations. What the US has done gravely violated the basis norms governing the international relations and harmed the state-to-state and military-to-military relations between the two sides, he said. Asked whether China would continue its close intelligence and defence cooperation with Russia, Geng said, China and Russia are comprehensive strategic partners of coordination. We have been having normal exchanges of cooperation on the basis of equality, mutual trust and mutual benefit in various fields, including national defence. The China-Russia defence cooperation is meant to safeguard the two nations legitimate interests and regional peace and stability, he said. It targets no third country and violates no international law, he added. We will work with Russia to implement the consensus reached by two leaders and move forward our strategic coordination, he said, referring to the close ties between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Founded in 2016 by Chinese President Xi Jinping, the EDD was tasked with overseeing and improving the countrys military technology. It is regarded as a key part of Chinas Central Military Commission, overall high command of Chinese military headed by Xi. Sanctions will deny EDD any foreign export licences, prohibit it from making foreign transactions within US jurisdiction. PTI Trade Titans take to tit-for-tat tariff America and China, which has no access to the US and European Union military equipments, will launch new penalties beginning Monday $200 bn worth of Chinese exports that US will be targeting $60 bn worth of American products that Beijing plans to target What China has bought from Russia Besides Su-35s and S-400 missiles, $15 billion worth of weapons in 2017 almost similar level of sales in 2016 10 Su-35 combat aircraft in Dec 2017 China became first foreign country to purchase Russias upgrade to its Su-27 8 Kamov Ka-32A11VS multi-role helicopters; the contract included training for Chinese pilots China, relying on technology for its military modernisation, had in recent years stepped up military ties with Russia US wont back down Donald Trump, US President, will not back down from the trade war with China and make it unbearably painful for Beijing, Trumps aide Steve Bannon said on Friday Shoulder consequences Xi Jinping, China President, govts spokesman said, We strongly urge the US side to address this mistake otherwise it will need to shoulder all possible consequences pardeepdhull@gmail.com Washington, September 22 A US district court has sentenced a Pakistani-origin businessman to three years of probation on charges of procuring material and equipment for the Pakistani military unlawfully. First six months of the three-year probation is in home confinement, John Durham, US Attorney for the District of Connecticut, said Saturday. Imran Khan, 44, had pleaded guilty to one count of violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. In his guilty plea in June 2017, Khan specifically admitted that, between August 2012 and January 2013, he procured, received and exported to Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, the Pakistan Space & Upper Atmosphere Research Commission, or the National Institute of Lasers & Optronics. All of these companies are listed in the US Department of Commerce Entity List. According to court documents and statements made in court, from 2012 to 2016, Khan and two of his family members engaged in a scheme to purchase goods that were controlled under the Export Administration Regulations and to export those goods without a license to Pakistan. Through companies conducting business as Brush Locker Tools, Kauser Enterprises-USA and Kauser Enterprises-Pakistan, Khan, his father and brother received orders from a Pakistani company that procured materials and equipment for the Pakistani military, requesting them to procure specific products that were subject to the export regulations. When US manufacturers asked about the end-user for a product, the defendants either informed the manufacturer that the product would remain in the US or completed an end-user certification indicating that the product would not be exported, Durham said. Earlier this year, Khans father, Muhammad Ismail, and his brother, Kamran Khan, each pleaded guilty to one count of international money laundering, for causing funds to be transferred from Pakistan to the US in connection with the export control violations. Both have been sentenced to 18 months of imprisonment. Ismail and Kamran Khan are both citizens of Pakistan and lawful permanent residents of the US. PTI uttara@tribuneindia.com WASHINGTON, September 22 US forces acting in self defence called in an airstrike on al Shabaab militants in the southern Somalia province of Lower Juba, killing an estimated 18 Islamist extremists, US Africa Command said on Saturday. Somali government troops accompanying the US unit killed two other fighters of the al Qaeda-linked group with small arms fire during the clash that took place on Friday, it said. The US airstrike was conducted against militants after US and partner forces came under attack, US Africa Command said in a statement. We currently assess no civilians were injured or killed. The clash took place about 30 miles (50 km) northwest of the Lower Juba port city of Kismayo. US forces are in Somalia supporting a UN-backed government against al Shabaab, an Islamist extremist group that lost control of most of the country's towns and cities after withdrawing from the capital Mogadishu in 2011. Reuters pardeepdhull@gmail.com Washington, September 22 US Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley set a Saturday afternoon deadline for a woman accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault to decide if and how she will testify, the New York Times reported. The Committee had delayed a vote on Kavanaughs confirmation after California professor Christine Blasey Fords allegations emerged last week, and her lawyers and committee staff were negotiating the conditions of her testimony. Approval of Kavanaugh would cement conservative control of the Supreme Court and advance a White House effort to tilt the American judiciary farther to the right. Grassley gave Fords attorneys until 2:30 p.m. EST to negotiate the terms of her testimony to the committee next week, the Times reported, citing an email he sent to her lawyers. Earlier in the night, Grassley said on Twitter that he had granted an extension to Ford after a 10 p.m. (0200 GMT Saturday) deadline he set to reach a deal with Fords lawyers had passed. Judge Kavanaugh I just granted another extension to Dr. Ford to decide if she wants to proceed (with) the statement she made last week to testify to the Senate, Grassley wrote on Twitter. She should decide so we can move on. I want to hear her. I hope you understand. Its not my normal approach to be indecisive. Grassley had said earlier that the panel would hold a vote on Kavanaughs confirmation on Monday unless a deal was reached with Fords lawyers by Friday nights deadline. In an email to judiciary committee staff, Fords lawyer Debra Katz called the deadline aggressive and artificial. Your cavalier treatment of a sexual assault survivor who has been doing her best to cooperate with the Committee is completely inappropriate, Katz added. On Friday, President Donald Trump sought to cast doubt on Fords allegation that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in 1982 when both were high school students in Maryland. Kavanaugh has denied the allegation and pledged to testify at Mondays hearing. The Republican-controlled Senate judiciary panel has struggled on how to proceed with Kavanaughs nomination. Democrats have demanded more time for scrutiny, and Republicans want to move ahead quickly with a confirmation vote in an increasingly volatile political climate ahead of congressional elections on November 6. Dropping the restraint Trump and the White House had been careful not to malign Ford after her allegations surfaced, but Trump dropped the restraint in his tweets on Friday. I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents, Trump said. I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place! Judge Brett Kavanaugh is a fine man, with an impeccable reputation, who is under assault by radical left wing politicians who dont want to know the answers, they just want to destroy and delay, Trump wrote. Trumps Friday tweets contrasted with comments earlier in the week when he said Ford should be heard, even if it meant a delay in the confirmation process. Senator Susan Collins, a moderate Republican and potentially a key vote on Kavanaughs nomination, said at an event in Portland, Maine, that she was appalled by Trumps tweet. We know allegations of sexual assault are one of the most unreported crimes that exist, Collins said, according to the Portland Press Herald. So I thought that the presidents tweet was completely inappropriate and wrong. If the hearing proceeds, Republicans will be forced to walk a careful line in questioning Fords account without alienating women voters ahead of the elections. Before the 2016 presidential election, more than a dozen women accused Trump of making unwanted advances. Vile attack Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand called Fridays comments a vile attack. The most powerful man in the world just used his position and platform to attack a sexual assault survivor, she said on Twitter. This is the same man who has been credibly accused of more than a dozen cases of sexual assault or harassment. The Senate Judiciary Committee released a letter it sent to Fords attorneys earlier on Friday in which it accepted some of their demands, including that Kavanaugh not be in the room when she testifies. The panel rejected some of the other demands, including that Kavanaugh testify first, that the committee call additional witnesses that Ford requests, and that only senators be allowed to ask questions. We reserve the option to have female staff attorneys, who are sensitive to the particulars of Dr. Fords allegations and are experienced investigators, question both witnesses, the letter said. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, speaking at a gathering of evangelical voters in Washington, assured them Kavanaugh would be confirmed. You watched the fight, you watched the tactics, but here is what I want to tell you - in the very near future, Judge Kavanaugh will be on the United States Supreme Court, McConnell told the Value Voters Summit, drawing a standing ovation. McConnells goal has been to confirm Kavanaugh by Oct. 1, the start of the Supreme Court term. Fords legal team has said she strongly prefers that her allegations are fully investigated before she testifies. The Senate panel must approve Kavanaughs confirmation before a vote by the full Senate, where Republicans hold a 51-49 majority. Kavanaughs confirmation to the lifetime position would be the second of the Trump administration and solidify conservative control of the nations top court. Fords team has sought guarantees of her safety because of death threats. Kavanaugh and his wife also had received threats, a senior White House official said. Reuters Many people dont have much choice about when they retire. Illness, job loss or caretaking responsibilities push them out of the labour force, ready or not. But some people have the opposite problem: They do have a choice, and yet they cant quite bring themselves to quit working. Yes you need a credit card. They are relentless also. some would say sharks. The price they say is not the price you can get it for consider there are annual fees to pay and often you are stuck going to the same series of resorts - you might want to travel elsewhere in 20 years - consider that they can change what they want in the contract but you still have to pay - one sided the price they quote on flight is complete BS In the end it can be good, you have to calculate the costs, do research before on resales that people are selling on the internet. waaaay cheaper. If interested in timeshare or vacation club as they are calling it now, go to the meeting, leave the CC in the safe, so that way you won't get wrapped up in their pitch - believe me they are very good at it. Hear what the club has to offer, leave, do some of your own research on resales, and don't worry, though they say the offer is only good while you are there- tomorrow it will be the same!! How exciting! great to have the time to do it. Plenty of camper trailers have 4WD capabilities, and if you have a hybrid they are as easy to set up as a van. Spoilt for choice at the moment, as mobile holidays are back in vogue.. How off road are you going? Not being rude, but do you have the appropriate skills, especially if traveling alone in remote areas? Long trippers in large campervans often tow a small car for getting around and not having to de camp every time you want to see things. .. or there are a number of de mountable units that let you drive the vehicle around without the camper element. Classic grey nomads have a large van and a large tug, but not usually a ute/truck Choosing your style and your rig will have the greatest impact on the comfort of your trip (and your wife's enjoyment of the adventure) The enclosed vehicle with aircon/ heating on a powered site vs bush camping on solar & a gennie.. Each have their merits, but each have their miseries. The actual route is then a matter of season and time. Storing your rig when you are out of he country might be cheaper in a regional area. Lots of caravan parks have reasonable storage off site for van owners who only come down for the summer. If you have canvas, storage in the tropical areas has extra issues. No good coming back to do the next segment and find your canvas has moulded out.. ( it's the expensive bit) or the inside of the van is black and furry.. There are four main airlines, Qantas, Jetstar, virgin Australia and Tigerair. There are a number of small regional airlines as well. We normally recommend people monitor the airfare (apps, Google, whatever) and then book directly with the airline in advance. Last minute deals are rare and last minute prices tends to be full price. There are flash sales but they are unpredictable. Subscribe to airlines newsletter and Facebook pages for that type of sale. -:- 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. Hi everyone, I will be travelling on November to Japan, starting from Tokyo to Osaka with side trip in Kyoto. Most likely we will be spending 3 days in Tokyo, 3 days in Osaka from which a day tour will be dedicated to Kyoto. I was planning to get an Osaka day pass during my stay in Osaka to cover most of the touristic spot. My question is will it be good for me if I purchase a JR pass since I will be transferring from Tokyo to Osaka to Kyoto and back to Osaka again? There does not seem to be anyplace at SWF to get one Even if there were the ones sold at airports tend to be a bad deal. If you're on a Norwegian flight, and taking the coordinating bus service, then you won't need to do any navigating yourself to get to Manhattan so you'd only need to know directions to get to your hotel from the bus (or you could take a cab the last bit). There are plenty of places to buy sim cards but depends on what time of day you are arriving if stores where you can buy a sim card will be open. I'm no expert on such things, but I see a T Mobile tourist plan recommended by others here as a good value. - The residents began destroying their thermos flasks after discovering three tablet shaped like objects between the case and vacuum flask and outer cases - They alleged the objects predisposed them to cancer and other dangerous diseases - Most of the residents stopped taking tea served from thermos flasks - Garissa Health Executive Ahmednathir Omar dispelled the speculation saying the button shaped objects were components of a thermos flask Hundreds of Garissa and Wajir county residents have thrown away and destructed their thermos flasks after a man discovered three tablet-shaped objects in the piece of kitchenware. On discovery of the three button-shaped items fixed between the vacuum flask and outer plastic case of the utensil, the man prompted his neighbours to scrutinise if similar 'mysterious stuff' were in their thermos flasks. Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens READ ALSO: Photos: Cries of help as half of Garissa town is submerged in floodwaters following heavy rains One of the thermos flask dismantled by a Garissa resident. Photo: Mohamud Ahmed/TUKO.co.ke. Source: Original READ ALSO: Migori governor to be charged with murder of his lover Sharon Otieno One of the residents told TUKO.co.ke that they resorted to crashing and abandoning their thermos flasks because they were afraid the strange components could be health hazards predisposing them to diseases like cancer. The speculation and scare ignited social media discussions on the matter as anxious residents posted photos of their findings after dismantling their thermos flasks. Undecided residents called on the government to clarify whether the objects were dangerous as alleged by their counterparts who had destroyed their thermos flasks, vowing never to use them again lest they contract dangerous diseases. "We want the government to clarify these allegations because we hear the objects could transmit cancer. Many people have called crashed their flasks and it would be fair we get to know the truth to decide whether we'll resort to replace them with metallic kettles or not, Mohamud Abdi , a resident of Garissa said. The objects which Garissa and Wajir residents believe are harmful. They are parts of thermos flasks used in regulating temperatures. Photo: Mohamud Ahmed. Source: Original READ ALSO: Detectives parade Nigerian, Tanzania nationals whove been stealing millions from Kenyan banks Another resident, Ebla Abdi, said she had destroyed two of her thermos flasks after getting the news they had dangerous objects. I have just destroyed two of my thermos flask since I dont know what these tablets are, they can be dangerous or poison. I will never use it again, said Abdi. She said many of her neighbours had also destroyed their flasks following the revelations, adding that she was contemplating on an alternative to serve tea in her family. Women selling tea in market areas also reported losses saying their customers had shied away from taking tea served from thermos flasks. Another resident shows the three button shaped objects that had ignited scare among Garissa and Wajir residents. Photo: Mohamud Ahmed. Source: Original READ ALSO: Kenyans give Uhuru their piece of mind after signing Finance Bill 2018 into law Im now forced to use a kettle for my customers since they are not taking tea from thermos flasks. We need urgent clarification from the government, said Hawo Jele, a trader at Suk Mugdi market. Garissa County Executive Committee (CEC) member in charge of Health, Ahmednathir Omar, said he would consult relevant authorities to have samples of the objects tested to clear the air over the speculation. As much as we are concerned, whatever the public is saying are dangerous tablets are parts of the thermos flask which help in temperature regulation. There are checks which products go through before getting to the market which we believe the utensils went through. We will, however, do further assessment to clear the air for the scared residents," said Omar. Story by Mohamud Ahmed, TUKO Correspondent: Garissa. Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news. When Uhuru, Ruto and Raila Met at State House - On Tuko TV Source: Tuko Kenya - The leaders met the team leading the Building Bridges Initiative - They discussed the challenges and progress of the team in uniting Kenyans - The leaders came up with a clear road map for the team to run smoothly - The initiative was started after the handshake with the aim of uniting Kenyans Amid rising public outcry over the punitive Finance Act 2018, President Uhuru Kenyatta and Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party leader Raila Odinga have met at State House to discuss the Building Bridges Initiative. The two leaders held a discussion with the team appointed to lead the initiate and discussed progress and challenges they have faced. Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens READ ALSO: Building Bridges initiative facing opposition from beneficiaries of historical injustices - Raila Odinga READ ALSO: Nairobi County hard hit with KSh 4.5 billion budget cut While delivering a speech at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom (UK) on Tuesday, May 15, Raila said the initiative was set to focus on strengthening devolution, tackling corruption, marginalisation, divisive elections, insecurity and lack of national ethos. He explained that creating a stable nation was the primary purpose of the Building Bridges Initiative which offered an opportunity for a frank discussion about the questions which had bedeviled Kenya for decades. "We see our agreement, which is now commonly referred to as the 'handshake' as a possible guide that other African countries could borrow with modifications to address their circumstances. It is our hope that the Handshake could inspire other African nations struggling with problems similar to Kenyas," Raila said. READ ALSO: Governors call for urgent meeting with Uhuru after massive budget cuts The meeting came hours after the president signed the Finance Bill 2018 into law which has received a lot of criticism from the public. While signing the bill, Uhuru assured Kenyans their taxes would be spent effectively without any wastage and corruption incidents. Raila had rallied his troops in the National Assembly to vote for the new tax law. Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news KENYA BREAKING NEWS - Former Nairobi Governor Dr. Evans Kidero Troubles with the EACC | Tuko TV Source: Tuko Newspaper Friday, September 21, was International Peace Day for the world but a trying moment for Kenya as President Uhuru Kenyatta signed the Financial Bill 2018 into law, subjecting Kenyans to more exorbitant taxes. This was after a chaotic engagement in the National Assembly on Thursday, September 20, which saw Uhuru's memorandum proposing among other 8% fuel levy adopted and presented to sign it as law. Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens READ ALSO: Uhuru, Raila in State House meeting as controversial tax law begins to bite Kenyans President Uhuru Kenyatta later met Opposition leader Raila Odinga after assenting the tax Bill into law. Photo: Raila Odinga/Twitter. Source: Facebook READ ALSO: Migori governor to be charged with murder of his lover Sharon Otieno Kenyans, feeling betrayed by their legislators, the National Assembly leadership and majorly the president, bitterly hit out at Uhuru for turning his back against them despite their sacrifice of waking up early and voting for him twice in the controversial 2017 General Election. Uhuru who remained calm even after Kenyans bashed and distanced themselves from him went ahead to post a message of peace in commemoration of the International Peace Day but Kenyans could not take anything positive from it. Kenyans on twitter accused the president of attempting to sway them from the burden tax he had subjected them to through the peace message and urged him to keep it to himself with not so kind tweets as compiled by TUKO.co.ke; READ ALSO: Prostitutes paint Eldoret town red as wheat farmers pocket harvest money Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news. When Uhuru, Ruto and Raila Met at State House - On Tuko TV Source: Breaking News - KRA had barred Darasa Investment Limited from importing a consignment of 40,000 tonnes of sugar - The company was reported to have imported the sweetener after the free duty waiver but wanted it not to be taxed - KRA opposed the move and Darasa went to High Court where it successfully defended its position - The taxman successfully disputed ruling at the Court of Appeal - The importer shelved plans to appeal the matter at Supreme Court and solved the matter out of court with KRA In a bid to generate money for a State in dire need of funds, Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) has agreed to an out of court settlement deal with a company which has over KSh 2.5 billion tax arrears. The tax agency agreed to release 40,000 tonnes of impounded sugar belonging to Darasa Investment Limited in return for KSh 2.5 billion duty and Value Added Tax (VAT) arrears. Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens READ ALSO: Activist Okiya Omtata moves to court to stop government from increasing beer, juice prices Kenya Revenue Authority headquarters at Times Tower Nairobi. KRA areed to allow Darasa Investment Limited bring in 40,000 tonnes of sugar imported out of waiver window and pay KSh 2.5 tax. Photo: UGC Source: UGC READ ALSO: EACC freezes Obado and wife's account over corruption In a consent letter of Friday, September 21, seen by TUKO.co.ke, KRA confirmed its lawyers and those representing Darasa had agreed to settle the matter out of court for mutual benefit. According to the agreement, the company had intended to import 40,000 tonnes of sugar free of duty purporting it was brought in during a duty free window between May 2017 and Thursday, August 31 the same year gazetted by Treasury Cabinet Secretary. The waiver window was allowed for the purposes of stabilising the price of sugar in the country to counter a shortage. The taxman, however, differed with the importer on grounds the sugar was brought into the country beyond the said period and was taxable. The company will be allowed to have its sugar distributed in the country after meeting basic health standards. Photo: UGC. Source: UGC READ ALSO: Meru magistrates 9-year-old daughter was clobbered to death, autopsy report reveals Darasa Investment Limited won the case in the High Court but the judgment was overturned by the Court of Appeal after KRA appealed. The matter had been taken to Supreme Court by the importer before the two parties opted to resolve the issue through the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) approach. "Darasa is bound by consent to seek clearance from relevant government agencies. to ensure the sugar is fit for human consumption before customs allows the lodgement of import entry. "It will be required to pay KSh 547, 846, 969 in 90 days if waiver of interest and penalties is not granted as per the East African Community Customs Management Act. If waiver is not granted within 90 days, money will be paid to KRA," read part of the consent letter. The tax agency agreed to release the sugar consignments immediately Darasa makes the payments. The KRA confirmed it had collected KSh 8.3 billion from companies through out of court agreements permissible in the law as stated under Article 159 (2) of the Constitution. Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news. When Uhuru, Ruto and Raila Met at State House - On Tuko TV Source: Tuko - The teacher had undergone an operation to remove fibroids when a medical gauze was forgotten - Jane Kageni's efforts to get assistance from the same health facility were futile and she decided to seek help somewhere else - After several scans, the 10 cm piece of decomposing clothe was discovered and removed - She was left with blood infections and clots in her lungs which have left her weak and dependent The deputy principal of a Meru school is nursing infections after a gynecologist forgot a 10cm piece of clothe in her womb during a botched surgery to remove fibroids. Jane Kageni, 49, is reported to have undergone the surgery at an undisclosed prestigious private hospital in Nairobi on August 26, 2018 when the gauze was forgotten inside her. Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens READ ALSO: Magufuli orders arrest of MV Nyerere operators as death toll reaches 131 The decomposing piece of clothe was discovered after several scans and she underwent another operation to remove it. Photo: Thika Town Today Source: Depositphotos READ ALSO: Uhuru appoints widow of slain ex-IEBC manager Msando to plum parastatal job She is also said to have started developing complications as she grappled with unrelenting headaches and severe chest complication. I cannot sit down, sleep or eat I have to take strong pain killers to remain sane for even a few minutes, Kageni was quoted by Thika Town Today. The distraught mother of three claimed the hospital in question did not to accord her any remedy despite having spent over KSh 400,000 during the botched operation. READ ALSO: Missing Form Four girl found living with police officer in Thika The decomposing piece of clothe was discovered after several scans and she underwent another operation to remove it. Photo: Thika Town Today Source: Depositphotos The teacher decide to seek medical help from another hospital where, after several scans, the decomposing piece of clothe was discovered and she underwent another operation to remove it. "After nine days of excruciating pain and serious chest complications, we decided to seek alternative medical attention in another hospital where after several scans, the doctor discovered the decomposed medical gauze in my womb. I was admitted for over five days at an extra cost of KSh 450,000," she explained. Kageni is now on very strong prescription to fight severe blood infection and others to diffuse the dangerous clots in her lungs. READ ALSO: Uhuru signs the Finance Bill 2018 into law hours after chaotic debate in Parliament According to her husband, Mureithi Kaara, their life has totally stalled as his wife requires constant care, forcing him to stop working so as to attend to her. My wife is alive today only by the grace of God. We are hoping that after the current treatment, the subsequent complications will be dealt with," he said. He appealed to doctors to always be cautious as their work involved human lives. Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram. Tuko news. Kenyans Angry Over High Fuel Prices - On Tuko TV Source: Tuko.co.ke - The officials were held at the DCI's office for questioning over graft claims - In July 2018, anti-counterfeit agencies impounded tonnes of poisonous sugar believed to contain mercury - Detectives are still looking for more suspects in connection with the illegal importation The government agencies have renewed war on importation of contraband goods following the arrest of top Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) and Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) employees. Detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) on the morning of Saturday, September 22, nabbed 32 senior KRA and KPA officials on allegations of tax evasion and illegal imports. Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens READ ALSO: KRA releases 40,000 tonnes of impounded sugar in return for KSh 2.5 billion tax arrears Tonnes of bad sugar impounded by the anti-counterfeit agencies in past crackdown. Photo: Baraka FM/Facebook. Source: UGC READ ALSO: KEBS MD arrested after contradicting Matiang'i's position over presence of mercury in sugar The officials were picked from their homes and driven to the DCI headquarters in Kiambu Road, where reports indicated they were held for questioning by the time of publishing this story. Also grilled were ex-Kenya Bureau of Standards MD Charles Ogwae and 12 senior staff members alongside one port health officer. TUKO.co.ke established other officials of KRA Mombasa office were not spared too in the early morning swoop for willingly permitting the release into the market, a consignment of substandard Thai white rice. READ ALSO: Former Kenya Power CEO Ben Chumo, two managers arrested over economic crimes Detectives are still looking for other suspects connected with the release of the said consignment of rice into the country. The intensified crackdown on bad imports has been a matter of public interest for some times now, especially following revelations the country could be feeding on poisonous sugar. READ ALSO: More heads roll as DCI arrests 4 top Kenya Power officials over economics crimes The sugar debacle for instance took a new twist when Ongwae was first arrested in July 2018. This was just hours after he contradicted Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang'i' who claimed some sugar in the market had traces of mercury. Earlier Saturday, the taxman agreed to an out of court settlement deal with Darasa Investment Limited to release 40,000 tonnes of impounded sugar held at the Mombasa seaport in return for KSH 2.5 billion tax arrears. Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram : Tuko news. Anne Ngirita at The Center of The NYS Scam Probe - On Tuko TV More to follow Source: Tuko News - Ekwee Ethuro pledged to deliver his duties diligently and perseverance - He was grateful to both President Uhuru and his deputy for the new appointment -Ethuro was made chairman at the Higher Education Loans Boards - He is among the new appointments to State cooperations made by Uhuru The former Senate Speaker, Ekwee Ethuro, has accepted President Uhuru Kenyatta's appointment at the Higher Educations Loans Board (HELB) Ethuro, who lost his Senate Speaker job in 2017, was appointed the chairperson of the board for five years effective Thursday, September 20. Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens READ ALSO: Uhuru appoints widow of slain ex-IEBC manager Msando to plum parastatal job Former Senate Speaker accepts Uhuru's appointment at HELB Source: Twitter READ ALSO: Good job: Raila praises ODM MPs who passed contentious Finance Bill 2018 Taking to Twitter to express his gratitude, the former Member of Parliament for Turkana Central promised to diligently deliver his duties. I have received with gratitude a state appointment as the Chairman of HELB. Fellow Kenyans, I will discharge my duties and responsibilities with diligence and perseverance to the Citizens of this Republic," wrote Ethuro. Thank you Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto for trusting me. God Bless Kenya," he added. READ ALSO: Female lawyers decry brutal killings of women, want Boinnet to tame scary trend Former Senate Speaker accepts Uhuru's appointment at HELB Source: Twitter An elated Ethuro could not wait to take up his new post as he did not waste time in updating his bio on his social media pages to reflect his new position. In the new appointment announced in a Gazette notice on Friday, September 21, the former Speaker will replace the current chairman at the board, David Wachira. Wachira was appointed to the board by President Uhuru Kenyatta in May 20, 2016, for a period of two years. READ ALSO: 32 senior KRA, KPA, KEBS employees arrested, grilled over bad sugar import The latest appointments by Uhuru saw the return of many 2017 election losers and also Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) leader Raila Odinga and his Wiper counterpart Kalonzo Musyoka's allies. The appointments saw the return of former Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) boss Ahmed Issack Hassan who was made Kenya Industrial Property Institute board chairperson. Slain IEBC ICT manager Chris Msando's widow, Eva Buyu Msando, was also appointed member of the Export Processing Zones (EPZ) Authority for a period of three years Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram. Tuko news. Kenyans Angry Over High Fuel Prices - On Tuko TV Source: Tuko - One suspect was a safe attendant while the other had a secret code to the strong room - The suspects reportedly worked until evening when they claimed the strongroom was inaccessible - They are held at Wundanyi Police Station pending investigations Police in Taita Taveta county are investigating how two employees of Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) allegedly broke into the strongroom and stealthily made away with KSh 20 million from Wundanyi branch. Mwatate OCPD Monica Kimani confirmed one of the unnamed suspects was a safe attendant while his accomplice had a secret code to the strong room, an indication of an inside job according to the police. Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens READ ALSO: 4 suspects charged with trying to steal KSh 800,000 from Barclays, Sidian banks KCB banking hall. Customers making transactions. Photo: KCB Bank/Facebook. Source: Facebook READ ALSO: Diamond Trust Bank branch manager arrested for stealing KSh 25 million from customer's account According a report by Standard, the suspects reportedly worked until 3pm on Monday, September 17, when they told the branch manager the safe had been locked and was inaccessible despite being custodians. The two suspects are the custodians of the keys to the strong room. One of them is a safe attendant while the other has a code to the strong room. "No one has access to the strong room except the two and we are interrogating them in connection with the theft incident, said the police officer. READ ALSO: Thika robbers dug a tunnel into KCB for 6 months before stealing KSh 50 million The manager later on Thursday, September 20, called for tools from Mombasa office to break into the strong room and when a technician finally accessed it, they found the money missing. The arrest points to what is now becoming a common occurrence and seemingly increasing wave of theft inside banking institutions. At least two senior bank employees of Diamond Trust Bank were charged in court for stealing KSh 25 million from customer's accounts. Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news. Small Business Ideas for Kenyans With Low Investment - On Tuko TV Source: Breaking News - The expectant lady was supposed to travel to Lamu via air to wait for her due date at the time she is believed to have been abducted - According to family members, she called her uncle saying she had been kidnapped and did not know where she was - The abductors later on sent photos of the woman to her husband claiming she had bled to death - The family is now asking the Inspector General to intervene and save their loved one A family in Mombasa is in agony after their kin who was heavily expectant went missing on the evening of Thursday, September 20. Eight-months pregnant, Saida Abdulrahman, was supposed to board a matatu from Mombasa to Malindi where she was to take a flight to Lamu but that never happened. Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens. READ ALSO: Former Senate Speaker accepts Uhuru's appointment at HELB Eight-months pregnant Mombasa woman mysteriously goes missing Source: Depositphotos READ ALSO: Uhuru appoints widow of slain ex-IEBC manager Msando to plum parastatal job Speakng to journalists on Friday, September 21, her brother, Akirima Mohamed, said the 20-year-old woman was supposed to travel to Lamu in wait for her due date and that they suspect she was kidnapped. According to the family, she used her phone to call her uncle saying she had been abducted and did not know where she was and later on, her husband, Mohamed Abdulrahman, received messages saying she had bled to death. "They even took photos of her lying on the floor in a wrapper but we believe that she was still alive by the time they took that photo," Akirima said. READ ALSO: Mother of three in agonising pain as doctor leaves decomposing clothe in her womb in botched surgery He also noted Saida had received a call from their mother, who is in Lamu, asking her to hurry up so she could receive her at the Manda Airstrip. "Our sister then boarded a tuktuk to Buxton where she was to take a matatu to Malindi. At around 1.30pm, my mum called her again but her phone was off," Akirima said. The woman's husband, upon inquiry at Buxton, was told no pregnant woman had been seen at the stage and that was when he sensed something was wrong. READ ALSO: Magufuli orders arrest of MV Nyerere operators as death toll reaches 131 The matter was reported at the Makupa police station where the phone signal was last traced to Gulshan area, less than three kilometres from Saidas home in Mvita. "The police, however, told us the call was made from Sawe in Mtito Andei. They then later told us the phone had been traced to Nairobi," Akirima said. The family of the young woman who was expecting her first child sought Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinnets help in finding their kin. READ ALSO: Missing Form Four girl found living with police officer in Thika Muslims for Human Rights chairman, Khelef Khalifa, accused the police of putting the life of the 20-year-old in danger by their slow response. "We only got help from the DCIO at Urban who helped us trace the woman's phone signal. The other officers have not been very helpful," said Khalifa. Mombasa county police commander Johnston Ipara said police were following crucial leads on the case. Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: TUKO News Kenyans Angry Over High Fuel Prices - On Tuko TV Source: Tuko.co.ke - Odege and Masara claimed Kenyans deserve to be taxed heavily for not heeding anti-Jubilee calls in the 2017 General Election - Odege said it was laughable some were blaming Opposition MPs yet they rejected NASA in 2017 - They said taxpayers must live with the reality of huge debt owed to China Two ODM MPs from Nyanza have claimed Kenyans deserve to be taxed heavily for voting in the wrong person in the 2017 General Election. Nyatike MP Tom Odege and his Suna West counterpart Peter Masara jeered at Kenyans who were protesting over the passing and assenting of Finance Bill 2018 which signaled a high cost of living. Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens READ ALSO: Good job: Raila praises ODM MPs who passed contentious Finance Bill 2018 Nyatike MP Tom Odege (second right) and his Suna West counterpart Peter Masara (in floral shirt) during demonstration against Uhuru's victory. Photo: Jim Bonnie/Facebook. Source: Facebook READ ALSO: Odege said it was laughable the same voters whom NASA asked to reject Jubilee government and its candidate Uhuru Kenyatta at the ballot were now blaming lawmakers including those from the Opposition coalition. "When I see Kenyans protesting, I ask myself how fast we forget as country. When NASA went round the country asking everybody to join us so that we replace this government we were told wembe ni ule ule ( NASA will face the same razor blade). "Today when that razor blade is cutting everybody, they are now blaming MPs including those against Jubilee misrule," said the former trade unionist. READ ALSO: Kenyans give Uhuru their piece of mind after signing Finance Bill 2018 into law Masara shared the same sentiments saying no matter the high cost of living, Kenyans must be ready to pay the huge debt borrowed from China, only then shall they be at peace from the bondage of heavy taxation. The two were speaking in Migori county on Saturday, September 22. According to the new taxation law, Kenyans will pay KSh 18 more for a litre of kerosene while mobile money transfer tax increased from 10% to 20% per transaction. READ ALSO: Parliament technically passes Uhuru's tax proposals in Finance Bill 2018 after failing to attain quorum Those using their phones to access the internet would be charged 15% excise duty on airtime and data, currently standing at 10%. There were budget cuts on other government projects such as the stipends for the elderly, free maternity, free secondary education and roads among others. Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news. Breaking News Kenya: Angry Kenyan Sends Message to President Uhuru Kenyatta | Tuko TV: Source: Kenyan Breaking News Carnival stakeholders are all looking forward to the possibility of the resumption of some C President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko received credentials from the ambassadors of five foreign countries, the press service of the head of state has reported. In particular, the president received credentials from the ambassadors of a number of foreign countries: the Slovak Republic - Marek Safin, Malaysia - Dato Raja Reza Raja Zaib Shah, New Zealand - Mary Patricia Thurston, the Republic of Panama - Enrique Antonio Zarak Linares, the Kingdom of Thailand - Sansanee Sahussarungsi. During the conversation with the Slovak ambassador, the president expressed gratitude for the consistent support of Slovakia to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, as well as the assistance in the rehabilitation of Ukrainian servicemen wounded in Donbas. The intensification of the Ukrainian-Slovak political dialogue and trade-economic cooperation over the last years was noted. The parties discussed strengthening the interaction of the two countries in the Euro-Atlantic area and in the framework of the regional format "Visegrad Group". The attention of the Malaysian ambassador was drawn to the importance of maintaining a regular Ukrainian-Malaysian political dialogue. The head of state emphasized the expediency of using the potential of the existing bilateral mechanisms of cooperation, in particular in trade, economic and defense spheres. They also emphasized the need to accelerate holding of the constituent meetings of the relevant joint commissions. The interlocutors discussed deepening interaction in multilateral formats. The president emphasized the importance of further cooperation in order to bring the perpetrators of the MH17 tragedy to justice. The head of state expressed gratitude to the ambassador of New Zealand for the support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. The issue of raising the level of bilateral trade and economic cooperation between the two states was discussed, including New Zealands investments in the Ukrainian economy. They also touched upon the prospects of launching a dialogue with New Zealand on the liberalization of the visa regime for Ukrainian citizens. The Ukrainian president and the ambassador of the Republic of Panama to Ukraine considered the issues of intensification of political dialogue and prospects of further interaction in the trade and economic sphere, including deepening of investment cooperation. The head of state expressed gratitude for the continued support of Panama to the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine. During the meeting with the ambassador of the Kingdom of Thailand to Ukraine (concurrently), the importance of intensifying bilateral political contacts was emphasized. The positive dynamics of trade between the two countries was noted, which indicates a significant potential for deepening trade and economic cooperation. In this context, the importance of starting the activities of the Intergovernmental Joint Commission on Trade was emphasized. The president of Ukraine commended the decision of the leadership of the Kingdom of Thailand to appoint the ambassador of the Kingdom of Thailand to Ukraine with residence in the Republic of Poland, not in the Russian Federation. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin states that Ukraine is ready for provocations by Russia in the Sea of Azov. "We are ready for possible provocations by Russia," Klimkin wrote on Twitter. According to the minister, Ukraine needs to strengthen its security presence in the Sea of Azov. Ukrainian defense along the coastline is constantly enhancing, Klimkin added. As reported, over the last few months, Russia has detained a number of vessels that headed to the ports of Berdiansk and Mariupol. Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan stated that Ukraine was holding talks with EU countries and the U.S. to impose sanctions against Russia in response to the blockade of the Azov Sea. Earlier, experts in Washington warned that Russia had approached annexation of the Azov Sea and that Kyiv has almost no tools to prevent it. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Russia did not intend to stop inspecting vessels in the waters of the Kerch Strait and the Sea of Azov, as "it is allegedly not contrary to international law." Ukraine intends to raise the issue of Russia's actions in the Sea of Azov during the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly in New York on September 24-27. ish Ukraine will not allow a Russian revenge since 2,911 Ukrainian heroes gave their lives for the right of our choice. "We will not allow revenge - Russia will never return to Ukraine. We will always remember that we paid a very high price for this - 2,911 Ukrainian heroes gave their lives on the frontline for the very right of our choice. Therefore, we will act decisively, persistently and courageously," President Petro Poroshenko wrote on Facebook. He added that the struggle for an independent Ukraine continues, but we will come out of this struggle as winners. ish THE 32ND JOHN RUFFATTO BUSINESS STARTUP CHALLENGE IS SCHEDULED TO TAKE PLACE IN PERSON ON FRIDAY, OCT. 8, 2021. Admission to the 2021 event in the ALi Auditorium in the Phyllis J. Washington College of Business is free, however seating is limited. Attendees can be guaranteed a seat, by reserving one online (https://bit.ly/3969UtX). Those unable to make the live event can watch a live stream on Zoom (https://bit.ly/3oKgI9u). THOSE INTERESTED IN COMPETING THIS FALL SHOULD CONTACT PAUL GLADEN (paul.gladen@umontana.edu). UM's Blackstone LaunchPad with the UM College of Business sponsors two competitions: EPIC Pitch Competition | John Ruffatto Business Startup Challenge These competitions are designed for students to: Take an idea to the next level. Connect to mentors and investors. Win initial funding money (in the thousands) without investment. Learn more about the JRBSC. Mr. Williamson is in no doubt that blame lies directly with Mr. Putin. UK Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson says Britain will increase military support to its ally by sending Royal Marines later this year and increase the presence of Royal Navy patrols in the Black Sea in 2019. "We're going to be upping our training and support efforts with the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, making sure that the Ukrainian Navy and Ukrainian forces have the skills and the technical ability to deal with these increasing threats," he said while visiting eastern Ukraine, according to the Telegraph. Read alsoPoroshenko meets with UK defense secretary "Our commitment remains unwavering," Williamson said. "As long as the danger lasts we will continue to stand by your side. The safer you are here, the safer we are in the UK." Mr. Williamson is in no doubt that blame lies directly with Mr. Putin. "The behavior of the Putin-led regime is not acceptable. We want to be able to ensure that the people who are on the front line, where we are today, have the best ability to survive and defend their homeland." "Vladimir Putin and his cronies around him want to abuse their power. This is not the type of behavior we expect of any nation, let alone one that sits as a permanent member of the Security Council. [Russia is becoming] a pariah nation." "We have common values and we believe in standing up for those common values," he told Ukrainian troops. "It's important that we stand up for the international rules-based order." "There is a constant pattern where Russia is pushing the boundaries of acceptable behavior [and] there needs to be a response to Russian encroachment. We've got to make it clear that there is a price to be paid for such actions." A similar opinion was earlier voiced by Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said in an interview with RT that, in his opinion, EU nations should discuss anti-Russian sanctions instead of extending them automatically. "We made it very clear that there must be a dialogue and honest and straightforward discussion about whether sanctions have been successful or not," he said, according to Russian news agency TASS. Read alsoTrump strengthens sanctions against Russia imposed for aggression in Ukraine "Let's see things factually whether it helped European economies, whether it helped the Russian economy, or whether it helped to down the Russian economy, whether it helped to implement the Minsk agreements, and so on and so forth." "And after giving honest answers to honest questions we should make decisions about our future," Szijjarto continued. "Now the current Italian government seems to represent the same position - no automatic roll-over, discussion must be made. And since they are a strong and big G7 country it will be much easier for the smaller EU member state to represent this position together with the big one," he added. A similar opinion was earlier voiced by Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. The EU sanctions against Russia come in three independent packages - travel restrictions against Russian citizens, economic sanctions against a number of Russian state-run oil, defense and financial companies and Crimea-related sanctions. All those packages were imposed throughout 2014. The first two packages are extended once in six months, while measures against Crimea - once in a year. The visit of the Foreign Affairs Committee to Ukraine took place on September 16-20. After their visit to Ukraine, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Riigikogu (Parliament of Estonia) Marko Mihkelson and members of the Committee Barbi Pilvre and Henn Polluaas think that the war in Ukraine has to be ended peacefully and diplomatically, and Europe needs to contribute to building up of Ukraine more than it has done so far. Chairman of the Committee Marko Mihkelson said that Ukraine needed Estonia's and also international support to be a strong and stable state governed by the rule of law, according to the official website of the Parliament of Estonia. "Ukraine has a place of priority in Estonia's development aid programs, and it has to remain so also in the future," Mihkelson emphasized. Read alsoMFA Ukraine spox becomes Ambassador to Estonia Mihkelson thinks that it is important that the presidential and parliamentary elections held next year in Ukraine were conducted openly, democratically and without interference. In his opinion, there is a threat that at the elections, Russia will support the forces who would like to see the discontinuation of the reforms in Ukraine. Member of the Foreign Affairs Committee Barbi Pilvre said that it was necessary to draw the attention of international community constantly to the events in East Ukraine, because in the abundance of news, much could be forgotten and people tended to get used to war. "The fact is that the war in East Ukraine goes on," Pilvre pointed out. She emphasized that the conflict had to get a diplomatic and peaceful solution. "In order to achieve that, pressure has to be exerted on Russia through sanctions and the Government of Ukraine has to be helped in solving the humanitarian crisis," she said. In the opinion of members of the Committee Henn Polluaas, it is sad that there is a war in the middle of Europe, and Europe has closed its eyes to it. He thinks that Estonia and other European countries have to help the people of East Ukraine to restore their homes, so that they could return to their homeland. It is also necessary to help the children overcome the trauma of war. "The contribution of Ukraine alone is not enough to end the war and make the country liveable again," Polluaas said. Estonia, and also the rest of Europe, have to contribute considerably more to support Ukraine." The visit of the Foreign Affairs Committee to Ukraine took place on September 16-20. They went to Donetsk region in East Ukraine, where they visited Mayorsk checkpoint and Luhanske village on the frontline. In Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, they met with the Governor of Donetsk region and representatives of international aid organizations. They also had meetings with First Deputy Chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's Parliament) Iryna Herashchenko, Chairperson of the Committee on Foreign Affairs Hanna Hopko, and Oleksandr Turchynov, Head of the National Security and Defense Council, an advisory body to the President of Ukraine. The delegation of the Foreign Affairs Committee also met with the new generation politicians of Ukraine Serhiy Leshchenko, Mustafa Nayyem and Svitlana Zalishchuk, and representatives of think tanks and citizens association Vostok-SOS, which cooperates with the Estonian development aid organizations. Gerashchenko said Ukraine should "maximize the use of a high international platform for delivering information about daily human rights violations in the Russian-occupied territories, security and environmental threats." Ukraine's Representative in the humanitarian subgroup of the Trilateral Contact Group for the Donbas settlement, First Deputy Chair of the Verkhovna Rada Iryna Gerashchenko has said the agenda of the session of the UN General Assembly includes the issue of the situation in the Russian-occupied territories of Crimea and Donbas. Read alsoRussia turns down Ukraine's offer to swap their convicts for Ukrainian political prisoners "An important decision, despite the resistance of the Russian Federation, the issue of the situation in the occupied territories of Crimea and Donbas has been included in the agenda of the session," she wrote on Facebook. Gerashchenko said Ukraine should "maximize the use of a high international platform for delivering information about daily human rights violations in the Russian-occupied territories, security and environmental threats." According to intelligence reports, one enemy troop was killed and another five were wounded. Russia's hybrid military forces mounted 18 attacks on Ukrainian army positions in Donbas in the past 24 hours, with three Ukrainian soldiers reported as wounded in action (WIA). "Three Ukrainians soldiers were wounded in the past day. According to intelligence reports, one occupier was killed and another five were wounded," the press center of Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation (JFO) said in an update on Facebook as of 07:00 Kyiv time on September 22, 2018. Read alsoUkraine's army retakes another village in Russian-occupied Luhansk region (Video) Russian occupation forces opened aimed fire from grenade launchers, heavy machine guns, and small arms to attack the defenders of the towns of Avdiyivka and Maryinka, and the villages of Krymske, Troyitske, Luhanske, Chermalyk, Pavlopil, Hnutove, Vodiane, and Shyrokyne. In addition, the enemy resorted to 82mm mortars to shell the Ukrainian positions near Vodiane, as well as 120mm mortars near Shyrokyne. Moreover, the Ukrainian positions near Hnutove came under fire from both types of mortars. The invaders also used weapons of infantry fighting vehicles near Vodiane and Shyrokyne. Furthermore, the Ukrainian positions in Vodiane were attacked with the use of an anti-tank missile system, while those in Shyrokyne came under fire from a Zu-23-2 anti-aircraft system. "Since Saturday midnight, Russian-led forces have mounted four attacks on the Ukrainian positions near Krymske, Novotoshkivske, Pavlopil, and Vodiane, using heavy machine guns and small arms. The occupiers also employed heavy mounted, automatic, hand-held and under-barrel grenade launchers," the report says. No casualties among the Ukrainian servicemen have been reported. Russia's hybrid military forces attacked Ukrainian army positions in Donbas seven times from 07:00 to 18:00 Kyiv time on Saturday, September 22. Read alsoDonbas update: Ukraine reports 3 WIA's amid 18 attacks in past day "There have been no casualties among the Ukrainian troops," the press center of Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation (JFO) said in an update on Facebook. Russian occupation forces opened aimed fire from grenade launchers of various systems, heavy machine guns and small arms to attack the defenders of the town of Zolote, and the villages of Krymske, Novoselivka Druha, Pavlopil, Hnutove, and Lebedynske. In case of threat to life, military commanders made a decision to fire back to suppress the enemy's fire activity. The situation in the zone of the Joint Forces Operation remains under control of Ukrainian troops. (@FahadShabbir) MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 22nd September, 2018) Saudi Arabia, the only oil producer able to adjust its output, will not be able to produce 12 million barrels per day to cover Iranian oil exports once the United States introduces restrictions banning them in November, media reported. The state-run Saudi Arabian Oil Company, known as Saudi Aramco, had been informing its customers its crude would be in short supply in October, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing Saudi officials. Moreover, the company would not be able to meet the demand for crude in the long term once Tehran, currently producing around 1.9 million barrels per day, wold be be banned from exporting oil, the outlet added. August's OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report showed that Saudi Arabia's output reached 10.44 million barrels per day that month. "[Producing] 11 million [barrels a day] is already a stretch, even for just a few months," a Saudi official told the Wall Street Journal. A senior US official told the outlet that according to Washington's estimates, Riyadh would not be able to boost its oil production to 12 million barrels a day. The outlet also noted fears that the situation might result in oil prices hike to above $80 per barrel. "It's not just Iran that will suffer. It's going to have a boomerang effect with rising gasoline prices [in the U.S.]," a trader told the publication. Saudi Arabia has been increasing its oil production over the recent months under the US pressure aimed at offsetting the losses from Iran. In late June, US President Donald Trump said he had asked Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud to boost daily oil production by 2 million barrels, adding that the king had agreed to do so. However, the White House specified subsequently that King Salman had told Trump the country had 2 million barrels per day of spare capacity that could be used if needed. The United States has been reintroducing sanctions on Iran after Washington pulled out from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iranian nuclear deal in May. (@ChaudhryMAli88) The Board of Directors of the Emirates Authority for Standardisation and Metrology (ESMA) adopted a 22 new standard in the food, oil and gas, chemistry, cosmetics , At a meeting attended by members of the Board of Directors, and held last Thursday at ESMA headquarter in Dubai. (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 22nd Sep, 2018) DUBAI, 22nd September 2018 (WAM) - The board of Directors of the Emirates Authority for Standardisation and Metrology (ESMA) adopted a 22 new standard in the food, oil and gas, chemistry, cosmetics , At a meeting attended by members of the Board of Directors, and held last Thursday at ESMA headquarter in Dubai. The Board of Directors also approved the draft of the mandatory standard update: Energy Efficiency Statement for Electrical Appliances UAE.S 5010-2 on Washing Machines and Dryers, and the Project for Updating the Mandatory Standard of Energy Efficiency for Electrical Appliances UAE.S 5010-6 on Dishwashers after review the impact of the application of these regulations during the past seven years. Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansoori, Minister of Economy and Chairman of (ESMA), said that the Authority is seeking, in line with the National Agenda Indicators for the UAE Vision 2021, to enhance the quality of life indicators in the country through developing and updating relevant regulations and legislations. In an effort to continuously drive the UAE to more advanced center in the world of quality infrastructure and increase the competitiveness and leadership of the UAE. He added. The development of UAE standards in sectors such as health, oil and gas, chemistry, industry and production, construction, food and agriculture, and other sectors such as information and management systems, cosmetics and perfumes, etc. , will reflect the Authority's efforts to develop capacity And the legislative competence of the UAE. He added that "ESMA" continue its efforts to support the concepts of safety and security in the community and to take care of all its categories through the preparation and development of technical regulations and control systems related to safety and health and environmental protection, which will contribute to achieving these objectives. He affirmed that the Board of Directors adopted the draft standardization of the mandatory standard: "Energy Efficiency Statement for Electrical Appliances, Part 2: Washing Machines and Dryers" No. UAE 50102, and the draft mandatory standard update: For Electrical Appliances - Part 6: Dishwashers "UAE.S 5010-6. ESMA expects that this will increase the efficiency of the electrical products listed in the country's markets, which will contribute to reducing energy consumption, which is expected to reach 7% in the washing machines estimated at 2.5 GW annually, in addition to contributing to reducing the emissions of the second Carbon dioxide to achieve the national goal. (@rukhshanmir) A Federal National Council, FNC, delegation, led by Speaker, Dr. Amal Abdullah Al Qubaisi, concluded its participation in the 2nd Eurasian Women's Forum, hosted by St Petersburg, Russia, from 19th to 21st September. SAINT PETERSBURG, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 22nd Sep, 2018) A Federal National Council, FNC, delegation, led by Speaker, Dr. Amal Abdullah Al Qubaisi, concluded its participation in the 2nd Eurasian Women's Forum, hosted by St Petersburg, Russia, from 19th to 21st September. During the four-day event, Dr. Amal Al Qubaisi presented an overview on the UAE's experiment in empowering women and youth and its vision for promoting values of peace and tolerance as well as plans for innovation and space exploration. The UAEs speakers highlighted the country's status as a melting point for cultures and civilisations and a staunch advocate of unity, dialogue, partnership and solidarity among nations and a vital contributor to efforts aimed at maintaining international peace and security. The UAE delegates engaged in a plenary session on inter-parliamentary dialogue Women for Sustainable Development of the Global World and strategic sessions on Women for Balanced Economic Growth; Women for Social Progress; Women for the Development of a Global Health Strategy, and Women for Energy of the Future. The Declaration of the Second Eurasian Womens Forum called upon states and international organisations as well as international community, to eliminate unjustified obstacles in womens career in public administration, diplomatic service and business; to develop and promote special programmes to increase the economic activity of women and their digital and financial awareness and consider these issues as a matter of priority in the agendas of international organizations and associations; to focus on legislative support for womens economic and social empowerment, improvement of the system of family, and maternity and childhood protection and provision of high-quality medical and social assistance. The declaration also called for utilisation of a comprehensive approach and breakthrough technologies in the creation of programmes for active healthy longevity; improve womens access to high-quality jobs by providing equal pay for work of equal value and accessible childcare services as well as prevent violence and harassment in the workplace; use the best practices to ensure womens access to education; help to overcome inequality between men and women in science and attract public attention to womens achievements in the fields of science and charity; and promote meaningful participation of women in science and to advance the motto, "The world needs science and science needs women." It also urged states, international organisations and international community to ensure access to justice for women in conflict and post-conflict situations, investigate, prosecute and punish perpetrators of violence as well as provide reparation to victims, where appropriate; promote a greater role for womens in developing interreligious and interethnic dialogue, including by supporting the initiative of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Yemeni Minister of Foreign Affairs, Khalid Al Yamani and the Secretary-General of Gulf Cooperation Council, GCC, Dr Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani opened a high-level Conference on Yemen entitled, 'Challenges of Political Solution, Humanitarian Action, Restoring Stability and Reconstruction'. NEW YORK, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 22nd Sep, 2018) Yemeni Minister of Foreign Affairs, Khalid Al Yamani and the Secretary-General of Gulf Cooperation Council, GCC, Dr Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani opened a high-level Conference on Yemen entitled, 'Challenges of Political Solution, Humanitarian Action, Restoring Stability and Reconstruction'. According to the Saudi Press Agency, SPA, the conference was organised by GCC Secretariat in cooperation with the government of Yemen in New York, in the presence of representatives of the 19 countries sponsoring the political process, along with representatives of international and regional organisations concerned with humanitarian and development affairs. (@ChaudhryMAli88) The Sharjah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) and an official delegation from the Indonesian Embassy in the UAE discussed ways to develop economic relations and cooperation, as well as enhance joint investments, exchange trade missions, and build partnerships between the business communities in both countries. SHARJAH, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 22nd Sep, 2018) The Sharjah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) and an official delegation from the Indonesian Embassy in the UAE discussed ways to develop economic relations and cooperation, as well as enhance joint investments, exchange trade missions, and build partnerships between the business communities in both countries. The discussions were held recently during a meeting at the headquarters of the chamber, in the presence of Sheikh Fahim bin Sultan Al Qasimi, Chairman of Department of Government Relations in Sharjah. The SCCI also received an official invitation to participate in the 33rd edition of Trade Expo Indonesia in Tangerang, from 24th to 28th October, 2018. During the meeting, Abdallah Sultan Al Owais, Chairman of the SCCI, and Hussein Bajis, Ambassador of the Republic of Indonesia to the UAE, discussed the prospects of cooperation and partnership, which would contribute to enhancing the economic relations between the two friendly countries. The meeting was also attended by Mohamed Ahmed Amin, Acting Director-General of the SCCI, Radwan Hassan, Consul-General of Indonesia in Dubai and the Northern Emirates, and a number of officials from both the chamber and the embassy. Sheikh Fahim praised the strong relations between the UAE and Malaysia and said that Sharjah was keen to continuously enhance its economic and cultural relations with Indonesia, which comes in line with the wise directives of H.H. Dr. Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah. Sheikh Fahim stressed the importance of enhancing the areas of cooperation between Sharjah and Indonesia in order to develop the fundamentals of the Islamic economy, specifically the Halal food industry, as well as taking advantage of Sharjahs unique location to promote Indonesias industrial products and expand their reach into the region. Abdallah Owais stated that the chamber was keen to enhance economic and trade cooperation between Sharjah and Indonesia, as well as to take advantage of the unique investment opportunities that are available to both sides. He welcomed the invitation received by the chamber to participate in the Trade Expo Indonesia. He expressed the hope that the chamber will work to encourage its members to attend the event and participate in its various activities in order to benefit the business communities of both countries. Hussein Bajis praised the deep-rooted relations between Indonesia and the UAE, and the efforts exerted by the Sharjah Chamber to develop the economic relations between Sharjah and Indonesia, which included offering unique facilities and a safe business environment to Indonesian businesspeople in the emirate. He invited the business community in Sharjah to participate in the Trade Expo Indonesia. After the meeting, Al Owais and Mohamed Ahmed Amin accompanied the visiting delegation on a tour to the "Permanent Exhibition for Agricultural Products" hosted by the chamber at its headquarters. They reviewed the various national agricultural products that were displayed by more than 180 establishments operating in Sharjah at 191 stands. The volume of trade between the UAE and Indonesia is estimated to be US$3.8 billion in the oil and non-oil industries. The two countries seek to double this figure in all sectors. (@FahadShabbir) Police have arrested 20 accused including a woman and recovered narcotics and illegal weapons from them. SARGODHA, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 22nd Sep, 2018 ) :Police have arrested 20 accused including a woman and recovered narcotics and illegal weapons from them. Police spokesman said Saturday that during a drive against drug pushers and criminals the teams of different police stations conducted raids within their jurisdiction and arrested 16 accused and recovered 4. 035 kilograms Hashish, 1200 gram Heroin, 110 bottles of liquor, three Pistols of 30 bore and two guns of 12 bore from them. The arrested outlaws were identifies as: Ehsan Ullah, Ansr Iqbal, Robina Bibi, Mazhar Iqbal, Yaseen, Waqas, Asim, Tafaqar Hayat, Muhammad Khan, Ghulam Murtaza, Habib, Ali Khan and others. Police have registered separate cases against the accused and started investigation. MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 22nd September, 2018) China inaugurated its embassy in the Dominican Republic following the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries, local media reported. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi traveled to the Caribbean nation for the inauguration ceremony which took place on Friday, the Chinese CGTN broadcaster reported. "China and the Dominican Republic are separated by a large geographic distance. However, great Chinese thinkers a thousand years ago said that intimate friendships can overcome distances. This phrase from this poet perfectly describes our sense of excitement in this moment," Wang said during the ceremony, as quoted by the broadcaster. Wang noted that the Dominican Republic was China's largest trading partner in the Caribbean, according to the outlet. Dominican Foreign Minister Miguel Vargas, in his turn, emphasized the importance of relations with Beijing for Santo Domingo and noted that the establishment of diplomatic ties would benefit both countries. China and the Dominican Republic signed an official communique on the establishment of diplomatic relations in May. The situation resulted in a row between the Caribbean nation and Taiwan, which China considers part of its territory and which does not recognize the central government in Beijing. Taiwan cut off its ties with the Dominican Republic after the latter established relations with China. (@FahadShabbir) Libreville, Sept 21 (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 22nd Sep, 2018 ) :The International Criminal Court will not open a formal investigation into claims of post-election violence following the disputed 2016 presidential election, an ICC prosecutor said Friday. "There is no reasonable basis to believe that the acts allegedly committed in Gabon in the context of the 2016 post-election violence" amounted to crimes against humanity that the court is mandated to investigate and prosecute, Fatou Bensouda said in a statement. "The legal requirements for opening an investigation into the situation in the Gabonese Republic ("Gabon") have not been satisfied," the statement concluded. The reelection of President Ali Bongo in August 2016, by just a few thousand votes, led opposition leader Jean Ping to accuse the administration of electoral fraud. Violence broke out days after the vote, and opposition figures say that more than 50 people were killed in the ensuing clashes. The official toll was only three dead. Ping and 15 non-governmental organisations had complained about the violence and Bensouda's office carried out a preliminary examination into the accusations. The prosecutor said Friday that the court's decision "by no means diminishes the seriousness of the violent acts and human rights violations that appear to have occurred in Gabon in the course of the post-election crisis". Gabonese legislative elections are scheduled in October. (@ChaudhryMAli88) Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev expressed his condolences over the death of Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang in a message to the chairwoman of Vietnamese National Assembly, Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, the Kazakh president's press service said on Saturday. ALMATY (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 22nd September, 2018) Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev expressed his condolences over the death of Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang in a message to the chairwoman of Vietnamese National Assembly, Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, the Kazakh president's press service said on Saturday. Media reported that the 61-year-old president passed away at 10:05 a.m. local time (03:05 GMT) on Friday after being in a critical condition and undergoing medical treatment. "Sharing the irreparable loss, on the part of the Kazakh people and on my part I express my deepest condolences to you and to the family and friends of the deceased," Nazarbayev's message said. The message added that Quang had made a significant contribution to strengthening the partnership between the two countries, the press service said. French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday urged Macedonian citizens to go to the referendum on renaming the country under a treaty with Greece and support the agreement. BELGRADE (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 22nd September, 2018) French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday urged Macedonian citizens to go to the referendum on renaming the country under a treaty with Greece and support the agreement. In June, the Greek government signed an agreement with the Republic of Macedonia which resolved the long-running dispute over the name of the former Yugoslav republic, but caused criticism in both countries. According to polls, most Greeks oppose the fact that the name of the neighboring country would still contain the word "Macedonia." The referendum on renaming the former Yugoslav republic to the Republic of Northern Macedonia will take place in the country on September 30. If the name change is approved, the country will be able to seek NATO and EU membership. "A step forward [in relations] between your country and Greece was made thanks to the bravery of your leaders. It put an end to the 27-year dispute. The agreement signed in Prespa on June 17, 2018, makes possible progress and preparation for the future ... You must choose and decide whether you are in favor of changing the constitution or not . .. I am strongly in favor of it and firmly believe that this is a good treaty for you, for the whole region and Europe. I count on you!" Macron said in a video address to Macedonian citizens, which was posted by media. Macron is not the first politician who had appealed to the citizens of the former Yugoslav republic, urging them to support renaming of the country. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, US President Donald Trump, and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg are among politicians who directly or indirectly have called on Macedonian citizens to vote in the upcoming plebiscite for the country's renaming. Stoltenberg said during a NATO summit in Brussels on July 11 that the leaders of all 29 member states had formally invited Macedonia to join the alliance. He specified that as soon as Macedonia makes necessary changes to the constitution, NATO would be able to officially invite the country to join the alliance under the name of the Republic of Northern Macedonia. Moscow has not held any talks either with the associates of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange or the staff of the Ecuadoran Embassy in London, where he has been residing for years, regarding Assange's reportedly prepared escape from the United Kingdom, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday. MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 22nd September, 2018) Moscow has not held any talks either with the associates of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange or the staff of the Ecuadoran Embassy in London, where he has been residing for years, regarding Assange's reportedly prepared escape from the United Kingdom, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday. On Friday, The Guardian newspaper reported, citing unnamed sources, that Russia had allegedly secretly contacted Assange's associates in London in order to help him escape from the embassy. According to the newspaper, Russia was considered as one of the options for his final destination. "The article contains a whole series of similar anti-Russia innuendos. On our part, we stress that Russian diplomats have not contacted either the staff of the Ecuadoran Embassy in London or Mr Assange's associates in order to assist in his leaving the territory of the United Kingdom," the ministry said in a statement. The ministry added that regular meetings between Russian and Ecuadoran diplomats in London were nothing more than a regular practice of diplomatic relations. Assange has been residing in the Ecuadorian Embassy since June 2012 after the United Kingdom granted his extradition to Sweden, where he was accused of sexual offenses. While the Swedish police dropped the charges in 2017, Assange is still wary of being extradited to the United States, where he is wanted for leaking classified documents of the US State Department. KIEV (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st September, 2018) A ministerial meeting of the Normandy Four group (France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine) can take place in the near future, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said on Friday. "[The Normandy format] is on ... [The meeting of ministers] will take place, probably not literally in the nearest time, but soon," Klimkin told the Novoye Vremya radio. He reiterated that the meeting of the political directors of the Normandy Four states was planned for the second part of September, who would discuss the issue of UN peacekeepers deployment to the Ukrainian crisis-torn region of Donbas. He noted that Kiev insisted on the deployment of a peacekeeping mission throughout the whole territory of Donbas. Kiev has long been seeking the deployment of the UN peacekeepers in Donbas. Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his support for the idea, but stressed that peacekeepers should only ensure the security of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) monitoring staff. Meanwhile, Kiev has advocated wider powers of peacekeepers and their deployment on a large territory up to the Ukrainian border with Russia. The conflict in Donbas started in 2014, when Ukrainian authorities launched a military operation against the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics that refused to recognize the new government in Kiev, which came to power as a result of what some Donbas residents considered a coup. In February 2015, the warring parties signed the Minsk peace accords to end the hostilities in the region. Despite this, the situation has remained tense, with both parties accusing each other of ceasefire violations. BELGRADE (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 22nd September, 2018) Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov have commended the active development of bilateral ties at their meeting on Friday, the Serbian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The talks of the top diplomats were held in Banja Luka, the de facto capital of Republika Srpska, an autonomous Serb-dominated entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. "Dacic and Lavrov, the foreign ministers of Serbia and Russia, concluded that the level of trust and high dynamics of Russian-Serbian contacts show that the relations between the two countries are constantly and productively developing," the statement read. The Serbian foreign minister expressed gratitude to the Russian side for supporting Belgrade and its dialogue with Pristina under the UN Security Council Resolution 1244. The sides also discussed mutual support for each other in international organizations and preparations for the upcoming session of the Serbian-Russian Intergovernmental Committee on Economic Cooperation, according to the statement. Nairobi, Sept 21 (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 22nd Sep, 2018 ) :Tanzanian President John Magufuli on Friday said he had ordered the arrest of "all those involved in the management of the ferry" which sank on Lake Victoria, claiming 131 lives. "It appears clear that the ferry was overloaded," he said in a speech on TBC One public television, also referring to "negligence". "The arrests have already begun." (@rukhshanmir) Washington, Sept 21 (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 22nd Sep, 2018 ) :US President Donald Trump will receive his Chilean counterpart, Sebastian Pinera, late this month for talks on "efforts to restore democracy in Venezuela," the White House said Friday. The Chilean president had planned to visit the United States for the annual United Nations General Assembly meeting next week. His visit on September 28 to the White House comes with regional concerns growing about an exodus of Venezuelans fleeing their country's economic meltdown. Trump has accused Venezuela's leftist President Nicolas Maduro of leading a "dictatorship" and a report in The New York Times earlier this month said US officials had met with Venezuelan military officers seeking support for a coup. Pinera will be received by Trump for what the White House described as a "working visit."Trump and Pinera "will build upon the strong partnership between their nations in pursuit of a more prosperous, secure, and democratic Western Hemisphere," the White House statement said. "The leaders expect to discuss a shared commitment to pro-growth policies, combating corrupt and illicit networks, strategic partnerships in energy and cyber security, and efforts to restore democracy in Venezuela," it said. (@ChaudhryMAli88) MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st September, 2018) UK Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson, who earlier in the week arrived with his first visit in Ukraine, announced on Friday the extension of the UK military training operation in the country by further two years until 2020. As part of his visit Williamson met with his Ukrainian counterpart Stepan Poltorak and Chief of General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Victor Muzhenko. "By extending and expanding our training programmes, we are sending a clear message - we support the people of Ukraine and are firmly committed to its sovereignty as it faces down blatant Russian aggression," Williamson said as quoted in the statement of the UK Defense Ministry. In 2018, the UK training program has been broadened and now also covers such aspects as anti-armor, infantry skills, counter-sniping and mortar planning. According to UK government figures, as many as 9,500 Ukrainian military staff have been trained as part of the UK-led program since 2015. Since 2014, the Ukrainian government has been in a state of armed conflict with the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, located in Donbas, with the tensions caused by the republics' move to proclaim independence in 2014 after a drastic power change in Kiev. KIEV (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 22nd September, 2018) Ukraine's Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin suggested extending the transition to all-Ukrainian secondary education after an outcry from ethnic minorities. The law banning schools from educating children in languages other than Ukrainian beyond the Primary school level came into being on September 1 but educators have until 2020 to fully implement it. "The education law should be implemented gradually ... Two years is not enough, we must extend the transition period but use it to make the law work," Klimkin told Radio NV. Ukraine has large Russian, Romanian and Hungarian minorities. The law has created a rift between Ukraine and its western EU neighbors, with Hungarian and Romanian governments accusing Kiev of violating ethnic minority rights. (@ChaudhryMAli88) KIEV (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st September, 2018) Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin and representatives of the Security Service (SBU) refuted on Friday accusations that they were oppressing the Hungarian minority in the western region of Zakarpattia. According to the News Front news agency, the SBU is carrying out intensive checks on Hungarian officials and journalists without due cause. Ukrainian lawmaker Laszlo Brenzovich, who is a Hungarian, called on SBU head Vasyl Hrytsak to explain the inspections, which from his point of view were a sign of persecution of the Hungarian minority. The Golos Karpat media outlet reported about a video posted on Facebook that depicted the SBU detaining a Zakarpattia resident who was carrying a Hungarian flag. "Some media disseminate videos showing the Security Service of Ukraine allegedly persecuting members of one of the national minorities in the Zakarpattia region. This is not true. The SBU department in the Zakarpattia region officially says that no legal proceedings against any members of ethnic groups are taking place," the SBU said. Klimkin wrote on his Twitter page that there were many fake videos depicting the alleged oppression of Hungarians in Zakarpattia on the internet. Earlier in the day, Klimkin said that Hungary, by granting citizenship to Ukrainian nationals in the Zakarpattia region and urging them to conceal this fact from the Ukrainian authorities, was breaching the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. The situation in the Zakarpattia region significantly escalated this year over the new Ukrainian law on education. According to the law, starting from September 1, 2018, children from national minority groups will be able to study in their native language only at the Primary school level, while secondary and post-secondary education will be only in Ukrainian. The full switch to Ukrainian-language education is set for September 1, 2020. (@ChaudhryMAli88) MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 23rd September, 2018) The UN representation in Iran expressed condolences on Saturday to Tehran and to families of the victims following the terrorist attack in the southwestern Iranian city of Ahvaz. On Saturday, armed militants opened fire at a military parade, leaving at least 25 people killed and injuring another 60, according to media reports. The Saudi-linked Patriotic Arab Democratic Movement in Ahwaz has reportedly claimed responsibility for the attack. "We extend condolences to the Islamic Republic of #Iran and families of the victims of #Ahvazattack and wishing a speedy recovery to all the injured," the representation wrote on Twitter. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif accused "regional terror sponsors and their US masters" of organizing the attack. (@rukhshanmir) Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko announced on Saturday that the issue of the "temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine" had been included in the agenda of the current 73rd session of the UN General Assembly at Kiev's request. KIEV (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 22nd September, 2018) Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko announced on Saturday that the issue of the "temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine" had been included in the agenda of the current 73rd session of the UN General Assembly at Kiev's request. "Following my instructions, the successful work on inclusion of a new paragraph 'Situation in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine' in the agenda of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly was carried out. This will allow through a flurry of disinformation to inform the world community about the truth of tragic consequences of the Russian occupation of Crimea and the ongoing aggression in the Donbas," Poroshenko tweeted. The president also thanked all those who supported Kiev's initiative. The item was included in the agenda by a UN General Assembly vote of 68 in favor to 13 against, with 48 abstentions, according to the UN website. Kiev has repeatedly accused Moscow of involvement in the Ukraine crisis, which resulted in the military conflict in eastern region of Donbas and Crimea's reunification with Russia. Moscow has repeatedly denied any interference in the crisis, saying that it was not a party to this internal conflict and Crimea rejoined Russia as a result of the legitimate referendum. The conflict in Donbas started in 2014, when Ukrainian authorities launched a military operation against the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk that refused to recognize the new government in Kiev, which came to power after what they considered to be a coup. WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 22nd September, 2018) Latvian resident Ruslans Bondars, 38, was sentenced to fourteen years in prison for operating a service that allegedly helped hackers to evade antivirus programs, the Justice Department said in a press release. "A Latvian 'non-citizen,' meaning a citizen of the former USSR who resided in Riga, Latvia, was sentenced to 168 months in prison today for offenses related to his [Bondars] operation of 'Scan4you,' an online counter antivirus service that helped computer hackers determine whether the computer viruses and other malicious software they created would be detected by antivirus software," the release said on Friday. The court's decision regarding forfeiture and payment of restitution to victims is still being determined, the release added. According to testimony at trial and court documents, the release said, Bondars operated Scan4you from at least 2009 until 2016. Scan4you customers, the release added, used the service to steal millions of credit and debit card numbers from retail stores and to hack other major US corporations which led to some $20.5 billion in losses. In May, Russian citizen Yuriy Martyshev, a co-defendant, testified against Bondars. Martyshev pleaded guilty to two of four cybercrime-related charges while Bondars decided to proceed to the trial. The Russian Embassy in the United States said Martyshev was apprehended in Latvia and extradited to the United States in violation of US-Russian treaties. Madrid, Spain (UroToday.com) Dr. Eva Comperat gave a summarized overview of the pathological aspects of variant histology (VH) in bladder cancer. The topics discussed in this talk included the importance of recognizing and reporting these VHs, and understand the interobserver variability, tumor heterogeneity and treatment decisions for these unique tumors.According to the WHO classification of tumors of the urothelial tract, urothelial tumors include several variants: Infiltrating urothelial carcinomas with divergent differentiation, nested, microcystic, micropapillary, lymphoepithelioma-like, diffuse/plasmacytoid/signet ring cell, sarcomatoid, giant Cell, undifferentiated, lipid-rich, and clear cell.VH is underrecognized, according to a study published in 2013.Out of 589 TURBTs, 19.5% had VH with 90% having one VH. According to this report, several types of VH were unrecognized. One of the problems of VH is that there is significant discordance among pathologists, with 93% agreement on classic forms, but a much lower agreement percentage reported for less common forms.There is also some data showing that TURBT might not sufficiently show the presence of VH, even though it will eventually show up in radical cystectomy specimens of the same patients. It is not clear if this is because of tumor heterogeneity, or small samples taken in the TURBTs, not large enough to show the presence of VH.Dr. Comperat then delved deeper into some of the specific VHs. She began discussing the subtype of micropapillary carcinoma. In a study analyzing cT1N0M0 micropapillary carcinoma patients, those who were treated with upfront radical cystectomy had a disease-specific survival of 100%, while those who were first treated with Bacillus CalmetteGuerin (BCG) had a recurrence in 75% of cases, and 45% of them had disease progression.Additionally, those treated with delayed radical cystectomy had a disease-specific survival of 62%, so the timing of therapy is also crucial. (2) Early identification of this specific variant and referring these patients to radical cystectomy as soon as possible saves lives.Next, squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) variant was discussed. It is important to differentiate between pure SCC and SCC inflection. A study has shown that these two do not differ in cancer-specific and overall survival rates.It has been shown that cancer-specific and overall survival is worse in SCC if there are positive surgical margins. Additionally, positive lymph nodes confer worse overall and cancer-specific survival rates for SCC.The plasmacytoid variant was discussed next. Small studies have shown these variants to have a two-fold increased risk of death (p=0.04). The treatment entails radical cystectomy and adjuvant cisplatin-based chemotherapy. It has a male to female ratio of 2:1 and is associated with high-grade urothelial carcinoma or sarcomatoid carcinoma. It is a diffusely spreading tumor, most commonly invading adjacent organs, and the clinical outcome is overall poor, with overall survival of 23 months.A recent publication assessed the role of trimodal therapy for the treatment of VHs. Overall 303 patients were analyzed, with 22% having VH. A total of 76% has SCC/glandular, and 24% had others. The study demonstrated a complete response rate of 82% in the VH patients compared to 83% in the non-variant group. The 5-year disease-specific survival for the VH group was 64%, and for the non-variant group, it was 75%, demonstrating that VH does not influence outcomes significantly.Unfortunately, there is only limited data on VH in non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC). It is known that there are molecular differences between low grade and high-grade disease. NMIBC cells have basal and luminal-like characteristics with different outcomes. Understanding the molecular basis of NIMBC and muscle-invasive bladder cancer will help us understand different heterogenous groups within NMIBC, and perhaps enable us to know to whom to administer BCG. Dr. Comperat briefly discussed the molecular characterization of muscle-invasive bladder cancer as well.This characterization has a significant impact on the opportunity for immunological therapy, as it enables us to understand which cancer might respond well to immune therapy (Figure 1).Figure 1 Molecular characterization of muscle-invasive bladder cancer:Summarizing her talk, Dr. Comperat stated that it is critically important to recognize VH and report it, as the implication on the therapy choices and outcomes are tremendous. Unfortunately, these are still under-recognized and underreported tumors, and there is a large discordance rate between pathologists on VH diagnosis. Furthermore, tumor heterogeneity is still a significant problem that needs to be dealt with. Hopefully, in the near future, incorporating molecular data could help us treat these patients appropriately.Presented by: Eva Comperat, MD, Head of the Department of Pathology at the L'Assistance Publique-Hopitaux de Paris, Hopital Tenon, in Paris, FranceWritten by: Hanan Goldberg, MD, Urologic Oncology Fellow (SUO), University of Toronto, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre @GoldbergHanan at the Global Conference on Bladder Cancer 2018 - September 20-21, 2018 Madrid, Spain References:1. Shah RB, et al. Urologic oncology 2013; 31(8): 1650-5 2. Willis DL, et al. J Urol 2015; 193(4): 1129-34.3. Ehdaie et al. J Urol 20124. Zuckenberg et al. 1991 AM J Surg Pathol5. Krasnow et al. Eur Urol 20166. Robertson AG et al. Cell 2018; 174(4): 1033 The location of the positive surgical margin rate also has a clear impact on the rate of local failure and recurrence after radical cystectomy, as can be seen in figure 2. It is depicted that positive margins at the rectosigmoid region have a 5-year local recurrence rate of less than 2%, while a positive margin at the external/internal iliac region confers a 5-year local recurrence rate of almost 20%!3 Figure 2 Five-year local recurrence rate after radical cystectomy stratified by the location of positive surgical margins: Importantly, the way the local recurrence is identified also has a tremendous impact on the cancer-specific survival and overall survival of patients with local recurrence. It has been demonstrated that a recurrence diagnosed by routine follow-up vs. when it is diagnosed only when the patient is symptomatic, has a hazard ratio for cancer-specific and overall survival of 0.65 (p=0.013) and 0.66 (p=0,015), respectively. 4 This means the routine long-term follow-up of these patients is critical, enabling early diagnosis of local recurrence and improved disease-specific and overall survival rates. Next, Dr. Fonteyne discussed the actual evidence that demonstrates the added benefit that postoperative radiotherapy adds to these patients. In some relatively old nonrandomized studies published in 1986, and 1992, a patient who received postoperative radiotherapy had a five-year disease specific survival of 44-49% compared to 25% in patients who only had radical cystectomy without adjuvant radiotherapy. 5,6 However, the authors of these studies reported unacceptable toxicity in those receiving radiotherapy. This unacceptable toxicity was common more than 20 years ago, but with the technology and modalities used today, the radiation oncologists can accurately direct the radiotherapy given to the desired areas only (Figure 3), and avoid much of the toxicity. Figure 3- Accurate radiotherapy, avoiding the associated toxicity: A more recent study in 2014 also demonstrated a statistically significant advantage to postoperative radiotherapy-treated patients in disease-free survival, but not in overall survival. 7 In an even more recent study published in 2017, a total of 198 patients after radical cystectomy were randomly assigned to either adjuvant chemotherapy alone, adjuvant radiotherapy alone, or the combination of both.8 This study demonstrated an improved two-year local recurrence-free survival in the group treated with chemotherapy and radiotherapy (96%) compared to chemotherapy alone (69%), as demonstrated in figure 4. However, no statistically significant difference was demonstrated in the overall survival rate. Figure 4 The two-year local recurrence-free survival rate significantly improved for chemotherapy + radiotherapy compared to chemotherapy alone: The location of the positive surgical margin rate also has a clear impact on the rate of local failure and recurrence after radical cystectomy, as can be seen in figure 2. It is depicted that positive margins at the rectosigmoid region have a 5-year local recurrence rate of less than 2%, while a positive margin at the external/internal iliac region confers a 5-year local recurrence rate of almost 20%!Figure 2 Five-year local recurrence rate after radical cystectomy stratified by the location of positive surgical margins:Importantly, the way the local recurrence is identified also has a tremendous impact on the cancer-specific survival and overall survival of patients with local recurrence. It has been demonstrated that a recurrence diagnosed by routine follow-up vs. when it is diagnosed only when the patient is symptomatic, has a hazard ratio for cancer-specific and overall survival of 0.65 (p=0.013) and 0.66 (p=0,015), respectively.This means the routine long-term follow-up of these patients is critical, enabling early diagnosis of local recurrence and improved disease-specific and overall survival rates.Next, Dr. Fonteyne discussed the actual evidence that demonstrates the added benefit that postoperative radiotherapy adds to these patients. In some relatively old nonrandomized studies published in 1986, and 1992, a patient who received postoperative radiotherapy had a five-year disease specific survival of 44-49% compared to 25% in patients who only had radical cystectomy without adjuvant radiotherapy.However, the authors of these studies reported unacceptable toxicity in those receiving radiotherapy. This unacceptable toxicity was common more than 20 years ago, but with the technology and modalities used today, the radiation oncologists can accurately direct the radiotherapy given to the desired areas only (Figure 3), and avoid much of the toxicity.Figure 3- Accurate radiotherapy, avoiding the associated toxicity:A more recent study in 2014 also demonstrated a statistically significant advantage to postoperative radiotherapy-treated patients in disease-free survival, but not in overall survival.In an even more recent study published in 2017, a total of 198 patients after radical cystectomy were randomly assigned to either adjuvant chemotherapy alone, adjuvant radiotherapy alone, or the combination of both.This study demonstrated an improved two-year local recurrence-free survival in the group treated with chemotherapy and radiotherapy (96%) compared to chemotherapy alone (69%), as demonstrated in figure 4. However, no statistically significant difference was demonstrated in the overall survival rate.Figure 4 The two-year local recurrence-free survival rate significantly improved for chemotherapy + radiotherapy compared to chemotherapy alone: Madrid, Spain (UroToday.com) Dr. Fontyne discussed the role of adjuvant radiotherapy after radical cystectomy. It is known that patients after radical cystectomy are still at considerable risk for local urothelial recurrence, of up to 40%.This risk is affected by the pathological T stage, N stage, whether neoadjuvant chemotherapy was given, and the patients gender.There are several risk stratifications for predicting local-regional recurrence rates after radical cystectomy. One example for such a risk stratification is the PENN risk stratification, demonstrated in Figure 1, showing that higher T stage, positive surgical margins, and a lower lymph node count are major risk factors for recurrence.Figure 1 The PENN risk stratification for predicting local-regional recurrence after radical cystectomy: The European Association of Urology (EAU) clearly state that there are only limited, old data on adjuvant radiotherapy after radical cystectomy. Advances in targeting and reducing the damage to surrounding tissues may yield better results in the future. However, the EAU guidelines also state that: In locally advanced bladder cancer (>=T3, N0/N1, M0) the local recurrence rate seems to decrease with postoperative radiotherapy. The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) guidelines are much more supportive of adjuvant radiotherapy to these patients. These guidelines state that adjuvant radiotherapy should be considered in high-risk bladder cancer patients (T3-T4, positive nodes, positive surgical margins or high-grade disease), or if no neo-adjuvant chemotherapy was given (level 2A). Dr. Fonteyne summarized her talk by stating that locoregional recurrence after radical cystectomy has been underestimated and that local control is correlated with survival parameters. According to some published evidence, adjuvant radiotherapy reduces the risk of local recurrence and improves disease-specific survival. This kind of adjuvant therapy should at least be considered in high-risk patients, according to the NCCN guidelines. Presented by: Valerie Fonteyne, Ghent, Belgium Once the service is up and running, it must be maintained on a regular basis, with continued education and updating on newly published data, continued monitoring of safety, routine discussion on cases, and improving new checklists.During interactions with patients, physicians must remember to educate patients and their family members, before and during the treatment, provide valid, understandable information, and try to make it as easy as possible for the patients. Aside from the physician, the patient should also meet and discuss with a nurse, who should continue to educate him/her, provide information on prophylaxis and side effects, and practical information such as what to do in different situations.The pretreatment history of the patients is most critical. It should be extensive and elaborate and collect data on autoimmune diseases, prior infectious disease, endocrine disease, organ-specific disease, and baseline bowel habits. There is also a full battery of laboratory tests that the patient should perform, including blood tests for renal and hepatic function, complete blood count, urine tests, and thyroid blood tests. The patient should also undergo an ECG and a baseline CT scan. The patient should have an elaborate wallet card, stating the medication he is on, his disease stage, his relevant history, and his future treatment plan.When the patient is given therapy, everything should be documented accurately, and every step of the treatment should be clear to the staff treating him and to the patient himself. If any adverse effects develop this must be recorded, and proper treatment administered. The clinic should always have emergency medications available if needed, such as steroids. Before any ICPI infusion is given, a checklist should be filled by the physician, making sure it is safe to administer the medication at this time. Patients are receiving 4 -weekly infusions should be evaluated at the clinic every two weeks with appropriate tests. Imaging should be performed at regular intervals to assess disease response/progression.The treating physician should have extensive knowledge on the myriad adverse effects that can be caused by ICPI, as shown in figure 2, and should also know how to treat them accurately and effectively, as shown in Figure 3. If deciding to administer steroids, the physician should be aware of the adverse effects caused by them, and what drugs could be administered to limit some of the side effects. These include prevention of infections brought by steroids, proton pump inhibitor for gastritis, calcium and vitamin D3 for osteoporosis, oral care to prevent oral candidiasis, blood glucose monitoring for diabetes, blood lipids for hyperlipidemia, cardiovascular examination for hypertension, and ophthalmological examination for cataract and glaucoma. Finally, how to correctly tape steroids is also the most important.Figure 2 The organs that can be affected by immune checkpoint inhibitors:Figure 3 Basic rules on how to treat side effects caused by immune checkpoint inhibitors: In the first leg of his 3-nation Baltic trip, Pope Francis on September 22 addressed authorities, representatives of civil society and the diplomatic corps in Vilnius, Lithuania. By Robin Gomes Pope Francis on Saturday invited Lithuanians to draw strength and vigour from their past experience and welcome differences through dialogue, openness and understanding, something which the international community and especially the European Community can learn from. The Popes invitation came at the start of his apostolic visit to the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Addressing Lithuanian authorities, representatives of civil society and the diplomatic corps at the presidential palace in the capital, Vilnius, the pontiff recalled that his visit was taking place in centenary year of the declaration of their independence in 1918, at the end of World War I. Lithuania lost its independence to Soviet Russia in 1940. The following year the Nazis took over until 1944, following which Soviet Russia again occupied the nation. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, Lithuania regained its freedom. Lessons from the past Pope Francis remarked that it has been a century marked by numerous trials and sufferings: detentions, deportations, even martyrdom. Celebrating the hundredth anniversary of independence, he said, means taking time to stop and revive the memory of all those experiences, in order to be in touch with everything that forged you as a nation, and find the key to assessing present challenges and looking to the future in a spirit of dialogue and unity with all those who dwell here, careful to ensure that no one remains excluded. Lithuanias hospitality The Pope commended Lithuanias hospitality in sheltering, receiving and accepting peoples of various ethnic groups and religions. They lived together in peace until the totalitarian ideologies arrived and sowed violence, lack of trust and undermined its ability to accept and harmonize differences. The Pope urged Lithuanians to tolerance, hospitality, respect and solidarity, saying these qualities from their past helped them to grow and not succumb as a nation. He also encouraged them to desire the common good and strive towards it, saying they suffered because the totalitarian ideologies tried to impose a single model that wanted to annul differences under the pretence of believing that the privileges of a few are more important than the dignity of others or the common good. All conflicts presently emerging, the Pope said, will find lasting solutions only if those solutions are grounded in the concrete recognition of the dignity of persons, especially the most vulnerable, and in the realization that all of us are challenged to broaden our horizons and see the greater good which will benefit us all. Youth Pope Francis also urged Lithuania to pay special attention to its young people, saying promoting policies that encourage their active participation in building up the social and communitarian fabric, will be a seed of hope that will generate hospitality towards the stranger, hospitality toward the young, towards the elderly and the poor, and, ultimately, hospitality toward the future. Pope Francis visits the Shrine of the Mother of Mercy, 25 years after Pope Saint John Paul II, and reminds us that closing our hearts to others deprives us of Jesus, who is impressed on every human heart. By Francesca Merlo Pope Francis began by recalling the history of the shrine. He focused on the invading forces of 1799. They destroyed the wall in which the shrine stood, leaving intact one single gate: the one that sheltered the image of the Virgin Mary Mother of Mercy. Pope Francis said that from then on, Mary has worked to teach us that we can defend without attacking and that we can keep safe without the unhealthy need to distrust others. The value of fraternity The Pope said that the image of Jesus is imprinted on every human heart, making it possible for us to encounter God. When we build walls and close our hearts out of fear of others, we end up depriving ourselves of the Good News of Jesus. This is what we did in the past, he said: We built all too many fortresses. Today, Pope Francis said that we feel the need to acknowledge one another as brothers and sisters and experience with joy and peace the value of fraternity. Listen to our report To share, to enrich Pope Francis said that thanks to ready communications and the freedom of circulation between our countries numerous nationalities, Catholic and Orthodox, are able to freely visit the Mother of Mercy. He expressed how good it would be if this could be accompanied by ease in establishing points of encounter and solidarity in order to share those gifts we have freely received. This, according to Pope Francis, would be a source of enrichment in our lives. Charity is key The Mother of Mercy, like every good mother, tries to bring her family together he said. She whispers in our ear: Look for your brother, look for your sister, opening the door to a new dawn, a new day. The Mother brings us to the very doorstep of this new day, where the children and families with bleeding wounds await us. Referring to Lk 16:19-31, he said that these wounds are not those of Lazarus in the parable, but that they are the wounds of Jesus. They cry out for us to bring them the healing light of charity. For charity is the key that opens to us the door of heaven, just as God did for Lazarus. Bridges, not walls The Pope concluded by saying that crossing this doorstep will lead us to experience the power that purifies our way of dealing with our neighbours. Asking that Mary our Mother grant that we may regard their limits and faults with mercy and humility, thinking ourselves superior to no one. and that Lithuania be a country that chooses to build bridges, not walls". Pope Francis is on his way to Lituania and its capital Vilnius An Alitalia plane with the Holy Father on board took off from Romes Fiumicino Airport at 7.37am this morning. The first stop on this his 25th Apostolic Journey will be Lithuania. The Pope is expected to arrive in the capital Vilnius at 11.30 local time. On arrival he will make a courtesy visit to the countrys president and address civil authorities. As part of his four day trip Pope Francis will also visit Latvia and Estonia The dialogue with the Peoples Republic of China was begun by Saint John Paul II with confidential meetings; and continued by Benedict XVI. And now Pope Francis continues in that commitment. The Provisional Agreement on the appointment of Bishops, signed today in Beijing by the Holy See and the Peoples Republic of China, is the fruit of a long journey begun by St. John Paul II. During his pontificate, institutional contacts were established with the Chinese Authorities, in the context of the opening of China to the world. In this period, confidential meetings were begun. The Holy See conducted the dialogue with a respectful attitude toward the Chinese government, seeking to move past any past or present misunderstanding, in order to clarify the nature and religious mission of the Catholic Church, and the intentions of the Holy Sees work on the international level. In his Message to the Conference on Matteo Ricci (24 October 2001), St. John Paul II said: It is no secret that the Holy See, in the name of the whole Catholic Church and, I believe, for the benefit of the whole human family, hopes for the opening of some form of dialogue with the Authorities of the Peoples Republic of China. Once the misunderstandings of the past have been overcome, such a dialogue would make it possible for us to work together for the good of the Chinese people and for peace in the world. Along the same lines, Benedict XVI, in his Letter to the Church in China in 2007, reaffirmed that the Holy See is open to a dialogue with the authorities of the Peoples Republic of China, and hoped that concrete forms of communication and cooperation between the Holy See and the People's Republic of China may soon be established, because friendship is nourished by contacts, by a sharing in the joy and sadness of different situations, by solidarity and mutual assistance (n. 4). He emphasized that solutions to ecclesial problems must overcome existing tensions that exist with the legitimate civil authoritieswithout ever forgetting, on the one hand, the compass of faith and of pastoral witness; and on the other hand the humble recognition of the complexity of the questions in this area. Adhering to this continual line of action and of papal magisterium, Pope Francis desires to follow in the commitment to dialogue, and has promoted and supported the official dialogue with the Chinese Government. In an interview published by the Asia Times in February of 2016, Pope Francis said, For me, China has always been a reference point of greatness. A great country. But more than a country, a great culture, with an inexhaustible wisdom. And he added, To dialogue does not mean that one surrenders himself . . . The true balance of peace is realized through dialogue. Dialogue does not mean that we end up with a compromise, but that we walk together in order to build. Pope Francis sends a telegramme of condolence following the death of the Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang In his telegramme to the Acting President of the Socialist State of Vietnam, Dang Thi Ngoc Thinh, the Holy Father says he was saddened to learn of the death of His Excellency Tran Dai Quang, President of Vietnam. He also offers the people of Vietnam his condolences, together with the assurance of his prayers for those who grieve the passing of the President. Upon all the citizens of Vietnam and especially the members of the late Presidents family, he writes, I invoke the divine blessings of consolation and peace. The President passed away on Friday after a serious illness. He was 61. His last public appearance was on Wednesday at a Politburo meeting of the ruling Communist Party. Mr Quang was sworn into office in the country in 2016, following his post as public security minister. Read the Popes telegramme in English Her Excellency Dang Thi Ngoc Thinh Acting President of the Socialist State of Vietnam I was saddened to learn of the death of His Excellency Tran Dai Quang, President of Vietnam, and I wish to offer you and all the people of Vietnam my condolences, together with the assurance of my prayers for those who grieve the passing of the President. Upon all the citizens of Vietnam and especially the members of the late Presidents family, I invoke the divine blessings of consolation and peace. Franciscus PP. A group of Nevada businesses will formally launch the newly formed Nevada Outdoor Business Coalition, on National Public Lands Day. The coalition will serve as the business voice for Nevadas outdoor recreation industry, advocating for initiatives that improve Nevadas outdoor recreation economy, expand outdoor recreational opportunities in the state, and protect public lands that the outdoor recreation economy depends on. The coalition will strengthen the connection between business owners, decision-makers and community stakeholders in Nevadas outdoor industry. Our coalition strongly believes that protecting public lands means protecting our local economies. said Brina Marcus, General Manager of Flightlinez, an outdoor business that operates zip line tours outside of Las Vegas. There are so many Nevada businesses that depend on public lands and not just the outdoor outfitters and sporting equipment stores you generally think of but also the restaurants, gas stations, and hotels that outdoor recreationists patron. The outdoor recreation industry is an economic powerhouse for generating jobs, consumer spending, and tax revenue for the state of Nevada. According to the Outdoor Industry Alliance, the outdoor recreation economy generates 87,000 direct jobs in Nevada, ranking third in jobs sustained, just behind gaming and health care but more than mining and logistics and operations. In addition, the outdoor recreation economy generates $4 billion in wages and salaries, $12.6 billion in consumer spending, and $1.1 billion in state and local tax revenue. Marcus is one of seven business representatives who serve on the Nevada Outdoor Business Coalitions Executive Committee. These businesses were instrumental in the coalitions founding, along with a $5,000 in-kind donation from Reno boutique design studio, Laxalt & McIver, to help with brand strategy and identity. With xx business members, the newly formed coalition will be working towards growing its membership base and advocating on behalf of the issues that affect the outdoor recreation industry. A stronger outdoor industry equals a stronger Nevada, and Get Outdoors Nevada is honored to work with business leaders to help launch this effort, said Mauricia M.M. Baca, Executive Director of Get Outdoors Nevada, the non-profit organization spearheading the coalition. As a first order of business, the coalition will be advocating for the reauthorization and full funding of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, an important conservation fund that is set to expire on September 30, 2018. Funded by revenue paid from offshore oil and gas drilling leases and not from taxpayer dollars, the Land and Water Conservation Fund has provided over $102 million in funding to Nevada for outdoor projects, such as protecting and maintaining tourism infrastructure for the Lake Tahoe basin and Red Rock National Conservation Area, sites that receive nearly 3 million visitors annually. The coalition invites the public and local businesses to learn more about the connection between public lands and Nevadas economy at two upcoming Nevada Public Lands Day events. Outdoor Business Economic Forum on Sept. 28, 2018, 10 am to 1 p.m., at the Springs Preserve. on Sept. 28, 2018, 10 am to 1 p.m., at the Springs Preserve. Public Lands Day Celebration on Sept. 29, 2018, 4 p.m. at Spring Mountain Ranch. Aristocrat was honored at the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliances (LVGEA) 2018 Annual Awards, winning in the Innovation Category (Pictured: Team Aristocrat Angie Madison, Mary Lynn Palenik, Matt Wilson, Jon Romero, Kiley Adams) At Aristocrat, we put our hearts and souls into creating industry-leading innovations, and we are humbled and thrilled to be recognized for our efforts, said Aristocrats Managing Director of the Americas Matt Wilson. We work hard for our company and to contribute to the Las Vegas community. On behalf of our 1,100 local employees, we congratulate the other nominees and thank the LVGEA for this recognition. The Annual Awards event was held September 20 at Aria Resort & Casino in Las Vegas to celebrate LVGEAs core values of innovation, leadership, partnership and jobs. The Innovation Award honors a business or community organization whose breakthrough achievements in product and service development, technology and infrastructure, research and development, or public policy have significantly impacted the economy of the greater Las Vegas region. Aristocrat will showcase its latest innovations at the upcoming Global Gaming Expo (G2E), October 8-11 at the Sands Expo Center in Las Vegas. Aristocrat will be in booth #1141, exhibiting its inventive games, hardware, and system solutions. People around the world look to the United States as a beacon of freedom. They often seek practical guidance on how to foster democratic, open and accountable systems of governance. Daniel Twining, President of the International Republican Institute, and Ambassador Derek Mitchell, President of the National Democratic Institute discuss with host Carol Castiel the rationale behind decades of US democracy promotion efforts and contrast them with Moscows tactics to sow chaos, to influence election outcomes and suppress dissent. The chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee said late Friday that if a deal on testimony from Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, could not be reached by 10 p.m. EDT, the panel would vote on his nomination Monday. "I'm extending the deadline for response yet again to 10 o'clock this evening, the Iowa Republican said in a statement. "I'm providing a notice of a vote to occur Monday in the event that Dr. Ford's attorneys don't respond or Dr. Ford decides not to testify." This is a developing story. See related stories on voanews.com for more details. The consequences of Afghanistan's increasingly deadly war are weighing the heaviest on the nation's civilians. But violence and social pressures have not deterred members of the country's nascent orchestra of mostly young girls from using music to "heal wounds" and promote women's rights in the strictly conservative Muslim society. Ayaz Gul reports from Islamabad. The consequences of Afghanistans increasingly deadly war are weighing heaviest on the nations civilians, with women bearing the brunt of the violence. The Taliban banned music and girls education, and restricted outdoor activities of women when the group was controlling most of Afghanistan. But violence and social pressures have not deterred members of the countrys nascent orchestra of mostly young girls from using music to heal wounds and promote womens rights in the strictly conservative Muslim society. The ensemble, known as Zohra, was founded in 2014 as part of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM) in Kabul, where suicide bombings lately have become routine. Hope and music Students and trainers are not losing hope and regularly come to the citys only institute to rehearse and learn new lessons, says Ahmed Naser Sarmast, the director of ANIM and the founder of the orchestra. Zohra is the name of a music goddess in Persian literature, he explained. The musicologist spoke to VOA while visiting neighboring Pakistan earlier this month with the young ensemble to perform in Islamabad as part of celebrations marking the 99th anniversary of Afghanistans Independence Day. Kabuls embassy in Islamabad organized and arranged for the orchestras first visit to Pakistan. Despite the many challenges in Afghanistan, Sarmast said, student enrollment has consistently grown and more parents are bringing their children to the institute to study music. Around 300 students are studying not only music at the institute but other subjects, including the Quran, he said. Advances for women Negin Khpolwak, the orchestras first woman conductor, says Afghanistan has made significant advances in terms of promoting womens rights in the past 17 years. She says there is a need to sustain the momentum irrespective of rising violence. We need to stand up to protect those gains and we need to open the doors for other Afghan girls, Khpolwak said when asked whether deadly attacks around the country are reversing the gains women have made. But violence alone is not the only challenge for women and girls, especially those who want to study music, she said. When you are going in the street with your instrument to the school and they are saying bad words to you and if you are giving a concert in public they are telling the bad words to you. But we are not caring about it, Khpolwak said. Ethnic groups help each other Sarmast says that girls and boys in the orchestra come from different Afghan ethnic groups and they help each other when needed. Its hope for the future, he said. Ethnic rivalries have been a hallmark of hostilities in Afghanistan and continue to pose a challenge to efforts promoting peace and stability. I strongly believe without arts and culture there cannot be security and we are using the soft power of music to make a small contribution to bringing peace and stability in Afghanistan and at the same time using this beautiful, if I can call it a beautiful weapon, to transform our community, the director said. Some of the members of the Afghan orchestra were born and brought up in refugee camps in Pakistan, which still hosts around 3 million registered and unregistered Afghan families displaced by years of war, poverty, persecution and drought. We are using the healing power of music to look after the wounds of the Afghan people as well as the Pakistani people. We are here with the message of peace, brotherhood and freedom, Sarmast said. Afghanistan and Pakistan have experienced years of terrorist attacks, including massive casualties on both sides of their long shared border. Bilateral relations are marred by mistrust and suspicion. The countries blame each other for supporting terrorist attacks. Afghans allege that sanctuaries in Pakistan have enabled Taliban insurgents to sustain and expand their violent acts inside Afghanistan. Pakistan rejects the charges. The Islamist insurgency controls or is attempting to control nearly half of Afghanistan. A fugitive priest who fled the U.S. decades ago amid allegations of child sex abuse has been returned to New Mexico to face charges after being arrested in Morocco last year, federal officials said Friday. Arthur J. Perrault, 80, a former Catholic priest in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe and a former Air Force chaplain, has been charged in a federal indictment with seven counts of aggravated sexual abuse and abusive sexual contact between 1991 and 1992 at Kirtland Air Force Base and Santa Fe National Cemetery. Perrault, a one-time pastor at St. Bernadette parish in Albuquerque, is one of many priests who were sent to New Mexico in the 1960s from around the country for treatment involving pedophilia. Victims, lawyers and church documents show the priests were later assigned to parishes and schools across New Mexico, especially in small Native American and Hispanic communities. Vanished in 1992 Perrault was expected to make a court appearance later Friday in Albuquerque. It was unclear if he has a lawyer. The FBI and our partners were determined to make sure he faced justice, no matter how long it took and how far we had to go to get him, said James Langenberg, FBI special agent in charge of the Albuquerque office. Perrault vanished in 1992, just days before an attorney filed two lawsuits against the archdiocese alleging Perrault had sexually assaulted seven children at his parish. The FBI said Perrault first fled to Canada and then to Tangier, Morocco, where he worked until last year at an English-language school for children. The FBI did not release further details on how he was located and arrested by Moroccan authorities. Multiple accusations Church records released last year by a New Mexico judge show he is also accused in state lawsuits of sexually abusing at least 38 boys in other incidents. The federal charges involve a boy who was younger than 12 at the time of the alleged abuse on the air base and at the cemetery, two federal jurisdictions. This is a great day for survivors of clergy abuse everywhere, said Brad Hall, an attorney who has represented more than 100 victims of Catholic clergy abuse in New Mexico. Servants of the Paraclete Records show Perrault was sent in 1965 to Servants of the Paraclete, a religious order that ran a treatment center for pedophile priests in Jemez Springs, New Mexico, after he was accused of molesting young men while serving in Connecticut. A year later, he was recommended for a teaching post at St. Pius X High School in Albuquerque by a psychologist under contract with Servants of the Paraclete. Langenberg said the FBIs investigation began in 2016 and led to the indictment last year. There were some people who doubted Mr. Perrault would ever be back to New Mexico after being away for so long, Langenberg said. It was important to prove them wrong for one reason the victim in this case. Brazilian police have arrested a Lebanese man whom the United States suspects is one of the major financial backers of Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group. Assad Ahmad Barakat was arrested Friday in the Brazilian city of Foz do Iguacu. The town is situated in the so-called Tri-Border Area where Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay converge. The area has long been known as a haven for smugglers, traffickers and counterfeiters. Barakat is wanted in Paraguay on identity theft accusations, and a warrant was issued for his arrest last month. He spent six years in prison in Paraguay for tax evasion, but was released in 2008. Members of the Barakat clan made purchases worth $10 million, without declaring their value, at a casino in the Argentine city of Iguazu with the view to laundering the organizations money, Brazilian police said. Argentina has also accused Barakat of money-laundering on behalf of Hezbollah and has frozen Barakats funds and other assets, according to officials. It was not immediately clear whether Barakat will face charges in Brazil or be extradited to Paraguay. Shimon Samuels, the director of international relations at The Simon Wiesenthal Center, which researches and advocates against anti-Semitism, hate and terrorism, said in a statement that he hoped Barakats arrest in the Tri-Border area was a sign that the three countries will begin to drive Hezbollah out of Latin America. The U.S. has described Barakat as a global terrorist. Campaigning for Cameroon's October 7 presidential election officially begun Saturday. Opposition parties have failed to agree on a single candidate to face incumbent President Paul Biya and are suspicious of each other as they maneuver to unseat the man who has ruled Cameroon since for more than three and a half decades. Thousands of people march through the streets of the northern Cameroon town of Garoua, singing and pledging their support for Paul Biya as campaigns for the October 7 presidential election begin. The people are from the ruling Cameroon People's Democratic Movement (CPDM), and 20 other political parties whose leaders, last July, announced that they had endorsed the candidacy of Biya and had asked their supporters to vote for him. The National Salvation Front party of Cameroon's communication minister, Issa Tchiroma, is one of the parties that stands strong in support of Biya. Tchiroma says Biya is the only one seen as protecting Cameroon's interest. He says people are against Paul Biya and criticize him daily or attack his policies simply because he has been protecting the country's riches from foreign predators. He says people are offering their unconditional support to Biya because he has pledged that as long as he lives and as long as he has the support of the Cameroonian people, he will protect all natural resources and riches for future generations. Tchiroma spent 6 years in prison after he was arrested on 16 April 1984 for involvement in a coup attempt against Biya. When he regained freedom in 1990, he campaigned against Biya, but surprisingly Biya appointed him minister of transport in 1992 in what was viewed as a way of dividing and weakening the opposition. Since then, the countrys opposition has remained fractured, with eight candidates running against Biya in the presidential poll. Serge Espoire Matomba, candidate of the P.U.R.S. party, says even though campaigning has started, he still hopes, in talking with other contenders, the opposition will agree on a single candidate. "I speak with Professor Maurice Kamto, I speak with Akere Muna, I speak with Osih Joshua, I speak with Cabral Libi. That means we are still working on it." Maurice Kamto of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement party says he will not agree to surrender his candidacy to someone else. "Why should I abandon my candidacy and line up behind another one, no. I am a leader of a political party, I am not standing on my own." Twenty-eight candidates filed to compete in the presidential election. Cameroon's elections management body ELECAM accepted nine, including Biyas candidacy. Party leaders have traded blame for their failure to unite. The main opposition candidate Joshua Osih says he suspects some of the candidates are sponsored by Biya to keep the opposition fractured. The 85-year-old Biya, who has led the central African country since 1982, is favored to win another seven-year term. That would take his rule 2025. Officials in North and South Carolina are warning residents that the danger of flooding is not over, more than a week after Hurricane Florence pummeled the area with wind and heavy rainfall, killing at least 43 people in the Carolinas and neighboring Virginia. South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster warned Friday that "although the winds are gone and the rain is not falling, the water is still there and the worst is still to come." McMaster has estimated damage to his state to equal about $1.2 billion, calling it the worst disaster in the state's modern history. He has asked U.S. lawmakers for a swift delivery of federal aid. Florence dumped up to 91 centimeters of rain on parts of North Carolina, where many areas remain cut off by flooding. Access to the North Carolina port city of Wilmington, which was completely cut off by high water for days, has improved, but officials said they didn't know when evacuees would be able to return home. The University of North Carolina at Wilmington has announced it will not resume classes until October 1, after the storm damaged a number of buildings and rendered roads to the campus inaccessible. The storm knocked out power to more than 2.1 million people in the southeastern U.S. As floodwaters keep rising, so, too, are concerns over environmental and health dangers created by contaminated water. The state Department of Environmental Quality said flooding has caused several dozen hog waste lagoons in North Carolina to overflow, releasing contaminants into waterways. North Carolina's hog industry, among the nation's largest, absorbed its biggest hit from floodwaters in nearly two decades, industry officials said. North Carolina authorities said 5,500 hogs and nearly 3.5 million chickens were killed by the flooding, which could have damaged up to 57 million kilograms of tobacco worth as much as $350 million. President Donald Trump declared parts of the Carolinas disaster areas last week, freeing up federal funds for recovery efforts. Trump got a first-hand view of recovery efforts during a visit to the two states on Wednesday, when he said, "Unfortunately, the money will be a lot but its gonna come as fast as you need it." Gray muck is flowing into the Cape Fear River from the site of a dam breach at a Wilmington power plant Friday where an old coal ash dump had been covered over by Florences floodwaters. Duke Energy spokeswoman Paige Sheehan said Friday the utility doesnt believe the breach at the L.V. Sutton Power Station poses a significant threat of increased flooding to nearby communities. The potential environmental threat was unclear. No environmental regulators were at the scene, with officials citing unsafe conditions. Floodwaters breached several points early Friday in the earthen dam at Sutton Lake, the plants 1,100-acre (445-hectare) reservoir. Lake water then flooded one of three large coal ash dumps lining the lakeshore. Sheehan said the company cant rule out that ash might be escaping the flooded dump and flowing through the lake into the river. Toxic heavy metals The ash left over when coal is burned to generate electricity contains mercury, lead, arsenic and other toxic heavy metals. Duke said Friday the inundated basin at the plant contains about 400,000 cubic yards (305,820 cubic meters) of ash. The area received more than 30 inches (75 centimeters) of rain from former Hurricane Florence, with the Cape Fear River still rising Friday and expected to crest Sunday and remain at flood stage through early next week. Gray material the company characterized as coal combustion byproducts could be seen floating in the lake and river. Biggest coal ash spill of Florence Earthjustice, an environmental advocacy group with a boat in the river, provided The Associated Press with images Friday showing wide gray slicks in the water. A team member plucked a turtle from the muck and rinsed it off. Any big spill like this raises concerns about the impacts on the estuary ecosystem in the lower Cape Fear River, said Pete Harrison, a staff attorney with Earthjustice on the boat. This is Dukes third coal ash spill in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, and it looks like its the biggest yet. North Carolinas top environmental regulator said the possible environmental harm isnt yet known. No state inspectors had arrived by late Friday, though officials said they would be there as soon as conditions are considered safe for personnel to navigate the river and be onsite. What we dont know at this point is if any coal ash has filtered into the Cape Fear River, said Mike Regan, secretary for the state Department of Environmental Quality, at a news conference in Raleigh. We plan to conduct flyovers. Environmental Protection Agency regional administrator Trey Glenn said his staff was monitoring the situation at Sutton from the state Emergency Operations Center in Raleigh, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) northwest of the Sutton plant. He said dozens of EPA staff were scattered throughout the region impacted by Florence, checking on toxic waste sites and oil storage facilities. EPA serves in a support role to the impacted states and has offered assistance to North Carolina to help them respond to the reported Sutton coal ash incident, Glenn said. As of this evening, North Carolina has not requested additional support. No regulators on site With no regulators at the Sutton plant, it was left to Duke employees to collect water samples that would be tested in the companys in-house lab. Environmental groups also collected samples from the river that would be sent to a private lab. Security personnel for Duke blocked access Friday to Sutton Lake Road, leading to a public dock on the reservoir, a popular boating and fishing site. Duke denied a request for an Associated Press reporter to cross the barricade, saying the lake situation continues to change and is not safe. Sutton Lake is the former cooling pond for a coal-fired plant Duke retired in 2013 and replaced with a new generating station running off natural gas. Duke said that power plant was shut down overnight and all employees safely evacuated. Third breach, earlier scrutiny The breach at the Wilmington site is separate from last weekends reported rupture at a nearby coal ash landfill, which spilled enough material to fill 180 dump trucks. Dukes ash waste management has faced intense scrutiny since a drainage pipe collapsed under a waste pit at an old plant in Eden in 2014, triggering a massive spill that coated miles (kilometers) of the Dan River in gray sludge. The utility later agreed to plead guilty to nine Clean Water Act violations and pay $102 million in fines and restitution for illegally discharging pollution from ash dumps at five North Carolina power plants. It plans to close all its ash dumps by 2029. At the separate Duke plant near Goldsboro, three old coal-ash dumps capped with soil and trees were underwater Thursday after the Neuse River flooded. Staff from the environmental group Waterkeeper Alliance visited the flooded dumps at the H.F. Lee Power Plant by boat Wednesday, took photographs and collected samples of gray sludge washing into the floodwaters. State environmental regulators visited the site Thursday, but said they were unable to make a full assessment because of high water levels. The Duke spokeswoman Sheehan said any coal ash release at the Goldsboro site appeared minimal. South Carolina plant Meanwhile, South Carolinas state-owned utility said it expected floodwaters to enter a coal ash pond at one of its closed power plants. Santee Cooper spokeswoman Mollie Gore said the overtopping of an ash basin at the Granger plant near Conway should not be environmentally significant. Gore said nearly all the ash has been removed from the basin and water pumped in to prevent the dike from breaking. The company had placed a 2-foot (72-centimeter) high inflatable berm around the top of a second pond that has more coal ash in it. She estimates 200,000 tons (181 million kilograms) of ash are in a corner of the pond furthest from the rising Waccamaw River. The nation's immigration court judges are anxious and stressed by a quota system implemented by Attorney General Jeff Sessions that pushes them to close 700 cases per year as a way to get rid of an immense backlog, the head of the judges' union said Friday. It means judges would have an average of about 2 hours to complete cases an impossible ask for complicated asylum matters that can include hundreds of pages of documents and hours of testimony, Judge Ashley Tabaddor said. "This is an unprecedented act, which compromises the integrity of the court and undermines the decisional independence of immigration judges,'' she said in a speech at the National Press Club, in her capacity as head of the union. Tabaddor said the backlog of 750,000 cases was created in part by government bureaucracy and a neglected immigration court system. "Now, the same backlog is being used as a political tool to advance the current law enforcement policies,'' she said. Signature issue Curbing immigration is a signature issue for the Trump administration, and the jobs of the nation's more than 300 immigration judges are in the spotlight. They decide whether someone has a legal basis to remain in the country while the government tries to deport them, including those seeking asylum. Tabaddor presides in Los Angeles, where she oversees 2,000 cases, including many involving juveniles. The judges are employees of the Justice Department's Executive Office for Immigration Review, which is overseen by the attorney general unlike the criminal and civil justice systems where judges operate independently. Immigration court judges have repeatedly asked for independence, and Tabaddor brought it up again Friday, calling the current structure a serious design flaw. A Justice Department spokesman said the union has repeatedly tried to block common-sense reforms that would make the judges' jobs better, and that the proper home for the courts is where they are right now, under DOJ. Earlier this year, the Justice Department sent a memo to immigration judges telling them they would need to clear at least 700 cases a year in order to receive a "satisfactory'' rating on their performance evaluations. Sessions has pushed for faster rulings and issued a directive that prevents judges from administratively closing cases in an effort to decrease the backlog by 50 percent by 2020. This month, he appointed 44 new judges, the largest class of immigration judges in U.S. history, and has pledged to hire more. He said in a speech to the judges that he wouldn't apologize for asking them to perform "at a high level, efficiently and effectively.'' Tabaddor wouldn't say whether the quotas were also putting pressure on judges to deport more people not just decide cases faster. "There's certainly no question they're under pressure to complete more cases faster,'' she said. "I think I would just say listen to the attorney general's remarks and you can decide what messaging is going to be sent.'' Asylum qualifications Earlier this summer, Sessions tightened the restrictions on the types of cases that can qualify someone for asylum, making it harder for Central Americans who say they're fleeing the threat of gangs, drug smugglers or domestic violence to pass even the first hurdle for securing U.S. protection. Immigration lawyers say that's meant more asylum seekers failing interviews with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to establish credible fear of harm in their home countries. They also say that immigration judges are overwhelmingly signing off on those recommendations during appeals, effectively ending what could have been a yearslong asylum process almost before it's begun. President Donald Trump hasn't been behind the move to bolster the roster of judges. "We shouldn't be hiring judges by the thousands, as our ridiculous immigration laws demand, we should be changing our laws, building the Wall, hire Border Agents and Ice,'' he said in a tweet in June, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. A woman who has accused U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault has agreed to testify before a Senate panel next week, her lawyers said Saturday. U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley had set a Saturday afternoon deadline for Christine Blasey Ford, a California professor who accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her at a high school party 36 years ago, to decide whether and how she would testify. "Dr. Ford accepts the committee's request to provide her firsthand knowledge of Brett Kavanaugh's sexual misconduct next week," Debra Katz and Lisa Banks, Ford's attorneys, said in a statement. "We are hopeful that we can reach agreement on details." A person briefed on the discussions said late Saturday that a tentative agreement had been reached for the Judiciary Committee to hear testimony Thursday from Ford and Kavanaugh. Other terms of the public hearing are to be negotiated Sunday, the source said. Lawyers for Ford earlier said she would testify only if her safety is ensured. Katz has said her client has received death threats. The Washington Post reported Saturday that Ford and her family are no longer living at their California home, which was surrounded by reporters shortly after her identity became public. The Post reported that Ford and her husband have looked into a security service to escort their children to school. The Post says Ford met with FBI officials Friday to discuss her safety. Kavanaugh and his wife also have received threats. Vote delayed The Republican-controlled committee had delayed a vote on Kavanaugh's confirmation after Ford's allegation emerged last week. Kavanaugh has denied the allegation. Confirming Kavanaugh's nomination would cement conservative control of the Supreme Court and advance a White House effort to tilt the American judiciary farther to the right. Grassley had said earlier that the panel would vote on Kavanaugh's confirmation on Monday unless a deal was reached with Ford's lawyers by a Friday night deadline. Katz had said the deadline was "aggressive and artificial." "Your cavalier treatment of a sexual assault survivor who has been doing her best to cooperate with the committee is completely inappropriate," Katz added. The Judiciary Committee has struggled with how to proceed with Kavanaugh's nomination. Democrats have demanded more time for scrutiny, and Republicans want to move ahead quickly with a confirmation vote in an increasingly volatile political climate ahead of congressional elections on Nov. 6. Senate GOP investigators Senate Republican investigators have been looking into Ford's claims. The lawyer for Leland Keyser, who Ford has said attended the 1980s party at which Kavanaugh allegedly molested her, has told those investigators that Keyser doesnt recall such a gathering or know the Supreme Court nominee. The Washington Post reported Saturday that Ford said Keyser was at that high school party. But in an email late Saturday, Keyser attorney Howard Walsh told the committee she does not know Mr. Kavanaugh and she has no recollection of ever attending a gathering with Kavanaugh. In an interview with The Post at her home in Silver Spring, Maryland, Keyser added that she was close friends with Ford and believes her allegations. 'A fine man' Trump and the White House had been careful not to malign Ford after her allegations surfaced, but Trump dropped the restraint in his tweets on Friday. "I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents," Trump wrote. "I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place! "Judge Brett Kavanaugh is a fine man, with an impeccable reputation, who is under assault by radical left wing politicians who don't want to know the answers, they just want to destroy and delay." Earlier, Trump had said Ford should be heard, even if it meant a delay in the confirmation process. Republicans will be forced to walk a careful line in questioning Ford's account without alienating female voters ahead of the elections. Before the 2016 presidential election, more than a dozen women accused Trump of making unwanted advances. The Judiciary Committee released a letter it sent to Ford's attorneys on Friday in which it accepted some of their demands, including that Kavanaugh not be in the room when she testifies. The panel rejected some of the other demands, including that Kavanaugh testify first, that the committee call additional witnesses that Ford requests, and that only senators be allowed to ask questions. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, speaking at a gathering of evangelical voters in Washington, assured them Kavanaugh would be confirmed. The Senate panel must approve Kavanaugh's confirmation before a vote by the full Senate, where Republicans hold a 51-49 majority. Kavanaugh's confirmation to the lifetime position would be the second of the Trump administration and solidify conservative control of the nation's top court. Some information for this report came from AP. Iraqi mother Ibstisam Muhammad, 51, has a full-time job making bread to support her family even after she was blinded by an Islamic State (IS) bombing. Muhammad, nicknamed Aum Ashraf, has been a baker for 15 years, making Mosuls special flatbread recipe. She was blinded by shrapnel when an IS car bomb exploded in front of her house in Mosul during the beginning of the Iraqi operation against IS in November 2016. She told VOA her family has given her the reason to stay resilient and continue her job despite the difficulties caused by her impaired vision. As the saying goes: 'We get strength from our weaknesses,' Aum Ashraf told VOA. I can still stand tall and work to provide for my children. I am using my utmost power to make sure they can have a decent life. I dont want them to have needs that I cant fulfill. WATCH: Mosul Woman Blinded by IS Bombing Makes Bread to Support Her Family Aum Ashraf has four young children, ages 4 to 18. Her husband, 60, is suffering from chronic heart disease and is unable to work. Like many Mosul residents who had to endure a brutal battle between IS militants and U.S.-backed Iraqi forces, Aum Ashrafs family had to flee after their house was damaged in the IS car explosion. They are now renting a small house in eastern Mosul. By God, we suffered a lot. We witnessed a lot of humiliation and wrongdoing, she said. The daily struggles and hardships faced by her family also affect many of their neighbors in the city that has not recovered from IS rule and warfare. U.S.-backed Iraqi army troops and allied Shiite militants declared victory over IS in December 2017. The Iraqi government now says it needs up to $100 billion to reconstruct recaptured areas. An assessment by the Norwegian Refugee Council in July estimated $874 million was needed to repair basic infrastructure in Mosul alone. For Aum Ashraf, whose bread is well-known in the city for its freshness and sweet smell, baking skills can help pay rent, buy food, clothes and schooling needs. But she says she hopes to get medical treatment to recover her sight, a wish unlikely to come true by only selling bread. WATCH: Ibstisam Muhammad Makes Mosuls Special Flatbread Doctors have told Aum Ashraf that she needs to seek treatment outside Iraq to determine if she can regain her vision. She hopes that private donors and aid organizations could step in to help her see again. If only good people could come to help me see my children and my house again, to engage in a normal life like before, she told VOA. Thank God I dont think about it a lot, but I wish from God for them to help me and aid me in this good deed, she said. Pakistan said Saturday an intense gunfight with militants near the border with Afghanistan has killed seven soldiers, including an officer. The clash in North Waziristan erupted while security forces were conducting a counter-terrorism operation based on intelligence information in the remote region, said an army statement. A group of terrorists was reported to have infiltrated from across (the border) and hiding in a compound, it added. Pakistani security forces raided the compound and killed nine terrorists in the ensuing intense exchange of fire. The area has been cleared and bodies of the slain militants have been taken into custody to ascertain their identities, according to the militarys media wing, known as ISPR. The Waziristan region until recently used to be a major training ground for local and foreign militants, including Taliban insurgents waging a deadly insurgency inside Afghanistan. The Pakistan military launched a major ground and air offensive in North Waziristan back in 2014 and has since cleared more than 90 percent of the region of all terrorist groups, according to officials. Pakistan is unilaterally building a robust fence and new military posts to secure the nearly 2,600 kilometer traditionally porous and open border with Afghanistan. Officials hope the construction effort will block terrorist infiltration in both directions. Pakistan has slammed rival India for abruptly cancelling a rare meeting between foreign ministers of the two countries that were scheduled on the sidelines of the upcoming U.N. General Assembly. New Delhi called it off Friday, a day after publicly confirming Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj would meet her Pakistani counterpart, Shah Mehmood Qureshi. Disappointed at the arrogant and negative response by India to my call for resumption of the peace dialogue, Prime Minister Imran Khan tweeted Saturday. However, all my life I have come across small men occupying big offices who do not have the vision to see the larger picture, said the Pakistani leader. India cited the latest brutal killings of its security forces by Pakistan-based entities for cancelling the meeting and again accused the neighboring country of glorifying terrorism. The Indian foreign ministry said that "any conversation with Pakistan in such an environment would be meaningless." The terrorism accusation stemmed from postage stamps Pakistan issued earlier this year of a charismatic Kashmiri militant commander, Burhan Wani, who was killed by Indian troops in July, 2016. Pakistan dismissed Indian reasons for pulling out of the meeting as entirely unconvincing. A Foreign Ministry statement said the incident involving the alleged killing of an Indian solider and Wanis postage stamp predated New Delhis agreement to hold the foreign minister-level talks in New York. We believe by its ill-considered cancellation of the meeting, India has once again wasted a serious opportunity to change the dynamics of the bilateral relationship and put the region on the path of peace and development, Pakistan's ministry lamented. It strongly denied Pakistans link to the alleged cross-border attack, saying it happened two days before New Delhi agreed to hold the meeting and both sides were already aware and in contact about it. The Pakistani statement also defended the postage stamps, saying they highlight the gross and systematic human rights violations Indian forces are committing against residents of Kashmir on their side. Wanis death apparently sparked an unending wave of violent protests in the Indian-ruled portion of Kashmir. India has long accused Pakistan of arming Muslim separatists in the divided Himalayan territory of Kashmir, though both countries claim it in its entirety. Islamabad rejects the charges. The foreign minister meeting that had been scheduled in New York for later this month would have been the first high-level contact between India and Pakistan in nearly three years. The Indian decision to attend the meeting was made after Khan wrote to India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, and called for a resumption of talks between the nuclear-armed rival nations. "The letter from the prime minister of Pakistan had spoken of ... bringing a positive change and mutual desire for peace as also readiness to discuss terrorism," said the Indian Foreign Ministry while announcing cancellation of the meeting with Pakistan. "Now, it is obvious that behind Pakistan's proposal for talks to make a fresh beginning, the evil agenda of Pakistan stands exposed and the true face of the new prime minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, has been revealed to the world in his first few months in office, India alleged. Pakistan denounced the Indian Foreign Ministry for its comments against Khan, saying they are against "all norms of civilized discourse and diplomatic communication. The 4-year-old results of a survey about sexual abuse on U.S. military installations around the world, including ships, have finally been released. Several Army and Marine bases in 2014 Fort Hood, Fort Bragg, Fort Lewis, Fort Campbell, Fort Bliss and Camp Lejeune had more than 500 reported sexual assaults on men and women. Young, unmarried women on Navy ships were more likely to be assaulted than any other group in the military, according to the results released Friday. Of the 15 highest-risk installations for Navy women, 13 are ships or clusters of ships, including 8 of the 10 aircraft carriers, the study said. The report also said that on one ship, one in 25 men were assaulted. The Air Force had the lowest assault risk rate. The Pentagon was reported as one of the safest places to work. The Pentagon commissioned the nonpartisan Rand Corp. to conduct the study and then contested the group's findings, delaying the release of the results for years. Don Christensen, president of Protect Our Defenders and the former top prosecutor for the Air Force, said the delay was extremely disappointing. The delay means that the findings do not likely portray an accurate account of what is currently happening on the bases. The findings, however, present a harrowing picture of sexual abuse across the military, which has had a long history of ineffective efforts to stem the tide of sexual abuse on its installations. VOA's Steve Norman contributed to this report. Pirates kidnapped 12 crew members from a Swiss merchant vessel on Saturday in Nigerian waters, the ship's operator said in a statement. Massoel Shipping, operator of MV Glarus, said the vessel, with 19 crew members aboard and carrying wheat, was traveling between the southwestern commercial capital, Lagos, and the southern Niger Delta oil hub of Port Harcourt when it was boarded by pirates. It said the attack happened around 45 nautical miles south west of Bonny Island. "The company is working with the authorities and specialists to secure the speedy and safe release of those being held," Massoel Shipping said in its statement. The statement did not give the nationalities of the crew members. Switzerland's foreign ministry said it had learned from the company that none of the crew members was from Switzerland itself. Nigeria's navy and maritime police said they were unaware of the kidnapping and would investigate. Kidnapping for ransom is a common problem in parts of Nigeria. A number of foreigners have been kidnapped in the last few years in the southern Niger Delta region, source of most of the crude oil that is the mainstay of West Africa's biggest economy. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley has given the woman who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault until 2:30 p.m. Saturday to decide if she will testify next week, according to a report in The New York Times. The newspaper reported that Grassley sent an email to Christine Blasey Fords lawyers that said the Senate panel absolutely must hear by 2:30 p.m. about Fords decision. The Senate committee had given Ford until 10 p.m. Friday to make a decision, but her lawyer asked for a one-day extension minutes before the Friday deadline. Grassley announced the extension on Twitter in a post with an apologetic tone that was addressed to Kavanaugh. Lawyers for Ford have said she wants to testify before a Senate panel next week, but only if her safety is ensured. According to U.S. media reports, attorney Debra Katz said in an email to the Senate Judiciary Committee that Ford wishes to testify provided that we can agree on terms that are fair and which ensure her safety. Katz said her client has gotten death threats, and Ford and her family have been forced from their California home. Grassley, a Republican, has scheduled a hearing for Monday for both Ford and Kavanaugh to appear to tell their stories. But Katz wrote that Mondays date is not possible and the committees insistence that it occur then is arbitrary in any event. Katz said Fords strong preference is that a full investigation be completed before she testifies. She had earlier called for the FBI to look into the charges against Kavanaugh. Trump tweets On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump questioned the integrity of Ford, posting on Twitter that if the attack ... was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with police. Trump also accused radical left wing politicians of attacking Kavanaugh, who Ford said sexually assaulted her at a house party 36 years ago. Late Thursday, the White House released a letter from Kavanaugh to Grassley in which he said he wants to tell his side in a Monday hearing. I will be there. I continue to want a hearing as soon as possible so that I can clear my name, he wrote. Media reports say Kavanaugh has also received what law enforcement officials say are credible death threats. Confirmation seemed certain Trump chose Kavanaugh to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court created by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy. His approval by the Judiciary Committee and the Republican-majority Senate appeared to be an almost certainty until The Washington Post published its interview with Ford, who is now a California psychology professor. She alleged a stumbling drunk 17-year-old Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a Maryland house party in 1982 when both were in high school. She said Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed and groped her, putting his hand over her mouth when she tried to scream, before she managed to escape. Kavanaugh has adamantly denied the charges, saying he has never done any such thing to Ford or any other woman. Supporters for both sides Women who say they have known and worked with Kavanaugh throughout his legal career say he has been respectful and fair in dealing with them. Dozens of women who support Kavanaugh held a Washington news conference Friday. Sara Fagen, who described herself as a friend and former colleague of Kavanaugh, said she and the other women at the news conference believe the allegation is untrue. The reason that we know that this allegation is false is because we know Brett Kavanaugh, Fagen said. Women who attended Holton-Arms High School in Bethesda, Maryland, with Ford signed a letter in support of her that was personally delivered Thursday to Republican Senator and Holton-Arms alumna Shelley Moore Capito. Organizers said it was signed by more than 1,000 former students. We believe Dr. Blasey Ford and are grateful that she came forward to tell her story, the letter said. Dr. Blasey Fords experience is all too consistent with stories we heard and lived while attending Holton. Many of us are survivors ourselves. Republican lawmakers are trying to win Senate confirmation for Kavanaugh ahead of the courts start of a new term on Oct. 1, or if not by then, ahead of the Nov. 6 nationwide congressional elections, to show Republican voters they have made good on campaign promises to place conservative judges like Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court. The death toll rose to 167 and one survivor was reportedly rescued Saturday from the ferry that capsized in Tanzania's Lake Victoria Thursday. Tanzanian officials continued their search inside the overturned vessel for a third day Saturday as an investigation into the disaster got underway. Search teams spent the day pulling bodies from the MV Nyerere, which sank amid speculation it was overcrowded, as four days of mourning began for victims. The Associated Press reported Saturday that one man was pulled alive from the wreckage. The wire service said the vessel's engineer was rescued near the engine. There was no report on his condition. Tanzania's chief secretary, John Kijazi, had told reporters the ferry had a passenger capacity of 101. Kijazi said that he ordered an investigation into the incident and that charges would be filed against those found responsible. Regional commissioner John Mongella said Friday he would not "speculate" on how many people were aboard the MV Nyerere, but it is not uncommon for watercraft to carry hundreds of passengers at a time. Local media say the ferry might have been carrying 200 passengers when it capsized. He said at least 40 people were rescued shortly after the Thursday accident and that some of those individuals were in very bad condition. Tanzania's state radio reported passengers boarded the ferry at Bugolora, a town on Ukerewe Island, and were en route to the island of Ukara when the vessel overturned. History of deadly ferry incidents The cause of the sinking has not been determined, but overcrowding often has been faulted in previous cases. In 1996, according to Tanzanian government records, about 800 people were killed when the MV Bukoba capsized on Lake Victoria. In 2011, hundreds were confirmed dead when the MV Spice Islander I sank off the coast of the archipelago of Zanzibar. Lax safety measures? Mbaki Farki, a diver in Tanzania who participated in the 2011 rescue operation, told VOA's Swahili Service that the ferry fleet on Lake Victoria lacks safety precautions. Ferries are supposed to have life jackets and life rings, but the fleet has insufficient equipment, Farki said. He added that the vessels also lack services for people with disabilities, among the most vulnerable in such incidents. I am asking the government to prepare rescue teams in Tanzania because we have the marines, police and navy," Farki said. "We need to have rescue teams everywhere so that we can deal with these kinds of tragedies. In Tanzania, we look for help and rescue teams only when tragedy strikes." The Tanzanian Red Cross Society has been working on rescue and recovery. Godfrida Jola, a spokeswoman, told VOA that the organization had helped rescue 35 people but also was trying to deliver body bags for the dead. Many of the victims did not know how to swim, Jola said, describing it as a widespread problem that the Red Cross would address to safeguard against further tragedy. "At Red Cross, we have taken it as a lesson learned and on our program we are going to work together with those communities to prepare them ... so that they can be able to swim," Jola said. Charles Misango, lost 11 members of his family when the MV Nyerere capsized, he told VOA's Swahili service. He challenged President John Magufuli's government to accept responsibility for the disaster. A spokesman for the president said Magufuli was "deeply saddened" by the tragedy and urged citizens to "stay calm during these difficult times." John Mnyika, of the main opposition party Chadema, accused the government of dereliction. "We have often raised concerns about the poor condition of this ferry, but the government turned a deaf ear," he said. "We have repeatedly denounced this negligence." The VOA Swahili Service's Sunday Shomari and Idd Ligongo contributed to this report. Hundreds of thousands of people were stranded without power in and around the Canadian capital of Ottawa on Saturday after a tornado touched down twice, destroying some houses and ripping the roofs off others. High winds also battered the region, and Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson said it could be days before electricity was fully restored. At least six people were injured. "It's in the top two or three traumatic events that have affected our city," Watson told reporters. "It looks like something from a movie scene or a war scene." The tornado hit on Friday evening, demolishing homes in the town of Dunrobin to the northwest of the city before crossing over to the town of Gatineau, which lies directly to the north of Ottawa in the province of Quebec. High winds damaged part of Ottawa's major electrical substations, and officials said around 200,000 people on both sides of the river were without power. Ottawa and Gatineau together have a population of around 1.3 million people. "We have lost absolutely everything. I have got a beer fridge that's sitting in my garage that is the only thing that is untouched but everything else has gone," Ottawa resident Todd Nicholson told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. He was not home when the tornado struck. Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard broke off campaigning ahead of an Oct. 1 provincial election to travel to Gatineau. Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan died Aug. 18 and was buried last week in his home country of Ghana with highest honors. At the United Nations on Friday, the international community and his family remembered Annan as a man of peace who was dedicated to humanity. Kofi Annan joined the U.N. system in 1962 and spent decades rising through the ranks to become peacekeeping chief and ultimately, in 1997, the organizations seventh secretary-general. Current U.N. Chief Antonio Guterres led the tributes to him. Throughout his tenure Kofi Annan urged us never to be bystanders in life. He summoned us all to act against bias, brutality and bloodshed. He was a multilateralist through and through, Guterres said. The president of Ghana sent Annan Cato as his special representative to the memorial. As the first Secretary-General from sub-Saharan Africa, Kofi Annan brought considerable renown to Ghana and to Africa, evidenced by his conduct and comportment in the global arena, especially at difficult periods in the history of the organization, Cato said. Achievements and shortfalls Among Annans achievements was his work to mobilize a global response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic and to institute the Millennium Development Goals, which helped make inroads in the eradication of poverty. In 2001, Annan and the United Nations jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize. But the Rwandan genocide happened on his watch as peacekeeping chief and his tenure as secretary-general was tarnished by the oil-for-food corruption scandal in Iraq. After a decade at the helm of the U.N., Annan continued to work for peace through his Annan Foundation and with The Elders. His immediate successor as secretary-general and a fellow Elder, Ban Ki-moon, praised Annan as a genuine force for global good. I am confident that history will show, as the years pass, that Kofi Annan was a monumental leader, he said. Sons tribute Annans wife of 35 years, Nane, spoke of his glowing aura of radiant warmth and joy of life. But one of the most moving tributes came from his son, Kojo, who said that it was unimaginable that a man born in Ghanas second city of Kumasi and who never left his country before he was 18 years old would rise to become the worlds top diplomat. And yet that was my fathers story, he said. It was a story that became his world view. If it was possible for him, why should stability, peace, security, justice, sustenance, education, opportunity or success be impossible for anyone else? He said that although his fathers race had ended, his work continued to build a world where potential is recognized in everyone and everyone can find a home. Tensions between China and the United States escalated Saturday as China's Foreign Ministry summoned U.S. Ambassador to China Terry Branstad to issue a harsh protest against U.S. sanctions set for the purchase of Russian fighter jets and surface-to-air missiles. The move came hours after China canceled trade talks with the U.S. following Washington's imposition of new tariffs on Chinese goods. The statement on the Chinese Foreign Ministry's website called the imposition of sanctions "a serious violation of the basic principles of international law" and a "hegemonic act." The ministry also wrote, "Sino-Russian military cooperation is the normal cooperation of the two sovereign states, and the U.S. has no right to interfere." The U.S. actions, it said, "have seriously damaged the relations" with China. China had earlier called on the U.S. to withdraw the sanctions, and speaking to reporters Friday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Beijing had lodged an official protest with the United States. China's purchase of the weapons from Russian arms exporter Rosoboronexport violated a 2017 U.S. law intended to punish the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin for interfering in U.S. elections and other activities. The U.S. action set in motion a visa ban on China's Equipment Development Department and director Li Shangfu, forbids transactions with the U.S. financial system, and blocks all property and interests in property involving the country within U.S. jurisdiction. Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reported that China had planned to send Vice Premier Liu He to Washington next week for trade talks, but canceled his trip, along with that of a midlevel delegation that was to precede him. Earlier Friday, a senior White House official had said the U.S. was optimistic about finding a way forward in trade talks with China. The official told reporters at the White House that China "must come to the table in a meaningful way" for there to be progress on the trade dispute. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that while there was no confirmed meeting between the United States and China, the two countries "remain in touch." "The president's team is all on the same page as to what's required from China," according to the official. The Trump administration has argued that tariffs on Chinese goods would force China to trade on more favorable terms with the United States. It has demanded that China better protect American intellectual property, including ending the practice of cybertheft. The Trump administration has also called on China to allow U.S. companies greater access to Chinese markets and to cut its U.S. trade surplus. Earlier this week, the United States ordered duties on another $200 billion of Chinese goods to go into effect on Sept. 24. China responded by adding $60 billion of U.S. products to its import tariff list. The United States already has imposed tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods, and China has retaliated on an equal amount of U.S. goods. U.S. President Donald Trump has expressed condolences to the Vietnamese people at the death of their president, Tran Dai Quang, who died Friday at age 61 after a serious illness. In a statement, Trump called Quang a great friend of the United States and noted that Quang had graciously hosted the U.S. president during his state visit to Vietnam in November last year. I am grateful for his personal commitment to deepening the United States-Vietnam Comprehensive Partnership, Trump said Friday. He added, We will not soon forget his contributions to peace, security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region or his voice for Vietnam as a proud and independent nation on the world stage. Vietnams official news agency announced Quangs death on Friday at the Military Hospital in Hanoi. It said Quang died of serious illness but did not elaborate. Quang was last seen in public Wednesday at a Politburo meeting of the Communist Party and a reception for a Chinese delegation. Quang was a career security officer and served as minister of public security before he was elected president in April 2016. The lawyer for Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, asked late Friday for an extra day to decide if she will testify next week. It was not immediately clear if the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee will give Ford until Saturday to make her decision. Earlier, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley told the lawyers for Ford that the panel has been extremely accommodating to your client and wants to hear Fords testimony. Im extending the deadline for response yet again to 10 oclock this evening, he said in the statement to Fords lawyers. Grassley then tweeted Friday night: Lawyers for Ford have said she wants to testify before a Senate panel next week, but only if her safety is guaranteed. According to U.S. media reports, attorney Debra Katz said in an email to the Judiciary Committee that Ford wishes to testify provided that we can agree on terms that are fair and which ensure her safety. Katz said her client has received death threats, and that Ford and her family had been forced out of their California home. Grassley had scheduled the hearing for Monday for both Ford and Kavanaugh to appear to tell their stories. But Katz wrote that Mondays date is not possible and the committees insistence that it occur then is arbitrary in any event. Katz said Fords strong preference is that a full investigation be completed before she testifies. She had earlier called for the FBI to probe the charges against Kavanaugh. On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump questioned the integrity of Ford, posting on Twitter that if the attack ... was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with police. Trump also accused radical left wing politicians of attacking Kavanaugh, who Ford said sexually assaulted her at a house party 36 years ago. Late Thursday, the White House released a letter from Kavanaugh to Grassley in which he said he wanted to tell his side in the Monday hearing. I will be there. I continue to want a hearing as soon as possible so that I can clear my name, he wrote. Media reports said Kavanaugh had also received what law enforcement officials said were credible death threats. Trump chose Kavanaugh to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court created by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy. His approval by the Judiciary Committee and the Republican-majority Senate appeared to be a near certainty until The Washington Post published its interview with Ford, who is now a California psychology professor. She alleged a stumbling drunk 17-year-old Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a Maryland house party in 1982 when both were in high school. She said Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed and groped her, putting his hand over her mouth when she tried to scream, before she managed to escape. Kavanaugh has adamantly denied the charges, saying he has never done any such thing to Ford or any other woman. Women who say they have known and worked with Kavanaugh throughout his legal career say he has been respectful and fair in dealing with them. Dozens of women who support Kavanaugh held a Washington news conference Friday. Sara Fagen, who described herself as a friend and former colleague of Kavanaugh, said she and the other women at the news conference believe the allegation is untrue. The reason that we know that this allegation is false is because we know Brett Kavanaugh, Fagen said. Women who attended Holton-Arms High School in Bethesda, Maryland, with Ford signed a letter in support of her that was personally delivered Thursday to West Virginia Republican Senator and Holton-Arms alumna Shelley Moore Capito. Organizers said it was signed by more than 1,000 former students. We believe Dr. Blasey Ford and are grateful that she came forward to tell her story, the letter said. Dr. Blasey Fords experience is all too consistent with stories we heard and lived while attending Holton. Many of us are survivors ourselves. Republican lawmakers are trying to win Senate confirmation for Kavanaugh ahead of the courts start of a new term on Oct. 1 or, if not by then, ahead of the Nov. 6 nationwide congressional elections, to show Republican voters they have made good on campaign promises to place conservative judges like Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court. Miss Manners is not saying this is your best practice, but she also does not see another option. When the server comes around to collect your plate, you may say, I am so sorry for the stains, but our plates, while beautiful, seem to have trouble holding our utensils. With copious amounts of dirty laundry, the restaurant may find that they are due for yet another update in decor. The immigration judges association has urged Congress for years to make immigration an independent court similar to the U.S. Tax Court. This year, the union endorsed a proposal to create a new system of immigration appeals and trial-level judges. The appeals judges would be named by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The appellate judges would then name the trial-level judges. 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 Hogan, the popular incumbent, sees people happy with his effort to address real problems but still frustrated with traffic, neighboring states that dont do enough to help restore the Chesapeake Bay and a high tax burden. I want to go much further and provide much more tax relief for small businesses, for middle-class taxpayers and for retirees, he said, before adding a pragmatic caveat: Weve got to find a way to pay for it, and Ive got to get the legislature on board. Amy Spitalnick, a spokeswoman for the New York attorney generals office, said on Friday that Rosss answers will be crucial to the case. Secretary Ross testified to Congress that [the Department of Justice] initiated the request for the citizenship question because of Voting Rights Act concerns; yet documents show otherwise, instead reflecting Secretary Ross concern for reducing representation of communities with large immigrant populations. We look forward to getting to the bottom of this as we continue our suit to ensure a full and fair Census, she wrote in an email. The result of that vow came to fruition Saturday at Syriana, where he presented the city with a check for $10,000, which he had raised from Syrian Americans from all over the country who had seen the destruction and wanted to show their gratitude not just to Ellicott, but also to the United States for accepting them. Its so many things were doing to try to minimize the potential for that the leakage mitigation on the Red Line . . . the extra hours that we have to maintain the system, where we can get out there to clean the drains and things like that, Metro General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld said. Its very important. So, overall, yes, the trend is moving that way. While I dont support Medicaid expansion, I do believe if were going to have it, it needs to have the work requirement, and it needs to be in there as soon as possible, said state Sen. Richard Stuart (R-Stafford), a member of the Senate Finance Committee who got a briefing from the state Department of Medical Assistance Services on Thursday. Grebmeier has been digging up animals in the waters between Alaska and Russia for more than 30 years. And she has noticed a trend: A retreat has begun here at the edge of the Arctic. With temperatures rising, creatures such as amphipods have been inching northward. Meanwhile, clams and fish and whales from balmier climes have begun to move in. Native Americans settle abuse claim: Four Native Americans who claimed they were sexually abused while enrolled in a now-defunct Mormon Church foster program decades ago filed paperwork to dismiss their cases after reaching financial settlements, their lawyer said. Allegations have been made against the church by more than a dozen tribal members from the Navajo Nation and Crow Tribe of Montana. Megan Price, 14, helps her father, Pat Price, suit up Thursday as he readies to take a rescue boat out to retrieve a floating propane tank from floods in Seven Springs, N.C., on Thursday. Hurricane Florences rains caused the Neuse River to rise to major flood levels again, two years after Hurricane Matthew did the same. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post) hen Hurricane Florence crashed into North Carolinas coastline last week, just a tree or two fell in this tiny town along the Neuse River, 70 miles inland. Soon, the power went out. As high winds and storm surge battered eastern cities such as Wilmington and New Bern, the residents here those who hadnt already moved away left for higher ground to wait out what appeared to be a weakening tempest. The storm then spun out over the state and broke up, unleashing massive rains before it moved on. When President Trump flew to North Carolina under sunlit skies five days later, evacuation orders were lifting, and people were beginning to go back home. But here, in Seven Springs, the menace was mounting steadily. It seeped up Main Street, past the shop by the boat landing that sells fishing tackle, through the fire station, into Maes Restaurant. When the Neuse finally peaked at three feet above major flood levels on Thursday, the mayor, who had not left his house since Monday, sat stranded on his front porch where Main and Easy streets meet. He eyed a ripped plastic bag of kitchen trash bobbing in the murky torrents whooshing by, a two-feet-deep brew of urban waste and everything else the Neuse picks up as it wends past hog farms and chicken houses on its 275-mile journey through North Carolina. After Seven Springs, the swollen river flows by Kinston, where it is expected to crest early Saturday, and then New Bern and James City and on into the Pamlico Sound at the foot of the Outer Banks. Seven Springs Mayor Stephen Potter gets a visit from two members of the Seven Springs Volunteer Fire Department. The mayor cares for his elderly mother at his home, which he has not left in days. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post) This, Potter said, is the real disaster, just like before, with Matthew in 2016, Floyd in 1999, and Fran in 1996. It comes on a time-delay, long after the winds and the rains have dissipated and attention has been diverted. The original assault over, the river completes a stealth attack, rising relentlessly out of its banks, lapping over curbs, inching its way onto porches and through doorways, and creeping up the riser onto the fourth of the new front steps that Potter had built two years ago. Some roads around Seven Springs became impassible Thursday evening. Residents in parts of Bladen County to the south faced new mandatory evacuations as the Cape Fear River also continued to rise, with a crest expected during the weekend. Floodwaters breached a dam near a Duke Energy power plant on Friday, the company said, sending material from a toxic coal ash basin flowing into the Cape Fear River. The river rises were predicted given the amount of rain Florence and its remnants dropped across the region more than 30 inches in some places and state officials have long been saying that the water, not the storm whence it came, was the real threat. Small towns such as Seven Springs are paying the price; it has become more difficult to anticipate when the Neuse will crest, let alone how high. The flow of water changes every year, said J. Mac Daughety, a county commissioner from neighboring Lenoir County who stood beside rescue vehicles on a short, dry stretch of Main Street, where a single brick marked the highest point the water has reached this time around. During the flooding two years ago, Carolyn Griffin, 85, reluctantly agreed to let the National Guard carry her out of her stately Victorian house on Main Street. Her grandparents owned it once, and it had never taken in a drop of floodwater until the end of the century, when Floyd sent the river into its foundation. [Archival video: Carolyn Giffin is urged to evacuate her Seven Springs home in 2016] Then Matthew slipped straight in through the front door. Florence is further confirmation of what Griffin already knew: She wont be moving back. Even the handsome family furniture she rescued is bleached and cracking from the soaking it took. I think its a little bit too late for an ark, Griffin said. Potter, from his elevated perch across the street, tells a similar story. He purchased the old family home in 1992. In 100 years, it had never had water in it until Floyd, he said. He gave the old frame away to one of Griffins daughters and had a new house built in 2000, elevated four feet above ground. That took in a foot of water in Matthew, and he has since rebuilt, this time another four feet higher. Water wasnt always such a foe here. The town was named after seven springs that were believed to have medicinal properties. Doctors would prescribe a visit to the hotel (now closed) so patients could ingest a concoction from the dipping wells: one scoop of water from Spring 1, mixed with two scoops from Spring 3 and half a scoop from Spring 5. If we are going to survive, we need the river to be our friend again, said Potter, who has a vision for combined residential and recreational redevelopment. That could be a challenge in a town that has been in a long retreat. Seven Springs, which hit its peak population of 207 in the 1960 Census and had 163 residents in 1990, saw nearly 50 percent of its population flee by 2000, the year after Floyd. More have left since, Potter said. Seven Springs Mayor Stephen Potter looks out at his flooded town from his porch above the water line. His home stands out with the lights on in a mostly darkened downtown. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post) Seven Springs resident William Bazemore looks down the flooded Main Street. He lost his home in Hurricane Matthew two years ago and still lives in a camper that is parked in a friends backyard. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post) Easy Street meets Main Street in an area of Seven Springs that is flooded. Still suffering from two-year-old effects, many of the towns residents have fled permanently. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post) The fire station is flooded, and its new building on higher ground is not yet completed. Volunteer firefighters line up behind the brick high-water marker on Main Street, ready to attempt a rescue or occasionally ferry food supplies or guests to Potter and his mother, their dog, three cats and a feral feline who took refuge with them. The rescue center also being rebuilt on higher ground is acting as a temporary shelter, providing evening meals for anybody who shows up hungry, Jackie Rouse who laments that there are now two feet of water in her restaurant, Maes donated ham biscuits, potato salad and chicken. She has reached out to her landlord to ask about reopening. So far, she said, he is waiting to see what it looks like when the water recedes. The post office, which operated out of a mobile unit after Matthew, is temporarily closed. The bank has gone. And it looks as if more residents could move away, too. The home of Carolyn Griffin, 85, has been in her family for decades. It was badly damaged during flooding after Hurricane Matthew two years ago, and again this week after Hurricane Florence touched off major floods. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post) Carolyn Griffin walked back into her family house Thursday, water knocking on her front door. She was wary of the fire ants that invaded by the billions two years ago. This time, she was marveling at how the mold keeps right on and on, going up. The skeleton of century-old studs and joists is on display now that the plaster has been ripped out, but the shapes of the rooms bring back old memories of sitting by the wood stove and pushing back her grandmothers dining room table to create a dance floor. Two out of a couple hundred sandbags that she and her daughters filled to keep Matthew out lay the patio, which was once ablaze with bright azaleas. We used to know our floods, Griffin said, repeating what she has often told neighbors. But she sounds a little weary when she tries to explain the repeated recent inundations now. Im gonna have to keep me a log. The fate of the family house and several other buildings that surround it remains uncertain: The way we were raised is you dont sell family land, said her daughter, Karla Griffin, noting that the home has been in the family for four generations. But neither Karla nor her two sisters have children We have no heirs, she said. It is not clear that anybody would want to buy it. They have looked into grants for having the property restored, and they have resisted letting it be torn down. The same uncertainty comes up about the town. Nobody seems quite certain even how many people still live here. Potter, who has invested heavily in elevating his house so it can survive a storm like Florence, puts the number at 60. Others say its closer to 25 or 30. Karlas sister, Allie Price, begins counting out on the fingers of two hands the families who still live in central Seven Springs, pointing out their houses as she goes. Karla, a town commissioner, interrupts with one number she is sure of: Fourteen registered voters, she said. And that includes me and mom. Taiwan police arrest American 3-D gun designer: Authorities in Taiwan arrested the owner of a Texas company that sells plans to make untraceable 3-D printed guns who is wanted in the United States over an accusation that he had sex with an underage girl and paid her $500, official media reported. The Central News Agency said Taiwanese police found and arrested Cody Wilson in a hotel in Taipei on Friday evening. The news agency said the island's immigration agency would arrange for Wilson to return to the United States as soon as possible. Floods ravage Mexican state: More than 3,000 people have taken refuge at temporary shelters in Sinaloa after floods ravaged the Mexican state on the Gulf of California. The Mexican Interior Ministry said Saturday that 29 shelters have been set up in Sinaloa, and that electricity has been restored to nearly all the 59,328 users who lost power after a tropical storm moved in on Thursday. The storm dumped as much as 14 inches of rain in just 24 hours. Many of us have done things in our youth of which we are not proud, me included. Often we learn from these things and move on, never to repeat them. These errors of judgment should not define our entire lives. There is such a thing as forgiveness and redemption. I truly feel that, even if this allegation is true, unless it becomes clear that Mr. Kavanaugh has continued to perpetuate acts of aggression against women, then we as a society must move on, in gratitude that one man has learned from his mistakes and become a person of honor and integrity as so many claim Mr. Kavanaugh to be. Hanging Mr. Kavanaugh is not going to help Ms. Ford or this country. Netanyahu has undertaken a profound shift in the states identity as a representative of the Jewish people to a state that aims to advance its own expansion through seizure of land, violation of international law, exclusion and discrimination, she wrote. Israel will be able to count only on the support of a handful of billionaires and the ultra-Orthodox in America. Trumpism is a passing phase in American politics. Latinos and left-wing Democrats will become increasingly involved in the countrys politics, and as they do, these politicians will find it increasingly difficult to justify continued American support of Israeli policies that are abhorrent to liberal democracies. Unlike in the past, however, Jews will no longer pressure them to look the other way. This debacle du jour dramatizes how the courts stature is hostage to the degrading confirmation process, which has become a maelstrom of insincerities. The justices who emerge from it suffer subtractions from the dignity that gives their decisions momentum for respect. For 64 years, the infusion of prestige the court received from its desegregation rulings has been remarkably durable, despite decisions e.g., Roe v. Wade and Bush v. Gore that were made during, and that intensified, turbulence in public sentiment. But prestige is perishable, and senatorial ludicrousness can infect all who come into contact with it. Why in the world, why in the world would you take that long? Why couldnt she remember where it was or when it happened? said Marketto, who acknowledged she, too, had waited decades before reporting her alleged abuse. She said her allegation came in a different era and when she was a child, not a teenager. As negotiations continued, Leland Keyser, a woman Ford told The Washington Post was present at the party where she alleges Kavanaugh assaulted her, came forward to say she does not know Mr. Kavanaugh and she has no recollection of ever being at a party or gathering where he was present, according to an email her lawyer sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee, obtained by The Post. In a brief interview at her home in Silver Spring, Keyser said that she did not recall the party, but that she was close friends with Ford and that she believes Fords allegation. But Wiggins said she does not believe Ford is telling the truth because of the timing of her allegations. Ford has said she did not tell anyone about the incident in which she alleged Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed, groped her and covered her mouth when she tried to scream until 2012, when she was in couples therapy with her husband. Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) are seen during the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post) When the Judiciary Committee reconvenes to determine the fate of Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh, four veterans will sit in the middle of the panel dais with a combined 150 years of Senate service. Supporters will see an up-by-his-boostraps farmer, a trailblazing feminist, a prolific conservative legislator and a liberal legend. Critics will see two Republicans and two Democrats in the twilight of their careers leading one of the most sensitive and consequential hearings in 30 years. No one will see a future president. No one. And yet all four senators have a potential claim on presidential succession. A random quirk in Senate custom grants the position of president pro tempore to the longest-serving member of the majority party. While largely honorific, that post falls behind the vice president and House speaker in the line to the nations highest office. Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, 84, is the Senates pro tempore, but the Utah Republican is retiring at the end of the year. Depending on who wins the majority, either Sens. Charles E. Grassley, 85, or Patrick J. Leahy, 78, would take the position. The Iowa Republican and Vermont Democrat each won a full six-year term in 2016. View Graphic Impeachment, Obamacare and the Supreme Court: What Democratic control of the House means for Trump Just behind Leahy, if something would force him from office, is Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the 85-year-old who is running for reelection in November. Congressional historians believe this should be fixed. It doesnt make a whole lot of sense to have the office of the presidency devolve on an octogenarian, said Ross K. Baker, a distinguished professor at Rutgers University who did five fellowships in Senate offices the past two decades. To be sure, Baker himself turned 80 in June. He believes that the pro tempore position should just be given to the majority leader. It makes a great deal of sense, he said. That rules change would hand the post to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who at 76 is two years younger than Leahy. How the oldest Senate ever is taking a toll on the business of Washington At least that leadership position comes through an election process in the party caucus. Recent majority leaders have included Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.), 53 when he took the job, and Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), then 50. The custom of granting the longest-tenured senator in the majority the pro tempore position begin in the late 19th century, according to a 2015 report from the Congressional Research Service. For most of the 19th century when the Senate operated without majority and minority leaders the Senate elected the pro tempore position much like todays leadership elections. The quartet of senior senators will face a more intense spotlight if a Judiciary Committee hearing is held with Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who has accused the judge of sexual assault when they were teenagers. The four senators get their collective ire up against ageism when someone suggests they are too old to run a committee hearing, but its an open secret on Capitol Hill that they have slipped a bit. Grassley, the Judiciary Committee chairman, often tells reporters and staff to hold off on conversations during subway rides in the Capitol because it is too hard for him to hear. During the last two years, Hatch has made many statements on taxes and health-care legislation that aides were forced to clarify later. Leahy is showing his age, walking with a distinctive stoop. And Feinstein, the top Judiciary Democrat, has struggled at times with details. Late last month, approached by reporters from The Washington Post and legal news site Law 360, Feinstein could not remember questions she posed to Kavanaugh in her meeting earlier that afternoon. Well right now I cant think of them, but all I can say is, we had a good meeting, she said. I very much appreciate the conversation. If I had known I was going to be asked, I wouldve written it all down. Grassley grew up on a family farm, where he still works. He boasts about running three miles four times a week. Leahy celebrates each birthday by scuba diving to the depth of his age. As she runs for reelection, Feinstein highlights her experience. I think people understand Im now ranking on Judiciary, going into one of the biggest moments that this party has, she told reporters in July at her states Democratic convention. Leahy believes veteran senators are on the march. As the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, he worked closely with the 84-year-old chairman, Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), during a very productive run this summer. Senator Leahy is as effective as a legislator today as hes ever been, said David Carle, Leahys spokesman. And Hatch, the outgoing Senate pro tempore, defended all four. No one in American government matches these four senators in terms of demonstrated leadership, accrued wisdom, and institutional memory in other words, the very qualities wed need in a president in a moment of national crisis, Matt Whitlock, his spokesman, said in a statement. Institutional memory is a crucial trait, but President Grassley? Or President Leahy? The 2001 terrorists attacks are believed to have initially targeted the White House and the Capitol, and on that day the sitting Senate president pro tempore, Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), wandered outside the Capitols East Front amid the chaos with no staff. Ever since, the post has come with a security detail and a car, as well prime office space in the Capitol and a handful of paid staff. Also, with President Trumps 2016 campaign under investigation, its not completely implausible to see the vice presidency vacated, with Mike Pence taking the top job. In such a scenario, a Democratic-controlled House might not quickly confirm the new vice president. During such an extended period, the line of succession next year could rest with a House speaker who is now 78, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and 85-year-old Grassley. The reality is, no one wants to go to these venerated lawmakers and take away the perks of the pro tempore office, offending them. Yet the easy answer comes from history: In 1977, after former vice president Hubert Humphrey (D-Minn.) returned to the Senate, the chamber created the temporary post of deputy president pro tempore. Such a rules change could easily be made now. It would allow the most senior senators to continue holding an honored position while taking them out of the line of succession. Read more from Paul Kanes archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. Paul disputed that, saying that the government has a profound commitment to primary care. Nurses and practitioners of traditional Indian medicine will take bridge courses to enable them to provide services that include diagnosing some cancers and tuberculosis. When diagnoses are complicated, health-care workers can video-call a doctor for advice. Government-backed awareness drives and people movements on health issues such as nutrition will be added to existing services. This is brinkmanship that benefits no one and a reflection that four decades of constructive U.S.-China relations are spiraling out of control, said James Zimmerman, partner in the Beijing office of the international firm Perkins Coie and former chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China. This is not a peace deal, this is an aversion of whole-scale war deal, he said. But the agreement halted what seemed to be a relentless countdown to conflict, he said, even if the message U.N. officials were receiving from both Turkey and Russia is that we are still working, ourselves, on the details. Special counsel Robert S. Mueller IIIs team is examining whether Flynns conversations with Kislyak are in any way related to Russias interference in the 2016 election. At the time, some suggested Flynn might have violated the Logan Act, a law that prohibits private citizens from conducting foreign policy. Its highly unlikely Flynn would have faced any consequences from the Logan Act, which has not been used in more than 150 years. But Flynn put himself in legal peril when he told investigators he did not discuss sanctions with the ambassador. Hunger, food insecurity, limited work opportunities and abandonment by the state are unfortunately the status quo in much of rural Guatemala, which has the highest rate of chronic malnutrition in Latin America and the Caribbean, said Richard Johnson, a PhD candidate at the University of Arizona who is studying migration in the western highlands. This scale of food insecurity is certainly abhorrent, but we cant really call it a sudden crisis if its already an entrenched condition. Although the identities of the attackers remained unclear, a spokesman for Irans Revolutionary Guard Corps blamed minority Arab separatists for the bloodshed. He accused Saudi Arabia, a regional rival of Iran, of funding the militant group he said was responsible. Earlier, state television said the attack was carried out by Sunni takfiri terrorists, a reference to Muslims viewed as traitors to their own faith. The Trump administration has not engaged Lopez Obradors team on the idea of a safe third country agreement that would make asylum seekers from Central America file their claims in Mexico, on the grounds they are no longer facing the immediate danger that drove them to flee, according to a senior U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss diplomatic affairs. Homeland Security officials have sought to convince Mexico that such an agreement would be in its best interest, saying it would reduce unauthorized migration and the revenue derived from it by smuggling groups. For Pope Francis, the outreach to China has been perhaps his most ambitious diplomatic venture, an effort to broaden the appeal of a faith that has lost ground in much of the Western world and is dealing now with a global wave of sexual abuse cases. Catholicism is one of the five religions officially tolerated by Chinese leaders, but it has been steadily eclipsed in popularity by Protestant and evangelical denominations. Commissioner Kenneth Hayne now has until the end of this month to deliver his interim report on the first four rounds of hearings into consumer lending, financial advice, small business and regional lending - to the government. One more fortnight of public hearings will be held in November to assess policy reforms, when bank CEOs are expected to be finally hauled into the witness box. Analysts at Citibank have called it Judgement Day. After 12 weeks of hearings, more than 120 witnesses and almost 9000 public submissions, Haynes must now deliver his first verdict on what criminal and civil findings of misconduct may be found against financial institutions, along with his policy recommendations to stamp out such behaviour. With several industries including aged care and energy - now staring down the barrel of royal commissions, Samuel says the Hayne Commission has already delivered a wake-up call to corporate Australia which, he says, must take ultimate responsibility for changing its toxic culture of complacency. The importance of the royal commission is to shock business out of their complacency. No industry with public interest considerations ought now to consider itself exempt or secure from a detailed inquiry of some form or another. The fundamental lesson to boards, to senior managers and to middle managers is you might be next to have to sit before a Senate inquiry or royal commission to answer questions under oath. As to policy remedies, Samuel says suggestions by senior counsels assisting, Rowena Orr and Michael Hodge, of potential criminal and civil findings suggest a regulator missing in action. What thats really saying is that the laws are there to have been broken. The problem is no ones prosecuting them, no ones bringing them to account. That tells me theres a fundamental cultural challenge at the regulator. Commissioner Kenneth Hayne during the hearings. Credit:Eddie Jim Samuel is scathing of relevant regulators, including the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, for whom he conducted his inquiry. We need tough cops, he says. The regulators have got to be totally feared, for their independence, their rigor, their commitment and their intolerance to bad behaviour, and they have not been feared for that neither ASIC nor APRA. Samuels predecessor at the competition watchdog, Allan Fels, is similarly damning of ASICs role: From my point of view, it has been failing for 20 years and I have no reason to believe its going to get better. Some within ASIC fear the regulator will emerge as the ultimate whipping boy of the commission, which being of a legal mind may give higher weight to recommending more criminal prosecutions as a deterrent to bad behaviour, rather than reforms to abolish underlying incentive structures which drive bad behaviour, such as conflicted remuneration. Fels wants radical action on this front, too: The depth and severity of the problems uncovered point to the need for deeper solutions solutions that address serious conflicts of interest. As first revealed earlier this year by Fairfax, Fels still wants structural separation of banks from their financial advisory arms a move which all big banks, excluding Westpac, have announced they intend to pursue - amid revelations of the deep conflicts that arise from having an issuer of financial products also purporting to provide independent advice about which products clients should buy. Fromer ACCC boss Allan Fels. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Fels says the industry has demonstrated it cannot be trusted to clean up its own act: The whole system of remuneration needs review and the answers are not simple. I think probably the best way forward is to have an independent Productivity Commission inquiry." Banks' compensation schemes for customers they have wronged also require reform, says Fels: "Its pretty clear that when things go wrong, the banks dont have very good schemes, remedies and repayments and compensation. I would suggest that more needs to be done. It cant be left in the hands of banks. On lending standards, many expect the commission will recommend that the tougher best interests test that applies to financial advice be extended to mortgage brokers. The thorny issue of commissions paid by lenders to mortgage brokers will also be scrutinised, with ASIC finding such fees encourage mortgage brokers to issue bigger loans than otherwise. Loading On insurance, the exemption of claims handling processes from some consumer protection laws is also likely to be revisited. Penalties for companies who fail to notify the regulator of breaches of the law are also likely to rise, from just $50,000 now. Finance sector executives may also face stricter penalties. The government has already introduced a new Banking Executive Accountability Regime, which includes provision for the deferral of bonuses. Currently, it only deals with bad behaviour that threatens prudential stability. This could be extended to also cover misconduct, and the regime could also be extended to all financial services executives, not just banks. At the end of the day, Samuel says ultimate responsibility for reforming bad bank cultures lies with executives, overseen by their boards: Its the work of boards and chairs and CEOs, and if they dont feel up to it, they have got to really consider their positions. Samuel says chairpersons must do more to reform the male club culture of company boards and recruit more talented women. Heads have already begun to roll, most sensationally at AMP, but also at NAB, which this week announced the most senior banking executive to so far front the commission, NABs Andrew Hagger, will head for the exits. From now, it is Commissioner Hayne who will come under the public spotlight, to see if he can come up with the solutions needed to restore broken trust in Australia's financial system. Fels hopes Hayne is up to the job: Hes a very able judge, we all know that. However, he faces some very difficult policy questions which even those with years and years of policy experience would find hard to answer. I am worried about the ability of the royal commission to step into that breach. This weeks school funding announcement is not just bad policy and contrary to the national interest of improving our education performance but is outrageous in its bald-faced audacity. All those who care about equity and fairness should be outraged, but it is poorer Catholics who should be especially upset about this deal. The first egregious element of this package is that it is completely partisan. No mention of the public school sector other than to say it is getting increased funding. Well, the non-government sector is also getting more money so nothing new there. This is purely a political fix to shut down a powerful lobby group. The federal government's new funding deal has little to recommend it. Credit:Edwina Pickles Second, neither the Commonwealth nor the Catholic sector are even pretending this is fair or needs-based or that any of the extra money is going towards improving student outcomes. There has been no mention of how any of this extra money would help schools like St Josephs Catholic School in Hillston in the state's west or children from poor or disadvantaged backgrounds. The National Catholic Education Commission makes it clear it was upset the Gonski 2.0 funding model was going to affect schools in higher SES areas and that it was concerned it would lose enrolments in those wealthier suburbs. The Donnybrook Berries business had a low profile in the area until a few years ago. But it has rapidly taken a significant role in the local industry after Mr Cufari spent more than $6 million in the last 2 years buying strawberry farms and related property near the packing plant and at Stanthorpe on the Queensland-NSW border. Lionel Sach, who runs the growers co-operative at Elimbah, said Mr Cufari would visit the area about once a year, but otherwise stayed in Victoria. Loading Neighbours said the Elimbah business was by far the busiest fruit operation in the district, with dozens of semi-trailers and B-doubles moving in and out daily and around the clock. Local grower Gavin Scurr said the business had become the biggest grower in the local industry. Donnybrook Berries was one of three brands first identified as having been contaminated with parts of sewing needles last weekend. The other two, Berry Obsession and Berry Licious, are run out of two small farms, one of which is a few hundred metres from the Donnybrook plant and the other a 10-minute drive away. Kevin Tran, who runs the Berry Obsession and Berry Licious brands, said he had had nothing to do with the Donnybrook operation and handled all of his own berries. "I pack them myself," he said. Mr Tran said he faced financial ruin as a result of the contamination scare and could no longer bear even to look at media reports. "Im just thinking: 'Who can do something like this?' Its just terrible," he said. "I really cant watch or listen to any more, every time I see my name, or my brand, or strawberry on there, I just cant look." Another local grower, Ray Daniels, said the Donnybrook operation handled other brands through its packing operation but would not say which ones. A Coles spokesperson said Mr Cufaris operation was a major supplier to the supermarket chain. He was quoted in a press release issued by Coles last month, before the contamination crisis broke, praising the chain for dropping the price of strawberries at stores in NSW to $1 a punnet, which Coles said would "help (Mr Cufari) move a mountain of berries that would otherwise go to waste". A video of a truckload of strawberries being dumped was widely shared on social media and reported in mainstream outlets this week. While there was very little visible activity this week at local farms, most of which pack their own fruit and all of which have been severely affected by the contamination scandal, neighbours said the Donnybrook packing operation had re-started operations on Tuesday. Loading On Tuesday, Fairfax Media counted more than 60 cars parked at the packing shed. Workers were seen coming and going in and out of the shed and office. "Thats a quiet day," one neighbour said. "Theres normally much more than that." The Queensland detective leading the investigation into the contamination, Acting Chief Superintendent Terry Lawrence said: "We are looking at all of the supply chain, and whatever shakes loose from that, we will have a look at." Superintendent Lawrence confirmed as many as 100 officers were involved in the operation. He declined to say whether there had been any breakthrough in the investigation. Neighbours at a property overlooking the Donnybrook packing plant, who did not want to be identified, said the only police activity they had witnessed at the site was a marked patrol car arriving last Friday afternoon, entering the Donnybrook property and leaving 10 minutes later. In a written response to Fairfax Medias questions, Victoria Police said officers were investigating reports of contaminated fruit in Belgrave, Sydenham and Echuca amongst other locations. "Any strawberries which are found to have sewing needles inside will continue to be investigated by Queensland Police Service, with Victoria Polices Fraud and Extortion Squad detectives assisting, police said. "Any other fruit contamination will be investigated by the local police. We're not in a position to confirm each specific location at this stage. Company records show Pasquale Cufari is the sole director of Donnybrook Berries Property Holdings Pty Ltd, a Mildura-registered company that owns the 64-hectare farm at Elimbah, where the packing operation is located. Companies owned by him and registered at his Mildura address own the majority of the shares. A company that records show owns a minority shareholding, PH Pty Ltd, is also registered at the same address. Neighbours said the Elimbah business was by far the busiest fruit operation in the district. Credit:Fairfax Media Donnybrook Berries Property Holdings paid $2.35 million for the farm in late 2016, then in 2017 spent a further $4 million buying a larger fruit farm a few kilometres east near Bribie Island and another at Thulimbah near Stanthorpe near the NSW border, where the colder climate means the strawberry season can be extended into the summer. The operating company at Elimbah, which runs refrigerated trucks as well as hiring the casual labour needed for strawberry picking, is MJC Farms Pty Ltd. Australian Strawberry Growers Association president Luigi Cocco declined to discuss Mr Cufari's business or background. "This is sensitive," he said. "Im not in a position to talk about that." "This is not about history or background. The strawberry industry all just want to be left in peace now," he said. Mr Cocco said police had told him he was "not allowed to talk" but Superintendent Lawrence disputed this. "Thats news to me," he said. Pasquale Cufari was previously of interest to police and other criminal investigators. Mr Cufari was a target of investigations in the 1990s by the National Criminal Authority, the forerunner of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, into any influence of the Calabrian Mafia in Mildura. In 2003, Pasquale Cufari was named in a confidential Australian Crime Commission report on organised crime in Australia. Pasquale Cufaris business activities suffered a lull in the mid-1990s while he served five years of his seven-year jail sentence, but picked up significantly in recent years. In 2016, his company Sylina Property Holdings Pty Ltd paid $6.6 million for an office block in central Adelaide. Mr Cufari hails from Plati in Reggio Calabria in southern mainland Italy, a stronghold of the NDragheta, or "Honoured Society" organised crime group. Alleged members of the group in Australia have been closely associated with the fruit trade, especially at the Victoria Market in Melbourne. In 2014, criminologist Anna Sergi, an expert on the Mafia, warned a Victorian parliamentary committee NDragheta clans in Australia were becoming increasingly involved in Australia. Dr Sergi told the committee that Italian investigators were concerned about a lack of intelligence-sharing on the issue between Australian and Italian authorities. Police are seeking information from the public to identify a man they believe can assist with their investigation into a sexual assault. The incident occurred this morning about 8.30am, at a toilet block in the University of Western Australia close to Mounts Bay Road, Crawley. Police are looking for this man in relation to a UWA sexual assault. Credit:WA Police The man is described as being aged in his 30s and wearing a red striped hooded top and dark pants. He was last seen on Stirling Highway walking in the direction of Hampden Road, Crawley. The second option the EU offered, May correctly said, was a free trade agreement. But, May said, that "would introduce [customs] checks at the Great Britain/EU border. Even worse, Northern Ireland would effectively remain in the Customs Union and parts of the Single Market, permanently separated economically from the rest of the UK by a border down the Irish Sea. Damn strait it would (pardon the pun). All countries, even those who've signed free trade deals, have checks at their external borders. They can be streamlined by technology, but either you have border checks or you put up a sign saying smugglers, tax dodgers and illegal immigrants this way please. Loading Of course you could enter a union that aligns your trade, manufacturing, service and labour policies so closely that border checks arent necessary. But thats what Britain voted against, according to May. See above. If the UK wont put checks at the Northern Irish border, which would risk reigniting old divisions, it must put them in the Irish Sea, creating new ones. The border has to be somewhere. And yet, said May, a border in the Irish Sea has been rejected by the UK Parliament and is something I will never agree to, indeed something no British prime minister would ever agree to. So. No Single Market. No Customs Union. But no border checks in Northern Ireland or in the Irish Sea. Theresa May's Brexit plan was not welcomed warmly at the informal EU summit in Salzburg this week. Credit:Bloomberg Mays government had, at great political cost, come up with the Chequers plan that would, it said, tick all these boxes. Britain would vow to abide by the EUs rule book for trade in goods, apply EU rules at its own borders, but go its own way on services. The EU looked at Chequers and decided it was unworkable, that it would undermine the Single Market. May seems to accept this. Neither side should demand the unacceptable of the other, she said. And then the wave of the flag. At this late stage in the negotiations, it is not acceptable to simply reject the other sides proposals without a detailed explanation and counter proposals, she said. So we now need to hear from the EU what the real issues are and what their alternative is so that we can discuss them. Until we do, we cannot make progress. Loading Extraordinary. The EU had already told Britain what the alternatives were. May just listed them, a minute ago in her speech. But that was a minute ago. Britain chose Brexit. And now, this minute, its Prime Minister is demanding that Europe explain how Britain can get everything it wants from Brexit. Shell wait. The only alternative May will apparently accept is the "no deal Brexit". According to a series of analyses and reports, including from the UK government and the Bank of England, that would cause Britain widespread economic harm, hit exports and imports, send businesses fleeing the country to the continent and result in shortages of food and vital medicine. Give me what I want or I will hit myself with this brick and give you my money is not the best negotiating tactic. Nevertheless, its Britains. A no deal Brexit would still mean border checks (and much more extensive ones) either at the Irish border or in the Irish Sea. It would solve nothing the UK wants solved. No one wants a good deal more than me, May said. Smiling assassins: European leaders met for a tense summit in Salzburg this week, largely killing off Theresa May's Brexit plan. Credit:Bloomberg She wants a good deal. She wants a good deal more than the EU has consistently said it's willing to give her. Of course, the EU might come up with something. It might have a previously unmentioned idea on how to compromise the fundamentals of the Single Market, make Britain a special case, deal with the queue of still-in-the-EU countries who want beneficial exemptions on trade and regulation too. It could maybe, somehow unpick the complex interweaving of goods and services in the modern economy, in a way that could be waved through a border on trust or the remote scan of a licence plate. Loading It might decide that its better to attempt this than leave the UK to self-immolate in a no-deal Brexit. This might be the beginning of the end of a long and hard negotiation, where both sides make the most noise before edging towards a previously invisible compromise. Dubai: Gunmen fired on a military parade in southwestern Iran on Saturday, killing 25 people, half of them members of the Revolutionary Guards, state news agencies reported, in one of the worst attacks ever on the elite force. State television said the assault, which wounded more than 60 people, targeted a stand where Iranian officials had gathered to watch an annual event marking the start of the Islamic Republic's 1980-88 war with Iraq. Iranian armed forces members and civilians take shelter from the shooting. Credit:AP An Iranian ethnic Arab opposition movement called the Ahvaz National Resistance claimed responsibility for the attack. All four attackers were killed. Islamic State militants also claimed responsibility. Neither claim provided evidence. Women and children also died in the violence, state news IRNA agency quoted an unnamed official source as saying. Washington: The US Senate Judiciary Committee chairman has rejected key concessions sought by Brett Kavanaugh's accuser if she is testify about her claim Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers, and threatened a Monday vote by his panel on Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination without a quick agreement. Minutes before a 10pm Friday deadline set by Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, a lawyer for Christine Blasey Ford asked for another day to decide. Christine Blasey Ford, the woman accusing Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, initially wanted her account to remain secret but she has since come forward after it leaked. Debra Katz said the time limit's "sole purpose is to bully Dr Ford and deprive her of the ability to make a considered decision that has life-altering implications for her and her family". The late-night brinkmanship left in question whether Ford, a California psychology professor, would appear before the GOP-run committee and tell lawmakers and a captivated nation about her allegation that an inebriated Kavanaugh trapped her on a bed, muffled her cries and tried removing her clothes when both were teenagers in the 1980s. Jim was a hard-working man who always had a smile for everyone Stuart Smyth never knows what to expect when he opens his Twitter feed these days. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 22/9/2018 (1145 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Stuart Smyth never knows what to expect when he opens his Twitter feed these days. The assistant professor with the University of Saskatchewans agricultural and resource economics department, and holder of the industry-funded Research Chair in Agri-Food Innovation, might hear from people who support what he says. Then again, he might get threatened with violence. Smyth routinely wades into the social media debates swirling around modern agriculture, with a viewpoint that generally supports innovation, science and technology when it comes to global food security. "The objective of this chair is to address the problems regarding the use of regulations as international trade barriers that have the very real probability of negatively impacting food security by restricting developing-country farmers from accessing the full variety of tools possible," a description of his mandate on the universitys website says. His job is to "provide the industry with research from a neutral perspective, but one that will hold industry interests as a priority." That means his funders, the likes of Bayer CropScience, CropLife Canada, Syngenta and SaskCanola, want their perspectives on the tools of modern agriculture communicated to the public so much so that theyve invested millions of dollars to support research and advocacy work. Smyth told a roundtable discussion with journalists meeting in Saskatoon this week he is deeply concerned about the state of public discourse when it comes to communicating about science. A combination of factors is at play. The general public doesnt understand science, and therefore doesnt value it. That makes people poorly equipped to discern between reality and rhetoric when it comes to issues around science and agriculture. Most Canadians are now generations removed from the farm, yet they still view it through the quaint lens of yesteryear. On top of that, many academics involved in research dont see much value in interacting with the public, partly because the debates are so polarized and politicized that the discussion rapidly becomes personalized and exhausting. When researchers do talk about science, they often fail to do it in a way that connects. "We are communicating about ag, and a lot of other people are talking about food safety, food security and we are simply not resonating with each other," he said. Most of the peer-reviewed research gets published in academic journals that arent easily accessed by the public. Few bother to use Twitter or social media blogs to communicate about their research. Yet, more Canadians are getting their information through social media, which amplifies the messaging, both good and misinformed. "I think academics radically need to change how we are communicating," he says. Smyth knows hes not going to change the minds of the "antis" that send him hate mail. However, the results of his surveys tell him that people generally do have confidence in the safety of our food system, and most are sincerely interested in understanding more about agriculture. "Sixty to 80 per cent of society is looking for information on agriculture and wanting more information about food," he said. That group remains open-minded. That same survey showed consumers evenly split when asked which types of farming can contribute to food security: organic, conventional or farming with GMOs. The survey respondents answered 62 per cent, 63 per cent and 61 per cent respectively. 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. "Thats the public we need to start communicating to," he said. Some may disagree with the perspective he brings to the table. In fact, many do. But, whether you agree or disagree isnt the point. The point is, this is a perspective that deserves to be heard just as those who have concerns about the direction agriculture is going deserve to be heard. Public debates these days are routinely tainted to the point of being counterproductive by a lack of civility on both sides. The tools of modern agriculture such as biotechnology and genetically modified crops are just that tools. They need to be assessed according to the value they offer farmers, consumers and society in general. That can only happen when people truly understand their potential, their pitfalls and the practical realities. Laura Rance is editorial director at Glacier FarmMedia. She can be reached at 204-792-4382 or lrance@farmmedia.com On Monday, Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa stood in front of a crowd of reporters at the SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif., and declared jubilantly, Finally, I can tell you that I choose to go to the moon. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 22/9/2018 (1145 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. On Monday, Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa stood in front of a crowd of reporters at the SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif., and declared jubilantly, "Finally, I can tell you that I choose to go to the moon." And the 42-year-old announced he purchased not one but all the seats aboard SpaceXs Big Falcon Rocket. Maezawa is not only a high-profile entrepreneur specializing in online retail and a world-famous art collector, but he is also set to be SpaceXs first paying tourist to take a trip around the moon. Maezawas roughly weeklong journey is tentatively scheduled for 2023, as the Washington Posts Christian Davenport reported. "Ever since I was a kid, I have loved the moon," he said during a news conference. "Just staring at the moon filled my imagination. Its always there and has continued to inspire humanity. That is why I could not pass up this opportunity to see the moon up close." Clad in a dark blue blazer over a white graphic T-shirt, Maezawa, with a giant grin dominating his youthful features, looked more like a boy-band member than a person ranked 18th on Forbess 2018 list of Japans 50 richest people. But anyone who has tracked his meteoric rise would know that being different is normal for a man whose life has been defined by surprising moments. "Japanese people think Im a weirdo," Maezawa told British auction house Christies in 2017. "They say, who is this Maezawa person?" To put it simply, Maezawa is a former punk rocker-turned-self-made e-commerce billionaire with a love of expensive art. More than two decades ago, Maezawa, then just a sprightly teen, had an epiphany he envisioned the rest of his life and was disheartened by what he foresaw. At the time, he was a student at a prestigious feeder high school in Tokyo, which meant he was destined for university and after that a career, most likely in business. But, he told the Times of London, as he rode the train for an hour and a half every morning from his home in Japans Chiba prefecture, he started noticing how all the people headed to their jobs appeared to be "tired and unhappy." "I think what I hated was the feeling that I was running along tracks that had already been laid down," he told the British publication in July. "I could see the rails stretching in front of me school, university, career. I could picture myself as one of those people jam-packed in a rush-hour train. I wanted to derail myself." Armed with a fierce desire to be more than just a worker drone, Maezawa took swift action, making a series of decisions leading to a life that has been nothing short of extraordinary. It all began in the 90s, when Maezawa followed his then-girlfriend to the United States, where he spent most of his time skateboarding along the streets of Santa Monica, Calif., he told reporters Monday. While in the U.S., Maezawa, an avid musician, also followed one of his favorite bands, the Gorilla Biscuits, a New York-based hardcore punk group, the Times reported. Back in Japan, Maezawa was a drummer for Switch Style, a punk band he formed with friends that achieved moderate commercial success, according to the Nikkei Asian Review, a Japanese publication. His six-month stint in the U.S. would turn out to be a pivotal moment in his career, for it was there that he got the idea to sell music merchandise from Japan, Forbes reported. Upon returning to his home country, he launched a mail-order business selling T-shirts and CDs out of his kitchen, which became the foundation for a company he named Start Today, also the name of a Gorilla Biscuits album, according to the Japan Times. It was 1998 and Maezawa was 22 years old. Still touring and recording with his band, Maezawa started getting overwhelmed by the responsibilities that came with juggling a music career and running a company. After a few years, something had to give. "When it became physically impossible to handle both, I chose my company that was around when I was 25 or 26," he told the Japan Times. This was a decision that would prove fruitful for Maezawa. Start Today had shifted to focus more on fashion and apparel, eventually spawning an immensely popular e-commerce site called Zozotown, Forbes reported. According to the Japan Times, the website now features around 6,300 brands and the company employs nearly 900 people. In July, the site launched its own in-house fashion line called Zozo, available in 72 countries, Racked reported. Maezawa now has a net worth of US$2.9 billion, according to Forbes. While his companys success earned him fame in Japan, Maezawa dominated international news last year when he dropped more than US$110 million on a painting by American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat at a Sothebys auction. Its sale price broke records and threw the art world into a tizzy. Called Untitled, the colourful graffiti-style depiction of a screaming skull became the sixth-most expensive piece ever sold at auction, the New York Times reported. According to NPR, the price Maezawa paid was the highest amount ever spent at auction for a work made in the U.S. "I buy things on impulse I have done since I was young," Maezawa told Christies. "I have also always bought things up to my financial limit. And when I ran out of money, I would make more money then I would buy again." But the Basquiat wouldnt just be a spur-of-the-moment purchase that would end up hanging in Maezawas home or office never to be seen by the public again. In May 2017, Maezawa posted on Instagram a series of photos of himself alongside the work, writing, "When I first encountered this painting, I was struck with so much excitement and gratitude for my love of art. I want to share that experience with as many people as possible." True to his word, Maezawa has sponsored an international tour for the artwork. Earlier this year, it was displayed at the Brooklyn Museum and the Seattle Art Museum, and is now making its way through Europe, the magazine Art News reported. Maezawa, whose extensive personal collection features works by Picasso, Alexander Calder and Willem de Kooning, among others, told Christies he has plans to open an art museum in his hometown of Chiba. Like his sharing of art, Maezawa said Monday that he also wants to share his experience of seeing the moon, explaining why he purchased every seat on the rocket for an undisclosed amount. "I did not want to have such a fantastic experience by myself that would be a little lonely," he said. "I dont like being alone. I want to share these experiences and things with as many people as possible." The interstellar trip is all part of Maezawas grand project, which he has named Dear Moon. His plan is to bring with him six to eight artists from various disciplines, including film, architecture, painting, sculpture and photography, with the goal that upon their return to Earth they create works inspired by the experience. The idea came to him as he was looking at a Basquiat painting. 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. "I thought, what if Basquiat had gone to space and had seen the moon up close or saw the Earth in full view?" he said. "What wonderful masterpiece would he have created?" Soon, he started imagining if his other favourite artists, such as Andy Warhol, Michael Jackson, John Lennon and Coco Chanel, were also given the same privilege. "These are all artists that I adore, but sadly they are no longer with us," he said. "There are so many artists with us today that I wish could create amazing works of art for humankind, for children of the next generation." In a video promoting Dear Moon, which is aptly set to Claude Debussys Clair de Lune, the project is described as "awe-inspiring." Maezawa said his team of artists will be recruited from around the world, adding, "If you should hear from me, please say yes and accept my invitation. Please dont say no." Washington Post From the lavender-hued entryway, visitors can see a shelf of brightly coloured toys nestled between the copier and printer a sign this isnt a typical office. There are more teddy bears and games tucked inside the wooden cabinets of the family room, alongside soft brown-leather couches that face wall canvases chosen for their sunny pops of turquoise, yellow and orange. Its a refuge no family looks forward to. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 21/9/2018 (1146 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. From the lavender-hued entryway, visitors can see a shelf of brightly coloured toys nestled between the copier and printer a sign this isnt a typical office. There are more teddy bears and games tucked inside the wooden cabinets of the family room, alongside soft brown-leather couches that face wall canvases chosen for their sunny pops of turquoise, yellow and orange. Its a refuge no family looks forward to. Framed collages of children's artwork line the hallway, and everywhere you turn there are clusters of silly stuffed animals, cosy textiles and vibrant decor. It's designed to help kids open up about their darkest realities. A strategically placed plush tiger peeks out along the corridor to the interview room, where children go when theyre ready to talk about what happened to them. The big, cuddly cat is there to momentarily distract them from the reason for their visit. They are here, in almost every case, because someone hurt them. Its usually someone they know, someone they trusted. Here, at Manitobas only child advocacy centre, a team is working to gain childrens trust and get to the truth. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Stuffed animals hang out all over Snowflake Place. Now in its fifth year handling reports of sexual and physical abuse against children in Manitoba, Snowflake Place for Children and Youth is running nearly at capacity. Its forensic interviewers see hundreds of children each year who come forward to report abuse. As research evolves on trauma, memory and child development, abuse investigations are changing: interviewers are trying to make sure each childs statement gets its best chance in court without hindering their healing or compromising justice system standards. During the past five years, police have referred 1,418 child victims to Snowflake Place. Most of them were girls between the ages of five and 11 who disclosed sexual abuse. On average, 60 per cent were Indigenous. The calls keep coming in. Types of offences 2016-17 Click to Expand Source: Snowflake Place annual report "When we first opened, we were anticipating maybe 50 referrals. And in our first year, it was just over 200. Over the years, the numbers have increased," said Cheryl Martinez, Snowflake Places executive director. If they had more space a second, sound-proofed and video-equipped interview room, for example the centre might be able to take on more cases. As it is, it averages 2.5 cases a day, and Martinez says the maximum is likely three. "At some point soon, we will be at capacity, because our numbers are continuing to increase because of the awareness thats out in the community and out within the police community that we exist." MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Executive director Cheryl Martinez and her staff specialize in doing investigative interviews with victims of abuse. *** Among the provinces, Manitoba has had the highest rate of police-reported sexual offences against children, 2012 data from Statistics Canada show. Winnipeg had the 10th-highest rate of all urban centres in the country, coming in above the national average of 205 reports per 100,000 people. Those numbers are a glimpse into a much larger problem, since the majority of child abuse cases are never reported to the police. "We know its the most under-reported crime that exists in Canada," says Noni Classen, director of education at the Canadian Centre for Child Protection. *** Amid the demand for abuse investigations that support victims and put children first, 24 child advocacy centres have cropped up across Canada, following in the footsteps of established U.S. organizations. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS The interview room. Child advocacy centres are places where police, child-welfare agencies, victims services, and, in some cases, health professionals, are meant to work together in the childs best interest. Snowflake Place is one of them, a non-profit funded by provincial and federal governments, occupying downtown office space on Portage Avenue since it was founded in 2013. It received $396,473 from the Manitoba government last year. Theres still a lack of data about whether children feel less traumatized by reporting abuse to centre staff instead of at a police station. In a recent federal government report, researchers noted more studies are needed on that issue, as well as whether advocacy centre staff suffer vicarious trauma. Instead of going to a police station, children and their families go to Snowflake Place. There's an average of 259 referrals a year, the majority of which are from RCMP. The Winnipeg Police Service, which has its own child-abuse investigation unit, referred 139 cases last year. When they arrive, caregivers meet police, CFS and victim services all in one place. The victims sit down with interviewers who are specially trained to talk to children, and whose only job is to hear from them. Numbers of children interviewed at Snowflake Place 2016-17 Click to Expand Source: Snowflake Place annual report MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS One of two cameras in the interview room. "I dont think you ever get used to the content. Its probably the darkest place that people can (go), that youre going to listen to, the stuff that we hear," says Mike Chiborak, who spent 27 years as a police officer before joining Snowflake Place as one of two independent child forensic interview specialists. He and Theresa Pickering were the first in Canada with that job title when they started interviewing child victims full time at Snowflake Place in January 2015. "How we get around the difficult subject matter is knowing that, I can go and I can bury my head in the sand and pretend this stuff doesnt happen," says Pickering, who has more than 20 years of experience as a social worker. "But for me, this is an important issue. These are real child victims and they need advocates and they need people who get it, and we get it. So we show up for them. I think its all adults responsibility to take care of children as a community, as a city, as a province. We need to show up for these kids," she says. On a rare weekday morning with no child interviews scheduled, Pickering and Chiborak open up about their work and dealing with disclosures of child abuse. "I still think were only at the tip of that iceberg of really how bad it could be," says Chiborak. "I think theres a lot more kids coming forward and making outcries and disclosures, but I think theres still a lot that just arent there yet that arent coming forward." Cases referred to Snowflake Place in 2016-2017 Click to Expand Source: Snowflake Place annual report MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS The reception centre. The days of "just the facts, maam," are over. They want children to give them the full story about what happened. Its not as simple as staying away from leading questions that could confuse a child. Their training has taught them subtle ways to encourage conversation. They dont interrogate, and they dont interrupt. Even little, seemingly innocuous words such as "OK," can sometimes make a child clam up. "We both did child interviews before we were in these roles. We kind of cringe when we think about our old interviews, because we know we werent doing them the way an optimal interview (is done) like we are doing now," Pickering says. Their work is peer-reviewed, and they are expected to keep up with new research and best practices things that non-specialized, busy police officers and child-welfare workers dont have time to do. Still, theyre quick to stress theres no perfect interview. Theyre all different, just like each child. Educating other agencies about stereotypes in victims behaviour has become part of their job, and they can usually tell a child is telling the truth. "Sometimes, erroneously, people think that a lack of emotional impact in a young-aged child speaks to their credibility, but (that's) not so. They just didnt process it in that same way as someone who has an understanding, so they speak matter-of-factly, and young-aged children bounce back and forth," Pickering says. But they know how the court process works, and they know a childs statement is most likely going to be the prosecutions key evidence if the sexual abuse case goes to court. Its up to them to give children the best chance to tell their story. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS The support dog's bed. "What really takes away some of the pressure is were really motivated to get to the truth. I dont want somebody wrongfully accused of something they didnt do, although false disclosures, especially in sexual abuse cases, were finding theyre pretty rare," Pickering says. They want the truth, and they want a statement that can stand up in court. They work with police and child-welfare agencies who monitor the interviews as they happen to make sure everyones on the same page about the investigation. The statements are recorded on video, which will be played in court if the case gets that far. "We have enough experience to know the court process and what kind of questions defence are going to ask, so we try to tailor some of the questions in a very open and non-leading way to have them answered before they get (there)," Chiborak says. Its unclear whether their work is helping police lay more criminal charges, or helping prosecutors secure more convictions. Neither Snowflake Place nor Manitoba RCMP keep reliable statistics on the numbers of cases referred there that have led to charges or convictions. But as independent interviewers, Pickering says, thats not their goal when they talk to children. "The purpose of telling us your story today isnt so that some guys going to jail, you know what I mean? I dont want to set that up. Its really about that childs healing. That you told your story and you did so in a safe place." MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS A monitoring station for CFS. Pickering says she sees Snowflake Place as a bridge between local agencies and getting children the help they need. Families who go to Snowflake Place can be referred to counselling services. "In a forensic interview, I cant say, Im sorry this happened to you; how did that make you feel?" Pickering says. "We cant go there. So I dont get to do that piece, but I know somebody will." *** The interview room is a few steps down the hallway, past the tiger. A soft, chenille rug is the bridge between two leather easy chairs, positioned so the smaller of the two chairs faces a little circular camera on the wall. Often, the interviewer and the child will skip the chairs altogether and sit on the floor. "I thought what a great idea, to just put yourself at her level. Its the little things like that," recalls RCMP Const. Josee Neudorf. About a year ago, the officer sat in an office on the other side of the interview room wall, watching on a video monitor as a quiet four-year-old girl got visibly more relaxed. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS The family room. "Its amazing how quickly you can see just by the posture of the child, you know, the body language, how theyre opening up, (going from) having their head down and their arms crossed to all of a sudden theyre looking up and theyre sitting more comfortably," Neudorf said. "You can tell that they feel comfortable. You can definitely see that, just from the monitoring room." The girl was referred to Snowflake Place because shed told someone shed been hurt. RCMP decided to launch an investigation, but they needed a statement from her. Neudorf remembers feeling unsure about whether the statement would give police much to go on. The girl, after all, was only four. "But at the end of the day, for this four-year-old, I was just blown away by the quality of the statement how well she articulated herself and how the investigators at Snowflake Place were able to get the information we needed to proceed with our investigation. They just have a way of making children feel extremely comfortable," Neudorf said. "A lot of times, especially for a child coming to a police station, they might have the impression that they did something wrong and they might be feeling guilt already about the incident that happened. Minimizing that, being able to bring them to Snowflake, not to a police station, it just kind of reduces that trauma, the stress." 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. *** Childrens rights and child protection have come a long way, says Classen of the Canadian Centre for Child Protection. But theres still a long way to go. Research shows about one in 10 children will experience some form of sexual victimization before they turn 18, but more than 90 per cent of child abuse cases go unreported. While applauding progress made to support kids when they disclose the abuse, Classen says adults must do more to prevent it. "We have to get to (the point of) not relying on children to be the ones who have to come forward with this information in order to get some help and some support, because we know kids dont disclose. I feel like we cant put all the onus on kids," she says. "I think we need adults around children who are equipped with knowledge and who are willing to put kids first in terms of the protection of children, which means theyre going to have to question people that are in their immediate lives, that they care about really questioning behaviour when its inappropriate." katie.may@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @thatkatiemay SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO Looking for a safe refuge from American justice, the widow of murdered Winnipeg native Adam Anhang used forged documents to claim she was Jewish, and then asked an Israeli lawyer: How can I be protected? Is Israel American soil? Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 21/9/2018 (1146 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO Looking for a safe refuge from American justice, the widow of murdered Winnipeg native Adam Anhang used forged documents to claim she was Jewish, and then asked an Israeli lawyer: "How can I be protected? Is Israel American soil?" A jury in San Juan heard the account of international deception Friday in the trial of Aurea Vazquez-Rijos, accused with her sister and a boyfriend of conspiring to have Anhang killed in 2005 in a bid to get their hands on millions of dollars from his estate. Family file photo Adam Anhang, 32, the son of prominent Winnipeg lawyer Abraham Anhang, was stabbed and beaten on a street in Old San Juan after he and his wife dined together and discussed the terms of their divorce in 2005. The forgery scheme, which included the widows mother and brother, was revealed through the introduction of dozens of emails and documents by the prosecution, which closed its case Friday. Vazquez-Rijos was not Jewish; however, in her pre-nuptial agreement with Anhang in 2005, she promised to convert to Judaism within two years of their wedding. Anhang was killed six months later in an assault on a San Juan street, with his wife by his side. The killer later told police hed been promised $3 million by the three accused to kill Anhang. But before the killer confessed, Vazquez-Rijos fled to Italy, where she later gave birth to twin daughters. Prosecutors showed Friday that with the help of her mother Carmen and brother Charbel, Vazquez-Rijos produced birth certificates and identity papers designed to show that her father was born in Corsica of Jewish heritage, and that her maternal grandmother was raised in the Jewish faith in the Canary Islands, Spain. But the forgeries contained innumerable mistakes. For example, Corsica was spelled "Corsega," Madrid was spelled with a lower case "M," some dates were wrong and family names misspelled. Most of the mistakes were made by the accuseds brother Charbel. In January 2012, afraid that her scheme was falling apart, Vazquez-Rijos wrote Charbel an angry email: "Stay very awake . . . These people look at everything with a magnifying glass. Pay attention to details." Vazquez-Rijos then took the doctored documents to the chief rabbi of the Jewish community in Florence, Rav Joseph Levi, and told him a story about her husband dying in a car crash, asked the community for help to find housing, and requested official acknowledgement that she and her daughters were Jewish. The community provided assistance while studying the paperwork. When the rabbinical council asked her about mistakes in the documentation, she said she was having difficulties contacting "different branches of the family tree." Meanwhile, back in Puerto Rico, Charbel was correcting the mistakes. Finally, a month later, she received news from the council: It had "unanimously resolved to recognize the Jewish status of (Vazquez-Rijos) for all purposes." With that affirmation in hand, she took the next step and contacted a criminal lawyer in Jerusalem, Nick Kaufman. "I have a very particular situation," she wrote. "I need counselling." She wanted to know all about Israels extradition laws. Vazquez-Rijos told Kaufman that she was a widow falsely accused of involvement in her husbands death and she was considering "Aliya" emigration to Israel. "How can I be protected as a single mother with two children?" she asked. "How American is Israel?" Kaufman responded with a request for a retainer of 1,500 Euros, and asked the key question: "Are you and your children Jewish?" 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. "Me and my daughters are fully Jewish," she responded. But just to cover all bases, she asked Rabbi Levi to confirm that her daughters Vittoria and Giulia were also considered Jewish. The rabbi did just that. "They are registered in our community," he wrote Vazquez-Rijos. However, the flight to Israel never happened. Israeli law does not shield its nationals from extradition if they are accused of serious crimes. As it turns out, Vazquez-Rijos would not have been any safer in Israel than in Italy. In any case, she was arrested in an FBI sting operation in Madrid a year later, and eventually extradited to Puerto Rico to face the murder conspiracy charge, after U.S. authorities agreed not to seek the death penalty. The twin girls are in the custody of their father in Italy. The defence lawyers for Vazquez-Rijos and the two other accused will make their case starting Monday. city.desk@freepress.mb.ca As Manitobas longest-serving female judge and a mom devoted to family, Justice Robyn Diamond left her mark on the provinces family court. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 22/9/2018 (1145 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. As Manitobas longest-serving female judge and a mom devoted to family, Justice Robyn Diamond left her mark on the provinces family court. "She was a going concern who felt deeply and acted purposefully," said Court of Queens Bench Chief Justice Glenn Joyal. Diamond died of cancer on May 29 at age 65. (Supplied photo) Diamond, who died of cancer on May 29 at age 65, helped oversee the evolution of a family court judge from the traditional role of adjudicator to becoming a mediator, collaborator, conflict manager and dispute resolver. "She was a woman of distinction and not just because she was in the judiciary," Joyal said. "She was present at the creation of so many important things and a participant in shaping many of the important trends in family law." Diamond, who graduated from the University of Manitobas law school, was passionate about family law and child protection. In the early part of her career, she served as director of the Family Law Branch of the Department of Justice. In 1989, at 38, she was appointed to the Court of Queens Bench. She served in the family division until her retirement in September 2017. At the Manitoba legislature last fall, the recently retired judge was thanked by legislators on both sides of the aisle. Then-justice minister Heather Stefanson hailed her as the longest-serving female judge in the province. Justice Robyn Diamond with her husband Harvey and sons Richard (left) and Michael. (Supplied photo) Stefanson thanked Diamond for her contributions to improving the family division and for her work as Canadas representative to the International Tribunal on Child Abduction at the Hague. Diamond was part of a network of international judges helping to ensure the proper return of children to their home country after being abducted to foreign jurisdictions, she said. "Shes been a tireless advocate for families and children in our province and across the globe," Stefanson said at the time. NDP justice critic Andrew Swan, a lawyer who appeared before her many times while practising family law, told his fellow legislators that he admired Diamonds dedication and compassion. She helped overhaul the family division of the Court of Queens Bench with her work towards developing a case management system, Swan said. Judges went from being umpires to problem solvers, he told the legislature. "It was a more transparent, meaningful way of approaching what can be a very emotional, stressful time for children and families," he said. Diamond's son Michael says she was a role model for him and his brother Richard. Both sons live in Toronto, where they work in law and politics. (Supplied photo) Diamond was born in Salt Lake City on Aug. 8, 1952, to Marion and Monte Moglove. She was a year old when they moved to Winnipeg, where Moglove grew up in a home that nurtured her love for family and hard work. "She was always mindful of the needs of families... and she was mindful of the needs of her own family," said Swan, who remembered one of Diamonds two sons attending court with her on Take Your Kid to Work Day. "I was arguing a motion when he asked if he could watch proceedings down the hall in the Court of Appeal," said Swan. Her son Michael, now 33, remembers going to work with his mom. "It was a fun and cool day," said Michael, who lives in Toronto and works in politics and government relations. He said he doesnt remember asking to skip out of his moms family courtroom to watch an appeal. He does remember being four years old and his mom taking him to the legislative dining room when she was director of the Family Law Branch before being appointed to the bench. "I was impressed by all the MLAs," said Michael, who felt called to work in politics. Their mom was a role model for him and his brother Richard, who practises family law in Toronto. She took both her professional and family life seriously," said Michael. "Work was present in her home life but not distracting her. Thered always be piles of papers around and a Dictaphone for dictation. I remember, on a couple of occasions, court proceedings (of an urgent nature) taking place in our living room when she was the duty judge." Helping families was Diamonds driving force. "Part of her personality was to help families avoid litigation and avoid trial and come to an agreement that worked for that family," said Michael. "Her strength she was most proud of was being able to bring people together." Diamond's husband, retired lawyer Harvey Diamond, says he misses her all the time. "She was my best friend." (Supplied photo) In addition to her family and court duties, Diamond dedicated her time to serving on committees that developed guidelines to improve how courts deal with families and children, Joyal said. "It really was a vocation for her," and it showed, said Joyal. "As you become more immersed in these areas, your passions and dedication are heightened because you know what can be done and what has to be done." Diamond did all that while maintaining a healthy work-life balance, said Joyal. "She gave unwavering support to her husband Harvey and two sons Richard and Michael," he said. Her husband, retired lawyer Harvey Diamond in Winnipeg, says he misses her all the time. "She was my best friend." carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca Much like Justin Trudeau, the selfie prime minister who deployed a savvy online presence to secure the nation's highest office in 2015, Mayor Brian Bowman knows his way around a social media account. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 21/9/2018 (1146 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Much like Justin Trudeau, the selfie prime minister who deployed a savvy online presence to secure the nation's highest office in 2015, Mayor Brian Bowman knows his way around a social media account. Officially, Bowman -- who is looking to land a second term in office when Winnipeggers head to the polls Oct. 24 -- just got his re-election bid underway, kicking things off with a gathering of 150 supporters inside the ballroom of the RBC Convention Centre on Sept. 13. In reality, however, the incumbent mayor has been hustling for votes for months -- and he has the Twitter and Instagram accounts to prove it. Against the backdrop of a large field of challengers, Bowman has been conducting what amounts to an under-the-radar election campaign, playing to his natural strengths as a polished politician and taking advantage of the benefits that come with being the incumbent. All one needs to do is to look at his social media feeds to see he's been out shaking hands and kissing babies for months on end, employing a brick-by-brick approach to securing his re-election. If you ask Kelly McCrae, Bowman's campaign manager and a veteran of his successful 2014 run, those public appearances were the work of the mayor, not the mayoral candidate. "The mayor was incredibly busy over the course of the summer. He did a lot of tours around the city," McCrae, 35, told the Free Press. "He spent the summer connecting with Winnipeggers, meeting with people. We weren't going heavy on the policy announcements." But Oai Truong, a social media strategist and owner of the marketing company Bounce Design, isn't so sure the work of the mayor and that of the candidate can be separated so easily. "It doesn't matter if it's business or politics, you're selling a product. In politics, you're selling yourself and your platform. The social media presence he maintains, which is fairly extensive, is essentially advertising," Truong said. "I've been following him for several years and it's sort of mind boggling the number of events he attends. He makes Ace Burpee look like a lazy guy." A search of Bowman's tweets since July 31, when Winnipeg's Folklorama festival was getting underway, shows he's been a consistent presence at community events, while also making frequent stops at local businesses. This year, Bowman managed to once again hit every Folklorama pavilion -- 43 in total. Those appearances were all documented with multiple photos that quickly went up online, blasting them out to his more than 66,000 Twitter and 17,000 Instagram followers, respectively. Those accounts are maintained by the mayor's "new media officer," a position created within the mayor's office in 2014. Delicious lunch option on #PizzaWeek: the original "Pizza Pop", invented in 1964 right here in #Winnipeg by the late Paul Faraci. His nephew Anthony Faraci is bringing #PaulsOriginalPizzaSnack back at #FaraciFoods-270 Partridge right now. https://t.co/u1K5Tx7aNp #MadeinWinnipeg pic.twitter.com/ziBfkHkEfD Mayor Brian Bowman (@Mayor_Bowman) June 5, 2018 "(The new media officer) is responsible for managing and supporting the mayor's various social media platforms, including the creation and management of all digital material," Jeremy Davis, Bowman's press secretary, said in a written statement. The new media officer's duties include taking photographs of Bowman at press conferences and events, which are then uploaded to his various accounts. At the pavilions, for example, professional quality photos show him effectively rubbing elbows with hundreds of voters at a time. Since his re-election bid became official, however, Bowman has been careful not to cross-contaminate between his mayoral social media accounts and the website dedicated to his campaign. In addition, his new miedia officer is not involved in re-election efforts. That's a smart approach, according to Truong, who said the posts don't come across as Bowman pumping his own tires, but rather give off the impression of him as a man of the people. "With your social media presence you don't want to make things about me, me, me all the time. Instead, you want to associate yourself with other brands, to the point you almost become something of a leech, for lack of a better term," Truong said. "You associate yourself with positive things. It makes you look good. If the public has a positive view of Folklorama, or the human rights museum, or a particular brand or restaurant, then you want to be at those places." It was a scorcher of an afternoon, but I couldn't be happier to spend it out and about on Academy Road. Met some outstanding business owners and enjoyed hearing their successes & challenges! @AcademyRoadBIZ @SaucersCafe @CorneliaBean #SaltBoutique #BroadwayFlorists pic.twitter.com/DgmuRYd0oA Mayor Brian Bowman (@Mayor_Bowman) July 14, 2018 In addition to the Folklorama hits, which accounted for 45 posts on his Twitter account since July 31, Bowman has also been routinely advertising his drop-ins at local businesses. Some days, he appears to make multiple stops in short succession. In total, he's posted 35 photos from local shops during that time. In each picture, Bowman can be seen hanging with the owners and staff members, always with a photogenic smile spread across his face. That brick-by-brick strategy -- with Bowman meeting voters in smaller batches at a time -- can be contrasted with Jenny Motkaluk's approach. ANDREW RYAN / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Mayoral candidate Jenny Motkaluk Motkaluk, who is considered Bowman's main competitor, has employed a more traditional approach of press conferences and policy announcements -- a strategy similar to the one Bowman used in 2014 as a political rookie. Having said that, Bowman hasn't been completely mute on the policy front, including a recent announcement where he was seen to take a stab at the Winnipeg Police Association. During the announcement, Bowman said he wanted to stop the practice of police overtime being pensionable, thereby freeing up more than $1 million to hire more frontline officers. Met up with @WPG_CYCLE owners @Christy_Weiss and Jamie Murray for a look at their #SouthOsborne location. Great business people, and what a fun concept! @southosbornebiz pic.twitter.com/8QNra8LvmS Mayor Brian Bowman (@Mayor_Bowman) August 17, 2018 That came on the heels of the WPA -- the union representing city police -- levying an attack ad against the mayor, effectively blaming him for alleged long queue times when calling 911. But McCrae said the policy wasn't just an effort by Bowman to tell the union that if it really wants to see an increase in WPS funding, it should put its money where its mouth is. "The thing is the police service has received increases annually to its budget. If they're going to get increases beyond that, it would be mean property taxes (go up)," McCrae said. "So if there are ways internally that money can be reallocated to be spent on issues important to the police association and board, then let's work at those internal ways." McCrae added that while Bowman hasn't made a ton of policy announcements so far, that aspect of his campaign -- which is being run by a core group of about 10 volunteer staffers and one employee -- is likely to pick up steam in the coming weeks. In the meantime, Bowman has been banking on the fact that his record over the last four years speaks for itself. And he isn't wrong to do so, as it's well known that unseating an incumbent mayor in Winnipeg is exceedingly difficult -- the last time it happened was 1956. Bowman envisions city as human rights leader Brian Bowman said he wants to build on the strength of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and other community assets to make Winnipeg an international human rights leader. click to read more Brian Bowman said he wants to build on the strength of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and other community assets to make Winnipeg an international human rights leader. Fixing pipes and potholes are issues that are important for building a city growing towards a population of one million people but so too is the need to have a vision for a city that reflects its potential and pride, Bowman said at a campaign event Friday at The Forks parkade, which overlooks the museum. Bowman, the incumbent and one of eight candidates running for mayor in the Oct. 24 civic election, said he wants to make Winnipeg an international leader in the promotion, protection, education as well as policy creation for human rights. Citing the communitys response to the January 2015 Macleans magazine article that identified Winnipeg as the countrys most racist city, Bowman said Winnipeggers demonstrated they arent afraid to face problems, and overcome them. In addition to the museum, Bowman said the citys strength in the field of human rights includes the University of Manitoba Arthur V. Mauro Centre for Peace and Justice and Winnipegs Indigenous Accord, a document which individuals, organizations and businesses have signed committing themselves to reconciliation with the Indigenous community. City halls efforts to achieve this international status would be led by a new council committee, a human rights committee of council, which he said would focus and prioritize the citys work on human rights. This new committee would consolidate the work and resources of three groups citizen equity committee, the access advisory committee, and the mayors age-friendly seniors advisory committee. The new committee would use the resources those three groups have. Bowman promised city hall would create a newcomer welcome and inclusion policy, which would identify ways to enhance the lives of immigrants by identifying ways to meet their distinct needs for access to city services. Bowman said the city has no formal policies to help 176,000 people, who have settled in Winnipeg under the provincial nominee program, integrate into the community. -- Aldo Santin Close The heavy social media presence Bowman has employed so far speaks to the way technology has disrupted rules governing election advertising, according to Truong. "Social media has been a game changer for political campaigns. Traditional politics have very set rules and budget restrictions. You can only spend so much on TV, billboards, ads. But now with social media there's a grey line because the exposure is free," Truong said. "He's not violating any restrictions. But the reality is he's been campaigning since the day he took office. He's been building his brand." According to Paul Thomas, professor emeritus of political studies at the University of Manitoba, the best way to win elections is still with face-to-face contact with voters, not social media posts. Nonetheless, Thomas said what's been so savvy about Bowman's use of social media is that it links up with the face-to-face interactions he's been seeking out. That's a strategy Thomas said will serve the mayor well when voters head to the polls. "You go to these events and then here's this fresh-faced mayor with a photogenic smile who loves to do selfies. He's meeting with citizens, opinion leaders, and guess what, people love meeting the mayor," Thomas said. "He's a warm and engaging guy, so it's a pleasant experience for people. At these events, you multiply that and it has a sort of ripple effect. People say, 'You know that Brian Bowman, he's a really nice guy. He's not your typical mayor.'" There's currently a very strong anti-politician sentiment in North America, according to Thomas, who said Bowman's positioned himself well to avoid that blowback. Back in 2014, when he was a lesser known challenger and considered a long shot to win the election, Bowman positioned himself as an "anti-politician, politician," capable of cleaning up city hall following the Sam Katz era, Thomas said. "People dislike politicians as a class, as an occupation. In matters of trust, politicians are right at the bottom of the barrel. But when you ask people about individual politicians, that can change," Thomas said. "He meets 200 people at a pavilion, he smiles at them, they feel good about it. That's going to pay dividends." While such meet-and-greet appearances, and the corresponding social media posts that document them, have been serving Bowman well, Truong points out that when it comes to social media, appearance isn't reality. . @LeopoldsTavern is a cozy little bar, new to #SouthOsborne. Another great reason to spend more time in the area. The digital jukebox covers all my #VanHalen needs too! @southosbornebiz pic.twitter.com/j2ReGtCkpR Mayor Brian Bowman (@Mayor_Bowman) August 18, 2018 When Bowman posts photos from local businesses, for example, the impression given to his thousands of followers is that he's forged a genuine connection with, and spent time getting to know, the owners and staff. But Truong said he isn't so sure that's always the case. "There's a level of quantity over quality with his posts. You get the impression he whips in, does the photo op, ten minutes, then he's off to the next place. That's the impression I get, anyways," Truong said. 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. "For example, you'll see photos of him in local restaurants, smiling with the owners. But the reality is he didn't go in there for the burger. He went in there for the photo op." While some people might be critical of that approach, saying it prioritizes style over substance, Thomas said Bowman's been smart to ride on his coattails a bit and not rock the boat with too many policy announcements. "Policy positions are potential lightning rods right now. He's ahead and it's a standard operating practice to play it safe going into the election. It's really a remote possibility that he could be defeated at this point," Thomas said. "I'm sure there are some people disappointed and frustrated with him, saying he's become just another politician. But I think he's retained his original image much more than you'd expect after a four-year term." ryan.thorpe@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @rk_thorpe The Manitoba children's advocate is encountering an increasing number of youth with methamphetamine addictions, and feels the province is lagging to provide treatment while "stuck in an ideological debate" about harm-reduction approaches. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 21/9/2018 (1146 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The Manitoba children's advocate is encountering an increasing number of youth with methamphetamine addictions, and feels the province is lagging to provide treatment while "stuck in an ideological debate" about harm-reduction approaches. Daphne Penrose released a three-page statement Friday, outlining various problems with access to mental health and addictions services she sees first-hand while working with children and youth. "We have to set aside our own comfort levels as adults and service providers and listen to the voices of young people. They don't want to be dying from their addictions -- they want our help," she wrote. BY THE NUMBERS Among children ages six through 12, 10.8 per cent reportedly experienced a significant mental health or addictions issue in Manitoba, as have 17 per cent of youth ages 13 to 19. Since 2009, 143 youth died by suicide in Manitoba, including eight in August 2018. click to read more Among children ages six through 12, 10.8 per cent reportedly experienced a significant mental health or addictions issue in Manitoba, as have 17 per cent of youth ages 13 to 19. Since 2009, 143 youth died by suicide in Manitoba, including eight in August 2018. According to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, meth-related deaths among youth and adults doubled in the last two reportable years, to 35 deaths from 17. According to the Addictions Foundation of Manitoba, 81 per cent of female youth clients reported amphetamine as their primary drug of choice, compared with 19 per cent of male youth. source: Office of Manitoba Advocate for Children and Youth Close In a subsequent interview, Penrose detailed a recent meeting she had with deputy ministers from Manitoba's health and families departments, where she didn't hear any concrete plans for improving services. Four months after the publication of the Virgo report -- which examined mental health and addiction services throughout the province -- she had expected more. Penrose said she hoped her speaking publicly would bring "some sense of urgency" to decision makers. "It isnt a debate whether we have youth and young adults in our province who are addicted to methamphetamines. Its not about that. We need to start talking to the youth and young adults about, What do you need?" she said. The province introduced plans for five rapid access to addictions medicine clinics in May, but the drop-in facilities are for adults only. Penrose said there is currently nowhere for youth needing addictions treatment to turn. She said there has been a "skyrocketing" number of meth-related overdoses, and noted the number of meth-related deaths in Manitoba doubled in the last year alone. RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Children's Advocate, Daphne Penrose released a three-page statement outlining various problems with access to mental health and addictions services she sees first-hand while working with children and youth in the province. 'We have to set aside our own comfort levels as adults and service providers and listen to the voices of young people. They don't want to be dying from their addictions they want our help' Manitoba children's advocate, Daphne Penrose In her statement, Penrose urged the government to look at the "trauma crisis" underscoring much of mental health and addictions issues. She suggested Manitoba consider "evidence-informed harm-reduction approaches," including clean needle exchanges and overdose prevention sites. "While other provinces move forward in addressing Canada's opioid crisis with a decriminalized public health approach to substance misuse, Manitoba lags behind, seemingly stuck in an ideological debate, at the grave expense of too many children and youth," she wrote. But when speaking to the Free Press, Penrose wouldn't endorse the introduction of safe-injection sites outright. She said the sites should still be considered by government, though it's repeatedly voiced opposition to the concept. OPPOSITION RESPONDS "The Manitoba advocates statement of concern is an indictment of the Pallister governments failure to act on the mental health of children in Manitoba... There are many problems with the Pallister governments approach. The (Virgo) report notes that this is not a new problem. click to read more "The Manitoba advocates statement of concern is an indictment of the Pallister governments failure to act on the mental health of children in Manitoba... There are many problems with the Pallister governments approach. The (Virgo) report notes that this is not a new problem. It was a problem under the previous NDP government, as well. The Virgo report itself recognized what has long been true: 'Systems are underfunded, the resources are spread too thin, and prevention focused efforts are often overshadowed by the ever-growing need for crisis interventions.' The PC government is doing virtually nothing in the face of a growing crisis." Dougald Lamont, Manitoba Liberal leader "For months, the Pallister government has refused to take action to address addictions and mental health issues in our province. After ordering cuts to the Addictions Foundation of Manitoba and laying off staff at an addictions treatment facility in Portage la Prairie, the Pallister government has done nothing for months to implement the recommendations of its task force and has no plan for implementation. We echo the advocates call for immediate action concrete steps to support children and youth experiencing addictions and crisis, such as the creation of a safe consumption site. The Pallister government needs to stop cutting our most essential services and invest in our children and youth." Matt Wiebe, Manitoba NDP critic for education and training Close "It isnt about what I think or about what other people who dont have addictions think. It is about the people who have addictions and what they need. I think that we really do need to start listening to them and meeting the needs that are going to help them lead healthier lives," she said. 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 advocate's office will be monitoring the government's plans to curb youth mental health and addictions issues going forward, plus compiling a related report. Manitoba Health Minister Cameron Friesen was not available for an interview on the topic Friday. A government spokesperson sent a statement responding to Penroses assertions. "A plan to implement other recommendations made in the (Virgo) report, including many that target youth, will be announced later this fall," the spokesperson said. "The health and mental well-being of all Manitoba youth is a priority our government shares with the childrens advocate. We look forward to continuing to work with her office on this important issue." jessica.botelho@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @_jessbu Amidst thunderous applause and news of a landmark reconciliation agreement, Manitoba Metis Federation president David Chartrand heralded the dawn of a new era in a 148-year-old battle for the rights of Metis people. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 22/9/2018 (1145 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Amidst thunderous applause and news of a landmark reconciliation agreement, Manitoba Metis Federation president David Chartrand heralded the dawn of a new era in a 148-year-old battle for the rights of Metis people. On Saturday, Chartrand took the stage at the MMFs annual general assembly to unveil a new $154.3-million agreement with the federal government that pledges to work towards reconciliation and self-government. In front of a crowd of hundreds at Assiniboia Downs, Chartrand lauded the deal as the culmination of nearly 150 years of Metis organizing dating all the way back to Louis Riel, the Red River resistance and the creation of Manitoba. "Were back into Confederation," Chartrand announced. "(The government of Canada) left the table in 1870, and they are back at the table in 2018, and our lives are going to change forever." In an emotional 30-minute speech, Chartrand who first took the helm of the MMF in 1997 blinked back tears as he remembered Metis leaders who had long worked to earn this level of recognition from Ottawa. Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett championed the transfer of funds as a 'huge breakthrough' that would allow the MMF to look after Metis people in Manitoba. (Mike Deal / Winnipeg Free Press) "People dont realize how many people have fought to get us here," Chartrand said, as his voice caught in his throat. "There are many who have left us already, and could not be here to join us in the celebration." Along with the funding, the agreement paves the way for the MMF to be recognized as the self-determining government of Metis people in Manitoba. Some of the funds announced Saturday will be used for the transition. Chartrand also unveiled plans for new investments in social supports for Metis people. "It will change peoples lives in a way never before seen in this country. We will use our resources to create jobs, to put a better health system, education system, and invest in our young people to go to university," he said. Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett, in town for the announcement, championed the transfer of funds as a "huge breakthrough" that would allow the MMF to look after Metis people in Manitoba. David Chartrand got emotional talking about what the agreement would meet for Metis people in Manitoba. (Mike Deal / Winnipeg Free Press) "In some ways, our government is to get out of the way so your government can lead," she told the assembly. The $153.4-million is money Ottawa had already earmarked for the purpose, Bennett told reporters. She also pledged to build accountability frameworks into a future recognition legislation. 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. "Its going to be very important to have in this legislation: how do you hold Canada to account? How do we work as a partnership, not the paternalism, or just the exclusion that the Metis nation have felt up until now?" she said. Bennett did not give a timeline on when eventual legislation to recognize the MMF as a government might move forward. When it does happen, it will clarify and solidify the Metis nations role in official matters, Chartrand said. "The key word is inclusion. Well finally be included. Well finally be drawn in to be a partner to processes... this new formation will make it very clear who the players are, and who the government is," he said. Though Chartrand joked that he might not stop smiling for weeks, he said believed he would one day see the MMF formally recognized by Canada as the Manitoba Metis communitys government. "I had dreams that this day would come," Chartrand said. "I had a vision that if we were consistent in our direction and stayed united, and let no one break us as a people and a government, that we will win." melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca The Manitoba Metis Federation (MMF) and the federal government are announcing next steps toward reconciliation Saturday, which include millions in funding from Ottawa. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 22/9/2018 (1145 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The Manitoba Metis Federation (MMF) and the federal government are announcing next steps toward reconciliation Saturday, which include millions in funding from Ottawa. The federal government is pledging $154.3 million to the MMF, as part of a three-pronged plan to help the Metis eliminate poverty and establish self-government. MMF president David Chartrand said he was thrilled by the news. In an interview Friday, said he plans to ask local business heavyweights, including Hartley Richardson and Sandy Riley, for financial-planning advice. Some initial ideas the MMF leader has for spending the money include establishing a grants program for first-time Metis homebuyers and starting construction on 100 homes with adjoining greenhouses. "This is a long time coming. People need to look at it from this context: our future was robbed from us in 1870, 148 years ago now, and our economic engines were robbed from us. So we became basically the working poor in this country. We were shrugged off our lands and the opportunities for us to grow economically were just taken directly from us," Chartrand said. "This will be at least some payback money from what was taken from us for all the taxes, and all that has been robbed from us throughout a century," he said. "Its a huge investment for us. Its going to change peoples lives by the thousands, and tens of thousands, and definitely give our young people an opportunity." The MMF, which represents about 120,000 Metis people in the province, will speak more about the investment at its general assembly meeting this weekend, alongside federal Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett (who was not available for an interview on Friday). 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. "We are moving forward as true partners at the negotiating table to begin to put reconciliation into action. This is a truly historic process, and we look forward to meaningful work with the Manitoba Metis Federation on solutions that promote a lasting and meaningful reconciliation for the benefit of the Manitoba Metis community and all Canadians," Bennett said in a prepared statement. Chartrand said there is still plenty of work to do when it comes to reconciliation with the federal and provincial governments. Settling land claims is among the top items on his agenda, as is seeing the MMF recognized as its own independent body of government in legislation, not as a "special interest group." jessica.botelho@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @_jessbu OTTAWA The federal Liberals are finally launching a review of the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corp., the Winnipeg-based Crown corporation that's been plagued by management problems for years. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 21/9/2018 (1146 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. OTTAWA The federal Liberals are finally launching a review of the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corp., the Winnipeg-based Crown corporation that's been plagued by management problems for years. New Fisheries Minister Jonathan Wilkinson announced Friday an advisory panel would look at ways to "transform the (corporation) so it remains modern and competitive in todays open market." The panel is expected to report back on new governance and ownership models, including how the corporation relates to Indigenous fishermen, in early 2019. The corporation has been cited as one of Canadas most dysfunctional agencies after multiple, scathing audits discovered years of mismanagement, dodgy hiring practices and insufficient health-and-safety training. The Free Press revealed in June that injuries at the Transcona plant occur at least three times more frequently than the industry norm. Late last year, the Manitoba government became the latest to pull out of the freshwater fish monopoly. Since the 1960s, the Prairie provinces and territories were required to send all commercial freshwater catches to the Winnipeg plant to be processed and marketed abroad. Provinces have gradually switched to the open market, though 80 per cent of fishers still rely on the corporation, likely because transporting fish from northern regions isnt as profitable. 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. Wilkinsons office said Friday that they held off naming the advisory committee because they wanted to complete "unprecedented consultations" nationwide. "We also recognize that the operating environment has undergone significant change over the last few years and that it is time for the (corporation) to evolve," spokeswoman Jocelyn Lubczuk wrote. It is unknown whether the review will include concerns voiced by Manitoba Conservative MP Robert Sopuck, a former marine biologist who claims the corporation has encouraged pickerel overfishing in Lake Winnipeg. The review panel includes six people with experience in fisheries or corporate management. Manitoba is Mark Freedman of Winnipeg, a Metis originally from Flin Flon and Gerald Malone, a resident of Winnipeg for the past 23 years. First Nations and Metis fishers appear divided about how their product should be marketed. Some have demanded more access to open markets, claiming the Crown corporation never took advantage of demand in China. Others believe the corporation is the best option to sell their catch because their villages are so remote. dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 22/9/2018 (1145 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Chelsey Hills family includes a big sister and a Big Sister. Hill was just eight years old when her mom, who lives with lupus, realized the autoimmune disease, which causes fatigue and joint pain, was going to keep her from activities and outings with her daughter. PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Chelsey Hill has known her Big Sister for more than a decade and sees her almost every day at the U of Ms Indigenous Student Centre. Hills sister, Alicia, who is five years older, already had a Big Sister through Big Brothers Big Sisters of Winnipeg, a United Way Winnipeg donor-supported agency so their mom contacted it on Hills behalf, too. Carla Loewen, in Hills life for 12 years and counting, has brought support, stability and a whole lot of fun. "I remember being really excited when my mom applied for me to have a mentor, because when my sister got to go out with her Big Sister, I always wanted to go on outings with them. After I met Carla, I was out doing those things, too," said Hill, 20. She remembers the exact day she and Loewen met: Oct. 16, 2006. Over the years, Hill and Loewen have gone to movies, had outings at The Forks, attended many Big Brother Big Sisters events and gatherings with Loewens family. During some turbulent times in high school, changes in her home life and her transition to becoming a University of Manitoba student, Hills bond with Loewen has grown stronger. "Carla is always the one I would talk to or vent to about everything," she said. "Its been nice to have an older friend that I can rely on, but who can also act my age. Shes an adult, but she always could be like a kid around me. "Its meant a lot to me to have her in my life and shes had a big impact in my life." The two women share Cree heritage, which helped to bring them together with Big Sisters. (Hills family is from Peguis First Nation and Loewen is from Mathias Colomb Cree Nation.) Loewen said it was "a grassroots call for Aboriginal women to mentor Aboriginal girls" that brought her to Big Sisters 12 years ago. 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. "That really resonated with me. My goal was just to be a friend and somebody she could look up to and talk to. Weve had so much fun over the years. Im just really glad weve stuck together," said Loewen, 42. "Its been a wonderful experience and Ive been so blessed to see her grow up from a young girl to a student in university, and Im really glad I applied to be a Big Sister. Shes an amazing young woman whos grown from a shy girl to someone who is really bubbly and mature." Hill said it takes more planning for her and Loewen to hang out these days, but they see each other almost every day because Loewen works as a student adviser at the U of Ms Indigenous Student Centre. "Im always in the centre and I stop in sometimes just to talk to her," said Hill, who plans to be an early-years teacher. The mentorship journey has now come full circle, as Loewen recently brought Hill on board at the centre as a mentor for another Indigenous student. ashley.prest@freepress.mb.ca A group of councillors has voted to support a major expansion of Winnipegs first Sikh temple, despite the objections of city planners. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 21/9/2018 (1146 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A group of councillors has voted to support a major expansion of Winnipegs first Sikh temple, despite the objections of city planners. The appeal committee voted 3-1 Friday to approve a $3-million, 21/2-storey, 17,522-square-foot addition to the temple. That will almost double its size to more than 39,000 square feet. The temple is on an unserviced lot on a gravel road in the northwest part of the city near West St. Paul. The Board of Adjustment approved the project in July. Some West St. Paul residents, who live across the road from the temple, filed an appeal. "Im just finding it difficult to understand (how it was approved), West St. Paul resident Nancy Speidel said. The temple is on a 19-acre parcel of land on Mollard Road, in an agricultural district. While it appears that most of the surrounding land in the city and the RM is vacant, prospects for development are limited. The temple backs onto city-owned land that is designated for the extension of the Chief Peguis Trail. Across the road in the RM, there are 10, two-acre lots on Mollard, which back onto a Manitoba Hydro corridor, where development is prohibited. Residents said the road is in horrible shape. It is dusty when vehicles speed down it, and turns into a muddy mess during rainfall, they said. City planner Noah Yauk said places of worship in agricultural areas of the city are restricted to 10,000 square feet, adding the temple is already bigger than the rules allow. The expansion goes against city planning guidelines, which limit such developments to fully serviced land that has paved roads, and water and sewer service. A report Yauk prepared for the hearing said the citys emergency services division found the temples underground water tank doesnt meet code requirements for volumes of water for firefighting. In addition, the division doesnt know how the temple would be able to provide the amount of water needed for sprinklers in the addition. Temple representatives said the expansion is needed to provide classrooms and meeting space for its Sunday school, and there would be no additional traffic at the temple. "We dont have enough space for (the children) to be seated properly," said Varinder Ghuman, the vice-principal of the temple school. 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. He said the 300 children who attend classes must meet in hallways and stairwells. The addition would include six classrooms and washroom facilities on the elevated first level, a large meeting hall on the top floor and two meeting rooms in the elevated lower level. The councillors on the committee recognized the planning departments concerns but the majority chairman John Orlikow, Matt Allard and Shawn Dobson voted to support the project. Only Jenny Gerbasi was against the expansion. "Im very conflicted about this application because I think the planners made very good points about how and where we should grow," Allard said, adding he hoped problems identified with the project would be dealt with through the building permit process. "Im swayed by the need that this organization is filling in the community." aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca Habitat for Humanity officials are sounding the alarm after thieves ripped off the organization's Winnipeg construction sites to the tune of $25,000 during the past few months. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 21/9/2018 (1146 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Habitat for Humanity officials are sounding the alarm after thieves ripped off the organization's Winnipeg construction sites to the tune of $25,000 during the past few months. The non-profit homebuilders are asking neighbours and passersby to help them watch over job sites, and call police immediately if anything is amiss. "We are a victim of crime. We feel like we are being targeted. We started back in May we've had over 20 thefts and damages to our properties. Seven is the total that have been hit are active build sites," Michelle Pereira, vice-president of marketing, communications and philanthropy, said Friday in front of a two-storey duplex on Cathedral Avenue that has been robbed and vandalized three times. "What we're asking the community to do, and we're asking the media to get the word out, is we need you to be our neighbourhood watch... We don't want the community to be vigilantes. We want you to just call 911." Copper wiring is a popular target for thieves at Habitat sites. (Mikaela MacKenzie / Winnipeg Free Press) Pereira said Habitat crews and volunteers only work during the day Monday through Friday, so anyone otherwise hanging around its sites is not supposed to be there. Copper wiring is being stolen (thieves sell it to scrap yards), as well as tools and a range of construction equipment. There's been vandalism, too. At the Cathedral site, thieves stole copper wiring and tools, trashed the electrical box and smashed a basement window Monday. At a build site on Flora Avenue, thieves cut a heavy-duty lock off a storage trailer, pried open a locked box and stole all the tools. When volunteers arrived to start work, there was no equipment available. Prior to this year, four or five thefts during in an entire build season was the average, Pereira said. "What's disappointing is that you're trying to do something good for people, and people are taking advantage of us. It's unfortunate," she said. "It's a human right for someone to have a safe, decent place to live... So we feel what we're doing is important to our society and improves neighbourhoods." Linda Peters (left) and Michelle Pereira of Habitat for Humanity in front of 284 Cathedral Ave., where thieves stole copper wiring and tools Monday, along with trashing the electrical box and smashing a basement window. (Mikaela MacKenzie / Winnipeg Free Press) Local Habitat organizers had hired private security, but it was deemed too expensive. Now the equipment trailers, even though they are locked, are being moved off-site at the end of each day, which costs extra time and money. Insurance claims can't be filed because each incident is an individual case and not enough to claim, Habitat said. 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. Pereira said the thefts are also impacting families, who have to wait longer to move into their new homes. Also, thieves wait for repairs to be made and then rip the place off again, she said. "This house, we are on our third round. Each side (of the side-by-side) is $4,000 for (electrical) repairs," said Linda Peters, vice-president of program delivery. "This one is absolutely killing us, that someone thinks that this is okay to just come and take it. "We are two, three weeks behind on this house. They kick in a window because they think that doesn't matter. Well, now we have to replace a window. It impacts the way we build, it impacts our managing our volunteers, it impacts our work with our trades (people) and with the city (inspectors)." Habitat plans to build 25 homes in Winnipeg this year. It sells each house at fair-market value to families, chosen through an application process and with affordable, no-interest mortgages. It reinvests proceeds into future projects. ashley.prest@freepress.mb.ca A Winnipeg physician and academic is advocating a wholesale change in the leadership at the University of Manitoba including the removal of president David Barnard to make it a more welcoming place for Indigenous students. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 21/9/2018 (1146 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A Winnipeg physician and academic is advocating a wholesale change in the leadership at the University of Manitoba including the removal of president David Barnard to make it a more welcoming place for Indigenous students. Barry Lavallee, director of student support and education for the Centre for Aboriginal Health Education at the university, said Indigenous students have to contend with racism at the university "multiple times a day." CRYSTAL SCHICK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Dr. Barry Lavallee, University of Manitoba Centre for Aboriginal Health, has called for Dr. David Barnard to be removed as president and vice-chancellor of the University of Manitoba. This is a difficult predicament for them, considering "We don't even believe women at this university their experiences with oppression," he said, referring to recently publicized allegations of sexual harassment and assault. In a public lecture at the university Thursday, which can be viewed on Facebook, Lavallee also charged there is no means for Indigenous students to report incidents of racism at the U of M campus. "We have no pathway to support Indigenous and racialized people when they experience the violence of racism," he said. Lavallee, a family physician, has long-studied chronic disease in First Nation communities and is known internationally for his work in Indigenizing the curriculum for medical schools. He is a member of the Lake Manitoba First Nation and Metis communities. Lavallee referred to Indigenous people as "internal refugees" in Canada, but without many of the same supports and job opportunities afforded to those who come from overseas After describing the effects of colonialism and racism on Indigenous health and on society in general, Lavallee turned his attention to the U of M. He advocated radical change for ridding the institution of racism, including mandatory entrance examinations for all students to assess their knowledge and skills "regarding Indigenous peoples and their current journey." As well, there needs to be "graduated consequences," including dismissal, for university staff who "perpetually demonstrate or inflict violence on Indigenous people." Change is needed at the top, Lavallee said. "I suggest Ill give it six months that the current president of the University of Manitoba (Barnard) be removed from his seat, nicely, and we put in an Indigenous female in that position," he said, adding there is no shortage of qualified candidates. "And we need the governing forces at this university to be composed of 70 per cent Indigenous people, in order to account for the inequities that are maintained and the inequities that stem from historical violence and trauma. We need that," he said to applause from the mainly Indigenous audience. Lavallee's hour-long talk, which was widely promoted on campus, kicked off a new Indigenous scholars speaker series at the Winnipeg-based university. 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. Lynn Lavallee, the U of M's vice-provost (Indigenous engagement), told the audience the formal mechanisms at the university for reporting racism are "not working" for Indigenous students. Students aren't comfortable coming forward, she said. Usually the first point of contact for a student who is experiencing racism is to approach an Indigenous faculty member, said Lavallee, who is no relation to Barry Lavallee. "I can honestly tell you and I've gone through this process at many institutions where challenging racism in the academy through the formal structures is violent," she said, referring to her experiences outside of the U of M. University spokesman John Danakas said Barry Lavallee was invited "to share his views freely" as part of the Indigenous scholars speaker series. "This speaker series is intended to highlight the important contributions of Indigenous scholars and to spark conversations that will advance understanding and reconciliation," he said in an email. "The president (Barnard) strongly supports efforts to increase the number of female and Indigenous senior administrators." larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca Close Get email notifications on Louis Weisberg daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. Whenever Louis Weisberg 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. There is not enough analysis data for Harte Hanks. 4.3 Community Rank Outperform Votes Harte Hanks has received 236 outperform votes. (Add your outperform vote.) Underperform Votes Harte Hanks has received 135 underperform votes. (Add your underperform vote.) Community Sentiment Harte Hanks has received 63.61% outperform votes from our community. MarketBeat's community ratings are surveys of what our community members think about Harte Hanks and other stocks. Vote Outperform if you believe HHS will outperform the S&P 500 over the long term. Vote Underperform if you believe HHS will underperform the S&P 500 over the long term. You may vote once every thirty days. Previous Next 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 The following companies are subsidiares of Stryker: ActiViews, Aimago SA, Alcott Indemnity Company, Arrinex Inc, Arrinex Inc., Ascent Healthcare Solutions, Berchtold, Berchtold + Fritz GmbH, Berchtold Consulting GmbH, Berchtold Corporation, Berchtold GmbH & Co. KG, Berchtold Holding Switzerland GmbH, CHG Hospital Beds, Cactus LLC, Cardan Robotics, Changzhou Orthomed Medical Instrument Company Limited, Concentric Medical, Concentric Medical Inc., Entellus Medical, Entellus Medical Europe Ltd, Entellus Medical Inc., GYS Tech LLC, Gaymar Industries, Gongping (Shanghai) Medical Devices Trading Co. Ltd., Groupe Bertec, HeartSine Technologies LLC, HeartSine Technologies Limited, Howmedica International S. de R.L., Howmedica Osteonics Corp., Hygia Health Services, Hygia Healthcare Services Inc., HyperBranch, HyperBranch Technology Inc., ITAPCo Limited, Image Guided Technologies, Imorphics Limited, Infinity MSD Corp., Infinity MSE Corp., Infinity MSF Corp., Infomedix Communications, Instratek, InstruMedics L.L.C, Invuity Inc., Ivy Sports Medicine, Ivy Sports Medicine LLC, Jiangsu Chuangyi Medical Instrument Company Limited, Jolife AB, K2M Germany GmbH, K2M Group, K2M Group Holdings Inc., K2M Holdings Inc., K2M Iberia Medcomtech S.L.U., K2M Inc., K2M Solutions Australia Pty Ltd, K2M Spine Solutions (Schweiz) GmbH, K2M UK Limited, Loon Intermediateco LLC, MAKO Surgical, MAKO Surgical Corp, Memometal Technologies, Mobius Imaging, Mobius Imaging LLC, Muka Metal, Muka Metal Ticaret ve Sanayi Anaonim Sirketi, NV Stryker SA, Nettrick Limited, Novadaq Corp, Novadaq Hong Kong Ltd, Novadaq Technologies, Novadaq Technologies ULC, OOO "Stryker", Orneo Ozel Saglk Hizmetleri Medikal Ticaret Anonim Sirketi, OrthoSpace, OrthoSpace Ltd., OrthoSpace US Inc., Orthomed (Hong Kong) Medical Instrument Company Limited, Orthovita, Orthovita Inc., OtisMed, P.C. Sweden Holding AB, Patient Safety Technologies, Patton Surgical, Pficonprod Pty. Ltd., Physio-Control, Physio-Control (Shanghai) Sales Co. Ltd., Physio-Control Brazil Vendas Ltda., Physio-Control Czech Sales s.r.o., Physio-Control Holdings Cooperatief U.A., Physio-Control Holdings Inc, Physio-Control Hungary Sales Kft, Physio-Control Inc., Physio-Control India Sales Pvt. Ltd, Physio-Control Investments LLC, Physio-Control Lebanon Sales Offshore s.a.l., Physio-Control Manufacturing Inc., Physio-Control Operations Netherlands B.V., Physio-Control Sales Limited Liability Company, Physio-Control Singapore Pte. Ltd., Physio-Control South Africa Sales Pty. Ltd., Physio-Control UK Sales Ltd., Pivot Medical, PlasmaSol, Porex Technologies, SSI Divestiture Inc., SYK Costa Rica Services Sociedad De Responsabilidad Limitada, SafeAir AG, SafeWire, Sage Products, Sage Products Coperatief U.A., Sage Products Holdings II LLC, Sage Products Holdings III LLC, Sage Products LLC, Scopis GmbH, Sightline Technologies, Small Bone Innovations, SpineCore, Spirox Inc., Stanmore Implants Worldwide, Stanmore Implants Worldwide Limited, Stanmore Inc., Stryker (Barbados) Foreign Sales Corporation, Stryker (Beijing) Healthcare Products Co. Ltd., Stryker (Shanghai) Healthcare Products Co. Ltd., Stryker (Suzhou) Medical Technology Co Ltd, Stryker (Thailand) Limited, Stryker AB, Stryker Acquisitions BV, Stryker Asia Holdings CV, Stryker Australia LLC, Stryker Australia Pty. Ltd., Stryker Austria GmbH, Stryker B.V., Stryker Berchtold BV, Stryker Beteiligungs GmbH, Stryker Canada GP ULC, Stryker Canada Holding Company, Stryker Canada Manufacturing ULC, Stryker Canada ULC, Stryker Canadian Management ULC, Stryker Canadian Sales Holding Company ULC, Stryker Capital BV, Stryker China Limited, Stryker Colombia SAS, Stryker Communications Inc., Stryker Corporation (Chile) y Compania Limitada, Stryker Corporation (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Stryker Customs Brokers LLC, Stryker Czech Republic s.r.o., Stryker Delaware Inc., Stryker EMEA Supply Chain Services BV, Stryker Employment Company LLC, Stryker European Coordination Center BV, Stryker European Holdings Cooperatief U.A, Stryker European Holdings I LLC, Stryker European Holdings II LLC, Stryker European Holdings LLC, Stryker European Holdings V LLC, Stryker European Operations B.V., Stryker European Operations Holdings I BV, Stryker European Operations Holdings II BV, Stryker European Operations Holdings III BV, Stryker European Operations Holdings LLC, Stryker European Operations Limited, Stryker European Technologies C.V., Stryker Far East Inc., Stryker Foreign Acquisitions Inc., Stryker France Holding SNC, Stryker France MM Holdings SAS, Stryker France SAS, Stryker Funding B.V., Stryker GI Services CV, Stryker Global Technology Center Private Limited, Stryker GmbH, Stryker GmbH & Co. KG, Stryker Grundstucks GmbH & Co KG, Stryker Grundstucks Verwaltungs GmbH, Stryker Holdings BV, Stryker IFSC Designated Activity Company, Stryker Iberia SL Unipersonal, Stryker India Private Limited, Stryker International Acquisitions BV, Stryker International Holdings BV, Stryker Investment Holdings B.V., Stryker Ireland Holding Unlimited Company, Stryker Ireland Limited, Stryker Italia S.r.l. S.U., Stryker Japan Holdings BV, Stryker Japan K.K., Stryker Korea Ltd., Stryker Lebanon (Offshore) S.A.L., Stryker Leibinger GmbH & Co. KG, Stryker Luxembourg Holdings S.a.r.l., Stryker Luxembourg Sarl, Stryker Manufacturing S. de R.L. de C.V., Stryker Mauritius Holding Ltd., Stryker Medical London LP, Stryker Medtech K.K., Stryker Medtech Limited, Stryker Mexico Holdings B.V., Stryker Mexico SA de CV, Stryker NV Operations Limited, Stryker Nederland BV, Stryker New Zealand Limited, Stryker Osteonics AG, Stryker Pacific Limited, Stryker Performance Solutions LLC, Stryker Polska Sp.z.o.o., Stryker Portugal - Produtos Medicos Unipessoal Lda., Stryker Professional Latin America S. de R.L. de C.V., Stryker Puerto Rico Limited, Stryker Romania SRL, Stryker Sage Inc., Stryker Sales Corporation, Stryker Servicios Administrativos S.de R.L. de C.V., Stryker Singapore Private Limited, Stryker South Africa (Proprietary) Limited, Stryker Spine SAS, Stryker Spine Sarl, Stryker Sustainability Solutions Inc., Stryker Tibbi Cihazlan Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Stryker Trauma GmbH, Stryker Turkish Holdings BV, Stryker UK Ltd, Stryker Verwaltungs GmbH, Stryker Vietnam Company Limited, Stryker do Brasil Ltda, Surpass Medical, Synergetics, TG SP Holdings Corp, TSO3 Corp, TSO3 Inc, Trauson, Trauson (China) Medical Instrument Company Limited, Trauson (Hong Kong) Company Limited, Trauson Holdings (BVI) Company Limited, Trauson Holdings (Hong Kong) Company Limited, Trauson Holdings Company Limited, VEXIM SA, Vexim, Waterloo Bedding Co., Wright Medical Group, ZipLine Medical Consulting (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ZipLine Medical Hong Kong Limited, ZipLine Medical Inc., and eTrauma.com. Gildan Activewear Inc. manufactures and sells various apparel products in the United States, Canada, and internationally. It provides various activewear products, including T-shirts, fleece tops and bottoms, and sport shirts under the Gildan, Gildan Performance, Gildan Hammer, Comfort Colors, American Apparel, Anvil by Gildan, Alstyle, Prim + Preux, and GoldToe brands. The company also offers hosiery products comprising athletic; dress; and casual, liner, therapeutic, and workwear socks, as well as sheer panty hoses, tights, and leggings under the brands of Gildan, Under Armour, GoldToe, PowerSox, GT a GoldToe Brand, Silver Toe, Signature Gold by Goldtoe, Peds, MediPeds, Kushyfoot, Therapy Plus, All Pro, Secret, Silks, Secret Silky, and American Apparel. In addition, it provides men's and boys' underwear products, and ladies panties under the Gildan and Gildan Platinum brand names; and ladies' shapewear, intimates, and accessories under the Secret and Secret Silky brands. The company sells its products to wholesale distributors, screen printers, or embellishers, as well as to retailers and consumer brand companies. The company was formerly known as Textiles Gildan Inc. and changed its name to Gildan Activewear Inc. in March 1995. Gildan Activewear Inc. was founded in 1946 and is headquartered in Montreal, Canada. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Abbott Laboratories: 3A Nutrition (Vietnam) Company Limited, ABON Biopharm (Hangzhou) Co. Ltd., AGA Medical Belgium, AGA Medical Corporation, AGA Medical Holdings Inc., ALR Holdings, AML Medical LLC, APK Advanced Medical Technologies LLC, ATS Bermuda Holdings Limited, ATS Laboratories Inc., Abbott, Abbott (Jiaxing) Nutrition Co. Ltd., Abbott (UK) Finance Limited, Abbott (UK) Holdings Limited, Abbott AG, Abbott Asia Holdings Limited, Abbott Asia Investments Limited, Abbott Australasia Holdings Limited, Abbott Australasia Pty Ltd, Abbott B.V., Abbott Bahamas Overseas Businesses Corporation, Abbott Belgian Investments, Abbott Bermuda Holding Ltd., Abbott Biologicals B.V., Abbott Biologicals LLC, Abbott Bulgaria Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Capital India Limited, Abbott Cardiovascular Inc., Abbott Cardiovascular Systems Inc., Abbott Delaware LLC, Abbott Diabetes Care Inc., Abbott Diabetes Care Limited, Abbott Diabetes Care Sales Corporation, Abbott Diagnostics GmbH, Abbott Diagnostics International Ltd., Abbott Diagnostics Technologies AS, Abbott Doral Investments S.L., Abbott Equity Holdings Unlimited, Abbott Equity Investments LLC, Abbott Established Products Holdings (Gibraltar) Limited, Abbott Finance Company SA, Abbott Financial Holdings SRL, Abbott France S.A.S., Abbott Fund Tanzania Limited, Abbott Gesellschaft m.b.H., Abbott GmbH & Co. KG, Abbott Health Products LLC, Abbott Healthcare (Puerto Rico) Ltd., Abbott Healthcare B.V., Abbott Healthcare Costa Rica S.A., Abbott Healthcare LLC, Abbott Healthcare Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Healthcare Private Limited, Abbott Healthcare Products B.V., Abbott Healthcare Products Ltd, Abbott Holding (Gibraltar) Limited, Abbott Holding GmbH, Abbott Holding Subsidiary (Gibraltar) Limited, Abbott Holding Subsidiary (Gibraltar) Limited Luxembourg S.C.S., Abbott Holdings B.V., Abbott Holdings LLC, Abbott Holdings Limited, Abbott Holdings Poland Spoka z ograniczona odpowiedzialnoscia, Abbott Hungary Korlatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, Abbott Iberian Investments (2) Limited, Abbott Iberian Investments Limited, Abbott India Limited, Abbott Informatics Asia Pacific Limited, Abbott Informatics Canada Inc, Abbott Informatics Corporation, Abbott Informatics Europe Limited, Abbott Informatics France, Abbott Informatics Germany GmbH, Abbott Informatics Netherlands B.V., Abbott Informatics Singapore Pte. Limited, Abbott Informatics Spain S.A., Abbott Informatics Technologies Ltd, Abbott International Corporation, Abbott International Enterprises Ltd., Abbott International Holdings Limited, Abbott International LLC, Abbott International Luxembourg S.ar.l., Abbott Investments Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Ireland, Abbott Ireland Financing Designated Activity Company, Abbott Ireland Limited, Abbott Japan Co. Ltd., Abbott Kazakhstan Limited Liability Partnership, Abbott Knoll Investments B.V., Abbott Korea Limited, Abbott Laboratories (Bangladesh) Limited, Abbott Laboratories (Chile) Holdco (Dos) SpA, Abbott Laboratories (Chile) Holdco SpA, Abbott Laboratories (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Abbott Laboratories (Mozambique) Limitada, Abbott Laboratories (Pakistan) Limited, Abbott Laboratories (Philippines), Abbott Laboratories (Puerto Rico) Incorporated, Abbott Laboratories (Singapore) Private Limited, Abbott Laboratories A/S, Abbott Laboratories Argentina Sociedad Anonima, Abbott Laboratories B.V., Abbott Laboratories C.A., Abbott Laboratories Finance B.V., Abbott Laboratories GmbH, Abbott Laboratories Inc., Abbott Laboratories International LLC, Abbott Laboratories Ireland Limited, Abbott Laboratories Limited, Abbott Laboratories Limited - Laboratoires Abbott Limitee, Abbott Laboratories NZ Limited, Abbott Laboratories Pacific Ltd., Abbott Laboratories Poland Spoka z ograniczona odpowiedzialnoscia, Abbott Laboratories Products B.V., Abbott Laboratories Residential Development Fund Inc., Abbott Laboratories S.A., Abbott Laboratories SA, Abbott Laboratories Services Corp., Abbott Laboratories Slovakia s.r.o., Abbott Laboratories South Africa (Pty) Ltd., Abbott Laboratories Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Abbott Laboratories Trustee Company Limited, Abbott Laboratories Uruguay S.A., Abbott Laboratories Vascular Enterprises, Abbott Laboratories d.o.o., Abbott Laboratories de Chile Limitada, Abbott Laboratories de Colombia S.A., Abbott Laboratories de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Abbott Laboratories druzba za farmacijo in diagnostiko d.o.o., Abbott Laboratories s.r.o., Abbott Laboratories(Hellas) Societe Anonyme, Abbott Laboratorios S.A., Abbott Laboratorios S.A., Abbott Laboratorios del Ecuador Cia. Ltda., Abbott Laboratuarlari Ithalat Ihracat ve Ticaret Ltd.Sti, Abbott Laboratorios Lda, Abbott Laboratorios do Brasil Ltda., Abbott Limited Egypt LLC, Abbott Logistics B.V., Abbott Management GmbH, Abbott Management LLC, Abbott Manufacturing Singapore Private Limited, Abbott Mature Products International Unlimited Company, Abbott Mature Products Management Limited, Abbott Medical (Hong Kong) Limited, Abbott Medical (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Abbott Medical (Portugal) Distribuicao de Produtos Medicos Lda, Abbott Medical (Schweiz) AG, Abbott Medical (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Abbott Medical (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical Australia Pty. Ltd., Abbott Medical Austria Ges.m.b.H., Abbott Medical Balkan d.o.o. Beograd (Novi Beograd), Abbott Medical Belgium, Abbott Medical Canada Inc./ Medicale Abbott Canada Inc., Abbott Medical Danmark A/S, Abbott Medical Devices Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical Espana S.A., Abbott Medical Estonia OU, Abbott Medical Finland Oy, Abbott Medical France SAS, Abbott Medical GmbH, Abbott Medical Hellas Limited Liability Trading Company, Abbott Medical Ireland Limited, Abbott Medical Italia S.p.A., Abbott Medical Japan Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical Korea Limited, Abbott Medical Korlatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, Abbott Medical Laboratories LTD, Abbott Medical Nederland B.V., Abbott Medical New Zealand Limited, Abbott Medical Norway AS, Abbott Medical Overseas Cyprus Limited, Abbott Medical Sweden AB, Abbott Medical Taiwan Co., Abbott Medical U.K. Limited, Abbott Medical spoka z ograniczona odpowiedzialnoscia, Abbott Middle East S.A.R.L., Abbott Molecular Inc., Abbott Morocco SARL, Abbott Nederland C.V., Abbott Nederland Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Netherlands Investments B.V., Abbott Norge AS, Abbott Nutrition Limited, Abbott Nutrition Manufacturing Inc., Abbott Operations Singapore Pte. Ltd., Abbott Operations Uruguay S.R.L., Abbott Overseas Cyprus Limited, Abbott Overseas Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Overseas S.A., Abbott Oy, Abbott Point of Care Canada Limited, Abbott Point of Care Inc., Abbott Poland Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Procurement LLC, Abbott Products (Philippines) Inc., Abbott Products (Spain) S.L., Abbott Products Algerie EURL, Abbott Products B.V., Abbott Products Distribution SAS, Abbott Products Egypt LLC, Abbott Products Limited, Abbott Products Limited Liability Company, Abbott Products Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Products Operations AG, Abbott Products Operations LLC, Abbott Products Romania S.R.L., Abbott Products Tunisie S.A.R.L., Abbott Products Unlimited Company, Abbott Resources Inc., Abbott Resources International Inc., Abbott S.r.l., Abbott Saudi Arabia Trading Company, Abbott Scandinavia Aktiebolag, Abbott Sociedad Anonima de Capital Variable, Abbott South Africa Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Strategic Opportunities Limited, Abbott Trading Company Inc., Abbott Universal LLC, Abbott Vascular Devices (2) Limited, Abbott Vascular Devices Limited, Abbott Vascular Inc., Abbott Vascular Instruments Deutschland GmbH, Abbott Vascular International, Abbott Vascular Japan Co. Ltd, Abbott Vascular Limitada, Abbott Vascular Netherlands B.V., Abbott Vascular Solutions Inc., Abbott Ventures Inc., Abbott West Indies Limited, Abbott drustvo sa ogranicenom odgovornoscu za trgovinu i usluge, Advanced Neuromodulation Systems Inc., Alere, Alere (Shanghai) Diagnostics Co. Ltd., Alere (Shanghai) Healthcare Management Co. Ltd., Alere (Shanghai) Medical Sales Co. Ltd., Alere (Shanghai) Technology Co. Ltd., Alere A/S, Alere AB, Alere AS, Alere AS Holdings Limited, Alere BBI Holdings Limited, Alere Bangladesh Limited, Alere China Co. Ltd., Alere Colombia S.A., Alere Connect LLC, Alere Connected Health Limited, Alere Connected Health Ltd., Alere Diagnostics GmbH, Alere DoA Holding GmbH, Alere GmbH, Alere GmbH (Austria), Alere GmbH (Germany), Alere HK Holdings Ltd., Alere Health B.V., Alere Health BVBA, Alere Health Corp., Alere Health Sdn Bhd, Alere Health Services B.V., Alere Healthcare (Pty) Limited, Alere Healthcare Connections Limited, Alere Healthcare Inc., Alere Healthcare Nigeria Limited, Alere Healthcare S.L., Alere Holdco Inc., Alere Holding GmbH, Alere Holdings Bermuda Limited, Alere Holdings Pty Limited, Alere Home Monitoring Inc., Alere Inc., Alere Informatics Inc., Alere International Holding Corp., Alere International Limited, Alere Lda, Alere Limited, Alere Limited (New Zealand), Alere Medical BVBA, Alere Medical Co. Ltd., Alere Medical Pakistan (Private) Limited, Alere Medical Private Limited, Alere North America LLC, Alere Oy Ab, Alere Philippines Inc., Alere Phoenix ACQ Inc., Alere Pte Ltd, Alere S.A., Alere S.r.l., Alere S/A, Alere SAS, Alere San Diego Inc., Alere Scarborough Inc., Alere Spain S.L., Alere Switzerland GmbH, Alere Technologies GmbH, Alere Technologies Holdings Limited, Alere Technologies Limited, Alere Toxicology AB, Alere Toxicology Inc., Alere Toxicology S.r.l., Alere Toxicology Services Inc., Alere Toxicology plc, Alere UK Holdings Limited, Alere UK Subco Limited, Alere ULC, Alere US Holdings LLC, Alere s.r.o., Alisoc Investment & Co, Amedica Biotech Inc., Ameditech Inc., American Generics S.A.S., American Medical Supplies Inc., American Pharmacist Inc., Antares S.A., Apica Cardiovascular Limited, Aquagestion Capacitacion S.A., Aquagestion S.A., Arriva Medical LLC, Arriva Medical Philippines Inc., Arvis Investments Limited, Atlas Farmaceutica S.A., Avee Laboratories Inc., Axis-Shield AD III AS, Axis-Shield AD IV AS, Axis-Shield AS, Axis-Shield Diagnostics Limited, Axis-Shield Ltd., BBI Animal Health Limited, BBI Diagnostics Group 2 Public Limited Company, Banco de Vida S.A., Bioabsorbable Vascular Solutions Inc., Bioalgae S.A., Biohealth LLC, Biosite Incorporated, Bosque Bonito S.A., Branan Medical Corporation, Brandex Europe C.V., British Colloids Limited, CFR Chile S.A., CFR Interamericas EL Salvador Sociedad Anonima de Capital Variable, CFR Interamericas Nicaragua Sociedad Anonima, CFR Interamericas Panama S.A., CFR Pharmaceuticals, California Property Holdings III LLC, CardioMEMS LLC, Caripharm Inc., Cephea Valve Technologies, Cephea Valve Technologies Inc., Colibri Medical Aktiebolag, Comercializadora y Distribuidora CFR Interamericas Honduras S.A., Concateno South Limited, Concateno UK Limited, Consorcio Tecnologico en Biomedicina Clinico-Molecular S.A., Continuum Services LLC, Cozart Limited, Dextech S.A., Diagnostik Nord GmbH, Distribuciones Uquifa S.A.S., Domesco Medical Import-Export Joint-Stock Corporation, Duphar International Research B.V., Endocardial Solutions, Epocal (US) Inc, Esprit de Vie S.A., European Chemicals & Co, European Drug Testing Service EDTS AB, European Services S.A., Evalve Inc., Evalve International Inc., FARMINDUSTRIA S.A., Fada Pharma Paraguay Sociedad Anonima, Fadapharma del Ecuador S.A., Farmaceutica Mont Blanc S.L., Farmacologia Em Aquicultura Veterinaria Ltda., Farmacologia en Aquacultura Veterinaria FAV Ecuador S.A., Farmacologia en Aquacultura Veterinaria FAV S.A., Fernwood Investment S.A., First Check Diagnostics LLC, Focus Pharmaceutical S.A.S., Forensics Limited, Forestcreek Overseas S.A., Fournier Pharma Corp., Fournier Pharma GmbH, Fournier Pharmaceuticals Limited, Framed B.V., Gabmed GmbH, Garden Hills LLC, Global Analytical Development LLC, Globapharm & CO LP, Glomed Pharmaceutical Company Limited, Golnorth Investments S.A., Gynocare Limited, Gynopharm Sociedad Anonima, Gynopharm de Centroamerica S.A., Gynopharm de Venezuela C.A., Hi-Tronics Designs Inc., IDEV Technologies Inc., IG Innovations Limited, IMTC Finance B.V., IMTC Holdings B.V., IMTC Technologies Inc., Ibis Biosciences LLC, Igloo Zone Chile S.A., Igloo Zone S.L., Inmobiliaria Naknek S.A.C., Innovacon Inc., Instant Tech Subsidiary Acquisition Inc., Instant Technologies Inc., Instituto de Criopreservacion de Chile S.A., Integrated Vascular Systems Inc., Inverness Canadian Acquisition Corporation, Inverness Medical (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Inverness Medical Innovations Australia Pty Ltd., Inverness Medical Innovations Hong Kong Limited, Inverness Medical Innovations SK LLC, Inverness Medical Investments LLC, Inverness Medical LLC, Inverness Medical Shimla Private Limited, Inversiones K2 SpA, Inversiones Komodo S.R.L., Ionian Technologies LLC, Irvine Biomedical Inc., Kalila Medical, Kangshenyunga S.A., Knoll UK Investments Unlimited, LLC VeroInPharm, Laboratoires Fournier S.A.S., Laboratorio Franco Colombiano Lafrancol S.A.S., Laboratorio Franco Colombiano del Ecuador S.A., Laboratorio Internacional Argentino S.A., Laboratorio Synthesis S.A.S., Laboratorios Lafi Limitada, Laboratorios Naturmedik S.A.S., Laboratorios Pauly Pharmaceutical S.A.S., Laboratorios Recalcine S.A., Laboratorios Transpharm S.A., Laboratory Specialists of America Inc., Lafrancol Dominicana S.A.S., Lafrancol Guatemala S.A. Sociedad Anonima, Lafrancol Internacional S.A.S, Lafrancol Peru S.R.L, Lake Forest Investments LLC, Lightlab Imaging Inc., Limited Liability Company Abbott Laboratories, Limited Liability Company Abbott Ukraine, Limited Liability Company VEROPHARM, Lung Fung Hong (China) Limited, Mansbridge Pharmaceuticals Limited, MediGuide LLC, MediGuide Ltd., Medscreen Holdings Limited, Metropolitana Farmaceutica S.A., Midwest Properties LLC, Murex Argentina S.A., Murex Biotech Limited, Murex Biotech South Africa, Murex Diagnostics Inc., Murex Diagnostics International Inc., Natural Supplement Association LLC, Negocios Denia Sociedad Anonima, Neosalud S.A.C., Nether Pharma N.P. C.V., NeuroTherm LLC, Normann Pharma-Handels GmbH, North Shore Properties Inc., Novamedi S.A., Novasalud.com S.A., Nutravida S.A., OJSC Voronezhkhimpharm, Omnilab Iberia Sociedad Limitada, OptiMedica, Orgenics France SAS, Orgenics International Holdings B.V., Orgenics Ltd., PBM-Selfcare LLC, PDD II LLC, PDD LLC, PT Alere Health, PT. Abbott Indonesia, PT. Abbott Products Indonesia, Pacesetter Inc., Pantech (RF) (PTY) LTD, Pembrooke Occupational Health Inc., Penagos S.A., Pharma International Sociedad Anonima, Pharmaceutical Technologies (Pharmatech) S.A., Pharmatech Boliviana S.A., Polygon Labs S.A., Quality Assured Services Inc., RF Medical Holdings LLC, RTL Holdings Inc., Ramses Business Corp., Recben Xenerics Farmaceutica Limitada, Redwood Toxicology Laboratory Inc., Rich Horizons International Limited, SC VEROPHARM, SJ Medical Mexico S de R.L. de C.V., SJM International Inc., SJM Thunder Holding Company, SPDH Inc., Saboya Enterprises Corporation, Salviac Limited, Scanax AS, Sealing Solutions Inc., Selfcare Technology Inc., Shandong Abbott Dairy Product Co. Ltd., Shanghai Abbott Medical Devices Science and Technology Co. Ltd., Shanghai Abbott Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., Shanghai Si Fa Pharmaceutical Company Limited, Sinensix & Co., Spinal Modulation LLC, St. Jude Medical, St. Jude Medical AB, St. Jude Medical ATG Inc., St. Jude Medical Argentina S.A., St. Jude Medical Asia Pacific Holdings GK, St. Jude Medical Atrial Fibrillation Division Inc., St. Jude Medical Brasil Ltda., St. Jude Medical Business Services Inc., St. Jude Medical Cardiology Division Inc., St. Jude Medical Colombia Ltda., St. Jude Medical Coordination Center, St. Jude Medical Costa Rica Limitada, St. Jude Medical Europe Inc., St. Jude Medical Export Ges.m.b.H., St. Jude Medical GVA Sarl, St. Jude Medical Holdings B.V., St. Jude Medical India Private Limited, St. Jude Medical International Holding, St. Jude Medical LLC, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings II, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings NT, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings SMI S.a r.l., St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings TC S.a r.l., St. Jude Medical Mexico Business Services S. de R.L. de C.V., St. Jude Medical Middle East DMCC, St. Jude Medical Operations (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., St. Jude Medical Puerto Rico LLC, St. Jude Medical S.C. Inc., St. Jude Medical Systems AB, St. Jude Medical Turkey Medikal Urunler Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Standard Diagnostics Inc., Standing Stone LLC, Swan-Myers Incorporated, TC1 LLC, Tendyne Holdings Inc., Tendyne Medical Inc., Thoratec Delaware LLC, Thoratec Europe Limited, Thoratec LLC, Thoratec Switzerland GmbH, Tobal Products Incorporated, Topera GmbH in Liquidation, Topera Inc., Tremora S.A., Tuenir S.A., TwistDx, UAB Abbott Laboratories, UAB Abbott Medical Lithuania, Union-Madison Realty Company Inc., Unipath Limited (dba Alere International/aka Cranfield), Unipath Management Limited, Unipath Pension Trustee Limited, Veropharm, Veropharm Limited Liability Partnership, Vida Cell Inversiones S.A., Vida Cell S.A., Vivalsol, W&R Pharma Handels GmbH, Western Pharmaceuticals S.A., X Technologies Inc., Yissum Holding Limited, ZonePerfect Nutrition Company, eScreen Canada ULC, eScreen Inc., ( ), and Abbott Laboratories Baltics. Brookdale Senior Living, Inc. engages in the operation of senior living communities. The firm manages independent living, assisted living and dementia-care communities and continuing care retirement centers. It operates through the following segments: Independent Living Assisted Living & Memory Care, CCRCs, Health Care Services and Management Services. The Independent Living segment is primarily designed for middle to upper income seniors who desire an upscale residential environment providing the highest quality of service. The Assisted Living & Memory Care segment offer housing and 24-hour assistance with ADLs to mid-acuity frail and elderly residents. The CCRCs segment offers a variety of living arrangements and services to accommodate all levels of physical ability and health. The Healthcare Services segment provides home health, hospice and outpatient therapy services, as well as education and wellness programs, to residents of many communities and to seniors living outside communities. The Management Services segment composes of communities operated by the company pursuant to management agreements. The company was founded in 1978 and is headquartered in Brentwood, TN. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Zimmer Biomet: Abbott Spine, Beijing Montagne Medical Device Co. Ltd., Beijing Montagne Medical Device Co. Ltd., BioMet, Biomet 3i Australia Pty. Ltd., Biomet 3i Belgium N.V., Biomet 3i Benelux Holdings N.V., Biomet 3i Dental Iberica SL, Biomet 3i LLC, Biomet 3i Mexico S.A. de C.V., Biomet 3i Netherlands B.V., Biomet 3i Nordic AB, Biomet 3i Portugal Lda, Biomet 3i Switzerland GmbH, Biomet 3i Turkey, Biomet 3i UK Ltd., Biomet 3i do Brasil Comercio de Aparelhos Medicos Ltda., Biomet Acquisitions (Unlimited), Biomet Argentina SA, Biomet Australia Pty. Ltd., Biomet Biologics LLC, Biomet Brazil Medical Device Ltda., Biomet C.V., Biomet CV Holdings LLC, Biomet Cementing Technologies AB, Biomet Chile SA, Biomet China Co. Ltd., Biomet Deutschland GmbH, Biomet Deutschland Holding GmbH, Biomet Fair Lawn LLC, Biomet Finance US LLC, Biomet France Sarl, Biomet Global Supply Chain Center B.V., Biomet Healthcare Management GmbH, Biomet Holdings B.V., Biomet Hong Kong CBT Ltd., Biomet Hong Kong Holding Ltd., Biomet Hong Kong No. 1 Ltd., Biomet Inc., Biomet Insurance Ltd., Biomet International Inc., Biomet International Orthopedics LLC, Biomet Leasing Inc., Biomet Manufacturing LLC, Biomet Mexico S.A. de C.V., Biomet Microfixation B.V., Biomet Orthopedics LLC, Biomet Orthopedics Puerto Rico Inc., Biomet Spain Orthopaedics S.L., Biomet Sports Medicine LLC, Biomet Trauma LLC, Biomet U.S. Reconstruction LLC, Biomet UK Healthcare Ltd., Biomet UK Ltd., CD Diagnostics, CD Diagnostics Inc., CD Laboratories Inc., Cayenne Medical, Cayenne Medical Inc., CelgenTek Innovations Corporation, Centerpulse Ltd, Changzhou Biomet Medical Devices Co. Ltd., Citra Labs LLC, Clinical Graphics, Compression Therapy Concepts Inc., Compression Therapy Products, D.S. Comp Ltd., Dornoch Medical Systems, Dornoch Medical Systems Inc., EBI Holdings LLC, EBI LLC, EBI Medical Systems LLC, EBI Patient Care Inc., ETEX Corporation, ETEX Holdings Inc., Electro-Biology LLC, Endius, Espanormed S.L., Etex, ExtraOrtho, Hakuho Company Ltd., IC Guided Surgery SRL, Implant Concierge LLC, Implant Innovations Holdings LLC, Implex, InnoVision Inc., Interpore Cross International LLC, JERDS Luxembourg Holding Sarl, Kirschner Medical Corporation, Knee Creations, LDR Brasil Comercio Importacao e Exportacao Ltda., LDR Holding, LDR Medical Hong Kong (branch), LDR Medical S.A.S., LVB Acquisition Inc., Lanx Puerto Rico LLC , Lanx Srl, Medical Compression Systems Inc., Medtech SA, Medtech SAS, Medtech Surgical GmbH, Medtech Surgical Inc., NORMED Medizin-Technik GmbH, ORTHOsoft ULC, Ortho Transmission, Orthopaedic Advantage LLC, Ospol Participacoes Ltda., Representaciones Zimmer Inc. S. de R.L. de C.V., Respondwell, SM Re Ltd., Scandimed Holding AB, Shanghai Biomet Business Consulting Co. Ltd., Synvasive Technology, Synvasive Technology Inc., ZB COOP C.V., ZB COOP LLC, ZB Cayman (Asia) Holding Ltd., ZB Cayman Island CBT 2 Ltd., ZB Dental India Private Limited, ZB EMEA 1 LP, ZB EMEA Finance UK 1 Ltd., ZB EMEA Finance UK 2 Ltd., ZB EMEA Finance UK 3 Ltd., ZB EMEA US UK LLC, ZB Hong Kong CBT 2 Ltd., ZB Hong Kong Holding Ltd., ZB Hong Kong Ltd., ZB Manufacturing LLC, ZB UK Group Holdings Limited, ZH2LX Barbados Branch (branch), Zfx, Zfx GmbH, Zfx Innovation GmbH, Zhejiang Biomet Medical Products Co. Ltd., Zimmer (Shanghai) Medical International Trading Co. Ltd., Zimmer Asia (HK) Ltd., Zimmer Australia Holding Pty. Ltd., Zimmer Biomet (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Zimmer Biomet Asel Alarabiya Limited Company, Zimmer Biomet Asia Holding B.V., Zimmer Biomet Asia Holdings Pte. Ltd., Zimmer Biomet Austria GmbH, Zimmer Biomet BVBA, Zimmer Biomet CBT, Zimmer Biomet CBT 2, Zimmer Biomet CMF and Thoracic LLC, Zimmer Biomet Canada Inc., Zimmer Biomet Centroamerica SA, Zimmer Biomet Comp Ltd., Zimmer Biomet Denmark ApS, Zimmer Biomet Dental Canada Inc., Zimmer Biomet Dental K.K., Zimmer Biomet Deutschland GmbH, Zimmer Biomet Distribution LLC, Zimmer Biomet Finance Srl, Zimmer Biomet Finance US Holding Inc., Zimmer Biomet Finland Oy, Zimmer Biomet France Holdings SAS, Zimmer Biomet France SAS, Zimmer Biomet GK, Zimmer Biomet Global Holdings Switzerland GmbH, Zimmer Biomet Hellas SA, Zimmer Biomet Ireland Limited, Zimmer Biomet Italia Srl, Zimmer Biomet Korea Ltd., Zimmer Biomet Nederland B.V., Zimmer Biomet New Zealand Company, Zimmer Biomet Norway AS, Zimmer Biomet OUS Holdings AG, Zimmer Biomet Polska Sp. z.o.o, Zimmer Biomet Portugal Unipessoal Lda, Zimmer Biomet Pty. Ltd., Zimmer Biomet Romania S.R.L., Zimmer Biomet South Africa (Pty) Ltd., Zimmer Biomet Spain S.L., Zimmer Biomet Spine Inc., Zimmer Biomet Sweden AB, Zimmer Biomet Taiwan Co. Ltd., Zimmer Biomet UK Ltd., Zimmer Biomet US 2 Holding Inc., Zimmer CBT I Holding Inc., Zimmer CBT II Holding Inc., Zimmer CEP USA Holding Co., Zimmer CEP USA Inc., Zimmer CIS Ltd., Zimmer CV Inc., Zimmer Caribe LLC, Zimmer Cayman Islands Holding Co. Ltd., Zimmer Co-op Holdings LLC, Zimmer Colombia SAS, Zimmer Czech sro, Zimmer Dental (Shanghai) Medical Device Co. Ltd., Zimmer Dental Chile Spa, Zimmer Dental GmbH, Zimmer Dental Inc., Zimmer Dental Italy Srl, Zimmer Dental Ltd., Zimmer Dental SAS, Zimmer Finance Ireland, Zimmer France Manufacturing Sarl, Zimmer Germany Holdings GmbH, Zimmer GmbH, Zimmer GmbH Euro IP Branch (branch), Zimmer GmbH Winterthur Branch (branch), Zimmer Gulf FZ LLC, Zimmer Inc., Zimmer India Private Ltd., Zimmer International Logistics GmbH, Zimmer Investments LLC, Zimmer Knee Creations Inc., Zimmer Luxembourg II Sarl, Zimmer Luxembourg Sarl, Zimmer Manufacturing B.V., Zimmer Manufacturing B.V. (branch), Zimmer Medical Malaysia SDN BHD, Zimmer Netherlands Cooperatief U.A., Zimmer Orthobiologics Inc., Zimmer Orthopedics Manufacturing Limited, Zimmer Production Inc., Zimmer Pte. Ltd., Zimmer Slovakia sro, Zimmer Southeast Florida LLC, Zimmer Spine Next Inc., Zimmer Spine SAS, Zimmer Surgical, Zimmer Surgical Inc., Zimmer Surgical SA, Zimmer Switzerland Holdings LLC, Zimmer Switzerland Manufacturing GmbH, Zimmer Tibbi Cihazlar Sanayi ve Ticaret AS, Zimmer Trabecular Metal Technology Inc., Zimmer Trustee Ltd., Zimmer UK Limited, Zimmer US Inc., and Zimmer do Brasil Comercio Ltda.. HDFC Bank Ltd. engages in the provision of banking and financial services, including commercial banking and treasury operations. The firm also provides financial services to upper and middle income individuals and corporations in India. It operates through the following segments: Treasury, Retail Banking, Wholesale Banking and Other Banking Operations. The Treasury segment consists of bank's investment portfolio, money market borrowing and lending, investment operations and trading in foreign exchange and derivative contracts. The Retail Banking segment provides loans and other services to customers through a branch network and other delivery channels. The Wholesale Banking segment provides loans, non-fund facilities and transaction services to large corporates, emerging corporates, public sector units, government bodies, financial institutions, and medium scale enterprises. The Other Banking Business segment includes income from para banking activities such as credit cards, debit cards, third party product distribution, primary dealership business, and the associated costs. The company was founded by Aditya Tapishwar Puri in August 1994 and is headquartered in Mumbai, India. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Cigna: Accredo Health Group, Accredo Health Incorporated, Alegis Care, Allegiance Life & Health Insurance Company, Allegiance Re, American Retirement Life Insurance Company, Benefits Management Corp., Bravo Health Mid-Atlantic, Bravo Health Pennsylvania, Brighter, CareAllies, CareCore National LLC, Central Reserve Life Insurance Company, Ceres Sales of Ohio, Choicelinx, Cigna & CMB Life Insurance Company Limited, Cigna Apac Holdings Limited, Cigna Arbor Life Insurance Company, Cigna Beechwood Holdings, Cigna Behavioral Health, Cigna Behavioral Health of California, Cigna Behavioral Health of Texas, Cigna Bellevue Alpha, Cigna Benefits Financing, Cigna Brokerage & Marketing (Thailand) Limited, Cigna Cedar Holdings, Cigna Chestnut Holdings, Cigna Corporate Services, Cigna Data Services (Shanghai) Company Limited, Cigna Dental Health, Cigna Dental Health Plan of Arizona, Cigna Dental Health of California, Cigna Dental Health of Colorado, Cigna Dental Health of Delaware, Cigna Dental Health of Florida, Cigna Dental Health of Illinois, Cigna Dental Health of Kansas, Cigna Dental Health of Kentucky, Cigna Dental Health of Maryland, Cigna Dental Health of Missouri, Cigna Dental Health of New Jersey, Cigna Dental Health of North Carolina, Cigna Dental Health of Ohio, Cigna Dental Health of Pennsylvania, Cigna Dental Health of Texas, Cigna Dental Health of Virginia, Cigna Elmwood Holdings, Cigna Europe Insurance Company S.A.-N.V., Cigna European Services (UK) Limited, Cigna Finans Emeklilik ve Hayat A.S., Cigna Global Holdings, Cigna Global Insurance Company Limited, Cigna Global Reinsurance Company, Cigna Global Wellbeing Holdings Limited, Cigna Global Wellbeing Solutions Limited, Cigna HLA Technology Services Company Limited, Cigna Health Corporation, Cigna Health Management, Cigna Health Solutions India Pvt. Ltd., Cigna Health and Life Insurance Company, Cigna HealthSpring, Cigna Healthcare Holdings, Cigna Healthcare Mid-Atlantic, Cigna Healthcare of Arizona, Cigna Healthcare of California, Cigna Healthcare of Colorado, Cigna Healthcare of Connecticut, Cigna Healthcare of Florida, Cigna Healthcare of Georgia, Cigna Healthcare of Illinois, Cigna Healthcare of Indiana, Cigna Healthcare of Maine, Cigna Healthcare of Massachusetts, Cigna Healthcare of New Hampshire, Cigna Healthcare of New Jersey, Cigna Healthcare of North Carolina, Cigna Healthcare of Pennsylvania, Cigna Healthcare of South Carolina, Cigna Healthcare of St. Louis, Cigna Healthcare of Tennessee, Cigna Healthcare of Texas, Cigna Healthcare of Utah, Cigna Holding Company, Cigna Holdings, Cigna Holdings Overseas, Cigna Hong Kong Holdings Company Limited, Cigna Insurance Middle East S.A., Cigna Insurance Public Company Limited, Cigna Insurance Services (Europe) Limited, Cigna Intellectual Property, Cigna International Corporation, Cigna International Health Services, Cigna International Health Services BVBA, Cigna International Health Services Kenya Limited, Cigna International Health Services SDN BHD, Cigna International Services, Cigna International Services Australia Pty. Ltd., Cigna Investment Group, Cigna Investments, Cigna Korean Chusik Hoesa, Cigna Laurel Holdings, Cigna Legal Protection UK Ltd., Cigna Life Insurance Company of Canada, Cigna Life Insurance Company of Europe S.A.- N.V., Cigna Life Insurance Company of New York, Cigna Life Insurance New Zealand Limited, Cigna Linden Holdings, Cigna Magnolia Holdings, Cigna Myrtle Holdings, Cigna Nederland Alpha Cooperatief U.A., Cigna Nederland Beta B.V., Cigna Nederland Gamma B.V., Cigna Oak Holdings, Cigna Palmetto Holdings, Cigna Poplar Holdings, Cigna Sequoia Holdings, Cigna Spruce Holdings GmbH, Cigna Taiwan Life Assurance Company Limited, Cigna Walnut Holdings, Cigna Willow Holdings, Cigna Worldwide General Insurance Company Limited, Cigna Worldwide Insurance Company, Cigna Worldwide Life Insurance Company Limited, CignaTTK Health Insurance Company Limited, Connecticut General Corporation, Connecticut General Life Insurance Company, CuraScript Inc., E-2 CIGNA CORPORATION - 2018 Form 10-K, ESI Mail Pharmacy Service Inc., ESI Partnership, ESI Resources Inc., Express Scripts Holding Company, Express Scripts Inc., Express Scripts Pharmaceutical LLC, Express Scripts Pharmacy Inc., Express Scripts Strategic Development Inc., FirstAssist Administration Limited, Firstassist Insurance Services Ltd, Great-West Healthcare of Illinois, Grown Ups New Zealand Limited, Health-Lynx LLC, HealthSource, HealthSpring, HealthSpring Life & Health Insurance Company, HealthSpring of Alabama, HealthSpring of Florida, HealthSpring of Tennessee, KDM Thailand Limited, LINA Financial Services, LINA Life Insurance Company of Korea, Life Insurance Company of North America, Loyal American Life Insurance Company, MCC Independent Practice Association of New York, Manipal Cigna Health Insurance Company Limited, Medco Containment Life Insurance Company, Medco Health Services Inc., Medco Health Solutions Inc., NewQuest, NewQuest Management Northeast, Olympic Health Management Services, Oz Parent, PT Asuransi Cigna, Provident American Life and Health Insurance Company, Qualcare, Qualcare Alliance Networks, Qualcare Captive Insurance Company Inc. PCC, Qualcare Management Resources Limited Liability Company, RHP (Thailand) Limited, Scibal Associates, Sterling Life Insurance Company, Tel-Drug, Tel-Drug of Pennsylvania, Temple Insurance Company Limited, United Benefit Life Insurance Company, Verity Solutions Group, Zurich Insurance Middle East, and eviCore 1 LLC. The following companies are subsidiares of Dover: Accelerated Production Systems, Acme Elevator, Advansor A/S, Advansor Dover International (Poland) sp. z o.o, Advansor Germany GmbH, Alfred Fueling Systems Holdco Ltd., Alfred Fueling Systems Inc., Alfred Fueling Systems Intermediate Holdco Ltd., All-Flo Pump Company, Anman LLC, Anthony Equity Holdings Inc., Anthony Holdings Inc., Anthony Inc., Anthony International, Anthony International Foreign Sales Corp., Anthony International Holding Company, Anthony Mexico Holdings LLC, Anthony North Holdco Inc., Anthony Specialty Glass LLC, Anthony TemperBent GP LLC, Auto Glanz Solutions LLC, Automatik Grundstucksverwaltungs GmbH & Co. KG, Automatik Plastics Machinery (Taiwan) Ltd., BSC Filters Limited, Background2 Limited, Belanger, Belanger Inc., Belvac Middle East FZE, Belvac Production Machinery Inc., Blackmer, BlitzRotary GmbH, Butler Engineering and Marketing S.P.A., CDS Visual, CEP Liquidation LLC, CP Formation LLC, CPC Europe Inc., CPI Products Inc., Caldera, Canada Organization & Development LLC, Chief Automotive Technologies (Shanghai) Trading Company Ltd., Chippewa Square Captive Insurance Company, Colder Products Company, Colder Products Company GmbH, Colder Products Company LTD, Cook Compression BV, Cook Compression LLC, Cook Compression Limited, Cook-MFS Inc., DD1 Inc., DDI Properties Inc., DE-STA-CO Benelux B.V., DE-STA-CO FRANCE, DE-STA-CO Shanghai Co. Ltd., DESTACO UK Limited, DFH Corporation, DFS Netherlands B.V., DSR BZ Holdings LLC, Datamax International Corp, De Sta Co (Asia) Company Limited, De-Sta-Co Cylinders Inc., DeStaCo Europe GmbH, Delaware Capital Formation Inc., Delaware Capital Holdings Inc., Dover (China) Investment Co. Ltd., Dover (Schweiz) Holding GmbH, Dover (Shanghai) Industrial Co. Ltd., Dover (Shenzhen) Industrial Equipment Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Dover (Suzhou) Industrial Equipment Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Dover Asia Trading Private Ltd., Dover Australia Holdings Pty Limited, Dover Business Services EMEA Limited, Dover Business Services LLC, Dover Business Services Philippines Corporation, Dover CLP Formation Limited Partnership, Dover CR spol s r.o., Dover Canada Holdings ULC, Dover Canada Operations ULC, Dover Corporation Regional Headquarters, Dover DEI Services Inc., Dover Denmark Holdings ApS, Dover EMEA FZCO, Dover Energy UK Ltd, Dover Engineered Products Segment Inc., Dover Europe Inc., Dover Europe Sarl, Dover Fluids UK Ltd, Dover France Holdings, Dover France Participations, Dover France Technologies, Dover Fueling Solutions Segment Inc., Dover Fueling Solutions UK Limited, Dover Germany GmbH, Dover Global Holdings LLC, Dover Holdings de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Dover Imaging & Identification Segment Inc., Dover India Pvt. Ltd., Dover Intercompany Services UK Limited, Dover International B.V., Dover International Operations Inc., Dover International Ventures Inc., Dover International Ventures Tunisia S.a.r.l., Dover International ithalat ihracat ve Pazarlama Limited Sirketi, Dover Italy Holdings S.r.l., Dover Luxembourg Finance Sarl, Dover Luxembourg Participations Sarl, Dover Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Dover Luxembourg Services Sarl, Dover Operations South Africa (Pty) Ltd, Dover Overseas Ventures Inc., Dover Pumps & Process Solutions Segment Inc., Dover Refrigeration & Food Equipment Segment Inc., Dover Refrigeration & Food Equipment UK Ltd, Dover Resources International de Mexico S. de R.L. C.V., Dover Solutions Colombia SAS, Dover Southeast Asia (Thailand) Ltd., Dover Spain Holdings S.L., Dover UK Pensions Limited, Dover WSCR Holding LLC, Dover WSCR LLC, Dover do Brasil Ltda., Dow-Key Microwave Corporation, Dresser Wayne Data Technology (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Dresser Wayne Fuel Equipment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., EOA Systems Inc., Ebs-Ray Holdings Pty Ltd, Ebs-Ray Industries Pty. Ltd., Ebs-Ray Pumps Pty. Ltd., Em-tec, Espy, Ettlinger, Ettlinger Kunststoffmaschinen GmbH, Fairbanks Environmental Limited, Fibrelite Composites Limited, Fibresec Holdings Limited, Fibresec Limited, Finder, GAL LLC, GIIER LLC, Gala Industries, Gala Kunststoff-und Kautschukmaschinen GmbH, Guangdong Tokheim LIYUAN Oil Industry Technology Limited Company, Highland Park Insurance Company, Hill PHOENIX Inc., Hill PHOENIX WIC LLC, Hill Phoenix Costa Rica Sociedad De Responsabilidad Limitada, Hill Phoenix El Salvador Limitada de Capital Variable, Hill Phoenix Guatemala Sociedad Anonima, Hill Phoenix Honduras Sociedad Anonima, Hill Phoenix Nicaragua Sociedad Anonima, Hill Phoenix de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Hiltap Fittings Ltd., Hydro Systems Company, Hydro Systems Europe Ltd., Hydronova Australia-NZ Pty Ltd, Industrial Motion Control LLC, Innovative Control Systems, Innovative Control Systems Inc., Inpro/Seal LLC, JK Group, JK Group S.P.A., JK Group USA Inc., K S Boca Inc., K&L Microwave DR Inc., K&L Microwave Inc., KPS (Beijing) Petroleum Equipment Trading Co Ltd., KPS Fueling Solutions Sdn. Bhd., KPS Hong Kong Holding Limited, KPS UK Limited, KS Formation Inc., KS Liquidation Inc., KSLP Liquidation L.P., Kiian Digital (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Knappco LLC, Knowles Electronics, LIQAL, Liquip, Liquip International Pty Limited, MAAG, MARKEM FZ SA, MARKEM-IMAJE Corporation, MIP Holdings Inc., MS Printing Solutions, MS Printing Solutions S.R.L., Maag Automatik GmbH, Maag Automatik Plastics Machinery (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Maag Gala Inc., Maag Italy S.R.L., Maag Pump Systems, Maag Pump Systems (US) Inc., Maag Pump Systems AG, Maag Reduction Inc., Maag Service (Malaysia) Sdn. Bdn., Maag Systems (Thailand) Limited, Marathon Equipment Company (Delaware), Markem Imaje Center of Competencies Spain S.L.U., Markem-Imaje, Markem-Imaje (China) Co. Limited, Markem-Imaje - Unipessoal Lda, Markem-Imaje A/S, Markem-Imaje AB, Markem-Imaje AG, Markem-Imaje AS, Markem-Imaje B.V., Markem-Imaje CSAT GmbH, Markem-Imaje Co. Ltd., Markem-Imaje GmbH, Markem-Imaje Holding, Markem-Imaje Identificacao de Produtos Ltda., Markem-Imaje Inc., Markem-Imaje India Private Limited, Markem-Imaje Industries, Markem-Imaje Industries Limited, Markem-Imaje KK, Markem-Imaje LLC, Markem-Imaje Limited, Markem-Imaje Limited, Markem-Imaje Ltd., Markem-Imaje N.V., Markem-Imaje Oy, Markem-Imaje Philippines Corporation, Markem-Imaje Pty Ltd, Markem-Imaje S.A., Markem-Imaje S.A. de C.V., Markem-Imaje S.r.l., Markem-Imaje SAS, Markem-Imaje Sdn Bhd, Markem-Imaje Singapore Pte. Ltd., Markem-Imaje Spain S.A.U, Markpoint Holding AB, Midland Manufacturing LLC, Mouvex, Northern Lights (Nevada) Inc., Northern Lights Funding LP, Northern Lights Investments LLC, Nova Controls Inc., OK International, OK International (UK) Ltd., OK International Holdings Inc., OK International Inc., OPW Engineered Systems Inc., OPW Fluid Transfer Group Europe B.V., OPW Fluid Transfer Solutions (Jiang Su) Co. Ltd., OPW Fluids Group Inc., OPW France, OPW Fuel Management Systems Inc., OPW Fueling Components (SuZhou) Co. Ltd., OPW Fueling Components LLC, OPW Iberia Sociedad Limitada, OPW Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., OPW Slovakia s.r.o., OPW Sweden AB, Officine Meccaniche Sirio S.R.L., PDQ Manufacturing, PDQ Manufacturing Inc., PISCES by OPW Inc., PSD Codax Holdings Limited, PSD Codax Limited, PSG (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, PSG (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., PSG California LLC, PSG Germany GmbH, Petro Vend Sp. z o.o., Pike Machine Products Inc., Pole/Zero Acquisition Inc., Precision Brasil Equipamentos E Servicos Para Postos De Combustiveis Ltda., Precision Service - Servicos De Manutencao E Instalacao De Postos De Abastecimento De Combustivel Ltda., Production Control Services, Pump Management Services Co. LLC, RAV Equipos Espana S.L., RAV France, Ravaglioli Deutschland GmbH, Ravaglioli S.P.A., Reduction Engineering GmbH, Revod Corporation, Revod Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Revod SAS, Revod Singapore Holdings Pte. Ltd, Revod Sweden AB, Robohand Inc., Rosario, Rosario Handel B.V., Rotary Lift Consolidated (Haimen) Co. Ltd, SE Liquidation LLC, SWEP Germany GmbH, SWEP Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., SWEP North America Inc., SWEP Slovakia s.r.o., SWEP Technology (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Seabiscuit Motorsports Inc., Simmons Sirvey Corporation, So. Cal. Soft-Pak, So. Cal. Soft-Pak Incorporated, Solaris Laser, Solaris Laser S.A., Somero Enterprises, Sound Solutions, Space S.R.L., Spirit, Start Italiana Petrol Cihazlari Sanayi Ticaret Anonim Sirketi, Start Italiana S.R.L., Swep Energy Oy, Swep International A.B., Swep Japan K.K., Sys-Tech Solutions, Sys-Tech Solutions Inc., Systech GB Limited, Systech Shanghai Consulting Company Limited, TQC Quantium Quality S.A. de C.V., TTSI III Inc., TWG Canada Consolidated Inc., TXHI LLC, Tartan Textile Services Inc., The Heil Co., Tokheim Belgium, Tokheim China Company Limited, Tokheim GmbH, Tokheim Group, Tokheim Hengshan Technologies (Guangzhou) Co. Ltd., Tokheim Holding B.V., Tokheim India Private Limited, Tokheim Sofitam Applications, Trans - Logistic Group S.R.L., Triton Systems, Tulsa Winch Inc., UPCO Inc., US Synthetic, Unattended Payment Solutions LLC, Unified Brands, Unified Brands Inc., Val TemperBent Glass L.P., Vectron Frequency Devices (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, Vehicle Service Group LLC, Vehicle Service Group UK Limited, Vos Food Store Equipment Ltd., WSCR Corp., Warn Automotive LLC, Warn Industries, Waukesha Bearings, Waukesha Bearings Corporation, Waukesha Bearings Limited, Waukesha Bearings Russia LLC, Wayne Fuel Management UK Ltd., Wayne Fueling Systems, Wayne Fueling Systems (Rus) Limited Liability Company, Wayne Fueling Systems Australia Pty Ltd, Wayne Fueling Systems Canada ULC, Wayne Fueling Systems Deutschland GmbH, Wayne Fueling Systems Italia S.R.L., Wayne Fueling Systems LLC, Wayne Fueling Systems Ltd., Wayne Fueling Systems Sweden AB, Wayne Fueling Systems UK Holdco Ltd., Wayne Industria e Comercio Ltda., WellMark, XanTec Steuerungs- und EDV-Technik GmbH, and em-tec GmbH. iShares MSCI Mexico ETF's stock was trading at $35.82 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, EWW stock has increased by 37.6% and is now trading at $49.29. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. The North West Company Inc., through its subsidiaries, engages in the retail of food and everyday products and services to rural communities and urban neighborhood markets in Canada, Alaska, the South Pacific, and the Caribbean. The company's Canadian operations comprise 118 Northern stores, which offers food, financial services, and general merchandise; 5 NorthMart stores that provides fresh foods, apparel, and health products and services; 25 Quickstop convenience stores that provides ready-to-eat foods, and fuel and related services; 5 Giant Tiger junior discount stores, which offers family fashion, household products, and food; 2 Valu Lots discount center and direct-to-customer food distribution outlet; 2 Pharmacy and Convenience stores; 1 Solo Market store for rural market; and 1 North West Company motorsports dealership offering sales, service, parts and accessories for Ski-doo, Honda, Can-am and other premier brands. The Canadian operations also provides contract tele-pharmacist services to rural hospitals and health centers; water and air-based transportation services; and produce and fresh meats to independent grocery stores. Its International operations include 27 Alaska Commercial Company stores that provides food and general merchandise to remote and rural regions; 12 Cost-U-Less mid-size warehouse stores, which offers discount food and general merchandise; 5 Quickstop convenience stores; 8 Riteway food markets; and 1 Cash and Carry store. The North West Company Inc. was founded in 1668 and is headquartered in Winnipeg, Canada. Read More iShares Core MSCI Europe ETF's stock was trading at $39.49 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus (COVID-19) reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, IEUR shares have increased by 50.9% and is now trading at $59.59. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. The following companies are subsidiares of Roper Technologies: 3089554 Nova Scotia ULC, AC Analytical Controls B.V., AC Analytical Controls Holding B.V., AC Analytical Controls Services B.V., Acumen PM LLC, Aderant Canada Company, Aderant Company, Aderant Holdings Inc., Aderant International Holdings Inc., Aderant Legal (UK) Limited, Aderant Legal Holdings (AUS) Pty Ltd, Aderant Legal Holdings (NZ) ULC, Aderant Legal Holdings Inc., Aderant North America Inc., Aderant Parent Holdings Inc., Advanced Sensors Limited, Alpha Holdings of Delaware I LLC, Alpha Holdings of Delaware II LLC, Alpha Technologies B.V., Alpha Technologies GmbH, Alpha Technologies Japan LLC, Alpha Technologies Services LLC, Alpha Technologies U.K., Alpha Technologies s.r.o., Alpha Trust Corporation, Alpha UK Holdings LLC, Amot Controls Corporation, Amot Controls GmbH, Amot/Metrix Investment Company Inc., Amphire Solutions Inc., Amtech Systems (Hong Kong) Limited, Amtech Systems LLC, Amtech World Corporation, Aplifi Inc., Ascension Technology Corporation, Assureweb Limited, Atlantic Health Partners Inc., Avitru LLC, Axium Holdco Inc., C/S Solutions Inc., CBORD Holdings Corp., CIVCO Medical Solutions B.V., Centurion Research Solutions LLC, Civco Holding Inc., Civco Medical Instruments Co. Inc., CliniSys Group, CliniSys Group Limited, Clinisys Scotland Limited, Clinisys Solutions Limited, Cointec Ingenieros y Consultores S.L., Compressor Controls (Beijing) Corporation Ltd., Compressor Controls Corporation B.V., Compressor Controls Corporation Middle East, Compressor Controls Corporation S.r.l., Compressor Controls LLC, Compressor Controls Mauritius Ltd., Compressor Controls Pty Ltd., Compressor Controls Saudi Arabia LLC, ConstructConnect, ConstructConnect Canada Inc., ConstructConnect Inc., Cornell Pump Company, DAT Solutions LLC, DATSolutions Private Limited, DCMH Group Holdings Inc., DCMH Group Holdings LLC, DCMH Holdings Inc., DI Acquisition Subsidiary Inc., DI Dutch Holdings LLC, DI Hong Kong Limited, Dash I Inc., Data Innovations, Data Innovations Canada Ltd., Data Innovations Cooperatief U.A., Data Innovations Europe S.A., Data Innovations LLC, Data Innovations Latin America Ltda, Dawning Technologies LLC, Deltek, Deltek Ajera Inc., Deltek Asia Pacific (HK) Limited, Deltek Australia Pty Ltd., Deltek Danmark A/S, Deltek France SAS, Deltek GB Limited, Deltek GmbH, Deltek Inc., Deltek Nederland B.V., Deltek Netherlands B.V., Deltek Norge AS, Deltek Sverige AB, Deltek Systems (Canada) Inc., Deltek Systems (Colorado) Inc., Deltek Systems (Philippines) Ltd., Deltek WST LLC, Dominion I Inc., Dynamic Instruments Inc., Dynisco Enterprises GmbH, Dynisco Enterprises LLC, Dynisco Europe GmbH, Dynisco Holding GmbH, Dynisco Hong Kong Holdings Limited, Dynisco Instruments LLC, Dynisco Instruments S.a.r.l., Dynisco LLC, Dynisco Parent Inc., Dynisco S.r.l., Dynisco Viatran LLC, Dynisco Viatran (M) Sdn Bhd, Dynisco-Viatran Instrument Sdn Bhd, FMS Purchasing & Services Inc., FSI Holdings Inc., FTI Flow Technology Inc., Fluid Metering Inc., Foodlink Holdings Inc., Foodlink IT India Private Limited, Foundry, Foundry Visionmongers (Ireland) Limited, GeneInsight Inc., Getloaded Corporation, HRsmart Canada Inc., HRsmart Czech Republic, HRsmart France SAS, HRsmart Germany GmbH, HRsmart Inc., HRsmart International, HRsmart International Holdings LLC, HRsmart Mexico, HRsmart SA (Pty) Ltd., HRsmart Talent Management Solutions Europe Limited, HRsmart Ventures LLC, Handshake Software Inc., Hansco Automatisering B.V., Hansen Technologies Corporation, Harbour Holding Corp., Hardy Process Solutions, Horizon Software International LLC, INPUT Inc., IPA Acquisition Subsidiary Inc., ISL Finance SAS, ISL Holding SAS, ISL Scientifique de Laboratorie - ISL S.A.S., IT Canada Holdings LLC, Innovative Product Achievements LLC, Inovonics Corporation, Instill Corporation, IntelliTrans Limited, Intellitrans Canada Ltd., Intellitrans LLC, Intellitrans Sweden AB, Job Access LTDA, K/S Roper Holding, K/S Roper Investments, Laser App Inc., Link Logistics Holding LLC, Loadlink Technologies Corporation, Logitech Limited, MED Professional Services LLC, MEDTEC Inc., MHA Long Term Care Network Inc., MHA Long Term Care Services Inc., MIPS Austria GesmbH, MIPS CZ s.r.o, MIPS Deutschland GmbH, MIPS France Sarl, MIPS Nederland B.V., MIPS Schweiz AG, MIPS Software Iberica SL, MPR Readers Inc., Managed Health Care Associates Inc., Marumoto Struers K.K., Medical Information Professional Systems NV, Medina Acquisition LLC, Metrix Instrument Co. L.P., NDI Europe GmbH, Navigator Group Purchasing Inc., Neptune Technology Group (Canada) Co., Neptune Technology Group Inc., Neptune Technology Group Mexico S.de R.L. de C.V., Neptune Technology Group Mexico Services S. de R.L. de C.V., Neptune Technology Group Services Inc., Nippon Roper K.K., Northern Digital Inc., Off-Campus Advantage LLC, Omega Legal Systems Inc., PAC (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., PAC Denmark ApS, PAC GmbH, PAC Instruments (Thailand) Company Limited, PAC Instruments Asia PTE. Ltd., PB Bidco Limited, PB Holdco Limited, PB Midco Limited, PB Topco Limited, PGP UK Limited, Petroleum Analyzer Company L.P., Phase Analyzer Company Ltd., PowerPlan, PowerPlan Canada ULC, PowerPlan Holdings Inc., PowerPlan Inc., PowerPlan Intermediate Holdings Inc., PowerPlan Operations ANZ Pty Ltd, PowerPlan Operations Ltd., Project Diamond Intermediate Holdings Corporation, Project Torque Intermediate Holdings Inc., Project Viking Holdings Inc., Project Viking Intermediate LLC, QSC 1208 Limited, QSC 1209 Limited, RF IDeas, RF IDeas Inc., RI Marketing India Private Limited, RIL Holding Limited, RMT Inc., RT Merger Sub Inc., Rebate Tracking Group LLC, Resonant Software Inc., Roda Deaco Valve Inc., Roper Acquisitions Holdings Inc., Roper Brasil Comercio E Promocao De Productos E Servicos LTDA, Roper Canada Holdings LP, Roper Canada UK Limited, Roper Denmark UK Limited, Roper EUR Pte. Ltd., Roper Engineering s.r.o., Roper Europe GmbH, Roper GM Denmark Holdings ApS, Roper Germany GmbH, Roper Germany GmbH & Co. KG, Roper Holdings LLC, Roper Holdings Limited, Roper IH LLC, Roper Industrial Products Investment Company, Roper Industries Denmark ApS, Roper Industries Deutschland GmbH, Roper Industries Inc., Roper Industries Limited, Roper Industries Manufacturing (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Roper Industries Mauritius Ltd., Roper Industries UK Limited, Roper International Holding Inc., Roper International Holding Limited, Roper International Holding SCS, Roper LLC, Roper Luxembourg Finance S.a.r.l., Roper Luxembourg Holdings S.a.r.l., Roper Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Roper Middle East Ltd., Roper NL1 UK Limited, Roper NL2 UK Limited, Roper Pte. Ltd., Roper Pump Company, Roper Scientific B.V., Roper Scientific SAS, Roper Scot LP, Roper Southeast Asia LLC, Roper Swiss Finance GmbH, Roper UK Investments Limited, Roper UK Ltd., Roper US Finance I LLC, Roper US Finance II LLC, Roper-Mex L.P., Ropintassco 1 LLC, Ropintassco 2 LLC, Ropintassco 3 LLC, Ropintassco 4 LLC, Ropintassco 5 LLC, Ropintassco 6 LLC, Ropintassco 7 LLC, Ropintassco Holdings L.P., SHP Group Holdings Inc., SIRA LLC, Shanghai Roper Industries Trading Co. Ltd., Sinmed Holding International B.V., Societe de Distribution de Logiciels Medicaux, SoftWriters Inc., Softwriters Holdings, Softwriters Holdings Inc., Sohnar Pty Ltd, Star Purchasing Services LLC, Strata Acquisition Subsidiary Inc., Strata Decision Technology LLC, Strata Parallel II Inc., Strategic Healthcare Programs Blocker 2 Inc., Strategic Healthcare Programs Blocker LLC, Strategic Healthcare Programs Holdings LLC, Strategic Healthcare Programs L.L.C., Struers (Shanghai) International Trading Ltd., Struers A/S, Struers GmbH, Struers Inc., Struers Limited, Struers SAS, Student Advantage LLC, Sunquest Europe Limited, Sunquest Holdings Inc., Sunquest Information Systems (Europe) Limited, Sunquest Information Systems (India) Private Limited, Sunquest Information Systems (International) Limited, Sunquest Information Systems Inc., Sunquest Information Systems Pty Ltd, TLP Holdings LLC, Technolog Group Limited, Technolog Holdings Ltd., Technolog Limited, Technolog SARL, The CBORD Group Inc., The Foundry Bidco Limited, The Foundry Bidco No.2 Limited, The Foundry Holdco Limited, The Foundry Holdings Limited, The Foundry Intermediate Holdings Limited, The Foundry Midco 3 Limited, The Foundry Midco No 1 Limited, The Foundry Midco No 2 Limited, The Foundry Topco Limited, The Foundry Topco No.2 Limited, The Foundry USCo Inc., The Foundry Visionmongers Ltd., The Tidewater Healthcare Shared Services Group Inc., The Washington Management Group Inc., Torque Acquisition Holdco Inc., Transcore Atlantic Inc., Transcore CNUS Inc., Transcore Holdings Inc., Transcore ITS LLC, Transcore LP, Transcore Nova Scotia Corporation, Transcore Partners LLC, Trinity Integrated Systems Limited, UHF Purchasing Services LLC, Union Square Software (International) Limited, Union Square Software Inc., Union Square Software Limited, Union Square Software Pty, Uson L.P., Uson Limited, Utilitec Limited, Utilitec Services Limited, Utility Data Services Limited, Verathon Holdings (Delaware) Inc., Verathon Inc., Verathon Medical (Australia) Pty Limited, Verathon Medical (Canada) ULC, Verathon Medical (Europe) B.V., Verathon Medical (France) SARL, Verathon Medical (Hong Kong) Limited, Verathon Medical (Japan) K.K., Verathon Medical (UK) Ltd., Vertafore, Vertafore Canada Inc., Vertafore Inc., Vertafore India Private Limited, Viastar Services LP, Viatran Corporation, Walter Herzog GmbH, WorkBook APAC Ltd., Workbook Software A/S, Zetec (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Zetec France, Zetec Inc., Zetec Korea Inc., Zetec Rental LLC, Zetec Services Inc., iPipeline, iPipeline (TCP) Limited, iPipeline Canada Inc, iPipeline Co. Ltd., iPipeline Holdings Inc, iPipeline Inc, iPipeline Limited, iSqFt Holdings Inc., iSqFt Parent Corporation, iSqFt Sub Inc., iTradeNetwork Inc., and mySBX Corporation. The following companies are subsidiares of Dominion Energy: 96WI 8me LLC, Alamo Solar LLC, Align RNG Arizona LLC, Align RNG Arizona-Snowflake LLC, Align RNG California LLC, Align RNG California-Corcoran LLC, Align RNG Grady Road LLC, Align RNG LLC, Align RNG Magnolia LLC, Align RNG North Carolina LLC, Align RNG North Carolina-Bowdens LLC, Align RNG Utah LLC, Align RNG Utah-Milford LLC, Align RNG Virginia LLC, Align RNG Virginia-Waverly LLC, Atlantic Coast Pipeline LLC, Azalea Solar LLC, BOE Holdings Inc., Blackville Solar Farm LLC, Blue Ocean Energy Marine LLC, BrightSuite Home LLC, BrightSuite Inc., BrightSuite Solar CT Inc., BrightSuite Solar SC Inc., BrightSuite Solar VA Inc., Buckingham Solar I LLC, CEA Americus LLC, CEA CO-Fort Morgan LLC, CEA Clovis LLC, CEA Dairy RNG Colorado LLC, CEA Dairy RNG Georgia LLC, CEA Dairy RNG Idaho LLC, CEA Dairy RNG Nevada LLC, CEA Dairy RNG New Mexico LLC, CEA Dairy RNG Texas LLC, CEA Greely LLC, CEA Mason LLC, CEA TX-Dimmitt LLC, CID Solar LLC, CNG Coal Company, CNG Power Services Corporation, Carolina Gas Transmission Corporation, Catalina Solar 2 LLC, Clean Energy Asset USA LLC, Clean Energy Enterprises Inc., Clipperton Holdings LLC, Consolidated Natural Gas Company, Correctional Solar LLC, Cottonwood Solar LLC, Cove Point LNG LP, Cove Point LNG Limited, DE Arlington Solar LLC, DE Fluvanna Solar LLC, DE Hanover Solar LLC, DE Henrico Solar LLC, DE King William Solar LLC, DE Louisa Solar LLC, DE Newport News Solar LLC, DE Powhatan Solar LLC, DE Virginia Beach Solar LLC, DECP Holdings Inc., Dairy RNG Holdings LLC, Dairy RNG NY LLC, Dairy RNG NY-Curtin LLC, Dairy RNG OH LLC, Denmark Solar LLC, Dominion ACP Holding Inc., Dominion Alternative Energy Holdings Inc., Dominion Atlantic Coast Pipeline LLC, Dominion Capital Inc., Dominion Cogen WV Inc., Dominion Energy Fuel Services Inc., Dominion Energy Gas Distribution LLC, Dominion Energy Generation Marketing Inc., Dominion Energy Inc., Dominion Energy Kewaunee Inc., Dominion Energy Marketplace LLC, Dominion Energy Nuclear Connecticut Inc., Dominion Energy Overthrust Pipeline LLC, Dominion Energy Payroll Company Inc., Dominion Energy Questar Corporation, Dominion Energy Questar Pipeline LLC, Dominion Energy Questar Pipeline Services Inc., Dominion Energy RNG Holdings II Inc., Dominion Energy RNG Holdings Inc., Dominion Energy Services Inc., Dominion Energy Solar CA LLC, Dominion Energy Solutions Inc., Dominion Energy South Carolina Inc., Dominion Energy Southeast Services Inc., Dominion Energy Technical Solutions Inc., Dominion Energy Technologies II Inc., Dominion Energy Technologies Inc., Dominion Energy Terminal Company Inc., Dominion Energy Wexpro Services Company, Dominion Equipment III Inc., Dominion Equipment Inc., Dominion Fairless Hills Inc., Dominion Fowler Ridge Wind LLC, Dominion Gas Projects Company LLC, Dominion Generation Inc., Dominion Greenbrier Inc., Dominion High Voltage Holdings Inc., Dominion High Voltage MidAtlantic Inc., Dominion Investments Inc., Dominion Keystone Pipeline Holdings Inc., Dominion Keystone Pipeline LLC, Dominion MLP Holding Company III Inc., Dominion Mt. Storm Wind LLC, Dominion Nuclear Projects Inc., Dominion Oklahoma Texas Exploration & Production Inc., Dominion Person Inc., Dominion Privatization Florida LLC, Dominion Privatization Georgia LLC, Dominion Privatization Holdings Inc., Dominion Privatization Kentucky LLC, Dominion Privatization Maryland LLC, Dominion Privatization Pennsylvania LLC, Dominion Privatization South Carolina LLC, Dominion Privatization Texas LLC, Dominion Privatization Virginia LLC, Dominion Products and Services Inc., Dominion Projects Services Inc., Dominion Resources Capital Trust III, Dominion Retail Gas Holdings Inc., Dominion Solar Construction and Maintenance LLC, Dominion Solar Gen-Tie LLC, Dominion Solar Holdings I LLC, Dominion Solar Holdings II LLC, Dominion Solar Holdings III LLC, Dominion Solar Holdings IV LLC, Dominion Solar Projects A Inc., Dominion Solar Projects B Inc., Dominion Solar Projects C Inc., Dominion Solar Projects D Inc., Dominion Solar Projects I Inc., Dominion Solar Projects II Inc., Dominion Solar Projects III Inc., Dominion Solar Projects IV Inc., Dominion Solar Projects V Inc., Dominion Solar Projects VI Inc., Dominion Solar Projects VII Inc., Dominion Solar Services Inc., Dominion State Line LLC, Dominion Voltage Inc., Dominion Wholesale Inc., Dominion Wind Development LLC, Dominion Wind Projects Inc., ESCT-SA-Suffield LLC, Eagle Holdco Solar LLC, Eagle Solar LLC, Eastern Shore Solar LLC, Enterprise Solar LLC, Escalante Solar I LLC, Escalante Solar II LLC, Escalante Solar III LLC, Four Brothers Solar LLC, Fremont Farm LLC, Granite Mountain Holdings LLC, Granite Mountain Solar East LLC, Granite Mountain Solar West LLC, Greenbrier Marketing Company LLC, Greenbrier Pipeline Company LLC, Greensville County Solar Project LLC, Hardin Solar Energy LLC, Hecate Energy Cherrydale LLC, Hecate Energy Clarke County LLC, Hope Gas Inc., Imperial Valley Solar Company (IVSC) 2 LLC, Indy Solar Development LLC, Indy Solar I LLC, Indy Solar II LLC, Indy Solar III LLC, Innovative Solar 37 LLC, Iron Springs Holdings LLC, Iron Springs Solar LLC, Louis Dreyfus Natural Gas, Maricopa West Solar PV LLC, Moffett Solar 1 LLC, Moorings Farm 2 LLC, Mulberry Farm LLC, Mustang Solar LLC, PSNC Blue Ridge Corporation, PSNC Cardinal Pipeline Company, Pavant Solar LLC, Phone House, Pikeville Farm LLC, Prairie Fork Wind Farm LLC, Public Service Company of North Carolina Incorporated, QPC Holding Company LLC, Questar Corporation, Questar Energy Services Inc., Questar Field Services LLC, Questar Gas Company, Questar InfoComm Inc., Questar Southern Trails Pipeline Company, Questar White River Hub LLC, RE Adams East LLC, RE Camelot LLC, RE Columbia Two LLC, RE Kansas LLC, RE Kent South LLC, RE Old River One LLC, Richland Solar Center LLC, Ridgeland Solar Farm I LLC, SBL Holdco LLC, SCANA, SCANA Communications Holdings Inc., SCANA Corporate Security Services Inc., SCANA Energy Marketing LLC, SCANA Pharmacy LLC, SRFI LLC, Scana Corporation, Scott-II Solar LLC, Seabrook Solar LLC, Selmer Farm LLC, Siler Solar LLC, Sol Madison Solar LLC, Somers Solar Center LLC, South Carolina Fuel Company Inc., South Carolina Generating Company Inc., Southampton Solar LLC, Summit Farms Solar LLC, Sussex Drive Solar Project LLC, TA - Acacia LLC, TWE Myrtle Solar Project LLC, The East Ohio Gas Company, Trask East Solar LLC, Tredegar Solar Fund I LLC, VP Property Inc., Virginia Electric And Power Company, Virginia Power Fuel Corporation, Virginia Power Nuclear Services Company, Virginia Power Services Energy Corp. Inc., Virginia Power Services LLC, Virginia Solar 201 Projects LLC, Wakefield Solar LLC, Wexpro Company, Wexpro Development Company, Wexpro II Company, Wilkinson Solar LLC, Wrangler Retail Gas Holdings LLC, and Yemassee Solar LLC. Schaeffler AG, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures and sells precision components and systems for automotive and industrial applications in Europe, the Americas, China, and the Asia Pacific. The company's Automotive OEM division offers engine systems, including rolling bearing solutions, belt and chain drive products, valve train components, and systems for variable valve trains; and transmission systems, such as torsion and vibration dampers, clutches and double clutch systems, torque converters, CVT components, lightweight differentials, bearing solutions, and synchronizing and gearshift components. This division also provides chassis systems comprising wheel bearings, bearing solutions, steering components, electromechanical actuators for roll stabilizers, and power-assisted steering systems; and hybrid and electrical drive systems that include hybrid modules, electrical axle drives, and electrical wheel hub drives. Its Automotive Aftermarket division offers repair solutions for passenger cars, light commercial vehicles, heavy commercial vehicles, and tractors, as well as supporting services. The company's Industrial division provides components and systems. This division serves customers in the mobility, energy and raw materials, production machinery, aerospace, and industrial distribution. It has a strategic partnership with Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. The company was formerly known as INA Beteiligungsgesellschaft mit beschrAnkter Haftung and changed its name to Schaeffler AG in October 2014. The company was founded in 1946 and is headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Germany. Schaeffler AG is a subsidiary of IHO Verwaltungs GmbH. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Aptiv: A.E. Enterprises LLC, APTIVPORT SERVICES S.A., Alambrados y Circuitos Electricos S. de R.L. de C.V., Antaya Technologies, Antaya Technologies Asia Ltd., Antaya Technologies Corp., Aptiv (China) Holding Company Limited, Aptiv (China) Technology Company Limited, Aptiv (Shanghai) International Management Company Ltd., Aptiv (UK) Holdings Limited, Aptiv Asia Pacific Holdings (UK) LLP, Aptiv China Holdings (US) LLC, Aptiv Components (Shanghai) Company Limited, Aptiv Components India Private Ltd., Aptiv Connection Systems (Nantong) Ltd., Aptiv Connection Systems (Shanghai) Ltd., Aptiv Connection Systems Holding Deutschland GmbH, Aptiv Connection Systems Holding Hong Kong Limited, Aptiv Connection Systems Holdings (US) LLC, Aptiv Connection Systems Hungary Kft, Aptiv Connection Systems India Private Limited, Aptiv Connection Systems Korea LLC, Aptiv Connection Systems Services Austria GmbH, Aptiv Connection Systems Services Italia S.P.A., Aptiv Connection Systems Services Japan Ltd., Aptiv Contract Services Ciudad Juarez S. de R.L. de C.V., Aptiv Contract Services Matamoros S. de R.L. de C.V., Aptiv Contract Services Noreste S. de R.L. de C.V., Aptiv Contract Services Nuevo Laredo S. de R.L. de C.V., Aptiv Contract Services S. de R.L. de C.V., Aptiv Contract Services Sweden AB, Aptiv Contract Services Tamaulipas S. de R.L. de C.V., Aptiv Contract Services Tijuana S. de R.L. de C.V., Aptiv Contract Services Zacatecas S. de R.L. de C.V., Aptiv Contract Services d.o.o. Leskovac, Aptiv Contract Services de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Aptiv Corporation, Aptiv Electrical Centers (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Aptiv Electronics (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Aptiv European Holdings (UK) Limited, Aptiv Financial Holdings (UK) LLP, Aptiv Financial Investment Services (UK) Limited, Aptiv Financial Management LLC, Aptiv Financial Services (Luxembourg) S.a r.l., Aptiv Financial Services (UK) Limited, Aptiv Global Financial Services (Luxembourg) S.a r.l., Aptiv Global Financing Limited, Aptiv Global Holdings (Luxembourg) S.a r.l., Aptiv Global Holdings (UK) Limited, Aptiv Global Holdings 2 (Luxembourg) S.ar.l, Aptiv Global Holdings Limited, Aptiv Global Investments UK LLP, Aptiv Global Investments UK LLP Luxembourg Branch, Aptiv Global Operations Limited, Aptiv Global Real Estate Services (US) LLC, Aptiv Holdfi (UK) Limited, Aptiv Holding Company LLC, Aptiv Holdings (Austria) GmbH, Aptiv Holdings (Luxembourg) S.a r.l., Aptiv Holdings (UK) Limited, Aptiv Holdings (US) LLC, Aptiv Holdings Asia Pacific (Luxembourg) S.a r.l., Aptiv Holdings Deutschland GmbH, Aptiv Holdings France SAS, Aptiv Holdings Limited, Aptiv Holdings Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Aptiv Holdings US Limited, Aptiv International Company LLC, Aptiv International Financial Services (UK) LLP, Aptiv International Holdings (Luxembourg) S.a r.l., Aptiv International Holdings (UK) LLP, Aptiv International Holdings (US) LLC, Aptiv International Holdings 2 (Luxembourg) S.a r.l., Aptiv International Holdings UK Two LLP, Aptiv International Operations Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Aptiv International Services Company LLC, Aptiv Korea LLC, Aptiv Latin America Holdings (Luxembourg) S.a r.l., Aptiv Latin America Holdings (UK) LLP, Aptiv Luxembourg Financial Services S.a r.l., Aptiv Luxembourg Holdings (UK) Limited, Aptiv Luxembourg Holdings S.a r.l., Aptiv Malta Holdings Limited, Aptiv Manufactura e Servicos de Distribuicao Ltda., Aptiv Manufacturing Management Services S.a r.l., Aptiv Medical Systems LLC, Aptiv Mexican Holdings (US) LLC, Aptiv Mobility Services Austria MAT GmbH, Aptiv Mobility Services Deutschland GmbH, Aptiv Mobility Services Japan Ltd., Aptiv Mobility Services d.o.o. Novi Sad, Aptiv Properties Management Services (US) LLC, Aptiv S&P Mobility Services Spain S.L., Aptiv S&P Solutions Holdings (Spain) S.L., Aptiv Safety & Mobility Services Singapore Pte. Ltd., Aptiv Safety Services Deutschland GmbH, Aptiv Services 2 France SAS, Aptiv Services 2 US Inc., Aptiv Services 3 (US) LLC, Aptiv Services 4 US LLC, Aptiv Services 5 US LLC, Aptiv Services Austria GPD. GmbH & Co KG, Aptiv Services Belgium N.V., Aptiv Services Czech s.r.o., Aptiv Services Deutschland GmbH, Aptiv Services Honduras S. de R.L. de C.V., Aptiv Services Hungary Kft., Aptiv Services Italia S.r.l., Aptiv Services Macedonia DOOEL Skopje, Aptiv Services Netherlands B.V., Aptiv Services Poland S.A., Aptiv Services Tunisia Sarl, Aptiv Services UK Limited, Aptiv Services US LLC, Aptiv Services Ukraine LLC, Aptiv Technologies Limited, Aptiv Technology Services & Solutions S.R.L., Aptiv Trade Management Services (US) LLC, Aptiv Turkey Teknoloji Hizmetleri Limited Sirketi, Aptiv UK Pension Trustees Limited, Aptiv US Operations Holdings LLC, Aptiv US Services General Partnership, Arcomex S.A. de C.V., Arneses Electricos Automotrices S.A. de C.V., Auburn Enterprises LLC, Autoensambles y Logistica S.A. de C.V., Cablena S.L., Centro Tecnico Herramental S. de R.L. de C.V., Control Tec LLC, Control-Tec LLC, Cordaflex Espana S.A., Cordaflex S.A. de C.V., Daehan Electronics Yantai Co. Ltd., Delphi Automotive Systems Maroc S.A., Delphi Connection Systems Morocco S.A.S., Delphi Packard Kenitra S.A., Delphi Packard Meknes, Delphi Packard Moldova Noua S.R.L., Delphi Packard Tanger SA, Falmat Inc., Gabocom Ltd, Gabocom Sarl, Gabriel de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Harwich Holding GmbH, Harwich Holdings LLC, Harwich Holdings SAS, HellermannTyton (Proprietary) Limited, HellermannTyton (Wuxi) Electrical Accessories Company Limited, HellermannTyton AB, HellermannTyton AB Branch Office, HellermannTyton AS, HellermannTyton Alpha S.a r.l., HellermannTyton Australia Pty Ltd, HellermannTyton BV, HellermannTyton Beta S.a r.l., HellermannTyton Canada Inc., HellermannTyton Co. Ltd, HellermannTyton Corporation, HellermannTyton Data Limited, HellermannTyton Engineering GmbH, HellermannTyton Espana SL, HellermannTyton Finance PLC, HellermannTyton GmbH (Austria), HellermannTyton GmbH (Germany), HellermannTyton Group PLC, HellermannTyton Holdings AB, HellermannTyton Holdings Limited, HellermannTyton Kft, HellermannTyton Limited, HellermannTyton Limited Branch Office, HellermannTyton Ltda, HellermannTyton Manufacturas S. de R.L. de C.V., HellermannTyton Maroc S.ar.l., HellermannTyton OOO, HellermannTyton Private Limited, HellermannTyton Pte Limited, HellermannTyton Rohvel SL, HellermannTyton S. de R.L. de C.V., HellermannTyton SAS, HellermannTyton Services GmbH, HellermannTyton Services SARL AU, HellermannTyton Srl, HellermannTyton YH, HellermannTyton sp. z.o.o., Hellermanntyton Group, Hellermanntyton Morocco SARL AU, Inmobiliaria Marlis S.A., Inmuebles Wagon S.A., Interessengemeinschaft fur Rundfunkschutzrechte GmbH, Interessengemeinschaft fur Rundfunkschutzrechte GmbH Schutzrechtsverwertung & Co. KG, KUM Co. Ltd., KUM LLC, KUMAP Co. Ltd., Movimento (Shanghai) Co Ltd., Movimento Europe GmbH, Movimento Group, Movimento Group AB, Movimento Inc., Movimento International S. de R.L. de C.V., Noteco Comercio e Participacoes Ltda., On-Site Limited, Ottomatika, Ottomatika Inc., PT Aptiv Components Indonesia, Phoenix Assets Holdings Ltd., Pipe Holding GmbH, Potio Holding GmbH, ProSTEP Produktions Technologie AG, Productos Delco de Chihuahua S. de R.L. de C.V., PureDepth, PureDepth Inc., PureDepth Incorporated Limited, PureDepth Limited, Rebafin GmbH, Rio Bravo Electricos S. de R.L. de C.V., Staeng Limited, Tyson Intermediate Holdco Corp., Tyson Upper Intermediate Holdco Corp., Unterstutzungsgesellschaft mbH Delphi Deutschland, Unwired Holdings Inc., Unwired Technology, WF Global (BVI) Limited, WF Global (HK) Limited, Winchester Holding Inc., Winchester Interconnect, Winchester Interconnect (M) Sdn. Bhd., Winchester Interconnect (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, Winchester Interconnect (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Winchester Interconnect CM Corporation, Winchester Interconnect Cable Assemblies LLC, Winchester Interconnect Corporation, Winchester Interconnect Hermetics LLC, Winchester Interconnect RF Corporation, Winchester Interconnect Ruggedized Corporation, YanCheng SeMyung Electronics Co. Ltd., gabo Systemtechnik, gabo Systemtechnik GmbH, nuTonomy, nuTonomy Asia Pte. Ltd., and nuTonomy Inc.. Stantec Inc. provides professional consulting services in the area of infrastructure and facilities in Canada, the United States, and internationally. The company provides consulting services in engineering, architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, surveying, environmental sciences, project management, and project economics. It also offers water, transportation, and public works; transportation planning and traffic engineering; and resource assessment, mine development, reclamation, hydrology, and geotechnical and infrastructure engineering services, as well as urban planning, traffic assessments and optimization, environmental impact assessments, and public consultation services. In addition, the company provides structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and hydraulics engineering services. It serves urban regeneration, infrastructure, education, public and private sector, tourism and leisure, and waste and water sectors, as well as office and commercial, residential, and retail and town centers. The company was formerly known as Stanley Technology Group Inc. and changed its name to Stantec Inc. in October 1998. Stantec Inc. was founded in 1954 and is headquartered in Edmonton, Canada. Read More TC Energy Corporation operates as an energy infrastructure company in North America. It operates through Canadian Natural Gas Pipelines, U.S. Natural Gas Pipelines, Mexico Natural Gas Pipelines, Liquids Pipelines, and Power and Storage segments. The company builds and operates 93,400 km network of natural gas pipelines, which transports natural gas from supply basins to local distribution companies, power generation plants, industrial facilities, interconnecting pipelines, LNG export terminals, and other businesses. It also has regulated natural gas storage facilities with a total working gas capacity of 535 billion cubic feet. In addition, it has approximately 4,900 km liquids pipeline system that connects Alberta crude oil supplies to refining markets in Illinois, Oklahoma, Texas, and the U.S. Gulf Coast. Further, the company owns or has interests in seven power generation facilities with a combined capacity of approximately 4,200 megawatts that are powered by natural gas and nuclear fuel sources located in Alberta, Ontario, QuAbec, and New Brunswick; and owns and operates approximately 118 billion cubic feet of non-regulated natural gas storage capacity in Alberta. The company was formerly known as TransCanada Corporation and changed its name to TC Energy Corporation in May 2019. TC Energy Corporation was incorporated in 1951 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada. Read More Teekay Offshore Partners L.P. provides marine transportation, oil production, storage, long-distance towing and offshore installation, and maintenance and safety services for the oil industry. It operates in six segments: Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO); Shuttle Tanker; Floating Storage and Off-Take (FSO); Unit for Maintenance and Safety (UMS); Towage and Offshore Installation Vessels; and Conventional Tanker. The company serves customers in offshore oil regions of the North Sea, Brazil, and the East Coast of Canada. As at December 31, 2018, it had a fleet of 35 shuttle tankers, 2 chartered-in vessels, 1 HiLoad dynamic positioning unit, 8 FPSO units, 6 FSO units, 10 long-distance towage and offshore installation vessels, 1 UMS, and 2 chartered-in conventional oil tankers. Teekay Offshore GP L.L.C. serves as the general partner of Teekay Offshore Partners L.P. The company was founded in 2006 and is based in Hamilton, Bermuda. Teekay Offshore Partners L.P. is a subsidiary of Brookfield TK TOLP L.P. Read More Templeton Dragon Fund, Inc. is a closed ended equity mutual fund launched by Franklin Resources, Inc. The fund is managed by Templeton Asset Management Ltd. It invests in the public equity markets of China. The fund seeks to invest in stocks of companies operating across diversified sectors. It primarily invests in value stocks of companies. The fund employs fundamental analysis focusing on factors like growth prospects, competitive positions in export markets, technologies, research and development, productivity, labor costs, raw material costs and sources, profit margins, returns on investment, capital resources, government regulation, and management to create its portfolio. It is actively managed. Templeton Dragon Fund, Inc. was formed on September 20, 1994 and is domiciled in the United States. Read More Unit Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the exploration, acquisition, development, and production of oil and natural gas properties in the United States. It operates through three segments: Oil and Natural Gas, Contract Drilling, and Mid-Stream. The Oil and Natural Gas segment explores for, acquires, develops, and produces oil and natural gas properties. Its producing oil and natural gas properties, unproved properties, and related assets are primarily located in Oklahoma and Texas, as well as in Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming. The Contract Drilling segment is involved in the contract drilling of onshore oil and natural gas wells for a range of other oil and natural gas companies primarily in Oklahoma, Texas, Wyoming, North Dakota, Colorado, and Utah. It has 55 drilling rigs in its fleet. The Mid-Stream segment buys, sells, gathers, processes, and treats natural gas for third parties. This segment operates 3 natural gas treatment plants, 14 processing plants, 22 gathering systems, and approximately 1,475 miles of pipeline in Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Unit Corporation was founded in 1963 and is headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Vodafone Group: 360 Connect S.A., [email protected] Telecom, A-ccelerator B.V., A-ccelerator Holding B.V, AAA (Euro) Limited, AAA (MCR) Limited, AAA (UK) Limited, Acorn Communications Limited, Africonnect (Zambia) Limited, Ag Mercantile Company Private Limited, Al-Amin Investments Limited, Amsterdamse Beheer- en Consultingmaatschappij B.V., Apollo Submarine Cable System Limited, Array Holdings Limited, Asian Telecommunication Investments (Mauritius) Limited, Aspective Limited, Astec Communications Limited, Autoconnex Limited, Aztec Limited, BelCompany BV, Bluefish Apac Communications Pte. Ltd, Bluefish Communications, Bluefish Communications Limited, Business Serve Limited, C&W Worldwide Nigeria Limited, C.S.P. Solutions Limited, CCII (Mauritius) Inc., CGP India Investments Ltd., CGP Investments (Holdings) Limited, COOP Mobil s.r.o, CT Networks Limited, CWGNL S.A., CWW Operations Limited, Cable & Wireless Access Limited, Cable & Wireless Americas Systems Inc., Cable & Wireless Aspac Holdings Limited, Cable & Wireless CIS Services Limited, Cable & Wireless CIS Svyaz LLC, Cable & Wireless Capital Limited , Cable & Wireless Communications Data Network Services Limited, Cable & Wireless Communications Starclass Limited, Cable & Wireless Communications Technical Service (Shanghai) Co. Ltd (Beijing Branch), Cable & Wireless Europe Holdings Limited, Cable & Wireless GN Limited, Cable & Wireless Global (India) Private Limited, Cable & Wireless Global Business Services Limited, Cable & Wireless Global Holding Limited, Cable & Wireless Global Telecommunication Services Limited, Cable & Wireless Holdco Limited, Cable & Wireless Networks India Private Limited, Cable & Wireless Trade Mark Management Limited, Cable & Wireless UK Holdings Limited, Cable & Wireless UK Services Limited, Cable & Wireless Waterside Holdings Limited, Cable & Wireless Worldwide, Cable & Wireless Worldwide Limited, Cable & Wireless Worldwide Pension Trustee Limited, Cable & Wireless Worldwide Services Limited, Cable & Wireless Worldwide Voice Messaging Limited, Cable & Wireless a-Services Inc, Cable & Wireless a-Services Limited, Cable and Wireless (India) Limited, Cable and Wireless (India) Limited Indian Branch Office, Cable and Wireless Nominee Limited, Cable and Wireless Worldwide South Africa (Pty) Ltd, Cavalry Holdings Ltd, Celfocus Solucoes Informaticas Para Telecomunicacoes S.A, Cellops Limited, Cellular Operations Limited, Central Communications Group Limited, Central Telecom (Northern) Limited, Centurion GSM Limited, Chelys Limited, City Cable (Holdings) Limited, Cobra do Brasil Servicos de Telematica ltda., Commnet Cellular Inc., Complete Network Technology, Connect (India) Mobile Technologies Private Limited, Cornerstone Telecommunications Infrastructure Limited, Dataroam Limited , Device Insight, Digital Island (UK) Ltd, Digital Mobile Spectrum Limited, East Africa Investment (Mauritius) Limited, Emtel Europe Limited, Energis (Ireland) Limited, Energis Communications Limited, Energis Holdings Limited, Energis Local Access Limited, Energis Management Limited, Energis Squared Limited, Erudite Systems Limited, Esprit Telecom B.V., Eudokia Limited, Euro Pacific Securities Ltd., Eurocall Holdings Limited, Europolitan Holdings AB (now Europolitan Vodafone AB), FB Holdings Limited, FM Associates (UK) Limited, FinCo Partner 1 B.V., FireFly Networks Limited, Flexphone Limited, GS Telecom (Pty) Limited, Gateway Communications Africa (UK) Limited, Gateway Communications Tanzania Limited, General Mobile Corporation, Generation Telecom Limited, Ghana Telecommunications, Ghana Telecommunications Company Limited, Global Cellular Rental Limited, Globe Limited, GrandCentrix GmbH, Grupo Corporativo ONO S.A.U., H3ga Properties (No 3) Pty Limited, HBO Nederland Cooperatief U.A., HBO Netherlands Channels sro, HBO Netherlands Distribution B.V., Hellas Online, How2 Telecom Limited, Hutchison Essar Ltd, Indus Towers Limited, Intercell Communications Limited, Internet Network Services Limited, Invitation Digital Limited, Ipergy Communications NV, Isis Telecommunications Management Limited, Jaguar Communications Limited, Jaykay Finholding (India) Private Limited, Jupicol (Proprietary) Limited, KABELCOM Braunschweig Gesellschaft Fur BreitbandkabelKommunikation Mit Beschrankter Haftung, KABELCOM Wolfsburg Gesellschaft Fur BreitbandkabelKommunikation Mit Beschrankter Haftung, Kabel Deutschland, Kabel Deutschland Holding, Kabel Deutschland Holding Erste Beteiligungs GmbH, Kabel Deutschland Holding Zweite Beteilgungs GmbH, Kabel Deutschland Neunte Beteiligungs GmbH, Kabel Deutschland Siebte Beteiligungs GmbH, Kabelfernsehen Munchen Servicenter GmbH & Co. KG, LG Financing Partnership, LGE HoldCo V B.V., LGE HoldCo VI B.V., LGE HoldCo VIII B.V., LGE Holdco VII B.V., LLC Vodafone Enterprise Ukraine, Le Bunt Holdings Limited, Legend Communications Limited, Liberty Global, Liberty Global Content Netherlands B.V., London Hydraulic Power Company, M-PESA Foundation, M-PESA Holding Co. Limited, ML Integration Group Limited, ML Integration Limited, ML Integration Services Limited, MV Healthcare Services Private Limited, Mannesmann AG, MetroHoldings Limited, Mezzanine Ware Proprietary Limited (RF), Mirambo Limited, Misrfone Trading Company LLC, MobiFon S.A., Mobile Commerce Solutions Limited, Mobile Phone Centre Limited, Mobile Wallet VM1, Mobile Wallet VM2, Mobile by Sainsburys Limited, Mobiles 4 Business.com Limited, Mobileworld Communications Pty Limited, Mobileworld Operating Pty Ltd, Mobilvest, Motifpros 1 (Proprietary) Limited, Multi Risk Indemnity Company Limited, Multi Risk Limited, ND Callus Info Services Private Limited, Nadal Trading Company Private Limited, Nat Comm Air Limited, National Communications Backbone Company Limited, Navtrak Ltd, Netforce Group Limited, Netgrid Telecom SRL, Number Portability Company (Proprietary) Limited, ONO, Omega Telecom Holdings Private Limited, Oni Way Infocomunicacoes S.A, Oskar Mobil S.R.O., Oxygen Solutions Limited, P.C.P. (North West) Limited, PPL Pty Limited, PT Network Services Limited, PTI Telecom Limited, Peoples Phone Limited, Pinnacle Cellular Group Limited, Pinnacle Cellular Limited, Plex Limited, Plustech Mercantile Company Private Limited, Prime Metals Ltd., Project Telecom Holdings Limited, Quickcomm Software Solutions, Radio Opt GmbH, Rian Mobile Limited, SBC SMART CITY 1517 B.V., SMMS Investments Pvt Limited, Safaricom Limited, Safenet N.P A., Sarmady Communications, Scarlet Ibis Investments 23 (Pty) Limited, Scorpios Beverages Pvt. Ltd, Silver Stream Investments Limited, Singlepoint (4U) Limited, Singlepoint (4U) Ltd., Singlepoint Payment Services Limited, Siro Limited, Spar Aerospace (Nigeria) Limited, Sport TV Portugal S.A, Starnet, Stentor Communications Limited, Stentor Limited, Storage Technology Services (Pty) Limited, T.W. Telecom Limited, T3 Telecommunications Limited, TKS Telepost Kabel-Service Kaiserslautern Beteiligungs GmbH, TKS Telepost Kabel-Service Kaiserslautern GmbH & Co. KG, TNAS Limited, TSM NZ Limited, Talkland Airtime Services Limited, Talkland Australia Pty Limited, Talkland Communications Limited, Talkland International Limited, Talkland Midlands Limited, Talkmobile Limited, Tele2 Italia SPA, Tele2 Spain, Telecom Investments India Private Limited, Telecommunications Europe Limited, Ternhill Communications Limited, The Cobra Group, The Eastern Leasing Company Limited, The Old Telecom Sales Co. Limited, Thus Group Holdings Limited, Thus Group Limited, Thus Limited, Thus Profit Sharing Trustees Limited, TnT Expense Management LLC, Tomorrow Street GP S.a r.l., Tomorrow Street SCA, Torenspits II B.V., Townley Communications Limited, Trans Crystal Ltd., UMT Investments Limited, UPC Nederland Holding I B.V., UPC Nederland Holding II B.V., UPC Nederland Holding III B.V., Unified Communications, Uniqueair Limited, Urbana Teleunion Rostock GmbH & Co.KG, Usha Martin Telematics Limited, VAPL No. 2 Pty Limited, VBA (Mauritius) Limited, VBA Holdings Limited, VBA International (SL) Limited, VBA International Limited, VEI S.r.l., VM SA, VND S.p.A, VSSB Vodafone Shared Services Budapest Private Limited Company, Verwaltung Urbana Teleunion Rostock GmbH, Victus Networks S.A., Vizzavi Finance Limited, Vizzavi Limited, Voda Limited, Vodacall Limited, Vodacash s.p.r.l., Vodacom (Pty) Limited, Vodacom Business (Angola) Limitada, Vodacom Business (Ghana) Limited, Vodacom Business (Kenya) Limited, Vodacom Business Africa (Nigeria) Limited, Vodacom Business Africa Group (Pty) Limited, Vodacom Business Africa Group Services Limited, Vodacom Business Cameroon SA, Vodacom Business Cote Divoire S.A.R.L., Vodacom Congo (RDC) SA, Vodacom Financial Services (Proprietary) Limited, Vodacom Group Limited, Vodacom Insurance Administration Company (Proprietary) Limited, Vodacom Insurance Company (RF) Limited, Vodacom International Holdings (Pty) Limited, Vodacom International Limited, Vodacom Lesotho (Pty) Limited, Vodacom Life Assurance Company (RF) Limited, Vodacom Payment Services (Proprietary) Limited, Vodacom Properties No 1 (Proprietary) Limited, Vodacom Properties No.2 (Pty) Limited, Vodacom Tanzania Limited Zanzibar, Vodacom Tanzania Public Limited Company, Vodacom UK Limited, Vodafone (NI) Limited, Vodafone (New Zealand) Hedging Limited, Vodafone (Scotland) Limited, Vodafone 2, Vodafone 4 UK, Vodafone 5 Limited, Vodafone 5 UK, Vodafone 6 UK, Vodafone Albania Sh.A, Vodafone Alternatif Telekom Hizmetleri A.S., Vodafone Americas 4, Vodafone Americas Virginia Inc., Vodafone And Qatar Foundation L.L.C, Vodafone Asset Management Services S.a r.l., Vodafone Australia Pty Limited, Vodafone Automotive Deutschland GmbH, Vodafone Automotive Electronic Systems S.r.L, Vodafone Automotive France S.A.S, Vodafone Automotive Iberia S.L, Vodafone Automotive Italia S.p.A, Vodafone Automotive Japan K.K, Vodafone Automotive Korea Limited, Vodafone Automotive SpA, Vodafone Automotive Technologies (Beijing) Co Ltd, Vodafone Automotive Telematics Development S.A.S, Vodafone Automotive Telematics S.A, Vodafone Automotive UK Limited, Vodafone Belgium SA/NV, Vodafone Benelux Limited, Vodafone Bilgi Ve Iletisim Hizmetleri AS, Vodafone Business Services Limited, Vodafone Business Solutions Limited, Vodafone Canada Inc, Vodafone Cellular Limited, Vodafone Central Services Limited, Vodafone China Limited (China), Vodafone China Limited (Hong Kong), Vodafone Connect 2 Limited, Vodafone Connect Limited, Vodafone Consolidated Holdings Limited, Vodafone Corporate Limited, Vodafone Corporate Secretaries Limited, Vodafone Czech Republic A.S., Vodafone DC Pension Trustee Company Limited, Vodafone Dagitim Hizmetleri A.S., Vodafone Data, Vodafone Distribution Holdings Limited, Vodafone Egypt Telecommunications S.A.E., Vodafone Elektronik Para Ve Odeme Hizmetleri A.S., Vodafone Empresa Brasil Telecomunicacoes Ltda, Vodafone Empresa Mexico S.de R.L. de C.V., Vodafone Enabler Espana S.L., Vodafone Enterprise Australia Pty Limited, Vodafone Enterprise Austria GmbH, Vodafone Enterprise Bahrain W.L.L., Vodafone Enterprise Bulgaria EOOD, Vodafone Enterprise Chile SA, Vodafone Enterprise Communications Technical Services (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, Vodafone Enterprise Corporate Secretaries Limited, Vodafone Enterprise Denmark A/S, Vodafone Enterprise Equipment Limited, Vodafone Enterprise Europe (UK) Limited, Vodafone Enterprise Europe (UK) Limited Czech Branch, Vodafone Enterprise Europe (UK) Limited DubaiI Branch, Vodafone Enterprise Finland OY, Vodafone Enterprise France SAS, Vodafone Enterprise Germany GmbH, Vodafone Enterprise Global Businesses S.a r.l., Vodafone Enterprise Global Limited, Vodafone Enterprise Global Network HK Ltd, Vodafone Enterprise Global Network Pte. Ltd., Vodafone Enterprise Hong Kong Ltd, Vodafone Enterprise Italy S.r.L, Vodafone Enterprise Korea Limited, Vodafone Enterprise Luxembourg S.A., Vodafone Enterprise Netherlands BV, Vodafone Enterprise Norway AS, Vodafone Enterprise Regional Business Singapore Pte.Ltd., Vodafone Enterprise Singapore Pte.Ltd, Vodafone Enterprise Spain S.L.U. Portugal Branch, Vodafone Enterprise Spain SLU, Vodafone Enterprise Sweden AB, Vodafone Enterprise Switzerland AG, Vodafone Erste Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, Vodafone Espana S.A.U., Vodafone Euro Hedging Limited, Vodafone Euro Hedging Two, Vodafone Europe B.V., Vodafone Europe UK, Vodafone European Investments, Vodafone European Portal Limited, Vodafone Finance Limited, Vodafone Finance Luxembourg Limited, Vodafone Finance Sweden, Vodafone Finance UK Limited, Vodafone Financial Operations, Vodafone Financial Services B.V., Vodafone Fixed Ltd, Vodafone Foundation, Vodafone Foundation Australia Pty Limited, Vodafone Gestioni S.p.A, Vodafone Ghana Mobile Financial Services Limited, Vodafone Global Content Services Limited, Vodafone Global Enterprise (Hong Kong) Limited, Vodafone Global Enterprise (Italy) S.R.L., Vodafone Global Enterprise (Japan) K.K., Vodafone Global Enterprise (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Vodafone Global Enterprise Limited, Vodafone Global Enterprise Russia LLC, Vodafone Global Enterprise Taiwan Limited, Vodafone Global Enterprise Telecommunications (Hellas) A.E., Vodafone Global Network Limited, Vodafone Global Network Limited Slovakia Branch, Vodafone Global Services Private Limited, Vodafone GmbH, Vodafone Group (Directors) Trustee Limited, Vodafone Group Pension Trustee Limited, Vodafone Group Services GmbH, Vodafone Group Services Ireland Limited, Vodafone Group Services Limited, Vodafone Group Services No.2 Limited, Vodafone Group Share Trustee Limited, Vodafone Hire Limited, Vodafone Holding A.S., Vodafone Holdings (Jersey) Limited, Vodafone Holdings (SA) Proprietary Limited, Vodafone Holdings Europe S.L.U., Vodafone Holdings Luxembourg Limited, Vodafone Hutchison Australia Pty Limited, Vodafone Hutchison Finance Pty Limited, Vodafone Hutchison Receivables Pty Limited, Vodafone IP Licensing Limited, Vodafone India Digital Limited, Vodafone India Limited, Vodafone India Services Private Limited, Vodafone India Ventures Limited, Vodafone Institut fur Gesellschaft und Kommunikation GmbH, Vodafone Intermediate Enterprises Limited, Vodafone International 1 S.a.r.l. Luxembourg Zweigniederlassung Bern, Vodafone International 1 S.a r.l., Vodafone International 2 Limited, Vodafone International Holdings B.V., Vodafone International Holdings Limited, Vodafone International M S.a r.l., Vodafone International Operations Limited, Vodafone International Services LLC, Vodafone Investment UK, Vodafone Investments (SA) Proprietary Limited, Vodafone Investments Australia Limited, Vodafone Investments Limited, Vodafone Investments Luxembourg S.a r.l., Vodafone Investments Luxembourg S.a r.l. Luxembourg Zweigniederlassung Bern, Vodafone Ireland Distribution Limited, Vodafone Ireland Ltd., Vodafone Ireland Marketing Limited, Vodafone Ireland Property Holdings Limited, Vodafone Ireland Retail Limited, Vodafone Italia S.p.A., Vodafone Jersey Dollar Holdings Limited, Vodafone Jersey Finance, Vodafone Jersey Yen Holdings Unlimited, Vodafone Kabel Deutschland Field Services GmbH, Vodafone Kabel Deutschland GmbH, Vodafone Kabel Deutschland Kundenbetreuung GmbH, Vodafone Kenya Limited, Vodafone Leasing Limited, Vodafone Libertel B.V., Vodafone Limited, Vodafone Luxembourg 5 S.a r.l., Vodafone Luxembourg 5 S.a r.l. Luxembourg Zweigniederlassung Bern, Vodafone Luxembourg S.a r.l., Vodafone Luxembourg S.a r.l. Luxembourg Zweigniederlassung Bern, Vodafone M-PESA SH.P.K., Vodafone M-Pesa S.A, Vodafone M.C. Mobile Services Limited , Vodafone Magyarorszag Mobile Tavkozlesi Zartkoruen Mukodo Reszvenytarsasag, Vodafone Malta Limited, Vodafone Marketing UK , Vodafone Maroc SARL, Vodafone Mauritius Ltd., Vodafone Mobile Commerce Limited, Vodafone Mobile Communications Limited, Vodafone Mobile Enterprises Limited, Vodafone Mobile NZ Limited, Vodafone Mobile Network Limited, Vodafone Mobile Operations Limited, Vodafone Mobile Services Limited, Vodafone Multimedia Limited, Vodafone Nederland Holding I B.V., Vodafone Nederland Holding II B.V., Vodafone Nederland Holding III B.V., Vodafone Net Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S., Vodafone Network Pty Limited, Vodafone New Zealand Foundation Limited, Vodafone New Zealand Limited, Vodafone Next Generation Services Limited, Vodafone Nominees Limited1, Vodafone ONO S.A.U., Vodafone Oceania Limited, Vodafone Old Show Ground Site Management Limited, Vodafone Overseas Finance Limited, Vodafone Overseas Holdings Limited, Vodafone Panafon International Holdings B.V., Vodafone Panafon UK, Vodafone Partner Services Limited, Vodafone Payment Solutions S.a r.l., Vodafone Portugal Comunicacoes Pessoais S.A., Vodafone Procurement Company S.a r.l., Vodafone Property Investments Limited, Vodafone Pty Limited, Vodafone Qatar Q.S.C., Vodafone Retail (Holdings) Limited , Vodafone Retail Limited, Vodafone Roaming Services S.a r.l., Vodafone Romania S.A, Vodafone Romania M - Payments SRL, Vodafone Romania Technologies SRL, Vodafone Sales & Services Limited, Vodafone Satellite Services Limited, Vodafone Servicios SL.U, Vodafone Servizi E Tecnologie S.R.L, Vodafone Servicos Empresariais Brasil Ltda., Vodafone Shared Services Romania SRL, Vodafone Specialist Communications Limited, Vodafone Stiftung Deutschland Gemeinnutzige GmbH, Vodafone Technology Solutions Limited, Vodafone Teknoloji Hizmetleri A.S., Vodafone Tele-Services (India) Holdings Limited, Vodafone Telecel-Comunicates Pessoais S.A., Vodafone Telecommunications (India) Limited, Vodafone Telekomunikasyon A.S, Vodafone Towers Limited, Vodafone UK Content Services Limited, Vodafone UK Investments Limited , Vodafone UK Limited1 , Vodafone US Inc, Vodafone Ventures Limited1 , Vodafone Vierte Verwaltungs AG, Vodafone Worldwide Holdings Limited, Vodafone Yen Finance Limited , Vodafone m-pesa Limited, Vodafone-Central Limited Vodaphone Limited, Vodafone-Panafon Hellenic Telecommunications Company S.A., VodafoneZiggo Group Holding B.V, Vodata Limited , Vouchercloud SA (Pty) Ltd, Wataneya Telecommunications S.A.E, Waterberg Lodge (Proprietary) Limited, Wayfinder, Wheatfields Investments 276 (Proprietary) Limited, Wireless Interactions & NFC Accelerator 2013 B.V., Woodend Cellular Limited, Woodend Communications Limited, Woodend Group Limited, Woodend Holdings Limited, XB Facilities B.V, XLink Communications (Proprietary) Limited, Your Communications Group Limited, ZUM B.V., ZYB, Zelitron S.A., Zesko B.V., Ziggo B.V., Ziggo Bond Company B.V., Ziggo Deelnemingen B.V., Ziggo Finance 2 B.V., Ziggo Financing Partnership, Ziggo Holding B.V., Ziggo Netwerk B.V., Ziggo Netwerk II B.V., Ziggo Services B.V., Ziggo Services Employment B.V., Ziggo Services Netwerk 2 B.V., Ziggo Zakelijk Services B.V., and Zoranet Connectivity Services B.V.. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein suggested he secretly record U.S. President Donald Trump and discussed conducting an effort to remove him from office using the 25th Amendment of the Constitution, according to a Friday report. Rosenstein made the proposals in the wake of Trump's abrupt May 2017 dismissal of former FBI Director James Comey. The recordings were to be used to expose the inner turmoil within the White House at that time, according to the New York Times. The 25th Amendment allows for a sitting president to be removed from office if the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet decides he is unable to discharge his duties. Rosenstein made the comments during meetings with Justice and FBI officials, according to the Times. The newspaper based its story on conversations with several people who it said they were briefed on the events or memos authored by FBI officials, including former Acting Director Andrew McCabe. None of Rosenstein's proposals were enacted, and the Times said it is unclear how determined he was about them. A Justice Department spokeswoman gave the newspaper a statement from a person who was present when the deputy attorney general suggested wearing a wire. That person, who was not named, claimed Rosenstein was speaking sarcastically. Rosenstein disputed the Times's story as "inaccurate and factually incorrect. "I will not further comment on a story based on anonymous sources who are obviously biased against the department and are advancing their own personal agenda. But let me be clear about this: Based on my personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment, he said. A recent report found that 18,600 people aged 55 and over were homeless around Australia on the night of the 2016 censusa 49 percent increase over the past decade. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) report said people over 55 made up one in six of the homeless on that night. Of this group, 63 percent were male and about 8 percent identified as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. Homelessness is a growing problem for older Australians and will likely continue to increase over time due to an ageing population and declining rates of home ownership among older people, the report warned. Over the past decade the largest increases in homelessness occurred among people aged 55 to 64 and 65 to 74. Although not the majority, the number of homeless older women increased by 31 percent from the previous census in 2011. Factors that put older women at risk of homelessness include domestic violence, relationship breakdown, financial difficulty and limited superannuation. Often the plight of the homeless is hidden from public view. The crisis extends far beyond those living rough on the streets. Most commonly, the older people were living in boarding houses (27 percent) or staying temporarily in other households (24 percent). The Australian Bureau of Statistics defines homelessness as living in a dwelling that is unfit for human habitation and lacks basic facilities such as kitchen and bathroom facilities, with no tenure, or short and not extendable tenure, or that does not allow a person access to space for social relations, including personal or household living space, ability to maintain privacy and exclusive access to kitchen and bathroom facilities. The number of older people seeking assistance from specialist homelessness services grew at an average of 8 percent a year from 201213 to 201617, to just over 23,600 people. The most common reasons older people sought assistance were housing crisis (22 percent), domestic and family violence (19 percent) and financial difficulties (17 percent). Periods of homelessness also lengthened. The median number of days older people were supported increased from 18 days in 201213 to 27 days in 201617. Loretta, a case manager in community aged care who works in a homelessness agency for the aged in Melbourne, told the WSWS: We work with people with complex homelessness. We have an outreach worker. It is quite horrendous. Fairly elderly people are finding themselves homeless, even 80-year-olds. They might find that they cant afford to pay the rent. Or they may let their family live with them, and then their family kicks them out. Or they may have been widowed. It is amazing how it unravels for them pretty quickly. They have paid rent all their lives, they might be in private rental, and suddenly they find they cant afford it any more. These are people who have worked all their lives. A lot are in crisis accommodation. There are not so many directly on the streets Although there are some who are wandering the streets. They may have chronic diseases, or a number of issues. The biggest significant change is that our outreach workers caseload has increased fourfold. She cant manage it, but they wont increase the hours. She needs another person. She is drowning in work. The number of elderly women is certainly growing, and they are extremely vulnerable. Previously there were women, perhaps with mental health issues, but now there are all walks of life. It is extraordinary. They can be people who have been quite middle class, and then it happens so quickly. Private rental people are the most vulnerable. Either the money runs out or their partner leaves them. Changed circumstances make it extremely hard to find rental accommodation. Older people can struggle with mobility or have health-related issues. Our outreach worker has to put a package in place. If you are over 65 there may be homecare assistance from the federal government. If you are younger, there are only temporary services for the duration of an illness. For all these things you need an advocate who knows how to navigate the system, such as priority housing. Without a worker, you cant get it by yourself. These conditions reflect the increasingly precarious situation facing broader sections of the population. OECD figures reveal that the poverty rate for older people in Australia is 25.7 percent, one of the highest in the world. The increase in the aged pension entitlement age from 65 to 67 compels older workers to continue in the workforce, even if they are physically or mentally incapable of doing so, or unable to secure work. The proportion of the pension-age population receiving the aged pension has reduced almost 10 percentage points to 66 percent since 1997. In January 2018, the participation rate of people aged above 65 in the workforce was 13 percent (17 percent for men, 10 percent for women). This is nearly double the levels of 2006, when 8 percent of older people were working (12 percent for men, 4 percent for women). Because of soaring house prices and falling wages, another factor is declining home ownership. In 200304, 79 percent of older people owned their own homes. By 201516 that had reduced to 76 percent, paralleling a broader fall in the entire population. Older workers are increasingly forced to rent or continue to pay mortgages after retirement, placing them in greater danger of mortgage default, rent stress and homelessness. Late in 2017, unpublished data from the Australian Department of Social Services revealed 32,000 households of people aged 65 and above, and receiving government rent assistance, were paying unaffordable rents in the state of New South Wales. That was a 50 percent rise over the previous five years, and included 9,000 people, 65 and over, who were outlaying more than half their income on rent. According to the AIHW report, many older people are also delaying medical treatment or foregoing it altogether due to cost. Almost 30 percent of people 65 and over, whose annual income was below $30,000, reported delaying or avoiding dental visits for financial reasons. Older people are seen and treated by governments, Labor and Liberal-National alike, as a burden unless they are able to pay for all aspects of their care and wellbeing. The fact that after working their entire lives, older workers are not guaranteed even a roof over their head is an indictment of the capitalist profit system. The author also recommends: Australian government calls royal commission into aged care but numerous reports have already exposed major crisis [17 September 2018] UK Prime Minister Theresa May suffered political humiliation in Salzburg, when European Union (EU) leaders rebuffed her appeal to give at least conditional support to her Chequers proposal for a soft Brexit. May was given only 10 minutes to address EU heads of state Wednesday, after dinner at the informal summit, during which she appealed to her audience, You are participants in our debate, not just observers. She said she had counted on at least supportive noises for her serious and workable plan, given that she was seeking to head off a potential challenge from the hard-Brexit/Eurosceptic wing of the Conservative Party. She warned that the UK could be torn apartwith respect to Northern Ireland and Scotland, as well as by social tensions; that if her government fell, Jeremy Corbyns Labour Party could win a general election; and cited the potential damage to the EU itself of lost trade, investment and military support from the UK. Instead, her address was met with silence and her implied threats were stonewalled, as the main players within the EU combined the next day to declare her proposals to be unworkable. Prior to her dinner address, European Council President Donald Tusk had rejected Mays proposal for an EU-UK free trade area covering goods and agriculture, but not services, which she claimed would eliminate the need for tariffs and border controls, especially between Northern Ireland and the Republic in the south, an EU member state. The suggested framework for economic cooperation will not work, not least because it risks undermining the single market, Tusk said. May was said variously to be staggered, shocked, humiliated and angry. Tusk laid down an ultimatum by stating that without decisive progress on the Irish border, there would be a moment of truth by the planned EU summit on October 18, when the Brexit negotiations are due to be finalised. If there were no such progress, he would not call the planned EU summit in Brussels November 17-18 to finalise and formalise a deal. I cant rule out the possibility of a no deal. We are not ready to compromise on our four freedoms, on our single market as well as on the Irish borders, he said. French President Emmanuel Macron, said to be the main author of Tusks hardline stance, declared at the summits close, We must defend the single market and its coherence. The Chequers plan cannot be a take-it-or-leave-it plan Brexit shows us one thing: its not that easy to exit the European Union. Its not without cost. Its not without consequences. The Leave victory in Britains 2016 EU referendum was pushed by those who predicted easy solutions, he added. Those people are liars. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said substantial progress was needed on the UKs withdrawal agreement by October and that the 27 remaining EU members were united that, in the matter of the single market, there can be no compromises. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said that the EU executive had prepared in detail for a no deal Brexit, so be happy, dont worry. With unattributed statements prior to the summit that the UK would be forced to retreat from Brexit during its darkest hour, Czech Republic President Andrej Babis and his Maltese counterpart, Joseph Muscat, openly suggested that May was no longer even considered a viable negotiating partner. They calculate that her downfall and the likelihood of the UK parliament voting down any hard Brexit proposal would possibly create the conditions for a second referendum that would go in favour of Remain. Babis declared that most of us would welcome a situation where there is the possibility of the British people putting things into perspective, seeing what has been negotiated, seeing the options, and then deciding once and for all. May was offered no room for manoeuvre by her Brexiteer opponents, with Jacob Rees-Mogg gloating that Mays proposals went pop and Democratic Unionist Party Deputy Leader Nigel Dodds insisting that preserving the political, constitutional and economic integrity of the United Kingdom was the absolute priority for us. May relies on the 10 DUP MPs for her majority. With nowhere to go, May reiterated, There will be no second referendum I think others have started to recognise rather more this is going to happen. We are going to leave the European Union. The Financial Times concluded: May will be fighting to keep her plan, and possibly her premiership, alive at the Tory Party Conference in just over a weeks time. But it too hoped that a flurry of diplomatic activity would follow, as a smooth Brexitto protect trade and diplomatic relationsremains in the interest of all parties. The FT also factored in the broader difficulties and tensions besetting the EU, declaring, The Irish problem speaks to a wider challenge. Throughout the Brexit debate, too much attention has been paid to British politicsparticularly the wants and whims of the Tories. But other European countries face great political challenges, too. Populist forces are on the rise from Italy to Sweden and further east to Poland. The common thread is a revolt against Brussels. These tensions took explosive forms at the summit, with Macron denouncing rightist governments in Italy, Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia, which dont want to stick to humanitarian law and international maritime law and refuse to let boats dock on its ports, blaming them for the crisis and tensions surrounding migration. Countries that are showing no solidarity will eventually have to leave Schengen and they will no longer benefit from (EU) financial aid, he threatened. Even so, the FT editorialised that the best that can be hoped for in the short term is a fudge in which Vital questions about the nations future would be pushed into the transition period: in essence it is moving a potential cliff edge from March 2019 to December 2020. In the UK, the deadlock in the Tory Party is spurring on combined efforts to commit Labour to a second referendum and to remove Corbyn as party leaderwhose potential premiership is anathema to the ruling elite no matter what position he takes on Brexit, because he is popularly associated with demands to end austerity and militarism. Polls were released this week by the campaign group Peoples Vote stating that Labour could win more than 1.5 million extra voters if it backed a second referendum. Led jointly by Blairite Chuka Umunna and Tory Anna Soubry, Peoples Vote is holding a march in Liverpool Sunday to coincide with the start of Labours conference. The conference will consider motions from more than 100 local constituency parties supporting a referendum on any final Brexit deal. The pro-Corbyn Momentum group has said it will not block such a debate. No matter how these conflicts play out, Britain and the whole of Europe face a worsening crisis that threatens to tear the EU apart. The growth of both inter-imperialist and social antagonisms found dramatic form in Brexit, which the dominant sections of the City of London, big business, all the major parties and Britains allies in the US and Europe all opposed. Yet two years later, May is fighting a desperate struggle against her anti-EU hard-Brexit faction, the US is led by a president who has declared his support for the breakup of the EU, and numerous far-right governments have taken power in part by exploiting popular hostility to EU-dictated austerity. Capitalism, as it descends ever deeper into trade and military war, has proved incapable of carrying out the progressive unification of the European continent. That task now falls to the European working class through a struggle against all factions of the ruling classLeave and Remainand for socialism. Only a few weeks have passed since right-wing extremist thugs and neo-fascists organised an assault on foreigners in the German city of Chemnitz on 26 and 27 August. Ever since, leading politicians, led by Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (Christian Social Union, CSU) and ex-president of the domestic secret service Hans-Georg Maassen, have sought to downplay the events. Maassen denied that a racist attack had taken place. Seehofer declared immigration to be the mother of all problems and later added that if he were an ordinary citizen, he would have been on the streets in Chemnitz. When the interior minister made these comments it was already known that a dozen neo-Nazis had attacked the Jewish Schalom restaurant in Chemnitz with stones, glass bottles, and steel pipes, and insulted the owner with anti-Semitic slurs. No disciplinary measures were taken against Maassen for his denial and he was not held to account. Instead, in negotiations involving all government parties, he was promoted. He will now advance the policies of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the Interior Ministry, where he will serve as state secretary for domestic security. These developments have strengthened and encouraged the AfD and other far-right groups, who comprise a small and despised minority in Germany. The neo-Nazi thugs feel they are protected from criminal prosecution and emboldened to act ever more aggressively. Victim support groups report that racist, anti-Semitic and far-right attacks are rising at an alarming rate. Neo-Nazi attacks and acts of violence occur on almost a daily basis. The Suddeutsche Zeitung published extracts from a chronology on Thursday noting that a wave of right-wing violence is developing. The newspaper reported the following attacks, among others: August 29, Wismar (Mecklenburg Pomerania): Three attackers broke a 20-year-old refugee's nose and beat his upper body with an iron chain. August 29, Sonderhausen (Thuringia): Four men, who are part of the right-wing scene according to police, severely injured a 33-year-old Eritrean. September 1, Essen (North Rhein-Westphalia): Two men beat a member of the local integration council and his companion, a refugee from Afghanistan, while insulting them with racist abuse. September 3, Rostock (Mecklenburg-Pomerania): A man attacked three students from Azerbaijan with a baton at a tram station. September 12, Chemnitz (Saxony): Several men beat a 41-year-old Tunisian. September 14, Munich (Bavaria): I will kill all foreigners! a 54-year-old shouted, as he sprayed a Nigerian immigrant with mace in the face. One of the starkest examples of these attacks is the anti-Semitic death threats against Berlin-based blogger Schlecky Silberstein and his co-workers. The team of satirists has been the target of death threats on right-wing extremist websites after they filmed a parody of the far-right for public broadcaster SWR. Silberstein, alias Christian M. Brandes, was originally an advertising writer and now works as an author, moderator and blogger. His production company filmed the satirical clip in Berlin-Lichtenberg on September 7 for the online comedy show Bohemian Browser Ballet. The satirical video People's Festival in Saxony highlights in a pointed manner some of the characteristics of the far-right rampage in Chemnitz. The video shows Nazi goons seizing on the news of the murder of a German citizen to initiate a right-wing rampage. A man wearing a black, red and gold hat, the colours of the German national flag, and shouting, We are the people, turns out to be a police officer. This is an obvious parody of the employee of Saxony's state criminal bureau who was fired after participating in a right-wing demonstration. Participants in a so-called funeral march attack journalists and blacks. A neo-Nazi sells photos of his Nazi salute to the media for 10 apiece. And finally, swipes are taken at dishonest headlines in the Bild newspaper, pseudo-democrats and anti-Nazi We are more events sponsored by Coca-Cola and Flixbus. In the clip, an information table for a political party that resembles the AfD is also featured. With the declaration, Anyone can be a member here!, a party official speaks to a bullnecked skinhead in khaki trousers. The AfD official wears the unmistakable white rose in his buttonhole, which the leaders of the AfD and Pegida wore during their so-called silent marches in Chemnitz. With their video, Silberstein and his crew sought to take aim at the fascist threat, and for this they immediately found themselves in the crosshairs of the far-right. The AfD Berlin-Lichtenberg responded quickly with its own film. In the video, they sought to portray the parody as a deliberate falsification, without acknowledging the obvious fact that it was a satire. As if they have never come across neo-Nazi marches, attacks on minorities and Nazi salutes, the AfD sought to portray all of this as the invention of evil left-wing journalists. The AfD clip with the title New fake video exposed shows clips of the Silberstein film set, after which AfD official Karsten Woldeit, a member of the Berlin state parliament, declares that it is unbelievable what methods are being used to discredit the AfD. The video ends with Woldeit's demand, The task now is to find out who made this video. A Facebook comment below the video states, Those guys can surely be identified, they're clearly visible in the video. Shortly after the AfD posted this video, a video appeared showing AfD parliamentary deputy Frank-Christian Hansel and a cameraman standing in front of Silberstein's partner's front door and filming his address sign. When nobody opens up, Hansel declares, We'll be back. This clip, in which the full name, street address and house number can be clearly seen, was then spread by the AfD Berlin via its Facebook page. A few hours later, the death threats began to arrive for Silberstein's partner. One states: And it's Jews like you that are once again causing this agitation. You Jews are a conspiracy. You must be murdered!! ... One day, we will murder you. On the AfD's video channel, one person called for the filmmaker's private offices to be stormed. A whiff of 1933, commented Silberstein on these events in his latest blog. When politicians turn up at artists' homes to say 'We know where you live,' then that's where we are again, dear friends. Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker and Columbia Gas executives have told residents in Lawrence, Andover and North Andover that they could be without gas to heat their homes until November 19, more than two months after a series of gas explosions and fires rocked the Merrimack Valley communities. On September 13, natural gas explosions and fires destroyed or damaged more than 60 homes in the area, injuring more than 25 unsuspecting residents and killing a young man. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of the explosions. According to a preliminary review, gas was introduced into the community's pipes at 12 times the normal pressure. At a press conference on Friday, Baker said the goal is to restore full gas service to 8,527 affected customers in the next few weeks. But he went on to say that the process may not be complete until November 19. In the meantime, households and small businesses will be without gas for heat, hot water and to cook. Using his authority under a state of emergency he declared in the wake of the explosions, Baker has tapped a reconstruction czar. Captain Joseph Albanese, a retired Navy Seabee, has been hired by Columbia Gas to oversee the process of upgrading 48 miles of pipeline in the three communities. Safety experts have questioned whether this fast-track effortafter years of neglect of aging pipescan be accomplished safely. Columbia executives said the Massachusetts National Guard was being activated to distribute 7,000 hotplates and 24,000 space heaters to affected residents beginning this weekend. Portable shower units have been set up and the local YMCA has made its showers available to area residents. Events in the week since the disaster have demonstrated the arrogance of Columbia Gas, the company that profits from distributing the fuel. As with other utility giants across the US, Columbia has refused to make needed upgrades to the gas pipes, which they claim would be an unacceptable drain on their bottom line. A day after the September 13 events that caused widespread destruction, the president of Columbia Gas of Massachusetts, Steve Bryant, callously stated that he was deeply concerned about the inconvenience. Communication from the company about a crisis it created was nearly nonexistent until Bryants remarks. Joe Hamrock, chief executive of parent company NiSource, told the press on Sunday that we know this has damaged the confidence and trust in our company and what we do. Our full commitment is restoring that trust In Hamrocks mouth, the words restoring trust mean not losing customers to his capitalist competitors, Eversource and National Grid. Columbia Gas added insult to injury last weekend by handing out gift cards in $50 and $100 denominations to people who waited for hours to file claims after their homes were destroyed and lives upended. Because the companys claim center did not have enough capacity, many were told they had to come back the following day. State Police were deployed outside of at least one claim center because of growing anger. NiSources most recent quarterly dividend was 19.5 cents per common share, or about 3 percent of the cost of a share. With 363 million common shares outstanding, the company pays total dividends on them of $70.8 million every three months and a yearly dividend of nearly $60 on preferred stock. Its yearly revenue approaches $5 billion. Until canceling a new rate hike this week as a public relations move, Columbia Gas planned to charge customers nearly $20 million of the cost for upgrading old pipes. On Tuesday the company announced a $10 million contribution to a 501(c)3 foundation set up by Baker for those suffering from the disaster. If this amount were spread evenly among the more than 8,500 households that must live under appalling conditions for weeks on end, each would get less than $1,200. Local media has begun to document the impact of the disaster on local bodegas, restaurants, laundromats, and day care centers, especially in the working-class city of Lawrence. The Boston Globe profiled Rosely Paulino, who still has no gas for cooking or hot water for the day care center she runs out of her home in South Lawrence. Electricity was shut off to thousands of gas-filled buildings in Lawrence, Andover, and North Andover in the aftermath of the disaster so that new fires wouldnt start. The value of ruined food is likely in the millions of dollars. The owner of two bodegas estimated that the spoiled produce, meat, and fish he had to throw away were worth $30,000, according to the Globe. On Wednesday, 300 people attended the funeral service for Leonel Rondon of Lawrence, an 18-year-old high school student who was killed when gas blew up a home and caused its chimney to fall on his car. Rondon was celebrating with friends after having received his first drivers license, and the celebration was to include a meal at the house which exploded. On Thursday the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune profiled a family whose house was destroyed by fire. Suffering from terminal cancer, the 63-year-old mother of the family had wanted to die at home rather than in a facility. One of her daughters, who was visiting from out-of-state when the fire happened, described the tragic impact: The only control she had left over her life, which was to choose to die at home, was now burning away. That was the only decision she really had left to make in this world. Lawrence is not the only working-class city in Massachusetts in which Columbia Gas subjects people to the risk of such conditions. Brockton, a city of 95,000, is riddled with old cast iron and steel pipes similar to those in the Merrimack Valley. Brockton has a median household income under 40,000 and nearly 20 percent of its residents under the age of 18 live below the federal poverty line. National Grid and Eversource, Columbia Gass competitors in the natural gas distribution business, are engaged in their own ruthless drives for profit. Approximately 1,200 skilled National Grid workers have been locked out since late June after refusing to accept cuts to their pensions and medical benefits. According to a study by the Environmental Defense Fund, Eversource regularly reserves large amounts of natural gas in advance for the generation of electricity, but then uses much less on the day stipulated in the contract. Especially on cold winter days, the unused gas is then sold to consumers at higher prices because suppliers need to recoup their losses. The EDF estimates that customers in New England are paying an extra $1.2 billion per year because of this price fixing. After a 2013 report calculated how many trillions of cubic feet of gas had been lost into the atmosphere across the US because of leaking pipes, Massachusetts passed a law requiring companies to report the age and location of all known leaks. Eversource subsequently promised an infrastructure maintenance program that would take 25 years to complete, while National Grid promised to have theirs done in 20. Chapter 164 of the Massachusetts General Laws allows utilities to include infrastructure costs in the rates they charge to customers. While Governor Baker has sought to quell public anger about the September 13 crisis, underfunding of the states Department of Public Utilities will increase the likelihood of more such events. Over the last three fiscal years, the DPUs budget has been increased by an average of just 1.25 percent per year. In a report that caused shock waves throughout Washington, the New York Times published an article on its website Friday afternoon alleging that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein discussed last year urging cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove President Donald Trump from office on the grounds of mental unfitness, and offered to secretly record conversations with the president as part of such an effort. It is a measure of the deep-going political turmoil in US ruling circles that the Times could publish such a report, based entirely on unattributed anonymous sources whom the newspaper described as briefed either on the events themselves or on memos written by F.B.I. officials about the events. There is no way to determine whether anything in the article is true, except to take on faith the credibility of reporters Adam Goldman and Michael S. Schmidt and their editors. The article represents another stage in an ongoing conflict within the US ruling elite, in which the Times is the mouthpiece for the Democratic Party and substantial sections of the military-intelligence apparatus, at war with Trump, who has behind him significant corporate support as well as the bulk of the Republican Party. The foreign-policy issues around which the conflict revolves center on the war in Syria and relations with Russia, as each side pursues the conflict with the methods of palace intrigue and media scandal. It is perfectly possible that the Times has published an accurate account of the discussions inside the Justice Department which took place in the spring of 2017 after Trumps summary firing of FBI Director James Comey. The political firestorm that erupted after the Comey firing compelled Rosenstein to appoint former FBI Director Robert Mueller as a special counsel to continue the Russia investigation, which has expanded greatly over the past 16 months. It is also possible that the Times article is a political provocation, aimed at inciting Trump to fire Rosenstein, an action that would likely lead to a considerable crisis in the Trump administration and the Republican Party. Numerous Senate Republicans have warned Trump previously not to fire Rosenstein, a Republican who was a US attorney in the Bush administration, when all such officials were vetted for political loyalty by Karl Rove. Attorney General Jeff Sessions had also previously threatened to resign if Rosenstein were fired, although at this point Trump might welcome such a response, given his relations with Sessions, whom he denounces and demeans regularly. The departure of both Sessions and Rosenstein would leave Solicitor General Noel Francisco in charge of the Department of Justice and the Mueller investigation.. More significant would be the political impact, coming only six weeks before the November 6 mid-term elections, in which the Republican Party appears likely to lose control of the House and could lose the Senate as well if there is a further swing against Trump in media-driven public opinion. There are reasons to consider the Times report questionable, not least of which is the newspapers role as the spearhead of the anti-Russia campaign based on bogus allegations that Russian intervention accounts for the election of Trump and the defeat of Democrat Hillary Clinton, the preferred candidate of the Times itself, in the 2016 elections. Only the day before the Rosenstein bombshell, the Times published a special 10,000-word supplement supposedly documenting the Russian conspiracy to elect Trump, without a single new fact, but adding new libels against WikiLeaks, Green Party candidate Jill Stein, and anyone who protests against social injustice in Americaall, apparently, are Russian stooges. According to the Times, Rosenstein was allegedly contemplating rounding up cabinet officers to remove the president of the United States only 12 days after joining the Trump administration as a deputy cabinet officer. The report claims that he named Sessions and then Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly as likely supporters of a 25th Amendment effort. Kelly is now White House chief of staff, and Trumps dissatisfaction with him has also been reported. The 25th Amendment was enacted in 1965, in the wake of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, to provide for the appointment of a new vice president if the elected vice president were compelled to assume the office of the presidency, as Lyndon Johnson did in 1963 after Kennedys death. Section Four of the amendment deals with presidential incapacity rather than death. It begins: Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President. The process is extremely cumbersome and politically daunting, particularly since the Vice President has a veto over the process. By the text of Section Four, both he and a majority of the cabinet (no other body has been provided by Congress) must certify the presidents incapacity. The only time there were serious discussions of such a move, in the 53 years since the amendments ratification, came in 1987, towards the end of the Iran-Contra crisis, when President Ronald Reagan, then age 76, was visibly sinking into what was ultimately diagnosed years later as Alzheimers disease. No action followed what were said to be informal discussions among White House officials. Rosenstein predictably denied the Times report, although his response came in writing and was cautiously worded. The New York Timess story is inaccurate and factually incorrect, his statement read. I will not further comment on a story based on anonymous sources who are obviously biased against the department and are advancing their own personal agenda. But let me be clear about this: Based on my personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment. An unnamed Justice Department official acknowledged that Rosenstein had spoken of wearing a wire into the White House, but said it was a sarcastic remark made in a heated internal discussion. NBC News reported that the discussion consisted of seven people in a room set aside for secure discussions, and identified two of the participants as Andrew McCabe, then acting FBI Director after Comeys firing, and Lisa Page, then his senior staff attorney. Both have since been fired by the FBI. The Times claimed that Rosenstein had discussed wearing a wire on at least one other occasion, when he suggested that FBI and Justice Department officials interviewing with Trump for Comeys position should tape-record their conversations surreptitiously. The Justice Department has denied this claim as well. The Times article also noted that the unidentified senior administration official whose op-ed was published in the newspapers editorial pages earlier this month had also confirmed discussions among top officials over whether to try to invoke the 25th Amendment against Trump. The author also recommends: New York Times fraudulent election plot dossier escalates anti-Russia hysteria [21 September 2018] CASPER A state commission voted Thursday to maintain the number of elementary students that can be in a Wyoming classroom after pushback from educators and some lawmakers. The School Facilities Committee was considering whether to allow all elementary grade levels to max out classroom sizes at 25 students. Lawmakers and facilities officials said the proposed change was an attempt to let s... WORLAND Wyoming governor candidate Mary Throne stopped in Worland Friday to encourage early voting, speak to future voters at Worland Middle School and visit the Worland Senior Citizens Center. Throne, who easily won the Democratic party nomination in the Aug. 21 primary election, said she doesnt like labels and the governors race is the perfect race for that. Traditionally in Wyoming, she said, voters vote for the best person, regardless of party, for governor, noting the many Democratic governors the state has elected. Throne was also quick to point out that Wyoming has not elected back-to-back Republican governors since 1966. Im not too partisan and I feel the state has become too partisan. Its too much about what the party says and not whats best for Wyoming, Throne said. She said she did not fill out any Democratic Party pledges. I have a long history of opposing the last administration, Throne said, specifically regarding restrictions and regulations. I dont get hung up on labels. I want to know if an idea is going to work, Throne said, regardless if it is a Republican or Democratic idea, liberal or conservative idea. She said focusing on the idea and not who pitched the idea is how she operated as a state legislator and how she will operate if elected Wyomings next governor. I like to find solutions, she added. Prior to sitting down with the Northern Wyoming Daily News for an interview at Worland Middle School, Throne gathered with Washakie County supporters at Pioneer Square for an early voting pep rally. Then those in attendance marched to the courthouse to go ahead and vote on the first day for absentee voting in Wyoming. After the interview, Throne participated in a political presentation for the Worland Middle School eighth-grade social studies class (see related story). She then visited the Worland Senior Citizens Center and then headed to Thermopolis for another early voting rally. WMS PRESENTATION Throne said she was excited to be meeting before the eighth-graders Friday. Its a great opportunity too get students engaged. I volunteered for campaigns when I was in eighth or ninth grade. This race is about them and their future, she said. I like to do what I can to encourage them to not be cynical, but idealistic and involved, Throne said. She said her three sons watched her campaign and serve in the Wyoming Legislature, starting at the ages of 10, 8 and 5. ISSUES Throne said there are several issues that she continues to hear about from constituents as she has campaigned. They include: Education. Throne said she wants to ensure that future students get the same quality of education that her sons did. She said Wyoming has a good system in place but when oil dipped, legislators began bashing education and had she been in the legislature she would have publicly opposed the proposed amendment to destroy education. How are we going to attract young families to the state without offering quality education? she asked. Public lands. We have to maintain access to public lands. As a legislator I made sure that county commissioners were cooperating agency status. Health care costs and access. Absolutely we should have expanded Medicaid. It hurts hospitals and providers and hurts those who wouldve qualified, Throne said. She added that Wyoming lost $577 million in federal money and the state does not have a problem taking federal money for other things like roads. Connectivity/internet access. Internet access is the key to Wyomings future, Throne said, because it can create opportunities for business. Along with internet access is good cellular coverage. We need to be taking advantage of the Universal Service funds, she said. Throne said she has loved traveling around the state during both the primary and now the general election campaigns. This race is about doing things the same old way or moving ourselves forward, Throne said, adding that is about leadership and leading Wyoming out of the boom and bust cycle to ensure communities can thrive. I want to help make communities places where the next generation wants to live, she said. Yahoo Life Videos Country music icon Trisha Yearwood is big on keeping family traditions alive around the holidays. Yearwood, who hosts Trisha's Southern Kitchen on the Food Network, says food traditions are especially important to her. "The reason that I cook is because I grew up on with a great cook," she explains, noting that both her parents were "fantastic" in the kitchen. Yearwood loves to host a "misfit Thanksgiving," where they invite people who don't have a place to go for the holiday to their home. "We didn't get to do that last year because of the pandemic," she says. "So we're really excited about that this year." Yearwood, who is married to fellow country music star Garth Brooks, says that Thanksgiving "is probably a bigger holiday at my house than Christmas" because her family loves the traditional meal. Yearwood says that Brooks loves to tell stories about how his mother used to stay up all night to baste the turkey before Thanksgiving. But she's discovered a hack to get a moist bird without all the hassle: She leaves it covered in a pan of water in the oven overnight. After Hurricane Maria passed through Puerto Rico last year, the neonatal intensive care unit of the the Dr. Antonio Ortiz University Pediatric Hospital suffered significant damage: A window was torn off by the forces of the cyclone, letting water and winds rage inside the room. Since then, the patients have been in a "temporary" unit... for a year. The pediatric hospital has had a slow restoration process, and it has been thanks to the work of non-profit organizations that they have managed to survive. At the time of AccuWeather's visit in August 2018, you could see through the glass of the "temporary" unit, the small incubators amassed in the improvised space of intensive care for newborns that are battling between life and death. The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) is the only one in the country that offers level-four services to local patients and across the rest of the Caribbean islands. In addition, the hospital provides surgery and neurosurgery services, as well as intensive care for premature patients with a delicate clinical panel. Pediatric Hospital Puerto Rico "It is not ideal, because it is not an intensive care unit, but what we try to do is have only the babies who have less complicated situations located in that place. Obviously, it is not the most convenient for the baby, nor the family," Neonatal Intensivist Dr. Ines Garcia told AccuWeather. For Dr. Garcia, this is not something new. In 1998, during the passage of Hurricane George on the island, the hospital suffered something similar, and the total reconstruction of the damage was extended until 2004, according to the doctor. Garcia told AccuWeather that the pediatric hospital was built in 1960, that it is an old building that has been remodeled and optimized over the years but, in its roots, it continues to be a fragile and susceptible structure to this type of disaster. Photos capture extensive damage inside the primary pediatric hospital in Puerto Rico Story continues AP Photo/Garret Fischer First, at vero eos et accusamus et iusto odio dignissimos ducimus qui blanditiis praesentium et accusamus et iusto odio dignissimos ducimus qui voluptatum. 1/12 (Photo/Dr. Antonio Ortiz University Pediatric Hospital) One of the windows in the NICU was torn off by the forces of the cyclone. (Photo/Dr. Antonio Ortiz University Pediatric Hospital) The building shows clear signs of deterioration, which puts the health of patients at risk. (Photo/Dr. Antonio Ortiz University Pediatric Hospital) One of the goals of Fundacion Hospital Pediatrico is to seal the rooftop of the hospital. (Photo/Dr. Antonio Ortiz University Pediatric Hospital) Sealing the rooftop will help to protect the hospital in future atmospheric events. Non-profit organization rebuilds "El Pediatrico" The non-profit organization Fundacion Hospital Pediatrico was born in 2014 when a group of doctors and volunteers joined forces to provide financial support to the hospital. The foundation focuses on raising funds to make improvements to the physical plant of the hospital, donating equipment for monitoring and treatment of patients and intervening in initiatives that result in a better service to the children the hospital serves. "After the hurricane, the organization has taken a more important role in the hospital," Karina Iglesias, treasurer of the organization, told AccuWeather. When Maria impacted the island, the nonprofit concentrated its efforts in creating lists of needs that were sent to some of their partners in the United States to mobilize aid for the hospital and community. Now, the efforts of the organization have been directed specifically to the reconstruction of the NICU and the repair of eight of the 12 elevators in the hospital. Currently, the foundation has managed to raise $400,000 with the help of donors from and outside of the island. However, this is well short of the amount needed for the reconstruction of the NICU and the reconstructions of other areas of the hospital. Help pediatric hospital Fundacion Hospital Pediatrico received over 30,000 pounds in equipment and supplies after Hurricane Maria impacted the island. Over the years, the fiscal crisis in Puerto Rico has impacted the hospital with budget cuts. According to data from the Office of Management and Budget of Puerto Rico, the budget for the current fiscal year is around $54.5 million. The figure represents a reduction of 22 percent compared to the operational expenses of the hospital two years ago. The hospital is being reconstructed inside-out, thanks to the efforts made by the doctors and volunteers of the foundation. Also, thanks to the contribution of foreign organizations such as Puerto Rico Rises - Connecticut Chapter, Texas United for Puerto Rico, Miami Children's Hospital, Yale Pediatrics, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital, Oregon Health, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Boston Children's Hospital, Mass General, St Mary's Hospital at West Palm Beach and Florida Hospital System. If you wish to contribute to the reconstruction work of the hospital, you can make your donations here. Picture: (Spencer Platt /Getty) The US Constitution has a built-in mechanism that allows the presidents powers to be transferred to their vice president if they become incapable of discharging them. Both Ronald Reagan and George W Bush used the 25th Amendment to do so temporarily before they were put under medical anaesthesia. But could it be used to oust Donald Trump if he is deemed unfit to serve? In the wake of the US Capitol riots, Democratic lawmakers have called on Mike Pence to invoke the amendment and remove Mr Trump from power. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she would give Mr Pence 24 hours to use the amendment to remove Mr Trump before the House moves to impeach him for a second time. On Monday, the motion to give Mr Pence the 24 hour time slot was introduced by House Democrats, but was blocked by Republicans. House Democrats vowed to pass the measure on Tuesday, and threatened that if by Wednesday Mr Trump is still in office, they will move on to a second impeachment. A deployment of the 25th Amendment to oust Mr Trump would require a number of variables to fall into place: Mr Pence and eight of the 15 members of the cabinet would have to decide to go ahead with it and be prepared to prove their case before securing a two-thirds majority vote in Congress if Mr Trump were to challenge them. But Dr Jacob Parakilas, assistant head of the US and Americas Programme at Chatham House, said he believed such a measure was extremely unlikely. The idea of it being used to forcibly depose a president is, I think, incredibly far-fetched. It would instantly create a political crisis that would very quickly become a constitutional crisis, he said. You would see the emergence of factionalism within the government. Its an incredibly powerful tool but it has the potential for spectacular levels of blowback. The operative part of the 25th Amendment is Section 4: Whenever the vice president and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the president pro tempore of the Senate and the speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the president is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the vice president shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as acting president. Story continues Experts have already said impeachment is unlikely to be a threat for Mr Trump, because of the strong position in which he has put the Republican Party. Assistant professor Rebecca Thorpe, a political scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle, previously told The Independent: Given Trumps numerous financial conflicts of interests, the potential for corruption and the likely violations of the Emoluments Clause, the legal possibility for impeachment is rife. Trump is an unconventional Republican in many ways, but he has appointed a cabinet full [of] far-right conservatives with a conventional conservative agenda of tax cuts, reduced spending on health care and social services, and extensive deregulation. Thus far, he has also received support from congressional Republicans who have blocked legislation to investigate or curb Trumps massive financial conflicts of interests. But Professor Angelia Wilson, from the University of Manchester, has said she believed the trail of scandals in his wake had become an embarrassment to the Republican Party, leaving him vulnerable to impeachment by members of the party seeking re-election to the House. Whether it will be about the Russia dossier or other scandals that are undoubtedly there, he has become a liability for the Republican Party. At some point they will need to distance themselves from him in order to solidify re-election for the House. Read More Trump says NYT must hand over anonymous writer of gutless op-ed How can a US president be impeached? PHOENIX (AP) Arizona residents and Guatemalan immigrants in the U.S. illegally were among eight people killed earlier this week in a head-on crash on a highway near the historic prison town of Florence, authorities said Friday. The Arizona Department of Public Safety released the names of some of the people killed in the collision late Wednesday on State Route 79 involving an SUV and a Buick sedan about 120 miles (193 kilometers) north of the Mexico border. Officials have not said whether the SUV was being used for a smuggling operation. But court records show the driver and passenger of the vehicle were previously convicted of immigrant smuggling charges. Federal court records show 45-year-old Rodney Palimo pleaded guilty in March 2008 to a misdemeanor count of aiding and abetting an alien. He was initially charged with a felony count of transporting an immigrant in the U.S. without permission. His passenger, 43-year-old Kathleen Palimo, in 2004 pleaded guilty to a felony count of transporting aliens in the county illegally. The Palimos, from Sells, both died in the crash along with four of another seven men in the vehicle identified by state troopers as Guatemalans. Guatemala's Foreign Ministry said in a statement from Guatemala City that the country's Tucson consulate was investigating the nationalities and identities of those killed. It said two of the dead men carried Guatemalan identity documents and a third had no papers. It made no mention of a fourth possible Guatemalan fatality. The ministry said it was in contact with the relatives of the Guatemalan victims identified thus far. Reports by both U.S. and Guatemalan officials agreed that another three men believed to be Guatemalans were hospitalized with injures. The ministry said its consulate in Phoenix was checking on the injured, one of whom had been identified as a Guatemalan citizen and released from the hospital. It did not provide information on the conditions of the other two. Story continues Also killed in the accident were the driver of the Buick, 41-year-old Angel Meza and his passenger, 33-year-old Nicole Vidal. Both were from the city of Eloy. Authorities have said the Buick veered into the opposite lane of traffic, striking the SUV. Arizona has been the scene of a number of fatal crashes involving immigrants while they were being smuggled, including one near the border nearly a decade ago in which 10 people died after an SUV rolled over on a highway. Large numbers of Central American migrants, the majority of them Guatemalans, in recent months have been regularly turning up in remote desert areas of Arizona near the border with Mexico. U.S. Border Patrol agents on Sept. 16 found two groups of Central American migrants in the desert within hours of each other west of the U.S. port of entry in Lukeville. Together, those two groups comprised 193 people, including 11 unaccompanied children. Other large groups of Central Americans were found in the same general area on Sept. 1 and Aug. 17. ___ Associated Press writers Astrid Galvan in Phoenix and Sonia Perez D. in Guatemala City contributed to this report. The Daily Beast The View/ScreenshotThe parade of conservative guest hosts auditioning to replace Meghan McCain continued this week on The View. And this time, yet another former Trump administration official took her turn, trying and failing to score gotcha points against the shows guest, in this case Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA).Schiff, who was there to promote his new book Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could, fielding primarily friendly questions from the shows four left-lean Putting all speculations to rest, American Airlines Group Inc. AAL has finally joined its rivals in increasing its baggage fees. The carrier has raised its checked bag fee by $5 each for both the first and the second bags. Per the renewed fee structure, passengers will have to pay $30 for the first checked bag fee and $40 for the second. The revamped fee policy is applicable on domestic routes, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands and the Caribbean with immediate effect. However, certain privileged members will continue to enjoy free baggage checking. JetBlue Airways Corporation JBLU is the first airline to initiate this move late last month for its domestic services. Other major U.S. carriers like United Continental Holdings, Inc. UAL and most recently, Delta Air Lines, Inc. DAL too increased their respective baggage fees on operations across the United States. Also, each carrier has hiked its bag fee by the same amount and followed the same structure. However, carriers like JetBlue increased fees to change tickets. The carrier now charges $200 for changing or canceling a ticket priced above $200. Earlier, the charge was $150 for the same. However, passengers belonging to the highest fare class category are exempted from this renewed fee structure. Each of the carriers mentioned above carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Following JetBlues footsteps, Canadian carriers like Air Canada and WestJet Airlines raised rates for bag checking in late August. American Airlines Group Inc. Price American Airlines Group Inc. Price | American Airlines Group Inc. Quote With crude oil prices persistently at a high level, it is not surprising that the airlines are trying hard to offset the impact by hiking checked bag fees. Adding to the woes are rising labor costs. Of late, airlines have been striking frequent labor contracts in a bid to satisfy employee needs. However, the move ended up in pushing up labor costs. On the other hand, with several U.S. carriers raising baggage fees successively, the Congress is debating on whether the airline baggage and ticket change prices are reasonable and proportional to the costs incurred by the air carrier. If the existing fee structure is found unreasonable, the Congress will pass a provision to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for regulating the airlines current fee structure. The U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate have been holding sessions on getting a compromise bill passed by Sep 30. Amid the controversy, American Airlines chairman and CEO Doug Parker has warned of not allowing customers to change nonrefundable tickets in case the FAA starts controlling airline fees pertaining to cancellation, change, baggage and other ancillary fees. Notably, U.S. carriers generated approximately $2.9 billion in change fees last year with American Airlines contributing the maximum share. Looking for Stocks with Skyrocketing Upside? Zacks has just released a Special Report on the booming investment opportunities of legal marijuana. Ignited by new referendums and legislation, this industry is expected to blast from an already robust $6.7 billion to $20.2 billion in 2021. Early investors stand to make a killing, but you have to be ready to act and know just where to look. See the pot trades we're targeting>> 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 United Continental Holdings, Inc. (UAL) : Free Stock Analysis Report American Airlines Group Inc. (AAL) : Free Stock Analysis Report JetBlue Airways Corporation (JBLU) : Free Stock Analysis Report Delta Air Lines, Inc. (DAL) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Alex Jones can add PayPal Holdings Inc. to the list of companies ending ties to the conspiracy theorist and his InfoWars website for hateful and intolerant behavior. The payments company said Friday in a blog post that it will no longer offer its services to InfoWars and related websites. PayPal processes transactions such as credit card payments for websites and apps. We undertook an extensive review of the InfoWars sites, and found instances that promoted hate and discriminatory intolerance against certain communities and religions that run counter to our core value of inclusion, the payments company said. We believe that hatred and discrimination have no place in our democratic society and, we do not support this conduct. PayPal joins a variety of other technology companies, including Apple Inc., Facebook Inc.. Googles YouTube and Twitter Inc., in banning Jones and InfoWars from their platforms, saying he promotes hate speech, bullying and harassment. Jones is known for spreading false allegations such as that the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut was a hoax. InfoWars shot back on its website, writing that the ban represents nothing less than a political ploy designed to financially sabotage. PayPal is giving the site 10 business days to switch payment processors before its services will be terminated. PayPal took similar action in August 2017 to stop processing payments for groups associated with the hate march in Charlottesville, Virginia. The San Jose, California-based company declined further comment on its action against InfoWars. Mbabane (eSwatini) (AFP) - African Union election observers urged eSwatini Saturday to lift a ban on political parties and allow candidates to campaign freely in the tiny country, which went to the polls this week. The AU statement came a day after parliamentary elections in landlocked eSwatini, which is ruled by an absolute monarch and was known as Swaziland until earlier this year. Candidates cannot be affiliated to any political group under the constitution which emphasises "individual merit" as the basis for selecting members of parliament and public officials. Elected lawmakers have little power as King Mswati III has complete control over parliament and government as well as the judiciary, civil service and security forces. "The mission encourages the eSwatini authorities to consider reviewing the 1973 decree on the ban on political parties and allow them to freely participate in the election," said AU mission head James Michel, former Seychelles president. The AU also noted that campaigning was banned for the first round of voting, which "does not allow for thorough scrutiny of potential candidates." Campaigning was allowed for one month before Friday's second-round vote -- and all campaign material had to be approved by the election commission. Only a few candidate posters were seen, and there were no campaign rallies. Critics dismiss eSwatini's election as a sham. Almost all candidates are loyal to the king, who appoints the prime minister, can veto any laws, and is himself above the constitution. Mswati is one of the world's last absolute rulers and has shown little sign of pushing through reforms, despite bubbling unrest that erupted in street protests in the days running up to the election. He has 14 wives, more than 25 children, and a reputation for lavish spending on private planes and royal palaces while 63 percent of his subjects live below the poverty line. Without warning or consultation, Mswati changed the country's name to eSwatini ("land of the Swazis") in April. Election authorities have released no election results or turnout figures by Saturday evening, and urged voters to be patient. A.J. McKee, shown celebrating an earlier win, knocked out John Macapa in just 69 seconds Friday at Bellator 205 to improve his record to 12-0. (Getty Images file photo) For a split second after he missed a kick, it appeared A.J. McKee could be in trouble. A split second after that, he was doing a backflip off the cage in celebration of yet another first-round knockout victory. McKee caught veteran John Macapa with a short left-hand inside that knocked the Brazilian cold and gave McKee his Bellator-record 12th consecutive victory at 69 seconds of the first round Friday in Boise, Idaho. McKee, who is the son of ex-fighter Antonio McKee, came out kicking against Macapa, who was never able to get anything going. But a minute into the fight, McKee threw a spinning kick at Macapa. His leg got caught on Macapas shoulder and he went down on his back, in a vulnerable spot. Macapa threw a punch at him, but McKee fended him off and jumped up quickly. And just as quickly, McKee caught Macapa with the quick left that turned out the lights on Macapa. McKee is now 12-0, all in Bellator, and looking like a legitimate contender for the featherweight title held by Patricio Freire. I wasnt sure if I caught him with that spinning heel kick or not, but once I looked up and I kind of seen that he was moving forward and he was stumbling, I said, Oh, get up and hit him,' McKee said. I was like a shark smelling blood when hes hungry. You have to get after it. He did that and more. Macapa was out cold and in a sign of sportsmanship, McKee held back from hitting him again even though he could have done so before the referee got in to stop it. McKee has fought his entire career in Bellator and has, in just over three years, set a promotional record for most wins from the start of a career and the longest winning streak. He said he hopes to fight Freire next. I came out strong, just feeling him out, McKee said. I tried to stay away from his power. I knew he had strong kicks. Hes Brazilian and I knew he had good kicks. I saw him take out Justin Lawrences leg just by kicking it repeatedly, so I was aware of his strengths. I tried to stay to the right. I lit him up with a left kick and wanted to switch it up during the fight. Once I went back to southpaw, I noticed he would start to wind up before throwing his right hand and he would drop his left hand in the process. So, I knew that I could land a spinning heel kick. I threw it and it clipped him, but my leg got caught on his hand as he went to the ground. I knew he was a bit dazed so I attacked him as soon as he got up and caught him with a right-left combo and that was it. New York (AFP) - Bianca Jagger once defended the Sandinista revolution of Daniel Ortega. But today, the Nicaraguan rights campaigner wants to see the controversial leader leave office in her homeland. Jagger, the ex-wife of the legendary Rolling Stones frontman, also wants the United States, Canada and the European Union to sanction key members of Ortega's government and cut off all aid to Managua. "Daniel Ortega is maybe even worse than Somoza," the 73-year-old Jagger told AFP in an interview, referring to the onetime dictator of the troubled Central American country who was ousted in 1979 by Ortega's guerrillas. Jagger says she feels "betrayed" by Ortega, who has faced months of upheaval sparked in April when his government, backed by armed paramilitaries, cracked down on relatively small protests against now-scrapped social security reforms. More than 320 people have been killed in the subsequent unrest, according to rights groups. At least 500 opponents of Ortega's regime have been arrested in connection with the protests, rights watchdog CENIDH says. "Ortega is killing children who are unarmed," Jagger said in the interview, held on Thursday before she delivered a speech at the Americas Society/Council of the Americas in New York. The dual British-Nicaraguan citizen, president of the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation, decried the "terror" brought on by Ortega and the "merciless persecution... of all those who raise their voices against his government." Ortega is due in New York next week for the annual United Nations General Assembly debate. Jagger says the international community needs to "think of ways to support the Nicaraguan people" and put pressure on Ortega to release all political prisoners. - 'War criminal' - Before her speech in New York, Jagger was in Washington for talks with senior government officials and lawmakers, lobbying them to pass legislation that would cut off economic aid to Ortega and sanction members of his government. Story continues That draft could come before the US Senate for a vote next week, she says. A similar bill is before the House of Representatives. For Jagger, the administration of US President Donald Trump is doing a decent job in its handling of the crisis. "There are people (in the US government) who are doing important work in defense of human rights in Nicaragua," she said, singling out Washington's ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, for praise. She also met with the State Department's highest-ranking official for Latin America, Francisco Palmieri, the acting deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs. Jagger says she does not think a national dialogue of reconciliation will work in Nicaragua but acknowledges that "all avenues must be explored." As to whether Ortega should be tried, or simply pushed to leave office, Jagger replied, "It would be very difficult for me to say, 'Let's ignore the crimes against humanity committed by Daniel Ortega.'" "We must find an effective way for Daniel Ortega to leave power and for new elections to be held -- but not under his direction," Jagger said. "Daniel Ortega is a war criminal." London (AFP) - Prime Minister Theresa May's "humiliation" at the hands of EU leaders who rejected her Brexit plans dominated Britain's front pages Friday, although eurosceptic publications accused her tormenters of mafia-style behaviour. "Humiliation for May" read the front-page of The Times, while the pro-EU Guardian led with a similar headline: "May humiliated as European leaders tell her: your Brexit plan won't work." Both carried pictures of an isolated-looking May surrounded by the European Union leaders who rejected her plans. The Salzburg summit had "triggered a crisis in government," said The Times, adding that ministers could force her to drop the so-called "Chequers" plan -- which envisages a UK-EU free trade area just for goods through a common rulebook -- "within days". The Guardian also warned that May's "authority as prime minister" was under serious threat. The pro-Brexit Daily Telegraph splashed a picture of French leader Emmanuel Macron, identified as one of May's most ruthless critics, on its front page, along with the sub-head "Disastrous negotiations threaten PM's leadership ahead of Tory conference." Centre-right tabloid the Daily Mail, another Brexit supporter, took a more combative tone, saying "Furious May: 'we're ready to walk away'" on its cover. Popular tabloid The Sun went furthest in criticising the EU leaders, mocking up pictures of Macron and EU Council leader Donald Tusk as "Euro mobsters" under the headline "EU Dirty Rats". Vienna (AFP) - Relations between the EU and Britain have always been a bit prickly, but EU Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said Friday that the Brexit negotiations are beginning to resemble the courtship of two hedgehogs. "We're not at war with Great Britain," Juncker told the Austrian daily Die Presse in an interview published a day after British Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit plan was rejected as unworkable and unacceptable by the bloc's other 27 members at an informal summit in Salzburg. "We have to be careful, like two hedgehogs who love each other," Juncker said. "When two hedgehogs embrace, they have to watch out that they don't get scratched." Juncker insisted that the two sides were "moving closer." Nevertheless, "the Irish border question is very difficult," he said. The border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland is the main sticking point, because when Britain leaves the European Union, it will become an external EU border. If Britain leaves the bloc's customs union and single market, as it says it wants to, border checks would be required. But both London and Brussels have pledged to avoid any physical infrastructure, a so-called "hard border". May said in Salzburg she would "shortly" bring forward new proposals on the so-called backstop on how to carry out regulatory checks on goods going in and out of Northern Ireland. - 'Brexit means Brexit' - Juncker told Die Presse that it was "also clear that there can be no leaving the EU while retaining the privileges of the community. Brexit means Brexit." Asked whether the British people should have another say on the exit deal once it had been agreed, Juncker said May had made it clear in Salzburg "that there will no second referendum. "Nevertheless, the British parliament must vote on the exit deal, and the EU parliament, as well. And not everything that London likes is liked by the EU parliament. One has to look closely for common ground." Story continues Juncker said the situation between Britain and the EU should not be "overdramatised". Britain "will remain an important partner in trade and security for the EU. But with the British, we're losing a bit of pragmatism. That is why the exit deeply saddens me," Juncker said. Turning to the other main topic of the Salzburg summit, increased protection of the EU's external borders, Juncker complained that individual member states were complaining about a plan to bolster the Frontex border agency. "For the past three years there have been calls all over Europe for increased protection of our borders. Now the EU has put forward some suggestions and some countries are campaigning against them," Juncker said. In particular, the EU has to overcome scepticism in frontline states, such as Italy, Spain and Greece, the main landing points for many refugees fleeing across the Mediterranean, Juncker said. "We must continue to canvass, explain and convince," he said. By Alistair Smout LONDON, England (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May said Britain would not flinch in an impasse with the European Union about its departure from the bloc, as French and German ministers suggested the next move in the negotiations should come from London. British Prime Minister Theresa May on Friday demanded new proposals and respect from European Union leaders, saying after a summit in Austria that talks had hit an impasse and, in a prominent eurosceptic Sunday newspaper, she stuck to her guns. "This is the moment to do what is right for Britain," May said in the Sunday Express. "Now is the time for cool heads. And it is a time to hold our nerve." The Sunday Times reported that her aides had begun contingency planning for a November snap election to help save the Brexit talks and her job. May won plaudits in her party and from the press for standing up to the European Union, ahead of her Conservative party's annual conference, which starts at the end of the month. Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt had told BBC radio on Saturday that if EU leaders expected the UK to capitulate, then they had "profoundly misjudged the British people", even if that meant leaving the bloc next March without a deal. "We may be polite, but we have a bottom line," he said. "And so they need to engage with us now in seriousness." DIGGING IN Initial reactions from across the English Channel suggested France and Germany were digging in, too. EU leaders and May have said they want to get a deal agreed in October, to be finalised in November. In Paris, Minister for European Affairs Nathalie Loiseau said that while France still believed a good Brexit deal was possible, it also must prepare for a "no deal" outcome. She said on France Info radio that Britain's vote to leave "cannot lead to the EU going bust." In Berlin, German Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Roth said on Twitter the other 27 EU states were striving to achieve reasonable solutions, and that "the blame game against the EU" was "more than unfair". Story continues In London, the pro-Brexit Daily Telegraph reported May faced the prospect of ministerial resignations next week if she failed to come up with an alternative to the "Chequers" Brexit plan that she presented in Austria. The Sunday Telegraph said party donor Jeremy Hosking was mulling backing a new pro-Brexit party. But domestically, even some critics of May's plan backed the prime minister in her standoff against the EU. "I have a serious difference of opinion with our prime minister. But, even so, I have to tell you that I view the behaviour of the European Union leaders in Salzburg with contempt," David Davis, the former Brexit minister who resigned in protest at Chequers, said in a speech at a "Leave Means Leave" rally in the northern English town of Bolton. "Disrespect our prime minister and you disrespect our country." After May's Friday statement, European Council President Donald Tusk said the results of the EU's analysis of that plan had been known to Britain for many weeks. But Hunt said there was a difference between rhetoric and substance. "On the substance of the Chequers proposals, we have not had a detailed response," he said, adding that EU proposals for the Irish border would mean that it was impossible "to leave the EU intact as one country". May has accepted the need for a "backstop" insurance policy on the Irish border but says the EU's version of the proposal would see Northern Ireland carved off from the United Kingdom. The EU says May's proposal, keeping the province and mainland Britain in the same regulatory space, undermines the single market. Despite the differences, Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney told RTE radio an Irish backstop was "doable" by an October summit. BUMPY AND DIFFICULT Hunt said Britain wanted a deal but would be able to withstand a no-deal Brexit. "It would be bumpy, it would be difficult, but we would find a way to survive and prosper as a country," he said. "We've had far bigger challenges in our history." Should May get a deal, opposition Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn said he would not support it unless it protected jobs and living standards. The Independent reported that Corbyn would try and force a general election within days if lawmakers reject the Brexit deal. "We will challenge this government on whatever deal it brings back," Corbyn told a rally in Liverpool, northern England, on the eve of Labour's annual conference. "And if this government can't deliver, then I simply say to Theresa May the best way to settle this is by having a general election." (Reporting by Alistair Smout; additiional reporting by Elizabeth Piper in Liverpool, Michel Rose in Paris, Michelle Martin in Berlin and Conor Humphries in Dublin; editing by John Stonestreet and Gareth Jones) SOFIA (Reuters) - An outbreak of a virulent bird flu virus has spread to a farm in southern Bulgaria, the Balkan country's food safety agency said on Friday. A three-kilometer protection zone was set around the farm in the village of Trilistnik, near Bulgaria's second-largest city of Plovdiv and the sale of eggs and the movement of domestic, wild and other birds was banned within it, the agency said in a statement. The agency said that all contaminated 43,000 hens at the farm would be culled in a humane manner. (Reporting by Angel Krasimirov; editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise) Atlanta Black Star A former Glynn County police officer who was first to respond to the scene after Ahmaud Arbery was gunned down in the Satilla Shores neighborhood [] Montreal (AFP) - Women foreign ministers from around the world kicked off a first-of-its-kind meeting on Friday, bringing together more than half of the world's top women diplomats in Montreal. Women are "key to finding solutions to the political, economic and social challenges facing our societies," Canada's top diplomat Chrystia Freeland said Friday at the opening of the two-day summit. The meeting will center on four topics: women in politics and positions of leadership; strengthening democracy; promoting peace and security and eliminating gender-based violence. "I will always promote equal representation and respect for the rights of women and girls" Freeland said, because "when we are all involved in the decision-making process, our societies become stronger, our economies and our middle class become more prosperous and our countries safer." Freeland is co-chairing the meeting with EU foreign affairs representative Federica Mogherini. At the opening session, both expressed hope that this meeting will mark the beginning of a tradition of cooperation between women ministers. In addition to Freeland and Mogherini, the conference brings together ministers from 17 other countries: Andorra, Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Croatia, Dominican Republic, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Kenya, Namibia, Norway, Panama, South Africa, Rwanda, Saint Lucia and Sweden. By Jorge Pineda SANTO DOMINGO (Reuters) - China's most senior envoy inaugurated a new embassy in the Dominican Republic on Friday after the Caribbean country cut ties with Taiwan in a move that prompted U.S. concern over the Asian island's dwindling number of allies. Self-ruled Taiwan, which China claims as its own, now has formal relations with only 17 countries, almost all of them small and less developed nations in Central America and the Pacific, including Belize and Nauru. "We have witnessed a historic breakthrough," capping 20 years of growing engagement, Chinese State Councillor Wang Yi, the government's top diplomat, said in an speech televised by Chinese state media. Along with the Dominican Republic's decision in May, Panama and El Salvador have also switched recognition to Beijing in the past two years. The United States recalled its top diplomats in those countries and warned that China was offering economic incentives in a bid for domination. Tensions between the United States and countries in the region have flared over U.S. President Donald Trump's hard line policies against immigration. U.S. Ambassador Robin Bernstein said on Thursday, in her first public appearance back in the Dominican Republic, that she had been asked about China's role in the region while in Washington, and that she hoped countries were considering their "long-term goals". In a statement on Thursday, the U.S. embassy in El Salvador lamented that countries in the region were deepening ties to "unfamiliar partners" and engaging in transactions that "lack transparency". Taiwan says China offered the Dominican Republic a $3.1 billion package of investments and loans to get them to sever ties, though China said there were no economic pre-conditions. Wang said the Dominican Republic is China's biggest trade partner in the Caribbean, setting the foundation for diplomatic ties. "The Chinese developing economy and expanding market have brought real benefits to the Dominican Republic," he said. Wang, in a swipe at U.S. criticism, said that as a sovereign country, the Dominican Republic had the absolute right to decide its own foreign policy and that no other nation had the right to interfere. "The Dominican Republic establishing diplomatic relations with China does not target any third party, does not affect each other's foreign policy, and will not harm the traditional influence and legitimate rights of other countries in the region," he added. Wang will also visit Guyana and Suriname before speaking at the U.N. General Assembly in New York. (Additional reporting by Daina Beth Solomon, and Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Nick Macfie) China has told the Trump administration to remove punitive sanctions against its military, or bear the consequences. Fridays vague threat comes just a day after the U.S. sanctioned the Chinese militarys Equipment Development Department and its director for buying military aircraft and missiles from Russia, CNN reports. An anonymous senior administration official called the sanctions a significant step, as they are the first sanctions resulting from a new federal law that requires punishment of anyone who does business with certain blacklisted Russian intelligence and military organizations and individuals. The Countering Americas Adversaries Through Sanctions Act was passed as a way to punish Russia for meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections. Chinas Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang, however, said the sanctions seriously violated the basic norms of international relations and seriously damaged the relations between China and the United States, NBC News reports. We strongly urge the U.S. to immediately correct the mistakes and withdraw the so-called sanctions, he said Friday, otherwise the U.S. must bear the consequences. The U.S. maintains that the ultimate target of these sanctions is Russia, not China. While implementing the sanctions, Washington also added 33 Russians to the blacklist, bringing the total number to 72. Todays actions are not intended to undermine the military capabilities or combat readiness of any country, the State Department said in a statement Thursday, but rather to impose costs on Russia in response to its interference in the United States election process, its unacceptable behavior in eastern Ukraine, and other malign activities. Russia also responded to Thursdays sanctions, saying the U.S. is playing with fire, Al Jazeera reports. This is unfair competition, dishonest competition, an attempt to use non-market methods that that run counter to norms and principles of international trade to squeeze the main competitor of US makers out of the markets, said President Vladimir Putins spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, according to Al Jazeera. Christine Blasey Ford, the woman accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, has agreed to testify this Thursday in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Fords attorney Debra Katz confirmed Fords testimony in an email Saturday, meeting the 2:30 p.m. deadline set last night by Committee chairman, Iowa Senator Charles Grassley. NEWS: Christine Blasey Fords lawyers tell Senate Judiciary staff she accepts the committees request to testify about Brett Kavanaugh and sexual misconduct next week. Heres the letter they just sent ???? pic.twitter.com/mp7ZfWBvpy Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) September 22, 2018 Dr. Ford accepts the Committees the request to provide her first-hand knowledge of Judge Kavanaughs sexual misconduct next week. Katz criticized the Committees seeming impatience with Ford, calling it fundamentally inconsistent with Committees promise of a fair, impartial investigation into her allegations. We are disapointed by the leaks and the bullying that have tainted the process, we are hopeful we can reach agreement on details. Katz added. Judge Kavanaugh, who has denied Fords allegation, was seen as all but assured to ascend to the Supreme Court until Fords claim against him was made public last week. While many Republicans appear eager to quickly push through Kavanaughs would-be lifetime appointment, many Democrats are calling for further examination of Fords allegation before the confirmation process continues. In an interview with The Washington Post, which ran last Sunday, Ford claims that in the 1980s, Kavanaugh groped her in a bedroom during a party. She claimed that Kavanaugh covered her mouth to stop her screams as he grinded on her body and attempted to remove her one-piece swimsuit. I thought he might inadvertently kill me, the 51-year-old Palo Alto University professor told the Washington Post. He was trying to attack me and remove my clothing. With a 51-seat majority in the chamber, Republicans seemingly have the votes to approve Kavanaugh, but his nomination could be sunk if only a few Republicans dissent. Greg Lovell has called his Hampstead, North Carolina, neighborhood home for 15 years, but only while battling floodwaters after Hurricane Florence has he met other members of his community facing the same struggles. (Sept. 21) Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, left, and Democratic Rep. Beto ORourke during their first debate in Dallas on Sept. 21, 2018. (Photos: Tom Fox/Dallas Morning News via AP, Pool) Seeking to regain the edge in a race that has been surprisingly competitive, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz faced off with his Democratic opponent, Rep. Beto ORourke, for the first time Friday evening, in an hourlong debate that was marked by sharp differences on policies like immigration and law enforcement and some pointed personal attacks. The fireworks began almost immediately onstage at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where the candidates met for the first of three scheduled debates in the coming weeks in Texass closely watched Senate race in which Cruz, the one-term incumbent, has struggled to stay ahead of ORourke, a rising star Democrat whose candidacy has attracted large crowds and celebrity support. Cruz, a champion debater going back to his college years at Princeton, seemed more comfortable at the podium, and more confrontational. But he has struggled to overcome a style some voters (and fellow senators, including in his own party) consider condescending, and was occasionally caught by the camera in a smug smirk while ORourke was speaking. The debate itself drew an unusual degree of national attention for a statewide race. Texas has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1988, but Democrats have been eyeing it as a possible pickup in their long-shot drive to retake the upper chamber. ORourke, a three-term congressman who represents El Paso, began the debate by calling for an overhaul in the nations immigration policies, including allowing a pathway to citizenship for so-called Dreamers, young immigrants who were brought into the country illegally as children. Sen. Cruz has promised to deport each and every single Dreamer, ORourke said. That cannot be the way that Texas leads on this issue. Cruz didnt dispute it, instead repeating a line he regularly uses on the campaign trail to explain his approach to immigration. My views on immigration are simple, four words: legal good, illegal bad, he said. Story continues And in a tactic he deployed regularly throughout the night, Cruz jabbed back at ORourke, timing his remarks for the part of the format where the congressman was not allotted time to respond. He fired back that ORourkes focus over and over again seems to be fighting for illegal immigrants. The two clashed over ORourkes call to fire Amber Guyger, the Dallas police officer who shot and killed Botham Jean, an unnamed black man, in his apartment on Sept. 6. Cruz accused ORourke of frequently siding against law enforcement, saying that he had called police officers the modern Jim Crow and calling it offensive. The fireworks began almost immediately onstage between Cruz, left, and ORourke at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where the candidates met on Sept. 21, 2018, for the first of three scheduled debates in the coming weeks. (Photo: Tom Fox/Dallas Morning News via AP, Pool) Cruz appeared to be referring to remarks ORourke made at a town hall Wednesday at Prairie View A&M University, a historically black college northwest of Houston, where he voiced concerns about racism in the criminal justice system, including racial profiling and police shootings of people of color. The remarks, widely circulated on conservative blogs in recent days, echoed a recent column ORourke wrote about criminal justice reform in the Houston Chronicle. ORourke did use the phrase, although he applied it to the justice system generally, not police officers personally. That injustice, to many more people here than I know firsthand, continues to persist today, ORourke said at the college, according to a video clip of the speech. That system of suspending somebody, solely based on the color of their skin, searching that person solely based on the color of their skin, stopping that person solely based on the color of their skin, shooting that person solely based on the color of their skin, throwing the book at that person and letting them rot behind bars solely based on the color of their skin, is why some have called this, and I think it is an apt description, the new Jim Crow. In the debate Friday, he accused Cruz of twisting his words, saying: This is your trick in the trade: to confuse, and to incite fear. Asked if he had concerns about the number of police shootings involving people of color, Cruz dodged the question, saying he believed that everyones rights should be protected and that hes been to too many police funerals, which he partially blamed on inflamed rhetoric against law enforcement. The two also clashed on issues including gun control, drug legalization and Brett Kavanaughs nomination to the Supreme Court amid allegations of sexual misconduct. Asked if there was anything Kavanaughs accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, could say that might lead him to oppose Kavanaughs nomination, Cruz replied, Absolutely, but did not elaborate. ORourke held his own against Cruzs rhetorical jabs, but didnt quite hit back. At several points, he accused the Republican of lying and twisting his words. But when challenged by Cruz, he refused to repeat the words he said Cruz was misquoting an intentional tactic he had practiced in advance, not wanting to give Cruz or his allies the opportunity to take his words out of context and use the clip against him in a political ad. At one point, Gromer Jeffers, a Dallas Morning News reporter who served as one of the moderators, asked Cruz about his relationship with President Trump and the personal attacks Trump had waged against Cruzs father and wife during the 2016 campaign. He asked Cruz to respond to those who said he had lost his dignity by aligning himself with Trump. Cruz said he had put aside hurt feelings from the campaign to work with Trump because it was his job to do so. Ive got a responsibility, which is to fight for everybody here and every person in this state, Cruz said. And he attacked ORourke for prematurely expressing support for impeaching Trump, noting it would make it hard for him to work with the president. ORourke replied that Texas needed a senator who would oppose Trump on issues like trade and tariffs, which have been devastating to the states farming and manufacturing sectors. In the final minutes of their first debate on Sept. 21, 2018, when each man was asked to name something they admire about their opponent, ORourke said that even though they disagree politically, Cruz was fighting for what he believed, and he respected that. (Photo: Tom Fox/Dallas Morning News/Pool via Reuters) ORourke reminded the audience numerous times that he had campaigned in every one of the states 254 counties. He said voters were wondering where Cruz has been. We need a junior senator who will stand up to this president, ORourke declared. Cruz remains the favorite in the race. While he has been outraised by ORourke, allies who helped fund his 2012 campaign and his 2016 bid for the White House are preparing to spend big money to come to his defense. A Quinnipiac poll of likely Texas voters released earlier this week found the incumbent senator leading ORourke by 9 points a notable, if not quite comfortable margin. But it was followed by a Reuters-Ipsos poll that found the two statistically tied. On Friday, the Cook Political Report changed its ranking for the race from lean Republican to toss up. Privately, Texas Republicans continue to express concerns about Republican complacency and the possible impact of so-called nonvoters, people who dont usually vote but whom ORourke is hoping to turn out this November. In the final minutes of the debate, each man was asked to name something they admire about their opponent. ORourke praised Cruz for being a dedicated public servant and said that he respects the personal sacrifices he has made to do his job, including being away from his wife and kids. The Democrat said that even though they disagree politically, Cruz was fighting for what he believed, and he respected that. When it was Cruzs turn, he praised ORourke for the same thing though he couldnt resist getting in a dig at the congressman. The senator brought up a series of debates he participated in with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a socialist, and offered ORourke a backhanded compliment. I think Congressman ORourke is passionate, energetic and believes what he is fighting for, Cruz said. I think you are absolutely sincere like Bernie, that you believe in expanding government and higher taxes. True to form, ORourke responded dryly. _____ Read more from Yahoo News: Copenhagen (AFP) - A Copenhagen appeals court on Friday ruled that a 51-year-old Dane of Rwandan origin can be extradited to Rwanda where he is accused of taking part in the 1994 genocide. The appeals court upheld a lower court ruling from April. Authorities in Rwanda have accused the man, whose identity was not disclosed, of participating in the killing of some 2,000 people who had sought refuge in a church and a university in Mutende. Witnesses have described how the accused walked around the church with his dog looking for Tutsis. He is accused of killing an elderly woman and an infant, as well as three youths at a roadblock. The man has denied the allegations and argued that Rwandan authorities have confused him with someone else. The man left Rwanda in 1997 before arriving in Denmark in 2001. He was granted residency in 2002 and became a Danish citizen in 2014. Danish police were tipped off about the man, who now has four children in Denmark, more than a decade ago, according to Danish news agency Ritzau. Danish investigators travelled to Rwanda and interrogated more than 30 witnesses in their probe. After investigating the case and corresponding with Rwandan authorities for several years, the man was arrested in May 2017. The 1994 genocide in Rwanda saw 800,000 people, mainly minority Tutsis, slaughtered by the military and Hutu militias. NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) It was a stunning discovery. As rescue divers probed a capsized Tanzanian ferry two days after the disaster and the death toll soared past 200, a man was found in an air pocket, alive. He was an engineer, regional commissioner John Mongella told reporters. As the badly overloaded ferry overturned on Thursday in the final stretch before reaching shore, the man shut himself into the engine room, the Tanzanian Broadcasting Corporation reported. Video footage showed the man, barefoot and head lolling, carried quickly along a busy street by medical workers and military personnel as a siren wailed. His condition was not immediately known. No further survivors were likely. Search efforts were ending so the focus could turn to identifying the dead, Tanzania's defense chief Venance Mabeyo told reporters at the scene. Mass graves were dug, and colorfully painted coffins arrived. Hundreds of family members and others waited quietly on the shore. One woman dropped to her knees in the sand next to the covered body of her sister and wept. "We have found him after three days and now we are transporting his body to Kamasi for burial," said Temeni Katebarira, the brother of one victim. Earlier in the day, workers continued to haul bodies from the water. Abandoned shoes were scattered on the sand. "From morning till now we have retrieved more than 58 bodies. This includes both children and adults," said TropistaTemi, a Red Cross volunteer. "Because of the congestion we have not been able to do full totaling. Later, we will do a full tally." But the total number of deaths might never be known. No one is sure how many people were on the overcrowded ferry, which officials said had a capacity of 101. It tipped as people returning from a busy market day with their goods prepared to disembark, while horrified fishermen and others watched. Officials on Friday said at least 40 people had been rescued. Story continues President John Magufuli has ordered the arrests of those responsible. He said the ferry captain already had been detained after leaving the steering to someone who wasn't properly trained, The Citizen newspaper reported. "This is a great disaster for our nation," Magufuli told the nation in a televised address late Friday, announcing four days of national mourning. Pope Francis, the United Nations secretary-general, Russian President Vladimir Putin and a number of African leaders have expressed shock and sorrow. The MV Nyerere, named for the former president who led the East African nation to independence, was traveling between the islands of Ukara and Ukerewe when it sank, according to the government agency in charge of servicing the vessels. Accidents are often reported on the large freshwater lake surrounded by Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda. Some of the deadliest have occurred in Tanzania, where aging passenger ferries often carry hundreds of passengers and well beyond capacity. In 1996, more than 800 people died when passenger and cargo ferry MV Bukoba sank on Lake Victoria. And nearly 200 people died in 2011 when the MV Spice Islander I sank off Tanzania's Indian Ocean coast near Zanzibar. ___ Follow Africa news at https://twitter.com/AP_Africa By Matthew Stock BERGEN, Norway (Reuters) - From the safety of their research vessel, scientists are exploring one of Earth's last frontiers - the sea floor - to discover more about valuable minerals vital in the manufacture of smartphones. The scientists, from the University of Bergen in Norway, are sending robots 2,500 metres (8,000 feet) down into the waters between Norway and Greenland, to try to understand the environments potentially rich with rare earth minerals. "The ocean sea floor on Earth is, for the most part, unknown," scientist Thibaut Barreyre told Reuters. "It's totally fair to say that we know much more about the surface of the moon and Mars - mapped by satellites and different devices - than we know about our own planet." The international team is using technology including autonomous robots and human-piloted submarines to explore the sea's dark depths where zinc, gold and copper are also found. The scientists hope the explorations will reveal why some areas have minerals and others do not, how much is down there and what damage mining them would have on the environment. A viable new source of rare earths, a group of 17 elements used in the production of smartphone screens, magnets, camera lenses and X-ray machines could be highly lucrative. But it is not that simple, Barreyre said. "Some of them (waters) are rich in gold, copper, zinc and rare earths. And others have almost none of those. And that's why it's very important to us as scientists to understand it," he said. The team, which began exploring the area last year, will spend the next five years searching. (Editing by Patrick Johnston and Robin Pomeroy) Linear heavyweight champion Tyson Fury (L) and WBC champion Deontay Wilder pose on Aug. 18 in Belfast after Fury defeated Francesco Pianeta. Wilder and Fury will meet in a pay-per-view bout on Dec. 1 in either Las Vegas or Los Angeles. (Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile via Getty Images) The future of the heavyweight division will be abundantly clear on the morning of Dec. 2. WBC champion Deontay Wilder will face linear champion Tyson Fury in a battle of unbeatens in a pay-per-view showdown on Dec. 1. The site has not been determined, but will likely be either Las Vegas or Los Angeles. The bout will come on the heels of Saturdays IBF-WBA-WBO heavyweight title fight in London between Anthony Joshua and Alexander Povetkin that will be streamed live on DAZN. The Wilder-Fury winner will be the linear heavyweight champion and will be poised for a big-money unification bout next year with the Joshua-Povetkin winner. The 6-foot-7 Wilder, who is 40-0 with 39 knockouts, will be fighting an opponent who is taller than him for the first time. Fury, who is 27-0 with 19 knockouts, is 6-9 with an 85-inch reach. Its going to be an exciting fight, Wilder said. Its going to be an explosive fight. Its going to be a fight for the legacy. Its going to be a pleasure, the two best heavyweights competing against each other. I just beat, in my opinion, one of the best heavyweights in Luis Ortiz, and now Im going for the next best in the heavyweight division. Fury won the undisputed belt when he upset Wladmir Klitschko in 2015. He had a series of personal problems after the Klitschko win and didnt fight again until June 9, when he stopped Sefer Seferi in the fourth round in Manchester, England. Furys last bout was a unanimous decision over Francesco Pianeta on Aug. 18 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Wilder hasnt fought since a dramatic come-from-behind stoppage victory over Ortiz in March. Wilder spent much of the year after his win over Ortiz trying to land a fight with Joshua, though it never gained much momentum. But the Wilder-Fury winner will have the WBC belt and be the linear champion, which will give him that much more leverage in talks for the undisputed title. Were two big talkers and that is whats going to make this promotion fun and attract the hardcore fans and the casual fans, Wilder said. All the talking he does lets me know that he has confidence. He says hes coming to take my belts. I cant wait for him to try. I love it. Rod Rosenstein furiously denied that he had discussed invoking the 25th Amendment, which could be used to remove an unfit president - AP Donald Trump's own deputy attorney general suggested secretly recording the president and discussed invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from the White House, according to the New York Times. Rod Rosenstein was said to have broached the idea that the president was unfit for office with senior officials at his own Justice Department and the FBI last year. Mr Rosenstein reportedly said he believed he might be able to persuade John Kelly, Mr Trump's chief of staff, and Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, to pursue the 25th Amendment, which can be invoked if the president is unable to fulfill his duties. It requires the support of the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet. Mr Rosenstein furiously denied the New York Times report. President Trump's son Donald Trump Jr hit back at the claims, saying "These guys would do anything in their power to undermine him" Credit: AP In a statement he said. "The New York Timess story is inaccurate and factually incorrect. "I will not further comment on a story based on anonymous sources who are obviously biased against the department and are advancing their own personal agenda. "But let me be clear about this: Based on my personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment." The report was expected to spark accusations of a "deep state" conspiracy against the president from his supporters, who believe he is being targeted by officials within his own Justice Department and the FBI. At a rally on Friday, Trump said there was a "lingering stench" about what was being exposed at the US Justice Department and promised he was going to get rid of that just as his administration had gotten rid of bad people at the FBI. Speaking in Missouri Trump said "Just look at what is being exposed in our Justice Department." "We have great people in the Department of Justice. ... But you've got some real bad ones. You've seen what's happened at the FBI. They're all gone," he told a rally for Republican Senate candidate Josh Hawley. "But there's a lingering stench and we're going to get rid of that, too." Story continues Shocked!!! Absolutely Shocked!!! Ohhh, who are we kidding at this point? No one is shocked that these guys would do anything in their power to undermine @realdonaldtrump. Rosenstein Suggested He Secretly Record Trump and Discussed 25th Amendment https://t.co/ZTEwS8E1iJ Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) September 21, 2018 Donald Trump Jr, the president's son, said: "I'm shocked, absolutely shocked. These guys would do anything in their power to undermine him." Mr Rosenstein is overseeing the investigation by special counnsel Robert Mueller into allegations of collusion between Mr Trump's campaign and Russia. He was said to have made his comments in the Spring of 2017 around the time Mr Trump fired James Comey as head of the FBI. Mr Trump fired James Comey from the FBI last year Credit: AFP Around the same time Mr Trump disclosed classified information to senior Russian officials visiting the Oval Office. which was said to have alarmed Mr Rosenstein. At the time Mr Rosenstein was only a few weeks into his role. He had himself played a key role in the firing of Mr Comey, writing a memo that Mr Trump used to justify the firing. Mr Rosenstein's alleged comments were described to the New York Times by several people familiar with them. He was also said to have suggested that other FBI officials secretly record Mr Trump. His remarks were said to have been written down in memos by FBI officials. Mr Rosenstein never did secretly record the president, the New York Times reported. Mr Rosenstein is overseeing special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into whether Mr Trump's campaign colluded with Russia Credit: Bloomberg A Justice Department spokeswoman said Mr Rosenstein had made a comment about wearing a wire when speaking to the president but it had been made sarcastically. Meanwhile, Mr Trump questioned the credibility of the woman who has accused his Supreme Court nominee of sexual assault. The president said she would have reported the attack to police at the time if it "was as bad as she says". Dr Christine Blasey Ford, a professor in California, has claimed Judge Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her more than 30 years ago when they were teenagers, something he vehemently denies. Mr Trump said on Twitter: "I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place!" Disaster relief is most commonly thought of as providing food, water, and shelter to those affected by calamitous events beyond their control. But as communities in places like Texas and Puerto Rico are learning, disaster relief that only alleviates physical wants is not enough to put their communities back on their feet. After first responders have done their jobs to secure personal safety, an emotional recovery has to begin as well. Organizations like UNICEF are acknowledging that the damage to communities can last long after the repairs to homes are completed. Canned goods and other basic need items are given out in a disaster relief station in southeast Texas. Image: Getty Images When the reality of the disaster sets in, the emotional and psychological responses that are seen community-wide are tremendous and overwhelming, Center for School Behavioral Health director Janet Pozmantier said. People simply dont have the wherewithal to cope effectively. That's where organizations like UNICEF are stepping in. Called psychosocial disaster relief, this kind of help comes in the weeks and months after a disaster in order to help people recover emotionally. If UNICEF can help it, these recovery efforts will be implemented after every storm. Psychosocial relief in the wake of Hurricanes Maria and Harvey are currently ongoing, and UNICEF knows that the aftermath of Hurricane Florence in the Carolinas will also require this kind of help in the near future. Other organizations like the Red Cross have also been championing psychological first aid measures for years, and with good reason. SEE ALSO: Hurricane Maria is the deadliest storm of the 21st century Research suggests that those who have survived catastrophe tend to start showing signs of trauma roughly three months after the event took place. Those signs can look like anything from anxiety and depression to constant irritability and anger or even complete dissociation and inattention in both children and adults. In order to combat these symptoms, Pozmantier and other staff at the center working under Mental Health America in Greater Houston developed free workshops to teach others how to effectively help people struggling in the aftermath of traumatic disaster-related events. Story continues Damaged furniture and personal belongings sit on a flooded curb in Southeast Texas. Image: Getty Images The workshop focuses on helping educators identify signs and symptoms of trauma in children while also including other useful tools like mindfulness training and how to self-regulate emotions. After Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas, UNICEF reached out to the center and offered to fund a Harvey-specific trauma training workshop, which the center named Are the Kids Alright? In the months after Harvey made landfall in Texas, Pozmantier would drive through neighborhoods and see the entire contents of homes in a pile on the curb family photos and clothing laying on top of piles of water damaged furniture all ready to be collected by waste management. She said it was easy to understand why people would be traumatized. So when the center developed Are the Kids Alright, aside from training people to deal with trauma in children, they also added some training on how to deal with adults. Going through something like this, I realized more than ever that if we can take care of the adults, the kids are going to be okay for the most part too, Pozmantier said. Nine months later, when UNICEF approached the center again to help Puerto Rico recover, the message was the same. The center developed a workshop, completely in Spanish, to help curb the emotional impact Hurricane Maria had on the people of Puerto Rico, focusing again on children but also providing help to adults. First, UNICEF sent hygiene kits, water, and helped with shelter. But what UNICEF USA President Caryl Stern said shes most proud of is the collaborative work that UNICEF and the Center for School Behavioral Health were able to put into action. A man and a child stand in front of a destoryed house in Puerto Rico a few days after Hurricane Maria hit the island. Image: unicef usa Now classrooms are catastrophe stations every time it rains in Puerto Rico. The children are worried that their home is destroyed. Or theyre wondering 'Is my mother okay?' Stern said. Even seeing adults in distress can trigger the children, Stern said. Once Stern experienced this, she said she knew that the training workshops would be incredibly important. In addition to the workshops, UNICEF sent a few hundred college students from State University of New York and City University of New York to pair up with member of various Puerto Rican communities to help rebuild the Boys and Girls Clubs of Puerto Rico. Through this, people were able to come together and repair their communities themselves something that can have a strong positive effect on the psyche. Stern says everyone who has ever dealt with disaster relief knows that the psychosocial recovery is the most import aspect of relief that is widely ignored by the public. Pozmantier agreed, adding that if she could, she would mandate that all educators go through training in mental health, trauma, mindfulness, and self-help strategies. They are the first line of defense. Its like any other kind of illness. You wouldnt wait until youre on your deathbed to try and strengthen your immune system, Pozmantier said. Helsinki (AFP) - Finnish Foreign Minister Timo Soini clung on to his job Friday after winning a no-confidence vote in parliament over his attendance at an anti-abortion vigil during an official visit to Canada. Members of parliament voted 100 to 60 against a motion to oust Soini. It was put forward by four opposition parties who claimed that his participation at the anti-abortion rally in May gave the impression the foreign minister was acting in an official capacity. On Tuesday, Finland's Chancellor of Justice ruled that Soini's attendance at the March for Life candlelit vigil in Ottawa was "problematic". Soini was in the Canadian city to discuss Arctic affairs with his counterpart. After the vote, he admitted mixing up his official and personal roles. "I am a Catholic and believe in the Church's teachings. But I am a politician and Finland's foreign minister and that is the work I do," the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper quoted him as saying. Soini's coalition partners, the Centre Party and the conservative National Coalition, had pledged their support for the foreign minister. "This is not an issue of such scale that we want to bring down the whole government," Centre Party parliamentary group leader Antti Kaikkonen said on Thursday. However, four female lawmakers from the governing National Coalition Party abstained from the vote. Lenita Toivakka, a former junior minister under Soini in the foreign ministry, wrote in a blog: "I have no guarantees about how he intends to behave as foreign minister in future." Soini has come under repeated fire this year over anti-abortion comments following decisions on abortion law by Ireland and Argentina. The populist Finns Party, from whom Soini and 19 other MPs split last year, abstained from voting. HELSINKI (Reuters) - Finnish Foreign Minister Timo Soini survived a no-confidence vote in parliament on Friday over his attendance at an anti-abortion vigil while on an official trip to Canada. One hundred lawmakers voted in support of Soini, while 60 voted to oust him. The motion was brought by four opposition parties. Most members of the three parties in the government supported Soini as toppling him would have brought down the coalition. Finland has been a pioneer in gender equality. Its law allows abortion and the government is committed to promoting women's rights in its foreign and security policy. (Reporting by Jussi Rosendahl; Editing by Hugh Lawson) By Suzannah Gonzales (Reuters) - A former Catholic priest who fled the United States after allegations he sexually abused a child in the 1990s has been extradited from Morocco and faced charges in New Mexico on Friday, U.S. officials said. The Catholic Church worldwide is reeling from crises involving sexual abuse of minors, deeply damaging confidence in the Church in the United States, Chile, Australia, and Ireland where the scandal has hit hardest, and elsewhere. An indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Sept. 21, 2017, charges Arthur Perrault, 80, with six counts of aggravated sexual abuse and one count of abusive sexual contact. At an arraignment on Friday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Karen Molzen, Perrault pleaded not guilty to all seven counts against him, according to the clerk's minutes of the proceeding. Perrault's lawyer Samuel Winder did not immediately respond to a request for comment. If convicted, Perrault faces a maximum sentence of life in prison for the aggravated sexual abuse charges and up to 10 years in prison for the abusive sexual contact charge, U.S. Attorney John Anderson for the District of New Mexico told a news conference. Perrault was arrested by Moroccan authorities shortly after last year's indictment and had been in custody ever since, Special Agent in Charge James Langenberg, of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Albuquerque Division, told the news conference. The FBI's investigation located Perrault in Morocco and FBI agents flew there and took custody of him on Thursday, Langenberg said. "There are probably some people who doubted Mr. Perrault would ever be brought back to New Mexico to face a judge after being away for so long. It was important to prove them wrong for one reason - the victim in this case," Langenberg said. Although only one alleged victim is mentioned in the indictment, prosecutors said in a separate court document that Perrault is a serial child molester who abused numerous victims over more than 20 years as a priest in New Mexico and Rhode Island. He fled the United States in 1992 when his criminal conduct became public, according to a court document. "This indictment alleges a profound breach of trust by a man who was widely perceived as a mentor to young people and a respected figure in the community," Anderson said. (Reporting by Suzannah Gonzales in Chicago; Additional reporting by Andrew Hay in Taos, N.M.; Editing by Matthew Lewis) MUNICH, Sept 21 (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Bavarian ally Horst Seehofer is open to the idea of renegotiating a deal to transfer Germany's top spy to the interior ministry, a spokesman for his Christian Social Union (CSU) party said on Friday. "The party leader doesn't rule out talks," a CSU spokesman told Reuters. "New consultations make sense if a consensual solution is possible and we are thinking about one at the moment." The SPD have demanded a renegotiation of the unpopular deal that saw Hans-Georg Maassen removed from the BfV domestic intelligence agency after he questioned the authenticity of video showing skinheads chasing migrants in an eastern city. (Reporting by Christina Amann Writing by Joseph Nasr Editing by Michelle Martin) (Reuters) - Google employees brainstormed ways to alter search functions to counter the Trump administration's controversial 2017 travel ban, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing internal emails. Google employees discussed how they could tweak the company's search-related functions to show users how to contribute to pro-immigration organizations and contact lawmakers and government agencies, the WSJ said. The ideas were not implemented. President Donald Trump's travel ban temporarily barred visitors and immigrants from seven majority Muslim countries. It spurred public outcry and was revised several times. Trump said the travel ban was needed to protect the United States against attacks by Islamist militants, and the Supreme Court upheld the measure in June. The Google employees proposed ways to "leverage" search functions and take steps to counter what they considered to be "islamophobic, algorithmically biased results from search terms 'Islam', 'Muslim', 'Iran', etc." and "prejudiced, algorithmically biased search results from search terms 'Mexico', 'Hispanic', 'Latino', etc," the Journal added, quoting from the emails. A Google spokesperson said the emails represented brainstorming and none of the ideas were implemented. She said the company does not manipulate search results or modify products to promote political views. "Our processes and policies would not have allowed for any manipulation of search results to promote political ideologies," the spokesperson said in a statement. (Reporting by Rama Venkat in Bengaluru; Editing by Cynthia Osterman) Washington (AFP) - Google employees discussed how to counter President Donald Trump's 2017 travel ban by modifying search functions to help people contribute to immigration advocacy groups and contact lawmakers, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday. They began the email discussion two days after Trump signed the first version of his travel ban targeting people from seven mainly Muslim countries, the paper reported. Staff discussed how to tweak search functions and work against "Islamophobic, algorithmically biased results from search terms Islam, Muslim, Iran, etc.", the Journal reported. They looked at similar measures for the search terms Mexico, Hispanic, Latino, etc." An email from an employee of the Search Product Marketing division referred to brainstorming inside Google over how to respond to ban. Trump's controversial measure was challenged in court and underwent several iterations before ultimately being upheld by the US Supreme Court. The report is certain to anger Trump, who has accused Google of blocking conservative viewpoints in its search results. Google told the Journal that none of the ideas discussed were ever implemented. "Google has never manipulated its search results or modified any of its products to promote a particular political ideology -- not in the current campaign season, not during the 2016 election, and not in the aftermath of President Trumps executive order on immigration," it said in a statement. "Our processes and policies would not have allowed for any manipulation of search results to promote political ideologies," it added. Google was among 100 tech companies that filed a friend-of-the-court brief in February 2017 challenging the travel ban as harmful to US "business, innovation and growth". Garrett Ventry, a communications adviser to the Senate Judiciary Committee, has abruptly resigned after NBC News inquired about a past sexual harassment allegation against him. He had been assisting the committee, led by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), after a woman came forward to accuse President Donald Trumps Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault in the 1980s. According to NBC News, a female Republican staffer working for the North Carolina General Assembly said Ventry sexually harassed her in 2017 when Ventry was working for North Carolina House Majority Leader John Bell. Sources told the outlet that he was dismissed over that incident and because parts of his resume were found to be embellished. Ventry denies the harassment accusation. He submitted his resignation Friday night, he told The Washington Post. Taylor Foy, a Senate Judiciary Committee spokesman, said in a statement that Ventry simply resigned to avoid causing any distraction from the work of the committee. He had been brought on temporarily to assist the committee with Kavanaughs confirmation, a committee spokesperson told the Post. The now-former adviser appeared on Fox News this week to defend Grassleys response to the allegation against Kavanaugh. The Senate Judiciary Committee is currently negotiating with lawyers for Christine Blasey, the California professor who says the nominee once pinned her on a bed and covered her mouth to muffle her screams. Grassley wants to settle on conditions for the committee to hear her testimony. Ventry told Foxs Shannon Bream that Grassley has been accommodating in his effort to address Blaseys accusation, although Blaseys attorneys say the committees Republicans have bullied her with tight deadlines. Bizarrely, Ventry also reportedly has ties to CRC, the firm that reportedly led conservative activist Ed Whelan to stoke a theory about Kavanaughs accuser that would exonerate the nominee himself. Whelan shared the theory which involved a Kavanaugh doppelganger over Twitter and was immediately met with criticism and mockery. Story continues While both Politico and NBC News reported that Ventry once worked at CRC, neither could confirm whether he is still employed there. HuffPost has reached out to CRC for comment. CORRECTION: A previous version of this story indicated Taylor Foy is a woman. Related... Woman Claims She Heard About Christine Blasey Ford Allegation In 1980s Watch This If You're Confused About Why Kavanaugh's Accuser Didn't Speak Up Sooner Christine Blasey Ford's Attorneys Lay Out Conditions For Senate Hearing Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. - AFP Gunmen opened fire on a military parade in Iran on Saturday, killing 24 people including elite Revolutionary Guard troops, in one of the deadliest attacks in the country in recent years. Four assailants targeted a stand where Iranian officials had gathered to watch an annual event in the southwestern city of Ahvaz marking the start of the Islamic Republic's 1980-88 war with Iraq. There were reports they were dressed in Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) uniforms. A pan-Arab, anti-government group called the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz appeared to take responsibility for the attack, which wounded more than 50 people. Among the dead were eight IRGC servicemen, as well as women and children. Islamic State also later claimed it, but Iranian authorities deemed it not to be credible. At least 24 troops were killed on September 22 in an attack on a military parade in the southwestern province of Khuzestan Credit: AFP Ahvaz is in the centre of Khuzestan province, where there have been sporadic protests by the Arab minority. Such attacks are relatively rare in Iran. However, tensions between mainly Iran and Saudi Arabia have surged in recent years, with the two countries supporting opposite sides in wars in Syria and Yemen and rival political parties in Iraq and Lebanon. A photojournalist takes a photo as she hits the ground after an armed attack targeting a military march Credit: Getty The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) play a major role in Iran's regional interests in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. Mohammed Javad Zarif, Irans Foreign Minister, said the assault was the handiwork of "regional terror sponsors". Terrorists recruited, trained, armed and paid by a foreign regime have attacked Ahvaz, he tweeted. Children and journos among casualties. Iran holds regional terror sponsors and their US masters accountable for such attacks. Iranian soldier carrying an injured comrade at the scene of an attack on a military parade in the southwestern city of Ahvaz Credit: AFP The brazen attack appeared to be a direct attack on the Revolutionary Guards - the most powerful and heavily armed military force in the Islamic Republic. The IRGC have been the sword and shield of Shia clerical rule since Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution. The Guards also play a major role in Iran's regional interests in countries such as Iraq, Syria and Yemen. Story continues Brigadier General Ramezan Sharif, a spokesman for the guards, said that the attack was launched to overshadow the greatness of the armed forces parades [across the country]. Injured soldiers lying on the ground Credit: AFP It also came as Tehran faces growing US pressure. President Donald Trump decided in May to pull the US out of the 2015 international nuclear deal with Tehran and reimpose sanctions in a bid to isolate the Iran. Washington has said it is ready to open talks on a new agreement to replace the accord, but Tehran has said repeatedly it cannot negotiate under the pressure of the sanctions. A Revolutionary Guard member carries a wounded boy after a shooting during a military parade Credit: AP Mr Trump and his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, will both be in New York next week for the United Nations General Assembly. But Iran has repeatedly ruled out any meeting, which the US president has said he will chair. By Lucas Jackson and Elizabeth Culliford (Reuters) - A loud rumble jolted climate scientist David Holland just before he went to sleep inside his fiberglass bear-resistant dome, set up next to a frozen fjord in Greenland. He scrambled outside into the sunlit night at about 11 p.m. The thundering sound grew louder as he watched a chunk of ice about a third the size of Manhattan break away from the Helheim glacier. Over the next half hour, the iceberg cracked into pieces and tumbled into the water a mesmerizing sighting of the sea level rise that Holland has devoted years to studying. (Graphic: Project Greenland series on climate change - https://tmsnrt.rs/2xvdzOS) Such major glacial ruptures, known as calvings, are rarely observed in person. A Reuters photographer captured the event on video as Holland, a New York University oceanographer, took in the absolutely breathtaking scene. Its just amazing how beautiful nature is, how violent and unstoppable; it just does its own thing, he said. We actually saw the process by which sea level rises from glaciers. Now Holland and other climate scientists just have to figure out how and how fast warming oceans are undermining the glaciers of Greenland and Antarctica. The best predictions for sea-level rise this century are getting more dire, and yet less precise, in part because of a lack of understanding of these glaciers and how their behavior fits into global climate modeling. (For additional stories, graphics and videos from the Project Greenland interactive series, see: https://tmsnrt.rs/2xvdzOS ) A key obstacle to producing better predictions is the extreme difficulty of the research, which requires dangerous field work in some of the worlds harshest terrain. Researchers must contend with winds strong enough to sweep away bolted-down equipment; temperatures that can freeze skin on contact; and remote locations that make securing supplies a steep challenge. Security teams help scientists avoid falling into hidden crevasses, and, in the Arctic, teams arm themselves with rifles and sleep in fiberglass shelters to avoid becoming a meal for polar bears. The challenges of data collection also require a host of creative solutions that scientists are refining through trial and error. A NASA team that is now three years into a five-year, $30 million project called Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG) has used radar to map changes in the sheets ice loss over time by returning each year to fly the same precise path; dropped probes from planes to measure water temperature and salinity at various depths; and mounted sonar instruments to ships to map the topography of the ocean floor. The difficulties and dangers in accessing the ice-choked waters near Greenlands glaciers caused some researchers to enlist the help of local wildlife by tagging seals, halibut or narwhals with sensors to gather data. NASA researchers and Holland are focused on Greenland because it currently contributes more to sea level rise than the colder region of Antarctica and because the research is so much harder in the Antarctic, with its punishing climate, massive scale and logistical challenges. Its mind-boggling how difficult it is to do things in Antarctica, said Holland, who has conducted studies in both regions. Work that can be done here in Greenland on the scale of summer takes five to ten years to set up and accomplish in Antarctica. $20,000 BOLT Scientists worry that the calving process underway at Helheim - named for the Vikings world of the dead - provides a preview of what might happen in Antarctica on a larger scale. Another Greenland glacier called Jakobshavn has seen similar calving events. In both polar regions, field researchers face serious hazards. Bad weather can strand researchers for weeks and hidden dangers can lurk beneath the snow. In 2016, Hollands colleague Gordon Hamilton, a U.S. climate scientist, was killed in Antarctica when his snowmobile plunged into a crevasse. The job of keeping Hollands team safe belongs to Brian Rougeux, a former mountaineering guide who has worked in both polar regions. Rougeux, who originally met Holland in 2010 in Antarctica, where Holland was servicing weather stations, said sudden changes in weather and visibility in Antarctica can sometimes be life-threatening. Youre trying to navigate to a tent in the middle of half a million square miles of flat white, with no real terrain features, Rougeux said. GPS can help, but could lead teams into areas with hidden crevasses. Preparation is key to efficiency as well as safety. Going back to town to get a particular bolt takes $20,000 of helicopter time, so it becomes a pretty expensive bolt, Holland said. The research challenges often persist after researchers return home from the field. The data-gathering tools they leave in place from moorings that monitor oscillating water temperatures to radars encased in 10-foot-tall, egg-like protective shells that take images of melting ice are vulnerable to the elements. A buoy collecting ocean data for Hollands team in Greenland was swept away by powerful currents and eventually surfaced on a beach in Scotland, and powerful winds swept away other equipment they had bolted in place. HELP FROM THE LOCALS Sometimes conditions are so brutal that researchers need to enlist the experts: local wildlife. In the Ilulissat fjord in western Greenland, Hollands team uses native ringed seals fitted with sensors to record depth, temperature, and salinity year-round near the Jakobshavn, the islands fast-flowing river of ice. They relied on seals because it was too dangerous to pilot a boat through the icy waterway near the glacier, which is believed to have produced the iceberg that sank the Titanic. It is difficult to find a way that a robot made by an engineer could do anything similar to what a seal can do, said Holland. Holland had teamed up with a local seal biologist, Aqqalu Rosing-Asvid, a former hunter and fisherman. In 2010, they camped out on Greenlands west coast for a week, but caught no seals. It was not until their next attempt two years later that they finally tagged their first seal. They also use halibut because their deeper swimming helps monitor the water column nearest the seafloor. The team only tagged fish caught during the warmest days of the fishing season to prevent their eyes from immediately freezing in the cold. The team relies on fishermen to retrieve the data: Rosing-Asvids phone number is on the fish tags. The fishermen call me on the phone, and we arrange to send the tag here, he explained. Last year, three out of the 20 halibut sensors made it back. Another animal pressed into research in the Arctic is the narwhal, an elusive whale with a tusk protruding from the males head. Marine biologist Kristin Laidre, of the Polar Science Center at the University of Washington, has in the past netted narwhals in order to pin a satellite tag to their dorsal ridge like an earring. Laidre shared the narwhals depth, temperature and salinity readings with the NASA team, important because warmer, saltier Atlantic waters tend to sit below colder, fresher waters off the coast of Greenland. Glaciers connected to the deeper waters are melting at faster rates. Even today, there are some places where we still don't know how deep the water is, said Josh Willis, lead scientist for NASAs OMG project. The tagging gives us an idea that the water in some spots is at least as deep as a nearby narwhal dive. (Reporting by Lucas Jackson in Greenland and Elizabeth Culliford in New York; Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Brian Thevenot) India's decision to cancel rare talks with Islamabad was disappointing and "arrogant", Imran Khan said Saturday, after New Delhi accused Pakistan's prime minister of harbouring an "evil agenda". India pulled the plug on a meeting between its foreign minister and her Pakistani counterpart, set for next week on the sidelines of a major UN conference, just one day after saying it would go ahead. The foreign ministry in New Delhi blamed the about-face on recent actions that had revealed Pakistan's "evil agenda" and the "true face" of Khan, who hit back on Twitter Saturday. "Disappointed at the arrogant & negative response by India to my call for resumption of the peace dialogue," he wrote. "However, all my life I have come across small men occupying big offices who do not have the vision to see the larger picture." New Delhi said it cancelled the talks after the "latest brutal killings of our security personnel by Pakistan-based entities" and the recent release of a series of Pakistani postage stamps "glorifying a terrorist and terrorism". India did not specify which killings it was referring to in its statement, but earlier this week, an Indian border guard in the disputed territory of Kashmir was killed and his body mutilated. Three policemen were then found dead on Friday after being abducted in Indian-administered Kashmir. The two countries' militaries exchanged barbs Saturday over the killings. Indian media quoted army chief Bipin Rawat calling for "stern action to avenge the barbarism that terrorists and the Pakistan Army have been carrying out". In response Pakistan's military spokesman said his country was "ready for war". "We are a nuclear nation and we are ready for war but in the interest of the people of Pakistan and the neighbours and the region we want to walk the path of peace," Major General Asif Ghafoor told private television channel Dunya News. Story continues "The statement from the Indian army chief is irresponsible," he added. Pakistan also recently issued postage stamps of Burhan Wani, a charismatic Kashmiri militant commander killed by Indian troops in July 2016, whose death sparked a wave of violent protests in the territory. India has long accused Pakistan of arming rebel groups in Kashmir, a Himalayan territory divided between the two countries but claimed in full by both. In a statement from its foreign office, Pakistan said Friday it had "nothing to do with" the deaths, accusing India of spreading "motivated and malicious propaganda". The meeting in New York between Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj and Pakistan's Shah Mehmood Qureshi -- on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly debate -- was only confirmed on Thursday. It came after Khan wrote to his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi calling for a resumption of talks between the nuclear-armed foes. High-level talks between India and Pakistan are rare. Indian media said the meeting would have been the first in nearly three years. Milan (AFP) - Italy's fashion industry responded Friday to accusations of widespread underpaid and undeclared subcontracted work in a New York Times article, saying that the problem is limited and already being dealt with. "The problem of irregular employment exists in the world and luxury businesses are the most active in the fight against the phenomenon," said Carlo Capasa, head of the Italian chamber of fashion commerce. "Taking a few units that go underneath the radar seems a little pretentious," he told AFP at Milan Fashion Week after the NYT front-page investigation headlined "Inside Italy's Shadow Economy". The article says "thousands of low-paid home workers create luxury garments without contracts or insurance" and quotes one unnamed woman who is paid around one euro an hour to sew at home. Two other unnamed workers are quoted, one of whom only talks about conditions 10 years ago and the other who does not say how much she is paid. The Italian fashion chamber of commerce put out a statement late Friday in response to the article, saying that the only information about the scale of the problem in the article quoted Tania Toffanin, author of the 2016 book "Fabbriche Invisibili" (Invisible Factories). She "estimated that there are 2,000 to 4,000 irregular home workers in apparel production" in Italy, the NYT wrote. "In the context of an big industry which employes 620,000 people in 67,000 companies, it is clear that irregular workers represent an anomaly," the chamber said. Capasa said that the aim was to have zero irregular workers in the industry. "It will take time but we are doing it." Roberto Manzoni, head of the Italian fashion federation Fismo, meanwhile blamed low wages on the constant drive for consumers to be able to buy more for less. "It's the tyranny of consumers' choice that pushes businesses in the sector to find the least expensive solutions to remain competitive, notably with Asia which manufactures at a low cost," he told AFP. Tuxtla Gutierrez (Mexico) (AFP) - Gunmen on Friday killed a Mexican journalist who had received threats after reporting on corruption in the southern state of Chiapas, his newspaper said, in what was at least the ninth murder of a reporter in the country this year. Mario Gomez, a reporter with El Heraldo de Chiapas, is the latest victim in a wave of violence against the press in Mexico, the second-deadliest country in the world for journalists after war-torn Syria, according to the watchdog group Reporters Without Borders. "He had recently filed a complaint because he was receiving threats," a colleague at the paper told AFP on condition of anonymity. Gomez, 35, had also been threatened in 2016 for publishing articles on corruption by two state officials, according to the media rights group Article 19. El Heraldo said Gomez, a general news correspondent in the town of Yajalon, was leaving his house to go to work when two unidentified men arrived and "murdered him in cold blood" with a series of shots to the abdomen at point-blank range. Gomez was taken to the hospital but died of his wounds, said the paper, where he had worked for the past eight years. "We call for an exhaustive investigation to find those responsible for this crime," his colleagues wrote in an editorial published on the newspaper's website. The state prosecutor's office said in a statement it would "follow all lines of investigation to shed light on this reprehensible crime and bring those responsible to justice." - Dangerous place to work - Racked by violent crime linked to its powerful drug cartels, Mexico registered a record number of murders last year: 28,702. That included at least 11 murdered journalists. Asking questions about the multibillion-dollar narcotics trade, government corruption or the links between the two can be a deadly job in Mexico. Including Gomez, at least nine journalists have been murdered so far this year in the country in possible retaliation for their work. Story continues More than 100 have been murdered in Mexico since 2000. The vast majority of the cases have gone unpunished -- as do more than 90 percent of violent crimes in Mexico. It was not immediately clear whether Gomez was enrolled in the Mexican government's protection program for journalists and human rights activists, launched in 2012 in a bid to stop such crimes. The program provides bodyguards, panic buttons and other protective measures to people at risk. But it suffers from under-funding and has failed to stop several high-profile murders. It risks running out of funding in January, if the government does not bridge a budget gap. Gomez's murder "saddens and burdens us, just as we're facing the lack of resources for the government's protection program for at-risk journalists," said Balbina Flores, Mexico representative for Reporters Without Borders. "We demand a full investigation and a guarantee of security for his family." MOSCOW (Reuters) - Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that by imposing sanctions on buyers of Russian weapons, and on people associated with the Russian military, the United States is trying to squeeze out competitors in the global arms trade. The Trump administration imposed sanctions on the Chinese military on Thursday for buying fighter jets and missile systems from Russia, in breach of a sweeping U.S. sanctions law punishing Moscow for meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, something Russia denies. Peskov called the new sanctions hostile and unpredictable but did not say how Russia would respond. "They use this practice so often that one would trip up reacting to each new instance," the spokesman said. (Reporting by Maria Tsvetkova; Editing by Polina Ivanova and Andrew Osborn) At the talks (Photo: VNA) During the talks, the two sides discussed diverse issues in bilateral ties, expressing their pleasure with the continuously reinforced and increased development in the Vietnam-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership, reflected through high political trust, increasing two-way trade and effective cooperation in defence, security, science, technology, education, training, culture, tourism, people-to-people exchange, and among localities. The two countries relationship will be increased in 2019 when Vietnam Year in Russian Federation and Russian Federation Year in Vietnam are held, together with the official visit to the Russian Federation in early September by the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) General Secretary. Mr. Melnikov stressed that Russias relationship with Vietnam is one of the main pillars in its foreign policy in the Asia-Pacific and Southeast Asia regions, and that Russia and Vietnam share similar stances in addressing regional and international issues, and Russia backs Vietnams efforts to increase its position in the international arena. According to Mr. Melnikov, the relationship among political parties between the two countries is developing actively, especially between the CPRF and CPV. He also suggested that the two sides should pay more attention to educating the young generations about their traditional friendship, and intensify their parliaments and social organisations supervision over the implementation of signed cooperative agreements. For his part, Mr. Man stressed that Vietnam always respects the good traditional relationship with Russia, and its precious assistance for Vietnamese people during their national construction and protection. He also appreciated the effective cooperation between the two parliaments. The Vietnamese National Assembly supports and participates in inter-parliamentary cooperative activities chaired by Russia, such as the Eurasian Women's Forum, he said, adding that he hoped the legislative bodies will continue coordinating closely within the framework of the Asia-Pacific Parliamentary Forum (APPF), the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA) and the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). He expressed his thanks to Russia for making favourable conditions for overseas Vietnamese, and said he hopes Melnikov and Russian authorized offices will continue helping Vietnamese people consolidate their legal status and run businesses in Russia. Acknowledging Mans proposal, Melnikov stated that in the time ahead, both sides can seek measures to address outstanding obstacles in bilateral ties, including issues related to the legal status of the Vietnamese community in Russia./. Beirut (AFP) - Lebanon's navy rescued dozens of people, including Syrians, from a sinking boat off the country's northern coast on Saturday, the military and a security source said, adding one child had died. The military said in a statement it responded early Saturday to a sinking boat with at least 39 Syrian nationals on board "who were heading to Cyprus via an illegal route". "A navy patrol unit immediately headed there, retrieved the body of a five-year-old child and rescued the rest" of the passengers, it said. Four of those rescued were taken to nearby hospitals with the help of the Lebanese Red Cross, the statement added. The Red Cross confirmed to AFP that it was involved in the rescues, but declined to give any further details. A security source told AFP that Palestinian refugees were also among those rescued. "The child who died was a Palestinian refugee from the Nahr al-Bared camp," in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, the source said. The four people being treated in hospital included one Palestinian woman and three Syrians, the source added. The United Nations' refugee agency (UNHCR) has registered nearly one million Syrian refugees in Lebanon. Humanitarian representatives and government officials say the number is likely much higher, since many refugees who have fled Syria's civil war to Lebanon are not officially registered with the United Nations. Tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees also live in Lebanon, in a dozen squalid camps spread across the country. Earlier this month, Cyprus announced it was looking to broker a repatriation agreement with Beirut because of an increased influx of migrants from Lebanon to the Mediterranean island. Interior Minister Constantinos Petrides said his country faces one of the largest migratory flows per capita, with 4,022 asylum requests in the first eight months of 2018 -- 55 percent more than in the same period last year. By Andrius Sytas VILNIUS (Reuters) - Pope Francis said at the start of a four-day trip to the Baltics on Saturday that Lithuania should see its painful past under Soviet and Nazi domination as an impetus to promote tolerance in Europe. Francis, on the first trip by a pope to the region since 1993, is using his visit to carry a message of solidarity for Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia as they look warily toward a newly aggressive Russia nearly 30 years after they broke away from the then-Soviet Union. In his first speech, he warned Lithuanians to beware those "sowing division and confrontation often by exploiting insecurity or situations of conflict and proclaiming that the only way possible to guarantee security and the continued existence of a culture is to try to eliminate, cancel or expel others." While he did not mention any countries, he appeared to be referring to populist governments in several European countries, including neighboring Poland, Hungary and Italy, all of which have made political gains with anti-immigrant stands. "Throughout its history, Lithuania was able to shelter, receive and accept peoples of various ethnic groups and religions," Francis said in a speech to President Dalia Grybauskaite and the diplomatic corps. He praised the country's ability to overcome "totalitarian ideologies," a reference to the Nazi occupation during World War Two and Soviet domination from 1944 to 1991. "You have suffered 'in the flesh' those efforts to impose a single model that would annul differences ....," he said, adding that Lithuanians could offer their experiences "to the European Community in particular." Francis said Lithuania, which like the other two Baltic states is a member of the European Union and NATO, should use its history and geographic position to be "a bridge between Eastern and Western Europe". On Sunday, the pope will visit the Museum of Occupations and Fights for Freedom, a former Soviet KGB prison in Vilnius where hundreds were murdered and thousands, including many priests, shipped off to Siberia. The Catholic Church in Lithuania took a consistently anti-Soviet position during the annexation, and Grybauskaite thanked Francis for the Vatican's support when Lithuania was under Moscow's thumb. The pope also will pray at a monument to the victims of the Vilnius ghetto, where only several hundred of its some 40,000 residents survived the Nazi extermination. More than 200,000 Lithuanian Jews perished in the Holocaust and during the Soviet period a similar number of Lithuanians were sent to Siberia. The pontiff will spend two days in predominantly Catholic Lithuania before moving on to Latvia and then Estonia. (Editing by Philip Pullella) (Reuters) - Loblaw Cos Ltd's drugstore chain on Friday received approval from Health Canada to be a licensed producer of cannabis for medical purposes. "As trusted medication experts, we believe pharmacists have an important role to play in the safe and informed use of medical cannabis, and this is the first step in our journey to provide medical cannabis to our patients," Loblaw said in an emailed statement. Shoppers Drug Mart can now label and test associated products under the health regulator's Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations. After the production license, companies require a cannabis sales license to dispense medical marijuana. Canadian cannabis producers in the past few months have been signing up deals with distributors as the country legalizes recreational marijuana in October. (Reporting by Shanti S Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel) Mexico City (AFP) - Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Friday that his country will seek a bilateral trade deal with Canada if negotiations fall through for a new North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The United States and Canada are holding a flurry of talks aimed at keeping NAFTA a three-country deal, after the US and Mexico reached their own deal that President Donald Trump says may or may not end up including Ottawa. But the latest round of negotiations ended Thursday with no signs of a compromise to bring Canada into the deal. Mexico has repeatedly said it wants the updated version of the 25-year-old NAFTA to remain a three-country deal -- a stance reiterated by Lopez Obrador, who takes office on December 1. But if all else fails, "we'd have to keep the deal (with the United States) and try to reach a similar one with Canada," he said in the northern state of Sonora. "Obviously we can't cut ties with either." The anti-establishment leftist, who won Mexico's July elections in a landslide, said he has had good relations so far with the Trump administration. "I hope with all my heart it stays that way," he said. "We're neighbors. We can't be distant neighbors. We have to achieve a relationship of respect and cooperation." US-Mexican relations have been strained over Trump's anti-Mexican insults, his insistence on overhauling the "terrible" NAFTA deal, and his vows to make Mexico pay for a wall on the border. But despite their ideological differences, Lopez Obrador and Trump have hit it off. The leftist leader known as "AMLO" has notably wooed the Republican billionaire with talk of stemming the flow of migration to the United States by promoting economic development in Mexico. Lopez Obrador, 64, posted a video on Twitter from the border fence between Sonora and the US state of Arizona in which he vowed to keep would-be migrants on the Mexican side by launching an economic development corridor in the border region from January 1. His plan, which would notably double the minimum wage and slash taxes along the border, would act as a "curtain," rather than a wall, to keep would-be migrants in Mexico, he said. Tehran (AFP) - Iranian President Hassan Rouhani vowed a "crushing" response after assailants sprayed a crowd with gunfire, shooting dead at least 29 people including women and children Saturday at a military parade near the Iraqi border. The Islamic State (IS) group claimed responsibility for the rare assault in the southwestern city of Ahvaz, while Iranian officials blamed "a foreign regime" backed by the United States. A local journalist who witnessed the attack said shots rang out for 10 to 15 minutes and that at least one of the assailants, armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, wore the uniform of Iran's Revolutionary Guards. "We realised it was a terrorist attack as bodyguards (of officials) started shooting," Behrad Ghasemi told AFP. "Everything went haywire and soldiers started running." "The terrorists had no particular target and didn't really seem to care as they shot anyone they could with rapid gunfire." Ahvaz lies in Khuzestan, a province bordering Iraq that has a large ethnic Arab community and has seen separatist violence in the past that Iran has blamed on its regional rivals. Iran summoned diplomats from Denmark, the Netherlands and Britain over their "hosting of some members of the terrorist group" which carried out the attack, state media said Sunday. "It is not acceptable that the European Union does not blacklist members of these terrorist groups as long as they do not perpetrate a crime on... European soil," official news agency IRNA quoted foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi as saying. After addressing a similar parade in Tehran to commemorate the start of the 1980-1988 war with Iraq, Rouhani warned that "the response of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the smallest threat will be crushing". Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the attack was carried out by "terrorists recruited, trained, armed & paid by a foreign regime". Story continues "Iran holds regional terror sponsors and their US masters accountable for such attacks," he wrote on Twitter. - 'Bloody crime' - IS claimed the attack via its propaganda mouthpiece Amaq and, according to intelligence monitor SITE, said the attack was in response to Iranian involvement in conflicts across the region. State television gave a toll of 29 dead and 57 wounded, while IRNA said those killed included women and children who were spectators at the parade. Three attackers were killed at the scene and the fourth died later of his injuries, said armed forces spokesman Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi. The Revolutionary Guards accused Shiite-dominated Iran's Sunni arch-rival Saudi Arabia of funding the attackers, while Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also blamed Iran's pro-US rivals. Tehran-backed Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah condemned the "terrorist" attack, saying that "repulsive Satanic hands" were behind it. "This operation was a continuation of the other forms of war the United States and its allies are waging, directly or indirectly," it said. In a message to Russia's close regional ally, President Vladimir Putin said he was "appalled by this bloody crime", while Syria, another ally, neighbouring Turkey and France also expressed condolences. Khuzestan was a major battleground of the 1980s war with Iraq and the province saw unrest in 2005 and 2011, but has since been largely quiet. Kurdish rebels frequently attack military patrols on the border further north, but attacks on regime targets in major cities are rare. On June 7, 2017 in Tehran, 17 people were killed and dozens wounded in simultaneous attacks on the parliament and on the tomb of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini -- the first inside Iran claimed by IS. In April, 26 alleged members of the Sunni extremist group went on trial in connection with the attacks. - Rouhani defiant - The attack in Ahvaz came as Rouhani and other dignitaries attended the main anniversary parade in Tehran. In a keynote speech, he vowed to boost Iran's ballistic missile capabilities, despite Western concerns that were cited by his US counterpart Donald Trump in May when he abandoned a landmark nuclear deal with Tehran. "We will never decrease our defensive capabilities... we will increase them day by day," Rouhani said. "The fact that the missiles anger (the West) shows they are our most effective weapons." The United States reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran last month, and another round of even harsher sanctions targeting Iran's vital oil sector is set to go back into effect on November 5. Washington has said it is ready to open talks on a new agreement to replace the July 2015 accord, but Tehran has repeatedly said it cannot negotiate under pressure from sanctions. Rouhani leaves Sunday for New York to attend next week's United Nations General Assembly along with Trump, but Iran has repeatedly ruled out any meeting. A newly released Pentagon study revealed that many sexual assaults in the U.S. military occur across the globe at a relatively small number of bases and naval ships, including some installations where more than 500 incidents occurred in a single year. The 119-page study, conducted by Rand Corporation, surveyed American service members to uncover where troops were most at risk of sexual assault and harassment. In many cases, installations with large populations of younger, single, and more-junior-ranking service members had a greater probability of these incidents occurring. Each service members estimated risk of being sexually assaulted in the next year depends, to a surprising extent, on his or her duty assignment to a particular unit, command, and installation, the study said. Navy sailors assigned to ships at sea, for instance, were among the most predatory installations for women to be sexually assaulted. Ships dominate the highest-risk installations, the study said. Of the 15 highest-risk installations for Navy women, 13 are ships or clusters of ships, including eight of the ten aircraft carriers. Assaults most often occurred on training bases in the Army and Marine Corps. Both of the services were found to have installations where Rand estimated that in fiscal year 2014 there were more than 500 sexual assaults of men and women: Fort Hood, Fort Bragg, Fort Lewis, Fort Campbell, Fort Bliss, and Camp Lejeune. The study found that sexual assault risk for women in the Air Force was lower than the average for women in other services, but the top three bases where it did most often occur were all focused on undergraduate pilot training. Military installations in the Washington, D.C.-region, such as the Pentagon, were reportedly the safest places to work across all the branches. The Pentagon commissioned the study, entitled Estimates for Installation- and Command-Level Risk of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment, with the aim of identifying risk factors and locations where sexual misconduct most often occurs. The Defense Department has spent years launching various initiatives aimed at combating rape and sexual assault within U.S. military services without reporting significant progress. Story continues By targeting prevention, training, and other interventions at the largest and highest-risk installations, the services might efficiently make important reductions in their sexual assault rates, the study said. Air Force Major Carla Gleason, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said the Defense Department requested the study in order to provide installation commanders with early warning signals to help prevent sexual misconduct. Using advanced statistical modeling with 2014 data, RAND developed sexual assault risk estimates for large military installations, ships, and commands worldwide, she said. The results are a valuable first look at how the Department can approach estimating sexual assault risk at installations. Rand said more than 1700,000 active duty service and Coast Guard members completed an online sexual assault and sexual harassment survey fielded in August and September 2014. More than 560,000 were invited to participate. The findings, which are now four years old, did not provide direct information about where the assaults occurred. They may have occurred in the local community, in off-base housing, during off-base training exercises, or on the installation, the study said. For example, when referring to rates of sexual assault for personnel assigned to the USS George Washington, we do not infer that all such assaults occurred while sailors were on that ship. The study is the latest document to detail the U.S. militarys long-running sexual assault problems. In April, an Pentagons annual report stated the number of alleged assaults spiked across all four military branches. The highest increase came from the Marine Corps, which remains embroiled in a scandal in which nude photographs of female Marines were posted online without their knowledge. A total of 6,769 men and women reported assaults in the year that ended Sept. 30, up from 6,172 a year earlier. The reports came in from uniformed service members and civilian workers. It was the highest number of reported assaults since at least 2006, the last year the Pentagon has available on the data. Rod Rosenstein and Donald Trump have had a rocky relationship over the deputy attorney general's year-and-a-half tenure. (Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters) The fate of special counsel Robert Muellers Trump-Russia investigation could hinge on whether Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein can convince President Donald Trump that he didnt float a plot to overthrow him or that he was just joking when he did. Rosenstein is the key figure standing between Trump and an independent investigation that could reveal whether the president colluded with Russia to swing the 2016 election in his favor. Trump had long floated the idea of firing Mueller but has apparently been convinced by his aides that such a move would backfire. Instead, he has considered an only slightly subtler approach: firing Rosenstein, who oversees the Mueller probe, and replacing him with a political ally who would get rid of the special counsel. The only thing missing from this plan was a pretext for firing Rosenstein. Now Trump may have it. The New York Times reported Friday that Rosenstein last year suggested secretly recording conversations with Trump and invoking the 25th Amendment to remove the president from office on the grounds that he is unfit to serve. The Washington Post later also reported the story. Both articles rely heavily on people who werent in the room, many of whom disagree on the tone of Rosensteins remarks about recording Trump and whether he even mentioned the 25th Amendment. Rosenstein said in a statement Friday that the Times story is factually incorrect and that he saw no reason to invoke the 25th Amendment. He later told Politico: I never pursued or authorized recording the President and any suggestion that I have ever advocated for the removal of the President is absolutely false. One source who was in the room for a May 16, 2017, meeting said in a statement to HuffPost that Rosenstein was being sarcastic when he suggested law enforcement officials wear a wire while talking to Trump, echoing similar defenses of Rosenstein quoted in the Times and the Post. Rod Rosenstein became the top Justice Department official overseeing Mueller's investigation after Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the matter. (Photo: Saul Loeb/Getty Images) It is possible that Rosensteins words were taken out of context, a former Justice Department official who has worked with Rosenstein but wasnt present during the meeting told HuffPost. Rosenstein has an affinity for dad jokes, the former official said, and sometimes cracks jokes to ease tension during stressful conversations. The meetings in question happened during a particularly stressful time: a week after Comey was fired and the day before Rosenstein named Mueller as special counsel. Story continues The former official doubted Rosenstein would bring up the 25th Amendment, if only because of how difficult it would be to carry out. Anyone who has spent two minutes Googling the 25th Amendment knows that its a near impossible task, and Rod Rosenstein is not the kind of person to throw out harebrained schemes to people that hes only recently been working with, Rosensteins former colleague added. But other sources in the room briefed on the remarks were under the impression that Rosenstein was being serious and that spinning the comments as a joke is part of an effort to save Rosensteins job. Both articles cite memos written at the time by Andrew McCabe, then the acting FBI director, in which he noted Rosenstein discussing the 25th Amendment and wearing a wire. Michael Bromwich, McCabes lawyer, did not deny the description of the memos, but he said McCabe didnt leak the documents. McCabe gave the memos to Muellers office more than a year ago, according to Bromwich, and a set of the memos remained at the FBI office until McCabe was fired in January. Despite efforts to downplay the seriousness of Rosensteins private comments, it is almost inevitable that Trump will view this as an opportunity to fire the deputy attorney general and replace him with a political loyalist. Trump appointed Rosenstein as deputy attorney general in April 2017. Rosenstein, a lifelong Republican, was an establishment choice to take over the critical No. 2 position running the day-to-day operations of the Justice Department. He and Attorney General Jeff Sessions barely knew one another, and Trump didnt know Rosenstein at all. In one of Rosensteins first moves as deputy attorney general, he volunteered to write a memo criticizing then-FBI Director James Comeys handling of the investigation into Hillary Clintons use of a private email server after Trump told Rosenstein he wanted to fire Comey. Trump pointed to Rosensteins memo as the justification for firing Comey even though he later admitted he fired the FBI director in an attempt to shut down the bureaus investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. It never made much sense that Rosenstein wrote the Comey memo. Even if he was horrified by Comeys handling of the Clinton investigation, even the most politically unsavvy of people could predict how Trump would use such a document. According to the Times, Rosenstein didnt see it coming. He felt used and sounded frantic, nervous, upset and emotionally dis-regulated, the Times reported earlier this year. Trump blaming Rosenstein for Comeys ouster was what prompted Rosenstein to discuss recording the president and the 25th Amendment, according to Fridays article in the Times. Trump turned on Rosenstein after the deputy attorney general appointed a special counsel to oversee the Trump-Russia probe a little more than a week after Comeys firing. Rosenstein appointed Mueller on May 17, 2017, the day after a meeting in which he reportedly discussed recording Trump. Since then, Trump has been desperate to get rid of Mueller, whose special counsel team has secured several guilty pleas from former Trump advisers and turned some of them into cooperating witnesses. Rosenstein has become an easy target for Trump and his allies, who have twisted his words before. In July, House Republicans threatened Rosenstein with impeachment and even accused him of threatening a staffer (though the actual story, unsurprisingly, wasnt as nefarious as theyd claimed). Eventually Rosenstein appeared to tire of the attacks. In a May speech, he announced that the Justice Department is not going to get extorted a remark that appeared to be aimed at House Republicans. Because the Times did not disclose whether its key sources are close to the White House, its unclear whether the story might stem from an effort to discredit Rosenstein and, by extension, the entire Justice Department and the special counsel investigation. But, regardless of the context, Rosensteins private comments could finally provide Trump the excuse hes been looking for to get rid of an investigation that has been gradually snaring some of his closest allies. Related Coverage House Republicans Move To Impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein Rod Rosenstein Suggested Recording Trump And Invoking 25th Amendment: Reports Why Rod Rosenstein Reportedly Considered Secretly Recording President Trump Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. MEXICO CITY (AP) A reporter for the newspaper El Heraldo de Chiapas in southern Mexico was shot to death Friday as he left his home to work on a story, the publication said. El Heraldo said journalist Mario Gomez, 35, was attacked by two men outside his home in Yajalon, a town in a jungle area of Chiapas state near the border with Guatemala. Gomez is at least the 10th news worker to be killed in Mexico this year. The newspaper said Gomez had worked for it for almost a decade covering all kinds of events in the region. The area was at the epicenter of the 1994 Zapatista uprising and political violence and conflicts over land are frequent. In a statement, El Heraldo demanded that authorities conduct "a thorough investigation to find those responsible." The Chiapas state prosecutor's office issued a statement Friday night condemning the killing and pledging to "exhaust all lines of investigation." It did not provide any details of the shooting. DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) Pakistan hopes to have learned its lesson from a heavy group-stage loss to India when the two rivals meet again in the Asia Cup on Sunday, this time at the Super Four stage. After the group defeat, Pakistan narrowly avoided humiliation when Sarfraz Ahmed's team beat Afghanistan in its opening Super Four match with just three balls to spare in Abu Dhabi. Also Friday, in Dubai, India easily beat Bangladesh by seven wickets. India thrashed Pakistan by eight wickets with 21 overs to spare in their last encounter and will take confidence from that win into Sunday's game at Dubai International Stadium. The same stadium hosts the final on Friday. Pakistan still appears annoyed by India playing only in Dubai, while other teams face a nearly 90-minute bus journey for some matches in Abu Dhabi. Bangladesh captain Mashrafe Mortaza has also criticized this arrangement. Ahmed said earlier in the tournament: "I believe things should be even for all teams, whether that's India, Pakistan or anyone else. If matches are played in Abu Dhabi, then all teams must play a game or two there." Defending champion India, despite losing Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel and Shardul Thakur to injury during the tournament, has looked the strongest team so far. India is expected to field the same lineup that defeated Bangladesh. Pakistan dropped struggling fast bowler Mohammed Amir against Afghanistan, but he may be recalled after the team's unconvincing bowling display. Left-arm medium-pacer Shaheen Afridi took two wickets against Afghanistan, but the newcomer might not be risked against the experienced Indian batting lineup. India's bowling unit has played well in the conditions apart from conceding an opening 174-run stand against Hong Kong. India captain Rohit Sharma, who has scored 52 and an unbeaten 83 in the last two matches, expressed satisfaction with his bowling attack. "The bowlers have done a very good job and stuck to their plans. Spinners (Yuzvendra) Chahal and Kuldeep (Yadav) did not get any wickets (against Bangladesh), but they are allowed a day off and (Ravindra) Jadeja stepped up with four wickets," Sharma said. Story continues "It is a big match for us again and we just hope to recover well and continue to repeat the same performance against Pakistan." On Wednesday, Pakistan once again travels to Abu Dhabi for its last Super Four match against Bangladesh, a day after India plays Afghanistan in Dubai. ___ More AP sports: https://apnews.com/tag/apf-sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports GAZA (Reuters) - One Palestinian was killed and dozens other wounded when Israeli forces opened fire during a weekly demonstration near the Israel-Gaza border on Friday, Gaza's Health Ministry said. The Israeli army said soldiers had come under attack by Palestinians who hurled grenades, explosive devices, burning tyres and rocks at them and the border fence. The soldiers, the military said, responded with "riot dispersal means" and fired "in accordance with standard operating procedures". It said an Israeli aircraft also carried out strikes in Gaza. A position belonging to the Hamas Islamist group that runs the Gaza Strip was hit, according to witnesses. Gaza's Health Ministry spokesman said one Palestinian was killed and 54 others were wounded by live fire. One Israeli soldier was lightly wounded, the army said. Since Gazans began holding weekly border protests on March 30, the Israeli army has killed 183 Palestinians and wounded thousands. A Gaza sniper has killed an Israeli soldier. Israel says Hamas deliberately provokes violence at the protests, a charge Hamas denies. (Reporting by Saleh Salem) Vilnius (AFP) - Pope Francis kicks off a Baltic tour in Catholic Lithuania on Saturday where he will honour victims of the region's Nazi and Soviet occupations as the Church reels from fresh clerical abuse scandals. The four-day trip to the northeastern edge of the European Union and NATO alliance brings him geographically close to Russia, where Vatican diplomats have been trying for years to arrange a papal visit. The pontiff will also visit mainly Protestant Latvia on Monday and secular Estonia on Tuesday as all three Baltic states mark 100 years of independence this year. But the celebrations risk being overshadowed by a fresh wave of devastating claims of sexual abuse by clergy across the globe. - Allegations of abuse - Scandals in Australia, Europe, and North and South America have involved widespread claims of abuse -- and cover-ups -- by clergymen and lay members with one archbishop describing it as the church's "own 9/11". Pope Francis has called for a meeting of the heads of Catholic bishops' conferences at the Vatican next February to discuss the issue of the "protection of minors". However, the pontiff has kept a stony silence regarding claims he had ignored allegations of abuse that were reported to him. U2 frontman Bono said he could see the pain on Francis's face after a Wednesday meeting when he told the pope that "it looks to some people that the abusers are being more protected than the victims". Church authorities in Germany are expected to officially publish a study detailing decades of child sex abuse by priests as Francis winds down his trip on Tuesday. According to the study, 1,670 clergymen in Germany committed some form of sexual attack against 3,677 minors between 1946 and 2014, Spiegel Online reported earlier this month quoting leaked data. - 'Sacrifices, freedom' - Francis will meet President Dalia Grybauskaite in Vilnius on Saturday before addressing youth and visiting a revered icon. Story continues His trip will follow in the footsteps of late Polish-born pontiff Saint John Paul II, who travelled to all three Baltic states in 1993, just two years after they broke free from the crumbling Soviet Union. The trio have since firmly anchored their sovereignty in alliances with the West by joining both NATO and the EU in 2004. While that led to solid economic growth, it also brought social inequality that triggered mass emigration to western Europe -- a troubling trend for states with populations ranging from 1.3 to 2.9 million. The last century of Baltic state history was marked by the Nazi invasion -- which wiped out almost all of the region's Jews -- and then decades of Soviet occupation during the Cold War. Behind the Iron Curtain, the Catholic Church played a key role in the non-violent anti-Soviet resistance, especially in Lithuania, the only Catholic-majority country of the three. "The Church was a fortress for all dissidents, not only Catholics. It strongly resisted Sovietisation and defended the rights of believers," historian Terese Birute Burauskaite told AFP. As a result, it was persecuted with both priests and bishops killed by the authorities. Vilnius estimates that more than 50,000 Lithuanians died in camps, prisons, and during deportations between 1944 and 1953. Another 20,000 partisans and supporters were killed in anti-Soviet guerilla warfare. "I will honour all those whose past sacrifices have made freedom possible in the present," the pontiff said in a Thursday video message addressed to the people of the Baltic states. Francis will visit a museum in the former KGB building in Vilnius where regime opponents were tortured and killed. He will also honour Holocaust victims at the ghetto memorial in Vilnius, known as the "Jerusalem of the North" for its vibrant Jewish community prior to WWII. Around 200,000 Lithuanian Jews died at the hands of the Nazis and local collaborators under the 1941-44 German occupation. Today there are only around 3,000 Jews left in the country of 2.9 million people. Vilnius (AFP) - Pope Francis began a Baltic tour in Catholic Lithuania on Saturday, honouring victims of the region's Nazi and Soviet occupations as the Church scrambles to contain the fallout from fresh clerical abuse scandals. The four-day trip to the northeastern edge of the European Union and NATO alliance brings him geographically close to Russia, where Vatican diplomats have been trying for years to arrange a papal visit. The pontiff will travel to mainly Protestant Latvia on Monday and secular Estonia on Tuesday as all three Baltic states mark 100 years of independence this year. "It has been a century marked by your bearing numerous trials and suffering; detentions, deportations and even martyrdom," Francis told Catholic faithful who waved yellow, green and red national flags as greeted him in Vilnius. The last century of Baltic history was marked by the Nazi invasion -- which wiped out almost all of the region's Jews -- and then decades of Soviet occupation during the Cold War. Behind the Iron Curtain, the Catholic Church played a key role in the non-violent anti-Soviet resistance, especially in Lithuania, the only Catholic-majority country of the three. As a result, it was persecuted with both priests and bishops killed by totalitarian authorities. Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite called the pope's visit a "precious gift" for the centennial. - 'Sowing division' - Vilnius estimates that more than 50,000 Lithuanians died in camps, prisons, and during deportations between 1944 and 1953. Another 20,000 partisans and supporters were killed in anti-Soviet guerilla warfare. Francis also called on Lithuania, now an EU and NATO member of 2.9 million people, to draw on the difficult lessons of its turbulent history to become a "bridge between Eastern and Western Europe". In an apparent reference to the surge of far-right anti-migrant movements in Europe, the pontiff also warned that there were "more and voices sowing division and confrontation... and proclaiming that the only way possible to guarantee security and the continued existence of a culture is to try to eliminate, cancel or expel others." Story continues Francis will honour victims of Soviet-era persecution during a visit to a museum in the former KGB building in Vilnius on Sunday where regime opponents were tortured and killed. And he will pray at a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. - 'Church's 9/11' - The pope's first foray into the Baltics risks being overshadowed by a fresh wave of devastating claims of sexual abuse committed by clergy across the globe. Scandals in Australia, Europe, and North and South America have involved widespread claims of abuse -- and cover-ups -- by clergymen and lay members with one archbishop describing it as the church's "own 9/11". Francis on Friday accepted the resignations of two more bishops from Chile, which is investigating more than 100 cases of sexual abuse by the clergy. He has called for a meeting of the heads of Catholic bishops' conferences at the Vatican next February to discuss the issue of the "protection of minors". However, the pontiff has kept a stony silence regarding claims he had ignored allegations of abuse that were reported to him. After a meeting with the pope on Wednesday, rock band U2's frontman Bono said he could see the pain on Francis's face when he told him that "it looks to some people that the abusers are being more protected than the victims". Church authorities in Germany are expected to officially publish a study detailing decades of child sex abuse by priests as Francis winds down his Baltic trip on Tuesday. The pope's Baltic journey follows in the footsteps of late Polish-born pontiff Saint John Paul II, who travelled to all three Baltic states in 1993, just two years after they broke free from the crumbling Soviet Union. The trio have since firmly anchored their future in alliances with the West by joining both NATO and the EU in 2004. A prominent food researcher has resigned from his post at Cornell University after an investigation found major issues with his research. Six of his high-profile journal articles were retracted earlier this week. Brian Wansink, known for his buzzy behavioral science studies focusing on food, has been removed from all research and teaching at Cornell following an internal investigation that revealed academic misconduct, the school announced in a statement Thursday. The committee found that Professor Wansink committed academic misconduct in his research and scholarship, including misreporting of research data, problematic statistical techniques, failure to properly document and preserve research results, and inappropriate authorship, a statement says. The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) announced Wednesday that six of Wansinks research articles published in its network of journals had been retracted after JAMA raised concerns about their validity. After conducting an evaluation, Cornell told JAMA editors: We regret that, because we do not have access to the original data, we cannot assure you that the results of the studies are valid. The retracted studies many of which were widely publicized by media outlets, including TIME were published from 2005 to 2014 and covered topics including the effects of eating from large bowls, grocery shopping while hungry, eating while watching action movies and the consequences of eating everything on your plate. Wansink has had 13 scientific articles retracted during his career, including one that was retracted, replaced and retracted again, according to the blog Retraction Watch. He told CNN on Thursday, before Cornells statement was released, that he stands by the results of the six studies recently pulled by JAMA. Wansinks resignation at Cornell takes effect at the end of the academic year, the school said. Among his other duties at the school, he directed the Cornell Food and Brand Lab. SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) Clapping and raising their hands to the sky, hundreds of people clad in white gathered at an 18th-century fort in the Puerto Rican capital on Thursday to remember the thousands who died in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria as the U.S. territory struggles to recover one year after the Category 4 storm hit. Religious leaders and government officials recalled how Puerto Rico was ravaged by the storm that killed an estimated 2,975 people and caused more than an estimated $100 billion in damage. Tens of thousands remain without adequate shelter or reliable electrical power, a sad fact that Gov. Ricardo Rossello noted on Thursday. "After that catastrophic experience, we acknowledge how complex and difficult it is to prepare for a hurricane of that magnitude and fury," Rosello said. "The best tribute we can give these people, these brothers that we've lost, is to build a better Puerto Rico for their sons, their grandsons and their families." While the U.S. government has invested billions of dollars to help clean up and repair the U.S. territory, much work remains. Major power outages are still being reported, tens of thousands of insurance claims are still pending and nearly 60,000 homes still have temporary roofs unable to withstand a Category 1 hurricane. "I think it's inexplicable," Kumi Naidoo, Amnesty International's secretary general, told The Associated Press during a visit to the island Thursday. "There's no justifiable reason I can see for this gross level of negligence." Across the island, people marked the one-year anniversary with gatherings large and small, solemn and anger-tinged and at times, even hopeful. In the coastal fishing and farming village of Yabucoa, the strains of one of Puerto Rico's most beloved songs filled the air at 6:15 a.m., the exact moment the storm made landfall there one year ago. Tarps still covered many homes that have yet to be rebuilt in the town of 37,000, even as the nostalgic strains of "Amanecer Borincano" "Puerto Rican Dawn" resonated at the spot where Maria first unleashed its fury. Story continues "I am the light of the morning that illuminates new paths," a choir sang as dozens of local officials and residents gathered there. "I am the son of palm trees, of fields and rivers." In San Juan, the crowd of worshippers gathered at the 230-year-old San Cristobal fort sang and prayed along with pastors and musicians on stage, with music echoing through the fort's heavy walls as the sun slowly sank into the sea behind them. Pastor Elder Gonzalez said he and other volunteers who flew to Puerto Rico after the hurricane to help were shocked at what he saw from up high. "To see the island of enchantment was a deep and painful experience," he said. "No one on the plane said a word." Government officials argue that many changes have been made to better prepare Puerto Rico for future storms, but they acknowledge that significant obstacles remain. Jose Ortiz, director of Puerto Rico's Electric Power Authority, told reporters that 20 percent of repairs made to the power grid need to be redone. He said crews didn't have access to the best materials at the time or were forced to rely on temporary fixes, such as using trees as makeshift power polls after Maria destroyed up to 75 percent of transmission lines. In addition, municipal officials have complained that reconstruction efforts are too slow. Ariel Soto, assistant to the mayor of the mountain town of Morovis, said that 220 families there remain without a proper roof. "We're still waiting for help," he said. "This hit us hard." In San Juan, among those still living under a blue tarp during the peak of hurricane season was Sixta Gladys Pena, a 72-year-old community leader. "You worry, because you think it's going to fly off like it did before," she said. "We've lost an entire year and nothing has been resolved. You feel powerless." On Thursday, Ben Carson, secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, announced in San Juan that $1.5 billion was being released to Puerto Rico as part of the overall $20 billion pledged for rebuilding, the largest in the agency's history. Officials said the priority is to help people still living under tarps, as well as those in low- and middle-income housing. The money will be used to repair and rebuild homes, relocate people and help them obtain property titles if needed. "The path forward is challenging and will be measured not in months, but really in years," Carson said. In recent weeks, Puerto Ricans have become increasingly angry and frustrated as President Donald Trump touted what he said was a "fantastic" response to Hurricane Maria, calling it an "unsung success" as he denied the official death toll without presenting any evidence. On Thursday, Trump issued a one-sentence statement on the one-year anniversary of Maria. "We stand with Puerto Rico, and we are helping them to rebuild stronger and better than ever before," it said. Nivia Rodriguez, a 60-year-old retiree whose uncle died a week after Maria, is among those disgruntled by Trump's comments, as well as by videos of rescue crews responding to Hurricane Florence in North Carolina. "They saved five dogs that were drowning," she said of the rescue effort after Florence hit, adding that she feels Puerto Rico didn't get the same treatment. "That hits you." Like many, Rodriguez hoped that after Thursday, she would no longer be bombarded by photos and videos that make her feel like she's reliving Hurricane Maria. "It's too much," she said. But others felt that Maria's tragic legacy still needs to be acknowledged, even long after the anniversary has passed. Among them was a group of artists unveiling an exhibition called simply, "6:15 A.M." Artist Omar Banuchi, who organized the exhibit, said he was reluctant at first, in part because he didn't know how to approach the subject. "It's something that affected all of us and keeps affecting us," he said. He said the exhibition walks a fine line, with some paintings showing beautiful landscapes alongside trailers set up by Puerto Rico's forensics institute as part of the effort to try to identify the bodies of those who perished in the storm. There also will be live music that will incorporate sounds of the hurricane hitting the island. "The point is for people to have a good time," Banuchi said. "But there will be certain uncomfortable moments. ... Maria is still a difficult topic." ___ For more of AP's coverage on the anniversary of Hurricane Maria, go to: https://apnews.com/tag/HurricaneMaria'sToll RAF Typhoons intercepted two Russian Blackjack long-range bombers over the North Sea - David Rose RAF Typhoon fighter aircraft were scrambled to monitor two Russian planes approaching UK airspace, the Ministry of Defence has said. The Russian Blackjack long-range bombers were not talking to air traffic control, making them a hazard to all other aviation, the department said. RAF Lossiemouth-based fighter jets intercepted the bombers over the North Sea between 40 and 100 nautical miles from the coast, according to the RAF. They added the Russian aircraft were in the UK "area of interest", although they did not enter UK territorial airspace. Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said: "Russian bombers probing UK airspace is another reminder of the very serious military challenge that Russia poses us today. "We will not hesitate to continually defend our skies from acts of aggression. Once again the rapid reactions of our RAF have demonstrated how vital our Armed Forces are in protecting Britain." Russian aircraft are routinely intercepted, identified and escorted by the RAF. Eliminating dead-but-toxic cells occurring naturally in the brains of mice designed to mimic Alzheimer's slowed neuron damage and memory loss associated with the disease, according to a study published Wednesday that could open a new front in the fight against dementia. The accumulation in the body of "zombie cells" that can no longer divide but still cause harm to other healthy cells, a process called senescence, is common to all mammals. Scientists have long known that these dead-beat cells gather in regions of the brain linked to old age diseases ranging from osteoarthritis and atherosclerosis to Parkinson's and dementia. Prior research had also shown that the elimination of senescent cells in ageing mice extended their healthy lifespan. But the new results, published in Nature, are the first to demonstrate a cause-and-effect link with a specific disease, Alzheimer's, the scientists said. But any treatments that might emerge from the research are many years down the road, they cautioned. In experiments, a team led by Tyler Bussian of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota used mice genetically modified to produce the destructive, cobweb-like tangles of tau protein that form in the neurons of Alzheimer's patients. The mice were also programmed to allow for the elimination of "zombie" cells in the same region. "When senescent cells were removed, we found that the diseased animals retained the ability to form memories, and eliminated signs of inflammation," said senior author Darren Baker, also from the Mayo Clinic. The mice likewise failed to develop Alzheimer's signature protein "tangles", and retained normal brain mass. - Keeping zombies at bay - A closer look revealed that the "zombies" belonged to a class of cells in the brain and spinal cord, called glia, that provide crucial support and insulation to neurons. "Preventing the build-up of senescent glia can block the cognitive decline and neuro-degeneration normally experienced by these mice," Jay Penney and Li-Huei Tsai, both from MIT, wrote in a comment, also in Nature. Story continues Bussian and his team duplicated the results with pharmaceuticals, suggesting that drugs could one day slow or block the emergence of Alzheimer's by keeping these zombie cells at bay. "There hasn't been a new dementia drug in 15 years, so it's exciting to see the results of this promising study in mice," said James Pickett, head of research at Alzheimer's Society in London. For Lawrence Rajendran, deputy director of the Dementia Research Institute at King's College London, the findings "open up new vistas for both diagnosis and therapy for neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's." Up to now, dementia research has been mostly focused on the diseased neurons rather than their neighbouring cells. "It is increasingly becoming clear that other brains cells play a defining role," Rajendran added. Several barriers remain before the breakthrough can be translated into a "safe, effective treatment in people," Pickett and other said. The elderly often have lots of harmless brain cells that look like the dangerous senescent cells a drug would target, so the molecule would have to be good at telling the two apart. Worldwide, about seven percent of people over 65 suffer from Alzheimer's or some form of dementia, a percentage that rises to 40 percent above the age of 85. The number afflicted is expected to triple by 2050 to 152 million, according to the World Health Organization, posing a huge challenge to healthcare systems. By Doina Chiacu and Richard Cowan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley set a Saturday afternoon deadline for a woman accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault to decide if and how she will testify, the New York Times reported. The Committee had delayed a vote on Kavanaugh's confirmation after California professor Christine Blasey Ford's allegations emerged last week, and her lawyers and committee staff were negotiating the conditions of her testimony. Approval of Kavanaugh would cement conservative control of the Supreme Court and advance a White House effort to tilt the American judiciary farther to the right. Grassley gave Ford's attorneys until 2:30 p.m. EST to negotiate the terms of her testimony to the committee next week, the Times reported, citing an email he sent to her lawyers. Earlier in the night, Grassley said on Twitter that he had granted an extension to Ford after a 10 p.m. (0200 GMT Saturday) deadline he set to reach a deal with Ford's lawyers had passed. "Judge Kavanaugh I just granted another extension to Dr. Ford to decide if she wants to proceed (with) the statement she made last week to testify to the Senate," Grassley wrote on Twitter. "She should decide so we can move on. I want to hear her. I hope you understand. Its not my normal approach to be indecisive." Grassley had said earlier that the panel would hold a vote on Kavanaugh's confirmation on Monday unless a deal was reached with Ford's lawyers by Friday night's deadline. In an email to judiciary committee staff, Ford's lawyer Debra Katz called the deadline "aggressive and artificial." "Your cavalier treatment of a sexual assault survivor who has been doing her best to cooperate with the Committee is completely inappropriate," Katz added. On Friday, President Donald Trump sought to cast doubt on Ford's allegation that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in 1982 when both were high school students in Maryland. Story continues Kavanaugh has denied the allegation and pledged to testify at Monday's hearing. The Republican-controlled Senate judiciary panel has struggled on how to proceed with Kavanaugh's nomination. Democrats have demanded more time for scrutiny, and Republicans want to move ahead quickly with a confirmation vote in an increasingly volatile political climate ahead of congressional elections on Nov. 6. Related Video: It Takes A While For Assault Victims To Come Forward DROPPING THE RESTRAINT Trump and the White House had been careful not to malign Ford after her allegations surfaced, but Trump dropped the restraint in his tweets on Friday. "I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents," Trump said. "I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place! "Judge Brett Kavanaugh is a fine man, with an impeccable reputation, who is under assault by radical left wing politicians who dont want to know the answers, they just want to destroy and delay," Trump wrote. Trump's Friday tweets contrasted with comments earlier in the week when he said Ford should be heard, even if it meant a delay in the confirmation process. Senator Susan Collins, a moderate Republican and potentially a key vote on Kavanaugh's nomination, said at an event in Portland, Maine, that she was "appalled" by Trump's tweet. "We know allegations of sexual assault are one of the most unreported crimes that exist," Collins said, according to the Portland Press Herald. "So I thought that the presidents tweet was completely inappropriate and wrong." If the hearing proceeds, Republicans will be forced to walk a careful line in questioning Ford's account without alienating women voters ahead of the elections. Before the 2016 presidential election, more than a dozen women accused Trump of making unwanted advances. "VILE ATTACK" Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand called Friday's comments a "vile attack." "The most powerful man in the world just used his position and platform to attack a sexual assault survivor," she said on Twitter. "This is the same man who has been credibly accused of more than a dozen cases of sexual assault or harassment." The Senate Judiciary Committee released a letter it sent to Ford's attorneys earlier on Friday in which it accepted some of their demands, including that Kavanaugh not be in the room when she testifies. The panel rejected some of the other demands, including that Kavanaugh testify first, that the committee call additional witnesses that Ford requests, and that only senators be allowed to ask questions. "We reserve the option to have female staff attorneys, who are sensitive to the particulars of Dr. Fords allegations and are experienced investigators, question both witnesses," the letter said. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, speaking at a gathering of evangelical voters in Washington, assured them Kavanaugh would be confirmed. "You watched the fight, you watched the tactics, but here is what I want to tell you - in the very near future, Judge Kavanaugh will be on the United States Supreme Court," McConnell told the Value Voters Summit, drawing a standing ovation. McConnell's goal has been to confirm Kavanaugh by Oct. 1, the start of the Supreme Court term. Ford's legal team has said she strongly prefers that her allegations are fully investigated before she testifies. The Senate panel must approve Kavanaugh's confirmation before a vote by the full Senate, where Republicans hold a 51-49 majority. Kavanaugh's confirmation to the lifetime position would be the second of the Trump administration and solidify conservative control of the nation's top court. Ford's team has sought guarantees of her safety because of death threats. Kavanaugh and his wife also had received threats, a senior White House official said. (Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Richard Cowan; Additional reporting by Lawrence Hurley, Susan Heavey and Brendan O'Brien; writing by John Whitesides; Editing by G Crosse and Leslie Adler) After alleging that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh attempted to rape her at a party over three decades ago, Christine Blasey Ford has faced a storm of scorn, ridicule and disbelief unlike any other in recent memory. (Photo: Illustration: Damon Dahlen / HuffPost; Photos: Getty) Three weeks ago, I publicly revealed that I was abused by my parish priest when I served as an altar boy in the late 1980s. Shortly after that, I wrote a piece for HuffPost explaining how coming forward about that experience radically changed my life. My story has been featured on NBCs New York City affiliate. I have been interviewed by multiple local newspapers. I have received well over 1,000 messages directly relating to my revelation, and all of them have showered me with gratitude and praise for my courage. I have been told that I have saved innumerable lives. Ive heard that I am a voice for victims who are no longer here to share their tales of abuse. I have learned that I have inspired others to speak out about what they have been through. On dozens of occasions, I have been called a hero (a term I flatly reject, for what its worth). Aside from the trolls in the cesspools known as the comments sections of local news sites, not a single person no friend, acquaintance or stranger has questioned my account, my motives or the authenticity of my story. Ive been on this planet for 41 years, and I have never felt as loved and supported as I do today. Sadly, such love and support have not been granted to Christine Blasey Ford, a professor and research psychologist who came forward first in a confidential letter and last week by name about a sexual assault she says she suffered at the hands of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh when they were in high school. Like me, Blasey says her attack took place in the 1980s, and like me and countless others who say they have survived sexual assault, she says she has been living with this abuse for the better part of her life. Whereas I have been celebrated for coming forward about what happened to me all those years ago, Blaseys allegations have, to put it mildly, received decidedly less applause. After alleging that Kavanaugh attempted to rape her while he was stumbling drunk at a party over three decades ago, she was met with a storm of scorn, ridicule and disbelief unlike any other in recent memory. Story continues Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have been careful not to publicly question Blaseys motives or reputation but they dont have to. They have the entire right-wing echo chamber to do their dirty work for them. Ann Coulters twitter feed has transformed itself into a forum dedicated to Blasey bashing featuring the pundits patented petty and sophomoric digs at the professor and retweets from friends and followers offering the same disgusting vitriol. Conservative social media has whipped itself into a frenzy with attacks on Blaseys family, memory, motives, professional qualifications and political beliefs. Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) even went so far as to grotesquely make light of her grave allegations when, during a recent debate, he joked, Ruth Bader Ginsburg came out saying she was groped by Abraham Lincoln. And after originally offering what many believed to be a remarkably measured response to Blaseys claims, Donald Trump fired up his Twitter on Friday morning to all but dismiss her story by stating that he has no doubt that if the attack was as bad as she says, she would have filed a police report 30 years ago directly after the alleged assault. I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 21, 2018 As a result of going public about her experience, Blasey has faced harassment and death threats so sinister, she has been forced to leave her home and go into hiding. In light of all that has taken place over the past week, I cant stop wondering why Im have been dubbed a hero whose motives and accounts of abuse are above reproach while Blasey has been painted as hyperbolic or, more often, a liar who is merely looking to derail the appointment of a supposedly honest, God-fearing family man to the Supreme Court. Im not naive. I know that because of the hyperpartisan system we find ourselves living in and continually grappling with, moments like these can cause many of us to retreat to our respective corners, to rally around our flags. It has happened with television shows. It has happened with professional sports. It has even happened with Budweiser. But shouldnt the denunciation of sexual abuse and the support for survivors be considered well beyond any political divide? Shouldnt all of us, no matter our party affiliation or political beliefs, want to search for and ultimately find the truth of this matter and welcome an investigation into Blaseys claims? Take it from someone who has been there: None of this is easy to talk about, folks. Living with memories (remembered or repressed) and their psychological ramifications is no walk in the park. It harms the survivor. It damages relationships. It can lead to a host of medical problems such as anxiety, depression, hypertension and substance abuse. I should know; I experienced many of these conditions because of the abuse that I suffered and the pain and shame that resulted from my inability to discuss it until very recently. Whats worse, opening up to a loved one or a trained professional can seem impossible at times for any number of reasons, from worrying you wont be believed to fearing the consequences you might face if you come forward. Now imagine how daunting it would be to open up to the entire country about something as personal and stigmatizing as sexual assault. Im able to keep forging ahead only because I have the wind at my back. I have the gift of an overwhelming army of people who believe in me and support me. Nobody has doubted the sincerity or authenticity of my allegations against my abuser. Like Blasey, my life has completely changed because I spoke out only in my case, its been for the better. Sharing my story has allowed me to come to grips with the fact that I was not crazy and that what I endured all those years ago was not normal. I have friends, family members and strangers who are willing to stand beside me and help fight to make sure the subcultures that have fostered child abuse and sexual assault for centuries are exposed, rectified and halted once and for all. Most important, unlike Blasey, I have never been lambasted for waiting 30 years to speak out. Not once. Quite the contrary: Everyone Ive encountered has understood why it took so long. If youre fortunate enough never to have experienced an assault, you might not understand how the human psyche can work to suppress traumatic experiences or the internal bargaining you engage in to keep yourself safe and as whole as possible in the aftermath of that trauma. Whats more, you probably havent come up against the wall of disbelief that so many women face in the aftermath of assault. And if you cant understand what any of this is like or at the very least acknowledge how difficult all this must be, youre simply unqualified to offer an opinion. Knowing all this makes the attacks on Blasey all the more gut wrenching. Theyre coming from individuals who are either woefully uninformed about the situation or who are approaching her account with nefarious intentions in order to help confirm Kavanaugh at any cost. If any one of these people or someone they loved had endured sexual abuse, I believe they wouldnt be behaving like this. Very few people (if any) wake up one day and say, You know what? Im going to tell the world that I am a survivor of sexual abuse! It just doesnt work that way. For many of us, something sparks our memories or inspires us to tell our stories. I was triggered when I encountered two stories that broke within weeks of each other: news that my former archbishop Theodore McCarrick was an abuser and that a groundbreaking Pennsylvania grand jurys findings documented the scope of clergy abuse in the state. Blasey was prompted to speak out when she learned the man she claims assaulted her at a party was in line to become a Supreme Court justice. Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today. Such similar experiences with such different outcomes. One of us is called a hero. The other is deemed mixed up or a flat-out liar. Its this difference in how Blasey and I are seen that is so confounding to me. Which leads me to believe that gender plays an even bigger role in this situation than politics does. The mistrust and doubt that Blasey is facing is exactly the same though magnified by her position in the public square as the mistrust and doubt that so many women before her have faced. Even though we know that false accusations of rape are rare, womens stories and motivations are routinely questioned, and thats one more reason so many dont speak out. Even if they did, who would believe them? And even if a woman is believed, all too often shes then criticized for wearing provocative clothes or sending mixed signals or otherwise doing something that supposedly made the attack not an attack or somehow justifiable. Even in the era of Me Too, when so many women have bravely come forward to tell what has happened to them, the right wings instinct is to slut-shame first and ask questions later. As a survivor and as a fellow human being I find this kind of behavior sickening. Thankfully, Blasey has supporters. Thankfully, there are millions of Americans who believe her story and hope that she is somehow, someday able to find some semblance of peace. But too many people do not, and too many people refuse to even entertain the thought of offering her the decency of a formal investigation of her claims. I was lucky. When I spoke out, I was heard. I was believed. I was celebrated. But there is no difference between Christine Blasey Ford and me. We both have allegations that date back three decades. We both are adamant that those allegations are true and that what we said happened actually did happen. We both have been forced to stand up to powerful institutions. And we both are able to offer enough circumstantial evidence and corroborating claims to warrant further investigation into what we allege took place all those years ago. If I am a hero, she is a hero and she deserves the chance to tell her story. Ed Hanratty is a freelance political journalist. A lifelong New Jerseyan, he prides himself on having just enough Garden State sarcasm and skepticism to keep his bleeding heart in check. Keep up with his work and random musings on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Do you have a personal story youd like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what were looking for here and send us a pitch! More from HuffPost Personal... How My Unexpected Friendship With Mister Rogers Got Me Through 2 Breakdowns 3 Weeks Ago I Revealed I Was Abused By A Priest. Heres How It Changed My Life. My Daughter And I Dressed As Handmaids And Got Arrested To Protest Brett Kavanaugh This article originally appeared on HuffPost. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein suggested last year that he covertly record the president in the White House and discussed invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office, The New York Times reported Friday. The move will almost certainly reopen President Donald Trumps considerations into firing him. Rosensteins comments were reportedly made in the spring of 2017 in light of Trump firing James Comey as FBI director and sharing classified intelligence with the Russians. They were relayed to the Times by unnamed sources who say they were either briefed on the comments or on memos written by FBI officials that detailed them. Though none of Rosensteins efforts apparently materialized, the Times sources said he hoped to recruit Attorney General Jeff Sessions and then-Secretary of Homeland Security John F. Kelly to help invoke the 25th Amendment, which allows for the removal of a president deemed unfit for office. Sources speaking to ABC News also alleged that Rosenstein took those steps to consider invoking the 25th amendment. His strategy for recording Trump an effort aimed at exposing the chaos in the White House involved asking FBI officials being interviewed to replace Comey as FBI director to wear wires during their conversations with the president, the sources said. However, a source in the room during the wire-wearing conversation who requested anonymity told HuffPost that Rosensteins suggestion was made in jest. I remember this meeting and remember the wire comment, the source said. The statement was sarcastic and was never discussed with any intention of recording a conversation with the president. Though several sources who spoke to the Times said the suggestions were said seriously, The Washington Post, NBC and Voice of America also cited insider sources saying the comment was sarcastic. Rosenstein denied the report in a statement to the Times. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein reportedly made comments in spring of 2017 in which he suggested that he covertly record President Donald Trump in the White House. (Photo: Joshua Roberts/Reuters) The New York Timess story is inaccurate and factually incorrect, he said. I will not further comment on a story based on anonymous sources who are obviously biased against the department and are advancing their own personal agenda. But let me be clear about this: Based on my personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment. Story continues Rosenstein later released an additional, stronger statement: I never pursued or authorized recording the President and any suggestion that I have ever advocated for the removal of the President is absolutely false. The Times did not disclose whether its sourcing came from the Trump camp but a story about Rosenstein mounting a campaign to overthrow the president will almost certainly be used by Trump to float the idea of firing Rosenstein. Trump has long sought ways to shut down special counsel Robert Muellers investigation into Russia and the 2016 election. The president claims the probe is a witch hunt carried out by his political opponents. Because Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the investigation, the authority to fire Mueller rests with Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general. Trump has openly suggested firing Mueller himself and quietly discussed firing Rosenstein and replacing him with a political ally who would get rid of Mueller. Either of those moves would look like a blatant abuse of power. If Trump does decide he wants to fire Rosenstein, the president will look for any justification to do so like casting Rosenstein as part of a deep state effort to undermine his administration. The narrative of Rosenstein as a subversive working within the Justice Department to thwart the president would feed into Trump and his allies conspiratorial narrative that he is battling a deep state of political foes working to undermine him. The report comes about two weeks after an anonymous op-ed in the Times by an author identified only as a senior official in the Trump administration claimed high-level officials under the president have been actively working to combat his controversial policies and erratic behavior, including by raising the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment. Ryan J. Reilly contributed reporting. This story has been updated with more details about the Rosenstein report and comments from others who heard the remarks. Related Coverage House Republicans Move To Impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein Senior Trump Official Rips Administration In Anonymous Op-Ed Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. By James Oliphant DALLAS (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, trying furiously to beat back a high-profile challenge from Democratic rival Beto O'Rourke, repeatedly accused his opponent of being out of step with the Texas electorate as the two candidates faced off in a debate just six weeks before critical congressional elections. At Southern Methodist University in Dallas, the two battled over hot-button issues such as immigration, gun rights and trade. O'Rourke frequently complained that Cruz was misrepresenting his positions -- at one point accusing the incumbent Republican of "slander." The candidates sparred as well over the embattled Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, who faces allegations that he assaulted a woman, Christine Blasey Ford, while both were in high school. Cruz urged Ford to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, of which Cruz is a member, next week. "The allegations she has raised are serious, and they deserve to be treated with respect," Cruz said. "Judge Kavanaugh deserves a full opportunity to defend himself," he added. O'Rourke, a U.S. representative from El Paso, called for the FBI to investigate Ford's claims, something that Senate Republicans have resisted, and argued that Kavanaugh's nomination should be rejected. Cruz painted O'Rourke, who favors a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, opposes building a wall along the border with Mexico, and supports some gun-control measures, as too radical for Texas. He noted that O'Rourke has expressed an openness toward abolishing the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency and impeaching President Donald Trump. O'Rourke in turn blasted Cruz for supporting massive deportations of illegal immigrants. "Imagine the cost," O'Rourke said. "Imagine the stain on our conscience." He also slammed Cruz for supporting Trump's trade policies, which he said have negatively impacted the Texas economy. The state "needs a senator who will work with the president where we can and stand up to him where we must," O'Rourke said. Following the debate, O'Rourke told reporters that Cruz "has a tendency to mischaracterize a position" and was making him appear more politically more radical than he is. Asked to respond, Cruz spokeswoman Emily Miller said the debate was the first time O'Rourke "has been directly confronted with his policies." Cruz, who is seeking a second term in the Senate, did not address the media after the debate. The two candidates will square off twice more before election day. The Nov. 6 elections will determine whether Republicans will retain control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Democrats need to win a net total of two additional seats to take the Senate and 23 to assume the majority in the House. If Democrats win control of either chamber, much of Trumps agenda would be stymied and his administration would be subjected to greater scrutiny. O'Rourke's candidacy was once viewed as the longest of long shots. Texas has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1988. But O'Rourke has focused heavily on courting women, Latinos and young voters, has developed a strong following on social media, and has proven to be a fund-raising dynamo, outpacing Cruz's efforts. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll gave ORourke a slight edge, with 47 percent to Cruz's 45 percent That came on the heels of a Quinnipiac University survey that showed Cruz up by 9 percentage points. (Reporting by James Oliphant; Editing by Paul Simao and Leslie Adler) Islamabad (AFP) - Seven Pakistani soldiers were killed in an exchange of fire with militants in the country's northwest near the Afghan border on Saturday, the military said. The militants had infiltrated from across the Afghan border, and an officer was among the Pakistani soldiers killed, according to a statement issued by the military. Nine militants were also killed in the exchange of fire, it said. Violence in Pakistan has declined in recent years following a series of military operations along the northwestern border with Afghanistan, but militant groups are still able to carry out deadly attacks. Saturday's incident occurred in Spera Kunar Algad area of North Waziristan near the Afghan border. There have been a number of fatal assaults in recent months in the northwest as well as in the southwestern Balochistan province. Pakistan's army launched its operation in mid-2014 to wipe out militant bases in the area and end the near decade-long insurgency that has cost thousands of lives. The operation was intensified after the Taliban massacred more than 150 people, the majority of them children, at a school in the northwestern city of Peshawar in December 2014. In 2016, the Pakistani army claimed to have cleared the last militant stronghold in the country's northwest after a three-month long operation. Advocates for survivors of sexual violence are suspending their work with the Senate Judiciary Committee to protest how senators are reacting to Christine Blasey Ford's allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. (Photo: Joshua Roberts/Reuters) For two years, a task force of national sexual assault and domestic violence groups has been working behind the scenes with the Senate Judiciary Committee to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, which expires this year. Now the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence is suspending negotiations with the committee over its treatment of Christine Blasey Ford, the psychology professor who says Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were teens. In the days since Blasey came forward with her claims, a number of prominent Republicans have lined up behind Kavanaugh. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) called Kavanaugh a good man, and said senators should judge his character today. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) expressed sympathy for Kavanaugh, saying he couldnt imagine the horror of being accused of something like this. On Friday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reassured Republicans that Kavanaugh will be confirmed even though Blasey has not yet testified about her allegations. Dont get rattled by all of this, he said. Were going to plow right through it and do our job. Blasey is currently negotiating the conditions under which she will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. In a letter to the committee on Friday, members of the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence admonished senators for failing to treat Blasey with respect, saying lawmakers actions and comments have set the clock back on responding to sexual violence. Your actions and comments in the past week have taken us back 25 years, as if VAWA never existed, as if all of the hard-won, evidence-based, best practices we have invested in as a nation were for naught. How can Congress legislate a coordinated community response for the nation, yet fail to live up to its own mandate? the letter asks. Elsewhere, the letter notes: If the committee is not willing to engage in a process that upholds the dignity and safety of a person who has come forward to report that she was a victim of sexual assault, then they cannot pretend to care about the reauthorization of VAWA. Story continues The Violence Against Women Act which directs the national response to crimes of domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence and stalking was set to expire at the end of September, but was extended through Dec. 7 under a stopgap spending bill. A bill to enhance and extend the law for another five years, introduced by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), has not been taken up by either house of Congress. Theres an enormous amount of frustration on the part of sexual assault experts who have spent endless hours with judiciary committee staff, said Kim Gandy, president of the National Network to End Domestic Violence, one of the groups in the task force. They are outraged at the behavior of senators publicly treating a survivor of sexual assault in this manner. Weve expended all this time trying to work with them, and this is where we end up? The National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence called on Congress to enlist the advice of experts on how to engage in trauma-informed questioning prior to the hearing and called for a full FBI investigation before Blasey testifies. Survivors across the country are watching and paying attention, said Teri Poore, policy director with the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence, another group in the task force. This is not a moment to make a misstep. Need help? Visit RAINNs National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Centers website. Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. SALZBURG, Austria (Reuters) - A special summit to try secure agreement on Britain's departure from the European Union will be held in Brussels on Nov. 17-18, Austrian news agency APA reported on Thursday. The news agency did not cite a source for the information but Austria is the EU's current president. An EU official close to discussions on setting the date said there had been no final agreement among leaders meeting in Salzburg on Thursday. Earlier, a French official said Paris saw a November summit as something that could be arranged later if necessary. (Reporting by Francois Murphy, writing by Elizabeth Piper) By David Brunnstrom and Lesley Wroughton WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is working to set up a second summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, but there is still work to do "to make sure conditions are right," U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday. Were working on it. But theres still a little bit of work to do left to make sure the conditions are right and that the two leaders are put in a position where we can make substantial progress, Pompeo told Fox News in an interview. Pompeo told NBC News in a separate interview that he hoped the meeting could take place "before too long," and that he hoped he himself would get a chance to travel to Pyongyang again to negotiate before that. But he said international sanctions would have to remain on North Korea until it gave up its nuclear weapons, which are a threat to the United States. "Ultimately, thatll be a decision for the president," Pompeo said of a second summit between Kim and Trump to follow on from their unprecedented June 12 meeting in Singapore. "Im hopeful that Ill get a chance to travel again to Pyongyang to continue to negotiate before too long," Pompeo said. "And then before too long and in relatively short order - I hope the two leaders get together again to continue to make progress on this incredible, important issue for the entire world." Pompeo added to NBC that important steps had been taken at a summit between the two Koreas this week and that while much more worked needed to be done, the United States had the "patience and determination" to achieve its aim. Referring to sanctions, Pompeo said: "Those economic sanctions will remain in place until we get to the end, till we get to that final denuclearization, which Chairman Kim promised President Trump he would undertake." South Korea President Moon Jae-in said after meeting Kim this week that the North Korean leader wanted a second summit with Trump to hasten denuclearization, but a key goal was declaring an end this year to the 1950-53 Korean War, which halted with an armistice, not a peace treaty. Pompeo said on Wednesday he had invited North Korea's foreign minister to meet on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York next week and other Pyongyang officials to Vienna for talks with U.S. nuclear envoy Stephen Biegun. Asked on Thursday if those meetings would take place, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said invitations had been sent and added: "We certainly stand ready to meet if they are able to." Moon said he and Kim spent most of a three-day summit discussing how to break an impasse and restart nuclear talks between Pyongyang and Washington, which are at odds over which should come first - denuclearization or ending the war and sanctions. Kim, who recently proposed another summit with Trump, said after the summit that North Korea was willing to "permanently dismantle" key missile facilities in the presence of outside experts, and also its Yongbyon nuclear complex, if the United States took unspecified corresponding action. Kim pledged to work toward the "complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula" during two earlier meetings with Moon and his encounter with Trump, but follow-up negotiations on how to implement the vague commitments have since faltered. Washington has called for concrete action and has demanded full disclosure of North Korea's nuclear and missile facilities before satisfying Pyongyang's key demands. (Reporting by David Brunnstrom and Lesley Wroughton in Washington; additional reporting by Susan Heavey and Lisa Lambert; Editing by James Dalgleish) Authorities in Connecticut announced a suspect has been identified in the 2014 murder of Melissa Millan. The 54-year-old mother of two had been jogging before she was found stabbed to death. By Yimou Lee and Jon Herskovitz TAIPEI/AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - A Texan running a 3-D printed guns company who flew to Taiwan as police investigated an accusation he had sex with an underage girl was deported back to the United States on Saturday after his U.S. passport was annulled, a Taiwanese official said. Cody Wilson, 30, was on Friday taken to immigration authorities in Taipei by officers from Taiwan's Criminal Investigation Bureau, according to officials. He was ordered to leave Taiwan because he no longer has a valid travel document, said Zhang Wen-xiu, a director of the international affairs and law enforcement division at Taiwan's National Immigration Agency. Zhang said Wilson, who was held by the agency, had been taken to Taipei's Taoyuan International Airport for a flight to the United States on Saturday evening. He declined to say which U.S. city Wilson would be flying to. He said the agency was in touch with Wilsons lawyer. Wilson had agreed to the arrangement and had "expressed willingness to return to the U.S. soon", he added. The United States' de facto embassy in Taipei declined to comment on the case, citing privacy concerns. The U.S. Marshals Service, which would likely be responsible for taking Wilson back to the United States, said in a statement it was aware of Wilson's arrest and was "fully engaged with our international partners on this matter." Wilson, at the center of a U.S. legal battle over his plan to publish instructions for the manufacture of 3-D printed plastic guns, flew into Taiwan legally, the National Immigration Agency said on Friday. Because his U.S. passport was later annulled, the agency said in a statement, he "no longer has the legal status to stay in Taiwan." A lawyer for Wilson and representatives of the Austin Police Department were not immediately available for comment. Taiwan does not have an extradition treaty with the United States. Story continues Austin police have said Wilson flew to Taiwan earlier this month after a friend told him officers were investigating an allegation by a 16-year-old girl who said she was paid $500 to have sex with him at a hotel in the Texas capital. Police said investigators interviewed the girl and on Wednesday obtained a warrant for Wilson's arrest, but he had flown to Taiwan by then. Police said they are aware that Wilson travels often for business, but that they do not know why he went to Taiwan. Wilson is the founder of Defense Distributed, the focus of a legal and political battle over its placing on the internet blueprints for plastic guns that can be made with a 3-D printer. The files could previously be downloaded for free, but a federal judge issued a nationwide injunction last month that blocked the posting of the blueprints online. (Reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas, Yimou Lee in Taipei and Gina Cherelus in New York; editing by Bill Berkrot and Lincoln Feast) London police have announced the conclusion of a three-year investigation into a suspected cat serial killer who activists believe has killed up to 400 animals since 2014. Police said Thursday the culprit, however, is not a person but the urban fox. Detectives examined dozens of dead cats believed to have been killed by the Croydon Cat Killer, who became something of a local legend as reports of dismembered, beheaded and mutilated family pets began accumulating starting in 2014 in the south London district of Croydon. But on Thursday police said that foxes were the culprits for the mutilations, which they said were all carried out on cats who had previously been killed by blunt force trauma. Scavenging foxes then mutilated body parts especially heads and tails, police said. The announcement is the latest twist in a saga that has captivated Brits. A group called SNARL was set up to catalog the grisly cat killings in late 2015. A month later, Londons Metropolitan Police opened an investigation. For three years the investigation went on. All the while, the killings continued and SNARL kept up a gruesome feed of details on its Facebook page, which is followed by nearly 30,000 people. SNARL circulated a description of the alleged killer a white man in his 40s who possibly drove for work, which would explain the ever-increasing geographical spread of reported incidents. It looked as if the Metropolitan Police were working with this theory, too. One officer on the case even suggested the killer might move on to people in the future. The leader of the investigation, Detective Sergeant Collin, said in 2017: Cats are targeted because they are associated with the feminine at some stage hell escalate or feel brave enough to move on to vulnerable women and girls. But those speculations were dashed on Thursday, with the police announcement. Responding to the results of the police investigation on Thursday, SNARL said in a statement organizers still believe a human was involved. We consider that the evidence we have gathered over the last three years does indicate human involvement. Contacted by TIME, one of SNARLs founders, Tony Jenkins, said that the group was not immediately disputing police findings but did believe that some of the killings are clearly not the work of foxes. We will still continue to investigate this even though the police have closed the investigation, he said. Washington (AFP) - President Donald Trump on Thursday announced the names of the first two US troops to be identified after dozens of sets of remains were repatriated from North Korea in July. Pyongyang had returned 55 cases of remains from the 1950-53 Korean War, in line with an agreement between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at their summit in Singapore in June. Trump said the two soldiers were Master Sergeant Charles McDaniel and Private First Class William Jones. "These HEROES are home, they may Rest In Peace, and hopefully their families can have closure," Trump said on Twitter. McDaniel's military identity tag, known as a dog tag, had been found among the remains. It was given to his sons at a public event in Washington last month. McDaniel was an Army medic thought to have been killed in action in October 1950 during a Chinese attack deep in North Korea. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis recently said forensic scientists had been able to quickly identify the two sets of remains thanks to a variety of information, including where they had been found. But it could take years to identify all the remains and experts are using a range of techniques including DNA analysis and dental records. The Pentagon has said UN military officials met with North Korean counterparts this month to discuss the repatriation of additional remains. Friday marks this year's National POW/MIA Recognition Day. (WASHINGTON) President Donald Trump has delayed the release of Russia probe documents after U.S. allies raised concerns. The Justice Departments internal watchdog has been asked to review documents from the FBIs Russia investigation amid allies concerns about their public release. Earlier this week Trump had ordered the documents declassified. Trump said then the declassification would expose really bad things at the FBI. But his order raised concerns that sensitive sources and methods could be exposed. Trump tweeted Friday that the inspector general has been asked to review these documents on an expedited basis. He said he believes the office will move quickly. I met with the DOJ concerning the declassification of various UNREDACTED documents. They agreed to release them but stated that so doing may have a perceived negative impact on the Russia probe. Also, key Allies called to ask not to release. Therefore, the Inspector General..... Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 21, 2018 ....has been asked to review these documents on an expedited basis. I believe he will move quickly on this (and hopefully other things which he is looking at). In the end I can always declassify if it proves necessary. Speed is very important to me - and everyone! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 21, 2018 The president also says that in the end I can always declassify if it proves necessary. He says speed is very important to me and everyone! By William James BIRMINGHAM, England (Reuters) - Britain's anti-European Union UK Independence Party (UKIP) launched a set of populist policies on Friday hoping to revive their dwindling political influence and capitalise on outrage over the government's handling of Brexit. Prime Minister Theresa May is struggling to sell her plan for a Brexit that would continue to see Britain abide by many EU rules. Growing unrest among pro-Brexit groups could scupper her leadership and thrust Britain into political crisis. UKIP played a defining role in recent British history as the force that pressured former Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron to call a referendum on leaving the EU, and then stoked the anti-establishment uprising behind the 2016 'leave' vote. But, since finding itself on the winning side of the Brexit vote UKIP has struggled to influence the exit process, seeing its voter support evaporate and undergoing two years of inner turmoil to find a leader to replace the talismanic Nigel Farage. On Friday, current leader Gerard Batten published a manifesto document that sought to rediscover the everyman appeal that once made the party a threat to larger rivals from across the British political spectrum. "These policies are aimed at helping the people who form the backbone of Britain: ordinary workers and taxpayers, the unemployed who would like to work, and small and medium-sized business owners," Batten, a member of the European Parliament, said in a statement launching the 17-page manifesto. "Its purpose is to make UKIP a populist party in the real meaning of the word - one whose policies are popular with voters." The policies included a "complete and total" withdrawal from the EU, arguing that Britain should end all payments to the EU and adherence to the bloc's rules - a much more radical break than May is proposing. Batten has been criticised, including by some former UKIP members, for engaging with causes championed by far-right groups, and he has described Islam as a "death cult". Story continues Other policies, much of which are similar to previous UKIP positions, include selective and limited immigration, scrapping overseas aid, lower domestic taxes and a tougher approach to taxing multinational companies. UKIP currently has no elected representatives in parliament and it gathered only 600,000 votes in a 2017 general election, compared to 3.8 million in 2015 - a fall from more than 12 percent of the total vote to less than 2 percent. Nevertheless, in many marginal seats it has the power to influence which major party can win and, with no party clearly ahead in opinion polls, has the potential to affect the outcome of any future national election. Although an election is not scheduled until 2022, May's government remains fragile. (Reporting by William James; Editing by Richard Balmforth) Kiev (AFP) - Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko is suing British broadcaster BBC for libel over an article that said Kiev paid $400,000 to secure a meeting with US leader Donald Trump last year. Poroshenko issued the libel claim, seen by AFP, over an article published in May this year that said Kiev paid Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen a "secret payment of at least $400,000" to "fix talks" between Poroshenko and Trump in the White House in June 2017. The claim, filed through a British law firm, says the news story damaged Poroshenko's "political and business" reputation and caused him "substantial distress and embarrassment". It added that the allegation of "serious corruption" was especially damaging because of Poroshenko's "promotion of a number of anti-corruption measures in Ukraine". A spokesman for the BBC told AFP that it "cannot comment on this ongoing case". The article, which was also used in a televised report, was based on "sources in Kiev close to those involved". It said a "high ranking Ukrainian intelligence officer" told the BBC the payment was made as Kiev's embassy in Washington "could get Poroshenko little more than a brief photo-op with Trump". Poroshenko met with Trump in the White House in June 2017. There was speculation ahead of the meeting that Trump would refuse to meet the Ukrainian leader. Washington did not announce the sit-down in advance -- as is customary -- and when it was described, the White House called it a "drop-in" with the US president. For three years, ties between Washington and Kiev have been dominated by efforts to contain a destabilising Russia-backed rebellion in eastern Ukraine. The crisis has left 10,000 dead and heightened tensions between the West and the Kremlin. Kiev has been concerned by Trump often appearing reluctant to put pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to solve the crisis. Story continues Ukrainians are scheduled to go to polls to elect a president next March. Poroshenko, who took office in 2014, is widely expected to run but has not yet made an official announcement. Corruption was among the top reasons that prompted Ukrainians to take to the streets and oust a Kremlin-backed regime in early 2014. But Ukrainian and Western observers have repeatedly questioned pro-Western Poroshenko's resolve to reform the country's kleptocratic system. Urban Meyer's suspension ended Sunday but Saturday's game against Tulane will be the first game he's coached all season. Unsurprisingly, he was greeted warmly by Ohio State fans as he walked into Ohio Stadium. Washington (AFP) - United States and allied forces came under attack in Somalia, triggering an air strike which killed 18 Al-Shabaab militants, the US military said on Saturday. The incident occurred on Friday 50 kilometers (30 miles) northwest of Kismayo in the south of the Horn of Africa country where Somali commandos work side-by-side with the American forces that train them. Air assaults and missile strikes have increased in recent months. "The US airstrike was conducted against militants after US and partner forces came under attack," US Africa Command said in a statement. US forces also partner with the United Nations-backed African Union Mission in Somalia, which aims to counter the threat from Al-Shabaab jihadists. The air strike was conducted "in self-defense," killing 18 militants, Africa Command said. Two other militants "were killed by Somali forces with small arms fire during the engagement," it added. In June an American commando was killed during an attack in southern Somalia that also wounded four US military members and a Somali soldier, officials said at the time. More than 500 American personnel are partnered with African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and Somali national security forces. Al-Shabaab, an Al-Qaeda affiliate, is fighting to overthrow the internationally-backed Somali government in Mogadishu. By Christopher Bing WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House warned foreign hackers on Thursday it will increase offensive measures as part of a new national cyber security strategy. The move comes as U.S. intelligence officials expect a flurry of digital attacks ahead of the Nov. 6 midterm elections. The strategy provides federal agencies with new guidance for how to protect themselves and the private data of Americans, White House National Security Adviser John Bolton told reporters. (https://bit.ly/2xrQ0XK) "We have authorized offensive cyber operations that will be undertaken through the coordination process in the new presidential directive," Bolton said. "It is in our national interest to do that not because we want more offensive operations in cyber space but precisely to create the structures of deterrence that will demonstrate to adversaries that the cost of their engaging in operations against us is higher than they want to bear." The strategy is heavily influenced by another separate national security planning document released by the White House in December, Bolton said, which focuses on four "pillars": protecting the homeland, promoting American prosperity, advancing American influence and achieving "peace through strength." (Reporting by Christopher Bing; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Lisa Shumaker) By Dean Arrindell As part of legislation signed by President Trump in May, beginning Friday, consumers can now freeze their credit for free. A credit freeze stops lenders from opening up new credit, which can protect consumers from identity theft. The new rule came in the aftermath of the Equifax data breach that was revealed last year. That breach compromised credit information of 148 million people almost half of all Americans detailing names, birthdates, Social Security numbers and other personal information. Freezing credit at the three major reporting agencies Equifax, Experian and TransUnion used to cost $2 to $10, depending on the laws in the state where the consumer lived. Now freezing credit is free nationwide. However, surveys show that an overwhelming majority of Americans dont freeze their credit. How do you freeze your credit? Yahoo News explains. To freeze their credit, consumers have to contact each credit agency separately. They will get three personal identification numbers, one for each agency. Some consumer advocates recommend also freezing credit at the National Consumer Telecom & Utilities Exchange, which provides credit information to cell phone and utility providers. Some consumers reported that cell phone accounts were opened in their names even after freezing their credit at the big three agencies. Credit agencies might have other ways to prevent identity theft, like fraud monitoring alerts, but that doesnt stop identity theft. Freezing credit isnt permanent. To unfreeze credit, consumers must contact each agency individually. Freezing and unfreezing or a credit thaw doesnt affect consumers credit scores. Both are free and can be done as often as needed. Another way individuals can protect themselves is to check their credit report every year. Since 2003, consumers have been allowed one free credit report a year from the credit bureaus. You dont have to unfreeze your credit to get it. Story continues Heres how to contact the credit reporting agencies: TransUnion: transunion.com/credit-freeze Experian: experian.com/freeze/center.html Equifax: www.freeze.equifax.com/Freeze/jsp/SFF_PersonalIDInfo.jsp National Consumer Telecom and Utilities Exchange: www.nctue.com/Consumers An investigation into Washington state Rep. Matt Manweller has found that he engaged in a pattern of unprofessional and inappropriate behavior with female students and former students, according to a report released Wednesday. The 85-page report details a variety of interviews with some of Manwellers past students at Central Washington University (CWU). 1 people found this review helpful Customer Review Rated Bad 8 - 8 out of 10 Of all the Eun Joo Lee movies she as been in, definitely, for me, "Lover's Concerto" will be the best film she has ever been in - I love it beyond its credits and kudos! (Sadly, I wished she could have made more marvellous films, considering her premature death). Bungee Jumping, is a very sweet and touching movie many will like, and at heart leaves a good positive message...but its certainly a strange oddity of a film that may leave some people puzzled by its message concerning the relationship of the two main characters. The film's brave, yeah, but if I loved a girl once upon a time and later found myself in the circumstances Byung Hun faced at the end, I would find that one Mighty Hiccup (arf) in Heaven's Scheme of Things, for sure. I realise its the soul we should love more in another, but 'seeing' that love again as a visual constant, is to compliment that person. But, maybe it has to be something opposite of that person to be considered to be a truth of a love. The ending, too, may have been befitting, but certainly not ideal. Still, Bungee has a really wonderful charm to it and I certainly like this film a lot, Eun Joo is as lovely as ever, too, (where, though, was that scene where she looks at her reflection in the spoon with one eye closed...which was cute in a film still I saw of her, but didn't see her close her one eye in the actual film) and Byung Hun plays a very likable character throughout (apart from when he's going nuts trying hard to grasp how Eun's character was not quite expected by her 'return'). If you want a more unusual, slightly radical, romantic film (and I watched "Rules of Dating" the night before this....another leftfield approach to romantic drama!) go for this, but like "Rules of Dating", this isn't going to be the usual romance drama couples generally appreciate eating their chocolates too. Iran hit back at a US offer of negotiations on Thursday, saying Washington had violated the terms of the last big deal they agreed, the 2015 nuclear accord. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter US President Donald Trump pulled out of that nuclear accordwhich curbed Iran's atomic activities in return for sanctions reliefin May, saying it did not go far enough. President Hassan Rouhani (L) and US President Donald Trump (Photo: AFP, AP) The US special envoy for Iran, Brian Hook, said on Wednesday that Washington now wanted to negotiate a treaty that included Tehran's ballistic missile program and its regional behavior. Hook said the new deal that Washington hoped to sign with Iran, would not be a "personal agreement between two governments like the last one, we seek a treaty." Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif took to Twitter to dismiss the characterization of last deal as a "personal agreement", saying it was "an int'l accord enshrined in a UN (Security Council resolution)". "US has violated its treaty obligations too... Apparently, US only mocks calls for peace," he added in the message that was attached to a video of a protester who took to the stage after Hook's speech, shouting that sanctions were hurting Iranian people Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (L) and President Trump (Photo: Reuters, AFP) The five other world powers that signed the 2015 accord with IranFrance, Germany, Britain, China and Russiahave been trying to salvage it , saying it offers the best chance to stop Iran developing a nuclear bomb. Tehran says its nuclear work is for electricity generation and other peaceful purposes. Iran denies requesting meeting with Trump Iran has not requested a meeting with Trump, foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said on Friday, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). A foreign news agency reported that Iran requested such a meeting during the United Nations General Assembly which began this week, citing US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, according to IRNA. IRNA did not identify the foreign news agency. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is scheduled to address the General Assembly next week, according to Iranian state media. "The Islamic Republic of Iran has never put forth a request for a meeting with Trump," Qassemi said. Semi-official Tasnim news agency says at least 8 Revolutionary Guard members killed in attack on Iranian military parade Former prime minister Ehud Olmert told the Palestinian media he believes only Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas is able to make the two-state solution a reality. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter In their joint meeting in the French capital, Abbas told Olmert he has never officially opposed to the peace initiative presented to him, as reported by the Palestinian official news Agency Wafa. "I very happy to meet President Abbas, we haven't met for a long time," Olmert said during the meeting. Former prime minister Ehud Olmert (L) and PA President Mahmoud Abbas "Abbas is the president of the Palestinian people, a great leader and the most interesting figure (to play a role-ed) in the future developments of the Israel-Palestinian relations," the former prime minister added. Former prime minister Ehud Olmert After the meeting concluded, Olmert said in a statement to the Palestinian media that "US and Europe, and certainly Israel must understand there is no substitute to the two-state solution and that Abbas is the only person who can realize this solution." "The PA President has proven in the past he is committed to the two-state solution and for that he earned my respect. "The Palestinians comprehend (Abbas is committed to the two-state solution) and it is important Israel understands this as well. Abbas is fighting against terror as part of his obligation to achieve peace," Olmert went on to say. "I consider Abbas as my friend since the time we've worked together. I believe, as he does, that achieving peace is possible. "Both me and Abbas are confident that had I completed my tenure (as prime minister), peace would have become a reality years ago," he elucidated. PA President Mahmoud Abbas (Photo: EPA) According to Abbas, if Olmert would have remained in power for a few more months, a peace agreement would have been signed between Israel and the Palestinians. Earlier, Abbas met with French President Emmanuel Macron and told him the Palestinians are willing to negotiate, "as opposed to Israel's claims." "Israel is the one objecting to holding peace talks. We are prepared for both overt and covert negotiations led by the Middle East Quartet, as well as Western and Arab countries," Abbas elaborated. He added that he clarified his stances to Macron and that he would also convey them to US President Donald Trump before the United Nations General Assembly in New York next week. IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot warned the Security-Cabinet at the beginning of the week that there is more than a moderate chance that a violent conflagration could erupt in the West Bank, adding that the US decision to choke the Palestinian Authority (PA) of financial funds is counter productive for Israel and could inflame matters in the area. IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot (Photo: Amit Sha'al) Eisenkot was raising objections to the numerous measures being taken that he said would only push PA President Mahmoud Abbas into a corner and potentially create an intransigent leader unwilling to cooperate with Israel on security matters. Among the factors raised was the recent American announcement that the White House would halt funding for the last aiding source beneficial for the Palestinians. Eisenkot also lamented the failed reconciliation deal between the PA and the Hamas terror group in Gaza and noted that the aging Palestinian leader, beset by poor health, could lose control of the area as unrest remains in Gaza and anger reaches boiling point in the West Bank. The defense establishment believes that Abbass 2015 speech at the UN inspired the wave of terror that ensued, which was marked by daily car-ramming, stabbing and shooting attacks by lone wolf Palestinian terrorists throughout Israel. With the US pressure mounting on the 82-year-old leader, the defense establishment attaches significance to his upcoming speech, which is expected to be a defiant declaration against US President Donald Trump and a tacit imprimatur for fresh terror attacks. Gunmen attacked a military parade marking 38 years to Iran-Iraq war in the southwest Iranian city of Ahvaz on Saturday, killing 29 people, half of them members of the Revolutionary Guards and wounding over 60, the official state news agency IRNA said. "There are a number of non-military victims, including women and children who had come to watch the parade," the agency cited an unnamed official source as saying. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter According to an initial report in the Hezbollah-affiliated network Al Mayadeen, some 30 people were wounded in the deadly attack, women and children among them. Gunmen attack military parade in Iran X The report described the assailants as "Takifiri gunmen," a term previously used to describe the Islamic State group (ISIS). The semi-official Fars news agency, which is close to the elite Revolutionary Guard, said two gunmen on a motorcycle wearing khaki uniforms carried out the attack. State television showed images of the immediate aftermath. In it, paramedics could be seen helping someone in military fatigues laying on the ground. Other armed security personnel shouted at each other in front of what appeared to be a viewing stand for the parade. The semi-official ISNA news agency published photographs of the attack's aftermath, with bloodied troops in dress uniforms helping each other walk away. The attack struck on Ahvaz's Quds, or Jerusalem, Boulevard. People fleeing from scene of attack Four terrorists carried out the attack and two of them were killed, according to Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA). There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Iranian wounded soldiers evacuated from scene of attack Meanwhile, Guard spokesman Gen. Ramazan Sharif told ISNA that an Arab separatist group carried out the attack, without elaborating. However, those groups in the past previously have only attacked unguarded oil pipelines at night. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Iran would respond "swiftly and decisively," holding agents of a foreign regime responsible. "Terrorists recruited, trained, armed and paid by a foreign regime have attacked Ahvaz," Zarif tweeted. "Iran will respond swiftly and decisively in defense of Iranian lives." Iran was holding similar parades in several cities including the capital Tehran and the port of Bandar Abbas on the Gulf. The semi-official news agency Mehr said further shooting broke out as some of the attackers who managed to escape were being chased. Aftermath of attack ISNA said an unnamed spokesman for the Revolutionary Guards blamed Arab nationalists backed by Saudi Arabia for the attack. Tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia have surged in recent years, with the two countries supporting opposite sides in wars in Syria and Yemen and rival political parties in Iraq and Lebanon. Saturday's attack comes after a coordinated June 7, 2017 Islamic State group assault on parliament and the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Tehran. That attack had at that point been the only one by the Sunni extremists inside of Shiite Iran, which has been deeply involved in the wars in Iraq and Syria where the militants once held vast territory. At least 18 people were killed and more than 50 wounded in the 2017 attack that saw gunmen carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles and explosives storm the parliament complex where a legislative session had been in progress, starting an hours-long siege. Meanwhile, gunmen and suicide bombers also struck outside Khomeini's mausoleum on Tehran's southern outskirts. Khomeini led the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the Western-backed shah to become Iran's first supreme leader until his death in 1989. Ahvaz is the capital of Iran's oil-rich Khuzestan province. The province in the past has seen Arab separatists attack oil pipelines. The assault shocked Tehran, which largely has avoided militant attacks in the decades after the tumult surrounding the Islamic Revolution. A delegation of senior officials from the Egyptian intelligence arrived Saturday in the Gaza Strip for a visit which will last several hours. The delegation will meet with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. The visit is being held as part of Egypt's efforts to renew internal reconciliation talks in Gaza and ceasefire agreement talks with Israel. Brazilian police arrested a fugitive Friday who is alleged by US authorities to be Hezbollah's financier and who is suspected of involvement in the terror attack on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 as well as the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in the Argentine capital that killed 85 people. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter Police took Assad Ahmad Barakat into custody in the city of Foz do Iguacu, which is home to the famous Iguazu Falls and sits where Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay converge. The Tri-Border Area, as it is known, has long been a haven for smugglers, traffickers and counterfeiters, and US authorities and others have alleged it is also a redoubt for terrorism support and financing. Barakat has repeatedly been accused of illegal activity in a lawless border area where three South American nations meet. Assad Ahmad Barakat (Photo: AP) Authorities in Paraguay are seeking Barakat on allegations of false representation, police said, and Brazil's Supreme Court authorized his arrest earlier this month. The Brazilian federal prosecutor's office said in a statement that Barakat's case met the requirements for an arrest with a view to extradition. It was not clear when or if that would happen. Attempts to reach Barakat's lawyer were unsuccessful. In 2004, the US Treasury Department said Barakat was one of the most influential members of Lebanon's Hezbollah terror group. It accused him of using his businesses in the Tri-Border Area as a front for fundraising for Hezbollah as well as coercing local shopkeepers into giving money to the organization. A Treasury official at the time said Barakat had used "every financial crime in the book" to fund Hezbollah and "underwrite terror," and the department ordered his assets frozen in the United States. Barakat was then serving a prison sentence for tax evasion in Paraguay. Two years later, US authorities added several of Barakat's associates to the list of people whose US assets can be frozen and whom Americans and US companies are prohibited from dealing with. Barakat remains on that list. In a 2001 interview with The Associated Press, Barakat acknowledged that he was a "sympathizer" of Hezbollah but said that did not mean he supported terrorism. Emanuele Ottolenghi, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the arrest was a signal that Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay may be more willing to crack down on crime in the Tri-Border Area. He noted Barakat had been operating "out in the open" for years there despite the US sanctions. He said Barakat remains deeply connected to Hezbollah, including through family members. The Simon Wiesenthal Center, which researches and advocates against anti-Semitism, hate and terrorism, praised the arrest. "We have monitored international terrorist activity in the lawless contiguous Triple Frontier region for some 20 years," Shimon Samuels, the center's director for international relations, said in a statement. He added that he hoped the arrest was "a sign that the three countries will begin to drive Hezbollah out of Latin America." Beyond the longstanding accusations of his involvement with terrorism, Barakat has faced other legal troubles over the years and was even extradited from Brazil to Paraguay once before, according to police. They said he returned to Brazil in 2008 after serving his sentence. In Paraguay, Barakat is currently accused of presenting a declaration of incorrect nationality and omitting information about the loss of nationality, Brazilian prosecutors said Friday. Barakat was born in Lebanon but has lived in South America for years. Prosecutors said they had information that Barakat applied for refugee status in Brazil when he learned of Paraguay's arrest warrant, but that only the recognition of refugee status would prevent his extradition, which was not the case here. Argentine authorities have accused associates of Barakat of laundering $10 million in a scheme in casinos, and they have frozen the group's assets, according to Brazilian police. A delegation of senior Egyptian intelligence officials arrived in the Gaza Strip Saturday morning for a brief visit as part of Egypt's effort to renew the internal reconciliation talks in Gaza as well as ceasefire negotiations with Israel. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter The Egyptian intelligence officials who entered Gaza through the Erez Crossing will meet with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Palestinian sources deemed the visit as "significant and crucial." Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh (Photo: AP) The sources added that "Egypt's main interest is to reach an intra-Palestinian reconciliation in compliance with Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas's demand according to which he is the only Palestinian representative with whom any understandings can be reached in Gaza. "Hamas, however, is interested to promote the ceasefire agreement with Israel (to end months of fighting that has repeatedly brought the two sides to the brink of war-ed) before reaching an internal reconciliation in order to take credit for easing the Israeli blockade over Gaza," the Palestinian sources elaborated. "Egypt views the dead end (in ceasefire talks with Israel) as pushing Gaza towards a dangerous military escalation on the border fence. "Nevertheless, Egypt is not willing to promote calm only to please Hamas since it has bigger international and intra-Arab interests," the sources explained. "Egypt will need to decide how to overcome this obstacle," they concluded. On Friday, Thousands of Palestinians demonstrated in several locations along the border fence, prompting IDF forces to respond with crowd dispersal measures. Gaza border riots (Photo: Reuters) The Palestinians said one Gaza border demonstrator was shot dead by IDF fire during the violent riots. IDF Spokesperson's Unit said that since Friday afternoon, more than 10,000 protestors have been gathering along the border, throwing explosive devices, grenades and stones at IDF troops and burning tires. An IDF soldier was lightly wounded from shrapnel and was evacuated to the hospital to receive medical attention. Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar arrived to the demonstration held near Gaza City and called to continue the protests until the blockade over Gaza is lifted. In addition, six fires broke out across the Gaza border communities amid incendiary balloons flown from the strip. KKL, Israel Nature and Parks Authority, and firefighting teams as well as volunteers from Kibbutz Be'eri gained control over the fires. An anti-government Arab group, the Ahvaz National Resistance, is responsible for Saturday's attack on a military parade in Iran's southwestern city of Ahvaz, a spokesperson told Reuters. Yaghub Hur Totsari, spokesman for one of the two groups that identify themselves as the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz, said the Ahvaz National Resistance, an umbrella organization of all armed movements, was behind the attack but did not specify which group. Totsari identified one of the assailants by the initials A.M., without elaborating. An Iranian military spokesman said Friday the gunmen responsible of the military parade attack were trained by two Gulf Arab states and had ties to the United States and Israel. "These terrorists... were trained and organized by two ... Gulf countries," Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi told the official news agency IRNA. "They are not from Daesh (Islamic State) or other groups fighting (Iran's) Islamic system ... but they are linked to America and (Israel's intelligence agency) Mossad." Israel will cut the tax revenue it transfers to the Palestinian Authority if it pays the family of the terrorist who stabbed to death former IDF paratrooper Ari Fuld in Gush Etzion on Sunday, Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon said on Friday. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter Kahlon said he had instructed that any sum paid to the terrorists family be withheld from tax revenue that Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority (PA) under interim peace deals. Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon I will examine other ways to limit the economic activity of the terrorists family, he said on Twitter. American-born Ari Fuld, 45, was stabbed at a shopping mall in the Etzion bloc of Jewish settlements south of Jerusalem. His assailant, Khalil Jabarin, 17, from a village of Yatta near Hebron, was shot at the scene and has since been in Israeli custody. I dont know how I will go on without you, said Fulds widow, Miriam, who had asked him to go shopping at the mall where he was assassinated. The father of four from the settlement of Efrat gave chase to the terrorist after being stabbed and attempted to shoot at his attacker. However, Jabarin was eventually shot and neutralized by a passerby and Fuld was eventually pronounced dead at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem. Ari Fuld It has not yet been decided whether Jabarin and his family will receive payments, according to a Palestinian official. Israel has in the past withheld tax funds and in July enacted a law to financially penalize the PA by the amount of stipends paid to Palestinians jailed by Israel, their families, and the families of those killed by Israeli forces. Israel says such stipends are a reward and encouragement for the prisoners actions against it. The Palestinian Authority says they are welfare payments to support them and their families. The PA, which has limited self-rule in the West Bank, where Israel retains overall security control, pays stipends that start at 1,400 shekels ($392) after a prisoner has been detained for three months. Amounts differ depending on the length of sentence. Earlier this year, US lawmakers enacted legislation to sharply reduce the annual $300 million in US aid to the PA unless it took steps to stop making what lawmakers described as payments that reward violent crime. The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), Maj. Gen. Kamil Abu Rokon, warned the residents of the Gaza Strip on Friday that if they do not refrain from being dragged into the terrorist activities of Hamas, their fishing zone may be reduced. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter Abu Rokon conveyed the message via the "full picture," a video blog that recently launched on his Facebook page, through which he conducts a direct dialogue in Arabic with Gaza residents. Maj. Gen. Abu Rokon Peace be upon you, this week I want to present you with the full picture of what is going on along the Gaza coast: Recently, we announced the expansion of the fishing zone for the Gaza Strip from three to nine miles, he said. Provocative flotilla near Israeli border (Photo: AFP) The expansion serves more than 250,000 people who make a living in the fishing industry. Due to the expanded zone, there has been a 50% increase in fishing revenue compared to a similar period before the expansion. The change also led to a sharp increase in the amount of fish in the market, and led to a 50% reduction in price," he stressed. Palestinians protest on coast (Photo: AP) COGAT chief then warned the residents of Gaza the decision could be reversed if they continue to take part in Hamas-led border violence. "However, the fishing boom poses a real danger. The Hamas terrorist organization exploits the Gazan fishermen working for their livelihood and forces them to participate in provocations and disturbances in the maritime zone. "I want to convey a clear and direct message: We will not ignore the maritime provocation, we will act decisively against those who disturb the peace in the sea, and if the situation continues, we will reduce the fishing zone back to three miles," he added in Arabic. "The full picture is quite clear: the disturbances that Hamas is encouraging in the Gaza maritime zone are likely to severely harm the livelihoods of Gazan fishermen and the welfare of the residents of the Gaza Strip. Rather than lend a hand to this blatant provocation, let us maintain the security stability that allows the development of the Palestinian economy in the Gaza Strip," he emphasized. Eight fires broke out Saturday in the Gaza border communities as a result of incendiary kites and balloons being launched from the strip into Israel. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter Firefighting crews, along with teams from the Nature and Parks Authority and Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael, gained control of the flames, which were later extinguished. Fire in Gaza border region (Photo: The Israel Fire and Rescue Services) One of the fires started in the Nahal Bohu Park at the entrance to the southern city of Netivot. The IDF said Saturday that the Israel Air Force (IAF) hit near an incendiary balloon cell in the Gaza strip in response. On Thursday, an IAF aircraft attacked a terror cell in the northern Gaza that was launching incendiary kites and balloons into Israeli territory. The strike was carried out in light of violent demonstrations along the southern border, which continued throughout Yom Kippur. Fire in Gaza border region (Photo: KKL Spokesperson) Earlier on Thursday, six fires broke out as a result of incendiary balloons and one fire was started by an incendiary kite. The areas which were affected by the flames are: Kibbutz Nir Am, the Be'eri Forest, the Kisufim Forest and Shokeda Forest. On Friday, the clashes along the security fence had resumed, with thousands of Gazas massing at several points near the Israeli border. According to the Palestinian health ministry, one demonstrator was killed by Israeli security forces. Riots along Gaza border (Photo: AFP) The ongoing Hamas-led border violence comes in light of the arrival of senior Egyptian intelligence officials delegation in the Gaza Strip on Saturday for a brief visit as part of Egypt's effort to renew talks on a long-term ceasefire arrangement with Israel. Palestinian sources described the visit as "significant and crucial." The sources added that "Egypt's main interest is to reach an intra-Palestinian reconciliation in accordance with President Mahmoud Abbas's demand to remain the only Palestinian representative with whom any understanding can be reached regarding Gaza. Hamas leaders (Photo: AP) However, according to the sources, Hamas wishes to reach an agreement with Israel for the sole purpose of taking credit for a possible lifting of Gaza blockade, while Egypt fears further escalation of hostilities if the agreement is not reached. "Egypt views the dead end (in ceasefire talks with Israel) as pushing Gaza towards a dangerous military escalation on the border fence. "Nevertheless, Egypt is not willing to promote calm only to please Hamas since it has bigger international and intra-Arab interests," the sources explained. Despite the reassuring messages by Israel following the downing of the Russian aircraft, the government in Moscow conveyed a more chilly tone on Friday, saying it is "too early to know" whether relations between the two states will be normalized. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter The comments were made by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov after the findings of the investigation were presented to the Russians by IAF chief Maj. Gen. Amikam Norkin on Thursday. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov (Photo: Reuters) The Russian Sputnik news network reported that Peskov said that Russian President Vladimir Putin is aware of the details of the IDF investigationbut "only the Defense Ministry experts will be able to assess whether the Israeli information will suffice." Peskov vehemently denied Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz's remarks that Putin had refused to answer Syrian President Bashar Assad's phone calls following the plane's downing and said they were not correct. "The president made it clear that the incident does not require further explanation," he stressed. The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday that Israel should continue to investigate the plane's downing which occurred during an IAF raid in Latakia earlier this week. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu first blamed Israel and promised that Moscow would not allow the incident to simply be overlooked, but Peskov said Putin himself called the incident "a chain of unfortunate event." Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu with President Putin On Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a consultation with the top echelons of the security forces and heard a detailed report from the commander of the air force, Norkin, on the talks in Moscow. Netanyahu instructed to continue the ongoing talks with the Russians. senior IDF source said that the Syrian Air Force had fired more than 20 missiles, including large SA-5 missiles that hit the Russian Ilyushin 20 aircraft. IL-2o aircraft (Photo: AP) The source noted that the coordination mechanism between the Russian military and Israel was still working successfully on Friday as part of a "routine operation." He added that at the meeting, the Russians were presented with the recording of the hotline between the air force commander in the Kirya and the Russian base in Syria. "Our notification of the operation was given more than a minute before the attack (contrary to the Russian claim), the official exclaimed. We left them a copy of the recording, as well as the main points of the investigation. We showed them proof regarding the site being attacked, the significance of the attack and its consequences. We feel that our data has been received in an objective and transparent manner. The claim that we used the Russian plane as provocation is incorrect and we proved it," he concluded. In the meantime, Russia is increasing its activities in the eastern Mediterranean. Earlier, the Russians issued an announcement restricting flights over many areas of Cyprus' airspace and the area adjacent to the Syrian coast due to Russian military operations. The airspace closure will continue until Wednesday. The military exercise announced by the Russians is expected to affect the flight routes controlled by the regional control tower in Cyprus, including flights to Israel, Lebanon and Syria. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused US-backed Gulf Arab states of carrying out an attack on a military parade that killed 25 people, almost half of them members of the country's elite Revolutionary Guards. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter Khamenei ordered security forces to bring to justice those responsible for one of the worst assaults ever against the Revolutionary Guards, the most powerful and heavily armed military force in the country, which answers to him. The allegation will likely ratchet up tensions with Iran's rival Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies, who along with the United States have been working to isolate the Islamic Republic. Iran leader leaves parade after learning about terror attack X "This crime is a continuation of the plots of the regional states that are puppets of the United States, and their goal is to create insecurity in our dear country," Khamenei said in a statement published on his website. He did not name the regional states he believed were to blame. Israel is also a key US ally opposed to Tehran. Terror attack in Iran (Photo: EPA) The assault, which wounded more than 60 people, targeted a stand where Iranian officials had gathered in the city of Ahvaz to watch an annual event marking the start of the Islamic Republic's 1980-88 war with Iraq, state television said. The bloodshed struck a significant blow to security in the oil producer, which has been relatively stable compared with neighbouring Arab countries that have grappled with upheaval since the 2011 uprisings across the Middle East. An Iranian ethnic Arab opposition movement called the Ahvaz National Resistance, which seeks a separate state in oil-rich Khuzestan province, claimed responsibility for the attack. Islamic State militants also claimed responsibility. Neither claim provided evidence. All four attackers were killed. Women and children died in the assault, state news IRNA agency reported. The assailants had hidden weapons in an area near the parade route several days in advance, said Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi, a senior spokesman for Iran's armed forces. "All four terrorists were quickly neutralized by security forces," Shekarchi told state television. "A four-year-old girl and a wheelchair-bound war veteran were among the dead." Attacks on the military are rare in Iran. The Guards have a big say in Iran's regional interests and a vast stake worth billions of dollars in Iran's economy. A video distributed to Iranian media showed soldiers crawling to escape gunfire. One picked up a gun and scrambled to his feet as women and children fled for their lives. A video on state television's website showed confused soldiers. Standing in front of the stand, one asked: "Where did they come from?" Another responded: "From behind us." Ahvaz is in the centre of Khuzestan province, where there have been sporadic protests by minority Arabs. Activists said the Revolutionary Guards had arrested several people in Ahvaz after the attack. The gunmen were trained by two Gulf Arab states and had ties to the United States and Israel, according to Shekarchi. They are not connected to ISIS, but to the US and to the Israeli Mossad, he said. There was no immediate Gulf Arab comment on his remarks. Mainly Shi'ite Iran and mostly Sunni Saudi Arabia support opposite sides in wars in Syria and Yemen and rival political parties in Iraq and Lebanon. The attack occurred a day before Iranian President Hassan Rouhani heads to New York to address the annual UN General Assembly next week. "Rouhani will use the terrorist attack to justify Iran's presence in the Middle East ...The attack will strengthen the IRGC's position inside Iran and in the region, a Tehran-based political analyst Hamid Farahvashian said. Iran will face pressure to respond to the high-profile attack, which has hurt the security establishment's prestige. Hardliners like the IRGC have gained standing at the expense of pragmatists in Iran's multi-tiered leadership since President Donald Trump decided in May to pull the United States out of the 2015 international nuclear deal with Tehran and reimpose sanctions on the Islamic Republic. Kurdish militants killed 10 Revolutionary Guards in an attack on an IRGC post on the Iraqi border in July. Last year, in the first deadly assault claimed by Islamic State in Tehran, 18 people were killed at the parliament and mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic. An Israeli was arrested after crossing into Egypt at the Taba crossing after a rifle bullet was discovered amongst his possessions. Apparently it belonged to his brother, a soldier. The Israeli Consul in Cairo is handling the situation. A barrage of negative feedback was thrown Ehud Olmerts way on Saturday following the former prime ministers meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Paris, with one senior Likud official branding Olmert a loyal spokesman of the Palestinian leader. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter "Olmert, who once offered Abbas the Western Wall, is now also his loyal spokesman, the official vented. During the meeting in the French capital, the former prime minister praised Abbass commitment to the two-state solution, adding that the Palestinian Authority (PA) leader earned my respect. Olmert and Abbas "The United States and many Arab countries have already realized that Abbas is the real obstacle to peace," the Likud official continued, before adding that his extreme demands will not lead to peace but to the destruction of the State of Israel," he concluded. Many other Likud party members followed suit in condemning the former prime minister for holding discussions with Abbas. Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan also criticized Olmert, accusing him of advancing interests of the Palestinians. "It is sad to see a former prime minister act in the interests of the Palestinians which causes damage to Israeli reputation in the international arena, the minister bemoaned. Gilad Erdan (Photo: Avi Moalem) After President Trump and his representatives understood that Mahmoud Abbas is someone who incites and promotes boycott initiatives against Israel, Olmertwho is detached from reality, decides to stand by the side of this instigator," Erdan stressed. Minister of Communications Ayoob Kara also labeled the PA leader an instigator. "Olmert's meeting with Mahmoud Abbas teaches us a lot about both of them. One is a failed former prime ministers who ended up in prison, and whose proposals were repeatedly rejected by the so-called peace partner, Kara explained. The other one is known around the world as a refuser of peace, who continues to pay salaries to murderers and encourages terror. They truly found each other, he concluded. Minister of Science Ofir Akunis said he believes the former prime minister is living in the past. "Olmert still lives in the previous decade. After Abbas humiliated Olmert he is now spreading lies against the elected Israeli government. Abbas is the one who refuses to return to the negotiating table and he is the one who ran away during talks in 2011which have not been renewed ever since, Akunis elaborated. Deputy Minister Michael Oren went as far as to suggest Olmert should face legal action following the contentious meeting. "Ehud Olmert's meeting with Mahmoud Abbas would have been considered a federal crime in the United States, and the former prime minister would have been sentenced to ten years in prison. This is a flagrant violation of democracy," Oren raged. Former Minister Gideon Sa'ar also addressed the topic, issuing a statement via his official Twitter account. Gideon Sa'ar (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky) "Ehud Olmert, like Ehud Barak before him, continues to negotiate with Abbas even after his resignation. Olmert offered Abbas even more far-reaching concessions than Barak offered to Arafat. Both of them failed for the same reason: the PA leadership is not interested in ending the conflict with Israel, he wrote on the social network. During the meeting Abbas told Olmert he was never officially opposed to the peace initiative presented to him. After the meeting concluded, Olmert said in a statement to the Palestinian media that "US and Europe, and certainly Israel must understand there is no substitute to the two-state solution and Abbas is the only person who can make it a reality. "The Palestinians understand that Abbas is committed to the two-state solution and it is important Israel understands this as well. Abbas is fighting against terror as part of his obligation to achieve peace," Olmert went on to say. "I consider Abbas my friend I believe, as he does, that achieving peace is possible, he concluded. According to Abbas, if Olmert would have remained in power for a few more months, a peace agreement would have been signed between Israel and the Palestinians. After a delegation of senior Egyptian intelligence officials left Gaza on Saturday night following a round of meetings with Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip, the terror organization expressed optimism regarding a possibility of reaching a wide-scale ceasefire arrangement with Israel. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter "The meeting took place with a positive atmosphere between the two sides, discussing challenges such as the Palestinian issue and the siege of the Gaza Strip," Hamas said in a statement. Gaza border riots (: ) X "Renewed efforts were made to achieve a cease-fire in accordance with the understandings reached in 2014 after Operation Protective Edge, which involve commitments by Israel, they added. Disturbances along Gaza border (Photo: AFP) "There was an in-depth discussion on ways to end the siege on the territory and ease the suffering of its residents, as well as the necessary demands for these steps, the statement also stressed. Palestinian sources described the visit as "significant and crucial." The sources added that "Egypt's main interest is to reach an intra-Palestinian reconciliation in accordance with President Mahmoud Abbas's demand to remain the only Palestinian representative with whom any understanding can be reached regarding Gaza. However, according to the sources, Hamas wishes to reach an agreement with Israel for the sole purpose of taking credit for a possible lifting of Gaza blockade, while Egypt fears further escalation of hostilities if the agreement is not reached. "Egypt views the dead end (in ceasefire talks with Israel) as pushing Gaza towards a dangerous military escalation on the border fence. "Nevertheless, Egypt is not willing to promote calm only to please Hamas since it has bigger international and intra-Arab interests," the sources explained. "Egypt will need to decide how to overcome this obstacle," they concluded. Earlier in the day, eight fires broke out in the Gaza border communities as a result of incendiary kites and balloons being launched from the strip into Israel. Firefighters in Gaza region (Photo: The Israel Fire and Rescue Services) Firefighting crews, along with teams from the Nature and Parks Authority and Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael, gained control of the flames, which were later extinguished. One of the fires started in the Nahal Bohu Park at the entrance to the southern city of Netivot. On Thursday, an IAF aircraft attacked a terror cell in northern Gaza that was launching incendiary kites and balloons into Israeli territory. Fire breaks out amid incendiary balloon in Netivot The strike was carried out in light of violent demonstrations along the southern border, which continued throughout Yom Kippur. Palestinian rioting on border fence (Photo: Reuters) Earlier on Thursday, six fires broke out as a result of incendiary balloons and one fire was started by an incendiary kite. The areas which were affected by the flames are: Kibbutz Nir Am, the Be'eri Forest, the Kisufim Forest and Shokeda Forest. On Friday, the clashes along the security fence had resumed, with thousands of Gazas massing at several points near the Israeli border. According to the Palestinian health ministry, one demonstrator was killed by Israeli security forces ZURICH - Pirates kidnapped 12 crew members from a Swiss merchant vessel on Saturday in Nigerian waters as it travelled between the west African country's commercial capital Lagos and the city of Port Harcourt, the ship's operator said in a statement. Massoel Shipping said the pirates boarded the vessel, which was carrying wheat, and kidnapped 12 of the 19 crew. The company did not give the nationalities of the crew members. An official close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the prime ministers speech at the United Nations on Thursday is expected to be amazing, interesting and include new information that will stun the whole world. Sources close to the PM said the information is regarding Iran. Netanyahu flies to NY on Tuesday and will meet with President Trump during the UN summit. LONDON - Iran summoned the envoys of the Netherlands, Denmark and Great Britain on Saturday night over the shooting at a military parade in which 25 people were killed, accusing them of harbouring Iranian opposition groups in their countries, IRNA reported. "It is not acceptable that these groups are not listed as terrorist organizations by the European Union as long as they have not carried out a terrorist attack in Europe," foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi was quoted as saying by IRNA. Editors Note: The following story is the second of a three-part series. Part 1, published on Friday, provided an overview of the status of an unnamed, multi-use trail connecting Wakefield to Marenisco. Wakefield The Western Upper Peninusla Trail Association operated for only five years, between 2012 and 2017, but its members are proud of what they accomplished during that time. According to Ross and Kim Kolesar, of Wakefield, who served, respectively, as WUPTAs president and secretary, informal work already had been occurring for about 10 years prior to the organization of the group. WUPTA described its mission as to develop and maintain safe and legal off-road vehicle motorized trails in the western end of Gogebic County that would not only boost the local economy, but give additional recreational opportunities to residents. Kim Kolesar claimed in an Aug. 12 summary last month that countless volunteer hours, donations and membership dues kept the club moving forward until a partnership with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources resulted in WUPTA becoming an official ORV grant sponsor for the DNR. She said the grant status resulted in more members, as well as more cooperation from government entities and private landowners. Ron Yesney, Upper Peninsula Trails Coordinator of the DNRs Parks and Recreation Division, told the Daily Globe the DNRs original intention was for WUPTA and the Gogebic Range Trail Authority to co-manage what is known simply as Trail 2 for snowmobilers, or as the Ironwood-Marenisco route to off-road vehicles. The plan was for WUPTA to be the ORV grant sponsor of the entire route, while GRTA would be the snowmobile grant sponsor of the same route. The I-M route connects Marenisco to Hurley. When differences of opinion between WUPTA and GRTA fractured that plan, Yesney said the DNR, along with ORV and snowmobile advisory groups, instead suggested in September of 2017 that WUPTA be the ORV grant sponsor of the trail west of Ramsay, while GRTA continue its snowmobile sponsorship, while also being the ORV sponsor of the trail east of Ramsay. Meanwhile, Ross Kolesar told the Globe other challenges occurred when some landowners complained of unwelcome snowmobilers using their properties. Steve Hamilton, president of GRTA, said some areas of the trail are not designated for snowmobiles, although multi-use is the DNRs goal. They said negotiations with landowners are an ongoing part of trail management. Ross Kolesar said all-terrain vehicles also must use roads in some areas because trail continuity is inconsistent. He said problems with swampy areas between Ramsay and Wakefield exacerbate the issue, so that riders entering Wakefield from Marenisco now must use a short portion of Sunday Lake Street, plus Old U.S. 2, to continue on to Ramsay. Officials have posted announcements that all local streets in Wakefield and Wakefield Township are open to ATVs. Drivers of machines attempting to use M-28 or U.S. 2, however, are warned they will be ticketed. Although WUPTA chose to dissolve as a state nonprofit organization at the end of last year, Ross Kolesar said members are still busy trying to support ORV riders. Were out every week doing things, brushing, moving beaver dams, surveying trails. He said he is happy with how the Michigan Trails and Recreation Alliance of Land and the Environment have taken over WUPTAs responsibilities. At the DNRs request, MI-TRALE agreed to be the temporary ORV sponsor of the trail between Marenisco and Ramsay. As part of its exit, WUPTA members also released any remaining funds they held to local governments. We had to give it to a government entity, based on our bylaws, said Suzanne Toth, who served as WUPTAs treasurer. She said Marenisco Township received $5,000, and the remaining sum of $2,183 went to Wakefield Township. Marenisco Township supervisor Richard Bouvette said the funds received there were used to dress up the townships Trail 2 trailhead area. Picnic tables and a plaque to thank WUPTA for its donation already exist, and Bouvette hopes to have a five-by-five-foot concrete building ready soon, with coin-operated washing for vehicle operators using the trail. Wakefield Township supervisor John Cox said the township formed a partnership with the city of Wakefield to use funds received by the township for a kiosk where Trail 2 meets Sunday Lake Street, across from the Wakefield Fire Hall. Wakefield City Manager Richard Brackney hopes eventually to have a waterline at the citys trailhead. He is also encouraging planning commission members to consider a good looking signage plan to lure trail users to city restaurants and businesses. Kim Kolesar said WUPTA members are grateful to the volunteers and communities for providing funds or hands-on help over the years. WUPTA now exists informally as the Western U.P. Trail Advocates. Latest News Washington, DC - Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo: "On behalf of the United States of America, I send my hearty greetings to the Government and people of the Republic of Mali as you mark your countrys Independence Day on September 22. "The United States and Mali established diplomatic relations at Malis independence. Our people enjoy close ties. Together we work to advance our shared goals of strengthening security, democracy, human rights protections and governance, as well as increasing economic growth. The United States is committed to working with Mali to achieve peace and prosperity for all Malians, and to that end, we look forward to the full implementation of the Algiers Accord for Peace and Reconciliation in Mali. "On your 58th anniversary of independence, the United States stands with Mali in continued friendship and longstanding partnership." Our directory features more than 18 million business listings from across the entire US. However, if we're missing your business, add your business by clicking on Add Your Business. iShares MSCI Austria ETF's stock was trading at $15.26 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, EWO shares have increased by 72.0% and is now trading at $26.24. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. Bank Hapoalim BM engages in the provision of private and corporate banking services. It operates through the following segments: Retail, Corporate, and International Activities. The Retail Activity segment operates in Private Banking, Small Businesses, and Housing Loans. Private Banking provides a range of banking services and financial products, including investment advisory services. Small Businesses provides a variety of banking services to business customers. Housing Loans is providing credit services for housing to customers of retail activity. The Corporate Activity segment operates in Commercial and Business sectors. Business sector provides financial services to large corporations in Israel and abroad. The International Activity segment operates in Financial Management and Adjustments. Financial Management is responsible for the management of the bank's sources and uses, for the bank's nostro activity, for the activity of the transaction rooms (foreign currency and securities), for provident fund management companies services and for the provision of operating services to financial asset managers, and securities management services for all bank customers. Adjustments includ Read More Centrica plc operates as an integrated energy company in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Norway, North America, and internationally. The company operates through British Gas, Energy Marketing & Trading, Centrica Business Solutions, Bord GAis Energy, and Upstream segments. It supplies gas and electricity to residential customers, as well as offers energy-related services; and generates power from combined cycle gas turbines and nuclear assets. The company also provides installation, repair, and maintenance services for domestic central heating, plumbing and drains, home electrical, and gas and kitchen appliances; and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning equipment, as well as offers breakdown services. In addition, it is involved in the procurement, trading, and optimization of energy; procurement and sale of LNG; and supplies energy efficiency solutions and technologies to residential customers. Further, the company produces and processes gas and oil; develops new fields to maintain reserves; constructs, owns, and exploits infrastructure; and engages in the social enterprise investment fund activities. Additionally, it provides vehicle leasing, commercial, and insurance services, as well as energy management products and services; and operates a gas storage and franchise network. The company was formerly known as Yieldtop plc and changed its name to Centrica plc in December 1996. Centrica plc was incorporated in 1995 and is based in Windsor, the United Kingdom. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of NOV: AG Holding UK, APL France SAS, APL Management Pte Ltd, APL Norway AS, APL do Brasil Ltda., ASEP Group Holding B.V., ASEP Otomotiv Sanayi Ticaret Ltd., Ackerman Holdings C.V., Ackerman Holdings GP LLC, Ackerman International Holland B.V., Advanced Production and Loading, Advanced Wirecloth, Aggregate Plant Products Co., American Pipe and Construction International, Ameron B.V., Ameron Holdings Pte. Ltd., Ameron International, Ameron International Corporation, Ameron Pole Products LLC, Ameron Polyplaster Industria E Comercio de Tubos Ltda., Ameron Singapore Holding, Ameron Singapore Poly Holdings Pte. Ltd., Ameron Trading Holdings Pte. Ltd., Andergauge Limited, Andergauge Redback, Andergauge USA, Arabian Rig Manufacturing Company, Axiom Process Limited, Belco Manufacturing Company, Big Red Tubulars Limited, Bondstrand Ltd., Bowen Downhole Inc., Bowen Downhole LLC, Brandt Interests, Brandt Oilfield Services (M) Sdn. Bhd., C.M.A. Canavera S.R.L., CJSC Fidmash, CJSC Novmash, CSI Inspection, Camco Drilling Group Limited, Chemineer, Coil Services Middle East LLC, Containment Solutions, Containment Solutions Services, Couoperatie Intelliserv Holding U.A., Couoperatie NOV NL U.A., Danco AS, Denali Incorporated, Denali Management, Devin International, Dreco Canada L.P., Dreco DHT, Dreco Eastern Europe ULC, Dreco Energy Services ULC, Dreco International Holdings ULC, Dreco LLC, E.C. Motors, Elmar Far East Pty Ltd, Enerflow Industries, Enerpro de Mexico, Environmental Procedures LLC, Ershigs, Fabricated Plastics Acquisitions Limited, Fabricated Plastics Limited, Fiber Glass Systems, Fiber Glass Systems (Qingdao) Composite Piping Co., Fiber Glass Systems Holdings, Fiber Glass Systems Oman L.L.C., Fiber Glass Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Fiberspar, Fiberspar Australia Pty. Ltd., Fiberspar Corporation, Fiberspar Linepipe Canada Ltd., Fibra Ingenieria y Construccion S.A., FidService, Fjords Processing (Shanghai) Co., Fjords Processing 1 AS, Fjords Processing AS, Fjords Processing Australia Pty Ltd, Fjords Processing France SAS, Fjords Processing Korea Co. Ltd., Fjords Processing Limited, Fjords Processing UK Ltd., Fryma S.a.r.l., GOT German Oil Tools GmbH, GP USA Holding LLC, GPEX, German Oil Tools (Middle East) FZE, Grant Prideco (Jiangsu) Drilling Products Co., Grant Prideco (Singapore) Pte Ltd, Grant Prideco AB TCA Holding LLC, Grant Prideco European Holding, Grant Prideco Holding, Grant Prideco III C. V., Grant Prideco Inc., Grant Prideco Jersey Limited, Grant Prideco L.P., Grant Prideco Mauritius Limited, Grant Prideco Netherlands B.V., Grant Prideco PC Composites Holdings, Grant Prideco S. de R.L. de C.V., Grant Prideco USA, Grant Prideco de Venezuela, Greystone Technologies Pty. Ltd., GustoMSC B.V., GustoMSC U.S., Hebei Huayouyiji Tuboscope Coating Co., Hitec AS, Hydralift AmClyde, Hydralift France SAS, Hydralift Holdings UK Limited, Inspecciones y Pruebas No Destructivas, IntelliServ Norway AS, Intelliserv, Intelliserv GP Holdings LLC, Intelliserv International Holding, Intelliserv LLC, Interval LLC, JiangYin Tuboscope Tubular Development Co., Merpro Group Limited, Merpro Products Limited, Merpro Tortek Limited, Midsund Bruk AS, Mono Group Pension Trustees Limited, Mono Pumps New Zealand Company, Monoflo NOV S.A.I.C., Moyno Inc., Moyno de Mexico S.A. de C.V., NKT Flexibles I/S, NOV (Asia), NOV (Barbados) Holding SRL, NOV (Barbados) SRL, NOV (Caymans), NOV (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., NOV - Oil Services Angola LDA., NOV APL Limited, NOV ASEP Elmar Mexico, NOV Africa Pty Ltd, NOV Australia Pty Ltd, NOV Azerbaijan LLC, NOV Brandt Europe France, NOV Brandt Oilfield Services Middle East LLC, NOV CV1 GP LLC, NOV CV2 GP LLC, NOV Completion Tools AS, NOV Completion Tools LLC, NOV Completion and Production Solutions Korea Ltd., NOV DH de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., NOV DHT Canada Holding ULC, NOV Denmark Cooperatief U.A., NOV Downhole Argentina, NOV Downhole Bolivia S.R.L., NOV Downhole Colombia, NOV Downhole Comercializacao de Equipamentos para Petroleo Ltda., NOV Downhole Congo, NOV Downhole Eurasia Limited, NOV Downhole Europe B.V., NOV Downhole Germany GmbH, NOV Downhole Italia S.R.L., NOV Downhole Kazakhstan, NOV Downhole Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., NOV Downhole Pty Ltd, NOV Downhole Thailand, NOV Dreco GP LLC, NOV EU Acquisition SNC, NOV Elmar (Middle East) Limited, NOV Elmar NL B.V., NOV Elmar Pte. Ltd., NOV Enerflow ULC, NOV Eurasia Holding LLC, NOV European Holding LLC, NOV Expatriate Services, NOV FGS Malaysia Sdn Bhd, NOV FGS Singapore (Pte.) Ltd, NOV Fiber Glass Systems Fabricacao De Tubos E Conexoes Ltda, NOV Flexibles Equipamentos E Servicos Ltda., NOV Flexibles Holding ApS, NOV Floating Production AS, NOV Fluid Control B.V., NOV GEO GP LLC, NOV GEO LP1 C.V., NOV GEO LP2 C.V., NOV GP Holding L.P., NOV GP1 Holding LLC, NOV Gabon SARL, NOV Germany Holding GmbH, NOV Ghana Limited, NOV Grant Prideco Drilling Equipment Manufacturing LLC, NOV Grant Prideco Drilling Products Middle East FZE, NOV Grant Prideco L.L.C., NOV Holding Danmark ApS, NOV Holding Germany GmbH & Co KG, NOV Holding Germany Management GmbH, NOV Holdings B.V., NOV Hydra Rig Pte. Ltd, NOV India Private Limited, NOV Intelliserv UK Limited, NOV International Holdings C.V., NOV International Holdings GP LLC, NOV Intervention & Stimulation Equipment US LLC, NOV Intervention and Stimulation Equipment Aftermarket Comercio de Equipamentos e Servicos Ltda., NOV Kenya Limited, NOV Kostroma LLC, NOV Kuwait Light & Heavy Equipment Repairing & Maintenance Co., NOV LP (Trading), NOV MSI Pipe Protection Technologies Inc., NOV MSI Pipe Protection Technologies Mexico, NOV Mexico Holding LLC, NOV Middle East FZCO, NOV Mission Products UK Limited, NOV Mozambique Limitada, NOV NL Mexico Holding B.V., NOV Netherlands Finance Holding C.V., NOV Netherlands Finance Holding LLC, NOV North America I/P, NOV Oil & Gas Services Egypt (S.A.E), NOV Oil & Gas Services Uganda Limited, NOV Oil and Gas Services Ghana Limited, NOV Oil and Gas Services Namibia (Proprietary) Limited, NOV Oil and Gas Services Nigeria Limited, NOV Oil and Gas Services South Africa (Pty) Limited, NOV Oilfield Services Tanzania Limited, NOV Oilfield Services Vostok LLC, NOV Oilfield Solutions Ltd., NOV Park II B.V., NOV Process & Flow Technologies AS, NOV Process & Flow Technologies Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., NOV Process & Flow Technologies Pte. Ltd., NOV Process & Flow Technologies UK Limited, NOV Process & Flow Technologies US, NOV Rig Solutions Pte. Ltd., NOV Romania, NOV Saudi Arabia Co. Ltd., NOV Saudi Arabia Trading Co., NOV Services Ltd., NOV Servicios de Personal Mexico, NOV Subsea Products AS, NOV TV2 LLC, NOV TVI LLC, NOV Tanajib Kuwait for Services and Maintenance of Oil Rigs Refineries and Petrochemicals, NOV Tuboscope Italia S.R.L., NOV Tuboscope Middle East LLC, NOV Tuboscope NL B.V., NOV Tubulars and Connectors Ltd., NOV UK (Angola Acquisitions) Limited, NOV UK Finance Limited, NOV UK Holdings Limited, NOV UK Korea LP, NOV Wellbore Technologies Norway LLC, NOV Wellbore Technologies do Brasil Equipamentos E Servicos Ltda., NOV Wellsite Services Germany GmbH, NOV Worldwide C.V., NOV-BLM SAS, NOVM Holding LLC, NOW Downhole Tools, NOW International LLC, NOW Nova Scotia Holdings LLC, NOW Oilfield Services, NQL Holland B.V., National Oilwell (U.K.) Limited, National Oilwell Algerie, National Oilwell DHT, National Oilwell Middle East Company, National Oilwell Services de Mexico, National Oilwell Varco (Beijing) Investment Management Co. Ltd., National Oilwell Varco (Thailand) Ltd., National Oilwell Varco Algeria, National Oilwell Varco Almansoori Services, National Oilwell Varco Bahrain WLL, National Oilwell Varco Belgium SA, National Oilwell Varco Denmark I/S, National Oilwell Varco Egypt LLC, National Oilwell Varco Eurasia, National Oilwell Varco Guatemala, National Oilwell Varco Guyana Inc., National Oilwell Varco Hungary Limited Liability Company, National Oilwell Varco Korea Co., National Oilwell Varco MSW S.A., National Oilwell Varco Mexico, National Oilwell Varco Muscat L.L.C., National Oilwell Varco Norway AS, National Oilwell Varco Peru S.R.L., National Oilwell Varco Petroleum Equipment (Shanghai) Co., National Oilwell Varco Poland Sp.z.o.o., National Oilwell Varco Pte. Ltd., National Oilwell Varco Rig Equipment Trading (Shanghai) Co., National Oilwell Varco Romania S.R.L., National Oilwell Varco Solutions, National Oilwell Varco UK Limited, National Oilwell Varco Ukraine LLC, National Oilwell Varco de Bolivia S.R.L., National Oilwell Varco de Chile - Servicios Limitada, National Oilwell Varco do Brasil Ltda., National Oilwell de Venezuela, National-Oilwell Pte. Ltd., National-Oilwell Pty. Ltd., PT Fjords Processing Indonesia, PT H-Tech Oilfield Equipment, PT NOV Oilfield Services, PT National Oilwell Varco, PT PROFAB INDONESIA, Pesaka Inspection Services SDN.BHD., Pipex Limited, Pipex PX Limited, Pipex Structural Composites Limited, Pridecomex Holding S. de R.L. de C.V., Pridecomex TA Industries, Procon Engineering Ltd., Profab Engineering Pte. Ltd., Profab Services Pte Ltd, Quality Tubing FSC, R&M C.V., R&M Canada Cooperatief U.A., R&M Energy Systems Australia Pty Ltd., R&M Energy Systems de Argentina S.A., R&M Energy Systems de Venezuela, R&M Environmental Strategies, R&M Singapore Holding LLC, R&M UK Holding LLC, RE.MAC.UT. S.r.l., RHI Holding LLC, ReedHycalog, ReedHycalog International Holding, ReedHycalog LLC, ReedHycalog UK Limited, Robannic Overseas Finance A.V.V., Robbins & Myers, Robbins & Myers (Suzhou) Process Equipment Company Limited, Robbins & Myers B.V., Robbins & Myers Foundation, Robbins & Myers GP LLC, Robbins & Myers Holdings, Robbins & Myers Holdings UK Limited, Robbins & Myers Inc, Robbins & Myers Italia S.R.L., Robbins & Myers N.V., Rodic S.A. de C.V., Romaco S.a.r.l., STAR Sudamtex Tubulares S.A., STBH2O TUNISIE, STSA, Screen Manufacturing Company Unlimited, Seabox AS, Slip Clutch Systems Limited, Smart Drilling GmbH, Soil Recovery A/S, South Seas Inspection, Subseaflex Holding ApS, T-3 Energy Preferred Industries Mexico, T-3 Energy Services, T-3 Energy Services Cayman, T-3 Energy Services Cayman Holdings, T-3 Energy Services India Private Limited, T-3 Energy Services Mexico, T-3 Investment Corporation IV, T-3 Mexican Holdings, TVI Holdings, Telluride Insurance Limited, Tianjin Grant TPCO Drilling Tools Company Limited, Tube-Kote, Tubo-FGS, Tuboscope & Co. LLC, Tuboscope (Holding U.S.) LLC, Tuboscope Brandt de Venezuela, Tuboscope Machining Services AS, Tuboscope Norge AS, Tuboscope Pipeline Services Inc., Tuboscope Services, Tuboscope Vetco (Deutschland) GmbH, Tuboscope Vetco (France) SAS, Tuboscope Vetco (Oesterreich) GmbH, Tuboscope Vetco Canada ULC, Tuboscope Vetco Capital Limited, Tuboscope Vetco Moscow CJSC, Tuboscope Vetco de Argentina S.A., Tubular Coatings Solutions Ltd., Tucom Composites Polyester Sanayi Ticaret Ltd., Varco BJ B.V., Varco CIS, Varco Canada ULC, Varco I/P, Varco International de Venezuela, Varco L.P., Varco US Holdings LLC, Vetco Coating GmbH, Vetco Enterprise GmbH, Vetco Saudi Arabia Ltd., Visible Assets, Wilson International, Woolley, XL Systems, XL Systems Antilles, XL Systems Europe B.V., XL Systems International, voestalpine Middle East Free Zone Establishment, voestalpine Tubulars Corporation, voestalpine Tubulars GmbH, and voestalpine Tubulars GmbH & Co KG. A 50-year-old woman has died at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital after reportedly being denied admission due to the unavailability of hospital beds. The incident is reported to have happened on Monday when the victim was rushed to the hospital for treatment. Family of the deceased have accused hospital staff of being responsible for the death of their relative and therefore want an investigation conducted into the matter. Madam Sheila died at the Greater Accra Regional Hospital. Source: Citinewsroom.com Source: UGC READ ALSO: Ghana Immigration to deport 73 foreign nationals According to them, the staff on duty who had no name tags were reluctant to attend to the deceased, Sheila Mansa Fugar, who was battling for her life in an ambulance. Nephew to the deceased, Ebenezer Carboo-Hartog told Accra-based Citi FM that his Auntie was rushed to Korle-Bu after her conditioned failed to improve despite earlier being admitted at a private facility. The doctor suggested that we take her to a bigger facility when she was stable because she was aggressive and she was restless, he said. Explaining further, he said: The reception was very bad in the sense that the staff over there told us plainly there was no bed when we got to the emergency unit, and we asked for us to be given some care, the person said there was no bed and turned us away. The staff instructed a lady subordinate to try and attend to us; she didnt respond, she was reluctant. In fact, they both didnt care. Ebenezer said they drove their relative to another private facility but the victim could still not be stabilised after the oxygen she was put on run out. READ ALSO: Mahama celebrates 21st birthday of son, Sharaf The victim was subsequently pronounced dead at the Greater Accra Regional Hospital at Ridge at 4:30 am on Monday. The family has called for an investigation into the matter and are demanding sanctions for staff who denied her care. Early in June, a 70-year-old man, Anthony Opoku-Acheampong, died after seven hospitals in Accra turned him away over claims that there were no beds. The incident led to the Ghana Health Service directing all hospitals to treat emergency cases irrespective of whether there are no beds. However, the latest case indicates that the no bed syndrome is still very much prevalent in hospitals. Ghana News Today: Kofi Annan Burial Ceremony | Yen.com.gh READ ALSO: I never uttered those words attributed to me - Kweku Adoboli Want to be featured on YEN.com.gh? Send us a message on our Facebook page or on Instagram with your stories, photos or videos. Source: Yen - Bishop Obinim has revealed that he is set to buy one of two private jets yet to arrive in the country - The man of God while speaking in an interview made a phone call to a man in UK - It was revealed that Obinim was going to take delivery of the planes and check them out Founder and leader of The International Gods Way Church, Bishop Daniel Obinim, has revealed that he is making plans to pay for a private jet which is set to arrive in Ghana soon upon his request. The popular Man of God was seen in an interview as he made a phone call to one Nana Prempeh based in the United Kingdom. According to Nana Prempeh, all the documentation needed to purchase the private jet had been completed and the only thing needed was Obinim's signature to seal the deal. Obinim. Credit: Supplied Source: Depositphotos READ ALSO: Video: Rashida Black Beauty and Kushman flaunt their beautiful baby girl Obinim, in a bid to prove his point, showed his phone to the camera and it captured the foreign number he received the call from. Nana Prempeh revealed at a point that the planes were in the UK and that he was waiting for permission from the man of God to fly the planes to Ghana for him to check them out. The voice on the other side of the conversation believed to be the middleman in the sale added that he wanted to get a plane that could travel longer distances and also get to customize the seat of Bishop Obinim. In divulging more information, Nana Prempeh indicated what he had found was a 12-seater jet which was going to suit the needs of the pastor. He added that Obinim was going to receive preferential treatment unlike some politicians and businessmen in the country. Video Credit: YouTube/One Love Ghana TV READ ALSO: I don't have time to sue Shatta Wale - Stonebwoy reveals in new video Obinim, in talking about the cost of the jet, revealed that he had so much money in his spiritual warehouse that he could pay for the jet without breaking a sweat. He added that he was never envious of anyone because he had more than enough to spend. Not too long ago, YEN.com.gh reported on another video in which the popular pastor, during one of his prophetic and deliverance services, wanted to take off into the skies. "I feel to fly right now...I feel to fly", the man of God was heard saying. "Watch me, I am about to vanish", he continued in Twi. He was instantly surrounded by some junior pastors and some of his congregants who begged him to rescind his decision to leave them on earth. The man of God has attempted to take off into heaven on his 'wings' on more than one occasion with the first one seeing him run across the church while flapping his arms. The Kumasi-based Man of God is noted for proclaiming that he is an angel among men and is also noted for claiming to appear in the dreams of some of his congregants. READ ALSO: Ghana Immigration to deport 73 foreign nationals The leader of the church is arguably one of Ghanas most influential Men of God and counted among the richest in the country because he boasts of many houses and expensive cars. He recently purchased a brand new Rolls Royce Ghost Series II believed to cost some $300,000. He revealed that he could purchase more of the plush vehicles if he so desired after some critics bashed him. Aside the fact that many people do not side with some of the antics and controversies, the Man of God has been involved in, he commands a huge church following both in Kumasi and Accra. The pastor is married to award-winning local gospel sensation, Florence Obinim. READ ALSO: Photo: Mahama celebrates 21st birthday of son, Sharaf Watch: Eric Nortey Story - The Story of a Male Make-Up Artist: Faces of Ghana | #Yencomgh Have national and human interest issues to discuss? Know someone who is extremely talented and needs recognition? Your stories and photos are always welcome. Get interactive via our Facebook page. Source: Yen - The MP for Bolgatanga East, Dr. Dominic Akuritinga Ayine, has opened up about the reason behind John Mahama's intent to become president of Ghana again - According to him, the former president's return is to prove a point about himself as well as other Northerners The Member of Parliament (MP) for Bolgatanga East constituency, Dr. Dominic Akuritinga Ayine, has disclosed the reason behind Former President John Mahamas decision to contest as president in the 2020 elections. According to a report by MyNewsGH.com, Dr. Ayine added that Mahama wishes to prove a point, hence his decision. He further explained that Mahamas comeback is an opportunity to vindicate himself, as well as other Northerners. READ ALSO: Another woman dies over no-bed syndrome in Accra This, he went on to say, is because Mahama has been tagged with numerous denigrating names by his political opponents before, during and after the 2016 elections. In his opinion, the other flagbearer contestants within the National Democratic Congress (NDC) are very good candidates, but time is not ripe for them to take up such positions once former President John Dramani Mahama is still around to execute his mandate to the Ghanaian people. Spio is a very nice person with a lot of experience, he is a smart gentleman; yes, he fits the bill and can be the president of this country, and a competent one at that. But I want to repeat I support Mahama hundred percent. I am not going to make even one percent for anybody, he disclosed on Yem Fm in Bolgatanga. He went on to say that Mahama needs to come back and vindicate himself and other Northerners. Let us not forget that sectional and ethnic politics is still prevalent in this country. When Limann was president, Limann was a very smart president. You can read Addai Mensahs book on Limann. Born scholar and very smart but what did they say, he was useless and was incompetent. Go back and read what was said about Limann. I believe that was the same thing happening to Mahama. He needs to come back and vindicate Northerners. According to him, the return of the former president is also aimed at completing the various infrastructural projects which were embarked but left at various stages of completion. READ ALSO: Mahama celebrates his son's 21st birthday Ghana Funny Tricky Questions: 6X9? | #Yencomgh Want to be featured on YEN.com.gh? Send us a message on our Facebook page or on Instagram with your stories, photos or videos Source: Yen - Prophet Nigel Gaisie has disclosed the reason behind his decision to part ways with Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams - According to him, he received a message from God to start his own church, hence his decision to leave - He also spoke about challenges he faced from his family members as he grew up The Founder and Leader of the True Word Prophetic Fire Ministry, Prophet Nigel Gaisie, has spoken about his decision to part ways with his spiritual father, Archbishop Duncan-Williams. In a report by zionfelix.net, he mentioned to blakkpepper.com that he used to be a one of Duncan-Williams personal prophets, but had to stop at a point. He explained that he had a directive from God to start his own ministry, hence his decision to part ways with the Presiding Archbishop and General Overseer of the Action Chapel International. Prophet Nigel Gaisie Source: Supplied Source: UGC READ ALSO: Mahama's return to power will send an important message to Ghanaians - Bolga East MP Prophet Gaisie went on to say that he faced several challenges before reaching his present status in life. Born to Prof. Samuel Kwesi Gaisie and Grace Titibia Odoe, Nigel said he had a deprived upbringing, adding when his parents separated, their late father concluded that taking care of them would mean they will do well in life. That, he decided against , because their success in life will compel them to cater for their mother, a situation he wished to avoid. I have sold cassava, plantain, onion and bread before; on the streets of Adabraka and Asylum Down. I grew up in pain, I have seen naked pain before, so I purposed to overturn that apostate life and situation, Nigel disclosed. READ ALSO: Rapper Edem flaunts his lovely children He added that he schooled at the King of Kings International School while a house help of an aunt, but comments from another aunt compelled the former to sack him from the house. With the sack, Gaisie would hawk on the streets of Accra but the prophet of today made an observation which would influence his educational path. I observed that men of God then were not highly educated so I sold cassava and did space to space to support my goal of schooling to the highest level he said. Gaisie is a product of the Abuakwa State College, Accra Polytechnic now Accra Technical University where he read the Purchasing and Supply programme. He continued to the University of Ghana where he offered Political Science, History and Linguistics, relying on the Students Loan Scheme and the benevolence of a few people. READ ALSO: Mahama celebrates his son's 21st birthday Ghana News: President Akufo-Addo Receives Remains of Kofi Annan | #Yencomgh Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish on YEN.com.gh? Please contact us on Facebook or Instagram now! Source: Yen Information available to YEN.com.gh suggests that a police officer, Sergeant Jonathan A. Otto, has been left to his fate after sustaining injuries while on duty. According to sources, he is yet to receive his benefits and is therefore pleading with the Service to heed to his cry. Sergeant Otto served in the Ghana Police Service for 25 years but was declared as a deserter after he was knocked down by a vehicle in the line of duty. Source: adomonline.com Source: UGC READ ALSO: Mahama needs to return to power to send an important to Ghanaians - Bolga East MP Speaking on Dwaso Nsem, on Friday, September 21, 2018, he stated that the service has placed an embargo on his salary for 8 years and has also refused him other benefits due him for the past years; a situation he said has left him devastated. I was on an operation duty at Sankara Circle, some years back when I was knocked down by a car and was rushed to the hospital. It affected my leg so I had to undergo surgery at the police hospital, where I was admitted for one month, he narrated. Source: adomonline.com Source: UGC He was later discharged, but upon his return to work, he was transferred from the headquarters to the Volta Region. When I reported, I was told that the service could no longer work with me, without any explanation and what I dont know is whether its because of my condition, he added. They have put an embargo on my salary and other benefits. As Im speaking, I have nothing on me; I only rely on my son to feed me. Please help me because the service is not treating me well, he appealed. Source: adomonline.com Source: UGC His son, Emmanuel Otoo, said in 2017 they petitioned the police service about the state of his father but all to no avail. He added that the situation has affected the entire family with his father unable to take care of the entire family. This fear is that his father might be suffering from some psychological effects since he keeps to himself and hardly opens up to people as compared to before. The family is, therefore, pleading with the service to intervene and commence the necessary arrangements that will ensure justice is served his father. READ ALSO: Prophet Nigel Gaisie opens up about the reason he left Archbishop Duncan-Williams Ghana Funny Tricky Questions: 6X9? | #Yencomgh Use the comments section below to share your views on this story. Do you have a story to share or you have information for us? Get featured on YEN.com.gh. Message us on Facebook or Instagram Source: Yen News - Prophet Nigel Gaisie has revealed that God will soon call radio presenter, Blakk Rasta, to work for Him - According to him, he once prophesied upon Blakk Rasta's life and it came to pass - He then mentioned some men of God who have impacted his life in various ways The Founder and Leader of the True Word Prophetic Fire Ministry, Prophet Nigel Gaisie, has stated that popular radio presenter, Blakk Rasta, will soon do the work of God. According to a report by zionfelix.net, he said he once interacted with Blakk Rasta, prophesied upon him, and it came to pass. I met him (Blakk Rasta) during a crusade and I saw things about him, told him and they came to pass. Blakk Rasta Source: EnewsGH.com Source: UGC READ ALSO: Nigel Gaisie reveals the reason why he parted ways with Archbishop Duncan-Williams The spirit of God convicts and hes been a loyal son. He is more of a brother and a friend now. God will use him even more mightily, Prophet Gaisie said. Turning his attention to men of God whose works constantly inspire him, he said that he respects Emmanuel Afriyie Amoako Ayims prophetic gifts. He went on to say that his grand spiritual father is Bishop Amaniapong and for prayer and longevity, it is Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams. For longevity of service, he cherishes Bishop Salifu Amoako and for prayer, he looks to Apostle Oko Hackman. When it comes to healing, he is inspired by Benny Hinn, and Apostle Johnson Suleman and Dauda Eliason in South Africa are men of God he salutes as well. The last born of 8 children, Prophet Gaisie also has his ministry firmly rooted in London, Sierra Leone, and Banjul. READ ALSO: Mahama needs to return to power to prove a point - Bolga MP Top 3 Ghana Richest Women: Who Are They? | Yen.com.gh YEN is building a platform where Ghanaians can share local news and own experiences with each other. Witnessing an incident? Want to tell about a local problem? Know someone who is extremely talented and needs recognition? Your stories and photos are always welcome. Send us a message via Instagram or on YENs official Facebook page. Source: Yen Ghana - Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has arrived in the Upper West Region to help with relief items for victims of the Bagre Dam spillage disaster - Upon his arrival, he presented some items at a short ceremony - Thousands of people have been displaced since the spillage occurred and 34 people have lost their lives Information available to YEN.com.gh shows that the Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has arrived in the Upper West Region. According to a report by MyNewsGH.com, he will lead a relief team that will provide support to the victims of the Bagre Dam spillage disaster. The Bagre Dam is a multipurpose dam on the White Volta located near Bagre Village in Burkina Faso. READ ALSO: Blakk Rasta will soon serve God in a powerful way - Prophet Gaisie Thousands of people have been displaced since the incident occurred, and 34 people have allegedly lost their lives, according to the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO). NADMOs Director-General, Eric Nana Agyemang, is reported to have said that Swathes of farmlands have been consumed by flood waters and lives are under threat. The situation is very bad. The second gentleman of the land landed in the regional capital around 7:40 am on Saturday, September 22, 2018, and is set to support victims of the near fatal flood with some items at a brief ceremony. The Vice President is also expected to receive a brief from NADMO, the Navy and other rescue operations teams on the situation on the ground. READ ALSO: Photo of Nana Akufo-Addo and Rebecca's wedding day goes viral Ghana Funny Tricky Questions: 6X9? | #Yencomgh Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish on YEN.com.gh? Please contact us on Facebook or Instagram now! Source: Yen.com.gh - A customer of gold hub Menzgold is threatening to take legal action against the company - According to her, the company was not transparent with its customers - Menzgold has suspended its gold vault services and dividend payment till September 28 An aggrieved customer of Menzgold Ghana Company Ltd., is threatening to rally a class action suit against the minerals trading company over some transparency issues. According to her, Menzgold had not been transparent about the legality of their operations with its customers. In an interview sighted by YEN.com.gh on Citi News, the customer, who spoke on grounds of anonymity described the numerous assurances given by the company as deceit. Customers of Menzgold who besieged the company's premises. Credit: YEN.com.gh Source: Original READ ALSO: Video of trotro mate teaching maths stuns Ghanaians This follows the decision of Menzgold to postpone its scheduled reopening to September 28 after it had set an earlier date of September 19. Menzgold temporarily halted its gold trading activities on September 13, 2018, following a directive from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The company promised to resume work after six days of closure, but had to extend the date due to incomplete meetings it was having with SEC. Whilst some customers are protesting against the suspension of the operations of Menzgold, the woman who spoke to Citi News said, now we are sounding a caution to them that the government has been on them. The next one will be us the clients being on them. If the government wasnt able to bring them down, we the masses will bring them down, the customer threatened. She noted that the best course of legal action would be a class-action suit against the company. You speak to the masses, you organize them and institute a class-action against them for breaching their contract so we the masses we give them up to the 28th [September] that they have said right now if we dont see any favorable terms from them, the next action will be a class action against Menzgold. Spokesperson of Menzgold, George Quaye has apologized for the late notice of postponement of suspension on the companys gold vault market. It is unfortunate that statement did come out later but to ensure that the statement got to everyone, aside just releasing it, we also blasted a bulk SMS to each and every customer, he told the media. READ ALSO: Lady recounts how her towel got her a rich, good-looking husband George Quaye also said the firm is dealing with all state agencies to ensure that these bottlenecks that we are encountering at the moment are all cleared and resolved and that is where the focus is right now. Menzgold Ghana Limited was asked to suspend its gold trading operations with the public by SEC. According to the SEC, Menzgold had been dealing in the purchase and deposit of gold collectables from the public and issuing contracts with guaranteed returns with clients, without a valid license from the Commission. This, the SEC said, was in contravention of section 109 of Act 929 with consequences under section 2016 (I) of the same Act. The company was however cleared to continue its other businesses of assaying, purchasing gold from small-scale miners and export of gold. READ ALSO: Smoking shisha can cause many heart problems - Dr. Sereboe warns Ghanaian youth Watch: Eric Nortey Story - The Story of a Male Make-Up Artist: Faces of Ghana | #Yencomgh Have national and human interest issues to discuss? Know someone who is extremely talented and needs recognition? Your stories and photos are always welcome. Get interactive via our Facebook page. Source: Yen.com.gh Dai Bi pagoda (Photo: quehuongonline.vn) The event was attended by a delegation from the Vietnam Fatherland Front (VFF) Central Committee, led by its Vice President and Secretary General, Hau A Lenh. Dai Bi pagoda, built in three years, is the first Vietnamese pagoda recognized by the Government of Hungary. This will be a place for spiritual activities of the overseas Vietnamese community there. The pagoda, with Vietnamese architectural and cultural features, is built from the Vietnam - Hungary Fund. Speaking at the ceremony, Mr A Lenh thanked the government of Hungary and Simontornya administration for smoothing legal procedures for the construction of the pagoda. He believed that the pagoda would help connect Vietnamese nationals in Hungary and Europe, contributing to the preservation of traditional cultural values. On the occasion, he conveyed the greeting of President of the VFF Central Committee Tran Thanh Man to more than 5,000 Vietnamese people in Hungary, urging them to abide by regulations in the host nation and look toward the homeland. Meanwhile, Mayor of the Simontornya city Csoszne Kazc Edit warmly welcomed Mr A Lenh to visit the city, and attended the inauguration ceremony of Dai Bi Pagoda. She also highly appreciated the contributions of Ms. Pham Bich Thien, Head of the Vietnam - Hungary Fund, to the construction of Dai Bi pagoda as well as practical and effective contributions to the development of Simontornya city. The mayor affirmed that she would continue to create favourable conditions for the overseas Vietnamese community to conduct their spiritual and cultural activities and preserve Eastern cultural traditions in Europe./. >>> Ho Chi Minh City, Bulgaria foster economic cooperation >>> Bulgaria pledges best conditions for Vietnamese firms to enter EU market The statement was made by Bulgarian Minister of Economy Emil Karanikolov at the Vietnam-Bulgaria Business Forum, held in HCM City on September 21. Hosted by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry branch in HCM City (VCCI HCMC), the event was held on the occasion of an ongoing visit by the Bulgarian Governmental mission and businesses to Vietnam, led by Minister Karanikolov. Speaking at the forum, Minister Karanikolov affirmed that Vietnam is both a traditional and an important partner of Bulgaria in Southeast Asia. Regarding HCM City, the guest stated that the southern economic hub is the most advanced region in terms of socio-economic development in Vietnam, which strongly attracts foreign investment. The visiting minister also expressed his willingness to support enterprises from HCM City to invest in areas such as IT, agriculture, services, transport and tourism in accordance with the Investment Promotion Act of Bulgaria. More than 20 businesses from Bulgaria and HCM City discuss cooperation opportunities at the forum. In particular, Bulgaria will create favourable conditions for Vietnamese enterprises to participate in the industrial parks and high-tech zones in the European country, Minister Karanikolov added. Vo Tan Thanh, Director of VCCI HCMC, said that Vietnam and Bulgaria have developed close ties over many years. By 2017, the total trade turnover between the two countries reached over US$109 million, of which Vietnam's exports to Bulgaria accounted for US$38.36 million. In the first eight months of 2018, two-way trade turnover reached over US$55 million, with Vietnam's exports to Bulgaria hitting US$21.6 million. Bulgaria has 11 FDI projects in Vietnam with a total registered capital of US$58 million, covering the fields of processing and manufacturing, information and communication, science and technology, and services. In particular, Bulgaria also invested in projects related to treating waste oil to process it into industrial oil and oil for civil use. The forum attracted more than 20 Bulgarian businesses and a large number of businesses in HCM City to exchange experience and seek cooperation opportunities. Mid-Autumn Festival is a happy day. But several years ago, the mid-autumn season brought sadness to artisans in the craft village where they make traditional toys, as modern imported toys were sold everywhere. However, in recent years, it seems that the Mid-Autumn Festival has found its origin. Sad time Each Mid-Autumn season, Nguyen Thi Tuyen, an artisan in Hau Ai Village, Van Canh Commune, Hoai Duc District, in Hanoi, who is also called Tuyen "paper doctor" because she silently makes the star-shaped lanterns, paper doctor (Vietnamese folk toy) to provide for schools, museums and cultural centres. The family of Nguyen Thi Tuyen, at Hau Ai village, Van Canh commune, Hoai Duc district, Hanoi, has had many generations who have made traditional the Mid-Autumn toys. In the past, many Hau Ai villagers made Mid-Autumn toys, especially the star-shaped lanterns. At the end of summer, farmers gathered to collect bamboo and other kinds of paper. From the age of seven years old, she knew how to make the lights. Gradually, she learnt all the skills and has followed the trade until now. However, as modern toys with all their brilliant colors have become readily available, the people of Hai Ai hamlet have lost their place in the world. Nguyen Thi Tuyen still makes folk toys. For her, it is a responsibility to preserve the culture of the family, as well as an remaining an example to teach children. Tuyen has a career spanning nearly 45 years, meanwhile Nguyen Van Hoa and Dang Huong Lan who are one of the last artisan families to keep the "secrets" of making traditional paper masks, in Hang Than Street, Hanoi, have half a century of experience in this profession. Artisan Hoa shared that the masks are not only a toy, but also have profound implications. In the past, the most common masks were the Earth God masks and the rabbit masks. The iconography of the Earth God masks originated from the thinking of agricultural residents, highlighting the role of the land. Meanwhile, the rabbit symbolises the moon, in the eighth month of lunar calendar, when it is the time of the full moon of the year. However, over time, these traditional paper masks have gradually fallen into oblivion and only a few artisans remain attached to this profession. The colours of the traditional Mid-Autumn festival are fading causing sadness to artisans who make traditional toys. Keeping fire alight for Mid-Autumn parties In recent years, artisan Nguyen Thi Tuyen has been invited by the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology to demonstrate how to make the Mid-Autumn toys. Initially, she did not expect much, besides being able to sell more toys. But there are more units that have invited her to introduce how to make Mid-Autumn toys. From Hau Ai village, she arrived to Kim Ngan communal house in Hanoi's Old Quarter. Her traditional toys, such as paper professor or the star-shaped lanterns, attracted the attention of the children. The children ask her for instructions on how to make the lights. They are happy to make a lamp. Each Mid-Autumn season, Tuyen has to "schedule" the demonstrations on how to make the Mid-Autumn toys, as more and more units organise the Mid-Autumn Festival with traditional charm. With nearly 40 years of experience in this profession, the couple of Nguyen Van Hoa and Dang Huong Lan are one of the last artisan families to stick to and keep the "secrets" of making traditional paper masks. Recently, the book street management board also organised an exchange programme "Behind the mask is a cultural story" with artisan Nguyen Van Hoa, in Hanoi Book Street space, December 19 Street, Hoan Kiem district, Hanoi. The event attracted hundreds of children. The exchange programme was more exciting when artisan Nguyen Van Hoa brought his gear to the stage, making paper masks and teaching the children how to make them at home. The children were delighted with the demonstration and the programme only ended when the children had made their own masks. Preserving traditional Mid-Autumn features Nearly ten years ago, perhaps no one knew that the Mid-Autumn Festival programme in the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology would contribute to bringing traditional toys and folk games back to modern life. It is not only organisations but also individuals that contribute to the return of traditional toys. In 2014, artist Trang Thanh Hien together with young people organised the programme "Together with children create paper mask" in the Museum of Fine Arts. She did not think that many parents would bring their children to the programme. As a painter and a researcher, she felt sorry that the traditional paper marks had gradually fallen into oblivion. As a result, for several years, on the occasion of the Mid-Aumtum festival, painter Trang Thanh Hien and his colleagues organised programmes to promote the paper masks. Also participating in the exchange programme "Behind the mask is a cultural story" with artisan Nguyen Van Hoa, painter Trang Thanh Hien, and artisan Nguyen Van Hoa, there is Ngo Quy Duc, who is head of Hanoi Classy club. Ngo Quy Duc is very enthusiastic about restoring folk toys and folk games. He visited artist Nguyen Van Hoas house for the first time ten years ago. First he purchased masks and then invited artist Nguyen Van Hoa to participate in his programme on traditional toys. Through his programme, he helped the children "upstream" to find folk paper masks. It is necessary to have bridge such as painter Trang Thanh Hien, or Ngo Quy Duc, to connect the artisans and the community. Original Vietnamese Mid-Autumn Festival There are many different sources on the origin of the Mid-Autumn Festival. According to the VNA, based on the epitaph in Doi Pagoda (1121), the Mid-Autumn Festival was officially held at the Thang Long Ancient Capital by the Ly Dynasty, with many interesting activities such as boat racing, water puppetry performances and lantern parades. During the Le Trinh period, the Mid Autumn Festival was an extremely luxurious event held by the Lord. According to Vietnamese customs, on the occasion of Mid-Autumn Festival, the family gathers together and has dinner. They watch the moon and wish for a good harvest. The traditional cake is a moon cake made with many fruits. They also have fruit jams dyed in various colours, green, red, white or yellow. Children spend time on the street playing, singing and talking happily. During this holiday, children make masks and toys such as elephants, horses, unicorns, lions, dragons, deer, fish, butterflies, mantis, and flower branches. In the past few years, there have also been many plastic toys and modern cartoon characters. The Mid-Autumn Festival is the time for children to enjoy their childhood. Children go from house to house singing and playing with their toys. The sound of loud drum beats, of laughing and of people talking makes the day become memorable. Olympic folk games of Vietnam To mark the occasion, the Hanoi Book Street Management Board held the programme "Full Moon Book Fair", and it seems that the Trinh Cong Son walking street area in Tay Ho district exploded with the Olympic folk games of Vietnam. This is the first time that folk games were held on a large scale for young people, organised by the UNESCO Center for International Cultural Exchange and Preservation (ICEP Hanoi Classy) and San Dinh Group. Within the framework of the event, the organising panel kicked off the qualifying rounds of the Olympic Folk Games with four traditional games, namely bag jumping, Mandarin Square Capturing, walking on stilts and pitching pennies. According to a representative of San Dinh Group, Nguyen Thi Thuy Van, many of the folk games help children move, practice ingenuity and develop intellectually. "Our biggest wish is to help young people understand more about folk games helping the folk games come back to life," Van added. A total of 14 folk games were introduced by the San Dinh group. Not only enjoyed by children, many young people and adults also had the opportunity to return to their childhoods through playing folk games. The activity was expected to contribute to spreading the unique cultural values of Vietnamese folk games, engaging communities and different family generations, as well as developing life skills for younger generations. The recent Mid-Autumn season, is returning to origin. The toys of the Mid-Autumn Festival have found a smile and harmony in the child's laugh. In the memory of each person always exists a Mid-Autumn Festival from their childhood, and everyone wants their children to experience the beautiful Mid-Autumn Festival. And as such, the traditional way of receiving the Autumn Festival is continued from generation to generation. Thinh stated that Vietnam has set specific targets in this field, including increasing the participation of women in management and leadership positions, narrowing gender gap in the economic and labour fields, offering more opportunities for poor women in rural areas and ethnic minority women, increasing the quality of female workers, and ensuring gender equality in all aspects and in the family. The country has gained positive results, as seen in the rate of women holding positions in the National Assembly and all-level Peoples Councils reaching 26-27 percent, the rate of women participating in economic activities at 85 percent and the proportion of trained female workers at 55 percent. Vietnamese women are taking the initiative and actively taking part in start-up and international integration, she added. The Vietnamese leader appreciated contributions by the Eurasian Womens Forum to connecting women from different nations and cultures in Asia and Europe, promoting womens role in all aspects of social life, thus building a world of peace, security, prosperity and sustainable development. She said that changes in the world situation such as the fourth Industrial Revolution and international integration have brought many opportunities to women. However, they are facing a lot of challenges caused by uneven development, conflict risks, terrorism, natural disasters, climate change and increasing protectionism. This requires the international community, including the Eurasian Womens Forum, to join hands to solve these challenges. Vice President Thinh called on women around the world to take the initiative to boost economic connectivity and international cooperation, and improve their knowledge by themselves to avoid being left behind. Every nation should consider the ensuring of gender equality and women empowerment one of the priority tasks, she suggested. She also expressed her hope that women will expand international collaboration to contribute more to the implementation of sustainable development goals. On the sidelines of the forum, Vice President Thinh met Georgy Poltavchenko, Governor of Saint Petersburg, who affirmed his hope to boost cooperation between the city with Ho Chi Minh City and other Vietnamese localities and contribute to the Russia-Vietnam comprehensive strategic partnership. He shared that his city is working with the Vietnamese side to build a museum on the US war in Vietnam and a Vietnam trade-culture centre in the city, and is willing to share its experience in city management, information technology, health, ship building, manufacturing, environment and tourism. The first edition of the Eurasian Womens Forum was also held in Saint Petersburg in 2015. This years forum, themed Women for Global Security and Sustainable Development, attracted about 2,000 delegates from more than 100 countries over the world. MONTREAL (AFP) - Coca-Cola, Walmart and other big multinationals pledged this week to help reduce plastic pollution in the worlds oceans in support of a campaign by five of the G7 industrialized nations. Britain, Canada, France, Germany and Italy, along with the European Union, signed the Ocean Plastics Charter at a leaders summit in Canadas Charlevoix region in June. The United States and Japan abstained but non-G7 nations Norway and Jamaica are also backing the plan to ensure 100 percent of plastics are recyclable by 2030. The nations aim to develop more viable alternatives to plastic packaging, to work towards a goal of all plastics being recycled and reused by 2040. On the second day of a G7 ministerial meeting in Canadas Atlantic port city of Halifax, Canadian Environment Minister Catherine McKenna announced a new partnership with businesses to reduce plastics waste. Backers include Loblaws, Walmart, Nestle Canada, IKEA, Dow Chemicals, the Coca-Cola Company, BASF Canada and A&W Canada. Unilever also announced that it was launching a non-profit entity to reduce consumer and business waste, while Volvo upped its target to make 25 percent of the plastics in its cars recyclable by 2025. The G7 group of the worlds major economies are also looking to tackle a growing source of marine pollution: lost fishing nets and gear, which account for 70 percent of plastic waste floating on the surface of the sea, Canadas Fisheries Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said. About 640,000 tonnes (tons) of nets and other fishing gear are discarded in the oceans each year, killing an estimated 136,000 seals, dolphins, sea lions, turtles, small whales and other seabirds, according to the World Animal Protection group. This is a really big problem, Wilkinson told AFP from the Halifax talks. There is a consensus among G7 countries that this is a very important issue and there is a clear commitment to address it, he said. According to the United Nations environment agency, 70 percent of the large plastic waste that floats on the seas comes from fishing. Chief Opposition Whip and JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake said yesterday the government was planning to hand over the Trincomalee oil tank farm to the Indian Oil Company (IOC) despite a Cabinet decision in 2016 to hand it over to the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation. He told parliament that Cabinet approval had been obtained in August 7, 2018 to hand over 15 Lower Tank Farm to IOC and to hand over 85 of the Upper Tank Farm to a joint venture by the IOC and Ceypetco. The MP said Cabinet approval was granted to develop 16 Tanks with funds from Ceypetco on June, 6, 2016 and that it had the needed US$10 million required for the purpose. He asked on what basis was the oil tank farm being handed over to the IOC when it could be developed by Ceypetco and pointed out in COPE the developing the tank farm would provide access to the international oil market and that it would be a lucrative foreign currency earner. Neither the subject minister nor the deputy minister was in the House to answer the question and House Leader Lakshman Kiriella assured that the answer would be given at the next parliament day. (Ajith Siriwardana and Yohan Perera) * Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang passes away aged 62 * In his condolence message, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that he was extremely shocked and deeply mournful after being informed of the death of President Tran Dai Quang. On behalf of the Japanese government and people, PM Abe extended his deepest condolences to the Vietnamese government, people and the late Presidents family. He highly appreciated President Quangs wholehearted devotion to fostering the friendship between Vietnam and Japan, voicing his special respect for the late Vietnamese leader for having successfully chaired the APEC Economic Leaders Meeting in Da Nang city last November as well as having made significant contributions to the signing of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), dubbed TPP-11, at the conference. As a strategic partner with Vietnam, Japan is deeply mournful over the passing of President Tran Dai Quang, PM Abe said, wishing the late Vietnamese leader rest in peace. On the same day, Japanese Foreign Minister Kono Taro also conveyed his condolences over the death of President Quang, wishing the late leader rest in peace and expressing his hopes that the Vietnamese government and people would soon overcome such a painful event to continue further developing the country of Vietnam. * Concerning the demise of President Tran Dai Quang, Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a message of condolences to the Vietnamese people and the family and friends of the late Vietnamese leader on Friday, according to the Kremlins media department. * On September 21, Cambodian PM Hun Sen conveyed a letter of condolences to his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Xuan Phuc over the demise of President Tran Dai Quang, in which he emphasised that President Quang is a great and admirable leader of the country and people of Vietnam, and a good friend of Cambodia. On behalf of the Royal Government and people of Cambodia, I would like express my deepest sympathies and condolences to the Government and people of Vietnam as well as the bereaved families for the great loss of their beloved one, he said. * Before opening the 3rd plenary session of the UN General Assembly with the participation of 193 member nations on September 21, the General Assembly President Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garces announced the death of the Vietnamese head of State and extended her deep condolences to the Presidents family, and the Government and people of Vietnam. Participants at the 3rd plenary session of the UN General Assembly devote a minute of silence to remember the Vietnamese leader. She asked that participants devote a minute of silence to remember the Vietnamese leader. Earlier the same day, the spokesman of the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a statement saying that the Secretary-General was saddened to learn of the death of President Tran Dai Quang of Vietnam and offers his deepest sympathies to the Presidents family and to the Government and people of Vietnam. A friend of the United Nations and an important promoter of Vietnams development, President Quang will long be remembered in his country and beyond, the statement said. * The US Department of State issued a press release on September 21 expressing sadness over the passing of President Tran Dai Quang. President Quang strongly supported US-Vietnam relations and helped bring their bilateral partnership to a new level on the basis of mutual respect, shared interests and a shared goal of promoting peace, cooperation, prosperity and security in the Indo-Pacific region, it said. The press release stated that the US Department of State would like to show respect for the legacy left by President Quang, and extend condolences to his family as well as the entire Vietnamese people. * On the same day, the Russian, US and Belgian Embassies in Vietnam also extended their deepest condolences to the people of Vietnam and the family of late President Tran Dai Quang over his demise on their Twitter and Facebook pages. * After the passing of President Tran Dai Quang on Friday, an array of prestigious international media agencies from Australia, Russia, Japan, the UK, the US, France, the Philippines, Singapore, Germany, India, and China, covered the sad news. The Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA) said yesterday it would take decisive steps next week in connection with the Supreme Court upholding the Appeal Court ruling which had directed the Sri Lanka Medical Council (SLMC) to register MBBS graduates of SAITM. GMOA Secretary Haritha Aluthge told a news conference that their counsel were currently studying the facts included in the judgment and that the GMOAs emergency Central Committee which was scheduled to meet next week would decide on this matter. President Maithripala Sirisena said recently the government had solved the SAITM garbage dump. The government has decided to abolish SAITM owing to many defects of its standards. Even an Act was passed in Parliament securing the future of SAITM students. However, the situation has changed now, he said. He said they would further discuss these matters with President Sirisena. (Kalathma Jayawardhane) Speaking at the event, Chairman of the municipal VCFA Duong Quan Ha lauded the strengthening of bilateral ties via high-level visits by Party and State leaders, economic and trade collaboration, people-to-people exchanges, and cooperation within multilateral frameworks. All of this has made positive contributions to peace, stability, and prosperity in the region and the world, Chairman of the municipal VCFA Ha stressed. He said ties between HUFO, the municipal VCFA, and the Chinese Consulate General and business community in Ho Chi Minh have been effective, raising the mutual understanding between people from the city and Chinese localities. Chinese Consul General in Ho Chi Minh City, Chen Dehai, said that 2018 marks the 10th anniversary of the China-Vietnam comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership, which has seen great progress in its active dialogue mechanisms, practical coordination, and closer people-to-people exchanges. Chen vowed to work closely with the HUFO and the municipal VCFA to raise mutual understanding and trust towards enriching the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership between the two nations. UPPER DARBY More than a dozen Upper Darby police officers, township workers and residents were honored with special commendations of heroism from the Upper Darby Police Department Wednesday night for their acts to help others during recent flooding events. Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood and Upper Darby Mayor Tom Micozzie presented the commendations in council chambers to three groups of honorees for their efforts to save lives as flood waters eclipsed an entire section of Marshall Road and surrounding streets during the torrential downpours of August 13. I was there at the scene the day of the incident and based on what I saw that day I cannot imagine how people are doing it in North Carolina and South Carolina, said Chitwood in relation to similar scenes unfolding in the path of Hurricane Florence. This is a great honor, a great tribute to men and women and civilian employees who rescued people on that particular day. The first group awarded were Upper Darby Police Lt. Steve Oreskovich, officers Robert Bennett and Amanda Sheppard, and residents William Boduo and Darius Shanks. Oreskovich and Bennett responded to a woman trapped in her vehicle amidst rising flood waters at the intersection of Ashton and Normandy roads. A young girl escaped the vehicle and was being helped by an unknown man, but a woman was still trapped inside the submerging vehicle. The young girl and man were rescued by Oreskovich and Bennett, the latter making his way to the top of the vehicle and safely taking the woman out. As Oreskovich asked for help, Buduo tied three bed sheets together to make a long rope and with the help of police, including Sheppard who had since arrived at the scene, the unknown male and Shanks were able to walk out to the van and save Bennett and the woman. Boduo anchored the rope at the waters edge. The second group of honorees was Upper Darby police officers Travis Hall and William Reheffer and township public works employees Thomas Hasson, Francis Long, Jr., Zachary Lythgoe and Joseph Pietrantonio. The two officers responded to a call of a vehicle stuck in flood water with two occupants trapped at Grace and Marshall roads. Pressure prevented the doors from opening so the windows were broken and two women were successfully taken out of the car by the officers and moved to dry land. Redheffer then saw an elderly woman trapped in a vehicle nearby and carried her to try land. After a number of rescues at nearby Copley and Marshall roads, Hall was on his way to a parking lot out of the water when he stepped into a submerged sewer inlet, his legs dragged under by the rushing water, pulling him underwater and partially into the sewer before being pulled out by the public works employees. Travis is lucky to be with us today, said Chitwood about Hall being swept up in the flood waters. Had it not been for the four men who rescued him, he would have been in that sewer down in Darby somewhere. Finally, Upper Darby police officers Francis Devine and Ryan Wiseley were recognized as the last group of honorees. Devine and Wiseley rescued a women trapped in her car at Bywood and Penarth avenues who then pushed the vehicle off to the side of the road as the water receded. A special honor was bestowed upon Bill Gaul for his emergency management services during the flood and for decades before that. Micozzie honored Gaul with the Mayors Service Award. It gives me a great honor because it is very rare that a heroism award is given out, said Micozzie about the commendations, but when you see heroism at its face on that day, theyre all deserving. The police department usually awards commendations at the start of the year, but an exception was made for a more timely appropriation of gratitude. Speaking at the event, permanent Vice Chairman of the municipal Peoples Committee Le Thanh Liem said that since the establishment of bilateral diplomatic ties in 1973, Vietnam and Japan had lifted their ties to a trusted and long-term stable partnership in 2002, strategic partnership in 2009, and extensive strategic partnership for the peace and prosperity of Asia in March 2014. Permanent Vice Chairman of the municipal Peoples Committee Liem said Ho Chi Minh City considers Japan not only an important strategic partner, but also a sincere and trusted friend. He thanked the Japanese Government and people for providing effective support to the citys development projects such as the Vo Van Kiet highway, the metro line No.1, and the improvement of the aquatic environment making important contributions to its socio-economic development in years past. In the near future, the city will work closely with Japan to launch initiatives and increase the level of dialogue towards promoting mutual understanding and developing bilateral ties. Japanese Consul General in Ho Chi Minh City, Kawaue Junichi, described the extensive partnership between the city and Japan as a symbol of Vietnam-Japan ties with diverse cooperation programmes. He expressed his wishes for continued support from the municipal authorities to further foster bilateral links. On the occasion, the Japanese official presented certificates of merit to Chairman of the municipal Vietnam-Japan Friendship Association Nguyen Cong Tanh and Rector of Dong Du Japanese Language Centre Nguyen Duc Hoe in honour of their dedication to the Vietnam-Japan ties. Big Dutchman Asia holds customer training series in Thailand Press release Over 30 customers participated in a series of technical training sessions conducted by experts of Big Dutchman (BD) Asia in Chanthaburi last month. Participants were given training on preventive maintenance of equipment, which involves the proper and correct manner of equipment usage, maintenance and managing the VIPER Touch or alternatively known as the VIPER Touch control system. This electronic farm management system is an innovative technology that allow farmers to control the climate and production data of the poultry houses. The trainings also cover topics on maximising equipment management in broiler breeder, broiler and layer farms. Participants include existing customers and also new potential customers. For existing customers, the training served to refresh their knowledge on equipment handling and to keep them abreast of Big Dutchman's innovation and improvement. After the training in Chanthaburi had concluded, the subsequent sessions were then held in Cambodia. Mr. Phanuwat Chansaming, BD Thailand's Project Manager and Ms. Jularat Chuenpo, BD-Key Account Regional Sales Manager, who are the co-organizers of this training sessions, said "The training was very successful and all the participants were very happy that Big Dutchman had organised this sessions for them. And they are already making enquiries about upcoming session". "In view of the success, we will continue to organise trainings such as this to keep our customers updated on all new Big Dutchman technologies and to provide them with refresher courses which are conveniently held close to our customers" they added. Big Dutchman Malaysia ships record 600 containers a month Press release 600 containers a month, peaking at almost 200 containers a week, was the big achievement in container loading by the warehouse team. The team fully loaded the containers which are to be shipped out, in the record month with minimal wastages or mistakes. The 20,000sqm warehouse in Bukit Raja, Klang, Malaysia is the main distribution hub catering to Big Dutchman (BD) offices in the Asian region; like Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippines, Japan, Korea including Australia/NZ and others. The staff worked tirelessly on a two-shift day to ensure that all equipment are shipped out all over Asia on a timely manner without compromising on accuracy nor quality. Big Dutchman is one of the companies in Asia, dealing with livestock management equipment, to have such a large global network of supply chain. With its HQ located in Germany, the state-of-the-art warehouse located in Bukit Raja is well equipped, enabling staff to deal with the busy shipment demands everyday with ease and clockwork precision. Jan Hofstede, President, Big Dutchman Asia said 'We are very pleased with the achievement of the warehouse team and the management appreciates their hard work and the commitment they have for their jobs. We are very proud of the team and encourage them to continue with their commitment to service excellence'. Deputy Defence Minister Sen. Lt. Gen. Nguyen Chi Vinh, head of the group, who is also head of the Defence Ministry's Steering Committee for Participation in UN Peacekeeping Missions, chaired the first working session under the framework of the event. Representatives from relevant ministries and sectors also attended the session. During the session, regulations related to the groups operation were introduced. Participants also agreed on the contents covering the implementation of UN peacekeeping missions in the time to come; as well as coordination, guidance, management and performance of UN peacekeeping operations that Vietnam will undertake. After nearly five years joining UN peacekeeping operations, Vietnam has gradually arranged forces in line with the Master Plan on Vietnams participation in UN peacekeeping missions as approved by the Politburo in 2012. Vietnam successfully sent many officers to two UN peacekeeping missions. To continue the implementation of the plan, with the aim of sending a unit with many members to take part in UN peacekeeping activities, Sen. Lt. Gen. Nguyen Chi Vinh called for more efforts to consolidate the Vietnam Inter-Sectoral Working Group for Participation in the UN Peacekeeping Operations, stressing the need to transfer the management role of the group from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Ministry of Defence. The transfer will help to carry out the work of providing consultation, management and direction for UN peacekeeping activities in a comprehensive manner in the context that Vietnam is expanding its participation in UN Peacekeeping Missions from the individual level to the collective level. This will also enhance effective coordination among relevant ministries, sectors and agencies in the process of Vietnams participation in UN peacekeeping operations. The Inter-Sectoral Working Group, with one head, four deputy heads and members, is responsible for providing consultation on the arrangement of forces to join UN peacekeeping operations to authorized agencies; proposing negotiations on the signing of agreements with the UN; and boosting cooperation between Vietnam and international partners in the field. Director of the Vietnam Peoples Army (VPA)s General Department of Politics Sen. Lieut. Gen. Luong Cuong made the statement while being received by Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Hun Sen and Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister General Tea Banh in Phnom Penh on September 21. He said the Vietnamese Party, State and army always remember and appreciate the support and assistance Cambodia has given to Vietnam. He expressed his wish that PM Hun Sen and Minister Tea Banh continue to foster the conditions for the two defence ministries in general and the VPA General Department of Politics and the Cambodian Defence Ministrys General Department for Defence Services in particular to realise their cooperation contents. He asked for the Cambodian sides help to speed up the search for and repatriation of remains of Vietnamese volunteer soldiers and experts who died in Cambodia during past wars. PM Hun Sen and Minister Tea Banh sent their deepest condolences to the Vietnamese Party and Government leaders and people over the death of President Tran Dai Quang. The Cambodian PM said that his country always attaches great importance to preserving and deepening the traditional friendship and comprehensive cooperation with Vietnam for the benefits of the two countries peoples, and for peace, stability and development in each country. Earlier, on September 20, Sen. Lieut. Gen. Cuong and General Neang Phat, Secretary of State at the Cambodian Defence Ministry, held talks. Sen. Lieut. Gen. Cuong said Vietnamese and Cambodian militaries should enhance cooperation in information exchange and popularisation to ensure that people living in the border areas understand and abide by border management regulations in order to build a shared border of peace, friendship, stability and sustainable development. He affirmed that Vietnam and Cambodia have enjoyed traditional friendship, solidarity, mutual trust, and comprehensive cooperation. The Vietnamese Party, State, military, and people always attach importance to consolidating their relations, seeing it as an invaluable asset of both peoples. Neang Phat, for his part, thanked the Vietnamese Government, army and people for helping Cambodia during its national construction and development in general and the royal military in particular. Both sides informed each other of the economic development, politics, defence and security in each nation and discussed issues of common concern. They agreed that the defence collaboration has been carried out in a positive and effective manner, in line with the yearly cooperation protocol and plan. This is also an important pillar of their bilateral relations, they said. Regarding the cooperation between the VPA General Department of Politics and Cambodias General Department of Defence Services and other relevant agencies, the two officials said that they should work to bolster mutual understanding, friendship and comprehensive cooperation between the two nations. The two militaries should join hands to assure stability and development in each country, and defeat all plots by hostile forces to harm the Vietnam-Cambodia friendship and solidarity. Delegation exchanges, experience sharing and training for officers should receive due attention. Both sides should enhance cooperation in the search for and repatriation of the remains of Vietnamese volunteer soldiers and experts who laid down their lives during past wars in Cambodia. Chairman of the municipal Peoples Committee Phong said the city is coping with challenges in urban development such as environment and climate change. In order to grasp opportunities from the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the city has announced projects on smart and innovative urban development which, he said, will offer opportunities to foreign investors, including those from Sweden and Uppsala, to form ventures. Lauding the quality of education in Uppsalas universities, Chairman of the municipal Peoples Committee Phong said Ho Chi Minh City needs a high-quality workforce to turn itself into a financial, scientific and technological centre. Ho Chi Minh City appreciates the cooperation programmes between Uppsala University and Vietnamese universities, he said, wishing that Uppsala University, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and the citys universities would turn opportunities into specific projects, in order to improve the local high-quality personnel. The host expressed his wish that Uppsala firms would invest in the city in fields of strength such as high technology, innovation, environment and high-tech agriculture. Enander, for his part, spoke highly of the outcomes of working sessions with the citys partners, including the Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology and Education and several firms in environment treatment. He affirmed that Uppsalas firms stand ready to assist Ho Chi Minh City in environment, communications, life sciences, start-up innovations and climate change response. At the reception, Swedish Ambassador to Vietnam Pereric Hogberg reaffirmed Swedish enterprises interest in Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh City in particular, saying that Uppsala businesses want to push forward joint work in potential fields such as innovation and technology, supplying smart solutions in service of sustainable development. The remark was made by National Assembly (NA) Vice Chairman Uong Chu Luu, who led a delegation of National Assembly (NA) deputies to attend a ceremony in Baku, Azerbaijan, on September 21, to mark the 100th anniversary of the Azerbaijani parliament, at the invitation of Azerbaijans Chairman of the Parliament Ogtay Asadov. The NA Vice Chairman said that State and people of Vietnam are delighted at the achievements and the development of Azerbaijan. NA Vice Chairman Uong Chu Luu (fourth from right) met with the First Deputy Chairman of the Parliament of Azerbaijan Ziyafet Askerov (Photo:VNA) Earlier, NA Vice Chairman Uong Chu Luu met with the First Deputy Chairman of the Parliament of Azerbaijan Ziyafet Askerov to discuss a range of cooperation issues in order to strengthen the exchange of all-level delegations, including those of the NA. * World leaders offer condolences on President Tran Dai Quangs passing On behalf of the Lao Peoples Revolutionary Party (LPRP) Central Committee, the National Assembly and Government of Laos and the Lao Front for National Construction, Party General Secretary and President, Bounnhang Volachit, cabled a message of condolences to the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee, the National Assembly and Government of Vietnam, and the Vietnam Fatherland Front Central Committee on September 21, in which he expressed his deep condolences over the passing of President Quang. We highly appreciated the contributions made by President Tran Dai Quang to the protection, construction and development of Vietnam, especially in the fields of security and social order. He significantly contributed to the friendship, special solidarity and comprehensive cooperation between Vietnam and Laos over the past few years, the message read. The Lao leader stressed that President Quangs death is a huge loss to both the Vietnamese and Lao Parties, States and peoples. The same day, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and President of China, Xi Jinping, extended his condolences to Party General Secretary, Nguyen Phu Trong. He wrote, We are shocked to hear that comrade Tran Dai Quang, President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, has passed away. On behalf of the CPC, the Chinese government and people, as well as in my own name, I extend the deepest condolences to you and to the CPV and the government and people of Vietnam. "We are deeply saddened by his passing away," Xi added. He expressed his belief that under the strong leadership of the General Secretary and the CPV, the Vietnamese government and people will transfer their grief into strength and continuously make new achievements in the cause of socialist construction. The Chinese president also extended his deepest condolences to the family of President Quang. In an announcement on State television on September 21 evening (local time), the Council of State of Cuba declared national days of mourning for late Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang, saying that the mourning period will be from 6:00 on September 22 to 24:00 on September 23. During the period of mourning, the Cuban flag will be hoisted at half-mast at public buildings and military institutions nationwide. Public shows and festive activities will also be suspended during the period. Earlier the same day, President of the National Assembly of Peoples Power of Cuba, Esteban Lazo Hernandez, sent his condolences to the Vietnamese people and a minute of silence was dedicated to the Vietnamese State leader before the working session at the National Assemblys headquarters. Also on September 21, the Government of Venezuela cabled a message of sympathy to the Government and people of Vietnam over the death of President Quang. In a statement, the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry highlighted the Vietnamese Presidents political career and hailed him as a pillar the in efforts to strengthen a multi-polar world and for harmony and cooperation among countries. In a message of condolences to the Vietnamese Government and people on September 21, the Government of Argentina said that, during the tenure of President Tran Dai Quang, the strategic relationship between the two countries has been constantly strengthened and developed. It said President Quang will be forever remembered by the Government and people of Argentina. The same day, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Argentina, Victor Kot, offered his sympathy to the Communist Party of Vietnam and the Vietnamese people over their great loss. He wrote in a message on a social network that President Tran Dai Quang had devoted all of his life to the struggle for a better world. President of Mexico, Enrique Pena Nieto, also extended his deep condolences to the Vietnamese people over the death of President Quang in a message on Twitter. Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, expressed his deepest condolences to the Party, nation and people of Vietnam and the family of President Tran Dai Quang. We have fond memories of his great friendship for India and his successful state visit in March this year, he wrote in a message on Twitter. Also on September 21, the Government of Nicaragua, the Foreign Ministries of Bolivia and Paraguay and the ruling Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front of El Salvador sent messages of sympathy to the family of President Quang and the Government and people of Vietnam. US President Donald Trump has offered condolences to the family of Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang and the Vietnamese people over the passing of the Vietnamese State leader. The statement from the President released by the Office of the Press Secretary of the US White House on September 21 read, It was with sadness that I learned of the passing of President Tran Dai Quang. President Quang was a great friend of the US. He graciously hosted me during my historic state visit to Hanoi in November 2017 and I am grateful for his personal commitment to deepening the US-Vietnam Comprehensive Partnership, President Trump said. We will not soon forget his contributions to peace, security, and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region or his voice for Vietnam as a proud and independent nation on the world stage, he added. On the same day, Egyptian President, Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, sent his heartfelt condolences to the Vietnamese people and the leaders of the Vietnamese Party and State over the death of President Tran Dai Quang. In an official statement released on September 21, the Egyptian President's spokesperson said President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi affirmed that President Quang had made important contributions to developing and promoting the relations between Egypt and Vietnam. President Tran Dai Quang passed away at 10:05am on September 21 in Hanoi at the age of 62 due to serious illness. He was elected State President of Vietnam at the 11th session of the 13th National Assembly on April 2, 2016. Ben Higgins wishes Amanda Stanton well. Speaking to Fox News at the IHeartRadio Music Festival, "The Bachelor" star admitted that he hadn't spoken to Stanton, who vied for Higgins heart on season 20, following news the former contestant was arrested last week on domestic battery charges for allegedly pushing her boyfriend. No. Honestly, I havent. I dont know what Id say," Higgins, 30, admits, adding that he and "Bachelor in Paradise" Ashley Iaconetti recently talked about the incident on their podcast "Almost Famous." "We want to be open about the dialogue," says Higgins. "Would it be different if this situation happened between a man and a woman? We dont know." "But its unfortunate either way," he adds. "Its just not a good situation." The reality star went on to say that he hopes Stanton is "doing well." "I love Amanda. Shes been great to me," notes Higgins. "Shes been super supportive of me. She's one of the few that have been really kind even following the 'Bachelor.' So I hope she's doing well, but I have not talked to her. I dont know what I would say or how I would have an impact in her life anymore." On Sept. 10, Stanton, 28, was celebrating a bachelorette party at a hotel near the Las Vegas Strip when around 3:15 a.m. security checked on a room following a battery domestic violence call, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department confirmed to Fox News at the time. Her boyfriend, Bobby Jacobs, was speaking with security when Stanton allegedly pushed him hard enough that police were called, TMZ reported. Stanton was arrested for battery domestic violence, and was released the same day. The following day, the mother-of-two took to Instagram, sharing a photo of her and Jacobs on a plane in an Instagram story. Steve Honig, a spokesperson for Stanton, said in a statement that "Amanda is embarrassed and ashamed this happened and sincerely apologizes to hotel security and the Las Vegas Police Department." "Amanda is a gentle, respectful person who has never gotten physical with anyone under any circumstance," Honig continued. "That evening she had a few drinks at a bachelorette party and when hotel security asked her and Bobby to quiet down, she got a bit rambunctious." Stanton, according to her rep, "gave Bobby what she thought was a playful shove," despite her boyfriend telling security it wasn't "ill-intended." Fox News' Nicole Darrah contributed to this report. Todd Phillips, the director of the upcoming Joker origin film, posted a camera test of Joaquin Phoenix Friday on Instagram. Phoenix plays the infamous villain in the currently untitled movie, which is slated to hit theaters on Oct. 4, 2019. In the video, Phoenix appears as Arthur, until his face is interspersed with images of him as the Joker. The camera gradually pulls in closer and we only see him as the grinning villain, with his signature white face and red lips. The video, set to Laughing by the Canadian band The Guess Who, ends when his expression suddenly falls. Phillips posted a photo on Sunday of Phoenix dressed up in a button-up shirt and jacket, with the caption: Arthur. This is likely the Jokers name before he adopts his current moniker. Phillips, who co-wrote the script with Scott Silver, said the film is meant to be an exploration of a man disregarded by society that is not only a gritty character study, but also a broader cautionary tale. Robert De Niro is in talks to join the movie as a talk-show host who plays a role in driving Phoenixs character to madness. The script has ties to De Niros King of Comedy, which features the actor as a failing comedian who kidnaps a popular talk-show host to gain fame. For the Joker movie, the roles would evidently be reversed, with De Niro playing the smug host. Zazie Beetz and Marc Maron also star in the pic. Warner Bros. has said the Phoenix feature will have no effect on its DC Universe, which saw Jared Leto playing the Joker in Suicide Squad. The studio is also developing its own standalone Joker film that will star Leto. This story originally appeared in Variety. Justin Theroux has opened up for the first time about his famous split from ex-wife, Jennifer Aniston, seven months after their breakup. In an interview published on Saturday by the New York Times, the actor candidly discussed what occurred during his breakup with the "Friends" actress. The good news is that was probably the most Im choosing my words really carefully it was kind of the most gentle separation, in that there was no animosity, he told the Times. In a weird way, just sort of navigating the inevitable perception of it is the exhausting part. Sharing a little bit about what may have created the distance that resulted in the break of the couple's three-year marriage, These are actually in reality small events that take place. But everything can feel like 10 on the Richter scale if you make the headline big enough and salacious enough. Aniston and Theroux, who began dating four years before their 2015 wedding, shocked fans when they annouced their decision to split in February. Both actors kept mum about their break up until the 49-year-old actress opened up in the September issue of InStyle Magazine. In the interview, Aniston clarified that while her split from her ex was hard, she was not mourning the relationship. "Its pretty crazy. The misconceptions are Jen cant keep a man, and Jen refuses to have a baby because shes selfish and committed to her career,' she said. Or that Im sad and heartbroken. First, with all due respect, Im not heartbroken. And second, those are reckless assumptions. No one knows whats going on behind closed doors. No one considers how sensitive that might be for my partner and me. They dont know what Ive been through medically or emotionally. Similar to Aniston's feelings about the split, Theroux said that their breakup didn't leave him devastated. Neither one of us is dead, neither one of us is looking to throw hatchets at each other," he clarified. "Its more like, its amicable. Its boring, but, you know, we respected each other enough that it was as painless as it could be. He continued, It was heartbreaking only in the sense that the friendship would not be the same, as far as just the day to day. But the friendship is shifting and changing, you know, so that part is something that were both very proud of. When Theroux was asked about his post-split dating life, the actor asked, Is this the part where I coyly raise an eyebrow and not answer the question? At the time of the former couple's split, the actors released a joint statement that read, In an effort to reduce any further speculation, we have decided to announce our separation. This decision was mutual and lovingly made at the end of last year. We are two best friends who have decided to part ways as a couple, but look forward to continuing our cherished friendship. In March, a month after the split, a source told Us Weekly that the two had barely spoken to each other since announcing their separation. "She wishes the best for Justin," the insider said. "They had some wonderful times together but are better off going in separate directions." Karlie Kloss wants her wedding dress to be fit for a royal, specifically Englands newest duchess. She looked gorgeous on her wedding day, Kloss gushed to Refinery29 about Meghan Markle when talking wedding dress inspiration in an interview published Friday. I feel its a day that you want to just feel happy, beautiful, and not stressed. The American actress-turned-Duchess-of-Sussex married Prince Harry in May in a Givenchy haute couture dress for her ceremony and later changed into a chic Stella McCartney gown for the reception. The model, 26, who got engaged to boyfriend Josh Kushner over the summer, says beyond wanting the Markle Sparkle, she doesnt have much of a glam plan. Im still kind of enjoying the engagement bliss, but Im definitely somebody who opts for less is more when it comes to beauty, she said. I love a strong lip or a strong eye, but I would want to keep it more natural. For hair, an updo is pretty logical. Get it out the way, so you can dance and have a good time. In terms of other wedding prep, Kloss has converted to Judaism, her fiances religion before the big day. And although her husband-to-be has ties to the White House, as his brother Josh is married to Ivanka Trump and is a close adviser to the president, Kloss who has gotten backlash for her connection to the first family says that the couple lives by liberal values. Ive chosen to be with the man I love despite the complications, she told Vogue earlier this month. Its frustrating, to be honest, that the spotlight is always shifted away from my career toward my relationship. This story originally appeared in the New York Post. More than a dozen women and one man have come forward to accuse a surgeon, who was once featured on a Bravo dating reality show, and his girlfriend of sexual assault, with one woman calling the couple a Bonnie and Clyde team of rapists. Orange County prosecutors on Friday said the individuals claim they were attacked by Newport Beach surgeon Grant Robicheaux, who was charged last week for drugging and raping two women. One allegation against the doctor dates back two decades. Some victims said the surgeons girlfriend, Cerissa Laura Riley, participated in the sexual assaults, according to prosecutors. The couple, who was charged with rape by use of drugs, oral copulation by anesthesia or controlled substance, and assault with intent to commit sexual offense, is currently free on $100,000 bail each. The new alleged victims came forward following reports on Wednesday, which claimed that there are as many as six alleged victims, at least one from New York, one from Nevada and one from Southern California, KACB reported. District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said during press conference on Friday that the authorities are considering additional charges and urged the public to contact the police with any relevant information about the couple. Even if you made a conscious decision to party with this couple, or with anybody else for that matter, no one gets a pass to have their way with you when youre unconscious or past the point of consent, Rackauckas said. "Even if you made a conscious decision to party with this couple, or with anybody else for that matter, no one gets a pass to have their way with you when youre unconscious or past the point of consent." Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas The possibility of additional charges comes just days after the authorities suggested there could be thousands of victims of crimes committed by the couple. I have not seen a case in my career that involved this many videos and sexual acts and possible crimes, Rackauckas said earlier this week. The authorities believe Robicheaux and Riley used their looks to prey on their alleged victims. We believe the defendants used their good looks and charms to lower the inhibitions of their potential prey, Rackauckas said. We've all heard of a wolf in sheep's clothing. Well, a wolf can wear scrubs or doctors clothing. Or a wolf can be a beautiful woman. There are thousands and thousands of videos and images ... There are several videos where women in the videos appear to be highly intoxicated, beyond the ability to consent or resist. They are barely responsive to the defendants sexual advances, he added. Based on this evidence, we believe there might be many unidentified victims out there. "There are thousands and thousands of videos and images ... There are several videos where women in the videos appear to be highly intoxicated, beyond the ability to consent or resist. They are barely responsive to the defendants sexual advances." Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas According to the Los Angeles Times, the attorneys for Robicheaux and Riley also held a press conference on Friday and denied that their clients engaged in nonconsensual sexual acts with others. The attorneys pushed back against the authorities claims that they are in possession of videos showing a number of victims, saying the authorities seized the evidence from the surgeons house in January. The investigation began many, many months before that.... Despite that time, there is no allegation, there has been no information released, regarding thousands of victims or hundreds of rapes, said attorney Philip Cohen. The fact is, after nine months Grant and Cerissa have been charged with two counts of sexual assault. "The investigation began many, many months before that.... Despite that time, there is no allegation, there has been no information released, regarding thousands of victims or hundreds of rapes." Philip Cohen, the couple's attorney The charges of two counts of sexual assault stem from allegations by two women. According to court documents, one woman reportedly described Robicheaux and Riley as a Bonnie and Clyde team who drugged her and engaged in sex acts without her consent, the Times reported. The woman told the police that the surgeon gave her two pills that made her feel lethargic. Robicheaux then went on to have unprotected sex with her while his girlfriend who also performed oral sex on the woman recorded the ordeal with her phone. The victim felt paralyzed by the apparent drugs and did not feel as though she could physically resist Robicheaux and Riley while they were having sex with her, police said in court records. A medical test showed that the woman had cocaine, ecstasy and MDA, a hard drug sometimes known as the love drug, in her system. The second woman reportedly said she lost her consciousness while drinking with the couple and was later taken to the surgeons house. The couple then began sexually assaulting her with the intent to commit rape. The woman screamed and asked for help, prompting a phone call to the police by one of the neighbors. Robicheaux and Riley are currently facing up to 40 years or 30 years in prison, respectively. The number of years could increase if the authorities will bring the additional charges stemming from the new accusers. The couple is due back in court on Oct. 25. Fox News Paulina Dedaj and the Associated Press contributed to this report. Americans across the country pride themselves of making a living with their very own hands, and Fox's "American Roots" focuses on hardworking citizens who do just that. In the New York Distilling Company (NYDC), a Brooklyn-based craft distillery, men and women preserve a long-standing tradition that takes rye whiskey from the farm straight to your cocktail glass. NYDC was built with American industry and New Yorks rich cocktail history in mind. In fact, NYDC even opened its distillerys doors on a significant date in libation history: Dec. 5, 2011, the anniversary of Prohibitions repeal. WATCH: THE BOURBON TRAIL IS A TREAT FOR THE EYES, NOSE, AND TASTE BUDS Allen Katz, the co-founder of NYDC, told Fox News that his appreciation for tradition sets his company apart. Our name is the New York Distilling Company, meaning that whats inside the bottle would be the whiskey we made, the whiskey we had complete control over from the start to its earliest days as a distillate and a new make, to the barrels we put it in, to where we age it, to how long we age it, and how we blend it, Katz explained. We are in control of every part of that process. The rye for NYDC comes from Rick Pedersons farm in the Finger Lakes region of New York, Katz said. We started small with Rick and he created a hybrid that was a hardy grain and had a nice sugar content so that when it was harvested we could ultimately distill it and derive a lot of flavor and volume from it, explains Katz. CONOR MCGREGOR'S 'PROPER' IRISH WHISKEY TO BE SPONSOR AT HIS UFC FIGHTS The volume of the rye is ultimately where the economics of whiskey come into play but just how much alcohol can you make from it? The first harvest with Pederson, according to Katz, yielded 30,000 pounds of rye, which filled 26 barrels of what would eventually become rye whiskey. Weve grown over the last several years to our largest output, which was between 900 to 1,000 barrels of rye in one year, said Katz. Katz noted that, while the rye is harvested in July, it is not distilled until mid-to-late October. That is because, once it is harvested, the rye's grains need to be cleaned, dried and milled. Its a long process, according to Katz, which is why many brands take a shortcut and purchase already-made whiskey. That means large distilleries produce whiskey for a multitude of brands who simply put their name on the bottle to avoid the challenge of harvesting too much or too little product. Youre putting dollars into barrels, explained Katz of his preferred process. That liquid is dollars that you will not see for several years. After the rye is milled, the grains are cooked through a process called mashing to expose the sugars of the grains. The sugars then interact with yeast. The process of fermentation occurs when the yeast converts the sugars into alcohol. Katz explained that the fermented mash is then distilled in two runs: The first run strips the alcohol out of the fermented mash, and the second, or "finishing run," is the fine-tuning of the material that ultimately goes into the barrel to age for at least two years. FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE FOX LIFESTYLE NEWS NYDC is also one of the few distilleries in the country to also house a saloon, called The Shanty. Were trying to take advantage of as many local opportunities as possible, Katz said, adding that, starting at the Pederson farm and ending at The Shanty, he wants NYDC to be a part of American rye whiskey narrative. Theres still a great story to be told about rye whiskey as not only a resolute American spirit, but also a really interesting agricultural and cocktail context for New York, he said. To learn more about how Allen Katz and the New York Distilling Company are tapping into the American spirit, watch the full video above. Emily DeCiccio is a video producer and reporter for Fox News Digital Originals. Tweet her @EmilyDeCiccio. Law enforcement officers from the Sacremento, California region escorted and welcomed the younger sister of the late Deputy Mark Stasyuk to middle school in an emotional tribute, just days after her brother was killed in the line of duty. On September 21, Aiyana Stasyuk returned to Sylvan Middle School in Citrus Heights, accompanied by deputies of the Sacramento County Sheriffs Department, KRCA reports. As she bravely strode back into the building, she was welcomed by an applauding line of police officers, teachers and students. On September 17, her older brother Mark, a deputy with the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office, was fatally shot in Rancho Cordova after responding to a disturbance call at a local business. He was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at a nearby hospital. FLORIDA CHICK-FIL-A THROWS SURPRISE 100TH BIRTHDAY FOR LOYAL CUSTOMER Footage of Aiyanas emotional return to school shared by the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office has since gone viral on Facebook with over 141,000 views. The recent death of Deputy Mark Stasyuk left a hole in many hearts especially his younger sister, Aiyana. Since his passing, Deputy Stasyuks colleagues, who were also his close friends, have supported Aiyana and her grieving family, the sheriffs office wrote on Instagram. Yesterday, Aiyana told deputies that she was ready to return to school and asked if they could take her. They lined her path in honor of her brother and in admiration of her strength. Deputy Nedeoglo said it best when he explained to Aiyana that while she lost her big brother which no one will ever replace, she did gain an extended family of law enforcement brothers and sisters who love and support her, they added. A Stasyuk family member described 27-year-old Mark to KCRA as a man full of integrity who was adventurous and madly in love with his wife, who he married in March. FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE FOX LIFESTYLE NEWS The Sacramento sheriffs department wanted to do something special for Aiyana. We expected about a dozen or so police cars, but so many more showed up, including law enforcement from surrounding departments, a Sylvan Middle School rep told Yahoo Lifestyle . It was pretty emotional and touching for everyone, they added. Fox News' Nicole Darrah contributed to this report. NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles! Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosensteins actions, as recounted by the New York Times Friday, are the equivalent of an attempted coup -- a plot to overthrow the president. As the Times reveals, Rosenstein was furious that Democrats blamed him for the firing of FBI Director James Comey. Rosenstein, who had volunteered to write the firing memorandum, was regretful and emotional. His behavior was described as erratic. He blamed Trump. So, in an apparent act of vengeance, he proposed secretly recording the president to try to gain damaging information about him. He solicited others to wear wires, including Andrew McCabe, who was later fired as Assistant FBI Director. Rosenstein is said to have discussed recruiting cabinet members to depose Trump under the 25th Amendment. All of this is reportedly evidenced in memos, including those written by McCabe. Friday afternoon, in response to the Times story, Michael R. Bromwich, Andrew McCabes attorney issued this statement for the record: "Andrew McCabe drafted memos to memorialize significant discussions he had with high level officials and preserved them so he would have an accurate, contemporaneous record of those discussions. When he was interviewed by the Special Counsel more than a year ago, he gave all of his memos -- classified and unclassified -- to the Special Counsel's office. A set of those memos remained at the FBI at the time of his departure in late January 2018. He has no knowledge of how any member of the media obtained those memos." Rosenstein strongly denied that the facts recounted by the Times. The New York Timess story is inaccurate and factually incorrect, he told Fox News. I will not further comment on a story based on anonymous sources who are obviously biased against the department and are advancing their own personal agenda. But let me clear about this: Based on my personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment. Additionally, Rosenstein also said this in a statement: I never pursued or authorized recording the President and any suggestion that I have ever advocated for the removal of the President is absolutely false. So who is telling the truth? Consider this: Is it any wonder that Rosenstein has refused to produce those records which Congress lawfully demanded months ago? Rosenstein has been trying to cover-up evidence of his own wrongdoing. This may constitute obstruction of justice by withholding incriminating evidence. Were Rosensteins words merely sarcasm, as some suggest? Here are two critical passages in the Times story: One participant asked whether Mr. Rosenstein was serious, and he replied animatedly that he was. According to the others who described his comments, Mr. Rosenstein not only confirmed that he was serious about the idea but also followed up by suggesting that other FBI officials who were interviewing to be the bureaus director could also secretly record Mr. Trump. This invites the question: did Robert Mueller, who interviewed with Trump to be FBI Director the day before he accepted the job as special counsel, wear a wire? Probably not. But as I explained in my book, The Russia Hoax, Mueller may have been there to gather evidence against Trump during his interview with the president. It was one of the three reasons why Mueller should have recused himself. Yet, he refused to do so. Muellers Investigation Should Be Terminated Rosenstein should be fired immediately. Proposing to secretly record the president is, at the very least, a violation of regulations that govern a security clearance. Importantly, the entire special counsel investigation should be promptly terminated. This illegitimate probe has been tainted by corruption from the outset, and this is just the latest in a mountain of damning evidence. Rosenstein has been in charge of the Mueller probe. Yet, it is clear that he harbors an extreme bias against Trump. How can anyone now view the investigation as fair, objective and neutral? It is not. It never has been. The special counsel probe has been compromised and contaminated by Rosensteins actions, Muellers refusal to disqualify himself, the misconduct of former FBI agent Peter Strzok, and the obvious bias of lead prosecutor Andrew Weissmann. From the moment Trump was sworn in as president, saboteurs at the FBI and Justice Department have worked furiously to undue the election results and frame Trump for colluding with Russia to win the 2016 presidential election. They conjured a false case based on a fabricated dossier paid for by Hillary Clintons campaign and composed by a British spy who was fired for lying. They misappropriated that document to launch the Trump-Russia investigation without probable cause. They then exploited the same dossier to wiretap a Trump campaign associate, Carter Page. In the process, they concealed vital evidence and deceived FISA judges, perpetrating a fraud on the court. Those who abused their positions of power to subvert the rule of law and undermine the democratic process should be held accountable. It should begin with the firing of Rod Rosenstein. It should end with a presentment to a grand jury for potential criminal indictments. NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles! I have made it home to the USA to host Fox & Friends September 22, 23, 24 and 25. I am so excited for this opportunity and cant wait to see everyone! While FaceTiming in North Carolina with my husband in Australia the other morning, we tried to count the number of times I have done the flight from Sydney to the USA. We think its about 10 trips. So thats 20 times Ive embarked on the 28-hour door to door journey. Yikes! Now that we have an infant, the travel stress has gone up a gear. But in the three trips Ive done solo with our 7.5 month old, I have learned a few tricks of the trade that I think can help other moms flying with babies, whether domestically or internationally. As you know babies develop at warp speed, so each trip has carried with it unique challenges. But I think I have this travel with baby thing mastered. Well, maybe not mastered, but at least as painless as possible. I documented one of my journeys for a Fox & Friends segment using the Anna Cam aka my iPhone. First tip? Pack way more diapers and onesies than you think you could ever need! No doubt will you have a few poo-namis caused by diaper explosions. I like to even bring a couple of super cheap onesies that I dont mind throwing away if necessary. You dont want to carry those things around with you the rest of the trip, do you!! When embarking on these journeys I must say I am always wishing I had a few extra hands. Using a backpack as a diaper bag and a baby carrier for transport allows moms to be hands free. This is important for wheeling around a carry-on suitcase and small duffle that are also full of necessities like formula or frozen breastmilk, pureed solid foods, toys, playmates, blankets, extra clothes for mom, etc etc etc! If you want to bring your own stroller you can usually check it with your luggage before going through security, for no extra cost. But having a stroller to wheel around the airport is particularly helpful for having a nice napping environment during layovers. The Catch-22 however, is that if you are traveling solo with baby, it can be a challenge to push it through the airport and wheel around your carry-on. I recommend traveling with a stroller that folds up small enough to fit in the overhead compartment. For domestic flights you can often gate check the stroller and pick it up as soon as you deplane. For international flights however, like mine from Sydney to New York City, if you try to take an umbrella stroller onboard, the airline will likely take it from you and check it through to oversized baggage. Then you will not have it when trying to make your way through customs. This is why a traditional, small, umbrella stroller is not sufficient. You need a special stroller that folds up small enough to cram in the overhead compartment. There are only a handful of these on the market. When booking your travel reservations make sure you tell the airline you are traveling with an infant. You can bring a car seat for them if you want to purchase an extra seat. If they are under two they can sit on your lap if you prefer. You will not have to purchase the extra seat but will likely have to pay taxes for them. If you are traveling internationally on one of the jumbo jets, make sure to request the bassinet seats! These can be a lifesaver. They are situated in the bulkhead area, have extra legroom, and literally have a bassinet that is bolted into the wall in front of you. Bottles, bottles, everywhere! This trip has been a bit different because I am no longer breastfeeding. That means I have carried a ridiculous number of bottles with me. I still wanted to make sure they could get cleaned though in case the travel time became longer than expected and I needed to use them again. I brought with me a small amount of soap, a bottle brush, and a microwaveable sterilization bag. After washing them in the bathroom, you can also request the flight attendants rinse them out with scalding hot water. Bibs... who needs em! Well you might need them if you have a dribbler during bottle feeds. But what I recommend for mealtimes that involve solids or pureed solids is essentially a hazmat suit! There are a few brands that carry wipeable, long sleeved shirts that cover the whole body and just snap on the same way a bib would. These cover the entire body and really do resemble a hazmat suit or poncho more than a traditional bib. But trust me, they are awesome. I bought mine for travel, but often use it at home too. Once you have boarded the plane, let your baby flirt with passengers around you so they fall in love, and arent so irritated, when the bub inevitably starts making a fuss at some point. If crap hits the fan...buy drinks for passengers sitting near you! It sounds funny, but they will appreciate it and you will not feel so guilty about having disturbed their travel zen. Finally, ask for help! There is no need to try to do it 100 percent on your own if you are flying solo with baby. You know the saying, It takes a village? Well, in my experience, the village is eager to help. Find some sweet passengers around you. Very often they welcome the opportunity to help a new mom lift bags into the overhead compartment, or even have a cuddle with baby while mom gets herself situated. Since moving to Australia, I have been doing a bit of Aussie TV when in Sydney, but have also been documenting a lot of my experiences during pregnancy and as a new mom. You can follow my journey on my social feeds, or in more detail on my fitness, travel, and lifestyle website, AnnaKooiman.com. Dont forget to leave me comments. I love to hear from you! And cant wait to see you back on the curvy couch this weekend and next Monday and Tuesday when I get to host my old show, Fox & Friends. What an exciting opportunity to come back! NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles! The Iranian government arrested, imprisoned and sentenced us to death because of our evangelical Christian faith in 2009. Last month, we shared our story, testifying to the brutal restrictions on religious freedom in our home country, at the U.S. State Departments first-ever Ministerial to Advance International Religious Freedom. We thank God for all the ways Americas leaders are seeking to advance religious freedom throughout the globe, affirming that no one should be forced to choose between practicing their faith and living safely in their country. Until Iran and other repressive regimes respect religious freedom, though, we pray that persecuted Christians and other religious minorities will continue to have access to the U.S. refugee resettlement program. Both of us grew up in nominally Muslim families but became Christians as young adults. We met while studying leadership and attending Christian seminars together in Turkey, then returned to Iran to share our faith. We were both arrested and spent 259 days in Tehrans notorious Evin Prison, where we learned why Iran is classified as among the countries where followers of Christ face the most extreme persecution. We endured daily interrogations and threats, but by Gods grace and a great deal of international advocacy on our behalf, we were eventually released. In 2010, we had to leave our country and move to Turkey, where we registered as refugees. One year later, we were selected by the U.S. State Department and resettled in Atlanta, Georgia. We will forever be thankful to America for welcoming us and offering us the freedom to live out our faith without fear. Were saddened, however, that very few persecuted Iranian Christians today are being offered the opportunity that we received. Since 2008, according to the State Departments Refugee Processing Center, more than 16,000 Iranian Christians have been able to come through the U.S. refugee resettlement program, as have an additional 10,000 other religious minorities, including adherents of the Jewish, Bahai and Mandaean faiths, who also face mistreatment from the Islamic government of Iran. The new U.S. policy is keeping the victims of a corrupt and abusive government from coming to America, even while some government officials and their families are among the very few able to obtain visas. This year, however, those numbers have dropped dramatically. A mere five Iranian religious minorities have been allowed to enter the U.S. as refugees, down more than 99 percent from just two years ago. The same holds true of refugees from other countries. In 2016, the U.S. welcomed 6,436 Christian refugees from the 11 countries where Christians face the most extreme persecution. Thus far in 2018, only about 600 Christians from these countries have been accepted. The U.S. government cites security concerns as the primary rationale for the dramatic slowdown in refugee processing. We know better than most Americans just how vital it is that the U.S. keep out those who would do harm, and were grateful that each refugee is vigilantly vetted. The last thing we want is for those who imprisoned us to be able to reach us here. What most Americans probably dont realize is that the U.S. government already has an extremely thorough vetting process set up, including multiple biographic and biometric background checks and thorough interviews by Homeland Security officers. That vetting system has actually been remarkably successful. Since 2001, about 940,000 refugees have been welcomed to the U.S. Not a single one has taken an American life in a terrorist attack. Of these refugees, far more have been Christians than any other religion, and this includes many like the two of us who were persecuted particularly because of their faith. The new U.S. policy, though, is keeping the victims of a corrupt and abusive government from coming to America, even while some government officials and their families are among the very few able to obtain visas. The U.S. should be proud of its history as a beacon of safety, compassion and freedom. But if it wants to retain that history, it needs to change course to admit more refugees. Instead, things are moving in the opposite direction. On Monday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced a ceiling for refugee admissions into the U.S. of 30,000 for the 2019 fiscal year lower, even, than the historically low 45,000 for the 2018 fiscal year. Sadly this means that even fewer persecuted Christians and other religious minorities will find refuge in year ahead. And the longer that refugee resettlement is slowed, the more long-term harm is done to the infrastructure of faith-based non-profit organizations. Such organizations, built over decades of public-private partnership, play a crucial role in helping refugees integrate when they arrive. World Relief Atlanta, the evangelical ministry that helped us adjust to our new home, has been forced to lay off 21 of its 30 staff in the past few years as a direct result of the sharp decline of refugee admissions. Secretary of State Pompeo refused to answer questions following his announcement, but when asked about the decline earlier this year he said that he wants refugees to experience religious freedom in their own countries, such that there will be fewer that have to travel to the United States to practice their faith. To which we say: Amen! Were very thankful for all that President Trump and his administration are doing to advance international religious freedom broadly, and in particular to hold the Iranian regime accountable for their abuses. But until there truly is religious freedom in Iran and other parts of the globe, were praying the U.S. will not close its golden door on persecuted Christians and other religious minorities who have been forced to flee. The deal was inked during a working session between President of the VFF Central Committee Tran Thanh Man and Secretary of the Russian Civic Chamber Valery Fadeev as part of the formers visit to Russia. The VFF leader stressed that Vietnam always attaches much importance to the traditional friendship with Russia, and consistently works to promote the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries. Vietnam considers Russia both a traditional and a comprehensive strategic partner, thus giving top priority to Russia in its foreign policies, he said. Introducing the host about the VFFs roles, positions, and functions, Man said that the VFF and the Civic Chamber of Russia have maintained sound cooperative relations through delegation exchange and experience sharing. Valery Fadeev highlighted that the two sides have had various practical exchanges and meetings. Particularly, during the visit to Vietnam in December, 2017 made by a delegation from the Russian Civic Chamber, both sides reached consensus on the signing of a memorandum of understanding among the Russian Chamber, the All-Russia Peoples Front and the VFF during 2018-2023. He hoped that the deal will help enhance cooperative ties among the three organisations, and believed that this is an important step forward in the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries. Secretary of the All-Russia Peoples Front Alexey Viktorovich, for his part, took note of similarities in the missions of the VFF and the All-Russia Peoples Front, including protecting the rights and legitimate interests of the people, and conducting social supervision and criticism. He affirmed that he is willing to share experience with Vietnam in those fields. The same day, the VFF high-level delegation visited and planted trees at the headquarters of the All-Russia Peoples Front, and attended a roundtable on social supervision. They then visited the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and held talks with Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov on measures to bolster the Vietnam-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership. Mans visit to Russia will last until September 25. NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles! On Monday President Trump will address the United Nations General Assembly. It will be another opportunity for the president to set out his "America First" agenda and to explain that it's better, and more democratic, for sovereign nations to work together to solve problems than to hand over power to remote and unaccountable international bureaucracies. His approach is a stark contrast to the globalist ideology that has held sway for far too long - the idea that individual countries should subordinate their own national interest to some vague notion of the "global interest." This was the thinking that led to the biggest foreign policy mistake of the last two decades: the globalists' insistence on engagement with China. Mesmerized by their own fantasy of an economically borderless world - convenient for global corporations but disastrous for American workers - the elitists have helped bring Chinas brutal, authoritarian Communist regime to the brink of achieving its long planned-for attempt at world domination. We often hear about how weve been losing out to China economically - and thats true. But the case against China is a moral one too. UN and U.S. officials have estimated that China has literally imprisoned one million Muslims in internment camps. Reports include brainwashing to force Muslims to worship dictator Xi Jinping instead of Allah. President Trump should reject in its entirety the failed China strategy of his globalist predecessors. Chinas vile "social credit" system is using the worlds most sophisticated technology in an Orwellian effort to monitor, track and control every Chinese citizen and punish those who step out of line. And the dictators of Beijing are now spreading their poison internationally, colonizing countries around the world with an imperialist aggression far worse than anything in history. President Trump should now reject in its entirety the failed China strategy of his globalist predecessors. This means not just continuing, through tariffs, to pressurize the Chinese regime on issues like the theft of vital technology from American companies. He needs to go bigger, and bolder. At the UN and beyond, he should rally the whole world behind a simple but audacious goal: to topple Xi Jinping's regime by turning China into a pariah state. It must start with economics. For a long time, our economic interaction with China was minimal. That all changed when, with U.S. backing, China joined the World Trade Organization in 2000. The elitists argued that by integrating China into the world economy, we would benefit financially through increased, mutually beneficial trade and investment; and that we would benefit strategically by moving China away from communism towards openness and maybe even democracy. Of course the exact opposite happened, on both fronts. Over the next few years, manufacturing jobs in America were destroyed on a massive scale as China used its newfound access to dump its state-subsidized exports into the American and world markets. And instead of moving towards democracy, China has become ever more authoritarian and aggressive. The only difference is that now, it is incomparably richer and more empowered to assert its hegemonic mania - thanks to the elitists catastrophic misjudgment. Both President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama pathetically failed to stand up to Chinas economic imperialism and global expansionism. Neither had the backs of working Americans; instead, they just wanted to look like good global players to their big business donors and foreign policy experts - all of whom are now utterly humiliated as the true scale of the establishments China debacle becomes apparent. The Chinese have turned intellectual property theft into a weapon of war. The greedy, foolish elites were mesmerized by the prospect of untold riches from Chinas untapped consumer markets - little realizing that China would never be as stupid as we were, and allow foreign competitors to get the edge. The gullible and naive Asia experts labored under the impression that if we gave China the Olympics, if we engaged on Chinas terms, if we got China into the trading system, then China would become more democratic, human rights would improve, and we would all be a lot richer. Well the Chinese got richer. And the elites in America got richer. But is China any more democratic? No; it has regressed, if that is possible, from communist oligarchy to an increasingly totalitarian state. Is China playing by the rules? No; it is quite literally taking islands from its neighbors, ignoring intentional rulings, and flouting agreed maritime boundaries. Instead of playing by the established rules of the international community it is actively setting its own, creating a network of quiescent countries - including in Europe - through its One Belt, One Road infrastructure initiative. Its aggressive cyber-warfare against America has included not only industrial espionage but the theft of Americans personal data on a massive scale. Meanwhile, Chinese industry continues to undercut American manufacturing, totally disproportionate tariffs are levied on foreign imports to China and currency manipulation has further put our exporters at an unfair disadvantage. Even when China does allow American corporations to compete in its markets, its entirely on the regimes terms: American companies cannot own their own Chinese businesses, they can only operate through joint ventures. And for technology companies, a condition of operation is to hand over commercial secrets in vital areas like AI and quantum computing. The Chinese have turned intellectual property theft into a weapon of war. I hate to say I told you so - but I told you so. Against the grain of the elites embarrassing China swoon, I argued all along that no good would come of this. While I was working In Downing Street I typically stayed away from foreign policy but I did have one early victory as I persuaded David Cameron, in the teeth of frantic protests from the Foreign Office and Treasury, that his first major international visit as Prime Minister should be to India not China. Of course the corrupt apparatchiks of Beijing, by now accustomed to over a decade of craven kowtowing by the supine West, were infuriated. And sure enough, the China-skeptic posture I advocated was reversed in an instant, culminating in the abject humiliation of a lavish state visit to Britain for the brutal dictator Xi Jinping, paraded through the streets of London in a gold carriage while goons from the Chinese Embassy beat up pro-democracy protesters just a few feet away. Well now we know. We cant pretend that China wants anything less than world domination - economically, technologically, politically, militarily. We can't waste time hoping it will play by our rules. It won't. The sooner we realize that, the sooner we can take the aggressive stance we need to isolate this rising giant of a rival. We put all our might into fighting and winning the Cold War against the Soviets; the Chinese regime is an infinitely bigger threat because unlike the Soviet Union it is an economic powerhouse. Military conflict between China and America isn't inevitable, and I'm not advocating that we go down that path. But for our long term prosperity, and for a world run according to the values of openness and democracy, we must take aggressive action now, even at the cost of short-term pain. Yes we have to get tough on our trade imbalances with China, as President Trump has been doing. But we can and should go further than that. When I was at Oxford, I proudly joined protests against apartheid South Africa. They were rightly an international pariah for their despicable treatment of the majority of their people. Its time for a complete economic boycott of China. We can start by imposing exactly the same conditions on Chinese companies in America as the ones imposed on American companies in China: no independent operations, compulsory joint ventures and the forced handover of intellectual property. How long do you think Chinese companies would stay here on that basis? Next: no American company or investor should be permitted to support China's various schemes for world domination like One Belt One Road. All U.S. companies in China should pull out, and no new investments should be made. Yes this seems drastic but in the long run it is our only hope of putting sufficient pressure on the vile Beijing regime that it might collapse from within. China is our enemy, not our partner, and we need to start acting like it. This is an edited extract from "Positive Populism - Revolutionary Ideas to Rebuild Economic Security, Family and Community in America." NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles! Attorneys for Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, asked the Senate Judiciary Commitee on Friday night for an additional day to make her decision to testify. Shortly before midnight Friday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley tweeted that he had granted the extension, addressing the tweet to Kavanaugh. "Judge Kavanaugh I just granted another extension to Dr Ford to decide if she wants to proceed w the statement she made last week to testify to the senate," Grassley wrote. "She shld decide so we can move on I want to hear her. I hope u understand. Its not my normal approach to b indecisive." Senate Republicans earlier Friday extended a counteroffer to Ford to testify on Capitol Hill next Wednesday, amid negotiations over whether she would elaborate on her allegations against Kavanaugh in public. Fox News was told that the Republican senators wanted an answer by the end of the day. In a statement released earlier Friday evening, Grassley had extended the deadline for a response to 10 p.m. If there was no response, or a rejection of the offer, Grassley said in a statement then, the committee may set a vote on Kavanaugh's nomination for Monday. But Ford's lawyer, Debra Katz, labeled the 10 p.m. deadline "arbitrary." "Its sole purpose is to bully Dr. Ford and deprive her of the ability to make a considered decision that has life-altering implications for her and her family," Katz said in a statement. "She has already been forced out of her home and continues to be subjected to harassment, hate mail, and death threats. Our modest request is that she be given an additional day to make her decision." "The imposition of aggressive and artificial deadlines regarding the date and conditions of any hearing has created tremendous and unwarranted anxiety and stress on Dr. Ford," Katz said. "Your cavalier treatment of a sexual assault survivor who has been doing her best to cooperate with the Committee is completely inappropriate." For their part, Democrats had reacted negatively to the Friday offer. U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Ford shouldnt be rushed, adding that Ford cant testify any earlier than Thursday. Show some heart, Feinstein said. Wait until Dr. Ford feels that she can come before the committee. Another Democrat on the judiciary committee, Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, said Ford deserved extra time to respond. After spending the day in FBI interviews about death threats against her, Dr. Blasey (sic) deserves the minimal decency of 24 hours to make a decision about testifying," Blumenthal wrote in a statement. "Rejecting her request would take the Senate to a shameful new low a blatant abuse of power. Republican colleagues have a moral and Constitutional duty to stop the ugly unacceptable bullying. Ford has accused Kavanaugh of attempting to rape her while both were in high school. Kavanaugh has denied the allegations. Grassley initially invited Ford to testify on Monday and gave Ford until 10 a.m. Friday to respond. That deadline passed Friday without a deal after Fords attorneys made clear this week Ford didnt want to testify Monday but suggested she would do so on another day. Meanwhile, President Trump on Friday called for Ford to testify, saying its time for the Senate to vote on Kavanaughs nomination. The president was also critical of Feinstein for receiving a letter from Ford outlining her allegations in July, but failing to disclose them, even anonymously, to federal officials or other committee members until last week. "Senator Feinstein and the Democrats held the letter for months, only to release it with a bang after the hearings were OVER - done very purposefully to Obstruct & Resist & Delay," Trump tweeted Friday. "Let her testify, or not, and TAKE THE VOTE!" Trump also took issue with Fords legal team saying they want the FBI to investigate the allegations something the bureau has indicated it has no plans to do. "The radical left lawyers want the FBI to get involved NOW," Trump tweeted. "Why didnt someone call the FBI 36 years ago?" Kavanaugh, in a letter to the Judiciary Committee on Thursday, indicated he would be ready and willing to testify on Monday. "I continue to want a hearing as soon as possible, so that I can clear my name," he wrote. "Since the moment I first heard this allegation, I have categorically and unequivocally denied it. I remain committed to defending my integrity." NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles! Minnesota state Rep. Jim Knoblach announced Friday that he would be ending his reelection campaign amid allegations he inappropriately touched his adult daughter for over 10 years. The abrupt announcement from the 60-year-old Minnesota Republican came just hours after his attorney denied the allegations in an interview with Minnesota Public Radio. Knoblachs 23-year-old daughter, Laura Knoblach, came to the station to tell her story after she said she exhausted all other means. She alleged that the earliest memory of her fathers inappropriate behavior dates to when she was just 9 years old and continued until she was 21. Her accusations include inappropriate kissing, licking and biting of her ears. Laura Knoblach told MPR that she recalls her father entering her bedroom after she had gone to sleep. He would climb into her bed and lie down beside her. "He would put his arm around me and not let me get up or get away and he would lick my neck or bite my ear," she told the station. She alleges other acts, including at least 30 instances where Knoblach approached her from behind in the kitchen and pressed himself up against her, pinning her against the refrigerator or dishwasher. Laura says she confided in close friends and family and even law enforcement but with no avail. The St. Cloud Police Department and Sherburne County sheriff's office began an investigation last year but declined to file charges. She provided extensive documentation to the station about her attempts to get help, which included a letter from the Sherburne County attorney's office saying there was "insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Jim Knoblach had committed a crime." The St. Cloud Police Department did not immediately respond to Fox News request for comment regarding why charges were not filed. Knoblach vehemently denied the allegations. In a written statement he said that his daughter has been estranged from our family for some time. "In late 2016 she made some extremely hurtful and untrue accusations on a Facebook post, which was briefly put up and then taken down. These accusations were fully investigated by Sherburne County, dismissed, and the case closed in April 2017, his statement read. Knoblach did not return multiple attempts by Fox News for a comment. As chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and in a hotly sought after seat, Knoblachs departure will make it difficult for Republicans to hold a write-in campaign by a substitute candidate. It is likely that Dan Wolgamott of St. Cloud, the Democratic candidate, will win the election. The Associated Press contributed to this report. NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles! Former President Obama took the stage at a Pennsylvania rally on Friday in an effort to help Democrats regain control of Congress, stressing the need to vote in the midterms: On Nov. 6, you have a chance to restore some sanity to our politics. While campaigning for Sen. Bob Casey and Gov. Tom Wolf in a state that President Trump won in 2016, Obama told the crowd that the approaching election is more important than any I can remember in my lifetime. The former president carried Pennsylvania in both of his presidential races, and Democrats hope the state can help them retake control of Congress from the GOP. Noting that the coming elections are not for the White House, Obama highlighted a tendency among some constituents to sit on the sidelines. In the wide-ranging speech, Obama continued to hammer home the necessity for people to not take our basic rights for granted, while taking aim at elected Republicans. The Republicans in Congress right now theyre no check on the White House. Theyre bending over backwards to shield folks from scrutiny and accountability, he said. So look, Im not telling you anything you dont know. You know this. Heres the good news. On Nov. 6, you have a chance to restore some sanity to our politics. He went on to say that people across the political spectrum should be concerned about the current course of this country, apparently taking a subtle swipe at President Trump. You dont have to be a Democrat or a Republican to say that its not good to pressure the attorney general or the FBI to use the criminal justice system to punish political enemies," Obama said. "Thats what they do in some dictatorships. Thats not what we do here in the United States of America." "You dont have to be a Democrat or a Republican to say we dont threaten newspapers or TV stations if they publish stories we dont like. He continued: There were a whole bunch of stories I didnt like; I didnt threaten folks. I might just complain. I might say to Michelle, Hey, thats not fair. Obama's trip is the latest in a string of appearances before the midterms. The former president has endorsed more than 80 Democrats in more than a dozen states. The Associated Press contributed to this report. NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles! Within the past year, several political candidates have gone to great lengths to prove they're worthy of election even if that means exaggerating on their resumes to get ahead. From faking diplomas to spreading questionable details about their family backgrounds, many politicians have been accused of misleading their constituents in recent months. One recurring lie -- about education -- has struck many as especially disturbing. In September, an American Working Families Party candidate was forced to quit an Oregon state legislative race after reports surfaced that she falsely claimed she possessed a bachelor's degree. A month earlier, a Florida state House candidate admitted to lying about her college degree and dropped out of the race. Some of these false statements have caught up with the candidates, as in the latter case. However, some have continued to push through, despite controversies surrounding their campaigns. Here's a list of some aspiring lawmakers who have faced critical public scrutiny about their backgrounds. Amanda La Bell, Oregon House District 54 Amanda La Bell reportedly dropped out of Oregon's race for House District 54 following false claims about her college education. The American Working Families Party nominee's exit came shortly after The Bulletin reported La Bell, 41, lied on an official state Voters Pamphlet about earning a bachelor's degree from Valdosta State University in Georgia a class C felony, the newspaper pointed out. The report prompted La Bell to clarify what she called an "oversight" that occurred while her team scrambled to kick off her campaign. OREGON CANDIDATE AMANDA LA BELL BOWS OUT OVER FALSE CLAIMS ABOUT UNIVERSITY DEGREE: REPORTS Regarding my college education, I attended Gulf Coast Community College for two years then transferred to Valdosta State University in the pursuit of my Bachelors of Arts in Music, she told the paper. However, after one semester at Valdosta State University, I had to withdraw and enter the workforce. Through the years I tried to re-enter college but, like many working families, I faced significant barriers to completing my degree. La Bell apologized for the error, which she said she didn't catch "until it was too late to correct." Melissa Howard, Florida state House A Republican Florida House candidate dropped out of the race in August after admitting to lying about having a college degree. Melissa Howard agreed to serve 90 days of probation and completing 25 hours of community service to escape prosecution for misrepresenting her academic standing. FLORIDA HOUSE CANDIDATE WHO LIED ABOUT COLLEGE GRADUATION DROPS OUT OF RACE Weeks before Florida's primary election, Howard posted a photo of herself on Facebook with what looked like a Miami University diploma in addition to college transcripts. Shortly after, a lawyer for Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, noticed distinct differences between Howard's alleged diploma and ones issued in 1996 the year she claimed she graduated. The school later said in a statement she attended the school but never graduated. Howard acknowledged that she didn't graduate from the school before withdrawing her name from the race. Julia Salazar, New York state Senate Voters started to question the background of Julia Salazar, a Democratic socialist candidate for New York state Senate, after an article in Tablet revealed discrepancies in parts of her biography. Salazar, 27, came under fire for telling reporters she was an immigrant from Colombia who struggled financially growing up when in reality she was born in Florida and had hundreds of thousands of dollars in a trust fund. Her brother and her mother voiced concerns about statements she made regarding her childhood, specifically that she was born into a "working-class" family and her mom never graduated college. We were very much middle class. We had a house in Jupiter along the river, it was in a beautiful neighborhood, her brother Alex told City & State. I feel very strongly about my family and I want to tell the truth. DEM SOCIALIST CANDIDATE JULIA SALAZAR'S MOTHER AND BROTHER EXPOSE MORE INCONSISTENCIES IN HER BIO Many also took issue with Salazar's political and religious conversion during her years at Columbia University, where she transformed from an anti-abortion Christian Republican to a hard-left Jewish Democrat. One group revoked its endorsement after learning Salazar hadn't graduated from Columbia, as she said on its survey. Salazar said she "inadvertently misrepresented" her family's history and chalked up some misleading statements to mistakes by staff. The misleading information didn't seem to damage her reputation too much, however. Salazar ended up winning the Democratic primary for a state Senate seat in Brooklyn on Sept. 13, defeating eight-term incumbent Sen. Martin Dilan. Andy Kim, New Jerseys 3rd Congressional District Democrat Andy Kim is running against incumbent Republican Rep. Tom MacArthur in a tight race for New Jerseys 3rd Congressional District. As the pair face off in a race many polls declare a toss-up, apparent exaggerations in Kim's resume have come to light. For instance, Kim boasted about working under both Republican and Democratic presidents most recently serving as former President Barack Obama's national security adviser. But Kim didn't have as much experience working with a Republican leader as he suggested. Technically he hasn't been employed by a Republican president, Washington Post fact checkers first reported. Kim's LinkedIn page claims he worked as a conflict management specialist for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for less than a year during the Bush era in 2005. The position was entry level and he left after five months. DEM CANDIDATE BOASTS WORKING FOR REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT AFTER 5-MONTH STINT AS ENTRY-LEVEL CIVIL SERVANT: REPORT However, Zack Carroll, Kims campaign manager, stood by the message Kim spread in his campaign ad, in which he stated he "worked under both Democratic and Republican Administrations." While working at USAID under the Bush administration, Andy served in the Africa bureau working on U.S. response to conflict-related crises across Africa, including national security concerns related to terrorism in Somalia and genocide and child soldiers concerns in Sudan/Uganda. Andy worked closely with officials from the Pentagon, State Department, and other national security departments to develop comprehensive foreign policy responses to these and other crises, he said. Fox News' Adam Shaw, Lukas Mikelionis, Kaitlyn Schallhorn and The Associated Press contributed to this report. NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles! A source who was in the room during the meeting at which Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein reportedly talked about someone perhaps wearing "a wire" while meeting with President Trump tells Fox News the comment was "sarcastic." The meeting in question took place at Main DOJ on May 16, 2017. This was one week after FBI Director James Comey was fired by the president, and one day before Special Counsel Mueller investigation was brought in to oversee an inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Fox News has learned that the meeting in question included Rosenstein, Andrew McCabe, then the acting director of the FBI, and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, among several others. Fox News' source said: "I remember this meeting and remember the wire comment. The statement was sarcastic and was never discussed with any intention of recording a conversation with the president." "Andy [McCabe] and the DAG didn't really know each other," said the source, referring to the abbreviation for Rosenstein's post. "They were new to each other." Rosenstein was sworn in as the deputy attorney general on April 26, 2017, just weeks before the meeting. McCabe has referred to Comey as his mentor and was meeting with Rosenstein, who had penned a memo Trump used, in part, to fire Comey. "Maybe Andy misread the room," said the source. "It was not a serious suggestion." However, Fox News has also been told by a separate source familiar with McCabe's memos that a New York Times story on Friday about Rosenstein was "accurate," and that it was McCabe's thinking that Rosenstein's words were not made in jest. The Times' bombshell report said Rosenstein had suggested recording Trump to expose chaos in the White House, enlisting Cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove the president. Some DOJ insiders pointed to McCabe as the source of the Times story, saying these were the "desperate actions" of a man under federal investigation. Fox News has reported that McCabe is under investigation by the U,S, Attorney's Office. Federal prosecutors have impaneled a grand jury to investigate former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe following the Department of Justice inspector generals report alleging that McCabe approved a media disclosure to advance his personal interests. Fox News' Jeffrey Rubin contributed to this report. NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles! President Trump took aim at the FBI and the Department of Justice during a rally in Springfield, Mo., on Friday night, vowing to "get rid of" what he described as "a lingering stench" at the agencies. His remarks came amid reports that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein last year suggested secretly recording Trump to expose chaos in the White House and enlisting Cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office. Trump at the rally did not specifically mention Rosenstein, who has adamantly denied the accusations. "Just look at what is now being exposed in our Department of Justice and the FBI. Look at whats going on," Trump said. "And I want to tell you, we have great people in the Department of Justice. We have great people. These are people, I really believe, you take a poll, I gotta be at 95 percent. But you got some real bad ones. You've seen what's happened at the FBI. They're all gone. Theyre all gone. Theyre all gone. But there's a lingering stench and were going to get rid of that too." Trump was in Missouri in support of state Attorney General Josh Hawley, a Republican who is attempting to unseat incumbent U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat. Trump said that Hawley was needed in the Senate "to fight for Missouri" and the "whole country" because the Republican Party would "never, ever get a vote" from McCaskill, including on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. "Brett Kavanaugh, fantastic man. She just announced she won't vote for him," Trump said of McCaskill. "He was born for the U.S. Supreme Court. He was born for it. And it's going to happen. It's going to happen. But she just announced, she's not voting and shell vote against everything we want to do." McCaskill tweeted Wednesday night that she would not vote for Kavanaugh. In her message, she explicitly wrote that his legal rulings and ideology -- and not the allegations by Christine Blasey Ford -- were the reason for her decision. Ford alleged that Kavanaugh forced himself onto her and covered her mouth in the 1980s, when Kavanaugh was 17 and she was 15. The president also said that "a vote for Claire McCaskill" was one in favor of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.; Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.; and U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif. Trump also slammed Democrats, calling them "dangerous" and "crazy," noting that some have called to abolish U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). "And they arent just extreme, they are frankly dangerous and they are crazy. Theyre crazy," Trump said. "Democrats want to abolish ICE. In other words, they want to abolish immigration enforcement entirely. Let violent, sadistic gangs like MS-13, the worst gang in the world, run wild in our communities." "I've seen our guys from ICE. I've seen it. I've watched it. MS-13, theyre tough but theyre not tough like our guys. They're not tough like our ICE people," Trump continued. Trump won Missouri during the 2016 presidential election, defeating opponent Hillary Clinton there by double digits. The president has previously campaigned for and endorsed Hawley in the states U.S. Senate race, telling an audience over the summer, We need Josh badly. In a June tweet, he dubbed McCaskill so phony for her use of a private plane for two of the three days of her supposed campaign RV tour. "Senator Claire McCaskill of the GREAT State of Missouri flew around in a luxurious private jet during her RV tour of the state," Trump wrote. "RVs are not for her. People are really upset, so phony! Josh Hawley should win big, and has my full endorsement." For her part, McCaskill reportedly acknowledged that she had used a private plane, but insisted she had not used office funds and made no apologies for taking trips to see her constituents. Fox News' Gregg Re, Brooke Singman and the Associated Press contributed to this report. NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles! Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Democratic congressman Beto ORourke met Friday night at Southern Methodist University in Dallas in the first debate of three scheduled prior to the Nov. 6 vote over Cruz's seat. In a substantive but often contentious back-and-forth, the two men tackled a variety of issues ranging from immigration to the Supreme Court to their perspectives on working with President Trump. I have worked hand in hand with the president on substance and weve delivered victories, Cruz, who lost the GOP presidential nomination to Trump in 2016, explained when asked about working with the president post-loss. Texans lives are better. I could have chosen to make it about myself but I think that wouldve been not doing the job Ive been elected to. ORourke responded by slamming Trump, specifying the presidents criticisms of FBI and Justice Department officials. When the president attacks our institutions, that is our business, he argued. We are still a nation of laws and not one of men. This state needs a senator who will work with the president when he can and stand up to him when we must, O'Rourke stated. TEXAS SENATE SEAT COMPETITIVE BATTLE BETWEEN CRUZ, O'ROURKE: A LOOK AT THE CANDIDATES Asked for their perspective on the immigration debate, both men provided pithy answers. My views on immigration are simple, Cruz said, adding that it boiled down to four words: Legal, good. Illegal, bad. The senator argued for doing everything possible to securing the border. We can do all of that, he said, at the same time we are celebrating legal immigration. ORourke, however, said that we need to bring people out of the shadows. And yes, he said, there should be an earned path to citizenship. Cruz and ORourke later spoke about gun violence, with the former strongly reiterating his support for the Second Amendment. But, Cruz argued, recent school shootings were symptomatic of deeper issues. There is something deeply wrong that we have these shootings, he said, pointing to the removing of God from the public square and losing the binds of community and family. ORourke hit Cruz back forcefully, however, advocating for gun control. Thoughts and prayers are just not going to cut it, he argued to jeers from those in attendance. Cruz on Friday night was also asked whether Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of a youthful sexual assault, could say anything that might question his support. Cruz said "absolutely," but didn't elaborate while calling the allegations serious. "Dr. Ford's allegations should be investigated by the FBI full stop," O'Rourke argued, adding that "we need a Supreme Court justice that will decide in favor of people ... and in Brett Kavanaugh we do not have that." Broadening their arguments just weeks from Election Day, Cruz claimed that "Congressman O'Rourke's positions are out of step with the people of Texas. If he's elected, he will fight to raise your taxes." But the congressman said Cruz is working for "the special interests ... He's not working for the people of Texas." National attention in the race has grown as O'Rourke has raised more money than Cruz. And polls have suggested a tighter race than expected in a state where Republicans typically win handily. The next debate is scheduled for Sept. 30 at the University of Houston with the final encounter set for Oct. 16. Early voting in Texas runs from Oct. 22 to Nov. 2. Chinese and Russian commanders discuss strategies during the five-day "Vostok-2018"military drill, which began on Tuesday in Russia. [Photo/Xinhua] Washington called on to immediately 'correct mistake' that targets military Beijing urged Washington on Friday to correct its mistake and withdraw sanctions on the Chinese military immediately or face the consequences. The US State Department said on Thursday that it would immediately impose sanctions on the equipment development department of the Chinese military and its director, Li Shangfu, for engaging in "significant transactions" with Rosoboronexport, Russia's main arms exporter, according to Reuters. The United States said China's armed forces had violated the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, a US law imposing sanctions in part to punish Moscow for activities including what the US State Department called Russia's "interference" in US elections. Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a daily news conference that China expressed strong indignation over the unreasonable practice and has already lodged "solemn representation". Such moves severely violate the basic rules of international law and seriously damage relations between the two countries and their armies, he said. "We strongly urge the US to correct its mistake immediately and cancel the so-called sanctions, or it has to bear the consequence," he added. Moscow warned that the US was "playing with fire", and the measures aimed at Russia and China undermined global stability, according to Agence France-Presse. Geng noted that China and Russia have maintained normal exchanges and cooperation in various areas, including defense cooperation, in accordance with the principles of equality, mutual trust and mutual benefits. Relevant cooperation aims at safeguarding legitimate interests of the two countries and regional peace and stability, he said, adding that this is not against international laws and does not target any third party. China will work with Russia to continue moving their strategic coordination to a higher level, he said. Li Haidong, a US studies researcher at China Foreign Affairs University, said that "using the sanctions on Russia as an excuse to punish China is a long-arm jurisdiction practice that infringes on China's right to purchase weapons independently as a sovereign state". Meanwhile, the US Defense Department issued its first cybersecurity strategic report on Tuesday, saying that China and Russia pose a long-term strategic risk to the US. China has called upon the US to work with China, Russia and other countries to address threats to cybersecurity through dialogue and cooperation, Geng said. NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles! As the political fight over the sexual assault allegation made against Brett Kavanaugh intensifies, Democrats are indicating that -- even if confirmed -- they intend to drag the fight over his Supreme Court nomination past November, raising the possibility of an impeachment push. Democrats have been demanding the vote to confirm Kavanaugh be delayed pending a full FBI investigation into the accusation by Christine Blasey Ford that Kavanaugh assaulted her at a party in high school in the 1980s. Kavanaugh has repeatedly denied the allegations and has said he is willing to testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Republicans on the committee have invited Ford to testify next week, and have said that they will hold a vote to confirm Kavanaugh if she does not. Ford has said she will testify, but only if a list of conditions are met. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has given Ford a Saturday deadline to say whether she will testify. The midterm elections loom over the debate over the timetable of Kavanaughs confirmation process. Should Democrats succeed in delaying the confirmation vote past November and pick up seats in the Senate in the midterms, then they will likely have enough votes to block Kavanaughs confirmation. GRASSLEY GRANTS KAVANAUGH ACCUSER ANOTHER EXTENSION However, if Republicans confirm Kavanaugh before November, Democrats have indicated that the fight would not be over are raising the prospect of further investigations and even impeachment. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said that as soon as Democrats get gavels, the party will investigate the Kavanaugh allegations even if he is confirmed and sitting on the Supreme Court. This is such bad practice that even if they were to ram this guy through, as soon as Democrats get gavels were going to want to get to the bottom of this, he said on CNN. When pressed as to whether he was saying Democrats would investigate a sitting Supreme Court justice, Whitehouse said he was confident of that. And I think well also be investigating why the FBI stood down its background investigation when this came up in this particular background, he said. PATTI DAVIS, RONALD REAGAN'S DAUGHTER, SAYS SHE'S SEXUAL ASSAULT SURVIVOR IN OP-ED DEFENDING KAVANAUGH'S ACCUSER His stance was backed up by Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif, who said in an interview with Fox News that there could not only be an investigation, but a push for impeachment. If the Republicans rush through a nominee where you have unanswered sexual assault allegations, I can promise you that Democratic senators will be interested in going and looking at those allegations, and if Judge Kavanaugh lied under oath, you could see a judicial impeachment, and thats not good for anybody, so we should try and avoid that, he said on Americas Newsroom. Such a move would require a majority in the House of Representatives, something that a number of pollsters are predicting the Democrats will secure in November. ANDREA G BOTTNER: I STAND WITH BRETT KAVANAUGH But, in an article for The New York Times titled The Case for Impeaching Kavanaugh, Alabama Law School Professor Ronald Krotoszynski Jr. notes that such a move would need a 2/3rd vote in the Senate -- something extremely unlikely unless a number of Republicans joined Democrats. However, Krotoszynski Jr. argues that Democrats should proceed with an investigation if the Senate wont conduct a credible investigation now. The House Democratic leadership should pledge now that if they win a majority, they will conduct an impeachment investigation, to get to the truth. Doing so today would make clear to the Senate Republicans that if they rush to judgment, in the absence of a full and fair investigation, there will still be an investigation, he said. However, former communication strategist for Justice Neil Gorsuch Ron Bonjean warned that such a push by Democrats could backfire and rile up the conservative base for the midterms. I think that would just fire up the conservative base big time and...conservative voters wouldnt like that and theyd be pretty fired up going into the November elections, thats for sure, he said on Fox Business After The Bell. Look, once hes on the Supreme Court its going to be very difficult to get him out of there and there could be another opening on the court sometime in the near future, he added. So I think thats a lot of happy talk and youd really have to have conclusive evidence in order to get that, plus youd have to get that through Congress and I just cant see that happening. NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles! A tentative agreement for a Thursday hearing with Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford has been reached, a source with knowledge of the discussions has told Fox News. Earlier on Saturday, Ford had indicated she'd accept the Senate Judiciary Committees request to discuss an alleged sexual assault by Kavanaugh, although the terms under which she might testify remained largely unclear. In a letter to the committee, Fords lawyers said that she had accepted the request to provide her first-hand knowledge of Brett Kavanaughs sexual misconduct next week after Republicans on the committee set a 2:30 p.m. deadline for her to say whether she would do so. Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, had said a vote would proceed in the absence of a response from Ford's team by the cutoff time. In the letter from Ford's lawyers, they said many aspects of the proposal you provided ... are fundamentally inconsistent with the Committees promise of a fair, impartial investigation into her allegations, yet they also expressed hope that an agreement would be reached, as now appears to be the case. Ahead of news about a tentative Thursday meeting, a senior White House official had told Fox News that the Ford team's letter represented a request to continue negotiations without any firm commitment. White House spokesperson Kerri Kupec later issued a separate statement, noting that Kavanaugh has denied the allegation "and is eager to testify publicly to defend his integrity and clear his good name." Ford alleges that Kavanaugh assaulted her during a house party in high school in the 1980s. Kavanaugh has repeatedly denied the allegation. Democrats have called for the vote on his confirmation to the nations highest court to be delayed, pending a full FBI investigation, something that Republicans have dismissed as unnecessary. DEMOCRATS FLOAT MORE KAVANAUGH INVESTIGATIONS, IMPEACHMENT EVEN IF HE IS CONFIRMED Republicans have accused Democrats of sitting on the doctor's allegation during the hearings and looking to delay the vote until after the midterms in November. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said in a statement that he will support Ford's "steadfast bravery against the arbitrary, unfair, irrational constraints set by Chairman Grassley." "I remain deeply disturbed by the conduct of my colleagues over the last week, and am committed to ensuring that Dr. Fords safety and security is made a top priority, he said. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said Ford had demonstrated "impressive courage" in her willingness to come forward "in spite of Republicans astounding disregard for basic due process in failing to order the completion of a background investigation." Even in accommodating Dr. Blasey Fords request for a few additional days, Chairman Grassley has rejected many of her reasonable requests to ensure a fair process," his statement said. "Next weeks hearing, as currently contemplated, will be a kangaroo court, because the Republicans have done everything in their power to prevent the consideration of any outside evidence, whether corroborating or exculpatory. Republicans should respect Dr. Blasey Fords wishes, as they should respect the wishes of all victims of sexual assault." Fox News Mike Emanuel, Chad Pergram and Matt Leach contributed to this report. NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles! Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley late Friday night granted another extension to Christine Blasey Ford to decide on whether she will testify to the committee. The new deadline was unclear, but Ford had requested that a 10 p.m. ET Friday deadline be extended until Saturday. Ford has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, citing an incident that she said occurred decades ago, when both were in high school. Grassley issued his latest extension decision in a tweet addressed to Kavanaugh, adding that he hopes the judge can understand his reasoning behind the delay. Just before midnight ET, Grassley tweeted: Judge Kavanaugh I just granted another extension to Dr Ford to decide if she wants to proceed w the statement she made last week to testify to the senate She shld decide so we can move on I want to hear her. I hope u understand. Its not my normal approach to b indecisive. Grassley later added: With all the extensions we give Dr Ford to decide if she still wants to testify to the Senate I feel like Im playing 2nd trombone in the judiciary orchestra and Schumer is the conductor. The Friday 10 p.m. ET deadline was itself an extension of a previous Friday morning deadline before Grassley issued the latest postponement. Democratic senators and Fords attorneys earlier Friday had responded negatively to Republicans deadlines and requests for a decision, asking for an extra day. Grassley initially invited Ford to testify Monday and gave Ford until 10 a.m. Friday to respond. That deadline passed Friday without a deal after Fords attorneys made clear this week Ford didnt want to testify Monday but suggested she would do so on another day. Fox News' Matt Richardson contributed to this report. NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles! U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison pushed back Friday against allegations of domestic abuse, saying his accuser fabricated the story about him. The Minnesota Democrat also dismissed a medical record that named him as the abuser, but said he cant be sure more people wont cook up allegations against him. Ellison appeared on a televised debate for the Minnesota attorney generals position, where he faced grilling on the allegations raised by ex-girlfriend Karen Monahan, who said he sent her threatening text messages and once screamed obscenities at her as he dragged her off a bed by her feet. KEITH ELLISON DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ACCUSER POSTS 2017 MEDICAL DOCUMENT IDENTIFYING DEMOCRAT AS ABUSER On Wednesday, Monahan published a medical document where a doctor wrote that Monahan states that she was in a very stressful environment for years, emotional and physical abuse by a partner with whom she is now separated. She identifies the individual she was involved with as Congressman Ellison, and she is worried about retribution if she identifies him publicly, the document added. Ellison, who serves as deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), decried Monahans story as not true and assured that an ongoing investigation will conclude that Monahans claims are false. He dismissed the medical record, saying it was written a year after his relationship with Monahan ended. When pressed whether the investigation will be done before the election, Ellison said its an independent investigation and he remains uncertain about the timetable. "Its not an independent investigation! Its independent by your friends and fellow party members. Thats not an independent investigation." Republican AG candidate Doug Wardlow But his Republican opponent Doug Wardlow wasnt satisfied with Ellisons answer, saying Monahans claims wont be reviewed by an actual independent investigator. Its not an independent investigation! he said. Its independent by your friends and fellow party members. Thats not an independent investigation. KEITH ELLISON DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ACCUSER SAYS DEMOCRATIC PARTY DOESN'T BELIEVE HER STORY The debate moderator brought up the issue of allegations of domestic abuse by both Monahan and a woman named Amy Alexander, who claimed in 2006 that he verbally abused her and pushed during a heated argument, saying they could be a factor in Ellisons bid for the state attorney general. Ellison denied Alexanders allegations, saying she was harassing him and even put a restraining order against her so she stops making falsehoods against him. So this is not multiple cases, he said. But Ellison stumbled to find words when the moderator continued to quiz him on Monahan and asked why he declined the offer to meet her together with the investigator. Well, because I -- we broke up two years ago for a reason, Ellison said. I didnt want to be in the relationship and therefore, I left the relationship. And to get back in touch with her again is not something that I am interested in doing. "Look, in this political environment, I dont know what somebody might cook up." Keith Ellison The moderator then asked: Are you confident that no one else will step forward with any other allegations? Look, in this political environment, I dont know what somebody might cook up, Ellison replied. But I could tell you that there is absolutely nobody that I am aware of who has any sort of -- who is threatening or suggesting or who has ever made a prior accusation about me. His Republican opponent shot back at him, saying two credible, strong allegations of domestic abuse is enough. Theres documentary evidence. We have a medical record where we have Monahan reported to her doctor the abuse that was going on, he added. NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles! New York Democratic Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez once appeared on a podcast hosted by a progressive Puerto Rican activist who said Jews should get the f--- out of Palestine. Ocasio-Cortez, who rose to prominence after defeating top Democrat Joe Crowley in the partys U.S. House primary in June, got embroiled in a controversy back in July over her views on the Israel-Palestine conflict. OCASIO-CORTEZ STARTS CONTROVERSY WITH COMMENTS ON ISRAELI OCCUPATION, ADMITS SHE'S 'NOT THE EXPERT' But before Ocasio-Cortezs stunning victory against Crowley, which thrust her into the national spotlight, she went on a Spanish-language podcast in May hosted by Rafael Tirado Rivera, a progressive activist in Puerto Rico, who once expressed anti-Semitic views, including that Jewish people should vacate the Middle East, Fox News can reveal. I stand behind Helen Thomas' comments on Jews. They should get the f--- out of Palestine, Rivera wrote in a tweet in 2010. The activist, who is also a blogger for Puerto Ricos largest newspaper El Nuevo Dia, referred to the disgraced former White House reporter, Helen Thomas, who went on an anti-Semitic rant the same year. She was caught on camera telling Israelis to get out of Palestine and go home to Germany, Poland or the United States. Her comments were deemed outrageous, offensive and inappropriate by the Anti-Defamation League. Rivera repeated the point in another tweet, saying that Nobody in Israels politics is going to even suggest that. But [Jews] should leave! he wrote. These werent the only comments Rivera made about Israel. He also said Israel was behaving like a terrorist state and shared an article portraying Israel as an apartheid state. Among his other guests on the podcast was Julia Salazar, a Democratic Socialist who recently won a New York State Senate Democratic primary, but whose campaign was plagued by allegations that she faked her Jewish and immigrant identity. Shes also a supporter of the boycott movement against Israel and was once denied entry into the country. The Ocasio-Cortez campaign didnt respond to Fox News repeated request for a comment and questions whether she was aware of Riveras views. When asked whether Ocasio-Cortez knew his political views before coming on the podcast, Rivera said, "I'm not sure. Maybe not." The podcast host said he believes the same thing that I believed 10 years ago, but offered a different interpretation of the tweets. Israel should cease the occupation of Palestine. I believe in a two state solution to the IsraeliPalestinian conflict, he said. "Maybe I should have used a different set of words. Instead of the Jews I should have said, Israel." Rafael Tirado Rivera Maybe I should have used a different set of words, he added, noting that during his podcasts with Ocasio-Cortez or Salazar the issue of Israel wasnt discussed. Instead of the Jews I should have said, Israel. The appearance on the podcast raises concerns about Ocasio-Cortez views towards Israel and the Jewish people, an issue she tried to avoid talking about and changed her talking points depending on the audience. She initially raised eyebrows during an appearance on PBSs "Firing Line" in July after struggling to coherently her explanation her remarks on social media in which she called the Israeli military action confronting protesters trying to breach the Israel-Gaza Strip a massacre and that no state or entity is absolved of mass shootings of protesters. She later asserted, though shortly backtracked in an audience of progressives, that shes a firm believer in finding a two-state solution on this issue but noted that shes not the expert at geopolitics on this issue. This is a conversation Im sitting down with lots of activists in this movement on and Im looking forward to engaging in this conversation, she responded to the question whether she supports a two-state solution during a town hall-style sit-down with Democracy Now, a far-left website. NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles! Patti Davis, the daughter of former President Ronald Reagan and former first lady Nancy Reagan, said she was sexually assaulted about 40 years ago as she mounted a defense of the woman who accused President Trumps Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct. Davis, 65, wrote an op-ed to The Washington Post that she attended an appointment at a prominent music executives office that was scheduled suspiciously late in the workday. She did not name the man. She said she was hoping to jump-start her music career and brought a cassette with her material to the appointment. She said she did not remember what the two talked about but remembered what the man was wearing. She also recalled the man offering her cocaine. When he pulled a vial of cocaine out of his desk drawer and started chopping up lines on a small mirror, Im 90 percent sure I declined his offer to do some with him, not because I didnt do drugs I definitely did in those years but because I was starting to feel uncomfortable. My memory of the discomfort is sharp and clear, but my memory of declining the coke is, as I said, about 90 percent, she wrote. Davis described the alleged assault, including what the mans breath smelled like. WHO IS CHRISTINE BLASEY FORD, THE PROFESSOR WHO ACCUSED BRETT KAVANAUGH OF SEXUAL MISCONDUCT? He was against me, on top of me so quickly with his hands under my skirt and his mouth on mine, that I froze, she wrote. I lay there as he pushed himself inside me. The leather couch stuck to my skin, made noises beneath me. His breath smelled like coffee and stale bread. He didn't use a condom." Davis wrote she did not tell anyone about the alleged assault for decades. I never told anyone for decades not a friend, not a boyfriend, not a therapist, not my husband when I got married years later, she wrote. Davis brought up Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who publicly came forward to accuse Kavanaugh of sexual assault decades ago, saying she was not surprised she didn't talk about the alleged assault until years later. Ford publicly came forward in an interview with The Washington Post. It doesnt surprise me one bit that for more than 30 years, Christine Blasey Ford didnt talk about the assault she remembers, the one she accuses Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh of committing, Davis wrote. She said Ford was criticized for not remembering the address of where the alleged assault occurred. However, Davis pointed out that Ford recalled the alleged attack in vivid detail. Thats what happens: Your memory snaps photos of the details that will haunt you forever, that will change your life and live under your skin. It blacks out other parts of the story that really dont matter much, she wrote. KAVANAUGH ACCUSER CHRISTINE BLASEY FORD WANTS FBI TO INVESTIGATE ASSAULT CLAIM: WHY THE BUREAU LIKELY WONT Ford has requested the FBI to investigate the alleged sexual assault - which Davis called a brave request. Ford wants the FBI to investigate so that some of the details she doesnt remember can be established. Its a brave request, Davis wrote. Perhaps the aging men who are poised to interrogate her, unless they hide behind surrogates, should pause for a moment and think about the courage it takes for a woman to say: Here is my memory. It has haunted me for decades. It changed my life. You need to know about it now because of what is at stake for this country. On Saturday, amid intensive negotiations, Ford, a psychology professor at Palo Alto University, accepted the Senate Judiciary Committee's request to testify and asked that the hearing be held on Thursday. Details were still being hammered out in the afternoon. Ford said she was 15 and Kavanaugh was 17 when he allegedly assaulted her at a house party in Maryland. She claims he pinned her to a bed, attempted to remove her clothes and put his hand over her mouth to prevent her from screaming. Kavanaugh, a federal appeals judge, has denied the accusations and said hes willing to testify before the Judiciary Committee to prove his innocence. Fox News Matt Richardson, Kaitlyn Schallhorn and Stephen Sorace contributed to this report. NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles! Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in an interview with Fox News to air Sunday that officials not on board with helping to achieve President Trumps mission ought to find something else to do. Pompeo was asked by Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace about a New York Times report that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein last year suggested secretly recording President Trump to expose chaos in the White House and enlisting Cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove him from office. "Im not going to comment on that in any way, other than to say this: Ive been pretty clear since my beginning of service here in this administration, if you cant be on the team, if youre not supporting this mission, then maybe you ought to find something else to do, he said. ROSENSTEIN REPORTEDLY DISCUSSED WEARING 'WIRE,' INVOKING 25TH AMENDMENT AGAINST TRUMP Ive told that to my senior colleagues, Ive told it to junior folks at the CIA, and the State Department; we need everyone whos engaged in helping achieve President Trumps mission, he said. And I hope that everyone in every agency: DOJ, FBI, State Department is on that mission. Asked if wiring the president and talking about the 25th Amendment was not being on the team, Pompeo said: Not remotely. According to The Times, none of Rosensteins proposals were acted upon and it remains unclear the level of seriousness Rosenstein had when making the suggestions. I remember this meeting and remember the wire comment, a source who was in the room told Fox News. The statement was sarcastic and was never discussed with any intention of recording a conversation with the president. Rosenstein has adamantly denied the accusations made in the Times' story. The New York Timess story is inaccurate and factually incorrect, he said in a statement to Fox News on Friday. I will not further comment on a story based on anonymous sources who are obviously biased against the department and are advancing their own personal agenda. But let me clear about this: Based on my personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment. In another statement, he said emphatically, I never pursued or authorized recording the president, and any suggestion that I have ever advocated for the removal of the president is absolutely false." On Saturday House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said on Cavuto Live that Rosenstein should resign if the allegations were true. If these allegations are true, they are very serious allegations and I would say, yes, Mr. Rosenstein would be well-advised to step aside, the president and the attorney general would be well within their right to terminate his employment. Fox News Brooke Singman and Jake Gibson contributed to this report. NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles! Six of Rep. Paul Gosars siblings have told voters to vote for their brother's Democratic opponent in the upcoming midterm elections. Gosar, 59, R-Ariz., is running for reelection in Arizonas 4th Congressional District. He has represented the district since 2013, ABC News reported. However, it appears six of his nine siblings were not the fans of the representative. The advertisement, titled A Family Defends its Honor, featured Jennifer, Grace, David, Joan, Tim and Gaston, Gosars siblings. None of this is pleasant for any of us, David Gosar said in the advertisement before his other siblings echoed the same thought. ROSENSTEIN REPORTEDLY DISCUSSED WEARING WIRE, INVOKING 25TH AMENDMENT AGAINST TRUMP To speak up against my brother, it brings sadness to me, Joan Gosar said. I think my brother has traded a lot of the values we had at our kitchen table, she said later. I couldnt be quiet any longer, nor should any of us be, Grace Gosar said. We gotta stand up for our good name, David Gosar said. This is not who we are. Its is intervention time and intervention time means that you go to vote and you go to vote Paul out, Tim Gosar said. The siblings then introduce themselves and said they all endorsed Democrat David Brill for Congress. Brill appeared at the end of the video saying he approved of the message. Gosars siblings appeared in other ads for Brill that were uploaded to his YouTube page. The other videos were titled, A Rural Doctors Personal Healthcare Story and Paul Gosar Is Not Working For You. Gosar's siblings appeared to become publicly estranged from him last year when a letter was published in the Daily Miner. Joan, Dave, Tim, Grace, Jennifer, Gaston and Pete all signed the letter. The siblings said they wrote the letter after seeing Gosar in an interview on Vice News where he suggested that last years white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., was instigated by the left and backed by billionaire George Soros. BETO OROURKE DENIES FLEEING SCENE OF 1998 DUI CRASH, CONTRADICTING POLICE REPORT This is a matter of right and wrong, not politics, the letter by Gosars siblings stated. We are aghast that Paul has sunk so low that he now spews the most despicable slander against an 87-year-old man without a shred of proof, and then doesnt even have the guts or decency to apologize? The Phoenix New Times reported the campaign contacted Gosars siblings for the ad after a staffer saw David Gosars tweets criticizing his brother. Brills campaign manager, Todd Landfried, told the media outlet a few of Gosars siblings made campaign contributions to the Democratic candidate soon after. Gosar took to Twitter in response to his siblings' remarks, pointing out that none of them were Arizona residents and said he wouldn't "be deterred from fighting for our conservative values." "My siblings who chose to film ads against me are all liberal Democrats who hate President Trump," a follow-up tweet said. "These disgruntled Hillary suppporters are related by blood to me but like leftists everywhere, they put political ideology before family. Stalin would be proud." "You cant pick your family. We all have crazy aunts and relatives etc and my family is no different. I hope they find peace in their hearts and let go all the hate. To the six angry Democrat Gosarssee you at Mom and Dads house!" he continued. Fox News' Elizabeth Zwirz and The Associated Press contributed to this report. A man who has worked at the University of California in Berkeley (UC Berkeley) for 25 years has been arrested in connection with at least 10 rapes across Northern California between 1991 and 2006 in whats known as the NorCal Rapist case. Roy Charles Waller, 58, of Benicia, was arrested without incident Friday at UC Berkeley where he worked as a safety specialist in the office of environment, health and safety, Sacramento police announced. He faces 12 counts of forcible sexual assault and allegations that he used a gun to commit some of the crimes, the Los Angeles Times reported. The married man is being held without bail, and his arraignment was slated for Monday in the Sacramento Superior Court. UC Berkeley spokesman said they were shocked when they learned about the arrest. GOLDEN STATE KILLER SUSPECT CHARGED WITH 1975 KILLING BELIEVED TO BE HIS FIRST We were shocked today to learn that a campus employee was arrested in connection with a series of rapes that occurred over more than a decade ago in several Northern California communities, Roqua Montez, a spokesman for the university, told the San Francisco Chronicle. District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert said her office used DNA and genealogy websites to zero in on Waller. The arrest comes five months after police used the same tactic to arrest Joseph DeAngelo, 72, in the Golden State Killer case, which is connected to at least a dozen rapes and killings throughout California in the 1970s and 1980s. "DNA is the silent witness to the truth," Schubert said at a news conference announcing Waller's arrest. The Los Angeles Times reported that word spread of a person breaking into homes and raping women in six northern California counties, from Sacramento to Chico, over a 15-year period beginning in 1991. Avis Beery, a detective who worked on the case for 12 years, described the NorCal Rapists modus operandi, saying that he typically would break into houses late at night, often when women were asleep. GOLDEN STATE KILLER SUSPECT ARRESTED IN CALIFORNIA "He would overcome them, he would bind them, and then repeatedly sexually assault them," she said. Sometimes he would kidnap the women and force them to withdraw money from ATMs, and sometimes stole their personal items. Beery said she has been waiting a really long time for this day to come. "I never gave up hope," she said, adding that she called one of the victims of the NorCal Rapist on Friday morning to tell her the news. "She was overcome and over the top with emotion and happiness to see that this person is in custody and that no one else has to worry about him anymore," Beery said. "The victims in this case can stop looking over their shoulders." The Associated Press contributed to this report. BEIJING, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and Chinese president, on Friday sent a message of condolence to Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee, over the passing away of Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang. "We are shocked to hear that comrade Tran Dai Quang, president of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, passed away," Xi said in the message. "On behalf of the CPC, the Chinese government and people, as well as in my own name, I extend the deepest condolences to you and to the CPV, the Vietnamese government and people through you." "We are deeply saddened by his passing away," Xi added. Comrade Tran Dai Quang was an outstanding party and state leader of Vietnam, and made great contributions to the development, renovation and opening-up of Vietnam, the Chinese president said. As a close comrade and friend of the Chinese people, Quang committed himself to inheriting and carrying forward the China-Vietnam traditional friendship and actively promoted the comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation between the two countries, Xi noted. Xi said he believes that under the strong leadership of the general secretary, the CPV, the Vietnamese government and people will transfer their grief into strength and constantly make new achievements in the cause of socialist construction. The Chinese president also extended his deepest condolences to the family of Quang. The manhunt for a Pennsylvania man who allegedly threatened to put a bullet in President Trumps head has finally ended, officials said Friday. Shawn Richard Christy, 26, surrendered after being tracked down to a ravine just north of Route 30 in Mansfield, Ohio, about 4:30 p.m., just three hours after the days search began, officials said at a press conference. He was captured with a firearm on him and the FBI is processing that and he going to be facing further charges on that firearm, U.S. Marshal Brian Fitzgibbon said. He would not confirm what the firearm was other than it was a pistol believed to have been taken from a property in Pennsylvania. Christy has been on the run since June 19, after he allegedly threatening John M. Morganelli, the district attorney of Northampton County, Pennsylvania, and Trump in a Facebook post that has since been deleted. Keep it up Morganelli, I promise Ill put a bullet in your head as soon as I put one in the head of President Donald J. Trump, Christy allegedly wrote. A federal warrant was issued for his arrest as a result. The manhunt for Christy began Sunday afternoon when law enforcement learned he was in Ohio. U.S. Marshal Ann Murphy said that he is facing numerous charges and would first appear in federal court in Ohio on Monday. Marshals will then take him back to Pennsylvania to face charges. Dog the Bounty Hunter, whose name is Duane Chapman, said earlier this week that he would be joining in on the search for Christy. But in the end, a different kind of dog got credit for the capture. It was a police dog, joked Fitzgibbon. It was a canine that picked up his scent and took him down. Fox News Kathleen Joyce contributed to this report. An Alaska man accused of kidnapping, choking and sexually abusing a woman avoided a jail sentence after the prosecutor told the judge he was giving the man a pass. Anchorage police said Justin Schneider, a 34-year-old former air traffic controller for the Federal Aviation Administration, choked the woman until she lost consciousness and then masturbated on her in August 2017, KTVA reported. He was sentenced Wednesday to two years in prison with one suspended after pleading guilty to one count of felony assault. He will serve no time behind bars because he received credit for time served wearing an ankle monitor at home with his family after his arrest. TWO SLEEPING INDIANA TEENS SHOT DEAD BY FATHER WHO KILLS HIMSELF Anchorage prosecutor Andrew Grannik told the judge he agreed to the plea deal because an expert said Schneiders chances of being arrested again were slim, according to the station. That's the reason why I made the deal that I've made, because I have reasonable expectations that it will not happen, Grannik said. But I would like the gentleman to be on notice that that is his one pass -- it's not really a pass -- but given the conduct, one might consider that it is. Schneider initially faced a 5-to-99 year prison sentence after being charged with kidnapping. Prosecutors said Schneider attacked the woman after he offered her a ride and she got in his vehicle. The kidnapping charge was dropped as part of the plea deal, according to the station. In remarks to the judge, Schneider offered no apology to his victim, the station reported. Instead, he expressed his gratitude for "this process." MORE THAN A DOZEN VICTIMS ACCUSE CALIFORNIA SURGEON, GIRLFRIEND OF RAPE; CALLED 'BONNIE AND CLYDE' TEAM "It has given me a year to really work on myself and become a better person, and a better husband, and a better father, and I'm very eager to continue that journey," he said, the station reported. On Friday, officials with the state attorneys office defended the sentence in the face of criticism that it was too lenient, the Alaska Star reported. The office also said Granniks word choice about giving Schneider a pass was unfortunate and misunderstood. Criminal justice authorities in Texas got more than they expected Friday when a local port donated 45 boxes of unclaimed bananas. Underneath the fruit, the boxes contained nearly $18 million in cocaine, officials said. Two pallets of bananas were donated to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ), a statement from the department said. The Ports of America in Freeport, 60 miles south of Houston, offered the fruit to the authorities because no one claimed them, Houston's KHOU-TV reported. The bananas were donated due to being ripe, the TDCJ said, but two sergeants discovered "something not quite right" with the boxes. When they opened one of the Dole boxes marked with "certified organic bananas," they found bundles containing a white powdery substance underneath the fruit, officials said. The substance tested positive for cocaine. All told, officials uncovered 540 packages of cocaine worth nearly $18 million, according to the TDCJ. Personnel from the Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. Customs and Border Protection are investigating. A California woman visiting the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Michigan fell to her death this week while said to be taking a selfie, according to National Park Service officials. The woman -- who has been ID'd as Tu Thanh Nguyen, 32, of Sunnyvale, California, according to WLUC-News -- was hiking alone on Wednesday. ATLANTA MAN GETS LIFE SENTENCE FOR RAPE AFTER VICTIM RECOGNIZES HIM AT TRAIN STATION SIX YEARS LATER Roughly a half-mile away from park's Grand Portal Point, she stopped to take a selfie. She then fell 200 feet off the cliff edge and landed in Lake Superior below. Two kayakers who reportedly saw the woman fall retrieved her body and brought it to the Chapel Beach shore, according to WLUC-News. NEBRASKA MAN CLAIMS MISSED WEST NILE DIAGNOSIS LEFT HIM PARALYZED Nguyens death was ruled an accident following an investigation by the National Park Service and Alger County authorities. A Florida couple has received praise for rescuing three starving puppies that were left in a bucket on a rural road. Chris and Meaghan Billemeyer on Thursday were property hunting in Okeechobee when they saw the pups, which were left to starve to death in the middle of the road, inside of a bucket, a GoFundMe created to help with the dogs medical expenses reads. THESE FLEA AND TICK MEDICATIONS FOR PETS ARE CAUSING SEIZURES, OTHER NEUROLOGICAL ISSUES, FDA WARNS Some [expletive] left a bucket of starving puppies in the middle of the road in this heat!! What is wrong with people? Meaghan Billemeyer asked in a Facebook post, which had nearly 5,000 shares and more than 2,000 reactions as of Saturday afternoon. The pups have since been taken to the Kindness Animal Hospital in Port St. Lucie, according to local news station CBS 12. "These are like little starving children. They havent had a good meal in at least a week or two, Kindness Animal Hospital veterinarian Rose Eger told the news station, adding the pups were covered in fleas and infested with worms. TEXAS VETERINARIAN WARNS WILD MUSHROOMS AFTER HEAVY RAINS CAN BE TOXIC FOR PETS Well get these babies healthy enough to adopt, Meaghan Billemeyer added. Many social media users thanked the couple for rescuing the dogs. Great job... sad part is the poor dog who had those puppies is probably already pregnant again, one person wrote. You are their angel! another commented. Poor babies. Thanks for caring, a third wrote. At this time, its not clear who left the dogs or where they came from, according to CBS 12. Meaghan Billemeyer was not immediately available for comment when contacted by Fox News on Saturday. A Kentucky woman tanning at a salon in Louisville was arrested when authorities discovered she allegedly left her two children inside a car with loaded guns. Monica Gentry, 25, from Shepherdsville, was arrested Tuesday after local authorities received a call about the two children -- a five-year-old and a five-month-old -- alone inside the car. ATLANTA MAN GETS LIFE SENTENCE FOR RAPE AFTER VICTIM RECOGNIZES HIM AT TRAIN STATION SIX YEARS LATER When they arrived, they found the children inside the car with two loaded handguns. At least one of the guns was within reach of the older child, according to WDRB-News. At the time of their arrival, Gentry was reportedly inside a local Sun Tan City, where she had been for roughly 30 minutes, according to the news station. NEBRASKA MAN CLAIMS MISSED WEST NILE DIAGNOSIS LEFT HIM PARALYZED The 25-year-old is now facing charges of endangering the welfare of a minor, WDRB-News reported. A spokesperson for the Louisville Metro Police Department was not immediately available for comment when contacted by Fox News on Saturday. A California man was sentenced Friday to life in prison, without parole, three years to the day he fatally stabbed a UCLA student and set her apartment ablaze. Alberto Hinojosa Medina, 25, was convicted in May in the 2015 stabbing death of Andrea DelVesco, 21, a Texas native, along with arson, burglary and cruelty to an animal, the Los Angeles Times reported. About a dozen friends of the victim read statements to the judge about how the brutal murder -- in which DelVesco was stabbed 19 times -- has affected their lives, the newspaper reported. This is the date that he made the choice to take my wonderful, amazing daughters life, DelVescos mother Leslie said, according to NBC Southern California. May his life, as he has known it, also end today. I woke up early to the sound of helicopters, friend Elizabeth Matusov said, recalling the day of the killing, according to the L.A. Times. In that moment, the world I knew melted away. Medina, a Fresno resident, had burglarized another apartment before breaking into DelVescos apartment nearby and killing her. The animal cruelty charge stemmed from her dog being burned in the fire and eventually having to be euthanized. "He brutally murdered a beautiful, innocent person. He seriously wounded an entire community. He must never walk free again. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Mark Windham At his sentencing, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Mark Windham said Medina was too dangerous to ever be released, KTLA-TV of Los Angeles reported. "He brutally murdered a beautiful, innocent person, he said. He seriously wounded an entire community. He must never walk free again. Medinas accomplice, Eric Marquez, also 25 and a UCLA student, was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison on charges of burglary and being accessory after the fact. The case resulted in the firing of two Los Angeles police officers after it was learned they responded to a report of a woman screaming at DelVescos apartment complex less than an hour before it went up in flames. They looked around for six minutes and left without knocking on any apartment doors. The Latest on the aftermath of Hurricane Florence (all times local): 11 p.m. Forecasters say Tropical Storm Kirk is continuing to move west across the eastern Atlantic but does not currently pose any threat to land. In a Saturday night update, the National Hurricane Center said Kirk was 425 miles (680 kilometers) south-southwest of the Cabo Verde Islands, moving west at 16 mph (26 kph) with maximum sustained winds near 40 mph (65 kph). Forecasters expect some strengthening through Sunday. There are no coastal watches or warnings in effect. ___ 4:10 p.m. A North Carolina soldier returned home after helping with the Hurricane Florence relief effort to find his home had been robbed. Multiple media outlets report that National Guardsman Luis Ocampo was working in storm-battered New Bern for 10 days and found his Charlotte home ransacked when he returned Friday. Ocampo said he found everything of value had been stolen, including a large TV, gaming system and a laptop with Ocampo's schoolwork on it. He said food was also stolen from his refrigerator. Ocampo said his girlfriend and son were staying with family, but had checked on the house Thursday night. By the next morning, his place had been ransacked. Charlotte-Mecklenburg police have confirmed they are investigating. A GoFundMe page for Ocampo had raised nearly $15,000 in one day. ___ 3:40 p.m. North Carolina officials say they have identified three safe alternate routes which motorists can use to access the city of Wilmington, which was virtually cut off by floodwaters from Hurricane Florence. The N.C. Department of Transportation recommends these routes: from the south, take U.S. 17; from the north, take Interstate 40 East to N.C. 24 East (Exit 373), then U.S. 17 South; and from Fayetteville, take N.C. 87 to U.S. 701 South to N.C. 211 East to U.S. 74 East. Transportation officials say motorists can also use Interstate 40 to Exit 373 and N.C. 24 to reach Jacksonville. Officials are still recommending that people avoid any unnecessary travel in hard-hit counties, where the risk of flooding remains. These counties include: Bladen, Brunswick, Columbus, Duplin, Jones, Lenoir, Pender, Robeson, Sampson, Scotland and southeastern Wayne County. ___ 2:25 p.m. A South Carolina mayor says damage from Florence to his town tops the devastation wrought when Hurricane Matthew dumped a foot (30 centimeters) of rain on the area two years ago. Mayor Lawson Battle said Saturday that Nichols is completely inundated by water. He describes the situation as "worse than Matthew." Nichols is about 40 miles (65 kilometers) inland from the coast. Battle says Gov. Henry McMaster was scheduled to fly into the town later Saturday to assess the situation. He says he hopes the visit will trigger serious talk about quickly getting federal and state funds to the area to help it rebuild. The small farming community lost almost 90 percent of its 261 homes when Matthew hit in 2016. Battle says flooding from Florence has wiped out the 150 or so homes that rebuilt after. ___ 1:40 p.m. An economic research firm estimates Hurricane Florence has caused around $44 billion in damage and lost output. Moody's Analytics says that would put the storm on par with California's Northridge earthquake in 1994, which caused $45.2 billion in current dollars. Moody's estimates Florence has caused $40 billion in damage and $4 billion in lost economic output. The company stressed that the estimate is preliminary and could go higher or lower. If that total is accurate, Moody's said it would put Florence among the top ten costliest U.S. hurricanes. The top disaster, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, cost $192.2 billion in today's dollars, while last year's Hurricane Harvey cost $133.5 billion. ___ 12:45 p.m. Water from the Waccamaw River has started to flow into a Santee Cooper ash pond in Conway, South Carolina. The company says the overtopping of Grainger ash pond No. 1 occurred about 9 a.m. Saturday along the intake canal wall of the dike. Company spokeswoman Mollie Gore says no significant environmental impact is currently expected because they had already excavated nearly all of the ash from the pond. That effort began in 2014 and was on track to be finished in both ash ponds onsite within a few months. An estimated 200,000 tons (181,437 metric tons) remains in ash pond No. 2 in a corner farthest away from the river. Gore says the second pond at the site has additional protection from the rising river, provided by an AquaDam, silt fencing and floating environmental containment boom that was placed during the past week. River forecasts project the Waccamaw will reach a new historic flood level due to Hurricane Florence, eclipsing one set by Hurricane Matthew in 2016. ___ 12:32 p.m. North Carolina environmental officials say they are monitoring two sites where Florence's floodwaters have inundated coal ash sites. Michael Regan is secretary of the state Department of Environmental Quality. He said during a news briefing Saturday that the state is using drones to get photos and videos from the site of a dam breach at the L.V. Sutton Power Station in Wilmington and at the H.F. Lee Power Plant near Goldsboro. Regan said the video and photos show sand and "potential coal ash" leaving the Sutton site. He said when it is safe to do so, the DEQ plans to put people on the ground to verify "the amount of potential coal ash that could have left and entered those flood waters." Gray muck has been seeing flowing into the Cape Fear River near the site. Regan said that at the H.F. Lee plant, DEQ employees have seen that coal ash has left the basin and entered floodwaters. He said the DEQ is trying to ascertain how much, if any has entered the Neuse River. Environmentalists are concerned because the ash left over when coal is burned to generate electricity contains mercury, lead, arsenic and other toxic heavy metals. __ 11:50 a.m. North Carolina emergency officials say residents whose homes were damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Florence will begin moving into hotel rooms next week as a transitional housing program begins. Emergency Management Director Michael Sprayberry said during a news briefing Saturday that residents who register with the Federal Emergency Management Agency will be able to begin the process Monday. The program will be available to residents in nine counties initially and then will be expanded to other counties. Sprayberry said the state's eastern counties are continuing to see major flooding, including certain locations along the Black, Lumber, Neuse and Cape Fear rivers. A FEMA coordinator said about 69,000 people from North Carolina have already registered with FEMA for assistance. ___ 11:15 a.m. North Carolina's governor says "treacherous" floodwaters are still threatening the state more than a week after Hurricane Florence made landfill there. Gov. Roy Cooper said Saturday that nine of the state's river gauges are at major flood stage and four others are at moderate flood stage. He urged residents of southeastern North Carolina to stay alert for flood warnings and evacuation orders. Cooper said the flooding continues to make travel dangerous in hard-hit areas. He urged people to avoid driving east of Interstate 95 and south of US-70. Cooper said certain areas of Interstates 95 and 40 are still underwater. Emergency officials don't expect the water on those highways to recede fully for another week or more. At least 43 people have died since the hurricane slammed into the coast more than a week ago. ___ 10:50 a.m. Weather forecasters say Tropical Storm Kirk has formed in the eastern Atlantic and is moving rapidly westward. In an 11 a.m. update, the National Hurricane Center said Kirk was 450 miles (724 kilometers) south of the Cabo Verde Islands, moving west at 14 mph (22.5 kph) with maximum sustained winds near 40 mph (64 kph). Tropical-storm-force winds extend outward from the center up to 35 miles (56 kilometers) to the northwest. Forecasters say it currently poses no threats to land. ___ 12:03 a.m. A North Carolina town inundated by river water after a levee breached is among the latest towns to feel the life-threatening punch of Hurricane Florence. Benetta White and David Lloyd slogged through waist-deep water to escape when Cape Fear River water came pouring into their yard late Thursday. They got in a friend's pickup and were eventually driven out on a military vehicle. They were among 100 people evacuated with helicopters, boats and high-wheeled military vehicles during a six-hour rescue operation in southeastern North Carolina's Bladen County that lasted into Friday morning. Officials in North and South Carolina warn that the flooding danger is far from over, with South Carolina ordering evacuations there as rivers rise. At least 43 people have died since the hurricane slammed into the coast more than a week ago. Federal agents said they arrested a man in Florida this week after he admitted to making threatening phone calls to members of Congress who made him angry. The suspect, identified as Richard Mel Phillips, 36, smiled when FBI agents played back the voicemail recordings when they visited the home he shares with his mother. After the FBI identified Phillips as the caller, they charged him with transmitting threatening communications, Lakeland newspaper the Ledger reported. In one message left in August, the caller tells a member that he was going to stick a bullet through your f---- skull, according to records obtained by the paper. The caller states repeatedly that Youre all going to f---- die'; and emphasizes that he is not f----- kidding around with you motherf-----s, the records say. When the FBI interviewed Phillips at his Fruitland Park home, he admitted making phone calls to politicians because "they made him angry, and he blamed them for his unemployment, the paper reported. In the calls to lawmakers, Phillips also threatened to slaughter FBI agents if they were sent to his house, Orlando news station WFTV-TV reported. While the names of the Congress members were not revealed, the criminal complaint made reference to a member with the initials M.W., who received a two-minute voicemail from Phillips, FOX35 Orlando reported. The FBI concluded that Phillips, who doesnt have any weapons, money or plans to leave the state, did not have the means to carry out any of the threats, the Ledger reported. Phillips was being held in the Marion County Jail on federal charges. BEIJING, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- Chinese scientists have appealed to further strengthen international cooperation in space exploration, aiming to reduce the risk of near-Earth objects. Compared to global issues like food security, energy shortage, climate change, cyber attacks and environmental pollution caused by human activities, more serious threats to our globe may come from space, said Chen Jiansheng, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and a senior astronomer, at a conference promoting science literacy. There are more than 18,000 near-Earth asteroids - around 800 have a diameter greater than 1 km. Researchers have discovered 180 giant impact craters on our planet, which exhibit the formidable power that a small celestial object could generate when hitting the Earth. Evidence found in the strata in Kamba County, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, showed that Earth suffered a major asteroid impact about 65 million years ago, which might have led to the extinction of dinosaurs. Ouyang Ziyuan, a CAS academician and first chief scientist of China's lunar probe project, also believes that the danger from small celestial objects "is worth attention while we are devoted to building a community with a shared future for humanity." "Scientists around the world should cooperate to monitor near-Earth asteroids," said Ouyang, noting that modern space technologies are capable of defending Earth from their threat. "We can land a propeller on a potentially hazardous asteroid and with a very small force, push it away from the orbit that crosses Earth's path," Ouyang said. Authorities in New York City are facing a security and logistical challenge of epic proportions with the coming arrival of President Donald Trump and other world leaders for the United Nations General Assembly. Though there's been no credible threats against the event, the security concerns are so broad that the New York Police Department has considered how it would stop assassins armed with poison or killer drones. The NYPD's main line of defense will be thousands of extra police officers flooding the streets as part of a carefully coordinated effort with the Secret Service and other federal and local law enforcement agencies to protect both the United Nations and Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan, said Police Commissioner James O'Neill. "Since the end of last year's General Assembly, we've been planning how to best protect the various sites and all the people inside them, while also minimizing the impact on New Yorkers," O'Neill said at recent news conference at a command center at police headquarters. The 73rd Session of the General Assembly began on Sept. 18, but the higher-level meetings start Monday. The security arsenal features police boats patrolling the East River near the U.N., aviation units overhead and teams of officers trained to respond to chemical, biological and other potential terror threats. About 50 city Department of Sanitation dump trucks filled with sand and 230 concrete barriers will be positioned at intersections and other strategic locations to guard against car or truck attacks like the one last year that killed eight people on a bike path in Lower Manhattan. Police said other preparations have included consulting with British authorities about the poisoning of a former Russian spy there earlier this year by way of a weapons-grade nerve agent. British officials say the attack was carried out by Russian operatives. Police have also studied an attack on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro last month using drones rigged with explosives. Maduro said this past week that he may have to suspend a planned trip to the United Nations because of concerns his opponents would try to kill him if he travels abroad. But the NYPD is expecting more than 200 other world leaders to show up, all needing to move around the city in motorcades with police escorts. Those foreign dignitaries flying state aircraft into New York's Kennedy Airport will be greeted with strict enforcement of security rules requiring the planes to depart within two hours of touching down. The crackdown comes after the indictment of an airport supervisor on charges he took bribes to let Qatar and other countries park their planes overnight during the gathering. Trump is expected to arrive for a rare hometown visit and a possible stay at Trump Tower, his longtime home he has rarely visited since becoming president. Outside the skyscraper, police plan to set up a series of barriers and security checkpoints. Police said they expect more than 60 demonstrations outside the United Nations, foreign consulates and Trump Tower at various times during the week. The bad news for motorists: Officials say all the activity will cause worse gridlock than the traffic jams during the Thanksgiving Day Parade, the tree-lighting ceremony at Rockefeller Center and the New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square. Authorities said they hadn't calculated the cost of the security operation. But they said there's been a $20 to $30 million bill for past General Assemblies, and that the federal government covers most of it. ___ Associated Press writer Michael Sisak contributed to this report. Was it Quinton or Eric? That's likely to be the choice again facing Mississippi jurors this week in the trial of Quinton Tellis, accused of setting 19-year-old Jessica Chambers on fire in her car in December 2014, only to see the dying woman stagger down a rural backroad and be found by firefighters. The horrific circumstances surrounding the former high school cheerleader's death focused national attention on the victim's hometown of Courtland, a hamlet about 60 miles (100 kilometers) south of Memphis, Tennessee. In a trial last year, jurors couldn't agree whether Tellis was guilty of capital murder. The 29-year-old Tellis faces life in prison without parole if convicted. He faces another murder indictment in Louisiana, in the torture death of Meing-Chen Hsiao, a 34-year-old Taiwanese graduate student at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. No trial date has been set in that case. The Mississippi case is freighted with racial overtones because Tellis is black, while Chambers was white. Chambers had burns on more than 90 percent of her body and one of the firefighters who found her described her as looking like a "zombie." The defense continues to focus on testimony by firefighters and other first responders who say they heard a badly injured Chambers tell them that "Eric" or maybe "Derek" had attacked her before she was whisked away to a Memphis, Tennessee, hospital where she died hours later. "If we had one person saying she said 'Quinton set me on fire,' we wouldn't be having a trial," defense attorney Alton Peterson told The Associated Press. "But we had nine who said Eric did and we're having a second trial." Witnesses for the government suggested in the first trial that Chambers, who had burns down her throat, was so injured and in shock that she may not have been able to properly pronounce words. A speech pathologist may be called in the second trial to emphasize that point. Prosecutors point to cellphone records that show Chambers and Tellis were together twice on the day she was burned. The second time, prosecutors say Chambers picked up Tellis about two-and-a-half hours before she was found burned and they went to a fast food outlet. Tellis originally told investigators he wasn't with Chambers on the evening of Dec. 6, but two years later changed his story and admitted he was. Citing statements Tellis made to investigators, Panola County District Attorney John Champion said Tellis and Chambers had sex in her car later that evening. Champion said he believes Tellis suffocated Chambers and thought he had killed her. The defense, though denies that Tellis and Chambers had sex. The prosecution's theory is likely to be much the same in the second trial. "We're going to stick to what we believe is our strongest case and we put that on last time," Champion said. But there's one new wrinkle. Prosecutors have subpoenaed a woman named Sherry Flowers as a witness. Peterson said she's expected to testify that she gave a man a ride the night of Chambers' death. This could fill in a crucial gap linking Tellis to the crime scene. In the first trial, prosecutors had claimed Tellis traveled on foot from the place where he left Chambers to his sister's house, got his sister's car, collected a can of gasoline at his own house, and then returned to set the car and an unconscious Chambers on fire. Defense attorneys, though, question whether Flowers can identify Tellis as the man she transported. "She indicates she's seen his face somewhere, but can't remember where," Peterson said. Peterson also said the defense is likely to do more to challenge prosecution witnesses on cellphone locations and on whether Tellis' DNA was found on Chambers keychain in a ditch between the crime scene and the sister's house. Jurors are scheduled to be selected Monday in the college town of Starkville and brought to the Panola County courthouse in Batesville for the trial. Jurors will be sequestered, and both sides expect the trial will run at least into the next weekend. Peterson said the second trial could be longer than the first and that the defense could call first responder witnesses that the prosecution doesn't call, in order to drive home the Eric question. "Our position remains the same," Peterson said. "He didn't commit this crime, someone else did, and she told them who did it. They just didn't do a good job of finding him." ___ Follow Jeff Amy on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jeffamy . Read his work at https://www.apnews.com/search/By%20Jeff%20Amy . A Missouri woman was sentenced to 74 years in prison Friday for setting her nail salon on fire in 2015 to collect insurance money, resulting in the deaths of two Kansas City firefighters. Thu Hong Nguyen, 46, was convicted in July on two counts each of second-degree murder, arson and assault, the Kansas City Star reported. She will serve her sentences consecutive to each other. Prosecutors said Nguyen intentionally doused her nail salons stock room with acetone and isopropyl alcohol, lit it on fire, and left the building, FOX4 Kansas City reported. Responding firefighters Larry Leggio, 43, and John Mesh, 39, were killed when a portion of the three-story buildings brick wall collapsed on top of them. Two other firefighters were seriously injured, the station reported. At the sentencing hearing, Leggios wife, Missy, said: So much has been stolen from each one of our lives, according to the Star. We lost a father, a son, a brother, a husband, an uncle and a beloved friend of so many, Meshs brother Jim testified, according to the paper. Instead of making new memories with John, we talk about the memory of John. So much has been stolen from each one of our lives. Missy Leggio, wife of firefighter Larry Leggio Prosecutors labeled Nguyen as a serial arsonist who had a history of burning businesses for insurance money. She had also been convicted of arson for a fire at a different nail salon in 2013. An investigation revealed that Nguyen received nearly $268,000 in insurance payouts over the years, the Star reported. Ngyuen's sentencing was briefly delayed when she began having breathing problems during victim impact statements. Emergency responders came to the courthouse to treat her and the sentencing eventually was completed. Nguyens attorney told FOX4 theyll appeal the conviction next week. The Associated Press contributed to this report. A North Carolina town inundated by river water after a levee breached is among the latest towns to feel the life-threatening punch of Hurricane Florence. Benetta White and David Lloyd slogged through waist-deep water to escape when Cape Fear River water came pouring into their yard late Thursday. They got in a friend's pickup and were eventually driven out on a military vehicle. They were among 100 people evacuated with helicopters, boats and high-wheeled military vehicles during a six-hour rescue operation in southeastern North Carolina's Bladen County that lasted into Friday morning. Officials in North and South Carolina warn that the flooding danger is far from over, with South Carolina ordering evacuations there as rivers rise. At least 43 people have died since the hurricane slammed into the coast more than a week ago. North Korea's Kim Jong Un is "little rocket man" no more. President Donald Trump isn't a "mentally deranged U.S. dotard." In the year since Trump's searing, debut U.N. speech fueled fears of nuclear conflict with North Korea, the two leaders have turned from threats to flattery. And there's fresh hope that the U.S. president's abrupt shift from coercion to negotiation can yield results in getting Kim to halt, if not abandon, his nuclear weapons program. Trump will address world leaders at the United Nations on Tuesday on the back of an upbeat summit between South and North Korea, where Kim promised to dismantle a major rocket launch site and the North's main nuclear complex at Nyongbyon if it gets some incentive from Washington. North Korea remains a long, long way from relinquishing its nuclear arsenal, and the U.S. has been adding to, not easing, sanctions. Yet the past 12 months have seen a remarkable change in atmosphere between the adversaries that has surprised even the former U.S. envoy on North Korea. "If someone had told me last year that North Korea will stop nuclear tests, will stop missile tests and that they will release the remaining American prisoners and that they would be even considering dismantling Nyongbyon, I would have taken that in a heartbeat," said Joseph Yun, who resigned in March and has since left the U.S. foreign service. Since Trump and Kim held the first summit between U.S. and North Korean leaders in Singapore in June, Trump has missed no chance to praise "Chairman Kim," and Kim has expressed "trust and confidence" in the American president he once branded "senile." But progress has been slow toward the vague goal they agreed upon denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, which has eluded U.S. presidents for the past quarter-century. The U.S. wants to achieve that by January 2021, when Trump completes his first term in office. Although Kim won't be going to New York next week, meetings there could prove critical in deciding whether a second Trump-Kim summit will take place any time soon. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has invited his North Korean counterpart Ri Yong Ho for a meeting in New York, and Trump will be consulting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, fresh from his third summit with Kim this year. It was at that meeting in Pyongyang that the North Korean leader made his tantalizing offers to close key facilities of his weapons programs that have revived prospects for U.S.-North Korea talks. Yun, who spoke to reporters Friday at the United States Institute for Peace in Washington, said the U.S. goal of achieving denuclearization in just two years is unrealistic, but the offer to close Nyongbyon, where the North has plutonium, uranium and nuclear reprocessing facilities, is significant and offers a way forward. That's a far cry from last September. After Trump's thunderous speech, Yun's first thought was on the need to avoid a war. The president vowed to "totally destroy North Korea" if the U.S. was forced to defend itself or its allies against the North's nukes. "Rocket man is on a suicide mission for himself and his regime," the president said. His blunt talk triggered an extraordinary, almost surreal, exchange of insults. Kim issued a harshly worded statement from Pyongyang, dubbing the thin-skinned Trump a "mentally deranged U.S. dotard." A day later, the North's top diplomat warned it could test explode a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean. Tensions have eased hugely since then, and cracks have emerged in the international consensus on pressuring North Korea economically to get it to disarm. The U.S. accuses Russia of allowing illicit oil sales to North Korea. Trump has also criticized China, which has fraternal ties with the North and is embroiled in a trade war with the U.S., for conducting more trade with its old ally. Sanctions could even become a sore point with South Korea. Moon is eager to restart economic cooperation with North Korea to cement improved relations on the divided peninsula. All that will increase pressure on Washington to compromise with Pyongyang providing the incentives Kim seeks, even if the weapons capabilities he's amassed violate international law. He's likely eying a declaration on formally ending the Korean War as a marker of reduced U.S. "hostility" and sanctions relief. That could prove politically unpalatable in Washington just as it looks for Kim to follow through on the denuclearization pledge he made in Singapore. Frank Aum, a former senior Pentagon adviser on North Korea, warned tensions could spike again if the U.S. does not see progress by year's end, when the U.S. would typically need to start planning large-scale military drills with South Korea that North Korea views as war preparations. Trump decided to cancel drills this summer as a concession to Kim. "Things can flip pretty quickly," Aum said. "We've seen it going from bad to good and it could fairly quickly go back to the bad again." In a Sept. 22 story about the Alaska Department of Law backing a judge's decision not to give jail time to a man charged with assault, The Associated Press reported erroneously that Anchorage Assistant District Attorney Andrew Grannik was the defendant's lawyer. A corrected version of the story is below: State defends no-jail sentence in Anchorage assault case The Alaska Department of Law stood by a judge's sentence that calls for no jail time for an Anchorage man who authorities say offered a woman a ride and choked her until she was unconscious ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) The Alaska Department of Law stood by a judge's sentence that calls for no jail time for an Anchorage man who authorities say offered a woman a ride and choked her until she was unconscious. Justin Schneider, 34, pleaded guilty to one count of felony assault in the case. A kidnapping charge was dropped as part of the plea deal. Anchorage Superior Court Judge Michael Corey sentenced Schneider to two years with a year suspended. Schneider also received credit for a year he served under house arrest and will serve no additional time as long as he doesn't violate the conditions of his probation. The sentence drew public outrage Friday, the Anchorage Daily News reported. A movement is underway calling for the ouster of the judge. An Anchorage social worker created a Facebook page calling for a "no" vote Nov. 6 on retaining Corey. Schneider choked an Alaska Native woman and then masturbated over her unconscious body, according to charging documents. He also told the woman he would kill her if she screamed, Anchorage police detective Brett Sarber wrote in a sworn affidavit. The victim was not present or on the phone during the hearing. The sentence highlights a deeply flawed legal system, according to sexual assault advocates. "This is another example of an Alaska Native woman not getting the justice they deserve," said Elizabeth Williams, a sex-assault survivor. A number of concerned citizens told the state law department that they also believed Schneider's sentence was too lenient. Anchorage Assistant District Attorney Andrew Grannik has argued that Schneider lost his job as an air traffic controller over the charges and called that a "life sentence." Criminal Division Director John Skidmore reviewed the case and said it was "consistent with, and reasonable, under current sentencing laws in Alaska." Schneider did not have a criminal record prior to the incident. Gov. Bill Walker agreed that the sentence was insufficient and said in a statement that he wants to toughen laws. Tennessee authorities on Friday announced charges against a father accused of lighting his daughters wheelchair on fire while she was in it several months ago. Timothy Shane Medley was indicted by a Giles County grand jury following an investigation into a house fire that occurred in Pulaski, Tennessee, in May, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said in a news release. SERIAL ARSONIST GETS 74 YEARS FOR BLAZE THAT KILLED 2 FIREFIGHTERS The agency said they were asked to investigate the blaze alongside the Tennessee Fire Investigative Services and the Pulaski Police Department. A female who lived at the home was injured in the fire and was taken to the Vanderbilt Burn Center, officials said. Amid the probe, authorities found that Medley allegedly was responsible for starting the fire, officials said. MARINES COME RUNNING TO HELP AFTER FIRE BREAKS OUT AT DC SENIOR BUILDING, VIDEO SHOWS Further investigation revealed that Medley used an accelerant to set his daughters wheelchair on fire while she was in it, the news release said. Medley was taken into custody on Thursday and among his charges are aggravated assault, abuse of an adult and burning personal property, officials said. He was booked into the Giles County Jail on a $22,000 bond, the news release said. A shelter puppy recently adopted in Texas has a new job working as a sergeant at the Borger Regional Communications Center, city officials announced this week. The puppy, named Squelch, was rescued from the City of Borger Animal Shelter and is now receiving 24/7 around the clock love and care from dispatchers, the city said in a statement posted to Facebook. The pup, more specifically known as Sergeant Squelch with badge number 911, will soon be making his debut with Dispatchers as they conduct school programs and community events, the city added. TEXAS VETERINARIAN WARNS WILD MUSHROOMS AFTER HEAVY RAINS CAN BE TOXIC FOR PETS The city, which did not specify Squelchs breed, added the 3-month-old pup was adopted after officials with the Borger Regional Dispatch Center inquired about allowing a dog to be a permanent member of the team, city officials said in the post. We thought it was a great idea! While Sergeant Squelch is not an official service animal, Administration strongly believes he will be extremely beneficial after times of extreme stress in the day to day duties of of Dispatch." Dispatchers in Borger, who answer 911 calls in Hutchinson County, according to KFDA-News, said having a dog around the office will be a positive change. To have a little stress relief when I cant get up and leave the room, if I can just reach down and pet him or just knowing that hes there, Melissa Edgerton, a dispatcher, told the news station. THESE FLEA AND TICK MEDICATIONS FOR PETS ARE CAUSING SEIZURES, OTHER NEUROLOGICAL ISSUES, FDA WARNS Sometimes he likes to sleep under our feet under the desks and so just knowing hes there when you cant get out to relieve that stress, it really helps, she added. The city invited local residents to drop by the Borger Municipal building to meet the new pup. A U.S. military airstrike has killed 18 al-Shabab extremists after U.S. and local forces on the ground came under attack in southern Somalia, the U.S. Africa Command said Saturday. No U.S. or Somali forces were killed or injured in the attack, an AFRICOM spokesman, Nate Herring, told The Associated Press. The airstrike was carried out Friday in self-defense after extremists were "observed maneuvering on a combined patrol," while the U.S. also responded with "indirect fire," the spokesman said. The confrontation occurred about 50 kilometers (31 miles) northwest of the port city of Kismayo, the U.S. Africa Command statement said. Two other al-Shabab extremists were killed by Somali forces "with small arms fire during the engagement," it said. The operation was Somali-led, the AFRICOM spokesman said. There was no immediate comment from Somali authorities. The U.S. has carried out more than 20 airstrikes this year against the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab, the deadliest Islamic extremist group in sub-Saharan Africa. U.S. military involvement in Somalia has grown since President Donald Trump early in his term approved expanded operations against al-Shabab. Dozens of drone strikes followed. Late last year the military also carried out its first airstrike against a small presence of fighters linked to the Islamic State in northern Somalia. Since the expanded operations, two U.S. military personnel have been killed in Somalia. A service member was killed in May 2017 during an operation about 40 miles (64 kilometers) west of Mogadishu. And in June, one U.S. special operations soldier was killed and four U.S. service members wounded in an "enemy attack" as troops with Somali and Kenyan forces came under mortar and small-arms fire in Jubaland. The U.S. currently has about 500 military personnel in the Horn of Africa nation. Al-Shabab, which seeks to establish an Islamic state in Somalia, was pushed out of Mogadishu in recent years but continues to control rural areas in the south and central regions. Its fighters continue to attack the bases of a multinational African Union force that remains largely responsible for security as Somalia's fragile central government tries to recover from decades of chaos. In the next few years Somali forces are expected to take over responsibility for the country's security as the AU force withdraws. Concerns about their readiness remain high, and the U.N. Security Council recently voted to delay the handover's target date to December 2021. ___ Follow Africa news at https://twitter.com/AP_Africa Some of the surviving crewmembers of an American spy ship captured by North Korean forces 50 years ago have a message for President Trump: bring our warship home. The crew of the USS Pueblo would like to get our ship returned, Ron Berens, the lead helmsman onboard and at the wheel on January 23, 1968 when North Korean MiG fighter jets and patrol boats opened fire on the American spy ship, leading to the first capture of a U.S. Navy ship since the War of 1812. We would like them to deliver it to Lake Pueblo, said Bob Hill, a 19-year-old deck seaman at the time and one of the youngest on board. One crewmember was killed, 82 others taken captive and held for 11 months in North Korean prisons enduring hours of torture roughly 10 days after departing from Japan on espionage missions against the Soviet Union and North Korea. POMPEO: TRUMP MAY HOLD 2ND MEETING WITH NORTH KOREA'S KIM JONG UN IN 'NEAR FUTURE' Theres nothing in the current history books about the Pueblo, Berens said in an interview with Fox News during a gathering of roughly 40 surviving Pueblo crewmembers on the 50th anniversary of their capture this week in Pueblo, Colo., the ships namesake. Today, the Pueblo remains a commissioned U.S. Navy ship on display in the Potong River inside North Koreas capital Pyongyang, where the refurbished American spy ship hosts thousands of visitors a year. Its an episode in history largely overshadowed in a year dominated by the Vietnam War, the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and the Apollo 8 launch. An even deadlier incident occurred a year later when a North Korean MiG-21 shot down a U.S. Navy reconnaissance aircraft, killing all 31 Americans onboard. January 23, 1968 began with anxiety for the Pueblo crew with their ship just 14 miles off the coast of North Korea. The day prior, a number of communist vessels had approached the American spy ship to take photos venturing too close for comfort. The North Korean patrol boats and sub chasers had remained and around lunchtime Sunday began firing on the Pueblo after being joined by a pair of North Korean MiGs overhead. NORTH AND SOUTH KOREA PLAN TO BID FOR 2032 SUMMER OLYMPICS Bob Hill was lying in his rack when he heard general quarters sound, sending the crew to their battle stations. Hill was told to help destroy top secret material on board because the crew quickly found themselves surrounded. Tim Harris, a young supply officer onboard Pueblo, said the North Koreans quickly surrounded the American spy ship and opened fire with machine guns and 40mm cannon. The American crew tried to escape, but the North Korean vessels were relentless. After signaling the Americans to stop or heave to and with their ship badly disabled due to the debilitating fire, the North Korean patrol boats swooped in and jumped aboard. We never surrendered. We stopped the ship. There was never an order to surrender, Harris said. We had taken so much fire. We were scared s***less, Bob Hill said recalling the feeling of seeing North Korean sailors taking him and his 82 crewmembers captive and bringing them to the port city of Wonsan. They tied us up, blindfolded us. We were all wondering if we were going to die. Shortly after arriving in North Korea, Hill said the American crew was met with shouts from a mob that had gathered. Kill Yankee! they yelled in English, Hill recalled. TRUMP COULD STILL GET THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE FOR NORTH KOREAN DENUCLEARIZATION - HERE'S HOW The American crew spent their first six weeks in North Korea in Pyongyang before being moved out to the countryside less than an hour from the capital city. Over the next 11 months the crew was subjected to torture routinely. A typical day was met with intermittent terror. If you happened to be caught sleeping you were in a world of pain, Hill said. The crew learned to rely on God as well as one another. Your roommates were your biggest help, said Berens. The surviving crewmembers are split about bringing the ship back saying President Trump has more important issues to worry about such as getting North Korea to scrap its nuclear weapons program. Its still a slap in the face to us every day that its still commissioned, Hill said. That bothers me a great deal. When North Korea turned Pueblo into a museum and communist propaganda piece, I prayed when they opened that thing with all their military officers on board we could drop a MOAB [Mother of all Bombs] or something on them and blow the whole damn thing up. He added: "Decommission that damn thing." Ron Berens disagrees. If they decommission the ship Americans would lose face, Berens said. Thats total surrender. That is a hunk of metal. The crew is right here, Hill said about the survivors that have gathered this week in Pueblo, Colo. The spirit of that ship is right here today at the reunion, agreed Harris. Cmdr. Josh Hill, a 2001 U.S. Naval Academy graduate currently assigned to the Pentagon, echoed his fathers sentiment. Nothing would mean more to the crew than having Pueblo returned to the U.S. for a proper decommissioning ceremony," he said. Surviving Pueblo crewmembers also want their skipper recognized for his heroism in leading all 82 men through 11 months of captivity. When they returned to the United States in December 1968, they were cheered by crowds in San Diego. Back in Washington, Navy brass demanded a courts-martial to investigate why Pueblos commanding officer, Cmdr. Lloyd M. Bucher, allowed his crew to be captured by North Korea. Charges were dropped weeks later because the Navy secretary felt Bucher had suffered enough, according to Berens. To this day, Bucher has not received any valor award for his actions, despite the crew receiving Purple Hearts for their wounds suffered in captivity and during the attack at sea. It was his leadership under extreme circumstances that we survived, Harris said. Many Pueblo crewmembers want Cmdr. Bucher awarded the Medal of Honor. I wouldnt be here today if it were not for Commander Bucher, said Navy Cmdr. Josh Hill, who added that when he was commissioned in the U.S. Navy in May 2001, Cmdr. Bucher performed a special private ceremony at the Naval Academys Memorial Hall. Under Oliver Hazard Perrys battle flag: Dont Give Up the Ship. Fox News Andrew OReilly contributed to this report Qiufen or Autumnal Equinox, the 16th of the 24 solar terms in the Chinese Lunar Calendar, will fall on September 23 this year. During this period, autumn colors can be seen in many parts of China. Chinas first "Chinese Farmers Harvest Festival" will be held on the same day to celebrate the harvest season. Qiufen is the midpoint of autumn. From here on, days will be shorter and nights will be longer in the Northern Hemisphere. In the past, Qiufen was the day for people to worship the moon. However, the specific date of Qiufen was unfixed, so the moon-worship day was rescheduled for the Mid-Autumn Day, when the moon was at its brightest and roundest. On Qiufen, people in South China would pray for good health by eating "Qiucai"also known as autumn vegetable, which is a kind of wild amaranth. Eating sticky sweet dumplings was a tradition for farmers, and they would put dozens of dumplings in the fields to stick sparrows mouth and prevent them from eating the crops. This custom expressed farmers wishes for a good harvest. Qiu Niu Tu was a picture printed with solar terms and farming patterns and it was sent from house to house by folk artisans who greeted people with auspicious words. Although the Qiufen period will witness a drop in temperature, the autumn sky will be clearer and the air will be crisper. At the same time, Qiufen is also important for agricultural production, for it marks the beginning of the autumn harvest season in most parts of China. This years Qiufen coincides with the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, so it will definitely give us a stronger sense of autumn. China scotched trade talks with the U.S. that were planned for the coming days, according to people briefed on the matter, further dimming prospects for resolving a trade battle between the worlds two largest economies. The decision to pull out of the talks follows the latest escalation in trade tensions. On Monday, President Trump announced new tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports, prompting Beijing to retaliate with levies on $60 billion in U.S. goods. Mr. Trump then vowed to further ratchet up pressure on China by kicking in tariffs on another $257 billion of Chinese products. Chinese officials have said such pressure tactics wouldnt induce them to cooperate. By declining to participate in the talks, the people said, Beijing is following up on its pledge to avoid negotiating under threat. Everything the U.S. does hasnt given any impression of sincerity and goodwill, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said at a press briefing Friday. We hope that the U.S. side will take measures to correct its mistakes. The latest exchange of tariffs, which take effect Monday, brings China and the U.S. closer to a full-blown trade war. Continue reading this story in the Wall Street Journal. next Image 1 of 2 prev Image 2 of 2 The U.N. humanitarian chief warned Friday that the fight against famine is being lost in Yemen, which is already facing the world's worst humanitarian crisis with 75 percent of its 29 million people in need of assistance. Mark Lowcock called the situation "bleak" and told the Security Council it "has deteriorated in an alarming way in recent weeks." "We may now be approaching a tipping point, beyond which it will be impossible to prevent massive loss of life as a result of widespread famine across the country," he said. "We are already seeing pockets of famine-like conditions, including cases where people are eating leaves." Lowcock said two recent developments threaten to overwhelm the aid operation a "dramatic economic collapse" that has reduced the value of Yemen's currency by some 30 percent, and intensified fighting around the Red Sea port of Hodeida, which is key to deliveries of food, medicine and other vital supplies. The conflict in Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country, began with the 2014 takeover of the capital, Sanaa, by Houthi Shiite rebels, which toppled the internationally recognized government. A Saudi-led coalition allied with the government has been fighting the Houthis since 2015. Civilians have borne the brunt of the conflict, which has killed over 10,000 people and sparked a cholera epidemic. Lowcock said that during the first six months of this year, the United Nations and humanitarian groups provided assistance to more than 8 million of the most vulnerable Yemenis who don't know where their next meal will come. That is a dramatic expansion from 2017, when food was reaching 3 million people a month. Because almost all Yemenis rely on imported food, Lowcock said, the currency depreciation "translates directly into a sharp increase in the price of food for some 10 million Yemenis" who aren't getting enough food but aren't part of the aid operation. There has also been an "unprecedented increases" in the price of fuel, he said. In addition, Lowcock said, intensified fighting in recent weeks around Hodeida is "choking the lifeline" for getting aid to those in need. Fighting in recent days has cut the main road from Hodeida to Sanaa, which is the principal conduit for both commercial importers and aid groups for moving supplies, he said. Other routes are heavily damaged, he said. Lowcock said armed groups have occupied humanitarian facilities, and attacks have resulted in dozens of deaths and serious damage to public health and water facilities as well as other aid infrastructure. "We estimate that an additional 3.5 million people may soon be added to the 8 million already severely food insecure," he said. Lowcock said the U.N. continues to push to scale up its aid operation, but "humanitarian organizations simply cannot look after the needs of all 29 million Yemenis. That is untenable." He urged the Security Council to press for immediate measures to stabilize Yemen's economy and support the exchange rate, including ensuring liquidity for the central bank and implementing longstanding commitments to pay salaries of teachers, doctors, health workers and other public service employees throughout the country. Lowcock also urged that ports be kept open, warning that "the lifeline through which the aid operation runs now hangs by a thread." He called for protection of civilians, schools, hospitals and other civilian infrastructure, the establishment of "an air bridge" for medical evacuations and serious negotiations on "a positive path towards peace." next Image 1 of 2 prev Image 2 of 2 A powerful tornado that carved a path through parts of Canada's capital snapped trees, tossed cars and obliterated dozens of homes leaving what the city's mayor on Saturday said resembled "a war scene." More than 150,000 customers were still without power following the tornado, which churned through pockets of Ottawa's west and south ends, as well as densely populated sections of the neighboring Quebec city of Gatineau late Friday. Authorities said dozens of people suffered injuries, however there were no reports of fatalities. The Ottawa Hospital tweeted that two people were in critical condition, one was in serious condition and two others were stable. Officials set up shelters for those who couldn't return home and they said crisis counselling would be available. "It looked like it was something from a movie scene or a war scene," Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson told reporters Saturday describing what he saw in the area of Dunrobin, where some 60 buildings were wiped out or partially destroyed. "Literally, it looks like some bomb was dropped from the air." Much of Dunrobin, a semi-rural community about 22 miles (35 kilometers) west of downtown Ottawa, remained cordoned off by police. Personal items were strewn everywhere a baby blanket, a life jacket, mattresses, lawn mowers, a fridge, a kitchen sink lying on the grass and even a love seat wrapped around a telephone pole. Meteorologist Simon Legault said there was evidence of powerful winds between 112-137 miles per hour (180-220 kilometers per hour). next Image 1 of 2 prev Image 2 of 2 A Chinese navy hospital ship docked near Venezuela's capital on Saturday as the OPEC nation's deepening economic crisis garners the attention of the U.S. and other world powers. Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino was on hand to greet the People's Liberation Army Navy's ship, the Peace Ark, on its latest stop as part of the 11-nation "Mission Harmony" tour announced in June. "This is how you undertake diplomacy in the world," Padrino said, "with concrete actions of cooperation and not stoking the false voices of those who beat the drum of war." Interest in the goodwill visit has been building since the Pentagon announced in August it was sending its own hospital ship, the USNS Comfort, to neighboring Colombia to provide free medical treatment for thousands of Venezuelan migrants fleeing their homes amid widespread food and medicine shortages. U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, in a visit to Colombia last month, called the ship's deployment a humanitarian mission to deal with the fallout of President Nicolas Maduro's mismanagement of the economy. The United Nations estimates that 2.3 million Venezuelans have fled the crisis-torn country in recent years, mainly to Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Brazil. But top officials in Venezuela's socialist government saw the Comfort's deployment as a threat, part of an effort by the U.S. to pave the way for a military intervention on humanitarian grounds. Padrino on Saturday said the Chinese boat's visit was part of the government's "strategic defense operation." The Peace Ark's humanitarian tours around the world have become a sign of China's outreach efforts and Beijing's ambitions of gradually expanding its military influence abroad. The ship, which has 300 beds, eight operation rooms and a medical helicopter, has carried out such missions to more than 40 countries provided free medical services for more than 180,000 people since it was commissioned in 2008. Such goodwill visits have been the mainstay of U.S. diplomacy in Latin America for decades. The Chinese ship has twice before visited Latin America, in 2011 and 2015, but never has stopped in Venezuela. It will also visit the Caribbean island of Grenada and Ecuador on its current deployment. Maduro, who came back a week ago from a visit to China where he sought fresh investment and financing from one of Venezuela's top ally, said on Twitter that the boat will stay in Venezuela for about a week. Egypt's highest appeals court on Saturday rejected a motion by former president Hosni Mubarak and his two sons to overturn their conviction on corruption charges. The ruling by the Court of Cessation, Egypt's final recourse for appeals in criminal cases, dashed any hope that Gamal, Mubarak's younger son and one-time heir apparent, could run for public office. A senior newspaper editor and confidant of Egypt's current president had recently suggested that banker-turned-politician Gamal may have been contemplating the move. The Mubarak trio was sentenced to three years each for embezzling funds meant for maintenance of presidential palaces but which they spent on upgrading or building private residences. The sons were released in 2015 for time served, while their father was freed last year. They repaid the funds, a total of 125 million pounds (about $7 million). Mubarak's sons are currently on trial for insider trading. They are free on bail after a judge on Thursday overturned a surprise Sept. 15 ruling to detain them. The case's next hearing is on Oct. 20. The rejection of their appeal Saturday and Gamal Mubarak's subsequent ineligibility to run for office came in the wake of recent comments by the chief editor of state-run Al-Akhbar publications, Yasser Rizq, who suggested that frequent public appearances by the younger Mubarak could be a prelude to a future presidential run. Rizq first warned Gamal Mubarak against harboring presidential ambitions in an article published in May. He repeated the warning in a television interview aired earlier this week. "His real crime is insulting the dignity of the Egyptian people," Rizq said, alluding to Gamal's one-time intention to succeed his father. It violated the constitution and amounted to the toppling of republican rule, he explained. He said it was not improbable that he would strike a political deal with the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood to secure the group's return to politics in exchange for its support in a presidential bid in 2022, when President Abdel-Fattah El-Sissi's second term ends. Preventing Gamal from succeeding his father was among the main drivers of a 2011 uprising that ended Mubarak's 29-year rule, as well as the military's support for it. The years that followed saw Mubarak regime heavyweights tried on corruption or abuse of power charges. Most have since walked free, while second-string regime loyalists found their way back to public life under el-Sissi. El-Sissi led the military's 2013 ouster of Egypt's first freely elected president the Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi and has since overseen a massive crackdown on his supporters, jailing thousands of them along with secular activists behind the 2011 uprising. Egypt's constitution prohibits el-Sissi from running for a third term in office, but his supporters have raised the specter of amending the 2014 charter to allow him to do so or extend the duration of his term. He won a second, four-year term in office this year in an election in which his only opponent was a little-known politician viewed as among his staunchest supporters. Riza's attack on Gamal Mubarak mirrors past campaigns by the pro-government media against potential challengers to el-Sissi, which have included personal attacks and unsubstantiated accusations. His suggestion that Gamal might strike a deal with the Brotherhood to rise to power carries a thinly-veiled threat given the country's political climate where suspicion of links to the group has provided authorities with grounds to imprison critics, including some with established secular credentials. Gamal wielded vast influence in Egypt during the final years of Mubarak's rule through his top job at the then-ruling National Democratic Party and the support of Mubarak's inner circle. Had he succeeded his father, he would have been Egypt's first president that didn't hail from the military since a 1952 military coup that toppled the monarchy. Hitler is on the ballot in a small town in Peru after withstanding a challenge last week from a political rival named Lennin. Local pol Hitler Alba was mayor in the Andes town of Yungar from 2011 to 2014 and is running again for the seat. Last week Lennin Vladmir Rodriguez Valverde tried to keep Alba off the ballot, Reuters reported. But election officials rejected the challenge. Election Day in the farming town in Perus central Andes is Oct. 7, according to Reuters. Im the good Hitler, Alba said on local broadcaster RPP. Campaign signs that say Hitler returns and Hitler with the people dot Yungar, Reuters reported. Reuters reported that Alba stresses that he rejects what the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler stood for while saying he wants to oversee a fair and transparent government. Alba said his father was unaware of who Adolf Hitler was when he named him, Reuters reported. After learning the history behind it, Alba said he considered changing his name but eventually accepted it. I would have felt bad, he told RPP. In Peru and elsewhere in Latin America, parents often choose foreign and exotic-sounding first names for their children despite negative associations abroad, according to Reuters. Gunmen attacked a military parade in the southwest Iranian city of Ahvaz on Saturday, killing at least 24 people - including eight members of the Revolutionary Guard - and wounding 53, state media said. Those wounded in the attack included a woman and a child, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. The agency did not elaborate. Earlier reports described the assailants as "Takfiri gunmen," a term previously used to describe ISIS. IRAN ALLOWS AL QAEDA OPERATION WITHIN ITS BORDERS, SAYS REPORT The semi-official Fars news agency, which is close to the elite Revolutionary Guard, said two gunmen on a motorcycle wearing khaki uniforms carried out the attack. "Terrorists recruited, trained, armed & paid by a foreign regime have attacked Ahvaz. Children and journos among casualties. Iran holds regional terror sponsors and their US masters accountable for such attacks. Iran will respond swiftly and decisively in defense of Iranian lives," Javad Zarif, foreign minister of Iran, tweeted on Saturday. Zarifs language echoed the White House on Sept. 11 this year when the U.S. blamed Iran for a rocket attack on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and U.S. consulate in southern Iraq in Basra. America will respond swiftly and decisively in defense of American lives, the White House statement said. TRUMP AND KERRY TRADE BARBS OVER EX-SECRETARY OF STATE'S MEETINGS WITH IRANIAN REGIME State television showed images of the immediate aftermath. In it, paramedics could be seen helping someone in military fatigues laying on the ground. Other armed security personnel shouted at each other in front of what appeared to be a viewing stand for the parade. The ISNA news agency published photographs of the attack's aftermath, with bloodied troops in dress uniforms helping each other walk away. The attack struck on Ahvaz's Quds, or Jerusalem, Boulevard. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Ahvaz is the capital of Iran's oil-rich Khuzestan province. The province in the past has seen Arab separatists attack oil pipelines. The assault shocked Tehran, which largely has avoided militant attacks in the decades after the tumult surrounding the Islamic Revolution. Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson, Amy Lieu and the Associated Press contributed to this report. next Image 1 of 2 prev Image 2 of 2 The Latest on the Maldives' presidential election (all times local): 11:10 p.m. An opposition party spokesman in the Maldives says police obtained a warrant to search the main campaign office of the party's presidential candidate's based on police intelligence that the office was being used to coordinate vote-buying. Spokesman Shauna Aminath says police obtained the 14-hour warrant Saturday to search the office for documents or other evidence of bribery ahead of Sunday's election in the Maldives, which is widely seen as a referendum on the country's democracy. Aminath says the warrant also names senior opposition campaign team member Ahmed Shahid as a suspect. Several calls to Shahid went unanswered. A spokesman for former president Mohamed Nasheed said from Colombo, the capital of neighboring Sri Lanka, that the raid showed that the election would be unfair. ___ 10:05 p.m. A spokesman for the former president of the Maldives says a police raid of the opposition presidential candidate's main campaign office Saturday in Male supports opposition claims that the vote will be rigged. In Colombo, the capital of neighboring Sri Lanka, Hamid Abdul Gafoor, a spokesman for former president Mohamed Nasheed, said incumbent President Yameen Abdul Gayoom "wants to muzzle his way" to victory on Sunday. The Maldives' third multiparty presidential elections since becoming a democracy a decade ago is seen as a referendum on whether democracy will survive in the country. ___ 7:45 p.m. Police in the Maldives say they have raided the main campaign office of the opposition presidential candidate on the eve of an election that is seen as a referendum on whether democracy will survive in the country. Police spokesman Ahmed Shifan says police raided Ibrahim Mohamed Solih's campaign office late Saturday. He did not give any other details. The move is a sign of a crackdown against the opposition by the government that has raised fears that Sunday's election may be rigged to favor President Yameen Abdul Gayoom's party. ___ 5:10 p.m. Opposition supporters in the Maldives are demanding that officials ensure a free and fair presidential election, as the country prepares to vote in an election seen as a referendum on whether democracy will stay. The archipelago nation's election chief, Ahmed Shareef, said Saturday that all measures have been taken to hold Sunday's election in a free and fair manner and without violence. Still, opposition activists voiced fears that the polls may be rigged to favor President Yameen Abdul Gayoom's party. Beyond the postcard image the Maldives has of luxury resorts and white sand beaches, the 400,000 citizens of the former British protectorate have struggled to maintain the democratic system established in 2008. next Image 1 of 2 prev Image 2 of 2 The Latest on Pope Francis' visit to the Baltic countries (all times local): 11:45 a.m. Pope Francis is urging Lithuania, which endured decades of Soviet and Nazi occupation, expulsions and executions, to be a model of solidarity in a world riven by intolerance as he began a visit to three Baltic nations. Francis arrived in Lithuania on Saturday to encourage the faith and mark the 100th anniversary of Baltic independence, kicking off a grueling, four-day trip that will also take him to Latvia and Estonia. Speaking outside the presidential palace in the capital Vilnius, Francis recalled that until the arrival of "totalitarian ideologies" in the 20th century, Lithuania had been a peaceful home to a variety of ethnic and religious groups. He said the world today is marked by political forces that exploit fear and conflict to justify violence and expulsions of others a reference to anti-immigrant populist and far-right groups in Europe and beyond. ___ 8:20 a.m. Pope Francis has departed on a pilgrimage to all three Baltic countries. Francis left Rome early Saturday morning on a special Alitalia flight headed to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. His four-day trip will also include Latvia and Estonia. Francis greeted the Airbus A320's captain and two of its flight attendants at the top of the stairs to the aircraft before taking his seat inside. ___ 8:10 a.m. Russia will be the elephant in the room as Pope Francis begins a four-day visit to the Baltics amid renewed alarm about Moscow's intentions in the region it has twice occupied. Francis is travelling to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia to mark the 100th anniversaries of their independence and to encourage the faith in the nations, which saw five decades of Soviet-imposed religious repression and state-sponsored atheism. "Fifty years of occupation left their mark both on the church and on the people," said Monsignor Gintaras Grusas, archbishop of Vilnius. "People have deep wounds from that period that take time to heal." Francis lands Saturday in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius to begin four-day, three-country trip that will feature encounters with political leaders as well as the Catholic, Lutheran and Russian Orthodox faithful. next Image 1 of 2 prev Image 2 of 2 Opposition supporters in the Maldives demanded Saturday that officials ensure a free and fair presidential election, as the country prepared to vote in what is seen as a referendum on whether democracy will stay. Since Sunday's election was announced, opposition leaders have feared the vote may be rigged to favor President Yameen Abdul Gayoom's party. The European Union said Friday it is not sending election observers because the country had failed to meet the basic conditions for monitoring. But the archipelago nation's election chief, Ahmed Shareef, said Saturday that all measures had been taken to hold the election in a free and fair manner and without violence. "So far, we have facilitated whatever the opposition candidate requested, within the regulations and laws permitting us," Shareef told reporters. "I don't think he could give any concrete reason to call it unfair." Still, opposition activists voiced their concerns. "There is no democracy in the Maldives democracy has vanished under President Yameen," said Adam Ahmed, a 58-year-old opposition activist. He said a second term for the incumbent could mean an end to an "already withering" democracy, as many voters wanted to see a change of government. Beyond the postcard image the Maldives has of luxury resorts and white sand beaches, the 400,000 citizens of the former British protectorate have struggled to maintain the democratic system established in 2008. The Maldives' third multiparty presidential election is being held five years after Yameen began consolidating power, rolling back press and individual freedoms, asserting control over independent governmental institutions and jailing or forcing major political rivals into exile. Yameen has jailed two former presidents, including his half brother, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, the Maldives' former strongman, his former vice president, two Supreme Court justices, two former defense ministers and many others after trials criticized for a lack of due process. As protests culminating in violent confrontations with police and mass arrests have grown, opposition parties many of them Yameen's own former political partners formed an alliance in exile with the aim of unseating him. Supporters of the opposition presidential candidate, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, and the president gathered Saturday at their respective party campaign offices in Male, the capital, for final campaign rallies, as pink and green campaign banners hung across the city's streets. "I don't agree with the policies of this government and also some corrupt activities," said 19-year-old Scifulla Waheed, who is looking to vote for the first time on Sunday. "It is high time that we should rise to change the government." Waheed, who believes Yameen has weekend democracy in the Maldives, said a free and fair election "will change this regime." Yameen's supporters were also vocal. "Under President Yameen, everything has improved," said Latheef, who gave only one name. "If the opposition comes into power, the economy will be in doldrums and we will have to face hardships." Wang Yang (R, front), a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, visits an industrial park for poverty alleviation in Guyuan City, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, Sept. 21, 2018. Wang Yang on Friday visited Guyuan in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region where celebrations for the region's 60th anniversary are in full swing. (Xinhua/Liu Weibing) GUYUAN, Ningxia, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- China's top political advisor Wang Yang on Friday visited a city in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region where celebrations for the region's 60th anniversary are in full swing. Wang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, led a division of a central delegation to Guyuan. They visited an industrial park for poverty alleviation, a museum dedicated to the history of the Long March, rural families, and a polytechnic college, where they interacted with locals to learn about their work and life. Attending a symposium with people in Guyuan, Wang said: "The sea-changes in Guyuan are a microcosm of Ningxia's extraordinary achievements over the past six decades, testifying to the success of the Party's policies concerning ethnic groups and the system of regional ethnic autonomy." He called for effort to maintain good work in ethnic and religious affairs and use the poverty relief campaign as an initiative to lead new rounds of social and economic development while strengthening the protection of ecology and environment. Four other divisions of the central delegation - all led by senior officials - visited other areas of Ningxia on Friday. The delegation arrived in Ningxia on Wednesday for the anniversary celebrations, and left for Beijing after Friday's visits. next Image 1 of 2 prev Image 2 of 2 Russia will be the elephant in the room as Pope Francis begins a four-day visit to the Baltics amid renewed alarm about Moscow's intentions in the region it has twice occupied. Francis boarded a special Alitalia flight that lands early Saturday in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, for a four-day trip that also takes in Latvia and Estonia to mark the 100th anniversaries of their independence and to encourage the faith in the Baltic nations, which saw five decades of Soviet-imposed religious repression and state-sponsored atheism. "Fifty years of occupation left their mark both on the church and on the people," said Monsignor Gintaras Grusas, archbishop of Vilnius. "People have deep wounds from that period that take time to heal." The trip will feature encounters with political leaders as well as the Catholic, Lutheran and Russian Orthodox faithful. Grusas notes that all three denominations suffered during communist rule but said those persecutions strengthened their bonds. "At the time there was this ecumenism of suffering, this ecumenism of martyrdom which Francis speaks about," he said. "There is that closeness." The three countries, which each have ethnic Russian minorities, are also in lockstep in sounding alarms about Moscow's military maneuvers in the Baltic Sea area following Russia's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and its support of separatists fighting the Ukrainian government in eastern Ukraine. The Vatican, however, has been loath to openly criticize Moscow or its powerful Orthodox Church. While seeking to avoid offense, Francis will likely praise the sacrifices of those who fought for independence a century ago during Russia's revolution, and suffered again during Soviet rule. "The pope will send a message to the world that the difficult history has not been forgotten and that it cannot repeat itself," Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite told the Baltic News Service. Of the three countries Francis will visit, only Lithuania is majority Catholic, with about 80 percent of its population practicing the faith. Latvia's population of some 2 million is 25 percent Lutheran, 19 percent Russian Orthodox and only about 16 percent Catholic. Estonia, meanwhile, is often considered one of the world's most non-religious countries. A whopping 76 percent of Estonians profess no religious beliefs whatsoever and Catholics number only 6,000. The Baltic countries declared their independence in 1918 but were incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940 and remained part of it until the early 1990s, except for the 1941-1944 Nazi occupation during World War II. All three joined the European Union and NATO in 2004 and are strong backers of the military alliance, which sees them as a bulwark against Russian incursions in Eastern Europe. The trip, featuring Francis' fondness for countries on the periphery, will be a welcome break for the Argentine pope. His credibility has taken a blow recently following missteps on the church's priestly sex abuse scandal and recent allegations that he covered up for an American cardinal. Even before he arrived, his trip sparked controversy with Lithuania's tiny Jewish community, which was nearly wiped out during the Holocaust. Francis will be visiting Vilnius on the 75th anniversary of the final destruction of the Vilnius Ghetto, on Sept. 23, 1943, when its remaining residents were executed or sent off to concentration camps by the Nazis. But until Francis' schedule was changed three weeks ago, there were no specific events for him to acknowledge the slaughter of some 90 percent of Lithuania's 250,000 Jews at the hands of Nazi occupiers and complicit Lithuanian partisans a significant oversight for the leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics. At the last minute, the Vatican added in a visit to the Ghetto, where Francis will pray quietly on the day when the names of Holocaust victims are read out at commemorations across the country. The Vatican spokesman, Greg Burke, acknowledged the lapse but says the visit to the Ghetto will be significant and an important part of the visit. Francis will also visit the Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights, located in a former gymnasium that served as the headquarters of the Gestapo during the 1941-1944 Nazi occupation and later as the headquarters of the feared KGB spy agency when the Soviets recaptured the country. The issue of Lithuanian complicity in Nazi war crimes is sensitive here, with the Jewish community campaigning to have street signs named for heroes who fought the Soviets removed because of their roles in the executions of Jews. "I think the presence of the pope is showing attention to the Holocaust and to the Holocaust victims," said Simonas Gurevichius, chairman of the Vilnius Jewish Community. "However, it is not the pope who has to do the work, it is Lithuania as a country and as a society who needs to do the work." __ Winfield reported from Vatican City. Russia's space agency chief said Saturday that it wouldn't accept a second-tier role in a NASA-led plan to build an outpost near the moon, but Roscosmos spokesman quickly clarified that Russia is still staying in the project. Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying that Russia wouldn't be reduced to a junior partner in the NASA-led project to build the lunar orbital platform called the Gateway in the 2020s. "I believe that Russia can't afford itself to participate in other countries' project on second-tier roles," Rogozin said when asked about the Gateway during a meeting with young space engineers, according to Tass. He noted that Russia was working to develop heavy-lift rockets that would allow it to build its own orbital platform near the moon, possibly in cooperation with some BRICS countries a grouping that includes Brazil, China, India and South Africa along with Russia. A few hours later, Roscosmos spokesman Vladimir Ustimenko clarified that Rogozin didn't mean to say Russia was bailing out of the NASA-led project. "Russia hasn't refused to take part in the project of the lunar orbital station together with the United States," Ustimenko was quoted by Tass as saying. He added "we stand for equal, partnership-style cooperation." Earlier this month, Rogozin has raised some consternation by saying that an air leak spotted at the International Space Station was a drill hole that happened during manufacturing or in orbit. He didn't say if he suspected any of the current crew of three Americans, two Russians and a German aboard the station. Rogozin, who until May served as a deputy prime minister in charge of military and space, long had been known for his brash style and anti-Western rhetoric. He has failed to stem a decline of the Russian space industries, which have been dogged by launch failures and other problems. next Image 1 of 2 prev Image 2 of 2 A survivor has been found inside a capsized Tanzanian ferry two days after the disaster on Lake Victoria, an official said Saturday, while coffins arrived for at least 167 victims and counting. An engineer was found near the engine of the upturned vessel, Mwanza regional commissioner John Mongella told reporters. The survivor's condition was not immediately clear. Search efforts continued around the ferry's exposed underside as families of victims prepared to claim the dead. No one knows how many people were on board the ferry, which had a capacity of 101. Officials on Friday said at least 40 people had been rescued. The government's Chief Secretary John Kijazi announced the rising death toll to reporters after President John Magufuli ordered the arrests of those responsible. "This is a great disaster for our nation," Magufuli said, announcing four days of national mourning. The badly overloaded ferry capsized in the final stretch before shore on Thursday afternoon as people returning from a busy market day shifted and prepared to disembark. Horrified fishermen and other witnesses have expressed fear that more than 200 could have died. Pope Francis, the United Nations secretary-general, Russian President Vladimir Putin and a number of African leaders have expressed shock and sorrow. The MV Nyerere, named for the former president who led the East African nation to independence, was traveling between the islands of Ukara and Ukerewe when it sank, according to the government agency in charge of servicing the vessels. Accidents are often reported on the large freshwater lake surrounded by Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda. Some of the deadliest have occurred in Tanzania, where aging passenger ferries often carry hundreds of passengers and well beyond capacity. In 1996, more than 800 people died when passenger and cargo ferry MV Bukoba sank on Lake Victoria. Nearly 200 people died in 2011 when the MV Spice Islander I sank off Tanzania's Indian Ocean coast near Zanzibar. ___ Follow Africa news at https://twitter.com/AP_Africa Political talks 80 years ago : Hitler and Chamberlain in Bad Godesberg Bad Godesberg Exactly 80 years ago, German dictator Adolf Hitler and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain met in the Rhine hotel Dreesen in Bad Godesberg. Teilen Teilen Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Tweeten Tweeten Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Drucken than the rescue of European peace was on the agenda - in which Hitler wasnt even interested, but which the British Prime Minister Chamberlain hoped to connect to his appeasement policies. Neville Chamberlain came to Bad Godesberg against the background of the Sudeten crisis to meet up with Hitler in the Hotel Dreesen - hoping to prevent the imminent world global conflagration at the last second. At the start of the 20th century, Dreesen had turned into a major attraction on the Rhine, which was also noted by Adolf Hitler. The contact with Hitler was initiated by Rudolf He, who used to be in boarding school at the Otto Kuhne school. He and his parents had appreciated the Dreesen as a first class accommodation and made it their favourite refuge at the Rhine. Hitler stayed there more than 70 times in the 1920s and 1930s - but only one visit made international headlines: The meeting on September 22, 1938 with Neville Chamberlain. Swastikas and Union Jacks in the streets Hitler, of course, knew the hotel very well but that wasnt the only reason why Bad Godesberg was chosen: Nobody wanted Chamberlain, who had only flown for the first time in his life just days prior, to haveto endure another long flight to meet Hitler in Berchtesgaden - so they opted for the airport in Cologne, reports hotelier Fritz Georg Dreesen. And so the world suddenly noticed the small city on the Rhine called Bad Godesberg. The world press was there and reported in flowery details of the small city decorated with swastikas and union jack flags. The small Chamberlain delegation, who stayed on the Petersberg, included his First Embassy Secretary and interpreterIvoneKirkpatrick. It was exactly the same diplomat who succeeded Brian Robertson in the role of the British High Commissioner in the federal republic of Germany in 1950 in Bonn. Kirkpatrick continuedhis work after the end of the waras a diplomat, and he was accredited to the British Embassy in Rome amongst other duties. Incidentally, between May 13 and May 15, 1941, he questioned Rudolf He in London, who had parachuted over Scotland, to mediate, on his own initiative, a peace between Great Britain and the national socialist Germany. So exactly the man, who - unknowingly - ensured that Bad Godesberg was briefly a place of world politics in 1938. Thus closed a circle connecting He via Hitler with Chamberlain. The meeting in Bad Godesberg wasa kind of a warm-up for the Munich conference which was about to go down in history. And: It was the eve of the Second World War. WTO arbitrator to review China's request for retaliation against U.S. imports GENEVA, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- A World Trade Organization (WTO) arbitrator will review China's request for imposing an annual trade sanction of seven billion U.S. dollars on U.S. goods, said a Geneva trade official on condition of anonymity Friday. The arbitration was automatically triggered after the United States informed the WTO that it objected to the level of retaliation proposed by China earlier this month. China proposed the retaliation due to the U.S. failure to comply with an earlier WTO ruling. China won the WTO ruling in 2016 in the dispute on certain assessment methods used by the United States during its anti-dumping proceedings. The ruling was later confirmed by an appeal last year, setting Aug. 22 the deadline for the United States to comply with the ruling. Under WTO rules, if the member concerned objects to the level of retaliation, the matter shall be referred to arbitration and the arbitration is to be completed within 60 days after the date of expiry of the reasonable period of time. Egypt's Minister of Emigration and Expatriate Affairs Nabila Makram talks to Al-Ahram Weekly about the ministry's Root Revival initiative and Egyptian-Armenian relations Egypts Minister of State for Emigration and Expatriate Affairs Nabila Makram talks to Nora Koloyan-Keuhnelian about the ministrys Roots Revival initiative, Egyptian-Armenian relations and the upcoming tribute to the community for the Armenian minister of the diasporas visit to Egypt. ---------- How did the ministrys Roots Revival initiative originate? What are its objectives and what has it accomplished so far? The initiative was launched under the patronage of President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi in April 2018 and involved inviting delegations of Greeks and Cypriots who once lived in Egypt to a homecoming to the country. The initiative seeks to benefit from the soft power of the communities that once lived in Egypt, as well as to strengthen relations between the Mediterranean peoples through peoples diplomacy. It also profiles Egypt as a country of refuge that has opened its arms to foreign communities throughout its history. These communities in turn have enriched Egypts cultural diversity. The initiative was also inspired by the desire to celebrate the Greeks and Cypriots who once lived in Egypt side-by-side with their Egyptian brothers and sisters and who were instrumental in generating a commercial, cultural and artistic revival. Members of these communities worked in all fields of economic life: trade and industry, ship-building and guiding ships through the Suez Canal, tourism and agriculture, the press and publication, and so on. Among the many aims the initiative seeks to accomplish is to promote roots tourism and to reaffirm Egypt as the cradle of civilisation and as a harbour of safety and peace that welcomes all visitors and looks forward to knowing them better. The initiative also seeks to profile the places that are infused with the memories of the Greek and Cypriot communities, such as the neighbourhoods where they grew up, lived and went to school, in the hope that one day the members of the visiting delegations will return, bringing their children and grandchildren with them. Another important aim is to bolster friendly relations that will open horizons for cooperation in all economic and commercial fields between Egypt and these countries, thereby attracting more promising investments to Egyptian markets. In the process, the initiative seeks to promote the exchange of knowledge and expertise between Egyptians and members of these communities and to encourage greater familiarity with others cultures, customs and traditions. We are now preparing to launch the Roots Revival initiative among young people from Egypt, Cyprus and Greece as we look forward to a future in which we can benefit from the past and the shared histories that bring us together. What were the results of your meetings with the bishop of the Armenian Orthodox Church, the Armenian ambassador in Cairo and members of the Armenian Patriarchal Council last week? I met with Ashod Mnatsaganian, bishop of the Armenian Orthodox Church in Egypt, in the presence of the Armenian Ambassador to Egypt Armen Melkonian, and president and members of the Armenian Patriarchal Council Vahe Pladian, Armen Mazloumian and Mardig Balayan to discuss the details of our ministrys initiative to celebrate the Armenian community that has lived in Egypt for many decades and the impact it has had on Egyptian life. His Excellency Bishop Mnatsaganian warmly welcomed the idea of celebrating Egyptian citizens of Armenian origin and stressed the friendly and cooperative relations between Egypt and Armenia that are founded on mutual respect and cooperation at all levels. Egyptian-Armenians played an important role in the history of modern Egypt, and they continue to cooperate in important ways to this day in bolstering relations between the two countries. The meeting also addressed ways to format the initiative to celebrate and pay tribute to the Armenian community in a manner commensurate with the relations between the two peoples. The initiative will serve as a cornerstone for efforts to study and discuss ways to strengthen relations between the two countries at the level of their respective communities and peoples. Why is it important for Egypt to celebrate the Armenian community in particular? What has been the impact of this community on Egyptian life in the past and present? It is very important for Egypt to pay tribute to the Armenians in order to focus attention on the contributions this community has made at many levels and to work to promote its role in supporting bilateral relations between the peoples of the two countries, relations which have always been characterised by warmth and the spirit of co-existence. The Armenian community has had very important impacts on political, economic and artistic life in Egypt. Its members have assimilated into the national fabric. What are the details of the cultural evening that will take place next week honouring the Armenian community in Egypt? The activities are being closely coordinated with the church and the embassy. The main event, which will be held on 26 September, will include official addresses by the ministers of emigration of Egypt and the diaspora of Armenia and Bishop Mnatsaganian. An Egyptian-Armenian chorus will perform songs in the Arabic and Armenian languages; two folkloric dance troupes will perform too. A documentary on the historic role of the Armenians in Egypt will also be screened. What is the programme for the upcoming visit by the Armenian Minister of the Diaspora Mkhitar Hayrapetian to Egypt? In his first visit to Egypt, which will take place on 24-28 September, Minister Mkhitar Hayrapetian will visit numerous places in Cairo and Alexandria, most importantly Egypts antiquities and monuments at the Pyramid Plateau and Al-Muizz Street and the Armenian School in Heliopolis. He will meet members of the community in Cairo and Alexandria. While in Alexandria, he will visit the Ras Al-Tin Naval Base and the Armenian Orthodox Church. What avenues (in tourism and investment, for example) should be explored to strengthen relations between Egypt and Armenia? We constantly strive to communicate with different communities around the world, whether Egyptian communities abroad or communities that once lived in Egypt. The aim, of course, is to promote Egypts tourism and to strengthen relations between those communities and Egyptians at home. Such efforts open horizons for investment in both Armenia and Egypt, as is the case with the Roots Revival initiative. Closer economic ties and partnership agreements can provide many opportunities for Armenia and Egypt. These have political dimensions that reflect the importance of the Eastern Mediterranean region, the countries and peoples of which share common interests and face common challenges. These efforts can help in strengthening the existing bonds between the two countries and their peoples, maintaining the geostrategic relations which form a shield for Egyptian national security. * A version of this article appears in print in the 20 September 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Celebrating fraternity Search Keywords: Short link: bohlah at 22-09-2018 07:14 AM (3 years ago) (m) An Edo Man identified as Orobosa, has been accused of stabbing a tenant to death over the use of bathroom, an incident which occurred at Ekiosa Street, in the Ikpoba-Okha Local Government Area of Edo State. An Edo Man identified as Orobosa, has been accused of stabbing a tenant to death over the use of bathroom, an incident which occurred at Ekiosa Street, in the Ikpoba-Okha Local Government Area of Edo State. While the Edo man has been arrested, it was gathered that deceased, Okereke Chinonso, who was stabbed to death over use of the bathroom in the building located around the Second-East Circular Road in Benin, was defending his wife. According to eyewitnesses, the suspect had told the wife of the late tenant, Martha, to take her bath in one of the bathrooms with a faulty door. However when he got confronted by the deceased, he allegedly hit the victim in the head with a wooden object and later stabbed him. Youths in the area who made moves to set the building on fire after the deceased who was taken to the hospital in a wheel barrow was declared dead, were however prevented from carrying out the act by the police. An eyewitness who spoke to Punchs correspondent, said that the suspect was a Libya returnee. But the woman (Martha) decided to use the other bathroom because his (deceased) landlord had yet to fix theirs and, as I speak, they do not even have a toilet, the source added. It was further gathered that the suspect who was also the caretaker, chased her husband into their apartment and stabbed him repeatedly with a knife. Martha explained, He (suspect) said my husband and I should not use the bathroom again. My husband came back and saw that I had not taken my bath and went to ask the caretaker. But the caretaker started shouting that he had been warning my husband. As he was shouting, he used a mortar to hit my husbands head. He brought out a knife and my husband ran away. But he chased my husband to our room and stabbed him in the chest. While the Edo man has been arrested, it was gathered that deceased, Okereke Chinonso, who was stabbed to death over use of the bathroom in the building located around the Second-East Circular Road in Benin, was defending his wife.According to eyewitnesses, the suspect had told the wife of the late tenant, Martha, to take her bath in one of the bathrooms with a faulty door. However when he got confronted by the deceased, he allegedly hit the victim in the head with a wooden object and later stabbed him.Youths in the area who made moves to set the building on fire after the deceased who was taken to the hospital in a wheel barrow was declared dead, were however prevented from carrying out the act by the police.An eyewitness who spoke to Punchs correspondent, said that the suspect was a Libya returnee.the source added.It was further gathered that the suspect who was also the caretaker, chased her husband into their apartment and stabbed him repeatedly with a knife.Martha explained, Post Reply I have been reporting on latest news from Nigeria for almost 10 years now. I report on every possible news area I come across, but always ensure my reports are compiled with dignity and fact to uphold my personal values and duty as a journalist Posted: at 22-09-2018 07:14 AM (3 years ago) | Addicted Hero bohlah at 22-09-2018 07:41 AM (3 years ago) (m) Nollywood actress Adebimpe Oyebade, who was crowned The Best New Actress 2018 in the Yoruba section of the City People Awards ahead of so many big names in the industry, has revealed how she stumbled on acting and why shes got no man at the moment. Nollywood actress Adebimpe Oyebade, who was crowned The Best New Actress 2018 in the Yoruba section of the City People Awards ahead of so many big names in the industry, has revealed how she stumbled on acting and why shes got no man at the moment. Here are excerpts from the interview Adebimpe Oyebade granted Vanguard; You just won Best New Actress 2018 (Yoruba) at the City People Magazine Awards that held last Saturday. Whats the feeling like, in view of having being in the industry for just two years? I feel great. It is by the grace of God and hardwork. I joined the industry in 2016 but started professionally in 2017, after my NYSC in Benin in 2016. I started with modeling when I was in the university but didnt go professional until my service year in Edo State. What spurred your interest in acting? Honestly, acting was never in my plans; as a child I wanted to be an air hostess or a newscaster. Acting happened by chance for me. During my NYSC I got an information about a movie audition, the director was casting for a lead role of a movie. I decided to audition for the role, it was an online audition, so, I sent different videos to the email that was attached to the message that I got. Eventually, I got selected to play the role, the movie was titled Agbede Meji (cross road) by Yomi Fabiyi. I acted alongside Gabriel Afolayan. After the production of the movie I went back to Benin to complete my service year. The movie however got a lot of good reviews and that got me so many acting opportunities. Are you in a relationship? Im very single and not searching. Im focused on my career so I dont need any man. You mean having a man in your life will disrupt your career? I dont mean it that way, if I meet someone today and I like him then why not? What Im trying to say is that Im not desperate to be in a relationship. I feel great. It is by the grace of God and hardwork. I joined the industry in 2016 but started professionally in 2017, after my NYSC in Benin in 2016. I started with modeling when I was in the university but didnt go professional until my service year in Edo State.Honestly, acting was never in my plans; as a child I wanted to be an air hostess or a newscaster. Acting happened by chance for me. During my NYSC I got an information about a movie audition, the director was casting for a lead role of a movie. I decided to audition for the role, it was an online audition, so, I sent different videos to the email that was attached to the message that I got. Eventually, I got selected to play the role, the movie was titled Agbede Meji (cross road) by Yomi Fabiyi. I acted alongside Gabriel Afolayan. After the production of the movie I went back to Benin to complete my service year. The movie however got a lot of good reviews and that got me so many acting opportunities.Im very single and not searching. Im focused on my career so I dont need any man.I dont mean it that way, if I meet someone today and I like him then why not? What Im trying to say is that Im not desperate to be in a relationship. Post Reply I have been reporting on latest news from Nigeria for almost 10 years now. I report on every possible news area I come across, but always ensure my reports are compiled with dignity and fact to uphold my personal values and duty as a journalist Posted: at 22-09-2018 07:41 AM (3 years ago) | Addicted Hero Related Survivor pulled from capsized Tanzanian ferry as death toll reaches 207 Egypt extended on Friday its "deepest condolences" to victims of a sunken ferry in Lake Victoria in Tanzania, a statement by Egyptian foreign ministry read. At least 160 bodies have been retrieved after a ferry sank on Lake Victoria, Tanzania's top police official Simon Sirro said on Friday, and scores more were still feared missing as rescuers searched for survivors on the morning after the disaster, according to Reuters. The foreign ministry stressed that the Egyptian government and people stand with the government and people of brotherly Tanzania in this tragedy. The statement highlighted the strong and historical relations between Egypt and Tanzania, noting Tanzania's leading role at the African level. The ferry MV Nyerere capsized on Thursday afternoon just a few meters from the dock on Ukerewe, the lake's biggest island, which is part of Tanzania; initial estimates suggested that the ferry was carrying more than 300 people, Reuters said. Search Keywords: Short link: Egypt's Court of Cassation rejected a request by lawyer Farid El-Dib on behalf of former president Hosni Mubarak and his sons to reinstate political rights stripped after their conviction in a corruption case in 2015. The "Presidential Palaces Case" saw the Mubaraks receive three-year jail sentences and hefty monetary fines after being charged with embezzling EGP 125 million from public funds for the maintenance of presidential palaces to use for their private residences. The sons were released in 2015 for their time already served in detention, while their father was freed last year. The conviction sees the Mubaraks stripped of their political rights for six years in accordance with article 2'2014 on the Regulation of the Exercise of Political Rights. Egypt has previously accepted requests by convicted individuals from the Mubarak-era, including steel mogul Ahmed Ezz and businessman Hussien Salem. Meanwhile, Alaa and Gamal Mubarak have been making headlines since a court order was issued on 15 September for their detention for accusations related to stock market manipulation and insider trading. An Egyptian court released them on bail on Thursday and set a new hearing for 20 November. Search Keywords: Short link: Haiti - Justice : 74% of detainees in Haiti, have never been tried According to the data of the Directorate of Prison Administration (February 2018), on average 74% of prisoners (82% men and women and 95% of girls) are detained without having been tried, average length of pretrial detention was 3 years in 2016 https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20317-haiti-justice-gustavo-gallon-harshly-judge-the-haitian-prison-system.html However, the Haitian law of May 6, 1927 sets a faster procedure in cases of flagrante delicto in the criminal courts. It is the replica of a Napoleonic law of the nineteenth century in France that aimed to put an end to the recurrent problem of preventive detention in French prisons at the time. However, although the major penal reforms in France in 1958 could put an end to this law, it remains alive in the Haitian legal corpus and corresponds to the need to reduce the lengthy pre-trial detention in Haitian prisons. But in practice, the Tribunal still has many difficulties in implementing it, taking into account the heaviness, the structural limits and the infrastructure of the judicial system in Haiti. Consisting of 5 articles, article 1 of this law stipulates "In the case of flagrante delicto, when the fact carries a correctional sentence, the agents of the Urban or Rural Police will hand the accused immediately to the Judge of Peace with a report indicating the nature, the circumstances of time and place of the offense, as well as the names of the witnesses, evidence or clues they may have collected. The Justice of the Peace shall promptly forward the charge to the Government Commissioner who will question and if necessary will forward it to Tribunal." Its strict application would be a real revolution in our jurisdictions because it allows in one day to go through all stages of the procedure, in correctional matters, from arrest to conviction or release. It would also make it possible to regulate the functioning of the jurisdiction and to put an end to the backlog of cases which constitute the lot of the prolonged preventive detention. If we respected the deadlines set by law, there would not be so many preventive detentions, says the former Substitute to the Commissioner of the Government Me Paul Eronce Villard in office at the United Nations since 2016 (graduated from the National School of the Judiciary in France and laureate of the fourth class of the School of the Judiciary Haitian and member of the Bar from Port-au-Prince). See also : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-23647-haiti-justice-more-than-75-of-prisoners-in-haitian-prisons-have-never-been-tried.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-23416-haiti-justice-the-minister-fortunate-blames-the-government-commissioner-dameus.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-23393-haiti-justice-the-opc-wants-to-tackle-prolonged-pre-trial-detention.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20317-haiti-justice-gustavo-gallon-harshly-judge-the-haitian-prison-system.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-13254-haiti-justice-89-of-the-inmates-of-the-national-penitentiary-in-prolonged-pretrial-detention.html https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-14401-icihaiti-justice-fighting-against-prolonged-preventive-detention.html HL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - Justice : Convened, the DG of the State Lottery stands up to the Commissioner of the Government Marie Margareth Fortune, the Director General of the Haitian State Lottery (LEH) was convoved by Me Ocnam Clame Dameus, the Government Commissioner to the Court of First Instance of PAP, to explain on denunciations and allegations of presumptions of corruption, carried against her by supposed agents of her institution. She describes Dameus's readiness to act as a "political maneuver whose purpose remains unacknowledged" and does not intend to appear at this convening. In a letter dated Friday, September 21, Margareth Fortune explains precisely the legal reasons to the Commissioner of the Government. It reminds him first of all that in the Decree of 23 November 2005 establishing the Organization and Functioning of the Superior Court of Audit and Administrative Disputes, Article 19 stipulating "The decision commits the financial responsibility of the accounting of law or of fact by noting malpractices, embezzlements, thefts or accusations or by reporting acts prejudicial to the Public Treasury or to the financial interests of the Territorial Communities or the Autonomous Organizations takes the title of Debt Stop (Arret de Debet)." More specifically, in the situation which concerns her,sheemphasizes that Article 20.2 stipulates "In the case of Public Accountants de jure or de facto, the Debet Judgment, accompanied by the appropriate documents, shall be communicated without delay to the competent Commissioner of the Government of the Civil Court and / or to the Investigating Judge of the Criminal Court, for the consequences that the case requires." She also reminds and stresses to Commissioner Dameus that Article 90 of the Code of Criminal Investigation provides "Will be punished by the dismissal, all officers of the Judicial Police of the Public Ministry, all judges who provoked, gave or signed a judgment, an order or a mandate, tending to the personal pursuit or accusation, of a great official, without the the authorization of the Head of State, either of a member of the Legislative Body, against the provisions of the Constitution, or who, except in cases of flagrante delicto or public clamor, will have, without such authorization, or against such provisions given or signed the order or warrant to seize, or arrest one or more senior officials, or members of the Legislature." Adding that in this context, "it would be up to the CSC/CA to audit my management and according to its conclusions it would send the file to the criminal justice for the follow-up deemed useful. I therefore consider the intervention of the Office of the Prosecutor at this very untimely and premature stage because it violates all the laws cited." Your eagerness to act is akin to a vast political maneuver whose purpose remains unacknowledged especially since the letter of convocation that was sent to me was on the "headline" of social networks even though it had not yet reached my destination. [...] in accordance with the law, Mr the Commissioner, the Director General of the State Lottery of Haiti demands, on the one hand, of these 'alleged employees' of the LEH their identification and obliges them, on the other hand, to strictly respect the principles of absolute public order provided for by the decree on the organization and functioning of the CSC/CA and the Haitian Penal Code concerning senior officials of the State [...]" See also : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-25533-haiti-justice-the-war-continues-between-the-state-lottery-and-the-antb.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-25520-haiti-justice-the-antb-in-jeremie-loses-in-its-legal-action-against-the-state-lottery.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-25520-haiti-justice-the-antb-in-jeremie-loses-in-its-legal-action-against-the-state-lottery.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-25278-haiti-justice-illegal-games-arrests-of-haitians-and-dominicans-in-delmas-65.html https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-24650-icihaiti-security-margareth-fortune-of-the-leh-threatened-with-death-will-not-give-up.html https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-23378-icihaiti-notice-illegal-use-of-the-logo-of-the-national-lottery-of-haiti.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-23279-haiti-economy-lottery-of-the-haitian-state-between-pressures-and-open-conflict.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-18149-haiti-social-the-borlettes-refuse-to-respect-the-rules-of-the-game.html HL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - News : Zapping... Tourism : Restore confidence... In order to restore the image of Haiti, a Haitian delegation led by Minister Stephenson will participate in the 40th IFTM Top Resa exhibition at the Porte de Veraille (Paris, France) which will take place from 25 to 28 September 2018. Restore confidence, the opening and support of investors in the sector will be the content of the message that will be delivered at this international show, a must-attend event for tourism professionals. The deficit is approaching the 20 billion gourdes The budget deficit, which was nearly 10 billion gourdes as of June 30, 2018 (9,666,690,000) https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-25053-haiti-economy-mixed-economic-outlook-according-to-the-brh.html is now approaching 20 billion Gourdes... Ceant in DR next month Dominican Chancellor Miguel Vargas Maldonado announced that his Government will receive Prime Minister Jean-Henry Ceant next October. Also in the context of the United Nations Assembly to be held in New York next week, he will meet with his Haitian counterpart the new Chancellor Edmond Bocchit. Video : Provisional measures against 5 police The General Inspectorate of the National Police of Haiti (IGPNH) informs that following the investigation conducted on the publication on the internet of a video of a couple in their car, undermining modesty, filmed by police who conducted a humiliating interrogation of the two lovers, protective measures were taken Friday morning against 5 police officers suspected of involvement. Omnium Pan-Pacific : Naomi Osaka in the semifinals Haitian-Japanese Naomi Osaka (20 years old), the US Open champion who defeated Serena Williams https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-25476-haiti-flash-the-haitiano-japanese-naomi-osaka-wins-the-us-open-against-serena-william.html qualified in the semifinal of the Pan Pacific Open beating Barbora Strycova 6-3, 6-4. Congratulations from the American ambassador On Friday, US Ambassador to Haiti Michele Sison met separately with the new Prime Minister Jean-Henry Ceant and Bocchit Edmond, the new Minister of Foreign Affairs of Haiti and first career diplomat of Haiti, to present them her congratulations and reaffirm the commitment of the United States to continue its fruitful partnership with the Haitian people and the new Government. HL/ HaitiLibre Egyptian defence minister Lietuenant General Mohamed Zaki met on Saturday in Cairo with his Indian counterpart Nirmala Sitharaman, where the duo discussed military cooperation between the armed forces of both countries, the Egyptian army spokesman said. Zaki expressed his appreciation for Sitharamans visit, praising the level of coordination in military and security consultations between the two countries, spokesman Tamer El-Refaie in an official statement. He expressed his hope that the upcoming period "witnesses more cooperation and joint integration, as well as new aspects of cooperation." The Indian defence minister expressed her full appreciation to the government and people of Egypt, praising Egypts role in "consolidating the pillars of security in the Middle East". She also stressed on her countrys keenness on boosting relations with Egypt, especially in the military sphere, during the meeting attended by leaders of the armed forces and the Indian envoy in Cairo. Search Keywords: Short link: Cairo said on Saturday it hopes a meeting between President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and US counterpart Donald Trump would mark a new level of relations to boost "Egypt's political and security capabilities." In statements reported by state run MENA news agency, Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said on the sidelines of El-Sisi's visit to New York to attend the 73rd United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) that the meeting with Trump is of importance to strategic relations between both countries. This will be the first meeting between both leaders since Sisi won a second term unopposed in Egyptian presidential elections earlier this year. The last meeting between Sisi and Trump, who often show detectable signs of friendship during their talks, took place in September 2017, when the Egyptian leader was attending the 72nd session of the UNGA. Foreign minister Shoukry told journalists in New York that the resumption of joint military exercise with the US, "Bright Star 2018", was a proof of continued military cooperation between the two countries. He pointed out that Trump had recently agreed to release $195 in military aid which was withheld in 2016, adding that relations were moving on the right track. The US has been providing Egypt with foreign aid, including military assistance, since Cairo's 1979 peace deal with Israel. Each year, Egypt receives approximately $1.3 billion in US military aid, as well as an annual economic assistance package, which amounted to $150 million in 2016, according to the website of Egypt's foreign ministry. Shoukry also said that Egypt is currently in discussions with the US to work on the resumption of peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis, which have been stalled since 2014. "Egypt is also in talks with both the Palestinian and Israeli sides on the establishment of a Palestinian State with East Jerusalem as its capital," he added. Shoukry also spoke about the exchange of threats between US and Iran, saying that it was a matter to be dealt with only by the two concerned countries. "Egypt views this matter in light of the regional status and the importance of preserving national Arab security," he commented. El-Sisi, who left to New York on Friday, is set to deliver a statement to the UNGA next week, which will address Egypt's vision to enhance the role of the United Nations, according to the Egyptian Presidency. The Egyptian President will urge the world community to contain all armed conflicts, combat terrorism, push for denuclearization and tackle economic concerns. He is also set to meet with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, as well as other world leaders. Search Keywords: Short link: 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. 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. Iran will dominate the agenda of the 73rd Session of the UN General Assembly in New York Iran and the United States will perhaps draw the most attention at the 73rd Session of the UN General Assembly meetings that open in New York next week out of the 200 or so countries that plan to attend the debates. The endless diplomatic struggle between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the US, regardless of who is the president of the US or who is president of Iran, remains a major challenge for world diplomacy. This struggle has affected the lives of ordinary Iranians and the people of Iraq and Syria. Now the struggle is also affecting people in India, China and North Korea. US President Donald Trump decided to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal earlier this year, and now a new issue has alarmed the international community since Trump wants to implement a new round of sanctions on Irans oil industry, with the intention of implementing zero exports from Tehran. Major importers of Iranian oil such as India, North Korea and China have decreased the level of their imports ahead of 4 November, the date on which Trump has decided to implement the oil sanctions. Fears are rising of retaliation by the Islamic Republic, since it has a history of indirect violence against the US and its allies in the region. Last week the US consulate in Basra and its embassy in Baghdad suffered rocket attacks by unknown people that the US identified as militias backed by the regime in Tehran. Such attacks could be repeated against other foreign entities and diplomatic representatives, as Iranian hardliners have previously attacked UK and Saudi embassies and violated international norms. Such threats to other nations because Iran cannot settle its issues with the United States have become a real concern for western countries. The EU is not a major importer of Iranian oil, but it now seems to be reviewing the option of replacing Asian buyers such as India and North Korea to demonstrate its support for the Iran nuclear deal despite the US exit. The Europeans still believe the nuclear deal is the best option to negotiate with Tehran on regional issues. Not only are importers today subjected to Irans anger, but other exporters of oil may also not feel safe when Irans president and Iranian Revolutionary Guard commanders have threatened to attack Saudi and UAE oil-tankers in the Bab Al-Mandeb Strait if the sanctions are implemented against Iran. The UN General Assembly will have much to concentrate on, and there will likely be much lobbying inside the UN Secretariat building in New York for more private meetings between political leaders. The opening day of the general debate is indirectly dedicated to Iran, and on 26 September Iran will be in the spot light at a special session of the Security Council chaired by Trump. On the first day, the US president and the Iranian president are both scheduled to address the General Assembly, one in the morning and the other in the afternoon. Trump will speak in the morning, and Hassan Rouhani will reply later in the day. Perhaps Irans major concern in sending a high-profile delegation to New York is to confront Trumps attempt to emphasise the threats the Islamic Republic is bringing to global security by using its militia and proxy war to destabilise the Middle East region. Trump is likely to gain support among the international community, and Iran will find it difficult to justify its actions. Irans president may decide to use the session as a last chance to lobby against the oil sanctions. It will be interesting to watch Trump attack the Iranian regime at the Security Council while the world is listening. * A version of this article appears in print in the 20 September 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Iranian agenda in New York Search Keywords: Short link: Fall Foliage Leaf Hunt Clues for 2018 NORTH ADAMS, Mass. The annual Fall Foliage Leaf hunt, a traditional popular feature of Fall Foliage Festival Week, including three sets of GPS coordinates for geocaching fans, starts Saturday, Sept. 22. This year the committee has revealed that there will be 20 colorful leaves hidden in North Adams, Adams, Cheshire, Clarksburg, Florida and Williamstown. When a leaf is found, it should be brought to Pedrin's Dairy Bar on Curran Highway during normal operating hours to claim a prize. One prize per household please. Prizes are generously donated by area merchants including Pedrin's, Boston Sea Foods, Freight Yard Pub, Chee's, Big Y, North Adams Museum of History and Science, North Adams MoviePlex 8, Walmart and Wild Oats. A second set of clues will be announced in the event of unclaimed leaves. The committee has repeated last year's successful new procedure whereby one plastic bag with a yellow or orange leaf should be removed and brought in and another with a green leaf should be left at the site so that subsequent hunters will know they correctly solved the clue but someone already claimed the prize-winning leaf. A complete list of winners, locations and sponsors will be released in October. All leaves should be returned by Oct. 12. As always, the leaf committee has included an invisible leaf hunt for homebound residents. Interested persons are asked to mail a postcard (or card in an envelope) with the number of the clue and the answer/s with their name, address and phone number, to the Mayor's Office of Tourism, City Hall, 10 Main St., North Adams MA 01247. Only mailed entries will be accepted. In the event of a tie, the earliest postmark will determine the winner. The first set of clues are: 1. Former K9# 2. Current K9# 3. Longest vehicles, shortest exhibition 4. Dr. Malnati's bailiwick 5. LinkedIn for man's best friend? 6. Mother Town Cares 7. 1878 Breakaway Cares 8. Woof and Meow 9. Mani-pedi not for the birds 10. N42.69516, W73.03485 11. N42.71765, W73.08460 12. N42.56117, W73.16592 13. Pets of the Pioneers 14. Northeast Asian peaceful spot 15. Menu Expansion Near Grazie's 16. More modern than its 1745 neighbor 17. Everyone's First Piano Tune 18. From Southeast Asian plot to Cerulean Drupe 19. Not the Confederate Family 20. Not Jack's Invisible Leaf Hunt Clues Please Fill in the Blanks 1. Back in the 1950s to see Asta and Lassie in the Village Beautiful you went to _____________, in the Mother Town to ________________ or ________________, in the Tunnel City to ________________, ________________ or ________________. 2. Black and white spotted mascots often ride atop their vehicles. They are in Adams the ____________, in North Adams the ___________________________ and in Williamstown the ______________________. 3. In 1955 we had few Chinese restaurants to celebrate the Year of the Dog but we did have a Chinese business on Historic Eagle Street ___________________________________ and a famous Chinese American horticulturist who had lived in North Adams almost a century before:____________________. Joe Thompson, Linda Tyer, Tim Geller, and Tim Burke serve on a housing issues panel moderated by state Sen. Adam Hinds at the Berkshire Athenaeum on Thursday. Housing, Economy Discussed In First Housing Summit Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Jay Ash was the keynote speaker. PITTSFIELD, Mass. Housing on upper floors of downtown buildings was forbidden for years. Even if a developer wanted to build apartments or condominiums, it couldn't. But the city changed that a handful of years ago when it created a zoning overlay district to broaden the scope of what could be developed. And soon the investment followed. The Howard Block and the Onota Building have been converted to market-rate housing. The former Notre Dame School and the numerous other smaller buildings on North Street were also turned into market-rate housing. Soon the Wright Building will go that way, too. There is a demand for market-rate housing in Pittsfield and developers are willing to fill that need. For Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Jay Ash, that's the key element to any downtown. He said market-rate housing brings in residents with more disposable income. That leads to more restaurants opening in the downtown. The restaurants lead to other types of retail and cultural offerings. "If I had one wish for cities, it would be market-rate housing in the downtown," Ash said in giving an address at the first annual Berkshire Realtors summit. Ash's office provides incentives for private developers to do so. It manages the popular MassWorks infrastructure grant and the Housing Development Incentive Program used for Howard and Onota buildings aimed to encourage developers renovating historic and aging downtown buildings. Mayor Linda Tyer is taking that concept and expanding it. "We have in Pittsfield been really successful in nurturing market rate housing in downtown," Tyer said, later adding, "We're going to take that same strategy and go around the corner and create housing opportunities on Tyler Street where they might not currently exist. Or other commercial endeavors that might not currently exist. Doing an overlay district in zoning areas is an important tool community can use." Tyler Street is already designated by the state as a Transformative Development Initiative area, a program overseen by Ash's office. Ash announced yet another $30,000 worth of funding for the city, as part of $140,000 throughout the state, to continue a storefront improvement enhancement program, helping owners offset the cost of improving the storefronts. Ash recognizes that the Berkshires and Massachusetts do have some "hurdles" when it comes to economic and housing development. Housing-wise, Ash renewed his commitment to helping develop an array of housing options to meet the needs of the residents. That will help turn the corner for such things as the dwindling population of the Berkshires. "The first thing I see is a great quality of life. The recreation, the culture, the restaurants are really spectacular," Ash said of the Berkshires. Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art Director Joseph Thompson said there have been some promising trends in North Adams' downtown. He has been following property sales through his role on the credit committee at MountainOne Bank and has watched both the number of sales and how they compare to assessed value. "Forever in North Adams, there were not a lot of sales transactions and when there were, they tended to be at a discounted rate compared to the assessed value. That's changed," he said. When Sprague Electric was gone and it was a brownfield site, Thompson said the trend was that housing prices increased as one moved farther from the city's core. That's reversed now and prices are rising near the downtown. He added that the total number of sales and the percentage of those at or above assessed value has been increasing. "Market-rate housing in the downtown core is one of the chief ways to drive economic value," Thompson said. For North Adams, Mass MoCA served as an engine to bring tourists to the city. But for a long time, the downtown hadn't benefited as much as Thompson and others had anticipated. In the last few years, commercial activity has increased with nearly all of MoCA's commercial space filled when it had been around 50 to 60 filled percent for years. As visitor attendance has risen, Thompson said more and more people start seeing the quality of life and consider living here. "The more people enjoying these institutions from afar are realizing the quality of life we have here," he said. To really bolster the economics in North Adams, Thompson said there is "still a lot of day tripping." He said if the county could find ways to extend a visitor's time to an overnight stay, the economic impact would increase by six times. The economic development and the housing pieces are closely tied together when the economy does well, the housing market does well, too. That is why real estate agents have been active in developing and pushing for state and community policies. Berkshire County Board of Realtors Government Affairs Chairman Billy Keane said Realtors are pushing for such things as the Berkshire Flyer train route to increase tourism from New York City, the Housing Choice Initiative to build more housing, and legislation surrounding short-term rentals like AirBnB. State Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier said she hadn't really thought about that so much before taking office. But once she did she "found that the Realtors are true community partners." State Rep. John Barrett III said it was buy-in from community members such as real estate agents that helped Mass MoCA. "We really are on the cusp of a lot of great things happening here," Barrett said. In Pittsfield, Mill Town Capital has taken on an investor role aimed to improve the city. Recently it has delved into the real estate market. Director Tim Burke said he still believes there is a large demand for even more market-rate housing. Beyond that, the housing stock itself needs better quality. "Pittsfield needs more quality housing stock throughout the city," Burke said. The 90-year-old Onota Building underwent a $9 million rehab to create 25 market-rate apartments in downtown Pittsfield. Along with the Howard Building, it was made possible in part by the state's Housing Development Incentive Program. Tyer will soon be launching a new program specifically eyed for that. She said she will soon be announcing the details of an "At Home in Pittsfield" program aimed to help homeowners invest in their properties and avoid homes falling into disrepair. Burke also thinks there should be a program to help usher in new builds, which he hasn't seen a lot of in Pittsfield. Tim Geller, executive director of the Community Development Corp. of South Berkshire, said there is also still a gap between home affordability and incomes. In South County, he said the larger towns have a $55,000 median income while the median home sales are just under $300,000. "You have this extreme gap between what more than half of the people are making and what more than half of the people can afford," he said. His organization has focused on rental housing more recently to provide that option. He also contends the other's point about market-rate housing being the driver of a downtown economy. He said to qualify for the affordable housing options the CDC develops, a family making $56,000 a year or less qualifies. "Half of the people walking down the street in Great Barrington will qualify for the housing," he said. "The people that qualify for the housing we build are also drivers of that economy." There is work to do on a number of fronts to improve the economy and in turn the housing market. But the trends are going the right way. According to Berkshire Realtors, sales volume is up by 5 percent, multi-family unit sales are up 12 percent, condominium sales are up 71 percent, land sales are up 57 percent, and commercial sales are up 116 percent. Since the low point in 2008, the Berkshires has seen fairly consistent increases in the number of sales as well. The 878 homes sales in just the first six months of 2018 exceeded the highest point in the same timeframe in more than 20 years the peak being in 2004 when 873 were sold in the first six months. iciHaiti - Politics : 1.8 billion gourdes for the next general census From 18 to 20 September 2018, at the Montana Hotel, the Haitian Institute of Statistics and Informatics (IHSI) conducted an evaluation workshop of the pilot phase of the census carried out from June 10 to August 10, 2018, aimed at to identify the various problems that could affect the 5th General Population and Housing Census (RGPH) scheduled for March and April 2019 and to make the necessary corrections and improvements. Remember that the United Nations, every 10 years, recommends to each country to carry out a general census. In Haiti, the last general census was held in 2003 and for the past 15 years, these statistics no longer reflect the reality of today. For this 5th Census, approximately 15,000 enumerators and 3,000 supervisors will be deployed across the country. This pilot phase whose the cost of which is 16 million Gourdes, was carried out in 4 departments: West, Artibonite, Nortwest and Grand'Anse and in 8 communes (2 per departement), divided into 120 Distributed Enumeration Sections (CSDs). 120 trained enumerators equipped with digital tablets, 12 supervisors, 12 Technological Support, Information and Communication Technicians (ASTIC), 16 trainers, 4 auditors, 8 communal officials and 8 departmental managers took part in this pilot phase. Recall that the budget of this 5th RGPH, according to officials, is about 1 billion 788 million gourdes financed by the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Government of Canada and the Haitian state. The fund will be managed by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) See also : https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-20971-haiti-politics-5th-general-population-census-haiti-signs-with-un.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-24762-haiti-politic-pilot-phase-of-the-5th-general-census.html IH/ iciHaiti Senator Ben Bruce has reacted to a statement by Minister of Health, Prof Isaac Adewole that not all media students should become specialists. The Health minister was asked what was doing to do to resolve the issue of doctors have problem getting into residency programmes. In answering the question, Minister of Health responded saying We cant all be specialists. Some will be farmers See video https://twitter.com/TheVicmoss/status/1043136743338373122?s=19 Ben Bruce writing via twitter said President Muhammadu Buhari should have fired the minister over such statement. According to the lawmaker, theres enough shortage of doctors in the country and such statement is highly unwelcome. He noted that Nigeria needs more doctors and if the health minister is interested in the agricultural ministry, he should do well to tell his boss. He wrote: With the chronic shortage of doctors in Nigeria, why would the minister of health say that not all medical students should graduate and be doctors? He even suggested that some should be farmers. If he wants the agric ministry, he should tell his boss. We desperately need doctors! Ben Murray-Bruce (@benmurraybruce) September 22, 2018 With excitement, NOMINATIONS have officially commenced for The Entrepreneur Africa Awards, 2018 (TEAM Africa Awards). This Award, founded in 2017 by The Entrepreneur Africa Magazine (TEAM), is an annual project/event created to celebrate and reward African businesses and the people behind them. It recognizes and rewards spirit of enterprise, innovation, corporate excellence, hardwork, ground-breaking, and overall impact in the field of entrepreneurship, corporate circle, and philanthropy, by Africans, young or older. Some of the categories also come with amazing prizes. Examples below: Young Entrepreneur of The Year Award: the winner of this category also receives N200,000 business grant. Tech Startup Of The Year Award: winner of this category also receives solar power package (worth N300,000, courtesy of Arnergy solar Ltd) Top 10 Startups of The Year Awards: each of the 10 winners of this category goes home with material gifts worth N100,000 each. Visit www.theentrepreneurafrica.com/awards to see which of the 27 categories you or your business fits into, or someone/company you know, big or small, fits into. And Then NOMINATE! Nomination closes on October 12, 2018. Leadership A faction of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Imo Sate, under the auspices of Imo All Progressive Congress Stakeholders Forum, opposed to Governor Rochas Okorochas son in- laws governorship ambition, has denied speculation that it has collapsed its structure into the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA). Daily Trust The National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, says President Muhammadu Buhari, party leadership and governors are committed to the conduct of free, fair and credible primaries to elect candidates across the country. The Nation NO fewer than 1,246,915 voters are expected to troop to the polling booths in Osun State today to elect the successor of the incumbent governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola. The votes will be shared among 48 candidates of different parties standing for the election. Of the 48 candidates, however, only five are regarded as major contenders. Tribune THE Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation has announced the liquidation of Skye. The Authority The Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) has accused the ruling All Progressives Congress(APC) of bribing voters with the sum of N20,000. According to the opposition party, the ruling partys agents are currently sharing money at ward8, unit3 Ota Efun in Olorunda local government. The PP alleged that APC is sharing N20,000 each to voters and urged the Nigerian police and the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) to urgently take note. It wrote via twitter thus: The number of people killed in a shooting attack on a military parade in southwestern Iran on Saturday has risen to 24, the official state news agency IRNA said. "There are a number of non-military victims, including women and children who had come to watch the parade," the agency quoted an unnamed official source as saying. A video distributed to Iranian media showed soldiers crawling on the ground as gunfire blazed in their direction. One soldier picked up a gun and got to his feet as women and children fled for their lives. State television said the assault, which wounded more than 60 people, targeted a stand where Iranian officials had gathered to watch an annual event marking the start of the Islamic Republic's 1980-88 war with Iraq. A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards official vowed retaliation for the gun attack that killed at least 24 people at a military parade on Saturday, the official news agency IRNA reported. "Enemies should not imagine that they can gain dignity with this sinister move. The Iranian people and the armed forces will respond to this," Yahya Rahim Safavi, a senior Revolutionary Guards official, was quoted by IRNA as saying. "Shooting began by several gunmen from behind the stand during the parade. There are several killed and injured," a correspondent told state television. Four militants carried out the attack and two of them were killed, according to ISNA. The semi-official news agency Mehr said further shooting broke out as some of the attackers who managed to escape were being chased. An anti-government Arab group, the Ahvaz National Resistance, is responsible for Saturday's attack on a military parade in Iran's southwestern city of Ahvaz, a spokesperson told Reuters. Yaghub Hur Totsari, spokesman for one of the two groups that identify themselves as the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz, said the Ahvaz National Resistance, an umbrella organization of all armed movements, was behind the attack but did not specify which group. Totsari identified one of the assailants by the initials A.M., without elaborating. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) have been the sword and shield of Shia clerical rule since Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution. The Guards also play a major role in Iran's regional interests in countries such as Iraq, Syria and Yemen. Iran was holding similar parades in several cities including the capital Tehran and the port of Bandar Abbas on the Gulf. Attacks on the military are rare in Iran. Last year, in the first deadly attack claimed by Islamic State group in Tehran, 18 people were killed at the parliament and mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder and first leader of the Islamic Republic. Search Keywords: Short link: The police have apprehended two (2) suspected vote buyers in the on-going Osun state governorship election. The police revealed that the suspects were arrested by a team of police personnel on election duty at Iwo LGA of OSUN State and the sum of N604,000 recovered from their possession. Its is unknown which party the men were allegedly working for, before nemesis caught up with them. However according to police, investigation is being intensified. ZIGZAG, Ore. UPDATE: While "all available evidence" suggests that a cougar killed by Fish and Wildlife officers on September 14 was the one responsible for Diana Bober's death, forensic testing of the body proved inconclusive. It is highly probable that the cougar that killed Diana is the one that we killed last week, said Derek Broman, ODFW carnivore coordinator. The cougar that trackers killed was seen on a trail camera set at the precise site where Bober's body was found, according to ODFW. However, ODFW says that contamination of the evidence on Bober's body may have made it impossible for the Ashland forensic lab to extract "relevant DNA" evidence collected from the scene to use for a comparison the cougar killed on Friday. The evidence is too contaminated for us to ever be able to tie it to an individual cougar, said Ken Goddard, Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Forensics Lab. We could not get the DNA evidence we had hoped to obtain in this case, said Broman. However, all the evidence available shows we have the right cougar. Trackers and a system of trail cameras set to watch a roughly 78-square mile area around where Bober's body was found only detected one cougar in the space of a week the one that was killed Friday, bagged, and sent to Ashland for testing. Because of this, ODFW believed that they likely had found the cougar responsible for Bober's death, but said that they could not rule out the possibility that another cougar was responsible. Our highest priority was to capture the cougar responsible for the attack to protect public safety, said Broman. We continued to monitor the area for other cougars to increase the likelihood that we caught the right one while evidence was being examined. The slain cougar was a 64.5-pound female, estimated to be several years old. By that stage in a female cougar's life, ODFW says, a "home range" of roughly 20-30 miles has been established. Male cougars have a larger range of 50-150 miles. Analysis of the cougar's exact age could take another month. It is impossible to determine why the cougar attacked Diana. There is no sign that it was sick or unhealthy and a rabies test was negative, continued Broman. Wildlife behavior is unpredictable but cougar attacks are extremely rare throughout the Western U.S. where cougars are found. We hope the ending of these operations brings some closure for Dianas family, continued Broman. All of us extend our deepest sympathies to the Bober family. (Updated 9/21/18 at 3 p.m.) INITIAL REPORT: Little more than a week after Oregon Fish and Wildlife officers began their hunt for the cougar believed responsible for an Oregon hiker's death near Mount Hood, the agency says that they are calling off the search. "ODFW is ending cougar capture operations in the Zigzag area," the agency said in a brief statement on Friday. "Only one cougar was detected and killed (on Sept. 14). No other cougars have been detected over a week of trail camera monitoring." The cougar that trackers killed on September 14, a female, was promptly sent to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Forensics Lab in Ashland for analysis and comparison to DNA taken from the body of 55-year-old hiker Diana Bober. ODFW says that they they will be releasing new information on the case at 3 p.m. on Friday, while holding a press conference. They did not specify whether this release would include conclusions from the Ashland lab. This is a developing story, and NewsWatch 12 will post updates to this article as new information becomes available. PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - A judge has ruled that TriMet transit police and fare enforcement officers violated Oregon's constitution by stopping, citing and arresting a school board member during a fare evasion sting. OregonLive reports a Multnomah County Circuit Court judge on Friday ruled that Ana del Rocio was "stopped and seized without individualized suspicion" March 13 at a MAX station. Del Rocio, whose legal name is Rosa Valderrama, was arrested and charged with evading fare and giving false information to a police officer. Judge John Wittmayer's opinion appears to throw TriMet's fare-enforcement strategy, particularly stings where all passengers are indiscriminately stopped and asked for proof of fare, into doubt. ACLU of Oregon's legal director Mat dos Santos predicted the ruling would have wide-spread implications. The Marion County District Attorney's Office, which tried the case, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. (Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.) KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. A series three of raids on marijuana grow sites in Klamath County yielded more than 550 illegal plants and several arrests all done in the same day, according to the Klamath County Sheriff's Office (KCSO). The first investigation began on Thursday in the 17000-block of Patricia Lane north of Merrill. Deputies arrested 35-year-old Jared Burger and 37-year-old Audrey Roe after finding 530 plants and no medical marijuana cards or legal permits to grow recreationally associated with the house. Leaving the legal allotment of four plants, KCSO says that it took 526 plants to destroy, and charged Burger and Roe with Manufacturing a Controlled Substance and Possession of a Controlled Substance both for marijuana. They were cited to appear in court on October 22. On the same day, another investigation found an illegal grow operation in the same area. Deputies seized 12 more plants, leaving the house with the number of plants allowed under the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program. KCSO says that the address, names, and charges related to this second site will not be released "pending further investigation." Law enforcement launched a third investigation on Thursday in the 7700-block of Donegal Avenue in Klamath Falls seizing 15 plants and leaving the allotted four. In this case, KCSO again said that the names and charges at this location will not be released until further investigation has been completed. In total, KCSO seized and destroyed 553 illegal marijuana plants. After a similar series of busts in August, Sheriff Chris Kaber and his office expressed mounting frustration with the rampant black market marijuana trade, declaring that marijuana cultivators need to "grow legal or get out." In this week's statement, despite the size of the busts, Kaber's tone was more reserved: The Klamath County Sheriffs Office wishes everyone to know there are legal options available for them to grow marijuana and if they would just do that they would not be subject to investigation, criminal charges, and seizure of their crops," said Kaber in a statement. "Rampant abuse of the legal system allowing for marijuana use and production is the norm and we will continue to root out illegal growers using funds made available through a grant from the State of Oregon. Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Friday the leaders of her coalition parties would try to find a solution this weekend to a row over Germany's scandal-tainted spymaster, seeking to defuse a problem that has plunged the government into crisis. Spy chief Hans-Georg Maassen had faced accusations of harbouring far-right views after he questioned the authenticity of video footage showing radicals hounding migrants in the eastern city of Chemnitz. A deal was struck on Tuesday to move him into a better paid job at the interior ministry. But that unpopular compromise came unstuck earlier on Friday when the leader of Merkel's junior coalition partner, the Social Democrats, said it was a mistake. Merkel said she had agreed with Social Democrat leader Andrea Nahles (SPD), and with Horst Seehofer - leader of the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) - to review the deal, which pushed their six-month-old coalition close to collapse. "We have agreed to reappraise the situation. I regard that as right and necessary," Merkel told reporters, adding: "Given the many foreign and domestic challenges, we need full concentration on government action." "We want to reach a joint, sustainable solution and to do so over the weekend," she added in a short statement. The SPD had wanted Maassen removed. But Seehofer stood behind him. Nahles earlier said the "overwhelmingly negative reactions from citizens" to the compromise showed it was a mistake. A poll for the Funke media group earlier shown 72 percent of voters had less confidence in the government after the deal. In a letter to Merkel and Seehofer, the SPD leader added that her party wanted to continue working in the coalition but that there needed to be trust in the alliance. FAR-RIGHT RISE The row over Maassen has exposed painful faultlines in German politics and wider society, where any espousal of far-right views has been anathema since the Nazi era. Those inhibitions are less marked in the country's eastern regions, which were subject to political extremism as a satellite of the USSR until unification in 1990. A poll published earlier on Friday taken partly before and partly after Maassen's comments showed that support for Merkel's conservative bloc has slumped to a new low, and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) would be the second-biggest party if an election were held right away. The ARD DeutschlandTrend survey put support for Merkel's conservative alliance - her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and their Bavarian sister party, the CSU - at 28 percent, down one point from Sept. 6 and at a record low. The anti-immigration AfD gained two points to a record high of 18 percent, with the SPD slipping to 17 percent. The Maassen scandal comes only two months after Merkel closed a painful row with her Bavarian CSU allies on immigration - an issue that goes back to her 2015 decision to open Germany's borders to refugees fleeing war in the Middle East. The grand coalition only took office in March, nearly six months after last year's election, as there was effectively no other viable governing option following the collapse of talks between Merkel's conservatives and two smaller parties. Search Keywords: Short link: EUGENE, Ore. -- Artists in Eugene will be painting murals downtown on storm drains this weekend to serve as a reminder about protecting local waterways and wildlife. The citys first UpStream Art Project is based on a similar Springfield project and will consist of four murals. Officials said the project will help show that storm drains are connected to the river and the importance of minimizing our impact by returning clean water to the rivers. Stormwater flows untreated from our streets to those waterways. Asante Riverwind, one of the artists chosen to participate, said hes hoping it can call attention to something many people often forget about. I hope at one point it reminds them of their connection and their importance as part of the whole weave of life because everyone has something to contribute, Riverwind said. Riverwind said its important that everyone does their part to preserve our waterways. The other artists are Kelle DeForest, Katherine Wing and Megan Wyma. The four were chosen following a call to artists to submit their vision of a clean rivers message, with the theme of Clean Rivers Start Here. Riverwind, DeForest, Wing and Wyma began painting Friday morning and will wrap up early Saturday afternoon. The paintings will be located in the downtown area at the following locations: Willamette Street near East 10th Avenue Willamette Street near West 7th Avenue Oak Street near West 7th Avenue West 8th Avenue near East Park Street The four locations will be cordoned off to provide a safe work space but will be visible to those curious about the project. SPRINGFIELD, Ore. -- Springfield police are asking why it took them two days to learn about the teen who escaped from the John Serbu Youth Detention Center earlier this month. Agencies sometimes have a breakdown in communication. Certainly Springfield has had that problem as well, said Lieutenant Scott McKee with the Springfield Police Department. In this case, the breakdown resulted in two days where this kid was on the lam and nobody was really looking for him. RELATED: Escaped teen caught by Springfield police The teen escaped from center on Sept. 9. McKee said 11 days later, police were able to catch the 15-year-old after they found him at a homeless camp near 28th Street and Commercial Avenue. In newly-obtained documents, staff reported the escape the day it happened, saying the teen stole an ID badge from a staff member, climbed up on the roof and jumped off. MORE: Teen escapes from Lane County Juvenile Justice Center While the Oregon Youth Authority issued a warrant for the teen's arrest on the same day, a spokeswoman with the Eugene Police Department said a formal police report was not filed until two days later. That police report was shared with Springfield police. Under the perfect circumstances, law enforcement collaborates to try to locate somebody whether they are juvenile or an adult when they escape from custody, McKee said. Jim Davis, who lives near where the teen was found, said hes wondering why residents werent told to be on the lookout. I grew up around this area, and I know if you get to know the people and hang out with the right group, you can hide in plain sight, Davis said. A spokesman for the Oregon Youth Authority said the teen has been transported to a youth correction facility in Woodburn and is facing additional charges for the escape. A Lane County spokesman said staff at Serbu are doing an internal review to find out what went wrong and make sure it doesn't happen again. British foreign minister Jeremy Hunt said on Saturday that the European Union should end its blanket refusals of British proposals in Brexit talks, as any belief that Britain would capitulate was misplaced. Hunt, who voted 'remain' in the 2016 referendum on EU membership, said that people in Britain were increasingly content to leave the bloc without a deal, a day after Prime Minister Theresa May said talks had hit an impasse and demanded new proposals and respect from EU leaders. "If the EU's view is that just by saying no to every proposal made by the United Kingdom, we will eventually capitulate and end up either with a Norway option or indeed staying in the EU, if that is there view then they've profoundly misjudged he British people," Hunt told BBC radio. "We may be polite, but we have a bottom line. And so they need to engage with us now in seriousness." Search Keywords: Short link: ROCHESTER, Minn. A man who claimed he was sleepwalking during a robbery has decided to plead guilty. Anthony Terrell Hemphill, 22 of Rochester, entered a guilty plea Friday to simple robbery, downgraded from a charge of 1st degree aggravated robbery. Rochester police say he robbed a man outside a downtown bar on August 18, sucker punching him and holding a gun on the victim. Officers say Hemphill was found with the victims debit card in his possession. Though he was seen on video surveillance, Hemphill initially said he wasnt downtown and must have been sleepwalking. His sentencing is scheduled for November 19. CHARLES CITY, Iowa A jury finds a Floyd County man guilty of 3rd degree sex abuse. Michael Joseph Debettignies, 51 of Charles City, was accused on July 12, 2017, of sexually abusing a 20-year-old female on April 6, 2012. He pleaded not guilty and his trial began on Tuesday. It concluded Wednesday and after less than three and hours of deliberation on Thursday, the jury returned a guilty verdict. Debettignies is scheduled to be sentenced on November 13. Shenandoah, IA (51601) Today Cloudy and damp with rain early...then becoming partly cloudy. Low 38F. Winds NW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%.. Tonight Cloudy and damp with rain early...then becoming partly cloudy. Low 38F. Winds NW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%. France still believes that a good deal on Brexit is possible but the country must prepare for the possibility of Britain and the European Union failing to reach an agreement on its divorce from the bloc, a minister said on Saturday. British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Friday that Brexit talks with the EU had hit an impasse, defiantly challenging the bloc to come up with its own plans a day after EU leaders savaged her proposals. "The British people decided to leave in a (2016) referendum, we respect that. But this choice cannot lead to the EU going bust, unravelling," Nathalie Loiseau, minister for European affairs, told France Info radio. "That's the message we have tried to send for several months now to our British counterparts, who may have thought we were going to say 'yes' to whatever deal they came up with." Loiseau said May's so-called Chequers proposals, whereby British goods would enter the EU's single market freely, were "too negative" and would have led to "unfair competition for European companies". She said she still believed a good deal with Britain was possible, but that France should get ready for the possibility of a "no deal" and would introduce legislation in November to that effect. "We are working on reaching a good deal, that's where we spend most of our energy. It's still possible, I believe it is, all the 27 (EU member states) believe it is. But I can't rule out that we don't reach an agreement in the end." "Let's imagine we don't reach an agreement. What we say is we must prepare for that," she added. May has said her proposals for future trade with the EU were the only way forward. EU leaders in Salzburg repeated their view that the plans would undermine their cherished single market. Search Keywords: Short link: U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un / AFP United States President Donald Trump has said he will not be hasty in making any deals with North Korea, stressing "very good" relations with the communist country's leader. In his speech in Missouri at a campaign rally on Friday (U.S. time), Trump said, "Chairman Kim Jong-un sent me a beautiful letter two days ago," though he did not elaborate on details. Pointing to the release of Americans who had been detained in the North and the return of remains of American soldiers who went missing during the 1950-53 Korean War, Trump said the relationship between the U.S. and North Korea is "going very well," and "Let's see what happens ... I am in no rush." A Korean official in a palanquin circa 1890s. By Robert Neff One of the chief modes of luxury transport in 19th century Korea was "the sedan chair" or palanquin. Early American missionaries living in Seoul quickly realized they were not only a means of transport, but also a status symbol and purchased the best they could afford. Apparently the American legation did not. According to one resident in 1889: "Concerning the sedan chairs, however, the [Koreans] have a curious saying when they see a foreigner's chair. If it be a brand new one it is a missionary who is coming; if only respectable, it belongs to one of the foreign Legations. If old and shabby, it must be that of the American Minister." A Korean woman and her chair circa 1900. While many male missionaries preferred to travel the Korean countryside on horseback, some women missionaries chose to use the palanquin one such woman was Mattie Tate, who traveled from Seoul to Jeonju in 1894. In an account of her journey, her palanquin was described as: "A little four-posted canopy about three feet square by four feet high, carried on two poles. The passenger sits on the floor of the box-like chair, and there are curtains to screen him from view and keep out the fresh air. Each of the four carriers has a pair of suspenders over his shoulders, and through loops on either side of his body the ends of the poles pass. If you can sit cross-legged and dispense with fresh air, and don't object to your coolies putting you down in the middle of the road every three miles, while they go to get a drink and take a smoke, it is not a disagreeable way to travel, and you can make 35 miles in a day." It may not have been bad at first, but by the time she arrived at her destination she needed a couple of days' recovery before she was able to comfortably walk. With the introduction of the rickshaw in the mid-1880s, the days of the palanquin were numbered and by the early 20th century they had all but disappeared from the streets of Korea. A Korean woman in her chair circa 1900. A Japanese woman in her chair circa 1900. Japanese women on an outing circa 1900. By Hwang Jae-ho Vietnam, one of the major countries of ASEAN, is meaningful to Korea in several aspects. In economic terms, it is a significant investment region for Korea, and furthermore, as Moon's regime came up with the 'New Southern Policy', it now is important in diplomatic terms as well. Close to China, Vietnam also shares the same strategic concerns with Korea as it stays between China and the United States. Vietnam has relations with North and South Korea and is in relatively positive shape with all. In addition, because it has gone through national division as Korea did, Vietnam might have observed the recent inter-Korean summit more than any other country. The Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam is the diplomacy think tank, where we can find Vietnamese diplomatic policies and overall flows. Here, I interviewed Thanh Hai Tran, an expert on the Korean Peninsula; Deputy Director General, Institute of Foreign Policy and Strategic Studies; Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam. Thanh Hai Tran Q: There was the inter-Korean summit this week. How do you evaluate this meeting? A: The Third Inter-Korean Summit is a positive step toward building sustainable peace on the Korean Peninsula and strengthening mutual trust between the two Koreas. Chairman Kim Jong-un and President Moon Jae-in agreed to turn the Korean Peninsula into a "land of peace without nuclear weapons and nuclear threats." The two countries vowed to "cease all hostile acts against each other." On the nuclear issue, Pyongyang pledged to destroy the Tongchang-ri missile engine test site and the Yongbyon nuclear site if the United States takes reciprocal measures. This again confirmed that North Korea continues to apply the "salami slice" strategy and follow the principle of "reciprocity." The ball is now in Washington's court. We do not have either a timeline or any detailed guarantees yet. But I think the pledges Kim and Moon made at their third summit could inject fresh momentum into the stalled nuclear negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang and lay the groundwork for another meeting that Kim recently proposed to Trump. Q: How do you anticipate the North Korea nuclear issue and the United State's North Korea regime guarantee? A: The Singapore summit committed North Korea to giving up its nuclear weapons and the United States to guarantee North Korea's regime survival. However, this is not the first time both sides have made such a pledge. Washington and Pyongyang made the same commitments in 1994, 2005 and 2007. These commitments, nevertheless, were not realized, largely because of the difficulty in the implementation phase what people call "the devil is in the details." The recent rapprochement between the United States and North Korea is encountering difficulties because North Korea is not willing to disclose its nuclear sites and the United States is pushing hard for denuclearization in the next few years. The two sides have not yet agreed on the definition of denuclearization and guarantee. This means that there is a high chance the latest commitment will break down as in the past if the two sides fail to resolve their differences any time soon. Q: One of the most significant features of Southeast Asia is the multilateral organization, ASEAN. Do you think a similar organization is possible in Northeast Asia? A: ASEAN and its consensus-based mechanism reflect the characteristics of the Southeast Asian region which is comprised of small and medium countries. Unlike Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia is a region with many powers, a U.S.-led "hub-and-spoke" security system and a security order largely based on the balance of power. The mistrust and strategic competition between the United States and China make it difficult to foresee a possible Northeast Asian version of ASEAN, at least in the near future. In short, an ASEAN version of Northeast Asia will only be viable if the security issues are resolved in a way that harmonizes the interests of major countries while paying sufficient attention to the interests of smaller countries. Q: How do you see inter-Korean relations? A: The recent improvement in inter-Korean relations is a major change and a welcome development on the Korean Peninsula. It helps reduce tensions and paves the way for the parties concerned to work towards a peaceful resolution for the Korean Peninsula. There remain uncertainties, and the two sides' commitment to improve bilateral relations does not necessarily mean that tensions will not recur. It is important that commitments be institutionalized?through policy and action. Regional countries including Vietnam would be willing to assist the two Koreas in maintaining peace and security on the Korean Peninsula. Q: What is the Vietnamese perspective/view of South Korea? A: In the 1960s, South Korea was one of the world's poorest countries that heavily depended on foreign aid. However, over the past 50 years, South Korea has rapidly upgraded its industrial structure, transforming itself from a poor agricultural nation into a global leader in multiple advanced industries. Today, South Korea is one of the G20 countries leading the global economy. This development success story has been underpinned by strong leadership and an appropriate economic development strategy. With complementary economic structures and many similarities in terms of culture and history, Vietnam and South Korea have enjoyed 25 years of diplomatic relations and nine years of strategic partnership. Although 25 years is not a long time in the history of the two nations, the cooperation between the two countries so far has strongly developed, especially in the economic field. With a solid strategic partnership founded on trust and mutual respect, the relationship between Vietnam and South Korea will continue to build on past achievements and be further deepened in many areas, including trade, investment, culture, education and people-to-people exchanges. Q: What are the issues in Korea-Vietnam relations? Do you have any suggestions for improvement? A: As mentioned above, the relationship between Vietnam and South Korea is generally in good shape. However, there are two issues to which we need to pay attention. One is history and the other is trade relations. First, the history issue between Vietnam and South Korea. As both countries have experienced war and a colonial past, Vietnamese and Koreans, more than anyone else, understand the sensitive nature of historical issues. Nobody wants this to become an obstacle to bilateral relations. Sincerity, mutual understanding and a future-oriented approach are the keys to overcoming historical issues. Second is Vietnam's trade deficit with South Korea. Last year, Vietnam ran a trade deficit of about US$31.8 billion with South Korea, up 53.4 percent from the $US20.8 billion deficit of 2016. A trade deficit is inevitable because South Korea has emerged as the biggest investor in Vietnam over the past four years. However, an over-large trade deficit may have unhealthy implications. One of the key solutions is to increase exports of Vietnamese products to South Korea. It is suggested that South Korean firms cooperate with the Vietnamese government to promote Vietnam's supporting industries, expand the network of local suppliers and help Vietnamese enterprises join global supply chains of South Korean conglomerates such as Samsung, LG and Hyundai. Although the countries have signed a bilateral FTA, it is still difficult for Vietnam's export products to get access to the South Korean market due to technical barriers. Therefore, the South Korean government could consider lowering the technical barriers and help local distributors bring Vietnamese products to South Korean customers. Through the interview, I could feel Vietnam's, and furthermore ASEAN's hope for North Korean denuclearization and a peace regime. Above all, this is because the Pyongyang Declaration between two Korean leaders was a step forward for peace in Asia. As well as the hope that Vietnam has, I could also see his concern that the way to peace will never be easy; because we all know that Vietnam has striven for independence and peace for decades and centuries. The ways to unification differ depending on each country's respective historical conditions and domestic or foreign politics. However, Korea and Vietnam share sympathy for each other. Our expectation and wish for peace and prosperity is not just one country's obligation it is the obligation of Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia. In this file photo taken November 12, 2017, Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang speaks during a press conference at the Presidential Palace in Hanoi. Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang dies on September 21 at the age of 61 after a prologued illness, state run media reported. AFP Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang, the country's No. 2 after the ruling Communist Party's leader, died Friday after a serious illness, the government said. He was 61. Quang passed away despite ''utmost efforts to treat him by Vietnamese and foreign professors and doctors and care by the party and state leaders,'' the statement said. It said Quang died at a military hospital in Hanoi but did not elaborate on his illness. The state-run online newspaper VnExpress quoted a former health minister and the head of a national committee in charge of leaders' health, Nguyen Quoc Trieu, as saying that Quang had contracted a rare and toxic virus since July last year and had traveled to Japan six times for treatment. He did not specify the virus. Trieu said the president lapsed into a deep coma hours after being admitted to the National Military Hospital 108 on Thursday afternoon. ''Japanese professors and doctors treated him and helped consolidate the president's health for about a year,'' Trieu said. ''However, there are no medicines in the world that can cure the illness completely, instead it only could prevent and push it back for some time.'' Quang hosted President Donald Trump during his first state visit to the communist country last year, when Trump attended a summit of Pacific Rim leaders. U.S Ambassador Daniel Kritenbrink praised Quang for his contributions to promote relations between the two former foes. ''His hosting of President Donald J. Trump's historic state visit to Hanoi in November 2017 helped advance the U.S.-Vietnam Comprehensive Partnership to new heights on the basis of mutual understanding, shared interests, and a common desire to promote peace, cooperation, prosperity, and security in the Indo-Pacific region,'' he said in a statement posted on the embassy's website. Phil Roberston, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said that Quang would be remembered for ''a multi-year crackdown on human rights and putting more political prisoners behind bars in Vietnam than any time in recent memory.'' Some 97 activists have been jailed as of April this year, according to Amnesty International. The Communist Party tolerates no challenge to its one-party rule and often jails people for peacefully expressing their views, though Hanoi maintains that only law breakers are put behind bars. Quang's last public appearance was at a Politburo meeting of the ruling Communist Party and a reception for a Chinese delegation on Wednesday. He looked frail on the state-run Vietnam Television broadcast. Quang did not appear in public for more than a month last year, raising speculation about his health. Born in northern Ninh Binh province, Quang attended a police college and rose through the ranks at the powerful Ministry of Public Security before being appointed minister in 2011. A career security officer and four-star general, Quang was elected president in April 2016 by the Communist Party-dominated National Assembly, effectively becoming the second most powerful man in the country after General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong. The National Assembly is scheduled to convene a session next month and expected to elect a new president. Funeral arrangements were not immediately announced. (AP) You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close Chances for showers and thunderstorms will be possible as we go through tonight and early tomorrow morning. A thunderstorm or two could be on the strong to severe side. Rain will move out of the area overnight as temperatures fall into the upper 30s. The rest of the work week into the weekend looks to be dry with a mix of sun and clouds. Temperatures will be in the 50s on Thursday before falling into the 40s on Friday through the weekend. Radar Temperatures Alerts Guest Commentary / Opinion: We have been reporting on the Federal Aviation Administration s (FAA) NextGen Metroplex rollout and the resulting flight path and procedure impact studies commissioned by the San Diego Regional Airport Authority (SDCRAA) and the FAA. This is the latest update. Aug. 30 TAC and CAC Meetings The Technical and Citizen Advisory Committees for the Flight Path and Procedure Study considered community and consultant-driven proposals that merit further study, including computer-simulated noise modeling. Among the options advanced are: 1) routing departures further west offshore before turning north or south, and assessing the distance offshore before turns are permitted 2) using fly by versus fly-over waypoints to keep aircraft further south from La Jolla , and 3) adjusting the southbound coastal arrival path to intersect the 805/52 freeway intersection, rather than flying further south closer to La Jolla Shores and The Muirlands. Input was obtained from the airlines and TAC about the technical feasibility of the proposals, which led to recommendations to abandon those that are FAA non-starters for fly-ability and/or safety reasons. The proposals advanced by Quiet Skies La Jolla and its engaged air-noise consultant are all still in the mix. Next steps in CAC/TAC process San Diego County Regional Airport Authority (SDCRAA) consultant collected comments and will return to the full committees by mid-October with more final recommendations for which alternatives to submit to noise modeling. Once those results are available, they will inform further discussions by mid-November. It is anticipated that several more CAC/TAC meetings will occur before the consultant submits recommendations to the SDCRAA, after which they will likely be more formally presented to the FAA. The recommendations coming out of the Flight Path and Procedure study will only affect nighttime noise issues, starting at 10 p.m. The FAA has absolute discretion to accept, modify or reject proposals, but as noted in last months column, the FAA has demonstrated a willingness to work with affected communities to mitigate NextGen-oriented noise. We remain cautiously optimistic. Part 150 Study re: initial departure headings, and the 65 CNEL noise contour The Part 150 Study will begin with a CAC meeting Oct. 25, and may also be a solution for daytime noise in La Jolla. This study will consider flight path and procedure modifications within the what is known as 65 CNEL noise contour, which is basically Ocean Beach and the areas immediately around the airport. One of the options under consideration is a new FAA procedure called ELSO, (Equivalent Lateral Spacing Operations), which allows controllers to space routes more closely together and safely clear aircraft for takeoff more efficiently. Current air traffic rules require a 15-degree minimum angle between departure routes. With ELSO, controllers can reduce the minimum to 10 degrees between departure headings. This flexibility makes it possible for controllers to clear additional departures every hour, providing a benefit for airports, reduction in taxi time and fuel efficiencies. An ancillary advantage in San Diego would be noise mitigation in La Jolla, Pacific Beach and Point Loma , stemming from five degrees less required separation, measured from the runway, between aircraft on divergent paths. Implementing ELSO, which is new and part of the NextGen roll out, will enable departing flights to take off more directly over the ocean, as opposed to turning earlier towards Point Loma to the south and La Jolla to the north. The Part 150 Study will likely take 18-24 months to unfolds toward a long-term solution and agreement. Airport expansion Draft Environmental Impact statement Quiet Skies La Jolla, Inc. (QSLJ) submitted a response to the SDCRAAs Draft Environmental Impact Report addressing the announced $3 billion airport expansion, adding 11 gates, millions of square feet, and an increase of 6 million passengers per year, which is a 21 percent jump compared to 2017. The QSLJ response asks that further analysis be conducted on the anticipated noise impact of the airport expansion. Many other organizations and citizens also filed responses, which the SDCRAA will likely spend 12 months evaluating. QSLJs response can be found at quietskieslajolla.org/legal-proceedings Miscellaneous updates Maintenance on the runway will recommence Oct. 18, decreasing the number of flights later at night in this post-summer, non-peak period. The full schedule will resume before the holidays. As a correction to our last article, the Airport Noise Advisory Commission (ANAC) received a $12 million grant from the FAA to fund the Quieter Home Program, which pays for insulation and double pane windows in Point Loma and Ocean Beach, within the 65 CNEL noise contour. The funds were not for the Part 150 Flight Procedure Study, which was funded by the SDCRAA. FAA funds are forthcoming for the Part 150 Study. Making noise complaints Noise complaints have recently spiked, particularly from La Jolla and Point Loma. ANAC takes household complaints seriously and encourages complaints to be filed because they enable objective fact-based reporting to the FAA. Most complaints are filed via the AirNoise button that can be acquired and set up for a nominal fee, and free complaints can be filed at airnoise.io SDCRAA also has a Webtrak complaint system at webtrak.bkems.net/san and a smartphone-based app complaint at viewpoint-app.emsbk.com/san4 Whichever system you use, please register your complaints to make our collective voices heard on behalf of La Jolla. We appreciate the communitys strong support and engagement. Moscow may abandon a project to build a space station in lunar orbit in partnership with U.S. space agency NASA because it does not want a "second fiddle role," a Russian official said on Saturday. Russia agreed last year to work with the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on plans for the moon-orbiting Deep Space Gateway, which will serve as a staging post for future missions. But the head of Russian space agency Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, said Russia might exit the joint programme and instead propose its own lunar orbit space station project. "The Russian Federation cannot afford to play the second fiddle role in it," he was quoted as saying by the RIA news agency, without much further elaboration. A spokesman for Roscosmos said later that Russia had no immediate plans to leave the project. "Russia has not refused to take part in the project of the lunar orbit station with the USA," Vladimir Ustimenko was quoted as saying by the TASS news agency. Relations between Moscow and Washington have soured since 2014 after Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine and was accused of meddling in the U.S. 2016 presidential election. Search Keywords: Short link: Welcome! Its sunny here in El Segundo. Im Carolyn Kellogg with not one but two essays from Critics at Large this week, because it has been a big week for cultural questions in the world of books. Lets get started. THE FIRST BIG ESSAY Critic at Large Laila Lalami looks at two big recent essays from men accused of sexual harassment, broadcasters Jian Ghomeshi (in the New York Review of Books) and John Hockenberry (in Harpers). The decision to give prime space to accused predators may seem puzzling, but it has a lot to teach us about which stories are valued in the culture and which are not, Lalami writes. She discusses an interview with the editor of the New York Review of Books, Ian Buruma, who found Ghomeshis story appealing, and ran it on the cover of an issue titled, The Fall of Men. Buruma, as you may have heard, subsequently left his position as NYRB editor, all in the space of a week. Jian Ghomeshi exits a Toronto courthouse in 2016. (Carlos Osorio / Toronto Star via Getty Images) Advertisement THE OTHER BIG ESSAY Ernie and Bert are gay, a former writer for Sesame Street said this week. No theyre not, said Frank Oz, the puppets creator. Who gets to decide? And how much does it matter? Thats what Critic at Large John Scalzi asks in this clever and insightful essay about the characters we love and author intent. Ernie and Bert at the Skirball Cultural Centers Jim Henson Exhibition: Imagination Unlimited. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) BESTSELLERS Reaching the top of the fiction list is French Exit by Patrick deWitt, who spoke with The Times about the book (and more) on the eve of its publication. Entering the nonfiction list at No. 2 is Fear: Trump in the White House by veteran journalist Bob Woodward. Simon & Schuster announced this week that its the publishers fastest-selling book ever, with 1.1 million copies sold nationwide in its first week. You can find all the books on our bestseller lists here. A customer looks at Fear by Bob Woodward at Costco in Alhambra. (Frederic J. Brown / AFP/Getty Images) THE BIG REVIEW Miriam Pawels book The Browns of California looks at the family dynasty of Pat and Jerry Brown, the father-son governors who could hardly have been more different if theyd been from different parties. Its not just a history, writes reviewer Nathan Deuel, because Pawel shows that the Brown family and its home state of California [are] so key to understanding where America is and where it might be headed. Pat Brown and Jerry Brown circa the 1970s. (Office of Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr.) MORE IN BOOKS Stormy Daniels book Full Disclosure will be out Oct. 2, but the British newspaper the Guardian got hold of a copy and revealed some of its dirty parts those about Donald Trump. The adult film actress says her alleged encounter with the not-yet-president was the least impressive sex Ive ever had. In print this week is Walton Muyumbas review of One Person, No Vote, scholar Carol Andersons devastating portrait of voter disenfranchisement in America. The book, Muyumba writes, is history as old-fashioned, coldblooded jeremiad: a lamentation about American democracy in crisis. A polling station at Miami Beach City Hall open for early voting on Aug. 13, 2018. Florida is an electorally dark place for 1.7 million citizens, Anderson writes. (Wilfredo Lee / Associated Press) Thanks for reading! carolyn.kellogg@latimes.com @paperhaus Get ready to party like its 1919: the Los Angeles Philharmonic is turning 100! Plus, weve got news on a David Lynch-inspired opera, experimental theater and moody paintings of women. Im Carolina A. Miranda, culture writer at the Los Angeles Times, with your guide to the weeks essential arts: 100 YEARS AND COUNTING The L.A. Phil is turning 100 and Times classical music critic Mark Swed sums up it up: An outlier orchestra far from the center of Old Europe and never admitted to the so-called Big Five the lofty philharmonics and symphony orchestras of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Chicago that once dominated America, the Los Angeles Philharmonic has become the most significant and successful major orchestra anywhere. Astonishingly, this insurgency involves a supposedly traditional symbol of cultural elitism in La La Land, Tinseltown, the Land of the Plastic Lotus, a place, as Woody Allens tired slam goes, where the only cultural advantage is that you can turn right on a red light. Read it all the way through for the part about naked breakfast. Los Angeles Times The newly formed Los Angeles Philharmonic, circa 1919. (Los Angeles Philharmonic) Advertisement Swed sits down for a chat with Simon Woods, the L.A. Phils new CEO. When you think of what success will look like a decade from now, says Woods, it is creating an organization that is as welcoming as it is innovative. Los Angeles Times Walt Disney Concert Hall is the fourth hall of the Los Angeles Music Center, designed by Frank Gehry. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) The audience was not especially notable as to size, the glamour of a premiere was not broadly apparent, but the people who were there represented musical taste. The Times was there when the L.A. Phil made its debut. Los Angeles Times LYNCH-IAN OPERA David Lynchs mysterious 1997 film, Lost Highway, was reimagined as opera by Olga Neuwith roughly 15 years ago. Now it is being reimagined further by L.A. director Yuval Sharon for a new Frankfurt Opera production. It is a near-operatic scandal that Lost Highway has never been produced in L.A., writes Mark Swed. Los Angeles Times Jeff Burrell as Fred and soprano Elizabeth Reiter as Renee in Lost Highway. (Monika Rittershaus / Frankfurt Opera) In other performance news, Matt Cooper offers a guide to the week ahead in dance, including a festival in San Pedro and a show inspired by the seminal SoCal novel Ramona. Los Angeles Times And the week ahead in classical music. Los Angeles Times UNIVERSITY ART MUSEUM DIRECTOR IS OUT Kimberli Meyer, the director of the University Art Museum at Cal State Long Beach, has been fired from the museum. They said theyd lost confidence in me and said they didnt need to give me an explanation or tell me why, Meyer tells The Times Deborah Vankin. In protest to Meyers firing, artist lauren woods, who has a work on view at the museum, has put the sound element of her installation on pause. Los Angeles Times Artist lauren woods reads a statement about the firing of Kimberli Meyer at the University Art Museum. (Linda Pollack) Related: Tyler Green has a terrific interview with woods about her work and its evolution. Modern Art Notes A BROODING DEBUT In her first solo exhibition at the Museum of Latin American Art, painter Judithe Hernandez presents ghostly drawings of female figures that fuse the historical with the present. The literary dimension of Hernandezs art is churned by her marvelous color sense, which unmoors any illustrative limits of the genre, writes Times art critic Christopher Knight. Los Angeles Times A detail from Judithe Hernandezs The Unknown Saint, 2017. (Museum of Latin American Art) A PHOTOGRAPHIC IMPROVISATION On Saturday night, novelist and photographer Teju Cole is collaborating with composer and jazz pianist Vijay Iyer on a work of improvisational music and spoken word inspired by Coles book Blind Spot at the Theatre at the Ace Hotel. Of the work, Cole tells me: We practice very different art forms but our political views are very similar. We are both extremely hybrid and approach the question of inclusivity in a very complex way. Los Angeles Times Teju Cole, author of Blind Spot. (Martin U. K. Lengemann) DEITCH IS BACK Jeffrey Deitch, the former New York gallery director who (controversially) directed Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art from 2010 to 2013, is back in L.A. with a gallery. For people coming from different parts of America, coming from different countries, he tells Deborah Vankin, this is a really L.A. space. And thats what I wanted an only-in-L.A. space. Los Angeles Times Former MOCA Director Jeffrey Deitch visits his new Hollywood gallery as construction progresses. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times) ROCK OF AGES Artist Richard Turner has long been intrigued by stones in particular viewing stones put on display for their beauty. A new show at the Guggenheim Gallery at Chapman University brings together artifacts from his collection as well as abstract paintings and sculptures that are partly inspired by these ancient geologic forms. Los Angeles Times A viewing stone at Chapman Universitys Guggenheim Gallery. (Marcus Herse) IN THE GALLERIES Times contributing reviewer Sharon Mizota is intrigued by the dots and grids in paintings by Alex Jackson at Zevitas Marcus, as well as the beautiful and ghostly photograms of vintage clothing by Klea McKenna at Von Lintel. La China Poblana (2), 2018, by Klea McKenna at Von Lintel in Culver City. (Von Lintel Gallery) For more exhibitions and events, check out my Datebook, which includes a group show that brings together artists from the U.S.-Mexico border. Los Angeles Times Plus, The Times Jessica Gelt has the deets on a showcase of vintage movie posters, photography and prints in Santa Monica. Los Angeles Times And theres info on many more openings, closings and ongoing shows in my arts datebook, including Sundays opening of Nina Chanel Abneys Royal Flush at the California African American Museum. Los Angeles Times ON STAGE Using figurines, video projections and chilling sound design, the Dutch collective Hotel Modern has created a work of experimental theater that channels the horrors of the Holocaust. KAMP, as the piece is called, now on view at REDCAT, is not for the faint of heart, writes Times theater critic Charles McNulty. But I was grateful for the courage and the craft of Hotel Modern and for the timeliness of this historical re-creation. Los Angeles Times Hotel Modern returns to REDCAT with KAMP, a re-creation in miniature of Auschwitz. (Steve Gunther) McNulty is hesitant to give away too many details on the Echo Theater Companys production of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins office dramedy Gloria. But he will say that the production, cleanly directed by Echo artistic director Chris Fields, concentrates on the interactions of characters who exemplify some of the worst traits in their genteelly dog-eat-dog line of work. Los Angeles Times Plus, the Old Globe Theater in San Diego is presenting a jukebox musical inspired by the music of Huey Lewis and the News. The show, writes McNulty, is the kind of show that might have you saying, Aw, shucks! This isnt very good, but I like it anyway! Los Angeles Times As always: Matt Cooper has his weekly list of theater picks including a comedic romp about schoolgirls in Ghana. Los Angeles Times IN OTHER NEWS Choreographer Arthur Mitchell, the first black ballet dancer to become an international star, and the founder of the Dance Theater of Harlem, has died at 84. New York Times Last Seen is the new podcast about the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist of 13 priceless art works in Boston 28 years ago a mystery that remains unsolved. Im hooked. WBUR The world of arty taxidermy. Los Angeles Times Its been a week of losses: Josh Roth, head of United Talent Agencys fine arts program, is dead at 40. Variety Mary Nooter Roberts, a scholar of African art who taught at UCLA, has died at 58. New York Times Robert Venturi, the Pritzker Prize-winning architect who helped usher in the age of Postmodern design, has also died, at the age of 93. New York Times The architectural jumble that could: the Cultural Heritage Commission supports monument status for the former Times complex in downtown L.A. We miss you, moldy carpet! Los Angeles Times San Franciscos sinking Millennium Tower is now a tourist attraction. San Francisco Chronicle Forget mega-mansions welcome to the world of giga-mansions. Seriously, I need a jelly fish room. Design and Architecture AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST Nothing makes my day like a botched restoration. BBC Sign up for our weekly Essential Arts & Culture newsletter carolina.miranda@latimes.com | Twitter: @cmonstah As she transplanted the German thriller Wir Monster to the snowy North American setting of her own chilling adaptation The Lie, Veena Sud found herself influenced by aspects of her own life. Like the otherwise good people and loving parents at the center of The Lie, faced with the consequences of their beloved daughters rash and irreversible actions, Sud wondered: What would I do? As a parent, contemplating the unhappiness of a child that would lead to something like what happens in the film the question weighed on me heavily, Sud said on a rainy day at the Toronto International Film Festival last week, where The Lie had its world premiere. Life throws these things at you that are completely unexpected and from what Ive seen, at least in my own life, we all react in different ways that we dont expect. For Sud, who first broke into Hollywood over 15 years ago as a writer before making her name as the showrunner of AMCs crime drama The Killing, The Lie represents a personal breakthrough in feature film directing. Advertisement An unnerving piece of Hitchcockian drama set during a snow-covered winter that blankets the action in an appropriately icy veneer, The Lie tracks the increasingly frayed nerves of divorced couple Rebecca (Mireille Enos) and Jay (Peter Sarsgaard) after their 15-year-old daughter, Kayla (Joey King), reveals a horrific crime. Together as a family, they decide to keep the terrible secret. And thats where their desperate unraveling begins. Peter Sarsgaard and Joey King star in The Lie, from writer-director Veena Sud (The Killing). (TIFF) Directing was always Suds goal, even if somewhere along the way she fell in love with the novelistic longform approach of television she exercised over four seasons on The Killing and on her Netflix limited series Seven Seconds, a crime drama exploring the aftermath of the police-shooting death of an African American boy that earned star Regina King an Emmy this week. Teaming up with Winters Bone producer Alix Madigan, Sud adapted Sebastian Kos 2015 German-language feature Wir Monster (which was translated as We Monsters) and made key changes to its setting and subtext, inspired by the turmoil she felt around her in a post-election America. I grew up in Ohio. Ohio was so conservative, so white, remembered Sud, whose Filipino mother and Indian father met while working in New Jersey. Born in Toronto, she was raised in Ohio from an early age and now lives in Los Angeles with her family. Nobody knew what I was. [Id get the] Where are you from? and Where are you really from? question. Although The Lie centers on a fractured white family of relative privilege, on the surface its not about race until it is. Brought to life by finely-tuned performances from Enos and Sarsgaard, both of whom Sud collaborated with on The Killing, the films heroes are relatably good people, kind neighbors, and loving parents. At least before theyre pushed to their own desperate limits. Especially because of the times we live in now, what shocks and saddens me arent the obvious racists, but the people who voted for Trump and dont consider themselves racist, said Sud. That part of America that took a side. Thats what the [film] is trying to address in terms of deeper race issues. When push comes to shove, and its a decision between whats mine and whats yours, those lines are so drawn in the sand. Government hostility to outsiders on both sides of the Atlantic, including Trumps travel ban and Europes migrant crisis, were top of mind when Sud first discussed the project with Sarsgaard. At the time a lot of immigrants were dying off the coast of Greece and Italy, said Sud. We were saying, How can anyone do that to a child? and he said, If its not your child, it doesnt matter, in this very perceptive way. This is why this is possible. This immigrant crisis is endlessly ongoing. Whats happening in Europe and the United States is reflecting the otherness of these children. What I was trying to do with this film was say, we all have our reasons and love is always, for the most part, [the reason], said Sud. Writing cop shows, every bad guy youve ever met has a reason. And usually we cast ourselves in the role of hero because either we have to, to live with the thing weve done, or because its true. As The Lie hurtles forward, its protagonists exploit every tool in their arsenal to protect their own, and two characters become ever more crucial as fissures beneath the surface of civility become instruments of self-preservation. Peter Sarsgaard and Mireille Enos portray parents desperately trying to protect their own in The Lie. (TIFF) Devery Jacobs was cast as Kaylas outgoing friend Brittany, and Canadian actor Cas Anvar (The Strain) came aboard in the key role of Brittanys father Sam, who becomes an increasingly unpredictable interloper in the escalating scheme that Rebecca and Jay are weaving. It was important to cast Anvars role with an actor of color, Sud said, partially because of the times were living in, and as a mirror of our own society. When a brown man fits in, hes a very unthreatening guy: Hes wearing J. Crew, hes got an American accent, hes a suburban dad. Hes a good brown man until he starts questioning these people. The criminal justice system, which as we know is so race-biased, it just yawns open to pull him in. Hes such an easy target. Central to the themes shes exploring in The Lie a film very much of a piece with her television crime dramas about corruption, race and colliding social issues in contemporary life are the increasing anxieties faced by minorities in America today. As a woman of color and especially as an Asian woman I feel like I live on that line of, I can fit in and I can pass when I do certain things, Sud explained. But if I dare step out of that line, then Im exiled. And Ive felt it all my life, and certainly all of us that dont fit into white Americana are growing exiled more and more of the time. She recalled a recent experience driving to San Diego, only to see signs warning of border closings. The first thought that came into my mind was, Do I have my passport? Im an American citizen and Im scared whether people are going to question if I belong here, said Sud. To some degree I was interested in, how do we demonize people we have to demonize in order not to care about them in order to take the side of what we know is flat-out wrong? Last year the pieces fell into place when producer Jason Blum and his Blumhouse Pictures boarded the project, now the latest in a streak of socially conscious genre fare at the company following the Oscar-winning success of Jordan Peeles Get Out. Sud had already attached Enos, who starred as the embattled detective Sarah Linden on The Killing, and Sarsgaard, who also starred on Season 3 of the show. Blums greenlight meant an accelerated timeline for The Lie, which filmed in Toronto in January over a 21-day shoot while Sud had a gap in her schedule. Veena is always incredibly hands on its one of the things that was amazing about her on The Killing, that no matter what question you had, she always had a really specific, thoughtful answer at her fingertips, said Enos. She understands the worlds of her stories so completely. Its very confidence-building working for somebody like that. Her indefatigable desire to get underneath the choices to really dig and dig and dig and dig to where these people were the most full of fear and uncomfortable and human and flawed was a very exciting process, she added, to know that what we were making was something we were making together, and that neither one of us could do it without the other. On set, Enos recalled, she and Sarsgaard stayed in their characters head spaces by reminding each other that, from their perspectives, their story is one of parental love. FULL COVERAGE: 2018 Toronto Film Festival [Sarsgaard] has a family hes madly in love with, were telling the story of a broken family, so hes bringing his insight into what family should feel like, said Enos. He and I kept saying, Its a love story! because I think under all the tragedy that is the engine that drives it are these people trying to find each other again. Joey King, who has been acting since she was 8 in films like Ramona and Beezus, The Conjuring and more recently the Netflix rom-com The Kissing Booth, leaped at the challenge of playing Kayla. As seen through her parents alternately doting, horrified and guilt-ridden eyes, shes a character who feels alternately childlike and eerily grown-up, both impossibly naive and chillingly capable of the unthinkable. Playing Kayla was tricky in a way because shes feeling so many things, but a lot of the time is trying to conceal those feelings, said King, who was 18 at the time of filming. Underneath all of her fronts shes really just a lost girl whos deeply saddened by events that have taken place in her life, and they affect her more than they probably should. As The Lie continues on its post-TIFF journey, Sud hopes audiences respond to its driving themes of love, blind devotion and the darkness that lies dormant even within the most decent of people. And, she notes, she wants to see more stories with women like Enos Rebecca a raw, rough, vicious animal, as we all are when ours are threatened. I want to see that in movies! I want to see women who get to be as real as all the men I see in other films, being brutal and going straight for what they want, sometimes in terribly ugly ways, said Sud. We dont have to take side roads. We dont have to smile. We dont have to be palatable. I want unpalatable women. jen.yamato@latimes.com @jenyamato Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi is set to have a busy schedule on the sidelines of his visit to New York to attend the 73rd United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) meetings, which kicked off on Tuesday, Egyptian presidency spokesperson Bassam Rady said in a statement Friday. El-Sisi, who left to New York today, is set to deliver a statement to the UNGA next week, which will address Egypt's vision to enhance the role of the United Nations, Rady said. The Egyptian President will urge the world community to contain all armed conflicts, combat terrorism, push for denuclearization, and tackle economic concerns, added Rady. El-Sisi is also set to head the high-level meeting of the Group of 77. Egypt will chair this years meeting for the third time in the history of the group. The Group of 77 at the United Nations is a coalition of developing nations designed to promote its members' collective economic interests and to better enable joint negotiations within the UN. "El-Sisi will deliver Egypt's opening statement to the meeting, which will include a review of the Egyptian role in supporting the efforts of the group since its founding in the 1960s," the statement read. The statement to the group of 77 will also highlight Egypt's position towards efforts to reform United Nations development strategies in order to strengthen its responses to the developmental needs of its state members. The president is also scheduled to hold intensive bilateral meetings with US figures during his visit. El-Sisi will meet with political and intellectual figures in the US; heads of major US companies and investment funds; and members of the American Chamber of Commerce. El-Sisi is also expected to meet with various US congressmen to start a dialogue on ways to strengthen the strategic partnership between the two countries. He will highlight to American officials the progress in the implementation of the country's economic reform program, which aims to encourage investment in Egypt; he will also discuss the state's vision for the role of the private sector in development, and review progress in the implementation of mega projects in Egypt. Rady said El-Sisi will also meet with a number of heads of states and officials to discuss ways to strengthen bilateral relations, and exchange views about developments in regional and international issues of mutual interest. The President will also attend the Nelson Mandela Peace Summit, which coincides with the centennial celebration of the late African leader's birth. El-Sisi is scheduled to deliver a speech at the summit. Search Keywords: Short link: The case was unique from the start: A white, blue-eyed teenager from the affluent Los Angeles suburb of Palos Verdes Estates was arrested in October on suspicion of murder in an alleged gang killing in South Los Angeles. About a week later, Cameron Terrell posted $5-million bail, grabbing headlines. He was in the spotlight again in July, after a jury found Terrell the driver in the shooting not guilty of murder and two counts of attempted murder in the death of 21-year-old Justin Holmes. Terrell, 18, admitted he was the driver. The black Mercedes Benz, registered to his father, was caught on surveillance video. The central question posed to the jurors during the two-week trial was what Terrell knew and when. Cameron didnt expect to hear gunshots, his attorney, Jovan Blacknell, told the jury. He didnt expect any of this to happen. Advertisement After the verdict was read, Deputy Dist. Atty. Tricia Taylor sat still at the attorneys table in the courtroom and looked straight ahead. The family of the victim shook their heads as they walked out of the room, shepherded by a deputy. Some saw the acquittal as yet another example of a criminal justice system that hands out unequal punishment based on race, ethnicity and wealth. On social media, comparisons were made to Brock Turner, the Stanford University freshman who was sentenced to six months in jail for three counts of sexual assault, a sentence many found too lenient. People tweeted that Terrell got away with murder, while many other black men and youth are in prison for the same crime. Others dismissed those suggestions, asserting that prosecutors overreached and focused too much on establishing Terrells alleged gang membership without proving he committed the crime. Blacknell argued the latter but acknowledged the subtle racial dynamics at play. He wasnt set free because he was white, said the attorney, who is black. But I do think that the jurors gave him the benefit of the doubt. I dont think all minorities get that. Jody Armour, a law professor at USC, said studies have shown that black people are viewed more unsparingly than whites for the same crime. Armour said that a white wrongdoer is often thought to be influenced by extenuating circumstances rather than being a bad person. Jurors judge black hearts more harshly than similarly situated white hearts, he said. Another advantage was that Terrells family was able to post the $5-million bond, which required $500,000 in cash. During the trial, Terrell was able to go home each night. During breaks, dressed in a navy suit, he would sometimes walk in Grand Park and meet his lawyers at the nearby law library. Jurors could see him in the halls waiting to enter the courtroom or cafeteria. Its such a tremendous benefit to be out of custody, Blacknell said. Hes not just who theyre talking about in a vacuum in a courtroom hes also this guy, this kid who we see walking around like a regular person. Terrell also had the privilege of hiring a private defense attorney, rather than being assigned a public defender, said Richard Kania, a criminal justice professor at Jacksonville State University. His youthful, clean-cut appearance also helped. He just doesnt fit the image of a gangbanger, Kania said. Prosecutors alleged that Terrell was a member of the Rollin 90s Neighborhood Crips. On Oct. 1, they said, Terrell and two other gang members drove to the 7800 block of South Western Avenue to target rivals. The two teenagers with Terrell got out of the car, walked up to Justin Holmes and two others and asked about their gang affiliation, prosecutors said. The others ran, but Holmes said he wasnt from a gang. One of the juveniles shot Holmes, then ran to Terrells waiting car. They didnt even see this coming, Taylor, one of the trial prosecutors, said of the victims. Holmes and his friends were not gang members, she said. Holmes worked for U-Haul and was enjoying a weekend off work. His family declined to comment for this story. During the trial, Blacknell told the jury that Terrell is an only child whose parents were having issues at home when the teenager began hanging out at the gangs stomping ground, Jesse Owens Park in South Los Angeles. There, Terrell met another teenager who would later join the Crips set. To his new friends, Terrell was a complete stereotype, Blacknell said in court. He was a wealthy white kid who drove a Mercedes Benz, he said. Terrell was so fascinated with gang culture that he purchased a book on understanding gangs. He kept good grades, and found that his trivial problems didnt compare to what the kids in South Los Angeles were going through, Blacknell told the jury during opening statements. Prosecutors tried to convince the jury that despite Terrells background, he was fully committed to the Rollin 90s Neighborhood Crips and got a tattoo with a W symbol that represented the gang. Although Terrell didnt pull the trigger in the shooting, prosecutors argued that when the group went to the rival neighborhood, he knew the teens were armed and likely looking for people to shoot. A large chunk of the trial focused on Terrells social media accounts and videos that showed him throwing gang signs and flashing weapons. They came in the middle of the day to kill somebody and they didnt care, Deputy Dist. Atty. Adan Montalban told the jury during opening statements. Montalban played a video taken from Terrells phone the night of the murder, showing him in what appears to be a bathroom, throwing gang signs. He went home that evening and he lets everyone know how proud he is, he said. Murder is the extreme crime that you can show that youre down with the gang. Josh Ritter, a former L.A. County prosecutor who is now a defense attorney, said he rejects the notion that Terrell walked because he was white, but said the verdict reflected the complexities of the case: Sometimes charging a person with murder who isnt the actual shooter is hard for jurors to wrap their heads around. You just never can tell which way a jury can go, he said. That element, combined with Terrells background, could have made the case difficult for jurors. Alex Alonso, a legal consultant who sometimes testifies on behalf of defense attorneys in gang cases but did not in this case, said he wasnt surprised at the outcome of the trial. Its a knee-jerk reaction for the public to assume that white privilege had something to do with it, Alonso said. Instead, Alonso said he thought the prosecution bungled the case by overcharging Terrell and failing to prove he was part of the murder conspiracy. Alonso said that he has seen similar cases end up in acquittals, citing the 2014 death of Patricia Alfaro, 17, who was killed in a car-to-car shooting at a South Los Angeles intersection. Semaj Welch, 22, who was driving the other vehicle but was not the gunman, was found not guilty. Welch is black. Lawrence Bowie, the father of one of the two 17-year-old juvenile defendants charged in the death of Holmes, said he thinks Terrell got off scot-free because hes white. Bowie remembers when Terrell started showing up in the neighborhood and at Jesse Owens Park down the street. Who is this? he thought. How did he end up over here? Bowie said he has gotten threats from neighbors he thinks are associated with the case. His son has been incarcerated in juvenile detention since October, trying to reckon with what hes been through. Bowie said that his son was traumatized after the deaths of his sister and niece in a 2015 fire that ripped through their Inglewood apartment complex. He suggested his son might have been taken advantage of by Terrell. He still wonders why Terrell wanted to be in the area in the first place, rather than his neighborhood 20 miles away. We got dreams of being like that, he said. We didnt have that many opportunities, and you did. Terrell graduated from high school while his case was pending (he stopped attending Palos Verdes High School after parents protested and finished his studies off-campus). Hes attending the University of Houston, and trying to get back to living his life as much as he can, Blacknell said. His family, through Blacknell, declined to comment for this story. Blacknell said he received backlash from the black community for the perception that he helped a white man get something that a black or Latino client might not get. The answer to their problem isnt for the system to treat Cameron wrong, he said. It should be for the system to treat Latino and minority clients better. The Homicide Report: Every homicide in Los Angeles County since 2000 nicole.santacruz@latimes.com For more crime news, follow @nicolesantacruz on Twitter. To get public money for their campaigns, Los Angeles politicians first have to collect 200 donations from people living in the neighborhoods they want to represent. Those contributions, which can be as small as $5, ultimately can help candidates obtain tens or even hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars. The hurdle is meant to prove that people running for office have community support before they access to those matching funds, which are supposed to help counter the campaign influence of wealthy donors. Now the Los Angeles City Council is weighing whether to ease the requirement, cutting the number of donations needed to qualify by half. A coalition of groups backing the proposal including the League of Women Voters of Los Angeles and Bike the Vote argues that the requirement for candidates to secure 200 donations of $5 or more from residents in their districts can impede campaigns from getting started in the first place. Advertisement Reducing the number to 100, they say, would make it easier for candidates in less-affluent areas to qualify for matching funds. Los Angeles City Ethics Commission staff argued that easing the requirement would allow more candidates to participate and reduce the time needed for city staffers to vet funding applications. But many say the city needs to go further to level the playing field between grassroots candidates and their well-funded opponents. And others do not believe that the move is a reform at all. A council committee backed the proposed change Friday. In addition to lowering the number of donations needed, the committee also recommended increasing the maximum amount of matching funds each candidate can receive, hiking the rate at which they can receive taxpayer money, and tweaking an existing requirement for candidates to agree to debate. The package of changes, approved by the Ethics Commission last month, has been billed as a way to help amplify the voices of ordinary Angelenos in city campaigns. We want candidates to be able to build grassroots campaigns, said Rob Quan, an organizer of the Unrig LA Coalition, which has supported such changes. Quan said the existing requirements had made it too difficult for grassroots candidates to obtain the public money in a timely way, especially in neighborhoods where it is harder to drum up donations. Even with the proposed changes, council candidates would not see a dime of matching funds until they had raised a minimum of $25,000 that meets a complicated set of requirements an amount much higher than what is required in other big cities, several groups complained Friday. If the city does not address that barrier, changing the funding rules would only be a half step, said Jill Stewart, executive director of the Coalition to Preserve L.A., which advocates on planning and development issues. We need everyday people to get back into government, she said. Others were skeptical of reducing the required number of donations. Grace Yoo, who is campaigning to replace Council President Herb Wesson, argued that anyone who cannot persuade 200 supporters in their districts to donate even a small amount is not likely to win. If the donation requirement is a barrier in low-income areas, she told the committee Friday, the city instead should consider lowering the minimum donation to a dollar or two. Political consultant Eric Hacopian, who has represented candidates for mayor and council, agreed that any credible candidate should be able to get the minimum number of local donations. This has more to do with making the lives of political professionals simpler, rather than dealing with political reform, he said. The California Clean Money Campaign, which advocates for public funding of campaigns, warned against returning to the bad old days where participating candidates didnt have to raise a single dollar from their districts. But the group said that as part of a package of reforms, requiring 100 donations would be an adequate measure of local support. The proposal is being heard at City Hall months after at least three donors to Councilwoman Nury Martinez were summoned to appear before the Los Angeles County grand jury. Each had been named by Martinez as giving $5 to her campaign and helping her qualify for matching funds. The district attorneys office has confirmed that it is looking at Martinez, but declined to provide details. Federal investigators also interviewed Martinezs $5 donors two years ago, asking if they truly gave the money. Martinez has said she did not propose or advocate for reducing the required number of donations to get matching funds. Under current rules, Los Angeles provides public money to match some of the private donations raised by qualifying candidates, using a complicated formula. Council candidates can get matching funds on a 1-to-1 basis for up to $250 of each donation from an L.A. resident. That means that a $250 contribution would bring in $250 in public money. If candidates collect 1,000 valid signatures from district residents twice as many as needed to get on the ballot in the first place they are allotted double the amount of each donation of $250 or less in matching funds during the primary, and four times as much during a general election. The new rules would make the system simpler and more generous. Candidates would get six times the amount of a qualifying donation in matching funds, without having to gather additional signatures. But the city also would scale back how much of each eligible donation it would match reducing the amount from $250 to roughly $115 for council candidates in an effort to further empower small donors. Under the proposal, the maximum amount of matching funds that could be granted to a council candidate would be $151,000 in a primary race and $189,000 in a general election, plus annual adjustments for the consumer price index. Those limits currently are $100,000 and $125,000, respectively, for council candidates, with higher limits for candidates seeking citywide positions. L.A. also is considering whether to require candidates who get matching funds to participate in either a debate or a town hall meeting. Under the current rules, candidates must agree to debate their opponents, but participating in a debate has never been required, according to a commission report. The council is expected to vote on the proposed changes this fall. Times staff writer David Zahniser contributed to this report. emily.alpert@latimes.com Twitter: @AlpertReyes A Catholic priest has been suspended from his duties at a Carlsbad church as he awaits trial on a charge that he groped an adult seminary student earlier this year. Juan Garcia Castillo, 35, has pleaded not guilty to one misdemeanor count alleging sexual battery of the victim. The accuser, a man around Castillos age, quickly reported the alleged incident, which happened in early February. Castillos attorney said Friday that his client absolutely denies the allegations made against him. News of the criminal case against Castillo surfaced this week as the Roman Catholic Church grapples with a new wave of reported sexual abuse by clergy members and accusations that church officials covered it up. Advertisement The local case also creeps into headlines a week after Bishop Robert McElroy, who leads the Diocese of San Diego, announced a town hall tour at local parishes to address the sexual abuse scandal that has rocked the church for years. As for Castillos case, officials and attorneys have been mum on the specifics of the allegation. But church officials confirmed that McElroy removed Castillo from his assignment as an associate priest at St. Patrick Catholic Church on Feb. 4 the same day church officials learned of the credible allegation against him, a spokesman for the diocese said. When we were informed of the allegations, we suspended him, said Kevin Eckery, spokesman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego. In May, three months after the incident was reported to police and church officials, the San Diego County district attorneys office filed one count against Castillo, charging him with misdemeanor sexual battery. In a brief hearing Friday, a judge set a trial date for Dec. 11 in Vista Superior Court. After the hearing Castillos attorney, Victor Pippins, said his client absolutely denies he did anything inappropriate in this case. We set a trial because my client has dedicated his life to the Catholic Church, Pippins said. And obviously these allegations challenge his ability to remain with the Catholic Church and really to live his dream of being a Catholic priest. Pippins said his client is put in a disadvantageous situation given the resurgence of national news regarding allegations of priests molesting children. But I feel very strongly about the facts of this case, Pippins said, and if I am able to keep the jury in this case focused on the facts of the case and the credibility of the witnesses, I am very confident of what the outcome will be because this is very different than the cases in the media right now. Castillo started his assignment at St. Patrick in Carlsbad a parish serving about 3,000 families in 2011. The following year he was assigned to St. James in Solana Beach, then returned to St. Patrick in 2014. When Castillo was suspended without pay he was also ordered to move out of the rectory. He did so immediately. Eckery said Castillo is responsible for paying for his own legal representation in the criminal case. The spokesman said St. Patrick parishioners were told in February that Castillo had left the parish, but church officials did not share the reason for his departure so as not to hinder the police investigation. Eckery said parishioners will be told more about the Castillo matter this weekend. News of the charge against Castillo first surfaced earlier this week in a story by the Catholic News Agency. Sex abuse scandals have rocked the Roman Catholic Church for years after a 2002 Boston Globe investigative series uncovered allegations that clergy members had sexually abused children for decades, and church leaders covered it up. The abuse scandal drew renewed national attention this summer with a Pennsylvania grand jury report alleging that more than 1,000 children had been abused by clergy in that state, and that church leaders had covered it up. This summer also saw the resignation of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, former archbishop of Washington, who was accused of sexually assaulting altar boys, seminarians and priests. Those news stories prompted the Diocese of San Diego this month to add eight priests to the list of those believed to have molested children. Bishop McElroy also announced a listening tour, with eight public forums in October and November to address the clergy sexual abuse scandal. Figueroa writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune. Five years after the Supreme Court gutted a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a new report from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has confirmed predictions that the ruling would hobble enforcement of that landmark law. In addition to prohibiting racial discrimination in voting nationwide, the Voting Rights Act requires states and localities with a history of discrimination most of them in the South to pre-clear changes in their election procedures with the U.S. Department of Justice or a federal court. In its 2013 decision in Shelby County vs. Holder, however, the court declared unconstitutional the formula Congress had established to determine which states would have to submit to pre-clearance, effectively shutting pre-clearance down. Writing for himself and four other conservatives, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said that the formula was obsolete because things have changed dramatically since the Voting Rights Act was first enacted in 1965. It was a disastrous decision. The term judicial activism is thrown around, but if a decision ever deserved it, Shelby County did. Advertisement The term judicial activism is thrown around, but if a decision ever deserved it, Shelby County did. The Constitution authorizes Congress to enforce the provisions of the 15th Amendment which guarantees the right to vote without regard to race, color, or previous condition of servitude by enacting appropriate legislation. In 2006 Congress voted to extend the Voting Rights Acts coverage formula for an additional 25 years in legislation signed by President George W. Bush. Despite that, the court threw it out. The Civil Rights Commission report, An Assessment of Minority Voting Rights Access in the United States, makes it clear why the court should have deferred to Congress judgment that extending the coverage formula would protect gains already made and prevent states from relapsing into discriminatory practices. The report notes that within two hours of the decision, Texas attorney general tweeted that the state would reinstitute a strict photo ID law, which had been previously struck down by a court during the pre-clearance process. The day after the ruling, North Carolinas legislature voted to make its voter ID law stricter, and eliminated or restricted rules that had made it easier for minorities to vote. The report notes that both states actions were ultimately found by courts to be acts of intentional racial discrimination, but only after years of litigation. It almost certainly wouldnt have come to that if the old pre-clearance formula had remained in place. The report mentions other consequences of ending pre-clearance, such as the fact neither the Justice Department nor voters any longer receive notice of changes in voting procedures. That shifts the burden of monitoring election changes to voting rights groups, and imposes a large burden on communities, who must now stretch limited resources to track changes themselves in the absence of government transparency, the report says. Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute from L.A. Times Opinion In its Shelby County decision, the Supreme Court left open the possibility that pre-clearance could resume if Congress legislated a new formula that more accurately reflected recent patterns of discrimination. Responding to that invitation, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has introduced the Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would automatically subject a state to pre-clearance if 15 or more voting-rights violations had occurred there over the last 25 years (or 10 violations if one was committed by the state government itself). The Civil Rights Commission would go even further. It proposes that Congress create a streamlined remedy to review potentially discriminatory changes in election procedures before they go into effect even, the report suggests, in jurisdictions that do not have extensive histories of discrimination. The obstacle to accomplishing these or any other reforms isnt constitutional; its political. In Congress (as in state legislatures) Republicans have a vested interest in restrictions such as unnecessary requirements for photo ID at the polls that disproportionately make voting harder for minorities who tend to support Democrats. Unless Republicans have a change of heart or unless they lose control of Congress it will be impossible to undo the damage caused by the Supreme Court. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinionand Facebook To the editor: Its deja vu all over again. Twenty-seven years ago, Anita Hill was butchered by Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Democrats did nothing, and then-Supreme Court nominee Judge Clarence Thomas refused to answer any questions. Instead, Thomas called the Senate hearings a high-tech lynching. He has maintained this attitude all these years as he seldom speaks but hatefully continues to wreak his revenge against Democrats by voting against them in the cases that come before the Supreme Court. Now were in 2018. After all the hullabaloo dies down, Judge Brett Kavanaugh will likely be confirmed to the Supreme Court by the Senate. Given what is happening right now, I will not be surprised if Kavanaugh takes this same attitude toward the Democrats. Therefore, even if the Democrats are successful in taking over either the House or Senate in the 2018 midterm election, Justice Kavanaughs and Thomas votes will probably define what this country will be like for years to come. Not a pretty picture, Im afraid. Advertisement Bob Murtha, Santa Maria .. To the editor: Op-ed article writer Timothy Phelps may have omitted the most important lesson. Angela Wright, like Hill a former employee of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, also allegedly had been sexually harassed and propositioned by Thomas while she was at the EEOC. Though Wrights testimony undoubtedly would have corroborated Hills own account, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991, Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), conspicuously never called her to testify at Thomas confirmation hearing. This omission left Hill, the alleged victim, out to dry. Bidens inexcusable withholding of Wrights critical testimony may be explained by Sen. Howard Metzenbaums (D-Ohio) famous remark in reference to Thomas alleged conduct: If thats sexual harassment, half the senators on Capitol Hill could be accused. Mark E. Kalmansohn, Santa Monica The writer is a former assistant U.S. attorney (criminal division) in the Central District of California. .. To the editor: We should be clear about what part of Christine Blasey Fords possible testimony might and might not justify a no vote on confirming Kavanaugh. Are we offended that a teenage boy may have groped a teenage girl without her consent? Perhaps so, but teenage boys are stupid. That doesnt make the alleged conduct right, but it does make it unsurprising. In contrast, Justice Thomas was an adult when he is alleged to have harassed Hill; its also possible that he lied about his conduct to the Senate. Vote against Kavanaugh because he might have lied about his teenage years to the Senate. Vote against him because he is a political operative. Vote against him because he has a weird and scary legal philosophy that will take the court down a dark path. Dont vote against him based on his alleged misdeeds as a teenager unless that standard can be applied to all men seeking positions of authority. Judi Bloom, Manhattan Beach .. To the editor: Its interesting to see the GOP showing some spine in pushing forward on the Kavanaugh nomination. I doubt most people really care what Kavanaugh may have been doing as a drunken teenager. What counts is his subsequent apparently unblemished behavior. And who are the Democrats to be lecturing anybody on sexual morality? After the Kennedys and Bill Clinton, they have absolutely nothing relevant to say on that subject, unless to further enlighten us with their in-your-face hypocrisy. As for the courage of Kavanaughs accuser, what about Paula Jones, Juanita Broaddrick and Linda Tripp? Why didnt the Democrats stand up for their courage? Patrick M. Dempsey, Granada Hills Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook It goes without saying that hurricanes, like any other disaster, dont care about the political fealties of the populations they devastate. But those storms, unlike the earthquakes with which we in Southern California are familiar, are almost certainly influenced by human activity, and scientists have said the unprecedented rainfall by Hurricane Florence over the Carolinas this month and Hurricane Harvey over Houston last summer may be attributable to human-caused climate change. This is where politics comes in. The vast majority of our letter writers commentary on Hurricane Florence focuses on Republican politicians inaction on climate change; fewer single out the Trump administrations inept response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico for criticism, and fewer still leave politics completely out of it and simply express feelings of sadness or support for the survivors. Here is some of what our readers have said about Hurricane Florence since the storm made landfall on Sept. 14. Wendy Blais of North Hills has advice for North Carolina voters: Advertisement North Carolina residents might reconsider their future voting options. In 2016, they reelected Republican Sen. Richard Burr, a militant human-caused climate change denier. Burr was generously funded by fossil-fuel companies and naturally opposes any curbing of greenhouse gasses while pushing for off-shore drilling. On the other hand, the state got it right by electing Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who is committed to combating climate change. North Carolina, like every other state, soon faces a critical decision. Should elections be about further enriching Republicans and their insatiable, oil-spattered donors, or about the future of the planet their children will inherit? Fullerton resident Barbara Rosen similarly advises voters across the country: Is Mother Nature sending us a message just before the midterm elections? Typhoon Mangkhut devastated the Philippines before moving on to cause massive damage and loss of life in China. Meanwhile, Florence has left dozens dead and caused major property damage. This is following historic fires throughout California, the Pacific Northwest and numerous foreign countries. If there is a message here, it is that it is about time that we stopped electing climate change deniers. It is time to make this a major issue in political campaigns and for people to start paying attention. It is time to uncover that elephant in the room and ask candidates what their plans are to address climate-related issues. Doug Lenier of Valley Glen takes a jab at Trump: So, Trump visited North Carolina to view the damage from Florence. I demand to know: Where were the paper towels? Craig Carr of Northridge suggests an infrastructure project: Instead of wasting federal funds on a border wall with Mexico, there is far greater need to build a national aqueduct system connecting all states to prevent flooding and droughts. This would be a far wiser use of taxpayer dollars. A project like this requires common sense, and sadly Washington lacks any of that right now. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook To the editor: No matter what happens this November, its going to be a rough couple of years for the duration of Donald Trumps presidency. The spineless Republican leadership has shrewdly avoided direct criticism of President Trump, fearful of his retribution and instability. Democrats (along with the press) have criticized Trump at his every move, with futility and ineffectiveness. It matters who runs Congress, as The Times Editorial Board says, but even a Democratically controlled Congress is no match for executive power in the wrong hands. Trump will likely respond to congressional resistance by viciously fighting back, as he always does. He will continue to exercise executive power to suit his whims and agenda. Any attempt by lawmakers at reining in presidential powers will predictably meet presidential vetoes. Impeachment is unlikely to succeed, because a Senate supermajority is required to oust a president. Advertisement That leaves us with an inevitable curse: a dangerously dysfunctional administration, filled with strife, until the next presidential election. Lets hope voters never again make this big a mistake. William Goldman, Palos Verdes Estates .. To the editor: Your merry band of editorial writers are to be commended for encouraging voters to go to the polls this year. You state that your plea is not for partisanship but patriotism. Really? Who believes that? Theres not one mention of the substantial accomplishments of the current administration. The list is very long and conclusive, but you evidently feel it is unimportant. I do not like or admire Trumps personal attributes, but you do your readers a disservice not to recognize how much better off we are now than snoozing through the eight years of our last president. Harold Bond, Studio City .. To the editor: It appears there was a typo in the last sentence of your editorial. I believe the part about considering who is running the country should have been who is ruining the country. Linda Shahinian, Culver City Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook The African Development Bank (AFDB) is preparing to disburse $500 million to Egypt, the third and last tranche of its $1.5 billion loan to the country, said vice-president of AFDB Khaled Sherif on Friday. The three-tranche loan package, which was first signed in 2015, is aimed at supporting government programs to achieve comprehensive economic and social development, enhance social justice by offering job opportunities, and improve the business operating environment noted Sherif. Sherif made the remarks during his meeting on Friday with Egypt's Minister for Investment and International Cooperation Sahar Nasr. In April 2017 Egypt received the second $500 million tranche of the loan package. The meeting was attended by the AFDB's director general for the Middle East and North Africa Mohamed El-Azizi, the Egypt Country Manager Malinne Blomberg, and the executive director for Egypt Ahmed Zayed. Both sides also discussed prospects of cooperating in supporting the private sector and infrastructure in Sinai, a move that would attract investors. Search Keywords: Short link: Funding for a new facility for the Boys & Girls Club of Burbank and Greater East Valley got a big boost from a longtime partner this week. The Walt Disney Co. donated $1 million to the local nonprofit during a ceremony on Thursday at Providencia Elementary School, near where the Boys & Girls Club plans to build a 16,000-square-foot facility as its new main club. For the record: This updated version contains information about how many children the Boys & Girls Club of Burbank and Greater East Valley serves overall. The Walt Disney Co. is pleased to make this contribution and fund the construction of a new main club facility, said Elissa Margolis, the companys senior vice president of enterprise social responsibility, in a statement. The impact of this new club will more than double the number of members served by the Boys & Girls Club and provides a safe place that meets the diverse needs of our local youth. The clubs proposed new location, which is planned for a lot behind Providencia, is not too far away from its current site at 2244 N. Buena Vista St. Shanna Warren, chief executive of the local Boys & Girls Club, said her organization entered into a long-term lease and joint-use agreement with the Burbank Unified School District to secure a new location for the club. We will build this amazing facility, taking into consideration some of the needs that [Providencia] has, so that their teachers can use parts of our building during the day, she said. Its a great partnership. Warren added that Burbank city officials have been a big help for the organization, and hopes they can continue assisting as the organization looks for additional funding. Should the nonprofit reach its goal of about $6 million, the new building would give the organization some much-needed additional space. With Disneys donation, the local Boys & Girls Club has raised roughly $2 million, so far. The local facility currently serves between 75 and 100 children during the school year and about 400 kids during the summer, Warren said. The organization, overall, has 20 locations and serves more than 3,800 children, she added. With that large number of children at the current local main club, Warren said she and her staff have had to improvise how they use the limited space. In some cases, children from different grade levels have to work in the same area. The proposed new facility, Warren said, would hopefully give children of varying needs a dedicated space to learn. With the new building, were tripling our space, but its more about having specialized programs for kids of different ages, she said. The donation from Disney did not come by happenstance. Warren said she reached out to the local company, which for many years has helped the local Boys & Girls Club, sometime in March, and approached its officials with plans for a new facility. We cant just go to them and ask them for money, Warren said. We have to be able to show them that we have a plan and a budget. It was a process where we worked together. After submitting the proposal, Warren said she and her staff just waited to see if the animation company would be willing to help. Because its taken us 10 years to make this happen, I havent expected anything, Warren said. I figured that wed ask and hope for the best. Id like to think that we have a pretty close relationship to them and they do a lot for not just my Boys & Girls Club but all Boys & Girls Clubs. I was definitely hopeful, but its a lot of money, and the most money Ive ever asked for. I just said a lot of prayers. anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com Twitter: @acocarpio A plan to expand two shelters in unincorporated Midway City to serve Orange Countys growing homeless population is at a standstill as officials continue brainstorming sources of financing. The plan is a partnership among Huntington Beach, Westminster, the county and American Family Housing, a nonprofit that provides housing and other services to the homeless. The proposal would add 55 beds to the Midway City shelters, which currently have a total of 20. Huntington Beach Mayor Mike Posey said in an interview that they are exploring ways to fund it. Steve Harding, senior director of external relations for American Family Housing, said the process is in the discussion phase and that there is nothing further to report on. Officials have declined to specify the shelters location, and it isnt clear how much money the cities and the county would contribute to the proposal. But Huntington Beach officials have said the City Council would have to vote on the plan before it moves forward. A council study session on homelessness is tentatively scheduled for Oct. 15. Orange County cities are struggling to figure out how to address the homeless issue after U.S. District Judge David Carter tasked cities in April with identifying potential shelter sites after a county proposal for temporary ones in Irvine, Laguna Niguel and Huntington Beach was scrapped amid protests from residents and city leaders. Carter is presiding over a lawsuit filed in January by homeless advocates who sought to halt the removal of an encampment along the Santa Ana River trail. Officer Gabe Ricci of the Huntington Beach Homeless Task Force looks in a tent while Officer Daniel Chichester talks with Rigoberto Espinosa, right, at a homeless encampment off Ellis Avenue on Wednesday. (Scott Smeltzer / Staff Photographer) In Huntington Beach, a task force that began about three years ago is trying to determine through trial and error the best ways to help local homeless people. The task force includes outreach coordinator Cathy Lukehart, two full-time police officers and four case managers. The growing and evolving homeless population, Lukehart said, makes it difficult to formulate immediate solutions when homeless people often are dealing with mental health and addiction issues. The city partners with several nonprofits across the county and at times receives free assistance from facilities that handle such matters. Individuals and churches also contribute donations that cover expenses related to helping the homeless, such as bus passes. In two cases, donations helped people with a rent payment, Lukehart said. We try really hard to not put Band-Aids on things, she said. We try to put people in situations to help make a meaningful change. Officers Gabe Ricci and Daniel Chichester of the Homeless Task Force play a vital part in the effort. Chances are, Lukehart said, a homeless person will know Ricci, a veteran of the task force, and go to him when he or she is ready to ask for help. On Wednesday, Ricci and Chichester visited a homeless encampment near homes off Ellis Avenue and woods near Sully Miller Lake. They said they had received complaints from residents for two months about homeless people gathering on a makeshift trail toward the lake. Officers Gabe Ricci, left, and Daniel Chichester of the Huntington Beach Homeless Task Force talk with homeless people near an encampment off Ellis Avenue. (Scott Smeltzer / Staff Photographer) Several tents stretching about a half-mile were surrounded by debris on the ground. About eight people were in the area that morning, most of whom had already crossed paths with the officers. Chichester approached Rigoberto Espinosa, 36, who sat on a beach chair adorned with a Mexican flag. Why are you still on the streets? Weve offered you help before, correct? Chichester asked. Espinosa confirmed in an interview that he had been offered help and was directed to a shelter in Santa Ana. But the location prioritized nearby residents, he said in Spanish. He said he was discouraged and returned to Huntington Beach, where his son lives. One person Wednesday requested help to return to Hemet. The rest were told to find shelter elsewhere but were given business cards to contact Ricci or Chichester for help. Officers estimate 250 to 400 people are living on the streets in Huntington Beach, with 500 living in cars. Officials can only do so much until a person decides to get help, Ricci said. Officer Daniel Chichester lets Yesenia Newell, 30, talk with an acquaintance on the phone on Wednesday at a homeless encampment in Huntington Beach. (Scott Smeltzer / Staff Photographer) But helping even one person return home can make a shift successful for the officers. The task force is expected to have housed or relocated 226 homeless people by October, Lukehart said. Candice, a 36-year-old Huntington Beach resident, lived in her car for two years until she received help from the task force. She asked that her last name not be used because she isnt ready for her colleagues at work to learn about her past. Candice said she had her own business but hit rock bottom after returning to Huntington Beach from Big Bear and experiencing the price difference of living near the coast. She said she tried living with her mother in a senior housing community but wasnt allowed to stay there with her two children. Candice said her brother took in her children while she lived in her car with her husband. Then she crossed paths with Ricci. The task force connected her with Mercy House, a nonprofit that helped her with rent and inspired her to develop new habits and turn her life around. Candice has been employed and paying rent without help since March. She credits the task forces efforts with giving us our life back. I dont feel like Ive made it yet, she said. Ive got a long road to go. I still live dollar to dollar every day, but thats only because I pay my bills. Im a productive member of society, my two children are fed and I dont waste my money on [things] I dont need today. Priscella.Vega@latimes.com Twitter: @vegapriscella The Laguna Beach Police Department presented a public remembrance ceremony Friday evening outside police headquarters to honor officers Jon Coutchie and Gordon French, who died on duty. French, 48, died after being shot in the stomach by a suspect trying to flee on Feb. 13, 1953. French had served in the Laguna Beach PD for three years. Coutchie, a motorcycle officer, was trying to find a vehicle that had eluded another officer when he was killed in a traffic collision Sept. 21, 2013, at age 41. Every time Kris Villard gets on the 5 Freeway and is about to cross the 55 Freeway, she looks to the right and remembers being in her junior year on the Costa Mesa High School drill team, marching in the Santa Ana Christmas Parade. Its one of the memories she and others in Costa Mesa Highs class of 1968 hold dear. On Saturday, about 100 Mustangs will come together to share those memories and celebrate their 50th reunion at the Costa Mesa Country Club. Villard, a lifelong Orange County resident aside from a short stint in Connecticut, has been to every 10-year class reunion. She helped put together the centerpieces this year, which consist of white cowboy boots resembling the ones she and her fellow drill team members wore. We clomped along in those for four years straight, Villard said. Besides the boot displays, the decor will feature photo boards handcrafted by Debra Moon one for classmates who cant attend and one for those who have died. Im just happy to be alive because I realize some of my classmates arent right now, and Im happy to be healthy and excited to see everyone, Moon said. The class of 68 graduated amid a period dominated by the Vietnam War, civil-rights protests and the assassinations of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and President John F. Kennedy. We were exposed to tumultuous times. It really made us feel like we had some social responsibility, Moon said. It made us aware that we needed to help the world a little bit. Im proud to have grown up in that era. Moon said shes particularly excited to see one of her best friends, Christine Snyder Rock, whom she met in second grade. I was the new girl, Moon said. The teacher assigned her to show me around and take care of me, and shes been doing it for, you know, 61 years. Saturdays celebration will feature a disc jockey, photo booth and buffet meal. According to reunion chairwoman Marianne Allen, many of the classmates will take a tour of the high school and have a picnic at Wakeham Park before the main event at the country club. One of the biggest memories [I have] was the fact that I was attending the high school that my dad helped develop and build, Allen said. Her father, Les Miller, was Costa Mesa Highs first principal in the late 1950s. I had several great friends whom I still keep in contact with today, Allen said. So many of us went different directions. Moon said shes looking forward to catching up with classmates and seeing photos of their families. As for Villard, she just hopes everyone is wearing a name badge. charity.lindsey@latimes.com Twitter @CharityNLindsey At the recent Feet To The Fire Forum, hosts Barbara Venezia, John Canalis and Norberto Santana Jr. pressed candidates to answer questions that were important to Costa Mesans. Moreover, rather than instigating arguments, they refreshingly asked candidates to focus on solutions. Because some candidates spent more time giving speeches than providing solutions, not everyone got to completely state their solutions for the issues discussed on the show. Due to understandable time constraints, I was not able to fully give my solutions for homelessness and transient bathrooms in Costa Mesa and would like to do so here. There are viable solutions to this crisis and issue, and they can be implemented in a way that does not upset our community. Other cities in America are doing it so can we. One way it can be done, as I have said from day one, is by empowering and helping grow our Orange County and Costa Mesa nonprofits that are already in place. They have effective restorative programs for the homeless and have bathrooms for the homeless. Another way it can be done is by tearing down our crime-ridden motels and replacing them with permanent supportive housing or housing that is more affordable (not necessarily HUD housing). Not porta-potties on the streets, which has been a massive fiscal and logistical failure in other cities, but actual housing with bathrooms. In addition, very much like New York City was cleaned up years ago, we need to empower our law enforcement to address the homelessness issue from a point of lawlessness rather than civil rights. They need to be able to legally and safely remove transients not trying to get help without the threat of being sued, fired or getting our city involved in another lawsuit. And when the transients are removed, until we find a better solution, they need to be placed in a county facility, as they are not residents of Costa Mesa, and this should not be our burden to bear. Another way it can be done is not through using the Fairview Developmental Center as a homeless shelter (at Feet to the Fire I said I would consider it for permanent supportive and rehabilitative housing) but instead doing as I have been doing for months now. Since I began my campaign I have had meetings with builders, investors and developers to find ways to revitalize Costa Mesa and build housing for the homeless. If elected I will work with these companies, the city and other agencies and entities to get this done within the first four years of my first term. My final point ties directly to what Venezia said when she mentioned how year after year she hears the same issues at her forum homelessness and more. Perhaps she has been hearing the same issues over and over because we have had the same politicians on our council over and over again. What is the saying about insanity? Perhaps that is why so many Costa Mesans want change and want to rid the council of career politicians. Maybe the only way we can bring solutions to the city and have new forum topics the next time is to have new faces for Districts 3, 4 and 5 on the council. Rebecca Trahan is a Costa Mesa City Council candidate in District 5. The main thing Greg Fish will miss about Glendale is the community. Hell miss the people he has forged relationships with over the years in the city as well as his colleagues in the Glendale Fire Department. Fish has spent 31 years with Glendale fire, serving the last three as its chief, but his roots with the city run deeper. Although he grew up in nearby Sun Valley with five siblings, he said his family found themselves spending a lot of time in Glendale. Everything we did as a kid we did it here [in Glendale]. Wed go to the theaters restaurants we went to the Galleria when it was built, the 52-year-old said. We did it in Glendale because it was such a great place to be. Fish also attended Glendale Community College in 1986, taking fire science classes taught by Glendale Fire Capt. Ken Mudgett, with the intention of becoming a firefighter. A year and a half later, on April 20, 1987, he joined Glendales department as a recruit. Thats like hitting the lottery, working for a fire department like Glendales and for a city youve spent a lot of time in, Fish said. All the stars just lined up for success for me. So it was a bittersweet experience, as he called it, when he decided to retire from the department at the end of this month after three decades of service. With his children out of the house, Fish and his wife, Maureen, will relocate to Santa Barbara County. One reason for the move is its a lot closer to his three brothers and two sisters. Another reason is that hell be heading up the Carpinteria-Summerland Fire Department as its new chief. Glendale City Manager Yasmin Beers said during Fishs retirement dinner on Wednesday that, when he first told her that he was thinking about applying for the position, she was stumped. How do you deal with that? How you get your thoughts together? she said. Beers said Fish was the best fire chief Glendale ever had and that hed easily get the job in Carpinteria if he applied. When he told her about possibly applying for the position, Fish said that if Beers said no he wouldnt go through with it, she said. But she also knew he always wanted to retire in Santa Barbara County in order to be closer to his family. I told him, go for it, Beers said. She added she was happy for Fish for attaining that dream sooner rather than later. Departing Glendale Fire Chief Greg Fish and City Manager Yasmin Beers hug during the formers retirement dinner on Sept. 19, 2018. (Tim Berger / Glendale News-Press) Throughout his years with Glendale fire, Fish said he has seen a lot of changes at the department. The vehicles went from being yellow to red, the equipment has gotten better and the personnel changed from baby boomers to Gen-Xers to millennials. However, despite the changes, something has remained constant. Theres still an underlining theme of serving the public to be the best we can possibly be for the community, Fish said. At the core of it all, theres still the incentive to get out there and make a difference on a daily basis that hasnt changed at all. During his time as chief, Fish said he worked at having firefighters interact more with the Glendale community and have the department reflective of the citys population. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, Glendales population is 61% non-Hispanic white, 18.3% Hispanic or Latino, 16.3% Asian and 1.6% black. Around 52.2% of the citys total population is women. During Fishs retirement party, Mayor Pro-tem Paula Devine pointed out that under his leadership, the department now has two female firefighters as well as two Korean-American and three Armenian-American firefighter/medics. Glendale Director of Communications & Community Relations Tom Lorenz adjusts a pin on the lapel of Glendale Fire Chief Greg Fish at his retirement dinner. (Tim Berger / Glendale News Press) He also helped implement PulsePoint, Devine said, which is a cellphone app that provides real-time access to emergency activity as its occurring in the community and lets residents provide life-saving assistance to victims of sudden cardiac arrest, including alerting people nearby who have CPR training about an emergency situation. During an earlier interview, Fish said the department still has a lot of work to do before it is truly representative of Glendales population. Its the type of work that Fish says he has every confidence will be continued under the next chief, whoever that may be. For now, Fish said hes overwhelmed with gratefulness at being able to lead the department for the past three years. Im just thankful to have been given this opportunity to not only be a Glendale firefighter, but to eventually be the chief, he said. Although hell miss Glendale and its residents, Fish did say theres one thing he wont miss at all after he leaves: the traffic. At his retirement party, Deputy Chief Silvio Lanzas was joined by fellow Deputy Chief Bill Lynch, who also served as master of ceremonies, in a light-hearted presentation of items Fish might need in his new position in Carpinteria which is known as a beach community. Send-off gifts included sunglasses, sandals, a beach towel and an ice chest resembling a Glendale fire vehicle. The program also included a slide-show video celebrating Fishs career and his family. At one point, there were two side-by-side photos, with Fish beside the celebrity he resembles Alec Baldwin which brought a burst of laughter from the audience, who later, after Fish expressed his appreciation for the many people who have helped him professionally and personally, gave him a standing ovation. andy.nguyen@latimes.com Twitter: @Andy_Truc mark.kellam@latimes.com Twitter: @LAMarkKellam Glendale mayor Zareh Sinanyan announced his support for rent control during a council meeting on Tuesday, unexpectedly reversing his previous position during the last election cycle opposing it. What prompted it is just the dire nature of the situation, Sinanyan said in a follow-up interview. Rents are out of control, going up, and there appears to be no let-up in the rate at which theyre growing. City staff is now preparing a report on the issue, as per the councils request. A vote on whether to implement rent control could come before the council as soon as the end of next month, Sinanyan said. At the meeting, Sinanyan said he previously thought the market would solve the problem on its own but it didnt. Now, we have to interfere, he said after the meeting. The mayors comments came after Councilman Vrej Agajanian said he wondered why Glendale couldnt implement a rent-increase cap of around 5%. Agajanian referenced a measure passed by L.A. County Supervisors one week prior that will freeze rent hikes for six months at 3% per year in the countys unincorporated areas. I wonder why we are not, or cannot, do something similar, he said. It is a sad fact that longtime Glendale residents who have given their heart and soul to their beloved city are leaving Glendale with great sadness due to the high cost of housing, Agajanian said during the meeting. We need to do something and we need to do something now to remedy the situation. Also, Agajanian suggested the council allocate around $100 million to build affordable housing. The news appeared to surprise members of the Glendale Tenants Union, who support rent control and have been attending recent council meetings in droves to demand action. After commending the council members, union member Hayk Makhmuryan posed a firm recommendation during the public-comment portion of the meeting. It cannot be [just] any rent control ordinance, he said. It must be a strong one. According to Makhmuryan, the union wants to limit annual rent increases to a maximum of 4%, in addition to an immediate rent cap akin to what the county supervisors implemented. The union has twice failed to collect enough signatures to place a proposed rent-increase-limiting measure for Glendale on a local ballot. If the council does not vote on rent control, Sinanyan said it could go on the next ballot. At the previous council meeting, Mayor Pro-tem Paula Devine said she wanted to see how the temporary rent freeze worked in the unincorporated areas and whether it seemed like a viable option for Glendale. Currently, under a 1995 state law known as Costa-Hawkins, city officials are limited regarding the types of rent-control policies they can implement. A proposal to repeal Costa-Hawkins is headed to California voters on the states upcoming November ballot. lila.seidman@latimes.com Twitter: @lila_seidman Anthony Joshua retained his WBA, IBF, and WBO heavyweight titles with a seventh-round stoppage of Alexander Povetkin at Wembley Stadium. Joshua, who fought with a suspected broken nose from the second round, sent the Russian to the canvas with a big right midway through the seventh and was unloading a flurry of punches before the referee stepped in to end the fight. Joshuas record moved to 22-0, with 21 wins coming inside the distance. This was another big test passed by the Briton in front of an estimated 80,000 fans at Wembley just like 17 months ago when he recovered from getting knocked down against Wladimir Klitschko to win an epic fight. Joshua, whose phenomenal pulling power sees him pack out stadiums, is booked to return to Wembley on April 13 for his next bout, and the plan is for the opponent to be either WBC titleholder Deontay Wilder or former heavyweight champion Tyson Fury. They confirmed earlier Saturday they will be fighting on Dec. 1, likely in Las Vegas. Advertisement Selling the Povetkin fight was harder than usual for Joshua and his promoters, with the Russian boxer aged 39 and conceding around 11 kilograms on the champion. Joshua was 1-10 to win with some British bookmakers. On a rainy night that forced spectators at ground level to wear plastic ponchos as protection from the wet conditions, Joshua struggled in the early rounds and was rocked by a three-punch combination from Povetkin in the first. Blood poured from Joshuas right nostril and he might have lost rounds two and three, too, with Povetkin dangerous close in and with his fierce left hook. A few years ago, Joshua said, maybe I wouldnt have won that fight. Joshua started to pick off Povetkin thereafter by using his longer reach. The challenger was looking for the big punch and it kept Joshua mostly on the back foot. But Povetkin, who sustained a bad cut over his left eye in round four, began noticeably slowing, and in the seventh round Joshua unleashed a powerful right and then a left hook. With Povetkin open, Joshua followed through with a straight right that took Povetkin down and left him hanging through the ropes. He beat the count but was being overwhelmed by Joshua when the fight was stopped. Povetkin, who was the WBA regular champion from 2011-13, was getting a shot at a world title for the first time since testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs twice in a seven-month period in 2016. Coming in the same week as his native Russia was welcomed back into global sporting competition by WADA after a notorious doping scandal, the timing of the fight seemed apt. And he put up a game fight, one which proved to be Joshuas toughest test since Klitschko. It was the first time Povetkin did not go the distance. The Vatican and China said Saturday they had signed a provisional agreement over the appointment of bishops, a breakthrough on an issue that stymied diplomatic relations for decades and aggravated a split among Chinese Catholics. The deal resolved one of the major sticking points in recent years, with the Vatican agreeing to accept seven bishops who were previously named by Beijing without the popes consent. The development comes nearly seven decades after the Holy See and Beijing severed official relations. Beijings long-held insistence that it must approve bishop appointments in China had clashed with absolute papal authority to pick bishops. With the status of the seven bishops reconciled, the Vatican said all bishops in China are now in communion with Rome even though the Catholic community in China is still split between Catholics who belong to the official Chinese church and those in the underground church who remained loyal to the pope. Advertisement Pope Francis hopes that, with these decisions, a new process may begin that will allow the wounds of the past to be overcome, leading to the full communion of all Chinese Catholics, a Vatican statement said. Some Chinese Catholics have opposed such a deal, notably Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen, who before the deal was announced called it a sell-out of Chinese Catholics who refused to join the state Chinese Catholic Patriotic Assn. and who paid the price of remaining faithful to Rome during years of persecution. There was also no immediate mention in the deal of the status of several underground bishops named by the pope. Vatican spokesman Greg Burke, speaking in Vilnius, Lithuania, where Pope Francis was visiting, indicated the accord would serve as a blueprint for future appointments of bishops, who lead the faithful in their dioceses. Burke told reporters the aim of the accord is not political but pastoral, allowing the faithful to have bishops who are in communion with Rome but at the same time recognized by Chinese authorities. The Vaticans No. 2 official indicated that the pope and the Chinese authorities would jointly approve new bishop appointments. What is required now is unity, is trust, and a new impetus: to have good pastors, recognized by the Successor of Peter [Pope Francis] and by the legitimate civil authorities, said Cardinal Pietro Parolin. A Vatican official, speaking this year on the contours of the plan, said the deal allows the pope to effectively veto future bishop names proposed by Beijing. That official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because diplomatic negotiations were involved, had described it as the best arrangement the Holy See could achieve for now. The deals provisional nature left open the possibility of improvements down the line. The Vatican described the provisional agreement as the fruit of a gradual and reciprocal rapprochement following a long process of careful negotiation. While the agreement could help pave the way for formal diplomatic ties and possibly an eventual papal trip to China, it was also sure to anger Catholics who vigorously advocated for the Vatican to maintain a hard line on caring for the 12 million Catholic faithful in China. Cardinal Zen didnt immediately respond to an Associated Press request for comment on the deal. The accord was signed in Beijing during a meeting between Chinas deputy minister for foreign affairs, Wang Chao, and the Vatican undersecretary for state relations, Msgr. Antoine Camilleri. In Beijing, the Foreign Ministry said China and the Vatican will continue to maintain communications and push forward the process of improving relations between the two sides. Even as China professed the desire for better relations with the Holy See, the deal was signed against a backdrop of a Chinese crackdown on religion. In one glaring case of the plight of pro-Vatican Catholics in China, Bishop Guo Xijin, head of an underground diocese, was whisked away in March by government agents in the southern village of Saiqi. It wasnt immediately clear how the new accord affected him and others opposing Chinese authorities. The question now is: What is going to happen to the bishops who are under house arrest? said Father Bernardo Cervellera, a Vatican-China expert and chief editor of the missionary news agency Asia News. Cervellera cited Shanghais underground bishop and others under house arrest, as well as priests who were imprisoned. He said that about a year ago, some 10 priests were in prison in Hebei province near Beijing, but he didnt know their current situation. The Vatican had to start a dialogue from a weak position, because China is very powerful and therefore dictated the rules of this dialogue, Cervellera told the AP. Under President Xi Jinping, Chinas most powerful leader since Mao Tse-tung, faithful are seeing their freedoms shrink even as the country experiences a religious revival. Experts and activists contend that as Xi is consolidating power, he is waging the most systematic suppression of Christianity since the Chinese Constitution allowed for religious freedom in 1982. Xi is trying to infuse all of the religions in China with Chinese characteristics such as loyalty to the Communist Party. As part of this drive, Islamic crescents and domes have been stripped from mosques, and a campaign is underway to reeducate tens of thousands of Uighur Muslims. Tibetan children have been moved from Buddhist temples to schools and banned from religious activities during summer holidays, state-run media have reported. This spring, a five-year plan regarding Christians was introduced, along with new rules on religious affairs. Over the last few months, local governments across China have shut down hundreds of private Christian house churches. The Vatican spokesman indicated there was still some way to go for better relations between the Catholic Church and China. This is not the end of a process. Its the beginning, Burke said. This has been about dialogue, patient listening on both sides even when people come from very different standpoints. In Beijing, Zhang Ye, a 31-year-old Catholic leaving church after a Saturday evening Mass, said the Vatican couldnt afford to ignore the importance of China and the growing number of believers in the country. My biggest wish is that we can have more communication and interactions with Vatican, he said. Bridging different points of view has characterized much of Francis five-year papacy and led to the Vatican helping improve relations between another communist nation, Cuba, and the United States. In Taiwan, the reaction focused on the plight of ordinary Catholics in China. As the world watches China increasingly tightening control over religious practices, Taiwan trusts that the Holy See has made appropriate arrangements to ensure that Catholic adherents in China will receive due protection and not be subject to repression, Taiwans Foreign Ministry said. Two years ago, Mexican journalist Mario Gomez Sanchez went to police and told them he was afraid for his life. Gomez, who worked at a newspaper in the southern state of Chiapas, said he had been threatened on Facebook by the driver of a member of Congress whom Gomez had accused of corruption in a recent news story. According to the press freedom group Article 19, which interviewed Gomez about the threats at the time, the driver vowed to load Gomez with bullets. Ill blow your head off, the driver reportedly said. On Friday, Gomez was leaving his house in the small town of Yajalon when two unknown attackers approached on motorbikes and opened fire. Gomez, 40, was shot multiple times, authorities said. He died later at the hospital, becoming at least the ninth journalist slain in Mexico this year. Advertisement Local and federal officials condemned the attack, and Mexicos Attorney Generals office said it was deploying a team of prosecutors specialized in investigating attacks against members of the press. Prosecutors will determine whether the shooting was linked to Gomezs work as a journalist or whether it was related to more general violence in the region. One of the poorest states in Mexico, Chiapas has a long history of violence and political unrest. Homicides have risen there dramatically in recent years, mirroring an increase nationwide, in part because of an uptick in organized crime. Gomez had been a reporter at the Chiapas Herald for eight years. He covered general news but also occasionally published investigations, and in recent months had written stories about politics and organized crime. According to a report published in 2016 by Article 19, the threats Gomez reported to police that year were not properly investigated and did not result in any prosecutions. The group said at the time that it had asked local and federal authorities for precautionary measures ... to safeguard physical safety of the journalist. Jan-Albert Hootsen, Mexico representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists, another press freedom group, said in an interview that he believes it is definitely possible that the attack was related to Gomezs work as a journalist, although he said a thorough investigation is needed. On Twitter, Hootsen said: Mexican authorities must take all appropriate actions to investigate the murder of Mario Gomez exhaustively and credibly. Unless the staggering level of impunity in journalist killings is addressed, Mexicans reporters will time and time again become victims of violence. Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists, vulnerable to threats and violence both from organized crime as well as public officials. Over the last several years, journalists have been killed on average once every month. Hundreds of journalists have sought help from a federal protection program that provides emergency evacuations, police escorts and a panic button that summons authorities. But even journalists enrolled in that program have been slain. Mexicos National Human Rights Commission, which runs the protection program, on Saturday condemned Gomezs death and said it would provide support to members of his family. Cecilia Sanchez in The Times Mexico City bureau contributed to this report. kate.linthicum@latimes.com Twitter: @katelinthicum In August, right before the backup of intermodal shipping containers in the Los Angeles area This content is from: Trademarks Counsel at Lacoste, Chanel, Swarovski and Furla talked about what they look for in external counsel, clearance, mitigating infringement risk, what and when to register and enforcement at MARQUES Kottayam : Bishop Franco Mulakkal, arrested by the police over the allegation of raping a nun has been discharged from the hospital. The Bishop was admitted to the cardiology ward of Kottayam Medical College on Friday night following chest pain. Meanwhile, the doctors have informed that the Bishop has no serious health issues. Earlier, Mulakkal's medical check up was done at the Government Taluk Hospital in Thrippunithura Friday night, immediately after his arrest. The Bishop will be taken from the hospital to Kottaym police club and will be produced in the Pala court by 11 am. Kottayam S Harishankar told reporters that the arrest came after it was established after the rape charge was reasonably true. New Delhi : Congress chief Rahul Gandhi on Friday launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi following former French President Francois Hollande's reported remarks on the Rafale deal, saying he has "betrayed" India. His attack on Modi came after a French media report quoted Hollande as purportedly saying that the Indian government proposed Reliance Defence as the partner for Dassault Aviation in the Rs 58,000 crore Rafale jet fighter deal. "The PM personally negotiated & changed the #Rafale deal behind closed doors. Thanks to Francois Hollande, we now know he personally delivered a deal worth billions of dollars to a bankrupt Anil Ambani," Rahul Gandhi tweeted. "The PM has betrayed India. He has dishonoured the blood of our soldiers," he said. The PM personally negotiated & changed the #Rafale deal behind closed doors. Thanks to Francois Hollande, we now know he personally delivered a deal worth billions of dollars to a bankrupt Anil Ambani. The PM has betrayed India. He has dishonoured the blood of our soldiers. Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) September 21, 2018 Modi had announced the procurement of a batch of 36 Rafale jets after holding talks with the then French President Hollande on April 10, 2015 in Paris. PTI Kottayam : Bishop Franco Mulakkal who was arrested in connection with the sexual assault case filed by a nun was sent to two days in police custody by the Pala Magistrate court. Rejecting his bail plea, the court had sent the Bishop to police custody till Monday noon. The 54-year clergyman was produced before magistrate court in Pala after being discharged from the Kottayam Medical college. The Bishop told the court that the sample of his blood and saliva were collected by the police forcefully. In the remand report, the investigation team stated that the Bishop raped the nun and sexually assaulted her multiple times by abusing his power. According to the police, the clergyman also threatened the nun of severe consequences if she dared to defy him. The Sandiganbayan has ordered the imprisonment of a former mayor in Davao del Sur who allowed firecrackers to be sold in the public market in his town. Former Mayor Edwin Granada Reyes of Bansalan, Davao del Sur was sentenced to six to 10 years imprisonment by the anti-graft courts Seventh Division. Reyes was also barred from holding public office for graft. He was found guilty beyond reasonable doubt for violation of Section 3(e) of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act. Reyes co-accused, former Bansalan chief of police Solomon de Castilla and then-Business Permits and Licensing officer Rita Domingo, were also meted the same sentence.In its decision, the Sandiganbayan said prosecutors proved that Reyes issued a Mayors Permit for the sale of firecrackers in the Bansalan Public Market, which was razed by fire in December 2009 when a cigaret butt ignited the stored fireworks in Building 2 of the market. The incident led the filing of a graft charge against Reyes and his co-accused due to their failure to implement Municipal Ordinance 357 that prohibits the display of firecrackers in the public market and the lack of a Fire Safety Inspection Certificate from the vendors. DEUCE INDEED. Supporters of President Rodrigo Duterte gather at the sprawling Luneta Park Friday to mark the 46th anniversary of the imposition of martial law in 1972 by then President Ferdinand Marcos. Lino Santos DEUCE INDEED. Anti-martial law and anti-Duterte groups, many not yet born in 1972 express their sentiments against the emergency given to the President by the 1935 Constitution. Lino Santos President Rodrigo Duterte has no reason to declare military rule over the entire country, his spokesman said Friday, saying the conditions today are very different from what they were 46 years ago, when Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law.Theres a huge difference. The public will protest if theres no democracy, and the President is a product of democracy, said Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque. Roque added that although martial law prevails in Mindanao because of a separatist threat, the rest of the country was under no such danger. Theres no reason to declare martial law in Luzon and Visayas, Roque said in a radio interview Friday. The public asked for a martial law in Mindanao, unlike in the past when it was used to violate human rights, Roque said. The people gave the President Duterte a mandate, he added. Unlike before, 40 plus years ago, when the President [Marcos] lost a mandate. Opposition senators, meanwhile, said martial law will never solve the countrys problems. Its time that we wake up to the truth that martial law is not the answer to the problems of the country, said Senator Paolo Benigno Aquino IV. What we need are unity and cooperation. Set aside politics and put the nation first, he said. Aquino noted that under martial law, there were over 3,000 alleged victims of extrajudicial killings, 34,000 cases of torture, 70,000 cases of illegal detention, and 75,730 cases of human rights violations.The country was also buried under with a debt of about P395 billion or the equivalent of more than P3 trillion today, he said. Senator Francis Pangilinan said the Marcos dictatorship legalized plunder and brought hunger and misery to the people. He said a large part of Marcos downfall was how low the economy plunged. Gross domestic product, the main measure of economic growth, averaged 3.8 percent during the Marcos years, and rose to 4.5 percent in the 2000s, and 6.3 percent from 2010 to the present, he said. Under Marcos, in 1984 and 1985, the country was hit by the worst recession in the post-war period: A 7.3-percent contraction for two successive years. Debt shot up from $4.1 billion in 1975 to almost six times or $24.4 billion in 1982. We, including our children and maybe even their childrens children, are still paying for those debts, Pangilinan said. The value of the peso against the US dollar fell from P3.92 to a dollar to P18.61 from 1969 to 1985.Underemployment peaked at 33 percent in 1984, meaning about one in three people who had a job either wanted to work more hours or were looking for additional jobs but could not find any. The jobs available were not enough to meet the workers needs. Prices rose sharply. In 1984, the rate of inflation shot up to a record 50 percent. From 1966 to 1985, the real wage rate for unskilled workers plummeted to P23.21 from P86.02; for skilled workers, it dropped from P112.9 to P35.55. This meant that an unskilled workers P100 wage in 1966 could only buy him or her P27 worth of goods and services in 1985. He said Marcos used his dictatorial powers to amass from $5 billion to $10 billion in ill-gotten wealth. The Marcos family and their cronies have deliberately blocked and delayed efforts to get all that back for the Filipino people, he said. So, today, on the 46th year of martial law declaration, we must remember: the dictatorship almost destroyed our economy, and we are still paying the price for that catastrophe. We cannot let that happen again, he said. Detained Senator Leila de Lima vowed to fight any attempt to impose martial law under the administration of President Duterte. So, what do we do now? How do we ensure that the lessons under Marcos dictatorship will not be forgotten, and that the tragic experiences we are suffering under the current tyranny of Duterte will be stopped? she asked. The simple answer: We fight! We fight with whats remaining in our democracy. We fight with whats intact in our dignity, she said. The Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing the New Peoples Army expressed solidarity with the tens of thousands of protesters demonstrating across the country. They noted that the rallies also serve to echo the clamor against burdensome taxes and sky-rocketing prices and press the peoples demand for wage increases, jobs and job security, land reform, state social subsidies and other urgent reforms for the peoples welfare. Duterte is desperately clinging to power amid a worsening economic and political crisis. His regime is being undermined from within by rising conflicts among allies over pork barrel and other bureaucratic perks. At the same time, it is increasingly isolated from the people who are made to suffer gravely from anti-people policies, the communists said in a statement. The people persevere in waging various form of resistance despite all-out suppression by Dutertes police and military. The revolutionary armed struggle in the countryside, in particular, continues to grow and advance nationwide, they added. The Commission on Human Rights on Friday gave special recognition to the victims of human rights abuses during the martial law era They [victims] are the motu propio cases handled by the former Human Rights Victims Claim Board, but they chose not to claim the financial reparation for the abuses and indignities they have suffered, lawyer-spokesperson Jacqueline de Guia said. They will be immortalized through the establishment of the Human Rights Violations Victims Memorial Museum, she added. Civil society groups and human rights organizations joined the CHR in the commemoration of the 46th anniversary of the Martial Law rule dubbed Never Again, Never Forget: A day of remembrance for democracy and freedom. In the wake of the thousands of victims of extrajudicial killings resulting from President Dutertes murderous war on drugs, lawyer Jude Sabio filed last April 27, 2017 the first communication and complaint against the President before the International Criminal Court. Sabio argues in his complaint that the deaths of thousands of Filipinos in a brutal war on drugs is Dutertes method of controlling crime, and that he used the tactic effectively during his 22 years as the mayor of Davao City in the south of the country. He wants Duterte arrested. A 45-page supplemental communication was thereafter filed by Senator Antonio Trillanes and Magdalo Party-list Rep. Gary Alejano to provide updates to the submitted communication of Atty. Jude Sabio. Trillanes explained: The case of crimes against humanity against Duterte is very solid. He repeatedly, explicitly and clearly pronounced a national policy of killing drug suspects and the PNP executed it. Moreover, the Philippines, being a state party and Duterte being a Filipino, satisfy jurisdictional requirements. Any Filipino lawyer who says otherwise, should read the ICC policy papers first. Last Aug. 27, 2018 a second Communication and complaint was filed against Duterte before Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda of the International Criminal Court. The complainants are the Rise Up for Life and for Rights, a network of church people, human rights advocates and the victims and families of the affected communities in the Philippines working in defense of life and protection of human rights particularly against drug-related killings, and six victims of Dutertes war on drugs. Thankfully, the victims of the massacre of the poor have finally risen up to make Duterte accountable for what his government has done and what it has failed to do. This column is the first of a series based on this latest communication. I have no knowledge of the state of the preliminary examination currently being conducted on the Philippines case and whether or not the prosecutor will decide to bring this case to the next level of a formal investigation that will eventually lead to the issuance of an arrest warrant against Duterte and other officials. But my sense is that this could come to a head soon. Doing this article is thus a public service to help people understand why President Duterte is so afraid of the ICC and what this process is all about. The 50-page Communication and Complaint charges Duterte with committing Crimes Against Humanity under Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court for: I. the acts of Murder under Article 7, paragraph 1 (a) for the extrajudicial killings of thousands of Filipinos; and II. other Inhumane Acts under Article 7, paragraph 1 (k) for causing great suffering to the victims and their families. Complainants aver that President Duterte is guilty of Crimes against Humanity, specifically murder and other inhumane acts constituted by: (a) Widespread and systematic attacks against civilians in the form of murder of thousands of civilians proscribed under Article 7, paragraph (a) of the Rome Statute through his publicly-pronounced policy against drug suspects, through police directives Oplan Double Barrel, Oplan Tokhang2, Oplan Double Barrel Alpha, and Oplan Double Barrel Reloaded, resulting in the death of at least 4,410 persons in police operations (as of July 31, 2018) to up to 23,000 since he assumed office on June 30, 2016; and, (b) Widespread and systematic attacks against civilians in the form of inhumane acts intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or mental or physical health proscribed under Article 7, paragraph (k) of the Rome Statute under his anti-drug policy and anti-criminality campaign including Oplan Double Barrel and its permutations, and Oplan Tokhang.Complainants assert that the President is guilty of crimes against humanity, for the above acts: President Rodrigo Duterte is criminally responsible and liable for the above mentioned murders, and other inhumane acts, under Article 25, paragraphs 2 and 3 of the Rome Statute being the most senior leader and most responsible for these crimes. And that the President is criminally responsible, under the principle of command responsibility under Article 28, paragraphs (a) and (b), being the commander and superior authority over the police and other state security forces who committed the above mentioned acts of murder, inhumane acts, and other forms of persecution in the implementation of his policy against suspected drug and crime suspects. Complainants further argue that they have satisfied the admissibility requirements under the Rome Statute because firstly, the extrajudicial killings, mass arrests, and other inhumane acts committed by and under President Duterte are so grievous and so heinous that is of sufficient gravity to justify further action of the Court; Secondly, President Duterte is not being investigated or prosecuted and he has not been previously investigated or prosecuted for the extrajudicial killings that he ordered and allowed to persist during the period of his presidency, nor has he been previously tried for conduct which is subject of the complaint. The complainants assert that the Philippines deposit of a written notification with the United Nations to withdraw from the ICC is of no moment and does not deprive the ICC of jurisdiction. Based on the Rome Statute, according to complainants, a partys withdrawal, as what the Philippines supposedly did under the present administration, shall not take effect until one year from its deposit of the notification of withdrawal or until March 16, 2019. Since the Complaint is filed during the period that the Philippines is a State Party, the Court is not ousted of its jurisdiction by such notice of withdrawal. Furthermore, according to the complaint, the provision is clear that said withdrawal shall not prejudiceany matter which was already under consideration by the Court prior to the date on which the withdrawal became effective, on or before March 16, 2019. In the next columns, I will provide more details on the case against Duterte while reserving my personal assessment on the case for the final column.